The men went back to their ships. They had had enough. They despised this captain who planned dangerous manoeuvres then changed his mind at the first whiff of battle. By 6 May all they had left to eat were boiled plantain leaves. The ration was five leaves a day for every six men.
1704 They Departed and Fell Out
AND THEN in a capricious way their luck again appeared to change. At midnight that same day they captured a merchant ship, the Assumsion. Its crew, surprised in the dark, put up no resistance. It was loaded with flour, sugar, brandy, wine, tons of quince marmalade, salt, bales of linen and wool. Selkirk said there were enough provisions for four years.
This might have been a high point, a new direction. Passengers on the ship told of eighty thousand Spanish dollars hidden in it at Lima. Selkirk and Funnell were appointed its commanders. The bark used in the abortive Santa Maria raid was sunk, and the Cinque Ports and St George, with what seemed a great prize, headed for the bay of Panama and Tobago Island.
Selkirk thought the intention was to anchor at Tobago then ‘rummage the ship’. But yet again Dampier and Morgan had their own agenda. While the crew unloaded food, they stashed pearls, silk and ‘great Ingotts or wedges of silver and also of gold’ in the cabin of the St George. Then, after four days at Tobago, without any consultation, Dampier gave orders to set the ship free.†
This was the breaking point of the voyage. The men voiced moral outrage. Thieves they might be, but they expected strategy, a sense of fair play, consistency of purpose. Ralph Clift wrote:
After Dampier and Morgan had taken out what they Pleased they would not suffer the Men to rummage the sd Ships but turned them loose again with their Companys and what goods were left in them & would scarsly permit the Men of the sd ships St George & Cinque Ports Gaily to take Cloaths tho’ they were in great want of them.
Stradling, too, felt cheated. There were no great ingots and wedges for him. He rounded on Dampier called him a drunk who marooned his officers, stole treasure, hid behind blankets and beds when it came to a fight, took bribes, boasted of impossible prizes and when there was plunder to hand let it go. He said he would not continue in consort with him. He would sooner sail alone in the Cinque Ports, small though that ship was.
Separated, neither ship had protection against the brutal Spanish guarda-costa or other perils of the sea. To part in such a manner was in direct contravention to the Articles of Agreement with the owners. The crew were told to choose their preferred ship and captain. They were not spoiled for choice. Selkirk elected to go with Stradling. All he personally had gained from this last prize was food: flour, sugar and oranges. He too blamed Dampier for the failure of it all:
Capt Dampier refused to give the Ships Companys leave to rummage the Ship, which if he would have done if any Treasure was on board it might have been discovered. And upon his refusing to let the Ships Companys rummage the Ship they departed and fell out each steering their own Course.
Stradling insisted on his crew’s share of all booty. Dampier gave him eleven hundred pounds but none of the silver and gold. Stradling gave shares to the men who sailed with him. Selkirk received seventeen Spanish dollars.
On 19 May 1704 Dampier headed back to Peru in quest of the Manila treasure ship. Stradling went south down the Mexican coast. The Cinque Ports, small and ill-equipped and with a crew of only forty men, could not manage without the protection of the St George.
Disputes and disagreements flared as rations and hope diminished. Stradling fell out with Selkirk, confined him to the storeroom as a punishment, and gave tasks which should have been his to a junior officer, William Roberts. Alone, in three months the men took only one prize, the Manta de Cristo. It was at anchor. Roberts and the gunner, John Knowles, were sent ashore to demand ransom for it. They were captured by the Spaniards and their ransom demand refused. As a reprisal Stradling burned the prize which Selkirk said was anyway of no value.
The ship went on its way, the going was tedious, the weather hot and supplies low. Then it began to leak. It limped near the shore with two men pumping out water day and night. Hope went. It seemed impossible either to return home or to continue with this journey to nowhere. A year into it there was no food, no treasure, a sense of failure and chaos and many dead. Stradling headed for The Island. He hoped to retrieve the masts, sails, stores and men abandoned six months previously and to patch the timbers of this leaking vessel.
