A Singular Captain

by John Regan

  Chapter 11

  As winter came on and the days grew shorter, the snowline crept down the mountains and storms became more frequent. Cliffs on either side sheltered the ships from all but winds directly onshore, fortunately rare. The captain general permitted the chains removed from the prisoners, not for their comfort but so they could work harder. Concepción needed major repairs and all the ships required maintenance. Some convicts were skilled craftsmen; riggers, carpenters, coopers and sailmakers who were indispensable. Others with special skills tanned animal hides for cloaks and shoes; still others salted down fish and meat for provisions and a forge enabled mechanical repairs.

  Despite the danger from cannibals and other ferocious animals, Pigafetta took long, solitary walks and became something of a naturalist, describing and drawing plants, trees and flowers not known in Europe. The sea abounded with fish, sea wolves, birds, crabs, mussels and oysters. Small animals like rabbits and foxes became more scarce but eagles continued to circle in the sky and herds of animals with a head and ears like a mule’s, neck and body like an undersized camel’s and tail like a horse’s, grazed on stunted bushes and sparse grass. They were easy to catch and good to eat.

  The stars in this place were more brilliant and numerous than any he had ever seen. One constellation in particular was a perfect figure of the Holy Cross, and many called it the True Cross, Vera Cruz. Pigafetta gazed into the heavens for hours on end these cold, clear nights and wondered. As Magellan had explained, there was no bright star like Polaris at the South Pole, only two clouds of stars and the brilliant pathway of the Milky Way.

  Two months passed with no sign of humans and he had almost decided there were no cannibals here when a man appeared on the shore one day, dancing, leaping and singing while throwing handfuls of dust on his head. He was very big, a veritable giant, with a face painted red, yellow around the eyes and hearts painted on his cheeks. He wore animal hides sewn together and shoes made of the same leather. He had a bow in his hand and a bundle of arrows with stone heads.

  The sailors on Trinidad stopped work to watch, and Pigafetta went to call the captain general.

  “There is only one,” the captain general said, arriving on deck. “Are there any more?”

  “I don’t see any.”

  “Why is he dancing like that? Is it a war dance?”

  “I don’t know, Captain General. Perhaps it is a welcome dance.”

  “We had better be careful.”

  He called for Espinosa and ordered him to arm half a dozen men and go ashore to investigate.

  “We don’t know if he is friendly or not. Get one of your men to do the same dance as him – prance around and sprinkle dust on his head.”

  The cannibal ceased his dance when he saw the boat approaching, but then resumed when one of the sailors put on the same performance. He made loud noises and pointed a finger up at the sky.

  “He thinks we come from the sky,” Pigafetta said.

  The captain general made a trumpet of his hands and shouted to Espinosa, “Bring him on board.”

  Magellan ordered he be given a hawk’s bell to tinkle, a comb, a pair of sailors’ breeches and set a red cap on his head, which the cannibal whipped off and threw away. He gave him an iron hook like the one he had given the cannibal near Cabo de Santa Maria and, like him, this one put it away within his robes. When he was shown a mirror and saw his own face in it he let out a loud cry and jumped back, knocking over three or four sailors who had crowded round to observe.

  The captain general next gave him a set of rosary beads, but had to prevent him from eating them.

  “He’s hungry,” Magellan said. “Give him some fish.”

  He ate a large piece of fish in one bite and said, ‘hoi.’ Then he said, ‘mecchicre.’

  Pigafetta realised these were words of his language. He rushed to his cabin for his writing tablet and, using the same technique he had used in Rio, learned that hair was called aschie, finger was cori, leg was coss, sea or water was aro, all pronounced like a growl.

  During this time, more natives appeared on the shore, including women, who were not as big as the men and seemed to carry all their household goods while the men carried only bows and arrows. The women had breasts half a cubit long and some led animals on leashes. All began to dance and sing and point their fingers in the air.

  Pigafetta was amazed to see such people; undoubtedly humans but very different. In following days he learned more of their words and customs and beliefs. He found no evidence to suggest they were cannibals.

