by Anthony Hill
‘’Tis practice, Mr Manley . . . th’ art improving.’
Gales forced Endeavour to anchor in the outer harbour, the roadstead; but an East Indiaman, the Admiral Pocock, saluted with eleven guns, and her captain sent a basket of fruit aboard. Next morning, with the wind easing, Endeavour headed into port, Mr Manley at his place on the quarterdeck as they saluted the Governor’s castle.
The Dutch at Cape Town were as accommodating as they’d been at Batavia – and the place didn’t have fever! Endeavour was taken to her berth; arrangements were made to refit her for the last leg home; and lodgings were taken for the sick at a cost of two shillings a day for each man.
There were twenty-eight sick taken ashore – among them Lieutenant Hicks whose consumption was daily getting worse, and Robert Molineux still suffering from dysentery and drink. With Lieutenant Gore up country to shoot game, the burden of supervising the loading of supplies and Endeavour’s overhaul fell on the Midshipmen and Mates. It was a responsibility Isaac’s training had equipped him for, and under the watchful eyes of Dick Pickersgill, Frank Wilkinson and Charles Clerke, he grew into it.
‘Careful, Tunley, with that water cask . . . Well done, Littleboy. The fresh beef and greens are to be eaten now – take them to Tom Matthews in the galley.’
Still, there was time to enjoy the town. There were no playhouses, and an epidemic of measles stopped those private parties to which young Midshipmen might have been invited. Yet the busy port, where sixteen ships lay, had many taverns. And while ordinary seamen roistered in the front bars, their superiors sought upstairs rooms to drink and exchange gossip with others from distant parts. French, Dutch, Danish, Britons: mariners all, finding common understanding in the language of the sea.
‘We lost twenty-three men to sickness in our voyage from Batavia,’ Isaac said to one of the Mates from an East Indiaman, just arrived from Bengal. ‘It was dreadful.’
But his words found little sympathy.
‘I’d say that was pretty good. We lost nigh on forty during our time in the East, and more went down with scurvy.’
‘How long out from England?’
‘Not quite a year.’
‘We’ve been away two and a half.’
‘How many lost altogether?’
Isaac counted them. ‘Seven in Batavia from fever. Eight before that.’ He could see their faces drifting in the tobacco smoke. Alex Weir with his foot caught in the buoy rope . . . Peter Flower plummeting from the shrouds . . . Forby Sutherland buried at Botany Bay. ‘About a third of us dead, I suppose.’ Isaac paused, then added, ‘No one to scurvy, though.’
‘Then I’d say you were dead lucky. I’ve known ships lose twice as many people in half the time.’
‘We took on bad water at Princes Island. That probably caused the flux.’
‘Neen, neen,’ broke in a Dutch sailing master. ‘Ve sailed straight from Batavia, no stop at Prinzen, still many die of bloody bowel.’
‘Is that true?’
‘Ja, ja. Is bad air and vater at Batavia. Whole place is no bloody good . . . Vere else did you say you haf been in two years and a half?’
But that was a subject about which Isaac knew to keep silent.
Of course it wasn’t only nautical business. Released from months of celibacy aboard an all-male ship, men sought the company of women for pleasure and reassurance. Cape Town was well provided there, too.
Rich Dutch burghers may have lived behind the pious facades of white gabled houses, sheltered from Africa’s wind and dust. But the town existed to meet the needs of seafarers: and down at the waterfront their noisy demands spilled from the taverns and into the streets. Here berthed sinful mankind from around the world. And the girls who served them.
Maria . . . and Francine . . . and Amber . . . and Tabitha . . . Sounds of drumming, and singing, and dancing, and quarrelling, and the clinking of silver. Here was the pulsing, portside life Isaac had glimpsed as a boy at Rio, and been too sick to enjoy at Batavia. Now, entering his manhood at Cape Town, Isaac became part of it: life asserting itself, for he’d come near to death on the ocean.
Sometimes he and Isaac Smith would dress themselves in their finery, hair curled and ribboned, and walk to the Company Gardens, a green oasis in the bare township. They’d stroll among the trees, or look at zebras and ostriches in the zoo, keeping their eyes open for pretty Dutch maidens.
