by Diana Menefy
‘So get it done now,’ he insisted.
I seethed with the unfairness of it as I watched the boats pull off, then returned to the great cabin and did as I was told.
Early January 1810, at the village at Wangaroa
I wandered off on my own. No one tried to stop me now. I was halfway up the hill with the hut on it when I saw the boats again. They had pulled up on the island by the wreck. I spun around and raced back down to tell Mrs Morley.
‘They’re not leaving us!’ I shouted. ‘They’re on the island.’
I could hardly sleep that night for excitement. They were so close.
George must have spent the night with them, because early the next morning he came into the village with two of the native men from the boats. He collected Mrs Morley and Ann and brought them over to me.
‘This goodbye,’ he said. ‘They trade axes.’
‘What about Betsy?’ asked Mrs Morley. ‘We can’t leave without her.’
‘She not here.’
‘Please, George, you’ve been so kind to us. Can’t you save her, too?’
‘Come now. They wait.’
He was obviously on edge, and, not wanting to risk my freedom, I grabbed Mrs Morley by the arm and pulled her towards the path to the river. We climbed into the canoe and were paddled down the river and out into the sea, heading for the island.
For the first time I saw up close what was left of the Boyd. She’d been burnt to the water’s edge and I could see the remains of some planks against the copper sheathing. The ship’s guns lay on top among the ironwork and standards that had fallen in when the decks collapsed. Tears welled up in my eyes.
The canoe pulled up on the island and we scrambled over the side and hurried towards the group on shore. An officer stepped forward.
‘Alexander Berry at your service, ma’am. You are safe now. My ship, the City of Edinburgh, waits for us.’
‘I am so pleased to see you.’ Mrs Morley stood with a wide smile, bobbing Ann in her arms. ‘Mrs Ann Morley, and my baby, Ann.’
I stepped forward and straightened my shoulders. ‘Thomas Davidson, sir, apprentice to the Boyd.’
‘Are you truly the only survivors?’
‘No. Betsy, Mr Broughton’s youngest daughter, was here somewhere. We can’t leave without her,’ said Mrs Morley.
‘And Mr Pritchard,’ I added.
‘Don’t worry. The Broughtons are friends of mine. If she is alive, I’ll get her. Please go with my men now and leave the others to me.’
The last thing I saw as our boat moved off behind the trees was Mr Berry holding his musket on one of the chiefs.
It was strange sitting in the longboat watching the sailors’ backs as they pulled on the oars. I wanted to throw my head back and shout to the sky. I wanted to laugh and cry. I was exploding with joy inside. Mrs Morley, who was sitting next to me on the thwart, kept touching me as if she couldn’t believe our rescue was real. I grinned at her and she smiled widely. I could see the tears of happiness welling up in her eyes. She was rocking little Ann and singing a sort of lullaby, the tune broken by her sniffs.
As the hours passed, I was conscious of my head itching and the filth of our clothes. Ann had fallen asleep, and as I watched Mrs Morley stroking Ann’s cheek an incredible tiredness seemed to hit me. My body slumped, I started yawning in huge gulps of air, and the tears started to flow. I could not stop them. And then the sounds of my anguish came out of my throat. I jammed my fist against my mouth. I felt Mrs Morley grip my other hand, and her tears splashed on my arm.
Many hours later the boat rounded the coast and entered another bay. There were several ships at anchor. We headed towards what had to be the City of Edinburgh.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
8 January 1810, on the City of Edinburgh —
anchored in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand
Mrs Morley, baby Ann and I were welcomed onboard the City of Edinburgh with claps and cheers, and many willing hands stretched out to haul us over the gunwale. Captain Patterson called for order, made a short speech, then asked the chief mate, James Russell, to organize for us to wash, eat and rest. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for questions later,’ he told the crew before he dismissed them.