1704 The Worms there doe Eat Shipps
THE Cinque Ports was rowed and towed into the Great Bay of the Island in September 1704. Two of the marooned men guided its boats to the shore. They told of how the French rounded the sheer coast wall of the eastern mountains and took them by surprise. They supposed they had interrogated the man adrift with the dog. The two had escaped capture by hiding in the dense cover of the mountain forest. For days they ate nothing but roots and leaves. They watched the bay and waited until the coast was clear. Their six friends, flushed out by dogs, had surrendered or been shot. The French had taken all the Cinque Ports’ spare equipment, its anchors, cables, boats.
The Island had been kind to the abandoned men, its winter cool and mild. They had built a hearth of large stones near the shore, and a hut of sandalwood, thatched with grasses. They had cooked seal and goat meat, greens and fish.
Work started to careen and refit the Cinque Ports. But it was hard to make progress without replacement masts and rigging. And worms (Teredo navalis) had infested the bottom of the ship and devoured its oak timbers.* Selkirk described these timbers as like honeycomb. It was a ‘great fault’ of Dampier’s, he said, not to have had them sheathed at the start with tarred felt and planks. Dampier had claimed ‘that there was no manner of Danger from the worms whither they were going’. Yet he had been on similar voyages. In his journal he had described the worms of the Caribbean as ‘the biggest I ever did see’. It was foolish to suppose that those of the South Sea might be less gluttonous.†
So there was little point to the efforts of the coopers, smiths, caulkers and sailmakers. Masts were spliced and sails patched but the worm-eaten timbers remained. And the relationship between Selkirk as ship’s Master and Stradling the captain became hostile. Selkirk judged that there was no point in continuing their voyage in this leaking ship. It offered no defence against rough seas. They would not be able to attack an enemy ship or take a prize. He told Stradling they should sail no further unless the worms could be killed by breaming and the ship’s timbers replaced.
Stradling did not want to linger. The Island was not the place of repose of a year before. He had had enough of its waterfalls, valleys and tumbling streams. He was in need of action and fortune, to redeem this voyage and his reputation. He said they would sail again to Peru and try with Dampier for the Manila galleon. At the least they would seize a merchant ship in fair condition that would get them to the East Indies, then home.
Water and oil were casked, wood taken on board, goats tethered, fish salted and turnips and herbs stored. The men were rested, the sick cured or dead. At the beginning of October Stradling gave orders to sail. Selkirk advised the crew to refuse. It was his view that in this ship none of them would go anywhere but to the ocean floor.
Stradling, the gentleman mariner, mocked his caution and belligerence. Selkirk responded with his fists and rage. Stradling accused him of inciting mutiny. He told him he would have his wish and stay on The Island: it was better than he deserved.
Selkirk’s concern about the ship was justified. But no one elected to stay with him. No friend. Nor did the others attempt to overrule Stradling’s decision. They had lingered enough. Though the ship leaked it was their one chance of achieving a residual dream.
Stradling ordered Selkirk’s sea chest, clothes and bedding to be put ashore. Selkirk watched from the beach as the men prepared to leave. He had not wanted the dispute to take this turn. With his brothers and the Largo elders a rebuke in the pulpit, a promise of amendment had settled the score.
He asked Stradling to f
orgive him, to let him rejoin the ship. He said he would comply. Stradling told him to go to hell, he could be food for vultures for all he cared. He hoped his fate would be a lesson to the other men.
Selkirk watched as the small boats prepared to leave the shore. He lumbered over the stones and tried to get on board but was pushed back. He waded into the water, pleading. He watched as the anchor was drawn and the ship towed to the open sea. The sound of the oars dipping into the water, the calling of orders, the little silhouettes of men as they made fast the cables and unfurled the sails, all imprinted on his mind. There was a light breeze from the west. The ship slipped behind the cliff face and from his view. Against this abandonment the rest of his life had the comfort of a dream.
*This quotation is from a compendium of charts and maps used by Dampier. The compendium was seized from a prize ship by a previous buccaneer, Bartholomew Sharp. It had been compiled by a Dutch cartographer, L.J. Waghenaer, in 1584. It was translated into English and copied by a London chartmaker, William Hack. There is a copy in the National Maritime Museum, London.
