Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor
Page 9
They took me to San Juan de Uraba in the same hammock in which they had carried me to Mulatos. But the crowd accompanying me had grown: there were no fewer than six hundred men. There were also women, children, and animals. Some were on donkeys but most were on foot. The trip took almost all day. Carried by that crowd, by six hundred men taking turns along the way, I felt my strength returning. I think Mulatos was left depopulated. From the early hours of morning, the motor had been turned on, and the radio had filled the hamlet with music. It was like a festival. At the center of it all, and the reason for the festival, I had lain in bed while the whole town streamed by to look at me. That same crowd couldn't bear to send me off alone, but had to go with me to San Juan de Uraba in a long caravan as wide as the winding road. I was hungry and thirsty during the whole trip. The little bits of soda biscuit and the minute sips of water brought me around again but had also stimulated my hunger and thirst. Entering San Juan reminded me of a village feast. All the inhabitants of that picturesque little town buffeted by the sea winds came out to meet me. The town had taken precautions against the curiosity seekers. The police managed to contain the mob that elbowed one another in the streets trying to get a look at me.
This was the end of my journey. Dr. Humberto Gomez, the first physician to give me a thorough examination, passed on the great news; he didn't tell me anything before finishing his examination because he wanted to make sure I could handle it. Cuffing me lightly on the cheek and smiling amiably, he said, "There's a plane ready to take you to Cartagena. Your family is waiting for you there."
14
My Heroism Consisted of
Not Letting Myself Die
It never occurred to me that a man could become a hero for being on a raft ten days and enduring hunger and thirst. I had no choice. If the raft had been outfitted with water, vacuum-packed biscuits, a compass, and fishing gear, I surely would have been as alive as I am now. But there would be a difference: I wouldn't have been treated like a hero. So, in my case, heroism consisted solely of not allowing myself to die of hunger and thirst for ten days.
I did nothing heroic. All my effort went toward saving myself. But since salvation came wrapped in a glow and with the title of hero as a prize, like a bonbon with a surprise inside it, I had no choice but to accept my salvation as it came, heroism and all.
I have been asked how it feels to be a hero. I never know how to respond. So far as I'm concerned, I feel the same as I did before. Nothing has changed internally or externally. The terrible burns from the sun have stopped hurting. The knee injury has become scar tissue. I am Luis Alejandro Velasco again, and that's enough for me.
It's other people who have changed. My friends are now friendlier than before. And I imagine that my enemies are worse enemies, although I don't really think I have any. When people recognize me on the street, they stare at me as if I were some strange animal. For that reason I dress in civilian clothes, and will do so until people forget that I spent ten days on a raft without food or water.
Your first realization when you become an important person is that all day and all night, whatever the circumstances, people want to hear you talk about yourself. I learned that at the Cartagena Naval Hospital, where they assigned me a guard so that no one could speak to me. After three days I felt completely normal again but I couldn't leave the hospital. I knew that after I was discharged I would have to tell my story to the whole world, because, as the guards had told me, newspaper reporters from all over the country had come to the city to interview and photograph me. One of them, with an impressive mustache about twenty centimeters long, took more than fifty photos, but he wasn't permitted to ask me anything about my adventure.
Another one, more daring, disguised himself as a doctor, fooled the guards, and slipped into my room. It was a great coup for him, but short-lived.
The story of a news story
Only my father, the guards, and the doctors and nurses at the naval hospital were permitted in my room. One day, a doctor I had never seen before came in. He looked very young in his smock and eyeglasses, with a phonendoscope hanging from his neck. He turned up unannounced, saying nothing.
The corporal of the guard looked at him in perplexity and asked him to identify himself. The young doctor searched his pockets, stalled a little, and said he had forgotten his papers. Then the guard told him he couldn't talk to me without special permission from the director of the hospital. So they went off in search of the director. Twenty minutes later, they came back to my room.
The guard entered first and told me that the man had been given permission to examine me for fifteen minutes and that he was a psychiatrist from Bogota. The guard, however, thought he was a reporter in disguise.
"Why do you think so?" I asked him.
"Because he's very frightened. And psychiatrists don't use a phonendoscope."
