Mutiny on the Bounty

by Peter Fitzsimons

  For now the men, too, drop their clothing, with one man taking the lead as he possesses ‘the power and capability of distorting the Penis and Testicles, making at the same time wanton and lascivious motions’.67

  Using a tightly bound piece of twine at the base of the penis – so tight that it appears to almost cut through – the Native makes his penis erect. The second man wraps his testicles around the head of his penis, and then stretches the whole thing towards his belly. Stretching and stretching until it is nearly one foot long! (No, really.)

  Bligh reels.

  Could this possibly get any more horrifying, more sickening, more appalling for an English gentleman to have to witness?

  Decidedly, yes.

  For now, a third man actually yanks his scrotum downwards with such force that, like a startled turtle, the head of his penis retreats to the point that it disappears, even as his testicles swell outwards, trying to burst free of the tightened scrotum.

  And so it goes as they dance around the ring for several minutes, making different shapes with their penises and testicles, until Bligh really can bear it no more and shouts for them to ‘Desist!’68

  He stands up and leaves to the sounds of the crowd roaring with laughter at his squeamishness.

  These are a strange people, a fact further confirmed a few days later, when, at Iddeah’s invitation, Bligh attends a wrestling match for women – which proves to be the same as the male version, except it’s … more vicious. For a couple of hours, Bligh sits there, progressively more horrified as the usually peaceable and gentle women go at each other with no mercy, ‘as savage as Wild Beasts’.69

  The worst of it is seeing them actually pushing their thumbs into their opponent’s eye socket and turning the eyeball out.

  Disgusted, Bligh orders them to stop!

  When I spoke to Iddeah and other principal people about it, that it was a disgrace to them, they laughed at me and said it was ‘Myty Taheite’ – it was customary in Tahiti.70

  A strange people indeed, with women every bit as violent as they are voluptuous. More than ever, Bligh looks forward to departure, so they can begin the next leg of their journey to Jamaica, and then home to Betsy. Not that there aren’t still many problems, and obstacles to overcome.

  On 2 March, the Gunner, William Peckover, reports that from his post on the shore, he has had a water cask, part of an azimuth compass, and his bedding stolen!

  As ever, Captain Bligh takes an extremely dim view of such thievery – fiercely rebuking the whole shore party for their disgraceful laxness in allowing it to happen – before bitterly complaining to Tinah, telling him that their friendship is now at an end, ‘unless the thief is produced, and that must be done in the course of the day’.71

  Tinah reacts instantaneously.

  Steal, from Bry? It is a disgrace on them all!

  (Quietly, Captain Bligh is a little less aggrieved than he appears, recording in his log on 18 March 1789, ‘I now find we are subject to more petty thefts than hitherto … it amounts however to no other articles than such as are carelessly left about. I cannot therefore blame the natives for it, as I am perfectly certain that had the ship been lying in the River Thames, a hundred times more would have been stolen in the same time.’72)

  At least Captain Bligh is able to keep himself well-informed of what Tinah is up to, courtesy of Hetee-Hetee, who has become his personal spy, and he is gratified to learn that Tinah is personally leading the charge to find the thief.

  Sure enough, only three hours after the theft is reported, Tinah arrives with his entourage, holding a downcast Native by the arm, while one of his men has the water cask and compass.

  ‘There is the thief,’ says Tinah, handing him over. ‘Kill him. There is no bedding yet, but we will search.’73

  ‘You have acted very properly,’ Bligh says grandly, ‘and have secured my friendship and goodwill …’74

  And no doubt Captain Bligh would have gone on, and at some length. But before he can, Tinah, relieved at such kind words, steps forward to embrace him, even as the whole crowd of Natives cries out, ‘Tyo myty!’

  ‘Tyo myty!’ Good friend!

  ‘Tyo myty!’75 Good friend!

  Indeed.

  While Tinah departs to look after the bedding, the thief is sent on board for his punishment, which is every bit the ‘severe flogging’ that Bligh records in his log, with no fewer than ‘100 lashes severely given’,76 something that, in a European sailor, would risk death, but leaves this thief only a bloody mess, before he is placed in irons and put below, beside Thomas Hayward who, all these weeks on, is still there.

