by John Boyne
‘No, sir,’ I whispered, my voice all but lost as he clenched my voice box. I turned my eyes to see the waves crashing along beside us. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I say you are the captain’s spy,’ he insisted. ‘Sent here to listen in to things that are not your concern and report them back to your master. Tell me I am wrong!’
‘You are wrong, sir,’ I said. ‘Terrible wrong. I was standing here, that was all. I was thinking on other things.’
‘You swear it?’
‘On my mother’s life,’ I promised, although who that naughty lady was, and whether she yet lived or not, was a mystery to me.
He loosened his grip only a little and seemed to relent. ‘You know that I could just throw you overboard,’ he told me. ‘I could send you to your death and no one would be the wiser for it. It would be seen as a tragedy. And life here would go on as before.’
‘Please, sir . . .’ I whispered, a fierce longing to survive surging through me, a desire for continued existence that only appears when that very lifeblood is threatened.
‘But I’m no killer,’ he said, releasing me.
I fell to the deck instantly, coughing in a most unpleasant fashion, and rubbed at my throat, looking up at him with hatred in my eyes. I swear that if I had been in possession of a cutlass or a musket I would have ended him right there and said damn and blast you to the consequences. But I had neither of them, and nor did I have the courage to wrestle him overboard. So I simply sat there, and felt tears behind my eyes, which I forced myself to stay.
‘Go down below,’ he said now in a distracted tone. ‘Go to your bunk. Men are on deck.’
He walked past me, the toe of his boot grazing against my leg, and when he was out of sight I did exactly as he said. I ran back to the comfort of my hammock and pulled the sheet over my head, allowing the tears to flow freely then, tears that lasted for so long and caused me so much pain that they finally blended into sleep. Before I knew it, the rest was silence until a few hours later, when I sat bolt upright. The conversation between the two men, Mr Christian and his fellow conspirator, I knew what it meant. I had it now. It was obvious. I reached up a hand to lever myself out of the hammock and was immediately pushed back by the force of a blow.
Four men. Marching past me. Breaking into the captain’s cabin.
It had begun.
‘What the—?’
I heard the captain’s words from outside and could tell the shock of surprise and the immediacy of the lack of understanding. He had never woken to something like this before. In the astonishment of the awakening, he knew not what was happening.
‘Mr Christian,’ he roared. ‘What’s the meaning of this?’
‘Meaning?’ cried Mr Christian. ‘Let us not seek meanings. And ask no questions, Mr Bligh. The time for your questions has come to an end.’
‘What?’ roared the captain. ‘What in God’s name—?’
I jumped from my hammock and ran inside in time to see two men – the midshipman George Stewart and the AB Thomas Burkett, he who had once tumbled from the fore topgallant sail and narrowly avoided opening his brains on the deck below – pulling the captain from his bunk and dragging him in his nightshirt into a stance. They were rough with their handling and shouting phrases at him. Get up! On your feet, dog! Do as we tell or you’ll be damned. Phrases such as those. They turned to look at me as I appeared in the doorway, but dismissed me immediately and went back to their dirty business.
‘Mr Christian!’ shouted the captain, trying to unhand himself from his captors. ‘What do you think you’re doing? I am a captain in His Majesty’s—’
‘A captain must have a ship,’ stated Mr Christian flatly. ‘Yours is forfeit.’
‘Forfeit, you say? Damn you if she is! To whom is she forfeit?’
‘To me, sir,’ he replied, equalling the roar. ‘I am taking the ship.’
A silence seemed to descend on the room at that phrase. The captain ceased his struggle and looked at his master’s mate with a mixture of disbelief and abject terror in his eyes. The three men who held him stood still too, as if the utterance of the words was enough to give them pause for thought.
‘You never are,’ said the captain in a level voice.
‘You have put us through hell, sir,’ shouted Mr Christian. ‘If you could only have seen . . . if you could have thought what it was like for us. To be there. To experience that. And then you take it away from us? You show us a paradise, and then expel us from it, as if you are the very Saviour himself. What had we done to deserve your unkindness?’
