The Sugar Islands Read online

  ‘What’s happened?’

  The old man took no notice of the interruption. ‘You could force me to bring my ship into the Caribbean. But you couldn’t make me surrender my ship to pirates. You can kill me now. But no pirate’s hand is ever going to touch this wheel. My ship is hit hard upon a reef of rock. If she’s afloat in an hour’s time I’ll be surprised.’

  Roger made no answer. There was none to be made. There were other matters to be seen to. Already the crew had begun to gather on the lower deck, terrified and complaining, waiting for instructions. As Roger stood looking down on them from the quarter-deck he had a comforting feeling of superiority to them all. He was responsible for their lives. He had led them to mutiny. He had brought them to this pass. Yet he could feel no particular sense of guilt, nor any particular pity for them. They were poor sheep. They should be grateful to him for having shepherded them so long.

  In the shortest possible words he told them what had happened.

  ‘We’ve gone aground. In half an hour in all human probability we shall be five fathoms deep in the Caribbean. The land’s a league and a half off. We’re sixty. The pinnace will hold twelve. You had best draw lots for it.’

  Had he made a long speech the men might have had time to recover from their astonishment and start protesting. He did not give them time for that. With pieces of string he set them to the task of drawing lots.

  In a few moments it had been decided which ones were to be granted places in the pinnace. Twelve men had stepped forward from the rest.

  ‘Very well,’ said Roger, ‘lower the pinnace. You twelve get into it. The rest of you must take such chances as you can.’

  The men hesitated.

  ‘Come on now,’ said Roger. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  The men still hesitated. There were the supplies, they said, the muskets, the ammunition, and the cargo they had brought to trade with.

  Roger smiled.

  ‘If you can save yourselves you may consider yourselves lucky. Get busy and away with you.’

  Then turning to the rest.

  ‘It’s every man for himself now,’ he said.

  The crew made no reply. Quickly and neatly the pinnace was lowered into the angry waters. No attempt was made by any of those who had been left behind to force a place for themselves. The moment the pinnace had been lowered they turned to the preparation of a raft, breaking up chests, destroying doors, pulling planks up in the deck.

  From the bridge Roger watched their efforts. For nine months now these men and he had faced and shared the various hardships and recompenses of the sea. Now in as many minutes these bonds were to be broken. Already the pinnace was plunging its way towards the shore. The sea was angry, the current strong, the harbour was set with rocks, there were sharks as likely as not in the lagoon; the betting was against their reaching the palm-fringed stretch of beach. The other sailors with their raft were on the whole the likelier to get there. With a shrug of the shoulders he turned back towards the bridge. The captain, his chin rested on his hands, was leaning forward, looking out at the struggling pinnace.

  Side by side they stood there watching the small boat pitch and toss in the trough of the short angry waves; at times buried beneath a wall of water, then rising on the high crest of foam, plunging like a frightened horse. For half a league it struggled. Then as a grey-green wall of water sank, there rose on the crested foam not the narrow boat but a medley of oars threshing feebly in a wake of white.

  The other sailors, minute by minute, as the settling ship listed over, lowered themselves over the side in groups and couples, trusting to hastily strung rafts and spars. The sea was soon full of dark objects tossing on the mounting waves. In a little while the ship was empty, save for the two upon the bridge.

  Roger turned towards the captain.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Are you going to stay here?’

  ‘The captain goes down with his ship.’

  The emotion that, an hour earlier, had lit that hard, lined face had vanished. Impassive and indifferent, he leaned forward, his chin rested on his hands.

  ‘Two can play that game,’ thought Roger. He was not going to be outdone in composure by the man he had deposed. And so they stood side by side together, while the waves beat against the high, red-painted poop, and the ship settled deeper, till the water had risen over the lower deck, lapping against the quarter-deck from whose stairway Roger had addressed the crew.

  ‘We’ll be down in a minute or two now,’ the captain said.

