The Beothuk Expedition (6 page)

I nodded, not at all surprised that the most common affliction of the Navy had struck this young man down. During my own recovery, I had read a treatise on the disease that was newly written by a surgeon named Lind. He seemed to think that oranges and lemons were an effective cure, which I suppose was well and good if you fell ill in the Mediterranean.

“What treatments has the surgeon applied?” I asked.

The woman shrugged. “Diff'rent ones. First 'e covered 'im up to 'is neck in soil but after a few days da sores got worse, like. Then 'e give 'im doses o' tarwater, only 'e couldn't keep it down. Lately 'e been bleedin' 'im every few hours.”

I had experienced all of these so-called remedies and knew of none that was worth the suffering endured by the patient. “Anything more?” I asked.

She took down a tiny bowl from a nearby shelf. “Just dis med'cine.” I lifted the thimble of reddish brown powder to my nose and recoiled at the pungently bitter smell.

“What is the boy's name?” I asked, returning the bowl and stepping closer to the bed. I took hold of the sheet and her reply came as I drew it back. I cannot say if it was the name in my ear or the face before me that gave me such a shock.

John Cartwright

It was a close thing with that confounded shallop, I have to say. Of course, had the boatswain not issued orders contrary to my wishes, we would have weathered the affair quite nicely. Valuable time was lost in sending the hands to the jibsail first, when that was clearly not my intention. But there is no harm done, other than the addition of three men to my crew and the lack of our baggage. I am certain that we shall prosper all the same, provided the boatswain remembers his place on my vessel.

The
Guernsey
has now parted company, leaving me to my own resources until we reach Fogo Island. I have decided that, if the ship is not there when we arrive, we shall provision as best we can and set a course for the Bay of Exploits. Mr. Palliser has determined that Man of War Cove, on the southern end of Fogo Island, will be our alternate rendezvous in a fortnight from now. In the meantime, I have made it known to all and sundry at Bonavista that a reward is offered for a captive Red Indian. Our host, Mr. Street, seems to have some reservation on this. He has said little, however, other than to note that a great many ruffians have passed through the town this summer, bound for the fishing stations of the northeast coast.

Mr. Street informs me as well that there are many criminal charges waiting to be heard there. I have not the least knowledge of these cases but I can easily imagine the offences involved. They will include assault, theft, wanton damage to property and so on, and no doubt the greater part of it will be down to the immoderate consumption of spirits. Many of those brought before the court will also be of the Irish race. This I know from experience. They will be young men for the most past, shipped to Newfoundland because their families or parishes were unable to support them at home. Here they are known as White Boys, though few of them have actual ties to that rebel cause. They may sympathize with it and why should they not? English landlords have been turning them off their tenant farms and crofts for years, evicting them with no compensation, few skills and even fewer prospects.

Reverend Balfour at Trinity has informed the governor that his parish has been the scene of many outrages, where from want and necessity the Irish riot frequently. The English settlers have been forced to draw together for their own protection and no man will accept the duties of constable, for fear of his life. Many of these Irish routinely die of starvation and exposure in winter. I myself have arrested individuals for manslaughter that was brought on by desperation and fuelled by intoxicating spirits. Only last year, a young woman named Hannah Barrett was tormented by a mob of these fellows and run off a cliff to her death. The situation has not improved a year hence, for recently I've heard that a gang of scoundrels has been terrorizing Trinity once more. As surrogate magistrate, I have no time to deal with them now but I shall certainly clip their wings on my return.

Even the Irish who have employment here are no better off, it seems. Their employers will cheat them and abuse them given half the chance, and they do not help themselves with their weakness for drink. Captain Palliser has had occasion to reprimand certain English merchants for paying their servants with rum instead of wages. Unable to buy their passage home at the season's end, these servants are abandoned to debauchery and wickedness for six months of the year. They become perfect strangers to all government, religion and good order.

