Strange Conflict (40 page)

Having set him up on one of the settees, with his head dangling between his knees, the other two rewrapped the girl's body and head in a sheet; then the Duke sent Rex to the flag locker. He could not find a Haitian or French flag so returned with an old Union Jack, which they wound round the corpse.

‘Thank God that's over!' murmured the Duke. ‘Fetch Marie Lou now. We must get her to sew up the shroud.'

But at that moment Marie Lou came into the cabin to report with an anxious face that although the other boats had nearly all given up the chase a small grey-painted steamer, which looked like a warship, had left the harbour.

Simon had just come-too and said that he must have air, so de Richleau told Marie Lou what he wanted done and, leaving Rex to help her, assisted his still groggy friend on deck.

Rex found a length of chain which he tied round the ankles of the corpse to weight it, and Marie Lou hunted about until she discovered some twine and a sailmaker's pad and needle in one of the lockers of the cabin. She then sewed up the edges of the Union Jack so that it formed a sack for the remains, and Rex went up to tell the Duke that the dead girl was ready for burial.

When Rex reached the deck he saw that the Haitian gunboat, a sea-going tug, a small yacht and two small motor-boats, all having fair speeds, were bunched together about a mile and a half astern; and the Duke said that he feared that this smaller but more powerful armada, which had left the harbour some time after he and his friends had put to sea, was gradually gaining on them. The tug's hooter
blared out an almost continious succession of short, piercing blasts, evidently intended as calls on them to stop, and now and again the gunboat joined in with a shrill whistle.

Ignoring these signals for the moment, the four men went down to the cabin and carried up Philippa's remains. They were well out at sea now, so de Richleau felt certain that there was no chance whatever of the weighted body being recovered. He said a short prayer of his own devising, that he considered appropriate to the occasion, then the flag-covered corpse was cast over the launch's side, disappearing with a loud splash into the water.

The Jamaica boys had only just realised that the sheeted bundle brought aboard by Rex had been a corpse. They were looking askance at their passengers and the three of them gathered in the stern to jabber excitedly in their own dialect. Apparently they supposed that murder had been committed and that their white employers had chosen this manner of disposing of the body of their victim. In consequence, they were now alarmed by the possibility that they might be accused of assisting a gang of murderers to escape from justice. Their obvious fear for themselves was considerably increased a few moments later—and with better reason. There came a bright flash on the foredeck of the gunboat followed almost instantly by a loud report, and a shell screamed overhead.

It exploded more than half a mile in advance of the launch, sending up a great column of water, so it appeared that the master gunner was not much of a marksman; unless his first shot was intended only as a warning and he meant to make quite certain that it fell nowhere near them.

The Jamaica boys suddenly began a chorus of protest to Rex, who had hired them. They hadn't done anything— they didn't want to get killed. The launch must stop and the white folk must give themselves up. Then the one who was at the wheel shut off the engine.

Richard felt intensely sorry for them, but all the same, he produced his automatic and, taking a few steps aft, drove them, still clamouring, out of the engine pit. Then Rex grabbed the wheel and switched on the power again.

A second shell from the gunboat splashed into the water four hundred yards away, but it proved to be a dud. The
pursuing armada had, however, gained a good quarter of a mile on them during that brief interval in which they had been slowed up by the temporary cutting-off of the engine. A third shell whistled over and sent up a column of foam only a hundred yards to starboard, and de Richleau yelled to Rex:

‘Head for the shore! We'll beach her and take to the forest—if we can get there in time.'

As Rex turned the wheel and the launch swung round, a fourth shell burst in the air some twenty feet behind them. A splinter ploughed up the deck within three inches of Simon's feet, another smashed one of the cabin windows, de Richleau and Marie Lou were thrown to their knees and one of the Jamaica boys was knocked overboard by the force of the blast.

