The Beothuk Expedition (17 page)

“That's it.” I chuckled. “Sound advice for the surgeon who attended you as well.”

“I can't remember anything about him, you know. I recollect first coming down with the scurvy, on board the
Liverpool
. It's after they took me ashore that it's all confused. And what about Grimes and his mates? What were they up to while I was laid low?”

“Waiting for the
Guernsey
, as they were told to do. And drinking the town dry, from what I could see.”

“With what?” Froggat laughed. “Old buttons?”

“Oh, no. Grimes seemed to have a full purse and he was spending it freely enough.”

“Really? Fancy that!”

A short silence descended upon us before I said, “But come now, Friday. I've heard nothing of you for a whole year. And I had no idea that you were on board the
Liverpool
. The last I knew, you were on the
Audacious
and in charge of her signals. What has happened since?”

Froggat knocked out his clay pipe and leaned back on one elbow. “Well, it was a memorable year, I'm bound to admit. I joined the
Liverpool
after my last letter to you, just as she was sent to escort a convoy of East Indiamen out of Plymouth. We sailed on Christmas Day, a poor time to sail to be sure, but we rounded the Cape and arrived in the Indies without a hitch or a hangnail. We were there some weeks while the ships went about loading their spices and timber and such. Then in late February we sailed from Bombay and charted a course for Persia, our first stop on the voyage home. It was a routine enough business, as you know.”

I nodded in agreement. “Well, that's when it all changed. I was second in command of a prize we'd taken a few weeks before, a corsair that was caught harassing a merchantman. She was local built, though sound enough and we sailed her to the Persian coast in hopes of finding a buyer. While we were there and the Indiamen were taking on a cargo of silks, a fierce storm blew up from the Indian Ocean. What they calls a typhoon in those parts. Well, we had no choice but to run before it and the prize I was on was separated from the fleet. We were driven westwards along the Arabian shore for days on end.”

Froggat paused to relight his pipe. “There's a thick haze on the sea in them parts,” he resumed, “owing to the heat and the sand storms that comes out of the desert. We had a young lieutenant in command, younger than me he was and be damned if he didn't put us aground in the middle of the night. There was no damage but before we could refloat her, we found we wasn't alone on that desolate shore. A dozen small boats come bearing down on us at first light the next day. They were
dhow
-rigged but they turned out to be a kind of vessel called a
battil
.

“Now your
battil
is not like your other
dhows
—your
boum awas
,
sambouks
and
jalibuts
.
Battils
are speedy little craft that can manoeuvre as smart as ye please and the Arabs use 'em for pirating work. They carry a pair of three-pounders each, which pose no great mischief, but their tactic is to swarm a vessel at once and overcome it. It's easy enough to blow two or three of 'em out of the water, mind you, but before you knows it the rest are alongside and you're boarded in no time at all. That's what happened to us and we'd no choice but to strike our colours in the end. Only the ship's boy and myself were taken unwounded. The others, dead and wounded alike, were thrown over the side. Then at high tide they took the two of us ashore to their stronghold.”

There was a long pause in the darkness. I waited until he spoke again.

“Ah, Jonah, it was a cruel, cruel place. The heat was like nothing I ever knew and the sun a scourge upon our heads. We were taken as slaves and joined a gang of others—Persian, Arab, Goan, and the like—that were building a great fortress alongside an oasis. It was the only water for miles around and the tribesmen gave more of it to their camels than they did to us. Oh, there was many a time I wanted to lie down and die, just like those around me who did so every day. But me and my shipmate held on, as did an African we'd befriended who showed us how to survive in that scorching hell of a desert.

“We suffered this for months until the new moon in the month of April. By night we were locked inside the very fort we were building, with its walls of clay and stone six feet thick. Our guards manned the corner towers with muskets and escape was impossible, or so I thought. One night while we lay on the ground with the snakes and the scorpions, I heard the usual call to prayers, which they obey five and six times a day. But then I heard none of the usual praying from the tower nearest to us. When I realized this I made so bold as to stand up, which brought neither shot nor shout from that quarter. It looked for all the world like they'd left us unguarded. I stirred my two companions and we hastened to the base of the tower, where the ship's boy found purchase with his small fingers and toes. He scaled that brick turret like a foremast jack and in no time at all he'd let down a rope to us.

