William Bligh hurried impatiently across Soho Square, eager for his meeting with Sir Joseph. It had to be a position, he decided. Had to be. If it weren’t, then he would have to tell the man who had befriended him that he had no choice but to quit the naval service. All right, so they’d laugh at him. But they were doing that anyway, despite what had happened at Kew. So it could hardly cause any more pain.
It was confounded unfair, Bligh told himself, gripping his hands in frustration. Even the court martial verdict, justification of his honour if ever justification had been needed, had not had the effect he had expected. ‘Breadfruit Bligh’, everyone was calling him. Or, worse, ‘Bounty Bligh’. There’d even been cartoons lampooning him, whip in hand. He deserved honours and got sneers. Confounded unfair. Didn’t matter for himself, of course. He could have withstood it. Strong enough. And he’d been right, after all. Nothing to be ashamed of. Never had been. It was Betsy. She was suffering far more than he was. Several times he’d discovered her crying. She always made other excuses, of course. But he knew the real reason. Damn him, he thought. Damn Fletcher Christian in whatever hell he was in. And his family, too.
Sir Joseph Banks was waiting for him in the study, smiling his satisfaction. He was right in putting his confidence in the man, decided Banks. Bligh had the faults they all knew about. But he had the qualities, too. And they outweighed the disadvantages. Bligh wouldn’t let him down, he knew.
‘I trust you’re well, sir,’ he greeted the sailor.
‘No, sir,’ rejected Bligh, immediately. There was no point in avoiding the problem, he determined. That was not the way of William Bligh. The propensity of politicians to wrap everything they said in a mess of pleasantries was damned stupid. Couldn’t stand stupidity.
‘I’m being sorely treated,’ complained Bligh. ‘Sorely treated, sir.’
Banks nodded, accepting the protest. It was impossible to prove, but he felt a great many powerful people had been influenced by the campaign against Bligh. He’d been so hopeful after Kew, he remembered. It was sad, very sad.
‘The court martial was badly conducted, as far as your name was concerned,’ apologised Sir Joseph. ‘Much was said that could not be refuted …’
‘… because I was denied attendance,’ protested Bligh. ‘It was a nonsense, as well you must know.’
The Admiralty should have delayed the hearing, Banks felt. Justice had unquestionably been done and the verdict had reinforced throughout the fleet the need for proper discipline. But Bligh should have been called, no matter if it would have entailed reconvening the court. Banks paused. What sort of witness would the man have made, he wondered, looking at Bligh. A clever lawyer would have inflated that temper within minutes, Banks decided, sighing. And done the man much harm. But not as much as had been done by relying solely upon his written deposition.
‘It was unfortunate,’ agreed Banks. He shrugged, discarding the past.
‘I trust you’ve not taken any further your intention to leave the service,’ he said, smiling at the news he had for the man. It would be compensation, Banks thought, happily.
So it was a position, guessed Bligh.
‘I’ve spoken to my wife’s relations,’ Bligh warned. ‘A place in the merchant fleet awaits me, should I so choose.’
If they wanted him, they’d have to pay, Bligh decided. There was no excuse for what had been allowed to happen.
Banks stood, pouring Madeira for them both. The man had a right to his attitude, he allowed. It had been very difficult to get the agreement about Bligh, reflected Banks. Even now the doubts remained among many in the government and he knew his critics were waiting for Bligh to create an incident that could be utilised as political capital. The appointment of one of the men who had been cleared by the court martial to an immediate post in the President’s ship was worrying. Pitt was playing a dark game, determined Banks. Bligh would have to be closely advised. And warned.
‘As you must know, there was a purpose to the advice I offered you,’ commenced Sir Joseph, gently. He paused, sipping his wine.
‘There was much made at the Portsmouth enquiry about your attitude to discipline,’ reminded Banks, his speech prepared.
‘I’m a direct man, sir,’ interrupted Bligh. ‘A man who believes in the value of discipline. Any who slack under me feel the rough edge of my tongue. I see no reason to change, sir!’
If only, thought Banks sadly, Bligh had been able to curb the quickness of that tongue.
‘Captain Bligh,’ he continued, gently. ‘There is scarce need to defend yourself before me. Were I not convinced of your integrity, I would not have shown you my friendship for so long. If there is a crime to be proved against you …’
He held up his hand, warningly, as Bligh looked sharply towards him.
