by Lance Morcan
Nathan’s character had undergone a change too: gone was his previously open and trusting manner. Months of having to stand up for himself to survive the hardships of slavery had hardened him. He now had a look about him that said, Don’t cross me.
The other slaves had certainly learned not to cross him since he’d dealt to Sasqua, the slave boss. Any further attempts to dominate him had resulted in swift retaliation. Slaves silly enough to test him quickly learnt the White-Eye had power in his fists. It was to Nathan’s benefit the Northwest natives had never mastered the pugilistic arts, and he wasn’t slow to use that to his advantage when required.
The young Philadelphian still lived in hope Intrepid’s owners would be searching for their missing vessel and crew. He missed his old life back in Philadelphia. God knows, he even missed his two older sisters though he’d considered them a pain in the neck when he was living with them.
On this particular day, Nathan and half a dozen other slaves collected firewood in driving rain on the outskirts of the village. An armed brave kept watch over them. As always, Nathan carried out his tasks diligently and without fuss. He’d realized very early on his best chance for survival was to stay out of trouble with his Makah masters.
Elswa, the chief, suddenly appeared and motioned to Nathan to join him. “You come with me, Nathan Johnson,” he ordered in his native tongue.
“Yes, great chief,” Nathan answered in kind. Twelve months living, eating and sleeping with these people had at least given him a rudimentary understanding of the Makah language.
Nathan followed Elswa into a small lodge where he found Tatoosh, the chief’s oldest son, unfolding large sheets of canvass. The young white assumed the canvass had been acquired in the course of trading with the ships that once visited these waters. Those same ships had been conspicuous by their absence since Intrepid’s visit.
The two youths nodded to each other briefly. Although they’d hardly exchanged a single word to date, there seemed to be a bond developing between them. The chief’s son was intrigued by the white slave.
Elswa pointed to the canvass sheets. “You make sails,” he ordered Nathan in English this time.
Without hesitating, Nathan took over from Tatoosh, laying out a sheet on the lodge’s wooden floor. As he went to work, he wondered how the chief knew his white slave could make sails. Nathan immediately thought of the bald-headed Mowachaht slave. Baldy! He had recently confided in him that he’d been an apprentice sail-maker, and the slave had obviously passed that on. Nathan was aware the Mowachahts had a reputation for being gossipers and backstabbers. What he didn’t know was that among the Mowachahts, the Makah had a similar reputation.
Elswa and his son looked on as the young white expertly used a needle made from a fine fishbone to fashion a sail that would be fitted to one of the Makah’s catamaran-like canoes. The chief nodded to himself. He’d long been satisfied his son’s decision to spare Nathan’s life was the right one. The slave had proven his worth many times over. He was a willing worker and skilled, too. Elswa and Tatoosh walked off, leaving him alone.
As Nathan worked, he dreamed of his childhood at the Johnson family home in Philadelphia. While there were some bad memories, there were some good ones, too. Like the friends he’d made and the adventures they had. He fondly remembered his father’s study and its musty smell, its countless books and the large world map he used to study for hours on end when Johnson Senior was at sea. How he’d love to be transported back there now.
Nathan’s daydreaming was shattered by the boom of a musket being discharged outside the lodge. A moment’s silence was followed by more musket-fire, screams and shouts of alarm. Fierce war cries sent chills down Nathan’s spine. The young man jumped up and went to the open doorway to investigate. He immediately saw the village was under attack from a Mowachaht raiding party.
Some forty Mowachahts had canoed across from Vancouver Island during the night, hidden their canoes and chosen this moment to attack. Although fewer in number, the war-painted Mowachahts had surprise on their side and many bore muskets. They cut down a dozen or more Makah before the unprepared braves could reach their weapons. Women and children unlucky enough to be in the way were shot or clubbed indiscriminately.
