by John Boyne
‘I certainly am,’ I replied. ‘If I hold any position in His Majesty’s navy, then that’s the one I hold.’
‘You have no special privileges,’ he said then with a sneer. ‘It’s not as it was. We’re in this together, every man jack of us.’
I frowned. Was this how the men had seen me over these past sixteen months? As a fellow who held special conditions different from their own simply on account of my proximity to the captain’s cabin and person? Little did they know how hard I had worked. Why, I was up in the morning to prepare the captain’s breakfast and after that there would be his clothes to take care of, and then lunch, and then perhaps a little free time if I could hide away somewhere he wouldn’t find me, and then it was dinner and, sure, after that it was time for bed. How on earth did they think that they had endured a more difficult time of it than I had?
‘I know that, William Purcell,’ said I, insulted. ‘It’s only the crick in my neck that—’
‘Ah, you can kiss the crack in my arse if you say one more word about the crick in your neck,’ he snapped, the filthy beggar. ‘Now, start a-rowing and let’s see if we can get where we are going a little quicker.’
Every man in the tub took a turn at the oars, even the captain himself, and the officers, and this at least offered us a sense of unity and equality. Two hours at a time, four men on a shift. Over the first few days of our escapade I had felt the muscles in my arms turn to jelly and I swore that if I was forced to pick up the oars one more time they would snap off at the shoulder, but now, having been at it for nearly two weeks, the muscles in my arms had developed and it no longer felt like such a trauma. I could cheerfully row for my two hours without feeling any the worse for wear. But that day, with such a waterlogged body and an unhappy skeleton, it was a terrible trial.
In the meantime the captain was creating a sort of weighing scales from two shelled halves of a coconut and a couple of pistol balls as weights, and he announced that from then until we reached our next destination – the New Hebrides – rations would be cut again and divided equally by weight determined by this contraption. A great cry went up, for our stomachs were already feeling as if they were never fed any more due to the meagre amounts he offered us three times a day, but there was nothing we could say or do to change things and the captain would listen to no argument.
It was a dark day, as I recall. A depressing day. A day when I felt my spirits very low, very low indeed.
53
Day 13: 10 May
HUNGER. HUNGER. HUNGER. HUNGER.
And thirst.
If the word hunger could have been spun on its head and turned into a living, breathing human being, then I swear he would have been a young English lad, no more than five feet and six inches in height, with tousled dark hair, a chipped front tooth, and answering to the name of John Jacob Turnstile. I woke this day with a pain in my belly the like of which I could never remember having endured before, the sort of pain you get that bends you over and makes you howl.
Rising from my place on the floor of the tub after a few hours of restless sleep, where my feet had been stuck in the face of Thomas Hall and I had suffered the indignity of having the feet of John Hallett in my own, I felt as if my whole body was protesting at the trauma that I was causing it. My arms and legs ached, my head pounded, but, sweet Saviour, it was the pain in my belly that hurt me the most. Dragging my sorry carcass over to the side of the launch, I picked up a spear and watched in the waters below for any sign of fish. If I could just spike one, I thought, then I could squirrel it away under my shirt – such as it was, a thin layer of fabric, torn and shredded in parts – and chew on it raw whenever I felt like it. It would be a mean thing not to offer it to the others, of course, and would surely cause a commotion should the intelligence be revealed, but it was every one of us for himself now and I swore in my head that if I found a fish it would soon find its way into my belly.
The waters in that area had a curious blueness to them, with something approaching a green shade dusting the base and a roll of blackness appearing from time to time to add an extra colour to the rainbow. Watching it I felt myself entranced, as Mr Fryer had been on the occasion that I had discovered him to be lost in his reveries and looking out to sea. Concentrating, I found I could see my own reflection in the water and, when I put a hand down to disturb it, in a moment my eyes, my mouth, my nose, my ears, had spread out into a kaleidoscope of Turnstile, spilling to all four points of the compass before the call of each other proved too much and the water settled and the parts of my phizzy reassembled beneath my gaze. It caused me a smile and a sigh.
