No one came to the cave, high in the cliffs on the lower reaches of which he could just see the women collecting their eggs. Christian had found it within weeks of arriving on Pitcairn and withdrawn more and more to it, his own solitary retreat, as his relationship with the other mutineers had worsened.
At first it had been his look-out point, the spot to which he clambered almost daily, musket and shot in hand for the last redoubt, expecting to see a sail on the horizon that would mean Bligh had survived. As the years had passed, that fear had reduced to the vaguest, rarely considered apprehension, but the hideaway had retained its importance, the place to which he could go, away from Isabella even. To examine his past, as a rich man might study a favourite painting.
Far below lay the concealed village they had built upon Pitcairn, each plot carefully designated and marked in its irregular circle, like the huge Sunday pies he could remember his mother baking when he was a boy in Cumberland. So many years ago, he thought, nostalgically. And so far away.
It was a neat village, congratulated Christian, gazing down. He’d planned it, he remembered, going through the pretence of a committee, but cleverly manipulating the discussion to achieve the layout he wanted, every dwelling well concealed from the sea behind thick banyan trees. Each house had been finely thatched in pandanus palm in the Tahitian manner that the women had taught them, and the breadfruit and the sweet potatoes and the yams laid out in their tiny plantations, as David Nelson and William Brown had created their gardens in Tahiti all those years ago.
If he looked very hard, squinting against the sun, he could isolate in the houses the spars and beams they had salvaged from the Bounty before Young and Quintal had fired her. So stupid, he reflected, in constant regret.
Jack Williams was in his garden, he could see. A good worker, Jack. But growing increasingly discontented since his wife, Pashotu, had fallen to her death egg-collecting on the cliffs upon which he sat. There were only three women to be shared among the six native men they had brought with them from Tahiti and they were already becoming disgruntled at the segregated society that had arisen on the island. Christian suspected Williams intended taking one of their women as a new wife. And that would trigger the threatened bloodshed, he thought. He was surprised the others didn’t seem to realise the danger, casually leaving their muskets and cutlasses unguarded in every house.
His one-time friend, Edward Young, appeared, child on hip, and almost immediately Alexander Smith, who had years ago confessed to sailing on the Bounty under an assumed name and had now reverted to his proper identity, Jack Adams, joined him from the house next door. As Young’s friendship with Christian had soured to a mutual dislike, Young’s comradeship with Adams had grown and now the two men were almost inseparable. It was a useful association, accepted Christian, realistically. Apart from the bruised pride of rejection, he didn’t seek to be the community leader. It was a role that came far more naturally to the two men gossiping far below. They had both accepted completely that they would end their days on the tiny, high-rocked island and were content with it. Not for years had he heard either of them recriminate about what had happened on the Bounty: tomorrow’s crop of yams was far more important than yesterday’s mistakes.
As high as he was, Christian heard the singing and isolated first Quintal and then his friend Mickoy, slowly picking their way from the spot on the outskirts of the village where Mickoy distilled his taro liquor.
The trouble-makers, identified Christian. If Williams hadn’t appeared so determined to take one of the native women, Christian would have guessed Quintal and Mickoy the likeliest cause of dissent with the Tahitians. Both men treated the natives like slaves, driving them to tend their gardens and plots and beating them at the slightest indication of defiance.
He saw Young and Adams turn but even from that distance there did not appear to be any conversation: both men despised the seamen as much as he did, Christian knew. Irritated at being ignored, Quintal and Mickoy performed a charade of greeting, bowing and shouting, and finally Young and Adams responded, choosing the easy way out. It was becoming the demeanour on their island, Christian thought. The easy way out, to avoid a confrontation that might destroy the uneasy calm of which they were all aware but did not want to recognise.
‘… not a day without torment …’
The daily thought … the daily memory. Bligh haunted him, realised Christian, the spectre always at his shoulder, cackling and gloating. He hoped that whatever death the man had suffered had been a painful one. How much better it would have been, reflected Christian, suddenly, if Bligh had survived to undergo the agonies in which he lived, like a man with an illness slowly eating away at his flesh. But Bligh wouldn’t be in torment, had he survived. Victims of mutinies were heroes. Bligh had always thought himself a hero, remembered Christian. One of his favourite dinner-table conversations was of encountering Nelson and realising how similar he was in stature to the admiral revered throughout England.
For a while, until he had realised Christian had identified it and was laughing at the stupidity, Bligh had even aped the man’s mannerisms, stumping the quarter-deck with the impatient tread regarded as one of the great admiral’s affectations.
Bligh had had many acts, Christian recalled. He had been a man of pretence, adopting manners and attitudes to suit the mood of a moment, like a chameleon colouring itself to its surroundings.
Not even Elizabeth really knew her husband, he reflected, closing his eyes to picture the full-nosed, gentle woman, conscious of her plumpness and always slightly in awe at the bustle of London, compared to the calm of her Isle of Man home. To her, Bligh had been a man destined for greatness, someone in whom there was no fault.
