Captain Cook's Apprentice

by Anthony Hill

  The priest approved, and said a prayer to his atua as Taiata returned the fish to the sea. The Captain celebrated by naming the point Cape Kidnappers, and it’s still known as such today.

  Isaac often wondered what would have happened to Taiata had he been taken by the Maori. Would he have been killed? Many feared so. Tupaia thought the chief probably wanted the boy priest from the homeland as a valuable addition to his power and prestige . . . his mana. Taiata would be worth much more to him alive than dead.

  As the days went by, they were all grateful for the Tahitians’ presence. Tupaia especially, through his status and knowledge, pacified many a threatening situation.

  Endeavour sailed south a little longer, charting the coast of this so-far-inhospitable continent, before Cook headed north once more – at a place he called Cape Turnagain – searching for a suitable anchorage to wood and water.

  On the whole, the tribes – the Iwi – now seemed friendlier. Canoes frequented the ship bartering for prized Tahitian tapa cloth. People sometimes spent the night aboard. At Uawa – Tolaga Bay – the crew had their first peaceful days ashore trading for sweet potato and gathering wild celery. The gentlemen explored and botanised with the Maori. And Tupaia spent much time with the priests in the marae speaking of the homeland, and receiving many rich gifts.

  Some men even claimed to have been with Maori women – but they were few, for the Iwi kept wives and daughters close. As for Isaac, his thoughts were still of Heimata and the South Seas pearl she’d given him. He kept it safe in the velvet bag with Mamma’s silver locket. And every time Isaac held it to remember, the pearl became as liquid as Heimata’s eyes on the grey sands of Matavai Bay.

  Maori did not look at the voyagers like that. For even as they continued past the fertile Bay of Plenty there was always an uneasiness: a sense of fragility in relations that could swiftly break into conflict again. Usually Tupaia was able to calm things by speaking as a venerable elder. But sometimes, when taunting from the war canoes became too hostile, or the thieves too barefaced (as when they tried to steal the ship’s washing trawling from the stern), Endeavour replied with a cannonade or a round of musketry fired wide to scatter them.

  ‘Why do they dislike us so much?’ Isaac asked himself, and supplied his own answer. ‘They no more welcome us than we would an alien warship sailing up the Thames.’

  He was thankful only that there had been no more deaths since Cape Kidnappers.

  But that was not to last . . .

  In early November the ship breasted into a fine bay, Te Whitianga a Kupe – the Crossing Place of Kupe, where the great ancestor had landed after his voyage from the homeland. It certainly suited Captain Cook, who was looking for somewhere sheltered to observe the Transit of Mercury.

  High, volcanic tufa cliffs had been sculpted by the sea into coves and inlets scattered with islands and rock pinnacles. A stream of fresh water cascaded into the Purangi River. There was plenty of wood, and the fishing appeared excellent. Atop many headlands were fortified Maori pa: small villages sheltering behind ditches and high palisades of sharpened stakes and fighting platforms.

  ‘The inhabitants seem to be constantly at war with their enemies,’ Cook observed. And this was very true.

  As Endeavour anchored, she was surrounded by dugout canoes, tiwai, filled with local Ngati Hei tribesmen determined to confront these new intruders under the watchful eye of their chief, Toiawa. Stones were thrown, and a spear which fell harmlessly to the deck. The warriors became less hostile after Tupaia spoke to them, and Toiawa came aboard. Surprisingly, some even agreed to exchange cloth for their weapons: for the Maori, who well understood the terms of fair trade, had hitherto refused to sell their arms except for European muskets – which was forbidden!

  Isaac could see why they so prized their weapons. A spear shaft was beautifully carved with an intricate knot of spirals and volutes. And Mr Molineux let him hold a small whalebone club, perfectly balanced in the hand, ready to split skulls.

  No skulls were split that day, though a warrior was peppered with small shot when he reneged on a trade. And several men trying to steal the anchor buoy had a musket ball fired through their tiwai. They left shouting threats.

  ‘What are they saying?’ Isaac asked Taiata.

  ‘They are calling us tupua . . . goblins and demons.’

  ‘And what else?’

  ‘They will come back in the morning and kill us all.’