Nonetheless, he had talked to the director of the hospital for fifteen minutes. They would have spoken about medicine and psychiatry in complicated medical terms and quickly reached an understanding.
I don't know if it was because of the guard's warning, but when the young doctor came back to my room I no longer thought of him as a medical man. He didn't seem like a reporter either, although I had never seen a reporter until that moment. He looked to me like a priest disguised as a doctor. It struck me that he didn't know how to begin, but in fact he was trying to figure out how to distract the guard.
"Do me a favor and find me a piece of paper," he said to the guard.
He probably thought the guard would go to the office to look for paper. But the guard's orders were not to leave me alone. Rather than go looking for it, he went to the corridor and called out: "Bring some writing paper on the double."
A moment later, the paper arrived. More than five minutes had gone by and the doctor still hadn't asked me a question. The examination didn't begin until the paper arrived. He handed me the paper and asked me to draw a ship. I drew a ship. Then he asked me to sign the drawing, which I did. Next he asked me to draw a farmhouse. I drew a house as best I could, with a banana plant next to it. He asked me to sign the drawing. That was when I became convinced he was a reporter in disguise. But he insisted he was a doctor.
When I finished drawing he examined the papers, mumbled a few words, and began to ask questions about my adventure. But the guard intervened to remind him that that kind of question was not permitted. Then he examined my body, the way a doctor does. His hands were ice cold. If the guard had touched them, he would have thrown the man out of the room. But I said nothing, because his nervousness and the possibility that he might be a reporter aroused my sympathy. Before his fifteen minutes were up he hurried out, taking the drawings with him.
All hell broke loose the next day. The drawings appeared on the front page of El Tiempo, complete with captions and arrows. "This is where I went overboard," read one caption, with an arrow pointing toward the ship's bridge. Which was an error, because I had been on the stern, not on the bridge. But the drawings were mine.
I was told that I should ask for a correction. That I could demand one. But that seemed absurd. I felt great admiration for a reporter who would disguise himself as a doctor to gain entrance to a military hospital. If he had found a way to let me know he was a reporter, I would have known how to get rid of the guard. Because, in fact, I had already been given permission that day to tell my story.
The business of the story
The adventure of the reporter in disguise gave me a very good idea of how much interest the newspapers had in the story of my ten days at sea. Everyone was interested. My own friends asked me to tell it many times. When I got to Bogota, now almost fully recovered, I realized that my life had changed. I was greeted with great fanfare at the airport. I was decorated by the president of the country--he congratulated me on my heroic feat. From that day on, I knew I would remain in the Navy, but now with the rank of cadet.
In addition, there was something I hadn't anticipated: offers from adve
rtising and publicity agencies. I was very grateful for my watch, which had kept perfect time during my odyssey, but I didn't think that would be of much interest to the watch manufacturer. Nonetheless, they gave me five hundred pesos and a new watch. For using a certain brand of chewing gum and saying so in an ad, I received a thousand pesos. I was lucky that the manufacturer of my shoes gave me two thousand pesos for endorsing them in an ad. For permitting my story to be told on radio I received five thousand. I never imagined that surviving ten days of hunger and thirst would turn out to be so profitable. But it is: up till now I have received almost ten thousand pesos. Nevertheless, I wouldn't relive that adventure for a million.
My hero's life is nothing extraordinary. I get up at ten o'clock in the morning. I go to a cafe to chat with my friends, or to one of the agencies working on ads about my adventure. I go to the movies almost every day. And I'm never alone. But I can't reveal the name of my companion, for that belongs to the rest of my story.
Every day I receive letters from all over. Letters from people I don't know. From Pereira, bearing the initials J.V.C., I received a long poem about rafts and sea gulls. Mary Address, who had a mass said for the repose of my soul when I was adrift in the Caribbean, writes to me frequently. She sent me an inscribed photograph, which newspaper readers have seen.
I have told my story on television and on a radio program. I've also told it to my friends. I told it to an elderly widow with a huge photograph album who invited me to her home. Some people tell me this story is a fantasy. And I ask them: If it is, then what did I do during my ten days at sea?
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