by Tim Severin
Stolck was cursing steadily as he tried to reload his empty musket. He tugged a cartridge from his bandolier, ripped open the paper with his teeth and tipped the powder down the barrel. He screwed up the empty paper and dropped it after the gunpowder. He was about to follow with a musket ball from the bag hanging at his waist, when a sling stone struck him on the head. His knees gave way and he pitched backwards, stunned.
Hector ran to pick up the musket. Dan was shouting and pointing at the cliff face. A file of islanders was scrambling downwards. Six or seven naked men armed with spears came bounding from rock to rock, as agile as goats. Before Hector could reach the gun, the first of them had leaped down, landed on the pebbles and dashed forward, his spear aimed at Dan.
Hector dithered. He did not know whether to help Jezreel, still locked in his fierce struggle with the big stranger, or to go to Dan, who had turned to face his attacker.
He heard running feet behind him, and a moment later Hector felt someone leap upon his back. He lost his footing and toppled forward, tried to twist free, but the arms that had clamped themselves around him were locked tight. He hit the ground with a thump. As a hand roughly pushed his face into the pebbles, he could smell the reek of coconut oil and feel the bite of rough cord as someone tied his wrists behind him. He lay still, winded and helpless.
The sounds of fighting continued. He raised his head and saw that Jacques had also been tied up. Stolck lay on the ground, guarded by another of the natives. Three spearmen had cornered Dan against the foot of the cliff. One of the attackers was bleeding from a shoulder wound, and Dan had somehow found himself a knife. He stood with his back against the rock, the blade in his hand. Jezreel was still locked in combat. He’d risen to one knee and had pinned down his assailant, and was trying to throttle him, though his hands were slipping on the oily skin. Even as Hector watched, three more of the natives, all big strong men, flung themselves on Jezreel and pulled him off his victim. There was a warning shout in their unknown language, and the point of a spear was held to Jezreel’s throat. He stopped struggling and glared at his attackers.
Jezreel’s adversary, the first of the natives to appear, rose to his feet. His right eye was puffed up where Jezreel must have butted him, and he nursed his throat where Jezreel had got a grip. Otherwise the stranger seemed remarkably composed. He looked across to where his companions had cornered Dan and spoke sharply. The three men stepped back a pace, though they did not lower their spears. He was clearly their commander.
He turned towards Hector, who had been allowed to stand. ‘Tell your friend to drop his knife,’ he said.
Hector gaped. The stark-naked warrior had addressed him in flawless, slightly accented Spanish.
‘Dan, put down the knife,’ Hector called.
Dan did as he was asked, and the leader of the war party issued what seemed like a stream of orders as his followers began to herd their captives together.
‘We were tricked,’ complained Jacques, shaking his head. ‘That whoreson knew exactly what a musket was.’
‘There was no need to attack us,’ Hector said to the big man. ‘We came in friendship.’
‘No white person is our friend,’ retorted the Chamorro crisply.
‘You’re wrong,’ Hector insisted. ‘You see that ship out there? It has come to attack the Spanish, and the captain and crew need your help.’
‘They seem to have changed their minds,’ said the Chamorro. The sarcasm in his tone made Hector turn around and look out to sea. The Nicholas was making sail. As he watched, the fore and main topsails unfolded from their yards. He could just make out the figures on deck as the crew sheeted home the canvas. Gradually the Nicholas began to turn and take the wind on her quarter. Someone was lowering the blue and white French ensign from the mizzen peak. It was clear that Eaton had changed his mind. He must have witnessed the scuffle on the beach, seen the capture of the landing party and decided to abandon his scheme.
The Nicholas sailed off, leaving the landing party to their fate.
Stolck gazed after the departing ship. Still groggy from the blow on his head, his blue eyes bulged with rage and disappointment. ‘God vervloekte bastaarden,’ he mumbled under his breath.
The big Chamorro looked around the group of prisoners. ‘Which of you is the chief man?’
