Death in the Caribbean, page 6
It was an extraordinary question. I thought for a moment or two before replying. Then I said, ‘I have no previous experience of earthquakes – I have a little experience of bombs. It certainly seemed to me like what I imagine to be an earthquake – there was an appreciable period of shaking before the house fell. It was not like the instant explosion of a bomb, and I can recall no sound of an explosion, though in the circumstances it is difficult to be sure. The fire could presumably have been caused by an explosion, though such fires are surely almost inevitable when wooden buildings collapse. Why do you ask?’
‘You may think me a little mad, but I assure you I am not. There is a Carib settlement in the mountains a few miles from here, and they grow the best pineapples in Nueva – for generations they have supplied us with pineapples. Yesterday morning a Carib brought a donkey-load of pineapples. He had heard of the calamity at Chacarima – don’t ask me how news travels in these isolated places, it just does – and he asked Adam the butler what had happened. Adam explained that there had been an earthquake, at which the Carib shook his head and said, ‘No, there could not have been an earthquake. There were none of the signs’.
‘Adam brought him to me. I am greatly interested in our few remaining Caribs, and have written a book about them. There is no reason why you should know because it is a highly specialised subject, but I have a degree in anthropology and before I took over the estates I made a considerable study of the indigenous peoples of the Orinoco basin, to whom our Caribs are related. They have an immense fund of traditional knowledge, and are so sympathetic to their natural surroundings that much of their tradition is remarkably accurate. Earthquakes and hurricanes have always been among the natural hazards of their lives, and they claim to have means of foretelling them. Of course the rainmaker cannot always bring rain, but often he can foretell rain long before anybody else can, and is naturally credited with the ability to bring it. So with earthquakes and hurricanes – one cannot accept their forecasts as scientifically based in any way, but one cannot wholly ignore them. This Carib assured me that there could have been no earthquake at Chacarima because this was not the right season for earthquakes, and the leaves on the trees had not twinkled – the behaviour of leaves is one of their means of forecasting. What, then, had happened? I asked. He had an explanation – the Carima River, he said, is angry because of something that is happening in the caves, and it sent a messenger to pull down the house. I asked what was happening in the caves, and he said he did not know. His people do not go there, and with the river in an angry mood they are more than ever determined to keep away. He concluded rather touchingly, “But it is good for us, because you will now come to live at Naurataka. The river wanted to show its displeasure, but it did not want to hurt you”.’
‘It was considerate, anyway,’ I said. ‘If I may say so, it seems a moving Carib tribute to you.’
‘We have always been on good terms – indeed, my family has always done what it can to look after the Caribs. They were never enslaved, and in a way that, unhappily, was far from typical of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century planters, we always respected Carib property rights.’
‘Do you attach any importance to the Carib theory of the earthquake?’
‘You mean rationally? It is hard to say. In a sense it is a matter of words: what does cause an earthquake? The underground water system of the Chacarima caves has never been fully investigated, and is certainly not understood. I suppose it is possible for some surge of water underground to bring about an earth tremor. I can’t see that it matters much. What does matter are the puzzling features of our earthquake – why was it felt over so limited an area? And why, when a house has survived earth tremors for over a century, should this particular tremor destroy the house and affect nothing else? A bomb would be much more readily explicable.’
‘That would imply that someone wants to bomb you. Have you any reason to suppose that there is such a someone?’
He was silent for what seemed a long time. Then he said, ‘Colonel Blair, I must accept the credentials that Sir Edmund Pusey gives you. I have no one else in whom I can confide, and, as I have said, I need advice . . . The Prime Minister will have given you an outline of Caval history, I suppose?’
I nodded, and he went on, ‘It is in all the guide-books, anyway – it is a romantic story. And it is true that the two branches of the Caval family have never been on good terms, a hostility made worse by the fact that the Edward Cavals have kept their lands and maintained a flourishing business, whereas the Antoine Cavals have mostly been heavily in debt. I have no wish to slander Nicolas and Charles, the present representatives of the Antoine Cavals, but I know no good of either. Nicolas is shrewd, and sees opportunities for himself in island politics, Charles, his son, has brains, but he does not seem to be in any way an estimable character. I have made it my business to find out about him, and I do not like what I have found.
‘The death of my only son may seem to offer some hope of ultimate triumph for the Antoine Cavals, for with my death my line dies out. Could it be of any advantage to them to hasten my death? I have asked myself this question, and I cannot answer it, because I do not know what calculations they may make. I am by far the largest landowner in Nueva, and much of the capital, Fort James, belongs to me, as do many of the island’s businesses. In slightly different circumstances I should have been extremely vulnerable when Nueva became independent – “Down with the big landlord” is nearly always a popular cry. But the Nuevan people have never been hostile to me – indeed, they have never shown me anything but kindness and respect. My businesses are all, in a sense, cooperatives: I take little out of them, and those who work for me on the whole do well. We have not got a revolutionary Government – for what it’s worth, enjoyment of the rights of private property is written into our constitution. Of course times change: the day of great estates is no doubt over, and I do not know for how long the Caval estates can remain intact. As things are, there is no indication of any powerful wish to overthrow me.
