The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, the Confusion, and the System of the World (237 page)

“It must have been Yevgeny, throwing a cœlestial Harpoon, to remind van
Hoek that brevity is a virtue,” Jack said, and those who had known Yevgeny chuckled
nervously.

“We have lived through another voyage,” van Hoek announced, “and
if this were a Christian ship I would take my hat off and say a prayer of thanksgiving. But as it is
a ship of no one particular faith, I shall keep my hat on until I can say my prayers alone later. Go
you all to your temples, pagodas, shrines, and churches in Manila this night and do
likewise.”

There was a general muttering of assent as this was translated.
Minerva
had no fewer than three cooks, and three completely different sets of pots. The only
group who did not have their own were the Christians, who, when it came to food, would balk at
nothing.

“Never again will this group of men be all together in one place,” said
van Hoek. “Enoch Root has already bid us farewell. Within a fortnight Surendranath and some of
you Malabaris will set sail for Queena-Kootah on the brig
Kottakkal
so
that the rightful share of our profits may be conveyed to the Queen of the same name. In time
Padraig will join them. He, Surendranath, and Mr. Foot will pursue happiness in the South Seas while
the rest of us journey onwards.
You sailors will disperse into Manila tonight.
Some of you will return to this ship in one month’s time to prepare on our great voyage.
Others will think better of it.”

Van Hoek now yanked out his cutlass and aimed it at the titanic ship that was being
finished before the arsenal of Cavite. “Behold!” he proclaimed. All heads turned toward
the mountainous galleon, but only for a moment; then attention turned to the weather. A wind had
finally been summoned up, and it came from the east but showed signs of swinging round to the north.
But the watch had a sail ready on the maintop, and they raised it now and let the wind bite into it,
and trimmed it so as to bring
Minerva
about and convey her toward deeper
waters in the center of the bay.

“A great ship for a great voyage,” van Hoek said, referring to the
Spanish behemoth. “That is the Manila Galleon, and soon it will be laden with all the silks of
China and spices of India and it will sail out of this bay and commence a voyage of seven months,
crossing half of the terraqueous globe. When the Philippines fall away to aft her anchors will be
brought up and stowed in the nethermost part of her hold, because for more than half a year
they’ll not see a speck of dry land, and anchors will be as much use to her as bilge-pumps on
an ox-cart. Northward she’ll sail, as far north as Japan, until she reaches a certain
latitude—known only to the Spaniards—where trade winds blow due east, and where there
are no isles or reefs to catch them unawares in mid-ocean. Then they’ll run before the wind
and pray for rain, lest they die of thirst and wash up on the shores of California, a ghost-ship
crowded with parched skeletons. Sometimes those trade-winds will falter, and they’ll drift
aimlessly for a day, then two days, then a week, until a typhoon comes up from the south, or Arctic
blasts come down out of the polar regions and freeze them with a chill compared to which what made
us shiver and chafe so in Japan is as balmy as a maiden’s breath against your cheek. They will
run out of food, and wealthy Epicureans, after they’ve eaten their own shoes and the leathern
covers of their Bibles, will kneel in their cabins and send up delirious prayers for God to send
them just one of the moldy crusts that earlier in the voyage they threw away. Gums will shrivel away
from teeth, which will fall out until they must be swept off the deck like so many
hailstones.”

This similitude was apparently improvised by van Hoek, for a barrage of pea-sized
hail had just sprayed out of a low swirling cloud and speckled the deck. All hands looked at the
hail and dutifully imagined teeth. A gust came across the water, decapitating a thousand whitecaps
and flinging their spray sideways through the air; it caught
them upside their
heads, and in the same instant the sail popped like a musket-shot and the whole structure of the
ship heaved and groaned from the impact. A rope burst and began thrashing about on the deck like a
living thing as the tension bled out of it and its lays came undone. But then this momentary squall
subsided and they found themselves working into a blustery north wind, across the darkling bay. The
sun had plunged meteorically into the South China Sea, and its light was now overmatched by the
lightning over Manila, which had merged into a continuous blue radiance that a person could almost
read by.

“One day, long after they’ve given up hope, one of these
wretches—one of the few who can still stand—will be up on deck, throwing corpses over
the rail, when he’ll see something afloat in the water below: a scrap of seaweed, no bigger
than my finger. Not a thing you or I would take any note of—but to them, as miraculous as a
visitation by an angel! There’ll be a lot of praying and hymn-singing on that day. But it will
all end in cruel disappointment, for no more seaweed will be observed that day, or the next, or the
next. Another week they’ll sail—nothing! Nothing to do but run before the wind, and try
with all their might to resist the temptation to cannibalize the bodies of the dead. By that point
the most saintly Dominican brothers aboard will forget their prayers, and curse their own mothers
for having borne them. And then another week of the same! But finally the seaweed will
appear—not just a single bit of it, but two, then three. This will signify that they are off
the coast of California, which is an island belted all around with such weeds.”

Jack noticed at about this time, that the blue-green light had grown much brighter,
and had become steady and silent as if some eldritch Neptunian sun had risen out of the water,
casting light but no warmth. Fighting a powerful instinctive reluctance, he forced himself to look
up into the spars and rigging of the mainmast. Every bit of it—every splinter of wood and
fiber of cordage—was aglow with crackling radiance, as if it had been dipped in phosphorus. It
was a sight worthy of a good long look, but Jack made himself look down at the crowd on the
quarterdeck instead. He saw a pool of upturned faces, teeth and eyes a-gleam, a well of souls gazing
up in wonder.