‘… then I think it is too often acting towards people without mind for their feelings …’
Were they Sir Joseph’s views? Or those of people he undoubtedly represented? wondered Bligh. The remark deserved a reply. With difficulty, he held back.
‘Your attitude towards discipline interests me far more,’ continued Sir Joseph.
‘How so, sir?’ encouraged Bligh.
‘I am, as you know, closely involved with the government. And with the King,’ Sir Joseph said.
Bligh nodded.
‘And I have been asked for my counsel on a matter causing the country a great deal of concern,’ he continued. ‘The settlements established around Botany Bay, in New South Wales, have become a disgrace to this country … the lawlessness that exists there is almost unparalleled in our history …’
Bligh was frowning. What had Botany Bay to do with him? He was a sailor. Damned good one, too.
‘The current Governor-General, Philip King, is exhausted by his efforts to handle the matter. He seeks retirement …’ Sir Joseph paused. Bligh’s refusal to shrink from his duty, no matter the personal consequences, made him ideal for the post. Bligh would not beg for relief if affairs went against him. If Bligh were successful in re-establishing order in the colony, it would erase a great deal of the current ill-feeling towards him in the capital. He could even become a hero again, as he had been after the voyage to Timor.
‘… and I am empowered to offer you the appointment,’ Banks completed.
‘Me?’ queried Bligh, incredulously. ‘Governor-General of an Australian province?’
Banks nodded. It would be a difficult job, he thought. Even the King had been unreceptive, after Pitt’s reluctant agreement, initially dismissing Bligh as ‘that troublesome martinet’ before being convinced it was precisely that attitude that was needed to defeat men who seemed to regard themselves as almost the same as the settlers in the American colonies. It was the argument that Australia might go the way of the Americas that had finally convinced the monarch, Banks remembered.
He’d exposed himself with his patronage of Bligh, Banks decided, worriedly.
Bligh was nodding, slowly, trying to assimilate what was being offered him. Betsy wouldn’t accompany him, he guessed, immediately. She hated the sea, so such a long voyage would be impossible for her. Instead she could remain in London, the wife of a Governor-General. They’d come to her parties then, he thought, those snobs still convinced he was out of favour. And he had been shunned, he accepted. Until they realised they needed him. But he wouldn’t agree so readily this time. He had almost bankrupted himself by the breadfruit expeditions. And suffered worse in other ways. Now it was time for them to make amends. It was a great honour, though. Betsy would be very proud.
‘What will the salary be?’ he asked, pointedly.
‘£2,000 a year,’ replied Sir Joseph, immediately. ‘Which is £1,000 more than the present Governor is getting. The position is seen as one of much importance.’
Better than he had expected, thought Bligh. Betsy could become one of the most glittering hostesses in London on an income like that. He might even be able to buy some land as well. He wanted very much the security of property.
‘And I could keep my naval pension? And seniority for promotion?’ he pressed. By his demands he’d make them aware of his annoyance with their treatment of him.
‘Agreed,’ said Banks.
It would be good to get away from England, thought Bligh, where so many unseen forces seemed to be combining against him. People jealous of him. That’s who were behind it, people who knew him, knew the drive and capability that were being recognised by the very offer he had received that day. The appointment would defeat those critics, he decided. It would be pleasant, laughing at them, when the announcement was made. It would mean being received by the King again. Properly this time. And with Betsy by his side. She’d enjoy that. It would wipe away the distress. And she’d no longer be ostracised.
‘Would I have the King’s understanding that it would be an appointment of a limited period, say four years?’ asked Bligh.
Sir Joseph hesitated.
‘Yes,’ he conceded, after several minutes. ‘I think such a condition can be allowed.’
Bligh was nodding, with growing acceptance. Strange, he thought idly, how every point he raised was so readily agreed by Sir Joseph. The government appeared very contrite. It was fitting that they should be, of course. Damned fools. Just like the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty who had sent him away on the Bounty unpromoted.
‘Understand the situation very clearly, though,’ counselled the other man. ‘What you’re being asked to do here is a job far more difficult than controlling the most unruly ship. There is in Sydney a small group of men holding almost everyone to virtual ransom. They control all the importing, have created what amounts to a legal currency from the practice of paying for things in rum, the selling of which they keep in their power, and arbitrarily fix the price of anything else to their own whim. And they have a small army to support them. Unable to anticipate the problems it might create, the King allowed certain officers to raise a force; there are now almost 1,000 men, allegedly keeping order but in fact supporting a select dictatorship. The population consists largely of men sent there as convicts who have served their sentences. It is more natural in Botany Bay to break the law than to obey it.’
