The Night of the Rambler Read online

  But it had not been Alwyn Cooke, nor anyone else, who had imposed the silence. Instead, it was the simultaneous reaction of sixteen men, all far too absorbed in their own worries to notice the world outside. To the three American mercenaries aboard The Rambler, all scarred from their exploits in Vietnam, this might have seemed like a natural reaction. However, to the average West Indian, a group of sixteen men sitting in silence for this long in a small boat was an aberration. A talkative people steeped in a long tradition of humor and faith, West Indians are not prone to fall silent—to let pass an opportunity to lambaste one another with a copious dose of pique—on any occasion. But this was more than just an adventure, and more was at stake than any of them would have cared to admit: here were joined at once interests that were national and personal, common and individual; here was invested much hope, much time, and much money—money to pay for guns, money to pay for experienced men of war, money that in Anguilla in 1967 simply did not exist. Many of these thoughts never even crossed the minds of any of the sixteen men aboard The Rambler. Nevertheless, the tension, the fear, the uncertainty that reigned was adequately represented in this drawn-out silence that lasted from the moment Alwyn Cooke uttered his order to wait for night, until sometime after six, when the red sun approaching the horizon inexplicably triggered in the young Walter Stewart a need to hum the melody of “The Lord Is My Shepherd.”

  Walter Stewart sat at the back of The Rambler, where the fumes of the diesel engine had sent him on a dizzying slumber from the start. But the boat had been drifting for a good hour, and, if anything, the pervading smell was of sweat and salt, of men at sea, and Walter had often gone out fishing with his grandfather, Connor, the head of the Stewart family from Island Harbour, and sometimes they had traveled as far north as Sombrero Island, forty miles away from Anguilla and right in the middle of the Anegada Passage, so Walter knew for a fact that what he was feeling was not seasickness, and yet he could not help the vacuum in his stomach, and the spinning inside his head, and the dryness in his mouth, the taste of bitter fullness in his larynx.

  Although Walter was merely a kid—barely fifteen years old—he had been part of the revolution from the start. He had been there, getting his placard smashed on his head, in January 1967, when Rude Thompson and Alwyn Cooke recruited people to follow Chief Minister Bradshaw during his official visit to the island; he had proved one of the most vociferous hecklers at the speeches the statesman from St. Kitts had tried to deliver in Anguilla to “discuss” the concept of statehood; and he had been there again, watching from a safe distance, as the very same policemen who had so magnanimously shared their tear gas with the crowd left the island in an equally gallant gesture, on the morning of May 30.

  Ten days later, the commitment and loyalty of Walter Stewart toward the revolutionary cause was neither challenged nor questioned. What was being put to the test, however, was his stomach—until the sun, hanging low over the horizon, reddened by a thickening mist, put a hymn he loathed in his mind. Then, slowly, he let out a wail, which turned itself into a quiet hum, which led to a whisper. By the time he started whistling the tune, Mario Gómez, one of the American mercenaries onboard, had had enough. What the hell are you singing that for, boy? The only lord who can help you now is this: and he held the long, angular shell of a .30-caliber missile upright in his left hand, between his index finger and thumb. His pale young face squirmed in a failed attempt to look tough. Who the hell would put all that junk in a deserted rock, anyway? asked Gómez, referring to the carcasses of whatever remained of the fleet of Air Atlantique. Corporal Gómez did not think Walter Stewart would be headstrong enough to go on with his gospel, but he did not want to risk it either, nor did he feel in the frame of mind to allow the protracted silence to continue. Meanwhile, Glenallen Rawlingson, a quiet, determined young man with bulging eyes, inward-folded lips, and an anthropoid gait, was also happy to break the silence. He was tall and thin, and darker than the average Anguillian. Unlike most of the men in the expedition, he did not stem from the eastern end of the island, but from the more central South Hill. In a spontaneous burst of energy, he explained, maybe to Corporal Gómez, maybe to everyone else, how once, not too long ago, Flat Island had been an important source of income to Anguillians. My uncle did till de soil of dat land, when it belong to Mr. D.C. Glenallen spoke the truth, but for those who did not know the story it was hard to imagine, adrift, awaiting the end of the day, that anything at all might have ever taken place on that godforsaken rock. Yet Glenallen’s voice was less abrasive than the silence it replaced, so Corporal Gómez and the rest of the crew allowed him to continue his tale about an eccentric Dutch heir who had come to this far corner of the earth to dissociate himself from the civilized world and who had decided to set up his kingdom in Tintamarre, where he built a luxurious palace and raised cattle and grew cotton and, implausibly, became a major purchaser of Anguilla’s one and only export: labor. Alas, there was to be no happy ending to the fairy tale. D.C.’s death was mysterious, sad, and, as all death must be, lonely, but also categorical, because he failed to plant in Tintamarre or in the womb of his beloved Elaine Nisbet, or anywhere else for that matter, the seed of his spring and consequently brought with the end of his life the end, too, of his lineage and of a Caribbean extravaganza like no other. But this episode is too important to be dispatched as an aside. So let’s press the pause button and allow D.C. van Ruijtenbeek to linger in space for the time being, while we call upon the voice of the great Héctor Lavoe to put an end to Glenallen Rawlingson’s anecdote with the unmistakable melody of Todo tiene su final / nada dura para siempre . . .

