Captain Cook's Apprentice Read online

  About the Book

  When young Isaac Manley sailed on the Endeavour from England in 1768, no one on board knew if a mysterious southern continent existed in the vast Pacific Ocean. It would be a voyage full of uncertainties and terrors.

  During the course of the three-year journey, Isaac’s eyes are opened to all the brutal realities of life at sea – floggings, storms, press-gangs, the deaths of fellow crewmen, and violent clashes on distant shores.

  Yet Isaac also experiences the tropical delights of Tahiti, where he becomes enchanted with a beautiful Tahitian girl. He sees the wonders of New Zealand, and he is there when the men of Endeavour first glimpse the east coast of Australia, anchor in Botany Bay, and run aground on the Great Barrier Reef.

  Acclaimed and award-winning historical novelist Anthony Hill brings to life this landmark voyage with warmth, insight and vivid detail in this exciting and enlightening tale of adventure and discovery.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  The Ship’s Company

  Maps

  Introduction

  1: Beginnings

  2: Atlantic storms

  3: Bound for Rio

  4: Cape Horn

  5: Transit of Venus

  6: Tahiti

  Interlude. Into the unknown

  7: Maori warriors

  8: Cannibal Bay

  9: New Holland

  10: Aground!

  11: The breadth of one wave

  12: Dead men’s clothes

  13: Mr Midshipman Manley

  Finale. Full circle

  Afterwards. Admiral Isaac

  Historical notes

  Chapter notes

  Acknowledgements

  References

  About the Author

  Also by Anthony Hill

  Imprint

  Read more at Penguin Books Australia

  For Jane Tanner,

  a fellow voyager

  I whose ambition leads me not only farther than any other man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go . . .

  James Cook, 30 January 1774

  THE SHIP’S COMPANY

  HM Bark Endeavour left Plymouth in August 1768 with ninety-four souls on board. Among them were the following:

  Captain Lieutenant James Cook

  Lieutenants Zachary Hicks, John Gore

  Master Robert Molineux

  Master’s Mates Richard Pickersgill, Francis Wilkinson, Charles Clerke

  Midshipmen John Bootie, Jonathan Monkhouse, Patrick Saunders

  Surgeon William Monkhouse

  Surgeon’s Mate William Perry

  Captain’s Clerk Richard Orton

  Gunner Stephen Forwood

  Boatswain John Gathrey

  Boatswain’s Mates including John Reading, Samuel Evans

  Quartermaster Alexander Weir

  Carpenter John Satterley

  Armourer Robert Taylor

  Cook John Thompson

  Sailmaker John Ravenhill

  Butcher Henry Jeffs

  Able Seamen including Isaac Smith (later Midshipman), James Magra (later Midshipman), Forby Sutherland, Peter Flower, Henry Stephens, John Thurman (pressed at Madeira), Archibald Wolf, Francis Haite, Manuel Pereira (from Rio)

  Servants, boys including Isaac Manley (later Midshipman), Nick Young, Tom Matthews

  Marines Sergeant John Edgcumbe, Corporal John Truslove, eleven Privates including Thomas Dunster, Samuel Gibson, William Greenslade, Thomas Rossiter (drummer), Clement Webb

  Supernumeraries Joseph Banks, Charles Green (astronomer), Daniel Solander (naturalist), Herman Spöring (assistant), Alexander Buchan, Sydney Parkinson (artists)

  Servants including James Roberts, Peter Briscoe, Thomas Richmond, George Dorlton

  Tahitians Tupaia, a priest of Oro, Taiata, his attendant

  INTRODUCTION

  August 2018 marks the 250th anniversary of the departure from Plymouth of His Majesty’s Bark Endeavour under its captain, Lieutenant James Cook. Its three-year odyssey is among the most significant voyages of European discovery ever made. And that being so, there could be no better time to bring out this new edition of Captain Cook’s Apprentice – very much a servant boy’s mess-deck view of the great enterprise, which did so much to expand human knowledge in the arts and sciences, and our understanding of the world we inhabit. And for those of us who live in the new nations of the Pacific that arose in Cook’s wake, the Endeavour voyage and all that followed still resonate in our daily lives.