‘I can speak for them,’ said Hector.
‘We go to my village. There the council will decide what is to be done with you.’
‘Who are you?’ asked Hector.
‘My name is Ma’pang and I am a Chamorro.’
‘I thought you were all Chamorro.’
The big man gave a sardonic grunt. ‘That shows how little the guirragos – the white men – understand us. The Chamorro are a class, the chiefs, the people who rule.’ He examined Hector quizzically. He did not appear particularly hostile. ‘If you are an enemy of the Spanish, how is it that you speak the language so well?’
Hector felt bold enough to say, ‘I might ask you the same question.’
‘The missionaries taught me, until I decided to run away and come back to live among my own people.’
‘My mother was Spanish, but my father came from another nation,’ explained Hector.
Ma’pang looked surprised. ‘If we marry outside the clan, we only do so with a clan that is an ally.’
There was something about the big man that encouraged Hector to be frank. ‘I did not come here to fight the Spaniards, but to find one of their women.’
‘You would marry her?’
‘If she would agree.’
Ma’pang shook his head in astonishment. ‘That is even more remarkable.’
IT TOOK TWO HOURS of hard marching to reach the Chamorro village. Their captors loosened the bonds to make it easier to climb up the cliff path, and they eventually removed the ropes altogether, once Ma’pang had pointed out that escape was useless as there was nowhere to go. In hot sunshine they followed narrow, dusty footpaths across ridges covered with sawgrass and small bushes, and by mid-afternoon they descended into a thickly wooded ravine. Faintly, in the distance, Hector heard the shouts of children playing, and after another few hundred yards the travellers emerged into what was evidently the main thoroughfare of the settlement. It was a peaceful domestic scene of dogs dozing in the sun, chickens scratching in the dirt, and children running excitedly to call their friends to see the strangers. There were about thirty houses neatly built of bamboo and wooden poles, their steeply pitched roofs thatched with palm leaves. Before each dwelling stood a large, flat-topped boulder with a hollow scooped into the surface. At one of them a robust woman was husking rice with a pestle, a toddler beside her. She laid down the pestle and stood to watch them pass. Jacques sucked in his breath in appreciation. Apart from a tiny strip of bark cloth between her legs, the woman was naked. Broad shoulders, deep full breasts and swelling hips made her statuesquely beautiful. Even more striking was her mane of luxuriant, thick hair, which reached to her thighs.
Ma’pang chuckled at the Frenchman’s reaction. ‘We think that the guirragos look stupid and ridiculous dressed in their clothes.’
‘But what about her hair?’ asked Hector, trying not to stare. The woman’s hair was near-blonde.
‘Even if they don’t wear clothes, our women still want to be attractive,’ Ma’pang replied. ‘Those who wish to, colour their hair with lime.’
Followed by a swarm of gawking, giggling children, they arrived before a massive, barn-like building. It was raised ten feet off the ground on mushroom-shaped stone pillars.
‘This is the uritao, the house for the unmarried men. You will stay here until the council decides what is to be done with you,’ said Ma’pang.
They climbed a bamboo ladder and found themselves in a long, cool, high-ceilinged shed smelling pleasantly of palm thatch. Neatly fashioned windows gave light and air. The floor was of massive timber planks lashed in place with coir, the surface worn smooth by feet. The place was spotlessly clean. Mattresses of palm matting s
tuffed with dried coconut fibre had been laid against one wall. ‘The council likes to discuss matters at length before it reaches a decision,’ explained Ma’pang. ‘So you should make yourselves comfortable.’
Jacques sank down on one of the mattresses with a sigh. ‘Hector, this is better than being on a ship,’ he announced. ‘All I need now is for one of the village girls to bring me a glass of wine.’
