“That’s not what the orders say.”
“The idea is for him to disappear, the sooner the better.”
Camões was summoned to the saloon. Cabral looked at him pityingly with the letter in his hand.
“This concerns you, Dom Luís. The King wants you to make the voyage as a prisoner, and to serve as a soldier in furthest East Asia.”
Camões stared uncomprehendingly.
“Read it for yourself.” The Admiral handed him the letter. The vengefulness of the King (or the jealousy of the Infante) could be read in the well-formed characters and sober style of the private secretary.
An argument developed about the meaning of “prisoner”. The Admiral wanted Camões to stay in his cabin and be allowed on deck in the evening under guard, while the Captain felt that he should be locked in the hold, and stay there in chains until their arrival. After all, his intended function as a soldier branded him as a common prisoner.
The Admiral asserted his authority. Camões stayed in his cabin as far as Mozambique. He was still able to see this harbour through the porthole.
Four days later the ship stopped, with all its flags at half mast. From the poop deck the body of the Admiral was lowered into the waters of the Indian Ocean, accompanied by the singing of a litany and the thundering of all the ship’s cannon — almost a hundred of them. The very same day Luís de Camões was put at the bottom of the hold in a damp stinking hole prepared for mutineers and thieves. That was how he spent the second half of the voyage. He saw nothing of Goa or Malacca; all he perceived of those harbours was the ship at anchor and the muffled din that penetrated to where he was.
Such was his glorious entry into the East.
While other prisoners made bird cages from fruit stones, and model ships from slivers of wood, he passed the time in fashioning stanzas for the poem he thought he had abandoned for good. Since he saw nothing of the foreign countries, like the other prisoners with improvised tools, he had to make do with mythology to give colour and coherence to his story, and he reluctantly resorted to it. However, he gradually came to enjoy his work, the only thing that helped him through the interminable hours.
The passage from Mozambique to Malacca took almost two months; the winds were not favourable. Two months! Camões gradually forgot that he had ever lived on dry land and been free. It was as if he had squatted in that swaying hold with a crumpled piece of paper on his painful knees, since time immemorial.
III. Ilha Verde
THREE DAYS AFTER we left the roadstead of Malacca I was set free. I blinked at the light, and at first had difficulty in moving, but was not downcast or thoroughly embittered and was resolved to seize my chance, and not grant the King the pleasure of seeing me pine away ignominiously. One day, even if it were many years later, I hoped to return, raised into a new aristocracy by reason of my fortune. I hoped that he would still be on the throne, old, languid and joyless… ravaged by maladies and ruling over an impoverished land, when I appeared before him with my companions. Our scars would be so numerous that there would be no room left for decorations; the triumphs we had left behind us were so great that in comparison Portugal seemed a paltry little country! Soon, after this final visit, paid like prodigal sons, we would embark once more without compunction and with great wealth for the territory we had conquered for ourselves and where, surrounded by luxury and sustained by power, we would die.
But what good was that to me, when I had to climb the mast with my stiff limbs to help with lowering the sails, squaring yards and doing other rough work I had never been trained for?
Prior to my imprisonment the deck and quarters were full of seamen. Those not on duty got in the way of the others. Now there were scarcely enough hands to manoeuvre the ship. Even black slaves had to help. Had disease or desertion taken such a toll that every crewman was precious? One of the ship’s surgeons told me that scurvy in particular had claimed many victims. The new admiral was an energetic man. In order to gain time, we had not stopped off at Madagascar, where fresh meat and vegetables were taken on board for the crossing. Supplies were inadequate. Then came the great epidemic: hundreds of deaths in a few days. Many ships had lost more than half their crews. There was not enough sailcloth to sew the bodies into, no lead shot to weigh down the feet, no time to heave to each time. Every morning there was a clear-up; six sailors who performed the work for double pay, dragged the bodies between-decks and pushed them out through an open gun port. The procession of sharks following the ships grew and grew.
How had he managed to survive down below, where the sun never shone and there was never any fruit with meals? Was there a tacit agreement between disasters who should be struck by them and who not?
In order to keep those who were left healthy, a lemon and a cucumber were handed out every day. I enjoyed these more than I did the choicest foods I used to eat. I relished my freedom — the wind most of all — and refused to be embittered by my exhaustion, my gashed hands, inflamed eyes and gums. I hoped that a storm would set me free in time, for I knew that in Macao I would first be thrown back in prison.
Once, when I was scrubbing the deck, the captain came by. He had grown thin, I noted with satisfaction. I stopped, but did not move aside and looked him in the eye. He made as if to fly at my throat, but thought better of it, spat on the deck and went on. We had both been in mortal danger: he from my eager hands, I from a hemp noose that was always at the ready. His cowardice saved him, and saved my life too.
Since Malacca the weather had stayed calm. The swell was less than on the other side of the archipelago and was often dead calm. The wind was weak but constant. One day we sailed past the coast of Cambodia, and the next day the sea was empty and I knew that the next time a coast came into view my imprisonment would recommence. The weather became ever calmer, the wind gentle and the sea seemed to be stretching in slow, lazy waves and on board people were become more and more anxious that a storm would blow up from this treacherous calm, just before we reached the coast where Macao lay. The longer it remained calm the more frightened we became of encountering a storm before we arrived.
It was Easter. A High Mass was celebrated; the holy banner blessed by the Pope was taken round in procession. Those who wished could kiss the hem of the flag. Most did so, to be on the safe side.
I hung over the railings and saw a distant blue coastline: Hainan. Three more days, if all went well.
The sky was as blue and calm as the coast, apart from some feathery clouds that seemed to be flocking to some meeting place deep below the horizon.
That night the storm arrived. At twelve o’clock when I came off watch it was still calm but also pitch-black and brooding, as if the full moon and a sun that had set in flames had been smothered in the thick layer of clouds and the fire of the celestial bodies was smouldering close to the earth, without flaring up. Almost no one was left in the crew’s quarters, since most people were sleeping on deck or among the cannon, which always retained a little coolness. The terminally ill and dying lay in the bunks and squeaked at me for water when they heard me. I gave them whatever I found, and then collapsed myself, faint with apprehension, oppressed by the premonition that I would soon awake and would then not be able to sleep for a long time. It cannot have been long before I woke and was lying on the boarding that divided the crew’s quarters from the bow. Sick sailors had grabbed hold of me, then that board flooring became the ceiling. We rolled back and the quarters were already half full of water. I grabbed hold of the stairs and did not let go, shook everyone off me and reached the deck bruised, scratched and perhaps infected.