  Already the level of the water had begun to mount the bridge; the slant had become so great that it was scarcely possible to stand upright.

  ‘She’ll go down in a rush, when she does,’ the captain said. ‘ We’ll be sucked right under.’

  He spoke in the detached informative manner of a schoolmaster instructing a class.

  ‘We’ll be sucked down, then thrown up wide. The great thing is to hold your breath.’

  Roger listened calmly. Of certain things he was afraid, of being made to look ridiculous, of being unable to look any man between the eyes. Of those things he was afraid. Those were of the things that shamed a man, that diminished a man’s stature. But death could be a gallant episode. Unmoved he stood there, with the wind cold and spasmodic on his cheeks and the sun warm upon his neck, waiting for the sudden lurch that should spill him into that grey-green coldness.

  It came, as the captain had told him that it would, without warning. A lurch, and the water from the lower deck had risen, and the great carved mermaid upon the poop had curved above him and down, down, down he was plunging into the grey water, with his ears singing and his eyes a mist, with a stinging pain in his wrist and a numb throbbing at his knee; with his lungs strained, and only the captain’s warning to stay him from the gasp for breath that would have sent him down, down and beyond recall into the grey forest.

  Down, down, down, with the pain in his wrist and knees increasing; with the throbbing growing intenser in his ears; with his eyeballs stinging, and the strain on his lungs intolerable. Down, down, down. And even when the interminable descent was ended, when slowly foot by foot he began his slow rise to the surface, even then he could scarcely believe that his limbs would have the power to carry him to the blue-shot greyness above his head. Up, up, up, with scarlet lights flickering before his eyes, with strange sounds beating upon his temples, with his lungs taut like a strained silk that must surely snap. Up, up, up, and when at last he had come to the surface with daylight before his streaming eyes, when his lungs could let loose their burden of stale air, and inhale the fresh, sun-baked air, even then it was only a second later to be hit sideways by a gigantic wave that stunned, choked, smothered him so that he staggered up blind and spitting water.

  I’ve got to be careful, very careful,’ he thought, ‘if I’m to come through this.’

  Close to him was a piece of driftwood, the lid of an oak chest; desperately he swam to it, caught it, and held it close. Then he looked round.

  Thirty yards away the Bordelais, its keel, foul-barnacled and lifted above the water, was lying on its side. The proud swan that had withstood so many tempests was submerged already. The mermaids, whose shapely breasts had inspired so many ribald pleasantries, were no longer supporting but diving head foremost from the bridge. Its captain, who had stood for so many hours rooted there, was in the water a few yards from them. His head was held high above the water, but he seemed to be making no effort either to conserve his life or to end it. He gave the impression of being content to swim till his strength failed him.

  ‘He’s a man,’ thought Roger. ‘Nothing worries him.’

  And gathering into his voice all the strength of which his lungs were capable, he shouted through the gale.

  ‘There’s room for two here,’ he yelled. ‘Swim over if you can. There’s just a chance for us.’

  The captain made no reply, but with slow, unhurried strokes he paddled his way
across to Roger. Then hooked his arms over the wooden plank. Neither he nor Roger spoke a word. They knew, both of them, that the betting was against their reaching land. But there was in their hearts the resolve to reach it and the knowledge that their two lives, for worse or better, were now one. They struck out towards the shore.

  Five hours later, cold, bruised, and hungry, they lay at the edge of the palm-fringed beach.

  Showing through the stems of the trees was the outline of an occasional hut. The Spanish raids were recent and many. Cayona had not yet become the dissolute and prosperous town that the lessening of Spanish power was to make it. Nobody lived upon the beach except the few old traders who were too old to fight or hunt, who kept stores where rum and clothing and ammunition were for sale, and with whom foreigners bargained for the wild bull-skins whose stripping and dressing was the chief peaceful occupation of the buccaneers.

  §

  It was to a strange group that Roger and the captain were to ally themselves.

