Britannia's Shark: The Dawlish Chronicles: April - September 1881 by Antoine Vanner

Author:Antoine Vanner [Vanner, Antoine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Old Salt Press
Published: 2014-12-04T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

“That's Cuba.”

The man standing by Dawlish on the bridge spoke in Spanish and with what might have been halfway between a sigh and a growl of menace. His great black eyes were glistening.

“That's Cuba,” he said again. “That's my country.”

His use of the word “patria” told that he meant more than the geographical feature that lay as a thin green trace along the starboard horizon. Piled-up clouds obscured the mountains beyond.

“That's Punta Guarico. You know this area, Señor Machado?” Dawlish had found that his own Spanish had revived since Raymond had brought this heavy, muscular exile on board at St. Augustine in Florida.

“La Provincia Oriente,” Machado said. “It was – it is – my home.” His voice faltered.

Dawlish could feel his grief and anger even if he could not penetrate this man’s reserve. Resentment and thirst for revenge seemed to consume him. This die-hard had never accepted the terms which had ended a decade of savage warfare between rebels and Spanish overlords two years before. Even during those endless and merciless campaigns the dark skin and crinkly hair that attested Machado’s part-African ancestry had set him apart from Cuba’s other revolutionary leaders – polished lawyers and academics of undiluted Hispanic ancestry – and he had never earned their full acceptance. Now he alone was the revolution, its living embodiment, the last leader untempted by promises of limited constitutional freedom under Spain. He was the untiring force that might urge the smouldering embers of resentment among the poor and dispossessed into another blaze of outright revolt.

“Another day, señor, and you'll be home.”

Dawlish regretted the hollowness of his words even as he uttered them. The next day and night would bring the Tecumseh sweeping southwards through the Windward Passage that divided Cuba and Haiti, and westwards towards her landfall, but Machado's home could only ever be a metaphorical one. A night of insane cruelty by a Spanish column five years before had seen to that. Now it must seem real to him again as he stood, gripping the rail, his pock-marked face wet with tears.

It was on the resolution and guile of this angry, wounded man that Dawlish knew his own success would rest, on Machado’s local knowledge, his contacts, his ability to evoke loyalty from a population cowed by reprisal and oppression. Dawlish had known him – or rather had hardly known him – for just a week and from tomorrow his dependence on him would be total. But the die had been cast and he had no alternative to relying on him. For a decision taken in Washington while he had pared at that iron-hard door in foetid darkness at New Haven had ruled out any possibility of boarding the dredger either at sea or in port.

Oswald had dropped the bombshell when he had arrived incognito at Norfolk shortly after the Tecumseh docked there. He had travelled from Washington wrapped in a white duster coat, face shaded by a broad-brimmed straw hat and eyes lost behind green spectacles. He

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