by Graeme Lay
Gardener Brown brought something else. He opened his hand to Fletcher. In it were four acorns. ‘I took these onto the Bounty. They’re from Richmond Park in London. Thought I might plant them in Tahiti.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘But I forgot about them. Now they should be planted here. My woman Teatuahitea tells me that a tree should grow where a baby’s afterbirth’s been buried. It’s a Tahitian tradition. The mother and child then know that part of them nourishes the tree.’
Nodding, Fletcher took the handful of acorns. He would plant them, and bury the afterbirth beside their house, so that a very English tree — an oak — would be joined with this very Tahitian belief.
7 November 1792
I write mainly to record the birth of another Christian.
We have a second son, a brother for Thursday October! He was born this morning, with Isabella again assisted by the ever-dependable Jenny. He is a fine, healthy baby, like his brother. Isabella and I agreed that he should be named after my brother, Charles. I can never forget Charles’s advice to me regarding a despotic sea captain. Without Charles’s counsel, our second son may never have been born. If we are blessed with another, he will be named after brother Edward.
Isabella is a wonderful mother, devoted to her baby sons. I sometimes hear her murmuring to them the endearments she once said to me! Never mind, her love and caring will ensure that they grow up strong, healthy and respectful to their parents. Not really remembering my own father, I am determined that my sons will know and love theirs.
Our community continues to be fully occupied. There is always much to do: gardening, weeding, fishing, building. The free-foraging pigs are a pest, necessitating the building of walls around the gardens. The stones of the old maraes prove excellent for this purpose, so we have dismantled all of them. The Tahitian men reproached us for this, especially after some human remains were found beneath the marae stones.
‘Ra’a,’ Tetahiti said severely, when he saw me carrying some of the stones away for my garden wall. ‘Taboo.’
‘I need them,’ I rejoined, ‘for my garden wall. And the maraes were old and abandoned.’
Tetahiti fell silent, but his expression remained disapproving. I was unapologetic, however; we cannot allow ancient superstitions to override our present endeavours.
Having seen pictures of English women in a book from Bounty’s library, the women have made gowns for themselves, from Bounty’s sails. Cut out with shears and stitched together, the canvas makes hard-wearing garments. The women are delighted with them. Making clothing this way is far less tedious and time-consuming than beating cloth from the bark of the pulau shrubs!
More children have been born this year. Quintal and McCoy’s women, Sarah and Mary, have both been delivered of sons, and Mills’ woman, Vahineatua, has presented him with a daughter. In this way our community grows.
But it is not a contented one. Isabella tells me that Quintal and McCoy beat their women, something I find reprehensible. She also tells me that Mary has to protect Sully, her little daughter, whom she brought with her from Tahiti. The behaviour of McCoy, Quintal and Williams becomes more thuggish by the day. Last week, after Ohoo was slow at bringing them a meal, they tied him to a tree and McCoy flogged him with Bounty’s cat-o’-nine-tails. Quintal then rubbed salt into his gashes. A despicable act that appalled me. But how can I stop such acts? We have no authority over the trio any more. They are a law unto themselves.
There is also unhappiness in the native camp. The three Tahitian women, Nancy, Tinafanaea and Mareva, must endure much carnal attention from the six native men. This makes them dejected, particularly poor Mareva, who must suffer the untrammelled lust of the three Tahitian commoners. No wonder she displays an unhappy expression.
The watch from Lookout Point is still maintained during the daylight hours, but we continue to see nothing but empty ocean. A nearby natural feature, a hollow in the cliff face below the lookout, has become a favourite place of mine. Already the others refer to it as ‘Christian’s Cave’. It is a hard climb to get there, but worth it, since there I can be alone with my thoughts. At least once a week I climb to the hollow and sit for hours, reflecting on what happened since I left England.
I wonder, often, what happened to Bligh and his eighteen loyalists. Are they dead or alive? Will I ever know? And my family, what of them?
These unanswerable questions bring me a melancholic disposition, relieved only by thoughts of Isabella and our children.
