The Islands of Unwisdom Page 9

  Pedro Fernandez understood from this that nobody had pressed him, but that he feared news of the piracies would be carried up the coast, in which event the Lieutenant of Paita might call him to account and prevent his departure. He controlled his rising anger, but ‘Don Alvaro,’ he said, ‘you are the leader of this expedition, and it is your duty to take a long view of our needs, not to allow yourself to be brow-beaten by importunate fools who do not understand what they are asking.’

  He excused himself, and went to tell Captain Don Lorenzo of the General’s decision. The Captain was surprised and vexed at the report. ‘Why, Pilot,’ he said, ‘I am pleased that you came to me rather than to the Colonel, who is in a mood to uphold Don Alvaro in all his fantasies. Since Don Bartolomé has taken off his Indians, we have now no prospect of watering here; but to suggest that the men go on half-allowance before the voyage has even begun in earnest, that is intolerable! Besides, if we are to maintain ourselves in those lands, the few arquebuses that we have are insufficient to keep down the natives. Within a few months of our arrival, half of them will be unserviceable, so that we cannot do without the seventy odd laid by for us at Paita. Come with me to the General, and I will talk him back into good sense.’

  Between them they had no difficulty in persuading Don Alvaro to change his mind once more, which he did with many sage and sensible remarks, and others that were less to the point: yet he still endeavoured to justify his earlier decision by saying that there would be less waste if the soldiers knew that we were short of water, and that the consumption of salt meat, which was the cause of scurvy, would be reduced if the water-ration were halved; and, above all, that abstinence was delightful in the sight of God.

  We sailed an hour later, but the frigate was sent ahead with orders to fire a warning gun if it should appear that news of our recent doings had reached the authorities of Paita. As it turned out, the Lieutenant, though well-aware of our depredations, thought it politic not to call the General to account but rather to hasten our sailing by every fair means. There were no royal ships in harbour, and his garrison was reduced by fever.

  Chapter 6

  WHAT HAPPENED AT PAITA

  Quarrels broke out in each port we visited and as Paita, which lies two hundred leagues to the north-west of Callao, is one of the finest harbours on the Peruvian coast, so our finest quarrel was reserved for it. I was taking a nap shortly after our arrival in the early afternoon on the 22nd of April, when angry oaths and shouts echoed down the alley-way, and I drowsily recognized the Colonel’s voice: ‘A thousand pests and furies overtake you, tonsured billy-goat! How dare you poke your long muzzle into my affairs? What business is it of yours whom I send where, and upon what errand? I am the Colonel, and in all military matters I decide, direct and do what I please—subject only to the General’s approval!’

  A soft, urbane answer, the sense of which I did not catch, was cut short by a fresh volley of imprecations. ‘So the sergeant came to consult you? Said that he was afraid of committing a mortal sin if he obeyed my orders? The Devil he did! When I hook him, I swear by Almighty God, I’ll skin him like a ray; and as for you, how dare you abuse your sacred trust as confessor by making mischief between me and my sergeants? By Heaven, I’ll carve you as I would a capon, you father of sodomites!’

  ‘Peace, peace, my son!’ cried the other in a bleating voice—and then: ‘At your peril! Have you no care for your immortal soul?’

  ‘Dear Lord!’ I said to myself, now thoroughly awake. ‘That must be the Vicar.’ I tumbled from my bunk, naked but for a scanty shirt, to rush without knocking into the Great Cabin.

  ‘Quick, for the love of God, Don Alvaro,’ I pleaded. ‘Out into the passage, at once, to prevent bloodshed and worse!’

  The General, who was having his beard trimmed and telling his beads at the same time, gaped blankly at me. ‘Why, if it isn’t little Andrés,’ he said, ‘with his shirt-tails flying! My lad, you look like the virtuous Joseph fleeing from Potiphar’s wife.’

  Doña Mariana burst into a loud laugh. ‘You do the young wretch too much honour, brother-in-law. From the look on his face, I’d say that Potiphar has caught him in the act and is after him with a gelder’s knife.’

  In shame and confusion I snatched a damask cloth from the table and tied it around my waist, with a dumb appeal to Doña Mariana for pardon. ‘Quick, Don Alvaro,’ I repeated, ‘there’s not a moment to lose! The Colonel is on the point of martyrizing Father Juan.’

