Over the Seas

by Josephine Bell

‘Tell me thy other skills,’ the captain demanded.

  Alec ran through the list, not forgetting this time to mention his knowledge of those injuries that might be encountered at sea and their treatment.

  ‘I got this skill in my father’s fishing fleet in Fife,’ he said, seeing a look of unbelief in Captain Newport’s face.

  ‘I do not doubt thee,’ the other told him and sighed, remembering his own lost left arm and the agony that went unrelieved for many days and nearly cost him his life.

  ‘You are accepted,’ he said, formally, ‘Come aboard again in three weeks’ time when I shall have returned from London. I aim to sail in October if my company agree and will have me provisioned by then.

  ‘I would know, sir—’ Alec began but Newport waved him away.

  ‘Later, my lad, later,’ he said sharply.

  Alec left. He had been accepted as a settler, an ‘adventurer’ as they were called in the town, who might make himself useful on the voyage if an occasion appeared. He had not said a word about Mistress Sugden and her daughter nor been allowed to ask a single question about William Trent.

  But he had been accepted, which fact he reported with great glee to the women on his return.

  ‘But what of us?’ Polly clamoured, while her mother stared thoughtfully at the young man, wondering if he might, even at this late hour, have betrayed them.

  Alec’s hesitation, when Polly repeated her question, his reddening face and fidgeting hands made her heart sink still further. But still Mistress Sugden dared not, could not, bring herself to accuse him of ill faith. Instead she said sensibly, without anger, ‘Come on, lad! Out wi’ it. Captain willna take us? Is that it?’

  Alec was overcome with sudden guilt. ‘I faith, mistress,’ he burst out, ‘I did never speak of ye at all!’ Then, as they both rose up, aghast, he went on, ‘Nay, hear me out! It was not of deliberate intent. But Captain Newport had much to say, many questions to ask. I was afeared he would refuse me, for he hath his crew made up and I am to go as passenger, would-be settler, but stand-by for any seaman that falls sick by disease or accident. I tried to speak of Master Trent, but could not. So in the end I felt such relief, such gratitude, I was away down the deck or ever I could discharge the rest of my mission. And that’s the truth o’t,’ he finished ruefully, looking down on the ground like a boy expecting to be whipped, Mistress Sugden thought.

  ‘So what now?’ she asked, determined not to forgive him before he had promised to try again.

  ‘So we wait three weeks, when Captain Newport returns from London. I am to go aboard again, by his special command, that he may have me shown the vessel, told what goods I may bring with me and suchlike detail.’

  ‘So then thou wilt include us in those goods, I reckon,’ Polly said with a toss of her head.

  ‘I will make inquiries for your uncle,’ he told her. ‘If he be known at James Town, as I heartily trust he may, I will ask for you to be included in the tally of the settlers.’

  ‘And if he be not known, is that sufficient proof he be not in the settlement?’

  ‘How can I say? The sufficiency is a matter of thy opinion. Mistress. And thy mother’s. But we must hope they do indeed confirm his presence there.’

  To himself he could give no assurance of any kind. Indeed he became with every day that passed less willing to see the two women submit themselves to hardships that sounded worse and more varied with every conversation he held with his future shipmates. Moreover no member of the crew of the Gift of God had heard of William Trent.

  However, punctually to the day Captain Newport returned to Plymouth and very soon after that word came to Alec to go out to the barque for a fresh interview.

  ‘Art still of a mind to sail with us?’ Newport asked him as he entered the captain’s cabin.

  ‘Aye, sir, that I am,’ Alec answered.

  ‘You have questioned my crew, I hear. My bo’sun tells me you have some knowledge of a great ship’s gear, not merely of North Sea fishing boats.’

  ‘On Sunflower, Captain Smithson, sir—’

  ‘Oh ay, that testimonial, Jock Bridie.’ The captain paused with a twinkle in his eye that puzzled Alec at the time, but which he was to understand later.

