The Beothuk Expedition

by Derek Yetman

  “Of course, the new heaven could not be created before the Last Judgment,” he said, “as described in the Revelation of St. John the Divine.”

  No doubt my blank look prompted him to quote: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming from God out of heaven.” He rolled his eyes ecstatically and added, “Now that the judgment has taken place, we are preparing for the great event. Imagine, sir, a new Jerusalem for mankind!”

  He paused long enough for me to nod in feigned understanding. I was beginning to suspect that our odd, gangly chaplain was as mad as a hatter. “And when did this—this judgment—actually occur?” I asked.

  The chaplain smiled happily. “Why, in 1757 of course.”

  I nodded again, not knowing what else to do.

  “You see,” he continued, “the new heaven will of course be populated by the souls of the devout, and also by the souls of those who existed in a natural state at the time of their passing. This includes individuals, even entire populations, who had no clear understanding of the Lord … who knew little or nothing of Christianity, but who lived as God had created them.”

  I began to see a hint of light. “And this would apply to the souls of the Red Indians?” I offered.

  “Precisely!” the chaplain beamed.

  Lines from a poem of Alexander Pope came to my mind: Lo, the poor Indian! Whose untutored mind sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind. It occurred to me that under Reverend Stow’s plan of populating the new heaven, the owners of these coveted souls would first of all have to be dead.

  “Have you read The Journal of Dreams, Mister Squibb?” he asked.

  “I have not,” I confessed. “Who is the author?”

  Reverend Stow shook his stubbled head and clucked in mild rebuke. “My dear sir! Why, Emanuel Swedenborg, of course.”

  “Ah, yes,” I said, feeling confidence return, “the mathematical philosopher and inventor.”

  My companion nodded so vigorously I feared he would do himself an injury. “Yes, yes!” he squealed, “and visionary theologian as well.”

  I searched the meager store of my memory for something more about Swedenborg. I knew that he was one of a multitude of intellectuals and lunatics who were seeking a reliable means of determining longitude at sea. His method required exact lunar tables, which depended upon the accuracy of John Harrison’s marine chronometer. Of course, Harrison’s invention had yet to be accepted by the Board of Longitude, which meant that Swedenborg’s tables were questionable as well. Swedenborg, I recalled, was also said to commune with angels and had written treatises on his dreams of heaven and hell.

  My mind drifted back to this marine chronometer, which was a subject of much discussion in the Navy. While we continued with our method of dead reckoning, which was little more than estimation, Harrison had brought his time-measuring instrument through four designs and many trials at sea. Each of these had been more successful than the last and the most recent test was to take place on Mr. Cook’s expedition. But in spite of his success, Harrison was still considered “a mere mechanic” by Nevil Maskelyne, the Astronomer Royal.

  We came to a fork in the path and I suggested that we retrace our steps. As we did so, the chaplain expanded upon his mission to populate this new heaven with the souls of heathen Indians. He went on at length and I soon found his logic too convoluted to follow. When we came to where Greening was waiting with the jolly boat, I bade him good day with some relief. As we rowed away he stood on the strand and waved us off with his handkerchief, an oddly incongruent figure on the rocky landwash.

  Back on board the Dove the first sight to greet me was Froggat, sitting on a keg and drinking from the scuttlebutt. I was speechless for a moment but soon recovered my voice. “Friday! By all that is real, I hadn’t expected to see you up! Why, not an hour ago you were lying as still as death.”

  In my joy I caught him by the hand and pumped it with more vigour than was prudent, for he quickly pulled away and reached for more water. “How are you feeling, my friend?” I asked. “Is there anything you want? Food or—”

  I was cut short by the sudden look of anger he turned upon me. It pierced me to the heart, and although I was taken aback I reasoned that he was still in the throes of his illness. In an attempt to disarm the moment, I said, “Perhaps sleep is what you have need of, my friend. Though you must not become an Abraham de Movrie.”

