Hurricane - Nahuatl 2

 VII. The Night Before the Storm

That night, no one slept well.

The wind kept blowing from the north, and though it was not yet dangerous, its persistence made the sailors nervous. The ship creaked more than usual. The water struck the hull with an irregular rhythm, as if the sea were rehearsing something. And in the sky, the full moon peeked through broken clouds, illuminating with a ghostly light that black line on the horizon that now seemed closer.

Guerrero came on deck at midnight, fed up with the heat and stench of the hold. He found Aguilar leaning on the railing, staring into the darkness. The friar was not praying. He was just watching.

"Can't you sleep either, friar?" Guerrero asked, approaching.

Aguilar did not turn around.

"Sleep is difficult when you know what is coming," he replied.

"And what is coming?"

"That," said Aguilar, pointing north. "What has been growing all day."

Guerrero looked. The black line was no longer a line. It was a wall occupying a third of the horizon. From time to time, inside it, white flashes could be seen: silent lightning, still distant.

"Hurricane," Guerrero said, repeating Pedro the One-Eyed's word.

"Hurricane," Aguilar agreed. "The Indians call it that. Huracán. The god of wind. But I think it is something else."

"What thing?"

Aguilar was silent for a moment. Then he said:

"A test."

Guerrero let out a bitter laugh.

"A test of what? Of our faith? Because I'll tell you now, friar, my faith is small."

"It doesn't need to be large," Aguilar replied. "A little is enough."

"And do you have that little?"

Aguilar turned to him. In the moonlight, his face looked carved from bone.

"I have it," he said. "For myself and for anyone who asks me for it."

Guerrero was about to say something, but at that moment the ship shook with unexpected violence. A wave, higher than the previous ones, had crashed against the port side. Water leapt over the railing and soaked both men.

"Friar," Guerrero said, wiping his face with his sleeve, "I think our time has run out."

Aguilar nodded.

"Yes," he said. "It has run out."
 

 VIII. The Storm and the Shipwreck

Hours passed. The dawn dragged on with the same persistent wind from the north. When daybreak began to tinge the eastern horizon with grey, Guerrero and Aguilar crossed paths again. The friar was still on deck, watching the wall that now occupied everything.

The rest of the day was a tense wait. Towards noon, what everyone feared happened. The wind stopped completely. The sails hung limp from the rigging, like dead tongues. The silence was absolute, and in that silence, the sea seemed to hold its breath.

Valdivia climbed up to the stern deck. Aguilar was already there, with Guerrero at his side.

"Father," said the captain, "do you believe God protects us on this voyage?"

"God protects those who sail with faith," Aguilar replied. "But He also drowns those who sail with arrogance."

The captain was about to reply, but at that moment he turned north. The wall was no longer on the horizon: it was upon them.

"Storm! Storm from the north!" Valdivia shouted.

His voice was lost in the first blast of wind. It was as if a giant fist had crushed the caravel from port. The ship heeled thirty degrees, and the men who were standing went flying through the air.

And then came the sound. It was not a roar or a howl. It was a deep, constant hum, coming from everywhere at once, as if the air itself were vibrating. A sound that was not heard with the ears: it was felt in the bones.

Below, in the forward hold, Guerrero felt the impact before he heard it. Water was already beginning to seep through the seams of the hull. The men stumbled, fell, got up. Someone was praying. Someone was crying. Guerrero, sword in hand, pushed a sailor toward the ladder.

"Up! Or we'll sink in here like rats!"

On deck, the chaos was absolute. The wind was blowing at over fifty knots. The foremast, already warped from port, split with a crash and fell into the sea, dragging two sailors with it. The boatswain, a man as wide as he was short, with a nose broken in a long-ago tavern brawl, ran toward the mainmast with an axe in his hand. He was shouting something no one understood.

Valdivia clung to the helm with all his strength. The tiller vibrated like a living animal. The Basque no longer shouted orders. He just moved his lips, and Aguilar, at his side, knew he was not saying a Hail Mary: he was repeating a woman's name over and over.

