Element of chance, p.21
Element of Chance, page 21
‘Ahoy there, Endymion.’
The whole crew looked round to see Midshipman Callander standing in the bows of the launch. He too had a complement of marines in the boat.
‘We’ve just had a signal to make up our wood and water and prepare for sea.’ His eyes seemed to be fixed on Pender as the boat drew closer. The sailor shook his head almost imperceptibly and indicated the silent marines.
‘Tie up alongside, men,’ he called, as the launch drifted slowly into the side of the captain’s barge. It was only then, as the boat spun sideways, that Pender saw the glowering, purple face of Dunlop astride the rearmost thwarts. He called loudly to the midshipman, too loudly, since the boy wasn’t far away.
‘Mr Callander, you are over prolix. It’s no concern of the lower deck what we are about. You will instruct the men to wait here while you and I go to the master attendant.’
‘Aye, aye, sir,’ said Callander. He leapt nimbly across the boats and jumped up on to the quayside. Dunlop followed at a more sedate pace, glowering at the barge crew. Once he was on the quay he spoke softly, and impatiently, to Callander.
‘I shall partake of a little relaxation while I’m ashore. See that building yonder, with the Boar’s Head sign? I’ll be in there. You take this list to the master attendant, ask him to be zealous, and come straight back to the quay. If you catch sight of the captain approaching, fetch me out of there double quick.’
‘What if the captain returns before I do, sir?’
Judging by the crowd of women outside the Boar’s Head, his premier’s pleasure was not to be confined to a mere drink. And Dunlop, desperate to be off and, after months at sea, to pleasure himself on a whore, was practically hopping from foot to foot in his eagerness.
‘Perhaps I could detail one of the men to keep a lookout.’
The premier was walking away as he replied, ‘Yes, yes. Someone reliable, mind. They are not to set foot off the quayside. If anyone runs Toner will have both our hides.’
Callander looked down into the barge, full of sweating crew. ‘Pender. Up here, at the double. And I think it best if the rest of you find some shade, otherwise you won’t be fit to row the captain back to the ship.’
Pender jumped up on to the quay to stand beside Callander. They watched as the barge fended off, followed by the launch, gliding in the shade cast by the huge bulk of the Redoubtable. Immediately dozens of heads poked out through the gunports, to start a conversation with these new arrivals, people who had news from home.
The young midshipman stood close and explained the task, and the constraints, to Pender. Then with a worried look, he added a warning. ‘You mustn’t run, Pender, you understand that, don’t you?’
‘I can’t, Mr Callander, can I? There’s forty of my shipmates still aboard the ship. When I leave, they all leave. But I have still got to get word to my captain, which I cannot do stuck here on the quay.’
‘You said you put something in writing?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then give it to me.’
‘You’ve already got it, Mr Callander. It’s in your coat, the inside pocket on the left, with what I hope is enough money to send the letter to England. The other packet is for the admiral here in Antigua.’
Callander’s hand went to check, and his eyes showed the surprise that he clearly felt when his hand touched the two folded packets. ‘Where did you learn that trick?’
Pender just smiled at him, not willing to reveal that he’d been a thief in the past, and a good one. ‘You’d best be on your way, sir, or we might run out of time.’ He watched him leave, then saw him stop and talk to the black street vendor plying his trade outside the tavern. He was grateful when the negro came towards him, with a scooped-out coconut full of cool lemonade. He reached into his pouch to pay, but the vendor just grinned.
‘Officer, he pay already.’
‘God bless him,’ said Pender. ‘I hope he lives long enough to be an admiral.’
Dillon caught Bessborough just as he was about to leave for dinner with the governor, who resided to the north of the island, in the capital, St John’s. His carriage, with his wife and two daughters already aboard and Cram scowling on the box beside the driver, stood by the front door.
‘Well?’ he enquired testily. ‘Our newcomer must be a happy man.’
‘I have little faith in the venture, sir,’ said Dillon. ‘Though I hope, profoundly, that I’m wrong. I see no reason why Toner should do any better than the other captains.’
‘He’s commendably eager,’ replied Bessborough, with a foxy air.
