Secret Life of James Cook

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Secret Life of James Cook Page 15

by Graeme Lay

He drew back a little. ‘But I will also keep a journal of my private thoughts and feelings. And it will be for your eyes only.’

  ‘What use will that be if I cannot read it?’

  ‘I will read it to you. When I return. It will be a record of my love and devotion to you, from the furthermost parts of the globe.’ He looked down. ‘I am not a writer, Elizabeth, I have no way with words, like Daniel Defoe or Thomas Gray. And I am not given to expressing my deepest feelings publicly. But in my personal journal to you, I will try.’

  She stared at him, her gaze unwavering. ‘Is it not the rule that a naval captain’s sea log must be sovereign to the Admiralty? That was the case when you served on Grenville.’

  He met her gaze. ‘Yes, it is. And, naturally, my captain’s log will be submitted to the lords.’ He put his arms about her. ‘But the other journal will be for you.’

  He rose and held her gently, and felt the tears on her cheeks pass onto his own. Lifting her chin, he looked directly into her filmy eyes. ‘I will return, Elizabeth. That is my promise to you. And when I do, I will tell you my story.’

  Twelve

  HE MET CAPTAIN SAMUEL WALLIS at Garraway’s coffee house on 2 June, an engagement brokered by Philip Stephens of the Admiralty. The idea of such a meeting, though, was James’s initiative. Having heard the rumours of Wallis’s South Sea discovery, he could not wait for the official report of the Dolphin’s circumnavigation to be published. His own expedition was already a matter of urgency. There were two great oceans to traverse and Cape Horn to be doubled if the deadline of 3 June next year was to be met.

  Wallis was wearing his dress naval uniform. A man of medium height, he had a round, almost moonish face, a broad forehead, currant eyes and a small, well-formed mouth. But there were webs of lines around his eyes, his face was pallid and he had a general air of weariness about him. After shaking hands, the two men took a window seat, facing each other across a refectory table.

  After ordering coffee for them both, James said, ‘Your circumnavigation was successful, sir, from the accounts I have heard.’

  ‘On balance, yes. But there were many tribulations.’ Wallis took a pinch of snuff from a small silver container and held it to his nostrils. ‘Excuse me, but I have yet to recover my full health. I was ill for much of the voyage.

  ‘Passing through the Straits of Magellan took four months. Then, after the Horn, we became parted from our consort, Swallow. It was then that I fell ill. Dolphin’s master, George Robertson, assisted by John Gore, the master’s mate, handled the ship after that.’ He inclined his head. ‘Their work was highly commendable.’

  James made a mental note of those names. ‘There are low islands in the Southern Ocean, many of them south of the equator. I read that the Dutchman Roggeveen foundered on one of them.’

  Wallis closed the lid of his snuff box. ‘Indeed there are. The Dangerous Archipelago. At around sixteen degrees south latitude. The islands are enclosed by reefs, and are so close to sea level that by the time you come upon them it is almost too late. A man must be posted to the masthead at all times, day and night, to spot them.’

  ‘How can such islands be seen at night?’

  ‘The ocean waves break heavily upon the reefs and the phosphorescence in the water makes them show bright white, even at night. And as it seldom rains in these latitudes, the sky is usually clear.’

  ‘Ah.’ James made a mental note of this too. ‘The high island you discovered: there are stories circulating about its beauty.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Both physical and human.’

  ‘The stories are not exaggerated.’

  ‘What is the island’s location?’

  Wallis gave him a reproving look. ‘I am sworn to secrecy as to that particular. On Admiralty’s orders.’

  Annoyed by this pettiness, James said coolly, ‘I will learn of its location shortly, from your report.’

  Wallis nodded, but his expression was grudging. Then, leaning forward, he said, ‘I can tell you that King George’s Island is about two days’ sailing south-west of the Dangerous Archipelago. It has towering mountains, their peaks pointed like the teeth of a saw. And the mountains are covered with dark green forest, reaching to their very summits. In truth there are two islands, conjoined by a low isthmus, one much smaller than the other but very similar in its configuration. Both have many waterfalls, and river valleys where the soil is greatly fertile. It is truly like the Garden of Eden.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘Certainly, my men considered they were in heaven. There is also a neighbouring island, a short sail to the north-west of King George’s, and very like the principal one. I named it the Duke of York’s Island.’

