Ghosts of James Bay

by John Wilson

  “The next day I was on the Nonpareil at Gravelines and sailed beneath the silent guns of the San Martin. She was little more than a hulk by then, her upper decks being a shambles and her hull wallowing low in the water. It was many nights later before I could sleep without the image of the blood of her brave sailors running out of the scuppers and haunting my dreams.

  “After the Armada, there was no great interest in the northern lands, and I struggled to get commands where I could. Luckily I was not in London when the plague broke out in 1592. It was said that one in ten of the poor citizens were carried off and that the burial grounds were full to overflowing.

  “In 1597 the Dutchman Willem Barents captured my imagination once more when his crew became the first to winter in the Arctic lands. Then my friend Richard Hakluyt published his famous tales of English seafarers. Davis was there as was the unlucky Martin Frobisher and the tragic Hugh Willoughby. I determined that one day my name would rank with theirs.

  “But it was not until 1607 that I acquired my first command in the north, and it was to seek a Northeast Passage to Cathay around the shores of Muscovy. We sailed to the Spitzbergens and exceeded eighty degrees of latitude, but the ice and fog and storms forced our retreat. I was in favour of continuing by a Northwest Passage, but the crew was eager for home and they prevailed. We returned without gold and spices.”

  “But not empty-handed,” Jack interrupted. “The reports of bays filled with whalefish and walruses have commenced a lucrative industry.”

  “Aye,” Hudson replied with a smile, “but what are a few fish compared with the riches of the Orient? In any case, the following year the Muscovy Company again supplied the good ship Hope-well, and we once more set sail. On this occasion we kept close in by the shore of Norway, attempting to follow the inhospitable northern coast to the Orient. We reached as far as Nova Zembla where poor Barents had perished.”

  “And no wonder,” Jack added. “It is a land so barren that no tree or plant can flourish. The world at the dawn of creation must have looked much like that.”

  “Indeed,” Hudson agreed, “and the ice was again too heavy to allow us farther ventures. Having exhausted my requirement to the Muscovy Company, I once more headed for the northwest, but this time Juet spoke against me to the crew and they forced a return to London.”

  “Juet?” I said, biting my tongue in time to prevent my betraying the fact that I knew he had led the mutiny on the last voyage.

  “Robert Juet,” Hudson continued, “mate on three voyages and my nemesis. A good sailor, but one cursed with an uncertain mind. He does not have the will to see the dangers through to success, yet he does have the speech to turn others against any project he does not find to his taste. I had hoped to improve him by example—he has the makings of a great sailor—but it was not to be.”

  “May he roast in hell for his treachery,” Staffe growled vehemently.

  “Well,” Hudson said thoughtfully, “we shall all receive our just deserts come Judgement Day. But to continue my tale for our new friend. There was little interest in England in more voyages, but in Amsterdam I found the Dutchmen to be of a more adventurous cast. They fitted me with the Half Moon, the finest vessel I ever sailed in. They, too, wished for a Northeast Passage and commanded me accordingly. I knew there was no way through the masses of ice I had seen in previous years so, when we encountered ice north of Norway, I took it as an excuse and sailed west to Newfoundland and the Northwest Passage. I intended to make it through the Furious Overfall of Davis, but Juet talked against me to the crew and they refused. We went south to Manhattan Island from whence we discovered a great river that we sailed up a distance of some one hundred and fifty miles.”

  “Juet again took part against you, Father,” Jack added. “You should have left him in the wilderness.”

  “Aye, perhaps, but would it have made me a better man to have done to him what he has done to me? In any case, he was not alone. The Dutchmen of the crew were unused to the cold climes and unwilling to continue. We returned to England where the authorities were most disconcerted that I had taken service with a foreign power. Nonetheless, a band of merchant adventurers took it upon themselves to finance yet one more try, and so, but a little over a year ago, we set sail from St. Katherine’s Pool. This time there was to be no doubt, and we sailed straight for the Furious Overfall and the many hardships that have brought us to this sorry pass.”

  Hudson paused and gazed thoughtfully into the fire. After a moment, he continued. “If only we had sailed to the west, we would be through the Strait of Anian and sampling the pleasures of Cathay by now.”

  “No!” I exclaimed without thinking. Hudson, Jack, and Staffe all looked up at me sharply.

  “What say you?” Staffe asked. “Do you know the geography of this shore?”

  I had to learn to control my tongue. I spoke slowly and carefully. “A little. My people in Ottawa have learned something through trade.”

  “Then speak!” Hudson interjected excitedly. “I would know where the strait lies.”

  “Not here,” I said, shaking my head. “This is a huge bay. There is no outlet to the west.”

  Hudson stared at me intently. “The Strait of Anian lies to the north then?”

  “Yes,” I answered, “a long way to the north, and it’s blocked by ice.”

  “I knew it!” Staffe shouted. “This is but a wild-goose chase. There is no way through to the Orient. We suffer for nought.”

  Hudson looked puzzled. “But Greene told me otherwise.”

  “What did he tell you?” I couldn’t stop myself asking. Here might be the answer to one of the mysteries: why had Hudson secretly taken Greene with him?