Bligh sipped his drink, smiling slightly. If he had not known the man better, decided Sir Joseph, he would have imagined Bligh were patronising him.
‘Beware one man,’ he enlarged. ‘His name is John Macarthur.’
‘What position does he hold?’ asked Bligh, attentively.
Banks smiled.
‘None. And all,’ he replied. ‘Macarthur is unquestionably the most powerful man in New South Wales … during the sale of the King’s sheep at Kew he was uncommon rude to myself and others, over the question of importing merino sheep into the province. He made it quite clear that he did not consider himself beholden to the home government in any way.’
Bligh frowned. Then why hadn’t the man been brought to heel?
‘And was allowed such disrespect?’ he asked, the criticism obvious.
‘Although they are the qualities you’ll need, it’s not the behaviour of the quarter-deck we’re talking about, Captain Bligh,’ lectured the other man.
‘Yet Macarthur holds no official position?’
Banks shook his head.
‘But he is without challenge the most influential man in the colony,’ he repeated, trying to impress the fact upon Bligh. ‘The richest, undoubtedly. And perhaps the most determined. He trades extensively with China and India through his shipping fleet, the traders look to him for guidance and almost everyone else for money. I’ll wager there are few people upon whom he does not hold promissory notes and who are not, therefore, subservient to his wishes.’
Bligh covered another smile by raising the glass to his lips. Which made it all so easy, he thought. Pluck away the omnipotent figurehead and replace it with lawful authority and the problems would be no more. They really were quite stupid.
‘These difficulties are well understood?’clarified Bligh.
‘Completely,’ assured Sir Joseph.
So the prestige of success would be correspondingly high, Bligh thought, happily. And he would succeed. He was sure Sir Joseph and the government and the King had over-estimated how entrenched the practices were, misled by a weak Governor. He’d be able to clean it up, Bligh knew. He’d stipulated four years because he did not want to be away from Betsy for any longer than that. But now he began regarding the time limit from another viewpoint. He’d let the condition be known, when the announcement was made, so that people would recognise his confidence. He’d show them, he determined, those people who’d laughed at ‘Bounty Bligh’ and labelled him a tyrannical despot. He’d succeed and damn them, just as he’d survived an open boat voyage that would have defeated anyone else to carry out his vow to damn Fletcher Christian.
‘I shall have your full backing? You? And that of the government?’
‘Yes,’ responded Banks.
Bligh looked up at the doubt in the other man’s voice.
‘If things are as lawless as you say they are, then the situation will have to be met with determination and force,’ anticipated Bligh.
‘We accept that,’ said Banks. ‘As I said before, it’s because you possess just those qualities that the position is being offered you. But be cautious, Captain Bligh. Sometimes problems are better handled by diplomacy and artifice than by direct confrontation.’
Bligh held his head curiously to one side. It had been a warning, he realised. This was to be his last chance. He had been selected because of his courage, he decided, but also because he was expendable, a man who mignt, just, defeat the racketeers but someone who could be sacrificed if he failed. The temper began to flare, but he controlled it. It was not Sir Joseph’s fault, he repeated. The man had remained his friend, even remembering his financial difficulties. From every consideration, it was a damned good opportunity. He could have been pulled up on the beach and left to rot in some early retirement or ordered into a menial job commanding one of the Admiralty’s coastal packets, like a street-hawker pushing a cart.
‘You’ll not find your confidence misplaced,’ he told Banks.
‘I’m sure I won’t,’ responded his patron. ‘I’m just anxious that you should succeed and earn the proper recognition, not just for what you’re going to do but for what you’ve done in the past.’
It was an admission of the government’s guilt, Bligh saw. Or as much of one as the man could ever make. He’d clean up New South Wales, he determined: by God, he would. He’d scour it cleaner than a new pot and woe to anyone who tried to oppose him.
‘It will give me great pleasure,’ he said, formally, ‘to accept the position.’
Banks hurried around the desk, hand outstretched.
‘I’m delighted,’ he said, sincerely. ‘May luck and good fortune go with you.’
It would be the corrupt colonists of Australia who would need luck, mused Bligh, confidently. William Bligh made his own luck. And good fortune.
That night, in his Lambeth house, Bligh lay on his back in the darkness, his hand on Betsy’s arm.