  ‘That is a generous warning,’ said Cook, when he heard of it. ‘But I suppose they intend to come tonight, hoping to find us off guard. We must disappoint them.’

  And the warriors were disappointed. Twice their canoes came to the ship in the darkness – but finding the watch doubled, they departed without a word.

  Thereafter, under Toiawa’s influence, relations generally were very cordial. The Ngati Hei brought so many fish to Endeavour there was enough to last them a month. More people came aboard: were given gifts, and salt beef to eat. Many thought it was human flesh, for Maori had no other red meat except rats and the small dogs originally brought from the homeland – together with seals and the occasional beached whale.

  For their part, the tupua spent much time ashore – astounding the Maori by rowing their boats facing away from the direction they were going. They must truly be goblins with eyes in the backs of their heads! But they were mostly harmless ones. The sailors were busy dragging the fishing net; servant boys scrubbing cabins; the Master and officers surveying the bay; gentlemen collecting specimens; and Cook with astronomer Green preparing for the Transit of Mercury.

  The observation was important, for the navigator could use it to fix his longitude accurately and thus New Zealand’s true position on the globe. Longitude, which involved lunar readings and complex calculations, was always uncertain on a moving ship. Thus Cook set up his telescopes and quadrant with precision on the beach.

  It was a warm, clear morning, and the Captain and Mr Green were fully occupied with the Transit, when suddenly came shouting and gunfire from the ship.

  A number of large waka arrived with warriors from further along the coast or outer islands. They seemed hostile at first: but once they were warned of the tupua with their guns, the strangers agreed to trade. Garments and valuable pounamu greenstone were exchanged for Tahitian cloth, and all seemed smiles. Until Lieutenant Gore was cheated.

  He’d agreed to buy a rare dog-skin cloak worn by a young chief, and passed down a length of cloth. The man took it: but instead of giving up the cloak, he ordered his companions to paddle quickly away, laughing and brandishing his weapons.

  Just like Cape Kidnappers! Gore was outraged.

  ‘Hand me your musket!’ he ordered a marine. And taking careful aim, Gore shot the Maori in the back. The man staggered even as he shouted a last boast, then dropped among his comrades as they paddled off.

  The incident greatly upset the Captain when he came aboard.

  ‘Don’t you think that killing the man was excessive punishment for the crime?’ he remonstrated. ‘Small shot would have been enough.’

  ‘It weren’t enough for you in Poverty Bay, suh.’ Gore turned the rebuke. ‘And they would have been hanged in England.’

  ‘This is not England! We need the friendship of these people.’

  Isaac, too, had seen much violent death: but wasn’t yet grown indifferent to it.

  ‘Why does it always end in bloodshed?’ the boy exclaimed. ‘Don’t they know we want peace?’

  ‘People only make peace when they know who has the stronger weapons,’ Robert Molineux observed.

  ‘Does it have to be like that?’

  ‘It usually is.’

  To Cook’s relief, the death didn’t destroy his tenuous friendship with Toiawa and the Ngati Hei. Indeed, they said the young warrior deserved his fate: though whether they really believed this, or were speaking from fear of the tupua guns, nobody knew. Even so, the place on the beach where Cook set up his instruments was from then on called Mahan
akino – ‘bad day’ – in remembrance of what had happened.

  Still, the people continued to show Toote and his men much hospitality during the five more days the ship remained in Mercury Bay, as Cook named it on his chart. Old Toiawa even drew a map in charcoal on Endeavour’s deck showing the lands to the north. He took them to visit the pa and vegetable gardens on the northern headland. And the oyster beds up the Purangi River were so plentiful, the longboat was almost awash under its load.

  In return, Cook gave Toiawa English potatoes to cultivate. The Captain blazoned a tree with Endeavour 1769, as a notice to other tupua he’d been there first. He ran up the Union Jack and claimed this part of the continent for King George – though he no more sought the consent of Toiawa or the Ngati Hei, than he had Tupaia’s people at Ra’iatea. It was other Europeans he wanted to forestall.

  Cook gave further things as well.

