Chapter 1
Becalmed
“Reef to starboard,” James Caulfeild yelled.
Florence Young glanced in the direction James pointed. There it was, a jagged coral reef waiting to gash the hull of the Daphne and toss those on board into the shark-infested water.
Florence watched as Owen Thomas, who was captaining the vessel, spun the wheel hard to port, but it was no use. There was no wind to fill the sails. They were becalmed and at the mercy of the ocean current carrying them toward the menacing reef. They were sailing just south of the equator, and during their three days at sea aboard the Daphne, there had been little wind. They should have been at their destination, the island of Gavutu, by now, but the island still lay many miles away across the tropical ocean.
Florence felt the stifling air close in around her, and her heart began to beat faster. “Lord, help us,” she mumbled, holding the rigging firmly with both hands for support. She felt wretched; for hours now she had been standing clasping the rigging for support. She longed to lie down on the deck, but she was afraid that if she did, she might not get up again. Already two of her fellow missionaries, desperately ill with malaria, lay at her feet, one on either side of the small deck. Helen Fricke had a temperature of 106, while Hedley Abbott had a temperature of 104. As the fierce midday sun baked down on her, Florence felt as though her body were burning up and melting away at the same time. Her heart pounded and her head throbbed, but she willed herself to stay conscious. “Lord, help us,” she prayed again.
As Florence prayed, James and three crew members from the island of Malu talked animatedly among themselves in pidgin English. At the same time, the men grabbed some of the lengths of lumber that were lying on the deck and tried to use them as paddles to maneuver the Daphne away from the reef. Their efforts were futile. The Daphne was much too heavy to be propelled by a few lengths of lumber.
Florence felt her knees begin to buckle, and she slumped into a hunched position on the deck. Hovering halfway between consciousness and oblivion, she continued praying through lips that barely moved now, “Lord, help us.”
After several minutes Florence felt a gentle puff against her cheeks. Then she felt something tousle her hair. She opened her eyes and stared at the sail. It was beginning to flap. It was a breeze! But was it enough to pull the Daphne away from the reef to safety? Several more minutes passed before Florence had her answer. The sail finally began to billow, and she felt the boat start to be pulled along through the water, away from the reef. Florence breathed a sigh of relief and mumbled a short prayer of thanks.
The wind continued to blow for nearly half a day, carrying the Daphne along at a steady clip. Everyone on board was relieved. But as darkness began to descend over the boat, the wind dropped. The boat drifted throughout the night, and while Florence slept, the island crew members kept a sharp lookout in the moonlight for any more reefs.
As the sun climbed above the eastern horizon the next morning, it brought with it a gentle but steady breeze. Slowly but surely the Daphne again began inching its way toward Gavutu.
With the arrival of the new day, Florence willed herself to get up and assume her hunched position over the large box of sand on the deck of the Daphne. Pressed into the sand were two large tins, with a fire burning in each of them. Over the fire Florence boiled water for those aboard to drink and cooked rice for the crew to eat. In her malaria-weakened condition, it was grueling work, but she kept at it. She also tended to Helen and Hedley, who still lay on either side of the deck. Florence was also worried about Owen. The captain was not doing well either, but despite his raging fever, he resolutely kept his position behind the Daphne’s wheel.
Florence tried her best to rally everyone’s spirits as the sun beat down on them, burning their skin and parching their mouths.
As darkness descended at the end of their fourth day at sea, Florence was glad to lie down and rest. But she was up with the sun the next morning, once again willing herself to keep going. By now, however, even she was beginning to wonder whether they would ever see land again.
To her great relief, in the late afternoon of their fifth day at sea, Florence could see Gavutu appear on the horizon. Her spirit soared. At last land was in sight. By then, however, Owen had lapsed into unconsciousness at the wheel, leaving James, with no sailing experience, and the makeshift native crew to guide the Daphne in failing light amid the reefs that guarded the harbor entrance on Gavutu. Finally, after grazing a reef with the keel of the boat, the men managed to moor the vessel alongside the dock.
Florence could hardly believe they had arrived safely. It was ten o’clock in the evening by then, and everyone aboard the Daphne was too exhausted to transfer to land. Florence collapsed right where she stood on the deck of the boat to sleep the night. As her fever-ravaged body drifted toward unconsciousness, her mind slipped back to her childhood and the unexpected twists and turns her life had taken to bring her to this place. The Solomon Islands were certainly a long way from the South Island of New Zealand, where she had been born. What would the people who had known her there think of this latest adventure she found herself in the middle of?
Chapter 2
Erme Dale
Four-year-old Florence Young stood holding her younger sister Constance by the hand on the deck of the Anglesea, an old sailing sloop. She waited beside their old family maid Elizabeth, just as her mother had told her to. Florence scarcely knew in what direction to look first. Passengers, hat boxes and carpetbags in hand, were streaming up the gangplank. Some dabbed their eyes with handkerchiefs, while others waved bravely at the crowd standing on the London dock.
