by Graeme Lay
20 JANUARY 1790
Fletcher and Isabella sat on the lip of rock they had already named ‘The Edge’, which overlooked the bay on the north-east coast of the island. Bounty had been brought close in two days ago. All sails furled, she rode at anchor below them. Some of her fittings were being carried up the steep track from the bay by the Tahitian men and women. Adams had christened the track the Hill of Difficulty. To Fletcher he explained, ‘The name comes from another Christian, and another pilgrim’s progress.’ Ned had been reading Bligh’s copy of John Bunyan’s allegory to Adams.
His arm around Isabella, Fletcher said, ‘I will build a house for us here.’
‘On this rock?’
He laughed. ‘No. On this side of the island. In a sheltered place.’
‘That will be so good.’ She put her head on his shoulder. ‘Titereano . . .’
‘What is it?’
She placed a hand on her belly. ‘I have no toto now. No bleeding.’
‘For how long?’
‘One and a half moons.’
He stared at her, absorbing the implications of this. Did it mean what he thought it did?
‘I talked about the no bleeding with Jenny last night. She knows about such things.’ Isabella gave a sigh. ‘I am hapu, Titereano.’
‘Pregnant.’
‘Preg-nant.’ She kept her hand on her belly. ‘Tamari’i is in here. Our tamari’i.’
With a surge of joy, Fletcher drew her closer to him. A child. Their child. To be born on this island they had discovered. He pressed his lips to her forehead. ‘Isabella, ua here vauia oe. I love you.’
‘Ae, ae.’
Then he thought, our tribulations are over. They had found their sanctuary. Here they would live in freedom, in a real Utopia. He would be a father, and a landowner. Here they would raise their children on their own land. His sons would inherit their property. Their sons, too.
He looked down at the bay, where Bounty was rolling in the swells. From now on, everything was going to be the way he had hoped it would. They had a secure future now, all of them.
23 January 1790
Most of us are now living in shelters made from Bounty’s sails, pulled over a frame of tree boughs. The encampment is a little way back from the cliff edge, in a grove above the place we have named ‘Bounty Bay’. The ship itself has been brought in closer and made fast to the land with cables and grapnels. For some reason a few prefer to live aboard the ship with their women, among them Quintal and his Sarah and McCoy and his Mary. This puzzles me, as the shore camp is much more spacious. Could Q. and Mc. be draining the last of the ship’s liquor?
Onshore, we white men and our women are in one area, while the six native men and their three women — Nancy, Mareva and Tinafanaea — have occupied an area further away. This was their choice, as they seem to want to be separate from us. Our accommodation is adequate for the time being, until we build proper houses.
Everything which will be of use to us has been taken off the ship: pigs, goats and chickens, plants and seeds, carpenter’s tools and nails, armourer’s forge, iron ballast, weapons and ammunition, sails, buckets, cooking equipment, cutlery and crockery, spare spars, cordage, seine nets, fishing lines, cabin fittings, hammocks, ladders, companionways and rails, the livestock pens. I ensured that Bligh’s books, charts, writing paper, ink and quills were among the first items to be transferred. They are safe in my shelter.
Everything will be useful to us!
Not wanting to risk losing the cutter, I devised a system whereby two rafts were improvised from the ship’s hatches. The goods were lashed to them, then hauled ashore with ropes by our women. All the materials are now stowed, out of reach of the tide, at the foot of the cliff at Bounty Bay. It will take many more days of hard labour before everything is lugged up the Hill of Difficulty to the Edge.
I have made it very clear to everyone that by dint of my naval rank and the fact that I succeeded in bringing them to this haven, that I am to be in charge of the community. Ned is my appointed deputy. Our settlement must have regulations and it must be disciplined. Nearly all appear to accept this.
In my capacity as leader I have already declared certain edicts.
Firstly, no fires are to be lit during the daylight hours, since smoke could attract the attention of a passing vessel. Secondly, a lookout watch must be kept during the day. This is to be held at the top of the headland in the north of the island, which we have named Lookout Point. Ned has set a roster for this watch. Thirdly, I insisted that the materials unladen from the ship are to be available for everyone’s use. They are a communal resource, kept under canvas above the Edge. After any of the tools are used, they are to be returned there. There is not to be any personal usurpation of the implements or materials.
