by John Regan
Chapter 9
Fair weather held as the fleet sailed southwards with low hills and sandy beaches on one side, blue sea on the other and black and white dolphins leading the way. If only they could take us to El Paso, Pigafetta mused. The captain general investigated every likely inlet without putting his ships in peril. He promoted Santiago to the vanguard. With her shallow draft she could warn the bigger ships of shoals, while manoeuvrable enough to avoid them herself. The caravela latina, with John Serrano in command, was a valuable asset. Victoria, with Mendoza as captain, Concepción, with Quesada as captain and Cartagena as disgruntled supernumerary, were merely hindrances. Magellan was counting on their pilots to keep them out of trouble. San Antonio’s pilot was Gomez, transferred from Trinidad with the dismissal of Cartagena. He was a competent navigator but nursed a grudge because he had been refused command of a similar armada. Gomez would bear watching.
Pigafetta pieced the gossip together from remarks by the captain general and others. All this intrigue reminded him of the Vatican and the court in Valladolid. The sense of outrage came down to elevated levels of self-importance, especially in the case of Castilians like Cartagena, masquerading under the euphemism ‘honour.’ Talk of honour was akin to talk of treason or heresy in Pigafetta’s view, and just as empty, but by appointing Alvaro de Mesquita captain of San Antonio, the captain general had sowed the seeds of further discontent. Mesquita was not only Portuguese but, to make it worse, Magellan’s cousin. Pigafetta perfectly understood Cartagena’s outrage over such nepotism as practiced by his own father, Bishop Fonseca. It was just stupid, that’s all.
First task, as the captain general explained, was to dispose of the speculation by Juan de Solis before he became dinner that the large bay south of Cabo de Santa Maria could be El Paso. Magellan did not believe it was El Paso but he needed to prove it to the Casa de Contratación and his own captains.
The evidence began mounting almost as soon as the fleet rounded Cabo de Santa Maria and the water gradually changed from blue to brown. It also became shallower as they penetrated the bay, and less salty. In depths of about three fathoms, right at the very edge of the known world, the captain general signalled the fleet to anchor at nightfall. The breeze was light, the sky clear, the stars brilliant and a scent of pine wafted off the land. Much to Pigafetta’s relief, there seemed little danger of falling over the edge.
Next morning, a large canoe came away from the shore with a man dressed in animal skins standing erect among his paddlers. Given this was cannibal country, the captain general ordered his men and the other ships to arms. By the time the canoe arrived alongside, men lined the bulwark with arquebuses, crossbows, pikes and halberds ready to fight them off. The chief of the Indians showed no sign of fear but signalled that he wished to come aboard. Magellan was prepared to let one of them aboard but warned his men to keep watch over those remaining in the canoe. It could be a trick.
The man was huge and well-proportioned, with an olive complexion and no beard, wearing his animal skins like priestly robes. He subjected the ship, the crew, the captain general and Pigafetta to a leisurely inspection. In response to the captain general’s greeting, he merely grunted. The conversation was clearly not going to be smooth.
The armada was well-stocked with trinkets, bells, caps, mirrors and toys for bartering with native populations. Magellan instructed a deck boy to fetch an iron hook from the bosun’s store, which he presented to the chief with ceremony.
The Guarani in Rio had been so keen on iron objects they would steal them but this chief merely glanced at the hook and then secreted it within his robes. With a last look around the ship and the armed men lining the bulwark, he climbed over the side down into his canoe and paddled away.
The captain general had been hoping to begin trade with the iron hook. The local natives could supply fresh food and fish and perhaps information about El Paso. He wondered aloud if the chief’s indifference meant they were advanced enough to make iron objects themselves or merely indicated previous contact with Europeans.
He ordered three longboats prepared and manned with men-at-arms. Their mission was to locate the native village and obtain fresh food – pigs, fowl, bananas, pineapples. There were 260 hungry men aboard the five ships and feeding them was one of the captain general’s main concerns.
“Remember Solis,” he warned them on departure. “They likely have poison darts and blow pipes.”
The boats returned after several hours with a load of fresh food. They had met no opposition. The natives had run away at great speed; impossible to catch them. How different from the people of Rio, Pigafetta noted. What had Solis done to make them angry enough to eat him? Stolen their food?
The captain general was determined to explore upstream and shifted aboard the little Santiago with his astrolabe and ampoletta, or sandglass clock. He set sail westwards sounding the depths and testing the water for fresh, leaving behind an anxious crew aboard Trinidad. If anything were to happen to the captain general it would be a calamity for the armada, Pigafetta realised.
He was gone two days and returned in high spirits, to a chorus of questions from the ship’s people.
“Did you find it, Captain General?”
“No. This is definitely not El Paso. It’s a river. Actually, it’s two rivers, and one day we need to explore those rivers, but that is not our purpose now. We shall move on tomorrow.”
Pigafetta followed him to the main cabin wondering why he seemed so cheerful about failure.
