Mutiny on the Bounty

by Peter Fitzsimons

  The great day has come.

  On this morning, the orders arrive from Lord Hood:

  You are … hereby required with the first favourable opportunity of wind and weather, [to] proceed as expeditiously as possible, round Cape Horn, to the Society Islands …2

  Which is one thing. Finally getting away is another, as what has come with the formal orders is weather so bad – with howling winds, lashing rain and contrary seas – that Bligh’s attempt to get the Bounty on its way is thwarted, they sail just seven leagues over two days before being forced to return to Spithead.

  When they make a second attempt to get away in early December they are beaten back a second time and Bligh near bursts with fury.

  For the last eight weeks, his ship has been victualled and ready to go, but here they are, beaten back, stuck. In precisely the kind of towering rage that he specialises in, which sees all underlings cower before him, Bligh writes disgustedly to Duncan Campbell:

  I have been blown back here again with severe winds. I must therefore bear with patience this unavoidable detention. If there is any punishment that ought to be inflicted on a set of men for neglect, I am sure it ought on the Admiralty for my three weeks’ detention on this place during a fine fair wind which carried outward bound ships clear of the Channel but me, who wanted it most. This has made my task a very arduous one indeed for to get round Cape Horn at the time I shall be there.3

  •

  With Christmas now just a couple of weeks away, and still no change to the westerly winds, Vice-Admiral Hood is kind enough to turn a blind eye to Bligh briefly leaving the Bounty for a last fleeting visit to see his darlings at home, as he also confides to his wife’s uncle, ‘I could not help revisiting my dear little family for I did not expect a change of Wind, and Lord Hood winked at my absence as he did not imagine it would happen any more than myself.’4

  In much the same spirit, Captain Bligh even breaks all regulations – punishable by a severe flogging, while bound to the mast if done by an Able Seaman – by helping himself to a couple of fine cheeses in the stores by the galley. And oh, the delight his wife and daughters have to see him so suddenly back among them, bathed in their tears and love, and then to bring out the fine cheeses!

  At last, however, two days before Christmas, 1787, there is a change of fortune.

  Bligh stirs in his cabin well before dawn. He can sense it even before being quite awake – through the rustle in the rigging, the way the Bounty is rolling in the swell. The wind. It has changed!

  Quickly dressing, he crawls up the ladder to the quarter-deck, where he is immediately joined by the straight-lipped Master, Mr Fryer, who has sensed the same thing. And there it is. The star-speckled sky confirms it is going to be a clear day, and the strong wind across the waters is from … the east!

  Captain Bligh barks orders, and things move quickly, starting with the pigtailed Bosun, William Cole, putting his massive lungs to good service by blowing on his pipe to pierce the quiet dawn and rouse the men, even as James Morrison, his mischievous mate, moves from hammock to hammock, calling out: ‘All hands! Turn out and save a clue!’5

  One by one the sleepy sailors emerge and get to work to the urgent tune of the Bosun’s whistle.

  Moving among them, light on his feet though always perspiring, is Fletcher Christian, shouting orders above the commotion: ‘Hove short, sir!’

  ‘Loose the topsails!’ Numb hands of the ‘top-men’, 40 feet above the deck standing on footropes along the spars, fumble to untie frozen stiff knots.

  At 6 o’clock, as the twinkling stars give up and disappear and an ethereal glow grows on the eastern horizon, Captain Bligh gives the nod and John Fryer utters the words all the sailors have been waiting for … ‘Weigh anchor!’

  The sailors gather around the capstan and – all together now, heaaaaave – throw all their weight on the stubborn bars that jut from it. None strains harder, nor with bigger bulging muscles, than the strongest man on the ship, James Valentine, a 28-year-old Scot, proud of his physical strength, and with every right to be so. Slowly, slowly, the capstan starts to turn and creak, as the rope that pulls the anchor cable pulls ever tighter and, far below, the bower anchor that has been keeping the Bounty in position starts to take the strain, as it is hauled from the bottom of the bay six fathoms below.

  Heave, lads, heaaaaave!

  And push to the tune …

  For now, right by them, Michael Byrn, the ‘Blind Fiddler’ as he is known, dances his bow across his worthy fiddle, weaving the beloved tune of a ‘forebitter’, an old sea shanty most sailors know before they get their ‘sea-legs’ …

  Loose the forecourse! Christian yells. Loose the mainsail!

