Mutiny on the Bounty

by Nordhoff

  Nor were grievances wanting during our passage from Teneriffe to Cape Horn. The people's food on British ships is always bad and always scanty—a fact which in later days caused so many of our seamen to desert to American vessels. But on the Bounty the food was of poorer quality, and issued in scantier quantities, than any man of us had seen before. When Bligh called the ship's company aft to read the order appointing Christian acting lieutenant, he also informed them that, as the length of the voyage was uncertain, and the season so far advanced that it was doubtful whether we should be able to make our way around Cape Horn, it seemed necessary to reduce the allowance of bread to two thirds of the usual amount. Realizing the need for economy, the men received this cheerfully, but continued to grumble about the salt beef and pork.

  We carried no purser. Bligh filled the office himself, assisted by Samuel, his clerk—a smug, tight-lipped little man, of a Jewish cast of countenance, who was believed, not without reason, to be the captain's "narker" or spy among the men. He was heartily disliked by all hands, and it was observed that the man who showed his dislike for Mr. Samuel too openly was apt to find himself in trouble with Lieutenant Bligh. It was Samuel's task to issue the provisions to the cooks of the messes; each time a cask of salt meat was broached, the choicest pieces were reserved for the cabin, and the remainder, scarcely lit for human food, issued out to the messes without being weighed. Samuel would call out "Four pounds," and mark the amount down in his book, when anyone could perceive that the meat would not have weighed three:

  Seamen regard meanness in their own kind with the utmost contempt, and that great rarity in the Service, a mean officer, is looked upon with loathing by his men. They can put up with a harsh captain, but nothing will drive British seamen to mutiny faster than a captain suspected of lining his pockets at their expense.

  While the Bounty was still in the northeast trades, an incident occurred which gave us reason to suspect Bligh of meanness of this kind. The weather was fine, and one morning the main hatch was raised and our stock of cheeses brought up on deck to air. Bligh missed no detail of the management of his ship; he displayed in such matters a smallness of mind scarcely in accord with his commission. This unwillingness to trust those under him to perform their duties is apt to be the defect of the officer risen from the ranks,—or "come in through the hawse-hole," as seamen say,—and is the principal reason why such officers are rarely popular with their men.

  Bligh stood by Hillbrandt, the cooper, while he started the hoops on our casks of cheese and knocked out the heads. Two cheeses, of about fifty pounds weight, were found to be missing from one of the casks, and Bligh flew into one of his passions of rage.

  "Stolen, by God!" he shouted.

  "Perhaps you will recollect, sir," Hillbrandt made bold to say, "that while we were in Deptford the cask was opened by your order and the cheeses carried ashore."

  "You insolent scoundrel! Hold your tongue!"

  Christian and Fryer happened to be on deck at the time, and Bligh included them in the black scowl he gave the men near by. "A damned set of thieves," he went on. "You're all in collusion against me—officers and men. But I'll tame you—by God, I will!" He turned to the cooper. "Another word from you and I'll have you seized up and flogged to the bone." He turned aft on his heel and bawled down the ladderway. "Mr. Samuel! Come on deck this instant."

  Samuel came trotting up to his master obsequiously, and Bligh went on: "Two of the cheeses have been stolen. See that the allowance is stopped—from the officers too, mind you—until the deficiency is made good."

  I could see that Fryer was deeply offended, though he said nothing at the time; as for Christian,—a man of honour,—his feelings were not difficult to imagine. The men had a pretty clear idea of which way the wind blew by this time, and on the next banyan day, when butter alone was served out, they refused it, saying that to accept butter without cheese would be a tacit acknowledgment of the theft. John Williams, one of the seamen, declared publicly in the forecastle that he had carried the two cheeses to Mr. Bligh's house, with a cask of vinegar and some other things which were sent up in a boat from Long Reach.

  As the private stocks of provisions obtained in Spithead now began to run out, all hands went "from grub galore to the King's own," as seamen say. Our bread, which was only beginning to breed maggots, was fairly good, though it needed teeth better than mine to eat the central "reefer's nut"; but our salt meat was unspeakably bad. Meeting Alexander Smith one morning when he was cook to his mess, I was shown a piece of it fresh from the cask—a dark, stony, unwholesome-looking lump, glistening with salt.

