More industrious crew members busied themselves in bending and decorating the sails for the ships, restoring the rigging, and making sure the vessels would be able to withstand the rigors of the journey home. When hoisted, the sheets revealed a freshly painted design: an elaborate cross and beneath it the legend, “This is the sign of our good fortune.”
As that bold legend indicated, the officers and crew of the armada were proud of their accomplishments. Their voyage finally demonstrated what Columbus and so many other explorers had failed to show, that a water route to the Moluccas existed, and that it was possible to reach the East by sailing west. Those who had survived the grueling journey could look back on countless moments of courage and even heroism that helped to bring them to this place, and they could console themselves with dreams of glory and avarice.
As the hour of departure approached, the pace of activity quickened. The fleet took on board eighty casks of water and a supply of wood cut by one hundred laborers assigned to the task by the king of Bacan, who rallied to the cause of the armada and Spain. To seal the alliance, he arranged a meeting on the neighboring island of Mare with representatives of the armada (including Pigafetta) and Almanzor. The ceremony was impressive: “Before the king walked four men with drawn daggers in their hands. In the presence of our king and of all the others he said that he would always remain in the service of the king of Spain, and that he would save in his name the cloves left by the Portuguese until the arrival of another of our fleets, and he would never give them to the Portuguese without our consent.”
To demonstrate his good faith, he gave the armada a slave as a present for the king of Spain; two additional bahars of cloves (he would have sent ten, but the ships were so heavily laden with spices that there was no room); and “two extremely beautiful dead birds,” which caught Pigafetta’s imagination. “The people told us that those birds came from the terrestrial paradise, and they call them bolon diuata, that is to say, ‘birds of God.’” The birds of paradise, as they came to be known throughout Europe, were as celebrated as the cloves, a token of heaven on earth. Maximilian of Transylvania reported that the Moors believed the birds were born in Paradise, spent the entire lives aloft, never falling from the sky until they died. Anyone who retrieved their skins and wore them in battle was supposed to be protected from harm. So these were extremely valuable presents, as Pigafetta realized at the time.
On the day of departure, the kings of all the Spice Islands assembled on the island of Mare to see the fleet off. Victoria weighed anchor and set sail, standing off the harbor awaiting Trinidad, the flagship, to join her. The ships’ gunners fired their artillery one more time, but in the midst of the excitement, Trinidad’s cables fouled and to the dismay of everyone, she began taking on water. None of the eyewitnesses supplied a reason for the near-disaster; most likely, the ship had not been adequately repaired during the long layover on Cimbonbon. But the leak was worse than ever, and she was in danger in losing her cargo of spices.
With her sister ship in distress, “Victoria returned to her anchorage, and we immediately began to lighten Trinidad to see whether we could repair her. We found that the water was rushing in as through a pipe, but we were unable to find where it was coming in. All that and the next day we did nothing but work the pump.” The work was grueling, but necessary. The loss of Trinidad would have been a disaster, depriving the armada of the rewards of its long-sought-after spices. Even worse, Victoria lacked room to hold the crews of both vessels. The arduous pumping continued until the men were exhausted, “but we availed nothing.” Laden with spices, the flagship of the fleet was on the verge of sinking at her mooring.
After all the pomp and circumstance, not to mention the gongs, girls, and parrot feathers surrounding the fleet’s departure, the situation was humbling, indeed. And it was just the sort of mishap that Magellan would likely have prevented, because he had always been meticulous about the condition of his ships and saw to it that they were seaworthy at all times. Trinidad had fallen into disrepair from sheer neglect, and with that ship disabled, the officers’ hasty decision to burn Concepción returned to haunt them. Not even Magellan would risk taking one, and only one, ship all the way from the Spice Islands back to Spain.
As soon as Almanzor—“our king”—heard about the plight of Trinidad, he sprang into action, boarding the afflicted ship and prowling below deck, trying to locate the source of the damnable leak, but without success. Then, “He sent five men into the water to see whether they could discover the hole. They remained more than one half hour under water, but were quite unable to find the leak.” The ship was listing badly, and desperate measures were required. “Seeing that he could not help us and the water was increasing hourly, [he] said almost in tears that he would send to the head of the island for three men, who could remain under water a long time.” Almanzor went in search of them, as the ship slowly but unmistakably settled into the water.
After an anxious night, Almanzor reappeared with the men by the first light of dawn. “He immediately sent them into the water with their hair hanging loose so that they could locate the leak by that means.” Water entering into ship would draw strands of their hair into its current. But even these men failed to locate the leak, and when they emerged, grim-faced, from the water, the king finally broke down in tears. Who among them, he pleaded, would be able to return to Spain now and tell King Charles about the loyalty of the king of Tidore?
Pigafetta and the others tried to calm the distraught ruler by describing their new plan for returning to Spain. “We replied to him that Victoria would go there in order not to lose east winds that were beginning to blow, while the other ship, until being refitted, would await the west winds and go then to Darién, which is located in another part of the sea in the country of Yucatán.” In other words, Elcano would take Victoria on a westerly course, which was the most direct route back to Spain. But it brought special dangers because it cut a swath through the Portuguese hemisphere, as defined by the Treaty of Tordesillas. If Portuguese navigators captured a Spanish ship loaded with spices in their waters, they would be merciless. Trinidad’s course home promised even greater risks. Once she was repaired, she would try to catch favorable winds carrying her along an easterly course to the American continent. Her cargo of spices would then be transferred to mules, and the beasts would carry the spices to another Spanish fleet heading for Seville.
As devoted and helpful as ever, Almanzor pledged no fewer than 250 carpenters to perform “all the work” required to return Trinidad to seaworthiness, and he promised to treat all the sailors who remained behind as if they were his own sons, vowing that “they would not suffer any fatigue beyond two of them to boss the carpenters in their work.” The king’s sincerity and generosity finally wore away the officers’ skepticism: “He spoke these words so earnestly that he made us all weep.”