The Islands of Unwisdom

by Robert Graves

  ‘I should have been ready to lend you the boat,’ the General said, ‘if I had known in good time, but no matter! See to it that the troops do no damage in the village.’

  ‘You can trust me,’ replied the Adjutant with a disagreeable smile, ‘not to make black puddings without your Excellency’s permission.’

  Don Jacinto then asked leave to join the party, which included Juan de Buitrago and the Ensign-Royal; and Don Alvaro agreed that a sergeant might take over the standing guard until he returned. The Adjutant gave the order to march and they went off, singing briskly:

  ‘Keep in step: three by three,

  Every man: knee to knee,

  Every lance: at the trail,

  Keep in step: without fail,

  And it’s Sús! Sús! Sús!

  ‘For the cranes: as they fly

  Keep in step: through the sky,

  And Peru: cannot thrive,

  Cannot thrive: or survive

  Without Sús! Sús! Sús!

  ‘Keep in line: by the flank,

  Every man: in his rank,

  Serve the King: till you die,

  Keep in step: so will I,

  With a Sús! Sús! Sús!

  The mill of justice could now grind without further hindrance. Captain Corzo walked at Don Alvaro’s right, armed as usual with a long wood-knife, and the Chief Pilot at his left, carrying no weapon; behind followed two targeteers, and Myn twirling his axe, chuckling to himself and smacking his thick lips. To disguise the nature of our mission, I had been instructed to bring a pile of papers with me, and my ink-horn.

  The Barreto brothers met us at the camp gates. ‘He marked out the stockade yesterday,’ Don Lorenzo reported in low tones, ‘and on the site that you forbade him to use. Since daybreak the troops have been felling trees; now they are off duty until Malope’s men arrive to help them, and he has pitched his tent by the spring. He is about to breakfast there alone. The Captain of Artillery has come over to our side; Captain Leyva is likely to follow his example; of the remaining officers only Tomás de Ampuero is dangerous, and he is still in his tent. The Chaplain is saying mass in the Church.’

  ‘I am heartily relieved that this is open rebellion at last,’ said Don Alvaro. ‘Let us go to the spring. Pedro Fernandez, pray take a message to the guard-house: I wish the Captain of Artillery to stand by in case of need.’ This was a sleeveless errand; Don Alvaro lacked the courage to carry out his project with the Chief Pilot’s eyes upon him.

  We walked on slowly towards the spring, Captain Corzo sharpening his wood-knife on an emery stone as we went, Myn cutting gleeful capers, myself trailing glumly in the rear. When we came in sight of the tent, Don Alvaro turned to me. ‘Andrés,’ he said, ‘I shall wait here while you tell the Colonel that he is wanted on a matter of urgency.’

  ‘I should consider it a kindness if you chose another messenger,’ I answered. But Don Diego pricked me covertly with his dagger, and forward I went, smothering a cry.

  The Colonel sat in his tent on a tree-stump, clad in shirt and hose, eating pig’s fry and yam-pudding from a scarred pewter platter. Cross-legged on the floor, hunched over a tall book, a page was reading aloud to him. Outside, his negro tended the fire, fanning it with a palm-leaf; a second panful of pig’s fry sizzled on a trivet.

  ‘My lord,’ said I, gently.

  ‘Hush, man!’ he answered with a frown. ‘Do not interrupt the sweet flow of Palmyrin. I would not for the world miss the end of this marvellous encounter. Continue, Pacito! Nay, lad, go back to the beginning of the sentence once again.’

  Pacito read:

  ‘The Knight of Death on the next morning came forth before his tent, attired in black armour whereon was painted in divers places the semblance of a woman’s face descried through shrubs…’

  ‘That would be the sorceress Eutropa,’ the Colonel commented knowingly, his mouth full of pudding. ‘She lay thus in ambush, to the ruin of many a noble knight.’

  ‘And in his shield was figured a knight of sorrowful aspect surrounded by many deaths, who all fled from him: the whole so naturally portrayed as moved the beholders to fear of those ugly anatomies, and compassion of the man. He sat upon a dark flame-coloured horse, leaning upon his lance…’

  ‘My lord,’ I repeated, ‘loth as I am to disturb you, I must tell you that the General is waiting outside and wishes to see you on urgent business.’

  He sprang up and ran from his tent, without even a hat, to pay his belated respects; but when he saw so many of his enemies gathered around Don Alvaro, he called over his shoulder: ‘Quick, Pacito, my baldric, also my loaded stick!’

