The Angry Island, page 1
THE ANGRY ISLAND
James Pattinson
© James Pattinson 2002
James Pattinson has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 2002 by Robert Hale Limited.
This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.
Table of Contents
Chapter One – No Business
Chapter Two – An Offer
Chapter Three – A Very Powerful Man
Chapter Four – The Mine
Chapter Five – Invitation
Chapter Six – A Different Story
Chapter Seven – The Fort
Chapter Eight – Only the Beginning
Chapter Nine – No Answer
Chapter Ten – Night Encounter
Chapter Eleven – New Quarters
Chapter Twelve – Nothing to Lose
Chapter Thirteen – Moonlight
Chapter Fourteen – A Journey
Chapter Fifteen – The Bridge
Chapter Sixteen – Brief Appearance
Chapter Seventeen – A Surprise for Lamartine
Chapter Eighteen – Repercussions
Chapter Nineteen – Lebrun
Chapter Twenty – Pulling Out
Chapter One – No Business
The airfield was a rectangular peninsula jutting out into the bright blue waters of the bay. From the circling airliner it appeared no bigger than a pocket handkerchief. Looking down Guy Radford could see the jumble of buildings that was Portneuf and away in the background a range of mountains.
‘So we arrive at the West Indian island of St Marien,’ said the man on Radford’s left. ‘Area approximately three thousand square kilometres and population five hundred thousand. Chief exports: sugar, coffee, tobacco and bauxite. Was formerly a French colony, but gained its independence in 1810 under the revolutionary leader and national hero Albert La Fontaine.’
Radford smiled. ‘You seem to be very well informed, Monsieur Blond.’
Monsieur Blond lifted his plump shoulders and let them fall again. He emitted a faintly hissing breath from pursed lips. ‘For a salesman it is necessary to know such details. One must understand one’s customers. Do you not agree?’
‘I’m not a salesman,’ Radford said, ‘but I have no doubt you’re right.’
He was a little tired of Blond. He had had the Frenchman’s company from Lisbon and had found it rather overpowering. Blond, a short, stout and somewhat breathless man, had a passion for imparting information, largely worthless. It would come welling up, apparently from some depository in the region of his stomach, to issue from his pale, moist lips like an effusion of gas from a marsh.
And Monsieur Blond’s eyes — wide, blue, innocent as a child’s — would peer out from an overhang of brows so devoid of hair as to be positively naked. His head was large, and though it could not with any accuracy have been described as bald, it seemed to have been equipped with the absolute minimum of lank brown hair necessary to cover as thinly as possible so wide an expanse of scalp.
The strong scent that flowed from his person might perhaps have emanated from the cream that glued this covering of hair to the skull or it might have been some brand of body deodorant. Whatever it was, it was sweet and sickly, and to Radford’s way of thinking, decidedly repellent. He considered himself singularly unfortunate to have been stuck with this particular flight companion and was glad that the journey was almost at an end.
‘Although I have done a considerable amount of travelling by air in the course of my work,’ Blond said, ‘I must confess that I have never quite got rid of a sense of uneasiness when the plane is about to land. Perhaps my imagination is too vivid.’
‘There is very little danger surely.’
Blond glanced down at the seat-belt fastened about his ample waist. ‘Yet there must be some. Otherwise, why these belts?’
‘Just a precaution.’
‘As you say, a precaution. You brush the matter aside very lightly. Well, you are young. You have no fears. Once I was like that. Now —’ He gave a self deprecatory smile. He was perhaps fifty years old. Radford was twenty-nine. From Blond’s point of view the difference could have seemed large.
The airliner lost height; it straightened for the run in. Blond fell silent. Radford glanced at him and saw that his lips were pressed tightly together and that his hands were clenched.
So he really was nervous.
The ground came up to meet them. There was a slight bump and then they were rolling smoothly down the runway. They came to a stop. Hot sunlight poured in through the windows.
Monsieur Blond gave a sigh and unfastened his seatbelt.
‘You see,’ Radford said. ‘There was nothing to it.’
‘When all goes well there never is. When something goes wrong, then it is a different story. Do you stay in Portneuf?’
‘No. I shall be staying with friends. They have an estate some way out of town. I expect someone will meet me.’
‘You are fortunate. You come for relaxation, I for business. That is how it goes. Some day perhaps we meet again. It has been pleasant to know you.’
‘And you, monsieur.’
*
Outside, the airport buildings shimmered in the sun. The lightest of sea breezes drifting in over the bay tempered the heat scarcely at all. Radford’s shirt was sticking to his back before he had got through the customs.
A Negro in khaki drill slacks examined his passport. The Negro had a gold-braided peaked cap and gold-braided epaulettes. He spoke in French with what Radford took to be a West Indian accent. Radford himself spoke French well, but he found this just a little difficult to follow.
‘The purpose of your stay, m’sieu’?’
‘Pleasure.’
‘No business?’
‘No business.’
The passport was handed back. ‘I wish you a happy time in St Marien.’
‘I am sure it will be very happy indeed.’
*
There were a lot of cars outside the airport building. He could not see Charles.
