Quintal watches closely as the Acting Lieutenant walks over for a very quiet word. And yet, still, by straining his ears and watching their lips, Quintal understands the response.
‘I am for it!’ declares Martin. ‘It is the very thing!’8
With Martin now committed, Quintal agrees to join them. Like a fire on dry grass in a stiff wind, the word rapidly spreads to the trusted and the treacherous, as Christian works his way around the deck, sweating profusely as his mutiny gains momentum. But let us be clear.
Rest assured, lads, there is no foul murder afoot. We are proud British men, not murderers. We are simply going to seize this ship, and put Bligh with his few Loyalists in a boat of his own, the Jolly Boat. They can make their way to nearby Tofoa, where, if they’re lucky, they can survive.
The way Christian conceives it, Bligh will be accompanied by his faithful Clerk, Samuel, and two officers, Thomas Hayward and John Hallett, neither of whom Christian wants to remain on the Bounty, for they are too true to the Captain.
Quickly, the responses from the other men on the watch come back. Alec Smith, still stinging – both physically and emotionally – from his lashing, is for mutiny.
And what of you, Charley Churchill, your own back not yet quite healed from your meeting with the tails of the cat? If furious nods accompanied by gleaming glares can be counted as, ‘Yes, I am with you’, then Churchill can be counted on.
Stealthily, carefully, the growing and murmuring mutiny steals its way across the upper deck, down the companionway, from hammock to hammock, turning slumbering sailors into Mutineers with a few chosen words, a look, and a suddenly wide-awake nod. In less than an hour, before the darkness begins to give way to the day, all of Charley Churchill, Matt Thompson, Alec Smith, John Sumner, John Williams, William McCoy, William Muspratt, Charles Norman and John Mills – a conspiracy of the Bounty’s roughest and toughest – are in agreement: we are with you, Mr Christian.
Quickly, quietly, he tells them all to keep to their regular duties, but prepare to move, to follow his lead, the instant he gives the word.
Of course, the key source of serious resistance will be Bligh, who is known to have a couple of pistols in his cabin. Since the desertion of the three crewmen, the Master, Fryer, also keeps a brace of pistols by his bunk. All such pistols will have to be secured before the two senior officers are subdued.
What they need to secure first, however, is the Arms Chest, it sits outside the Midshipmen’s cabin and is where the muskets, cutlasses and bayonets are stored, and there are two barriers to opening it.
The first is an officer of the watch, Hallett, one of the few on board who remains close to Bligh, and who – by being asleep on duty – is ‘securing the Arms Chest’ as ordered, by actually slumbering right on top of it.
The second obstacle is that the key to the chest is on a chain hanging around the neck of Coleman, the Armourer, who is responsible for maintaining the weaponry inside.
As Christian ponders what to do, even as he goes below and ponders the sleeping form of Hallett, a sudden alarming cry is heard from on high. Has their plot been discovered?
‘There’s a Shark on the larboard quarter!’9 comes the cry.
Which, come to think of it, is perfect. A shark.
Putting his hand on Hallett’s shoulder, Christian shakes him.
Hallett comes to with a start. Being asleep on duty is an offence punishable by a good flogging. But no, strangely, Christian is smiling, and saying something about a shark.
Come and see for yourself, Mr Hallett, it’s just been spotted on the larboard side. See if you can perhaps catch it, with a line.
Hallett, fascinated, and hungry as a sailor on three-quarter rations, is on his feet in an instant, and heads up on deck trailing close behind Christian, to see if he can find a way to catch the shark. He immediately comes across Midshipman Hayward who is holding a shark hook and looking over the gunnel, intent on the same thing.
‘Do you see the shark, Burkett?’10 Hayward asks Able Seaman Thomas Burkett, who is busily scrubbing the deck.
‘No, sir, I have not seen it forward,’11 replies Burkett carefully, even as, over Hayward’s shoulder he can see the Mutiny getting underway. For here now is Mr Christian, followed closely by Mr Churchill and a slew of others, heading down the fore hatchway, and Burkett hears Mr Christian say to the Armourer, ‘Coleman, give me a Musket to shoot a Shark with.’12
Of course, Mr Christian.
Coleman takes the key from around his neck, opens the Arms Chest and hands the Acting Lieutenant the first musket that comes to hand.
