‘What misfortune has befallen us now?’ the merchant asked.
‘The rudder is partially jammed,’ Iago explained, ‘not enough, mercifully, to disable us . . .’
‘Thanks be to God,’ said Arrocheros, crossing himself.
‘Amen to that,’ Iago forced himself to say, following suit. ‘It will probably clear itself in time,’ he added, ‘or so Antonio de Olivera thinks . . .’
‘And what about you? Do you agree with him?’
Iago shrugged. ‘It is possible,’ he said. ‘I did not see the ship on the stocks and have, like you, to trust the pilots. Both men are competent . . .’
‘If both men are competent,’ Arrocheros said, exasperated, ‘why are we in such a parlous state?’
‘Don Baldivieso, a typhoon is no respecter of men’s abilities, it is an indifferent force reminiscent of the first day of Genesis . . .’
‘But I heard you say that if we had run before this wind we should not have lost our upper masts . . .’
Iago held up his hand. An edge of exasperation entered his voice as he mastered himself and summoned whatever patience with this man remained to him. ‘That is an assertion I made based on a belief which I had no means of proving before we risked the ship in turning her round. We might have rolled over in doing so, Heaven knows we are overloaded and perhaps Don Juan was right to reject my advice. After all, I have no official position aboard this ship.’
Arrocheros sighed heavily and turned away. Watching him go, Iago’s eye was caught by the wan gaze of his wife peering from behind a lifted corner of the coconut matting that marked their private domain. Wrapped in a wet blanket, Doña Catalina lay back against one of the ship’s massive frames and regarded her husband and, beyond him, stared at Iago. Strands of her dark hair were stuck to her clammy skin and her eyes were shadowed. She seemed to encapsulate the misery of all the passengers mewed up in the confined half-deck. He tried to smile reassuringly at her, giving her a little bow by inclining his head. For a moment she stared back and, he thought, acknowledged his small courtesy with a quick half-smile before raising her eyes to her husband, who now loomed over her. Iago turned away, mindful of his own pitiful household.
They too huddled behind the imperfect shelter of the mat and canvas screen. Ximenez was rolled into a ball and lay on a sodden palliasse. He seemed to be crooning in a low, self-comforting voice, like a child, Iago thought. Ah Fong was asleep in her own hammock. Sensing the presence of his master, Ximenez rolled over and looked up at Iago. For a moment the two stared at each other and then Ximenez shook his head, woke fully and started to his feet. Iago pushed him gently back.
‘Try to sleep, Ximenez. There is nothing for you to do.’
‘Except to die, master.’
‘You are not going to die, Ximenez.’
‘You have consulted Almighty God on this matter, have you, master?’
Iago sank down on the deck, pulling his cloak around him. ‘I am constantly on my supplicant knees, Ximenez, as you may have noticed. Now hold your tongue before one of the Holy Ones does the same thing with a pair of red-hot tongs.’
Ximenez made a grimace and then rolled over and drew up his knees. Iago stared at the two of them for a moment before himself settling amid the damp blankets to snatch an hour’s sleep.
But their troubles were only beginning. Before Iago was disturbed from his fitful slumber and called to keep his watch on deck, Olivera was confronted with the next problem. It was two hours before midnight and a moderation in the wind and sea had eased the plight of the Santa Margarita a little. Despite the damage aloft, the battered ship held her heading, though not her proper course, shrugging off the worst of the heavy seas that rolled down to meet her, and helped in part by the remains of the felled rigging trailing away to windward like an impromptu sea anchor. Olivera jammed himself against the windward rail, took a turn of line about himself and stared ahead, measuring the extent of the wrecked rigging and planning how they might make good the ship’s sailing deficiencies. He had hardly settled to this task than Llerena approached. In the half-light the acutely sighted Olivera could make out his face as a tortured mixture of fear and perverse pleasure at being the bringer of bad tidings to the pilots.
‘You have more trouble,’ Llerena said accusingly.