‘Apart, that is, from the Nicolas Cavals. My death would certainly create a new situation on the island. Should I die intestate, it is possible that Nicolas could establish a claim to be my heir. It is even possible that he could attempt to challenge my will, on the ground that the original grant from Charles II established a sort of entail of the property to the heirs of the body of the Edward Caval to whom the grant was made. He would not succeed. The terms of the grant were the basis of the law-suit by which the second Edward Caval tried to dispossess Antoine from the share of the island left to him by will, and the English courts ultimately found against him. Such a case now would be in the Nuevan court, but we have inherited English law, and I cannot see a Nuevan court upholding the narrowest interpretation of a royal grant made over 300 years ago, an interpretation, moreover, already rejected by much more nearly contemporary English courts. Still, he might think it worth a try.
‘There is another possible calculation. I am naturally proud of the Caval name, and sad that after three centuries there should be no Caval of my own line to follow me. Nicolas and Charles may calculate that whatever my feelings about them personally I shall leave the estates to one of them rather than break the Caval connection. I may say that this was once my own thought, and it was for this reason that I had such detailed inquiries made about Charles. From what I have learned, in no circumstances would I now leave him a cent.’
‘You have talked about the Caval family. Are there, perhaps, political motives that might prompt an attack on you? I am not at all informed about Nuevan politics, but you cannot be in Nueva long without learning that there is some dispute about the direction that development should take. I have heard that one school of thought would like to see large-scale development of this coast for tourism, but that others hold that the tourist industry, though it can be profitable in the short run, is liable to blight the island’s future. Since it is all your land, is it possible that the pro-tourist party might want you out of the way?’
‘It is possible, I suppose. The Prime Minister is, on the whole, against excessive development of tourism – as he puts it, “We do not want Nueva to become a brothel for millionaires.” I’m sure he’s right, but the temptations are real, and the Opposition wants to attract more American money. But the argument is really fairly marginal. No one suggests that there should be no tourists in Nueva. We have a vigorous Tourist Board, and in the past few years we have built a number of new hotels. I should hate to see the whole of this coast subject to the kind of development that had corroded so many other places, but I am no stick in the mud. I have leased several bays nearer to Fort James for the building of hotel complexes, and have put up some of the capital for them. I do not campaign against tourists – I take no active part in politics. The Government knows that I should not be a willing seller of more land for tourism, but my feelings are not really of much importance. A different Government could acquire my land by compulsory purchase – there is not much that I could do about it. I do not see that my death would have much bearing on the matter one way or another.’
‘May I ask you a question? Why did you invite Ruth Caval, Charles Caval’s ex-wife, to stay with you?’
‘So she told you about Charles? Well, I had a number of reasons, some of which I may explain later, but I should prefer not to go into them now. I have a request to make of you. Would you make a visit to the Chacarima caves? I could go myself, but you have seen how fast news travels, and I do not wish to show any particular interest in the caves. But I do want to know if anything is going on there that I should know about. It would be quite natural for you, and perhaps Ruth, to go as sightseers. I can send Adam with you as a guide. He will not much like it because he is afraid of the caves, but he will certainly go with you. And he knows the parts that visitors go to – indeed, he knows them quite as well as I do, for he and I used to adventure there as boys together. As a boy with me he wasn’t much worried, but he grew up to be afraid of the caves as all the local people are. He won’t mind them so much if you are with him. I was wondering if you would go today?’
‘By all means. How do we get there?’
‘You can go by road, but you have almost got to go back to Fort James. By far the easiest way is to go by boat. It is no more than about fifteen miles by sea. I have already arranged for a schooner from the harbour to be available this morning. If you are ready, we might walk down there now. If you leave by eight you should be at the caves well before midday – the trade wind hardly ever fails.’
*
At the front door we met Ruth, who had also been wandering in the garden. ‘What a lovely morning!’ she said. And to me, ‘I was wondering where you’d got to. I knocked on your door to ask you to come for a walk, but you weren’t there.’
‘I can ask you to come for a sail. I’m going to visit the Chacarima caves. Would you like to come?’
‘Is Mr Caval coming?’
‘No,’ Caval said. ‘I have a lot of tiresome letters to write. But do go with Colonel Blair. There’s a boat ready in the harbour – we’re on our way down now.’
‘I’d love to. Do I need anything?’
‘A swimsuit and a towel, perhaps.’
‘Right, I’ll go and get them. What about you, Peter? Are you going to swim?’
‘I don’t know, but I might as well take my things. I’ll come up with you.’
We were on board soon after half-past seven.
*
The Grand Duchess had been brought up to the quay. She was about eighty feet long, with the traditional Caribbean schooner rig. I learned later that she had been island-built, in a bay on the Caribbean coast of Nueva, where a village community of boatbuilders had been established since the seventeenth century – originally (or so it was said) by a ship’s carpenter who had deserted from an English merchantman, fathered numerous children by a harem of Negro women, taught them all boatbuilding, and created a thriving business in ship-repair work for buccaneers, who put in to careen their ships. In time the buccaneers departed, but the tradition of boatbuilding stayed on, and in the heyday of the schooner trade Nuevan-built schooners were considered among the best in the Caribbean. They were built with few tools other than adze and saw, but the finished woodwork was a joy to look at. The original ship’s carpenter was reputed to be a Devon man, and there was a slight look of Brixham about the Grand Duchess. Adam the butler was on board when we got down to her, and we were introduced to her master, Captain Amos, and his crew of three.