“Did you find any signs of El Paso, Captain General?”
“No. What I found was the Dragon’s Tail.”
This was the fourth time in nearly two years that Pigafetta had seen Magellan smile. He was keeping count.
“What is the Dragon’s Tail?”
Magellan opened the chart cabinet, shuffled through the pile and withdrew a chart that Pigafetta had not seen before. He spread it on the table. It looked like Ptolemy’s map of the world familiar from school days but, looking closer, Pigafetta noticed differences.
“This is a map by someone called Martellus. It was made a few years before Columbus is supposed to have discovered the New World. There is an even older map, about seventy years old that is very similar except it’s upside down. I don’t have a copy of that but Faleiro had one. You can see four main peninsulas here – Africa, India, The Golden Chersonese, which is Malacca, or Sinus Minor, and China, which is Cathay or Sinus Major, also called the Dragon’s Tail.”
With a stretch of the imagination, Pigafetta could just about recognise the map depicting a dragon with Spain as its head, the fourth peninsula as its tail, Africa, India and Malacca as legs.
“Columbus went to his grave thinking he had discovered China and the Earthly Paradise, the Garden of Eden. He was wrong on both counts. He got the idea of the Earthly Paradise from the old map by Walsperger, who was a German monk. They were all German monks drawing these maps. Walsperger drew the Earthly Paradise as a big castle or palace, here.”
Magellan stabbed his finger at a point that would approximately coincide with the dragon’s anus.
“The castle sits at the mouth of a river. On his third voyage, Columbus discovered a big river, which the natives call Orinoco, and the land around there is lush with great forests and fruit and birds and fish and strange animals, what you might call an Earthly Paradise. Columbus wrote a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella saying he had discovered a great river flowing out of Paradise. He thought that proved he had reached Cathay and everyone else thought he was mad. He thought the castle was the mapmaker’s way of representing Paradise, and in a sense, he was correct, but the Paradise in question was actually the city of Xanadu and the castle belonged to Kublai Khan, as described by Marco Polo. I believe Polo brought a map of the world back from China with him and it was reproduced by Walsperger, probably with additions. The castle on Walsperger’s map is the city of Xanadu, a pleasure dome, or garden of earthly delights.”
Pigafetta was f
labbergasted and stared at the captain general, who was just warming up.
“I believe the Chinese know all about the New World, and they base their cosmography on the city of Kublai Khan, just as we base our Alfonsine Tables on Cadiz. The Chinese had a great admiral called Cheng Ho, who sailed to India and Africa long before Dias and da Gama. He had no German monks to make his charts, so the Chinese must have made their own. I have seen some of them. Unfortunately, they are incomprehensible, especially in regard to longitude, but someone produced Walsperger’s map, not necessarily Walsperger, which put the Earthly Paradise at Xanadu. To understand Walsperger’s map we need to be able to draw a straight line through Xanadu, which was, and probably still is, the Chinese prime meridian.
“What is the prime meridian, Captain General?”
“It is the line of demarcation from which we measure longitude and time. It has nothing to do with the pope, so popes have nothing to do with the measurement of longitude or of time, neither the calendar nor the clock; neither in this life nor the life hereafter. The measurement of time is the province of navigators, not priests. How do they measure time in China? Not by the Julian calendar, that is certain. When we celebrate Easter by the church calendar it has no more meaning than these natives celebrating a cannibal feast by the full Moon. Why do we call the natives here Indians? Indians are black. These people have brown or olive skin. Chinese have fair skin. We shouldn’t be calling these people Indians; we should be calling them Chinese, but this is not China. What do you think that does to Pope Alexander’s Line of Demarcation, dividing the whole world between Portugal and Spain?’
“I don’t know, Captain General.”
“Turns it into utter nonsense, doesn’t it? The pope is nothing but a witch doctor; chief priest in a tribe of Pharisees. If Kublai Khan were to come back to life I think he would give the pope a sharp lesson in humility, and who knows but China will one day rise again? ‘How dare you ignore China,’ Kublai Khan would say.”
“Martin Luther calls him Antichrist, Captain General, but we should keep our voices down.”
“Xanadu will once again become the prime meridian from which the world measures time by the Chinese calendar; nothing to do with the pope or the Catholic Church. The prime meridian is the line of demarcation between yesterday and tomorrow, between birth and death, between creation and Armageddon, not between Portugal and Spain. The line of demarcation is a rainbow and everything else is infinity. The prime meridian is not the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, as the church would have us believe.”
Pigafetta had to sit to absorb this information. A vision flashed before his eyes of a grand parade through the streets of the Vatican with clowns and acrobats, musicians and jesters, tigers on leashes and Pope Leo, the Vicar of Christ, riding his white elephant as part of the circus. This vision was followed by the memory of the captain general telling Don Carlos he knew all about the Line of Demarcation. Which particular line of demarcation was Magellan talking about? he wondered. Not a line to divide the world between Portugal and Spain, of that he was sure. At least the captain general was in agreement with him regarding the pope. It appeared they were allies of Kublai Khan and Martin Luther respectively. How treasonous was that? What heresy!