As I issued these regulations, a certain resentment emanated from some of the men, in particular the habitually intractable Quintal, McCoy and Williams. ‘We’ve had a gutsful of rules,’ McCoy declared. ‘We’re free men now.’ Fixing him with my harshest look, I told him, ‘Without rules we will not survive. Light a fire by day and it will be seen from the ocean. And that will mean the end of our refuge. And if we do not share the resources, a few will thrive but the majority will not. Do you not understand that?’
Avoiding my gaze, McCoy looked down and mumbled, ‘Aye.’ Troublemakers, like bullies, must be stood up to.
Isabella continues to be a tower of support for me, fully deserving of the men’s name for her, ‘Mainmast’. We are both delighted in the knowledge that our child will be born before the year is out.
After reconnoitring the island thoroughly, I have selected a plot of land in the north-west for Isabella and myself. There I will build our house.
Being high-born, Isabella is the natural leader of the Tahitian women. All of them appreciate their new freedoms. They prepare the food, but no longer are they obliged to eat it separately from the men. We all eat together, under a canopy. The native men show some antipathy towards me for permitting this, particularly Tetahiti and Niau, who were chiefs on their home islands. But as I emphasise to them, ours is a different community, with rules unique to our circumstances.
We all relish our new diet. What a difference from what we endured during those long weeks at sea! We have fresh fish daily, caught with ease with a line from the rocks in the bay. The women gather seabirds’ eggs from cliff ledges. We have breadfruit, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, taro, plantains — all of which grow wild. Plentiful coconuts too. Here we gather and share the nuts, and I have no fear of being accused of stealing anyone else’s! Our pigs, chickens and goats run free. They too will breed, giving us a source of fresh meat and . . .’
‘Titereano!’
Isabella’s cry came from the direction of the Edge, a hundred yards from their shelter. Fletcher closed his journal and sprinted down the hill. Before he got there he smelt, then saw, what was alarming her.
Smoke and flames, rising from the bay.
Bounty was ablaze. Flames engulfed her and smoke spiralled upwards. As Fletcher, Isabella and the others stared at the inferno, shocked at the sight, there was an explosion in the ship’s stern. A shower of sparks like a fireworks display, then another, burst from her superstructure. Where the flames met the water, steam fizzed and billowed. As they watched, too stunned to speak, the mainmast toppled like a felled oak. Freed of its rigging, the mast crashed for’ard onto the foredeck, sending up another shower of sparks.
Fletcher felt part of his world collapsing. His home for more than three years, the ship in which he had crossed the world, and the South Sea, being destroyed before his eyes. This must have been deliberate.
‘Who did this?’ he asked bitterly.
Isabella pointed. ‘There. By the rocks.’
Quintal and McCoy were sitting on the sand above the bay. Quintal held a rum bottle. He swigged from it, then passed it to McCoy. Fletcher began to run, and slide, down the hill.
‘Did you do this?’ he demanded of Quinta
l.
The Cornishman grinned. ‘We both did. Me and Will. Set fire to a cask of pitch from the carpenter’s store.’
McCoy guffawed. ‘And up the old girl went. Whoom!’ He took another swig of rum.
‘Why?’ Fletcher demanded, bunching his fists, wanting to hit both of them. He could feel the heat from the burning ship on his back, hear the crackle of blazing timbers, smell the tarry stench of Bounty’s cremation. She was by now burnt almost to the waterline.
‘Why?’ Quintal echoed, then belched. Dribble ran down his chin. ‘Cos the niggers could of used it to sail away, with our women, and leave us civilised men behind.’
For a few moments Fletcher was speechless with fury. At the lack of consultation, and the thoughtlessness and destructiveness of the act. He advanced on the pair, fists still clenched. ‘And now we have no means of leaving this island, should we wish to.’
McCoy sniggered. ‘Why should we leave? We’ve only just arrived.’
