A Singular Captain

by John Regan

  Chapter 16

  Among the recriminations later to be made, the criticism by Espinosa, the loyal master-at-arms who had supported the captain general in every crisis, would subject the operation to its deepest scrutiny. Espinosa had been promoted acting captain of Trinidad in Magellan’s absence. His orders were to shift the three ships within range of the amphibious landing and give support by cannon fire. In the event, the lack of wind and adverse tide made this impossible and at that point, Espinosa asserted, the expedition should have been abandoned.

  Magellan had learned the principles of amphibious warfare from the redoubtable Albuquerque. The only explanation for his failure to follow them in Espinosa’s view, supported by Barbosa, Serrano, Carvalho, Andrès de San Martin and nearly all gathered in Trinidad’s great cabin for the post mortem, was that the captain general was so far gone in religious ecstasy that he either forgot everything he had ever learned or deliberately sought consummation of his faith in a martyr’s death. Everyone had watched his behaviour becoming more erratic since Easter. Duarte had even spoken out against it.

  “Perhaps it was the Moon,” Duarte said. “He just went loony.”

  “And as if that wasn’t bad enough,” Espinosa continued, “why did he then send a message to Lapu-lapu and give him advance notice? Albuquerque would have bombarded the place while they were all asleep. Of course, Lapu-lapu was waiting to avenge the village burnt down two weeks ago, and then the captain general set fire to another one, which was guaranteed to enrage them.”

  The other main issue, raised by Duarte, was the failure of Humabon and Zula, so-called allies, to take any part in the battle until too late. About thirty war canoes with a few hundred warriors stood by and watched until all was lost and then all they did was rescue the survivors from drowning.

  Pigafetta, standing at the back of the cabin, had so far remained silent. He now put up his hand and said, “The captain general ordered them to take no part in the fighting.”

  “And why would he do that?” Duarte said. “He had fifty men against a couple of thousand. Why would he not call on reinforcements?”

  “For greater glory,” Pigafetta said, as if this was obvious, although it wasn’t exactly glory. It was Magellan forgiving himself at last for his own sinful childhood. It was his final escape from the evil of priests; his reception into the bosom of God.

  “That’s what I thought. Loony,” Duarte said. “The fact is, Humabon and Zula made a fool of my brother-in-law. They only submitted to baptism to trick him into fighting their own wars, which are none of our business.”

  Pigafetta realised this was a calamity and lamented in his journal, ‘the armada is deprived of our guide, our light and our mirror,’ but he did not grieve for the captain general. Magellan would never have found peace however long he lived. Had he returned to Spain he would at least have gone to prison like Columbus but more likely had his head chopped off like Balboa. Perhaps he was loony, as Duarte said, but he had achieved his dream to find El Paso against all the odds and died in the exultation of his faith. Perhaps Magellan would consider his greatest achievement bringing Christianity to the heathen. Who could ask for more in a life? With Magellan’s death, Pigafetta realised he had loved him in spite of all and Magellan’s name would live in history. He felt privileged to have known him.

  The armada was now leaderless, and it was a sign of inevitable anarchy that the meeting could not agree on a successor to fill Magellan’s shoes. They compromised by electing Barbosa and Serrano joint captain generals. Magellan had always asserted that a horse has only one head, not two, and the mutiny in Port St Julian had arisen out of that dispute. What were the prospects for a rudderless ship or rudderless armada?

  Duarte shifted aboard Trinidad, which was still the flagship, and Alfonso de Gois, who had succeeded the executed Salamon as master of Victoria, was promoted captain. The three ships shifted back to their original anchorage off Humabon’s palace. Most pressing task was to retrieve Magellan’s body, or what was left of it. Pigafetta had seen no evidence of cannibalism in these islands but it was one of Duarte’s main concerns. Although he was not by any means a devout Christian, he preferred his brother-in-law to be given a Christian burial and not eaten by a savage.

