17 AUGUST 1778
Dearest Elizabeth,
We are now in the Arctic Sea. Fog and sleet are our constant companions and we make only slow progress north. We have forgotten what it is like to be warm. Over our meals in the officers’ mess we reminisce about English summers and how our loved ones will be relishing the warmth and greenness of that season. But we sail on, optimistic that somewhere to the north lies a passage through to the Atlantic.
I continue to be afflicted by gut pains and constipation. My old hand scar is also aggravated by the cold, in spite of the glove I now wear on it day and night. These hardships I can just cope with. What affects me much more is my failure to sleep. This insomnia is combined with the strangest impression: that somehow in these past weeks I have become two men. Particularly when I am lying abed, it is as if I am another person watching myself, and that self is demented. If this sounds absurd to you, when I see those words on the page it seems so to me as well. Nevertheless the hallucination is a vivid, recurring phenomenon.
Lying awake in my berth, I watch my deranged self moving about the ship. My observing self is not deranged, so is able to observe the other fellow in a totally unemotional manner. The apparition James Cook which I observe is usually out of control, fuming, violent and unfit for command. He is a monster. I wonder: could the hideous hallucination be caused by the laudanum the surgeon prescribes for me?
Meanwhile, my real self is constantly short-tempered. Whereas before I was able to bear an even strain (except when confronted with the direst of circumstances), my real self now cannot abide slackness or incompetence of any kind. The errors and indiscretions of others of the ship’s company, or even the mildest of misjudgments on their part, cause a loss of equilibrium in me. I then become like a ship in a storm with a loose rudder.
Try as I might, I cannot overcome this loss of self-restraint. And unless I get proper sleep, I fear that the condition will worsen. The laudanum provides only temporary relief, followed by the nightmares, then by a craving for a further dose of the remedy. Thus, awake or sleeping, I am never at peace.
A certain cure for this condition would be the discovery of the North-east Passage. If this occurs my melancholia will dissolve like dew under spring sunshine and my spectral self will be banished forever. I live in hope.
Yesterday our astronomic observations revealed that our position was 70° 33' North. Almost as far as I voyaged south in the Antarctic five years ago. (Was it five years ago, or four? Time has become vague and my memory is sometimes as foggy as the air that surrounds us. Doubtless another consequence of my chronic sleeplessness.)
Yesterday through a lifting mist we sighted a landform that I named Icy Cape. It is a promontory as bleak, snow-covered and windswept as any I saw in the Antarctic.
‘Captain!’
There was a loud knock on the cabin door. James blotted and closed Elizabeth’s journal. ‘Come.’
Gore’s face appeared. Agitated, he caught his breath, then managed to speak. ‘Captain, there is a sight you must see.’
It was one o’clock in the afternoon. The news had spread quickly through the ship and the entire company—crew, midshipmen and officers—had gathered along the rails or climbed the rigging.
James and Gore joined the other officers on the quarterdeck. All stared towards the north.
‘We first observed the light about an hour ago,’ said Gore.
‘It’s the reflection of the sun on the ice,’ James said quietly. ‘It’s known as “the blink”. It has been observed in the North Atlantic too. Near Greenland.’
His scope trained on the horizon, Gore said, ‘The ice sheet itself appeared about two hours ago.’
The tone of his voice betrayed his disappointment. A heavy silence descended on the quarterdeck. All realised what the spectacle that lay before them meant. The ice sheet extended from one side of the horizon to the other, radiating a blindingly luminous light. Above the ice shelf, visible through the mist, was a range of snow-covered mountains as wide as the ice itself.
‘Hold your course,’ James called to the helmsmen. ‘We’ll go in as close as we can.’ He turned to ensure that Discovery was still shadowing them. She was.
