Mutiny on the Bounty

by Peter Fitzsimons

  Rather than looking like a man scheming to save his life, he looks like one who has no greater concern than giving coconuts and pieces of bread-fruit to his hungry men.

  Perhaps the Chiefs would like some, too? No, not actually, but they would like Bligh to come and sit with them, and motion for him to do so. Why, Captain Bligh couldn’t possibly, as firstly he is too busy feeding his men, and secondly he is sure that if he sits among the Chiefs, they will fall upon him. And so it goes. Smiling all the while, Bligh and his Loyalists eat their dinner standing up, watching the Natives watching them.

  Clack, clack, clack-clack …

  Watching. Watching. Watching.

  Now, Boy. Get word to Mr Fryer, if you will, that the moment I and the others start to move to the shore, he is to bring the Launch in close to pick us up.

  Trying to affect an air of calm, Bligh takes up his journal and pens an account of events on this day, including the resolution to sell their lives as dear as possible – before asking for the journal to be taken to Fryer. If, as he suspects, he is about to die, let the record show to the Admiralty how courageously he and his men did so.

  The Boy takes the precious journal and heads to the Launch, only for a joking Native to grab it from him. Very funny. Peckover, clearly, can barely contain his own mirth, as he now grabs the journal and delivers it back to Bligh, the false smile still frozen on his face.

  This is still all fun. No-one must give in to panic.

  More Natives keep arriving. With them, more stones, more spears. The black men watch the white men as they beat their rocks together. The white men watch the black men, goggle-eyed. No-one is yet ready to make a move.

  The sun begins to set and Bligh – with the small journal now securely back in his inside coat-pocket next to his bosom, safe from the elements – turns his mind to his survival.

  ‘Move now,’24 Bligh boldly, if quietly, commands.

  The calamitous clanging of the rocks becomes more insistent as the sailors move, a precipitous pounding that echoes and shudders along the beach, in rough rhythm to their now pounding hearts. Over and over the Natives smash and bash, just as they might soon smash and bash into the Loyalists’ skulls. Easy, lads, easy. No-one panic. Everyone stay calm.

  CLACK, CLACK, CLACK-CLACK …

  Gently now, steady, slow …

  On Bligh’s cue, every sailor on shore suddenly takes up everything he can, walks down the beach to the shoreline and starts to wade through the surf to where the Launch is bobbing. Fryer, watching closely, orders his men to bring the Launch even closer to the shore once more. One of the sailors hauls on the stern rope to back the Launch in towards the deep shallows by the beach, while the others reach over the sides to give a helping hand to haul their fellow Loyalists back on board.

  ‘Will you not stay with us this night?’25 the Chiefs on the beach ask Bligh, surprised at the suddenness of the move.

  ‘No, I never sleep out of my boat,’ Bligh replies, coolly. ‘But in the morning we will again trade with you, and I shall remain till the weather is moderate that we may go, as we have agreed, to see Poulaho at Tongataboo.’26

  Very well then.

  It is Maccaackavow who puts things most simply, even though he does not know that Bligh’s grasp of the language is strong enough to understand his words.

  ‘You will not sleep on shore? Then … Mattie.’27

  Mattie, Bligh knows, means Death.

  Chief Maccaackavow has given the order, and now leaves, soon followed by the other Chief, Eefow.

  Turning to Purcell, Bligh is clear, his words coming over the rocks – CLACK, CLACK, CLACK-CLACK …

  ‘Do not quit me, till the other people are on the boat, Mr Purcell.’28

  CLACK, CLACK, CLACK-CLACK …

  Aye, Aye, Captain.

  On the Launch, the sailors watch closely, confounded that somehow Bligh is still on the shore, with just Purcell beside him for support.

  There would be only a handful of men in Christendom who would stay so long, whatever the orders Bligh has given him, and yet still Purcell stays.

  At last, from the side of his mouth, Bligh tells Purcell he may go, and the Carpenter is soon wading towards the Launch.

  As the men on the Launch watch, all are moved by Bligh’s bravery, his extraordinary sang-froid. Yes, sacred Royal Naval lore has it that the duty of the Captain is to be the last one off a sinking ship, to make sure all are safe, but there is no such naval lore about being the last one off the beach in the face of angry Natives to get back to the ship.