  A great rumbling of canvas and a wild rattling of blocks …

  The men keep rhythm with the shouted sea shanty, as the Blind Fiddler plays, oh how he plays, while up top, James Valentine – as nimble as he is strong – scrambles along the topgallant yard, one hand manipulating the ropes, the other hanging on – ‘one hand for yourself and one for the ship’, as the saying goes – as the big beautiful sails unfurl with his efforts, and the ship surges forward.

  From the gay wash of the Bounty’s blunt-nosed bow hurtles the beautiful, carved figurehead of ‘a woman in riding habit’,6 leaping out at all those who would dare to get in her way.

  After a squally second day, Christmas Day dawns calm, which, as Bligh would note with satisfaction in his journal, ‘allowed us to keep our Christmas with cheerfulness’.7

  Which is one thing.

  Keeping their Christmas dinner down proves to be quite another. For, not long after the sumptuous fare, of beef and plum pudding washed down by copious mugs of rum – which gives their subsequent singing of sea shanties and dancing in happy unison to the Blind Fiddler a certain sway not explained by the roll of the ship herself – it is the turn of the Devil himself to inspire the weather. Yes, in short order, the Bounty is beset by sleet, squalls, gales and high seas bad enough to test even the saltiest sailors among them, let alone a wide-eyed, homesick landlubber like young Peter Heywood, who for the first time in his life is away from family, and at Christmas. The next day the weather is worse, and the following day … more hellish still, as Bligh records in his Log: ‘Very hard Gales and high Sea with Severe Squalls.’8

  In the extremity of the situation, Bligh is a blur of movement and commands, usurping Master Fryer’s usual role, to shout the commands himself.

  The murderous maelstrom simply never stops, hour after hour, as the wind howls at them, the thunder booms, the bolts of lightning crack incessantly, the masts bend, and the waves crash over her bow and sides, sending terrifying torrents of water cascading over the decks, sluicing along the entire ship – taking anything not tied down with it, which is why every man topside has a rope around his middle tied to something secure. So pounding are the seas, continually breaking in huge waves over the sides of the ship, that they knock out the chock that holds the Launch in place on the deck, meaning it slips towards the side, dragging with it the smaller boat, the Cutter.

  It is only with the utmost difficulty and risk that they were saved from being washed overboard.9

  Meantime, the waves crashing over the sides remain so overwhelming that Bligh writes there is, ‘an entire Sea on Deck’.10 As water starts to pour down the hatches, Bligh yells to his ever faithful clerk, John Samuel – a hovering humbug of a man who lives to serve the skipper, with responsibilities including maintaining all the Captain’s charts, accounts, written orders and the Log – to be sure to save his instruments, most particularly his highly prized Kendall chronometer.

  This is, ‘with difficulty’,11 accomplished. Many of the biscuit and bread rations are not so fortunate, and, as the water continues to flood through the lower deck, a whole slew of such supplies is ruined. Shivering, hungry, wet, the men wonder just how much worse this can get.

  Things are so grim, so dangerous, that even Bligh acknowledges the threat, writing they are ‘Not
daring to keep our Course’.12

  For, far more important right now than finding the quickest way to Tahiti, is survival. Below decks, the ship is rocking and pitching so violently they do not dare light the fires.

  And there is no respite for days! Not from the weather, not from the shattering battering, not from the fierce cold which has crept from the sea over the ship’s sides, and now burrows to the marrow of their bones, freezing them solid.

  With sails reduced to a bare minimum, the Bounty scuds forward, effectively surfing at the mercy of the mighty ocean. Thankfully, as Bligh records in his Log, ‘The Ship scuds very well.’13

  The wind continues to howl, and the ocean continues to roar – nearly, but not quite, as loudly as Bligh as he continues to insist that the Bounty keeps pushing right into the jaws of this maritime hell, and let the devil take the hindmost, left in their frothy wake.

  For newcomers to the sea-life, like young, fair-skinned, wide-eyed Peter Heywood, it is a trying first week, but he quickly comes to know his way around the ship, how everything fits together, how it all works, and just how exhausting it all is. Then, when exhausted, his drenched rudimentary berth hardly offers a place of rest, let alone an appropriate place to draw, sketch and write down his poems, as the ship rocks and moans and the men scurry to bale out as much water as they can.

