‘Seeing the ship in this situation,’ Morrison would recount of their experience in Pandora’s box, ‘we judged she would not hold together for long. As we were in danger at every stroke of killing each other with our irons, we broke them so we might be ready to assist ourselves … We informed the officers of what we had done.’50
Lieutenant Corner is called aft and the prisoners call up to him: ‘We shall attempt nothing further … we only want a chance for our lives.’
‘I promise you shall have a chance,’ the Lieutenant calls back through the prison’s walls, ‘don’t fear!’ as he goes off to speak with the Captain.51
Given that the ship really is rolling, lolling, like a dying whale, with no less than nine feet of water in the hold, and more water gushing in, it is no easy task to remain calm. But at least Corner informs Edwards of the situation, including the fact that the prisoners have broken their chains. And at least Edwards, in turn, desperate, allows three of the prisoners – Coleman, Norman and McIntosh, the very men that Bligh has insisted are innocent, the men Edwards has known all along to be innocent – out of their prison to help with the pumps.
Alas, Edwards shows no such mercy to the rest of the prisoners and orders that they are to be ‘handcuffed and leg ironed again, with all the irons that can be mustered’.52
Hearing the order, young Peter Heywood stiffens, as the implication hit him hard. Barring a miracle, it is nothing less than a death sentence, and he knows it. Others begin to panic. The caged Mutineers beg for mercy, but Edwards barely blinks. No, his primary concern is that they don’t escape, and despite the fact that the water continues to gush in, and there is now no less than 11 feet of water in the hold, still he places an armed guard upon them.
Oh, but it gets worse, still.
For now, the prisoners can see a commotion on deck, together with many calls being made, the tramp of feet, the creak of winches, the sounds of wood hitting wood, surely that of the Launch being lowered over the side!
And now they can hear a sailor say, ‘I’ll be damned if they shall go without us.’53
The awful truth dawns around dawn itself. They are being abandoned. The officers are going over the side to the ship’s boats, while in Pandora’s box on the aft-deck, they are still manacled and locked in their prison! Again there is uproar as the panicked prisoners start to struggle once more with their chains, attracting the attention of none other than the Master-at-Arms, John Grimwood.
‘Fire upon the rascals!’ he orders the armed guard.
‘For God’s sake, don’t fire!’ Morrison roars back. ‘There is none here moving!’54
All of the prisoners stop their struggling at Morrison’s command, now uncertain whether death will come by bullet or by water.
For the moment, it is neither, as the Master-at-Arms moves on, and the armed guard gazes uncertainly after him. For they, too, are keenly aware that while they are stuck, their comrades are making good their escape on the Launch!
All over the Pandora now, all is in chaos. The sailors are attempting to salvage whatever they can in the way of supplies, and get them on to the other boats. All of this, even as the ship itself starts breaking up, including a topmast, which suddenly falls and kills yet another sailor.
His shattered body is pushed aside, while the officers gather on deck, preparing to leave.
And still the Bounty men are chained!
Is there to be no mercy?
Of a sort.
Finally, Edwards gives the orders for another three prisoners to be unshackled. The Armourer’s Mate, Joseph Hodges, removes the bolt, opens the scuttle, jumps down and takes the irons off Muspratt, the Blind Fiddler and Skinner.
And yet, Skinner is so desperate to be topside on this hell-hole of a ship that he is hauled up by a sailor with his handcuffs still on.
There are now eight desperate men left in Pandora’s box. Hodges, surely an angel come to earth in singularly rough disguise, keeps working frantically, first taking off Stewart’s handcuffs, then Morrison’s.
With everything he has in him, Morrison now begs Grimwood, the Master-at-Arms, who literally holds the keys to their freedom in his hands, to help them out.
‘Never fear, my boys,’ Grimwood replies with extraordinary callousness from the relative safety of the deck, ‘We’ll all go to hell together!’55
No sooner have the words left his lips than the Pandora lists violently. Up goes the cry: ‘There she goes!’56
It is sinking now.
