It was this realization that displaced Iago’s initial astonishment that the anxieties over the Santa Margarita’s instability and overloading provoked by the frightening circumstances of their first departure from Cavite had been so easily mollified. It seemed that a mere tidying up of the upper deck once the ship had cleared Manila Bay was sufficient to allay all anxieties, except it seemed those of himself. When one evening he was on the poop watching the Santa Margarita settle on her new course after tacking at the head of Tayabas Bay, he again raised the issue with Lorenzo. The pilot-major dismissed it with evident embarrassment.
‘The matter no longer concerns me,’ he said with a resigned and even fatalistic air, adding, ‘and I advise you to forget it yourself. They have.’ Lorenzo gestured expansively at a knot of gentry gathered on the half-deck below with their wine glasses and their trollops, but including the gaggle of passengers and crew who crowded in the lower waist and on the forecastle beyond. Lorenzo turned away and Iago raised a wondering eyebrow: he had never before received such curt dismissal from the pilot-major. After a moment, as the ship steadied on to her new course, Lorenzo uttered a few remarks to Olivera then went below. The second pilot caught Iago’s eye and, with an imperceptible jerk of his head, walked aft a little, up the long shallow sloping deck to the stern.
‘Do not press the matter further, Don Iago,’ Olivera said in a guarded tone. ‘It is past all redemption now and no one is minded to alter things; they shall stand as they are. There is too much interest vested in our lading, not simply that of the captain-general, but of all your companions under the half-deck.’
‘But many of them have been vociferous in their protest.’
‘Indeed. While they feared for their lives. Every man would have every other man’s goods thrown overboard only so that his own might be saved.’ Olivera paused to let the explanation sink in.
‘They all own cargo?’
‘Without exception.’
‘I had no idea.’
‘You are, if I may say so, Don Iago, an innocent in these matters. Did the Portuguese, whose practices you were employed to observe, not trade in the same way?’
Iago shrugged. ‘Perhaps. They were not spared that I should observe their homeward practices. The Rainha de Portugal was lost before she reached Macao.’
‘It would astonish me if they did not each trade on their own account. D’you see here, in this ship, we have sinned not by exception, but by common greed. The King has decreed that the numbers of galleons trading east from Manila be limited in order that his subjects do not become enriched beyond reason and, of course, their station in life. Prior to your arrival in Cavite, this newly built vessel had her hold measured and divided into so many bales capacity on a standard measurement of a fardo. A fardo consists of four piezas and these are granted as a favour either by the captain-general or the governor – often as remittance to discharge debts or favours to purchase credit – but the remainder may be bought by any citizen of Manila. See Arrocheros there; he has upwards of two thousand boletas, or tickets, each entitling him to a pieza giving him rights to a considerable portion of the hold. Most, I do not doubt, he has sold on at a profit already, preferring to carry his wealth by letter of credit rather than risk destruction of goods by bilge water, salt and vermin. You have noticed the gorgojos that run out of the bread though we are not yet a week at sea?’
Iago laughed at the recollection of the ubiquitous cockroaches. ‘Yes, but they are to be found in any ship.’
‘Huh,’ responded Olivera, ‘soon you will have flies, worms, maggots . . .’
‘I am not so innocent, Don Olivera, that I have not consumed my portion of a seaman’s fare in my time.’
‘Well, well, perhaps I misjudge you. If so, forgive me, but that is not the point. The rats devour the silks if they break through the baling, so Don Baldivieso is no fool to sell his boletas rather than trade entirely in vulnerable commodities.’
‘But there must be some regulation to restrict the rule of human cupidity.’
