Matthew Flinders' Cat (30 page)

In the meantime Matthew Flinders was in a fine pickle, he had missed Trim and thought he might have been washed overboard. ‘Trim! Trim! Where art thou?’ he shouted, looking wildly about and making inquiry of all. Whereupon Trim hurled himself from the quarterdeck, a wet and soggy pussycat, landing with a lightness of tread precisely on his master’s right shoulder. ‘The
Bridgewater
is not coming to our assistance!’ he meowed into his master’s ear.

‘Steady on, Master Trim, it is night and too dangerous, she will come at first light, any good ship’s master would not risk his ship in the darkness.’

Trim knew that Matthew Flinders would not have waited for the dawn but would have set about the rescue while taking all necessary caution. He had once caught sight of Captain E. H. Palmer Esq. on the Quay at Port Jackson and had noted the shiftiness of his expression, his eyes were dull as soaked raisins and he was observed treating two of his seamen aboard the
Bridgewater
in a decidedly churlish manner.

Well, what a night for one and all it turned out to be! Though some good fortune favoured them, the
Porpoise
had not foundered in a storm and, furthermore, had heeled towards the reef so that the incoming surf now crashed against her turned-up side and flew high over her decks and hadn’t the strength to wash anything very much off them into the sea. The boats were intact and the smooth water under the leeward side looked promising enough to attempt to launch them. Beyond the breakers there seemed to be clear water, for they had struck a reef and not the shore. In terms of good seamanship and given good light, all the
Bridgewater
needed to do was to sail until she found a break in the reef to move through. If no suitable passage could be found, then she could sail to the end of the reef, anchor and send her longboats into the tranquil water on the far side of the breakers. After which, it would be a simple task to row to the rescue of the
Porpoise
and the
Cato
.

Matthew Flinders volunteered to take a gig, a light boat for rowing, with the intention of marking a possible course and then communicating it to the
Bridgewater
. It was Trim’s expectation that he would go along, but his master, ever fearful of his safety, denied him this passage. ‘Master Trim, I must needs swim and it is not safe, lad.’

Trim was not amused, Matthew Flinders was aware that he could swim, for often, when a kitten, he had become so taken with playing and jumping that he’d been thrown overboard by his own enthusiasm and while the crew set about his rescue he had discovered he could swim. Once or twice as an adult cat the hawser line had jerked suddenly while Trim was in the process of going ashore and he’d plummeted into the sea, only to swim to the Quay with calm dexterity.

Sensing Trim’s disappointment, his master said, ‘These surfs pounding upon the reef are cruel and I vouch too strong for such as me, I cannot take the chance, for your life is most precious to me, Master Trim.’ He could see Trim remained unconvinced and so he added, ‘There is responsibility sufficient to attempt this rescue, with thy safety added to my concerns the burden would be too great for me to bear.’

Trim was not a cat who sulked and so he hid his disappointment, for he would rather have been consigned to Davy Jones’s locker in the arms of his master than live to a ripeness of age without him. He would have gladly sacrificed what remained of his nine lives, but must needs follow his master’s orders for Trim was a master mariner cat and lived by his captain’s commands. At first a six-oared cutter was lowered but she was immediately caught up in the roaring surf and thrown against the sheet anchor and damaged, filling with water. Flinders then proposed a four-oared gig and this was duly cast, though well clear of the ship so that the incoming waves would not also damage it.

Captain Flinders, with four oarsmen selected by Lieutenant Fowler as able to swim, dived into the sea and swam towards the gig. Once seated in the boat, Matthew Flinders discovered that only three men had boarded. The fourth, thinking it too risky, had remained on board the ship. Furthermore, two of the four oars in the smaller boat were of the wrong selection. Then, to add to his frustration, Matthew Flinders discovered three stowaways crouched under the thwarts, the armourer, the cook and a marine.

‘Damn thy eyes! What are you doing here?’ Matthew Flinders cried out.

It was the armourer who spoke first, ‘We are done for, sir! That is, if we remain on the
Porpoise
. She will break up soon and we cannot swim, the three of us. It is far better a chance we take to find the shore with thee than to wait for our certain destruction.’

‘Fools! Bumpkins! I go to find a passage past the surfs to rescue us all! There is no shore but a coral reef, we row towards the
Bridgewater
as it is not my purpose to save my own skin, nor yours, while others are in danger!’ Matthew Flinders was very angry, but there was no time to deal with the men at that moment and, besides, he was not master of the
Porpoise
. ‘Can you row?’ Flinders sighed, thinking them at least in this respect useful.

‘No, sir, as you are well acquainted, we are not seamen, but armourer and marine and myself a cook,’ one of them replied. ‘I have a good mind to tip thee overboard and let thee drown,’ Matthew Flinders said, greatly annoyed at this new inconvenience. The delay in getting them back on board the
Porpoise
would be too great and so he was obliged to take this useless human cargo along with him.

With Matthew Flinders himself manning one of the inadequate oars, they made for the surf, and were fortunate to catch an incoming wave which swept them on to the clear water. The only problem being that, in the process, they had taken enough water aboard to nearly sink the gig.

‘You must bale or we are sunk,’ Matthew Flinders told the three stowaways.

‘There is no baling bucket, sir!’ said the useless marine.

‘For God’s sake, man! Use thy hat and shoes, but get to it lively if you wish to save your miserable hides!’

Baling furiously with hat and boot and keeping sight of the
Bridgewater
’s lights, they rowed towards the rescue ship. The ship was standing to the leeward and Flinders soon saw that any attempt to get near her before she tacked would be fruitless, with two oars not working as well as they might, and in the now overloaded boat, even when the
Bridgewater
tacked, the seas would be too strong to reach her on the windward tide.