  Now, taking Nagatee by the hand, he walks slowly down to the water, as they all watch, ‘everyone in a silent kind of horror’.29

  Few are more affected than William Peckover, as an eerie horror grips his soul. He has seen this exact same thing before. It was on a terrible day long ago in Hawaii, when, right in the midst of a throbbing mass of angry Natives, Captain James Cook had taken a smiling Chief Terreeoboo by the hand and led him down to the shoreline towards a waiting British Cutter, only moments before … before … before Cook had been brutally struck down and hacked to pieces.

  Bligh had been there too. Which makes it all the more extraordinary that his every step seems to put him on the path of Cook – CLACK, CLACK, CLACK-CLACK … CLACK, CLACK, CLACK-CLACK …

  Getting close now to the water, Nagatee speaks in the broken English he has learnt from the British ships that have visited since the first days of Captain Cook.

  ‘I want you to stay,’ pleads Nagatee. ‘To speak to Chief Eefow.’

  ‘No.’ 30

  The two keep walking towards the shore.

  And now the smiling Nagatee loosens his hand from Bligh’s and, speaking in his own tongue, begins to encourage the surrounding Natives to … attack.

  He has no clue that Bligh is fluent enough in the tongues of the South Pacific to entirely understand the order just given.

  Steeling himself for the attack to come, Bligh makes a mental note to kill Nagatee first: ‘It was my determination if they had then begun to have killed him for his treacherous behaviour.’31

  The two keep walking, both still smiling, the words of Nagatee to his fellow Natives to begin their attack evincing in both men an enormous sense of expectation …

  And yet, while Nagatee’s every word on Annamooka is a command that must be obeyed, here on Tofoa, they are more akin to a strong recommendation, and, in this case, not followed. There is no attack and when the two get to the shoreline, with no ceremony, Bligh starts to wade through the breaking waves, out to the Launch.

  The stones beat louder and ever faster. The crew keep watching, all the while expecting the attack to come. And yet, still Bligh is able to keep coming closer, until he is just 20 yards from the Launch.

  ‘Oars at the ready, lads,’32 says Fryer, eager to be underway the instant that the Captain is in the Launch, scarcely believing that, after everything that has happened, they have somehow managed to get all of the men, and most of the supplies, into the Launch intact.

  The Natives’ stones and angry cries build to a raging climax, but the Loyalists can go nowhere as the Launch’s stern rope is still fastened to a rock on the beach.

  Stout John Norton knows immediately that there can be only one solution. Someone must go ashore, free the stern rope and that someone is … him. So now, just as Bligh is about to jump in the Launch, Norton throws off his jacket, jumps out, and starts running through the water.

  In the entire day, it is the first sign of panic to disturb the otherwise tense calm.

  ‘Come back to the ship!’33 yells Fryer, even as Purcell, still standing waist-deep himself, lifts Bligh into the boat. ‘Come into the ship!’34

  Norton, ignoring the pleas of the Master, charges on regardless, and runs up the rocky beach, right through the throbbing throng of stone-wielding Natives! Fryer yells again, but so loud are the beating stones now, over the sound of the surf, there is no way of knowing if Norton can hear him. Norton keeps charging … even as hu
ndreds of Natives close in on him, their stones in hand.

  One unleashes a stone aimed right at Norton, followed by another, and then another. He is knocked down onto all fours in the shallows, blood bursting from a wound in his head, five Natives around him, two of whom kneel beside him and start to beat his head to a bloody pulp with the stones they hold in their hands. Within 20 seconds, he is clearly dead, his lifeless body bobbing up and down, face-down in the water.

  And now the Natives are starting to haul on the stern rope, bringing the Launch closer, and within range of the stones they are throwing that are pummelling the white men ‘like a shower of shot’.35

  Cries of alarm. Splotches of blood.

  ‘Cut the rope!’ yells Fryer as the men scramble for their oars. ‘Cut the rope!’36

  Bligh whips a knife from his pocket and starts frenetically slashing at the stern rope, even as, with Purcell wading forward and pushing at the boat’s stern, the men row for their lives – the Launch caught in a tug of war between the rope that binds it to the shore, and the men pulling on the anchor rope, trying to take them out to sea. After an entire day of high tension, something was always going to break.

