There was one bright spot for the governor in all this. He inherited all but three of the marshal’s ships, which returned to Portugal.
“There was one bright spot for the governor in all this. He inherited all but three of the marshal’s ships, which returned to Portugal. It provided him now with a substantial fleet to deploy as he wished—and he had plans to do so. He spent the next day writing to the king about everything that had happened recently, without a word about the Calicut fiasco. The men returning to Portugal could explain that. His silence was eloquent. Calicut itself remained a problem to be solved. Three years later, he would find a solution to the samudri; it would be far simpler, and almost bloodless, but without honor or glory. Meanwhile, he pondered the lessons of the disastrous collapse of discipline, in which the emphasis on individual bravery outweighed tactical organization, and how the hunger for booty, which was the compensation for continual late pay, could reduce an army to a rabble that might break and run.”
