‘No,’ guaranteed the soldier. ‘The regiment are behind you.’
And with good reason, he added, mentally. Most were in debt to him. And looked to him as the supplier of rum for their grogshops and convict-whored bawdy-houses to which they devoted more time than they did to their soldiering.
‘And the traders?’ demanded Macarthur, of Lord.
‘Aye,’ agreed the fine-featured sycophant. ‘The merchants are all with you.’
For the same reason as the soldiers, thought Johnston. With this domain, Macarthur had more power than King George himself over all England.
Macarthur spread his hands expansively.
‘So where’s the danger?’ he asked.
No one spoke and Macarthur stood there, smiling.
‘I’m surprised at your weak hearts,’ he said, going back to his desk.
They waited, expectantly, but Macarthur didn’t speak immediately, allowing the silence to build up. The man enjoyed superiority very much, decided Johnston.
‘I’ve determined not to be bested by Bounty Bligh,’ assured Macarthur. ‘And I’ve taken steps to see it doesn’t happen.’
‘What?’ blurted Lord, who enjoyed gossip.
‘Never you mind, Mr Lord, never you mind,’ refused Macarthur. ‘Just renuin assured that things are afoot to thwart any quarterdeck tyranny in this colony.’
Three miles away James Hoare, three times convicted murderer, a sullen giant of a man, stood patiently while the guards broke away the bolts holding in place the metal punishment collar he had worn for the past three months. His neck and shoulders were calloused and there was an open sore on his collar-bone.
‘There’s no escape from here,’ said the guard, emboldened because two others were standing with their guns at the ready. ‘Three times you’ve tried and three times you’ve been caught and brought back to the collar. You’re doomed, Jim lad. You’ll sec your days out and die here.’
Hoare walked back to the chain gang, without replying.
For almost two hours Edward Christian had been rigid at his desk, arms hard along the edge of his chair and his fingers white against the ends, as if he were physically holding on to reality.
Now, as the shock subsided, his tongue flicked out, wetting his lips, but he still did not speak, just nodding responses to what was being told him.
‘… and that’s the whole account,’ concluded Fletcher Christian. ‘The whole of it.’
The mutineer looked apprehensively across the dimly lit desk at his brother. The lawyer was still very white, he could discern. But the shaking that had erupted at the realisation of who was facing him in the chambers of his London Inn of Court had gone.
When he spoke, Edward Christian’s voice was as dry as the legal texts that lined the room from ceiling to floor and spilled over in places on to chairs and tables.
‘… you committed murder … murder as well as leading a mutiny?’
Fletcher nodded.
‘Quintal killed my wife,’ he defended. ‘He took the last thing from me.’
The lawyer let out a deep sigh, the sound of a man who had been defeated after an arduous fight.
‘So much,’ he said, very softly. ‘I’d achieved so much.’
The sailor frowned, wondering at the remark.
Edward stood at last, the smile forced but held on his face. He hurried around the desk and put his arms on Fletcher’s shoulders, squeezing as if to reassure himself that the man really existed. Then he pulled him from the chair and hugged him, warmly. The man smelt, appallingly. And his face and neck were scabbed and dirty, the lawyer saw. Some of the sores were open and weeping.
‘My God, Fletcher, it’s good to see you … to see you alive …’
The mutineer tensed back from the affection, disconcerted by it, and stood away, relieved, when his brother released him.
‘Some wine … to celebrate at least … and you look as if you could do with some refreshment. You look … you look very tired …’
Close to him for the first time, Edward stumbled to a clumsy halt at the complete awareness of how different Fletcher was from the man he had last seen ten years before. His hair had retained its blackness, but beneath the grime his face was burned to a teak colour and was patterned with suffering. The mouth, once so ready to laugh, was tight and unmoving and the eyes, which Edward remembered so calm and assured, flicked about, never focusing upon one spot for longer than a few seconds.
