A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees Read online

  He looks away from where the men are piling the timbers ready for fixing and blinks.

  That sand again – every now and again the wind suddenly sweeps up vindictive little handfuls of the stuff and blows it into everything: clothes, shoes, food, and, worst of all, Myfanwy’s eyes.

  ‘I expect you’re wondering where this new Wales is, my friend, are you not?’

  Silas starts and looks around him. Edwyn is beside him. He wonders how he managed to come so close so silently.

  ‘Perhaps you’re thinking the Lord has let you down...’

  Silas says nothing.

  ‘...or I have let you down.’

  There is another pause and Edwyn smiles. ‘Ah, I can see you might be thinking that and rightly so. But do not fear. This is but a temporary shelter, brawd.’ He raises his voice so that the other men can hear. ‘Our promised land awaits us, over there,’ he says indicating a small valley to the south. ‘Milk and honey, brothers. Tall trees and meadows. Cows lowing and the sheep bleating. It won’t take long. Just a few more miles and we shall all be in Y Wladfa.’

  Eight

  Silas is watching Edwyn Lloyd. The man fascinates him just as much as he fascinates everyone else. On board the Mimosa, Jacob had talked of very little else so Silas has had plenty of time to imagine the man who had encouraged everyone to come here. It was a description so extravagant it was bound to lead to disappointment: ‘The voice and heart of a lion, eyes as soulful and deep as an ocean, revered by everyone that encounters him.’

  Jacob was clearly a man smitten. His eyes seemed to drift off into some sort of reverie whenever he mentioned his name. ‘Ah, brawd, we are honoured to have him as our guide.’

  Silas smiles. He had, he realises now, been expecting someone bigger – not taller, perhaps, but certainly broader, with dramatic, memorable features. Instead he finds a face that, apart from the full and undisciplined beard, appears to be neat rather than striking and a frame that is memorable only because it is so tall and lean.

  However when Edwyn talks they all listen, and his voice does carry, although it is distinct rather than truly powerful. He moves constantly and rapidly with the muscular grace of an athlete: one moment helping with the dismantling of the ship, the next taking a turn at cladding the roof. And when he is not doing something with his hands, he is talking, talking, talking. In fact Silas is already tired of his voice: greeting the young Irish doctor in English, or barking out instructions in Spanish to one of the hapless servants, or greeting one of the ministers in his perfect Welsh. Now he walks up to where the women are making the evening meal, smiling at one face and then another, wheedling so subtly no one notices: ‘Would you mind, Mrs Davies? Yes, that’s right. If you would be so kind... yes, that would be perfect.’ While the men are herded together to listen to his plans: ‘And yes, Mr Humphreys, if you could ask your brother to join us. Yes, splendid. Just what I wanted.’

  Everything about him is elegant: his voice, his walk, even the way he climbs onto a slightly higher piece of ground. Silas whispers to Myfanwy to go with her mother, and then goes to stand with the other men. He notices that one girl, Miriam, is loitering, hoping, no doubt, to remain unnoticed between her brothers. She is tall like them, and so thin and flat-chested that she could pass as a pretty young man; but Edwyn spots her and with a wink directs her to go and stand with the other women. At first she pouts and doesn’t move, apparently immune to Edwyn’s charm, but then after a nudge from her eldest brother, slouches off to join the women.

  Edwyn, meanwhile, is gesturing for quiet with his arms. After a few seconds they are quiet. The wind has picked up and is whistling over the cliffs and it is a strain to hear. Silas shivers and hunches up his shoulders. Just the sound of it makes him cold. Like everyone else he is wearing as many clothes as he can find, but still the wind finds a way through. Edwyn, however, seems unaffected. Occasionally he has to bow his head to dodge some debris swept up by a sudden flurry, but his voice goes on unabated.

