Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

“The big man rubbed his bristling chin. He looked at the shilling. ‘It’s a bargain, mate. But keep it a secret. If anyone knew that Tom Perry sold a tenth of his expectations for a shilling! They'd stow me in the brig. What’s worse, they'd put me on the binnacle list!’

Nat didn’t know what he was talking about, but he promised. ‘I’ll tell no man!’ He took the slip of paper, folded it, and put it in his pocket.

Tom Perry stood. He flipped the shilling in the air and caught it. ‘I'll drink to our success, mate!’”

Tom Perry agrees to hand over a tenth of his prize in exchange for the cost of a drink. This is a strange and remarkable thing to do. The scene raises the question of whether he is sincere. Maybe he just has a sense of humor, and the idea strikes him as funny. However, since Perry died heroically saving his superior officer’s life, the reader is likely to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he would have done what he promised.

Being “on the binnacle list” means the same as “in sickbay.” In other words, his shipmates would think he was crazy and unfit for duty.

“Mother did not answer. She was still gazing up at the sky. After a while she said, ‘I made up a sort of saying for myself, Nat. I will lift up my eyes unto the stars. Sometimes, if you look at the stars long enough, it helps. It shrinks your day-by-day troubles down to size.’ She smiled. 'We'd better go back. Granny and Father will be wondering where we are.”

Nat and his mother are particularly close. Later in life, Nathaniel Bowditch will often say that his mother idolized him. She encouraged his love of study, and she must have understood more than anyone how much school meant to him. In this scene, she teaches a way to comfort himself and manage his emotions when he feels overwhelmed.

“Sam said, ‘Bah! Only a weakling gives up when he's becalmed! A strong man sails by ash breeze! When a ship is becalmed-the wind died down-she can't move-sometimes the sailors break out their oars. They'll row a boat ahead of the ship and tow her...or they’ll carry out anchors and heave them over and the crew will lean on the bars and drag the ship up to the anchors are heaved over. Oars are made of ash-white ash. So-when you get ahead by your own get-up-and-get - that's when you 'sail by ash breeze'.’

Nat straightened. ‘I like the sound of that.’”

Ben Meeker has described Nat as “becalmed,” meaning that he is stuck where he is with no way of moving forward. That is what Nat feels himself. Sam Smith tells Nat how sailors solve the problem of being becalmed. It takes a lot of work, and it is deadly slow, but it is also rather ingenious—particularly the trick of moving the anchor, then pulling the ship up to it. Sam captures Nat’s imagination and reminds him that every problem has a solution, and there is nothing Nat loves better than a problem to solve.

“Mr. Ward smiled. ‘Don’t bother about me, Nat. I just dropped in to look around. I don’t know if you’ve heard it yet, but I’m buying the chandlery.’

Nat grinned. ‘Congratulations, Mr. Ward. It’s a fine chandlery.’

Mr. Ward smiled, too. ‘And I’ll get a fine bookkeeper with it, won’t I? Yes, sir, I bought it—lock, stock, and bookkeeper… Yes, Nat, I bought your indenture, right along with the cable and marline-spikes.’

Nat forced himself to smile again, ‘That’s right. I come with the rest of the supplies, don’t I?’”

Earlier in Chapter 8, Nat’s brother Hab remarks that even though Ropes and Hodges are kind, being indentured is like being in jail, and Nat replies that he doesn’t think about it much. Here, Nat has his nose rubbed in the fact that he is regarded as property. Nat’s employers think nothing of selling him.

“Lizza smiled. ‘She’s a dear child. But she does say the oddest things. Sometimes I think she must have been born knowing them. I tell her she has eyes in the back of her heart.’

Nat smiled. ‘And she says odd things? I think you’re quite a pair.’”

They are referring to young Elizabeth Boardman who will grow up to be Nat’s first wife. “Eyes in the back of her heart” is a beautiful metaphor for someone who is thoughtful and insightful about other people. It is a good trait to balance Nat’s very meticulous and scientific mind.

“Mr. Jordy insisted. ‘It is English pronunciation that is crazy. Take three words: rough, cough, and dough. Excepting for the first letter, they are all spelled alike. But how are they pronounced?’

Nat smiled. ‘All right; English pronunciation is crazy. But all I want of French is to be able to read it. Can you help me with that and not bother about the pronunciation?’

‘Never! I couldn’t stand hearing you mangle it!’

Nat shrugged. ‘All right; I’ll learn to pronounce it, too.’”

English is considered to be an extremely difficult language to learn. The three words Mr. Jordy mentions are only one example of the illogical rules that contradict each other. Another example is the word “slough” which can be pronounced either “sloo” or “sluff” depending on context. Grammar is even more complicated, and English uses figurative language and idioms that don’t make sense to people used to other languages.

Later, Nat’s ability to recognize French pronunciation will enable him to teach the crew of the Astrea to recognize possible French spies.

