‘He has thrown her from the stern, along with half his God-forsaken soldiery,’ Marmolejo confided in Iago when they met in one of their increasingly rare encounters. And then rallying himself with a supreme effort of will, the Franciscan reminded Iago: ‘You are not yet married according to the Christian rite, my son.’
‘It would not seem to matter, Fray Mateo, for I do not expect my wife to live long.’
Ah Fong, who had stood the pangs of hunger far better than the Spaniards or the half-bred seamen and their trulls, had grown very weak. Iago feared for her life. She lay quite still and quiet in her hammock, only her eyes evidence of her continuing existence. Ximenez, himself now a wizened and bent figure with the appearance of a tail-less monkey, was touchingly solicitous. He managed to conjure tea and a little boiled rice and oil for her, but even he had little hope.
It was at this time that Guillestigui gathered the fittest of his officers and, having gone to some trouble to array themselves, appeared in the half-deck which was now the common accommodation of all those left alive who were not of his Basque acquaintance. They came forward, rusty half-armour making that curiously sinister noise of worn and articulated steel. Calcagorta, Olalde, Peralta and some of the guards bore drawn swords and they stood amid the inert bodies, swaying uncertainly and braced by their hands against the low deck beams overhead.
Guillestigui coughed and imperfectly cleared his throat. His voice, when it came, was barely audible above the creaking of the hull but the import of his words soon spread.
‘I,’ he announced slowly, ‘Juan Martinez de Guillestigui, Captain-General of this Expedition commanded by His Most Catholic Majesty Rey Felipe, do withdraw all rights of provisions and water from all those incapable of labouring for the common good and the handling of this our ship Santa Margarita.’
Having delivered himself of this ultimatum, the captain-general withdrew. For some time his audience lay stupefied and then, as those who had been closest to the captain-general passed on the import of his words, a murmur of horror ran among them. Few were capable of sensing outrage; most seemed to acquiesce and bow their heads to the inevitable.
‘Death sooner than later,’ became the watchwords of the damned.
Having taken steps to best secure the survival of his own men and close household, Guillestigui summoned Olivera and Iago.
He sat in a chair, Peralta, Calcagorta, Olalde and the others slumped about him. Iago noticed the numerous empty wine bottles that lay about the deck. There was neither sight nor smell of any dead mistress.
‘I wish the ship to return to Manila,’ he said curtly.
Olivera was astonished. ‘That, Your Excellency, is impossible,’ he protested.
‘Why?’ Guillestigui asked simply.
‘Why? Excellency, I have explained, as Juan Lorenzo explained, we are many miles from Manila, we only know our position imperfectly, we are to leeward of the archipelago and . . . and . . .’ Olivera raised his hands in despair and looked at Iago for support.
The question and its tone had no less surprised Iago. As Olivera had repeated the often rehearsed reasons for their present course, he studied the captain-general. Guillestigui was not immune from their common sufferings. His mouth was black with scurvy and he was in pain from his broken wrist. Perhaps, speculated Iago, his wits had been addled by the loss of his mistress or his relentless consumption of wine which seemed – even now – unremitting. Iago’s deductions seemed confirmed when Guillestigui turned to himself and, as if the foregoing remarks had not been uttered, spoke to Iago.
‘To you, Don Iago,’ Guillestigui said, ‘I have only to say that while you and any other of your fellow passengers assist the pilot here to work the ship, I shall issue you with rations. And to you, Señor Olivera, the same applies to members of the crew. This I shall do here at noon every day and if one of my officers discovers any false claim made on behalf of anyone, I shall hold each of you accountable for the irregularity. Do you understand?’
Iago stared at the captain-general. ‘Perfectly, Excellency,’ he managed with the slightest inclination of a bow.
‘And you?’ Guillestigui turned to Olivera.
Olivera could not bring himself to say anything and merely nodded.
‘Very well,’ Guillestigui concluded, ‘at noon daily, until we sight land.’
‘Until we sight land . . .’ muttered Peralta in imitation of Guillestigui, adding, ‘and that you must accomplish without further delay.’
