Killorin's Caribbean Days

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Title:     Killorin's Caribbean Days
Author: James B. Connolly [More Titles by Connolly]

Revolutions? These days? In those South American countries? Sh-h, boy, sh-h--you don't know. In th' old gunboat days in the Caribbeans we never called it a good week 'nless we suppressed three or four. And at that I think we used to miss some.

Believe me, son, those were the days when they knew how to revolutionize. You'd turn in of a night with the Blues or the Reds or Greens, in, and have breakfast maybe in the mornin' with the Purples or the Violets and brass bands celebratin' the vict'ry in the Palace square.

And the first thing every new party did when they got in was to start up the Bureau of Printin' 'nd Engravin' and roll off a few billion dollars of gover'ment money. In Guadalquique the money for all parties was the same, except each party used to rubber-stamp its name across the face. An old navy yeoman hit the beach there one time named Tommie Anderson and he was made chief of the Bureau o' Printin' 'nd Engravin' by the Greens because he could make a rubber hand-stamp while they waited. Some traitor who didn't get his 'd absconded with the 'ficial one, Tommie said.

Of course that kind o' work tends to debilitate the best kind o' money. In Almatara, which was one o' the best little revolutionary countries ever I struck, you could see nigger boot-blacks shootin' crap for two or three thousand dollars a throw of a holiday in the market square. It used to cost a thousand dollars for a shine--that's a first-class shine for a foreigner, I mean. The natives didn't have to pay that much.

Yes sir, son, a great old cruisin'-ground in the old days, the Caribbeans, and fine times there, believe me. In the old Hiawatha we'd be layin' in to Kingston, or Havana, or Matanzas, or some port along there, with big liberty parties ashore every day, when word 'd come from Washington tellin' us there was hell to pay over to Guadalquique, or Almatara, or somewhere else, and for us to beat it over there and sit on 'em before they got going.

The Hiawatha she was a good old gunboat ratin' four fourteen and two six-pounders, and, bein' the handiest thing in the fleet, 'twas always her they detailed for those little revolutionary jobs, and aboard her we got so, after a while, we didn't mind the report of a new revolution any more 'n you'd mind the ringin' of the cash-register in a barroom up here. Sometimes you'd see the skipper showin' signs of impatience, rumplin' his hair and rubbin' his chin and maybe cussin' a little; but he always ended by hurryin' a patrol party ashore, and we'd beat up the grog-shops 'n' the dance-halls and the park benches and hustle everybody aboard, and the chief engineer he'd rouse out a couple of extra stokers, and up steam and away we'd go.

Foolish things--revolutions? Maybe. But people who say no good can come out o' revolutions, they don't know. I got rank an' fortune out of a revolution one time. Yes, sir, me, Killorin, bosun's mate, second class, U.S.N. and on my first Caribbean cruise it was, and--but I'll get to the rest of it. When I was drafted to the Hiawatha on the Caribbean station I had what you might call only a virgin notion of revolutions. My first enlistment was 'most run out, and I was looking to be put aboard some home-bound ship, but I was still on the Hiawatha when she was told to jog along over to Tangarine, a bustling young republic which was beginnin' to make a name for itself in the revolutionary way.

Whatever they were doin' we were to stop it. That was the Monroe Doctrine, the officers said. And so we put over there, but we didn't stop it. It was all over, with the Reds in an' printin' new money and postage-stamps and makin' a bluff to collect customs fine as could be when we got there.

There was nothin' to keep us there, but it was a fruitful-lookin' country and the skipper he thought he might 's well get a little fresh grub for his mess, and he sends me ashore to do the buyin'. And I goes. And the first grocery store I come to I says to the man behind the counter: "How much for a ham?" And he says, quick and brisk, "Four thousand dollars," and I was most stunned, but I manages to slap a five-dollar gold piece down on the counter and I says, quick and brisk too: "In God's name gimme a bite out of it!" An' I had to hire two coolies to wheel the change back to the ship.

Well, the money values of that Tangarine place had me mesmerized, and when my time ran out a few weeks later I settles up with the paymaster and stands by to go over the side with my bag. The skipper he says: "Killorin, I'll be over here by'n'by and take you off. And you'll be glad to come, I'll wager." And I says, "Thank you, sir, but this is the dolsee far nanity country for me. With the number o' gold pieces I got in my pants pocket I oughter be able to pass the rest o' my days here," and with my big ticket and my bag I hit the beach in Tangarine, intendin' to go straight to the palace and get chummy with the new President first thing.

