by Joanna Orwin
In that task they had no success, the swamp yielding only a few brackish, muddy pools. So several hours later, the disheartened landing party straggled back towards the shore, no longer bothering to watch out for the absent inhabitants. Exhausted and thirsty, André was plodding along in the rear when movement caught his eye. He turned aside to check. Half-protruding from behind a low-growing bush was a pair of sprawled legs that ended in dusty black feet.
Heart beginning to pound, André stood still and watched. The feet twitched slightly. ‘Monsieur Crozet!’ he called urgently after the landing party, already disappearing through the scrub. He waited for them to return, unable to bring himself to investigate more closely. The feet did not twitch again.
Pushing aside the low branches, the Mascarin’s second-in-command exposed the body of one of the primitives. He crouched to examine him. ‘He’s been hit by at least three of our musket balls.’
André looked down at the naked body. The man seemed quite young, but he was pitifully thin, the skinniness of his long legs emphasized by over-large, bony knee caps. The ensign could see a line of bilious white exposed under the man’s half-closed crusted eyelids. His thick lips were fixed in a grimace of pain, and sweat had cut reddish trails in his black skin. Below a series of crescent-shaped parallel scars, his chest and stomach were a mass of congealed blood and entrails. The ensign swallowed a rush of nausea and turned his head away.
Lieutenant Le Dez asked, ‘Is there anything we can do for this poor unfortunate?’
The senior officer shook his head and stood up. ‘Alas, he’s dying, if not already dead.’ He cautiously prodded at the inert body with his musket. The man did not react. His head lolled to one side, blood now trickling from his ears and nose.
‘Ma fois, these Diemenlanders are nothing but wild beasts,’ said Sub-Lieutenant de Vaudricourt. ‘His fellows abandoned him to his fate without compunction.’
‘I think not,’ Monsieur Crozet said quietly. He indicated the circle of broken darts and spears surrounding the body. ‘Those would suggest some element of ritual, however rudimentary. We were pursuing them, don’t forget.’
‘Should we bury him, sir?’ André asked. He had overlooked the broken weapons, and felt a pang of shame at his own ready dismissal of these people. ‘Show our regret somehow?’
The senior officer shook his head. ‘Unwise, however kindly meant, Monsieur Tallec. We don’t know their customs. Any such action on our part might bring retaliation.’
‘We should at least make note of his particulars,’ said Chevillard briskly. ‘Monsieur Marion would expect us to take advantage of the opportunity for scientific records. Those red marks on his skin, for example, would indicate he’s not as black as he seems.’
André wondered how the clerk could be so callous, disliking him even more than usual.
Monsieur Crozet looked down at the body. ‘He’s beyond any further harm we can do him.’
After waiting a few more moments to be sure the man was indeed dead, the senior officer took his handkerchief and gently washed a portion of the Diemenlander’s skin with the last of their water. His blackness proved to be a layer of encrusted dirt, the skin underneath the filth the reddish brown suggested by the sweat trails on his body. The clerk took one of the broken spears and, using it as a measure, estimated the man was of average height, about five foot and three inches. Much to André’s disgust, he then used the spear to prise apart the primitive’s jaws. Although his small teeth were white, worms of some sort wriggled inside his mouth.
‘Those would seem to indicate poor health,’ said Lieutenant Le Dez. ‘These people must lead a wretched existence.’
There being nothing more they could do, the landing party left the man as they found him and made their weary way through the sand dunes back to the beach. It was already evening and the air was growing cold. They waited in dispirited silence for the hailed Mascarin to send a boat to fetch them. Behind them in the darkening trees, the black crows mocked them with their raucous cawing. There was no sign of the Diemenlanders. No fires were lit ashore that night.
