Caribbean by James A. Michener
SAT 21 NOVEMBER: 56° 10′ South. Yes, that’s right. I’ve checked it with my backstaff every time the sun has peeked through the frozen clouds and my numbers confirm a miserable story of lost channels, frustration, despair and freezing fingers. Since Master Rodrigo has never sailed through the Strait of Magellan connecting the South Sea of the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean, and since heavy cloud has enveloped us almost from the time we captured our last Spanish ship, no one aboard really knew what we were doing, and several sailors told me: ‘Lucky you know how to work that astrolabe, else we’d be totally lost.’ If my sightings are right and if our charts do not lie, which they may, we have missed Magellan completely and are well down toward the South Pole. But at least we’ve found open water, so tomorrow the navigator and I will advise Captain McFee to head north, for I’m convinced we have rounded Cape Horn and are now in the Atlantic Ocean, but I’m not much impressed with my company of buccaneers who do not even know what ocean we’re in.
SUN 29 NOVEMBER: Day of miracles! Lost in the bitter cold of wherever we are, I calculated from my sighting of the sun that we must be about 52° 10′ South and that the nest of feathery clouds I had kept watching for the last two days to the northeast must be hanging over some island not shown on our maps. Presenting my conclusions to Captain McFee, I recommended that he sail in that direction, but he said: ‘Go to hell. No boy tells me where to sail,’ and he refused. Now the sailors, convening a meeting, elected to throw him from command yet again ‘for that he missed Magellan and the whole end of South America,’ but their arrogance did not hide their fear at being lost in an unknown ocean.
So for some minutes we were without a captain, and then the miracle happened, for my uncle cried in a loud voice: ‘The islands! Just where the lad said they’d be!’§ And when the frightened men looked, they saw the fine green islands promising fresh water and fresh deer meat, and Will shouted again: ‘Damn me, only one seems to know where we are is the lad,’ and the men cheered and elected me their captain, with the firm orders: ‘Take us home, son.’
So here I am at age twenty, nigh onto twenty-one, in command of the Spanish galleon, later English fighting ship Giralda, with a crew of forty-one battle-tested Englishmen, nine Spanish sailors who chose to stay with us and seventeen slaves, fourteen Indians, Mompox, Master Rodrigo, Fray Baltazar and the two Ledesma women, plus a hold heavy in silver bars.
Where are we? I know only that we have come safely into the Atlantic and that our home refuge of Port Royal lies some six thousand seven hundred miles to the north, if our captured charts are correct. As captain responsible for the safe passage of my ship, I have to suppose that sooner or later we must encounter some big Spanish warship that can outman, outgun and outfight us, and that I want to avoid. In the few hours since I was given command, I have thought not of the easy way we captured small Spanish ships but of the way we fled before big Spanish ships at Panamá, Lima and Arica, and of how Spanish soldiers, when in good supply, punished us at the silver port. I have decided that to be a proper buccaneer, a man does not have to be a fool.
SAT 12 DECEMBER: 34° 40′ South off the coast at Buenos Aires, where an entirely new event has occurred, to my enormous surprise. As captain of our ship I now take my meals in the cabin where the Ledesma women and their priest eat, and this has put me face-to-face, three times each day, with the adorable Señorita Inés, and I think I can speak for us both, certainly for me, when I write with trembling hand and beating heart that we have fallen wonderfully, magnificently in love. She has proved highly skilled in slipping away from both her mother and her priest and finding me where they cannot. The other evening we had near to three hours alone, and it was, well, sort of overwhelming. When she slipped away she whispered: ‘Ned, I feel it in my heart that at the end of this cruising we shall be married,’ and I assured her: ‘That becomes my whole aim.’
This noon, after I had shot the sun, with the results penned above, I asked at the table: ‘Where’s Señorita Inés?’ and her mother said smugly: ‘Locked in her cabin,’ and when I gasped, the priest asked with a slight sneer: ‘And who do you think’s guarding the door?’ and when I said I couldn’t guess, he said: ‘Your uncle.’