His reward, he is stunned to find, is to have Christian – after putting powder, ball and wadding down the barrel, and tamping it all down with a ramrod, before sprinkling powder in the firing pan – suddenly cock the primed weapon, and turn it on him, pointing the barrel right at his chest, something only just manageable in the tiny chamber between the Captain and the Master’s cabins.
Mamu, Mr Coleman. Stay silent!
It is, for the Mutineers, a key breakthrough – the Arms Chest, with its tens of muskets, bayonets, and dozens of cutlasses, is now firmly in their possession. Taking one of the muskets, Charley Churchill now goes up on deck, to be confronted by a very puzzled Thomas Hayward.
‘What are you about?’ asks Hayward, ‘Are you going to Exercise already?’13
‘Yes,’ Churchill replies, seizing upon the excuse offered. ‘I don’t know the Captain’s reason for it, he has ordered us to Exercise at daylight.’14
Churchill moves on, carefully, slowly, keeping an eye on Hayward, who, sure enough, starts to head below, accompanied by Hallett. Surely, he is going to check this unusual order with the Captain, who, if he has given such an order, must be already awake.
Churchill moves quickly.
‘Hayward is gone to tell the Captain,’15 he tells whoever is close enough to hear.
He doesn’t have to say more than that. In an instant, he and four other Mutineers, newly armed, run after the pair and bring their weapons to bear. One move, and we will blow you away. One move.
The colour drains from the officers’ faces, and they submit to being led back up the aft hatchway, and stood captive on the starboard side.
And they are not the only ones to be shocked with this sudden turn of events.
At the other end of the Bounty, Burkett is also stunned to see Christian coming towards him, holding a musket with a fixed bayonet and a cartridge box in his left hand and a pistol and cutlass in his right. There is fury in his eyes.
‘Here, Burkett, lay hold of this,’ says Christian, holding out the musket.16
Burkett looks at it as if it were a cobra he was being asked to hold – and it very nearly is. Not only is it deadly to those it is aimed at, but in this situation potentially deadly for whoever holds it as it makes him complicit in whatever treachery is now happening all around him. It is all happening so fast, and all he knows is that it is treacherous.
‘What must I do with it?’17 asks the hesitant Burkett.
‘Damn your blood, lay hold of it and go aft,’18 replies the suddenly menacing Christian.
The ever menacing Billy McCoy, meanwhile – a scarred scowl of a man – approaches them, ‘loading his piece’.19
‘Why don’t you lay hold of it,’ he says, with a vicious gleam in his eyes, ‘and go aft as Mr. Christian desires you?’20
Clearly, Burkett has a choice, in the face of what is now, obviously, a mutiny – he can join it, or be subdued and perhaps thrown overboard. He grabs hold of it, and goes aft, joining the Mutineers – and now watches closely in these first streaks of dawn as Christian strides across the deck and waves the cutlass at the officer he likes least on this ship, after Bligh, an officer now seen to be whispering conspiratorially: ‘Damn your blood, Hayward … Mamu!’21
Things are moving fast. The Mutineers have the deck, they have the officers of the watch, they have the ship’s weapons. Their prime target, however, the key to the whole af
fair, far more important than the one that had been around Coleman’s neck, remains …
Bligh.
Are we going to do this?
We are going to do this!
With a quick headcount, Christian sees that they have enough Mutineers with them now to leave some holding the deck, and now, silently, leads his core band of six Mutineers along the lower level of the ship – drip, drip, drip … drop go the dripstones – all the way to the door of Bligh’s cabin.
In quick hisses, and hand signals, Fletcher has Alec Smith, holding a musket, stand guard outside the door, to protect their rear.
Meanwhile, Quintal and Sumner, you must deal with Fryer in this cabin, directly opposite Bligh’s. Whatever happens, lads, you must get Fryer’s pistols, and tie him up. Churchill, Burkett, you come with me, into the Captain’s chamber.
And now Christian pauses in front of his mob, with his hand on the doorknob. There is still time to turn back.
Still though, the memory of Bligh’s words lashes him forward, stinging with every blow.
You damned hound … You must have stolen half … Scoundrel! … Thief … 22
No, he cannot turn back now.