She had indicated as much, he remembered, on the last occasion he bad been at Bligh’s house in Lambeth. Bligh had just selected him for the Bounty and on that occasion the act had been that of the magnanimous benefactor, patronisingly accepting the gratitude of a young man benefiting from his influence and largesse.
‘Mr Bligh is so good,’ the woman had confided eagerly. ‘Such a good husband. And father to the girls. And bound for such great things …’
The head had come forward, a habit of the woman when excited.
‘… the King knows of him, would you believe …’
Poor woman, thought Christian.
Far below the stumbling seamen continued their promenade of the village. The native men stood aloof, contempt visible in their attitude, but the women giggled as they passed, nervously amused.
They were approaching his house, Christian realised suddenly. He saw Isabella appear with the baby after its feed and carefully place him in the crib that Christian had made, then straighten at the men’s approach. Thursday bustled importantly around from the back of the house and stood, plump arm around his mother’s legs.
She was very beautiful, thought Christian, gazing down. Taller than most Tahitian women and with an aristocratic, commanding bearing that came from her birth as a chief’s daughter. It was too far away to see, but Christian did not think she was laughing, as the other women had done.
Too far away. The fear was like a hand, feeling at his stomach. He’d sat so long in the damned cave, awash in self-pity, that he’d exposed Isabella to risk.
‘… always be there, when you turn to look for me …’
The promise echoed in his mind. She was looking for him now, he knew. So where was he?
He thrust away through the opening, crabbing along the narrow ledge that girdled the cliff in the first of the haphazard criss-cross of paths, like the sandal thongs around the legs of the ancient Greeks.
The ledge was narrow here, in places only half as wide as a man’s foot, which was why his cave was so secure behind its screen of banyan trees. Christian shuffled along it carelessly, whimpering in the frustration of having to move so slowly, stones and displaced rock cascading into the sea heaving hundreds of feet below.
Normally he descended with his face against the rock, arms and legs spread for hand- and footholds. Now he traversed facing outwards, only his heels on the ledge and the musket clutched desperately in his right hand like a balancing pole, so that he could watch constantly the scene being enacted in miniature below.
They were bowing and genuflecting again, but this time he detected an anger in their movements that had been missing when they had confronted Young and Adams.
And he knew why, thought Christian, embarking on another path that would take him at the commencement of its descent even further away from the woman. The drink had removed the cover from a feeling that even they, the scum, normally managed to conceal. Only Isabella had remained utterly faithful since their arrival on Pitcairn. The other women had continued as on Tahiti, sleeping as the mood or inclination took them with different mutineers and even, occasionally, with the Tahitian men who had accompanied them into exile. In the later years the relationships had become more monogamous, but even now none of the mutineers could ever be sure that his partner wouldn’t lift her skirts or open her mouth for another of the men if she felt like doing so. Isabella had been approached, of course. Christian knew that. In the early days, there had even been a strange pride that Isabella, unquestionably the most beautiful woman on the island, had been so attractive to the other men, the feeling heightened by his confidence that she would always reject them.
His heel skidded off the rock and he groped to his left, feeling the skin scrape off his ankle and then even further, into his calf. He drove the musket down on the ledge, and hung there, his body bent and supported on one side by his right foot and at the other by his left arm, propped against the gun. There was hardly any sensation at all in his left leg, hanging limply in space. He could feel the warmth of the blood, though, sticky as it pooled in his shoe. He would unbalance completely, he realised, if he brought his right arm over to put himself into a crawling position. And there was insufficient room to crawl on the ledge, anyway. The muscles began to cramp in his back and his arm started to shake with the strain of supporting the weight of his body. He moved his hand backwards, along the rock face, fingers flickering for a crack or an outcrop he was unable to look back to locate.
Below he could see the charade continuing. Quintal, the more daring of the two, had actually gone into the garden, gesturing the reluctant Mickoy to follow him. The older boy had instinctively sensed danger and had started to cry, Christian saw, and Isabella had lifted him into her arms, nudging her face reassuringly into his head. She wouldn’t be afraid, he knew. Not Isabella. She’d never known the feeling, in her youth on Tahiti. And here, on Pitcairn, she’d always been so sure of Christian’s protection.
He felt something. It wasn’t a wide crack; little more than a fissure splitting downwards through the rock. Gently, frightened of losing it, he traced his forefinger along, hoping it would widen. But it didn’t. Desperately, feeling them split and chip, he drove his nails into the tiny crevice, struggling his body up. He pressed against the gun butt, levering from the other side. If the rock broke away under his fingers, he’d go over, he realised. He’d be dead before he hit the water, he knew; all the air would be driven from his lungs by the fall. And as he fell, Isabella would be defiled. Debris began slipping over the edge, disturbed by the swivelling action of the one foot he still had anchored. The feeling was returning to the other leg now, the pain snatching up almost to his groin: it would swell very quickly, he guessed. Damn the sweat, he thought. It was running into his eyes so that he could hardly see and making slippery the hand that gripped the musket. He tried lifting his left foot, very slightly, moving his heel for it to catch on the ledge. At the first attempt he missed, and again grated it against the rock, stripping off more skin, but got a foothold when he tried again. The whole leg burned with the pain now and he could hardly put any pressure upon it. He manoeuvred fully upright, feeling his legs and arms tremble with the strain imposed upon them.
