Mutiny: A Novel of the Bounty Page 21

  ‘Not in this world, is it? So it is your contention that you did not invite Miss Wilton for a constitutional?’

  ‘I did not, sir!’

  ‘And while doing so, you did not take her hand and push her against a tree where you attempted to make kiss with her?’

  ‘Sir, I . . . I must protest,’ he replied. ‘In the strongest terms possible, I must protest. I did nothing of the sort. It is a lie.’

  ‘A lie, is it? She says differently. She says you manhandled her and tried to press an advantage, and were she not taller and stronger and thus able to push you away she fears you might have compromised her for eternity and ruined her. And added to that, before Sir Robert arrived on deck, I had it from a reputable source that you were in your cups, sir, and disgracing yourself with a lascivious jest relating to the adventures of a late Russian empress and her charging-horse.’

  Mr Heywood said nothing for a moment, but when he did speak his voice was as low as I had ever heard. ‘Captain Bligh,’ he says, ‘you have my word as a gentleman, you have my word as an officer of King George, God bless his holy name, and you have my word as a Christian man, and an English Christian man at that, that the events you speak of did not take place. At least not with me as the leading player in the folly. If Miss Wilton found herself in an unhappy position with some gentleman at the ball and now regrets it, then she may take her fancies out on another, but she may think again about involving me in her naughty escapade, for it was not I, sir. Not I, sir, I swear it.’

  A long silence ensued and when the captain finally spoke he sounded less angry than before and more perplexed and irritated by the whole mess of it. ‘Fletcher, what say you to this, for I confess I find myself in a turmoil of opinion.’

  ‘Sir, we are men here, yes? The words I speak will not leave this cabin?’

  ‘Of course, Fletcher,’ said the captain, sounding intrigued. ‘You may speak freely.’

  ‘Then, sir, I will say this, and I say it from the point of view of one who did not see any of the events that Sir Robert speaks of and so can only offer a character for the two players involved. I have known Mr Heywood since he was a lad and a fellow of better judgement I have yet to encounter. His family are gentle-people of the most proper type, and I could no more believe that he would force himself on a lady than I could imagine young Turnip bounding overboard and dancing a foxtrot atop the waves.’

  Young Turnip indeed! He could leave me out of this game.

  ‘And as for Miss Wilton,’ continued Mr Christian, ‘I confess that our paths crossed on several occasions yester-evening and she spoke to me of some of her fancies and I am not convinced she was as pure as Sir Robert might have thought. I believe she is a reader of novels, sir, which is hardly appropriate. She had a way about her, that is all that I will say. An experienced way, if you follow me, sir, that made me think she was a person of compromised character.’

  Well, this put a different complexion on things, that was for sure. I was all in favour of Mr Heywood, the scut, getting keel-hauled for taking liberties, but, dislike the man as I did, even I would not have seen him punished on the basis of a malicious lie from a whore.

  ‘This is all very distressing,’ said Captain Bligh finally. ‘Very distressing indeed. It leaves me in a position where I have no choice but to take you on your word as a gentleman, Mr Heywood, and plan no further retribution.’

  ‘I am relieved to hear it,’ said Mr Heywood.

  ‘But the incident will not be forgotten,’ he added. ‘For there is something in the dish that doesn’t taste right to me, but that’s where I’ll leave it for now. However, my eyes are on you, Mr Heywood, do you hear me? My eyes are firmly fixed upon you.’

  ‘Yes, sir, and might I say—’

  I failed to hear what came next, for Mr Nelson, the gardener, and Mr Brown, his assistant, came round a corner on their way to the great cabin and gave me such a start that I jumped into the officers’ cabin, intending to wait until I could be sure they were out of the way, but, to my despair, as I was standing there I heard the door of Captain Bligh’s cabin open and the three men emerge together.

  ‘Turnstile!’ shouted the captain and what could I do but ignore him, for I had no excuse for standing where I was and to be discovered there was to be disgraced myself. ‘Where is that lad now?’ he added, marching off in the direction of the deck himself in search of me, no doubt. It was my intention to wait until Mr Christian and Mr Heywood left too before emerging from my hiding place, but to my horror Mr Christian grabbed the scut and pulled him towards their own cabin and I had no choice but to squat in a dark corner out of sight of them.