  There was silence between them for a minute or two. Then Alec ventured to say, ‘Sir, may I ask a question about this, settlement at James Town?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Have ye any knowledge of one William Trent, a sometime farmer of Witton in the Yorkshire dales, who sailed with the Plymouth Company, Captain Popham, from Bristol, but left their settlement to go south?’

  Captain Newport, who had listened to this with growing astonishment, said sharply, ‘Who hath spoken to thee of this Trent? A poor crazed fugitive that came out of the forest half naked and was lucky to be missed by the bullet fired at him as he ran to our palisade. Which of my men hath chattered of his history? I will not have my fresh adventurers disturbed.’ He brought his fist down on the table, rattling his quills and his ink horn.

  ‘None of your men, sir,’ Alec hastened to explain, ‘but his sister and niece who are here in Plymouth hoping to join him.’

  To Alec’s surprise the expected fresh burst of anger and total refusal did not come. The captain stared, opened his mouth, swore softly and then said, ‘How come they know of him at all?’

  Alec explained about Trent’s being obliged to leave his farm, his intention to go with the adventurers, the message he had sent back by the poor scribe who had written it for him and then entrusted it to the retiring seaman to deliver on his way to his Northumberland home.

  At the end of the story Captain Newport nodded.

  ‘And how came it you are their emissary now?’ he asked, with a tight smile. ‘The daughter, eh? Eh, lad?’

  ‘Nay, sir,’ Alec answered, refusing to be provoked as in his younger days he might have been. ‘But Mistress Sugden was good and kind when I needed work to earn my bread, so as her intention matched with mine I undertook to bring her here with her daughter. There is no other tie but our common wish to leave these shores.’

  He waited. Captain Newport rapped on the table, shuffled his papers, picked up one or two small objects and put them down again. At last he sighed, cleared his throat and said, ‘I would liefer have none of the sex aboard my ship, for the poor heifers are like to have a sad time of it on the voyage not to speak of the temptation they offer. But it happens I have undertaken to give ship-room to a lady, a Mistress Forrest and her maid, one Anne Burrows. Also the Company said and rightly, I suppose, we must get women out there if a real settlement is to be made, which is our declared purpose. Four of them will be better than two. So tell thy charges I’ll take them, but there must be no complaining.’

  Alec thanked him fervently. His last problem was solved. From now on the Sugdens were their own responsibility. As he went to the cabin door with a bounding step the captain’s sharp voice made him spin round.

  ‘Harkee,’ said Newport, ‘I purpose to find quarters for these four women somewhere about my poop. Which is forbid to all but my officers and myself and certain gentlemen of rank who will voyage with us. Understood?’

  ‘Aye, sir and thankfully,’ said Alec, not to be put at a disadvantage. He heard the captain’s chuckle as he shut the door behind him.

  He would have understood it better had he known all Captain Newport had done, where he had been, whom he had met in the City of London during his brief visit there to present the Company with a full report of his voyage, his discoveries and their result.

  It had been a long voyage by way of the Canaries and Cape Verde Islands to the West Indies, following the usual path of adventurers and pirates to the so-called Spanish Main, that was no longer so firmly Spanish as heretofore, for the islands were being colonised rapidly now, in Spain’s increasing weakness, by English, Dutch and French as well. Captain Newport had stopped only to take in provisions and attend to the sick. He had then proceeded north with his sister ship until he found the h
eadlands of Chesapeake Bay, where he turned in and anchored. He had with him sealed orders setting out those named for the governing body. These were, besides himself, Captain Gosnold, master of the sister ship, a certain Captain Martin who had served under Drake, a Master Kendall a Captain Ratcliffe and one John Smith, who had fought in the Turkish wars and been held in captivity in those parts.

  They had set up an enclosure, landed their stores and continued their exploration. Newport had to explain to the Company that John Smith had been troublesome and for a time was excluded from the Council, even held a prisoner for his insubordinate behaviour. But before the Gift of God returned to London, bringing a load of clapboards and report of far more valuable materials with small samples of the same, John Smith was reinstated in the Council and had indeed shown more energy, enterprise and authority in dealing with the natives than any of the other members.