Yes, the sternest enemy of my love for Inés is my own uncle, who said, when I stormed out to challenge him: ‘Boy, your life could be …’ I tried to brush him aside: ‘I’m not a boy. I’m the captain of this ship,’ but I could not budge him. He was siding with the priest and Señora Ledesma for the good of my soul, he said, and because no Englishman with Tatum blood in his veins should marry a Spaniard.
So three determined people, two Spanish, one English, have banded together to prevent headstrong Señorita Inés and determined me from a pledge of our love. Last night, I can tell you, they failed, not because of anything bold that I did but because Inés escaped while Fray Baltazar was guarding her, ran swiftly into the cabin where I was sleeping, and barred the door from the inside. With sweet abandon she threw herself into my arms, crying: ‘Ned, I cannot live without you … so brave … captain of your own ship … so much desired.’ Well, I can tell you I was overwhelmed by her bold action, and especially what she kept saying as she poured kisses on my trembling lips: ‘We shall be married.’ This was exactly what I had dreamed about on the long passages south to the Cape, and I began to think that marriage with this delectable girl was possible, regardless of how vigorously her mother and my uncle might object.
But even as she made her professions of love, which I accepted as the kind of miracle that occurs when a man became captain of a fine ship, a great knocking came at my cabin door, and we could hear Señora Ledesma and Fray Baltazar, the one voice high, the other low, pleading with Inés to open the door and behave like a proper Spanish young lady. She refused, crying repeatedly: ‘I shall not open till you agree that Ned and I can move about his ship as we decide,’ and it seemed to me, listening to their knocking and her response, that a great scandal must be under way, with my crew aware of everything, and I wondered what the effect would be.
The problem faded into insignificance in view of what happened next, for I heard my uncle shouting in the early dawn: ‘Spanish ship! Attack!’ and such a clatter arose that I had to know that our Giralda was rushing full speed ahead and girding her decks for an assault. It was, I saw, pretty ridiculous for me to be locked in my cabin, prisoner of a Spanish lass, when the ship I was supposed to be commanding was bearing down on an enemy who might prove to be well armed.
‘I must go!’ I cried to Inés, striving to break free, but she stood by the barred door and refused to let me open it, and I spent the next minutes in a frenzy of indecision, with Señora Ledesma banging on my door, Fray Baltazar thundering anathemas, and my uncle speeding my ship into battle against an enemy I could not see and whose strength I could not estimate. I realized it was a sad position for a captain to be in, but I saw no escape, and with Inés in my arms I awaited the clash of arms that would come when the sailors of the Giralda tried to board the fleeing Spanish ship.
It was a frightening two hours, locked in that cabin with the girl I loved. We could hear the ships collide, the swift movement of feet on the deck, the play of swords so far distant that it must come from the deck of the other ship, the echoes of salute guns being fired, and eventually the cries of victory. Only then did Inés let me go.
When I came onto the deck I found Will about to make eleven Spanish prisoners, weighted with chains, walk the plank to instant death. ‘No!’ I shouted. ‘Let them have a small boat. Better yet, let them have their own ship with the masts cut away.’
When my uncle and the usual hotheads who could be depended upon to support his piratical deeds refused to obey my commands, I shouted: ‘Stop it! I’m your captain,’ and two of the men shouted back in the same breath: ‘Not anymore, hiding in your cabin while we fight,’ and a meeting was held then and there which deposed me and once again restored Mister McFee to his original command.
When buccaneers try to run ships, they c
I had been captain for fifteen days, during which time I moved our ship homeward from 56° South to 34°. It could be said that during my captaincy we captured this Spanish vessel without the loss of an English life and that I received a proposal of marriage from a most wonderful Spanish girl. A lot of buccaneer captains take a longer time to achieve less.
But with the new order of things I was no longer allowed to take my meals with the Ledesma women and the priest, so I must devise some trick to see once more the girl who loves me.
