Frieda

By Lionel Pettrick

What if Robinson Crusoe had been a woman?
Could a young woman live an independent life in the 17th Century? Daniel Defoe's classic, said to be the first novel in the English language, is re-worked with a female heroine. Frieda is a spirited young woman who runs away from home in search of adventure. She joins the Navy, is later captured by pirates and has a plantation in Brazil before being shipwrecked on a desert island, where she survives a grim struggle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lionel Pettrick
• Release date: Apr 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005684884

Lionel Pettrick

FollowI am British, born in North Wales in 1944, grew up mainly in Sheffield, and also worked for an engineering company in that city for twenty-two years. I later moved to the south of England, spending twenty years in the Immigration Service. Since retirement I have lived in Thailand.Only since I retired have I turned to authorship, motivated at the beginning of 2018 by the gift of a handsome desk diary with a large number of blank pages which it seemed a pity to waste. Thus my first offering, "Dillflower" was born, a collection of jottings, rants, reminiscences and descriptions of some aspects of life in Thailand. This is available as an ebook via one well-know retailer.Many years of sailing on the English Channel and elsewhere instilled in me an unbounded admiration for the men (and women) of former centuries who took to the world's oceans in wooden sailing ships. A reading of the Journal of William Bligh led me to a great interest in the story of the mutiny on the 'Bounty', and it struck me that it would be fun to try and write a story about one of the protagonists, a common seaman who signed on in a false name and about whose early life virtually nothing is known. His real name was John Adams; he ended up as the sole survivor of the mutineers who went to Pitcairn with Fletcher Christian and was celebrated by Victorian England as the leader of a pious community loyal to the British Crown. My "tale of a 'Bounty' mutineer" is therefore called "Pitcairn's Father". Really it is a simple morality tale, good triumphing over evil.In late 2019 an academic got himself a newspaper headline by saying that 'Robinson Crusoe', arguably the first novel in the English language, should be re-written with a woman as the castaway, presenting a more acceptable character to modern audiences. Without wanting to detract from Defoe's classic, I was intrigued by the notion, and taking elements from the original I created 'Frieda', a young woman seeking adventure and independence in the 17th Century. Though I didn't set out to do so, I found myself writing about issues often in the news nowadays, such as slavery and domestic abuse.Having delved quite a bit into olden times, I find myself asking whether people in the 17th or 18th Centuries were fundamentally less moral, more wicked, than we are today? I don't think so, but the vast majority of people then had a much tougher existence than most today, in Western countries at least. Given the World Wars of the 20th Century and the dire state of much of the world in 2021, I wouldn't say we have much to condemn those in former times for what they did.Britain always seems to end up nearly bankrupt after fighting major wars. That was the case not only in the 20th Century, with the First and Second World Wars, but also after defeating Napoleon. Mass unemployment, and high taxes and prices led to a great deal of unrest in the years after the Battle of Waterloo, with protests and riots in many places in England and Scotland. I became interested in various accounts of the Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820, when a group of revolutionaries plotted to murder the entire Cabinet. They were foiled by a Home Office spy, a disreputable character. He seemed to become good friends with the ringleader, and I found the betrayal of friendship an interesting subject to write about - hence my short story The Modeller, published September 2022.

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Frieda

The Adventures of a Female Robinson Crusoe

Lionel Pettrick

Copyright 2021 Lionel Pettrick

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Foreword

A report in The Times of London on November 16th 2019 revealed that a lecturer at a Scottish university was calling for Robinson Crusoe to be recast as a woman to make the story acceptable to modern audiences. Daniel Defoe's story has become tainted, he said, by the racist and white supremacist actions of its eponymous castaway, and should therefore be re-imagined with a female hero, less violent and more compassionate, to make it palatable to a new generation of readers. He decried the alleged narrative of the re-creation of British society on a tropical island, and a female Crusoe might create a world more utopian and less violent.

It is hard to imagine why the author of 'Moll Flanders' should be made subject to such a woke finger-wagging, and my reaction to that report was pretty much the same as most of the comments that followed it – derision. The 17th Century was a time of wars, turmoil, and the first big expansion of the transatlantic slave trade, and trying to sugar-coat all that seems pretty pointless. However it later occurred to me that it was an interesting challenge to try and rewrite a classic male hero as a female, so after a lengthy gestation this book is the result. I had no serious agenda when I started, certainly not that suggested by the gentleman in Scotland, I just dealt with ideas as they suggested themselves.