Quintal laughed mockingly. ‘Christian, Christian, don’t be upset.’ He waved a hand at the burning hulk. ‘Before, Bounty’s mainmast were sticking up as tall and stiff as a nigger’s cock. It were bound to draw attention. But now, no ship will ever see her, and find us.’
Fletcher turned away. Although sickened by the arson, he knew Quintal was right. This would help them evade attention and likely capture. But he also knew that now their only connection to the outside world had been destroyed. And as a consequence, all twenty-eight souls had been sentenced to life on this lonely crag in the middle of the South Sea.
1 OCTOBER 1790
It took eight months for Fletcher to build a one-room house for him and Isabella. Located on a large plot of land he had allocated them, the house was in a hollow. Sheltered from all but winds directly from the north, the site was surrounded by forest trees, banana and coconut palms. Made from posts of tamanu and planking from the Bounty, the house was roofed with several layers of coconut palm fronds. The lockable door Fletcher had also purloined from the Bounty. It was the door of Bligh’s cabin, with its nameplate removed. There was a spring two minutes’ walk from the house, bubbling from a cavity in the forest. Its water was cool and pure.
Building the house had been a labour of love, taking him from dawn to dusk every day for the thirty weeks. The others were building houses too, so the Bounty’s saws, hammers and axes had to be shared, the nails distributed among the builders. He and Isabella’s house was some distance from the rest, something which pleased him. Already the others had given the property a name: Down Fletcher.
When the house was finished, he began to clear a plot of land and dig a garden. This was on the upland near the centre of the island, a twenty-minute hike up from the house, on the area they had named ‘Flatland’, since it was the largest area of level terrain on the island. A giant banyan tree grew beside the garden, sheltering it from the south-west wind.
He took pleasure in the physical effort of building the house and starting the garden. The work was hard but fulfilling and he had never felt so fit and strong. Now tanned as dark as the native men, he also wore his hair tied in a topknot, island-style.
‘You are like Tahitian man now,’ Isabella told him one morning, as she plucked hairs from his chest. ‘Not English man any more.’
When they were able to sleep in their house, he and Isabella felt contented. At last, a place of their own, where they were free to be themselves. How different from the poky, airless conditions aboard Bounty, and how good it was to be away from the prying eyes of shipmates and neighbours!
After negotiations, Fletcher and Ned had divided the island into nine sections for themselves and the other seven white men. The six native men and their three women were allocated no land as such: they were told to settle wherever they wanted to, so long as it was outside the boundaries of the white men’s properties.
The land the natives chose was a little way back from the cliff above Bounty Bay. Here, on level land, they built six rudimentary houses from salvaged materials, old sails and palm fronds.
Quintal, McCoy and Williams made something clear from the beginning — the native men were to make themselves available for physical labour, such as cutting firewood and carrying water for them.
Fletcher took issue with them over this, and admonished the trio. ‘They’re not your servants. They have rights too.’
The others scoffed at this. ‘We’re landed fuckin’ aristocracy now, Christian,’ McCoy told him. ‘And as aristos, we have to have servants. That’s what the niggers are for.’
But when Quintal, McCoy and Williams tried to order the native men about, their leaders resisted. Tetahiti spat at the white men’s feet. ‘You are not ari’i. On my island, I am ari’i. Ohoo is my servant.’
‘But you ain’t on your island now, sunshine,’ Quintal sneered. ‘You’re on our island.’
Tetahiti strode away, muttering imprecations beyond their understanding.
Resentment began to seethe, attitudes began to harden.
Unable to settle these tensions, Fletcher divided his time between the house and his garden. His vegetable plot was about thirty yards square. It had first to be cleared of the rampant weed which covered the ground, but once he stripped it away with a mattock, then dug the earth over, it was suitable for planting.
When the spring rains came the soil was well watered, and nourished the seeds he planted. Following Brown’s suggestions he sowed beans, pumpkin, melons, carrots, cabbages and corn. He also planted tubers from the yams and sweet potatoes that grew wild on the island, and sugar cane.
The crops thrived. Six months after the seeds were planted he and Isabella were eating their own beans and cabbages. She cooked fish, shellfish and pork in the umu next to the house. The fish and meat scraps Fletcher buried in his garden, to increase the soil’s fertility. And with the warmer weather of September, the vegetables grew faster than ever.
