Wind of Destiny Page 19

  ‘My God,’ Joe said, ‘to see you treated like some criminal … ’

  ‘Well, I suppose to the government I am pretty nearly a criminal,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think they’d let anybody in to see me.’

  ‘They don’t,’ Joe told her. ‘I had to get Harold Walkshott to come with me and speak with General Linares personally to even get permission for this brief visit. Toni … are you all right?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘But … you look kind of thin to me. Do you have enough to eat?’

  ‘Sure I do. I’m doing fine. How are Ma and Pa?’

  ‘Just about crazy with worry.’

  ‘Didn’t they, you, get my letters?’

  He shook his head. ‘The general feeling is that we’d like to wring Rafael’s neck, for involving you in something like this. And Don Arnaldo’s.’

  ‘Don Arnaldo is dead. Joe … ’

  ‘How is Christina taking it?’

  The question she had been dreading. ‘Joe … ’ she held his hand, led him to the settee. Salvador appeared with a tray of glasses filled with rum punch; there were still limes in the garden and rum in the storeroom. ‘It is good to see you, senor lieutenant,’ the butler said. ‘Maybe you send these men away, eh? Soon.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Joe agreed. ‘Toni … ’

  Toni waited until the butler had left them, and then told him everything that had happened. He listened in silence, his face growing grimmer and grimmer, until by the time she had finished he looked almost savage.

  ‘Lumbrera,’ he said, his big hands opening and shutting as if the fingers were closing on the policeman’s neck. ‘By God!’

  ‘Do you think there is anything you can do?’ Toni asked.

  ‘You’re damned right I think there is something I can do. If I have to tear this island apart to do it. For a start, you are coming out of here.’

  She bit her lip. ‘I don’t think I can do that.’

  ‘Now look here … ’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘You look here, Joe. I am the Senora Diaz de Obrigar. This is my home, and these are my people. Without me here, I think they would just disintegrate. Can you take all of them out, too? I also have a very sick mother-in-law upstairs, and I have a husband hiding in the hills. And you want me to run away and leave them?’

  He gazed at her.

  ‘So I don’t live in quite the luxury of a year ago,’ she told him. ‘That’ll come again. The important thing is that no one is going to lay a finger on me. Lumbrera would have done so already, if he had thought he could get away with it. He sure has wanted to. So I have to stay, because I’m the only protection they have. Just by being here, with everyone knowing I’m going to be here when it’s over, too, to report on what I saw, is a protection for these people. But it didn’t protect Christina. Joe … she’s the one you have to help. Quickly.’

  He got up, hands now bunched into fists.

  ‘But for God’s sake, don’t do anything stupid,’ she begged.

  ‘And I must leave you here,’ he growled.

  She got up to hold his arm. ‘I’ll be here, when you come back, with Christina.’

  *

  She watched him ride away, hurried to the upper floor to keep him in sight for as long as possible. Just to have seen him was a tonic. She had no doubt that he was going to be able to do something — he was Joe McGann. She almost expected him to return with Christina the following day. Certainly the following week. But nothing happened, although she could still see the Maine, from time to time, cruising slowly up and down the coast. The mere fact that the battleship was moving had to mean Joe had rejoined her … but there was no sign of Christina. She wanted to believe Joe had managed to get her on board the ship, but surely he would have let her know. And then the ship itself disappeared. She was so distraught she begged Captain Torres for news, even going so far as to invite him to the house for dinner in the hopes of learning something, but he gravely declined to tell her anything. ‘I am forbidden to do so, senora,’ he explained.

  She supposed in many ways she was fortunate, as he could have been so much worse as a gaoler. But there were times when she hated him.

  Two days later she awoke to the sound of gunshots. She sat up in bed, sheet clutched to her throat; in the heat of a Cuban summer she slept naked, especially with Rafael away. The noise was deafening, a series of rippling fusillades, accompanied and enhanced by the cheering of men. And now answered by other shots closer at hand as the soldiers replied, and by the deadly rattle of the Maxim guns which Torres commanded. The rebels had to be attacking the plantation. And that meant they had to be led by Rafael and Jack. They were just out there, a few hundred yards away, beyond the fence.

