Explosion in a Cathedral by Alejo Carpentier

Author:Alejo Carpentier [Carpentier, Alejo]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Fiction, General, Literary
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 1963-04-14T14:00:00+00:00

25

Esteban had been very frightened during their first skirmish, and taken cover in the very bottom of the ship — his indispensable status of clerk entitled him to do so — but he soon came to realize that the life of a privateer, as understood by Captain Barthélémy, the commander of the squadron, normally contained few alarms. When they met a powerful, heavily-armed ship, they held on their course without breaking the Republican flag. If they met with a possible prize, the lighter ships headed it off, while the brig loosed off a warning shot. The enemy flag was struck without resistance, in token of surrender. The ships grappled, and the Frenchmen leaped on board to inspect the cargo. If it was of little value they took anything that might be useful — including the intimidated crew’s money and personal possessions — and transferred it to!’Ami du Peuple. Then the ship was handed back to its humiliated captain, who either pursued his voyage, or returned to his port of departure to report his misfortune. If the cargo was important and valuable, they had orders to seize it, ship and all — especially if the ship was a good one — and take it to Pointe-à-Pitre, together with her crew. But this eventuality had not yet arisen for Barthélémy’s squadron, whose ledgers Esteban kept with bureaucratic scrupulousness.

There were normally more bilanders and junks to be found in these waters than real merchantmen, and they seldom carried cargoes of interest. They had certainly not left Guadeloupe to look for sugar, coffee and rum, which abounded there. Yet even in the most battered and sorry-looking ships the Frenchmen found things to lay their hands on; a new anchor, arms, gunpowder, carpenters’ tools, cables, a recent chart, with information useful for coasting along the Mainland. And apart from these there was what could be ferreted out from sea-chests and dark corners. One man would find two good shirts and a pair of nankeen breeches; another an enamelled tobacco-box, or the jewelled chalice of a monk from Cartagena, whom they threatened to throw overboard if he did not surrender the ‘whole Mass’ — the cross and ostensory, which might well be gold. These were a matter of individual spoils, which necessarily escaped Esteban’s accounting, and which Barthélémy pretended to ignore, so as not to make himself unpopular with his men; for he knew that in these days ships’ captains always came off worst in disputes with their Republican crews, especially if, like him, they had previously served under the King.

Thus on the poop-deck of!’Ami du Peuple a sort of exchange and mart had been established, of articles displayed on chests or hung from the rigging. The sailors from La Décade and La Tintamarre used to visit it when they moored in some creek or other to cut firewood, and they, in their turn, brought over what they wished to trade. Among clothes, caps, belts and kerchiefs, the oddest things used to appear: reliquaries made out

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