“So, where is El Paso?” Pigafetta said.
“Down here.”
Magellan pointed to the tip of the Dragon’s Tail.
“And here are the two rivers that I saw yesterday.”
There definitely were two rivers meeting in an estuary that could be the one in which the Armada de Moluccas lay at anchor.
“All we have to do is keep going south,” the captain general said, and smiled for the fifth time in history and the second time that day. For Magellan, this was exuberance.
He despatched a boat to inform the other ships of his findings and his orders to get under way on the ebb tide at dawn. It was no surprise when Quesada appeared alongside in Concepción’s pinnace and requested permission to come aboard, which Magellan granted.
“What do you want, Quesada?”
“I want an explanation Captain General. Juan de Solis and Amerigo Vespucci, both of them Chief Pilots of Spain, have speculated this is a likely location for El Paso. With only two days of exploration you have dismissed their opinion.”
“Correct.”
“Don’t you think more time should be spent exploring this area?”
“No. Any more questions?”
Quesada spluttered and stammered before he managed to say, “No, Captain General.”
“We sail at dawn. Make sure your ship is ready.”
Magellan watched Quesada stopping by Victoria on the way back to his own ship, no doubt for a little chat with Mendoza. The lesson had not yet been learned.
The inexperience of the Spanish captains became a major concern for the captain general as weather patterns changed heading south. No longer were the days leisurely cruises with balmy breezes but constant jousts with shifting winds that sometimes reversed direction twice in a day, ranging in strength from gale to calm. Pigafetta came to recognise the long, dark roll of cloud on the horizon as harbinger of the sudesta, or southerly buster, with screaming wind that made the ship almost unmanageable and pelting rain that made everything invisible.
“All hands on deck,” became a familiar cry and men in foul weather capes clawed their way into the tops to get the sail off her before the ship went over on her beam ends or the canvas was thrashed to ribbons. Quartermasters on the whipstaff fought to keep the ship on course and off the rocks while the officer of the watch shit his pants.
Interludes of fair weather were passed by sailors stitching sails, splicing ropes and swapping yarns about real storms weathered by real seamen, not like the pansies who go to sea these days. If anything, the calms were worse than the storms. Short of breaking out the sweeps or putting down a longboat in the swell, the ship was at the mercy of capricious currents. The armada frequently went backwards and Victoria ran aground three times, with the captain general muttering, ‘The man’s an idiot,’ and shouting at Mendoza to get the sails off her and run a kedge anchor. Fortunately, Victoria refloated each time, but what damage had been done to her keel?
After two months, the armada had made only eight degrees of latitude southwards from Cabo de Santa Maria, which was an average of about three leagues per day, less than walking pace. Pigafetta dare not mention the captain general’s light-hearted comment ‘All we have to do is keep going south.’ They were now in need of food and water and firewood. The land was barren and almost treeless, a far cry from Rio’s lush rainforest, with snow-capped mountains in the distance. The captain general sent Santiago to investigate an inlet that promised shelter from the erratic winds and, on Serrano’s favourable report, he took the fleet to anchor. He despatched a longboat to gather what they could from the shore.
“And watch for cannibals,” he added as an afterthought.
The boat returned loaded with what Pigafetta described as geese although smaller than real geese, black instead of white, with no feathers and unable to fly. They lived in the sea and ate fish and had a beak like a crow’s. They were so fat they would have to be peeled instead of plucked before they could be cooked and eaten.
The hunters reported hundreds or even thousands of these birds on a couple of islands within the bay and also sea wolves as big as calves, with small round ears, big fangs and no legs but feet like human hands attached directly to the body.
Although lacking bananas and pineapples, the land showed evidence of a bounteous God. Pigafetta went ashore with the next boat to see these creatures for himself and it was true. They lay about on rocks and beaches, barking like dogs, scratching themselves and fighting one another, probably guarding their wives from other males, Pigafetta thought, although in this case the males bore the scars of marriage, not the females. They were not afraid of humans and it was easy to club them to death and load them into the boat, which the sailors did with urgency, noting the signs of a looming southerly
buster – the roll of cloud on the horizon like a dark sausage spitting lightning.
The wind whipped up and they launched the boat loaded with carcases but it was too late. The ships of the armada were already heaving up their anchors and setting scraps of sail. Pigafetta knew what Magellan was going to do. He would take his ships offshore, away from the rocks to the relative safety of the open sea, leaving his shore party stranded among sea wolves with big fangs, black geese that waddled like little old men and maybe cannibals in the hills. As the sky blackened and the southerly buster hit with the full force of freezing rain they dumped the carcases out of the boat, dragged it up the beach and turned it upside down for shelter.
