The Beothuk Expedition (16 page)

It took much of my concentration to avoid stumbling or snapping branches, but I followed them as closely as I dared. They were clearly stalking something and from time to time would freeze as still as statues, their ears cocked to the trees in front of them. At such intervals I stopped in my tracks and held my breath, but I heard and saw nothing of what they were fixed upon. After one prolonged pause I saw Cooper gesture to Rowsell, who nodded and moved to his right, flanking an especially dense stand of undergrowth. Cooper remained where he was, slowly standing to his full height and raising the musket to his shoulder. Rowsell, completing a right angle to the cluster of bushes, turned and pointed his weapon into it.

I was now convinced that they meant to fire their guns, in spite of Lieutenant Cartwright's orders. I plunged forward without another thought, dropping all pretense of stealth and making more noise than was strictly necessary. They held their stance for a moment, as if reluctant to look away or to acknowledge my approach. When they turned to face me their expressions were at first startled, then hostile. There was a moment of complete silence as I halted in front of them, followed by a rustle in the undergrowth. Something moved quickly away from us. I cannot say what it was, but as ludicrous as it may sound on reflection, at that moment I could have sworn that it was running on two legs.

Cooper stood before me, choking with rage. Rowsell remained where he was, off to my right, though I could easily see his infuriated face. “What is this?” I demanded. “You know the lieutenant's orders. There is to be no shooting.” They stared at me, saying nothing; I could not fail to notice that the muskets were still at their shoulders and pointed more or less in my direction.

“You will return to the river immediately,” I said in my quarterdeck voice. Still they did not move or take their eyes from me. I met Cooper's glare and raised my voice, “To the river, man! Now!”

From the corner of my eye I saw Rowsell's brown teeth as his lips drew back in a sneer. The long barrel of his musket drew level with my chest and he inclined his head to one side, as though intending to sight along the barrel. Cooper remained motionless, although the barrel of his musket lifted perceptibly. At such close range the muzzles seemed as broad as the mouths of cannons. Every fibre of my being tensed and I fought the urge to flee, duck or cringe. My pistol was tucked into my belt, and little good it would have done me in defence. In the seconds that followed I swear that I could hear the very worms in the earth, so stretched were my nerves and senses. The air around us felt charged, as with lightning, and the tension as tangible as the sweat upon my brow, when a sharp metallic click intruded upon my consciousness. It was the unmistakable sound of a hammer being cocked, and the sound did not come from either of the muskets that were pointed at me.

Cooper's eyes focused on something behind me and I saw Rowsell lift his head. There was silence again and as I stared into Cooper's face I saw his expression change. The fury did not ebb so much as become cloaked or hidden. To my right, I saw Rowsell's musket waver and dip while the smirk dissolved from his lips. Finally, Cooper lowered his barrel and looked away. Only then did I turn to see Froggat standing some yards away, a pistol in his hand. His face was grim and he kept his eyes fixed on the furriers. The two men walked away of their own accord, back the route they had come from the river, with never a word spoken. My sigh of relief was a welcome one; I had been holding my breath for some time. Froggat uncocked his piece and fell in with me as we followed the treacherous pair.

I was shaken by the incident but I had the presence of mind to thank my friend for his timely intrusion. He said that he had seen all three of us leave the camp and had thought it best to follow in turn. Plainly I was not the only one who harboured a deep mistrust of Rowsell and Cooper. On our walk to the river my mind raced with thoughts of what I should do. That I must do something seemed obvious enough, but the right course of action was not readily evident. That they were not to be trusted was beyond any doubt, but what was to be done about it? My first thought was to report the incident to Lieutenant Cartwright, but then I began to anticipate his reaction. Perhaps I had mistaken their intentions or misjudged the situation, he would say. Had I any proof that they were about to do me harm? Did they announce their intention of shooting me? I had my friend's word as to what had passed, but the lieutenant would have little regard for what Froggat might say.