I have maintained the essential elements of Defoe's narrative – a young adult rejecting life at home, capture by Barbary pirates, escape to 'the Brazils', as he called it, and shipwreck on a Caribbean island. In his 'History of the Pyrates' Defoe recounts the real-life stories of two remarkable women who masqueraded as men and became buccaneers, so I have given Frieda a few years in the Navy. In a few places I have used passages from his original novel, as homage rather than plagiarism. Any perceived resemblance between the character 'Silchurch' and Alexander Selkirk, the real castaway who inspired Defoe's story, should not be taken seriously.

In writing what is often referred to as the first English novel, Daniel Defoe took quite a few liberties. So have I.

Lionel Pettrick

Rayong, March 2021

Part One

The Sultan comes to you this night, the crone that keeps the door of the 'harem' told me with a leer. I know not which country she comes from, for I have heard her speak many languages, the result perhaps of having spent most of her life in this place and had dealings with the host of women imprisoned here. For it is no better than a prison, the repository of the trophies of many successful adventures of the pirates of Sallee, this port on the Barbary coast where we were brought after our ship was taken a few weeks ago.

I never hear the crone speak kindly; no doubt she is embittered at the life Fate has fashioned for her. Maybe she was once beautiful, destined for a noble marriage and a life of ease and plenty. Then forced into servitude and humiliation, and finally no longer an object of desire, she has survived by turning gaoler of her successors. But I have not asked for her story, for she rebuffs all approaches and seems hardened against friendships with any living thing except a parrot, which struts on a perch outside her bower by the door of the courtyard where we are confined. She has taught the bird some obscenities which it screeches when any of us go near the door, thus alerting her and the guard who stands outside.

Held in the courtyard there seem to be about two dozen of us, from sundry parts of Europe and Africa, some fair like myself, others olive-skinned as if from the Levant, and yet others from those many lands far to the south of here. I know nothing of them, as I have been here but a few days and I am, it seems, regarded as a suspicious curiosity, since they neither approach me nor welcome my overtures. This can only be because they have heard of how I was taken to be a man when I was captured because I wore men's clothing, which has been my wont since childhood, and it was many days before the discovery that I have a woman's body. Now I think the women here sense the manly spirit that inhabits me, and they are suspicious of me. In truth they have no reason to be, for I have no designs on them.

Around the courtyard are a number of cells or chambers where we sleep, and where the Sultan and his followers come to take their pleasure. As a prison it does not have the dark discomforts that I have heard welcome those who enter Newgate, though I never went there, and the dungeon where the pirates placed the men, and me along with them, was a grim rat-infested place. In the centre of the yard is a well and some braziers where we cook the food that is brought daily by our gaolers, and at one side are trees that shade us from the heat of the day. I take no pleasure from eating in this place, because our principal diet is a broth cooked in a large pot, and it is mostly meat, which I have preferred not to eat since I saw a pig being killed when I was a child. At home it was an easy choice to eat only fruit and vegetables and I saw no harm in cheese and eggs; but there have been many times since when I have been obliged to eat whatever is available or go hungry, which is my present case. The morality of a child does not always sit well with the challenges faced by grown men, and as I would willingly have killed men to avoid being in this place, I cannot scruple that an animal might occasionally die so that I do not.

Thus while I suffer no bodily discomfort my mind is in turmoil at what I must endure this coming night, for I have never lain with a man nor have any idea as to how I should please one, even were I so inclined. If I do not satisfy the desires of this Sultan, what will be my fate? I think I can expect little mercy from one who is neither a Christian nor a gentleman. Indeed, I doubt he has any right to call himself 'Sultan', which I deem to be a Turkish prince, rather he is a chieftain of pirates who has gained power in this town by force and now enjoys the trappings of nobility. I saw him but briefly when I was brought naked before him after a fight in the men's quarters caused the shirt to be ripped from my back and my sex discovered. He laughed and gave an order, and I was brought here. If I resist him, he may kill me or throw me as a tasty morsel to the ruffians who make up his crew. Such degradation will be worse for me than the sufferings of the male prisoners forced to work in galleys or in the mines in the country nearby, or sold into slavery if no ransom is paid for them, so I am minded to encompass my swift death by attempting to kill the Sultan when he comes. For the moment I sit powerless, and I can not suppress the wish that I could be transported by some magic back to my family in England, where to yield to the dominance and wishes of my father would be far better than submitting to the lusts of the brutes that have me now, though I thought my father unkind and deaf to reason at the time. I can hardly prevent shedding a tear as I think of my parents and brothers, and feel a longing for the home I left behind me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was born in 1632 in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen who settled first at Hull. He was a merchant of cloth and leather goods and thereby became prosperous, moving soon to York where he met my mother, who came from a good family of that city. They named me Elfrieda, a name from my father's country which he preferred, but as I grew up that became shortened to Frieda. My father's family name was Kreutznaer, but that also became shortened to 'Crusoe', so the name my companions always called me was Frieda Crusoe, which is how I wrote it.