As a supernumerary not strictly part of the ship’s hierarchy, Pigafetta felt no barrier to mixing with the common seamen, some of whom were not so common after all. Sheltering from a southerly buster beneath an upturned boat was hardly a social occasion but his companions in this predicament accepted his presence without resentment. He had spoken with some of them before. Two were half-gypsy natives of Triana, Seville’s maritime quarter, sons and grandsons of sailors. Two were Portuguese and one of them had openly admitted that his reason for enlisting in the Armada de Moluccas was to escape the charge of murdering his wife, in which he was not different from Juan de Solis. Squatting on the sand beneath the boat, they hugged their knees for warmth as rivulets ran through their new home. All were lightly clad, and shivered.
“I hope he’s going to come back for us,” said Pierre Dubois, who told Pigafetta he was a lawyer from Paris captured during the Italian wars and sent as a slave to the Venetian galleys, from which he had managed to escape. His back still bore the scars.
“He will,” Pigafetta said. “I just hope this storm doesn’t last too long.”
“You seem to have great confidence in the captain general.”
“I do.”
“Then perhaps you can tell us how long he will persist in sailing south towards disaster.”
“No, I can’t tell you that. He makes up his own mind.”
Pigafetta made no attempt to explain the story of the Dragon’s Tail, not sure he understood it himself. All he could say was that Ferdinand Magellan was probably the most obstinate, single-minded, pigheaded person he had ever met. In the present situation that would not be a helpful comment.
As night fell, the rain eased and the wind shifted 180 degrees, as was its habit. It now blew down from the mountains with an icy breath and, underneath the longboat, teeth began to chatter. Outside, the sea wolves were settling down for the night, their snarls and growls and barks growing quieter. The black geese had gone to sleep with their heads tucked under their wings.
“I’m getting out of here,” the wife-murderer said, with his arms wrapped around his body. He crawled out from under the boat and Pigafetta watched him slither across the sand on his belly like a snake to the nearest family of sea wolves – one big male and several smaller females with shorter fangs. Pigafetta expected to see him attacked and mauled but all that happened was a lot of grunting and barking as they complained about this creature squirming into their midst. It took several minutes but eventually they settled down and it sounded no worse than a crew of sailors snoring in a ship’s mess deck.
The French lawyer went next and then Pigafetta decided to take his chance. The fishy smell was the worst part but the best part was the warmth and the shelter from the wind. As he dozed off to sleep he dreamed of Ana but it wasn’t quite the same thing.
The fleet returned next afternoon and dropped anchor in the bay, the weather having eased to a light offshore breeze under a blue sky. They turned the longboat over and dragged it down to the water before clubbing three sea wolves to death and loading them into the boat.
The captain general met them at the gangway as the boat came alongside but he would not allow them on board.
“You stink,” he said. “Clean yourselves up before you come aboard.”
The southwards struggle resumed but winter came early upon the armada. Five hundred leagues from Rìo, in a land never before seen by Christians, with sails blown out and gear swept away, the ships came to anchor in a narrow inlet bounded by rocky cliffs and obstructed by sandbars under a leaden sky. It was cold, comfortless, desolate, deserted, depressing and devoid of promise except for the sea wolves clapping their flippers and barking as if in welcome.
“Perhaps not the most God-forsaken place on Earth, brother-in-law,” Duarte said as the anchor went down, “but surely not far from it.”
“It will be enough to give the men time to recover. All I ask of it is fresh food and water.”
“You may be asking too much. And you may be asking too much of the men. Some of them are close to breaking point, you realise.”
“That is why I have called a halt.”
“I don’t suppose you would consider going back to Rìo for the winter?”
“No.”
“I thought not. Just thought I would ask.”
“I shall name this place Port St Julian.”
“Which St Julian, Captain General? Pigafetta asked. “There are three or four of them.”
“St Julian of Antioch; he who became a martyr and was thrown into the sea in a sack full of scorpions.”
“I hope not.”
The captain general had at last yielded to growing discontent and agreed to call a halt, but never would he countenance turning back. They would pass the winter here and prepare for the southwards thrust in spring. The time would be spent salting down slaughtered seals and seabirds, careening the ships, unloading stone ballast so that bilges could be cleaned and freed of rats, patching sails, renewing rigging and preparing for the next stage in the search for El Paso. Magellan had said he would sail as far as seventy five degrees of latitude; an announcement not popular with the crew. At least, there was no lack of meat, but the men were sick of birds that tasted like fish and of sea wolf, which tasted like lard. The wine and biscuit were running short. Further swindling in the provisions had been found and rations had to be cut, thanks to Bishop Fonseca.
It was Easter by the Christian calendar, the full moon following the vernal equinox, only here in the southern hemisphere it was autumn and felt like winter. The streets of Seville would be full of penitents re-enacting the Passion of Christ, punishing themselves with crowns of thorns, walking barefoot on broken glass, flogging themselves with whips. In hooded robes they would carry candles to the Cathedral of the Giralda and gather to hear sermons in the slave market; sermons commemorating the blood of their Saviour.