  He sent Henriqué ashore with the humiliating request for Humabon to demand the return of Magellan’s body from Lapu-lapu. In response, Humabon came aboard with the prince and several of his chieftains. They were almost in tears, and dismayed by the failure of Spanish arms. Why had the big guns proved so useless? Why had the little guns been so ineffective against Lapu-lapu’s spears? Why had the captain general lost his life to mere mortals, given his godlike status?

  Duarte had no answers to these questions.

  “Now Lapu-lapu is made bold and may even attack. Will your great king, Don Carlos, protect us, as promised by the captain general? What shall I tell my people?”

  “Tell your people that we still trade iron for gold, weight for weight.”

  Henriqué translated this as, “The white devils do not care about your people, only your gold.”

  Many of the landing party had been wounded, including Pigafetta. His injury was minor – a glancing cut on his forehead from a spear – but others were grievous and one man died the following day, bringing the casualties to about half of the expeditionary force. Pigafetta took over the captain general’s role of caring for the sick, chiefly by feeding them coconut milk and omitting the prayers, which he left to Valderrama. His patients rested on deck beneath a shade cloth and he treated their wounds, and his own, with a mudpack of ground herbs, which he had seen used by the natives.

  Since Duarte, as captain general, now occupied Trinidad’s great cabin, Henriqué took up residence on deck with the wounded, although he had not participated in the attack upon Lapu-lapu. Duarte became impatient for Lapu-lapu’s reply and found Henriqué sitting on deck with his back against the bulwark.

  “Henriqué, I want you to go ashore and ask the rajah if he has had a response from Lapu-lapu.”

  Henriqué looked up at him but did not answer.

  “Did you hear me? I said I want you to go ashore.”

  “I heard you.”

  “Well then, move yourself.”

  “I am not your servant but Tuan Ferdinand’s, and now he is dead I am a free man and am to be given ten thousand maravedis.”

  “What impertinence. You are now the property of my sister, Beatriz, and therefore of me. Get yourself ashore and take a message to the rajah.”

  “Duarte,” Pigafetta said. “Henriqué is perfectly correct. I have seen the captain general’s testament. He is to be set free and given ten thousand maravedis.”

  “Nonsense. Besides, all that legal stuff won’t be settled until we get back to Spain. Meanwhile, he will do what he is told or I will have him flogged.”

  Pigafetta stopped himself from responding that Duarte was starting to sound like his brother-in-law after only two days in the job.

  “Do you hear me, Henriqué, “Duarte said. “Do what you are told or I will have you flogged.”

  Henriqué dragged himself to his feet and shuffled off to organise a boat to take him ashore. He returned in a couple of hours with the news that Lapu-lapu had no intention of handing over Magellan’s body but would keep it as a symbol and memorial of the white man’s treachery. There was no information as to whether it would be eaten.

  “The rajah has completed the necklace of gold and emeralds and rubies that he was making for the captain general,” Henriqué said. “Now you are the new captain general, it is yours. The rajah says you should come to a banquet with all your men so he can present you with the necklace at a special ceremony.”

  “Oh,” Duarte said. “I have seen the likeness of that necklace. It must be quite valuable.”

  “It is the insignia of a rajah.”

  “When is this banquet?”

  “Tonight.”

  The prospect of a banquet with plenty of wine and girls was p
opular enough to fill several boatloads and they began heading ashore soon after dark. Pigafetta found the most presentable of his now well-worn doublets and pants and lined up on deck for a place in a boat, when Henriqué came to him and said, “Tuan Antonio, it is better you do not go.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “It is better you do not go. You have a wound on your forehead.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Please, do not go.”

  Something about Henrique’s intense manner caused Pigafetta to take him seriously and in puzzled apprehension he watched the boat pull away from the ship with its load of party-goers. Had he been a military man he might have reflected that the ships were now left virtually undefended, or at least leaderless. As it was, he lamented the lost opportunity to increase his native vocabulary and observe interesting customs.

  A fire had been built in the public square between Valderrama’s tabernacle and the trading post, the house still stocked with woven goods, caps, bells and mirrors to trade for livestock and with bronze, iron and pewter to trade for gold. The flames illuminated the forest behind like the backdrop to a stage and silhouettes moved in front as they arrived from the boats and took their places for the banquet.

