Rowing After the White Whale

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by James Adair


  PART THREE

  The Last Day

  64 False Start

  ‘Warmest climes but nurse the cruellest fangs.’

  Herman Melville, Moby Dick

  On the morning of Day 116 we readied ourselves for what would be our joint big effort. We would have to row together all day to get to the safe port on the northern tip of the island. We only had enough water to hydrate one meal, so we shared our last potato and leek soup. It didn’t matter, we agreed; that night we’d be eating steak, chocolate and whatever else we wanted. Still, it was hard to ignore the pangs of hunger as we set off together, rowing as hard as we could.

  The wind and swell was all coming from an easterly direction, so we once again found ourselves rowing on a beam sea as we headed north. A fitting way to end, we joked. After the first hour we turned on the GPS but, despite rowing together, it told the same story. We had only edged north while flying three miles west. The current pushing us south was brutal, but the wind and waves were unrelenting in pushing us west towards the reefs off the east coast of Mauritius. We looked at the chart and spoke to Tony; we knew we could do nothing but carry on.

  On we rowed, all the time looking to our right to see if we could see the island. We knew that, as a mountainous, volcanic island, Mauritius would probably be covered in cloud and we might not see her until we were relatively close, perhaps as close as twelve miles, we’d heard. Ben was convinced he could smell the island.

  ‘I can definitely smell it. I can actually smell land.’

  I sniffed at the air but couldn’t smell anything.

  ‘There! There it is, land ahoy!’ cried Ben, pointing at the horizon.

  I stopped rowing and stared. I couldn’t see anything.

  ‘There,’ said Ben, pointing to what I thought were some dark clouds.

  ‘What, those clouds over there? Oh . . . yes, I see it! Shit, that’s seriously close!’

  ‘It looks like Jurassic Park!’

  There it was; the hazy outline of the steep pinnacles of rock. It was a strange and incongruous sight after so many days at sea. The island also seemed huge and dangerous. A safe harbour was there, but we still needed to find it among the rocks and reefs.

  Exhilarated, we rowed on, looking over our shoulders every few minutes to make sure we hadn’t imagined our sight of land. After another hour we turned on the GPS but it told the same story. We had gone less than half a mile north and three miles west.

  We couldn’t go on like this. We only had twelve miles left now before we hit the east coast. It was 10 a.m. so at the current rate we would hit the coast by 2 p.m. We realised that we couldn’t stay out another night with the conditions moving us as they were, but we really didn’t want to accept a tow. After nearly four months at sea, rowing every day, we had to row ourselves in. We looked at the chart: there were small gaps in the reef; surely we could aim for one of those.

  I called Tony on the satellite phone while Ben carried on rowing.

  ‘What’s happening? You’re still losing way too much west,’ he said, sounding concerned.

  ‘We’re rowing two up and pointing her due north. It’s the same as yesterday – the current is too strong.’

  ‘Can’t you point her north-east?’

  ‘What, back out to sea?’

  ‘If that’s what it takes.’

  ‘We’ve got fifteen knots of wind from the east; we can’t row north-east. Can’t we look at coming in somewhere else?’

  ‘Alright. Let me speak to some of the guys here at the yacht club, they know the waters. I’ll call you back in ten.’

  As I was recounting the conversation to Ben a shearwater fluttered down before coming to rest on his oar. It paused, looked at us and then took off. As we looked out after it we spotted two albatross. With their huge wingspan, the biggest of any bird, these black and white creatures looked huge and foreboding. I grabbed the camera and filmed them hovering, motionless and watchful. Then they disappeared, gliding away on the blustery winds. Another of the strange, beautiful sights of the life at sea we were soon to leave behind. Surely this was a sign we said, only half in jest.

  In Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the crew of a ship are doomed after one of them shoots an albatross. Incidentally, the poem wasn’t an instant classic, and Coleridge’s publisher told him most of the initial sales were from seamen who mistakenly thought they were buying a book of traditional nautical songs.

  Tony called back and confirmed that there was a gap in the reef at the southern point of the island. It was a narrow one but led to an old harbour, the Grand Port. We would have further to go, but by turning south-west we would have wind and current behind us so if we rowed hard we should make it just before nightfall. Tony gave us the co-ordinates and said that he would watch our progress before coming out to meet us on a boat with friends and family. Then we could follow the speedboat through the precarious, winding opening in the coral. We arranged to speak again on the phone when we could see the lighthouse that marked the entrance through the reef. Finally he warned us not to stray too far out to sea lest the north to south current overshoot us beyond the entrance, but at the same time to come no closer than two hundred metres to the lighthouse.

  We were elated. We would be able to row in after all, with our bodies and our pride intact.

  Turning the boat around, we immediately noticed the difference. Now we were surfing again, cresting gently down the waves. We turned the GPS on after an hour and discovered that we were doing just over three knots. At that rate we should get there by dusk. We picked up the pace, rowing with all our strength for the Grand Port.

  65 The Battle of Grand Port

  ‘Firstly you must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own regarding their propriety. Secondly, you must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your king; and thirdly you must hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil.’

