Sailors stored their gear in large chests. In addition to clothes, the chests contained simple wooden plates (useful for hurling during impromptu fights), eating utensils, and a jug to hold the daily ration of wine. The chests frequently contained a supply of playing cards—probably the most popular pastime aboard the ships of the Armada de Molucca—and books.
The Inquisition imposed strict censorship laws, and sailors submitted all books they brought to sea for approval. The surviving records afford a glimpse of the reading habits of these men. Most volumes were devotional—the lives of saints, profiles of popes, accounts of miracles, and prayers to recite. Almost as prevalent (and probably more carefully read) were popular stories of derring-do and chivalry, of knights and damsels and vanquished villains. A few histories found their way aboard these ships, but the more literate sailors favored the most celebrated precedent for their own journey, Marco Polo’s Travels.
Magellan’s crew was overwhelmingly Castilian and Portuguese, but representatives of every major country in western Europe, as well as North Africa, Greece, Rhodes, and Sicily filled the ranks. Their number included alliances of natural enemies: Britons and Basques, Flemish and French, all speaking in mutually unintelligible tongues.
The common language aboard Magellan’s fleet was nautical Castilian, which contained specialized terms for every line, clew, and device to be found aboard the ships. In this idiom Magellan and his captains gave orders to the crew. “Izá el trinquete,” they cried, to raise the foresail; “Tirá de los escotines de gabia,” to haul in the topsail sheets. “Dad vuelta,” uttered with special vehemence, meant put your back into it. And there were many other orders, enough to cover every operation a sailor could be expected to perform. “Dejad las chafaldetas” . . . well the clew lines. Alzá aquel briol . . . heave on that buntline. Levá el papahigo . . . hoist the main course. Pon la mesana . . . set the mizzen. Tirá de los scotines de gabia . . . haul in the topsail sheets. The cry of “Suban dos á los penoles” dispatched two sailors, scampering in tandem up the mast, trying not to look down on the heaving deck as they hauled themselves toward the sky; and the order “Juegue el guimbalate para que la bomba achique” sent more hands below to perform the backbreaking labor of working the pumps until the blasted thing sucked water out of the hold. The bilgewater around the pumps was also the most noxious to be found anywhere on the ship, and sailors retched from the stench. Despite the various hardships involved with operating the pumps, they were an absolute necessity at sea; without them, ships slowly took on water till they sank, and operating them exhausted teams of able-bodied seamen. It was not unheard-of for mariners to collapse and die during the ordeal of working the pump to save a ship.
The sailors had their secular chants, or saloma, for the arduous routine tasks they performed. The men knew them all by heart. If they were hauling the anchor, the chanteyman would shout or perhaps sing the first half of the line, and the others, gripping the rope, would complete the second half. “O dio,” cried the chanteyman, “Ayuta noy,” the men replied in unison. “O que somo,” he sang out; “Servi soy” came the reply. “O voleamo . . . Ben servir.” And so on until the order came to make fast the line, and the men fell out to catch their breaths.
The men quickly left behind the identities they had maintained on land for those imposed on them at sea. No longer did it matter if they were Castilians, Greeks, Portuguese, or Genoese; life aboard ship was lived according to a rigid social structure segregating men who nonetheless lived in extremely close quarters and who depended on each other for their survival.
A strict division of labor ruled over all. At the bottom were the pages, assigned to the ships in pairs. Many pages were mere children, as young as eight years old; none were older than fifteen. They were commonly orphans. Not all pages were created equal. Some had been virtually kidnapped from the quays of Seville and pressed into service; if they had not been on ships, they would have been roaming the streets, learning to pick pockets and getting into minor scrapes. They were treated harshly, exploited shamelessly, deprived of adequate pay, and occasionally made the victims of sexual predators among older crew members. Their chores included scrubbing the decks with saltwater hauled from the sea in buckets, serving and cleaning after meals, and performing any menial task assigned to them.
Another class of page lived a very different life, privileged and relatively free of demand, under the protection of officers. These handpicked young men generally came from good, well-connected families, and worked as apprentices for their protectors; they were expected to learn their trade and to rise through the ranks. Their duties were far lighter than those of the unfortunate boys who had been pressed into service.
The privileged pages maintained the sixteen Venetian sand clocks—or ampolletas—carried by Magellan’s ships. Basically a large hourglass, the sand clock had been in use since Egyptian times; it was essential for both timekeeping and for navigation. The ampolletas consisted of a glass vessel divided into two compartments. The upper chamber contained a quantity of sand trickling into the lower over a precisely measured period of time, usually a half hour or an hour. Maintaining the ampolletas was simple enough—the pages turned them over every half hour, night and day—but the task was critical. Aboard a swaying ship, the ampolletas were the only reliable timepiece, and the captain depended on them for dead reckoning and changing the watches. A ship without a functioning ampolleta was effectively disabled.
Operating the ampolletas aboard the armada had religious overtones, and the pages, in their presumed innocence, doubled as the ships’ acolytes. When they turned over the sand clocks, they recited psalms or prayers invoking divine guidance for a safe voyage. Usually, the prayers required a chorus, and they had to chant loudly enough to demonstrate that they were on the job and fulfilling their duties promptly. At the end of the day, their high voices could be heard above the ship’s bawdy clamor, reciting prayers to the Virgin Mary, reminding all of their religious obligations, even here, thousands of miles from home.
Finished with their prayers, the boys called the new watch to their post. “Al cuarto!” they cried. Al cuarto! On deck! On deck! And the members of the day watch staggered to their accustomed places, where they could crouch comfortably against a sheltering plank or overhanging wooden ornament. They might carry a fistful of hardtack or salted fish, and they almost certainly regretted their chronic lack of sleep because night aboard ship was as noisy as day; the ocean never slept, and neither did they.