  She leapt out of bed, pulled on her robe, and ran down the stairs, halting as she discovered a sergeant and four soldiers in the drawing room. ‘I am to apologise, senora,’ the sergeant said. ‘But no one is to leave the house.’

  Other men were rounding up the servants and herding them from their quarters into the house until they formed a large, nightclothes-clad group in the drawing room, embarrassed to be appearing before the senora in such déshabillé, staring at the soldiers, who were by now all well known to them, and whispering to each other as they listened to the constant firing, the yells and shrieks which came out of the darkness.

  ‘When our friends break in here, it will go hard with you,’ Salvador told the sergeant.

  ‘It is going hard with your friends,’ the sergeant told him, grimly.

  Toni went upstairs to see how Carlotta was taking it, but her mother-in-law had as usual been fed a large dose of laudanum after her supper, and was sleeping heavily. She went out on the upper verandah, and stared into the night. She could see the flashes of light coming from all around her, and listen to the noise. The fighting seemed very close, and when there was a sudden thud from right beside her, she realised that she might even be in some danger, at least from a stray shot. She went back inside again, her mind curiously in abeyance. Jack and Rafael were coming to rescue her. To take her away with them. She was not sure whether Joe would want that or not. Then she would indeed stand a chance of being killed, or executed, or at least imprisoned, as she would actually be with the insurgents in the field. But how glorious it would be to be free, and fighting for her friends, whatever the danger and discomfort. She even got dressed, anticipating their imminent arrival, and sat down to wait, and try to imagine what it would be like to see them again after all these weeks. And once they had rescued her, then surely they could do something about Christina. If they were strong enough, and bold enough, to assault even an armed camp like this one … but with the coming of daybreak the firing began to die away, and soon it stopped altogether. She went back on to the verandah, and stared at the withered cane. In the distance she thought she could see men, trailing into the hills, carrying their dead and wounded. But had it not been for the bullet holes in the walls of the house she might have supposed she had dreamed the whole thing.

  Captain Torres stood beneath her. ‘Your friends tried to rescue you, senora,’ he said. ‘But … how do you say it in English? They got themselves a bloody nose.’

  *

  Joe McGann sat in the captain’s cabin of the USS Maine with his head in his hands, while Landy regarded him with total sympathy. ‘I know it makes the blood boil, Joe … ’

  ‘To think, of that lovely young girl, locked up in that police fortress with that thug … and he is a thug, you know,’ Joe said. ‘God, what he could be doing to her … ’

  ‘You don’t know for sure anything has been done to her, beyond imprisonment,’ Landry argued.

  ‘You’ve never met Lumbrera,’ Joe told him. ‘Believe me, sir, I know what is happening to Christina Diaz de Obrigar. And no one is prepared to do anything about it. I spoke to Walkshott. I went back to General Linares … he refused to see me, the second time. I went to Daiquiri, and was faced with a bayonet; I never even set eyes on Lumbrera. I tried to go back to Obrigar, to see my sist
er again, and was refused entry there too. I never got in sight of the house. My God … ’

  ‘I should say, thank God, that you kept your head, and didn’t do anything foolish,’ Landry commented.

  ‘With fifty marines I’d clear those scum out of there in half an hour,’ Joe said. ‘For God’s sake, sir, we could take the Maine into Daiquiri itself. The bay has deep water to within half a mile of the shore. That’s point blank range for our guns. All we’d have to do is tell them, release Christina Diaz or we’ll blow your miserable fort to pieces … ’

  ‘That would be an act of war, Joe.’

  ‘It’s what the HMS Niobe did, just over there in Santiago, back in 1873.’

  ‘The British don’t see things quite our way. They believe in shooting first and worrying about the legality afterwards. Heck, they can get away with it; they have the greatest battle fleet in the world. And leaders who don’t have to stand for election quite as often as ours do. Anyway, the Niobe was out to save, or avenge, British lives. This girl isn’t an American.’

  ‘She would be if I’d married her,’ Joe muttered. ‘Anyway, my sister is.’

  ‘You tell me she’s quite sure she’s in no danger.’

