The Islands of Unwisdom

by Robert Graves

  Never before or since have I eaten in such disagreeable company. With Doña Mariana keeping her bed, there were no jokes, no raillery, and very little talk, except when Don Luis lamented that he dared not face his creditors in Peru and must perforce push his fortune in China or the Spice Islands; or when Don Diego found fault with the dinner—to which his sister always replied that if he ate a trifle less he would relish it the more. Occasionally, one of the Barretos let fall a spiteful remark, directed against the Chief Pilot, at which the Major and Ensign Torres would break into sycophantic laughter; but Captain Lopez, the Chief Pilot and I took our meals in silence.

  At last one morning, when I was in the Great Cabin, making an inventory of Doña Ysabel’s private stores at her dictation, Pedro Fernandez entered, looking glum and playing uneasily with the bonnet he held in his hands.

  ‘I am busy, Pilot,’ she said.

  ‘I must speak to your ladyship about the galeot,’ he said, staring straight ahead of him.

  ‘Pray address me as “Your Excellency.” What is amiss now?’

  ‘The San Felipe has been behaving strangely these last two days. She keeps away, and will not acknowledge our signals.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Three days ago, when her pilot came aboard to compare bearings, he saw that our mainmast was sprung. He must have told Captain Corzo that we are unlikely ever to reach the Philippines. If we were left disabled by the fall of our mast, do you see, he would be in honour bound to stand by and rescue us.’

  ‘Oh, is that how he shows his gratitude? Very well: wait for the galeot to come up, and hail her. Say: “Her Excellency’s orders: Captain Corzo is to keep position half a league astern, on pain of being declared a traitor.”’

  ‘And is that all?’

  ‘In God’s name! What more do you want, you great oaf, standing there with your mouth agape, sighing and twiddling your greasy cap? What in the world has come over you lately? Are you sickening for the fever, or have you fallen in love with that idle strumpet Pancha? Begone, man, before I lose my temper! Leave me to finish these accursed accounts. Andrés, how many jars of oil remain, did I say?’

  ‘Seventeen, your Excellency,’ I replied, ‘besides the one in current use.’

  ‘May I be permitted to have a word with you in private?’ Pedro Fernandez asked urgently.

  ‘No you may not. Andrés here is a very oyster for discretion. If you have something to say, out with it quickly, and then be gone.’

  He looked at her in dumb appeal, swallowed, bowed, and retired. Not long after, I heard him hail the San Felipe and deliver his message through cupped hands. When evening fell, Captain Corzo stood on another tack, and by morning was out of sight. The frigate still struggled along, on our port quarter, her present pilot being a common seaman who was unable either to read a chart or use a cross-staff, so that her one hope of survival lay in following our lead.

  We were beginning to feel the pinch of starvation: the biscuit and salt pork brought from Santa Cruz were now expended and the daily ration had been reduced to half a pound of mouldy flour and a gill of stinking water, full of drowned cockroaches. Our cook mixed the flour with sea-water and kneaded it into griddle-cakes, which he baked in the hot ashes. Soon ensued such trials that I can scarcely trust myself to write of them. Crimes were committed against nature, as when a grown man stole a pannikin of water from a dying child. Two sick soldiers and one woman went mad and had to be secured in irons howling and gibbering, lest they injured their neighbours.

  Doña Ysabel never ventured forward. An armed guard was posted to keep soldiers and crew from troubling her with petitions, and she had all the artillery, arquebuses and powder brought aft, so that if they attempted to mutiny, the people of the aftercastle would have the whip-hand of them. Everyone in the vessel was awarded the same ration, but she thought it advisable to give her guards and servants double. The Chief Pilot and I were shown small consideration. At the common table only the Barretos ate what they pleased: the rest of us were asked to pay famine prices for everything set before us. We were sold flour at six pesos a pound, and oil at twenty pesos a pint, Doña Ysabel either accepting cash or deducting payment from our ventures; but reckoning their worth at only one real to the peso. My modest venture of three hundred pesos and my arrears of pay, which amounted to another thirty, would not go far at this rate, but I was still in fair health and escaped the scurvy which, not long after we crossed the Line, began to show itself among the crew in ulcers on feet and legs. ‘Don Andrés can live on his fat like a bear in wintertime,’ jeered the Major.