It was still going on down below. Mickoy was in the garden now, hands outstretched. But he wasn’t reaching for Isabella, Christian realised. The movement was towards Quintal, an effort to restrain him. And Quintal appeared less sure of himself now. Isabella was facing him quite fearlessly, the contempt obvious in her stance, Thursday wedged astride her hip.
Christian moved on, pain spurting through him as he used his left leg, his body feeling hollowed out by the ordeal on the ledge. Flies, attracted by the sweat, swarmed around him, settling on his neck and face and refusing to move despite the constant dog-like shaking to disturb them. He wanted to stop, until his breathing became easier. And to wipe the perspiration from his face, so that the insects would go away, if only for a few seconds. But his ankle would swell even quicker, if he ceased using it. And the men were still down with Isabella. As the cliff bottomed out, spreading into the jungle, he lost the elevation that had made it possible for him to look down upon his house. And it became worse, not knowing. Quintal had only been feet away when he’d last been able to see them. He could be upon her now, knocking the child to one side, scrabbling at her skirts, arm across her throat to prevent her crying out for help.
The path was widening, becoming the thoroughfare used by the women to collect their eggs. Christian stumbled forward in a clumsy, hopping gait, twice sprawling face down when his injured leg collapsed beneath him. It would have been easier had he reversed the musket, using it as a crutch. But that would have blocked the barrel and Christian wanted a weapon, primed and ready, when he confronted the men in his garden. Breath was grunting from him in choked, bitten-back sounds but the flies were gone now, finally driven off by the increased movement. The huge banyan trees began to thin, their roots spread out like the legs of a man on stilts, and then he reached the clearing.
He paused, momentarily, able to see his house again. The relief went from him in a groan, the sound of a man from whom a great pain is suddenly lifted. Quintal and Mickoy were still in the garden. And Isabella was still facing them, challengingly.
‘Isabella.’
His exhaustion strained the first shout to a croak and he snatched breath into his lungs and yelled again, with enough sound to reach them this time. Mickoy turned, frightened despite his drunkenness, and faltered back to the garden perimeter, where he stopped, uncertainly. Quintal, nervous too but less willing to appear so before a woman he was trying to impress, turned towards the village but remained where he was.
Christian hobbled on. musket across his body. The grunts were sobs now, prompted by relief and stoked by anger. Careful, he thought. Mustn’t cry. Mustn’t break down, like he had during the last argument with Bligh, immediately before the mutiny. Filth like Quintal and Mickoy would see it as weakness; maybe even try to take Isabella away by force. And he wouldn’t cry in front of her, either. She wanted a strong man, a protector.
At the entrance he swept the gun sideways, clumsily, catching Mickoy with the butt. It struck the man’s hip, hardly bruising him, but the force was sufficient to unbalance him and he staggered sideways, more surprised than hurt.
Quintal tensed, warily, as Christian brought the musket up. He pointed it at the man’s belly: it would take a long time for him to die if he put the ball there, he thought. And he wanted Quintal to suffer.
‘Careful, now,’ said Quintal, edging back.
He wasn’t really drunk, realised Christian. Not as drunk as Mickoy, anyway. The man had merely pretended to be, giving himself an excuse for what he had attempted to do.
‘Get away from my house,’ said Christian, his breath still uneven, so the words switchbacked from him, lessening the intensity of the threat. ‘Get away from my house … for ever. Or in God’s name, Matthew Quintal, I’ll kill you.’
Thursday detected the danger again and began to cry. The sound awakened the baby and it began to whimper, too.
Quintal smirked, still uncertain but slightly more confident.
‘What’s wrong?’ he attempted, humping his shoulders. ‘Man calls by to pass the time of day … gets met by a cocked musket …’
‘I saw you, Quintal,’ took away Christian. ‘From up there, on the cliff … I saw you.’
‘Saw what?’ challenged the other man.
‘Isabella is mine … only mine …’ said Christian. He was better controlled now, his breath recovered. ‘I don’t want scum like you anywhere near her … or my children …’
Christian heard Mickoy but didn’t turn to see the man limping back to the entrance. He’d placed himself badly, decided the mutineer. It was impossible to watch both men at the same time. But Isabella could see Mickoy, to warn him, he realised. And he was the lesser danger of the two, anyway.
‘… I should kill you,’ said Christian. ‘And mark me well, Quintal, I will, by God I will, if I know you’ve been within fifteen yards of my house ever again. Or even looked at Isabella … lusting after her …’
‘Would you, Mr Christian?’ demanded Quintal, cockily.
The man wasn’t frightened any more, decided Christian.
‘Would you kill me, like a real man should? Or is it another empty threat, the sort we’ve come to recognise? You’re not a brave man, are you, Mr Christian? You shout a bit and look good, but you rarely finish anything off, do you? If you’d had any courage, real courage, you’d have killed Bligh. But you couldn’t, could you?’