OVER THE NEXT WEEK they found it increasingly difficult to remember they were prisoners. Hector presumed that Ma’pang had persuaded his clan that their captives were enemies of the Spanish, for the five men were permitted to wander freely about the village by day. Naturally the children followed them everywhere, pulling faces and pretending to be scared, but their parents got on with the routine of their daily lives. In the cool of the morning the women walked to the nearby plantations and gardens. There they tended small plots of taro and yam, weeded sugar cane, cleared the ground around their banana trees and gathered breadfruit, until it was time to come back and prepare the afternoon meal. The men and older boys set out in the opposite direction. They took the footpath leading down the valley to the beach. Dan asked if he might go with them and discovered that it was less than ten minutes to the spot where they kept their fishing canoes.
‘There are some things that even the Miskito could learn from them,’ he said when he returned at dusk, carrying a string of flying fish for supper. ‘They make miniature canoes for the young ones. Some of the boys are only six or seven years old. Yet they go out fishing on their own. They keep inshore, of course, under the eye of the older men. But the boys bring back a share of the catch.’
‘Did you show them how to strike fish?’ asked Jezreel.
‘They do not have the right equipment for it,’ answered the Miskito. ‘Their tridents are tipped with bone or sharp wood. I think iron is too precious to risk losing at sea. Besides, they do very well with these . . .’ He held up a beautifully crafted fish hook made from carved shell. ‘One of the older men gave me this. I think he thought I brought him luck. He came back with a tuna that must weigh at least twenty pounds.’
He was interrupted by the arrival of Ma’pang. The big islander came each evening to the uritao to report on the long-drawn-out deliberations of the village council. His broad, dark face was solemn as he squatted down beside the five foreigners.
‘The council talk and talk, but reach no conclusion,’ he said.
‘What would you have them do?’ asked Hector.
‘Have the courage to make the Spaniards leave us alone, so that we can continue with our own ways and customs.’ Ma’pang was chewing betel. He shifted the wad from one cheek to the other.
‘Is that why you took us alive, when you could have killed us?’
Ma’pang gave the young man a sharp glance. ‘You know what I had in mind?’
‘You wanted us as hostages.’
Ma’pang nodded. ‘The Spanish keep some of our chief men locked up in their fort as a guarantee for our good behaviour. I hoped to have the prisoners released in exchange for your return.’
‘And what does the council say, now they know we’re valueless?’ Hector could see fierce determination in Ma’pang’s eyes.
‘I’ve suggested that we gather other clans, storm the fort and free the prisoners while the Governor is away.’
For one brief moment Hector imagined a horde of naked, yelling warriors swarming into the Presidio and ransacking it, while he searched for Maria in the confusion, and then the two of them escaping together. ‘What did the council say?’
Ma’pang’s reply crushed his hopes. ‘They reminded me that five years ago four hundred warriors, more than we could hope to assemble nowadays, tried to take the fort. They were driven off, with heavy loss, by the same Spanish commander who is in charge now. A brave man.’
Dan had been following the conversation, and now he asked quietly, ‘Could we not get into the fort secretly and release the prisoners? Jacques says the garrison guards are very slack.’
The Chamorro smiled wryly, his blood-red gums showing. ‘Even if we succeeded in climbing the walls, we would never manage to enter the cells. They are locked, and the prisoners are shackled. We have no experience of dealing with such things.’
It was true, Hector thought to himself. There were no doors to the houses in the Chamorro village and therefore no locks or fastenings. Nothing was ever hidden or guarded; everything was left lying about in the open and was treated as common property. If someone needed an item, he or she simply picked it up and used it.
‘Ma’pang,’ he said earnestly. ‘If you can arrange to get myself and Jacques and Dan into the fort, we can deal with the locks and chains. Jacques knows all about padlocks and how to open them. But in return you must help me contact the young woman I told you about.’
‘The one you would marry?’
‘She lives in the Governor’s quarters. I need to find her and talk to her, and if she agrees, I want her to come away with me.’
Ma’pang’s heavy eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘You think she would agree?’
‘I’ll not know until I ask. Do you think the council will consent to such a plan?’
‘They don’t have to,’ Ma’pang answered without a moment’s hesitation. ‘There are six or seven men who would help me. The same ones who captured you on the beach that day.’