  Lord Nelson, 1793

  Two hundred and one years, almost to the day, before we arrived at the Grand Port there was a devastating naval battle there between two old foes.

  Discovered by the Portuguese, the uninhabited, volcanic island of Mauritius was first settled by the Dutch. They occupied the island in 1638 and, by the time they left in 1710, the tame, flightless dodo was extinct. The Dutch left the island to a ragtag band of slaves, renegades and pirates until the French decided to claim it in 1722. The island prospered as a refuelling station and the French grew sugar, cotton and indigo there. However, they also used it as a base from which to harass British shipping moving to and from their imperial positions in India. The problem was such that William Pitt declared: ‘As long as the French hold Ile de France [Mauritius], the British will never be master of India.’

  War against Napoleon in Europe galvanised the British into action. After the victory of Trafalgar in 1805 and the consequent British naval supremacy, it was an embarrassment that the French could still cause so much havoc in the Indian Ocean. In 1810, the British decided to invade.

  The first phase of the action was Commodore Josias Rowley’s successful invasion of the neighbouring island of Réunion, which had been under French control. Rowley then dispatched four ships to Mauritius. Iphigenia and Magicienne were to blockade Port Louis, while the 38-gun Sirius and the 36-gun Nereide were to establish a foothold at the Grand Port. Sirius was under the control of the bungling Captain Samuel Pym, while the Nereide was commanded by the extraordinary Captain Nesbit Willoughby. At the age of 31 he had twice survived court martial for insubordination and had developed a reputation as an aristocrat who shot first and asked questions later. After a number of close scrapes, including an explosion that disfigured him, his men started calling him ‘the Immortal’ for his apparent invincibility.

  On 13 August 1810 they took Ile de la Passe, a tiny island on the lip of the reef guarding the southern entrance into the Grand Port. Pym, in Sirius, then went off to join the blockade while Willoughby began distributing propaga
nda to the local populace to warn of the imminent invasion.

  Then on 20 August, while halfway up the east coast, Willoughby sighted two French warships returning with three captured East Indiaman vessels. He had a hard five-hour row to get back to Ile de la Passe where he manned the small battery and, flying French colours, lured the ships in. When in range he hoisted the Union Jack and opened fire. Things were going his way until an explosion took five of his cannons out of action and gave the French captains the chance to sail their ships into the safety of the Grand Port along with two of their East Indiaman prizes, while the third escaped.

  With the French ships bottled up in the old port Willoughby sent word to Pym, who sailed back with the other British ships to attack. He arrived two days later and, on board the Nereide, the two captains once again argued about who would go first into battle. Pym took precedence as the senior officer and started out through the treacherous channel but quickly became stuck on the coral reef. It took all night to free the ship and the next day they decided on a change in tactics. This time Willoughby would lead with the help of a local black Mauritian, who would use his knowledge of the waters to pilot the Nereide through. The other three frigates would follow in Willoughby’s wake.

  As the Nereide was negotiating the shallows, Pym, unable to stomach the indignity of following Willoughby into battle, steered out of his wake as if to overtake. Almost immediately his ship ran aground and was soon taking on water. Behind her the Magicienne also became lodged on the reef. The Iphigenia got through and let off one broadside before losing her anchor cable, drifting behind Nereide and out of the action. This left Willoughby on the Nereide, now woefully outgunned. Willoughby then did what any self-respecting Royal Navy officer of his time, who had been in service from the age of twelve, would have done. He parked his ship 200 yards from the largest French ship (the 44-gun Bellone), nailed his colours to the mast and opened fire.

  Under her previous captain, the Nereide had gained a reputation as the harshest ship afloat, with men given the lash for any number of petty offences. Now her crew met with a new hell as the ship was raked again and again with cannon fire. A flying splinter gouged out Willoughby’s left eye and he was taken below while the barrage continued. They inflicted significant damage and casualties on the French ships, but there were soon too few able-bodied men to return fire and the Nereide’s guns fell silent.

  The next morning the dawn light illuminated the scene of carnage as hundreds of bodies floated amid the debris of the crippled ships. Willoughby would later take a grisly pride in the extraordinary death toll. Of the 281 men on board there were 230 casualties. Four out of every five men had died; a terrible toll compared to the one in every six on Nelson’s Victory at the battle of Trafalgar.

  When the French boarded the Nereide they found Willoughby, barely conscious, wrapped in the Union Flag. But this wasn’t the end of ‘the Immortal’. He was taken to a French hospital and laid next to the French Captain, Duperré, who was recovering from a grapeshot wound. The two got on famously, shaking hands and deconstructing the battle they had just waged against one another. When the French governor ordered that Willoughby be shot for the crime of sedition (his earlier distribution of propaganda) Duperré interceded so that once again ‘the Immortal’ survived.5

  In November, Rowley commanded a successful invasion of the island, landing troops at the bay in the north and encountering very little resistance. This eventual success saved face and allowed the British officers to write off the disastrous engagement at Grand Port as a minor yet wholly noble encounter. ‘A glorious resistance almost unparalleled even in the brilliant annals of the British Navy,’ was how the contemporary commander of the Cape fleet described it. This habit of turning bloody defeats into victories of the British spirit would continue down the years. For men such as Willoughby it would always be better to go down fighting and, as subsequent history shows, there would always be men like Willoughby prepared to fight.