  ‘Now, brodyr, we need to cross this stretch of land to the south of here, a distance of forty miles. It is a cold and barren place, a wilderness in fact.’ He pauses and looks slowly around him. ‘We are to be tested like the Israelites in the desert, and like Our Saviour Himself.’ He smiles suddenly. ‘But not, I hope, for forty days and forty nights!’ There is a smattering of uncertain laughter which becomes more confident as Edwyn’s grin widens. Silas sighs. He is in no mood for jokes. However long it takes will be too long as far as he is concerned. If it is south of here surely it will be colder still. He imagines trudging through a wilderness of snow and ice. He allows himself to slump against a rock. The voyage was so long and hard. Everyone is exhausted. Some of the colonists were already weak from months of poverty when they first boarded the Mimosa, and of course they are no better now. Some are suffering from fever. Five children have died – and there is one woman sitting so languidly that the Lord will surely welcome her into His arms soon. The thought of these people walking anywhere seems so utterly unlikely that Silas wonders why Edwyn Lloyd does not despair, but he does not. ‘But, brawd, I know with all my heart that we will be victorious. A test is a good start for any nation and it can only make us stronger. We will come through it together. Arm in arm; each Welshman supporting his comrades through the wilderness. In fact Mr Selwyn Williams, who knows about these things, has suggested that this is how we should proceed.’ Edwyn pauses, lowers his hands which had been indicating the land behind him and continues. ‘The numbers he suggests are groups of twelve or more. Safety in numbers, isn’t that so, Mr Williams?’ He waits for the large sunburnt man who is standing close to Silas to nod grimly in agreement. Then, grinning at him, adds, ‘Thank you. As you can tell, my friends, Mr Williams is a man of many words.’

  His sarcasm brings another small ripple of laughter.

  ‘But I have confidence that what he says is right.’

  Silas’ eyes travel to Selwyn Williams. Selwyn is a massively built American whose wild, wrinkly beard is so blond that at first glance it looks white. This, together with the weather-worn leatheriness of his face, gives an initial impression of age, although the easy way he moves and his little-used voice betray his youth – he is really only twenty-eight. He obviously doesn’t share Edwyn’s sartorial interests; his clothes are ill-fitting, his jacket too short and missing most of its buttons, and his trousers are torn at the hem. His hat consists of a pelt of pale brown fur, almost indistinguishable from his hair, and any shape that it once had has long disappeared. The contrast with the elegant Edwyn is striking: whereas Edwyn stands erect with his shoulders invariably thrown back and his chin up; Selwyn slouches into his clothes, almost as if he’d like to disappear into them. Selwyn seems reluctant to speak, but when he does his views are so unrelentingly gloomy that Silas feels an immediate empathy. Oddly, despite his dress and pessimistic outlook, he seems to be attractive to women too, and already Silas has overheard a couple of the younger single women discussing his attributes with some enthusiasm.

  ‘A little boy in a man’s great body.’

  ‘Lovely eyes.’

  ‘Needs looking after, though – look at those clothes.’

  ‘I saw him first, Annie Warlock. Don’t you get any ideas. He’s mine.’

  An innocent, a child – as Silas watches him pull his fingers through his colourless beard he can see what those women mean. There is an oddly childlike unselfconsciousness about the man and if he is aware that he is the object of Edwyn’s ridcule, he doesn’t show it.

  Edwyn Lloyd begins to sort the men into groups. ‘So... yes, how about you, Mr Rees? Could you be spared, do you think? Good man. And your brother? Yes, that’s right…’

  Edwyn Lloyd, Silas notices, has two smiles: a sudden grin for public consumption and one that is more like a spreading of his lips which is only for himself. This private smile is smug, small, almost hidden beneath his beard and betrayed only by slight changes in the flesh adjacent to his nose. He smiles this private smile
now as his eyes sweep over the men before him. It remains on his face as he turns to where one man is actually trying to catch his attention with a small wave of his hand. His smile broadens as he pretends to miss him. ‘Is no one else willing to be part of the advance? Are you sure? How disappointing.’ The man waves more vigorously and makes small coughs, and Edwyn’s private smile expands. Only on the third pass of his eyes does Edwyn pretend to look startled. ‘And you Mr Griffiths?’ His surprise is staged, obviously overdone, and around him some of the other men smile too.

  ‘How very kind. Yes, thank you, Jacob. Now we can all be assured that the party will be in safe hands.’ His voice now has a slight sneer about it but Jacob seems oblivious of both this and the snigger of the men around him. He seems to hear just what suits him. As soon as Edwyn used his Christian name, Jacob seemed to become larger. He looked around him and smiled triumphantly at Silas. Now he steps forward eagerly, grinning at Edwyn who nods and grins his public smile back.