In Isabella’s womb, the baby grew too.
Fletcher was hoeing a row of beans when a call came wafting up from the bush below Flatland.
‘Tit-er-re- ano! Te fanau ra oia i tana ai’u!’
The baby is coming! It was the voice of Jenny, Martin’s woman and Isabella’s friend. Fletcher dropped his mattock and ran down through the trees. Jenny had raced back ahead of him and the house door was closed. From inside he could hear loud cries. Heart racing, he banged on the door. ‘Isabella!’
‘Mamoo! Do not come in! Wait there!’ This was Jenny’s voice.
He sank down against the wall. Jenny had reckoned the baby’s arrival would be about now. Inside the house, the cries turned to screams, punctuated by sobbing. Fletcher crouched, sweating and anxious, feeling useless.
The cries continued. Then, after another hour, he heard a different cry, long and low, of prolonged relief. Then yet another, reedy and uncertain at first, then stronger. This was followed by high-pitched laughter, and cries of ‘Ae, ae, manuia, Mauatua! E tama!’
The door swung open. Jenny, her face flushed, her hands bloody, beckoned him in.
Isabella was lying on the pandanus sleeping mat, naked and bleeding. While Jenny wiped her face and neck with a pad of bark cloth, her eyes were fixed on the small creature who lay beside her. Its round face was scrunched into a red knot and its body was streaked with blood. The genitals were disproportionately large for the small body and the umbilical cord, still attached, and the placenta, lay in a heap beside the baby. Over the mother and baby hung the smell of blood, sweat, coconut and gardenia oil.
Isabella looked up at Fletcher. Although her eyes were bloodshot, her expression was radiant. ‘Tama. A son for us,’ she murmured.
Fletcher stared in wonder at the newborn. As he did so the baby gasped, drew in a breath, then let out a bellow so loud Fletcher thought it would bring the palm-frond ceiling down upon them. It bellowed over and over again, as if testing and approving of its own strength.
There was a canvas bucket of water beside Isabella. In it was a pair of sailmaker’
s shears from the ship. Handing them to Fletcher, Jenny said ‘You cut.’
Not understanding at first, she pointed to the cord that joined the baby to the afterbirth. Hands trembling, Fletcher opened the shears and sliced through the cord. The baby yelled again. Jenny passed it to Isabella. Clutching the baby, she offered it her breast. It took the nipple, then sucked greedily. Isabella stared down dreamily at the child.
Too moved to speak, Fletcher stared in wonder at their feeding son. New life, created by Isabella and himself. Until this moment he had thought that the carnal act was merely for gratification. He now appreciated that it also prefigured the creation of life. And this child, their newborn son, was the result of a special kind of union, one between England and Tahiti, between the old world and the new. It was a miracle.
When the baby had finished feeding, Jenny took it, rubbed its back until it brought up wind, then wrapped it in a length of bark cloth. Then, rocking him gently, she closed her eyes and intoned a blessing:
‘Ia haamaitaihia oe no tea ho ora ta oe i ho ma i te hotu o te here o na metua nei! Mauruuru no to oe here ia raua, e no tei o faahia hia ta oe e pupu nei a raua.’
Although Fletcher couldn’t understand it all, he caught the gist of Jenny’s benediction to the Tahitian gods. ‘Thank you for this new life that you have given to these loving parents. Thank you for your love for them and this marvellous gift you offer them.’
‘Mauruuru, Jenny,’ he said, then kissed Isabella softly on her cheek. ‘And mauruuru to you, Isabella, for our son.’
In hours the whole community knew of the birth at Down Fletcher, a first for the island’s community. His parents named him Thursday October, after his birth day and date.
The women brought pulau blooms and the sweet-scented flowers they called aalihau. They also brought baked breadfruit and bananas boiled in coconut milk. The men brought cooked groper, mullet, tuna and butterfish. Martin brought a bottle of Canary Islands wine he had been hoarding; Adams brought a little turtle he had carved from tamanu wood. But there were no gifts or visits from Quintal, McCoy or Williams.