Into the World

by Stephanie Parkyn

  The southern coast of New Holland was devastatingly dry and barren. Her excitement at seeing land again after two months of ocean voyage evaporated as they commenced the slow and careful running survey. The entire coastline was bare and arid, with only sparse and feeble shrubs. Tremulous lines of smoke rose from the fires of the land’s inhabitants. There were no trees. No rivers. No hope, she thought, of finding water. Girardin swallowed, tasting dust.

  The sky above the continent was stained a brownish yellow. She had never seen a sky like it, as if no amount of fresh wind could cleanse the air of its ancient history. The warm wind blew softly from the land, scented with particles of smoke and clay. Girardin licked her chapped lips, taking a sip of muddy water that barely moistened her mouth.

  During the windless days they baked under a hot sun. But the nights were cold and Passepartout suffered, slumping into torpor. Labillardière advised her to take the lizard into the sun each morning to reinvigorate her limbs. She had kept close to the naturalists during this leg of the voyage, protected once again by their oddity. Today, Félix sat cross-legged on the deck with Passepartout crawling around his neck, feeding her cockroaches from a jar. Ventenat was splayed out beside him, lying on his back in his black robes, his arms and legs spread out wide like a starfish. ‘Taking in God’s rays,’ he murmured. ‘One must be open to His messages.’ The sailors gave them all a wide berth.

  Labillardière stretched and yawned with exaggeration as the mapmakers came near. ‘Geography is staggeringly tedious,’ he said and fell back to the deck with a loud snore.

  Girardin saw a curl of hair come loose from Beautemps-Beaupré’s careful combing.

  Labillardière thumped his arm across his forehead. ‘No man of true intelligence could bear it.’

  ‘Ignore him,’ Rossel said, holding back Saint-Aignan as he aimed a kick at the naturalist’s leg.

  The trio continued taking their bearings and drawing their profiles of the coastline. Each slow day was the same. The ships communicated only by flag signal and she saw nothing of Captain Kermadec. A dry ache had lodged in the base of her throat. Her gaze wandered to the Espérance again and again as if the frequency of her glances might bring the ship closer.

  This rugged coastline was her enemy. It kept them from finding water and it kept her from Kermadec. Both ships now struggled through an archipelago of islands. The puzzle of rock islets and low hummocks confounded their every turn. The round backs of the islands reminded her of turtle shells that seemed to rise out of the water in front of them whenever a promising channel opened up.

  Sharks had been spotted in the wake of the ships. One tall, dark fin had been following them since Cape Leeuwin. ‘Are you waiting for us to founder on these rocks?’ she asked it as the grey shape passed beneath the ship. It was monstrously large. Labillardière called it Squalus carcharias. The sailors called it the Angel of Death. The beast came close enough to raise its small eye above the water and show its white throat and belly to her. Large enough to be a man-eater, Labillardière had said, showing her an illustration from Buffon’s encyclopedia of its mouthful of saw-like teeth.

  Captain d’Auribeau passed behind her as he circled about the ship. He kept his jacket buttoned tight across his white shirt, his chin high and his tricorn low on his brow. His presence on deck gave her a chill, like catching a glimpse of a shark’s fin from the corner of your eye. She watched him call up to the pilot, Ange Raoul. It unsettled her that d’Auribeau seemed to pay particular attention to him, to single him out for favour. The two men would parade about the deck in the evenings, heads bent together in whispered conversation. She wondered what it was they discussed so earnestly. She had suffered no further taunts or threats from Raoul; he had told no one of her secret, but she remained wary of him. She felt safest when he was on lookout in the tops, and was thankful that the tall masts put that distance between them.

  A cold wind rose from the south-west, whispering around her ears. Above her head the sheets began to hum in the freshening wind. She could no longer smell dust and smoke from the land. When she turned her face, she felt the bite of the southern ocean, and it spiked her flesh with shivers.

  Captain d’Auribeau raised his eyeglass. ‘The Espérance is in trouble.’

  Girardin swung back towards Kermadec’s ship. The Espérance’s sails were ghostly white.