But I never got so far as the palace. Not that time. About a quarter-mile up from the beach was a joyous-lookin' hotel with shaded verandas all 'round and a banana grove in the yard, and on a second look a cantina shinin' with mirrors and glasses and colored bottles on the ground floor, and on another look spacious-lookin' suites o' rooms such as were befittin' to señors of wealth and leisure on the floor above. And over these premises I cast one sailor-like view, and through the for'ard gangway of that glass-mounted cantina I hove my clothes-bag and myself followed after. There was also a roulette wheel, which didn't hurt the looks of the place either.

I felt so right to home that I anchored right there--oh, three or four or five or six days; maybe it was two weeks; but anyway--all that don't matter--when I steadied down so's to reason like the man o' sense my skipper always used to say I was at bottom, I was down on the beach and it was early in the mornin', and I was watchin' a lemon-colored sun trying to rise out of the smooth Caribbean sea, and I was wonderin' where it was I'd mislaid my clothes-bag. I could account for everythin' but my clothes-bag. But that don't matter either now. I never saw it again.

And while I sat there, not feelin' just like a high-score gun-captain after target-practice, I hears a light step behind me, and pretty soon I could feel an eye looking me over, and by'n'by a voice said: "A ver-ry fine good morning, sir."

"Is it?" I says, and I looks up to see who the cheerful party is. And there was a good-lookin', well-dressed, young, dark-complected chap, with a little bamboo cane which he kept stickin' into the sand.

And he looks at me again and says, plainly pleased and yet a little sad, too: "The Blues are in." And I says: "That so? Since when?" And he says: "Since last nigh-it. You did not hear, the revoloo-shee-onn?"

And I says: "I didn't--I must 'a' been takin' a nap." But I guessed it was a good thing; leastways they couldn't be any worse than the Reds--or was it the Yellow chaps were in last?

"No Yellow in Tangarine," he says.

"Ha, ha!" I says--"an authority."

"No Yellow--Blues and Reds only. And as for the Reds, bah! But the Blues, good--ver-ry good," and he pulls the cane out of the sand, lunges at the air, comes to a present, and says: "I salute you, sir." And I said: "And I al-so salute you, señor." And he says: "Americano?" And I said: "You betcher." And he said: "Of course. Ver-ry good. I have been one time in your country. I have studied the langooage there, yes. Ver-ry fine, ver-ry fine. All American people ver-ry fine. All heroes. Yes, yes, I think so. I have read it also in your books. But par-don, sir, what is it you do now?"

And I said I wasn't doing anything except makin' up my mind whether I'd go back to the navy or not, and if I did, how I'd get back.

"Ah-h, man-o'-war-man. I have thought so. You sail ship--navigate, yes?" And I said I didn't know about navigatin', but I could sail a ship if I had to.

"I have thought so," he says. "Listen, please. While you--compose, is it not?--your brains, should you not wish to engage in privateerin'? It is ver-ry good wonderful opportune time now for that, while the Blues are in control and the Reds who are on the ocean know not of it."

"H'm, we kind o' lost the privateerin' habit in our country. How do you do it these days?" I says.

"Oh-h, sir, ver-ry sim-ple, ver-ry. My friend he is in the Blue cabinet. A fine man, yes. He shall make for me all the privateerin' documents I shall require. It is necessary only to request respectfully of him. Then we shall engage a small ship and you shall navigate her, and when we shall perceive other ships, the same who shall display the Red flag, we shall display suddenly a Blue flag on our ship and capture them."

"And loot 'em?"

"Par-don, sir," says he, "but what is that lootem?"

"Why, whatever's in the ships we capture. Don't we get everythin' we c'n find in 'em?"

"Oh, sir, of a surely, abso-lutely. It is the article of war. But"--he holds up a finger warnin'like--"as commander of the expedition I shall reserve to myself one article of any kind which shall be captured. One chest, one table, even"--he looked at me to see if I got this part--"even one prisoner, if I shall so desire."

"Well, that's all right, too," I said; "for I s'pose you're payin' for the outfittin' o' this expedition?" And he says he was. "Then it's a go," I says; "for I don't see but I might 's well be privateerin' an' pickin' up a little loose loot as lyin' around on the beach wonderin' where my eats are comin' from f'r the next few weeks."

