It was time to go. But for another two weeks the ship stayed where she was—strong onshore winds made it impossible for the Endeavour to make her way from the shore.
At last, on Sunday, 5th of August, they crossed the bar, sailed out of the river mouth and dropped anchor for the night. On the 6th, Cook and several others climbed the masthead to see if they could find a way through the reefs. But all they could see were breakers at low tide and, even more dangerous, no waves at high tide, when there was nothing to show where the reefs might be.
The nightmare had returned.
Once again the ship was plunged back into a maze of channels, reefs and pounding breakers.
The only safe way was back the way they’d come. But that way might kill them too. For despite the food they’d taken on board they only had three months of reduced rations left. They had to get to Batavia soon—or they would starve.
At first they made for the open sea. But the wind and the waves carried them back towards the reef and giant surf that threatened to dash them onto the reef.
At last a breeze from shore sprang up. They sailed clear and the next day found a channel—Providential Channel—that led them back to the calm waters between the mainland and the reef again.
Day after day, the men were constantly on watch, with only a too-brief four-hour sleep. Despite their exhaustion none of them slept well, even in that short time. They were waiting for the shudder that would tell them the ship was caught fast on a reef again.
It was also too hot to sleep well below. Mostly Isaac carried his blanket up on deck, and slept on that, in whatever breeze the night might bring.
He’d grown two inches in the time they’d been ashore, with the good food and the break from tension. He was constantly hungry, too. They were on reduced rations: no more salt meat, a little oatmeal with dried greens for breakfast, boiled pease for dinner, a single biscuit for supper. Isaac even ate the weevils now, and tried to ignore the wriggling in his mouth. At least there were clams and sharks and giant rays to eat; every time the boats went out for fish they came back laden. But his body needed more than fish.
The gentlemen and officers still had their sheep to eat. But one by one they were eaten too.
The only member of the crew who still ate well now was the Goat. There might not be as much oats and pease as she would like, but there was still plenty of dried grass from the Endeavour River.
She is the most contented being on the ship, thought Isaac, there in the breezes on the quarterdeck, with plenty of hay to lie on and to munch. Somehow, despite the hunger, no one these days would ever suggest eating the Goat.
So they wound their way up through the rocks and islands again—days of taking water depths, staring at the treacherous blue water—each man knowing that at any moment a reef might claim them.
Finally, on Tuesday, 21st of August, they were at the most northerly part of the continent.
They were free.
Now they sailed westward. The Endeavour anchored by an island that had a commanding view towards the west, to confirm Cook’s belief that he had reached the northernmost tip of New Holland. He, Banks, Dr Solander and other members of the crew went ashore.
Isaac stayed on board the Endeavour as the shore party climbed the tallest hill. There, Cook claimed the land they’d found in the name of His Majesty King George the Third of England.
They were back in charted waters. The ancient map that Torres had made was right—there was a way from New Holland to Batavia. The ship was still leaking, but one pump was enough to keep her afloat. It was now plain sailing to Batavia.
They were hungry and exhausted. But they were exhilarated too. They had charted more new land than any ship before them. One small ship had conquered unknown waters; survived storms and shipwreck and the terrifying teeth of the longest reef in the world.
And no one had died of scurvy. No one had been lost in storm or fog. Cook’s extraordinary care and seamanship had carried them through.
Batavia was ahead of them, then home.
They had survived. They were heading into known waters now. Surely the worst was behind them…
CHAPTER 42
Isaac
October 1770–January 1771
Batavia—they had been longing for the safety of a port for the past year. Fresh supplies, proper repairs, replacements for their worn equipment.
And a new port to explore, like Rio or Madeira, thought Isaac happily, the danger behind them and home to look forward to, the heroes returned.
But Batavia was…different.
It was ruthlessly held by the Dutch East India Company. Nothing could be done there without Dutch approval. The port stank. Isaac could smell it long before they reached the harbour: a stench of bad water and bad drains, the canals green with slime that oozed and bubbled, breeding clouds of mosquitoes and disease.
