The Beothuk Expedition

by Derek Yetman

  I nodded in agreement. “Well, that’s when it all changed. I was second in command of a prize we’d taken a few weeks before, a corsair that was caught harassing a merchantman. She was local built, though sound enough and we sailed her to the Persian coast in hopes of finding a buyer. While we were there and the Indiamen were taking on a cargo of silks, a fierce storm blew up from the Indian Ocean. What they calls a typhoon in those parts. Well, we had no choice but to run before it and the prize I was on was separated from the fleet. We were driven westwards along the Arabian shore for days on end.”

  Froggat paused to relight his pipe. “There’s a thick haze on the sea in them parts,” he resumed, “owing to the heat and the sand storms that comes out of the desert. We had a young lieutenant in command, younger than me he was and be damned if he didn’t put us aground in the middle of the night. There was no damage but before we could refloat her, we found we wasn’t alone on that desolate shore. A dozen small boats come bearing down on us at first light the next day. They were dhow-rigged but they turned out to be a kind of vessel called a battil.

  “Now your battil is not like your other dhows—your boum awas, sambouks and jalibuts. Battils are speedy little craft that can manoeuvre as smart as ye please and the Arabs use ’em for pirating work. They carry a pair of three-pounders each, which pose no great mischief, but their tactic is to swarm a vessel at once and overcome it. It’s easy enough to blow two or three of ’em out of the water, mind you, but before you knows it the rest are alongside and you’re boarded in no time at all. That’s what happened to us and we’d no choice but to strike our colours in the end. Only the ship’s boy and myself were taken unwounded. The others, dead and wounded alike, were thrown over the side. Then at high tide they took the two of us ashore to their stronghold.”

  There was a long pause in the darkness. I waited until he spoke again.

  “Ah, Jonah, it was a cruel, cruel place. The heat was like nothing I ever knew and the sun a scourge upon our heads. We were taken as slaves and joined a gang of others—Persian, Arab, Goan, and the like—that were building a great fortress alongside an oasis. It was the only water for miles around and the tribesmen gave more of it to their camels than they did to us. Oh, there was many a time I wanted to lie down and die, just like those around me who did so every day. But me and my shipmate held on, as did an African we’d befriended who showed us how to survive in that scorching hell of a desert.

  “We suffered this for months until the new moon in the month of April. By night we were locked inside the very fort we were building, with its walls of clay and stone six feet thick. Our guards manned the corner towers with muskets and escape was impossible, or so I thought. One night while we lay on the ground with the snakes and the scorpions, I heard the usual call to prayers, which they obey five and six times a day. But then I heard none of the usual praying from the tower nearest to us. When I realized this I made so bold as to stand up, which brought neither shot nor shout from that quarter. It looked for all the world like they’d left us unguarded. I stirred my two companions and we hastened to the base of the tower, where the ship’s boy found purchase with his small fingers and toes. He scaled that brick turret like a foremast jack and in no time at all he’d let down a rope to us.

  “Well, we were over them walls and into the night before you could say Allah akhbar. Turns out it was a feast day, with everyone gathered in the village and our guards not wanting to be left out. They wasn’t much concerned about us because we had nowhere to go anyways. If we went into the desert we’d be mad with thirst in a day and dead by the end of the second. And there was no place to hide, the land being as flat and treeless as the ocean.

  “On the other hand, we knew there was a boatworks in the harbour and that the shipwrights had just launched a big dhow called a baghlah. This was a proper ocean-going ship rigged with them big lateen sails. Now, an Arab boatyard is normally a guarded place because of a powerful superstition. They believes that if a childless woman jumps across the newly laid keel of a boat she will conceive. But for every life that comes into the world in this manner another has to leave it, usually that of a builder. Which is why they guard their yards careful-like: to keep the women out.

  “All the same, on that particular night everyone was gone to join in the great feast, excepting one watchman. We stole aboard the baghlah, and our friend the African wrung his neck as neat as you please. I knew nothing then of sailing such a craft but we soon found our companion to be a seasoned hand. Under his command we slipped away without so much as a shot fired at our stern. Luck was on our side from the start, ye might say, and it carried on with the strong, hot northerly wind until we met with our convoy a week later. Two months after that we were in Plymouth and the Liverpool began fitting out for the Newfoundland station.”

