Caribee

by Christopher Nicole

  "Long odds,' Peter Doughty muttered.

  ‘I’ve taken longer,' Edward reminded him. 'And these are not even long, when you come down to it. We wear cuirasses and helmets, to which they will oppose nothing but soft flesh. And be sure our dogs will play their parts.'

  For the half-dozen mastiffs were already panting at the leash.

  'Now,' Edward decided. 'Well each have a glass of wine and a biscuit, to fortify us for whatever lies ahead. And Peter, you'll grant the dogs water, and some of that raw meat; we'll not have them starving, or they'll be too hard to hold.'

  'And prayer, Mr Warner,' someone said 'Should we not pray?’

  ‘We should,' Edward agreed. 'Did I know a prayer which would suit us all.' Did I know any prayer at all, he reflected, would be the more honest. ‘It would be best did we each ask God for guidance and strength in our own hearts.'

  The sun came higher, and from an immense swathe across the water the light spread and the heat grew. Birds sang in the trees and the surf rumbled on the beach below them. Dawn. Always dawn. Men should not die at dawn, he thought. Dusk was more fitting. Just as they should always die on the ebbing tide. But here too, the tide, such as it was in these latitudes, was making, the beach slowly being covered.

  A dark shape came round the headland, followed by another, and then another. A whisper of excitement drifted through the watchers, and Edward rose to his knees, 'Easy,' he said 'You'll make no noise, and fire no shot, until I say so.’

  The canoes approached the shore, paddling more slowly now. Each man on board would be kneeling, using both hands for his oar, his bow and his arrows and his spear lying in the bottom of the boat beside him. But now they were within hardly more than thirty feet of the shore, rising and falling in the beginning of the surf, in the very last water where they could float, and yet they made no effort to drive their craft up the beach.

  Edward frowned. Could there possibly be something about the village to betray the English alarm? But it lay quiet, bathed in the soft golden light of the dawn, utterly peaceful. Too peaceful? Perhaps they were alarmed at the absence of dogs. Perhaps he should have left one or two roaming the beach. The Indians were well aware that wherever the white man went, there too went his faithful companion.

  They don't mean to land,' Anderson said in amazement.

  ‘Well, then, well discourage them just the same. Come on lads.' Edward rose to his feet, parted the bushes and ran down the sand. The Indians certainly saw him. One pointed, and they began a loud jabber.

  'Set your pieces,' Edward shouted, and the men hastily placed their staves and lit their matches. The canoes were backing off now, but several arrows were discharged, to fall harmlessly into the surf.

  'All right,' Edward commanded, sword raised high. 'Give fire.'

  The cloud of black smoke accompanied the rumble of the exploding powder into the morning air, and the sea around the canoes became peppered with the falling ball; it did not appear as if anyone had been hit. In any event, the battle, if it could be so called, was over. While the dogs ran up and down the shallows barking, and the men hastily refilled their pans, the canoes turned and rowed for the open sea, with twice as much speed and energy as they had shown when approaching the shore.

  'Now there is the most remarkable thing I ever saw,' Anderson said. "You'd almost suppose they came to see rather than to carry out a raid.'

  ‘What say you, Mr Warner?' Doughty asked. 'You've a sight more experience of these people than any of us.'

  Edward stared at the canoes, already commencing to vanish around the headland. He was aware of no exhilaration, not even of that overwhelming feeling of relief which comes to a man who has prepared himself to kill, and perhaps even be killed, and discovers that such an end will not now be necessary. On the contrary, his belly had suddenly become filled with lead. Why, and from whence he did not know. The canoes had been sighted, four of them, and four of them had appeared. They had all been fully manned. But there was the point. They had been manned by the fiercest human beings on earth.

  But his name was Warner, and they had run from that name before. Except that, having run once, from a name, why come back? He was being less than reasonable. They had wished to try him out, his speed and decision and determination. And no doubt someone had recognized him when he had gone running down the beach. It was as simple as that. Something to be proud of.

  Except that he had only gone running down the beach when it had been apparent that they were not going to land.

  'Anderson,' he said. 'They are leaving, and that is certain. You can get your people back into their homes.'

  'And we'll cook you the best breakfast you ever tasted, Mr Warner.'