  Mercifully, it proves to be the stern rope!

  For as Bligh at last severs the last strands, the Launch lunges away from the menacing Natives, and it is all Purcell can do to hold onto the stern, his legs still trailing in the water, before he is hauled on board, safe!

  Row, lads, row for your lives!

  For the struggle is not over.

  On the shore, some of the Natives take up as many stones as they can in their arms and join the crowd already leaping into their fast canoes. They start furiously paddling after the Launch, which is drawing away. Of course, it is no contest. For while the heavily laden Launch must be pushed through the water, the light canoes skim effortlessly across the top and soon the Launch is surrounded by men in four canoes. Bligh, standing in the Launch, clutches his cutlass, and is eager to have a swipe, but the Natives are too wise to come that close, and have another plan.

  They reach for the stones that line the bottom of their canoes and unleash a sustained hail of potentially deadly rocks. Peckover’s head snaps back as a big black stone hits him flush in the face, drawing blood.

  The best they can, and with great bravery, Bligh and Fryer – both of whom remain standing – position their bodies so they can shield the rowers from the rain of rocks. Both are struck hard, several times, with Bligh noting, ‘I had not an idea that the power of a man’s arm could throw stones, from two to eight pounds weight, with such force and exactness as these people did.’37

  Well, he may not be able to match their strength and accuracy, but he easily has them covered when it comes to fury, and, picking up the very stones that have struck him, now hurls them right back at the Natives, and even scores some direct hits!

  Row, you bastards, ROW!

  When the stones in the Launch run out, and he is looking for something else to hurl, Captain Bligh is struck by an idea.

  Clothes!

  On land, just a button will buy a bread-fruit. What might an entire shirt be worth on water – enough to make them give up the pursuit?

  Quickly, Mr Nelson, help me!

  Now, while Fryer uses an oar trailing in the water as a makeshift rudder – there has not been time to affix the proper rudder – weaving a slightly zig-zagging course that will hopefully thwart the Natives’ aim, Bligh and Nelson start to hurl clothes over the side in a furious summer sail: everything must go! Out! Out! Bargain prices! Free, if you will just stop your pursuit!

  Aye, these are the very clothes the men had begged from the Mutineers as they were leaving the Bounty, the ones that might prove the difference between being wet and freezing to death, or warm and alive, but they can face the consequences later. Far more important is to find a way to stay alive, now.

  So eager is Bligh to try this method that, to the dismay of Fryer, he even starts to throw at the Natives the provisions they have been bartering for over the last two days. The food, of course, is not a lure, for the Natives already have more food than they know what to do with, but it does lessen the weight of the boat.

  Either way … look now!

  The gambit is working! In a choice between killing Englishmen and gathering in their strange garments, the Natives have decided the latter is more precious and have stopped paddling to get the goods before they sink.

  What is more, with darkness finally falling, it does not take long before the canoes completely disappear in the enveloping gloom, meaning the white men are unseen by the Natives in turn. With a stream of sharp orders, Bligh orders the foresail set, after which Fryer turns the tiller hard, and they bear away to the south.

  Good God, what a day!

  Just 12 hours earlier they had been filled with food and high spirits alike, looking forward to friendly Chiefs coming with yet more supplies. It has ended with treachery, murder, the narrowest of escapes, and the sober realisation that previous ‘friendships’ are worth little when denuded of ships full of muskets and cannon. It is amazing how firepower can encourage civility, and its lack can cause such unpleasantness.

  For now, as the blessed veil of night offers the battered men some precious respite from pursuit as they sail down the coast of the volcanic island, Bligh takes out his small leather-bound notebook. Taking up the one pen the boat possesses and dipping it in the one precious ink bottle they have with them, he writes with a trembling hand:

  I ordered all people and what we had in the boat. When in, I followed & the natives began their attack. Killed poor Norton. Followed us in canoes. Maimed us very much. Rowed out to sea.38

  He closes the small leather book and tucks it inside his shirt. Though saddened by Norton’s death, there is an undeniable benefit from it, because, as Bligh will note, ‘he was the stoutest man in the ship, which circumstance [would] very materially have interfered with the Boat’s progress and the allowance of provisions’.39

  Yes, without him, there will be marginally more food to go round, and just a little more freeboard – the distance between the ocean and the top of the gunnels – for their vessel.