  Pigafetta could imagine the ceremonies preceding the banquet, which he could only glimpse and wonder at. Rajah Humabon, with his young rani, his nephew the prince and several chieftains would sit cross-legged on cushions wearing rich sarongs and ornaments of gold. The honoured guests sat on the opposite side of the fire but, when Duarte arrived, the rajah in person would present him with the ceremonial necklace, borne on its own embroidered cushion, and welcome him as a brother.

  Pigafetta may not have noticed that the men of the armada were plied with the potent palm wine while Humabon and his people drank abstemiously. He probably would not have remarked on the absence of crosses or other signs of Christian devotion except for the ones on Valderrama’s church and the graves of the armada’s sailors. Henriqué sat on the far side of the fire with Humabon’s people but he had no translating duties tonight – Duarte was communicating well enough with the half-naked girls attending his every need.

  Sonorous gongs produced a hush and then, from beyond the firelight, two crones appeared while platters of rice and roast fish wrapped in palm leaves were placed on a tapa cloth before the rajah with a squealing, bound pig.

  The two old women, each armed with a bamboo trumpet, began a slow and stately dance like the mating ceremony of two large birds. Murmuring incantations to some god, certainly not the Christian god, and sounding the trumpets, they circled the bound pig, which continued to squeal.

  While one continued dancing, the other adorned herself with a horned headdress, sipped a drop of wine from a coconut shell cup and then rejoined the dance, the tempo now marked by muffled drums. Another sip of wine, another circuit of the doomed pig and a bamboo lance with an iron head appeared in her hand. A feint and lunge at the helpless pig and she reeled away, cackling with hideous mirth while her spellbound audience gazed in silence at the horns, the wrinkled face and sagging breasts. Henriqué alone betrayed an understanding of the dance with a thin-lipped smile.

  The tempo rose to a frenzy, the drums to an urgent tattoo, and the two crones wheeled and pranced, sprinkling the pig with palm wine as a white-robed Magellan had sprinkled the rajah and his wife with rosewater. The end came with a sudden thrust into the pig’s heart. The drums ceased abruptly, their beat replaced by anguished squeals as the pig was stabbed again and again amidst fountains of blood.

  The men of the armada watched, aghast, as the crones siphoned off the blood through bamboo tubes and drank it. Then the horned one walked across to Duarte, the new captain general, and sprinkled him not with wine and not with rosewater but with the blood of the slaughtered pig. She threw her head back and cackled and her mouth was a red cavern with blood dripping out the corners and down her chin. A moment’s embarrassed silence, and then Duarte wiped the blood off his face, laughed nervously, lifted his coconut shell cup and drank a toast to the crone with the vampire’s visage.

  The fire burned down and the pig, wrapped in palm leaves, was consigned to the embers. While they waited for it to cook they took entrees of rice, fish and fruit and drank more wine.

  The sinister meaning of the dance may have been lost on Duarte but Carvalho, perhaps through his experience of the cannibals of Brasil, decided it was time to leave. Whether Carvalho communicated his suspicions to Duarte and was ignored, or whether he merely slunk away from the doomed gathering to save his own hide never became clear, but it had to be admitted the pilot was accompanied by Espinosa, who could hardly be suspected of any treacherous thought, let alone deed. The fact was, Espinosa and Carvalho arrived back on board with a handful of men, muttering that the atmosphere at Humabon’s banquet was not to their taste.

  “And what of Duarte and the others?” Pigafetta asked.

  “They are enjoying themselves. Good luck to them.”

  With the fire burned down to embers, the clearing of the public square was like a theatre with dimmed lighting but, as he watched, Pigafetta noticed movement among the trees in the backdrop.

  “What do you make of that, Carvalho?”

  The backdrop suddenly came alive as a horde of native warriors burst upon the stage and their war cries came across the water mingled with the terrified shouts and screams of defenceless, half-drunk sailors. Valderrama’s church went up in flames.

  Pigafetta, Espinosa and Carvalho watched in helpless horror as their men were slaughtered before their eyes, the scene all the more hideous since it played out in silhouette, like the shadow puppet shows that were a diversion of these people.

