Hell's Fire

by Brian Freemantle

  Once the praise would have pleased him, Christian accepted. Always he had enjoyed being liked and respected. Doubtless the reason he’d welcomed Bligh’s friendship, all those years ago.

  Now Stewart’s assertion brought him no pleasure. Bligh had drained him of all the feelings he had once had.

  ‘It’s no good, Mr Stewart. I’m trapped with the man and can stand it no longer. Even to die would be a better fate than staying aboard the Bounty a moment longer.’

  Christian shuddered, unexpectedly, reminded of Stewart’s warning about sharks. Sometimes the men had amused themselves by throwing bones and rotting meat into the water, watching those huge mouths with their saw-edged teeth crush and tear at the bait. He closed his eyes, imagining a leg or an arm being ripped away from his body as he spread-eagled on his raft, trying to paddle towards the uncertain safety of an island he couldn’t see.

  Stewart frowned at the shaking of his friend. Christian was chilled, he decided. Men’s minds often went when they were fevered.

  If Christian were caught trying to slip over the side, Bligh would make the man’s life hell on earth, Stewart knew. Or even more of a hell than he was making it at present. He’d clap him in irons, of course. And keep him, like a pet bear or dog, paraded every day to be goaded and taunted. Before the voyage was over, Christian would undoubtedly be insane.

  ‘It’s near four,’ cautioned Stewart. ‘Little more than an hour before sun-up. You’ll never leave the ship without being seen, sir. We’re making so little way they’d get the cutter launched and you inboard before you’d been in the water thirty minutes.’

  ‘Unless a shark gets me,’ qualified Christian.

  Stewart frowned, caught by the remark. Was Christian discarding the ridiculous idea of a raft? he wondered.

  ‘There are people on board who would follow you, if you chose another course,’ prompted Stewart, guardedly.

  Only inches separated the faces of the two men, hunched in the fetid berth. Christian stared at the Scotsman, waiting. Stewart gazed back, saying nothing more.

  ‘It’s time I went on watch,’ said Christian, at last.

  ‘Desert and you’ll die,’ said Stewart, desperately.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Then talk to your friends.’

  ‘And I still might die.’

  ‘It’ll be a better chance.’

  ‘Out of my way, Mr Stewart.’

  The faint easterly made it cooler on deck, but sweat still dripped from Christian, soaking his shirt. He looked towards the shapes of several men lining the rail, watching the eruption of Tofoa, and remembered Stewart’s warning.

  The man was right, he knew. Even if the sharks didn’t get him, the raft he had put together the night before and which lay concealed now beneath the cutter would probably break up before he reached any island.

  And the natives would kill him, if he landed without the visible protection of the Bounty. Even with the ship and its guns in evidence, the natives often weren’t scared. Only three days earlier, he’d been lucky to get the men away alive when the watering party he had commanded on Anamoka had been attacked.

  Of course, Bligh had blamed him for what had happened, undermining his authority by ranting in front of the crew of which he was supposed to be second-in-command, saying it was his fault the natives had stolen the worthless axe and demanding to know why he hadn’t ordered his men to use the guns with which they’d been issued, to prevent it. Christian sighed. Bligh was going mad, he thought, remembering the diatribe in minute detail. It had been one of the most positive indications yet of the man’s closeness to insanity, castigating him for not using the muskets less than three hours after giving specific orders that although they had been issued, the weapons were not to be fired. The self-pity bubbled up again. How could he be expected to work a ship under a man whose mind butterflied from order to order in constant contradiction?

  He put aside the question, thinking of the natives again. They fought with stones, he knew, battering their victims until they were pulped to death. It would take a long time to die, guessed Christian. And hurt a great deal.

  He stood, quite alone on the deck, his eyes pressed closed. Oh dear Lord, he thought, what am I to do?

  He had to get away, he knew.

  He heard the rest of the watch approaching and opened his eyes, embarrassed. It was still dark enough to conceal what he had been doing, Christian realised, gratefully. He didn’t want gossip that he had begun his watch standing on deck, praying.

