Hell's Fire

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘They were laughing at us today, Mr Bligh,’ said the woman, suddenly. ‘I hated it.’

  ‘Not in the end,’ insisted Bligh. ‘What happened today will halt the smears, you see.’

  Elizabeth shook her head, unconvinced.

  ‘There’s rarely a day that passes, Mr Bligh,’ she said, reflectively, ‘without my lamenting the moment we first heard of the Bounty.’

  ‘Hush, Betsy,’ said Bligh, smiling across the table. ‘Everything will be resolved, don’t you fret.’

  ‘That’s the trouble,’ agreed his wife. ‘I do worry … I worry nearly all the time …’

  Pitt laughed, uncertainly, imagining Banks was attempting a joke.

  ‘I’m quite serious, sir,’ asserted Six Joseph. ‘I say he’d be the ideal man.’

  ‘But you can’t be,’ protested the politician. ‘Why, it’s madness!’

  ‘Give the proposal proper consideration,’ demanded Banks, undismayed by the opposition. ‘He’s got every qualification.’

  ‘And I say he’d be a disaster, sir,’ refused Pitt. Banks was too assured of his importance, decided the premier. Far too assured.

  ‘But why?’ asked Banks. ‘Give me a reason, supported by fact, why William Bligh isn’t the obvious choice. Fact, remember. Not a porridge of smear and rumour …’

  ‘… it would be bad politics,’ rejected Pitt, unable to give a direct reply. ‘The man’s surrounded by scandal.’

  ‘So is Admiral Lord Nelson, because of his blatant association with the Hamilton woman,’ scored Banks, not enjoying his descent to gutter argument. ‘I don’t see that deterring the Admiralty Lords from calling upon him.’

  ‘The situation is altogether different,’ replied Pitt, angrily. The man’s face, coloured by his fondness for port wine, deepened and the redness was accentuated by the whiteness of his hair.

  It was a wonder, thought Banks, that Pitt had been spared the severity of gout that had killed his father.

  ‘I ask you only to consider it,’ pleaded Banks. ‘Consider it objectively, in the light of everything known of the man. I say he’s the obvious choice.’

  Pitt stared back at him, unmoved.

  Lord Hood hated public hangings. They were necessary, for the maintenance of discipline, he accepted. But he still hated them. He stood uncomfortably in the main cabin of the Brunswick, feeling the vessel shift to anchor, his wine glass forgotten in his hand. The eleven other officers who had determined the verdict grouped around, all subdued at the thought of what was to happen. Hood stared through the port, at the other ships commanded to witness the executions, their crews lined up to order. Rarely, he thought, could so many ships be gathered at anchor with such little noise. It was always the same.

  It had been a fair verdict, the President reassured himself. Heywood and Morrison had been rightly pardoned. Muspratt was the only man whose fate had not been decided cleanly. The man had been found guilty, like the remainder, but had won a stay of execution upon the technicality that he had been unable to call the proper witnesses for his defence. But that had not been his decision, recalled Hood. That had been the attitude of the Admiralty and any subsequent decision would have to be theirs, so any criticism would adhere to them, not him.

  He heard the scuffle of feet on deck above. Any moment now, he knew, the yellow flag would be run up, calling the fleet to attention. He supposed he had to go aloft to watch it. The other officers were looking at him, expectantly. Slowly he put his glass on a table and led the way up the companion ladder, shivering as the wind swept round him.

  Ellison, Millward and Birkitt were amidships, quite composed. Millward was even smiling. They’d been given rum, realised Hood, gratefully. It was a good idea to get accused men drunk. He’d once witnessed a hanging of a sober man and had been physically sick afterwards at the man’s collapse.

  There were other boats, Hood realised. Graft of every size had come out from Portsmouth and were circling around, to see the spectacle. Hardly surprising, he thought, after the publicity that had been generated by the trial. Ghouls, he criticised, silently.

  The three men were slowly herded towards the ropes. Over their heads the flag burst open, climbing up the yard, and at a signal from the timekeeper the gun was fired, once. Not a sound, Hood realised, not even from the gawping public. They all died cleanly, just one quick snap. And then it was over. Hood was the first to turn away, hurrying back down the companion-way. He took the rest of his wine in one gulp and gestured almost irritably towards the steward for more.

