EXCERPT 7: (from CHAPTER 13)
There
was a dull clunk as the long-boat’s oars went up. Some of the rowers were
groaning-happy with the end of effort. They were Africans mainly - Moors and
Ivory-Coast Negro slaves and slave-sons of slaves. Thick, tight–tendoned arms
that had done all the heavy work. And now they had rowed from ship to proximity
of shore. Pulled most of the way by muscle and sweat, inertia would take them
the rest.
And between their bare, whip-scarred backs and raised oars was a hefty,
dark and prostrate cross. A hoary friar sat at the stern with an arm wrapped
around it, but holding himself into the vessel rather than protecting the pole.
He had grimaced with each roll of the fragile-small skiff. Now that they were
almost on the beach he stroked the smooth-wood surface of his saviour’s symbol
with thin-long, grey-white El Greco hands, preferring to look up rather than
down. The afternoon sun in front of them made his huge eyes squint and his
rapture had to be expressed through a wide-open, fly-trap-stupid mouth.
Sarmiento was squatting at the prow, as if about to leap-frog out. His
chest was expanding in a squeeze-box rhythm under shirt and doublet, too fast,
leaving him short of oxygen and making him conscious of his thumping heart and
full throat. Proximity to real-arrival filled him with panic, the panic of the
culmination of a life. He had to use pessimism to calm himself: - This
is not Ophir... there is no volcano – And so the real discovery had yet to
come. Yet he was unable to rid himself of gnawing hope. What if they were
there? The strange light had been portentous: - Destiny... and he lifted himself to make the leap after all.
When he saw Sarmiento straighten himself Mendaña was all octopus-arms,
wrestling with the alchemist-captain’s doublet to pull him down again, as if
to save a potential suicide. Sarmiento gasped, and there was horror in his
bulging eyes: - Reality is senseless
– he thought: - to go so far
to be pulled down by a wimp –
Yet the wimp Mendaña
was already standing himself. Full of the same choking panic as his captain. The
dry earth of a New World would soon be crackling under his feet and it disturbed
him : - The first man – he thought,
as if he were about to step on Jupiter - The
first... He wanted to scream and had to palliate his own panic by
concentrating on ritual. He turned to the men and began a pathetically tremulous
speech to remind everyone of explorers’ protocol, proclaiming that he, the
captain-general, had to be the first.
But there was no-one keeping an eye out, and when the inertia of their
drifting boat reached its finale and hit the sandbank, the jerk pushed Mendaña
over.
Everyone laughed, not even the friars could restrain themselves. Mendaña,
dazed at first, staggered through shallow sea to land. His green suit, blackened
by water and freckled-white with sand, sagged. But the enormity of the situation
overcame his own embarrassment and he spread his arms. He looked down, the earth
was moving, illusion of course, it was really an army of tiny grey-brown shells,
dragged by tinier hermit-crabs, scurrying away in rippling retreat. For a moment
this troubled Mendaña who had never seen such a thing, but quickly recalled the
rules of protocol - what they had always said Columbus had done - he had to drop
to his knees, jab his sword squelching into the sand and kiss the granular-dry
earth before mumbling a prayer. So he did. And while his head was down, his lips
on the sand, a crab raised a claw at him.
The friars were the next ones out of the boat, lifting sack-cloths to
plunge bare-legged into the warm sea. These were followed by a miserable Gallego
and Sarmiento. Ortega, who was always grumpy, made waves.
Once on the beach they dripped and brushed away sand, then collocated
themselves to make a line of honour for the arrival of the crucifix. This was
hovering over water on struggling slaves’ shoulders. The priests looked
severely at these grimacing, wavering cross-bearers. They imagined the collapse
before it happened, but none offered their own shoulder to prevent it. The older
priest even swore as he watched their saviour’s pedestal-ship drown, imagining
Christ’s own head, green and fish-like gaping under the froth of wave-crests.
One slave received the weight of the crucifix on his leg. He did not scream, but
it was obvious from his silent suffering that he needed help. Neither priests
nor officers took one step forward, the subsequent commotion was generated by
Africans, dragging their comrade-victim to shore. When they had rubbed his leg
he could hobble up with a grimace. Then they were all back in the sea again, and
the cross was back on shoulders.
“Now you know why we are Christians...” shouted one of the priests,
as if to scold.
- Perhaps – thought
one of the cross-bearers – but do you know? –
Their water-logged boots slurped and splattered, vomiting sea as the
panting, groaning procession struggled across the white beach to an approximate
centre. There a sergeant threw spades at them. Enough depth was needed to prop
up the weight of wood without roots.
Once the slabs were upright the Christians became downward-looking
reverent. The friars organised prayers and the singing of hymns. Afterwards
Mendaña gave a speech to proclaim that new-found land property of the King of
Spain. A tedious discourse - the yawns were contagious. But on arriving at the
crucial point, Mendaña suddenly stopped and looked up. He had to say where they
were? They had named the bay, but not the rest. A shocked eye fell on Gallego:
“What day did we leave Peru?”