‘Sure you don’t mind me leaving you alone?’ he persisted.
‘You should know I don’t, by now.’
‘I wish you could come.’
‘The voyage would kill me.’
‘I’m going to succeed, Betsy.’
‘I know you are, Mr Bligh.’
‘We’ve had a lot of setbacks, but this time I’m determined nothing is going to go wrong. By the time I’ve finished in Australia, people will have forgotten about the confounded Bounty and Fletcher Christian. It will all be behind me, for ever.’
She’d be bruised in the morning, she knew, wincing at the grip he had upon her arm. If only he could control his temper, she mused, hopelessly.
‘Be careful.’
‘You know I will.’
‘I’ll think of you all the time.’
‘And me of you.’
She felt him move in the darkness and shifted towards him, expectantly, and then remained there, feeling foolish and glad of the darkness.
He’d turned away from her, she realised, grunting up into a ball and already snuffling towards sleep.
She twisted away, sadly. Poor Mr Bligh, she thought.
‘… he appeared to be very much agitated: indeed, I never saw a man so much frightened in my life, in appearance. When I went into the room, Governor Bligh reached out his hand to me and asked me if I would protect his life. I assured him his life was not in danger; and that I would pledge my own for the safety of his …’
Lieutenant William Minchin, at
the enquiry into the overthrow
of Bligh as Governor-General
of New South Wales, 1811
The floods that had devastated the colony first in 1805 and then again this year had scarred the settlers’ minds, as well as their land, decided Major George Johnston, gazing from the window of John Macarthur’s office out on to the Sydney streets. It was very squalid, he thought. Squalid and disgusting.
Groups of ragged, broken men huddled exhausted on the nearby corners, some of the braver actually waiting at the gate, numbed either by rum or despair but drawn to Macarthur because he was the richest man in the province and the only person to whom they could come for help.
And Macarthur would help them, Major Johnston knew. For a price. Macarthur owned these men out there in the dust, the soldier realised, just as he owned the wives squatting in their separate, complaining circles and the children, some of them stark naked, playing their dispirited games.
Upon every one of them, against their property or their farm implements or their stock or in some cases even the tattered clothing they wore, he held promissory notes.
It was said, recalled Major Johnston, that there was nobody in the whole of New South Wales who did not owe John Macarthur something.
‘So it’s Bounty Bligh.’
Johnston turned back into the room as Macarthur spoke, examining the haughty-faced, saturnine man.
‘According to the reports,’ he agreed.
The other men in the room shuffled, waiting for Macarthur’s lead. John and Gregory Blaxland were in several businesses with Macarthur and looked constantly to him for guidance. Simeon Lord actually admired the man, Johnston decided. And owed him money, too.
‘Appointed particularly because he can impose discipline,’ enlarged Lord, knowing the remark would be regarded as a joke. Everyone laughed, dutifully.
‘Well, the home government has failed with everyone else, so perhaps it’s not surprising they should turn to a serving officer,’ mocked Macarthur.
It was no secret, Johnston knew, that Governor King had been broken by Macarthur, like Governor Hunter before him. Macarthur was very proud of it, he guessed.
Johnston turned at a shout outside the window. One of those disgusting bucket parties was collapsing into the vicious fighting that usually broke out when the alcohol got to them. There had been five men hunched around the gallon bucket brim-full with rum, each initially taking orderly turns to drink from the ladle. Now one had keeled over, insensible, puddling the liquor all around him, and immediately an argument had arisen between the men on cither side, each claiming they were due the unconscious man’s share. What had been bartered for that bucket of rum? wondered Johnston. Whole acres were sometimes exchanged; in some cases, even entire farms. They were like animals, drink-besotted animals. Was it surprising, he wondered, when the majority had been criminals regarded so low they had been transported by a country anxious to get them as far away from society as possible?
‘According to what I hear from the captains arriving from London, the government is concerned about events here,’ said Gregory Blaxland, bringing the soldier back into the room again.
‘Bah!’ dismissed Macarthur, contemptuously. ‘Wars with the French … wars in Portugal … a King whose sanity is in doubt … what real interest can England have in us, 12,000 miles away?’
‘According to Governor King, quite a lot,’ suggested Johnston. He had dined with King the previous evening. It had been a carefully planned meal, Johnston recognised. The Governor who had conceded a little of his authority every month during his tenure of office now chose to make threats through intermediaries, rather than confront Macarthur directly. Obediently, Johnston had passed on the details that morning, interested to see how Macarthur would react to the impending challenge. The contempt had been predictable, the soldier decided.
