by Lay, Graeme
Incensed, James closed the volume and went over to the stern window. There were dozens of flagged ships at anchor in the harbour, from several European ports. How many of the officers aboard these ships would read Hawkesworth’s accounts avidly and believe them to be factual? And London’s readers? There were thousands of them—they too must have read these offensive volumes and assumed their contents to be gospel.
The sinking sun highlighted the slopes of Table Mountain, lending them a luminous quality, but for once James failed to be distracted by their beauty. Who, he wondered, could have authorised Hawkesworth’s use of his journal? Philip Stephens? No, Stephens would never condone such an act. Sandwich? Surely not. As First Sea Lord, he knew that a commander’s journal was a sacred record, confined to facts and facts alone. Banks? Probably. Especially if he knew the journalist would portray him in a flattering way, as indeed he had. In the section set on Otaheite, Banks was depicted as a rake who had rejected his English fiancée and fornicated furiously with the island’s native women, including Oberea, the putative Queen of Otaheite. Another piece of fiction. Yes, James concluded, it must have been Banks’s vanity which had led to all this.
Now all he could think of was achieving retribution for the way Hawkesworth had distorted Endeavour’s voyage and his own part in it. The man was an imposter of the worst kind. The books had been published: it was too late to stop people reading them. But it wasn’t too late to stop Hawkesworth from writing more dishonest accounts. Upon his return, James decided, he would attack the swine with a public broadside that would end Hawkesworth’s writing career forever.
They weighed anchor on 27 April, after saluting the local garrison with 13 guns and having the compliment returned. Several ships in the harbour fired their cannons in tribute, Resolution, James and her crew being by now celebrated figures in the port. James had already packed, sealed and dispatched his precious journal, charts and drawings to the Admiralty, care of Captain Newte, commander of the East Indiaman Ceres which was bound directly for London.
As Resolution’s new sails were unfurled and she moved out of the harbour, driven by a light south-westerly, she was flanked by a Spanish and an English ship on one side and a Danish ship on the other. More cannons were fired, and when their reverberations faded, James and his fellow-officers were delighted to hear chamber music drifting across the water from the Danish vessel’s poop deck. Cellos, violins, harpsichords. ‘It’s so good, Captain,’ Clerke mused, ‘to be part of European civilisation again. And soon we will be in the hemisphere of home.’
James smiled, but thought wryly: yes, Charles, and so there will be no more human cheek-eating.
They reached rugged St Helena on 15 May and anchored in the roadstead off the island’s west coast, opposite Jamestown, its main settlement. After James was taken ashore, wearing his dress uniform, he went directly across to the large, colonnaded residence of the governor on the waterfront. It was scorchingly hot in the valley in which the little town was located and the Jack hung limp from the pole above the residence entrance. James was puzzled to see, parked on the flat area in front of the residence, several large, unattended wheelbarrows.
An elderly, stooped retainer showed him into the reception room, which had a parquet floor, heavily draped sash windows and glass wall cabinets filled with books and rolled charts. Above the cabinets were portraits in oil of King George and Queen Charlotte, and landscapes of the Thames estuary and Whitby’s waterfront. While he waited, James studied the paintings affectionately. Home. Not much longer and he would be there.
‘Captain James Cook?’ The governor was in his early 50s. He was dressed formally, wigged and in a blue frock coat complete with gold epaulettes, white cravat at his throat and a scarlet sash across his chest. He looked somehow familiar. He was tall, with ruddy cheeks, a prominent chin and piercing hazel eyes. ‘Skottowe,’ he said, extending his hand, ‘John Skottowe.’
James started. ‘Are you from Great Ayton, Yorkshire, by any chance?’
‘Yes.’
‘A relative of the late Thomas Skottowe?’
‘My father.’ Then, quizzically, ‘Did you know him?’
‘Yes. My family was in his employ,’ James replied.
Over tea and shortbread, they talked. John Skottowe was indeed the son of Thomas Skottowe, the well-to-do landowner of James’s home village in the North Riding. Thomas, recognising academic potential in the boy James Cook, had insisted to his parents that he be schooled by a local woman and taught to read, write and master arithmetic. This had changed the course of the boy’s, and subsequently the man’s, entire life.