  The London Company was now reorganised as the Virginia Company under a certain Sir Thomas Smith, who was no relation of the adventurer. The meetings with Captain Newport took place in Sir Thomas’s house in Philpot Lane in the City.

  When they had heard the captain’s tale the merchants who had listened to it began to speak all at once, for they had ventured their money to equip the expedition and had many questions to ask.

  Patiently, in order of seniority or the size of their stake in the business. Sir Thomas called upon them to speak.

  ‘I would ask Captain Newport what led him to form a settlement in this spot? He speaks of recognising the headland he hath named Cape Henry after our Prince. How is this?’

  ‘I sailed with Sir Walter Raleigh, sir, when he founded that earlier settlement called Roanoke.’

  The faces around grew severe: none spoke.

  ‘But naturally,’ Newport continued, ‘I did not land my party at the same ill-fated spot. I went farther in to a place where a small peninsula juts, giving us the protection of water on three sides, leaving but one aspect of forest from which a heavy attack could come.’

  ‘You anticipated attack from the naturals, I presume?’ asked Sir Thomas, seeing a general air of discouragement had come over the listeners.

  ‘We prepared ourselves,’ Captain Newport agreed. ‘At first they were friendly, but they be treacherous folk to deal with. Besides, they are formed into many tribes, Pamunkey, Paspahegh and many others. We lost men killed in sudden raids until we had our palisade built high and strong. There is ample wood for all needs.’

  ‘Such as you have brought home,’ another merchant said. ‘But shis is not of great value. We still have our English forests; shrinking, I grant ye, but not yet exhausted.’

  ‘I have seen metals gleam when we dig,’ Captain Newport said cautiously, producing his small samples. In his own mind he believed he had found gold, but there had not been time or opportunity to wash or otherwise prepare the ore. However, his audience’s eyes brightened, so he described the journey he had made up the river in the pinnace they had taken across in parts and put together at the settlement. He and Smith and the ship’s surgeon with five others had secured some friendly guides and sailed far inland, meeting villages at intervals along the banks, exchanging beads and other trinkets for food, occasionally obliged to fire off their pistols or muskets when threatened. They killed no one but frightened all.

  ‘If none was killed, why were they so much impressed?’ asked Sir Thomas.

  ‘Because we had already shown them the firearm could slay a deer at a greater distance than their arrows.’

  ‘How far did you go?’

  ‘Until we came to some great falls. The Indians in their canoes carry their craft to the head of the falls to continue. This we could not do with the pinnace. So we had to return. Besides, the guides spoke of a very fierce and dangerous tribe called Monogan. They would not have come with us farther. But they spoke too of great waters in the far west that I take it may be the ocean we seek to lead us by the western route to the East Indies.’

  Again the eyes brightened and the merchants stirred in their chairs.

  ‘So you returned again to your new settlement?’ said Sir Thomas.

  ‘To James Town as we have called it, subject to your worship’s agreement,’ said Captain Newport calmly.

  ‘You returned in safety from this discovery?’

  ‘In safety and honour,’ replied the captain. ‘Having met with the overlord, one Powhatan, that rules all those tribes, and having seen their cultivation in many farther clearings by the way. And sampled their tobacco pipes, the pipes of peace as they call them.’

  Here Captain Newport produced some leaves of tobacco, some merely withered, others properly dried; also a long-stemmed Indian pipe. Many of the Company had seen these objects before and some had sampled them, for Spanish tobacco, though very costly, had begun to make an appearance in the houses of the rich.

  ‘So,’ a merchant said, ‘they grow it in these parts as well as in the hotter climes?’

  ‘They do. And pumpkins and gourds of great size and corn and a multitude of herbs I have little knowledge of. Together with some poisonous plants, very noxious to the touch for they bring out a burning itch that lasteth three days or more.’

  When Captain Newport had finished his report the meeting proceeded to question him about his future plans. Was he preparing to return to James Town himself? It was clear the settlement must be supported. He had left but a hundred and five men to establish themselves. More hands would be needed, more provisions until they could support themselves from their own plantings. Above all more exploration and some more profitable export than the clapboards.

