A Signal Victory

by David Stacton

  Starvation was to save his life, but now he only thought it meant he was going to die anyway. Whatever else he might be about to become, he did not want to die, for no matter how reduced he might be, Aguilar would always have the strength to feel afraid.

  Painfully he tried to move his cracked tongue, and some sound must have come out. Guerrero stirred.

  Or perhaps the conch wakened him. It did not seem to him a strange sound. It seemed to him a sound he had always expected to hear.

  He saw Aguilar’s quivering hand. He heard the surf, felt the water choppy under the keel, and grabbed the tiller with a chapped and blood-clotted hand.

  The next minutes were quick, sure work. Even so it was not his skill that brought them through. In those sudden waters he had no skill. It was his luck.

  Being a realist, and so able always to make the better of any choices, Guerrero always had luck.

  When he straightened up, the reef was behind them, and they were in quiet water, though water with a slight surge, enough, at any rate, to bring the boat to the shallows.

  It’s amazing how much strength you have at the last moment. Guerrero jumped out and tried to beach the boat. He couldn’t stifle a slight scream, for since the skin of his legs was sun-dried and salt-caked, the warm water split it up the bone, as though slitting the belly of a fish.

  He paid no attention. He knew they should get under cover. There was no way to tell where they were, or who lived here, and he had had enough of natives in Panama. Unfortunately he was too weak to do more than count the living, and see if Valdivia was among them. Valdivia was his captain, and though he did not need orders, if there was anybody to give them, it was his place to take them.

  He squinted up at the cliffs and caught a glimpse of the white buildings. As far as he was concerned, they were just buildings, but he didn’t like the abrupt silence up there, and the night was full of watching.

  A narrow, snake-like line of light caught his eye, undulating against the cliff face. He knew what it was. Fresh water.

  Behind him he heard the most peculiar sound, a muffled, high-pitched giggle. He turned around. It was Aguilar, crying with joy, because he wasn’t in paradise after all, this wasn’t Bishop Brendon’s island, and he was still alive.

  There was no gratitude in that sound, for such salvation, but only triumphant hatred of a world that had once more not quite put him down.

  With a shrug of disgust, Guerrero dragged himself up the beach towards the ribbon of water.

  IV

  They had beached at Tulum. It was a pitiable little city, jerrybuilt and holy, eight hundred years old, and half deserted now, for no noble could be bothered to live there. Yet it was the end of that long pilgrim road from Chichen Itza and the interior which led to the embarkation point for the sacred island of Cozumel, so perhaps it was not so pitiable after all. It still had its priests, and the temple of the Diving God was whitewashed every year. It was powerful enough to overwhelm fourteen men weak from exposure on the beach below.

  Of all this Aguilar was unaware.

  He was one of those men who, having no character of their own, but only a vast desire to be safe, derive one from precedent, and take on the character of whatever shell they find that fits them. Like the hermit crab, they scuttle along from birth towards the nearest conformable security, isolate and terrified, In his case that shell was the Church, which gave him a precedent for everything, and a weapon against everything he was afraid of. That was what made him so useful to anyone conservative enough to hire him. He had an absolute terror of anything he had never seen before which, when he felt secure, turned into hate. He was a groveller by nature. He would have grovelled to God, until the proper time came, and he was secure enough to put Him in His place.

  Meanwhile, he had that shell, the Church. So he knew exactly what to do in an emergency. In an emergency one had merely to follow the proper forms. He decided to say mass.

  It was almost dawn, which in the tropics brings the colour up as suavely as does a flood of varnish. The sea glistened and the land crabs swept away. One hungry sailor might reach to crack a scuttling shell and suck the claws, but not Aguilar. Aguilar was looking for a flattened stone.

  Valdivia, who was hungry enough to suck a crab himself but too weak to get one, propped himself up to watch, sweltering in what was left of his armour, in that sudden lobster heat, and waiting for Guerrero to bring him water. Behind them the cascade dribbled down the cliff.

  “What is he doing?”

