by Graeme Lay
Should he mention the Otaheitians? He decided not to. They were Banks’s responsibility and as such were sure to be included in his own gaudy chronicle of the voyage.
As he bundled the precious documents together, addressed the package to Stephens and sealed it, James experienced pangs of anxiety. Suppose Kronenburg should founder en route to Europe, taking his priceless records down forever. This thought was horrifying, and he was unable to dispel it. He patted the bundle affectionately. ‘Go well,’ he murmured. ‘God speed to Whitehall.’
It was late afternoon when he picked up the journal which had not been packed with the others. He placed it on the writing slope and once again picked up his quill.
23 OCTOBER 1770, BATAVIA, DUTCH EAST INDIES
My dearest Elizabeth,
After anticipating that I might possibly be home for Christmas and thus reunited with my loved ones, those hopes have now been dashed. It seems that we will be fortunate to leave this place by Christmas, owing to the damage Endeavour has sustained over these past months. Although aware that this restoration work must be carried out, the crew, as well as myself, became despondent when we learned of the delay. We had all anticipated seeing the shores of England again much sooner. Instead, most of the ship’s company, having broken out Endeavour’s stores and ballast, are accommodated in tents on Kuyper Island, which is low-lying, damp and infested with insect life. An unsatisfactory place in almost every respect.
However, we have received here some news of England, which at least gave the impression that we are nearer, although it was a far from encouraging bulletin. It is reported that there is unrest in our American colonies, which caused us concern, and equally so when we learned that there is a threat to our monarch’s authority in the form of London street disturbances, led by a troublemaking politician called Wilkes. It is my earnest concern that these troubles have not affected you or our family, Beth, and that they will have by now subsided. As for the possible loss by insurrection of our American colonies, that is a prospect too distressing for words.
I am accommodated on shore in Batavia, in a house owned by a Dutch couple, Herr and Frau Van der Wavern. Their place is clean and the meals satisfactory, but the environs are far from agreeable. Never have I experienced such a pestilential place as Batavia. The Dutch have been here for many years, and in their determination to create another Amsterdam in their Indies, have constructed a town laced with canals — ‘a grave mistake’ in the words of Dr Solander. Amsterdam’s climate is cool, but here it is constantly tropical so that the canals have become putrid. Batavia now sprawls beyond the city walls and its streets seethe with people of every nationality and hue: Malay slaves, Chinese merchants, Dutch troopers, Arab traders, Japanese mercenaries and Dutch burghers. But unlike the Dutch capital’s canals, these waterways are nothing more than cesspools — slimy, filthy and filled with human and animal ordure. And in the town’s constant humidity and rainfall, whining mosquitoes hover over the surface of the canals in a low, swirling cloud. Many of the European people here suffer from pestilential diseases and fevers. And the stench! Even the Londoners among the crew from the industrial parts of our city have smelt nothing like it. The odour is sulphurous as if — forgive my vulgarity, Beth, the colourful metaphor was coined by Banks — an invisible giant is constantly farting over the city. Dutch architecture and fine carriages cannot compensate for the air’s foulness.
Banks and Solander are unable to tolerate the stench, but to my surprise the two Otaheitians are so enamoured of the city that they cannot get enough of the town. They exclaim at the European buildings, the carriages and coaches, the wares on sale and the exotic costumes of the soldiers and of the other Indians who are seen on the streets. So much so that Tupaia returned to the ship, retrieved his Otaheitian bark cloth cloak and headdress and, after putting on his traditional garb, parades with Taiata around Batavia in it, aware in this conceit that they are sole wearers of such a costume in all the Dutch Indies.
‘Cook! Are you there?’
It was Banks’s voice, coming from the street below. James went to the open window. The naturalist was standing on the cobbles alone, looking up. His blouse was open and he was bare-headed, using his hat as a fan against the fetid air. ‘What is it?’
‘I have made a discovery. Can I come up?’
‘Very well.’
James blotted the entry in Elizabeth’s journal, closed it and placed it under the bed. Moments later, Banks burst in, his face flushed and wet with sweat. James invited him to sit by the window and, curious, asked, ‘What sort of discovery?’
Banks waited to fully recover his breath, then began. ‘You will recall that while on Otaheite we were told by a native that another European ship had been there, some months after Wallis’s left.’
‘Yes. At Hitia’a.’