So he brings me around and shows me a little brigantine, he'd chartered, and with three dusky lads for a crew and some grub and two big chests on her quarter-deck we sail out. And the first thing I says when we were clear o' the harbor was: "What's them chests for?" And he opens up one of 'em and says: "Behold, señor, your uniform!"

And I looks and there's five gold stripes on the sleeve of the coat to begin with. And draws it all out, pants and all, and I see it's an admiral's special full-dress uniform!

"For me?" I says.

"Certain-ly," he says. "You, señor, shall be an admiral. Why not?"

"Well," I says, "I don' know why not either, only it's some rank to start with. But what'll you be?" And at that he opens up the other chest and hauls out another uniform and holds it up f'r me to look at, and, pointin' to the insignia, he asks: "What rank shall such be?"

It was a general's uniform, and I tells him so.

"So?" he says. Then bowing to me: "Then I, señor, if you do not object, shall be a gen'ral."

"Sure--why not, señor?" I says. "And there's cert'nly some class to the quarter-deck o' this brigantine. Let's get into 'em." And we got into 'em, an' gorgeous, oh, gorgeous, they were. An' rememberin' the market price o' hams when I was buyin' hams, I figured they must 'a' cost ten or fifteen million dollars apiece. And I hadn't been an hour in mine--solid gold almost, and a gold-mounted shappo and a gold belt and a dazzlin' sword--before I begins to appreciate what it was to be an admiral and to respect every admiral ever I'd sailed under--except maybe two or three--for bein' good enough to look at me at all while they were standing round deck in their uniforms. An' f'r the next hour I kept that crew hoppin' from one end of the brigantine to the other, just to see 'em hop when I gives an order with my admiral's uniform on.

But after I got so I could take off my shappo and draw my sword and look down at myself without swellin' up, I says to the gen'ral, "What d'y'say, señor gen'ral, to a little action?" and points to a lad quarterin' down the wind toward us with a Red flag up. "It's plain," I says, "he don't know the Blues is in. What d'y'say if we shake him up same as a real privateer--send a hot shot across his forefoot and make him haul his wind?"

"No, no," and the gen'ral shakes his head.

And soon there came another fellow inbound and with a Red flag up, but again the gen'ral said, "Paysheeons, paysheeons, señor admiral," and raises one hand to restrain my impulsive motions.

And four or five more passed, all flyin' the Red flag. But no word from the gen'ral until toward the middle of the afternoon--and a hot afternoon it was. The gen'ral, with the glasses to his eyes, bounces into the air. "Ah-h!" and again, "Ah-h!" and points to her. "Now the fair prize-a, the rich prize-a!" he says, and draws deep breaths, and cinches up on his belt, and runs his fingers between his red and green and yellow gold-mounted collar and his neck, and runs below and takes a last look at himself in the mirror, and comes runnin' up on deck and calls out: "Señor admiral, you shall prepare the ship for combat!"

"Ay, ay, gen'ral!" I says and takes out my bosun's whistle, which I'd never turned in of a night without hangin' it 'round my neck, and which I now lifts from the breast of my gold-mounted coat, and pipes all hands to battle quarters. But the crew, except the one to the wheel, was under the rail, asleep, and so I had to enforce my pipin' with the flat of my sword. It'd been quicker to kick 'em, but, it bein' a hot day, I'd left off my shoes. And when they come awake I orders 'em to fly the battle-flag, which the gen'ral brings up from the bottom of his uniform chest, a fine large bright-blue thing, with stars and horned moons on it.

And then I makes ready a little old muzzle-loadin' gun, which was lashed in the waist, but pointin' over the port side, which happened to be the wrong side when we wanted to fire a shot across the enemy's bow. So we had to tack ship, which took about ten minutes, my crew not bein' A. B.'s. But when we did fire, the noise and the splash of water the ball threw up was war enough for the enemy. She was about a 100-ton tradin' schooner, and she came into the wind.

"Haul down your flag!" hollers the gen'ral in the Tangarine language, and one of their crew was goin' to haul it down, only for a stout little chap who came runnin' up out of her cabin and put his glasses on the gen'ral, and then rushes over and grabs the signal halyards from the man who was goin' to lower 'em, and hits him a clip in the neck at the same time--a scrappy chap he looked.