FRI 25 DECEMBER: Well off the coast at 22° 53′ South, opposite Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. This afternoon all the bitterness I have harbored against Fray Baltazar vanished, for when the entire ship’s company had gathered on the afterdeck during a fine spring afternoon for holy services honoring the birthday of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the tall, dark priest said, following his prayers: ‘Let there be harmony on this blessed day. I have prayed in Catholic Spanish for my countrymen, will you pray in Protestant English for yours,’ and to my amazement he placed his Spanish Bible in my hands, and I was so moved that for some moments I could not speak, but then I heard my uncle’s voice growling: ‘Get on with it, lad,’ and a torrent of words sprang from my lips:
‘Almighty God, we have come a long voyage in our sturdy ship, and we have helped one another. We could not have navigated the coast of the Spanish Main without the guidance of Master Rodrigo, and for his good work we give thanks. We have been aided by the prayers and guidance of Fray Baltazar, a worthy priest. Three times we’ve called upon Captain McFee to command this ship, and may he get us home safely at last with our treasure intact.’
It was simply impossible for me to close a Christmas prayer without mention of the girl I had come to love, so to the astonishment of the crew I added:
‘Dear God, I in particular thank Thee for having let me know on this long voyage a blessed young woman whose courage never faltered on dangerous days or failed to inspire on good. She has been one of our best sailors, so protect her wherever her voyaging takes her.’
As I said these words she broke away from her mother and came to stand by me, and no one sought to take her away. And as she stood there I thought of the remarkable adventures my band of buccaneers has known: the hasty decision to go our own way after Captain Morgan stole our just rewards; the long march and sail across the isthmus; the battles; the soaring victories against vast odds; the defeats at Panamá and Arica; the little ships we captured and the big ones from which we ran; the Clouds of Magellan at night; the Strait of Magellan that we never found … And then a hand of ice seemed to grip my heart, and in a low voice I ended my prayer:
‘Merciful God who protects sailors and brings them home after long voyages, send Thy special love on this holy day to the Indian David, castaway on Juan Fernández, alone. Send a ship to rescue him and bring us all safely back to our home ports.’
FRI 8 JANUARY IN THE NEW YEAR 1672: On this day when nothing of significance happened, not even a good meal or a fight among the men, we crossed the equator and all began to breathe with more excitement, for we are nearing Port Royal.
FRI 29 JANUARY: Day of victory, day of despair! For some days Captain McFee, Uncle Will, Fray Baltazar and I have held urgent meetings to devise a plan for delivering the Ledesma women and our prisoners into proper Spanish hands, and to collect a ransom if it could be arranged. No one, not even my uncle, wants to kill or otherwise harm them, but to sail boldly into Cartagena with them would be too risky. They do not want us to land them in Port Royal, where they would have no assurance of ever making their way back to Cartagena, where their families await them.
Captain McFee and my uncle were determined to get rid of them, because to keep them might involve too many problems, but how to do this they did not know. So it was left to Fray Baltazar and me to plan some procedure, and as we began talking on a corner of the afterdeck I asked if I could invite Mompox to join us, since he as a man of color had so much to gain or lose by what we did, and Fray Baltazar countered: ‘And I should like to have the assistance of Master Rodrigo, our navigator,’ to which I agreed.
When we were assembled, the priest said gravely: ‘We’re talking about life and death. A mistake, and we could all die. So let us seek the right conclusions.’
Mompox said with admirable clarity: ‘Considering my color, I must not go wherever men of ill will can throw me into slavery. Not Cartagena. Not Barbados. Not Jamaica. And not the southern American colonies.’
‘What’s left?’ Baltazar asked and Mompox said: ‘Put me on some trading ship to Boston,’ and we agreed that if possible we would do so.
