THE ADVENTURES OF DAVID WOODARD, CHIEF MATE
Long before the art of Joseph Conrad created _Lord Jim_ to follow the
star of his romantic destiny to the somber, misty coast of Patusan, an
American sailor lived and dared amazingly among the sullen people of
those same mysterious islands of the Far East. He was of the race of
mariners whose ships were first to display the Stars and Stripes in
those far-distant waters and to challenge the powerful monopolies of
the British and Dutch East India companies. Only seven years earlier,
in fact, the American ship _Empress of China_ had ventured on the
pioneering voyage to Canton. The seas still swarmed with pirates and
every merchantman carried a heavy battery of guns and a crew which knew
to use them. Amid such conditions were trained the sailors who were to
man the _Constitution_ and the other matchless frigates of 1812.
The American ship _Enterprise_ sailed from Batavia for Manila on the
twentieth of January, 1793, and laid a course to pass through the
Straits of Macassar. Head winds and currents kept her beating to and
fro in this torrid passage for six weeks on end, and the grumbling crew
began to wonder if they had signed in another _Flying Dutchman_. Food
was running short, for this protracted voyage had not been expected,
and while the _Enterprise_ drifted becalmed on the greasy tide, another
ship was sighted about five miles distant.
Captain Hubbard ordered the chief mate, David Woodard, to take a boat
and five seamen and row off to this other vessel and try to buy some
stores. The men were William Gideon, John Cole, Archibald Miller,
Robert Gilbert, and George Williams. Expecting to be gone only a few
hours, they took no food or water, and all they carried with them was
an ax, a boat-hook, two pocket-knives, a disabled musket, and forty
dollars.
It was sunset when they pulled alongside the other ship, which was
China bound and had no provisions to spare. A strong squall and heavy
rains prevented them from returning to the _Enterprise_ that night, and
they stayed where they were until next morning. Then the wind shifted
and blew fresh from the southward to sweep the _Enterprise_ on her
course, and she had already vanished hull down and under. Stout-hearted
David Woodard guessed he could find her again, confident that Captain
Hubbard would not desert him, and his men cheerfully tumbled into the
boat after him.
The skipper of the China ship, a half-caste with a crew of Lascars,
was a surly customer who seemed anxious to be rid of his visitors.
As a friend in need he was a glaring failure. Protesting that he had
no fresh water to spare, all that their money could buy of him was
a bottle of brandy and twelve musket-cartridges. The Yankee sailors
tugged at the oars all day long, but caught never a glimpse of the
missing _Enterprise_. At nightfall they landed on an island and found
water fit to drink, but nothing to eat. A large fire was built on the
beach in the hope of attracting the attention of their ship, but there
was no responsive signal.
It was the land of Conrad’s magic fancies, where “the swampy plains
open out at the mouth of rivers, with a view of blue peaks beyond the
vast forests. In the offing a chain of islands, dark, crumbling shapes,
stand out in the everlasting sunlit haze like the remnants of a wall
broached by the sea.”
The chief mate and his five hardy seamen tightened their leather belts
another hole and shoved off again in the small open boat. For six days
they sailed the Straits, blown along by one rain squall after another,
until they were within sight of the coast of Celebes. Hunger and thirst
then compelled them to seek the land and risk death at the hands of
the savage Malays. It was their hope to proceed by sea to Macassar,
which they reckoned lay about three degrees to the southward.
They must have had a little water during these six days, but David
Woodard’s statement that the rations were a few cocoanuts is entirely
credible. Many a boat-load of castaways has died or gone mad after
privations no more severe, while on the other hand a crew of toughened
seamen, in the prime of their youth, is exceedingly hard to kill.
Toward a cove on this unknown, hostile shore of Celebes the gaunt
sailors wearily steered their boat and beached it in the languid ripple
of surf. They had no sooner crawled ashore than two proas skimmed in
from seaward, dropping anchor and making ready to send off a canoe
filled with armed Malays. Woodard shouted to his men, and they pushed
the boat out and scrambled into it before they were discovered.
Skirting a bight of the shore, they headed for the open sea and dodged
away from the proas.