  ‘Sir?’ asked Thomas Ellison, seeking an order. Christian smiled down at the tiny, baby-faced youngster, still only seventeen. Like the rest of them, the boy had had himself tattooed in Tahiti, Christian knew. His right arm was still flushed and puffy around the inscription of his name and the date upon which it had been done, October 25, 1788. His parents would probably beat him for it, when he got home to England.

  ‘The helm,’ ordered Christian, briskly. He looked over Ellison’s shoulder, to John Mills. The gunner’s mate was a raw-boned, taciturn man who’d sailed the world. At 5 ft 10 ins he dwarfed the youth.

  ‘At the conn, to guide him,’ ordered Christian. Mills would keep the boy out of trouble, he knew. Not that anything was likely to arise on this stifling night that could cause any trouble. Stewart had been right; the ship was scarcely making headway.

  Matthew Quintal and Isaac Martin came towards him, expectantly. They were tattooed, too, Christian knew. Quintal had his ass covered in pictures, copying the idea when he knew that Christian had had it done. It had taken them both a week before they could sit down again.

  ‘Coil the loose lines,’ instructed Christian, brusquely. ‘Prepare to swab down.’

  Both Quintal and Martin had suffered from Bligh, Christian remembered. He tried to recall the number of floggings that had been inflicted on both men, but gave up. He snorted, halted by a sudden thought. Had he not been an officer and therefore above such punishment, how many lashes would Bligh have chosen for him?

  He went slowly along the creaking ship to the quarter-deck, to relieve William Peckover. The gunner didn’t like him, suspected Christian. Once it had worried him.

  ‘Hot night, Mr Christian,’ greeted Peckover. He was a large, shambling man, always ready at grog time. But a good seaman.

  Christian nodded.

  ‘How’s it below?’

  ‘Bad,’ said Christian.

  ‘Then maybe I’ll stay on deck.’

  Christian didn’t reply.

  Peckover nodded towards the stern.

  ‘Norman has found a new friend,’ he said, amused.

  ‘What?’

  ‘A shark,’ said Peckover. ‘Very big. Norman is talking to it, idiot that he is.’

  The gunner moved away, humming softly to himself.

  A following shark would be on him the moment he hit the water, Christian knew. No matter how quickly he followed the raft, it would take at least five minutes to swim to it and sprawl aboard. So he’d have no chance. Which meant that the carefully made raft was useless. And that he remained trapped.

  Still the professional seaman, Christian looked around for the rest of his watch, then shrugged. John Hallett and Thomas Hayward would both be still asleep, he guessed, careless as always of their duties. He would let them stay. There was little they could do and he liked neither of them. The last thing he wanted was forced conversation with two youngsters whose prattling irritated him. If Bligh discovered he’d done nothing to rouse them, there’d be trouble, Christian knew. It didn’t matter. Very little seemed to matter, any more.

  Christian was surprised to see Edward Young coming towards him. Young was his friend, almost as close as Stewart. Too hot to sleep, Christian guessed. It would get worse, after sunrise.

  Young was a direct, rough seaman who drank too much. He was quite ugly, thought Christian, his nose broken from some forgotten brawl and nearly all his teeth rotting blackly in his mouth. The Tahitian girls hadn’t liked him, Christian remembered. Be
fore they’d agree to his making love to them, they’d made him eat pineapple and drink coconut milk, to sweeten his breath.

  ‘What’s it to be then, sir?’ opened Young, with his customary directness.

  Christian moved his shoulders, uncertainly. It wasn’t just Bligh any more, he thought, feeling the emotion rise in his throat. Everyone kept on to him, prodding and demanding. He tried to control the irritation. Edward Young was his friend, the man to whom the previous night he’d given some of the belongings he most treasured. The man’s concern was genuine, he knew, not the prying of someone trying to confirm a half-heard rumour.

  ‘Mr Stewart thinks we should seize you, to prevent your killing yourself. He thinks you’re mad,’ added Young.

  ‘And what account would you give the captain?’

  ‘That’s the only thing preventing us.’

  ‘I’ll get away, somehow,’ said Christian, lamely. The knowledge that there was no escape was settling insidiously in his mind.

