Bloodroot

Chapter 1 July 1609-2

While I was about this sad business, I renewed my acquaintance with Richard, who was the only friend from my childhood and who had recently returned from Oxford to seek employment as a tutor. His friendship had guided me through those black moments when I felt that the very world must soon come to an end.

Richard returned from the ship shortly and said that the Captain would like to speak with me before giving his permission.

“What does he want?”

“I don’t know,” he said; this with a clear note of desperation in his voice. “He seems a fair man. His name is King, Captain William King. He is sailing as vice-Admiral of the fleet. We also have on board the illustrious Captain John Ratcliffe, apparently to resume his position as Governor of the colony and take it away from Captain Smith. We are among experienced men, Matthew. It is surely a good thing. Please go and speak with him. He took the money. He only wants to see you himself, I’m sure.”

Richard patted me on the shoulder, and I walked slowly onto the ship and to the Captain’s cabin. The door swung open, throwing the dim light of a lamp in my face.

“Enter,” the Captain said.

He was a man not as big as I am, but from his eyes and manner I could see that he more than made up for his lack of size by force of character. His beard and mustache were light red, and he walked with a hard step, solidly planting his feet wherever they fell. His voice was strong, having battled with the ocean winds for many years. His clothes were wrinkled from having slept in them too often.

“So, you want to go to Virginia?” he said, and continued without giving me a chance to answer. “Your friend says that you are a carpenter?”

He stopped and looked directly at me, demanding the truth.

“Well, sir, I served four years to a master carpenter of Exeter.”

“But you didn’t complete your apprenticeship?”

“No, sir, but I know as much as any master about the skill, and—”

“I’m sure you do, lad—quarreled with your master, did you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No, sir.”

“So you ran away?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Captain laughed mightily and flopped down in his chair.

“God’s wounds! It reminds me of my own youth, when I was apprenticed to a fishmonger of London. What a hard man he was. How I prayed many a time for God or some worthy soul to strike him dead. But, like most hard men, he only grew stronger. The time came when he proposed to beat me, and I hit him beside the face with one of his cold codfish. I liked it so much that I used it like a club and beat him until nothing was left of the cod but bloody strings of meat.”

The Captain laughed until his face glowed as red as his beard. He went into a coughing fit, and when that had subsided, he said, “Those fools in Virginia have need of your skill more than they realize. You may sail with us if you like. One more will not make a difference. But take care and do not go near my mariners. They’re a base lot, and some had as soon stick a dagger in you as not.”

I thanked the Captain for his courtesy and started to leave.

“Since you are here,” he said, “you can tell your friend that he can come aboard, but you and he are not to quarter among the stores. The best place is amidships.”

I thanked the Captain again and hurried off the ship to tell Richard what had taken place. He was very pleased, and we immediately began loading his belongings aboard the ship.

Coarse, cloth bags stuffed with straw had been provided for our bedding. We found a good place on the first deck, in the middle part of the ship, next to the hull where we would be protected from the weather on all sides. At first the place between the decks seemed so small and cramped that I began to feel a shortness of breath, but as I lay on my rude bedding next to Richard, the whole space appeared to open up and become as vast as the sky itself, and before long I was sound asleep.

It seemed only an instant of time before we heard the tramping of feet over our heads and voices calling out. We crawled over to the hatch and up the ladder to the main deck. It was well into the morning, and the sailors were running about the ship, preparing her for departure. The passengers were crowded on the quay, waiting their turn to walk over the wood planks to the ship. Most had a few possessions stuffed into cloth sacks, which they carried over their shoulders or under their arms. Some, like me, had nothing at all. Still others, mostly gentlemen, had large chests which the sailors handled with contempt, crashing them down on the deck with many curses.

They were mostly city people with the marks of their trades on their hands and faces. Most looked very pale and worn. Some were laborers with hard bodies. They stood together, looking suspiciously at everything and everyone. The gentlemen, in their fine clothes, stood off to one side and chatted among themselves.

I looked to the stern of the ship and saw Captain King pacing like a lion on the high poop deck. Now and then he would go to the rail and shout something to his men.