  My death-ledger sprouted new crosses. Hardly a day now passed but a corpse or two was thrown overboard: in the month that began on Saint Lucia’s Day, we disposed of twenty-nine, including two young women and five children. The soldiers and settlers lived in indescribable filth, all pride, hope and affection gone, and the moan of ‘water, water!’ sounded everywhere. If I passed through the ship on an errand to the forecastle, men would loll out their swollen tongues, and point to them, like Dives appealing to Lazarus; and women with shrunken breasts would hold up for my pity little children that were wasted to mere anatomies. Alas, for Juanito, Don Alvaro’s nursling; he was a sturdy child and took long to die.

  Pedro Fernandez went about in a daze, doing what was required of him by force of habit, yet doing it well. He seemed now resigned to Doña Ysabel’s unrelieved cruelty as to something altogether inexplicable, and it was only when she discarded every pretence of charity and revealed herself under her true colours, that he knew how things stood between them: she had cast him off like an old shoe and her former protestations of enduring love proved utterly worthless and insincere. Yet he was slow to accommodate himself to the change and still tried to find excuses for her shameless avarice and neglect of Christian principles.

  Rigging and sails had now grown so rotten that the crew were unequal to the labour of splicing and sewing; carpenters, pages, negroes and all other available persons, except soldiers, were pressed into this necessary service. The bowsprit-pillow, loosened when in collision with the galeot some months before, now broke adrift almost entirely, hanging down to starboard and taking the bowsprit with it; so that the spritsail, with all its gear, fell into the sea, and none of it could be recovered. The mainstay carried away a second time, and our only means of keeping the mainmast in position was to improvise another stay: by using the remains of one of the hemp cables that had betrayed us at Gracious Bay and the back-stays, which Pedro Fernandez and the Boatswain’s mate unrove for the purpose. Not a yard but was canted downwards, owing to parted lifts and ties, and for three days or more, a sail might be seen left lying on deck because no one had either strength or heart to hoist it again with a rope that had been spliced three-and-thirty times. The Chief Pilot had the topsails and the mizzen unbent and used them to patch our two courses, which was all the sail we now carried. The ship was so open in her upper works, that when we sailed close-hauled, the water ran in and out, flooding the between-decks. Only the beams kept her afloat: they were of the excellent Peruvian timber called guatchapeli, which seems never to warp or rot.

  The wickedest man aboard was Don Diego, who ate and drank as freely as if he were a guest of the Viceroy’s; and the most virtuous by universal consent was Juan Leal the sick-attendant. This venerable old fellow himself caught the fever, but rose from his palliasse on the third day in order to minister to his companions. He bled them, cupped them, made their beds, emptied the night-buckets, and either coaxed them through the sickness by words of simple cheer, or helped them to a good death and piously committed their bodies to the deep. In Chile, thirty years before, he had been a soldier and still wore something of a martial air, despite his tunic of sack-cloth, his bare feet, and the ragged gray beard that swept to his waist. Nobody saw him sleeping and he seemed to live on air. The Purser conceived an admiration for Juan Leal and stole water and food from Doña Ysabel’s larder, which Matia and Juarez, who took turns to stand guard at the foot
of the companion-way, would convey to him for distribution to the sick. He did the same, at their insistence, for Doña Luisa; agreeing with them that it would be a pity should Juan de Buitrago leave no heir to his valiant and soldierly spirit.

  The wind blew from the north-east and kept in that quarter for a full month. We shipped a deal of water from being forced to sail on a bowline, and there was no remedy but to man the pumps for an hour at the beginning of every watch. To collect the men for this task and make them perform it called for much exertion on the officers’ part, even when double rations were promised as an incentive. Some slipped off and hid themselves; others defiantly refused to work; others, again, lay down and feigned sickness. They had to be thrashed into obedience.

