The Disastrous Voyage of the Santa Margarita

by Richard Woodman

  Despite the gale that again belaboured the Santa Margarita, within her dark, damp and stinking half-deck, men rejoiced and sang praises to Almighty God as though they meant every word. No one noticed a few sad faces among the common women as they mashed a few mildewed beans that had also been found below that evening. God had granted them a miracle as they had prayed. The small handful of men who complained that a resurrected baby was all very well, but they had now to endure yet another storm, were dismissed as blind fools and Doubting Thomases.

  ‘What care we for another gale?’ they were firmly told. ‘Have we not endured the worst that the Devil can dish up? Moreover, have we not been given a sign of God’s good and benevolent intent towards us?’

  Thirteen

  Watchwords of the Damned

  Their relief was short-lived for hardly had the Mass been celebrated and the infant baptized than an ominous banging was heard above the creaking of the ship, the roar of the wind and sea and the noisy agonies of the malodorous and gangrenous Francisco. Somewhere beneath them the broken stump of the bowsprit remained caught and throughout the following night no one slept, every soul lying awake, waiting for the next thump against the hull. Curiously, after daylight shed a grey light over the turbulent sea, no one quite remembered when it had ceased, only that, as Agustin said, ‘It pleased God to move it away.’

  Throughout the day the Santa Margarita rolled with a relentlessness that wearied the most seasoned sailor. No attempt had been made to re-hoist the scrap of sail forward and most lay about in a state of lethargy, devoid of leadership, hungry, thirsty, bruised and battered. Olivera and his adopted assistant, Iago Fernandez, were totally exhausted, as were Llerena and the other petty officers. As for the captain-general and his staff, although in better physical condition than the others, they were as helpless, lacking any notion of what might be done beyond an intermittent manning of the pumps. For most of those aboard the stricken Santa Margarita, the hours passed in a daze of being rolled about, of hitting heads and bodies against the ship’s beams and futtocks, of stumbling and cursing and crying in pain as bruise superimposed itself upon tender and painful bruise.

  In this state of abject misery no food appeared and the scarcity of water was only eased by a torrential rainstorm. While most people capable of reaching the deck stood and collected the water in their mouths, only a few had the sense to catch more in buckets and jars. To the whimpers, groans and intermittent cries of the dying Francisco were added the moans of the scorbutic, for scurvy had for some time affected many, loosening their teeth in bleeding gums and adding their foul exhalations to the stench which lay like a miasma between decks. Only among the household of Don Baldivieso de Arrocheros did the spark of joy remain alive.

  In Iago’s quarters a grim mood prevailed. Iago himself sat huddled against the ship’s straining side, Ah Fong swinging in the hammock above him and Ximenez curled like a dog at his feet.

  ‘I can hold out little hope to you, my friends,’ he said thickly, his tongue dry and enlarged. ‘We have done all that we can . . .’ He broke off, then rallied and added, ‘I have failed you both.’

  ‘No, master, no.’ Ximenez stirred and looked up, his flesh loose upon his overlarge and shaking head. His large dark eyes were limpid and more dog-looking than ever before. Iago noticed that his gums were bleeding a little and his breath smelled. Ah Fong leaned out of her swaying hammock, extended her hand and sought that of her husband. Hers was the face of a ghost, a pale, drawn shadow that was, in Iago’s eyes, possessed of a beauty that terrified him. When she withdrew her hand with a wan smile, he put a finger into his own mouth and on to a canine tooth. It wobbled ominously in the gum. Withdrawing his finger he held it momentarily beneath his nose. It stank.

  The Santa Margarita lay a-hull at the mercy of the wind and sea for three days and when the wind dropped, it was a fourth before the swell had subsided sufficiently to persuade a single soul to rouse themselves. That evening it fell away to a perfect calm, the sea, though undulating under the influence of the now distant storm, lay like a vast sheet of grey-blue silk and the sun westered in a blaze of glory.

