A Signal Victory

by David Stacton

  To him life was still marvellous. He had that nature, but he had also had that luck. If it had not been for that storm, he would have been wallowing with some peasant until she wrinkled, and he ran after camp-followers and cheapjack tarts, though wrinkled before his time himself.

  Yet here he lay with Ix Chan, who was soft, and undulant, and kind, in a stone room, lit gently by lamps, while they talked of simple matters as they had always done. Sometimes, in the night, when she thought he was sleeping, she would get up and walk erectly away to look at the children.

  Tonight he got up to follow her.

  The children, their two sons, were huddled up to each other asleep, dark haired, tired, and plump as hairless puppies. The boys stirred. He saw how the Maya derived such endless pleasure from watching children. Ix Chan gave a shy, contented look, and they went back to their own room.

  Daily things can become the most precious. He knew he must have spent a restless night.

  At dawn the priests began the day with pink-lipped conches. The sound rumbled out across the bay, on which there was not a single canoe, let alone a ship.

  Nevertheless, as he knew, that ship would come. He must prepare against that day. It was time now for envoys and diplomacy. But how can you rouse a people against an enemy they have never seen? Men always prepare to fight their last enemy, not their next, and their last and habitual enemy had been themselves.

  XI

  He was right. In a few months that ship came.

  Cordoba had died of his wounds, but not before he had had time to report the land rich, on the strength of the few miserable and unknown to himself imported gold trinkets he had stolen from Campeche and the Isle of Women. He had to justify himself in some way.

  So did the Governor of Cuba, who therefore reported the discovery to the Crown, and then, in order to get to the land first, in case it should be rich, authorized and sponsored another expedition, under the direction of a man called Grijalva, whose chief recommendation was that he paid for everything. Everything in this case consisted of four ships and 250 men.

  Not knowing the borders of that deceptive sea, the flotilla headed for Cozumel, of which they did know. A few days later, in the spring of 1518, they sighted it. That island, which is now merely a beach resort for expensive Mexicans, was in those days holy.

  When, three or four days later, news of their arrival reached Chetumal, Guerrero swore.

  The Spanish had taken possession of the island, which had offered no resistance, for as was their habit when a town was taken, the inhabitants, not wishing either to be sacrificed or enslaved, had fled. A few, too old to honour the gods in that way, had stayed behind, but the Spaniards, being raised on Xenophon and Plutarch, thought that desertion their first victory, ran up banners, and had taken possession of the land in the name of something called Castille.

  What, asked Nachancan, was the meaning of that word, Castille?

  Guerrero knew very well what the name meant, but found it difficult to explain. How could he explain it was a country as disunited and as anarchic as this, and yet so much worse? How explain that thirst not for hearts, but souls? That intolerance, and that greed bred of insecurity, whereas here there was some gluttony, yes, but no greed, some lust for power, but almost none for possession. How can you explain intolerance to the tolerant?

  Yet life in Chetumal went on as it had always done. The same was true of northern Yucatan, so far as he could judge. There was no attempt at defence, but only curiosity and a certain sacerdotal foreboding. These strangers fulfilled a prophecy. True, they did not come at quite the correct time, but they did come from the right direction. And then they were so few. The gods are always few, and if they were not gods, then it takes little effort to remove a few, and life then goes on again.

  He could not explain, even to Nachancan, the juggernaut of Europe. These people had no knowledge of a juggernaut, and less than none of Europe. Nor, unlike Christians, could they understand the awful power which derives from doing one thing in the name of another. They were not fanatics,

  Messengers now came in daily. The strangers had turned south.

  There was no end of messengers, for life is very like Greek tragedy. The chief events which change our lives, the chief events, therefore, in them, always take place offstage. We ourselves are reduced merely to discussing the moral impact of what has been done to us, of what we have become, to a chorus of the inevitable I told you so.

  The Spaniards drew closer.

  They passed Zelha and Tulum.

  “We followed the shore day and night,” wrote the Spaniards, “and the next day, toward sunset, we perceived a city or town so large, that Seville would not have seemed more considerable, or better; one saw there a very large tower; on the shore was a great throng of Indians, who bore two standards, which they raised and lowered to signal us to approach them; our commander did not wish it.”

  Having no comparatives of their own, for they had created nothing, naturally they thought of Seville, that Gothic, quarrelsome, and futile city, which only the Moors had been able to ennoble, and which already, after so little time under the Spaniards, had become a vainglorious borrowed shell with quagmire streets and open drains, which once had been spotless and serene, where fountains played all day.

  At least their ships were slow, and at least Tulum had taken warning. Guerrero began the building of breastworks, a science of which the Indians knew nothing, and planned the strategy of the bay. So much was dictated by loyalty, but he had yet to feel the rage of desperation.

  He was watchful, but he thought that the Maya would naturally win. Yet, at the same time, he dreaded the engagement. He did not want to be reminded of that world he had discarded.

  Then the Spanish turned back.

  Guerrero sighed with relief. Though he did not know why they had reversed course, that they had done so gave him a little more time.