  As for the 33 seamen cramped into the lower deck, all find it hard to sleep, tossing and turning in the foetid darkness, together with myriad rats, cockroaches, fleas and lice, but they simply do the best they can.

  At last, on the night of 29 December, the wind drops, the waves calm, the Bounty rights herself and, finally, blessedly, the men are able to light a fire in the galley to get a start on drying out all that is wet – everything on the boat bar the cockroaches, which have already dried themselves, and flourish in such conditions.

  The next day, the sun comes out in all its glory, and Captain Bligh orders that the whole ship be scrubbed from top to bottom, the beams scoured with vinegar.

  I ordered hot water to be got ready & every man washed his dirty linen &c. and hung up to dry by Noon, having a fresh breeze and fair weather.14

  In short order, the deck is strewn with sodden bedding, bread, hammocks, hemp, spare sails, socks and sundry.

  The bedding can dry and be fine, but not so the bread and biscuits. As a result, Bligh orders every man’s daily ration to be cut by a third. It is not quite a starvation diet, but certainly a grumbling one, and while the crew do so relatively freely to each other, so too do the officers, quietly.

  Young Peter Heywood finds himself in a mess with the rest of the Young Gentlemen – officers in training, including his fellow Manxman and fast friend, Fletcher Christian, together with George Stewart and Robert Tinkler – where the grumbling is good-natured rather than serious: for it is not right for either an officer like Christian or officers in training like young Peter to speak against the Captain, even in jest.

  Beyond both being Manxmen, Heywood and Christian fit together naturally for their common fine education, their common come-down through loss of a family fortune and … the fact that these are the only ‘common’ things about either man.

  With that intuitive English feel for one’s class, both are aware they are several rungs higher than their Captain, William Bligh, and many rungs higher than most of the ship’s company. This, too, brings them together, makes them confidants and messmates who enjoy lingering over their meals.

  The old hand Fletcher is quick to show young Peter the ropes, literally and figuratively, and the younger man appreciates it. When Fletcher shows off one of his many crew-pleasing tricks – jumping, with extraordinary athleticism, from one empty barrel on deck into the one right beside it – Peter is front and centre of the applauding throng. How clever is Fletcher, and what a fine leader of men, amusing the crew, earning their affection, and not just barking endless orders at them.

  The contrast between the approach of the slender, darkly handsome and popular Fletcher to that of Captain Bligh – barking on a bad day, to the point of being barking mad, with a fair skin that simply will not tan and a certain natural rotundity – could not be more marked.

  But what cares Captain Bligh? He is not here to be popular, he is here to ensure the ship and crew’s survival so they may complete their mission. He doesn’t need friends, his own mess is based on rank and prestige – dining nightly with Fryer and Huggan – and they do not discuss personal things.

  And so it goes. The sun she rises, the sun she falls. The wind she blows, and the swell rolls on. The Bounty proceeds south by south-west at the average rate of four knots, or almost 100 nautical miles a day, her bow sending small, gurgling waves of white scurrying starboard and larboard before her majesty.

  At least the weather and seas remain fair for the next few days, allowing the Bounty to sail on in relative comfort and arrive in Tenerife’s Santa Cruz Harbour on the morning of 6 January 1788.

  As soon as the ship was anchored I sent an officer [Mr. Christian] to wait on the governor and to acquaint him I had put in to obtain refreshments and to repair the damages we had sustained in bad weather.15

  Rowed back and forth in the Cutter by six good men and true, Fletcher Christian, drying his perpetually sweaty hands with a handkerchief, brings back some good news and some bad news.

  Happily, the Governor of the Spanish colony, the Marquis de Branciforte, has sent word that his colony would be pleased to supply Captain Bligh with whatever victuals are needed, and also help with repairs.

  But Bligh’s message to the Governor, that the Bounty would salute His Excellency with several rounds of cannon fire, ‘provided an equal number of guns were to be returned … I received an extraordinary answer to this part of my message, purporting that His Excellency did not return the same number but to persons equal in rank to himself.’16

  And that is the end of that.

  The Bounty enters the harbour with no booming salute to the Governor, and things go little better on shore as they find that Tenerife itself is low on supplies. They simply cannot buy the amount of bread they need to replace that which they have lost, and the quality of the meat and livestock on offer is not only abysmal but offered at prices near double the usual price for such goods.