Another moment and then I jumped. I opened my eyes wide and wondered who it was that was looking back up at me. Was that John Jacob Turnstile, late of Mr Lewis’s establishment? Late of Portsmouth? Englishman? I thought not. For was not his jaw too strong and fixed for a lad of fifteen? Were not his cheeks too sunken? Was that not a trim of mustachio and beard upon his chops? I put a hand to my face and touched the whiskers that were growing there and felt a momentary pride in my own masculinity. For a few vital seconds it was a wonderful thing to be alive. I wondered whether anyone would even recognize me back in Portsmouth, should the unlikeliest of things happen and we eighteen return to the king’s land; and it crossed my mind that I might start again, aye, even in my own home town, and no one would know the employment I had endured before, either during the day or, darker, during the night. But such thoughts could only last a second, like my dissolved features in the water, before rejoining and the truth reappearing.
I blinked and heard activity behind me; others waking. Sailors rising unsteadily to their feet, anxious to stretch their arms heavenward, lift one foot from the deck and hold it out, shake it, while trying to maintain a balance, to allow the blood to flow again. Voices called to the captain and asked when our fasts would be broken and he replied with an answer that was not to everyone’s taste.
But I didn’t look around. I continued to stare at the water. And then I saw it: a long fish. Red in its colour, was it? Or a dark green? It mattered not. It was a fish. It contained meat. I picked up the short spear and held it over the side, and just at that moment the pain in my belly attacked me like a kick to the privates and it was all that I could do not to scream aloud in agony, and when my eyes opened again the spear was gone, one of only two that we had. I had dropped it. It had plunged to the depths of the ocean. I gasped in horror and waited for a hand to the seat of my pants that might throw me over in search of it, but none was forthcoming. No one had seen.
I looked round cautiously, anxious not to give away the terror in my face, but none of my companions was facing in my direction. The captain turned to look at me and noted my features.
‘Turnstile,’ he said, ‘are you all right? You look quite anxious.’
‘I’m fine, sir,’ said I. I would keep my secret. The absence of the spear would be noticed soon enough, but I would say nothing. It would be more than my life was worth.
54
Day 14: 11 May
THEY WERE A RUM BUNCH of conversationalists on board the tub, that’s for sure. While on rowing duty I tried to strike up a chatter with William Peckover, the gunner, and got a whole lot of nothing for my trouble. We were side by side in the craft and as he was a much bigger man than I – taller, broader and a great deal thicker, take that as you will – his shoulders kept banging on mine every time we swung the oars back towards us. It gave me a proper set of annoyances, but tempers had been swift on board the tub that morning so I thought a little idle chatter would be better.
‘I hear tell that you sailed with Mr Bligh before,’ I said, and at my words he turned and stared at me with such a look of offence on his face that you’d swear he was the king of England and I’d just left his presence while displaying my arse.
‘You heard that, Turnip, did you?’ he asked. ‘And what of it if I did? What business is it of yours?’
‘No business at all, friend,’ said I. ‘I only m
ention it for something to say.’
He stared a little longer and then went back to his rowing. ‘Aye,’ he said after a long while, by which time I’d already forgotten my question and was more engaged with a memory of a particularly unchristian but highly enjoyable afternoon that Kaikala and I had spent at our lagoon, a recollection that would have given me the motions at any other time but which, on this occasion, were rebutted due to the exhaustion of my body and the emptiness of my belly. ‘Aye, it’s true. I sailed with him on the Endeavour when he was master and Captain Cook led us.’
‘Was he much different then?’ I asked, for it was hard for me to imagine the captain being in Mr Fryer’s position, not handing out the orders but receiving and obeying them.
‘Somewhat,’ he replied. ‘He were younger, that much is true.’ I sighed, unsure whether he was being deliberately evasive or thought that this was a reasonable answer to my question. ‘I’ll tell you this much,’ he said after a few more minutes had passed. ‘Captain Cook never would have allowed this to happen.’
