Ocean Retreats
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We’re all here! And it is, of course, the best thing in the world to have a family together again. I think I will never want anything more than that. Not even another ship. But if I ever do, God help me!
I’m afraid my letter may be rather short and abrupt as I am feeling somewhat nervous about being away from you again after so long. It’s not easy, I’ll tell you; we are all very much at sea and I find myself thinking of nothing else but the voyage. My mind goes round and round on what might happen when we reach home. I feel as though I should like to be there already, and yet I dread it too.
I have thought for hours today about what I shall write you and still don’t know how best to describe everything we’ve seen and experienced in such a way that you would understand. You’d probably need something like a map, so I won’t even try.
I was surprised at what a change the voyage had made in Captain Mowat, but I suppose after his last experience he was quite anxious to get back again safely. He’s an old friend of mine—we met years ago when he came ashore with us when our ship got into trouble off the coast of Australia.
We both went on and served as midshipmen together; then he joined a whaling ship and went out to Spitzbergen in search of the elusive whale. After that he joined the Hudson’s Bay Co.’s expedition to Greenland, and later became its captain, sailing between the two places in search of the fabled Northwest Passage.
It seemed to me that before he left England he had changed, though, of course, it may just have been that I hadn’t known him for so many years. His conversation was different; now it was not only more matter-of-fact but less inclined to the philosophical side of things.
It wasn’t that he talked down to us in any way: indeed he was always friendly and helpful; and when he did speak it was often amusing, though perhaps without being particularly deep.
After he sailed on board Ocean Retreats for his second voyage with the HBC, he told me about a conversation with Captain Fitzwilliam in which the latter had spoken about the possibility of sailing around South America.
Captain Mowat said that although he had no intention of leaving his post with the HBC, this remark had interested him greatly. It reminded him how much he’d loved those early days when he first started exploring and making expeditions across the seas and oceans.
He asked Captain Fitzwilliam some questions about what he meant by circumnavigating South America and was answered with great precision about the currents, depths, and other matters which must be taken into account.
When Captain Mowat mentioned this conversation to me, I could see that it gave him a lot of pleasure because he had found a new direction to take, and it showed him that he was still young enough to do it, which I felt pleased him immensely.
He is sixty-one years old and has spent most of his life on the sea. If he were to stay on with the Hudson’s Bay Company, he would surely become the greatest explorer of them all.
I can well imagine how he must have felt when we reached New York. All that vast city spread out below and on either hand—it seemed almost to be the same size as London—and so many ships. I have never seen a sight like it since.
But when we sailed up the river and saw Manhattan Island, I thought I should burst with excitement! There was the Statue of Liberty and everything. And then we sailed past the little islands of Brooklyn, and over to Staten Island, where the huge walled gardens were full of roses and flowers that were just as wonderful as any in England.
We anchored off Brooklyn Heights, and while they unloaded and stowed the cargo, we climbed the steep road to the top and looked out over the whole city. Then we wandered about, looking in shops, seeing the streets and parks, and going to concerts in Madison Square Garden.
We saw a performance of The Merchant of Venice, performed by the company which had done it before in Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.
In spite of the fact that Captain Mowat has sailed far and wide, he had never seen the ocean until he came to America; so he was fascinated by the sight of the sea stretching out for as far as you could see on the horizon.
When we reached the Canadian shore he was eager to start inland. I knew what he meant. For weeks we had been looking for something new, and there it lay waiting for us to explore, if only we had time and energy enough. So he set off to walk across the land towards Quebec City. I wanted to go with him, but he wouldn’t let me.
“You’re better off here,” he told me. “There’s plenty for you to do, and I want you to help Mr. Raffles, who has a good head for figures.”
Mr. Raffles has already helped me a lot. When he first came aboard he was in a terrible state. His eyes kept getting worse and he was coughing all the time. His wife and daughter had come with him on the trip, but they couldn’t bear to leave him, and he wouldn’t have been able to work on deck anyway because of his weak lungs.
So we put him into the cabin and gave him some medicine to make him sleep at night, and he gradually recovered. But he hadn’t worked on deck before and he needed to learn all the ship’s books and accounts again. So I took him into my cabin and showed him the ropes, and explained what was important from book to book and why.
I think he appreciated that I wasn’t trying to show him how to do everything but to explain how the system worked together. He soon got it straight. And once he had mastered the figures, I sent him into the main office, and there he was introduced to Mr. Raffles. And now Mr. Raffles has given him some simple sums to do which will help him get back up to speed with his studies.
Mr. Raffles is very fond of his wife and daughter, and I’m sure they’re glad to be back on dry land, but I think they miss their home terribly. I know I would if I had to live away from England for so long, as they have done.
But Mr. Raffles is quite happy to stay on board for the sake of his family. I’ve often wondered whether he doesn’t want to be a captain himself one day, and be out at sea all the time.
But I don’t think we need to worry about that for a long time yet.
It was a long time before he had anything more to tell us of what he saw inland and in Canada itself. We sailed along the St. Lawrence River past Montreal, and up through the lakes of Ontario.
At first, we met a lot of fishing boats and small craft coming down from the upper lakes to go home with their catch of fish, pike, walleye, trout, perch, salmon, and muskellunge; but after that, we didn’t meet anybody else for a long way.