Four miles beyond, after they had rounded a green point of land, a
feathery cocoanut-grove ran to the water’s-edge, and they could go no
farther. The mate left two men to guard the boat, and the three others
went with him; but they were too weak to climb the trees, and had to
hack away at the trunks with an ax. Two of them were mere lads who made
such bungling work of it that Woodard sent for a couple of the stronger
men in the boat, leaving Archibald Miller alone with it. They were
busy gathering cocoanuts to carry to sea with them when poor Miller
was heard to “scream aloud in the bitterest manner.” The mate ran to
the beach and saw his precious boat filled with Malays, who were just
shoving off in it. On the sand lay Miller, who had been hacked to death
with creeses.
David Woodard and four sailors were therefore marooned with no
resources whatever, but they talked it over and agreed to try to get
to Macassar by land. Leaving the swampy coast, they slowly toiled
toward the blue mountains and, afraid of discovery, concluded to hide
themselves in the jungle until night. Then with a star for their guide
they bore south, but progress was almost impossible, and they lost
their bearings in the dense growth. After blundering about in this
manner for several nights, they turned toward the sea again in the hope
of finding some kind of native boat. They had existed for thirteen days
since losing their ship, and it is evident that the indomitable spirit
of the mate kept the other men going.
“Woodard was himself stout in person,” explains the narrative, “and
much accustomed to fatigue and exercise, whence he felt less exhausted,
particularly from keeping up his spirits and having his mind constantly
engaged.”
At length they came to a deep bay between the mountains, and lay hidden
all day in a leafy ambush while they watched the Malay fishermen in
their canoes. Three of the sailors were taken desperately ill after
eating some yellow berries and thought they were about to die; but the
mate could not tolerate this kind of behavior, “although his comrades
now resembled corpses more than living men.” He used rough language,
damned them as worthless swabs if a stomach-ache was to make them lie
down and quit, and then went in search of water for them until he found
some in a hollow tree. But his strength and courage could haul them
along no farther and reluctantly he admitted that they would have to
surrender themselves to the natives.
[Illustration: WOODARD RAISED HIS EMPTY HANDS TO ASK FOR PEACE AND
MERCY]
They went down to the beach of the bay, wondering what their fate might
be, John Cole, who was a stripling lad of seventeen, blubbering that he
would sooner die in the woods than be killed by the Malays. The canoes
had gone away, but three brown-skinned girls were fishing in a brook,
and they fled when they saw the tattered castaways. Presently a group
of men came down a forest path, and Woodard walked forward to meet
them, raising his empty hands to ask for peace and mercy.
The Malays stood silent for a long time, and then the chief advanced to
lay down his creese and ceremoniously accept the strangers as captives.
They were given food and conducted to a little town of bamboo huts,
there to await the pleasure of the rajah in what Woodard called the
judgment hall, while all the villagers gathered about them.
Soon the rajah strode in, tall and straight and warlike, a long, naked
creese in his hand. These were the first white men that had ever been
seen in his wild domain. He gazed admiringly at the stalwart chief
mate, who looked him straight in the eyes, while the people murmured
approval of the captive’s bearing, for “he was six feet and an inch
high, strong in proportion, and the largest-boned person they had ever
beheld.”
These were two bold, upstanding men who stood face to face in the
judgment hall, and the rajah, after consultation with his chiefs, gave
each of the five American sailors a betel-nut to chew as a token of his
gracious inclination to spare their lives.
For twenty days they were closely held as prisoners in this forest
settlement, during which time two old men arrived from another town and
displayed a lively interest in the situation. They toddled off into
the jungle, but came again with a Mahomedan priest called Tuan Hadjee,
who was a bit of a linguist in that he spoke a few words of English,
some Portuguese, and a smattering of the Moorish tongue. He was a man
of the world, having journeyed to Bombay and Bengal on his way to
Mecca, and displayed a letter from the British governor of Balambangan,
on the island of Borneo, to show that he was a good and trustworthy
person and was empowered to assist all distressed Englishmen.
This Tuan Hadjee lived up to his credentials, for he offered the rajah
a hundred dollars in golddust as ransom for the five seamen, which
price was haughtily refused, and the kindly priest went away to see
what else could be done about it. Nothing more was seen of this amiable
pilgrim, and the Americans were set to work in the forest to clear the
fields or to gather sago. After two months they were left unguarded
by day, but shut up in a house at night. Week after week dragged by
in this wearisome drudgery, but they kept alive, and their spirit was
unbroken, although the food was poor and scanty and the tropical heat
scorched the very souls out of them.