For the next few days, Monsieur Marion sent armed parties ashore at various points along the bay in search of water and timber for repairing their ships. Suffering a recurrence of the fevers that had plagued him since his years of trading along the African coast for the Compagnie des Indes, the expedition leader had been ordered by the surgeon to stay in his cabin and rest. His Malagasy slave, François, his leg ostentatiously bandaged and limping heavily long after the spear wound showed signs of healing, looked after him, his ministrations accompanied by his habitual grumbling. Monsieur du Clesmeur needed no encouragement to stay on board his ship. Once it was clear they could expect no help from the Diemenlanders nor find anything of use to them in this Godforsaken landscape, he used his own minor injury as an excuse to refrain from further exploration. Jean said he was malingering.
The Diemenlanders had vanished. They left little behind them, and seemed to possess little to leave. On one trip ashore, André’s party found where some of the primitives had camped. A score of crude shelters made from bark stripped from the surrounding trees were scattered in a hollow behind the sand dunes. The ensign stirred the ashes of a cooking fire. All he could find were a few fish skeletons and a heap of mussel and cockle shells, apparently roasted on the embers. Wherever the party went, they came across great piles of such shells and mounds of ashes where they had been cooked. There was no sign of other food remains. He wondered how even primitives could survive in such harsh conditions, living naked and without adequate shelter. The nights were already growing cold as autumn set in.
After six days, Monsieur Marion lost his enthusiasm for staying on. He decided they were wasting precious time in a country where people could barely find sustenance, its wild inhabitants surviving only by living like animals. This first encounter with peoples of the Pacific had yielded nothing but disappointment and disillusionment. On 10 March, the ships weighed anchor and sailed for New Zealand in the hope that there they would encounter inhabitants of a more hospitable disposition—true Naturals or Men of the Woods—and find all they needed in the way of supplies and the timber needed for the now-urgent repairs to their ships.
Chapter 3
25 March–26 April 1772
New Zealand coast 39°15 ′–34°25 ′ S
Land ahoy!’ The lookout’s early-morning shout from the Mascarin’s masthead had everyone scrambling into the rigging. It was their first sight of land after an uneventful run from Van Diemen’s Land, which had taken a fortnight. By midday, André could see the sugarloafed shaped peak from the deck, although it was still eight to ten leagues away. Monsieur Marion decided to name it Pic Mascarin after the ship. By the end of the day, it became clear that the distinctive snow-capped peak was part of a larger land mass. They had reached the western coast of New Zealand.
Much to everyone’s surprise, the Marquis de Castries had managed to retain visual contact with the Mascarin. Early in the expedition—after losing contact soon after leaving the Île-de-France and only meeting up again at the Cape of Good Hope—the two captains made arrangements to meet off the Three Kings Islands at the northern tip of New Zealand should they become separated. The Dutch voyager Tasman had left clearly defined positions for these islands, waxing enthusiastic about them as a reliable source of fresh water and firewood. Before leaving Van Diemen’s Land, some of the officers on board the Mascarin laid wagers on how long it would take on their crossing of the Tasman Sea before Monsieur du Clesmeur and the Castries disappeared from sight during the hours of darkness.
Jean was one of those who gambled on the larger ship’s slowness and the inexperience of her captain. Now seriously out of pocket, he complained to André. ‘I have to assume Monsieur Le Corre took charge, mordieu! He must’ve decided that leaving that popinjay to make mistakes was no longer in his own best interests.’
‘Meaning he’d done so before?’ André was shocked at the implication. ‘You�
��re saying Monsieur Le Corre could’ve avoided the collision that’s caused us so many problems?’
‘Well, maybe I’d not go that far,’ Jean conceded. ‘But you can’t tell me that a “blue” officer of his calibre finds it easy having such a young and incompetent captain in charge—with nothing to recommend him but his aristocratic connections and his book-learning in the Gardes de la Marine.’
‘Maybe even Monsieur du Clesmeur has no trouble sailing in open ocean with a favourable wind,’ said André. ‘Once we’re negotiating this coastline, things might be different.’
‘Too late to help me, tant pis!’ said Jean. ‘I’ve had to pay out already.’
André knew Monsieur Marion had ordered the Castries to lead the way across the Tasman because the larger ship was overstrained in trying to keep up with his own command. He thought it was probably the expedition leader’s prowess that had kept the two ships in contact, and Monsieur du Clesmeur’s competence or otherwise was irrelevant. He kept his mouth shut—Jean would not appreciate hearing this.
