by Graeme Lay
James cut in. ‘I am aware of all that, sir. But I have long harboured an ambition to join Britain’s Navy and to see places more exotic than the Tyne and Wapping.’
Walker tossed his hands in the air. ‘Then why not join the East India Company? They would recognize the qualifications you have gained here. You could sail with them to India and the Indies. Exotic destinations, certainly.’
‘I wish from now on to serve in the ships of our king, Mr Walker, not in trading vessels. I believe there is no greater calling. And I would rather serve as a volunteer than be pressed into service. It’s fortunate for me that I have so far escaped the gangs, when so many others have been pressed.’
‘Yes, but—’ Walker now waved his hand in circles, like a wayward orchestra conductor. ‘You would have to begin all over again, from the very bottom of the ranks. As a mere able seaman. No rank, no authority. And war with the French is coming again, if the rumours are to be believed. If that is so, the deck of a man-o’-war is a perilous place to be.’
James nodded. He retained the greatest respect for this man, his tutor, his mentor, and he always would. But Walker’s horizons were limited, and James had outgrown their limits. Quietly but forcefully he said, ‘I fully understand the implications of my decision, Mr Walker, including the perils of naval life. And I am prepared to start again.’
The other man shook his head. ‘I cannot believe that you do understand. If you did, you would not entertain this notion.’
James bridled. ‘It is not a notion, sir, it is an ambition. And one I have long held.’
Silence filled the small room. Then, heaving a sigh, John Walker said, ‘So I cannot persuade you to alter this course?’
‘No, sir. My mind is made up.’
Walker nodded. His mouth was a straight, tight line. He stood up, and held out his hand. ‘Very well. But I’ll not deny that you will be sorely missed on our ships. And in this house.’ He gave a mirthless little laugh. ‘Mistress Prowd will be bereft. You are like a son to her, I believe.’
‘And I will miss her. As I will miss you all. You and Mr Henry and all your children. I will never forget your many kindnesses. I was but a boy when I first came to Whitby. I have become a man here, with a man’s responsibilities.’
Walker nodded. ‘Yes, yes. When do you plan to leave?’
‘Next month. I will take the coach to London, and report to the naval recruitment centre.’
‘Where is it?’
‘In Wapping.’
‘Then there will be no need to take the coach. Three Brothers sails for Wapping the week after next. If you wish, you can sail with her as a supernumerary.’
‘Thank you, sir, that is a generous offer. I will first return to Great Ayton, though, to farewell my family.’ He hesitated. ‘May I carry a letter of recommendation from you to the naval authorities, testifying to the qualities of my seamanship?’
Walker nodded, but his face remained mournful. He put his hand on James’s shoulder. ‘As I said, you’ll be much missed in Whitby. But I wish you the very best of luck.’
Four
JAMES WALKED FROM MRS RIGBY’S BOARDING HOUSE in Shadwell and followed the street she had told him led to the Thames. He had been awarded five guineas’ long-service pay by John Walker, the most money he had ever had in his life. The jacket he had bought the day before from a tailor in Mile End Row had brown velvet lapels and matching cuffs. It was the most stylish garment he had ever worn and it made him feel grand, even though he knew that soon he would be exchanging it for naval garb. He walked briskly. Today he would lunch at the Bell in Wapping, then visit a bookshop to buy a copy of Anson’s A Voyage Round the World to take with him to Portsmouth. His new life was under way at last.
Wapping High Street was crowded. It was market day, and the stall-holders were busy, calling out to the potential customers who milled about — women mainly — shopping baskets on their arms. Outside the town hall, three beggars in ragged clothes squatted on the cobbles, heads bowed. The upturned hats on the ground before them contained a few farthings. Thin, mangy dogs roamed about, dodging kicks from passers-by and cocking their legs to piss on the wheels of the stallholders’ carts.
As James made his way through the busy square, he passed a butcher’s cart draped with bloodstained hares, plucked ducks and sides of yellowing mutton. Shooing away the flies that hovered about the meat, the stallholder called to him, ‘Now there’s a prosperous-looking young man. Fancy a nice joint or a poultry, guv’nor? Everything fresh, all ready for the pot. Take a lovely duck home to your missus!’
