The Islands of Unwisdom

by Robert Graves

  Dissatisfaction was brought to a head two days later, when the General tacitly admitted the unreasonableness of his hopes by placing the ship’s company on half-rations of food and water. Wherever I went in the course of my duties, I heard grumbling from the sailors, who had hitherto shown exemplary patience: they complained that if the sergeants had done as the Chief Pilot advised and kept the troops from wasting food and water, we should not now all be hungry. ‘Halve our rations, halve our work!’ they growled, and began neglecting their orders or obeying them listlessly.

  At the conclusion of his watch, the Boatswain gave one of the apprentices a fatherly lecture on the sin of sloth. The lad listened attentively enough and begged the Boatswain’s pardon but, as soon as he turned to go, made a long nose behind his back; a gesture at which two of his companions laughed and capered. The Colonel happening to come up at that instant, took in the whole scene; he struck the offender with his stick and felled him to the deck. Then he pursued the other two, calling them prick-eared, long-tailed sooterkins, until they scrambled yelling up the shrouds.

  The Boatswain’s mate, who was now on duty, went to the Great Cabin immediately and complained that the Colonel had been assaulting the crew and interfering with naval discipline. The boldness of his speech was proof of how much esteem the General had forfeited by vacillations and obstinacy: ‘This is intolerable, your Excellency! Let the Colonel do his duty as the King requires; and in times of war or rebellion we’re at his orders. But, by God, he had better keep within the limits of his authority! Let him use that stick on an apprentice once again, and I’ll not answer for myself. We’re honourable men and won’t be trampled down.’

  Since no high officer was present, Don Alvaro allowed Damian’s tongue to run unchecked, remarking only that if his men had been held in firmer discipline, the Colonel would have had no occasion to intervene.

  ‘Your Excellency,’ Damian retorted, ‘I assure you that the worst behaved of our people is a saint compared with the best behaved of his. We work honestly for our living; we neither steal nor do murder. If the Colonel had repressed laziness and greed in his troops, we should not now be in our present plight; but he leaves them to the Major; the Major leaves them to the Captains and the Adjutant; who leave them to the ensigns; who leave them to the sergeants; who neglect them utterly. Since we left the Marquesas Islands they have not been on parade once, and the officers boast, quarrel and make trouble. There are too many of them in this ship—at least one to every five soldiers. Your Excellency alone could easily direct our affairs. Why waste food and water on them? We aren’t going to Flanders or Italy where they might find useful employment, but to peaceful islands inhabited by friendly, ill-armed savages. What we need is not butchers in ruffs, but patient, industrious settlers who are prepared to win over the Indians by kindness and the force of Catholic example. Pray pardon my frankness, your Excellency!’

  ‘I love frankness,’ said Don Alvaro, ‘but since few officers resemble me in this, have a care where you address your complaints. Especially, do not aggravate our troubles by offending the Colonel. There have been abuses and neglect, I grant, but you surely cannot wish me to cast my friends and relatives overboard for your private gratification? They have been commissioned for this expedition by His Majesty and are all of them men of birth. Go now, friend Damian! With the Virgin’s help a remedy will be found for your complaints.’

  The atmosphere of conspiracy thickened. The Barreto brothers tried to draw Don Alvaro into their faction by representing that the Colonel intended to massacre them all and usurp the command. With this end in mind they employed spies and tale-bearers, the most active of whom were Major Moran and the Purser; these would eavesdrop on conversations not intended for their ears and bring back their gleanings to Don Lorenzo, or to Don Alvaro himself, omitting, expanding and reshaping until the speaker would never have recognized his own words. Much the same was done on the other side, the Colonel’s chief agents being Tomás de Ampuero and Doña Maria Ponce, the Captain of Artillery’s wife, who was in love with Don Tomás; but I am bound to add that the Colonel acted in self-defence and was more plotted against than plotting.

  The Purser also carried tales against the Chief Pilot to Don Alvaro, alleging that he was in conspiracy with the Admiral’s pilot to steer for the Portuguese Indies, where they would desert the flotilla and go home by way of Goa; and that we had long passed the Isles of Solomon. Many of the soldiers and settlers believed this story; Don Alvaro himself half-believed it, yet if ever he came on deck at midnight to study the compass or the stars, he always found the ship on her true course. Pedro Fernandez, though knowing what was being said, and by whom, made no complaint: he told me that the Purser would in time be made to look deservedly foolish.