I could practically hear his voice: “Plainly you startled them as they were about to shoot at an animal. They turned and naturally their guns were pointed in your direction. I see no evidence of menace from what you have related. They may be guilty of wanting to eat something besides salt beef, but little else.”

My ears burned with indignation at the imagined conversation until my thoughts turned onto a different track. Even supposing that he accepted that they had threatened the life of a King's officer, what was to be done with them? Placing them under arrest for the remainder of the expedition or returning them to the
Dove
under guard was impractical, to say the least. Short of tying them to a tree there was nothing that I, or anyone else, could have done.

On the afternoon of our sixth day on the river the devil showed his cloven hoof. Grimes had been malingering all the morning and Froggat and I were obliged to shout at him to keep up with the main party. He was throwing sullen looks and murmured curses like a man hard done by and was whining about his feet, which were no more blistered and sore than anyone else's. Finally one of his soles came loose, either by accident or design, and he refused to walk another step without fixing it. He was seaman enough to have a needle and twine with him but Lieutenant Cartwright refused to wait. I ordered Grimes to make his repairs and to catch up as soon as he could.

In hindsight, as is ever the case, I can easily see through the man's deception. He had been by far the most fearful amongst us, forever casting worried looks at the trees and sleeping with his hatchet in his hand. He would not squat in the woods without being able to see the rest of us. The proximity of his bodily noise and stink disgusted us all, even the furriers. With that in mind I should have been suspicious when he raised no objection to being left behind.

As it happened, I was tired and thinking none too clearly. We were all on the point of exhaustion, having marched by my calculation some twenty miles a day under the most trying conditions. I believe that Mr. Cartwright, like myself, viewed Grimes as something less than an asset, especially in his effect upon the morale of the others. We therefore left him with no great reluctance and he watched us go without a word of complaint. The treachery that had been brewing for some days came to a head a few hours later.

We stopped to rest in the heat of midday, and within minutes all hands had fallen asleep where they sat or lay. Half an hour later I awoke with a start, disturbed by the immense silence around me. I looked and counted five sleeping figures, two less than there ought to have been. Cooper and Rowsell were gone, along with their packs and guns, and I had no doubt that they'd planned their flight with Grimes in advance. The petty officer had been clever enough to create an excuse for himself earlier in the day, knowing full well that naked desertion would see him hanged or flogged to within an inch of his life. The furriers, as hired men who did not belong to the Navy, would suffer nothing more than the loss of their pay.

But why would they forfeit their wages? As experienced woodsmen the hardships of the trek had been nothing to them. And I doubted whether they had abandoned us out of fear. Had Grimes offered them some incentive to leave with him? If so, what could it be? I had already established that he possessed ready coin, though it was surely not enough to bribe the others. And what of the man's own greed? I could not imagine him willingly parting with a ha'penny. It was then that a new suspicion became lodged in my mind. It was a vague notion at the time, and one that I could not put coherently, but over the following days it took on form and substance.

I awoke the lieutenant to tell him the news and, to his credit, he said that we would do as well without them. We roused the others and our small party pressed on until later that same day, when we were forced to leave Greening behind. His borrowed boots had all but disintegrated and a small track of blood had appeared in his wake. Normally diffident, he surprised me with his strenuous objections, saying he would walk on his bare feet if he had to. I explained to him, as I had to the boatswain, that he would only hinder our progress and endanger our mission. He relented in the end, but with a pledge to mend the boots and follow us as soon as he could. Froggat was kind enough to leave him his pistol and all of his powder and shot.

That very evening, in the last hour before darkness, our journey on the river came to an end. We were turning a bend in its course with Lieutenant Cartwright leading, when suddenly he uttered a cry and threw up his hands. The gesture occasioned some alarm, as we thought he was under threat. Cousens was the first to come up to him and all concern was dispelled when he threw off his burden and danced a little jig. His laughter and excited hallooing echoed between the rocks and trees.