  There was a Maori boy called Te Horeta, who remembered this visit all his life. He was younger than Isaac, and much too afraid of the goblin guns to say very much when he came aboard. But he allowed their great chief Toote to pat his head and give him an iron spike nail.

  ‘Ka Pai,’ said Horeta. Very good. And he kept the nail on a braided string around his neck.

  The boy was more forthcoming with Taiata and the other lads, giving presents in token of the nail. Sometimes they’d go along the coast, and Horeta showed them how to find crayfish – feeling among underwater rocks with bare feet at low tide. It was hazardous, but worth every nip to eat them broiled on an open fire.

  Once, Horeta took the boys to the ruins of a pa on a rock overlooking the Whitianga River: Whitianga pa. Isaac never forgot his steep climb up the path, across the ditch, through a broken gate, and edging along a narrow ridge, only a foot wide, to the inner fort. One slip and he would have plunged down to the sea.

  No castle in England could have been better positioned; but like most castles, the pa had eventually fallen to its enemies and into decay. It was peaceful enough now: though when they got to the end, Horeta stood on the cliff edge and declared, ‘I will be a great warrior myself, when I grow up.’

  And so he became. For many years Horeta kept the nail Captain Cook had given him, wearing it like a talisman to bring strength and good fortune. One day, however, his canoe tipped over crossing the bay. The nail slipped from Horeta’s neck and sank to the bottom. He dived many times trying to find it, but he never did. At last Horeta had to accept that the charm the goblins gave him had returned to the place it came from.

  Well, not quite. For when Toote’s men sailed out of the bay, Horeta knew they were going north to where other Iwi – and enemies – lived. And he stood on the headland looking at Endeavour and wondering the future, until the pennant floating from its masthead disappeared into the morning sun.

  8

  CANNIBAL BAY

  New Zealand: South Island, November 1769 to March 1770

  It was some time before Isaac and the Endeavour men saw proof positive that the Maori sometimes ate their enemies. They’d first heard such stories from the boys captured at Poverty Bay, but hadn’t believed them. Yet tales of cannibalism persisted as the ship sailed up the coast from Whitianga into the Hauraki Gulf. So that, however appalling, most came to think it must be true.

  The country here was lush with green and silver ferns clinging to craggy slopes, and open-armed pohutukawa trees now, in early summer, aflame with scarlet flowers.

  Further inland, forest giants reached to the sky. When Captain Cook rowed up the stately Waihou River, which reminded him of the Thames, he measured a massive kauri tree with a quadrant: it soared eighty-nine feet without tapering from the ground to its first branch, majestic as a cathedral column.

  The land, too, supported many people – and Endeavour was met by large numbers of war canoes flying feather streamers, paddles rhythmically drumming the sides, as warriors challenged the strangers.

  Come ashore and we will kill you all!

  Until the rattle of musketry or a cannonade fired wide persuaded them that the tupua wished to be friends!

  Certainly the Captain and gentlemen were welcomed at a pa they visited on the Waihou. In fact, they thought it would make a site for a future colony. And many Iwi came aboard the ship to trade – and even filch a little something.

  One man was caught stealing a half-hour sandglass from the binnacle cabinet on the quarterdeck, an important item if the bell was to be rung on time during watch. Lieutenant Hicks was on duty, and decided to punish the thief in the navy way.

  ‘Seize that man!’ Zachary Hicks ordered. ‘Tie him to the rigging and give him a dozen lashes.’

  Other Maori grew threatening. But assured by Tupaia that their companion wouldn’t be killed, they watched the flogging in silence. And when the miscreant was released, his chief beat him even harder.

  ‘What was that for?’ Isaac asked. ‘Stealing? Or for being caught?’ Taiata didn’t know – probably for both.

  The Captain was consistent about punishing those who took other people’s property. In the beautiful Bay of Islands, three seamen got a dozen lashes each for pulling up kumara, the tasty sweet potatoes, from a Maori garden, when they were supposed to be cutting grass for the animals.

  Isaac’s friend, Henry Stephens, was one of them. Again. Whipped at Madeira for not eating fresh beef, and now for taking vegetables. His back was quilted with scars. And Gunner Forwood was flogged, with two others, for stealing rum from the quarterdeck cask when he was in charge of the watch. ‘The only useless person on board,’ the Captain called him, though he later recommended Gunner for promotion. Cook rarely bore a grudge – and many sea captains used the lash a lot more than he did.