‘Does she belong to you?’ I asked the skipper.
‘No, sir, she is Mr Caval’s ship, but he lets us use her for runs to Fort James, and sometimes to the other islands if people want to go there.’
*
We cast off almost at once. Mr Caval waved from the quay, and we were away.
The trade wind that brought Columbus to the West Indies is a magnificent wind, blowing still as it has since our globe began spinning. Its regularity and reliability are enshrined on the map in the Caribbean archipelagoes called the Windward and the Leeward Islands. If ever an area of the earth’s surface was made for the sailing boat the West Indies are, and it is an example of man’s catastrophic waste of his resources that the thousands of millions of free horsepower provided by the wind are now largely unused. Nueva seemed to me to be just about ideally placed to benefit from the trade wind. It counts, I suppose, among the Windward Islands, but lying south of Dominica and north of Martinique it is on the edge of the group, with a good reaching wind, the best point of sailing for a schooner, available practically all the time. I liked the way Captain Amos and his crew got off from the quay. The Grand Duchess had a staysail rig, and she got away under a big staysail set from her foremast, and a smallish jib. When we were safely out her big mainsail went up, and an inner, larger jib. It was a soldier’s wind, and she soon began to tramp along the coast. I reckoned that she was probably doing around six or seven knots.
It was sheer joy to be at sea again, and the white of the wave tops against the marvellously blue sea and the green of the forested coast made an unforgettable picture. I wasn’t allowed to enjoy it at once, for Adam the butler appeared in the companionway and told us that coffee was served. I couldn’t disappoint him, so Ruth and I went below. The saloon was a mariner’s joy. It was simply, even sparsely, furnished, with a cabin table and a pair of long settee berths, but the woodwork was all purple-heart, a superb local hardwood, polished to a mirror finish. We were offered coffee and bananas picked that morning. I dutifully drank a cup and ate a banana, and then said that I’d like to go on deck again.
Captain Amos was at the wheel, and I asked if I could take her for a bit. He was dubious: there was a fair weight of wind, and he didn’t want his sails tied up in knots by a landlubber helmsman. I explained that I had spent much of my life at sea in sailing boats, and that I wouldn’t let the schooner get into any trouble. He then handed over the wheel, but watched me warily. I thought that she’d be happier if the sheets were hardened a little, and suggested this. He smiled, and nodded. ‘But it may not be quite so comfortable – she will heel more,’ he said. But I wanted to get the feel of the schooner at her best, so I asked him to carry on. He nodded again, called one of the crew, and hardened the sheets. She felt the improvement at once, threw up a fine bow-wave with her forefoot, and probably put on about half a knot. After about ten minutes the skipper apparently felt that he could have confidence in me, and went below to have a cup of coffee himself.
I kept an eye on a small house-flag, presumably the Caval house-flag, that she was wearing, but it stayed stiff as a board. This wonderful wind was not in the least fluky, and I relaxed in the simple delight of handling her. She was as responsive as a yacht, and the wheel had that lovely sense of being alive under my fingers. As the Grand Duchess and I came to terms with each other, and I realised that she knew very well how to look after herself, my thoughts went back to my strange conversation with Caval. What a bewildering hotch-potch of conflicting predictions about earthquakes! There was Ruth’s extraordinary statement about the prediction in New York, and then the equally extraordinary piece of Carib folklore or witch-doctoring which insisted that there hadn’t been an earthquake at all. Ruth, I had felt at the time and felt more strongly now, had almost certainly lied, or at least had tried deliberately to cloud the truth. I was sure that she knew who it was who telephoned her, and that it was not her ex-husband. Why did she want to be secretive? And what could it matter in talking to me, a chance acquaintance wholly detached from her own affairs? And why on earth had Caval sought her out and invited her to come to Nueva? His interest in Charles was understandable: obviously he had considered making Charles his heir, and presumably he had employed some high-grade American agency to have inquiries made about him. From what he had learned, Charles was out. Then why go out of his way to establish some kind of relationship with Charles’s ex-wife? And if Caval really wanted my advice, why not be frank with me so that I had the facts on which I could advise?
And what was the Pusey relationship? It was typical of Sir Edmund that he should send me to Nueva knowing nothing of Edward Caval, and leave me to find out about him for myself. Why, then, write to Caval about me? And did Caval know anything about Pusey’s real job? And why was the Prime Minister so anxious that I should do his dirty work for him, and find out things that, as I saw it, he could readily have discovered for himself? Before I knew Caval I could imagine reasons why the head of the Nuevan Government might not wish to be directly involved in any dealings with him that had obvious political implications. But Caval wasn’t like that. He was naturally a little sad that his feudal empire was on its way out, but he had no hostility to Nuevan independence, and as far as I could assess things wanted nothing but the long-term good of Nueva. None of it made sense.
