by Graeme Lay
Now hemmed in on both sides by huge, snowy mountains, the gulf was definitely funnelling them north-east. And the winds were fluky, making the ships less manageable. At times they were becalmed, and the water in the sound turned shiny, like scar tissue. Now when Bligh took a sample of water and tasted it, he gave James a knowing look. ‘Brackish, sir,’ he declared. James turned away, unwilling to admit the significance of this. Gore, looking on, said nothing.
Now concerned at where they might be heading, James ordered two of the boats hoisted. He told King to go in one and Bligh in the other. Dense fog filled the sound and visibility was limited to 20 yards. ‘Go ahead on both coasts and see what lies beyond,’ he told the two men, and ordered the helmsmen to bring the ship to.
Five hours later the boats returned. King and Bligh climbed to the quarterdeck, their faces set. King reported, ‘To the east the sound ends at an inlet, and that ends at a river mouth.’
‘And to the west is another inlet and another river mouth,’ Bligh added.
James turned away, cursing. They had come to the end of a cul-desac. They had wasted a week and now, in returning to the open sea, they would waste another. Two weeks, two whole weeks. He brought his stick down hard on the rail. Why hadn’t he ignored Gore’s suggestion? Why had he placed faith in the Russian’s fictional passage? This senseless deviation would cost them a fortnight, time that ought properly to have been spent sailing west towards the Bering Strait.
Returning to the quarterdeck, he saw his first officer in discussion with Williamson. ‘Gore! A word!’
‘Yes, Captain?’
‘This sound comes to nothing. We are at a dead end.’
‘Yes, King has informed me of the fact.’ Gore drew a deep breath. ‘Yet it was worth the exploration.’
‘It was not!’ James was openly angry now. ‘We have wasted valuable time in entering this sound, and we must now waste yet more.’
Gore’s expression became mulish. ‘I hope you are not blaming me for this error, Captain.’
‘You were the one who urged us to change course,’ James retorted.
‘But the decision to change course was yours to make, sir, and you made it. You did not have to agree to my suggestion.’
Speechless with rage now, James turned away. Yes, the ultimate authority lay with him. He should have insisted they continue to follow the coast. And he had not done so. He had agreed to follow this phantom passage to nowhere.
He closed his eyes tightly. Again he felt the anguish of failure. And the pain in his gut was worse, lodged there like a lump of hot iron. Anything that could go wrong on this voyage was doing so.
He went to the rail and called down to Bligh, who was overseeing the hoisting aboard of the launches. ‘Bligh!’
‘Captain?’
‘We are returning to the open sea. Signal Clerke.’
From now on it became distressingly evident that the shape of the land was forcing them to follow a south-west course. Instead of pushing north towards the Bering Sea and Strait, for over two weeks they had been losing water. Standing well off from a lee shore, they could not tell if the fog-obscured land in the distance was a peninsula or a series of islands. Again the Russian charts were so sketchy they were of no practical use.
As the days passed they cursed the fogs that hung around the ships like soggy shrouds. ‘What is the cause of these infernal mists?’ Williamson asked as he and James huddled in their capes on the deck. The fog was so dense that even the foredeck was not visible.
James sniffed. To add to his discomforts, he had developed a chill. ‘The fog is condensation,’ he replied, ‘caused by the meeting of Arctic air and warm water.’ The phenomenon was known to him from his time on America’s eastern coast, where the Gulf Stream also met polar air, producing frequent fogs.
Frowning, Williamson peered overboard. ‘That water is warm?’
‘Relatively. The ocean currents carry it up here from the tropical latitudes.’
‘Will the fogs ease as we go further north?’
‘Probably not. So you’d best get used to it.’
Glimpses of the land to starboard revealed that it was mountainous and covered in snow. After several more days of hard sailing they saw a volcanic cone ejecting a plume of black smoke thousands of feet into the air. The volcano’s slopes were coated with snow, but near its summit there was a clear ring of black where the snow had been melted by the crater’s heat. They studied this satanic feature in awed silence before the fog descended again.
