Shadow of the Boyd

By Diana Menefy

In a powerful story from New Zealand’s colonial past, the bitter clash of two cultures is explored through the eyes of a young English boy who survives the infamous massacre on the Boyd in Whangaroa Harbour, New Zealand in 1809.
Fourteen-year-old Thomas Davidson joins the Boyd in London to see the world, but soon finds that life at sea is not as he imagined. With a contingent of soldiers, a cargo of convicts and a captain who meters out brutal punishments on board, the ship arrives in Sydney and that is when things begin to go wrong.
Four Maori sailors join the Boyd before the ship leaves for New Zealand, and as it cuts through the Tasman Sea problems escalate culminating in the horrific massacre. The few survivors, including Thomas, are rescued by Alexander Berry of the City of Edinburgh and it is their enthralling story and Thomas’s exploits as he makes his way back to London which unfold in this classic adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Diana Menefy
• Release date: Oct 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9780473440480

Diana Menefy

Diana Menefy has lived on in rural New Zealand for the last forty-four years and writes with authority about the wet, mud and muck of a farm. She was born in Christchurch. Growing up in the South Island gave her a rich collection of experiences and images: the snow on the mountains, the autumn colours, the north-west winds - having to push her bike home as the payoff for an express ride to school.In 1974 Diana and her husband bought the dairy farm in Tapuhi, Northland. Life on the farm with a river that flooded and three adventurous children was a great background for a budding writer. Her first stories and articles were published in the New Zealand Farmer and School Journal in the late 1970s and early 1980s.For the next ten years most of her published work was non-fiction although she had several short stories in anthologies. She worked as a part-time feature writer for the local paper, then went freelance to work on commissioned histories. Running parallel with this was a passion for children's literature that culminated as the specialty for her master's degree in education in 2001.2001 saw her first junior novel River Crossing and her sixth commissioned non-fiction book about Whangarei Hospital published. Learning Media accepted four of her readers for the American market and sales of Pounamu New Zealand Jade, a book aimed at the tourist market, were reaching towards 12,000. This was also the year Diana started to work for NorthTec tutoring and doing the course design for the online diplomas of applied writing. She was a principal academic staff member at NorthTec for five years before she retired in 2017.In 2010 Shadow of the Boyd was published by HarperCollins and went on to be shortlisted in the N.Z. Post Children's Book Awards and won the LIANZA Esther Glen Medal in 2011. In 2013 Diana was asked to write one of the Kiwis at War series for Scholastic. 1915: Wounds of War was published in April 2015.Diana is currently working on another historical novel about silver mining in New Zealand in the early 1890s and a YA murder mystery novel set in the equestrian eventing world. She has a picture book, I Had A Brother coming out in July 2019.

Book preview

SHADOW

OF THE

BOYD

DIANA MENEFY

Finalist in New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards 2011

Winner of the LIANZA Esther Glen Medal 2011

For my grandsons:

Jacob, Rhys, Ryan, Declan, Ethan and Byron

Copyright © Diana Menefy 2010

First published by

HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited 2010

Published by Jadepress 2018

Smashwords Edition

Diana Menefy asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved.

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover design by Louise McGeachie & Declan Menefy

Cover illustration: detail of The Burning of the Boyd, Whangaroa Harbour, 1809 by Walter Wright, used by permission of Auckland City Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki; rope by Shuttlerstock.com

This book is available in print through my website: www.braefern.co.nz

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

The Ships and Key Characters

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Author’s Note

Glossary

About the Author

Other books by Diana Menefy

Connect with Diana Menefy

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge Wade Doak's book The Burning of the Boyd both as an inspiration and a source of information. I used Wade's book, McNab's Historical Records of New Zealand, and Alexander Berry's accounts of the events and the following journey of the City of Edinburgh as the main sources for the skeleton of this book. Often the words Berry speaks have come directly from his writings.

I would also like to thank Russell Harris, past owner and skipper of the R Tucker Thompson, who read the text for sailing bloopers, and Taipari Munro, for checking that my Te Reo and Tikanga were correct. My thanks also to Janine McVeagh, Lesley Marshall, and my daughter Nyrene Mills who have read and critiqued various drafts.

The verse in the initiation ceremony is from 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and published in 1798.

THE SHIPS AND KEY CHARACTERS

On the Boyd - brigantine

Crew

Captain Thomson - commander of the Boyd.

Mr Strunk - first mate*

Mr Pritchard - the second mate+

Bo'sun

Jonas - sail-maker.*

John Bowen - second year apprentice*

Will Green - new apprentice*

Thomas Davidson - new apprentice

George - Te Aara; New Zealand crew member

picked up in Sydney

Soldiers of the 73rd

Captain Cameron

Lieutenants Pike and Wright

Drust Maclachlin (Mac)*

Passengers

Mrs Ann Morley - one of the survivors

Baby Ann- one of the survivors

Betsy Broughton - one of the survivors

Anne Glossop - Betsy's mother

Captain Burnside - retired sailing captain

On the City of Edinburgh - barque

Crew

Mr Alexander Berry - part owner and supercargo

Captain Patterson - commander of the City of Edinburgh

James Russell - first mate

Mr Cowper - second mate+

Mr Barton - the third mate

Macduff - most experienced seaman on Thomas's (starboard) watch*

McGavey - crew member*

Kee - apprentice in his final year*

Duncan - apprentice*

Metanaugha - native, friend of Mr Berry

Teraaki - native, friend of Mr Berry

Doc - cook

Other characters

Mr George Brown - owner of the Boyd

Mr Loyd - owner of most of the cargo from the Boyd, and also owner of two other ships, the Star and the Commerce.