It was Olivera’s turn to laugh with a scoffing exclamation. ‘Huh! Oh, indeed! Such regulation as does breed a labyrinthine entwining of interest, preferment and corrupt abuse. Do you not realize, Don Iago, that one attraction of yourself is that you paid to make this voyage and you had no lien on cargo space. Instead, my dear sir, your space was taken by Don Juan Martinez himself and only yesterday I heard him jesting with Olalde that if we should be so unfortunate – as if the matter might be an exception and not a rule attaching to any voyage across the Ocean Sea – to need to jettison cargo, then we might throw all of Don Iago’s over the side without loss to our person. That is exactly what he said, though if you admit that I told you so,’ he added drily, ‘I shall deny it unto death.’
‘Then every gentleman aboard has a right to space?’ Iago asked.
‘It is worse than that, señor, every man, be he officer, sobrasaliente, cleric or discalced friar, has a licensed space. Even the seamen work to secure some small advantage. What chance does regulation stand against such an abundance of folly, I ask you?’
‘And you, señor?’
Olivera laughed again. ‘Oh, I have an entitlement to space, Don Iago, but like Don Baldivieso, I convert my boletas immediately. It is more convenient and,’ he added tapping his stomach, ‘a letter of credit may be carried in oiled paper against my body until it may be presented in Acapulco or,’ and a wistful look came into his eyes, ‘perhaps even Seville.’
‘Ah yes,’ sighed Iago with a sudden warm sentimentality that surprised himself, ‘Seville.’
‘You know the Casa de Contratación?’
‘Oh, certainly.’
‘I have never seen it,’ Olivera admitted wistfully.
‘But you . . .’
‘I was born in New Spain, Don Iago, my blood is not pure.’
‘No less than most in the King’s archipelago, señor, it is not a matter which much impresses me, this obsession with pure Spanish blood.’
‘Perhaps that is because you have no need of it, Don Iago.’
‘What do you mean?’ Iago asked sharply.
‘I had heard of a man, a man of some standing, who had arrived from the China coast in a junk. It was said by some – in the manner of waterfront gossip, you understand, Don Iago – that he was not as devoted a Catholic as he should be, that perhaps he had been corrupted by the Chinese idolaters and that he lay with a woman of that country, perhaps even that he was not a Spaniard, but a spy.’
‘A spy? Who in God’s name for?’ Iago felt his face flush and his heart thunder in his breast.
Olivera shrugged. ‘The damned English or the ingrate Dutch. Who knows?’
‘So,’ Iago said as coolly as he could but with mounting passion, ‘if that was the sum of waterfront gossip it was well informed, as far as it went. Did it tell you that as a child I played along the banks of the Guadalquivír; that I ran errands for the Casa de Contratación itself? Or that I was known as a boy to most of the ship-masters and seamen of Seville and that I have been chastised, as have all boys, for my inattentions at the Mass? So much for my inconstant faith. As to my lying with a Chinese woman, what would you have me do, Don Olivera, when all my future seemed for a time to be bounded by hedges of bamboo? Take up the practice of Onan and imperil my immortal soul?’
‘Then all our souls are forfeit,’ Olivera joked. ‘But I am not your judge, Don Iago,’ he added quickly, seeking to mollify this uncharacteristic outburst. ‘On the contrary,’ he lowered his voice, ‘if I am not mistaken, señor, there may come a time on this voyage – as on any other – when men of understanding and skill may be needed. If we stand apart . . .’ Olivera stared directly into Iago’s eyes and shrugged his shoulders, ‘who knows God’s will?’
Angry with himself, Iago was aware that two or three military officers were ascending the poop ladder. An attachment to Olivera seemed both invited and essential and he smiled conciliatingly. ‘Not I, señor, but I am persuaded,’ he respo
nded swiftly in a low voice, ‘that our resolution is often the answer to our prayers.’
‘Amen to that,’ Olivera muttered with a nod and, turning towards the approaching officers, added, ‘and the Devil wears a doublet.’ Then raising his voice he said, ‘Good evening, Don Rodrigo.’
‘What mutiny are you two plotting?’ Rodrigo de Peralta asked with a smile.
‘Oh,’ Olivera replied with a wide grin, ‘the usual sort: the murder of the gentry and the taking of the ship to a tropical paradise in which grapes and coconut palms grow in profusion and which is inhabited entirely by concupiscent women.’
