Mutiny on the Bounty

by Peter Fitzsimons

  Another on the ship has a slightly aristocratic bearing about him, even though not remotely to the manor, or even manner, born. The 26-year-old Scot and Bosun’s Mate, James Morrison, is just like that. Morrison is of slender form but surprising strength. A sailor since he was 18, he has sailed long, toiled hard, and has the kind of wide and deep experience to go with his native intelligence that makes him notable for his resourcefulness. Whatever the problem, Morrison finds a way of solving it, helped along, at least a little, by his deep faith, which allows him to proceed with the confidence that the Lord is watching over him.

  This endures despite his mangled hand – which includes missing the upper joint of his right forefinger thanks to an old accident – an injury which affects his handwriting in the journal he keeps. As Bosun’s Mate, it is Morrison’s task to help the Bosun, William Cole, with maintaining all the sailing operations on the upper deck – from seeing that the deck is swabbed, to maintaining the rigging, looking after the anchors and supervising all the work aloft.

  This is on the upside. On the downside is that the Bosun’s Mate must also administer whatever floggings Captain Bligh might order – that is, he must personally remove the shirt of the man to be punished, lash his wrists to the mast, and then whip his back to a pulp with the dreaded cat o’ nine tails, or in sailor’s parlance, make him ‘taste the salted eel’.

  Another of interest on board – a stranger to each and every one of them before boarding the Bounty – is a swarthy, Cockney Able Seaman who was christened John Adams 22 years earlier but these days goes by the name of Alec Smith. Now, precisely why he so changed that which was marked in the Birth Register never actually emerges – any more than how he got a job as an Able Seaman, despite having no such qualifications and this being his first sea voyage of any kind – but it is unlikely to have been by cause of remarkably good behaviour, as opposed to bad. And yet if the blemishes on his record remain unknown, the blemishes on his face are all too apparent, as his face is deeply pitted with smallpox scars. Bligh notes he also ‘has a scar on his right foot, where it has been cut with a wood axe’,24 which causes him to limp ever so slightly.

  Yes, life has dealt Alec an unending series of very low cards, from being born an orphan, to growing up in a poorhouse in East London as an illiterate, to contracting whatever diseases were going. And yet, he is also a survivor. Standing five feet five inches tall, with a remarkably strong build, he is one who for the most part keeps to himself, who observes rather than participates, who judges which way the wind is blowing rather than causing it to go in one particular direction himself – and acts accordingly.

  •

  The others?

  They comprise a fairly typical rogues’ gallery of men who have built their lives sailing the Seven Seas, whoring, fighting, drinking, pissing razor blades with venereal disease, occasionally wielding swords and muskets in shore fights, suffering scurvy, sleeping damp and hot with rats and lice, eating weevils at every meal, swabbing decks, heaving ropes, tying knots until their fingers bleed, shinnying up masts, setting sails, and standing watch as the waves crash, the wind blows, the lightning bolts strike, and the ship surges onward beneath the starry skies and searing suns alike.

  There is Charley Churchill from Manchester – nudging 30, and a strapping five foot ten, he has the curious combination of being as strong as a bull and cunning as a sewer rat, all with a head like a friar. Yes, with long light brown hair falling from the ring that marks his entirely bald pate onto his enormous shoulders, Churchill is a formidable character, and one the other crew-members are wary of. And, in the regrettable absence of Marines on the ship, it is an obvious move for Captain Bligh to make him his Master-at-Arms, responsible for basic drill and weapons training for the men above decks, and keeping the crew in line below decks – the logic being that the biggest brute on the ship has the best chance to keep the lesser brutes behaving properly.

  Meanwhile, it is hardly surprising that Churchill is as thick as thieves with Matt Thompson, a sailor ten years his senior, as they are both … thieves, by nature. Thompson has his own scars from brawls and boozing, it’s just they are so numerous and deep it is sometimes uncertain where the scar stops and he begins.