  One morning, as I passed along the maindeck towards the forecastle, I forget on what business, Matia plucked at my sleeve and jerked his head toward some coils of rope where a group of young soldiers sat quarrelling and complaining. ‘Hark how the rats squeak!’ he said scornfully.

  I stopped to listen.

  ‘And don’t forget, Federico—you owe me nine ounces of gold when we get to the Isles. I haven’t your note of hand to prove it, but you pledged yourself before witnesses, and that’s enough between messmates.’

  ‘God bless your soul, man! When we get to the Isles indeed! We’ll never get there! We’ve already sailed completely round the globe, well to the south of all known continents. Those Marquesas Islands are the last landfall we’re ever likely to make now—unless we come up with them again on our second turn round the mill. Neither the General, nor the Chief Pilot have the least idea where we are. We’ll sail on and on until the planks rot under us and the ship dives to the bottom, taking our grinning skeletons with her. That’s what I meant when I said that the Sergeant oughtn’t to shout at us as though we were on Viceroy’s guard at Lima. There’s no sense in scouring our breastplates twice a week when we’re bound to die without ever needing them again.’

  ‘That’s nonsense, Salvador, and well you know it. Federico may be right about our having passed the Isles by, and perhaps one day we’ll find ourselves in Cochin China among the yellow men, but the globe’s a bigger pumpkin than you imagine. The Englishman Drake took three years to draw his knife around it, and he was no dawdler.’

  ‘Well, it’s much more likely that the Isles have sunk beneath the sea. Islands come and go, you know, at the will of God, and it’s well-nigh thirty years since they were last seen.’

  ‘You leek! Islands as large as those don’t sink. You might as well say that Spain itself might be engulfed one day. No, take my word for it: the General and his people were bewitched. They saw sights and heard sounds that existed only in their addled brains—you’ve heard how hunger and thirst crazed them all on the way back, and how they sacrificed a snow-white parrot to save their Colonel’s life. Snow-white parrot indeed! Who ever saw such a bird?’

  ‘You’re right, Sebastian. Those Isles were no more than a grand phantasmagoria; yet somehow the General managed to convince the Viceroy and King Philip himself that they existed. And now, because he wants to call himself a marquis, and make the fortunes of his Lady’s family, he’s dragged us here with half a dozen sacks of biscuit to perish in this waste of water—’

  ‘And fish for those wonderful pearls, as big as pigeons’ eggs, of which he brags! He saw children playing at marbles with them, he says, but was too tender-hearted to take away their toys! The devil of it is that his letters patent make slaves of us all: he can enrich whom he pleases and beggar whom he pleases, and there’s no redress.’

  ‘Why complain of the letters patent, man? They’re equally a work of fancy. I’ll say it again, and I don’t care who hears me: the Isles of Solomon never existed!’

  Matia strode angrily forward: ‘Are you giving me the lie, Sebastian Lejia, you talbot? I was a seasoned soldier, who had fought in seven pitched battles and ten sieges, when you were still crawling about in the gutter with a bare backside,
eating turnip-peel and mule droppings. Look at this scar—a lance-thrust dealt me by a Solomon islander! You dare say that I dreamed it, hey? By the pall and chin-cloth of Him who redeemed me, I’ll make you swallow those words, you addlepate, you male washerwoman, you whoreson lump of dough with the frog’s mouth!’

  His hand flew to his dagger, but I restrained him.

  ‘Easy there, friend!’ I cried. ‘When a man gabbles absurdities, what can his retraction of them be worth? Listen to me, gentlemen: it is beyond dispute that those Isles were reached, and to deny it would be both senseless and disloyal. In the Chart-room yonder is the ship’s log kept by Hernan Gallego, the truth of which is confirmed by a sober account of the voyage, now in the Viceregal archives at Lima, written by the Purser Gomez Catorra. Moreover, I have myself handled the weapons and necklaces brought back to New Spain by Captain Pedro Sarmiento. Bleach your brains in the wash tub, Sebastian Lejia, and then hang them in the shrouds to dry!’

