James Cook’s Lost World Read online

  Dedication

  For Gillian

  Epigraph

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

  James Cook, 30 January 1774

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Introduction

  Prologue

  Part One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Part Two

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Part Three

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Thirty-two

  Thirty-three

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  The Secret Life of James Cook

  James Cook’s New World

  About the Author

  Also by Graeme Lay

  Copyright

  Introduction

  The year is 1775.

  Recently returned from a triumphant three-year voyage around the world, his second circumnavigation, Captain James Cook RN is honoured by King George III and the Royal Society. Acclaimed by the Admiralty and the London public, he also has his portrait painted by Nathaniel Dance. The 47-year-old navigator can now look forward to a peaceful retirement in London with his wife Elizabeth and their three surviving sons. James is offered and takes up a paid position at Greenwich Royal Naval Hospital. Here he can write the account of his second world voyage. He settles in to this comfortable, secure way of life.

  It is not enough. Looking out over the Thames, where every day he can see ships of the Royal Navy, James becomes deeply restless. He yearns to return to the sea. So when he is offered the command of an expedition to search for a ‘North-east Passage’, from the Arctic Ocean through to the Atlantic, he does not refuse.

  Against the wishes of Elizabeth, who has just had their sixth child, James goes to sea again. This voyage takes him through the South Pacific, which he knows well, then to the north of the great ocean, which he does not. After discovering an archipelago which he names the Sandwich Isles, James takes his two sloops Resolution and Discovery on to the western coast of North America, through the Bering Strait and beyond the Arctic Circle.

  Beset now by physical and mental illness, James is forced to return to another of the Sandwich Isles, called O-why-hee. Venerated by the people there, who have never seen Europeans before, James is hailed as ‘Lono’, one of their traditional gods. Tributes pour in from the island people, until it is time for Resolution and Discovery to return to the North Pacific and resume their search for the North-east Passage.

  Fate intervenes. Damage to Resolution means the ships must return to O-why-hee. But things are now very different. Unwise decisions are made and hostilities break out—culminating in violent deaths on the fatal shore of Kealakekua Bay. And from now on the islands of the Pacific Ocean will never be the same.

  As James Cook remarks prophetically to one of his officers, Lieutenant King:

  ‘It seems that having discovered a new world, we have been doomed to then lose it.’

  Resolution and Discovery in the Arctic Sea, oil painting by Thomas Luny.

  Prologue

  5 JANUARY 1780

  THE FOUR-HORSE CARRIAGE DREW UP OUTSIDE the terraced house at 7 Assembly Row, Mile End, London. The sole male occupant stepped out, paid the coachman and walked up to the front door. It was bitterly cold, and snow drifts were piled up against the base of the house and its front steps. The man whom the coach had brought wore a tricorn, and a heavy black cape covered his Royal Navy dress uniform.

  After a moment’s hesitation he raised the knocker and rapped three times on the door. Moments later it was opened by a sturdy, freckle-cheeked young woman. She was bonneted, with a checked apron over her grey gown. The apron and her hands were dusted with flour.

  The man removed his tricorn and said, ‘Good morning. I’m here to speak with Mistress Cook. Is she at home?

  ‘She is, sir. Who shall I say wants to see her?’

  ‘Stephens, Philip Stephens. Secretary to the Admiralty.’

  Colouring slightly, the young woman turned away, leaving the man on the step, hat in his hands. A minute later the mistress of the house appeared. She wore a grey woollen gown and a russet crocheted shawl, fastened at her neck with a brooch of turtle shell. Her greying hair was drawn back in a bun, her face was seamed, her eyes blue and direct.

  ‘Mr Stephens.’ She stepped back. ‘Please, come in.’ She had heard her husband speak of Philip Stephens on many occasions, but had never before met him.

  The Admiralty man tugged off his boots, removed his cape and hat and followed her into the parlour, adjusting his wig as he went. There was a coal fire burning in the grate and the room was cosy. Stephens quickly noted the room and its contents. A fair-haired boy of about four was playing with wooden blocks in one corner. He looked up and stared curiously at the visitor. Framed drawings and sketches of coastlines hung from the walls of the room. There was a carved wooden club on the mantelpiece, along with other artefacts: jade pendants, pearl shells, a conch. A piece of unfinished embroidery—a gentleman’s waistcoat, Stephens guessed—lay on a small table near the fireplace, along with several skeins of coloured cotton and a pin cushion.

  ‘Do sit down,’ Elizabeth said, indicating one of the two wingback chairs in front of the fire. He took one, she the other. She was calm but remained unsmiling.

  Stephens felt his hands begin to tremble, slightly but uncontrollably. His insides were tightly knotted. Conscious of Elizabeth Cook’s intent gaze, he clasped his hands.

  She leaned towards him. ‘You have news of my husband?’ she asked, frowning and half-closing her eyes, to focus on the visitor more sharply.

