by Graeme Lay
Now there was to be another beginning, another opportunity, and he was determined to seize it.
It was a fifteen-mile walk from Great Ayton to Whitby, and at first the path took him across the bleak, windswept North York moors. The sky was colourless, seeming to reach right to the ground, and as he circled Beacon Hill light snow began to fall, forcing him to turn up the collar of his jacket and wrap around his face the woollen scarf Christiana had knitted for him. But this did not worry him, for he knew that every step he took on his way south took him further away from Staithes and its horrible associations.
The wind eased and the snow stopped falling when he descended from the moors to the village of Danby. There, beside the river he knew must be the Esk, he removed his boots and ate the bread, mutton and plums his mother had packed for him. Half an hour later he set off again, the path following the river which tumbled its way down the valley.
As the valley broadened the water began to flow more languidly, and at mid-afternoon, around a meander of the river, he came to Whitby. He paused on the outskirts of the town, staring down the river towards its estuary. The tide was low, exposing the mud flats along the river’s course.
If Staithes had been large after Ayton, then after Staithes Whitby was huge. The town’s buildings occupied both banks of the river. Where James stood, on the west bank of the upper harbour, slipways led up to sheds where vessels were in various stages of construction, some with just their keels laid, others with their stems and sterns added, a few with their ribcages completed. Men swarmed about the shipyards, sawing, hammering and chiselling into shape the bones of the boats. On the opposite bank were moored dozens of vessels, fishing smacks, sloops, barges, cobles.
He followed the pathway down the river. Warehouses, chandleries and sailmakers’ lofts gave way to two-up and two-down slate-roofed stone houses, and shops and taverns, buildings which stood cheek by jowl along both banks of the river, their high piles exposed by the ebbed tide. A high wooden bridge, built on piers of stone, connected the west and east banks of the town. He saw that its central span could be raised by a series of ropes and pulleys, allowing ships to pass underneath to the upper harbour. He watched, fascinated, as a single-masted sloop passed slowly under the raised drawbridge, its sail catching the slight afternoon breeze.
A few minutes later he came to the quayside, which was crowded with people, wagons, horses and carriages. Ladies in bonnets and wide-hooped gowns held the hands of children, wigged men in frock coats and high boots stood about chatting, and seamen sat outside the taverns, yarning and smoking their pipes. Goods were being unloaded from barges by men in leather jerkins, and carried up gangplanks to the waiting wagons on the quay. In the distance James could see the river broaden at its mouth, turning slightly south as it flowed past a breakwater and into the ocean. In the roadstead in the distance, two three-masted ships were at anchor, waiting for the high tide, he presumed, before they could enter Whitby’s tidal basin.
The crowded quay, the movements of people and vessels, and the generally purposeful air of Whitby excited him. This was a place where he could forget his foolish infatuation with Michela and make a new beginning. Here he would immerse himself in reading and study, in preparation for a life at sea.
But now he needed to find Mr Walker. He looked about the quay then approached a group of what appeared to be sailors, from their seaman’s jerseys and canvas trousers, sitting outside an alehouse whose sign declared it was the Cat and Fiddle. Addressing a man with a grizzled beard and woollen cap, James said, ‘Sir, I wonder if you could direct me to the residence of Mr Walker?’
‘John Walker or Henry Walker?’ came the gruff reply.
‘John Walker.’
The man nodded. ‘Grape Lane, lad. That’s where you’ll find ’im. Or at least ’is ’ouse.’
‘And where might Grape Lane be, sir?’
Leaping to his feet, the seaman pointed upriver. ‘That slipway there, see? The third one up from the bridge?’
‘Yes.’
‘The house at the top of the slipway is John Walker’s. Take the bridge across the river.’
The house was tall, three-storeyed, with a steeply pitched slate roof. As James approached the house he noticed, on a hill high above the town, the ruin of a huge stone building. Whitby’s famous abbey, he assumed. He knocked on the front door of the house, and it was opened by a thin, elderly woman in a pale brown gown and matching crocheted shawl. She looked him up and down intently, and James doffed his cap.
