by Diana Menefy
‘Yer bastard, I’ll get yer for this.’ The words lisped out: already, Kee’s lips were starting to swell.
‘You had it coming, Kee,’ Dunc said, as he helped him up. ‘Always pushing, you are.’
I turned to go back below decks and slammed straight into Bo’sun.
‘What’s this, then? Fightin’ on deck? Got energy to spare, have you? Truss, you can tar the topgallant rig. Davidson, you get the stays. Well, what’re you waiting for?’
I hated tarring the rigging. It had to be done to protect the ropes from the weather, but if you missed a spot it showed and you got sent back up to do it again. And tarring the stays was the hardest.
The stays are the ropes that support the masts fore and aft. They run from the head of the masts to another mast, or else down to a point on the ship, and to tar them I had to ride down them in the bo’sun’s chair, which was just a plank of wood with a rope. I had one rope secured around my waist, and another, the gant-line, ran back up to the masthead and let me lower myself. It left my hands free — one to grip and one to work.
With a pot of tar attached to the bo’sun’s chair and the brush in my hand, I set to work swaying high above the deck.
Spots of hot tar dripped on my face and bare legs, burning like fire as the sun picked on them. But I told myself that Kee would be hurting a lot more, considering the beating I’d given him. That felt good.
My victory over him was worth every damn minute in the bo’sun’s chair.
Later in the great cabin Mr Berry pointed out that I had tar in my hair.
‘It’ll keep the fleas and lice away,’ he said, with a grin.
I picked at my hair and ended up with tar stuck to my fingers.
He tossed me his hat.
‘Here, wipe them on that. It’ll help hold the water out.’
I rubbed my fingers as clean as I could, then picked up my papers and started to write. Mr Berry came over, picked up my previous page and read what I’d written.
‘What sort of sailor was George?’ he asked.
‘He wasn’t lazy like they said. He’d sailed a lot.’
‘He told you that?’
‘I asked him. He didn’t mind at first. It was different afterwards.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘After the flogging. He changed.’
‘Flogging does that to a man.’ Mr Berry went back to his seat and ran his fingers through his hair. It was already starting to recede off his forehead. ‘Go on then, keep writing.’
Early December 1809 — landing at Wangaroa
George took me past the village. The path was worn smooth, and meandered past several piles of half-burnt wood, areas scattered with ashes and pits in the ground. I saw a heap of bones. Some of them still had meat on them, and the smell reminded me that I hadn’t eaten for days.
For a moment I thought they were from a beast, but then I realized. My stomach heaved and I had to stop.
‘Come, boy,’ George said. ‘You not enemy. We destroy enemy.’
I followed him. What else could I have done?
Further along the path we approached a jumble of huts, and I could see natives sitting around on the ground, but we turned off the main track onto a less-worn one. As we skirted the palisade and groups of natives working, I could feel the hostility in their glares and hear the angry tones of their voices as they called out to George. He ignored them and led me away from the village, up and around the side of a hill to an isolated hut. The opening was big enough to crawl through.
‘You safe here,’ George said, then strode off back down the path.
I crawled through the opening — and there was Mrs Morley, crouched on a mat in one corner, cuddling her baby.
Tears streamed down my face again.
‘I thought I was the only one left alive,’ I said, trying to control my sobs.
‘You poor boy. Come and sit down.’ She patted the mat beside her.
I sank down and took a deep, shuddering breath. Her blonde curls were matted, and there were dark blotches on the skin under her eyes, but they still held that warm, caring look that she’d shared with all of us. The tears welled in my eyes again.
She reached over with her free hand and patted my thigh.
‘I’m so glad to see you. That makes five of us. Mr Pritchard and Betsy are somewhere, too.’
‘How did you survive?’ I asked. The warmth of her hand on my thigh felt good, even through my wet trousers.
‘I’m not sure. I was feeding Ann when the door opened and a native burst in. His face was tattooed and his hair grey, with feathers poked into it. I heard Anne Glossop, Betsy’s mum, screaming in the cabin next to mine. I burst into tears and pleaded with him to spare me.
