Limekiller!

The waters around Port Caroline were on the shallow side — in Baytalk, the dialect of the Bayfolk — “shoally.” A pier jutted out into deeper water about two miles from town, and here the packet-boats made their stops: the Hidalgo twice a week, the Miskitian once a week, and the Bayan according to Captain Cumberbatch's mind, pocket, or bowels. (“De sahlt wahtah bind me up, b’y,” he had observed to Jack.) Most of the Port’s own vessels preferred to put in at the mouth of Caroline Creek itself, which ran right through the middle of town. As there had been a bar building at the mouth of the creek for almost half a century, these vessels tended to be very shallow-draft vessels, indeed: even so, getting them across the bar was often a matter of tide, wind, and many willing bodies to heave and haul. It may not have been efficient. But it was companionable.

Limekiller had made the personal acquaintance of a rock just far enough from the pier to be free from mooring fees, and, with some degree of diligence, dropped his anchor at the proper angle to it. He didn’t bother with the skiff, and was wading ashore, his shirt up under his armpits and his trousers draped around his shoulders, when a voice cried, “Have you no shame, sir: wearing nothing but that. that tobacco pouch! — in the presence of Her Majesty’s proconsul?”

Jack knew that voice, called in its direction: “Unless an indictment for lese majeste is involved, Her Majesty’s proconsul can either wait till I’m ashore, or look somewhere else. Sir,” he added.

“Haw Haw!” was the answer of H.M. proconsul, videlicet the Royal Governor, Sir Joshua Cummings. The day had passed, perhaps fortunately, when colonial governors were appointed from the ranks of old generals who with lance and sabre had struck terror (or perhaps joy) into the hearts of contumacious Hill Tribesmen on distant Asian frontiers: Sir Joshua had been a sailor. No man-of- war larger than a gunboat, probably, could nowadays enter the shallow and coral-studded waters of the Inner Bay — but the Bayfolk, and, for that matter, the other Nationals of the Colony — had no interest in how well or how ill their governor might have manoeuvered a destroyer: they observed with great interest, however, how their governor managed sloop or schooner (or even skiff, dingy, or launch): their conclusion was, “Not bod, mon, you know. Not bod ah-tahl.” Stout, white-bearded, jovial, in his ceremonial white uniform, his white helmet with white plumes, Sir Joshua made a fine appearance at such occasions as the opening of the Legislative Council or the Court Sessions or the observance of the Sovereign’s birthday. The Bayfolk enjoyed seeing him at that. Nevertheless it was likely that they appreciated seeing him even more in his sea-faded khakies, at the tiller of his sailing-launch for the opening of the annual regatta — in which, of course, he did not compete.

Still, the Bayfolk, who numbered eighty percent of the people of the Colony, and who were for the most part Black, had mixed feelings about it all. On the one hand, they would have really preferred a governor who was Black; on the other hand, they had a feeling that a governor who was Black was not really a governor at all. And sooner or later these feelings would have to be resolved. But not just yet. Time, as we are incessantly reminded, does not stand still. But in the Colony of British Hidalgo it was still standing as near to still as anywhere.

“There. Now that you are decent once more, allow me to offer you a drop. lift, I believe they call it in North America. Thought I recognized your boat. Thought I’d just wait a bit for the pleasure of your company.” H.E. the Governor was in what the Bayfolk called “De Rival Jeep;" actually, it was a small Land Rover which flew a small Union Jack in place of a license plate. “And what brings you down to this friendly little port named after Old Snuffy? Eh? Oh. Didn’t know Queen Caroline took snuff? Course she did. Up to her ears in the stuff, silly old scow. Or was that Queen Charlotte? I can’t keep them straight. Eh?”

Jack knew that last eh? was not a reference to the queens of the House of Hanover, but a friendly reminder that a question had been asked and not answered. “I’m trying to locate building- supplies for a bungalow for the Bishop of Simla… I think.”