  Hudson turned his sunken gaze on me, but he was focusing on the far distance. “Knowing of my interest in the Strait of Anian, Greene came to my house after my return in the Half Moon and told me a tale. He said that a few years previous he had met an old sailor in a drinking house he was overly fond of frequenting. The man was far gone both in age and in his drink, but he told Greene a story. In his youth he had been a fisherman over on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. One year, he could remember not exactly which but it was certainly while Good Queen Bess still reigned, he had rescued a dying man in an open boat.”

  The Jonathan! My mind leaped to the story my father had discovered, but I managed to keep silent as Hudson continued.

  “He told the captain of his ship, the Jonathan, of a great sea he had visited and of the people who lived by its side and who looked like the natives of Cathay and used weapons much like those of Java and the islands around there. The man was much gone in sickness and starvation and died soon thereafter, but the captain brought his tale back and, I think, dined and drank more than once on the strength of its telling. At first I was not much inclined to place weight on Greene’s telling, but he spoke well with a soft voice and he had a coin.”

  “A coin?” I asked, trying to hide my excitement.

  “Aye,” Hudson responded, digging deep into the leather pouch at his belt and withdrawing a gold coin. He passed it over to me.

  There was no doubt. It was the gold coin I had found on the previous year’s dig. It gleamed more brightly than when it had been rescued from the earth, but St. Michael, the dragon, and the ship were there just the same. My heart was racing, but I kept my voice calm. “What does this mean?”

  “What indeed?” Hudson looked thoughtfully at the coin glinting in my hand. “Greene’s story was that there were originally a pair of these the dead sailor had taken to the Great Sea. On the shores he had traded for skins with a local tribe of salvages. On departure he had given the chief of the salvages one of the coins as proof of his good intentions and so that future traders would know with whom they dealt.

  “The dying man gave the coin to the captain, who never went to the Great Sea but kept the coin close to his heart. Greene claimed the captain gave it to him, although knowing more of the man now, I do wonder how he came to it. In any case, Gree
ne used the coin to convince me of the veracity of his tale. He said he would give me the coin, which would surely help in our meetings with the salvages, on condition I take him with me on the voyage. Greene was no seaman, so I brought him aboard by subterfuge. How I regret that action now, but it is done.”

  Hudson lapsed into silence, and I handed the angel back to him. I could think of nothing to say. Greene, the trickster, had wormed his way aboard Hudson’s ship with soft words. But were those words true? The angel was certainly real, as was the old document Dad had found, both of which appeared to support the story.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a thin, reedy voice singing:

  “Alas, my love, ye do me wrong

  To cast me off discourteously;

  And I have loved you so long,

  Delighting in your company.

  Greensleeves was all my joy,

  Greensleeves was my delight;

  Greensleeves was my heart of gold,

  And who but Lady Greensleeves?”

  We all listened as Wydhowse sang to himself, completely oblivious to the presence of the rest of us. The song was long, cataloguing all the things the singer had given Greensleeves to try to win her favour. It had all been in vain, and I wondered if Wydhowse was thinking of his family back in England as he sang it. Despite his weak voice, the words certainly seemed to strike a chord with the listeners, and no one interrupted him.

  Eventually Wydhowse finished the song, and we sat in silence around the fire. Then Wydhowse spoke. There were tears in his eyes. “Master Staffe, would you be so kind as to help me to our house? I am greatly fatigued and would rest.”

  Staffe rose and almost carried Wydhowse to the shelter. Hudson, Jack, and I remained gazing at the dull coals.

  Unseen, the warrior listened to the singing. It was not like his people’s singing at all. It was quiet and monotonous—not a fitting song for a warrior. He doubted he would ever understand these strangers. His mind drifted back to the time the strangers had attempted to make contact with his people. It had been the spring, after the ice had melted enough to allow Hairy Face and some of his men to travel south in one of their smaller canoes. They had come ashore near the warrior’s camp and gestured that they wanted to trade. Some of his people had panicked and run into the woods, but the others, led by the okimah, had set the woods on fire to keep the strangers away. Hairy Face had left.

  On that occasion the temptation to make his presence known to the strangers had been almost overwhelming, but the warrior had obeyed the will of his band. The arrival of the strangers had been a signal of change. Nothing like this had ever happened before in the entire history of his people. He didn’t know why, but he felt deeply that things could never be quite the same again. More of these strangers would come. If one canoe load came this far and suffered so much in a land they obviously did not know, they must be driven by such a strong curiosity that others would surely come. After these ones died, their companions would come looking for them. If some of these ones returned, then their stories would make others come to see for themselves.

  Either way more of these strangers in their winged canoes would come to the warrior’s land. Ignoring them would do no good. If these people were strong enough, they would take what they wanted, the warrior was sure of that. Better then to trade with them and become their friends. The okimah was wrong. There was going to be change and the people would have to realize that sooner or later. Maybe, by watching these people now, the warrior would learn enough to make the trading easier when it did eventually happen. Sighing, he watched as the singer was helped into the wooden teepee by the tall man.

  EIGHT

  Staffe returned to his seat by the fire. “I fear Wydhowse and Fanner are neither long for this world.”