‘Can I speak freely, Admiral?’
‘Do you not always, Dillon?’
The Irishman gave him a thin smile and rubbed a hand across his thinning ginger hair. ‘Toner is eager for wealth, or glory, or both.’
‘That is no bad thing.’
‘I feel you should impress on him, sir, that there are limits beyond which he cannot go.’
Bessborough frowned. ‘I should think he’s aware of that.’
‘I fear he will test those limits.’
‘Let him, Dillon. I am sick of sitting here with nothing coming in.’ He must have realised the dual nature of that remark and spoke hastily to lay the suggestion of pecuniary interest. ‘What do you think they will say at the Admiralty to my despatches? They won’t thank me for failing to stop the traffic in illicit goods, nor will they think to blame my officers. No, Dillon. Call it speculation or rumour if you like, this Hugues is having some success. I, for one, have not sought to exaggerate it. But even with what is certain they will lay the responsibility squarely at my door. So, if Toner bends the rules a trifle, it can only be to my advantage. He has been sent to this station by their lordships, so I owe him nothing. If he’s in the wrong I can disown him. If, on the other hand, his actions are upheld, then it will look as though I have ordered it so. My stock will rise accordingly.’
‘There is a third possibility, Admiral. And it is this: in his desire to prove himself, Toner will so exceed the bounds of his authority that he will bring a heap of ordure about all our heads.’
Bessborough was already halfway into the carriage when he replied, ‘No, no, Dillon. You will have warned him against that, I’m sure.’
Which, translated, meant that Bessborough didn’t care if Toner got into trouble. The Scotsman, and if necessary Dillon, would bear the brunt of any opprobrium that followed in the wake of Toner’s actions. If the admiral, as he seated himself, noticed that his assistant was displeased, it didn’t show. He had a grin on his face like a Cheshire cat.
‘Just think, Dillon. If Toner surprises us and has some luck – imagine the looks we’ll get from the likes of Poynton and Vandegut.’
‘Come along, husband,’ cried Lady Bessborough, her substantial chest swelling under the shade of her parasol, ‘or we shall be late.’
Later that day Dillon was on the same road, making what had become a familiar journey, and a welcome break from the stuffy, inward-looking atmosphere of Admiralty House. He flicked the whip to encourage his pony up the steep rise that carried him out of English Harbour and on reaching the summit turned to look over his shoulder. Behind him the whole anchorage, said by some to be the best in the Caribbean, formed a vast panorama. The green landscape ran into the sliver of golden sand that ringed the island, which fizzed with the stark white of the surf as it beat against the shore. The different hues of the water, pale in the shallows above the coral reefs, deep blue over the trenches that went down a thousand feet, showed clearly the changes that had taken place in this, the tip of an extinct volcano.
The sun shone as always, that golden orb that so delighted the new arrival in the West Indies. But few from northern Europe went long in this climate without becoming bored by endless sunshine, missing the variations of weather that they’d been raised with. True, the sky, now its normal blue, flecked with towering clouds, could change very suddenly. He could see a storm now, a huge black mass on the western horizon, rain so heavy that it blotted out every sensation but its own presence. Usually it would pass over in minutes, leaving the ground steaming, and the men who occupied the earth pulling at their clothes to relieve the discomfort caused by the humidity.
But like everything about the Caribbean, there was an obverse side to paradise. Every regiment posted out from England lost more men to disease than to enemy fire. Even those long resident could succumb to the ‘yellow jack,’ so termed because of the colour such an ailment tinged the victim’s skin. In the hurricane season, the wind could reach phenomenal strengths, a power potent enough to beach the largest sailing ship, or to lift a palm tree out of the ground and send it, like some great primordial spear, hurtling through a solid brick wall.
Right now it was calm, with the Endymion already moored in the far reaches of the outer bay, her topsails catching the last sunlight and turning a pale shade of orange. Toner must have declined to revictual in his eagerness to be off. Moored so far out, he would not be at the mercy of the tide if Dillon returned with confirmation of his orders. The rigging was full of men and below them, on the quarterdeck, stood a knot of officers, their dark blue coats standing out against the bleached planking. Toner was amongst them, scowling in his habitual manner at his officers and crew.