I scrubbed myself with a bar of yellow soap and lathered my hair again and again, washing the lice and dirt out with buckets of seawater until it felt clean. Bo’sun provided me with clothes from the sea chest — even slop boots which I put aside for the cold weather. I went up to the galley, and the cook gave me a mug of strong brewed tea and a bowl of burgoo sweetened with molasses. That oatmeal porridge could taste so good surprised me. After I’d finished I went below. The air was thick with the smell of sweat and canvas. It felt right, safe. I climbed onto the hammock allocated to me and fell asleep.
The next day I woke to the thumping of a boat against the ship and for an instant I was back in the hold of the Boyd, my heart racing, mouth dry, goose bumps rippling on my arms. And then I heard a clear voice calling in English and knew it was only a dream.
I scrambled up on deck to see who had arrived, and there was Mr Berry climbing over the gunwale with little Betsy in his arms. She was wrapped in a dirty white shirt, her hair filthy, and she was covered in sores.
I waited for Mr Pritchard to appear, but he wasn’t with the rest of the men.
‘Where’s Mr Pritchard?’ I asked.
‘I’m sorry, Thomas, he’s dead,’ Mr Berry said.
I stood with my head down, taking deep breaths. It wasn’t fair.
Mr Berry also had two of the Wangaroa chiefs with him. He ordered them taken below decks. ‘Put them in irons and set a guard on them. I don’t want them escaping before I get all the books and papers from the Boyd’, he said.
There were two other natives with Mr Berry, but they were friends of his. He called the older one Metanangha and the younger one Teraaki. Teraaki was sent to collect the papers.
And so all of us who had survived were now rescued and soon to be on our way back home. I long to be sitting by the fire with me ma, brother and sisters listening to Da read, with the kettle hissing on the grate and the smell of fresh bread baking. It’s winter there now but it’ll be midsummer by the time we arrive.
May 1810, on the City of Edinburgh —
anchored off Valparaiso
I put the quill down, sat watching the ink dry, then picked up the last sheet of paper and stacked it at the bottom of the pile. Now I could go ashore.
We stayed in Valparaiso until August. Not a single ship bound for England dropped anchor — only Spanish merchant ships came and went.
21 October 1810, on the City of Edinburgh —
anchored in Lima, Peru
We’d been in Lima a week when Mr Berry found a suitable ship to send his package on — the Archduke Charles. Mrs Morley had left the City of Edinburgh soon after we arrived in Lima. I thought she looked ill. The sparkle had gone from her blue eyes, and her skin had this strange tinge. She told me she’d found somewhere to stay and she never wanted to step on board another ship in all her life.
Mr Berry settled Betsy ashore with a Spanish lady who was willing to look after her until the ship sailed. Without Mrs Morley there to mind Betsy it was impossible to keep her on board. Mr Berry was hoping to sell the spars and get a cargo loaded up to take to Cadiz in Spain, and so needed to spend most of his time ashore.
And then Mr Berry gave me the parcel of papers and told me to deliver them to the Archduke Charles. She was due to sail on the tide the following day.
‘We’ll be home early in the new year,’ the chief mate told me when I handed over the package. ‘Why don’t you come with us? I could use an extra hand.’
And that’s what I did.
January 1811, on the Archduke Charles —
approaching London
I shivered in the raw cold of the early morning. We were moving slowly up the Thames between bare, wide stretches of mud. Closer to the shoreline topsail schooners lay on their b
ilges, and barges sat high above the dirt-brown water. Green woods and red-roofed cottages on the foreshore blurred in the mist as we slipped past.
In my mind I could see my family, hear Ma calling out ‘It’s time to get up!’ as she kneaded the bread, her arms dusted in flour. Da would be pushing wood into the fire, waiting for the kettle to heat the water for his shave. Pete would be opening the door to let Scot out. Joanna and Sal would be helping Lizzie to get dressed — and then the image shattered. Lizzie would be dressing herself. It was almost two years since I’d left and she wouldn’t be the baby I knew. Suddenly I was impatient to get home. I couldn’t wait to see them, to feel their arms around me.
