The Islands of Unwisdom

by Robert Graves

  Besides pigs, fowl and fish, we bought coconuts, bananas, sugar-cane, paw-paws, rice, yams, water in bamboo joints and faggots for the galley-fires, which were not allowed to go out all that day and night; nor for the next two days, either, being the Vigil and Feast of Saint Anthony who had protected us so well. ‘Let’s all be cooks together’ was played in earnest now, and without pause. Men and women who not long since would have strangled one another for the sake of a sour fragment of coconut-meat were courtesy itself again: with ‘Pray sample my stew, Gossip!’ or ‘Comrade, do me the honour of accepting a little of this prime roast!’ Nobody troubled to sleep, and had there been thirty hours in the day and night, instead of a mere twenty-four, I well believe that all of them would have been devoted to eating.

  Mouths being sweetened and bellies filled, our people were happier than can be described, and a quantity of palm-wine which they had bought inspired in them an almost pentecostal gift of tongues. They toasted themselves, their generous hosts, Our Lady of Solitude and Saint Anthony, but above all, the Chief Pilot, whom many offered to embrace, swearing that he had saved them from death a hundred times over. Though accepting their caresses, he earnestly bade them thank God, not himself, since he had steered a blind course from the Friday to the Monday.

  A starving man is wise to eat only a little at a time, gradually increasing the load in his belly, until it is re-accustomed to labour; but our people would never learn moderation. When cautioned to restrain himself, one man sighed: ‘Ah, that would be a glorious end, to die of a surfeit of roast pork!’ Before we sailed on, I added three more crosses to my ledger. But this fat time lasted only a day or two longer, our funds being then nearly expended.

  ***

  The Chief Pilot hoped to have the ship re-victualled and re-rigged within a fortnight, but on the morning of the 22nd of January the wind backed to the north-west, and blew hard, with heavy seas following the gusts. He warned Doña Ysabel that our single cable could not be trusted to keep us from drifting among the rocks and mangrove swamps. It would be prudent, he said, to take off the artillery and munitions, which were His Majesty’s property, for storage in the village under the headman’s protection; also the women and children had better be disembarked, as well as her own valuables.

  ‘It is hardly worth the trouble,’ she answered ingenuously. ‘We are staying here for only a few days more, are we not?’

  ‘I cannot warrant our safety for another hour—look how that cable strains!’

  ‘Oh, away with you and your perpetual fears! The rope’s strong enough.’

  He went into the Chart-room, but was soon back again. ‘I have composed a brief statement, and will be obliged if your Excellency signs it,’ he said. ‘It is a record that, in Cobos Bay, on the 22nd of January, the wind being north-westerly, I asked leave of you to remove Crown property from the San Geronimo galleon, which was in peril of running aground, and that you refused my request. I must protect myself against charges that may later be levelled against me. Here is pen and ink.’

  She asked, in sudden alarm: ‘Are we lost, then? Is there no way of saving the ship?’

  ‘If I take a bold risk, I might be able to berth her safely behind the point a couple of musket-shots to westward. But why not accept my advice? It would be a pity to lose your wardrobe, jewels and silver, to say nothing of your life.’

  ‘Put your proposal in writing, and I’ll consider it.’

  He did so hurriedly, because the gale was rising and the cable was taut as a fiddle-string. She summoned a council of officers and read them the document, but he was not invited to attend. Presently Myn came to him with a brief and absurd order: ‘The Chief Pilot is required to resume his voyage before nightfall.’

  The wind blew straight down the Bay out of which she expected him to take the San Geronimo, and not only had no water nor victuals been taken aboard, but our rigging was still in the same dismal condition as when we had arrived.

  His curt reply, ‘This is impossible,’ she countered with a threat that she would have him hanged unless he obeyed within the hour.

  He approached Captain Lopez, the only officer left in whom he could hope to find even a grain of wit, and ‘My lord,’ he asked, ‘why, or for whose benefit, have I been told to wreck the ship and drown us all?’

  The other shook his head gloomily. ‘They seem one and all bent on their own destruction. Yet why should we be involved in it? Hark ye, if you’ll defy Doña Ysabel, I engage to protect you against her brothers. You are the master of this ship, and her writ as Governeress of the Isles of Solomon does not run in the Philippines.’

