His invitation to the council was almost an afterthought, Fletcher Christian decided, a reluctant concession the other mutineers had felt they should make and which they now regretted. Christian sat apart in the village square, the odd one out of their gathering, tormented by their attitude. His confrontation with Quintal should have imbued respect, at least from some of them. Young and Adams should have understood; they’d seen what had been happening. How would they have felt if Quintal had approached Susan or Paurai? He’d been friendly on Tahiti with the other botanist, William Brown. So why was he so hostile? And Jack Williams, the very reason for today’s meeting, should have been more sympathetic than anyone. Since the Quintal episode, the division between him and the other seven white men had seemed to widen: there was, thought Christian, more intercourse between them and the natives whom they thought of as slaves than there was with him.
Slowly, Christian examined the men with whom he was sentenced to spend the rest of his life … with them, but in virtual isolation from them, the cause of their unhappiness and therefore the person to be avoided, like an insane, embarrassing relative who has to be shut away in an unused part of the house and never spoken of unless for some cruel amusement. They blamed him for their predicament and hated him for it, Christian realised, just as he blamed Bligh and hated him.
‘Jack wants a wife,’ announced Adams, assuming the role of chairman.
Williams looked up, alert for any challenge.
‘I’ve been alone for almost a year now,’ he said, as if an explanation were required.
‘The native men only have three,’ pointed out Young. ‘Which one do you intend taking?’
‘I don’t mind,’ said Williams. ‘I think Nancy is well disposed towards me.’
It was like an auction, thought Christian. They were sitting there calmly talking of taking a woman from her partner with the casualness with which he’d seen farmers debate the quality of cattle or pigs at Cockermouth market. They had become like animals themselves, decided Christian.
‘It will cause trouble,’ he said.
The other men looked at him, appearing surprised he had spoken.
‘What?’ said Quintal.
It was a curt, sneering question, the way he’d seen Bligh talk to the ship’s cleaners. Quintal was anxious to recover, he recognised.
‘It will cause trouble,’ he repeated. ‘There are only three women among six natives. We treat them like slaves and they resent it. So far, they’ve done nothing about it. But they will … all they want is a cause and their rancour will explode. We’ve taught them how to use our muskets and now some of them are better than we are. If we insist that one of the women is taken from them, there’ll be bloodshed.’
‘We must remember that Mr Christian is an expert on sudden explosions of rage,’ said Mickoy, trying to support his friend.
Christian sighed. It was pointless, he thought.
‘What’s the answer then?’ demanded Isaac Martin. ‘Are you prepared to share Isabella?’
Christian tensed and then smiled, glad the question had been put. He stared directly at Quintal, the expression still on his face but mocking now.
‘No,’ he said, definitely. ‘I’m not prepared to share Isabella. I thought I’d made that quite clear.’
‘Then stay out of the discussion,’ rejected Williams, aggressively.
‘Is anyone else?’ came back Christian. ‘You all know the truth of what I’ve said. To get Nancy from the natives, you will have to fight for her. Which one of you is prepared to share his wife, to prevent that happening?’
They were all unsettled by the question, even Quintal, who had less regard for his partner than anyone.
‘Perhaps it could be resolved by negotiating with them,’ suggested Adams, trying to defuse the tension that Christian had created.
No one bothered to reply, recognising the emptiness of the proposal.
‘They’re only natives,’ said Quintal, defiantly. He paused, looking at Christian.
‘… despite what he says,’ Quintal continued, with a contemptuous twist of his head. ‘They know their position here. If we ask them, then they’ll get ideas above their station and imagine they’ve a right to protest.’
‘And haven’t they?’ pricked Christian.
‘No,’ retorted Mickoy, immediately. He reached behind him, groping for the bottle of taro liquor, and swigged from it before passing it to Quintal. The other man drank, deeply, then returned the bottle. Neither thought of offering it to anyone else in the group.
‘I mind we should think hard on what Mr Christian says,’ attempted John Mills, speaking for the first time. ‘The natives might rebel against us.’
Christian looked at the seaman, surprised at the support.
‘Share Vahineatua, then,’ attacked Mickoy, identifying the man’s wife.
‘I didn’t say we shouldn’t do it,’ immediately retreated Mills. ‘I just said we should be careful.’
‘Could we disarm them?’ wondered Young.
