The Goat Who Sailed The World

PROLOGUE

The Goat

June, 1767

KING GEORGE’S LAND (TAHITI)

The Goat stood on the quarterdeck of the Dolphin and gazed out at the blue waters and green hills of Tahiti. She didn’t think much of them.

The Dolphin was the first European ship ever to come to these islands, but that meant nothing to the Goat.

‘Eeegh,’ said the Goat.

The Goat liked green fields, with short sweet grass, preferably with a nice prickly hawthorn hedge to nibble at. She liked routine, someone to milk her twice a day and bring her food at regular intervals.

‘Eeegh,’ she muttered again, to show her disapproval. But no one took any notice. The Goat stamped with growing anger. Why was everyone ignoring her?

The Goat’s pen was next to a big cannon, with old sailcloth draped over it to give her some shelter. She had the best view on the ship. Only officers were allowed on the quarterdeck—except for the master’s mate, who was allowed up to milk the Goat twice a day, feed her and change her bedding.

The Goat took her privileged position for granted. The sheep, pigs and cows needed for fresh meat on the voyage were crammed into odd spots on one of the lower decks. The chickens were kept in pens on the lower deck too, or in the ship’s boats, sheltered by a piece of canvas sailcloth. But they were lowly animals, according to the Goat, and deserved nothing more.

The Goat’s milk was for Captain Wallis, and any of his officers lucky enough to share it. On a crowded ship it was all too easy for a seaman to steal a little of the captain’s milk to vary the monotonous diet of dried pease, salt beef and biscuit.

So the Goat lived high above everyone else except the captain, with fresh straw every day to lie on and to nibble, and a view across the entire ocean, it seemed sometimes, as the ship ploughed its way across the world.

There hadn’t been much of a view this morning though. The ship had sailed through mist, white as the snow back in the paddock that the Goat had known in that far-off almost forgotten time when she was a kid in England.

But snow was cold. The mist was hot.

What was out there? The men and goat on the Dolphin had seen many strange sights as the ship circled the world. Maybe the Great South Land was there in the mist, with all its great gold and spices!

No one had found the Great South Land yet, unless it was the land Tasman had called New Zealand. At least that had been rich and green looking, unlike the barren land the Dutch called New Holland.

No, the Great South Land was still there to be found. The sailors had crowded the deck, peering out into the fog. Maybe today…

Slowly the mist had rolled away, to reveal the blue sea and an island like a sailor’s dream: white sand beaches and two green mountains reaching into the sky.

The Goat took a mouthful of hay, and chewed it slowly. Who cared what the place looked like? It was the fresh water and grass that mattered, and the other greenery she liked that added variety.

‘Look!’ yelled someone. ‘Canoes!’

The Goat glanced down, still chewing.

‘There must be a hundred men down there!’ That was Lieutenant Gore, with his soft American accent.

‘Indeed.’ That was Captain Wallis. ‘And every one of them naked as the day he was born. Order the trinkets brought on deck, Mr Gore. We’ll see if they’ve a mind to trade.’

The men in their canoes paddled around the anchored ship, exclaiming and waving green branches in the air. The Goat looked at the branches with interest. She was sick of hay and the branches looked good.

The crew made encouraging gestures, but no one dared come aboard. Finally one man, braver than the rest, stood up in his canoe and made a speech, loud and passionate but incomprehensible to everyone on board.

The man held up his branch, then threw it into the sea. It was evidently a gesture of friendship, as all the others threw down branches too.

The Goat snorted. What a waste of good food!

At last they climbed one by one up the ladder to the ship. Soon the main deck was full of dark-skinned men, exclaiming and looking round excitedly.

‘Eeegh,’ complained the Goat uneasily. She didn’t like strangers. She especially didn’t like strangers who came too near.

Suddenly one of the dark-skinned men clambered up the stairs to the quarterdeck. He stared around, then bent down to look at some of the knives and beads on the deck.

Her deck! That man dared come onto her deck! And he hadn’t even brought a fistful of grass or a wisp of hay!

