Prisoner of the Indies

by Geoffrey Household

  As for me, I had always worn buckled shoes to serve in the cabin, so that my feet were soft. These shoes, rotted by sweat and the marshes, began to fall apart before midday, nor would the young Spaniard let me stop to try to bind them with rags. Soon the soles were torn off, and I shuffled along in bare feet with the flies buzzing round the blood.

  When our guards at last ordered us to halt, we dropped on the bare ground still tied together in pairs. I was given a maize cake for my supper, but I could not eat it. All night I tossed and turned with the pain of my feet, listening to the whine of the mosquitos and the groaning of my shipmates.

  In the morning I had no strength to move. Williams tried to drag me up, but I could only lie where I was with my hot, fevered head on my arms. There I think I would have died if it had not been for the cruelty of the young Spaniard. He beat me across the shoulders shouting, ‘Walk, you little dog! You enemy of God!’

  Then he prodded me with his spear and kicked me until I got to my feet.

  The road climbed and climbed into the mountains, and never shall I forget the loose stones underfoot. Little Richard Williams babbled of his home and tried to make me speak of mine. I answered him that I had no home but the Jesus of Lubeck which was at the bottom of the harbour with the bones of my good comrades, and that I wished to be dead also.

  In the evening I thought that my wicked wish had come true for I saw hurrying towards us some men dressed all in white robes, with freshly shaven faces, holding out their hands in welcome. One of them came up to Richard and me and instantly cut the halter which bound us together. Putting his arms round our shoulders, he said to us, ‘Dear children, do not be afraid!’

  Though he spoke Spanish, I understood what he said and forthwith burst out weeping like a baby.

  These men were friars of the Carmelite Order who had come out to greet us from the town of Santa Maria. They took us all into their monastery and gave us so much meat and fruit that at first we made ourselves ill. And some of us died of their wounds, this charity coming too late for them.

  These good Carmelites also clothed us in the white cotton cloth of the Indians which was great comfort to our open sores. My feet were anointed and bound up, and sandals so lovingly fitted over the linen that in two days I could bear the pain of walking. I thought that if the friars in England were as kindly and charitable as those of New Spain it was a great pity that King Harry the Eighth turned them out.

  Before we took the road again, Anthony Goddard spoke with the old man and thanked him for showing such mercy as he could, whereas his comrade had none.

  ‘I, too, have marched naked in my time, Englishman,’ he answered, ‘with no clothes but a belt of rotten leather and nothing in my hand but a sword. And it is to me and such as me that King Charles and King Philip after him owe their empire.’

  But the young man with the spear, he said, had come out only two years before to make his fortune, and wished he had never left his home in Cadiz for the huts of Tampico. Yet he had servants, which he never had in all his life before, and treated them very ill as he did us. He thought he would be a gentleman and so would not work. If we paid no heed to him, we should soon see that it would give him no pleasure to beat us.

  We left Santa Maria and limped slowly onwards under our cloud of flies, bound in pairs as before. But my shipmates now had more spirit in them. When the young man struck and cursed them, they cursed him back in good, round English. Once he backed his horse into the line so that Richard Williams and I, pulling in opposite directions to escape the hooves, both fell down. I pitched with my hand upon a plant like our teasel, which grows close to the ground and bristles with fine thorns. This I picked up – since my hand was so full of the prickles that a dozen more made no odds – and in a fury thrust it under his horse’s tail.

  The poor beast bucked and bounded as though it were mad and threw its rider, spear and all, into the prickly pears by the side of the road, then bolted off until the old man most skilfully caught it at full gallop. Thereafter the young Spaniard became more of a lazy gentleman than ever and left his duties to the headman of the Indians, telling him to kill anyone who stumbled and fell. But the Indians were too cautious to shed our blood without a better order than his, and would not meddle with us.

