Mutiny on the Bounty

by Nordhoff

  The sufferings of the older men were, naturally, greater than those of the younger ones. A midshipman, who was no more than a boy, sold his allowance of water two days running for another man's allowance of bread. So terrible is thirst that several of the men drank their own urine. They died, without exception, in the sequel of the voyage.

  We again attempted to keep the boats together by towing, during the nights of the fifth and sixth of September, but the lines broke as usual, and the strain on the boats was so great that we were obliged to abandon this method of keeping together during the night. Edwards had given his officers the exact latitude of Timor, and the longitude by the timekeeper on that date. This in case we should become separated. Fortunately, we managed to keep within sight of each other during the whole of the following week. In the pinnace we caught one booby, and the blood and flesh were divided into twenty-four shares and distributed in the old seaman's manner of "Who shall have this?" This good fortune came on the eleventh of September, at a time when we were sorely in need of it.

  On the morning of the thirteenth land was sighted, a faint bluish blur on the Western horizon. At first we could not believe it possible that Timor was within view, but as the morning wore on even the skeptics were convinced that it was land and not cloud that we saw. We were so wretched in mind and body that we could not even summon up the strength to cheer when Rickards said, "It's Timor, lads. No doubt of it."

  To add to our misery, it fell dead calm about the middle of the afternoon. The oars were gotten out and we proceeded wearily on. The boats now separated, each one being in haste to make the land. Some of the older men in the pinnace were by now so helpless that they lacked the strength to sit upright. They lay huddled in the bottom of the boat, moaning and crying out for water.

  By noon of the following day we were close in with the land. The other boats were not in sight. The torture of thirst had become so great that Edwards decided to pass out our remaining supply of water, which came to half a bottle per man. This greatly refreshed us and we proceeded along the coast, seeking a possible landing place.

  I remember nothing of the hinterlands of Timor. I have in mind only a dim picture of green hills and distant mountains. Every man's gaze, like my own, was fixed on the foreshore. There was a high surf running, and for several hours we found no place at which a boat could be landed without risk of its being dashed to pieces. Toward sunset we came to a more sheltered part of the coast, and two of the sailors swam ashore with bottles fastened about their necks. They proceeded along the beach, the boat following, until it was almost dark, without finding so much as a muddy creek where we might have refreshed ourselves. Having taken them aboard again, we stood off the land. We had the breeze again and made good progress during the night. The next morning we found an excellent landing place, and near it the water so urgently needed. I doubt whether some of the men could have survived another day without it, for we had been upon short rations so long that all the bodily juices were dried up.

  About twelve o'clock on the night of September 15, the pinnace came to a grapnel off the float by the fort in Coupang Bay. It was a calm night with the sky ablaze with stars. The settlement was asleep. A ship was anchored not far from where we lay, and two or three smaller craft, but in the darkness we were unable to see whether any of the other boats of the Pandora had arrived. The night was profoundly still. On the high rampart of the fort a dog stood, barking mournfully. That was our welcome to Coupang. Worn out with our long journey, we remained where we were until daylight, sleeping huddled in our places, and never, I imagine, have men slept more soundly.

  I shall give only a brief account of our experiences from the morning of our arrival at Coupang until the day when we sighted the cliffs of Old England. Captain Edwards and his men doubtless enjoyed the stay at Coupang, where they were the guests of the Dutch East India Company. As for the prisoners, we were guests of another sort. We were taken at once to the fort and placed in stocks in the guardroom, a dreary place with a bare stone floor, and lighted by two small barred windows high in the wall. Parkin took charge of us again, and he saw to it that we lacked even the most primitive means for comfort. Edwards never once visited us, but we were not forgotten by Dr. Hamilton. During the first week at Timor, he was kept busy attending the Pandora's sick, several of whom died within a few days of our arrival; but as soon as he was free to do so he paid us a visit, accompanied by the Dutch surgeon of the place. So foul was our prison by that time that before they could enter it the place had to be scrubbed out by slaves, and ourselves with it. We begged Dr. Hamilton to use his influence so that Lieutenant Corner might be placed in charge of us; but Corner being a decent and humane man, Edwards would not consent to this. We remained in Parkin's care, and he made our life so wretched that we wished ourselves dead a dozen times over before we reached the Cape of Good Hope.