I could smell tobacco from the mate’s pipe. He was on the bridge, with the mud pilot at the wheel. In a couple of hours we would be moored to a buoy amid the collection of ships by Tower Bridge. Then it would be a waterman’s boat to the wharf, and a quick walk to my master’s place of business. The captain of the Archduke Charles had asked me to deliver the package for Mr Brown on my way home.
I’d been thinking about Mr Berry. I wondered if he would have made me write my story if he’d known I’d be in London first. I had sneaked off the City of Edinburgh in the half-light of dawn.
Not saying goodbye to Mr Berry was my only regret. If I ever got the chance I’d like to sail with him again. But for now, as the spires of London loomed out of the mist, joy bubbled inside my mind and I’d swear I could smell freshly baked bread drifting across the water. I knew it wasn’t Ma’s bread, but I could imagine her kneading the dough on the old scrubbed table. By the time I got there it would be coming out of the oven, crisp on the top, soft in the middle and smelling like home. I could hardly wait.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Thomas was a real boy who survived the massacre on the Boyd, but his story as told here is total fiction.
The rescue of the survivors from the Boyd and the journey of the City of Edinburgh are documented through official accounts, old newspapers, Alexander Berry’s letters, and several books. I have used these factual accounts as the skeleton for Thomas’s story, but where the facts were missing I have made them up.
Thomas Davidson was about fifteen at the time of the Boyd massacre. The dates as to when the City of Edinburgh sailed conflict, but the survivors had been rescued by 6 January 1810 according to a letter written by Berry at the time.
There are two theories why Thomas survived: one, that he had a club foot and the Maori regarded deformities with awe; the other, that Thomas had befriended George and helped him. I chose to work with this second theory, as it was backed up by an account written by John Liddiard Nicholas in his book Voyage to New Zealand (James Black & Son, London, 1817). John Nicholas and Samuel Marsden visited George in 1814, and Nicholas wrote that the ‘particulars communicated to us by George’ included the fact that Thomas had ‘during the voyage, ingratiated himself into favour with George, by several acts of friendship’.
My other reason for choosing the friendship theory was that a club foot, if left untreated, gets worse over time and can end up very crippling. The skin breaks down and develops chronic ulceration and infection. Thomas would also have had to walk on the outside of his foot. Since there is documented evidence that he went on to complete his apprenticeship and served as an able seaman, I find it hard to believe that he could have been handicapped like this.
There appeared to be some confusion over Thomas’s surname. Berry himself had a problem remembering it — he used both ‘Davis’ and ‘Davies’ in his reports and ‘Davison’ in a letter. It wasn’t until his meeting with the Boyd‘s owner in London in 1821 that he found out that Thomas’s correct surname was Davidson. From then on he used it.
After returning to England Thomas completed his apprenticeship with Mr Brown, and was still serving under him in 1821 when he met up with Mr Berry again in London. Berry had called on Mr Brown, who set up the meeting with Thomas. At the time Berry was chartering the Royal George, and arranged for Thomas to sign on as an able seaman. Thomas wanted to visit Betsy and Ann, who by then were in Australia. Once there, Thomas spent some months with Mr Berry on an exploring expedition of the coast. In 1822 Mr Berry bought a coppered cutter and appointed Thomas as Master. Thomas drowned in May that year trying to negotiate the mouth of the Shoalhaven River in the ship’s boat.
The second mate, whom I named Mr Pritchard for the novel, survived the massacre on the Boyd, but was killed before the rescue of the other survivors by Mr Berry.
The City of Edinburgh stayed in Lima for ten months, most of them after Thomas left. Ann Morley disembarked here and died soon afterwards. When Mr Berry sailed from Lima, he took both Betsy and Ann with him and reached Rio de Janeiro in December 1811. There he met up with Captain Morris of the Atlanta, who knew William Broughton. As Mr Broughton was still in Australia, Mr Berry arranged for Captain Morris to take the girls with him when he sailed for Port Jackson.
The City of Edinburgh sank southwest of the Azores in 1813. The crew in one longboat survived, and Berry was one of them. He died in Australia in 1873.
