Wind of Destiny

by Christopher Nicole

  He flicked the whip, and the horse, equally alarmed, moved off at a brisk trot, just in time, for round the comer of the building there now came the largest dog Rafael had ever seen, a huge beast which stood some four feet high, was covered in short, wiry hair, and was making for him, panting, to reveal a fearsome set of gleaming white teeth, while continuing to bark with a noise that was even more terrifying. The fact that he was also wagging his tail was not the least reassuring.

  Rafael could not decide what to do. The dogs on the plantation were always kept chained up, or they would have terrorised the neighbourhood. Obviously to sprint behind the cab would be too humiliating to be considered, even if he could have caught it. But just to stand here … the hound was upon him, virtually looking him in the eye while standing on its four legs, still panting.

  ‘Rufe! You are frightening the gentleman. Sit, sir, sit.’

  To Rafael’s amazement, and relief, the hound obeyed, slowly lowering its haunches to the ground, while continuing to stare at him, not with any great hostility, but certainly with an expression of ‘I wonder what you’ll taste like when I’m allowed to eat you,’ on its face.

  ‘He won’t harm you, really. Not now,’ the girl said.

  ‘What is it?’ Rafael asked, genuinely interested.

  ‘Why, an Irish wolf hound, of course. We’ve always had Irish wolf hounds.’

  Slowly Rafael allowed himself to look away from the dog, and then nearly forgot all about it. Presumably this was a McGann; she was the tallest young woman he had ever seen, not an inch shorter than himself, he was certain, although it was difficult to be exact as she stood at the top of the stairs, above him. Equally presumably she was a female, because at first glance, as she wore blue denim trousers and a loose red and white check shirt, she should have been a man — Rafael had never seen a woman in trousers before. But at second glance there could be no doubt. Her red-brown hair tumbled in a profusion of curls down her back, and the shirt was not as loose as all that. While her face, with its straight nose and pointed chin, was quite entrancingly handsome, even if the grey eyes were cool.

  She appeared equally interested in him, taking in his pearl grey vest and dark suit, his gold watch chain. ‘I’m Toni,’ she said. ‘And you’re staring.’

  Hurriedly Rafael remembered to raise his soft hat. ‘I apologise Miss … Toni?’

  ‘Miss Antoinette McGann, if you want to be formal. ’

  She was a McGann, and yet … she was drying her hands on a towel, and had obviously been engaged in some menial task when he had arrived. He could not imagine what Christina would make of her.

  ‘You looking for someone?’ Antoinette McGann enquired.

  ‘Oh, ah, I must apologise, Miss McGann. My name is Rafael Antonio Diaz Vasquez de Obrigar. I have come to see a Captain Jeremiah McGann.’

  ‘That’s Daddy.’ Antoinette McGann raised her eyebrows as she noticed the box. ‘You come to visit with us?’ He wasn’t sure whether she was pleased or scandalised at the idea.

  ‘Well … I … ah … I have a letter for your father.’

  ‘He’s in the fields,’ she said. ‘He’ll be here in a little while. I guess you’d better come in, Mr Obrigar.’

  ‘No, no, not Obrigar. That is a title.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Mr Vasquez.’

  ‘No, no,’ Rafael said again, with some desperation. ‘Vasquez is my mother’s name. My name is Diaz. But you may call me Rafael,’ he added boldly.

  ‘Okay,’ she agreed. ‘The rest is a bit of a mouthful, isn’t it? You want me to take your box?’

  ‘You?’ He was appalled. ‘Will not the servants bring it in?’

  ‘Servants? I shouldn’t think it’s too heavy.’ She came down the steps.

  ‘Oh, you cannot … I will take one end,’ he said.

  ‘Do that.’ Between them they hefted the box on to the verandah, watched by the dog.

  ‘I was not really afraid of him,’ Rafael told her.

  ‘Is that a fact,’ Miss McGann observed.

  *

  ‘Rafael Diaz! Good Lord above, boy, when last I saw you, you were twelve years old.’ Captain Jeremiah McGann seized Rafael’s hand to shake it, involving a near dislocation of the shoulder. He was even bigger than Rafael had anticipated, several inches over six feet in height, and for all his sixty-three years carried himself like a much younger man, while from the soiled state of his distinctly rough clothes, and his hands, he had clearly been working like a peon on his land. ‘I shouldn’t think you remember me.’

