Caribbean (104 page)

McKay also appreciated the clever tricks by which Lord Basil made blacks feel welcome at all his functions, save meals at Gommint House or soirees at The Club. He showed no personal animus toward blacks and preached to his white associates that the time was coming when blacks would have to be admitted into governing circles. But he also sternly upheld the dignity of his office, and he never looked better than when he rode in full uniform in the rear seat of his Rolls-Royce, nodding grandly and finally stepping forth in full authority and austerity to open a new school or dedicate the wing of a hospital. McKay had never before seen a British governor in action, and he was impressed: Maintains a more believable image of noble rule than, say, the governor of South Dakota.

On the first full day after his return a pleasant surprise awaited him, for Delia stopped by the Belgrave in her MG to invite him on a circuit of the north, and when they reached that incomparable picnic ground at Cap Galant and lazed in the April sun, he felt it appropriate to broach the critical question: “Delia, if marriage to Boncour is impossible on this island …?”

“Who said so?”

“He did. He’s not stupid.”

“He should let me make my own decisions.”

“Why couldn’t you two marry and live on Barbados?”

She laughed almost insolently. “Have you ever been to Barbados?”

“I just came back. You know that.”

“But did you realize when you were there that it’s little more than half the size of this island?”

“But before the rioting the life was so … well, attractive … reassuring.”

She became angry: “McKay, you fool! You’ve had a great time here, a genial reception in Barbados. But on either island, have you ever met a black family? I mean the people who work the fields, who make up four-fifths of the population. As they say in the cinema: ‘Son, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!’ So don’t ask me to live on Barbados.”

He reflected on this as he watched her throwing the tag ends of her picnic back into the hamper, then said: “You seem to make everything a matter of race.”

She laughed. “Don’t you realize, Millard, that every human relationship on this island
is
a matter of race? Suppose you ask one of Etienne’s pretty-clerks for a dinner date, it becomes an affair of state—she asks: ‘Where will we dine? I have to be careful of where I am seen with a white man.’ Why do you think I took you all the way out to Cap d’Enfer?”

“I’ve been wondering.”

“For one thing, I’d never driven the road before, didn’t know the way. But the main reason was to protect
Etienne
from being seen with
me
.”

He could not accept that nonsensical rationalization: “Don’t con me, Delia. On the way back you wanted to ride in his car … let everyone see you.”

“That was on the way back. Love sets you free sometimes. You don’t give a damn.” She stared at the sea, then added: “Like that time with the German colonel. I could have got myself killed.”

“Were you afraid?”

“No!” she cried with great emphasis. “I don’t give a damn about myself. Never have. Ask my father, he’s nursed me through enough scrapes.”

“So back to my question: ‘What’ll happen to Boncour?’ ” and she replied: “Sooner or later we shall hurt each other terribly. He knows that, but we also know that the game’s worth the risk. To live totally, that’s everything.” Abruptly halting her foreboding, she looked intently at McKay and repeated: “To live, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?” and she jumped into the car.

As they sped south, accompanied by breathtaking vistas of the
Caribbean, its wave tips flashing in sunlight, and by hedges of croton that lined the roadway, McKay thought: This must be one of the loveliest roadways of the world and Delia one of the most glamorous women. But both are in jeopardy. The riots in Barbados proved how precarious stability can be. And Delia! What in hell will happen to this marvelous sprite? She’s mercury, slipping now this way, now that, and always evading your grasp.

Impulsively he cried: “Delia, what’s going to happen to you? Trouble wherever you go, so far as I can learn. Near-tragedy in Germany, in Malta, here in All Saints. One of these days your luck will run out.”

She leaned over and kissed him lightly: “You’re sweet to care. But really, does it matter?” and the extraordinary way in which she looked sideways at him as she spoke made him think: My God! She’s letting me know she wouldn’t mind if I wanted to make love to her, too. In great confusion he scrunched over into the far corner of the front seat, interlocked his knuckles in a grasp so tight they turned white, and said softly: “Delia, you know I’ve fallen in love with you.”

“That’s sweet,” she said, almost flippantly, as if the avowal merited no deeper consideration.

“And I most desperately want you to do the right thing.” Realizing that this must sound juvenile, he lamely added a cliché that made things even worse: “I want you to find happiness.”