"He is there--it is heemself," says the gen'ral, excitedly. But to me, very courteous, he said: "Señor admiral, shall you manoeuvre the ship to approach the enemy, if you please?"

"Ay, ay, sir!" I says cheerily, and puts the brigantine alongside, and the pair of us, in our gorgeous uniforms, we leaps aboard.

"Surrender!" orders the gen'ral in a commandin' voice, but the scrappy little man he wouldn't. He yelled somethin' at his crew, and they got behind him. And there were four of them against me an' the gen'ral, for our brigantine started to drift away soon as we left her, and our spiggity crew couldn't get her alongside again.

There we were, us two heroes, marooned on the enemy's deck, in the most magnificent uniforms, but not another blessed thing to fight with except a couple o' gold-plated swords. But the little captain and his crew had only what loose things they could grab in a hurry--oars, deck-swabs, marlin-spikes, and one thing or another; but with them, without wastin' any flourishes, they came at me an' the gen'ral, and we draws our swords.

"What d' y' say, will we have at 'em, gen'ral?" I says.

"As you say, señor admiral, have at 'em!" answers the gen'ral, and we haves at 'em.

But I soon begin to see we wasn't havin' at 'em in any great shape. Our swords had two backs but no edge. It was like hittin' 'em with barrel-staves. Fine grand echoes, but the echoes wasn't knockin' 'em down. And the gold-mounted uniforms were in the way, too--in my way, anyway. My gold-mounted collar was gettin' so tight after I'd warmed up to the work that I 'most choked.

"Have at 'em!" the gen'ral cried again, "but have great care for the old gentleman."

I was just goin' to welt the little captain a good one when I heard that. "Not hurt him!" I says. "A hell of a battle this where we have to play fav'rites among th' enemy. And why won't I hurt him, señor gen'ral, an' him the best scrapper o'the lot?"

"You must not. No, no! He is the father of the lady."

"So that's it? And where's the fair lady?" I asks.

"I know not. I trust she is on this ship, but I know not. But have at 'em, as you say, señor admiral, once more, and possibly we shall discover."

"All right, but let's have at 'em right," I says, and down on the deck I throws my grand sword, and with it the very fine scabbard which I'd been holdin' with one hand to keep from givin' myself the leg. And I sheds the gold-embroidered coat on top of it. I kept wearin' the gold-mounted shappo because the sun was hot, but the rest of me was stripped to the waist. And I felt better, and then I says: "Come on, gen'ral, unhook that golden armor and be free an' easy in y'ur motions like me."

"No, no, señor admiral. I shall wear my uniform, even though it is to die in it," he answers back.

"All right, señor gen'ral," I says, "have your own way. It's the privilege of your rank, but for me a little looser motions and a heavier armament," and I picks up what looks like a baseball bat, but a little longer and a little thicker and a good deal heavier than any baseball bat. A capstan-bar it was. And if y'ever handled one you know what a great little persuader a capstan-bar is. I could tell you a hundred stories o' capstan-bars. Many a good fight used to be settled in th' old sailin'-ship days with a capstan-bar.

And with my capstan-bar I haves at 'em right. Soon I had two of the enemy backed up to the forehatch, and before their worryin' eyes I flourishes my capstan-bar. "Now then," I says, "it's go below for you two or a pair of cracked skulls--which?" And they went below, the pair of them together like divin' seals, into what I see, when I takes a peek, was mostly a cargo of pineapples and cocoanuts in bulk. I could hear 'em bouncin' around among 'em after they struck.

And now, being well warmed up to my work and my head bustin' with strategy, I takes the little captain in the rear and was about to lay him low, when the gen'ral hollers: "Señor admiral, you for-get--spare him!" So I spares him, but I whales the other last one a couple in a soft spot and chases him, till he took a high dive too into the forehold; and I could also hear him rattlin' and bouncin' around after he struck the cocoanuts or the pineapples, whichever it was. Then I goes for the little captain again, only now I picks him up and holds him while the gen'ral ties his arms, and then, first clampin' down the forehatches on the captured crew, we lowers him into the cabin whilst we take a look around.