  Pacito closed the book, marking the page with a straw, and ran to do as he had been told. The Colonel fastened the baldric over his shirt, and stepped forward with a low bow. ‘Good-day, your Excellency,’ said he. ‘Pray pardon my disarray, but you have come without warning. Will you do me the honour of sharing my poor breakfast?’

  Don Alvaro fetched a deep sigh. He shut his eyes as if in prayer, then grasping his sword he screeched: ‘Long live the King! Death to all traitors!’

  Don Diego’s orderly, Juan de la Roca of the coloured ribbons, had crept behind the Colonel like a snake. Now he rose, seized him by the shirt collar, and crying ‘Long live Saint Joseph!’, stabbed him with a dagger in the mouth and the right breast; Sergeant Dimas, closing in from the other side, struck him with a Bohemian knife and left it sticking in his ribs. The negro started to his feet, intending to help his master, but Myn pushed him down and stood over him with his axe.

  ‘Oh, gentlemen!’ gasped the Colonel, his mouth cruelly gashed, and a red stain spreading fast on his fine cambric shirt. Horror and incredulity at so shameful an assault could be read in his eyes. His hand went slowly to his sword, but before he could draw, Captain Corzo was on him and nearly severed his right arm with a slashing blow of the wood-knife.

  He gave a great cry and sank to his knees. ‘Enough, enough!’ he moaned. ‘Send for the Chaplain!’

  ‘There is no time for that,’ said Don Lorenzo, smiling brutally. ‘Make a good act of contrition and have done!’

  As he lay writhing on the ground, his lips formed the prayer: ‘Jesus, Maria…’

  I stood as though petrified in horror, feeling a very Judas for my part in the vile business; when Leona Benitel, a good woman who had been washing for him at the spring, hastened up, pillowed his bloody head in her lap and helped him to die in peace. Stroking his forehead, she whispered: ‘Patience, my son! Christ in His mercy will forgive your sins and avenge you.’

  Don Diego, who was to have been a leader in the work of butchery, still hung back, but Captain Leyva, to show that he favoured the stronger side, drew his sword. ‘I will put this traitor out of his agony,’ he cried, and ran him through the heart. He shuddered and died, and Leona screamed: ‘May the wrath of God fall upon such cruel Captains!’

  Don Alvaro came up to apostrophize the corpse, which he did with such melancholy sorrow as I could not think forced or insincere: ‘Alas, poor madman; why did you tear up your Catholic commission and take service with Satan, dying too soon for repentance?’

  At his orders the Royal Standard was unfurled, the drum sounded, and he called out: ‘In the name of King Philip! Vengeance has overtaken Don Pedro Merino. Be warned by his fate! A general pardon is hereafter extended to all who were privy to his plot, if they will swear a new oath of fidelity.’

  Meanwhile, the Chief Pilot had gone to the guard-house, where Don Luis met him, saying: ‘Justice has been done.’

  ‘But the trial? There has not been time for a trial.’

  ‘He resisted arrest,’ was the answer.

  Hearing their voices, Tomás de Ampuero and Gil Mozo, his orderly, came out of their tent and asked what was afoot. ‘Nothing of interest to you,’ replied Don Luis, drawing his dagger and running at him. He aimed for the heart but, the Ensign throwing himself backward, he struck too high and the dagger lodged in his shoulder. ‘Me? What have I done?’ he
called out in pain and indignation.

  Don Luis drew his sword, but Pedro Fernandez courageously stepped between the two men, and asked: ‘What is this? Would you kill a man without provocation?’

  Gil Mozo had run off towards the beach and Don Tomás made for the Colonel’s house intending, I dare say, to take shelter with the Chaplain. All three Barretos were hard at his heels, but with his long stride he might have outdistanced them, had he not tripped over a tent-rope and fallen heavily. He was slow to rise, and Don Lorenzo lunged at him as he crouched on hands and knees. Now that the Ensign was mortally wounded, Don Diego plucked out the dagger and planted it squarely between his sagging shoulders.

  ‘Death to the Barretos!’ shouted Sergeant Gallardo, emerging from another tent, sword in hand, and making for Don Luis. Don Luis retreated, but Sergeant Dimas appearing suddenly, cried: ‘Come, traitor, and meet your doom!’

  ‘Traitor, is it?’ Gallardo replied in a fury. ‘If your cut-throats will allow me fair play, I shall spit that lie on the point of my blade, you damned coxcomb!’