“Nat said, ‘That’s the north star. If you think of the north star as the middle of your clock face, and the line from it through those other stars [in the Big Dipper] as the hour hand, you can tell time.’

‘It says about 1 o’clock. Is that right?’

‘No, this clock runs backwards.’

‘Is it 11 o’clock?’

‘No, there’s one other difference. It takes twenty-four hours for the Big Dipper to swing around the north star. So every hour on the clock face stands for two hours.’

Elizabeth sighed. ‘There goes your brain again.’ She studied. ‘10 o’clock?’

‘You’re doing fine.’ Nat went on talking.

Finally, Elizabeth said, ‘I’m sleepy, Nat.’”

Nat distracts Elizabeth from her grief by helping her focus her attention on something outside herself. He helps her to exercise her brain, and that finally calms her emotions enough to let her sleep. Throughout his life, Nat uses teaching as a tool to manage people. He distracts them from emotions that get them into trouble and gets them to use their brains instead. This also relates to what Nat’s mother told him about looking up to the stars in times of trouble.

“Behind Nat someone chuckled. Nat turned. Dr. Bentley was looking at him with a twinkle. ‘Is this a political argument?’

Nat shrugged. ‘No argument at all. Ben's got an article there that talks against the President. I said I didn't want to hear it. I said that sort of thing ought to be stopped.’

To Nat's amazement, Dr. Bentley shook his head. ‘No, Nat. We can't have freedom—unless we have freedom.’

Nat stiffened. ‘Does that mean right to tell lies?’

Dr. Bentley smiled. ‘It means the right to have our own opinions. Human problems aren't like mathematics, Nat. Every problem doesn't have just one answer; sometimes you get several answers—and you don't know which is the right one.’”

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees the right to freedom of speech, including freedom of the press. Nat is learning that debate and open discussion are more important than loyalty to a group or individual. It is important to consider that sometimes you will disagree with other people, and you have to be able to talk about your disagreements. Without freedom of speech, there is no freedom of thought.

“Mary sighed. ‘I’m glad you’re not going to sea, Nat. We have enough men at sea. I wonder where they all are tonight—Hab and William and Sammy—and David?’

‘They’re all right, Mary.’

‘You don’t know what it’s like for a woman, Nat,’ Mary went on. ‘You say goodbye to your man. His ship stands out from Salem Harbor. Then the months pass—sometimes the years—with no word from him.’

‘They’ll be coming back; just wait and see.’

‘I do wait,’ Mary told him. ‘I spent most of my life waiting.’”

In chapter 9, page 71, Nat mentions the town of Marblehead with a population of 6000 people, about one in five of which are widows or orphans. Working at sea is dangerous. Understanding his sister’s fear is one of the things that drives Nat to do everything he can to help make sailing safer.

“‘Daggone,’ Herbie [the cook] said, ‘it kind of picks a fellow up to think about the stars. Kind of makes you forget about soaking the salt beef till its fitten to eat, and about smelling the bilge water.’ He shook his head and grinned. ‘Just think of me learning things! Me!’

‘Of course you can learn,’ Nat told him. ‘Every one of you can learn.’”

Herbie is expressing almost exactly what Nat's mother said in quotation number 3. Looking at the stars provides a sense of perspective. Teaching is a tool that Nat uses to manage the crew. It distracts them from day-to-day annoyances like bad food, bad smells, and boredom. The author may have inserted this character in reference to an anecdote recorded in Correspondance Astronomique, Vol. IV. p. 62 concerning a Black cook who could work lunar observations by several methods, including Bowditch, and was described as having quite a taste and passion for it.

“‘But Mr. Bowditch why are you doing it?’

Nat was silent for a moment. ‘Maybe, sir, it's because I want to pay a debt I owe to the men who helped me; men like Sam Smith and Doctor Bentley and Doctor Prince and Nathan Read. Maybe that's why. Or maybe it's just because of the men. We have good men before the mast, Captain Prince. Every man of them could be a First Mate if he knew navigation.’”

Nat recognizes that—like himself—sometimes people are held back by circumstances they can't control. He has also seen that sometimes all a person needs is for someone else to recognize their value and give them a helping hand. Nat sees how he can make other people successful, and he is willing to take the time to do that.

“Prince gave a short laugh. ‘My dear Mr. Bowditch, Moore didn't compute that table. Do you know who did? Nevil Maskelyne, the royal astronomer of England!’

‘I can't help who computed it!’ snapped Nat. ‘There's an error!’ He showed Prince his page of figures. ‘There! I checked it! See? Why didn't Moore check those figures before he accepted them?’

Prince looked at the paper covered with Nat’s tiny figures. ‘All that to find one error? And there are probably 200,000 figures in those tables. Maybe that's why he didn't check every figure, Mr. Bowditch.’

