‘And what will the Chamorro do with the patache’s crew?’
Hector forced a smile that he hoped she’d find reassuring. ‘A living Spaniard is more valuable as a hostage to the Chamorro than a dead one,’ he explained.
Even as he spoke the words, Hector had misgivings. He knew of only one prisoner taken by the Chamorro – the interpreter who had run away from the beach when they first landed from the Nicholas. Ma’pang had told him the wretched man had been caught farther along the coast. Regarding him as a traitor and turncoat, the Chamorro left his body on the shore with a spear driven through his mouth.
FOURTEEN
IT REQUIRED TWO TEAMS of Chamorro, forty men in all, to haul the sakman from her boathouse. They chanted as they heaved on the heavy coir ropes, and the vessel emerged into the evening light looking, Hector thought, like a crouching sea beast reluctantly dragged from its lair. The Chamorro threw heavy logs down on the sand as skids, and carefully manoeuvred the boat to the water’s edge and pushed her afloat. Clay jars and bamboo tubes filled with water and the last of the stores were loaded. Hector, Maria and the other guirragos were told to climb aboard with their muskets and stay out of the way. Ma’pang was to be the captain, but the greater respect was paid to old Kepuha. He came down the beach, tenderly holding a framework of wooden sticks like the one he had shown to Hector. But this contrivance was brittle with age, its flimsy joints tied together with thin strips of coconut fibre. Here and there seashells had been attached like random barnacles.
Kepuha laid the contraption carefully inside the thatched hut that formed the only accommodation on the sakman. Then the vessel was pushed out farther into the sea until the helpers were chest-deep in the water. For a few minutes they held the sakman in position while Ma’pang shouted orders, and his crew of eight Chamorro fishermen raised the mast and fitted its heel in a central step. Heavy rope stays were led fore and aft, and secured. More rigging was taken out sideways to the float and fastened in place. As soon as the mast was held firm, the bulky cocoon of the single sail was attached to a halyard and unrolled. The fabric of the sail was woven from strips of palm leaf and was so fine that at a distance it could have been mistaken for canvas. Even before the sail was fully hoisted, the sakman began to sidle and shift, answering to the breeze.
The wading men were pulled off their feet and let go their grasp. Instantly the sakman began to gather way, moving so smoothly and quickly that Hector was scarcely aware the voyage had begun. One moment he was within a stone’s throw of the watching crowd of villagers on the beach, close enough to make out their expressions of mingled pride and anticipation, and the next time he looked back, they were far away and indistinguishable. All he could see was the swaying of green palm fronds waved in farewell.
He turned again to look forward over the bows. The sakman had already crossed the width of the bay. He had to restrain himself from shouting out in alarm. The vessel was heading straight towards the barrier reef. In less than a minute she would smash into the jagged coral. Ma’pang, who held the steering paddle in the stern, let out a warning cry. To Hector’s utter astonishment, it seemed that the sakman’s captain had panicked. He threw the steering paddle into the water. In the same instant two of his men loosed the sheets that controlled the sail. Two others seized the forward end and ran with it aft to where Ma’pang was standing. The sakman slowed, hesitated and then began to move backwards. The abandoned steering paddle, Hector now saw, was attached to a cord. It floated past the opposite end of the hull, where another member of the crew retrieved it, placed it in a notch in the gunwale and began to steer. Now everything was back to front. The vessel’s bow had become its stern, and the sakman was accelerating in the opposite direction, heading for the gap in the reef. Ma’pang treated Hector to a jagged-toothed grin. ‘Something else the guirragos have to learn,’ he laughed.
As the sakman cleared the bay, she began to feel the full force of a steady breeze from the north. What had appeared a fast pace earlier now became a swooping rush. The boat seemed to lift, then surge across the surface of the sea, swaying lightly from side to side, barely heeling to the pressure of the wind as it filled the great scoop of the sail. The water bubbled and swirled in her wake. The Chamorro crew hurried from one part of the vessel to another, tightening knots, checking lashings, ensuring the structure of the vessel was snug.
Dan, standing beside Hector at the foot of the mast, watched with undisguised admiration. ‘I would not have believed it possible,’ he said. ‘How fast do you think she is moving?’
‘Quicker than I’ve ever sailed before,’ Hector answered. ‘If we continue at this pace, maybe Ma’pang was right. We’ll catch the patache with ease.’
He ducked as a burst of spray swept across the gunwale and wetted his face. A Chamorro crewman crouched in the bottom of the hull was beckoning to Dan and holding up a wooden scoop. Dan moved away to join him, calling out over his shoulder, ‘She is taking water fast. But as the timber swells, the leaks will slow, and the lighter we keep the boat, the quicker she will move.’
‘Cold food from now on, I suppose. No one could possibly cook under these conditions,’ said Jacques morosely. He was half-sitting, half-standing, his feet braced against one side of the hull, his shoulders pressed to the opposite gunwale.
Hector looked for Maria. She peeked out from the little deckhouse where she’d taken shelter. He smiled at her encouragingly. Beside her he caught a glimpse of Stolck looking glum. Ever since he had been stranded ashore by his countrymen, the Hollander had been downcast and listless.
Holding on to the mast’s mainstay to keep his balance, Hector cautiously edged across to the deckhouse.
‘Are you all right, Maria?’ he asked, kneeling down and peering in. Inside the little shelter there was only room to sit or lie down, and the place smelled strongly of coconut oil. He saw that all their muskets had been laid out carefully, side by side, and someone had wrapped them in strips of oil-soaked cloth. The rags were the same colour as the dress that Maria had been wearing on the day they had fled the Presidio.
She caught his glance and shrugged. ‘Jezreel said the muskets would be ruined if they were exposed to the salt air.’
‘It’ll be dark very soon,’ he said. ‘Try to make yourself comfortable for the night.’
‘I’d prefer to be out in the open air,’ she replied. Hector looked back to see what Ma’pang and his crew were doing. Clearly their work was complete. Most of the men were lounging wherever they could find space within the main hull. Ma’pang and one other man squatted in what was now the stern of the sakman. But there was no sign of a steering paddle. They were controlling the direction of the vessel by the set of her sail.
‘Everything seems to have settled down,’ he said. ‘Let’s go up into the bow.’
Together they clambered forward. A Chamorro crew member tactfully moved aside so that they could stand side by side just behind the sharp beak of the prow, the vast open expanse of the ocean stretching before them. The setting sun was very close to the horizon, and the sakman was running directly along the gleaming red-gold path of its reflection. In the far distance a line of fair-weather clouds hung motionless, their undersides tinged with pink. The sakman now had the wind on her beam, and Hector felt something flicker lightly across his cheek. It was a strand of Maria’s hair lifted by the breeze. She put up her hand to tuck it back in place.
‘Let’s hope this wind holds through the night,’ he said.