  He leaped up, the barber’s napkin still around his neck, and followed me to the door, which we reached in the nick of time. The Colonel, with raised fist and face a-glow, was advancing down the alley-way towards us. The Vicar, his silver cross raised high, retreated before him, step by step, feebly reiterating: ‘Avaunt, sinner, avaunt!’ As the door burst open, the good Father tumbled into my arms, almost senseless with terror. I pulled him in and sat him on a chest, leaving Don Alvaro to confront the Colonel.

  All honour to the General: he showed no sign of fear but only a gentle sorrow. ‘O noble Don Pedro Merino!’ he exclaimed. ‘How could you so forget yourself as to raise a hand in anger against our spiritual leader? Come, my lord, calm yourself and tell me what has so provoked you.’

  The Colonel’s fist dropped and he bowed in some confusion. ‘Will it please your Excellency,’ he asked, bubbling over with wrath, ‘to instruct the Vicar that he has no right to meddle with military affairs? I ask this for his own good, because his impudence had almost led me to an act of sacrilege; you arrived in time to save him from death and myself from damnation.’

  ‘My lord,’ Don Alvaro replied softly, ‘I know you for a pious and dutiful officer; it is only the chicha that makes a sinner of you. A horned Indian devil lurks in that cup of poison. Avoid it altogether, man, or practise decent temperance.’

  ‘That is good advice, good advice indeed,’ sighed the Colonel gustily. ‘But once that little Indian devil has gained a foothold in my guts I have a right to expect my neighbours either to show Christian charity or give me a wide berth; the Vicar has monstrously exceeded his rights by persuading a sergeant to disobey my orders.’

  ‘If you have the hardihood, my son, tell the General what the order was, and let him judge between us,’ the Vicar gasped, his lips blue and his hands gripping the edge of the chest.

  ‘What I may have told the sergeant,’ the Colonel blustered, ‘is not to the point, and nobody’s business but my own, least of all a priest’s.’

  Don Alvaro observed his embarrassment and used it as a handle for controlling him; which he did effectually enough. While I returned to the Chart-room to pull on my hose, he summoned Captain Don Lorenzo as a witness and reconciled the two men in his presence. However, though they parted with professions of esteem and promised to forget what had taken place, the Vicar was vexed that the General had not expressed greater detestation of the Colonel’s impious threats, and the Colonel nursed a resentment that Don Lorenzo had stood by when he knelt to kiss the Vicar’s crucifix and humbly asked his pardon. Nobody, to this day, knows what the order was that the sergeant hesitated to obey; many guesses have been made, most of them crude and extravagant, but they are not to the point.

  The Vicar returned to his breviary, the Colonel to his bottle; and all was quiet once more. But less than half an hour later, trouble broke out afresh. It so happened that Don Diego de Barreto’s orderly was wearing a bunch of coloured ribbons and a silk picture tied in his cap, and another large bunch on his breast. The Colonel came upon him suddenly outside a cabin and, fetching him a kick, asked: ‘Tell me, mule, who’s your drunken master, and when is he riding you to market with the turnips?’

  The soldier, taken aback, turned to revenge himself, but when he recognized the Colonel, answered civilly enough: ‘If it please your honour, I’m Juan de la Roca, Ensign Diego de Barreto’s orderly, at your honour’s orders.’

  ‘And did the noble Ensign tell you to make a Christmas fool of yourself, to the disgrace of your company, by dr
essing up in this trumpery, contrary to regulations?’

  ‘Yes, your honour, I have his permission; I should not have ventured otherwise. He knows that this is the Vigil of Saint Joseph, and that I am from San José, beyond Cherrepé, where every loyal son is now wearing the same finery for love of our patron.’

  ‘Of all the saints in the calendar,’ bawled the Colonel, tearing off the ribbons and stamping on them, ‘yours is the most repugnant to me, and to any other man of honour! Have you never heard how he rebuffed Our Lady when she was with child and had a craving for cherries? Let me not catch you in carnival dress again, peasant, unless on Shrove Tuesday, and meanwhile’—here he raised his stick—‘take that, and that, and that as a reminder.’