  They were evenly matched and fenced savagely, forwards and backwards, with sword and dagger, until Gallardo’s sword broke and he fought on with the stump. He called for another, but nobody took pity on him, and presently Dimas ran him through the lungs; when he fell spouting blood, and expired unconfessed.

  The Drummer came up with the Colonel’s blood-stained clothes, the perquisite of his office, and asked: ‘Why, lads? Was this Gallardo another of the traitors?’ When they swore that he was, the rascal stripped the corpse to the buff and even wrenched the silver Saint Christopher from about its neck.

  As I left, to search for the Chief Pilot, my foot struck the point of the Sergeant’s sword, lying in the grass. I stooped and thrust it into my doublet, intending to mount it in a carved handle for use as a dagger; and when that night I examined the broken edge, I saw that it had been filed half-way through.

  I told Pedro Fernandez indignantly of the Colonel’s fate. ‘May his soul rest in peace,’ he said, as he crossed himself. ‘Murder was never Don Alvaro’s intention, I have his Lady’s word for that.’

  ‘Where are you going now?’ I asked.

  ‘Wherever I can save life.’

  Men were roving about the camp with drawn swords and howls of ‘Long live the King! Death to all traitors!’; now was the time to wipe out gambling debts, or settle old quarrels. I heard the names of Juarez and Matia shouted, and then some said: ‘Let’s be avenged on those card-sharping knaves at last; they were always loudest in the Colonel’s praise.’

  ‘Quick!’ said I to Pedro Fernandez. ‘To the veterans’ hut! The men who saved you from death two days ago are in danger.’

  We ran off together, to stand with our backs against their door. Up came the rabble, yelling ‘Make way, there! Death to all traitors!’, and a rough soldier scattered my papers in the mud. I rushed to retrieve them; but Pedro Fernandez would not budge, even when Don Lorenzo arrived and ordered him to be off.

  ‘These men are loyal,’ said the Chief Pilot, ‘and I am proud to own them as my friends. Have a care what you do!’

  ‘Kill them, kill the traitors!’ the cry went up.

  One man raised his arquebus, aiming at Pedro Fernandez, but another knocked it up. ‘Fool,’ said he, ‘if you kill the Chief Pilot, how shall we ever get home?’

  In the face of death, Pedro Fernandez took some almonds from his pocket and juggled with three of them, not letting one drop. ‘Hey pass!’ he sang out, like a mountebank. ‘Can anyone present keep four in the air? Hey pass! Hey pass! Look now, brave hearts! Hey pass!’

  The soldiers laughed against their will and cried ‘Olé!’ His calm disconcerted Don Lorenzo. ‘Come away from that door,’ he commanded, ‘if you would not die.’

  ‘Have a care,’ the Chief Pilot repeated, his eyes on the four almonds which were rising and falling like the waters of a fountain. ‘Don Alvaro has proclaimed a general pardon.’

  ‘Not for these rogues! Only Saint Peter and the Devil could save them from our vengeance!’ He drew his sword and advanced threateningly.

  Suddenly the door flew open and out rushed three women, one armed with a ladle, another with a broom, a third, half-naked, with a club in her hand, of the kind used by the natives for pounding yams. They set about the rabble with a will, screaming abuse at the tops of their voices, and drove them off. Don Lorenzo’s sword was sent whirling through the air, and Don Luis ignominiously felled with a smart blow of the yam-pestle. Yet such is the nature of women that they burst into tears so soon as victory was won, wringing their hands and tearing their hair. They mourned for Sergeant Gallardo as an honest gentleman, but also for the Ensign, complaining bitterly that love had undone him: which was the truth, since the Captain of Artillery’s friendship had been bought by the Barretos with a promise to kill his wife’s lover.

  Captain Corzo marched up with four men, decapitated the corpses and stuck the heads upon stakes outside the guard-house, as the General had given him leave to do. Don Diego had placed himself under the Royal Standard, as the position of greatest safety; and that other coward, the Major, anxious to gain the credit of having struck a blow or two for his King, strode off to the Colonel’s tent. There he found Pacito hugging Palmyrin to his breast and weeping, and the negro philosophically eating the unfinished breakfast. He drew his sword against the negro, who defended himself with the skillet and escaped; so he went for the page and dealt him a cut on the head, slicing the scalp. To Leona Benitel’s young son, who was helping her to lay out the Colonel’s corpse, he did the same, and then chased the boys towards the Standard, under the folds of which they took sanctuary. Don Alvaro thanked him for his zeal, but implored him to spare their lives.