Smiling to himself, James walked on. Guv’nor. Did he really look the part?
He came to the lane which led down to the river and the Bell. Standing on the corner of the High Street and River Lane was a small, thin, middle-aged woman. She was wearing a grubby bonnet and there was a shawl drawn around her hunched shoulders. Her green velvet gown looked several sizes too big for her. As James approached, the woman raised one hand to him, beseechingly. ‘Sir? Good sir?’
James stopped, peered into the pallid face and the huge, dark eyes. The cheekbones of her emaciated face were prominently delineated. But she might have been beautiful once, he thought.
‘Sir—’ Her hand shot out and gripped his arm. She tried to smile. ‘Come with me, sir, to my room. I will give you a good time there, sir. A very good time. For only sixpence.’
James froze. That accent, that face. ‘Michela?’ he said, haltingly.
Now she went rigid. Releasing his arm, she said in a whisper, ‘You know my name? How?’
‘I’m James. From Staithes.’
Her hand went up to her mouth, the shock of recognition widened her eyes. ‘The boy from the shop.’
‘Yes. The boy from the shop.’ He allowed a silence then said, ‘Nine years ago.’
She stared, as if seeing an apparition. ‘And now you are … grown.’
They faced each other in silence for a few moments, both unwilling to speak, neither knowing how to bridge the yawning gulf between them. Until at last James said, ‘What happened? With you and—’
‘Mr Acklam.’
‘Yes.’
The vile memory came rushing back. She clutched the shawl, drawing it tight across her breasts. ‘He gave me a room, in Staithes, in a big house. He bought me clothes and jewellery. He said he loved me.’ She stopped for a moment. ‘I had his child, a girl. I called her Laetitia.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘She was born very weak and became ill, but he refused to get a doctor. She died two days after she was born. After that, he told me to leave.’ She closed her eyes. ‘He had found another young woman. Another mistress.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘Back to Durham. But my mother had died of consumption, and my sister had disappeared — no one knew where.’ She put one hand to her brow. ‘So I sold the jewellery and came by coach to London, seeking work here as a servant. But the only work I could get here was …’ She turned away with the shame of it. ‘This.’ Then her eyes returned to his, and now they were gleaming through the tears. She moved close to him, and slipped her hand inside his jacket. ‘Come with me, James, come with me,’ she implored.
He recoiled, smitten with horror and guilt at her story. Why had he not warned her? Why had he not challenged Acklam? He could have tried to help her, could have pointed out the folly of her ways. And now it was much too late. Backing further away, he reached inside his jacket, withdrew his purse and from it took a one-guinea coin.
‘Have this,’ he said, handing it to her.
Her small hand reached out, took the coin, stared at it wonderingly. And as she stood staring, James turned from the pitiful sight, quite unable to bear it. Then he broke into a run, racing down the lane towards the river, not looking back.
The greatest difference, he noticed from the very beginning, was the sound of the guns. In Portsmouth and Plymouth, his new home ports, it seemed that the waterfront cannons were forever being fired. Salutes for the King’s birthd
ay, salutes for the Queen’s birthday, salutes for admirals, for homecoming vessels, for the bringing in of prizes. The hills and waters around both ports echoed with the boom of the twenty-pounders, the smell of gunsmoke drifted across the harbours and the very air seemed to tremble and reverberate with their thunder.
It thrilled him, this cannon fire, for it immediately and dramatically denoted the difference between the merchant service and the Royal Navy.
For what he later thought of as his able seaman years, the first ship he was assigned to, and the first armed vessel he sailed on, was HMS Eagle. A fourth-rater of 1240 tons, she carried forty-eight cannons. His first commander was Captain James Hamar, his first voyage part of a patrol line between the south of Ireland and the Scilly Islands. Eagle’s role there was to intercept any French ships she encountered.
