A Singular Captain

by John Regan

  Chapter 20

  Eighteen men staggered ashore at the Dock of Mules three years after their departure, barefoot in their shirts and carrying lighted candles. Some recited the twenty-third psalm, ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil...’ but others were unable to speak. Pigafetta could not control the tears leaking from his eyes and saw only a blur, heard only a babble, felt only the pain in his chest. The Habsburg eagle was a rag hanging from the masthead, sails hung in tatters from the yards and Victoria’s timbers were bleached and split.

  News of their arrival had travelled up the river from Sanlùcar but the watching crowd was silent, not joyful. Some crossed themselves, some reached out as if to touch and others merely stared with a kind of reverence for the walking dead. Women in black searched their faces for a husband, son or lover and, finding none, bit their bottom lips.

  A white-haired gentleman approached and touched Pigafetta on the arm.

  “Antonio. Do you remember me?”

  Pigafetta wiped his tears away and tried to focus. The face was familiar but where did it belong in the gallery of the living and the dead? Then it came to him – a figure with his arm around a woman cradling a baby in her arms.

  “Señor Barbosa.”

  “The same.”

  He attempted a smile and failed. He put an arm around Pigafetta’s shoulder and took the weight as Pigafetta stumbled.

  “Can I assist you?”

  “I can manage, Señor. I am not dead yet.”

  They shuffled on in silence for a time and then Pigafetta said, “I was with the captain general at the end, Señor. He died with honour.”

  “And my son, Duarte?”

  “He died happy, I do believe.”

  The procession made its painful way to the church of Our Lady of Victory across the bridge in Triana where Magellan had married Beatriz, which caused Pigafetta to ask, “What of the captain general’s wife and son, Señor?”

  “Two sons, Antonio, which he never knew. Dead. My wife, dead. My son, dead. My grandsons dead. Everyone is dead. You should praise God you are alive.”

  “I do, Señor; I do.”

  Barbosa took him home after the service. It was a handsome white house on two levels near the Alcàzar in the Barrio Santa Cruz, the old quarter that had been a Jewish ghetto. Red roses grew on balconies overlooking the street and the patio was a cool grotto of ferns, palms and geraniums watered by the spray from a fountain.

  “The house is empty but full of ghosts, Antonio. I want to hear your story. But first, we have to fatten you up.”

  Pigafetta took to scribbling in the patio where Magellan had wooed Beatriz not so long before. The notebooks, barely decipherable now, were transcribed on to a clean page, the watercolour sketches reproduced, the lists of strange words arranged into some kind of order according to their equivalents in any of the five European languages spoken by Pigafetta. As he did so, he was touched by the same wonder as the girl in Rìo at the mystery of scratchings on a page representing both a sound from the mouth and an object that could be held in the hand, such as a knife, fishhook or bell. Now they represented memories. He felt the same confusion as the Patagonian giant over the difference, if any, between Setebos, Abba, Allah, Jehovah and God, Dios, Dieu, not to mention the god of the Volcano.

  Of the events in Port St Julian he made little mention in his memoir. From Barbosa he learned that San Antonio, the ship that had deserted the armada in Tierra del Fuego, had arrived in Seville eighteen months before with Gomez in command and her rightful captain, Mesquita, in irons. Far from being punished for mutiny and desertion, Gomez was rewarded with an appointment as chief pilot of the Casa de Contratación and Mesquita, cast as Magellan’s villainous accomplice, remained in custody.

  “Fonseca was behind this,” Barbosa said. “The king was away from Spain at the time and I wrote to him to complain about such injustice, and for my trouble received more injustice. Beatriz was prohibited from leaving the house. What on Earth was the reason for this apart from sheer spite, God only knows. It contributed to her death. The plague came to Seville last year when I was away in Burgos. My wife, my daughter and two grandsons all died within a week.”

  “I am sorry to hear it, Señor.”

  “Now you can tell the truth but do not underestimate the power of lies.”

  ‘The truth?’ Pigafetta thought. The truth about Port St Julian was the memory of Mendoza’s and Quesada’s severed heads stuck on spikes and slowly withering throughout the Patagonian winter. He decided not to mention it.

  There was another matter troubling his mind and he raised it with Dom Diogo one afternoon. Barbosa fed upon Pigafetta’s story, awaiting the next instalment like a hungry man. He sometimes softly strummed a guitar while Pigafetta worked, and the music and the splashing of the fountain seemed to make the pen flow more easily.

  “Señor, I wish your advice on a certain matter,” Pigafetta said. “You see, after we left the Spice Isles, it was eight months before we landed again, partly because of the incompetence of Juan Sebastian Elcano, accursed be his name.”