  Despite that, however, at 4 o’clock the next morning, the prisoner is able to break the locks of his chains, make his way up the ladder through the hatch, cross the deck and jump into the sea.

  The Officer of the Fore Castle Watch heard the plunge into the water and went off in a boat in search of him but to no effect.77

  Captain Bligh is, needless to say, appalled once more that such laxness could have occurred.

  The young officers have truly let the sunny lassitude of Tahiti seep into their bones, to the point that they are near unrecognisable from the officers of the King who arrived here just five months ago.

  Verbal orders in the course of a month were so forgot that they would impudently assert no such thing or directions were given, and I have been at last under the necessity to trouble myself with writing what by decent young officers would be complied with as the common Rules of the Service.78

  Of course, Bligh is not remotely surprised to find out who was the young idiot responsible for the latest escape from the ship.

  Mr. Stewart was the Mate of the Watch.79

  On shore, Stewart is happy as he has never been in his life before, keeping company with a stunning young maiden by the name of ‘Peggy’, who is already proudly pregnant with their child.

  Back on the Bounty, however, when he can bring himself to answer the Captain’s summons, he must face a Bligh burst of invective that will seemingly never cease, accusing him of everything up to treason.

  He cannot get back to Peggy quickly enough, and, at a lower level, his experience is common among the ship’s company: on the shore, they are masters of their own domain, living like Kings themselves, while back on the Bounty they are little more than cowering servants in the Kingdom of Bligh.

  Being cooped up with him for another five months, all the way to Jamaica, then back to cold, dark England? Many of the crew can barely bear to contemplate it, and George Stewart is a case in point.

  For the men staying on the Bounty, the most important thing is preparing for the voyage ahead – loading the ship to the gunnels with the likes of yams, salted pork and chooks, all for the use of the cooks, while of course also building up their own supply of coconuts, now standing in proud pyramids below deck, with Captain Bligh’s pyramid standing tallest of all, so tall only above deck can accommodate it, courtesy of the efforts of Mssrs Samuel and Smith.

  When it comes to procuring provisions, few shine as brightly as John Fryer, who, beyond being the Master of the Bounty, also proves to be a true master of bargaining with the Tahitians. No man can get as many goods for as little exchanged and he is particularly partial to hogs, which he concentrates on securing – as insurance against whatever outrageous privations Captain Bligh might seek to place upon them on their way to Jamaica. Mr Fryer’s view is that just as the Captain may not touch Mr Purcell’s chisel, as it is the Carpenter’s private property, so too will the Captain be prevented from hogging his hogs. Which is fine, in theory.

  Alas, with no explanation and no hint of apology, Captain Bligh suddenly orders that all of Mr Fryer’s hogs be slaughtered ‘for the ship’s use’.80 Now, given that Mr Fryer has, by James Morrison’s count, ‘more than forty [hogs] on board of his own’,81 this is no small thing, prompting Mr Fryer to rush to speak to the Captain, so this misunderstanding can be cleared up.

  For you must understand, Captain Bligh,
that those hogs are my property. I have traded for them, and nurtured them since. They are mine.

  Yours, Mr Fryer? Yours?

  Let Captain Bligh give you a little instruction as to what livestock belongs to whom. For he has done some quick calculations, and worked it out.

  Let’s see.

  Dot three, carry four, subtract eight …

  Yes, he has the answer.

  ‘Everything is mine as soon as it is on board,’ Bligh tells the stunned Master. ‘I will take nine tenths of any man’s property, and let me see who dares say anything to the contrary.’82

  Swallowing his reply, Mr Fryer, like all the other men, does not dare to question his Captain’s ruling.

  Alas, the three dozen hogs of Mr Fryer prove to be just the beginning of the Captain’s plunder: ‘Those of the seaman were seized without ceremony, and it became a favour to get a pound extra of his own hog.’83

  As James Morrison chronicles, Captain Bligh’s rapaciousness was not restricted merely to hogs.