‘Probably,’ said Christian. ‘But before they had muskets they fought with stones. We can’t put every rock and boulder on the island under guard. They could stone us to death as we slept.’
‘Treat them rough,’ insisted Quintal, the bottle in his hand again. Very soon he would be drunk, Christian knew. The man smiled, his mouth twisted. ‘Kick them in the ass,’ he said. ‘Only thing they understand.’
‘The teaching of Captain Bligh,’ scored Christian. Nothing he said or did could reconcile them to him, he had decided, so he spoke carelessly, wanting only to expose their folly.
‘I want a woman,’ pleaded Williams, fearing the discussion was splintering into aimless, unresolved arguments.
‘I don’t see any alternative than of taking her, by force if necessary,’ offered Adams. He was unhappy at the thought, everyone knew.
‘And it must be a united decision,’ added Young, looking directly at Christian.
So his invitation was not really an afterthought, corrected Christian. The mutineers recognised that the natives, at least, still regarded him as the leader of the community and that any decision they reached would have to appear to have his open support.
‘It won’t be, will it?’ he said.
‘Going to lead the destruction of what we’ve got here, just like you did last time?’ demanded Mickoy.
‘No one forced you to do what you did,’ said Christian.
‘You’re the one worried about bloodshed,’ reminded Adams, moving to block another argument. ‘If you’re not seen to enforce the decision, it’ll be an encouragement for them to fight.’
The man was right, accepted Christian. For the doubtful peace of the island, he would have to appear in agreement with them. But why should he? he asked himself. What did he owe any of these men, except contempt?
‘We need to move together,’ enforced Young, carelessly.
‘Do we, Mr Young?’ snatched Christian, goading his former friend. ‘This reminds me of a conversation of many years ago … a conversation most of us here wish had never taken place …’
Young flushed, annoyed at being caught.
Quintal was relapsing into the tipsy clown, turning the bottle upside down to examine the neck for any last drops.
‘… in the ass,’ he advised, slurring. ‘Kick them in the ass.’
‘For the safety of the island …’ began Adams, then stopped. ‘For the safety of Isabella and the children,’ he started again, the argument prepared. ‘Will you come in with us?’
They’d won, accepted Christian. For any of the men with whom he was sitting he would do nothing, nothing at all. But to minimise a threat to Isabella, he would agree to anything.
‘You know why I will,’ he capitulated, staring around. ‘But I want you all to know something else, as well. I think you are all scum, all of you. Worthless scum.’
They detested him, he decided again, looking back at their faces. Every one of them.
‘Nancy,’ said Williams, frightened once more the chance would be lost. ‘Let’s go to get Nancy.’
The mutineers shuffled into a group and moved off further down the village, towards the native settlement at the far end. Christian was manoeuvred into a leading position in the procession, but noticed that the other Englishmen managed to keep apart from him.
‘She’s in Talaloo’s house,’ advised Williams. He was smiling, eagerly, like a child being taken to a toyshop at Christmas. Animals, thought Christian, again.
Talaloo appeared in the doorway when they were about twenty feet away. The man had been expecting them, Christian realised. It was not surprising. The wives of the other mutineers would have known the reason for the counsel that afternoon and the Tahitian women gossiped constantly among themselves.
‘You want my woman?’ challenged the Tahitian, immediately.
‘Mr Williams does not have one,’ replied Christian, lapsing easily into the language.
‘It is unfair,’ protested the man. He was the leader of the natives, Christian remembered. For his partner to be taken would mean loss of face among the other Tahitians.
It has been decided,’ said Christian, awkwardly. Why did it have to be him? he thought. Why did he have to be the spokesman for a proposal to which he was the only objector? It was obscene.
The woman appeared behind Talaloo, looking out anxiously. She would want to join Williams, Christian knew. It was regarded by them as a greater honour to sleep with a white man than one of their own kind.
‘I do not want it,’ rejected Talaloo.
‘What does Nancy want?’ asked Christian. The others had withdrawn even further from him. he realised, standing at least five feet behind. He’d been trapped into taking the whole responsibility.
‘It does not matter what she wants,’ said the man. ‘She is my woman.’
Christian detected movement behind and glanced sideways as Williams came level to him.
‘I do not want us to become bad friends,’ Williams said, moving further forward.