  ‘She’s being blown into the islands.’

  The Espérance tilted to her side under the power of the wind.

  Curse this coast, this parched coast, Girardin thought, gripping the rail. Shipwreck here would be certain death.

  ‘They are turning!’

  The Espérance seemed to turn towards the chain of islands, not away from them. She fumbled for her telescope.

  ‘They are taking in the mainsails, running under foresail only,’ Rossel cried from the helm. ‘Turning crosswind.’

  ‘I think they have seen a way through!’ Raoul called down.

  ‘A risky manoeuvre,’ said d’Auribeau. ‘Kermadec must spread the mainsail at the height of the blast to make the gap.’

  The sailors around her fell silent. Girardin bit hard on her lip as the mainsail on the Espérance was raised. The chain of islands looked impassable. They would be stricken on the bare rocks, she was sure of it. The squall growled behind her and she waited for the gust to hit the Espérance. The sail snapped tight like a filled wineskin, but did not split.

  ‘She is through!’

  Girardin breathed again. He was alive.

  Chapter 39

  Espérance Bay, New Holland, 9 December 1792

  ‘A LUCKY FIND,’ SAID HUON DE KERMADEC AS HE CLIMBED ABOARD the Recherche. ‘A port of providence.’

  Girardin ducked behind a mast. From there she could watch him without being seen. Her mouth was papery, even more so than usual in this dry heat, and she could feel her heart throbbing in her throat. Even if she had a chance to speak with him, she wondered what she would think of to say.

  ‘We shall name her Espérance Bay!’ the General declared.

  ‘A fortunate discovery,’ d’Auribeau acknowledged reluctantly, ‘but only if it provides us with the water we urgently need.’

  The bay that Kermadec had chanced upon was expansive. The beach was stark white, the sea a shade of bright blue that hurt her eyes, and the dunes behind were covered in scraggly bushes. The hills were low and desolate. They had scant hope of finding anything much to sustain them, she thought, but it hardly mattered. At least both ships were safe and anchored.

  In Kermadec’s face she saw the strain of the past months. He had dark circles beneath his eyes and his cheeks had hollowed. He had lost weight since leaving Amboyna. She heard his wheezing cough as Rossel came to congratulate him and saw the solicitous hand that the General placed on his shoulder. Straightening up, he looked around the ship. She held her breath. Was he looking for her?

  The General ushered Kermadec and his officers towards his cabin. Would he seek her out? Of course not. She shook her head. Her palms were clammy and her heart as jumpy as a girl with her first infatuation. This was impossible, she scolded herself. She had imagined more between them than could possibly exist.

  Labillardière gripped her arm. ‘There you are! Why are you hiding here? Come on, the boat is leaving for shore. Now is our chance.’

  ‘What?’

  Félix grinned, throwing a pack on his back.

  She looked back to Kermadec, desperation stark on her face. What if she missed her chance to speak with him? She caught Ventenat watching her. His face was lined with sorrow and understanding. He touched her hand. ‘That kind of thirst is madness.’

  The shoreline of Observatory Island was marked by low cliffs and white-stained rocks where seals wallowed, unconcerned by the approach of their boat. Along the shore, she watched strange birds with their wings held stiff at their sides plunge into the water one after the other. They stumbled over the rocks as though their legs were bound together at the knees.

  ‘
What are those creatures?’ Girardin asked.

  ‘Penguins,’ Labillardière said, taking aim with his pistol and dispatching one.

  Birds that can’t fly, she thought with astonishment. Birds that had learned to swim.

  The boat surged towards the shore on the crest of a wave. ‘There is no place to land,’ Labillardière noted. ‘We will have to leap.’

  Girardin turned to him in fright.

  Ventanat tapped her shoulder. ‘Look there!’ A grey shape glided beneath the the boat. Her stomach dropped. She heard a sailor mutter, ‘The Angel is with us.’ The fin of the great white shark pierced the waves like a knife blade. She gasped. ‘It has followed us into the bay.’

  Ventenat looked oddly gleeful.

