by Tim Severin
One of the hounds stretched up its muzzle and licked his master affectionately. Something stirred in Hector’s memory.
‘Are your dogs a special Peruvian breed?’
Don Alonso smiled indulgently. ‘My family came to the Americas with the first conquistadors and they brought the ancestors of these dogs with them. Trained to attack, they terrified the Indians.’ He leaned across to pat another of the hounds. ‘Mind you, this fellow’s too fat and lazy to terrify anyone.’
‘I’ve seen a dog very like him, though a different colour, a brindle.’
‘Where was that?’ Don Alonso asked. He was making polite conversation.
‘On a ship, though the unfortunate creature was dead, perfectly preserved.’
The Governor looked up sharply. Hector had his full attention now. ‘On a ship, you say?’
‘Yes. The vessel was stranded in the ice, off the Cape.’
All of a sudden Don Alonso had gone very still. His eyes were fixed on Hector’s face.
‘Tell me about it,’ he said very softly.
‘It was on the way around the Cape, after we’d been driven far to the south. We came across a vessel abandoned on an ice island. She was badly damaged.’
‘You know the name of the vessel?’
‘No. I went aboard with Jezreel to investigate. I found the man who I suppose was her captain. He was lying dead in his bunk. A dog like this was on the floor close to him.’
The Governor stood stock-still, scarcely breathing. It was the first time Hector had seen him look so serious and solemn.
‘What did you do?’
‘Our ship couldn’t delay. I only had time to cover the captain’s face with a blanket. He wore a medallion on a gold chain around his neck. One side of the medallion was worn smooth, the other had a crest on it, the figure of a bird. It was too dark to see clearly.’
‘Did you keep the medallion?’ The Governor’s voice was very low, almost menacing.
Hector shook his head. ‘I felt it would be robbing the dead.’
The Governor let out a slow breath. ‘Our visit to the silver mine can wait for another day. I want you to come inside and repeat your story to Luis.’
‘Why?’
‘That poor man was his father and my brother. He always wore that medallion as a keepsake. It belonged to his wife’s family. She died giving birth to Luis.’
Don Alonso led Hector back indoors and, as they waited for the ensign, the Governor told Hector more. ‘Two years ago Luis’ father set out from Valdivia on a small vessel. He was attempting a passage around the Cape, hoping to open a supply route. He took his dog with him. But nothing more was ever heard from him or the crew.’
‘Did no one report back? It appeared that the rest of the crew had taken the boats and abandoned the ship.’
The Governor shook his head. ‘We heard not a single word. We accepted he had died. But for these past two years Luis and I have long wondered whether he was drowned or killed by the Indians, or dead of fever.’
Hector was about to say how sorry he was to bring such sad news when the Governor gave him a long, sober look and said in a contrite voice, ‘Señor Lynch, you cannot imagine how great a service you have done me and my nephew. Now, at least, we know the truth. It makes me ashamed that I have withheld from you what I know of the whereabouts of the Alcalde, Don Fernando.’
For the first time since arriving in Valdivia, Hector felt a brief surge of hope, though it was mingled with a sense of foreboding. The Governor was already speaking again. ‘But I think it would be better if you began by telling me exactly why you are seeking the Alcalde.’
Somehow Hector was sure the Governor was a person in whom he could confide.
‘Don Alonso, the Alcalde’s wife has a companion, a young woman by the name of Maria. The sole reason I returned to Peru is to try to find Maria again. That is why I need to find the Alcalde.’
The Governor nodded a little sadly. ‘I didn’t think you were a gold-hungry pirate. I feared you bore a grudge against the Alcalde, and were seeking to hunt him down. I thought it better you shouldn’t know where to reach him.’ He paused to consider for a brief moment, then added, ‘What I have to tell you is not what you want to hear.’
‘I need to know, in any case.’
The Governor gazed up at one of the portraits on the wall. Clearly he was searching for the right words. ‘The affair of the kidnap of the Alcalde’s wife by pirates, the flight of the culprits, all that is common knowledge. So too is the outcome of the case brought by the Spanish Crown against the villains in their own jurisdiction, in London.’
