Colleen McCullough - Morgan’s Run

They had been 39 days at sea from Rio and arrived at the height of the southern spring on the 14th of October. It was now 154 days-22 weeks-since the fleet left Portsmouth and it had sailed 9,900 land miles, though it still had a long way to go. At no time had the eleven ships become separated; Governor/Commodore Arthur Phillip had kept his tiny flock together.

For the convicts, making port consisted in decks which didn’t move and food which didn’t move. The day after they arrived fresh meat came aboard, accompanied by fresh, soft, marvelous Dutch bread and a few green vegetables-cabbage and some sort of strong-tasting, dark green leaf. Appetites revived at once; the convicts settled to the critical business of trying to put on enough condition to survive the next and final leg, said to be 1,000 miles longer than the trip from Portsmouth clear to Rio.

“There have been but two voyages gone where we are going,” said Stephen Donovan seriously, wishing Richard would let him donate some butter for their bread. “The Dutchman Abel Tasman left charts of his expedition more than a century ago, and of course we have the charts of Captain Cook and his subordinate Captain Furneaux, who went down to the bottom of the world and a land of ice on Cook’s second voyage. But no one really knows. Here we are with a great host aboard eleven ships, attempting to reach New South Wales from the Cape of Good Hope. Is New South Wales a part of what the Dutch call New Holland, two thousand miles west of it? Cook was not sure because he never laid eyes on any southern coast joining the two. The best he and Furneaux could do was to prove that Van Diemen’s Land was not a part of New Zealand, as Tasman had thought, but rather the southernmost tip of New South Wales, which is a strip of coast going over two thousand miles north from Van Diemen’s Land. If the Great South Land exists, it has never been circumnavigated. But if it does exist, then it must contain three million square miles, which are more than in the whole of Europe.”

Richard’s heart was not behaving placidly. “You are saying, I think, that we have no pilot.”

“More or less. Just Tasman and Cook.”

“Is that because the explorers all entered the Pacific Ocean by sailing around Cape Horn?”

“Aye. Even Captain Cook chose Cape Horn most of the time. The Cape of Good Hope is regarded as the way to the East Indies, Bengal and Cathay, not to the Pacific. Look at this harbor, filled with outgoing ships.” Donovan indicated more than a dozen vessels. “Yes, they will sail east, but also north, taking advantage of an Indian Ocean current to get them as far as Batavia. They will reach those latitudes at the beginning of the summer’s monsoon winds and will be blown farther north. The winter trades send them home, laden, with three great currents to help them. One runs south through a strait between Africa and Madagascar. The second sweeps them around the Cape of Good Hope into the south Atlantic. The third carries them north along the west coast of Africa. Winds are important, but currents are sometimes even more important.”

Donovan’s seriousness had increased, which worried Richard. “Mr. Donovan, what is it ye’re not saying?”

“Aye, ye’re a clever man. Very well, I will be frank. That second current-the one which flows around the Cape of Good Hope-flows from east to west. Wonderful going home, Hell outbound. There is no avoiding it because it is over a hundred miles wide. Going northeast to the East Indies it can be overcome. But we have to seek the great westerly winds well south of the Cape, and that for a mariner is a far harder task. The length of our last leg will be much increased because we will not find our eastings in a hurry. I have sailed to Bengal and Cathay, so I know the southern tip of Africa well.”

Curiosity suddenly piqued, Richard stared at the fourth mate in some wonder. “Mr. Donovan, why did ye sign on for this vague voyage to somewhere only Captain Cook has been and seen?”

The fine blue eyes burned brightly. “Because, Richard, I want to be a part of history, no matter how insignificant a part. This is an epic adventure we have embarked upon, not a trudge to the same old places, even if those places have alluring names like Cathay. I had not the connections to midshipman into the Royal Navy, nor to get myself on some Royal Society expedition. When Esmeralda Sinclair asked me to come aboard as second mate, I leaped at the chance. And have suffered my demotion without protest. Why? Only because we are doing something no one has ever done before! We are taking over fifteen hundred hapless people to live in a virgin land without having done any sort of preparation. As if we were shipping ye from Hull to Plymouth. It is quite insane, ye know. The height of madness! What if, after we get to Botany Bay, we find it is not possible to scratch a living? ’Tis too far to go on to Cathay with so many people. Mr. Pitt and the Admiralty have thrown us onto the lap of the gods, Richard, with no forethought, no planning, no compunction. An expedition of skilled craftsmen should have gone two years earlier to tame the place a little. But that did not happen because it would have cost too much money and not ridded England of a single convict. What d’ye truly matter? The answer to that is-ye don’t matter beyond a parliamentary enquiry or two. Even if we perish, this expedition is great history and I am a part of it. And happy to die for the chance.” He drew a breath and smiled brilliantly. “It also offers me an opportunity to join the Royal Navy as something like a skilled man of officer material. Who knows? I may end up commanding a frigate.”

“I hope ye do,” said Richard sincerely.

“I would give it all up for you,” Donovan said mischievously.

Richard took the statement literally. “Mr. Donovan! By now I know ye well enough to understand that your deepest passions are not of the flesh. That is a typical Irish exaggeration.”

“Oh, flesh, flesh, flesh!” Donovan snapped, tried beyond calm endurance. “Honestly, Richard, you could give lessons to a papist celibate! What do they do to people in Bristol? I never met a man so riddled with guilt about what are natural functions as you are! Don’t be such a dolt! The company, man, the company! Women are no company. They are hamstrung into smallness. If poor, they drudge. If well off, they embroider, draw and paint a little, speak Italian and issue orders to the housekeeper. Of good conversation they have none. Nor are most men satisfactory company, for that matter,” he said more evenly, putting a rein on his temper. He tried to look carefree. “Besides, I am not a true Irishman. There is much Viking blood in Ulstermen. Probably why I love going to sea to visit new and strange places. The Irish in me dreams. The Viking needs to turn dreams into realities.”

But the realities of Cape Town were not the stuff of dreams. The Dutch burghers who ran the town (which had a considerable English population, there to look after the interests of the Honourable East India Company) rubbed their hands in glee at the prospect of fat profits and prolonged the negotiations for victualling the fleet into weeks. There had been a famine-the harvest had failed two years in a row-animals were in short supply-and so on, and so forth. Governor Phillip sat through meeting after meeting with calm unimpaired, perfectly aware that these were tactics aimed at securing higher prices. He had never expected it to be otherwise at Cape Town.

Perhaps too he understood better than some of his subordinates that these long stops in port were all that kept the convicts-and the marines-going. It had been he who had arranged for the oranges, the fresh meat and bread, whatever vegetables were to be had. The maritime world was not organized to carry hundreds of passengers for a year. Therefore let them fuel their bodies on decent food in port for long enough to sustain them on the next leg: a thought the convicts and marines had conceived for themselves.