Hell's Fire

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘As you must know, there was a purpose to the advice I offered you,’ commenced Sir Joseph, gently. He paused, sipping his wine.

  ‘There was much made at the Portsmouth enquiry about your attitude to discipline,’ reminded Banks, his speech prepared.

  ‘I’m a direct man, sir,’ interrupted Bligh. ‘A man who believes in the value of discipline. Any who slack under me feel the rough edge of my tongue. I see no reason to change, sir!’

  If only, thought Banks sadly, Bligh had been able to curb the quickness of that tongue.

  ‘Captain Bligh,’ he continued, gently. ‘There is scarce need to defend yourself before me. Were I not convinced of your integrity, I would not have shown you my friendship for so long. If there is a crime to be proved against you …’

  He held up his hand, warningly, as Bligh looked sharply towards him.

  ‘… then I think it is too often acting towards people without mind for their feelings …’

  Were they Sir Joseph’s views? Or those of people he undoubtedly represented? wondered Bligh. The remark deserved a reply. With difficulty, he held back.

  ‘Your attitude towards discipline interests me far more,’ continued Sir Joseph.

  ‘How so, sir?’ encouraged Bligh.

  ‘I am, as you know, closely involved with the government. And with the King,’ Sir Joseph said.

  Bligh nodded.

  ‘And I have been asked for my counsel on a matter causing the country a great deal of concern,’ he continued. ‘The settlements established around Botany Bay, in New South Wales, have become a disgrace to this country … the lawlessness that exists there is almost unparalleled in our history …’

  Bligh was frowning. What had Botany Bay to do with him? He was a sailor. Damned good one, too.

  ‘The current Governor-General, Philip King, is exhausted by his efforts to handle the matter. He seeks retirement …’ Sir Joseph paused. Bligh’s refusal to shrink from his duty, no matter the personal consequences, made him ideal for the post. Bligh would not beg for relief if affairs went against him. If Bligh were successful in re-establishing order in the colony, it would erase a great deal of the current ill-feeling towards him in the capital. He could even become a hero again, as he had been after the voyage to Timor.

  ‘… and I am empowered to offer you the appointment,’ Banks completed.

  ‘Me?’ queried Bligh, incredulously. ‘Governor-General of an Australian province?’

  Banks nodded. It would be a difficult job, he thought. Even the King had been unreceptive, after Pitt’s reluctant agreement, initially dismissing Bligh as ‘that troublesome martinet’ before being convinced it was precisely that attitude that was needed to defeat men who seemed to regard themselves as almost the same as the settlers in the American colonies. It was the argument that Australia might go the way of the Americas that had finally convinced the monarch, Banks remembered.

  He’d exposed himself with his patronage of Bligh, Banks decided, worriedly.

  Bligh was nodding, slowly, trying to assimilate what was being offered him. Betsy wouldn’t accompany him, he guessed, immediately. She hated the sea, so such a long voyage would be impossible for her. Instead she could remain in London, the wife of a Governor-General. They’d come to her parties then, he thought, those snobs still convinced he was out of favour. And he had been shunned, he accepted. Until they realised they needed him. But he wouldn’t agree so readily this time. He had almost bankrupted himself by the breadfruit expeditions. And suffered worse in other ways. Now it was time for them to make amends. It was a great honour, though. Betsy would be very proud.

  ‘What will the salary be?’ he asked, pointedly.

  ‘£2,000 a year,’ replied Sir Joseph, immediately. ‘Which is £1,000 more than the present Governor is getting. The position is seen as one of much importance.’

  Better than he had expected, thought Bligh. Betsy could become one of the most glittering hostesses in London on an income like that. He might even be able to buy some land as well. He wanted very much the security of property.

  ‘And I could keep my naval pension? And seniority for promotion?’ he pressed. By his demands he’d make them aware of his annoyance with their treatment of him.

  ‘Agreed,’ said Banks.