Hector’s mood darkened. ‘Maria was the witness against me at the trial, but she refused to testify. Afterwards she wrote to tell me she was returning to Peru, and that the Alcalde was being promoted to the Audiencia.’
The Governor sighed heavily. ‘There was no promotion. When the result of the case was heard – it collapsed and the culprits went free – the Viceroy felt humiliated. There had been great expense and much effort invested in the prosecution. Don Fernando de Costana became a figure of embarrassment. He was sent away, given a new post, as far out of sight as possible.’
Hector felt a chill in his belly. ‘Where was he sent?’
‘To the Ladrone Islands, as acting Governor.’
For a moment Hector was at a loss. He tried to think where the Ladrone Islands were. Then he recalled seeing them marked on a chart of the Pacific. ‘But they are thousands of miles away, closer to China than to Peru.’
The Governor nodded. ‘Yet they are administered by the viceroyalty of New Spain.’
Hector was too stunned to say anything. The Governor was still speaking, his voice sorrowful.
‘Fully a year ago Don Fernando left Peru to take up his post in the Ladrones. His wife accompanied him. Doubtless your friend Maria went also. I’m sorry.’
As the Governor’s words sank in, Hector felt numb. Despite his present status as a prisoner in Chile, he had still cherished a faint hope that there would be a happy outcome to his quest for Maria. He had even allowed himself to speculate that she might hear of him in gaol, if he was sent to Lima for trial. She might come to find him, and though he did not expect her to save him a second time, she might persuade the judges to spare him from the garrotte and give him a prison sentence instead. The news that Maria was on the far side of the world shattered that fantasy. She would never be aware he’d come to Chile to find her, nor would she ever know what happened to him. For a black moment he despaired as he pictured the vast distance that lay between them.
Then, from somewhere within him, came an obstinate and defiant response: he would not be deterred. He would not waste the long, harsh weeks at sea, or the cruel passage around the Horn. They had brought him a good part of the way to her and if, by some miracle, he was ever free to do so, he would continue his journey to reach her. Unbidden, an image of Maria appeared as he had last seen her at his trial. He remembered how self-assured and beautiful she had been, answering the prosecution’s questions with outright lies. He could hear her low, firm voice and picture the set of her jaw and the way she looked straight at him as if he was a stranger and swore that she’d never seen him before. Now he would show similar courage and determination, whatever the consequences. He would not abandon hope of reaching her, though his detention in Valdivia would be harder to bear now that he knew Maria was still so far away.
SIX
IT WAS THE TIME OF THE YEAR when Valdivia braced itself for the winter rains. The weeks that followed Jezreel’s capture and Hector’s detention saw life in the town become increasingly dank and comfortless. Heavy showers merged into prolonged downpours and, as the season advanced and winter settled over the town, flurries of hail or sleet swept down from the cordillera. Lingering fogs and a fear of marauding pirates deterred shipping and trade, which in summer linked Valdivia with the outside world. Isolated and waterlogged, its people settled into dreary resignation, matching Hector’s gloom.
While Jezreel passed the time playing cards with their gaolers and teaching them how to use backsword and singlestick weapons, at which he had excelled since his fairground days, Hector took long, solitary walks. Often he found himself at the waterfront and stood on the dockside. There he would watch the raindrops speckle the dirty brown surface of the river, and think of Maria and of what had happened to Jacques and whether Dan had recovered his eyesight. Then, with Maria’s letter still tucked away safe and dry inside his shirt, he would retrace his steps to the Governor’s residence, where he and Jezreel remained as Don Alonso’s guests.
One afternoon towards the middle of September, when the rains were at last showing signs of abating and there was a promise of spring in the air, Hector returned to find Don Alonso in his office with a map of the Spanish colonial possessions spread out on a table.
‘While the coastal traffic has been at a standstill,’ the Governor said, ‘there has been no word from the Audiencia about what I should do with you and Jezreel. But the Niebla fortress has just sent word that an aviso, an advice boat, has been sighted off the entrance to the gulf. I expect tomorrow the captain of the vessel will arrive here, bringing my instructions.’
