The expected happened at sunset, an event shrouded in cloud. The wind had diminished and veered southerly again. Among us, Absalom made the only human sounds as his head rested on the gunwale, lolling back and forth with the motion of the swells. Though his eyes were closed, his lips mumbled in prayer. Everyone else was dozing as best they could while floating within our wicker tub. I was on watch and silently going over plans for what to do when that tub disintegrated completely. All of us would swim ten or fifteen miles to the west, toward Andros Island, which I thought to be the closest point of land.
Suddenly, our piously stalwart Bahamian stopped his mumbled verse and croaked out something unintelligible, his parched throat preventing speech. Concerned about his sanity, I hoarsely whispered for him to calm down. But Absalom’s agitation grew. He pointed east and there I saw it. A charcoal line against the lead gray sky.
Finally, he got it out. “Green Cay.”
Amazing. The Tongue of the Ocean had delivered us to the infamous lair of the legendary Lieutenant John Newland Maffitt, Confederate States Navy, where he had fitted out the ocean raider C.S.S. Florida with guns and men in August of 1862. Rork and I knew the island well, having been there several times during the war to search for other Rebel raiders. A tiny coral outcropping of the Exuma Banks, it was on the east side of the Tongue of the Ocean, twenty miles from Andros Island.
Two hours later, we collapsed on the beach, gasping out a prayer of thanks to God.
I realize that some people, sitting in the comfort of their homes in this scientific age of modern late nineteenth-century America and perusing my words by Edison’s electricity-generated light, may think the various fortuitous junctions encountered during this odyssey were mere random strokes of luck—luck that is sometimes to be expected within a system of logical outcomes. They may think me a bit too sentimental, perhaps overcome by the physical and emotional deprivations of the journey within, and out of, Haiti.
I know better, however. I was there. It was no stroke of luck. There was a greater hand than any of ours at work.
39
Necessary Prevarications
Green Cay
Central Bahamas
Friday, 7 September 1888
Green Cay is uninhabited, so we were on our own. The abandoned salt pan had a hut that furnished us with some shelter but little else. However, there was a bright side to the location. Absalom explained that the monthly mail boat sails past the islet on her course from the Exuma islands to Congo Town on Andros, and thence to Nassau. He also found us succulent cacti to alleviate our thirst somewhat.
Providence shone down on us again the next morning after our landfall, when our Bahamian Seminole native son spied the government sloop on the southeastern horizon, bound for the western end of Green Cay, upon which we stood. Directly, all hands got to work constructing a signal fire out of buttonwood, which sends up prodigious amounts of smoke.
As Absalom and Corny attended to the job of igniting the thing, the whole while debating whether the Bahamian way or the Navajo method was faster, Kovinski called us together, saying he had something he wanted to tell us. We gathered around the roaring fire—Absalom had won the argument—and listened as the Russian embarked upon an extraordinary speech. He began softly, the suave European gentleman, albeit dressed in rags, preparing his audience.
“After all that we have seen and endured together, I think I am justified in considering each of you a dear friend. Therefore, I will be quick in my remarks.”
A pause ensued, followed by Kovinski awarding us an affable smile of seemingly genuine warmth, the first I’d seen from him. Then he turned his attention to the fairest of us, whose grimy tattered appearance was the opposite of when I first saw her at that church in St. Augustine. My mind flooded with emotion. Had it really only been nine weeks earlier? Had we really had a romantic affair during that time? Had I actually fallen in love? Or was it pity? Or perhaps gratitude?
Kovinski’s continued speech ended my daydreaming.
“Cynda, my dear lady, I cannot possibly know the depth of your grief, but I hope you know of our sincerest sympathy for your inestimable loss. Your son was a victim of evil, an evil that is insidiously spreading throughout Europe and America. Anarchists, revolutionaries, criminal gangs, terror-mongers, freedom fighters, whatever you call them, they have the same goal—the destruction of all that civilized Christian people hold dear. Sokolov was the personification of that evil. His war machine was the culmination of their work. Thankfully, we stopped him and saved countless innocent lives, both here in the Bahamas and in Europe.”