  Hudson nodded, then turned to look at me. “How did you come to this place, Master Al?”

  This was it. The direct question I had been dreading. Impossible-to-explain images of trains, pickup trucks, and helicopters flooded my tired brain.

  “By canoe,” I said, “but it hit a rock and was holed. I was attempting to walk back when I met Jack on the beach.”

  “Then it is possible to walk to this Ottawa of which you spoke?”

  I was trapped. I couldn’t mention the camp by the big rock without explaining why it wasn’t there or, more correctly, wouldn’t be there for centuries.

  “Yes,” I lied, “but it’s very far. A canoe would be easier, but your boat’s too big for the rivers that lead that way.”

  Hudson nodded. “And to what purpose came you here?”

  That was a tough one. To dig up garbage tips to try to prove someone came here before you didn’t seem like a very good answer. “I came to see if the stories my people had heard of strangers visiting this land were true.”

  “The salvage who came to trade in the winter,” Staffe interjected.

  “It would seem so,” Hudson said, “although we have probably been much observed without our knowing it. Certainly news travels fast in these lands. In any case, your arrival here, young Master Al, and your knowledge of this land I take as a sign. We must look to our own resources if we are to escape. Thus we must make contact with the French at Quebec.” Hudson’s eyes met mine, and there was an intensity to them that seemed to burn out of the sunken cheeks. “Will you help us to that end, or at least to achieve your Ottawa?”

  There was no way I could refuse the plea. In any case, what would be the point? I had nowhere else to go. I had no control over returning to my own time and, if I was stuck here in 1611, I was in the same predicament as Hudson and his party.

  “Certainly,” I replied. “My people would be honoured to meet you.” At least my father would.

  “Good.” Hudson gave me a weak smile. “Then there is no point in delay. Come the morrow, you Jack, Philip, and Al must go south. You will—”

  “What of you, Father?” Jack interrupted.

  “I will remain here with Wydhowse and Fanner. I am too old and weary for the journey you have before you. God willing, you will return with succour before the winter sets in.”

  It was a slim hope—we could all see that—but what choice was there? Wydhowse and Fanner could barely walk a few hundred metres, let alone the hundreds of kilometres of hard going before we could hope for assistance, and Hudson wasn’t in much better shape. Jack, Staffe, and I were easily the fittest. But even we had no chance that I could see to negotiate successfully what must be close to a thousand kilometres between James Bay and Quebec. Our only chance was to meet up with some friendly First Nations people.

  Hudson must have been thinking much the same. Reaching back into his pouch, he took out the angel.

  “Jack, take this. If there be any truth in Greene’s tale, then there are, somewhere upon these shores, people who may yet recognize this coin and for its sake offer shelter and succour to the bearer.”

  Jack took the coin from his father’s hand and looked at it. The firelight glistened on the tears in his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but Hudson didn’t give him the chance.

  “And there is one more thing you must take,” he said, reaching beneath the folds of his coat and producing a small leather-bound book. “This is my journal. It tells of all our trials and how we have come to this sorry pass. I think Juet, Greene, and the others will either starve or drown long ’ere they spy England. If any are to know of our exploits and our great discoveries, it will be from our mouths or through the pages of this writing. Keep it secure and pass it on to safe hands.”

  “I will, Father.” Tears ran freely down Jack’s cheeks. “But is there no other way?”

  “None,” his father replied, “and even this is by no means certain. We must all do what we can. I take comfort from the arrival of Master Al and his strange knowledge of our doings. I think it will be through him that our story will be told.”

  Hudson turned his gaze back from Jack to me. There was a pleading look in his eyes. I felt responsibility weigh heavily on me. How coul
d I have an effect on what happened here? These events had all run their course centuries before I was even born. Nevertheless, I nodded. “I will do my best to help.” This seemed to satisfy him.

  “And now, with some food in my belly, I would sleep,” the explorer said, standing. “Tomorrow will bring what it must.”

  “Aye.” Staffe rose beside his captain. “It will that and I think I, too, will have need of what hours of rest I can obtain tonight. I bid you a good sleep.”

  With that Hudson and Staffe retreated to the hut. On the way Staffe paused to build up the small secondary fire in the doorway, placing a green branch on top of it. Thick smoke billowed. “That might discourage some of the damnable insects of these parts,” he said, ducking from sight.

  For a long time Jack and I gazed into the embers of the dying fire. My thoughts were confused. I felt myself drawn into these events almost against my will. It was easier to accept that tomorrow I would set off with Jack and Staffe to seek help for an abandoned Henry Hudson than it was to try to find an explanation for my situation. If there was an explanation, I was coming to think that it involved insanity, and I didn’t want to think too hard about that.

  Eventually Jack broke the silence. “Well, Al, what do you make of all this?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “But I think your father’s right. We must try to get help.”

  “Aye,” he said quietly, “and I think he puts much hope in you. Is it a long and arduous journey to Ottawa?”

  “Yes,” I replied, “but, as your father said, there is no choice. Jack,” I continued, asking a question that had been on my mind since I had first realized who I was speaking to, “what happened on the ship? Why did Greene and Juet lead a mutiny against your father?”