Christian hit him. He hopped forward, awkwardly, reversing the musket and sweeping it up, aiming for the man’s groin. But Quintal began to move when he saw Christian coming, doubling his body, so that instead of the stock landing where Christian had intended, it struck the man’s shoulder, knocking him sideways. The blow unblocked the impotent anger and Christian struck out again, bringing the weapon down two-handed against the side of Quintal’s head, wincing with satisfaction as the skin split, and then again, twice more, against the man’s shoulders as he fell away.
‘Wouldn’t I?’ he screamed, his voice out of control. ‘Wouldn’t I, Quintal?’
He jabbed again with the butt at each question, experiencing an almost sensual feeling at the sight of the man curled up at his feet, head shielded by his arms and legs drawn up to protect his crotch.
He could see Mickoy now. The man was still standing outside the garden, his mind too fogged to do anything but stare.
Christian looked back to Quintal. He wanted to kick him. But if he did, he’d fall over. He almost laughed at the thought, only just managing to stop it. Hysteria again, he recognised. He held the musket correctly now, jabbing Quintal with the barrel. The man had unwound, very slightly, and was squinting up, his face contorted in hate.
Quintal had been humiliated in front of Isabella, realised Christian, happily. And he’d appeared the protector he had always promised the woman he would be. And others were watching, he realised. Both Young and Adams had come to the square and he could detect movement in Isaac Martin’s hut, where the native women usually gathered in the afternoon.
‘Out,’ commanded Christian, savouring the attention. ‘Get out. On your hands and knees, like the pig you are.’
He was goading Quintal with the gun, driving it past the protecting arms to the man’s ribs, rasping the breath from him.
Quintal rolled into a crawling position and scrabbled forward, the blood from his head dripping before him.
Christian stood, unable to follow, but with the gun held ready. Quintal wouldn’t doubt him after that, he decided. No one would doubt him after today.
No heart to finish anything. So that’s what they thought, did they? Well, they’d see. They’d see just how far he’d go if anyone came near Isabella again.
‘Just once more,’ he shouted. Mickoy was helping Quintal up now, both staggering in the dirt.
‘So much as look at her or come near this house and I’ll put a ball into you,’ Christian yelled. There was no need to go on shouting, he thought. He’d proved himself.
Quintal turned, looking at him. The man’s face was smeared with blood and the side of his head was ballooning up, the bruise already marked out purple against the whiteness of his neck. He made as if to speak, but then appeared to change his mind. He just shook his head, stopping almost immediately because of the pain, then moved off slowly through the tiny settlement.
That night Christian made love violently to Isabella, driving into her so that she gasped with each thrust and she clung to him, more frightened than excited. He climaxed before her, shuddering with each spasm, and she feigned the sensation as well, feeling his need. Immediately he rolled away on to his back and she frowned, curiously. He was normally a considerate lover, always waiting for her. Tonight he’d been like an animal. The ugly man would have been like that, she knew, the drunken one who had come to the house that afternoon.
‘Kept you safe,’ he said, suddenly.
‘Yes.’
‘Said I’d keep you safe. And I did.’
‘Yes,’ she said again. Why was he talking like this? she wondered.
‘No one will bother you again, you see.’
Unable to reply, she reached out, feeling for his hand. He was shaking, she detected.
‘You were very brave,’ she said, sensing he wanted praise. It was stupid, she felt, to have created such hatred in a community as unusual as theirs. Quintal had never been a threat to her, she had decided.
‘I love you,’ he said.
‘Me too,’ she replied, as always.
Why, she wondered, staring towards him through the darkness, was he crying?
‘Oh damn,’ said Christian, softly.
At least the children would not be disappointed, resolved Elizabeth Bligh, bustling around her sewing room. An outing to the Vauxhall Gardens wouldn’t be as exciting as being able to see, from the discretion of the upstairs landing, all the important people arriving at the house, but they would still be able to wear the dresses she had made for the occasion. Parade them off, even. And she’d buy them some sweetmeats, she decided: they wouldn’t have had that treat had the soiree been held. She must remember to make a joke about that. That was the best way to treat it, as a joke.
It was Harriet and Mary for whom she felt most upset. And not just because the eldest girls had been denied the opportunity to attend, for an hour at least. Both were sensitive girls. And old enough to realise that there was something peculiar about the unusual number of refusals that had been returned to their mother’s invitation.
And it was peculiar, determined the woman. Five acceptances. And twenty refusals, all pleading prior engagements.
She’d been very careful about that, remembered Elizabeth, making discreet enquiries among her new, exciting friends several weeks before the planned date. Certainly her understanding had been that Saturday was completely free.
She lifted the remodelled dress, holding it in front of her. She’d done it very well, she reassured herself. No one would know she had transferred the bodice from another gown, cleverly weaving a snippet from the hem of the skirt into the revers facing.
And if there were so many other functions being held, she thought, returning to her musing, why hadn’t she been invited to one of them? Not a year before it had been a weekly problem to decide which affair to attend. And before Mr Bligh had embarked upon the second expedition to the island where that awful mutiny had occurred, they were being invited to as many as three parties a day, sometimes every single day of the week. Such an exciting time, she thought, wistfully.