  Three shillings for a single scrawny chicken!

  Thankfully, there is corn, onions, potatoes and pumpkins available, and Bligh begrudgingly pays the exorbitant prices to the Spanish thieves. There is one exception to the lack of quality supplies, in the form of casks of delicious wine at reasonable prices.

  ‘My People are all healthy and well,’ Bligh informs Banks cheerily, ‘and I have taken in some good wines which I think will be better for them in hot Climates than the Spirits.’17

  The one indulgence Bligh does allow is the purchase of two dripstones to filter the drinking water that, over time, tends to become slimy in barrels. By pouring the water into the large bowls cut into these remarkably porous pieces of limestone, the water that drips out at the bottom into buckets has had most of its impurities removed, caught in the stone.

  The drip, drip, drip … drop, all day long and into the night from here on is the back … drop to which the sailors work and sleep around the clock.

  Meanwhile, the Carpenter, William Purcell, works hard with his assistants to repair the damage done to the ship by the storms they have gone through. Yes, he works well, but within a narrow parameter. For let this be known to all. He does not, do you hear, do such things as haul supplies or patch sails. He is a highly skilled Carpenter, did he mention, and as a matter of noisy principle, will nary lift a finger to help with any task that is not to do with wood. Still, after just four days, Purcell and his assistants finish their repairs and the ship is back in good order, ready to push on once more.

  She weighs anchor on the sparkling morning of 10 January, and the sails of the Bounty are soon full with the wind at south-east, and the ship quickly gathers pace across the impossibly azure expanse.

 
; It is good to be underway once more, as they get to grips with the task ahead. On that subject, the following morning the crew is assembled on the aft-deck to be advised of two new orders by Captain Bligh.

  Firstly, as the length of this next leg of their voyage is uncertain – there is a real possibility that they will be prevented from rounding Cape Horn so late in the season – the ‘allowance of Bread [is] to be reduced to two thirds’.18

  And secondly: from now, Captain Bligh orders, instead of the two-watch system – the customary ‘four on, four off’19 in which the ship’s complement is divided in half and the two groups alternate four-hour shifts; four hours of sailing and work, four hours of rest and sleep, and so on – they will move to a system pioneered by Captain Cook: three watches of eight hours apiece.

  Doing it this way, of course, requires a third officer to take charge of a watch, and Captain Bligh is sure he has just the man: Fletcher Christian. Now, to give the affable, hard-working and popular Fletcher Christian proper authority to so oversee the watch, Bligh is effectively appointing him ‘to act as Lieutenant’,20 a huge leap up the ranks from mere Master’s Mate. Christian will now be in charge of the Bounty for a full eight hours each day, unwatched except by himself, with a small group of increasingly loyal men under his command.

  This news is well received, as Fletcher Christian is the most highly regarded man on the ship, loved by all, from Captain Bligh down to the most humble Able Seamen.

  ‘We are all in excellent Spirits,’ Bligh writes to Sir Joseph Banks, ‘and I have still the greatest confidence of success in every part of the Voyage.’21

  •

  As the ship settles down to daily life on the High Seas, a favourite among the crew – particularly Bligh and Fletcher Christian – soon emerges. Young Thomas Ellison, or ‘Monkey’ as Fletcher calls him, is just over five feet tall, no more than eight stone wringing wet, and has a shock of dark hair that rises in strict contrast to his light-skinned face. He looks a little like a monkey, is mischievous like a monkey, and with his muscly frame, the 15-year-old can climb the rigging like a monkey, scampering hither and thither, with everything the top men require, from flasks of water, to gloves, to wooden mallets. And yet he is also possessed of such a keen intelligence and capacity to learn that even Captain Bligh takes an interest in developing him to the point that, in a relatively rare act of kindness, he instructs the Captain’s Clerk, the ever obsequious John Samuel, to teach the boy writing and, as Monkey spells it, Arithmetick.22 Monkey is always on his best behaviour when within earshot or eye-line of the Captain – and he has a very keen instinct for exactly where the Captain is at all times – and Bligh notes in a letter to Duncan Campbell, who had recommended the lad in the first place, that Monkey ‘will make a very good seaman’.23