... and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.
—JOB 39:25
The wind howled him awake: wrenching him from a nightmare of Moors advancing in a wild attack, their women ululating behind them the way they did when they sensed victory, the way it was when he first knew war. It was the wind that had made this dream, that and the hard roll of the ship. For a few seconds he was stunned. Accustomed to war’s nightmares he had no time now to analyse this one. Another battle was taking place.
His ship shuddered around him. From above he heard the loud snap of sail as it filled with a gust and then pounding feet running along the deck. He was up quickly and dressing, grasping at handholds to steady himself. The cabin pitched and rolled throwing him off balance. He sat on the bunk pulling on his boots. The witch was awake. Her hand grabbed his wrist tightly.
“What is wrong?” she asked, her voice matching the grasp of her hand.
“Storm,” he answered shortly. “Sotil was right. It feels bad.”
“You are worried.”
“Feel the ship.”
“What will you do?”
“What I can.”
“I will come with you.”
“Don’t be a fool. Stay here. You’re safer below.”
“Your sailors will blame me for this,” she said.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“That priest will blame me,” she said louder, but he was already gone. The cabin door slammed. She was left alone in the moving dark.
Sheets, cascades of rain met him on the deck driving pellets into his face. Veins of lightning shot the sky turning the night into weird, flashing colours and bursts of thunder cracked with a supernatural violence. Then the ship rolled again and he felt the sea rising up to drown the deck. He grabbed a railing as spume washed over him, tugging at him, wanting to sweep him into its maw. When it passed he climbed quickly up a stern ladder.
Sotil was on the after deck. In the illuminations of lightning Juan Ponce caught a glimpse of his pilot’s face, tight with tension. The boatswain was beside him ready for his commands. Their captain-general greeted them harshly.
“Why was I not awakened?”
“It came upon us but a while ago!” Sotil had to shout to be heard. “It wasn’t so bad until now. I’m sending the helmsman below. The whip staff will do us no good in this. He must be at the rudder.”
“Are all hands stood to?”
“They are, your honour!” the boatswain replied. He was a tough old sea-dog named Fernando Medel, built square and strong and with nerves of iron. He actually smiled as he answered. The boatswain was in his element.
“We must tree the sails!” Sotil ordered. “If it isn’t done quickly, we’ll lose some of them. Have men ready to haul in immediately!”
“Aye, sir!” The boatswain smiled more grimly this time and left for the main deck already relaying orders. His voice was nearly as loud as the thunder.
“Have you any orders, captain-general?” Sotil turned to Juan Ponce.
“It’s your command, pilot. Do what you must but do it quickly. This will get worse.”
“We’ll have to come about and close haul. If it does get worse, it’s our only chance!”
In the lightning bursts Juan Ponce watched his sailors climb the rat lines up to the yards while others stood to at the clew lines ready to release them. He knew how dangerous this was and cursed himself for not listening to his pilot and reefing the sails in the evening calm. Now it was too late and men might die for his error. Glancing across at Sotil he saw the same emotions. But there was no time for recrimination. The pilot stepped up to the railing to shout commands.
At his word men hauled down on the clew lines drawing the main course up into itself. The men on the yard, holding desperately to it with their legs, hauled in and slowly the great sail, fighting them for its freedom, began to furl. Other parties worked the foresail. It was like watching men in a madhouse, the sweeps of rain and waves and wind adding to the illusion as they buffeted the ship. Men clawed at the rigging and shrieked to each other to be heard above the howl. Big breakers lashed at the ship, their tips as high as the freeboard, their spray as they broke upon the deck, iridescent.
There was trouble on the foresail. The hemp had swollen with the wet and the men could not cast loose the lines. Sailors feverishly pulled at the thick ropes. Then the boatswain, cursing fearfully above the wind, took an axe to the lines, cutting them, letting them fly loose writhing like beheaded snakes. The sail, flapping wildly, began to furl. The canvas snapped in the wind like gunfire until the crew gained control of it. Finally, after what seemed hours, the martinets were secured on the yard and the sails were held close to their crosstrees. Immediately, Sotil shouted down the hatch for the helmsman below to come about. He used the wind in the mizzen to push the ship round and for a moment the sturdy caravel seemed to roll almost onto its side. Juan Ponce heard a man scream. He knew what it meant. Someone had lost his hold and been swept overboard. There would be no chance for him. The storm had claimed him for its own.
This is like my dream, thought Juan Ponce. This is like war.
The ship righted itself and faced into the storm, its lateen rigged mizzen holding it there, the helmsman below fighting the rudder to help it. A second helmsman was placed on the rudder as well to help the struggling sailor there who, each time the ship crested a wave and fell back into a trough, was tossed about like a doll on a puppeteer’s stick. Sotil ordered parties amidships to man the pumps. Other men lashed down cargo which had broken loose. The animals, kept below, had panicked. Word came up that two men had been trampled while trying to calm the horses. Mayhem. The storm’s fury increased.
