Caribbean: a novel Part 36

The Graf Spee was under the command of Captain Vreimark, who was piped ash.o.r.e in stiff glory, saluting his quarterdeck as he left and all the island officials as they waited in formal ranks to greet him. He was especially gracious to Lord Wrentham, whom he had met once in Germany and to whom he introduced a young German civilian who served in some unspecified capacity aboard the Spee: 'Excellency, I have the honor to introduce a most valued member of our visit, Baron Siegfried Sterner.' The baron stepped smartly forward, clicked his heels, saluted, and said in flawless English: 'I bring you personal greetings, milord, from my former tennis partner, Baron Gottfried von Cramm, who stayed with you one year when he played in the finals at Wimbledon.'

'Ah, yes! He was with us three years. Reached the finals every year, but had bad luck. Last time he lost to an American, Don Budge.'

'He sends his best.' Then, seeing Delia in the second row and a.s.suming that she was the governor's daughter, he paused to acknowledge her with a bow, which she returned. Pa.s.sing along, he came to Major Leckey, whom he recognized as the governor's aide-de-camp by the handsome gold aiguillette he wore suspended from his shoulder. Saluting with a p.r.o.nounced snap of the hand and click of heel, he said: 'Would you be so kind as to deliver this letter of introduction?' Even though Leckey knew that the baron was treating him insolently, he had to accept the letter, and when he glanced at it he saw that it was addressed to 'Frulein the Honorable Delia Wrentham' and a seal indicated that it came from Baron Gottfried von Cramm.

The eight days in the spring of 1938 that the Graf Spee remained at All Saints wound up the three most memorable events of recent island history: the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1929, the match with Lord Wrentham's cricket eleven in 1932, and now the monstrous presence of this great, sleek blue-gray warship. It made earlier visits by puny little British destroyers, which had once seemed so powerful, almost laughable.

On Thursday anyone on the island who cared to do so was invited to come aboard, and several thousand did. By means of ropes carefully strung and wooden stanchions properly placed, the islanders were led about the ship, but any so-called 'military secrets' they were permitted to see could just as easily have been obtained from a picture postcard. But McKay observed that the Germans cleverly and unostentatiously provided three different tours for the visitors. White people were quietly diverted here and there; they were taken to see officers' quarters and part of the bridge. Coloreds were led down other lanes, and they saw enlisted quarters and some of the smaller guns, while persons obviously black were taken on long, winding tours that showed them almost nothing they could not have seen from the dock.

When McKay sought out an officer who spoke English to ask about this, the German said frankly: 'They're animals. I don't see how you English can breathe on an island so crowded with them.'

'I'm American,' McKay said, and the officer smiled: 'Then you know what I mean.'

On four successive nights there were festive dinners. The Gee-Gee invited the princ.i.p.al officers to Government House for a flower-strewn reception, followed by a sit-down dinner for twenty, and at both affairs three men stood out as the acme of their professions: Lord Wrentham, tall, slim, straight and very handsome in his formal attire with the three colorful ribbons signifying the honors he had been awarded; Captain Vreimark, the prototypical German naval officer, with a chestful of decorations testifying to his years of service with the fleet; Baron Sterner, young, good-looking, and crisp in formal wear with one ribbon over his left breast. Of the three, thought McKay, the Englishman was most impressive, and on the next night, when the officers of the Spee entertained aboard their ship, the Gee-Gee positively scintillated, for when he appeared in the dress uniform of one of the great British regiments, he was a most dazzling figure.

On the third night the civilian officials of All Saints entertained the Germans with a gracious buffet and island music, but the fourth afternoon and evening were best of all, for then a long entourage of island cars of every vintage carried the German officers north to the old town of Tudor, where a rural reception was held, with speeches and music, after which everyone rode on to Cap Galant, where tents had been erected to protect them against rain and where a typical island picnic was held, with entertainment by four calypso singers who happened to be visiting from Trinidad. Those Germans who understood English were not at ease with the flippant social and political observations of the uninhibited calypso men. 'Such would never be allowed in Germany,' an officer told McKay. 'I can a.s.sure you of that.'