Pigafetta wondered if they should not put off the celebration of Easter for six months to comply with the religious calendar. How many moons had passed since that day on Calvary’s hill? However many it was in the northern hemisphere, it was six more or six less in the southern. How many days had passed? This year Easter fell on the first of April but last year it had been twenty-third of March. And, as the captain general had explained, the longitude of Jerusalem was far different from this place, and, therefore, so was the time. ‘What, exactly does Easter mean?’ he wondered, and found no answer. Neither the date nor the time in Port St Julian had anything to do with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem. Therefore, the Christian calendar has nothing to do with anything. Pigafetta did note, however, that Magellan’s son, Rodrigo, would be celebrating his first birthday in Seville, approximately one year old. Does that also make him one year old in Port St Julian, even setting aside the different time of day? After all, it is spring there and autumn here. Perhaps he is only six months old. Perhaps he is minus six months old, depending on which direction you measure the difference between the equinoxes, when day and night are equal all over the world.
The captain general instructed the priest to erect the shrine of Our Lady on a small island in readiness for Holy Week. The men would attend daily mass to instil in them a sense of humility and thanksgiving and the knowledge that, even here, in this place never before visited by Christians, they re
mained in the sight of Our Lord. Valderrama brought out his chasuble with gold brocade, embroidered altar cloths and silver chalices, censers, candelabra and a golden monstrance and created a perfect little church without walls, contending for possession of the rocky island with sea wolves, geese and gulls.
To transport his equipment to the island, Valderrama required a boat and crew and quickly discovered that tides in the channels of Port St Julian were so fierce as to carry an unwary boat crew away. At low tide the sand banks were exposed. Travel on water was governed by the tides, and the captain general made a study of them and produced a table of predictions, which could only be approximate. Pigafetta, as usual, poked his nose into it.
“The Moon has great influence on the sea,” the captain general said, “but different in different places and different times. With full Moon, like now, at Easter, and also at new Moon, the water rises higher and falls lower than when the Moon is half-full. At full Moon and new Moon the tide is stronger than at half Moon.”
Pigafetta had not known this before and was intrigued that the invisible force of the Moon held such power over human life on Earth, almost like God. Come to think of it, Ana’s sumptuous body was also affected by the Moon. She kept a calendar of the Moon because she said she didn’t want a baby until they were properly married in a church. She had to hide the calendar from her father because it was the work of gypsies. Pigafetta wondered if her father had found it and uncovered what he called filth.
San Antonio and Concepción were anchored farther upstream and the captain general subjected them to careful inspection. Everything seemed normal: a few sailors working on deck, others in the tops securing the sails in a harbour furl. Victoria lay downstream, astern of Trinidad, with Santiago beyond her.
“If they are going to make another move they will do it here, Pigafetta. We must be ready for them.”
“Do you think they will?”
“Yes. Cartagena has not learned his lesson yet.”
On Palm Sunday, the captain general advised Valderrama to celebrate mass in late morning to coincide with low tide so the boats from San Antonio and Concepción could manage the current. With a cold wind moaning out of the desert, flapping his vestments about his legs and carrying his voice away, Valderrama retold the story of how the Son of David came to Jerusalem on an ass. The people spread branches in the road and cried, “Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,” and the Pharisees plotted against Him and conjured up treachery among His disciples.
No boat came from Victoria or Concepción.
After the mass, a deputation for the sailors begged leave to speak with the captain general. Their spokesman was San Antonio’s quartermaster, a Genoese who asked the captain general on behalf of his shipmates to restore the wine and biscuit, to depart from this place and return to Rìo for the winter.
Magellan heard him out. Pigafetta had noticed that the captain general’s attitude to the common seamen was different from the way he spoke to the Spanish captains.
“So far have we come, my friends,” the captain general said, “already farther than any men in history; twice as far as Columbus and we’re not done yet. Before we’re done, we shall win more than twice the glory of Columbus. You may expect to return home to your wives and families as famous men, with the blessings of your priests and the thanks of your kings. For the sake of coming glory, won’t you drink a little less wine and eat less biscuit? My own ration of wine and biscuit is reduced, just like yours, but I don’t talk of turning back. Instead, I curse the rascals who robbed us when they loaded the ship. I shall make up the shortfall in the wine with spring water and in the biscuit with meat and fish and mussels. Perhaps we may find oranges, figs or grapes here. I drink less wine and eat less biscuit now to have more when we continue on our way in spring to find El Paso, the Spice Isles, and greater glory.”
The Genoese quartermaster shuffled his feet, looking sideways at the captain general and mumbled:
“Well, if you say so, señor, but it’s hard, ain’t it? Stinkin’ birds, stinkin’ seals, and stinkin’ place. Not even a tree.”
“I know you all want to go back to Rio, but what awaits you on the other side of the world is better than what you had there. I have sailed those seas — India, Malacca, the Golden Chersonese and the Eastern Archipelago. There’s more wealth and strangeness in those lands than you ever dreamed of — elephants and rubies, beautiful maids and great princes. Is that not worth a month or two of water instead of wine, and fish instead of biscuit?”