  Word went round that the Holy Ones had persuaded Guillestigui to hear the Mass in his cabin and all were summoned to attend. Here, bringing a few crucifixes, rosaries and votive images from their various quarters, passengers and crew – now indistinguishable by their garments or bearing – heard Agustin and his colleagues celebrate the mystery of the Eucharist and chant the Litany. Those who could joined in, but the cracked voices and reedy efforts were a measure of their suffering and they looked – as they swayed there, propping each other up as they knelt on the wet deck – like a congregation in Purgatory. Prayers of confession, supplication and dedication were again said, and benediction was granted amid the rustling of over a hundred souls crossing themselves. Conspicuous among these were the captain-general and his suite.

  Afterwards Miguel de Alacanadre spoke. His worried face bore the open and suppurating wounds of his ordeal among the breaking glass jars; scurvy prevented these from healing. He ordered two trunks of clothing be brought up from the captain-general’s private store in the lazarette and these were distributed amongst the most needy.

  ‘The captain-general and myself wish you to accept these with our affection and goodwill,’ he said, to a low murmur of approval, after which the crowd slowly and uncertainly dispersed, for no one could walk properly and every movement had become an effort.

  The following day the bishop’s nephew Francisco died. He was quickly buried, for his gangrenous corpse stank to high Heaven and offended even those whose rotting gums smelled little better. That night three more souls, all marineros, gave up the ghost.

  ‘We need more miracles,’ Iago remarked slowly as they contemplated a little fermented rice that Ximenez had found and Ah Fong had dressed.

  ‘That child was not a miracle, master,’ Ximenez said in a confidential tone, ‘though I dare not say this where others might hear . . .’ He looked about him fearfully and gave up his explanation when Ah Fong sniggered.

  ‘All people make big mistake,’ she said. ‘All fools, except my beloved . . .’

  ‘The child was another’s,’ Iago said.

  Ximenez looked astonished. ‘Master . . . How did you know?’

  ‘Do you take me for a fool?’

  Ximenez frowned, wrestling with the conflict Iago’s certainty introduced. ‘But the authority of the Holy Fathers . . . They cannot lie.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but they can be mistaken. They are only men, Ximenez.’

  Ximenez appeared to consider this proposition for a moment then he shrugged. ‘I forgot. The master is . . .’

  ‘Hold your tongue!’ Iago said sharply. ‘Do not think that because we are all near death and the captain-general acts like a religious benefactor himself there are not those who would seek amelioration of their plight by our discomfiture.’

  It was this thought that forced Iago back on deck as much as the easing in the conditions. He was, as they all were, a man at the extremity of his resources. His mood was dark and he sensed a danger that transcended the simple, visceral fear of what was to become of them. Men changed in extreme circumstances and there was something profoundly disquieting in the change in Guillestigui and his after-guard.

  The calm that drew Iago forth acted upon other men. Though famished and scorbutic, enough of them rallied upon the upper deck to attempt something. Motivated by a strong desire to survive and, despite their sufferings, revived by the change in the weather, those still capable of standing on unsteady feet and tailing, albeit feebly on a rope, worked heroically. In the days that followed they made of the derelict Santa Margarita something approaching a ship. Help came from surprising places. Guillestigui himself made an appearance and assisted as two heavy beams were taken out of the waist and, with infinite patience and several failed attempts, upended to make a jury mainmast. Once this was stayed, they next drew the stump of the mizzen and inched it forward to lower
it and wedge it in place of the ruined foremast. While these spars were being set up and rigged, others, under the direction of the carpenters, fabricated a blade on a fished spar, extemporizing a rudder which would give them some control over the ship’s head. As men sat cross-legged on the deck and sewed torn canvas to make sails, Guillestigui consulted Olivera, who drew Iago into the conversation.

  ‘His Excellency wishes to know where we are, Don Iago, in order that we may best determine the course to lay once we have completed our preparations.’

  Iago looked directly at the captain-general. ‘With respect, Your Excellency, we may not have much choice. We shall only be able to lay a course before the wind . . .’

  ‘We must make for Cipangu, Don Iago. I am certain that you will find it the nearest land.’

  ‘That may be so, Your Excellency, but unfortunately the least distance is not the arbiter, it is the direction of the wind that will determine the possibilities.’

