Hell's Fire Read online

  ‘Jack wants a wife,’ announced Adams, assuming the role of chairman.

  Williams looked up, alert for any challenge.

  ‘I’ve been alone for almost a year now,’ he said, as if an explanation were required.

  ‘The native men only have three,’ pointed out Young. ‘Which one do you intend taking?’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ said Williams. ‘I think Nancy is well disposed towards me.’

  It was like an auction, thought Christian. They were sitting there calmly talking of taking a woman from her partner with the casualness with which he’d seen farmers debate the quality of cattle or pigs at Cockermouth market. They had become like animals themselves, decided Christian.

  ‘It will cause trouble,’ he said.

  The other men looked at him, appearing surprised he had spoken.

  ‘What?’ said Quintal.

  It was a curt, sneering question, the way he’d seen Bligh talk to the ship’s cleaners. Quintal was anxious to recover, he recognised.

  ‘It will cause trouble,’ he repeated. ‘There are only three women among six natives. We treat them like slaves and they resent it. So far, they’ve done nothing about it. But they will … all they want is a cause and their rancour will explode. We’ve taught them how to use our muskets and now some of them are better than we are. If we insist that one of the women is taken from them, there’ll be bloodshed.’

  ‘We must remember that Mr Christian is an expert on sudden explosions of rage,’ said Mickoy, trying to support his friend.

  Christian sighed. It was pointless, he thought.

  ‘What’s the answer then?’ demanded Isaac Martin. ‘Are you prepared to share Isabella?’

  Christian tensed and then smiled, glad the question had been put. He stared directly at Quintal, the expression still on his face but mocking now.

  ‘No,’ he said, definitely. ‘I’m not prepared to share Isabella. I thought I’d made that quite clear.’

  ‘Then stay out of the discussion,’ rejected Williams, aggressively.

  ‘Is anyone else?’ came back Christian. ‘You all know the truth of what I’ve said. To get Nancy from the natives, you will have to fight for her. Which one of you is prepared to share his wife, to prevent that happening?’

  They were all unsettled by the question, even Quintal, who had less regard for his partner than anyone.

  ‘Perhaps it could be resolved by negotiating with them,’ suggested Adams, trying to defuse the tension that Christian had created.

  No one bothered to reply, recognising the emptiness of the proposal.

  ‘They’re only natives,’ said Quintal, defiantly. He paused, looking at Christian.

  ‘… despite what he says,’ Quintal continued, with a contemptuous twist of his head. ‘They know their position here. If we ask them, then they’ll get ideas above their station and imagine they’ve a right to protest.’

  ‘And haven’t they?’ pricked Christian.

  ‘No,’ retorted Mickoy, immediately. He reached behind him, groping for the bottle of taro liquor, and swigged from it before passing it to Quintal. The other man drank, deeply, then returned the bottle. Neither thought of offering it to anyone else in the group.

  ‘I mind we should think hard on what Mr Christian says,’ attempted John Mills, speaking for the first time. ‘The natives might rebel against us.’

  Christian looked at the seaman, surprised at the support.

  ‘Share Vahineatua, then,’ attacked Mickoy, identifying the man’s wife.

  ‘I didn’t say we shouldn’t do it,’ immediately retreated Mills. ‘I just said we should be careful.’

  ‘Could we disarm them?’ wondered Young.

  ‘Probably,’ said Christian. ‘But before they had muskets they fought with stones. We can’t put every rock and boulder on the island under guard. They could stone us to death as we slept.’

  ‘Treat them rough,’ insisted Quintal, the bottle in his hand again. Very soon he would be drunk, Christian knew. The man smiled, his mouth twisted. ‘Kick them in the ass,’ he said. ‘Only thing they understand.’

  ‘The teaching of Captain Bligh,’ scored Christian. Nothing he said or did could reconcile them to him, he had decided, so he spoke carelessly, wanting only to expose their folly.

  ‘I want a woman,’ pleaded Williams, fearing the discussion was splintering into aimless, unresolved arguments.

  ‘I don’t see any alternative than of taking her, by force if necessary,’ offered Adams. He was unhappy at the thought, everyone knew.