‘But he should have! Mathematics is nothing if it is inaccurate! Men's lives depend on the accuracy of those tables! It's criminal to have a mistake in a book like this! You hear me! It's criminal! Men's lives depend on those figures!’”

For Nat, the lives he is talking about are the lives of his friends and family. He can't protect them from all the dangers of life at sea—pirates, privateers, storms, and illness, but navigational errors are preventable, and he can do something about that. Math is his way of improving the world and taking care of his family.

“Collins shook his head. ‘Now we will have trouble with Lem! Oh, for a good, rousing battle with a privateer! Or, better yet, a running fight — all the way to the Cape. That would keep them out of trouble.’

‘What’s the matter with Lem, anyhow?’ Nat asked.

Collins shrugged. ‘Lem was just born that way; born to fight. When he can’t fight in a good cause, he just fights anyhow. There’s no way to stop him. I could spread-eagle him and give him three dozen lashes. He’d just swagger about his work with his back running blood.’

Nat’s stomach churned. ‘There ought to be some other way.’”

The captain had absolute authority over the sailors, and whipping was a standard punishment for defiance of orders. This kind of punishment would be (rightly) considered a crime in the present day, but the lives of the entire crew might depend on everyone following orders precisely, so such a severe punishment might have seemed justified.

Nat’s own strategy for dealing with problems—even problems like grief and fear—is to occupy his mind with learning. Rather than punishing Lem—which doesn’t work—he will offer Lem the chance to learn. By showing Lem that he can use his brain to solve problems rather than his fists, he gives Lem a tool that changes his life. As Nat observes on page 139, it “does something to a man to learn he has a brain”.

“On the evening of the tenth day they fought their way clear of Sunda Strait and anchored. Prince called Nat to his cabin. He had a chart spread before him. ‘Well, Mr. Bowditch,’ he growled, ‘what do you think of the Dutch East Indies in general and Sunda Strait in particular?’

Nat looked at the chart. ‘I’m dumbfounded,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve always thought of an island as—you know—small. I thought when we got to the East Indies would be just a stone’s throw from anywhere in them. When it finally dawns on you—the size of them! 3000 islands—over 700,000 square miles—it’s amazing isn’t it? Take Java, now. It looks small on a map, but it several times as big as Massachusetts. A man certainly gets new ideas when he—’”

The East Indies refers to land now known as the Malay Archipelago. Captain Prince is actually asking Nat how he feels and what he thinks about his first experience with a new part of the world, but what excites Nat is sizes and distances. He often answers questions this way, looking at the world in terms of numbers when other people are looking for more emotional reactions.

“Gales Ledge to starboard…Pilgrim ledge…how many ships had been wrecked within a stone’s throw of home…Whaleback to starboard…a good berth now to the northwest point of Baker’s island… Mid-channel now between Baker’s Island and Little Misery… Captain Prince was keeping Naugus Head and Coney Island in line now…a narrow lane of safety… Hardy’s Rocks and Rising States Ledge and the shoals of Eagle Island on the south; on the north, Bowditch Ledge. When he was young, Nat remembered, he had felt proud of a ledge named Bowditch. Later he learned that having a ledge named for you or your ship meant disaster instead of honor.”

In addition to an interesting list of places and landmarks, this passage gives a sense of urgency as they are striving for home, passing one landmark after another. At the same time, every ledge, shoal, and island they pass is another obstacle that could wreck them if they lose control of the ship. Passing Bowditch Ledge, in particular, is like a personal warning to Nat because it is where his great grandfather wrecked his ship.

“Lem still glowered and muttered but he was not affecting the crew with his mood now. They were standing a little straighter and working a little more smartly. It did things to a man, Nat thought, to find out he had a brain.”

The importance of using your brain is one of the major themes of the story. Every time Nat is overwhelmed by disappointment or sorrow or loneliness, he focuses his mind on solving problems. It gives him something in his life that he can control. The crew of the Astrea are discovering the same thing. They can’t control the weather, and they have to obey the orders of their superior officers. The one thing over which they have complete control is their own minds.

At the same time, navigation is the essential skill that separates the captain and officers of the ship from the ordinary crew. Understanding navigation gives them hope for having more choices and more control over their lives.

“There’s many a nation without half as much power as the East India Company. They’ve held their charter almost 200 years. When Queen Elizabeth gave it to them, she gave them enough power to hold their own against the Dutch. They still got that power.

They can take over land, wage war, and make peace. They’ve got their own ships, own uniforms, own flags. They’ve got a bigger and better-trained army than we ever had. When England got into this war with France, do you know what the East India Company did? They turned over a dozen frigates, well-armed and fully manned—a dozen frigates!”