  We travelled for five days, climbing higher and higher so that I gasped for breath and was near fainting with the heat of the sun. At last we started downhill, each pair tripping and falling against the pair in front, for we were again as weak as when we came to Santa Maria. Then we reached flatter ground and were suddenly surrounded by a crowd of Spaniards who had ridden out to look at us; so we knew that we must be near to the City. Whether they killed me or not I did not care, for at least there would be an end to walking.

  When we came to the lake which fills the Valley of Mexico, I thought the fever was on me and that again I dreamed what I saw, which was a shining city in the middle of the water, reached by four causeways. Till then I had believed that the Spaniards lived in settlements not so good as a small Devon market-town, or in strong forts like Cartagena. Yet here was a dominion which far surpassed London in the broadness of its streets and the magnificence of its buildings. So said those who had seen our capital; and I, who had known no greater town than Plymouth, was astounded, for Mexico was larger than six Plymouths, and that without counting the Indian townships which lay in the valley round about it.

  The streets were built straight and at right angles to each other so that from the causeway I could see a mile in front of me. Sweet water ran in channels down the streets and between them were canals where the Indians paddled canoes piled high with all the produce of the country. Around the city the birds sang most marvellously and in great numbers, and the scent of flowers and herbs from the fields was very dainty. Our men exclaimed at the wonder of it all, their great oaths sounding oddly in voices that were so weak. Even Richard Williams ceased to blubber and wipe his nose on his cotton smock, blowing it with his fingers like a man.

  Our guards made us sit down in the middle of the great square, where we huddled together on the pavement expecting that the crowd who came running would spit on us or throw stones. But they smiled kindly and gave us whatever food or money they had ready. And those who had nothing in their hands sped to the market stalls and bought meat and hats for us. They all knew that we had fought at San Juan de Ulua, but it was enough for them that we were Christian men who suffered.

  We were taken in two large canoes to a tannery where we spent the night. In the morning priests came to see us and ask what we believed, for the people of Mexico then knew little of the English except that we had returned to the Catholic Church under Queen Mary, and they thought that under Queen Elizabeth we were free to be Catholics or heretics as we pleased.

  Anthony Goddard told the priests that we were as good Christians as they, and made it appear, when he interpreted for us, that we had given the right answers whether we had or not. I and some others could say the Lord’s Prayer in Latin, which we did. Others said it over in English, which satisfied the priests.

  Being now, as we thought, out of our troubles, fourteen of us died. As a boy, I could only see the pity of it both here in the tannery and at Santa Maria. Since then I have learned that a man who is afraid to be left on the road to die alone will keep marching though his feet bleed and his body be racked with pain. But when he feels that it is all over and that he has no more need to fight for his life, then he gives up.

  So it was with me, though I did not die. The skin came off my body where it had been scorched by the sun, and my wounds from the thorns, the flies and the road would not heal. I had agues like that which I had upon the Guinea coast, and the worst of it was that as soon as I was cured of one fever another would strike me down.

  For six months I was in their hospital, together with prisoners taken at San Juan and the other sick of our own party. We were all most kindly treated. Gentlemen and gentlewomen would visit us, bringing us sweets and marmalades and giving to us
generously whatever we needed. I wish that a Spaniard in England could be sure of such friends in his distress. But we are a middling people. As Christian charity is greater among the Spaniards, so is their cruelty.

  When at last I was sound in body, I was ordered out of the hospital with many others and sent to Texcoco prison. Here were no sweets and marmalade. Indeed we should have starved to death if it had not been for one Robert Sweeting, whose father had been an English merchant in Spain. I met many such in my wanderings. They or their fathers had traded in the ports of Spain during the good old days of our alliance, marrying Spanish wives and maintaining the Catholic faith. Being as much of one nation as the other, they were welcome to travel and trade in the Indies.