‘Well, then, I think I shall join your conspiracy,’ laughed Peralta light-heartedly. ‘But first I come to present the captain-general’s compliments and to ask Don Iago to join him at table.’ Peralta managed a curt bow to Iago, adding, ‘Don Juan apologizes that the matter has been too long delayed.’
Iago bowed in response. ‘If the captain-general will allow me a moment to dress my hair and don a doublet, I shall be at His Excellency’s command.’
Peralta made a courtly gesture of acquiescence, Iago nodded to Olivera and went forward. Peralta turned and stared aft. The sunset flared scarlet and gold across the western sky, throwing the land into purple shadow.
‘The colours of our standard,’ he said pointedly. ‘Perhaps an omen on our enterprise.’ His tone was familiar, inviting confidence. ‘What do you make of our friend Don Iago, señor?’ he asked after a moment, without looking at Olivera but still staring at the flaming sunset.
Olivera was not fooled. ‘A good seaman, Don Rodrigo, and should we need another, a fine sea-officer.’
‘And that is all?’ Peralta turned and stared directly at Olivera.
Olivera met his gaze. ‘That is all I can divine in the man, Don Rodrigo.’
‘Hmmm.’
‘Do you entertain doubts?’ Olivera asked, seizing the initiative.
‘Don’t you?’
‘No. Why should I?’
‘I think he is a Portuguese spy.’
‘He comes from Seville; and besides, Portugal is now part of His Majesty’s dominions . . .’
‘That is not quite the point,’ Peralta said and, without further explanation, walked forward and descended to the half-deck. Olivera watched him go, then turned west himself and, staring at the sinking sun, crossed himself.
Afterwards Iago was apt to regard the unnerving encounter with Olivera as a blessing, putting him on his guard during the dinner with Guillestigui and his suite. The captain-general asked him some questions as to his background and then the conversation became general. Guillestigui’s women sat beside him, and the mistresses of other officers sat at table while the Filipino slaves waited upon them all. Behind his own chair the captain-general kept a large black slave. The man stood motionless throughout the meal. After the women had withdrawn and the gentlemen sat back with their wine, smoking the cigars for which Manila was renowned, Guillestigui commanded Iago: ‘Tell us about your shipwreck, Don Iago, and your life among the Chinese.’
‘Your Excellency’s interest is flattering, but there is little of substance to tell. Chiefly I recall the loneliness . . .’
‘They say you took a Chinese wife. Is it true what they say of them?’ Olalde remarked, provoking a ripple of salacious laughter.
‘It is true that I had a Chinese woman,’ Iago riposted, turning to Olalde, ‘much as I imagine you lie with a Filipino when the need takes you. As to their anatomy, it is true that many among them have bound, tiny and stinking feet. I did not find that feature attractive, though I believe many Chinese men are aroused by the scent. Such things are incomprehensible to us, but there is much that separates us from the Orientals. As to the rest of their parts, I found them much as most women are fashioned; that is with mouths that alternate sugar and fire. Perhaps that is why the dragon is so revered in China.’
An appreciative snigger ran round the table.
‘And the shipwreck?’ Guillestigui prompted, apparently satisfied on one score.
Iago shrugged. ‘The shipwreck is less easy to jest about,’ he said, staring about at them all. ‘In short, Your Excellency, it was terrible. We were assailed by a baguiosa, or what the Chinese denominate a taifun, and, as far as I can divine, no different in violence from the huracán I have heard of in the Caribbean. Our vessel, a stoutly built ship of eight hundred tons burthen, might have withstood the onslaught had she been kept to the open sea but at the height of the storm we were cast upon a reef the presence of which we were entirely unaware and over which the seas broke with such extreme and horrifying destructive power that the Rainha de Portugal was dashed to pieces within an hour.’
He paused. The memory seemed to overwhelm him and he became the cynosure of their regard as each man conjured up the scene in his own mind’s eye.
