Aboard Cabrillo's Galleon

by Christine Echeverria Bender

  Mateo tried to obey but it was too late. Clapping a hand hard to his mouth until he’d leaned over the side, his gut heaved upward in wave after wave until it had emptied its contents overboard. Pale and sweating, his eyes working to focus, Mateo returned to his commander accompanied by the chuckles of several crewmembers.

  “Now, Mateo” said Cabrillo, “concentrate on where the sky embraces the sea. Imagine there is an island of gold awaiting you there.”

  After several minutes had passed a little of the color returned to Mateo’s face and he began to breathe more evenly. At last he muttered thoughtfully, “If you do not mind, sir, I will imagine a horse swimming far ahead of us. I would rather have a horse than a whole island of gold.”

  “Well said, young man. Then dream of a herd of horses, but you will have to wait to own them for some time. You are a sailor at present so stop looking at me and keep your eyes on the horizon.”

  “Yes, sir, but I was to ask about your choice of wine for dinner.”

  “Tell Paulo he may choose the wine,” he said, “and tell him you are to be relieved of your cabin duties for the time being.”

  Never were Mateo’s next words spoken with more sincerity. “Oh, thank you, sir! Am I to return to the stern deck after I deliver your message?”

  “You may report to Pilot San Remón, with my request that he instruct you in the mechanics of reckoning latitude and longitude. A seaman must have the skills to estimate the position of his ship.”

  “Yes, sir. I thank you, sir.” With this, the boy left to make his way to the captain-general’s cabin, and Cabrillo was able to solitarily enjoy his ship and the vast waters upon which she sailed. Such periods never lasted long, however, and the flowing consistency with which a ship captain is visited while on deck soon brought Pilot San Remón to his side.

  Even if the pilot’s face had been able to hide something of his present exhilaration, his voice could not when he said, “Captain-General, with a wind such as this we could sail to Asia in a month!”

  “As you are quite aware, pilot, such a wind seldom presents itself for two days running. Still, it is a fine sign.” Cabrillo observed that the pilot carried his logbook and astrolabe case, housing the precious instrument that would help them compute their rising latitudes as they ventured farther north of the equator. “Have you seen Mateo? He was to come to you.”

  “He did, sir. He will help make the reckoning at the turning of the glass. I believe he is staring at the sand at the moment, hoping it will fall a little more quickly under his scrutiny.”

  The men smiled, recalling the days when they were just as eager for an opportunity to prove themselves. “I will have him read the astrolabe at noon, sir, and begin to teach him the calculations. He is bright enough to learn them.”

  “Diego said it was very hard on his mother, his leaving with us.”

  “Is it ever easy for mothers, sir?”

  “Perhaps not, but an Indian mother has even less power than most over the life of her son.”

  Knowing of Cabrillo’s half-blood daughters, San Remón treaded softly around this subject. “Mateo is fortunate to be the son of your brother-in-law, sir. He will find his place in the world.”

  With the turning of the sand glass imminent, Cabrillo said, “Here comes your pupil, pilot.” Mateo was quickly moved into position with the astrolabe held in readiness, when from the deck below the oldest of the ship’s cabin boys sang out, “The hour of fourteen is upon us. God has granted safe passage thus far. May He give us fair sailing ahead.” Mustering impressive volume, many men joined him to end with, “Ahhh-mennn.”

  Mateo’s lesson began at the first utterance of this announcement by his raising the astrolabe and adjusting the arm to mark the sun’s position at its zenith.

  Lingering close by but giving no outward sign of interest, Cabrillo surreptitiously witnessed Mateo’s instruction with satisfaction. He noticed that Mateo seemed to have forgotten his seasickness while focusing his mind to something new. As the pilot explained the basics of their method, the lad took in every word with an expression of almost painful seriousness. Afterward, he asked few but appropriate questions. As San Remón was replacing the astrolabe in its wooden box, he said to the boy just loudly enough for Cabrillo to hear, “Although I bear the title of pilot for our ship, Mateo, our captain-general is recognized as the finest pilot in Mexico.”

