The Islands of Unwisdom

by Robert Graves

Don Alvaro took Sergeant Dimas aside to hear whatever he may have had to disclose and, afterwards pressing his arm affectionately, was heard to say: ‘No, no, the time is not yet ripe. Wait a little longer, my friend.’

  The troops sympathized with the Colonel, who would never have injured the honour of his subordinate officers by allowing their men to come directly to him with their confidences. He returned to the working party and, ignoring Don Alvaro who stood with the Barretos at some distance, poured such abuse on Sergeant Dimas that his ears reddened and his hands twitched.

  ***

  On the Thursday, when Don Alvaro came ashore again, it pleased the Colonel to disguise his resentment by treating him with obsequious correctness. Every salute was an insult, and the more Don Alvaro tried to avoid his attentions, the more sedulously were they pressed upon him. He bore with him that day, but on the Saturday, spurred on by Doña Ysabel, who gave him no peace, he plucked up courage and told the Colonel breathlessly, as one who repeats a message quickly before it is forgotten: ‘Pray, your lordship, let us have no more of this mummery. For all your hat-doffings and leg-scrapings you are a disobedient officer, and I must hold you solely responsible for all the loose talk now running round the camp. You pamper the troops and allow them to vent what nonsense they please.’

  ‘I pamper the troops, your Excellency!’ cried he in astonishment. ‘On the contrary, it is I who insist on their respecting you as the King’s representative in these lands. As for the loose talk, it began in the Great Cabin and was transplanted to the settlement by your egregious brothers-in-law.’

  ‘That is not so. First, you made the soldiers discontented by overriding my wishes and setting them to work at a foolish and thankless task, and now you teach them to mock me.’

  ‘To mock your Excellency! By your good leave! As for the foolish and thankless task, it is true that you have not overwhelmed me with gratitude for all that I have done…’

  But the General had turned on his heel with a virtuous expression, and gone off; thinking, I dare say, that this time Doña Ysabel could not reproach him with having shirked the issue.

  That afternoon the Colonel sat in his house, brooding fiercely on his injuries and drinking the palm-wine which his negro prepared for him. Suddenly he kicked over the joint-stool and stamped off angrily, shouting to himself as he went. He looked for the General everywhere and at last found him in the Church (now wanting only the pulpit), kneeling at the altar rails and with no companion but myself. He announced his approach with a loud cough, and then asked the favour of a few words in private. Don Alvaro rose quietly to his feet, placed a finger to his lips, and ‘Remember where you are, my lord,’ he whispered.

  The Colonel burst into a laugh that echoed about our ears. ‘Your Excellency is admirably pious,’ he said. ‘But until this building has been dedicated to Saint What’s-his-name tomorrow, it can claim no greater sanctity than the guard-house of the camp-jakes.’

  ‘Hush, man, how can you say such things? Do you not see the crucifix on the altar?’

  ‘The guard-house also boasts a crucifix.’

  ‘And the precincts have been well sprinkled with holy water.’

  ‘Ay, and so have the jakes,’ returned the Colonel. ‘Just now I saw Father Antonio emerging…’ And he choked with laughter, wonderfully pleased with his own wit. But seeing the General about to go, he barred his way with outspread hands, saying: ‘No, your Excellency, you cannot leave me yet; this business will not wait. To please you, I’ll lower my voice to a whisper, but by the griefs and sorrows of Our sweet Lady, it comes most unnaturally to me.’

  Don Alvaro, recognizing from the stink of his breath and the thick tones of his voice that he was far gone in drink, would have brushed past him and escaped, had he not feared to provoke violence. ‘Unburden yourself, friend,’ he said resignedly, sitting down on a stool, ‘and by your leave, we shall keep Don Andrés with us to take a record of your business. He is a discreet young man.’

  ‘Discreet or indiscreet,’ the other replied in a roaring whisper, waving his flask in circles, ‘I care not a rotten almond! Now, Don Alvaro, you know well that your Lady called me a hound. An old hound she called me, and I’ll not quarrel with that. I confess that I resemble an old hound with scarred coat and torn ears, a terror to all curs that dare pick a quarrel with him. Hound, your Excellency, is not altogether a term of reproach, since every gentleman values the comradeship of his hound, next only to that of his horse; and who ever saw a hound, unless he were hydrophobic, so wanting in chivalry as to turn and maul the bitch that snapped at him? But your Lady did not stop at “hound.” No, by the God Who redeemed us all, she did not stop there, but abused me foully, and in your hearing, and even made as if to pull the hairs from my beard. Yet I never raised my hand to her, now did I so, your Excellency?’

