Captains of the Sands

by Jorge Amado

  “You people are great…”

  Suddenly he asks with interest:

  “Is it true that Dry Gulch was one of you?”

  “We’ll get him out of jail someday…” is the Bullet’s reply.

  The student is half-startled. He takes a look around the warehouse, João de Adão makes a gesture as if reminding him, “Didn’t I tell you?”

  Pedro Bala wants to talk about the strike, find out what they want of him:

  “Is it for the strike that you need us?”

  “And if it is?” the student asks.

  “If it’s for helping the strikers my mind’s already made up. You can count on us…” He gets up, he looks like a young man, his face ready for the fight.

  “You don’t see…” João de Adão begins to explain.

  But he falls silent because the student is speaking:

  “The strike is proceeding in a very orderly way. We want to do things in orderly fashion because that way we’ll win and the workers will get their raises. We don’t want to start any trouble, we want to show that the workers are capable of discipline.” (“Too bad,” thinks Pedro Bala, who likes disturbances.) “But it so happens that the directors of the Company are hiring strike-breakers to go to work tomorrow. If the workers break up the groups of strike-breakers, they’ll give the police an excuse to intervene and everything will be lost…Then Comrade João de Adão thought about you people…”

  “Break up the strike-breakers? Such a thing,” Bullet says happily.

  The student thinks about the argument that evening at the organization. When João de Adão proposed calling in the Captains of the Sands, a lot of comrades declared themselves against it. They smiled at the idea. João de Adão only said:

  “You people don’t know the Captains of the Sands.”

  That statement, that confidence had impressed Alberto and a few others. Finally the idea won out, nothing would be lost in trying. Now he was glad he’d come. And in his head he was already planning how to make use of the Captains of the Sands. In all the things those hungry and poorly dressed boys could be of use. He remembered other examples, the anti-Fascist struggle in Italy, Lusso’s boys. He smiled at Pedro Bala. He explained the plan: the strike-breakers would come to the three large trolley yards before dawn to take over the cars. The Captains of the Sands had to split up into three groups, guard the entrances to the three yards. And, no matter what, prevent the strike-breakers from getting the streetcars moving. Pedro Bala nodded. He turned to João de Adão:

  “If Legless was alive, if Cat was only here…”

  Then he remembered the Professor:

  “Professor would have thought up a good plan in a minute…Then he would have sketched a picture of the fight. He’s in Rio now.”

  “Who’s he?” the student asks.

  “Somebody called João José, who we used to call Professor. He’s painting pictures in Rio now.”

  “He’s the painter João José?”

  “The very same,” Bullet says.

  “I’d always thought that story was made up. Do you know that he’s a good comrade?”

  “He always was a good comrade,” Pedro says forcefully.

  The student was making plans for the Captains of the Sands. Now Pedro Bala was waking them all up and telling them what they had to do. The student was enthusiastic over the urchin’s words. When he finished explaining, Bullet summed it all up in these words:

  “The strike is a festival for the poor. The poor people are all comrades, our comrades.”

  “You’re terrific,” the student said.

  “You’ll see how we’ll take care of those traitors.”

  He explained to Alberto:

  “I’ll go with one group to the main yard. Big João will take another. Outrigger will take a third one to the smaller yard. Nobody gets in. We know what to do. You’ll see…”

  “I’ll be there to see,” the student said. “So, at four in the morning?”

  “That’s right.”

  The student makes a gesture:

  “See you later, Comrades…”

  Comrades…A nice word, Pedro Bala thinks. Nobody sleeps at the warehouse anymore that night. They’re preparing the most diverse weaponry.

  In the breaking dawn the stars are beginning to disappear from the sky. But Pedro Bala seems to see Dora’s star in a falling star, which gladdens him. Comrade…She would have been a good comrade too. The word leaps into his mouth, it’s the prettiest word he’s ever heard. He’ll ask Good-Life to compose a samba about it, a samba for a black man to sing at night by the sea. They go as if to a festival. Armed with the most diverse weapons: switchblades, daggers, pieces of wood. They’re going to a festival, because the strike is the festival of the poor, Pedro Bala repeats to himself.