Matthew Flinders turned furiously to the three stowaways, his frustration plain. ‘Your presence has denied what chance we had to make this rescue, you are scoundrels and have much to answer for!’ Although, when daylight came he realised that the attempt to reach the
Bridgewater
had been prompted more by the desperation of their circumstances than by the practical application of seamanship.

Matthew Flinders decided they would see out the night between the
Porpoise
and the
Bridgewater
. This he decided for two reasons, in morning’s light he would be in a position to guide the boats from the merchant ship towards the stricken vessel or, if the
Porpoise
should break up, he was ready to take what crew he could to the distant shore beyond the reef. He observed how Lieutenant Fowler burned blue lights every half hour from the
Porpoise
so that the
Bridgewater
would not lose sight of their presence, but at around two o’clock in the morning the lights of the
Bridgewater
were lost to them. The young lieutenant put this down to a slight shifting of the other vessel’s position and thought no further of it. The
Porpoise
was in calm conditions and there now seemed little chance that she would break up before daylight came.

In the time available until dawn and in case a further flooding was to come, Fowler had worked his crew hard to fashion a large raft from the spare topmasts and yards and any timber he could employ for this purpose. To it, he attached short lengths of rope so when the raft was launched it would carry a full load while dragging members of the crew along by means of holding fast to the ropes. On the raft was lashed a barrel of water and provisions enough to see them through until the
Bridgewater
effected their rescue and then he added a sextant and the
Investigator
’s precious logbooks.

Matthew Flinders had also seen the lights of the
Bridgewater
fade from sight, but his mind was not as easily put at rest as had been the case with Lieutenant Fowler. He started to plan a rescue that did not take the
Bridgewater
into consideration.

The men in the small gig were drenched and miserable, a fresh wind blew from the south-east and they became very cold. Matthew Flinders, despite his growing doubts but observing their consternation, assured them of their rescue by the
Bridgewater
in the morning. He pointed out that from the decks of the
Porpoise
he had seen several breaks in the reef where the water seemed deep enough to allow the rescue vessel to run to the leeward, and there anchor or lie. After this it would be a simple matter to send her boats to their rescue. The three oarsmen were considerably cheered by this prospect and while the stowaways were not consulted, they too sat with backs straightened and baled with renewed energy whenever a wave splashed across the sides of the gig.

The story of the unfortunate
Cato
that had so narrowly escaped collision when approaching the
Bridgewater
on opposite tacks was to come out later. As it happened, it was Captain Park of the
Cato
who, by means of astute seamanship, had avoided the prospect of the two ships colliding and being carried together onto the reef. By not continuing to set his mainsail, he bore away to the leeward, allowing the
Bridgewater
to tack and avoid the impending breakers. But the
Cato
herself was then placed in mortal danger. Unable to tack herself, she struck the reef upon the point of a great rock that drove in under the larboard chess tree.

The unfortunate vessel, unlike the
Porpoise
, fell over to windward where her decks were exposed to the thundering waves driving hard and fierce onto the reef. In a short time her decks were ripped and thrown about and her hold torn open so that everything was washed away. The only place left for the crew was the larboard fore-channel where they crowded together to survive against the furious sea.

Of the two wrecked ships the
Cato
was in the greater predicament, for every time the sea struck her she was twisted about on the unpitying rock with such violence that all who clung to her expected the stern, already below the waterline, to part and they would be thrown into the waves. Furiously they clung to whatever remained of the vessel, some lashing themselves to the timber heads so if the next wave should carry them away, the roaring surfs would drive them to some distant shore. Others clung to the chain plates and the dead eyes, and even some, the one to the other, so that as shipmates they might drown together. And always the thin thread of their hope remained attached to the chance of res cue by the
Bridgewater
, which they had so gallantly saved at their own expense.

And so Captain Park, a religious man, prayed vehemently that the Almighty, who controlled both the firmament and all the creatures below it, would show them mercy.

At dawn’s light Matthew Flinders faced the spumeflecked waves again and, with a frantic baling from his three stowaways, crossed the roaring surf to reach the
Porpoise
. Here, he and his crew clambered across the fallen masts to find themselves once more on board. Despite the despair at being wrecked, there was a great deal of rejoicing, for all had thought the gig lost.

‘See there, sir!’ shouted one of the oarsmen, a man named John Robertson, who, having climbed from the gig and mounted a fallen mast, pointed to where an albatross, its great wings lazy in the pewter-coloured morning sky, circled the stricken ship, ‘We have the wings of good fortune above us!’

Trim was among the first to welcome his master’s return by leaping into his arms. His normally glossy fur was wet and much bedraggled, but he made up for this with the loudness of his purring, which warmed the cockles of his master’s heart.

Daylight revealed that the
Bridgewater
, though now under sail, still stood towards the reef. It also showed a sandbank beyond the reef no more than a half-mile distant that was large enough to receive them all while they waited for rescue. With the water and provisions saved, it was thought no great task to achieve the safety of its beach.

Matthew Flinders found himself well pleased that he had agreed to the suggestion that the two merchant vessels accompany the
Porpoise
. While the
Cato
, like the
Porpoise
, was lost, they would nevertheless be saved by the presence of the
Bridgewater
. He silently castigated himself for his unseemly thoughts regarding the intentions of Captain Palmer. And then, unaccountably, the
Bridgewater
disappeared across the horizon. Waiting only for daylight, she had sailed away, leaving them to their fate.