To the Indies (29 page)
Authors: C. S. Forester
Tags: #Inquisition, #treasure, #Caribbean, #Indian islands, #Indians, #aristocrats, #Conquistadors, #Orinoco, #Haiti, #Spain, #natives
But whether Cuba were an island or not, the task García had laid upon him was to steer the
Santa Engracia
up through the strait between Cuba and Española, and then north-westerly, on and on until they reached the country
el Baboso
knew of, the land where the temples reached the sky and where worked gold was to be seen everywhere. Rich fancied it must be the land of the Great Khan where Marco Polo the Venetian had visited, but he occasionally had doubts. It might be some new unvisited empire, if it existed at all.
If it existed at all
— Rich could picture the
Santa Engracia
sailing on and on over the blue sea until her motley crew died of hunger and thirst and disease, himself among them. Or perhaps in that direction there really was an edge to the earth, despite the Admiral’s denials, and the
Santa Engracia
might find herself hurtling over it to plunge into the depths. He tried to hint at his fears to García, but García only shrugged his shoulders and laughed callously. Despite his comfortable plumpness, García was a man of iron will and quite without fear — without a heart in his body, Rich came to think.
Certainly without a heart in his body. . . . Three of the sailors — not Tomas — and four Indians were caught the second night by Julio Zerain trying to desert in the longboat; Rich heard the judgment which issued from García’s lips the next morning, and heard the wild screams of the wretched men as their punishment was dealt out to them. He could not bear to listen — more especially as he would certainly have joined in the attempt if the sailors had taken him into their confidence. He might be screaming there on the deck now, in that case. It was something to thank God for, that he had not been allowed the captain’s cabin, but had had to sleep in the ’tween-decks with a dozen Spaniards. That had kept him from any such perilous endeavor. He would die — he was sure of it — if ever he were punished in that manner. That morning he knew worse misery of soul than ever since he had left Spain; more could not be said than that.
There was other bloodshed on board. Rich did not know how the quarrel started, but he heard shouts and the clash of steel forward; Fernando Berrocal and Pablo Mourentan had their swords out — the blades flashed fiercely in the sunshine — and were fighting out their quarrel in the manner of hot-blooded youth. García came up from below on the run; he roared like a bull and dashed forward drawing his sword. Tarpia appeared from nowhere, sword drawn too. Berrocal’s blade was beaten out of his hand; Mourentan, thrusting wildly at García in his excitement, received a sword-cut on his shoulder which sent him staggering and helpless to the rail.
“Fools!” bellowed García. “I will have no fighting in this ship. That fool there has less than he deserves. The next man to draw steel will hang. I swear it by the Holy Sacrament.”
He glowered round at the silent crowd and pointed to the yardarm, magnificently animal despite his fat and his rags. Perhaps he remembered the rules on board the Holy Name, of which Acevedo had once reminded him. He needed every fighting man in the campaign he was planning, and he had come to appreciate not only how easily quarrels may arise in the cramped life aboard ship, but also how easily the whole ship’s company might become involved. Rich thought bitterly of the time when he had believed himself to be acquiring the art of managing men — including this same García. He knew now that he could never compare himself with him. He was no man of action; in a great shaking-up like this expedition to the Indies every man found his own level in time.
Seventy leagues to the west of Alta Vela lay Cape San Miguel, the westernmost point of Española; it interested Rich to find that they reached it at the very moment which he predicted. His dead reckoning had been correct, and so was the Admiral’s chart — or else they both contained the same error. Rich might at one time have speculated deeply on the philosophy of compensating errors, but nowadays he was too engrossed in hourly problems to waste time. He accepted God’s mercy with gratitude and left it at that; as soon as he saw the shore of Española trending away back to the eastward from the bluff green eminence of San Miguel, and knew he had made all the westing necessary, he had to lay a fresh course through the straits, for there was no leeway to spare at all on this next leg of the passage.
No leeway to spare; indeed it became apparent that they would never double Cuba in a single tack. For as they bore northward the wind backed northward as well. Rich and Tomas laid the
Santa Engracia
as close to the wind as they could, striving to make northing while they still had sea room, but she drifted away to leeward spiritlessly, encumbered by her weeds. Rich gazed despairingly at the tell-tale angle which his unaided eye could observe between the trace of her wake and the line of her masts. The cliffs of Cuba loomed in sight, a hard line on the horizon ahead, and still the wind blew from the north. They had to wear the ship round, heading back almost in the direction in which they had come.
García watched the maneuver curiously and suspiciously.
“Why back to Española, navigator?” he asked. There was a grim jocularity in his tone. “I ask you to sail north-west and” — he glanced up at the sun — “even a poor landsman like myself can see you are sailing south-east.”
Rich endeavored to explain the difficulty he was encountering. Today there was none of the elation which previously had led him to answer with spirit. He was too frightened of García again now.
