Mutiny on the Bounty

by Peter Fitzsimons

  It is a miserable time, and all the more so as they are living on starvation rations, with Bligh doling out ‘one 25th of a pound of bread, and a quarter of a pint of water, at sun-set, eight in the morning, and at noon’.3

  To make their bread ‘a little savoury’,4 the men dip their portion in sea-water, while Bligh, of course, has a different, and rather distinctive, way of doing things.

  ‘I generally broke mine into small pieces, and ate it in my allowance of water, out of a cocoa-nut shell, with a spoon; economically avoiding to take too large a piece at a time, so that I was as long at dinner as if it had been a much more plentiful meal.’5

  True, it is not necessarily a good look, to be seen still sipping and supping long after the others have finished, but what cares Captain Bligh what they think? Leavening things at least a little is Bligh occasionally doling out a morsel of pork or a single teaspoonful of rum when things are particularly grim, as they are on the morning of 11 May, after a terrible night of squalls, high-breaking waves, relentless baling and biting cold. In their damp clothes, the cramped men shakily fumble with the tiny chunk of biscuit they are served, desperate not to lose a crumb as they bring it to their blue, chapped lips and ch-ch-chattering teeth. Chewing slowly, trying to savour the flavour, treasure the pleasure of having food in their mouths, their spirits lift, at least a little. Drinking their water with equal fervour, some take tiny sips, squeezing drops into their parched, unfeeling mouths, while others tip back their heads, take a gulp and swirl the whole lot around their mouths, before finally knocking it back. Oh, the joy! The momentary relief.

  ‘At noon,’ Bligh records with no little relief of his own, ‘the sun appeared, which gave us as much pleasure as in a winter’s day in England.’6

  Ah, but as is the way of such things, the ecstasy of the midday sun soon starts to ebb away as darkness descends once more, the cold gets a grip on their very souls and works its way out from there, and the brooding ocean – which had only, in fact, been resting – starts to snarl once more, throwing yet more waves up and over the gunnels for two long, painful, miserable, freezing days and nights. At dawn on the third day, a gentle angel of inspiration once more alights on Bligh’s shoulders, whispering to him what to do.

  ‘I recommend you all to strip and wring your clothes through salt water,’7 he tells the men. It is less an order, and more a tip, for even the indefatigable William Bligh is suffering so much he can barely be bothered to bark, and must speak softly. When the men look to him quizzically, he explains: ‘By this means you shall receive a warmth that while wet with rain you can not.’8

  Those sitting nearest the gunnel go first, laboriously stripping their heavy, wet clothes off, their lily-white skin now tingling at the sting of rain. Leaning over the side, they trail their garments for a few seconds in the ocean, before pulling them out to wring them out, and put them back on and …

  And Captain Bligh is right! They really do get a bizarre, and unexpected feeling of warmth – and even a momentary, thrilling sense of purpose.

  Mid-May 1789, approaching the island of Tubuai, hello sailors

  On this day, the men of the Bounty are not merely setting sail, they are cutting spare sails to pieces. The whole thing is Christian’s idea. He has decided that in preparation for visiting Tubuai, the men should look the part of a disciplined group, wearing the one uniform, and these old sails will provide the material they need. Christian insists: ‘Nothing has more effect on the mind of the Indians as a uniformity of dress … as it always betokens discipline especially on board British Men of War.’9

  The Mutineers busily cut out the correct shapes and begin to sew them into breeches and shirts.

  15 May 1789, north of the New Hebrides

  The starvation is bad enough. But much more acute is their gnawing agony, when, as on this day, they must pass close by two islands seeming teeming with life, without yet being able to stop.

  The only saving grace of the day, as Bligh chronicles in his journal, is that the rain keeps falling, a ‘providential blessing’, as hot weather would have caused them by now to surely ‘have died raving mad with thirst’.10

  ‘Water we want none,’ he records a few days later, ‘for our thirst seems to be quenched through our skin.’11

  For men who are now mostly skin and bones in any case, it is a good start. But, oh, how enduring and intense is their hunger, how much it depletes their energy, their morale – and how slowly it makes the minutes crawl by, through the long miserable days and devastatingly cold nights.