The man’s demeanour was different, too. The Fletcher Christian whom he had known had been relaxed and confident. The person who stood before him now was never still. When he stood he went constantly from foot to foot, as if tensing himself for sudden flight, and when he sat, he did so with his legs stiff beneath the chair, ready to leap up at the first alarm. He recognised the sort of person who sat before him, the lawyer knew, suddenly. He saw them, every time he entered a court of law: the shifty, cunning habitual criminal.
The thought pricked the rising euphoria. He went quietly to the side table and poured the claret, needing the excuse to get away from the man.
His own brother horrified him, realised Edward.
‘To your return,’ he toasted.
Fletcher looked across the room, sad at the note in his brother’s voice.
‘That’s little to celebrate, I feel,’ he accepted.
‘You’re alive …’ tried Edward.
‘… and as well might not be,’ completed the other man.
The self-pity had been evident throughout the man’s account of the mutiny and his subsequent existence on Pitcairn, recalled Edward. That was another trait in Fletcher’s character of which he had been unaware. And there would be others, he guessed. He hardly knew the man at all, he thought.
Completely recovered, the lawyer went back around his desk and from habit drew paper and quill towards him, a counsel about to make notes of a case.
‘… so that’s why you first thought of desertion, then led the mutiny …’ he reflected, head down at his desk.
‘… I felt you, of all people, deserved the truth,’ said Fletcher, conscious of the despairing criticism.
‘It makes it possible to understand many things that were a mystery to me,’ said the lawyer. Fletcher’s reappearance presented him with an incredible dilemma, he recognised.
‘There was no indication at the court martial?’
‘None,’ said Edward. ‘There was evidence of everything but that.’
‘What was it like, here … the family, I mean?’ stumbled the mutineer. Two hours and he had not enquired after his parents, he realised.
Edward sighed, suddenly aware that his brother had no way of knowing.
‘Our parents are dead,’ he said. ‘There’s little doubt the disgrace was the cause of mother’s passing … I’d managed to reverse the majority of public feeling by the time father died, but he still felt it deeply … it killed him, too, I think.’
Fletcher nodded, showing no emotion. There was no feeling of any sort left, judged Edward, studying him: Fletcher was a hollowed-out man.
‘So Bligh hasn’t remained a hero?’
The fixation was absolute, thought Edward. His brother had dismissed instantly the death of parents he had adored, wanting only to know about Bligh. The damned man was an obsession with them all.
‘Oh no,’ said Edward. ‘Bligh was exposed at the court martial and then again, in many different ways, by the efforts of myself and the Heywood family.’
‘But he’s still being accorded honours and high position,’ said Fletcher.
For the first time his voice had changed from a level monotone, Edward realised, thinking of his earlier impression. His brother still possessed one feeling, he thought. He could still hate.
‘But there’s good point to that,’ said Edward, urgently. ‘We’ve both brought pressure, the Heywoods and myself, to get Bligh confirmed as Governor-General of New South Wales.’
‘Confirmed?’ echoed Fletcher, outraged. ‘Into his most prestig
ious promotion yet! Why, for God’s sake?’
‘Because we know the man,’ lectured Edward. ‘He’s bound to be defeated by events there. Neither he nor Sir Joseph Banks realise how the situation has been manoeuvred …’
Fletcher moved around the room, fingering and then replacing ornaments and books.
‘Are you sure?’ he queried, at last.
‘Sydney is a. hell’s kitchen,’ said Edward, accepting again his brother would know little of the penal colony. ‘It’s defeated two Governor-Generals already who were better men than Bligh. There’s no way he can succeed.’
‘You appear to know a great deal about it,’ prompted Fletcher.
‘I’ve made a point of learning,’ said Edward. ‘One man, John Macarthur, virtually rules the colony. There’s no one richer … he’s even got his own ships and companies, here, in England …’
He paused.
‘… and I am the legal representative in London of these companies.’
Fletcher stopped his aimless wandering, staring fixedly at his brother.
‘Why?’ demanded the mutineer. ‘Why have you done all this? I’m consumed by the man, but for good reason. I cannot understand the degree of your feeling.’