Even the Goat twitched her nostrils at the odour.
But the crew were desperate. Batavia was their only hope. Although they’d managed to stock up on food at Timor, the Endeavour wouldn’t make it far—much less all the way back to England—without proper repairs in a dry dock, where her hull could be repaired out of water. Sea worms had eaten away her planking; in places only an eighth of an inch of wood was left. Even her pumps were about to collapse completely after so much work.
Isaac first knew there was something wrong a few days after they landed. Most of the crew had gone ashore, but he’d been left behind. Even in dock, the Goat still had to be fed and milked. She was stroppier than ever now, and would let no one touch her except Isaac.
And the captain, Isaac thought, as he trudged up to the quarterdeck for perhaps the two thousandth time, bucket in hand. But as far as he knew no one else had realised that their gruff Yorkshire commander talked to a goat during the lonely watches in the night.
Suddenly Isaac was aware of a figure stumbling across the deck. It was Jonathan’s brother, William Monkhouse, the ship’s surgeon.
‘Mr Monkhouse, are you all right?’
The surgeon turned to face him. He trembled, as though he were cold, but sweat rolled off his skin. ‘No, lad,’ he whispered. ‘Fever…’ He shook his head, as though trying to clear it.
‘Let me help you, sir,’ said Isaac. He took the surgeon’s trembling arm, and helped him along the deck.
Monkhouse paused at the door of his cabin. He stared at Isaac, as though trying to focus. ‘Mr Manley, isn’t it? Jonathan’s friend?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Isaac. ‘You’ll feel better lying down, sir.’
‘You’re a good lad,’ whispered Monkhouse. He turned to go into his cabin, then stopped. ‘Don’t drink the water, lad,’ he said. ‘You hear me? It’s poison. If you want to see home again, don’t drink the water.’ And with that he staggered into his cabin.
Isaac went up on deck. How could you survive without drinking water? It was impossible. What did Mr Monkhouse mean?
He soon found out.
The first man to die was Taiata, Tupia’s servant, and then Tupia died too, the brave Tahitian navigator who had joined the ship for challenge and adventure. Then Mr Hicks, the second in command—and William Monkhouse.
Soon the entire crew was sick, or dying.
The work on the ship had to go on. Their only hope was to leave this hellhole as soon as possible. But the crew were too weak to help much. They could do nothing but watch as the Dutch workmen laboured on their ship.
Banks took his servants and fled to the country, hoping to be safe there. But Cook stayed with his ship. Still there was nothing he could do. It was the fault of the hellhole, Batavia.
Isaac’s pains came suddenly, when he was in the ship’s boat coming back from shore leave. He managed to hold on till they reached the boat. He ran, bent almost double, to the seat of ease at the stern. But it was already occupied. In desperation, Isaac grabbed a bucket and lowered his pants seconds before he would have fouled them.
But the pain didn’t stop. And when he looked into t
he bucket the contents were black with blood and bright red at the edges.
There was no point heading to the infirmary, too many others were sick already. There weren’t even enough hammocks for everyone now. Isaac had made a bed for himself on the main deck, just a nest of blankets to lie on. He crept there now, with a bucket to use as a privy.
‘Isaac?’ It was Jonathan. ‘I brought you some water. William…’ Jonathan’s voice choked a little at the name, ‘William always said you have to keep drinking with the flux.’ Jonathan lifted the bucket, despite its stench. ‘I’ll get rid of this for you.’
‘Thank you…’ began Isaac.
‘You’d do the same for me. Do you want me to do the Goat for you?’
‘I’ll manage,’ said Isaac. Jonathan had enough to do, with so many sick.
And he did manage. Twice a day he staggered up to the quarterdeck, milked the Goat, fed her and passed the bucket down to Mr Matthews.
