Island of the Lost (33 page)

Andrew Smith—the man who wasn't named in either of Dalgarno's accounts—arrived in Aberdeen sometime in August, the
Aberdeen Journal
recording on September 6 that “Mr. Smith, late mate of the
Invercauld
,” was in good health when the writer visited him, “with the exception of a feeling of pain and numbness in the legs and feet.” The journalist was there to press him to write his own version of the castaway ordeal, but Smith resisted all such appeals until the following year, when he wrote a short account for the Glasgow publishing firm of Brown & Son and Ferguson, with the title
The Castaways: A Narrative of the Wreck and sufferings of the Officers and Crew of the Ship Invercauld of Aberdeen, on the Auckland Islands
.

It begins, “Having been requested to give a narrative of the wreck and sufferings of the officers and crew of the
Invercauld
of Aberdeen, I have to state, as some excuse for the delay in its appearance, that I understood Captain Dalgarno was to give an account of them, and in this expectation I deferred drawing up this narrative.” However, it is unlikely that he was unaware that Dalgarno had produced his own version, which indicates that the relationship between the two men had soured. Having produced this document, Andrew Smith, like Dalgarno, dropped out of sight. The newspaper stories stopped that same month of September 1865, and neither he nor Dalgarno appeared in the records again.

At least, they had had their little moment of fame. No newspaper writer was ever interested in Robert Holding. Back in Callao, the British consul had sent him to a common seamen's
boardinghouse instead of giving him a ticket home—“such is the difference in the treatment of officers and men that poor Jack has to take his chance.” He was penniless, but three of the seamen from the
Julian
gave him five dollars each, which tided him over for a while. The crew of a visiting British warship saw his plight too, and “made a whip around and presented me with $35.00. I don't forget the Navy,” he commented.

After waiting around in the Peruvian port for three weeks, occasionally visiting Smith in the hospital, Holding managed to get a seaman's job on a small Welsh vessel,
Mathewan
, which was bound for Europe. “Having been round Cape Horn I cannot say that I relished the idea,” he wrote, but, being a beggar, he had no choice. And so, in this humble fashion, he left the Pacific Ocean and its terrible memories behind.

Robert Holding took his discharge from the
Mathewan
at Rotterdam on October 21, 1865, and then, after visiting his family in England, he resumed his seafaring career. In 1888 he gave up the sea, migrated to Canada, and then after working as a machinist in Toronto and Kingston, Ontario, he headed for the goldfields of West Shining Tree. Having had some luck in the prospecting way, he bought a hotel with the proceeds and became a publican. This colorful and varied career ended when he died on January 12, 1933, his legacy to his family being the remarkable memoir of his experiences as a castaway, which he commenced in 1926, at the age of eighty-six.

B
ACK IN
N
OVEMBER
1865, despite the implications of the report of the loss of the
Invercauld
, Captain Norman came to the firm conclusion that there was no one left alive either on
Campbell Island or in the Auckland Islands group. Accordingly, he ordered the anchor weighed, and the
Victoria
departed from Port Chalmers for Melbourne, Australia. As a measure of their respect, the pilots who accompanied him out to the heads did not charge for the service.

A few days later, Raynal, Alick, and Harry sailed out of the same port in the schooner
Swordfish
. This time, as Raynal described with patent relief, “our voyage was fair and favourable,” so they arrived in Melbourne just a few days behind the
Victoria
. Meanwhile, the three comrades had lost track of George Harris: “I do not know whether he still resides in New Zealand, and if he has succeeded in his new trade of gold-digger,” Raynal wrote later.

A month after arriving in Melbourne, Alick Maclaren returned to sea, joining the crew of a Liverpool clipper. Harry Forgès, who reckoned that he had experienced more than enough of the ocean and its hazards, went to work for an uncle who kept a large sheep station two hundred miles inland, which for him was a good safe distance from the sea. This left François Raynal alone in the port, where he had to remain under medical care because his health was still very poor. Soon, however, Musgrave joined him, having come to Melbourne to settle with his family. In his report of the voyage of the
Victoria
, Captain Norman had strongly commended Musgrave for his assistance, which he had found invaluable, and this reference, accompanied with warm backing from the Invercargill merchant John Macpherson (who was also a personal friend of the Minister of Trade, James G. Francis), landed Thomas Musgrave a job with the Department of Trade & Customs in that port.

