Martinique - The Traveller's Tree: A Journey Through the Caribbean Islands - page 34

cession wound on in a silence that was broken only by the flailing of the prisoners' tails and claws against
the planks. After two hours of this, the bottom of the boat was a tangled mass of lobsters, and we had to
avoid their claws as we climbed on board and sailed out through a gap in the reef to swim in the deeper
water. We got back to the house and drank some brandy and a tisane, ' pour nous réchauffer la poitrine ,'
and fell asleep the moment our heads touched the pillow.
Miraculously, none of us felt next day a trace of the potations and fatigues of the night before. The morn-
ing passed in a nepenthean coma under the poison-trees reading and talking, or gliding off into sleep.
Towards noon we sailed out into the lagoon again and dived and swam in the warm green water, or lay
half in and half out of the little yawl as she skimmed about the bay. Across the coral reefs and the la-
goon, how dreamy and tropical the land looked! the gentle grassy hills and shadowy trees surrounding the
house with its wooden-pillared and arcaded veranda; the sloping crests of coco-nut palm, a wavy vista of
sugar-cane, and the spiky mornes beyond ascending into the little grass-green Matterhorn of Mt. Vauclin.
To north and south along the coast, pillars of rock and headlands enclosing quiet crescents of sand suc-
ceeded each other in fainter and still fainter shades of blue.
Only the steering wheel of a cutter and a model of a sailing-vessel decorated the white planks of the
dining-room; a dark, airy chamber, in the depths of which, when we returned, another feast was being pre-
pared. This again proved to be an unforgettable banquet, ushered in by many punches, and escorted as it
slowly progressed from dish to dish, first by freezing Alsatian wine, then by excellent claret. Between the
courses, we hurled little glasses of brandy down our throats. I am still unable to determine whether this
was a good idea. It was done, I remember, on the same principle as Norman peasants practise what they
term the trou normand —that recurring pause in their Gargantuan meals when they swallow stiff draughts
of Calvados in order to revive a flagging appetite; to burn a hole, as it were, for still more food. We ate
some of the lobsters we had caught, and then Lambi , the inhabitant of the Caribbean conch-shell. It tastes
not unlike the octopus and ink-fish of the Mediterranean, but is ten times better. It has a dark, marine,
mysterious taste which is incomparably good. The plates were removed, and our host began carving a
shoulder of pré-salé lamb….
My neighbour was a commandant in the French Air Force and was one of the first people after Lind-
bergh to fly across the Atlantic; a tall grave man, heavily spectacled. By the time we were drinking li-
queurs, he and Costa and I, I recollect, were singing Buvons un coup, buvons en deux, Jeanneton prend sa
faucille and Chevaliers de la Table Ronde . It was already beginning to get dark. When we had finished,
the Créole gentleman who was sitting on the other side said: 'How I wish I had learnt some songs when
I was young … !'
'Why,' I asked him, 'did you never learn any?'
'I never had time,' he answered sadly. 'My life was so taken up with women. I had eyes and ears for
nothing but them.' He sighed deeply. Half a dozen vociferous conversations that were already engaged
round the table gave our colloquy a certian measure of privacy. Emboldened by the turn it had taken, I
asked him under what auspices these romances had blossomed; who had been his companions in them?
'Because,' I said, 'such things, in a small and closed world like Martinique, cannot be easy….'
'I used to live half the year in Paris,' he said, 'where I had an apartment in the rue de la Pompe. And
then, of course, numbers of foreign ladies used to visit the islands—French from the Métropole, Eng-
lish, Dutch, German, Austrian, que sais-je ?' He lowered his voice as though he were about to impart
some hermetic secret of the alcove. 'And then, of course, there were always the people of the country,