‘You mean we, you dog,’ growled Olivera emphatically, accurately divining the boatswain’s motive and the substance of his message. ‘You have come to tell me the ship is making water, no doubt.’ Llerena nodded with an affirmative grunt, cheated of the impact he hoped his words would have upon the second pilot. ‘Then put the entire watch to the pumps and afterwards tell the carpenters to report their findings to me.’
‘I have already ascertained these, though it is obvious to anyone who has been to sea before—’
He got no further. In an instant Olivera had a dagger at his throat, drawn from the small of his back with such speed and pointed with such unerring accuracy at the windpipe of the insolent Llerena on that bucking deck that the big man quailed before the second pilot. ‘Be careful, Diego de Llerena, be very careful,’ Olivera said with slow emphasis. ‘The situation of this ship is so grave that if we do not work together we shall assuredly all die separate deaths. Be careful that yours is not among the first!’
Llerena pulled back, and as quick as it had appeared, Olivera’s dagger was returned to its sheath, nestling in his belt under the half-cloak he wore on deck. In the gloom the brief altercation had gone almost unnoticed.
‘That was a foolish thing to do, Antonio de Olivera, I shall . . .’
‘Do not threaten me with your intimacy with the captain-general and your damnable Basque brotherhood. Leave that until we are on dry land. For the time being do as I say, man the pumps and send the carpenters aft.’
For a moment Llerena stood his ground, wondering in his ponderous way whether to obey the second pilot, but the ship staggered into a sea and a sheet of cold water was flung aft, to strike the boatswain across the back of the head and neck. He withdrew and Olivera stood motionless, awaiting the carpenters. They arrived a few minutes later, two men of mixed blood whose bodies sagged with the fatigue of their labours in the hold. Both men were soaking wet and, exposed on deck, shivered in the chilling wind. Olivera knew what they were going to say.
‘She has worked badly, Don Antonio . . .’ the first explained.
‘She is badly wracked and strained, señor . . .’ the other added in corroboration. ‘I think much of the caulking is disturbed.’
Olivera nodded. ‘It is to be expected,’ he said.
‘But . . .’ began the first carpenter, shifting nervously from one foot to the other, unwilling to venture an opinion. The man faltered, a pathetic reminder in such extreme conditions as the storm continued to thunder about them and the ship to pitch, roll and lurch, of the distances that separate men.
‘She may settle again, once this,’ and here Olivera gestured to the sea raging alongside, ‘blows itself out.’
The carpenter avoided the issue. ‘There is too much water in the hold, señor, to sound it properly, some of the crates are afloat and there is much damage as they strike each other. It is difficult to get at the ship’s side to inspect it.’
For a moment Olivera felt overwhelmed by the disaster that seemed to assail them from all directions and felt an impulse to strike the senior carpenter, as the man himself feared. In part it was the deferred reaction to Llerena’s insult; in part a selfish and dishonourable impulse arising from his own fear. Alarmed at his own reaction and suddenly struck with a visceral terror at their predicament, Olivera turned away. Recovering himself, he faced the carpenters again. ‘The watch are mustering at the pumps, do what you can. I understand the state of the ship . . .’ Only too well, he added silently to himself as the two half-castes went below.
The strained hull might not ‘take up’ again when the violent motion eased, and she might now leak with a persistence that would challenge their ability to pump her. Olivera to
ok a slight comfort from the notion that at least the ship had plenty of manpower. A landsman was useless at most tasks on board ship, but he could work a pump handle, thank God. Olivera crossed himself. And as if in answer he heard above the roar of the storm the faint thunk, thunk of the pumps as they began to deliver water up on deck from where, after washing about, it finally drained over the side.
When Iago relieved him Olivera told the sobrasaliente of the water in the hold, but also of the advantage of having many souls with which to pump.
‘I hope that the storerooms are not overwhelmed, for heavy work will increase the desire for food,’ said Iago.
‘I had not thought of that,’ admitted Olivera.
‘We are grown weary with this damnably incessant motion,’ Iago consoled him.