‘King is a weakling,’ dismissed Macarthur. ‘I’ll wager he’s no idea what the views of the government are.’
‘London might regard us as being tainted by what happened in the Americas,’ offered Lord, smiling hopefully. The man rarely expressed a view that wasn’t guaranteed acceptance, thought Johnston.
Macarthur stood abruptly, pouring them drinks. The rum was much better than the filth that those poor unfortunates were soaking themselves in outside, decided Johnston, sipping appreciatively. But then it was natural Macarthur should have the best. Not a ship unloaded in Sydney harbour without his permission and not an article was sold without his being offered first choice.
‘It’s no more than a token gesture,’ insisted Macarthur. ‘Like it’s always been. They’ve got too many troubles elsewhere in the world to worry about what’s happening out here. We’ve no cause for concern.’
He hesitated at the doubt on the faces of the other men in the room with him.
‘What’s this!’ he demanded, in mock belligerence. ‘Lacking faith!’
He turned to Johnston.
‘Is there a man in the regiment who won’t be behind me, their old colleague?’
Macarthur had arrived in Sydney sixteen years before with the rank of captain in the New South Wales Corps, having bought the commission in England. Even though he had retired, he still affected fondness for the army life. It was a false attitude, Johnston knew.
‘No,’ guaranteed the soldier. ‘The regiment are behind you.’
And with good reason, he added, mentally. Most were in debt to him. And looked to him as the supplier of rum for their grogshops and convict-whored bawdy-houses to which they devoted more time than they did to their soldiering.
‘And the traders?’ demanded Macarthur, of Lord.
‘Aye,’ agreed the fine-featured sycophant. ‘The merchants are all with you.’
For the same reason as the soldiers, thought Johnston. With this domain, Macarthur had more power than King George himself over all England.
Macarthur spread his hands expansively.
‘So where’s the danger?’ he asked.
No one spoke and Macarthur stood there, smiling.
‘I’m surprised at your weak hearts,’ he said, going back to his desk.
They waited, expectantly, but Macarthur didn’t speak immediately, allowing the silence to build up. The man enjoyed superiority very much, decided Johnston.
‘I’ve determined not to be bested by Bounty Bligh,’ assured Macarthur. ‘And I’ve taken steps to see it doesn’t happen.’
‘What?’ blurted Lord, who enjoyed gossip.
‘Never you mind, Mr Lord, never you mind,’ refused Macarthur. ‘Just renuin assured that things are afoot to thwart any quarterdeck tyranny in this colony.’
Three miles away James Hoare, three times convicted murderer, a sullen giant of a man, stood patiently while the guards broke away the bolts holding in place the metal punishment collar he had worn for the past three months. His neck and shoulders were calloused and there was an open sore on his collar-bone.
‘There’s no escape from here,’ said the guard, emboldened because two others were standing with their guns at the ready. ‘Three times you’ve tried and three times you’ve been caught and brought back to the collar. You’re doomed, Jim lad. You’ll sec your days out and die here.’
Hoare walked back to the chain gang, without replying.
For almost two hours Edward Christian had been rigid at his desk, arms hard along the edge of his chair and his fingers white against the ends, as if he were physically holding on to reality.
Now, as the shock subsided, his tongue flicked out, wetting his lips, but he still did not speak, just nodding responses to what was being told him.
‘… and that’s the whole account,’ concluded Fletcher Christian. ‘The whole of it.’
The mutineer looked apprehensively across the dimly lit desk at his brother. The lawyer was still very white, he could discern. But the shaking that had erupted at the realisation of who was facing him in the chambers of his London Inn of Court had gone.
When he spoke, Edward Christian’s voice was as dry as the legal texts that lined the room from ceiling to floor and spilled over in places on to chairs and tables.
‘… you committed murder … murder as well as leading a mutiny?’
Fletcher nodded.
‘Quintal killed my wife,’ he defended. ‘He took the last thing from me.’
The lawyer let out a deep sigh, the sound of a man who had been defeated after an arduous fight.
‘So much,’ he said, very softly. ‘I’d achieved so much.’
The sailor frowned, wondering at the remark.
