CAPTAIN'S JOURNAL
Capt. Stephen Roberts
Fort Henry, London Company
25 September, 1604
This is to be a detailed account of my experiences and discoveries while absent of duty for the last five months. As extensively detailed in the Gargan Report, I vanished after an ambush by natives on 10 April. However, despite Private Matthew Gargan's dramatic and heroic recollection of his escape and my death at the hands of savages, I can attest to being very much alive. Thus, I shall attempt to recount my intervening months.
After the ambush, I was critically injured and taken captive by the natives. Bound in rope, I was taken to their chief to be interviewed about the intentions of the Cape Henry colony and the onslaught of white settlers in general. Unable to properly communicate, I was to be surrendered to the chief's daughter; a girl I shall refer to as Pocahontas. However, due to the severity of my injuries, I became violently ill with a form of swamp fever. I do not know how many weeks past, but I was nursed back to health in the tent of the princess. Given the length of my disappearance, I speculate that I hovered in and out of consciousness for as few as four weeks and as many as six.
.
It was on a warm summer day when I opened my eyes. I was curled on a pile of the softest blankets in a quaint tent. The walls were made of thin animal skin and glowed awash in sunlight. After searching my memory, it seemed I had been there in a long dream. A face appeared above mine and pulled me back to reality. Soft and gentle, it was the young face of my dear Pocahontas. She has sweet, sympathetic dark eyes that are complimented by her flowing dark hair. She wore a wreath of braids through her hair that day and it reminded me more of the maidens of children's stories than a savage one would find in the imagination of the English court (or Matthew Gargan).
Evidently, I was to be the princess's pet in so many words. After, I proved incomprehensible to her father, it was she who saved my life and was left in charge of nursing me back to health. She used herbal potions made by an Indian crone in her tribe that I still don't know the names of. All I know is that I was at death's door, but did not step through it. To her father, I may have been a minor irritation to have in their community, similar to a stray dog. But to Pocahontas, I was both her student and teacher. While lucidity returned to me in the summer, it was months before I regained all my strength. In Pocahontas's care, I taught her of the Old World and she taught me of the new.
First, she educated me in much of their language. I am of the mind that these group of natives are unrelated to the Croatans written of near the Roanoke Colony. The name of their community is Powhatan. However, it consists of more than one tribe or a series of unrelated groups. Rather, they operate as a confederacy of quasi-states. Ruled by one supreme chiefdom, they form more of a dispersed society than the term "savage" leads one to believe. That is why I think of them as the Powhatan Nation. The leader is Pocahontas's father, whose official title is Chief Powhatan, though I believe his birth name is Wahunsenacawh. As my condition bettered, he allowed me to venture around the tribal ground, which sat beautifully in a wooded clearing near an inland river. Soon, I was able to converse coherently with the chief. Powhatan says some of his people have dealt with white men before to unpleasant results and he worries if my arrival signals a great migration of more of my kind on wooden ships. I tell him no, feeling it is in both our interests to spare him the company's plans that are years away from fruition. Chief Powhatan refers to me as "Attemous" after that, which means dog.
The princess taught me many words and phrases. My weakness, represented by a recurring cough, she calls "Nussuccum." She often would say to me "Vmpsemen Apook" when forcing me to drink water and her medicines. The butterfly that she'd place on my hand would be a "Manaang-gwas" to bring me the relief of "Cohqwaivwh." I still call her Pocahontas, but every time I do she giggles mischievously at me.
As my recovery accelerated, she and I would go for walks along the river that would take us miles away from home. I found my slight size was growing in both height and tone more than I thought possible. I became fluid in her language and she began to understand mine. I told her of England. I told her of buildings as tall as trees, vast grounds of stones and how St. Paul's touches the sky. I told her of His Majesty and his hope to unite England with these Americans. She was skeptical of much of what I said, but listened enraptured anyway. I'm unsure if it was my language or voice that captivated her so.