It was me for loot, the gen'ral for the fair lady. But not a thing could I find, and him no fair lady. In the hold, topside, between decks, everywhere; but nothin' besides cocoanuts and other fruit and some hogsheads o' rum. The rum was an encouragin' item, but not what you'd call loot. So we came back to the cabin and untied the captain, who begins at once to go rollin' cigarettes and shootin' green eyes at the pair of us. The gen'ral takes a seat opposite him and argues beseechin'ly, but not one soft look from the little man.

The gen'ral, discouraged, turns to me. "Señor admiral, what do you say for him? Is it not a hard heart? I love his daughter, but he----"

"She no lofe you!" snaps the little man.

"Ah-h, but how can you say that truly?" says the gen'ral, and turns to me and says: "Is it not just, señor admiral, that I should have one opportuni-ty to see her?"

By this time I'd filled a little jug with some rum, and there was lemons and brown sugar and a little ice, and I thought 'twas kind o' rough on him, and so I says: "Yes, I think y'oughter, 'specially while you got that uniform on. But where is she?"

"Ah-h, that is it, where is she? On this ship I have thought, but evident-ly not so."

"Maybe she's here at that, hidden somewhere," I says, "and if she is, believe me, gen'ral, I'll find her," and leavin' a lemon swizzle to cool I begins to search the schooner again. And this time I takes a good look into the little captain's stateroom. I didn't find the fair lady, but packed cutely away under the old fellow's bunk was about a cord o' money! Nothing less than a thousand-dollar bill, but five and ten-thousand dollar bills mostly, and all new. Lord knows how much there was there, but I hauled a bushel or so of it out on the cabin floor by way of a sample. And the little man never stirred when he saw it; and as for the gen'ral, "Bah!" he said--"Red moneys!"

I was thinkin' I'd done a fine stroke, and that made me feel kind o' put out. "I'll find that girl if she's on the ship," I says then, and I steps over to a corner of the cabin where there'd been a fresh boarding-up of the bulkhead.

I gazes steady at it. And I could almost feel the little man's eyes borin' into my back! And I whirls around quick; there he was--paying no attention to the gen'ral, but starin' at me. And to myself I says: "If losin' all that money in his room don't jar him, it must be somethin' good behind that bulkhead for him to worry over." And with that in my mind I looks again at the old fellow, and now I know what it is, and the old man knew I knew, and into his eyes came such a look that I stopped dead. You mustn't forget that I was a big, loose, rangy 180-pounder, and standin' there--I can see it now; I didn't then--but me standin' there, with the heat of warm exercise and three West Indian rum swizzles oozing out of me on that tropic afternoon, I c'n see now I wasn't any winged angel to look at.

But I had no notion of that then, only that I was beginnin' to like the little captain; and with that new feelin' I spoke to the gen'ral. "Here," I says, "let's step on deck for a minute." And we went up, leaving the old fellow below with his hands tied while we were gone. And up on deck I says, quick and sharp: "Look here, mate, what's this about you and the old chap's daughter? Is it all straight?"

"Straight?" repeats the gen'ral, puzzled like. "Straight? Ah-h--listen, my friend," and he pours out on me what I wasn't huntin' for--his autobie-ography. It was her father who had kept them apart so. Her father, he did not love his--the gen'ral's--father. An old family quarrel, yes. Oh, for a long time back. Politics. He was of the Reds, her father, and his own father of the Blues. Her uncle he had been vice-president of the Red republic. It was true. But why should he and the beautiful daughter suffer for a quarrel which was so old, and the girl and himself all that were left of both families? Why? And I scratched my head and said I couldn't see why either.

And love her! Before he got through I could hear whole poems in the little wavelets lappin' under our run, and in the evenin' breeze which was kissin' my cheek. And the smell of oranges and pineapples and molasses and good West India rum coming up from the main hold--'twas the breath of roses--only I stopped to hope the captured crew in the forehold wasn't drinkin' up all the rum in their end of the ship--and to this side and that the lights of passin' ships were showin' and the voices of men and women floatin' over the water, darky voices mostly, and some were chorusin', chorusin' a shanty air which I'd last heard from a crowd of Georgia darkies loadin' a lumber schooner, a four-masted lumber schooner, through a great square hole in her bow from a railroad dock on the Savannah River--one time, that was, my ship put into Savannah and I got to know a girl lived in the Yamacraw there, and on Sunday afternoons we used to walk up and sit on the lumber piles on that same railroad wharf and watch the yellow river flowing by and dream o' things that never did happen an' never could--not for her and me. And now, aboard the little Caribbean trader, the moon was beginnin' to poke over our starboard rail and the first little white stars were peekin' out over the foretopsail, and the gen'ral was still talking. And when he'd done he laid his hand on my shoulder and said: "Straight, my brave American friend? As straight as a tall palm-tree. And all this"--he pulls on the end of a couple of cords on his gold-mounted coat--"I thought it would look well in her eyes." And he stops.