She strained behind, buttoning the dress, then pirouetted before the glass. Perfect, she decided, happy her figure was still firm after six children. Mr Bligh was still very proud of her, she knew. Darling Mr Bligh.
Elizabeth looked away quickly at the noise, embarrassed at being discovered admiring herself by Mary. The girl stood in the doorway, smiling.
‘You look lovely, mama.’
‘And so do you,’ replied the woman, honestly.
The pale blue brought out perfectly her daughter’s dark colouring and white skin, so much like her father’s.
‘The twins want to say goodnight,’ reported the girl.
The two youngest girls, Frances and Jane, came in solemn-faced, miserable at missing an outing. Elizabeth allowed them to stay while they put on their bonnets and arranged the folds of their parasols, then kissed them off to bed with the housekeeper, Mrs Bolton.
The coach arrived on time and Elizabeth sat next to the girl named after her, with Harriet and Mary facing them.
‘Will there be boys there?’ pressed the young Elizabeth, eagerly.
‘Hush!’ rebuked her mother. ‘I’ll not have talk like that.’
It was hard bringing up the children with Mr Bligh constantly away, thought the woman as the carriage crossed the bridge and turned along the Vauxhall road. They definitely missed their father’s control. She was very lucky, she decided, that Harriet and Mary were such sensible girls.
The vehicle was slowed by the crush of people going to the entertainments and the youngest girl gazed out, fascinated.
‘The trial has begun in Portsmouth of those dreadful men,’ said Mary, softly, so that little Elizabeth would not hear.
The woman frowned.
‘Mrs Bolton told me,’ added the girl.
The housekeeper was a busy-body, decided Elizabeth Bligh. If she weren’t so necessary in the running of the household, she would have dismissed her long ago.
‘I know,’ said the woman.
‘Mrs Bolton says there is little other discussion in high circles … daily accounts are being received, all the way from Portsmouth,’ enlarged Harriet.
‘Mrs Bolton is a gossip,’ said Elizabeth Bligh, sternly. She would have to talk to the woman, she resolved. It was quite wrong to tittle-tattle to the children about matters like this.
How much she wished Mr Bligh were home. He’d know what to do about the pamphlets. Not that they’d cause any harm to his reputation. That was already established, she thought, confidently. But it was distressing that such shameful things were being allowed to circulate.
It was a pleasant evening, despite being so late in the year. Elizabeth walked slightly ahead of her children, happily aware of the occasional glance of recognition. It thrilled her to be the wife of such a famous, respected man. Only to herself would she admit the conceit. And that’s what it was, she recognised. She actually felt superior to most of the women to whose houses she was invited, even the titled, aristocratic ladies. Because the majority had inherited their distinctions, King George being far too wily to allow the custom of patronage to pass from his hands into those of Mr Pitt or Mr Fox. Mr Bligh had earned his honour. And was often envied because of it, she knew. That’s why the accounts from Portsmouth were being read so avidly. It was only to be expected, she supposed, that someone of Mr Bligh’s achievements should attract such jealousy. It was still disturbing, though.
Elizabeth was just off the main concourse, buying the girls the sweetmeats she had promised, when she saw them.
Lady Harpindene. with her constant friend, Mrs Wittingdon, were promenading towards her, exaggerating the use of their parasols and smiling from side to side, conscious of the attention they were receiving as the leaders of that season’s society. Elizabeth suspected that neither were as friendly with the Prince of Wales as they tried to convince everyone they were.
The country, remembered Elizabeth. Both had written in their letters of apology that they were going with the Prince to his beloved Brighton, and that the visit would occupy most of the week. A long-arranged engagement, both had insisted.
Determinedly, Elizabeth moved away from the stall, directly into the women’s path. They stopped, momentarily disconcerted. As always, Mrs Wittingdon, a pale, blonde-haired woman of quick, nervous gestures, who constantly deferred to her titled cousin, looked to Lady Harpindene for guidance.
The baronet’s wife recovered quickly. She was an overweight, painted woman who enjoyed the notoriety of cuckolding her husband with youngsters hardly out of their teens.
She smiled, reaching forward.
‘Mrs Bligh!’ she gushed. ‘Upon my life, an unexpected delight!’
Behind her, Elizabeth heard the rustle as the girls bobbed their curtsies and felt the flush of pride.
‘Indeed, Lady Harpindene, a surprise,’ greeted Elizabeth, pointedly. She nodded to the woman’s companion. ‘Mrs Wittingdon,’ she greeted.
‘Mrs Bligh,’ responded the merchant’s wife. If Mr Bligh were successful on the second expedition, it was families like the Wittingdons who would double their fortunes, reflected Elizabeth, enjoying the woman’s consternation.
‘Your soirée,’ said Lady Harpindene, holding her hands in the manner of someone reminded of an overlooked event. ‘Why, ‘whatever happened to your soirée?’
‘Cancelled, madam,’ reported Elizabeth. ‘It appeared to conflict with so many other things.’
‘Such a shame!’ contributed Mrs Wittingdon, looking to her companion for reaction. Lady Harpindene dabbed her nose with a silk handkerchief, momentarily hiding her face.