  Froggat drew on his pipe and in the flickering light he appeared to contemplate the ordeal. It had been quite an experience, and although I knew him to be a brave and resourceful lad, it had taken more than that to survive such captivity. I told him as much but he laughed my comment off with his usual modesty. It had taken him months to escape, he said, when I would have managed it in a fortnight.

  As I yawned it occurred to me that his recent illness might have been related to his captivity, but when asked he said that he’d been the very picture of health until the scurvy came upon him. We lapsed into silent thought at this until, after a while, he asked if I knew what had become of his sea chest. I said that it hadn’t been with him at Bonavista and must therefore have been left on board the Liverpool. I cannot say whether he replied to this, for within minutes I was fast asleep.

  We awoke to a light rain and mist, although the day promised to be tolerably warm. For breakfast we ate ship’s biscuit and then set out to explore the northeast corner of the lake. A ribbon of sand between the trees and water made the walking easy and we came to a shallow cove at noon. Lieutenant Cartwright called for a brief rest, during which he wondered aloud if this could be the cove that Tom June had spoken of. His notion was confirmed when we explored further and discovered what had once been a large clearing near the beach. We soon found evidence of an Indian settlement, with new growth overtaking the studded log houses and the collapsed poles and bark of mamateeks. Here, as we gnawed the last of our hardtack, the lieutenant named the place June’s Cove, which he wrote in his journal. He also voiced his opinion that Tom June’s tribe had become greatly diminished since the boy’s capture ten years before. Cousens agreed, adding that he’d heard a rumour of the Mickmacks trapping the western end of the lake. They would never have attempted such a thing if the Red Indians had strength in numbers, he said.

  We resumed our trek with hunger gnawing at our bellies and I realized with some concern that we had seen almost nothing in the way of game. I also regretted having come away from the ship without a hook and line, for several times we saw large salmon or trout jumping in the lake. After two hours more of marching in the rain we came upon a square house and several mamateeks in good repair, but again they bore no sign of having been occupied since the previous winter. Once more we stopped to rest and took out our pipes as a poor substitute for food. It was then, my resolve strengthened by fatigue, that I gave voice to the evidence that was mounting around us.

  “It appears to me that the Red Indians have not been here, or even upon the river, in many months,” I ventured.

  Cousens grunted. “We have seen nothing to encourage us.”

  The lieutenant looked across the water and scratched his fly bites. “And when did you arrive at this opinion, Mister Squibb?” he asked in a weary voice.

  “Several days ago, sir.”

  He nodded and sighed. “At about the same time that I began to have my own doubts.” I toyed with my pipe until he added, “But yet we know that they still exist. Where can they be?” The question was directed as much to the silent trees as to any of us.

  I scratched my own bites and said, “I have given that question some thought, sir.
And I have come to believe that they are a migrant people.”

  The lieutenant looked at me in surprise. “Really? Do go on.”

  “I believe, sir, that they spend their winters here on the lake, travelling upriver from the coast when the caribou migrate. In the spring they go down to the sea, where they hunt birds and salmon and gather eggs for their subsistence.”

  He smoked his pipe as he considered my theory. “It is plausible. But why did Tom June not tell us this?”

  “I can only assume that he didn’t want us to find his people, sir.”

  The lieutenant looked at me askance. “Not find them? Why the devil not? We are here to offer them peace, after all.”

  “Aye, sir. But he may have seen no good coming of it. He may not have trusted our motives or perhaps he thought the Red Indians would not greet us amicably, and that more blood would be spilled.”

  “Hmm. You may be right, Mister Squibb. You may indeed. But what of us? A hundred miles or more from our boat without a scrap of food. With hardly a piece of leather to our feet.” He lifted a foot and the sole of his boot hung loose. “And to what end?”

  “At least we know something more about them,” I said, “which will make the task less difficult the next time.”

