Mutiny on the Bounty

by Peter Fitzsimons

  And that is enough diplomacy for one day. Christian watches as the hundreds of men in 50 canoes take their spears and begin ‘brandishing them with many threatening gestures’.26 He sees one of them cut a buoy free from its anchorage and so trains his musket at the offender and fires, just missing.

  But Mr Christian does not have just a musket, he has cannon at his command.

  ‘Fire!’ Christian orders a four-pounder gun to be used to disperse the Natives.

  With a roar, the cannon fires, sending grapeshot hurtling at the warriors. When the smoke clears, it reveals a shattered canoe, and five bodies in the water.

  And again.

  ‘Fire!’

  And again!

  ‘Fire!’

  Suddenly, many dead Natives, and parts thereof, lie bobbing in the bay, the water around them a ghastly red, before a guttural cry goes out – clearly a command – and the survivors turn around.

  Welcome to Tubuai. Christian names the new harbour for the Bounty: ‘Bloody Bay’.27

  After the cannon-fire retreat, Christian orders the Jolly Boat and the Cutter to follow the canoes to shore, where the sailors force the fleeing Natives into the jungle with hails of musket shot as a chaser. They also examine the contents of the abandoned canoes, finding ‘a number of cords in the canoes which’, as Morrison chronicles, ‘we supposed were intended for to bind us with, had they succeeded in their plan’.28

  This is not going to be easy. The island Captain Christian has selected for their lifelong home appears to be peopled by Natives who will fight to the death to defend it.

  28 May 1789, Restoration Island, the world is not quite Bligh’s oyster

  At last, land ho!

  And this is not just an island that they can see on the horizon, but dare not approach. No, this is a small island just four miles to the west of the enormous reef they have passed through, and just a quarter mile off the coast of what appears to be New Holland.

  Most importantly, it appears to be uninhabited, and thus safe for landing – as opposed to the coast of the mainland, where, Bligh already knows, from his close reading of Cook’s journals, ‘Indians’ abound.

  But, here? It looks safe, though Bligh remains cautious as they approach it in the late afternoon, the setting sun meaning the hump of the island is brilliantly silhouetted against the red sky.

  They land the Launch on the sandy shore, and feel solid land beneath their feet for the first time in 26 gruelling days. Alas, no sooner do they set foot on the soft sand than their limp legs wobble. Mr Fryer, watching on, chronicles their tottering footsteps as being ‘like so many drunken men’.29

  For his part, realising he must be careful, Mr Fryer slowly swings his legs over the side and, keeping his emaciated arms hooked over the gunnel for stability, carefully lowers his body down until his feet touch the sand. So far, so good. Letting go, alas, just as he takes his first feeble step, his legs fold like those of a newborn deer and his scrawny body crumples. It is some time before he musters the strength to give it another go. Still, just as a man’s ‘sea-legs’ can return after a short time on a ship, so too can his ‘land-legs’, and in short order all the men are landed, and, like a small army of human crabs, able to slowly spread out along the shore-line, tottering along in a sideways search for their most urgent need – food.

  And they are in luck! For the receding tide at sunset exposes many morsels of magic. Using the tools that Mr Purcell so reluctantly hands over, with dire warnings of their fate if they are damaged, the men are able to pry juicy shellfish from the rocks, and an instant later – barely stopping to rinse off the grit that covers them – send the plump meat sliding down their throats.

  ‘Found oysters & Perrywinkles,’30 Fryer notes, ‘[but] it was soon so dark that we could not pick up any great quantity.’31

  It is enough, still, that their most immediate hunger pangs are satisfied, and, as they bed down for the night – half of the men on the shore, and half on the Launch anchored just beyond a stone’s throw from shore, in case of an attack – they can enjoy the moment. A month after having been set adrift in the middle of the ocean in a tiny vessel, they are still alive, have covered 2500 miles at an average of 90 miles a day towards their destination, and, tonight, have food in their bellies.