  The other bookend of Churchill’s bastardry, and a decade younger than him, is the rogues’ rogue Matt Quintal, a lusty Cornishman with a fair complexion and light brown hair, who, like his two mentors, would sooner a fight than a feed and is happy to go a good distance out of his way in order to find one. His particular talent is straight out insubordination and he is one of the men that Fryer notes immediately as a troublemaker. Quintal is in turn – and for the same reason – soon in league with Able Seaman Billy McCoy, a 24-year-old whose face and torso bear the marks of many vicious knife-fights.

  Yes, rough, tough men – as is to be expected in any crew of the Royal Navy. But they don’t worry Captain Bligh. Most of their trouble is committed on land, because, there, the repercussions of punishment are so much less. Here on the water, they are under his total control.

  14 January 1788, three days out of Tenerife, a problem with the big cheese

  A light breeze is blowing from the south-west, the sun is shining, the Bounty is making fair progress covering 100 nautical miles a day, and Bligh takes the opportunity to order the cooper, the man in charge of taking care of the barrels in the hold, to bring some of the casks of cheese up on deck to air, to check they’ve not spoiled.

  But there is a problem.

  ‘Two cheeses have been stolen,’25 Captain Bligh barks like a watchdog who has just discovered its meat-locker is empty. The officers and sailors respond in kind, stiffening, standing up straight, hoping to avoid being savaged by their own meek immobility. By now, they know that when Bligh barks like this, your only hope is to avoid his scrutiny, for the fit of bad temper that follows, the dark and unpredictable mood that will foul the entire ship, may last mere minutes or days, but you don’t want to be the object of his focused fury. It is only those aloft, high in the rigging, who can dare to gaze with full interest on the scene below, just as those in the middle of it must stare resolutely at their own shoes.

  The cooper, Henry Hillbrant – born Heinrich Heildbrandt in Germany, 27 years earlier, and still with only a minor grasp of English – does not have the option of staying out of it.

  Opening and closing the casks is quite a skilled process, requiring the cooper to use his hammer and chisel to remove one hoop, and bend the wood back just far enough to remove the lid – so that gentleman must know something about it? As a matter of fact, he does.

  For, when asked, he replies, carefully, hoping this is just some misunderstanding, because the Captain must have forgotten – Ja? – ‘Zer cask had been opened before while the ship was still in the river by Mr Samuel’s order and the cheeses were sent to Mr Bligh’s house.’26

  Well!

  Bligh moves quickly.

  ‘I will give you a damn good flogging if you say any more about it!’27 he tells the startled cooper through clenched teeth.

  As to the rest of you scurvy lot, he seethes, ‘the allowance of cheese is to be stopped from officers and men until the deficiency is made good!’28

  The cheese ration is indeed immediately cut, with only butter served, but the seamen refuse it entirely as, ‘acceptance of the butter without cheese would be tacitly acknowledging the supposed theft’.29 The mood darkens further when one of the Able Seamen, John Williams, discloses to the others that he personally had ‘taken the cheeses to Mr. Bligh’s house with a cask of vinegar and some other things!’30

  Feelings become even more strained, when, as the ship draws closer to the equator, many of the pumpkins begin to spoil as the weather gets hotter and heavier – and Bligh instructs the cook to prepare for each man one pound of pumpkin per day instead of their daily allowance of two pounds of bread, only for the men to refuse to eat it. They don’t want to eat their vegetables, and Captain Bligh can’t make them.

  Alas, when
Bligh’s faithful servant – the poor, quivering Mr Samuel – goes to the Commander’s cabin to beg his pardon and inform him, Bligh’s face flashes hot in ‘a violent passion’.31

  Standing on his dignity and venturing out into that dangerous wilderness that lies on the highwire between high dudgeon and his towering rage – that area where people are known to make the best speeches they will ever regret – Bligh calls all hands on deck to give them a blast that would peel paint and turn oranges into onions, with withering abuse of not just the common sailors but also the officers, even the man thought to be his particular favourite, Fletcher Christian.