At the end of half a year of this enslavement another rajah who seems
to have been a kind of overlord of the region summoned them into his
presence at a town on the sea-coast. There Woodard almost died of
fever, but a woman befriended him and greatly helped to save his life.
The episode suggests a romance, and this viking of a sailor who drifted
in so strangely from an unknown world was a man to win the love of
women. In this respect, however, he was discreetly silent when it came
to relating the story of his wanderings in Celebes, and the interest
which he inspired is sedately described as follows:
At her first visit she looked at him some time in silence, then
went to the bazaar and bought some tobacco and bananas which she
presented to him, as also a piece of money. Seeing him scantily
clothed, she asked whether he had no more clothing and whether he
would have some tea. Then carrying one of the other sick men home
with her, she gave him tea and a pot to boil it in. She likewise
sent rice and some garments, with a pillow and two mats. This good
woman was of royal blood and married to a Malay merchant. These
were not her only gifts, for she proved a kind friend to the seamen
while they were at that place.
Another house being provided for the five men, Woodard, unable to
walk, was carried thither accompanied by a great concourse of young
females who immediately on his arrival kindled a fire and began to
boil rice. His fever still continued very severe and on the morning
of the fourth day of his residence an old woman appeared with a
handful of boughs, announcing that she was come to cure him and
that directly. In the course of a few minutes four or five more
old women were seen along with her, according to the custom of the
country in curing the sick. They spent the day in brushing him with
the boughs of the trees and used curious incantations. The ceremony
was repeated in the evening and he was directed to go and bathe in
the river. Although he put little faith in the proceedings, the
fever abated and he speedily began to recover.
From a Dutch fort seventy miles away the commandant came to see Woodard
and invited him to return with him, offering to buy him out of slavery.
The chief mate refused, because he was afraid of being compelled to
join the Dutch military service. He was shrewd enough to perceive that
this was what the commandant had in mind, and he therefore begged to be
sent to Macassar, whence he could make his way to Batavia. At this the
commandant lost interest in the castaways and made no more attempt to
help them.
Soon after this they were carried back to the village of their first
imprisonment, but Woodard had seen blue water again and he was resolved
to risk his life for liberty. Eluding his guards, he took a spear for
a weapon and followed the forest paths all night until he emerged on
a beach, where he discovered a canoe and paddled out to sea. Rough
water swamped the ticklish craft, and he had to swim half a mile to get
to land again. Back he trudged to his hut on the mountain-side and
crawled into it before dawn.
Undiscouraged, he broke away again, and made for a town called
Dungalla, where he had a notion that his friend Tuan Hadjee, the
priest, might be found. He somehow steered a course through the forests
and ravines and fetched up at the stockade which surrounded Dungalla.
As a disquieting apparition he alarmed a nervous old gentleman, who
scampered off to shriek to the village that a gigantic white devil was
sitting on a log at the edge of the clearing. The old codger turned out
to be a servant of Tuan Hadjee, who warmly welcomed the chief mate and
took him into his house as a guest.
The rajah to whom Woodard belonged got wind of his whereabouts and
wrathfully demanded that he be sent back. The prideful rajah of
Dungalla refused in language no less provocative. Woodard smuggled a
message through to his men, urging them to escape and join him. This
they succeeded in doing, and the people of Dungalla were delighted to
receive them. This episode strained the relations of the two rajahs to
the breaking-point, and war was promptly declared.
Inasmuch as they were the bone of contention, Woodard and his seamen
promptly offered to fight on the side of the rajah of Dungalla; so
they proceeded to imperil their skins in one of those tribal feuds
which eternally flicker and smolder in the Malaysian forests. Woodard
was placed in command of a tower upon the stockade wall, where he
served a brass swivel and hammered obedience into a native detachment.
His sun-blistered, leech-bitten sailors, clad only in sarongs, held
the other barricade with creeses and muskets, and were regarded as
supernatural heroes by the simple soldiery of the rajah.