  These giants stand straighter than a horse, he wrote in his journal, and are very jealous of their wives. Their word for the animal that looks like a mule, camel and horse all muddled up is guanaco. They wear a cord around their head to carry their arrows when they go hunting and they bind their private member to the leg because of the cold. When they feel sick they thrust an arrow into their throats and vomit up a substance which is blood turned green because they eat thistles. When their head aches, they give themselves a slash across the forehead and draw much blood. When one of them dies, ten or twelve devils painted all over leap and dance around the corpse. The principal devil is called Setebos and the others are called Cheleule, which is like the pope and his priests. One of the men signified that he had seen Setebos with two horns on his head and long hair, belching fire from his mouth and his arse. And when they mention Setebos they always point their finger in the air to show that he lives in heaven.

  The captain general called these people Patagonians, which means big feet, because of their shoes made from the skin of the guanaco and stuffed with straw, like socks to keep their feet warm. After a few days they disappeared and the captain general lamented that he had been unable to baptise them into the Christian faith.

  About two weeks later, four men appeared on the shore and signalled they wished to come aboard, no doubt to resume friendly relations with the strange visitors to their land. Pigafetta supposed they had been away on a hunting trip and looked forward to learning more of their words and interesting customs.

  The captain general was lavish with his gifts of knives, scissors, bells, red caps and sailors’ breeches until their hands were so full they could hold no more. Next, he offered iron in the form of chain, which they liked very much but could not carry, with their hands encumbered. The captain general indicated he would put the chains on their legs so they could carry them that way and to this two of them agreed by nodding their heads, but became uneasy when the chains went round their ankles. The captain general soothed them with smooth words and gave all four biscuits to eat and water to drink. While they were eating, sailors slipped bolts into the fetters and hammered them in place and the natives discovered they could not walk. They roared like bulls, calling on Setebos to help them. The other two, who had not been chained, required nine sailors to restrain them and tie their wrists with rope.

  The captain general declared he would have the giants baptised and he would take them back to Spain to show the king and demonstrate what manner of people lived beyond the civilised world. To Carvalho, who was standing by, he said, “Take eight or nine men with arms and see if you can find their village and destroy their bows and poison arrows lest they choose to attack.”

  Pigafetta was appalled and said, “Captain General, these people come in peace. Why do they deserve to be enslaved?”

  “Not enslaved, Pigafetta. They are living now in the slavery of their ignorance. They shall be baptised and set free by the word of God.”

  “They have their own God, called Setebos.”

  “Not a god but a devil.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  The two giants continued to struggle against their fetters until their ankles were exposed down to the bone and they lay, exhausted, on deck amongst their own blood.

  Carvalho and his men were away until noon next day. They returned, carrying the body of one of their number, Diego Barassa, to be given the Christian rites by the pries
t.

  “Such is the treachery of these Indians,” Carvalho said, “he was struck by a poison arrow and died instantly.”

  He said one of the captives had escaped and ran away so quickly, even with his hands bound, that it was impossible to catch him or even take aim to shoot him. When they eventually found the village, it was deserted, but then cannibals appeared out of hiding in the bushes and shot at them with poison arrows. It was only by the grace of God they were able to retreat with only one casualty.

  Carvalho was the one who had lived five years in Rio. He had a native wife and his half-breed son, Joãozito, was now an ordinary seaman aboard Trinidad. Although the natives here spoke a different language, Pigafetta struggled to understand this man’s attitude. For that matter, he struggled to understand the captain general’s attitude. Magellan despised priests but prayed to God every day.

  When bushes began to bud and little yellow flowers blossomed over the land, the captain general invited Serrano to dinner one night.

  “John, the season is beginning to turn and we shall soon move on. El Paso is not far from here. I plan to send Santiago to scout ahead. Are you ready for it?”

  “Yes, of course. You say El Paso is not far. We have forty-nine degrees of latitude here, so that is twenty-six before we reach your seventy-five.”

  “You won’t need to go to seventy-five.”

  Magellan went to the chart cabinet and retrieved the Martellus map. He pushed the dirty dishes out of the way and spread it on the table.

  “Unfortunately, there is no scale of latitude or distance on this map, but I estimate we are about here.”

  He touched a point near the end of the Dragon’s Tail.

  “I don’t want you to be away more than a couple of weeks, so if you haven’t found it in a week, turn around and come back. Anyway, you can save us time when we move.”