  ‘That’s not to say she’s safe. So we just sit back and watch what’s happening,’ Joe said bitterly. ‘To possess all of this power, right here under our feet, and be unable to use it … it makes a nonsense of the whole thing.’ ‘We’ll use it, Joe,’ Landry told him. ‘When the Navy Department orders us to. Hopefully that won’t be too long. I certainly mean to file a report on everything you have found out. But until we get the right orders, yes, I’m afraid we just sit back, and watch, and wait. I know it’s hard, but no one ever pretended being a officer in the United States Navy was an easy business.’

  And I must lie on my bunk, every night, Joe thought, and dream of Christina Diaz, lying at the feet of Juan Lumbrera.

  *

  The train pulled into Daiquiri station, and the waiting soldiers came to attention as they formed a guard of honour. The man who stepped down, while the other passengers were kept waiting, was no more than medium height, but built like a bull. He wore a white tropical uniform, and his topee was crowned with plumes. His face was hard and heavy, his jaw prognathous. He nodded to Colonel Lumbrera, who was standing rigidly to attention, wearing his best white uniform, and saluting. Captain-General Valeriano Weyler touched his own hat in turn, and walked down the ranks of the guard of honour.

  ‘They need more discipline,’ he commented briefly, and then went to the waiting carriage. Mounted policemen stood to either side, and more infantry kept back the spectators; there were quite a few.

  Weyler got into the carriage and sat down, and Lumbrera sat beside him. ‘Tell me about this battle of Obrigar Plantation,’ requested the newly arrived commander-in-chief of the Spanish forces in Cuba.

  ‘Ah, it was nothing more than a skirmish, Your Excellency,’ Lumbrera explained. ‘Captain Torres, who commands the Obrigar outpost, estimates there were not more than two hundred rebels. He had no difficulty in driving them off, and he believes they suffered many casualties.’

  ‘He believes,’ Weyler said contemptuously, gazing through the window of the carriage at the people who lined the single street of the town. ‘The fact is that a Spanish military post was attacked. And there have been other attacks upon military establishments, further north. These scoundrels are becoming bolder.’

  ‘Indeed, Your Excellency. To my mind, it is all to do with the presence of American warships off our coasts. This encourages the rebels to suppose American help may soon be extended to them. In any event, they are interfering with our duties. Do you know that the battleship Maine actually had the temerity to put an officer ashore to investigate conditions in the Santiago area?’

  Weyler nodded. ‘I have heard of that. I have ordered an official protest to be made to the United States Consul in Havana. However, the fact remains that there have been these attacks. The cause is irrelevant. What casualties did Torres suffer?’

  ‘Well, there were seven men killed, and sixteen wounded, Your Excellency,’ Lumbrera said.

  ‘Twenty-three men, out of a hundred. That is a quarter of his force, to all intents and purposes. I doubt the rebels can have suffered more. That is not good enough, Lumbrera. And you, what have you been doing?’

  ‘Well, Your Excellency … ’

  ‘I have heard what you have been doing,’ Weyler went on, as if he had not spoken. ‘You disgust me.’

  ‘Ah, you mean the girl Diaz, Your Excellency.’ Lumbrera was not abashed by his superior’s criticism. ‘I am convinced that she was another reason for the attack upon Obrigar. Her brother is a leader of these bandits.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Lumbrera frowned; the Captain-General had not seemed to appreciate the point. ‘So by holding her in my cells I force the bandits to attack our posts, and get themselves killed. Is that not what we wish, Your Excellency?’

  ‘No, Colonel, that is not what we wish, if every time they kill or wound as many of my soldiers as they lose themselves. That is a bad rate of exchange. In case it has slipped your mind, there are undoubtedly more rebels in Cuba than Spanish troops.’

  ‘But, Your Excellency, how else are we to defeat these pests?’ Lumbrera was genuinely confused. ‘As you say, we do not have the men to invade their mountains. We must make them come to us. Surely.’