  "Have a look, Mr. Byam," he said. "What'll it be, I wonder? Not beef or pork, that's certain! I mind one day on the old Antelope —two years ago, that was—the cooper found three horseshoes in the bottom of a cask!" He shook his pigtail back over his shoulder and shifted a great quid of tobacco to his starboard cheek. "You've seen the victualing yards in Portsmouth, sir? Pass that way any night, and you'll hear the dogs bark and the horses neigh! And I'll tell you something else you young gentlemen don't know." He glanced up and down the deck cautiously and then whispered: "It's as much as a black man's life is worth to pass that way by night! They'd pop him into a cask like that!" He snapped his fingers impressively.

  Smith was a great admirer of Old Bacchus, whom he had known on other ships, and a few days later he handed me a little wooden box. "For the surgeon, sir," he said. "Will you give it to him?"

  It was a snuffbox, curiously wrought of some dark, reddish wood, like mahogany, and very neatly fitted with a lid; a handsome hit of work, carved and polished with a seaman's skill. I found leisure to visit the surgeon the same evening.

  Christian's watch was on duty at the time. Young Tinkler and I were in Mr. Fryer's watch, and the third watch had been placed in charge of Mr. Peckover, a short, powerful man of forty or forty-five, who could scarcely remember a time when he had not been at sea. His good-humoured face had been blackened by the West Indian sun, and his arms were covered with tattooing.

  I found Peckover with the doctor and Nelson—squeezed together on the settee.

  "Come in," cried the surgeon. "Wait a bit, my lad—I think I can make a place for you."

  He sprang up with surprising agility and pushed a small cask into the doorway. Peckover held the spigot open while the wine poured frothing into a pewter pint. I delivered the snuffbox before I sat down on my cask, pint in hand.

  "From Smith, you say?" asked the surgeon. "Very handsome of him! Very handsome indeed! I remember Smith well on the old Antelope —eh, Peckover? I have a recollection that I used to treat him to a drop of grog now and then. And why not, I say! A thirsty man goes straight to my heart." He glanced complacently about his cabin, packed to the hammock battens with small casks of spirits and wine. "Thank God that neither I nor my friends shall go thirsty on this voyage!"

  Nelson stretched out his hand for the snuffbox and examined it with interest. "I shall always marvel," he remarked, "at the ingenuity of our seamen. This would be a credit to any craftsman ashore, with all the tools of his trade. And a fine bit of wood, handsomely polished, too! Mahogany, no doubt, though the grain seems different."

  Bacchus looked at Peckover quizzically, and the gunner returned the look, grinning.

  "Wood?" said the surgeon. "Well, I have heard it called that, and worse. Wood that once bellowed—aye, and neighed and harked, if the tales be true. In plain English, my dear Nelson, your mahogany is old junk, more politely called salt beef—His Majesty's own!"

  "Good Lord!" exclaimed Nelson, examining the snuffbox in real astonishment.

  "Aye, salt beef! Handsome as any mahogany and quite as durable. Why, it had been proposed to sheathe our West India frigates with it—a material said to defy the attacks of the toredo worm!"

  I took the little box from Nelson's hand, to inspect it with a new interest. "Well, I'm damned!" I thought.

  Old Bacchus had rolled up his sleeve and was pouring a train of snuff along hi
s shaven and polished forearm. With a loud sniffing sound it disappeared up his nose. He sneezed, blew his nose violently on an enormous blue handkerchief, and filled his tankard with mistela .

  "A glass of wine with you gentlemen!" he remarked, and poured the entire pint down his throat without taking breath. Mr. Peckover glanced at his friend admiringly.

  "Aye, Peckover," said the surgeon, catching his eye, "nothing like a nip of salt beef to give a man a thirst. Let the cook keep his slush. Give me a bit of the lean, well soaked and boiled, and you can have all the steaks and cutlets ashore. Begad! Just suppose, now, that we were all wrecked on a desert island, without a scrap to eat. I'd pull out my snuffbox and have one meal, at any rate, while the rest of you went hungry!"

  "So you would, surgeon, so you would," said the gunner in his rumbling voice, grinning from ear to ear.

