Wind of Destiny

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘I intended vengeance upon the policemen who murdered my father,’ Jack said quietly. ‘Now it seems I am taking all my vengeance on the people who support us.’

  ‘And what of my family? What of Christina? Does she not require avenging?’

  ‘I would agree with you if I saw any possibility of accomplishing it,’ Jack said. ‘But we have now spent damn near three years in these mountains, and achieved nothing.’

  ‘We have been lacking in strategy,’ Rafael insisted. ‘Now that I am in command, we are going to win. You will see. It is simply a matter of involving the Americans in the war. That is obvious, as it has been obvious from the beginning. Where we have hitherto made our mistake is in assuming that the mere fact that we are fighting would bring them in. That is not going to happen. But it can still be done. That is the object of my new strategy, of infiltrating our people into Havana, and blowing up American businesses there. Sooner or later the American government will begin to ask questions about that, and then they will realise that the Spanish authorities cannot protect American nationals in Cuba.’ He gave Toni’s arm a squeeze. ‘Even ones who are not involved. Then they will say, well, we have to protect our people, and they will send the marines, eh? Once that happens, we shall find a way to involve them.'

  ‘On its past record,’ Jack pointed out, ‘the American government is far more likely to command all American nationals in Cuba to leave, and wash their hands of the whole business.’

  ‘No,’ Toni said. ‘That is why I escaped, to warn you. Listen. Lumbrera told me that the Americans are indeed alarmed and angry at the attacks on their property, in Havana more than anywhere else. So they’re sending a battleship to Havana to make sure the attacks cease. If you are not careful, you will wind up fighting my people as well as the Spanish. Lumbrera was quite sure this would happen.’

  ‘The Spanish will allow an American warship into Havana?’ Jack asked.

  ‘That’s what Lumbrera said. He was chortling about it. So then I realised that you cannot continue, Rafael. I know you can’t surrender to the Spanish. But I thought that if we can get into Havana, as you seem able to, we could perhaps get on board the warship, and … ’ she looked from one to the other of their faces. ‘We’d be safe,’ she finished lamely.

  ‘And desert these people?’ Jack asked.

  ‘We could tell them to take advantage of the amnesty. Send them home. You’ve just admitted that staying up here you’re accomplishing nothing, save their deaths. Can’t you see that if you antagonise America, you have nothing left to hope for?’

  Jack scratched his beard.

  Toni looked at Rafael.

  But Rafael had got up, and was staring across the hills at the glow which was Havana. ‘An American battleship,’ he said. ‘Coming into Havana Harbour. To just sit there.’ He pounded the fist of his right hand into his left. ‘This is what we have been waiting for,’ he said.

  Chapter 11

  Havana — 1898

  Toni had no idea what he was talking about, looked to Jack for an explanation. And even Jack had to take a few minutes, to understand what Rafael had in mind. Then he said, bluntly, ‘You’re crazy.’

  Rafael turned, vehemently. ‘Am I? What do you suppose would happen if an American warship was attacked and damaged, inside Havana Harbour? Who could possibly carry out such a crime, save the Spanish authorities, resentful of her presence, for all their treacherous pretence of welcome?’

  ‘You’d attack an American ship?’ Toni cried. ‘You … ’ she bit her lip before she had agreed with Jack.

  ‘You have just said that we cannot win the war without American involvement,’ Rafael said. ‘And you, Toni, have told us that unless we are careful, we may have to face American involvement against us. Therefore we must strike while we have the opportunity, to involve them, on our side.’

  ‘By attacking a ship?’ Toni said. ‘I just don’t get it. Don’t you think the Spanish will deny having done it?’

  ‘Do you think your Mr Hearst, with his newspapers, will believe them?’ Rafael demanded.

  Toni didn’t have a reply to that. Walkshott told her that the Hearst press was almost rabid in its hatred of the Spanish rule in Cuba.

  ‘And you,’ Rafael went on. ‘You talk about abandoning the revolution and making our escape? Your escape? You have just killed a man, Toni. There will be a warrant out for your arrest, for murder, by now. How do you know your people won’t hand you back to be hanged?’

