The World Duology (World Odyssey / Fiji: A Novel) (23 page)

The young woman
didn’t look like a
Sally
to Nathan, but he didn’t mind that. Looking back at the purser he asked, “Can I tip you later for Sally?”

Diamond nodded without reservation. “Yes
sir.” Confident he’d collect the dollar Nathan owed him for the delivery, he led the other woman away to find another customer who would care to pay for her charms. There was no shortage of such customers on this vessel.

Now alone with his new companion for the evening, Nathan led her into his cabin and locked the door. When he turned back to her, she was already undressing. Nathan felt his manhood hardening at the sight of her.
What a beauty!
Unable to restrain himself any longer, he tore his clothes off and lay the woman introduced as Sally down on his bunk. He then lay on top of her and they proceeded to make vigorous and unrestrained love.

#

The morning sun was shining through the porthole of Nathan’s cabin. It bathed the Philadelphian and his Polynesian bedmate in its warmth. Sally, or whoever she was, stirred on his chest, but remained asleep. Nathan felt blissfully satiated. He’d lost count of the number of times they’d made love during the night, but that didn’t matter.

Hi
s thoughts turned to payment. Nathan’s experience of the island women was they had little use for the white man’s money. Rather, they lusted after the trappings of the white man. Garments were at the top of their list. Since the arrival of missionary women, the island maidens had come to love European clothing and would happily sell their bodies for the chance to own and wear a foreign lady’s dress or blouse.

Cotton sheets – or better stil
l silk or satin sheets – were even more popular than clothing amongst the island women as, with a little skillful cutting and sewing, these could easily be fashioned into garments of their choice. So that’s what Nathan offered as currency for having his way with the women of the islands.

So far on this voyage he’d parted with silk sheets to the value of almost a hundred dollars, but he was more than satisfied he’d gotten his money’s worth.

38

Southern Ocean, 1848

O
ne day out from Cape Town, the mood among passengers and crew aboard
Minstrel
was as foul as the weather. The Southern Ocean was living up to its reputation: ice-cold, gale-force winds combined with rough seas made for an unpleasant voyage all round.

The conditions meant it was too
cold and dangerous for passengers to venture above deck, so they were forced to hunker down below and put up with the inescapable stench of bilgewater. An outbreak of food poisoning affected half the passengers and crew, and added to their misery. The Drakes were among those struck down.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. The passenger list was now four passengers short following the disappearance of Bill Compton. After much anguish, his wife Thelma
had opted to part company with
Minstrel
and take her three children ashore in the hope they’d all eventually be reunited with her husband.

For the Comptons’ fellow passengers, it was a difficult time. They
’d grown fond of the God-fearing family and missed them dearly. Those among them who were Christians privately thanked God the same fate hadn’t befallen them.

Susannah had taken the loss of the Compton
s badly. She’d become close to Thelma since departing England, and even more so since her husband had disappeared.

Now, after an enforced break of several days, Susanna turned her attention to making an overdue diary entry in the privacy of the stateroom she shared with her father. Drake Senior was occupied elsewhere aboard
Minstrel
, leading a prayer meeting, so she had the room to herself for the present time.

Susannah wore several layers of winter clothing, as did all her fellow passengers, to help ward off the cold. Even that wasn’t sufficient, and she shivered violently as she dipped her quill into an open ink bottle and began writing.

July 4
th
, 1848

Alas, it is only now I feel well enough to resume my diary obligations. Symptoms of the food poisoning I contracted in Cape
Town have only just left me.

Temperatures have plummeted and
I am feeling weak and miserable, but my miseries are slight compared to those of poor Thelma Compton. After her beloved husband Bill went missing in town, she made the difficult decision to take her children ashore in the hope they can all be reunited with her husband. Papa arranged for the three to board with the resident Methodist minister and his family for as long as it takes her to find Mr Compton.

The first mate confided
in papa he believes some misfortune befell Mr Compton for it is completely out of character for him to disappear so. I do fear for his wife and children. They are now strangers in a foreign land, and may well have to fend for themselves for the rest of their days.

The other married women on board have bee
n very quiet since these terrible events happened. Those who still have husbands realize it could just as easily have been their beloved who disappeared.