  'No,' Edward said. ‘I must take my men back to English Harbour.'

  Anderson frowned at him. 'Back to....' he glanced at the last of the canoes. 'Because of them? They cannot make the harbour before you, Mr Warner, not even if you dally here half the day.'

  ' 'Tis not those canoes I am afraid of, Bob. Collect your weapons, lads. We had best hurry.'

  His urgency, no less than a sudden almost telepathic communication of fear, gave them haste. Within minutes they were on their way back down the rough path which joined the two settlements, and three hours later they were at the south of the island. In all that time they had exchanged not a word, but neither had they slackened a step, two dozen men driven by an unspeakable fear. So, having gained the landlocked beach, they did not speak now, either. They stopped, and panted, and stared, at the huts with their swinging doors.

  Untended doors. No fire, because the Caribs had not wished to alert them too soon. No fire. But sufficient evidence of what had happened, even without the shattered wreckage of the sloop sticking up out of the shallow water.

  Ganner was first to speak. Or rather to cry, as he stumbled down the shore and knelt beside his wife. Her clothes were gathered in a bundle on her chest, and above them her throat was cut. Her face revealed every single thing that had happened to her in the seconds before she died.

  The other women were also scattered on the sand, with their children. The men were dead in a group, on the porch of the Governor's house. They had been killed by arrows, and in this were lucky. Lucky in that the Indians had come with a purpose, which they had intended to fulfill in haste. But there were only three dead men; Hal Leaming was missing.

  A purpose. Heart swelling, very veins seeming about to burst their contents to flood his system, Edward stepped past the dead men and into the house. But the house was empty.

  'Mr Warner. Mr Warner, sir.'

  How hot the sun. How God damned hot. How many times would he stand upon a destroyed village site, and look at the bodies of human beings who had sought to do nothing more than grow tobacco? Was any crop, any possession, any freedom, worth this much brutal filth?

  He followed the man, through the other stricken men, his own grief lurking, waiting to be released. On the beach by the water's edge there were strong wooden posts driven into the sand for the mooring of dinghies. On the sand between two of the posts lay Joachim Warner, his head a bloody pulp where it had been smashed against one of the posts.

  The devils,' Doughty said. 'Oh, they are devils from hell itself.'

  Doughty could utter thoughts like that. Doughty was not married, and Doughty had not been present at Blood River. 'Ed-ward?'

  He turned, the tears, released by the unexpected voice, rolling down his cheeks. Little Tom staggered down the beach towards him, top heavy and lurching, because in his arms he carried Joan Warner.

  Tom.' Edward bounded forward, seized his half-brother and his daughter together. 'By Christ, boy. Where is your mother? And Aline?’

  ‘Indians come,' Tom said. 'Three, four hours after you leave, Ed-ward. They come sudden, across the land. Our people fight, but no good. Mama run outside, and Aline pick up Joachim, she try for pick up Joan too, but then Indian come in house. He see only Aline and Joachim, so I lie on floor, on top of Joan, with rug over back, and he go agai
n.'

  'You saved her life.' Edward knelt before the boy. 'You'll never want, boy. This I swear, so long as I have my life. But you must tell me what happened with your mother and Aline.'

  ‘Indian take them, Ed-ward. Them and Joachim.'

  Edward got up. 'No,' he said. 'They did not want Joachim. They wanted only Yarico and Aline.' They had taken Leaming as well, but out of all this, they had wanted only Yarico and Aline.

  Wapisiane.

  12

  The Empire

  The grating of the bottom of the canoe on the sand seemed to seep upwards, through the wooden bark and through Aline's flesh into her belly. It was the first physical feeling of which she had been aware for several hours. How many hours? Even that was not a question she could answer. Memory came to a full stop with the swinging body of Joachim. He had been half asleep, and uttered not a sound. For that, she supposed, she should be grateful.

  She had screamed, and tried to run forward, and been held by fingers she would never forget. She could feel them yet, even if now they clutched their oars instead of her. They had gripped her, and bitten into her flesh, while she had been held close against their leader. And his eyes had eaten further into her body than even the fingers. She had been unable to think, had not wanted to think, had not wanted to listen, to the screams and the shrieks from all around her, had not wanted to inhale, because that would mean inhaling Indian, and inhaling blood, and inhaling fear, and inhaling lust. She had wanted only to bridge the few seconds, for surely it could only be a few seconds, between her present misery and her death.

