Limekiller!

“Yes, yes,” Dr. Rafael agreed. “Two years ago I was on my holidays, and I went out to St. Saviour’s Caye. well, to what is left of St. Saviour’s Caye after the last few hurricanes. You can imagine what is left of the old settlement. Oh, the Caye is dead, it is like a skeleton, bleached and bare!” Limekiller felt he could slightly gladly have tipped the medico over the side and watched the bubbles; but, unaware, on the man went. so, difficult though it was making my old map agree with the present outlines, still, I did find the site of the old burial-ground, and I cast about and I prodded with my iron rod, and I felt stone underneath the sand, and I dug!”

More sounds of excited interest. Digging in the sand on the bit of ravished sand and coral where the ancient settlement had been — but was no more — was certainly of more interest than digging for yams on the fertile soil of the mainland. And, even though they already knew that it was not a chest of gold, still, they listened and they murmured oh and ah, “The letters were still very clear, I had no difficulty reading them. Sacred to the memory of Ferdinando Rousseau, a native of Guernsey, and of Marianna his Wife, a native of Mandingo, in Africa. Plus a poem in three stanzas, of which I have deposited a copy in the National Archives, and of course I have a copy myself and a third copy I offered to old Mr. Ferdinand Rousseau in King Town

Smiling, Mr. Blossom asked, “And what he tell you, then, Doctor?”

Dr. Rafael’s smile was a trifle rueful. “He said, ‘Let the dead bury their dead’ —” The others all laughed. Mr. Ferdinand Rousseau was evidentlv known to all of them. and he declined to take it. Well, I was aware that Mr. Blossom’s mother was a cousin of Mr. Rousseau’s mother (“Double-cousin,” said Mr. Blossom.)

Said Mr. Blossom, “And the doctor has even been there, too, to that country. I don’t mean Guernsey; in Africa, I mean; not true, Doctor?”

Up ahead, where the coast thrust itself out into the blue, blue Bay, Jack thought he saw the three isolated palms which were his landmark. But there was no hurry. He found himself unwilling to hurry anything at all.

Doctor Rafael, in whose voice only the slightest trace of alien accent still lingered, said that after leaving Vienna, he had gone to London, in London he had been offered and had accepted work in a British West African colonial medical service. “I was just a bit surprised that the old grave-stone referred to Mandingo as a country, there is no such country on the maps today, but there are such a people.”

“What they like, Doc-tah? What they like, thees people who dey mehk some ahv Mr. Blossom ahn-ces-tah?”

There was another chuckle. This one had slight overtones.

The DMO’s round, pink face furrowed in concentration among memories a quarter of a century old. “Why,” he said, “they are like elephants. They never forget.”

There was a burst of laughter. Mr. Blossom laughed loudest of them all. Twenty-five years earlier he would have asked about Guernsey; today.

Harlow the Hunter, his question answered, gestured towards the shore. A slight swell had come up, the blue was flecked, with bits of white. “W’over dere, suppose to be wan ahv w’ol’ Bob Blaine cahmp, in de w’ol’ days.”

“Filthy fellow,” Dr. Rafael said, suddenly, concisely.

“Yes sah,” Harlow agreed. “He was ah lewd fellow, fah true, fah true. What he use to say, he use to say, ‘Eef you tie ah rottle-snehk doewn fah me, I weel freeg eet. ’”

Mr. Blossom leaned forward. “Something the matter, Mr. Limekiller?”

Mr. Limekiller did not at that moment feel like talking. Instead, he lifted his hand and pointed towards the headland with the three isolated palms.

“Cape Mandee, Mr. Limekiller? What about it?”

Jack cleared his throat. “I thought that was farther down the coast. according to my chart…”

Ed Huggin snorted. “Chart! Washington chart copies London chart and London chart I think must copy the original chart made by old Captain Cook. Chart!" He snorted again.

Mr. Florian Blossom asked, softly, “Do you recognize your landfall, Mr. Limekiller? I suppose it would not be at the Cape itself, which is pure mangrove bog and does not fit the description which you gave us. ”

Mr. Limekiller’s eyes hugged the coast. Suppose he couldn’t find the goddamned place? Police and Government wouldn’t like that at all. Every ounce of fuel had to be accounted for. Chasing the wild goose was not approved. He might find an extension of his stay refused when next he went applying for it. He might even find himself officially listed as a Proscribed Person, trans.: haul-ass, Jack, and don’t try coming back. And he realized that he did not want that at all, at all. The whole coast looked the same to him, all of a sudden. And then, all of a sudden, it didn’t. somehow. There was something about that solid-seeming mass of bush —

“I think there may be a creek. Right there.”