  They had done so because they thought Yucatan an island. For twenty years they were to think so, and no Maya would tell them differently. Why should any Maya tell them anything? They had entered what is now called the Bahia de Ascension, hoping for a passage to the other side, and finding none, had decided to search out the richer cities of the west coast some other way.

  News came they had touched at Cozumel again, and that they had been sighted off Ecab, Dzilan, and Conkal. It was therefore obvious where they were going. They were going where Cordoba had found those pitiable dull gold trinkets.

  Guerrero had an interview with Nachancan, said good-bye to Ix Chan, and his sons, and set out with an embassy across country towards Champoton and Campeche.

  It did not surprise him that he could accomplish nothing at Champoton, for they were warriors there, who had yet to see equipment that could defeat them. They refused to be alarmed. But at Campeche he did somewhat better. At Campeche they were less sure of their own strength and much closer to danger. The ships had been sighted, and the priesthood was alarmed, for the strangers were desecrating the temples.

  The night he arrived the rain was thick enough to make the air one solid cube of water. The Maya were used to that, used to watching the rain and the thin, ghostly creatures who lived only in the rain. When it was good, it brought the crops; and when it was bad, it brought the rot. One had only to sit cross-legged, until it parted, to see which was on the other side.

  Their whole approach to life was like that, which made them difficult to organize.

  When it parted, towards morning, they saw four ships on the other side. They did not like the look of ships, and they had heard of guns.

  Guerrero had the war conches sounded. Angrily that sound eddied out over the sea. The warriors assembled. But the Spaniards stayed in their ships all day.

  The CanPechs, who had been frightened, now felt better. Apart from the taking of slaves and victims, wars were won by feinting. Therefore they had won a war. That night they slept.

  Guerrero knew better, but it was difficult to rouse them the next morning. He was al
most too late.

  For as soon as dawn hit the water, Grijalva put out boats, and these now rowed gently towards the shore, their landing parties armed.

  Guerrero watched from the edge of the scrub, and suggested strategy. Nothing he said had any effect. The CanPechs had their own strategy and their own tactics. Every movement had behind it a tradition, according to which their warriors were well trained. They were proud. They would not fight in any but their own way.

  The Spaniards had landed only to get water, which they needed desperately on that salten sea, so desperately that they were quite prepared to fight for it, and did.

  The CanPechs cut down a few. But only a few. That was because of their strategy, for though they admired the gods and knew they had to be placated, they had no desire to have their own hearts ripped out unless that were unavoidable. It was useless to tell them that the Spaniards were not interested in their hearts, but only in everything they owned that made having a heart worthwhile. When the CanPechs began to lose they ran away, instead of pressing closer. That was the Maya way. They would have to learn by experience that not all men had the same gods. Guerrero could not hold them.

  The Spaniards, who had only come for water, marched into Campeche instead. They were not opposed, for they found an empty city. Its inhabitants had fled so swiftly, that Guerrero had been left behind.

  The cacique of Campeche had a garden menagerie. It was extensive, but far from neatly trimmed. Guerrero took refuge there. It was his duty to stay alive and unknown. But he did have a curiosity to watch.

  As he had thought, Grijalva and his captains took up their residence in the cacique’s palace.

  Fortunately for Guerrero it had begun to rain again, which did not bother him. He was used to it. But the Spaniards would risk neither their velvets nor their helmets and cuirasses to the damp and rust. They had no experience of living with the weather, for like all Europeans, they lived against it, rather than following its rhythms. While it rained they stayed indoors. But they were restless; they came and went in the rain, in the empty city, a little apprehensive, even a little awed. They were, after all, only 250, and to them luxury meant power, as indeed it does, and in this case, since the inhabitants had fled, an unseen power. They feared an ambush.

  Guerrero saw all of them.

  It was the first time he had seen Spaniards in eight years. He shifted on his glistening hams, hidden by foliage, and hungry. Yet he stayed. Even if they found him, they would take him for a native, he would take himself for a native, but they did not find him. Grijalva was a cautious commander, and besides, it was raining, so no one came outside.

  He saw that yes, he had not been wrong, they were, as they had always been, strangers. He had never belonged in that world. He was lucky to have found a place in this.

  They were having some quarrel among themselves, whether to stay, turn back, or go on. He had almost forgotten Spanish. It now sounded as a partly porous, almost meaningless, alien tongue. He found they were strangers to him. To the poor, men in power, swaggering around in fine clothes and with unpaid debts, are always strangers. But now he was rich, he found them doubly so.

  He saw the real difference that reinforced that difference of circumstance, but was still there, naked, now that they were equivalent. He shivered, but he went on watching. The rain now was a solid vertical wall.

  As they peered out of the heavy masonry doorway into the garden, cursed, quarrelled, and spat, he saw all their great ones. It was, though he still believed they could be turned back, a preview of the conquest.

  There was a young man with a white face and a black beard, a certain swagger and a cruel look, the look of a hooded hawk, who sits there waiting. His name was Pedro de Alvarado, though Guerrero had no way of knowing that. He only saw an ambitious, wild man, very proud, very cunning and therefore a little stupid, the future Conqueror of Guatemala. He would make a name for himself, but what is a name? Spain had many such younger sons, who, since they could not rise on the shoulders of their own countrymen, must find some other country to grind down. Like all the conquistadores, caught in the cage of his own success, like a proud animal, he would die not of natural combat, but the mange. For though suicide is impossible to a Christian, still, the cage of success makes every man a Bajazet.

