Mutiny on the Bounty

by Nordhoff

  It was but natural that those who had taken no part in the mutiny should be looked upon with suspicion by those who had. Most of the seamen, however, showed no active hostility against us. Churchill ordered us to remain on deck, but forward of the mizzenmast, and there we awaited Christian's pleasure. Burkitt, who had been deprived of his musket and placed under arms, lest he should shoot Captain Bligh, was again set at liberty. He and Thompson now began baiting and jeering at us, and McCoy and John Williams joined with them. For a moment it seemed likely that there would be a pitched battle between us, and there is no doubt that the non-mutineers would have had the worst of it. Fortunately for us, Christian soon restored order. He came forward, his eyes blazing with anger.

  "Get about your work, Thompson," he ordered. "Burkitt, if I have any more trouble from you, I'll put you in irons and keep you there!"

  "That's how it is to be, is it?" Thompson replied. "Well, we won't have it, Mr. Christian. We ain't mutinied to have you come the Captain Bligh over us!"

  "No, by God, we haven't!" Martin added; "and that you'll find!"

  Christian looked at them for a moment without speaking, and there was that in his eyes to relieve any apprehensions one might have had as to his ability to cope with the situation. The four turbulent men dropped their glances sullenly. Several of the seamen were standing by, Alexander Smith among them. "Order all hands aft, Smith," said Christian. He returned to the quarter-deck and paced up and down while the men collected. Then he turned and faced them.

  "There is one matter we will decide once for all," he began, quietly, "and that is who is to be captain of this ship. I have taken her with your help, in order to be rid of a tyrant who has made life a burden to all of us. Make no mistake about our status from this time on. We are mutineers, and if we should be discovered and taken by one of His Majesty's vessels, not a man of us but will suffer death. That possibility is not so remote as some of you may think. Should Mr. Bligh succeed in reaching England, immediately upon his arrival there a ship of war will be sent in search of us. Should the Bounty not be reported in a year's time, or, at the latest, two years, a ship will be sent, nevertheless, to discover, if possible, the reason for her disappearance. Bear this in mind, all of you. We are not only mutineers but pirates as well, for we have run away with one of His Majesty's armed vessels. We are cut off from England forever, except as prisoners whose fate, if taken home, is certain.

  "The Pacific is wide, and still so little known that we need never be taken except as the result of our own folly. In our situation a leader is essential, one whose will is to be obeyed without question. It should be needless to tell British seamen that no ship, whether manned by mutineers or not, can be handled without discipline. If I am to command the Bounty I mean to be obeyed. There shall be no injustice here. I shall punish no man without good cause, but I will have no man question my authority.

  "I am willing that you shall decide who is to command the Bounty . If there is some man most of you prefer in my place, name him, and I will resign my authority. If you wish me to lead you, mind what I have said. I mean to be obeyed."

  Churchill was the first to speak. "Well, men, what have you to say?"

  "I'm for Mr. Christian!" Smith called out.

  There was an immediate hearty agreement with Smith on the part of all the mutineers with the exception of Thompson and Martin; but when Christian called for a show of hands, even these two raised theirs with the others.

  "We have another matter to decide," Christian went on. "There are a number of men with us who took no part in seizing the vessel. They would have gone with Mr. Bligh had opportunity permitted..."

  "Put 'em in irons, sir," Mills called out. "They'll do us a mischief if they can."

  "On this ship, there shall be no putting of anyone in irons without good cause," Christian replied. "These men are not to be blamed for taking no part with us. They decided as seemed best to them, and I respect their decisions; but I shall know how to act if they show toward us any sign of treachery. It is for them to decide now what their treatment with us shall be."

  He then called each of us in turn, beginning with Young, and asked whether he could count upon our cooperation, as members of the ship's company, so long as we remained in the Bounty . Young decided, then and there, to throw in his lot with the mutineers.

  "Chance has decided this matter for me, Mr. Christian," he said. "I will not say that I would have helped you take the ship had I been awake at the time of the mutiny, but now that you have taken her, I am content that it should be so. I have no great desire to see England again. Wherever you may go you can count on me to go with you."

  Of the neutral party, he was alone in this decision.. The rest of us promised to obey orders, to assist in every way in working the ship, and to refrain from all treachery so long as we should remain aboard of her. Our numbers being what they were, this was the only thing we could do. Christian neither asked, nor, I think, expected, that we should not desert if an opportunity presented itself.

  "That is sufficient," he said when he had heard us out. "I require from you no more than that. But you will understand that I must protect myself and these men from capture. In doing so I shall consider our interests before your own. You could not expect me to do otherwise."

  He then appointed his officers. Young was made master, Stewart the master's mate, myself quartermaster, Morrison boatswain, and Alexander Smith boatswain's mate. Churchill was master-at-arms, as before. Burkitt and Hillbrandt were appointed quartermaster's mates. Millward and Byrne were to be the cooks. We were divided into three watches.