Florence caught glimpses of her family too. Her mother was following two sailors who were carrying the family’s big leather trunk to their cabin. And two of her older brothers, Ernest and Horace, and her older sister Emily were busy carrying boxes and suitcases down to their cabin.
As Florence watched the scene, she tried hard to recall all she could about the trip from the British colony of New Zealand to England two years before. She was only two years old then, but some things were burned into her memory. She recalled the way her father had to help the captain man the ship when the first and second mates both ran off to join the gold rush on the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand. She also recalled how things had become desperate when the captain accidentally sailed too far south, into the ice floes that broke off from Antarctica. She had never felt so cold in her life. Icicles hung from the rigging, and the deck was so slick that the children were forbidden to go topside for three weeks, until they reached warmer water.
Fear raced through Florence’s mind as she stood on the deck of the Anglesea. Would the trip back to New Zealand be as perilous as the trip to England had been? This time her father wouldn’t even be with them. He and her oldest brother, Arthur, and a cousin, William McAdam, had traveled to New Zealand ahead of the rest of the family to prepare for their arrival. Why,Florence wondered, did her family have to go back to New Zealand at all? Everyone she loved—her four grandparents and her numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins—all lived in England. It was impossible to imagine why her own family had to follow her father halfway around the world to start out again on a farm in the middle of nowhere.
Florence did not dare tell her mother how she felt. As long as Florence could remember, her mother had been a sickly person, and Florence did not like to burden her mother with complaints. During the eleven-week voyage to New Zealand, she tried hard to be a good girl, reading aloud to Constance, playing endless games of checkers with her older brothers, and doing her reading and arithmetic lessons with Emily.
Thankfully, the January voyage was uneventful, and warm, since they sailed from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere, exchanging midwinter for midsummer.
Finally the rugged coastline of South Island came into view on the horizon. Lush green native forest stretched away from the seashore, and in the distance Florence could see the majestic peaks of the Southern Alps stretching into the clear summer air. At last, on February 1, 1861, the voyage from England was over and the Anglesea arrived in Dunedin, New Zealand. Dunedin had been founded thirteen years earlier by Scottish settlers and was a fast-growing city. With its stone and brick buildings, it reminded Florence of an English town. However, it was not their final destination. The Young family boarded a smaller steamer that took them to Bluff, a town on the extreme southern tip of South Island. There Florence’s father, Henry, along with her brother Arthur and cousin William, met the ship.
Tears gathered in Florence’s eyes as she hugged her father. She had missed him so much. Soon his powerful hands were heaving the family’s trunks and suitcases onto a wagon for the tortuous journey inland. As her brothers loaded the wagon, Florence’s father explained that he had bought a farm near Riverton. To get there they would have to travel north to Invercargill and then head west twenty miles to Riverton. From there they would head ten miles inland to the family’s new homestead called Erme Dale.
Even though it was still summer in New Zealand, the track they traveled on was muddy, and the wagon became bogged down many times. Florence was surprised by how different the scenery was from that in England, where thatched cottages and stone dairies dotted the landscape and the farms were divided by neat hedgerows. Now, except for the wagon ruts in the mud, it seemed like they went for miles without seeing another sign of human life. On her left Florence looked out across Foveaux Strait, which divided South Island from Stewart Island farther to the south. On her right was dense native forest that stretched inland as far as she could see. Beautiful fantails and wood pigeons flitted among the trees.
As they rode along, Florence’s father explained that New Zealand had no native mammals or snakes and that nothing was lurking in the bush that could harm them. Florence was greatly relieved to hear this, because the thick beach forests and flax marshes looked scary to her.
It took the family three days to reach their new home. Along the way they had to cross three rivers: the Oreti, the Waimatuku, and the Purakino. They had to load the horses and wagon onto a large punt to be ferried across the Oreti River.
Finally they reached Erme Dale, and Florence joined the older boys as they jumped off the wagon and rushed to get a look inside their new home. Much to their surprise, the house was not finished. The square hall was filled with wood shavings, and the staircase had only three steps nailed in place. And when Horace lit the stove in the dining room, the house immediately filled with smoke, sending the children spluttering out of the house. Their father explained that he was having difficulty getting someone to cart fire bricks from Invercargill to the new house, so until the bricks arrived and the fireplace was finished, they could not use it.
Family life soon settled into a routine that left Florence and Constance with a lot of time to explore their strange new surroundings. At first the two small girls were reluctant to be out of sight of the house, but with each adventure they became braver. Soon the Dripping Well was one of their favorite places to go. The Dripping Well was a limestone cave at the head of a gully. It contained a pool of crystal clear water surrounded by moss and ferns. Rocky Island Bush, which surrounded the cave, also became a favorite haunt. Among the yellow-and-green-striped flax and the bracken of the bush were weird-shaped, giant-sized boulders. Fueled with images of fairytales, Florence and Constance turned various rocks into castles and fortresses and spent hundreds of happy hours among the rocks, making up intricate stories.