  When Bligh returns to the shore at the break of dawn, he is approached by Fryer, whose step is now firm, just as his face has resumed its former flat countenance. Back in control, Fryer advises that all had been calm during the night, and he is confident that there are no Natives on the island, giving the men the opportunity to range wide, and forage freely.

  ‘We had better haul the boat ashore,’ Fryer advises, ‘and part of us go and see what we can find.’32

  ‘Yes, Mr Fryer, let us do it,’33 says Bligh, though Fryer knows he also means ‘you do it’, and Fryer sets about the task.

  The men are divided into two parties, with one repairing the Launch and scraping the barnacles from its hull, while the other gathers oysters and periwinkles, as well as whatever other food they might find. With just one musket, they could have brought down dozens of birds, as the island abounds with them, but without such weaponry all they can do is gaze longingly – and even angrily – at one particularly plump and fluffy kind of bird that seems to constantly be laughing at them.

  Oh, the insolence! Alas, they will have to rely on the slightly more meagre terrestrial fare, but with industry even that is enough to fill their starved bellies, which presents problems of its own. For in short order their bodies start to ache, as their intestines – which have lived off crumbs for weeks, only to now gorge – twist and cramp with shuddering pains. Still they keep eating, and presently the pain passes, as do, for many of them, their first evacuations in weeks.

  With God’s mercy, even the exotic berries that Nelson belatedly warns them not to eat prove harmless; another blessing from Providence.

  For yes, despite the disaster of what has happened, the pious Bligh continues to be given reason to believe that the Good Lord is with them – and there is no better example than what they discover on this morning. For, overnight, with the Launch bobbing offshore in gentle, lapping waves, a gudgeon – a small but crucial component of the ship’s rudder – had fallen out and drifted away. As Bligh knows only too well, and now glories in, if exactly the same thing had happened while they had been at sea, the rudder would have become next to useless and they surely would have been lost, with no means to steer their Launch they would have just drifted uselessly until they died. As it is, they are safely on land, and Purcell is easily able to repair the rudder, may the Lord be praised.

  But not Bligh.

  For when, later in the day, Bligh launches himself into a tirade – his first in a while, so perhaps he is coming back to his old self – about how these ungrateful curs don’t realise how damn lucky they are to be alive, how if it wasn’t for him they wouldn’t be here, Nelson mutters what are close to his first unprompted words since his outburst during the Mutiny, and he utters them like they have been festering for a long time:

  ‘Yes,’ says he, ‘damn his blood, if it wasn’t for his economy we wouldn’t be here!’34

  30 May 1789, Bloody Bay, Tubuai, a hatchet for your dead husband, madam

  Steady now.

  Carefully.

  It is no small thing to make a landing on an island when you killed more than a few of its male inhabitants just the day before, for who knows what might be about to happen? In the hope that the Natives might be of forgiving nature, the Bounty men have brought presents of hatchets with them. But as Christian and his heavily armed companions paddle their boats across the bay, ‘carrying a white flag in the bow of one and the Union Jack in the other’,35 and carefully land, there is the strangest thing …

  Nothing. There is no sign of any Natives, let alone dangerous ones. And even when the men make their way into the lush jungle that abounds to a clearing where they can see the roofs of huts … there is no-one there!

  T
he embers of the fires are warm and it is clear people were here as recently as last night, but now, nothing. It is eerie, unsettling. Are they being watched? Very likely.

  What to do now?

  Christian is not quite sure.

  •

  At least, among all of Bligh’s incompetents, one of their number, just one, has been forward thinking enough to have smuggled on board the Launch a copper pot – and never is it likely to be of more use than right now, as the men return with oysters and periwinkles aplenty, perfect for a stew. In the absence of a flint, Bligh uses his small magnifying glass to concentrate the sun’s rays and start a fire (their tinder box long since waterlogged and destroyed). Soon after, aromatic oyster stew is bubbling in their lone pot. To make a real restorative feast of it, Bligh adds some of the ship’s biscuit and just a little precious pork. Their mouths watering, the men gaze down upon their coming meal with relish. A hot meal! Their first in a month, and …

  And what can be the problem, now?

