35

Bermuda rose over the horizon, just as MacQueen had always remembered it. He stood on the front balcony of the promenade deck and watched the pilot boat coming towards them across the clear water, through the channel between the reefs. A hundred Spanish galleons rested beneath them, encrusted in coral, and thousands of unsuspecting tropical fish swam indifferently among the reefs and treasure.

Two important delegates from the American consulate followed the pilot up the rope ladder and were astonished to learn that O’Dwyer was locked up. They indignantly demanded his release, but the captain made them sign receipts for everything that he turned over, including the Colt .45.

They sailed through Grassy Bay and the Great Sound, with its scattered islands and little white rooftops, and MacQueen could see the miniature yellow railway cars stopping-and-going along their twenty-mile journey. They slowly passed through the Narrows, past the Yacht Club, and circled into Hamilton Harbour. The main street, with its fragrant smell of rum and horses, sat facing the harbour, and the wharf had a large shed with an open deck, for those waiting to welcome travellers home.

O’Dwyer stepped onto the deck and joined MacQueen at the rail. “No one’s supposed to know when we arrive,” he said. “There seems to be a crowd waiting down there.”

“Are you staying long?” asked MacQueen.

“Flying out on the next clipper,” replied O’Dwyer. “That captain of yours can be a rough bastard under all that charm.”

MacQueen smiled. “He is a gentleman, but that doesn’t mean that you can shit all over him,” he said. “May I borrow your binoculars?”

MacQueen raised the glasses to his eyes with one hand and scanned the people on the wharf. He immediately picked out his mother. She was wearing a light yellow dress, with her favourite cartwheel hat and white gloves. She was talking to a blonde woman in Bermuda shorts, loafers, and large sunglasses. She was puffing on a cigarette and had a small dog on a leash. Standing with them was an officer with a brown leather Sam Browne belt over one shoulder. He was wearing a sun helmet that had an insignia on it. He must be one of mother’s Sherwood Foresters, thought MacQueen absently.

Suddenly he looked again. The man was somehow familiar. He was gesticulating and laughing, and then he raised his sun helmet. MacQueen felt a wild surge of hope—but it couldn’t be? He peered more intently, and he realized that it was, of course, the Winnipeg Grenadiers! Bill had gotten his commission and was standing down there with his mother! He looked like the last pukka sahib of the empire as he casually waved his swagger stick and entertained the ladies. He looked as though he had just stepped out of the pages of Rudyard Kipling.

MacQueen closed his eyes and lowered his forehead into his hand. “You okay?” asked O’Dwyer. “Anything wrong?”

MacQueen returned the binoculars quietly. “Nothing is really wrong in this crazy world,” he said. “It is going to unfold whatever in the hell we do. We are dumb to think otherwise.”

“If that’s true I’ve wasted a lot of energy in my life,” said O’Dwyer. “I’ve got to go. See you around, kid. One of us is sure crazy, but I don’t know which one.”

“We’re still alive, so we must be doing something right?”

“No thanks to you.” O’Dwyer painfully crushed MacQueen’s good hand and left to join his still-outraged countrymen. The captain waved from the bridge.

“Love to your mother, MacQueen,” he called. “She has a brave son.”

MacQueen went below to supervise his luggage and settle accounts with the steward and the page. The gangway was lowered into place and customs officials boarded the ship. MacQueen sat down and lit a Lucky Strike. At the other end of that gangway waited another world.

It was a long way from Wellington Barracks.