Instead, he turns the knob with his left hand, a cutlass in his right. It is a quarter past five in the morning, with the rising dawn throwing just enough light through the porthole into Bligh’s chamber that it is composed of dark shapes, not pitch blackness. Christian pushes in, ahead of Churchill and Burkett, armed with muskets – making it extremely crowded – ready for the capture of the man who in seconds will no longer be their commander. There is a stirring from the bunk before him, as Bligh wakes from the sudden clamour, the stutter from the clutter of men.
‘What is the matter?’ the Captain rumbles, and then again. ‘What is the matter?’23
‘Bligh, you are my prisoner,’24 Christian says quietly.
Bligh’s face shows no anger, only confusion. In his half-awake state, it has registered that he has been called ‘Bligh’ alone, with no rank in front, nor even a ‘Mr’. And, he is a ‘prisoner’.
What is the meaning of this?
‘One noise,’ Christian hisses, the point of his sword at the Captain’s throat, ‘and it is death.’25
Now, Bligh is fully awake and all too aware of exactly the infamy at hand.
‘MURDER! MURDER!’26 Bligh cries, calling his bluff.
So much for taking the ship quietly. But Bligh’s shouting voice is every bit as common on the Bounty as the sound of waves on the hull, creaks in the masts, sails flapping and snapping. How many of the ship’s company will this shout have woken? Christian promised death for a single noise, and yet, though he is now a Mutineer, he is not yet a murderer. To drive his sword into the throat of an unarmed man, even a cur such as Bligh, is beyond him.
For his part, however, it is not beyond Churchill to punish ‘Bligh’ for disobeying the order of ‘Captain Christian’ – the insolence of this bloated bastard of a skipper – and he takes great pleasure in stepping forward and striking a massive blow to Bligh, ‘with the flat side of his cutlass’.27
It gives Churchill such satisfaction he is about to do it again, but – snapping out of the enormity of what just happened, and shocked that one of his own men would so act, without any orders from his new Captain – Christian will not have it. He jostles Churchill aside, raises his arm to stop the blow, and orders his men to tie the hands of the completely stunned and outraged Bligh behind his back. Quickly now, quietly now.
But with no rope or cord to hand – they had not thought of that – Christian orders the glowering Churchill to fetch some – now, Mr Churchill! – while he holds the tip of his cutlass to the throat of the glowering Bligh.
•
There is the blackness of a dark night, the blackness of the Black Hole of Calcutta, the blackness of the pitch they use to caulk their ships, and then there is … the blackness of two musket muzzles pointed at your face when you wake from a deep sleep.
Such is what Fryer opens his eyes to on this morning as he finds two men he knows well, Sumner and Quintal, pointing muskets at him.
Good morning!
He is instantly fully awake, and it does not take him long to realise that the unspeakable has happened. They are in the middle of a mutiny. Looking across to Bligh’s cabin, with both doors open, his eyes even meet Bligh’s. Wordlessly, Bligh is looking for him to do something, knowing that Fryer has two loaded pistols in his cabin.
But Fryer makes no move. Alec Smith is right there, holding a musket! So is Mr Christian!
Those muskets. The sheer blackness of their muzzles, like the blackness of a tomb.
‘Sir,’ says Quintal, snapping him from his reeling thoughts. ‘You are a Prisoner.’28
Of course, Fryer attempts to assert his authority as Master of this ship, but Quintal’s and Sumner’s muskets prevail.
‘Hold your Tongue or you are a dead Man,’ Sumner snarls at him, before softening a little. ‘But if you remain quiet there is no person on board that will hurt a hair of your head.’29
Fryer remains very quiet indeed, even as the still glowering Bligh catches his eye once more. This time, Fryer looks away.
Still unhappy that his quarry, the brute, Bligh, is not bound – not to mention that his new skipper has already spoken to him so sharply – Churchill emerges from the cabin to call quietly up the stairs to the Mutineers on high, ‘Hand down a seizing to tie the Captain’s hands.’30
Up on deck, of the Mutineers who are present – Burkett, Mills and Norman – none makes a move.
Nor do the now, perforce, Loyalists, Hayward and Hallett, respond to Churchill’s order. At this point it is not clear who Churchill is ordering, just as it is not absolutely clear who is a Loyalist and who is a Mutineer. (Only seconds before, Mills had assured Hayward that he is ‘totally ignorant’31 of any plot to take the ship.)