Then one morning we rounded Cape Chignecto into the Bay of Fundy and found ourselves surrounded on all sides by a vast bay that stretched away into the distance until it disappeared under the water.
The bay is full of small islands and inlets and bays which are dotted with tiny fishing villages where there aren’t many more than a few dozen houses, each standing alone on its own little piece of ground overlooking the bay.
“They seem to live on catching lobsters,” said Captain Mowat one evening when he had had supper in the mess hall. “And that’s what the fishing boats were doing when they passed us earlier today; bringing in their lobster pots to land them.”
The fishing boats were all small ones, no larger than schooners; not much bigger than our ship at all. The people who lived on them seemed to have plenty to do, judging from the number of children running around shouting and shouting, helping their mothers in the fields and gardens, hauling their nets in, or cooking over the fires.
Their fathers seemed to be out of sight a lot of the time and only appeared at night. They certainly didn’t spend time in the taverns like Captain Mowat does, but instead went around the village singing in choirs. It must have been a lively and cheerful life.
We saw a large group of people standing on the shore waving as we sailed past; then as we turned towards the open sea they waved to us as well, and shouted out their names in loud voices: “Holland! Holland!”
Captain Mowat laughed.
“I suppose that’s the Dutch part of them,” he said. “But it’s funny that even though they look like ordinary Englishmen, they all speak French when they see us.”
The next morning Captain Mowat called us all together in the wardroom, to talk to us about what he had seen during the afternoon while the weather had allowed us to sail close inshore.
“That’s it,” he told us. “I believe those fishing boats are the last we shall see for some way, although I expect there are others further north along this coast. But it won’t be too far into winter before we reach Cape Chignecto again. Then we’ll find something else, I expect.”
The sun rose bright and clear every morning after that, and the days were pleasantly warm and sunny; and every evening as we sat on the deck watching the sunset in the west, Captain Mowat came out of his cabin to join us, and tell us all about what he had seen during the day; what he had discovered, or heard people saying, and what had puzzled him.
He never talked about the Indians, however, apart from telling us about the big wigwams they had seen, which stood in the forest behind the village; and how some of these were built of wood and some of wattle and daub.
“It’s amazing what they can build using such primitive methods,” he said. “When I was a boy I’d always wondered why some of them could afford to use iron tools when most of the other men used to make do with wooden ones until one of our men explained it to me.
It seems the women are responsible for getting the iron and making it into nails and hinges and suchlike. And that accounts for the fact that they seem to be better off than any of the other tribes along this coast.”
One evening a little later, Captain Mowat asked one of the midshipmen if he could have the use of the spyglass so he could get a view of the land as far ahead as possible. We took it down into the forehold with the rest of our gear, and he soon discovered something that puzzled him.
“That’s odd,” he said to the man at the helm as he peered through the glass; then looked back at the ship. “Why should they bother putting all that extra rope out on that shore?”
The wind was very light, but enough to keep the sails filled and the ship going straight ahead under her own power, although with great difficulty. The men at the tiller had to keep turning the wheel constantly so that she would keep on course.
“What’s wrong, sir?” asked the midshipman, after several minutes had gone past without anything happening to the ship.
“Nothing,” answered Captain Mowat. “Just that I’ve noticed we seem to be heading for something that isn’t supposed to be there.”
For a long time, nothing happened. The men at the tiller kept on turning the wheel and trying to keep her on course in spite of the wind. And then suddenly there was a loud shout from one of them as he turned the wheel hard to port and let go of the anchor.
“Look alive! Look alive!”
We all rushed up on deck to see what was happening and found to our astonishment that the ship was heading directly for what appeared to be a huge rock just under the surface of the water.
At first, we could hardly believe our eyes; then as it approached it seemed almost as big as the ship herself, rising from the water with a blackness that made it seem to glow even in the moonlight. When it finally passed beneath us we realized that it was actually an enormous whale.
“How did it happen?” asked Captain Mowat as we all gathered aft to watch the end of the chase. “She ought not to have been able to steer a straight line, even with a fair wind against her, unless we were steering right over this reef. And if we had, why shouldn’t she have seen it sooner?”
We all shook our heads in wonderment.
“Well, we can ask that question again tomorrow,” Captain Mowat continued, “when the wind picks up a bit.”
He ordered the sail to be taken in as far as it would go and put on the staysail. Then we all went below decks to sleep.
***
A couple of days later, when there was no wind at all, Captain Mowat decided to try another new tack. He sent us all below and then had a few of the seamen climb aboard the ship’s bowsprit. They held on tight to their ropes as they pulled hard in the opposite direction; then all three let go of the ropes at once.
With a groan from the ship, she began slowly to turn to starboard. A few seconds later she was sailing straight ahead, but only for a short time before she ran aground. She started to roll over gently on her beam ends, but still, she refused to move away from where she had run ashore.
The crew worked all night and all day with ropes, chains, and pulleys, pulling and hauling at the ship’s timbers until she was nearly afloat again. The next day they managed to pull her off by using the ship’s sails as masts and rigging, leaving them lashed to the mainmast, and the rest of the rigging and yards rigged across them.
The End