He gestured towards the map.
‘Forgive me if I am intruding on your private concerns, Hector, but doubtless Maria has been on your mind these past months, and I wondered if you’ve considered trying to contact her?’ Crossing to the table, he placed a finger on the map, far out in the Pacific. ‘This little cluster of islands here,’ he said, ‘they are the Ladrones. The “islands of thieves” as Magellan, their discoverer, called them. The inhabitants stole everything they could lay their hands on.’ He smiled thinly. ‘This is where the Alcalde, Don Fernando, now governs by the authority granted to him by the Viceroy of New Spain. Every year the Viceroy sends him an official despatch containing his orders for the coming year.’ The finger slid eastwards across to the coast of Mexico. ‘The despatch is carried by a galleon that sails from here, from Acapulco. If you’d care to write a letter to your Maria, I will arrange for it to be taken under my seal to Acapulco and given to the captain of that vessel to deliver to her.’
The Governor raised his eyes from the map and studied Hector for a brief moment.
‘Of course, it’s up to you to decide whether you want to write to her.’
The past four months of anxiety had taken their toll on Hector. He felt dispirited and subdued.
‘Don Alonso, you are kind to make such an offer. But I think it better if Maria no longer even thinks of me. A letter from me now would only raise false hopes.’
The look the Governor gave him was full of compassion. ‘My friend, Maria may be suffering the same feelings of uncertainty and sorrow that I endured, not knowing my brother’s fate. Sometimes it’s better to know a difficult truth than to be left in doubt.’
Later that evening in his room Hector began – and then tore up – half a dozen letters to Maria. He had still not composed a fair copy by the time Luis came early next morning to take him to a meeting with the Governor in his office.
‘You’re quite a catch, it seems,’ said Don Alonso with a mirthless grimace. The map still lay spread on the side table. ‘The Audiencia wants you delivered to the capital, to Lima itself, for interrogation. Afterwards you will be tried for piracy.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Have you written that letter for Maria?’
Hector shook his head.
The Governor gave up. ‘Then all I can do is to wish sincerely that you and Jezreel receive a fair trial. Luis will escort you to the dock, where your ship is waiting. When you go aboard, your parole to me is at an end. From then on, you are the responsibility of her captain. He is keen to set off at once.’
As Hector left the room, he glanced back. Don Alonso was rolling up the map and there was a sombre expression on his face. He had the look of a man who had completed a very distasteful task.
‘PRAISE BE we’re let out of our hutch from time to time,’ said Jezreel, standing up to his full six and a half feet and stretching. ‘Or I’d have a permanent stoop by now.’
The aviso was a small, lightly built sloop. Since leaving Valdivia, the two friends had been permitted to exercise on her quarterdeck for two hours every afternoon. For the remainder of each day they were confined to a small, windowless cabin, which Hector surmised was normally used as a storeroom. It smelled of old sacks and damp, and the ceiling was so low that the big man was obliged to crouch double or go on all fours whenever he moved about.
‘How far do you think we’ve come?’ asked Jezreel. He swung his arms from side to side to loosen his shoulder muscles. His wounds had long since healed, and he looked gaunt, but fit.
‘Impossible to say,’ answered Hector. He stared out at the mainland coast, some ten miles away to starboard. He could see nothing that might give him a clue as to how the sloop had progressed along her route. The view had altered little in the past three weeks of sailing. There was the same sequence of coastal ranges and the same blue-grey haze where the land rose steeply to the mountain chain that ran parallel to the coast. The only difference was that the mountain crests no longer carried any snow.
‘Can’t say I’ll be sorry when this voyage is over, even if we have to face interrogators at the end of it,’ said Jezreel.
‘My guess is we’ll reach our destination in the next day or two,’ said Hector.
The lookout called down that a sail was in sight to the north-west.
The aviso’s captain, a stocky and phlegmatic Basque named Garza, growled at the helmsman to hold his course.
