by Tim Severin
‘What’s happening?’ Hector asked.
‘The makhana must be kept informed.’
‘Informed of what?’ asked Hector, puzzled.
‘Of the current.’
Hector looked at the big native in open disbelief. The water had not yet dried after Ma’pang’s swim. His dark skin glistened, and a few beads of water gleamed in his bushy hair.
‘You can tell what the current is doing by immersing yourself?’
‘Of course,’ Ma’pang replied as if speaking to a simpleton. ‘If you keep still, you can feel the current. The direction it goes and how strongly.’
Hector suppressed his doubts. Anything that would help Kepuha in his navigation was valuable.
‘How long do you think the calm will last?’
Ma’pang shrugged. ‘Kepuha says that the wind will come again tomorrow in mid-morning. After the full moon.’
‘And what about the patache? Does Kepuha know whether it too is delayed?’
Ma’pang shook his head. ‘We can only hope that the patache is caught in the same calm as us.’
As the sun dipped below the horizon, the sakman was completely motionless on a glassy sea. The meagre supper of leftover fish scraps and another gulp or two of water were consumed in silence. An air of patient resignation settled over the company. Everyone knew there was nothing they could do but wait for the wind to return. Even Kepuha ceased his prayers and chants. After the brief tropical dusk, a full moon rose, shining hard and bright. Hector joined Maria as she sat on an outrigger strut beside the shelter, suspended above the calm sea. Neither of them spoke. The moonbeams were so strong they penetrated several feet into the water. Looking down from their perch, Hector could see three or four fish, each as long as his arm, cruising slowly back and forth beneath the shadow of the vessel. He recognized their blade-shaped bodies and high, blunt heads. They were the same voracious creatures that hunted flying fish by day. Now they seemed relaxed and sociable, spreading their fins so that they appeared to be balancing on underwater wings of blue. The only sound was the gentle swash of water against the hull as the sakman rocked a few inches at a time.
‘Do you think we will overtake the patache?’ Maria asked softly.
‘It all depends on the wind,’ Hector answered. ‘Kepuha forecasts a good breeze tomorrow.’
‘The crew seem to respect him.’
‘Ma’pang says that Kepuha is one of the greatest navigators the Chamorro have ever known.’ He looked up at the sky. Beyond the halo of the moon he could faintly detect the pinpoints of the distant stars. ‘The Chamorro believe that at the beginning of time their god-like ancestors made voyages through the heavens. They marked their passage with stars. Kepuha knows their paths and follows them. Above every island the gods left certain stars to mark their location.’
‘Does that make sense to you?’
‘It’s a different way of looking at the heavens. I measure the stars and sun to decide where I am, then use a chart and compass to plot a course to my destination. Kepuha’s system is more direct. For him, the stars are signposts in the sky.’
They sat together in companionable silence for several minutes. Then she said softly, ‘If only we had signposts.’
Hector took a deep breath. ‘To show us where to direct our lives?’
‘Yes.’
‘And if you had to select a way, where would you wish to go?’
‘Somewhere safe and calm, a place where our differences and backgrounds are of no concern to others.’
‘If such a place exists, then we’ll search for it and find it,’ he said, though he was conscious that his reply sounded a little boastful.
She seemed to accept his answer. ‘Hector, I’m so happy that we are together. I know you love me, and I have the same feeling for you.’ She hesitated before continuing. ‘But until we find that place, something will be left unfinished. I hope you can understand that.’
Hector struggled to put his thoughts into words. He knew that Maria was setting the boundaries for their relationship in the days or weeks to come. ‘I do understand, Maria, and I will be content for us to cherish one another. We’ll wait to find that place where we can be safe together.’
She turned and kissed him lightly on the mouth. ‘Hector,’ she said, ‘sometimes when I’m with you, I feel just like this, floating on a quiet expanse of calm.’ Then she moved to one side and disappeared into the little cabin.
