Secret Life of James Cook

by Graeme Lay

  Banks nudged Tupaia. ‘Tell the old man I will buy the heads from him. They will add greatly to my collection.’

  Tupaia spoke to Topaa, who glanced at Banks then replied briefly. ‘He will only let you have the smaller one,’ Tupaia said. ‘It was from a young lad.’ He looked at Banks challengingly. ‘What will you give him in exchange for the mokomokai?’

  ‘I will get him something suitable,’ the naturalist replied, and he turned and went down the companionway to his cabin. Seconds later he returned carrying a pair of baggy, stained drawers, which were holed in several places. He held them up to Topaa, while opening the four fingers of his left hand. ‘He can have this fine gentleman’s garment, for all four heads.’

  Tupaia reported this. The chief glowered. Obviously offended, he picked up the head of the lad and muttered something. Tupaia said, ‘He cannot sell the others, even for an exploding stick. They are too valuable to his people. You can only have this one.’

  Undeterred, Banks waved the drawers in Topaa’s face, cheerfully, like an auctioneer in London city. ‘Four heads for this valuable garment.’

  Topaa’s tattooed brow puckered. He said something else to Tupaia. The Tahitian said, ‘No. You can have the boy’s head only.’

  Banks heaved a sigh. ‘Very well.’ He handed the drawers to Topaa, who then passed the head to him. The botanist held it up by the hair, admiringly. The crew looked on in horrified fascination. On the neck were vestiges of undried cartilage and solidified blood. ‘This fellow will cause a sensation at the Royal Society headquarters,’ Banks said.

  James had watched the transaction from the quarter deck. He found it both macabre and troubling. Within living memory he knew of how the English placed the heads of executed traitors on display on London Bridge as a warning to others. But this was different. In Banks’s eyes the head of a recently killed human being had become a commodity, something to be traded. Who knew what might happen if a trade of this nature was encouraged? Might not the natives see a profit in the business, and so increase the killing for it? In this manner they might even obtain their own muskets, and thus compound tribal conflicts with a consequent mounting death toll. He turned away. He would order that the trophy head be kept well below decks.

  During their last week in Ship Cove and seeking to discover what lay to the east of the long sound, James, Banks and Solander were rowed some distance east across the water to a very long, embayed island whose spine rose high above the sea. Topaa had told them the island was called Arapawa.

  The trio made their way up a steep slope, through dense forest and ferns, and emerged from the trees, breathless, onto clear land near the island’s crest.

  It was a fine summer morning with almost no wind and skeins of cloud streaking the sky. They had discarded their jackets because of the intense heat. Rolling up his shirt sleeves, James absorbed the panorama before them and was elated by it. He loved ascending hills such as this and had done so since he was a boy climbing Roseberry Topping. Standing on a hilltop was like seeing a map or a chart spring to life.

  What lay to the east of where they stood was a vast body of water, calm near the island but flecked with whitecaps further out. It was, James felt certain, connected to the passage which had provided them entry to the sound. He put his scope to his eye, then panned across the water. In the distance was rugged, shadowy land, quite separate from that on which they stood. Conscious of Banks’s silence, sensing his frustration, James said quietly, ‘What lies before us is a strait, Banks. And what we have lately circumnavigated is an island.’ He allowed a pause. ‘Not a continent.’

  Solander was nodding, but Banks was not. He made an impatient clicking sound. ‘To the north may well be an island, but what of the land on which we now stand?’

  ‘Another island, I deduce.’

  Banks regarded James coldly. ‘Why not a continent? One that extends far to the south of here.’

  James sighed. The man was obsessed. ‘Time will tell. We will sail southeast from here and continue our charting.’

  ‘Good,’ said Banks. ‘I am still confident that this land will prove to be what we seek.’ His attention returned to what lay before them. ‘Cook, this expanse of water, this strait—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘In view of your discovery of it, I propose it be named after you.’

  ‘And I endorse that suggestion,’ Solander put in earnestly.

  James considered this. The suggestion surprised him. After all, he had named no feature after Banks. Abashed, he gave a little laugh. ‘It seems vainglorious to name such a feature after myself.’