It was during these dreamlike days that McKay first noticed that Delia alternately appeared and vanished, and since he knew no one in the official party whom he could ask about this, he had to fall back on the Ponsfords, who loved the t.i.ttle-tattle about their betters that so mesmerized the English middle cla.s.ses. Mrs. Ponsford, adopting a conspiratorial manner as she shared a cold lunch with McKay, confided: 'She's seeing that handsome young baron at every opportunity, and I do believe she spent the night with him aboard the ship once or twice.'

'Do we know anything about him?' McKay asked, as if he were her worried uncle. 'I mean, really?'

'Oh, he's impeccable,' Mr. Ponsford said, for he was as much a gossip as his wife. 'I understand the Gee-Gee checked by cabling the Foreign Office.'

'Speaking about cables, what can I tell my paper about the purpose of this visit of the Spee? Seems most unusual.'

'They're doing what we call "showing the flag." Herr Hitler wants it known that he has a ship like the Spee.'

'You think the Gee-Gee is sending signals home about this huge thing?'

'I'm sure of it. He's no fool.'

'If he's so smart, what's he doing about his daughter and that phony baron?'

Mrs. Ponsford laughed to see her American friend so upset about the German: 'He's no phony, as you call it. He's a very real baron from a distinguished Prussian military family. But that's not what you asked. The Gee-Gee? I think he must be gratified to learn that his very lovely daughter isn't going to marry an island colored man or an American.'

Mr. Ponsford weighed in with a heavy-handed joke: 'And he wouldn't be able to tell you which would be worse.'

Seeking comfort in his unease, McKay went along to Boncour's shop, where, in the Frenchman's absence, he thought seriously for the first time about what Delia had said that day at Cap Galant: 'Suppose you invited one of Boncour's beautiful clerks to a dinner date ...' Looking suddenly at the two girls, slim and lithe and graced by the warmest smiles, he realized how easy it would be to fall under their spell, and how difficult it would be to do anything about it. Indeed, where could he take them to dinner, in what social circles would they move? And these two girls were almost white. What if he were to remain in All Saints and fall in love with one of those lovely creatures several shades darker than Black Bart? Now, that would pose a real problem.

When Boncour returned from a meeting aboard the Spee with German officers who sought to buy watches at a discount, the goal of sailors of all nations, he was in no mood for gossip or frivolous chatter. Leading McKay to his back office, which was as neat and clean as the rest of his operation, he slumped in a chair, looked up helplessly, and said without being questioned: 'McKay, she's making a terrible mistake. An Englishwoman in the heart of German n.a.z.ism ...'

'He's a country gentleman, no cartoon n.a.z.i. Her father cabled the Foreign Office for his credentials.'

Boncour looked up in surprise: 'Don't you realize what he is on that battleship? He's the n.a.z.i gauleiter ...'

'He's what?'

'Gauleiter. Block captain to check on the crew ... see that they obey Hitler's orders.'

'You're crazy.'

'McKay, she's about to marry him. They were talking about it on the ship. Maybe a big military wedding, Captain Vreimark officiating.'

'Oh.' There was no exclamation point at the end of this word as McKay p.r.o.nounced it; it was the grunt of a man who had been punched heavily in the stomach by a superior foe. He was involved in matters about which he had little knowledge and over which he had no control. 'Hadn't we better speak to Delia about this? Frankly, all cards on the table?'

'She's coming here. To say goodbye.' The two young men sat in silence. They were honestly thinking beyond themselves and of the damaging mistake Delia could be making.

And then they heard her swinging into the store and asking brightly: 'Where's Etienne?' and when the girls told her, she made her way into the back office: 'Oh, there you both are! How terribly convenient.'

Boncour refused to accept her banter. 'Delia, you mustn't marry that German. He's a professional n.a.z.i. Your life among his gang would be h.e.l.l ...'

She stiffened, glared at the two men-lover and admirer-and decided to put an end to this nonsense: 'Siegfried is exactly what he seems to be. A loyal official of the new German government.'

'Seems to be?' McKay blurted out. 'n.o.body knows who in h.e.l.l he is, or what he's doing aboard that ship.'

But it was sagacious Boncour, educated in England, who saw things most clearly: 'Delia, can't you see what's bound to happen? Hitler and Great Britain, they've got to fall out sooner or later.'

