The Devil's Own

by Christopher Nicole

  'Colonel Warner, sir. They must suspect something is afoot. They are launching their canoes.'

  'By Christ.' Philip ran for the steps. 'Raise your anchor, Mr Bale. Make sail, man. Make sail. And signal the fleet to do likewise.'

  The rest of the men ran behind him, and Kit was left alone, with the dead. But he too had reason to be on deck. He climbed the ladder, emerged into the afternoon heat, gazed at the six great canoes being dragged down the sand and launched into the water, at the spears being waved, the arrows being fitted to the bows.

  'Would you compound crime upon crime?' he yelled. 'The women are still there. Our women.'

  Philip Warner looked down on him from the poop deck. 'Not our women Kit. They belong to the Indians, now.'

  'You'd desert them?' He could not believe his own words.

  'Would any white man want them back?' Bale demanded. 'After they'd shared a cannibal's hammock?'

  Kit continued to stare at Philip, who had the grace to flush. 'Aye, my brother took his wife back,' he said. 'But Edward was always an unusual fellow. Like you, Kit. You'd do well to ponder that.'

  Kit turned away to look at the beach, at the green mountains which towered upwards towards the sky, at the myriad figures running up and down the sand, at the men already digging their paddles into the water as they urged their canoes towards the ships. Too much had happened, too quickly and too relentlessly, this past fortnight. Too much for his mind to assimilate. His brain rejected utterly the conception placed there, firstly by Yarico and now by Philip himself. He was the victim of a gigantic conspiracy. For if this deed had been planned before the fleet left St John's, then the decision to abandon the women had also been taken, before the fleet left St John's. And every word that had been agreed there had been a lie.

  But the women. Almost he thought he could see them, waving their arms and calling, nay begging, for deliverance from the impossible fate to which they had been deserted.

  Impossible was the word. He left the stern of the ship and ran forward. Men were heaving on the capstan to raise the anchor; others were already aloft unfurling the sails, and still others were gathered by the forehatch from which the boatswain was passing up cutlasses and muskets, for the canoes were fast approaching.

  'Listen to me,' he shouted. 'There are white women back there. Eleven white women. Women from Antigua. We cannot just sail away and leave them to the mercy of the Indians. Would you abandon your wife or your daughter? You cannot do that.'

  They turned to look at him, at a man demented.

  'You have arms in your hands, and the cannon will cover us,' he shouted. 'God knows I wanted no bloodshed, but as it is come upon us, at least let us get ashore and rescue them.

  Will no man follow me?' He seized a sword and ran to the side of the longboat. 'I, Kit Hilton, call for volunteers. I will lead you, my bravos. I marched with Morgan on Panama. You'll find no better leader in these islands. Who'll follow me?'

  They stared at him. Perhaps, had he been Morgan, they might have come. Perhaps, had he been Jean DuCasse, they might have come. But then, perhaps not. He offered them no gold and no glory. He could not even offer them beautiful women. He could offer them only death, for the sake of eleven women they already counted as dead.

  Bale stood before him, a pistol in his hand. ' 'Tis mutiny you're after, Captain Hilton,' he said. 'To suborn men from their duty in the face of the enemy is downright treason. I've orders to place you under arrest in your cabin.'

  Kit looked down at the weapon he held. How he wanted to thrust it forward, to kill Bale, as could easily be done, and to confront the lot of them. And then make his way aft and settle with Philip Warner. His father-in-law? His own uncle? But was that not part of the hate and anger he felt? That he should be a part of this unhappy family.

  But would it avail anyone for him to die now, when there was so much for him to do, by living?

  He dropped his sword to the deck. 'I've a long memory, Bale.'

  The pirate flushed, and jerked his head towards the after companion-way.

  'Be sure he is secured, Mr Bale,' Philip Warner called down from the poop. 'We can stand no more eruptions of this nature. 'Tis certain we shall have to fire into these men.'

  'Aye, aye, Colonel Warner.' Bale pushed Kit inside the cabin, hesitated. 'Remain in here, I beg of you, Kit. And remember if you will that this was not my doing.'