  The men may have been forgiven for seeking comfort in food and drink. The Bay of Islands might have seemed tranquil and picturesque, but when Cook went ashore with an armed party, they were surrounded on the beach by some two hundred Maori, who began to chant their haka as a prelude to attack.

  At such moments the Captain showed his coolness. He drew a line in the sand, beyond which the warriors should not pass. They tried to seize the boats, but were repulsed. Some, more daring, attempted to cross the line, though they retreated under a volley of small shot.

  An ariki rallied them together. Again they began to advance, and again were thrown into confusion by musket fire. But the Maori were growing bolder – until Lieutenant Hicks brought Endeavour broadside to the beach and fired a few cannonballs over their heads.

  The warriors dispersed. Initial hostilities once more resolved into a cautious amity between Maori and Pakeha. There was trade in New Zealand artefacts for paper and Tahitian cloth. There were lessons in geography, Maori saying the land soon turned west and then south, so that this part of the continent seemed to be a promontory. And the Maori again acknowledged they ate their enemies.

  The subject of cannibalism was never far from the voyagers’ minds – and came rushing to the fore when, on leaving the bay, Endeavour struck a submerged rock in front of the anticipating Iwi. Fortunately she floated free without damage. Though, as Joseph Banks confided to his journal, The almost certainty of being eat as soon as you come ashore adds not a little to the terrors of shipwreck.

  The sea had other dangers. As the ship headed into December, she ran into squalls and heavy weather, and it took nearly a fortnight just to reach North Cape. Christmas Day was clear enough, and the company celebrated by dining on gannet pie and becoming as drunk as they had off Patagonia a year ago.

  Now let every man toss off a full bumper,

  And let every man toss off a full bowl . . .

  Then the gales returned, like hurricanes. Isaac, who considered himself cured of seasickness, put his queasiness down to Christmas grog. But the storms went on. Although they sighted Cape Maria van Diemen in late December, the winds and currents were such that Endeavour didn’t round the northland until early new year. Even then, she was blown far off shore, and not for some days was Cook’s doughty Whitby collier
able to edge back to the dangerous coast ‘on a high rowling sea’. It had taken five weeks just to sail fifty leagues – a hundred and fifty miles!

  Curiously, at the very time Endeavour was sailing west around the cape, she passed the track of the Frenchman Jean de Surville, who was sailing east. Storms kept the ships from sighting each other, though conditions might have turned even more blustery had the rivals met. However, de Surville was in bad shape, with sixty men dead and the rest of his crew so weak with scurvy they could barely handle the boats. Whereas Cook had not one man sick, apart from Lieutenant Hicks and Forby Sutherland, who had both developed consumption. Sutherland, especially, was coughing incessantly, bringing up traces of blood with his phlegm – and Isaac noticed he’d begun to lose weight . . .

  Southwards Endeavour sailed for the first two weeks of 1770, charting the west coast. The land initially seemed more barren and flatter. Then they sighted the noble volcano Taranaki – Mount Egmont, Cook named it – the summit bleached with snow, even in summer.

  A few days later Endeavour entered what appeared to be a wide, deep bay. Seeing a number of Maori fishing canoes, she steered for an inlet among the tree-covered hills on the southern shore, and hove to in a snug anchorage. Meretoto – blood of the fighting club, it was known to the Maori: Cannibal Bay to Cook’s men.

  It acquired the epithet within a day of their arrival.

  The anchor had no sooner dropped, than several canoes came off a nearby island, Motuara, and circled the ship. A few stones were thrown; but after Tupaia spoke from the taffrail, their chief agreed to come aboard. He was an old white-haired man called Topaa, and although he didn’t stay long he seemed pleased with his presents of paper and tapa cloth.

  The Captain went ashore and, finding a stream of fresh water, good timber, a sandy beach, and plenty of fish in the nets, he decided to stay awhile: to repair and provision his ship, and to rest his crew before exploring more of the continent.