  “The next time? Hah!” He sighed and shook his head. “There will not be a next time, Mister Squibb. I fear that we are too late already.”

  Neville Stow

  The Lord be praised! My little flock and I are safely delivered into the bosom of this strange land. We have faced the trials of the tempter as did Christ himself in the wilderness, and we have kept faith and held sight of our divine destiny. I offer up a prayer of thanksgiving and hope that we will meet with the Red Indians soon, that I may begin the work for which I have been chosen.

  The establishment of the New Heaven will be greatly advanced by the addition of these simple Indian souls. And even those who have already departed this earthly plane will be among their number. Oh yes, it is all part of the grand design, you see. I have come to realize that every savage who has heard the word of the Lord will become the medium by which those who have passed on will be delivered unto His salvation. Think of how quickly we shall populate the New Heaven!

  And I have struck upon another idea that will be certain to please our Maker. The Last Judgment having taken place, we are now reaching out to the unlettered, the untutored and those who were closest to mankind in his natural spiritual state. I have therefore decided to cast the net of salvation wider still and include another tribe in my mission. What tribe is this, you ask? Why, the tribe of Newfoundlanders, no less. They are simple enough from what I have observed and they know hardly more than the Red Indians when it comes to the word of God.

  Take the young sailor, Greening. One evening as we were sitting by the fire, he spoke to me in tongues, as sure a sign of the Lord’s will as ever there was. His words made not the least sense, and yet I know that he was possessed of a spiritual visitation. He was speaking of Nehemiah Grimes, calling him a buckaloon, a sleveen, a tallywack, and a bullamarue. He spoke as well of our party being in a fine codge and a proper hinker.

  What manner of speech is this, I asked myself? It was certainly none that I had heard before. I was puzzled at first and asked Mr. Squibb what it meant. He tried to dismiss it as part of the local dialect, but then a divine inspiration came to me. The Lord had made the man speak in a strange tongue to remove the scales from my eyes! Here before me was a simple soul, reared half-wild in this distant colony, knowing next to nothing of God’s intent. And there were many more like him who were, in the final summation, no different from the Indians of the forest.

  There will be exceptions, of course. That man Cooper, for one. When I heard that he was a God-fearing Christian, I naturally drew him into my confidence. He did not look particularly devout, I will admit. Fierce would be a better description. With those hideous scars across his face he looked as wild as the creatures he hunted. When I explained my calling to go amongst the Red Indians he had the nerve to say that he, too, had received a message from the Lord. He said this to me, an ordained man of the cloth! I explained that I was seeking the pure of spirit, that they might find peace with our saviour in the New Heaven.

  “Pure of spirit!” he mocked. “The Red Indians? They’re naught but the devil’s servants, put upon this earth to serve their master. And naught but a fool thinks any different.” As he spoke his eyes blazed, though not with the light of Christian zeal. The affront left me at a loss for words.

  “But you’re partways right, preacher,” he said. “The Lord will have them. Oh yes, but not on the terms you might imagine. He’ll have them as He commands us to deliver them. I have received His message and it’s clear enough. To me belongs vengeance, sayeth the Lord!”

  Those were the only words that Samuel Cooper ever spoke to me. As much as I regret it now, it did not occur to me that I should tell anyone what had passed between us.

  Jonah Squibb

  On the evening of the following day we prepared for our return journey to the sea. Mr. Cartwright was dejected and disheartened, and repeatedly expressed his regret at not having a boat to take us across the lake. He seemed convinced that, if we were able to climb the far-off mountain, we might see smoke or other evidence of the Red Indians. It was a last, desperate wish and in the end he had to settle for putting a name to that distant peak. He called it Mount Janus, for the Roman god of gates and beginnings.