  ‘Oh, indeed I do, sir, very well,’ Rafael protested, not entirely lying.

  ‘And how’s your father? And mother?’

  ‘Well, sir, well. I have a letter from Father … ’ He held it out and looked at the woman who had come in with the retired sea captain, also, amazingly, having been at work in the open air. She was more obviously Antoinette’s mother, for she also possessed red hair, hers tinted with gold rather than brown, and the perfectly shaped nose and chin and wide mouth which made her daughter so attractive, although her eyes were green — and yet she had to be at least in her fifties.

  ‘I am Marguerite,’ she said quietly. ‘I never had the pleasure of either visiting Cuba or meeting your parents, but Jerry has told me about them, often enough. I see you’ve met Toni.’

  Rafael looked at the girl again. They had had ten minutes alone together before her parents had arrived, again a most odd arrangement, in that there seemed to be no duenna in attendance, or even a servant, and yet the girl had not seemed the least embarrassed at finding herself entirely at the mercy of an utter stranger. She had not even allowed the dog into the house as a protector.

  Rafael had certainly been embarrassed, and unable to make much conversation. Now he could only say, ‘Yes.’

  Marguerite McGann gave a faint frown, then glanced at her daughter, and realised what the problem had to be. ‘Perhaps you should dress yourself properly, Toni,’ she suggested. ‘As we have a guest.’

  ‘You’re to visit a while,’ Jerry McGann boomed. ‘Now that is fine. Just fine.’

  ‘You’re sure I won’t be imposing, sir?’ Rafael asked anxiously, the more anxiously as now he definitely wanted to stay with these so strange but so attractive people.

  ‘Heck, no, boy, it’ll be our pleasure. Seems there’s some trouble over your way, eh?’

  ‘Not really, sir. I merely refuse to allow myself to be browbeaten by the guardia civile.’

  ‘And they’re no people to get on the wrong side of,’ Jerry acknowledged. ‘Your dad also says he would like you to meet Josef Marti.’

  ‘If it can be arranged, sir, yes,’ Rafael said, heart pounding.

  ‘Sure it can. I’ve met Marti. I’ll write him tomorrow. And you couldn’t have come at a better time. Joe’s coming home on furlough next month. You’ve never met Joe. But he’ll be tickled to meet you. You stay as long as you like.’

  Rafael thought he might just do that.

  *

  ‘You’ll have to explain it all to me,’ Toni McGann told him. Dressed in a modest, high necked blue gown, and with her hair secured in a huge pale blue bow, she was no more attractive, but distinctly more feminine, than in her working clothes. And having observed her father’s pleasure in welcoming him, she now even wanted to show interest in him herself, which she had not earlier. But she still embarrassed him. He suspected she knew he had been afraid of the dog, and now he was again out of step with his surroundings; it had seemed natural for him to dress for dinner, as he would have done at home, except in unusual circumstances. To his dismay, he had found that his host was wearing an ordinary smoking jacket and distinctly baggy trousers, while the women, if they had changed, were certainly not in evening gowns.

  But the supper table was no less disconcerting than everything else in this household. The wood was good mahogany, and highly polished — indeed he could not fault the cleanliness and neatness of the entire house, from the crisp bed linen to the attractive drapes — and
the cutlery was silver … but there was neither butler nor footmen. If he was relieved to discover that there was a cook in the kitchen, she, like everyone else he had met since reaching New York, was decidedly familiar, and Marguerite McGann had actually served the meal herself, with some assistance from her daughter, and her sister-in-law, a huge, middle-aged woman named Meg, who had come in to give his hand another bone-shaking squeeze. Meg McGann was Captain Jerry’s sister, and had apparently never married, which Rafael did not find altogether surprising, in view of her size and the fact that she looked like her brother, whose features could best be described as rugged, and had indeed spent her entire life on the farm; she had a little cottage of her own on the other side of the pasture.

  Now she joined her niece. ‘Yes, explain it to us all, Rafael.’

  Rafael looked at his host, somewhat uncertainly. He did not know it all.

  ‘It’s a pretty sad, and confused story,’ Jerry McGann said. ‘If Rafael won’t mind… ’

  ‘I would like you to tell it, sir,’ Rafael said.