  Guerrero shrugged, grunted, and looked at the men, some of whom were still too weak to leave the boat.

  “He wants to say mass.”

  Valdivia did not object. Not only was the saying of mass appropriate, but it would give him time to think, and Christ might serve to pull the men into order, for certainly at the moment he could not.

  Wearily the men lined up, facing that flat stone which Aguilar had chosen as an altar, so that it was he who first saw what was behind them.

  He faced problems in his own way, by putting in front of them little contrived problems small enough for him to handle, out of which he could make enormous tasks. It was true that under such conditions anything capable of being swallowed and digested could serve as a Host, but what in this alien bright green world was edible? Even though starving, he had saved a piece of hardtack. Now he offered it up and smashed it to bits with a stone. Then he was ready.

  He looked around him with satisfaction. Life was settling into its accustomed place, and later, no doubt, when the men found food, they would feed him.

  Guerrero was standing beside Valdivia, who closed his eyes. Aguilar had seen that courteous gesture of impatience before. It is all very well for a prelate, but a common priest cannot feel at ease with gentlemen, for it is too hard to hold their attention. Nor was the look in Guerrero’s eyes any more reassuring. Aguilar turned his back on his congregation and stared blankly at his stone.

  When he turned round to administer the Host, they were there, just behind the men. They were not devils. He could see that at once. They had too much dignity.

  Though he had no courage, he was stubborn and narrow-minded, which sometimes does just as well. He affected not to notice and chanted on, even while he watched.

  Behind the kneeling men the wall of the jungle was every shifting shade of green. It rustled in the morning breeze. But some of those leaves detached themselves, they flowed differently, with a high and undulating motion, out of the wood, and became the feathered head-dresses of a small party of coffee-coloured men. These drew aside, and there was carried from the wood a kind of papal palanquin, of that sort derived from ancient Rome. Indeed the party was senatorial in its gravity, as though made up of the judges of some secret court.

  Having administered his last crumb of wafer, Aguilar straightened up, made the sign of the cross, and delivered himself of a palindrome against dragons, in his best Latin. He was perhaps feverish, but even so a little magic did no harm.

  The men turned round to look, but the party did not vanish. Instead it rustled uneasily and then stood still. An old man looked out of the palanquin.

  In his nose he wore a long carved rod, a dragon with a waving tongue hung out of his lower lip, his ears were distended with wide jade plugs, and his head-dress was taller and more elaborate than that of his escort. He looked venerable and extremely jolly. Unlike the rest of his party, he was not armed.

  He said something and then jerked back out of sight, without waiting for an answer. Clearly he was accustomed to obedience. His bearers manœuvred the palanquin back into the jungle, while his escort moved forward.

  So did Aguilar. He had much to say, all of it in Latin.

  It was the month of Zul, sacred to Kukulcan, celebrated according to the Mexican usage, which made their arrival convenient, but he had no way of knowing that.

  Guerrero moved to stop him. It was useless to antagonize people who might be friendly but could certainly overwhelm them. It was better to follow, as t
hey were beckoned to do, than to treat them to a harangue. Valdivia agreed.

  Indeed, they soon saw, so long as they followed peaceably, no harm did seem to be meant. On the contrary, these feathered men were considerate and seemed extremely pleased. Their language was unintelligible, flexible and high-pitched, like the language of birds. St. Francis might have been able to speak to them, but Aguilar could not.

  The jewelled warriors closed behind the Spaniards, the jungle closed behind them, and the palanquin was far ahead. They began to climb.

  The jungle was not so venomous as that at Panama. It looked domestic and weeded out. As they ascended the cliff path, the leaves of the trees became a healthier and larger green. The air was less damp.

  In about half an hour they left the jungle and found themselves on the edge of a large field crowded with corn tassels. The corn was high. They could see nothing over it. Led by the palanquin, the party advanced to a ramp, mounted it, and turned to the right.