Their argument sounded hollow because all three, Delia, Etienne and Millard, saw the absurdity of this situation-that an ordinary colored man on a small island should be competing for the love of a t.i.tled Englishwoman against a German baron who was obviously in favor with the leader of his nation. The combat was too unfair, and for that matter, McKay's chances wouldn't be much better: he would be a provincial American scribbler trying to muscle his way into a fine family above his station.

It was so preposterous that McKay could not avoid laughing, but Boncour was beyond that, for he was fighting for a life: 'Delia, for G.o.d's sake, don't do this reckless thing ...'

He had used the wrong word. 'Reckless?' Her voice rose: 'I've been reckless all my life and it's brought me what I want-excitement and joy. I'm not going to change now.'

'But not with an official in the n.a.z.i party. Someday we will be at war with Germany.'

'Are you out of your mind? That's twice you've said that. Germany and Britain have signed a nonaggression pact, and I want to be part of the union.' She moved nervously about the cramped office, then faced McKay, as if she had no further use for Boncour: 'When I first went to Germany, I was thrilled at the vitality, the new world a-borning. Someone has called it "The Wave of the Future," and I do believe that.'

Boncour started to rebut, for he did most desperately wish to save this wonderful woman, but she cut him off: 'I've got to go. I wanted you two to hear it from me, direct. Yes, Siegfried and I are getting married. Day after tomorrow, on the Spee.'

She kissed McKay on the cheek and tried to do the same with Boncour, but he turned away, so, as if to make him more miserable, she added: 'And for our honeymoon we fly to Brazil!'

The wedding took place at five in the evening of the day prior to the Spee's departure. On the quarterdeck a kind of chapel decorated with hundreds of island flowers had been erected, and within its sanctuary stood Captain Vreimark, more stern and erect than ever in his full-dress uniform. At his side were three junior officers, also solemn and very military, and beyond them sat the island band augmented by musicians from the Spee. Under a battery of big guns, Delia in a flowing pastel gown waited with her father in full uniform.

As the band played Mendelssohn and the lovely bride moved forward on her father's arm to meet Baron Sterner, McKay could not help thinking: What will happen to her? Should be fascinating to watch. But only then did he realize that the man who loved her most was not present. Etienne, humiliated by his dismissal from the Executive Council and the loss of his Tourist Board position, had been unwilling to parade his lowered status before the leading citizens of the island who knew of his chastis.e.m.e.nt. Where he was McKay did not know, but he was sure that Etienne was alone drinking bitter tea.

The bride and her handsome father swept past, paused to collect the baron, dressed in a military uniform, and all moved before Captain Vreimark, who greeted them, read a short ritual in German and then in English, and p.r.o.nounced them man and wife. As guests lined up to sign the doc.u.ment attesting to the marriage, Delia spotted McKay and asked Major Leckey to fetch him: 'Please, please, Millard, you sign too and let me know all is forgiven.'

'You have my blessing,' he said, and as the sun set over the glorious bay, with the two rocky pillars protecting its entrance, he had a brief feeling that perhaps Delia was right: Maybe the visit of this ship does signal a union between Germany and Great Britain. He did not know enough recent history to appreciate how unlikely that was, but he still voiced the hope as a blessing for Delia. She was an exceptional person, he had fallen in love with her and would never deny it. He was disgusted that she had chosen the German baron, but he had lost and he would neither grieve nor allow his loss to gnaw at him.

Because no woman could be allowed to sail aboard a German warship, the bridal party and many townspeople drove out to the improvised seaplane ramp at Anse du Soir, where a big, lumbering Pan American flying boat had delayed its schedule so as to carry the bridal couple to Rio. The band played a Hawaiian farewell song, 'Aloha Oe,' Captain Vreimark and Lord Basil saluted, Delia kissed everyone, and Baron Sterner looked pleased at having married the granddaughter of an English earl. McKay, still regretting that Etienne Boncour had not come to say farewell, waved at Delia as she boarded the plane and whispered to himself: 'Good luck, sea sprite. You splashed your way into my heart,' and suddenly he broke away from the noisy party, for tears were threatening to flood his eyes.

When he returned to the Belgrave for a late dinner, he was on his way to his room on the second floor to wash up, when he heard m.u.f.fled voices as he pa.s.sed the Ponsfords' door. Since he did not recognize them, he suspected that something might be amiss, and impulsively he tried to shove the door open, but it was locked from the inside, so with a rush of his shoulder he banged his way in, only to find himself facing Major Leckey, still in uniform, Mr. Ponsford and Mrs. Ponsford, who was holding a revolver pointed right at McKay's head. Along two walls forming a corner were ranged the elements of a compact high-powered radio at which sat a colored man he had never seen before. An authoritative voice in London was issuing directions which McKay could not understand.

