The Disastrous Voyage of the Santa Margarita

by Richard Woodman

  ‘At sea,’ Iago consoled Doña Catalina on one of his occasional visits to the woman, ‘hardships are never remembered long.’

  ‘That is heartless, Don Iago,’ she said sadly.

  ‘It is the way we survive here,’ he said gently, drawing aside as her husband approached. There had been a warming in Don Baldivieso’s attitude towards Don Iago since the night of the typhoon’s climax. Perhaps the extremities to which this voyage seemed to impel them all had warned the canny merchant that it would pay him to be on the right side of a man of Don Iago’s obvious resource. At all events he showed no intemperance to find his former enemy in conversation with his wife.

  ‘The weather improves, thank God,’ he said, taking his wife’s hand.

  ‘And so must our spirits, husband,’ Doña Catalina remarked, lowering her eyes and adding, ‘We may have other sons.’

  As Arrocheros blushed, Iago made to withdraw with a courteous bow. ‘I hope that you do and find God’s blessing in a family,’ he said, returning to his own quarters.

  The Santa Margarita continued northwards. Happily, the light winds held true and every sail was set so that she bowled along magnificently, a fine white bone in her teeth, her ensign and pendants lifting nobly and her pilots relieved to see the altitude of the sun diminish on their backstaffs, marking the steady increase in their latitude as they sought Urdaneta’s steady westerly winds. Those less enlightened, who were unable to appreciate the apparently unchanging scene as evidence of progress, were heartened to sight land one morning.

  A large island, its shore rising to a plateau, passed slowly to the westward and, before nightfall a second similar tableland lay like a dead beast against the sunset.

  ‘The Rica de Oro,’ Lorenzo affirmed confidently, ‘which lie in thirty-four degrees latitude to the north of the equator.’ And with this they had to be content, for the islands lay too far to leeward for them to lose time visiting them.

  Two days later, ‘not far,’ as Olivera told them with an air of recondite mystery, ‘from the coast of the fabled land of Cipangu’, the wind at last came away from the west. The hearts of all on board soared as the Santa Margarita’s head was paid off to the eastwards and the yards swung square to the following and favourable wind. The tacks were eased so they hung in slack bights and the sheets hauled aft, tight as iron bars. Through their hempen strength the Santa Margarita was thrust along on her true and most desired course to the eastwards, running downwind towards her distant destination of Acapulco.

  It was the moment they had all prayed and waited for, a positive mark of the progress of their voyage, and its accomplishment drove Ocampo’s curse further into the shadows, or left it astern in the wake of the hurrying ship. Joy was expressed by all. A pipe of wine was ordered out of the hold by the captain-general and sent by him into the half-deck as a mark of his favour, the grace of Almighty God and in repudiation of Ocampo’s curse.

  Guillestigui ordered his musicians on deck and the royal standard hoisted to the mainmasthead for the day as though the King’s benediction ruled these waters and bode well for their passage. Ocampo’s curse was flung aside. The sailors made their traditional claim that all debts, all obligations and all such things as curses were left astern in a ship’s wake. The cynical Guillestigui and his staff averred that Ocampo was a false and unholy priest and therefore acted not as a man of God, but as a vindictive man of pride. Consequently his curse was invalid. Among the captain-general’s suite, only Alacanadre was heard to demur, reminding them all that the young officer had drawn his sword in defence of Ocampo, and in defiance of the captain-general.

  True, the Holy Ones were unwilling to favour any condemnation of the newly appointed bishop, but they were nevertheless infected with the prevailing mood of joy as the fair wind blew them bowling eastwards.

  But this happy mood barely outlasted the celebratory meal that evening, for the pilot-major’s expression was dark when he came below and asked Iago to keep a watch that night.

  ‘I do not like the moon, Don Iago,’ he said quietly, ‘and there is less wind than of late.’

  On deck Iago joined the two pilots, noting the faltering of the westerly wind and the dark roil of clouds gathering ahead of them. Large numbers of seabirds could be seen flying west, into the dying breeze.

  ‘Flying or fleeing?’ Olivera asked nobody in particular.

  ‘If the last storm was not,’ said Lorenzo to Olivera as the two sea-officers conferred anxiously upon the poop at the change of the watch, ‘this is a baguiosa.’

