Sea Robber

by Tim Severin

  He translated Hector’s questions to Kepuha, and the old man’s face crinkled into a knowing smile. He beckoned to the young man to follow him.

  ‘Go with the makhana,’ said Ma’pang. ‘He’ll reassure you that we won’t get ourselves lost on the ocean. But hurry. We leave before nightfall, and there is much to do.’

  Mystified, Hector accompanied the shaman at a fast walk back towards the village. Halfway along the track they turned to their right and plunged into the undergrowth. Pushing their way through the dense vegetation, they arrived at the foot of a low cliff draped with lianas and climbing plants. Kepuha pulled aside the vines. A section of the cliff face had been painted over with a light wash of lime. Here and there someone had made black marks with soot. Other mysterious symbols were drawn in red ochre.

  Still holding back the vines, Kepuha looked back at Hector and waited expectantly.

  Hector scrutinized the marks, trying to guess their meaning. When he failed to decipher them, the makhana stepped up to the wall and tapped on a symbol. It was larger than most, the size of the palm of his hand, and showed a hollow circle with four short curved lines radiating from it. He pointed up into the sky and made a sweeping movement from horizon to horizon. Next, he touched three or four of the black marks and again pointed to the sky, but this time in different directions.

  Hector began to understand. ‘The sun? Stars?’ he enquired.

  The makhana nodded. He carefully snapped off several twigs from a nearby bush and laid them on top of one another on the ground to make an open framework. Walking in a circle around the twigs, he stopped at various points to look up into the sky, then turned on his heel to face the opposite direction and again made a sweeping motion with his arm above his head. All the while he crooned what sounded like verses of poetry in his own language. He intoned with such reverence that Hector was reminded of the monks who’d taught him scripture during his childhood in Ireland. He understood that the makhana was trying to tell him something to do with the stars and sun, and that it had to do with the coming voyage. So he nodded and smiled politely and pretended to understand what the shaman was saying. Then, as soon as Kepuha finished, he hurried back in search of Maria to tell her of the new developments.

  He found her in the village, talking with Jacques.

  ‘What’s going on, Hector? Everyone seems in a great hurry,’ she asked. There was indeed a general bustle as Chamorro men and women busily filled baskets with dried fish and fruit and carried them off towards the beach.

  ‘Stores for a long voyage, Maria,’ Hector said. ‘Ma’pang is sticking with the plan to loot guns from the patache. He seems to think he can catch up with her at sea.’

  ‘Surely it’s far too late. The patache will soon be halfway to Manila.’

  Hector shrugged. ‘He seems very confident. They’ve got a giant ocean-going canoe.’

  ‘Will you, Dan, and the others be going with them?’ she asked.

  ‘The Chamorro don’t yet know how to use guns correctly. They need us as musketeers if there’s a fight.’

  ‘Of course there’ll be a fight,’ she said a little grimly. She had another of the yellow flowers and twirled the blossom in her hand.

  ‘Maria, it would make more sense if you came with us,’ Hector said seriously. ‘I don’t want to leave you alone here on Rota. There’s no point in sailing all that way, then bringing the boat back to fetch you.’

  Maria began to pull the flower to pieces, petal by petal. Clearly she was unhappy. ‘Of course I’ll go with you,’ she said in a small voice. ‘But I didn’t expect this to happen so soon.’

  Hector frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  She grimaced. ‘I always knew my whole life would change once I went with you. But this is piracy. And if I’m with you, that makes me a pirate too.’

  ‘But the Chamorro are at war. They’re not pirates.’

  ‘I don’t think my countrymen understand the difference.’

  ‘There need be very little bloodshed.’

  She looked up at him, doubt in her eyes.

  ‘We’ll take the patache by surprise,’ Hector went on, trying to sound more confident than he felt. ‘Board her quickly. The Chamorro want guns, not a fight.’

  ‘And what will the Chamorro do with the patache’s crew?’

  Hector forced a smile that he hoped she’d find reassuring. ‘A living Spaniard is more valuable as a hostage to the Chamorro than a dead one,’ he explained.

