The Peculiar Exploits of Brigadier Ffellowes (23 page)

             
People who loathed him and the English generally, said all his tales were lies, that he was a remittance man, and that his gift for incredible stories was a direct inheritance from Sir John Mandeville, the medieval rumormonger. Still, even those who denounced his stories the most loudly never left once he started one of them. If Ffellowes was a liar, he was an awfully good one.

             
Mason Williams, who was one of those who resented Ffellowes as both British and overbearing, had instantly ordered stone crab when he saw it on the club's lunch menu. Of the eight others present at the big table that day, only one besides Williams had ever had stone crab, but we all decided to try it; all, that is, except Ffellowes.

             
"No, thank you," he repeated coldly, "I'll have the sweetbreads. I don't eat crab or any crustacean, for that matter. I used to love it," he went on, "in fact I ate crab, lobster, langouste, crawfish and shrimp with the best of you at one time. Until 1934 to be exact. An unpleasant and perhaps peculiar set of circumstances caused me to stop. Perhaps you would care to hear why?

             
"Now, I couldn't get it past my mouth, and if I did I couldn't swallow it. You see, something happened ..."

             
His voice trailed away into silence, and we could all see that his thoughts were elsewhere. He stared at the snowy tablecloth for a moment and then looked up with an apologetic smile. We waited, and not even Williams seemed anxious to interrupt.

             
"I've never told anyone about this, but I suppose I ought, really. It's a quite unbelievable story, and not a very nice one. Yet, if you'd like to hear it?" he queried again.

             
An instant chorus of affirmation rose from around the table. We were all men who had traveled and seen at least something of life, but none of our tales ever matched what we extracted from Ffellowes at long intervals.

             
"Wait until after dinner," was all he would say. "I need a good meal under my belt and some coffee and a cigar before this one."

             
The rest of us looked at one another rather like boys who have been promised a treat, as indeed we had. Williams grunted something, but made no objection. His denunciations of the British always came
after
Ffellowes' stories, I noticed.

             
When we were settled in our leather chairs in an alcove of the huge library, with cigars drawing and coffee and brandy beside us, Ffellowes began.

             
"Did any of you ever sail the Caribbean in the pre-War period? I don't mean on a cruise ship, although that's fun. I mean actually sailed, in a small boat or yacht, touching here and there, calling at ports when you felt like it and then moving on? If not, you've missed something.

             
"The dawns were fantastic and the sunsets better. The food from the galley, fresh fish we'd caught ourselves usually, was superb, and the salt got into our skin, baked there by the sun. "Islands rose up out of the sea, sometimes green and mountainous like Jamaica, sometimes low and hidden by mangroves and reefs like the Caymans or
Inagua
.

             
"We called at funny little ports and gave drinks to local officials who came aboard and got tight and friendly and told us astonishing scandals and implausible state secrets, and finally staggered off, swearing eternal friendship.

             
"And then at dawn, we hoisted anchor, set sail and checked our charts, and off we went to see what was over the next horizon, because there was always another island."

             
He paused and sipped his coffee, while we waited in silence.

             
"I had three months leave on half pay at the time due to a
mixup
; so Joe Chapin and I (he's dead a long time, poor fellow, killed at
Kohima
) chartered an island schooner at Nassau and hired two colored men to help us work her and cook. They were from Barbados and wanted to get back there, and that suited us.
Badians
are good seamen and good men, too. One, the older, was called Maxton, the other, Oswald, and I've forgotten their last names. We told them to call us Joe and Don, but it was always 'Mistah Don,
Sah
' to me, and '
Cap'n
' to Joe, because he was officially captain on the papers.

             
"Well, we sailed along south for a month or so, calling here and there, picking up news and having fun at this port or that, until we got to Basse-Terre on
Gualdeloupe
. We were ashore having a few rums in the bar with the port officials when we first heard of Soldier Key.

             
"Any of you ever hear of it? Well, you won't now because it's gone. The people are anyway. The big hurricane of 1935 smashed it more than flat, and I'm told the few people left were moved by the British government. I checked up later on and found they went first to Dominica and then elsewhere, but there weren't many left.

             
"At any rate, the French customs officer we were drinking with suggested we look in at Soldier Key if we wanted an unusual, what you call 'offbeat,' place to visit.

             
" 'Messieurs,' he told us, 'this is a very strange place. You will not, I think, call twice, because few do, but I do not think you will be bored. These people are British like yourselves, and yet the island has no British official in residence, which is odd. They have an agreement with the government of Dominica that they govern themselves. Twice a year comes an inspection, but otherwise they are alone, with none to disturb them. Curious, is it not?

             
"We agreed it sounded mildly strange, but asked why we should bother going at all?