Williams had become the metal-worker on the island, setting up a forge on the outskirts of the village and utilising every piece of iron salvaged from the Bounty. The canvas bag he offered jingled with nails and trinkets he had prepared.
Christian winced, disgusted. Just like the cattle market, he thought again. Would they spit on their palms, then slap their hands together to seal the deal, as they did at Cockermouth?
Nancy moved past Talaloo, then stopped. Christian had not heard what the man had said. The conversation continued, very quietly, the woman frequently nodding, then shaking her head.
‘You have guns,’ accused Talaloo, coming back to the Englishmen.
‘They mean nothing,’ said Christian. ‘We mean you no harm.’
‘Yet you would shoot me, if I tried to prevent her leaving?’
‘Damned right!’
The voice was Mickoy’s and Christian half turned, furiously. Couldn’t they keep quiet? he thought.
‘So I have no choice,’ accepted the native.
Christian could think of nothing to say.
Talaloo jerked his head at the woman who ran happily towards Williams. Would he feel her muscles and look into her eyes and examine the condition of her teeth? wondered Christian, bitterly. It was the level to which they had degenerated, after all.
Hopefully Williams extended the gifts he had brought, waiting for the man to accept them. Talaloo stared down, prolonging the rejection. Then he spat, carefully, not at Williams but at the group and went back into his hut.
‘Wasn’t too difficult,’ judged Young, as they moved back into the village.
‘Your part, at least,’ stabbed Christian. ‘Always the rearguard in times of action, aren’t you, Mr Young?’
‘We know your opinion of us,’ sighed Young, patronisingly. He sniggered, anticipating his own joke. ‘Why not catch the next ship out of here?’
‘You’d have to fight your own battles then,’ refused Christian. ‘How would you do that, I wonder?’
He smiled up, expectantly, at the sight of Thursday at the far edge of the clearing. The child was moving slowly, looking around him, absorbed in some private game.
‘Thursday!’ called the mutineer. ‘I’m here, son.’
The child looked towards the sound, but did not respond immediately.
‘Come here, son,’ said Christian, curiously. Normally the boy ran to him at the first shout. The men had stopped, grouped beneath the biggest banyan tree, all looking towards the boy.
Adams realised it first.
‘He’s bleeding,’ he said.
Christian was already running, arms spread towards the child. Thursday stopped, eyes bulged and half turned to flee, but the man got to him, kneeling before him and holding the boy’s shoulders.
There was a large bruise on the side of his face and the blow had driven his teeth into his lips, so that two tiny lines of blood felt their way over his chin. He was pulling back against his father, not recognising him, tears rolling soundlessly from those staring eyes and mingling with the blood.
‘Isabella!’
The realisation wailed from the mutineer. He started up, turning behind him. All the mutineers stood there, gazing down, and nearly all their women were there, too. Unspeaking, Christian pushed the child towards the group and then ran to his house. His leg still hurt, slightly, so that it was an uneven, loping movement.
He realised the younger child was crying in its crib as he ran by, but didn’t stop to look at it. The first room was wrecked, the furniture he had so carefully made and which the woman had delighted in arranging and rearranging, every day, splintered and smashed as if two people had not only fought among it, but tried to use pieces as weapons.
‘Isabella!’
He ran into the second room, stumbling but continuing on, entering on his hands and knees. Here it was the same, the bed they had slept in and loved in and where he’d promised he would always protect her tipped on its side, so that the covering puddled in a heap. He threw the bed over, then groped into the blankets.
Outside the baby cried on, choking as tears ran back into its throat.
Isabella!’
He pushed through the debris to the front of the house, grabbing at the already broken furniture, throwing it wildly aside, chest heaving as he started to sob, unable to find her.
She was at the back of the house, in the small garden where they had cultivated the white frangipani with which she’d like to decorate the house and put into her hair. Isabella was spread on her back, legs splayed open as she had been left, her clothes ripped from neck to thigh and lying beneath her, like a mattress. She’d fought very hard, he realised. Her nails were cracked and some of her fingers were twisted and broken, where she had clawed at her attacker. Both eyes were puffed closed from the beating she had suffered and her teeth would be snapped, he knew, beneath those crushed lips.
The bruise across her throat was very evenly marked, where something had been pressed down, stifling her cries. And killing her. A musket barrel, he decided.
He began to cry at last, but like the boy his tears came without any sound.
