Island of the Lost (30 page)

M
usgrave glimpsed a line of breakers to leeward, stretching as far as he could see. Realizing that these were the reefs that broke out from the northeastern coast of Auckland Island, he advised Cross to haul off and stand about ten miles from land until they were well clear of them: “These reefs are very ugly dangers, and cannot too carefully be avoided until surveyed.”

This hazard circumvented, they hauled in again, and sailed southward closer to the shore. Then all at once they saw smoke. It was on the side of one of the mountains, about eight miles north of Epigwaitt. Had Harry and George climbed up there, and set fire to the grass? Or was it a trick of the mist? There was nothing they could do about investigating the strange sight, and so they kept south.

The entry into Carnley Harbour was a desperate struggle against the westerly wind, which “drew down the sound with great fury,” loaded with sleet and hail. For a while they felt doubtful that the
Flying Scud
could stand it, but they “hauled her up to it, standing by the halyards, and lowering away everything in some of the squalls, which would otherwise have capsized
her, or blown away the canvas. We thrashed her up,” Musgrave went on, “and nobly did the little craft do her work.”

Cross was at the helm, while at every moment the gusts threatened to carry away the single mast, which was bending back and forth like a reed, or capsize the cutter, which was “frequently down, hatches in the water, while the spray flew in clouds over the masthead, smothering and nearly blinding us all.” However, despite everything the weather could throw at them, at eight in the evening the
Flying Scud
made the haven of Camp Cove, and Musgrave was back at the place from where he'd set sail precisely five weeks before—“How very different are my feelings to then!”

“T
HURSDAY
, A
UGUST
24,” he wrote next day. “We were up and on shore as soon as it was daylight.” To his surprise, the tent that he and his men had lived in while they prepared the
Rescue
for her last-hope voyage was gone, along with all the tools and other gear. Evidently Harry and George had collected them—but how, without a boat? Perhaps they had made a raft, Musgrave thought, a notion that was reinforced when he found half a seal hanging in a tree, and “a rudely constructed oar and mast.” The harbor was still white with foam, so they couldn't set out to investigate. Instead, they went on a hunt, Musgrave killing a cow and a calf.

This led to what he considered an amusing incident. Musgrave shot the calf, and after he had fired, “Cross saw the old cow running towards him, and at once bolted down the cliff and made for the boat.” The female seal headed off in another direction, with Musgrave following her, so Tom Cross “took courage,” and came back. Seeing the calf lying there, he thought
it was asleep, set upon it with his club, and then cried out in triumph, “Where are you, boys? I've killed a seal!”

Musgrave returned, and thoughtfully studied the corpse. “Are you sure you've killed him?” he inquired.

“Killed him? Yes—his brains are coming out of his mouth.”

On closer inspection, Musgrave saw that the pup had vomited milk in its death throes. He pointed out the bullet hole in the animal's head, and Cross was quite crestfallen. “Well,” he said. “I thought I'd killed a seal.”

I
T WAS STILL
very showery, but in the afternoon the rain eased and the wind moderated, and so they got under way and beat up to Epigwaitt, which was so enveloped in mist “the boys” didn't see the
Flying Scud
. Musgrave and Cross landed in the boat, “leaving the cutter underweigh, as there was too much wind and sea to anchor her,” and hurried up to the cabin.

Harry, on seeing them, “turned as pale as a ghost,” and staggered up to a post, against which he leaned for support, for he was evidently on the point of fainting; while the other, George, seized my hand in both of his and gave my arm a severe shaking, crying, ‘Captain Musgrave, how are ye? How are ye?' apparently unable to say anything else.”

After a struggle the Englishman managed to get control of himself, but still his “eyes were filled with tears” of utter joy. Crouching down by Harry, who was now insensible, George and Musgrave shook him and sprinkled his face with cold water that Captain Cross “brought in his oil-skin cap from the neighbouring brook,” but it was a long time before the poor fellow opened his eyes.