  From many countries, from many stocks, from many ways of life they had come, these derelicts of seven nations, to achieve in their exile an indistinguishable similarity of appearance. They wore a common uniform, a little close-fitting cap, a jacket of cloth with breeches that came half-way to their knees. One had to look carefully to tell whether this garment was of cloth, so stained was it with blood. They wore a belt, set with a bayonet and four knives. Few of them were taller than their musket. On their feet, like the Indians, they wore moccasins, made out of ox-hide or pigskin. As soon as the animal was skinned they would cut away the skin that had covered the beast. Setting the big toe where the knee had been, they would bind it with a sinew. The rest of it was taken a few inches above the heel and tied there till the skin had dried when, having taken the impress of the man’s foot, it would keep in shape.

  They had neither family nor children. There was scarcely a woman on the island. Each was constrained to take one of his fellows to himself, to help him in the ordinary business of life, to tend him when he was sick. They lived together sharing their possessions; he who lived the longer inheriting them. They shared their work. The one would hunt while the other would protect the hut and cook.

  Food was plentiful in Tortuga. There was a profusion of fruit, of yams, pineapples, and bananas, and on the mainland there were herds of wild boar, and flocks of pigeons which in certain seasons of the year were admirable, but after the season, because they fed on a bitter seed, were as rough as gall upon the palate. They ate uncouthly; turning their pigs on a spit above an open fire, which they called a boucan and which later was to lead to their nickname boucaniers, which the English were to mis-pronounce buccaneers; in the same way that the French were to miscall the English freebooters, filibusters.

  Dark-skinned, with long beards and bristled hair, they lived in amity for the most part, breaking out only occasionally and under the influence of drink into wild tempers that would end in duels; content to have found a place where they could conduct life as they pleased, living quietly when they chose, till restlessness or a longing for adventure spurred them to the high seas, to plunder.

  It was to this rude society that Roger and the captain found themselves admitted.

  Membership for the resolute was easy. They built themselves a hut. In exchange for their work they earned the knives and muskets on which sustenance depended. In the same spirit that they had brought the ship from Magellan over the Equator, so now in silence did they set themselves about the construction of their new life. They rarely spoke to each other. They exchanged no confidences. They never referred to the mutiny; to their homes; to their ambitions; to their dreams. They never wondered how chance had dealt with their shipmates. No two men could have known less of one another, divided as they were by thirty years of life and a long cycle of experience. But they drew comfort, a deep strong comfort from each other. They were happy, as they sat silent over their pipes after a day of hunting; with the air cool after the long day’s heat; the moon silvering softly the metallic palm fronds; and in their ears the murmur of the savannahs. They drew peace from each other’s presence. They were fretful in each other’s absence, as though they were incomplete, as though a part of themselves was not there.

  Sometimes they would go down to the beach, when they had skins to sell and the need for raw liquor was upon them. There would, usually, be another boucanier or two down there. For a day or two days, sometimes a week, they would stay drinking till the last remnants of their six weeks’ work were squandered. Sometimes when they were drunk they would grow quarrelsome, but never with each other. For the most part they were content to idle in a warm content; watching with faculties made sharp by alcohol, the changing lights and shadows on the blue-grey water; dozing now and again; waking with replenished thirst; breaking periodically into song. Occasionally, when the gathering was large, there would be recited earlier adventures; raids upon the Spanish mainland; expeditions as far as Carthagena. Sometimes there would be talk of the countries their youth had known.

  ‘Tell me,’ would ask one of them, ‘what is England like?’

  A dark-skinned, rough, bearded figure would shake his head.

  ‘It’s so long ago,’ he would say. ‘I left when I was a boy. It was a gentle country as I remember it. With the sun not too hot; and faint mists covering it; with rain so soft that you scarcely knew it was rain. Then there were hills, with the grass so smooth that you would think it velvet, hills that as children we used to slide down. At the top of the hills there were round ponds where the sheep would drink.’