A taxi slid to a halt in front of him. It was painted a glaring yellow. The driver leaned out, white teeth flashing in the black face.
‘M’sieu’?’
He shook his head. Charles had said he would be there to meet him. Yet he certainly was not there. Perhaps he had mistaken the time of arrival. Perhaps he had been unavoidably delayed.
Radford decided it might be a good idea to telephone the Lamartine house and make sure. He had the number. He looked for a telephone booth, but there was not one in sight.
‘Does M’sieu’ wish for a hotel?’ the taxi-driver inquired. ‘I can take m’sieu’ to the best.’
Again Radford shook his head. The porter who had carried out his luggage was waiting patiently. He was a tall, bony man with arms that seemed to have been stretched by much carrying. The hands reached almost to his knees.
He saw her walking towards him, was astonished to hear her say: ‘Guy Radford?’
She was, he would have said, not much over twenty, possibly a year or two. Her hair was pure gold in the sunlight and she was wearing a cotton dress that followed the outline of her figure. It looked worth following.
‘Yes, I’m Guy Radford.’
She smiled. He noted that her eyes were grey and that the smile seemed to be in them too. Every part of her that was visible had a smooth, rich sun-tan.
‘I’m Antoinette Lamartine. Charles couldn’t come, so he sent me instead.’ She spoke a purer French than the immigration official or the taxi-driver. Radford found it easier to follow. He wondered whether she had been educated in France. ‘Should we go to the car?’
It was an open Ferrari two-seater, bright red and very sporty. The porter stowed the luggage.
‘How did you pick me out?’ Radford asked.
‘It was easy. Charles told me to look for the most handsome man. It had to be you.’
She got into the car and he lowered himself into the seat beside her.
‘Now you’re laughing at me.’
‘Am I?’ She let in the clutch and the car gathered speed down the hot concrete road that led from the airport to the town. ‘Anyway, you were the only tall man with fair hair that I could see. Are you sorry?’
‘Sorry for what?’
‘That Charles didn’t meet you.’
‘Why should I be sorry when he sends such an attractive substitute?’
She laughed. ‘I thought only Frenchmen were supposed to make compliments like that on such brief acquaintance. Englishmen should be cold and unapproachable.’
‘It’s a legend. You mustn’t believe all legends.’
The car moved into the streets of Portneuf. There was a jam of traffic and the pavements were thronged with pedestrians of every shade from white to black. The girl drove skilfully, in absolute control of the red Ferrari.
Radford had forgotten that Charles had a sister. Presumably Charles had mentioned the fact when they had been friends at Oxford, but that was some years ago and it had passed out of his mind. Antoinette was certainly not much like her brother; Charles was dark. Now and then, however, Radford caught a faint resemblance.
‘You had better call me Toni,’ she said. ‘Everybody does.’
Portneuf had never been planned; it had grown from the roots of the settlement that had sprung up where the River Varne, flowing down from the Blue Mountains, poured itself into the Bay of Hope. From small beg
Interesting as the town was, at the moment Radford was rather more interested in his companion.
‘I can’t remember Charles ever telling me about you.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t consider I was important enough to mention.’
In profile he could see the almost straight line of her nose and the curve of lips and chin. She had swept her hair back with a movement of the hand and her ear was partly visible, small and delicate, like a sea-shell uncovered by the receding tide.
‘I am glad you were able to come,’ she said. ‘One gets a little bored.’
‘It was too great a temptation to resist. Especially since I had just finished with Renfrew and Logan.’
‘Who are they?’
‘The firm I worked for in Malaya. Mining engineers.’
‘Why did you leave them?’
‘Wanted a change. I’ve never liked getting into a groove.’
‘I suppose Charles knew that?’
‘About my leaving Renfrew’s? Yes, I told him in one of my rare letters. He immediately invited me out here.’
‘And you accepted.’
‘What could be better than a West Indian holiday?’
‘It could be more than a holiday.’
‘More?’
‘Charles has mining interests, you know. You’re a mining engineer.’
‘You think he might offer me a job?’
She smiled enigmatically. ‘I think we’d better just wait and see.’
The car had moved out of the prosperous part of the town and was now in the shanty fringes. Interspersed with palm trees were houses that were little more than shacks made of any kind of material that could be picked up for little or nothing. There were chickens, dogs and children everywhere, ragged washing hung on lines, open ditches doing the job of drains, flies, noise, laughter.
‘This is the worst part of Portneuf,’ the girl said. She sounded a little ashamed, on the defensive, as though she felt personally responsible for so much poverty and squalor.
Suddenly they were brought to a halt by a donkey and cart slewed across the road. The cart was loaded with sacks of vegetables, and an old, white-haired Negro with a face like a prune was sitting on the sacks, reins gripped in one hand and a long stick in the other. With the stick he was belabouring the donkey while cursing it in a high-pitched, indignant voice. The donkey just stood where it was, moving nothing but its ears, apparently unaffected either by blows or curses.