As dark was falling, Musgrave and Cross rushed the two
castaways off to the cutter without pausing to ask or answer questions. Off before the wind they flew, and were at Camp Cove in good time for supper, which “consisted of fish and potatoes, tea, and bread and butter, and the two poor fellows set about with such a zest as I have seldom seen exhibited over a meal.” Little wonder—one of their first revelations, as Musgrave related, was that at one time their food had become so short that they had been reduced to killing and eating mice. Worse still, they had had a falling-out—“were on the point of separating and living apart!” That nothing like this had happened before Musgrave had left the island was clearly a testament not only to his leadership but to the spirit of camaraderie that had bound them all together.

However, Musgrave's thoughts were focused on the smoke they had sighted as the cutter had come down the coast. Henry and George knew nothing about it, telling him that they had been nowhere near the mountains since the day the
Rescue
had sailed, so perhaps, he meditated, there was a possibility that there were other unfortunates living on the island. In that case, it was imperative to run back along the shore as soon as wind and weather allowed it. The thought of abandoning men who were suffering the same trials and tribulations he and his little company had endured for nineteen long months was utterly unacceptable.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
dawned without any wind, so it was impossible to leave Carnley Harbour. However, the weather was otherwise relatively moderate, so Cross's crew put out the sweeps and rowed the
Flying Scud
to Epigwaitt, which gave Musgrave, Harry, and George an opportunity to retrieve what
mementos of their long ordeal they might want. With thoughts of Raynal, waiting back in Invercargill, Musgrave detached the bellows from the forge, and carried it back to the cutter.

At the same time, Musgrave learned from Harry and George how they had retrieved the tent from Camp Cove. After having been reduced to catching and eating mice, they had made a raft with four empty casks, which had made a huge difference to them, because it meant that they had been able to get about the harbor to hunt, and also to retrieve the gear that had been left behind at Camp Cove. The badly made oar and mast had been abandoned after they had manufactured better ones. The half-carcass was the result of one of their hunting expeditions, they said; they had left it behind because a whole grown seal was more than two men could consume.

This talk of seal-hunting gave Captain Cross the urge to have another go, and so they set off with his dog—a large noble beast, as Musgrave described, “such as would have been of the greatest service to us while down here.” When they flushed an old cow out of the bush the dog flew after it, and only let go after one of Cross's men, mad with excitement, hit the dog on the head instead of the seal.

However, the cutter's men gained boThskill and courage over the next few stormbound days, collecting a few skins and rendering down a lot of oil, despite the constant heavy rain. For Musgrave, still exceedingly anxious about his family, the time dragged—“It is one month today since we left Invercargill,” he wrote on August 30, “and a long dreary month it has been to me.”

On the night of August 31 the wind increased with great violence, but after midnight it moderated considerably, and
by daylight had fallen to a strong breeze. The sky was blue, the scudding clouds broken, and at ten in the morning they weighed anchor and headed out to sea, Musgrave feeling very glad indeed to depart from the place “in whose folds I have experienced the greatest misery of my life.”

With due care to avoid reefs, they sailed up the eastern coast, while Musgrave took sightings and made notes. Everyone looked for signs of smoke, but saw nothing. About four-thirty in the afternoon they passed the northeast point of Auckland Island, and then cautiously ventured amongst the host of islets that hid the passage into Port Ross, still on the search for men who might have set the fire—though they were becoming less and less sure that what they had seen was smoke.

T
HE ONLY PILOT
Musgrave had to help find an anchorage in this northern extremity of Auckland Island was a short chapter in a slender volume called
The History of Gold
, which had been published in 1853, and which he had acquired in Invercargill. After describing the island group as situated “in 51° South latitude and 166° east longitude,” and “about 180 miles south of New Zealand, and 900 southeast from Van Diemen's Land” (Tasmania), this book went on to describe Bristow's discovery, the release of pigs into the territory, and the Enderby settlement in Port Ross. Then it launched into physical, biological, and meteorological descriptions—all from hearsay. The author, James Ward, had not even visited the island group, but had compiled his observations from letters sent to him by a friend, the surgeon of the Sydney whaler
Lord Hardwicke
.