By 2.30 pm both ships were tacking in tandem, close to the leading edge of the ice sheet. The wind was only a zephyr and the leadsman measured the depth at just 22 fathoms. Half a league from the edge of the sheet, both ships were brought to. All aboard stared, speechless, at the ice sheet’s immensity. About 12 feet high, its edge was as solid and impenetrable as a castle wall. Deep within it, the surface whiteness gave way to a molten blue, and beyond the glassy wall the white mountains had a ghostly aspect. The entire mass glowed, as if heated by an interior fire.
The spectacle was at once hypnotic and shattering. Hypnotic because of the ice’s immensity and radiant whiteness, shattering because they realised the implications of its appearance. There could be no way through.
King had been taking observations from the main masthead platform. He climbed down, then announced to James, ‘Latitude seventy degrees, forty-four minutes North, sir.’
James just nodded. Not quite as far in its equivalence as he had reached on his Antarctic voyage, but still further north than anyone had been before. But this was of little consolation. There could be no way through to the North Atlantic from here at this time. Summer was drawing to a close; from now on the ice field would move in only one direction: south. And southward-moving pack ice would make any further northward probes impossible. At least for this year.
For the umpteenth time, James cursed the weeks they had wasted in the Friendly Isles, the Sandwich Isles, Nootka Sound, and the sound they had diverted to at Gore’s urging. Those diversions had added up to months, time that might have made all the difference. Even four weeks ago the ice sheet would not have extended this far south and so might have offered further access to the north. They were now paying the penalty for their repeated delays.
A melancholy silence had befallen the ship. Even the dimmest of the crew could see that there could be no further progress. To be caught within the ice would mean no escape. Death from cold, starvation and sea elephant would follow. Some of the crew turned and looked up towards the quarterdeck where James stood by the rail, his expression grave. All were wondering, What now?
Bligh approached him. ‘Shall we continue westward, sir?’
‘Are you suggesting we have a choice in the matter, Bligh?’
‘No, sir.’ The young man coloured his commander’s scornful tone.
James looked over towards the other ship. ‘Signal Discovery. Let Clerke and Burney know that we need to talk.’
With the ships tacking cautiously westward, about a league from the edge of the ice sheet, the officers met in the Great Cabin. Clerke reported that Discovery’s supplies were low and that some men were suffering from scurvy. Fresh food would soon be desperately needed. Resolution’s carpenters had reported to James that the ship had developed another leak. Her sails were also in poor condition due to broken bolt-ropes and worn cordage. An entire suit of her sails had been lost when the bolt-ropes gave way in a squall.
James looked around at the dejected faces. ‘We can sail west, to Siberia, and survey that coast. Or return south to the Aleutians and winter there before sailing north again next summer.’
There was a perceptible shudder around the table, unconnected with the cold. James looked over at Clerke. ‘What say you?’
Clerke blinked to clear his streaming eyes. ‘We need a base, that’s certain, one where we can carry out refits to both ships and obtain fresh food. That island, Providence, could provide for our needs.’
There were nods around the table. After their near-foundering off its coast, the island had provided a good anchorage. There was a harbour where the ships could be heeled. But a whole winter there? Snowed in for six months or more?
‘What if we were to return to Nootka Sound, Captain?’ This suggestion came from Lieutenant Harvey. ‘That was a place that furnished many of our requirements. The timber there could be used to replace our damaged spars.’
‘Nootka’s winter would be almost as bad as Alaska’s,’ James replied curtly.
Among the Admiralty’s orders was one that instructed him that if a refit base was needed in this region, they were to make for the Russian port town of Petropavlovsk, on the Kamchatka Peninsula. Yet lying idle and snowbound in that freezing place for six months was not a prospect that appealed either.
He remembered another of his mother’s sayings: ‘The devil makes work for idle hands, Jimmy.’ More and more these days he was remembering his mother. Grace Cook also appeared regularly in his dreams, usually delivering one of her homilies. And there was truth in her adage. Most of the lapses in discipline he had faced as a commander were a consequence of men spending long periods ashore with little to do. No, frigid Petropavlovsk was not the place in which to winter. The morale of the men was low enough already. Like him, they’d had a gutful of the cold. And glancing over at Clerke’s haggard face, he wondered if a man suffering from the consumption could survive another winter in these climes.
