by Anthony Hill
‘The woods weren’t that far off, so some of the others went with Mr Buchan in the last of the day to light a fire and try to build a wigwam from branches, like the Indians. Eventually Dr Solander woke up and, seeing the firelight ahead, Mr Banks and me helped him into the warmth. George Dorlton stayed behind with one of the dogs to look after Tom, and bring him in when he woke up.
‘But they didn’t come.’ Jim’s voice trembled. ‘More snow fell, and still no sign of them. At last Mr Banks sent the two seamen to find Tom and George. Then he discovered a bottle of rum was missing from his knapsack.
‘Hours went by . . . until someone came yelling, and a seaman reeled out of the darkness to the fire. We knew then what had happened to the rum. They thought it would warm them – but it only made things worse. Mr Banks and a few of us stronger lads went out, and found Tom standing upright, but unable to move or even talk. Rigid as carved marble. And George had collapsed on the snow.
‘We did everything to get ’em moving. “Come on Tom! Try to walk, George . . . Wake up . . . Please!” But they wouldn’t budge. We couldn’t even light a fire in the snow. In the end we just had to lay Tom and George on a bed of branches, cover ’em with boughs as a shelter, and leave ’em there till morning with just the dog for company. And drag the second seaman with us back to the fire.
‘We went out at first light and removed the boughs. But Tom and George were both dead. Faces frozen grey, and eyes staring blind. There was nothing for it but to cover them up again, decent like. Though the dog survived all right.’
There was stillness on the mess deck, as Jim gathered himself to tell the end.
Mr Banks had shot a vulture, which the ten survivors skinned and cooked for breakfast. Sharing equally. Three mouthfuls apiece. With the weather clearing, they made their way back to the coast – though Alexander Buchan was still sick, and Banks’s other servant, Peter Briscoe, almost died of hypothermia too.
As Endeavour finished watering over the next few days, Isaac felt some of the light in him had also departed. He was no stranger to death. Two others had already perished during this voyage. But Tom and George were men he knew well. Had laughed with. Messed with. And heard them mumble in their sleep as they dreamed of Africa and home.
Now they were gone, and Isaac mourned them. Even as the ship wore out of the ill-omened Bay of Good Success, his two friends were left to rot under a pyre of snow-covered branches. Unless, of course, the vultures got to them first. Two black Africans – free themselves, but still undeniably two more victims of the slave trade – frozen to death in a land at the very bottom of the world.
Or nearly so. For it was another four days’ sail through squalls and foul wind before Isaac saw the round island hummock of Cape Horn itself through a break in the clouds. Even then, they spent almost a week bearing further south, in case the ship ran into uncharted land and was wrecked.
But on the last day of January, when they’d passed latitude sixty degrees south, Captain Cook gave his order to set Endeavour’s course north by west. Men cheered and the blood quickened. They were heading into the Pacific! And fortune favoured them in this. The weather moderated. There were sometimes such light winds they set studdingsails (‘stu’n’s’ls, matey’) to push the ship along. So that by mid-February, the new boys were boasting to the Dolphin hands that, while it had taken Wallis nearly four months to round the Horn, they’d done it in little more than one!
‘Don’t be too cocky, look you,’ Francis Wilkinson checked Isaac. ‘We’ve a long way to go yet, and you never know what may happen at sea.’
Quite. For when Mr Banks shot an albatross and had John Thompson cook it, old Ravenhill thought it shocking.
‘Kill a albatross!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’ll bring us the worst kind o’ luck. And then to eat it! That be worse ’n cannibal sharks. You mark me.’
In the Great Cabin, however, conversation turned on how well the bird ate when served with savoury sauce. On the mess deck, talk quickly moved from superstition to the real delights awaiting in Tahiti to feed other appetites.
‘Those girls . . .’ sighed Dicky Pickersgill. ‘So beautiful. So loving.’
‘The whole island is a paradise of love, boyo,’ Francis Wilkinson explained. ‘’Tis the most natural thing in the world to ’em.’
‘Though the people know their value. And what they value most of all are iron nails. They don’t have metal on Tahiti see, and will do anything to get it.’
