by Rosa Jordan
The English mariner accompanying Hamilton murmured, “Excuse me, Sir, but the men will complain if the captain makes them attend a funeral on Christmas Day. And if she puts it over the side herself, it’ll save others from handling the corpse.”
Hamilton pursed his lips and, speaking not to Mary but to the sailor, said, “It is unhealthful to keep a body aboard in this heat, and a danger to all if it died of the fever. Can we drop it overboard here in the harbour?”
“What with the filth already floating in this harbour, dead bodies not excepted, where’s the harm, Sir? There’s no more flesh on the mite’s bones than a smallish fish.”
“Then let it be disposed of tonight,” Hamilton decided.
With that they left the hold. Mary reached down and ripped another strip off her once-beautiful sarong, and wrapped it around the naked baby in her arms.
Down the line of shackled men, Pip, trying to comfort Charlotte, was himself weeping. James began to recite the poem, The Phoenix and The Turtle, about the funeral of a turtle dove attended by other birds. Others joined in, all having learned it by heart from hearing James recite it many times over back in the dungeon. One by one their voices broke with emotion and they could not go on. When at last a jailer came and motioned Mary to follow him out, only the voices of James and Charlotte followed her in mournful chant:
“Beauty, Truth, and Rarity,
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclosed in cinders lie
Death is now the phoenix’ nest,
And the turtle’s loyal breast
To eternity doth rest”
Up on the deck, in fresh air for the first time since leaving Kupang two months earlier, Mary held her dead baby over the railing and let go. The small body struck the water with an almost inaudible splash, and disappeared.
Then, under guard, Mary was returned to the hold. Charlotte immediately came to her and asked in a fearful whine, “Where’s Emanuel?”
“He died, like the turtle dove,” Mary told her.
“What did you do with him?”
“I put him in the water.”
“Will you put me in the water when I die?”
Mary wrapped her arms around the child and said, “I will never put you in the water, darling. You shall come with me all the way to England.”
“When are we coming to England, Mummy?”
“Before this year is out, my love. Our next port will be Table Bay, on the southern tip of Africa. Then on to beautiful England.”
The Indian Ocean
Batavia (Jakarta) to Capetown
Edwards was unable to secure passage from Java to South Africa for all his crew and prisoners on a single ship, so some of the Bounty men, including Bryn and Morrison, travelled on different vessels. Mary felt considerable sympathy for both—Bryn on account of his blindness and Morrison for having suffered unspeakable abuse at Edwards’s hands for being a Methodist—but the one’s whining and the other’s incessant praying had frayed everyone’s nerves.
The passage from Java to South Africa took three months. The conditions in which they were confined took a terrible toll on their bodies and a greater one on their spirits. Edwards kept them as wretched as possible, yet not quite starved to death, as he was determined to see the Bounty men hanged. Nor did he wish lighter sentences for those from Botany Bay. As the ship progressed toward the southern tip of Africa, few escaped some form of ill health. And always there was the hunger. One gloomy day, as they sat in irons watching the shadows of rats move back and forth around the edge of the hold, Scrapper remarked, “I reckon the only good thing about us gettin’ so little to eat is we don’t leave no scraps, so even the rats go on about their business looking elsewhere for grub.”
Charlotte, never a robust child, was wasting away. Thomas Burkitt, one of the Bounty’s able seamen who had been in on the mutiny but chose not to go with Christian, was especially gentle with her. He never failed to offer the child bits of fish head with the bones picked out, or other solid food he found in his slop which might provide some small nourishment.
“I’ve got a native wife back in O’Tahiti,” he told Mary one day. “Name of Mary, too. And ye won’t believe it, but we had a little daughter about the same age as this one of yours, that we christened Charlotte.”
“A native wife named Mary?” Mary asked doubtfully, imagining the aboriginal natives of Australia and their strange-sounding names.