  ‘We will not defeat them by splitting our men up into small detachments. The next time Torres may not get away so lightly. I doubt we will defeat the insurgents in the field, conclusively, in any event. Did not many of Garcia’s men remain in the mountains for all the twelve years between the official end of the last revolt and the start of this one?’ Lumbrera put up his hand to scratch his head, then hastily lowered it again. But he did not understand what the Captain-General was driving at.

  ‘There is only one way to make these bandits cease their activities,’ Weyler declared. ‘And this I am determined to do. General Blanco does not like my plan, and neither does General Linares, but frankly, I do not believe either of those estimable gentlemen are prepared to understand the forces with which they are dealing. I have been sent to Cuba to put an end to this revolt, and I intend to do that. Our task must be to make it too difficult for the rebels to continue fighting.’

  ‘But how, Your Excellency?’

  ‘It was assumed,’ Weyler said, ‘that by preventing them from having any contact with their families they would soon grow tired of living like animals in the hills. This has not happened, and it is because they know that their families are secure, that when the rebellion is finally over, they will have their plantations and their possessions to return to. This is where we must change things. I have already ordered the construction of camps for the concentration of the women and children of these people. These camps will be situated close to defensible strongholds, such as Santiago, or Camaguey, or even Havana itself, where they can be easily defended by large numbers of your people, who will also be concentrated there. Into these camps we will herd every woman, together with her children, who cannot produce a husband, or prove that he is working for the government. And once she has been incarcerated, we shall bum her house, or plantation, or whatever, and confiscate all her possessions.’

  Now Lumbrera did scratch his head. Even he had never considered quite such a draconian step. Nor was he sure he understood everything that the Captain-General had in mind.

  The carriage was stopping. The door was opened, and Weyler stepped down into the barracks’ compound, saluting the policemen waiting for him.

  Lumbrera hurried behind him as he went up the steps to the colonel’s quarters. ‘These camps … ?’

  ‘Will be unpleasant places, Lumbrera,’ Weyler told him, taking off his gloves and throwing them on the table, before removing his hat and unbuckling his sword belt. ‘I will have a glass of wine. Yes, indeed, these women will be fed the barest minimum of food, allowed the barest minimum of water,
and they will be crowded, close together.’

  Lumbrera poured two glasses of wine. ‘Before very long they will start to die.’

  ‘Well, then, that should bring matters to a conclusion even more quickly, should it not? We will make sure that the rebels know exactly how their families are faring. I have in mind a skilful use of photography. We will employ reliable photographers, to take exposures of these people in all their misery, and of the wreckage of their homes, and we will make sure these photographs fall into the hands of the rebels. Thus the insurgents will realise that their families are in prison and their homes destroyed. That will make them think about what they are doing. Then they will have a choice. Either attack the camps, and thus our fortified cities, where we will be waiting for them in strength, and can stamp them out of existence like die vermin they are, or leave their wives and families to rot. Or surrender. I think many of them will choose the last.’

  ‘Of course,’ Lumbrera said. ‘It is an excellent plan, Your Excellency. But … to carry out measures against women and children … it will attract adverse comment. Especially when the women begin to die.’

  ‘You are thinking of the American newspapers,’ Weyler said. ‘I am sure you are right, but are the newspapers of any real importance? I have studied this matter quite closely, Colonel. The Americans will protest, but I doubt they will do anything more than that. They are not a warlike people. Their sole aim in life is to make money, and war interferes with that principle. Besides, it is unheard of for one country to interfere in the internal affairs of another. However, a certain amount of finesse will be necessary. I am placing you in command of the Santiago camp.’

  ‘Me, Your Excellency?’

  ‘I need hard men, Lumbrera.’

  ‘Ah,’ Lumbrera said, gratified.

  ‘But … ’ Weyler pointed. ‘Although you will, as I have said, expose these women and children to all the hardships you can create, and make sure that the rebels know of it, you will at the same time admit to no one what you are doing. Indeed, you will protest to the world, and particularly the American consuls, if they should feel it necessary to investigate, that we have been forced to herd these women and their children into the camps because we can no longer adequately protect them from rebel attacks, and that whatever hardships they suffer are a result of shortages caused by the war itself, of the conditions inflicted upon us all by these bandits in the hills.’