Hell's Fire

by Brian Freemantle

  But he’d managed it.

  Every day he had had printed the evidence produced before the court and as the examination had progressed had prefaced it with a summary of what had gone before, so that a complete narrative had been built up. To the evidence from aboard the Duke he had supplemented the accounts provided by each witness whom he had interviewed after they had appeared, contrasting their stories with those that Bligh had published upon his return from the mutiny and was reissuing now.

  As careful as he had been in its preparation, Edward had been brilliant in its circulation, exceeding anything Bligh was achieving. Every High Court judge had received a hand-delivered copy, every morning. So had every Lord of the Admiralty, every M.P. and every member of the court of King George. Coaches had been hired to carry the pamphlets to church leaders throughout the country. Copies had been made available, free, in every London coffee house and according to the stories reaching Portsmouth, they had been read more eagerly than The Times.

  The Archbishop of Canterbury had already preached a sermon criticising the enforced and unnecessary hardship of the British sailor, and the M.P. for Cumberland, a friend of the Christian family, had tabled his intention to force a debate when the naval estimates were considered.

  ‘I don’t think that even you guessed the success you would have, did you?’ queried Bunyan.

  Edward blinked up, focusing on the question.

  ‘No,’ he confessed, wearily. ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘It’s a pity, in many ways,’ said Bunyan.

  ‘Pity?’

  ‘All this, for a dead man.’

  Edward picked up his wine glass, then stared at it curiously as if wondering what it was doing in his hand. Shaking his head, he replaced it, then frowned up at the other man.

  ‘Poor Fletcher,’ he said. ‘Poor, ill-used Fletcher.’

  He was very close, Christian knew. He’d been searching for three days, setting out immediately after digging a grave in the garden of the house in which they’d known such happiness and stumbling, eyes fogged with tears, through a burial service.

  Twice he’d actually seen Quintal, once in the south-west of the island, where the banyan roots were thickest and where obviously the man imagined he had the best chance of hiding, and again, after flushing him from there, to the north-west, scrambling in the foothills of the highest cliffs. So it wouldn’t be long. The man was virtually trapped, herded towards the mountain. With every yard he climbed, his escape route narrowed.

  It would have been easier had he accepted the offer of the other mutineers, he knew. Even Mickoy had volunteered help, but he’d spat at them, like the native whose woman they had taken. It was too late for them to salve their consciences now. Too late for anything, any more.

  His unhealed leg throbbed and was swelling again, he knew. His clothes, stiff with yesterday’s sweat, were glued to him by that of today and the insects, undisturbed, drank at his face and throat. Something larger than a fly had bitten him high on his left cheek and the inflammation was pushing his eye closed.

  Christian stopped, hunched against a palm, gazing upwards. The volcanic rock climbed away, chipped by ravines and gulleys. A hundred hiding places, he thought. Or points of ambush.

  He would have to be very careful, Christian decided. Quintal had run because it was the instinctive, panic-driven thing to do. But that hysteria would be subsiding now. He’d be thinking again, calculating. He’d know Isabella’s murder would swing the mutineers behind Christian. There could be no other immediate reaction. But Quintal was cunning. He’d rationalise against that the contempt in which Christian was held. If it were he and not Christian who emerged from the jungle, then he’d know eventually that they would accept it. They’d despise him, at first, of course. But they’d come around, in time. Mickoy would be the first. Then Isaac Martin. Then John Mills. It would be inevitable that they would accept Quintal back, Christian realised, far more inevitable than that the sympathy with which they now regarded him would remain, after the initial shock had passed. He’d been right to reject them, Christian decided. Scum, all of them.

  He felt his muscles setting and pushed away, grunting as the ground began to rise into the cliff. His cave was on the other side, he realised, suddenly, the viewpoint from which he’d looked down and first seen Quintal insult Isabella. She’d been very brave then, he remembered. And remained so, he thought, recalling the bruised, twisted hands. Quintal would have suffered already for the rape, he knew. But not as much as he was going to suffer. Christian carried a musket and shot. And a bayonet, too. But that wasn’t how Quintal was going to die. It had to be slow, painfully slow. He wanted Quintal to scream and beg for forgiveness, and then hurt him even more, just as he had denied her any pity.