  Beyond all the enduring consequences of the Endeavour circumnavigation, however, there remains the sheer adventure of the expedition itself. That intoxicating draught of fear and daring when journeying into the unknown – of sailing into a vast, blank space on the map, and not knowing what might happen. Much, in our own day, as we all felt when humanity first flew with a rocket ship into space.

  I’d long wanted to write the Endeavour story with the immediacy it would have had to somebody on board at the time, but it wasn’t until I was reading J C Beaglehole’s Life of Captain Cook that I found a way into it. There was a single reference to a young fellow, Isaac Manley, only thirteen at the time they left in August 1768, who rose to become an Admiral, lived to be eighty-two and was the last survivor of the Endeavour crew. Here, I thought, was my subject. Isaac had gone on board as servant – more akin to an apprentice in our terms – to the sailing master, Robert Molineux, to learn his ropes; and he must have done well, for Cook made him a midshipman on the way home. It was his first step up the ladder of promotion . . . and gave me a chance to tell the tale through fresh, young eyes, in the dawn of life when everything is new.

  Very little had been written about Isaac up to that time. When I began the research project I was privileged to be given four hours with Cook’s Endeavour journal at the National Library of Australia; he makes no mention of Isaac in it at all, although his name certainly appears in the ship’s muster book and in Cook’s letter to the Admiralty after the voyage, praising him as one whose ‘behaviour merits the best recommendation’. Even during two years of research I could find nothing that Isaac wrote about the voyage, despite his long and prospering life.

  Yet all the time I was reading Cook’s journal I was conscious of the lad living and growing, darting between the lines as, day by day, the Captain wrote his epic words on the page. During my own sail on the Endeavour replica, I made the rounds one night with the watch through the decks of the sleeping ship to ensure that all was well. And I felt very much as Isaac must have done when he did it for the first time after Cook made him a midshipman. The responsibility was palpable – and it drew me closer to my theme and to all that happened.

  I came closer to Isaac Manley, as well. Later in the research journey I stayed for several days in the lovely Georgian ‘gothick’ mansion he built for his family in Oxfordshire. You can tell a lot about somebody’s personality and motivations when you inhabit for a little while the rooms they made for themselves. And by coincidence, a few years ago, I acquired a map signed by Admiral Manley not long before he died. It shows the coastlines of New Zealand and New South Wales that he was among the first Europeans to see as a boy. I must say it was a constant companion while preparing this new edition of Captain Cook’s Apprentice. I was in direct contact with Manley, as I had been with Cook through his journal.

  Having said that, it’s important to add that the novel is essentially a literary re-creation: a ‘mess-deck view’, as I said, of the voyage as I imagine Isaac might have experienced it. The girl Heimata and the pearl, Isaac’s thoughts, speech, feelings, and the internals of character are wholly fiction
al. Yet I have sought to remain true to the externals of the Endeavour narrative. The sequence of events as they unfold, and the opinions of Cook, Banks and others, have been based closely on their journals, as documented in the Chapter Notes.

  In this, I have tried to keep faith with the many people mentioned in the Acknowledgments who helped with my own journeys in Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti and Britain – as I sought to do justice to the vision I had of the youth who kept appearing in the spaces between Captain Cook’s bristling words in the manuscript room at the National Library.

  The first edition of Captain Cook’s Apprentice did well, and received its share of attention. And in thanking Penguin Random House for deciding to publish this new and expanded edition to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the mighty Endeavour enterprise, I rejoice that the tale has been brought before another generation of readers. For truly it touches all our lives.

  Anthony Hill

  Canberra, 2018

  1

  BEGINNINGS

  England, June to August 1768

  The boy knew danger was coming.