After a number of months, I not only returned to the peak of my physical health, but had surpassed it. I was stronger and more able than ever I was prior to my capture. On one of our afternoon walks, I finally broached the subject of my release.
"No," she said in our King's tongue.
"My sweet Pocahontas, I need stay no longer. My strength has returned in battalions."
"You don't go."
"I need you talk to your father about releasing me, so that I can return to my people. I will tell them of your great kindness and generosity to me." She looked at me with those longing eyes and put her hand to my face. "Lips," I said.
"Lips." She stood up and placed hers on mine. I knew she wanted to do that for sometime. But the difference in cultures and her father's hospitality—I could not.
"Pocahontas," I began.
"Stop calling me that," she said in her native tongue. "I want you to stay. I want you to stay with me." At that moment, Manaang-gwas landed peacefully in her raven hair. She was a vision of natural beauty and serenity I knew not was possible. Before I could reply she placed her hand over my mouth and kissed it. When she removed her hand, I said nothing as her lips found mine again.
I must have been a willful prisoner of the Powhatan Nation and Pocahontas's student for at least a month more. I began helping with the daily chores of Wahunsenacawh's tribe, learning their ways of life and measured consumption. In the afternoons, Pocahontas and I would escape to our grassy meadows and dreams. I knew it had to end. One morning Chief Powhatan came to sit next to me by the water. I had just finished helping clean the animal skins that I myself now wore. We spoke in his language.
"Attemous, it is time for you to return to your own people." He gave me the hard stare of a knowing father. "I permit my daughter…my little Pocahontas, to spoil herself. But come tomorrow, you must leave." I wanted to protest, but knew I needed to return to my duty and did not want to spite this great man.
"I understand, my Chief." I could feel his judging eyes and remembered the day we had met.
"Good. Tell the English that your Virginia cannot cross the wetlands." He stood up and walked off without another word. I could not tell him the truth about my countrymen, fellow countrymen who now seem so foreign and distant to me.
That afternoon, as we rested in the tall grass, I told Pocahontas of my sentenced freedom.
"No!" she cried. She sat up, resting her small, angled chin on her knees. I pulled myself up behind her, my head on her shoulder.
"I have no choice. It's what must be done. I've come to love your country, your New World. But it's time for me to return to mine."
"But I want you to be here," she muttered in her native tongue. "To be mine." I turned her head ever so delicately with my fingers.
"I already am." I pulled her into me.
After a while, she grew a look of acceptance. That's when a spark of an idea flashed in her eyes. She grabbed my hand and pulled me up. We gathered our things and were running before I knew where it was we were going.
"Pocahontas…"
"You shall see," she yelled back without slowing down. Soon enough, we found ourselves outside a small tent by a pond. The late afternoon sky was graying ominously.
"Who lives here?" I said, in between breathes.
"The healer who gave me your medicine." We entered the dark hut of a space. I did not know what to expect before she appeared. She was an old woman, disfigured in face and sparse of hair. She wore the black furs of winter in the still warm days of a nascent autumn. She looked at me closely.
"Is this the one?" she asked.
"Yes," Pocahontas said with trepidation.
"My name is Steph…" I said before Pocahontas gave me a look that said, 'Silence, you fool.'
"Why do you bring him here?"
"Because, I want you to finish what you started," the princess said. I became increasingly frustrated.
"Started what?" I hissed, not caring for Pocahontas's scornful looks.
"She's healed you with special herbs drenched in a spring that gives power to those who have none," the old woman said with a crooked smile.
"Power?"
"Yes, she thought you were to die and little Matoika must always have what she wants. And, Matoika wanted you to live as her own little discovery. But also to become stronger so that you may not fall into illness again." I nodded along, pretending I understood of what she spoke. "So for a fair price, I gave her the most precious of waters."
"What water?"
.
We stood outside a small spring underneath a trickling stream that barely passed for a waterfall. However, what was most noticeable was a yellow-white light that glowed in an orb miraculously above the water.
"What witchcraft is this?" I demanded.
