Death in the Caribbean, page 3
*
The Prime Minister could certainly get things done. There duly was a polite note from Edward Caval, delivered to the hotel by hand. But first – my day with the Army.
That really began on the evening of my talk with the Prime Minister, when I attended a reception given for me by the Chief of Staff. He was a certain General Henriques, of mixed Portuguese and Negro ancestry, the senior officer present, though I did not think him as impressive a personality as my Brigadier Moses Ezra – such biblical names are rather a feature of the Negro community in Nueva, particularly in families which have been socially well established for two or three generations. It was a friendly gathering, and the general gave me the recipe for the famous Nuevan rum punch:
One of sour
Two of sweet
Three of strong
And four of weak
This, he explained, meant one measure of lime juice, two measures of sugar, three measures of rum and four of water. Nuevan rum, I should add, is about 90 degrees proof.
The work began at seven next morning, when I took a parade of a company of the 1st Nuevan Rifles which had been equipped with the new British rifle. They were a smart lot, and we marched off to the butts to put the rifle through its paces. To my alarm, I found that I was expected to fire first – with an audience of Staff officers and keen young riflemen.
In my proper Army days I had at least been an infantry officer, and at one time I was a fair shot, representing my battalion at Bisley a couple of times. Providence was on my side that morning. We were to fire at 300 yards, at a target that would come up for five seconds. I had never even seen, let alone fired, the new rifle before, but (thanks to Rosemary) I had studied the instruction manual, and understood more or less how the thing worked. It had a good feel to it, and balanced sweetly. Deciding that there was nothing to be gained by dragging out things, and that my best chance was to let my old training work as automatically as possible, I got down quickly and as soon as the target came up sent off five rounds. Brigadier Ezra and his mates were watching the target through field glasses. I heard a sort of collective gasp of astonishment, and supposed that I had contrived to miss the bloody thing altogether. But no. A runner was sent to bring back the target, and when it came I saw that there was one bullet hole almost dead centre. Closer inspection showed that the top edge of the hole was slightly nicked as if another bullet had gone through it. Where the other three rounds went I had no idea, and fortunately no one else had. They assumed that all five rounds had gone through the same hole. ‘I have seen good shooting in my time, but nothing like this,’ said the brigadier. ‘I really must congratulate you, Colonel – both on your shooting and on the rifle.’
After that I could do nothing wrong. The brigadier and the other officers all tried out the rifle, and then the riflemen had a go, in various combinations of single shots and rapid automatic fire. With my heart in my mouth and the instruction manual vividly in my mind I then gave a demonstration of stripping the rifle, and mercifully succeeded in getting it together again. ‘There is no doubt that we need this weapon,’ the brigadier said. ‘Even without the Colonel’s demonstration I thought it a good rifle – now I am convinced that it is the finest infantry rifle in the world. How soon can you let us have it in quantity?’
I said that I should have to report back to the Ministry at home, but I was confident that an order to re-equip the Nuevan Army would be given the highest priority. I also offered to arrange for a group of NCO instructors to be sent out, to help with initial training. We then adjourned for the Neuvan breakfast, and (at least as far as I was concerned) some much-needed Nuevan rum punch.
The brigadier drove me back to my hotel, and on the way he said, ‘I’ve had a note from the Prime Minister’s office to say that he has arranged for you to spend tomorrow sightseeing. I am glad that you will have an opportunity of seeing a little of our country. I will keep in touch with you through the Prime Minister’s office. When you get back to Fort James I’d be most grateful if you would give a lecture to our Staff course on modern infantry tactics in the use of small arms.’