The captain stared at him and appeared to be genuinely amazed by what he was hearing. ‘A paradise?’ he asked. ‘What paradise? Fletcher, I don’t—’
‘Otaheite!’ he replied, pacing the floor now. ‘You gave it to us, don’t you see? You brought us there! And for what? For a few plants?’
‘But that’s our mission,’ cried the captain. ‘You knew this when you . . . Oh, unhand me, you men, or I will see you hanged in the morning!’
He wrestled himself free of his two captors and they stood by him for a moment, looking to Mr Christian for guidance in what to do next.
‘Fletcher, you have taken the sun, that is what it is,’ said the captain, taking a step towards him and holding his hands out in a conciliatory gesture. ‘It has gone to your head, that is what it is. You have debased yourself with illustration and alcohol and the depravity of whores and your mind is diseased by it. Stop this now, stop it now, Fletcher, and allow me to help you and the matter may end here.’
He was standing directly in front of Mr Christian then and I saw the master’s mate’s head dip slightly and a hand reach up to his own eyes, as if to wipe the tears from them. I thought for a moment that this was over, that he would concede his madness and equilibrium would be restored. Instead, he betrayed his code and his own honour by performing an unspeakable act; he lifted his hand to Captain Bligh and brought it across his face.
The captain was knocked sideways by the blow but he neither retaliated, nor allowed himself to look back at Mr Christian immediately. We watched him, all four of us, and it was perhaps half a minute before the two men were eye to eye again and I could tell by looking at Mr Bligh that his generosity had come to an end.
‘What do you mean to do?’ he asked.
‘It’s quite simple,’ said Mr Christian. ‘We do not wish to return to England.’
‘We? Who is this “we”?’
‘We, the men of the Bounty.’
‘You three?’ asked the captain with an embittered laugh. ‘You believe that three men can take a ship like this? I have near forty alongside me.’
‘They are with me, sir,’ replied Mr Christian.
‘Never.’
‘Oh, but they are.’
The captain swallowed and I shook my head in amazement; how could this conspiracy be gathered among the whole crew? How had it happened without some warning being obvious? The closest I had come to it was the overheard conversation earlier, but I had not the sense to translate the words at that time. My movement caught the captain’s eye and he looked in my direction, his eyebrows raised.
‘And you, Turnstile?’ he asked. ‘Even you?’
‘No, sir, not I,’ I replied quickly and defiantly. ‘You think I would stand by a diseased cur like Mr Christian?’
The words were not out of my mouth when Mr Christian turned and hit me a slap with such force that I fell directly backwards, over the captain’s desk, taking two of the portraits with me; I landed, dazed, upon the ground, with Betsey Blair so close to my lips that I might have kissed her.
‘Infamous,’ said the captain, appalled by the blow. ‘You’ll hang for this, Fletcher.’
‘For the beating of a servant-lad? I rather think not.’
‘For assaulting a senior officer, for taking a ship—’
‘We will not be found, captain, don’t you understand it yet? It will be as if we never existed. You cannot hang a spectre. T
ake him, lads.’
Stewart and Burkett took the captain by the arms again and this time he did not struggle, but allowed himself to be led by them towards the door. I was still on the ground, putting a hand to my lip and attempting to stay the flow of blood that was coming from it.
‘Wait,’ said Mr Christian, before looking down at me. ‘Fetch Mr Bligh’s overcoat,’ he instructed me.
‘I’ll do naught on your say-so,’ I replied.
‘Fetch his overcoat, Turnip, or as God is my witness I will carry you to the deck and throw you overboard before this minute is out. Now fetch it!’
I scrambled to my feet and took the heavy, dark blue coat from its place and handed it to the captain, who took it without a word and put it on, for he was wearing naught but an undershirt and it was a fierce unsightly way to present oneself to another man.
‘Take him up, lads,’ said Mr Christian before turning to me. ‘You can come with us or I can lead you there myself. Which is it to be?’