‘Eeegh!’ bleated the Goat angrily. She nudged at the gate of her pen. Aha! It had been left off the latch! She trotted out onto the quarterdeck and lowered her head.

The man looked up. But it was too late! The Goat charged…

Wham! Her head and horns hit the man’s buttocks. He crashed onto the deck face first, then turned to see the goat rearing on her hind legs behind him.

The man scrambled to his feet and ran. Just as the Goat reared up to charge again, he reached the rail and flung himself overboard, into the sea.

The Goat clattered to a halt. She gazed around at the newcomers.

‘Eeegh!’ she announced triumphantly, wondering who to butt next.

No one waited to see. Within seconds every Tahitian had dived off the Dolphin and was swimming back to the canoes.

The sailors dissolved into laughter. Even Captain Wallis was trying not to grin. ‘Mr Gore!’

‘Yes, sir!’

‘Get that goat tethered and off the deck!’

‘Yes, sir!’

It took six men to grab the Goat and take her below, where she wouldn’t frighten any more visitors. Captain Wallis watched her go.

‘If every man in England were as tough as that goat,’ he muttered, ‘we’d have won the Seven Years’ War in a week.’

CHAPTER 1

Isaac

28th May, 1768

ROYAL DOCKYARD, DEPTFORD, ENGLAND

Isaac Manley dipped the lump of coarse sandstone—the holystone—into the bucket then began to scrub the deck again. The Endeavour had seemed such a small ship when he’d come aboard two days before. But that was until he’d been told to scrub the deck…and then to scrub it again.

Who could have guessed there’d be so much muck on a ship? Not just the mud from the dockyard on the officers’ boots, or the bare feet of some of the seamen, but cattle droppings and hen manure and soft pellets from the sheep in the pens across the deck.

It was funny, he thought, but back home in Exeter he’d never imagined the deck of one of His Majesty’s ships crammed with animals. But of course they were to be food for the officers, or the gentlemen like Mr Banks, the rich botanist who had put up most of the money for this expedition.

Ordinary seamen like Isaac had to live on oatmeal and salt pork and pease, or dried peas, but gentlemen needed fresh meat and plum puddings, fine wines and sweetmeats—even a violin player to amuse them as they ate.

Isaac felt slightly sick at the memory of last night’s supper, the crumbly ship’s biscuit and thin rind of sweaty cheese, maybe ten years old, smelling of dirty stockings. He’d known that life was hard on board ship, but back home the hardships hadn’t seemed quite real.

Home seemed far away now, the manor in the gentle countryside where he’d dreamed of making his fortune in the navy. He’d find the Great South Land, or fight the French, or see a mermaid…

Somehow none of the dreams had involved scrubbing the deck.

But when you joined the navy you had to start at the bottom, even if you came from a manor house like Isaac. Rich men could buy their sons a commission in the army, where they could start as an officer. But when you came from a large family like Isaac’s there wasn’t enough money to buy your son an army commission. At least in the navy a boy with good brains and an education could rise to the top with hard work, and a lot of luck.

So now Isaac was a master’s servant. A servant, just like Jane in the kitchen at home, and it seemed that a master’s servant was only good for scrubbing—especially one who was twelve years old and the youngest of the Endeavour’s crew.

Isaac bit his lip. I’m not going to get homesick, he told himself. I can live on wormy cheese and weevils if I have to.

I am not going to feel lonely, either.

But he was, a bit.

Over on the shore the docks were filled with the usual bustle—workmen bringing stores, barrels of beer or water, barrels of biscuit, more barrels of salt pork and beef; gentlemen with powdered wigs and high heels and lorgnettes inspecting passenger ships and merchant ships; lounging sailors on shore leave; and women selling hot chestnuts or baked potatoes.

Isaac rose stiffly to his feet to haul up another bucket of seawater, then bent to his job again, keeping one eye out for the captain.