AS KEPUHA PREDICTED, the wind came next morning. It arrived in dramatic fashion, bringing a torrential rainstorm that swept down from the north and enveloped the sakman. Visibility was reduced to a few yards, and within moments everything on the vessel was soaked. The sakman leaped forward, her waterlogged sail filling with an alarming creaking of the mast and stays. Ma’pang eased the mainsheet to reduce the pressure of the wind, and the Chamorro crew scrambled to place clay jars where they would catch the runnels of fresh water cascading off the sail. Then the vessel ran blindly through the murk.
When the rainstorm passed on, it left behind a dull, overcast sky and a sullen, lumpy sea, no longer deep blue but a dingy slate-grey. The air was still warm, but damp and clammy. Nothing dried. Hector watched to see if Kepuha would manage to set a course now that he no longer had the sun to guide him. The makhana appeared unruffled. He sat at the stern as if nothing had changed.
‘How does he know which way to steer?’ Hector asked Ma’pang quietly as they ate a meal of raw fish. The charcoal for the cooking fire had been saturated.
‘The wind and waves tell him,’ answered the Chamorro. ‘Kepuha will not lose his way. You need not worry.’
But Hector did continue to fret. All that day and the next a veil of heavy cloud obscured the sky, and he became increasingly doubtful that the makhana could succeed in tracking down the patache. The more he thought about their mission, the worse seemed the odds against success. Quietly he resigned himself to the moment when Ma’pang would announce that they must turn back for Rota before their supplies ran out, and he wondered how his companions would react to the failure. Maria, he was relieved to observe, had come to terms with the tedium and the cramped conditions of the voyage. She would sit in the door of the little shelter, watching the pattern of the waves. Occasionally her watchfulness was rewarded with a brief sighting of sea life – the leap of a dolphin or, once, a pod of whales so close to the sakman that the fishy smell of their exhalation swept across the boat. By contrast, Jezreel with his massive frame accumulated bruises and scrapes as he moved around the crowded vessel. Jacques showed an almost limitless capacity to doze away the time, and Dan was happy to pass hour after hour with a fishing line. Stolck, however, was a cause for concern. A rash of salt-water sores, raw and oozing, had developed on his wrists and ankles where his clothes rubbed, and he appeared to be sinking into a profound depression.
The fifth day of their voyage began under the same lowering grey sky. The sakman had run smoothly all through the night with a steady breeze on the beam, and Hector calculated that she was covering ten miles every hour on the long swell rolling across their track. He had just finished eating his breakfast – a fist-sized lump of the sour breadfruit mash – when he noticed that Kepuha had risen to his feet and was staring intently downwind. The young man turned to look in the same direction, but could see nothing except the rounded backs of the waves as they travelled towards the horizon. Nevertheless, Kepuha stood there for several minutes. He seemed alert, yet puzzled. After an interval he spoke to one of the Chamorro crewmen, who made his way to the foot of the mainstay and began to haul himself aloft. From there the lookout called down to the deck.
‘What’s he say?’ Hector asked Ma’pang.
‘There’s a guirrago ship in the distance. About ten miles away.’
Kepuha was beckoning. ‘You better come with me,’ said Ma’pang to Hector. ‘This is a surprise and may change our plans.’
Ma’pang and the makhana conferred briefly. Then Ma’pang turned to Hector and said, ‘Kepuha is certa
in the ship to the south of us cannot be the patache. It is in the wrong place.’
Hector refrained from asking how the shaman was so sure about the distant vessel. He feared the question would offend the old man. Instead he said, ‘Perhaps we should investigate.’
There was a rapid exchange between the two Chamorro, and then Ma’pang nodded. ‘Kepuha says that if we change course now, we’ll lose time and may not catch up with the patache.’ His deep-set brown eyes searched Hector’s face. ‘I leave the choice to you.’
Hector was in a quandary. The sakman had shown that she was fast enough to overtake her prey, but even if both vessels had shared the same weather conditions – and that was by no means certain – the Chamorro might already have overhauled the Spaniards and sailed right past them in the darkness or in poor visibility. On the other hand, the unknown vessel could be well armed and powerful enough to beat off an attack by Chamorro pirates. Then he remembered Maria’s fears that they’d kill her countrymen. The unknown vessel might not be Spanish and yet might carry weapons the Chamorro could plunder.