I nodded and agreed to follow them and he stepped out first, leading the way through the great rooms beyond. Mr Bligh proceeded to curse the men who were holding him, informing them in no uncertain terms of the great damage they were doing to their own lives, the shame they were bringing on their families, the disrepute they were bringing on their names, but they were having none of it. They seemed caught up in a sort of blood thirst that allowed them to damn their captain with the names they would have been afeared to employ when he had control of the ship, lest he set them to the gunner’s daughter and had them flogged for their cheek.
They took us at great speed through the lane ways where the breadfruit were stored, and as we came to the stairs to the upper deck the sound of a great commotion up ahead finally reached my ears and my stomach turned in fright as I wondered what ordeal would face us when we hit the night air.
Mr Christian went first and a great cheer broke out when he appeared on deck.
The two men and the captain came next and there was a sudden silence, followed by more cheering and stamping of feet.
In the great din of it, I dare say no one saw me appear as well, but I was shocked by the sight that was presented to me.
The mood on deck was not quite so in Mr Christian’s favour as he would have had us believe. On the contrary, from the moment the captain set foot among the men his natural authority was enough to cause most of them to become a little less vocal in their support for the new regime. I could see that not everyone was behind the mutiny either; Mr Fryer, loyal and trustworthy regardless of his personal relationship with the captain, was being restrained by several of the men, and some of the sailors were arguing among themselves about what was the right course of action.
‘Quieten down, lads,’ cried Mr Christian, raising an arm, and the crew fell silent as they waited for him to speak; he appeared to have regained some of the composure that he was lacking when making his initial arrest in the captain’s cabin. ‘Mr Bligh has been informed of the new structure on board the Bounty and has agreed that he has behaved for the bad.’
‘I have agreed nothing of the sort, you damned blasted cur!’ cried the captain, practically foaming at the mouth in anger. ‘You’ll all hang for this, every one of you that follows Mr Christian. If you want to stand a chance, I suggest that you arrest him and bind him in chains this minute.’
‘I’m with you, Captain,’ cried William Cole, the boatswain, and he was immediately surrounded by angry sailors.
‘And I,’ shouted the quartermaster’s mate, George Simpson.
‘So, Mr Christian?’ said the captain with a smile. ‘You have the whole crew, is it? Who else is with me? You, Surgeon Ledward?’
Thomas Ledward had been assistant to Surgeon Huggan and had taken over his responsibilities after his death. The young doctor looked around nervously and finally nodded his head.
‘Aye, Captain,’ he said. ‘I’m with you.’
‘You see, Christian?’ he asked triumphantly. ‘And you, Mr Sumner?’ he said, sure that he could rely on the young AB. ‘You’ll take my side, won’t you?’
‘Not I,’ he replied, stepping forward. ‘I mean you no harm, sir, but if you think I want to live out my days sailing the seas to line another’s pockets, when I could return to paradise and be with the woman I fell in love with, then you’re a Bedlamite.’
‘And you’re a mutineer, sir!’ cried the captain. ‘You’re a damned mutineer, you’re a damned disgrace, and you’ll be damned to hell for your actions.’
‘Aye, maybe so,’ he replied. ‘But I’ll have a happier time of it between now and then all the same.’
The captain looked away and scanned the ranks. ‘You,’ he called, pointing over at one of his midshipmen, George Stewart. ‘You, Mr Stewart, where do you stand on the matter?’
‘Four-square behind Mr Christian, sir,’ he replied.
‘And you, William Muspratt?’
‘With Mr Christian, sir.’
‘I might have known it too. A deserter and a mutineer. And not an ounce of remorse on your face despite the fact that I spared you from the hangman’s noose.’
Muspratt shrugged his shoulders. ‘I couldn’t give a flying fuck,’ he said, laughing in the captain’s face.
‘Matthew Quintal, what say you?’
‘Mr Christian, sir.’
‘And you, Matthew Thompson?
‘Mr Christian.’
‘William Brown?’
‘Mr Christian.’
‘Enough of this!’ cried the same Mr Christian. ‘The men are with me, sir, that’s all you need to know. Your time here is over.’
The captain nodded and breathed heavily through his nose; I could see that he was desperately trying to think what he might do next to regain his command. ‘So what happens now, then?’ he asked. ‘What are your intentions, Fletcher? Do you mean to cut my throat?’
