HF - 03 - The Devil's Own

by Christopher Nicole

  'Be quiet,' Stapleton said. His face was red, and yet he smiled. 'I had expected no less a reaction from Captain Hilton, and I honour him for it. Yet, sir, if you will turn such anger on me for reminding you of the guilt of these savages, can you not spare some for the Indians themselves?'

  'I doubt whether anger would accomplish anything of value, Your Excellency,' Kit said. 'You ask me to accompany the expedition because I have been on such an expedition before. Well, sir, if you wish my experience, then kindly do me the honour of accepting it. I marched with Morgan. He took a year and more to prepare his expedition against Panama, reconnoitred the ground over which we had to travel, hand-picked his followers, understood truly what he was about.'

  'He fought the Dons,' Harding said. 'We plan to light naked savages.'

  'I would have thought we oppose the more deadly foe, sir,' Kit said.

  'Yet must it be done,' Stapleton pointed out. 'Although certainly it will be necessary to proceed with caution.'

  'And there are ships, sir,' Kit said. 'Where will we find the vessels to transport our men at short notice?'

  'Now there we are fortunate,' Philip Warner said. 'As the news of the peace with France was brought to us by a flotilla of three vessels, all anxious to lend their support in our expedition to Dominica.'

  'The three anchored in the bay?' Kit demanded, with a sinking heart.

  'None others,' said a man who had hitherto been lurking in the shadows at the corner of the room. 'And happy to make your acquaintance after all these years, Kit.'

  Kit frowned. 'Bale? Can that be you?'

  'Captain Bale, lad. Captain Bale.'

  Certainly the buccaneer had prospered. His coat was of broadcloth, and his shirt cambric, if somewhat dirty. But his cutlass was bright enough and there were two pistols at his belt.

  'I had thought you long dead.'

  'I'm not that easy to kill, lad. As I told you gentlemen, I was a good friend of this lad's grandfather. We sailed together, when I was but a boy, Tony Hilton and I.' He gestured his companions forward. 'Captain William Hamblyn, and Captain Edward England, at your service, gentlemen.'

  'Pirates,' Kit muttered.

  'Privateers, Kit, privateers,' Bale insisted. 'Temporarily out of employment, with the news of this peace, and eager to play our part in your campaign.'

  'With good crews, Captain Hilton,' Stapleton said.

  'If allowed to plunder, sir,' Kit said.

  'And yet,' Stapleton mused, 'on the last occasion that it was necessary to mount an expedition against the Caribs, did not old Sir Thomas and Edward Warner, good men and true, happily avail themselves of the aid of two famous buccaneers to gain their victory? One of these men, as I recall, was named John Painton. And the other ... now strange, his name escapes me.'

  'It was Tony Hilton, sir,' Kit said. 'Like Colonel Warner here. Your Excellency, I make no apology for my family. Or indeed, for my own past. But you have raised the most important point of all, sir, in my opinion. The objective of the expedition.'

  "Why, to kill as many of the devils as possible,' Chester said.

  'And to regain as many of our kidnapped slaves as possible,' Philip Warner said.

  "And the women, gentlemen,' Stapleton observed, drily. 'Were not a dozen white women also carried off?'

  Feet shuffled. 'Aye,' someone said. 'The women.'

  'The slaves and the women must be regained,' Kit said. 'But I wonder if we achieve anything by mounting an expedition of pure vengeance.'

  'Sir?' A dozen voices shouted the query.

  'Hear me out,' Kit bawled. 'I but seek to know whether we approach this affair as angry men, or as statesmen. There is all the difference in the world between the two. Sir William has just reminded us that there was a previous expedition, which cost many lives, which was intended to avenge many lives. Yet it did not end the Carib menace. Nor will this one, if we seek to do nothing more than kill. Do you imagine we can destroy the Carib nation in Dominica? Has any one of you the slightest concept of the shape of that island? Of the forests there? Of the precipitous mountains up which we must march? Can we do more than raid, as they raided us? And by doing that, will we not be exposing our own sons and daughters, and ourselves, in our old ages, to another violent and bloody conflict? Were we not discussing our own futures but a few weeks gone, and planning even treason with but one objective in mind, the security of our plantations and of our families?'