  ‘When are we going, Edwyn?’

  ‘Ah, I had tomorrow in mind. Unfortunately, I shall be unable to come with you myself. My work is here for now, with my wife.’ He looks around, balances on his toes so he can see over their heads, then he motions someone forward. A slightly built, pale-faced woman picks her way between them. She is in her mid twenties, brown hair scraped into a small hat, and with symmetrical, even, small features that seem to Silas to be almost completely inexpressive. If she were more lively she’d be a beauty, he thinks, but as it is she looks defeated. There is something in the way her body droops that betrays exhaustion. Her clothes look expensive but well worn: a heavy dark-green skirt and blouse of wool, and a shawl with a subdued paisely pattern wrapped tightly on top.

  ‘It’s been hard work, so far, hasn’t it, cariad?’

  Cecilia Lloyd nods seriously.

  ‘We almost felt like giving up some of the time, didn’t we?’

  She nods again. For a few seconds her eyes seem to travel passively over the faces around her and then they slip smoothly back to the floor. Vacant, Silas thinks, nothing there, and he wonders if she is truly as stupid as she seems.

  ‘Ah Captain!’ Edwyn calls out in English, ‘here, if you please.’

  Silas looks up with interest. He can’t imagine that the thug of the Mimosa’s captain would respond happily to a command, but even Gidsby seems under Edwyn Lloyd’s spell. He comes through the crowd of men meekly when summoned, listens carefully to what Edwyn says then responds quietly. Silas tries to match the voice he hears speaking to Edwyn with the one he remembers on board the Mimosa, but fails. The voice in his head, the one he heard so frequently on the voyage, was uncouth and aggressive with such a vocabulary of swear words that he made Jacob blanch. But to Edwyn Lloyd, Captain Gidsby’s tone is mild and civil. He appears to be explaining the workings of the compass with some patience, although Edwyn has the condescending air of someone listening to an idiot. They confer quietly in English for a few moments before Edwyn passes on his instructions in Welsh. ‘He says you have to just keep following the needle south,’ he says, making it quite clear he is merely passing on the information. ‘You line the north up like that with the mark on the rim, then go in the opposite direction. Due south. If you keep going that way, you can’t go wrong.’

  He thanks the captain and dismisses him, and the captain mutely dips his head, before returning to the beach. Then he walks along the sand, looking backwards from time to time, before continuing as if making sure that Edwyn Lloyd had finished with him.

  ‘The Meistr has something on Mr Gidsby, I reckon,’ Selwyn Williams says quietly as they watch him retreating down the beach. ‘Seen him snooping round the ship yesterday. Guess he found something.’ Selwyn smiles and looks at him. ‘Any ideas?’

  Silas thinks for a few seconds, then shakes his head. Gidsby was always very secretive.

  Selwyn looks disappointed. He pauses while the captain scuttles out of sight, then says. ‘Must be something the captain is very keen to keep quiet.’

  Then suddenly Silas remembers the Mimosa tipping, and the captain struggling to fasten something down on deck. Something he wanted no one to see.

  ‘There was something…’ Silas says, ‘…at the beginning of the voyage, during a storm, a particularly bad one...’

  He thinks back. The storm had only been going for a couple of hours, but already the ministers had begun to nag God in relays. Eventually Megan had clapped her hands over her ears in the shadows of their bunk: ‘If I were God I’d drown the lot of us.’

  Everyone was sick. Only Silas seemed to be immune to the constant tipping and swaying. While the storm raged they were kept in darkness; the hatch was fastened down with just the cracks each side of the door reminding him of sky and open air. He kept looking at the narrow slits of light. Eventually the smell of other people’s vomit and excrement made him gag too. He needed to escape, he thought, just for a minute. So he had lurched his way past the bunks of groaning bodies and buckets, groped around for the ladder and then climbed slowly towards the light, making sure of each handhold. Then he’d hammered on the hatch until it had given way. There’d been a sharp waft of air and a glorious sliver of daylight. The ladder had swayed and heaved but still he’d pressed his face there. The sky was darkening. Beyond the deck was the sea, or at least the smell of it. And there was the sound of the waves breaking across the deck – an entirely different sound from the thunder against the hold. Then, above it all, another sound – a man’s voice, hoarse, young and desperately trying to hide his panic: Tell them to clear off, we don’t need them. Tell them to go and mind their own damned business.