  Back in The Rambler, where it’s unlikely that anyone had ever heard of Héctor Lavoe, except perhaps for Corporal Gómez, who had Borinquen running through his veins, the atmosphere on the boat loosened somewhat, awarding an air of normality to a situation that was anything but normal. When the sunset arrived it caught most of the men off guard. The tide had taken The Rambler slightly to the north of Tintamarre and the sun could be seen sinking in full behind the mass of water separating Anguilla from St. Martin. There was no afterglow. There was, however, a significant glow emanating from the fully restored and expanded electricity lines in St. Martin, which, since the devastating passage of Hurricane Donna in 1960, had been carefully developed on both sides of the island. Anguillians living on the southern shores were confronted with this sharp reality daily, but the men aboard The Rambler were mostly from the north and the east. Ahead of them the calm sea, tainted yellow, orange, pink, served as background to the silhouette of St. Martin towering above the pitch-black outline of flat little Anguilla, where not only had the government deemed it economically unviable to supply electricity to the six thousand islanders, but even the archaic telephone system which had been in place prior to Hurricane Donna remained, seven years later, derelict and unrepaired.

  Invigorated by the beauty, by the powerful symbolism of the scene, Alwyn Cooke entrusted the mission to the heavens with a May de Lord be wit’ us and gave the order to Le’s go. The intrepid bunch was on its way again to meet its unlikely destiny.

  The night had settled, there was no moon, and The Rambler, slow and overloaded, rocked between the dim lights of St. Barths, barely visible behind a curtain of mist to the east and the small pocket of life by St. Martin’s Orient Bay to the west. It was not until two hours after they had departed Tintamarre that the first major crossroads of the night was reached. The lights of Gustavia, the main settlement in St. Barths, had been left behind a good half hour earlier, and Pointe Blanche in St. Martin could barely be seen in the distance behind the boat. The Rambler had been cruising smoothly at the desired speed, just over ten knots an hour. Rude Thompson knew that all he had to do was point the ship due south and in less than three hours they would see the lights of St. Eustatius, at which point he would steer gently to the west, just a few degrees, not more, to take the sloop through the channel between St. Eustatius and St. Kitts and come straight into Sandy Hill Poin
t. Here a friendly motorboat was supposed to be awaiting their arrival to escort them to the final meeting point at Half Way Tree.

  All this sounded plain and simple, and it would have been so, had The Rambler been equipped with the most rudimentary of navigational tools, such as a compass. But The Rambler was a boat used exclusively to bridge the seven-mile channel between Anguilla and St. Martin, which never required anything more than mediocre eyesight, and it had never been intended as anything other than a means of transportation for leisure purposes or a smuggling run, which in Anguilla at the time was as much a national pastime as a way of earning a living. And Rude Thompson, captain for a day, had never stepped aboard The Rambler before the afternoon of Friday, June 9, 1967, when the boat had been floated at Island Harbour and loaded with a small arsenal of old guns.