  But she had not died, and had instead been thrown into the bottom of a canoe. When? Yesterday? There it was. Yesterday morning, because in the interim there had been darkness, just as there had been unending motion, up and down and occasionally from side to side, and sheets of spray which had come flying over the bows of the canoe to scatter across the oarsmen and their captive, to drench her hair and back, and leave her gown stiff with salt.

  She lay on her face, pillowed on her arms. Why her? Or had they taken other captives? The Caribs did not take captives, except . . . her stomach welled up into her throat. But she had already vomited all she could on the turbulent sea crossing. She could do no more than retch, as her brain seemed to coagulate with horror, and the fingers returned, to seize her arms and pull her to her knees.

  The canoe was tilted on its side, and she was rolled out on to the sand. She lay on her back and gasped for air, and stared at the savage, grinning faces above and around her. A day and a night, and it was again dawn. They must have come a considerable distance. But without even getting up, she knew where she was, where she had to be. The colonists of Antigua lived on a single legend, the horror island of Dominica.

  The man was back, the cacique. He was not tall, but his face seemed even harsher and grimmer than those of his companions, perhaps because there was more intelligence directing the bitter stare from the black eyes. He wore a necklace of human teeth, and his genitals were protected by a pouch secured round his waist. Apart from that he wore no clothes, and his only weapon was a spear. Now, without warning, he grinned at her and drove the spear downwards. She gasped, unable to move because of the terror which gripped her limbs. Her breath only slowly left her body as the sharpened wooden point bit into the sand next to her left shoulder.

  'War-nah woman,' the cacique said. He withdrew the spear and brought it down again, slowly, reversing it as he did so, to direct the blunt butt into her belly. It rested on her naval. 'War-nah woman, shout.'

  The butt pressed and she gasped again, and attempted to sit up, hands clasping the haft. But still it pressed, and she screamed as he wished, only a thin sound, but satisfactory. He grinned, and the paralysing pain was withdrawn. Aline rolled on her side, clutching her stomach, watched another canoe coming into the beach and more Indians get out, saw Yarico being dragged towards her. Yarico? She wanted to shout with joy. Yarico. She was not alone.

  The men holding Yarico gave her a push, and she landed on her hands and knees next to Aline. But she only glanced at the white girl, so apparently bemused was she to see the cacique. 'Wapisiane?' she whispered.

  The Indian grinned again, and spoke in his own language. Yarico listened, all the character seeming to drain from her face as she stared at him. There would be no strength here, to be used as a prop, Aline realized, and realized too, in that moment, just how much she, and every one else in Antigua, had relied on Yarico's strength.

  A third canoe had grounded, and from it was taken a third captive, Hal Leaming, who had been left in command of the settlement while Edward was away. He was bruised and battered, and also plainly terrified, stumbling across the sand towards them, but Aline hardly saw him. Edward. Edward would have returned to English Harbour by now. He would have found the bodies of his children, scattered on the beach, and with them the bodies of his colonists. Something he was used to. So, what would he do? Edward Warner, the pragmatist? He would turn to with patient resignation, and rebuild his colony. Only that way lay ultimate success. Would he spare a thought for his wife? A thought, certainly; she was sure of that. But nothing more. She was gone, and he must expect her to be dead, long before he could ever regain her, even if such a dream were remotely possible. But he had already spelled out his philosophy in that regard, on the beach when confronted with O'Reilly's Irishmen. She was but a single life, and must be set against the chance, no, the certainty, of losing many other lives. To chase behind her was not the act of a sensible man, of a colonial governor with responsibility for so many people, and above ah, that was not the act of a Warner.

  Wapisiane had moved away, and the fingers were back, dragging her to her feet, beside Yarico and Leaming.

  'Oh Christ,' Leaming muttered. 'Oh, Christ. Why, mistress Yarico? Why us?"

  'Bad,' Yarico agreed. 'For eat.'

  'Oh, Christ,' Leaming said. 'Oh, Christ. I could not stand it. I could not. ...'