In its heyday, the East India Company was the largest corporation in the world. Its private army was twice the size of the English army. It owned or controlled large portions of India, Indonesia, and East Asia, including Hong Kong, and it had colonies in the Persian Gulf. In the mid-1800s, the company was having financial problems, and it was dissolved and all its holdings taken over by the British government.

"Zack sneered again. ‘Books! Salem men have come to a pretty pass when they have to sail by books! Time was they could double the horn with nothing but log, lead, and lookout.’

‘That’s right,’ Nat agreed. ‘They doubled the horn. And sometimes they got home again. But what about all the ships that don’t come home? If’ sailing by the book’ makes man a little safer, what’s wrong with it?’

Zack lowered his gaze and shuffled his feet. ‘Ain’t just my idea,’ he muttered. ‘Plenty men think what I think. Sailing by book is a mighty lubberly business.’”

Nat is explaining the principle of what we call “survivorship bias.” Zack thinks that because people have been doing it this way successfully for centuries, there is no need to do it differently. This is like someone who wins the lottery saying, “See? Everybody who plays the lottery can win if they just keep playing long enough.” Nat points out that the people who survived don’t prove that the old way is good enough. The people who died doing it the old way prove that the old way is not good enough.

“[Elizabeth] stared at Nat with stricken eyes. ‘Nat, dear… Goodbye, darling.’

Nat teased her gently. ‘I’m going to teach you French. They say it better: au revoir. That’s till your return. Goodbye always sounds so final.’

Elizabeth whitened. ‘I didn’t mean it that way, Nat! I didn’t! But—if it were goodbye, Nat, remember this. You’ve made me happier than any other girl ever was in the world!’

A chill tingled Nat’s spine. He kissed her. ‘Au revoir.’

‘Goodbye, Nat…’ Then, quickly, she added. ‘I’ll learn French when you come back!’

Nat smiled, but he felt a cold lump in his chest.”

This is foreshadowing. In fact, Elizabeth was already ill with what will turn out to be tuberculosis, so the couple might have had some premonition.

“Captain Hudson laughed. ‘One man? They have a crew that can work lunars! The cabin boy just explained it to me! I tell you, Captain Willoughby, there’s more knowledge of navigation on this American ship than there has ever been before in the whole of Manila Bay!’”

According to Memoir of Nathaniel Bowditch, there are several such stories of people being astonished at the number of Nat’s students who are able to do something that has previously been considered difficult even for seasoned navigators.

“Polly stopped smiling. ‘Aunt Mary, think of it this way; if a ship was aground off Salem Harbor…every able-bodied man in Salem would be out there trying to save the crew, wouldn’t he?’

‘Of course!’

‘And the women wouldn’t try to stop them, would they? No matter how long and hard they work? No matter if they were risking their lives?’

‘No-o-o-o,’ Mrs. Boardman admitted, ‘when a ship is in danger, men do everything they can.’

‘Well, every ship is in danger, every time it sails,’ Polly said. ‘But the more men know about navigation, the safer our ships will be, won’t they? Nat isn’t working to save just one ship. He’s working to make every ship safer every time it goes to see. Every ship in America!’ Polly was really warming to her idea. ‘Every ship in the world!’”

Polly puts words to Nat’s sense of urgency. Lives have been lost to inaccurate books—possibly including Nat’s own brothers. Women don’t have the strength or stamina to turn to and rescue stranded and drowning sailors in a storm, but they can dig in their heels and fight in their own way to support the men who do that dangerous work. That’s what Polly does for Nat.

“Doctor Holyoke sighed. “…You know, seafaring is a lot like medicine. On the one hand—superstition and old wives tales; on the other hand—the scientist, trying to solve the puzzles and find the answers. And all through the ages men have believed the superstitions and doubted the scientist. Natural, I suppose you believe when what you grow up believing. It’s hard to change.”

Doctor Holyoke is one of several influential men with whom Nathaniel Bowditch is on friendly terms. The doctor is talking about his experience with the fight to eradicate smallpox and relating his experience to Zack Selby’s resistance to “book sailing.” He is expressing one of the fundamental obstacles to scientific advancement; every new discovery must prove itself, and even then, there will be people who resist change.

“But when he sat alone in the crowd and watch the fresh-faced boys getting their degrees, he knew it had been a mistake to come. It only brought back a heartache that was better forgotten. Harvard…Harvard men… In spite of everything, the buried memories rose up to nag him.

Again, he was a boy of twelve, sitting at the breakfast table, filled with bubbling joy because he was going to go back to school—he thought. Again he saw the frown on his father’s face, and the tired shadows under Mary’s eyes. Again he saw the paper that had sealed his fate for nine years: Nathaniel Bowditch—indentured.”

Nat is almost 30 years old, but his childhood wounds are still present. He looks back at the choice he made to put on a cheerful face and sacrifice his dream so his family wouldn’t feel bad. For him, that Harvard degree is like someone going back in time and saying to that little boy, “Your dream matters.”