“Well, we were over them walls and into the night before you could say
Allah akhbar
. Turns out it was a feast day, with everyone gathered in the village and our guards not wanting to be left out. They wasn't much concerned about us because we had nowhere to go anyways. If we went into the desert we'd be mad with thirst in a day and dead by the end of the second. And there was no place to hide, the land being as flat and treeless as the ocean.

“On the other hand, we knew there was a boatworks in the harbour and that the shipwrights had just launched a big
dhow
called a
baghlah
. This was a proper ocean-going ship rigged with them big lateen sails. Now, an Arab boatyard is normally a guarded place because of a powerful superstition. They believes that if a childless woman jumps across the newly laid keel of a boat she will conceive. But for every life that comes into the world in this manner another has to leave it, usually that of a builder. Which is why they guard their yards careful-like: to keep the women out.

“All the same, on that particular night everyone was gone to join in the great feast, excepting one watchman. We stole aboard the
baghlah
, and our friend the African wrung his neck as neat as you please. I knew nothing then of sailing such a craft but we soon found our companion to be a seasoned hand. Under his command we slipped away without so much as a shot fired at our stern. Luck was on our side from the start, ye might say, and it carried on with the strong, hot northerly wind until we met with our convoy a week later. Two months after that we were in Plymouth and the
Liverpool
began fitting out for the Newfoundland station.”

Froggat drew on his pipe and in the flickering light he appeared to contemplate the ordeal. It had been quite an experience, and although I knew him to be a brave and resourceful lad, it had taken more than that to survive such captivity. I told him as much but he laughed my comment off with his usual modesty. It had taken him months to escape, he said, when I would have managed it in a fortnight.

As I yawned it occurred to me that his recent illness might have been related to his captivity, but when asked he said that he'd been the very picture of health until the scurvy came upon him. We lapsed into silent thought at this until, after a while, he asked if I knew what had become of his sea chest. I said that it hadn't been with him at Bonavista and must therefore have been left on board the
Liverpool
. I cannot say whether he replied to this, for within minutes I was fast asleep.

We awoke to a light rain and mist, although the day promised to be tolerably warm. For breakfast we ate ship's biscuit and then set out to explore the northeast corner of the lake. A ribbon of sand between the trees and water made the walking easy and we came to a shallow cove at noon. Lieutenant Cartwright called for a brief rest, during which he wondered aloud if this could be the cove that Tom June had spoken of. His notion was confirmed when we explored further and discovered what had once been a large clearing near the beach. We soon found evidence of an Indian settlement, with new growth overtaking the studded log houses and the collapsed poles and bark of
mamateeks
. Here, as we gnawed the last of our hardtack, the lieutenant named the place June's Cove, which he wrote in his journal. He also voiced his opinion that Tom June's tribe had become greatly diminished since the boy's capture ten years before. Cousens agreed, adding that he'd heard a rumour of the Mickmacks trapping the western end of the lake. They would never have attempted such a thing if the Red Indians had strength in numbers, he said.

We resumed our trek with hunger gnawing at our bellies and I realized with some concern that we had seen almost nothing in the way of game. I also regretted having come away from the ship without a hook and line, for several times we saw large salmon or trout jumping in the lake. After two hours more of marching in the rain we came upon a square house and several
mamateeks
in good repair, but again they bore no sign of having been occupied since the previous winter. Once more we stopped to rest and took out our pipes as a poor substitute for food. It was then, my resolve strengthened by fatigue, that I gave voice to the evidence that was mounting around us.

“It appears to me that the Red Indians have not been here, or even upon the river, in many months,” I ventured.

Cousens grunted. “We have seen nothing to encourage us.”

The lieutenant looked across the water and scratched his fly bites. “And when did you arrive at this opinion, Mister Squibb?” he asked in a weary voice.