  We were ready to begin the long trek to the sea when it occurred to Cousens that the lake itself had not yet been named. Froggat immediately proposed that it be called Lake Cartwright. The lieutenant refused the suggestion with great humility, saying we had all shared in the privilege of being the first Europeans to set eyes upon it. Perhaps his reluctance had something to do with the inclusion of his brother in the name, and so I made a suggestion of my own, saying that it ought to be called Lieutenant’s Lake, in his honour. He did not immediately protest, and so Reverend Stow declared the lake duly christened, to be known henceforth and always by that name. We sealed the act with a toast of water, and although we were tired and the rain had returned, at least our spirits were higher.

  We had nothing to eat that night but it was not the hunger that kept us awake. Wolves had come to the river and we heard them soon after dark, howling and barking from all directions. We lay in the open with our guns close at hand, never daring to close our eyes as we listened to their hideous, mournful baying. They seemed to be everywhere, both near and far, though it may have been a trick of the night and the hills around us. When daylight came we stumbled onward, limbs dragging with fatigue and stomachs growling like the creatures that stalked us.

  We had no food that day and spent the night as we had before, lying or sitting awake and listening to the wolves. The next morning Cousens shot a rabbit that we immediately dressed and hung over a smoky fire of damp wood. The rain had not lessened and the smell of roasting meat only made us more aware of our misery. We sat by the fire and shivered in our dripping clothes, knowing that it would be another three or four days before we reached the Dove. Our progress was further slowed by Reverend Stow, who was fevered and had taken to mumbling scraps of the Psalms. We were a sorry sight indeed, more savage in our appearance than anything else and also in our manners. When Mr. Cartwright cut the half-cooked rabbit into five pieces we devoured it shamefully, becoming ever more like the wolves that haunted us. The one bright moment in our day came that evening when we overtook Greening as he struggled downriver. He was a welcome addition to our party, though his feet were horribly torn and bloodied.

  We began to crave sleep as much as food but to stop for any length of time would have been folly, as we might have starved to death where we lay. And yet, we could not go on without rest. On the third day we found a broad, flat rock in the river that provided some protection from the wolves and we lay down upon it. I was not more than twenty minutes into a troubled sleep when I was awakened by a commotion and a splashing
in the water between the rock and the riverbank. I opened my eyes to see Froggat, who was our sentry, waist-deep and losing his footing on the slippery stones of the bottom. The current pulled him onto his back and for a moment only his hand showed above the water, holding one of our precious pistols aloft. A few yards farther on Reverend Stow was scrambling up the muddy bank.

  Froggat resurfaced, coughing and shouting and bringing the others awake. The lieutenant and Cousens grabbed their muskets as they sat up, blinking and exclaiming in confusion. When Froggat had gained the shore and recovered his breath, we learned that Reverend Stow was delirious and running amok. Froggat had tried to stop him but the chaplain, like a man possessed, had gotten the better of him. Each of us looked to the forest, where only a rustling and snapping marked our companion’s progress through the undergrowth. I quickly proposed that I join Froggat in pursuit while the others remained where they were. Lieutenant Cartwright seemed about to object but I swiftly gathered up my pack and jumped from the rock. “If we haven’t returned in one hour,” I called over my shoulder, “carry on and we will follow you downriver.”

  At first we plowed our way blindly through the brush, until I thought it wise to take a bearing from my compass. Having established the direction in which our rock lay we moved ahead more cautiously, pausing now and then to listen for anything other than the ever-present cries of the wolves. The undergrowth was dense and we were soon scratched and bleeding. A little after this we came under close attack from a swarm of stouts that had scented our blood. Froggat groaned that our misery was now complete, but he led the way through the ever-thickening forest.

  When next we stopped to listen and to consult our compass, we heard a cry—very faint but unmistakably that of a man. Ignoring the sharp twigs and thorns we thrashed our way forward until we could hear him more clearly. Fragments of words could be distinguished and minutes later we had the chaplain in our view. He was moving away from us, stumbling at every step and his clothes nearly torn to ribbons. At some point he had fallen into a bog and his lower half was black with mud. He had lost a shoe, his wig was gone and he was in full voice. Either his nerves had collapsed or he had lost his mind, for he was singing a hymn and flailing his arms like a choirmaster. My first concern was that the noise would attract the wolves, or some other form of life that was equally as dangerous.