I said I’d be glad to, and the rest of the day was my own. After allowing for the Nuevan siesta, I called on the British High Commissioner, whom I’d met at the reception last night, and gave him an account of our apparent success in selling the rifle to the Nuevan Army. He was pleased, and sent a message for me to the Ministry of Defence. He also invited me to dinner, and I spent a pleasant evening with him and his wife. I told him that I’d been invited to visit Mr Edward Caval next day, and he was pleased about that, too. ‘It’s quite a compliment,’ he said. ‘It means that the Nuevans are really giving you VIP treatment. Edward Caval is a bit of an odd fish, but I must say that if all West Indian planters had been more like him history might have turned out differently. He’s played very straight with the Nuevans since independence – partly self-interest, perhaps, for he’s got a lot to lose. But he’s useful to the Nuevans, too – as a sort of historical monument, a cross between an archbishop and an ex-king who keeps right out of politics. They only use him, though, for people they really want to impress, so it looks as if you’ve made quite a hit. Caval has the most wonderful old butler, quite out of this world. You’ll enjoy meeting him.’
I did. The Caval house seemed to have about five miles of drive, winding from a bridge over the Carima River through beautiful, park-like country. The river also turned below the bridge, so that when we got to the house it was flowing round the low hillock on which the house stood, making a perfect landscape setting. The butler met the car as it drew up outside the house, opened the door for me, and said in a voice that would have done credit to the butler of an Oxford college, ‘Mr Caval has asked me to say that we are proud to welcome Colonel Blair to Chacarima.’ Then he said to the driver, ‘The colonel will be here for most of the day, so please do not wait for him. There is breakfast for you in the housekeeper’s room. Please suit yourself about returning to Fort James. We will get the colonel back when he wishes to leave.’
He directed the driver where to go for his meal, and then he showed me into the house, or rather, to a comfortable chair on a wide verandah overlooking the river. ‘Mr Caval will be with you in a moment, sir,’ he said.
I had barely time to take in the view from the verandah when the butler was back, with an elderly man, white-haired, thin, but without a trace of stoop, and with a much younger woman, ‘Mr Caval and Mrs Ruth Caval for Colonel Blair,’ he said formally, and withdrew.
Caval held out his hand. ‘I’m delighted to see you, Colonel,’ he said. ‘It is very good of you to come all this way to visit an old man, but I daresay the Prime Minister has given you his version of Caval history. Let me introduce Ruth, who is staying with me. She is the wife of a member of another branch of the Caval family, who is at present in the United States. It is a distant relationship, but nonetheless real.’
I had heard nothing of any Ruth Caval. If she was married to a Caval she was presumably not a Caval herself, and I wondered where she fitted in. She was distinctly attractive, dark haired, with the very clear skin that sometimes goes with dark hair, and intelligent, lively eyes. I put her down as still in her twenties, but I learned later that she was thirty-one.
The introductions over, the butler returned with drinks on a silver tray. ‘I hope you will sample our Chacarima punch later,’ Edward Caval said. ‘After the drive from Fort James I thought that you might be better sustained by a glass of our oldest rum itself – it has been matured for over half a century.’ He handed me a glass, and took one himself. Mrs Caval had a tall glass of iced lime-juice. The rum was exceptionally pale, as pale as fine old brandy. It was also delicious, though I realised as soon as I tasted it that it was not a drink to be trifled with.
‘Your health, Colonel,’ Caval said. ‘This rum was laid down by my grandfather, distilled, of course, from our own cane. It is rather moving, I think, that a man long in his grave should be able still to provide for his family’s guests. I have replaced what I have drawn from the stocks left by my forbears, but who will drink my rum half a century from now I do not know. Times change, but whether for better or worse, again I do not know.’
Mrs Caval asked about my home in England. ‘It seems a pity you couldn’t bring your wife,’ she said.
‘It would have been difficult, because I haven’t got a wife. As for my home, well, yes, I have a cottage near Salcombe in South Devon, but I don’t often see it nowadays. My job is based on London and I have chambers in the Temple. I contemplate retirement more and more frequently, but something always seems to get in the way.’
‘You’re not nearly old enough to retire.’
‘Thank you for the compliment. But I don’t know what is old enough. I like sailing my little Salcombe yawl, and I like working with my hands at making furniture. I think most of us arrange our lives pretty badly – by the time we do retire there’s not enough life left to do the things we really want to do.’
‘But I expect you really want to do your Service job,’ Mr Caval broke in. ‘When the Prime Minister telephoned about you he said that you were a defence adviser, but he wasn’t very explicit. What brings you to Nueva? I’m sorry, perhaps I shouldn’t have asked that.’