The young gentlemen doffed their hats with sweeping bows – and the young ladies, coquettish behind fans, would curtsey, sending out little sparks of flirtation. Mr Banks always said Dutch women made the best wives in the world. The two Isaacs never really discovered much about them, for the girls were always chaperoned, and the Midshipmen inevitably returned to their dockside nymphs.
That Amber! Looking at the gents across the room with eyes dripping honey. And Tab like a princess in the new silk shawl Isaac bought her . . .
Not surprising, perhaps, that those eternal vows Isaac had sworn to Heimata on a Tahitian beach began to disappear. Nor, as March turned to April, that the few sovereigns left in his purse also vanished. He had clothes to buy. Francine wanted an ivory hair comb. There was no chance a letter to Papa requesting more money would be answered in time. And Mr Molineux started to make demands . . .
The Master had taken lodgings with the sick, but he wasn’t helping his recovery by continuing to drink far more than he should. Whenever Isaac went to visit him of a late afternoon, he’d find Molineux sprawled on his bed, surrounded by bottles and calling drunkenly for more.
‘You’re a good lad, Mr Manley. Be a better one, and bring me a flagon of this good Constantia wine.’
‘It costs very dear, and I’ve almost run out of money.’
‘So have I, son. It’s what comes of long voyages.’ He laughed stupidly. ‘You’re a young gentleman with a rich papa. I’ll pay thee back when we get to England.’
‘But you’re still sick, Master. More liquor won’t help you.’
‘Don’t you tell me!’ Molineux bellowed. ‘It’s the only thing that does help. Laudanum, too.’ He slumped on his pillow and whined. ‘I’ve been good to thee, boy. Taught you well. Why don’t ye return the kindness . . .?’
‘If you put it like that . . .’
‘So I do. And bring another bottle of Mr Perry’s medicine! I’m in shoal waters . . . eh?’ He giggled to himself again.
Pressed by the competing calls of self, obligation and guilt, Isaac’s reserves at last ran dry. And the day came when, kneeling by his sea chest, he found himself opening a small black velvet bag and looking at the two treasures he might sell to raise a little cash to farewell Cape Town in style.
Mother’s locket, with her picture painted on ivory in a silver frame. No. That was for ever. Put it back. Now.
But the translucent South Seas pearl Heimata had given him . . . had taken from her ear . . . its teardrop sheen like the violet sands of Matavai Bay. He might . . . she might not . . . would not mind if it was to help Isaac . . .? Surely she’d part with it as willingly again, to make him happy . . .?
Thus Isaac also found himself in a pawnbroker’s shop exchanging the pearl for a handful of dollars. Solemnly promising to redeem it before Endeavour sailed.
Naturally he didn’t. Isaac wasn’t the first sailor boy to spend all his money, or to find a new love in another port. And in the end it didn’t really matter. Isaac had no need of the pearl to remember Heimata in the moonlight, or rising from the forest pool. She was his first sweetheart. His first love. He never forgot her.
Endeavour was ready for sea by mid-April. Almost as many sick were brought back on board as had gone ashore: indeed, three had since died and few of the others had yet recovered. Certainly not Mr Molineux. He was carried down to his cot and lay wasting away – his duties as Master taken over by Richard Pickersgill.
They’d taken on ten new hands, and Isaac was fully occupied helping to settle them into the routine of the ship as they stood out of Table Bay. It wasn’t until the night of the
fifteenth, anchored off Robben Island, expecting the arrival of a ship with news from England, that he went down to see Molineux.
Nick was there with medicine and sponges: but it seemed the Master was drifting beyond human help. Sickly jaundiced in the lantern light, he tossed and mumbled to himself.
‘By the mark . . . three fathom, Captain . . .’
Catching sight of Isaac, he cried out, ‘Keep ears and eyes open, mouth shut, and any light fingers to thyself, young gentleman.’ Just as he had that first morning at Deptford – though now everything had changed. Here, the two lads gave him commands: it was Mr Molineux who wavered on the brink of an uncharted journey.
‘Don’t concern yourself, Master.’ Isaac wiped his sweating brow. ‘Keep calm, and hold onto me. Nick’s brought a draught for you. We weigh tomorrow.’
