Fletcher of the Bounty

by Graeme Lay

  For the last time, William hosted Tu and Itia on board. He inscribed his name and the dates of his stay on the back of the Webber portrait of Cook, thereby adding to its potency. There were rounds of gift-giving. From Tu to William: arioi costumes of bark cloth embellished with tropic bird tail feathers, and pigs, breadfruit, plantains and many coconuts. From William to Tu: shirts, mirrors, fish hooks, knives, gimlets, saws, dolls, a musket, a pair of pistols and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. This was the greatest gift of all, ensuring that Tu would from now on be Tahiti’s most formidable ari’i.

  Fletcher delayed boarding for as long as he possibly could. So too did Peter, George and Ned. They and several others were leaving special taios.

  On the path below the fare, he held Isabella and buried his face in her hair. Feeling her trembling, for some time he couldn’t speak. Then at last he drew back, parted her hair and told her, ‘I will come back. I promise I will. And I will take you with me to Peretane. We will be man and wife. In London.’ He stared into her lovely face for the last time. It was wet with tears, her eyes were tightly closed and she was shaking her head. It was as if she knew that it could never happen, knew that this was their final parting. There could be only heartache from now on, for both of them.

  ‘Christian! The cutter’s leaving! Now!’ Cole’s voice, coming up from the shore.

  He released her, turned and walked away. Moments later he heard a cry, ‘Aue!’ Then her parting words. ‘E eritape ta iti e, eiaha roa oe e faaru’e ia’u nei!’ ‘Do not leave me!’

  He stumbled down to the shore as if mortally wounded.

  All the Tahitians who had been on board were taken off the ship. Tu and Itia were the last to leave. When they left both wept inconsolably.

  Bounty’s anchors were weighed, buoys were placed in the channel and the boats prepared to tow her back to Matavai Bay, the point of final departure. When this was seen to be happening, the chanting, singing and drumming died. An eerie silence, a kind of mourning, descended on Pare. People of all ages lined the shore, staring at the Bounty. No Popa’a ship had ever stayed so long on the island. The Tahitian men were either silent or weeping; the women tore at their scalps with sharks’ teeth, so that blood ran down their faces, reddening their tears.

  Bounty, sails still furled, was hauled down the channel. William, in full uniform, stood on her quarterdeck, arms at his side. His jubilation was obvious. Mission accomplished, his stance declared. The red ensign was raised. Tu had requested that the ship fire a cannon salute, but William demurred, saying the noise might disturb the breadfruit plants. Instead he ordered the crew to line the starboard rail, and when he called for three cheers their cries rang out across the lagoon: ‘Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!’

  Fletcher stood alone in the stern, staring back at the island that had changed his life. He felt hollowed out, as if a vital part of him had been removed and left there, a part he could never retrieve. He gripped the taffrail with damp hands. Isabella, Isabella. All he could see before him was her face. He closed his eyes tightly and her face vanished. Moments later, in its place was the black fog.

  At Matavai Bay the boats were taken aboard and made fast. The capstan was turned, the anchors raised and catted. Men edged along the yards and let go the sails. They caught the afternoon breeze and began to billow. Bounty glided through the passage in the reef and into open sea. The helmsmen turned the wheel three points to larboard and she turned towards the sinking sun, settling into the west-north-west course that William had set for her.

  Part Three

  TO THE FRIENDLY ISLES

  4–28 APRIL 1789

  Aware that discipline had to be re-imposed after the inertia that Tahiti had produced, and knowing that testing conditions lay ahead, Bligh set the crew to work in a way they had not done for months. Sail and line-handling were practised daily, and the below-decks hygiene regime was once again strictly enforced.

  Although the crew obeyed his commands, most performed the tasks perfunctorily. The contrast between the now and then could not have been starker. The minds of the men were mostly still ashore.

  But they were not yet done with the Society Islands. Bounty called briefly at Huahine. There William was given the news of the death of Omai, the Society Islands native whom Cook had taken to England in 1773 aboard HMS Adventure and returned to Huahine during Cook’s final voyage. The Raiatean’s two New Zealand Maori servants had also died, William was told, and the house Cook had had built for Omai had been destroyed. But not before he had used the English guns he had been given, to defeat his enemies from Bora Bora.