  'The only secure Carib is a dead Carib,' Chester said.

  'Yet it would seem that Captain Hilton has an alternative scheme, and I have no doubt at all that it is worth hearing,' Stapleton said.

  'Well, gentlemen,' Kit said. 'I was neither born nor brought to manhood in these islands. But my grandmother knew them well, and remembered them sufficiently to impart some of their history to me. And no doubt Colonel Warner can confirm much of it, and point out where I err. Is it not a fact, Colonel, that your illustrious father, and my illustrious grandfather, were welcomed to St Kitts by the chieftain of that island, the cacique Tegramond, and given land to plant their tobacco, and treated as friends? And more. Did Tegramond raise any objections when his own daughter Yarico became your father's mistress? I speak no slander; it is a well enough attested fact. It is that fact that we are discussing now. The men quarrelled, or there was a suspicion of treachery. No one will ever know the truth. Suffice that the white men, outnumbered and insecure, felt themselves menaced by the Carib peril, and forestalled it by a surprise attack, which led to the massacre of Tegramond and his people, and which began this deadly feud. Which was fanned by the adherence of Yarico to her English lover. And is it not true, Colonel, that you and your half-brother, the fruit of that liaison, quarrelled, and that he and his mother fled to Dominica to perpetuate a hatred which might otherwise have died a natural death?'

  'I early saw the villain in him, if that is what you mean,' Philip Warner said. But his face glowed with angry embarrassment.

  'And is it not true that the French, seeking to make capital between Englishman and Indian, elected Tom Warner to the Governorship of Dominica, meaning thus to enlist him for all time on their side? Yet is he half-Warner, and half-English. And so he proved at Green Grove, that he has not finally turned his back on that glorious heritage.'

  'Yet would he revenge himself upon my body, and as he hoped, upon my mind,' Marguerite said.

  Kit turned to her. 'Indeed, my sweet. But there is the nub of the matter. The quarrel is entirely between Warner and Warner. Sad it is that it should involve so many innocent people.'

  'And would you leave it to my father to fight it out with my uncle?' she demanded angrily. And stand to one side, and congratulate the victor?'

  'That were no less a pre-Christian solution,' Kit said. 'But gentlemen, suppose Tom Warner and Philip Warner were to shake their hands together, and attest their names to a treaty of peace between Indian and Englishman, between Dominica and the Leewards? Suppose that could be done, gentlemen. What then of the future? For be sure that we will have fight-

  ing enough, against the French and the Dons, to satisfy the most bloodthirsty belly, without raising the redskins against us into the bargain.'

  'Balderdash,' Harding shouted. "What treaty could a savage understand?'

  'I speak of no savage,' Kit insisted. 'But of a man who can bend the savages to his will.'

  'Yet it is still specious talk,' Philip Warner said. 'There is much hatred between Tom and myself. Too much to be reconciled at the snap of a finger. I know not how I should go about it. Nor do I know how I could force my nature to speak friendship with a devil from hell.'

  'Then allow me, Colonel Warner,' Kit said. 'For as you once pointed out, I too am a devil from hell.'

  The assembly fell silent, afraid to agree with him, unable to argue that point.

  'And why should he listen to you, Captain Hilton?' Stapleton inquired.

  'Because, sir, as he told me but a few days gone, my grandmother, and her lover, Edward Warner, were the only white peo
ple ever to show him kindness.'

  'And you'd put your trust in that, buccaneer?' someone asked.

  'They'd have you stripped and tied to a stake before you could draw your sword,' Bale remarked.

  'The risk is mine, gentlemen. I will take it. I have a son and a daughter. I have no wish to see them on the ground at the feet of a red man. And be sure that that fate is one which may overtake the family of every man here if this feud is allowed to fester.'