  He could hear it, sitting at the prow of his ferryboat on the broad River Thames . . . a deep growl of angry water that grew louder as they neared London Bridge.

  He could feel it, for the boat began to kick and strain as it caught the edges of the rip, where the pent-up river gushed into narrow channels between the piers.

  And then he could see it. A white, foaming cascade as the water swirled through the arches, like a rapids.

  Danger. And the boy Isaac knew what he would do.

  ‘Will you get out and walk round, young sir, as I shoot the bridge?’ asked the ferryman, rowing towards the riverbank stairs. ‘I’ll pick ye up on the other side.’

  Young Isaac Manley shook his head. ‘I’m shooting the bridge with you.’

  ‘Most unwise.’ The man squinted. ‘Your father wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘He give me a silver half-crown to deliver you safe down river, to the ship Endeavour what’s being fitted out for the South Seas. He won’t want you drowned before you’ve even reached Deptford.’

  ‘My father’s not here. He’ll never know.’

  ‘He’s a lawyer, matey. And lawyers know everything.’

  ‘Please!’ The boy turned to the waterman, seeking his own justice. ‘I’ve never been allowed. It’s the first time. Before I board that ship, I must know if I dare . . .’

  ‘You know what they say: London Bridge is for wise men to cross and fools to go under.’

  ‘I can add a sixpence to your fare.’ Isaac felt for his purse. ‘When we get there.’

  ‘Ah, so that’s where the wind lies. How old are ye?’

  ‘Thirteen.’

  The man bared his yellow teeth and blinked at Isaac’s coin. ‘Then I’ll be a wise fool and take the young master’s money, too.’ He spat on his hands. ‘I’ve been a seafaring man myself. Let’s see what sort of sailor you’ll make.’

  And bracing his feet on the boards, he pulled the boat into midstream.

  Isaac shivered a little, spray wet on his face, and drew his cloak around him. He hoped he’d be a good sailor and do his father proud, but he didn’t know . . .

  He looked up river, crowded with boats and barges as it flowed through the great city in the summer morning. Past the towers of Westminster, and the Temple where his father John practised law. He’d just been made a Bencher, and the ancient Manley crest of a black hand on a white shield would be mounted proudly in the Great Hall.

  Past the looming dome of Saint Paul’s. If Isaac peered hard enough he could see the steeples near Hatton Garden, where lived the family he’d known all his life: Papa and mother Ann, his two brothers and two sisters – and Isaac, in the middle, was the first to leave home. He hoped they’d all think well of him . . .

  Then he turned to the bridge. Young Master Manley knew it would take more than this to make a seaman of him. But it was a start: a fair beginning to his first voyage.

  The Thames moved placidly enough on its own journey to the sea, until it met the barrier of London Bridge. The nineteen piers, protected by massive stone and timber piles, blocked two-thirds of the river. With each tidal change water banked up behind, as if the bridge were a dam wall, and the Thames hurled itself through the narrow arches in violent cataracts. Although they’d widened the middle arch and the bridge itself a few years ago, it still took courage to pass beneath it on a running tide. When the boatman spoke of drownings, he wasn’t exaggerating.

  ‘At least they took down the houses on London Bridge!’ he called above the torrent. ‘We won’t have the excitement of people emptying piss pots over us as well, ha ha! Hang on to your cocked hat, matey!’

  Isaac removed his hat altogether and clamped it between his knees. He needed both hands to hang on to the boat.

  For suddenly they were in the grip of the current. The man had charge of his ferry thus far: now he could only use his oars to steady it as the river swept them into the middle arch. Closer and closer. Like entering a spillway.

  Isaac could hear the roar of water as it fell into the whirlpool below. He wished he’d had second thoughts and walked around the bridge as wise men like his father did. But it was too late for that. The river had seized them and was rushing them forward. Thank God his sea chest was safely roped in the stern!