  A few made it to the beach and launched the boats while others plunged into the water and struck out for the ships at anchor.

  “We must send a landing party,” Espinosa said. “I will get some men at arms.”

  “No, no,” said Carvalho. “We must get under way before they attack the ship. Let’s get up the anchor.”

  The handful of crew left on board, many of them the wounded from Magellan’s disastrous adventure, were barely sufficient to work the ship. Among them, however, was Master Andrew, the gunner. Although Espinosa had served briefly as Trinidad’s captain, he deferred to Carvalho and elected to work, instead, as Master Andrew’s mate. While Carvalho organised the deck, Espinosa and the gunner prepared the guns and Pigafetta found himself pushing on a capstan bar to get the anchor up.

  The breeze was light offshore and a pale moon cast just enough light to see by. Carvalho gave orders to set the staysail and spanker, the easiest sails to set but barely enough to move the ship. When a few survivors arrived from shore, he set the spritsail also and by then there were signs of movement on Victoria and Concepción.

  Activity on shore had shifted from the public square to the beach, where the natives seemed to be performing some kind of victory dance by the light of flaming torches. Carvalho took Trinidad as close inshore as he dared, when John Serrano, in his unmistakeable accent, called, “Trinidad. Trinidad, send iron and bronze for ransom or they will surely kill me.”

  With his arms bound behind his back, he was exhibited by his whooping and yelling captors.

  “And what of the others?” Carvalho called back.

  “Dead. All dead except the treacherous swine of an interpreter. Send iron and bronze; it’s what they crave.”

  Carvalho’s response was to order Master Andrew to send a shot at Humabon’s palace, dimly seen beyond the beach. The natives stopped shouting and some threw themselves on the ground, but their fright did not last long.

  “That’s no good,” Serrano cried. “You will have to send a boat with iron and bronze.”

  Carvalho ordered another shot at the palace and this time the victorious natives ignored the noise and Serrano again pleaded for his life, quoting his old age as a reason for mercy. Some natives now launched war canoes off the beach and set out in pursuit and Carvalho calle
d for men-at-arms with crossbows to fight them off.

  “Set the foretopsail,” he ordered the hands on deck. “Steer west-sou-west,” he ordered the quartermaster.

  As the sail blossomed in the moonlight, Serrano’s desperate wail carried on the breeze redolent of wood smoke and roast pig, “Carvalho, I will claim my soul from you on the day of judgement.”

  Like whipped dogs with their tails between their legs, the once proud ships of the Armada de Moluccas and their crews fled for their lives, but not very far. Dawn revealed a small island, apparently deserted, with a tolerable anchorage, and before noon they came to a halt to lick their wounds.

  Disbelief was the main sentiment in Trinidad’s great cabin. How could this have happened? The most powerful king on Earth representing the most advanced culture in history, defending the one true faith, had been defeated by heathen tribesmen. Unthinkable! To Carvalho, it was an outrage, to Espinosa a puzzle and to Pigafetta it was just a great shame worthy of tears. With hindsight, it was easy to see Henriqué’s treason and the captain general’s madness but who could have predicted the slaughter of so many Christians?

  A head count tallied 115, less than half the number who had sailed from Seville. Many were wounded and some would die. Valderrama was among those killed and the fleet was left without a priest. Most of the fleet’s talent was gone. Andrès de San Martìn, chief pilot and astrologer, had evidently been unable to read his own horoscope. Alfonso de Gois, who succeeded Duarte as captain of Victoria, had only a brief tenure in the job. Francisco Martìn, a barrel-maker; two clerks named Sancho de Heredia and Leòn Expòleta; Francisco de Madrid, a man-at-arms; a gunner, four sailors, two cabin boys, a servant of Serrano’s and Serrano and Barbosa were all absent from the roll.

  Now the survivors had to decide who was going to make the decisions that Magellan had handed down so imperiously. Carvalho took the seat at the head of the table, which Pigafetta still regarded as Magellan’s. Carvalho’s cowardice in abandoning Serrano rankled with Pigafetta but he kept his counsel to himself.