Fearful of losing one another, both ships regularly fired their guns, beat drums, blew whistles and sounded rattles in order to maintain their precious companionship. As they did so, James recalled the distressing days in the Antarctic Ocean in the New Year of 1773, when Resolution and Adventure had become separated because of dense fog. ‘This must not happen to us,’ he stressed to his officers and Bligh. But the risk of a separation was always present.
Whenever the fog lifted it was replaced by sleet and driving rain, and when that ceased, snow fell, coating the decks and rigging and freezing the crews’ hands and faces. Sea birds too battled the wind and were sometimes snared in the shrouds. They were brought down, killed, plucked and eaten. Contrary currents added to the helmsmen’s struggles and Bligh’s course settings. For James, memories kept returning of his time in Antarctic waters. On that voyage too the daylight hours had been long. But now, as then, this was irrelevant, as the fogs turned both day and night into blinding white light.
There was the occasional respite. One day they were becalmed and the mist was melted by the watery sun. The men dropped lines baited with meat scraps over the gunwales and brought up more than 100 fat halibut, a haul that brought them all a welcome change of diet.
Caped and scarfed against the cold, James spent hours on the platform with his scope, hugging the mainmast, searching the shore for a break in the land that might admit them to Alaska’s north-western coast. Although he glimpsed one or two possible breaks, they were too uncertain and the risks thus too great. The ships would continue on their present course, although it was still being bent south by the trend of the land.
Aware that time was slipping away, and with the wind rising, on 26 June James ordered all sails loosed. The ships were again surrounded by fog, but to heave to and wait for it to lift would only waste more time. Now that the summer solstice had passed, time was more crucial than ever. Visibility was reduced to less than 50 yards, but there was a following wind.
Sailing blind but gathering impetus under full sail, Resolution approached five knots. Discovery followed close astern, her helmsmen’s eyes fixed on the fog-buoy Resolution was towing. This was a piece of wood shaped like a scoop that threw up spray and so gave them a sign to follow. Shrieking whistles from astern told the crew of Resolution that Discovery was still following them.
On board Resolution, helmsmen Whelan and Roberts, with Bligh alongside them, looked askance at James. We’re running too fast for the conditions, their expressions read. Ignoring them, James yelled, ‘Hold your course!’
Then from the mainmast platform came a cry from midshipman Watts. ‘Breakers! Breakers dead ahead!’
The sound of waves crashing onto rocks was like claps of thunder. Between the crashings a ghastly sucking noise carried to them.
James rushed to the starboard rail. ‘Leadsman!’
Minutes later came the reply. ‘Twenty-five fathoms!’ Then a few minutes later, ‘Twenty-three fathoms!’
James shouted, ‘Heave to! Heave to!’
Bligh yelled at the crew, his cries ringing out around the decks. ‘Down helm! Clew up everything! Haul the spanker to windward! Let go the sprits and foresail sheets!’ His voice was now almost a scream. ‘Look lively! Lively, damn you!’
Turned into the wind, both ships rolled heavily. Their sails began to droop. The leadsman’s cries came regularly. ‘Twenty fathoms! … Eighteen fathoms! … Sixteen fathoms!’
Two hours later the fog began to lift. When
the air cleared the crews stared, shocked, at what lay around them. To both larboard and starboard, and only yards astern, were rows of tall rocks like blackened fangs. And ahead of them by only 200 yards waves were rising then dashing down onto more rocks. They had missed those on either side by mere yards. And if the ships had held their course, within a few minutes they would have been impaled on the rocks that lay ahead, and fatally holed.
On the larboard mid-deck Bligh clutched the rail, his chest heaving. The faces of his helmsmen had turned a shade paler. Officer of the watch Williamson stared at James in consternation. The deck crew too all looked towards him, their expressions easily read: why had the captain ordered full sails with a following wind when they were surrounded by fog?
Up ahead, beyond the breakers, was a mountainous but grassy island. Now that the wind had dropped, its coast looked sheltered. ‘That’ll make a fine anchorage,’ James said to Williamson. He looked to starboard through his scope. ‘And to the west it looks likely there’s a clear passage to the north.’ He called down to Bligh. ‘Lower the anchors!’