  ‘In here,’ Mr Christian said, closing the door behind him, and I did what I could to control my breathing so as not to alert them to my presence. ‘You stupid fool,’ he said, and then what did he go and do, only deliver Mr Heywood a fierce slap across the cheek, leading the scut to let out a shout of hurt and then burst into tears! ‘I’ll not lie for you again, do you hear me?’

  ‘She was a whore,’ said Mr Heywood, spitting out the words through his bawling tears like a child who has been disciplined. ‘Why did she want to dance with me all those times if she didn’t want to know me better?’

  ‘No lady would want to know you,’ said Mr Christian. ‘Now I have lied to protect you, but I swear that I won’t do it again. Should you get yourself into further trouble, you will answer the charges alone, is that understood?’ Mr Heywood went silent, merely sat on a bunk, wiping his eyes. ‘And one day, I might call on you for help and I will expect it, is that understood?’

  ‘A tease, that’s what she was,’ came the reply, which wasn’t to Mr Christian’s satisfaction.

  ‘Is that understood?’ he repeated.

  ‘Yes,’ sobbed Mr Heywood.

  Mr Christian said nothing further, just stormed out of the cabin, and there was me, left in a corner, desperate for the privy, and unable to move until the scut finally pulled himself together, dried his eyes and left the room.

  Well, now, I thought, this was a pretty state of affairs. The scut was bad, through and through. I had my proof of it now.

  22

  AND THEN, TO MY SURPRISE, all was at peace for a few weeks.

  Our cheerful boat brought us across the Indian Sea towards Australia and throughout that journey we had good fortune with the weather, which was clement. The sails remained aloft, dimpled outwards by the steady winds. The men were in good spirits, knowing that the most severe part of our journey was behind us.

  The only incident of note during this time involved a personal conversation that took place two evenings before we were due to arrive at Van Diemen’s land, an island off the southernmost tip of Australia, when I was alone with Captain Bligh in his cabin, organizing his undercrackers and uniforms in crates for when we arrived at our destination. The captain had been in mostly good form during this part of our voyage and his anger at the behaviour of the scut during our South African sojourn had dissipated a little, although I think it was not forgotten.

  ‘So, Turnstile,’ said the captain to me as I was getting along with my work, ‘it won’t be long now until we reach Otaheite. I dare say you’ll enjoy your escape from the Bounty for a while?’

  I looked across at him, surprised by his choice of words. Little did he know the escape that I had in mind. ‘Well, sir,’ said I, ‘I must admit it’ll be a good thing to set foot on dry ground again for a few weeks and not to feel the world moving beneath myself.’

  ‘Does it move?’ he asked in an absent-minded way. ‘I have spent so many years at sea now that I fail to notice it any more. If anything, I find dry land difficult to negotiate.’

  I nodded and got on with my work. It was the custom of the captain from time to time to engage me in conversation, usually when there was nothing urgent to attend to on board and (I had noticed) often when he had finished writing another letter to the missus and his boy.

  ‘I must commend you,’ he continued then after a few moments
. ‘You’ve done a fine job as servant. This was your first voyage, was it not?’

  ‘It was sir,’ said I.

  ‘You’d never been to sea before?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Then, tell me,’ he asked, sounding curious, ‘what was it that brought you here?’

  I put down one of his uniforms and heaved an old sigh as I looked at him. ‘If you want the truth, sir, I had little choice in the matter. There was a misunderstanding of a sort back in Portsmouth and it led me to the ship.’

  ‘A misunderstanding?’ he asked, smiling at me a little. ‘Might I enquire as to the manner of it?’

  ‘You might,’ said I then. ‘Only, if I’m to be honest with you, I suppose it wasn’t really a misunderstanding at all, but a fair reading of what was before them.’