‘That is no excuse . . . besides I nearly struck the carpenter who told me,’ Olivera confessed. ‘It is not just fatigue that is overpowering us, Don Iago, it is something else.’
‘Surely you do not subscribe to the belief in Ocampo’s curse?’
‘No, but I fear a breakdown in discipline. Fear is infectious. Men dispense with the notion of staying together, of achieving through unity. They care only about themselves. If I am feeling close to striking an innocent man, God knows –’ and here Olivera crossed himself again – ‘what those men forward will be thinking if matters get much worse.’
The prescience of Olivera’s observation, based as it was upon the exposure of his own inner fears and reactions, proved accurate a few days later, helped by a dramatic easing of the weather as the storm blew itself out and the westerly winds reasserted their dominance over the surface of the Pacific. With a forecourse set and little spread on the after spars, the Santa Margarita was put before the wind. Unfortunately her progress was slow and this, combined with the constant and demoralizing labour at the pumps, had its effect upon morale. Other facts discomfited them. Reports of spoiled stores, real enough and hushed up by the officers, drifted inevitably forward, and with them went a perceptible slump in the quality of the crew’s rations. At this time, thanks to the ingress of the sea throughout the greater part of the passengers’ accommodation, the private stores were found to be spoiled or exhausted, so those who regarded themselves among ‘the quality’ found themselves driven to subsisting on the same fare as the common marineros.
Although desultory attempts were made to right the disorder below decks, these were not successful. Many had lost their resilience, others had lost too many of their personal possessions to recover any equanimity. Nor did the damage aloft, or the missing bulwarks and the drowning of three seamen, do anything other than remind them that the Santa Margarita, so puissant at her anchor off Cavite, was a mere piece of drifting flotsam amid the great winds and waves of God’s mighty ocean. Once again rose the spectre of Ocampo’s curse, and this time it was not suppressed, but talked of constantly and openly so that it worked its corrosive effect upon the entire company, a metaphor to use against Guillestigui and those who represented authority. Though no one actively preached mutiny, there were those who considered Guillestigui’s contemptuous dismissal of the man appointed to be the Santa Margarita’s spiritual leader removed him from legitimate command. Nor did these philosophical considerations occupy the common sailors; it was among the Holy Ones that such things were discussed, in the low and conspiratorial voices that those who lived among the cloisters and the confessional were expert at.
But it was among the common marineros that the real discipline of the ship began to crack. Disorder, at first sporadic, even vague, began to manifest itself. The endemic grumbling among the crew worsened, exacerbated by the ceaseless and back-breaking work of pumping. This current of discontent grew and then spread aft like an insidious infection. When word was passed among the passengers that they would have to join the crew at the pumps, there were those who accepted the logic of the order, but also those who queried it. Among the latter Arrocheros was the most vociferous.
‘If I am to pump, I expect those popinjays aft to do the same,’ he said, pointedly referring to Guillestigui’s suite. It was a claim that found favour with Hernando and the other friars and lay brothers who considered the captain-general and his entourage the God-forsaken authors of their predicament.
And then suddenly there broke out among the sailors forward a shocking licence as, finally exhausted, they reeled from the pumps at the end of their shifts, to fall into the arms of their waiting women. In these explicit circumstances some – particularly the youngest – felt the revivification of arousal and quite openly, upon the upper deck in sight of all curious enough to watch, resorted to a defiant intercourse. Once started, this libidinous expression spread rapidly. The improper conduct in turn aroused the Holy Ones to a similar but contrary fury. They assembled in the waist clutching their Bibles, beads, psalters and missals, and began chanting.
Standing at the break of the half-deck, Lorenzo watched as a bedraggled nun beat the bare buttocks of a furiously rutting seaman while the object of his exertions – herself in the throes of a desperate ecstasy – spat over her lover’s shoulder into the nun’s face. Laughter and horror accompanied this ridiculous exhibition as others joined in.