The interview with Toner had left an unpleasant taste. The Scotsman was one of those men who considered all other humans to be an inferior breed, set upon the earth to meet the demands of serving naval officers. He despised soldiers and civilians alike, and had given Dillon the impression that his regard for his fellow captains was extremely limited. Time and again he demonstrated all the arrogance and hypocrisy of his type, men that the likes of Dillon would have despised, if they could have summoned up the energy. Unbeknown to the captain of Endymion the Irishman had realised that his performance was false; had seen that underneath he lacked, to a marked degree, the confident manner he was so intent on creating. Toner, in anticipating condescension, had armoured himself to head it off, creating a shell of apparent selfassurance to defend his weaknesses. The matter of his coat revealed more than he knew; it wasn’t that he didn’t want to take off the heavy broadcloth garment to relieve his discomfort. He was afraid to do such a thing, since he might be seen as something less than the perfect officer.
Dillon, who’d been ruminating on that interview, suddenly shouted, even though he must have known there was no chance of Toner hearing him. ‘It will kill you, Toner, if you don’t learn, which will be no loss!’
The sudden noise startled his pony, forcing him to pull hard on the traces to keep it from wandering off the track. But he got it under control, and set off with the trap jogging along at a fine pace. Dillon began to sing to himself, his gentle voice caressing the Gaelic words of an old Irish ballad. The two flagons of rum in the bottom of the trap clinked together, providing a rhythmic accompaniment to his singing. To the west the black storm cloud had moved on to the north, leaving the sun to set into the mass of conflicting colours that made up the horizon.
Bessborough paced back and forth at the bottom of the staircase, fuming at the way his wife and daughters kept everyone waiting for their dinner. The fact that the governor, a civilian with the lax attitude of the islands, forgave this lapse of manners made no difference. The admiral was, like all naval officers, a punctilious time-keeper. Besides that, he was used to taking his dinner at three. It was now past five and he was sharp set and rumbling to prove it. Finally his wife appeared at the top of the stairs, dressed in white and looking, with her ample figure, like a 100-gunner under full sail. Bessborough was known to wonder in the company of close friends if his daughters, thin creatures with rather pinched faces, would end up looking like their mother. Being girls, they were almost strangers to him. For all his bonhomie, appearance, and manifold social graces, he was prone to admit he found his own girls hard to talk with. To his wife’s mind, that applied to her as well.
‘I will not have you frowning at me like that, sir,’ she boomed, well before her feet reached the parquet flooring. ‘If we are delayed, you are the culprit.’
‘Damn me, madam, that is not so.’
‘I would urge you to modify your language, husband,’ Lady Bessborough replied in a loud whisper, ‘if for no other reason than your daughters, innocent creatures, can hear you.’
‘Then don’t presume to land your lack of time-keeping at my door, madam.’
‘It is either firmly at yours or of that toady Dillon, sir.’
‘Lady Bessborough,’ cried the governor, advancing to meet her. ‘If I’d known what wonders you could have achieved by such a short delay, I would bid you return to your toilet. Why, madam, you are the very picture of elegance.’
Lady Bessborough accepted this flowery compliment as nothing less than her due and, taking the governor’s arm, swept into the dining-room.
‘Damn him, the fat red-faced toad,’ said Bessborough, softly. ‘We dine with this poltroon twice a year, and twice a year I have to listen to the same nonsense.’
‘Why, Papa,’ said his eldest daughter, Emily, ‘do you not take pleasure from hearing Mama praised?’
The admiral just glared at her and followed his wife into the dining-room. The meal that came after, though substantial and delicious, was ruined by the conversation. If Bessborough had hoped to get away from the name Victor Hugues he was to be disappointed. The governor had seen fit to add a group of local merchants, as well as ships’ captains, to the normal complement of army officers and civilian officials. In the isolation of English Harbour this was a breed of people he rarely met, for which the admiral was truly grateful. Worse still, they had plenty to say to him and were not to be restrained by the company of ladies. News had come in of several British ships lost, of crews set adrift, with the name of Victor Hugues on every tongue. Rumours that they’d hitherto ignored as not affecting them were added to their grievances, so that he was regaled with what it seemed was common gossip in St Eustatius, St Thomas, and St Croix. The governor, though an admirer of Lady Bessborough, felt no need to shield her husband, who was subjected to a barrage of complaints. He was finally handed a comprehensive list of ships that had been taken in the previous months.