  The Spanish now stood on a broad causeway, not in very good repair, slightly topped by corn tassels on either side. Before them, at no great distance, rose the glittering gypsum walls of a sizeable city, with beyond those, several tall towers on which people were standing. One could pick out only the quivering masses of those enormous head-dresses, as though the sky were a sea, and these natives anemones at the bottom of it.

  The world seemed curiously hushed.

  The only clean cities Aguilar had ever seen were Moorish, and so infidel. He crossed himself.

  In those days the Spanish had not yet invented Spain, or even, for that matter, the habit of being Spanish. They had lived by sacking each other and the Moors for so long, that carpet bagging and flight were the only ways they had yet found to display their dignity. The exigencies of such a life meant that they took with them no private possessions but their God, and so they were always confronted by devils. Aguilar felt weak. Converting the infidel with a group of Spanish gentlemen no better than condottieri at one’s back was one thing, being on the wrong end of a crusade was quite another.

  Guerrero, on the other hand, felt no such doubts. What he felt was a thrilled and yet familiar wonder. The sun was hot and he liked what he saw. He was one of those men born into the wrong world, who spend their lives searching for the right one. They may not even be aware of their own discontent, but if by chance they encounter the right one, they recognize it at once, because for the first time in their lives they feel at ease. He felt at ease.

  Thus they entered Tulum.

  On the other side of the wall was a broad street, half a mile long, and lined with loosely built stone palaces. It, too, was deserted, but they heard far off a murmur, like the swarming of voices at dusk in the paseo of any Spanish city. The street they found eerie. Everything was neat and clean, yet weeds sprouted out of the walls. Above them the sky had the blue shimmer of steel.

  They did not go so far as the square, but were taken into one of the buildings on their right, guarded, and left there.

  By now they were frightened. They were also tired, weak, and comfortable for the first time in weeks, and that made them apathetic. In the centre of the building was a patio. There they were brought food, and from there beckoned into the sweat bath. A sweat bath was a new experience for them, it frightened them, but it did make them feel better.

  They would have relaxed, had it not been for glimpses of that barbaric guard at the outlets of the building. Aguilar did not speak. He was preoccupied by the imminence of devils. He sat in the midst of all that unexpected splendour and read his breviary. A priest was sacred. He had no fears. Later he would be taken to someone in authority, explain himself, and convert the heathen. He would have read his breviary in Hell with the same composure, and indeed did daily, for Hell was what the world was to him.

  Guerrero and Valdivia were more practical. Hospitality from the enemy, and the world, though a good place, was full of enemies, never meant anything good. They had defeated Caribs, who were ferocious but debased, and the shivering Indians of Panama, but here, they knew, they were up against something else. Here they were up against not a tribe, but a world.

  They could not even ask questions. And without weapons, their men were demoralized and grateful to be fed. For they were fed, at about noon, fruit in strange shapes and sizes, a heavy, frothy drink, served in glazed bowls, which they did not yet know was cocoa, and a rich red dish of some kind of porridge, hot with spices, served with a crisp rolled bread stuffed with chopped meat.

  They were given the best care, and that was what made them nervous, for in their experience prisoners did not receive the best care, but, at most, a grudging second best. There was something, too, disturbing about the manner of their attendants, something mocking, considerate, and perhaps a little sad. Valdivia did not know what to make of it.

  Neither did Guerrero, but he set himself to learning how to ask questions. He pointed to things until the attendants told him the name. By late afternoon he knew the names of twenty things in the house, but how can you ask what is being done to you, if you have no verbs? The words came easily to his tongue, but not to Valdivia’s, and Aguilar would not even try. If God speaks Latin and Spanish, why should one bother to learn anything else?

  At evening two men came to see them, a religious-looking one, some kind of overseer, surrounded by apprentices, who looked them over carefully but said nothing, and another who insisted upon examining the men with care, probing here and pinching there. Both were ritually dressed, and neither seemed to care for what he saw. Valdivia they singled out at once, as the obvious leader of the party. He seemed to displease them least. They also paid particular attention to one of the soldiers, a man from Estramadura named Léal, no more than a boy really. Then they left.