‘Isabella,’ he moaned. ‘Oh, my darling.’
He knelt beside her, like a man in prayer, angrily waving his hand to disturb the flies that had already begun to settle.
The clothing was bundled beneath her, so he had difficulty in freeing enough of it to cover her.
She had teeth marks on her breasts, he saw. Near each nipple. She had been gnawed.
He took off his jacket, covering her, then lifted her. She was very heavy and he staggered under the weight, heaving at the body to get his balance. Everyone was outside the house, at the edge of the garden. He stood in the doorway, arms weighed down, as if offering her for examination.
Isaac Martin’s woman, Jenny, had Thursday’s face held against her chest so that the child could not see, and he stayed there, numbed in his fear. Susan, who lived with Young, was cradling the baby in her arms and he’d stopped crying now, smiling up at her.
Isabella had loved to see the boy smile like that, remembered Christian.
He stumbled further into the garden, moving without thought, and as he did so the jacket slipped off, exposing her again.
He stopped, crouching down protectively, trying to huddle over her.
‘Help me,’ he pleaded, staring up at the onlookers. ‘Please help me.’
Only the women moved into the garden. The white men remained where they were, all statued by shock. Not all, he corrected.
Matthew Quintal wasn’t there.
William Bligh stop-started around the London chambers of Sir Joseph Banks in Soho Square, like a bird seeking breakfast crumbs. His face was flushed and there was a nervous tic vibrating near his left eye. He had to keep his temper, he knew. No matter what justification there was for his anger, it would be wrong to expend it upon Sir Joseph. He needed the man’s help, not his animosity.
Sir Joseph had remained constantly loyal in his friendship, Bligh knew. So there must be a reasonable explanation for the lack of reception at Greenwich. And all the other things that were happening.
It was that damned court martial, he knew. God, the Admiralty were fools. Bumbling, incompetent fools. They’d sent him away, unpromoted, underpaid and without the protection of marines in the Bounty, then pushed ahead with the court martial without giving him the chance to appear in person.
Stupid, utterly stupid.
He’d raise it with Sir Joseph. The President of the Royal Society had wide influence in London. Frequently met the King at his levees at St James’s Palace … sounding-board for the politicians on colonial affairs, with his associations and knowledge of Australia now that America had seceded from the realm … confidant of Pitt and Fox alike. So Sir Joseph would know about it. And be able to give him advice. It was so confounded unfair, Bligh thought, sitting down and clamping his hands on his knees, as if trying to push calmness into himself. Confounded unfair. Not more than three years before he had been one of the most sought-after people in London. King George himself had spent fifteen minutes with him, at the levee at Windsor, showing a flattering knowledge of his career, discussing maps and charts in detail, even inviting him to peer at the heavens through the telescope he had had installed by William Herschel.
There had been suppers in his honour and society had clamoured for him to inscribe the book he had written about the voyage after he’d been set adrift from that damned Bounty.
He’d returned from the mutiny a hero, reflected Bligh. And come back now from the second expedition, upon which he’d succeeded in transplanting the breadfruit, to find himself shunned by those who had once ushered him into their houses and sought his favours and opinions.
The door behind him opened and Bligh rose, turning, to meet Sir Joseph. The President of the Royal Society was a burly, sharp-eyed man aware of his importance and influence but benevolent rather than conceited because of it.
Sir Joseph shook his hand warmly. The smile, decided Bligh, showed the genuine friendship that had arisen from their first meeting, when Sir Joseph had sailed the Pacific with him in the Resolution.
‘Welcome to my house, sir,’ said Sir Joseph, gesturing him back to his seat. ‘Sorry I was not able to get to Greenwich, to greet you when you arrived.’
‘Forced to say I was surprised, sir,’ said Bligh, stiffly.
So he was offended, judged Sir Joseph. Natural enough. He sprawled back at his desk and examined the man sitting before him. One of the most famous figures in London, thought Sir Joseph. Or was the more correct word infamous? That was unjust, corrected the man. Bligh had earned his honours, every one of them. There wasn’t a sailor in the kingdom who could match him for navigation. Good as Cook, by any standard. And he knew, having sailed with both. Doubted if even Cook could have managed that survival voyage.
‘Your letter said you were much distressed,’ prompted Sir Joseph.
