Ines of My Soul (23 page)

The soldiers lost faith in their serving girls, who had turned out to be less submissive and not as simpleminded as expected. The men continued to use them sexually but did not dare sleep when they were around, and some of them were convinced that their girls were poisoning them little by little. However, it was not poison that was corroding their souls and creeping into their bones, it was pure fatigue. Several of the men mistreated the girls as a way to vent their own misery, at which point Valdivia threatened to take the women away, and, in two or three cases, he lived up to his word. The soldiers rebelled because they could not accept that anyone, not even their leader, should intervene in something as personal as how they handled their women, but Pedro prevailed, as he always did. We must preach by example, he said. He would not allow Spaniards to behave worse than savages. In the long run, the soldiers obeyed, but with resentment, and only halfheartedly. Catalina told me that they were still beating their women, just not on the face or anywhere the marks would be visible.

As the Chilean Indians gradually became bolder, we all wondered how the unfortunate Escobar had fared. We supposed he must have died a slow and atrocious death, but no one dared mention him aloud, so as not to bring him bad luck. If we forgot his name and his face, perhaps he would become as transparent as the breeze, and could slip past the enemy without being seen.

We moved forward at a snail's pace. The Yanaconas were slowed by the additional cargo they had to bear, and there were many foals and other newborn animals. Rodrigo de Quiroga always rode first because of his amazing vision, and his courage, which never wavered. Guarding the rear was Villagra, whom Pedro de Valdivia had named his second in command, along with Aguirre, always impatient to stir up a skirmish with the Indians. He liked fighting as much as he liked women.

One day a messenger Quiroga had sent from the head of the caravan came racing down the line yelling, “Indians are coming!”

Valdivia immediately installed the women, children, animals, and me in a place more or less protected by rocks and trees, then organized his men for the battle—not in the manner of the Spanish tercios, three infantrymen for one horseman, because on this expedition nearly everyone was on horseback. When I say that our men were mounted, it might sound as if they formed a formidable squadron of a hundred and fifty cavalrymen capable of withstanding ten thousand attackers, but the truth is that the horses were worn to the bone by fatigue, and their riders were outfitted with ragged clothing, badly fitting armor, dented helmets, and rusted weapons. They were courageous, but disorganized and arrogant, each dreaming of winning glory for himself. “Why is it so difficult for Spaniards to be one of a group?” Valdivia often complained. “They all want to be generals!” Another drawback was that we had lost so many Yanaconas, and the ones remaining were so exhausted and resentful from the treatment they'd received that they were very little help; they fought only because the alternative was death.

In battle, Pedro de Valdivia always rode in the lead, even though his captains pleaded with him to be careful because without him, the rest of us would be lost. At the cry “In the name of Santiago! Attaaaack!” that Spaniards had used to invoke the apostle Saint James during centuries of fighting the Moors, Valdivia took his place at the forefront, while his harquebusiers, kneeling, with weapons at the ready, aimed toward the enemy beyond him. Valdivia knew that the Indians would rush into battle bare chested, without shields or other protection, indifferent to death. They do not fear the harquebuses because they are more noise than anything else; the only thing that stops them are the dogs, which in the furor of combat eat them alive. The Indians confront the Spanish swords en masse, suffering devastating losses as their stone weapons ring against metal armor. Atop their mounts, the
huincas
are invincible, but if they are dragged from their horses, they are massacred.

We were not entirely prepared when we heard the
chivateo
, the dreaded war cry that announces an Indian attack, a hair-raising yelling that fires them to the point of madness and paralyzes their enemies with terror. In our case, however, it has the opposite effect; we fly into a rage. Rodrigo de Quiroga's detachment managed to join Valdivia's moments before waves of enemies poured down from the hills. There were thousands and thousands of them, nearly naked, wielding bows and arrows, lances, and clubs, howling, exultant in ferocious anticipation. The discharge of the harquebuses wiped out the first rows, but it did not stop or slow the onrushing hordes. In a question of minutes they were close enough for us to see their bright war paint, and to be engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Our lances thrust through clay-colored bodies, our swords lopped off heads and limbs, the hooves of our horses crushed the fallen. If they could fight their way near enough, the Indians would stun a horse with their clubs, and as soon as it dropped to its knees, twenty hands would seize the horseman and tumble him to the ground. For a few brief instants, helmet and breastplate would protect the soldier, and sometimes that was enough to give time to a companion to come to his aid. The arrows that were useless against coats of mail and armor were very effective on the unprotected parts of the body. In the uproar and whirlwind of the struggle, our wounded continued to fight, without feeling pain or realizing that they were bleeding, and when at last they fell, someone would rescue them and drag them to me.

I had organized my tiny hospital, surrounded by my Indian girls and protected by a few loyal Yanaconas interested in defending the women and children of their tribe, and also by the black slaves, who feared that if they fell into the hands of the Indians they would be flayed to see whether the color of their skin was painted on—something that had happened in other places. We improvised bandages from available rags, applied tourniquets to stop hemorrhaging, hurriedly cauterized wounds with red-hot coals, and as soon as the men could stand, we gave them a drink of water or wine, handed them their weapons, and sent them back to continue the fight. “Blessed Virgin, protect my Pedro,” I muttered every time the grisly task of treating the wounded gave me a moment to breathe. The wind carried the odor of gunpowder and horses to us, where it blended with the smell of blood and seared flesh. The dying pleaded for confession, but the chaplain and other priests were in the battle, so it was I who made the sign of the cross on their foreheads and gave them absolution, that they might go in peace. The chaplain had explained that in an emergency, if no priest is available, any Christian can baptize and give extreme unction, though he was not sure that was the case with a Christian
woman
. Added to the cries of death and pain, the Indians'
chivateo
, the horses' neighing and snorting, the exploding gunpowder were the terrified wails of the women, many of whom had infants bound to their backs. Cecilia, accustomed to being served like the princess she was, for once descended into the world of mortals and worked side by side with Catalina and me. That small and graceful woman was much stronger than she appeared. She worked with us until her fine wool tunic was soaked with the blood of the injured.