Governor Skottowe was delighted to learn of this connection. James also mentioned that he and Elizabeth had seen Thomas’s grave in the Great Ayton churchyard, four years earlier.
Later in the afternoon Skottowe’s wife, Margaret, joined them. She was much younger than her husband. Petite and vivacious, she had large blue eyes and a pert manner. She wore an ornate white wig, a hooped blue-and-white checked gown and a necklace of amber beads. She hailed from Middlesbrough, she told James. It was there that she and John had met. Giving James a mischievous look, she said, ‘You will have observed, Captain Cook, the collection of carts and wheelbarrows outside the residence?’
‘I did, yes. What are they for, madam?’
‘For you.’
She burst into peals of laughter, then spread her delicate fingers theatrically. ‘We read of your account of Endeavour’s call here in 1771, in the published journals of exploration, in which you claimed that there was no wheelbarrow in the whole island. So to correct that falsehood, I ordered the servants to display the 11 wheelbarrows that this house alone possesses.’ John grinned. Margaret regarded James from beneath puckered eyebrows and said in an ironic tone, ‘But I’m sorry, we could find no slaves or burdens for them to carry on their heads. They are at present all on leave.’ Again she laughed, delightedly, and Skottowe joined in.
James felt his cheeks flushing. He looked down, shaking his head in frustration. So it had begun, the dissemination of Hawkesworth’s and Banks’s lies and exaggerations. Maddening. He gritted his teeth, drew a deep breath, looked up and said, ‘Madam, permit me to explain …’
James returned to the ship in the late afternoon and went directly below. All the other officers except Pickersgill, who was officer of the watch, were ashore, and Resolution was unusually quiet. James unlocked the bureau where he kept Elizabeth’s journal. It was also the place where he kept his pistol case. He took the case out, opened it and removed the handsome brass weapon from its green felt bed. He had bought it from a gunsmith in London not long after he returned from the Endeavour voyage. It was a Continental flintlock with a 13-bore barrel, imported by the gunsmith from Holland. James had never killed anyone with it, but he had fired it over the heads of the aggressive natives in the New Hebrides to frighten them.
He fitted the elegant butt of the pistol into the palm of his right hand. It felt reassuringly weighty. The pistol was a fine piece of craftsmanship, the perfect duelling weapon. But as a Navy man he could not take part in a duel.
Then he had another idea. After placing the pistol back in its box and locking it in the bureau, he collected up Hawkesworth’s journals and went into his cabin. From there he took down his Brown Bess musket, which was clamped in brackets on the wall, and collected his powder horn and a bag of musket balls. Alone on the poop deck, he set down the muzzle-loader, then carefully stood Volume Two of the journals upright on the taffrail. Covers slightly open, it stood firm. He then poured powder and ball down the barrel of his musket, and tamped them into place with the metal ram-rod. At a range of just two yards, he took aim then squeezed the trigger. Hawkesworth’s book exploded. Shreds of paper flew into the air, then drifted down and settled on the green harbour water. James went to the taffrail and stared at the remains of the shattered book. Chuckling with satisfaction, he placed Volume Three on the rail, took more powder and ball and began to reload. As he did so Pickersg
ill came running up the steps to the upper deck. His expression was anxious. ‘What is it, Captain? What are you doing?’
James smiled. ‘Just a little target practice, Pickersgill.’
He brought the musket up to his shoulder, aimed and again squeezed the trigger. The shot rang out and Volume Three was blown to smithereens, its contents hurled into the air, then drifting down and settling on the water.
Pickersgill looked askance. ‘You are using a book for target practice, sir?’
James lowered his Brown Bess. ‘Aye. And the next shot will be for its author.’
Thirty-one
11 JUNE 1775
At 3 o’clock in the afternoon we crossed the Equator in the longitude of 32° 14´ West. We had a fresh gale at ESE which blew in squalls attended by showers of rain which continued at certain intervals till noon the next day, after which we had 24 hours fair weather.