  Toni opened her mouth, and then closed it again. She wanted to say, rubbish. But she didn’t know that they wouldn’t, on their past record.

  ‘Well, I still think you are crazy,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t even see how you propose to do it. This is going to be a battleship, your wife says, not a gunboat. There will be marine guards, searchlights. She’ll even have armoured sides.’

  ‘She can still at least be dented,’ Rafael argued. ‘It is the fact of the attack that will matter. I will make a torpedo. We have sufficient gunpowder.’ He gave a quick grin. ‘Supplied by the Americans.’

  ‘And how do you propose to deliver this torpedo?’

  ‘I have studied naval as well as military history,’ Rafael said. ‘What about your Lieutenant Cushing? He placed a torpedo under the Confederate ship Albemarle, and blew her up.’

  ‘He wasn’t my Lieutenant Cushing,’ Jack pointed out. ‘And if my memory served me right, that was up a river, not in the middle of a crowded harbour.’

  ‘None the less, the principal is the same. We will use a spar torpedo, and explode it by a timing device against the warship’s side. It will be very simple.’

  ‘Well,’ Jack said. ‘You can count me out.’

  Rafael stared at him. ‘You are losing your nerve.’

  ‘If you think that, try me,’ Jack suggested, not bothering to get up, but slightly drawing up his legs to indicate that he was prepared to move if necessary. ‘I just don’t happen to think it’ll work.’

  ‘I didn’t come here to make you guys quarrel,’ Toni said.

  ‘We are not quarrelling,’ Rafael told her. ‘But I will do what I say, and you wait; the Americans will explode with anger, and will come in on our side.’

  ‘I’ll believe that when I see it happen,’ Jack said. ‘And it won’t do you any good, because you’ll have exploded with your torpedo, and won’t be here to see what effects it has.’

  Rafael grinned. ‘I am prepared to die for the cause. But I don’t think even that may be necessary. The whole idea is taking shape in my mind. I will sleep on it.’ He gave Toni a hug. ‘With you at my side, after three years, I can hardly believe it. Or wait.’

  ‘Oh,’ Toni said. ‘I … I was kind of hoping I could take a bath, before … well … ’

  ‘I wish you just the way you are,’ Rafael assured her.

  She didn’t dare look at Jack. This man was her husband. And it had been three years. The fact that Lumbrera had been only a week ago had to be forgotten. Or that this man was a stranger.

  ‘Well … I guess I’ll say good night,’ she said.

  ‘Sleep tight,’ Jack said. ‘Try to talk some sense into him, will you, senora. But … it is good to have you with us. Believe me.’

  *

  Rafael arranged their blankets a little apart from the rest of the encampment, but he still intended them to sleep in the open air, on a distinctly cool night. What they were about to do was also obvious to everyone in the camp, and Toni was taken aback to discover the woman Incarna standing with her arms folded, staring at her.

  ‘Rafael,’ she muttered.

  Rafael looked up. ‘Get away, you brown-skinned whore,’ he shouted.

  ‘Ha,’ Incarna remarked, and stalked into the darkness.

  ‘I really feel I should, well … somehow apologise,’ Toni ventured.

  ‘To her? She is nothing. A man must have a woman.’ He smiled at her. ‘When he is separated from his wife.’ He patted the blanket. ‘Now come to bed.’

  She didn’t kno
w whether he wanted her to undress or not, but as he only took off his weapon and pants, although he laid them close beside him, she merely stepped out of her skirt, and then got beneath the blanket against him. He was certainly anxious; she could feel him through his drawers.

  ‘Toni, my Toni,’ he said. ‘Do you know, there were times I despaired of ever seeing you again.’

  ‘Me too,’ she admitted.

  ‘But now … ’ he held her close and began kissing her, with an aggressive passion which was totally unlike the gentle youth who had taken her as a bride. Now he bruised her lips, and his fingers, thrusting beneath her gown, were like talons, eating into her flesh. She gasped for breath, and managed to get her head away.