“That wasn’t her Tahitian name,” Burkitt explained. “‘Twas one I give her. We all done that with our wives, give ‘em proper Christian names.” He sighed. “Ah, what a fine woman my Mary was. And a beauty to boot.”
That set the others to talking about the women they had loved and been forced to leave back in O’Tahiti. Cox, manacled at the opposite end of the line, blubbered like a baby about his poor sweet Florie, whom he believed he would never see again.
As the ship inched its way across the Indian Ocean, the captives chained in the hold heard rumours that more men from the Pandora crew had died, giving rise to certainty that they would perish as well. But in spite of the conditions in which Edwards held his prisoners, the captives all survived that leg of the journey—save one.
It came about during a terrible storm such as Mary herself had never known, unless it might have been that one the night they were landed in Botany Bay. But that night they were landed. Now they were on the high seas, deep in the bowels of a ship that rolled horribly, flinging them about and causing the fetters to cut into the flesh of their legs. Although she was not on deck to see the near-continuous lightning, thunder cracked so close at hand that it was often hard to believe the ship had not been struck. The Dutch mariners were in such a panic that they would not stay on deck but came tumbling down below.
The prisoners were unshackled and taken to man the pumps although, weak as they were from lack of exercise and near-starvation, Mary doubted they would be of any use. Water rose a foot or more in the hold, convincing her that death would come by drowning. Later she learned that Cox and Luke were not put to the pumps, but taken up to repair a broken yard. The storm, which had hit full force in the wee hours of the morning, raged all through the day. It was near dark before the sea calmed and all were back in their shackles. All but the one.
“Where’s Cox?” Mary asked, seeing that his fetter lay empty.
Luke pushed away the mug of gruel Mary had just dipped up for him, and dropped his chin onto his chest without reply. Mary had never seen him so morose, and guessed at once that something terrible had happened.
“Luke!” she cried. “What’s become of our Coxie?”
Luke’s shoulders convulsed with sobs. It was some considerable time before he could speak. At last he got a grip on himself and told what he had seen.
“High on the mast Cox was, fixing a broken yard, on account of them Dutch sailors being too fearful of thunder and lightning to make the climb. I was a little below, hanging on for dear life. The ship was pitching every which way, sometimes keeling over till I thought the mast was going to slap the water.”
“He fell?” Mary cried in horror.
“Nay, Mary, he didn’t fall,” Luke choked. “He jumped. I seen him clear. Drove the last nail into that yard, then climbed up on it and stood there clinging to the mast. Then he lifted the hammer high over his head and dove into the sea like he meant to bash it to death.”
There was a shocked silence. Then Pip spoke hopefully. “Cox is strong as a bull, he is. Maybe he swum to land.”
“I did see a lighthouse,” Luke confirmed. “It wasn’t far off.”
“Sure he’s on shore now and free as a bird,” Scrapper predicted. “The lucky dog.”
“Or he’s in the water,” Charlotte put in. “Like Emanuel.”
James leaned along the line of shackled men to take Mary’s hand i
n his, for he must have known what she was thinking.
“Don’t you suppose he might’ve made it?” asked Pip, who was seated next to Mary. “Even with the sea so rough?”
“Cox couldn’t swim,” she said quietly. “Not even in calm waters.”
The Final Voyage
Capetown to London
They reached the southern tip of Africa and anchored in Table Bay on March 18, 1792. James roused Mary from the stupor into which she had fallen, and repeated the rumour that they were to be transferred to an English ship, the Gorgon, commanded by a Captain Parker. “They say Parker is a humane man, and his wife sails with him. I should think this bodes well for the remainder of our journey,” James offered encouragingly.
Mary glanced along the line of men whose clothes had long since rotted away, so that their nudity was nearly complete. Mary herself, weighing less than ninety pounds, wore only a scrap of the sarong she had been wearing when thrown in the Kupang dungeon six months earlier. Charlotte, mere skin over bones, was naked entirely.
