Wind of Destiny

by Christopher Nicole

  Wind of Destiny

  Christopher Nicole

  © F Beerman BV 1988

  Christopher Nicole has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1988 by Severn House Publishers, Ltd.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  The Story of Joe McGann, and the Spanish-American War

  Except where they can be identified historically, the characters and events in this novel are the inventions of the author, and are not intended to resemble real persons, living or dead, or actual events.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 1

  Cuba — 1893

  A long, low swell rolled up out of the Caribbean Sea, through the Jamaica Channel which separates the island of that name from the Republic of Haiti, and broke on the reefs that lie off the southern coast of Cuba; inside the reef, its force reduced, the swell rippled on to the beach in a series of gentle wavelets.

  It was a warm, still night, a typical West Indian night, with scarcely a sound to be heard above the lapping of the water and the slither of the cicadas. Here in the extreme south, some five hundred miles from the capital city of Havana, there were not many fights to be seen on the shore; even the seaport and city of Santiago was hidden at the inner end of its inlet from the sea, and in any event was some thirty miles west of this deserted beach; only night birds were to be disturbed as the two dinghies pulled for the sand.

  The sloop had slipped through a passage in the reef just before dark. From a distance she had appeared as nothing more than a fishing smack, with her gaff rig and her long bowsprit, returning from a busy day at sea. The mother ship from whence she had come was below the horizon, and not to be seen by any loyalist-minded watcher on the cliffs above. The sloop had dropped anchor, and her crew could have been watched sitting on deck, gutting some of their catch for their evening meal. It was only with the coming of darkness that they had begun their true activity. Caribbean nights are bright, even when there is no moon, but in the bay, close by the shore, and in the shadow of Gran Piedra mountain, they were as secure as they could be from prying eyes. And by now, too, there were men on the beach, waiting. The boats pulled into the shallows, and some of the men moved forward to hold them steady as they grounded, while others received the boxes which were passed over the side and carried reverently across the sand to be stacked next to the path leading upwards.

  ‘They are new Mausers,’ said the captain of the smack, who had himself come ashore with his cargo. ‘Repeating rifles, with five hundred rounds for each weapon.’

  ‘But only twenty of them,’ said one of the men on the beach. He was tall, and running to stomach. In his fifties, with a drooping moustache and receding hair, he yet exuded confident energy. His nose was prominent, as was his chin, his mouth wide and more used to smiling than to uttering criticism.

  ‘There will be others, senor,’ said the captain. ‘Have there not been shipments before? We will send word when we have some more. Now, I must take my leave before a garda costa finds me out.’

  The tall man nodded, and held out a bag which jingled faintly. The captain took it, weighed it in his hand, and nodded. ‘Gracias, senor.’

  ‘Will you not count it?’

  The captain grinned. ‘We must trust each other, Senor Diaz. Because when we hang, we are likely to be shoulder to shoulder, eh?’ He shook hands. ‘Adios. ’

  The men watched him return down to the beach, and board the boat. Both were then pushed off the sand, and commenced rowing back to the sloop. ‘Cheerful as ever,’ remarked the man standing beside Senor Diaz. He spoke Spanish with a flat English accent, and was somewhat shorter, and considerably younger, than the Cuban, although more heavily built. His features were broad, and strong, his moustache untrimmed, and allowed to curve down either side of his mouth, giving his otherwise handsome face a somewhat grim cast.

  ‘Well,’ Diaz said. ‘I suspect he takes even more of a risk than we do.’

  ‘I’d argue that point, Don Arnaldo,’ the Englishman said. ‘And our risk increases with every moment we stand here.’

  Diaz nodded. ‘We must make haste, Rafael, are the men ready?’

  The boy, in his early twenties and clearly his son, both from his height and his features, nodded eagerly. ‘They are ready, Father.’

  ‘Then let us move.’

  There were a dozen men, some Negroes, some half-caste Cubans, waiting by the path up the shallow hill. These now hefted the boxes of rifles and ammunition, and slowly carried them up the slope to the track at the top. Here were two mule carts, each laden with cut cane-stalks. The stalks were parted, and one box placed in the bottom of each cart, then the stalks were carefully heaped over them again.

