It was decided that I should go to the marines’ camp once more. Not to find out how Mr Solander was faring, not to find out what game they had been catching, nor even to ask about trading for a pistol. Rather I was to enquire about what encounters with the natives they had had, and if they were proving to be peaceable or hostile. And if there was any evidence of them being cannibals.
The argument put forward by Mr Banks, and agreed to by most in the camp, was that now the natives were becoming emboldened to approach us more openly we needed to know something more of their intentions.
So, I picked my way through the bushland again, and up onto the lower slopes of the grassy hill, before coming to the marines’ camp. The distance from our river camp was hard to estimate in the bushland, but it was perhaps a mile or so. It was very hot in the trees. Hot and stifling. It made me appreciate the ever-present breeze by the river.
Again I was stopped by a sentry, who asked me if I was a friend or a foe. I rolled my eyes at him and asked him who he thought I was.
‘I am just following orders,’ he said sullenly.
‘As am I,’ I muttered, and he let me pass into the camp. And I thought again of the word I had said to the native—Tio. Friend.
I asked the first marine I saw where Judge was and he told me to wait and he would find him. So, I sat in the shade of one of the trees and looked around to see what progress they had made on the fort. It had a full, close set of palisades now, stuck into a low earthen wall. And there were the makings of a ditch being dug behind it.
The name ‘fort’ seemed a bit grandiose for it still, and maybe it would be better described as a stockade, being really just a small enclosure for a dozen people or so to hide inside. There were several huts as well, most with branches for roofs and I wondered how well they kept off the rain. I also wondered if that might provide an opportunity for us to trade some of our canvas for a pistol. We would see.
While I was sitting there, one of the sailors I had fled the Endeavour with, Matthew Cox, came over and greeted me. ‘Hello,’ he said and almost put his knuckle to his forehead, but pulled his hand back at the last moment.
‘Hello,’ I said in return. Then, ‘Are you eating well here?’ Might as well get straight to the point and find out for certain.
He shrugged. ‘Well enough.’ And he passed me a small plant he had been carrying. It had a whitish vegetable matter on it that smelled something like cheese.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘Solander has a name for it, but as long as we can eat it without getting sick, the only name we care about is food.’
I took it and examined it. It looked like a type of fig and was very soft under my fingers. I tentatively placed it in my mouth. It had a strange taste, but not altogether unpleasant. He waited until I was finished, and looked around and then said, softly, ‘Some of the sailors here have been talking,’ he said.
‘About what?’
‘About an arrangement.’
‘What type of arrangement.’
‘We could call it a mutually beneficial arrangement.’
I nodded, indicating that he should go on. He looked around again to ascertain who was watching him and who wasn’t. It was clear several of the men here were in on this arrangement as they lingered not too distant, pretending to be busy with various tasks.
‘It’s about food,’ he said.
‘Food?’
‘Yes.’
‘You better tell me more.’ I was not sure why the fellow didn’t just come out and say what was on his mind, but he had clearly decided there were certain rocks and shoals that he needed to navigate around in getting to his point.
‘We are running out of food. Things are getting too desperate. None of us want to end up like young Rossiter.’
The brutish drummer boy. ‘What happened to Rossiter?’
‘You have not heard?’ he asked.
‘No.’
He exhaled heavily as if the burden of having to now tell me was going to be difficult. ‘He is dead,’ he said. ‘Slain by natives, we were told. They had buggered him and cut off his arms to eat.’
I looked at him in horror.
He held up a hand to silence me, lest I cry out. ‘But it weren’t no natives. It was Jeffs that done it. The fiend had his way with him and then sliced bits off his bones to eat. That is how desperate things have become.’
‘What has happened to Jeffs?’ I asked.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Judge says we need to prove the murder. He says it may have been natives—but in truth we’ve not seen any sign of them since shooting at a few to chase them away. Judge is the only one who sees them. Or thinks he does.’
I took a deep breath to still the nausea growing in my stomach as a thought repeated itself in my head: Had Judge had been a party to any of it?
‘What are you proposing?’ I asked Cox.
‘Fish,’ he said. ‘And turtles. And maybe stingrays.’
We had observed some of the men from the marines’ camp fishing further upriver from our camp—seemingly not much more successful than we had been—and I gave him a quizzical look, which finally prompted him to get the point of things. ‘The boat,’ he said.
‘Mr Banks’s boat?’
He shook his head.
‘The longboat?’ I asked him.
He nodded.
‘We could take the longboat out into the reefs and there we would find abundant fish and turtles.’
‘It is damaged and would not last the journey.’
‘Then we repair it.’
‘We have no carpenters.’
‘We have men desperate enough to become carpenters,’ he said.
‘We have no proper wood to repair it.’
‘Don’t we?’ he asked.
Slowly the crux of the matter dawned on me. ‘You wish to use Mr Banks’s boat to repair the longboat?’
‘Aye,’ he said.
‘What would Mr Banks say to that notion?’
‘What would Mr Banks say to a full belly of fish?’
The sailors had something. And they knew that stealing both Mr Banks’s boat and the longboat would be a whole other matter than stealing Mr Solander.
‘What type of an arrangement are you proposing?’ I asked him.
‘We fix the boat together and we crew it between us and we share the catch between us.’