  ‘And the people of King George’s Island?’

  ‘They are copper-skinned and black-haired. Very handsome, clean and most healthy. They live in strongly built houses with roofs of thatched palm fronds. Their diet is mostly fish, chicken and pork, with coconuts, root crops and a tree fruit like a green coconut, which was not ripe during our stay. Their canoes are well built, the larger ones double-hulled.’ He took another pinch of snuff. ‘They all — men, women and children — swim like fishes.’

  ‘How did they receive you?’

  ‘Initially, with hostility. We were forced to fire upon their attacking canoes with round, grapeshot and musket balls.’

  James was startled. ‘But what weapons did the natives possess?’

  ‘Stones, which they hurled at us.’

  ‘You returned stone-throwing with cannon fire and grapeshot?’

  Wallis looked stony himself, conscious of James’s disapprobation. He said defensively, ‘There were thousands of warriors surrounding the ship. It was my fear that we would be overwhelmed.’

  ‘How many of them were shot?’

  ‘I am unsure. Many, certainly.’ He sniffed, hard. ‘A show of force was necessary on our part to repel them. They attacked, I believe, because they considered us invaders who would occupy their island. After all, they had never before set eyes upon civilized Europeans.’ He waved his right hand airily. ‘But, thereafter, relations between us became cordial.’

  As James sat staring into Wallis’s round, fatigued face, he was wondering, what would I as commander have done in such circumstances? Could such an altercation have been avoided? This man has found and claimed undiscovered lands. He has given names to islands and other geographical features which will endure. He has circumnavigated the globe. And, most important, he has returned safely. This should surely reassure Elizabeth.

  He had further questions for the explorer. ‘Did you form any conclusions regarding the existence of a Great Southern Continent?’

  Wallis looked uncomfortable. ‘I cannot say for certain. But a day after we passed through the Dangerous Archipelago, we saw lying right across the southern horizon a series of great peaks, swathed in clouds. This caused an outbreak of high excitement on the ship, as it seemed certain then that we had found Terra Australis Incognita.’ He looked down and pursed his lips. ‘But fog then closed in and sight of the continent was lost to us. We did not see it again so instead we held our course for the high island.’

  James frowned. Not only was he irritated by Wallis’s use of the Latin term — was he boasting of his scholarship? — but he was puzzled, too. Had Dolphin’s crew seen an apparition? And, if so, how could such an apparition occur? Changing tack, he asked, ‘Do you consider King George’s Island to be a suitable location for the observation of next year’s transit of Venus?’

  ‘I believe so. The astronomers say that the transit will be best viewed in those latitudes of the Pacific. And the natives of the island told us that they have only two seasons: one wet, one dry. The dry season is in midyear, the time when we were there. The skies were mostly clear, and such rain as occurred dispersed quickly. Their wet season comes later, during our winter.’

  ‘How could you know this? Was it all conveyed to you in sign language?’

  ‘Yes. They are an intelligent people, capable of communicating eloquently
even without English, and very curious about our way of life. Thieves, too, many of them. Not having any metal of their own, they have a particular fondness for nails.’

  They talked for another hour. Wallis tendered James more advice, some nautical, some social. The bottom planks of Dolphin had been sheathed in copper, and so were not eaten into by Teredo navalis, the shipworm. There was a sheltered bay on the north coast of the main island, which he had named Port Royal, readily accessible through a pass in the reef and with an adjacent expanse of level land. This bay made a fine anchorage. The natives’ society was very hierarchical; they even had their own queen, a powerful woman called Oberea. The young women were not only healthful, they were shameless in their carnality, something the Dolphin’s men greatly appreciated. Sex to the natives of King George’s Island was as natural as breathing, the Englishmen had gratefully concluded. A woman could be procured with a ship’s nail, and consequently nails had become a kind of currency.

  Outside the coffee house, the two men shook hands. ‘Thank you, sir,’ said James. ‘Your experiences will prove most useful. Your journal and charts will be available to me in due course, I presume?’