‘I fell to my knees, clutching Ann with one hand, and flung my other hand around his legs. He spoke to me, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. I just shook my head and he grabbed my arm and pulled me up. He dragged me out onto the deck and I thought he was going to kill us there, but he stopped to speak with another native.
‘Then he hauled me over to the side of the ship and took Ann from me. I thought he was going to throw her into the water, but he pointed to the boarding ladder and indicated I should go down it and into the canoe that was waiting below. He followed me down, and once he got there he gave Ann back to me. That was such a relief, I can tell you.’
She stroked Ann’s hair for a moment before continuing her story. ‘When we reached the shore, several natives strode towards us, yelling and waving their weapons. But then some of their women ran between us and protected me. They brought me here and gave me some water to drink. I understood from their gestures that they wanted me to stay here. They were trying to tell me something, but the only word I recognized was George’s name: Te Aara. I haven’t seen George. Have you?’
‘He saved me,’ I said, and went on to tell her my story.
‘What about the others?’ I asked when I’d finished.
‘I saw Mr Pritchard being taken away. Little Betsy was here for a while. She left in a canoe with several natives. She was crying and calling out ‘Mamma’. I wanted to comfort her, but I couldn’t go to her.’
Mrs Morley was silent for a moment, then continued. ‘I’m not brave. I was too scared to leave the women — and then Ann started crying …’
She started rocking her baby. It was then that I noticed she wasn’t wearing a dress, but what I guessed was a nightgown, soft-looking and white, with thin blue ribbons threaded through holes and lots of tiny white buttons down the front. Her feet were bare.
I looked around the hut. It was empty except for the woven mat on the dirt floor.
‘You’re Tom,’ she said.
‘Thomas Davidson, ma’am.’
‘Well, Thomas Davidson, I’m glad you’re here. I don’t know what’s going to happen to us, but it’s easier having someone to talk to.’
CHAPTER TEN
February 1810, on the City of Edinburgh —
closing in on the Horn
Some of the time in the great cabin I just sat daydreaming. I’d put my quill aside and think about the weeks in Wangaroa — it seemed like another world now. My days on the Boyd were more real. I often thought about Will and John, of our day in Sydney. It had been such a great day. I could see John, standing by the tree, his arm outstretched, hand open and mouth puckered up, chirping to the birds. The rest of us laughing at him, telling him he was daft, that the birds were too smart to be caught.
But then the memory would change and all I’d be able to see was the body in his clothes on the deck, head split, a mess of brown-grey crawling with flies, and I’d feel sick. I’d try to make myself remember him throwing the oranges. And the juice running down his chin. And him laughing as he wiped it with the back of his hand.
I hadn’t had an orange for ages. One night on board, when we had thick pea soup with a tiny bit of onion floating in it, I found myself longing for a piece of fresh fish and a hunk of sweet potato, and I real
ized with a flicker of surprise that there were parts of my time at Wangaroa that I missed.
I pushed the thought to the back of my mind and concentrated on the soup. It wasn’t my favourite meal, but was better than cabbage that had been pickled in brine, and at least I could dunk my bread in it. Bread — ha! Ship’s bread is nothing like real bread. More like dog biscuits. Scot might have liked it, though — he was my dog. Pete, my brother, was looking after him until I got home. He was probably Pete’s dog by now. I felt sad for a moment, but I knew that I’d be off again on another ship and it wouldn’t be fair to claim him back. I’d be seeing him soon at the rate we were going.
Bo’sun said the ship was about five hundred miles from Cape Horn. The wind was steady, and he reckoned we were getting daily runs of up to a hundred and ninety miles. All I knew was that the nights were getting shorter and the air colder, and I had to wear my sea boots on deck. Doc said strong westerlies often blew up into a storm.
‘Rounding the Horn in a storm’ll make a real sailor of you, lad!’ He grinned, exposing his yellow-black teeth, and I got the strange feeling he was warning me.