  I laughed but the hostile stare did not waver. “De Movrie?” I prompted. “Surely you remember that we studied his theorems. He was the trigonometry master who slept longer and longer each day until, on the day that he slept twenty-four hours, he never awoke again.” I laughed again, hoping the memory would revive him.

  Even as I watched, his eyes lost their fire as quickly as it had appeared. They seemed to glaze and turn flat, becoming devoid of all thought or emotion. It was clear to me that my friend was far from recovered. I placed a hand upon his arm and said, “Friday, you are not well. Let me help you to your hammock.”

  “No!” he cried, pulling away from my hand as if it carried the plague. “No more! Get away!” His pupils were dilated with fear. His voice was as thin and strained as a sickly child’s.

  “You have been down with the scurvy, my friend,” I pleaded. “Your constitution is still unsettled. Please do me the favour of resting, if only for a while.”

  I looked him in the eye and doubted whether he saw me at all. Small beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead and his hands trembled like halyards in the wind. I was about to call for help in getting him into the hammock when the voice of Lieutenant Cartwright came sharply to my ear. How had he gotten alongside the Dove without being seen? Then I remembered that Grimes had the watch.

  “I see that Mister Froggat is up and about,” he said, his voice betraying his disappointment. “And only just in time. I had intended to order him ashore before we sailed.” He paused and I saw that he was looking at my friend more closely. “Though perhaps I may do so yet.”

  It can only have been a reflex from his years of service that caused Froggat to stand at that moment and offer a bow. It was the automatic salute of a man who was not in his senses but it was enough to weaken the lieutenant’s suspicion.

  “Very well then,” he sniffed. “Perhaps he will do after all. Mister Squibb, I am expecting Mister Cousens with his Red Indian. As my second-in-command, you will accompany me to the interview, so step lively if you please. And bring your hat and sword. We must impress upon this savage the importance of our mission.”

  I was relieved that John Cousens did not possess the character that I might have ascribed to him, were I to judge the man by his appearance alone. On any given day the Bedlam Hospital is able to turn out its inmates in more conventional attire. The lieutenant had gone to great lengths to ensure that he and I were presentably dressed, while Cousens seemed to have taken pains to ensure that he was not. He was wearing one, and possibly two, woolen caps topped by a shiny hat of mink’s fur, the earflaps of which stuck out at right angles from his jaundiced face. Two or three coarse woolen shirts were layered onto his narrow frame and these fell to the tops of his canvas boots, which were tied above the knee. All worn in the oppressive heat of August.

  This odd appearance was enhanced by a long clay pipe that protruded from beneath a nose of equally generous proportion. He took the pipe from his mouth only to speak, while the smoke encompassed his head like a tiny patch of fog. To his credit, Lieutenant Cartwright acted as if there were nothing unusual in all of this. He made our introductions without expression, and proceeded to deliver a long-winded discourse on the purpose and plan of our expedition. Cousens appeared to listen and stared back at us through the haze of smoke.

  When the lieutenant had finished, we sat in silence, expecting a response of some kind. We sat thus for several minutes before the man raised his hand and took the pipe from his mouth. We fixed our att
ention upon him in full expectation of an utterance, but when it came it was only an ambiguous grunt. Clearly he was not disposed to conversation generally, which forced the lieutenant to address the matter more directly.

  “I was hoping, Mister Cousens, that you might be of some assistance in our endeavour.” He was not to be so easily drawn out, however, and Lieutenant Cartwright continued: “In fact, sir, I had hoped that you would be kind enough to assist us in finding the Red Indians.”

  Still nothing. The cloud wreathed in an easterly flow, orbiting the yellow face and the hat of mink’s fur. The lieutenant cleared his throat in the silence and I knew that we would have to pose a question or else we would sit there all day.

  “Mister Cousens,” I said, “The governor and Mister Cartwright would be deeply in your debt if you would arrange for a guide to take us into the interior by way of the River of Exploits. Are you able to do that for us, sir?”