‘Aye, aye. Right enough . . .’
He calmed. Though as Isaac left, the man started to cry again, ‘By the mark . . . two . . . and tide’s running out.’
As it was for Robert Molineux. Next day the English ship still hadn’t been sighted, and Cook would wait no longer. Endeavour departed just after dinner; and at four o’clock that afternoon, as they headed into the Atlantic, the Master died. All his worldly goods he left to his sister, Ellen, back home in Liverpool.
‘A young man of good parts,’ the Captain judged him in his journal, ‘but had unfortunately given himself up to extravagancy and intemperance, which brought on disorders that put a period to his life.’ Much as he’d said about Tupaia and Mr Green.
But for Isaac, removing his hat as the late Master’s corpse slid into the sea, it seemed more than that. Perhaps the strain of navigating Endeavour for months through the labyrinth of the reef had proved too much for Molineux. He’d been all right until then. But once back in known seas, maybe his nerve had simply failed. He was young. Only twenty-five years old. He was human. No one at Java was immune from sickness. And he had taught his servant boy all he knew.
By the mark . . . shoal water, Captain.
Or possibly he’d just been at sea too long. Molineux had been around the world once in the Dolphin, and barely been home a month before he signed with Endeavour. He’d have circumnavigated the globe for a second time had he lived another fortnight, for they crossed the Greenwich meridian of zero degrees at the end of April, completing the circuit.
Other Dolphin men saw their second circumnavigation – Gore, Clerke, Pickersgill and Wilkinson – not forgetting the goat. Whereas Robert Molineux . . . Isaac sighed. Who could tell where a man’s weakness lay?
Besides, death hadn’t finished with them yet.
In early May, they anchored off the island of St Helena to take on water and stores, and fell in with a fleet of twelve East Indiamen being escorted home by HMS Portland and the sloop Swallow. It was the same Swallow that sailed with the Dolphin, and now happy re-acquaintance! A chance also to join the convoy, for Endeavour’s rig was daily getting weaker; and for twenty days she kept company with the fleet as they sailed into the tropics.
We’ll rant and we’ll roar like true British sailors,
We’ll rant and we’ll roar across the salt seas.
But Endeavour couldn’t keep up with the other ships, and lost sight of them soon after crossing the equator: though not before Cook gave logbooks and journals to the Portland, thinking it would be home sooner. And not before a surgeon examined Lieutenant Hicks, whose consumption made him no longer fit for duty.
There was nothing to be done, for his illness was in its final stages and, on the afternoon of 26 May, Zachary Hicks also died. John Gore took his place and Charles Clerke was promoted to Lieutenant, for the life of the ship had to continue.
That evening Hicks’ body was committed to the deep: another young man, only thirty-two, whose name still resonates with those who see, from a sailing ship, the blurred point of land he first sighted in the dawn off New South Wales.
Mourning. And ceremony. And Mr Midshipman Manley, with Endeavour’s complement, saluting his passing as the sun set.
Yet grief could wait. Anticipations of home and loved ones could not. Every day brought them closer – and if thoughts and whispers could have filled Endeavour’s sails, they’d have been there sooner. Faces and voices that had lain dormant in memory during the voyage, now reawakened as they’d been three years ago. Isaac began to wonder how much his brothers and sisters would have changed? John must be in the army by now. And Mother and Father? Would they see the changes in him?
He gazed more frequently on Mamma’s portrait in her silver locket, as if to remind himself, ‘Not long!’
Weather eyes scanned for ships that might bring news. A Rhode Island whaler was hailed off the Azores, whose Master told them that England’s quarrels with the American colonists had been made up. For the time being. So that was well.
Straining and heaving with curling wind and waves, Endeavour hurried homeward as fast as she could. But the Whitby collier was weary. Every day something else gave way. A patched t’gallant sail split again. A pair of weather stays broke, and the main topmast cap sprang . . .
They sailed through the summer days of June, north-easting with fair winds for the most part. Higher into northern latitudes. Off Spain. The Bay of Biscay. And heading towards the English Channel.
Not far, little ship, and we’ll all be in safe harbour!