‘Land! Land ho! Off the starboard bow!’
The cry came from able seaman Blackburn at the mainmast head. The crew crowded the starboard railings, peering eagerly into the summer haze. Then they too saw it, a line of forested hills, a quilt of cropland, descending to a cluster of tiled roofs, Plymouth harbour. Cheers went up from the crew. England! England!
The next day they passed through the Solent, then entered the roadstead off Gilkicker Point, at Spithead. It was 30 July 1775, a Saturday. At just after noon, James stood on the quarterdeck with his three officers, watching master Gilbert overseeing the ship’s gradual entry into Portsmouth harbour. Earlier that day he had written in his official journal:
We have been away from England for three years and 18 days. In which time I lost but four men and one only of them by sickness. Resolution has logged a total of over 20,000 leagues, or 60,000 nautical miles. I believe this to be the longest voyage Englishmen have ever undertaken.
His journal to Elizabeth concluded with the words:
My Odyssey is over. I am home.
After going ashore the next morning and reporting to the authorities at Portsmouth’s naval dockyard, James was provided with a large post-chaise to convey him to London. He shared it with the Forsters and some of their bags of specimens; Hodges and his pile of sketch pads; astronomer Wales, who sat the K1 timekeeper on his knee as if it was his favourite child; and one of the able seamen, laconic Richard Grindall, who had been married in Plymouth just one hour before Resolution had sailed. The passengers’ several cabin trunks were strapped to the roof of the coach.
Taking the Portsmouth Road, they passed over the South Downs and through the woodlands of New Hampshire before climbing to the Hog’s Back and following the crest of the North Downs. The air was thick with summer heat, the view from the Downs foreshortened by low cloud. They made only one stop—at Guildford, to feed and water the horses. Although each passenger stared out thankfully at the dark green spinneys and Surrey’s fields of ripening corn, during the journey there was little talk. Even Forster the elder had ceased his carping. For most of the journey, his froggy eyes remained closed. Each man kept his own counsel as he contemplated his future. After more than three years of lives so closely and uncomfortably shared, from now on they would be on their own. This journey represented their last confinement.
And as the coach clattered on, James wondered above all how he would be received at home.
‘Captain! Good day, sir! Welcome home!’
Philip Stephens, Admiralty Secretary, greeted James delightedly. His face was more lined and there were rolls of darkish flesh under his blue eyes, but the eyes themselves were as penetrating as ever. As he showed James through to the Admiralty’s reception room, James asked anxiously: ‘Did you receive my journal and charts?’
Stephens nodded. ‘Oh yes. They were delivered here personally by Captain Newte, a month ago. The Lords have perused them.’ He put a respectful hand on James’s shoulder. ‘Splendid material, Captain. Wonderful work. You have surpassed yourself.’
James heaved a sigh of relief. The thought of his protracted labours being lost had beset him with worry.
The Lords entered the room, each greeting him individually and congratulating him on his extensive voyage, safe return and meticulous charting. As they chatted over tea and cakes, the fact that no Great South Continent had been discovered was not mentioned. But the discovery, naming and claiming for England of many previously unknown islands in the New Hebrides, along with the new land of New Caledonia and the archipelago in the South Atlantic, were cause for celebration. As was James’s meticulous re-charting of those islands previously discovered but faultily recorded by the explorers who had gone before him.
However, today’s meeting at the Admiralty was merely a preliminary one, and necessarily brief, as the Lords were well aware that there were others awaiting James’s return. Stephens had already sent a courier to 7 Assembly Row to advise Elizabeth that her husband would be home later today. Bidding him goodbye for the time being, the Lords dispersed.
James and Stephens walked out onto the street, where the secretary looked to hail a passing hackney to take James home. The road that ran past the Admiralty building was rutted and dusty, crowded with carriages, sedan chairs and men on horseback. It was a hot, heavy London afternoon. While they waited, Stephens said quietly, ‘You must now be considering your future, Captain.’
James merely nodded. What now had the all-knowing Stephens heard? The secretary came closer and spoke into his ear. ‘There is the possibility of a vacancy occurring at the Royal Hospital in Greenwich.’