A drawn battle was fought, with about two hundred men in each army, and
a good many were killed or wounded. After that the war dragged along
and seemed to be getting nowhere, and the chief mate lost all patience
with it; so he bearded the rajah and flatly told him that his men would
fight no longer unless some assurance was given that they would be
conveyed to Macassar.
The rajah was stubborn and evasive and bruskly commanded the
high-tempered Yankees to return to their posts on the firing-line.
Woodard argued no longer, but marched back to his watch-tower, sent
for his seamen, and told them to turn in their muskets. Before the
astonished rajah had decided how to deal with this mutiny, the five
mariners broke out of the town under cover of darkness and stole a
canoe, carrying with them as much food as they could hastily lay hands
on. They were delayed in a search for paddles, and a sentry gave the
alarm.
Twenty soldiers surrounded them and dragged them back to the rajah, who
locked them up, while he chewed betel-nut and meditated on the case of
these madmen who refused to be tamed. Just then the priest Tuan Hadjee
was sailing for another port, and he vainly petitioned the royal assent
to taking the American sailors along with him. The rajah’s wrathful
refusal so annoyed the impetuous chief mate that he organized another
dash for freedom. Captivity, privation, and disappointment seemed to
daunt him not at all.
This time the five mariners surprised the sentries at the gates,
deftly tied them up, and lugged them to the beach. There a large canoe
was discovered, and the fugitives piled aboard and hoisted the sail
of cocoanut matting. Unmolested, they moved out of the starlit bay
and flitted along the coast until sunrise. Then they hauled in to
hide at an island until night. While making sail again, one of the
men carelessly stepped upon the gunwale of the cranky craft, and it
instantly capsized almost a mile from shore.
They climbed upon the bottom, managed to save the paddles, and
navigated the canoe back to the island by swimming with it. There they
rekindled their fire, dried and warmed themselves, and were ready to
try it again. They had lost the sail and mast, but they paddled all
night and began to hope that they had gone clear of their troublesome
rajah.
In the morning, however, a proa swooped down like a hawk, and again the
unlucky seamen were taken captive. They told the Malay captain that
they were bound to the port for which Tuan Hadjee had sailed, as he was
a friend and protector of theirs, and requested that they be landed
there. Apparently the amiable priest had some power and influence even
among the cutthroats who manned these proas, for the captain agreed to
do as he was asked, and he proved to be as good as his word.
In this manner the chief mate and his men were carried to the port,
which they called Sawyeh. Tuan Hadjee was there, and he gave them a
house and was a genial host while they looked the situation over and
endeavored to unravel the strands of their tangled destiny. The priest
entertained them with tales of his own career, which had been lurid in
spots. He was now sixty years of age, with a girl wife of sixteen, and
a man of great piety and much respected, but in his younger days he had
been a famous pirate of the island of Mindanao.
Among his exploits was the capture of a Dutch settlement in the Strait
of Malacca, when he had commanded a proa of ten guns and two hundred
men. He had been in a fair way of becoming one of the most successful
pirates of those seas, but while chasing a merchant vessel his proa had
turned turtle in a gale of wind, and he thereby lost all his property
and riches. After this misfortune he had forsaken piracy and turned to
leading an honorable life.
He was an excellent companion to these exiled sailormen from faraway
New England and even gave them the use of an island where there was
fruit and wild game and a pleasant house to live in, but they were no
more contented. After several weeks, Tuan Hadjee announced that he had
some business to attend to on another part of the coast, but would
return in twenty days and then attempt to send the chief mate and his
men to their own people at Batavia. While he was gone, a merchant proa
came into port, and Woodard found that she was bound to Sulu, in the
Philippine Islands, whence he felt certain he could get passage in some
ship trading with Manila. In high hopes he arranged matters with the
master of the proa, and the five castaways sailed away from Celebes.
Alas! this Malay skipper was an honest man, according to his lights,
and the gossip of the town had led him to draw his own conclusions.
His inference was that these white men belonged to Tuan Hadjee and
were bent on running away during his absence. No hint was dropped to
Woodard and his companions, and they happily beguiled themselves with
visions of deliverance. But the captain of the proa had taken pains to
inform himself of the destination of the absent Tuan Hadjee; wherefore
he shifted his helm and bore away, to turn his passengers over to
their proper owner. To their amazed disgust, they sailed into a little
jungle-fringed port called Tomboa, and there, sure enough, was the no
less surprised Tuan Hadjee.