  ‘Do you really suppose that would stop Lumbrera’s men for a moment?’ the Englishman asked, speaking his own language now so as not to alarm the labourers. ‘Cutting cane, at night?’

  Diaz smiled. ‘We have been cutting cane all day, Jack.’ He also spoke English, with hardly a trace of accent. ‘This is merely the last load. Tomorrow we commence to grind, eh? Everyone in Santiago Province knows that.’

  There were also three horses waiting, and the planter, his son, and his overseer mounted, and led the procession back along the roadway. The carts rumbled over the uneven, dry earth, and made a noise that seemed capable of travelling for upwards of a mile in the still of the night — but at least their axles did not creak; they had been well greased. And within a few minutes, as they moved away from the coast, climbing steadily, they reached the rise of the first hills, and could look down into the valley beyond, and the plantation. Even in the darkness it could easily be discerned for what it was, one of the sources of Cuba’s wealth; in preparation for grinding, the cane stalks had first been burned, to drive out any snakes or scorpions which might have been lurking amidst the huge stalks, and then attacked with machetes, for several days; now the fields, acre upon acre of them, lay across the valley like a huge wasteland, but the faintly sweet smell of the cut stalks hung on the air. Farther off, at the end of the track, could be seen the dark bulk of the factory, its chimney pointing some forty feet into the sky, its mass of machinery, rollers, cutters, vats and vacuum pans, also oiled and greased for the most important work of the year, the grinding of the cane into sugar and molasses.

  Farther off yet, and to the right, where the land began to rise again, lights gleamed. There was the labourers’ village, then the houses of the overseers, and, farther back and yet higher up the slope, the plantation house itself, four square, built like a fortress, as indeed in years gone by it had had to fulfil that role more than once, as war, or piracy, or slave revolt, or, more recently, revolution against the rule of Spain, had swept across the land.

  The little cavalcade halted before approaching either the factory or the house. The cane-fields were separated one from the other by various tracks, to permit the carts and the labouring gangs to move freely from one area to the next, and it was down one of these that the two carts turned, to come to a stop between two fields. Here the ground was trampled by the many wheels and hooves and feet which had moved over it during the past four days, and here the labourers got down and began to dig. It took them an hour to excavate what was, in effect, a grave, into which the two boxes w
ere carefully loaded, after being wrapped in waterproof material. The grave was then filled in again, and the men drove the carts to and fro over it for several minutes, until all evidence of digging had been obliterated beneath the scuffed earth. While they did so, the English overseer took careful bearings of the house, the factory, and the peak of Gran Piedra with his compass, and entered them in his notebook.

  ‘That is good work,’ Diaz said, when he was satisfied. ‘You know my gratitude, and your reward. Now go home to your wives.’

  The peons nodded, touched their straw hats, and the carts rumbled into the darkness.

  ‘Does it never concern you, Father,’ the young man, Rafael Diaz, said, ‘that our very lives should hang on the loyalty, or the discretion, of such men?’

  ‘They are men, like ourselves,’ the Englishman reminded him. ‘And have dreams, like ourselves.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘And necks, to be stretched, like ourselves.’

  ‘And they know themselves to be better than their fellows,’ Arnaldo Diaz pointed out. ‘For sharing in our dream, our activities. Besides, are they not well rewarded? Come along, your mother will be anxious.’

  *

  The women waited on the naya, or verandah. The house was constructed on a solid stone base, rising some five feet out of the ground, and containing cellars; the walls were loopholed for defence. It surrounded an inner courtyard, gained by a wrought-iron gate, in which were not only the stables and servants’ quarters and cookhouse — situated downwind of the main building — but also a fountain and a small garden. On the two seaward sides of the square, above the cellars, the house was no less massively built of stone, with wrought-iron bars over the windows and massive wooden doors, but here the accent was on comfort, with wide verandahs, creeping vines clustering even up to the second floor, and potted plants; the whole was approached by a huge avenue of royal palms, which lent a serene beauty to the estate.