Dismissing him as she would have an attractive child, she teased: “McKay! You’re talking like my maiden aunt! The one who moped her life away by dreaming of the grocer’s boy she fell in love with,” and there ended the serious discussion he had attempted to inaugurate.

When they reached Bristol Town she delivered him to the Belgrave, where they found Major Leckey, obviously outraged, awaiting them: “Really, Delia, you must keep us advised as to where you’re going. An important visitor has come to Government House. Your father …”

“Well, here I am. Let’s go.”

“Not in those clothes. It’s the German ambassador. Came from Barbados in that Royal Navy vessel you saw in the
baie
 … if you bothered to look.” And off they went, with Leckey driving very fast in his large car and Delia following a few yards behind in her small one.

When McKay came down for dinner, he found the Ponsfords
most eager to have him at their table, for they were brimming with astonishing news: “The German government has asked formal permission for one of their great battle cruisers, the
Graf Spee
, to put into Baie de Soleil. Courtesy visit during a training exercise in the South Atlantic.”

“Permission granted?”

“Of course. Our relations with Germany have never been better. We hear there’s to be a pact of mutual friendship with Italy, too, so the people of ill will who’ve been trying to keep our nations apart have lost out.”

McKay had been vaguely aware that the various nations in Europe were having their differences and that harsh words had been voiced about Adolf Hitler, but in the areas west of Detroit, which contained many Americans of German descent, those rumors were derided. He was also aware, but in only the roughest terms, that since his departure from Detroit, Germany and Austria had united under some kind of agreement, but he had been led to believe, from the scraps of information he had available, that it was generally held to be a move toward peace in that part of the world.

Both Ponsfords were of that opinion: “We cannot abide the French. Hitler may have his faults, but the Jews did nearly overrun both Germany and Austria.” Mr. Ponsford said: “I for one would be delighted to see the
Graf Spee
in the harbor. The Germans may be our allies one of these days, and I’d like to see what they’d bring into the partnership.”

It was about quarter to nine that night when McKay was summoned to the phone. “Hullo, McKay? Leckey here. The Gee-Gee wants to know if you can join us and a few men?… Yes, right now.… Good! I’ll fetch you, but would you be considerate and be waiting outside?”

When he was ushered into Lord Wrentham’s study, he found four island men, all white, sitting with Wrentham and a ramrod-stiff European in his mid-forties: “Ambassador Freundlich, this is the distinguished American correspondent from the very part of the United States you were asking about. I wanted you two to meet. Exchange of ideas and all that.”

The questioning did not touch that subject, because when the ambassador learned that McKay had just returned from Barbados, he wanted to know what the riots on that island had signified, but a swift glance from the Gee-Gee warned McKay not to discuss that
embarrassment to British rule, so McKay gave only a casual explanation. The discussion was amiable, far-ranging, and, under the Gee-Gee’s diplomatic guidance, never improperly intrusive.

The Gee-Gee seemed eager to introduce his daughter and ordered Leckey: “See if Delia can instruct the servants to fetch us some coffee.” When she appeared, radiant in a charming pastel frock, leading two black servants who passed the cups and the biscuits, she seemed the epitome of the well-bred English lass of twenty-two whose anxious parents were beginning to seek a husband, but as she passed McKay with her coffee, she gave him a sly wink.

He used this break as an opportunity to ask, as he always felt honor-bound to do: “Am I allowed to wire Detroit, before it happens, that the
Graf Spee
will be paying a visit here?”

Lord Wrentham answered: “It was the ambassador’s suggestion that you be invited, late though it was.”

McKay said: “I think these courtesy visits are a great idea. Builds friendships.” He stopped, aware that he was being somewhat more effusive than the occasion warranted, but then Major Leckey broke in with his own effusion: “You know, I’m sure, that in English the ambassador’s name means
friendship
. May that be a good omen!” And a toast was drunk.

It was agreed that all would be at the dock at ten in the morning when the great German cruiser would maneuver slowly and majestically between the guardian rocks protecting the
baie
. Cheers echoed and salutes were fired as the mighty ship edged up to the dock, but McKay did not participate in the noisy celebration, because Bart Wrentham, who served in the island’s volunteer marine rescue department, was whispering in his ear: “That’s no cruiser. That’s a bloody pocket battleship.” And indeed the vessel was immense, with its batteries of guns pointing in different directions.