However dire their own extremity they could not leave the poor fellow to drown or to be eaten by the sharks which they knew infested the channel; neither could they abandon him to the chance of being picked up by the Haitians and lynched as one of the pursued party. With a curse, Rex swung the wheel again and, turning in a wide circle, put back. In frantic haste they hauled the dripping Negro on board, but by the time they had done so the gunboat with its accompanying flotilla had decreased its distance to within half a mile of them, and the nearest point of the coast, upon which de Richleau had hoped to beach the launch, was well over a mile distant.

Just as they turned towards the shore again two more shells came in rapid succession; one was a wide miss, but the explosion of the other, under-water, gave the launch such a buffet that it nearly capsized. As it righted and raced on, with them now drenched to the skin from the flying spray and crouching flat on the deck, they saw that the tug had altered course to endeavour to head them off. It was nearer to them than any of the other vessels and now that they were in closer range it opened fire with a machine-gun.

Bullets spattered the water and the gun cracked again, its report echoing across the bay. They had now only half a mile to cover to reach the beach, but the machine-gun lifted and a spate of bullets from it thudded into the launch, holing and tearing its woodwork. Almost at the
same moment the engine stopped as a shell splinter from another high burst struck a part of the machinery with a metallic clatter.

The game was up; and de Richleau knew it. Without power they could not possibly reach the shore, and he suddenly realised that the launch was sinking from unseen hits which had holed her below the water-line. To attempt to swim for it only meant the possibility of having to face the sharks or the additional indignity of being dragged from the water, as within a few minutes the pursuing flotilla was bound to come up with them. Rising to his feet, he pulled out his white handkerchief and waved it in token of surrender.

Five minutes later they were surrounded by the Haitian flotilla and a hundred angry, indignant men were staring curiously at them. A Mulatto in a sky-blue uniform, with a sash and tassels of tarnished silver lace, shouted at them through a megaphone in French, from the gunboat, to catch the rope that would be thrown and haul themselves alongside with it.

The cabin was full of water and the launch now sinking under them, but they did as they were ordered. A rope-ladder was lowered and de Richleau's party, including the Jamaica boys, pulled themselves up it.

Immediately the Duke reached the gunboat's deck he addressed the officer in fluent French and with the arrogance of a victor rather than a captive. In firm tones he stated that seven of his party were British subjects and the eighth an American; and that the British and United States Goverments would call the Haitian Government to account for having, without the slightest provocation, endangered the lives of the occupants of the launch by firing upon them.

The officer was so dumbfounded at this impudence that he hesitated before answering, but he said that although he himself knew nothing of the matter it had been reported that the Duke's party had assaulted a surgeon at the hospital and, under her parents' eyes had forcibly removed the body of a girl who had died there that morning.

‘Have you a warrant for our arrest?' snapped the Duke. ‘If so, will you kindly show it to me.'

No, the Haitian Captain admitted, he had not a warrant, but in such an emergency he had considered it his plain duty to put to sea in order to prevent such evil-doers from leaving the country.

‘Very well, then,' said the Duke. ‘You have obviously only acted in accordance with your understanding of the situation, if extremely rashly. We will answer any charges which may be brought against us; but immediately we get back to port I shall look to you to inform the British and America Consuls of what has occurred and ask them to meet us, so that we can tell them our side of this affair without the least delay. I shall also hold you personally responsible for our safety.

The Captain appeared to agree to this, as he nodded before ordering some of his men to escort the three Jamaica boys forward and the White prisoners aft. Ugly looks were cast at them as they were hurried away and there was a considerable amount of hissing, spitting and fist-shaking among the excited crew, but a junior officer prevented any open attack from being made upon them, took them below and had them locked in a roomy cabin which appeared to be the wardroom of the vessel. They then had their first opportunity to examine properly the many hurts they had sustained an hour before, when they had so narrowly escaped being lynched; while the gunboat chugged back to port.