  Cabrillo glanced at him with a raised eyebrow.

  “It is quite common knowledge,” the pilot went on. “Why, I have seen Captain-General Cabrillo study the sea and wind for only an instant, and somehow their shades and movements, and perhaps even their smells enable him to discern the speed of the ship. It is a wonder indeed.”

  Mateo turned an enthralled gaze upon Cabrillo. “Sir, can you tell us our speed at this moment?”

  With a pointed glance at his pilot, Cabrillo said, “Pilot San Remón greatly overstates my ability, Mateo.”

  Unruffled, San Remón asked, “Please, sir, will you do us the honor of giving an estimate of our speed? For the boy’s education?”

  Cabrillo sighed resignedly as he gazed up at the sails and beyond to the sky. He moved to the railing to stare first at the waves breaking from the port bow, then walked over to starboard, and finally strode to the center of the stern rail and eyed the wake of the ship. What other observations had been taken into consideration Mateo could only guess before his uncle squinted at the sails once again and said, “Very well, I believe she is sailing at no less than seven knots. Perhaps a bit more.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said the pilot and the boy in unison.

  Now it was their turn. On San Remón’s command Mateo tossed the log chip, a rectangular piece of wood tied to a thin but sturdy line, over the stern railing, and counted the evenly spaced knots as they spun from the ship’s line reel and cleared the rail. The pilot, holding the thirty-second sandglass, called a halt just as the top half of the glass emptied. Mateo grabbed the line, studied the length from his hand to the nearest knot, and announced the count with amazed pleasure, “Seven and a quarter, sir!” Their pilot didn’t bother hiding a smug smile as he entered this reckoning into his log next to the figure recorded a half-hour earlier. Cabrillo ignored the smile entirely.

  “There,” San Remón said to Mateo, “now you have learned how to use the small sandglass, chip, and reel to judge the pace of the ship.”

  “Perhaps one day, Pilot San Remón,” said the boy as his eyes trailed to his uncle, “I will need only to study the sea flowing around her to tell her speed.”

  “Perhaps, but today there is still much to learn, so listen closely. You know that the half-hour glass allows us to track the passing of time. Using it and the sun, we count our shifts and our days. We have just gauged our speed. Now, when both time and speed have been recorded, what can be discerned?”

  Mateo thought for several moments but his face showed only that the struggle was growing more painful the longer his mind groped for the answer.

  “Mateo,” the pilot tried to help, “if we know how long and how fast we have been voyaging...?”

  Blank brown eyes stared back at him.

  Pilot San Remón took an impatient breath to prepare for a lecture, but Mateo suddenly brightened and burst out with, “Will we know how far we have sailed from Navidad, sir?”

  Relieved, the pilot said, “Yes, but only roughly.” Here he paused long enough to scratch out and explain a sample calculation on a piece of parchment, then he resumed. “We must also consider the changes in our speed between readings, as well as how the cross currents may alter our readings. If we were sailing due west, with a consistent current, we could better approximate our distance and, thereby, our longitudinal position from east to west. The astrolabe tells us how far north we have come.”

  Confident that the lessons would continue to proceed admirably, the captain-general left the quarterdeck under the watch of his pilot and descended the stairs to check on his horses.

  Before his eyes
could fully adjust to the dimness below decks he heard the low voice of a man near the horse enclosure. Approaching that area, he saw the robed back of a priest, and the man was too tall to be Father Gamboa. Cabrillo immediately stilled his steps but he had already been heard. Viento lifted his head and gave a short, shrill call to his master.

  Tensely watchful, Cabrillo walked up to the stall as Father Lezcano stepped away from the horse, an empty milking pail in his hand. In a voice rigid with restraint, Cabrillo said, “The cow is in the end stall.”

  “I meant no offense, sir. I came only to admire him. He is a magnificent horse.”

  Cabrillo’s glare pinned the priest as his words bit the still air. “No one touches him but me and his assigned grooms. No one. Every member of the crew understands this order.”