  ‘You damned infernal scoundrels!’ he roars at them. ‘I’ll make you eat grass or anything you can catch before I have done with you!’32

  James Morrison records, ‘his speech enforced his orders, and every one took the pumpkin … Officers not excepted, who though it was in their eyes an imposition said nothing against it …’33

  In truth, however, Bligh’s greatest problem is not any of the common crew-members. No, far more difficult is one of his officers, specifically the medical officer Dr Huggan, he of the flabby form, the ghastly, stale smell, the florid red cheeks, the one who arrives at the table early, leaves late, and drinks four times the amount of wine of any other officer meantime.

  I now find my Doctor to be a Drunken Sot he is constantly in liquor, having a private stock by him which I assured him shall be taken away if he does not desist from making himself such a beast.34

  February, 1788, Isle of Man, a muse muses

  The beautiful young woman in her gracious home on the Isle of Man writes down, scribbles out, writes again, and scribbles once more, as – bit by bit – another of her verses of poetry starts to take form, this one on the dear brother, away on the Bounty, who she misses so much:

  May Heav’n on you its choicest Favors pore

  And gentle Breezes waft you safe to Shore

  Remember Us – we oft shall think of You,

  A thousand Blessings on you all – Adieu.35

  Nessy Heywood’s poetry is mostly mischievous and witty, but when it comes to her absent brother Peter, there is an aching sadness. Until she is with him once more, smile gaily as she will, Nessy knows she will not be at peace.

  Early February 1788, close to the equator, tensions mount

  Since Bligh’s outbursts of rage over first the cheese and then the pumpkins, the mood on the Bounty has blackened, even as tension has grown. Every meal now, to the men’s eyes, and more to the point their rumbling tummies, confirms that their portions of meat are beginning ‘to appear very light’.36

  The old salts among them, who recognise this outrage for what it is, appeal to Fryer, ‘Examine the business, Mr Fryer. You must procure us redress.’37

  When Fryer raises the issue with the Captain, his response is swift. It is just not the one they want.

  Everyone aft, and gather around the Captain! Now hear him, and hear him well, you ingrates, you curs, you rude ruffians.

  ‘Everything relative to the provisions,’ Captain Bligh announces in his jarring way, his potato head glowing red, ‘is transacted by my orders, and it is therefore needless to make any complaint for you will get no redress. I am the fittest judge of what is right or wrong.’38

  Are we clear now?

  Looking around – his eyes like glaring slits – he wordlessly dares anyone to speak, to question his command. There is nothing, bar a collective glowering silence.

  Very well then. Let me be even clearer.

  ‘I will flog the first man severely who should dare attempt to make any complaint in future,’39 Bligh threatens, before dismissing them with little more than an imperious wave of his high and mighty hand.

  Still, ignoring the growing discontent, the sharp silence that suddenly arises wherever he goes on the ship as the muted murmurings stop the instant he approaches, Bligh blithely drafts a note to Duncan Campbell to be given to a British whaler they come across, noting the crew’s ‘content and cheerfulness’,40 and another to Sir Joseph Banks where he affirms that ‘we are now fit to go round half a score of worlds, both men and officers tractable and well disposed and cheerfulness and content in the countenance of everyone … I have no cause to inflict punishments for I have no offenders.’41

  Or at least, right now, as they are becalmed in the doldrums, where the heat hangs heavy and the wind refuses to blow – they average just a dozen nautical miles a day for as many days – Captain Bligh has no offenders that can be bothered offending with any energy.

  On Sunday morning 2 March 1788, the usual religious service takes place, with the entire ship’s company gathered around the mizzenmast, as Bligh himself, a pious soul, conducts proceedings. Immediately afterwards, as is the practice every month, the crew are read the Articles of War, so each sailor knows the rule of military law in the Royal Navy and cannot claim ignorance of the penalties for disobeying the Captain.

  But, in fact, this morning, as Captain Bligh will record, reading the Articles of War is not the most important part of proceedings.