‘What’s that?’ I asked ignorantly.
‘This, Turnip. This! Our crew out here in the middle of nowhere sailing to the Saviour knows where, little knowing whether we might live or die. He never would have allowed matters to come to this.’
‘But the captain was surprised by it,’ I protested, for even though circumstances had changed, I still thought it my duty to stand by him. ‘He had no idea what Mr Christian was planning.’
‘Hadn’t he?’ asked Peckover. ‘Then, I suggest he should have kept his eyes and ears open when we were on Otaheite, for there was more than one man knew of the plot, and there were others not far from us here who were torn between their two ideas: fornication and duty.’
I looked around and wondered who among us was the lazy dog who had considered standing against the captain, but it occurred to me that I too had had moments of doubt as to where I would stand.
‘Did you know of it?’ I asked quietly. ‘Did you know the mutiny was to take place?’
‘I knew there was a chance of it,’ he said with a shrug. ‘I knew that Mr Christian never wanted to leave the island and I knew there were those who said they would follow him no matter what.’
‘And you? You never thought to join him?’
‘Not I,’ he said, shaking his head quickly. ‘I’m the king’s man, always have been since the day I was born. No, there’s nothing I would have liked more than a little more frolics with the ladies of Otaheite, but I never could have stayed there and added my name to the list of mutineers. My family would have been disgraced. I wonder that you joined us, though, Turnip. I wonder that you didn’t decide to enjoy the freedoms on offer.’
‘I’ve not much to go home to, I’ll give you that,’ I admitted. ‘But the captain was good to me from the moment I joined the ship. He looked after me in those early days when I was ill. He took me into his confidence during the voyage. He taught me things.’
‘Aye, there were some who were jealous of that,’ he said with a laugh.
‘There were?’ I asked.
‘Of course! You think the younger officers liked the way you came to and from his cabin at any hour of the night or day? You think they thought it right that you could be in there, cleaning or clearing, while they were engaged on the ship’s business? Both Mr Christian and Mr Heywood spoke to the captain about it. They said they had concerns.’
‘Concerns about me?’ I asked, my blood boiling. ‘The scuts! Why, I never gave them any cause to!’
‘And then there was the list,’ he said, smiling a little as if he was enjoying the knowledge that he held over me.
‘The list?’ I asked. ‘And what list might that have been?’
‘The list that was discovered. The one that named those men who might have been engaged in a conspiracy. Mr Christian’s name was on it. Aye, and Mr Heywood’s.’
‘I remember it,’ I said, recalling the night that I had lain in my bunk, pretending to be asleep, while Mr Fryer and Mr Bligh discussed this newly discovered list and whether or not the names should be exposed. ‘The captain was unsure what to do about it.’
‘I dare say,’ said Peckover. ‘Only, there was another name on that list too, young Turnip. Someone who you may have been surprised to see there. Or perhaps not.’
I frowned. I couldn’t imagine who it might have been, save the mutineers themselves. ‘Who?’ I asked. ‘Who was it?’
‘Do you really claim not to know?’ he asked, turning his head a little and giving me a quizzical look, the better to decide whether I was being honest or not.
‘Of course I don’t,’ I said. ‘I never saw it. Whose name was there? Another of the officers? Thomas Burkett? He was always a bad ‘un. Edward Young? He never had a good word for the captain.’
‘None of them,’ said Peckover, shaking his head. ‘Although their names may well have been on the list too. But none of them. No, the name I refer to is that of someone much closer to the captain than them.’
I considered it. There was only one name seemed possible, although it was unlikely. ‘Not Mr Fryer?’ I asked.
‘No, not Mr Fryer,’ he replied with a laugh. ‘The name was Turnstile. John Jacob Turnstile.’
55
Day 15: 12 May
TWO DAYS PASSED BEFORE ANYONE discovered that a spear was missing. Mr Elphinstone, who had taken to murmuring in his sleep, calling out the name Bessie time and again – a disconcerting fact considering that was the name of the captain’s own wife – was organizing that day’s shift of rowers when Lawrence LeBogue noticed a shoal of fish passing by the tub.