  'Not your doing?' Kit turned on him. 'By God, you prating coward.'

  'Hear me,' Bale begged. 'I knew naught of this plan until I was given my instructions, after you had left the ship, yesterday afternoon. This I swear. And who was I, Kit, to gainsay the Deputy Governor? I am no planter, protected by wealth and precedent. You yourself were quick enough to accuse me of piracy. He'd have had me under arrest and on my way to,Execution Dock before I'd have known what was happening.'

  'On your own ship, and surrounded by your own men?' Kit asked, bitterly.

  Bale flushed. 'There are sufficient of his volunteers on board as well. There is the truth of the matter, Kit. You'll believe it or not as you choose. My conscience is clear.'

  Kit seized his shoulder as the captain turned for the door. 'Then you'll so testify, Bale, when the time comes. Or be sure that you will indeed find yourself on that ship for London.'

  Bale hesitated, and then nodded. 'When the time comes, Kit. But it'll not come at all if I do not con this ship to open water.'

  Kit let him go. He could hear the cries of the savages as they came alongside, and now the cannon began to speak, causing the vessel to shudder and roll. Kit sat on the narrow bunk, and listened. He had never been below deck in a fight before, found it difficult to decide exactly what was happening. But soon enough the ship began to heel to the wind, and he could hear the sluicing of water past the hull as she gathered speed. Now the cannon were silent, and the shouts of the Caribs faded.

  Soon he heard the tramp of feet in the great cabin beyond the door, followed by the splashes from astern as the dead bodies were thrown to the sharks. After that there was nothing to do but wait, as the little fleet beat north. To wait and to think, to remember and to vow vengeance. His door opened but once, to admit two sailors, one with his breakfast.

  'We'll be home soon enough, Captain Hilton,' one of them said with a grin. 'Antigua is rising fair on the port bow.'

  Mocking him? Or revealing their sympathy. As if he cared for their sympathy. As if he cared for anything beyond his own sense of outrage, his own determination to have justice done to Tom Warner.

  Now the cannon were firing again, but this time expelling empty air from their blank charges, and even as he heard the anchor rattling through the hawse-pipe, he could also hear the distant cheering from the Antigua waterfront. They were celebrating a victory.

  The door opened. Philip Warner stood there, backed by six of the Antiguan volunteers, all armed. 'Good morning to you, Kit,' he said. 'I have some hope that by now you will have come to your senses. Sir William approaches in his barge, and I have no doubt that he will wish to congratulate you as much as me. We were sent to destroy the possibility of the Caribs ever mounting such a raid again, and we have accomplished our purpose, without the loss of a single man. They will not grow eight such caciques again in a hundred years. Leaderless, they will fall to squabbling amongst themselves, and perhaps into a pattern of mutual destruction, and our islands, our plantations, and our families, will be safe. I'd have you stand at my side to receive the plaudits due to the victors.'

  Kit did not reply. He picked up his hat and went outside, to blink in the sunlight, to look at the trim rooftops and the sharp church steeples, now all echoing joyous sound as the other ships in the fleet also brought up to anchor.

  The Governor's barge was already alongside, and Stapleton clambered up the ladder. 'Philip,' he cried. 'By God, sir, but it is right glad I am to see you. Kit. By God, sir, and you fly the pennants of victory. But it was so rapidly accomplished. Tell us straight, man, you suffered heavily?'

  'We lost not
a man, Sir William,' Philip Warner said. 'And we seized the eight most prominent Carib chieftains.'

  'By God.' Stapleton looked around him as if expecting to see the Indians on deck. 'They're confined?'

  'No, sir. They resisted arrest, and we were forced to execute them.'

  Stapleton's smile slowly faded, and he frowned at the Deputy Governor. 'Executed, you say? Your own brother?'

  'My father's bastard son, Sir William,' Philip said, speaking very evenly. 'I knew him only as the man who had my daughter raped by her own slave.'

  'By God,' Stapleton said. He turned to Kit. 'Your plans came to naught, then?'