* Fictitious characters

+ Fictitious names for real people.

CHAPTER ONE

January 10th 1810, on the City of Edinburgh - anchored in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand

They are all dead. All the crew are dead except for me.

And I'd probably be dead too if it wasn't for Mr Berry rescuing us - Mrs Morley, baby Ann, little Betsy, and me. We're safe now on the City of Edinburgh and soon we'll sail for home.

The City of Edinburgh is a barque and smaller than the Boyd - a lot older, too, and not in such good condition - before the fire, that is. There are already two apprentices on board; Mr Berry says I'm to share their duties, but he also said that whenever things are quiet he expected me to report to the great cabin and write my account of what happened.

I don't like writing, but he wants my story for Mr Brown, the owner the Boyd. Mr Berry writes every day, and he reckons if I do it like that, a bit at a time, it will be easier. I wrote those two sentences - and then I couldn't think what to say next. I was still staring at the blank page an hour later when Mr Berry came back.

'Start at the beginning with your name,' he said. 'Tell me about the voyage - just the important bits until you get to when the trouble started.'

So that's what I'm doing.

My name is Thomas Davidson. I come from Romford, London. I went to sea as an apprentice on the brigantine Boyd early in the summer of 1809. Da paid my indenture to the Boyd's owner, Mr George Brown, and I promised to faithfully serve him while being taught the business of a seaman. I was proud to belong to the Boyd. She was a fine ship, a three-decker with two masts, Thames built and top-rated.

There were three of us apprentices: John Bowen, who was in his second year; and me and Will Green, both new. John took us down to the fo'c'sle to tow our sea-chests.The air was musty, the light dim. I was to share a hammock with John, who was on the opposite watch. He must have noticed the dismayed expression on my face because he laughed. Then John showed us around the ship, starting with the empty hold and finishing on the quarter-deck where we were put to work caulking the deck. That's pushing lumps of tarred cotton fibres between gaps in the planks, then thumping them into place with a sort of hammer to stop the seawater leaking through.

That night I lay in the hammock and stared up at the thick wood beams that stretched across under the decking, and for the first time noticed the stains. In the dark they looked like water marks. I reached out and slid my fingers across one - smooth and oily. I sniffed my fingers but all I could smell was tar. The hammock rocked ever so slightly as the ship moved with the river and I soon drifted into sleep.

We sailed from London on the full tide early next morning. It was 3 March 1809. Will and I were on the larboard watch under Mr Strunk, the first mate. As the ship moved down the river, I stopped work to watch the buildings slip by.

'Stop slackin' there.' Bosun's voice caught me by surprise.

I dropped back down to the deck and carried on pounding the caulking cotton into the seams with the iron.

Will was using the mallet not far from me. As Bosun moved away Will looked up and grinned.

'Do you think we'll ever get the tar off our fingers?'

'Better tar than ink. I'd hate to be cooped up inside all day like Da is.'

'Yeah - me, too. I want to see the world.' Will looked up at the sailors on the foot-ropes by the yards. 'I wonder how long it'll be before we get up there,' he said.

I caught the words drifting down: 'Yo! Ho! Away to sea we'll go…' and with the wind flicking my hair, the slap of the water against the hull the adventure started.

My good mood lasted until we hit open waters, when the heave of the ocean had me clinging to the side.

Over the next two days I retched until my throat was raw and my ribs ached. At night, between watches, I lay on my hammock longing for the quiet comfort of my own bed. The ship never stopped shouting - the timbers creaked, the wind boomed in the canvas, and the blocks on the deck rattled.

On top of that, the bell rang every halfhour, starting at the beginning of the watch with one ding and building to eight at the end. I would doze off, then jerk awake with the ring. At eight bells when the watch changed, I'd stagger up on deck while John headed for the hammock. He slapped me on my shoulder as he passed, told me the sickness would go and I'd get my sea legs soon. I didn't believe him.

By the time we dropped anchor at Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight, two days later, I was ready to abandon ship. Will insisted that I'd feel better once I'd eaten. He was right.

We'd stopped at Yarmouth to load a contingent of soldiers with their gear and supplies. Will and I watched as they marched on board - thirty-three of them, their buttons shining, all wearing tall black hats and long, grey coats and carrying knapsacks. Will sniggered and the soldier at the back turned to glare at us. He didn't look much older than me. The officer in front bellowed orders, and the soldiers halted on the quarter-deck and stood at ease.

'Looks like