The weather has been just awfu
l since departing Cape Town. This has added to my personal misery for I am not sure when exactly my food poisoning ended and my seasickness began. Dear Miss Finch has been a constant source of strength to me and I shall miss her when she leaves Minstrel at our next stopover.

To add
further to my misery, the belligerent Mister Donovan has reasserted himself and focused his unwanted attention upon myself since the departure of a young crewmember who thankfully kept him in line until we reached Cape Town. As much as possible I keep to my stateroom to avoid him, but ‘ tis a small ship and it is inevitable our paths cross from time to time.

Susannah deliberately avoided mentioning her golden-haired rigger by name. She wanted to leave no record of her feelings for Goldie – especially not in her diary in case it fell into the wrong hands, like her father’s. Drake Senior would immediately suspect the worse, and she knew that wouldn’t bode well for the remainder of the voyage.

Still, that didn’t stop her thinking about Goldie, or dreaming about him
, as she often did. How she wished it could have worked out differently. Just thinking about him and his athletic body took her breath away.

As always happen
ed when she thought about the young rigger, memories of the near-disaster their night-time assignation on deck had almost caused sprang to mind. They served to remind her the collision with the barque was God’s way of telling her she’d sinned and needed to stay on the straight and narrow.

Susannah forced Goldie from her mind and returned her attention to completing her diary entry.

Minstrel has now entered
what the first mate refers to as the “Roaring Forties.” Apparently, they will hasten our arrival at our next port of call, Hobart Town, in Van Diemen’s Land, at the bottom of the world.

Feeling sick again.
Flying along at 9 knots.

On completion of her entry, Susannah rushed to a bucket Drake Senior had left in the adjoining bathroom for just such occasions, and she promptly brought up the breakfast she’d had earlier. The young Englishwoman had to hold onto a rail to brace herself as
Minstrel
climbed yet another wave and fell down the other side of it. The impact as the brigantine struck the trough between waves jarred Susannah’s teeth, prompting her to ask herself yet again why she’d volunteered for this voyage.

First mate Paxton ha
d warned the passengers this leg of the journey would be the hardest. He’d explained that
Minstrel
would follow the great circle route that clippers of the day followed along the parallel of forty degrees south from Cape Town to Hobart Town – or
Hobarton
as the first mate called it – in Van Diemen’s Land, and then on to New Zealand. Dipping to sixty degrees south, the route was shorter than other routes, and therefore quicker. The downside was the stronger winds could be unpleasant at best and extremely hazardous at worst.

What Paxton hadn’t mentioned for fear of unnecessarily alarming the passengers, was the
Roaring Forties
dipped inside the southern ice zone, and the risk of encountering icebergs was high. For that very reason he intended to remain closer to the forty degree parallel than the sixty.

#

After a hellish voyage of nearly five weeks, it wasn’t an iceberg that nearly sunk
Minstrel
. It was a whale.

The brigantine w
as still two days out from Hobart Town. Up in the crow’s nest, young English seaman Arnold Dervish had the unenviable task of looking out for icebergs, ships and other obstacles
Minstrel
should avoid. At sixteen, Arnold was the youngest crewmember aboard. This was his first voyage, and he swore even before the brigantine had reached Cape Town it would be his last. A sailor’s life, he’d decided, was not for him. Now, freezing to near-death at the top of a swaying mast, he was convinced more than ever it wasn’t for him.

It wasn’t Arnold’s fault he didn’t see the sperm whale that rammed
Minstrel’s
side in time to sound the alarm. The whale surfaced just a heartbeat or two before colliding with the vessel.

In that moment, the young seaman thought he was seeing things. He’d been told icebergs were the real danger, and for the past hour he’d been looking for the tell-tale flash or glint of ice
bobbing about in the ocean. To his eyes, the whale seemed as big as
Minstrel
. Possibly bigger. The warning shout he uttered coincided with the collision, and the resulting impact almost flung him from the crow’s nest.

Below deck, Susannah had been reading her bible on her stateroom bunk when the collision occurred. The jolt was so savage she was thrown from her bunk. Other pa
ssengers had similar experiences, including Drake Senior who had been returning to the stateroom and was thrown to the floor in the passageway outside.