  ‘Nevertheless, she commands the expedition.’

  Captain Lopez considered for a moment. ‘Friend Pedro,’ he said, ‘leave this to me. You are by far too honest a man to cope with her.’ Then he went to the Boatswain and his mate, and explained how matters stood. At his suggestion, the entire crew signed a memorial to the effect that they refused to sail in an unprovisioned ship; and that since they were now going hungry again for lack of money or trade-goods, the Governeress must consent to give them either rations, an advance of pay, or permission to forage ashore.

  This document they brought to Pedro Fernandez, and asked him to present it to Doña Ysabel; which he did.

  ‘How can I give them food?’ she screamed. ‘I have barely enough for my own family. Nor can I find them money, until I have pledged my jewels in Manila; and were I to send them ashore on forage, not one of them would return.’

  ‘Very well,’ said he, ‘I trust that you and your brothers are stout swimmers.’

  ‘Silence, ass! Weigh anchor at once, or hang!’

  ‘At your Excellency’s orders.’

  I had gone to my cabin to prepare myself for death, when I heard the capstan-chant raised and hoarse orders shouted, followed by a sudden yell of fear. As I knelt in prayer, I was suddenly rapt out of myself, and enchanted by a strange waking vision of my sweet Protectress, the Macarena of Seville. With stars in her hair and a shining lily in her hand, she entered the wide bull-ring, strewn with sand, in which I found myself. Around me rose seats in lofty tiers, thronged by a ghastly company of spectators, the ravaged corpses of men long drowned! A trumpet sounded, the stable door opened, and a white bull ran out with a roar like the noise of waves dashed against a reef. He stood pawing the ground for a while, then made straight for me, and in a moment I should have been transfixed upon his cruel horns and tossed into the air; but, stepping swiftly between, my Protectress drew him off with a twitch of her sky-blue mantle.

  ‘Olé, olé!’ cried the spectators, leaping from their seats and dancing grotesquely, as the bull went cantering away in search of other victims.

  ‘The danger is passed, my child!’ she said with a pleasant smile. And with that she vanished.

  Rising from my knees in confusion, I found that I was not deceived. With great audacity and skill Pedro Fernandez had club-hauled the ship, though in almost no sea-room; that is to say, he tacked by letting go the lee-anchor when head to wind, brought the cable aft as the ship filled on the other tack; then cut the cable and she clawed off shore. At once it became clear even to the Governeress that we could not hope to make the open sea against such a gale. She ordered him to drop anchor again, but being now without one he could not obey; so he steered for the shelter he had in mind. As we luffed close round the point, the foresheet parted, outside the fairhead, and all seemed lost. But the ship carried her way until her forefoot was close to the rock, when the valiant Damian leaped overboard with a line and swam through the raging seas to the shore, where a dozen or more natives ran to his aid. The Chief Pilot bent a hawser to the line, which was hauled ashore; and then they towed us round under the lee of the point, where they made fast the hawser to a convenient palm-tree. The San Geronimo was safely moored head to wind.

  No sooner had this dangerous manoeuvre been performed, than the crew renewed their demands. Standing below the quarter-deck, they shouted in unison: ‘Either feed us, or
pay us off!’

  The Governeress flew into a hysterical passion. ‘Go ashore at once, Major; take horse to Manila and fetch me back a magistrate and a frigate full of troops to suppress this mutiny!’ The Major would have been glad enough to depart on this ludicrous mission, if only to escape from her authority, but Don Diego offered to spare him the trouble by spitting a couple of sailors on his sword, which would soon silence the rest.

  Doña Ysabel then withdrew the order and, her mood changing, she mildly informed Pedro Fernandez that we might as well take advantage of our enforced stay at Cobos: if he saw to the repair of the rigging, she would consent to defray the expenses of victualling. He gladly agreed, and persuaded the natives to twist him a spare anchor-cable of coconut-fibre, also several smaller ropes with which he secured the foremast and mainmast; but, having no money to pay them, and knowing that Doña Ysabel would not contribute a maravedi, he borrowed the sixty pesos required from Captain Lopez, and gave his astrolabe, cross-staff, backstaff and pocket-dial in pledge. The Governeress, for her part, bespoke three weeks’ provisions from the headman, laying down a few pesos as caution-money; the remainder would be added, she said, when he had fulfilled the order.