  ‘Mr. Bligh seized on all that came to the ship, big and small, dead or alive, taking them as his property and serving them as the ship’s allowance at one pound per man per day.’84

  The Tahitians, of course, soon become aware that the market for their hogs has fallen and ‘became very shy of bringing a hog in sight of Lieutenant Bligh either on board or on shore’.85

  And so they are snuck on board, while he is on shore.

  Quickly understanding the ruse, Bligh instructs the Mate of every watch, when he is absent, to note ‘the number of hogs … with the weight of each, that come into the ship’.

  Hmmm.

  Ever ingenious, the Tahitians change tack to starboard, as Morrison chronicles:

  To remedy this the natives took another method, which was cutting the pigs up, wrapping them in leaves, and covering the meat with bread-fruit in baskets, and sometimes with peeled coconuts. By this means, as the bread was never seized, they were a match for all his industry, and he never suspected their artifice.86

  The end result is that the alliance between the Bounty crew and the common Tahitians is deepened, and placed at the service of thwarting the desires of Captain Bry.

  March 1789, Tahiti, making Hayward while the sun shines

  After no less than seven weeks in chains, Thomas Hayward is released. Like a cowering albino dog – all white and weak, blinking in the sun, scarcely daring to believe his long agony is over – Hayward is quickly put to work on board with all the rest, loading, loading, loading. The time is nearly nigh!

  •

  The breeze off the bay blows fresh in the blaze of the morning sun.

  Beneath Captain Bligh’s steely gaze, and according to specific directions from the botanist David Nelson, the process of moving the bread-fruit plants to the ship begins. It is 29 March 1789.

  Shuffling single file down to the water, the shirtless shore party – looking like white Natives, which is very close to what they have become, bar their tattered shorts – make their way to the beach, with a pot perched on each of their bronzed shoulders, careful not to let a single splash of salt water get near them. Gently now, they pass the precious pots to the men waiting in the Launch, the Cutter and even the Jolly Boat. Once the living cargo is secure in the bottom of the boats, the crews pull slow and steady on the oars – there can be no splashing – as they glide serenely over the sun-streaked water out to the Bounty, where more men lower nets over the gunnels and haul the plants up to the deck, as Bligh watches ever closer.

  Easy now, God damn you!

  With equal care, the pots are taken to the Grand Cabin cum floating greenhouse, where a bustling David Nelson and his assistant William Brown fuss about, directing the men to place the pots – careful now, please! – in the appropriate spots, according to their size.

  It is with satisfaction that Bligh records:

  They were in excellent order: the roots had appeared through the bottom of the pots and would have shot into the ground if care had not been taken to prevent it.87

  It takes three days, but finally it is done, and by the evening of 31 March, Bligh can write in his Log with some satisfaction, ‘Total plants on board 774 pots, 39 tubs, and 24 boxes.’88

  First week of April 1789, Tahiti, a high-tail by sail

  At last, the great day approaches.

  The Bounty is near fully victualled. The plants are all loaded and secured, the wood is stored, the water barrels all filled to the brim – no less than 47 tons of water, most of which will be dedicated to Bligh’s beloved bread-fruit. There are 25 hogs in the pen, and 17 goats. Most importantly, the sea is calm, and all they need is an easterly wind.

  Bligh rejoices that they are finally ready to leave. And yet, he is one of a tiny minority of the ship’s company who feels that way. For most of the officers and sailors, the last five months has been time spent in paradise, the most glorious time of their lives, and many of them are in love with particular women – some of whom are pregnant with their babies – who they must now leave behind. Some silently beg for the favourable winds to, pray, stay away.

  Alas, late on the fourth day of April, an east by north breeze springs up and Bligh resolves to leave first thing the following morning.

  On the Bounty, all is furious activity.

  ‘The ship,’ Bligh chronicles, ‘was crowded the whole day with the natives, and we were loaded with coconuts, plantains, bread-fruit, hogs, and goats. In the evening there was no dancing or mirth on the beach such as we had been accustomed to, but all was silent.’89

  Or, nearly silent.

  For in many huts by the shore, many tearful farewells are taking place, and likely none more tearful than the one between Fletcher Christian and Isabella.