  This response was not what Guillestigui wished to hear, but he held his peace. He contented himself with a warning. ‘Our food is limited,’ he said, tacitly admitting that he still commanded a quantity of provisions, and so for a month they ran off before the wind, which carried them perversely northwards and westwards more often than not. Only occasionally did they find themselves heading east, for it appeared that the run of typhoons had disrupted the westerly flow of the gyre, further evidence for those that were still able to reason that Ocampo’s curse and God’s displeasure were real. The winds remained light but the cold and fog struck many and although it transpired that the captain-general’s harboured store would yield a meagre ration of ship’s biscuit, dried and salted meat and a few sardines, both men and women continued dying and every forenoon was occupied by the sad duty of burial. Saddest of all was the death of the baby Francisco. Doña Catalina, her breasts dry, was inconsolable; not even Marmolejo’s insistence that the child was with God stopped her tears. Wracked with grief and despair, filled with a sensation that in taking her resurrected child God himself disapproved of her and all her family, she resumed her decline. Don Baldivieso implored the Holy Ones to pray for her.

  ‘I shall endow your order,’ he promised, sobbing, ‘with half my fortune if we survive,’ he pleaded. And so Doña Catalina lay, a candle at her head and feet, her husband and a Franciscan on their knees at prayer beside her.

  Death, like scurvy, was a constant among them. Every morning those who did not rise were inspected by one of the Franciscans. One day a pair of corpses would be discovered, another morning would yield four or five, others as many as eight or ten. The marineros died by the score, lying on the deck, pissing and vomiting amid the foetid stink of their sad malady, spitting their teeth on the deck like knuckle-bones and dreaming of luscious fruits and cabbages and streams of cascading waters that many of them had seen on the islands of the Pacific. Few died quietly, most seemed bound for Hell itself as the Holy Ones, the Franciscan brothers, their lay members and the handful of wretched nuns moved among them offering spiritual comfort and the crucified Saviour’s assurances of everlasting life.

  The living themselves had long since resembled skeletons, their bones showing through their skins, their eyes shadowed, their hair falling out along with their teeth. Some managed to supplement their diet by catching the odd rat and even a dolphin – thus discovering a thin source of antiscorbutic sustenance – while the wise by now never failed to collect what water fell in the form of rain. Nevertheless, it was clear the Santa Margarita was truly cursed. Of this no one was any longer in doubt after the death of the Arrocheros baby, and it was now that the Discalced Franciscans passed among their flock warning them to prepare for an inevitable death and promising everlasting life if they died well.

  Those unable to face this prospect with the equanimity that the Holy Ones appeared to demand murmured a heartfelt prayer: ‘O Lord God,’ they muttered, ‘take us, we beseech Thee, to some island and let us die there, not aboard this evil ship, even though we shall have nothing but grass to eat and even if the natives of the place kill us with clubs. Anything, O Merciful God, but an end aboard this death-ship.’

  And to seal this covenant they abandoned the virgin saint, Margarita, after whom the hated ship had been named, cleaving instead to Santa Anna. And in answer to their intercessions, every Saturday thereafter – or so they reckoned it – their new benefactress sent them a steady shower of rain. This was not a miracle, Marmolejo explained, but a sign that God wished to ease their suffering at this Christmas-tide. Death itself remained ineluctable. But the hopeful continued to pray for the sight of an island.

  Just as the Lord gaveth, he also tooketh away. As the year turned so did the weather. Within an hour the calms and light airs abruptly terminated and they were again assailed by a ferocious wind. Olivera mustered what help he could, the scrap of mainsail was doused and the Santa Margarita ran off before the wind. The tortuous motion of the ship caused Olivera’s anxiety for the weak rudder to increase by the minute, his only consolation that the wind was from the east. He peered over the stern at the jury rudder, willing its bending shaft not to snap and its nailed boards not to fly apart, calling out to a chain of huddled figures that conveyed his commands below to ease the helm when he thought it under too great a strain. After half an hour he could himself stand the strain of it no longer. In such conditions the thing was largely ineffectual and in despair of wasting a fair wind he gave up and called for the hands to lower the foresail.