I nodded again. ‘I think there would be general support for the idea—once Mr Banks becomes convinced of it.’ Then I asked him, ‘What does Judge think of the plan?’
‘Ah—there’s the rub,’ he said.
‘He does not know of it, does he?’
‘Not yet. But the whole point of telling you is not just for you to get those in your camp to see the benefit of it, but also for you to put it to Judge as your idea.’
I looked at the man carefully, then turned to glance at the others lingering nearby. They were all sailors, I noted. Not a marine among them.
‘Let me talk to the people in our camp first,’ I said.
He did knuckle his forehead this time. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘But you tell them it was your idea too, right? Then you come back and propose it to Judge.’
It was all agreed before the end of the day. Judge had to examine the proposal from all sides, of course, and figure out how it was in his best interests above anyone else’s, but the promise of more food is a mighty strong argument to a hungry man. The next morning several sailors from the fort had come down to our camp to begin making repairs on the longboat. Mr Banks had not been particularly happy about having his small boat cannibalised, and had to be convinced by all the other survivors.
At first he had protested that it was our only seaworthy boat, and what if more supplies washed up on the far shore. And then he said that the small boat might be capable of journeying out to the reefs. Then he said that he needed it for important research. Then he finally acquiesced. But he sulked like a man who has been told his family home is being dismantled to make way for a king’s road.
The repairs on the boat progressed slowly. Without the proper tools, we had to improvise for many necessities. Removing nails carefully with a knife to reuse. Cutting wooden beams with similar blades. More men fussing over every plank than was needed, and each with his own opinion on how things should be done.
The main challenge, one of the sailors told me, was to find something to caulk the ship’s bottom with. Pitch would have been preferable, he said, but who knew if pitch had ever been seen in this land?
‘Perhaps Solander knows some plants that could be used?’ I asked him. ‘You should send for him and ask him.’
‘Solander is not allowed to leave the environs of the camp,’ he said.
‘But surely—’
‘It is forbidden,’ he said simply.
‘Then perhaps I should go to the camp and ask him.’
‘Aye,’ said the sailor. ‘I’m sure that would be acceptable. But only you, mind.’
That struck me as damned curious, but I trooped back to the marines’ camp once more.
The marines there seemed on edge and again I was asked if I was a friend or a foe, and I asked the man on guard what he would have said if I answered foe.
‘Then I’d have to run you through,’ he said.
‘Are they your orders?’ I asked him.
He nodded.
‘And what if I did not answer your question?’
‘Then I would ask it again.’
‘And if I had been one of the natives, would I have even been able to answer the question?’
‘It would not matter,’ he said. ‘If you was one of the natives I’d have run you through on the spot. Or put a musket ball into your guts.’
‘I need to see Solander,’ I told the guard.
‘You’ll have to ask Judge,’ he said. ‘If he’ll see you.’ The marine stood aside so I could squeeze between two of the palisades to get in. The construction had not made any allowance for a gate or entryway, as if it was more important to stop people getting in than it was for those inside to come or go.
I found Private Judge standing in the shade of a tree. He had been watching me since I had approached their camp.
‘How goes the boat mending?’ he asked me.
‘Well, and that is why I have come,’ I said, and I explained my hope that Solander might know of a plant we could use to caulk the boat.
‘I dare say if anybody knows it, it will be him,’ he said. Then, ‘Did you not ask Banks first?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘He would likely say he knew what plant to use but then it would wash off while we were out at sea.’
He laughed. ‘You have his measure all right.’
‘So, can I talk to Solander?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But the first turtle you bring back is mine.’
‘I imagine that would be acceptable to the others,’ I said.
He led me to a small hut and stood at the door while I bent and went inside. Solander was looking miserable sitting there in the dirt, his clothes hanging loosely on his once portly form.
‘How are you?’ I asked, meaning were they treating him well.
‘Tolerably well,’ he answered, his Swedish accent making it sound like ‘vell’. Though I suppose he could not have said anything other with Judge standing close by.
‘I need your advice on finding a plant we might use to caulk the boat we are repairing,’ I told him, and outlined the problem.
‘I think there is one that grows here that might be of use,’ he said. ‘I have heard similar things are done with a plant quite like it in the East Indies.’
‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘Can you show me where I can find some?’
‘Oh, it is easy to recognise,’ he said. ‘Here, let me draw it for you so you will know what to look for.’
With a small stick he began to make shapes in the dirt. It was too dim to see well in the hut, so I had to bend down low to make out what he was doing. But it was not a plant he was drawing, he was writing letters in the dirt. They spelled out a warning: Judge planned to steal the longboat and kill us all.
I looked at Solander and saw the truth of it in his eyes. Obviously he had overheard something, but if anybody knew it he would certainly be killed—knowledge of plants or no knowledge of plants.
‘Do you recognise it?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think I do recognise it,’ I said. ‘Perhaps better if you showed it to me.’
‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘Let me just ask my host first for permission.’
‘But of course you can go and find this plant for my good chum Magra,’ Judge spoke from close outside the hut. ‘I will even send two of the marines with you to protect you from any harm. You know the blacks have been sneaking around the fort, up to no good.’
‘That is very generous of you,’ I said. But I did not turn to look at him as I said it. I did not want him to know what I now knew. I had his measure all right. The fucker!
Though I never suspected then just how badly this would all end for us all.