‘Yes,’ agreed Elizabeth, tightly. ‘Such a shame. As unfortunate, perhaps, as your country outing … Brighton, wasn’t it, with the Prince?’
Lady Harpindene frowned, forgetting the excuse.
‘The country,’ she echoed, recovering. ‘Yes, such a nuisance. Postponed, don’t you know. The Prince is becoming more involved with the King in the affairs of state … so little time for himself.’
It was common knowledge, thought Elizabeth, that the Prince and the King were engaged in one of their periodic disputes over the Prince’s debts and that their only communication was through intermediaries and ministers.
The women stood stiffly upright, each seeking an escape.
‘Such a pretty dress,’ congratulated Lady Harpindene. ‘I always say, don’t I, Polly, that Mrs Bligh has such lovely dresses?’
‘Lovely,’ parroted the companion.
Elizabeth was glad of the almost complete darkness. Neither would be able to detect her blush, she knew.
‘But isn’t it one …?’ continued the woman, trailing the sentence as if embarrassed by it. ‘No, of course not … silly of me.’
‘What, Lady Harpindene?’ said Elizabeth. She wouldn’t be harassed by the other woman, she determined.
‘… so silly,’ giggled Lady Harpindene. ‘Had the oddest feeling I’d seen the garment before … but I can’t have done, can I?’
‘No,’ said Elizabeth, immediately. ‘Such an easy mistake to make, with fashion changing so quickly.’
Lady Harpindene swirled her parasol, like an animal trainer about to give a command, and Mrs Wittingdon twitched, preparing herself for reaction.
‘We must move on, Mrs Bligh,’ apologised Lady Harpindene. ‘Unsafe to be on the streets of London after a certain time, don’t you think?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Elizabeth, standing aside. Behind, the girls dipped their farewells.
‘We must meet, very soon,’ threw away Lady Harpindene, moving on to the main thoroughfare.
‘Very soon,’ echoed Mrs Wittingdon.
Bligh’s letter from Plymouth was waiting for her when she returned to Lambeth.
‘Mama,’ said Mary, worriedly.
‘What?’
‘You’re crying. Why are you crying?’
‘Happiness,’ said Elizabeth, after the briefest pause. ‘Your father is coming home. He’s done all he was dispatched to do … such a wonderful man, your father.’
‘Mama,’ said Mary, much later. ‘Are those ladies we met this afternoon very important?’
‘Why?’
‘I didn’t think I liked them very much.’
‘No,’ said the woman. ‘They’re not important … not important at all …’
She hadn’t made the jokes she’d intended, realised Elizabeth. It was becoming increasingly difficult to laugh, she thought. Thank God Mr Bligh was coming back.
‘A raft!’
The interjection came from the President, almost at the end of William Purcell’s evidence. The Bounty’s carpenter shifted, uneasily. He had seen Fryer attacked and had taken the stand frightened, knowing the same thing could happen to him; twice he had carefully avoided mentioning the help he had given to Fletcher Christian the night before the mutiny, even though he knew the disclosure was inevitable.
‘Yes, sir,’ he replied. ‘A raft.’
‘But what for?’ demanded Lord Hood.
‘Mr Christian said he wanted to quit the ship.’
The stir spread along the officers in the big cabin and several made notes. More evidence of a sort they hadn’t expected, realised Hood. He determined to follow the same practice as the previous day and turn the questioning over early to the defence.
‘The second-in-command told you he was going to desert?’ pressed Sir Andrew Snape Hammond.
‘Yes, sir.’
Hood leaned out, restraining the officer, nodding instead to Bunyan, urging him to his feet.
The lawyer rose, more sure of himself after the success of the previous day. Edward Christian would be interviewing Fryer now, he knew. The mutineer’s brother had become increasingly excited the previous night as the decision to publish an account of the court martial had hardened. Now he wanted to meet all the witnesses, after their evidence had been given to avoid any suggestion of interference, to explore facts revealed but not pursued during the hearing. According to Edward Christian’s clerk, there was a clamour in London for the daily reports.
‘Why did he want to desert?’ picked up Bunyan.
Purcell hesitated, trying to compose an answer that would cause him as little difficulty as possible.
‘He was very distressed,’ recalled the carpenter. ‘He said he could no longer stand the treatment he was receiving from Captain Bligh and preferred to take his chance in the water … we were sailing through islands at the time …’
‘And you helped him?’
‘I gave him some planking … he lashed it between two masts. And some nails, to trade, if he reached an island.’
‘Do you think he would have succeeded?’
Purcell frowned, sensing a trap.
‘We survived the open boat voyage,’ he hedged.
‘In an open boat,’ rejected Bunyan. ‘Do you think Mr Christian would have got to an island on the raft he had prepared?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘So he was, in effect, committing suicide?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Rather than continue on a ship of which Captain Bligh was commander?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So what did you do about it?’
‘Do?’ asked Purcell, uncertainly.
‘Yes, sir,’ enlarged Bunyan, aggressively. ‘You were confronted with an officer who sought your help in a scheme that amounted to suicide. What did you do?’