Later, Clerke was brought aboard. Over brandies, he smiled ruefully at James. ‘Nice pilotage, Captain. Considering our perfect ignorance of the situation.’
James did not return his smile. Staring at the island he said dispiritedly, ‘I’m calling this place Providence.’
And that night, while trying unsuccessfully to sleep, his mind was consumed by what had almost happened. The nightmarish scene of 10 June 1770 on the Great Barrier Reef, and the foundering of Endeavour, had nearly been repeated. Then, as now, he had made an almost-fatal error of judgment. In New Holland, to sail through the night amid coral reefs; in this place, to sail hard with virtually no visibility. Both ships could have been lost. It was a near-miracle they had not been.
Hearing the ship’s bell ring for the midnight hour, he turned again in his berth. Resolution rode easily at anchor, and the soothing slurp of the sea reached him through the bulkhead. Always he believed in erring on the side of caution, but today his actions had been unwise, even reckless, and every man aboard must be aware of the fact.
Lying on his back now, he pressed his hands to his aching belly. There would be little sleep again tonight. Am I going insane?
Twenty-six
20 JULY 1778
Dearest Elizabeth,
High summer for you and little Hugh in London. What memories that brings! Roses in full bloom, scarlet geraniums in their pots, wisteria blooming, primroses and wildflowers on the common. I hope that James and Nathaniel are writing to you regularly from Portsmouth, and possibly even obtaining leave and coming home. Upon my return I will have a great many mementoes for them. I’ve collected weapons from the Indians with whom we have had contact, which I’m sure they will find of interest.
We are now in the Bering Sea, following the coast of Alaska. It is a huge landmass, with snow-covered mountains which soar from the sea. Notwithstanding that the land is too cold and barren to be of economic use, I have claimed Alaska for England. This occurred two days ago, after we anchored off a cape at one end of a cove which I named Bristol Bay. The bay was sounded by our sailing masters and found to be so full of shoals that we could not safely anchor there. However, the cape afforded a sheltered anchorage, so Lieutenant Williamson led a party ashore, climbed a hill and claimed Alaska for King George. He also asked to name the cape Newenham after a friend of his. A solid English-sounding name, I thought, so why not? This had the effect of rendering Williamson more agreeable than he usually is.
We are now bound for the Bering Strait. The ships struggle with the conditions, as do the crews. The cold is constant, the sea ‘ jumbling’, to employ Clerke’s apt adjective. Worst of all is the blind fog that surrounds us most of the time. It brings cold and dampness to everything it touches, impedes our progress and brings despond to the company, clinging to the sails and rigging, and seeping below decks like a malign spirit. It is the fear of us all that the ships will become irretrievably separated. Both give off noise constantly with guns, drums, horns, rattles, bells and whistles. Amid the foggy gloom we sound like a raucous fairground, run by madmen. Fortunately Clerke is a far more able commander than Furneaux was back in ’73, so the ships remain in close company. Though he is still unwell, Clerke maintains a cheerful manner and navigates with admirable skill. I am fortunate to have him as my deputy.
I am still sleeping poorly. And when it does eventually come, my sleep is accompanied by fearful dreams. Some involve gigantic waves that come at the ship, with no possibility of escape. Another has me falling from the edge of an abyss, at the bottom of which is a cauldron of volcanic fire. Other nights I am being attacked by ferocious natives, and although I have my Brown Bess and aim it at them, it fails to fire.
After such dreams I wake exhausted. However, since there are few subjects more boring than other people’s dreams, I will not mention the subject to you again.
My gut is still not good. The pain is considerable. But as Mama used to say to me, in Great Ayton, ‘Mustna’ grumble, Jimmy, mustna’ grumble.’ And I never do, except to you in these writings.
Our food supplies are low, and we are fortunate that fish (halibut and cod) is sometimes available. Wood for the galley firebox is also running short, so we will soon need to obtain more.