I had two elder brothers, Thomas and Gerhard, who took Gerald for his English name. From the earliest years that I can remember I was their constant companion in all their games and they treated me as a brother rather than a sister, as did their friends also, so that I enjoyed all their pursuits of boyhood and had little regard for the upbringing as a girl that my parents tried to give me. With the boys I fished in the river, roamed in the woods, hunted pigeons and joined in mock sword-fights. The son of a wealthy neighbour had a horse which he allowed us to ride, thus I naturally learned to ride astride like a man rather than in the genteel fashion of a lady. Soon after his seventeenth birthday Thomas left home to join Cromwell's Model Army, to the great distress of our father, who wished his sons to carry on his business and did not want to be perceived to favour any side in that grinding Civil War. His faith being Lutheran, he could never ally himself to the Papists, but he had no great liking for Cromwell and the Puritans, and said only that such strife was a calamity for all men, as it hindered trade. Two or three years later, when Thomas's regiment was nearby he came to see us and brought his musket, which he allowed me to try to shoot. It was very heavy for a callow youth to lift and when it discharged I fell flat on my back, to the amusement of all who saw it, but I still felt mighty proud at the attempt. My parents never saw Thomas again before his death.

Gerald then became the centre of all our father's hopes and ambitions, and was schooled in all the tasks pertaining to the business, at which he showed himself to be quite adept for a while. But by and by he began to absent himself on occasions which became more frequent, and I often heard him quarrelling with father over work that had not been done and opportunities that had been missed. Finally, on a day which I remember well, because I was present, Gerald announced to us that he wished to leave home, and would depart on the morrow for London.

What do you mean, asked our father, what is there for you in London?

I wish to meet Ludowicke Muggleton, the Chosen Messenger in the Book of Revelations, and to prepare myself for the Second Coming. In London I can meet with more of his people.

What people? Is there not salvation in following our Church?

We Muggletonians do not accept the teachings about the Trinity. Jesus was not the Son of God, he was God himself, and was killed by man. After a thousand years He will rise again --

What is this blasphemy! roared my father, What Devil has got you?

There is no Devil, father, just the earthbound reason of men. When we die we do not go to hell because our souls die with our bodies. Hell will be this Earth, when the Sun and Moon and Stars are extinguished.

My father was struck dumb, and slumped in his chair as if with a seizure.

Look at your father, how terribly your words affect him. God will punish you for this! wailed our mother.

Nay mother, there is no punishment from God, we must be guided by our conscience. I do not mean to distress you, I speak only the truth as it has been revealed to me, and you will come to know it when God returns.

Not much more was said that day, and Gerald left the next morning never to return. It was a great blow to my father, not just because he could see no purpose in striving for the prosperity of his business without a male heir to succeed him, but because his hopes and plans had been dashed in such a way that he found impossible to accept. His origins in the Germany of Luther inclined him towards the Puritans when he was settled in England, and my brothers and I were brought up attending a church which retained none of the trappings of Popery. But when Gerald strayed so far from normal Christian belief it caused our father great grief and I once heard him say that it were better had Gerald died before his soul could have been infected with such evil.

My father never considered grooming me to take the place in his business that he had intended for my brothers. I never think less of him for that, because I felt no such calling and there always was in me some desire for greater excitement than could be found amongst bales of cloth or in the counting-house. I had only rudimentary schooling at a petty school, and thereafter a tutor was hired to teach me reading and writing, which aroused my interest, but also music and needlework, subjects thought appropriate for the education of a young lady, for which I did not care at all, and they soon gave up any effort to make me like them. I spent hours reading about many things in the world, and became curious to see what lay beyond the town and the woods and fields where I played and where I was growing up.