  Even as he spoke the words, Hector had misgivings. He knew of only one prisoner taken by the Chamorro – the interpreter who had run away from the beach when they first landed from the Nicholas. Ma’pang had told him the wretched man had been caught farther along the coast. Regarding him as a traitor and turncoat, the Chamorro left his body on the shore with a spear driven through his mouth.

  FOURTEEN

  IT REQUIRED TWO TEAMS of Chamorro, forty men in all, to haul the sakman from her boathouse. They chanted as they heaved on the heavy coir ropes, and the vessel emerged into the evening light looking, Hector thought, like a crouching sea beast reluctantly dragged from its lair. The Chamorro threw heavy logs down on the sand as skids, and carefully manoeuvred the boat to the water’s edge and pushed her afloat. Clay jars and bamboo tubes filled with water and the last of the stores were loaded. Hector, Maria and the other guirragos were told to climb aboard with their muskets and stay out of the way. Ma’pang was to be the captain, but the greater respect was paid to old Kepuha. He came down the beach, tenderly holding a framework of wooden sticks like the one he had shown to Hector. But this contrivance was brittle with age, its flimsy joints tied together with thin strips of coconut fibre. Here and there seashells had been attached like random barnacles.

  Kepuha laid the contraption carefully inside the thatched hut that formed the only accommodation on the sakman. Then the vessel was pushed out farther into the sea until the helpers were chest-deep in the water. For a few minutes they held the sakman in position while Ma’pang shouted orders, and his crew of eight Chamorro fishermen raised the mast and fitted its heel in a central step. Heavy rope stays were led fore and aft, and secured. More rigging was taken out sideways to the float and fastened in place. As soon as the mast was held firm, the bulky cocoon of the single sail was attached to a halyard and unrolled. The fabric of the sail was woven from strips of palm leaf and was so fine that at a distance it could have been mistaken for canvas. Even before the sail was fully hoisted, the sakman began to sidle and shift, answering to the breeze.

  The wading men were pulled off their feet and let go their grasp. Instantly the sakman began to gather way, moving so smoothly and quickly that Hector was scarcely aware the voyage had begun. One moment he was within a stone’s throw of the watching crowd of villagers on the beach, close enough to make out their expressions of mingled pride and anticipation, and the next time he looked back, they were far away and indistinguishable. All he could see was the swaying of green palm fronds waved in farewell.

  He turned again to look forward over the bows. The sakman had already crossed the width of the bay. He had to restrain himself from shouting out in alarm. The vessel was heading straight towards the barrier reef. In less than a minute she would smash into the jagged coral. Ma’pang, who held the steering paddle in the stern, let out a warning cry. To Hector’s utter astonishment, it seemed that the sakman’s captain had panicked. He threw the steering paddle into the water. In the same instant two of his men loosed the sheets that controlled the sail. Two others seized the forward end and ran with it aft to where Ma’pang was standing. The sakman slowed, hesitated and then began to move backwards. The abandoned steering paddle, Hector now saw, was attached to a cord. It floated past the opposite end of the hull, where another member of the crew retrieved it, placed it in a notch in the gunwale and began to steer. Now everything was back to front. The vessel’s bow had become its stern, and the sakman was accelerating in the opposite direction, heading for the gap in the reef. Ma’pang trea
ted Hector to a jagged-toothed grin. ‘Something else the guirragos have to learn,’ he laughed.

  As the sakman cleared the bay, she began to feel the full force of a steady breeze from the north. What had appeared a fast pace earlier now became a swooping rush. The boat seemed to lift, then surge across the surface of the sea, swaying lightly from side to side, barely heeling to the pressure of the wind as it filled the great scoop of the sail. The water bubbled and swirled in her wake. The Chamorro crew hurried from one part of the vessel to another, tightening knots, checking lashings, ensuring the structure of the vessel was snug.

  Dan, standing beside Hector at the foot of the mast, watched with undisguised admiration. ‘I would not have believed it possible,’ he said. ‘How fast do you think she is moving?’

  ‘Quicker than I’ve ever sailed before,’ Hector answered. ‘If we continue at this pace, maybe Ma’pang was right. We’ll catch the patache with ease.’