For a moment, the two of them managed to hold the course. The caravel turned slowly, pointing the bow into the wind. But that maneuver only delayed the inevitable. The water that had entered through the forward hold kept accumulating. The stern began to rise. The ship was sinking bow-first, like a knife being driven into a board.

Guerrero reached the deck at the worst moment. He crawled out on all fours, his elbows scraped and his sword tied to his wrist to keep from losing it. When he finally reached the stern, the helm was useless: it had come out of the water.

"Captain! The ship is sinking! Launch the boats!"

Valdivia hesitated, but nodded.

"Cut the ropes!"

The first skiff was lowered with desperate speed. Six men jumped in before the next wave smashed it against the caravel's side. The wood cracked, and the boat split in two. The six men fell into the water and were swept away by the current. Not one of them showed his head again.

"Don't risk the other one!" Guerrero shouted.

But the ship did not stabilize. The water had already reached the main deck. The caravel was sinking bow-first, faster and faster.

Aguilar felt the deck tilt beneath his feet. He let go of the helm —it was useless now, the rudder was out of the water— and grabbed a hanging line.

"Father!" Guerrero shouted. "Grab my arm!"

"I can't let go!"

"Let go or you'll sink!"

Aguilar let go of the line, and Guerrero grabbed his forearm just as a giant wave swept across the stern deck. The two of them were thrown toward the starboard railing. Guerrero felt his back hit the gunwale, felt it give way under his weight. He fell alone. The cold water enveloped everything. The water hit him like a wall. He lost his air, his sight, his hearing. He swallowed a mouthful. He felt the burn of salt in his throat.
 

 IX. The Water and the Shore

Guerrero opened his eyes beneath the surface and saw only darkness. He did not know which way was up. He did not know which way was down. He kicked once, then again, and his head broke the surface just as a wave buried him again. He swallowed more water. The salt burned his throat and nose. When he could finally breathe, he coughed, vomited, breathed again.

"Friar!" he shouted. "Aguilar!"

No one answered. The wind carried his voice away before it could travel five yards.

He turned toward where the caravel should have been. He could not see it anymore. Where the mainmast had once stood, there was only foam and pieces of wood dancing on the crests of the waves. A barrel. A plank. A body floating face-down, sinking slowly. The ship had broken apart or sunk completely. It did not matter. It was gone.

He swam toward the barrel. In the water, with his clothes soaked and his sword still tied to his wrist, every stroke was agony. The cold was beginning to numb his fingers. He reached the barrel, clung to it, and floated there, breathing hard, staring at the sky as black as a wolf's mouth.

Then he heard a cry.

It was not a cry for help. It was a short, dry cry, like that of a man who has just been struck. Guerrero turned his head to the left and saw, about twenty yards away, the silhouette of a man clinging to a plank. A lightning flash illuminated his face.

"Friar!" he shouted again.

Aguilar did not answer. He seemed unconscious, or half-drowned, or both. His dark habit floated around him like a cloak of seaweed. The plank he clung to was part of the caravel's side, still oozing pitch from its seams.

Guerrero let go of the barrel and swam toward him. This time he did not think about the sword, or the cold, or death. He only thought about reaching him. When he was at his side, he grabbed the friar's habit with one hand and the plank with the other. The wood creaked but held.

"Aguilar!" he shouted into his ear. "Breathe, damn it!"

The friar coughed. A stream of water came out of his mouth. He coughed again, and again, and then he opened his eyes. His pupils wandered aimlessly until they found Guerrero's.

"Where...?" he began.

"In the water," Guerrero replied. "The ship is gone. We are alone."

Aguilar closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them again, and his gaze was no longer that of a lost man.

"We are not alone," he said.

"No?" Guerrero spat out salt water. "Who else is there? God?"

"God," Aguilar replied, "and those who are still floating."

Guerrero looked around. In the light of another lightning flash, he saw three, four, five men clinging to whatever they could. A sailor on a door. The boatswain, with his broken nose, holding onto a smaller barrel. Two more men, together, sharing a piece of mast. And farther away, almost at the limit of what he could see, a lone figure clinging to what looked like the corpse of a horse.