‘The young men would come down to the river’s edge with a twig the size of the nail required, look you. Once agreed, the girls swam across to us like water nymphs in stories . . .’ Wilkinson relived the memory.
‘It got so as the Dolphin was ready to fall apart, so many cleats had been taken from her timbers. Captain Wallis became severe. And when he found Frank Pinkney with a handful of stolen nails, he had to run the gauntlet: three times bare-backed around the deck while we whipped him with nettle ropes.’
‘But you know, we were all as guilty as Frankie – and so treated him very gentle. Happiness for an iron hand-spike! If only it were like that at home, in Wales.’
Isaac and Nick listened open-mouthed, pretending to experience beyond their years. They willingly agreed with general opinion that running the gauntlet was a small price to pay; but were not sorry, when Dr Monkhouse examined the crew for venereal disease, they were considered too young to participate.
Molineux and Gore kept discussions with the Captain strictly to business.
‘The natives were sure welcoming, suh – after the Dolphin fired a few broadsides and killed a number of them, when they attacked us.’
‘I’ll have none of that, Mr Gore, if I can help it!’
‘Once they understood the power of our weapons,’ soothed Molineux, ‘their queen – Purea by name – was most hospitable. Hogs . . . chickens . . . fruits aplenty. Her people satisfied our every need.’
‘So I’ve heard,’ returned Cook, the dour, dry Yorkshireman. ‘Generous in all respects. I believe the entire ship’s company is anxious to meet them.’
They certainly were. Even the goat began to bleat in anticipation. Last time, she’d butted one of the island men who’d never seen such an animal before; and rearing up to repeat the blow, had so terrified the man that he leaped overboard. Nanny seemed keen to renew the acquaintance.
As Endeavour ploughed through the Pacific, the sun grew stronger and the days lengthened. February turned into March and Isaac’s fourteenth birthday. The crew went back to the three-watch system. The first tropic birds were sighted, vibrant in red and white plumage. And the evening waters glittered with phosphorescence like starshine, as the ship turned the furrows with her bows.
The earthly paradise of Tahiti was drawing closer. Any bad luck caused by Mr Banks having shot an albatross seemed long past. When suddenly, as Jack Ravenhill knew it would, came another human tragedy to disquiet their journey.
A seaman, William Collett, obtained a length of sealskin in Tierra del Fuego, which he was going to sew into tobacco pouches for some of his friends. A young marine, Billy Greenslade, greatly desired one: but was refused. So when he was asked to look after the skin briefly, on duty outside the Great Cabin, Billy cut off a piece for himself. It seemed an almost malicious provocation – to which the young soldier, unfortunately, succumbed.
Collett was furious when he found out.
‘You’re no friend of mine, Billy Greenslade, and a damned thief besides. The Captain would have you flogged if he knew!’
‘You won’t tell him? Please . . .’
‘Not this time. But you can be sure your men will find out.’ Which they soon did. All that afternoon the marines abused Billy for his wickedness.
‘To steal something what’s been entrusted to your care! And on duty! That’s more than theft. It’s cowardly. Despicable. You’re a blackguard.’
Isaac could hear them, words striking like snakes, as Billy wretchedly tried to find refuge from shame in a dark corner of the mess deck.
&n
bsp; ‘It’s only a bit of sealskin . . .’
‘You’ve disgraced the honour of our whole corps.’
‘I never hurt no one.’
‘You’ve tainted each of us in the eyes of the gents.’
It continued for hours, until eventually Sergeant Edgcumbe called Billy up on deck, and said that Captain Cook would have to investigate. It was seven o’clock, just after supper, and night was falling quickly, as it does in the tropics. Few others were about, for a calm had followed the day’s squall, and the watch stood easy.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Billy softly, alone before the world in his scarlet uniform of which he’d been so proud. ‘I’ve got to go to the heads, first.’
‘As well you might need,’ replied the Sergeant. ‘Hurry up then, and don’t keep the Captain waiting.’
Billy went for’ard to the seats of ease. But the only relief he sought was to his conscience. Overcome by guilt and the taunts of his fellows, Billy looked quickly around – then threw himself into the dark, inviting sea. Down in his blood-red coat through its funeral depths to the waiting arms of Davy Jones and release.
It was some time before Sergeant Edgcumbe realised that Billy had gone and began a search.
