The Beothuk Expedition by Derek Yetman

would stand the boatswain a tot if he joined him. It had not escaped my attention that our new crewmen were short on discipline, owing no doubt to having been left so long without supervision. Nor had this state of affairs gone unnoticed by the boatswain, who began putting things to right from that moment. I took my leave for the surgeon’s house as he launched an oath-laden tirade against the hapless Grimes.
    I had stationed Greening at the house in case of the surgeon’s return and I found him awake and at his post when I arrived. He was cut from a different cloth than the others, with a plain, innocent face and an eagerness to please. He also possessed a shy and awkward manner that belied his physical strength and quickness of mind. I had high hopes of him, not only because he was a fellow Newfoundlander but also because he was at home in the rigging and had the makings of a fine topman. I sent the lad back to the shallop and seated myself by the midshipman’s bed. To my surprise and delight, he was beginning to show signs of recovery. His skin was now dry to the touch and the woman said he’d been quiet through much of the night. She had ignored my earlier objections and had been administering a drink of boiled dandelion juice and spruce beer, with favourable results. I thanked her sincerely, which impressed her much less than the shilling, which disappeared into the folds of her shawl.
    I was undecided whether it was God or Fate that had placed me in Bonavista to watch over this young man. It had to be more than mere coincidence, for I will tell you now that I loved him as a brother. He was as brave a sailor as ever stowed a hammock and as fine a friend as any man could wish. We had sailed together on the old Northumberland when he was a mere child and I his senior at the age of eighteen, which was now his present age. We were shipmates a few months only, but in that time the bond between us had been forged as strong as any steel, owing to what we had suffered and survived together.
    The boy was none other than Friday Froggat, so named for the day of his birth, his mother having exhausted her store of names on his nineteen older siblings. He and I had maintained our friendship and correspondence over the years, but I’d heard nothing of him for the last six months or more. It was not an unusual length of time for a letter to catch up with a ship, though for all that, I was astonished to discover that the two of us had been serving in the same squadron without knowing it.
    As for his health, Froggat was far from cured of his disease or the surgeon’s treatments. However, I allowed myself to think that he stood half a chance with a friend at his side. Observing him for the first time in daylight, I saw that the exposed parts of his body were free of all but the faintest blemishes, excepting a half-dozen scars from cutlass and shot. A victim in whom the scurvy is well advanced would normally be covered in livid spots and open sores. His mouth hung open in sleep and I pulled back his lip, observing no sign of the inflamed gums and fetid breath that accompany the disease. His breathing was also regular and unlaboured, which gave me hope that the worst had passed.
    At his very best Froggat was no balm for sore eyes and now he was a pitiful sight indeed. His front teeth, fashioned from polished whalebone, lay on the window ledge. Their absence gave him the appearance of a man much older than eighteen years. His body was emaciated and astonishingly ripe after two weeks of fevered sweating and his long red hair was a tangled mess. As a boy he’d been small for his age and in early manhood his stature remained that of an adolescent. His face had also retained some of the features of his youth, though an ever-present squint had prematurely deepened the lines around his eyes and the freckles on his pale face were darker and more numerous. But for all that, he looked better than he had the night before. The