  These matters being decided, we went about our duties. A part of the great cabin was fitted up as Christian's quarters, and as soon as they were ready the arms chest was removed there. He used it for his bed, and kept the keys always on his own person. One of the mutineers stood on guard, day and night, at the doorway to the cabin. As for Christian himself, he messed alone, and rarely spoke to anyone except to give an order. The captain of a vessel lives, of necessity, a solitary existence, but never could there have been one more lonely than Fletcher Christian. Despite the bitterness I felt toward him at this time, my heart softened as I watched him pacing the quarter-deck hour after hour, by day and by night. All the gaiety had gone out of him; there was never the hint of a smile on his face—only an expression of sombre melancholy.

  Stewart, Young, and I messed together, as usual, but our meals were not the jolly affairs they had so often been in the past. It wasimpossible to become accustomed to the emptiness and silence of the ship. We avoided speaking of those who had gone in the launch, as one avoids speaking of the recently dead, but we were reminded of them at every turn; and the thought of their probable fate, and our own, put a damp upon our spirits hard to overcome. But this applied to Stewart and me rather than to Young. He seemed to have few regrets for the turn our fortunes had taken; indeed, he looked forward with pleasure, rather than otherwise, to the prospect of spending the remainder of his life on some island in the South Sea.

  "We may as well make the best of it, lads," he said one evening when we were discussing the future. "It's far from a bad best, if you look at the matter sensibly. I've always wanted a life of ease. Ever since reading Captain Wallis's and Captain Cook's accounts of their discoveries in the Pacific, I've dreamed of nothing but tropical islands. When the chance came to ship with the Bounty I was the happiest man in England. I'm willing to confess now that, had it been possible, I would have deserted the ship at Tahiti."

  "We shall never see Tahiti again, that is certain," said Stewart, gloomily. "It will be the last place Mr. Christian will consider as a refuge. He knows only too well that a ship of war will turn up there, sooner or later, in search of us."

  "What does it matter?" asked Young. "There are scores, hundreds of other islands where we can live as happily. I advise the pair of you to put all thoughts of home out of your minds. The chances of your ever seeing England again are very remote. Make the most of what lif
e offers you here."

  Remote indeed they seemed then. After parting with the launch we had followed the course the ship was then on, west-northwest, until well into the afternoon; then we bore off to the eastward, since which time our general course had been east by south. We were now in unknown seas, in so far as I knew, off the track of any ship that had explored the Pacific. It was clear that Christian was in search of undiscovered islands, for we hove-to at night lest we should pass any in the darkness. Those days and nights were as peaceful as any that I remember. The absence of Bligh was a godsend to all of us, mutineers and non-mutineers alike. There was no more of the continual feeling of tension, of uncertainty as to what would happen, whenever the captain appeared upon deck. Christian maintained the strictest discipline, but no one had cause to complain of his justice. He was a born leader of men, and knew how to rule them without the perpetual 'floggings and abuse which Bligh considered so essential. After the turbulent events of the mutiny the men seemed glad of the tranquillity which had settled over the ship. The breeze blew steadily from the northeast, and the Bounty nosed her way quietly along as though she had mastered the task of sailing herself and required no further help from us. The moon waxed and was on the wane when, one morning shortly after sunrise, land was descried bearing west by north.

  Late in the afternoon we approached to within a mile of the reef which seemed to enclose the island, forming a shallow lagoon where we saw many canoes plying back and forth. The island appeared to be about eight miles long. The interior was mountainous like that of Tahiti, although the land was not so high, and the lowlands surrounding it were covered with the same luxuriance of vegetation. As in most of the islands in that part of the Pacific, deep water came directly up to the reef, and we coasted along, close inshore. Several canoes, with ten or a dozen men in each, put off from the beach and soon came up with us. The Indians resembled the Tahitians in colour, stature, and the manner of their dress, and it was evident that they had never seen a European vessel before. We tried to persuade them to come alongside, and at last one of them paddled abreast of us at a distance of about thirty yards.

  The men were strongly made, with handsome features and well-formed bodies. At Christian's order I spoke to them in the Tahitian language, asking them the name of their land. This they understood, and replied that it was Rarotonga. They seemed utterly astonished at my words. One of them replied at some length, but his speech was largely unintelligible. For all our friendly gestures we could not persuade them to approach more closely. Some trinkets Christian wished to give them were wrapped in a cloth and lowered over the side on a piece of planking. When we had let this drift well astern, they approached and took the parcel and the plank as well, which they put into their canoe without unwrapping the cloth to see what it contained.

  Having failed in our efforts to persuade any of them to come on board, Christian gave orders to make sail, much to the regret of all of us, for this island was scarcely less beautiful than Tahiti, and, judging by the actions of the men in the canoes, the people would not have opposed our landing. It has always remained a puzzle to me why Christian did not choose this island as his hiding-place; for Rarotonga lies nearly seven hundred miles southwest of Tahiti, and at this time he had no reason to believe that its existence was known to any Europeans save ourselves. His reason may have been that, in coasting the entire length of one side of the island, no possible anchorage was to be seen; or perhaps, at this time, he was so disturbed in mind as to have no definite plans for the future.