‘Distressed!’ picked up Bligh, immediately halting, embarrassed. He’d shouted, he realised. And he’d determined to control his wrath.
‘Indeed, sir,’ he began again, speaking with difficulty. ‘For more than a year I have sailed around the world ensuring the continued prosperity of the most important men of this country; men already rich will make millions more from what I’ve done. Yet I arrive in Greenwich to be greeted by your clerk in the manner of a man returning from some ignominious defeat. I go to my home to find my wife in tears, the butt of jokes and humiliation and the Blighs the practical outcasts of London …’
Sir Joseph sat shaking his head, sadly. He had been wrong in not going to Greenwich, he accepted. Already it had become yet another rumour against Bligh. The government had quite misjudged the effect an official welcome would have upon public opinion after the interest generated by the Portsmouth affair.
‘… and yesterday I requested a meeting with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Chatham. He refused to see me …’
‘There could be a number of acceptable reasons,’ Sir Joseph tried to placate. ‘I know Lord Chatham is a much occupied man.’
‘Too busy to see me,’ said Bligh. ‘Yet not too busy to receive my junior, Lieutenant Portlock.’
Banks grimaced at the rebuff.
‘Why, sir?’ demanded Bligh. ‘Why am I being exposed to such ridicule? Why can’t I go down to give evidence, at the court martial? It’s ridiculous that I’m being denied permission.’
It was madness, accepted Sir Joseph. Even the younger Pitt had agreed the stupidity, yet appeared unwilling to impose his will.
‘The enquiry was already well under way,’ said Sir Joseph, the excuse prepared. ‘The Admiralty had little hope you’d return during the hearing. For you to be called now would mean reconvening another court martial, with new officers … It could take weeks, if not months. Your deposition is sufficient, surely?’
‘No, sir,’ rejected Bligh, adamantly. ‘It’s not sufficient and well we both know it. There’s a campaign being built against me. A campaign of unjustified vilification and abuse, blatantly the work of the damned Christian family.’
‘They appear implacable in their determination to retrieve the family name,’ conceded Sir Joseph.
‘The man was a villain,’ insisted Bligh, his face purpling. ‘Even the poxed enquiry at Portsmouth is proving that. Is it British justice to have a felon glorified and his victim castigated, without right of reply?’
It was an impossible argument to answer, thought Sir Joseph. Certainly the evidence being daily discussed by the government didn’t have right and wrong balanced in such positive terms as they appeared to exist in Bligh’s mind. But Fletcher Christian was appearing the undoubted ringleader of the insurrection.
Sir Joseph stood up, determined to mollify the man he admired.
‘Come now, Captain Bligh,’ he said, smoothly. ‘Hardly castigating. And if any evidence were needed of your country’s regard for you, then surely this will provide it?’
He offered the box to Bligh, who stared at it, his face twisting in renewed annoyance.
‘The medal,’ identified Sir Joseph, hopefully. ‘The Royal Society gold medal, commemorating the success of your mission. Further, I’m proud to say the Society is electing you into its membership.’
‘Here!’ protested Bligh. ‘To be given to me here, like a gratuity for a coachman for a successful journey!’
Another mistake, recriminated Sir Joseph. The man’s outrage was justified.
‘The King and the government are greatly occupied by the revolution in France,’ apologised Sir Joseph, guessing the man’s need.
Bligh held the box loosely in his hand, uninterested.
‘The Christians,’ he said, softly. ‘The infernal Christian family.’
‘It’s a passing sensation,’ assured Sir Joseph. ‘London exists on gossip, the more scandalous the more acceptable. Is it likely that what’s happening down there can have a lasting effect upon a man of your achievements?’
Bligh shook his head, refusing the flattery.
‘William Bligh doesn’t avoid conflict, sir,’ he said, without conceit. ‘I thought that, at least, would have been clear by now.’
‘I don’t understand,’ frowned Sir Joseph.
‘There isn’t a coffee house or a salon in London that doesn’t have one of the pamphlets … they’re everywhere.’
‘But what can you do?’ demanded his patron.
‘Fight,’ retorted Bligh, positively. ‘If London society is minded to read, then so be it. Edward Christian is determined to publish his account of the affair, so now I shall publish mine. I shall answer the smears and innuendo, point for point, showing them to be what they are, lies and falsifications from a family unable to accept the existence of a cowardly blackguard bearing their name …’
Sir Joseph shook his head.