The
Graf Spee
was under the command of Captain Vreimark, who was piped ashore in stiff glory, saluting his quarterdeck as he left and all the island officials as they waited in formal ranks to greet him. He was especially gracious to Lord Wrentham, whom he had met once in Germany and to whom he introduced a young German civilian who served in some unspecified capacity aboard the
Spee:
“Excellency, I have the honor to introduce a most valued member of our visit, Baron Siegfried Sterner.” The baron stepped smartly forward, clicked his heels, saluted, and said in flawless English: “I bring you personal greetings, milord, from my former tennis partner, Baron
Gottfried von Cramm, who stayed with you one year when he played in the finals at Wimbledon.”

“Ah, yes! He was with us three years. Reached the finals every year, but had bad luck. Last time he lost to an American, Don Budge.”

“He sends his best.” Then, seeing Delia in the second row and assuming that she was the governor’s daughter, he paused to acknowledge her with a bow, which she returned. Passing along, he came to Major Leckey, whom he recognized as the governor’s aide-de-camp by the handsome gold aiguillette he wore suspended from his shoulder. Saluting with a pronounced snap of the hand and click of heel, he said: “Would you be so kind as to deliver this letter of introduction?” Even though Leckey knew that the baron was treating him insolently, he had to accept the letter, and when he glanced at it he saw that it was addressed to “Fräulein the Honorable Delia Wrentham” and a seal indicated that it came from Baron Gottfried von Cramm.

The eight days in the spring of 1938 that the
Graf Spee
remained at All Saints wound up the three most memorable events of recent island history: the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1929, the match with Lord Wrentham’s cricket eleven in 1932, and now the monstrous presence of this great, sleek blue-gray warship. It made earlier visits by puny little British destroyers, which had once seemed so powerful, almost laughable.

On Thursday anyone on the island who cared to do so was invited to come aboard, and several thousand did. By means of ropes carefully strung and wooden stanchions properly placed, the islanders were led about the ship, but any so-called “military secrets” they were permitted to see could just as easily have been obtained from a picture postcard. But McKay observed that the Germans cleverly and unostentatiously provided three different tours for the visitors. White people were quietly diverted here and there; they were taken to see officers’ quarters and part of the bridge. Coloreds were led down other lanes, and they saw enlisted quarters and some of the smaller guns, while persons obviously black were taken on long, winding tours that showed them almost nothing they could not have seen from the dock.

When McKay sought out an officer who spoke English to ask
about this, the German said frankly: “They’re animals. I don’t see how you English can breathe on an island so crowded with them.”

“I’m American,” McKay said, and the officer smiled: “Then you know what I mean.”

On four successive nights there were festive dinners. The Gee-Gee invited the principal officers to Government House for a flower-strewn reception, followed by a sit-down dinner for twenty, and at both affairs three men stood out as the acme of their professions: Lord Wrentham, tall, slim, straight and very handsome in his formal attire with the three colorful ribbons signifying the honors he had been awarded; Captain Vreimark, the prototypical German naval officer, with a chestful of decorations testifying to his years of service with the fleet; Baron Sterner, young, good-looking, and crisp in formal wear with one ribbon over his left breast. Of the three, thought McKay, the Englishman was most impressive, and on the next night, when the officers of the
Spee
entertained aboard their ship, the Gee-Gee positively scintillated, for when he appeared in the dress uniform of one of the great British regiments, he was a most dazzling figure.

On the third night the civilian officials of All Saints entertained the Germans with a gracious buffet and island music, but the fourth afternoon and evening were best of all, for then a long entourage of island cars of every vintage carried the German officers north to the old town of Tudor, where a rural reception was held, with speeches and music, after which everyone rode on to Cap Galant, where tents had been erected to protect them against rain and where a typical island picnic was held, with entertainment by four calypso singers who happened to be visiting from Trinidad. Those Germans who understood English were not at ease with the flippant social and political observations of the uninhibited calypso men. “Such would never be allowed in Germany,” an officer told McKay. “I can assure you of that.”