  There was Davila, the man without qualities, who looked like a gentleman, and was one, but who just for that reason would fight a good war for very bad money, and never know, but sometimes be disturbed by, what he had done.

  The third man looked as though he would have been happier in a counting-house. That was Francisco de Montejo, who wanted this land for himself, for he was the sort of man who thinks he can turn a better profit on the second best, and often does, than the first comer makes of his advantages. Even now, scenting a bargain, he wanted Yucatan for himself.

  Grijalva, whom Guerrero did not see, had heard rumours of wealth somewhere else. He was a man to chase butterflies, and unlike the Maya, did not know they were made of obsidian and signified nothing but the death of the soul. In two days he led the party off, uneasy and overweaning, and so going back to their boats in a tight defensive clump.

  Guerrero was left alone in an empty city. That gave him time both to see the serene order and the futile weakness (for weakness is not always futile) of this world of which he was from now on a part.

  Then the CanPechs came back. He had nothing to say to them. He was stiff with exposure. It was all he could do to keep his temper, let alone tell them that they had not won a world by flight, but lost it. Yet he saw how these flights, if only he could teach the Maya how to fight, might be turned into ambushes. He saw a great many things.

  And on that trip back to Chetumal, he had a lot of time to think of them. They sobered him. They made him sad. For though he would go on fighting, something inside him, to which he refused an ear, yet told him that he could not, that they could not, win. Never mind. They must.

  He gave it up. It was all a little too much for him to think about. Meanwhile he was going back to his wife, his sons, and Nachancan.

  It did no good to think about such things. It was better to be a healthy body, vigorous and wily, and to do what came next. It was better to trust to that. Yet he found himself gazing at the vivid wild greens of the jungle, and at the other members of his embassy, as though both might vanish overnight.

  He was determined that they should not do so, if only because he now had sons.

  What he needed was a respite. He was not to get it. For unknown to him, Grijalva had sailed on to the Empire of the Aztecs, and at Tabasco had at last discovered gold.

  As soon as he heard the news, Valazquez sent out an expedition under Cortés. And under Cortés there was to be no respite for anyone.

  XII

  The two men never met, and being so alike, could not have met, which is a pity, for they might well have understood each other, though we find it difficult to understand them.

  About such great rapacious leaders, Alexander, Cortés, there is always something ambiguous. We know what they looked like, what they did, and what they said. But that is not the same as knowing anything about them. They are riddle, sphinx, and Oedipus too. At best we catch only the ripple of their well-oiled thighs, as they hunch themselves to ask the question. About those who have the smile of success, the smile of the sphinx, we know a good deal. But about those who drove her to her death, and whose expression is somewhat different, nothing, except the later fate of Oedipus, which those who have driven her to that extreme have always shared.

  With Cortés there was no nonsense. He came from Spain’s dustiest province, and though he could lament the destruction of much beauty, that did not prevent him from destroying it. So when he arrived at Cozumel, he let those priests his government had foisted upon his expedition destroy the temples and pull down an idol or two. Though he was not a bigot himself, such actions upped the morale of the men and cost him nothing. Patrician by nature, he was above such things, but precisely because he was a
bove them, they meant nothing to him, and it was important to keep his men content.

  Besides, he was a lord. He looked a lord. Though he always dressed with care, stripped naked, he would have looked one, because he was one. And the natives recognized that. He was the first foreign lord they had ever seen, except for Kukulcan, or Quetzalcoatl, in whom they believed, but whom none of them had ever seen, that legendary ruler who had conquered them before.

  It left them curiously relieved, who had fought among themselves for so long, to see a lord. Knowing only a two-class society, they had been puzzled by those uneasily ostentatious bourgeois hidalgos who were the only Spaniards they had seen before. Now they felt the difference at once. This man was a ruler.

  Not that they were submissive, but like very old cultures and middle-aged men, there was about them something feminine. Even at their most manly, they still wished to be dominated by the father of them all, against whom they could rebel, only to learn in the end, from some odd ancestral gesture of the elbow, some way of holding the head, that it was the same pattern they repeated and that life went on. They were a people who proceeded by precedents. With Cortés they thought they knew where they were.

  With its idols overturned, the life went out of Cozumel. One by one the natives came back to make their submission. And from these, Cortés learned of Aguilar and Guerrero, not by name, but as bearded men who had come among them from the sea. He guessed who they must be at once, and since he could do nothing without an interpreter, sent for both of them, and even posted a ship to patrol these shores, until they should appear.

  He did not for a moment doubt that they would appear. Were they not Spaniards?

  *

  It was Aguilar, first, who received the news.

  He was still alive, and still in the harem at Ecab. He had spent so many years in servile bending, to save his skin, so he claimed, for God, that it took him a while to straighten up. But then he became very straight indeed. He still had his notched stick: the year was 1519. He had suffered indignities. He said a mass for himself. He wished revenge.