There has been a death. Williams’ woman, Fa’ahotu, fell and was killed while collecting seabirds’ eggs at the place we call St Paul’s Point. She slipped on gravel and plunged to the rocks below. This was bad enough, but to make matters worse, Williams has demanded a replacement woman. This is Nancy, the consort of the young chief from Raiatea, Tararo. Hearing of this demand, I urged Williams to desist. I told him, ‘You can have Sully, when she’s old enough.’ He looked at me as if I was insane. ‘She’s four now. You expect me to not fuck anyone for ten years?’
I walked away, fearing that no good can come of this situation.
McCoy, Quintal and Williams forced the native men to draw lots. The result was that Nancy received the short straw. The unruly trio then took her from Tararo, against her will, and handed her over to Williams.
All this was reported to Ned and me by Martin, who witnessed the shameful proceedings but was powerless to stop it.
Isabella, holding little Charles, looked afraid. ‘It’s Tararo, Titereano.’
‘What about him?’
‘Vahineatua told me that he, and Tetahiti and Ohoo, are planning to kill the Bounty men. She saw them sharpening axes.’
‘That’s probably just boastful talk.’
Clutching the baby, the creases in her brow deepened. ‘I worry. At the spring today, I heard Vahineatua singing a Tahitian song. It is an old song, but she was giving it new words. She is singing, “Why does black man sharpen axe? To kill white man”.’ She shivered. ‘I am frightened, Titereano.’
Fletcher considered this. Was Vahineatua right? Could the warning be genuine? Perhaps. The Tahitians were certainly aggrieved. In any event, it was time he reasserted his authority, or what little of it was left. He told Isabella, ‘I’ll go up and speak to Tararo and the others.’
He loaded his musket with small shot and slipped his unloaded pistol into his belt. Then he walked up to the native encampment. Tararo, Tetahiti and Ohoo were seated under a tree, whittling driftwood. There was no sign of the women. A long-handled axe was leaning against the tree trunk. As he approached, musket at his hip, the men got to their feet. Tararo spoke first.
‘What you want, Titereano?’ he demanded.
‘I want no trouble. I want peace between us.’
‘Peace?’ Tararo gave a bitter laugh. ‘White men only want peace so they can attack black men.’ He made a slashing gesture with his hand. ‘Bounty men are bad. They whip Ohoo, they steal my wife.’
‘That won’t happen again. I will talk again to Williams. Tell him to give Nancy back to you.’
Tararo sneered. ‘Hah! Williams take no notice of you. White men only take notice of this.’ He turned and picked up the axe. The other two crouched, seeming ready to attack.
Fletcher squeezed the musket trigger. It fired, showering the three men with small shot. They yelled and put their arms over their faces. Bluffing, Fletcher pulled the unprimed pistol from his belt and aimed it. When he did the three men turned and ran, up the rise that led to the bush on the other side of the island.
He made his way back to the house, close to despair. Things were falling apart. The island was becoming corrupted from within. It was like some exotic fruit, ripe and lovely on the outside, but with a core that was decaying. The island was rotting with carnal envy and racial hatred. It was a long way from More’s Utopia. Was there a word for the opposite of Utopia? He didn’t know, but if there was one, Pitcairn was turning into it.
How could he stop the rot? Incarcerate McCoy, Quintal and Williams?
Impossible, without provoking retaliation. Arrest the native men? That too would invite violence. Could the wounds in the community ever be healed?
He could see no way that they could.
His despondency deepened. He needed to return to his cave.
20 SEPTEMBER 1793
He slid down the slope below the escarpment. Since the single musket shot there had been no more. But the shot had come from Down Fletcher. Had there been a killing there? If so, who was it? Heart pumping, he reached the trail at the foot of the slope and broke into a run. Past the boulders and the taypau trees, then up through the forest to the house. In front of it he stopped. A musket — his musket — was leaning against the front wall of the house. From inside came the sounds of crying. Female crying. Confused, he pushed the door open a little.
Jenny’s face appeared. There was a wet cloth in her hands.