‘That’s it. A Spanish expedition, we surmised. Yet it was not Spanish. It was French.’
‘French? How do you know?’
‘Tupaia and I were walking along the Middelburgstrasse this morning, he in his Otaheitian costume, when a Dutchman approached us in a state of excitement and asked where Tupaia was from. When he was told, the man said that nearly two years ago another Otaheitian came to Batavia, dressed in such a costume. He was brought here from the island by a Frenchman, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, who called here in 1769, on his way back to France.’
James considered the timing for a moment. ‘Bougainville? Yes, that could be correct.’
‘It is correct. The other Otaheitian’s name was Ahutoru. Tupaia knew of the man; he was some sort of leader in the eastern part of Otaheite. Bougainville was taking him to France in much the same way as I am taking Tupaia and Taiata to England.’
James was struck by an unwelcome possibility. ‘Did the Frenchman lay claim to Otaheite?’
‘The Batavian did not know.’ Banks shrugged. ‘But if Bougainville did, his claim would not be legitimate. Wallis had already declared the island was Britain’s, albeit less than a year before the Frenchies landed there.’
‘Yes, yes. So Otaheite is ours, there can be no doubt of that.’ He paused. ‘But Tupaia and his boy will not be the first Otaheitians to see Europe, as you had planned, Banks.’
‘No. But they will be the first to see England,’ countered Banks, irrepressibly.
Banks has just left, after dropping in with important news which I am not yet at liberty to divulge. He and Solander are planning to move inland, to a house on higher land where they can botanize and escape the vapours which permeate Batavia. They are taking the two Otaheitians with them, along with a pair of Malay slaves whom Banks has purchased for the sojourn. As I expected, Tupaia has now recovered his health, doubtless related to his intake of fresh local plantains, juices and green vegetables, confirming the intimate connection between diet and scurvy. I will thus ensure that Endeavour is well provisioned with these victuals before we weigh anchor for the next stage of our prolonged voyage back to England. My charts, astronomical observations and Admiralty journals have been dispatched to London. Only this one remains in my hands. It is my most fervent wish that before much longer, I can place it in yours.
Your loving husband,
James
The first to die was Surgeon Monkhouse.
Crippling headaches and a heightened fever were followed by discharges of blood from his bowels, and he was found dead in his bed in Batavia on 5 November. Banks and Solander were too ill to attend his burial, but James, although feverish himself, managed to. He made a brief speech over the surgeon’s grave, after a rotund Dutch minister had given an equally brief Bible reading in Dutch. The European cemetery was on a hillock at the rear of the town, and during Monkhouse’s interment James was distracted by the sight of fresh graves being dug and horse-drawn hearses being unloaded of their caskets. Grim-faced men in broad-brimmed black hats and sobbing women in dark veils followed the coffins. Dozens of semi-naked Malay gravediggers were at work in the steaming heat, hurling dirt over their shoulders so that the scene res
embled a building site rather than a graveyard. In a way it was a building site, James later reported to Banks, as they were actually digging the foundations of a necropolis.
Banks’s fever was treated with his personal supply of chinchona bark, given to him by a botanist friend in London, which proved effective. He and Solander, accompanied by Tupaia and Taiata, then sailed across to join the others on Kuyper Island. As the monsoon season was imminent the rain was coming more frequently, making the ground around the tents sodden. Many of the tents were filled with sailors too ill to work, and their moaning and coughing were incessant. Tupaia chose a place under some tamarind trees, away from the others, to pitch the tent for himself and Taiata. But days later the young Otaheitian developed a cold which rapidly worsened to a fever. Sweat flowed from his body like a river, but he also complained of waves of coldness. His whole body trembling, he cried out, ‘Taio, mate ua!’ and the others realized that he was saying, ‘Friends, I am dying!’ Tupaia was constantly at his bedside in the tent, wiping his fevered brow and whispering incantations in their language.
‘Ow-ay! Ow-ay!’ Tupaia’s anguished cries could be heard throughout the tent settlement, and they found him lying across the body of Taiata, which was still at last. Weeping inconsolably, Tupaia had to be pulled forcefully from the body of his adopted son, and when he saw Taiata’s corpse being taken away he threw himself on the ground, calling out, ‘I should not have come away, I should not have come away! This is Oro’s punishment.’ The body was rowed across to the nearby island of Edam, where there was a cemetery overlooked by giant fig trees.