His tone grew husky, emotional, as he fixed Cynda in his gaze.
“Your son, Sergeant Yablonowski, Sergeant Aubrac, Claire Fournier, Henri Billot, and Dan Horloft died so that evil could not spread. Many others have been wounded, including Colonel Woodgerd here, not to mention Commander Wake’s own confrontation with death. Your friends pledged their lives to help you rescue your son. That is over now, and we will all go home. But do not doubt that the menace is still out there. Other Sokolovs still lurk—waiting, watching, learning of our weaknesses, as they continue building their own maniacal strengths. And that is the point of my discourse.”
The Russian held up both hands.
“You all know by now that I am an officer in the service of my crown, a service that is devoted to protecting my motherland’s civilization and that of modern Christian countries everywhere. I feel it my duty to warn everyone here that we all possess something the evildoers of the world need and will do anything to obtain—the knowledge of how to create an aerial death machine. The knowledge of what Sokolov designed and built.”
Woodgerd harrumphed and asked, “What’s your point, Major Kovinski?”
“Colonel, it is simple: that we must say nothing to anyone about what we know of Sokolov’s aerial machine. Even to those we love and trust the most, for any disclosure will eventually lead the information to the press. And we all know how that would end. The press would do Sokolov’s work for him, multiplying panic among the public and immensely improving the education of Sokolov’s anarchist cohorts in the malevolent art of terror-making. Each of us has a responsibility not to innocently accomplish what Sokolov wanted to happen.”
“So we stay mum about Sokolov and the airship?” asked Corny.
“Yes, silent about it all. About the machine, how young Luke died, how our friends died, how we came to be here on this island—about everything that has to do with Sokolov. Am I correct, Commander?”
Eyes shifted to me. I took a breath, looking at Cynda.
“Yes. Major Kovinski is right. We can’t allow this scientific knowledge out. It will be used by the Fenians against the British crown, by the Narodnaya Volya against the tsar, by the anarchists in my country against our government. Major Kovinski and I will submit confidential reports to our superiors, but beyond that no one should know.”
I cleared my throat nervously, hoping that Kovinski’s and my conversation sounded unrehearsed. “I think an appropriate explanation would be that our schooner Delilah wrecked on the Haitian coast, that Dan and the others died of disease in Haiti, and that we sailed back to the Bahamas in a native boat that went down, stranding us here. I don’t like conjuring up a tale one bit, but I fully agree that the consequences of letting the press get hold of what we know is far worse than the lie we must perpetuate. It is a necessary prevarication.”
“Aye, ’tis that,” said Rork, who’d not been in the planning of this dialogue, but was loyal to the idea. “Some o’ those Fenians are Irish in name only. Their work is death o’ innocents, an’ I’ll not help ’em one wee bit.”
I wanted to hear their answers. “So? Do each of you agree?”
Absalom sadly nodded his head. “I don’t even want to talk about what I’ve seen and had to do.”
Corny sighed. “I see your point, Peter . . . and agree. Will you
tell Dan’s family?”
I’d been worried about Corny’s natural proclivity to liberalism and cocktail gossip. His acquiescence was a worry removed. He would keep his word. “Yes. He had no wife or children, but there was a brother, I think. I’ll tell him.”
I looked at Woodgerd, who nodded. “Yes, I agree.” He certainly didn’t need his connection with Sokolov to be made public.
Kovinski knelt before our lady and took her hands in his. “Madam, what are your thoughts on this?”
I watched her eyes fill and wondered if they would ever know joy again. Her voice was barely audible. “My thoughts? I want to remember Luke as he used to be, before this nightmare began. I don’t want to think of him with that wicked man. And I don’t want my darling husband’s legacy associated with it, either. Don’t worry, Major. I’ll keep quiet.”
And so it was that when the mail sloop anchored off the beach and the skipper came ashore, he heard a fable that has been told to this day.