  This raised a laugh, and Matia’s dagger stayed in its sheath; yet he had not finished with the dispute. ‘Lads,’ he said, stroking his grizzled beard, ‘rations are short and the voyage is long, so listen to an old campaigner whose skin is laced with scars, but whose head and eyes are clear. These are the times when a soldier is tested: he keeps his arms clean and takes what comes his way. Avoid Sebastian like the plague: there’s a cast in his eye, lies on his tongue and rust on his armour. Be men, and keep the company of men!’

  Sebastian quailed under Mafia’s bloodshot glare, muttered something inaudible and slouched off. Young Federico asked: ‘But, Matia, what do you think? You’ve made this voyage once before. Why haven’t we sighted the Isles?’

  Matia grinned, put a finger to his lips as though he were about to reveal a secret of the utmost importance and replied in a hoarse whisper: ‘For one reason only: because we haven’t yet come to them!’

  Even the Chief Pilot was beginning to grow anxious. We had come something over sixteen hundred leagues, yet Gallego’s chart placed the isles at less than fifteen hundred from Peru. At a mid-day conference the three other pilots presented him with a memorial to the effect that they had to bear constant complaints about the length of the voyage from their captains and lower officers, and therefore humbly asked for an explanation from the General, which they might pass on. The memorial absolved Pedro Fernandez himself from blame: the pilots stated that their dead-reckoning agreed with his, though they had taken the sun every noon for the past fortnight and we still kept in ten degrees South, where the Isles were supposed to lie. They added that according to a Portuguese chart found in the Santa Ysabel, we should now be scraping our way over the wooded mountains of Great Tartary; and that to judge from the sorry state of our hulls, the cartographer might not be far out.

  Pedro Fernandez, who had not hitherto cared to raise the subject with the General, laid the memorial before him and asked what reply he should make. It happened that the Colonel and Don Lorenzo were both present, and Don Alvaro felt obliged to justify himself in their eyes. He rose angrily from his chair and ‘Pilot,’ he cried, ‘have you no shame? There is a constant dinning in my ears of complaints from all and sundry that we are off our course and lost without hope. How do you, of all people, dare treat me so? First you go to Captain Don Lorenzo with mutinous hints that I am out of my mind, because I expected the Isles too soon; and now you complain that we have overshot our mark! Who is the Master of this ship—you or I?’

  ‘I am the Master, your Excellency,’ the Chief Pilot answered, raising his voice to show that he would not be brow-beaten, ‘and I navigate according to the directions you gave me at Santa; you, who discovered the Isles of Solomon, should know where they lie. This is my first voyage in the South Seas, but I can run down a parallel with accuracy and my dead-reckoning is not challenged by any pilot of the flotilla.’

  ‘Then why have you not done your duty and brought us to the Isles?’ shouted Don Alvaro, whipping himself into a fury.

  ‘Some of your officers, whose names I need not mention,’ replied the Chief Pilot with great deliberation, ‘allege that Gallego falsified his log at your orders. They say that you both made the distance from Callao appear much less than it is, so that the King should not think your discovery too outlandish for settlement. That opinion I leave for your Excellency’s confutation. But it falls to you to explain why I and my three fellow-pilots, though following your instructions, have not yet sighted so large an archipelago. Pray, your Excellency, abstain from vague accusations and consider the matter logically. Concede either that, Gallego’s dead-reckoning being at fault, he set down the wrong longitude; or that he hid the true latitude from you; or else, that errors of transcription were made by the secretary who put his log in writing.’

  Here the Colonel intervened: ‘Or, my lord, alternatively, that this Portuguese is a swindler and a knave, bent on leading us to destruction for the gratification of a private vengeance.’

  ‘That, my dear Colonel, is by no means an impossible alternative,’ said Don Alvaro, who was trimming his sails to any wind and cared little where it bore him. ‘I know that the Chief Pilot has small love for you.’

  Pedro Fernandez caught the eye of Doña Ysabel who was listening attentively and took courage to defend himself with spirit. ‘Is it likely that I am bent on my own destruction as well as on his?’ he asked. ‘You assured me at Paita with tears in your eyes that I was the only pilot on whose skill you could rely; and greatly against my desire, but at the plea of your virtuous Lady, I consented to stay with you. On that occasion, too, I forgave the Colonel his trespasses, as I trust that God will forgive mine; and if you can believe that I nurse such mad resentment against him that, only to gratify it, I would lead four ship-loads of my fellow-Christians to their death…’

  ‘Continue,’ said Don Alvaro, hurriedly. ‘The Colonel and Don Lorenzo will both agree on the justice of allowing you to speak in your defence.’