Edward stood at last, the smile forced but held on his face. He hurried around the desk and put his arms on Fletcher’s shoulders, squeezing as if to reassure himself that the man really existed. Then he pulled him from the chair and hugged him, warmly. The man smelt, appallingly. And his face and neck were scabbed and dirty, the lawyer saw. Some of the sores were open and weeping.
‘My God, Fletcher, it’s good to see you … to see you alive …’
The mutineer tensed back from the affection, disconcerted by it, and stood away, relieved, when his brother released him.
‘Some wine … to celebrate at least … and you look as if you could do with some refreshment. You look … you look very tired …’
Close to him for the first time, Edward stumbled to a clumsy halt at the complete awareness of how different Fletcher was from the man he had last seen ten years before. His hair had retained its blackness, but beneath the grime his face was burned to a teak colour and was patterned with suffering. The mouth, once so ready to laugh, was tight and unmoving and the eyes, which Edward remembered so calm and assured, flicked about, never focusing upon one spot for longer than a few seconds.
The man’s demeanour was different, too. The Fletcher Christian whom he had known had been relaxed and confident. The person who stood before him now was never still. When he stood he went constantly from foot to foot, as if tensing himself for sudden flight, and when he sat, he did so with his legs stiff beneath the chair, ready to leap up at the first alarm. He recognised the sort of person who sat before him, the lawyer knew, suddenly. He saw them, every time he entered a court of law: the shifty, cunning habitual criminal.
The thought pricked the rising euphoria. He went quietly to the side table and poured the claret, needing the excuse to get away from the man.
His own brother horrified him, realised Edward.
‘To your return,’ he toasted.
Fletcher looked across the room, sad at the note in his brother’s voice.
‘That’s little to celebrate, I feel,’ he accepted.
‘You’re alive …’ tried Edward.
‘… and as well might not be,’ completed the other man.
The self-pity had been evident throughout the man’s account of the mutiny and his subsequent existence on Pitcairn, recalled Edward. That was another trait in Fletcher’s character of which he had been unaware. And there would be others, he guessed. He hardly knew the man at all, he thought.
Completely recovered, the lawyer went back around his desk and from habit drew paper and quill towards him, a counsel about to make notes of a case.
‘… so that’s why you first thought of desertion, then led the mutiny …’ he reflected, head down at his desk.
‘… I felt you, of all people, deserved the truth,’ said Fletcher, conscious of the despairing criticism.
‘It makes it possible to understand many things that were a mystery to me,’ said the lawyer. Fletcher’s reappearance presented him with an incredible dilemma, he recognised.
‘There was no indication at the court martial?’
‘None,’ said Edward. ‘There was evidence of everything but that.’
‘What was it like, here … the family, I mean?’ stumbled the mutineer. Two hours and he had not enquired after his parents, he realised.
Edward sighed, suddenly aware that his brother had no way of knowing.
‘Our parents are dead,’ he said. ‘There’s little doubt the disgrace was the cause of mother’s passing … I’d managed to reverse the majority of public feeling by the time father died, but he still felt it deeply … it killed him, too, I think.’
Fletcher nodded, showing no emotion. There was no feeling of any sort left, judged Edward, studying him: Fletcher was a hollowed-out man.
‘So Bligh hasn’t remained a hero?’
The fixation was absolute, thought Edward. His brother had dismissed instantly the death of parents he had adored, wanting only to know about Bligh. The damned man was an obsession with them all.
‘Oh no,’ said Edward. ‘Bligh was exposed at the court martial and then again, in many different ways, by the efforts of myself and the Heywood family.’
‘But he’s still being accorded honours and high position,’ said Fletcher.
For the first time his voice had changed from a level monotone, Edward realised, thinking of his earlier impression. His brother still possessed one feeling, he thought. He could still hate.
‘But there’s good point to that,’ said Edward, urgently. ‘We’ve both brought pressure, the Heywoods and myself, to get Bligh confirmed as Governor-General of New South Wales.’
‘Confirmed?’ echoed Fletcher, outraged. ‘Into his most prestigious promotion yet! Why, for God’s sake?’
‘Because we know the man,’ lectured Edward. ‘He’s bound to be defeated by events there. Neither he nor Sir Joseph Banks realise how the situation has been manoeuvred …’
Fletcher moved around the room, fingering and then replacing ornaments and books.
‘Are you sure?’ he queried, at last.
‘Sydney is a. hell’s kitchen,’ said Edward, accepting again his brother would know little of the penal colony. ‘It’s defeated two Governor-Generals already who were better men than Bligh. There’s no way he can succeed.’