             
" 'As to that,' he said, 'you must suit yourselves. But you English always seek new things, and this place is a strange one. The people are, how you say it,
forgot
by everyone. They trade little, selling only
langouste
(the spiny lobster) and the meat of green turtle. They are good seamen, but they call at few ports and avoid other fishing boats. For some reason, they never sell the turtle shell, although they could catch all the shell turtles they wish. I cannot tell you more, except I once called there for water when on a cruise and the place made me feel
discomfortable
.' He paused and tried to convey what he meant. 'Look, these Key of the Soldier people all belong to one church, not mine or yours either. To them, all who are not of this communion are damned eternally, and when they look at you, you feel they wish to speed the process. A funny place, Messieurs, but interesting.'

             
"He finished his rum and stood up to go. 'And another thing, Messieurs,' he said, 'all people of color dislike this place, and there are none of them who live there. Again, interesting, eh? Why not try it? You may be amused.'

             
"Well, after we got back to the boat, we hauled out our charts and looked for Soldier Key. It was there all right, but it was quite easy to see how one could miss it. It lay about two days sail west by northwest of Dominica, and it looked like a pretty small place indeed. The copy of the
Mariner's Guide
we had wasn't really new, and it gave the population as five hundred (approximately) with exports limited to lobster and imports nil. A footnote said it was settled in 1881 by the Church of the New Revelation. This, of course, must be the church to which our little customs official had been referring, but I'd never heard of it, nor had Joe. Still, there are millions of sects all over the place; so that meant nothing, really.

             
"Finally, before we turned in, Joe had an idea. 'I'm certain someone has some reference books in town,' he said. 'I'll have a
dekko
tomorrow morning, first thing, shall I?'

             
"Well, he did, and about noon, when I was considering the day's first drink in the same waterfront bar as the night before, he came in with a small volume, very worn-looking, in his hand.

             
" 'Look at this,' he said, 'I found it in the local library; been there forever, I should think.'

             
"What he had in his hand was a slim, black book, written in English, cheaply bound and very tattered, with brown pages crumbling at the edges. It was dated London, 1864, and was written by someone who called himself the Opener of the Gate, Brother A. Poole. The title of the book was
The New Revelation Revealed to the Elect.

             
" 'One of those island people must have left it here on their way through,' I said, 'or perhaps some fisherman lost it. Have you looked at it?'

             
"We read it aloud in turn, as much as we could stand, that is, because it was heavy going, and it was really a very boring book. A good bit of it came from Revelation and also the nastier bits of the Old Testament, and practically all of it was aimed at warning Those Who Transgressed.

             
"But there were stranger parts of it, based apparently on Darwin, of all people, and even
some Jeremy Bentham. All in all, a weirder hodgepodge was never assembled, even by your Aimee
Semple
McPherson or our own
Muggletonians
.

             
"The final summing up of the hundred pages or so was a caution, or rather summons, to the Faithful, to withdraw from the world to a Secluded Spot at the first opportunity. Judging from what we had heard, Soldier Key was the Secluded Spot.

             
" 'It would be fascinating to find out what a gang like this has done in seventy years of isolation, don't you think?' said Joe. I agreed. It sounded like giving a new twist to our trip.

             
"Well, we weighed anchor that afternoon, after a farewell drink with our customs friend, and his last words intrigued us still more.

             
" 'Have you any weapons on board?'

             
"I answered that we had a shark rifle, a .30-30 Winchester carbine, and a Colt's .45 automatic pistol.

             
" 'Good. I think less well today than I did last night of having directed you to this place. There are strange rumors among les Noirs of Soldier Key. Send me a card from your next port, as a favor, eh'?'

             
"We promised and then said goodbye. Once clear of the harbor, we plotted a course and then told the two crewmen where we were going. The reaction was intriguing.

             
"Maxton, the older, looked rather glum, but Oswald, who was a six-foot black Hercules, actually forgot his usual respectful terms of address.

             
" 'Mon, what you go
theah
fo
'? They not good people
theah
;
wery
bad people on
Soljah
Cay, Mon!'

             
"When Joe and 1 pressed them to say why exactly they disliked the place, they could not, or would not, give us any answers, except that no one went there from other islands and that the folk were unfriendly, especially to colored people.

             
" 'Come, come, Oswald,' said Joe finally, 'there surely must be something you are not telling us.'

             
"The man stared at the deck and finally mumbled something about '
Duppies
.'

             
"Well, you know, this made us laugh and that was an error.
Duppies
are West Indian ghosts, evil spirits, and are objects of fear among all British West Indian Negroes from Jamaica to Trinidad. When we joshed these two men about them, they shut up like oysters! Not one further word could we get out of them about Soldier Key. No, that's not right. I got one more thing a day later.