Shooting Stars (3 page)

Balboa’s gesture is this: that evening, directly after the bloodbath, one of the natives has pointed out a nearby peak, telling him that from its height you can see the other ocean, the unknown Mar del Sur. Immediately Balboa makes his arrangements. Leaving the injured and exhausted men in the plundered village, he orders those still capable of
marching
—sixty-seven of them in all, out of the original 190 with whom he began the expedition in Darién—to climb the mountain. They approach the peak at ten in the morning. There is only a small, bare hilltop yet to be scaled, and then the view must stretch out before their eyes.

At this moment Balboa commands his men to stop. None of them is to follow him, for he does not want to share this first sight of the new ocean with anyone else. After crossing
one gigantic ocean in our world, the Atlantic, he alone will be, now and for ever, the first Spaniard, the first European, the first Christian to set eyes on the still-unknown other ocean, the Pacific. Slowly, with his heart thudding, deeply aware of the significance of the moment, he climbs on, a flag in his left hand, his sword in his right hand, a solitary silhouette in the vast orb. Slowly he scales the hilltop, without haste, for the real work has already been done. Only a few more steps, fewer now, still fewer, and once he has reached the peak a great view opens up before him. Beyond the mountains, wooded and green as the hills descend below him, lies an endless expanse of water with reflections as of metal in it: the sea, the new and unknown sea, hitherto only dreamt of and never seen, the legendary sea sought in vain by Columbus and all who came after him, the ocean whose waves lap against the shores of America, India and China. And Vasco Núñez de Balboa looks and looks and looks, blissfully proud as he drinks in the knowledge that his are the first European eyes in which the endless blue of that ocean is mirrored.

Vasco Núñez de Balboa gazes long and ecstatically into the distance. Only then does he call up his comrades to share his joy and pride. Restless and excited, gasping for breath and crying out aloud, they scramble, climb and run up the last hill, they stare in amazement and gaze with astonishment in their eyes. All of a sudden Father Anselm de Vara, who is with the party, strikes up the
Te Deum laudamus
, and at once all the noise and shouting dies down, all the harsh, rough voices of those soldiers, adventurers and bandits uniting in the devout hymn. The Indios watch in astonishment as, at a word from
the priest, they cut down a tree to erect a cross, carving the initials of the King of Spain’s name in the wood. And when the cross rises, it is as if its two wooden arms were reaching out to both seas, the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, and all the hidden distance beyond them.

In the midst of the awed silence, Núñez de Balboa steps forward and addresses his soldiers. They did right, he says, to thank God who of his grace has granted them such honour, and pray to him to continue helping them to conquer that sea and all these lands. If they will continue following him faithfully, he adds, they will go home from these new Indies the richest Spaniards ever known. He solemnly raises his flag to all four winds, to take possession on behalf of Spain of all the distant lands where those winds blow. Then he calls the clerk, Andrés de Valderrabáno, telling him to write out a certificate recording this solemn act for all time to come. Andrés de Valderrabáno unrolls a parchment that he has carried in a closed wooden container with an inkwell and a quill all the way through the jungle, and commands all the noblemen and knights and men-at-arms—
los caballeros e hidalgos y hombres de bien
—“who were present at the discovery of the southern sea, the Mar del Sur, by the noble and highly honoured Captain Vasco Núñez de Balboa, His Majesty’s Governor”, to confirm that “this Master Vasco Núñez de Balboa was the man who first set eyes on that sea and showed it to his followers”.

Then the sixty-seven men climbed down the hill, and since that day, the 25th of September 1513, mankind has known of the last and hitherto undiscovered ocean on earth.