  Fryer, backed by Purcell, is taking issue with Bligh. Both men think that Bligh should add more fresh water to the brew, to make it go further, and Fryer, his face flashing rare emotion, is of particularly ‘turbulent disposition,’36 until Bligh orders him to, ‘Be silent!’37

  It is a close-run thing, very close, for Fryer doesn’t have a whole lot of silence in him right now, and clearly wants and needs to go on with it. But, by supreme effort of will, he does indeed … fall … silent. Just.

  And so it is.

  Bligh and Fryer eat their stew in glowering silence, backed by glaring glances and glancing glares, a perfect fury in the pair of them even as they savour the flavour of the only real meal they have had in a month.

  Following the feast there is some relief from the tension, as Fryer heads out with the foraging party to look for more food to take with them, while Bligh and Nelson wander the shore to further investigate the island, which Bligh names Restoration Island for the fact they have arrived on the ‘anniversary of the restoration of King Charles the Second, and the name not being inapplicable to our present situation (for we were restored to fresh life and strength)’.38

  As they continue to walk the white and sandy perimeter of the island, ‘about a league in circuit’39 – occasionally being obliged to leave the beach to clamber around the scrub-covered and rocky headlands that jut into the sea, they are delighted to discover a spring with bubbling fresh water, together with a handful of palm trees that Nelson strips of edible material to take with them on the Launch. They also find some curious tracks of an animal neither has ever seen before … but both suspect what it must be.

  Nelson agreed with me that it was the kangooro;40 but whether these animals swim over from the mainland, or are brought here by the natives to breed, it is impossible to determine. The latter is not improbable as they may be taken with less difficulty in a confined spot like this than on the continent.41

  More troubling is that they also soon find two wigwams, besides which ‘a pointed stick was found, about three feet long, with a slit in the end of it to sling stones with, the same as the natives of Van Diemen’s land use’.42

  If this is a place that the natives frequent – and they clearly do – then it is a place the visitors are best advised to leave, sooner rather than later, as with only four cutlasses, they are perilously close to defenceless. Bligh resolves to leave on the morrow, before noon. Returning to the Launch, another oyster stew is prepared for supper, which causes another row with Fryer, backed by Purcell, who is outraged that this time Captain Bligh adds no biscuit to the meal: ‘This occasioned some murmuring with the Master and Carpenter, the former of whom wanted to prove a propriety of such an Expenditure, and was troublesomely ignorant – tending to create disorder among those, if anywise weak enough to listen to him.’43

  Bligh, of course, does not listen to him.

  No biscuit.

  As usual, when night falls, the men follow Bligh’s orders, with one half sleeping on the Launch and the other half comfortably on shore, by the fire.

  The morning brings another foraging party being dispatched for supplies, and … yet one more quarrel between Bligh and Fryer. When Bligh discovers that some precious pork has been stolen overnight, he immediately suspects the two men who complained about the lack of food the night before, Fryer and Purcell. Both men hotly deny it. Bligh blazes with fury, hurling accusations and frustrations at this motley crew of ragged ingrates. When Bligh’s fury is, if not spent, at least diminished, he retires to the shade of a palm tree to do some writing in his little leather notebook – ‘cannot discover the Wretch that did it. Kind providence protects us wonderfully but it is a most unhappy situation to be in a Boat with such discontented People who don’t know what to be at or what is best for them’44 – interspersed with barking orders at his men, as they prepare the Launch for departure and the 1500-mile journey ahead through perilous seas to Timor. And here is Fryer now, returned with his scouting party. Mr Fryer has observed Captain Bligh coolly writing in the shade as they toil in the sun like the navvies they are, but had presumed that the Captain must be performing the complex calculations of navigation to determine the course for the next leg of their journey.