  The General shook his head gravely.

  ‘No, I was the A per se of chivalry! A soused black pudding, she called me, and worse names, not easily forgotten even by you, Don Alvaro, who seldom burden your memory with what irks you.’

  ‘Why have you withheld your complaint until today?’

  ‘Complaint! By my father’s sword, which was exceedingly long and well-stained with the blood of infidels, I have not come with a complaint, but with a warning! We Merinos are from Castile and always vault a gate instead of creeping along the fence until we find a breach through which to squeeze. And now I will tell your Excellency plainly though, at your own desire, in a whisper: your Lady, Doña Ysabel, is a sorceress no less wicked than the infamous Eutropa who encompassed the death of numerous gallant knights in the History of Palmyrin!’

  ‘Bah, my lord, you have read so many such romances that your imagination is besotted, and you see ogres, dwarfs, sorceresses and the like lurking behind every hedge. My wife a sorceress! Put a guard upon your tongue and have a care what you say next, Don Pedro Merino!’

  ‘Then I must speak more plainly still: she is a common witch!’ He raised his forefinger in solemn warning: ‘Not only is she seeking my destruction in complot with her brothers, but yours too in complot with her sister! If nothing be done to prevent her, the carrion birds will soon be pecking both at your eyes and at mine.’

  For a moment Don Alvaro gaped at him stupidly. Then he groaned, his hand flew to his heart, and his face went the colour of a deal board.

  At this I stepped forward and charged them with tears to say no more, and to forget what had already been said; as I engaged to do myself. But Don Alvaro would have fallen from the stool had the Colonel not caught him. Together we laid him gently on the floor, undid his doublet and shirt, pillowed his head on a cushion, and put the flask of palm-wine to his lips. Soon his colour returned, whereupon the Colonel took his leave in the same hoarse whisper, assuring me that all was forgotten, and tiptoed away.

  About an hour later I supported Don Alvaro step by step to the guard-house, where he lay down on the arms-chest but was so weak that we had to raise his feet upon it. When Captain Leyva, whose company had the guard that day, asked him what was amiss, he moaned: ‘You are all against me, I cannot tell why. Whatever could be done to conciliate you, has been done; and I have worn myself out in your service. But whom can I trust? Each has a different aim and desire from his fellow; none respects the orders of His Majesty who sent us here. The Colonel defies me openly.’

  He was still muttering in this piteous strain when Captain Corzo entered, followed by the Chief Pilot come to satisfy himself that his sails were not being borrowed by the sailors to patch their tents; but the Barretos did not appear. Captain Leyva nodded sagely but in silence, lest any word of sympathy he let fall might be turned against him; it was his principle to remain neutral in every dispute until it should be plain which side was the stronger. But Captain Corzo who, though mistrusting the Barretos, inclined naturally to their faction from his hatred of the Colonel, swore by the Rood of Saint Denis that Don Alvaro had no cause to be troubled. ‘Are we not all your Excellency’s servants,’ he cried, ‘an
d willing to go with you to the end of the world?’

  Don Alvaro smiled wanly. ‘You have already done so, my brave friend. And now that you are here, will you show me faithful service?’

  ‘That is understood, your Excellency—is it not, gentlemen?’

  The Major was seen to assent, and the Chief Pilot expressed his loyalty in eloquent phrases. Don Alvaro appeared to be somewhat reassured and, when the sun had dropped behind the islet, Pedro Fernandez and I supported him to the skiff, where we found the Barretos waiting for us.

  At supper that night Don Lorenzo gave his sisters an account of the morning’s quarrel. ‘I have already heard Diego’s report of that interlude,’ said Doña Ysabel. ‘Well, what happened then? I am told that the Colonel was seen leaving the Church at about two o’clock and that afterward little Andrés brought my husband half-fainting into the guard-house.’

  ‘I know nothing of that,’ said Don Lorenzo.

  All eyes turned to the General, who hung his head, pressed a hand to his brow and begged Doña Ysabel not to question him on the matter.