  ‘Always unpleasant,’ offered Sir Andrew Snape Hammond, by his side.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And this a particularly nasty business.’

  ‘And still unresolved, for my mind,’ suggested Hood.

  ‘Were the Admiralty insistent about young Heywood?’ probed Hammond.

  The rebuke to Bligh had astonished everyone, causing almost as big a sensation as the trial itself, and Hammond wanted to be the man with the accurate gossip.

  ‘Absolutely,’ insisted Hood. The Admiralty had been adamant that the action be interpreted correctly, so there was no indiscretion in talking about it, he decided.

  ‘The First Lord himself said they wanted Heywood offered an immediate post,’ he said.

  ‘But for it to be upon your flagship, the very man before whom he appeared accused of the worst crime in the navy!’ tempted Hammond.

  ‘Lord Chatham was equally insistent about that,’ provided Hood.

  ‘So Bligh’s out of favour?’ mused Hammond.

  ‘I’m not sure. He was well received at the King’s reception, so I hear. There are some strange things afoot,’ said Hood. He paused, playing with the stem of his glass. ‘I knew the Christian family had powerful connections,’ he said. ‘But I never imagined they would be able to turn public opinion as successfully as they have. It’s hard to imagine that Bligh was being received a hero into every salon in London such a short time ago.’

  Hammond nodded.

  ‘Were Fletcher Christian to reappear from the dead,’ tried Hammond, ‘I doubt that those same people wouldn’t lionise him now.’

  Hood nodded, becoming bored with the conversation.

  ‘Let’s hope it’s the last we hear of the matter,’ he dismissed. ‘To my mind, the Bounty is just a confounded nuisance.’

  Fletcher Christian had remained hidden for the three days the Topaz had kin at anchor in the bay off Pitcairn, witnessing every contact between the American crew and the mutineers. They’d been very frightened at first, he knew, remembering the panic of the six men who had milled around at the first sighting of the whaler, some making off towards the village, others abandoning flight almost immediately, resigned to whatever happened to them.

  But now it was very different. He’d gazed down from his vantage point, prostrate against the rock so he would not be seen, and watched as the officers had come ashore and how the tensions had relaxed with present-giving and even a meal, in the Tillage square, with them all sitting around the large table. They’d laughed a lot, Christian had seen: some of the native women had even sung traditional Tahitian songs.

  There had never been such a relaxed feast on Pitcairn before, he realised. Certainly not with so much laughter.

  And they’d found Quintal’s body, as he had intended them to. Perhaps that was the reason for some of the laughter, he speculated. Because the body, mutilated as he had arranged for it to be by its fall down the cliffside and then immersed for two days among the scavenging fish of the bay, had been identified not as the murdering seaman’s, but as his.

  Never, thought chiristian, had he imagined the intoxicated moment when he and Quintal had had their buttocks tattooed in Tahiti would become so important to him. He’d seen them crowd around on the beach and watched them draw the breeches away from the body for the definite identification. He’d carefully positioned other things, of course. He’d risked his life to retrieve his musket because it had his initials carved in the stock. And when he�
�d pulled the body from the water, early on the third day, he’d carefully placed the gun alongside. He’d looped his belt around Quintal’s waist, too, knowing the buckle would be recognised by every mutineer on the island. He sighed, happily. Fletcher Christian was dead, he thought. As he should have been, years ago.

  It was almost time to move, he decided. For over an hour now, there had been elaborate farewells enacted down there; and now the cutter was leaving the Topaz with what appeared to be supplies for the mutineers. It would return with the officers down there, he knew.

  Christian started to descend to the west, away from the village and the risk of being seen, sure of his route. He went down almost vertically, careless of the noise, frightened he might have left his move too late.

  He had to be aboard almost the moment the ship departed, he had estimated. And then conceal himself for at least a day, so they would be too far from the island for him to be put back.