It seemed he was right in thinking Monsieur Marion wanted to ensure that Monsieur du Clesmeur could not make any more serious mistakes and delay their landing. As they approached closer to the New Zealand coast, the expedition leader began signalling the Castries whenever he wanted the other ship to change tack or alter sail. André was kept busy running up the signal flags.
For the next week, the two ships reconnoitred northwards along the New Zealand coast, standing close towards the land whenever their soundings showed deep enough water. They passed beautiful sandy beaches and apparent inlets with entrances blocked by fierce lines of breakers. Every day they saw the smoke of fires. Once, they were close enough to shore for André to see distant human figures, but he could not pick up any detail. He could only hope this time Monsieur Marion was right, that by offering kindnesses they would receive hospitality and help from the local inhabitants. It would be better still if they proved to be the gentle and amiable Pacific people promised by Monsieur Thirion’s philosophers. He tried to ignore the doubting part of his brain that reminded him that their first New Zealand landfall was called Murderers’ Bay by Tasman after three of his men were attacked and killed there; that the Zealanders might therefore prove even less hospitable than the inhabitants of Van Diemen’s Land.
On a calm day when they could make no progress, Monsieur Marion signalled for the officers of the Castries to come aboard, bringing their navigational records so the two captains could compare their calculations once more. Both ships had corrected their estimates of longitude during their stay at Van Diemen’s Land, where they had been able to get good lunar readings. The expedition leader told his three ensigns to join the senior officers in the great cabin. ‘An excellent opportunity for you to learn something more of these modern skills, gentlemen.’
Once the senior officers were seated, the charts, almanacs and sheets of calculations spread out before them, Monsieur Marion beckoned the hovering ensigns to stand close enough to see. André ended up directly opposite Monsieur du Clesmeur, who as usual was fashionably wigged and wearing his formal scarlet and gold uniform. Jean said he never wasted an opportunity to rub it in that he was the only ‘red’ officer on the expedition—not that it would do him much good. Irked by losing their money on the cross-Tasman wager, the officers on board the Mascarin had taken to making jokes at the young aristocrat’s expense. None of them had much time for him, although they were careful not to express their opinions in Monsieur Marion’s hearing. The ensign assumed this was because they knew the expedition leader would not tolerate such signs of disunity, but Jean had snorted impatiently. ‘Make no mistake, cousin. Monsieur Marion’s greatest ambition is to buy into the nobility. You’d think he’d realize he’s worth more than any feckless aristocrat who’s never worked an honest day in his life. But no, he’ll even lick the boots of a poltroon like Monsieur du Clesmeur if he thinks it’ll win him prestige and acceptance in aristocratic circles back home.’
André wanted to protest. He admired their expedition leader’s drive, and thought that, rather than aristocratic acceptance, it was honour and glory, adventure and fame, he was seeking. Besides, surely Monsieur Marion had no need to be sycophantic? He had little to gain from toadying up to Monsieur du Clesmeur, being himself a man of considerable property, with family well-connected in the Church and the prosperous Breton merchant class back in St-Malo. But there was no point getting Jean started on that subject. The senior ensign could rant on endlessly about the iniquities of the aristocracy and their determination to deprive the more worthy and able bourgeoisie of any real political or social power.
From the sardonic glances now being exchanged with their counterparts from the Castries, the ensign was uncomfortably aware that if it were put to the test, the officers from the other ship would likely be more loyal to their ex-Compagnie des Indes’ comrades on the Mascarin than to the inexperienced captain they had to tolerate. But there was no time for further distracting thoughts. Monsieur Marion was calling the meeting to attention.
‘Let’s start by hearing your readings, sir,’ he said, nodding to the Castries’ captain.
Monsieur du Clesmeur cleared his throat. His tone neutral, he said, ‘According to my corrected longitudes, two days ago we were high and dry eight leagues or so inland of Pic Mascarin.’