  Sheer exhaustion begets a blurred existence for the Launch Loyalists, with even their eyesight beginning to deteriorate. Filled with hunger, headaches, cramps and shivering, they keep busy conducting running repairs like caulking leaks: cutting away the rotting seam before quickly using a mallet and caulking iron to tamp down oakum – hemp fibre from old rope, soaked in tar – to compress it.12 Everyone not involved must keep baling, baling, baling.

  For his part, though Bligh neither caulks nor bales, nor does he seem to sleep, as whatever time the others wake in the night, there he is in the moonlight, silhouetted against the waters, watching them.

  His men are, in his view, ‘half-dead’,13 and need constant surveillance. Meanwhile, he continues to make constant calculations, working out just how long it will take to reach the infamous ‘barrier of reefs’ that lies off New Holland. If they can just find a safe way through, without putting a hole in their vessel, as Captain Cook had with the Endeavour in 1770 – they will be in calmer water, and making their way towards the gateway to the west, which is Endeavour Strait, at the northern tip of New Holland.

  And now, look there! On this sombre early afternoon of 24 May, almost a month after the Mutiny, they see them. Birds! Big birds, little birds, lots of birds! There are boobies, noddies and tropical gulls, cawing, caterwauling, flying about and urging them onwards – the fact that we are here means that land must be close!

  A few hours later, the weather clears and even the sea begins to run fair – almost as if King Neptune himself is conceding this round to the Loyalists. Blessed with such rare calm, Bligh takes the opportunity to examine the remaining bread supply. It is soon his reckoning that at the current rate of consumption, they have enough to keep going for just 29 more days.

  Now, if all goes well, they can indeed get to Timor in that time. But what if it doesn’t go well? What if it takes longer, or instead of Timor, they have to go on to Java, a further 1200 miles away? In that case they will need to stay alive for 42 days, and Bligh knows he needs to make allowance for that. The only way forward, thus, is to cut rations by a further third.

  I was apprehensive that this would be ill received, and that it would require my utmost resolution to enforce it … [but] it was readily agreed to. I therefore fixed, that every person should receive one 25th of a pound of bread for breakfast, and one 25th of a pound for dinner; so that by omitting the proportion for supper, I had 43 days allowance.14

  Still, as it turns out, just as fortune favours the brave, so too can it steer towards the starving, as just the next day at noon, a tired noddy bird makes the mistake of coming in for a landing within snatching distance of a Loyalist – who grabs it and snaps its neck in all of two seconds!

  A ragged cheer goes up, before Bligh cuts it into 18 equal parts – entrails, beak, legs and all – and hands it out, according to the Royal Navy custom when supplies are limited. That is, Captain Bligh turns his back on the 18 portions, occasioning Mr Fryer to point to one portion and gravely intone, ‘Who shall have this?’ at which point Bligh names one of the party. The process is repeated until the last piece left goes to Bligh. Each piece is savoured, accompanied by a morsel of ship’s biscuit, all with a side of salt water as dipping sauce. True, it is not much. But for starving men it is manna from heaven.

  Best of all, dear Providence continues to beam brightly in their direction, as yet more birds are caught over the following days – boobies as big as large ducks! Their blood
is given to three men who are struggling badly.

  •

  It is done. Just a few alterations here and there to allow for different sizes, and the Mutineers on the Bounty can try on their new kit. In the end, the common sailors in their new uniforms look every bit as smart, if not smarter, than their officers. Together, they look the part, dressed to kill, ready to face and populate a new world of their own making.

  •

  It never rains but it pours, and the sun never shines but it burns. As Bligh and his men continue to push on, it feels as if, from dawn to dusk, the sun beats down on them, slowly, agonisingly, sucking the life out of all of them, as surely as a parasite sucks blood, weakening their resolve with every passing hour. Worse, those rays that don’t fry you on the way down still zap you on the way back up, beaming brightly from a dozen angles off the moving feast of mirrors that is the sea.