  They stared at him. Stapleton was first to speak. 'If you have sufficient faith, in yourself and in this savage, to attempt such a solution to our problem, why then, we were men of little sense, and certainly of little Christianity, did we not consider the attempt worth our while. What say you, Colonel Warner?'

  Philip Warner hesitated, and then snorted. 'Let the captain pursue his aims, Sir William. But he'll go alone, by God. Bring my brother, and his fellow chieftains, down to the beach, Kit, unarmed and in a mood for talk, and by God, we shall meet them, unarmed, and in a mood for talk. But until they appear beside you, why, by God, my armament and my ships and I will stand in a posture of defence, and if need be, we shall avenge you together with all our other dead.'

  'Aye,' Edward Chester said. 'Spoken like a sensible man, Philip.'

  'Then it seems we have arrived at an equitable solution,' Stapleton said. 'We shall recruit our army, and send it across the sea, and pray that it shall not need its strength. Aye, there were a Christian intent.'

  'And do I have no say in this matter?' Marguerite demanded. 'As it is my body you partly seek to avenge, and my husband you are so carelessly sending to his death?'

  'At his request, Mrs Hilton,' Stapleton protested.

  'It is the best way, Marguerite,' Kit said. 'You know of what we spoke. I cannot give you back those terrible moments on the floor. I can but erase their memory with moments as beautiful as those were horrible, time and again. I can only give you happiness where you have known misery. But we are both young. We have a great time to live, God willing, and be happy. Can we really swear to do so with the Carib menace hanging above us like a cloud for the rest of our lives, and knowing too that it will similarly overhang the lives of our children?'

  Marguerite gazed at him, her lips parted as if she would have spoken again. Then her eyes flickered, across his right shoulder, and he knew she looked at her father. Still she hesitated, for several seconds. Then she muttered, 'So be it,' and turned, and left the chamber.

  The sun filled the sky with all the splendid power of a Caribbean noon. But the island remained dark. A green so intense it seemed almost black, clustering over rock and valley, headland and bay, appearing to grow out of the black sand beach itself, which did no more than form a narrow bridge between the forest mass and the deep blue of the sea. Susan had never seen Dominica, but she had spoken of it, often enough, and it must have appeared no different, Kit realized, to Tony Hilton and Edward Warner when they had come here more than half a century ago.

  'No peace in their hearts,' Philip said at his elbow, and he turned in surprise. The Deputy Governor had avoided him during the overnight sail from Antigua, even as he had studiously avoided being alone with him during the week of frenzied preparation just past. Now he smiled, grimly. 'Aye, I can read your thoughts, Kit. They can be little different to mine.'

  'You were not on that expedition.'

  'No. My father wanted one of his sons, at the least, to survive. But they accomplished their objective, which was to destroy the Carib power for a generation. And to regain Edward's wife, Aline. What the devil is that leadsman doing?'

  For indeed the dark mountains seemed to overhang the three ships.

  'Yet have I heard that deep water extends practically up to the beaches,' Kit said.

  'In places. I would not like us to go aground, just in case the savages do not respond to your peaceful notions, Kit.' Philip went to the rail. 'You'll wear ship and prepare to anchor, sir.'

  Bale looked up. 'We have not that much chain, Colonel Warner.'

  'The weather is settled, man. So long as the anchor but nudges the bottom to hold us from drifting, there will be no danger. We are not planning to abandon our vessels here. And break out the long-boat.' He came back to the stern. 'You'll not change your mind, Kit?'

  'That would scarce be either honourable or wise, sir,' Kit said. 'And in any event, it would certainly be unnecessary. I perceived in your brother a heritage he could not throw off no matter how hard he tried. And a wisdom which was all I had expected, of a Warner. An appeal to both of those things must have results.'

  'Then here is my hand.' Their fingers clasped. 'But mark me well. Stand once again on the beach by noon tomorrow, or I shall mount an assault in which quarter will be an unknown word.'

