Wind of Destiny

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘Gee,’ Toni commented. ‘What did poor old Loraine do then?’

  ‘Well, and one can imagine him speaking in those so quiet British tones, he said something like, “Well, in that case, I am terribly sorry, old man, but I have given orders that if another shot is fired in Santiago, the Niobe is immediately to sink the Spanish warship lying beside us in your harbour”.’

  ‘Tremendous!’ Toni shouted. ‘And did it?’

  ‘It didn’t have to. Burriel surrendered. The executions stopped, the Virginius was released, although she sank while being towed to Florida, and so were the surviving passengers and crew. The British demanded, and got, an apology from Spain, and compensation for the families of the men who had been murdered.’

  ‘Gunboat diplomacy par excellence, ’ Marguerite commented. ‘It will be a sad day for the world when Britannia ceases to rule the waves.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Jerry said. ‘But what was really humiliating was that it was all done for an American ship. A job we should have been capable of doing for ourselves. But then, just eight years after the end of the Civil War, we were so darned anxious not to have to shoot at anything except a redskin … and the navy had been let go, too. We didn’t have a warship in the Caribbean. We’ve only just started to put things back together, these last couple of years.’

  ‘And this Mr Lisle is out to avenge his dad?’ Toni said. ‘I think he’s just right. I hope he makes those murderers squeal.’

  ‘He will,’ Rafael promised her. ‘We will.’ He looked at Jerry McGann. ‘With, or without, American help.’

  Chapter 3

  Long Island and Cuba — 1893

  ‘It’s all so, gee, I don’t suppose romantic is the right word,’ Antoinette McGann said. ‘Exciting? Dramatic? I mean to say, I just didn’t know things like that still happened in the world. Could you harden that sheet, just a little? She’s pinching.’

  Rafael Diaz obeyed, freeing the rope from its cleat, pulling it tighter, and then making it fast again, while the single sail of the open cat-boat once again filled with wind, blowing against his cheeks, and making him feel even more light-headed than before.

  It was impossible not to be light-headed in this girl’s company. Over the ten days he had been on the farm he had grown more and more fascinated by her, and he had spent nearly all of his time in her company, as there was no one else of even approximately his own age for miles, and as she had wanted to show him what life on a farm was like. The work he found degrading, for a gentleman — although Jerry McGann employed two farm hands, he expected himself, and his family, to share the labour — but the girl … she was totally unlike his concept of women, of what he had expected any woman could be, his ideas having been based entirely upon his mother’s friends and their daughters, in Havana and Santiago, and of course, Christina, gorgeously effete creatures who would not lift a finger to help themselves if there was a servant available to assist them. Compared with them, Toni McGann was exciting. She was back in her denims and shirt today, with her hair loosely secured with a ribbon to stop it blowing in her face. And her feet were bare, as it was a hot summer’s afternoon — she had left her shoes on the beach. Rafael had been scandalised: he could not remember ever having seen a white woman’s bare feet before, certainly not since Christina had been twelve years old.

  Then, her concept of how to enjoy a Sunday afternoon was not to sit with her sewing, or playing the piano, but sailing up and down Long Island Sound in this boat, which was apparently her very own. The idea of a woman, much less a girl, being able to handle a boat at sea was astounding, but Rafael had to admit, as he considered himself to be a capable sailor, that she was an expert. Even more astounding, she apparently came sailing entirely by herself when the mood took her, without any objection from her parents. But most astounding of all, she had today invited him to accompany her, and here they were, right out in the middle of the Sound, with not another vessel in sight, the land itself only vaguely visible through the afternoon haze to either side … they could have been the only two people on the entire planet. When she had dropped the sail and allowed the boat to drift while they had lunch, the feeling had grown even stronger. But she seemed neither concerned nor afraid. Why, he could seize her and throw her into the bottom of the boat — he did not doubt he was the stronger … watching her, the muscles rippling in her arms as she moved the tiller, the shirt straining against her breasts as the wind caught it, her beautifully formed bare feet with all the suggestion of matching ankles and calves and thighs above, quite lacking in protective petticoats, and indeed clearly visible beneath the thin denim, made him quite want to do that.