And yet, in an extraordinary turn of fate, even as the Master-at-Arms is swept overboard to drown, the keys that had been in his hands fall through the side-hatch of Pandora’s box!
With blurring speed, waist-deep in the water, the prisoners start to frantically unshackle themselves.
All is chaos on the Pandora now. Without a backward look, Captain Edward Edwards jumps into the water and starts swimming towards a Cutter still floating in the distance. It is clearly every man for himself, but the former Mutineers of the Bounty are still trapped in their prison as the entire ship sinks.
Hearing their desperate screams of ‘Help! For God’s sake!’, the Bosun’s Mate, William Moulter, shows extraordinary bravery. Swimming to Pandora’s box he yells, ‘I will set you free or go to the bottom with you!’57
Scrambling to the top of the box like a crazed gorilla, grunting with the effort and none too particular if he grazes knees or the like, Moulter quickly pulls back the scuttle so the men can clamber out.
With the whole ship now entirely awash in crashing waves, the prisoners swim their way to the surface. The third last prisoner to leave Pandora’s box is none other than Peter Heywood, who has no sooner arrived on the flooded deck than he jams his most treasured Book of Common Prayer – the only possession he has salvaged besides his ragged clothes, leaving his sketches and poems behind – between his teeth, grabs a chunk of wood from the shattered topmast and jumps into the raging sea, making his way towards a small sandy set of rocks he can see in the calmer waters on the other side of the reef.
Not far behind him is Morrison, floating on a short flat ‘paddle’ the way they had seen the Tahitians make their way through the surf, his hands paddling on either side to propel himself.
Others are not so lucky.
George Stewart, he who had first uttered to Fletcher Christian the words ‘the people are ripe for anything’, and thereafter the First Officer of the Mutineers under Captain Christian, has just dived into the roaring ocean when …
When the gangway of the sinking, rolling, Pandora comes crashing down into the water … smashing into his head. On the instant, George Stewart goes limp, all of the fight gone out of him, as he starts to sink and … the water starts flooding into his lungs and the darkness closes in. Slowly, lifelessly, his body drifts down.
In Tahiti, a loving young woman called Peggy is now a widow, and her beautiful baby girl, Charlotte Stewart, forevermore without a father. Yes, they will continue to scan the ocean for years more, hoping for the return of the loving, laughing young man, but he will never come.
•
The survivors hear the haunting sounds from behind, the strangled, fading ‘cries of the men drowning in the water’58 as the last of the Pandora breaks up, and sinks to the bottom, taking 31 crew to their deaths, and four men of the Bounty; Hillbrant, the sole man left manacled in the box; the handcuffed Skinner; and Sumner, who was also struck by the gangway while in the water; and – hardest of all for young Peter Heywood to accept, his friend and alibi – George Stewart.
•
Captain Bligh is dropping anchor at Tenerife once more, as he makes the first stop on his second bread-fruit voyage.
On board Bligh’s flagship, Providence – at 406 tons a much more substantial ship than Bounty’s mere 215 tons – the men are soon busy hauling aboard wine, water and fresh beef and carrying them to the storerooms below. Among those labouring away so very diligently under the watchful eye of Captain Bligh is one particularly stand-out of
ficer by the name of Matthew Flinders, who – in truth – has his own watchful eye on Bligh in turn.
For, working the angles, and pulling some strings, Commodore Thomas Pasley, Commander of the Channel Fleet, who is Peter Heywood’s uncle, has succeeded in having young Flinders – a former Midshipman under his own command – placed on this voyage.