  Fletcher resumed his journal-writing.

  10 April 1789

  Time to write is precious. Bligh has once more instituted a regime of cleaning and washing, as well as regular small arms practice, so I have very little time to myself. The cleaning below decks is now done daily, Bligh insists, whereas before it was done only twice a week. Washing the hammocks is now also to be done every day. The men may be grubby, but they are not so unwashed that their hammocks need cleaning as frequently as that. They complain and curse as they scrub, and for that I don’t blame them.

  Furthermore, Bligh demands that these chores must always be carried out in the morning, during the period when I am the watch officer. I cannot help concluding that this is not a coincidence. He knows that heaping these extra duties upon me makes my life more difficult. This is nothing but spite on his part. For what reason does he single me out for this punishment? My conclusion, which I can confide to no one, is that it is because of my rejection of his unnatural overture while we were at Tahiti. That advance was deeply offensive to me, as he must have later realised.

  Other factors, I also conclude, compound his antipathy towards me: the fact that I incurred a debt to him in Cape Town, and that on Tahiti I found a woman with whom I fell deeply in love. The first — the borrowing — was my error, done purely for the sake of lust. I regret that. The second — my love for Isabella — was something so wonderful that the memory of it will remain with me forever. How well do I now know the difference, the gulf, between lust and love!

  Yet to Bligh these matters are evidently so disagreeable that he has determined that I will be punished for them. Although he heaps abuse on all his officers, accusing them of incompetence, it is me he singles out for particular criticism. Could he have discovered the improper use to which I put his loan money? Impossible. Only Peter would have suspected what happened, and he would never have informed on me to Bligh. He is a young man of honour, and a loyal shipmate. No, Bligh’s vindictiveness is motivated by jealousy, I’m sure. And knowing that his is the ultimate authority aboard Bounty, he wields it on every occasion. He makes more reference to our backgrounds, contrasting mine with his. I am, it seems, a person of privilege. This to me is unjust. I did not choose my family or its status. It was thrust upon me, a fact so obvious that it should not need stating.

  Bligh’s bullying is becoming habitual. It puts me in mind of an incident when I was a lad, when one day I came upon a small boy being bullied by an older and stronger boy. This I thought so unfair that I attacked the bully and defeated him. Although I cannot now recall the names of either boy, what I do remember is how the bully retreated once I confronted him. He was, I then realised, a poltroon. If all bullies are so, as Charles pointed out to me, then Bligh must be one. But such are the circumstances on this ship that I cannot take action against him, as I did with the boy in Cockermouth. So what am I to do?

  I am powerless to take any action to alleviate these circumstances. I am like the principal character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a play which Edward and I saw in the Haymarket in London two years ago. It was about a man who was doomed to inaction. Although I am determined not to succumb to Hamlet-like self-pity, the thought of enduring Bligh’s malice for many more months does induce in me a Hamlet-like melancholia.

  Bligh makes threats to all his officers. He says that our incompetence will lead us to destruction in the Endeavour Straits. If so,
that day cannot come quickly enough.

  I must end this entry now. My watch begins on the hour.

  They resumed a westerly course, aware that the Friendly Isles, which Bligh knew well from his time there with Cook in 1777, would be raised before the end of April. There they would obtain more fresh food and water in readiness for the haul north to the Endeavour Straits, then through that perilous passage.

  Fletcher carried out his duties in silence, still consumed by what he had lost. Whenever possible he gave his captain a wide berth, aware that since the bizarre incident on Tahiti their relationship had fundamentally changed. They came together only over the dining table, and then the conversation was stilted. Bligh would glance at Fletcher from time to time, as if poised to say something significant, then remain silent, as if he thought it better left unsaid. In this way the resentments simmered. The only person Fletcher could confide in was Peter, who was experiencing his own sense of loss, but he told him nothing of what he suspected about their captain.