  A push between the shoulder blades with the blunt end of a Spear sent him staggering forward. Yarico followed, and Aline came last. She raised her head and looked around her. Alone. She would die alone. There would be no companionship to be found from either Leaming or Yarico. They counted themselves already dead, and no doubt were wise to do so. But she ... to contemplate what might be happening to her within the hour would be to go mad. She must live for the moment, for every second as it passed. She must believe in her own survival, up to the moment the knife sliced through her buttock. For that was how it began. How often had they terrified themselves like silly children around their safe campfires with tales of Carib custom and cruelty.

  She gazed at the mountains and the forest, in a profusion she would not have supposed possible. The sun was now starting to top the peaks themselves, and stream across the empty sea behind them. The mountains rose hi front of her mid on either side of her, for although they had left the beach only minutes ago they were already climbing. And these peaks would clearly dwarf even Mount Misery. Yet they were green. And damp in a way St Kitts and Antigua had never been damp. There was water everywhere, gathering on leaf and rushing down in a series of rivulets towards the sea. Here was a unique land, In the context of these islands. A land where white men dared not come, where the Indian held sway.

  They climbed, up and then down. The water did little to alleviate the heat, and they steamed; perspiration gathered on their foreheads and trickled out from their hair, rolled down their legs to meet the water which had already accumulated on their calves and ankles. Her gown and her petticoat—she thanked God she wore only a single undergarment, like most of the colonists' women—had become a soaked mass, clinging to her flesh. But she could also thank God for the hardening process she had undergone in the forest of St Kitts during the Spanish campaign, for here was a country of a hardness and unevenness she had never experienced. There seemed no end. Whenever they topped a rise there was another peak rising in front of them, and between it and them there was always a deep, stony valley into w
hich they must descend, slipping and sliding, urged onwards by their cat-footed captors.

  Until, without warning, after they had walked perhaps five miles, their breaths were swept away in an appalling stench which rose from out of the earth before them. They were descending from another hilltop, crawling over fallen tree trunks and pushing damp branches and leaves from their faces, but now they checked, to look down at the valley beneath them, where the trees and the bushes ended to leave nothing but a wide, long swathe of bare rock and stunted scrub, punctuated by steaming pools of water and even a rushing stream, also sending vapour into the air, while on the far side of the valley a much greater mass of steam could be seen exploding into the morning.

  'By Christ,' Leaming muttered, his terror momentarily forgotten. ' 'Tis sulphur. We are on the lip of a volcano.'

  'Valley of dead,' Yarico said.

  A spear butt thudded between Aline's shoulder blades and she stumbled forward. They descended the hillside and into the desolated valley, marching between the streams, careful to avoid the boiling water. The heat was intense, unlike anything she had ever experienced before, and she could almost feel her flesh beginning to blister, while breathing was ever more difficult. But the valley was, after all, no more than a half a mile long, and soon enough they emerged into the thick forest on the far side, and within minutes after this, reached the clearing of the Carib village.

  And here, whatever terrors, whatever discomforts, they might have experienced earlier, were very rapidly forgotten in the horror of their present. The tribe had anticipated their coming, and now surged around them with shouts and peals of wild laughter, tearing at their clothes, prodding and pinching at their bodies, stroking their faces and pulling their hair. A woman brought a gourd of water, and Aline reached for it with relief, but this was not the Carib way. Her arms and shoulders were seized and she was forced to her knees, while her hair was pulled to drag her head backwards, and the water was emptied on to her face, to the accompaniment of more peals of wild laughter. It clogged her eyes and nostrils, and only a little got down her parched throat. She shook her head to clear her breathing, and gazed at Hal Leaming, Stripped naked, and secured to a stake not fifty feet from where she knelt, the rope pressed round his wrists and neck as she had so often heard described, his body held upright, his feet free and able to move, and they did as he twisted to and fro, and she watched his mouth opening and closing, but it was impossible to hear what he was saying because of the din around her. She closed her eyes, and kept them closed, and heard a scream and then another, and forced her lids ever tighter together, and breathed, and gasped, and was then jerked to her feet again by hands on her shoulders, with such force that her eyes flopped open.