  At Texcoco we were given no work and had no chance of earning money to relieve our wants. This was due to the audacity of some of our comrades who had finished the march in fair health and been sent to Texcoco gaol instead of hospital. They were set to carding wool alongside Indian labourers, which was work for women rather than the seamen and soldiers of John Hawkins. So they rioted in the workshops and chased their Spanish masters through the streets. Job Hartop, who had pleasured us all on the Jesus of Lubeck with his gunpowder fireworks, terrified the poor Indians by his jumping squibs and nearly set the town on fire. So the wool masters sent at once to the Viceroy, begging him to hold his prisoners somewhere else and swearing that they were devils and not men.

  Therefore we late-comers were left to rot idly in gaol. After two months of it we could bear the dullness of our lives no longer and broke out, the whole band of us, without thinking where we could go or how we should defend ourselves. Keeping together, we ran off into the night. The rain poured down and it was very dark. When the sun rose, we found that we had not reached the hills which we could see from our prison, and were on the outskirts of the City of Mexico. We were all taken and brought before the Viceroy who threatened to hang us for breaking out of the King’s clink.

  I bowed my head like the rest of our ragged band and showed my penitence. But I was not much afraid, remembering that since I came to New Spain there had been few days – except when I was in hospital and not worth a piece of rope – that some angry Spaniard had not threatened to hang me. And yet, thanks to these same Spaniards, there I was more hale and hearty than ever in my life.

  The Viceroy did not punish us at all, nor those who had beaten their masters either. I take it that just as Mr Hawkins was ever careful to commit no offence against the Law of Nations which could be censured by Her Majesty, so this false Don Martin Enriquez did not wish to make his treachery worse by some act which might be against the policy of King Philip, and did not know what to do with his plaguey prisoners.

  Instead of hanging us he confined us in the courts and garden behind the Viceroy’s Palace. There, to our great joy, we found the hostages who had been given by Mr Hawkins at San Juan de Ulua and Master Robert Barrett with them. There, too, among other prisoners-of-war was Paul Horsewell whom they had treated well after they found he was the nephew of Admiral Haquines as they called him. Since I thought Paul dead and he believed me to have sailed for home in the Minion we two fell upon each other’s necks and spent a week telling our adventures.

  For four months we stayed in the closed garden, where I had my fifteenth birthday. I was strong for my years, but slightly built as any Spaniard – which was little wonder since we were given only two sheep a day between a hundred of us and two loaves of bread each, no bigger than a halfpenny loaf in England. We passed our time in singing songs, both those of our own country and many sweet songs of France which Captain Bland’s men taught us. William Lowe could play any tune he heard and our guards would bring him any instrument he asked for. Sometimes they joined us and sang us the songs of Spain, which seemed to me strange and sad.

  Then the Viceroy, being weary of our company and our voices, confined the hostages and Master Barrett in his own house and made a proclamation in the city that any gentleman who desired an Englishman to serve him should come to the garden and take his choice. They came in scores, very glad to have us. What the good old man had told us on the march from Tampico was very true. Every Spaniard wished to live at leisure, and well he might in so rich and fertile a land with Indians to do all the work. But there was great need of foremen, stewards and overseers. For such duties we were a godsend, willing to turn our hands to any work and thankful to be fed, paid and rid of our rags.

  So there we stood like countrymen at a hiring fair in Devon, except that no farmer would have taken on such villainous, stinking scoundrels, some still clad in the Indian cotton which the friars had given us, some in nothing but half a shirt and a pair of old charity breeches.

  A fine little man in black and red taffeta, with a neat beard and a heavy silver chain upon which hung an emerald, smiled on me and enquired what was my trade.

  ‘I was page to Señor Haquines, sir,’ I answered, which was a lie, but Samuel was not there to deny it.

  ‘Well, will you be page to me?’ he asked.

  ‘I would be page to the devil, sir, if I could be a free man with it,’ I said.

  My Spanish was not yet good, but I could be witty with what I had. And, like any boy of my age, I was inclined to prefer a jest to good manners.

  ‘And I see I shall have a devil for my page,’ he laughed, ‘who has, I doubt not, robbed and killed enough of my poor countrymen.’