  While on watch, staring out at Bounty’s wake, Fletcher could feel the barometer within him plummeting. What he was feeling now was beyond melancholia. He was not alone. With each day that passed the atmosphere throughout the ship grew more depressed. Most of the crew were too well aware of what they had lost, and what they were now faced with: months of gruelling sailing, unyielding authority and carnal deprivation. There was no sense of expectation, as there had been on the outward voyage, and the shipboard rigour was now unwelcome. Although well fed for the time being, the men went about their duties sullenly. They bridled at being ordered about, especially by Fryer, whose testiness increased by the day. Only Nelson, fussing constantly over his beloved breadfruit babies, showed any enthusiasm for his work. His colleague Brown was now as glum as the rest of the crew.

  On Tahiti time had become meaningless. There was sunrise and sunset, light and darkness, with little but pleasure in between: bathing, feasting, fucking, laughing. Now on Bounty there was again the tyranny of the timepiece, the hourglass, the chronometer, the knot-line, the eight-hour watch. Nothing demonstrated the difference between the Tahitian day and the shipboard day more cruelly than these unyielding measurements of time.

  Bligh was fractious. It seemed that after being treated royally for so long on the island, he resented the fact that he had been reduced to the status of a mere mortal again. Determined to reassert his authority, after young able seaman Sumner swore at Fryer, he ordered him to be given twelve lashes. All witnessed the flogging. As the lash rose and fell, it was another reminder that the good times had gone. From now on the cat would be let out of the bag for any infraction, Bligh warned his crew.

  Fletcher thought constantly of Isabella, imagining every detail of her face and body. What was she doing today? Where was she going? To their pool? To the garden? To the fare in the mountains?

  A small consolation was the journal he had begun on Tahiti. Writing of the present helped take his mind off the lost past. He now wrote in it whenever he could, retreating to his cabin to do so when not on watch or attending to other duties.

  15 April 1789

  Today, at 19° South latitude, 160° West longitude, we sighted an uncharted island, and stood off it. I saw through my spyglass that although the island is enclosed by a reef, it is not high like Tahiti. Neither does there appear to be any pass through the reef. The island has a lagoon, white sand beaches and a humped mountain in its centre. I could see that the mountain — really just a hill approximately three hundred feet high — was covered in scrubby vegetation, and that around it is a fringing plain covered in coconut palms. Inhabited the island must be, for I saw smoke rising from the plain. In confirmation of this, four men came out to the ship in a canoe and came aboard. They were perfectly affable. Very like the Tahitians in their physiognomy, their language was also similar, so that those of us who spoke Tahitian were able to converse with them. They told us that their island was called Ay-too-tuck-ee and that its highest point is called Maun-ga Pu. After they showed amazement at our animals, never having seen such creatures, Bligh presented the men with a sow and a boar, in the hope that they might breed on the island. He also gave them some nails, beads and mirrors. In return, one of the men gave Bligh his handsome pearl shell breastplate, which had a cord of plaited human hair.

  The captain was jubilant at coming across and recording the island, exclaiming to us, ‘I have made a discovery! A new island! One that even Cook did not find!’ Bligh’s vanity is such that it was as if he had discovered the Great Southern Continent.

  Resuming our westward course, on 17 April we sighted the place Cook named Savage Island in 1774. It has the appearance of having been raised a few hundred feet from the sea, and is composed of coral rock riddled with caves and coves. It has a level crown, covered with forest.

  Curious about the people who inhabited the island, I suggested to Bligh . . .

  ‘Should we not go ashore here? If only briefly?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To make contact with the natives. To show them we mean no harm.’

  ‘Ah. You do like to make contact with the natives, don’t you?’

  ‘You misconstrue me, sir. I merely intended for us to establish with the people on the island that we are not hostile towards them.’

  ‘I see. And do you not think that Captain Cook had the same intention?’

  ‘I’m sure he did.’

  ‘Yes. And the great man was attacked by the people here. On two occasions. Repelled by them, violently. So your suggestion is a foolish one. We will not make a landing on this island.’

