Holy War: How Vasco Da Gama's Epic Voyages Turned the Tide in a Centuries-Old Clash of Civilizations by Nigel Cliff

Author:Nigel Cliff
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: History
ISBN: 9780061735127
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2011-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

PART III

CRUSADE

CHAPTER 14

THE ADMIRAL OF INDIA

ONCE AGAIN SEA biscuit was baked, barrels of wine rolled along gangplanks, and the banners, standards, and crosses fluttered in the winter breeze. The usual devotions were made, the artillery fired a farewell salvo, and Vasco da Gama sailed out of Lisbon on February 10, 1502.

Altogether the fleet numbered twenty ships, though only fifteen were ready in time. Gama had chosen as his flagship the sturdy São Jerónimo. From the Esmerelda, his maternal uncle Vicente Sodré, a knight of the Order of Christ, commanded a subfleet of five ships. Also among the captains was Brás Sodré, another of Gama’s maternal uncles, and Álvaro de Ataíde, Gama’s brother-in-law. Gaspar da Gama, the admiral’s unlikely godson, was again prominent among the personnel. The remaining five vessels were due to leave in early April, with Vasco’s first cousin Estêvão da Gama in command on the big new warship Flor de la Mar. Paulo da Gama’s steadfast support and calm voice would be much missed, but the new mission was even more a family business than the first.

It was also a European affair. Lisbon was buzzing with foreign financiers, merchants, and sailors, all talking India and spices. Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Genoese, Spaniards, Flemings, Florentines, and even a few renegade Venetians were arriving daily to try their luck in the East. The new fleet was too big to be crewed or financed by the Portuguese alone, and large numbers of foreigners signed up.

Gama’s sailing instructions were astonishingly ambitious, though they were at least more specific than the apocalyptic agenda the king had set Cabral. The combined fleet was to shore up the fragile Portuguese factories, force more African and Indian cities to agree to advantageous trade terms, and deal with the truculent Zamorin of Calicut. When it had imposed its will on the Indian Ocean, it was to split in two. Vasco da Gama was to return to Portugal with the main body of the fleet and its precious cargoes of spices. Vicente Sodré’s strongly armed subfleet, meanwhile, was to stay behind and escalate the war against Islam. As well as protecting Portugal’s interests, he was to mount a permanent blockade of Arab shipping, stanch the flow of spices into the Red Sea, and strangle Egypt’s economy. If all went according to plan, before long the Portuguese would sail up the Red Sea, rendezvous with troops trekking east across Africa from Morocco, and march on Jerusalem.

The first fifteen vessels made the customary first stop at the Cape Verde Islands, where the priests said mass. There were plenty of novices among the crews, and a Flemish sailor aboard the Leitoa Nova, one of the ships in Gama’s main fleet, ogled the islands’ inhabitants. “The people there were stark naked,” he blurted out to his diary, “men and women, and they are black. And they have no shame, for they wear no clothes, the women have converse with their men like monkeys, and they know neither good nor evil.”

Even more than usual, the Atlantic passage was a test of nerves.

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