‘Think on it, sir,’ he warned. ‘What can possibly be achieved by a public quarrel of this nature?’
‘The restitution of my honour,’ replied Bligh, immediately. ‘Do you expect me to sit idly by, becoming the joke of this city?’
‘The public already knows your side of the affair,’ avoided Sir Joseph.
‘Then they need reminding of it again,’ asserted Bligh. ‘I’ll not have my Betsy laughed at by women not good enough to be her laundry-maid. But for me, half the families in London would be facing bankruptcy and a debtor’s cell in Newgate. What right have they got to laugh at me?’
‘None,’ agreed Sir Joseph, sincerely. ‘And neither do they.’
‘Oh yes, sir,’ contradicted Bligh. ‘They do and well you know it … and the manner of my return serves only to heighten that ridicule.’
Amends had to be made, decided Sir Joseph. The man was being wrongly pilloried, no matter what his suspected faults. And that suspicion was only being created by clever innuendo, certainly not by facts.
‘I believe,’ blurted Sir Joseph, hurriedly, ‘that the King is shortly to receive guests at the White House at Kew. The government is preparing a guest list. I believe your name features upon it, sir. Won’t that allay the gossip?’
Bligh shrugged. Sincerity? he wondered. Or a belated attempt to recover from treatment the government now recognised was in error?
Pitt would be furious at the undertaking, Sir Joseph knew. But it was a problem that would have to be overcome. Bligh deserved the proper recognition, no matter how imprudent the invitation might be. To Pitt everything was politics, the pull and sway of advantage. That’s why he’d remained in power for so long.
‘I must assure you, sir, that the pressure of Royal Society work kept me away from Greenwich,’ lied Sir Joseph. ‘I now acknowledge that was a mistake, for which I am truly contrite. Rest assured that the London Gazette will carry the necessary information about your receiving the Society medal and of your appointment.’
‘I’m minded to prepare a reply to the slanders being put against my name,’ insisted Bligh, doggedly.
Sir Joseph sighed. It wouldn’t help, he decided. In fact the man risked further humiliation attempting to out-argue an advocate as brilliant as Edward Christian. And Sir Joseph had no more doubt than Bligh that it was the mutineer’s brother who was behind the present campaign. Some stories even had the man in residence in Portsmouth.
‘I feel it is a mistake,’ he cautioned.
‘We’ll see, we’ll see,’ said Bligh, briskly. Characteristically, once having decided upon a course of action, he was already convinced of its successful conclusion. Logic was on his side, determined Bligh. Who could fail to accept his side of the affair, once reminded of the true facts, not the distorted account that was being brought out at Portsmouth and published with such delight by his enemies?
‘You’ll not be dissuaded?’ asked Sir Joseph.
‘Not unless I can be permitted to attend personally at Portsmouth,’ said Bligh, bringing his threat into the open.
‘The government feels it would be a mistake.’
‘Then the government must be prepared for me to defend myself.’
It was only when he was in the carriage returning home that Bligh realised he had forgotten to raise the problem of money with Sir Joseph. He sighed, dismissing the oversight. It had hardly been the proper occasion, anyway, he rationalised. Far better to wait until he had published his rebuttal of the lies being spread. The approach would be viewed far more sympathetically once he was in favour again. And he would be, he knew. Very soon. He frowned, reflecting upon the meeting. He had failed to get answers to nearly all his questions, he realised. Sir Joseph was an adept politician.
Bligh hoped his patron’s ability would work to his ends.
The verdict of the court martial was very clear, determined Lord Hood, complacently. He’d conducted a good enquiry, he decided, only half listening as the gunner, William Peckover, moved towards the conclusion of his evidence. A very good enquiry indeed. And everyone recognised it. So there could be no criticism. And that was important. Rarely could he recall such interest in a naval matter.
They would have to acquit the sightless violinist, Byrn, together with Coleman and Norman, he knew. All the evidence showed them to be innocent. About four of the accused there could be no doubt whatsoever. From every witness had come support for Bligh’s deposition that Ellison, Birkitt, Millward and Muspratt had been among the most active mutineers, armed, violent and behind Fletcher Christian in everything he did. For them it would be the yardarm. And quickly.