  CHAPTER IV.—TYRANNY

  One sultry afternoon, before we picked up the southeast trades, Bligh sent his servant to bid me sup with him. Since the great cabin was taken up with our breadfruit garden, the captain messed on the lower deck, in an apartment on the larboard side, extending from the hatch to the bulkhead abaft the mainmast. I dressed myself with some care, and, going aft, found that Christian was my fellow guest. The surgeon and Fryer messed regularly with Bligh, but Old Bacchus had excused himself this evening.

  There was a fine show of plate on the captain's table, but when the dishes were uncovered I saw that Bligh fared little better than his men. We had salt beef, in plenty for once, and the pick of the cask, bad butter, and worse cheese, from which the long red worms had been hand-picked, a supply of salted cabbage, believed to prevent scurvy, and a dish heaped with the mashed pease seamen call "dog's body."

  Mr. Bligh, though temperate in the use of wine, attacked his food with more relish than most officers would care to display. Fryer was a rough, honest old seaman, but his manners at table put the captain's to shame; yet Christian, who had been a mere master's mate only a few days before, supped fastidiously despite the coarseness of the food. Christian was on the captain's right, Fryer on his left, and I sat opposite, facing him. The talk had turned to the members of the Bounty's company.

  "Damn them!" said Bligh, his mouth full of beef and pease, which he continued to chew rapidly as he spoke. "A lazy, incompetent lot of scoundrels! God knows a captain has trials enough without being cursed with such a crew! The dregs of the public houses..." He swallowed violently and filled his mouth once more. "That fellow I had flogged yesterday; what was his name, Mr. Fryer?"

  "Burkitt," replied the master, a little red in the face.

  "Yes, Burkitt, the insolent hound! And they're all as bad. I'm damned if they know a sheet from a tack!"

  "I venture to differ with you, sir," said the master. "I should call Smith, Quintal, and McCoy first-class seamen, and even Burkitt, though he was in the wrong..."

  "The insolent hound!" repeated Bligh violently, interrupting the master. "At the slightest report of misconduct, I shall have him seized up again. Next time it will be four dozen, instead of two!"

  Christian caught my eye as the captain spoke. "If I may express an opinion, Mr. Bligh," he said quietly, "Burkitt's nature is one to tame with kindness rather than with blows."

  Bligh's short, harsh laugh rang out grimly. "La-di-da, Mr. Christian! On my word, you should apply for a place as master in a young ladies' seminary! Kindness, indeed! Well, I'm damned!" He took up a glass of the reeking ship's water, rinsing his mouth preparatory to an attack on the sourcrout. "A fine captain you'll make if you don't heave overboard such ridiculous notions. Kindness! Our seamen and kindness as well as they and Greek! Fear is what they do understand! Without that, mutiny and piracy would be rife on the high seas!"

  "Aye," admitted Fryer, as if regretfully. "There is some truth in that."

  Christian shook his head. "I cannot agree," he said courteously. "Our seamen do not differ from other Englishmen. Some must be ruled by fear, it is true, but there are others, and finer men, who will follow a kind, just, and fearless officer to the death."

  "Have we any such paragons on board?" asked the captain sneeringly. "In my opinion, sir," said Christian, speaking in his light and courteous manner, "we have, and not a few."

  "Now, by God! Name one!"

  "Mr. Purcell, the carpenter. He..."

  This time Bligh laughed long and loud. "Damme!" he exclaimed, "you're a fine judge of men! That stubborn, thick-headed old rogue! Kindness...Ah, that's too good!"

  Christian flushed, controlling his hot temper with an effort. "You won't have the carpenter, I see," he said lightly: "then may I suggest Morrison, sir?"

  "Suggest to your heart's content," answered Bligh scornfully. "Morrison? The gentlemanly boatswain's mate? The sheep masquerading as a wolf? Kindness? Morrison's too damned kind now!"

  "But a fine seaman, sir," put in Fryer gruffly; "he has been a midshipman, and is a gentleman born."

  "I know, I know!" said Bligh in his most offensive way; "and no higher in my estimation for all that." He turned to me, with what he meant to be a courteous smile. "Saving your presence, Mr. Byam, damn all midshipmen, I say! There could be no worse schools than the berth for the making of sea officers!" He turned to Christian once more, and his manner changed to an unpleasant truculence.