“First ’twas Yevgeny—now Enoch Root is putting in his tuppence
worth,” he joked, but if anyone did so much as chuckle, the sound was swallowed up in the
susurration of waves against the hull. Van Hoek turned and glanced at Jack for a moment, then
squared off again to continue his terrible Narration. The weird Fire of Saint Elmo had crawled down
the mast to dance round the fringes of his
tri-cornered hat, and even the curls
of his goat-hair wig had become infected by sparks that buzzed and rustled as if alive. The
individual hairs of that long-dead goat were now re-animated as if by some
voudoun
chaunt, and began trying to get away from each other, which entailed straightening
and spreading out-wards. The quivering tip of each hair was defended by a nasty corona.

Van Hoek paid it no mind; if he was even aware of it, he evidently saw it as a way
to add emphasis to his words. “Yet their ordeal is not finished, but only takes a different
form; now they must endure the torment of Tantalus, for that land of milk and honey is the domain of
savages, and no victuals are to be found on her shores—only sudden and violent death. Now they
must sail for many long days down that coast, moving ever southeastward, making occasional desperate
forays on to the land to scavenge fresh water or game. Finally one day they spy a Spanish
watch-tower glowering down upon ’em from a stony mountain-top above the sea. Signals are
exchanged, letting those on the ship know that riders have been sent out, galloping down the
King’s Highway to the City of Mexico to spread the news that this year’s Manila Galleon
has not been cast away or sunk in a storm but,
mirabile dictu,
has
survived. Several days more and then a Spanish town comes into view. Boats come out bearing the
first fruit and vegetables that these travelers will have eaten in half a year. But, too, they bring
tidings that both French and English pirates have rounded Cape Horn and are prowling the
coast—many dangerous miles still separate them from their destination of
Acapulco…”

The Saint Elmo’s Fire was dying down now, and the miraculous pocket of calm in
which they had drifted for the last several minutes was giving way to something a bit more like a
thunderstorm. A big roller got under the hull, and the faces on the upperdeck undulated like a field
of grain as every man sought his balance.

“As I said, we will be departing a few weeks after the Galleon, and we require
sailors…” van Hoek began.

“Er, excuse me there, Cap’n,” Jack said, “your description
of the voyage’s terrors was most affecting, and I’m sure every man jack has shited his
breeches now…but you have forgotten to include any
countervailing
material. Having aroused the
fear,
you must now stimulate the
avarice,
of these sailors or else they will jump overboard and
swim
to shore right now, and will
never
enlist
again.”

Van Hoek now got a contemptuous look which Jack was only able to see with the help
of a convenient triple lightning bolt. “You sorely underestimate their intelligence, sir. It
is not necessary to come out and state
everything
so directly. A
well-formed Narration says as much by what is left
out
of it as by what
is put
in
.”

“Then perhaps you should have left more
out
. I
have some experience in matters
theatrickal,
sir,” Jack said,
“which is applicable here insofar as this quarterdeck resembles nothing so much as a stage,
and
those,
to my eye—notwithstanding your very generous estimate
of their intelligence—look like nothing so much as groundlings, knee-deep in hazelnut shells
and gin-bottles, waiting—
begging
—to be hit over their heads
with some direct and unambiguous
message.
”

A lightning-bomb detonated over Manila.

“There is your message,” van Hoek said pointing toward the city,
“and your groundlings will go into it tonight, and dwell in that Message for the next two
months. You have dwelt there, too, Jack—did the Message not reach your ears?”

“I may have heard faint whisperings—could you
amplify
it?”

“Of all the enterprises to which a man can devote his energies,” van
Hoek began grudgingly, raising his voice, “long-distance trade is the most profitable. It is
what every Jew, Puritan, Dutchman, Huguenot, Armenian, and Banyan aspires to—it is what built
the Navies and palaces of Europe, the Court of the Great Mogul in Shahjahanabad, and many other
prodigies besides. And yet in the world of trade, it is common knowledge that no circuit—not
the slave trade of the Caribbean, not the spice trade of the Indies—exceeds the
Manila-to-Acapulco run in sheer profit. The wealthiest Banyans in Surat and bankers in Genoa lay
their perfumed heads on silken pillows at night, and dream of sending a few bales of cargo across
the Pacific on the Manila Galleon. Even with all the dangers, and the swingeing duty that must be
shelled out to the Viceroy, the profits never fall below four hundred percent.
That
city is founded upon such dreams, Jack. We are all going to go there now.”

Van Hoek finally shut up at this point, and in the silence that followed he realized
that, down below him on the upperdeck, his rant was being dutifully translated into diverse heathen
tongues. The translators took more or less time to relate it, depending on the wordiness of their
several languages and how much they edited out or how freely they embellished. But when the last of
them finally wound up his oration, a light pattering started up. Jack flinched, thinking it was more
hail. But then it grew into a heavy, stomping roar, and he recognized it as applause. Dappa thrust
both index fingers into his mouth and emitted a piercing noise. Van Hoek seemed startled at first;
then understanding dawned, and he turned to Jack, removed his hat, and bowed.

JANUARY
1700