  But, no …

  ‘Captain Bligh,’ Hallett tells Fryer, ‘has been correcting the prayer book.’45

  And there is Bligh in the shell of a stolen coconut! Even the word of God needs some Bligh correction, because it is just not good enough!

  Oh, the things Fryer could say to him if he was only free to speak. But he is not, of course, and in any case there is much to be done to get ready to leave Restoration Island.

  Every available storage vessel – holding some 60 gallons in all – is filled with the spring water, and they not only fill themselves with as many shellfish as they can, but also carry more with them. To try to get them to last longer, they prise the oysters and clams open and dry them in the sun, before packing them tightly into containers in the hope that they can be used in stew. For the bread rations, Bligh calculates they have enough to keep them alive for just 38 more days.

  Can it be done?

  Perhaps, with the Lord’s help. Now they make ready to climb aboard the Launch, and cast off when … When all at once, they hear some strange shouts in the distance. Have they inadvertently left one of their number behind?

  No. There are more men shouting than just one, and in any case it is not even coming from this island. Gazing in the direction of the shouts, they see them!

  Over there!

  On the mainland, about a quarter of a mile away, they observe with a start 20 or so Natives … running and yelling, shaking spears and clubs at them from the opposite shore.

  Behind them, on the hills, the heads of many more Natives appear, likely their wives and children, told to keep out of sight, but unable to resist peeking at these strange visitors from another world.

  Perhaps they are not hostile – they are actually beckoning them to come over – but Bligh is taking no chances. With full bellies, plentiful water, and the best food from the area already harvested, why would he? Instead, he sets a course for two small islands on the far horizon to the north. Helped along by a strong tide, the Launch soon passes between those islands and the shore of New Holland, even as Bligh calls his men for their attention.

  In a voice, it must be said, with no tinge of Christian humility, he wishes to read to them the prayer he has so recently penned. (He was not actually correcting the Bible, but writing religious prose of his own.)

  ‘Oh Lord … We most devoutly thank Thee for our preservations & are truly conscious that only through Thy Divine Mercy we have been saved … Thou hast showed us wonders in the Deep, that we might see how powerful & gracious a God Thou art; how able & ready to help those who trust in Thee.’46

  It goes on and on, with Fryer straining hard not to display his feelings. But they are strong all right. Here is a man thanking the Lord for His provision of their life essentials, when the key con
tribution of this same man in that provision was to sit pretty under a palm tree, penning pious paeans, and yell orders at the battered, shattered men who were actually doing the work to gather them.

  Gratitude, indeed.

  The Master broods.

  The Captain carries on.

  At some length.

  31 May 1789, Tubuai, onward Christian’s soldiers

  By now it is obvious.

  Rather than greeting the Mutineers, or even reluctantly helping them, the Natives of Tubuai are determined to hide from the visitors, in the hope that they will go away.

  Reluctantly, Christian has decided to oblige them. The Bounty will go away. But they will return all right. This place will be their home, despite the hostility of the Natives.

  But first they must return to Tahiti, to get supplies, and women.

  Making his way back towards the Bounty – being hauled along by half-a-dozen good men and true, in the Jolly Boat – Christian’s mind turns inevitably to Isabella. Will she be waiting for him? What will she think when she finds out what has happened? Will she be happy to leave Tahiti, her family, everything she has ever known, to come with him to this island? He can only hope so.

  And there is only one way to find out.

  ‘Make ready to weigh anchor …’

  There is a flurry of men moving into position by the capstan.

  ‘Heave cheerily,’ comes the first order, followed shortly afterwards by, ‘Lay aloft to make sail.’47

  For his part, Morrison is just glad to leave the Natives of Tubuai, their ‘savage aspect & behaviour could not gain favour in the eyes of any Man in his senses, but was fully capable of creating a distaste in anyone’.48

  Come back here?

  Not if he can help it!

  Others on the Bounty feel the same, and the ship’s company leave this tiny island far more divided than when they had arrived, just 24 hours earlier.

  31 May 1789, Bligh sails towards the northern tip of New Holland