The honest Malay skipper explained the situation and sailed away again,
while Woodard and his disconsolate shipmates stood on the beach and
cursed their luck and shook their fists at the departing proa.
Their reunion with Tuan Hadjee was a painful episode. As a reformed
pirate he could swear harder and louder and longer than a Yankee
seaman. He took the Malay skipper’s view of it, that these guests
of his had broken faith with him by absconding while his back was
turned. The chief mate had learned to adorn his language with an
extra embroidery of Malaysian profanity, and the interview was not
only eloquent, but turbulent. Then Tuan Hadjee, having exhausted his
breath, turned sulky, and the villagers took the cue. They ignored the
white visitors as though they were under a ban of excommunication until
Woodard delivered a speech in the crowded market-place.
Speaking to them in their own tongue, he eloquently declaimed that
the unfortunate strangers had been guilty of no other crime than that
of yearning to behold once more the faces of their own dear wives and
children. The feelings of Tuan Hadjee were profoundly stirred by the
oration. Amid the applause of the fickle populace he clasped the chief
mate to his breast, and vowed that while a mouthful of rice remained to
him, his friends should share it with him.
Nothing was said, however, about setting the captives free, and these
energetic sailors began to plan another voyage on their own account.
Tuan Hadjee shrewdly suspected something of the sort, and all the
canoes were carried away from the beach and guarded when the sun went
down. A pirate proa came winging it into the harbor of Tomboa to fill
the water-casks and give the crew shore liberty. Woodard noticed that
the men came ashore in a canoe unusually large and seaworthy, and
resolved to steal it by hook or crook. He asked the sociable pirates
to let him use the canoe to go fishing in and offered to share the
catch with them. To this they consented, providing he went out in the
daytime and stayed well inside the bay.
After several fishing trips, Woodard sauntered down to the beach in the
dusk as though to overhaul the canoe for an early start next morning.
The villagers had ceased to watch his movements. The proa rode at
anchor only a few yards away, where the channel ran close to a steep
bank. The pirates were lounging on deck and in the cabin, and none of
them happened to glance in the direction of the canoe. Woodard waited
a little, and slid the canoe into the quiet water. As silent as a
drifting leaf it moved away with the tide, while he lay in the bottom
with a fishing-line over the side as a pretext if he should be hailed
from the proa.
Unobserved, he landed at another beach, where his comrades awaited him.
They embarked, and stole out of the bay with food and water to last
them several days. At last they were bound for Macassar and again ready
to defy the devil and the deep sea. For three days they held on their
way and began to think the luck had turned when a small proa tacked out
from the land and overtook the canoe. Woodard recognized the crew as
acquaintances of his from Tomboa, and frankly told them where he was
going. They commanded him to fetch his men aboard the proa, and they
would be given up to the rajah of Tomboa; but the odds were so nearly
even, five Americans against seven natives, that Woodard laughed at
them. Hoisting sail, he drove his canoe to windward of the proa, and
handled it so well that he fairly ran away from pursuit.
The wind was too strong for the fragile canoe, and they had to seek
refuge in the mouth of a river, where they built a fire to cook some
rice. Here they encountered two natives who had come ashore from a
trading proa, one of them a captain who had seen the fugitives while at
Tomboa. He insisted that they surrender and return with him. Tired of
so much interference, the chief mate knocked him down, and held a knife
at his throat until the Malay mariner changed his opinion.
The proa chased them, however, when the canoe resumed its voyage;
but night came on, and a thunder squall enabled them to slip away
undiscovered. Eight days after leaving Tomboa they began to pass many
towns and a great deal of shipping on the coast of Celebes, but they
doggedly kept on their course to Macassar. They fought off a war-canoe,
which attacked them with arrows and spears, but had no serious
misadventures until a large boat came swiftly paddling out of an inlet
and fairly overwhelmed them by force of numbers.
Captives again, the five long-suffering seafarers were carried into
Pamboon, where the rajah found them unsatisfactory to interview.