  'I shall be there. And you will guarantee the safety of whomsoever I bring with me? There are some right cut-throats in this fleet.'

  'Their safety will be my responsibility, Kit,' Philip said.

  'Then I am content. 'Til noon tomorrow.'

  He climbed down the ladder, sat in the stern of the boat as it pulled for the shore. Now they were in the shelter of the mountains the breeze had dropped, and the day was steaming hot. The sun seemed to hang over the stern of the longboat, and the men sweated as they pulled. But then, Kit realized, he also sweated. With fear? He did not think so. But memory kept crowding him, of that day off Hispaniola, when they had lain in the swell, and watched the Spanish coaster drifting. The commencement of a lifetime of violence, from which he only vainly attempted to escape. There was a specious statement. Could any man, or woman, own a plantation and turn his back on violence?

  The keel grated, and the sailors backed their oars. Two men jumped over the bows to hold the boat steady, and Kit made his way forward. Now there was cause for fear; the crowding trees were certainly within bowshot, and waiting beneath them were six of the great war canoes, upturned on the black volcanic sand. Yet not a leaf moved, and there was no sound above the gentle splash of the little surf.

  He jumped on to the beach, and the men immediately pushed the boat back into the swell before scrambling on board. 'God go with you, Captain Hilton,' the coxswain called.

  'I thank you, friend.' Kit gazed at the ships, nodding to their anchors a hundred yards away. The ports were opened and the guns run out, and they presented a splendid sight. His last, of European humanity? But now was scarce the time for backsliding. He turned, to face the trees, and instinctively dropped his left hand to rest on the hilt of his sword, only to have it fall uselessly at his side. For he had left his sword, as he had left his pistols, on board. Kit Hilton, alone and unarmed. And how alone he felt.

  Slowly he walked up the beach towards the trees, seeking some sort of path. And there it was, a distinct thinning in the forest, immediately behind the war canoes, a roadway of earth and leaves beaten flat by the tramplings of innumerable feet. But still the canoes lay there, untended. But not unwatched. He was sure of that, and turned again, sharply, hoping to catch the forest unawares.

  The green wall stared at him.

  He took off his hat, and the bandanna he wore underneath, and dried the sweat from his face and neck. Then he replaced both, and stepped beneath the trees, following the uneven path up a shallow hillside. After a few minutes he paused, and looked back, and saw nothing but trees and bushes. The forest had closed around him like a living creature. Perhaps the beach was not there, nor the sea, nor the ships. Certainly that was easy to believe.

  But in here it was no longer silent. He was surrounded by the rustle of flowing water, to suggest a stream nearby. And the air was cooler too, as the glare was diminished. Not even the Caribbean sun could fully penetrate these leafy rooftops.

  He climbed, and lost track of time as rapidly as he had lost track of his whereabouts. Often the path became too steep for walking, and he had to use his hands as well as his toes to pull himself upwards, while the sweat drained from his hair and shoulders and soaked his clothes. It was while climbing thus that he suddenly
faced naked feet, and reared back so violently he all but fell. His head jerked, and he stared at a savage standing above him, bow already bent and arrow fitted, scarce seeming to breathe, perhaps a statue, but for the venom in his eyes.

  Kit balanced himself as best he could, and raised both his arms high into the air. 'Don't shoot,' he shouted. 'I am unarmed. I come in peace. I seek your cacique. I seek the Governor.'

  'Why, Captain Hilton?' asked Indian Warner, and Kit dropped his hands to grasp the rock as he turned his head. Tom Warner stood behind and below him, with a dozen of his braves. And now he realized there were others on either side of him. They had been there, no doubt, since he had started his climb.

  'Why?' Tom Warner asked again. 'You come as the representative of a fleet of white men. Do you know what happened when last the white men landed in Dominica, Captain Hilton? They fought a battle, and won, by their superior arms, and then they burned and pillaged. They seized the wounded braves, and any women they could find, and they hanged them, Captain Hilton. Why should I not have my men strip the flesh from your bones, now?'