The lawyer hesitated at the question, considering it for the first time. It was perhaps hard to understand, he accepted. But he’d been conducting the campaign for so many years now that the attitude seemed quite natural.
‘He killed our parents,’ Edward tried to explain. ‘When he returned from that incredible voyage to Timor there wasn’t a person of influence or position he didn’t seek out, to sully the Christian name. Our family was ostracised and spat upon for years … he even co-operated in the creation of a theatrical entertainment, in which you were represented a coward and a murderer and laughed at throughout London … for years it was difficult for me to get any lucrative briefs.’
‘… I’II damn your name and you with it in every part of the civilised world …’
Bligh’s threat aboard the Bounty came back to him with the clarity of words spoken only minutes before. The man had kept his vow, Fletcher thought.
‘… I am a coward. And a murderer,’ reminded Fletcher.
Edward shrugged, uncomfortably. Legally there was only one course open to him, he knew.
‘Is that what you meant, about having achieved so much?’
The lawyer nodded.
‘No matter what mitigation there can be … and there is an overwhelming amount, I’ll concede … you’re still a man who has broken the law,’ said Edward. ‘There can be no doubt that you led a mutiny. And by your own admission, you killed.’
‘I’ve made a mistake,’ apologised Fletcher, a cringing tone in his voice. ‘… I’m very good at making mistakes … I’ve embarrassed you, by coming …’
He had already spoken for almost two hours without pause, purging himself by confession, thought Edward. And still he wanted to talk.
‘… but I’ve wanted to come, for so long. I’ve been in London almost a year, labouring in the docks. I’ve watched you so often, from the alley opposite … I know your carriage and your work habits … especially your work habits. That’s how I knew what time to call tonight, after your clerk had gone …’
There was something else about his brother, decided Edward. It wasn’t just the attitude of the criminal. The man looked ill. He was very thin, the lawyer saw. And the clothes he wore were stiff with filth. It was little wonder he could detect the odour from where he sat, several feet away.
‘Where do you live, Fletcher?’ intruded the lawyer.
The mutineer looked up, amused by the question.
‘Live?’ he queried. He smiled, openly, his teeth green and discoloured. ‘Address, you mean? People like me don’t have addresses, Edward. We doss where there’s shelter … in a warehouse, if we are lucky. Among bales, on the wharf, more often than not, among the rats. Or in the hold of a ship we might be unloading …’
The man’s eyes narrowed and he waved a bony hand, cautiously. Cunning permeated his entire body, thought Edward.
‘… got to be careful of press gangs, though. People always disappearing, without a word …’
Edward waited, knowing his brother had not finished.
‘… don’t want to go to sea again, not for a while yet. Took me a long time to get home from South America, after I reached Montevideo on the Topaz. Always suspected that Captain Folger guessed who I was, but he never openly challenged me. I was a useful pair of hands …’
‘Whom did you say you were?’
‘Quintal,’ replied Fletcher, sniggering. ‘Certain justice in that, escaping under the name of the man I’d killed!’
Edward managed to control the shiver of disgust. It genuinely amused his brother, he realised.
‘Knew that the officers would have been told of the fight … staged it so they’d find the body they imagined to be mine while they were there. But I knew the scum on Pitcairn better than they knew themselves. I calculated they wouldn’t have given a true account of the reason and I was right. They hadn’t said a thing to Folger about the rape and killing of Isabella … just called it a dispute between the two of us for the leadership of the community. I told Folger that although I’d succeeded, I’d been frightened they wouldn’t recognise me as the new leader … never believed it, though. Sure he didn’t. Useful hand, though. No point in bothering with too many questions, was there?’
Edward shuddered again, not bothering to hide the reaction this time. What sort of life was it, he asked himself, where a man would be prepared to condone and ignore mutiny and murder just for an extra pair of hands on a sea voyage? Where men just lay where they worked, expecting all the while to be snatched in their sleep and kidnapped to the other side of the world? Fletcher had become a sewer animal, realised the lawyer, just like the furry things that ran over him when he slept in his concealed holes and the parasites which no doubt infested his clothes and body as he sat across the room, physically ill and mentally uncertain.