  As the clouds gathered again in portent of strong winds, Iago found himself that evening pacing the half-deck in the crepuscular hour in the company of Marmolejo, Alacanadre and Ordóñez. Lorenzo had relieved Olivera and had already exchanged a remark with the promenading party to the effect that the weather was likely to deteriorate overnight. Iago, having been assigned the middle watch, had agreed and the conversation had ebbed away, as each man considered what the coming hours might mean. In the aftermath of the previous storm it had taken days to dry the half-deck, clear up the mess and sort out the sundry odds and ends of personal effects after the inundation. The chaos of deprivation and inconvenience had made the theft of Doña Catalina’s ring a trivial matter when a necessity like a comb or hairbrush assumed a new and valuable importance. Some such consideration had in part mellowed Arrocheros’s attitude to Iago, combined with the latter’s rescue of the baby. But now the thought of facing such appallingly disruptive circumstances a second time weighed heavily upon them all and it was Alacanadre who broke their silence, suddenly stopping and holding on to the rail.

  ‘It is the curse of Fray Ocampo,’ he said, reviving the powerful spectre. ‘I am certain of it. God granted us a respite that tried our pride and we were found to be at fault, our pride overweening. Now this has brought this new and endless misfortune upon us,’ he said, nodding towards the darkening sky.

  ‘We do not know that it is to be endless,’ Marmolejo temporized.

  ‘I know us to be embarked upon a disastrous voyage, Fray Mateo,’ Alacanadre said with deep conviction, ‘I feel that I shall die and my soul is uneasy . . .’

  ‘If death is to be thy lot, my son, thou canst die with thy soul intact.’

  ‘I do not want to die, Father!’ Alacanadre rounded on the friar, full of outrage. ‘I have strong reasons to live,’ then he faltered, ‘but I should not have remained on board once I had drawn my sword against the captain-general.’

  ‘Then why did you not follow Fray de Ocampo ashore? He was your friend, was he not?’ Marmolejo asked.

  Iago regarded Alacanadre, his curiosity aroused; he too had wondered why the master-of-camp had remained, indeed that Guillestigui had suffered him to remain. Alacanadre hesitated. In the gathering twilight his face was indistinct, his dark hair had partially escaped its ribbon and blew wildly about his head. Just for a moment Iago saw, or thought he saw, a soul in torment, for it was clear that the matter formed an obsessive preoccupation in the mind of Alacanadre. Perhaps the oncoming night persuaded the worried man to confide in his two companions; perhaps he was incapable of holding his tongue and this, like his impetuous defence of his friend Ocampo, was an indiscretion he might later regret. Whatever his motives, Alacanadre revealed that, as a member of the captain-general’s personal staff, he was bound by loyalty. ‘But also I am His Excellency’s agent and have used my position to load aboard this vessel riches to the utter extent of my fortune.’

  ‘Then you fear thine own cupidity, rather than Fray Ocampo’s curse, may have angered Fate?’ asked Marmolejo in an amused tone.

  ‘Heaven alone knows,’ returned Alacanadre, missing the irony in Marmolejo’s reference to Fate rather than God. ‘But I do know the power of Fray Geronimo . . .’ Alacanadre’s voice trailed away as he turned his head to stare at the fading horizon to the west.

  Iago, moved, despite himself, but equally intrigued by Marmolejo’s attitude to this open confession, asked, ‘What of Ocampo’s power? Was
he so very remarkable?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Marmolejo, resuming their walk at a slow pace, adjusting to the easy roll of the Santa Margarita as she lifted to the groundswell and the rising wind. ‘He was not given a bishopric for nothing.’

  ‘He was formidable,’ added Alacanadre, mysteriously.

  ‘How so?’ Iago prompted. ‘I admit the power of his curse was impressive, but surely . . .’

  ‘He was a soldier of the Church,’ Marmolejo said, the timbre of his voice assuming a proud ring. ‘A true Alcantarine . . .’

  ‘You will have to enlighten me, Father. What is an Alcantarine?’

  ‘The founder of the Discalced Franciscans was Fray Peter of Alcántara who led the latter-day Apostles in the conversion and conquest of Mexico for Christ. Fray Geronimo de Ocampo and his younger brother Fray Francisco were followers of Peter of Alcántara; Geronimo came to the Philippines and Francisco remained in New Spain, where, so I am told, he advocates the formation of a military order. In Paraguay, Francisco had General Caceres arrested by armed men for his abuse of Church property . . .’ Marmolejo sighed. ‘Who knows . . . who knows . . . ?’ He appeared to have finished his narrative, then turned to his distressed companion. ‘It is all in God’s hands, my son,’ he concluded, patting Alacanadre’s arm. As if at a signal the three men stopped and stared as one to windward, towards the east whence the night was dark and the sky loomed threateningly.

