Last Crusade, The

by Cliff, Nigel

  Dias was kept waiting for four days. When he was finally admitted to the audience court, the Zamorin gave him a withering glance and listened impatiently. He brushed away the gifts, and when Dias had finished he warned him that the Portuguese would need to pay the customary departure tax before they could leave.

  Dias bowed out, saying he would pass on the message, but he never made it to the fleet. He was tailed from the moment he left the palace, and when he stopped at the Portuguese warehouse a force of armed men burst inside and blocked the door. At the same time a proclamation went out across the city, forbidding any boat from approaching the foreigners’ ships on pain of death.

  Dias, the factor, the clerk, and their assistants were prisoners in the warehouse. An African boy had come with them as a servant, and they told him to find his way to the fleet and explain their predicament. The boy slipped away to the fishermen’s quarter and paid a captain to take him out on his boat. Under cover of darkness the fisherman rowed over to the fleet, saw his passenger aboard, and raced back to the shore.

  When they heard what had happened, the Portuguese were more dismayed and puzzled than ever.

  “This news made us sad,” the Chronicler noted; “not only because we saw some of our men in the hands of our enemies, but also because it interfered with our departure. We also felt grieved that a Christian king, to whom we had given of ours, should do us such an ill turn. At the same time we did not hold him as culpable as he seemed to be, for we were well aware that the Moors of the place, who were merchants from Mecca and elsewhere, and who knew us, could ill digest us.” They still could not understand why the Zamorin failed to share their excitement at this historic moment—the moment when his fellow Christians had sailed into the East.

  Another caller soon enlightened them. Monçaide, the merchant from Tunis, had often visited the fleet, not least because Gama had paid him to bring intelligence from the shore. With his help, the Portuguese pieced together a plausible version of what had gone wrong.

  The foreigners’ failure to bring a fitting tribute for the Zamorin, Monçaide explained, had been a gift to the city’s Muslims. The Mappilas had begun to worry that the Portuguese might ruin their business, and they had plotted to take Gama prisoner, seize his ships, and kill his men. They had intimated to the Zamorin’s advisers that the captain-major was no ambassador but a pirate bent on robbing and plunder, and they had taken their case to the wali. The wali had duly reported to the Zamorin that everyone said the Portuguese were privateers banished from their own country. The letter purporting to come from the Portuguese king, he had added, was doubtless a fiction; what king in his right mind would send an embassy so far merely in pursuit of friendship? Even if it was real, friendship meant communication and assistance, but Portugal was a world away from India in both geography and culture. Besides, this supposedly mighty king had given poor proof of his power in the gifts he had sent. Far better, he had urged, that the Zamorin safeguard the profits he made from the Muslims than trust the promises of men who came from the extremities of the earth.

  According to Monçaide, the Zamorin had been taken aback by the news, and his attitude to the Europeans had hardened. The merchants, meanwhile, had bribed the wali to detain Gama and his men so they could surreptitiously have them killed. The wali had rushed out of town after the departing explorer, and he had only let his captives go when the Zamorin had had second thoughts. Though the plot had failed, the Muslims had carried on with their campaign, and eventually the Zamorin had made up his mind in their favor. Monçaide warned Gama and his men not to set foot in the city if they valued their lives, and two Indian visitors amplified his ominous words. “If the captains went ashore,” they declared, “their heads would be cut off, as this was the way the king dealt with those who came to his country without giving him gold.”

  “Such then was the state of affairs,” the Chronicler bleakly recorded.

  So the Portuguese believed. There was, though, a simpler explanation for Vasco da Gama’s troubles. It was the custom for ambassadors to present the Zamorin with lavish gifts. It was the law for visiting merchants to pay a tithe in return for enjoying his hospitality and protection. Gama had presented himself as both ambassador and merchant, and on both counts he had failed to deliver.

  The truth lay somewhere between the two, but in any case little could be done. In the absence of Christian allies or spices that could be scooped up like spring blossom, the Portuguese had only one lever left: brute force.