  Labillardière tossed his pack onto a low cliff. He waited till the boat was lifted to the top of a surge, then he thrust his long limbs out and landed safe on the rocks. Girardin felt ill. There was no way she could do that. She scanned the waves for the shark, but its fin had disappeared below the water.

  Félix grasped the collecting cages and threw them across the gap.

  ‘Hurry up,’ the coxswain grunted.

  ‘Come on,’ Félix urged her. ‘You next.’

  ‘I cannot,’ she said, her face white.

  He held out his hand to her, but she could not prise her fingers from her seat.

  Félix gave a curt nod, and on the count of three he jumped. He landed spread-eagle on the rocks beneath the cliff, then hauled himself up to join Labillardière. She looked down into the swirling waters, the long strands of seaweed tossed about by the waves.

  The boat drifted with the current along the shore and the oarsmen grunted as they rowed out again to make a final approach. On the cliff, Labillardière and Félix were two small black shapes against the bright sky. Girardin felt a hand at her back. Ventenat stood. ‘We’ll do it together.’

  ‘No, I can’t.’ She remembered the doe that had been too afraid to leap. She saw her wet and quivering nostrils, the size of her eyes.

  Ventenat nodded and wrapped his coat tight about him.

  ‘Last chance,’ the coxswain said as they turned the boat about.

  Ventenat was already standing at the stern, balancing on the edge of the boat. His black coat-tails flapped around his thin legs, trousers soaked by the sea spray. It had been barely three months since the chaplain had lain gravely ill; surely he was not well enough for such heroic feats. She looked for the shark circling the boat. ‘Do not risk yourself!’ she called.

  Ventenat pushed his tall hat down firmly on his head. The boat rose up on a wave and Félix cried out for the chaplain to jump. Ventenat turned to Girardin. ‘Pray for me,’ he said and simply stepped from the boat into the water.

  Girardin screamed. The coxswain swore numerous violent oaths, all blasphemous. Ventenat disappeared into the weeds and then popped up between the rocks, carried by the swirling current along the cliffs and spinning like a children’s top. He had lost his black hat and his head looked like polished bone, his arms were splayed out at his sides.

  ‘Row!’ the coxswain screamed. Ventenat was dragged back out to sea by a retreating wave. Girardin imagined the leap of that giant shark, with its pointed nose and gleaming white belly.

  ‘Take this.’ The coxswain passed her a grappling hook. The men rowed hard towards the cliff face. The languorous seals raised their heads but did not move. The boat was so close now Girardin could smell their ammonia stench.

  ‘Can he swim?’ she called.

  The coxswain barked a laugh showing the idiocy of her question. What if he could? How would that help him now?

  Ventenat lay with arms and legs oustretched, face turned up to God. The next wave brought him rushing towards them.

  ‘Lean out, lad!’ The coxswain swung hard on the rudder and manoeuvred the boat between Ventenat and the rocks. She snagged his arm with the hook and hauled. As he drew close, she wrapped her arms around his chest. The weight of the water in his clothes sucked him down. With a guttural cry, she wedged her knees against the side of the boat and pulled, managing to heave his chest across the gunnel. Water gushed from his open mouth. The grey skin of his face was pulled taut. She bundled him onto the floor of the boat.

  He coughed and spewed more sea water. ‘You saved me,’ he gasped, pulling her face close to his. ‘God would’ve let me drown.’

  Chapter 40

  ON HER RETURN TO THE SHIP, ALL WAS IN TURMOIL. NO ONE appeared to notice the drenched and miserable chaplain draped over her shoulder. Claude Riche was missing.

  ‘What on earth possessed Kermadec to let that cursed savant loose on the continent?’ Captain d’Auribeau raged about the deck. ‘Does he not know how to keep his men in check?’

  Kermadec had already returned to his ship to deal with the disaster, and she had missed her chance to speak with him.

  She helped Ventenat to his cabin. He thanked her, professed himself recovered and lay down in his hammock, still soaking wet. She covered him with a blanket.

  ‘I am testing Him,’ he said through clattering teeth.