40
An Occupational Necessity
Nassau
The Bahamas
Saturday, 8 September 1888
The mail boat captain kindly altered his schedule and sailed directly for Nassau, landing us at the Vendue wharf that Saturday morning. Our first two hours were taken up by colonial officialdom recording the account, the local Anglican church members providing us with clothing and medical attention, and the Methodists giving us our first decent meal in weeks.
A rather officious doctor with one of those English hyphenated names looked in on Cynda, about whom my concern had grown markedly. Thin, sallow, and weakened by voiding, she looked dreadful, and my worry was a recurrence of malaria or yellow fever, aggravated by the conditions of our travel and the stress of her son’s loss. The doctor refused my inquiries after his examination, saying dismissively that it was none of my business, but that I should take better care in the future to have the lady treated as a white woman should be in the tropics. Cynda told me later that my diagnosis was correct, and that bed rest, good food, and decent water would improve her condition.
Robert Mason, my man in Nassau, showed up as Rork and I were enjoying a repast of fried fish and yams in a café near the Victoria Hotel. He had been visiting the other side of the island that morning, but word of our arrival, it seemed, traveled fast on New Providence.
“I’ve been given three brief messages to present to you, Peter,” Mason informed me. “The first came from Leo in Havana in late August: Paloma has disappeared, so has your man Casas.” Leo was our secondary contact in Havana.
“That’s it? Is it disappeared, as in arrested by the Spanish authorities? Or disappeared and somewhere in Cuba? Or disappeared by fleeing from Cuba?”
“Just those words and no more. That was the last communication I had—there’s been nothing more from Leo. I passed it along to ONI by telegraph, with the addendum that you were incommunicado on leave, heading to the southern Bahamas on a private yachting trip.”
“Yes, and now Rork and I are a week late getting back to duty at naval headquarters. I’ll have the Devil to pay for that. What else’ve you got?”
“Well, a few days after I passed along the Cuban message, I got the second message for you. It came in from Commodore Walker in Washington: Find Wake and Rork and advise them to return to headquarters immediately. That was it, nothing more. Of course, I couldn’t find you.”
“I’ll deal with it, Robert. Not your fault.”
“Major Teignholder’s orderly gave me the third message for you this morning. It came in the form of a command, not a request: meet him on his verandah at five. By the way, Teignholder’s been asking questions about me lately.”
“Really?”
“Rather odd inquiries about any connection I may have with the Irish revolutionaries. And Russians.”
“He’s worried about you and Fenian terrorists? That doesn’t add up. Oh, wait. Ah, yep, I’ve got it—the Russians and the Brits have been on the brink of war several times lately over Afghanistan. They’re worried that if that happens, the Russians will support the Fenians in their terror bombing campaign in London. They’ve exploded several there in the past few years. Stupid tactic. It only makes the British people turn against them.”
Mason nodded. “Yes, I think you’ve got it, Peter. The major knows Rork here is Irish-American. And then there was the Frenchman, Roche, asking about Russians in the Bahamas. In his mind, he sees the connection.”
Rork piped up at that point. “Now gents, not all the Clan-na-Gael Fenians’re bad men. But let me tell ye, all true Irish sons despise that un-Christian dynamitin’ fringe, blowin’ up civilians with bombs in London an’ callin’ themselves Fenians. Those bloody bastards’re just like any terrorists anywheres. They’re a cowardly bunch o’ murderers, they are.”
Mason nodded his understanding, unaware of just how close the connections would appear to the British. Mason didn’t know, and I didn’t tell him, that Roche was actually Kovinski, a Russian Okhrana agent. But in the back of my mind I did begin to worry that maybe Major Teignholder’s supposition about the Russians and Fenians might have some validity. The Fenians did have support among the Irish in America; the Russians had agents there. Yes, they could unite and act against the British. It was something for ONI to look at and for me to keep in mind when meeting Teignholder later.
I had one last question for Mason. “Any word of an attack on a cable-laying steamer in northern Haiti? Perhaps captured by bandits, then taken away?”