  ‘This is a bitter hour at sea,’ Iago observed, ‘with the uncertainty of night ahead of us.’

  ‘Then let us go below,’ said Marmolejo in a bravely rallying tone. ‘The ship has proved herself once and, with Santa Margarita watching over us, shall do so again. Come, banish your dull spirits, Don Miguel, ’tis not worthy of a brave officer to submit to the hobgoblins upon thy shoulders. Take heart, señor, and, as the sailors say, “Brace up!” ’

  Hearing the tight grunt that this admonition forced from Alacanadre, Iago followed the master-of-camp and the remarkable Fray Mateo Marmolejo below. Here they separated, Alacanadre going aft, Iago moving towards his own small space when he felt Marmolejo’s hand upon his arm.

  ‘A moment if you please, Don Iago.’

  ‘What is it, Father?’

  ‘You are an experienced mariner. Is this weather unseasonal? For I must confess I feel some weight in Don Miguel’s foreboding.’

  Iago thought for a moment and then admitted, ‘Fray Mateo, God knows I am no expert in these eastern seas but the gyre that Urdaneta guessed existed and led him to locate the westerly winds of high latitudes is no different here in the Pacific from that in the Atlantic. Some have conceived it of a river of winds that flow according to atmospheric laws beyond our present understanding. I am persuaded that there may indeed be some divine system of universal similarity, perhaps of unity—’

  ‘The hand of God, my son,’ interrupted Marmolejo.

  ‘Doubtless,’ Iago said carefully, resuming his exposition, careful in the priest’s presence to attribute everything to God. ‘And as with the Atlantic and its western waters, there is a season for storms of similar violence to that of the Caribbean hurricane. Thus logic leads to the conclusion that, as one may have a vile year in the Caribbean, so some such similar circumstances may combine to provoke a . . .’ He faltered, unable to lay his mind to a word apt enough to convey what he was trying to explain.

  ‘Some convulsion of the heavens, perhaps, that drives these great winds across the open sea?’ ventured Marmolejo.

  ‘Exactly that, but what I think this convulsion must produce is not one huracán, taifun or baguiosa, but a number of them.’

  ‘Like the son follows the father in the endless procession of life itself.’ Marmolejo completed the train of thought.

  ‘Exactly so.’

  ‘Then God is almighty indeed, Don Iago,’ Marmolejo said, his thin hand again gripping Iago’s forearm with an intensity that transmitted the fervour of his faith to his dissembling companion. ‘And we may yet witness something like the Creation,’ he added, the dim lamplight kindling a wondering expectation in the friar’s dark eyes.

  ‘Oh,’ Iago responded with a short and wry laugh, ‘very likely. The question is not what we shall witness, but whether we shall live to tell the tale.’

  ‘All men must die, my son. Better a death at the mighty hand of God than at the petty hand of man, or a disgusting surrender to disease.’

  ‘I would not take it as a text to preach upon, Father, for thou might be thought a Jonah.’

  The typhoon burst upon them shortly after midnight when Iago had relieved the watch. He was not long left alone, both Lorenzo and Olivera joining him, the pilot-major taking command and giving orders to heave the ship to. The Santa Margarita’s head was brought up as close to the wind as she would comfortably lie without straining the gear and where she might best ride out the heaviest seas. These grew steadily until their toppling crests thundered aboard the labouring hull and began again to tear at the deck cargo of boxes and bales in the waist and the half-deck. Once again sea water streamed below as the ship rolled; every cabin, every curtained space, every palliasse, every hammock, every wardrobe of clothes, every pair of boots, every storeroom, nook and cranny became drenched. There was soon three, four, five feet of water reported in the well and the pumps were manned. Only the women and the gentlemen of the captain-general’s suite were exempt from the tedium of the pumps, otherwise every fit man was mustered to take his turn while the most skilled seamen struggled at the whipstaff to keep the ship’s head up into the wind, aided by a relieving tackle and a scrap of sail.