A tall Mowachaht warrior noticed Nathan and raised his musket toward him. Nathan saw the danger and retreated inside the lodge. The warrior came after him. Nathan looked around desperately for a weapon. Finding none, he climbed up into the rafters just above the open doorway and waited, heart pounding. When the warrior burst in, Nathan dropped down onto him. The two fell to the dirt floor, wrestling for possession of the musket.
Sensing he was about to be overpowered by the stronger man, Nathan fumbled for the hunting knife the warrior carried in a sheath on his hip. His fingers closed around the knife and he pulled it out. The warrior sensed the danger too late and Nathan plunged the knife’s blade into his attacker’s chest. The Mowachaht struggled in vain as Nathan pressed home his advantage and worked the blade deeper into the other’s chest. Die, damn you! Finally, the warrior’s eyes clouded over and he ceased his struggles.
Gasping for breath and shaking violently, Nathan scrambled to his feet. The shock of killing his first man was too much for him and he dry-retched. Then he noticed he was covered in his assailant’s blood. That was the final straw. He doubled over again and this time spewed his guts out.
Outside, the sounds of conflict continued. Nathan pulled himself together. He picked up the dead warrior’s musket and cautiously poked his head out the door. The Mowachaht invaders seem to be gaining the upper hand. Makah dead and wounded lay strewn in and around the lodges, many of which were now on fire.
Nathan saw Elswa and Tatoosh in deadly hand-to-hand combat outside the chief’s lodge. They were desperately trying to prevent five Mowachahts from entering the lodge where Nathan knew Elswa’s wives and extended family would be hiding. Without a thought for his own safety, he sprinted to assist the pair. He arrived just as Elswa was clubbed to the ground. As the chief’s assailant raised his club to deliver the fatal blow, Nathan shot him dead. Then, using his musket as a club, he helped Tatoosh fight off the other Mowachahts.
The wounded Elswa could only watch as his son and the white slave fought for their lives. Slipping and sliding in the mud, the youths fought with the fury of men possessed. Wielding a tomahawk in each hand, Tatoosh decapitated one Mowachaht then a moment later, with a swing of the other tomahawk, split the skull of another in two.
Nathan clubbed a Mowachaht headman to the ground. He picked up the headman’s fallen musket and used it to shoot another attacker who was about to shoot him. Meanwhile, Tatoosh threw one of his tomahawks at a fleeing warrior. Its blade lodged squarely in the warrior’s back, felling him.
The youths’ actions served to inspire the villagers, and the tide started to turn as the Makah rallied their defenses. Mowachaht casualties mounted. Finally, the attackers were put to flight. Many were shot down by arrow or musket ball as they tried to flee.
As custom dictated, wounded and dead Mowachahts alike were decapitated, their heads thrown into a pile. Later, they’d be displayed at vantage points around the village for all to see.
While the villagers celebrated their victory, Nathan and Tatoosh helped the wounded Elswa to his feet and escorted him into his lodge. Safely inside, the chief was immediately besieged by his wives who fussed around him, tending his wounds. Fortunately, they were only superficial, though Elswa was content to let his wives continue to fuss over him in the belief his wounds were grave – for the moment at least. He enjoyed their attentions.
Neither the chief nor his son acknowledged Nathan’s life-saving actions at the time. However, in an emotion-charged ceremony in the village longhouse that night, Nathan was adopted into the chief’s extended family in recognition of his bravery. No longer a slave, he would now reside in Elswa’s lodge as an honorary member of the family and therefore, by default, an honorary member of the tribe.
A
fter the ceremony, Tatoosh approached Nathan. “You come,” he said, indicating the former slave should follow him. The chief’s son led Nathan out of the longhouse and into the surrounding forest. They walked in silence for several minutes.
On reaching a grassy clearing, Tatoosh stopped and turned to face his companion. Nathan tensed when he noticed the brave had drawn his hunting knife. Its wicked blade glinted in the moonlight. Ignoring Nathan’s hesitation, Tatoosh used the knife to make a deep insertion in the palm of his own hand. He then motioned to Nathan to hold his hand out, palm facing upwards. Nathan complied and Tatoosh performed the same operation on the young white’s hand.