  I now thought it for the good of the service to give Mr. Fletcher Christian an Acting Order as Lieut. I therefore ordered it to be read to all hands.42

  Though it involves little more than giving the young man a signed letter confirming his promotion, it is an act of great generosity. For, as Bligh knows, giving Christian such a promotion now – lifting him to the official rank of Acting Lieutenant, in command on the Bounty’s third watch – means that upon their return to England, should all go to plan, Fletcher will be virtually guaranteed a full promotion, a commission in the Royal Navy!

  And, rare for Bligh, it is a move that is exceedingly well received by the entire ship’s company. Congratulations and hearty handshakes abound for the smiling Fletcher, the most popular officer on the Bounty.

  Fryer is stung. For, incontrovertibly, Christian’s promotion sees his own demotion, if not in rank, certainly in pecking order. For Fryer is not a Lieutenant, acting or otherwise. He is the Master of the Bounty, a position which is supposed to be second only to Bligh.

  Now Fryer is feeling a little stormy himself as, a short time later, his composure cracks and he has a vicious quarrel with the troublesome Cornishman, Matt Quintal, prompting the Master to march up to Bligh to report ‘insolence and mutinous behavior’.43 Yes, Captain, one of the rougher sailors, Matt Quintal – that lusty lad when sober, and bruising brawler when drunk – has refused an order.

  What?

  Refused an order? On my ship?

  The Articles of War could not be more clear on what must happen next, as Bligh reluctantly notes in the Log: ‘I had hopes I could have performed the Voyage without punishment to any one, but found it necessary [to order] 2 dozen lashes for Insolence and Contempt to the Master.’44

  Within minutes of Fryer’s report, the shout goes up around the ship, down the hatches and from deck to deck: ‘All hands aft!’

  Yes, they must gather to witness punishment, and so form up just forward of the mizzenmast. And now, the glowering Quintal is led forward, his hands bound in front of him by a seizing (a length of cord specifically used to tie the men when needed), wearing only his wide sailor trousers, his shirt already off, exposing his grubby white back and bronzed forearms.

  It is now for James Morrison, charged with doing the honours for the dishonoured, to act. Grabbing Quintal’s hands, he stretches them out way in front of him, lashing them tightly to a capstan bar, no hint of mischief in his eyes, just detached attention to duty.

  In his dress uniform, for this piece of organised, institutionalised brutality is indeed a formal occasion, Captain Bligh stands before his men, and removes his hat, holding it to his heart. The crew do the same, as they all now stand there hatless, out of respect for the King’s commandments, as they all must now observe this brutal rite of the Royal Navy.

  Bligh, with the slightest hint of pity in his voice – for as much as he knows it is his duty to oversee this punishment, its
brutality appals him – orders Morrison to deal out two dozen lashes.

  (With the look of one who must now pick up a dead rat – for his own distaste for what he must do goes well beyond displeasure, and even beyond disgust – Morrison plucks the cat o’ nine tails from the red baize bag he keeps it in, before dipping the tails in the bucket of seawater handy for the occasion. The crew holds its breath as he now draws the cat high above his shoulders and well back, before flinging it hard, forward and down. There is a furious whistling and now a loud, but fleshy CRACK! as the leather cuts into Quintal’s flesh, instantly drawing red stripes across his back.)

  All watch until the ritual is complete, a bloody warning if ever there was one.

  Bligh returns to his cabin, brooding. Reopening his Log, he adds fresh detail, making it clear that the beating was not his choice. Rather, he was responding to the complaint made by the sailing Master, Fryer. And the charge? Originally, Bligh had marked it down as mere ‘Contempt’.45 But now, on more consideration, he changes it to the heavier charge of ‘Mutinous Behaviour’.46

  They sail the Bounty south along the eastern coast of South America, past 40 degrees South latitude and onwards towards the spot where three great oceans – the Pacific, the Atlantic and the frozen Southern Ocean – are in perpetual stormy argument as to which is the greatest of them all.