4
Into the Pacific, December 1768 to April 1769
Isaac stood at the masthead and felt the power of the ship flowing beneath him. Wind glanced off the streaming sea, stinging his face and stretching the canvas like a bow. Nowhere, in that silver expanse of light arching to the horizon where sky and water met, could Isaac see another thing.
‘Clear ahead,’ he murmured to the lookout.
‘Aye.’ The sailor lapsed into silence. And Isaac was glad.
Somewhere to the west, South America tapered to the dagger’s point of Cape Horn. Rio was far astern. The city had been unkind to the last. Even as they left, Peter Flower had fallen from these very shrouds and drowned. Poor Peter. He’d sailed with Cook for five years: had joined him at only thirteen. Isaac’s age.
The boy flinched at the memory. Then dismissed it. He’d be luckier than that, for he was young and invincible. The world flew, and Isaac soared with it. Though, with shades of Peter Flower about, he was careful climbing down.
As Endeavour settled again into the rhythm of life at sea, Isaac often took time to be alone with his thoughts. They all did. There was no other solitude, except in the mind. Eating, sleeping and working were crowded with everybody else.
Even going to the lavatory was a communal event. You could always pee over the side or into one of the copper-funnelled ‘piss-dales’ near the quarterdeck. The other was a different matter. Officers and gentlemen had their own privy chamber pots which the boys, like Isaac, emptied. But ordinary seamen had to lower their britches on the forecastle (‘fo’c’s’le, matey’) and take their place on one of the two ‘seats of ease’ over the bows, near the cat-heads that held the anchor cables. Hence every day Isaac found himself ‘going to the heads’. When finished, he washed himself with the frayed end of a rope flushed in the sea. Which was all right in the tropics. But as they sailed further south during December, it became colder and coarser, and Isaac thought it was like wiping himself with sandpaper.
The weather grew sharper. South Atlantic gales bore down, and the ship sometimes ran before them for days under close-reefed sails. When wind backs and glass falls, be on guard for rain and squalls. Whenever he could, Isaac willed himself up with the topmen: hands freezing as he hauled the canvas and hitched the gaskets, eyes fixed above the wave mountains to stop himself from vomiting. And all the time his body was becoming more weather-hardened.
He could have stayed below among the so-called ‘idlers’ – the carpenters and other tradesmen who didn’t have to go aloft or stand watch. But it would not have taught Isaac his seamanship; and his readiness to go up stood to his credit. Working the ship became more demanding, and every hand was required.
Cook changed the three-watch system, which gave each man up to eight hours off duty, to two watches. Watch and watch about. Four hours on and four hours off. It meant more hands were on deck in these heavy seas approaching the Horn – but it gave barely enough time for sleep. On the whole the sailors didn’t resent it. This was the discipline of survival. Indeed, men spoke of how well Endeavour rode out the storms, and what a tonic they were doing her.
‘There’s nowt like a good shakin’ to loosen her joints,’ declared old John Ravenhill over his midday rum. ‘She’ll settle even better after next one.’
Whatever the ship, Isaac’s own joints were stiff and sore. Ice was in the air. Tom Richmond and George Dorlton felt it worse than anyone. The two Africans, huddled in their blankets, still shivered.
‘We thought it was supposed to be summer in the south, Mr Isaac, but this is bitter as Christmas in England.’
True. Christmas Day was just like home: braw, though thankfully calm. For it was celebrated in the traditional way, too. Almost everyone got drunk. The Captain and gentlemen in the Great Cabin. Officers in the wardroom. Men and boys around the stove on the mess deck. There was scarcely a sober man to steer the ship.
Rum flowed, mixed with water into grog for the lads. An extra ration of beef and sauerkraut was served. Cheeks reddened. Tongues wagged. And as they edged closer to the tip of America, came tall stories of Patagonia and the terrors of rounding the Horn. These were unknown waters to most sailors, and the few who had sailed them were listened to agog by every man and boy.
‘They reckon there be giants in Patagonia,’ said a carpenter, Francis Haite, who’d been with Captain Byron on the Dolphin’s first voyage in ’64. ‘Men twice as big as Mr Cook. Though they kept ’emselves well ’idden when we wuz there.’
‘We saw a horseman on Tierra del Fuego built like a colossus,’ remarked Charles Clerke, one of the Master’s Mates. ‘Wearing wild animal skins he was, and hideous face paint. I felt like a pigmy.’