  On October 6 the entire company was embarked on the Rembang , a Dutch East India ship, for the passage to Batavia, on the island of Java. The Rembang was an ancient vessel, and leaked so badly that it was necessary to work the pumps every hour in the twenty-four. We prisoners were kept at this work, and, exhausting though it was, we preferred it to confinement below decks. Near the island of Flores a great storm arose, which struck us so suddenly that every sail on the ship was torn to ribbons. The Dutch sailors believed the vessel lost, and there was reason to think so, for the pumps became choked and useless at the time when we most needed them, and the ship was fast driving on a lee shore only seven miles distant. It was due to Edwards, who took command, and the exertion of some of our British tars, that we weathered the storm.

  We arrived at Samarang on October 30, and here, to the amazement and delight of everyone, we found the schooner Resolution , from which we had become separated among the Navigators' Islands four months earlier. After losing sight of the Pandora , Oliver, the master's mate in charge of the Resolution , had cruised about for several days in search of us, and had then proceeded to the Friendly Islands. Namuka was the island appointed for a rendezvous in case of such an emergency, but Oliver had gone to Tofoa, mistaking this island for Namuka, and so had missed us. He and his crew of nine had undergone dangers and hardships equal to, if not greater than, our own. Upon reaching the great reef that stretches between New Guinea and the coast of Australia, they had searched in vain for an opening, and then formed the desperate resolve of running over the reef on the crest of a sea. It was a chance in a hundred, but they succeeded, and were later saved from death by thirst when they met a small Dutch vessel beyond Endeavour Straits. Having been supplied with food and water, they pursued their voyage to Samarang, where we found them.

  Edwards sold the Resolution at Samarang, and the money was divided among the Pandora's crew for the purchase of clothing and other necessities. This seemed hard upon Morrison and the other prisoners who had built the schooner. Not a shilling did they receive, but they at least had the satisfaction of knowing that they had built a staunch little ship, as good as any turned out by the shipwrights of England. After her sale at Samarang she had a long and honourable career in the western Pacific, and made the record passage between China and the Sandwich Islands.

  At Samarang the Rembang was reconditioned and we proceeded to Batavia, where the company was divided and transshipped to four vessels of the Dutch East India Company for the long voyage to Holland. Captain Edwards, with Lieutenant Parkin, the master, purser, gunner, clerk, two midshipmen, and the ten prisoners from the Bounty , embarked on the Vreedenburg , and on January 15, 1792, we arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, where we found H.M.S. Gorgon awaiting orders for England. Edwards therefore left the Vreedenburg and took passage for all of his party on the Gorgon . We remained at the Cape for nearly three months, during which time we were confined on the Gorgon . Mr. Gardner, first lieutenant of that vessel, treated us with great humanity. We were chained by one leg only, instead of having both feet and both hands in irons as heretofore, and we were given an old sail to lie upon at night, a lux
ury we had not enjoyed during the previous twelve months. On the long passage to England we were permitted to remain on deck for several hours each day to enjoy the fresh air. This circumstance was galling to Edwards, who would have kept us below during all that weary time; but as the ship was not his, he was not in a position to protest.

  On the nineteenth of June we arrived off Spithead, and before dark had anchored in Portsmouth Harbour. Four years and six months had passed since the Bounty's departure from England, during which time we had spent nearly fifteen months in irons.

