At ten that evening, once we had gotten everything stowed properly and settled into the uncomfortable routine of a ship pounding to windward, I called all hands aft to where Rork was steering. I wanted everyone to hear what Roche had to say, and therefore be as prepared as they could be for what we would confront in Haiti. With our newly found intelligence and the decision to head south to Haiti to exploit it, there was a perceptible rise in my companions’ spirits. At last, for fair or foul, we were doing something that might lead to our goal.
By the glow of the binnacle, the circle waited for Roche to finally shed his pretenses and tell us what he knew. When he did, it was beyond anything we’d imagined.
“I will be succinct. I have confidential information, the origin of which I cannot share, that there is a Russian émigré from Paris currently residing in the remote mountains of northern Haiti. It is a land of various warlords with an imperfect authority over their domains, which has allowed him carte blanche to engage in building an army of filibusters that will eventually embark on a mission to return to Europe, probably France.
“Once there, they will join certain revolutionary organizations across the continent and function as a military cadre, with the greater aspiration of fomenting chaos and disruption to bring down what they feel are antiquated political systems of oppression. The Russian’s name is Sergei Alexandrovich Sokolov. He has been in Haiti for about three years, assembling his mercenaries and equipment.”
He waited while a wave crashed into the bow and spray covered us. I asked the first of many questions that sprang to mind.
“Why are you interested in this man?”
“Because my work in France is to keep a check on these types of organizations. I was sent here to ascertain Sokolov’s capabilities.”
“Oh, so you work with the Deuxième Bureau, under its commander—I can never remember his name . . .”
“Colonel Sandherr. You know him?”
Correct answer. Colonel Jean Sandherr was the commander of French military counter-intelligence—the Deuxième Bureau. Roche still wasn’t telling us everything about himself and his colleagues, but now that I understood his profession I didn’t expect him to. Instead, I went on to my second question. “What does any of this have to do with the schooner Condor and Luke Saunders?”
He glanced at Cynda, then back to me, “We heard a rumor that Sokolov was running out of money, that he was going to turn to crime to finance his operation. We knew that Captain Kingston and the schooner Condor brought him smuggled weaponry over the past year, through the port at Cap Haitien and other smaller places on the coast nearby. So I speculated that Kingston might be used for seagoing robberies to build the Russian’s finances.”
“Piracy . . .” muttered Dan. Cynda’s eyes widened at that word. She moved beside me and her hand reached for mine.
Roche nodded. “Exactly. They would have to be against targets that carried cash or easily convertible things of value. And that meant private yachts.”
Straining at the wheel as a gust hit us, Rork said, “Yachts don’t go anywhere near Haiti. Too bloody dangerous.”
“But the Bahamas has ’em in spades,” offered Corny.
This wasn’t adding up for me. “We’ve not heard of any piracy, though. Yachts go to the Bahamas mainly in the winter, not in the late spring and summer. And why would Kingston take on a load of fancy passengers if he was going to go on a piracy plundering expedition?”
The moment I said it, I knew the answer to my own question. It was so damned obvious, now that I had the rest of the information. Roche registered my obvious enlightenment with a nod and continued.
“I had the same questions, Commander. Then, after I reached the Bahamas and began my inquiries, I realized that Kingston did not have to go about the islands searching the sea for victims—he already had them aboard his ship.”
“He kidnapped the passengers?” asked Dan. “Then why take them on a treasure hunting caper through the Bahamas?”
Cynda’s grip on my hand tightened. Roche shrugged. “I have not deduced that part yet. This is only my theory.”
It was a plausible theory, and I had an idea why Kingston had taken the victims on the treasure hunt. “No, Dan. They weren’t kidnapped yet. They were willing passengers. People have seen them ashore, remember? The businessmen could’ve gotten help at Andros, Nassau. Recall Vanderburg at Inagua. All the way to Mathew Town, he thought he was eventually going home and told people as much.