  She then issued a proclamation, with the Royal Standard displayed and a drum beating, that nobody was to quit the ship on pain of death; but it so happened that the Major had already given old Miguel Geronimo permission to go ashore and buy food for a sick child. Later Don Luis saw Miguel returning in a canoe, and ran to tell his sister, who grew so hot that the frightened Major would not admit to having granted any shore-leave without reference to her. He kept silent, even when she sent him on deck to make arrangements for an immediate strappado.

  The Boatswain saw him gazing at the mainmast, which had long been lightened of its topsail, and muttering to himself. ‘Has your lordship lost anything?’ he asked derisively.

  ‘No, not at all, my good fellow. But where is that piece of timber to which the topsail used to be attached?’

  ‘Do you mean the mast, my lord?’

  ‘No, no! The beam that stretched across high up.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Don Marcos. ‘If you need that yard, you must go to the Chief Pilot: he’s hidden it away in the hold for fear of thieves. Why would your lordship be requiring it?’

  ‘…You are laughing at me, blockhead, but I won’t be trifled with. These are the Governeress’s orders.’

  ‘And have you told her who gave Miguel Geronimo shore-leave?’ asked Don Marcos with a disconcerting stare.

  ‘I gave him no such thing.’

  ‘Two or three honest men were present.’

  ‘Enough of this, scoundrel! Replace that yard without delay, or I’ll run you through!’

  ‘I take my orders from the Chief Pilot, not from any soldier, whatever his rank.’

  ‘But this comes from the Governeress, I tell you!’

  ‘Then pray advise her to think again. There’s not a man here with strength to waste on a strappado. Now, if she were to present us with a jar of wine and a jar of oil, and a sackful of flour, and a flitch or two of bacon from her larder…’

  ‘Impudence! How do you know what the Governeress keeps under lock and key?’

  ‘One of her maids hawks about a list of provisions; but asks too high a price…. Now, if she were to feed us well, we’d willingly hoist every man of the afterguard, your lordship not excepted.’

  ‘Do you refuse to obey me, villain?’

  ‘Hoist here, flog there—it’s unreasonable! And the men once again on the knife-edge of starvation!’

  Meanwhile the execution party had arrived, headed by Ensign Torres, who was looking uncommonly pale and thin because of a bad attack of the flux. Behind him marched the drummer, dressed in the finery which he had taken from the Colonel. The Colonel had been short and fat, and the drummer was tall and emaciated, so the clothes were not the best of fits, and the drum was fantastically tricked out with ribbons. Then came the prisoner, between two hollow-cheeked halberdiers who, disgusted with their shameful duty, nudged him to leap for liberty into the waves.

  ‘No tragedy without its comic interludes!’ sighed I to myself.

  The Boatswain sought out the Chief Pilot who, after warning him not to reeve any tackle unless on orders from himself, confronted Doña Ysabel with the facts of the case.

  ‘Your Excellency,’ he said. ‘I fear for your reputation in Manila. What if the news gets about that you maimed an old man who had already lost all his wealth, and four of his seven children, in your service—an old man, whose one crime was to go ashore, with leave from the Major, in search of a little food for the survivors?’

  ‘From the Major? Is that true, or are you playing another of your tricks?’

  ‘I leave tricks and lies to noblewomen,’ he answered bitterly.

  ‘Wait, until we are in Manila, my wharf-rat! I’ll set the terriers on you.’

  ‘I am content to wait. Meanwhile, what of this strappado?’

  ‘The man disobeyed my orders and must take his punishment.’

  ‘But what punishment awaits those who disobey the laws of God?’

  For some reason, this simple question penetrated her defences. Without warning she burst into tears and he, knowing the profound misery of her heart, was tempted to take her in his arms for comfort; so strong a spell did her beauty still exert upon him. Restraining himself with difficulty, he said in broken tones: ‘Doña Ysabel, I pity you with all my soul.’