The rest of us quickly caught up to them and were greeted by a vista that left us awed and speechless. A great lake, larger than anything I had ever seen or imagined, lay spread before us with a surface as smooth as the glass on my compass. The flat calm mirrored perfectly the golden sweep of the western sky, with one half of the setting sun still hovering above a far-off mountain. At the time I thought it the most beautiful sight in the world, and while we stood in silence the sky and its reflection in the lake changed to brilliant ochre as the sun sank behind the distant peak.

We were lame, exhausted, hungry and maddened by clouds of flies that gave us no peace, and yet we were elated. We walked a short distance along the shore in the twilight before choosing a point of land on which to spend the night. Froggat and Cousens set about gathering firewood and Reverend Stow readied the kettle to boil the last of our salted meat. Lieutenant Cartwright made an entry in his journal while I reflected on how our weariness and pain were of such little consequence in the light of our achievement. We were the first white men to look upon this great, nameless lake—the first to witness God's glorious and divine creation. I spent some time in contemplation of the event and was more than a little pleased with what we had accomplished.

The lieutenant was not about to rest on his laurels, however. He soon joined me and began to outline his plans for the morrow, when we would begin our survey of the shoreline. This was certainly the lake that Tom June had spoken of, but the lieutenant was keenly aware that reaching it was not the task that the governor had laid before him. Contact with the Red Indians was uppermost in his mind and I could only respect him for his dogged pursuit of his duty.

We were interrupted in our discussion by an exclamation from the chaplain. He had just realized that the day was Sunday, a fact that had escaped us all in the mind-numbing routine and weariness of our march. He soon had us assembled for prayers by firelight and all present gave thanks to the Lord for the success that we had met with thus far. The lieutenant, in honour of the occasion, officially gave the name of Sabbath Point to the spit of land on which we were camped.

That evening I smoked my pipe beneath a canopy of stars and considered what we had to be thankful for. We were reduced to a handful of exhausted men and we had less than a day's ration of bread to sustain us. We were crippled, bitten, sore and stiff, and not visibly nearer to success than we had been a week earlier. But we were alive and in good spirits, which was something at least. Froggat came and sat beside me after the others had made their beds in the sand. He was like a man reborn compared to the shadow of himself that I'd watched so anxiously since leaving Bonavista. I was happy for him and pleased that we could at last sit in one another's company as we used to do. We savoured our pipes in a comfortable silence, staring at the star-encrusted sky, until I remarked that it was the kind of night a navigator might dream of.

“Do you miss the sea already, Jonah?” he asked with a smile.

“To tell the truth, I haven't been this long ashore since '62, when we were at St. John's with Colonel Amherst. I can also say, without fear of contradiction, that I have never walked so far in my life.”

He laughed and stretched a leg to the fire. “And if we were to turn back this minute, we'd still be only half-way to the sea,” he observed. “More likely we're not a quarter finished, I'd venture to say.”

“You may be wrong there, my young friend. We haven't the food or the feet to go much farther. Lieutenant Cartwright is reluctant to admit it, but he knows the facts as well as I do.”

“You don't believe we'll find the Red Indians?”

“I am not optimistic.” I picked a brand from the fire and relit my pipe.

Froggat toyed with a small object that looked like a piece of bone. “Tell me about Bonavista, Jonah,” he said. “About you finding me there.”

“I've told you all I can,” I said, knowing that he was still attempting to fill the gaps in his memory. “You were sick and your captain sent you ashore with three of the
Liverpool
's crew. They left you in the care of an incompetent surgeon and that is all I know. By the by, do you recall a book of Oliver Goldsmith's that I once lent you?”

“Goldsmith? Why, yes.
The Vicar of Wakefield
, wasn't it? Don't tell me I haven't given it back!”

“No, no. But you may remember that the author had once been a surgeon, and not a very good one. After he turned to writing, he told an acquaintance that he now only prescribed for his friends—”

“Oh yes! I remember. The acquaintance replied, ‘Pray, doctor, alter your rule and prescribe only for your enemies.'”