"The captain?" Guerrero asked.

Aguilar shook his head.

"I saw him fall. He did not make it."

Neither of them said anything more. There was no need. In the water, clinging to a plank that could break at any moment, with the storm roaring around them and night falling (if it had ever stopped being night), words were superfluous.

The wind kept blowing from the north, but now it did not matter where it came from. There was no helm to steer. No sail to hoist. No ship to save. Only them, the water, the darkness, and that low, constant murmur of the sea that swallows and is never full.

Guerrero tightened his grip on the plank with one hand and on the friar's habit with the other. He did not know how long they could last like this. Perhaps hours. Perhaps a day. Perhaps only a few minutes, until the cold or a larger wave separated them forever.

"Friar," he said.

"Speak."

"You said you had faith to spare. Well, now is the time to use it."

Aguilar did not answer immediately. When he did, his voice was barely audible above the wind.

"I am already using it," he said.

Guerrero let out a short laugh, almost a cough.

"Then ask God to calm this wind, or to send us a beach, or to turn this damned plank into a caravel."

"God does not give what we ask for," Aguilar replied. "He gives what we need. And sometimes what we need is to stay alive five more minutes. Just five more minutes."

"And then what?"

"Then another five."

Hours passed. Perhaps the whole night. At some point, the storm began to ease. The deep hum that had vibrated in their bones faded little by little, until only silence and the lapping of the waves remained. The cold, the exhaustion, and the loss of blood did the rest. Guerrero lost consciousness without realizing it, still holding the plank, still with the friar's hand on his forearm.

When he came to, the sea spat him out like a bone it could not swallow.

Aguilar woke with his face in the sand. The sun beat down on his closed eyelids. He coughed. Spat water. Opened his eyes with difficulty.

Around him, the beach was white and deserted. Beyond, the green, thick jungle rose toward low hills. The sea, now calm and blue, lapped at the shore with a calmness that seemed to mock the fury of the night before.

The friar sat up slowly. He had a cut on his forehead, and the dried blood stuck his hair to his temple. His habit was in tatters. His rosary, miraculously, still hung from his neck, though with several broken beads.

A few steps away, lying face down with his face buried in the sand, lay a body. Aguilar crawled toward him. He turned him over with effort. He was a broad-shouldered man, his clothes in shreds, a sword still tied to his right wrist.

"Soldier," Aguilar said, his voice hoarse. "Soldier, wake up."

Guerrero's eyes snapped open, as if he had been waiting for someone to call him back from the other world. He coughed up an impossible amount of water. He struggled to his feet, brought his hand to his head, and felt a bump the size of a hen's egg.

"Friar," he said, his voice destroyed, "you again. You don't leave me, even dead."

"We are not dead yet," Aguilar replied. "But it seems we are among the few."

They were silent for a moment, looking at the beach. Remains of the caravel littered the shore: broken planks, an open barrel, the helmsman's chest floating upside down. Farther away, half-buried in the sand, the lifeless body of a sailor that the tide had washed ashore. Another body, beyond that, lying on its back, eyes open to the sky. And another, farther still, tangled in seaweed, his face so swollen he was no longer recognizable.

Guerrero stood up with difficulty. He took a few steps along the shore, counting the bodies he saw. Seven. Eight. Nine. He pointed at them with his finger, as if keeping a tally of defeat.

"How many of us were there?" he asked.

"Forty," Aguilar replied. "Forty men."

Guerrero walked a little further. He looked behind the rocks, among the wreckage. He looked toward the jungle. There was no one else. He returned to Aguilar.

"We are alone, friar," he said, and for the first time his voice did not sound mocking. "Just you and me."

Aguilar looked at the sea. Looked at the jungle. Looked at the bodies the tide was still bringing in.

"You and me," he repeated quietly. "And God, soldier. God is also here."

Guerrero spat on the ground.

"God," he said. "If God were here, friar, we would not be alone."

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