“I see,” said García, consideringly, but with still a hint of unsatisfied suspicion in his voice. “But you do not want to go too close to Española, do you? We would not like to lose you, learned Doctor — not now that you have proved your worth. And I might add that we will see that we do not.”
Hastily Rich disclaimed any thought of attempting to desert from the
Santa Engracia
, but the words died away lamely in face of the cynical smile on García’s face.
“I have no need of further assurance of your loyalty, learned Don Narciso,” said García, with a glance forward to where the previous deserters had suffered.
But he grew more human as he stood beside Rich watching the ship’s progress on the other tack.
“These zig-zag methods call for much explanation to me,” he said. “I served for a term in His Highness’ galleys against the Moors. We never used them there. The slaves took the oars and we went wherever we wished. When the time serves I will have galleys built for use in these waters. There are slaves enough to be found.”
There were two days when the wind failed altogether, and the
Santa Engracia
wallowed helplessly in the calm, with San Miguel still in sight to the eastward, and the porpoises sported round her as if to show their contempt for her sluggishness, and the flying fish furrowed the deep blue of the water. When it blew again, the wind was still hardly east of north, and day by day the
Santa Engracia
beat back and forth across the wide channel, gaining hardly more than a few yards each day, while tempers grew short on board and the murmuring hidalgos, who had actually come to recognize the shores which encompassed them, asked bitterly how long the blundering incompetence of their navigator was going to keep them confined. Rich began to pray for a southerly wind, which would carry them off towards the mad adventure which he so much dreaded.
Long afterwards Rich remembered those prayers; he suspected that it was because of his impiety and incipient heresy that his petition was granted in the fashion which God chose. It was two weeks before the feast of San Narciso of Gerona (who had always stood his friend) to which he had been looking forward as perhaps bringing relief from his troubles. The wind had died away again when they had nearly clawed their way northward to the open sea, and the
Santa Engracia
drifted helplessly, with Cuba barely in sight from the masthead and Española invisible over the horizon. It was oppressively hot, although there was a thin veil of cloud over the sky, through which the sun showed only at rare intervals and then a mere ghost of his usual self. The
Santa Engracia
pitched and rolled in a swell which was extraordinarily heavy for the narrow waters in which they lay. Spaniards and Indians sat helpless about the decks, gasping in the heat; Rich felt his clothes wet upon his back.
He prayed for a wind, any wind, and the wind came. Gently it came at first, only a mild puff, steadying the ship in her toiling and making the sails flap loudly. Rich started from the deck in wild excitement. Those puffs of wind were from the south — a few hours of this would see them through the straits, and free. Tomas noticed the puffs of wind too; he was having the yards braced round in haste. Soon there was quite a breeze blowing from the southward, piping in the rigging, and the
Santa Engracia
was under full sail before it, heading gallantly to the northward over the grey sea.
But the breeze had brought no relief from the heat, curiously enough. It was a hot wind, a fiery wind. Rich felt his skin still drip, even while the breeze blew upon him. There was an Indian on the forecastle chattering excitedly to Tomas, but Tomas was trying to puzzle out what he was saying. He led the Indian aft to where Rich stood with García, and the Indian babbled in panic.
“Hurricane,” he was saying, or some word like that. He was frantic with the desire to express his meaning — it was a most vivid example of the curse of Babel with which God had afflicted the world because of its impiety.
“Hurricane,” said the Indian again, wreathing his hands. “Hurricane — big wind.”
He pointed up to the sky and waved his arms; the clouds to which he was pointing had a baleful yellow gleam now which was echoed in the sea below.
“Big wind,” said the Indian, and now that he had the Spanish words he had sought he amplified them.
“Big — big — big — big wind,” he said wildly. He was trying to convey to his stolid taskmasters the impression of a wind bigger than their imagination could conceive. Rich and Tomas exchanged glances.
“Wind’s freshening,” said Tomas. It was blowing half a gale, certainly, and the
Santa Engracia
was heaving and plunging before it over the topaz sea.
“You had better shorten sail, Tomas,” said Rich, and then, as a bigger gust came: “No, heave her to.”
Tomas nodded decided approval and rushed forward; the Indians there were all scurrying to and fro, wringing their hands and wailing “Hurricane, hurricane” — there was something about the strange Indian word which filled them with terror. Only two or three were in a fit condition to help Tomas and his men as they battled with the foresail. Rich saw Tomas, clearly frightened now, beckon to some of the Spaniards at hand for assistance, and some of them in the urgency of the moment actually ran to help him. Rich went to the tiller to help the men there heave her to — it was a muddled moment, but the ship came round under the pressure of the mainsail while only the top of one wave came in over the waist amid screams from the Indians. The seamen got the mainsail in, leaving only the lower corner spread; with the yard braced right round and the tiller hard over, the ship rode nearly bows on to the wind, meeting the sea with her starboard bow. She was as safe as they could make her, now, and already the wind was blowing a full gale. García came, blown by the wind, aft to Rich, with Manuel Abello behind him — he was one of the old colonists who had joined the expedition.
