To the Indies (2 page)

So here he was, eaten alive by vermin, and roasting under a tropical sun in a ship which seemed as though she would never again feel a breath of wind, so long had she drifted in these equatorial calms. He was indeed the only person on board, of all the hundred and thirty who crowded her, who was displaying any sign of activity. The Admiral and his servants were invisible in the great after-cabin, and the rest of the horde were lying idly in the shade of the bulwarks and of the break of the foredeck. They were more accustomed to filth and vermin than he was; his fastidious nostrils could distinguish the reek of their dirty
bodies
and unwashed clothing as one strand of the tangled skein of stinks — salted cod, not too well preserved, and rotting cheese, and fermenting beans. The least unpleasing and most prevalent odor was the vinegary smell of spilt wine drying in the heat — the wine barrels in the waist had been badly coopered, and wine was continually sweating out between the staves, the supply dwindling daily although to them it was of more value now than the gold they were seeking. The tremendous rain-storms of the last few days, accompanied by hardly a breadth of wind, had brought them drinking water, but it was drinking water flavored with sea salt and tar as a result of having to be caught in sails before being run into the casks. It was vastly unattractive water, especially to Spaniards with their discriminating taste in drinking water; Rich suspected the water of being the cause of the bowel complaint which was beginning to plague them all.

His shirt was finished now, and he put it on, reveling in the coolness of the wet material against his skin, while he stripped off his breeches — it was repulsive and unpleasing to be naked. It was strange that among all the dangers and discomforts he had expected — the fevers, the poisoned arrows, the fire-breathing dragons, the tempests and rocks, he had never anticipated the vermin which now held so important a place in his thoughts. Saint Francis of Assisi, of blessed memory, had spoken of lice as the pearls of poverty. Rich, bending over his disgusting task, shuddered at the unorthodoxy of disapproving of anything Saint Francis had said, until he reassured himself with the thought that divine Providence had not blessed him with the Saint’s humility. There was a whiff of heresy about that, too, now he came to think about it. But he pulled himself together sturdily; his immortal soul could not really be endangered by his cleansing the seams of his breeches.
De minimis non curat lex
. He could argue a good case with Saint Peter on that point.

These breeches were fiendishly difficult to clean; cold sea water was not the most helpful medium in which to attempt it. Boiling water, if he could be sure of not hardening the leather, would be far more efficacious. Or a hot knife-blade, run along the seams. But there was no chance of heating a knife-blade or of boiling water: the cooking fire on the stone hearth in the waist was out, and had not been lighted for — how many days? Five? Six? The days had been so much alike that he could not remember. The heat had been too great for the cooks to do their work, so the cooks had said, and the Admiral had believed them. The Admiral did not care whether his food was hot or cold, sweet or rotten; probably he did not even notice. Presumably he was now in his great cabin, dreaming over his charts, revolving fresh theories. Rich pointed out to himself that the Admiral, even if he were too gentle with the men, was hard enough on himself, and even though he was grasping in his efforts to adhere to the letter of that absurd agreement with the Crown, he was at least prepared to devote every thought in his head and every breath in his body to the furtherance of the objects of that agreement.

This southerly course which they were following now — or would be following, if there were only a wind — would take them into a region of burning sun and brilliant moon; it had done so, for that matter, already. That would greatly increase their chances of obtaining precious metals. The golden glory of the sun and the silver brightness of the moon must obviously engender and stimulate the growth of gold and silver. The soil should be thick with them in this climate, when they reached land. The Portuguese had discovered more and more gold the farther south they pushed their exploration of Africa, which was a clear confirmation of the theory. Shiploads of gold and silver would make Spain rich and powerful. There would be content and plenty in the land. There would be bread on the table of every peasant, and the court of Their Highnesses would be the most brilliant in Christendom.

The Admiral saw this plainly enough. It would be a much shorter cut than the tedious methods of trade. The other Indian islands he had discovered had obviously been pretty close to the dominions of the Great Khan. That wealthy region of ‘Cibao’ that the natives of Española talked about must most probably be the island of Japan, often referred to as ‘Cipangu’, which was known to lie adjacent to the coast of China. For that matter the Admiral had reached the confines of the Great Khan’s dominions in his previous voyage. The great land of Cuba at which he had touched — the name obviously recalled that of Kublai Khan, whom Marco Polo had encountered in his travels to the East. Rich was aware that more than one wild theorist had put forward the suggestion that Cuba was just another island, vaster than any yet known, larger even than Sicily, but the Admiral did not agree. The Admiral was much the more likely to be right. He had proved himself right over the tremendous question of the practicability of reaching the Indies by sailing westward, so that he was hardly likely to be wrong over the simple question as to whether Cuba was part of the mainland or not. Kublai Khan’s court was wealthy, and his empire wide; trade with him might produce benefits, but nothing nearly so great as winning great shiploads of gold without the tiresome necessity of trading.

So Rich had thoroughly approved of this southerly course, which would carry them to the gold-bearing barbaric countries and keep them clear of Cuba and Japan and the other Chinese territories. He was only a tiny bit doubtful now, and that merely on account of practical details. To the north of them lay a region where the wind blew eternally from the eastward; he had sailed through it, he had observed the phenomenon with his own senses. Always from the eastern quarter, sometimes from the north of east, very occasionally from the south of east, that wind blew. If there was a region where there was always a wind blowing, was it not likely that there was another where the wind never blew? They had had days and days of calm. If they were to push farther south still they might reach an area where the calm would be eternal, where they would drift helpless until they died.