  He ducked as a burst of spray swept across the gunwale and wetted his face. A Chamorro crewman crouched in the bottom of the hull was beckoning to Dan and holding up a wooden scoop. Dan moved away to join him, calling out over his shoulder, ‘She is taking water fast. But as the timber swells, the leaks will slow, and the lighter we keep the boat, the quicker she will move.’

  ‘Cold food from now on, I suppose. No one could possibly cook under these conditions,’ said Jacques morosely. He was half-sitting, half-standing, his feet braced against one side of the hull, his shoulders pressed to the opposite gunwale.

  Hector looked for Maria. She peeked out from the little deckhouse where she’d taken shelter. He smiled at her encouragingly. Beside her he caught a glimpse of Stolck looking glum. Ever since he had been stranded ashore by his countrymen, the Hollander had been downcast and listless.

  Holding on to the mast’s mainstay to keep his balance, Hector cautiously edged across to the deckhouse.

  ‘Are you all right, Maria?’ he asked, kneeling down and peering in. Inside the little shelter there was only room to sit or lie down, and the place smelled strongly of coconut oil. He saw that all their muskets had been laid out carefully, side by side, and someone had wrapped them in strips of oil-soaked cloth. The rags were the same colour as the dress that Maria had been wearing on the day they had fled the Presidio.

  She caught his glance and shrugged. ‘Jezreel said the muskets would be ruined if they were exposed to the salt air.’

  ‘It’ll be dark very soon,’ he said. ‘Try to make yourself comfortable for the night.’

  ‘I’d prefer to be out in the open air,’ she replied. Hector looked back to see what Ma’pang and his crew were doing. Clearly their work was complete. Most of the men were lounging wherever they could find space within the main hull. Ma’pang and one other man squatted in what was now the stern of the sakman. But there was no sign of a steering paddle. They were controlling the direction of the vessel by the set of her sail.

  ‘Everything seems to have settled down,’ he said. ‘Let’s go up into the bow.’

  Together they clambered forward. A Chamorro crew member tactfully moved aside so that they could stand side by side just behind the sharp beak of the prow, the vast open expanse of the ocean stretching before them. The setting sun was very close to the horizon, and the sakman was running directly along the gleaming red-gold path of its reflection. In the far distance a line of fair-weather clouds hung motionless, their undersides tinged with pink. The sakman now had the wind on her beam, and Hector felt something flicker lightly across his cheek. It was a strand of Maria’s hair lifted by the breeze. She put up her hand to tuck it back in place.

  ‘Let’s hope this wind holds through the night,’ he said.

  Maria didn’t reply. He sensed that she was absorbed by the immensity of what lay before them. Very quietly, she laid her head on his shoulder. He feared to move a muscle and stood, barely breathing, and felt the tender weight of her. Gently he put his arm around her shoulder. They stood in quiet, contemplative silence while beneath them the sakman raced onwards, its hull rising and falling to the rhythm of the waves with an urgent, rushing sound.

  THE NEXT MORNING dawned clear and bright. The wind had shifted and now blew from slightly ahead of their track. If anything the sakman was moving even faster, racing across the sea, leaving a well-defined wake. By unspoken agreement with Ma’pang, the tiny cabin had been given over to Maria. Dan, Jacques and the others had copied the Chamorro, who curled up wherever they could find a resting place among the baskets and other clutter. Hector had spent the night sleeping by the foot of the mast. Several times in the hours of darkness he’d woken to the sound of someone scooping water from the bilge and tossing it overboard. Each time he’d looked aft and seen the dark shape of Kepuha sitting cross-legged by the stern, a palm-frond cloak around his skinny shoulders. The old man took no part in handling the vessel. He merely sat and watched from his vantage point. He was there now.

  Hector rose and made his way aft. Ma’pang held out half a coconut shell filled with water, and he accepted the drink gratefully.

  ‘How does Kepuha decide which way we steer?’

  ‘I thought he had explained that to you,’ answered the Chamorro.

  ‘Not in a way I could understand,’ admitted Hector.

  ‘You saw the star wall. That is used to instruct learners how to read the skies.’

  ‘He showed me, but I couldn’t make sense of the twigs he laid out on the ground.’