“No, Kingston took them southbound through the islands, ever closer toward his ultimate destination in Haiti, with the façade of a treasure hunting expedition, keeping them happy. It would make it easier for him.”
“But three left in Nassau,” said Corny.
“Yes, Kingston lost three of them at Nassau, but he still had Vanderburg. Then, once they had examined Christophe’s Lagoon, Vanderburg heard about the biggest treasure of them all, only another couple of days away, in Haiti. It was the perfect way for Kingston to get his victim all the way to Haiti with no trouble, no attempt at escape, no injuries. He just fed the fantasy of finding treasure. The victim sailed to his captor in Haiti of his own volition. Brilliant plan, really.”
“What about my boy . . .”
All eyes turned to Cynda. Tears streamed down her cheeks. My heart melted and I embraced her, supplying the best interpretation I could conjure for Luke’s safety.
“Darling, he’s just a cabin boy, a steward. Brought along to care for the passengers. Most likely ignorant of Kingston’s plan. Once they got to Haiti and continued the treasure hunt ashore, he may have been left at the port by his captain to fend for himself. We’ll likely find him sitting on the wharf at Cap Haitien, bored out of his wits and very happy to see his mother again.”
Cynda mumbled something in reply as Delilah thumped into another larger wave, knocking everyone off balance and drenching us thoroughly. Lurching from handhold to handhold along the cabin top, Claire came over and put an arm around Cynda’s waist.
“Come, ma chérie, we should go into the cabin and change into something dry. Women are so much smarter than men. Let these dismal brutes stay up here and have this wet weather.”
When they’d gone below, Dan asked Roche, “So there is a possibility that the passenger aboard Condor went ashore unknowing of his future capture?”
“Certainly. If my theory, and that of the commander’s, is correct, then the businessman would not discover he was a captive until deep within the interior of Haiti. Then the trap would be sprung and what could he do? But I must remind you, all of this is but an assumption, gentlemen. Until we get to Cap Haitien, we won’t know.”
“What are your plans, once we get there?” I asked him.
“Find Sokolov’s lair.”
“And what then?”
“Determine with my own eyes what he is doing, and how far along he is in accomplishing it.”
“Just the three of you?”
Roche gave a Gallic shrug. “Well, I was hoping you gentlemen would accompany me.”
“I don’t think so, Roche. We’re here to rescue young Luke. Not to get involved in some European operation against some crack-pot mercenary scheme in the middle of the Haitian jungle. That’s not our fight.”
My friends vocally agreed. Roche shook his head, holding up a hand in objection.
“Ah, but what happens if your Luke Saunders is one of the kidnappers or the mercenaries? What if he is one of the hostages? What will you do then, Commander?”
That took me aback. “I don’t know.”
The Frenchman wagged his head in sympathy. “We shall all see what to do when we find out what has happened. I am afraid that there are no certainties in this affair, Commander, except those that we make happen.”
A thought came to me. “Do the Brits, Inspector Randall and Major Teignholder, know about any of this?”
Roche raised an eyebrow. “My dear friends the British do not have any idea about Sokolov, or Kingston’s connection to Haiti. As for the good Inspector Randall, who incorrectly suspects me of some anti-colonial motives and was, I believe, about to try to thwart my passage, my trail just grew cold.”
“And what did Pamphile tell your man Billot about the treasure in Haiti?”
“That it was guarded by powerful African mysteries, ancient and understood only by the tribes in Haiti and Africa. And the old man said that we Frenchmen would find certain and agonizing death while seeking it. That is to be expected. You see, Commander, for very good reasons the Haitians distrust and dislike all whites, but they have reserved a very special hatred for the French. I do not blame them, of course. There were things that were done, unspeakable things, to the slaves that rebelled. One shudders to think upon it.”
I’d seen slavery myself and was aware of how deep the scars and lust for revenge could go. What we were about to experience I could not predict, but everything Roche told us sounded possible, even probable.