‘Seems I guessed right,’ said Hector. ‘We’re probably close enough to our destination for our captain to think he can outrun the stranger and get safely into harbour.’
Half a dozen sailors led by the boatswain hurried about the deck. Here and there they made minor adjustments to sheets and braces, though Hector could discern little increase in the vessel’s speed. The sloop was already carrying full sail.
Another shout from the masthead, this time confirming that the stranger was definitely on course to intercept.
The steersman watched the captain nervously, as Garza ran stubby fingers through his beard, made his way to the ratlines and climbed up to join the lookout. A short time later the Basque was back down on deck. ‘Friends of yours, I think,’ he growled to Hector as he stepped past him.
Jezreel leaped eagerly on to the ship’s rail. Grabbing the shrouds to steady himself, he raised one hand to shade his eyes against the sunlight reflecting off the sea and stared at the approaching vessel.
‘She’s a two-master. I think she’s the Bachelor’s Delight,’ he exclaimed gleefully.
The Basque captain overheard. ‘Tell your big friend not to get his hopes up,’ he called out to Hector. ‘That ship will never catch us.’ He turned to the helmsman, and Hector caught the words ‘inner channel … as close as you dare’.
‘What’s he doing?’ asked Jezreel. He jumped down on deck. The sloop was abruptly changing course.
‘Our captain has decided to run for the shallows, where the Delight won’t be able to follow us,’ answered Hector. ‘The aviso draws less water, and I expect the steersman knows every back-channel and bolthole through which to escape.’
Over the next two hours Captain Garza’s tactics were borne out. The colour of the sea changed from dark blue to opaque grey-green as the sloop fled into shoal depths, running fast and keeping well ahead of the pursuit. Hector saw they were steering directly for a narrow channel between a small island and the shore.
‘The Delight can’t follow us through there without the risk of running aground,’ he commented to Jezreel. ‘She’ll be forced to turn back.’
‘Maybe Cook, if he’s still captain, will catch us as we come out from behind the island at the far end of the channel,’ said Jezreel hopefully.
‘More likely the aviso will drop anchor in shallow water behind the island, and wait. We’re in plain view of the coast, and messenge
rs will already be on their way to alert a Spanish warship to come to the rescue. The Delight can’t afford to linger like a cat in front of a mousehole.’
Abruptly Captain Garza blurted out what was clearly a Basque profanity. His attention was fixed on the channel ahead.
Looking in the same direction, Hector saw the masts of a ship beyond the island, and the flash of canvas as she spread her topsails. Soon afterwards the vessel herself came in view, sailing down the channel towards them. An instant later he recognized the Cygnet.
Behind him Jezreel let loose a great whoop of pleasure. ‘Who’d have thought it? Our high-principled Captain Swan has turned pirate. Ha-ha! He’s working with the Delight.’
The ambush became clearer by the minute. The aviso was now too close to the coast to double-back and flee, and if she continued on her course, she was sure to run into the Cygnet’s guns. Captains Swan and Cook, if they were still in command, had executed a neat pincer movement. Their prey was caught.
Certainly the sloop’s Basque captain thought so. With a snarl of disgust, Garza cupped his hands around his mouth and called out to his crew to stand by to drop sail. Then he stepped across to the helm and, taking the tiller in his hand, brought the little ship’s head to wind. The aviso carried no cannon and had relied on her speed. She was at the mercy of her captors.
The Cygnet maintained her confident approach. Smaller than her consort, her shallow draught allowed her to come within hailing distance of the sloop. Hector could see his former shipmates lining the rail as they examined their latest prize appraisingly.
‘There’s Jacques,’ called out Jezreel. The ex-prizefighter swung himself back on the rail and let out a great roar. ‘Hey, Jacques. Have you learned to make a decent pudding yet?’
A ragged cheer went up from the Cygnet’s crew as, one by one, they recognized Jezreel by his size. They waved their hats, there was a confusion of catcalls and yells of greeting. Someone fired his musket in the air to celebrate. A boarding party scrambled into the longboat and was on its way to take possession of the sloop. Jacques stood in the bows, grinning broadly.