  THE NEXT DAY no one visited the ships, but the day after, four young men approached with jewels for sale. The wary captain-major decided the Muslim merchants had sent them as spies, but he gave them a warm welcome in the hope that more important figures would follow.

  After four or five days a party of twenty-five drew alongside, and among them were six Nair nobles. Gama sprang his trap and had the six men seized, together with a dozen more for good measure. The rest were bundled into a boat and were sent to shore with a letter, written in Malayalam by two of the Indians, for the Zamorin’s factor. Its gist was that the Portuguese proposed a hostage swap.

  The news spread fast. The hostages’ relatives and friends gathered at the Portuguese warehouse, forced the guards to give up their captives, and pointedly delivered them to the factor’s house.

  It was now August 23, and Gama decided to make a show of leaving. The monsoon was still gusting strongly, and the ships were blown farther out to sea than he intended. The next day they were blown back toward land. Two days later, with still no sign of their men and a steadier wind, they moved away again until the shore was just visible on the horizon.

  The day after, a boat approached with a message. Diogo Dias had been moved to the royal palace. If the Portuguese freed their hostages, he would be returned to them.

  Gama was sure his men had been killed and his enemies were trying to gain time. He was aware that the Arab fleets were due within weeks, and he was convinced the Muslims of Calicut were arming in preparation for a joint attack on the Christians. He threatened to open fire on the boat, and he warned the messengers not to return without his factor, or at the very least a message from him. They had better act quickly, he barked, or he would chop off his hostages’ heads.

  A stiff breeze sprang up and the fleet tacked along the coast.

  In Calicut, Gama’s maneuvers seemed to have worked. The Zamorin sent for Dias, and this time he received him in a markedly friendlier manner. Why, he asked him, was the captain-major sailing off with his subjects on board?

  The Zamorin knew perfectly well why, Dias acidly answered, at last venting his spleen. He had imprisoned him and his men, and he was still preventing them from returning to their ships.

  The Zamorin feigned astonishment. The captain-major had done the right thing, he declared, and he turned on his factor.

  “Are you unaware,” he asked in a menacing tone, “that quite recently I killed another factor because he levied tribute upon some merchants who had come to my country?”

  He turned back to Dias.

  “Go back to the ships,” he told him, “you and the others who are with you. Tell the captain to send me the men he took. Tell him that the pillar which I understood him to say he desires to be erected on the shore will be brought back by those who take you and will be put up, and that you may remain here with your merchandise.”

  Before he left, the Zamorin had Dias write a letter with an iron pen on a palm leaf. It was addressed to the king of Portugal.

  “Vasco da Gama,” it read, after the usual niceties, “a gentleman of your household, came to my country, at which I was pleased. My country is rich in cinnamon, cloves, ginger, pepper, and precious stones. In exchange I ask you for gold, silver, corals, and scarlet cloth.”

  The Zamorin instructed the clerk to give the captain-major the letter to forward to his king. In the end, he had decided it was worth seeing whether the foreigners might return with more valuable goods.

  On the morning of August 27,
seven boats sailed toward the Portuguese fleet with Dias and his men on board. The Indians were reluctant to get too close to Gama’s ship, and after some debate they gingerly approached the longboat that was tied to the São Gabriel’s stern. The freed men climbed inside and the boats backed off a little, waiting for the response.

  The Indians had not brought the Portuguese merchandise with them, since they expected the factor and his staff to return to the city. Gama had other ideas. Now that his men were safely on board, he was not going to give them up. He had the pillar transferred to the boats and he sent back several of the hostages, including the six Nairs. But he kept six more, promising to release them if his goods were returned the following day.

  The next morning the friendly Tunisian merchant showed up in a great fluster. Monçaide climbed aboard and panted out a plea for asylum. All his possessions had been seized, and he was afraid for his life. The Indians had seen him on easy terms with the Portuguese, and they had accused him of being a covert Christian who had been sent to spy on their city. Given his usual run of luck, he lamented, he would undoubtedly be murdered if he stayed. Monçaide had proved a useful informant, and Gama agreed to take him to Portugal.