*The gender of ships is by convention female. But I am not familiar enough with a ship to call it her or she.
*Pieces of eight, the parlance of pirates, were Spanish dollars or ‘piastre’ (pieza de ocho).
*It was known as both the Acapulco and the Manila galleon. It took the name of its port of departure.
*A ship is a large, sea-going vessel, as opposed to a boat. A galleon is a ship of war. A pinnace is a light vessel attendant on a larger one. A bark is a small sailing vessel.
*This record of nemesis quoted in George Anson, A Voyage Round the World (1748) is later than my story. Perhaps seals wreaked vengeance more than once.
*Miskitos are South American Indian people from the Atlantic coast of what is now Nicaragua and Honduras.
*Our Lady of Refuge.
**St Cecilia was the patron saint of music. She was beheaded in AD 230 for refusing to worship idols.
*Dampier, in A New Voyage (1697), explained that ‘Arack is distill’d from Rice, and other things.’
*According to his own testimony, in a Deposition now lodged in the Public Record Office, London (C24 / 1321 pt.1), Selkirk’s year of birth was 1680. (See page 188). In biographical reference to him, and on plaques and statues to his memory, the date given is 1676.
*This is apparently bare-knuckled boxing.
*Now named Sao Tiago.
*A fathom is about six feet. It is determined by the length of the outstretched arms of an average-sized man, to the tip of his longest finger.
*A league is about three miles.
*Shipworms have two small shells, each about a third of an inch long, with toothed ridges, with which they tunnel into wood. The worm’s body is supported by the tunnel as it bores and feeds.
3
THE ARRIVAL
THE ARRIVAL
A Ceawau
1704 Monsters of the Deep
ALL COURAGE left him when the ship was gone. The sea stretched out. The line of its horizon was, he knew, only the limit of his sight. The sea that had beckoned freedom and fortune now locked him in.
Thomas Jones, James Ryder, William Shribes, John Cobham … He thought they would come back for him. He stayed by the shore, scanning the ocean. Whatever their fate he now wanted to be with them. If their ship sank he would choose to go down with it. It was his ship too.
Laurence Wellbroke, Martin Cooke, Christian Fletcher, Peter Haywood… they defined his world. The voyage they had made together was for more than gold: it was to show courage, to have a common purpose, to be men. Without them The Island was a prison and he a mariner without a ship, a man without a voice.
The day grew cool, the wind ruffled the water and for a moment a rogue wave or a cloud looked like a sail. His hope was that someone would persuade Stradling to think again. They would come back for him. He would welcome them with fires and food.
He waited outside of time, like a dog. Prayer, he had been taught, had a controlling force. He invoked God, to sort this mess out. He prayed in a cajoling way. He felt rage at Stradling. Even Dampier, mad and drunk, marooned Huxford in the company of men. But Stradling had marooned him, Selkirk, with calculated malice and mocked him as the boat rowed off.
He did not leave the shore. He clambered over the stones to the western edge of the bay, wanting the wider view of the ocean. The fur seals bottled and dived, surf broke over the rocks. He was trapped in the bay by sheer cliffs. He clambered back to the eastern edge by the fast-flowing stream where trees grew close to the water’s edge.
The sun dipped down, the air cooled, the mountains loured. Dark came and the moon cut a path across the ocean. All night the seals howled. These were monsters of the deep. He feared they would encroach and break his limbs with their jaws. He fired a bullet into the air. For a minute the bay seemed quiet. Then it started again, a croak, a howl. This Island was a place of terror.
In his argument with Stradling, he had seen The Island as a place of plenty and comfort. The safe bet. He had reasoned that survival would be possible, even pleasurable. That rescue would soon come. But there was fear in the dancing shadows of night. There was malice focused on him. A hostile presence sensed his every move. He feared cannibalism. That he would be taunted and devoured.
The wind surged through the valley, the wind, he was to learn, that was strongest when the moon was full. It uprooted trees. They swished and crashed. The sound merged with the breaking waves, the calling seals and the cries of creatures preyed on at night.