‘All that I request in return for the good offices I have done you,’ Pasley had written to Flinders, ‘is, that you never fail by writing me by all possible opportunities during your voyage and that in your letters you be very particular and circumstantial in regard to everything …’59
Pasley wants Bligh closely observed, for in the one stormy meeting he has had with him, it is obvious he is a man of fury, of curt rudeness and crass crudeness who, if he can be like that to a Commodore, would be unbearable to a common ship’s crew. Commander Pasley has also met with Bligh’s Master, Mr John Fryer, who, after some encouragement and assurances that there would be no repercussions, had told him many truths about the people’s hero, William Bligh, that had not yet surfaced in the public domain. And so this is where you come in, young Mr Flinders. You are capable of tracing every detail of a coastline to perfection. As your old Captain, I want you now to trace every detail of Captain Bligh’s command. Information is power and in the face of young Peter Heywood facing the noose if his court martial goes badly, Commander Pasley will go to great lengths for any possible way out.
For his part, Flinders had long wanted to sail under one with such a reputation for navigational brilliance as Bligh, on the reckoning he could learn from him, and has not been disappointed. That, at least, is when it comes to mapping. When it comes to credit for those maps, there is a lesson that Captain Bligh had learnt at the elbow of Captain Cook, which he now rubs young Flinders’ nose in. Brilliant young men are free to make brilliant maps, but the credit for them will remain with their Captain, are we clear?
Either way Midshipman Flinders does indeed learn much of the way that Captain Bligh runs things, and he itches to tell them to Commodore Pasley.
•
For Edwards, Morrison and all the other survivors of the wreck of the Pandora, it has been a very difficult few weeks. They had found themselves on a small sandbar, some 60 miles off the coast of the northern tip of New Holland, just four miles inside the reef.
And yes, there is a certain companionship to be found in common misery, but in this case there has also been, in the English fashion, enormous class divisions, too.
For while Edwards and his officers had had tents erected, and even the common sailors had been able to fashion some shelter for themselves, for the Mutineers there had been nothing – stone-cold, motherless nothing.
And even when the Mutineers had delicately approached Edwards, requesting that they be allowed to use some old pieces of sail that had washed up on the shore to build a shelter of their own – the skipper had turned them down cold.
Thus …
‘The only shelter we had,’ Heywood would later recount, ‘was to bury ourselves up to the neck in burning sand, which scorched the skin entirely off our bodies, for we were quite naked, and we appeared as if dipped in large tubs of boiling water.’60
Compounding their problems is that food is short, and the supply of water shorter still. When one sailor gives in to temptation and drinks seawater, he goes mad. After some time, Edwards reaches the conclusion that the only thing they can do is to get the whole lot of them into the four small boats that remain afloat and head for … Timor.
So it is that, from early September onwards, to his stupefaction, Thomas Hayward finds himself, again, crammed with too many people into too small a boat, on the open seas, proceeding west, across thousands of miles, towards the pestilential Dutch outpost. This, for the second time in two years, sustained by rainwater and whatever fish they can catch, leavened by the few rations hurriedly grabbed before the Pandora sank for good. Again, food is measured by musket-balls alone, and again he near starves.
Could anything make this worse?
Decidedly, yes.
On the last trip, the tension between Bligh and Fryer had been palpable.
In this case, it is perilously close to open warfare between Edwards and Morrison, who are in the Launch together, specifically so that Edwards can keep a close eye on the man he clearly regards as the most dangerous – and certainly most troublesome – of the Mutineers. Morrison leaves no occasion unspared to needle the skipper. Yes, even when he leads the prayers, the notably pious Morrison manages to pointedly thank the Good Lord Almighty for sparing their lives from such a terrible disaster, for, if not for His munificence, they all would have been killed, yes, cruelly thrown into the sea and drowned …
On and on he goes, so much that Edwards has to interrupt him and, glowering, incandescent with rage, take over.
Like a starving seagull with the remains of a juicy oyster, day after day, Mr Morrison keeps pecking away at the Captain, until Captain Oyster can take no more.
On 9 September 1791, the Captain explodes and orders that Mr Morrison be tightly bound with rope and left to lie in the centre of the Launch.
‘What have I done now to be so cruelly treated?’61 asks Morrison.
‘Silence, you murdering villain!’ replies Captain Edwards. ‘Are you not a prisoner? You piratical dog, what better treatment do you expect?’62
‘It is a disgrace for the captain of a British Man of War to treat a prisoner in such an inhumane manner,’63 complains Morrison.