  Finally, however, the two must untangle their limbs, and Christian, with the others, climbs in the Cutter just as it pulls away from the beach. His eyes glistening, he gazes back on his sweet, beautiful Isabella, her arms outstretched towards him, almost as if she could reach out and bring him back to the shore. Around her, other swaying women weep and wail – a distinctively Tahitian lament – as if in mourning.

  On the ship, King Tinah and Queen Iddeah are begging Captain Bligh to stay just one day longer, but he will not hear of it.

  They will dine together one more time, and then they must go.

  After dinner, Captain Bligh, with great ceremony, gives the Royal couple – who are of course the last of the Tahitians to leave – the thing they have most yearned for: weapons. He hands them ‘two muskets, a pair of pistols, and a good stock of ammunition’.90

  Bry already has in his care two precious parais, mourning-dresses – made from the finest tapa cloth, gifts to King George from Tinah and Iddeah, with the express desire that ‘the King of England might forever remain his friend and not forget him’. And Bry has a list, in turn, of the things that King Tinah is hoping King George might send him, including ‘a ship full of British ladies’.91

  Grateful for Bry’s kindness in both taking his gift of bread-fruit plants to King George and also his list of required gifts, Tinah offers many fine words, casts many blessings of the Gods upon the great Captain, utters many protestations that their visitors will never be forgotten … until finally the time comes. As Morrison records, ‘Their parting with the lieutenant [Bligh] and officers was truly a tender scene …’92

  And now they are gone, being paddled away in their Royal canoe, before … coming back once more!

  For no sooner have Tinah and Iddeah landed back on shore, than they decide to give Captain Bligh one last gift: more coconuts.

  Yes, the coconuts are welcome – you can never have too many of them, and this last gift is added atop Bligh’s personal coconut pile on the top deck between the guns – but, finally, ultimately, the Royal couple are not.

  Gently, delicately, Bligh tells them that they must leave, and, this time, stay away.

  They understand.

  Truly, they do.

  Leaving Bligh for the last time
, climbing down the rope ladder into their canoe, both Tinah and Iddeah weep as they say to Captain Bry, their dearest friend, ‘Yourah no t’ Eatua tee eveerah.’ May the Eatua protect you, for ever and ever.93

  At first light the next morning, the order rings out. Anchors aweigh!

  Out of the shelter of the bay, the sails fill, and the Bounty gathers way. The crew wave goodbye to the hundreds of flower-bedecked and canoe-borne well-wishers who bob up and down on their considerable wake.

  Yes, of course Tinah has requested that the Bounty blast its cannon in farewell, but Bligh has declined ‘for fear of disturbing the plants’.94 Instead, they give Tinah and Iddeah three cheers.

  And so they say farewell to Tahiti. ‘For twenty-three weeks,’ Bligh records, ‘we had been treated with the utmost affection and regard, and which seemed to increase in proportion to our stay.’95

  In a rare moment of generosity of spirit, Captain Bligh gives orders that all of the ship’s company be given a double serving of rum. James Morrison notes the oddly happy scene with amused interest:

  Everybody seemed in high spirits and began already to talk of home, affixing the length of the passage and counting up their wages. One would readily have imagined that we had just left Jamaica instead of Tahiti, so far onward did their flattering fancies waft them.96

  Yes, many of the older men, particularly those with families – like Captain Bligh, Mr Fryer, David Nelson and William Elphinstone – are at least uplifted by the thought that they are now one step closer to getting back to their loved ones in Britain. But for many of the younger men, and none more than Fletcher Christian, their loved ones are those now in the bobbing canoes, wanly watching them disappear – and few can be more bereft than Isabella, who gazes sadly after her disappearing man, the love of her life, her Titriano.

  Fletcher looks back in turn, to the island paradise where he has spent the most deliriously contented days of his life, thanks to the woman he will in all likelihood … never see again! From now, he is Titriano only in her heart. Here, on the Bounty, he is Acting Lieutenant Christian, the watch awaits and Captain Bligh is watching him closely, his fury festering, ready to find fault and ever eager for Fletcher’s failure.