  “Ah, yes, Elcano. He’s making a name for himself with Bishop Fonseca now. Some say he has written a letter to the king.”

  “Such a bad navigator, he nearly wrecked us on the shores of Africa before finding the Cape of Good Hope and then took seven weeks to sail around it because of contrary winds. And then, foolish man, he decided to stop at the Cape Verde Islands, which fortunately appeared on the bow, otherwise he never would have found them.”

  “Why did he want to stop at the Portuguese islands?”

  “For food. Already we had lost over half our men from starvation and scurvy. But the most stupid of his mistakes was he sent men ashore with cloves from the Spice Isles to pay for the food. The Portuguese immediately arrested the men in the boat. Elcano, the cowardly dog, slipped the anchor and sailed away, leaving his men to the mercies of the Portuguese. The captain general would never have done that.”

  “How interesting. Now he struts the salons of society claiming to be a great navigator and the first man to sail around the world, greater than Jason of the Argonauts.”

  “Pah! The first man to sail around the world was the captain general’s slave, Henriqué. But that is not the matter I wish to discuss. When we arrived at the Cape Verde Islands, we found the calendar one day in error. As you know, I have kept a diary of the entire voyage. Every day since leaving Spain I wrote in my journal. In sickness and health, in storms and calms, I entered the date on every page. Others also kept similar diaries but when we arrived at the Cape Verdes on a Friday, they told us it was Thursday.”

  “How strange.”

  “Worse than strange. On Friday we are ordered not to eat meat in honour of Our Lord. Who knows how many times we have sinned on this voyage?”

  “I think a couple of Hail Maries would clear you of that sin.”

  “But suppose we had sailed eastwards around the world instead of westwards. We would have got back home one day in the future.”

  “Then, you would have to rejoice, Antonio. Keep sailing eastwards around the world and you might return to childhood.”

  “It’s not a jesting matter, Señor. The captain general understood this. There is no natural line of demarcation between Thursday and Friday. There is a line of demarcation between Thursday and Saturday. It is one day. My voyage around the world took one day, not three years, because the circumference of the Earth is one day. That is the prime meridian for the whole world and, as the captain general said, it is a rainbow. It is the line of demarcation between two infinities or two eternities. One day. One lifetime.

  “Ridiculous, Antonio, but highly amusing. Now, come inside; dinner’s ready. We have a lovely paella tonight. I see your appetite is returning.”

  A few nights later they were joined at dinner by Cristóbal de Haro and La Senora. For some reason, La Señora reminded him of an apple. It was not so much the red in her cheeks as the genera
lly spherical shape of her body and her pudgy hands with fingers so laden with rings that they would have been impossible to get off.

  “I know you. I have met you before, haven’t I?”

  “You have, Señora.”

  “You were at the wedding, weren’t you?”

  “I was, Señora.”

  “What was your name again?”

  “Antonio Pigafetta, Señora. Still is.”

  “You are the literary man, Diogo tells us.”

  “No, Señora. I’m not sure what I am.”

  Over dinner, La Señora explained just how bad things were.

  “We have lost money on San Antonio and of course Concepción and Santiago were wrecked and no one knows what has happened to Trinidad. We are just waiting to see how much Victoria’s cargo is worth when it is sold. We had an investment of twenty per cent in the fleet and we have yet to get a ducat’s return on our money. All of that cargo should come to us to compensate for the other ships.”

  “Now, be fair, my dear,” de Haro said. “It should really be divided pro rata.”

  “Trouble with you, Cristóbal, is you are too soft. If you had your way we would be living in a hovel. Now is the time to be firm, especially with the danger from your relative.”

  “My own brother’s son-in-law,” de Haro said with a sigh.

  “Nephew-in-law, Cristóbal,” La Señora said and then explained to Pigafetta, “Brother’s son-in-law is surely nephew-in-law. He is the husband of Frances, who is the daughter of Jacob, who is Cristóbal’s brother, so that surely means he is nephew-in-law. We have entertained him in our own home and this is how he repays us.”

  “He hasn’t actually done anything yet, my dear. It’s really no more than a rumour and we mustn’t condemn him without cause.”

  “¡Qué tonteria! Letters have been exchanged with bishops and everyone knows what happens when bishops get involved in politics. I’m shocked that Frances hasn’t put her foot down.”

  “Bishop Fonseca?” Pigafetta asked.

  “No,no,no,no. Bishop of Salzburg.”

  “I’m sorry; I don’t understand.”

  “I will explain,” La Señora said patiently. “Frances is the daughter of Jacob, who is my husband’s brother.”

  “Yes, I understand that much.”

  “Maximilian is the husband of Frances and therefore our nephew-in-law.”

  “Ah. Maximilian.”