  Everybody had been too busy then, minding their own business, to realize the instrumental void on the bridge of the thirty-five-foot boat, and Rude Thompson had not thought of it until he found himself at the helm of a drifting vessel off the coast of Tintamarre. Before the fall of the night, and with Anguilla to the north as his point of reference, Rude picked up an old piece of orange chalk and marked the cardinal points on the wheel of the boat. So once he heard Alwyn’s coarse Le’s go, he fired the engine and pointed The Rambler in the direction that his makeshift compass told him was south, using as frame of reference the lights along the eastern coast of St. Martin and those on the western side of St. Barths to make the appropriate corrections.

  But Rude Thompson had not considered the effect of the tide, rolling at full strength from east to west once The Rambler hit the waters south of St. Barths. Or, if he did, he underestimated the force of the sea, such that, despite holding the helm steady within the lines that marked his south, The Rambler drifted somewhat—just marginally, not even a few degrees—to the west. The consequences of this minor inaccuracy would prove to be calamitous when, two hours later, as The Rambler soared through the northern Caribbean, the first tenuous lights flickered in the distance, dead ahead. Da’ oughtta be Statia right dere, announced Rude Thompson, oblivious to the fact that at the speed they had traveled and with a mist that grew thicker as the night grew colder, they could not yet be within eyeshot of St. Eustatius.

  It did not even occur to Rude Thompson that this could be so, because in Rude Thompson’s mind all he required to confirm that, indeed, it was “Statia” right ahead of them, was for the lights of St. Kitts to loom in the horizon, marginally to the west of the lights which could already be seen. Never doubting he was right, Rude steered The Rambler to the east of the electric lights, roughly where he expected St. Kitts to appear. Less than half an hour after that, what he thought was St. Kitts emerged from the dark, farther still to the east than he had expected. It was not yet ten p.m., and at this rate Rude predicted they would reach the lights in an hour’s time at the most, putting them just about an hour ahead of schedule.

  The announcement was greeted with excitement by the younger ones among the militants, but Solomon Carter had long shed the candid ingenuity that so often accompanies youth, and he had never been known for his optimism in the first place, and he had lived long enough to be aware that when life deals you a hand with a surprise card in it, seldom does it turn out to be a pleasant one. But Solomon was no alarmist—nor was he a fool: often the man behind the scenes, he allowed the attention of the people of Anguilla to focus on the more charismatic figures of Alwyn Cooke and Rude Thompson, while he was allowed to exert his influence on them behind closed doors. Solomon Carter had been the first man to whom Alwyn Cooke had revealed his plans to invade the island of St. Kitts, before, even, Rude Thompson, precisely for the sober attitude and levelheadedness that took an apprehensive—nervous, really—Sol Carter right up to the corner where Alwyn Cooke stood. Wha’s our speed, Al? Alwyn Cooke had not seen Solomon Carter approach in the darkness of The Rambler, and was startled by the question. He thought of scolding Solomon as he hesitated to give his answer. Then he thought better. Ten and a half knots. Solomon Carter knew they had kept a steady pace throughout the night—he had listened out for the engines—but he knew he still had to ask: We slow down? Before he saw Alwyn Cooke shake his head he’d already let out a long sucking noise, as he kissed his teeth in disgust. In dis sea an’ dis speed, how come we be ahead of schedule? Alwyn gave no thought to Solomon’s question, immediately passed it on to Rude Thompson.

  Now, Solomon Carter was no expert in matters of seafaring, but it took more an elementary course in geography than a lifetime out at sea to understand that the latest set of lights populating the horizon could not be St. Kitts. When he explained to Rude Thompson that he thought the lights ahead of them came from Statia, and those to the west from Saba, he was greeted with a patronizing chuckle and an impatient Sol, when you last notice S’Martin behind? The dim lights at the southern end of St. Martin had disappeared an hour or so after The Rambler had sailed past Pointe Blanche. Wit’ dis mist you havin’ tonight you kyan’t see all da way to Saba out west. Dem lights west Statia, an’ dem in front St. Kitts.

  Solomon Carter was not convinced by Rude Thompson’s explanation, and he made him aware of his concern, but before bothering to give the question further thought Rude found the need to emphasize his authority and discourage any further questioning by rhetorically asking, Who de captain, Sol? You or me? Solomon let out a fiery stare that ripped open the dark canvas of the night as he looked straight into Rude Thompson’s eyes before turning away from him and heading back to the aft of The Rambler. There, he waited patiently for the next set of lights to appear on the horizon line.