After returning his knife to its sheath, Tatoosh clasped Nathan’s bloodied hand in his. He looked gravely into his opposite’s eyes. “Tatoosh, son of Elswa, and Nathan, son of Johnson, now blood brothers,” he murmured in his native tongue. He then looked at Nathan expectantly.
Nathan realized Tatoosh was waiting for him to respond in kind. So he did, repeating the other’s words in the language of the Makah.
With that, Tatoosh smiled. It was the first time Nathan had seen him smile, and it transformed his face.
The pair retraced their steps to the village. According to custom, they were destined to be blood brothers and friends for life from that moment on.
14
North Atlantic, 1848
It was with mixed feelings that Susannah, now twenty-two, viewed the fast-disappearing English coastline as she stood alongside her father at the stern of the brigantine Minstrel, the small, two-masted vessel tasked with transporting them from the cradle of the civilized world to the savage south sea islands of Fiji.
Initially, she’d been excited about sailing to the exotic South Pacific and helping her father run the Wesley Methodist Mission at Momi Bay. Now, watching her homeland vanish over the horizon, she was beginning to have serious misgivings about what lay ahead.
Drake Senior had misgivings too. While he’d had a calling to spread the gospel to the heathens of Fiji, he knew the good Lord hadn’t called Susannah.
The clergyman-turned missionary had had to do some fast talking to persuade the London Missionary Society’s committee members to allow her to accompany him. He’d convinced them Susannah was crucial to his plans. Having taught first-year pupils in a London school for the past few years, she was an experienced and highly regarded teacher – especially for one so young. And, he’d argued, that would prove very useful at the mission station.
After having met Susannah, and been suitably impressed, the good folk of the London Missionary Society agreed with Drake Senior’s assessment of his daughter.
Now that he and Susannah were actually underway, the clergyman just hoped he was doing the right thing.
After deciding to travel to Fiji, Drake Senior had learned of a charter vessel leaving Plymouth for New Zealand, which was just thirteen hundred miles south of Fiji. Minstrel had been chartered by one Harry Kemp, a recently-retired British Army colonel who was migrating to New Zealand to take up new business opportunities. The former colonel had advised Drake Senior that in New Zealand he and his daughter could easily secure a berth aboard a trading vessel for the relatively short hop to Fiji.
Despite his misgivings, Drake Senior had immediately booked a stateroom aboard Minstrel for Susannah and himself. His misgivings included the fact that Minstrel’s intended route was a convoluted one, taking her to New Zealand via the Canary Islands, Equatorial Guinea, Cape Colony and Van Diemen’s Land to the south of New South Wales. The vessel’s master had assured him Minstrel was a speedy craft and, all going well, would complete the journey within six months.
Given that Minstrel had been departing Plymouth in three weeks and the alternative was to wait three months for a berth aboard a more conventional vessel, Drake Senior had opted for the earlier departure.
Now, as the never-ending sea and sky seemingly threatened to consume the small brigantine, the clergyman wondered whether he should have waited the extra months for a berth aboard a more substantial vessel. He wondered, too, about the suitability of the ship’s master, Captain Jeffrey Mathers, for such an arduous voyage. The middle-aged Devonshire seaman was a last-minute replacement for Minstrel’s usual master who had fallen ill one week before sailing.
Captain Mathers had a reputation for being a fine seaman but a surly and incorrigible drunkard. When Drake Senior got wind of this, he’d complained to the brigantine’s owners. They’d sympathized, but explained there were no other takers for the job at such short notice. The clergyman just hoped that decision wouldn’t come back to haunt them.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Susannah said.
Drake Senior realized she’d been studying him. “Nothing, my dear,” he lied. “I was just thinking how lucky I am to have you as a daughter. Your mother would be proud of you.”
“Thank you, papa,” Susannah smiled.
They both shivered involuntarily as the cold sea breeze whipped their hair about and tugged at their coats. This spring day had a decidedly wintery feel about it.
