My mouth hung open in shock. Sweat ran from each man’s face and chest and back and legs and arms.
‘Pull!’ Panipat bellowed. ‘Pull! Or I’ll kill you where you stand!’
And they pulled: for their oarsmaster, for the captain who kept them well fed and well paid, for the cargo they hoped to profit from, for their pride in their work, for the race to outrun the enemy, they pulled for their very lives.
Our boat shot through the water, swift and true like an arrow in flight.
Yet still the enemy boat gained on us.
‘Pull!’ Panipat’s voice was hoarse. His whip cracked out. ‘Pull! Pull!’
The captain was hopping from one foot to the other in a dance of fretful rage, but he knew enough to stay out of Panipat’s way and not to interfere.
I saw that the slaves were pulling hard, in time with the rest – which they didn’t always do. And it wasn’t fear of Panipat that made them do this, I thought, for at this moment he could not single out one man to punish; it must be that they believed their fate would be worse in a pirate ship than if they remained with Captain Cosimo. I saw then that the occupants of our boat had some respect for this man they called the crazy captain, even though they believed his navigation was faulty.
But it appeared they were right in their belief, for still there was no island in sight, and the toll of the hard push began to tell upon them.
Lomas shouted out, ‘Where are we going? Don’t send us all the way out over the Ocean Sea to the lost lands!’
‘An island,’ Captain Cosimo shouted back confidently. ‘The boy saw an island on the map. We’ll take refuge there.’
The horizon remained empty, and suddenly I knew how the captain had felt in times past when the promised port had failed to appear. There had been an island on the map, well marked: I had seen it. Was it merely a fancy of the mapmaker or an inaccurate sighting by some mariner? If it existed, where was it?
The captain saw my concern and he spoke rapidly. ‘The lady sea is deceptive. She’s like a woman: when you first meet her she is pleasant and calm, she sparkles with light and she bewitches you; but then she reveals herself as fickle and will not yield up her secrets.’ He slammed his hand down upon the table and damned all mapmakers to the eternal fires of Hell.
The pirate boat loosed another shot, and this time the cannonball sang above our head and landed with a splash on the port side.
Our boat slowed by an infinitesimal amount as discouragement entered the minds of the men. And all Panipat’s fury could not bring them back to their previous rate. I felt the slackening action under my feet and my breath shortened in fright, for like the rest of the crew I knew that I wouldn’t fare so well under the command of a pirate commander.
‘Land! Land!’ The lookout, crouched down for safety in the prow, had risked raising his head. He yelled and pointed. ‘The island! I see it! Praise God and His Holy Mother!’
The men shouted in joy and gave thanks to the saints in Heaven. I could feel tears start to my own eyes and I swept them away with my hand.
We swung a degree south. The oarsmen renewed their efforts. Then they began to call out:
‘An island!’
‘There is land in sight!’
‘Praise be!’
‘Is there a beach?’
‘Don’t steer us onto the rocks, Panipat!’
By now the lookout and the oarsmaster were working together, guiding us through the ring of a semi-submerged reef towards a sandy shore.
My heart continued to thud. I didn’t understand how this would make us safe. I could see that the island was uninhabited – no village or sign of any building, and no citizens to whom we could appeal for help – and the pirate galley was closing fast.
‘What can we do?’ I asked the captain. ‘We cannot fight them ashore any more than we could at sea.’
‘We’ll run her aground,’ he told me. He was now busy rolling his maps and picking up his navigational aids. The carpenter-cook was throwing his tools into a sack while the rest of the crew gathered up the flint box, harpoon and spears, and other vital pieces of equipment. ‘You go and fill each man’s water bottle as quickly as you can. Go!’ the captain shouted in my face as I stared at him stupidly.
I raced to do his bidding. Panipat was already kneeling beside the chained slaves, using the key on his wrist to unlock their shackles.
I glimpsed an expanse of white sand. And then the boat jarred home and I was pitched forwards.
