Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war.
Stiffflags straining in the night-blasts cold,
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold…"
— as a Canadian he could hardly do less — but found that the dates did not fit, and so gave up. Be that as it may.
Be that as it may: although the boulevard which sweeps along the lower foreshore of King Town, then as now the capital of British Hidalgo, has some time since been renamed ‘'Caribbean Crescent,” hardly anyone ever calls it anything but Artillery. Like Government, it requires no definite article. This road, once the open space of the “quaker cannon” which had frightened off much the smallest squadron of the much-cuckolded king; I disdained to risk the valued vessels of el Rey against so wretched a rabble of heretics and slaves, reported Don Diego; after a long and preoccupied pause, Yo el Rey rewarded this thoughtfulness with a barrel of amontillated sherry which had gone bad in the royal cellars — though at least he did not invite Don Diego to descend and sample on location — this road is planted with palms and jacarandas and palms and casuarinas and palms and more palms; it contains Government House and many fine private residences at one end, and the Chief Minister’s House and many fine private residences at the other; and in between are such edifices as the National Library and Archives, the United Banana Boat Company offices, the two leading hotels and the three leading guest houses (and, since we are on the subject, many fine private residences): also the Public Park, and the Princess Minnie Monument. All these buildings are invariably in as fine a state as paint and labor can keep them in, which is, usually, very fine indeed. From the sea, then, King Town presents a very fine appearance indeed. There is, however, more to King Town than its foreshore buildings and boulevards, however called and however kept. much much more. And not all of this appears quite so fine at all. Perhaps this is inevitable. And perhaps not.
* Lepanto. G.K. Chesterton
A bumboat passed by the Saccharissa, carrying fruit for the South, or Main, Market (the North, or Little, Market was supplied via Cutlass Creek; it was also one of the three places roundabout King Town where the smoking of weed was, if not condoned, tolerated). The bumboatman had opened his mouth for a jovial and innocently obscene greeting, but, suddenly seeing Felix, had left his mouth silent but still open; his eyes moved to Limekiller, expressed appreciation and respect; then he plied his paddle again. There were not many beautiful redheads in King Town.
There were not even many ugly ones.
A full score of vessels were silently swooping out onto the Bay on sails catching the earl)- breeze, hulls catching the early tide, the wings of the morning sails and hulls took. A few although an increasing number of them did have auxiliary engines (an “ox,” it was called), but no true Bavman would use gas when he had a wind or tide. The Saccharissa of course had nothing but her mainsail, her jib, her spare pole, and her paddle. actually, her skiff’s paddle, but kept aboard when the skiff was not in use. As now. The air was grey and moist and cool, so cool that each of the million mosquitoes had his or her head tucked under its wing, so to speak. The sun was so far just an anticipatory smudge on the horizon, but there was light enough.
The Saccharissa was John Lutwidge Limekiller’s boat and Felix Anne Fox wasjohn Lutwidge Limekiller's lady: of course the apos- trophe-s did not imply the same degree of affiliation in each case and so it would probably be much better to say that the Saccharissa wasjohn Lutwidge Limekiller’s boat andjohn Lutwidge Limekiller was Felix Ann Fox’s lover. She had been “settling into” the boat; if she had felt even surprise not to say disappointment that it was absolutely no landlubber’s conception of a yacht, that it had rough and largely unpainted wooden insides (the hull, of course, had to be regularly painted outside. after, of course, having been previously and regularly scraped clean, and caulked), a soggy inner bottom with here and there a small though very real, very alive crab which had come aboard as inadvertent cargo during the vessel’s days as a sandboat; if the total absence of brightwork, if the sanitary conveniences were barely sanitary and certainly inconvenient (consisting of a jury-rigged curtain over the doorless cubbyhold behind which — the curtain — there was a can (not a slang “can,” a real can, though a very large one) with sometimes sand inside, which went over the side — taking very good care it went with and not against the wind — with the rest of its contents; sloshed with sea-water and replaced for next time — if Felix had or had had any qualms about any or all. well, nothing like a complaint had shown.
She had, which was just as important, every bit as, not gone, either, to the other extreme to overpraise. She had accepted. Accepted the rough old boat and all, as simply as she had, simply, accepted him. “I’m just travelling and ravelling,” she’d said. “Travel and ravel along with me,” he’d said, heart leaping. And she? “Yes.” That was all. All? Is there a more joyful syllable in the language? In the tongue of men and of angels?
Felix had learned to balance her long legs in the rudely made skiff, shaped almost like a flat-iron, seatless, so that you had to squat to paddle or stand up to pole. She had learned to share with him the simple way of cooking the few simple foods in the sand-filled scrap metal firebox called the caboose; and as for ropes or lines or sails. well, well, she had learned. And learned well; never having learned any boating before, she had anyway nothing to unlearn now. All of this, and much more, then, she had learned to do for the boat, and so, in no small way, for him: what had he learned to do for her? he found himself asking now, watching her. There were, of course, all the lovely things which they had learned to do for each other: she/he, he/she. They had of course their problems: but they had been nice problems. And it had certainly been nice the way they had learned to solve them. Together. Mostly they had solved them on their first voyage. He recalled that now. He recalled her voice in his ear. He recalled how much he had rejoiced in that: and how much also he had rejoiced in that the bamboo boom — the spar to which the foot of the mainsail fastened — was hollow, and slightly cracked lengthwise — it still was, of course, and never would he fix it now! — this had anyway not at all impaired its usefulness and the hollow and the crack and the wind had turned it into a sort of aeolian harp, and it had sung for them all the day long its long sweet song for “their watery epithalamion. ”
The boom at right angles rode the mast in a wooden yoke; the mast was of local Santa Maria wood, twenty-six years old, and still looked fresh.
The date today was early in December.
Abruptly, Felix asked, “What kind of rope are you using there?”
“What kind of — Why. hemp… of course. Why do you — “
She broke into his perplexity with, “What? Not nylon?”
A moment more he stared; then his blunt and shaggy face relaxed, and he guffawed. Her seriousness now revealed as merely mock-seriousness, she laughed with him: what a delight her laugh was. And what a more-than-delight, her presence.
A day or two before, on Commeal Wharf, a conversation between two Bayfolk wharfside superintendents; the subject: rope.