  ‘They will. The Admiralty will see that you get them.’ Wallis’s expression became perturbed. ‘There is a rumour in the city that the Frenchies are sending an expedition to the South Sea. Commanded by someone called …’ He looked up, as if searching for the name in the London sky. ‘Booganwheel, or some such Frenchie name. If so, that is not a development to be welcomed.’

  ‘Certainly not.’ James could not resist adding, ‘His name, though, is Louis Antoine de Bougainville. He is a scientist and a mathematician. Moreover, he fought at Québec.’

  Out on the street, with a brisk nod, Wallis wished him safe passage, but at the same time James detected a hint of disregard in the man’s eyes. Did Wallis doubt that a self-taught mariner and just-commissioned lieutenant could successfully duplicate his circumnavigation? Again he felt old resentments simmering: being regarded as the boy from the farm biggin, the one with the North Country accent, reluctantly permitted to keep company with the silver-spoon commanders. Walking back along Lombard Street he suppressed this thought, as he had had to on many other occasions. There was one sure way to cope with such disdain — prove that he was equal to the manifold challenges the Navy set him. He had already proved himself on several seas and he would do so again. The Admiralty believed in him, the Royal Society had shown its faith in him. And in the face of his sternest test he was determined to prove his worth again. As he hailed a sedan chair certain names kept tumbling through his mind: Cape Horn, the Dangerous Archipelago, King George’s Island, Port Royal. And the date of that appointment with Venus: 3 June 1769.

  The weeks sped past. There were meetings, meetings and more meetings. With the Lords of the Admiralty, with the Navy Board, with the Royal Society, with victuallers, carpenters and sailmakers.

  On 2 July, when he again took the ferry down the river to the Deptford dockyard, he took his boys with him. Both were dressed proudly in their miniature naval uniforms. They chatted excitedly as they were rowed downriver by the ferryman, little James in the bow, his father and Nathaniel sitting on the after thwart. James, though not yet five, would be tall, his father guessed, and four-year-old Nathaniel stocky, more like his mother. They asked him questions constantly about the moored vessels they passed, and the ones moving up on the tide: schooners, barges, brigs, cutters and other ferries.

  Disembarking from the ferry at the place where the Ravensbourne River flowed into the Thames, they took the short walk along to the yard where the newly renamed HMB Endeavour was tied up and undergoing her refit.

  Holding his sons’ hands, he stared at the ship. The carpenters were working on her extended bowsprit and fitting the gudgeons for her new rudder, a dab hand was applying paint to the stern embellishments, and the caulkers were busy on the main deck with their pots of hot pitch. James felt a swell of pride and satisfaction at the sight of this constructive activity. There had been strife in the docks a few weeks earlier, with the coal-heavers and other workers forming an association and withdrawing their labour because of poor pay. The workers were also resentful of the excessive profits which suppliers to the Navy were making. Although sympathetic to the labourers’ cause, James was frustrated by the turmoil the dispute had caused. At sea such disorder would be unthinkable. Thankfully, the dockside disputes had now been settled and the refitting and provisioning of the Navy’s ships had resumed.

  He and the boys walked the length of the ship, admiring her in awed silence. This is it, James thought, this is what I have waited so long for and worked so hard for. She wasn’t a glamorous ship, like the two-decker alongside her with its busty figurehead and rows of cannon ports. With her blunt, pugnacious bow and narrow stern, Endeavour resembled a female bulldog. She didn’t even have a figurehead. But style and beauty wouldn’t be needed for the voyage. Strength and durability were all. Her flat bottom would be an advantage when she was warped in and out of estuaries, and she was capacious, as she would need to be with the conglomeration of men, animals and equipment she would be taking aboard the following month. There was a satisfying symmetry, too, in the knowledge that Endeavour had been built at Whitby, at the Fishburn yard, one which he remembered well from his apprentice days.