  ‘Briefly then, my lord: Hernan Gallego may have committed an error in dead-reckoning. This is probable, because in his log he sets down the longitude of the Isle of Jesus, your first landfall, as being such and such, and then that of the Isle of Cristobal, which lies in the same latitude, as being such and such; but computes the distance between the two as less by two hundred and fifty leagues than is warranted by a comparison of their longitudes. The conclusion to be drawn from this entry is, that the Isles of Solomon, of which San Cristobal is one, lie at least sixteen hundred and fifty leagues west of Callao, perhaps even more; and therefore still ahead of us.’

  ‘But, my friend,’ protested the General, ‘I reached the Isles in eighty days—’

  Pedro Fernandez took him up quickly: ‘—with different winds, my lord, at a different season, and not slowed down by a lagging Santa Ysabel. Pray hear me out!’

  When the General had subsided in his chair, he continued, confidently sawing the air with his hands like an advocate: ‘I have heard it suggested that when at the close of the voyage Gallego was asked by your Excellency for his log and chart, he gave you falsified copies instead of the originals. But though it is common knowledge that he fell foul of you on your return to Peru, I cannot believe either that a man of his character would have stooped so low; or that a man of your experience could have been so easily taken in. At all events, he could not have also deceived his fellow-pilots, who knew very well in what latitudes they sailed. If, however, we are to suppose that they were all in the plot and that you did not trouble to check their readings, then it may well be that the Isles lie either higher than seven, or lower than twelve degrees South, and that we have indeed passed them by. The third alternative, namely errors in transcription, may be ruled out: it is unlikely that the same error would be several times repeated in the log, besides being shown on the chart.’

  Here Don Lorenzo put in his oar: ‘It is my firm belief, your Excellency, that we have unwittingly sailed through a gap between the islands and left them far behind. Once we reached fourteen hundred leagues, we sho
uld have cruised up and down until we found them. I do not pretend to understand navigation, one end of a backstaff being much the same to me as the other; but men of science, like our Chief Pilot, are often sadly wanting in common sense.’

  ‘Captain Don Lorenzo,’ said Pedro Fernandez, ‘it would be better if you confined your remarks to military matters which you understand, and not accuse me of imbecility. To sail through the group without sighting even one of its islands would be about as easy as to walk along the maindeck without having to step over a dozen of your sprawled soldiers. Have we not said enough, your Excellency? By your leave, I will inform the pilots that Hernan Gallego is found to have underestimated the longitude of the Isles, and that with patience and fortitude we shall soon come upon them.’

  Don Alvaro was no match for the Chief Pilot in a nautical argument, and ended the conference abruptly by taking up his beads and shuffling into a corner to pray.

  Chapter 12

  THE ADMIRAL’S FAREWELL

  A change had come over the General. He was no longer a soldier in friar’s garb, but rather a friar who by some freak of fortune had been put in command of troops. He ate and drank no more than a bird, spent the greater part of the night on his knees and when he rose, refreshed in spirit, seemed to float along the cabin floor, or soar up and down from one deck to another on invisible wings. His beads were always in his hands, and on his lips were the words of the psalm: Ecce quam bonum, fratres—‘O, what a good and joyful thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity.’ At the common table he would tearfully beseech us to make our peace with God and one another, to avoid open and secret sins, serving God and the King to the utmost of our powers. If he surprised two officers in a quarrel he would simultaneously seize their right hands and marry them in a clasp of friendship; and I verily believe that, if he could at the same time have compelled their lips to kiss, he would have done so. Having commandeered Our Lady of Solitude from the Chart-room, on the ground that the Chief Pilot had no right to keep so holy an image for his private orisons, he dressed her in silk clothes sewn by the ladies and set her up at the mainmast; and every day after matins he required the ship’s company to sing the Salve, Regina in her honour. There was a holy gleam in his eye which made everyone say, whatever his faction: ‘The General seems already to have taken leave of this world.’