  He wouldn’t, of course, as he was a gentleman and she was the daughter of his host, but he was going to have to do something about it. Her fascination with what she had been told about Cuba offered his best prospects.

  ‘And to think that you’re right in the middle of it,’ Toni continued. ‘While I … nothing ever happens on Long Island. I don’t think anything ever has, for years and years and years. I just sit and watch the world go by, I guess.’

  Rafael drew a long breath. ‘Would you like to be a part of it?’ he asked. ‘It is dangerous. And perhaps even deadly. And our opponents are very unpleasant people.’

  ‘But if it weren’t dangerous, or deadly, and you didn’t hate your opponents, it wouldn’t be happening at all, would it?’ she replied, apparently oblivious to the suggestion contained in his question.

  ‘It is a very lonely life, too,’ Rafael told her, choosing a different tack.

  ‘Oh, I don’t see why it should be. I think being part of something, comradeship, must be very companionable. Anyway, you’re in it with your family.’

  ‘But they will not always be there,’ Rafael pointed out. ‘Father and Mother will die, one day, and Christina will get married … ’

  ‘Christina is your sister, right?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Tell me about her.’

  He sighed, and wished he hadn’t brought the subject up. ‘Well, she is eighteen … ’

  ‘Why, so am I. Isn’t that cute?’

  ‘You could be sisters,’ Rafael said hastily.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, you do not look alike, of course. Christina is dark, and she is not as tall as you, and … ’ he grinned at her. ‘She knows nothing about sailing boats.’

  ‘I’ll bet she knows a whole lot of things I don’t,’ Toni said. ‘Well, I guess we’d better be getting back. Helm’s a-lee.’

  Rafael ducked his head under the loose-footed sail as the boat came smartly about, and heeled to the light northerly breeze as Toni steered due east for the Long Island shore. As he had to change sides anyway, to maintain the trim, he seized the opportunity to move farther aft; their knees touched as he settled himself, but Toni did not seem to mind, or even notice. ‘I know she would love to meet you,’ he said.

  ‘And I’d love to visit Cuba. You’ve made it sound so exciting.’ Her turn to grin. ‘Even if you don’t like all the Cuban people.’

  ‘I love the Cuban people,’ he declared fervently. ‘They are my people. It is Spaniards I hate.’

  ‘But … ’ she frowned, gazing at the now rapidly approaching beach. ‘You have to be Spanish yourself. Haven’t you?’

  ‘Well … by descent, of course. As you are English, by descent. But you consider yourself an American, surely.’

  ‘Hold on, there,’ she said. ‘I’m Irish, by descent. And maybe some French. Oh, I guess there’s some English in there as well, if you go back far enough. I think old Great Harry married English, and so did his son. But that was a long time ago.’

  ‘Well, there is some Spanish in me, as well. But my family has lived in Cuba for several generations. Both my parents are creoles.’

  He expected her to ask what a Creole was, but she didn’t, and he realised that she must know that the term meant anyone born in the West Indies of European parentage — technically her mother was one.

  ‘Do y
ou feel any affinity for the Irish, after so many years?’ he asked.

  ‘I’ve never really thought about it. I guess I do. I mean, I sure don’t hate them.’ ‘Perhaps that is because they do not rule over you, still.’

  ‘Could be. How about dropping the sail?’ They were in shallow water. Rafael scrambled forward and released the halliard, and the sail came clouding down. Hastily he gathered it and stuffed it beneath the forward thwart, then moved into the bows as the keel grated.

  ‘Can you take the painter ashore?’ Toni called.

