Captive Wife, The (4 page)

Which happened soon after when I went aboard another sealing ship this time as master. The ship was the
Harriet
, a barque of 240 ton owned by a ship builder name of Captain Underwood back in Sydney. He was once a convict like me. He come up to me one day and said I hear you are a man with a talent for the sea and know how to read and write a log book. I said, yes mister, for I am not giving any credit to another
convict until he proves his worth.

You can keep your head and do not take to drink at sea Underwood said.

That is so I said for I place a value on my skin.

I have heard that men will take orders from you.

Is that right now I said for I had not heard that said in my presence.

I will make you a ship's captain.

Well you are talking now sir I said. And good day to you and thanks Captain.

Thus I went sailing in the deep south in what is known as New Zealand waters, so all the time I was coming closer to that country. On our way north the ship was laden with 4200 seal skins and 2 ton of oil. We stopped off in the port at Kororareka, a grog town in the Bay of Islands so my feet was finally on New Zealand soil. There we took our rest and everything else on offer. I smoked a pipe or 2 of opium brought in on a ship from the East and my head was filled with dreams of girls and then there were brown girls theirselves that twined around my body 2 at a time. When I woke my body was full of sweet ease and my pockets empty. 1 of my men came to tell me there was a ship anchored in the Bay and that it was taken over by convicts on board being transported to Norfolk Island. A mutiny no less. Well who am I who was a convict to ask questions and I am not here to tame my fellow men unless they should be working for me. But they looked a bunch of rascals.

Some Maoris in their war canoe had tried to help the captured crew and the convicts had shot them up very bad and a missionary asked me wd we help to sort this matter out. It will do me no harm I thought to see if this matter can be settled. Call me a turncoat if you will but a man has to do what is best for his self. If I had turned a blind eye they might say I was as bad as them. A man always has to be on the lookout if he is not to end up back inside. We opened fire and shot up all the sails and then
the hull of the pirate ship and the whole lot of them surrendered and that was that.

By now I was getting rich enough and somewhat tired of all the sailing around so I set up house in Cambridge Street in the Rocks district of Sydney and arranged to deal in goods coming off the ships. I had 2 servants. There was the woman Charlotte Pugh who does for me and every now and then I return to the idea of setting up together but she had other thoughts. You wd think she wd have taken up a good offer as she has the 2 children by Samuel Garside who done her wrong. I had too a manservant, the convict called Samuel Browne who helped with unloading when the ships were in port. Samuels must be her undoing for I found them in the alleyway one night her with her skirt around her waist and him up to the hilt.

Well I said don't stop for me for neither seemed too keen to carry on and him not knowing where to look. So they was stuck there in the alleyway and I thought I might as well get to see what he has on offer for her. I said come now Samuel and took him by the shoulder so that he must step back and what I saw was nothing much but perhaps it had had a fright.

Charlotte covered herself up quick though I saw she had a fine head of hair peeking out. I laughed then and said it doesn't take much to satisfy you Charlotte Pugh. I could give you twice as much but I won't. It makes a man thirsty seeing another man in the drink but I did not want to mix good seed with bad. Be sure to wipe it clean I said to Samuel.

But it was enough to send a man off to sea again what with her brats at her heels and the smell of her ripe cunt in the kitchen. Enough to put a man off his tucker. And then she was in the family way again.

I'm ready to go to sea again I told Captain Underwood for I had heard he was hoping to send the
Harriet
to sea for sealing in the Auckland Islands. Not that I knew much about them.

They is far away Underwood told me in the half-light of the
Antarctic sea. The cold winds come in off the ice. You need to keep warm and look sharp.

At least I knew the
Harriet
. This was a ship I was coming to know as if she was my own. She turned this way and that at my command. I wished that I knew a woman like her. What happened down south is something I must set down here and put to rights although there is some does not have a good word to say for me on the subject.

Today we hit heavy weather worse than usual. I see that day clearly in my mind. Heavy NW gales with extreme squally wind and rain driven by heavy gusts is what I wrote in my log book that day. We took shelter in the North Arm beneath Mt Raynal, a high peak on that empty land which is bare in the way of the desert I have seen in Australia, but grey and barren like a virgin spinster. The trees, what there are of them, are bent towards the earth. We dropped anchor and it held fast and that was lucky for us. The wind died off although the rain kept falling. Alongside of us comes a boat with 2 men aboard.

We come off the
Sally
says the older of the 2, a man I come to know as John Wilson.

I know a bit about the
Sally
, it is a schooner that usually trades in timber and coal, but had put out to sea with the idea of quick money without knowing what they was letting themselves in for down there in the south. I know the
Sally
is sealing in the nearby Western Arm of Carnley Harbour under a Captain Lovatt. He is a good enough man but I do not think he has done much sealing.

Things is not too good over there said the other man who I find out soon is Mark Shaw.

You'd best come aboard I said and the 2 men come on board the
Harriet
.

So what is the trouble then.

They tell me the rum rations are cut and the food is bad because they have not put in enough provision. To make matters worse the master was running scared against the wind and they
had got no seals to speak of and all they wanted to do was get some work and go home. I was thinking it wd be trouble getting their boat back to the
Sally
which I wd have to do or my name will be mud but I am glad enough to have the extra hands.

Well I said to them you're welcome to stay as I've got a man down sick who should never have put to sea and another who doesn't know how to work. Let's see what you're made of, the pair of you.

So it was not just Lovatt's boat I had to worry about but now his runaways as well. I began to see myself back inside again and I am a man who must go free.

Next day part fine weather fresh SSE wind and 5 boats made land. There we found a very promising rookery of seals, as good as any I have seen and not another ship in sight. We clubbed 500 in a very short space of time. I was watching Shaw and Wilson all the time. I could see they did not know how to skin a seal. They stood about looking gormless. I wished I had never clapped eyes on either of them. I wd have done them a favour if I had knocked them off then.