  'My plans were successful, Sir William.' Kit also spoke with great deliberation. 'I visited the Carib village, alone and unarmed, and I spoke with their caciques, and I persuaded them to attend a conference on board Colonel Warner's ship, in order to discuss a just treaty of peace between the Caribs and the English. They came, willingly and unarmed. And no sooner were they seated in that cabin than they were set upon and most foully murdered.'

  'Murdered?' Stapleton gazed from one to the other in horror.

  'By God, Kit,' Philip Warner said. 'But you make it hard.' 'Murdered?' Stapleton repeated. 'Now come, the pair of you, confess to having had another of your interminable quarrels.' 'You'd best ask the crew,' Kit said.

  'For God's sake,' Philip shouted. 'Were they not murderers? Were they not the inhuman creatures who have been butchering defenceless people for too long? By God, sir, the question of how they were done to death does not enter into it. One does not ask the hunter, how did you kill that pack of wolves, the fisherman how he managed to destroy the shark that was taking from his line. You merely say, thank God the deed is done.'

  'By God, sir,' Stapleton said. 'You do not deny the crime?'

  'I deny any crime. The deed I will admit. You charged me with avenging our losses here, and with ensuring that no such raid could ever take place again. Well, sir, I have accomplished both of these objectives, in the shortest possible space of time, and with the least possible loss to ourselves. You should be doubling your congratulations rather than wasting your time in listening to this ... this pirate become Quaker.'

  'By God, sir,' Stapleton said. 'And you the Deputy Governor of this island, the representative of the King, God bless him. Where would English justice be, sir, were it always carried out in so arbitrary a spirit? The men were on board your ship, sir. And you arrested them. As they had been granted safe conduct, why, that would have been treachery enough for the most hardened blackguard. But to slay them in that cabin there, why sir, my brain still finds it difficult to grasp the enormity of such a deed.'

  'They endeavoured to resist,' Philip said again.

  'And so they were killed. Eight unarmed men before the entire crew of this ship. By God. You'll consider yourself under arrest, sir, until this charge is proved or disproved.'

  'Bah,' Philip said. 'You'll not find a jury in this island, in all the Leewards, to convict me on any charge arising out of this affair. Those men were Caribs. There you have my defence.'

  'Aye,' Stapleton said. 'No doubt you make a fair point. But there are other courts of law, Colonel Warner. As of this moment you are relieved of the duties and responsibilities, and prerogatives, of the Deputy Governor of this island, and you will be placed upon the next ship bound for England, to stand your trial there, and may God have mercy on your soul.'

  ' 'Tis done.' Kit laid down the quill, and slowly straightened his fingers. He had never written so much in his life.

  The clerk scattered fine sand across the ink, raised the papers, one after the other, blew them clean. Stapleton was already reading the first sheet, standing by the window where the best light was to be found, every few seconds jerking his head at the steady cacophony outside.

  'This will serve admirably,' he said. 'You'll dictate your statement as well, Mr Bale. My clerk will pen it.'

  'And then I'll be free to leave?' Bale was sweating with fear.

  'Aye. You'll be free to leave. Now make haste, man.' The Governor put down Kit's statement. 'You hear those people, Captain Hilton? You'll need a file of soldiers to see you from town.'

  Kit set his hat on his head. 'Do you mean to leave me a file of soldiers for the rest of my life?'

  Stapleton frowned. 'Why, that would be impossible.'

  'My own opinion entirely. I've never needed protection in the past, Sir William. I'll not require it now, I promise you.'

  Stapleton walked with him to the courthouse door. 'I do not rightly understand my feelings for you, Kit,' he said. 'I know you for what you were: a buccaneer. No doubt you will claim provocation, but 'tis little enough excuse for the mayhem caused in these fair islands by Morgan and DuCasse. I know you for what you are now, a planter, as stiff-necked a profession as I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. Neither of those are reasons for me to like you. And now you see fit to oppose public opinion and who knows, even public welfare, in the cause of an abstract concept of justice. I see you as a man who will cause trouble wherever he goes, because you will not bend with the times, with opinion. You will merely stand rigid until you break. But I would be doing you less than justice did I not also say that, as a man would rather look upon the towering oak, knowing full well that its rigidity must in time bring its downfall when the winds grow too strong for it, than upon the blade of grass which but lies flat and then recovers its stance when the gale is over, so I wish there were a few more like you. In all the world, to be sure. But here in the West Indies most of all. My hand, sir. Be sure you will ever have my support should you seek justice.'