The journey home to English Harbour was accomplished in near silence, as the daughters, looking at their father, realised he was in no mood for small talk. Lady Bessborough, still basking in the attentions she’d received, felt no requirement to ruin her mood by easing his. But he did growl one emphatic remark, which was to the effect that he’d never had a meal in which both the food and the conversation had been so indigestible.
Dillon sat in the bright moonlight that bathed his surroundings, a small bay on the northern coast of the island fringed with palm trees. His coach lantern, shaded on three sides, shone brightly towards the surf, creating a small arc of golden light that attracted endless flying insects. His attention was concentrated on the inky blue sky, slashed across with a single shaft of glaring white moonlight, waiting for the return signal that would announce the arrival of a messenger from one of his agents. There was no impatience in his eyes, even though the men he was anticipating were late. The Irishman knew this was a game for stoics, an activity in which passion was an enemy, not a friend.
The pinpoint of light fixed his attention. He lifted his hand and placed it in front of his own lantern, holding it there for several seconds before removing it again. The light out at sea responded in similar fashion, so Dillon got down from the box and grabbing hold of the two flagons of rum made his way towards the water’s edge. Out at sea there was a single sail, the huge triangle of the lateen rig that dwarfed the tiny boat beneath it, just dark enough to contrast with the slightly blue sea. Then it was gone, run down on its boom, as the aviso headed in towards the shore.
Dillon was close to the waterline when the boat touched, its keel grinding noisily on the sand. The two negroes in the bows leapt ashore, one coming towards the Irishman, the other holding the boat at the shoreline. They exchanged their greetings in Erse. The use of this language acted as a form of security, since no Englishman would comprehend it, and the Scots Gaelic variety was noticeably different. Dillon accepted the two oilskin packages, one large, the other small, proffering one in exchange. Then the negro, who was head and shoulders taller than Dillon, held his hand out for the rum, his teeth glinting as he gathered them into his arms.
With one flagon in each hand, he turned and bounded down the beach. Within seconds he was gone, pushing his small sleek boat out into the surf, his wet body suddenly illuminated by the phosphorescence. His companion waited till he’d leapt aboard, then hauled on the ropes to raise that triangular sail again. Its shadow faded as the boat headed out to sea, the bows crashing into the waves and sending a flash of white spray into the dark night air.
Dillon pushed the larger of the two oilskin packages into his coat pocket and got back on to the box of his trap. As soon as he was into the line of trees he unshaded his lantern, which cast just enough light for him to see the papers he extracted from the smaller packet. He read the words easily, having learnt the Erse before he ever spoke English. The news from home was good, the cause of Irish independence seeming to prosper under the leadership of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Wolfe Tone, leader of the United Irishmen, was facing the threat of being banished to America. O’Dwyer informed him that the need for funds was still acute, though the money raised in the Caribbean out-weighed that from any other source.
Engrossed as he was, and with the pounding of the surf, he didn’t hear the sound of the boat scrunching into the beach. Nor did he observe the young man who approached within ten feet of his shay. Hidden behind a tree this stranger watched him closely, before ducking back as Dillon finished his reading. The Irishman flicked his whip and set his pony in motion. The young man hesitated for a moment, unsure what to do about his boat. He ran back quickly and lifted the rolled blanket that contained his few possessions, then set off at a trot after the carriage. The track was rough, slowing the pony’s progress. But that track in turn led to a junction. Here one road led to the main commercial Antiguan port, St John’s. The other took Dillon south on the well-worn thoroughfare to English Harbour. On the smooth surface the young man could not keep up with the shay. But it didn’t matter. He was sure he knew the driver’s destination. Once he arrived there, it would be easy to learn the identity of the man who’d received those oilskin packages from St Eustatius.