  ‘Contraband,’ Silas says.

  ‘Yes,’ says Selwyn, fingering his beard thoughtfully. ‘That’ll be it. A good few bottles tucked away somewhere – and Edwyn knows about them.’

  The younger men are eager to start. Too eager. As soon as Edwyn Lloyd has divided out the equipment one of them starts off alone. William Bowen is young, a surly curl to his lip and nothing but an insolent word for everyone.

  ‘Mr Bowen?’ Edwyn Lloyd calls after him.

  ‘You catch me up,’ he says without turning and continues on the track.

  One of the women tuts and Edwyn’s face colours slightly. ‘Mr Bowen, you are not to go out there alone.’

  But the man doesn’t turn.

  ‘William, come back at once!’

  ‘Shall I go after him, Edwyn?’ Jacob asks, but Edwyn shakes his head. He is still watching the boy go. ‘Such stupidity,’ he mutters, then looks at Jacob and smiles. ‘Not yet, my friend. We mustn’t allow the reckless actions of one man to threaten the survival of the rest. We must get you ready. Make sure you are all properly equipped.’

  Now Lloyd’s movements are slightly quicker and more agitated. He makes frequent glances into the desert and when he does so, his fists clench tightly. The Meistr is angry, Silas thinks, and trying to conceal it. Silas wonders if anyone else notices the two small lines deepening in the centre of his forehead, or the quiet tutting as he waits for each man to acquire a gun, a ration of food, a blanket, a shovel or spade. When one of the servants asks a question the Meistr gives an impatient answer back, and repeatedly punches a fist into his palm as he waits for the man to return with a horse and a barrel of water.

  ‘Just to tide you over, until you reach the valley,’ he says to Jacob, Gidsby has been very kind...’

  Jacob looks up, his mouth open. ‘The captain… kind?’

  ‘Yes, yes. The captain…!’ Edwyn retorts. ‘He has kindly loaned us his lifeboat to deliver the rest of our supplies to the valley by sea. The sand bank won’t trouble a small boat like that, not like it might ground the Mimosa. His men are loading it for us now.’

  William Bowen has long disappeared.

  ‘He should have listened to you,’ Jacob says, as one of the women calls after him to come back.

  Edwyn waves away his words with an impatient flick of a hand. ‘You must try to catch up with him.’ He loo
ks around him. ‘Now, let me see… Mr James?’

  Silas turns.

  ‘I hear you can hold a note.’

  Silas nods hesitantly. The last song he sang sent Richard to sleep.

  Edwyn inspects his face. ‘What do you say? A song to send our friends and brothers on their way?’

  Silas doesn’t answer. He looks at the trail of William Bowen’s footprints. The sand gradually gives way to a light soil, but the land is desert: cold and dry. He imagines the boy stopping, looking around and realising he is lost.

  ‘Maybe if we make enough din, he’ll hear us.’

  Maybe William Bowen is already cold, shivering, walking frantically around in circles…

  The children and women are clamouring excitedly around now, exchanging kisses and hugs with those about to depart. It is becoming noisy – the laughs are too loud, and the conversation is beginning to have a frantic and desperate edge.

  ‘Silas, a song, if you please,’ Edwyn interrupts loudly, and there is quiet.

  Silas looks around. Every eye is on him.

  ‘Just a note we need,’ Jacob says, ‘to get us going.’

  ‘Dadda?’ Myfanwy is at his side. ‘Are you going to sing?’

  Silas takes a breath. How can he refuse. His voice wavers and almost stops. It’s been so long. He swallows away the hurt, and tries again. By the time he reaches the end of the fourth line he is caught up in it. He opens his mouth wider: ‘Hallelujah, Hallelujah…’

  It always finds him: this joy springing up from somewhere, this sound that makes him feel powerful. They are all joining in now, each face transformed. This elation – they all feel it: eyes shut, mouths wide open – each man, each woman. Even Edwyn is swaying in time with the song, his voice strong and controlled. It is as though, just for that instant, they have become a single being with one voice.