‘Out! Out!’ Panipat yelled, and the men jumped out and dragged the boat up the sand as far as they could.
The pirate boat was only a few hundred metres away.
‘Every man for himself!’ the captain bawled. ‘Run! Run!’
He reached for his splendid coat of peacock blue, and I stooped to get it and hand it for him. It was heavy. He would run less well with that on his back. His vanity must be great, I thought, that he should want to keep it when it might cost him his life.
‘Here,’ he said to me. ‘You’ll be swifter than I am.’ He dropped the maps into a long cylindrical case made of stiffened leather, oiled to be waterproof, and gave it to me to carry. ‘Go to cover first,’ he told me, ‘and then make for the highest point on the island.’
The oarsmen grabbed the possessions they kept under their benches, each sailor having a bag of bits and pieces with their private goods. I had nothing but the map case, but I knew that it was important. And in a childish way I felt pleased that I’d been given charge of it.
We scattered, running away from the ship towards the dense foliage of the island’s interior.
‘I’ll light a fire on the beach when they’ve gone,’ Captain Cosimo called after his men. ‘You’ll see the smoke and know to come out.’
‘Pray that there are no cannibals here,’ I heard one man say as we plunged among the trees.
‘Or if there are, let’s hope they’re not hungry.’
Relief at being out of the firing line of the enemy made them joke.
The captain followed me, slashing out in front of him and on each side with his bamboo cane. Where the men ran in any direction to get the most cover of the trees and bushes, the captain told me to make for higher ground. Labouring under the weight of his jacket, the captain toiled upwards until he was some distance from the beach and a good bit higher.
‘Let’s find out what they’re up to.’ He took up a position behind a tree and handed me his spyglass. ‘What do you see?’ he asked me.
I focused on the pirate ship, which had come to rest just outside the reef that protected the bay where we’d run aground. ‘They’ve launched a skiff with some armed men aboard. Will they wreck our boat?’ I asked, afraid that we might be marooned and left to die of starvation.
The captain shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. It’s not a religious or political war with that kind of crew. It’s commerce; their way of doing business. They steal and sell.’ He looked through the eyeglass himself and then handed it back to me. ‘I’m hoping they only want our water. Our cargo is of little use to them.’ He glanced at the sky. ‘Evening’s almost upon us. They won’t waste the time or effort or ammunition hunting for us in this undergrowth, for we might kill some of them before they capture any of us. If we’d been caught at sea it would’ve been a different end to the story. They’d have taken the fitter men off for slaves and probably set the boat adrift with the rest of us in it.’
I watched the pirates come ashore and search through our galley. They looked like ordinary seamen, and I said this to the captain. He laughed. ‘What did you expect? That they’d be ten feet tall with long black beards, carrying a sword in each hand and a knife between their teeth? Most of us at sea have done some pirating from time to time.’ He laughed again as he saw my eyes widen. ‘Even ships of the line, flying the flags of their own countries,’ he assured me. ‘They’ll not hesitate to stop and seize goods they fancy on some pretext or other.’ He drew his peacock jacket closer around him and stroked the
sleeve. ‘I may have done it myself on occasion.’ And he smiled in a crafty manner.
I looked at him more closely then, and I thought about what had happened today.
As we were forced to wait on the island until the pirates left, and I was no longer constantly on the run supplying thirsty men with water, I had more time to consider various aspects of these events.
I realized that our Captain Cosimo had a secret that he shared with no one. His sight was failing. Now I knew the reason why, although he was a good sailor and a canny man, he sometimes blundered in his navigation. We mainly followed a route from port to port, never straying far from the mainland, because our captain couldn’t properly discern distant objects. It was when we had to venture onto the open sea that he found it most difficult. He hadn’t seen this small island on his map because the inked mark that indicated its location was tiny and faint. He’d sent me ahead to find the direction of the hill on the island and followed after, striking out before him with his cane, as he did on the boat, to feel his way forward. During the daylight hours while we waited for the pirates to leave, he gave me the spyglass to report to him, for he could probably only see figures as a blur in the distance. And none of this did he wish anyone to know. It must be a recent affliction and he’d not be able to conceal it from his crew for very much longer, but for the present he’d rather be thought an idiot than let it be found out that he was going blind.