It was, I think, in my sixteenth year that my mother started to chide me about spending so much time in those woods and fields, and about my attire, because I wore only the shirts and breeches of a boy, and I would never put on a dress. She told me many times that it was not seemly for a young woman to conduct herself so when I should be thinking about marriage, and no man would seek my hand unless I modified my behaviour and appeared willing to become a demure and obedient wife, as society and the scriptures expected. I told her that I had no desire to become any man's obedient wife and if I could not live in freedom with my parents then I must seek freedom elsewhere.

Will you bring shame on this house, and more misery to your father who already grieves over your brothers forsaking him? she would cry. My father also delivered many homilies on how men and women should follow God's purpose. He said that we had a most desirable station in life, that is the middle between the poor and those who must labour for a pittance, and the gentry and the very rich, who were afflicted with every vice and distraction, and many had suffered for it in the Royalist cause, even the late King himself. I replied that the middle station in life had no more appeal for me than any other as in all of them women were the playthings or drudges of men, and I could not accept such subjection. Such was the burden of our quarrels on many occasions. I was sorry to hurt and disappoint my parents whom I loved and who had cared for me, but I could not agree to change my ways or to accept the dull life which they planned for me. For the time being, however, I remained at home because I had no clear idea of where I should go, or how I could as a woman live as freely as a man. Finally, however, the decision to go was forced on me.

I was summoned one day to my father's study, where he was in conference with another man who had been there a few times before, and I took him to be a man of business like my father. He was bespectacled, tall and thin, at least forty years old, clothed in Puritan garb.

Frieda, said my father, this worthy gentleman is Martin Dawes. He has asked my permission to seek your hand in marriage, and I have given it.

I was for the moment struck dumb, then managed to recover my voice and addressed Mr Dawes.

Sir, forgive me, but you must already know a little about me, and I cannot imagine why you think I would make you a satisfactory wife.

He bestowed a ghastly smile on me.

My dear, I am not burdened with fleshly desires and take no great account of your dislike of women's apparel, nor do I wish to father children. I live alone and it would not be seemly to be in the same house with any woman, but if we were married we could support each other in piety and companionship for many years until we are called to the Lord – and I require little in the way of a dowry, I am well provided for and can offer you a comfortable life.

In all the years when I was growing up and striving to equal my brothers in everything, it was a matter of pride not to cry like a girl. But now I burst into tears, though they were tears of rage.

Father, how can you think so little of me that you want to give me as a nursemaid to an old man! Do I displease you so much?

Well, my girl, what else could you expect when you ignore all the advice that I and your mother have given you, and now no other man will take you.

I do not want to be taken by any man!

And with that I fled the room. I went in tears to my mother, who confessed that she had known of father's plan, but could not support it because she herself could never have countenanced marrying a man like Mr Dawes, and though she was displeased that I continually behaved like a man she felt sorry for me now. She agreed that it might be better for all if I were to go out and seek my way in the world, which was now my only thought. She brought me a purse of money with some food and clothing, and early next morning I left the house without saying farewell to my father.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I took the road to Hull, and came there in the afternoon, uncertain about where I should go next, whether to the Low Countries or France, and how I should fare there when I could speak no foreign tongue. I knew my father still had relatives in Germany, but even if they took me in, it would be only as his daughter, and I was determined henceforth to live only as a man. I decided, however, that my best hope of adventure was to take a ship to some place, so I was strolling along the quays looking at vessels large and small and wondering which one to approach when I heard a call -

Frieda, what brings you here?

I turned round and saw James, a friend of my brothers, who had joined in our games in earlier years. I returned his greeting, telling him that I had left home and wished to go out in the world. We sat down for a while on some bales and I told him how I had come to leave home and my parents, hoping he would not laugh or sneer at me. But James was as kind and friendly as I remembered him from before.

I am sorry for you, Frieda, he said, and I think if I had been in your situation I would have done the same as you. But it is fortunate that it was I whom you met here, because not many would be so sympathetic, and seaports such as this are full of rogues and robbers, who would sooner knock you on the head than help you, and would leave you exposed to great danger, especially if you were to be revealed as a woman. Also, I am the best person to help you, because my father is the owner of several ships, and one yonder is due to sail on the tide this evening, bound for London. I can ask them to take you.

We discussed this for a while, and he impressed on me that London would be the best destination for a first adventure, and I would come to no harm from his father's people. If I would give the Captain a very small payment for my food, that would be all I need pay. I accepted his proposal eagerly.