  At the foot of the Ladeira da Montanha, they divide into three groups. Big João heads one, Outrigger goes with another, the largest goes with Pedro Bala. They’re going to a festival. The first real festival these children have had. Even so, it’s a festival for men. But it’s a festival for the poor, poor people like them.

  The early morning is cold. At the corner of the yard, while Pedro Bala is placing the boys, Alberto comes over to him. Pedro turns, his face smiling. The student speaks:

  “There they come, Comrade.”

  “Wait and see.”

  Now it’s the student who’s smiling. He’s obviously enthusiastic over the boys. He’ll ask the organization to work with them. They’re going to do a lot of things together.

  The strike-breakers come along in a closed group. An American with a tight face is leading them. They all head for the entrance. Out of the shadows, from alleys, no one knows from where, like demons out of hell, the ragged boys emerge with weapons in their hands. Knives, switchblades, clubs. They take the gate. The strike-breakers stop. Then the demons attack, it’s one single blow. There are more of them than strike-breakers. The latter roll over from capoeira kicks, take a drubbing, some run away. Pedro Bala knocks down the American, with the help of another who punches him. The strike-breakers think they’re demons out of hell.

  The great, free guffaw of the Captains of the Sands resounds in the dawn. The strike hasn’t been broken.

  Big João and Outrigger are victorious too. The student laughs the guffaw of the Captains of the Sands with them.

  At the warehouse, to the joy of the boys, he says:

  “You’re the greatest bunch I’ve ever seen…”

  “Comrades, Comrades,” says João de Adão.

  The wind that passes says it, the voice in the heart of Pedro Bala says it. It’s like the music of a song sung by a black man:

  “Comrades.”

  THE DRUMS RESOUND LIKE TRUMPETS OF WAR

  After the strike is over, the student continues to come to the warehouse. He has long talks with Pedro Bala, transforms the Captains of the Sands into a shock brigade.

  One afternoon Pedro Bala is going along the Rua Chile, his cap over his eyes, whistling as he scuffs his feet on the ground. A voice exclaims:

  “Bullet!”

  He turns. Cat is standing elegantly before him. A pearl stick-pin in his tie, a ring on his little finger, blue suit, a felt hat creased drifter style:

  “Is that you, Cat?”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  They turn down an uncrowded street. Cat explains that he got in from Ilhéus a couple of days ago. That he’d picked up a chunk of money there. He’s a full-fledged man, all perfumed and elegant:

  “I almost didn’t recognize you…” Pedro Bala says. “What about Dalva?”

  “She took up with a colonel. But I’d already left her. Now I’ve got a terrific little dark girl…”

  “What about the big ring that Legless used to make fun of?”

  Cat laughs:

  “I pawned it off for five hundred on a colonel who had plenty…The clown swallowed it without a complaint…”

  They chat and laugh. Cat asks about the others. He says that h
e’s sailing for Aracaju the next day with his dark girl because sugar is bringing in money. Pedro Bala watches him go off in all his elegance. He thinks that if he’d stayed on a little longer in the warehouse maybe he wouldn’t have been a thief. He would have learned with Alberto, the student, what nobody knew how to teach them. What the Professor had kind of guessed at.

  The revolution calls Pedro Bala the way God called Lollipop at night in the warehouse. It’s a powerful voice inside him, as powerful as the voice of the sea, as the voice of the wind, as powerful as a voice without comparison. With the voice of a black man on a sloop singing the samba that Good-Life had composed:

  Comrades, the time has come…

  The voice calls him. A voice that makes him happy, that makes his heart beat. Helping change the destiny of all poor people. A voice that goes through the city, that seems to come from the drums that resound in the macumbas of the blacks’ illegal religion. A voice that goes with the sound of the streetcars with motormen and conductors. A voice that comes from the waterfront, from the docks, from the chest of stevedores, from João de Adão, from his father, dying in a rally, from sailors on ships, from sloopmen, from canoemen. A voice that comes from a group doing capoeira foot-fighting, that comes with the kicks that God’s-Love applies. A voice that even comes from Father José Pedro, a poor priest with fearful eyes as he sees the terrible destiny of the Captains of the Sands. A voice that comes from the filhas-de-santo, dancers of Don’Aninha’s candomblé on the night the police took Ogun away. A voice that comes from the warehouse of the Captains of the Sands. That comes from the Reformatory and the Orphanage. That comes from Legless’s hatred as he jumps from the elevator so as not to be taken. That comes on the Leste Brasileira train through the backlands, from Lampião’s gang, seeking justice for backlands people. That comes from Alberto, the student, asking for schools and freedom of culture. That comes from the Professor’s paintings, where ragged boys fight in the exhibition on the Rua Chile. That comes from Good-Life and the drifters of the city, from the belly of their guitars, from the sad sambas they sing. A voice that comes from all the poor, from the chest of all poor people. A voice that speaks a beautiful word of solidarity, of friendship: “Comrades.” A voice that invites everyone to the festival of the struggle. That’s like the happy samba of a black man, like the pounding drums in macumbas. A voice that brings memories of Dora, a brave fighter. A voice that calls Pedro Bala. Like the voice of God calling Lollipop, Legless’s voice of hate, like the voice of backlands people calling Dry Gulch to Lampião’s gang. A voice powerful like no other. Because it’s a voice that calls all to the struggle, to the destiny of all, without exception. A voice powerful like no other. A voice that crosses through the city and comes from all sides. A voice that brings a festival with it, that makes winter end out there and turn to spring. The springtime of the struggle. A voice that calls Pedro Bala, that brings him into the struggle. A voice that comes from all hungry chests in the city. A voice that brings the greatest good in the world, a good equal to the sunlight, even greater than the sunlight: freedom. The city on that spring day is dazzlingly beautiful. A woman’s voice sings the song of Bahia. The song of the beauty of Bahia. A city black and old, church bells, streets paved with stones. The song of Bahia that a woman sings. Inside Pedro Bala a voice calls him: a voice that joins the song of freedom to the song of Bahia. A powerful voice that calls him. A voice of the whole poor city of Bahia, a voice of freedom. The revolution calls Pedro Bala.

  Pedro Bala was accepted into the organization on the same day that Big João embarked as a sailor on a merchantman of the Lóide Line. On the pier he waves goodby to the black boy who is going off on his first trip. But it’s not a farewell like the ones he’d given those who left before. It’s no longer a gesture of goodby. It’s a gesture of greeting to the comrade who’s leaving:

  “Goodby, Comrade.”

  Now he commands a shock brigade made up of the Captains of the Sands. Their destiny has changed, everything is different now. They take part in rallies, in strikes, in workers’ struggles. Their destiny is different. The struggle has changed their destinies.

  Orders came to the organization from the highest quarters. Alberto was to stay with the Captains of the Sands and Pedro Bala was to organize the Bandit Indians of Aracaju into a shock brigade too. And after that he was to go on changing the destiny of other abandoned children in the country.

  Pedro Bala comes into the warehouse. Night had covered the city. The black man’s voice is singing at sea. Dora’s star is shining almost as brightly as the moon in the most beautiful sky in the world. Pedro Bala comes in, looks at the children. Outrigger comes along next to him, the little black boy is 15 years old now.

  Pedro Bala looks. They’re lying down, some already asleep, others are talking, smoking cigarettes, laughing the great guffaw of the Captains of the Sands. Bullet brings them all together, has Outrigger come over:

  “People, I’m going away now, I’m going to leave you. I’m going away, Outrigger is leader now. Alberto will still come to see you, do what he says. And everybody listen: Outrigger is leader now.”

  The black boy Outrigger speaks:

  “People, Pedro Bala is going away. Three cheers for Pedro Bala…”

  The fists of the Captains of the Sands are raised.

  “Bullet, Bullet,” they shout as a farewell.

  The shouts fill the night, drown out the voice of the black man singing on the sea, the sky trembles, as does Pedro Bala’s heart. Clenched fists of children who stand up. Mouths that shout a farewell to their leader: “Bullet, Bullet.”

  Outrigger stands before them all. He’s leader now. Pedro Bala seems to see Dry Gulch, Legless, Cat, Professor, Lollipop, Good-Life, Big João, and Dora, all at the same time among them. Now their destiny has changed. The voice of the black man on the sea is singing Good-Life’s samba:

  Comrades, let’s go into the fight…

  With their fists raised, the children salute Pedro Bala, who is leaving to change the destiny of other children. Outrigger shouts in front of them all, he’s the new leader now.