One of the most notorious merchants for this is Andrew Pinson, an agent of John Noble at Toulinguet. The governor has reprimanded him repeatedly for landing his crews at St. John's in the fall and paying them entirely in spirits. While he and his methods are condemned by us, his business fellows love him even less, owing to his attempts at monopolizing the fur and salmon trade on this coast. Pinson, I am bound to say, is the epitome of all that is wrong with this place, for the man is Greed itself.

By contrast, it has been most gratifying to serve under an individual as enlightened as Captain Palliser. We are of the same mind in believing that the lower classes do not have to be kept poor in order to be kept industrious. We are part of the new order, he and I: compassionate, yet firm and consistent in administering justice to the lower ranks of society. I recall our very first conversation, on whether God had established our social system, and whether poverty, pain and death are part of the mystery of Creation. We are both inclined to think it is so, though we shall never shrink from appeasing human suffering where we find it.

Suffering is a word that I have heard frequently of late. The Reverend Stow is most insistent that we catch up with the
Guernsey
to prevent our own suffering. Of course, I suspect that our ecclesiastical friend is more concerned with his personal comfort than with any true suffering on the part of the crew. The word has also been used by Mr. Squibb, in connection with a midshipman who was left here by the
Liverpool
. He seems to think the boy will suffer and die if he is left in the care of a former naval surgeon. These surgeons may be crude in their methods, I will admit, but it would be impossible to take a bedridden man on an expedition such as this. Still, our young Mr. Squibb can be most persistent, a distasteful quality that I have noted in him. But Mr. Palliser is not here to favour him now, and so he shall have to obey my orders on the subject. We are overcrowded as it is and our provisions were meant for eight men, not eleven and certainly not a dozen. I have therefore decided that the midshipman from the
Liverpool
will remain where he is.

Jonah Squibb

I was more than a little chafed at Lieutenant Cartwright's refusal to have the ailing midshipman brought on board the shallop. To leave a fellow sailor to die in such a remote place, and at the hands of such a charlatan, would be unpardonable. All the same, I held my tongue, owing to the weather continuing wet and cold throughout the night. With nothing more than a lantern to heat the fore and aft cabins of the boat, it was just as well that the lad remained at the surgeon's house for the time being, especially as the surgeon was away and incapable of doing further harm.

As for Lieutenant Cartwright, he had taken up residence in the merchant's premises, accompanied by his brother George, Reverend Stow and old Atkinson, the brother's cadaverous servant. They were to reside there as guests of Mr. Street while I remained on board with the crew. The arrangement served me well enough, as I wished to put our vessel into an improved state of order and comfort. I thought little of the fact that I had not actually been invited to stay at the house.

The evening's work began with the makeshift canopy, which was taken down and rigged to better effect until it kept most of the rain off our heads. I then sent Bolger to find something fresh for our dinner and he returned with two enormous codfish and a quantity of their tongues. He knew of my fondness for tongues and, despite his disgust, he'd done me a great kindness in getting them. The fish we boiled on the boat's stove and the men ate it with biscuit and a plum duff, all the while eyeing me doubtfully as I floured and fried my cod tongues in lard. Only Greening would accept the offer of a few on his plate, saying that he was more partial to the cheeks himself.

Next I set about ordering the messes, assigning the forecastle to the seamen and claiming the aft cabin for the use of the warrant officers and myself. I had no doubt that Lieutenant Cartwright would change the arrangement when he returned from his comforts, though for now, the men were happy enough. To refer to the enclosed spaces fore and aft as cabins is perhaps to exaggerate their size. There was barely width or length for three men to sling their hammocks side-by-side, and just enough height to sit on low benches when the hammocks were stowed. Even when seated, the tallest amongst us, who happened to be me, had to be mindful of the beams. We managed to pass the night in reasonable, if chilly, comfort, the men serving in two watches under the warrant officers.