Isaac had seen him already on one of the captain’s brief visits to the ship. James Cook had been taking the chance to spend the last few days with his family, so he was more often ashore than on board. Lieutenant Cook was shorter than Isaac had thought the brilliant surveyor would be, and he still spoke with a broad Yorkshire buzz.

Cook wasn’t born to be a gentleman or an officer. He was the son of a Yorkshire labourer, who’d started work as a shop assistant, then gone to sea on a coal ship when he was eighteen. And now Cook commanded his own ship, even if he still only held the rank of lieutenant.

Suddenly there was a commotion on the docks. Isaac looked up. Was the captain coming aboard again?

But it wasn’t the captain. It was a goat.

She was small for a goat and mostly white, with patches of rusty black and brown. Her ears were long, but not as long as her horns, and her tail was short. But what struck Isaac most was her self-possession. This goat strutted as though she was captain of the ship, and everyone else her servants.

Two kids followed her, both black where she was brown, with patches of white and rust, and velvet ears and inquisitive faces. But despite their interest in everything that was going on they still kept close to their mother.

The goat was on a tether, and the other end of the tether was held by a sailor, in the grubby sailcloth trousers and jacket and tough bare feet of a man who has spent a long time at sea. He glanced at the Endeavour’s name, newly painted on her side, then at Isaac.

‘Hey matey,’ he yelled, ‘permission to come aboard.’

‘I…er…’ said Isaac. He had no idea what ship’s protocol said about a sailor and a goat wanting to come on board.

‘Ah, there she is, then.’

Isaac breathed out in relief. It was Robert Molineaux, the ship’s master and Isaac’s immediate superior. ‘Bring her aboard.’

Isaac moved the bucket out of the way as the sailor led the goat and her twins over the gangplank and onto the Endeavour’s deck.

‘Where do you want her?’ The sailor nodded towards the quarterdeck. ‘Up there?’

‘But that’s for officers only!’ said Isaac before he could stop himself. It was one of the first things you learned aboard ship—no one, no one, ever went up there without the captain’s permission.

But Molineaux just laughed. ‘It’s what she’s used to,’ he said. ‘Haven’t they told you about the Goat yet?’

Isaac shook his head.

Molineaux looked at the goat with respect. ‘This is the Goat,’ he said. ‘The one that sailed with us on the Dolphin.’

‘Oh,’ said Isaac. He felt himself blushing. Of course he’d read about the Goat. She had sailed around the world with Captain Wallis, the first animal ever to do so. Molineaux had been on the Dolphin too, as had several other members of the Endeavour’s crew.

Even the Goat knows more about seafaring than me, thought Isaac.

The Goat stared at him. A look half challenge, and half boredom, as though she was saying, ‘I’ve bested better men than you, boy, so leave me be.’

‘Eeegh,’ said the Goat dismissively. She lifted her tail and a small cascade of droppings bounced onto the deck. Suddenly Isaac had the feeling that the Goat knew more than most humans—and didn’t think much of them either.

Molineaux took the rope from the sailor. Isaac watched, astounded, as the Goat led the master calmly over to the stairs. She leapt up them like a…Well, like a goat, thought Isaac. Her two kids clambered up behind her, bleating excitedly. Within seconds the Goat had found a sheltered spot by a coil of rope. She peered around expectantly.

Molineaux laughed. ‘She wants her hay! All right, Your Highness, it’s coming.’

Isaac waited for Molineaux to order him to bring it. As master’s servant, that was his main job—to fetch and carry for the master. And to scrub, thought Isaac, when he had nothing else to do.

But instead Molineaux stepped over to the companionway and yelled down.

‘Mr Monkhouse! Hay for the Goat!’

‘Yes, sir!’

I’m not even important enough to fetch hay for a goat, thought Isaac, as he watched Jonathan Monkhouse clamber up the companionway, half a bale of hay in his arms.

Jonathan was a midshipman, the bottom rung of the officer class, and a few years older than Isaac. His brother was the ship’s surgeon. Jonathan would probably be promoted to lieutenant when they got back from this voyage, thought Isaac enviously.

Isaac would have to serve for at least two years before he could