  ‘But it is I who am naming it,’ insisted Banks, ‘not you.’ He held up his right hand, as if taking an oath, and intoned solemnly, ‘I hereby name this water Cook’s Strait.’

  Twenty-five

  BY THE LAST DAY OF JANUARY Endeavour was fully repaired, provisioned and ready for sea, with ample wood, water, dried fish and scurvy grass stowed in her holds. There remained just one more duty for James to execute.

  He, Surgeon Monkhouse and Tupaia rowed the yawl across to Motuara Island. In the boat was a marker post which James had instructed one of the carpenters to cut, then inscribe into it the date and ship’s name. As they drew into the beach on the island’s western shore they saw old Topaa waiting for them. He was wearing Banks’s drawers as a shirt, fastened at the shoulders with strips of flax, and a jade pendant around his neck. He greeted them affably, pressing his flat, triangular nose against theirs in turn. James said to Tupaia, ‘Tell him we wish to erect this post on the top of the island.’ Tupaia did so, then James handed the old chief some spike nails and a threepenny coin. He accepted the gifts gratefully then led them up a zigzag path to clear land at the top of the island. There they set the post in the ground beside a cairn which they and others of the crew had built a few days earlier. James had buried several coins, musket balls and beads within the cairn to prove that the natives could not have built it.

  A stiff, warm wind was blowing across the sound as the Jack was hoisted upon the post. To the little gathering the view from the summit of the island could not have been more agreeable: the broad expanse of the sound, in the distance the dark, undulating profile of Arapawa Island and, on the horizon, the outline of the coast of New Zealand’s northern island.

  The flag in place and waving confidently in the wind, James declared gravely: ‘I hereby name this inlet Queen Charlotte’s Sound and take possession of it and the adjacent lands in the name and for the use of His Majesty King George III of England.’

  Mindful of the fact that their departure was imminent, James told Tupaia to ask the chief what he knew of his people’s land. Topaa launched into a voluble speech, accompanied by many hand movements. Tupaia translated. The island across the strait was called Te Ika-A-Maui, so-named because it was a great fish hauled out of the sea by the Maori god Maui. The land on which they stood was Te Wai Pounamu, after the precious green stone found there in some areas. Topaa held up his carved pendant to demonstrate. ‘Pounamu.’ And the great strait was called Raukawa Moana, Tupaia added.

  ‘How long does it take to sail around Te Wai Pounanu?’ James asked.

  ‘He says it takes four days,’ Tupaia replied.

  ‘Four days?’ said James. That seemed impossible.

  Tupaia also looked dubious. He said to the others, ‘I think his people do not know the rest of their whenua — their own land — well. He knows only these local islands and the strait.’ James nodded. He had already decided that Topaa was the local equivalent of an English provincial person.

  Official matters over, Monkhouse took a bottle of Burgundy from his pack and uncorked it. He and James filled their pewter mugs from the bottle, then offered one to Tupaia and Topaa, who both declined. Monk-house and James raised their mugs to the flag. ‘To the King,’ James intoned, then drank. As he did so he felt as satisfied as on any other occasion since the voyage began. He had brought these islands into England’s possession, and what an asset
they would be. Monkhouse finished the wine, then handed the bottle to Topaa. The old chief grinned, nodded eagerly, and waved it in the air like a weapon. ‘Hah hah! Kapai, kapai!’

  After sailing out of the strait’s eastern entrance, James took Endeavour north as far as Cape Turnagain. There, with some satisfaction, he confirmed to the doubters that the northern island had indeed been circumnavigated. He then ordered the ship to turn south again.

  On 12 February they moved past the northern island’s southernmost point, which James named Cape Palliser after his naval captain friend and supporter. Continuing her southern coasting, Endeavour was beset by gales which drove her away from the coast, making James’s running survey greatly difficult. On 15 February he charted a high volcanic island at forty-three degrees, nineteen minutes south, and in a gesture of sympathy for Banks named it after the botanist. Further south the weather grew cold and the fearnoughts were again brought out. As February slid into March the gales did not abate. Great swells rolled up from the southern ocean towards them, and as James lay in his berth at night listening to his doughty little ship’s timbers creaking, he knew she was taking another fearful beating.