  The question seemed to have the desired effect, as he removed the pipe from his mouth and looked around for something to spit in. Seeing nothing appropriate in the tidy parlour, he swallowed reluctantly and turned his gaze on us.

  “I am able, sir. But am I willing? That is more to the point.”

  Lieutenant Cartwright looked to me before he replied. I was well enough acquainted with him to know that he was barely keeping his composure.

  “Yes, I take your point, Mister Cousens. Of course the Crown will compensate you for your trouble and expense—”

  “Keep your money,” came the response.

  The lieutenant reddened but said nothing.

  “What I require,” Cousens said, “is something that you cannot provide.”

  “And that would be?”

  “A guarantee that I will not lose my life by assisting you in such a ridiculous undertaking.” The pipe returned to his mouth and the cloud thickened.

  The lieutenant flared and bristled, as well he might. I didn’t care for the man’s tone, either, though I was curious to hear him out. Before Lieutenant Cartwright could muster an answer, Cousens was pointing the stem of his pipe at him.

  “Have you any idea, sir, of what you are inviting by going up that river?”

  The lieutenant was not given a chance to reply.

  “Only one white man has ever gone past the great falls and lived to speak of it. The river is the domain of the Red Indians, sir. Do not push them more than they have already been pushed or we will all pay the bloody hayoot.”

  The lieutenant looked to me and I shook my head in reply. “Pay the what?” he asked.

  “The hayoot—the devil, sir, in the language of the Red Indian.”

  I listened to this exchange with a returning sense of unease about our expedition. Threats and warnings have little effect upon my resolution, but I had been harbouring doubts about this scheme since our first misadventure off Bonavista and I could see no reason for renewed optimism now.

  “Mister Cousens, our purpose is a peaceful one,” the lieutenant was saying “I am not about to ‘push’ the Red Indians, as you put it. I have come to make a lasting peace with them. And I cannot do it properly without local knowledge. I would not wish it upon my conscience, sir, that our venture failed for want of a man to assist us.”

  The planter sucked his pipe furiously until I could barely make out the shape of his hat. He said nothing and it appeared that we had momentarily gained the upper hand. The two men locked eyes until I felt compelled to break the silence in the room. “Mister Cartwright, I believe that Mister Cousens’ Indian is waiting.” Some minutes before, I had seen a man peering through the window and he was now pacing outside the door.

  “Very well,” the lieutenant said. “Show him in. Perhaps he may have some interest in saving the lives of his people.” The remark was intended to wound but Cousens did not twitch.

  I arose and opened the heavy plank door, allowing a young man to come silently into the room. I gestured that he might take my chair but he shook his head and stood against the wall, his dark eyes moving from his master to the lieutenant. I remained where I stood, which gave me an opportunity to properly assess the first Red Indian I had ever seen.

  I do not mean to be callous but Tom June was a great disappointment to me. Although I had no idea of what to expect, it was certainly not a youth of average build in the clothes of an ordinary fisherman. He bore no tattoos or designs of paint upon his face, nor was there a feather or bead about his person. Moccasins did not adorn his feet and I saw no evidence of a tomahawk hidden beneath his clothes. In the course of my naval career I had heard many tales about the various tribes of Canadian Indians that had fought alongside the French in the last war. These had coloured my expectation and led me to expect nothing less than an Iroquois warrior equipped for battle.

  The lad who now stood before me was unremarkable in appearance. His long black hair was tied behind his head, just as I wore my own. His eyes were brown and widely set, and would have imparted a depth of thought or feeling but for their cautious, continuous shifting. His cheekbones were a trifle high and his skin was a shade of light copper, and yet we had Welshmen aboard the Guernsey with similar features. He said nothing but his dark eyes missed nothing, even as Lieutenant Cartwright stood up and spoke.

  “Would you care to introduce us, sir?”

  The planter removed his pipe and said with a sour note, “He knows who you are.”

  His composure under strain, the lieutenant lifted the tails of his coat and sat down again. “Very well then. Does your man speak the King’s tongue or must you interpret?”

  “He speaks it well enough. And he understands more than you’d think.”