  By dawn the wind was so strong that the seas had ceased to curl and break; now their entire crests were torn off into their constituent atoms, filling the air so that it was no longer breathable but had the consistency of cold, salty and saturated vapour.

  ‘Christ! We are not fish but that we must breathe out our lives under water!’ Ordóñez gasped as he toiled alongside Iago on a pump handle.

  ‘It is your Genesis, Fray Mateo,’ Iago remarked with respiratory difficulty to Marmolejo who was next to them.

  ‘What a fool Adam was to leave Eden . . .’ Ordóñez added.

  ‘He listened to the woman,’ Marmolejo responded, concluding the staccato exchange. They worked on in silence until, an hour later, they were relieved and ventured under the break of the half-deck to regard the primeval scene, exhausted with their exertions. So accustomed had they become to the motion of the Santa Margarita that below at the pumps they had no idea of the extent of her rolling. From the partial shelter of the overhang they watched as the masts swayed back and forth against the low grey scud driving across the sky.

  ‘Does God or the Devil drive us now?’ Ordóñez asked, shouting against the terrible booming roar of the wind, as they watched the main yardarm dip so far that it touched the water. That the ship returned to the vertical seemed miraculous to Iago, though he kept his own counsel on the matter. But with so much water within her it would not have surprised him had she lolled and lain on her beam ends until the sea finally rolled her over. So far, Iago realized, their toiling at the pumps had stemmed the ingress of water, but for how long could they keep it up?

  And with every roll, with every straining wrack, hog and sag of the hull, the seams would flex and open. In time the very caulking would work loose, reducing them to a waterlogged hulk which would in due course founder. He turned away and went in search of something to eat and the solace of sleep.

  If the Santa Margarita herself was undergoing torture it was as nothing to that of her company. The galley had been swept by a sea, its stove extinguished and several of its utensils carried over the side and lost. What remained of the fresh provisions were also either washed overboard or spoiled by the sea. The milking goats, the chickens and all the livestock had been drowned in the typhoon’s initial onslaught, even the rats had been seen swimming, and the chill of the water had a bad effect upon the native Filipino seamen and their women. At this time the Bishop of Mani
la’s nephew had fallen heavily against a stanchion and had his belly ripped open. After three hours screaming he had lost consciousness and lay inert, attended by the Sisters of Mercy.

  But sleep eluded even the tired Iago. The noise of his fellow sufferers had fallen to a low wailing and occasional whimper. The slosh of water back and forth across the deck reducing everything to a now familiar pulp could barely be heard above the noise of the ship herself. Her great timbers creaked with a volubility of astonishing magnitude, a noise that sounded to their apprehensive ears to express as eloquently as possible the strain of their torture. Beyond the heavy futtocks and the thick, double layer of planking the rush of the sea could be distinguished clearly, augmented from time to time by the shudder of the hull as a wave either slammed against the tumblehome of the Santa Margarita’s topsides or landed heavily upon her deck. But what now pierced Iago’s consciousness was another sensation: part noise, part movement. Now there was a trembling that was quite different from the hull’s creaking strain. It seemed to bear some formulaic relationship with the deep and heavy rolling of the ship; now there was a tremulous shuddering that juddered throughout the vessel at a constant level, except perhaps that – from time to time – it worsened. It took his tired brain a few moments to divine its origin, and then he had it: it was the standing rigging, thrummed by the mighty and insistent wind. If their previous ordeal had been caused by a typhoon of ordinary malice, this was one of infinitely greater malevolence.

  Iago lay in his hammock as it jerked on its lanyards and listened, remembering an old yarn he had heard as a boy, along the quays of the Guadalquivír when the bronzed seamen had come ashore with their tall tales. It was the story of the end of the world, which would begin by the blowing of a great wind. ‘The rush of Almighty God,’ he had been assured by an old sailor whose words were borne on breath as foul as the exhalations of Hell itself, ‘the rush of Almighty God as He comes with the armed angels of Heaven to reclaim this wicked, wicked world . . .’ The old shellback had called this divine gale the ‘masterwind’ and said that it would be the wrath of God presaging the Day of Wrath. Somehow this vision of the Dies Irae seemed infinitely more terrifying and more real than the imprecations of the black-robed priests, which preyed so often on his imagination. Now, for all his secret antipathy to the Roman Catholic Church, Iago felt this superstition touch his very soul and he felt the clutch of visceral fear in his gut.