“No. I just talked to a schooner captain who sailed from Cap Haitien and he never mentioned any such attack. But he did say they have new telegraph connections now through an oceanic cable that was just laid.”
“Any word on a revolution there?”
“It’s in the air, but nothing’s happened yet.”
So Sokolov’s partners hadn’t done their part—Captain Kingston had taken the mad Russian’s money and sailed away on Condor. Wise move. And Hyppolite hadn’t marched on Port au Prince. Time would tell on that score.
I looked at my pocket watch, which in spite of the punishment of the previous three months continued to function. Then I gave Mason his last directive.
“Please send a cable to Commodore Walker through the usual cipher and cover address. Tell him Rork and I are on our way back, via Key West.”
“Can’t do it now, Peter. The telegraph cable office just closed and won’t open till nine on Monday morning.” He cast a sly look at me. “You’ll be gone by that point—incommunicado once more. Gee, what a shame.”
“Precisely, Robert. I’m not in the mood for Walker’s wrath just yet.”
***
I concentrated my next efforts on finding passage for my people. I wanted everyone out of Nassau and away from the inquisitive British authorities as soon as possible. Mason, good man that he is, arranged it, including some pecuniary assistance from our operational bank account, normally unobtainable on a Saturday afternoon. It does, literally, pay to have friends in important places.
Absalom Bowlegs was the first to leave—as a crewman aboard an island schooner headed for Morgan’s Bluff at Andros. They left with the tide in the early afternoon.
The farewell was tearful. Absalom had become somewhat of a son to all of us. As usual at such times, promises were given to correspond, to visit when in the area, to continue the bond which had formed. Rork gave him an Irish blessing. Cynda became a sobbing mess. Even Kovinski showed emotion, demanding the Absalom visit him in Paris, where he would be shown “the hospitality that only a Russian host can give a mighty Bahamian Seminole warrior!” He then pounded Absalom on the back and pronounced him “a comrade-in-arms, forever!”
By chance, a Ward Line steamer was in from Charleston, bound ultimately for Havana the following morning, via Key West. It was a perfect opportunity for the rest of us to escape. Kovinski could take it to Havana and ge
t a steamer directly to France from there. We Americans could get off in Key West and make our way north. Everyone went aboard that afternoon, comfortably laid out in the first real beds we’d seen since the hotel at Cap Haitien.
At five o’clock, with one more duty in Nassau before I could be on my way to Key West, my weary body trudged up that slope toward the Government House, turned right at Hill Street, and entered Graycliff House. Just as the daily rain began to fall, I met the Brit soldier on his verandah outside the Woodes Rogers room. He had Randall with him, a déjà vu scene, though in daylight this time. Both smiled benevolently, putting me even more on guard.
“Commander Wake, how kind of you to come, especially after the ordeal you’ve been through. Please have a seat, and some decent Jamaica rum I brought back from regimental headquarters in Kingston. A little different from the Barbados Mount Gay you had the last time here, but I think you’ll enjoy it. Many say that Jamaican cane is sweeter.”
Major Teignholder gestured to a bottle on the table. It was a special reserve of Appleton’s Estate rum. He poured me a glass, which I gratefully took—it’d been awhile and it hit me fast. I resolved to be careful lest its effects loosen my judgment.
Randall, who had nodded a hello, now spoke to me with a grudging edge in his words. “You managed to evade me at Great Inagua, Commander. Congratulations. That was deftly done.”
He tossed down a drink and poured another. “You know, I ended up having to remain there a fortnight and actually play the role of visiting vicar—admittedly, not one of my best. They even had me deliver a guest sermon at the church, which turned out badly, I’m afraid, when one of the parishioners asked me a question about Nahum of Elkoshite. Evidently he’s some sort of fellow in the Bible, but I still don’t know what his fame is.”
Neither did I. But I knew Randall’s true occupation. “Well, Captain Randall—our friend Roche, the man you were following, told me you’re not a police inspector, but are actually an officer in military intelligence—I thought we were done with each other at Great Inagua, so I left.”
Honor Bound Page 31