And so Churchill’s voice comes again, much sharper this time, all menacing malevolence: ‘You Infernal buggers, hand down a seizing or I’ll come up and play hell with you all!’32
In response, Mills steps forward and, for the first time, Hayward realised that, ‘John Mills was one of the Mutineer’s Party.’33
‘Stop!’34 Hayward commands him … for no result.
For Mills simply takes out his knife and, with a casual if violent swish, cuts the end off a piece of rope hanging from the mizzenmast and hands it down the hatchway.
With the rope in hand, Churchill returns to Bligh’s cabin, and after gripping him by the collar of his nightshirt, and hauling him up from the bed, turns him around to tightly bind his hands behind his back.
Here is your prisoner, Mr Christian.
The new leader takes the point of his cutlass and pokes it firmly into Bligh’s back. Holding his fallen Captain by the cord, he marches him up towards the deck, as if walking a reluctant dog.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Churchill now enters the Master’s cabin and sees the brace of pistols that Sumner and Quintal have already secured.
‘I will take care of these, Mr. Fryer,’ says Mr Churchill mockingly as he leaves.
‘What are you going to do with the Captain?’35 Fryer asks.
‘Damn his eyes!’ replies Sumner. ‘Put him into the Boat and let the bugger see if he can live on three-fourths of a pound of yams a day!’36
‘Into the boat?’37 asks Fryer, stunned. So this is not just a mutiny, with the Mutineers holding Captain Bligh and his Loyalists captive on the Bounty, they are actually going to set Bligh adrift!
‘Mr Christian is Captain of the ship,’ barks Sumner. ‘Recollect that Mr Bligh has brought all this upon himself!’38
‘Consider my lads, what you are about!’ pleads Fryer, his usually dull grey eyes flashing blue with desperation.
‘Oh, sir,’ replies Sumner with unseemly glee, a scar on his left cheek giving him the most crooked of smiles. ‘We know very well what we are about.’39
‘I am afraid not,’ replies Fr
yer with all the calm authority he can muster under the circumstances, ‘or you would not persist in your intentions. Let me persuade you to lay down your Arms and I will ensure that nothing shall hurt you, for what you have done.’40
‘Oh, no, sir,’ replies Quintal. ‘Hold your tongue, it is too late now.’41
Alas, despite the circumstances, Fryer cannot hold his tongue.
‘What Boat are they going to put Captain Bligh into?’42 Fryer asks.
‘The Jolly Boat,’ replies Sumner.
‘Good God! The small Cutter’s bottom is almost out,’ Fryer responds sharply, and with good reason. ‘[That vessel is practically] eaten with the Worms …’ 43
‘Damn his Eyes,’ Quintal responds, merciless. ‘The boat is too good for him.’44
‘The Jolly Boat will not swim!’45 Fryer implores, but is quick to realise nobody much cares.
‘I hope they are not going to send Captain Bligh adrift by himself?’ asks Fryer, his head reeling.
‘No, his Clerk, Mr. Samuel, Mr. Hayward and [Mr.] Hallett, are going with him,’46 replies Sumner.
That’s it? The plan is to leave Bligh, and rub-a-dub-dub, three men, for dead in a rickety craft, far from land in the middle of the South Pacific? Whatever his differences with Bligh, Fryer cannot believe it has come to this, and is determined to remonstrate with Christian to come to his senses. For this is not mutiny, it is murder, pure and simple.
•
In his berth, Peter Heywood wakes with a start. There are raised voices coming from somewhere near, and they are angry. And it is all before dawn. Right by him, Hallett’s and Hayward’s bunks are empty.
Rolling out of his hammock, the young Midshipman pulls aside the curtain that cordons off his makeshift cabin, and is confronted by the burly Matthew Thompson holding a musket with a fixed bayonet and sitting ‘as a Centinel over the Arms Chest’47 and gazing at him intently.
‘The Captain is a prisoner,’ says Thompson simply. ‘Christian has taken command of the Ship.’48
Good God! I must go up on deck, and see my friend, Mr Christian.
No, Mr Heywood, my bayonet against your superior rank says you will be doing no such thing.
Mutiny on the Bounty Page 23