This triumph was soon followed by the launch of Musgrave's book, which was published by the local firm Henry T. Dwight late that same year, 1865, with the title
Castaway on the Auckland Isles: a narrative of the wreck of the ‘Grafton': from the private journals of Capt. Thos. Musgrave, with a map and some account of the Aucklands
. Whether Musgrave consulted with Raynal as he compiled the book is unknown. What is certain is that Musgrave's editor, a local luminary by the name of John Joseph Shillinglaw, had a great deal to do with its final form.

Shillinglaw was a noted raconteur and prized dinner guest—and a talented editor. Not only did he persuade Musgrave to pad out the bare bones of the intermittent journal he had written to turn it into a book, but, understanding that Musgrave's style rang with a natural sincerity, he allowed him to tell it in his own voice. The book, dedicated to John Macpherson and the Minister of Trade, James G. Francis, “as a tribute of gratitude,” was very successful locally, leading to another edition, published in London by Lockwood in 1866, as,
Castaway on the Auckland Isles: a narrative of the wreck of the Grafton and of the escape of the crew after twenty months suffering: from the private journals of Captain Thomas Musgrave, together with some account of the Aucklands
, and which, despite the slight difference in title and the order in which the appendices (which describe sea lions and the Auckland Islands) appear, was identical to the first.

In 1867, Thomas Musgrave was given the job of “harbour boat captain”—or pilot—for the Gippsland Entrance of the harbor, with a salary of £200 per annum and a staff of six. Subsequently, he was put in charge of a number of lighthouses, and eventually died at one of these, Point Lonsdale lighthouse, Victoria, on November 7, 1891, at the age of just fifty-nine.

Now, he lies under a marble headstone in picturesque Queens-cliff Cemetery, close to the wife who predeceased him by just a few months. Aptly, he is surrounded by the graves of many men who drowned at sea, and the lighthouse keepers and lifeboat men who saved many more from shipwreck.

“A
S FOR MYSELF
,” wrote Raynal, “when I recruited my strength I quitted Melbourne, carrying with me the most agreeable recollection of the generous attentions lavished upon me, during my stay there, by its inhabitants.” What he had done in the meantime to keep body and soul together is unknown, though there was an unlikely report printed later in
The Australian
that he “practised mesmerism.” The writer of this report also claimed inside knowledge of the mysterious lode on Campbell Island—which, he says, was copper, not argentiferous tin. Charles Sarpy, according to this piece of unfounded speculation, was married to a granddaughter of the firm of Underwood & Co., which had a vague mercantile connection with the Enderby-inspired colony, and had heard about a copper mine from one or other of the people who had lived at Hardwicke. Though Raynal came from a good family, and was an excellent scholar, as the writer averred, he claimed that the Frenchman joined the expedition just to get his hands on the copper.

According to Raynal's own account, after leaving Melbourne his sole ambition was to get to France. He went to Sydney first, however, and “waited upon our partners. With respect to
them
, I had not only a personal resentment to satisfy, but an act of justice to accomplish,” he said, and went on to relate that he “reproached them in severe terms” for their callous indifference and “their guilty forgetfulness of their solemn engagements.”
Charles Sarpy and Uncle Musgrave had plenty of excuses, including their lack of funds to finance a rescue mission. They also emphatically assured him that they had reported the missing ship to the authorities. When he checked, however, it was to find that they had waited
thirteen months
before doing so, well outside the administrative deadline.

Finally, “on the 6th of April 1867,” as he went on, “I sailed from Sydney on board the
John Masterman
, bound for London.” He arrived there on August 22 and just a few days later, “with a heart overflowing with joy, I landed in France; I trod my native soil.” He had been away from home a total of twenty years.

François Raynal found his parents living in an apartment in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. For some time afterward he lived with them while he worked on his book and found a publishing firm—one that had an even greater influence on the form of his book than John Shillinglaw had had on Musgrave's publication. This was Librairie de L. Hachette, which has a very interesting history.