“Several days ago, sir.”

He nodded and sighed. “At about the same time that I began to have my own doubts.” I toyed with my pipe until he added, “But yet we know that they still exist. Where can they be?” The question was directed as much to the silent trees as to any of us.

I scratched my own bites and said, “I have given that question some thought, sir. And I have come to believe that they are a migrant people.”

The lieutenant looked at me in surprise. “Really? Do go on.”

“I believe, sir, that they spend their winters here on the lake, travelling upriver from the coast when the caribou migrate. In the spring they go down to the sea, where they hunt birds and salmon and gather eggs for their subsistence.”

He smoked his pipe as he considered my theory. “It is plausible. But why did Tom June not tell us this?”

“I can only assume that he didn't want us to find his people, sir.”

The lieutenant looked at me askance. “Not find them? Why the devil not? We are here to offer them peace, after all.”

“Aye, sir. But he may have seen no good coming of it. He may not have trusted our motives or perhaps he thought the Red Indians would not greet us amicably, and that more blood would be spilled.”

“Hmm. You may be right, Mister Squibb. You may indeed. But what of us? A hundred miles or more from our boat without a scrap of food. With hardly a piece of leather to our feet.” He lifted a foot and the sole of his boot hung loose. “And to what end?”

“At least we know something more about them,” I said, “which will make the task less difficult the next time.”

“The next time? Hah!” He sighed and shook his head. “There will not be a next time, Mister Squibb. I fear that we are too late already.”

Neville Stow

The Lord be praised! My little flock and I are safely delivered into the bosom of this strange land. We have faced the trials of the tempter as did Christ himself in the wilderness, and we have kept faith and held sight of our divine destiny. I offer up a prayer of thanksgiving and hope that we will meet with the Red Indians soon, that I may begin the work for which I have been chosen.

The establishment of the New Heaven will be greatly advanced by the addition of these simple Indian souls. And even those who have already departed this earthly plane will be among their number. Oh yes, it is all part of the grand design, you see. I have come to realize that every savage who has heard the word of the Lord will become the medium by which those who have passed on will be delivered unto His salvation. Think of how quickly we shall populate the New Heaven!

And I have struck upon another idea that will be certain to please our Maker. The Last Judgment having taken place, we are now reaching out to the unlettered, the untutored and those who were closest to mankind in his natural spiritual state. I have therefore decided to cast the net of salvation wider still and include another tribe in my mission. What tribe is this, you ask? Why, the tribe of Newfoundlanders, no less. They are simple enough from what I have observed and they know hardly more than the Red Indians when it comes to the word of God.

Take the young sailor, Greening. One evening as we were sitting by the fire, he spoke to me in tongues, as sure a sign of the Lord's will as ever there was. His words made not the least sense, and yet I know that he was possessed of a spiritual visitation. He was speaking of Nehemiah Grimes, calling him a
buckaloon
, a
sleveen
, a
tallywack
, and a
bullamarue
. He spoke as well of our party being in a fine
codge
and a proper
hinker
.

What manner of speech is this, I asked myself? It was certainly none that I had heard before. I was puzzled at first and asked Mr. Squibb what it meant. He tried to dismiss it as part of the local dialect, but then a divine inspiration came to me. The Lord had made the man speak in a strange tongue to remove the scales from my eyes! Here before me was a simple soul, reared half-wild in this distant colony, knowing next to nothing of God's intent. And there were many more like him who were, in the final summation, no different from the Indians of the forest.

There will be exceptions, of course. That man Cooper, for one. When I heard that he was a God-fearing Christian, I naturally drew him into my confidence. He did not look particularly devout, I will admit. Fierce would be a better description. With those hideous scars across his face he looked as wild as the creatures he hunted. When I explained my calling to go amongst the Red Indians he had the nerve to say that he, too, had received a message from the Lord. He said this to me, an ordained man of the cloth! I explained that I was seeking the pure of spirit, that they might find peace with our saviour in the New Heaven.