In the evening light I sat to eat a mango alone under the refuge of the guango tree. Worn out – most of my muscles still twitching from the unaccustomed activity and yet too tired to sleep. Luminous white smoke from fires drifted ghostly through the dense green. Enid chomped loud on his favourite crabgrass. I could hear Aubrey in the neighbouring farm whistling to call his cows to take them to their night meadow. A black dash of crows flew home against the sky. A tree lizard scuttled up the bark licking grubs with its lightning tongue. Cicadas hissed rhythmic as cymbals. The sparks of fireflies buzzed my head like thoughts escaping, while dots of bees returned to the hives, oblivious they were now working for me. This was a beautiful island. As sweet with promise as the honey that would soon flow from the combs. I stuck my fingers into the soft earth that yielded under them. If I held them there long enough, surely this abundant country could make me grow.

Tell me, who could blame Enid? My belly had been grumbling impatient for some time – tormented by the sweet fragrance of the chicken Auntie Corinne was frying and the cornbread she was baking. Elwood glanced up from his newspaper when the mule, smelling the food, brayed with the pierce of a baby’s cry, to be fed. Useless, he slowly said, ‘Enid, soon come, nah, man.’ The fence that confined the mule was flimsy. How many times had Elwood and I looked to each other to promise, ‘We must fix up that enclosure’? Tomorrow, the next day, perhaps the day after that? Let me tell you, it was Enid’s furious back end decided this neglect was enough. How long did it take Enid to break down the fence? We did not hear as Auntie Corinne had just laid before us a plate of succulent, spiced fried chicken. She slapped both our hands from the meat and followed that with a grumpy order for us to wait before returning to the kitchen. Elwood and I were quietly busy: a wing each of the too-hot-to-hold-chicken in our hands, we were pulling at the flesh using only our teeth, fanning our mouth to cool while all the time watching for Auntie and telling each other to shush. We only heard Enid when Auntie Corinne screeched crimson for us to come. The mule had entered the field with the bees.

As if dislodging an imaginary rider the mule’s back legs thrashed uncontrolled at the air. The first hive crumbled like a biscuit under the falling hoofs. And a fuzzy balled dust of black bees rose from the debris.

‘The windows – come, close all the windows!’ Elwood was alive with panic and command. ‘Gilbert – move nah, man, close the doors, the windows!’ One, two, three more hives just dissolved under the mule’s blows, leaving the hovering homeless bees to seek out the culprit. Attacked by enraged bees eager to defend, the mule’s eyes rolled white and wild with the pain of the stings. Crazed now, it rampaged through the field unwittingly flattening each hive like skittles. The angry bees, amassing to a black smoke, trailed the bucking mule before entirely enveloping it. I was standing still because if you stand still you cannot be stung. ‘Gilbert, you wan’ see us eaten alive, man?’ Elwood shook my shoulder as he struggled to pull on his veil and tuck up his clothes with gloved hands. A doodlebug – that’s where I had heard the sound: the bees droned resonant as those flying bombs.

On slapping the windows shut this morbid hum died a little. But the bees, unsure who to blame for being rudely thrown into the light, became popping black spots against the window glass. Auntie Corinne fell to her knees praying very loud, ‘Lord deliver us from this plague of bees . . . Lord deliver me son from this . . .’ While with the same pleading tone that makes heroes of men whose hearts rip at the agonised sound, the mule howled so all for miles around would know that it was slowly being slaughtered. All the while its unwitting hoofs still found bees to vex.

Elwood was outside. Avoiding the mule he lit a fire with the frenzy of a speeded-up film. All the hives were now crushed and their fleeing contents, like soot, rose up to attach themselves surely to all parts of the mule. Auntie Corinne, awakened from her lament, was now ready to kill. Those bees that found themselves buzzing lost inside the house she whacked at with her broom. Knocking pictures from walls, ornaments from shelves, she chased them round like they were burglars, while the mule’s squeals bounced its agony from every wall. I stupid hit about me with the rolled up newspaper as Elwood – the fire wafting sheets of white smoke he hoped would pacify – fanned his arms, demented. Enid was no longer a mule: the writhing bees covering him made him furry as a grisly bear. He squealing, circled the field round and round, kicking and shaking his head to flick the stinging bees from his ears, his eyes, his mouth. Was it an hour or was it a day that I stared while him, tortured, stumbled? A million bees piercing his flesh to fill it with poison. How long did I hear those heartbreaking strangled brays before the mule eventually fell, almost graceful, on to one knee? Then the other where he stayed awhile as if praying before he slumped, his whole body falling leaden on to the ground. Whining now, an occasional violent jerk shuddered his frame, his hoofs kicking as if still riding along the stony floor. Crawling with the savage bees, if it was not for his chest that still rose and fell you would think him an old louse-ridden fur coat lying discarded.

Not daring to go outside, useless, impotent, feeble as the frail, I watched as Elwood warily circled the dying carcass of his mule. And all our bees gone. Most dead and spilled on the ground, their tiny bodies ripped apart by the murderous stings. Others flown away. In swarms of black fury they launched themselves off on the breeze.

I laughed. What else could I do? I laughed when Elwood called this event a little setback. We lose the bees, we lose the hives, we lose a mule. I lose all my money. All that remained were jars full of sunlight. Was Elwood a fool or just plain mad? At that moment I could not tell. ‘Come, man, you mus’ have a likkle faith,’ he said, brushing off the incident with a flick of his hand.

‘We lose everyt’ing,’ I tell him, ‘What you wan’ me have faith in?’

‘Cha, we no lose everyt’ing. There is still two hive and them bursting a honey.’

I had no words to speak that would not come out as a cuss.

‘Cha, nah, man – don’t give me big lip. No look on me so downcast – too much fog cloud up your blood in England. Listen up to me now, I have a likkle plan. We get a few of the boys – Aubrey, Glenville and some other – we go look for the bees. They no go far. Some hole in a tree them all fly in or they resting in some bush. We can find them, bring them back. Mark you, I know we no find all of dem, but enough to start again is what I’m saying to you.’

‘You want us go find the bees?’ I asked.

‘You, me and a few of the boys.’

‘Elwood, you think I am about to run round this island looking for lost bees?’

‘Yeh, man. Then we can fix up some hive again. A likkle nail here and there – good as new.’

‘A likkle nail here and there! Elwood, are you mad? Have you lost your mind?’ I stunned him and startled myself with the temper of this shout. He looked inquisitive on me, a little boy again, curious to know if this was real anger or just foolery. ‘Elwood, I will not run round this island chasing bees.’

‘You have a better idea for me then, Mr Soldier Boy – Mr War Man?’

It was then I said, ‘We cannot get a break in this place.’

‘Cha, nah, man, you no hear me, nah? We can collec’ up the bees. This is jus’ a likkle upset. Tomorrow will be the day we start again.’

‘Elwood, come, tell me, you know this is a small island?’

‘What you chattin’, man?’

‘Listen, man. I have been in England, I have been in America.’

‘So what?’

‘There is opportunity ripe out there.’