“But south, south, always south towards the freezing pole.”
“South is where El Paso lies. Not far now. Once the winter thaws it will be an easy sail.”
The grumbling men returned to their boats drawn up on the shore and it was clear they were far from happy. Nor was Magellan happy. Mutinous captains were one thing but the best way to deal with the deck crowd’s reasonable complaints was not by force. Of his captains, only Serrano and Mesquita had appeared, both of them relations, and the fleet was still divided between Spain and Portugal, the pope’s line of demarcation. He invited them to share a meal that night.
“Foolish, foolish people,” he said, more in sorrow than in anger as they commenced their dinner of seal meat grilled in the Malaccan style by Henriqué, with hot spices.
“Clearly, this is more rebellion, brother-in-law,” Duarte said. “We have outrun Dom Manuel and now they must take matters into their own hands. Before you won over the men this morning with your talk of glory — for which praise — I would have said their tactics would be to turn the crew against you. But you turned that very neatly. Now, who knows? I wouldn’t be surprised if they made a run back to Spain to tell tales to Fonseca.”
“Àlvaro?”
“My main concern is Gomez. He questions every order but I have to admit he is a good pilot.”
“John, how do you see our situation?”
“One way or another, you must get rid of those three,” Serrano said. “I can’t see this fleet completing the voyage to the Spice Isles with Cartagena in it. We still have a long way to go.”
“The difficulty is, he was appointed by the king himself, although I’m sure the king was not aware of the man’s true nature. I think we must await developments, and not go headlong seeking trouble. But I advise you to sleep lightly and keep an eye to your back.”
The captain general saw his dinner guests to the companion ladder, where their boats were waiting, and watched them all the way back to their ships, outlined by the Easter moon shining on a shimmering sea.
“These are strange times, Pigafetta,” he said, “when my own captains become the enemy.”
“What will you do, Captain General?”
“I will watch. See how fast the tide runs through this channel? San Antonio and Concepción are upstream, corralled in the inlet like horses in a pen. My concern is Victoria, offshore. All they have to do is slip their cable on the ebb and they could turn back to Spain; and what lies they would tell there.”
A number of men sat in groups on deck, quietly chatting, and others were already rolled in their blankets, asleep. The master-at-arms stood by the bulwark, talking with one of his men.
“Espinosa,” the captain general called softly. “A word with you, if you please.”
“Yes, Captain General?”
“I’ve come to regard you as a trustworthy man, for which, praise, and there are matters afoot that demand your loyalty.”
“I am not a dog to change masters lightly, Captain General.”
“There are misfits and malcontents in this fleet who wish to see our purpose thwarted. I want an armed guard maintained at all times. Look sharp and keep your men awake.”
“Yes, Captain General. Who is the enemy?”
“The enemy is anyone who attempts to board without my permission.”
Pigafetta’s cabin adjoined the captain general’s and he was awakened next morning by clattering boots and Espinosa’s loud voice: “Captain
General, a boat approaches. I think you should come on deck.”
Pigafetta dressed quickly but not as quickly as the captain general, who strode past the doorway buckling on his sword. Pigafetta followed him. The tide was running fast on the ebb and a boat crew pulled furiously at the oars, getting swept down upon Trinidad.
“Espinosa, grapple them as they go past. Get a line on them,” the captain general said.
One of Espinosa’s men flung the grapple and hooked the boat. Three more took up the line and hauled on it like landing a big fish, bringing it alongside.
In the boat were de Coca, one of the unholy nephews, and six crew resting on their oars gasping for air.
“Well, de Coca,” the captain general said, “to what do we owe this honour?”
“Despatch for Captain Magellan.”
“There is a captain General Magellan here. Is that who you mean?”
“Yes.”
De Coca waved a white envelope in his hand. Espinosa took it from him and handed it to the captain general.
Duarte had now appeared on deck and he peered over Magellan’s shoulder as he tore open the envelope. What he read there instantly made him furious. He crumpled the note, threw it to the deck and took two steps towards the companion way but then reconsidered, picked it up and handed it to Pigafetta.
“Guard this, Pigafetta. It is evidence of their treachery.”
The brief note was signed by Cartagena, Mendoza and Quesada and demanded the Armada de Moluccas return immediately to Spain, where Magellan’s conduct would be subject to an enquiry by the Casa de Contratación.
The captain general called down to the boat, “You are the bearer of this news, de Coca? Please come aboard so we may discuss the matter. Bring your men and let them rest.”
“I would rather not, Captain General.”
Armed men could be seen on the decks of Victoria and Concepción and others lined the bulwarks. On San Antonio’s poop, Cartagena paraded up and down in armour like the peacock he was.
“Come, let us share a glass of wine, and your men may have water. We are reasonable men here,” the captain general said.
There was discussion in the boat and then de Coca and his six crew climbed aboard without any trumpet call. De Coca did not even salute the virgin, although he did bow to the captain general. De Coca was a weak individual who had failed in his duty. He was unable to look the captain general in the eye.