'Close the door,' Major Leckey said with crisp authority.

'What is this?'

'Shut up!' Mrs. Ponsford snapped, her lips taut, her gun still pointed unflinchingly at McKay.

Then, slowly, as he caught fragments of what was being sent and received, he deduced that pompous but subservient Major Leckey was heading a secret island apparatus which was reporting directly to similar intelligence agencies in London. For some reason Leckey and his team found it necessary to bypa.s.s the Gee-Gee and his official shortwave radio.

Now, from words that were dropped, it became obvious that the Ponsfords, tested agents from years back and with experience in different countries, had been sent from headquarters to reinforce Leckey's operation, and the fact that they had fooled McKay so completely was proof that they had fooled others as well.

Mouth agape, he stared at the Ponsfords, piecing together the hints they had revealed concerning their mission but which he had failed to detect or evaluate: They did say they'd been friends of the Earl of Gore. Probably that's why they were sent on his trail. They seemed to have a complete dossier on Delia, and I should have wondered why they'd have taken the trouble. And once they learned I was a newspaperman, they went out of their way to convince me that they were vaudeville silly-a.s.s Englishmen. They kept turning up at all the right spots. I feel d.a.m.ned stupid, with her pointing that gun at me, after the way I dismissed her as a gossip.

'Tell them,' Leckey was saying to the man at the dials, 'that we shall be sending them military details as soon as our man gets here. In the meantime, Mrs. Ponsford, since our Delia will probably turn up somewhere as a German agent, will you give headquarters the details of that obscene wedding?' Handing her revolver over to her husband, who kept it pointed at McKay, she delivered an icy, matter-of-fact report: 'Delia behaved much as she did in Malta last year, but this time she messed around with a respectable local mulatto shopkeeper, practically ruining him, and perhaps at her father's suggestion, she took pains to bedazzle a simple-minded American journalist in hopes of coloring his reports in Hitler's favor. Tonight she married your well-vetted Baron Sterner, one-time tennis partner of that other German baron, the respectable one, Gottfried von Cramm, who has displayed gestures of friendship toward Great Britain.'

Turning the microphone back, she reached for her gun and resumed guarding McKay, but the transmission was interrupted by the breathless arrival of Leckey's man, who had been surveying and photographing the Graf Spee. It was Bart Wrentham from the Waterloo, and when he saw McKay with the gun pointed at this head, he blurted out: 'What in h.e.l.l is he doing here?'

'He stumbled in,' Leckey said crisply, 'and we can't allow him to stumble out until the Spee has sailed.'

Paying no further attention to his friend, Black Bart went to the transmitter and told the operator: 'Get me Brazil,' and for about ten minutes he provided an agent of the British admiralty with a professional a.s.sessment of the pocket battleship. Then Leckey took over, speaking to London: 'Why did the Graf Spee make this extraordinary visit? From things Captain Vreimark said accidentally, but so that we would be sure to hear them, they wanted our governor general to report favorably on German-British friendship. And since they had to know that some group like ours would be trying to determine the capacity of their ship, they invited us to roam around it. They wanted to scare us and for us to scare you. Their game succeeded. It is indeed a formidable ship.'

McKay was fascinated by what he was hearing, but he was not yet prepared for what Leckey reported next: 'Lord Wrentham is a total prisoner of their propaganda. He extols. .h.i.tler, says he's watched the n.a.z.i rise to power, and now believes he's unstoppable. He tries to convince any official visitor that Germany is destined to rule Central Europe and more. He despises France and holds America in contempt, but he's smart enough to coddle naive American journalists and mask his convictions from them. We know he is an a.s.s, but a dangerous one because people like him so much. All Saints is a good place to keep him isolated from the European capitals, but he must be continuously watched.'

Having submitted their reports, the five plotters quickly disa.s.sembled their radio and packed its various parts in a surprisingly small set of hand-held grips. Then Leckey turned to the Ponsfords and asked: 'What are we going to do with him?'