It came to me then that I wd leave them here. And that is what I did. I took them on board and fed them one more time. I took the ship round by Port Ross which is to the north of the main island and told them they are on their own now. May God have mercy on their souls and I hope as how another ship will pick the pair of them up in which case they wd do well to keep their secrets to themselves another time.

They should have died there and Wilson did but Shaw got picked up 6 month later, all skin and bone and crawling on hands and knees. That is how the story got around that I am a murderer. Well it would be better that I had done them in. Shaw was all for telling where the new rookery was in exchange for his life and blacked my name.

Murderer they say when I walk down George Street. Wet behind yon ears I say.
People say I am a hard man and wicked with it. But hard men get things done. Next thing when I am back in Sydney I got a message to see Mr Robert Campbell. I am not 1 to get excited but I must say my heart beat fast upon reading his letter. Campbell is the King of the Wharf, the man with the biggest shipping business in all of Sydney, the merchant prince some do call him. This is the man who stopped the redcoat gentry in their tracks, those what made handsome profits from other men's work in the early days. What they done, these thieving rascals, was go aboard each merchant ship that come to Sydney and buy up all the cargo. Then they sold it for 500 times more to the local people. It took a man like Campbell to bust them. He bought a strip of land that is called Campbell's Cove and I daresay will be that for all time and built ships that he alone owned. So he could say who could come and go aboard them and it was not redcoats. He has built there his house, a wharf and stores, and he deals in seal skins whale oil and timber not to mention cattle from India sugar tea coffee rice and muslins.

His message said he wd like me to come to lunch and talk over a business proposition. I told Charlotte she must iron my best shirt with special care. And then she went and burnt it, a triangle like burnt toffee on the right side beneath the collar because she has her mind on other things. Betsy who was there to visit said don't worry Uncle Jack, for that is what she has taken to calling me ever since the day she and I went out for picking oysters, though she says it with a funny little smile as if she knows something I don't. I will get you another 1 real quick from Mr Spyer. And she was down the street, lickety split, and back again in less than ½ an hour while I walked up and down. It will never fit I said to Charlotte, she did not wait to ask what size, she will not know. The shirt was perfect, the best I ever put upon my shoulders, and though I was mighty upset and not myself, the girl had made me calm. I went off to see Mr Campbell wondering which knife and fork I should pick up when I sat down to lunch. Which is not the most important thing I know but all of
a sudden I was like a lad and shy. My Father wd have known what to do. But there is nothing in the book of words he gave to me that tells you the difference between the fish knife and the 1 for butter.

Not that Campbell seemed to notice that I was nervous. He took me by the arm as if we was the best of friends and we strolled through his garden and looked at his peacocks. I have heard much about you Guard he said.

I said who has been talking about me for I am careful who knows my business and he says why Captain Underwood has spoken with high regard for you.

I said that is all right then and he showed me into his parlour where we partook of a good lunch such as an English gentleman might eat and drank some wine and I watched what he did and it all came to me easily enough.

I could not at first believe my ears when Campbell said what was on his mind but it was correct, he offered me a partnership with him in a ship called the
Waterloo
.

Underwood says you should have enough money for a ½ share he said, which troubled me a little because I do not like people to speculate on what I am worth but I let it pass.

The ship is a 70 ton schooner, the
Waterloo
, carrying kangaroo skins, wheat and seal skins between Sydney, Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand.

I said thank you sir, I can oblige you there. And I added that I had heard of the demand for flax and that I knew where I might do some good deals and at that he was very pleased.

Well he said, it might be that the sailing can be shared around, and you might like to work ashore from time to time. Have you got a good lady?

I said I am not a married man.

That is a pity he said. A wife is an asset to any man. What has kept you from the goodly estate?

I said then that I had not met a woman I fancy well enough at which he shook his head and said well that is up to you but a
man in your position should be able to pick and choose.

In my head I knew I had not told him all the truth.

After this something happened so big and strange I knew it to be an omen of my future. I was sailing the
Waterloo
in New Zealand waters. It has turned out to be a tidy ship and much to my liking although it is not the
Harriet
. Again we carried seal skins from the south, not planning to go ashore, when up comes a strong NW gale near Cook Strait. The waves were green mountains like nothing I had ever seen, they curled and smashed, beat and flayed us, they were big as God's wrath, and at evening we were driven harder and ever more relentless towards a rocky headland. I had been warned of this place and never thought of seas as fierce and without forgiveness and I thought I was a fool that I had not heeded more the warnings. The
Waterloo
was carried forward on the crest of a mighty wave. Suddenly we found ourselves in smooth water near the shore of an island.

It was hard to believe that in the midst of all this wind we should come across a place so calm and still. But it was so. We had found fair haven.

Later I heard the island is called Arapawa and the place where we had come is Te Awaiti which means The Little River.

But not for me. It is the place of my deliverance. I will call it always Fair Haven, the name I have bestowed.

This is the word of the Lord. God Almighty. I was saved.

In the morning, the storm passed over and I was able to look around me, as a man who discovers a new land might do. We were in a small bay with a wide beach of stones. Over the beach fast flowed a stream of clear water. Up above were trees of many kinds, hard knotted and close together. We climbed the hill. To the south we saw a range of mountains covered with snow like flowing milk. All around us the birds were crying out.

What I saw then fair blew the breath out of my mouth. In the waters of the bay a pod of southern right whales played near
the shore. These are black animals and carry great quantities of oil. I had heard of the right whales coming north from the Antarctic to calve in quiet waters but this was something I never thought to see and it was here right before my eyes.