By 22 February we were about three hundred miles from Cape Horn, at fifty-eight degrees south. The air was freezing and my fingers were cracked and red. The wind had been building steadily all afternoon, and the sea was rough with crests of waves flooding the main deck. The galley was awash. There were dark and dense rain clouds in the sky, and the howl of the wind in the rigging made me uneasy.
Everyone was alert, watching for the change. Mr Russell told Dunc and me that we were to stay on deck during the storm. Mrs Morley was in her cabin. She hated it when the sea was rough. Not even Macduff could talk her out. She was walking with him now.
Over the next few hours the swells got higher and higher. The wind was coming in gusts, and the tops of the waves were being sliced off, dashing to foam and spray over the rigging. Captain Patterson ordered more sail to be taken in and the storm jibs set. I watched as the others balanced on the foot-ropes below the yard-arms, struggling to hold on with one hand and grab the billowing canvas with the other.
By then the sea was coming from all directions at different speeds. Between swells I could see low, ragged layers of stratus beneath a black rain cloud that seemed to be racing towards us. Then a huge gust shook the ship, and there was a boom like a thunder crack as the foresail split. The canvas thrashed against the rigging, and its flayed ends whipped the faces and hands of the sailors. I helped man the halyard to lower the yard, but another sail blew out. The men fought to furl the rest as the sea tossed the ship about. The wind slammed them into the rigging, then threatened to fling them out to sea with the next roll of the ship.
Squalls of rain and hail screamed through the rigging, and the slapping of canvas drummed in my ears. Huge waves reared above the masts while we pitched into yawning troughs. We seemed to be boxed into a solid wall of blue-grey water. At times I thought the ship would keep on going down, but it shuddered, then crawled its way up the steep swells as white water sprayed aft in blinding sheets.
In the midst of all this I heard Mr Russell yell, ‘Christ — hold tight! Hang on for your lives!’
I felt the ship heel, and looked up to see a towering wall of water broadside. I threw myself at the shrouds by the main mast and clung as the wave shattered into roaring torrents of water and engulfed us. The water sucked me from the shrouds, crushing the breath from my lungs. I knew I was going to die: I’d survived the massacre on the Boyd only to drown in the freezing waters of the Southern Ocean.
I slammed against the leeward bulwark and tangled with someone’s legs. I threw my arms around the legs and held on for dear life. When my sight cleared, I watched the water escape over the side through a gaping hole in the bulwark. There were ropes and bits of mast lying on the deck — the main mast had snapped in two. The legs belonged to Dunc, who was clinging to the fife rail, a look of sheer terror on his face. It seemed as if the whole ship was being torn to pieces.
After hours of the ship being tossed about, the wind eased a bit and the swells settled to a steadier pattern — the troughs were still huge and the waves continued to break over our decks, but I thought the worst seemed to be over. And then a monster wave struck the stern, knocking away our rudder and leaving us at the mercy of the sea.
Every hand that could be spared took to the pumps. We swung on the handles and lifted the pistons up and down as water was pushed through the suction trunking from the bilge to the deck. My feet and hands were freezing, and I was soaked through. After hours of pumping it seemed that the water was gaining, but Mr Russell said the pumps were probably choked with bits of rubbish and other things tossed into the swill during the storm. We’d have to go below to clear them.
The storm sounded worse in the hold. There was a dull, heavy thud every time a wave struck the ship. It seemed to stop her way for a second or two; then she’d shake, the timbers creaking and what was left of the rudder chains rattling, before she staggered off again.
The bilge was a sloshing broth of seawater and filth, the stench so strong that our stomachs heaved. We cleaned the intake and went back to the pumps.
We’d been pumping for ten solid hours, and by the time Mr Russell stood us down my back was on fire and my hands raw. It was only the grim determination that we would not sink that had kept us all going. I stumbled back down to the fo’c’sle, fell into my hammock and slept, sodden clothes and all. I didn’t even notice that the hammock and blankets were wet from the water that had leaked through the deck seams.