The old sea-man shrugged his shoulders, but the information quickly
spurted from an adjacent priest:
“Santa Isabel.”
Mendaña smiled and resumed:
“The island will be called...” but then:
“Island?” - Was it an island or a continent?... Ophir or the Terra Australis?... They still did not know...
EXCERPT 8: (from CHAPTER 14)
In
the mangrove swamp the soldiers were green with the weed that they had dragged
with them. They were already almost beaten by the squadrons of mosquitoes, but
fear of a brutal death in some flesh-ripping crocodile’s jaws kept them from
complaining. Ortega’s slaves lead them, pushing in jerks through the weight of
water, ripping their feet from the sucking-mud bottom, their arms strained up to
hold food and gunpowder supplies dry. The men behind them were the same, but
with harquebuses over their heads rather than bundles and from a distance they
looked like an advancing field of crucifixes.
Once out of the swamp they had to climb. A steep,
red ridge. Sarmiento looked sympathetically at the stiffed-hipped maestre
de campo, but worried about how long it would take for them to get him up.
Ortega, however, read the alchemist’s face and growled:
“I’ll be at the top long before you, sirrah...
Unless your magic can fly you there,” and he jabbed his staff into mud and
moved.
There was a narrow path up the slope. Treacherous,
not only because of its lack of width, but the red mud was squelching and
slippery soft. They rose in single file, the slaves managing better because they
were bare-foot and they could dig their toes into the clay to support themselves.
The others however seemed to think slave-wisdom a degrading thing and so
preferred to suffer the encumbrance of perpetually sliding soles.
But no sooner had the first soldiers set foot on the path than an echoing and reboant blast of conch-horns rang out. Byje Ban Arra had placed sentries. The pig-thieves, the Islanders realised, were on their way...
Sarmiento
scurried down the steep slope and the sheep evolved into the two legged
creatures he knew to be his men, but their faces, as they gaped up at him,
expressed an ovine-mentality that made him groan. Whenever he stumbled jaws
dropped, as if they were in some of kind of sheep-god beatific trance. He
grimaced when he reached their level. His last step off the slope had been an
awkward one. His right foot had been placed too obliquely and body-weight had
jerked the tendons in his ankle. The spasm of pain made him limp to his men, but
he pushed his way through to where Salacay was being held. The old native sat
cross-legged and grinning, even though he had a machete held over his head.
Sarmiento slapped him:
“You planned this, didn’t you?” and span around. The gormless gapes
of his men now expressed a more substantial awe. Then, returning to the tattooed
Buddha: “You brought us here into this trap.”
Salacay turned his slapped and smarting face away from the accusation:
“You asked me to bring you to the mountain...” and he rubbed his
cheek: “I have...” then turned back, his young eyes, usually calm, now
squinting animosity: “You said you wanted to see if this was an island...”
and licked his red teeth, his pace increasing in urgency: “Now you have seen
for yourselves... Although there was no need... I told you last night all that
you needed to know... Why did you not believe me?...” and his throat tightened
so that the voice rasped: “Why did you have to come here?”
An image of the scene beside the camp-fire returned to Sarmiento’s mind.
They had been huddled there, wrapped in a thick fog. Old Salacay’s voice had
been much softer then, revealing so much, as if he had been desperate to impart
knowledge. He had begun with geography, taking a straight stick for a pen, and
he had drawn a representation in the ash of the cigar-shaped island they were
all on:
“This island is called Mulu-Mulu... a big island, I don’t know its
extremes myself... but an island it is... many have circumnavigated it...” and
then: “There is no need for you to climb now...” and smiled.
But Sarmiento had shaken his head:
“We cannot leave this place until we have confirmed it ourselves,” as
if he were asserting his culture’s nature.
Salacay deliberately made a wry smile and applied his stick to the ash
again, sketching similar shapes around the first representation:
“There are many other islands here that we trade with...” and jabbing
the heart of one of the drawings: “This one is called Malaita...” Then he
waved an open hand across all of the islands, as if blessing them: “We have
some friends and some enemies on each one... Many of them are cannibals... To
the south-west is a very large land, not an island at all... protected by an
enormous reef... I have only heard about it in legends... They say that Paradise
is there...”
But then, on the mountain top, Sarmiento crouched down to his cross-legged
prisoner’s level, nestled up to him, laying his arm around his shoulders and,
whispering:
“This liquor I took from you... That’s what prolongs your life, isn’t
it?”
Salacay was grey-grave:
“Is it?”
“I have tried it and I feel exulted.”
“And if you set fire to it, it would make a pure and bright flame,
emitting no smoke, and would burn forever... But it’s all that I have. And I
cannot make any more, not here.”
Then Sarmiento put his hand under the old man’s beard, to his throat,
and squeezed it:
“What is it?”