‘What’s happening?’ Fletcher demanded. ‘Who fired the musket?’
‘I did. To tell you that you needed to come. And to know.’
‘Know what?’
‘That the next baby is coming.’
Fletcher exhaled with relief. ‘How much longer will it be?’
‘I think, toru.’
Three hours. He nodded, then was struck by another thought. ‘Where are Thursday and Charles?’
‘At Brown’s. With Teatuahitea.’
Fletcher heaved another sigh. They would be safe there. From inside came another cry. Jenny turned. ‘Mauatua. I must be with her.’
‘Yes, yes.’ The door closed.
Three hours. He was useless here. He would go up to the garden and work for a couple of hours, then return in time for the baby’s arrival.
He went to the spring, drank from it and filled his water flask. Three years, three babies. That compensated for all the rest of it. Then, mattock over his shoulder, he climbed up through the bush to Flatland.
The garden was flush with spring growth. The beans were entwining themselves around their poles, the sweet corn was three feet high already, the pumpkin plants were sending out tendrils. But the weeds too were prolific, shooting up between the rows, threatening to choke the yams. He took a swig from the water bottle, set it aside, picked up the mattock and began to hoe between the rows of yams.
‘Titereano.’
Tararo, coming around the banyan. Barefoot, hair tied up, wearing grubby sailor’s trousers. Musket in hand, hatchet at his belt. The whites of his eyes stood out in his dark, fuming face.
Fletcher stood up. He gripped the mattock with one hand, let the other fall. ‘What do you want?’ he said, calmly.
Tararo’s eyes bulged. ‘I want this!’
He brought the musket up to his shoulder, and fired.
Fletcher flew back, his chest struck. Gasping, he clutched at his heart. Through the fiery shock came a parade of faces. MotherEdwardCharlesJohnIsabellaIsabella. Blood spurted from his chest and gushed over his hands. The faces vanished, blackness rushed in. He fell.
Tararo laid the musket on the ground and took the hatchet from his belt. With hard, deft movements he chopped through the neck. When it was severed he picked up the head up by its hair. He grunted with satisfaction at the staring eyes, the gaped mouth, the bleeding neck and ragged sinews, the severed spinal column. Done.
He lobbed the head into the garden, then dragged the corpse in among the vegetables. The neck was still pumping and gushing blood.
Then he walked down the hill to join his friends. And plan the next killing.
An hour later, Isabella was delivered of a daughter.
She named her Mary Ann.
Part Five
DISCOVERY
28 SEPTEMBER 1808
It was seventeen-year-old Thursday October Christian who first saw the ship, from Lookout Point. Although official watches had ended years ago, people still climbed up here to enjoy the view.
Thursday stared at the three-masted ship. He had never seen such a sight, only illustrations in a book of his father’s of such vessels. Coming from the north-east, it was in full sail, and heading towards the island.
Thrilled by the sight, Thursday got to his feet. With his brother Charles and James Young, he launched their outrigger canoe at Bounty Bay and paddled out through the swells to the ship, which had anchored a few hundred yards offshore. Awed by its size, the boys drew up alongside. A line was thrown down and they climbed aboard.
The boys gazed around at the decks and up at the rigging in astonishment. They had never seen anything like this. For their part, the ship’s crew had gathered mid-deck and stared in fascination at the strange boys. They had European features, but were as dark as natives. All wore only loincloths. The boy who looked the oldest was tall and slim, with curly black hair that came down to his shoulders.
The ship was the sealer Topaz. The Bounty mutiny had occurred nineteen years ago; the island had been occupied for eighteen years.
Among the watching crew was Nathaniel Wescott, twenty-eight, who had signed on to Topaz in Boston in 1807. Although he was working aboard as a sealer, Wescott was an avid reader of sea stories and harboured an ambition to have his own adventures and write about them. Accordingly, he had persuaded Zachariah Poulson, the editor of a Philadelphia newspaper, Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, to commission him to write a series of stories about the South Sea sealing trade. Poulson had agreed to this proposal.