  ‘Is it finished?’ asked the elder of the women. She was several inches shorter than her husband, and had softer features, but revealed her rank in the perfect carriage she maintained, which, together with the mantilla rising above the coil of her hair, made her appear taller than she was. Forty-five-years-old, Carlotta Diaz was in the very prime of her life, her hair still jet black — never cut, it was, when released at night, some three feet long — her figure voluptuously graceful — for unlike so many Creole women she had not yet allowed herself to become fat — her features arrogantly handsome. Even when anxious, she spoke and looked like the aristocrat she was.

  ‘Without a hitch.’ Her husband tossed his reins to one of the grooms who had hurried from the side gate to the courtyard, and went up the outside staircase to kiss her cheek.

  ‘I can still see the fights of the ship,’ said the girl by her mother’s side, as she too was embraced.

  Arnaldo Diaz released her, and was hurriedly joined by the other two men to gaze out across the fields and the hills at the distant sea, and the fights glowing on the horizon,

  ‘Damnation,’ the Englishman muttered. ‘He is a careless fellow.’

  ‘Can it not just be another ship?’ the girl asked. Her voice had the slightly high intonation of her mother, and although she was only eighteen, she possessed a good deal of her mother’s figure as well. But on her, the combination of her father’s boldness and her mother’s softer contours had produced a true beauty, only slightly spoiled by the arrogance she had also inherited, although she lacked the aggressive confidence of her brother.

  ‘Any ship can be a cause for suspicion when Lumbrera is in the mood,’ Rafael now pointed out.

  ‘But even Lumbrera cannot possibly be suspicious of us,’ his sister reminded him. ‘He would not dare.’

  Her father and mother exchanged glances; Christina Diaz had carefully been kept in ignorance of a good deal of the family history. ‘Of course, Christina,’ Arnaldo Diaz agreed. ‘But I think our best course is to eat. I am quite famished. Will you join us, Jack?’

  ‘If I will not be imposing,’ the Englishman said.

  ‘My dear friend, your presence is an inspiration, not an imposition,’ Diaz said, and ushered them inside.

  Basins were brought by the servants, and the men washed their hands, and then sat down as they were, still wearing their somewhat soiled cotton plantation clothes, while the uniformed butler and his footman brought in the supper. Arnaldo Diaz sat at the head of the table, Rafael on his left, Christina on his right; Carlotta Diaz sat opposite her husband, at the far end, with John Lisle on her right: thus the two younger men looked across the table at the girl, and if Rafael was more interested in his food than his sister, there could be no doubt that Lisle was more taken with the picture he faced. As Christina was well aware, and blushed prettily as she picked at her avocado.

  ‘I suppose it is the very concept that terrifies me,’ Carlotta confessed, speaking English as the language was not understood by the servants. ‘For you, John, it is a matter of vengeance. I suppose there is no more compelling force in a man’s life … ’ she hesitated, and allowed her glance to drift to her daughter for a moment, for of course there was a more compelling force than even the determination to avenge a mortal injury. ‘But for us … ’

  ‘It is a matter of freedom, Mother,’ Rafael said fiercely.

  ‘Freedom? Do you know what it is like to be a slave? You are as free as the air. Do we not have everything we could wish for, here in this house, on this plantation?’

  ‘Yet the boy is right,’ her husband agreed. ‘Personal freedom can never be the same as political freedom. We are the lackeys of Madrid. We are governed incompetently by men who have no interest in the future of Cuba, whose job is only to collect taxes from us, who dissipate our resources in futile schemes when they are not actually robbing us. And to support whom, we must pay our hard-earned profits.’

  ‘And to end that is worth risking your lives?’ Carlotta demanded. ‘My God, your father fought for ten years to achieve that, and failed. That war cost your father his life, Jack,’ she reminded the Englishman. ‘And mine,’ she added sombrely, in a lower tone.

  ‘My dear,’ Arnaldo said, recognising her distress, and knowing that its cause lay deeper than even the death of her parent.