It bent its full force on the caravel. All night it tried and tried again to capsize the ship. It laid traps, ambuscades of deep troughs and wind shifts and huge breakers which would come at the vessel from two sides, choosing courses at random, turning and turning about in a maelstrom of seething water. Dawn came but few noticed, so deep and thick and low were the storm clouds. The air became lion coloured, then almost green.
Below decks, the passenger-colonists fouled the air with sea sickness and the stench of terror. The master-atarms was sent to prevent their attempts to come up to the deck. Once loyal soldiers now seethed toward the hatches stopped by mariners locking the iron grates, imprisoning them in their roiling dungeon. Finally, it became necessary for Juan Ponce himself to confront them.
At the head of the mutineers was the zealot.
Bartolome de las Casas had come to the New World as a soldier. And while most mercenaries had arrived anticipating wealth and glory, the young Bartolome was different. He was an idealist. He had dreamed of the Indies as Columbus once had: a place for a new order and ultimately, a better humanity. What he’d found was not his dream. His employment, he’d discovered, was slaughter. He had served under Juan Ponce de Leon in the past: in the campaign to subjugate that part of the island of Hispaniola which the natives called Higuey. He had looked on as the hunting dogs routed out natives and the Spanish fell upon them with the fury of their arrogance: murdering, burning, turning innocents into slaves, all in the name of God and Mammon.
It had sickened him.
Juan Ponce de Leon had become the island’s governor as a result. Bartolome de las Casas had followed a different route. He’d joined the ranks of Dominican friars, renouncing all worldly possessions, steeping in asceticism and swearing upon his new-found, personal God to defend those hapless natives crushed under the boots of the conquistadors.
He had chosen a very hard life.
It showed in his face. It showed in the pinched flesh and harsh lines of malice, in the bitter, iron eyes which had lost their compassion, in the mouth that so quickly uttered curses upon those who stood against him. For the love which had at first guided him had twisted itself into hatred. The cause had become a crusade. His ideals turned to fanaticism and he, in the end, came to believe himself more important than his faith. He saw himself now as a symbol, a misunderstood Christ to these ignorant savages who so often would not heed his call. As for those Spaniards who scoffed at his evangelism, they would go to hell.
That antipathy was focused now on the man he knew was a hypocrite. He was not fooled by Juan Ponce de Leon’s false prayers or noble status. Even his own inclusion on this damned voyage, forced by the Inquisition, was a sham. For Don Juan was a madman. Las Casas knew this. The old veteran had lost his faith and now made bargains with witches. The fury with which las Casas faced Ponce de Leon was as harsh as the storm above them.
“Open this grate in the name of God!” he screamed through the iron lattice. The captain-general’s weathered face stared balefully back at him.
“You are stirring up trouble again, fray Bartolome,” the old man replied evenly.
“You deny these men freedom?”
“I deny them the deck. We are busy up here.”
“They are not animals to be kept below! Should the ship founder they deserve a chance to save themselves!”
“The ship will not founder. It’s in good hands.”
“It is in the hands of God!”
“As I said. And in those of pilot Sotil.”
“Remove the grate! What right have you to imprison us?”
“The right of my rank,” Juan Ponce replied then raising his voice so the men below could hear, continued. “And should any man disobey my commands he will pay the penalty which is my right to deliver! Return to your quarters! You will only be in the way up here!”
“The men wish to hold prayers for our safety,” las Casas said.
“That can be done just as well below deck. They have you to lead them, friar. Make your church down there.”
“They are in terror!”
“Then soothe them. That is your duty. I go to mine. Master-at-arms, under no circumstance is the grate to be removed. Any attempt to dislodge it is to be met with force. Do you understand, Senor Alvarez?”
“Aye, your honour.”
Juan Ponce leaned close to the grate, face to face with las Casas.
“The difference between us, friar, is that my powers are temporal, yours spiritual. Do not try again to usurp me.”
“God commands all.”
“Just now he’s seen fit to have me command. Mutiny has a harsh penalty.”
“You wouldn’t dare ...”
“Try me, friar.”
The storm raged through that day and into the night. No one slept. No one ate. The only nourishment came from the pounding rain to which men would open their mouths and drink. Late that night Sotil and Juan Ponce noticed some abatement. The swells still rolled and the rain continued yet they had become somehow softened, their violence spent. But the pilot and his commander felt no sense of victory. As in war nothing had been settled. They had merely survived. The enemies once again became allies. The storm passed.
In the fragrant cool air of daybreak, a false dawn shooting up into clearing skies, the wind became constant from the southeast quarter. It was a strong, fine wind. In the paling stars of morning the pilot and his navigators bustled about taking sightings with their astrolabes trying to discover where the storm had blown them. Rosy light touched the clouds in the east. An exhausted crew heard the commands of the boatswain and climbed again to the yardarms. The sails, flapping and crackling as they muscled into a twenty knot wind, filled out, and with the wind abeam the caravel scudded in search of its sister separated from it during the storm. The sea was friendly again.