‘I don’t think there is any particular secret about my visit. The British Army has recently developed a new rifle, which a number of Allied armies are thinking of adopting. We have no formal alliance with Nueva, but it seems unthinkable that we should ever be engaged in hostilities, and we are always ready to offer technical help. The Nuevan Army is interested in our rifle, and I was invited to come out to demonstrate it. We had, I think, a fairly satisfactory demonstration yesterday – at any rate, the Nuevan Chiefs of Staff seemed pleased. Today, I understand – and thanks to you – is my reward.’
We talked lightly of this and that until the butler came to tell us that breakfast – which I should have called lunch –was served. We had just started the first course when the earthquake happened.
*
Mr Caval surveyed the ruins of his house with what seemed to me remarkable detachment. ‘Once these old wooden houses catch fire there is nothing to be done,’ he said. ‘It may be worth searching the wreckage later to see what, if anything, has survived. But Adam will see to that. I have several other houses, so my own loss is not all that great. But Ruth has lost all her clothes, and neither of you has had breakfast. We must find out how extensive the earthquake has been. Our telephone here will be out of action, but the estate office is across the river, and it is possible that the line there will still be working. We get minor shocks from time to time, but I have never known one on the other side of the river. Here we are apparently on some fault related geologically to the Chacarima caves – I had hoped to show you the caves, Colonel, but that must now wait. The last serious shock was in my grandfather’s time, when the house was damaged, but not destroyed. Can you walk about a mile and a half? We do not need to go back to the bridge – we are quite near the boathouse, and we can cross the river by boat. Let us go to the estate office, and see if the shock has affected Fort James. If not, I shall send you both to the hotel there, in time, I hope, for Ruth to go shopping. The hotel belongs to me.’
‘I’m staying there already,’ I said.
‘Then you shall return as my guest. You will be company for Ruth until I can get things sorted out.’
The boathouse was damaged and leaning drunkenly over the river, but it was a flimsy structure of bamboo and palm thatch, and it had not totally collapsed. A punt moored under it was still serviceable, though it was half full of water. There were some calabashes, used as balers, still in the boathouse, and Mr Caval and the butler baled while I tackled the wreckage to get the boat out. When we were ready to embark Mr Caval sent Adam back to the ruins of the house. ‘You must arrange new homes for the servants,’ he said. ‘I shall probably go to Naurataka House, about twenty miles up the coast – with luck, that will not have been affected. Most of the staff may like to go there, too, but we must meet their wishes in every way we can. They will need money, Adam, for all will have lost possessions. You must see to that for me. If the estate office is undamaged, I shall send cars from there.’
The butler bowed, and went off. Mr Caval, Ruth Caval and I got into the punt, and I paddled it about seventy-five yards to the other bank. There was a little landing stage which seemed intact. We secured the punt, and walked up a path through lime trees.
The estate office was a substantial group of buildings, forming a compound round a big sugar mill. Everything seemed undamaged, but the smoke of the fire from Chacarima House had been seen, and knots of people were standing around anxiously. As we approached there was a sort of cheer, and an Indian dressed in spotless white drill came running up to us. ‘You are safe, then, Mr Caval. Thank God, thank God,’ he said.
‘This is Mr Ram Das, my manager,’ Caval said. ‘Thank you, Ram Das. The house, I fear, is destroyed, but nobody is hurt.’
‘What happened, sir?’
‘What happened! There was a severe earthquake, which brought down the house, and it was set alight by overturned fires in the kitchens.’
Mr Ram Das looked astonished. ‘We felt nothing here, no tremor at all.’
‘Is the telephone still working?’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘Then telephone the manager at the Fort James hotel. Ask if everything is all right there, and if it is say that Mrs Ruth Caval and my guest Colonel Blair are on their way, and that I wish them to have the best rooms in the hotel.’
‘At once, sir.’
Mr Ram Das came back in a few minutes, looking even more puzzled. ‘No one felt any earthquake in Fort James,’ he said. ‘Everything is completely normal. The manager is most distressed to learn of your loss. And of course he is seeing to your instructions.’