  ‘Alas, husband, are you still so weak?’ she cried. ‘But here is Andrés for your spokesman; he will tell us what the drunken Cyclops did to you.’

  Don Alvaro, preferring to tell his own story, fortified himself with a little wine. It was instructive to hear with what facility he intertwined lies with truth: I felt that I could never trust him again, his words carried such perfect conviction. So much of the talk as concerned the Church and the whispering, he repeated with accuracy, but then he represented the Colonel as having complained: ‘You came without warning, surrounded by your armed kinsmen like a man who goes in fear of his life.’

  He continued: ‘My answer was: “And if I did, Don Pedro? You know that I had need of them.” He let that pass and accused me of betraying the troops—betraying them, if you please—by not bringing out more axes and wood-knives. “God’s passion,” he said, “your Excellency is wasting good troops in a land where neither God nor the King can be served by their presence.” “His Majesty himself must be the judge of that,” I said, to which he replied: “By my father’s sword, I care not a rotten almond either for you or for your viperous Lady, who abused me so foully! I am a plain-spoken Castilian and give you fair warning that, if she tries my patience further, the carrion-birds will soon be pecking both at her eyes and yours.”’

  Doña Ysabel laughed aloud. ‘You mimic the Colonel to the life, my lord,’ she said. ‘But did he complain of any particular abuse?’

  ‘Yes, that you called him a hound, and in my hearing. He may have said more, but indignation overcame me and I fainted away. Then with much tenderness Andrés revived me and led me to the guard-house.’

  ‘Well, if I had not taken him down, who else would have dared? Not you, for one, my dear lord.’

  ***

  We went ashore next morning, the ladies as well as the men, to assist at the dedication of the Church, a rite performed with solemnity and great feeling by Father Juan, though the soldiers were sparing with their expressions of joy. Afterwards Don Alvaro, swaying in his walk, took formal possession of the island. He must have heard of the contents of the round robin, because when he planted the Royal Standard, he referred to ‘this island of Santa Cruz, the most westerly of the Isles of Solomon over which King Philip has graciously appointed me Prefect.’

  The cheers that greeted the conclusion of the ceremony were neither loud nor unanimous, and I caught muttered oaths from the settlers who stood near me, and then these words in a woman’s voice:

  ‘His Majesty is welcome to our island; I wouldn’t give a cracked maravedi for it.’ This drew a burst of smothered laughter.

  As I sat down to record the General’s speech for the archives of the Indies Council, Pedro Fernandez came to me, and said: ‘Friend Andrés, to preserve my reputation as a pilot, and Don Alvaro’s as a geographer, pray change the word “westerly” to “easterly.”’

  ‘No man living can seduce me from my duty,’ I answered with mock severity. ‘When I come to that sentence, I shall make no omission and no addition; and yet I undertake to meet your wish. An o placed before este [east] is but a zero, a thing of no account: and if the word be read oeste [west] I need not answer for the error.’

  The Colonel, true to his undertaking to forget what had happened in the Church, now desired Don Alvaro to approve plans for a stockade which should serve as a refuge for the women and children if ever the settlement were attacked. It was to be built on a knoll in the only position from which covering fire could be directed against the beach. Don Alvaro rejected his plan, because these were the grounds of the Residency and Doña Ysabel, who had gone to her brothers’ hut after viewing them, proposed to build a pleasance on that very knoll. Instead, he pointed to other sites as being more suitable, but the Colonel tore his arguments to shreds and left him at a loss for a reply. Though agreeing that the building of a stockade was a matter of some urgency, he postponed his decision until he should have attended to a vexatious crop of disputes about title-deeds, rights of way, the upkeep of fences and the like; and in the end returned to the flagship without giving it. No doubt, he hoped that the Colonel would take his silence for consent and raise the stockade on the knoll; which would be a fair excuse for arresting him.

  That night, just before dawn, trumpets blew, drums rattled, and the whole camp seemed in an uproar. The Colonel’s voice could be heard bawling: ‘To arms, to arms! Every man to his post. Make ready to receive them!’ Yet no yelling of savages could be distinguished. It was the Chief Pilot’s watch, and in the absence of the Captain of Artillery, who slept ashore, he ordered the master-gunner to let off a falcon that stood ready trained against the nearest village along the coast; first tilting the barrel a little upwards so that the ball should whiz harmlessly over the huts. The roar of the discharge brought the General running on deck in his night-shirt, sword in hand, and with chattering teeth he asked what, in God’s name, was afoot.