  The good news, however, is that they are now regularly passing pieces of driftwood, as well as ever more birds, meaning – together with clouds in the far west that simply do not move – they must be close to New Holland.

  With the sun shining, and land getting ever closer, it is time for Captain Bligh to get a particular important project underway. Just before scrambling off the Bounty, Mr Cole had grabbed a rough pile of signal flags on the reckoning they might be useful in some manner. And so it now proves! For Captain Bligh now orders the men – Lebogue the sail-maker proving the handiest at the task – to sew them together in a manner that they form a small Union Jack. It is difficult sewing, to be sure, as they constantly fumble with the needle and thread in their trembling, weathered fingers, but finally it is done and Captain Bligh is satisfied. It will serve for the purpose he has in mind.

  The Launch continues to make headway thus, and that night, at midnight, Fryer relieves Peckover on watch, and has an hour where nothing much at all happens, when he cocks his ear to the west …

  There it is!

  ‘Don’t you hear a noise like the roaring of the sea against the rocks?’15 Fryer calls to the seaman manning the tiller.

  ‘Yes, sir, I think I do.’16

  Standing up, Fryer leans against the mast, cocks his ear to the sound one more time, and peers into the gloom.

  There!

  There can be no doubt, for he can clearly see now the breakers just up ahead, little explosions of whitish grey catching the moonlight above the black sea.

  The waves crash onto the solid reef that sits hidden just below the water’s surface, sending spray skywards as the top part of each wave barrels over it like a ball of dirty thunder.

  ‘Captain Bligh!’ yells Fryer. ‘The breakers are in sight!’17

  As Bligh sits up, half asleep, Fryer issues a stream of orders to the man steering and the men stirring, ‘Port the helm, lower the mainsail!’18

  Within moments, six men are in position, pulling on the oars, the roar of breakers growing closer. Bligh’s voice, with unaccustomed panic, calls out of the darkness, ‘Pull my lads! We shall all be swamped!’19

  In response, Fryer yells himself, seeking to both encourage his men and rebuke Bligh.

  ‘My lads, pull! There is no danger!’20

  But it is a close-run thing, as the Launch gets within 75 yards of the waves pounding the reef, and risks being sucked into the maelstrom and subsequently hurled onto the coral before … the men haul on their oars like mad things. For safety’s sake, they pull back a mile off the reef, where they will wait till daylight.

  In the morning, as the wind picks up and they row towards the reef once more, it is Fryer who climbs onto the bow of the Launch, and peers to the west.

  ‘Mr Fryer, do you see anything?’21 asks Bligh, with uncharacteristic anxiety. For they now realise they are surging forward into what is a U-shaped formation of reefs, and there might be no way out of this, with such a wind behind them. They need a gap!

  ‘Yes, sir, I see a place where there are no breakers!’22

  Bligh comes forward in the Launch and sees for himself.

  From a distance of a mile, the break in the reef looks very small. But as they approach, it is quite clear that the handsome gap can be easily passed through, for such a navigator as himself. Barking orders to the helmsman about the direction to steer, and to the others to trim the sails, Bligh stays up front and …

  And they are through!

  Suddenly, the water is calm, the sea no longer surges, the reef behind them is keeping away all those treacherous waves of the open ocean. Sweet Providence, once again, has smiled upon them.

  •

  Land ho! Reef ho!

  Christian and his Mutineers, all in their new sail-cloth uniforms, have arrived at the north-west tip of Tubuai, the spot marked by Captain Cook on his chart with the island’s only possible harbour where a ship might drop sheltered anchor – if they can first get through the small gap in the reef that stands as a barricade in front of it.