  ‘But you just said—’

  ‘I lied, sir,’ said I, deciding that there was no benefit to be had in my not telling him the truth. ‘I’ve built a character for myself as something of a petty thief,’ I explained. ‘Handkerchiefs, pocket-watches, the occasional purse or wallet if I was lucky. And I happened to get caught one too many times when I took a pocket-watch from a French gentleman on the morning the Bounty was due to set sail and, to put it bluntly, I had the choice of going to the gaol for a twelvemonth or coming to sea.’

  The captain nodded and smiled. ‘I put it to you that you made a wise choice,’ he said quietly. ‘Would you agree?’

  ‘Aye,’ said I with a shrug. ‘For all the choice it was.’

  We said nothing to each other for a few moments after that. I had the idea that the captain had formed a good opinion of me during our voyage and I surely had a good one of him, for he was a fair and decent man who treated all the men and officers alike and was as focused on keeping us all healthy and well-fed as he was in completing our mission as quickly as possible. But I was aware that he was watching me as I moved around and finally he spoke again.

  ‘This . . . habit of yours,’ he said finally.

  ‘Habit, sir?’

  ‘Pickpocketing. Stealing. Call it what you will. How long had you been engaged in it?’

  I felt my face take on the reddenings a little when he asked me, but I wasn’t about to lie now. I was not so ashamed of my past not to tell him about it when he asked, but I didn’t want him to form a low opinion of me and put all the good that I might have earned so far to the bad. That would happen soon enough when I fled the ship for ever and he had nothing but his disappointment in me to use as my condemnation.

  ‘As long as I can recall, sir,’ said I, ‘Mr Lewis – him as looked after me – he taught me the trade.’

  ‘Now, let’s not call it a trade, lad; that suggests it is honest work. This Mr Lewis, what class of a man is he?’

  I thought about it. ‘A bad ’un, sir. A bad ‘un through and through.’

  ‘I see,’ he replied, nodding. ‘He’s a relative of some sort? An uncle perhaps?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said I. ‘None of that. I don’t have any family. None that I can recall anyway. Mr Lewis, he runs an establishment for boys and he took me in when I was a nipper.’

  ‘An establishment?’ he asked then, frowning. ‘A school of some sort, do you mean?’

  ‘Of a sort,’ I said. ‘You learn things there, that’s for sure. Not the type of things you might want to know, but lessons all the same.’

  He hesitated before speaking again, and when he did he took me by surprise with his words. ‘You speak very angrily about him,’ he said. ‘Your voice, it trembles with rage, as if you hate the man.’

  I opened my mouth to reply but found I had not the words. He was right, I did feel anger when I thought about Mr Lewis, but I was not aware that it came across in my speech.

  ‘Well, sir,’ said I, considering the matter, ‘it was not a happy place.’

  ‘But there were other boys there, of course? Lads your own age?’

  ‘Lads of all ages up to about sixteen or seventeen, sir. Mr Lewis would take boys in at five or six and hold on to them until they were of age. The only ones he ever threw away were them as had no skill for the thieving or them as weren’t pretty enough—’

  ‘Pretty enough?’ he asked, seizing on that which was out of my mouth before I could steal it back. ‘What the devil can you mean by that?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir,’ said I quickly. ‘I only meant—’

  ‘What would it matter if a lad were pretty enough? Does a boy have to be fair to be a thief?’ He stared at me and I felt my face take on the reddenings even worse than before, until I thought my cheeks would singe if they were touched by water, and to my surprise I thought that I might burst into tears and shame myself entirely. This was not a conversation I had ever imagined having with the captain and I despised myself for getting dragged into it. ‘Unless . . .’ said he then, thinking about it and stroking his chin. He stood up from behind his desk and came towards me. ‘Turnstile, what sort of a place was it, this establishment where you were reared?’

  ‘I told you, didn’t I?’ I snapped, something I had never done in his presence before, something no one on board ever did. ‘A bad place. A place I won’t go back to, I swear on it now. I’d rather die than go back to it and you’ll not make me, none of you will.’