  Which was why he had to be so careful. He’d lost Isabella and so he’d lost everything, the very reason for bothering any more about life. But he wasn’t going to lose the final chance of revenge.

  He had an advantage, he realised, despite his still bruised leg. Ever since they had arrived on Pitcairn he had climbed these cliffs and rocks, learning how to recognise footholds and vantage points and separate the safe ledges from those that crumbled under the slightest pressure. He’d kept fit and agile by climbing and felt more at home on the rockface than he did down below, in the sweating jungle.

  But Quintal wouldn’t. He’d done virtually nothing, except drink himself into obesity: even his garden and land had been tilled by either Sarah or by one of the bullied natives. So he’d already be greatly weakened, his muscles stretched and quivering by the unrelenting hunt.

  Christian hoped he was in agony up there somewhere, crouched in a hollow or a cave, breath clogged in his throat, shoulders heaving like the animal he was, run to ground.

  He was making too much noise, he realised, suddenly. Rocks were skittering away underfoot, clattering down the cliffside and he had the musket looped in front of him, so that it scraped against the stone as he climbed. Christian slid the gun around behind him and began placing his feet with more care. He knew how to use the mountains, crabbing across in a series of traverses, so that he always approached a ravine or wide break in the rock from the side, never raising his head suddenly over the lip, where he would have presented a perfect target. And he was careful to find cover, moving nearly always under an overhang of rock or the shadow of a ledge, so that it would have been difficult to shoot at him from above.

  The sun had baked the rocks, making them hot to touch. Twice a drowsing lizard scuttled away, jerkily, frightening him.

  It was just after midday when he found Quintal.

  It was an odd spot, where the rock had been hollowed out, the indentation like that of a hand being scooped into a flour tub. At the far end, the rocks had splintered and Quintal was pressed into the break, quite well concealed. He was crouched, knees held tightly under his chin and asleep with exhaustion, his head tilted back and his mouth half-open, like a man drinking beneath a water tap. He’d lost a shoe, Christian saw, and his foot was pulped and swollen into a bloody mass. His shirt was ripped, too. But that hadn’t happened in the pursuit, guessed the mutineer. Isabella had done that, raking him with her nails. The man’s face was scored, grooves furrowed down each cheek. Blood was congealed along the wounds, so that Quintal looked as if he were wearing war-paint. He’d obviously positioned the musket carefully, but he had dislodged it while he slept and it lay now almost out of reach, by his injured foot.

  So easy, thought Christian, sighting along the barrel of his musket. His groin. That would be fitting. Or his stomach where it would take a long time to die. But not long enough. His kneecap then. Cripple him, so that he couldn’t run, then use him as a target, immobilising every limb before aiming at the body and even then taking care not to hit, not immediately anyway, any vital organ.

  But he’d have to remain some distance away if he did that. And he wanted to be very close, to see the terror in the man’s eyes. And hear him beg. It was important, to have him beg.
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br />   Soundlessly, without any hurry, Christian skirted where Quintal lay, examining the route he would take when he fled. The crack in which he slept funnelled out, climbing gradually to a shelf of rock wide enough for several people to stand side by side. Like a rat up a drainpipe, thought Christian. The shelf projected on, almost forming a canopy over where he stood. He retraced his steps and stood at the spot where he had originally sighted Quintal, gazing directly up. Perfect. The cliff flattened here, so that it would be very easy to climb straight upwards, to the shelf. And when Quintal emerged, at the other end, he’d be waiting for him, musket primed again.

  His first intention was to aim wide, merely to awaken Isabella’s murderer. But once he had raised the gun, he knew that wouldn’t be enough. The desire to hurt overwhelmed him, shaking through his body and oiling his face with sweat. The man’s bleeding foot was alongside a rock, he saw, smiling as the intention settled in his mind. He steadied the musket carefully, wedging it along a wide piece of rock, and aimed at the boulder twenty feet away. Because of its trajectory, the ball would ricochet, flattened and razor-sharp, towards the man’s outstretched leg, carrying stone splinters with it.

