Red Earth Diaries by Jason Rebello

Author:Jason Rebello [Rebello, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-9945674-6-8
Publisher: Evolving Wordsmith
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

Shipwrecked

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail – Ralph Waldo Emerson

‘Work those pumps, men … for God’s sake keep at it if you want to see the light of day!’ I could just imagine the boatswain shouting orders as the ship started listing to one side. It was riding up higher on the coral reef on the receding tide, and the cold dark waters were seeping into the holds, the water levels rising by the minute. It was 11 p.m. on 10 June 1770. The fate of HM Endeavour, the success of the entire voyage – and potentially the discovery of Australia itself – now lay in the expert hands of Captain James Cook and his crew.

Being a seafarer, I related to their distress, but my navigational skills pale in comparison with those pioneers and explorers from that bygone era. Still, I pictured the abject terror that would have seized them as the ship’s hull grated against the sharp edges of the coral reef. I imagined the first few moments of utter disbelief and inaction of the senior officers. Twenty miles from land and knowing that the depths reduced from twenty fathoms to zero in no time at all, Cook would have been acutely aware that this was no gentle sandy spit he’d run aground on.

I could feel the pressure mounting on the captain, as if I were on the bridge with him. Cook knew that trying to float the ship might prove disastrous, with there being every possibility the jagged coral would slice through the hull with any further movement. But he also dreaded the possibility of becoming stranded in the middle of nowhere. With a stoic disposition, he and his men decided to do whatever they could to get the Endeavour afloat.

Over the next thirteen hours the crew worked relentlessly to keep the ship afloat, guns and provisions were thrown overboard, anchors were run out, and capstans heaved in a bid to pry the ship free. The bilge pumps were operated non-stop. Finally, at around 10.30 a.m., with the crew exhausted from the efforts through the night, there was a glimmer of hope as the onrush of the returning tide lapped over the edge of the coral and began rocking the ship back and forth. Inch by laborious inch, the windlass and capstan heaved the vessel forward, and the Endeavour finally broke free and entered deeper waters.

Once out of immediate harm’s way, one of the midshipmen, Mr Monkhouse, experimented with the use of a ‘fothering’ technique, sliding a large piece of canvas filled with loose clumps of oakum, wool and sheep dung across the ship’s bottom, the suction effectively carrying the ‘filth’ into the cavity and plugging the leak.

With resurgent hope, Cook managed to sail the boat into a narrow channel at the mouth of a river, landing it at a secluded spot on the mangrove-infested swamp banks. He would later name this waterway the Endeavour River in honour of his barque.

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