The girl drummed impatiently on the steering-wheel and a crowd of chattering, largely naked children gathered round the car and rubbed their fingers on the immaculate paintwork. Some men and women in patched cotton clothing looked on indifferently. The old man went on cursing and hitting the donkey. The donkey did not move; it stood with its head hanging, a picture of utter dejection and utter obstinacy.
‘They do it to annoy you,’ the girl said. She did not say whether she was referring to the donkey, the old Negro or the children. Perhaps she included all of them in the statement.
A very small boy was hanging on the door on Radford’s side of the car. His head was just visible. He had wide, unwinking eyes and he stared at Radford as one might stare at a strange phenomenon never previously encountered. Radford felt a little uneasy under the gaze.
The man seemed to sprout suddenly from the ground. Radford had not seen him approach. He was tall and bony and his skin was the colour of coffee made with milk. He had a narrow face, the cheeks almost flat, and his nose was more aquiline than negroid. He was dressed in biscuit coloured trousers, a white shirt and suede shoes. The clothes seemed to be of far better quality than those of the other people near the car, and the man himself had the air of being in some way superior. He stood, slack-limbed, and looked at the girl with a trace of mockery in his expression.
‘A little trouble, mademoiselle?’
She pressed her lips together. She did not look at him, did not answer.
‘I could help perhaps — if asked.’
She said, still without looking at him: ‘Will you move that cart?’
The man gave a laugh. ‘It is not the most gracious way of asking. But no matter.’
He moved away from the car with a loose-limbed ease that contrived to be both graceful and faintly insolent. He grasped the donkey’s bridle and forced it to move over to the side of the road.
‘What do you mean, gran’pa, blocking the way. Don’t you see that a fine young lady wishes to pass in her fine red car?’
The old Negro stopped cursing the donkey and grinned, revealing a toothless chasm of a mouth. The other man stood with one hand on the donkey’s head, his back against the shafts of the cart, and signalled to the girl to drive on.
She took a coin from her handbag and tossed it to him. It landed at his feet and lay there. He did not attempt to pick it up. As the car went past he made a mock bow. The girl did not look at him.
Glancing back, Radford saw the man beckon one of the children. The child ran to him and picked up the coin. The man remained with his hand on the donkey, staring at the receding car.
‘Who was he?’ Radford asked.
‘A mulatto.’
‘It seemed to me that you knew him.’
‘His name is Christophe — Georges Christophe. He is a labour leader, an agitator. Everybody in St Marien knows Christophe. He is notorious.’
‘You don’t like him?’
She answered coldly: ‘I have no feelings whatever concerning him. He is of no importance to me.’
Radford did not pursue the subject. For some reason or other she seemed to be annoyed at having been obliged to accept help from Christophe. It was as though her pride had been injured by the necessity.
The car left the last ragged outskirts of the town. The road climbed gradually, winding between plantations of banana and citrus trees, past fields of sugar cane and along the steep sides of hills, green with vegetation. Here and there they passed mules or donkeys laden with panniers, and sometimes women with wide, shallow baskets balanced on their heads, walking barefooted with such natural grace and dignity that the baskets might have been golden crowns. Occasionally they passed a lorry or another car.
The girl had recovered her good humour. She said: ‘How long is it since you saw Charles?’
Radford considered. ‘Six or seven years.’
‘You have never met Sophie, of course.’
‘No. Charles was not married when I knew him.’
‘You may find him changed.’
‘We all change.’
She said musingly: ‘We do not often have a guest. Perhaps not often enough. When my father was alive it was different. Charles is not a very sociable man.’
‘Then he has certainly changed. At Oxford —’
‘Oxford was a long time ago.’
The car turned right, leaving the highway and passing between a pair of high wrought-iron gates hinged to stone pillars. It was now on what was obviously a private road, white and dusty and a little grass growning between the wheel-tracks. This road followed a winding course between huge trees, the branches of which closed in overhead and made an avenue of shade from the sun.
They came upon the house suddenly, as one comes upon a picture in turning the pages of a book. It gave the instant impression of having grown naturally from the ground rather than of having been consciously designed and built. It was apparently not all of the same period, wings having been added to the original central core of whitish stone. The roof was red-tiled and there were hinged shutters to the windows. On two sides of the house was a portico with stone columns and arches and vines trailing from arch to arch.
They left the car in front of the house and Radford followed the girl in under the portico and through a doorway into a spacious hall with a floor of coloured tiles, pleasantly cool after the heat outside. There was some dark, heavy furniture that looked as though it might have been mahogany or teak and numbers of thickly varnished pictures in tarnished gilt frames.
She saw him glance at the pictures.
‘Ancestors. The Lamartines have been in St Marien a long time, you know.’
Doors and passages led off from the hall and along one side was a gallery with a stairway at one end. A woman appeared on the gallery, walked to the head of the stairs and descended slowly, one hand resting on the heavy banister rail. She was slender almost to thinness and her black hair fell almost to her shoulders and then turned in an upward sweep as though recoiling from the contact. Her face had a delicate beauty that seemed to have no need of cosmetic aid, but the skin was pale, suggesting that in this land of continual sunshine she kept always in the shadow.