“Abello here knows what the Indians are saying,” he shouted in Rich’s ear. “He has seen these hurricanes before.”
Abello was hatless, and his long hair and beard were blown into a wild mop in front of his face.
“Nothing can live in a hurricane,” he shouted. “Make for land.”
Rich had no words for him. It was not the moment to try to explain that the poor old
Santa Engracia
, hove-to before a full gale, could do nothing more now than try to live through it — the Admiral himself would attempt no more. Tomas was clawing his way round the deck with his men, driving the Indians below and making all as secure as might be.
“Why don’t you do as he says?” shouted García.
“I can’t — ” said Rich.
The force of the wind suddenly redoubled itself. It shifted a couple of points and flung itself howling upon the
Santa Engracia
— Rich saw the line of the wind hurtling over the surface of the water. The
Santa Engracia
lay over, took a huge wave over her bows, and then wearily came up to the wind again. The wind was nearly taking them off their feet. They felt as if they were being pushed by something solid, and it was still increasing in force; they had all been dashed against the lee rail and it was with incredible difficulty that they regained their footing. Rich felt himself being swept away again. He seized a rope’s end and began to tie himself on the rail, with great clumsy knots — it seemed mad for a grown man to tie himself to his ship for fear of being blown away, but everything in this world was mad. The deck forward was strangely bare — only Tomas and another man were to be seen there, clutching the rail. The sea they had shipped must have swept the others away. Tomas saw Rich looking at him, and pointed up to the mainsail. The small rag of canvas which had been left spread there was blowing out, expanding like a bladder as the gaskets gave way. Next moment the whole sail was loose; a moment later it had flogged itself into fragments which cracked like gigantic whips in the gale with a noise which even the gale could not drown.
The ship must be hurtling to leeward at an astonishing pace, thought Rich, with a mad clarity of mind. He wondered how, when he next worked out the ship’s position, he could allow for all this leeway whose pace and direction were quite unknown to him. Then he told himself he would most likely never work out the ship’s position again. And he was in mortal sin — he had been intending to confess before sailing in the
Holy Name
. He was frightened now, for the first time since the gale began, and he tried to pray into the shrieking wind.
A huge wave suddenly popped up from nowhere and came tumbling over the poop. Rich felt himself dashed against the rail with terrific force; he choked and strangled and struggled in the water until the S
anta Engracia
shook herself free. García and Abello were gone from beside him, and Rich felt nothing more than a neutral callousness for their fate. The masts went directly after — Rich actually was unaware of the loss of the foremast, but he saw the weather shrouds of the mainmast part and the wind whirl the mast away like a chip. Everything else on deck was going, too — tiller and windlass and boat and all. Only Tomas was still there, bound to the forecastle rail. The
Santa Engracia
was rolling like a spiritless log on the surface of the sea.
A little crowd of people, Spaniards and Indians, came suddenly pouring into the waist, as it rolled awash, from out of the forecastle. The sea took them too; they must have been driven out of their shelter by the rising of the water within. For the
Santa Engracia
was low in the water by now; the numerous seas she had shipped must have practically filled her, and every sea now was sweeping across her decks and burying Rich in its foam. He realized dully that she would not sink now, for she carried insufficient ballast and cargo for that; and he tried to think what would happen to her next as she drifted water-logged and almost below the surface. Presumably her fastenings would give way under the continual wrenching, and she would go to pieces in the end, and that would be the time when he would drown. But while this infernal wind blew and while he was so continually submerged he was incapable of sufficient thought to be afraid any more — it was as if he were standing aside and incuriously watching the body of the learned Narciso Rich battered by the waves.
At nightfall he was still alive, drooping half conscious in his bonds as the seas swept over him, and deaf to the wild roaring of the wind in his ears. He was not aware of the moment when the ship struck land, although he must have come to his senses directly after. Wind and sea were more insensate than ever in the roaring night; there was white foam everywhere, faintly visible in the darkness, and huge waves seemed to be beating upon him with a more direct violence than before. Under his feet, and through the mad din of wind and water, he was conscious of a thundering noise as the ship pounded and broke. He guessed that the ship had struck land — and in panic, like waking from a nightmare, he struggled to free himself from the rope that had bound him fast so far. The deck heaved and canted, smothered under a huge roller. Then the poop broke clear, hurtling over the reef and across the lagoon. Rich felt himself and the deck tossed over and over, and they struck solid land in a welter of crashing fragments. The wind took charge of him as he hit the beach, and blew him farther inshore. He clutched feebly and quite ineffectively at the darkness, while the wind flung him through and over, up the slope. He felt vegetation — some kind of cane — under him. Then he fell down another slope; there was water in his face until he struggled clear. A freak of the wind had dropped him into the lee of a nearly vertical bank, so that the giant’s fingers of the hurricane could no longer reach under him and hurl him farther. He lay there, half conscious; at rare intervals a shattering sob broke from his lips, while overhead the gale howled and yelled in the pitchy black.