  ‘To judge from the shouting,’ Pedro Fernandez answered, ‘the natives were about to attack the camp. I fired the falcon over their heads as a reminder that you keep a watch-dog.’

  We listened attentively. Women were screaming in the village, and shouts of confusion and dismay arose from the camp. Presently a canoe appeared in the darkness and Don Alvaro sang out: ‘Standing Guard, prepare to repel boarders!’ But it was only Don Diego, who climbed on deck half-dressed, trembling with fear and unable to give a coherent report. ‘The Colonel wants to murder us all,’ he sobbed, ‘you and me and my brothers and sisters, and Captain Corzo, too—I came to warn you.’

  He had, in effect, run away and left his brothers to their fate. Soon afterwards the noise in the camp died down, as if an order for silence had been given, and the Ensign-Royal’s voice came clearly across the water: ‘Ahoy, Officer of the Watch, do you hear me? The Colonel’s compliments to the General and will he send powder and match at once? Powder and match!’

  ‘Pay no attention,’ Don Diego pleaded. ‘That’s Toribio de Bedeterra. He’s in a plot to decoy you ashore and then cut your throat. I fear my brothers are already dead.’ And he began to weep again.

  ‘Where is Don Jacinto Merino, the Officer of the Guard?’ asked the General. ‘Is he also in the plot?’ But no one seemed to know what had become of him.

  When day broke, the master-gunner was sent ashore in the skiff with half a barrel of powder and a few yards of match. He was instructed to shout ‘All’s well’ if he found the Barretos alive, but otherwise to remain silent. We waited in great suspense, and presently a reassuring halloo floated back.

  Later we learned that our fears had been groundless: a young sentry, frightened by the noise of branches scraping against some posts, had turned out the guard, crying ‘The savages are upon us!’ The Colonel had then sounded the call to arms, but no natives were seen and the subsequent shouting arose from his discovery that the arquebusiers of Captain Corzo’s company had run out of powder and match. The aff
air ended in catcalls and cheerful laughter; but the tale of Don Diego’s cowardice was carried ashore by the master-gunner and spread through the huts.

  Chapter 17

  THE MALCONTENTS

  An apartment in the Colonel’s large new house was lent to Father Antonio until the vicarage should be completed, but the Vicar still slept on board, in the cabin vacated by Juan de la Isla. One day, on his return from mass, he entered the Chart-room with a more than usually grave face and, understanding that he had private business with the Chief Pilot, I kissed his cross and left them together. Afterwards, Pedro Fernandez told me: ‘The Vicar came to warn me that the troops have decided to leave the island. He cannot tell me where they want to go or whom they propose to take as pilot, but he is certain that they will use force if need be. I implored him to go ashore again and persuade them to remain at their posts, because of the duty we owe to the natives. “For my part,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “I should be glad to stay in this island, a few years even, preaching to the heathen. But, my son, if God should rule otherwise…”’

  ‘We have hardly been here a month,’ said I with indignation, ‘and it has come to this already?’

  Pacing up and down the narrow room, he burst out: ‘Oh, what a toppling tower of confusion we have raised on the ashes of ambition, discord, avarice, vanity and vindictiveness! Soon we shall all be buried under its ruins, friend Andrés, unless we keep steadfast faith with God and the King. I have not yet told you that yesterday afternoon someone tried to kill me as I stood by the mizzen. The shot came from the thickets beyond the beach. Another was fired at the frigate. I do not know what bird was aimed at; it may have been Francisco Frau, the pilot. But by God’s grace both bullets went wide.’

  ‘Why should they want to kill you?’ I cried, aghast.

  ‘Who knows?’ he answered, thrusting out his underlip. ‘Perhaps so that their friend Martin Groc of the San Felipe may succeed me as Chief Pilot? Since we left Callao I have made many enemies, from the Colonel down to the Purser, and their number grows daily. Because I ordered the master-gunner to let off that falcon, the Captain of Artillery now hates me; though I did it not from love of meddling in military affairs, but to shield the officer of the standing guard, who was revelling between strange sheets. Had the General caught him, a bloody murder would have been done.’ He did not disclose the name of the woman, but it was whispered that Doña Mariana was already consoling herself for her widowhood and anticipating a third marriage.