James smiled. ‘I may be in my forty-seventh year, Stephens, but I am not yet an invalid.’
Stephens waved his hand impatiently. ‘No, no. Not as a patient, but as a guest. You would be one of a quota of four naval captains based at the hospital. You would be provided with a generous pension and the resources to write a full account of Resolution and Adventure’s voyage. There would be no other duties.’
James considered this in silence. Such a position would have definite advantages. Security, a place to write and time to do so. Elizabeth would doubtless approve. But in the meantime there were other considerations. He said to Stephens, ‘Have you read Hawkesworth’s published account of the voyages?’
Stephens’s eyebrows flicked up and his mouth crimped. ‘I have. As have many others.’ He winced. ‘Hawkesworth’s volumes have sold in their thousands.’
‘In spite of the fact that what he wrote is largely fiction.’
A muscle in one corner of Stephens’s mouth twitched. ‘I knew that you would be displeased with his version of events.’
James glared at the secretary. ‘Displeased?’ He clenched his right fist. ‘I was irate when I read Hawkesworth’s distortions. It is an insult to me and my earlier voyage.’ His gaze and resolve hardening, he added, ‘I intend to publish a broadside which will kill his career.’
Stephens blinked, then a faint smile replaced the tic at the side of his mouth. ‘That won’t be necessary.’ Looking over James’s shoulder, he signalled to an approaching hackney. ‘Hawkesworth died last November.’ He stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘His Account of the Voyages received much hostile criticism from the experts for its inaccuracies. This is thought to have contributed to the fellow’s death.’
Thirty-two
LEANING OUT OF THE HACKNEY WINDOW as it approached the house, James saw two boys standing outside the front door. He reminded himself that his eldest son would be turning 12 this October, and that Nathaniel would have his 11th birthday in December. There were several gifts for both boys in his chest: carvings, spears, clubs. But there was no sign of Elizabeth.
The hackney drew up outside Number 7 and James stepped out. As the driver began to take the sea chests down from the rack, James walked up to his sons. They eyed him warily. Young James was now a head taller than his brother, and strongly built. His direct gaze and prominent chin reminded James of his own father’s countenance. His elder son was going to be a big man. Nathaniel was stocky, with round cheeks and large blue eyes.
His mother’s eyes. They both wore blue jackets over their vests, and brown calico breeches and boots.
Churning with emotion, James held out his hand to them. ‘Lads, lads—’
Shyly they each took his hand, saying quietly, ‘Papa.’ ‘Papa.’
‘Where is your mother?’ James looked over their heads towards the open door. Before they could reply, she was there in the doorway.
James told the boys, ‘Help the cabman with the chests, lads,’ then he went to her. For a few moments they stood apart, James looking down, captivated, she gazing up as if at an apparition. Her fair hair was coiled up on her head, in the style that he liked, and pinned in place with a curved wooden comb. She wore the dove-grey silk gown that she had made for their meeting with the King, but without its hood and ribbons. Staring down into her face, he saw lines radiating from the corners of her eyes that had not been there before. And her lightly freckled cheeks had a concave aspect, accentuating the planes of the bones beneath her eyes.
These alterations, and her air of ineffable sadness, reminded him of the losses she had suffered. Yet she was also, he thought, more beautiful than ever.
He held out his arms and she came forward. Wrapping his arms around her, he buried his face in her hair, murmuring, ‘Elizabeth, dearest Elizabeth.’
He felt the almost-forgotten softness of her body, the press of her breasts against his midriff, the cinnamon and lemon fragrance of her skin. And he was aware too of the shaking of her body, heard her soft sobbing, felt the dampness of the tears that were soaking into his vest.
‘James, James,’ she murmured, between her sobs. ‘It has been so long. Too long.’
At last she drew back and stared up at him. Her face was wet with tears, her eyes misted over. She swallowed, twice, then ran her tongue over her lips. She began to speak, stopped, swallowed once more, tried again. ‘Don’t leave me again, James.’ Her voice was imploring.