***
I had been to Haiti before and had no fondness for the place. Just after the war, in ’66, I’d patrolled the southern coast during one of their many internal wars. This was a time when the United States was considering leasing a Haitian port as a coal depot. To our credit, and my personal relief, we demurred from that negotiation. Four years later, I’d chased a renegade American pirate across the Caribbean, Rork finally killing him at Henne in the Bay of Gonave. In 1873, I’d visited Port au Prince by warship in a successful effort to deter depredations against American citizens there.
It is a bizarre culture, more Africa than New World, with startling dignity and compassion, and absolutely shocking brutality. The dark-hearted pagan character of its primitive religion, the infamous voudou, is augmented by the obscure mysteries surrounding its rituals, which few white-skinned outsiders have been allowed to observe. To say that Haiti is completely indecipherable to our American sensibilities is no exaggeration. To suppose that any of us can understand it is naive folly.
Sailors of the West Indies know that you can smell Haiti long before you see it. Its mountains rise to considerable heights close to the sea, and from them the charcoal smoke from thousands of cooking fires drifts far out over the ocean, obscuring the horizon in a sweet gray haze, making landfalls there dangerous. This odorous cloud is one more exotic effect of the place, enhancing foreigners’ curiosity about the legendary black republic. Some of the more romantic among the whites call this phenomenon the “The Shroud of Haiti,” though I’ve never heard a Haitian say that.
So it was when we approached from the north. This expanse, the water surrounded by the giant island of Hispaniola, the colony of the Bahamas Islands, and the colony of the Turks and Caicos Islands, is known by local seamen of the area as the “Sea of Haiti.” It was so named on our chart. The hard winds, unpredictable currents, and that incessant smoldering murkiness make it a uniquely dangerous place to navigate a ship, above all a sailing vessel, which is far more at the mercy of the natural elements.
My worry increased in proportion to our distance gained. We’d departed Great Inagua Saturday evening against a small southeast gale, sailed on a southward tack all day Sunday, then the next sunrise fought that wind and current to get easting. Now it was dusk on Monday evening and we were drawing near Haiti. The sun, burnt red in the dirty sky, had sunk, leaving us alone on the sea. The slate-gray ocean melded with the smoke-laden haze, eliminating the horizon altogether. The closer we got, the thicker the cloud and the lesser our visibility ahead.
Somewhere out there was Portugal Point, the eastern end of Tortuga Island, which parallels the coastline for twenty miles. The mountains of the island stand right at the edge of the deep-water shoreline. One could literally sail up and hit those rock walls in the dark with no warning from shallowing water, no sight of land ahead in the haze. To make matters worse, infinitely worse, the wind and current raced westbound along the Haitian mainland’s coast—right toward the dagger of Portugal Point. I had Delilah heading southeast, but knew we were sliding westerly to leeward at an unknown velocity.
Though I understood the south and central coasts, I had never visited Cap Haitien and the north coast. Neither had anyone else aboard, so the geographic knowledge of our destination was limited to a chart twenty-eight years old, covering the entire Gulf of Mexico, Florida, and upper West Indies, with no large scale details of the coast.
In my navigation, I tried to overcompensate for all of these factors and make a landfall to the east of Cap Haitien. I thought I’d taken Delilah far enough to the east on our offshore tack, in order to be able to go about and bear off, giving the schooner a good run south. Thus comfortably progressing under reduced sail and speed on broad reach, we could pick up the beacon flashing from the hundred-forty-foot-tall lighthouse at Pointe Picolet, the entrance to the channel into Cap Haitien. I had seen plenty of fog in my time as a young schooner man in New England and was sure the lighthouse’s flash could cut through the smoke as well.
Now I had my doubts, however, and because of the squared appearance of the waves around us reasoned the current was stronger than I initially estimated and we’d drifted too far west, near that vicious Portugal Point. Delilah was thus close-hauled with all plain canvas set in twenty knots of air, sailing fast as night fell brusquely, as if someone had rudely turned off an electric light. The stars refused to show themselves and the rising full moon, which would’ve been invaluable, had decided to be faint-hearted, a mere distant pale blemish in the dark.