It is my intention that by early August we will pass through the Bering Strait, which separates America from Siberia. This will afford us time to explore the Arctic Ocean and discover an eastward passage through to the Atlantic. The fact that that will bring me more quickly closer to you and our family gives added impetus to the voyage. I may even be back in England by Christmas!
Your loving husband,
James
‘Captain?’ The plump, usually cheerful face of surgeon’s mate Samwell was taut with concern.
James rose from his desk. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s the surgeon, sir. He’s very poorly.’
James stood over Anderson’s berth, Samwell behind him. The surgeon’s face was ashen, his breathing just audible. His hands were clasped, claw-like, in front of him; sweat streamed from his brow into the hollows of his cheeks. Although his eyes were open, the whites had turned yellow. James placed a hand gently on his brow. The sweat was cold.
Anderson’s eyes turned and alighted on his commander. ‘Sir, sir …’
The statement remained unfinished. He convulsed twice, then from his mouth came a torrent of blood which poured down over the blanket covering him. He gave a terrible groan, then became still. His mouth stayed agape, his eyes open but sightless.
James drew back, but was unable to take his eyes from the stricken figure. From behind him came a sob. Turning, he saw that Samwell had his forearm over his face to block out the hideous sight. He put a hand on the young man’s arm. Samwell’s eyes were closed tightly but tears were leaking from under the lids.
‘He was a good man,’ James said, dully.
Samwell just nodded, his face a twisted knot of grief.
The burial service was held the next morning. Samwell and King held the body, wrapped in weighted sail-cloth, at the starboard gate. James stood behind them, commander’s prayer book in hand. Turned into the wind, Resolution was rolling heavily in the swells. The crew had gathered around the mid-deck in their fearnoughts, caps in hand, faces downcast. Anderson had been well liked.
James’s voice rose above the moaning of the wind. ‘Unto almighty God we commend the soul of our loved brother departed and commit his remains to the deep.’ As he intoned the words, he felt anger rather than grief. Why should a decent man like Anderson be taken so cruelly and prematurely? Almighty God, you have much to answer for.
King and Samwell raised the canvas package, then consigned it to the heaving sea. Around them the fog hovered, dense and icy, its dampness working its way into the marrow of their bones, compounding their sorrow.
The death of Anderson necessitated a change of order. Deciding that a more experienced surgeon was necessary o
n the flagship, James appointed John Law from Discovery as Anderson’s replacement. A rotund, owlish figure in his 30s, Law had studied medicine in Edinburgh. Samwell was sent across from Resolution to serve on the consort vessel.
A week later they approached the Bering Strait. As they did so, they sighted to starboard the western extremity of North America, a wide promontory backed by a mountain range. They anchored off the point but did not go ashore, and although conditions were hazy, James calculated the landform’s longitude as 191° 45' East and its latitude as 65° 46' North. He told his officers, ‘I am naming it Cape Prince of Wales, after the heir to England’s throne.’
The announcement was met with cries of acclamation from the others. They had again made their mark on this inhospitable coast.
Later that day, with his charts lying open on the table in the Great Cabin, James began a calculation. The longitude of the entrance to Hudson Bay, on the eastern coast of North America, was 80° West of Greenwich. Baffin Bay, to its north, was 79° West. He scribbled some figures with his quill. That meant they were now more than 1500 nautical miles west of any part of those two great bays.
He stared up at the hanging compass. If there was a North-east Passage, it must be a mighty long one. Finding it, then following it through, would be the sternest test of his seamanship. He set the quill down. But I will do it.
After they weighed and attempted to bear north, the sloops were struck by a gale from the east. Unable to make headway, they were taken west towards the opposite coast, the Siberian peninsula. Thus, in a single day, they had been driven from the continent of North America to the continent of Asia.
Spying an inlet on the Chukotsky Peninsula, James ordered the anchors dropped and two of the boats launched. Accompanied by Clerke, a marine contingent and his officers, he went ashore, telling the others, ‘We will only touch on this shore. We cannot afford to lose more than one day.’
