A Way in the World (39 page)

“For the next ten days the Spaniards who had withdrawn from Coro shadowed us, fifteen hundred of them to four hundred of us. No question of engaging them, no question of making a march over the hills to Caracas. The strain began to tell on our volunteers. Their discipline began to break. One day there was an incident between the two groups, the French and the Americans. Three more men wounded, a cook killed. This greatly alarmed me. I thought we should make our way back to the coast. We had no carts, of course, for the wounded and the sick, or horses or mules. We had to use litters, changing the carriers every half hour or so. It slowed us up. I felt I had walked into a Spanish trap. I felt that at any moment the Spaniards might fall on us. I drove the litter-bearers hard. At one stage I threatened to shoot some of them with my own hand. They haven’t forgiven me. I am not staying in Government House, and now they shout abuse at me in the streets.

“Late one night we re-embarked’. I didn’t know what to
do. I had waited so many years for this moment. I wrote to the British governor of Jamaica for help. It was foolish. Of course he couldn’t send troops to me. I waited six weeks to hear that, our supplies running out, food very scarce, people getting sick and mutinous. And then a message came from Admiral Cochrane, telling me he couldn’t help any more. London had forbidden it. His help to me was to be limited to protection from a naval force of the enemy, to prevent enemy succours being landed, and to secure my re-embarkation. In short, it was finished. I had thought of Cochrane as an avaricious man, easy therefore to handle. Now the style of his letter, so precise and pointed, like instructions on the battlefield, spoke to me of the capacity that had made him an admiral, and of a power that I had never possessed.

“This was the mood in which, after beating eastwards against the wind for five weeks, that wind like the wind of my misfortune, I returned with my ragged force to Trinidad, and on the very day of my return had to show Hislop a good face, and then, like a man still only a step from power, had to sit in the Council while the contraband traders debated my future.

“Cochrane shows me honour still, in a way. He has arranged for me to stay in the house of Lieutenant Briarly, RN. Briarly is so far correct. He lives in greater style than Hislop, but as the leading Navy man here he does run something like a parallel government. He enforces the Navigation Acts here. His command is only a dismasted hulk in the harbour, but when he is aboard that he is outside Hislop’s jurisdiction. Such is the power of this Navy. The Navigation Acts have to do with trade. This means that Briarly is a kind of customs officer. This means that he splits with the contraband traders and the ship’s captains and offers protection to others. He is making a fortune. He knows to the last shilling how much he is worth, and I have already been made to know it too. I know that this Port of Spain house where I am staying is
worth ten thousand dollars (and he keeps on saying he can sell it any day), and I know that in addition he has a large country estate worth fifteen thousand pounds, with eleven mules and thirty-three Negroes. He is forever writing down the names of these thirty-three on little scraps of paper, and putting numbers next to them, as though he wants to count his Negroes and add up their value all the time.

“The Spaniards and Venezuelans here, the traders and the peons, still hiss me in the street. They did it the morning I arrived. I thought they would have stopped by now. They do it in a way that always takes me by surprise. They don’t look at me, so when the sharp hissing sound starts I can’t tell where it’s coming from. It is a terrible sound. It would cut through a military band.

“A defeated man has to put up with criticism, and I thought at first that they were mocking me because I had failed. Then I thought it might have been because of the American malcontents from the
Leander,
who make endless scenes in the streets and are dunning me for money I don’t have. Terrible stories have been spread, too, about our retreat to the coast and my threatening of the litter-bearers. Then I thought they were hissing me simply for being alive, after so many men had died. I know now that almost on the day we left for Coro the Venezuelan agents here began to spread the story of the executions at Puerto Cabello, the hanging and the burning of the men in white gowns in A white caps, the twenty-five-pound chains for the living, with the beds of stone and pillows of brick. And then I thought it was quite simple. I felt that I had let them down because I had failed. I thought that because I had failed I had exposed them as South Americans to ridicule.