  It would be good to get away from England, thought Bligh, where so many unseen forces seemed to be combining against him. People jealous of him. That’s who were behind it, people who knew him, knew the drive and capability that were being recognised by the very offer he had received that day. The appointment would defeat those critics, he decided. It would be pleasant, laughing at them, when the announcement was made. It would mean being received by the King again. Properly this time. And with Betsy by his side. She’d enjoy that. It would wipe away the distress. And she’d no longer be ostracised.

  ‘Would I have the King’s understanding that it would be an appointment of a limited period, say four years?’ asked Bligh.

  Sir Joseph hesitated.

  ‘Yes,’ he conceded, after several minutes. ‘I think such a condition can be allowed.’

  Bligh was nodding, with growing acceptance. Strange, he thought idly, how every point he raised was so readily agreed by Sir Joseph. The government appeared very contrite. It was fitting that they should be, of course. Damned fools. Just like the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty who had sent him away on the Bounty unpromoted.

  ‘Understand the situation very clearly, though,’ counselled the other man. ‘What you’re being asked to do here is a job far more difficult than controlling the most unruly ship. There is in Sydney a small group of men holding almost everyone to virtual ransom. They control all the importing, have created what amounts to a legal currency from the practice of paying for things in rum, the selling of which they keep in their power, and arbitrarily fix the price of anything else to their own whim. And they have a small army to support them. Unable to anticipate the problems it might create, the King allowed certain officers to raise a force; there are now almost 1,000 men, allegedly keeping order but in fact supporting a select dictatorship. The population consists largely of men sent there as convicts who have served their sentences. It is more natural in Botany Bay to break the law than to obey it.’

  Bligh sipped his drink, smiling slightly. If he had not known the man better, decided Sir Joseph, he would have imagined Bligh were patronising him.

  ‘Beware one man,’ he enlarged. ‘His name is John Macarthur.’

  ‘What position does he hold?’ asked Bligh, attentively.

  Banks smiled.

  ‘None. And all,’ he replied. ‘Macarthur is unquestionably the most powerful man in New South Wales … during the sale of the King’s sheep at Kew he was uncommon rude to myself and others, over the question of importing merino sheep into the province. He made it quite clear that he did not consider himself beholden to the home government in any way.’

  Bligh frowned. Then why hadn’t the man been brought to heel?

  ‘And was allowed such disrespect?’ he asked, the criticism obvious.

  ‘Although they are the qualities you’ll need, it’s not the behaviour of the quarter-deck we’re talking about, Captain Bligh,’ lectured the other man.

  ‘Yet Macarthur holds no official position?’

  Banks shook his head.

  ‘But he is without challenge the most influential man in the colony,’ he repeated, trying to impress the fact upon Bligh. ‘The richest, undoubtedly. And perhaps the most determined. He trades extensively with China and India through his shipping fleet, the traders look to him for guidance and almost everyone else for money. I’ll wager there are few people upon whom he does not hold promissory notes and who are not, therefore, subservient to his wishes.’

  Bligh covered another smile by raising the glass to his lips. Which made it all so easy, he thought. Pluck away the omnipotent figurehead and replace it with lawful authority and the problems would be no more. They really were quite stupid.


  ‘These difficulties are well understood?’clarified Bligh.

  ‘Completely,’ assured Sir Joseph.

  So the prestige of success would be correspondingly high, Bligh thought, happily. And he would succeed. He was sure Sir Joseph and the government and the King had over-estimated how entrenched the practices were, misled by a weak Governor. He’d be able to clean it up, Bligh knew. He’d stipulated four years because he did not want to be away from Betsy for any longer than that. But now he began regarding the time limit from another viewpoint. He’d let the condition be known, when the announcement was made, so that people would recognise his confidence. He’d show them, he determined, those people who’d laughed at ‘Bounty Bligh’ and labelled him a tyrannical despot. He’d succeed and damn them, just as he’d survived an open boat voyage that would have defeated anyone else to carry out his vow to damn Fletcher Christian.

  ‘I shall have your full backing? You? And that of the government?’