"But you are of the North," he says after a little while; "you think that foolish, possibly?"

"We do," I says. "We unanimously do," and as I said it I got to thinkin' of how when I was a boy I used to walk on my hands, and stand on my head, and throw flip-flaps, or stop to knock the head off some passin' kid--if I was able--anythin' so a red-ginghamed, pop-eyed little girl sittin' on the door-step across the street would take notice. "We do those things when we are boys," says I aloud.

"Ah-h! So you think--" says the gen'ral. "Ver-ry good," and starts to throw off his uniform.

"No, no," I says. "Keep that on. It becomes you. And, besides, I don't know's I'm so sure we ought all to grow up. And come below--come!" I thought I heard the old fellow's voice below and I jumped down, and there he was, the little captain, hurryin' away from the bulkhead.

And now I examines the bulkhead carefully, and I goes up on deck and resumes my full admiral's coat and buckles on the fine gold-mounted belt and sword and sets my shappo just a little to one side. I was wishin' I had my shoes, but they were on the brigantine and she was a quarter-mile away and still driftin'. And back in the cabin again, I picks up the hammer and draws from the bulkhead plankin' half a dozen nails, and in two minutes it's done, and out under the lights o' the cabin lamp steps--O, the prettiest, slimmest little dark-eyed girl, just a match for the gen'ral. But the first thing she sees is me, Killorin. "Ah-h--" she says, in a long sigh with her mouth a little open, and I tosses the hammer and nails into a corner and straightens up and takes a full breath; and let me tell you, son, in those days the worst-lookin' flatfoot ever climbed over a gunboat's side wasn't me, Killorin, bosun's mate, second-class--or was I first-class then? No matter; I was in a full-dress admiral's uniform then, and from me cocked hat to me bare toes I was some class. I knew I was--even without my shoes. And when again she looks at me and when again she sighs, "Ah-h--" with her little red lips apart, I says to myself: "Killorin, son, you're makin' one big hit." And just then her eyes looked past me and again she said, "Ah-h--" and down among my lower ribs somewhere dropped my quick-firm' heart, and "Killorin," I whispers to myself, "she loves you--not." For that last ah-h--and sigh-h for the gen'ral was seven times deeper and longer than the one she hove up at sight of me.

And while they were gazin' rapturous at each other the little captain's eyes met mine. And with a memory o' the last time I'd been up before a summary court-martial, I takes charge of the case. And "Sir," I says, "it appears to me like I'd have to be judge here. You, sir, are a prisoner o' war. And, to be more explicit, all aboard here are prisoners o' war. But no gentleman, and I say gentleman advisedly, is goin' to include a woman in the loot without her own consent, even if her father did hide her away and deny the same, which is against all articles o' war, besides bein' most disrespectful of service regulations. But in consideration of your previous good conduct we will not mention that now."

I turns to the gen'ral. "You, señor gen'ral, do you believe me an honest man?" And without even lookin' at me he says, "Pff--a foolish queschee-own, señor admiral. I have known you are honest from the mo-ment I have seen you spendin' your money foolishly at the hotel. And brave--as all American sailormen are brave."

"Tis well," I says. "And you"--I turned to the little captain--"you, I fear me, sir, will have to take my honesty for granted. Now I'll be the judge. Do you"--I faces the gen'ral again--"agree? 'Cause if you don't you an' me'll have to hop up on deck and fight it out."

The gen'ral was still lookin' up at the little captain's daughter. "Silence gives consent," I says. "And now," I says, "it's the young lady will say the word. Attend me, señorita. This young man here, but two moments agone, up on deck declared to me, while below the blue Caribbean the sun like a fine ripe orange was sinkin', and likewise the Southern Cross was shinin', lopsided, like a blessin' in the southwest over toward where the hills o' South America would 'a' been if we could 'a' seen 'em--to me, on this occasion, this young man declared he loved you. This young man--attend me, and not him, fair lady, please--and a gallant young man he is--I never knew a gallanter on such short notice--this young man on the occasion aforementioned declared to me that he loves you and wants you to wife. What have you to say to this charge? Do you love him or do you not? Take your time in answerin'."