‘Good day, madam. I am here to see Mr Walker. Mr John Walker.’
‘I will tell him you’re here, young man. He’s in his study. What name shall I say?’
‘James Cook. I am to be his apprentice.’
John Walker came out from behind his desk. The study was lined with filled bookshelves, and pinned to the walls were several ornate charts of coastal waters. A brass barometer hung beside the study’s single window, and on the large desk was a model of a ship, a yard long and fully rigged. James thought it was a collier, but couldn’t be sure. John Walker was stout, with a round, sagging face and wide sideburns. Although his cheeks seemed to have collapsed, his clear green eyes were those of a much younger man. Taking James’s hand, tipping his head back and half closing his eyes, he looked him up and down before saying, ‘So, you’re the young man Sanderson wrote to me about.’
‘I am, sir.’
‘The one who tired of the grocery trade.’
James hesitated. The comment made him sound feckless. By way of reply he said, ‘Better, I thought, sir, to withdraw from a calling to which I was ill-suited than to remain in the shop and so satisfy neither my employer nor myself.’
‘Hmph.’ John Walker continued to scrutinize him. ‘You’re unusually old to be starting an apprenticeship. Eighteen, are you?’
‘I am, sir.’
Walker looked at him challengingly. ‘And what makes you think you’re fitted to a life at sea?’
‘I think it may well suit my abilities, sir.’
‘Which are?’
‘A knowledge of mathematics, the capability to read and write, a desire to experience the world, physical stamina …’ His voice died away. What more could he say, without sounding like a braggart?
Eyes still fixed on him, the shipowner said sternly, ‘Well, you’re a strong lad, that I can see, and Sanderson’s vouched for your skills in arithmetic. But have you the courage to go aloft in a gale and reef a mainsail, or swing a lead-line on a lee shore — and there’s many of them on this coast — or hold the helm on a stormy, moonless night with only a compass to steer by?’
Having made his point, he did not need to go on. James inhaled deeply, then said calmly, looking the shipowner straight in the eye, ‘I cannot say whether or not I have those very abilities, sir, but I can say that I will do my very best to learn them.’ He paused, then added forcefully, ‘I have a mind to do so, so I believe I will.’
Walker laughed softly. ‘Good. The will to do so is all when training for the sea.’ He placed one hand on the model ship. ‘This is my flagship, Freelove, a Whitby cat. She carries coal from the Tyne to London. If you study hard and prove your worth, you could be sailing on her.’ He folded his arms. ‘The coal trade’s the best nursery there is for seamen, but it’s a nursery with no tenderness. It’s harsh, but here you’ll learn the ropes, first on shore, then at sea. And Whitby sailors make the best top men, that’s well known.’ Unfolding his arms, he stared up at James. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘I do, sir.’ James lifted his chin. ‘When do we start?’
As the only apprentice not from the local parish, James was accommodated in the attic room of the Walker house. The room was small, its walls sloping to the apex of the building. Reached by a steep staircase from the second floor, it had a floor of dark-stained boards. There was a narrow leadlight window in one wall, beneath which was a chair and writing desk on which, beside the candle-holder and inkwell, James placed his noteb
ook and sheets of writing paper. The bed was under one wall slope, and although for the first few days he banged his head when he sat up in it, it was a considerable improvement on sleeping under the shop counter. Under the other wall opposite the bed was a washstand, chamber pot, basin and water jug.
Mr Walker’s lessons were given in the ground-floor front room. The other apprentices were five or six years younger than James. One, a freckle-faced boy called Thomas, was only twelve. To James they seemed like children, often giggling behind Walker’s back, and he found them tiresomely immature. He sometimes felt like clipping them around their ears. It was always a relief when, after the evening meal which he took in the kitchen, he mounted the stairs to the little attic room, imagining as he did so that the stairs were a companionway and the little room was a ship’s cabin. Once in his room he would read by candlelight the books Mr Walker had lent him, references such as Charles Leadbetter’s Compleat System of Astronomy and, for pleasure, more accounts of epic sea voyages such as the English sea captain Woodes Rogers’ A Cruising Voyage Round the World. And invariably, before he got into bed, there would be a call from the top of the stairs.