When all were aboard, the Captain gave the order to cast off from the quay, at which time men in two long boats strained at their oars, pulling the great ship slowly away from our last touch with England. The sight of the wharf moving away from me caused a peculiar pain in my breast. For a moment, if Richard had not been standing beside me, I would have jumped from the ship and swam joyfully back to shore. Instead I waited, not moving, listening to the Captain give the orders to get the ship under sail, soothed somewhat by the chants of the sailors as they went about their work.

We glided gently into Plymouth Sound where the Captain brought her up beside a fleet of ships, six of the larger tonnages and two pinnaces. There we dropped anchor, and within an hour, Captain King, along with Captain Ratcliffe and his rowers, had set out in our ship’s long boat to meet Captain Christopher Newport, a well-known privateer and Master of the newly built flagship named the Sea Venture.

The Captain had not been gone but a few minutes when a quarrel broke out among some of the passengers as to where their places would be on the ship. One of them pulled a dagger on the other and made as if to stab him with it. But before he could advance two paces, one of the larger sailors jumped in among them, holding a fid in his right hand, and with it he knocked the dagger from the attacker’s hand. The attacker, then in a rage, started for the sailor who, without the slightest hesitation, struck him on the side of his head and rendered the man senseless for over a quarter of an hour.

This incident put a quick end to the dispute, and most of the passengers went about preparing their places on the ship in silence. By evening the Captain returned, much flushed with wine and, staggering about the deck, ordered the Master’s Mate into his cabin. After a short while, the Master’s Mate emerged from the cabin and ordered the sailor on watch to look for a signal from the Sea Venture for getting underway.

We were served a delicious, hot meal of stew, containing much meat and bread and green plants and herbs. It would be our last hot meal for some time. Beer was served liberally, and we drank until we began to feel bloated and sleepy. Richard and I crawled around and over some of the passengers until we reached our beds, and there, fell onto them and slept like two newborn infants.

I was awakened suddenly by a sharp blow to my shoulder, and further aroused from my drowsiness by the cries of those nearest me. The sound of rushing water could be heard clearly against the hull, and my shoulder was pressed hard against the ship’s heavy oak frame. Some passengers had slid, with their bedding, against the hull. After overcoming the surprise of it, they made their way back to their former places, crawling and sliding over other passengers like sheep bounding away from a charging wolf. To my surprise, Richard was still asleep and did not seem in any danger of rolling against the hull. I saw no need to wake him, so I made my way out of the ship onto the main deck.

It was growing well light, although the sun was still down. The ship was crashing through the water under full sail, and it seemed that all around, the ships sailing with us were bobbing and leaping over the sea as though all had taken wing and were flying at top speed for Virginia. Behind our fleet lay the rocky coast of Devon, and ahead of us, open green sea.

The wind was blustering and blowing from the southwest, and as we bore away down the channel, the heel of the ship eased, and the pitching became less violent. The ship no longer burst through the waves but seemed to join with them, rising gently as the seas rolled in from our stern and we nestled down into the troughs as they rolled ahead of us.

I walked on unsteady legs to the ship’s bulwark and, holding onto the shrouds, watched the shore of England slowly recede. It occurred to me for the first time since I had decided on this adventure that I might never see England again; and though I had certainly suffered more there than necessary, it was still a home where the language and customs were known to me. I had never been abroad before this, not even to France or Holland. Now, through the uncertainty of fate, I found myself truly bound for an unknown land that might as well be one of the spheres of Heaven. I turned away. There was only one direction for me to look now, and that was to the sea.

It was about this time that several passengers came on deck and promptly ran to the bulwark, there to vomit and gasp as though they were dying. They were soon followed by many others until the whole bulwark was lined with people from stem to stern, all heaving and praying to God for relief. This, of course, was an occasion for much fun and joking among the sailors, some of whom added to the passengers’ misery by eating hunks of roasted meat or bread.

Richard also took his turn at the bulwark and I, at moments, began to feel a stirring uneasiness in my bowels. But, after a day or so, the uneasiness passed, as it did for most of the passengers, and we all settled down in our own spaces, such as they could be with 150 souls living as close to one another as if they all shared the same bed.

Yet there was little in the way of abuse toward the women. I suppose those who would commit such a crime knew that they had no chance of being undetected and would be instantly punished by being cast overboard. Almost every day a quarrel broke out among the men passengers, but nothing ever came of it—no blows were struck, only harsh words from men being too long in close quarters.