  ‘Hmm. Well, Cuba of course was one of the very first West Indian islands to be colonised by Spain. This was way back while Columbus was still living. We’re talking about four hundred years. When did the first Diaz get there, Rafael?’

  ‘1512, sir.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. And it’s been one of the most successful of the Spanish colonies too, at least in recent years. They didn’t find any gold there, which is what they were really after in the early days, but they found that they could grow sugar, and tobacco, like nowhere else in the world.’

  ‘Save Louisiana,’ Marguerite put in, and smiled at Rafael. ‘My family grew sugar in Louisiana.’ She sighed. ‘Before the Civil War put them out of business.’

  ‘Yes,’ her husband said hurriedly, obviously not wishing to become involved in that subject. ‘Well, as you probably know, Toni, during the Napoleonic Wars, and after the French had conquered Spain, or tried to, the Spanish colonies in America broke away and declared their independence, just as we had done forty years earlier. All except for Cuba.’

  ‘And Puerto Rico, sir,’ Rafael put in.

  ‘That’s right. And Puerto Rico. They continued as Spanish colonies, as they still are today. But, if Rafael will forgive me, with increasingly corrupt and incompetent administrators.’

  ‘I agree with you entirely, sir,’ Rafael said.

  ‘And so, at last, the Cubans determined to attempt to secure their independence as well. In 1873 they began a revolution of their own. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. For a lot of reasons.’ He looked at Rafael.

  ‘There were too many factions, perhaps,’ Rafael agreed. ‘And the Madrid government was too determined to hold on to us. But the main reason was lack of outside help. We had hoped for American aid … ’

  ‘Yes,’ Jerry McGann agreed. ‘And as I’m sure you know, Rafael, there was, and is, an immense amount of sympathy for your cause here in the States. But it has always been the principle of our government not to get involved in other people’s quarrels.’

  ‘With respect, sir, but would you have gained your independence had France and Spain not interfered in your quarrel with England?’ Jerry grinned. ‘Touché. We’d probably still be fighting. But with equal respect, Rafael, I think you had to admit that in 1778 both France and Spain had old scores to settle with England. We have no quarrel with Spain, right this minute. Nor did we, twenty years ago.’

  ‘We had supposed the Munroe Doctrine … ’

  ‘The Munroe Doctrine laid down the principle that the United States would oppose any attempt by a European power to seize territory in the Americas which was independent.’ Jerry said. ‘That was really meant to prevent the Spanish or the Portuguese from attempting to re-conquer their Latin American Empires, because those countries had declared their independence. But it never covered those colonies which were still colonies, such as the British, Dutch, or French West Indies, or the Spanish West Indies, either. I can tell you, we wanted to help. It was one of the most galling periods of my life, to be on patrol off the Cuban coast during that war … the things I saw and heard, well, they were blood curdling. The Spaniards pulled out all the stops to end the revolution, and we had to sit by and look and listen. It was grim.’

  ‘And you were there while this was happening?’ Toni asked Rafael.

  Again Rafael looked at his host.

  ‘No,’ Jerry McGann said. ‘Once Antonio Diaz saw the way things were shaping up, and he was a rebel sympathiser, he sent his son and daughter-in-law, and young Rafael here … how old would you have been, Rafael?’

  ‘I was one when I left Cuba, sir.’

  ‘And you were sent to England, right?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. My grandfather had always invested in England, and felt it was the most secure place on earth.’

  ‘Well, he could have been right. I must say, I think he did the right thing in sending your dad away, too. I already knew both Arnaldo and your mother, of course. Whenever my ship put into Santiago de Cuba, in the days before the revolution started, I’d ride over to the plantation for dinner. They were most generous to me.’

  ‘I feel my father should have stayed,’ Rafael said.

  ‘To be shot? And what would your mother have done, if he had stayed, and fought against her father?’

  Toni McGann looked from one to the other of the men with her mouth open. If there was something like this in her own family history, as so many families had been split down the middle during the Civil War, she had not been born until it was over and done with for many years, and even the estrangement between her mother and father had been settled. That was all history. But now Dad was talking about something which had happened just about the time she had been born.

  ‘I have never understood that situation,’ Marguerite McGann confessed.

  ‘Well … history repeats itself, I guess,’ Jerry McGann said. ‘Marguerite comes from a southern family, as you may have gathered, Rafael. So her dad and I were on opposite sides in the war between the States.’