“If he recognises us as human,” she said dryly. “Let us hope that he does not share Edwards’s view that we hardly need feeding, and iron fetters fit us better than clothing.”
The longboat carrying the Bounty sailors was launched first, and came alongside the Gorgon while the boat carrying those from Botany Bay was still a little way out. From afar Mary could hear the prisoners being treated to insults from passengers hanging at the rail. The air was filled with such remarks as “Bloody pirates!” and “Sure and I’d know ‘em for mutineers anywhere.” “What a rough-looking bunch!” “Look at them tattoos!” “Can you believe they’re English?”
As their boat approached the ship, Mary kept her eyes downcast. Being as unkempt as the Bounty men and nearly as naked, she expected the same sort of scorn from this audience of properly-dressed Englishmen.
Suddenly the air was filled with exclamations of an entirely different sort. “Bless me!” bawled a familiar voice. “If it ain’t them that bolted with Mary Bryant!”
She looked up in amazement. At the railing were Sergeant Scott, Lieutenant Clark, Captain Tench, and other mariners whom she had last seen in Botany Bay, staring with astonishment as great as her own.
“Why, it’s the girl herself if it ain’t her ghost!” exclaimed Scott.
“Impossible!” Tench shaded his eyes to get a better look. “By God, I believe it is! Hey there, Mary! Mary Bryant!” Clark called.
Mary did not respond. She was engaged in trying to get Charlotte to cling to her back so she could climb the ladder to the ship’s deck, for she knew it would frighten the child to be taken up in the sling. Then, realising that Charlotte was not strong enough to hold on, Mary asked the oarsman to give her a bit of rope to bind the little girl to her body. Only when she began to climb did Mary realise how weak she was herself.
Behind her, waiting his turn, James touched her ankle and said, “Hold your head up, Mary. It is an amazing thing we have done, and they know it sure as we do.”
Mary was too preoccupied with hanging on and raising herself hand over hand up the ladder to care about impressing others. Six months as Edwards’s captive had robbed her of muscle, and left her spirit just as depleted.
When at last she reached the deck, hands stretched out from every direction to help her aboard. “Upon my word, but I never expected to see you alive again!” Scott exclaimed.
Near nude though she was and not caring at all, but perhaps because James did care, Mary stood as tall as her five-foot-four frame would allow, and tried to smile.
By then James was on the deck beside her, and Tench was saying, “Brown, you rogue! Whatever are you doing in the company of mutineers?”
“I say, Sir, it is as great a surprise to see you,” James said. “How is it that so many mariners from Botany Bay are aboard this vessel?”
“Our tour of duty is up. Replacements permitted some of us who came out on the Charlotte to go home. By God, but this is incredible! Where is that rascal Bryant?”
“Taken by fever in Batavia. Old Matey died there as well. Cox the carpenter we lost on this final leg of passage.” James paused and added, “Mary’s son Emanuel perished of the fever around the same time as his father.”
Tench turned to Mary. “Mrs. Bryant! I am so sorry.”
Others, including the wives and children of some of the officers, crowded around, full of curiosity about the journey which Mary and her companions had survived. Scrapper began to boast, but the others were satisfied to answer questions as asked.
As conversation swirled around them, Lieutenant Clark unfastened the rope which bound Charlotte to her mother and lifted the child off her back. “Hello there, Charlotte. Do you remember me? Dr. White is aboard. Won’t he be surprised to see you!”
Mary moved a little away from the crowd, for she did not feel strong enough in body or mind to deal with so much excitement. Taking in her new surroundings, she noticed that three were watching from the bridge. One was obviously the ship’s captain. Next to him was the First Mate, and a woman, probably the captain’s wife of whom James had spoken.
Suddenly Mary had a sense of having spent the whole of her life looking up at people who were looking down on her. The English judge who had sentenced her first to hang and then to be transported instead. Governor Wanjon who had sent her to the dungeon. Captain Edwards who believed that being chained in the hold of a ship for half a year was appropriate punishment for being who she was and doing what she had done. All leading up to this moment—a moment in which she no longer cared about anything.