  ‘I swear to your worship that I have never robbed a soul,’ I replied. ‘And as for killing, it was you Spaniards who started it.’

  ‘So I have heard. But enough discussion! Is there anyone else I should take to grace my establishment?’

  Now, it was on the tip of my tongue to tell him to take one of several boys who would be company for me. But then my eye fell upon William Lowe, who was standing behind the rest with his poor head bowed, sure that no one would choose him. His red beard was nearly down to the ground, and he wore a doublet which came to his ankles. Though a young man, he looked like an old, hairy, freckled monkey.

  ‘Take him, sir,’ I said, ‘if you love music in your establishment.’

  ‘But he does not seem human.’

  ‘Indeed he is unfortunate, sir. But when you have heard him play the viol you will say that he is more than human.’

  And so it came about that William Lowe and I entered the service of Don Gil Alvarado, who was a great nephew of that Alvarado who took the city for Cortés the Conqueror, and a very rich man.

  Don Gil lived like an earl in England, for he owned a silver mine in Zacatecas, an estancia on the borders of Chiapas, where he bred the finest horses in New Spain, and a town house on the east of the city. His gardens looked on to the lake, and the front of the house upon the market-place and church of San Lazaro where once had been a temple of the Aztecs. Upon all such heathen sites the friars had built churches.

  I was washed, clothed and perfumed. When I had learned the manners and service of the house, it became one of my duties to stand outside the door and ring a bell at dinner and supper. Whoever wished might then come in from the street to eat at our table. Such liberality was beyond belief, yet all that Don Gil and Dona Elvira, his wife, expected in return was that those who frequented the house should attend them in public. I have seen Dona Elvira go to church, covered with laces and jewels and attended by a hundred men and twenty gentlewomen, besides her maids. You may be sure that I did all I was told to the best of my ability, for never in my life had I lived in such luxury and never shall again.

  As for William Lowe, his red beard was trimmed to a fork and he was dressed in a long robe of embroidered taffeta so that his short legs could not be seen. I used to tell him that he needed but a crown to be King of the Elves. He soon wearied of playing the viol to Dona Elvira’s lute, for she made too many false notes. So he persuaded Don Gil to let him form a band for the house. That was rare in the City of Mexico where musicians only played together at church festivals and in the theatre which was opened while I was there.
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br />   So William got together some of the Aztec Indians with their reed flutes and a Tlaxcalan woman who was maid to Dona Elvira and had learned the lute better than her mistress, and one of Don Gil’s Negroes whom they called a slave but was treated as fairly as the rest of the servants. He could play any wind instrument, but first came to our notice by telling us stories without words upon an Indian drum.

  William had little trouble in making the Aztec craftsmen refashion their flutes to our scale. They can turn their hands to anything. They are goldsmiths, blacksmiths, carpenters, tailors, saddlers and embroiderers, and they will work so cheap, living a whole week with nothing but maize cakes and a groat to buy vegetables, that poor young men who come out from Spain cannot follow their trades. That, Don Gil told me, was the reason why so many Spaniards were idle, and not their vanity at all.

  But what most endeared us to our master was the earthquake. We had felt little ones before, for they are common in the City of Mexico, but this swayed the whole house gently and long. Everyone fled into San Lazaro market-place, leaving William and myself behind. We followed them at our leisure, I bearing a flagon in one hand and my lady’s lace mantle in the other. Thereafter was much talk of the cool courage of the English. But in fact we had been ignorant of the danger. We were so used to our duties in the Jesus of Lubeck that we knew no reason why we should cease to serve and to play because of a little swaying under foot.

  When I was seventeen, Don Gil made me his chamberlain: a great place indeed. My duties were to see that all was shipshape in the houses and among the servants, which came easily to one trained by Mr Hawkins, who never left anything to chance which could be cured by foresight. I had also to attend my master on his journeys, the pair of us going splendidly dressed, armed and mounted.