David Woodard, chief mate, was in no mood to be thwarted, and it is
related of him that “he was examined in the presence of the rajah and
all the head men of the place. He made the same answers as before,
saying that he must not be stopped and must go on immediately, thus
being more desperate and confident from the dangers and escapes he had
experienced. The rajah asked him if he could use a musket well, which
he denied, having formerly found the inconvenience of acknowledging
it. The rajah then showed him a hundred brass guns, but he declined
taking charge of them. His wife, a young girl, sat down by the mate
and, calling her sister and about twenty other girls, desired them to
sit down, and asked Woodard to select a wife from among them. This he
refused and, rising up, bade her good night and went out of the house,
where they soon brought him some supper.”
In the morning this redoubtable Yankee mate who, like Ulysses, was deaf
to the songs of the sirens and was also as crafty as he was brave,
waited on the rajah of Pamboon and very courteously addressed him in
the Malay tongue, requesting prompt passage to Macassar on the ground
that the Dutch governor had urgently summoned him, and if he were
detained at Pamboon, it would be most unpleasant for the rajah, whose
proas would be seized and his ports blockaded, no doubt, by way of
punishment.
This gave the haughty rajah something to think about. The fearless
demeanor and impressive stature of this keen-eyed mariner made his
words convincing. After due reflection, the rajah sent for the captain
of a proa, and told him to take these troublesome white men to Macassar
with all possible haste. Woodard was worn out, his bare back terribly
burned and festered, his strength almost ebbed, and he had to be
hoisted aboard the proa upon a litter; but he was still the resolute,
unconquerable seaman and leader. The accommodations were so wretched
that after three days of suffering he ordered the proa to set him
ashore and to send word to the nearest rajah.
This was done, and the dusky potentate who received the message did all
in his power to make the party comfortable, fitting out a proa, which
enabled them to make the final run of the voyage with no more hardship.
Tales of Woodard had passed by word of mouth along the coasts of
Celebes until he was almost a legendary character. It was on June 15,
1795, that these five wanderers reached their goal of Macassar after
two years and five months of captivity among the Malays. They were not
only alive, every man of them, but not one was permanently broken in
health.
The Dutch governor of the island and the officers of the garrison
of the Dutch East India Company treated them with the most generous
hospitality, providing clothes and money and refusing to listen to
promises of recompense. They soon sailed for Batavia, where the four
sailors, William Gideon, John Cole, Robert Gilbert, and George Williams
signed articles in an American ship bound to Boston, and resumed
the hard and hazardous toil of the sea to earn their bread. Their
extraordinary experience was all in the day’s work, and it is unlikely
that they thought very much about it.
Woodard took a berth as chief mate in another American ship that was
sailing for Calcutta and while in that port was offered command of a
country ship engaged in the coastwise trade. During one of his voyages
he was strolling ashore when he came face to face with Captain Hubbard
of the _Enterprise_, which had vanished in the Straits of Macassar and
left its unlucky boat adrift. The delighted captain explained that he
had waited and cruised about for three days in a search for the missing
boat and had given it up for lost.
He warmly urged Woodard to join him in his fine new ship, the
_America_, and go to Mauritius. The former chief mate gladly accepted
the invitation, for he was homesick for his own flag and people. At
Mauritius Captain Hubbard gave up the command because of ill health
and turned it over to David Woodard. Thus the true story all turned
out precisely as should be, and it was Captain Woodard who trod the
quarterdeck of his taut ship _America_ as she lifted her lofty spars in
the lovely harbor of Mauritius.
Coincidence is often stranger in fact than in fiction. Before he left
Mauritius, Captain Woodard ran across three of his old sailors of the
open boat and the two years of captivity among the Malays. They had
been wrecked on another China voyage, and were in distress for lack of
clothes and money. Their old chief mate, now a prosperous shipmaster,
with a share in the profits of the voyage, outfitted them handsomely
and left them with dollars in their pockets.
In later years Captain David Woodard traded to Batavia, and met more
than one Malay who had seen him or had listened to fabulous tales of
his prowess during his long durance in the jungles and mountains of
Celebes. In 1804 this splendid adventurer of the old merchant marine
was able to retire from the sea with an independent income. Near
Boston he bought a farm and lived on it, and this was the proper way to
cast anchor, for such is the ambition of all worthy mariners when they
cease to furrow the blue sea.