The next morning the weather continued poorly and I issued the first ration of rum early, so as to put a cheerful light on the day. I was not pleased, however, to observe petty officer Grimes gulping down his grog before demanding a share from his fellow
Liverpool
s. By then, I'd had some time to take the measure of these three, and I did not like what I saw. Grimes was a swaggering, thick-necked tar whom I'd already pegged for a tyrant. To quote Smollett, whom I'd been reading the day before: “He had all the outward signs of a sot; a sleepy eye, a rubicund face, and a carbuncled nose. He seemed to be a little out at the elbows, had marvelous foul linen, and his breeches were not very sound; but he assumed an air of importance.” The other two sailors, a wizened Cornishman named Rundle and a near-idiot lad named Jenkins, were bullied by the petty officer at every turn. Jenkins, a slack-jawed and glassy-eyed youth, seemed to take the greater part of the abuse.

A short time after the incident with the grog, I saw Grimes approach the boatswain and heard him ask for leave to go ashore. Had he known our Mr. Frost better, he would never have committed such folly. Or else he would have been suspicious of the pleasant manner in which the boatswain asked the reason for his request. Grimes, suspecting nothing, told him of a widow who sold rum in the parlour of her house and that he would stand the boatswain a tot if he joined him. It had not escaped my attention that our new crewmen were short on discipline, owing no doubt to having been left so long without supervision. Nor had this state of affairs gone unnoticed by the boatswain, who began putting things to right from that moment. I took my leave for the surgeon's house as he launched an oath-laden tirade against the hapless Grimes.

I had stationed Greening at the house in case of the surgeon's return and I found him awake and at his post when I arrived. He was cut from a different cloth than the others, with a plain, innocent face and an eagerness to please. He also possessed a shy and awkward manner that belied his physical strength and quickness of mind. I had high hopes of him, not only because he was a fellow Newfoundlander but also because he was at home in the rigging and had the makings of a fine topman. I sent the lad back to the shallop and seated myself by the midshipman's bed. To my surprise and delight, he was beginning to show signs of recovery. His skin was now dry to the touch and the woman said he'd been quiet through much of the night. She had ignored my earlier objections and had been administering a drink of boiled dandelion juice and spruce beer, with favourable results. I thanked her sincerely, which impressed her much less than the shilling, which disappeared into the folds of her shawl.

I was undecided whether it was God or Fate that had placed me in Bonavista to watch over this young man. It had to be more than mere coincidence, for I will tell you now that I loved him as a brother. He was as brave a sailor as ever stowed a hammock and as fine a friend as any man could wish. We had sailed together on the old
Northumberland
when he was a mere child and I his senior at the age of eighteen, which was now his present age. We were shipmates a few months only, but in that time the bond between us had been forged as strong as any steel, owing to what we had suffered and survived together.

The boy was none other than Friday Froggat, so named for the day of his birth, his mother having exhausted her store of names on his nineteen older siblings. He and I had maintained our friendship and correspondence over the years, but I'd heard nothing of him for the last six months or more. It was not an unusual length of time for a letter to catch up with a ship, though for all that, I was astonished to discover that the two of us had been serving in the same squadron without knowing it.

As for his health, Froggat was far from cured of his disease or the surgeon's treatments. However, I allowed myself to think that he stood half a chance with a friend at his side. Observing him for the first time in daylight, I saw that the exposed parts of his body were free of all but the faintest blemishes, excepting a half-dozen scars from cutlass and shot. A victim in whom the scurvy is well advanced would normally be covered in livid spots and open sores. His mouth hung open in sleep and I pulled back his lip, observing no sign of the inflamed gums and fetid breath that accompany the disease. His breathing was also regular and unlaboured, which gave me hope that the worst had passed.

At his very best Froggat was no balm for sore eyes and now he was a pitiful sight indeed. His front teeth, fashioned from polished whalebone, lay on the window ledge. Their absence gave him the appearance of a man much older than eighteen years. His body was emaciated and astonishingly ripe after two weeks of fevered sweating and his long red hair was a tangled mess. As a boy he'd been small for his age and in early manhood his stature remained that of an adolescent. His face had also retained some of the features of his youth, though an ever-present squint had prematurely deepened the lines around his eyes and the freckles on his pale face were darker and more numerous. But for all that, he looked better than he had the night before. The woman brought another cup of the hot, bitter drink and by early afternoon I thought that he'd improved half as much again. When I made ready to return to the shallop he was sleeping peacefully with a hint of colour to his cheek.