  At which some fellow would sway drunkenly to his feet, maintaining that he was English, too, and that England was not in the least like that; that England was a cold country; with a fine cold air that set the blood racing through your veins; that it was bleak with grey skies and hills and narrow gorges up which you saw the great clouds riding; and the rain dashed into your face, stung you, and made you feel a man; and if anyone said England was not that, then he was no Englishman and he would fight him. And knives would be jerked out from the ox-hide belts, and only the superior force of their companions would keep blood unshed.

  But for the most part, the reunions at Cayona were pacific. And it would be with empty pockets, glad hearts, and heavy heads that Roger and the captain would retire to their cabins and their log fires, and gorgings of roasted pig; to the days of hunting and the evening meal; to the long silences under tropic stars; to the tropic rain with its steady drum-beat upon the hard surface of the plantain, to the swish of the palm frond in the wind; to the bimonthly visit to the coast; the heavy drinking there; the bargaining with traders; the quarrels hastily made and hastily patched up; with now and again restlessness and the love of danger sending them to meet danger across blue seas.

  And so the days went and the weeks and months; and the years along with them. They lost count of years, and they lost count of time. They judged the hour of the day by the sun’s height and the sun’s heat. They spoke of wet seasons and of dry. Sometimes the old captain would feel pain and stiffness in his limbs, but it was many years since either of them had looked into a mirror. There were no women whose grace and suppleness could remind them of youth’s ebbing; whose fading beauty could speak to them of the transitoriness of things. They knew nothing of what was happening outside their rock-girt island. No rumour reached them of Cromwell’s attempt to capture San Domingo for the Commonwealth. When they went roistering across the windward passage, the sound of English voices and the sight of English uniforms in Port Royal did not tell them that to a great future a great bulwark had been set. The fact that it was less often Spanish and Portuguese than Dutch, French, and English vessels that they plundered held no clue for them to the decline of Spanish glory. They had no means of knowing that the New World that had made Spain’s greatness had at the same time overthrown it; that the fabulous riches of the Caribbean had made Madrid confuse wealth with bullion; that the wars for free thought had set Europe at the throat of the Pope’s at
tempt to divide the new world between his chosen peoples; that the policy of Richelieu had prevailed; that the Sun King’s glory had risen glamorously above Versailles. They did not realize that soon at Utrecht piracy was to be legitimized; that the spoil that had been wrung from Spain was to be divided among her plunderers. They did not know that the West Indies had become an organized source of wealth that was to feed Europe for two centuries; that their island was the last stronghold of outlawry in a sea that had been the home of outlawry; that earnest letters were being addressed by colonial governments to colonial secretaries, nor that three hundred years later the students of colonial history would find state papers riddled with references to their adventures. They believed the world to be as ignorant of them as they were of the world.

  If Roger had been told on the morning that he set out with the Brethren of the Coast for the Spanish mainland that the month was May and the year 1665, the information might as well have been given him in Chinese.

  It was a raid, very like the dozen others in which from time to time Roger and the captain had taken part.

  In spite of their lawlessness, the Brethren of the Coast showed in regard to one another a very precise observance of the law. Their motto was ‘no prey, no pay’. The articles of their code established the principle of equality. Each brother was entitled to a vote on matters of policy and to an equal share of the plunder. An exact scale of penalties was agreed upon. Death was the punishment for the brother who brought a woman in disguise on board. Whoever stole from a comrade had his ears and his nose slit and was disembarked on the handiest strip of beach with no other provision than a fusee, some shot, a bottle of gunpowder, and a bottle of water.

  In the same spirit were indemnities agreed upon. For the loss of a right arm a brother was recompensed with six hundred piastres or six slaves. A left arm or a right leg was valued at five hundred piastres. A finger or a toe was worth one slave. The hauling down of the flag on a hostile ship was rewarded with fifty piastres, and there were such innumerable minor bounties as the five-piastre reward for the throwing of a hand-grenade over the walls of a besieged fort.