“I see your kinsman has taken the deck of San Antonio,” the captain general said. “Where is her true captain, Mesquita?”
“He is under arrest, Captain General, in shackles in his cabin.”
“By what authority? I have approved no orders for arrest. What arrest is made without the authority of the captain general?”
De Coca looked down at his shoes. “Excuse me, Captain General; captains Cartagena, Mendoza and Quesada, forming the majority, have voted on it.”
“Cartagena is not a captain but a rebel. He was deposed five months ago.”
The captain general then walked to the other side of the ship, the side remote from Concepción, and beckoned de Coca to follow.
“Better we move away from prying eyes, de Coca, because you are going to take your clothes off.”
“Excuse me, Captain General?”
“You are going to take your clothes off. You and your men. I want to see your bare backsides within one minute or I will have my master at arms do it for you.”
“Captain General, I protest.”
“Get your clothes off. Divest. Now!”
One glance at the impressive Espinosa and his men convinced the crew it was prudent to comply with the captain general’s orders. Within the allotted time they stood, naked as plucked chickens, shivering and hugging themselves to try and cover their shame while Trinidad’s men snickered. Turning to his brother-in-law, who was enjoying the joke, he said, “Duarte, take off your clothes.”
The amusement vanished from Duarte’s face. “What?”
“I said take off your clothes. Divest.”
“Don’t you think this jest has gone far enough, brother-in-law? We have had our amusement; let’s have done.”
With great patience, the captain general explained, “Take off your clothes, give them to de Coca and put his on. Likewise, choose yourself a boat’s crew of six men and have them exchange clothes with de Coca’s crew. From San Antonio and Concepción, those treasonous dogs will not know you have changed places with their own men.”
“Ah yes, Ferdinand. Now I see your plan.”
San Antonio’s boat crew exchanged clothes with six chosen men under Duarte and then men-at-arms herded them below decks. The captain general explained his plan.
“I am going to put you in San Antonio’s boat and stream you astern on the painter,” he said to Duarte. “The rebels will think it’s de Coca’s men waiting for my reply. I am going to send Espinosa aboard Victoria to overpower her captain. When he has achieved that aim, or when he requires assistance, you will board Victoria and take command in the name of the king.”
“Am I to be her captain?”
“Yes. I have run out of alternatives. You will restrain Mendoza; in irons if possible, in death if necessary.”
Duarte and his crew were given arms, which they concealed beneath their clothing, and went down into the boat. The painter was paid out until the boat fell back within two lengths of the rebel ship. The captain general returned to his cabin but soon emerged and handed Espinosa a note.
“Espinosa, I demand from you courage and initiative beyond the call of duty. You may refuse and not be thought the worse.”
“I do not refuse, Captain General.”
“I have a message for you to deliver to Captain Mendoza written by my own hand. It commands his obedience. I doubt he will give it. You must ask him for a written reply so he has to go to his cabin and there you will kill him. Then signal from the stern window and Duarte will come aboard for your assistance.”
“As you command, Captain General,” Espinosa said.
Espinosa was pulled across to Victoria in Trinidad’s gig, lighter than a longboat and easier to row. He climbed aboard to deliver his fatal message. On both ships men lined the bulwarks, staring at one another. Of all the ships, Victoria’s crew was the most mixed, with a Portuguese pilot, Sicilian master, Greek bosun and French master-at-arms surely not likely to have fallen under the spell of the evil bishop.
Espinosa saluted Captain Mendoza. They exchanged a few words and Espinosa handed him Magellan’s note. Mendoza read it; evidently read it again and then led the way aft to his cabin.
Aboard Trinidad they waited for Espinosa’s signal. It came in a few minutes – a wave from a gallery window – and Duarte slipped the warp, pulled alongside and his men swarmed aboard, taking Victoria’s crew by surprise. As the captain general had predicted, they met with little opposition, showing that the common sailors had no stomach for their captain’s mutiny. Duarte secured the Magellan coat of arms featuring the five wounds of Christ to the poop rail and raised his fist in victory. Espinosa returned on board and reported that Mendoza lay in a pool of blood in his own cabin.
With Victoria secured, Magellan now had three loyal ships plugging the entrance of Port St Julian, with Concepción and San Antonio trapped inside. What would be the rebels’ next move? It was just possible they would be foolish enough to try and run the blockade and the captain general gave instructions for the crew to be issued with cutlass, crossbow and pike but not arquebus. Master Andrew, chief gunner, was ordered to ensure his guns were loaded, powder dry and carefully mixed and measured. Punzarol was to provide an axe to cut the anchor cable if need be; gaskets were to be loosened so sail could be set at a moment’s notice and all boats launched ready for instant action. De Coca and his six boatmen remained in chains below deck.