  ‘You’ve got friends aboard,’ said Young.

  He was speaking very quietly, Christian realised, his head only inches away. The Tahitian women had been justified: his breath smelt very badly.

  ‘… friends who would follow any lead you might make …’ added the other midshipman, pointedly.

  The same prompting as George Stewart, reflected Christian. Why did they need him to lead?

  ‘There’ll never be another opportunity like this,’ said Young, urgently. ‘Look at your watch …’

  Christian stared around him at the men under his command, then answered his own question. The officers wanted him to lead because they knew he commanded the respect and leadership of the men on the lower deck. He wished Young would stand away a little.

  ‘What do you mean, Mr Young?’

  The midshipman shifted, annoyed at Christian’s refusal to acknowledge the facts.

  ‘Every man of them with reason to hate Bligh, almost as much as yourself,’ insisted Young, hurriedly. ‘Sound them out … they’ll be behind you, just like we will …’

  ‘You can be hanged for inciting a mutiny, sir, just the same as mounting one,’ warned Christian.

  ‘Nothing will go wrong, once it starts,’ argued Young. ‘Every man who might oppose you is below now, asleep.’

  Christian shook his head, unwilling to make the commitment.

  ‘What’s the alternative?’ demanded Young. ‘It’ll take months to get home, months when you’ll be the whipping boy for that madman Bligh. He’ll turn you mad, Mr Christian. Mad, like he is.’

  ‘He’s already come close to it,’ mused Christian, softly.

  ‘We could put them in the cutter,’ enlarged Young. ‘And give them provisions. That way they’d get to an island …’

  And be killed there, thought Christian. A mutineer. And a murderer. The Christian family was a proud and honoured one; only he had chosen a career at sea. The others were barristers and would, he knew, become judges. Was he to besmirch a family whose very vocation was the upholding of English law by committing the most serious crime in the statute book?

  ‘It’s ridiculous,’ he rejected. ‘I’ll hear no more of this, Mr Young.’

  ‘He’s turned against you,’ insisted Young. ‘Think on what he was threatening during the row yesterday – that he’d have you and others of us jumping overboard in the Endeavour Straits, rather than remain aboard with him. That wasn’t just an idle expression. He meant it, Mr Christian. He means to pick and nag until he breaks you.’

  It was true, thought Christian. Bligh wouldn’t stop. He’d keep on, through every hour of every day. And it could be so long before they reached Portsmouth again. So very long.

  A gush of red spurted through the distant volcano cone, brightening the already lightening sky and the sound of the eruption, like far-away thunder, rumbled over the ship. At the stern, Charles Norman leaned over the rail, muttering to the shark. In his cabin below, the ship’s master twisted, trying to find a more comfortable position on top of his chest, and in the cabin opposite, Bligh muttered a jumble of words, one of which sounded like ‘honour’, before settling back to sleep.

  ‘There won’t be another chance,’ repeated Young, turning back along the deck. ‘Think on it, Mr Christian. By morning, it will be too late. And if the raft is discovered and traced to you, as it must surely be, then you’re lost anyway.’

  Young walked away with short, thrusting strides and Christian remained at the rail, looking down into the ship. He closed his eyes again, scurrying thoughts filling his mind like dry leaves in autumn.

  A spontaneous uprising could succeed, he knew. Everyone to whom he had confided his determination to abandon the ship had conceded some personal reason for hating Bligh. At the moment they were like driftwood swirling unconnected in a whirlpool. Only a catalyst was needed to bind them together. And he could provide that element of cohesion, Christian knew. To become an outcast, a man denied the possibility of ever returning to his own country. They were thousands of miles from England, certainly. But one day, somehow, the news would arrive there. And his family would be humiliated. He balanced the argument in his mind. A family probably humiliated in several years’ time, compared to the daily, unremitting humiliation for month upon month. And perhaps not even ending with their arrival at Portsmouth. When he came to get another ship, Bligh would damn him in every report and character assessment, Christian knew, haunting him with his vindictiveness for the rest of his life. Thousands of miles away, he thought again. Years before anyone really knew: if ever. Lost at sea would be the official belief. Sadness in the family, certainly. But not disgrace. Pride even: lost at sea, with his ship.