‘Good. Now I want a car to take Mrs Ruth Caval and Colonel Blair to Fort James, and I want two lorries and another car for Chacarima. I shall stay here with you for a bit. Ruth, you will have a good deal of shopping to do, and I think you’d better go off with Colonel Blair forthwith – if you can wait to eat until you get to Fort James.’
‘Of course I can wait. But what about you?’
‘Don’t worry about me. Ram Das will look after me, and I want to see to the evacuation of the staff to Naurataka. I shall telephone you this evening to let you know what is happening. Oh, and you will need money. Ram Das, can you get me a sheet of notepaper, please?’ When this was brought he wrote a note and gave it to Ruth Caval. ‘Give this to the manager at the hotel,’ he said. ‘You can call on him for whatever you need in the way of cash.’
*
Ruth Caval said nothing at all for nearly twenty miles of our drive. She’d had a savage shock, and I didn’t try to make conversation. The country through which we drove seemed quite unharmed. It had been an extraordinarily limited earthquake.
When Ruth Caval did speak, she said, ‘Colonel Blair, do you believe that you can predict an earthquake?’
It was an odd question, and I didn’t answer at once. ‘We’ve had a strange introduction, but I feel that fellow-survivors of an earthquake should be on Christian name terms. The name’s Peter.’
She gave a nervous little laugh, but I felt that the tension she was under was slightly relaxed. ‘All right, Peter and Ruth – quite biblical,’ she said. ‘But you haven’t answered my question.’
‘I don’t know how to answer it because I don’t know anything about earthquakes. I’ve never heard that seismologists have had much success in predicting them. In Japan, where earthquakes are a serious concern, I believe they put more faith in soothsayers, and the shape of clouds. But why do you ask?’
‘Because our earthquake was predicted. It was predicted before I left New York, nearly a month ago.’
‘Who predicted it?’
‘That doesn’t matter now. The point is, is it possible?’
‘Offhand, I should have thought it exceedingly unlikely.’
‘Yes, but it happened. Look, Peter, you don’t know anything about me, but I’m a mathematician – at least, I’m a university lecturer in maths. I’m not an expert in earthquakes, but I know something about probability. And the number of variables that must occur to produce an earthquake must be so great that I don’t see how you can predict one a month ahead, and for one particular small area of the earth’s surface.’
‘You can guess, I suppose. The wildest guesses have come off sometimes.’
‘Was this just a guess? I don’t know, I don’t know.’ She was speaking almost to herself.
*
It struck me as a fairly mad conversation, and I put it down to the strain she was obviously suffering. It also struck me as a rather unhealthy line of talk, and I thought I’d try to change the subject.
‘Are you staying long in Nueva?’ I asked.
‘A week, a month, for ever . . . God knows.’
That didn’t seem much better. ‘Look, Ruth, you seem to be suffering from a kind of delayed earthquake shock, if there is such a thing,’ I said. ‘Whatever it is you’ve had a bad time We can discuss the prediction of earthquakes and anything else you like later. But we’re going to be in Fort James in less than an hour, and it’s time you considered toothbrushes.’
She laughed – a better laugh this time. ‘Sorry. You’re rather a dear. And you’re quite right – I’ve never been quite as destitute as this before. I’ve got nothing but what I’m wearing – even my handbag went. It’s hard to know where to begin.’
‘A toothbrush is a good starting point. But we can be more scientific, mathematical, if you like. Let’s start with suitcases, to carry the things you’re going to buy, and then work out what you’re going to put in them. I’ve got a notebook. You can make a list.’
I handed her my notebook and a pencil, but she said, ‘I’m no good at writing in cars. I’ll think of things, and you can write them down.’
I duly wrote ‘Suitcases’, and she began, ‘Toothbrush, nailfile, clothes, I suppose . . . but what clothes? Oh, just put clothes, and I’ll walk round the shop and buy something. And shoes, of course. And a fountain pen. And I wonder if I could get a copy of Alice Through the Looking Glass, and Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy – I must have something to read. I’m afraid I’m not being very systematic. It’s really awfully difficult.’