It was late afternoon when I woke to a shout from Mr Russell. My clothes were still damp and I ached all over, each breath catching against my ribs where I’d hit the bulwark. I groped my way up on deck. The wind had dropped and the seas were calm, but thick fog hugged the ship like a shroud.
Doc was ladling out hot coffee with a healthy drop of rum, and a steaming bowl of burgoo sweetened with molasses. There wasn’t one of us without bruises or cuts, and one of Mr Barton’s legs was smashed in two places. Afterwards Dunc and I were rostered to Chips, the ship’s carpenter, and, in between hauling planks up from below decks and holding lengths in place as they were nailed secure, we helped sort out the mess. The ropes were tangled up with spars, lifeboats and bits of smashed ladders, and all had been tossed against what was left of the port bulwark.
Dunc and I told each other how frightened we’d been, and managed to laugh at ourselves until Mr Cowper told us there was nothing to laugh at. The storm might have been over, but the ship remained in just as much danger. We’d been blown too far south and were drifting into floating masses of ice; and, without rudder and main mast, the ship was now just a sitting hulk at the mercy of the currents.
The thought sobered us and we settled down to work. Chips and his team toiled frantically to create a makeshift rudder, and a spare spar was lashed to the base of the main mast. I had never thought about the amount of rope on board a ship until I had to deal with the mess of tumbled rigging that day. Dunc reckoned that if we stretched it out end to end there’d be at least ten miles’ worth. To me, it seemed more like a hundred as we struggled to undo the knots the wind had whipped it into, and disentangle the rope from the endless tattered bits of canvas. Everyone laboured to get the ship seaworthy, but the atmosphere was still tense. No one smiled, sang or joked while they worked.
For a fortnight we didn’t see the sun. Sometimes the fog lifted a bit and we’d see icebergs as we passed them. I’d never seen anything like them before: huge blocks of white-grey ice with sharp, jagged edges. Some of them were close enough for me to see cracks and lines in the ice. There were lots of small ones, too, like triangles floating on top of the water, and there was one gigantic one, frightening and fascinating all at once. It made me long for Will: he would have caught the beauty of it on paper. I missed him so much it made me angry and miserable. Then the fog settled down again as densely as before.
Some days we’d hear the wailing cries of gull
s above the sails, warning us that we were close to land. Everyone listened for the sound of waves breaking on rocks.
It was a strange, eerie time. There were only four hours of night, and even then it didn’t get completely dark. Everything was grey and cold, and my fingers never stopped aching.
The only relief came when it was my turn to watch the charcoal burners, the iron pots placed below decks to shift the damp, foul air. Kee, Dunc and I all took turns watching them. We understood the danger of fire aboard and didn’t need the dire threats from Bo’sun to be vigilant. Even Kee was subdued, and not a single taunt came from him.
Orders were snapped out and received in silence. Everyone was listening for the iceberg that could slice the ship like paper and condemn us all to death.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
March 1810, on the City of Edinburgh —
off the coast of Tierra del Fuego
One night our luck changed: the fog lifted, and the ship drifted out of the iced water and closer to land. When I went on deck at eight bells, the sky was cloudy and the wind light, and I could see what looked like mountain tops on the horizon.
By midday the following day, Mr Berry was able to take an observation of the sun. We discovered we were off the coast of Tierra del Fuego, about forty miles south of the western entrance to the Straits of Magellan. The big island close by was called Desolation Island — and certainly looked it. It was summer, and yet the mountain peaks on the mainland shone white with snow; however, nothing could daunt our spirits.
Even the birds seemed to rejoice with us; plump Cape pigeons flew past almost close enough for us to touch, and smaller birds darted and dived all over the place, landing on the spars and rigging. Mr Russell and Mr Berry shot as many pigeons as they could — enough for a pie for all hands. I picked one up, smoothed the black and white feathers with my finger. Its body was still warm, but it flopped in my hand and blood smeared on my fingers. My feelings conflicted with each other: sadness for the bird fought keen anticipation for the pie. I put the pigeon back on the heap. Doc informed me that I could help pluck them later. Bo’sun told me that storm petrels nested on the bleak cliff faces of Desolation Island.