‘I told you. I helped him.’
‘You helped him!’ echoed Bunyan. ‘Wasn’t your responsibility to prevent it, rather than make it possible?’
Purcell nodded, head sunken forward. It was going to be worse than what had happened to Fryer, he thought.
‘But you did nothing, apart from aid a distressed man in his ambition?’
‘No.’
‘Why didn’t you alert Captain Bligh, as was your duty?’
‘I didn’t think of it.’
‘You didn’t think of it?’
The astonished question came from the President, pressing forward in his chair in his eagerness for the carpenter’s reply.
‘… the Bounty wasn’t like an ordinary ship,’ tried Purcell, desperately. ‘Most people felt sorry for Mr Christian. No one would have done anything to increase the man’s hardship …’
‘Was there jealousy of Mr Christian, for his association with the captain?’ asked Bunyan, suddenly.
Purcell stared at the lawyer, as if seeking hidden meaning in the question.
‘Oh no, sir,’ he said, definitely. ‘No one envied Mr Christian that familiarity.’
‘Explain further,’ insisted Bunyan.
‘Captain Bligh was not the sort of man with whom you attempted friendship,’ asserted Purcell.
‘What sort of man was he?’ pounced Bunyan.
‘A man impossible to please … I’ve never known anyone for whom it was easier to find fault …’
‘And from whom you suffered?’ scored Bunyan, again.
Damn the Timor enquiry, thought the carpenter. He’d been justified in what he’d done. Everyone in the boat knew that: it was going to haunt him for the rest of his career, he knew, becoming enlarged and distorted as every year passed.
‘Sir?’ he tried to avoid.
‘Tell us about what happened in the open boat voyage,’ demanded Bunyan. ‘The incident that resulted in your appearing before a Dutch enquiry after your survival.’
‘I think the captain suspected there had been some contact between Mr Christian and myself, before the mutiny …’ started Purcell, disjointedly. ‘That was my impression, anyway. He considered me differently from the rest … singled me out … said I wasn’t doing enough. He commandeered my toolchest to store the food and kept the key to himself … the bread supply began going quicker than we had estimated …’
‘And Bligh accused you of stealing it?’ intruded Bunyan anxious to get some coherence into what Purcell was saying.
‘Oh no,’ rejected Purcell. ‘Only one man had the key. Captain Bligh.’
‘Was he taking more than his share, then?’
‘No one was ever able to prove it.’
‘But you suspected it?’
Purcell nodded.
‘Did the captain know of the feeling aboard the launch?’
‘He knew, right enough,’ recalled Purcell, definitely. ‘The launch divided into two groups … there was a great deal of distrust …’
‘The enquiry at Timor,’ reminded Bunyan. ‘Why were you summoned before it?’
‘It happened about halfway through the voyage,’ remembered Purcell. ‘We’d reached an island … we called it Sunday Island, after the day. We’d touched land before and managed to collect some shellfish and berries. Captain Bligh told us to forage again, the understanding being that each man provided for himself. I did rather well, collecting a lot of oysters and clams. But when I got back to the launch the captain, who had little, demanded I hand them over. He said the food was to be communal and everyone should benefit. I said that wasn’t the agreement. He said it had been his order and we began to argue. I called him a confounded liar, as he’d proven himself to be in the past …’
‘You called your commander a liar?’ interrupted the President, incredulously. Even allowing for the circumstances, for discipline to have collapsed to that depth was amazing, he thought.
‘He was, sir,’ defended Purcell, sensing the attitude of the court. ‘Even castaways like we were, he was cheating us on our victuals, like he had aboard the Bounty.’
‘Go on,’ coaxed Bunyan.
‘He started up at this … said he was going to settle the dispute between us and with it all the disputes that existed in the boat. He grabbed a cutlass and slashed it over my head … I could hear the blade whistling, it was so close … he said I should take up another sword and we should fight, to see who was the better man …’
‘This happened in the launch?’
‘No, sir,’ clarified Purcell. ‘We were on the beach. Almost everyone was watching. I refused. I said that no matter how badly I thought of him, I would not fight … that he was still the captain …’
‘And there the matter ended?’ encouraged Bunyan.
‘No, sir. He kept cutting at me with the cutlass, so that I had to keep moving backwards. If it hadn’t been for Mr Fryer, I think I would have been cut down.’
‘What did Mr Fryer do?’
‘He returned from his foraging at about this time … he interposed himself between me and the captain and told the captain it was not the way to settle any disagreement between us … it took a long time, but gradually Captain Bligh calmed down …’
Bunyan detected movement beside him and smiled, recognising his neighbour’s agitation.
‘Where did you get the cutlasses from … those that were in the launch?’ he asked, helpfully.
‘Mr Morrison threw them to us, just before we were set adrift,’ said Purcell, looking to the man on Bunyan’s right.
‘You saw him take no part in the uprising?’
‘I saw him cleaning out the launch, prior to its being unshipped. But I assumed he was doing that under the instructions from the mutineers.’
‘What about Mr Heywood?’
‘I can’t remember seeing him at all.’