‘Billy!’ Voices calling through the shrouded vessel. ‘Have you seen him, boy?’
‘No, Sergeant,’ said Isaac, coming on deck with a slops bowl from the wardroom. ‘Is anything wrong?’
‘We can’t find him. I’m afeared . . . Billy! Where are ye, man?’
And it was some time after that before Mr Cook was informed. But Private Greenslade was found no more aboard Endeavour, and his Captain was distressed.
‘I should have been told much earlier,’ he said. ‘How old was he?’
‘Not yet twenty-one, I believe, sir.’
‘So young! Such a rash thing to do over so trifling a matter. I might have prevented it, had I known.’ Cook sighed. ‘It’s nigh two months since our last landfall, and I know some minds can lose their proper judgement confined so long at sea. I’ve hopes we’ll sight Captain Wallis’s islands before long, and this will be forgotten then. I’m sorry for the lad Greenslade, nonetheless.’
The Captain spoke truly. Within a fortnight of Billy’s death, the morning watch spied the first coral island shining on the sapphire sea: small and fringed with palm trees, a white sandy beach enclosing the lagoon.
Isaac and Nick, straining from the rail, felt their pulses beating faster. Was this what paradise looked like?
It seemed people lived there, for Isaac could see smoke. And indeed, as they passed other islands, men were seen running along the shores – bronzed and naked and brandishing spears. Aye, and the crew saw women too through their telescopes, clothed in white skirts and with raven-dark hair.
Sometimes the people would follow Endeavour in canoes. But they never came too close, or dared board the strange ship, on which hearts pounded like drums.
‘Don’t worry, my bully boys. It can’t be long now.’
Nor was it. When Isaac went on deck early on 12 April, he saw a high mountain rising from the ocean, its crest garlanded with clouds blushing in the dawn light. The breezes blew warm from the land, carrying the scent of flowers and the promise of good things to come.
The island of Tahiti lay before them.
5
TRANSIT OF VENUS
Tahiti, April to June 1769
All day Endeavour glided towards the island, tantalising as a vision before men’s eyes. Sometimes Tahiti disappeared behind a rain curtain. Then it lifted, and through a rainbow they saw its peaks lit by sunshine. Surely just a little bit closer!
Out-rigger canoes now crowded about Endeavour, filled with men and women of dark, luscious eyes, crying welcome: Maeva . . . manava!
Some carried green boughs of the fruitful plantain tree. ‘It’s their symbol of peace,’ Robert Molineux told Isaac. And all of them came ready for market. Coconuts, breadfruit and yams were traded for coloured beads from eager sailors hanging over the ship’s side.
One canoe had a fat, black pig, just ready for John Thompson’s oven. Nick and Isaac could taste the crackling! But while the Dolphin men assured Cook that almost anything could be bought for a few iron nails, the natives refused to sell it for less than a hatchet. Which the Captain declined, and the pig returned to the island unsold.
Nor would the supple, brown natives come aboard, despite the seamen’s entreaties, until next morning.
Molineux and Pickersgill were out early in the boats, sounding the depths and marking the channel through the reef upon which the Pacific broke in white ruffles, like lace on a gentleman’s wrist. Endeavour slipped through and came to anchor near the north-east point of Matavai Bay.
A beach of dark volcanic sand met the water. Coconut palms tossed their ragged heads along the fringe, amid thatched longhouses in sheltered groves. Beyond them, unruly hills clothed in green forests climbed to majestic pinnacles.
‘They look like pieces of crumpled paper,’ said Sydney Parkinson. Isaac could only agree. He’d never seen anything so beautiful. Warm, and verdant, and drenched with perfumes, Tahiti seemed all he imagined it would be.
Once the ship was secure, Captain Cook went ashore with Lieutenant Gore to find Queen Purea, and barter for the hogs and chickens he’d been assured were in plenty. He also issued strict rules of conduct.
‘Listen to this,’ remarked Private Gibson. ‘We have to cultivate the natives’ friendship. Well, that’s easy, especially with the girls. We’ll be charged if we lose our weapons or tools. Only the Cap’n will appoint people to trade for provisions. And no ironware at all can be given except for food. Sounds as if he knows about the Dolphin’s nails!’