  Ma’pang searched for the right word. ‘It’s what you call a map,’ he said. Seeing that Hector was still puzzled, he went on, ‘All the ocean around tano’ tasi is shown on that map.’

  Hector had a flash of understanding. ‘Those shells on the stick framework, they represent the islands?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  Hector stole a sideways glance at the shaman. He couldn’t see the twig device. Instead Kepuha was holding in his lap a human skull, desiccated and yellow with age.

  Ma’pang dropped his voice to a respectful tone. ‘Kepuha knows the star paths by memory. He does not need to consult the map of sticks. He brought it on this voyage out of respect to the ancestors.’

  Kepuha’s lips were moving. He was singing some sort of chant in a low, quavering voice, the phrases long drawn out, and the sound rising and falling. Hector was reminded of how the old shaman had sung before the star wall, but these chants were different.

  ‘He sings to the sea gods to bring us good weather,’ said Ma’pang.

  Elsewhere on the sakman various crew members woke and stretched, beginning the new day. Every few moments Hector glanced towards the little cabin, waiting for Maria to appear.

  A shout from one of the Chamorro and an outstretched arm made Hector look to stern. Half a dozen dolphins were surging back and forth about twenty paces astern of the vessel. Their backs glistened as they came thrusting half out of the water, twisted and dived and reappeared in a churning froth of activity. He could hear their explosive grunts as they emptied and filled their lungs. They were in a hunting frenzy. Hector was pushed aside by the sudden rush of a Chamorro crew member running to the stern. He had a coil of fishing line in his hand, and with a quick flash the bone hook hit the water and the man paid out the line. Almost immediately there was a tug and the fisherman hauled in a fish, silver and yellow and a foot long. Another cast of the line, and another fish came tumbling in over the gunwale, flapping and leaping as it thrashed across the bilge, leaving a track of silver scales. The first Chamorro fisherman was joined by another, and in minutes they had caught a dozen fish. Without warning, the hunting dolphin abruptly disappeared, and the fishing ceased.

  ‘It seems we won’t go hungry,’ observed Jacques, bleary-eyed and scratching his close-cropped head. He must have slept badly.

  A whiff of burning surprised Hector. At the foot of the mainmast, deep down in the hull and sheltered from the breeze, one of the Chamorro had struck a flint and set alight a twist of dried coconut husk. He waited until the flame was
steady, then touched it to a little pile of charcoal heaped on a flat stone. He crouched over the tiny fire, blowing gently, nursing the flame until the charcoal was glowing. The newly caught fish were gutted and cleaned by his companions, then grilled one by one and distributed.

  Hector returned to sit by Ma’pang and discuss the prospects for the voyage. He learned that the sakman carried enough water for ten days at sea. When that reserve was halfway exhausted, the vessel would have to turn back. He found it difficult to concentrate. His attention strayed constantly towards the little cabin. When Maria did emerge soon afterwards, she looked more relaxed than he had yet seen her. Her hair was tied back with a ribbon and she was dressed in a simple petticoat, with her arms and feet bare. Watching her as she made her way to the base of the mast and accepted a serving of the cooked fish, Hector felt thwarted and impatient. She was so close physically and yet, with everyone’s eyes upon them, he had to keep a distance.

  So the day wore on. The sakman maintained its remarkable pace. The Chamorro crew took turns to steer, very occasionally adjusting the slant of the sail in response to a murmur from Kepuha. The old man sat unmoving for hour after hour, seemingly impervious to the sun and wind.

  The midday meal was a ration of breadfruit washed down with a few mouthfuls of water. The breadfruit came as a mash scooped from a basket, half-fermented. Heated on the stone cooking slab, it had a slightly sour taste. By then Hector was hungry and found it delicious. Then, an hour before dusk, the wind finally failed them completely. It had been easing in strength all afternoon, and the sakman had been travelling slower and slower. Now the vessel moved at less than walking pace. The great sail hung slack, filled and then went slack again. The sakman rose and fell as a long, slow swell passed under her. Ma’pang balanced his way along one of the struts holding the outrigger and lowered himself into the sea. He stayed in the water for a good ten minutes, hanging on to the float, motionless. When he climbed back on the boat, he went immediately to Kepuha and spoke quietly to the old man.