  Earlier, while Endeavour was in dry dock, the last vestiges of coal dust had been sluiced away from her holds and she had had her bottom planks sheathed with another ‘skin’ of thinner boards added to her planks over a lining of tarred felt. The sheathing had been ‘filled’ with large, flat-headed nails as added protection against Teredo navalis. Work now was concentrating on the caulking and the fitting out of the Great Cabin. Endeavour’s two bower anchors, James noted, were already lashed firmly in place, one on the larboard and the other on the starboard bow. He was pleased that she would carry five anchors, three bower including one sheet, a kedge anchor and a small stream anchor to keep her steady in harbour when the tide was turning.

  The boys were staring at the ship and the carpenters at work, captivated. ‘Which is your cabin, Papa?’ asked James.

  ‘There. At the stern. The Great Cabin, it’s called.’

  ‘Will it be great enough?’

  ‘Big enough, do you mean?’ He laughed. ‘I hope so. Big enough for me to stand up in, and for a table and my charts, certainly. A library, too. And see the windows in the stern? They will admit plenty of light when I’m charting her course.’

  ‘Where are the cannons?’ Nathaniel asked.

  ‘They’ll be taken aboard later. The decking and the rigging are most important for now.’

  ‘How many cannons?’ Nathaniel persisted.

  ‘Ten carriage guns and twelve swivel guns.’

  ‘And lots of muskets?’

  ‘Lots. And pistols. And swords. And daggers.’

  ‘And tomahawks?’

  ‘Axes, yes. For any Indians we might meet. But our axes will be presents. We will wish to make friends of the Indians in the Southern Ocean, where they do not know steel.’

  The boys nodded, sombrely, but they were obviously struggling to comprehend all this.

  A stocky man of about thirty with a furrowed brow and flattened nose, hatless but in naval uniform, came up the afterdeck companionway and walked down the gangplank to the wharf. John Gore. He greeted James with a distinctly cool look. The two men had met earlier at the Admiralty. Appreciating that the American-born warrant officer could be an asset to the voyage since he had circumnavigated the world already twice, James had urged the lords to appoint him to the expedition. He had duly been appointed third lieutenant on Endeavour. However, Philip Stephens had let James know, in confidence, that Gore had considered himself a much stronger contender for the leadership than James, and that James should be aware of his likely resentment at being passed over.

  Determined not to allow any sense of umbrage to affect the expedition’s morale, James introduced the officer to his boys. ‘James, N
athaniel, this is Lieutenant Gore. He will be sailing with us on Endeavour.’ He added, in a deliberately conciliatory tone, ‘He has already sailed around the world. Twice.’

  Gore nodded at the boys, then said in his unusual accent, ‘And will you follow your father to sea?’ They nodded, keenly. In fact James had already registered them on the ship’s muster book as ‘servants’ to the third lieutenant and the carpenter, a common naval practice which afforded the boys notional sea service. This phantom service would give them earlier promotion when they actually went to sea. But he had not yet disclosed this to Elizabeth.

  He said to Gore, ‘The refit goes well?’

  ‘As well as it can in the time we have.’ His voice was clipped.

  ‘We will need to be at sea by August if we are to close King George’s Island by May,’ James replied.

  ‘We will be,’ said Gore tersely, then strode off down the dock.

  That same day, after returning young James and Nathaniel to the house, James took a carriage to the Royal Society headquarters. There he was greeted by the Earl of Morton. James had come to like this big, bluff Scotsman. He had shown himself to be an enlightened man, and had been genuinely distressed to learn that Wallis’s men had killed many natives during the fracas on King George’s Island.

  James and the earl took tea together in the front study of the Society’s house and discussed the scientific aspects of the expedition and the equipment which would be needed for the observation of the transit. The Society had appointed Charles Green as chief astronomer, with James as his assistant. Green had made a list of the surveying and astronomical apparatus they would need, and James studied it with great interest. Theodolite, plane table, compasses, telescopes with stands, astronomical quadrant, barometer, clocks, dividers, rulers … The list went on. James looked up, perturbed. ‘The cost of all this, my lord?’

  The earl nodded ruefully. ‘And that is just for the surveying and observation. To which must be added the cost of the botanical apparatus. Nets, trawls, hooks, an amazing underwater telescope, a small boat for collecting specimens at sea. A library of natural history. In all, it amounts to a cost of ten thousand pounds.’

 

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