The rules were put to the test pretty quickly. No sooner was Endeavour at anchor than the canoes were emptied of men and women who clambered onto the deck: so beginning that pattern of happy human connection which stayed burnished in the memories of all who were there.
Mr Molineux met an old man with a white beard called Hua, whom he remembered from last time. Friend! Taio! The two embraced and wept, and Hua was soon introducing the Master to the pretty young women of his family. Sam Gibson wasn’t alone in sneaking down to the carpenter’s store to see if an iron spike still retained its purchasing power, whatever the rules. And a more innocent Isaac was entranced by the scene, when a girl wearing a skirt of bark tapa cloth and a coronet of fragrant blossoms, offered him a drink of coconut milk.
He held the husky globe to his mouth and drank the cool liquid. The girl’s eyes were as clear and deep.
‘Heimata,’ she said, telling him her name.
‘I’m Isaac,’ he replied. Yet she found the pronunciation beyond her.
‘Tire.’ It was the best she could do, and they both laughed. Heimata rapped the coconut sharply. It split and, with the girl’s smile upon him, Isaac ate the creamy flesh.
‘This,’ he thought, ‘really is paradise.’
But he was wrong. When Captain Cook entered the Garden of Eden, he found it more or less abandoned, and returned to Endeavour empty-handed. No Queen Purea. No chiefly palace. Not a hog or a chicken to be found.
‘I don’t understand it, Robert,’ Gore confided to Molineux that evening. ‘Everything has changed for the worse. It’s as if there’d been a revolution.’
And so there had. Next day two important chiefs or ari’i arrived, seated under shelters on their large double canoes – pahi – with high curving sterns. The first, Tutaha, was an older man of great authority. The second, Tepau, was younger, but no less stately in his loincloth, cloak and head-dress. Purea was his sister; and whatever power she once had in this part of the island, it was clear she held it no longer.
Clear, too, that the price of pork had risen. When Tutaha brought several hogs to Endeavour, he required hatchets and English linen – and this remained the staple price.
‘Seems like daylight robbery to me,’ observed Mr Molineux to Isaac, remembering the Dolphin.
But t
heft of a more obvious kind exercised the Captain’s mind. The natives clambered over Endeavour like monkeys, trying to pilfer bits of metal. Hiro, the god of thieves, was pleased if you could get away with it. When Cook returned the chiefs’ visit, a snuffbox and spyglass were stolen, and only returned after Tepau intervened.
‘They’re prodigious expert at it,’ remarked Cook, who later lost a pair of stockings and Mr Banks his embroidered waistcoat with silver fastenings. Though the extent of the problem only became apparent a few days after their arrival.
The Transit of Venus was to occur on 3 June. Scientists understood that if accurate observations of this rare astronomical event were made around the world, they could calculate the distance of the Earth from the sun. A Pacific location was essential; and since the next Transit wouldn’t occur for another hundred years, the Royal Society had persuaded the Admiralty to send Endeavour to Tahiti. With nearly two months to prepare for the observation, Cook set up his headquarters on a sandy spit at the head of Matavai Bay: Point Venus, he named it.
The Captain took a party ashore and, to the intense interest of the Tahitians, marked out the site of a stockade – Fort Venus – on the fine black sand. Leaving the marines to guard a small tent, he went for a walk with the gentlemen beside the Vaipopoo River, among the sighing casuarinas and shady breadfruit trees.
Old Hua tried by signs to tell him not to go too far; but it was a pleasant day, and Mr Banks was entertaining everybody by shooting ducks. Cook strolled on. Suddenly, from the point, they heard shots of a different kind. Several shots. And many cries. Cook turned, and hurried back.
Isaac, too, heard the musket fire from aboard Endeavour, where Molineux was getting ready to disembark. Quickly the Master ordered an armed crew into the boats.
‘Let me come,’ pleaded Isaac. ‘I can reload the guns.’
‘In you get, lad. Sharp now!’
They landed on Point Venus as Cook came running out of the woods, to discover that one of the marines had been knocked down by a Tahitian man, and his musket stolen. Other marines had then fired. The people fled, taking the musket with them, leaving the thief dead on the sand.