At last they are certain of it. They have seen the sea. And now to go down to its coast, feel the flowing water, touch it, taste it, pick up flotsam and jetsam from the beach! It takes them two days to climb down, and so that in future he will know the quickest way from the mountain range to the sea, Núñez de Balboa divides his men into separate groups. The third of these groups, under Alonzo Martín, is the first to arrive on the beach, and even the simple soldiers of this group of adventurers are so full of the vanity of fame, so thirsty for immortality, that Alonzo Martín himself, a plain, straightforward man, instantly gets the clerk to write down in black and white that he was the first to plunge his foot and his hand in those still-unnamed waters. Only after he has exchanged his small ego for a mote of immortality does he let Balboa know that he has reached the sea and felt its water with his own hand. Balboa immediately prepares for another grand gesture. Next day, Michaelmas Day by the calendar, he appears with only twenty-two companions on the beach, armed and girded like St Michael himself, to take possession of the new sea in a solemn ceremony. He does not stride into the water at once, but waits haughtily like its lord and master, resting under a tree until the rising tide sends a wave washing up to him, licking around his feet like an obedient dog. Only then does he stand up, slinging his shield on his back so that it gleams like a mirror in the sun, take his sword in one hand and in the other the flag of Castile bearing the portrait of the Virgin Mary, and stride
into the water. Not until he is deep in those vast, strange waters, the waves breaking round his waist, does Núñez de Balboa, once a rebel and desperado, now the faithful
servant
and triumphant general of his king, wave the flag on all sides, crying in a loud voice: “Long live those high and mighty monarchs Ferdinand and Joanna of Castile, León and Aragón, in whose names and in favour of the royal Crown of Castile I take true, physical and lasting possession of all these seas and lands, coasts and harbours and islands, and I swear that should any prince or any other captain, Christian or heathen or of any other faith or rank whatsoever, lay claim to these lands and seas I will defend them in the name of the kings of Castile, whose property they are, now and for all time, as long as the world shall last and until the Day of Judgement.”

All the Spaniards repeat this oath, and for a moment their words drown out the roaring of the waves. Each man moistens his lips with seawater, and once again the clerk Andrés de Valderrabáno takes note of this act of possession, closing his document with the words: “These twenty-two men, as well as the clerk Andrés de Valderrabáno, were the first Christians to set foot in the Mar del Sur, and they all tried the water with their hands, and moistened their mouths with it, to see whether it was salt water like the water of the other sea. And when they saw that it was so they gave thanks to God.”

The great deed is done. Now they have yet to derive earthly benefit from their heroic undertaking. The Spanish plunder or barter a little gold with some of the natives. But a new surprise awaits them in the midst of their triumph, for the
Indios bring them whole handfuls of the precious pearls that are to be found on the neighbouring islands in rich
profusion
, including one, known as La Pellegrina, celebrated by Cervantes and Lope de Vega because, as one of the loveliest of all pearls, it adorned the royal crown of Spain and England. The Spaniards stuff all their pockets and sacks full of these precious things, which are not worth much more here than shells and sand, and when they greedily ask about what, to them, is the most important thing in the world—gold—one of the natives points south, to where the line of the
mountains
blurs softly into the horizon. There, he explains, lies a land of untold treasure, its rulers dine off golden vessels, and large four-legged animals—he means llamas—drag the most wonderful of loads into the king’s treasury. And he tells them the name of the country that lies south in the sea and beyond the mountains. It is something like
Birù
, a strange and melodious sound.

Vasco Núñez de Balboa stares the way the man’s hand is pointing, into the distance where the mountains disappear in the pallor of the sky. That soft and seductive word,
Birù
, has written itself at once on his soul. His heart thuds restlessly. For the second time in his life, he has found great, unhoped-for promise. The first message, Comagre’s information about the nearby sea, has proved true. He has found the beach of pearls and the Mar del Sur. Perhaps the second message will be the same; perhaps he will succeed in discovering and conquering the Inca domain, the golden land of this earth.