Noting the period of time that had passed since our last tack, by thirty minutes past eight o’clock in the evening I was relieved that we’d missed the primary danger in my mind, Tortuga Island. There would be another ten miles before we’d come up on the Haitian mainland. Well over an hour to go.
The reason for this rather involved explanation of my navigational efforts will become readily apparent to the reader in the next paragraph. And so, because of the combination of the various aforementioned factors, and the attending result, at precisely eight forty-one p. m., on Monday, August twentieth, 1888, our heretofore good luck completely changed its character, in what I later determined was four seconds.
That was when Delilah smashed full speed into a cliff face—one hundred and forty feet below that lighthouse at Pointe Picolet.
23
Mother of the Twins
Pointe Picolet
Near Cap Haitien
North coast of Haiti
Monday, 20 August 1888
I will take the liberty to pause here and praise the men of the Albury family of Man O War Cay in the Abaco Islands of the northern Bahamas, who created Delilah in 1864. That I am alive to share this account is because of them. Delilah was the toughest ship I’ve ever seen, the epitome of the shipbuilders’ art.
She was completely destroyed, of course, by the rock bastions of Haiti, but not before she performed the impossible. A miracle if ever there was one.
***
Rork was at the helm. I stood beside him, scrutinizing the folded chart in my hands for the thousandth time, trying to perceive some new bit of wisdom that would help me figure our position. I remember checking my pocket watch for the time, to measure the period until our next tack.
There were two sets of eyes on lookout: Absalom at the foremast and Dan next to him, clinging to the port foreshrouds as our ship fought the seas. Corny was below in the gyrating galley, washing the dishes with Cynda after the evening meal. Billot and Claire were seated on the windward side of the cabin top, trying to displace their seaborne fears by shouting into each other’s ears above the wind about their favorite Paris theaters. As usual, Roche stood alone aft, hanging on to the mainsheet and staring off to windward.
Spray filled the dark air, rigging moaned, the hull rumbled, and the sails’ leaches rattled as we lurched, slid, and rolle
d our way through the seas. Looking back on it, I do seem to remember a brief inkling that the seas had changed direction and were choppier. Sitting here in the comfort of my bungalow at Patricio Island writing this narrative, I now know those waves were reverberating off the rocks. But at the time, I couldn’t complete that deduction, for that was the moment when it all happened. By the grace of God, no one was in the forward cabin when we hit.
My first realization was the crack of thick timbers breaking.
At the same instant, I and everyone around me were propelled forward through the air as the entire rig—masts, topmasts, gaffs, stays, shrouds, sails, sheets, halyards, blocks, crosstrees—flew apart and descended upon us. The schooner did not stop at first impact, but drove up and over a line of boulders in the water. She was still moving when the rock wall of a cliff stopped her with dead finality. Delilah shuddered for a fleeting moment as her bow crushed into the cliff, then she fell away onto her starboard side.
Under the pile of ripped canvas, tangled rigging, and splintered spars, I gradually came to my senses and saw I was wrapped around the twisted deadeyes of the starboard foreshrouds. A few feet away, Rork was similarly draped around the stump of the foremast. He wasn’t moving.
Delilah’s body convulsed violently as her transom was hit by more waves. Every few seconds the deck would jolt, then cant over even more. The extent of my vision within this mound of debris was perhaps six feet. Beyond that I could hear but not see. The sounds were horrifying in the dark.
The unremitting thunder of surf and shrieks of shredding wood overwhelmed my brain, making it useless to help me grasp the situation. In an attempt to disengage myself, I moved my left leg. Pain spread itself like fire throughout my body. I lay there, terror heaving my chest, and tried to assess what to do next. A larger wave staggered the hull, which crunched sickeningly for a second, then fell even farther over. That left leg, independent of my brain’s command now, fell off the gunwale and hung in space. My mind and senses went blank.
Honor Bound Page 18