  On the 16th of December, when we were in latitude three degrees South, the Chief Pilot went to Doña Ysabel and asked her in the name of Christian charity to relieve the dangerously sick; he had a list of some thirty men and women in his hand. She replied that she could spare no food, but he shot her so grim a look that she relented and undertook to find them a daily ration of pease-porridge helped out by a half-jar of honey and the scrapings from a lard-tub, while these lasted, and every afternoon a mug of water with a little sugar in it. But still we had not travelled more than a third of the way to the Philippines.

  On the following day, Captain de Vera closed with us, and as we drew abreast, shouted that the Ensign-Royal had leaped overboard in a fit of madness; also, that the ship was leaking like a sieve. He asked for a loan of three sailors to assist his crew, who were worn out by working at the pumps.

  The Boatswain’s watch were sent aboard the frigate to keep her dry while the master-carpenter found and plugged the leaks; but he reported that not all the shipwrights in Old Spain could do anything for her, she being so worn out that he could poke his finger through either of her sides as easily as through cheese. Pedro Fernandez then begged the Governeress to abandon the Santa Catalina and take off her crew, with all the stores and gear. She gave him a plain ‘no!’ for answer, without an explanation or excuse, and dismissed him. After she had time to reconsider the matter, he went to her again and informed her that the frigate was doomed; and that with ten more seamen, an extra sail and more cordage, the flagship would have better hopes of reaching Manila. ‘No!’ she repeated, this time adding: ‘I do not trust Captain de Vera: he was in the plot to murder me and I cannot conceive why my husband spared him. Doubtless, he murdered the Ensign-Royal because he would not take part in a new attempt on my life.’

  The truth was that she feared to bring Don Alvaro’s corpse aboard, yet dared not let it remain in an abandoned ship. So the Chief Pilot went to call upon Captain de Vera, and told him: ‘I have pleaded with Doña Ysabel to find room for you and your men in the San Geronimo, but she distrusts you. Why not approach her yourself? If you stay on, that will be the end of you.’

  ‘My friend,’ said Captain de Vera, ‘only one thing prevents me from following your advice: namely my honour. I would rather be sucked down into the abyss than ask the least favour of that she-wolf, that witch, that murderess, or even be found in the same vessel with her.’

  ‘Those are intemperate words, my lord. However, if you are too proud to plead, bring your people aboard at midnight, with what stores and gear you can assemble. We shall welcome you like brothers, and Doña Ysabel will never dare to send you back.’

  ‘Pilot, you have my gratitude for your good offices; but I know her better than you do. A woman who found it in her heart to kill her own husband by playing on his superstitious fears will have little pity on me. If I am to board the San Geronimo, I must come either armed, and throw her and her brothers into the sea—for which I should have to hang in Manila—or else unarmed, and suffer a like fate here and now. No, I prefer to stay where I am; the frigate may yet make port, or we may escape in the skiff to some island.’

  A little before dawn we lost sight of the Santa Catalina’s lantern, though the air was clear, whereupon the Chief Pilot eased off the sheets and waited for her to come up. Don Diego raised a furious outcry: this was no time to delay the navigation, and unless the frigate had passed us by during the night, she was away on a tack of her own. Upon Pedro Fernandez’s declaring that it would be a crime to abandon a sister-ship on the high seas without a capable pilot to guide her, he answered that now it was God for all, every man for himself and let the Devil take the hindmost. Towards evening the Governeress gave the order to make sail again, which could not be disobeyed.

  ***

  Memories of her husband’s fate revived in Doña Mariana’s heart as she lay dying, and though she had been avenged on Don Alvaro for the part he had played in it, she now saw the history of the quarrel in a different light. Doña Ysabel must have feared that at Don Alvaro’s death the Admiral would succeed to the Captaincy-General and Governorship of the Isles and that his children would eventually inherit the Marquisate—a misfortune which she was determined to forestall; she had therefore persuaded Don Alvaro to bind him for a while with the chains of marital chastity, and in the meantime plotted against his life. Thus, even if Don Lope had not dallied with the Sergeant’s wife, he would before long have been either murdered or executed on a trumpery charge, to prevent the consummation of his marriage. Perhaps he had been warned of this by Father Juan, who could be shrewd enough when it pleased him, and therefore sailed off on his own as soon as Santa Cruz came in view. ‘What a generous fool I have been!’ Doña Mariana sighed, ‘first to play pander in Ysabel’s seduction of the Chief Pilot, then to help her into widowhood, and now to keep silence while she is got with a posthumous but legitimate child! The Virgin grant that it may be a girl, and crooked at that!’