“If you kill me you’ll learn nothing.” The hand withered, the neck
widened: “It was made on Ambrym. It’s an amalgam of gold, silver and mercury,
reduced to fluid and filtered seven times through white sand with fire.”
Sarmiento slurped:
“I have these elements on the ship, and a kiln,” but then put his
hand to the throat again: “Yet there is more to this liquor than that, or are
you lying to me?”
Salacay’s face became a wrinkled squint:
“You shouldn’t have taken it... I would’ve given it to you... But
you’re a thief...”
“Are you lying?” and the alchemist-explorer squeezed the old magus’s
throat, forcing a gasp:
“No...” and when the strangle-hold had weakened enough to allow it:
“But you’re right, there’s more. You must mix it with an oil made from the
amber of a certain tree.”
Sarmiento’s body remained still, but his soul jumped:
“What tree?”
The reply was full of commerce-insincerity:
“If you were to be more civil I could show it to you.”
The alchemist’s tone rose with the next interrogative:
“The trees are here?”
While Salacay maintained his hoarse-whisper:
“No. They are further west and south. A vast land. Difficult to find.”
Which brought the hand to his throat again:
“You’re lying. You said you’d never been to that land.”
A creaking croak:
“Very well, it is all a lie. And the liquor is a lie.”
“I’ll kill you.”
“No, you won’t, but perhaps I will die.”
The last word made Sarmiento freeze. A second of stillness. Then erupting:
“Stop talking in riddles!” and he pulled a dagger, thrusting it in
front of the old man’s face: “If you’ve got nothing important to say, I
can cut your tongue, then perform a thousand other amputations before I rip out
your heart.”
The old man gnashed his yellow-red teeth.
“What I’ve said so far is true?”
“And you’ve been to the Great South Land...”
“Aye, but long ago. I went on an Ambrym ship.”
Sarmiento stared deeply into the forehead in front, as if reading the old
man’s mind:
“And there is something else.”
Bringing an immediate submission:
“Yes.”
“Something that is here, on this island.”
“Perhaps, it’s hard to find.”
“Where should I look?”
An arched eye-brow:
“You, or we?”
“Where?!”
Salacay shook his head at the violence:
“It’s found in nature,” then conciliatory: “But if you want me to
show you, return the flask to me.”
“There’s very little left, and I’ve grown quite fond of the taste.”
Now, the old man’s turn to express rage:
“You stole it!”
“If you want more, you’ll have to show me.”
But Salacay just spat at him.
Sarmiento wiped the mess from his cheek, stood up and looked around. Ubi’s
witch-doctors were preparing the battle-field. Painted white with ash-mixed mud,
they looked ghost-like, and they slapped the earth and air with banana leaves as
they chanted :
Let the spears of the strangers be
heavy, let them fall short
Let the clubs of the enemy be heavy, let them fall from their hands
Let the axes of the enemy be heavy, let them fall
Let the arm of the enemy be heavy
Let their legs be heavy...
Their
warriors began putting arrows to their bows or jostling their spears and
gradually a uniform shout came from them.
Ortega came hurtling down the slope:
“Ready!”
The Islanders’ drum-beats quickened, and the men with bows and arrows
seemed to be suddenly vomited out of the line into the space between armies,
racing around the phalanx of invading troops, who were saurian-tough under their
shields.
Sarmiento remained calm, but with finger-tips rubbing hard against the
hilt of his sword:
“Keep your arms up, lads. Harquebuses ready. Hold your fire.”
An Islander screamed as he ran and let go of his tensed string. The arrow
left at an awkward angle, shuddered in the air and slapped obliquely against a
wooden shield. Others followed. Occasionally one would clunk against a helmet,
but they were fired too hastily, from too great a distance to do any damage.
Whenever one of the Islanders stopped to crouch and take proper aim the tortoise-phalanx
would shuffle towards them. This terrifying image created a trembling arm, and
the missile let loose would quiver hopelessly.
The tension in the phalanx began to wane. Some of the soldiers were
laughing at the wobbling, slapping missiles, until there was a sudden chilling
cry. One of them fell with a dart lodged under the side of his helmet, in his
cheek. When a friend kneeled to help, another arrow whistled down and stuck in
the earth between Ortega’s legs:
“Who opened that gap?! You boy! What are you doing, fie!”
“Please, señor. He has an arrow...”
“Your shield, whelp! Get it up!”
Sarmiento peered out through the gaps between the shields. One of the
Islanders, who seemed taller with more paint and adornments than the rest, was
making daring approaches and had a much firmer aim than any of the others.
The alchemist looked toward Bubi and told him to put Salacay in the
charge of Juan López. Then he lifted his arm, indicating that the slave should
follow him:
“We’re going hunting,” reaching at the same time for one of the
harquebusiers. He pushed his ringed fingers under the sharp-shooter’s
breastplate and pulled him with one arm while he pushed their way out of the
phalanx with the other. They emerged in the same area into which the more-daring
warrior was running:
“Come on lads. We’ve got a real feathered turkey-cock to fry.”