  At last, and still in ghastly weather, they doubled a peninsula at the southern island’s extremity, which James thankfully named South Cape. Endeavour then began to bear south-west.

  Banks was melancholic. Discovering the farthest point of the southern island brought a concurrent conclusion — that they had not discovered the Great Southern Continent. This knowledge threw the botanist into a fit of brooding such as he had not previously suffered, and for the rest of the day he remained in his cabin.

  It was now James’s task to bring Endeavour up the western coast of Te Wai Pounamu to complete its circumnavigation. Most of the crew were now relieved, knowing that when the charting of the two islands was complete they could begin to consider the return voyage. But below decks there was also conjecture: which return course would they be taking — east to Cape Horn or west to the Cape of Good Hope?

  Banks stood on the poop deck, scope to his eye, studying the coastline to starboard. Parkinson, legs braced against the tiller, was beside him, sketching. James joined them. It was a rare fine day and the coastline was clear. It was majestic; a line of perpendicular cliffs soaring above Endeavour and plunging directly into the sea. Swells drove in against the base of the cliffs and were dashed into spray. Atop the mountainous wall was dense dark forest and patches of snow, but no signs of habitation.

  Still with his spyglass to his eye Banks exclaimed, ‘There is a break in the coast. And a wooded island within it. See?’

  James had his own scope to his eye. ‘Yes. I have already observed it. It is a fiord. Very like those along the west coast of Norway.’

  Bank lowered his scope and faced James, his expression eager. ‘We can put in there then.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? To go ashore. And botanize.’

  ‘I think not.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The westerlies have prevailed for weeks and show no sign of abating.’ James pointed towards the island. ‘It would be a simple matter for us to enter the sound, a prodigiously difficult one to exit it.’

  ‘We could beat out against it, surely.’

  James shook his head. ‘Not against this wind. We could be embayed for weeks.’

  Compressing his lips, Banks said bitterly, ‘We have made no landfall since January. Since Queen Charlotte’s Sound. We have passed hundreds of miles of coastline without once going ashore.’ His voice became a hiss. ‘How many new plant and animal species have I missed?’

  ‘Many probably.’ James met Banks’s accusatory stare. ‘But the safety of my crew and ship are paramount. I will not put them at risk for a bagful of plants. Besides, I have sailed into fiords in Norway. The walls of such features are sheer rock. This precludes getting ashore readily.’

  Banks’s face which had been pale for days reddened. ‘But at the head of the fiord,’ he persisted, ‘there will surely be a landing where we could set up camp.’

  ‘“Surely”? How can you be so sure of a place which you have never seen?’

  ‘Along Queen Charlotte’s Sound there were many landing places. Why should this one not be the same?’

  ‘The two sounds cannot be compared.’ James pointed landward. ‘The walls of that one are sheer. And the wind, as I have already pointed out, is unfavourable. The risk is too great. We will not enter the sound.’ Turning away, he called down to the helmsmen, Anderson and Evans, ‘Steady as she goes. Nor’-nor’west.’

  ‘Steady as she goes,’ came the reply.

  With a grunt of frustration Banks spun on his heel and strode off towards the companionway. Parkinson, who had overheard the altercation, looked at James nervously. ‘I am drawing the coast, sir, including the sound.’

  In the Great Cabin that night, on his latest chart, James wrote carefully across the breach in the coast, ‘Latitude 45° 47' South’ and, in view of the shadowy nature of the coast, ‘Dusky Bay’.

  They sailed on north, then at forty degrees south he ordered Endeavour brought east to again enter the great strait which now bore his name. A cove he immediately named Admiralty Bay lay on its southern shore, several leagues west of Ship Cove. Broad but sheltered, it looked ideal for the provisioning and repairs which they so badly needed after the gruelling orbit of the southern island. It had taken them almost two months to circumnavigate the island and James now knew that having done so, and finding no new land, it was time to give consideration to the return voyage. It was already March, and the southern hemisphere winter was looming.