Fletcher put aside his reminiscence, struggling back to the present, his lips working as he searched for the words.
‘… don’t turn me in,’ he whined, head cocked to one side. ‘Know you should, after what I’ve told you. But give me a chance, eh? Just one chance, that’s all I want.’
How many times would he have pleaded like that, wondered the lawyer, with someone’s hand on his neck and whatever he was stealing still clutched in his hand.
‘… just need a chance, that’s all. Couple of sovereigns wouldn’t go amiss, either …’
‘Stop it!’ shouted Edward, angrily. ‘Stop it!’
Throughout the years, he realised, he had retained in his mind the recollection of an always-laughing Fletcher, debonair in his officer’s uniform, wagering in pennies that he would never repay that he’d become the youngest admiral in the King’s navy, struggling from his seabag bolts of silk and ivory carvings from places their excited mother had never heard of.
And that, stupidly and impractically, was how he had expected him to reappear, if reappear he ever did.
Instead he was confronted by a snivelling, smelling guttersnipe, begging for a few coins that would doubtless be swilled away in the gin houses and taverns of Fleet Street within an hour of being given to him.
‘I’m not going to turn you in,’ announced Edward.
It was a criminal commitment, he recognised. By this action he no longer had the right to wear the silk of the bar and argue right and wrong before the King’s judges.
But he had no alternative, he rationalised. Shame had killed his parents and jeopardised his own career. It had taken years to rebuild the family name. And establish himself in the legal profession. Within two years, he knew, he would be Chief Justice of Ely. The Lord Chancellor had personally promised him the position. To produce that shambling apology of a man squinting at him from across the table and reopen the Bounty affair would create one of the biggest sensations in British jurisprudence
. And destroy everything he had so painstakingly achieved. And more. His brother’s mind would not withstand the strain, Edward thought. Fletcher would be incarcerated in Bedlam, hopelessly insane, before the end of any trial. And he’d never again appear before the English bar.
‘Not going to turn me in?’
It was the question of a man so used to misfortune that any apparent kindness was immediately suspected as a trick that would be the cause of even greater problems.
‘No,’ said Edward, shortly, his resolution strengthening.
‘What then?’
‘I’m going to make you well,’ promised Edward. ‘I’m going to clean you and clothe you and try to restore you as the sort of man you were … the sort of man I once knew.’
Fletcher eyed him warily, still suspicious. Reminded of his destitution, he groped beneath his left arm, scratching.
‘Could do with a bath,’ he remembered. ‘Haven’t had one for …’
He grimaced, then shrugged, abandoning the recollection.
Edward began to stand, anxious now that he had made the decision to begin immediately the rehabilitation of his brother.
‘Another thing,’ stopped Fletcher.
‘What?’
‘Help me destroy Bligh. I know where he lives. I’ve been there even, watched him parade with his daughters, bewigged and dressed in silk, like a popinjay …’
The mutineer groped inside his grime-stiffened jacket and pulled out a blade, twine lashed around one end to form a handle.
‘… was going to kill him, with this. That’s why I really came here, tonight. Knew my identity would come out, if they caught me. Came here to say sorry, in advance, for any trouble I’d cause you …’
The lawyer took the knife from the other man, holding it between the tip of his thumb and forefinger, as if it were contaminated. It was very sharp, he saw, honed for a special purpose.
He put it carefully in the drawer of his desk and locked it.
‘We’ll destroy Bligh,’ he vowed. ‘But not with a knife.’
And he would, decided Edward. What had happened to his brother had made him even more implacably determined to bring about the man’s downfall than he had ever been. He already regarded his association with Macarthur as dangerous. Now he would have to become even more closely linked. But it was necessary for the purpose. Very necessary.
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