  ‘And you chose to support your husband, Mrs McGann,’ Rafael said eagerly.

  Marguerite’s mouth twisted. ‘I’m not sure I had all that much choice,’ she said, but her gaze, as she looked at her husband, was soft. ‘It was a long time ago. But it must have been most difficult for your mother. A difficult decision to take, and to keep. Especially after your grandfather was killed.’

  ‘Well, she was in England when that happened,’ Rafael explained. ‘So she didn’t even know about it for a year. She had already quarrelled with her family, in any event, and she hadn’t seen or communicated with them for several years … but I think it still upsets her, from time to time. She dreads the thought of another revolution.’

  ‘Gee, what a mess,’ Toni commented.

  ‘Is there going to be another revolution, Rafael?’ Jerry asked.

  ‘Of course, sir. We are determined to end Spanish rule. It would happen tomorrow, if you would help us.’

  ‘No doubt. I don’t think there is much chance of that, however, the way things stand at the moment. And I would have to advise against attempting anything on your own, again. Tell me, is that chap Jack Lisle still working for your dad?’

  ‘Oh, indeed. I sometimes think he is Father’s backbone. If you will forgive me.’

  ‘Well, he has less to lose than you,’ Jerry said. ‘A dangerous fellow, Jack Lisle. Oh, he has every reason to be against the Cuban government, I know, but still, dangerous.’

  ‘Do you know the facts of what happened to his father, sir?’ Rafael asked. ‘I have never been able to discover.’

  ‘Sure I do,’ Jerry said. ‘It caused quite an international furore, out of which I’m afraid our government again came with very little credit. There was a ship called the Virginius, American registry, and sailing under the stars and stripes, which cleared Kingston, Jamaica, on 23rd October 1873, bound for Port Limon. The revolution in Cuba had just started, then, and on
board the Virginius were four of the rebel leaders. No one knows for sure if they were going to be set ashore in Cuba, or if they were going to make their way there from Port Limon, but I suspect the former, because after leaving Kingston, the ship put into a Haitian port to embark a cargo of arms and ammunition, which was certainly intended for the Cuban rebels. The point is that while this was all done on orders from the captain of the ship, and the rebel leaders, so far as anyone knows the passengers were entirely innocent of any complicity in what was happening. But of course they were spotted by a Spanish garda costa, called appropriately, Tornado. There must have been treachery around somewhere, for Tornado stopped and boarded the Virginius, entirely illegally as she was not in Spanish territorial waters, found the arms and ammunition as well as the rebels, arrested the ship, and took her and all her passengers and crew into Santiago de Cuba.

  ‘They arrived there on 1st November, when the Governor of Santiago Province, Brigadier General Burriel y Lynch, accused them of being pirates. That is, everyone on board, including the passengers, of whom Harry Lisle was one. Burriel set up summary courts martial, had them all condemned to death, and started shooting them. The four rebels went first, of course, which one could say was fair enough, but next he shot the captain, who was an American citizen, eight other Americans, and nine British subjects, all crew. They were marched from the gaol before the slaughterhouse, and made to kneel in front of an enormous crowd, and shot. The firing squad was formed by a hundred and forty-eight Spanish soldiers, whose marksmanship was so bad it took a full seven minutes for the last victim to die. Can you believe that?’

  ‘Oh, my God! ’ Toni cried. ‘And nothing was done about it?’

  ‘By us, I’m afraid not. News had got out of what was happening, of course, and Washington instructed our Vice-Consul in Santiago to protest in the strongest terms. My God! Fortunately, the news had also reached Jamaica, and the British warship, HMS Niobe, was sent up to Santiago to discover exactly what was going on. You have to hand it to the British when they get riled up. The captain of the Niobe was a chap called Sir Lambton Loraine. Now there’s a mouthful. He reached Santiago on 8th November, at nine-thirty in the morning. By then another twelve men had been shot, amongst them Harry Lisle. Well, Loraine went straight ashore, got hold of the British Vice-Consul, and with him called at Government House to demand that Burriel cease the executions immediately. Burriel wasn’t having any of that. He told the captain that the British had no right to interfere in a Spanish domestic matter, that Santiago was under martial law because of the revolution, and that each member of the Virginius’s complement, the moment sentence was passed by the court, would be shot.’