  Christian entered the water as the cutter beached. It was a good moment, he decided, striking out against the breakers. All the attention was on the jolly boat and what it contained. The exchanges would take more than an hour, he thought. He would need all of that.

  Once in the water, he realised the whaler was anchored further from the shore than he had estimated. And the drift of the waves was against him. He swam slowly, as deep in the water as possible, recognising almost immediately how much the three-day pursuit and then the fight with Quintal had drained him. And it hadn’t ended then, he thought. There had been the manhandling of the body and the descent and ascending of the cliffs again, to plant the evidence with it.

  And he wouldn’t be able to approach the Topaz directly, he knew. He would have to swim out and then circle back towards it from seawards. Any sailor looking out would be concentrating upon the island and its unusual inhabitants. He groped on, feeling his body numb not from the cold of the water but from fatigue.

  He turned towards the ship before he had intended, knowing his strength was failing too quickly to enable him to make the approach he had wanted. Christian was almost unconscious when he grabbed out, seizing the bower cable. He hung there, arms locked around the mooring. The cable hole looked so far away, he thought, his mind as well as his body emptied by the exertion. So very far away. And he had no strength to pull himself up. The current spun him, turning him towards the shore. The cutter had left, he saw. The men were bending at the oars and the officers were standing in the thwarts, waving back towards Pitcairn.

  An hour, he thought. He had no more than an hour. He locked his legs as well as his arms around the cable and pulled upwards, lips clamped against any sound, not able to feel whether his limbs were moving as he wanted. It took him almost fifteen minutes to clear the water and then the climb was even more difficult. He hung suspended, the rope sliding between his hands and with nothing against which he could jam his feet, to push himself up. He could hear the creak of the oars and the shouts of the men as they came near, on the far side of the vessel. Less than an hour now. Far less.

  But he was ascending. Slowly, perhaps too slowly. But getting near the deck. The knowledge spurred him. He paused, straining for sufficient strength, then jerked upwards in a rush, knowing that if he failed to reach the anchor entrance with this spurt there would be nothing left and he would fall back into the water. He felt, rather than saw, the cable door. He snatched out, missing it first time and almost pulling himself away from the rope, then grabbed again, finding hand-holds at last. He allowed the briefest hesitation, just sufficient to inhale, then hauled himself into the opening, jamming himself there.

  He began shuddering, uncontrollably, at the very point of collapse. He’d succeeded, he told himself. He was aboard. Aboard and, for the moment, undetected.

  The cable door was a good hiding place, he accepted. But a limited one. Once the anchor was lifted, he would be discovered. And that would happen the moment they got the cutter aboard. On the far side, he saw the pulleys go out to bring it in.

  The layout of the whaler was new to him and he wedged there, studying it. Aboard a ship again, he thought, suddenly. For the first time, in so many years, he was on a deck, feeling a vessel move and shift beneath him. There was no excitement, not like there had been that day when he and Edward had travelled to Liverpool and he had seen his first ship and held his brother’s hand with the thrill of it and promised, ‘One day I’ll be a famous mariner. You see, Edward. Famous.’

  The rope locker. It was the obvious place, he thought, shaking off the reminiscence and locating the tiny shed. And very near, too, little more than five feet away.

  He tensed, awaiting the proper moment. It came as the cutter reached deck level and everyone’s attention was upon it. He jerked away, bent double, body taut for any sudden challenge, scurrying across the intervening space.

  He was very cramped. He had to pull himself down upon the coiled rope to prevent his body protruding the locker top off its rest. He lay there, tiredness pulling at him but resisting sleep, wanting to feel the ship move and know he was safe before he relaxed.

  It seemed a very long time. He heard it first, the hiss of the cable up which he’d clambered being wound around the capstan and then there was the crack of sheets against the mast and the pitch of the ship under way.

  It had been dusk when he got aboard and he waited for several hours, refusing to let his eyes close, before lifting the edge of the locker. They must all mess together on a whaler, he decided, sucking at the salt air. The deck was deserted, only the helm manned at all.

  He crept out, accepting the foolishness of his action, but needing to do it.