  Stephens kept his hands clasped to control the shaking. Looking directly into the face of the woman opposite, he said carefully, ‘Yes. I have news of your husband. It came to the Admiralty yesterday in a letter from Captain Clerke, of His Majesty’s sloop Resolution. It was sent from Russia, in June last year.’ The secretary hesitated, feeling an upwelling of emotion that threatened to paralyse his speech. Elizabeth raised her chin a little, as if to halt whatever it was she was about to hear.

  Finding his voice again, Stephens pressed on. ‘The letter stated …’

  PART ONE

  One

  THE COACHMAN AND THE BOY’S FATHER hefted the trunk onto the rack at the back of the coach and strapped it down. The Cook family then gathered on the pavement beside the coach, standing awkwardly. They were at the Charing Cross coaching depot to farewell James, the elder son. Just a few weeks short of his thirteenth birthday, he was leaving home to begin his training at the Royal Naval Academy in Portsmouth.

  There were three other passengers: a wizened elderly woman dressed entirely in black, her equally aged, hunched husband and a young woman whose eyelids were swollen from crying. They climbed into the coach, leaving the family beside the open door. The quartet of horses pawed the dusty road, impatient to be off, while the coachman and his co-driver walked around them, adjusting
the bridles and reins.

  Young James Cook was resplendent in a new outfit: polished boots, white breeches, black tricorn hat, navy-blue frock coat and a matching waistcoat which his mother had sewn for him. Doing his best to conceal his nervousness, he fiddled with the waistcoat’s brass buttons. His mother handed him a small bag containing mutton sandwiches and some fruitcake. Then she hugged him, and the boy’s nervousness was replaced by embarrassment. He blushed and pulled away, flexing his shoulders. He was now taller than she was.

  ‘Work hard at your studies,’ his mother said. ‘And make sure you write to us, regular.’

  The boy nodded. A line of pale down was noticeable on his upper lip.

  His mother stepped back, allowing the boy’s father to come forward. Looking at his elder son, he was filled with love and pride. Extending his hand, he said firmly, ‘Safe journey, lad. And best wishes for your studies. It’s a fine academy, so you’ll be well taught.’ He handed over a purse containing five one-guinea coins. ‘This’ll help you on your way. But mind you don’t spend it all straight away.’

  ‘I won’t. Thank you, Papa.’

  Closing one eye, James’s father cocked his head in a gesture of reassurance. Father and son looked each other straight in the eye for some moments, but said no more.

  Through misty eyes, the boy’s mother thought how alike they were, the boy already strong-limbed, his expression also hawkish. Her husband clapped his hand on his son’s shoulder, gripped it momentarily, then stepped back and beckoned his other son, Nathaniel, to come forward.

  James’s brother was twelve. He held his hand out. ‘Bye,’ he said shyly. They shook hands quickly, then Nathaniel looked at the ground. Although the two boys were close, their parents were aware that their temperaments were markedly different. James was decisive and confident, Nathaniel was reserved and sensitive. Next year he too would be attending Portsmouth’s Royal Naval Academy. Seven years earlier their father had registered both boys on the muster roll of a ship he had commanded, listing them as ‘servants’ to the vessel’s third lieutenant and its carpenter. This common naval practice had afforded the brothers notional sea service, which would entitle them to earlier promotion when they eventually went to sea.

  James gave his brother a straight look. ‘Look after the frogs, Natty.’

  ‘Yes, I will.’ He sniffed, then turned away.

  The old man in the coach looked out the window, scowling at the family, obviously resenting the delay. His wife’s glare mirrored her husband’s.

  The boy’s father again put his hand on James’s shoulder. ‘Time to go lad,’ he said.

  James smiled tightly at his parents and brother, dipped his head respectfully then climbed aboard. His father closed the coach door, then said firmly to the driver, ‘All set. Off you go.’

  The driver cracked his whip and shouted, ‘Yay! Off!’ The horses jostled, settled, then trotted off down Charing Cross Road towards London Bridge.

  It was a mild autumn morning. The air was hazy, and an odour of tidal sludge and brine wafted up from the Thames, mingling with the horse-dung smell of the street. Coal smoke drifted from the chimney pots of the terraced houses in the distance.

  In a few minutes the coach was out of sight.

  Captain James Cook RN, his wife Elizabeth and their younger son Nathaniel crossed the street to a line of waiting hackneys and drivers. They would take one of them and return to their home at 7 Assembly Row.

  The date was 11 September 1775. Just two months earlier, Captain Cook had returned from a successful second circumnavigation of the world. And two days before they farewelled their elder son, Elizabeth had learned that she was again with child.

  James Cook’s homecoming this time could hardly have been more different from that which he had received when Endeavour returned in 1771. Then it had been the wealthy young naturalist Joseph Banks who was the principal subject of public fascination and news-sheet exposure. Banks the great naturalist, Banks the great collector of native artefacts, Banks the great seducer of exotic women—the Londoners could not get enough of him and his colourful reports. And he had responded by providing the clamorous public with just what it wanted: colourfully embroidered versions of his experiences, particularly with the women of Otaheite. The story that Banks had taken as a lover, among many others, Purea, the putative Queen of Tahiti, quickly became the accepted truth.