  A few men crawled across the deck and slackened the sheets, but no one on deck could go out along the springing yard to secure the wildly flogging sail except the young cadet Silva who scrambled aloft. It was an immensely courageous but futile attempt. With a billowing crack the wind lifted the sail and tore it from its robands in several tatters and then carried it overboard. Poor Silva vanished with it, borne away from them into the white welter that once more raged along the battered side of the great ship.

  ‘God have mercy upon him!’ Olivera cried, crossing himself and sending below for one of the Franciscans to come on deck and say the Office for the Dead.

  Again the Santa Margarita fell wallowing into the trough of the sea; again she rolled and again her company rolled with her, flung about within the foul confines of her labouring hull. This extreme motion seemed like a final straw; irrespective of their condition men simply died from no apparent cause other than the desperate tedium of being flung about the ship like balls. Bruised at best, often suffering terrible fractures or cuts and lesions which swiftly rotted, the toll went on and on. All ceremony was abandoned, it became each for him- or herself. Souls flew from bodies unshriven. Doña Catalina, weakened by grief and inertia, died after being flung from her bed-place and striking her head. Neither Arrocheros nor Marmolejo who lay beside her could save her.

  It seemed that her despairing husband would follow her, for he fell into a fit and spat blood. No one expected him to survive and, like every other inert and dying person, his plight was ignored as he clung to his dead wife, refusing to relinquish her corpse for burial. Even Marmolejo soon abandoned his attempt to reason with the distracted widower and dragged himself away. So weak were even the fittest that none could stand and brace themselves against the motion of the ship, and those who tried to carry out any duty crawled on knees that were soon raw.

  As it became clear that nothing further could be done, Guillestigui abandoned all but his close coterie and again withdrew into the great cabin. It was thus clear that his encouragement of the others had only been motivated by self-interest. The moiety of rations from aft ceased and once again the sharp pangs of extreme hunger bit deeper than ever. It grew colder too, and when Olivera determined their latitude he was convinced that they had drifted north of Cipangu and closed the dreadful coast of Tartary. Snow squalls often now replaced the showers and when it did rain the captain-general’s guards requisitioned the water that a few active souls had collected, driving these angry and wretched people to hoist sea water up in
buckets and drink it. Within hours most were dead or raving in the bitter cold, to die before the pale and yellow sun rose again.

  Those still capable of wishing for anything other than a speedy termination to their pain-wracked lives prayed to be cast away upon the Tartar coast where they could drown in the cleansing yet hated waves of the freezing sea.

  A fortnight later, however, and as if to prolong their agony, the wind dropped and a torrent of rain fell so that all still alive drank as much as they might and filled every available receptacle. After so dreadful a period of deprivation some suffered terrible pangs from this superfluity while others became drunk with ecstasy. One seaman stood half naked, consuming beaker after beaker of water as it ran down from a broken hand rail. This acted like a conduit to such an extent that he spontaneously urinated into the pump-trough at his feet. Another, seeing a clear stream pouring from the pump-trough, lapped up the other’s micturition.

  And then, amid a distant swirl of mist, someone spied land. Scraps of canvas were again set but the ship could not be induced to close the half-seen coastline and Olivera ordered the attempt abandoned, crying out that the currents were contrary and no tide could be anticipated to carry them south-westwards as they wished. Instead they remained at the caprice of the wind and drifted away to leeward.

  Marmolejo led a deputation aft. Many of the crawling skeletons now had grotesquely swollen joints and were so contused that their filthy skin was blue with bruising. They laid before Guillestigui a remonstrance but there was little the proud captain-general could agree to do beyond let Olivera determine their course. He too looked now little better than his underlings, a wreck of a man infested with the ravages of scurvy and excess, his sword arm in a sling where he had broken his wrist after falling heavily. It was said he had lost his mistress, to whom he was devoted, but none of the religious had given her the last rites. A morbid rumour circulated that he still lay with her corpse, like the crazy Arrocheros; others said that he had had her body hurled from the stern in a fit of rage. No one cared either way, for few engaged in conversation.