  They’d hang him if they did find out. At Spithead, before the jeering fleet. As an example to others. Wouldn’t hurt, though, not like being ripped apart by a shark. Or pounded to death by savages. Just a quick, sharp jerk. And that would be it.

  Christian began walking from the quarter-deck, a lightness numbing his body: he felt as if his limbs were moving without his control and that he couldn’t have stopped if he had wanted to. And a part of him wanted to stop. Immediately.

  At the mizzen he paused, halted by a thought. If it went wrong, he couldn’t let Bligh arrest him. The torture, until they got home for trial, would be unbearable. Mr Young would be right. He would end up certifiably insane. With his seaman’s knife, Christian cut away a length of line attached to one of the heavy sounding leads with which they established the depth of the water in harbour or in shallows, hefting it in his hands to test its weight. It would do, he thought, pleased with the idea. He looped it around his neck, tightly securing the cord. If too many men opposed him to follow Bligh and it became clear the uprising was to fail, he’d throw himself overboard and the weight of the lead would pull him down. He’d drag the water into his lungs. He had the will-power to do it. It wouldn’t take long to drown: or become unconscious, even. He’d be able to achieve it before the sharks struck.

  He pulled his sweat-damp shirt over the weight, feeling it heavy against his chest.

  He’d have to hurry, thought Christian, the decision made. Soon it would be daylight. He would have to guarantee support before then.

  ‘Dear Lord,’ he said, softly, moving on again. ‘Please help me.’

  Quintal looked up as Christian approached, straightening from the rope he was looping. Since their matching tattoos in Tahiti, Quintal had regarded Christian differently from most superior officers, even though he accorded the man the respect due to his rank.

  ‘It’ll be a hot day, Mr Christian,’ he said, looking hard at the officer. Christian was drenched in perspiration already, he saw.

  ‘Are you all right, sir?’ he asked, looking at Christian intently. The man’s face was set and he seemed to be looking at something far away.

  ‘Well enough,’ replied Christian. It would have to be a careful approach, in the beginning. If Young and Stewart were wrong, Christian wanted ground upon which to retreat.

  ‘It�
��s going to be a long voyage home,’ opened Christian. ‘Maybe longer than a year.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ said Quintal.

  He was a short, stocky man, not afraid to fight, Christian knew. And he made no secret of his dislike of Bligh. But was it sufficient for him to become a mutineer?

  ‘I’m worried about the captain,’ embarked Christian, cautiously. His stomach dipped, as if did sometimes when the ship slipped too quickly into a storm trough. The moment of commitment, he thought.

  Quintal let the rope-end fall, studying the second-in-command intently. This wasn’t a casual conversation.

  ‘Worried?’

  ‘His rages are almost constant now,’ said Christian. ‘It’ll be a hell trip.’

  And you to be the chief sufferer, thought Quintal.

  ‘It will be that,’ agreed the seaman, guardedly. His back was still marked by the flogging that Bligh had ordered. And there would be more, he knew. Bligh had him singled out, for no reason at all. The man would find cause for further punishment.

  ‘There’s none who are happy with him,’ asserted Christian, growing bolder.

  That was true enough, accepted Quintal. But Christian shouldn’t have said it. He should have been frightened by this conversation, Quintal thought. Instead, he found himself excited. Mr Christian had picked him out, he decided.

  ‘Ours has been a fair relationship,’ prompted Christian.

  ‘Aye, sir,’ agreed Quintal.

  ‘Do you trust me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Completely?’

  Quintal nodded.

  ‘Aye, sir, completely.’

  ‘Do the men trust me?’

  Quintal nodded again, feeling the first twitch of apprehension.

  ‘What about the other officers?’ demanded Quintal. People were hanged for mutiny, he thought. And that’s what they were discussing, he was sure.

  ‘With me,’ assured Christian. ‘Those that count.’

  It was like dancing to the music of the blind fiddler, Byrn, thought Quintal, going around in circles with little point and arriving back where you started.