Bereft and grief-stricken, Tupaia fell ill again. Shuddering uncontrollably, refusing food or drink, he lay on his back in the tent, staring sightlessly upward. Three days later he, too, was dead.
Parkinson was the only one of the gentlemen well enough to attend the Otaheitian’s burial; Banks and Solander were still feverish and James’s constipation had given way to bouts of diarrhoea. When Tupaia’s grave had been dug beside Taiata’s and his canvas-shrouded body laid within it, the burial party stood back to allow Parkinson to stand over it. Bowing his head, the artist intoned, ‘Parahi, taio. Farewell, my friends.’ Then grief overtook him, his eyes filled with tears and he sank to his knees at the head of the grave. Finally, he got to his feet, wiped the tears from his face and placed upon the body of Tupaia one of his finest paintbrushes.
As the grave was filled, the light warm rain which had been falling grew heavier.
James roused himself from his own sick-bed to write ‘DD’ beside Monkhouse’s name in his journal. Now he could not wait to be gone and to put this malodorous place behind them. And he wondered constantly what could be the cause of this illness and death. It could not be scurvy for their fresh-food diet was now far healthier than it had been at sea en route to Batavia when no one had died. Recalling the cadaverous specimens who had met them in the pilot boat on their arrival, James reasoned that it must be the foulness of the air, which was probably absorbed into its inhabitants’ lungs and guts. Batavia’s sole saving grace, he concluded, was its shipyard, whose efficient workers had restored Endeavour to a condition suitable for setting sail again. He was also able to take on several more crewmen, Englishmen mainly, who also longed to leave the cesspit of Batavia and work their passage home.
By Christmas 1770 the ship was ready for sea, although half the crew were still ill. There were no shipboard Yuletide celebrations that year. On the morning of 27 December, to James’s huge relief, Endeavour’s anchors were weighed and her sails loosened. He had set a course for the Sunda Strait — entranceway to the Indian Ocean — and Prince’s Island, where he had been told fresh provisions and water could be taken aboard.
By 14 January they were fully provisioned with turtles, chickens, fish, venison meat, coconuts, limes and plantains from Prince’s Island. Firewood had been stowed and the water butts filled from the island’s ponds. They weighed anchor, stood out and bore east-north-east into the Indian Ocean, bound for the Cape of Good Hope.
James stood on the afterdeck, watching Sumatra fade against the eastern horizon. Although he still felt unwell, and the crew were far from recovered, his spirits were rising. The foulness and pestilence of Batavia were behind them. At last they were entering open ocean, at last they were surrounded by clean air and bright, pearly light. They had fresh provisions aplenty, the decks had been scrubbed above and below with vinegar, and they were bound for home. Gripping the rail, he lifted his chin and drew in the clean air gratefully. Ahead was the fathomless dark blue of the Indian Ocean, whose swells were already rising and falling with soothing regularity. Charted waters, the known coast of Africa ahead. He breathed in the ocean air as if drinking spring water. Plain sailing again, at last.
Thirty
DISCHARGED DEAD
John Truslove, marine corporal, 24 January
Herman Sporing, scientist, 24 January
Sydney Parkinson, draughtsman, 26 January
Thomas Dunster, marine, 26 January
John Ravenhill, sailmaker, 27 January
Charles Green, astronomer, 29 January
John Thompson, cook, 31 January
James Nicholson, able seaman, 31 January
Sam Moody, able seaman, 31 January
Archibald Wolfe, able seaman, 31 January
Francis Haite, able seaman, 1 February
John Guthrey, bosun, 4 February
John Bootie, midshipman, 4 February
Jonathan Monkhouse, midshipman, 6 February
John Satterly, carpenter, 12 February
Daniel Preston, marine, 16 February
Endeavour had become a death ship, its men falling like swatted moths. Too weak to make the head, they fouled themselves in their hammocks so that the stink of shit and puke permeated the ship below decks. Death bloomed and spread like a deadly mould. The progression of the fatal illness was identical in all: an onset of burning fever followed by violent dysentery which immobilized its victims and then drained the life from them. Day after day they rolled on towards Africa, but a mood of melancholy saturated the decks. The few remaining healthy crew struggled to work the ship. All the living had been close to the dead so that as the ship stood in towards the coast of Africa the mourning seemed perpetual. The cause of the plague remained an enigma. But there was speculation.