‘No, they were the pigmies,’ corrected Francis Wilkinson. ‘The Indians we met with Captain Wallis two year ago were small and stank abominably. Ate raw seals and fish caught straight from the water. Head first, look you, like seagulls.’
‘Why?’ asked Isaac, genuinely interested.
‘So the gills won’t get stuck in their throats going down backwards. Stands to reason, boyo.’
‘Oh, he still don’t know nuffing much yet,’ Nick teased, until Isaac silenced him with threats of another ducking in icy seas.
‘Those waters, where three oceans meet!’ mused Richard Pickersgill. ‘Worst in the world. Fogs, lightning and tempests, even in the height of summer. It took us nearly four months to get through the Strait of Magellan and into the Pacific. Beaten back each time by storms.’
‘And ’ere we are facing ’em ag’in!’ cried Francis Haite. ‘It’ll take stout ’earts and strong stomachs to get through, bullies. Fortified wiv much Christmas rum. So pour out another and give us a song . . .’
We’ll rant and we’ll roar like true British sailors,
We’ll rant and we’ll roar across the salt sea . . .
Giants! And four months to round Cape Horn! Isaac’s heart quailed. As he mixed himself and Nick another tumbler of grog, he wondered how many other true British sailors were feeling the same?
Cook well knew the risks of the Strait of Magellan, with its myriad small islands and shipwrecked coasts. He decided to sail further south through Strait le Maire between Tierra del Fuego and Staten Island. The Admiralty didn’t recommend it: but Cook thought it offered a clearer and safer passage. So as the new year came, every weather eye looked westward for land.
‘Look!’ cried Isaac from the foremast tops. ‘Mountains off the starboard bow!’
‘Let’s see ’un,’ squinted Henry Stephens at the grey, building mass on the horizon. ‘No, no, boy . . .’ after a long moment. ‘They be no more’n cloudbanks. “Cape Flyaway” we calls ’er. You’ll find ’un often on a long voyage.’
The weather grew bleaker.
Whales appeared, ‘like bloomin’ sea monsters on maps!’ exclaimed Young Nick to Isaac, clinging to the mizenmast shrouds. ‘Who would ’a believed it? I thought they was just stories.’
Antarctic penguins swam about the ship in black-and-white bathing costumes. The crew were issued with thick woollen ‘Fearnought’ jackets, and even the officers forsook their knee breeches and wore sailcloth trousers. But nothing kept the chill from Tom Richmond, who lay numb in his blanket and cried.
At last in the second week of January came the real shout, ‘Land ho!’ But Endeavour received such another violent shaking from wind and sea that she was some days getting into the Strait and – with her joints thoroughly loosened – anchored in the Bay of Good Success.
Or so they hoped it would prove. But tragedy had berthed there as well.
The Captain went ashore to look for water, and returned with three native visitors. There was no colossus among them, for the men were no taller than the average sailor. Neither did they stink, though their copper skin was smeared with animal grease, and their broad faces painted with red and black streaks.
Isaac watched fascinated as they walked the deck, wearing only guanaco hides like cloaks, and sealskin shoes. At every new thing they saw – the capstan, wheel and binnacle – the chief raised his voice as if, Isaac thought, he were chanting to the gods for protection.
The Indians were friendly enough, having known Europeans before. They wore bead necklaces, loved red cloth, and their arrows were tipped with glass. The visitors were familiar with ship’s food too.
‘Give ’em a biscuit,’ suggested Forby Sutherland. They nibbled the hard tack, laughed, and chewed some more.
‘What about salt beef?’ said John Thompson, bringing a piece from his galley. The natives seemed to enjoy it – though they kept most of the meat uneaten, to share with their families later.
They wouldn’t drink alcohol, however. The crew tempted them with rum, but the men merely sipped it, made faces, and spat it out. Most seamen considered it funny: but those who remembered the lost Indians of Rio staring in tavern windows thought it the best thing they could have done.
Work began next morning. Empty water casks were floated ashore and filled. Men cut wood for the stove. Others harvested wild celery and scurvy grass, for the men who’d sailed the Dolphin also knew how valuable fresh herbs were for keeping sickness at bay. The Midshipmen were out in the yawl, mapping the harbour. Isaac and Nick were scrubbing officers’ cabins. And, it being a fine day, Mr Banks took a party of gentlemen inland, with his servants, dogs, and two seamen to collect plants and insects.