But he was too weak to change her bedding. It was all he could do to stay upright long enough to get the milk. And somehow the Goat seemed to understand. She didn’t even try to kick the bucket over now.
He had been sick for a week—or was it two, or three?—when he met Cook up on the quarterdeck. The captain had been inspecting the ship’s refurbishment. There were deep shadows under his eyes, from worry as well as illness.
He watched Isaac in silence for a while, as the sweat rolled off the boy’s face both from the heat and the fever.
Finally he said, ‘Any regrets, Manley?’
‘Sir?’ Isaac tried to understand through the fog of sweat and fever.
‘You could be safe at home.’
Isaac tried to smile. ‘No, sir. No regrets.’
He wanted to say thank you to the man who had led him on the greatest adventure a boy could have. He wanted to find some way to express the gratitude and admiration that filled his heart. But there was no way he could think to say it.
‘I will never forget the last two years, sir,’ he said at last.
It wasn’t nearly enough. But Cook must have seen at least some of what he felt in his face. He smiled, and for the first time patted Isaac on the shoulder.
‘Aye, ye’re a good lad,’ he said, and as always when he was moved, his Yorkshire accent was even stronger. Cook hesitated, then added, ‘I want you to have some of the milk, lad. Two cups, at every milking.’
‘But, sir…’ began Isaac, then stopped. You didn’t argue with a captain, even when he was offering the extraordinary privilege of drinking the milk from his goat.
‘I’ll tell Mr Matthews,’ said Cook. ‘You’ve earned it. Mind you drink it, lad. That milk has kept me alive in this hellhole, I reckon. Mayhap it’ll do the same for you.’
‘Eeegh,’ said the Goat, shifting to get another tuft of hay, and sounding so like she understood that Isaac laughed. Cook laughed too.
‘Mind you do it lad,’ he said, as he went to inspect the work below.
It was not much of a Christmas. Forty of the crew were too sick to leave their hammocks. Those who didn’t have the fever had the flux. Even Jonathan had caught the fever, though not badly. Everyone else on board still felt the effect of the flux.
Except for old John Ravenhill, the sail maker. He’d drunk nothing but alcohol all the time they’d been at Batavia. ‘Too pickled to die,’ he told Isaac cheerfully, as the boy staggered up to milk the Goat.
The smell of milk still made him sick. But he forced himself to drink it, rather than the water.
‘Eeegh!’ The Goat nudged him. She was strangely docile these days, as though she knew he was too weak to struggle with her.
Isaac shut his eyes as he pulled on her teats, trying to get back to his dream of the dairy at home.
But the dream wouldn’t come. England and its gentle breezes were too far from this stinking plague pit. Had they come so far only to die here, with foreign voices all around?
The keel was repaired. The worm-eaten planks were replaced, and the ragged sails. Fresh stores had been bought.
Forty of the crew were sick, but Cook could linger in this backyard of hell no longer.
The Endeavour sailed at dawn on the 16th of January 1771, leaving seven of her crew in their graves.
CHAPTER 43
Isaac
5th February, 1771
The Endeavour crept across the ocean. At times there were too many ill to crew the ship. Men already weak worked double, triple watches.
They stopped briefly at Princes Island for fresh food and water. But the water there was tainted too, and had spread the infection further.
Lieutenant Cook ordered that the water be cleaned with lime and had the whole ship washed with vinegar, to try and clear the infection. But nothing worked. Every few days there was another burial at sea.
Isaac sat by Jonathan’s hammock, in the heat below decks. His friend had sat with him, had brought him water. Now Isaac did the same for him.
Jonathan’s face was wet with sweat. His eyes looked enormous, the skin below them black and sunken. He’d said nothing for the past two hours. But Isaac kept on talking. While I talk he can’t die, he thought. It seemed impossible that Jonathan could die. The boy was too full of life, of information.
‘I’ve been talking to Mr Molineaux,’ Isaac said. ‘I asked what our chances were of being posted together. He said they were good. The captain will want to take men he knows on his next voyage.’