But after sailing around Patagonia and doubling Cape Horn, seals had proved elusive. To his great disappointment Wescott had found little to write about, except how wretched the onboard conditions were. But now, with Topaz low on fresh food, wood and water, they had come across this uncharted island in the middle of nowhere. And now these three strange boys had come aboard. Intensely curious, Wescott pushed through to the front of the crew, the better to study them.
The ship’s captain was Mayhew Folger. Aged thirty-four, he had brown hair and a hawkish countenance. He addressed the three boys: ‘Captain Folger. Do you speak English?’
The tallest boy grinned. ‘We are English, sir.’ He had an open, intelligent face.
‘Who are your parents?’
‘Our fathers be all dead, sir, but our mothers are not. My family are Christians.’
Confused, Folger asked, ‘You are all Christians?’
‘Me and brother Charles are, sir.’ He pointed at James. ‘And his family is Youngs.’
Wescott leaned forward, listening avidly.
‘Were you all born on the island?’ Folger asked.
‘Yerr, we was all born on Pitkern Ilan.’
‘And how long have your families been there?’
‘Eighteen years. Our mothers and fathers came to Pitkern in 1790. In a ship called the Bounty.’
There was a stunned silence among the captain and crew. News of the mutiny on the Bounty had reached England early in 1790, and over subsequent years the notorious event and its aftermath had fascinated the public on both sides of the Atlantic. Wescott had followed the trial of the mutineers closely. Like all followers of the story, he had wondered what had happened to Fletcher Christian and the other mutineers. They had seemingly vanished from the face of the Earth. So this island represented the missing piece of what had been a worldwide puzzle.
Seeking verification, Folger asked the eldest boy, ‘What was the name of your father?’
‘He were Fletcher Christian, sir. He were killed by a native.’
‘And the ship? The Bounty? Where is she?’
Thursday pointed shoreward, at the bay. ‘She were burned. And sunk. There.’
‘Are all the crew of the Bounty dead?’
‘Not all, sir. Mr Adams is still alive. He is our leader.’
Nathaniel Wescott was transfixed. Now, from out of the blue, here was the solution to the mystery, embodied in these boys. And he would be the first to write the story.
The two-level thatched house was in a clearing surrounded by lush vegetation: miro trees, coconut palms, plantains and pandanus shrubs. There was a w
ater barrel by the front door, along with some gardening tools.
Writing materials in his pack, Wescott had been led up to the house by Thursday October. He knew he had only a few more hours on the island before Topaz sailed on after her provisioning.
Notified yesterday of the forthcoming visit, John Adams was waiting to meet him.
Aged about forty, Adams was balding, but with long sideburns. His lank remaining hair came down to his shoulders. He wore a loose-fitting shirt and well-weathered calico trousers. There was a knotted kerchief around his neck and his feet were bare.
Wescott held out his hand. ‘Nathaniel Wescott, from the Topaz.’
Although he shook his hand, Adams gave him a mistrustful look. His hazel eyes were deep-set, his face lined and pitted with smallpox scars. His nose was prominent, the eyebrows tangled.
‘Are you English?’ he asked Wescott.
‘No, I’m American.’
Adams’ expression softened a little. He said, ‘A drink? I’ve only water to offer you, but it’s from the spring.’ He told Thursday, ‘Fetch us water, boy.’
Wescott took the mug. He noticed how big Adams’ hands were. They were covered in tattoos and the two middle fingers on his right hand were crumpled.
‘Thank you, sir. Now, do you mind if I ask you some questions?’
Although he looked far from enthusiastic, Adams gave a nod.
They sat in the upstairs room of the house, which was connected to the ground floor by a ladder. The lower level was a junk room: it held lengths of planking, coils of cordage, a heap of unhusked coconuts, bits of canvas and a fishing net. Upstairs was obviously his living room. Woven mats covered the floor and the furniture was made from rough-sawn planking. A hammock was slung in one corner and on a table under an unglazed window was a big Bible.
Wescott opened his notebook and dipped his quill in the ink pot. ‘Where were you born, Mr Adams?’