‘It’s too cold for botanising,’ complained Tom Richmond to Isaac as they left.
‘Africa was never like this,’ George Dorlton said through chattering teeth.
‘Don’t worry!’ Jim Roberts, one of Banks’s young servants from Lincolnshire, tried to cheer them. ‘The walk will warm us up, and we’ll be back by evening.’
But they weren’t.
As the day wore on, chill settled more deeply. Clouds rolled in and snow began to fall. Isaac tried to hide his concern, but others said the party was out enjoying the long twilight! When they’d not returned by nightfall, seamen joked that landlubbers always preferred to camp ashore.
‘They’ve taken provisions and a bottle o’ rum to keep ’em happy,’ laughed the cook’s lad, Tom Matthews.
Isaac, snug in his hammock, didn’t share the mirth. He was afraid. It was still snowing, and he wanted only the dawn when his companions would surely return.
There was no sign of them all morning. It wasn’t until one o’clock that men on the beach heard shouts, and saw Mr Banks with his friends struggle out of the woods. Of the twelve who’d set out, only ten returned to Endeavour – three of them so ill they had to be carried aboard.
Neither of the two negro servants was among them.
‘Where are they?’ Isaac asked Jim Roberts. ‘Where’s Tom? Where’s George?’
‘They’re both dead.’ Into the sudden silence.
‘How? Why?’ And Isaac felt ice cut his heart.
‘They froze to death in the snow.’
‘What happened?’ Tears started.
‘I’m too exhausted to say,’ wept Jim. ‘I’ll tell you later.’
That night, after a sleep and hot food, the sixteen-year-old felt able to tell the tale to the mess deck.
‘We made pretty good going all morning,’ Jim began. ‘Past the Indian village with their huts like beehives. Uphill through the woods, until mid-afternoon when we came to a plain, and beyond it a peak Mr Banks wanted to climb. Trouble was, the plain turned out to be a bog covered with low, scrubby bushes ripping away at us.
‘We were almost there when Alex Buchan fell into one of his fits. You’ve seen him – the other artist – drop sometimes, shaking with epilepsy. Shouldn’t have come at all, I reckon. Anyway, Mr Banks told us to light a fire and look after Alex while his party went to the summit. But it was hard to strike a tinder in that cold damp. And then it started to snow as the gents returned. So once Alex felt a little better, we headed back to the woods.
‘But the going was no easier. Dr Solander said he was so cold he couldn’t walk another step till he had a sleep. Which he did! And Tom Richmond the same.
‘“I can’t go on no more, Mr Banks, sir.”
‘“But you’ll freeze to death, man, in this weather.”
‘“Then I’ll just have to lay me down and die, sir.”
‘The woods weren’t that far off, so some of the others went with Mr Buchan in the last of the day to light a fire and try to build a wigwam from branches, like the Indians. Eventually Dr Solander woke up and, seeing the firelight ahead, Mr Banks and me helped him into the warmth. George Dorlton stayed behind with one of the dogs to look after Tom, and bring him in when he woke up.
‘But they didn’t come.’ Jim’s voice trembled. ‘More snow fell, and still no sign of them. At last Mr Banks sent the two seamen to find Tom and George. Then he discovered a bottle of rum was missing from his knapsack.
‘Hours went by . . . until someone came yelling, and a seaman reeled out of the darkness to the fire. We knew then what had happened to the rum. They thought it would warm them – but it only made things worse. Mr Banks and a few of us stronger lads went out, and found Tom standing upright, but unable to move or even talk. Rigid as carved marble. And George had collapsed on the snow.
‘We did everything to get ’em moving. “Come on Tom! Try to walk, George . . . Wake up . . . Please!” But they wouldn’t budge. We couldn’t even light a fire in the snow. In the end we just had to lay Tom and George on a bed of branches, cover ’em with boughs as a shelter, and leave ’em there till morning with just the dog for company. And drag the second seaman with us back to the fire.
‘We went out at first light and removed the boughs. But Tom and George were both dead. Faces frozen grey, and eyes staring blind. There was nothing for it but to cover them up again, decent like. Though the dog survived all right.’
There was stillness on the mess deck, as Jim gathered himself to tell the end.