  Kit grasped his hand. 'I thank you, sir.'

  'And now you go home to Green Grove?'

  No idle question, that. It was twenty-four hours since the fleet's return, twenty-four hours since Philip Warner's arrest. The news had spread throughout the island, as the angry mob outside testified. But Marguerite had not come into town. She, who was usually in the forefront of any public occasion. But perhaps that was a happy sign.

  'Yes, Sir William. I shall return to Green Grove.'

  Stapleton nodded. 'Then I will wish you God speed. But Kit, be careful, I do beg of you. Watch your back. Tempers are running high, and we have seen how careless these people can be of honour.'

  Kit nodded. 'At least they will know the risk they run.' He pressed his tricorne a little more firmly on his head, opened the door and stepped through. The crowd were baying and shouting, and for the moment did not notice him; their attention was taken by the tall figure of Agrippa, who stood with the two horses at the foot of the steps.

  'Nigger,' they chanted. 'Pirate. Nigger pirate.'

  'He should be hanged,' someone yelled. ' 'Tis the pirates should be suffering justice, not our Governor.'

  'Aye, to the gallows with him,' someone else yelled.

  Agrippa stared at them, and they made no move to close him. But their temper was rising.

  Kit walked down the steps. His own anger simmered only just below the surface. And he had recognized Chester in the throng.

  'Edward,' he called. 'Dear chap, you'd best send your friends home, lest someone gets hurt.'

  There was a sudden silence, as they turned to look at him. He continued to walk down the steps, and now reached the foot.. Agrippa held his stirrup for him, and he swung himself into the saddle.

  'Indian lover,' someone yelled.

  'What did you do?' asked someone else. 'Hold your own wife on the floor for the red devils to make at her?'

  Kit swung his horse smartly aside, knocking two men from their feet, reached the last speaker, bent from the saddle to seize the man by his coat and whip him from the ground. He held the wriggling body close, while the fellow's feet kicked feebly and the crowd gaped a such a display of strength and determination.

  'The next time you address me, sir,' Kit said, 'have a weapon in your hand, or take a whipping." He threw the man away from him; the flying body cannoned into three more men and all fell. The crowd surged
back, and then surged forward again, to check and once more retreat as Kit's hands dropped to the pistols at his belt. And Agrippa was also armed.

  'Ow, ow me God,' screamed the man he had thrown down. 'My leg is broken.'

  'Now there is a pity,' Kit said. 'I had intended it to be your head. Will you gentlemen stand aside, or must I clear a way with my sword?'

  'By God, Kit Hilton,' Chester shouted. 'Would you declare war on us all?'

  'If need be, Edward. Will you be the first? These people can make a space for us. I have here pistols and a sword. Or would you prefer daggers and bare hands? Name it, man. Name it. Let us be at it.'

  Chester stared at him, the colour slowly draining from his face. The crowd stared also, from one to the other of the planters. But others were separating from in front of the two horses. Kit urged his mount forward, and Agrippa clattered immediately behind him. A few moments later they were through the crowd and trotting along the road leading south.

  'I thought we would have to fight our way out,' Agrippa remarked.

  Kit shook his head. 'They have too high a regard for their own skins. They have to be whipped to it, or shown the way, and the planters lack the belly to draw on me.'

  'Yet can they still harm you, Kit.' Agrippa urged his mount level. 'For how may a man exist, without human companionship?'

  'And am I that bereft? I have you, old friend. And any others?'

  'They support you entirely, Kit. They are distressed you would not immediately call upon them.'

  ‘I’ll have no man be forced to declare his support for me, Agrippa, especially one who lives in the centre of that rabble and yet refuses the use of weapons. Nor could I expose Lilian to such contumely.'