Читать книгу Men Against the Sea – Book Set - James Norman Hall - Страница 26

Table of Contents

Every vessel in Portsmouth Harbour knew of the arrival of the Gorgon, and that she had brought home with her some of the notorious Bounty mutineers. The harbour was crowded with shipping at this time, merchant vessels and ships of war. Among the latter was H.M.S. Hector, and on the morning of June 21, 1792, we were transferred to this vessel to await court-martial. It was a cloudy day, threatening rain, with a fresh breeze blowing, and the choppy waves slapped briskly against the bow of the boat. As we passed ship after ship we saw rows of heads looking down at us from the high decks, and groups of men crowded at the gun-ports for a view of us. We knew only too well what they were thinking and saying to each other: “Thank God I’m not in any of those men’s boots!”

We were received with impressive solemnity on board the Hector. A double line of marines with fixed bayonets were drawn up on either side of the gangway. There was a deep silence as we passed between them and down to the lower gun-deck. No doubt we looked like pirates in our nondescript clothing acquired here and there all the way from Timor to England. Some of us were without hats, others without shoes, and none of us had anything resembling a uniform. The rags that we wore consisted of cast-off garments given us by various kind-hearted English sailors at Batavia and at Table Bay,—chiefly by men of the Gorgon,—and they were in a wretched state indeed by the time we reached home. We were conducted to the gun room which lay right aft, and it was a great relief to find that the treatment to which Edwards had so long accustomed us was now a thing of the past. We were regarded, not as condemned men, but as prisoners awaiting trial, and what a world of difference this made can be appreciated only by men who have been placed in a similar situation. Neither leg irons nor handcuffs were placed upon us, and we had the freedom of the gun room, which was guarded by marines. We had decent food, hammocks to sleep in, and were granted all privileges comportable with our position as prisoners.

Considering our hardships and the fact that we had been so long in irons, it is remarkable that we were all in good health. None of us had been ill in all that time, and yet many of the Pandora’s company had been continually ailing, and more than a dozen of them had died at Timor and Samarang and Batavia. No doubt Edwards took credit to himself for our condition, but he deserved none. We were well, not because of his treatment, but in spite of it.

We had not been above an hour on board the Hector when I was summoned to the cabin of Captain Montague, who commanded the vessel. He dismissed the guard and bade me, in a most kindly fashion, to be seated. No mention was made of the mutiny. For a quarter of an hour he chatted with me in the courteous, affable manner he might have used toward one of his officers whom he had asked to dine with him. He questioned me at length concerning the wreck of the Pandora, and our subsequent adventures on the voyage to Timor. He was evidently interested in the story, but I was sure that I had not been summoned merely to entertain him with an account of our experiences. At length he opened a drawer in his table and drew forth a small packet which he handed to me.

“I have some letters for you, Mr. Byam. You may have as much time as you like here, alone. When you are ready to return to your quarters you have only to open the door and inform the guard.”

He then left me, and I opened the packet with trembling hands. It contained a letter from Sir Joseph Banks, written only a few days earlier, upon his receipt of the news of the Gorgon’s arrival. He informed me that my mother had died six weeks before, and enclosed a letter to me written the night before her death, forwarded to him by our old servant, Thacker.

I was grateful indeed to Captain Montague for the privilege of half an hour’s privacy in his cabin; but there was no relief, then or later, for the desolation of heart I felt. Scarcely a day had passed, in the years since the Bounty had left England, that I had not thought of my mother and longed for her, and the consciousness of her love had sustained me through all the weary months of our imprisonment. There was never any question of her belief in my innocence, but she was as proud in spirit as she was gentle and kind-hearted, and the slur cast upon our good name by the event of the mutiny—above all, the fact that Bligh considered me among the guiltiest of the mutineers—was a shock beyond her strength to withstand. There was nothing of this in her letter; I had the facts, later, from Thacker, who told me that my mother’s health had begun to fail from the day when she had received the letter from Bligh. I have made all possible allowances for him. He had reason to believe that I was an accomplice of Christian; but a man with a spark of humanity would never have written the letter he sent to my mother. I no more forgive him the cruelty of it now than I did when I first read it.

It was the irony of my fate that, having been blessed with the steadfast love of two women, I should now—at a time when I most needed them—be separated from my mother by death and from my Indian wife by half the circumference of the globe. Upon these two I had centred all my affections. Now that my mother was gone, I clung to the memory of Tehani more tenderly than ever before.