  "As for Morrison, let him take care! I've my eye on him, for I can see that he spares the cat. A boatswain's mate who was not a gentleman would have had half the hide off Burkitt's back. Let him take care, I say! Let him lay on when I give the word or, by God, I'll have him seized up for a lesson from the boatswain himself!"

  I perceived, as the meal went on, that the captain's mess was anything but a congenial one. Fryer disliked the captain, and had not forgotten the incident of the cheeses. Bligh made no secret of his dislike for the master, whom he often upbraided before the men on deck; and he felt for Christian a contempt he was at no pains to conceal.

  I was not surprised, a few days later, to learn from Old Bacchus that Christian and the master had quitted the captain's mess, leaving Bligh to dine and sup alone. We were south of the line by this time.

  At Teneriffe, we had taken on board a large supply of pumpkins, which now began to show symptoms of spoiling under the equatorial sun. As most of them were too large for the use of Bligh's table, Samuel was ordered to issue them to the men in lieu of bread. The rate of exchange—one pound of pumpkin to replace two pounds of bread—was considered unfair by the men, and when Bligh was informed of this he came on deck in a passion and called all hands. Samuel was then ordered to summon the first man of every mess.

  "Now," exclaimed Bligh violently, "let me see who will dare to refuse the pumpkins, or anything else I order to be served. You insolent rascals! By God! I'll make you eat grass before I've done with you!"

  Everyone now took the pumpkins, not excepting the officers, though the amount was so scanty that it was usually thrown together by the men, the cooks of the different messes drawing lots for the whole. There was some murmuring, particularly among the officers, but the grievance might have ended there had not all hands begun to believe that the casks of beef and pork were short of their weight. This had been suspected for some time, as Samuel could never be prevailed on to weigh the meat when opened, and at last the shortage became so obvious that the people applied to the master, begging that he would examine into the affair and procure them redress. Bligh ordered all hands aft at once.

  "So you've complained to Mr. Fryer, eh?" he said, shortly and harshly. "You're not content! Let me tell you, by God, that you'd better make up your minds to be content! Everything that Mr. Samuel does is done by my orders, do you understand? My orders! Waste no more time in complaints, for you will get no redress! I am the only judge of what is right and wrong. Damn your eyes! I'm tired of you and your complaints! The first man to complain from now on will be seized up and flogged."

  Perceiving that no redress was to be hoped for before the end of the voyage, the men resolved to bear their suffer
ings with patience, and neither murmured nor complained from that time. But the officers, though they dared make no open complaints, were less easily satisfied and murmured frequently among themselves of their continual state of hunger, which they thought was due to the fact that the captain and his clerk had profited by the victualing of the ship. Our allowance of food was so scanty that the men quarreled fiercely over the division of it in the galley, and when several men had been hurt it became necessary for the master's mate of the watch to superintend the division of the food.

  About a hundred leagues off the coast of Brazil, the wind chopped around to north and northwest, and I realized that we had reached the southern limit of the southeast trades. It was here, in the region of variable westerlies, that the Bounty was becalmed for a day or two, and the people employed themselves in fishing, each mess risking a part of its small allowance of salt pork in hopes of catching one of the sharks that swam about the ship.

  The landsman turns up his nose at the shark, but, to a sailor craving fresh meat, the flesh of a shark under ten feet in length is a veritable luxury. The larger sharks have a strong rank smell, but the flesh of the small ones, cut into slices like so many beefsteaks, parboiled first and then broiled with plenty of pepper and salt, eats very well indeed, resembling codfish in flavour.

  I tasted shark for the first time one evening off the Brazilian coast. It was dead calm; the sails hung slack from the yards, only moving a little when the ship rolled to a gently northerly swell. John Mills, the gunner's mate, stood forward abreast of the windlass, with a heavy line coiled in his hand. He was an old seaman, one of Christian's watch—a man of forty or thereabouts who had served in the West Indies on the Mediator , Captain Cuthbert Collingwood. I disliked the man,—a tall, rawboned, dour old salt,—but I watched with interest as he prepared his bait. Two of his messmates stood by, ready to bear a hand—Brown, the assistant botanist, and Norman, the carpenter's mate. The mess had contributed the large piece of salt pork now going over the side; they shared the risk of losing the bait without results, as they would share whatever Mills was fortunate enough to catch. A shark about ten feet long had just passed under the bows. I craned my neck to watch.