  For now, however, the stricken-faced men look to Bligh once more. Where to now, my Captain? It is indeed the question most engaging the brooding, shaken Bligh.

  Bligh speaks in hushed tones to his Master, sitting glum as a rum plum next to him in the stern, silently steering the boat while newly attired in the late Norton’s jacket, gazing into the darkness ahead.

  ‘Mr Fryer, I desire to go to Tongataboo. There we shall get anything.’40

  Overhearing, Cole dares to point out that the ‘anything’ they get may be singularly unpleasant.

  ‘Captain,’ he warns, ‘we shall be treated the same at Tongataboo as we were at Tofoa.’

  ‘Oh no,’ replies Bligh reassuringly. ‘They are a different kind of people.’41

  Fryer shakes his head in disagreement.

  ‘Well then, Mr Fryer, what is best to be done?’ asks Bligh.

  ‘Sir, providence may heave us on some friendly shore, by making a fair wind of it sooner than working to windward,’42 replies Fryer. It is his way of saying we must forget Tongataboo, 100 nautical miles to the south, and rather push to the west, with the easterly winds that prevail in these equatorial climes pushing them along. Sensing Bligh’s hesitation – he has not roared at Fryer that he may keep his views to himself – Cole dares to back up his friend.

  ‘I would sooner trust to providence and live on an ounce of bread than go to Tongataboo,’ Cole declares. ‘If we could get there, I am sure that the Natives would take everything from us if not cut us to pieces.’43

  Most of the others, with a certain rumbling mumbling, manage to indicate their support of Fryer and Cole, without actually saying anything.

  Very well then. In a rare democratic moment, Bligh agrees to forgo Tongataboo. That leaves two options which he now puts before the men – New Holland or the Dutch East Indies. />
  They could head to New Holland, where, by now, Captain Arthur Phillip and his First Fleet should be well established at Botany Bay. But what if they are not? What if there has been a misadventure? What if they have been waylaid, diverted by storms, moved the settlement elsewhere? What if, in short, the Launch would arrive there after a long journey to find no succour? Worse, heading south moves them into colder climes, with uncertain winds and currents that may well conspire to limit their chance of success.

  It is at this point in the deliberations that the old salt, William Peckover, makes a quiet suggestion, like a hunter placing a scent before a hungry hound: ‘Timor.’44

  Bligh looks to him.

  Ah yes, Timor. Bligh indeed knows of it.

  Go on, Mr Peckover?

  Well, way back in 1770, the Gunner saw the island of Timor with his own eyes, when he sailed through the straits of New Holland with Captain Cook.

  ‘There is a Dutch settlement,’ Bligh remembers, ‘but in what part of the island I know not.’45

  Bligh picks up the Seaman’s Complete Daily Assistant and the Tables Requisite and is at least able to confirm one thing: Timor does indeed lie on a latitude just to the north of Endeavour Strait.

  And yes, to get to Timor, some 4000 miles away at Bligh’s rough estimate, will be hideously difficult. But, for men in their situation, every option must salute that description. At least this one, with the grace of God, is possible! It offers their best hope and the men are in agreement.

  ‘No hopes for relief for us remain until we come to Timor,’46 Bligh proclaims.

  That is the end of the discussion. Bligh’s mind is made up.

  At a rough estimate it could take up to eight weeks to reach Timor.

  Bligh’s thoughts now turn to their provisions, and how he is to ration their meagre supplies.

  They are 18 Loyalists with no guns, four cutlasses and enough food for – according to his calculations – less than five days, if they eat and drink normally through the ‘150 pounds of bread [as in biscuits and hard tack], 28 gallons of water, 20 pounds of pork, 3 bottles of wine and 5 quarts of rum’47 they are carrying, along with some coconuts and yams that are rolling around the floor of the Launch. (As to the bread-fruit, that which was not thrown overboard has been trampled underfoot in all of the tumult, and from a quick inspection looks barely edible.)