  The following morning he called a meeting with Hicks and Gore in the officers’ mess. Banks, Solander and Sporing had vanished into the coastal undergrowth almost before the anchor was lowered, so anxious were they to make up for lost botanizing time. Tupaia and his boy had gone fishing, and the rest of the crew were busy ashore, wooding and watering. The rain, which had been continuous since their arrival in the bay, drummed down on the deck above as James outlined their options to the other two officers.

  ‘To return, we can sail east in the higher latitudes to pick up following winds, then double the Horn.’ He spread out the copy of Tasman’s chart on the table. ‘Or we can set a course north-west from here.’ He moved his forefinger across the chart. ‘That will take us to Van Diemen’s Land and the east coast of New Holland.’ He looked at the other two. ‘Your opinions, gentlemen, before I give you my own.’

  Gore, whose attitude had been largely contrite since the fatal incident at Mercury Bay said, ‘The Horn then the Atlantic would be the more direct route, would it not?’

  Hicks nodded. ‘And the Le Maire Strait is reliably charted, whereas the other route is not.’ He coughed, cleared his throat, then spat into his handkerchief.

  Although James nodded, the gesture was insincere. He had no intention of returning via the Horn. There were no discoveries to be made that way. ‘A fair point,’ he replied. ‘But let us remember that by the time we close the Horn it would be mid-winter in the south. Short daylight hours, frigid conditions and contrary winds.’

  The other two looked chastened. Rounding the Horn in such conditions was not an appealing prospect. James again put his finger on Tasman’s chart, tracing a line across the blank space from Van Diemen’s Land to distant Torres Strait. ‘We should bear in mind that ours is still a voyage of discovery and to this time we have discovered very little. It is for that reason that I propose our course follow the east coast of New Holland, that we chart that unknown coastline, then negotiate the Torres Strait and proceed thereafter to Batavia and Cape Town.’

  Gore looked doubtful. ‘The Torres is a formidable passage,’ he said. ‘Dalrymple makes that plain in his account of de Quirós’ navigation of it. With Byron we bore well north to avoid it.’

  ‘You doubt my ability to navigate that passage?’ said James. It still vexed him the way Gore reminded him at every opportunity that he had already ci
rcumnavigated the world. As for Dalrymple, what did that mere dabbler in voyaging really know?

  Avoiding James’s confrontational look the American replied hurriedly. ‘Not at all, not at all. With care I’m sure it can be negotiated.’

  ‘Good.’ James rolled up the chart. ‘Then I shall assemble the ship’s company at eight bells tomorrow and inform them that we will weigh anchor the day after tomorrow, and set sail for New Holland.’

  On the last day of March 1770 James stood in the stern of Endeavour and watched New Zealand begin to fade from sight. Over the past seven months, despite their many tribulations, he had come to love this land — its bays and anchorages, its islands great and small, its estuaries and forests. The people, too, he had come to greatly respect. It was a marvellous land, as yet untamed. But he felt sure that Englishmen would pacify it in time, and shape it according to their ambitions.

  Watching the long line of land become less distinct, he wondered whether he would ever see it again. He hoped so, fervently.

  The wind was favourable for the north-west by west course he had set for Endeavour’s master. Although the morning air was hazy he could still see ocean rollers breaking against the shore of the cape they had lately doubled, the southern island’s northernmost landform. Staring at the long, lonely sandspit, he had no difficulty deciding on its name. Cape Farewell.

  Twenty-six

  5 APRIL 1770

  My dearest Elizabeth,

  Springtime in England, what thoughts of home that brings! Walks on the common, the oaks and elms bursting into new leaf, flowers in the parks, bluebells in the woods; how we welcomed those arrivals in Ayton when I was a boy. Spring was my mother’s favourite season. The hedgerow primroses she was especially fond of gathering. And now, after the hardships of the London winter, how you and the children must be relishing the season of renewal. In New Zealand there are no marked differences in the seasons, and no deciduous trees — all are evergreen — so in autumn the forests do not assume the shades of gold and russet which they do at home. The evergreens have a beauty of their own — particularly the giant trees called ‘koorri’ — but they lack the varying hues of our English forests.