James had quickly learned that Portsmouth was a political as well as a naval town. He was aware that although a state of war between the two nations had not yet been officially declared, France was considered a threat to Britain’s growing imperial ambitions. Accordingly, the Royal Navy considered it its duty to do all it could to disrupt trade between France and what she called ‘New France’ and what Britain called ‘Canada’. James had read that the French had been involved with the fur trade there since the early seventeenth century, and when studying maps of the north-eastern seaboard of North America he saw that the principal means of entry to that region was the Gulf of St Lawrence and the river of the same name, a funnel-shaped channel leading to a French fortress at a place called Québec.
Now, in the second half of 1755, one of the Royal Navy’s functions was to intercept French vessels carrying vital supplies of food, clothing and armaments from mainland France to its colonial outposts across the Atlantic, such as Québec and Louisbourg. James’s first naval voyage was not auspicious, however. After Eagle encountered gale-force winds and mountainous seas in the Irish Sea, Captain Hamar declared that the ship’s mainmast had been split. He informed the crew that he was taking the ship back to Plymouth harbour. On the way back to port, James examined the mainmast for himself. Although the driver boom was obviously broken, and one of the topsails had blown out, he could see no evidence that the mainmast itself was split. The boom could be replaced at sea, as could the topsail, so why, James wondered, was the captain taking the ship back to port? As a mere able seaman, he had to keep this thought to himself, but he experienced silent satisfaction when after arriving safely in Plymouth naval carpenters confirmed that the mast was indeed seaworthy. A week later the Admiralty relieved Captain Hamar of his command of HMS Eagle and replaced him with Captain Hugh Palliser.
This taught him a lesson which he never forgot: that the Admiralty was a force which always had to be reckoned with. At sea a commander’s authority was absolute, but on land the Admiralty ruled. However high the commander considered himself on shore, the Admiralty was always higher.
From the beginning, James liked Captain Palliser, and not just because he was also a Yorkshireman. After all, Palliser came from the gentry, so his background could not have been further removed from James’s. Five years older than James, he had been at sea since he was twelve, and had already served in the West Indies and India when he assumed command of Eagle. After they had been just a few days at sea together, Captain Palliser commended James in a phrase which he never forgot. After he had demonstrated to two fumbling able seamen how to go aloft and furl the topgallant properly, Palliser scowled at the hapless pair and remarked to James, ‘Seamen they may be, able they are not. Amid this rabble, Cook, you’re like a honed cutlass in a drawer full of blunt cutlery.’
It was under Palliser’s command, and as Eagle’s master’s mate, that James first experienced naval action. The conflict which would become known as the Seven Years’ War began in 1756, and on 30 May 1757, in the Bay of Biscay, Eagle engaged and captured the French ship Duc d’Aquitaine. Under fire for the first time, and despite seeing ten of his ship mates killed by French cannon fire, James was surprised to find that he felt no fear. He was too concerned, he later realized, with assisting with the ship’s placement. And having once overcome fear by ignoring it altogether, he never subsequently felt frightened in battle. There was simply far too much to get on with.
In June 1757 Captain Palliser received a letter, forwarded to him in Portsmouth by the Admiralty in Whitehall. It was from the Honourable Charles Derby, Member of Parliament for Scarborough.
TO CAPTAIN HUGH PALLISER RN
Some months ago the vessel under your esteemed command, HMS Eagle, captured an enemy ship, Duc d’Aquitaine, in the Bay of Biscay, a feat which all Englishmen rejoiced in. None so much as the members of my constituency, when we learned that the master’s mate on His Majesty’s ship was James Cook, late of Great Ayton, where his parents still live. His father’s employer, Thomas Skottowe JP, a landowner in the said village, has asked that I write to you conveying the strong recommendation that James Cook be promoted to the rank of officer in His Majesty’s Navy as a consequence of his reported courage under fire and his part in ensuring the sinking of the French vessel and the safe return to port of HMS Eagle.
Accordingly, Captain Palliser, I would humbly request that you make representations to this effect, to the Lords of the Admiralty.
I am, Yours Sincerely,
The Right Honourable Charles Derby,
Member of Parliament for Scarborough
Palliser went below to James’s cabin, where he was preparing for a forthcoming examination which would decide if he would be promoted to full master.