  The long-boat was now seen approaching from the flagship, crammed with loyal sailors, all armed in one way or another. In the stern sheets stood the Vicar, as bellicose as any, with a rusty halberd in his hands. They scrambled ashore and the Boatswain’s mate, who was in command, exclaimed fervently: ‘We have come to die at our General’s side!’

  Don Alvaro smiled at them. ‘Welcome, honest Damian; welcome, reverend Father!’ he said. ‘But the flame of rebellion has already been snuffed.’

  ‘God be praised for that!’ Damian answered. ‘However, by your Excellency’s leave, we will stay until the foraging party returns.’

  Captain Corzo then rowed to the flagship to announce our victory to Doña Ysabel. Enlarging on the heroic part that he had taken in the subjugation of the Colonel, he brought her and Doña Mariana back and escorted them to the guard-house. The ladies’ appearance had a calming effect upon the men who, recognizing Doña Ysabel’s hand in the day’s business, greeted her with obsequious cheers. Don Alvaro ordered them to pile arms, and hurried forward to receive her congratulations.

  Federico, the most active of the true rebels, thought the moment opportune for sauntering out from the thicket where he had Iain in hiding. ‘What cheer, comrades!’ he remarked carelessly. ‘Has anything happened since I went away to cut amaranths?’ As no one paid him any attention, he slipped into the crowd and escaped arrest.

  Don Alvaro then kissed Father Juan’s cross and asked him to celebrate a mass of thanksgiving in the Church, which he was glad to do. The troops were paraded and marched off to brisk and merry music. The rest of us followed in no order. After the benediction, the good Father, ignorant of the vile circumstances in which the executions had taken place, mounted the pulpit and begged us not to be scandalized by what we had witnessed, since it was for the safety and well-being of all. ‘If thy right foot offend thee,’ he intoned, ‘cut it off; or if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out—thus Our Saviour bade us.’

  The troops fell in again and were dismissed outside the guard-house. The baggage of the victims was then brought to the Barretos, who divided the contents among themselves in truly fraternal love. Work was not resumed, the fatigue-men being allowed to roam idly about the camp until their dinner hour. Don Alvar
o remained praying in the Church and did not come to eat with us. For myself, I could not swallow a morsel.

  ***

  At about two o’clock a look-out on the knoll reported that the advance-guard of the Adjutant’s expedition, now on its way back, were approaching in two canoes. Don Alvaro was summoned and at once bade the trumpeter sound the Rally, so that the new arrivals should be given no warning of what had occurred; the three heads were also taken down from the stakes, and the Standard concealed.

  A sergeant marched up and saluted. ‘What is new, friend?’ asked Don Alvaro.

  He answered: ‘We have brought back three good pigs, your Excellency, and bad news of Malope.’

  ‘Three pigs? That is not much…. But what of Malope?’

  ‘He is dead.’

  ‘No, no! It cannot be. Oh, Father Juan, did you hear those words? And you had such good hopes for his conversion. Alas, the poor soul, summoned so hurriedly to his Maker!’

  ‘Hurriedly indeed, your Excellency!’ the Sergeant said in a grim voice. ‘One of our people murdered him!’

  ‘Ah, God help us! Who was the wretch? Who dared commit so foul a deed…’ He could not continue, for emotion.

  ‘It was Sebastian Lejia. We marched to the village, where Malope asked us to come to dinner in the assembly-house. We seated ourselves in a row and food was served, while the Adjutant and Malope’s son planned a raid upon Orchard Islet. We were laughing and talking in perfect amity when, without warning, Sebastian rose, thrust the muzzle of his piece against Malope’s right pap, and fired. He tumbled back, gurgling, and Salvador Aleman put him out of his misery by splitting his skull with an axe.’

  ‘Alas, the fault was mine!’ sobbed Don Alvaro. ‘I should have recalled the foraging party while I had the chance. What happened then?’

  ‘The savages shrieked and fled. Juan de Buitrago drew his sword and threatened Sebastian, who was defiantly recharging his arquebus. “That was the work of a devil, not a man!” the Ensign shouted at him, but he answered boldly: “I did right to kill the infidel. He was not trustworthy; only yesterday the Chief Pilot was forced to draw his dagger on him. Who else wants to die?” However, Captain Diego de Vera had him disarmed, trussed up, and put into a canoe under guard; my men are now bringing him here.’