‘You appear to know a great deal about it,’ prompted Fletcher.
‘I’ve made a point of learning,’ said Edward. ‘One man, John Macarthur, virtually rules the colony. There’s no one richer … he’s even got his own ships and companies, here, in England …’
He paused.
‘… and I am the legal representative in London of these companies.’
Fletcher stopped his aimless wandering, staring fixedly at his brother.
‘Why?’ demanded the mutineer. ‘Why have you done all this? I’m consumed by the man, but for good reason. I cannot understand the degree of your feeling.’
The lawyer hesitated at the question, considering it for the first time. It was perhaps hard to understand, he accepted. But he’d been conducting the campaign for so many years now that the attitude seemed quite natural.
‘He killed our parents,’ Edward tried to explain. ‘When he returned from that incredible voyage to Timor there wasn’t a person of influence or position he didn’t seek out, to sully the Christian name. Our family was ostracised and spat upon for years … he even co-operated in the creation of a theatrical entertainment, in which you were represented a coward and a murderer and laughed at throughout London … for years it was difficult for me to get any lucrative briefs.’
‘… I’II damn your name and you with it in every part of the civilised world …’
Bligh’s threat aboard the Bounty came back to him with the clarity of words spoken only minutes before. The man had kept his vow, Fletcher thought.
‘… I am a coward. And a murderer,’ reminded Fletcher.
Edward shrugged, uncomfortably. Legally there was only one course open to him, he knew.
‘Is that what you meant, about having achieved so much?’
The lawyer nodded.
‘No matter what mitigation there can be … and there is an overwhelming amount, I’ll concede … you’re still a man who has broken the law,’ said Edward. ‘There can be no doubt that you led a mutiny. And by your own admission, you killed.’
‘I’ve made a mistake,’ apologised Fletcher, a cringing tone in his voice. ‘… I’m very good at making mistakes … I’ve embarrassed you, by coming …’
He had already spoken for almost two hours without pause, purging himself by confession, thought Edward. And still he wanted to talk.
‘… but I’ve wanted to come, for so long. I’ve been in London almost a year, labouring in the docks. I’ve watched you so often, from the alley opposite … I know your carriage and your work habits … especially your work habits. That’s how I knew what time to call tonight, after your clerk had gone …’
There was something else about his brother, decided Edward. It wasn’t just the attitude of the criminal. The man looked ill. He was very thin, the lawyer saw. And the clothes he wore were stiff with filth. It was little wonder he could detect the odour from where he sat, several feet away.
‘Where do you live, Fletcher?’ intruded the lawyer.
The mutineer looked up, amused by the question.
‘Live?’ he queried. He smiled, openly, his teeth green and discoloured. ‘Address, you mean? People like me don’t have addresses, Edward. We doss where there’s shelter … in a warehouse, if we are lucky. Among bales, on the wharf, more often than not, among the rats. Or in the hold of a ship we might be unloading …’
The man’s eyes narrowed and he waved a bony hand, cautiously. Cunning permeated his entire body, thought Edward.
‘… got to be careful of press gangs, though. People always disappearing, without a word …’
Edward waited, knowing his brother had not finished.
‘… don’t want to go to sea again, not for a while yet. Took me a long time to get home from South America, after I reached Montevideo on the Topaz. Always suspected that Captain Folger guessed who I was, but he never openly challenged me. I was a useful pair of hands …’
‘Whom did you say you were?’
‘Quintal,’ replied Fletcher, sniggering. ‘Certain justice in that, escaping under the name of the man I’d killed!’
Edward managed to control the shiver of disgust. It genuinely amused his brother, he realised.
‘Knew that the officers would have been told of the fight … staged it so they’d find the body they imagined to be mine while they were there. But I knew the scum on Pitcairn better than they knew themselves. I calculated they wouldn’t have given a true account of the reason and I was right. They hadn’t said a thing to Folger about the rape and killing of Isabella … just called it a dispute between the two of us for the leadership of the community. I told Folger that although I’d succeeded, I’d been frightened they wouldn’t recognise me as the new leader … never believed it, though. Sure he didn’t. Useful hand, though. No point in bothering with too many questions, was there?’