  CHAPTER XX.—SIR JOSEPH BANKS

  Every vessel in Portsmouth Harbour knew of the arrival of the Gorgon , and that she had brought home with her some of the notorious Bounty mutineers. The harbour was crowded with shipping at this time, merchant vessels and ships of war. Among the latter was H.M.S. Hector , and on the morning of June 21, 1792, we were transferred to this vessel to await court-martial. It was a cloudy day, threatening rain, with a fresh breeze blowing, and the choppy waves slapped briskly against the bow of the boat. As we passed ship after ship we saw rows of heads looking down at us from the high decks, and groups of men crowded at the gun-ports for a view of us. We knew only too well what they were thinking and saying to each other: "Thank God I'm not in any of those men's boots!"

  We were received with impressive solemnity on board the Hector . A double line of marines with fixed bayonets were drawn up on either side of the gangway. There was a deep silence as we passed between them and down to the lower gundeck. No doubt we looked like pirates in our nondescript clothing acquired here and there all the way from Timor to England. Some of us were without hats, others without shoes, and none of us had anything resembling a uniform. The rags that we wore consisted of cast-off garments given us by various kind-hearted English sailors at Batavia and at Table Bay,—chiefly by men of the Gorgon ,—and they were in a wretched state indeed by the time we reached home. We were conducted to the gun room which lay right aft, and it was a great relief to find that the treatment to which Edwards had so long accustomed us was now a thing of the past. We were regarded, not as condemned men, but as prisoners awaiting trial, and what a world of difference this made can be appreciated only by men who have been placed in a similar situation. Neither leg irons nor handcuffs were placed upon us, and we had the freedom of the gun room, which was guarded by marines. We had decent food, hammocks to sleep in, and were granted all privileges comportable with our position as prisoners.

  Considering our hardships and the fact that we had been so long in irons, it is remarkable that we were all in good health. None of us had been ill in all that time, and yet many of the Pandora's company had been continually ailing, and more than a dozen of them had died at Timor and Samarang and Batavia. No doubt Edwards took credit to himself for our condition, but he deserved none. We were well, not because of his treatment, but in spite of it.

  We had not been above an hour on board the Hector when I was summoned to the cabin of Captain Montague, who commanded the vessel. He dismissed the guard and bade me, in a most kindly fashion, to be seated. No mention was made of the mutiny. For a quarter of an hour he chatted with me in the courteous, affable manner he might have used toward one of his officers whom he had asked to dine with him. He questioned me at length concerning the wreck of the Pandora , and our subsequent adventures on the voyage to Timor. He was evidently interested in the story, but I was sure that I had not been summoned merely to entertain him with an account of our experiences. At length he opened a drawer in his table and drew forth a small packet which he handed to me.

  "I have some letters for you, Mr. Byam. You may have as much time as you like here, alone. When you are ready to return to your quarters you have only to open the door and inform the guard."

  He then left me, and I opened the packet with trembling hands. It contained a letter from Sir Joseph Banks, written only a few days earlier, upon his receipt of the news of the Gorgon's arrival. He informed me that my mother had died six weeks before, and enclosed a letter to me written the night before her death, forwarded to him by our old servant, Thacker.

  I was grateful indeed to Captain Montague for the privilege of half an hour's privacy in his cabin; but there was no relief, then or later, for the desolation of heart I felt. Scarcely a day had passed, in the years since the Bounty had left England, that I had not thought of my mother and longed for her, and the consciousness of her love had sustained me through all the weary months of our imprisonment. There was never any question of her belief in my innocence, but she was as proud in spirit as she was gentle and kind-hearted, and the slur cast upon our good name by the event of the mutiny—above all, the fact that Bligh considered me among the guiltiest of the mutineers—was a shock beyond her strength to withstand. There was nothing of this in her letter; I had the facts, later, from Thacker, who told me that my mother's health had begun to fail from the day when she had received the letter from Bligh. I have made all possible allowances for him. He had reason to believe that I was an accomplice of Christian; but a man with a spark of humanity would never have written the letter he sent to my mother. I no more forgive him the cruelty of it now than I did when I first read it.

  It was the irony of my fate that, having been blessed with the steadfast love of two women, I should now—at a time when I most needed them—be separated from my mother by death and from my Indian wife by half the circumference of the globe. Upon these two I had centred all my affections. Now that my mother was gone, I clung to the memory of Tehani more tenderly than ever before.