A disgrace?
A disgrace?
Let Captain Edwards show you a disgrace.
Snatching up his pistol, he points it right at Morrison’s head and threatens to shoot him dead, if he says one more word.
Yes, just one more word, sir.
You may have successfully mutinied against Captain Bligh, you cad, you cur, you traitor, but there will be no mutiny on Captain Edwards’ watch, let us be clear about that.
Ah, but when it comes to dealing with angry Captains, Mr Morrison has heard it all before, and, quite unconcerned, starts to speak again, whereupon Edwards roars, ‘BY GOD, if you speak another word I’ll heave the log with you!’64
(That is, he will toss Morrison overboard with a rope attached, and drag him through the water.)
Very well then. At last Mr Morrison decides that discretion really is the better part of valour and falls silent, while maintaining that it was not for fear of Captain Edwards, but because his mouth is ‘parched’.65
17 September 1791, Coupang, Timor, Bounty flotsam flows on
What now? On this day, the Dutch Governor, Mr Timotheus Wanjon, once again happens to be gazing out the window of his quarters to the harbour, when he notices a strange flotilla of small, open vessels arriving.
None of them has the wherewithal to be flying a flag and each is filled with … yes, ragged-looking officers and sailors. The whole thing is strangely reminiscent of another sorry lot he welcomed into this port not so long ago and so warrants quick investigation.
Ah-ha. It quickly transpires that these are yet more flotsam drifting their way from the affair of the Bounty. Apparently this is what is left of the punitive expedition sent out to find the Mutineers, together with what’s been found of the Mutineers themselves.
Quickly, the Timorese colony swings into action.
While the men of the Pandora are bathed and fed and put into rooms, the prisoners from the Bounty are put into a Dutch prison.
Their fellow prisoners? They are a bedraggled bunch, a curious group of convicts – Mary Bryant, her husband William, their two little kids, Emanuel and Charlotte, and seven male convicts – who have escaped from a place called Sydney Cove in New Holland. Mary explains they had made off with the Governor’s Cutter, and travelled for six weeks up the coast of New Holland, through Endeavour Strait, and then to the west, before being arrested for debt in Timor.
Theirs is a stunning story, but still not as stunning as what awaits Captain Edwards and his fellow survi
vors of the Pandora when they sail into the port of Samarang a few weeks later, after their own death-defying journey to, first Coupang and then here. For there as they arrive, bobbing gently in the placid waters, is the Resolution! James Morrison, with Peter Heywood by his side, is beside himself to see the very boat he and his mates had built, the one they thought lost with the nine crew-members. But yes, here is the mighty boat, and shortly Edwards and the free men are on the docks embracing nearly all of the survivors! After they had become separated from the Pandora, 19-year-old Master’s Mate William Oliver had taken matters in hand and, against extraordinary odds, managed to navigate all the way to Timor, losing just one of his men on the way. Edwards will eventually receive a written explanation from the young lad.
Sir. I have made myself appear foolish. We lost the ship in a gale on 23 June off Navigator’s Island [Samoa] and not being able to find her we steered directly for [the rendezvous]. Not seeing anything of the ship … we made for Endeavour Strait where we were for 7 days in danger of our lives among the shoals. From thence we proceeded to Timor.66
Extraordinary!
For all his joy at seeing his ship once more, Morrison grows happier still when the prisoners of the Bounty Mutiny learn they will not have to suffer setting foot on a boat commanded by Edwards again …
Arrangements for them to go on a ship separate from him have been made.
Hallelujah!
November 1791, Tahiti, poor Peggy
Of course HMS Chatham visits Tahiti. In the South Pacific, already on a mission of exploration, why not visit what is now the most fabled paradise in the world? So it is that just seven months after the Pandora has departed, the Chatham drops anchor in Matavai Bay, to be greeted by the usual flotilla of canoes.
Mutiny on the Bounty Page 50