Edward shuddered again, not bothering to hide the reaction this time. What sort of life was it, he asked himself, where a man would be prepared to condone and ignore mutiny and murder just for an extra pair of hands on a sea voyage? Where men just lay where they worked, expecting all the while to be snatched in their sleep and kidnapped to the other side of the world? Fletcher had become a sewer animal, realised the lawyer, just like the furry things that ran over him when he slept in his concealed holes and the parasites which no doubt infested his clothes and body as he sat across the room, physically ill and mentally uncertain.
Fletcher put aside his reminiscence, struggling back to the present, his lips working as he searched for the words.
‘… don’t turn me in,’ he whined, head cocked to one side. ‘Know you should, after what I’ve told you. But give me a chance, eh? Just one chance, that’s all I want.’
How many times would he have pleaded like that, wondered the lawyer, with someone’s hand on his neck and whatever he was stealing still clutched in his hand.
‘… just need a chance, that’s all. Couple of sovereigns wouldn’t go amiss, either …’
‘Stop it!’ shouted Edward, angrily. ‘Stop it!’
Throughout the years, he realised, he had retained in his mind the recollection of an always-laughing Fletcher, debonair in his officer’s uniform, wagering in pennies that he would never repay that he’d become the youngest admiral in the King’s navy, struggling from his seabag bolts of silk and ivory carvings from places their excited mother had never heard of.
And that, stupidly and impractically, was how he had expected him to reappear, if reappear he ever did.
Instead he was confronted by a snivelling, smelling guttersnipe, begging for a few coins that would doubtless be swilled away in the gin houses and taverns of Fleet Street within an hour of being given to him.
‘I’m not going to turn you in,’ announced Edward.
It was a criminal commitment, he recognised. By this action he no longer had the right to wear the silk of the bar and argue right and wrong before the King’s judges.
But he had no alternative, he rationalised. Shame had killed his parents and jeopardised his own career. It had taken years to rebuild the family name. And establish himself in the legal profession. Within two years, he knew, he would be Chief Justice of Ely. The Lord Chancellor had personally promised him the position. To produce that shambling apology of a man squinting at him from across the table and reopen the Bounty affair would create one of the biggest sensations in British jurisprudence. And destroy everything he had so painstakingly achieved. And more. His brother’s mind would not withstand the strain, Edward thought. Fletcher would be incarcerated in Bedlam, hopelessly insane, before the end of any trial. And he’d never again appear before the English bar.
‘Not going to turn me in?’
It was the question of a man so used to misfortune that any apparent kindness was immediately suspected as a trick that would be the cause of even greater problems.
‘No,’ said Edward, shortly, his resolution strengthening.
‘What then?’
‘I’m going to make you well,’ promised Edward. ‘I’m going to clean you and clothe you and try to restore you as the sort of man you were … the sort of man I once knew.’
Fletcher eyed him warily, still suspicious. Reminded of his destitution, he groped beneath his left arm, scratching.
‘Could do with a bath,’ he remembered. ‘Haven’t had one for …’
He grimaced, then shrugged, abandoning the recollection.
Edward began to stand, anxious now that he had made the decision to begin immediately the rehabilitation of his brother.
‘Another thing,’ stopped Fletcher.
‘What?’
‘Help me destroy Bligh. I know where he lives. I’ve been there even, watched him parade with his daughters, bewigged and dressed in silk, like a popinjay …’
The mutineer groped inside his grime-stiffened jacket and pulled out a blade, twine lashed around one end to form a handle.
‘… was going to kill him, with this. That’s why I really came here, tonight. Knew my identity would come out, if they caught me. Came here to say sorry, in advance, for any trouble I’d cause you …’
The lawyer took the knife from the other man, holding it between the tip of his thumb and forefinger, as if it were contaminated. It was very sharp, he saw, honed for a special purpose.
He put it carefully in the drawer of his desk and locked it.
‘We’ll destroy Bligh,’ he vowed. ‘But not with a knife.’
And he would, decided Edward. What had happened to his brother had made him even more implacably determined to bring about the man’s downfall than he had ever been. He already regarded his association with Macarthur as dangerous. Now he would have to become even more closely linked. But it was necessary for the purpose. Very necessary.
Edward snuffed out the candles and forced himself into contact with the vermin-ridden man, leading him down the narrow passageway and then out into Chancery Lane.
‘A proper bed, Edward?’ demanded Fletcher. ‘Will it be a proper bed?’
The lawyer frowned in the darkness at the child-like question.
‘Of course,’ he said.
‘I’m so tired,’ muttered Fletcher, keeping very close, as if he feared being parted from his brother. ‘So very tired.’