  At ten o’clock seven more boats approached. Spread along the benches were twelve bales of striped cloth belonging to the Portuguese. That, the Zamorin’s men insisted, was all they had found in the warehouse.

  Gama unceremoniously told them to get lost. He did not give a fig for the goods, his translator shouted back, and he was going to take his prisoners to Portugal. It was true that plenty of merchandise was still unaccounted for, but more to the point, Gama needed some Indians to stand witness to his discovery and the Zamorin had reneged on his promise to send ambassadors. As a parting shot, he warned the men in the boats to watch out. With luck, he vowed, he would soon be back, and then they would find out whether they should have listened to the Muslims who called him and his crew thieves. On his command the gunners echoed his words with a salvo from the bombards, and the Indians rowed away in a hurry.

  It was almost the end of August. Gama conferred with his captains, and they quickly reached a decision. The Chronicler set it down:

  “Inasmuch that we had discovered the country we had come in search of, as also spices and precious stones, and it appeared impossible to establish cordial relations with the people, it would be as well to take our departure. And it was resolved that we should take with us the men whom we detained, as, on our return to Calicut, they might be useful to us in establishing friendly relations. We therefore set sail and left for Portugal, greatly rejoicing at our good fortune in having made so great a discovery.”

  No one could pretend that things had gone smoothly. The young commander had talked a good talk, but he had failed to cut a deal with the Zamorin. The longer he had stayed, the more humiliating the situation had become. After three months, the ships’ holds were almost empty. Worst of all, the Portuguese were deeply shaken by the hostility of men they believed were their brothers in Christ.

  The explorers’ blunderings would soon come back to haunt them, but even so, there was no question that Vasco da Gama had pulled off an astonishing feat. Where he had led, many thousands would follow, and many millions of lives would be changed for good, if not necessarily for the better.

  Now all he had to do was to get home. That would turn out to be the hardest part of all.

  THE TROUBLE BEGAN a day into the return journey.

  The fleet had only moved a league from Calicut when it found itself becalmed. As the crews waited for the wind, they suddenly saw seventy long rowboats swarming toward them from the shore. They were packed with heavily armed Mappilas wearing padded breastplates and backplates covered in red cloth. As Gama had suspected, the Muslim merchants had been busy preparing a war fleet, though they had not been able to detain the interlopers long enough for the large Arab ships to arrive.

  The gunners scrambled to their stations and waited for the captain-major’s signal. As soon as the enemy moved within range he gave the order to fire. With a flash and a boom, cannonballs whistled through the air and splashed jets of foam around the boats. Still the rowers kept up their rhythm, and as the wind finally picked up and the foreigners’ sails filled out, they rowed even harder. For an hour and a half they pursued the fleeing ships, until a providential thunderstorm blew up and swept the Portuguese out to sea.

  With the brief panic past, the ships held their course to the north. To reach home, Gama had learned that he needed to follow the coast until he caught the cool northeast winds of the winter monsoon. In time, they would blow him steadily back to Africa. That time, though, was still at least three months off: the monsoon would not start to turn until November.

  To complicate the pilots’ task still more, the fleet was now sailing into the doldrums. Breezes wafted this way from land, that way from sea, and then petered out. Squalls blew up without warning and sputtered into dead calms. The ships laboriously tacked along the coast; twelve days after leaving Calicut, they had only made twenty leagues.

  Gama had been deeply pondering what had happened, and he chose one of the hostages—a man who had lost one of his eyes—to go ashore with a letter for the Zamorin. In the letter, which Monçaide wrote in Arabic, he apologized for taking six of the Zamorin’s people hostage and explained that he intended them to bear witness to his discoveries. He would have left his factor behind, he added, if he had not been afraid the Muslims would kill him; he himself had been deterred from landing more often for the same reason. Ultimately, he hoped, the two nations would establish friendly relations to their mutual advantage and profit. Since he could hardly have expected one letter to transform the situation, he must have keenly noted the information given him by the captives that the Kolattiri of Cannanore, the king of this part of the coast, was at war with the Zamorin of Calicut.