  It was a perfect shot, the ball striking just where he had intended and whining off to the left. Quintal’s screams were inhuman, animal-like, as the pain jerked him awake. They would have heard, down in the village, realised Christian, already moving. They’d be huddled there, staring upwards and trying to determine what was happening. And how many would want him to win? he asked himself, clawing up to the ledge. None, he accepted.

  He rammed the ball down the musket barrel, then primed the pin and crouched against the mountain, waiting. Quintal made a lot of noise scrambling up, his good leg pumping to push him through the funnel, sounds whimpering from him. He came straight out of the opening, not thinking that Christian could have got there before him. Christian had already positioned himself, musket trained upon the spot. A great sigh went through Quintal, at the belief he had reached not only safety but an excellent ambush position for the man he imagined would be pursuing along the same fissure he had just climbed.

  Christian’s shot was not as accurate this time. He aimed for the man’s arm, the one supporting the gun, but missed. Instead the ball struck the rockface, spitting shards and dust up into the murderer’s face. Again Quintal screamed, more desperately this time, confused by the attack. He lurched backwards, clawing at his face. The musket tipped from his hand, poised momentarily on its barrel against the ledge, then toppled away, bounding and leaping down the mountainside.

  They could have seen that, down in the village, if they’d been looking carefully, he thought. Christian took care reloading, working unhurriedly. Quintal had no weapon now. And he had to be given time to clear his eyes, so he could see what was going to happen to him. Christian stopped, staring along the ledge. He hoped to God the man only had dust in his eyes and hadn’t been permanently blinded. Quintal was shaking his head, as if he had been punched, but was slowly staring around, eyes squinted. Christian smiled, carefully tipping the powder from the horn.

  ‘I’m going to kill you,’ he shouted, along the ledge. The fear grunted out of the other man and he began groping backwards, shunting himself along on his behind and then twisting over, so he could crawl away.

  ‘Just like you killed her,’ added Christian. ‘Very slowly.’

  He spoke quite calmly, conversationally almost.

  The ledge curved about twenty yards ahead, and the scurrying man was disappearing behind a rock outcrop. Christian walked forward, gun held easily in his hand. He was going to kill a man. And he felt very relaxed, he thought. Very relaxed indeed. He was looking forward to it, almost.

  Quintal’s attack was completely unexpected. He’d made the analogy of a rat, running up the tunnel. And he should have maintained the thought, knowing that a hopelessly cornered rat will eventually turn and fight. Christian had expected that Quintal would still be groping along the ledge, yards ahead, but instead he had stopped immediately around the bend in the shelf and pulled himself upwards. When Christian rounded the corner, Quintal was directly over him, the sort of boulder with which the Tahitians fought clutched in his hand.

  Had Quintal not been wounded he would probably have succeeded in killing Christian. But he had only one foot upon which to support himself and as he moved, to leap upon his pursuer, he slipped, cascading stones ahead of him. Instead of hurtling down unexpectedly, he came down the cliffside on his back, but still with sufficient force to throw the other mutineer off balance.

  Christian felt the musket knocked from his hand and skid over the edge. Quintal aimed the rock at his head, but off-balance he missed, crashing it down on Christian’s shoulder, numbing it. Christian lashed out, grimacing as his knuckles smashed into the man’s face and he kicked, too, remembering the other man’s foot. The ball must have sliced into Quintal because the kick collapsed him, spinning him along the rockface. He landed hunched, snarling up. Blood was pumping from the foot, Christian saw. His face was ribboned, where Isabella had tried to protect herself.

  ‘Frightened, Quintal?’ he goaded. ‘Frightened, like Isabella was?’

  He lashed out again, kicking at the man’s head. Quintal covered himself for the first attempt, but Christian lunged again, immediately, and Quintal’s nose splintered under his toe.