  From far off Pedro Bala can still see the Captains of the Sands. In the moonlight, in an old abandoned warehouse, they’re raising their arms. They’re on their feet, their destiny has changed.

  In the mysterious night of the macumbas the drums resound like trumpets of war.

  …A Homeland and a Family

  Years later, good newspapers, little newspapers, several of which existed illegally and were printed on clandestine presses, newspapers that circulated in factories, passed from hand to hand, and which were read by the light of a match, kept publishing news about a militant proletarian, Comrade Pedro Bala, who was sought by the police of five States as an organizer of strikes, as the director of illegal parties, as the dangerous enemy of the established order.

  In the year that all mouths were prevented from speaking, in the year that was one whole night of terror, those newspapers (the only mouths still speaking) demanded the freedom of Pedro Bala, the leader of his class, who was imprisoned in a penal colony.

  And the day he escaped, in numberless homes at the hour of their poor meal, faces lighted up when they heard the news. And in spite of the fact that the terror was out there, any one of those homes was a home that would be open for Pedro Bala, a fugitive from the police. Because the revolution is a homeland and a family.

  THE END

  In the house haunted by Doninha Quaresma (jugs and Doninha’s soul were buried there), now the Captain’s, in the peace of Estância, Sergipe, March 1937.

  On board the Rakuyo Maru, going up the coast of South America en route to Mexico, June 1937.

  Postface: The Bahian Novels

  With the publication of Captains of the Sands, I bring to a close the cycle of works that I call “The Bahian Novels.” They are six books in which I have tried to set down the life, the customs, the language of my State. In Carnival Country it is the restlessness of intellectual youth that
seeks its way at a moment of definition. Various critics who have written about my work, unfamiliar, naturally, with that first novel of mine, are accustomed to see it as a satirical book about Brazilian intellectuals who live as an offshoot of European literature, especially that of France. There is, however, not the slightest intent at satire in that novel. There does exist a desire to bring into focus a moment lived by the more or less intellectual or intellectualized youth of Brazil, a moment in which social and political currents were beginning to show and be defined. Cacao tried to give a glimpse of the life of workers on plantations in the south of Bahia, its richest region. Sweat exposes the most failed aspect of the State, creatures who have already lost everything and expect nothing more from life. I had the action of that novel take place in one of those strange tenements on the Ladeira do Pelourinho, and I did it with an aim: not only because I had met most of the characters in one of those tenements (where I lived), but as much because it seems to me that only in that environment could the novel and characters of the novel take on a tone of revolt in the face of their anguish and misery, and in that way, with some healthy pamphleteering, save the novel from the futility of reactionary pessimism or false mysticism. Jubiabá is the life of the black race in Brazil, a life of adventure and poetry. Sea of Death is a new vision of the life of the sailors of small sailing vessels on the waterfront of the state capital and the bay. And this book, Captains of the Sands, is the existence of abandoned children on the streets of the capital city who go off to the most diverse destinies, children who tomorrow will be the men who will possibly direct the fortunes of Bahia.

  I said above that I tried to set down the total life of my State. This was really an intention and I say so, even if it might be too ambitious for a young man less than 25 years of age to attempt what thus far no Brazilian writer has tried. Those writers never undertook an honest attempt to set down in novels the life, the picturesque qualities, the strange humanity of Bahia. Bahia is something mysterious and big, like India, or certain regions of Africa, or islands of the South Seas. That always escaped the few novelists who tried to write fiction with my State as the scene and its people as the characters. They stood before that fertile and strange humanity in a position of the most absolute lack of understanding. In their pockets they carried a standardized type of the hero of a novel (either an elegant and mannerly young man or an illiterate and oratorical backlands hero) and they never really tried to approach the people, never learned their customs except from some vague bits of information. There is no greater difference anywhere than between the Bahian figures in novels that have been written about my State and the real humanity of Bahia. In order to put these novels of mine (which may have many defects, but which have one quality: the absolute honesty of the author) together, I tried to seek out the people, I went to live with them, ever since my childhood on cacao plantations, my adolescence in cafés in the capital, my trips all through the State, crossing it in all manner of conveyances, listening to and seeing the most beautiful and strangest parts of Bahia’s humanity.