“This was so wrong. It is vanity on my part to think like that. I am assuming that these people look on me as their liberator, look to me to restore their dignity. I am assuming they look on me as I look on myself and have been looking
on myself these past twenty years. The opposite is true. The peons here look on me as a heretic and traitor. They are happy that I have been, defeated and the men from the
Leander
are in rags. The Venezuelan agents have taken good care to circulate the bishop of Mérida’s proclamation against me. I am an atheist, a monster, an enemy of religion, leading a gang of scoundrels from the United States and the islands against my country.

“I have never these past twenty years, in the United States and England and Europe, had to defend myself against that charge, and I don’t know how to do so here. I don’t know how my life has been so twisted that this distorted picture of my character can be thrown at me. This has caused me much distress, Sally, as much distress as the defeat and the humiliation and the idleness I have to endure here. I begin to feel, not only very far away, but also that I am losing touch with things.

“I don’t know how to say to the peons here, what the world knows, that since I left the Spanish service I have held no job and had no idea other than that of South American independence. That is how I define myself in the will I made just before I left London. You will remember I say there that I have known no people anywhere else so worthy of a wise and just liberty. What means do I have of making them understand that here? The six thousand books you look after in Grafton Street have been left, in that same will, to the University of Caracas when freedom comes, and I leave the books in memory of the literary and Christian values the university taught me. My sons were both baptized before I set foot on my native land, and when we were coming south in the
Leander
I never stayed on deck when on Sundays Captain Lewis read prayers. The Spaniards have taken all the accidental things in my life, the wild things I said in the United States and Russia when I first felt myself a free man, and the fact that I now need all the volunteers I can get, the Spaniards
have taken these accidental things and created a picture of me that I do not recognize. I know that I have followed a straight path, and I am very clear in my own mind about what I want. But I have no means of making myself clear to these people. And, worse, everything I do now confirms their picture. I have written to London for four thousand men. Rouvray has gone with the request. That, too, will add to this picture of the traitor and atheist.

“Briarly, regularly counting his Negroes and adding up his fortune, has begun to sense my solitude and friendlessness, my loss of direction, my floating state here. He has so far been correct with me, treating me as the colleague and friend of his admiral. But now I get some feeling of a change, and this might mean that the ministers in London have given Cochrane more urgent things to attend to. I am nervous of the ruffianly gang of midshipmen who serve Briarly. They have been corrupted by their licence as young officers, tormentors of ordinary seamen, and enforcers of the Navigation Acts, and they take pleasure in chasing and beating up unsuspecting people. They don’t touch Negroes, who would have the protection of their owners. But they can give poor white people and free people of colour a rough time. The other day, in daylight, they chased an Englishman through several city yards. They said he was an informer. He ran into somebody’s yard and they ran in after him. They pulled the poor man from under a bed in a Negro hut at the back of the yard—it was an enormous joke to them that he was hiding there—and to complete the joke they tarred and feathered him, and Hislop’s alguazils could do nothing.

“I’ve been reporting my doubts about Briarly. His attitude to me has changed. I know it now.

“At dinner yesterday he said, ‘I’ve had a run-in with Biggs the American, the man from the
Leander.
He’s not exactly friendly towards you. You haven’t paid him or anybody else for six months. He’s told me a lot of other things.
He says he’s going to write a book about this whole business of yours.’

“ ‘I know. I’ll have to take what comes.’

“ ‘Let me be blunt. Why is it that whenever you’ve been put to the test as a military man, you’ve let people down?’

“I did well in North Africa. At Melilla. But that was thirty years ago.’

“ ‘Exactly. I was thinking of the siege of Maastricht when you had bluffed your way into command of the French.’

“ ‘There was a trial in Paris. I was cleared of all charges. Biggs should have told you.’

“ ‘And Puerto Cabello in April, and now.’

“I suppose you can say I had bad luck.’

“I have good luck.’

“As sometimes happens when I am in an unequal relationship with a man in authority for whom I have no regard, I began to exaggerate the side of my character that was opposite to his. It can look like irony to some, but it really is a form of unhappiness. I became soft, over-cultured. I said, ‘Cicero says good luck is one of the four qualities of a successful military man.’

“ ‘What are the other three?’

“ ‘Talent, military knowledge, and prestige. The words have very wide meanings.’