Drake Senior put a protective arm around his daughter’s shoulder and drew her close to him to shield her from the cold. “Best go below deck,” he suggested.
“You go, papa. I’ll stay here a while.” Having just lost sight of Land’s End, she wasn’t about to admit she was already feeling decidedly queasy. This doesn’t augur well for the rest of the trip, she told herself. “I’ll join you soon.”
“Alright, but don’t dally long. You’ll catch your death.” Drake Senior said. He immediately retired below deck.
Alone on deck apart from two riggers who were busy making adjustments to the brigantine’s square-rigged foremast, Susannah tried to fight off the feelings of seasickness that threatened to overwhelm her. Although she’d accompanied her parents on voyages to France on three occasions during her childhood, this was the first time she’d ever been out of sight of land and it frightened her.
Suddenly sensing the eyes of the riggers on her, she hurried below deck to rejoin her father.
#
That evening, in the stateroom she shared with Drake Senior, Susannah sat alone on her bunk. Her father was dining with the other passengers in the ship’s dining room.
Still decidedly queasy from the motion of the ship, Susannah had chosen to remain in her quarters. Now, feeling as she did, she wondered if she’d made the right decision. In the confines of the stateroom, the motion of the ship seemed more pronounced than ever. Susannah worried she would be tossed from her bunk if she wasn’t careful. She pulled her dressing gown around her, as if for added security.
The young Englishwoman stared at the diary she held. In a small way, it was a historic moment for her: she was about to make her first-ever diary entry. The diary was a gift to her from one of the parishioners they’d left behind.
Dipping her feather quill into an open ink bottle, she began writing.
April 18th, 1848
Dear God, what have I got myself into? This morning, as papa and I boarded Minstrel, I noted how small this vessel is. I cannot believe she can deliver us safely to the far-flung colony of New Zealand. Our Captain Mathers, a disagreeable individual if ever there was, assured us she is a safe and reliable craft. I pray he is right.
Even more of a worry is the company we must keep for the next six months. Of the thirteen crew members, I estimate five at best can be trusted. The remainder look no more trustworthy than the pirates who are known to frequent the waters to the south of here. The other thirty-five passengers are a mixed bunch including married couples, single men and seventeen children, the youngest of whom was born but a week ago.
Some of the men leave much to be desired judging by their penchant for liquor and women. One or two were already intoxicated before we were out of sight of land, and, it seems, all the single men at least lust after anything in a skirt. Not even the married women are safe from their prying eyes. One man in particular, an Irishman by the name of John Donovan, makes my
skin crawl. It is rumored he is an escaped felon.
We humans are not the only living creatures on board. So far, I have seen at least six rats scurrying about, one I swear as big as my dear cat, Toby, whom I am missing already. And although I have not yet seen them, I know there are four sheep tethered in the hold for I have heard their plaintive cries. The captain said one will be sacrificed for the dining table on his birthday, which by all accounts is fast approaching.
The stateroom papa has secured is comfortable though cramped. I shall spend as much time as I can outside for the smells below deck are decidedly rank.
A knock on the stateroom door, interrupted Susannah’s musings.
“Are you decent?” Drake Senior called out.
“Yes, come in,” Susannah replied.
Drake Senior entered and smiled at his daughter. “You missed a fine dinner, lass.”
Susannah nodded, hoping her father wouldn’t elaborate.
Alas, Drake Senior continued, “I swear the Shepherd’s Pie we had was almost as good as your mother made. It was served with roast vegies.”
“Papa, please!” Susannah was feeling queasier than ever.
Unaware of Susannah’s fragile physical state, Drake Senior continued, “That was followed by as much apple pie and cream as we could eat.”
Susannah suddenly climbed out of her bunk and stumbled toward the door.
“Are you alright?” Drake Senior asked.
Susannah didn’t even attempt to respond. She flung the door open, raced along the passageway and up the steerage steps. On deck, she ran to the port-side rail and vomited over the ship’s side.