  “Yes, let us hope so. Mister June, my name is John Cart-wright, lieutenant of His Majesty’s Britannic Navy.”

  The man gave no indication that he’d heard or understood, even as the lieutenant began to explain his mission. I wondered if Tom June had not adopted his master’s taciturn nature. One trait which he certainly shared with Cousens was his impertinent manner, amply demonstrated when the lieutenant asked him to draw a map of where his people might be found.

  “Me look like Captain Cook?” he retorted.

  The gist of the meeting was that the Indian refused to assist us, either in guiding our party up the river or in supplying information on the whereabouts of his tribe. All we were able to learn was that a large lake existed at the headwaters of the Exploits River and that the Red Indians might be found in its vicinity. The only specific item he volunteered was that his father had kept a campsite in a cove on the lake, northeast of the river. It was little enough to go on but it was clear that we could expect no more. At a nod from Cousens, the boy left the room as quietly as he’d entered.

  The planter had been silent throughout the interview. With Tom June gone he freed his mouth of the pipe and looked at the lieutenant. “Do you know the history of my man, sir?” he asked.

  “No,” Lieutenant Cartwright replied. “I do not.”

  “Perhaps you would care to hear it. The story may prove instructive to you.” His tone caused the lieutenant’s nostrils to flare again, though he held his tongue in check.

  “Tom June was brought to me ten years ago, in June of 1758. For the first year I thought he was mute. It was some time before anyone realized that the child was too terrified to speak, owing to what he’d witnessed. He was brought to me by two Irishmen, but do not ask me who they were. I never knew their names and I’ve not seen them since. They told me they’d found the boy wandering the shore of the Bay of Exploits, near Charles Brook, alone and hungry.

  “They were trying to sell him, you see, and had been up and down the coast, seeking offers. None had been forthcoming and now they were anxious to rid themselves of their burden. I took the child and gave them nothing. I wondered later why they hadn’t simply killed him. But I suppose they’d made the mistake of letting it be known that he was in their possession.

  “The truth of Tom’s history came to me by his own admission when he was te
n or eleven years of age. His story was confirmed by the confession of a man named Darby McGinn, who died a slow death in Toulinguet Harbour a year later. On his deathbed McGinn unburdened himself of a trip he’d made to Charles Brook with the two Irishmen who’d come to see me. They’d gone there for no other purpose than to raid an Indian encampment and to steal what furs they could find.”

  Cousens gave his pipe a few short puffs and looked across the room at us. “They murdered Tom’s mother, sir. And his brothers, sisters and aunts. The men were away hunting or else they would have been slaughtered, too. They found no furs of value, just a small boy who might be worth a shilling or two.”

  He sniffed and looked at his pipe. “Now, supposing it was you or me who was Tom’s father. How would you feel about a party of white men travelling to the very heart of your country, where white men had never dared to venture before? Would you not feel pushed, sir? Just a wee bit perhaps?”

  The lieutenant did not reply. The expression on his face was, to me, a mixture of shock and profound sadness at what he was hearing. In that instant it occurred to me that John Cartwright actually cared about the fate of the Red Indians and that he wished to save them from such cruelty. It was a side of him that I had not seen before, or one that I had chosen to ignore. Our dealings had led me to dislike him for what I took to be his arrogance and pettiness. Had I been wrong in my judgment? Certainly it would not be the first time, or the last.

  “Mister Cousens,” the lieutenant said in a quiet voice, “your story should be instructive to both of us, sir. While I have gained a greater understanding of the dangers involved in our plan, surely you see the absolute necessity of pursuing it without delay. The fate of Tom June’s family must never be repeated. Never, I say! Can we live with ourselves if we do not attempt to change the course of their history? You must answer me that, sir.”

  His plea did not fall upon indifferent ears. Cousens stood up and paced the room, smoke billowing in his wake. When he stopped he pointed his pipe at me. “And what say you, young sir? Will you follow this man into an unknown wilderness for the sake of a few heathen savages?”