Mr Banks had shot a vulture, which the ten survivors skinned and cooked for breakfast. Sharing equally. Three mouthfuls apiece. With the weather clearing, they made their way back to the coast – though Alexander Buchan was still sick, and Banks’s other servant, Peter Briscoe, almost died of hypothermia too.
As Endeavour finished watering over the next few days, Isaac felt some of the light in him had also departed. He was no stranger to death. Two others had already perished during this voyage. But Tom and George were men he knew well. Had laughed with. Messed with. And heard them mumble in their sleep as they dreamed of Africa and home.
Now they were gone, and Isaac mourned them. Even as the ship wore out of the ill-omened Bay of Good Success, his two friends were left to rot under a pyre of snow-covered branches. Unless, of course, the vultures got to them first. Two black Africans – free themselves, but still undeniably two more victims of the slave trade – frozen to death in a land at the very bottom of the world.
Or nearly so. For it was another four days’ sail through squalls and foul wind before Isaac saw the round island hummock of Cape Horn itself through a break in the clouds. Even then, they spent almost a week bearing further south, in case the ship ran into uncharted land and was wrecked.
But on the last day of January, when they’d passed latitude sixty degrees south, Captain Cook gave his order to set Endeavour’s course north by west. Men cheered and the blood quickened. They were heading into the Pacific! And fortune favoured them in this. The weather moderated. There were sometimes such light winds they set studdingsails (‘stu’n’s’ls, matey’) to push the ship along. So that by mid-February, the new boys were boasting to the Dolphin hands that, while it had taken Wallis nearly four months to round the Horn, they’d done it in little more than one!
‘Don’t be too cocky, look you,’ Francis Wilkinson checked Isaac. ‘We’ve a long way to go yet, and you never know what may happen at sea.’
Quite. For when Mr Banks shot an albatross and had John Thompson cook it, old Ravenhill thought it shocking.
‘Kill a albatross!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’ll bring us the worst kind o’ luck. And then to eat it! That be worse ’n cannibal sharks. You mark me.’
In the Great Cabin, however, conversation turned on how well the bird ate when served with savoury sauce. On the mess deck, talk quickly moved from superstition to the real delights awaiting in Tahiti to feed other appetites.
‘Those girls . . .’ sighed Dicky Pickersgill. ‘So beautiful. So loving.’
‘The whole island is a paradise of love, boyo,’ Francis Wilkinson explained. ‘’Tis the most natural thing in the world to ’em.’
‘Though the people know their value. And what they value most of all are iron nails. They don’t have metal on Tahiti see, and will do anything to get it.’
‘The young men would come down to the river’s edge with a twig the size of the nail required, look you. Once agreed, the girls swam across to us like water nymphs in stories . . .’ Wilkinson relived the memory.
‘It got so as the Dolphin was ready to fall apart, so many cleats had been taken from her timbers. Captain Wallis became severe. And when he found Frank Pinkney with a handful of stolen nails, he had to run the gauntlet: three times bare-backed around the deck while we whipped him with nettle ropes.’
‘But you know, we were all as guilty as Frankie – and so treated him very gentle. Happiness for an iron hand-spike! If only it were like that at home, in Wales.’
Isaac and Nick listened open-mouthed, pretending to experience beyond their years. They willingly agreed with general opinion that running the gauntlet was a small price to pay; but were not sorry, when Dr Monkhouse examined the crew for venereal disease, they were considered too young to participate.
Molineux and Gore kept discussions with the Captain strictly to business.
‘The natives were sure welcoming, suh – after the Dolphin fired a few broadsides and killed a number of them, when they attacked us.’
‘I’ll have none of that, Mr Gore, if I can help it!’
‘Once they understood the power of our weapons,’ soothed Molineux, ‘their queen – Purea by name – was most hospitable. Hogs . . . chickens . . . fruits aplenty. Her people satisfied our every need.’
‘So I’ve heard,’ returned Cook, the dour, dry Yorkshireman. ‘Generous in all respects. I believe the entire ship’s company is anxious to meet them.’
They certainly were. Even the goat began to bleat in anticipation. Last time, she’d butted one of the island men who’d never seen such an animal before; and rearing up to repeat the blow, had so terrified the man that he leaped overboard. Nanny seemed keen to renew the acquaintance.