“ ‘Don’t you think it would have been different at Coro if you had had a man of luck at your side? A man who believed in his luck wouldn’t have been so much on the defensive. He might have shown you some way of cutting off the Spanish force that was shadowing you, squeezing them between you and the ships, and then marching on Caracas.’

“I had no faith in the men. They had begun to fight among themselves.’

“ ‘How are you going to pay them off? And settle the master of the
Trimmer
? He’s going to sue you. He says you hired his ship in Barbados. Why don’t you sell the
Leander
?
It will fetch a good price. You will pay off everybody if you sell it well.’

“ ‘Who will buy it?’

“‘I will buy it. That’s not charity. It’s a business deal. I will refit the ship in Antigua or Barbados, get it up to Admiralty standards, and sell it to the Navy. The Navy needs ships. I know exactly what they need.’

“He said no more, and now to some extent I wait on his decision. He knows that, and for some days he has not mentioned the
Leander.
I feel uneasy, because it seems too easy, and because I’m not sure now what’s coming from Lieutenant Briarly.

“I got to know today.

“He said abruptly at dinner, ‘I think before you sell, the
Leander
should make one last run under American colours. Up the river to Angostura. That’s where you should have gone in the first place. The river is narrow, the town is not well-protected. I know the place. As a good Navy man, my first thought when I look at a town from a river or the sea is, “What’s the best way of attacking this place?” It’s a mental exercise for me. And the Venezuelan ship captains bring me information all the time. I know exactly what to do at Angostura. An hour’s hot work by good Navy gunners would deal with the military barracks and such fortifications as they have. We could then move up and down at will, covering you. We could hold the town for quite a while. You could land and proclaim your republic. If it works you stay. If not, in five days you are back here.’

“I know it’s an act of piracy he’s proposing. That’s the idea he has of me and my cause. It’s the idea the Venezuelans have spread, and it’s exactly the way some of the
Leander
men used to talk at the beginning. And, of course, I would be completely in his power. He could withdraw his force, he could hand me over to the Spaniards, he could do anything. But the insult! The insult!

“Two days later. Nothing said in the interim. Now: ‘Have you thought it over?’

“ ‘Angostura is better fortified than you imagine. An attacking force coming upriver would be very vulnerable.’

“ ‘So your answer is no?’

“ ‘I fear so.’

“He was enraged, icy. He said, ‘The
commandeur
of my property here has been complaining to me. You have been making far too free with the mules and the Negroes. To the general prejudice of the place. The
commandeur
says he is not able to get on with his proper duties.’

“I said, ‘You offered the facility. I have been transferring supplies from the
Leander
to a warehouse. You know that.’

“ ‘I gave permission for one day. I didn’t give permission for a week. I think you should leave. I have in fact drafted a letter to Admiral Cochrane telling him that I feel compromised in my dealings with Spaniards and others by your continued residence here. In the circumstances you will understand that I have to decline your offer of the
Leander.
I think you should leave as soon as possible.’

“I left the next morning. I was relieved to get away from the house. But I was sorry about the
Leander.
He had encouraged me to think that the deal was all but struck.

“I went to McKay’s Hotel. It is next door to the military barracks, where for four weeks or so I drilled my men. Downstairs, McKay’s is a tavern with a billiard table for merchants’ clerks. Upstairs there are four or five rooms overlooking the parade ground.

“McKay came here just after the British conquest. He had heard from someone that the island was empty and they were giving away land. He found when he came that they were indeed giving away land, but only in large acreages and only to people who could bring in a large enough Negro
atelier.
He said as a joke to the chief magistrate one day, ‘Suppose I start clearing five acres of forest for myself, what will happen?’ The chief magistrate said in the same spirit,
‘Vallot’s jail and Negro’s punishment, thirty-nine lashes.’ Vallot was the jailer at the time, a Frenchman from Martinique, a figure of terror to the Negroes. It is a tavern-keeper’s story, the way McKay tells it now, and of course he has done well with the billiard table and the dubious rooms upstairs, and has a few Negroes of his own. About the billiards: McKay says every table pays a tax, and the money goes straight to Hislop as part of his official fees as governor.