Its founder, Louis Hachette, came from a poor family, but had been allowed to attend a prestigious school in Paris because his mother was a linen maid there. No sooner had he passed his final examinations as a teacher, in 1822, than the school was closed down by the authorities, being considered too left-wing, and so he was unable to claim his certificate. In 1826, Hachette somehow raised enough money to buy up a tiny bookselling business on the Rue St. Germain. The following year, in a curious echo of Raynal's early career, he assumed the responsibility of his whole family, taking care of his mother and sisters as well as his wife and two small children. At the same
time he launched into publishing, becoming the first publisher in history to specialize in textbooks for elementary schoolchildren. When rail travel became available to the common crowd, Hachette pioneered the practice of putting stalls in railroad stations that sold cheap, light, readable books, later supplemented with travel guides. By the time he died, in 1864, he was one of the richest men in France.

Though Louis Hachette was no longer around at the time Raynal submitted his manuscript, his liberal traditions had been carried on by his successors, which meant that Librairie L. Hachette was the perfect publisher for his book. Raynal's description of the egalitarian domestic arrangements of Epigwaitt had particular appeal to the democratically minded editorial board, and this part of the story was given due prominence. Everything that was inspiring—Raynal's technical resourcefulness, Alick's gallantry, Musgrave's conscientious leadership—was emphasized, as an eloquent testament to the triumph of the human spirit in the face of tremendous difficulties.

Editorial policy also influenced the selection of an illustrator. The man commissioned was Alphonse de Neuville, a very popular artist who also illustrated books by Jules Verne and Alexandre Dumas
fils
. As was typical with Hachette, de Neuville worked closely with the editor, who chose the subjects of the pictures for their inspirational and educational value. Even the placement of the illustrations was carefully thought out, each one preceding the relevant text by two or three pages, with the idea of keeping the reader's curiosity and interest alive. As usual, too, it was claimed that the scenes were taken from sketches made by the author—who, unlike the illustrator, was
unnamed, being kept mysteriously anonymous. It is, in fact, only possible to be sure that François Raynal is the author by comparing his book with Musgrave's.

The marketing of the book was carried out with equally deliberate care. Extracts were published in three installments in the very popular Hachette-owned magazine
Le Tour du Monde
, starting July 1869, to whet public interest. Then, the following year, the entire story was published under the title
Les naufrages; ou, Vingt mois sur un recif des îles Auckland: recit authentique, illustré de 40 gravures sur bois dessinées par A. de Neuville
.

It was an immediate best-seller, translated into Italian and German in 1871, into English in 1874, and Norwegian in 1879. Printing followed printing, while reviewers breathlessly compared it to the classic
Robinson Crusoe
. There were obvious reasons for this. Like Defoe's book,
Les naufrages
involved as well as enthralled the reader; like
Robinson Crusoe
, it celebrated the value of hard work and the importance of human labor. At a time when technological advances were booming, it brought renewed awareness of the blessings of tools and engineering. It even affected the leisure time of its readers—a fashion arose for such activities as gardening, camping, pottery, sewing, leather-work, and the keeping of pets. In the past, these basic skills had been dismissed as the kind of thing our lowly peasant ancestors did to keep body and soul together, but now they became therapeutic recreational activities for educated city-dwellers. Because of its inspirational appeal, Hachette put it out in special editions, some intended for family collections and others, particularly handsomely produced, for end-of-year school prizes. Both English and French editions are in print today—still without Raynal's name on either the cover or the title page.

H
ELPED BY A RECOMMENDATION
from a director of the publishing company, Raynal secured a good job with the Paris Municipal Council, and from then on moved up steadily through the ranks of public servants. He was recognized by the literati, too: In 1868 he was nominated a member of the Geographic Society of Paris, and in 1873 he was invited to talk at the Académie des Sciences during a meeting of the Commission of the Transit of Venus, giving them the advice (which they followed) to site their observatory on Campbell Island rather than in the Aucklands. In 1874
Les naufrages
was awarded a Montyon prize by the Académie Française, which involved a fat purse of 1,500 francs in addition to a flattering citation; in 1875 Raynal was a delegate to the International Congress of Geographical Sciences; in 1881 he was admitted to the Order of Palmes Académiques.