Rich looked about him. Westward the sky was beginning to display the marvelous reds and golds of another sunset. Overside was the deep clear blue of the sea, in which lay a long wreath of golden weed — a pleasing color contrast. A little flock of flying fish rose from the sea as he looked, and skimmed along, and vanished again; the dark furrows they left behind them on the glassy surface vanished as quickly. In the bows, black against the coloring sky, stood the lookout, his hand resting on the forestay. Aft stood the helmsman, the tiller idle at his side. Far astern, almost on the horizon, he could see the brown sail and the red sail of their consorts, wallowing, like them, helpless in the calm. Lovely, and yet sinister, was the way the scene appeared to Rich. Standing barelegged on the fore-deck of the
Holy Name
, his breeches in his hand, and with the sunset lowering round him, he felt a twinge of lonely fear.

And at that very moment a little wind began to blow. He felt it first on his bare legs, damp with the water that had dripped from his shirt — a tiny coolness, the merest ghost of a breath. At first the coolness was all he noticed, never thinking of the cause. Then the big sail above him flapped a trifle, and then louder. Alonso Sanchez de Carvajal, the sailing master, was on his feet now on the poop, looking round at the sea and the sky, and up at the long red-cross pennant which was stirring itself at the masthead. He bellowed orders, and at the sound of his voice the sailors bestirred themselves, rousing themselves up from where they lounged on the decks, moving to halliards and braces with more cheerfulness than they had been accustomed to show during the last few days. The yards were braced round and the sails bellied a little to the wind. Already the motion of the
Holy
Name
had changed, from the indolent indifferent lurching to a more purposeful swoop. Rich heard a sound he had forgotten — the musical bubbling of water under the bows. In itself that was enough to rouse him from his depression. He could feel his spirits rise as he hopped on one leg trying to pull on his breeches and not impede the sailors in their duties.

There was the Admiral on the poop now, in his blue satin doublet with the gold chain glittering round his neck, his white hair hanging to his shoulders. He, too, was looking round the horizon. Now he was speaking to Carvajal, and Carvajal was bellowing more orders to the crew. The yards were being braced farther round. They were altering course; Rich looked forward as the ship steadied herself. Right ahead the sun hovered close above the horizon in a glory of red and gold. The
Holy Name
was heading due west — the Admiral must have changed his mind at last about holding to the southwestward. To the westward probably lay the nearest land; Rich felt a little thrill of anticipation.

Alonso Perez came shambling past him — the Admiral’s servant, major-domo and general factotum, stoop-shouldered and with arms disproportionately long. He stepped to the rail and cleared his throat noisily, standing waiting.

“Go!” came the Admiral’s high clear voice from the poop, and Perez spat into the indigo sea.

The Admiral was by the rail on the poop, the fingers of his right hand clasping his left wrist. He was counting the number of times his pulse beat while the white fleck of mucus drifted back to him, which would enable him to estimate the speed of the ship through the water. Rich had helped in the initial tedious calculations by which the table of speeds had been constructed — for example: If the ship travels XCI feet while the pulse beats XLIII times, and the number of times the pulse beats in a minute is LXX, how many leagues does the ship travel in an hour? But there was no need to make those calculations now, because the table was constructed once for all, and a mere knowledge of the number of pulse-beats enabled anyone to read off the speed of the ship; and Carvajal’s pulse, and the pulse of Diego Osorio the boatswain, had been compared with the Admiral’s so that any one of the three could take an observation.

It was highly ingenious — one of the many highly ingenious devices which Rich had admired since he had come to sea and interested himself in navigation. The astrolabe, which enabled one to guess which point one had reached of the earth’s rotundity from north to south, was another ingenious device. By its aid a ship’s captain could always return to a place he had previously visited, if only he sailed long enough along the line which ran through it parallel to the equinoctial line. If only — Rich was beginning again, as he had often done before, to try to work out a similar method of ascertaining longitude, but he was interrupted by his noticing that the ship’s company was assembling aft.

He hastened after them, and took his place among the group of gentlemen and priests at the starboard side. The Admiral stood by the tiller, Carvajal at his side, the seamen in line athwartships, and the landsmen to port. Only the lookout and the helmsman took no part in the prayers. Heads were bowed. Horny hands made the sign of the cross. They prayed to the Queen of Heaven, the unlettered among them stumbling through the Latin words following the others. Rich glanced up under his eyelids at the Admiral, who was standing with clasped hands gazing up at the darkening sky. There was a happy exaltation in his face, a fixed and fanatical enthusiasm — everyone was aware of the Admiral’s special devotion to the Blessed Virgin. His blue eyes were still bright in the growing darkness, his white beard ghostlike.

The prayer ended, and the massed ship’s company began to break up again into groups. Overhead the stars were coming into sight — strange stars, with the Great Bear almost lost on the northern horizon, and new constellations showing in the south, glowing vividly against the velvet of the sky. Like another star appeared the taper borne by a ship’s boy to light the shaded lamp that hung above the compass before the steersman.