  Carvalho, Albo and Gallego were pilots with at least some knowledge of navigation but little experience in running a ship. Espinosa understood the workings of a ship’s hierarchy but knew little of navigation. Elcano had served as Victoria’s master and, before the Armada de Moluccas, had been owner and captain of a ship carrying Spanish soldiers to the wars in North Africa, but Elcano was a mutineer, having served time in chains in Port St Julian. It was Elcano who raised the topic on everyone’s mind.

  “Now we are rid of the tyrant, we can conduct the ships as we please and according to the rules of the Casa de Contratación, which require decisions to be made by majority vote.”

  “And who are the voters?” Espinosa asked.

  “Why, all of us here; the senior men of the armada.”

  “Which decisions shall be voted on?” Carvalho asked. “I mean, here is Mendèz, purser or chief steward; a worthy man but I daresay he knows little of the navigation. Here is Bustamente, barber and surgeon. Here is Master Andrew, who knows all about guns. Do all have an equal vote?”

  “We must not fall back into Magellan’s tyranny,” Elcano said. “There is no other way, and we face an immediate decision. We do not have enough men to work all three ships. I suggest we have to dispose of one.”

  “That would be a rash move, Elcano,” Carvalho said. “Three ships give us some measure of safety and support.”

  “Not when there are too few men to man them and Concepción is rotten with worm. Then every ship is a weakness.”

  “Three ships give us three sets of cannons,” Espinosa said. “We can’t shift the cannons from one ship on to the other two.”

  “Espinosa is correct,” Master Andrew said, “but we don’t have a gun crew for every cannon, so Elcano is also correct. But if we destroy one ship we can use the powder and ammunition on the other two.”

  The matter was put to the vote and, by a small majority, the council moved to destroy Concepción. It took two days to strip her of everything useful and disperse her crew between Trinidad and Victoria. Carvalho was elected captain of Trinidad and shifted his few belongings into the great cabin, presiding over council meetings although he was not, strictly speaking, captain general.

  While she burned, another council meeting convened to discuss the next big question, ‘Where do we go from here?’

  To Pigafetta, the answer seemed obvious – the Spice Isles – but Espinosa thought they should first build up their stock of food, still scant despite six weeks among these bounteous islands. Echoing Magellan’s sentiment, he pointed out, “All the riches in the world are worthless if we starve.”

  “We won’t starve, Espinosa,” Carvalho said. “You have seen for yourself how these islands all have pigs and goats and chickens almost for the taking. But they also have gold, and if we stock up on gold we can buy food anywhere at any time.”

  “First, we should go back and punish Humabon and Lapu-lapu,” Elcano said, “to set an example and show other natives they can’t get away with treachery.”

  “Is it certain that Humabon and Lapu-lapu will not pursue us?” Pigafetta asked in his innocence.

  “Let them come,” Elcano said, “and we shall teach them a lesson.”

  “Like the last lesson we taught them?”

  “Next time we shall be prepared, and not betrayed by our own interpreter.”

  “I think we should avoid more fights,” Espinosa said. “Even now, we are still only a few leagues away and it is possible they have seen the smoke from Concepción. They could descend upon us in the night. We know what crafty devils they are.”

  “Yes, you’re right, Espinosa,” Carvalho said. “We should not spend another night here.”

  To the south lay a large and mountainous island that promised a more protected anchorage. Trinidad and Victoria weighed anchor and, after a day’s sail, came to rest in a bay by a river estuary, putting a comfortable distance between themselves and their Nemesis, Lapu-lapu. It was not long before the familiar welcoming committee arrived in their praus, both sailing and paddled. Still nervous from recent experience, Carvalho lined his decks with armed men. He allowed one boat alone to approach the ship, an outrigger canoe with four paddlers and someone of rank, wearing robes instead of a sarong, sitting under a thatch awning.

  “Ask them what they want, Pigafetta.”

  “Good afternoon,” Pigafetta said in the native tongue. “Your boat is a very fine boat.”

  The man subjected Trinidad to a long and careful scrutiny before he answered, “You are the men who make the big noise.”