  Rafael seized the end of the coiled rope, leapt over the bow, and landed in two feet of water with a huge splash. ‘Oh, God damn it,’ he said without thinking, but he stamped ashore, the mooring rope in his hands, and made it fast to the trunk of a tree, while Toni also dropped over the bow; with her rolled up trouser legs only her bare feet got wet. She joined him to tug on the rope and drag the boat clear of the water.

  ‘I apologise for swearing,’ he said. ‘I thought we were further up the beach.’

  ‘It’s shoal a good way out,’ she agreed. ‘And your shoes and stockings are wet. You should’ve taken them off.’

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ ‘You’d better take them off now. Or you’ll catch cold.’

  He hesitated. He had never taken his shoes off in front of a woman before. Somehow it seemed very intimate. Even when Father had had him escorted to a brothel to teach him the facts of life he had kept his boots on. But was he not after intimacy with this girl? He sat on the beach and removed his shoes and stockings. To his disappointment, Toni did not watch, but busied herself unloading the picnic hamper and carrying it up the beach. Then she returned to the boat, scrambled on board, and began properly furling the sail and shipping the rudder.

  ‘Do you just leave the boat here?’ He stood up to watch her, as usual fascinated by her movements, while feeling the deliciously sensuous freedom of sand between his toes.

  ‘Won’t come to any harm in this settled weather.’ She jumped down again, led him up the beach. ‘We’ll just sit here for half an hour while your shoes and stockings dry.’

  ‘Oh.’ But certainly now was the time to press his suit. ‘If you would really like to see Cuba, I am sure my parents would be very happy to have you stay with us.’ He sat beside her.

  ‘Would they?’ She turned her head. ‘Gee, I’d really like that.’

  Their faces were only inches apart.

  ‘I would be very happy too,’ he said, and kissed her on the mouth.

  She didn’t move, and it was he who finally withdrew. ‘I must apologise,’ he said again. ‘That was unforgivable. But … I think I have fallen in love with you.’

  ‘Gee,’ she remarked again. ‘Then I guess I’ll just have to forgive you. No one has ever said that to me before. I guess no one has ever had the gall.’

  ‘The gall?’

  ‘You know, the cheek.’

  ‘Cheek,’ he said, totally disconcerted. ‘Well, it’s quite something to say that to a girl unless you mean to marry her.’

  ‘To marry you would be the greatest thing I could think of.’ He spoke without thinking, and then realised that he meant what he said.

  Toni frowned at him for a moment. Then she leaned forward and kissed him again. ‘You’ll have to let me think about that,’ she said. ‘Before you start talking to Pa.’

  *

  Josef Marti was a little man, with receding hair, compensated for by a huge moustache. He was considerably older, forty, than Rafael had expected; Father had always referred to him as the ‘young poet’. He also looked totally un-warlike, except for his eyes, which seemed to bum with some perpetual inner fire. He took Rafael’s hands between both of his. ‘Rafael Diaz de Obrigar,’ he said. ‘I know your father well.’

  ‘He is one of your greatest admirers, sir,’ Rafael said.

  ‘Pouf. I write poetry, and articles, and attempt to inspire others. He is there. But soon I will join him, and all the others, and we will sweep the Spaniards into the sea. Tell him that. Soon.’

  ‘How soon, sir?’

  Marti shot him a glance, then sat down, and gestured Rafael to the chair beside him. The New York apartment was small, and untidy, with books and sheets of paper scattered in every direction; the entire place was an office, as well as somewhere to sleep, Rafael surmised. ‘There is still much to be done,’ Marti told him. ‘The mistake we made in 1873 was to go off half-cocked, before all the preparations had been completed. I know those men, those gallant patriots, men such as your grandfather, Rafael, counted on intervention by the United States. There are those of us who still hope for that. I am one of them. I am working for it, day and night. But whether it will ever come about, that I cannot say. I am sure the American people, even the American government, would like to help us, to see a free Cuba. It is the thought of becoming embroiled with Spain, with a European power, even if one in decline, that deters them. Not from fear, I am sure. But from a reluctance ever again to allow themselves to become involved in European politics, and once a war with Spain began, who could tell where it would end, what secret alliances the Spaniards may have with other powers … I do not think the Americans will ever take the decisive step. If Spain were to force the issue, now, that would be another matter.’