  “It is said by some that Maximilian is the natural son of the Bishop of Salzburg. That may or may not be true but it’s remarkable how many of these celibate priests have nephews. At any rate, the Bishop of Salzburg appears greatly concerned to advance Maximilian’s career. The Bishop of Salzburg is very influential with His Majesty, Don Carlos. I have no concerns about that except he has suggested that Maximilian should write a story about Elcano being the first man to circumnavigate the world so Maximilian will receive a generous reward from the king.”

  “Elcano is not the first man to circumnavigate the world. Henriqué, the captain general’s slave is. Elcano is a mutineer, a liar and a murderous pirate.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, yes, I know all that. And I know the lies Elcano is spreading about, but the point is that Maximilian, at this very moment, is preparing a document for the Bishop of Salzburg, who will undoubtedly present it to the king. We don’t know what’s in it but we do know that Maximilian is a little too friendly with Elcano. So you see, Antonio, when you produce your work of literature it is vital to ensure credit is given in the right quarter.”

  “I can only tell the truth, Señora.”

  “Ah, the truth. A wonderful thing, the truth. Wonderful! Just be sure Elcano gets his comeuppance and not too big a slice of the profits, if any. I mean, he contributed nothing to the expenses of the expedition; why should he partake in the profits?”

  It appeared to Pigafetta that his diary was to become a political document and for days he agonised over the truth. What is the truth? The truth is men wasting away to skeletons, slashing their gums and leaping over the side, screaming with pain and madness. The truth is as much what is left out of a story as what is put in. He thought of the childlike curiosity and gleeful laughter of naked people, savages, pagans, and heathens, making their first encounter with white men and often paying for it with their lives.

  The truth requires us to hold an opinion, he realised; to take a stand. There were many things he could never include in his story, could barely even think about. There were probably things his mind had deliberately shut out. He knew his opinions and his stance were not the same as when he embarked in the Armada de Moluccas and he knew the change had been brought about by his encounter with an extraordinary man, Magellan. So far, he had not managed to understand the changes wrought within himself, and perhaps he never would, so in the meantime he regarded himself as unreliable. He could not trust himself to tell the truth. The truth is indeed a wonderful thing, if only we could know it when we see it.

  The final draft of Pigafetta’s memoir contained no mention of Elcano, the mutineer, the liar, the murderous pirate who received from Don Carlos a pension of 500 ducats a year, a knighthood and a coat of arms with the legend ‘Primus circumdedesti me’ – ‘Thou first circled me.’ It was a lie, like everything else in the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither holy, nor Roman nor an empire but merely a conspiracy of greedy kings and evil priests.

  Pigafetta travelled back along the same road that had brought him to Seville four years before, only this time he rode in de Haro’s coach along with the de Haros and Diogo Barbosa, completing the circumnavigation from Valladolid to Valladolid. The ancient city almost rivalled Seville in the splendour of its public buildings, convents and churches and its wealth fed by gold plundered from Peru and Yucatan. The greed was feverish, the arrogance monumental. Victoria’s cargo had now been sold and, to the relief of La Señora, it fetched enough to pay for the entire expedition with a small profit.

  “If only the other four ships had come back full of cloves,” she lamented, “the profit would have been at least tenfold, as Magellan predicted.”

  “A tragedy, Señora,” Pigafetta agreed.

  The king was distracted by the wars in France but he did grant an audience in the same throne room where Pigafetta had first encountered Ferdinand Magellan. Nothing much had changed in the four years during which Pigafetta had been to hell and back. The same courtiers clustered around the dais muttering the same inanities, which Pigafetta now found distasteful rather than merely silly.

  A burden lifted from his soul as he recognised these men for what they were – maggots in the rotting moral corpse of the Holy Roman Empire. None of them was fit to lick Magellan’s boots. He felt no obligation to them now and stood by his summation of the man who would always be his captain general.

  ‘Among his other virtues, he was more constant in the greatest adversity than anyone else. He endured hunger better than all the others and, more accurately than any man in the world, he understood sea charts and navigation. No other had so much natural talent or boldness to learn how to circumnavigate the world, as he almost did.’

  Almost. That was the saddest word in Pigafetta’s memoir.

  “Your Majesty, I have no gold or precious things worthy of Your Honour, but pray you may accept a book written by my own hand, in which I set down all the things that happened to us day by day.”

  “A book?” said the king.

  “A book, Your Majesty, that the fame of so noble a captain shall not perish in our time.

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  About the Author

  John Regan was so impressed by Magellan’s story that he sailed a yacht around the world in his wake and ended up even more impressed by the man’s achievement. If you enjoyed this book, please take the time to add a comment on the website:

  https://talesfromthesea.com.au

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