  ‘And it must be a united decision,’ added Young, looking directly at Christian.

  So his invitation was not really an afterthought, corrected Christian. The mutineers recognised that the natives, at least, still regarded him as the leader of the community and that any decision they reached would have to appear to have his open support.

  ‘It won’t be, will it?’ he said.

  ‘Going to lead the destruction of what we’ve got here, just like you did last time?’ demanded Mickoy.

  ‘No one forced you to do what you did,’ said Christian.

  ‘You’re the one worried about bloodshed,’ reminded Adams, moving to block another argument. ‘If you’re not seen to enforce the decision, it’ll be an encouragement for them to fight.’

  The man was right, accepted Christian. For the doubtful peace of the island, he would have to appear in agreement with them. But why should he? he asked himself. What did he owe any of these men, except contempt?

  ‘We need to move together,’ enforced Young, carelessly.

  ‘Do we, Mr Young?’ snatched Christian, goading his former friend. ‘This reminds me of a conversation of many years ago … a conversation most of us here wish had never taken place …’

  Young flushed, annoyed at being caught.

  Quintal was relapsing into the tipsy clown, turning the bottle upside down to examine the neck for any last drops.

  ‘… in the ass,’ he advised, slurring. ‘Kick them in the ass.’

  ‘For the safety of the island …’ began Adams, then stopped. ‘For the safety of Isabella and the children,’ he started again, the argument prepared. ‘Will you come in with us?’

  They’d won, accepted Christian. For any of the men with whom he was sitting he would do nothing, nothing at all. But to minimise a threat to Isabella, he would agree to anything.

  ‘You know why I will,’ he capitulated, staring around. ‘But I want you all to know something else, as well. I think you are all scum, all of you. Worthless scum.’

  They detested him, he decided again, looking back at their faces. Every one of them.

  ‘Nancy,’ said Williams, frightened once more the chance would be lost. ‘Let’s go to get Nancy.’

  The mutineers shuffled into a group and moved off further down the village, towards the native settlement at the far end. Christian was manoeuvred into a leading position in the procession, but noticed that the other Englishmen managed to keep apart from him.

  ‘She’s in Talaloo’s house,’ advised Williams. He was smiling, eagerly, like a child being taken to a toyshop at Christmas. Animals, thought Christian, again.

  Talaloo appeared in the doorway when they were about twenty feet away. The man had been expecting them, Christian realised. It was not surprising. The wives of the other mutineers would have known the reason for the counsel that afternoon and the Tahitian women gossiped constantly among themselves.

  ‘You want my woman?’ challenged the Tahitian, immediately.

  ‘Mr Williams does not have one,’ replied Christian, lapsing easily into the language.

  ‘It is unfair,’ protested the man. He was the leader of the natives, Christian remembered. For his partner to be taken would mean loss of face among the other Tahitians.

  It has been decided,’ said Christian, awkwardly. Why did it have to be him? he thought. Why did he have to be the spokesman for a proposal to which he was the only objector? It was obscene.

&nb
sp; The woman appeared behind Talaloo, looking out anxiously. She would want to join Williams, Christian knew. It was regarded by them as a greater honour to sleep with a white man than one of their own kind.

  ‘I do not want it,’ rejected Talaloo.

  ‘What does Nancy want?’ asked Christian. The others had withdrawn even further from him. he realised, standing at least five feet behind. He’d been trapped into taking the whole responsibility.

  ‘It does not matter what she wants,’ said the man. ‘She is my woman.’

  Christian detected movement behind and glanced sideways as Williams came level to him.

  ‘I do not want us to become bad friends,’ Williams said, moving further forward.

  Williams had become the metal-worker on the island, setting up a forge on the outskirts of the village and utilising every piece of iron salvaged from the Bounty. The canvas bag he offered jingled with nails and trinkets he had prepared.

  Christian winced, disgusted. Just like the cattle market, he thought again. Would they spit on their palms, then slap their hands together to seal the deal, as they did at Cockermouth?

  Nancy moved past Talaloo, then stopped. Christian had not heard what the man had said. The conversation continued, very quietly, the woman frequently nodding, then shaking her head.