Another excellent day, reflected Bunyan. From the evidence they had so far heard, Heywood would have to be acquitted. He nodded his thanks to the court and sat down. Morrison’s cross-examination, already largely covered by Bunyan’s questioning, was again very brief, and then Hood gestured along the table, inviting questions from the officers around him.
Sir Andrew Snape Hammond responded, predictably, huddled in his chair.
‘Did you regard Captain Bligh as a good commander?’ he demanded, directly.
Purcell hesitated, more concerned at the interrogation from naval officers than he was at that from a civilian lawyer.
‘The ship was run efficiently,’ he offered.
‘Were the chance to present itself, would you sail again on a ship under Captain Bligh’s command?’ pressed the officer.
‘No, sir.’
‘Why not?’
‘He frightened me,’ blurted Purcell.
The reply surprised everyone.
‘Frightened you?’ picked up Hood. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He was a man with whom it was impossible to feel anything but unease,’ replied Purcell, desperately. His earlier reply had been instinctive and the truth. Bligh had frightened him. But he knew it would be impossible for unsympathetic officers, in the calm and safety of a ship at anchor off Portsmouth, to understand what he meant. They sat waiting, staring at him, demanding more.
‘… with most captains, you learn what sort of men they are,’ groped Purcell. ‘You come to recognise their ways, anticipate how they will react to certain situations. It’s important, even. It’s the sort of understanding that makes for the running of a good ship. But with Captain Bligh that was never possible. From the time the Bounty sailed from here, in December 1787, I was daily in the company of Captain Bligh for almost two years … in the open boat voyage, I was but three feet from him all the time. Yet today I am no more able to say what sort of man Captain Bligh is than I was on the day I signed articles for that voyage.’
He’d failed, realised Purcell. Not one of the stern-faced men, examining him from the table eight feet away, had understood what he was trying to convey. Which was hardly surprising, he accepted. He’d never known himself why Bligh had created in him the apprehension he always felt.
‘Only one person aboard the Bounty appeared able to understand the captain …’ Purcell struggled on.
‘Who?’ demanded Hood, impatiently, anticipating the answer.
‘Mr Christian,’ responded the carpenter.
The President shook his head. The more he learned of the Bounty and its officers, the less he was able to understand why the mutiny had occurred.
‘How can that be?’ he demanded.
‘Until we reached Tahiti,’ said the witness, quite lost now and speaking as the words came to him. ‘Mr Christian was the only person with whom I ever saw the captain conduct himself in a civil manner … they would laugh and talk together …’
‘What caused the breach?’ asked Hood.
‘I do not know,’ said Purcell.
‘Are you sure?’ demanded the President. ‘It was you to whom Mr Christian came for help … you knew he was setting out on a course that would cause his death … he must have said something to you.’
Purcell shook his head.
‘He was much out of sorts, rambling, incoherent almost … all he kept repeating, again and again, was that he had to get away from Captain Bligh,’ insisted Purcell.
‘But without saying why?’ asked Hood.
‘It hardly made sense,’ said Purcell. The words were colliding in his mind, like small boys released from school. He’d never be able to make them understand, he knew. Never. They’d think him an idiot.
‘What didn’t make sense?’
‘He said the captain was trying to destroy him,’ recounted Purcell, his voice jagged.
‘He said the captain was trying to destroy him,’ repeated Hood, spacing the words in disbelief.
‘Yes, sir,’ insisted Purcell. ‘But I don’t think he meant it as it sounded. I don’t think he meant Captain Bligh intended him physical harm …’
‘Then what in God’s name did he mean?’ asked Hood, his temper barely controlled.
‘I don’t know,’ apologised Purcell, hopelessly.
Hood sighed, his face reddening.
‘I think, Mr Purcell,’ he said shortly, ‘that you had better stop before you succeed in completely confusing this enquiry …’
The President looked beyond the witness.
‘… which will recommence promptly at nine tomorrow.’
It again took Edward Christian over an hour to read the transcript of evidence. Bunyan sat, contentedly sipping the wine that was now always waiting in the decanter for his arrival.
The lawyer smiled expectantly when the man finally looked up, but there was none of the euphoria that had greeted the previous evidence.
‘Wasn’t your meeting with Mr Fryer satisfactory?’ queried Bunyan, trying to understand the change of attitude.
Edward Christian nodded, absently.
‘Then surely what Purcell said today reinforces what you’re doing?’
‘Oh yes,’ agreed the mutineer’s brother. ‘It’s very good. You’ve done well again.’
‘What is it then?’ asked Bunyan.
‘The Bounty was an unusual ship,’ said the elder lawyer, reflectively.
‘It was certainly that,’ agreed Bunyan, missing the full meaning of the other man’s remark.
‘I wonder if Fletcher is still alive?’ mused his brother. ‘Alive and in hiding, somewhere in the world.’
Bunyan shrugged, confused by the man.
‘And I wonder if he’d tell me,’ continued Edward Christian.
‘Tell you?’ queried Bunyan. ‘Tell you what?’
For the first time Edward Christian looked directly at Bunyan.
‘Why it happened, of course,’ he said. ‘Why it really happened.’