I admired him for his courage. And because he never treated me cruelly I decided that I wouldn’t betray him. Out of misplaced loyalty I kept his secret and told no one what I knew.
I was too young and inexperienced to appreciate that a half-blind captain would finally and inevitably lead his men to their deaths.
Chapter Sixteen
Saulo
WE WAITED ALL that night after the pirates left before returning to our boat.
Our wine, most of our water, two lanterns and a cooking pot had disappeared. They’d prised open the lid of the money box nailed to the floor of the captain’s sleeping cubicle and taken whatever coins he kept there. Some salted fish was gone, but the rest of the supplies they left, including a barrel of water. They didn’t touch the cargo or damage the boat.
This surprised me but the captain said, ‘It’s not as if we’d be likely to give chase. We’re no threat to them, and it would be a bad thing for a sailor to do – to leave another sailor shipwrecked with no water and no means of leaving the island.’
As we made ready to leave, Captain Cosimo called me to stand beside him under the awning where he had his maps spread out on his table.
‘There should be a port some miles west of here where we can sell our oil. I don’t suppose you can read, boy?’
‘I can,’ I replied. ‘My mother taught me the letters of different alphabets.’
‘Did she now?’ He raised an eyebrow.
I hadn’t thought much about my mother’s teaching until I found, as I grew older, that few men knew both western and eastern letters. Most were ignorant of how the words of different languages were formed and sounded. I knew that my mother’s parents had opposed her liaison with my father, and they had run off together in defiance of them. Only now did I realize that she must have had a good education herself in order to show me the letters and help me learn to read and write.
‘Then spell me that there.’ The captain pointed to some writing on the parchment laid out before him.
I had never examined a map closely before and I marvelled at how such a thing could be made, and said as much to the captain. This one showed the coastlines of France, Spain and Portugal, with some of Africa too, and had the place names and ports written at right angles to their position on the land. ‘It defies belief that a man can make charts that are completely correct,’ I said.
‘Aye, exactly,’ Captain Cosimo replied gloomily. ‘It does indeed defy belief, for they don’t have the accuracy they claim. The marine charts should list harbours, coastal features, river mouths and landmarks, and the maps give us the seas and the land. Yet I have run aground on islands where no land should exist, and failed to find many ports where the cartographer has promised me safe haven.’
I looked along the bottom and the top of his map and then at each side. It indicated that there were more lands to the north and the east. I turned the parchment over to look behind it.
‘Is that all there is?’ I asked.
The captain gave me a strange look. ‘At one time the answer to that question would have been yes. But now’ – he shrugged – ‘there are many stories about what may lie over the Atlantic, to the west beyond the Ocean Sea. One of my own countrymen, a man named Christopher Columbus, hawks his ideas on this to anyone who will listen. That is, any rich and powerful person who will listen. He proposes to find a way westwards to the Orient to gain access to the riches there without the risk of trying to find a sea passage round the bottom end of Africa or paying dues to the Turks to bring the goods through their lands. He seeks funding for an expedition to go and find the route around the back of the map.’
‘And will he do it?’
‘He must be crazy to think anyone would throw away money on such a venture!’
‘You think that it doesn’t exist?’
‘It’s not because it might not exist. The thing that makes the expedition impossible is that the Ocean Sea is too wide to cross. There might be tempests more violent than we can imagine, great whirlpools to drag a ship down, never to be seen again, vast tracks of stagnant water clogged with seaweed for a thousand miles where the wind does not blow and oars cannot row. There a ship would be becalmed for ever with no fresh water. Men would die of thirst, or go mad and kill each other.’