‘I say we try our luck with that stranger,’ he said.
At a shout from Ma’pang, two of his crew began to ease out the mainsheet. Two others brought the forward corner of the sail aft until it was level with the mast, and a third eased on the halyard. The great sail ballooned out across the vessel, almost flying free. The sakman turned and began to sail downwind, the bow dipping and rising as the ocean swells overtook her.
‘WHAT SORT OF ship do you think she is?’ Hector asked Dan half an hour later. The two men, loaded muskets in hand, were in the bow of the sakman, trying to make sense of what they saw less than half a mile away.
The unknown vessel appeared to be a small merchantman of about a hundred tons. She had an unusual, very old-fashioned appearance. Two small aft decks rose one on the other to give a high, narrow stern, and there was a long run amidships to a low, shortened forecastle, so that she looked as though at any moment she would topple forward and bury her nose in the sea. She was rigged with three masts, but had only her foresail set, barely enough to propel her forward. She sat unnaturally low in the water, and was wallowing and pitching aimlessly. The sail flapped and slatted, and there were regular glimpses of a rich green coating of weed and growth clinging to her hull. Her rigging was slack and slovenly, and even at that distance an unhappy groaning could be heard as her masts worked in their steps. Most puzzling of all, she showed no signs of having seen the sakman bearing down on her.
‘There,’ exclaimed Dan. ‘Did you see it? Someone on her quarterdeck.’
Hector looked closely, but could see nothing. The vessel’s rudder was banging back and forth, swinging loosely from side to side. It appeared there was no one at the helm.
‘It could be a trap,’ said Stolck, who had come up behind them. He looked more animated now that there was something unusual happening, and he too carried a loaded musket.
‘Dan thought he saw a movement,’ said Hector.
Stolck gave a grunt and crouched down. He rested the barrel of his musket on the edge of the canoe’s hull and aimed at the merchantman. ‘If anything moves again, I’ll deal with it.’
The sakman was closing the gap very rapidly. Hector had advised Ma’pang to approach from directly astern, the point at which the strange vessel would be unable to use her broadside, if she had one. Now he worried that the sakman was moving so quickly she’d overshoot her victim.
‘Where is everyone on that ship?’ asked Jacques.
It was puzzling. Aboard the merchantman there was no one in the rigging or on deck. Several ropes trailed over her side, dragging through the water.
Stolck was muttering under his breath. He sounded irritable and impatient. ‘They’re waiting until we are alongside. Then they run out their guns and we’ll be blasted to pieces. I’ll give them something to think about.’
Without warning he pulled the trigger of his musket. The sound of the gunshot echoed across the water, and Hector saw splinters fly up from a stanchion under the poop rail. But once again there was no reaction.
Hector glanced back over his shoulder. Ma’pang was in the stern at the steering paddle, and three of his crew had made their way to the outrigger struts. They crouched behind the little cabin, hidden from anyone on the merchantman. With a knot in his stomach, Hector realized the cabin was the obvious target for any gunfire from the strange vessel. Maria had decided to stay out of sight inside, and its flimsy thatch would provide no shelter from a musket ball. She’d be far safer crouched in the bottom of the sakman’s main hull. But it was too late to do anything about that now.
The sakman was very close, less than a stone’s throw from the high stern of the vessel. Hector looked up, trying to distinguish the flag. But the cloth was tangled around its staff. He could only make out part of a white stripe on a blue background and a small red blotch.
The sakman suddenly swerved as Ma’pang twisted hard on the steering paddle, and the boat swept under the stranger’s overhanging stern. There was a brisk flurry of action as the palm-leaf sail was dropped, and at the same moment the three crouching crew members raced out along the struts and put their full weight on the outrigger. The float dipped into the water, caught and held, and the sakman slowed abruptly to a halt, almost as if she had dropped anchor in mid-ocean.