'He's heard too much,' Mr. Ponsford warned. 'And he is a newspaperman.'

'What are you recommending? That we shoot him?'

'Under other circ.u.mstances, yes. Certainly we can't let him run to his typewriter with what he's heard.'

Black Bart said: 'I've found him to be honest. Look at his articles.'

'Yes,' Leckey said, staring contemptuously at McKay. 'Do look at them. Sycophantic. Falls in love with a b.i.t.c.h like Delia, writes poems of praise.'

'So what are we going to do?' Mr. Ponsford asked, and Leckey said: 'We've got to keep him here until the Graf Spee is on its way to Brazil. And we must keep Lord Wrentham thinking that his close a.s.sociation with the German amba.s.sador went unnoticed.' Finally speaking directly to McKay, he said: 'So you stay in this room, guarded, until morning. Then we'll decide.' Turning now to Mrs. Ponsford and her revolver, he asked: 'Can you guard him till morning?' and she nodded.

So the four men, Leckey, Ponsford, Black Bart and the radioman, left the room, taking their radio gear to some other hiding spot, and were seen no more that night.

Without flinching, Mrs. Ponsford held the gun on McKay, rebuffing his attempts to engage her in revealing conversation. Once she observed: 'This may seem a dirty business, but the enemy is unspeakable.'

'Then you think there'll be war with Germany?'

'Don't you? After what you saw with the Spee?'

'Would you shoot me if I tried to bolt?'

'Try me.'

He did not speak again until he had to go to the bathroom, and she said: 'Go ahead,' but she followed him into the little room, saying: 'No escaping out the window like they do in the flicks.' After a while he protested: 'It's not possible for a man to urinate with a woman standing behind him with a pistol to his head,' and she said: 'Keep trying.'

Soon thereafter she suggested: 'Try it sitting down,' and while he perched on the stool she ran water noisily in the basin, and this encouraged him to override his inhibitions.

Toward morning he asked: 'Why did you put on such an English garden-party act with me?' and she said: 'From the first I suspected we might want to use you. I acted the way you expected me to. Encouraged you to accept me.'

'But why does Leckey play the fool?' and she explained: 'For the last eight years he's had one of the world's most difficult jobs. Keeping tabs on real fools. If he ever stopped acting his role for one minute, they might trap him.'

'Is he in charge of your group?' and she replied: 'I won't tell you. Bart at the Waterloo could be, or my husband, or me.'

'But Leckey gives the orders,' and she said: 'He seems to. Maybe that's the secret of his long success.'

When dawn in the east reflected on Pointes Nord and Sud, Major Leckey and Bart returned and told Mrs. Ponsford: 'Get some sleep,' and she handed the revolver to Bart.

She fell asleep in minutes, and Leckey asked McKay: 'Under what arrangements can we let you live?' and it was Bart who offered the workable suggestion: 'He might be made to understand that his America is going to be at war with Hitler just as soon as we are. If he understood that, we could get him to swear that he'd write nothing about tonight ... or our stupid Gee-Gee ... or the n.a.z.i gauleiter Sterner.'

'Would you accept his word? On a matter of such vital importance?'

'I think we have to.'

'Will you give us such a.s.surance, McKay?' Before Millard could answer, Leckey said: 'Before you swear to a promise you can't keep, remember, if you double-cross us, we have people like the Ponsfords who will quietly slip into Detroit one afternoon, and you'll have a nasty accident.'

'I think I'm piecing the bits together,' McKay said. 'I'm not sure you're right about Germany, but I'm sure you think so.' He licked his dry lips and said: 'I give you my word.'

'Nothing about the Gee-Gee being a German accomplice, whether he knows it or not? Nothing about Baron Sterner? Nothing about our radio? Nothing about me or Bart, since we have to remain here?'

A harsh agreement was reached, covering each incident in the All Saints case, with McKay swearing that he would forget every significant aspect of the battleship's visit and in no way imperil the cover of Leckey, Bart Wrentham or the Ponsfords. But these matters were eclipsed by the echoes of a loud fracas on the street below. They hurried out into the sunrise ... to find a crowd gathering at Etienne Boncour's jewelry shop. 'What's happening?' Leckey snapped, and two women, shaken with horror, pointed dumbly at the store entrance.

