‘Do you think we will overtake the patache?’ Maria asked softly.
‘It all depends on the wind,’ Hector answered. ‘Kepuha forecasts a good breeze tomorrow.’
‘The crew seem to respect him.’
‘Ma’pang says that Kepuha is one of the greatest navigators the Chamorro have ever known.’ He looked up at the sky. Beyond the halo of the moon he could faintly detect the pinpoints of the distant stars. ‘The Chamorro believe that at the beginning of time their god-like ancestors made voyages through the heavens. They marked their passage with stars. Kepuha knows their paths and follows them. Above every island the gods left certain stars to mark their location.’
‘Does that make sense to you?’
‘It’s a different way of looking at the heavens. I measure the stars and sun to decide where I am, then use a chart and compass to plot a course to my destination. Kepuha’s system is more direct. For him, the stars are signposts in the sky.’
They sat together in companionable silence for several minutes. Then she said softly, ‘If only we had signposts.’
Hector took a deep breath. ‘To show us where to direct our lives?’
‘Yes.’
‘And if you had to select a way, where would you wish to go?’
‘Somewhere safe and calm, a place where our differences and backgrounds are of no concern to others.’
‘If such a place exists, then we’ll search for it and find it,’ he said, though he was conscious that his reply sounded a little boastful.
She seemed to accept his answer. ‘Hector, I’m so happy that we are together. I know you love me, and I have the same feeling for you.’ She hesitated before continuing. ‘But until we find that place, something will be left unfinished. I hope you can understand that.’
Hector struggled to put his thoughts into words. He knew that Maria was setting the boundaries for their relationship in the days or weeks to come. ‘I do understand, Maria, and I will be content for us to cherish one another. We’ll wait to find that place where we can be safe together.’
She turned and kissed him lightly on the mouth. ‘Hector,’ she said, ‘sometimes when I’m with you, I feel just like this, floating on a quiet expanse of calm.’ Then she moved to one side and disappeared into the little cabin.
AS KEPUHA PREDICTED, the wind came next morning. It arrived in dramatic fashion, bringing a torrential rainstorm that swept down from the north and enveloped the sakman. Visibility was reduced to a few yards, and within moments everything on the vessel was soaked. The sakman leaped forward, her waterlogged sail filling with an alarming creaking of the mast and stays. Ma’pang eased the mainsheet to reduce the pressure of the wind, and the Chamorro crew scrambled to place clay jars where they would catch the runnels of fresh water cascading off the sail. Then the vessel ran blindly through the murk.
When the rainstorm passed on, it left behind a dull, overcast sky and a sullen, lumpy sea, no longer deep blue but a dingy slate-grey. The air was still warm, but damp and clammy. Nothing dried. Hector watched to see if Kepuha would manage to set a course now that he no longer had the sun to guide him. The makhana appeared unruffled. He sat at the stern as if nothing had changed.
‘How does he know which way to steer?’ Hector asked Ma’pang quietly as they ate a meal of raw fish. The charcoal for the cooking fire had been saturated.
‘The wind and waves tell him,’ answered the Chamorro. ‘Kepuha will not lose his way. You need not worry.’
But Hector did continue to fret. All that day and the next a veil of heavy cloud obscured the sky, and he became increasingly doubtful that the makhana could succeed in tracking down the patache. The more he thought about their mission, the worse seemed the odds against success. Quietly he resigned himself to the moment when Ma’pang would announce that they must turn back for Rota before their supplies ran out, and he wondered how his companions would react to the failure. Maria, he was relieved to observe, had come to terms with the tedium and the cramped conditions of the voyage. She would sit in the door of the little shelter, watching the pattern of the waves. Occasionally her watchfulness was rewarded with a brief sighting of sea life – the leap of a dolphin or, once, a pod of whales so close to the sakman that the fishy smell of their exhalation swept across the boat. By contrast, Jezreel with his massive frame accumulated bruises and scrapes as he moved around the crowded vessel. Jacques showed an almost limitless capacity to doze away the time, and Dan was happy to pass hour after hour with a fishing line. Stolck, however, was a cause for concern. A rash of salt-water sores, raw and oozing, had developed on his wrists and ankles where his clothes rubbed, and he appeared to be sinking into a profound depression.
The fifth day of their voyage began under the same lowering grey sky. The sakman had run smoothly all through the night with a steady breeze on the beam, and Hector calculated that she was covering ten miles every hour on the long swell rolling across their track. He had just finished eating his breakfast – a fist-sized lump of the sour breadfruit mash – when he noticed that Kepuha had risen to his feet and was staring intently downwind. The young man turned to look in the same direction, but could see nothing except the rounded backs of the waves as they travelled towards the horizon. Nevertheless, Kepuha stood there for several minutes. He seemed alert, yet puzzled. After an interval he spoke to one of the Chamorro crewmen, who made his way to the foot of the mainstay and began to haul himself aloft. From there the lookout called down to the deck.
‘What’s he say?’ Hector asked Ma’pang.
‘There’s a guirrago ship in the distance. About ten miles away.’
Kepuha was beckoning. ‘You better come with me,’ said Ma’pang to Hector. ‘This is a surprise and may change our plans.’
Ma’pang and the makhana conferred briefly. Then Ma’pang turned to Hector and said, ‘Kepuha is certain the ship to the south of us cannot be the patache. It is in the wrong place.’
Hector refrained from asking how the shaman was so sure about the distant vessel. He feared the question would offend the old man. Instead he said, ‘Perhaps we should investigate.’
There was a rapid exchange between the two Chamorro, and then Ma’pang nodded. ‘Kepuha says that if we change course now, we’ll lose time and may not catch up with the patache.’ His deep-set brown eyes searched Hector’s face. ‘I leave the choice to you.’
Hector was in a quandary. The sakman had shown that she was fast enough to overtake her prey, but even if both vessels had shared the same weather conditions – and that was by no means certain – the Chamorro might already have overhauled the Spaniards and sailed right past them in the darkness or in poor visibility. On the other hand, the unknown vessel could be well armed and powerful enough to beat off an attack by Chamorro pirates. Then he remembered Maria’s fears that they’d kill her countrymen. The unknown vessel might not be Spanish and yet might carry weapons the Chamorro could plunder.