  ‘You have guns,’ accused Talaloo, coming back to the Englishmen.

  ‘They mean nothing,’ said Christian. ‘We mean you no harm.’

  ‘Yet you would shoot me, if I tried to prevent her leaving?’

  ‘Damned right!’

  The voice was Mickoy’s and Christian half turned, furiously. Couldn’t they keep quiet? he thought.

  ‘So I have no choice,’ accepted the native.

  Christian could think of nothing to say.

  Talaloo jerked his head at the woman who ran happily towards Williams. Would he feel her muscles and look into her eyes and examine the condition of her teeth? wondered Christian, bitterly. It was the level to which they had degenerated, after all.

  Hopefully Williams extended the gifts he had brought, waiting for the man to accept them. Talaloo stared down, prolonging the rejection. Then he spat, carefully, not at Williams but at the group and went back into his hut.

  ‘Wasn’t too difficult,’ judged Young, as they moved back into the village.

  ‘Your part, at least,’ stabbed Christian. ‘Always the rearguard in times of action, aren’t you, Mr Young?’

  ‘We know your opinion of us,’ sighed Young, patronisingly. He sniggered, anticipating his own joke. ‘Why not catch the next ship out of here?’

  ‘You’d have to fight your own battles then,’ refused Christian. ‘How would you do that, I wonder?’

  He smiled up, expectantly, at the sight of Thursday at the far edge of the clearing. The child was moving slowly, looking around him, absorbed in some private game.

  ‘Thursday!’ called the mutineer. ‘I’m here, son.’

  The child looked towards the sound, but did not respond immediately.

  ‘Come here, son,’ said Christian, curiously. Normally the boy ran to him at the first shout. The men had stopped, grouped beneath the biggest banyan tree, all looking towards the boy.

  Adams realised it first.

  ‘He’s bleeding,’ he said.

  Christian was already running, arms spread towards the child. Thursday stopped, eyes bulged and half turned to flee, but the man got to him, kneeling before him and holding the boy’s shoulders.

  There was a large bruise on the side of his face and the blow had driven his teeth into his lips, so that two tiny lines of blood felt their way over his chin. He was pulling back against his father, not recognising him, tears rolling soundlessly from those staring eyes and mingling with the blood.

  ‘Isabella!’

  The realisation wailed from the mutineer. He started up, turning behind him. All the mutineers stood there, gazing down, and nearly all their women were there, too. Unspeaking, Christian pushed the child towards the group and then ran to his house. His leg still hurt, slightly, so that it was an uneven, loping movement.

  He realised the younger child was crying in its crib as he ran by, but didn’t stop to look at it. The first room was wrecked, the furniture he had so carefully made and which the woman had delighted in arranging and rearranging, every day, splintered and smashed as if two people had not only fought among it, but tried to use pieces as weapons.

  ‘Isabella!’

  He ran into the second room, stumbling but continuing on, entering on his hands and knees. Here it was the same, the bed they had slept in and loved in and where he’d promised he would always protect her tipped on its side, so that the covering puddled in a heap. He threw the bed over, then groped into the blankets.

  Outside the baby cried on, choking as tears ran back into its throat.

  Isabella!’

  He pushed through the debris to the front of the house, grabbing at the already broken furniture, throwing it wildly aside, chest heaving as he started to sob, unable to find her.

  She was at the back of the house, in the small garden where they had cultivated the white frangipani with which she’d like to decorate the house and put into her hair. Isabella was spread on her back, legs splayed open as she had been left, her clothes ripped from neck to thigh and lying beneath her, like a mattress. She’d fought very hard, he realised. Her nails were cracked and some of her fingers were twisted and broken, where she had clawed at her attacker. Both eyes were puffed closed from the beating she had suffered and her teeth would be snapped, he knew, beneath those crushed lips.

  The bruise across her throat was very evenly marked, where something had been pressed down, stifling her cries. And killing her. A musket barrel, he decided.

  He began to cry at last, but like the boy his tears came without any sound.

  ‘Isabella,’ he moaned. ‘Oh, my darling.’

  He knelt beside her, like a man in prayer, angrily waving his hand to disturb the flies that had already begun to settle.

