The Fever Islands

The Game (Part 1)

Lt. Colonel, 1st Jamaica Regiment

by Peter Lawson

C.O., 1st Jamaica Regt Briefing PORT ROYALE February 1803

You are Lt. Colonel His Britannic Majesty's 1st Jamaica Regiment. At 47 years of age (and a devout realist, having lived and fought in the West Indies for over ten years) you have been wounded many times in action, mostly superficially. Outwardly, you are a colourful, grizzled old warrior to your younger fellow officers at the PORT ROYALE barracks; inwardly, you are a wily, cunning old b....d who would abandon those same 'two-month' dandies to a grisly fate out in the jungle, and not turn a hair as you rifled their dead men's pockets.

After being involved in several amphibious expeditions throughout the islands (mostly notably the San Domingo (Haiti) fiasco of 1793 through to 1798, but you also participated in amphibious operations in respect of Martinique, Guadalupe, St. Lucia and Caymans as well as the current "policing and containment actions" against the Maroons in Western Jamaica) you have amassed a not inconsiderable sum in untraceable bullion; at present, this lot is deposited in the vaults of Mason, Mason and Bradford (Bankers) situated in Commercial Street, Kings Town, Jamaica. In your opinion, London would be a more secure location for your gains in the long term, but the threat of piratical activity in the Caribbean is still too realistic a possibility to ignore.

On the rare occasions that you are able to feast your eyes on your hoardings, you cannot resist a chuckle of amusement over the startling fact that you are still very much alive; apart from the odd nuisance of an old wound or two, the dreaded 'black vomit' has never once claimed you, when so many of these younger, finer, richer plungers have succumbed to the pestilence...

Your men are almost all native Jamaicans (that is, Negroes, Creoles and a few Mulanos) with just a smattering of ' new blacks' (African slaves newly arrived from the 'old Continent') and all seem to revel in the status of 'King's Men' (theoretically, free men conscripted into the service of His Britannic Majesty for life.) They take an almost childish delight in their appearance (often mustering on parade in far better condition than their European counterparts) and are all invariably loyal to you to the point of misplaced worship; you have no particular affinity with them per se (although you are prone to the occasional Creole girl after a measure) but, as a matter of common sense (and financial constraints) you abhor unnecessary loss of life. After almost eleven years in this godforsaken place, your losses attribuled to the fevers are but nothing when compared to European troops (perchance this fact explains your mysterious longevity, being in close proximity to your blacks) and, being stalwart fighters, the more 'black children' you have around you in a commotion, the less likely are you to come to grief......

You are fully aware of their idiosyncratic behaviour at times (for example, their reluctance to perform duties which may involve the breach of superstitious pagan rituals or laws, such as engaging an enemy considered to be 'taboo' for any number of highly convoluted reasons) but your natural guile has enabled you to exploit these weaknesses on occasion.

Having been impoverished as a young man and dispatched in disgrace after a family dispute (an affair concerning an attractive and seemingly available maiden aunt...) you long to end your days in the comfort of your native Suffolk. To make amends for your previous felonies will require some substantial 'greasing' of local palms if you are not to be hounded by scandalmongers; thus, you must endure a season or two longer in this hellhole...

The present Govemor of Jamaica is a pompous but shrewd entrepreneur from your own mould by the name of SIR PERCY MACDONALD (who utilises your companies as a private police force for his own aggrandizement at the expense of the local magnates who would prefer not to be hacked to pieces by renegade blacks whilst asleep).

At present, your immediate command consists of one under strength Centre Company, billeted under canvas at Port Royale barracks (the 'other-ranks' dwellings were totally destroyed in the rainy season and have yet to be rebuilt) under the dubious authorily of a half-dozen baby-faced subalterns who examine themselves nervously every morning.

The remaining nine companies are deployed (in little more than platoon strength) around the islands (that is, those adjacent islands currently held by the Crown; a great deal of animosity and confusion exists with the Peace of Amiens and the retum to French sovereignty of many islands (such as St Lucia, Tobago and Dutch colonies Demarera and Surinam) taken at terrible costs by British Forces) along with the other West Indian, Colonial, Emigre and British regiments; their tasks being 'to keep the unruly blacks in line and to maintain vigilance for any forthcoming mischief trom those Corsair scoundrels and vagabonds"...

The Maroon rebellions up in the mountains and the fever have depleted your available manpower over the years, but life as King's Men is still infinitely more tolerable to your blacks than life on a plantation; slavery is all but extinct in His Britannic Majesty's Colonies, but what's in a word?

You consider yourself most fortunate that your present rank has (to date, at least) achieved local field majority for you (command in the field has proved essential of late, when faced with the implementation of some half-baked scheme of world domination by some pox-ridden puppy of General rank sent out by Whitehall to make a name for himself) and MACDONALD can respond to a deal, if the fancy takes him; however, hostilities ceased 'officially' with the French on 27th. March last. Something is 'on the brew', undoubtedly....

THE CHARACTERS

(with defererence to Patrick O'Brien et al)

Fever Islands Part 2: The Game

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