‘I told you I am no murderer.’
‘You’re as good as one, so let us not play with niceties.’
‘Skinner, Sumner, Ellison,’ he replied, looking in the direction of three of the men. ‘Lower one of the launches.’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘They ran to the side of the boat and lowered a launch into the water, keeping it on its ropes yet.
‘This ship,’ shouted Mr Christian loudly so that every man jack of us could hear, ‘will not be returning to England. Nor will it be going to the West Indies. It has another destination in mind. Any of you who wish to stay with it, your presence will be welcomed, although do not fool yourselves that there will be no work to do. Any who wish to go with Mr Bligh, you may step into the launch now.’
Silence fell and the men looked at one another in surprise. It was finally broken by the captain himself.
‘Not a murderer, are you?’ he asked. ‘Not a murderer? You will set me adrift, thousands of miles from home, with naught to guide my way. If that is not murder, then I’d like to know the name of it.’
‘You will have a compass, sir,’ said Mr Christian. ‘And any man who chooses to accompany you. That is all I can spare. After that, the rest is down to your skill.’
‘You may dress it in as many fancy ways as you like. It is murder.’
At that, John Norton, a young seaman who had been of little use or interest to anyone since the beginning of the voyage, broke through from the ranks of the sailors. So surprised were his fellows – for Norton was a timid thing, given to silences and poetic thoughts – that they let him through and he stepped all the way towards the captain. I feared for a moment that he had lost his reason in the excitement and was about to do Mr Bligh an injury, but instead he merely nodded his head at him for a moment and then did the most unusual thing. He walked to the side of the boat, climbed over the side and lowered himself into the launch. The men watched him, astonished, and then as one broke into a cacophonous melody of jeers and whistles, taunting the loyal sailor for his fidelity. Norton seemed not to care. He took a seat and awaited companions.
He h
ad little need to worry. Before long, others stepped forward and made the journey into the launch. The gardener, Mr Nelson, joined him, although I noted he was trembling as he did so. The clerk, Mr Samuel. The quartermaster’s mate, George Simpson, stepped down. The midshipman, John Hallett. The boatswain, Mr Cole. The gunner, Mr Peckover. The carpenter, Mr Purcell. They went down one by one until there were sixteen men below and thirty above.
‘Mr Heywood,’ said the captain, his voice breaking now, intimations of doom ahead of him. ‘I feel I need hardly ask, but what of you? You are an officer in His Majesty’s navy.’
‘And His Majesty may suck on my whistle for all I care of him,’ he replied, and the captain merely nodded, refusing to be shocked by the scandalous remark.
‘I am with you, Captain,’ said a voice from my left. ‘Right to the end.’ I looked over and watched as Mr Fryer made his way towards the side of the boat.
‘You, sir?’ asked the captain, a note of tenderness edging into his voice.
‘To the end,’ he repeated and climbed over the side. The captain nodded and swallowed slightly, his eyes looking down on the deck sorrowfully. I thought he might have been considering his own behaviour towards that fine fellow over the course of their time together and regretting it.
‘Anyone else?’ cried Mr Christian, looking around, and the rest of the men shook their heads. ‘Then, get you down, Mr Bligh.’
Without hesitation the captain stepped towards the side of the boat and turned back once to make a final remark. ‘You will lay eyes on me again,’ he said without any rancour in his voice. ‘Every man jack of you will. You will see me standing before you as the hood is placed over your heads before you swing. Mine will be the last face you will see, you may mark that.’
The men hooted and jeered and he turned to step over the side, but as he did so I caught his eye.
I confess, and I confess it to my shame, that I had been hiding a little out of the sightlines of the others, keeping my head down, hoping that a resolution might be reached and we would not come to this. It was clear that the men in the launch and the captain himself would not survive; they could not. It was a nautical impossibility. They knew not where they were, in which direction they should aim; nor did they have food or drink. And the launch itself was already overfilled, for it was a mere twenty-three feet in length and not designed for the seventeen men already inside it, and the captain too.