  The clothing was bundled beneath her, so he had difficulty in freeing enough of it to cover her.

  She had teeth marks on her breasts, he saw. Near each nipple. She had been gnawed.

  He took off his jacket, covering her, then lifted her. She was very heavy and he staggered under the weight, heaving at the body to get his balance. Everyone was outside the house, at the edge of the garden. He stood in the doorway, arms weighed down, as if offering her for examination.

  Isaac Martin’s woman, Jenny, had Thursday’s face held against her chest so that the child could not see, and he stayed there, numbed in his fear. Susan, who lived with Young, was cradling the baby in her arms and he’d stopped crying now, smiling up at her.

  Isabella had loved to see the boy smile like that, remembered Christian.

  He stumbled further into the garden, moving without thought, and as he did so the jacket slipped off, exposing her again.

  He stopped, crouching down protectively, trying to huddle over her.

  ‘Help me,’ he pleaded, staring up at the onlookers. ‘Please help me.’

  Only the women moved into the garden. The white men remained where they were, all statued by shock. Not all, he corrected.

  Matthew Quintal wasn’t there.

  William Bligh stop-started around the London chambers of Sir Joseph Banks in Soho Square, like a bird seeking breakfast crumbs. His face was flushed and there was a nervous tic vibrating near his left eye. He had to keep his temper, he knew. No matter what justification there was for his anger, it would be wrong to expend it upon Sir Joseph. He needed the man’s help, not his animosity.

  Sir Joseph had remained constantly loyal in his friendship, Bligh knew. So there must be a reasonable explanation for the lack of reception at Greenwich. And all the other things that were happening.

  It was that damned court martial, he knew. God, the Admiralty were fools. Bumbling, incompetent fools. They’d sent him away, unpromoted, underpaid and without
the protection of marines in the Bounty, then pushed ahead with the court martial without giving him the chance to appear in person.

  Stupid, utterly stupid.

  He’d raise it with Sir Joseph. The President of the Royal Society had wide influence in London. Frequently met the King at his levees at St James’s Palace … sounding-board for the politicians on colonial affairs, with his associations and knowledge of Australia now that America had seceded from the realm … confidant of Pitt and Fox alike. So Sir Joseph would know about it. And be able to give him advice. It was so confounded unfair, Bligh thought, sitting down and clamping his hands on his knees, as if trying to push calmness into himself. Confounded unfair. Not more than three years before he had been one of the most sought-after people in London. King George himself had spent fifteen minutes with him, at the levee at Windsor, showing a flattering knowledge of his career, discussing maps and charts in detail, even inviting him to peer at the heavens through the telescope he had had installed by William Herschel.

  There had been suppers in his honour and society had clamoured for him to inscribe the book he had written about the voyage after he’d been set adrift from that damned Bounty.

  He’d returned from the mutiny a hero, reflected Bligh. And come back now from the second expedition, upon which he’d succeeded in transplanting the breadfruit, to find himself shunned by those who had once ushered him into their houses and sought his favours and opinions.

  The door behind him opened and Bligh rose, turning, to meet Sir Joseph. The President of the Royal Society was a burly, sharp-eyed man aware of his importance and influence but benevolent rather than conceited because of it.

  Sir Joseph shook his hand warmly. The smile, decided Bligh, showed the genuine friendship that had arisen from their first meeting, when Sir Joseph had sailed the Pacific with him in the Resolution.

  ‘Welcome to my house, sir,’ said Sir Joseph, gesturing him back to his seat. ‘Sorry I was not able to get to Greenwich, to greet you when you arrived.’

  ‘Forced to say I was surprised, sir,’ said Bligh, stiffly.

  So he was offended, judged Sir Joseph. Natural enough. He sprawled back at his desk and examined the man sitting before him. One of the most famous figures in London, thought Sir Joseph. Or was the more correct word infamous? That was unjust, corrected the man. Bligh had earned his honours, every one of them. There wasn’t a sailor in the kingdom who could match him for navigation. Good as Cook, by any standard. And he knew, having sailed with both. Doubted if even Cook could have managed that survival voyage.