Olivera frowned. ‘Excellency,’ he croaked, ‘I have bent my best endeavours in your service. No man has exceeded my activity and zeal . . .’
‘Find me land, Olivera,’ Guillestigui broke in, his voice low, dismissing the two men, ‘I have had a lifetime of fine words and vain promises.’
The company about the captain-general growled menacingly. Olivera and Iago retired. As they left Olalde snarled: ‘Land, you dogs. Apply your cunning and find us land.’
Outside the cabin, in the comparative gloom of the half-deck, Olivera staggered and fell against Iago, overwhelmed by what had just happened. So weak were they that both men fell to the deck and only slowly recovered what remained of their wits.
‘He is mad! He has sentenced us all to . . .’ Olivera could not complete the sentence.
‘I know, Antonio. Death sooner than later . . .’
‘What is the point of . . . of anything? How can I tell those who cannot have food?’
‘You cannot.’
‘Is it best to die?’
‘By your own hand?’ Iago asked. Olivera nodded. ‘The Holy Ones will tell you to do so is a mortal sin,’ he replied.
‘You do not believe it is a mortal sin?’
Iago shrugged. ‘I do not know anything, my friend.’
‘They say, or some say, you are . . .’
Iago waited, meeting the eyes of Olivera. The pilot smiled, looked away and gave his head the slightest of shakes, as though throwing aside the suspicious thought.
‘Thank God you are a seaman, Iago, and you know that there is only one thing a seaman can do in such circumstances.’
‘Ah yes,’ sighed Iago, ‘there is always the consolation of our duty.’
Guillestigui relieved Olivera of one duty, enforcement of his edict. The following forenoon his guards, under Olalde, came forward and administered kicks and blows to the seamen left alive, urging them to get on deck and attend to their duties, chief among which was that of pumping. Although Olalde and his men ignored the remaining male passengers, they did not scruple to wade among the Franciscans and this turn over of the quick and the dead became a daily routine as the Santa Margarita, under a few rags of sail, was kept doggedly before the wind. It seemed that at long last they had found the true westerlies of Urdaneta for, having reached a latitude that an incredulous Olivera calculated as forty-four degrees north of the equator, this slowly dropped as they struggled to the south and east.
A steady increase in temperature revived a few hardy souls, but many continued to die from hunger, scurvy and the harsh blows of Olalde’s soldiers. These were indiscriminately applied to both men and women whose bodies were disfigured by bruises, fractures and open lesions. No notice was taken of any protest and all who voiced the slightest opposition were beaten. Many, Ximenez among them, fled into the darkest recesses of the ship to avoid the gratuitous cruelty, but even here they were hunted out by men who seemed revived by such licence. Olalde himself took a vicious delight in torturing others and would stand over his victims, applying the sole of his boot with an increasing pressure upon a vivid contusion.
Even Iago was not exempt. Asleep on his watch below, he was woken by the flat of a sword across his back. As he turned to confront his assailant, he saw Olalde turn Ah Fong out of her hammock so that she fell with a cry half on Iago and half upon the deck. There she lay whimpering with fear and pain for even the constraints of the hammock hurt her tender flesh.
Her cry roused Iago to a fury. ‘How dare you!’ he fumed, strugglin
g to his feet, only to have Olalde kick him back to his knees.
‘You can defend that Chinese whore no better than you can find land, you hound’s turd!’ the sergeant-major said, swiping his gloved hand across Iago’s face and knocking two teeth from his jaw.
Iago spat the incisors out. ‘You have no right, Olalde . . .’
Olalde laughed. ‘You lisp delightfully, my friend, like a winsome catamite.’
‘I shall protest to the captain-general!’
‘Do so, by all means. But His Excellency is sick and,’ Olalde shrugged, ‘is not expected to live.’ He grinned down at his victim. ‘Joanes is convinced you are a spy. Others say you are a Protestant. As for you . . .’ He let his eyes wander over Ah Fong so that instinctively Iago drew her towards him.
‘You will have to kill me . . .’