  ‘Take it easy. I am flesh and blood.’

  ‘I am sorry. Perhaps I have taken too many women by force these past three years.’

  ‘Have you?’

  ‘Loyalist scum,’ he said. ‘They deserved to be raped. And to die.’

  ‘Deserved to … my God! You mean you have raped a woman?’

  ‘Several,’ he said proudly.

  ‘And then … say you didn’t execute them.’

  ‘This is war to the death,’ he said. ‘It is them or us. None of them should survive. Or none of us can. But we are going to win.’

  Oh, God, she thought. Did I murder Lumbrera, for raping Christina, to come to this? But for better or for worse, this was her husband, and he was as powerful here as Lumbrera had ever been in the internment camp. Besides, if she had never raped anybody, was she not now as guilty of murder as he?

  But would she have done it if she had known? She did know that she no longer felt the least like sex, with anyone, much less him. But it was too late to attempt to refuse him, now; he had already removed both his drawers and hers, and a moment later was into her, with the same aggressive hunger that she had felt on his lips, in his hands. He hurt her as he had hardly done on their wedding night, made her gasp in discomfort. But at least he was quick.

  ‘My Toni,’ he said. ‘How I have missed you.’

  ‘And now you are going off to commit suicide,’ she said.

  ‘I do not think I will have to. I know Havana well, and the harbour. It all depends where the ship is anchored.’

  ‘But you intend to blow it up.’

  ‘It is not easy to blow up a ship.’

  ‘Okay, to set off an explosion against it. That means people may get hurt. American sailors, Rafael, you can’t do it.’

  ‘I must do it.’

  ‘Rafael … ’

  ‘You do not understand,’ he said, fiercely. ‘Women never understand these things. We are fighting for our very existence. That is what needs to be understood. Without American aid, we shall all perish. Therefore we have nothing to lose. And if one or two other lives are lost, that is war.’

  She could not believe anyone could speak quite so callously. And this man was her husband. But she had to keep her head, keep calm, and argue with him. ‘It will be murder.’

  ‘There is no such thing as murder, in war.’

  ‘You will never be able to keep it a secret, forever. Who did it, I mean.’

  ‘I will not have to, forever. It will remain a secret just long enough to get America into the war. Once that happens, it does not matter. Blood will have been shed on each side, and they will go on fighting until the Spanish have been defeated.’

  ‘You can’t even know that, for sure. Spain has a bigger fleet, and a much bigger army, than the United States.’

  ‘That is irrelevant. Like the British in 1790, she will have to try to sustain a war at a distance of three thousand miles, and she will not be able to do that. Now go to sleep. You have brought me important information, and your love. These things have pleased me. But you must leave the planning to me, because I am the general. Now go to sleep.’ He turned on his side, away from her, and apparently followed his own advice. While Toni stared into the darkness, feeling more despairing than even in her cell outside Santiago. She had killed a man, to come here, and meet this. Go to sleep, he had commanded. I am pleased with you, but now, go to sleep. As if he were a king. Because he was the general. A tear trickled out from her eye as she watched the moon hang above the trees. She wondered what Jack Lisle was doing.

  And Christina.

  *

  Rafael began to implement his plans the next day. He ignored anything anyone said, certainly if it was an adverse comment, but with a group of his men who were apparently as expert at making explosive devices as himself, he constructed his torpedo. And it was an impressive weapon, some twelve feet long, and packed with gunpowder inside a thin metal shell, which he made by beating out various corrugated iron roofs the guerrillas had accumulated from burning plantation sheds. The weapon would have to be transported into Havana in sections, of course, and assembled there, but he had no doubt this could be done; apparently he had entered Havana several times in the past year — the city was so much larger than Santiago it was impossible to seal it entirely with forts and barbed wire, while its population necessitated a constant flow of food from the surrounding countryside. Rafael had his men growing bananas in a big way, and these he used as his cover; no member of the Spanish army knew what he actually looked like.

  For this reason, as there was no way he could be disguised as a Cuban peon, Jack Lisle had never been involved in the bombing campaign. Nor did he approve of it. While he continued to oppose the idea of the torpedo, on practical as well as moral grounds. ‘It’ll never float,’ he told Rafael.