At one point, several of the enemy fought their way to within a short distance of where we were treating the wounded. All at once, the yelling was louder, and closer, and I looked up—I had been trying to extract an arrow from Don Benito's thigh, as other women held him down—and found myself face-to-face with savages who were rushing toward us with clubs and hatchets held high, driving back our ineffective guard of Yanaconas and black slaves. Without thinking twice, I seized the sword Pedro had taught me to use and prepared to defend our small refuge.

The attackers were led by an older man adorned with war paint and feathers. A scar cut down his cheek from temple to mouth. I must have registered these details in less than an instant, because things happened very quickly. I remember that we faced each other—he with a short lance and I with the sword I had to lift with both hands—each crouched in identical postures, each furiously yelling terrible war cries, each with eyes boring into the other's with identical ferocity. To my surprise, the old man suddenly made a sign and his companions halted. I could not swear to it, but I thought there was a trace of a smile on his earth-colored face as he turned and ran off with the agility of a youth—just at the moment that Rodrigo de Quiroga came up on his rearing horse and charged our aggressors. That old man was the cacique, Michimalonko.

“Why didn't he attack me?” I asked Quiroga much later.

“Because he could not bear the shame of fighting a woman,” he explained.

“Is that what you would have done, Captain?”

“Of course,” he replied without hesitation.

The battle lasted at least two hours, and those hours were so intense that they flew by without an instant to think. Suddenly, when the Indians had nearly won the day, they dispersed, vanishing into the same hills they had emerged from, leaving their wounded and dead behind but taking the horses they had been able to capture from us. Nuestra Señora del Socorro had saved us once again.

The ground was strewn with bodies, and we had to chain the dogs, which had tasted blood, so they did not devour our injured as well. The blacks walked among the fallen, killing any Chileans who were not yet dead, and bringing me our wounded. I prepared for what lay ahead. For hours the valley would ring with the cries of the men we had to minister to. For Catalina and me there would be no end to pulling out arrows and cauterizing wounds, a truly repellent task. People say that one gets used to anything, but that isn't true; I never got used to those blood-curdling screams. Even now, in my old age, after having founded the first hospital in Chile and having spent a lifetime working as a nurse, I still hear the laments of war. If the wounds could be sewed with needle and thread, like a rip in cloth, our task was more bearable, but only searing heat prevents excessive bleeding and putrefaction.

Pedro de Valdivia had several light wounds and bruises, but he refused any attention. He immediately met with his captains to take the count of our losses.

“How many dead and wounded?” he asked.

“Don Benito suffered a very ugly arrow wound. We have one dead soldier and thirteen wounded, one gravely. I calculate that they stole more than twenty horses and killed several Yanaconas,” said Francisco de Aguirre, who was very poor at arithmetic.

“We have four blacks and sixty-three Yanaconas wounded, a number of them seriously,” I corrected. “One black and thirty-one Indians died. I believe that two men will not make it through the night. The injured will have to be transported on horseback; we cannot leave them behind. The most serious will have to be carried in hammocks.”

“We will mount a guard around the camp for a few days. Captain Quiroga, for the time being, you will replace Don Benito as field marshal,” Valdivia ordered. “Captain Villagra, I want you to count the number of savages left on the battlefield. You will be responsible for our safety; I suspect that the enemy will return, sooner rather than later. Chaplain, you take charge of burials and masses. We will leave as soon as Doña Inés thinks it is possible.”

In spite of Villagra's precautions, the camp was very vulnerable because we were in an open valley. The Chilean Indians occupied the hills, but they gave no signs of life during the two days we stayed there. Don Benito explained that after every battle they drank themselves senseless and did not attack again until they had recovered, several days later. To our good fortune. May they never run out of chicha.

FROM THE IMPROVISED LITTER
on which he was being transported, Don Benito recognized Huelén hill from afar; it was where he himself had planted a cross on his journey with Diego de Almagro.

“There it is! That is the Garden of Eden I have longed for years to see,” the old man shouted; he was burning with fever from the arrow that neither Catalina's herbs and spells nor the chaplain's own prayers had been able to subdue.

We had descended into a lovely valley filled with oaks and other trees unknown in Spain:
quillayes
,
peumos, coigúes
, and
canelos
. It was the middle of summer, but the towering mountains on the horizon were crowned with snow. Hills and more hills encircled the gentle, golden valley. Pedro needed only one look to realize that Don Benito was right: intensely blue sky, luminous air, exuberant forest, and fecund earth bathed by streams and a bountiful river, the Mapocho. That was the site God had assigned for our first settlement, for in addition to its beauty and plenty, it met the wise guidelines issued by Emperor Charles V for founding cities in the Indies:
“Do not choose to populate sites at high elevations because of the annoyance of the wind and difficulties of service and transportation, and neither in very low elevations because they tend to harbor diseases. Found your towns in moderate altitudes that without shelter are comfortable in the north winds and in the heat of the day. And if there be sierras or hills, let them lie to the east and the west; and in case of building on the banks of a river, situate the settlement in such a way that the rising sun will first cast its rays upon the town, and then upon the water.”
Apparently the Indians of this land were in total accord with Charles V, because we had seen large numbers of them, along with their villages, crops, irrigation channels, and roads. We were not the first to discover the advantages of this valley.