  ‘Yes,’ responded Banks.

  Bligh looked up at the doubt in the other man’s voice.

  ‘If things are as lawless as you say they are, then the situation will have to be met with determination and force,’ anticipated Bligh.

  ‘We accept that,’ said Banks. ‘As I said before, it’s because you possess just those qualities that the position is being offered you. But be cautious, Captain Bligh. Sometimes problems are better handled by diplomacy and artifice than by direct confrontation.’

  Bligh held his head curiously to one side. It had been a warning, he realised. This was to be his last chance. He had been selected because of his courage, he decided, but also because he was expendable, a man who mignt, just, defeat the racketeers but someone who could be sacrificed if he failed. The temper began to flare, but he controlled it. It was not Sir Joseph’s fault, he repeated. The man had remained his friend, even remembering his financial difficulties. From every consideration, it was a damned good opportunity. He could have been pulled up on the beach and left to rot in some early retirement or ordered into a menial job commanding one of the Admiralty’s coastal packets, like a street-hawker pushing a cart.

  ‘You’ll not find your confidence misplaced,’ he told Banks.

  ‘I’m sure I won’t,’ responded his patron. ‘I’m just anxious that you should succeed and earn the proper recognition, not just for what you’re going to do but for what you’ve done in the past.’

  It was an admission of the government’s guilt, Bligh saw. Or as much of one as the man could ever make. He’d clean up New South Wales, he determined: by God, he would. He’d scour it cleaner than a new pot and woe to anyone who tried to oppose him.

  ‘It will give me great pleasure,’ he said, formally, ‘to accept the position.’

  Banks hurried around the desk, hand outstretched.

  ‘I’m delighted,’ he said, sincerely. ‘May luck and good fortune go with you.’

  It would be the corrupt colonists of Australia who would need luck, mused Bligh, confidently. William Bligh made his own luck. And good fortune.

  That night, in his Lambeth house, Bligh lay on his back in the darkness, his hand on Betsy’s arm.

  ‘Sure you don’t mind me leaving you alone?’ he persisted.

  ‘You should know I don’t, by now.’

  ‘I wish you could come.’

  ‘The voyage would kill me.’

  ‘I’m going to succeed, Betsy.’

  ‘I know you are, Mr Bligh.’

  ‘We’ve had a lot of setbacks, but this time I’m determined nothing is going to go wrong. By the time I’ve finished in Australia, people will have forgotten about the confounded Bounty and Fletcher Christian. It will all be behind me, for ever.’

  She’d be bruised in the morning, she knew, wincing at the grip he had upon her arm. If only he could control his temper, she mused, hopelessly.

  ‘Be careful.’

  ‘You know I will.’

  ‘I’ll think of you all the time.’

  ‘And me of you.’

  She felt him move in the darkness and shifted towards him, expectantly, and then remained there, feeling foolish and glad of the darkness.

  He’d turned away from her, she realised, grunting up into a ball and already snuffling towards sleep.

  She twisted away, sadly. Poor Mr Bligh, she thought.

  ‘… he appeared to be very much agitated: indeed, I never saw a man so much frightened in my life, in appearance. When I went into the room, Governor Bligh reached out his hand to me and asked me if I would protect his life. I assured him his life was not in danger; and that I would pledge my own for the safety of his …’

  Lieutenant William Minchin, at

  the enquiry into the overthrow

  of Bligh as Governor-General

  of New South Wales, 1811

  The floods that had devastated the colony first in 1805 and then again this year had scarred the settlers’ minds, as well as their land, decided Major George Johnston, gazing from the window of John Macarthur’s office out on to the Sydney streets. It was very squalid, he thought. Squalid and disgusting.

  Groups of ragged, broken men huddled exhausted on the nearby corners, some of the braver actually waiting at the gate, numbed either by rum or despair but drawn to Macarthur because he was the richest man in the province and the only person to whom they could come for help.