  It is the morning of 28 May 1789, and just outside the reef, Christian gives the command – ‘Let go the anchor’ – and sends the Young Gentleman George Stewart with some men in the small Cutter to, ‘examine the reef, and find the opening described by Captain Cook’.23

  Alas, alas, no sooner do Stewart and his men approach the gap than a canoe filled with furious Natives approaches. Within seconds, the Natives jump from their canoe into the Cutter, and a mad melee ensues! Stewart fires a pistol in the air and, as quickly as the Natives had jumped into the Cutter, they now jump out, terrified by the gun’s echoing report.

  Hearing about what happened, Christian muses on how best to deal with the situation.

  Very well then.

  Let us use the Cutter in a different capacity. Instead of heading back to the shore, back to the melee, let it go as a pilot, the Bounty following close behind, its cannon trained and ready. The plan works. By late afternoon, the Bounty is through the reef and anchored, and the Natives are nowhere to be seen. Strange.

  Despite the eerie silence, the crew stay busy, cleaning the ship and placing buoys along their passage in through the shallow reef, so they can come and go in the boats with relative ease.

  Hoping to establish polite contact, Christian gives orders the following morning for the Bounty to move even closer to the shore, anchoring just 400 yards distant so the ship’s guns provide cover for a landing party.

  And it works! Curiosity seems to get the better of the previously hidden Natives, and in ones and twos and threes they start to emerge.

  Soon, the Bounty men can see nothing but Natives. With vastly increased numbers, both in terms of men and canoes, they are all around the ship, chattering among themselves, and pointing out various features: the sails, the cannon, the crew’s uniforms, the portholes and yet …

  And yet, still there is something about their chatter which is markedly different from the happy chatter of Tahiti’s Natives. There is something aggressive about them, like they are working out the best ways to frame an attack, and are using this opportunity to get a close look. The white men get a similar feeling when an old Chief climbs on board, looking every which way with astonishment. He is particularly frightened of the livestock – the hogs, goats, dogs – and every time one of the animals looks up at him, he jumps back in alarm. But there is something predatory about him. Yes, he accepts Christian’s gifts with a beaming smile, and assures them he will return the following day, but still something does not seem right – the gleam in his eye, the calculating gaze, indicates he is sizing them up, perhaps even counting their numbers.

  On the strength of this suspicion, Christian orders every man to be armed with their muskets loaded and their ammunition pouches full. They must be ready for action, for he is sure an attack is coming.

  See there, those Natives on the beach looking our way are now engaging in something of a war dance.

  ‘Their ferocious aspects,’ James Morrison would chronicle, ‘gave us plainly to understand in what manner we might expect it.’24

  The armed men wait until n
oon, and …

  … And what is this now?

  Suddenly, from the shore, comes a canoe filled with beautiful Native women. Which is the good news. They are bare-chested, and their gorgeous brown breasts shake and shimmer in the sun as they smile in a manner that whispers softly … come hither!

  With every yard closer they loom ever more gorgeous, with flowers in their hair, and garlands and pearl shells around their necks. And look how they are now all standing as one to sing an island melody, their hips moving to the rhythm of the song. Every single one is ‘young and handsome having fine long hair which reached their Waists in waving ringlets’.25

  Though still cautious, Christian receives the women on deck with courtesy, knowing that the men will likely be close behind.

  And here they come; 50 canoes, each with 20 men or so wielding spears, come charging forth. In the fore of each canoe a Native stands holding his conch, an enormous seashell on which they blow clarion calls of battle.

  Onwards!

  Christian and his men instantly realise that the women have been sent their way as a delightful distraction, diverting their attention from the attack which is sure to come …

  But, no – none of the spears is hurled and, seemingly on the instant, the Natives become friendly again.

  Many climb on board to look over the ship once more, while the Mutineers watch warily. The only way to stop them coming on board is to shoot them, but Christian gives no such order. When Christian catches one Native trying to steal a part of a compass, however, he has had enough, and quickly lashes the man with a handy bit of rope, to send him yelping back into his canoe, with the rest of the wide-eyed Natives soon following.