As Endeavour ploughed through the Pacific, the sun grew stronger and the days lengthened. February turned into March and Isaac’s fourteenth birthday. The crew went back to the three-watch system. The first tropic birds were sighted, vibrant in red and white plumage. And the evening waters glittered with phosphorescence like starshine, as the ship turned the furrows with her bows.
The earthly paradise of Tahiti was drawing closer. Any bad luck caused by Mr Banks having shot an albatross seemed long past. When suddenly, as Jack Ravenhill knew it would, came another human tragedy to disquiet their journey.
A seaman, William Collett, obtained a length of sealskin in Tierra del Fuego, which he was going to sew into tobacco pouches for some of his friends. A young marine, Billy Greenslade, greatly desired one: but was refused. So when he was asked to look after the skin briefly, on duty outside the Great Cabin, Billy cut off a piece for himself. It seemed an almost malicious provocation – to which the young soldier, unfortunately, succumbed.
Collett was furious when he found out.
‘You’re no friend of mine, Billy Greenslade, and a damned thief besides. The Captain would have you flogged if he knew!’
‘You won’t tell him? Please . . .’
‘Not this time. But you can be sure your men will find out.’ Which they soon did. All that afternoon the marines abused Billy for his wickedness.
‘To steal something what’s been entrusted to your care! And on duty! That’s more than theft. It’s cowardly. Despicable. You’re a blackguard.’
Isaac could hear them, words striking like snakes, as Billy wretchedly tried to find refuge from shame in a dark corner of the mess deck.
‘It’s only a bit of sealskin . . .’
‘You’ve disgraced the honour of our whole corps.’
‘I never hurt no one.’
‘You’ve tainted each of us in the eyes of the gents.’
It continued for hours, until eventually Sergeant Edgcumbe called Billy up on deck, and said that Captain Cook would have to investigate. It was seven o’clock, just after supper, and night was falling quickly, as it does in the tropics. Few others were about, for a calm had followed the day’s squall, and the watch stood easy.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Billy softly, alone before the world in his scarlet uniform of which he’d been so proud. ‘I’ve got to go to the heads, first.’
‘As well you might need,’ replied the Sergeant. ‘Hurry up then, and don’t keep the Captain waiting.’
Billy went for’ard to the seats of ease. But the only relief he sought was to his conscience. Overcome by guilt and the taunts of his fellows, Billy looked quickly around – then threw himself into the dark, inviting sea. Down in his blood-red coat through its funeral depths to the waiting arms of Davy Jones and release.
It was some time before Sergeant Edgcumbe realised that Billy had gone and began a search.
‘Billy!’ Voices calling through the shrouded vessel. ‘Have you seen him, boy?’
‘No, Sergeant,’ said Isaac, coming on deck with a slops bowl from the wardroom. ‘Is anything wrong?’
‘We can’t find him. I’m afeared . . . Billy! Where are ye, man?’
And it was some time after that before Mr Cook was informed. But Private Greenslade was found no more aboard Endeavour, and his Captain was distressed.
‘I should have been told much earlier,’ he said. ‘How old was he?’
‘Not yet twenty-one, I believe, sir.’
‘So young! Such a rash thing to do over so trifling a matter. I might have prevented it, had I known.’ Cook sighed. ‘It’s nigh two months since our last landfall, and I know some minds can lose their proper judgement confined so long at sea. I’ve hopes we’ll sight Captain Wallis’s islands before long, and this will be forgotten then. I’m sorry for the lad Greenslade, nonetheless.’
The Captain spoke truly. Within a fortnight of Billy’s death, the morning watch spied the first coral island shining on the sapphire sea: small and fringed with palm trees, a white sandy beach enclosing the lagoon.
Isaac and Nick, straining from the rail, felt their pulses beating faster. Was this what paradise looked like?
It seemed people lived there, for Isaac could see smoke. And indeed, as they passed other islands, men were seen running along the shores – bronzed and naked and brandishing spears. Aye, and the crew saw women too through their telescopes, clothed in white skirts and with raven-dark hair.
Sometimes the people would follow Endeavour in canoes. But they never came too close, or dared board the strange ship, on which hearts pounded like drums.
‘Don’t worry, my bully boys. It can’t be long now.’
Nor was it. When Isaac went on deck early on 12 April, he saw a high mountain rising from the ocean, its crest garlanded with clouds blushing in the dawn light. The breezes blew warm from the land, carrying the scent of flowers and the promise of good things to come.
The island of Tahiti lay before them.