James Norman Hall - Mutiny on the Bounty (James Norman Hall & Charles Bernard Nordhoff) (Literary Thoughts Edition)

OFFICERS AND CREW OF H.M.S. BOUNTY

Lieutenant William Bligh, Captain

John Fryer, Master

Fletcher Christian, Master’s Mate

Charles Churchill, Master-at-Arms

William Elphinstone, Master-at-Arms’ Mate

Thomas Huggan, Surgeon

Thomas Ledward, Acting Surgeon

David Nelson, Botanist

William Peckover, Gunner

John Mills, Gunner’s Mate

William Cole, Boatswain

James Morrison, Boatswain’s Mate

William Purcell, Carpenter

Charles Norman, Carpenter’s Mate

Thomas McIntosh, Carpenter’s Crew

Joseph Coleman, Armourer

Roger Byam }

Thomas Hayward }

John Hallet }

Robert Tinkler } Midshipmen

Edward Young }

George Stewart }

John Norton }

Peter Lenkletter } Quartermasters

George Simpson, Quartermaster’s Mate

Lawrence Lebogue, Sailmaker

Mr. Samuel, Clerk

Robert Lamb, Butcher

William Brown, Gardener

John Smith }

Thomas Hall } Cooks

Thomas Burkitt }

Matthew Quintal }

John Sumner }

John Millward }

William McCoy }

Henry Hillbrandt }

Alexander Smith } Able Seamen

John Williams }

Thomas Ellison }

Isaac Martin }

Richard Skinner }

Matthew Thompson }

William Muspratt }

Michael Byrne }

At daybreak on the twenty-eighth of November we got sail on the Bounty and worked down to St. Helen’s, where we dropped anchor. For nearly a month we were detained there and at Spithead by contrary winds; it was not until the twenty-third of December that we set sail down the Channel with a fair wind.

A month sounds an age to be crowded with more than forty other men on board a small vessel at anchor most of the time, but I was making the acquaintance of my shipmates, and so keen on learning my new duties that the days were all too short. The Bounty carried six midshipmen, and, since we had no schoolmaster, as is customary on a man-of-war, Lieutenant Bligh and the master divided the duty of instructing us in trigonometry, nautical astronomy, and navigation. I shared with Stewart and Young the advantage of learning navigation under Bligh, and in justice to an officer whose character in other respects was by no means perfect, I must say that there was no finer seaman and navigator afloat at the time. Both of my fellow midshipmen were men grown: George Stewart of a good family in the Orkneys, a young man of twenty-three or four, and a seaman who had made several voyages before this: and Edward Young, a stout, salty-looking fellow, with a handsome face marred by the loss of nearly all his front teeth. Both of them were already very fair navigators, and I was hard put to it not to earn the reputation of a dunce.

The boatswain, Mr. Cole, and his mate, James Morrison, instructed me in seamanship. Cole was an old-style Navy salt, bronzed, taciturn, and pigtailed, with a profound knowledge of his work and little other knowledge of any kind. Morrison was very different – a man of good birth, he had been a midshipman, and had shipped aboard the Bounty because of his interest in the voyage. He was a first-rate seaman and navigator; a dark, slender, intelligent man of thirty or thereabouts, cool in the face of danger, not given to oaths, and far above his station on board. Morrison did not thrash the men to their work, delivering blows impartially in the manner of a boatswain’s mate; he carried a colt, a piece of knotted rope, to be sure, but it was only used on obvious malingerers, or when Bligh shouted to him: “Start that man!”

There were much irritation and grumbling at the continued bad weather, but at last, on the evening of the twenty-second of December, the sky cleared and the wind shifted to the eastward. It was still dark next morning when I heard the boatswain’s pipe and Morrison’s call: “All hands! Turn out and save a clue! Out or down here! Rise and shine! Out or down there! Lash and carry!”

The stars were bright when I came on deck, and the grey glimmer of dawn was in the East. For three weeks we had had strong southwesterly winds, with rain and fog; now the air was sharp with frost, and a strong east wind blew in gusts off the coast of France. Lieutenant Bligh was on the quarter-deck with Mr. Fryer, the master; Christian and Elphinstone, the master’s mates, were forward among the men. There was a great bustle on deck and the ship rang with the piping of the bos’n’s whistle. I heard the shouting of the men at the windlass, and Christian’s voice above the din: “Hove short, sir!”

“Loose the topsails!” came from Fryer, and Christian passed the order on. My station was the mizzen-top, and in a twinkling we had the gaskets off and the small sail sheeted home. The knots in the gaskets were stiff with frost, and the men setting the fore-topsail were slow at their work. Bligh glanced aloft impatiently.

“What are you doing there?” he shouted angrily. “Are you all asleep, foretop? The main-topmen are off the yard! Look alive, you crawling caterpillars!”

The topsails filled and the yards were braced up sharp; the Bounty broke out her own anchor as she gathered way on the larboard tack. She was smartly manned in spite of Bligh’s complaints, but he was on edge, for a thousand critical eyes watched our departure from the ships at anchor closer inshore. With a “Yo! Heave ho!” the anchor came up and was catted.

Then it was: “Loose the forecourse!” and presently, as she began to heel to the gusts: “Get the mainsail on her!” There was a thunder of canvas and a wild rattling of blocks. When the brace was hove short, Bligh himself roared: “Board the main tack!” Little by little, with a mighty chorus at the windlass: “Heave ho! Heave and pawl! Yo, heave, hearty, ho!” the weather clew of the sail came down to the waterway. Heeling well to starboard, the bluff-bowed little ship tore through the sheltered water, on her way to the open sea.

The sun rose in a cloudless sky – a glorious winter’s morning, clear, cold, and sparkling. I stood by the bulwarks as we flew down the Solent, my breath trailing off like thin smoke. Presently we sped through the Needles and the Bounty headed away to sea, going like a race horse, with topgallants set.

✹

That night the wind increased to a strong gale, with a heavy sea, but on the following day the weather moderated, permitting us to keep our Christmas cheerfully. Extra grog was served out, and the mess cooks were to be heard whistling as they seeded the raisins for duff, not, as a landsman might suppose, from the prospect of good cheer, but in order to prove to their messmates that the raisins were not going into their mouths.

I was still making the acquaintance of my shipmates at this time. The men of the Bounty had been attracted by the prospect of a voyage to the South Sea, or selected for their stations by the master or Bligh himself. Our fourteen able-bodied seamen were true salts, not the scum of the taverns and jails impressed to man so many of His Majesty’s ships; the officers were nearly all men of experience and tried character, and even our botanist, Mr. Nelson, had been recommended by Sir Joseph Banks because of his former voyage to Tahiti under Captain Cook. Mr. Bligh might have had a hundred midshipmen had he obliged all those who applied for a place in the Bounty’s berth; as it was, there were six of us, though the ship’s establishment provided for only two. Stewart and Young were seamen and pleasant fellows enough; Hallet was a sickly-looking boy of fifteen with a shifty eye and a weak, peevish mouth; Tinkler, Mr. Fryer’s brother-in-law, was a year younger, though he had been to sea before – a monkey of a lad, whose continual scrapes kept him at the masthead half the time. Hayward, the handsome, sulky boy I had met when I first set foot in the berth, was only sixteen, but big and strong for his age. He was something of a bully and aspired to be cock of the berth, since he had been two years at sea aboard a seventy-four.