‘That would not be very difficult,’ Olalde said and with a shove of his heel sent both of them sprawling.
Olalde had hardly left them before Marmolejo, his head bleeding from a blow from one of the guards, touched Iago upon the arm.
In a breathless harangue Marmolejo said, ‘Don Iago, I beg you, do not delay, let us marry you, at once, call your dwarf, and I shall fetch Hernando or Agustin . . .’
And so, kneeling abjectly amid the squalor of the half-deck, accompanied by the laughter of Don Baldivieso de Arrocheros, the man whom the world knew as Iago Fernandez was married according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church to the Chinese woman whom Marmolejo had christened Margarita.
Fourteen
The Hand of God
‘It is scarcely credible,’ Marmolejo remarked feebly, his voice forced through a throat swollen and ulcerated and a mouth almost devoid of teeth, ‘but I have calculated that during this terrible voyage we have endured forty storms.’
Iago nodded slowly, taking his eyes off the grey belly of the square sail hoisted above the forecastle. Both men sat on the half-deck, their backs against the rail, soaking up the warm sunshine.
‘And,’ Marmolejo went painfully on, ‘that is precisely the number of souls still left alive of the three hundred who made up our company last July.’
‘Do you detect the hand of God in this numerical coincidence, Fray Mateo?’
‘Is it possible you doubt it?’ Iago shrugged. ‘Listen, my son, Olivera tells me that this ship reached a latitude of forty degrees north. Is that not marvellous?’
‘I did not think so at the time,’ Iago managed with a smile that cracked his lower lip so that it bled. ‘And, if I am not mistaken, the latitude was actually forty-one degrees, which wrecks your divine marvel, Padre.’
‘Do not mock God, Don Iago, you verge on the blasphemous.’
‘How so? I state a fact; the latitude we reached was forty-one, not forty as you seek to assert.’
Marmolejo sighed. He, like the captain-general, had lost the capacity for logical thought, Iago concluded. And perhaps he himself had done the same, for having thus exhausted his brain, he could not recall whether or not Guillestigui was still living.
‘Have you seen the captain-general?’ he asked uncertainly.
‘The captain-general? I heard his confession and we buried him yesterday. He . . . Now what was it? Oh, yes, he urged us to put about for Manila and begged forgiveness for his sins, in particular the sin of placing Sergeant-Major Pedro Ruiz de Olalde in a position of authority.’
Iago nodded, recollecting something of the turmoil of the last few days. When Guillestigui succumbed to a final fit of melancholy, he had called Marmolejo and Olivera, to tell them that his nominated successor was not to be Olalde, but Rodrigo de Peralta, who was to accept the advice of Olivera in all maritime matters.
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘I remember now.’ They sat in silence for a while and then Iago remarked. ‘Odd that a man of such forceful character should fade so quickly.’
‘All is written, my son, even our sufferings.’
‘And ironic that Baldivieso should live on,’ Iago added.
‘God’s mercy is beyond our understanding.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘You doubt it? It has pleased Almighty God to spare you and your Chinese wife. He has some purpose for you yet.’
‘To be the last to die in this accursed ship? Huh!’ Iago made a gurgling noise that was all he could manage by way of a chuckle. Death had become so commonplace that it no longer frightened any of them.
‘God has been pleased to make us suffer much that our sufferings in the hereafter may be light.’
‘Are those comfortable words, Fray Mateo?’
‘Do you not think so?’
‘I am past thinking . . .’
‘You are not Spanish, are you, Iago?’ Iago sat in silence, feeling the warmth of the sun replaced by the chill shadow of the Holy Office.
‘I am not past feeling,’ he said in a low voice.
‘And yet I mark you for a Christian . . . Who are you?’
‘Is this the confessional, Fray Mateo?’
‘If you wish. It is, at least by my reckoning, Shrove Tuesday and we stand upon the threshold of Lent.’
‘I am Iago Fernandez, by adoption and by baptism into the one true faith.’
‘But you were not born so.’
‘No. I was born Jacob van Salingen in Zierikzee.’