  However, James Cook and others who had shared the ship with Banks were well aware that all but a few of these accounts were fevered fiction.

  As for James’s part in Endeavour’s epic voyage, it drew relatively little attention, something that rankled deeply with him. It was he, James Cook, who had taken the little converted collier around the world and safely home. Banks had been a mere character actor during the voyage, but upon their return had promoted himself shamelessly as its leading man.

  Now, however, James had been accorded his rightful place in naval history. He had recently been promoted post-captain and had had his commission personally handed to him by King George III, during an audience at which Queen Charlotte was also present. When he explained carefully to the sovereign couple that he had proved that a Great Southern Continent did not exist, and that instead there was only a vast sheet of impassable ice in the high southern latitudes, the King and Queen accepted this disappointment philosophically.

  Shortly after his latest promotion, James was surprised to receive a note from none other than Joseph Banks. It read: ‘I would like to meet, and hear more of your triumphant voyage. I am sure there are parts of it which have not been reported by the Grub Street press. Shall we say the Cheshire Cheese, at 1 pm next Friday?’

  Still surprised, and wondering if Banks was being ironic in his use of the word ‘triumphant’, James nevertheless replied in the affirmative.

  The following Friday was a cool but windless autumn day, and the two men greeted each other outside the public house before entering and taking a seat under a window facing the street. Banks seemed uncharacteristically ill-at-ease, James observed, speaking hurriedly and avoiding looking him in the eye. His discomfort stemmed, James concluded, from Banks’s foolish actions back in 1772, when he had presumptuously attempted to dictate the design of the second expedition’s main vessel, HMS Resolution, and then withdrew from the expedition altogether when he was unable to get his own way.

  The Cheshire Cheese was busy, with two serving maids dashing back and forth from the scullery, carrying trays of pies and pints of ale. The place was thick with pipe smoke and smelled of beer, baking pastry and resin from the sawdust floor. Banks ordered two pints and they were brought to the table. Raising his to James, he said, ‘Welcome back to civilisation, Captain. It’s good to see you safe and sound.’

  Safe, certainly, but not so sound, James thought. The pains in his right leg and his stomach troubles were still bothering him. But he raised his own mug, clinked it with Banks’s and replied, ‘Thank you. It’s good to be back.’

  As Banks drank, James noticed that the naturalist had aged somewhat. Although still only 32, his face was flushed and puffy, and the brass buttons of his waistcoat strained to contain his midriff. He was larger, certainly, but was he wiser? Perhaps. He seemed more subdued, less cocksure. Yet his dress was as dapper as ever. The cuffs of his jacket were of cream silk, matching the scarf at his neck. His waistcoat was crimson. And when he moved on to his second pint, his manner became more like that of the Banks of old, although he retained a slightly defensive air. Probably, James thought, he now deeply regretted not having gone on Resolution’s circumnavigation. His defensiveness also stemmed, James felt sure, from the fact that the expedition had completely disproved the existence of a Great Southern Continent. The notion of such a landmass had been one of Banks’s obsessions. He had been convinced that there was such a continent.

  They talked, each man still a little wary of the other. Banks spoke only briefly of his expedition to Iceland, undertaken in a fit of pique after he was dismissed from Resolution�
�s voyage (‘Iceland? Stony and barren. Once you’ve seen one lava field you’ve seen them all’). The naturalist showed little open remorse concerning the extravagant demands he had made over Resolution, which had ultimately been rejected by the Admiralty, while the subject of the not-so-Great Southern Continent was avoided by both men. Instead Banks pressed James for details of Resolution’s experiences in the tropical Pacific, particularly the nature of the flora and the artefacts they had collected. He also questioned him over the nature of the women of the Friendly Isles, New Hebrides and New Caledonia, as James had named these islands.

  He replied to Banks’s questions with deliberate taciturnity (‘My men did not find the New Hebridean women as desirable as those of Otaheite and New Zealand’) before turning the conversation to Johann and George Forster, the father-and-son naturalists who had taken the place of Banks and Daniel Solander. James felt he could speak candidly on this subject, since it was Banks whom Johann Forster had replaced. ‘The son proved well suited to the demands of the work. His illustrations are excellent. But the father …’ He described in some detail how tiresome the ship’s company had found Forster the elder. How his piousness and complaining had irked his shipmates. ‘He was such a belly-acher, in spite of the fact that he was handsomely remunerated,’ James complained. ‘He was paid ten times my salary.’

  Banks clicked his tongue sympathetically. ‘An incubus, by the sound of him.’ Then he asked: ‘Will he publish an account of the voyage?’

  ‘Eventually, I’m sure. He certainly kept copious notes. But he cannot publish his until my account appears. There is an agreement with the Admiralty to that effect.’

  ‘Quite right, quite right.’ Loosening his scarf, Banks said, ‘Have you met Tobias Furneaux since your return?’

  ‘No. I would have liked to speak with him. There were aspects of his command of Adventure I found unsatisfactory. But he’s gone to serve England’s cause in America, commanding the frigate Syren.’