  ‘Enough,’ she scolded him. ‘No more.’

  The image of Ventenat swirling in the water would not leave her. They had so nearly lost him to the Angel of Death, and now calamity had struck again. Search parties had been sent but found no trace of Riche. Girardin thought of the pale, freckled naturalist with his coat of many pockets and his wiry spray of hair. She learned he had gone into the barren dunes alone, looking for the remains of a petrified forest the water parties had seen. Not even his servant had gone with him. He was utterly alone.

  At dusk, the boats were sent back out to leave supplies for Riche in the hopes he would return to shore in the night.

  By morning, the biscuit, brandy and firearm left for Riche were untouched.

  Félix and Labillardière returned cold and hungry from a night out on the exposed rock. In the panic they had been overlooked and the boat parties had forgotten to return for them. Félix told her they were forced to broil the penguins for their dinner.

  Labillardière was eager to join the search for his friend, but the General would not allow it, afraid he would become lost as well. She watched as the boat returned to shore spooking a mob of bizarre creatures on the beach. The animals bounded away, springing on their long legs and tails. These creatures shared the same peculiar hopping movement as those she had seen in Van Diemen’s Land, but these were much larger, their bodies tall and muscular. When they stopped and turned back, she saw their faces looked like longsnouted hares with prominent ears twitching.

  ‘Kangarous,’ Labillardiere said, with evident longing to get closer.

  The day passed slowly. Girardin walked the deck, noticing the damaged wood where the stag’s hooves had bored into the planks. They would have released the deer here on New Holland. The stag and hind, Adam and Eve, the first of a herd meant to sustain the explorers of the future. But when the stag chose to flee, the butcher had sharpened his knives. What use was a doe without her mate alone on this continent? They had dined on venison.

  She saw the anxious looks passing between the General and his officers. The rumours began to spread, mutterings about how long they could afford to wait. No reliable source of water had yet been found to resupply the ships for their journey.

  As the sun set on another day, the search parties returned having seen no sign of Claude Riche. Not even Riche’s own dog was able to track him down. She imagined him blistering in the heat by day and shivering under his coat at night. Perhaps he had a lump of sugar or a scrap of biscuit left to sustain him. Had he found a trickle of water?

  Girardin stood at the bow, watching the sky burn orange above the horizon. The dunes were blackening in the falling light, and the pinprick glow of distant fires gleamed like animal eyes in the darkness. It was dusk, the hour between dog and wolf. Girardin imagined Riche’s horror, alone in this savage land. Did he listen to the freakish night sounds and wonder whether he would spend the rest of
his days here, in this land as desolate and foreign to him as the moon?

  A movement caught her eye. Captain Kermadec approached her, a slow smile spreading across his face.

  She gasped. She had spent so long wishing she could speak with him, and now he was here, standing in front of her. She flushed with an unfamiliar sensation of delight.

  ‘May I join you?’ he asked.

  She nodded, smiling like a fool, but helpless to stop herself.

  He moved to stand beside her at the rail, his arm just touching hers.

  ‘I have missed you,’ he said softly.

  She closed her eyes. Gently, he laid his hand over her hand. She held her breath for several hard beats of her heart.

  His hand was warm and his palm surprisingly soft, but when she opened her eyes she saw it was a sailor’s hand, scarred like all the others with cuts and burns and mended bones. Hesitantly, she touched his thumb, running her finger along a silver scar. ‘How did you get this?’

  ‘You imagine some daring deed of seamanship, perhaps?’ He smiled down at her. ‘My sister pushed a desk onto my hand. I was six. She was a menace for our governess. We both were.’

  Girardin returned his smile, but the mention of a governess only served to expose the chasm between their worlds.

  ‘Your poor mother,’ she said, imagining the small boy taking his cut hand, streaming with blood, to her lap.

  ‘My mother, God bless her, had passed. Only my father had to suffer us.’

  ‘Forgive me.’ She had spoken carelessly again and cursed her thoughtless tongue.

  ‘There is nothing to forgive.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘You were not to know.’