  By September 15 the ships had made sixty leagues, and they anchored near a small cluster of islands. The largest was a long, narrow sliver, rocky at its southern end, with low hills fringed by a beach to the north and a canopy of palm trees shading the center like tall umbrellas. Two leagues away on the mainland was a broad sandy bay backed by dense woods. Fishing boats set out from the bay offering their catch for sale; the captain-major handed out a few shirts to the fishermen, who beamed with pleasure.

  Gama finally began to unwind in the friendlier atmosphere, and he asked the locals if they would like him to erect a pillar on the island. “They said,” recorded the Chronicler, “that they would be very glad indeed, for its erection would confirm the fact that we were Christians like themselves.” Or so the Portuguese understood.

  The pillar was heaved into place, and the Portuguese named the island, after the saint’s name given to the pillar, Santa Maria. It was scarcely a strategic prize, but everyone was desperate to go home.

  That night the ships caught a land breeze and carried on north. Five days later they sailed past a series of beautiful, verdant hills and saw five more islands ahead, just off the shore. They anchored in the roadstead near the mainland, and Gama sent out a boat to find sufficient fresh water and wood to see them to Africa.

  As soon as they landed, the sailors ran into a young man who led them to a cleft between two hills that rose from a riverbank. There they found a wonderfully clear spring bubbling up, and Gama gave the guide a red nightcap in return. As usual, he asked if he was Christian or Muslim. He was a Christian, the man replied; at least, he was not a Muslim, and he chose the only alternative on offer. Gama told him that the Portuguese were Christians, too, and he seemed very happy at the news.

  Soon more friendly Indians appeared and offered to lead the visitors to a forest of cinnamon trees. The sailors returned with armfuls of branches that smelled somewhat of cinnamon and twenty locals carrying chickens, pots of milk, and gourds. After their troubles, things finally seemed to be looking up.

  Early the next morning, while they were waiting for the tide to turn so they could enter the river and fil
l their water casks, the watchmen spotted two ships coasting a couple of leagues away. At first Gama made nothing of the news, and the crews busied themselves chopping wood. After a while, though, he began to wonder whether the distance had made the ships look smaller than they really were. As soon as they had eaten, he ordered some of the men into the boats to find out whether they belonged to Muslims or Christians. As an extra precaution he sent a sailor up to the crow’s nest, and the lookout cried out that six leagues away, out in the open sea, eight ships were becalmed.

  Gama decided to take no risks. The decks were cleared, and he ordered the gunners to sink the vessels as soon as they came within range.

  When the wind picked up the Indian ships moved off, and they quickly drew within two leagues of the Portuguese. On Gama’s command the fleet sprang forward, guns at the ready.

  When the Indians saw the three strange vessels heading straight for them, they bore away for the coast. In their haste one of their ships broke its rudder, and its crew heaved a boat off the stern, jumped in, and rowed to land. Nicolau Coelho’s caravel was nearest to the abandoned ship and his men eagerly boarded her, expecting to find rich booty belowdecks. Instead they uncovered a few coconuts, four jars of palm sugar, and a large cache of bows and arrows, shields, swords, and spears; in the hold was nothing but sand.

  The rest of the Indian ships had made it to the shore. Rather than move in and lose the advantage of their guns, the Portuguese fired at them from the boats, sending the crews scrambling inland. After a while Gama’s men gave up and retreated to a safe distance, with the captured vessel in tow. They were still none the wiser as to where the ships had come from, but the next morning seven locals rowed over. The fleeing men, they revealed, had told them they had been sent by the Zamorin to hunt down the Portuguese. A notorious pirate named Timoja was their leader, and if he could he would undoubtedly have murdered every last one of them.