  “We come in peace and we can trade good things.”

  “My brother is Garas-garas. He says you are good men.”

  “Garas-garas is our friend.”

  “Then you are my friend too. If you wish to trade, we can trade. I am Calanao.”

  “I am Pigafetta.”

  For Carvalho’s benefit, Pigafetta translated this conversation as, “He is the brother of Garas-garas, who was the first rajah we met. He says he is ready to trade.” What Pigafetta did not point out was that, since news of the armada had spread to this island it was likely they would also hear from Lapu-lapu, whose report would not be so flattering.

  “What does he have to trade? I see only fish in their boats.”

  Calanao said he had many good things to trade and if Pigafetta wanted to see, then he should come to his village. Pigafetta put this proposition to Carvalho, who replied, “You have seen these natives can’t be trusted. You would be foolish to go to their village. Remember how they held Serrano to ransom.”

  Pigafetta was tempted to point out that Carvalho had not paid that ransom, but instead said, “It’s the only way to find out what they have.”

  Calanao’s boat led the fishing fleet into the broad brown river just on dusk and paddled upstream past villages on stilts over the water where cooking fires showed that many people lived. It was near midnight when they reached Calanao’s villa
ge, likewise built out over the water. His house had several rooms lighted with oil lamps and bamboo torches and his two wives awaited him and embraced him. Supper was a foul-smelling fish broth with rice, and palm wine drunk with the same ceremony as practiced on other islands: raising clasped hands to the sky as if in prayer. Calanao and his wives retired to another room and left Pigafetta to sleep on a bamboo mat with a mattress of leaves.

  In the morning, Calanao showed him around the village, which seemed poor compared with Cebu and Mactan although many wore gold bracelets and anklets and men carried the gold-hafted kris. Calanao described valleys where there was so much gold it was impossible to measure but the people had no iron tools to mine it.

  “Your ships have iron to trade, is it not so?”

  “Yes; iron and bronze and pewter.”

  “We can trade gold for iron.”

  “We came to trade for cloves and cinnamon and nutmeg, not gold. Do you know where the Moluccas are?”

  “Moluccas? What is that?”

  “It is the islands where the cloves and cinnamon grow. Cinnamon is what you call caumana, sweet wood.”

  “There is no caumana here but on some other islands.”

  Calanao took him to visit the rajah’s wife, the rani, who was the sister of Garas-garas. She lived in her own house on a high hill and they found her seated on a cushion on a dais in a room richly decorated with brocade curtains and porcelain urns. Gongs of different tones summoned different slaves to bring wine and little things to eat while the rani quizzed Pigafetta about the armada, Spain, how many wives he had and what gods he worshipped.

  They returned to Calanao’s house and, after luncheon, Pigafetta wished to return to the ship, having seen enough. Since Magellan’s death he had begun to realise how much the Armada de Moluccas would change the way of life of these people. How strange the tall black ships must seem to them. European ideas were as odd to them as native customs were to Europeans, and different islands as different from one another as European countries. Some values were universal, however. They paddled downstream quicker than upstream and at one place passed three men hanging by their necks from a tree. Calanao said they were robbers who had received their just punishment. This was a practice they could have learned from civilised countries like Spain, although beheading was more common there than hanging.

  Back on board, Carvalho called a council meeting to hear Pigafetta’s report.

  “The people here are poor and live mostly on fish and rice. Also, the main village is a long way up the river and it would not be convenient for a trading post.”

  “Any gold?” Carvalho asked.

  “No gold and no cloves or cinnamon. But these people are friends of Garas-garas and heard news of us before we came. I think it almost certain that, sooner or later, they will hear that our soldiers were defeated by Lapu-lapu and then these people would become our enemies.”

  He made no recommendations and argued no cause but left Carvalho, Espinosa and Elcano to arrive at the obvious conclusion that it would be wise to depart from here and find a place far away from Lapu-lapu’s influence. He realised that, with the death of Magellan, he now occupied a powerful position simply because he understood the language, which none of the others had bothered to learn. It was for their own good that he suppressed the news of abundant gold here. The objective was cloves, not gold.