Reading this book, Musgrave learned much about the early history of the islands, something he naturally found intriguing.
Of more immediate interest to him, however, was the set of instructions for entering Port Ross. “Port Ross is at the extreme north of the island, and contains secure anchorage for vessels,” the book assured him. If they entered the bay from the north, and kept Enderby Island on the right while passing about a small wooded peninsula, they would be able to anchor “in perfect safety in any part.” The inlet beyond the headland was “perfectly landlocked,” the writer went on, “and the steep beach on the southern shore affords the greatest facility for clearing and reloading vessels.”

As Musgrave and Cross swiftly found out, this advice was absolute humbug. It took them hours to get about the peninsula, because when Musgrave went down in a boat to test the soundings, he found that the bottom shallowed dangerously to less than a fathom. Finally they put out the sweeps and got the cutter to an anchorage just as the rain came pouring down—but surely this wasn't the right place? Around them, low hills clad in tussock and stag-headed bush rolled all the way to the water; the wind whistled freely in all directions; and there was no sign of a shelving beach. The scene was such a mismatch to the written description that Musgrave couldn't believe they had actually arrived—but, as it proved, they were there. “What a disappointment!” he wrote.

After an uncomfortable night rolling and pitching in a nasty swell that curled about the headland, Musgrave, with Tom Cross, went on shore to look around. Obviously, people had come before them, because a great deal of timber had been cut down—but where was the village of Hardwicke that Ward's book described? Like the
Invercauld
castaways who had stumbled
on this place fifteen months earlier, Musgrave and Cross stared around in utter bewilderment.

“All gone,” wrote Musgrave; “scarcely a vestige of a house remains; bare leveled places point out where many of them stood, as remaining traces of rude fences also point out where innumerable small gardens have been; but the ground everywhere, except where some of the houses have apparently stood, is choked up with a vigorous growth of thick long grass, and there is not the slightest sign of any edible vegetable.” He was vastly relieved that he hadn't known anything about Hardwicke when he had been wrecked at Carnley Harbour, because if he had been aware of its existence he would have made a great effort to get here, and in the process most probably condemned all five
Grafton
castaways to death, because there were no sea lions to be seen at this place, “and there are very few of the roots here which we used to eat.”

It began to rain heavily, with a hard gale from the north-west, so Cross and Musgrave returned to the cutter to drop a second anchor. After another nasty night, they went on shore again, this time with George Harris. Again the rain poured, so Musgrave took shelter under a flax bush while George and Captain Cross trekked on. Soon they were out of sight. Tiring of crouching in the downpour, Musgrave went back on board the
Flying Scud
. No sooner had he settled down than they came rushing back in a state of excitement.

Tom Cross and George Harris had found a dead man—“who had apparently died of starvation, and had evidently not been long dead, as flesh remained on his hands.” A roof slate had been discovered alongside the corpse, and they had brought this
with them, thinking it was interesting because it had squiggles scratched on its face—“which had no doubt been written by the deceased man, probably when dying,” Musgrave guessed, having no idea that it might have been a memoriam inscribed by a fellow castaway, because the writing had been scoured off by the weather—“we found [it] impossible to decipher any further than the Christian name, James.”

After a pause to eat their midday dinner, Cross and George led Musgrave to the place where the corpse was lying. Musgrave studied it with extremely mixed feelings, taking copious notes. “The body lay on a bed of grass, with some boards underneath raising it a few inches from the ground,” he wrote; “and was close up against the west end of the house, which end and the sides had fallen outwards, while the roof, being pressed by the wind towards the other end, had just fallen clear of the body.”

Later, he told Raynal that the arms were “stretched by the side of the body, and the fingers of the hands straight and untwisted,” which he interpreted as “indications of a peaceful and apparently resigned departure. One leg hung a little out of the bed, the other was extended full length upon it,” he went on. “A shoe was upon the left foot; the right leg, probably wounded, was wrapped up in a bandage. The dress was that of a sailor; moreover, several garments, one of which was an oil-cloth overcoat, were thrown upon the body to serve as coverlets.”