  ‘We will have thy samples assayed,’ Sir Thomas declared. ‘Then we may decide better.’

  ‘This is what I propose,’ said Newport firmly. ‘I have already engaged my crew and there is no lack of volunteers in Plymouth town who would venture out with me.’

  He did not at this time mention the four women, for he had not yet met Mistress Forrest, nor had Alec spoken of the Sugdens. But he did state that he was going to pick and choose who he would take. He described Alec in some detail and so well that he roused considerable excitement in the breast of Master Angus Leslie, who had spoken hardly at all during the meeting, but had understood its significance better than many.

  When the meeting broke up Master Leslie approached the adventurer to invite him to his house so that his young kinsman and household might hear more of the strange lands across the ocean.

  Captain Newport accepted gladly. He understood that Master Leslie’s interest lay chiefly in the fish trade. Though the bulk of the northern ocean fishing landed the catch in Bristol, he looked forward to promoting some from his own field. He explained this to the merchant saying, ‘That young man I spoke of at the meeting hath knowledge of fish. A Scot from Fife.’

  ‘That calleth himself Jock Bridie?’

  ‘You know him sir? But this is extraordinary!’

  ‘Just so. And a matter for rejoicing, since until a week ago we thought him dead, but now we may rejoice indeed. But do not speak of him before my household. Speak only of the many wonders you have to tell. I will later inform those who should know of Sandy’s, of Jock’s reappearance.’

  Captain Newport was not unused to this kind of mystery and found no difficulty in holding his tongue. When he returned to Plymouth he bore with him a sealed letter addressed to Jock Bridie, to be given to him after he sailed. The captain locked it away in his cabin together with the ship’s papers. He promised himself a certain amusement when he was able to fulfil his commission.

  In the meantime there was much to be done, stores to buy, tools and machines for various purposes to collect. He gladly accepted Mistress Sugden’s suggestion of a spinning wheel and loom, though as he had no sheep to provide wool he wondered if they could be of any use.

  He had not considered his ship large enough to take livestock on this second outward voyage. The settlement was too small as yet and the question of forage too difficult.

  So Alec t
ook the horses to be sold, also the mule. Mistress Sugden felt she had now severed her last link with England, but she did not regret it. She was, after all, going to her brother. Captain Newport had given her accommodation in his ship far better than any she had hoped for; Mistress Forrest, though a lady of quality, was affable and her maid, of about Polly’s age, was lively. So Mistress Sugden was content.

  As for Alec, on the day they sailed he watched the Devon coast go down below the horizon with a sense of freedom he had missed for more than one hunted, unhappy year. Whatever now befell him he was no longer an outlaw but looked to be a citizen of the far distant offshoot of that England his Scottish nature had never yet quite wholly accepted as overlord. Did not accept at all until he had thrown in his fortune with Jamie, the Scot, now king of England as well.

  Behind him, standing with her mother, Polly watched Alec. She had seen little of him during the weeks since their arrival in Plymouth and now, the captain had ordered, the women passengers were to consort as little as possible with the men and not at all with the crew, even the officers among them. Well she could only obey this rule, but no power on earth could stop her gazing at the back of the being she loved best on earth, nor take away her joy should he at any time condescend to return her look.

  Chapter Nine

  When they had been at sea for three weeks and had passed the island of Madeira, Captain Newport sent for Alec. Seated in his cabin with the young man standing before him he handed him the sealed letter from Master Leslie, bidding him open and read.

  ‘If it be not of too private a nature, I would know the contents,’ Captain Newport said with a smile.

  Alec did not look up from his reading, but answered gruffly, for he was much moved, ‘I think ye may know them a’ ready, sir.’ Then he did look up, his face flushing with pleasure and went on, ‘Master Leslie employed me in his business, sir, until I had the misfortune to—kill a man—’

  ‘In fair fight, but by inadvertence, as Master Leslie told me. Which seemed to me a riddle past my understanding. But go on. I have no wish to pry, as I told thee.’