‘Cook?’
‘Sir?’
He handed James the letter. ‘I received this today.’
James read it. Then, shaking his head, he said, ‘This embarrasses me, sir. Does he not realize that I have served only two years in the Navy, and that promotion is based on seniority? What he suggests is impossible.’
‘Quite so. Obviously Messrs Skottowe and Derby are not familiar with naval regulations.’
‘That does not surprise me, sir.’ He smiled. ‘But as you know, all Yorkshiremen close ranks, when the occasion suits it.’
Palliser laughed. ‘Yes, yes.’
James said, ‘Will you reply to Mr Derby?’
‘Yes. I will explain. And I will also include the information that you are shortly to sit your master’s examination.’ Folding the letter, Palliser said thoughtfully, ‘Do you have an ambition to be an officer, Cook?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I thought so. Good.’
Two days later James took the coach from Portsmouth to London. On 29 June 1757 he sat and passed the examination at Trinity House, Deptford — the institution responsible for training harbour pilots — and was subsequently promoted to full master. As the role of a ship’s master was to sail the ship, this new qualification gave him deep satisfaction. He was even more satisfied when on 27 October 1757, his twenty-ninth birthday, he was appointed master of HMS Pembroke.
Four months later, in the spring of 1758, Pembroke sailed for Canada.
Five
18 MAY 1758
Dear Mr Walker,
I trust things are well with you, Mr Henry and both your families, in Whitby.
I write from the port of Halifax, on the peninsula of Nova Scotia, where the English fleet is gathered preparatory to attacking the French fleet at Louisbourg and thence, it is hoped, to wrest control of the St Lawrence River and Québec from the French forces.
So, I have ‘crossed the pond’, as the old seafarers put it, and what a mighty pond the Atlantic is! I am currently serving as master of the man-o’-war HMS Pembroke, under the command of Captain John Simcoe. She is a new ship, Plymouth-built, launched only four months ago. Fully rigged, she carries sixty guns and so is a fourth-rate ship of the line. These figures I know will not impress you, sir, given your feelings about war. I convey them to you only so that you will be aware of the vessel on which your former apprentice is serving. Pembroke is considerably larger than a W
hitby cat, but regrettably does not appear to have been constructed to the highest standards. Her mizzen mast cracked during a mid-Atlantic storm, and two of the bilge pumps malfunctioned.
You will recall, sir, how much I desired to sail on the world’s great oceans, and how this desire played a large part in my leaving the merchant service and joining the Royal Navy. I have now at least crossed one such ocean, but it was a voyage scarcely intended to encourage further expeditions. We sailed from Plymouth for Canada in February, calling at the island of Tenerife — an exotic port of call off the African coast, administered by the Spanish. There we provisioned the vessel and spent five days ashore before setting sail again on a south-west course. Thus far all was well. But four days out of Tenerife the weather turned against us, and we suffered adverse winds for the ensuing three weeks, necessitating long reaches which slowed our progress considerably. You will recall my telling you of the voyage on Friendship in the autumn of 1754, when John Jefferson and I were making for Oslo, and how contrary the winds were throughout. Well, sir, the voyage to Halifax was ten times worse. The worst part of it was not the sailing — I was confident of my handling of the ship throughout the voyage, in spite of her construction deficiencies — but an outbreak of illness on the lower decks, which severely curtailed Pembroke’s manpower. I intend to write to the Admiralty, reporting on this epidemic.
As paper is scarce and costly here this letter will necessarily be brief. Two sheets only. In concluding it, sir, I trust that you will convey the news of my recent activities to Mr Henry Walker, Mistress Prowd, and the Chapman and Sinclair families. Please tell Mistress Prowd that I greatly miss her supplies of hot milk and fresh baking. I hope too that your most recent intake of apprentices is proving equal to the challenges your seamanship instructions present. Should I return safely to England following this tour of duty, sir, I will most assuredly visit you all in Whitby, on my way further north to Great Ayton to see my family.