Free Island of the Lost by Joan Druett Page B

and set off back to camp.
    He returned down the face of the mountain instead of along the spur he had climbed to get to the top, and was forced to traverse a number of swamps to get to the band of thick forest that backed the cove where they camped. “The ‘big bush,’ as we call it, is where the largest timber grows; it extends about a mile from the water all round the shores of the harbour, which, taking all the bays, is not less than sixty or seventy miles.” Heidentified the trees as the “iron-bark” that grew in Australia, though the bark was different, being much thinner and harder, “as thin as brown paper.”
    These trees (actually New Zealand rata,
Metrosideros umbellata
) made excellent firewood and were spectacular at this time of the year, midsummer in the south, as they blazed with scarlet flowers. Getting through the forest was a trial, though, because Musgrave was often forced to drop to hands and knees to crawl under the low, crooked branches and around the gnarled roots that rose above the bare, mossy ground. The emptiness of the space beneath the tortured branches was strangely haunted, a preternatural reminder of how far they were away from the lands where other men lived, and it was a relief to get out of it and back to the camp, where he could hear reassuring human voices.
    Two days after that, on Tuesday, January 26, Musgrave went out on another such excursion, though not alone this time—which was lucky, because he very nearly shot himself. When he discharged the gun, one of the barrels hung fire; when he turned the gun butt-down to reload it, it went off, sending the ball whistling past his nose and through the rim of his hat. “I thank God, who has protected me thus far,” he prayed; “although in His wisdom He has chastised me severely lately, that He had again spared my life.”
    On Monday, February 1, he was unlucky enough to be overtaken by a sudden storm while out in the small boat. He managed to get the boat back to the wreck, where he moored her, but she was damaged when a heavy wave smashed her bow against the
Grafton
’s hull, and so getting her fixed was yet another job to be done—once the cabin was completed.
    F ILLING IN THE SIDES of the structure proved a challenging problem, which they solved in a complicated and time-consuming fashion. First, the poles that Musgrave, George, and Alick had cut when they cleared the top of the hillock were stuck upright in the dirt to the depth of about a foot, all along each side save for the fireplace and the door, bound as tightly together as their twisted shapes allowed. Each one was tied at the top to the crossbeams, one after another, until the spaces between the upright posts were more or less closed in. The insides of the walls and roof were crosshatched with horizontal rows of thin laths, and the outside was covered with canvas, a double layer going onto the roof. The cabin was still by no means impervious to weather—as Musgrave commented, “it lets a great deal of wind through”—but the castaways moved into it the moment the last of the canvas was lashed into place.
    The date was Tuesday, February 2, 1864. They had been stranded on this desolate and difficult coast for thirty-one long days and nights, and thankful indeed did they feel to be under a roomy shelter at last. Though the cabin was still not much more weatherproof than the tent they had made out of the mainsail, it was a great deal bigger. “The house is 24 feet by 16 feet; the chimney is 8 feet by 5 feet, built of stone,” wrote Musgrave. As usual, however, his satisfaction was blighted by dismal thoughts of the plight of his loved ones in Sydney. “We shall be able to have a roaring fire in it in the winter, if we are so unfortunate as to have to remain here till that time; and God help those at home, whom it almost drives me mad to think of. We have, as yet, had plenty to eat,” he went on,