  Guerrero and Valdivia were alarmed, but nothing more happened. They were allowed to remain by themselves all next day. They were fed, as usual. They were bathed. But something made them uneasy.

  A little before dawn, on the second day, while Aguilar was setting up his equipment (he had already smashed several small idols, in order to reconsecrate what was clearly an altar), about twenty soldiers, a party of priests, and the same sacerdotal personage they had seen before, who was this time elaborately dressed and painted a curiously vibrant shade of blue, came into the house. Chocolate was served to all the Spaniards.

  Aguilar signalled that they should not drink before mass. Since the visitors paid no attention to this, Valdivia thought it better that they drink. Their rooms were still cool and shadowy. The sun had not yet warmed them.

  When the chocolate was finished, the guard beckoned to Valdivia and Léal, smiling amiably, and the priest and the man who seemed to be a doctor or shaman, led them into a side corridor.

  Without their leader, the Spaniards felt uneasy. There was no sound but that of Aguilar droning through his interrupted service.

  The mass ended, and still Valdivia did not return. Aguilar blinked and clutched his breviary tighter. Far off, somewhere, over the roof-tops, they heard the rumble of drums, and then, one by one, the entry of whistles and flutes. They had no way of knowing what was out there.

  At last they heard footsteps, turned towards the corridor, but did not at first recognize what they saw.

  Valdivia and Léal had been drugged, that was clear. They moved heavily and almost complacently. Both men had been stripped naked and painted that same shade of ominous blue. Even Valdivia’s beard was painted blue. He was still a muscular man. Under the paint his body glistened. He wore an elaborate feathered breechclout, such as the natives wore, high masked sandals, and a peaked feather head-dress. Léal was dressed the same way. Each man was flanked by priests to hold him.

  What did that drug do, that it could make you so docile? Guerrero was excited. He wanted to know what it felt like to be tricked out so. Yet even painted up that way, Valdivia was a gentleman and Léal was not, so the priests were the more considerate of him.

  Guerrero caught the eye of the high priest, wh
o was watching him with some sudden interest, and looked away.

  Valdivia and Léal left the building, surrounded by the priests. Guerrero, Aguilar and the others were herded out behind them.

  Guerrero was not worried. He knew that for the moment he was safe. Aguilar ran forward. He had taken up the scent at once, and had officiated at executions before. It was his duty to offer the consolations of a pious Latinity. Guerrero hauled him back.

  “Do you want them to kill all of us?” he snapped.

  Aguilar glared at him, but no, he did not. He fell back.

  They went out not the way they had first entered the building, but through a corridor. The sound of drums and flutes was now louder, and to it was added the great peremptory braying of a conch.

  They came out into abrupt sunlight and found themselves in a square, like the choir of a church without walls, but a choir somehow magnified. At one end rose the altar, but high, in two stages, like a pyramid, with some structure on top that might have been a monstrance. On either side of the square solemnly danced and chanted those dignitaries the worshippers are usually prevented by the rood screen from seeing.

  At the top of the pyramid two columns of incense rose like scented candles. The music now was faster, and even so, beginning to quicken. It had a rapid and yet stately rhythm, impetuous but grave, as though the jungle had learned order and polyphony. It was full of birds and omens.

  It was hypnotic, and over it all came that deliberate, hopeful, and hungry chant, from everywhere around the square, spaced by the double drums.

  Valdivia and Léal were led towards the altar.

  The drums beat faster.

  It was all too bright and cruel out there. Yet Guerrero understood it very well, better than Aguilar, whose sort of business it was. When the body runs wild, or when it is driven so, we cross a border. Then we either scream our heads off when they beat us, or laugh with delight, according to our nature, according to the nature of the God we worship. And that is what these people were doing. As at all religious rites, they were crossing a border. They drove the body wild. They whipped the hell out of it, slowly, and with compassion. A little under-sexed, they had to find release in other, indirect, and sadistic ways. Well, a Spaniard could understand that. That was how a Spaniard worshipped his own phallic ethnic gods, and only called it Christianity.