The intensity of public opinion, spurred on by what Bligh was doing, had surprised not only the President. The Admiralty were aware of it, too. And alarmed that it was almost unanimously critical of the authority represented by Bligh. Unquestionably, conceded Hood, that criticism was justified. But it was clouding the indisputable fact that a crime had been committed. A public hanging was needed to balance the affair, not a coffee-house squabble.
About Heywood and Morrison there was a lot of doubt, he thought, coming back to the court. Certainly there had been some conflicting evidence that Heywood had been seen with a pistol in his hand, but the explanation from the boy that he’d snatched it up unthinkingly, in the confusion of the moment, to put it down again within seconds was acceptable. From no one had come any indication that he was a supporter of Christian; he’d been a boy of little more than fifteen, after all, hardly responsible for his actions unless guided by a superior.
And Morrison, too, had made a convincing case. He’d actually indicated to Fryer that he would support any attempt to retake the vessel, recalled the President. And but for him, the launch would have sailed away without any weapons.
No, considered Hood, about Heywood and Morrison there was more than sufficient doubt. Not sufficient to acquit them, of course. But enough to recommend to the Admiralty that the strongest mercy should be shown towards them. And he’d personally reinforce it, to Lord Chatham, First Lord of the Admiralty. He smiled at the decision. It would enable the Admiralty to follow a course that might appeal to public taste. And they were anxious for that, he knew.
He became aware that Peckover had stopped talking and straightened in his chair. He had few questions of his own, he realised, but felt sure the Christian family spy would be well briefed. He nodded permission and Bunyan rose, with his customary eagerness.
‘You knew Mr Christian well enough?’ demanded Bunyan.
‘Well enough.’
‘Come now, Mr Peckover. Captain Bligh appointed you the man in Tahiti through whom the trading with the natives should be conducted. It meant you lived alongside Mr Christian for the six months he was shore commander there.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Peckover.
‘Did you get on well with him?’
‘Not particularly,’ said Peckover.
‘Why not?’
‘He was not the sort of man I drew to.’
‘Would you explain that to the court?’
‘… I thought of him as a lickspittle …’ Peckover attempted to explain. ‘He seemed altogether too keen for advancement.’
‘Lickspittle to whom?’ queried Bunyan.
‘Captain Bligh,’ replied Peckover, shortly.
‘He was second-in-command,’ reminded Bunyan. ‘Wasn’t it natural he should spend time in the captain’s company?’
‘I don’t sec how anyone could have happily spent as much time with him as Mr Christian did.’
Bunyan smiled at the admission.
‘Your feelings towards Mr Christian,’ qualified the lawyer, ‘are tempered, are they not, by those you have towards the captain?’
Peckover shrugged, truculently. They wouldn’t twist him, like they had Fryer and Purcell.
‘Isn’t your attitude towards Mr Christian one of not being able to understand how he could be able, for part of the voyage at least, to remain a friend of Captain Bligh?’ pressed the lawyer.
‘Yes,’ conceded Peckover.
‘You used the word “happily”,’ reminded Bunyan. ‘Do you really think that Mr Christian was happy at the amount of time he had to spend in Captain Bligh’s company … or do you think he attended because he saw his future promotion dependent upon it, until the captain’s behaviour became such that even he couldn’t stand it any longer?’
‘He appeared quite contented on the outward voyage,’ refused Peckover.
‘As we have already heard,’ accepted Bunyan. ‘But what happened at the end of that voyage … in Tahiti? There was hardly anyone closer to him than you, at that time.’
‘Life on Tahiti was very different from anything any of us had ever experienced,’ recalled Peckover, smiling at the memory. ‘Not one man aboard had known the like of landing at a more amazing place … women would actually snatch out for you …’
‘And what was Mr Christian’s reaction to that?’ interrupted Bunyan, anxious to direct the man’s thoughts.
Peckover shook his head.
‘There never was such a man as Mr Christian for women,’ he said. ‘In every port it was always the same. In Tahiti it was two women a night, more often than not. It was like a farmyard …’
‘And the captain didn’t like such behaviour from his immediate officer?’
Peckover hesitated at the question.
‘There appeared no dispute at first …’ he recalled.
‘Why not?’
‘Captain Bligh was much occupied in getting the breadfruit. He had mind for little else, so the ship and men were left alone.’
‘So the criticisms came later.’
‘Things had changed by then.’