When the ship was as well prepared for action as he could make her, the captain general mustered his men on deck. There had never been a whiff of mutiny aboard Trinidad
and the men were solid in their loyalty, but what was being asked here was not a battle against infidel or heathen. It was a war upon men such as themselves; men with whom they had shared a joke and a glass of wine.
“There’s bad business afoot,” the captain general said to his crew as they stood, shuffling their feet and avoiding each other’s eyes in Trinidad’s waist, “that pits ship against ship and sailor against sailor. What was meant to be one fleet is now divided. Men united in one purpose carry arms against their brothers and courage fit to face a common foe is turned to self-destruction. Those who elevate their own cause above the king’s will be the ruin of the present voyage. There are those who defy the king and his captain general and, through vanity, spread confusion and spite. But the disciple is not above his master or the servant above his lord. Disorder, horror, fear and mutiny will come from vanity and vexatious spirits. On this day, there is only one course for those who would tread the path of righteousness: Fear God. Honour the king.”
The men dispersed in thoughtful silence but held themselves ready for the call to action. The Moon must now be left to do its work. There were still a few hours of ebb tide before the flow reversed, then about six hours of flood before the endless cycle repeated. The danger period, the greatest temptation for the rebels to try and slip out would be the night-time ebb, when they would also have an offshore breeze.
During the afternoon the captain general visited Victoria and Santiago to bolster them for the coming conflict and explain his plan to Duarte and John Serrano. They were to provide boarding parties, well-armed and fit and on his signal of two lanterns on Trinidad’s poop they were to attack. Although he now had three loyal ships, San Antonio and Concepción had more men. He could not know their loyalty or willingness to fight but to demonstrate his own resolve he ordered the bloody corpse of Captain Mendoza be strapped to the main mast as a warning to mutineers.
As twilight fell, the distant snowy hills blazed with a red glow, the breeze dropped away and the squawk of birds and the bark of seals could be clearly heard while the Moon rose an orange ball over the sea.
“Espinosa,” Magellan whispered, falling under the spell of moonlight and expectation, “they will likely make their move soon, when the tide turns. Send your men to their places. Silently now.”
Men climbed into the rigging like cats, hands tightened on halberds and, for the tenth time, Master Andrew checked his cannons, which stared blankly over the water, waiting to spit out death in the Easter moonlight.
Hours passed and men’s attention wandered as the ancient landscape settled down for the night. Espinosa spied the next development.
“Captain General, I believe Concepción is under way.”
No sail had been set and no activity could be seen on deck, but the ghostly silhouette glided past the stones and bushes on the shore.
“I believe she’s adrift,” the captain general said. “Stand to your guns!”
At last Concepción ’s crew seemed to awaken to the fact they were under way. Cries of alarm and surprise came across the water and, on the poop, moonlight glinted on captain Quesada’s armour as he shouted orders to hoist sails and man the guns. Too late! His aimless vessel came within range of Trinidad’s guns and the silence of that virgin land was blasted for the first time in history by the sounds of war. Cannons roared and crossbow bolts hummed through smoky air as onetime allies did their best to destroy each other. Concepción’s mizzen mast came crashing down, shattered by a cannon ball, and fell across the quarterdeck where Quesada had been seen a moment before. The captain general exulted and cried for the boarding party to take to the boats.
“You too, Pigafetta. I need every man. Punzarol, two lanterns on the poop rail.”
Pigafetta had a cutlass thrust into his hand and climbed down with the others into the boat. A few strokes of the oars brought them alongside and men clambered up over the bulwark and on to the deck, yelling and screaming and slashing the air with their weapons. The resistance had faded and the opposing crew backed up, surprised by the ferocity of the attack, and then threw down their arms. The captain general charged upon Captain Quesada amongst the fallen rigging and looked to run him through, but Quesada threw down his sword, fell to his knees and begged like the true coward he was:
“Mercy, Captain General. Mercy.”
The captain general halted in mid-stride, his cutlass raised for the fatal blow, but then he turned his attention to the next most pressing problem: Concepción was adrift and being swept away by the tide.
“Get to your feet and get an anchor down. Where is the master?”
Quesada seemed surprised to be still alive.
“The anchor is gone, Captain General. Someone cut the cable.”
‘Then let go the spare anchor, idiot.”
The captain general took command of the task himself and ordered El Cano, the master, to let go the second anchor, while Espinosa shackled Quesada’s wrists.
The ship came safely to anchor and it was curiously quiet after the assault. The captain general cast his eye over the defeated crew of Concepción and then ordered the boarding party back into the boat along with the prisoner, Quesada. It was a harder pull upstream to San Antonio, where Duarte’s and Serrano’s men engaged the rebels, putting up a tougher fight than had Quesada’s men, although Pigafetta lagged somewhat behind. Magellan himself was first up and over the side, wading into the battle with a roar and hacking his way through the maelstrom towards Cartagena. He backed him up against the bulwark, with the point of his cutlass at his throat.
“Yield, you dog!”
Cartagena threw his sword to the deck and, always the gentleman, bowed as if to a king.