And I stood to one side. She was still lookin' at the gen'ral and him at her. Just once she looked at her father and once at me--and I winked by way of encouragement--and she looked at her gen'ral again, and looked and looked, till all at once the gen'ral just nachally stepped across the cabin floor and took her in his arms.

"Look here, boy," I says, stern-like, "ain't that kind o' rushin' things? Have you a steady job--outside o' privateerin'?"

"I do not work. I have money," he says over her shoulder.

"Real money? Or this kind?" and I points to the bales of new bills in the little captain's room.

"I have gold in the bank and much sugar plantations."

"Then, orer pro nobis, she is yours," I says, and waves my arms beneficent-like over the pair of them. "And you and me," I says to the old man, "as I don't see how we c'n help it, what d'ye say if we two call the war off and have a few lemon swizzles with ice in 'em?"

And I draws a jug o' Santiago rum, and there was lemons an' sugar and a little ice, and we foregathers like a couple of old shipmates after a foreign cruise. And when, in the mornin', from out of the smooth Caribbean Sea the rosy sun came swimmin' we was right there, joyous as a liberty party on pay-day, to greet it. And the gen'ral and the señorita also saluted the goddess o' the mornin', and after breakfast we all went ashore, and that night I danced a taranteller at the weddin'. And, believe me, there's class to a good taranteller dancer.

And likewise that night, with the silver moon risin' like a goddess o' wisdom above the smooth Caribbean, and me and the little captain mixin' lemon swizzles on the veranda of the gen'ral's plantation hacienda, the little captain says to me: "I love you as one son. You shall be captain of my ship." And as a sort of weddin' legacy he bequeathes to me all the money was in the schooner when the gen'ral and me captured her.

And next mornin' I took up my quarters on the schooner, with the crews of the schooner and the brigantine for body-servants. And I had one good time. There was a basket there--a basket about the size of a good-sized wash-basket--and every mornin' I'd shovel a lot of money into that. Oh, I don' know how much, maybe two or three or four or five or six hundred thousand dollars, and I'd say to the cook, or maybe one of the deck force: "Here you, Fernando, go on up now an' hurry back." And they weren't bad traders at all. In a couple of hours they'd come hustling back with the full o' the basket o' chickens, eggs, butter, cheese, bologny, and fruit--everything a man 'd want for breakfast--in place o' the money. Fifty thousand dollars a day apiece I paid the crew, and good and plenty for them--a lot o' lazy loafers. It used to take three of 'em to buckle me into my uniform of a hot morning.

I never knew how much money was in that pile, but three or four, or maybe five or six hundred million dollars. And maybe I didn't live on the fat o' the land with it, for eight weeks! It would 'a' lasted longer only it was the divil tryin' to be thrifty with my admiral's uniform on, and then one mornin' the Hiawatha came to port, and with what I had left--forty or fifty million, or whatever it was--I gave a farewell party that night at the hotel where the banana grove was in the yard. I wore my admiral's uniform for the last time that night, and maybe that made 'em charge me a little more, but no matter that. In the mornin' I didn't have hardly enough to tip the waiters, three or four hundred thousand dollars, maybe, but--whatever it was, I tips 'em with it, and goes down to the beach to where the little, old, homely Hiawatha was laying to anchor, and 'twas eight o'clock and the bugler was sounding colors and it made me feel homesick, and I waves my hand back to the town, and "Fare thee well, O Tangarine-a," I says, "Tangarine-a, fare thee well." Secretary o' the navy I could 'a' been, I know, but back aboard the old Hiawatha I goes. And damn glad, you betcher, I was to be there.

But an admiral of the Blue I was once, with a hogshead of nothin' less than thousand-dollar bills; and I helped to make two young people happy. And no one c'n take that from me. And so I say when people say there's no good in revolutions you refer 'em to me, Killorin, bosun's mate, U.S.N.-I'll tell 'em.

[The end]
James B. Connolly's short story: Killorin's Caribbean Days

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