  The seaman fell back, unguarded, half supported against the cliff-face.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Please no.’

  Blood clogged his throat, making it difficult to understand what he was saying.

  This wasn’t right, thought Christian. He had wanted the man to fight, so he could have hit him, again and again. But he wasn’t fighting. He was just lying there, beaten.

  ‘Fight,’ demanded Christian.

  Quintal said nothing, hands cupped over his face.

  ‘Fight, Quintal! Fight me!’

  Quintal was looking at him, Christian saw, eyes alert, recognising the safety in inaction.

  Christian snatched the bayonet from his belt and moved towards him. The man didn’t cringe away, Christian saw. He was wedged against the rock and he thought he would survive. He imagined Christian would pull back, as he had so often in the past.

  ‘… you’re not a brave man, are you … you shout a bit and look good, but you rarely finish anything off, do you …?’

  The taunt paraded itself in his mind. Quintal’s words, he remembered: the defiance when he’d been confronted in the garden. Isabella had been there then. Brave. Unafraid. Unsullied.

  He swept the blade forward, driving it into Quintal and the breath squeaked from the man, more in surprise than pain. Then Christian stabbed him again and then a third time, the anger pumping from him and Quintal screamed, again the dreadful, primeval sound.

  The seaman slumped sideways and Christian stared down at the body. He should feel something, he thought. There should be the release of revenge, a pleasure almost. But there was nothing, not even disgust at what he had done.

  What should he do now? he wondered. There was nothing, he thought. Nothing at all. The children, he supposed. But he didn’t want them. Sarah could care for them better than he could. And she would, he knew. The Tahitians loved children. Even before he’d begun pursuing Quintal, the woman had chosen the role as mother to them. The baby was too young to realise what had happened, anyway. And Thursday was only four: he’d forget, soon enough. They’d be better, with Sarah.

  His cave was the spot, he decided. It was to the cave he had come, within days of establishing the Pitcairn community. So it seemed right that it should be from the cave that he should kill himself. It would be very easy, he knew. Not even any pain. Unconscious by the time he struck the water, hundreds of feet below.

  The ledge narrowed, but it was still quite easy to walk until he was only a hundred yards away. He picked up his normal route and spread across the rockface, finally reaching the little platform from which he could see the hidden village and the open sea beyond.


  They were huddled down there, he saw, grouped together as if there were safety in numbers, some staring up at the mountain and others towards the jungle path from which the victor would emerge.

  And then he saw something else. Along the path at the foot of the cliff, completely concealed from the waiting mutineers, crept Talaloo, musket in hand and with a cutlass in his belt. All the Tahitian men were with them, realised Christian, staring down … Timoa and Mehow, both with rifles, too, and Menalee and Oho, clutching the stones with which they were so adept at fighting. Tataheite had a pistol, he picked out. And a cutlass, held ready in his right hand.

  He looked back to the mutineers. Not one armed, he saw. He’d warned them and they’d laughed at him, like they’d always done.

  He could alert them, he realised. If he went beyond the screen of trees, waving with his shirt, he could attract their attention. They wouldn’t understand what he was attempting to indicate, but the natives below wouldn’t realise that and almost certainly would abandon the assault.

  Thursday would be safe, in any battle, he reflected. And the baby, too. It was only the white men who were being attacked … the white men who had discarded him. He squatted, unmoving, watching the hunched progress of the natives.

  It would be very swift, he decided, with all the mutineers bunched together like that. And Talaloo was planning his revenge very cleverly, fanning the natives out so they attacked from two sides.

  Suddenly Talaloo raised his hand, halting the assault, and Christian frowned, unable to see the reason. The natives appeared to be talking, arguing almost, and then Talaloo swept his hand out into the bay and Christian followed the gesture.

  And saw the whaler that must have been tacking into anchor for some time, nearly all its sails reefed and the crew lining the decks, staring at the island.

  Elizabeth Bligh sat hunched in her shawl, slightly apart from her husband, attempting to conceal her embarrassment.