  The sun disappeared. They were under the bridge. Isaac noticed the ferryman had shipped his oars for safety and, looking up, he saw the pointed ribs of the old bridge as they’d been built five hundred years ago. He was about to shout something, when all at once he felt himself tipped backwards and forwards as the boat plunged ten feet down the waterfall and into the white, boiling spume.

  Vomit rose in Isaac’s throat. Thoughts of drowning, and of the dead found on river mud, flooded his mind. He wished to his gut he’d never wanted to go to sea . . .

  There was light. The noise receded. And opening his grey, stinging eyes, Isaac saw the man righting his oars and grinning at him.

  ‘Ye’re as green as seaweed, mate. But you’ll not reach Deptford floating face down.’

  He began to row once more, smooth and easy, for the tide was ebbing and the river carried them quickly downstream. Isaac might not be dead – but he felt half-drowned all the same! A tall, well-built lad, his face and long sandy hair, tied with a ribbon, were by now sopping wet and his cloak was drenched. But they’d soon dry in the morning sun. And having survived the danger, Isaac laughed at it.

  Past the Customs House, where Isaac’s grandfather John had been a Commissioner and the family first came to know sea captains and navy men; beyond the grim turrets of the Tower, and frantic river side wharves. Here, in the Pool of London, great ships were all day unloading their cargoes and fitting out for new voyages.

  ‘East Indiamen from Bengal,’ the waterman pointed to them. ‘Merchantmen from Americky, look ye. Newcastle colliers . . . channel packet boats . . . Gibraltar men-o-war. And crewmen from all parts of the known world – aye, and some parts barely discovered. There’s talk up and down river what Endeavour will carry men who sailed the South Seas with Captain Wallis and found the island of Tahiti.’

  ‘So my father says,’ replied Isaac, his voice kindling with the sounds of ships and such faraway places. Safely through the bridge, the boy’s imagination was catching fire again. ‘We’re supposed to be bound for there. Such an adventure! I was lucky he could get me a berth!’

  ‘And what berth is that?’ The man eased his oars and pulled out a pipe. ‘Have they made ye captain yet?’

  ‘No, Lieutenant James Cook is Captain. I’m . . .’ Isaac realised he was being teased, and his voice fell. ‘I’m just one of the officer’s servants . . . a cabin boy.’

  ‘No shame in that, not even for a young gentleman whose pa is a rich lawyer. Many an admiral has started just the same way, ’prentice to a officer and studyin’ to become a good seaman. It’s a hard life, matey. A strict life.
But sometimes it’s a sweet one. And the sooner ye get started in it, the better. Come on!’

  He bent to the oars again.

  Swiftly they passed timber yards and shipwrights, bustling warehouses and riverside alehouses, where off-duty seamen caroused with their shore wives. Yes, and the gallows at Execution Dock where pirates hung in chains till their corpses rotted. For the sea could be a cruel life as well.

  The river thronged with ships lying at anchor, and the ferryman told Isaac to keep his eyes peeled for loose cables and any other small craft as they threaded among them.

  So the boy played lookout as they passed high gilded stern windows, weather-beaten hulls, and above them tall masts and spars swaying like a bare winter forest. Proud thrusting bowsprits supported by carved figureheads – mermaids, sea gods and painted heroes – keeping watch. Neptune. Admiral Pocock. The Rajah of Calicut. Such names! Such places they’d seen! Excitement stirred in him again. Soon Isaac would join them and he, too, would sail for Tahiti and parts barely known. If only they could reach his ship . . .

  Then, rounding a bend in the river, he saw the domes of Greenwich, the Royal Observatory on its green hill. And before them, the brick clock tower, storehouses and all the swarming activity of the naval dockyard at Deptford.

  They rowed about seeking directions for the vessel called Endeavour, and at last found her berthed beside the supply tender Surprize, getting her spars across. She was a modest little ship – small and tubby in comparison to the men-o-war they’d passed. But to Isaac she was beautiful, and he longed to get aboard.