Soon after the ship had docked the Captain appeared, with several armed sailors behind him, to say that they were to be taken ashore. The news of the riot and its cause had now spread through the whole Haitian capital. Even people in the outlying suburbs who had not heard of it had been attracted by the unusual sound of gunfire and the sight of their warship pursuing a launch out in the bay so that, in spite of the mid-morning heat, the entire wharf-side was now crammed with a heterogeneous mass of people.

The prisoners had seen through the port-holes the great expectant multitude which was so inflamed against them and de Richleau had already made up his mind that if he and his friends stepped ashore their lives would not be
worth a moment's purchase. He voiced the feelings of them all as he said to the Captain:

‘No, thank you. We have no intention of leaving this ship until the crowds are dispersed. The people of Port-au-Prince have been told a completely wrong version of what has happened and think that they have excellent grounds for regarding us as worse than murderers. Before we got fifty yards they would overcome your sailors and pull us to pieces. If that occurred, His Brittanic Majesty and the President of the United States would both send warships here. As just retribution for our deaths I have no doubt at all that they would blow half the town to pieces and then take over the country. Unless you wish that to happen, and Haiti to lose her independence for good and all, you will leave us where we are and send your magistrates here, together with the British and American Consuls, as soon as you can so that this unfortunate business can be settled without bloodshed.'

As the one dread of every Haitian official is that his country may once more be taken over by the Whites—a calamity for which the Captain had no intention of being held responsible—he saw the sense of this, so agreeing to the Duke's suggestion, he locked them in again and left.

It was getting on for eleven and the sun, now high in the heavens, beat down upon the deck above. The cabin had the curious and unpleasant smell of stale tobacco-smoke and beer.

For a little while after the Captain's departure none of them said anything; they were too occupied in endeavouring to recoup themselves after the physical exertions and mental stresses that they had been through, and all of them were conscious that although they had won a great spiritual victory by giving proper burial to Philippa's body and at last bringing peace to her spirit, they had landed themselves in most desperate straits.

The fact that the body was no longer with them when they were caught would hardly stand them in much stead, for it would be assumed that, fearing to be captured with the evidence of their crime, they had thrown it overboard simply to be rid of it. No doubt the Haitian magistrates
would know all about Zombies, but it remained a most speculative matter as to whether they would officially acknowledge such a belief in front of Europeans. The good-class Haitians were most averse to it being known that such a horrible abuse of corpses still existed in their country, but out of a fear—a fear which they had imbibed with their mother's milk—for anyone even remotely connected with such practices, they might well condemn the White prisoners almost without a hearing. Besides, none of the prisoners saw what sort of a defence they could possibly put up, since they had not a shred of evidence to prove that Doctor Saturday was a Bocor from whom they had rescued the girl's body and they certainly could not prove—as they had avowed in the hospital—that she was not the daughter of
Monsieur
and
Madame
Martineau.

The full grimness of their situation was finally brought home to them when Simon, now dead-beat after his many hours of unbroken mental and physical activity, sighed wearily and said that he would give a thousand pounds for an hour's sleep.

De Richleau gave a bitter little laugh and reminded them that he had been compelled to leave the suitcase containing the new impedimenta, which Richard and Rex had gone to such trouble to fetch all the way from Jamaica, in the flooded cabin of the motor-launch; and by its sinking they had once more been robbed of the means of securing adequate astral protection. Like a force that is beleagured by land and sea, they were now in physical peril from any fate which the Haitian authorities mught decree for them, and should they fall asleep, they would be an easy prey for the merciless enemy who would assuredly await them on the other plane.

A little after midday a junior officer entered the cabin followed by a sailor and a slatternly-looking Negro steward, who dumped down a tray on which were five bowls of cornmeal-mush, a hand of bananas, some mugs and a large jug of water. De Richleau asked the officer if they could soon anticipate a visit from the British and American Consuls, but he shook his head and replied in bad French. He had no idea; all he had heard was that they were to be taken ashore for examination in the cool of the
evening, provided that a good portion of the crowd had dispersed.