  After two weeks, the captain general expressed concern, after three weeks he was marching up and down the poop muttering to himself and after four weeks he was climbing to the crows nest to scan the sea to the south. It was a beautiful fine day when he turned his attention from the sea to the land and Pigafetta heard his shout, “They’re back,” as he scrambled down the ratlines.

  “Punzarol, get a boat ready with food and water. We’re going ashore.”

  A short pull took them to the pebbly beach and then the captain general led them at a run up the hill and along a track towards John Serrano and one of his crew staggering through the brambles; their clothes in rags, their bodies emaciated and their feet bloody. On sighting his rescuers, Captain Serrano sat down abruptly on the ground and wept.

  “It was a good trip,” he said back on board with his feet in bandages, resting in a spare cabin aboard Trinidad. “A nice breeze. We explored a couple of bays but they turned out to be dead-ends and then we came to a river with a good anchorage. I took a boat upstream and found plenty of fish and a fresh water stream but it is not El Paso. No sooner did we get back to sea but all hell broke loose. I lost the mizzen mast overboard and the foresail blew to pieces. Nothing we could do. It was a full onshore gale. We didn’t have a chance, Ferdinand. I’m sorry.”

  Here the old seaman choked up and the captain general patted him on the shoulder.

  “Never mind, John. If anyone could have saved the ship, it’s you.”

  “She was just swept away, right up on to the beach. By the mercy of God we got everyone ashore before she started breaking up. The weather blew over next day and we could get a few things out of the wreck but not much. I’m sorry. I failed you.”

  “Not failed, John. We don’t fail until we give up. It just means God has placed another obstacle in our way. You have found an anchorage closer to El Paso. You have found our next step forward.”

  The captain general called for volunteers to go and rescue the survivors and they set off with food, clothes, strong boots and weapons to guard against cannibals. Pigafetta was tempted but doubted he was fit for a walk of at least fifty leagues through the wilderness.

  The captain general appointed Serrano captain of Concepción, a position left vacant by the headless Quesada, and distributed Santiago’s crew among the four remaining ships. He was now impatient to be gone. The loss of Santiago was a serious blow and progress was likely to be even slower without her.

  After mass on the island one day, Pierre Dubois, the French lawyer who had shared with Pigafetta the experience of sleeping with sea wolves, approached him while they awaited a boat to take them back to the ship. He drew him a little away from the others with a hand on his arm and whispered,” You might be interested to know there is talk going around of a new attempt to topple the captain general.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Your old friend Cartagena and the priest, who calls himself Sancho de la Reina, although his real name is Bernard Calmette, are calling for volunteers.”

  “And have they enlisted many?”

  “I don’t know, but I do know Calmette from the back streets of Paris and I don’t owe him any favours.”

  Pigafetta passed this message on as soon as he got back on board. To his surprise, Magellan almost produced smile number six, although perhaps it was a smirk rather than a smile.

  “Don’t worry. I shall be taking care of Señor Cartagena very soon.”

  Very soon was next day. The captain general ordered Valderrama to shut down his improvised church on the Island of Justice because the fleet was preparing to sail for El Paso. Once the priest had removed his paraphernalia, the captain general ordered Espinosa to collect Cartagena and the French priest from San Antonio and bring them aboard.

  Cartagena had been treated no different from any other mutineer. He worked at the same tasks as the others and his chains were released at the same time as them. Perhaps that was why he now glared at the captain general with palpable hatred. Why the French priest had become an accomplice of Cartagena, Pigafetta had no idea and the captain general apparently no curiosity. Magellan was enjoying himself.

  “Cartagena, I am led to believe you have not abandoned your claim to my position as captain general.”

  “It’s not just my claim. It is written in the regulations. I am Inspector General and conjunta persona.”

  “I am not going to argue with you. I have given you several warnings and you have ignored them all. I am here to inform you that the armada will shortly depart from this place and proceed to El Paso and then the Spice Isles, but you won’t be coming.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just that. You and your priestly friend are staying here.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Write a letter of complaint to your father, the bishop. I will even deliver it for you.”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “You are going to join your friends Quesada and Mendoza, or at least what’s left of them, on the Island of Justice. The four of you can hatch mutinous plots to your hearts’ content.

  “You can’t do that!”

  The greatest astonishment was that Magellan actually laughed, breaking all records.