‘And how will we get to Aganah?’
Ma’pang rose to his feet. ‘Two galaide layak can sail across the straits under cover of darkness, and land us a few miles to the north of the town, without being seen. From there we march overland.’
TWELVE
INCH BY INCH Dan raised his head. He was crouched in the sawgrass on the hillside above Aganah. Below him lay the untidy sprawl of the native town and, beyond that, the rectangular block of the Spanish Presidio. He faced down into the valley, held his breath and opened his mouth. He kept totally still, for that was how his father had taught him to listen when scouting. It had been part of his training for slaving raids on the inland villages where the Miskito kidnapped their servants and concubines. Dan could still remember the excitement of his first raid: the cautious river journey by canoe, a landing well short of the target village, the silent march through the jungle, the lone scout sent ahead to examine the best line of attack.
Now he assessed Aganah in the same way. He’d been at his vantage point since first light, watching the houses, counting the number of people moving about, noting where they were going and how soon they returned, gauging the best route to reach the walls of the Presidio without raising the alarm. Tonight there was no moon, and if the sentries were as incompetent as Jacques had reported, it was unlikely they’d spot the raiders approaching the wall. The real risk of discovery would come sooner, while crossing the town itself. If the local residents were disturbed, the raid would be a disaster. That was why he listened so carefully, ignoring the background whisper of the breeze through the tall grass around him and the buzz and scratchy chirps of insects in the warm early afternoon. He picked up snatches of voices from below, indistinct and very faint, the thumping sound of someone chopping or pounding, the cry of a baby. For a moment he was startled by a long, hollow moan. Then he recalled hearing that the Spaniards had brought water buffalo from the Philippines as draught animals and for milk. But it wasn’t the water buffalo that concerned Dan, or the handful of imported horses, which had so terrified the Chamorro, who thought of them as outlandish monsters. Dan was listening for dogs.
They were the real guardians of the settlement, and as yet Dan hadn’t seen any. A single cur, awoken during the night and barking loudly, would wreck the entire plan.
Dan resumed breathing. At the back of his throat was the faint taste of wood smoke from the cooking fires in the houses below. He eased himself down into the grass, and crawled to where Hector and the others were waiting.
As he slithered through the long grass, Dan thought of Ma’pang and his clan. He feared they would suffer the same fate as the
native peoples of Peru and New Spain, when the confident pale-skinned strangers had insisted they worship a different god and adopt new and alien ways. Unless the Chamorro followed the example of his own people, the Miskito, they would lose both their lands and their identity. They needed to arm themselves with the white man’s weapons, and draw so much blood they would always be left alone.
Once the Chamorro had their hands on enough firearms, Dan knew they’d quickly learn to look after them, as well as use them. For the raid, Jacques had drawn sketches of a set of pick-locks that he required if he was to open the door to the prison where the hostages were kept. Within half a day the Chamorro fishermen had fashioned a dozen hooked and curved tools of different thicknesses, lengths and shapes. They had made them from bone and shell and sticks of close-grained hardwood. When Jacques had decided the tools were strong enough for the prison doors, but might snap in the heavy fetter padlocks, Ma’pang had produced the bronze cross he’d been given by the missionaries. A Chamorro craftsman had reshaped it into exactly the stout pick-lock the Frenchman specified.
Dan smiled to himself, amused at the thought that the symbol of the foreigners would be used to free their captives.
He reached the clearing where Hector and the others waited. There were just five of them altogether: Jacques, Jezreel, Ma’pang, Hector and himself. Stolck had stayed aboard the galaide layak that had delivered them under cover of darkness to a sheltered bay on the northern side of the island, and would return the following evening to collect them.
‘The north wall of the fort is the best place to climb in,’ Dan said. ‘It is farthest from the watchtower where the night sentry might be. There are also huts on that side of the town, which seem to be storehouses rather than homes. They should give us some cover.’