  What might now happen seemed a matter of little consequence. I could not imagine life in England without my mother; the thought that I might lose her had never occurred to me. But when I became calmer, I realized that, for her sake at least, it was necessary to clear our name from the stigma attached to it. I must prove my innocence beyond all question.

  Sir Joseph Banks came to see me only a few days after I had received his letter. My own father could not have been kinder. He had seen my mother only a few weeks before her death, and he gave me all of the small details of that visit. He remembered everything she had said, and he allowed me to question him to my heart's content. I felt immeasurably comforted and strengthened. Sir Joseph was one of those men who seem members of a race apart; who find themselves equally at hone among all kinds and conditions of people. In appearance he was a typical John Bull, solidly made, with the clear ruddy complexion our English climate gives. He seemed to radiate energy, and no man could be five minutes in his presence without being the better for it. At this time he was President of the Royal Society, and his name was known and honoured, not only in England, but on the Continent as well. I doubt whether there was a busier man in London, and yet, during those anxious weeks before the court-martial, one would have thought that his only concern was to see to it that all of us were given justice and fair play.

  He quickly roused me from my despairing mood, and I found myself talking with interest and enthusiasm of my Tahitian dictionary and grammar. I told him that my manuscripts had been saved from the wreck of the Pandora and were in the care of Dr. Hamilton, now on his way home with the rest of the Pandora's survivors.

  "Excellent, Byam! Excellent!" he said. "There is one gain, at least, from the voyage of the Bounty ." He had the faculty of entering with enthusiasm into another man's work, and of making him feel that there was nothing more important. "I shall see Dr. Hamilton the moment he arrives in England. But enough of this for the present. Now I want your story of the mutiny—the whole of it—every detail."

  "You have heard Captain Bligh's account, sir? You know how black the case against me appears to be?"

  "I do," he replied, gravely. "Captain Bligh is my good friend, but I know his faults of character as well as his virtues. His belief in your guilt is sincerely held; yet allow me to say that I have never for a moment doubted your innocence."

  "Is Captain Bligh now in England, sir?" I asked.

  "No. He has again been sent
to Tahiti to fulfill the task of conveying breadfruit plants to the West Indies. This time, I hope, the voyage will be successfully completed."

  This was serious news for me. I felt certain that, if I could confront Bligh, I could convince him of my innocence, force him to acknowledge that he had been mistaken in jumping to the conclusion that the conversation with Christian had concerned the mutiny. With him gone, only his sworn deposition at the Admiralty would confront me, and there was no possibility of its being retracted.

  "Put all that aside, Byam," said Sir Joseph. "There is no help for it, and all your desire to confront Bligh won't bring him back in time for the court-martial. Now proceed with your story, and remember that I am completely in the dark with respect to the part you played."

  I then gave him, as I had given Dr. Hamilton, a complete account of the mutiny, and of all that had happened since. He allowed me to finish with scarcely an interruption. When I had done so I waited anxiously for him to speak.

  "Byam, we may as well face the facts. You are in grave danger. Mr. Nelson, who knew of your intention to go in the launch with Bligh, is dead. Norton, the quartermaster, who could have corroborated your story of Christian's intention to escape from the Bounty on the night before the mutiny, is dead."

  "I know it, sir. I had the information from Dr. Hamilton."

  "Your chance of acquittal depends almost entirely upon the testimony of one man: your friend Robert Tinkler."

  "But he returned safely to England."

  "Yes, but where is he now?...He must be found at once. You say that he is a brother-in-law of Fryer, the master of the Bounty ?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "In that case I should be able to get trace of him. I can learn, at the Admiralty, on what ship Fryer is now serving."

  I had, somehow, taken it for granted that Tinkler would know of the need I should have for him if ever I returned home; but Sir Joseph pointed out to me the fact that Tinkler would be quite ignorant of this.