  Rafael decided against repeating Jerry McGann’s gloomy prognosis. ‘And that can surely only happen if we begin another revolution,’ he said, eagerly.

  ‘You are probably right. But taking the field is an irrevocable step. We have seen, ten years ago, how fiercely the Spanish will fight for what they hold, how brutally and ruthlessly they will fight. And we still cannot be certain of overt American support. Thus when we take the field the next time, we must be prepared to wage war, successfully, and by ourselves, if necessary, for as long as it takes to win. I am sure this can be done, with total support from the people of Cuba. But this too is not yet forthcoming. There are too many people, especially in Havana, who have learned to get on too well with their Spanish masters. Without them on our side we are in a difficult position. We must seek for some catalyst, some spark, to set them against Spain. We will find it, I am sure. But it may take time. Until then, why, we must continue to prepare ourselves for the great day.’

  Rafael was totally disappointed. All of this sounded as indefinite as Father’s plans. But every cloud had a silver lining, he reminded himself. ‘Then you do not regard the revolution as imminent?’

  ‘It will happen,’ Marti promised him. ‘One merely has to be patient. You of all people must have time to spare, Rafael. How old are you now? Twenty-one?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I am prepared to be patient. It is merely that … ’ he hesitated. ‘I am contemplating marriage.’

  Marti raised his eyebrows. ‘You are somewhat young for that, surely.’

  ‘Well, sir … I think I am in love. I know I am in love. She is quite unlike any woman I have ever met, or can even imagine. I would marry her tomorrow … but with things the way they are … ’

  ‘Quite,’ Marti agreed. ‘You have an old head on those young shoulders, Rafael Diaz. To saddle yourself with a wife, and then, no doubt, children, at this stage would be disastrous. It would be giving hostages to fortune.’

  ‘Yes, I know you are right,’ Rafael said sadly. ‘It is just that, if the revolution is to be postponed, indefinitely … ’

  ‘Any revolutionary, or would-be revolutionary, who takes a wife is hanging a millstone around his neck to accompany him into battle,’ Marti said severely. And frowned. ‘The situation is not irreversible?’

  ‘I do not know. I have no knowledge of American attitudes in these matters.’

  Marti’s frown deepened. ‘This girl is an American?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She is of the Roman faith?’

  ‘Oh, yes. She is of Irish descent. Their name is McGann. They are the people I am staying with.’

  ‘But I know that. Jerry McGann wrote to me to arrange this interview.’ Marti le
aned back in his chair. ‘You wish to marry Jerry McGann’s daughter?’

  ‘Is that so very wrong?’ Rafael asked.

  Marti gazed at him for several seconds, then he gave a short laugh. ‘No, Rafael. That is not wrong of you at all. That is brilliant. You have my blessing.’

  ‘Your blessing? But just now, you said … ?’

  ‘I spoke hastily. Now I would say that you could do nothing better, and of more importance to our cause, than to marry the daughter of Jerry McGann.’

  ‘I do not understand, sir.’

  ‘Is she not an American citizen? Is her father not a very well known man, her brother a serving officer in the United States Navy? Is her family not enshrined in the folklore of this country? All her ancestors have been naval heroes. Marriage to Antoinette McGann will confer upon you an immunity which no Spanish policeman would dare challenge.’ He got up, and began to pace the room. ‘And when the revolution does start, to have a family like the McGanns personally involved will be of immense importance.’

  ‘I could never marry for political purposes, sir,’ Rafael protested.

  ‘I am not asking you to, boy. You tell me you love this girl. I am merely pointing out that instead of offering a hostage to fortune, as would have been the case had you chosen a Cuban wife, or even a Spanish one, you will actually be taking a hostage for your protection. And that of your family.’