‘Now, how do we get the Ledesmas back to Cartagena?’ Baltazar asked, and I broke in: ‘Inés stays with me,’ and he said in that grave voice I had come to respect: ‘My son, it cannot be. She is of one world, you of another.’ Very firmly he added: ‘It will not work. It will never happen.’ When he saw my dismay he added: ‘My son, you’ve had great triumphs on this voyage. Captain of your own ship. Successful in battle. Courage that no man can challenge. Leave it at that.’ Seeing that I was still distraught, close to tears, really, he said: ‘My son, the voyage ends. The ship sails into its harbor and new lives begin, lives of honor and dignity, and proper loves. Believe me, believe me, she to her haven, you to yours. That’s the better way.’
I was unwilling to accept such a decision, but then I heard a sailor ask apprehensively: ‘How do you make such an exchange?’ and Master Rodrigo said: ‘When we pass the isle of Trinidad we sail west along the Spanish Main until we meet a Spanish ship. We signal our peaceful intentions, we meet, and we Spaniards transfer over to the other ship.’
‘How can we send such a signal?’ I asked, and Fray Baltazar replied: ‘I don’t know, but we must.’
When we gathered all hands to explain what our tactics were going to be, both the Spanish side and the English immediately saw the danger, as Captain McFee said: ‘They’ll think we’re pirates and run. And if we chase after them, they’ll fire upon us, and then by God, we’ll sink them.’
‘I would trust no Spanish ship,’ Will rumbled, and many of our men supported him, but Master Rodrigo said: ‘There is no other way,’ and my uncle said grudgingly: ‘We’ll try, but I and my men will have our guns trained on them every minute,’ and Master Rodrigo said: ‘And I am sure they’ll have their guns on us. In the meantime, make us two big white flags, very big, with the word PAX painted in blue letters on each.’
For the rest of that day we coasted along the northern line of Trinidad, and five days later we passed the great salt pans at Cumaná where the battles with the Dutch fleets had occurred. Then, this morning, when we had almost given up any chance of encountering a Spanish vessel, we came upon one, and a ridiculous affair developed.
They, seeing us and our rakish form with cannon, decided that we were buccaneers about to board them, and fled, while we, with our two white flags aloft, chased after them. But the harder we tried to overtake them, the faster they scampered away, and it looked as if our plan would end in disruption, when Captain McFee made a clever maneuver which put the Giralda directly ahead of the Spanish ship, whereupon it had to slow down. Then he ordered a small boat to be lowered, and into it climbed Master Rodrigo, Fray Baltazar, my uncle and me, and with our own small white flag showing, we rowed over to the startled Spaniar
The two messages, especially the latter, had a volcanic effect. Two boats were lowered, white flags were hastily improvised and the captain himself, after concluding that we were telling the truth, leaped down, followed by three other officers, and rowed almost frantically to our ship. When we four climbed aboard with them, we witnessed a most unusual scene. The captain, spotting Señora Ledesma and her daughter, ran forward, bent down on one knee, and kissed the mother’s hand, saying in a loud voice: ‘I greet you, Condesa de Cartagena!’ and when Inés’ mother showed surprise, the other officers crowded about to tell the good news: ‘Yes! The king has made your husband Conde de Cartagena!’
It was then that my despair began, for it was obvious that both the Spaniards and the Englishmen were eager to get the prisoners off our ship and onto theirs, and as the first small boats pulled away filled with sailors and common prisoners, the four important Spaniards—Rodrigo, Baltazar and the two Ledesma women, now the wife and daughter of a count—prepared to leave us. Our sailors helped the two men to gather the rude possessions they had acquired during our voyage together, and Mompox and I helped the women, but when I had Señorita Inés’ baskets packed and I started toward the rough ladder with them, anguish choked me, and I could not bear to think that I was bidding farewell to this precious young woman who loved me and who I loved with all my heart. It was an anguish I could not bear, and when she ran to kiss me goodbye, I thought: I can never let her go. But then Fray Baltazar put his arm about me and drew me away: ‘Remember, lad, all ships come home to harbor. Ours heads west, yours east,’ and he embraced me, adding as he climbed down into the waiting boats: ‘You’ve played the man, Ned, and you can be proud.’