Pushing their way through the muttering crowd, the two men entered the beautifully organized shop, its gleaming counters neatly aligned. But when they looked at the display case that housed the expensive Rolex watches, they saw draped across it, arms and legs grotesquely extended, the inert body of the shop's owner. Etienne Boncour had shot himself through the head, and his body had pitched forward with such force that it had shattered the gla.s.s case.

McKay was stricken by the appalling sight of his dead friend, but Major Leckey took only one hasty professional look, then quickly a.s.sumed his aide-de-camp pose. Waving his hand sideways to disperse the gawking onlookers, he snapped out a chain of orders: 'Be about your business. Go, go! Leave a path there!' and he pushed people back to make way for the converted truck that edged its way in to remove the dead body to the morgue.

AT FIFTY-ONE, Michael Carmody was beginning to wonder if he would ever find in his cla.s.ses the brilliant kind of lad who makes teaching bearable.

'None so far,' he groaned one Monday morning as he reported early for the weekly grind. 'Acceptable students, yes, but never that flaming talent bursting free to remind you of young Raphael or Mozart. P'raps they don't make 'em anymore.'

An Irish immigrant to Trinidad, Michael Carmody was an instructor at Queen's Own College in the pleasant town of Tunapuna, some eight miles east of the capital of Port of Spain.

Queen's Own, in the British fashion, was called a college (in other parts of the world it would be called a high school), the supposition being that if a bright lad wanted to move ahead to advance his education, he would next attend a university. The educational standard was high and top graduates had no difficulty in either winning bursaries to the best universities in Great Britain or doing well when they got there, so Carmody kept hoping that one day there would come wandering into his room a future Isaac Newton.

That Monday in 1970, as he reached his desk and dumped on it the books he had taken home with him on Friday, he saw awaiting him a sheet of white paper containing only the words Master Carmody. Lifting it, he found attached to it a second sheet of fourteen lines of poetry arranged in the cla.s.sical form of the sonnet. Taking his chair and leaning back, feet on the desk, he read the sonnet, looked up at the ceiling and said: 'Well now!'

In the few minutes before the students entered he read the poem again, and thought: This has to be Banarjee, and he visualized the timid Indian boy, fifteen years old, thin as an ebony wand, with dark complexion, a ma.s.s of almost shining black hair, and luminescent eyes that he seemed afraid to show in public. Ranjit Banarjee was unusually shy, especially with girls, and although he gave every evidence of possessing a mind of surprising capacity and range, he excelled in none of the traditional subjects. Cla.s.sified by his teachers as 'a difficult lad but never disruptive,' he moved quietly through the school system, always keeping somewhat apart from the other students-a Hindu in a Catholic school, an Indian among blacks and mestizos.

The bell signaling the opening of school rang and the delightful young people of Trinidad streamed into the room, all boys, since this was a segregated Catholic college, established in the years when the island had been Spanish. The complete range of color was represented, from blackest black of the Negroes whose ancestors had been slaves, to the half-black, half-white of the mestizos, the light browns of the Hindus and Muslims, to the delicate tans of the Spanish and French families with black infusions at some distant time, and on to the whites like Carmody who had come mainly from the British Isles, and relatively recently. As they came rollicking into his room he thought: A tropical bouquet, and how much more refreshing than the sea of pasty white that used to greet me in Dublin.

When his students came to attention he said, holding the two pages aloft in his left hand: 'This morning we start with a surprise, and a most pleasant one I can a.s.sure you. When I came to work this morning I found a poem waiting on my desk. From the way it is laid out, can you tell me what kind of poem it is?' One boy called out: 'A sonnet,' and Carmody asked: 'How do you know?' and the boy said: 'Eight lines at top, six at bottom.'

'Good, and the poem is good too,' and with that, he began in a rich Irish brogue intended for the recitation of poetry: 'When the immortal caravels pa.s.sed through That splendid crescent of the Carib isles, They left the grim Atlantic and the crew Cheered as they burst into a sea of smiles.

The waves were gentler here, the breezes soft, The sun irradiated all the sea.

Bright-colored birds sang as they soared aloft To celebrate this subtle victory.

'It was strange treasure that he found this day, Columbus of the never-bending mind: Not gold or silver or the facile kind Sought by his queen, who l.u.s.ted for Cathay.

He found new lands of ordinary clay Two continents of hope for all mankind.'