Marmolejo almost started. ‘You are a Netherlander then; a Protestant born . . .’
‘Whose father was killed in the storming of that town and whose mother was carried off as booty by the victors. My new father accepted me as his own. Thus I was born one thing and became another.’
A shadow fell across them and they looked up. Marmolejo shaded his red eyes. ‘Don Gonzalo . . . Will you not join us?’
Ordóñez, who clung to a rope to steady himself, seemed not to notice the two men at his feet, but stared beyond them, over their heads and out over the ship’s rail. He murmured something and then, with an effort, raised his right arm and pointed.
‘What is that?’ asked Iago. He rolled over, drew up his knees, holding on to the rail, raised himself unsteadily to his own feet. On a level with Ordóñez he heard the officer repeat the word: ‘Land.’
Iago felt his heart lurch in his breast. ‘Where?’ he breathed.
‘There!’ Ordóñez pointed.
Marmolejo, catching the quickening mood, rose beside them with a grunt. ‘What is it?’
‘Land,’ both men said simultaneously.
‘Land?’
‘God be praised,’ murmured Ordóñez, crossing himself.
‘Amen. Amen!’ said Marmolejo, raising the crucifix at his waist and touching it to his lips. ‘Oh, God be praised!’
Iago staggered forward and called down to a pair of sailors idling in the waist. ‘Luis! Ricardo! Pass word below that land is in sight!’
The faces of the two men were transfigured. ‘¡Dios! Land!’
And slowly, in the waist and upon the half-deck, the forty souls remaining alive gathered to stare at the land that lay ahead. All crossed themselves repeatedly, most fell to their knees, even the late captain-general’s officers. Peralta ordered Guillestigui’s banner hoisted on the jury mainmast and called upon Agustin to celebrate a Mass of thanksgiving for their deliverance.
Even as Fray Agustin raised his voice in the Kyrie, Hernando collapsed, dead they afterwards asserted, of a divine ecstasy.
‘See. Thirty-nine,’ muttered Iago to himself.
Hardly had the last strained and imperfect note of the plea for Fray Hernando’s immortal soul faded than Olivera summoned every fit man to assist in closing the land. They had in prospect the island for which so many had prayed. The sight of it, although requested as a place to die, now filled every heart with the hope of life. But its coast remained distant, at least to the landsmen; the seamen saw it as a thing easy to be swept past and left astern, along with all hopes of survival. The rudder was therefore manned, a scrap of sail hoisted aft to better balance the rig and improve the accuracy of their primitive steering.
> What followed seemed to Olivera afterwards to be the most terrifying ordeal he had yet experienced. Every anxiety, it seemed, was compounded by another and this chain of fears reduced his nerves. He trembled at the very thought of failing to bring the Santa Margarita to an anchor, yet she had only a single anchor left. He contemplated the preliminary feat of navigating through whatever off-lying dangers that were certain to lie about the island, just as it troubled him that he knew nothing of the quality of the holding ground, if indeed there was any holding ground to afford them an anchorage, or whether the ocean swell would make the enterprise utterly foolhardy to the point of impossibility. And then, suppose them to safely pass through a thousand unknown coral-heads, to be safely brought to their anchor off a beach, how would they get ashore? There was not a boat left and he feared they had insufficient energy to construct a raft. He too had noticed his mind had become unable to concentrate. Witness his present anxiety: all he could do was catalogue the things that could possibly go wrong. He could not construct a single solution; his thinking was muddled; he found himself confusing the want of a boat with the needs of the anchor and it was almost five minutes before he realized that his brain had skipped from the thought that the anchor needed a cable bent on to it, to a curious relief that, since they did not have a boat, they would not need a boat’s painter, only to worry that if they succeeded in constructing a raft they would need a rope for it anyway. A rising panic caused Olivera’s heart to thunder in his breast with such violence that he thought he might follow Hernando into eternity and it was only Iago’s approach that steadied him.
‘Are you all right, Antonio?’ Iago confronted him, his face anxious.
The Disastrous Voyage of the Santa Margarita Page 24