Statue Square seems almost deserted by comparison. A broad open ground between the Hongkong Club and the various British administration buildings, narrow walks crossing the immaculately kept lawns, all leading to Victoria Regina’s elaborately canopied pavilion and its unobstructed view of the harbor. She is cast in bronze, a portly lady with fierce eyes sitting on an angular throne, ornamented pillars supporting the dome above her head, an outsized replica of the royal scepter sticking up straight from its crest like the spike on a Prussian’s helmet. There are no soldiers guarding the pavilion, only a few British clerks strolling past and a man who looks Indian trimming the grass in front of the Hongkong Club. Diosdado sits on the third step of the granite base as he has been instructed, the Queen behind him, and watches the harbor. The traffic in the water is no more orderly than that in the market district, junks and sampans and opium traders barely missing the rickety little fishing boats as they whip past, all in a seemingly random frenzy of activity. He sits below Victoria and watches, feeling his clothes dry out in the morning sun, hungry and tired and hoping he is not a day early or a day late. It is possibly the most exposed position in all of Hongkong. At least, he thinks, if someone is coming he will be easy to find.
Hours pass. Diosdado is able to pick out the Star Ferry boats, crossing to Kowloon and back, from the rest of the floating bedlam in the harbor. He sees the steamer from Manila, the one he is not on, ease up to Blake’s Pier and disgorge its passengers. The shadow of the royal scepter begins to lengthen across the Square.
It is Gregorio del Pilar who appears to sit on the step above him in the early afternoon, Goyo sharply dressed in white with a skimmer tilted on his head and a walking stick with an ivory handle.
“How was your voyage?” he asks.
“I survived it.”
Del Pilar smiles. “You were supposed to be here before those pictures were released. Somebody didn’t follow orders.”
Diosdado turns to look at his hermano terrible. “Do you know if it made a stir? What did the newspapers say?”
He feels weak to have to ask, but this blind leap, this exile, must have some value.
Del Pilar stands, his face unreadable. “Every act of defiance,” he says, “is a nail in the Spaniards’ coffin.” And then, grinning and nodding to the doughty bronze monarch above them, “Let’s be happy we’re not fighting her. Come on — we’ll find a place to put you.”
WILMINGTON
If Uncle Wicklow got any second thoughts about being a colored man’s colored man, he keeps quiet about it. He’s worked for Dr. Lunceford since Royal can remember, driving, keeping Boots fed and stabled, keeping the yard up, hauling coal and ice and doing all the other chores most folks got to do on their own. Not that Royal takes anything away from the doctor.
“Man like Dr. Lunceford,” his mother is fond of saying, “provide a aspiration for you young ones.”
Wick is wiping clean the dash on a new carriage when Royal steps in. It is a moment before recognition creases his face in a smile.
“Look at you.”
“Wick. How you coming, old man?”
“Look at you.”
There was a crowd at the station, almost all colored, when the troop train pulled in, cheering and waving flags while brass instruments thumped out a welcome, little boys dancing alongside him for blocks calling him Mr. Soldier Man and wanting to touch his uniform.
“They’re carrying us down to Georgia,” says Royal. “Got a few hours to stretch our legs.”
“So Mr. Lunceford Junior be coming by?”
Royal feels a tiny pang at the old man’s excitement. Wick is his uncle, not Junior’s.
“He’ll come by shortly.”
“You been to your mama?”
“That comes next. I got business here.”
Wick shakes his head. “You can shinny up the tree, boy, but you aint getting no peach.”
“How is she?”
Wick turns back to his work. “Bout like you’d expect. A fine young lady.”
If it was somebody else’s daughter the old man would be winking and nudging, calling back on his own adventures to offer a plan of action. But this is his livelihood, and there is a part of him that cringes every time Royal steps into the Luncefords’ parlor.
Royal makes a show of inspecting the carriage.
“This is a new one.”
The old man’s face brightens. “Two-seater Park Phaeton, all the way from Massachusetts.” He steps back to indicate the features. “Cut under to the reach, folding top for rain, and the springs — nephew, you roll on these springs you aint riding, you floatin. I seen Dr. Lunceford fall right to sleep on that seat beside me, coming home from a long day of visitations. Sleep through shell road, cobblestones, pot-holes, you name it.”
“It’s smooth.”
“Like a dream on water. Look here—” Wick runs his hand over the black leather of the front seat. “You ever seen polstry like this? That pattern there, that’s diamond-tucked and button-tufted is what that is. That is quality. Wherever I stop, these other old boys that’s driving, don’t matter for what kind of white people, they got to shut up and wonder. You know Preston McNary, what they call Pinkeye?”
“Ned McNary’s daddy.”
“That’s the one. He’s in livery for Judge Manigault, got more airs than a peacock got feathers, and even he got to say ‘Wicklow, that is a fine piece of craftmanship you settin on. A fine piece.’ ”
Before Royal left the Doctor had an old physician’s coupe, beautifully kept by Uncle Wick but a little secondhand box-on-wheels nonetheless. Royal’s stomach tightens as he studies the coach. He is climbing, the uniform is emblem of that, but maybe the Luncefords are climbing even faster.
“Now if I was a sporting man,” Wick goes on, always one to rhapsodize about his rides, “and Boots was still in his prime, I could make me some pocket silver racing against them young bloods as gets together Saturdays at the river run to match their wagons. Phaeton is built for comfort,” he says, patting a fender, “but that don’t mean she won’t fly.”
Another soldier steps into the carriage house.
“Uncle Wick.”
Junior calls him Uncle too, but in the manner of the white people. It is supposed to be affection, maybe even respect, but it always grates on Royal.
“Mr. Lunceford Junior!” Wick makes a show of wiping his hands clean on the chamois cloth before shaking Junior’s hand. “All turned out in blue! What is it now — Lieutenant? Major?”
Junior smiles. “Just a private, like Roy here.”
“We don’t go past sergeant in the regulars,” says Royal. “Commissioned officers are all white men.”
“But that will change soon enough.” Junior has submitted letters to editors, has solicited the aid of congressmen, has made it abundantly clear he is a New Negro seeking his proper place in the Army’s hierarchy. He is not the easiest friend to have in the barracks.
“Mrs. Lunceford gonna throw a fit. You didn’t write you was coming.”
“Sudden orders,” says Junior. “We’re moving faster than the mail.”