  One evening, greatly to my surprise, he sent for me to sup with him. The afterpart of the great cabin had been partitioned off for his use, and there I found him, seated at his table, with a copy of one of Captain Cook's charts outspread before him. He greeted me with formal politeness, but when he had dismissed the sentinel stationed outside and had closed the door, he fell back into the old friendly manner customary between us before the mutiny.

  "I have asked you to sup with me, Byam," he said, "but you need not accept unless you choose."

  I responded, against my inclination, to his friendly overtures. I had come to resent bitterly the ruin he had brought upon us all; but under the influence of his appealing kindly manner I found my indignation melting away. I stood before Fletcher Christian, my friend, not the mutineer who had cast nineteen men adrift in a small boat thousands of miles from home. To those who blame me I can merely say that they never knew the man.

  He was in great need of someone to whom he could unburden his thoughts, and I had not been five minutes in his cabin before he was speaking of the mutiny.

  "When I think of Bligh," he said, "I have no regrets. None whatever. I have suffered too much at his hands ever to care what his fate may be. But for those who went with him..."

  He shut his eyes tightly and pressed his knuckles against them, as though to blot from his mind the picture of the small open boat, filled, almost to the point of foundering, with innocent men. Such desolation of heart was apparent in his voice and the expression on his face that I pitied him deeply. I knew that he would never know peace again—never until his last day. He begged me to profit by his example and never act upon impulse, and for all my sympathy I could not avoid saying that a mutiny so carefully and secretly planned could hardly be called an act of impulse.

  "Good God!" he exclaimed. "Did you think it was planned? Ten minutes before Bligh was seized I had no more thought of mutiny than you yourself. Had it been an act of deliberation...Is it possible that you could have believed it?"

  "What else could I think?" I replied. "It happened in your watch. When I was awakened by Churchill I found you in complete possession of the ship, with armed men stationed at the hatchways and all about the decks. It is inconceivable to me that all this could have happened without prearrangement."

  "And yet it did," Christian replied, earnestly. "It was all the work of five minutes. Let me tell you...Do you remember the talk we had the night before, during Peckover's watch?"

  "Perfectly."

  "I asked that, in case anything happened to me during the voyage home, you would explain the circumstances to my people when you reached England. My reason for speaking of this matter was that I planned to leave the ship before the morning watch. I had taken no one into my confidence except the quartermaster, John Norton, a man whom I knew I could trust. I was not willing that you should know. I wanted to spare your feelings until I had gone, and it was certain that you would have tried to dissuade me. Norton had managed to make, secretly, a tiny raft upon which I hoped to reach the island of Tofoa. With the sea as calm as it was, I had every reason to think that I could make the land."

  "You really meant to cut yourself off for all time from home and friends?"

  "Yes. I was in hell, Byam! I had suffered from Bligh's tyranny to the limit of my endurance. When he accused me, that same afternoon, with stealing his coconuts, I felt that I could bear no more."

  "I know," I said; "you were sorely tried, but we were all in the same sorry situation with you."

  "I didn't think of that. I thought only of the shame of the accusation; of the contemptible, sordid meanness of the man who could bring such a charge against his officers. I thought as well of the long voyage ahead of us, and I knew that I could not and would not endure another year of such torment.

  "But luck was against me. The calmness and beauty of the night, so favourable otherwise to my purpose, were against me. As you know, most of the ship's company were on deck and, almost becalmed as we were, it would have been impossible to slip away unseen. At last I decided that the plan would have to be abandoned, temporarily at least. I should have to wait until we passed some other island farther to the westward.

  "Even at four o'clock, when I took charge of the deck from Peck-over, the thought of mutiny had not occurred to me. Believe this; I assure you that it is true. I paced up and down for some time, brooding over the repeated insults I had received from Bligh. I don't defend myself; I merely relate the facts. I was in
a mood to kill the man. Yes, that thought crossed my mind more than once: why not murder him and be done with it? The temptation was all but overpowering. This will give you an indication of the state of my feelings at that time. I was, in sober truth, out of my mind.

  "As you know, Hayward was the mate of my watch. In order to regain control of myself I went in search of him, and found him stretched out in the lee of the cutter, asleep. At another time such neglect of duty would have aroused my anger. We were in unknown waters, and Bligh had rightly given orders that the strictest watch should be kept, no matter how far we might be from land. Hayward was in charge of the forward deck, and three of the men, taking their cue from him, were asleep. I stood for a moment looking down at Hayward, and then, as plainly as though they had been spoken, I heard the words, 'Seize the ship.'

  "From that moment my brain worked with the utmost clearness and precision. It appeared to function outside of me; I had only to obey its commands. I realized what an opportunity had presented itself, but not at all the wrong I should be doing the rest of you. Burkitt was awake, standing in the waist by the bulwarks on the larboard side. He had been frequently punished by Bligh and I knew that I could count on his help, but I didn't reveal my plan then—for I now had a plan. I asked him to come below with me and waken Churchill, Martin, Thompson, and Quintal, without disturbing anyone else, and to tell them I wanted to see them at the fore ladderway. Meanwhile I went to Coleman's hammock, roused him quietly, and asked for the key to the arms chest, saying that I wanted a musket to shoot a shark. He gave it to me, turned over in his hammock, and fell asleep again.