It was pandemonium above and below deck
. Men were shouting, women were screaming and children crying. Many were convinced
Minstrel
had struck an iceberg and some thought they were about to die.

With Captain Mathers confined to his quarters
, drunk, since departing Cape Town, the chief mate Paxton had command of the vessel. He quickly confirmed with the young lookout the culprit was a whale and immediately ordered his crewmen to check for damage below deck.

Minutes later, the second mate advised Paxton that
Minstrel’s
hull had splintered on the port side, but thankfully the damage had occurred above the waterline. “Even so,” the second mate said, “water is pouring into the store room.”

Paxton barked ord
ers at the crewmen. He made it clear their immediate priorities were to do whatever it took to stem the flow of water and then ensure food items, perishables and other essentials were clear of water on the store room’s floor. “When that’s done, take more water pumps down to the storeroom and pump the water out.”

The second mate and other crewmen returned below to carry out Paxton’
s orders while the first mate was left to steer
Minstrel
and, at the same time, pacify a steady procession of passengers who were convinced the brigantine was about to sink. Paxton assured them that was not the case, even if he wasn’t certain about that himself.

After la
boring for the rest of the day, the crewmen patched up
Minstrel
sufficiently well to ensure that with a little luck she could make it to Hobart Town. Three manned water pumps working twenty-four hours a day were needed to pump the water from the hold and keep her seaworthy. Volunteers from among the male passengers were recruited to help overworked crewmembers operate the pumps.

The passengers didn’t know it yet, but the damage
Minstrel
had sustained would add another two days to the voyage.

#

On August 8
th
, four days after colliding with the whale and just over five weeks after departing Cape Town,
Minstrel
limped in to port at Hobart Town. The wounded brigantine had been reduced to around three knots after sustaining damage, and it was the first mate’s assessment she wouldn’t have lasted more than a few more days in the Southern Ocean.

Christians aboard
Minstrel
swore that it was their prayers that had delivered her safely to port. Although not a God-fearing man himself, Paxton was prepared to believe that God had intervened for until the hills of Van Diemen’s Land had been sighted off the bow, he hadn’t been convinced they’d reach their destination.

As
Minstrel
berthed at Hobart Town’s main wharf, the Drakes and other passengers emerged above deck – some for the first time in weeks – to view the new land that would one day be known as Tasmania.

Those passengers who were informed knew Van Dieman’s Land was an island that was officially part of New South Wales. Several would be leaving
Minstrel
in Hobart Town to join other vessels bound for Sydney Town or Botany Bay, on the mainland, several hundred miles to the north.

For other passengers, like Miss Finch, Hobart Town would be their final destination
. In Miss Finch’s case, she was taking up a position as head nurse at Hobart Town’s penal settlement; in other cases, a Scottish couple were starting a new life managing a boarding house while the Irish troublemaker John Donovan had decided to stop over on a whim. Few of the remaining passengers would miss him. Especially not Susannah.

For the young Englishwoman, the miseries of the last five weeks were forgotten in an instant as she took in her new surroundings.

Situated as it was in a picturesque bay, Hobart Town was already a thriving port city of some twenty thousand people. Ships of every description were in evidence for this was one of the finest deep water ports in all the Southern Hemisphere. Whaling and sealing ships were predominant, reflecting the economic importance of those activities in this part of the world.

“Look!” Susannah implored her father. She pointed to green fields of potatoes and yellow fields of corn that extended all the way to the tree-line of the hills beyond the town.

“Beautiful,” Drake Senior agreed. He smiled, pleased to see his daughter so happy after weeks below deck in a tiny vessel which, he knew, could have sunk at any minute.

As Susannah surveyed the spectacular view, she decided the only blot on the landscape was the penal settlement the town had been built around. Its moss-covered stone walls and forbidding towers cast a shadow, metaphorically at least, over the town. Susannah didn’t know its history, but she’d heard stories about the harsh treatment of convicts sent to such places t
hroughout the colonies, sometimes for as little as stealing a loaf of bread. And she’d often prayed for wellbeing of those same convicts.