Vidiadhar Naipaul - A Way in the World

Hislop said, “I’ve spent many nights wondering how I could prove in a London court that the Spanish practise torture.”

“Vargas was a brave man at one time. He took part in a dangerous conspiracy in New Granada. He was imprisoned and tortured. Somehow afterwards he made his way to England. This was in 1799. He turned to me for help when he arrived. He wrote me a long letter full of circumstantial details of his torture. This letter, if produced in a court of law, will destroy the evidence he gave at the Picton trial. The case against Picton will disappear. And so will the case the free people of colour are preparing against you about the man of colour who used a love potion and was tortured by Vallot.”

“You never told me this. We sat in this house a year ago and talked about this matter.”

“I had forgotten. I was reminded of it only a few weeks ago when a sailor wrote me from the jail here. I began to think in my idleness of all the appeals and the begging letters that had been sent me. I don’t think I remember the names of those people. I’ve already forgotten the name of the Swede. And I don’t think that, apart from the details of the torture, the Vargas letter could have been much good. It would have been full of rhetoric, like the nonsense he wrote me from here. There is another reason. All of us who are political exiles and have dealings with the government have secret names that are used in correspondence. Vargas’s secret name was Oribe.’ That was how he wrote me, and that was how I remembered it. My secret name, as you know, is Mr. George Martin.”

“This letter is among your papers in London?”

“The papers of thirty-five years. They are in thirty cardboard boxes and two leather portfolios. I have a rough idea where to look. It would be impossible for anyone else to find. The Picton appeal is coming up soon.”

“It might be useful for you to be there beforehand.”

“Important things are preparing, General. A big force, and General Wellesley. I think you have an idea. If I don’t get to London in time, there may be no room for me in the plans now being made. And there may be no need for me to have a staff. If I were to have a staff, I would need someone who has a knowledge of Spanish and would know how to deal with British military people at the highest level. I know very well it’s not been a bed of roses for you here.”

“General.”

“As far as the Spanish government is concerned, they need only know that I am leaving this place, abandoning my enterprise, leaving my ship behind, my supplies, and going back to London. Lord Castlereagh will not be embarrassed in any way. And success, you know, General, wipes out certain things. Of course, since I am going back to London I have no further need of my ship. The ship can be sold or in some way disposed of. There is solid value there. I will leave you as my agent. You will do me that service. I am sure that, between you and Briarly and the master of the Trimmer and the disgruntled Americans of the Leander, certain matters can be adjusted.”

“Something can be done. About Briarly, I think I should tell you that I sent him to the jail for a while.”

“Did you, did you?”

“He complained from the jail about the stench and the filth. I handled his complaint with perfect correctness. I passed it to the provost-marshal. The jail is his responsibility. He collects a portion of the jail fees. The provost-marshal said the jail was as clean as a jail could be kept. It was washed down every day. I passed that message back to Briarly in the jail. I don’t think it did him any harm. He had really become quite impossible. He seized the ship that brought the Chinese from Calcutta. It’s an East India Company ship, but he claimed there had been some irregularity. We are still wrangling about that. Nobody’s sure who’s paying for the ship and the Chinese. Our Treasury here is quite empty. We don’t know whether we are supposed to be paying the Company, or the London government is paying. Until that is cleared up we don’t have a ship to send the Chinese back. They didn’t work out. I feel that when the East India Company people in Calcutta were told by London to send Chinese to us, they just went out and emptied the first opium houses they found. I don’t believe these people ever planted a tree in Calcutta or grew a vegetable or hoed a weed. They are city people. And nobody in London or Calcutta thought about women. These Chinese wouldn’t look at Negro women. And no free mulatto woman would look at the Chinese. So they have just gone mad over the year they’ve been here. They’ve been here for as long as you, General. They hate being stared at, and there are still people who want to come and look at them. They’ve been keeping going only on the opium. Many of them have died. I want to send the rest back as soon as possible.”

“A six or seven months’ journey back. The same time to come over. A year or more here. I wonder what memories the survivors will take back to Calcutta of this part of their lives. Will they know where they’ve been? How they stare!”

“They’ve gathered to look at you. I think it’s because of the long white pigtail you have. It’s unusual here. It’s longer than the Navy pigtail, and you are older than most Navy people. They probably think you are one of theirs, come to take them back home. A passport will be made out for you, General. The British Queen will be leaving for Tortola in the third week of October. That gives you enough time to order your affairs here. In Tortola you will join the convoy for England. That will leave in mid-November. The flagship will be the Alexandra. I think they will find a cabin for you. You will be in London before the end of the year.”

The Chinese looked silently at the two men as they talked, and when Miranda began to go down the verandah steps they came a little nearer to consider him.

Miranda said, “Will anyone in Calcutta believe them when they tell this story? Will they believe it themselves, after a while?”

“General. The active years that remain to me are few. This makes them all the more important to me. My principal aim is, of course, to be creditably employed, but naturally without prejudice to my private interests. General, I think we should understand one another. Service with you will be a privilege, but I should find it hard to accept any rank lower than major-general. It is not from vainglory, I assure you. It is more for the sake of others. I have certain obligations, and I will not be able with a full heart, at this stage of a life with more than its share of hardships and cheated hopes, to accept anything less than I have said.”

“General, you need say nothing more.”

WE JUMP six years. Venezuela is in turmoil, a land of blood and revenge after three years of revolution, and Miranda is a prisoner of the Spaniards, in Morro Castle in Puerto Rico. He is waiting to make his last journey across the Atlantic, to Spain, to the dungeons of La Carraca in Cadiz. Cadiz was where the Prins Frederik took him in 1771. It was the first city he saw in Europe. It was where he bought his silk handkerchief and silk umbrella, and it will be where he will spend the last three years of his life, sometimes chained.

THERE HAD in the end been no major British invasion of Spanish South America. Such an invasion, though, was being seriously planned when Miranda went back to London from Trinidad. General Wellesley (who two years later became the Duke of Wellington) was assembling a large invasion force in Ireland. Miranda — as a South American who would have given legitimacy to the British action — would have had an important place in his army. But then, as so often with Miranda, plans had to be changed. Almost at the last minute the French occupied Spain; Spain all at once became an ally of Britain’s in the war against Napoleon; and the British army that should have gone to occupy Spanish South America went instead to the Iberian peninsula to fight a war of liberation.