1704 Griping of the Guts
IT WAS early spring and around him life regenerated, but he hated The Island, its inaccessible terrain, ferocious waterfalls and gusting winds. A faint breeze at night would stir to whirlwind. It was as if the wind was born in these mountains.
Time passed. ‘He grew dejected, languid, scarce able to act.’ He stayed by the shore, drank rum, chewed tobacco, and watched the sea. He stared so hard and long he only half remembered he was searching for a sail. Often he was deceived by the blowing of a whale or the refraction of light.†
There was a makeshift hut by the shore, of sailcloth, sandalwood and rushes. He put his possessions in it and envied those who had built it. They had got away.
He had with him his clothes and bedding, a pistol, gunpowder, bullets, a hatchet, a knife, a pot in which to boil food, a bible, a book of prayers, his navigation instruments, and charts on how to read the imprisoning sea. He had two pounds of tobacco, and a single flask of rum. He had bits of food, enough for three meals – quince marmalade and cheese – but no bread or salt. He suffered when his liquor flask was empty. Liquor brought oblivion.
‘At first he never eat any thing till Hunger constrain’d him, partly for grief and partly for want of Bread and Salt; nor did he go to bed till he could watch no longer.’ He drank from the streams when thirsty, splashed himself with water if he itched, or stank or was hot. He pissed where he stood, shat on the stones, ate turnips and watercress pulled from the earth, picked up turtles and lobsters that crawled the shore and scooped out their flesh with his knife.
He became thin and weak. He wanted death and to be gone from this fate. It calmed him to suppose that if no ship came his gun to his temple would end his life. He thought of drowning, of swimming toward the horizon until exhausted. But he had seen sharks devour the corpses of men buried at sea. He had seen a shark tear the leg from a boy who fell from the masthead.
And then it seemed The Island would kill him, would do the deed. The turtle flesh ‘occasion’d a Looseness’ that twisted his guts like knives, his shit was liquid, he retched and vomited and supposed he would die. He crawled into his bedding and forgot to hope for the ship’s return.
The pain abated, he survived. Survival was all. He collected twigs and branches of sandalwood, started a fire with the flint of his gun, boiled water in his kettle and infused it with mint that grew in the valley and with Malagita pepper which he thought to be good for Griping
of the Guts.
1704–9 Alone Upon This Island
SELKIRK SUPPOSED in time a ship would come, fatigued by the sea, needing a harbour, but time for him might stop. He had seen bleached human skulls on deserted islands, abiding proof of the marooned.
Other men had survived The Island: the two who escaped the French. In six months they suffered no extravagant hardship though they did not linger when dubious rescue came. And Will, the Miskito Indian – it was twenty years since his rescue. The remains of his hut and hearth were high in the mountains, engulfed by ferns. Like Will, Selkirk could forge harpoons and lances from the metal of his gun, strike fire from sticks, survive on seal and cabbages and fashion clothes from animal skins.
And Dampier had told of a shipwreck, before Will was abandoned, in the Great Bay where only one man reached the shore alive. ‘He lived alone upon this Island five years before any Ship came this way to carry him off.’
Marooned men fended until rescue came: Pedro de Serrano, stranded on a barren Pacific island, drank the blood of turtles and survived seven years without fresh water, though he went insane. Philip Ashton, captured by pirates in 1700, then abandoned on Roatan Island in the Bay of Honduras, was attacked by snakes and a wild boar, but did not die. In the manner of counting blessings Selkirk might deem himself fortunate. There were worse scenarios than his own. He was as strong as any man. He could endure The Island for months or even years.
He thought of escape, of a raft with branches bound with the entrails of seals, of a hollowed canoe. But the nearest land was Valparaiso, six hundred miles north. Were he by fluke to survive the treachery of this ocean, its capricious currents, the violence of its waves, the appetite of sharks and the heat of the sun, if the guarda-costa caught him they would show no mercy. They made it a rule never to allow an Englishman with knowledge of these seas ever to go free. Were he to reach the mainland he would be consigned to the workhouse or the mines, put in leg irons, tortured for information about his fellow privateers. At best, murdered.
Selkirk's Island Page 6