  ‘It does not have to float, of itself,’ Rafael said.

  Toni was in despair. Almost she considered herself trying to get into Havana to warn the authorities there. But she did not know the city at all, nor could she hope to disguise herself any more than Jack could; thus whether the Spanish believed her or not, they would promptly arrest her for murder and probably hang her immediately. Nor, she realised quickly enough, would her desertion dissuade Rafael from his determination to carry out his unthinkable plan.

  Equally was she in despair from his sexual demands, which were incessant. Her return had reawakened all of his earlier passion for her, and Incarna was banished permanently back to the rank and file, which did not make Toni’s position any the easier, especially as she was required to spend her days working with the other women in the vegetable garden which had been created on one of the lower slopes. Equally embarrassing was the constant presence of Jack, who took all his meals with them, and did not seem to have a woman of his own. He was unfailingly polite to her, unfailingly critical of Rafael, but always quietly composed in his manner. She had no evidence of his ability as a leader; certainly he appeared to have been overtaken by Rafael. Thus there seemed no hope of using his authority in any way to overcome her position. She was not even sure she wanted to; her feelings towards the two of them, all men, perhaps, had become more ambivalent than ever.

  *

  At the beginning of February the torpedo was complete, and it was then that the spy Rafael had sent into Havana to find out when the warship was due, returned to the camp. He had quite a lot of news. Firstly, Colonel Lumbrera was not dead. He had been badly hurt, and was still in hospital, but he would live, it was said.

  ‘And you thought you had killed him,’

  Rafael said contemptuously to Toni. ‘I thought you had killed him, with your bare hands. I should have known better.’

  Toni didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. On the one hand there was the thought of that monster returning to the internment camp and perhaps venting his anger on Christina; on the other, there was the relief that she was not, after all, a murderess.

  Not that that made any difference to her situation, apparently.

  ‘There is a warrant out for your arrest, senora,’ the guerrilla said. ‘And your name has been added to the list of dangerous rebels who are excluded from any amnesty, and may be executed on sight.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ she said.

  ‘That is nothing to be af
raid of,’ Rafael told her. ‘I have been on that list for two years and I am still here. But what of the ship, man?’ ‘The ship came into Havana two days ago, senor-general,’ the man said. ‘A huge battleship. Her name is the USS Maine.’

  ‘The Maine!’ Toni clutched Rafael’s arm. ‘Well, that’s definitely it. You cannot blow up the Maine.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Joe serves on the Maine.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘You know this?’

  ‘Of course I know this. He has been serving on her for the past three years. Rafael … ’

  ‘If he has been with the Maine for three years he has probably been reassigned by now. In any event, I am not going to hurt Joe.’

  ‘You don’t know who you are going to hurt. Anyway, you cannot blow up Joe’s ship. You just can’t. Rafael … ’

  ‘I am going to damage it, not blow it up, silly girl,’ he said. ‘Do you really suppose this torpedo can blow up a battleship? That is absurd. It will make a loud noise. And it is all working out splendidly. She will still be here for the carnival, in the middle of the month. That will be the time to do it, when we will just appear as another procession through the streets, with our float. No one will look at us twice. We cannot ask for anything more.’

  In despair she went to Jack. ‘Tell me what is going to happen,’ she begged.

  ‘I don’t know what is going to happen. Tell me about the Maine, and I may be able to make an educated guess.’

  Toni tried to remember everything Joe had told her. Jack listened, scratching his head.

  When she was finished, he said. ‘Well, the fact that she is faster and lighter than the other battleships but carries the same guns must mean that she is less heavily armoured. On the other hand, as she is a battleship, she must have some armour. I would say that unless he is very lucky, or unlucky, Rafael has little chance of doing any real damage with a homemade torpedo.’

  Thank God,’ she said. ‘But … suppose he is lucky?’

  ‘Well, if by chance he were to set his charge off under a magazine, or something like that … he could perhaps sink her.’