  Captain Don Lorenzo stepped out of the cabin which he shared with his two brothers, and curtly asked the Colonel in what way the orderly had offended.

  ‘Pray don’t pretend, Captain, that you are ignorant of his offence,’ said the Colonel, mimicking the other’s Galician accent. ‘I am aware that this insolent blockhead made a mock of his uniform with your connivance—tricking himself out like an abbess’ lap-dog and then, to heap insult on injury, invoking the patronage of the repulsive Saint Joseph.’

  ‘But before you took a stick to him,’ said Don Lorenzo, restraining his anger with difficulty, ‘would it not have been better to complain to my brother or myself of his terrible breach of regulations? In any case, the man is not on duty, and since we Barretos feel a peculiar devotion to Saint Joseph, I authorized him to wear these ribbons while he waited on us. We are at this moment celebrating the good Saint with cakes and wine, and shall be truly honoured if you consent to join our company.’

  ‘I would rather eat turds with gipsies in a cave!’ the Colonel roared, brandishing his stick again, and at that the cabin door burst open and Don Diego came rushing out and accidently jostled him. The Colonel, to whom action always came before reflexion, brought down his stick on Don Diego’s head, making him stagger and nearly fall. Afterwards he pretended not to have known who his assailant was; but the Ensign now knew one thing which he swore never to forget, namely the weight of that loaded stick.

  Worse was yet to follow. The Barreto brothers were bewildered and stood irresolute, but their sergeant had witnessed the assault, and when the Colonel raised his stick for another blow, ran forward and gripping his own beard, cried angrily: ‘If your honour does not desist, I swear…’

  The Colonel dropped the stick, drew his sword and lunged furiously at the sergeant, who turned and scrambled up to the half-deck as nimbly as a monkey, the point of the sword having passed between his legs and scratched the skin of his thigh.

  ‘Halt that mutineer!’ shouted the Colonel at the top of his lungs. ‘I mean to spit him like a thrush!’

  ‘To murder an unarmed man will earn you little honour, Don Pedro Merino,’ said the Captain coolly, and the Colonel had the sense to sheathe his sword and pick up his stick, with which he stamped off to the Great Cabin.

  I sat there with the General, writing at his dictation, but with frequent interruptions and amendments from Doña Ysabel, fulsome excuses to the Viceroy for what we had done in the past twelve days. He looked up with a weary smile. ‘And what is it now, my lord?’ he asked. ‘So much noise came from the alley-way that I could hardly collect my thoughts. I hope that you have reprimanded the culprits, whoever they may be?’

  ‘Indeed, your Excellency, I have,’ answered the Colonel, quick to take his cue, ‘and I beg your permission to have Sergeant Dimas, the chief offender, publicly flogged. I demand two hundred lashes.’

  ‘That is the same sergeant, is it not, who complained against you to the Vicar?’

  ‘The same mutinous dog! Just now, when I went to protest against the unsoldierlike behaviour of certain officers who were feasting in their cabin, an ensign dared jostle me and, when I defended myself, this Dimas put his hand to his beard and uttered threats.’

  ‘If that is so…’ said Don Alvaro.

  ‘If that is so?’ the Colonel shouted back.

  ‘Since that is so,’ Don Alvaro conceded, ‘I can only grant your request. But what the sergeant did is one thing, and what my officers do is another. I am grieved beyond words that you should have come to blows with an ensign, and I trust that you will allow yourself to be reconciled to him in my presence before any vengeance is exacted from the sergeant. It seems to me that Dimas’s offence is that he took his officer’s part in a quarrel which he should never have been allowed to witness.’

  Don Lorenzo, Don Diego and the third brother, Don Luis, had meanwhile sent a message to Doña Ysabel, begging her to come at once without attracting the General’s attention; and when, after a brief absence, she returned to the Great Cabin, I could see that she was very angry.

  ‘Don Alvaro,’ she said, in her sweetest voice, ‘I have come on my brothers’ behalf, to plead for Sergeant Dimas. Like his namesake whom Our Saviour pardoned from the Cross itself he appears, in spite of what has been said against him, to be a man of courage and good principles.’ But here her indignation broke through suddenly. ‘He intervened to save my brother Don Diego from a brutal and unprovoked attack by the Colonel. If the sergeant is flogged, or so much as touched, the honour of my family will be involved.’