‘Master James?’
‘Oh, Mistress Prowd. Good evening.’
‘Evening to you, Master James.’
Her head appeared, her face heavily lined, her grey hair tied back tightly in a bun. She held a wooden tray on which was the usual handle of hot milk and a plate of cake slices. Taking the tray from her, he said, ‘Carrot cake, my favourite. Thank you, Mistress Prowd.’
‘It is no trouble at all, Master James.’ She frowned. ‘Just don’t you be staying up till all hours doing that reading of yours, will you? You need your sleep.’
He smiled. ‘I won’t, I promise.’
‘Good. And when you’ve finished with your supper, just leave the tray at the bottom of the stairs.’
‘I will. Goodnight, Mistress Prowd.’
The more he learned, the more he realized he didn’t know. Astronomy and the constellations, the compass and its variations, fixing latitude, reading and drawing charts, setting a course, sails and how to maintain them, types of rigging, soundings and how to take and report them — all these arts and many others were taught to James and the other apprentices in the front room of the house in Grape Lane.
He also learned of Whitby’s importance to England’s east coast counties. Cut off from the rest of Yorkshire by high moorland, the town was a hive of marine activity, looking to the sea instead of its hinterland. In all but the months of December and January, its merchant vessel fleet sailed out through the estuary of the Esk, around Whitby Rock and thence north to Tyneside or Shields, south to the Thames and upriver to London, and east to the ports of Scandinavia and the Baltic. The main cargoes carried were coal from the Tyne and Durham, timber from Norway, and from the Baltic other shipping industry necessities such as hemp, sailcloth and pitch.
James’s respect for the Walker family grew. Everyone in Whitby knew that the brothers’ word was their bond. As for the family’s strict moral code, some of the other apprentices resented the Walkers’ rules about their conduct during those times when they were released from their tuition. James and his fellow apprentices were forbidden to play dice, cards or bowls, or to frequent the taverns or playhouses on the other side of the river. But although some of the other apprentices champed at this bit, the regulations did not bother James. He was well aware that he had a great deal of study to carry out if he was to succeed and there seemed scarcely time to complete his studies, let alone gamble, drink or seek the company of loose women on the waterfront. And although the bruise on his heart over Michela had not completely faded, his time in Staithes was otherwise almost completely forgotten.
The War of Austrian Succession had been under way for six years when James came to Whitby. It was a conflict which began under the pretext that Maria Theresa of Austria was ineligible to succeed to the Hapsburg throne of her father, Charles VI, because she was female. In reality, though, shrewd observers agreed, this was merely an excuse put forward by Prussia and France in order to challenge the power of the Hapsburgs. So, in 1740, another European war had begun.
With Britain and the Dutch allied to Austria against Prussia and France, the conflict the Americans scathingly called ‘King George’s War’ touched the port of Whitby and made James keenly aware of the role the Royal Navy was playing in the defence of Britain’s realm, as troop transports, store-ships and, occasionally, armed vessels of Britain’s naval fleet called at the port. And the tide had lately turned in favour of the British, on both land and sea.
James and John Walker stood on the quay, watching a British man-o’-war, HMS San Nicolas, being worked into the harbour. It was August, 1747. James noted the cannon ports along the ship’s gunwales, instinctively counting them. A three-decker, sixty guns. Returning from battle against the Prussian fleet in the North Sea, she was a handsome vessel, but was showing the wounds of war. Midships on her larboard side, just above the middle deck, there were two jagged tears in her strakes and the railing on the afterdeck had been partly blown away.
Oblivious to this damage, crewmen scrambled aloft, as agitated as feeding ants amid the shrouds, lowering and furling first the main top-gallant staysail and the main topgallant, then the foretopsail and the main topsail. The remaining sails slackened as the ship was belayed slowly but methodically to her mooring by a team of men on the quay, where local stevedores and ships’ provisioners waited to begin their work. As he watched the vessel being manoeuvred to her mooring, saw the men scuttling aloft and heard the commanding shouts of the San Nicolas’s first officer, James felt a surge of pride. Was there a sight better intended to stir the heart of an Englishman?