But I must ask one thing, James, I said, please do not call me Frieda any more, or introduce me as a woman, for I am now more comfortable in any company if I am thought of as a man, which is how I feel myself to be.

Aye, you always wished to be the equal of your brothers, but what shall you be called now?

Robinson was a name from my mother's family, which came to me just then.

I am Robinson Crusoe.

'Robinson' it shall be then, or maybe in a tavern just 'Bob' he laughed.

He took me along to the ship, and after being introduced to the Captain I was shown to a small cabin in which I was to be the sole occupant, a comfort I have rarely experienced since. That evening we sailed out of the Humber to sea, and a moonless night.

That first night at sea was one of the most pleasant in my life. The wind coming from the land was light, and the motion of the ship was gentle in the calm sea. Though the air was chill I stayed on deck for many hours, gazing through the darkness at the occasional glimmer of light from some place on the distant shore, and listening to the sounds of the ship, the creaking of the yards, the rippling of the waters past the hull, and the occasional bursts of merriment from below. A great peace descended on me, and I felt the freedom of one who has shed a great burden. Now I could act as I pleased without the constraints imposed by my father's view of an orderly life. I did not know what the future held for me, but I had no fear at that moment. I knew that I must find some way to earn a crust, as my mother's money would not last too long, and having no trade I was ill-prepared for employment. However, I could read and write, and my body, though not as strong as a man in his prime, was fit and supple, and with the optimism of youth I never doubted that I could make a living by some means.

During the following day I fell into conversation with a seaman who seemed to take a liking to me. His name was Daniel, and he had spent many years at sea, and travelled to many distant places. I commented that it seemed a pleasant way to earn a living, and he laughed heartily.

Well, young fellow, it is pleasant enough on a fine day like this, but these friendly waters that transport us so comfortably can, in an hour or two, turn into the most vengeful and merciless monsters from Hell. Why, it was very close to where we are now that I almost lost my life.

How was that?

"We were on just such a voyage as this, from Hull, when the wind fell light and backed against us, so we tacked and came in to Yarmouth Roads, where we anchored, along with many ships awaiting a favourable wind. But when the wind came it blew too fresh, and in a day or two very hard. However, the Roads being reckoned as good as a harbour, the anchorage good and our ground-tackle very strong, we were unconcerned and not in the least apprehension of danger, but spent the time in rest and mirth, after the manner of the sea; but then the wind increased further, and we had all hands at work to strike our topmasts, and make everything snug and close, that the ship might ride as easy as possible. Then the sea went very high indeed, and our ship rode forecastle in, shipped several seas, and we thought once or twice our anchor had come home; upon which our master ordered out the sheet anchor, so that we rode with two anchors ahead, and the cables veered out to the bitter end.

"By this time it blew a terrible storm, and now all of us, hard seamen though we were, began to feel real helplessness and terror, praying 'Lord be merciful to us! We shall be lost!'. The sea ran mountains high, and broke on us every three or four minutes. Nearby us, two ships, deep-laden like ourselves, had cut their masts by the board, and we saw another, a mile ahead of us, had foundered. Two more, being driven from their anchors were run out of the Roads to sea with not a mast standing. Other lighter vessels ran away with only their spritsail before the wind. Finally the master consented that to save our ship we should cut away the fore- and main-mast, as they were in danger of turning us over.

"Now we were at the mercy of the elements with no other means of salvation than our prayers to the Almighty, with promises to lead more Godly lives if he would but spare us. It seemed then that God did not hear us, for our deep-laden ship wallowed in those Devilish seas yet more, and we expected every moment to go to the bottom. Then I went below and discovered that we had a leak, and there was above four feet of water in the hold. We all manned the pump and laboured furiously for an hour, but the level of the water continued to rise and we knew the ship was lost, although the storm was abating a little.

"All the while the master was firing signals for help, and a ship not far away that had fared better than us sent out a boat. Those brave fellows struggled mightily to come near us, but they succeeded in catching a rope that we threw to them, so that we then hauled them up to us under our stern, where we were able to enter and draw away from the ship. After only a quarter of an hour, as we looked back at the ship we saw it swallowed up by the waves. We could not row directly into the wind and waves, but came gradually to the shore along the coast.

"And that, young sir, is what every man who goes to sea knows that he must face at some time, but prays that he may be spared such a trial. But in spite of that, I would