Núñez de Balboa is still staring into the distance with a longing gaze. The word
Birù
, “Peru”, rings in his mind like a golden bell. But he knows—with painful resignation—that he cannot venture to find out more this time. You cannot conquer a kingdom with two or three dozen worn-out men. So first he must go back to Darién, and later, with all the forces he can gather, set out on the way he has now discovered to find the new Ophir. But the march back is as hard as the march out to find the ocean. Once again the Spaniards must fight their way through the jungle, once again they must repel attacks by the natives. And they are not a fighting unit now, but a small group of men sick with fever and staggering with the last of their strength—Balboa himself is near death, and has to be carried in a hammock by the Indios. After four months of terrible stress and strain, he gets back to Darién on 19th January 1514. But one of the great deeds of history has been done. Balboa has fulfilled his promise, all who ventured into the unknown with him are rich now; his soldiers have brought home from the coast of the southern sea treasures never known to Columbus and the other conquistadors, and all the other colonists get their share. One-fifth is put aside for the Crown, and no one begrudges the conqueror the fact that he treats his dog Leoncico like any other warrior as a reward for tearing the flesh from the bones of the unhappy natives, and presents him with 500 gold pesos. Not a man in the colony now quarrels with Balboa’s authority as governor after such an achievement. The adventurer and rebel is honoured like
a god, and he can prepare with pride to send Spain the news that he has performed the greatest deed for the Crown of Castile since Columbus. The sun of his good fortune, rising steeply, has broken through all the clouds that have loomed over his life until now. It is at its zenith.

But Balboa’s happiness does not last long. On a radiant June day a few months later the astonished people of Darién flock down to the beach. A sail has been sighted on the horizon, and already it is like a miracle in this forsaken corner of the world. And look, a second sail appears beside it, a third, a fourth, a fifth; and soon there are ten, no, fifteen, no, twenty—a whole fleet making for the harbour. Soon everyone knows: all this is the work of Núñez de Balboa’s letter, but not the letter with the news of his triumph—which has not yet reached Spain—but the earlier letter in which, for the first time, he described the native chief’s account of the nearby southern sea and the land of gold, asking for an army of 1,000 men to conquer those lands. The Spanish Crown did not hesitate to equip such a mighty fleet for that expedition, but no one in Seville and Barcelona thought of entrusting so important a task to a rebellious adventurer with such a bad reputation as Vasco Núñez de Balboa. Their own choice of governor is sent. A rich, aristocratic and highly regarded man of sixty, Pedro Arias Dávila, usually called Pedrarias, comes with the fleet to act as the king’s governor and restore order to the colony at last, do justice for all the crimes so far committed, find the southern sea and conquer the promised land of gold.

The situation is an awkward one for Pedrarias. On the one hand he has the mission of calling the rebel Núñez de
Balboa to account for his earlier hunting-down of the first governor, and if he is proved guilty putting him in chains or executing him; on the other, he has to discover the southern sea. However, as soon as his boat comes ashore he learns that this same Núñez de Balboa, whom he is to bring to justice, has done the great deed himself, that the rebel has already celebrated the triumph meant for him, and has done the Spanish Crown the greatest service since the discovery of America. Of course he cannot now put such a man’s head on the block as if he were a common criminal; he must greet him courteously and offer honest congratulations. From this moment, however, Núñez de Balboa is lost. Pedrarias will never forgive his rival for having done the deed that he himself was to do, and that would have ensured his eternal fame through the ages. Of course, he must hide his hatred for their hero from the colonists for fear of embittering them too soon; the investigation is adjourned, and Pedrarias even makes a show of peace by betrothing his own daughter, whom he has left in Spain, to Núñez de Balboa. But his hatred and jealousy of Balboa are in no way mollified, only heightened when a decree arrives from Spain, where they have at last heard of Balboa’s deed, bestowing a suitable title on the former rebel making him an Adelantado, and telling Pedrarias to consult him on every important matter. This country is too small for two governors; one will have to give way, one of the two must go under. Vasco Núñez de Balboa senses that the sword hangs over him, for military and legal power are in the hands of Pedrarias. So for a second time he tries flight, which served him so well the first time, flight into immortality. He asks
Pedrarias for permission to equip an expedition to explore the coast of the southern sea and conquer the land for a long way around. But the former rebel’s secret intention is to make himself independent of any control on the other side of the sea, build his own fleet, be master of his own province and if possible also conquer the legendary Birù, that Ophir of the New World. Pedrarias cunningly agrees. If Balboa perishes in the attempt, all the better. If he succeeds, there will still be time to get rid of that over-ambitious man.