  And Macarthur would help them, Major Johnston knew. For a price. Macarthur owned these men out there in the dust, the soldier realised, just as he owned the wives squatting in their separate, complaining circles and the children, some of them stark naked, playing their dispirited games.

  Upon every one of them, against their property or their farm implements or their stock or in some cases even the tattered clothing they wore, he held promissory notes.

  It was said, recalled Major Johnston, that there was nobody in the whole of New South Wales who did not owe John Macarthur something.

  ‘So it’s Bounty Bligh.’

  Johnston turned back into the room as Macarthur spoke, examining the haughty-faced, saturnine man.

  ‘According to the reports,’ he agreed.

  The other men in the room shuffled, waiting for Macarthur’s lead. John and Gregory Blaxland were in several businesses with Macarthur and looked constantly to him for guidance. Simeon Lord actually admired the man, Johnston decided. And owed him money, too.

  ‘Appointed particularly because he can impose discipline,’ enlarged Lord, knowing the remark would be regarded as a joke. Everyone laughed, dutifully.

  ‘Well, the home government has failed with everyone else, so perhaps it’s not surprising they should turn to a serving officer,’ mocked Macarthur.

  It was no secret, Johnston knew, that Governor King had been broken by Macarthur, like Governor Hunter before him. Macarthur was very proud of it, he guessed.

  Johnston turned at a shout outside the window. One of those disgusting bucket parties was collapsing into the vicious fighting that usually broke out when the alcohol got to them. There had been five men hunched around the gallon bucket brim-full with rum, each initially taking orderly turns to drink from the ladle. Now one had keeled over, insensible, puddling the liquor all around him, and immediately an argument had arisen between the men on cither side, each claiming they were due the unconscious man’s share. What had been bartered for that bucket of rum? wondered Johnston. Whole acres were sometimes exchanged; in some cases, even entire farms. They were like animals, drink-besotted animals. Was it surprising, he wondered, when the majority had been criminals regarded so low they had been transported by a country anxious to get them as far away from society as possible?

  ‘According to what I hear from the captains arriving from London, the government is concerned about events here,’ said Gregory Blaxland, bringing the soldier back into the room again.

  ‘Bah!’ dismissed Macarthur, contemptuously. ‘Wars with the French … wars in Portugal … a King whose sanity is in doubt … what real in
terest can England have in us, 12,000 miles away?’

  ‘According to Governor King, quite a lot,’ suggested Johnston. He had dined with King the previous evening. It had been a carefully planned meal, Johnston recognised. The Governor who had conceded a little of his authority every month during his tenure of office now chose to make threats through intermediaries, rather than confront Macarthur directly. Obediently, Johnston had passed on the details that morning, interested to see how Macarthur would react to the impending challenge. The contempt had been predictable, the soldier decided.

  ‘King is a weakling,’ dismissed Macarthur. ‘I’ll wager he’s no idea what the views of the government are.’

  ‘London might regard us as being tainted by what happened in the Americas,’ offered Lord, smiling hopefully. The man rarely expressed a view that wasn’t guaranteed acceptance, thought Johnston.

  Macarthur stood abruptly, pouring them drinks. The rum was much better than the filth that those poor unfortunates were soaking themselves in outside, decided Johnston, sipping appreciatively. But then it was natural Macarthur should have the best. Not a ship unloaded in Sydney harbour without his permission and not an article was sold without his being offered first choice.

  ‘It’s no more than a token gesture,’ insisted Macarthur. ‘Like it’s always been. They’ve got too many troubles elsewhere in the world to worry about what’s happening out here. We’ve no cause for concern.’

  He hesitated at the doubt on the faces of the other men in the room with him.

  ‘What’s this!’ he demanded, in mock belligerence. ‘Lacking faith!’

  He turned to Johnston.

  ‘Is there a man in the regiment who won’t be behind me, their old colleague?’

  Macarthur had arrived in Sydney sixteen years before with the rank of captain in the New South Wales Corps, having bought the commission in England. Even though he had retired, he still affected fondness for the army life. It was a false attitude, Johnston knew.