  ‘Cannot it now be done?’ she asked. ‘We have had ten years of peace, and even prosperity. But men like Garcia still dream of ending that to achieve some impossible Utopia. And you believe him.’

  ‘Our prosperity lies at the whim of the Governor-General in Havana,’ her husband pointed out. ‘And his decisions are made at the whim of some official in Madrid. It is as uncertain as a puff of wind. We will manage our own affairs, as soon as it can be done. It is the business of men like myself to be prepared for when that day comes.’

  ‘When that day comes,’ Carlotta said. ‘How I dread the thought of that. When I remember … ’ she checked, and turned her head, as the sound of hooves drifted through the night. ‘Oh, my God!’

  ‘We are enjoying a late supper,’ Diaz snapped. ‘All of us. Eat your food. Salvador,’ he called to his butler, ‘see who is visiting at night. But we are not to be disturbed. Understood?’

  ‘Si, senor,’ Salvador agreed, and went out on to the verandah.

  ‘Bring in the next course,’ Diaz told the footman, who was hesitating.

  The plates were cleared, the duck was set upon the table, and Diaz got to work to carve it expertly. Outside there was the jingle of harnesses, the snorting of horses, and Salvador, remonstrating. Carlotta and Christina sat as if turned to stone. Rafael licked his lips, and glanced at the swords mounted above the mantelpiece in the adjacent drawing room. Lisle looked most relaxed, but he drummed the fingers of his left hand beside his plate.

  Salvador came through the front door, half pushed by the man behind him. ‘Senor,’ he protested. ‘Senor … ’

  The man stepped round him, stood to attention, and saluted. His blue jacket and breeches indicated that he was a policeman, the high shako and the masses of gold braid which
adorned the breast and shoulders of his tunic indicated that he was an officer, and the sword on his hip and the revolver at his waist confirmed that he was not paying a social call; behind him, waiting on the verandah, could be seen several more armed and uniformed men.

  The officer himself was of medium height, somewhat plump, his mouth almost hidden by his moustache, his eyes sleepy. ‘Don Arnaldo,’ he began. ‘Forgive me. But the matter is most pressing. Dona Carlotta.’ He gave a little bow, regarded the boy and girl for a moment, almost speculatively, and then looked at Lisle. ‘Senor Lisle.’

  ‘Colonel,’ the Englishman acknowledged.

  ‘We are in the middle of our supper, Colonel Lumbrera,’ Diaz said coldly. ‘Let us hope your business is indeed pressing.’

  ‘For me, senor, if not for you,’ the police officer said. ‘We have received reports that a vessel came through the reef this evening, just before dark.’

  ‘Is that unusual?’ Lisle asked.

  Lumbrera gazed at him for a moment. ‘Perhaps not. But she is not there now. That is unusual, Senor Lisle. She must know these waters very well, or have been in a great hurry to get back to sea, to risk the reef in the dark. And why come in at all, to leave again in such haste?’

  ‘You have ridden all the way from Santiago on hearing this report?’ Diaz asked. ‘You must have travelled like the wind.’

  Lumbrera smiled. ‘I was fortunately already in the neighbourhood, camped outside Daiquiri, Don Arnaldo. Now I would ask you: have you seen any strangers in the vicinity of the plantation today, or this evening?’

  ‘Hardly,’ Diaz replied. ‘My people and I have spent the past four days cutting cane. We commence grinding tomorrow.’

  ‘Ah,’ Lumbrera commented. ‘And you no longer change your clothes for dinner, senor?’ His gaze embraced all three of the men. ‘I have told you, we have spent the day with my peons, cutting cane,’ Diaz repeated. ‘We finished no more than an hour ago, but I am determined to grind tomorrow. In view of the hour, we decided against changing for dinner.’ Lumbrera nodded, thoughtfully. ‘I think perhaps I phrased my question badly,’ he said, half to himself. ‘I should not have asked if there have been strangers about. I should have asked if any of your acquaintances, or even, perhaps, friends, from the mountains, were in this neighbourhood today. You are at least an acquaintance of the bandit who calls himself General Garcia, are you not, Don Arnaldo?’