"I know not," the crone said. "It appeared seventeen years ago around the same time as Matoika's birth," she said with a glance to the princess. "It illuminates that water, no matter the time. A water that does….something for people." I studied it in disbelief. "So, are you going in or not?" I looked at the two of them dumbfounded. "We came out here for a purpose. Your 'Pocahontas' wants you to bathe in these waters," she explained to me as if I were a small child. I had the sinking feeling this was a witch's spell. Pocahontas saw the horror in my eyes.
"Stephen, I want you to go in," she said to me.
"I will not!" I said in a shout that surprised myself.
"And why won't you?" asked the witch.
"Because I do not know if this is the hand and will of God or another's." Pocahontas put her hand on my shoulder and her mouth to my ear.
"It is no one's will but our own. I don't want you to become hurt or injured again. I want you to find your way back to me."
"But why this?" She turned my head with her fingers, ever so delicately.
"Because, I want you to," she said before passionately pulling my tongue into her mouth. When she let go, she had the saddest, most longing eyes. I said nothing.
As I stripped off my skins, the crone cackled.
"Little Matoika always gets what she wants," she said. I looked back at the old woman.
"Why do you keep calling her that?"
"Because that's her name. She is known as Pocahontas, because it means spoiled, naughty one!" I looked over at Pocahontas in shock and I witnessed what may have been her first grimace of humility in her whole life. I raised my head to the dimming sky and laughed uproariously.
"And so she is," I said with one more chuckle. Without a second thought, I dived headlong into the water. I knew little of how long to stay, but in less than a minute the crone was grabbing my arm and pulling me back to the surface and on land. She dropped me like a sack of rocks on dry earth.
"Are you crazy?" she asked. I shook my head. "Nobody has stayed in there longer than a moment. We do not know what it can do." I rolled on my back and looked at the emerging moon in the sky.
"It's in God's hands now," I replied.
.
We did not return to Pocahontas's tent until well after dark. We said no words before going to our separate beds. There was nothing to say. The next day, I awakened and thanked many in the tribe for their hospitality, most especially Chief Powhatan. Pocahontas was by the river. I approached her in my now very tight English clothes. I wanted to say something, though I still have no idea what that would have been. She ran off as soon as she saw me coming. I stood over the water and gazed at myself. I was not the man I had once known. I looked like a cathedral and felt as strong as one. I was not so much surprised as accepting. Though I will concede that a small smile crossed my face.
.
The journey to Fort Henry was surprisingly easy. The air was obviously cooling for the coming fall, but I had a sense of stamina I thought was impossible. I was able to run miles without a drop of sweat. What should have taken a day took merely a few hours.
I reached the fort on the 24th of September. It was unlike what I remembered. Instead of cloth tents cut out around scattered supplies and downed oak, there was a small but structured wooden fort with pikes for a wall. When I entered the fort, it was like a ghost returning from the grave. Many a man I remembered looked at me in disbelieving eyes. While I frolocked in what already seemed like an endless daydream, the summer was harsh on them. Half suffered from malaria and several were already in the ground. I came back more fit than any of them had ever looked. The twist of fate was not lost on them. An older man, looking surprisingly frail, in a red Elizabethan suit came up to me.
"Stephen?" He touched my shoulder and it was my turn for the shock.
"Captain Newport? Sir!" I stood at attention. He ignored that and hugged me with both arms.
.
The summer had been worse than I imagined for the fort. Construction on a swamp was an awful stroke of lunacy. While the food has yet to run scarce, men's health and morale is low. Captain Newport is to return to England for more men in supplies. He appointed me as captain in his stead. Given my lack of experience or even time in the fort, I tried to talk convince him otherwise. He looked at me for a long, long time.
"You already have become a captain, Stephen. A Captain of America."
The Germans, suffering themselves, delayed the Roanoke campaign until after August. I understand Captain Schmidt rationalized it as better to hit them near harvest time, when they would all be near the colony. I wish I could see that man's face now, but they departed for Roanoke several days before I returned to the fort. God help the people of Roanoke.