  We stood there, looking at each other, for what felt like a long time and I swear the captain’s face reflected the misery I felt within myself for the things that had occurred in my life. He opened his mouth and I think he was about to offer words of consolation, but Mr Christian appeared in the doorway at that moment and disturbed us.

  ‘Captain, you might want to . . . Oh, I do apologize,’ he said, taking in the scene before him. ‘Am I interrupting something?’

  ‘Nothing at all, Fletcher,’ said the captain, stepping away from me and coughing deeply. ‘What is it?’

  ‘A most unusual school of dolphins, sir, running the ship at port and starboard. I thought they might interest you.’

  ‘Indeed, indeed,’ he said gruffly, not looking up at his master’s mate. ‘I will be on deck presently, Fletcher. Thank you for alerting me.’

  Mr Christian nodded and gave me a curious look before leaving and I returned to my duties. I wished for nothing more than the captain to step up to the deck for a look at the dolphins and leave me alone with my thoughts and, to my pleasure, he walked towards the door, but not before turning round and speaking one last time.

  ‘I think I have an idea what you may have been through, John Jacob,’ he said, addressing me by my Christian names for the first time. ‘I have heard of such dens of vice. Suffice to say that I won’t allow you to return there. I take an interest in you, Master Turnstile, I confess it. You put me in mind of someone, someone I care for a great deal.’

  His eyes flitted over to the portraits on his desk and I followed them there and thought it could hardly be that boy of his, who was half the age I was and had the look of a milksop about him. But I said nothing and a moment later he was gone. I looked up and, finding myself alone, put the uniforms down and half collapsed into a chair in the cabin, where I placed my head in my hands and wept like a baby with the memory of those things I tried never to think about.

  23

  THREE HUNDRED AND EIGHT DAYS.

  That’s how long I spent on board that rusty old tub, the Bounty, before we reached our final destination. To my surprise, though, about half of that time consisted of days when I didn’t feel so bad about myself or my place in the world. I spent a long time resenting the crew for what they’d put me through when we were crossing the Equator, but after a while that, like so many other things, was forgotten. And then I spent a long time planning my escape from the clutches of the king’s navy, but there was such little time spent ashore that I finally put that out of my mind too. And soon the weather changed and the waters changed and the smell in the air grew a little sweeter and the word went round that it would be any week now, any day, any hour, perhaps only a few minutes, before one of us would espy land and
cry the word and be hailed a hero by all.

  In preparation for this long anticipated moment, one fine morning as we drifted along the captain gathered together on deck the whole complement, officers and men alike, on a matter of what he called ‘the highest urgency’. Usually I had some idea what this would be about, as I would hear him muttering to himself in his cabin with his thoughts on what he might say to the assembled throng, but on this particular morning I had no idea whatsoever and thought he had an uncomfortable look on his face as to address us he climbed on a box, the better to see every man.

  ‘Well, men,’ he shouted, and I swore I could hear a little nervousness in his tone, ‘it looks as if it will be only a matter of hours before our ship reaches her destination and what a merry voyage it has been, wouldn’t you agree?’

  Among the men surfaced a polite murmur, which finally turned into a general nodding of heads. No one could deny that we hadn’t done too badly. I knew from the conversations of sailing men I had listened to back in Portsmouth that they went through trickier times than we had and that there were captains in the navy with a greater affection for the lash than our own.

  ‘We have suffered through some harsh weather, that’s true enough,’ continued Mr Bligh. ‘But you have each shown great fortitude. And we saw our journey extended in a way that none of us had anticipated or hoped for. But nevertheless we saw it through and here we are, safe and well. And I think it’s true to say that there has been no better disciplinary record of any ship in the history of the British navy. We officers have had to keep order at times, of course, but I appreciate the fact that there has been only a single flogging in all these thousands of miles. You should be commended for that, every one of you.’

  ‘I’ll take mine in gold,’ cried the voice of Isaac Martin, an able seaman, to a cheer from all.

  ‘Shut your trap, you,’ shouted Mr Heywood, the scut, advancing on him despite the good humour of the remark. ‘You’ll keep a silence when the captain addresses you.’