‘Ho there! Anyone aboard?’ Hector shouted up at the silent ship. There was no answer. He put down his musket and grabbed for one of the trailing ropes. He hauled himself upwards hand over hand, his feet scrabbling for purchase on the stained side of the ship. Beside him he was aware of Ma’pang armed with a spear and moving even faster, and of Jezreel with his backsword hanging from a lanyard around his wrist.
Hector reached the ship’s rail and clambered over. He found himself standing in the waist of the vessel, on the deserted main deck. To his right a short ladder led to the foredeck, and to his left a similar companionway gave access to the half-deck and the quarterdeck above it. All around him was the usual clutter of ship’s gear – blocks, ropes, a wooden bucket, several chests lashed to the rail, a small skiff lashed upside down over the central grating. He counted six cannon ranged along each side. None of them was prepared for action, their gun carriages were still lashed to ring bolts in the deck. He heard someone’s tread on the deck behind him and turned hastily, heart pounding. It was Stolck. The Hollander was breathing heavily, his shaven head shiny with sweat. He had his reloaded musket in his hand.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘There’s no one aboard,’ answered Hector.
Just then he caught a whiff of something burning. Stolck let out an oath, ran across the deck and began to stamp frantically on a thin rope. Hector saw a wisp of smoke beneath his feet.
At that moment a musket shot rang out, and a musket ball whirred past his head. Shocked, he spun round on his heel and was just in time to get a glimpse of a musket barrel being withdrawn through a small hatch in the bulkhead under the foredeck. A cloud of gun smoke hung in the air.
Hector dived for cover behind the skiff. Now he knew. The crew of the merchantman had retreated to close quarters. They had barricaded themselves into the forecastle, from where they would shoot down any boarders at point-blank range.
He lay flat on the deck, his eyes searching out the objects around him. A crew in close quarters usually left explosive devices on deck. They filled chests and glass bottles with gunpowder and scraps of metal and fitted fuses that could be lit from within their refuge. When the boarders arrived on deck, the home-made bombs and grenades were exploded, with devastating results. Stolck must have stamped on one such fuse. Perhaps there were others.
Ma’pang appeared from behind the mainmast, sprinting towards the forecastle. Another musket shot, and it must have missed, for the naked Chamorro vaulted up on to the foredeck in one huge leap. Now he was out of the line of fire.
Hector watched as Ma’pang poked and prised with his spear point, searching uselessly for a
way to break into the stronghold from above.
Someone inside the forecastle began coughing loudly. The black powder must have blown back into the loophole. Then came a shout, and Hector caught words that sounded like ‘swart bastert’.
The accent sounded familiar, and Hector was trying to identify it when Stolck’s voice came from less than an arm’s length away, from the other side of the launch, where the Hollander had also taken cover. Stolck bellowed, ‘Halt ofsjitte, du idioat.’
There was a sudden silence.
‘Hwa bisto?’ called the voice from inside.
‘Stolck ut Friesland.’
Another long silence. Hector could hear the creaking of the ship. He wondered what was happening on the sakman, still lashed alongside the merchantman and out of sight.
There was another shout from within the forecastle.
‘What’s he saying?’ Hector hissed.
For the first time in several weeks the Dutchman gave a smile. ‘He asks what the hell I am doing in the company of naked savages.’
‘Tell him we’re trying to get a lift,’ Hector said. When Stolck relayed the answer, there was a pause. Then a heavy wooden door in the forecastle slowly opened and a strange figure emerged shakily. It was a heavily bearded man, coughing and stooped, dressed in worn sea-going clothing, his greasy, matted hair hanging down to his shoulders. He was nervously fingering a musket. He gave a great start as Ma’pang dropped down on the deck from behind him and wrenched the gun from his hands.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ called Hector, rising to his feet. ‘He’s a friend.’
Now that the man was closer, Hector could see he had the pasty skin and rheumy eyes of an invalid. ‘Are you in charge of these sea robbers?’ the sick man wheezed, speaking English now and in a very evident, deep guttural accent.
‘Ma’pang here is our leader. Who are you?’