Jonathan made no reply. But his shadowed eyes watched Isaac.
‘Mr Banks is still sure the Great South Land is out there. Maybe we’ll find it, the two of us. Or that mermaid—’
Isaac stopped. Jonathan’s eyes were still open. But now they stared sightlessly upwards.
‘One day we’ll both be admirals,’ said Isaac softly. ‘We’ll buy farms on opposite hills, and tell our grandchildren stories of how we sailed together, on seas that no man had seen before.’
He pressed Jonathan’s eyes shut with his fingertips, then went to report the death to Mr Molineaux.
Isaac helped wrap the body of his friend in sailcloth. He watched as Jonathan’s fellow midshipmen tipped him over the side of the ship, his only grave the waves that swallowed him.
It was hard to keep working. Isaac felt tears blind him as he sat milking. But you did your duty. No matter what happened, you did your duty.
‘Mr Manley?’ It was the captain.
Isaac stood to attention. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘You have been two years at sea, have you not?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Isaac, wondering what was to come.
‘As I hope you are aware, a sailor has to serve a minimum of two years before he can be made midshipman. And if any man on board deserves his promotion, it is you. Congratulations, Midshipman Manley,’ Cook said.
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’
It should have been one of the best moments of his life. But all he could think of was Jonathan, his body slowly sinking in the green water. I wanted this, Isaac told the dead boy silently, but not from you.
Cook smiled.
‘You may resume your duties, Midshipman Manley. Her Highness here is waiting.’
‘Eeegh,’ said the Goat, as Isaac sat down again.
‘And I just hope we make it home so I can make it official,’ said Cook, but so softly that Isaac was not quite sure he’d heard him correctly.
An almost-silent ship on a still ocean. Even the winds failed them here in the doldrums, where ships rotted in the heat. There was no singing now, no dancing after the evening’s rum ration. Day after day the illness dragged them down.
One by one they died: gentle Sydney Parkinson; Charles Green the astronomer; John Satterly the carpenter, who had done so much to save the broken ship at Endeavour River; old one-armed Cookie Thompson, who had done his best in the tiny stinking galley. One by one their bodies were given to the ocean—twenty-three burials at sea.
At times it seemed impossible that they’d ever make it. Would the Endeavour, wh
ich had survived so much, finally wander the oceans, crewless, as the last man on board her died?
CHAPTER 44
Isaac
March 1771
It was a nightmare voyage. One sailor helping the sick suddenly screamed that he was dying. He ran up to the deck, still screaming, till he fell unconscious. But it was madness, not the flux, that gripped him.
Isaac wondered if they were all a little mad by now.
But the ship made it to Cape Town.
A third of her crew were dead—even pickled John Ravenhill died and was replaced as sail maker by Thomas Hardman. The master, Robert Molineaux, who had first noticed Isaac and tried to help his advancement, had died as well, and been replaced by Mr Pickersgill. With so many deaths even James Magra would be made midshipman before the journey was over. Cook had not forgotten or forgiven the young man’s practical jokes and general unreliability. But there were too few left on board now to be choosy.
Isaac stood by the rail as the ship sailed into Table Bay, with its flat-topped mountain and white houses snaking up into the hills. He was too dazed to be relieved. Sometimes he felt he could shut his eyes and Jonathan would be there again, sharing dreams as they planned what they’d do ashore.
But at last the ship was safe. After a rousing salute from the guns at Table Bay, the Governor offered all the help the colony could give. Fresh food, fresh air, clean water and, even better, the knowledge that home lay before them.
Home, thought Isaac. Green fields. The hawthorn blossom will be out at home.
‘Eeegh,’ said the Goat, as though she could almost smell the green fields too.
She had become a talisman for the ship now. Whatever they had suffered with illness and shipwreck, their Goat was still up there on the quarterdeck. Somehow it seemed that while she was there the ship would come through.
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