  ‘And if this mutineer is not flogged,’ shouted the Colonel, riding the high horse, ‘I will resign my appointment at once and go ashore—’

  ‘To a brothel, well-stocked with plump little ten-year-old negresses, you stinking satyr, where you’ll swill chicha until you vomit!’ interrupted Doña Mariana from her seat at the window.

  ‘If you were not a noblewoman,’ the Colonel replied, holding himself in gallantly, ‘and if I were not a man of great refinement and consummate patience, so help me God! I would spill your brains on the cabin floor.’ He flung his stick into a corner and marched out, slamming the door behind him.

  The General wrung his hands. ‘Now we are utterly undone!’ he moaned. ‘Doña Mariana, why in the name of the five wise virgins could you not have held your tongue?’

  ‘And I suppose you wish that I had done the same?’ Doña Ysabel asked contemptuously. ‘My sister spoke like a true Barreto.’

  ‘Light of my life,’ cried Don Alvaro, catching her hands and kissing them with devotion, ‘have nine years of marriage to me not taught you that the honour of your family is as dear to me as my own? Pray let the Colonel have his way this one time more; otherwise, he’ll go ashore and carry a long tale to the Lieutenant. Then we shall not only be refused water and arms, but may even be detained in Paita for months until the Viceroy has considered our case.’

  After swearing me to silence, Doña Ysabel motioned me to leave and I missed the remainder of their talk. On deck, I could hear the Colonel demanding with threats and insults to be put ashore in the skiff, and presently Don Alvaro emerged from the Great Cabin. I followed, and I heard him say in a low voice as he embraced the Colonel: ‘Pray my lord, do not take offence at my sister-in-law’s sharp tongue! I have scolded her well, and you may depend upon it that she will do heavy penance for those shameful words. Now I beseech you to remain with us. Did I not uphold your authority in the sergeant’s case by ordering an immediate flogging?’

  The Colonel protested that he would not stay in a ship where such small respect was paid to his rank and age, but I could see that he was somewhat mollified and would consent to remain. At this delicate point, however, the Chief Pilot came up, and begged the General to postpone the flogging. He explained that the sergeant had offered the Colonel no violence at all but only protested against his unprovoked attack on the Ensign.

  ‘That will be quite enough, Sir,’ said the General sternly. ‘In future, I shall thank you to confine your suggestions to naval affairs and leave military decisions to the Colonel and myself.’

  The Chief Pilot was not to be put off. ‘You must either listen or say goodbye to me,’ he said. ‘The whole forecastle will be in an uproar if the sergeant suffers any furthe
r indignity. Already he has been unmercifully punched and kicked across the deck by the Colonel’s guards.’

  ‘He put his hand to his beard, which is surely a sort of mutiny?’ said the General, wavering. The Chief Pilot pressed his advantage. ‘Since not only the Colonel’s honour is at stake but also that of your brothers-in-law, it is your duty as flotilla-commander to call witnesses and make a thorough investigation of the case, instead of allowing one man to be at once prosecutor, judge and executioner.’

  Don Alvaro beckoned to the Boatswain, who stood at a respectful distance. ‘Come, honest friend, what have you to say in the matter?’

  ‘With all respect to the Colonel, your Excellency, and though it’s no business of mine, the Chief Pilot is not far out. If your honour does not think twice, I warrant that by nightfall there won’t be a single seaman left in the ship who’s fit to handle sail.’

  Much discomfited, Don Alvaro turned again to the Colonel. ‘My dear lord,’ he quavered, ‘since it appears that my officers do not see eye to eye with your lordship, you will perhaps not object to a formal court of enquiry? When you have proved, as I have every confidence you will, that you were moved only by a desire to maintain good discipline, and that the right is on your side, then the punishment will be dealt out to the full number of lashes, and all trouble-makers silenced.’

  But before he had finished this speech the Colonel had climbed over the bulwarks and down a Jacob’s ladder.

  ‘And Sergeant Dimas?’ asked Doña Ysabel, appearing at her husband’s side. ‘Is he not to be released now? The Chief Pilot spoke up like a champion. Indeed, he seems to be the only officer on board, with the exception of my brothers, who has spirit enough to decry injustice.’