‘Look, sir,’ he said, pointing into the water, and half the crew looked starboard, almost over tipping us. ‘We could catch some if we try.’
‘Spears,’ said Mr Elphinstone, looking around to discover them, as it had been several days since we had seen any fish at all so there had been no call for the spears. George Simpson produced one from beneath his seat and every man looked around for the second. ‘Well, come on, men,’ he said. ‘It must be here somewhere.’
‘What’s this?’ asked the captain, who had been asleep, and now sat up at the disturbance we were making. ‘What goes on here, Mr Elphinstone?’
‘The spears, sir,’ he replied. ‘We can only find one.’
‘But there are two.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Mr Bligh sighed and shook his head as if the whole thing was beneath his consideration. ‘Well, it’s not as if we could have left it anywhere, is it?’ he asked. ‘Every man look around him; it must be here somewhere.’
Everyone looked, including me, who could feel the blood pumping faster within my chest as the search continued. It occurred to me that I should have admitted to my crime immediately it happened. I would have been in trouble, of course, but at least I would have been honest with it. My worry had been that the men would pick me up and throw me overboard in search of it and that would have been the end of my adventuring.
‘Sir, it doesn’t appear to be here,’ said Mr Elphinstone finally, sitting down and shaking his head. For a moment I thought he might collapse in a heap of tears at the upset of it.
‘Not here?’ cried the captain. ‘Then, someone must have lost it overboard, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So who was it?’ he asked, standing up and looking around the tub. ‘You, William Purcell, did you lose the spear?’
‘As God is my witness, I did not,’ he said, sounding mortally offended at the very suggestion.
‘And you, John Hallett, did you lose it?’
‘Not I, sir. I’ve never even held it in my hands.’
A voice from the back of the ship piped up. ‘It was me, sir.’ Before I knew it I was on my feet in the realization that I had spoken and admitted the loss. The fact of it took even me by surprise, but I knew for certain that the captain would have interrogated every man on board one at a time and I could no sooner lie to him, or hide the lie, than
I could kiss a monkey. ‘I lost the spear.’
‘You, Turnstile?’ he asked, his voice betraying his disappointment in me.
‘Aye, sir,’ I said. ‘I had it in my hands. I was trying to catch a fish. And it slipped. And it vanished.’
He breathed heavily and shook his head, narrowing his eyes to observe me all the better. ‘When was this?’ he asked.
‘Two days ago,’ I said. ‘As the sun slipped.’
‘Two days ago and you saw fit only to admit to this now?’
‘I’m sorry for it, sir,’ I said. ‘Truly I am.’
‘Aye, and so you should be,’ yelled David Nelson, the botanist, scrambling to his feet and him usually as placid as a duck in a pond. ‘We had only two spears and now we have one. How shall we survive? What if we should encounter more savages?’
‘Sit down, that man,’ roared the captain, and Mr Nelson turned to look at him, not obeying him immediately.
‘But, captain,’ he said, ‘the lad lied about it and—’
‘He lied about nothing; he simply omitted to tell the truth. It’s a subtle distinction, I grant you, but a distinction nonetheless. Sit down, I tell you, Mr Nelson, and, Turnstile, come up here to me.’
The botanist took his seat again, still a-grumbling, and I made my way slowly to the fore of the tub, passing by the other men, who gave me evil looks and muttered low comments about my birth and my mother, as if I had ever known that honest woman. The captain was standing with his hands on his hips and I swallowed nervously as I reached him.
‘I do apologize, sir,’ I explained. ‘It was an accident.’
‘And accidents will happen to all of us,’ he said. ‘But how shall we survive if we are not honest with one another? Look at Mr Lamb and Mr Linkletter there.’
I turned and faced those two men, who were seated on either side of the boat with small buckets, bailing out water from the tub, a task that had become as much a constant part of our day as the rowing or the pains in our bellies.