Or so she imagined. In reality, there was the promise she had made to Charlotte to take her to England. It was the one thing she could do, and wanted to do, before judging men put an end to her existence on earth.
Some of Edwards’s mariners approached, carrying manacles to re-secure the prisoners. The First Mate hastened down from the bridge and called them aside for private words. The discussion grew heated, so that everyone on that part of the deck overheard.
“You might have considered the fact that there are officers’ wives present before bringing naked men aboard,” the First Mate informed them curtly. “I have been ordered to take charge of the prisoners. You may report that to your Captain Edwards. If he has objections, let him take up the matter with the captain of this ship.” The First Mate then ordered his own men to take the captives below without manacles.
As Mary stood in line to go into the hold, she looked beyond the railing of the deck for what she could see of sea and sky, not knowing whether she would glimpse either again before reaching England. Then she followed the others into the hold.
*
It saddened her a little that the Bounty sailors, who had suffered alongside them for more than half a year, were placed in a separate cell. She had grown fond of the two youths, Heywood and Ellison, even though the latter admitted that he had participated in the mutiny. Burkitt said he had been involved, too, but how could she hold it against him when he had been so kind to Charlotte while pining his heart out for his own wife and daughter back in O’Tahiti?
Although she would miss those men, whom she had come to think of as friends, Mary was relieved to find herself and Charlotte sharing a cell with only James, Luke, Pip, and Scrapper. It was a cramped space and the hold of the ship was oven hot, but no longer were they shackled to floor boards and forced to lie in their own filth. Each prisoner had been provided with a hammock. In the past Charlotte would have slept in the curl of her mother’s body, but the child had grown tender in the joints, and cried out when anyone touched or tried to move her. Mary asked for and got a separate hammock for Charlotte, which she hung touching her own. James hung his hammock on the other side of Mary’s. With the hammocks of Pip, Luke, and Scrapper strung up alongside, there was no space whatsoever to walk around. But that hardly mattered. During
their first weeks aboard the Gorgon, while the ship yet lay in the harbour, the heat of the hold, combined with weakness from starvation and lack of exercise, inclined them to inertia.
From the time they had first been shackled on the Rembang six months earlier, Mary had begun to draw in on herself. She rarely spoke, and roused only to meet the most basic necessities for Charlotte. Sometimes even those were not attended to unless James or one of the others reminded her. She was of course aware of James’s presence and to some degree comforted by it. But in a state where it was almost beyond her ability to care for her child and herself, she really had nothing left over for him.
He must have been aware of the reason for her withdrawal, though, for when it became apparent that on this ship they would not be starved, he had, in an indirect way, spoken of it. Passing her a cup of stew (Mary no longer rose from the hammock to serve even herself, let alone others in her party, as she had done in times past), James said, “After a week or two of decent rations, I expect our minds will be less dull.”
He said no more, nor did he need to. Mary knew that he longed for a resumption of the lively and tender conversations they had enjoyed during that one golden month in Kupang. She felt much the same, but whereas there remained some semblance of hope in James’s eyes that this might yet come to pass, she was sure that such moments would never come again. Her feelings, insofar as she felt anything, consisted of wordless black rages.
The only times she felt truly alive were in dreams, when she imagined herself attacking a man. Often this took the form of her lunging at Edwards or Wanjon or Will with a blade—the knife having been pulled from the folds of her sarong, or having magically appeared in her hand. But, as dreams are wont to do, hers often turned to nightmares, and she would wake with a pain in her chest, convinced for a second or two that the villain had turned the knife on her and that she was the one about to die. It would take her a moment to realise that she was alone in her hammock, neither dead nor dying. Often in her hand would be the wooden comb Bados had carved for her back in Botany Bay which, through all her trials and tribulations, she had carried tucked inside what was left of her sarong.