‘Changed? How?’
‘Mr Christian had met one particular woman,’ said the gunner. ‘Her name was Mauatua, but he called her Isabella, after a relation of his, here in England.’
‘What was his relationship with this woman?’
‘He settled down completely …’ remembered Peckover. ‘Told me he considered himself married. I recall I was surprised in the change in such a man …’
‘What was the captain’s reaction to this?’ pressed Bunyan.
‘It was about this time that the arguments began,’ said Peckover. ‘Rarely a day passed without there being some dispute between them.’
‘When the second-in-command was rutting … to use your own expression, like an animal in a farmyard, Captain Bligh had no complaint. Yet when he reverted to a somewhat unusual but nevertheless settled relationship with one woman, the captain found fault. I don’t understand,’ prompted the lawyer.
‘Captain Bligh was never a predictable man,’ reminded the witness.
‘Did Mr Christian talk to you about this?’
‘No, sir,’ said Peckover, shaking his head. ‘I told you, there was no great friendship between Mr Christian and me.’
‘Did he confide in anybody?’
‘Not that I know,’ said Peckover. ‘He just withdrew more and more with the woman … he did say one thing, though. He told me once that he’d never been so happy and that nothing Captain Bligh could do or say would upset him …’
‘Then how did he appear to you on that morning when he came to relieve you from watch?’ pounced Bunyan.
‘Very wild, sir,’ accepted Peckover. ‘I’ve heard people at this enquiry use the word demented and upon reflection that justly describes the state Mr Christian was in that morning … he was badly out of sorts …’
‘So somehow Captain Bligh had upset him?’
‘That remark was made to me in Tahiti, when he had the woman,’ corrected Peckover. ‘But she had been left behind.’
‘Are you suggesting that Mr Christian seized a ship and cast eighteen men adrift because he could not bear to be parted from a woman to whom he was not legally married?’ demanded Bunyan. ‘Are you saying he did it for love?’
Peckover paused, considering the reply.
‘I don’t know, sir,’ he said.
‘What was it, Mr Peckover? What was it that drove Mr Christian first to think of desertion and then to mutiny?’
‘I don’t know, sir,’ repeated the man. ‘I don’t think anyone does.’
Bligh might have known, reflected the President, at the top table. Arrangements should have been made to examine the man, now that he was back in England. The Admiralty and the government were being stupid.
Still, that was their decision, not his.
Edward Christian was grey with fatigue, Bunyan saw, so tired that he had difficulty in holding a thought longer than a few seconds and his conversation was rambling and forgetful.
It was hardly surprising, decided the younger lawyer. The man could not have had more than two hours’ sleep a night since the commencement of the enquiry and sometimes had even abandoned that in his anxiety to publish an account of the court martial.
But he’d managed it.
Every day he had had printed the evidence produced before the court and as the examination had progressed had prefaced it with a summary of what had gone before, so that a complete narrative had been built up. To the evidence from aboard the Duke he had supplemented the accounts provided by each witness whom he had interviewed after they had appeared, contrasting their stories with those that Bligh had published upon his return from the mutiny and was reissuing now.
As careful as he had been in its preparation, Edward had been brilliant in its circulation, exceeding anything Bligh was achieving. Every High Court judge had received a hand-delivered copy, every morning. So had every Lord of the Admiralty, every M.P. and every member of the court of King George. Coaches had been hired to carry the pamphlets to church leaders throughout the country. Copies had been made available, free, in every London coffee house and according to the stories reaching Portsmouth, they had been read more eagerly than The Times.
The Archbishop of Canterbury had already preached a sermon criticising the enforced and unnecessary hardship of the British sailor, and the M.P. for Cumberland, a friend of the Christian family, had tabled his intention to force a debate when the naval estimates were considered.
‘I don’t think that even you guessed the success you would have, did you?’ queried Bunyan.
Edward blinked up, focusing on the question.
‘No,’ he confessed, wearily. ‘No, I didn’t.’
‘It’s a pity, in many ways,’ said Bunyan.
‘Pity?’
‘All this, for a dead man.’
Edward picked up his wine glass, then stared at it curiously as if wondering what it was doing in his hand. Shaking his head, he replaced it, then frowned up at the other man.
‘Poor Fletcher,’ he said. ‘Poor, ill-used Fletcher.’