  But Sol’s wait was cut short a few minutes later, when the lights ahead, brighter, larger by the minute, added to the numbing growl of the diesel engine, the violent rocking of the boat, and the dark flatness of the night chipped away at Gaynor Henderson’s spirit and broke his will. From the bottom of his burdened, frightened chest, Boy, too many people goin’ dead could be heard. The unexpected lament put an end to every idle conversation, to every useless motion meant to make the wait for the arrival in St. Kitts less tedious. For a moment, even the 115hp diesel engine went mute and toiled in silence. Until Harry González, the man sitting to the right of Gaynor Henderson, let out an exasperated What the fuck?

  Too many people goin’ dead wit’ dis crazy plan, man, revealed a terrified Gaynor Henderson, who was, quite literally, scared shitless.

  (THE PLAN)

  Too many people goin’ dead wit’ dis crazy plan, man, cried Gaynor Henderson; and the whining tone in his voice put tears in his words which did not yet run down his cheeks; and it traveled through the thick air in the middle of the night, making its way past Corporal Gómez’s anger to wake Glenallen Rawlingson from his slumber; and it crossed the brain of each of the men aboard The Rambler as it entered their system through one ear, only to depart it almost immediately out the opposite one; and it spread not so much outrage or surprise but, rather, fear.

  Fear for themselves, fear for the other, fear of God, and fear of death took hold and spread among each of the members of a crew of amateurs who had been so absorbed in the adventure of toppling a government that they had not yet realized it was highly unlikely they would all be taking part in the journey home the following day, even if their ploy was successful. I ain’ go blow up no fuel depot: too many people goin’ dead! Gaynor, of course, was referring to the tally of other people who would die, more concerned about his record in the eyes of the ever merciful God Almighty than about his most immediate future. However, his spontaneous deliverance struck a note far more selfish, more individual, in his fellow Anguillians, all suddenly seriously threatened by the arrival of death.

  Meanwhile, the next repetition of his too-many-people-goin’-dead nonsense was one too many for Harry González, who took his automatic .32 out of its holster, loaded it, cocked its hammer, got on his feet, and with a You fucking moron lifted Gaynor by the collar of his T-shirt with his left hand as he aligned the barrel of his
gun with the large, hyperventilating nostrils of the Anguillian. But by this time the whining tone of Gaynor’s first wail had already found its way to the bridge of The Rambler, where it tolled the alarm bells inside the head of Alwyn Cooke, who, despite the darkness, could see very well what was going on as he approached Harry González and ordered him, unequivocally, to Put da’ away an’ save your aggression for de Bradshers.

  Harry González was the leader of the three American mercenaries aboard The Rambler. He too had been to Vietnam but, unlike Mario Gómez, the war had not so much diminished his human sensibility as emphasized the perversion of his already-cruel disposition. He had come across Alwyn Cooke by mere coincidence one day on St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, when he overheard the man explaining to an official of the US Postal Service the serious impasse at which Anguilla found itself after it had expelled the full extent of the police task force from the island and, along with them, any semblance of allegiance, or even suzerainty, toward St. Kitts. The central government in Baseterre had subsequently frozen all Anguillian bank accounts and suspended the postal service between the islands, effectively isolating Anguilla. Therefore, the breakaway country had set up official PO boxes in both French and Dutch St. Martin, which remained the only means to communicate and send funds to the island.

  After a long conversation that was more monologue than negotiation, all that Alwyn Cooke achieved was an I’m sorry, Mr. Cooke—I’m afraid there’s nothing I could do for you and your government, other than to suggest to all customers wishing to mail something to Anguilla to do so to either of your addresses in St. Martin. That, along with a promise that a large, clear notice would be hung in all post offices in the Virgin Islands, advising customers of the situation in Anguilla, an assurance—Believe me, Mr. Cooke, when I tell you that we understand the importance of your struggle and we wish you all the success—and, on his way out of the post office, a chance meeting with Harry González, who had overheard the word Anguilla and had been intrigued enough to linger nearby and eavesdrop.