  She confided these thoughts to Pancha, who was now her maid (Inez having died), and promised to bequeath her a golden necklace if she would give a message to the Chief Pilot. He was to be told the reason for his recent ill-treatment, namely that Doña Ysabel, being now with child, had no further need of his amatory services; also that the tale of his wife’s death was a fiction, derived from information which he had himself volunteered on the day we left Paita and that, for all that was known, Doña Ana might be safe and well. He would be handed a sealed letter a week after his arrival at Manila, the existence of which would meanwhile provide for his safety, if he did as he was instructed, etc., etc.

  I wrote Doña Mariana’s Will at her dictation and two of the pages witnessed it. Apart from the necklace for Pancha, a reward for faithful nursing, and two hundred pesos in silver to provide masses for her soul, she left all she possessed to Don Fernando de Castro, a nephew of her first husband’s, who was at present stationed in the Philippines, and also made him her executor; no Barreto benefited under her Will or received the least mention. She was wasted to a thread, and no longer had hopes of recovery, but did not seem disconsolate at the prospect of death. She passed away early next morning, without a prayer or a complaint, only Pancha and I being at her bedside. When I brought the news to Doña Ysabel, she asked to read the Will, which I had with me; after perusing it, she remarked that her poor sister’s wits had been addled for many weeks, and handed it back to me with a melancholy shake of her head.

  Chapter 23

  HUNGER AND THIRST

  On the 23rd of December, while on a nor’-nor’-westerly course, we sighted an island some three leagues off, towards which we steered in search of a harbour and provisions but, the wind suddenly dropping, were unable to reach it before dark. Although the sea appeared to be clear of reefs, the Chief Pilot refused to hazard the ship by too close an approach, and ordered her to be put about. The seamen pressed him to sail on, pleading they were in no condition to perform the least unnecessary task; but the Boatswain and his mate agreed on the wisdom of standing off until daybreak, and between the three of them they put the helm down, let go the foresheet, and about we went.

  At dawn we stood in to our position of the night before, and a look-out was sent aloft; who cried in alarm from the masthead that he cou
ld see nothing but reefs to the north, west and south as far as the horizon. We had entered a vast trap, baited with the island, and saw little prospect of escape: the only opening was to the east, but the wind blew north-easterly and we possessed no after-sails with which to clear the point of the reef by working to windward. However, a few of the sailors, aware of our peril, bestirred themselves, while Damian took the helm and slowly wore the ship round at Pedro Fernandez’s orders. She had so little way on her that, cleverly as the sails were managed, we doubted whether she would ever get free. It was three o’clock before we made open water again, and the reef had been close enough for us to distinguish the smallest crabs scuttling about on its coral. Pedro Fernandez gave credit for our salvation to Saint Anthony of Padua, to whose shrine he had vowed a pilgrimage if he should ever escape with his life.

  When the islanders saw that we did not intend to visit them after all, they came out in canoes to expostulate; but by this time the reef lay between. They mounted upon it with sorrowful shouts and gestures, from which we understood that they had already prepared us a feast and that we must not disappoint them by leaving it untasted. All were men: naked and robust, with long, loose hair. One canoe doubled the reef; its single occupant yelled, pointed at the island, and held up coconuts and a sort of bread which he made a pretence of eating. When we beckoned him to come aboard, he declined and hung back; upon which Don Diego, for sport, shot at him with an arquebus, but missed. This island, which we did not trouble to name, lies in six degrees North, and seems to have a circuit of about thirty leagues; it is low, round and densely wooded, but we made out clearings and cultivated patches. Pedro Fernandez took it to be one of the large and scattered group which the Portuguese call the Barbudos, meaning ‘The Islands of the Bearded Men.’ That evening the look-out reported four islands to westward and a number of isolated rocks, some to port, some to starboard, some ahead; but we put our trust in God and continued on our course. So passed Christmas Eve of the year 1595.