  He bunched in the cable door again, peering out through the tiny gap. He could just discern Pitcairn, jutting blackly against the horizon. Talaloo would attack almost immediately, Christian decided. The natives were probably on the cliff now, just waiting for the Topaz to get far enough away.

  He’d warned them, Christian tried to assure himself. He’d warned them and they’d laughed at him, so there was no cause for remorse. He certainly didn’t feel any. He paused at the thought. It would be difficult to know any emotion ever again, he knew.

  ‘Goodbye, Isabella,’ he said softly, in the darkness. ‘Goodbye, my darling.’

  William Bligh hurried impatiently across Soho Square, eager for his meeting with Sir Joseph. It had to be a position, he decided. Had to be. If it weren’t, then he would have to tell the man who had befriended him that he had no choice but to quit the naval service. All right, so they’d laugh at him. But they were doing that anyway, despite what had happened at Kew. So it could hardly cause any more pain.

  It was confounded unfair, Bligh told himself, gripping his hands in frustration. Even the court martial verdict, justification of his honour if ever justification had been needed, had not had the effect he had expected. ‘Breadfruit Bligh’, everyone was calling him. Or, worse, ‘Bounty Bligh’. There’d even been cartoons lampooning him, whip in hand. He deserved honours and got sneers. Confounded unfair. Didn’t matter for himself, of course. He could have withstood it. Strong enough. And he’d been right, after all. Nothing to be ashamed of. Never had been. It was Betsy. She was suffering far more than he was. Several times he’d discovered her crying. She always made other excuses, of course. But he knew the real reason. Damn him, he thought. Damn Fletcher Christian in whatever hell he was in. And his family, too.

  Sir Joseph Banks was waiting for him in the study, smiling his satisfaction. He was right in putting his confidence in the man, decided Banks. Bligh had the faults they all knew about. But he had the qualities, too. And they outweighed the disadvantages. Bligh wouldn’t let him down, he knew.

  ‘I trust you’re well, sir,’ he greeted the sailor.

  ‘No, sir,’ rejected Bligh, immediately. There was no point in avoiding the problem, he determined. That was not the way of William Bligh. The propensity of politicians to wrap everything they said in a mess of pleasantries was damned stupid. Couldn’t stand stupidity.

/>   ‘I’m being sorely treated,’ complained Bligh. ‘Sorely treated, sir.’

  Banks nodded, accepting the protest. It was impossible to prove, but he felt a great many powerful people had been influenced by the campaign against Bligh. He’d been so hopeful after Kew, he remembered. It was sad, very sad.

  ‘The court martial was badly conducted, as far as your name was concerned,’ apologised Sir Joseph. ‘Much was said that could not be refuted …’

  ‘… because I was denied attendance,’ protested Bligh. ‘It was a nonsense, as well you must know.’

  The Admiralty should have delayed the hearing, Banks felt. Justice had unquestionably been done and the verdict had reinforced throughout the fleet the need for proper discipline. But Bligh should have been called, no matter if it would have entailed reconvening the court. Banks paused. What sort of witness would the man have made, he wondered, looking at Bligh. A clever lawyer would have inflated that temper within minutes, Banks decided, sighing. And done the man much harm. But not as much as had been done by relying solely upon his written deposition.

  ‘It was unfortunate,’ agreed Banks. He shrugged, discarding the past.

  ‘I trust you’ve not taken any further your intention to leave the service,’ he said, smiling at the news he had for the man. It would be compensation, Banks thought, happily.

  So it was a position, guessed Bligh.

  ‘I’ve spoken to my wife’s relations,’ Bligh warned. ‘A place in the merchant fleet awaits me, should I so choose.’

  If they wanted him, they’d have to pay, Bligh decided. There was no excuse for what had been allowed to happen.

  Banks stood, pouring Madeira for them both. The man had a right to his attitude, he allowed. It had been very difficult to get the agreement about Bligh, reflected Banks. Even now the doubts remained among many in the government and he knew his critics were waiting for Bligh to create an incident that could be utilised as political capital. The appointment of one of the men who had been cleared by the court martial to an immediate post in the President’s ship was worrying. Pitt was playing a dark game, determined Banks. Bligh would have to be closely advised. And warned.