‘Cook?’
‘Yes?’
‘Can we speak?’
It was Solander, holding a pan of water. James beckoned him into the Great Cabin. He, too, had barely recovered from the fever. His long face was pale and drawn, and his hands trembled as he placed the pan on the table. He looked earnestly at James. ‘I have been checking the water casks.’
‘Why? Are our supplies short?’
‘The quantity will suffice.’ The furrows in Solander’s brow deepened. ‘But the quality —.’ He bent over the pan. ‘Look.’
James followed his gaze, then saw the object of his attention. Tiny creatures, dozens of them, moving across the surface of the water in short, jerking movements. He frowned. ‘What are they?’
‘Larvae.’
‘Of what insect?’
‘The mosquito. Its eggs are laid in still water, then hatch into the buzzing insects which have tormented us in the tropics. And in the water hold there are hundreds of them.’ He opened his hand. ‘I killed one just minutes ago. Look.’
On Solander’s palm was a smear of blood, and the black, squashed corpse of the insect. Staring at it, he said, ‘I placed one under my microscope. It has a proboscis which can penetrate human skin. It uses it to draw our blood into its body, which I believe is then nourished by it.’
James rolled up one sleeve of his shirt and held out his arm. It was covered with red blotches. ‘I have been kept awake by their interminable droning, and bitten by them over these last days.’ Struck by another thought, he said, ‘Could the water we took on from Prince’s Island have contained their larvae?’
The naturalist nodded. ‘I am sure it d
id. Moreover, I believe that the fever which has afflicted us is caused by the insect’s bite.’
‘How so?’
‘A venom is perhaps transmitted from the insect into the human bloodstream through its feeding.’
James blinked. ‘A tiny creature, able to weaken and kill a human being? That seems preposterous.’
Solander’s face fell. ‘I have no proof yet. But before Sporing fell into his fever he had been bitten severely by the insects. He showed me his neck and arms.’ He looked away, clearly distressed at the memory. ‘The agitation then began, and he was dead three days later.’
‘Yet I have been bitten and I am still alive,’ said James, unconvinced.
Solander rubbed at his chin, thoughtfully. ‘The effects of the bites may vary according to the constitution of the person bitten. You are a tall, strong man. Sporing was not. Nor was Parkinson.’ He persisted. ‘And you were feverish in Batavia, were you not?’
‘I was for a time,’ James conceded. ‘And I still sweat. At night, especially.’
Solander rubbed his palms together to wipe away the blood. Walking over to the cabin window, he said, ‘I recall that in Otaheite the natives burnt coconut husks to keep the insects at bay. Perhaps smoking out the water hold with rags would help to repel them.’
James rolled down his shirtsleeve. ‘It would do no harm to try. I will order that smudge pots be burned there.’ He nodded dismissively. ‘Thank you for bringing this matter to my attention.’
17 FEBRUARY 1771
Dearest Beth,
I write in sorrow, the deepest I have known these past two and a half years. Since leaving the Dutch port of Batavia where seven of my men died, we have now lost another twenty-three to the flux and fever. Although replacements were obtained for those lost at Batavia, we cannot replace those whom we have lost since we left, the day after Christmas. For these past six weeks Endeavour has been a hospital ship. Sea burials have been an almost daily occurrence and we are running short of canvas from which to make the victims’ shrouds. For myself, who has been so proud of not losing a man to scurvy, the death toll from other causes has been devastating. As commander and guardian of my crew’s well-being, the deaths strike me to my very heart. No voyaging successes can atone for the loss of so many men. A short time ago the crew joked that the oldest man among us, sailmaker John Ravenhill, was the only fit man left because of his constant imbibing and consequent state of intoxication. But that hypothesis and jest died the same day Ravenhill did, on 27 January. For me, the most grievous loss was the death of Sydney Parkinson. He was a young man of exceptional talents and industriousness, and his botanical drawings and landscape paintings comprise a priceless record of our voyage. To me he had become almost an adopted son. So when his body was committed to the deep I have to confess it required all my self-control not to shed tears. Others tried, but failed. Banks wept openly (but without noise), while Solander’s eyes remained firmly shut during the committal and his face was contorted with grief. We had all lost not just a shipmate, but a close friend and a young man of the finest sensibilities. Then it was Banks’s and my sad duty to deal with what Parkinson had left behind.