  Manuel, who had been drawing nearer in the shadows, stepped forward carrying a heavy bag of grain. He lowered the canvas sack to the ground and admitted, “It is my fault, sir. Please forgive me. I thought, since it was Father Lezcano, that it would be... but I should have known. I should have told him about Viento.”

  There was something in the priest’s overly innocent expression that flared Cabrillo’s suspicions rather than dampening them, and it took a significant effort to temper his tone as he addressed his slave. “Yes, Manuel, you should have told him.” To Father Lezcano, Cabrillo said with an acidity that etched his words, “I will make things perfectly clear so there can be no confusion in the future, related to my horses or anything else related to this fleet. At sea, even a priest is bound to obey his captain-general. If a man, sailor or priest, is unsure of his commander’s wishes, he should ask for permission before he acts. Now, you will stay away from my horses, particularly this horse. If any harm should come to him, even the smallest scratch, things would go harshly for whoever was to blame. And you, Father, would be the first man I would search out as the perpetrator.”

  During this castigation Father Lezcano’s cheeks had darkened and his eyes had narrowed. Despite the flash of temper that heightened the urge to defend his affronted character, he managed not to speak until his words held the restrained tenor of warning rather than outright challenge. “One who makes threats of harshness to a man of the cloth appears to hold little fear for his soul, Captain-General Cabrillo.”

  Cabrillo threw back at him, “My soul is in God’s hands, not yours, priest.”

  Momentarily stunned by so sacrilegious a statement, Father Lezcano said, “Such disregard for his representatives, sir, could be judged an act of blasphemy.”

  Again Cabrillo rebuffed the priest, saying, “I doubt Father Gamboa would deem it so. I also doubt that he would have the impertinence to show defiance toward me.”

  “You misunderstand me, sir. I meant only to caution.”

  “If I ever seek your cautions or any other words of advice, I will make my requests obvious.”

  Manuel’s eyes shifted most uneasily from one man to the other as he held his body motionless. Viento, having sensed the mounting tension in his master, had begun blowing out deep breaths and shifting on his hobbled feet. Cabrillo moved forward to place himself directly between Viento and the priest, and said, “I must calm my horse.”

  Father Lezcano hesitated, then gave Cabrillo a stiff, shallow bow and left them.

  With his voice lowered to a murmur, his touch reassuring, Cabrillo carefully examined every strap of the large sling that supported the horse’s body and kept him from harm whenever the ship swayed. He then tested each of the looser tethers that secured Viento’s head and hooves to support posts. Without the need of an order, Manuel began conducting the same thorough evaluation of the ties protecting Cabrillo’s gelding.

  When they both stood together again, satisfied that all was well, Cabrillo noticed Manuel’s reluctance to meet his gaze. “What is it?”

  Manuel lifted his head but remained silent.

  “What is on your mind, Manuel?”

  “Sir, you do not trust Father Lezcano. But why would a priest, a man of God, harm Viento?”

  “He wears a friar’s robes, yes. Whether his intentions are holy, I am uncertain. I fear only time will tell us that.” Cabrillo could see that these words only further troubled his pious slave, but he explained nothing more.

  Although the strength of the wind was waning somewhat, by late afternoon the beating sun had coaxed most of the men to shed their shirts and hike the hems of their breeches to well above their knees. The officers and Father Lezcano were the only exceptions. Cabrillo had allowed the lightening of attire only after the sun had reached a point he deemed less dangerous. He wanted no sunstroke or serious burns reducing the health of his men. Even Father Gamboa exposed his bony back to the breeze while offering what comfort he could to the many Indians battling appalling seasickness. These first days out were always the worst.

  The ships had traveled far and well before the sun became less generous with its light, always keeping to their planned formation with the flagship in the lead. It was, therefore, the San Salvador’s lookout who shouted out first, “Whales ahead, sir! A point off the starboard bow!” The cry was quickly taken up by the lookouts of the other two ships and dozens of bodies rushed to the starboard railings for a better look. Mateo leaped up and down to get fleeting views from between necks of the others until Manuel grabbed him and lifted the lad to his shoulders. “Ohhhh!” he said. “Look, Manuel! Look at them!”