  She replied, sobbing: ‘Tell the Major to set the man free. I only wanted to frighten the sailors. Now, get out of my sight, before I do you an injury!’

  It is my belief that she was not yet fallen out of love with Pedro Fernandez; otherwise she could never have treated him so barbarously.

  Chapter 25

  THE LAST HUNDRED LEAGUES

  The headman of Cobos delivered little more than a third part of the provisions bespoken and then, shrewdly guessing that Doña Ysabel intended to bilk him, demanded a further advance of money. She was sick these days and kept her bed, but told Elvira that she had never been so disgraced in all her life and that the headman should be sent to the Devil. On Tuesday, therefore, the 29th of January, having recovered our anchor and cable, we set sail at daybreak without having shipped so much as another coconut; what had been brought had been our subsistence during this past week but could not last us out the month.

  By five in the afternoon we were already through the Strait of San Bernardino and had left the islet of that name well astern. About midnight, near Capul, we met with a strong cross-sea, which twirled the ship giddily around, like a stick in a mill-stream; yet in the end she answered her helm soberly enough and at dawn a small fleet of baranguays that put out from a port named Nivalon, laden with pigs, fowl, wine and fruit, found us none the worse for our adventure. The crew being penniless, the soldiers in much the same state, and not a knife nor a bead remaining among them all, trade was extremely dull; though the Governeress picked up a few bargains for the Great Cabin. The natives left us in disgust, shouting insults; and Don Diego, since we were now in Spanish waters, was persuaded not to shoot at them.

  Pedro Fernandez needed a pilot to guide us through the tortuous channels of this archipelago, much dreaded for their rocks, shoals, and currents; but Doña Ysabel refused to take on more hands at this stage of the journey. Forced to navigate by guess, hazard and the grace of God, he steered the San Geronimo through dangers that would have made us gasp, had we been forewarned of them. We kept the large islands of Ticao, Burias and Marinduque well to port, hugging the Luzon coast; and on the first day of February reached Galban, a township only fifteen leagues from Manila by land, if one cuts across the peninsula, though twice that distance by sea. Here Don Diego and Don Luis were given leave to go ashore in the long-boat to buy provisions, not a scrap being now left of what had been bought at Cobos. The boat was readily hoisted out with the new falls rove by the Chief Pilot and, at the Governeress’s desire, they took with them Captain
Lopez, Ensign Torres, two negroes and three common soldiers. While the party were descending the Jacob’s ladder, Damian remarked: ‘Away they go, and good riddance to them! I’ll wager my life they won’t bring back any food. They’ll desert the ship and leave us to starve.’

  Don Diego overheard this and, climbing grimly aboard again, drew his sword and pursued Damian across the deck. He fled up the mizzen-shrouds and took refuge at the masthead, whereupon Don Diego returned to the boat, seized an arquebus, primed it and handed it to Don Luis. ‘There’s your bird, brother,’ he said.

  The shot grazed Damian’s forearm and cut down the pendant, which fell into the sea; but he had the wit to cry and groan as though the wound were mortal. The long-boat then went off, and Damian slid slowly down, winking at us in reassurance.

  He was proved right in his surmise: they did not come back and, at dusk, Doña Ysabel gave orders to sail without them. That night the ship seemed so deeply embayed among the islands that we despaired of finding a way out. Having now no boat left—the skiff had been swamped and sunk in Cobos Bay—and, standing in desperate need of a pilot, we hailed several baranguays from which men were fishing by the light of torches. But at sight of us they all ran for shelter, this not being the season for galleons to arrive from New Spain; the Governor-General had issued a warning that they were to take cover whenever a suspicious sail came in view, lest it might be an English or Dutch privateer. We proceeded slowly and anxiously by moonlight through calm water, with little wind in our sails; the shores pressed upon us more and more closely, until a stone might have been tossed across the channel. As the first signs of dawn appeared, the fairway suddenly widened, the breeze freshened, and soon, to our delight, we were off Cape Azufre in the Gulf of Banbon, having passed between Luzon and the islet of Maricaba—a course which, it seems, no royal ship had ever before taken by night, unless to be wrecked for her temerity.