Las Casas led the men up from below and there celebrated three masses: the prayers for Lauds, those for thanksgiving and finally, the sun turning grey sails to russet as they caught shafts of light, the funeral mass for the dead. All men, even exhausted sailors, took part. Las Casas revelled in the power denied him previously. He glanced up and saw Sotil leaning on the after deck rail. Nowhere, however, could he find Juan Ponce de Leon.
Having posted lookouts for the second ship along with the day’s first watch, the captain-general had gone below. As the prayers were spoken he was at his desk, once again quill in hand. This battle had brought on others within him.
There is no storm so violent as that made by men. I know this now. I was born into war, trained to wage war, cultured in its ways and means. We lived for one purpose then: to take back holy Spain from the infidel Moors. I was at Ronda and then at Malaga when the Reconquista began to bear fruit; when Isabella and Ferdinand allied themselves in marriage and joined together the realms of Castile and Aragon and we began to defeat the Africans. It was, I think now, the last true Crusade and I am still proud to have been part of it.
It was Don Pedro who sent me to my destiny. I went willingly. I had grown tired of the indolence at court and, having failed there, I dreamed of what I thought was a warrior’s glory. My armour shone, my horse pranced as I joined the column of men who set out to fight the holy war. Don Pedro had given me his own sword and I planned to make it more famous.
My first battle was a skirmish, a minuscule gust in the great winds of war. I captained a supply troop then, too young to be trusted on the battle lines. We were ambushed by a squadron of Moors. They rode down on us from a rocky ridge. There was no time for fear. They were upon us and we fought them. I killed a man then; my first. Since then I have killed a hundred men and ordered the deaths of hundreds more but this one I remember the most.
He had dark skin and sleek, long hair. I will always remember his hair flying in the wind as he galloped toward me. He charged his mount into mine trying to bowl us over. His scimitar cut at my head. But my horse had stumbled drawing me out of harm’s way. He charged again. We parried and parted then his horse turned away from mine and in that instant I reached out and thrust my blade into his back. I pulled on my sword and the Moor came with it off his horse to the ground. As he struggled to rise I plunged my mount over him, the hooves battering him. I had no time then to observe the result. I fought on against others and dust rose around us. After a time, I don’t know how long, the Moors retreated. We did not give chase.
When we had cared for our wounded and drunk thirstily from the wineskin of victory, I went back to the place where I had killed a man. He lay there, broken like a child’s doll; his hair caked with dirt and dried blood, his dark skin paled by the yellow dust. I did not grieve for him. He was my enemy. But neither did I rejoice. All I felt was a kind of relief. I had proved myself as a soldier.
Ten years of war followed. I will not recount them. War is like a sea voyage: days of boredom broken by moments of terror. That is all war is. Oh, I advanced through the ranks and brought notoriety upon myself. It was that public repute which gave me a wife I would not otherwise have had. War was good to me. And there were glorious moments, as we called them, as well.
Near the end I was at the great siege of Granada, when Isabella had built the huge camp called Santa Fe, surrounding the Moorish city with a hundred thousand men. In battle our troops were magnificent: not beautiful by any means, but fearsome and well ordered. By then we were good at the business of war. The flags, the horses, the glitter of armour, the noise like a constant rolling thunder, and finally the turmoil of dust rising up to bury the battle within its shadow, beneath which runs every human emotion—this is war in its stormglory. It is only afterward, in that strange peace which follows a battle ... it is afterward when the flies come and the stench of death hangs in the air that one recognizes the cost.
All battles leave scars: those on the body, and those unseen others. I have my share. Wounds are not victories. They are the ravages of the storm. And that which is termed glorious, is not. There is only courage and fear and love ... and war diminishes each one until the word glory becomes their replacement; a word made by desperate men to somehow contrive to make sense of a storm.
I was there at the surrender of the Alhambra. We entered a place which had known only peace for hundreds of years. We entered with arrogance. In those wondrous palaces of delicate arches and perfect gardens and fountains which spilled scented water, our war ended, and we were somehow diminished.
But we could not accept that.
The end of war brings an odd emptiness. To men who have lived close to death for so long, peace is a weak substitution. And so we replaced our peace with another kind of war. Inquisition.
It was that very year when the Genoese first found this new world; bad timing for him, good for us. There were thousands of us then, adventurers with no taste for peace, wandering from one place to another fretting over an Inquisition which persecuted and taxed us. Columbus beckoned. And we came.
We came as conquerors. We had taken back our old world and now wanted this new one. We knew only one way to do it. That is why the world calls us conquistadors. That is why the world fears us. We — I, could not forget war.