‘Go on, Don Iago,’ Guillestigui said encouragingly.
Iago coughed and resumed his account. ‘The chaos was indescribable; the rending of the ship’s fabric, its fracturing and splitting, the collapse of stout masts, of festoons of rigging, the wind in the sails as they beat themselves to pieces on the deck, the noise, confusion and bloody injury that engulfed us all in a mere matter of minutes defy the powers of speech that I command. All shred of order and discipline vanished in an instant – yet equally there was not one person who flinched, no manifestation of cowardice, for in truth there was no time to think. The most pusillanimous amongst us could have sought no advantage; no man could even save himself, for we were flung like unwanted dolls into a toy box at the whim of the wind and sea. Never, gentlemen, do I wish to see the like again, for the weight of the water that fell upon our decks was like the descent of mountains . . . of rock . . . unmitigated by any . . . any pliant liquid form . . . we were either battered, or swept to our deaths by the score and for those who avoided this onslaught there were the horrors of being trapped below and drowned as in a locked cage.’
Iago paused again. Then someone asked: ‘How then did you survive?’
Iago shrugged. ‘How so indeed? I was one of perhaps half a dozen whose station upon the upper deck brought them a few moments of comprehension, though that was scant comfort. On the first waves breaking over the ship, I was forced down upon the deck, flat as any rabbit run over by a cartwheel, and kept there until I thought that my breast should burst. A moment later I felt the shattered ship rise, then, as it plummeted against the reef in a final jar that destroyed the body of her hull, another wave, a lesser sea than that which went before, carried me straight over the side, through the shattered bulwark. I was sensible of others caught likewise and thought myself doubly unfortunate in that I was in expectation of being stove bodily against the rocks on to which our ship had unwittingly driven. Indeed, I saw them rear on either side of me as the sea sank all about me before it was again elevated with a rush that must have borne me clear and into the open sea beyond the reef. That is the only explanation I can deduce – for no other will serve – and remarkably I bore only a few cuts and bruises to mark my singular escape.
‘Once I had been thrown or drifted clear I found another man, so bloodied all over that I did not recognize him though I thought that after six months I knew all on board. He called to me that there was something adrift and he pointed so that I caught sight of it and, being a good swimmer and having found such of my wits that I was in those circumstances likely to recover, I swam towards it. It proved to be a large and substantial grating from the waist. It was hardly damaged and I dragged myself on to it, but when I looked about me, my companion and the saviour of my life had vanished.
‘My reaching the grating was but only the beginning, for I was washed so repeatedly off it by the violence of the seas that I thought that I should yet drown until I had the wit to secure my belt to the cross-members. This task, by no means easy to execute, though it seems so here and now, was accomplished after some time and I learned that I had thereafter to lie upon the grating otherwise it seemed minded to capsize and dro
wn me underneath where I had secured myself. I do not know how long I struggled but in time I divined the seas ran more regularly and, though they still broke and tossed me about, my platform was steadier. Some other wreckage afforded me a length of rope and, by nightfall, I was at least secure upon my fragile perch.
‘I now had hours of darkness to face and a raging thirst.’ Iago paused and looked about him. ‘I do not know if you have experienced thirst, gentlemen, but I thought that I should rather have drowned.’ Then he fell silent, the reminiscence heavy upon his soul, while one or two, including the captain-general, admitted to having experienced the horrors of extreme dehydration.
‘But you did not drown . . .’ Someone, their curiosity greater than their tact, prodded him again.
Iago stirred, sipped his wine and looked about him as though just arriving in their presence. ‘No . . . No, I did not drown . . .’ He paused again, adjusted himself in his seat as though gathering up the threads of his story, and cleared his throat. ‘No, I was lucky, alone of all that company, almost one hundred and eighty souls who had been gathered to God within a few minutes, I survived.’ Iago fell silent again.
The Disastrous Voyage of the Santa Margarita Page 9