The great ship was brought closer to the quay. John Walker, hands clasped behind his back, was also watching the docking proceedings closely. But his expression was not one of admiration.
James said, ‘She’s a fine sight, Mr Walker.’
‘Aye. If you approve of warships.’
James looked away. This was a subject they had discussed before. And disagreed on. ‘Do you not agree, sir,’ he said carefully, ‘that the Navy has served our king and country well?’
Walker drew a very deep breath, exhaled slowly, then said, ‘It has.’ He pouted. ‘But war solves no problems. To my mind, it only creates the conditions for further conflict. So we will be fighting the French again before long, in my estimation.’
‘In England’s interests, nevertheless.’
Walker’s frown became a glare, with which he fixed James. ‘Is it in our nation’s interests to lose so many young men to death and grievous injury? The loss of so many sons and brothers? Where, pray, is the good in that?’
Returning the older man’s baleful look, James said, ‘But sir, your own ships at times transport troops and horses to the war, do they not?’
Walker looked away, then said flatly, ‘Only because if my ships do not, others will, and that will be my loss.’ He grunted. ‘I see no contradiction in making money from war when the opportunity arises.’
The logic of this escaped James. If the man was to have principles, they should at least be consistent. He said, ‘And what of the guns your ships carry? I admit to being surprised when I first saw that they carried armaments.’
‘For defensive purposes, purely. It would be the height of foolishness to carry commercial cargoes and not have the means of defending their value.’ He thrust his face forward. ‘Don’t you see that?’
James nodded, but remained unconvinced. Mr Walker was a Quaker, like the rest of his family. They believed that progress lay not in military alliances and war, but through concord and commerce. Yet the sight of the naval ship they were watching, the flags that she flew and the sailors racing so purposefully amid her decks, stays and masts, continued to stir James. He tried another tack.
‘But if we bow to pressure from our foes, sir, the French and the Prussians, and do not support the Austrian cause, surely we ris
k a loss of our authority in the world.’
His employer looked at him in disbelief. ‘Austria? What is Austria to us? A landlocked nation with not even a mercantile fleet to call its own? And allied with Bavaria, a mere province, also with no coastline.’ He shook his head, adamantly. ‘No, James. This war, like all wars, is folly. And I will have no part of it.’
James fell silent. He had great respect for John and his brother Henry for their probity, their industry and their faith. He had learned a great deal from them, and not just about seamanship. The personal example they set all their apprentices was beyond reproach. There was no doubt that in some respects the Walkers and the other Quakers were right, in that if all men believed in peace, then war would be rendered unnecessary. Yet while there were foreign politicians, admirals and generals who would threaten England’s sovereignty, there must, James was convinced, be a need to combat such foes. This was why he could not himself become a Quaker. It would be a change too far. So he and Mr Walker would have to agree to disagree. He would let the matter stand without further dispute, and continue to think his own thoughts. Mr Walker turned his back on the ship. Tapping his left foot irritably on the cobblestones, he said, ‘I shall return home now. Are you coming?’
‘Not yet, sir. I’ll tarry awhile here. Please tell Mistress Prowd not to keep supper for me.’
‘Very well then. I shall see you in the morning.’
‘Yes. Good evening, sir.’
As the sun slipped down the sky the dockside became crowded with naval sailors and officers from the man-o’-war, along with local people who had come to watch, and horses drawing carts loaded with provisions for the ship. There was no doubt, James thought as he watched barrels being rolled down from the quay and into San Nicolas’s hold, that Whitby had done well from the war. Scarcely a week went by when a Royal Navy troopship did not call in to the port for provisioning. Or, as with the San Nicolas, sometimes a man-o’-war to discharge wounded sailors. This latter thought was prompted by the sight of injured seamen being brought up from below decks. Most of them were heavily bandaged, their dressings stained with blood. Several had their arms in slings. Watching the distressed, staggering figures, James thought that Mr Walker was well right in one respect. The personal cost of war was high.