  Now we were rowing towards the Grand Port, where the coral lurks beneath the surface of the sea like so many jagged gravestones for the hundreds of sailors whose bones lie at the bottom. The weather had denied us a safe entry to the northern port. Instead, we were rowing towards the Grand Port, the scene of one the bloodiest defeats in British naval history. Had pride not been at stake, Willoughby could have surrendered and if pride had not been at stake perhaps we could have requested an early rescue when it became clear that we wouldn’t get into the northern bay. But we wanted the glory of rowing from land to land. So on we rowed, towards the southern entrance of the Grand Port, unaware at the time that this was the scene of so much carnage exactly two hundred and one years before.

  66 The Final Furlong

  ‘It is only when caught in the swift sudden turn of death, that mortals realise the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in a whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.’

  Herman Melville, Moby Dick

  As we raced towards Grand Port I was amazed at just how hard we could row. After four months at sea we had lost a lot of weight, nearly three stone between us, but we still pulled on the oars like a pair possessed. In part it was the adrenaline of closing in on land, the emotion and exhilaration of nearing our loved ones that spurred us on. But I also knew it would be the last time I rowed and therefore I put everything into it physically, as if to prove to myself that I could. I didn’t worry about overdoing it because that night I knew I would be in a soft, dry and luxurious bed. No doubt there would be a mini bar and room service, so going without lunch and dinner wouldn’t matter either. Soon we would be there.

  Despite the excitement of our imminent finish, I was also sad. Leaving behind our life on the sea would be hard. The ‘real world’ would have to be re-engaged, money would have to be chased, public transport caught, bills paid and all manner of difficult decisions made. I knew I would miss the rhythm and elemental beauty of life at sea, the only life I had known for months.

  As we neared the southern tip of Mauritius, the island came into focus, its verdant green slopes now clearly visible. I could smell the land; its lush, dense aroma filled the air enticingly.

  One of Ben’s rowlocks had come loose. The only serviceable spanner had been rounded off by our late-night fixes over the last few stormy weeks. Still, it only had to hold up for another few hours so we rowed on, ignoring the clatter and din of grinding steel.

  We discussed more important matters instead, like who was going to tidy the cabin before we got to land. Both mothers would be there and wouldn’t be impressed with what they saw. As the lighthouse came into clear focus we realised we were nearly there. We took it in turns to go into the cabin to prepare for arrival. Nothing could be done about the beards, but we cleaned our teeth, combed our matted hair as best we could and looked out our passports. I picked up a toy kangaroo I’d got for Tory in Australia and put it into the pocket of my foulies. Finally I tied a small Union Jack to one of the antennae. We had the camera on deck to film our arrival and we also had the flares in a waterproof bag. In Australia, Tony had warned us not to let off the flares on entering the northern bay in Mauritius in case one fell on and set fire to someone’s yacht. But we had been planning to disregard that particular bit of advice and set off a fireworks display big enough to let the whole island know we’d arrived.

  The disused lighthouse was very clear now. It stood like a bony white finger of warning about five hundred metres away. In line with the lighthouse were the reefs outlined by the white water that broke over them in jagged lines. About a mile behind the reefs were the tall, green mountains of Mauritius.

  The weather seemed to be deteriorating. The sky was grey and the air seemed to hum and crackle with invisible electricity. We could see the breaking waves on the reefs around and behind the lighthouse, which jutted out on a rocky spit.

  ‘We’r
e getting too close,’ warned Ben.

  ‘This is right; we don’t want to overshoot the entrance. I’ve checked the chart and it’s very narrow,’ I replied.

  ‘But look at those breaking waves, they’re pretty big.’

  ‘Tony said two hundred metres, we’ve got to go closer,’ I argued back.

  Suddenly it was becoming quite tense. The atmosphere around us was alive with dense energy. Now we could hear the thunder of the waves on the reefs and feel the current dragging us mercilessly south. It was about 5 p.m. and the light was starting to fade behind the grey clouds. The GPS was on permanently, but we were still outside the co-ordinates.

  Then the phone went. It was Tony. He sounded nervous.

  ‘How is it out there?’

  ‘It’s okay, we’re getting close now,’ I replied.

  ‘Okay, you need to stay at least three hundred metres away from the lighthouse now the weather is picking up.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘We’re coming in a boat so we should be at the gap in ten minutes. We’ll come out into the open sea and find you, okay.’

  ‘Brilliant, we’ll see you then.’

  ‘Listen, if it’s too rough out there we are going to have to tow you. If these cyclonic conditions build it won’t be safe to row through the gap, it’s too small. Okay?’

  ‘Understood. We’ll see you soon.’

  I recounted this to Ben and we carried on rowing, but now only edging our way south, nervously checking the GPS every minute. We were on a beam sea heading south, but there were no waves big enough to come over the side, not even a splash. The only thing that made us nervous was looking landward and seeing the white water on the rocks. Ten minutes went by and the atmosphere was now charged with pressure. We’d lost a little ground towards the coast but not much.

 

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