Glossary
barque A three-masted sailing ship with only fore-and-aft sails on the mizzenmast (the mast closest to the stern or back), the other two masts being square-rigged.
bilge Parts of the sailing ship between the lowest floorboards and the bottom of the hull; the sides curve downwards and inwards to form the bottom.
bo’sun Shortened version of ‘boatswain’, who is the ship’s crew member in charge of equipment and maintenance.
bowline The rope that is used to keep the weather edge of a sail tight.
bowsprit The spar that extends at the bow (front) of a ship; it is used to support parts of the rigging.
brigantine A two-masted sailing ship, rigged square on the foremast and fore-and-aft with square topsails on the main mast.
bulwark The boards along the sides of the ship above the deck that form a parapet to stop sailors sliding off a ship in a storm.
buntline The rope attached to the fore of a square sail to haul it up to the yard.
burgoo Porridge made from oatmeal.
capstan An upright device for winding in the heavy ropes such as the anchor cable.
Chips The name given to the ship’s carpenter.
companion Short for ‘companionway’, the stairs that go from the upper deck to the lower deck.
culp A blow, a buffet; a term used between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries for a box on the ear.
Doc The name given to the ship’s cook.
doldrums The parts of the ocean near the equator that are notorious for calm spells and light winds. Sailing ships could be becalmed in the doldrums for weeks.
fathom A linear unit of measurement for water depth (equal to 6 feet or 183 centimetres).
fife rail The rail around the main mast that encircles both it and the pumps.
fo’c’sle Short for ‘forecastle’, the front of the ship under the deck where the sailors live.
foresail The first (lowest) sail on the foremast.
futtock shrouds Small shrouds leading from the shrouds of the main and foremasts to the shrouds of the topmasts.
gant-line A strong line used for sending sails and other gear aloft.
gasket A plaited cord fastened to the sail yard of a ship and used to furl or tie the sail to the yard.
gig A long, narrow rowing boat.
gunwale The upper edge of the side of a ship.
halyard The rope or tackle used for hoisting or lowering the sails.
haku Kingfish.
hara To violate tapu (intentionally or otherwise); a sin or offence.
head The bathroom or toilet on a ship; so called because on early sailing ships it was located at the head or bow of the vessel.
holystone A soft sandstone used by sailors for cleaning the decks of ships.
jackstay A wooden strip, or length of rope, that runs along and is attached to the yards. Sails are tied to the jackstay.
jib The small triangular sail set on a stay and secured between the foremast and bowsprit.
launch A ship’s boat that is longer, lower and more flat-bottomed than a longboat (gig). It was the largest ship’s boat carried at the time.
lazy-tack A stout rope used for hauling down the weather clew of the foresail.
leeward Towards the lee, or that part of the ship towards which the wind blows; the sheltered side.
lubberly A clumsy or incompetent sailor.
Metanangha This spelling of the name is from the historical text. It doesn’t appear to be a Maori word, but Berry would only be guessing the spelling.
picking oakum Pulling apart old ropes that were thick with tar, and using the pieces of hemp to caulk the seams between the planks on the deck — in other words, pushing the hemp into the gaps. This helped keep the deck waterproof against big seas washing across the deck in storms.
ratlin Slang for ‘ratlines’ — the rope ladders going up the masts.
Sails The name given to the ship’s sail-maker.
scrub A person who doesn’t do his share of the work.
shrouds The ropes that go across the ship to either side to support the masts.
sprit-sail The lowest sail attached to a yard which hangs under the bowsprit of large ships. It has a large hole at each of its lower corners to evacuate the water because the belly of it frequently fills when a ship pitches and the sea surges.
stays The ropes that support the masts; they lead from the head of one mast down to another, or to part of the ship.
thwart The cross-piece spanning the gunwales of a boat; used as a seat in a longboat.
top gallant The third of the kind (top gallant sail, top gallant braces, etc.) above the deck; situated above the topmast and below the royal mast.
top-rated The old sailing ships were rated according to sea-worthiness.
trick A turn at the ship’s wheel.
trunking The wooden framework used in the old ships like our modern pvc drains.