Into July, and more vessels to bespeak in the sea lanes. A Dutch cargo boat bound for Riga. A Boston brig heading to Falmouth. Do they know at home about us? Do they know we’re nearly there? Sing lustily, bullies!
Until we strike soundings in the Channel of old England,
From Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues.
Sunday 7 July. They hailed a Liverpool brig, and another out of London for the West Indies.
‘Be you the Endeavour bark what sailed with the Royal Society gentlemen for the South Seas?’
‘The same.’
‘But they’re saying you be lost with all hands.’
‘No. Have our dispatches not arrived from Batavia?’
‘Don’t know, Captain. Men are laying bets you’re all drownded.’
‘And letters sent by the Admiral Pocock from Cape Town? Have they not reached England?’
‘Can’t say. I do know people are wanting to collect on their wagers.’
‘Well, I’m very glad to say they’ll be disappointed.’
‘Me too, Captain. God speed you, Endeavour. Only three day’s sail to the Scillies and the Chops o’ the Channel.’
Three days! With mothers and wives thinking they might be dead.
‘Mr Gore, give orders to put on every inch of canvas Endeavour will bear.’
There was no need to give orders – or offer rewards – for the man who first saw Land’s End. That challenge was taken for granted by everyone aboard.
So it was, at two o’clock on a clear afternoon four days later, that Nick Young was standing at the masthead. And just as he’d done when he first spied New Zealand, Nick suddenly cried from above –
‘Land! Land ho!’
And with every immense Endeavour heart beating, Old England’s southernmost promontory – the Lizard – hove into view.
So we rounded and sounded, and got forty-five fathoms,
We squared our main yard, up channel steered we.
By nightfall they were abreast of the lighthouses, and all through the next day continued their run along the green, beckoning coastline. Past Portland and Peverell Point. A cutter came alongside, asking if they’d seen the East India fleet? So Isaac knew Endeavour wasn’t far behind!
The signal was made for the grand fleet to anchor,
All in the Downs that night for to meet.
Ever eastward beyond Beachy Head and Dungeness. By noon on Saturday 13 July, Endeavour was nearing Dover’s white cliffs. At three o’clock that afternoon, she came to off the Downs and anchored once more in English waters.
Then it’s stand by your stoppers, see clear your shank-painters,
Haul all your clew garnets, stick out tacks and sheets . . .
Home.
FINALE. FULL CIRCLE
London, July 1771
The Captain and Mr Banks went ashore at Deal and took coach for London and glory. Cook went straight to the Admiralty where he found that his letters from Batavia had arrived, and laid before their astonished Lordships his charts and journals. Yes, and a proposal for another voyage to prove if the southern continent really did exist in as yet unexplored oceans.
‘I suggest, gentlemen,’ Cook observed, ‘you go by way of Africa and Van Diemen’s Land, to Queen Charlotte Sound. Spend a whole summer searching the far South Pacific and Antarctic seas. Then north to Tahiti, perhaps, to refresh and discover those islands Tupaia told us of. And then home with the westering trade winds.’
Their Lordships listened to the Captain – and within four months Resolution was purchased and a new expedition was getting ready, in which Midshipman Isaac Manley was entered as number four in the muster book.
For Cook knew merit where he found it. Just before he went ashore that Saturday afternoon at Deal, he stopped for a word with his young Midshipman.
‘You have done well, Mr Manley. Your father will be pleased, and I shall say so in my report t’ Admiralty.’
It was over a week, however, before Isaac had the chance to tell that to his father in person, though he sent a short note home. A week during which the sick were taken on shore, fresh supplies carried aboard, and the pilot navigated Endeavour – creaking in every joint – around North Foreland and into the estuary of the Thames.
At last, on 20 July 1771, she came to her berth at Woolwich. There was much work still to be done: to secure and unload her, to pay off her crew, and to send what was owing to the families of the dead. Days of labour to lift the crates of specimens from Endeavour’s dark hold, and send them into the light of public adulation.
Thousands of wonders! The strangest plants and animals, birds and fish, paintings, drawings, pieces of rock and native curiosities from places people had barely heard of. It was as if the Endeavour men had returned from another world altogether.