Though forbidden by bellowed edict from the pilots, similar acts now followed as the majority of the crew defied authority, calling out that they had done their duty and they could do as they pleased in their watch below! And extraordinarily the sun came out, so that a hellish steam rose from the sodden deck, encouraging a greater number to indulge themselves. Word spread rapidly below and the duty watch abandoned the pumps and tumbled up on deck so that the entire waist of the Santa Margarita erupted into a violent and wild sea of exposed flesh, lolling bodies and the cries and shrieks of orgasm as the brief, shameless and flagrant orgy erupted forward.
The Holy Ones withdrew below from where their sanctimonious psalms rose, to the uproarious amusement of Guillestigui and his officers who, with their own women, appeared on the poop along with bottles and glasses and an air of licence that suggested the behaviour of the men forward only mirrored what their so-called betters had been doing for several days throughout the height of the storm.
Caught in between, Iago and the pilots, along with Ordóñez and Alacanadre, watched from the half-deck until a bellow from the poop caused them all to pause.
Guillestigui, the captain-general himself, stood bare-headed in his open doublet, his legs wide apart to brace himself against the motion of the Santa Margarita. One arm was about his mistress, the other hand brandished a bottle aloft.
‘Santa Maria,’ muttered a furious Lorenzo turning away from the display of drunken bravado and catching Olivera’s eye, ‘the man is mad!’
‘My lads!’ Guillestigui roared. ‘Drink with me to the damnation of cursing priests! See, we are safe! The ship rides the sea! Enjoy your revels and then do your duty!’
A kind of distracted cheer rose from the waist as it appeared the entire crew passed the women among them, some two at a time assailing the wretched drabs, some of whom seemed content to be thus used and none of whom openly protested.
‘They will not bend to their duty again without we flog them into submission,’ Lorenzo murmured. Olivera growled his agreement.
Iago tore his eyes from the antics of the sailors forward, which had aroused uncomfortable longings in himself, and turned to stare at the captain-general. Like all drunks, Guillestigui did not know when to quit and, having drained his bottle flung it from him. The ship lurched as he did so and, instead of flying clear over the rail, it struck the iron-bound mizzen-topsail halliard block and shivered into a hundred shards. Green glass sparkled as it exploded, catching one of the mulatto women belonging to Calcagorta in the eye and lacerating the cheek of the gunner himself. The woman shrieked and fell back while Calcagorta swore, putting his hand up to staunch the blood running down his face. The other women broke away from their men and clustered about their fallen and howling sister, whose agonies were intense. It took a moment o
r two before Guillestigui realized what had happened and that he was the author of the twin misfortunes. After staring at the woman he ordered word passed for a priest, an order already anticipated by Lorenzo, who had sent Iago hot-foot below for Marmolejo.
Within the contrasting gloom of the half-deck Iago found the Holy Ones on their knees, hands high in supplication, their faces expressing their anxiety in bearing the sins of the fornicators above them. Friars and nuns prayed together, led by Hernando in a wailing prayer amid the scent of incense which had by now been added to the general stink of the unventilated space. Iago shook Marmolejo by the shoulder.
‘Forgive me, Padre, but there is a woman hurt upon the poop. You are required to help, she has a glass splinter in one eye.’
Marmolejo took this information in without a word, then rose, ran aft to the pile of blankets that represented the extent of his worldly possessions and rummaged for a small bag of stiff wet leather. Grabbing it he followed Iago into the waist, where he crossed himself as a few laggards reached their climaxes and lolled back among those whose sexual satiation was now being followed by that from a score of wineskins passing among them. Iago led up the ladder to the half-deck and then indicated the ladder to the poop. The air was riven by the injured woman’s screams, now far louder than the dying typhoon. From the deck below Iago could see her body bucking against the restraint being applied by Rodrigo de Peralta and Olalde in an attempt to prevent her from doing worse injury. Then Marmolejo arrived and knelt beside her, his face expressionless as he regarded her wound.
The Disastrous Voyage of the Santa Margarita Page 15