There was another location James now considered, one that the Admiralty Lords had never thought of because they were unaware of its existence. Just as he had been unaware of it too, until last January.
He got to his feet. Palms pressed down on the table, he announced: ‘We will continue west and coast Siberia, charting its features. We will then return through the Bering Strait and complete a survey of the Alaska coast. After that we will call at Providence Island to carry out repairs to the ships and obtain supplies.’ He paused, then said decisively, ‘We will then return to the Sandwich Isles. We will survey them thoroughly and provision there, before returning to the Arctic next summer to resume our search for the North-east Passage.’
All around the table, gloom vanished. Faces broke into smiles of relief and anticipation. The Sandwich Isles! Winterless. Warmth. Fruit. Fresh food. Friendly natives. A return to Elysium.
The remainder of August was spent coasting the Chukotsky Peninsula of northern Siberia. The entire coastline was rocky and unremarkable. And over the month the weather worsened. The temperature fell below zero, there were constant snow showers, and the winds were frigid and often disadvantageous. But the sloops plunged on, managing not to lose one another.
They passed through the Bering Strait in early September and explored a deep sound on the west coast of North America which they thought might lead to a passage north. It did not. James named it Norton Sound after Sir Fletcher Norton, the Speaker of England’s House of Commons. Then they slowly traversed the rest of the Bering Sea, reaching the sheltered anchorage on the eastern coast of what James had called Providence Island in early October.
Resolution was careened on the shore of an inlet and her sheathing partly removed. Cleveley confirmed to James what they had suspected since the ship had begun taking on water weeks ago. Clicking his tongue in frustration, he said, ‘The leak is serious, sir. It’s below the waterline, under the starboard futtock. It’ll need to be plugged. Again.’
Yet again James cursed the Deptford contractors. He’d like to keelhaul the incompetent swine. Over and over again. He told Bligh, ‘Get the holds cleared out, to give better access to the pump wells. When the holds are pumped dry, re-caulk the seams. Then re-sheath her.’
Although the weather remained bitterly cold, Providence Island was in other ways not disagreeable. They had fresh food again, in the form of the halibut which abounded in the island’s waters. The crew hauled up these delicious fish, one of which weighed 254 pounds and took three men to pull aboard. And as it was now autumn there were ripe berries in abundance all over the bushes that grew on the island. Spruce trees, too. Clerke and cook Morris brewed beer from the berries and tree leaves, and the crews enjoyed its refreshing, mildly intoxicating flavour.
Furthermore, there was a kind of civilisation here in the form of a Russian settlement on the other side of the island. They learned this from a group of native Aleut men who came into the inlet in the canoes they called kayaks. Their name for this island was Unalaska, they told James. The Aleuts were short and stocky, with swarthy complexions and Asiatic eyes. They wore fur caps, knee-length animal-skin coats and leather boots. They all smoked or chewed tobacco. Well adapted to their harsh environment—their canoes were light but strong—they hunted sea otters for the Russians, who, as Clerke had guessed, paid them for the pelts in tobacco. They told the Englishmen all this by sign language.
‘I believe they are addicted to tobacco,’ King said.
James nodded. ‘It’s a clever ploy of the Russians, to keep them hunting.’
A man with a weather-worn face and a wispy black moustache handed James a basket woven from sea grass. Curious, he accepted it. Inside were two round loaves of some sort. The man said something like ‘Ee-qua-lug-ruaq’ then pointed to the water and mimed swimming movements with his hands.
‘Ah.’ James understood. ‘Fish. Fish loaves. Thank you very much.’
The Aleut then drew an envelope from inside his heavy jacket and passed it to James. He opened it, drew out a sheet of notepaper, frowned. It was in Cyrillic script. Showing it to King, he asked, ‘Can you read this?’
King shook his head. He said to the Aleut who had produced the letter, ‘Roo-ee-ski?’