‘Yes, but if you did win through to the other side . . .’ My voice tailed off because the captain had lost interest in the conversation and was plotting the course for our next port.
I think that was the moment when it occurred to me that it was possible to voyage not just for trade but for adventure, and it might be something I could do. For I’d begun to fall in love with the sea as her moods and caprices conspired to entrance me. My seasickness was now in the past and I’d grown to look forward to the breath of the wind on my face and the sight of the water so achingly blue under the morning sun. This summer I discovered how warm seawater could be. The only bathing I’d ever done had been in a cold river, and that maybe no more than five or six times in my life. Now I plunged naked from the side of the boat into the sparkling azure water to sport with the men as they splashed and swam, and then lay down on white sand and let the waves creep over my body, lazy and languorous with heat.
I loved watching the prow of our galley parting the waves as we followed our course. With the arrival of autumn the days were brought to a close by a sky displaying the most wondrous colours of sunset – rose and yellow, violet, lavender, indigo, crimson. And when the piercing brightness of the stars appeared in the darkling blue of the great vault of the heavens over our heads, I fell asleep with my lullaby the lap-lap-lapping of water against the sides of the vessel.
Our cargoes were small and mostly raw trade: ore and grain, nuts and oil, gum mastic, alum, saffron and salt. Ships that carried precious metals, furs or jewels were larger and travelled with escorts. We went in and out of the ports on the northern coastline of the Mediterranean Sea, and out into the Atlantic to reach the busy Spanish port of Cádiz, where bigger ships brought in goods from the northern lands, such as wool from England and animal skins from Iceland. We avoided sailing close to North Africa for fear of the many pirates known to be operating along the Barbary Coast, and because of the war waged by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand against the Muslim peoples. They now wanted the Kingdom of Granada in the south of Spain, which for hundreds of years had been ruled by the Moors. Lomas thought they would eventually banish the Muslims and the Jews completely, even though Jews had served them well in high government office in the past.
As the weather cooled and the daylight hours shortened, the
captain consulted with me more and more when reading his maps. In addition to being able to decipher letters, I had an aptitude for arithmetic and had quickly picked up how to interpret the charts, using the almanac and other aids.
Throughout winter and into the spring of the following year I learned the names of the constellations and how to calculate our position using the ascendancy of the North Star on the horizon. When Panipat growled his displeasure about me doing easier tasks, Captain Cosimo laughed off his objections. The oarsmaster glared at me suspiciously and was even more annoyed when, one day, after docking at a port south of Cádiz, the captain stated that he was taking me ashore with him while he negotiated his business.
Panipat put a leg iron round my ankle and fastened a lightweight chain to it. He gave the end of the chain to the captain, who wrapped it around his wrist. Although the chain was thin and quite unobtrusive, I felt humiliated – I was being treated no better than a wild animal. But I knew not to protest. Panipat eyed me as we made to leave the boat. He struck his whip stock violently into the palm of his hand, as if to remind me what my fate would be if I tried to escape.
Captain Cosimo twirled his stick and used it to thrust me ahead of him. Accompanied by two crewmen, we went down the gangplank, along the quayside and through the arched gate into the town. We visited the merchants’ agent, where the captain made his deal and filled his purse. He gave the crewmen their wages and money for provisions, and we followed the twisted lanes and alleys leading to the marketplace and the cacophony of sound from tethered livestock and squawking birds of dazzling plumage. Piles of spices and remedies for every ailment from toothache to baldness were sold by wizened street vendors, clashing cymbals and banging drums as they tried to attract customers using the common language of signs and mime to advertise their wares. Captain Cosimo left the quartermaster and the carpenter-cook to haggle over the price of food and replacements for our stolen lamps and cooking pot, and pulled me towards a quieter corner of the souk. Here were the carpet and cloth sellers, the weavers, the tailors, and, almost certainly, the back rooms where a man could roll dice and so lose the money he carried.
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