Startled, André laughed. But no one else joined him. In the silence that followed, he dared to look at Monsieur du Clesmeur. The captain met his eye and nodded so slightly the ensign wondered whether he had imagined this acknowledgement. After a pause, the captain continued with his report, his voice if anything even more neutral. But André noticed that he held himself stiffly, and the hand that took his habitual pinch of snuff trembled slightly. The ensign glanced around the table at the other officers. The older men were all studiously looking down at their own papers. The awkward moment passed, and they began discussing the discrepancies that had arisen, both amongst themselves and with Tasman’s chart.
Monsieur Marion soon dismissed the calculations made from lunar sightings. ‘I see no value in them, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘They’re too difficult for ordinary sailors to waste time in trying to achieve results. Our ready reckonings prove more accurate, time and time again.’
Contrary to André’s expectation, Monsieur du Clesmeur did not raise the contentious matter of chronometers or the need for expert astronomers. For once, he offered no opinion, but merely sat listening, fingers drumming softly on his snuff box.
After the Castries’ yawl returned to her ship, André found a moment to ask Jean why the officers had all snubbed Monsieur du Clesmeur. ‘He was cracking a joke, mordieu. Against himself, what’s more. It’s the first time he’s seemed remotely human!’
His cousin shrugged. ‘Tant pis! We all lost money wagering on his ineptitude.’
As they progressed further up the coast, anyone would think the Castries’ captain was deliberately rubbing salt in that wound. Certainly Jean thought so. He cited the other ship’s often bungled manoeuvres. More than once the consort ship came close to falling aboard the Mascarin again, only bearing away in the nick of time. André pointed out that their own people were struggling to work their ship. As well as the men suffering from chronic ailments brought on by their weeks in the Southern Ocean, many others were weakened by the scurvy now taking its toll day by day. ‘We’ve missed stays as often as the Castries.’
But his scornful cousin insisted the faulty manoeuvres were all down to the young captain seeking revenge. André gave up. He was too weary himself to argue about such a lack of logic—it was hardly likely Monsieur du Clesmeur knew anything of a wager laid on board the Mascarin. It did seem, though, that the Castries’ captain had lost some of his confidence. At night, whenever the ships strayed out of sight of each other’s lights, he wasted no time in firing his cannon—and repeated firing them until the Mascarin responded with a return shot or by placing braziers to light up her sails. During the day, he stayed so clos
e to the smaller ship that Jean claimed he could see the whites of his eyes. ‘Rolling, what’s more, like those of a startled horse!’
Monsieur Crozet, who usually guarded his tongue in front of the ensigns, lost patience. He was heard to say, ‘Peste soit du sot! A plague on the young idiot! Next thing, he’ll be asking for a wet nurse.’
Monsieur Marion made no attempt to hide his own impatience—impatience André thought gave the lie to his cousin’s insistence that the expedition leader would make endless allowances for the captain’s inexperience because of his aristocratic status. Before long, Monsieur Marion signalled the Castries to follow each and every one of his own manoeuvres, going as far as giving her captain the headings he wanted him to follow.
André had his own reasons for wanting to make landfall without further delays. For the last week he had been aware that his gums were sore and tender, and that morning they started to bleed. Reluctantly, he took himself off to Monsieur Thirion’s cabin. The surgeon examined him, then nodded. ‘You have the first signs of scurvy, Monsieur Tallec. Many of the men are showing graver signs—putrid gums, loose teeth and foul breath, spots on their thighs. At least you’ve not yet developed those.’
As the ensign dressed, he asked, ‘Is there anything I can do, sir?’ He was apprehensive. Although like all sailors, he knew of scurvy, this voyage was his first one long enough to be at personal risk of experiencing the dreaded disease.
‘Spend as much time on deck as possible,’ said the surgeon. ‘Many authorities believe shipboard air’s one of the major causes of scurvy. The air below deck is foul after so long at sea—not helped by still having animals in the pens. But now we’re close to shore, you should gain some benefit from the land air. I’ll also put you on the list of those to receive chicken broth rather than salt beef.’ He looked at André’s expression and laughed. ‘Allons, allons, young man—why the long face? You’ll most likely survive.’