  He walked away, calling down to the helmsmen, ‘Hold your course. West-north-west.’

  The man has become a swine. A sarcastic swine. He seeks now to humiliate me, the way he humiliates all who disagree with him.

  Two days later Bounty was struck by squally weather from the southeast. In the midst of the gale Fletcher was in the bow, helping Quintal and McCoy bring in the spritsail, which had been ripped by the wind. As they wrestled with the canvas, a caped figure appeared through the rain. It was Bligh. He shouted above the wind: ‘What in hell’s name are you doing?’

  Fletcher turned. ‘Bringing in the spritsail. It’s torn.’

  ‘Torn? Where?’

  Fletcher pointed to the tear. ‘There.’

  ‘I see. And I know the cause.’

  ‘So do I. The squall.’

  ‘No, not the squall. You are the cause. You have not cared for the sails. You failed to air them properly while we were at Pare. Consequently, they have rotted.’

  Fletcher felt his jaw drop. Quintal and McCoy, both drenched, looked at Bligh incredulously. This was unjust. Maintenance of the sails was the responsibility of Fryer and Lebogue, master and sailmaker, not a midshipman-promoted-acting-lieutenant.

  Fletcher’s voice rose above the wind. ‘That allegation is unfair. You know that maintenance of the sails is not part of my duties. Why are you making this accusation?’

  Bligh erupted. ‘God damn your eyes, Christian, I’m making it because it needs to be made. You’re the slackest officer a commander ever had to contend with!’ He kicked at the heap of split canvas. ‘Now get the sail below and tell Lebogue to mend it!’

  As he stalked off through the rain towards the quarterdeck, McCoy shook his head in disbelief. ‘The man’s a nackle-arse.’

  Quintal nodded. ‘You shouldn’t have to put up with that shit, Christian.’ He stared balefully at Bligh’s retreating figure. ‘None of us should.’

  Later that day, when Fletcher returned to his cabin to change out of his saturated clothing, he found a note under his cabin door. It read, ‘Mr Christian, Mr Hayward is to be my guest at supper this evening. I hope you will be able to join us. Yours, William.’

  Fletcher stared at the missive in disbelief. How could the man make such an offer, so soon after his tirade of abuse? What sort of a man was he dealing with now? Either Bligh was going out of his mind, or he was.

  He screw
ed up the invitation.

  22 April 1789

  Yesterday we sighted some of the westernmost islands of the Friendly Isles. The most prominent is Kao, which rises like a pyramid from the sea. Its summit gives off smoke. Not far south of it is Tofua, which is steep-sided but lacks peaks. Bligh has decided we will not make a landing on either of these, but instead on Nomuka (20° South, 174° West), which he knows. This is a low island, as flat as a flounder, triangular shaped, with an unusual feature for a South Sea island — a large freshwater lake, a little way inland. This will enable us to replenish our water casks. We will also take aboard wood, as this will likely be the last opportunity to do so before we reach New Holland.

  The first European to chart Nomuka was Abel Tasman, in 1643. He called it Rotterdam. We anchored on the north side of the island, in approximately the same place as Cook moored Resolution twelve years ago. After we anchored some canoes came out, bearing coconuts and yams, but it was not until the next day that a native came aboard. This was an old chief named Tapa, who walked with a limp and had a scar on one cheek. He offered us the use of a canoe house on the island.

  Bligh went ashore with him, but was in a foul mood again after master’s mate Elphinstone lost the bower anchor buoy. Bligh also told us that we should not anticipate a warm welcome on Nomuka, since Cook had had Tapa’s son lashed after he killed a ship’s cat. The Nomukans had not forgotten this insult, we were warned. So Bligh urged us to be cautious at all times. He also reported that the people here are in a poor state of health. Many have fingers missing and there are sores on their bodies. How did they become so diseased? Is it the venereals? Or leprosy?

  Bligh has put me in charge of a watering party of eleven men. It will be good to be ashore again, although I am still tormented by thoughts of Isabella and Tahiti. No other island can compare.