The man nodded. ‘Da. Roo-ee-ski’. He pointed to the west.
‘We must make contact with the Russians,’ James decided. ‘They may have useful charts. I’ll send Ledyard to find them, with a gift of rum.’ To the Aleut men he said, ‘Thank you very much for the loaves.’ He took a wad of tobacco from his pocket and handed it to the leading man. The others all held their hands out to the leader.
That night in the officers’ mess they shared the loaves. They contained salmon, heavily spiced, and were delicious.
Next day marine Corporal Ledyard went off across the island with Samwell, who insisted on accompanying him, to find the Russian settlement. Three days later they returned. They reported that they had met the Russians, including their governor, who was carrying out a census of the Aleuts on the island. The Russians drank heavily, Ledyard said, and loved the rum. They had invited the governor to come over and meet James and Clerke, and he had said he would come soon, by boat.
Samwell said he and Ledyard had stayed in an Aleut house for two nights. The natives lived in a longhouse, he reported. This consisted of a wide depression dug into the ground and roofed with driftwood covered with turf. Access was by ladder through a hole in the roof. Another hole let out smoke from their cooking fire. The Aleuts possessed Russian kettles, bowls and blubber-oil lamps. ‘There was a large bowl in the centre of the room. It held the occupants’ urine, so that the big room stank of piss and smoke. And fish, their main food.’
Characteristically, Samwell’s other news was of a carnal nature. Waiting until James was not present, he boasted, ‘We took the women promiscuously, according to our fancies. I bedded the family beauty, twice, for just a wad of tobacco. Then, later in the night, a less comely lass approached me for some weed. I had her too, for just a few leaves.’ He chuckled. ‘The husbands and brothers stood around and watched the whole business with great interest.’ The Russians, he said, disapproved of fornication with the native women. ‘The only fur the Russkies caress is that of the sea beaver.’
Several days later the governor arrived in a canoe with two of his aides. Wearing a blue tricorn, a cape over a crimson frock coat and gold waistcoat, Gerassim Ismailov was about 40. He was wigless, and had curly auburn hair, a matching moustache and green, wide-spaced eyes. His face had an intemperate flush.
Speaking a little English, he said he was familiar with the achievements of James’s two earlier voyages. ‘The great Cap-i-tan Cook,’ he declared upon his arrival. ‘It is my undoubted honour to greet you.’
The other officers also welcomed Ismailov to the Great Cabin; he was the first European they had spoken to since Cape Town, nearly two years ago. Over the brandy carafe—the governor was demonstrably fond of hard liquor—the men discussed the British voyage. Ismailov had brought some of his compatriots’ charts of the region and presented James with one of the Kamchatka Peninsula. James in turn showed the governor the charts he had made, in particular the ones of the Chukotsky Peninsula and Norton Sound. When Ismailov showed intense interest in these, James promised he would make copies for him.
Quietly proud of the fact that no Russian explorer had ever gone as far north as he had, James was also quick to notice several errors in the Russian charts of southern Alaska. Later he wrote in his official log:
This is all the information I got from these people relating to the geography of those parts, and which I have reason to believe is all they were able to give; for they assured me over and over again that they knew of no other islands but what were laid down on this chart and that no Russian had ever seen any part of the Continent to the northward.
However, the Russian charts did prove one crucial fact: that Alaska and the American continent were contiguous.
James warmed to Ismailov, sufficiently so that he entrusted him with copies of some of his charts, along with a lengthy letter to the Admiralty in London, summarising the progress of the voyage thus far. The letter also pledged that next summer he would again sail north to seek and chart the North-east Passage.
Governor Ismailov assured James that the charts and report would be forwarded to London with all haste. They would go first by a Russian ship from Unalaska to Petropavlovsk, then overland by dog-drawn sleigh and coach to Moscow, and on to St Petersburg. Then by sea again to London.
Resolution and Discovery weighed and set sail from Unalaska on the morning of 26 October, on a southward course. On their second day at sea, James Cook turned 50.