  Excited cries and laughter burst from many others, especially from those new to life upon the ocean. The massive humpbacked whales paid little heed to the fleet, spouting and breaching within their small group, and slowly veering away from the course taken by the sailing vessels. Within the hour, to Mateo’s renewed delight, two more whale pods were sighted, and dolphins began to appear almost predictably, skimming and leaping free of the water like acrobats performing at a festival.

  As the sun moved farther west and began to sink to the waterline, according to a long maritime routine the three ships drew closer together and the captains of the smaller two vessels saluted their captain-general. Cabrillo returned their greetings and asked how they fared.

  “We of La Victoria fare as well as can be hoped, sir,” reported Captain Ferrelo.

  “As do the men of the San Miguel, sir!” called Captain Correa.

  “Fine, then we shall sail through the night with our headings steady toward Cabo de Corriente.”

  Even given their brisk pace, the ships did fairly well at remaining close together while Father Gamboa led them in vespers. Cabrillo then dismissed the other ships with, “God keep you all safe through the night!”

  One by one lantern wicks kindled to life throughout the ship, and Cabrillo felt warmed by their glow as he headed to steerage. There he reviewed the compass settings and speeds recently recorded within the log book, and the accuracy with which they’d been plotted onto the course-map carved in the top of the binnacle. This wooden box also served as a housing for the ship’s main compass, and that precious instrument was set before the vertical whipstaff within easy viewing of the man who controlled the tiller and, by its connection with that device, the rudder. Finding all to be as it should, Cabrillo said to the tillerman firmly embracing the San Salvador’s whipstaff, “Hold her steady, Tomas, and pray this wind stays with us.”

  “It is indeed a blessed wind, sir. Brawny yet smooth as a Gernika wine.”

  Cabrillo took his time as he made his way back to the upper stern deck, observing along the way the mood of his men, his ships, and the sea, all of which gave him reason for contentment. He forced thoughts of Father Lezcano aside, surrendering them to the peacefulness surrounding him. The sky’s final traces of deepening blue slowly blackened and the first shy twinkling of early stars grew steadily bolder. The light of the two great lanterns at opposite sides of the stern railing shone merrily out from their ornate metal cages, visually proclaiming the ship’s quiet passage. The ocean ahead held nothing but swelling, bending, smoothing waters. The distant shore showed no firelig
ht and issued no call. In all the world, at least this side of the world, Cabrillo thought, there are just these ships and the sea.

  Sleep, he knew, would not come easily tonight, even after he relinquished his command to the second shift at midnight. Though the ship would be in excellent hands under his pilot’s watch, the night was too beautiful and too abundantly filled with possibilities to allow for effortless slumber. Without needing to look, he felt Manuel’s presence behind him, and he knew this faithful companion wouldn’t close his eyes until his master had done so first.

  Walking to the port railing, Cabrillo peered over the edge and smiled. After so many sightings such as this he could not be surprised, but neither could he hold back a feeling of delight. Here in the foam was one of so many magnificent mysteries of the sea. He had tried to explain it more than once in Seville to friends who had never sailed, but none had believed him. Yet here in the froth churned up by the ship, tiny lights exploded in blue, green, red, and gold, as if some saintly hand had reached down from the heavens and set the bubbles to multihued glistening. He watched, spellbound and somehow refreshed, for several moments.

  When he lifted his face he found Manuel a step away, and said softly, “Send Mateo to me.”

  The boy soon appeared and Cabrillo motioned him to the railing. “Look there,” he said, pointing downward.

  Mateo followed the direction of Cabrillo’s arm, gaped, and took a step back as he gasped, “Blessed Mother of God!”

  With a low chuckle Cabrillo motioned him back to his side. “If it is the work of Our Lady, and it may well be, why should you fear it? Come and look again. Whatever magic it holds, it is not evil, and it was meant only for men of the sea. Savor it, and give thanks.”