Marooned(2)
The Cinque Ports headed for Juan Fernández, the only anchorage and watering place that could be chanced along the Spanish-held South American coast.
While water casks were being refilled from freshwater streams on shore and trees cut for the woodbin, Selkirk inspected the ship. After its long passage from England to Juan Fernández, many repairs were needed.
Careening a ship was the usual thing to do: towing it to shore, running lines from the masts to trees, hauling it over on its side. Timbers in the hull, holed and weakened by the woodboring teredo worm, could then be replaced.
There were cracks in masts and spars to brace, tears in sails to mend, gaps between deck planks to stuff with oakum and seal with pitch, fresh leather suction heads to replace those on the pumps worn from flushing water from the bilge.
Stradling, though, would hear none of it. Repairs could take days; a careened ship was helpless. Spanish warships could appear any day, any hour. As soon as water casks and wood for the galley stove came aboard, they would raise anchor and leave the sheltered bay.
Selkirk argued that Stradling was overly cautious. The risk had to be accepted. Patrolling warships were few and far between, and the ship was unfit to sail. A storm could swamp them, sending the ship to the bottom. His life, Stradling's life, the lives of the crew were at risk.
Stradling refused to yield. He intended to sail north along the South American coast, hunt merchant ships, then ambush the Manila galleon off Mexico. This Spanish treasure ship, heavily loaded with gold and silver and precious jewels, traveled only once each year from the Philippines to Acapulco. Time was running short. They had to be on station by December to wait for the galleon to appear.
There would be no change of plan. His order stood.
Selkirk stubbornly refused to accept the decision. Now his well-known temper began to rise. He turned to the crew, his mates. They had stood together once before against the captain. The time had come again. He would choose the island—"to take [my] fate in this place [rather] than in a crazy vessel, under a disagreeable commander!"
Who among them would join him?
The men hesitated. Trade the ship for an island? Not one stepped forward.
Stradling may have seen an opportunity in Selkirk's reckless boast, a way to get rid of his troublesome sailing master. He decided to call Selkirk's bluff. He ordered Selkirk's sea chest brought on deck, along with a musket from the arms locker and meat and biscuits from the galley.
Lower the longboat, he commanded. Mr. Selkirk would be going ashore—alone.
***
Selkirk sits in the bow of the longboat. Two crewmen haul on the oars. Stradling, at the stern, hands on the tiller, steers.
The longboat grinds on the beach. Selkirk steps onto the island. The oarsmen lift the sea chest and place it on the stones. Carefully they set a bag of bullets and a bag of powder on top, along with a kerchief tied up with food, and lean the musket against the chest.
The boat shoves off.
On shore Selkirk waits. Perhaps he regrets his hot-tempered boast. Wading into the shallows, water to his knees, he "calls after his comrades," pleads to be taken back.
Stradling turns, shouts taunts, jeering at his difficult mate, no doubt glad to be free of him.
The oarsmen stroke the longboat toward the ship.
Hours pass. Then the Cinque Ports's anchor lifts. Sails rise and fill with an offshore breeze. The former sailing master watches his ship round a point of land. Then it is gone.
Waves wash the rocks. The sun sinks in the west behind the island's jagged peaks. The dark forest looms. Far across the water, fur seals howl and croak. Alexander Selkirk, mariner, is about to face surviving alone on an isolated island in the South Pacific. Yet, still mulling events that placed him on the stony beach, he is unaware of his predicament.
"[My] heart yearned within [me], and melted at parting with
[my] comrades and all human society at once."
TWO
From the Beach to the Cave
The crew of the Cinque Ports were tough, hard men. They had to be to survive the long passage from England. They endured fierce storms around Cape Horn that battered the hull, opened seams between planks, and blew men tending sails into the raging sea. They suffered disease from the lack of fresh food and drank water so putrid and foul smelling that it had to be strained through kerchiefs to remove the green slime from the water casks. Holding the nose also helped. Hardships were part of the voyage.
Stradling's decision to maroon his sailing master was a harsh punishment, but not uncommon in those days. It was done to maintain discipline. Selkirk himself had witnessed a ship's officer marooned for some infraction of rules on a deserted island in the Cape Verde Islands in the eastern Atlantic. And pirates were said to force an offender onto a sandbar at low tide with only a one-shot pistol. His choice: the pistol or the sharks that came with the rising tide.