What might now happen seemed a matter of little consequence. I could not imagine life in England without my mother; the thought that I might lose her had never occurred to me. But when I became calmer, I realized that, for her sake at least, it was necessary to clear our name from the stigma attached to it. I must prove my innocence beyond all question.

Sir Joseph Banks came to see me only a few days after I had received his letter. My own father could not have been kinder. He had seen my mother only a few weeks before her death, and he gave me all of the small details of that visit. He remembered everything she had said, and he allowed me to question him to my heart’s content. I felt immeasurably comforted and strengthened. Sir Joseph was one of those men who seem members of a race apart; who find themselves equally at home among all kinds and conditions of people. In appearance he was a typical John Bull, solidly made, with the clear ruddy complexion our English climate gives. He seemed to radiate energy, and no man could be five minutes in his presence without being the better for it. At this time he was President of the Royal Society, and his name was known and honoured, not only in England, but on the Continent as well. I doubt whether there was a busier man in London, and yet, during those anxious weeks before the court-martial, one would have thought that his only concern was to see to it that all of us were given justice and fair play.

He quickly roused me from my despairing mood, and I found myself talking with interest and enthusiasm of my Tahitian dictionary and grammar. I told him that my manuscripts had been saved from the wreck of the Pandora and were in the care of Dr. Hamilton, now on his way home with the rest of the Pandora’s survivors.

“Excellent, Byam! Excellent!” he said. “There is one gain, at least, from the voyage of the Bounty.” He had the faculty of entering with enthusiasm into another man’s work, and of making him feel that there was nothing more important. “I shall see Dr. Hamilton the moment he arrives in England. But enough of this for the present. Now I want your story of the mutiny—the whole of it—every detail.”

“You have heard Captain Bligh’s account, sir? You know how black the case against me appears to be?”

“I do,” he replied, gravely. “Captain Bligh is my good friend, but I know his faults of character as well as his virtues. His belief in your guilt is sincerely held; yet allow me to say that I have never for a moment doubted your innocence.”

“Is Captain Bligh now in England, sir?” I asked.

“No. He has again been sent to Tahiti to fulfill the task of conveying breadfruit plants to the West Indies. This time, I hope, the voyage will be successfully completed.”

This was serious news for me. I felt certain that, if I could confront Bligh, I could convince him of my innocence, force him to acknowledge that he had been mistaken in jumping to the conclusion that the conversation with Christian had concerned the mutiny. With him gone, only his sworn deposition at the Admiralty would confront me, and there was no possibility of its being retracted.

“Put all that aside, Byam,” said Sir Joseph. “There is no help for it, and all your desire to confront Bligh won’t bring him back in time for the court-martial. Now proceed with your story, and remember that I am completely in the dark with respect to the part you played.”

I then gave him, as I had given Dr. Hamilton, a complete account of the mutiny, and of all that had happened since. He allowed me to finish with scarcely an interruption. When I had done so I waited anxiously for him to speak.

“Byam, we may as well face the facts. You are in grave danger. Mr. Nelson, who knew of your intention to go in the launch with Bligh, is dead. Norton, the quartermaster, who could have corroborated your story of Christian’s intention to escape from the Bounty on the night before the mutiny, is dead.”

“I know it, sir. I had the information from Dr. Hamilton.”

“Your chance of acquittal depends almost entirely upon the testimony of one man: your friend Robert Tinkler.”

“But he returned safely to England.”

“Yes, but where is he now? ... He must be found at once. You say that he is a brother-in-law of Fryer, the master of the Bounty?”

“Yes, sir.”

“In that case I should be able to get trace of him. I can learn, at the Admiralty, on what ship Fryer is now serving.”

I had, somehow, taken it for granted that Tinkler would know of the need I should have for him if ever I returned home; but Sir Joseph pointed out to me the fact that Tinkler would be quite ignorant of this.

“It is not at all likely,” he said, “that he will know of Bligh’s depositions at the Admiralty. And it will no more have occurred to him than it did to you that your conversation with Christian could be construed as evidence against you. The chances are that Tinkler will have forgotten that Bligh overheard it. No; take my word for it, he will have no fears on your account. Not a moment must be lost in finding him.”

“How soon will the court-martial take place, sir?” I asked.

“That rests with the Admiralty, of course. But this matter has been hanging fire for so long that they will wish to dispose of it as soon as possible. It will be necessary to wait until the rest of the Pandora’s company arrive, but they should be nearing England by this time.”

Sir Joseph now left me. He was to return to London by that night’s coach.

“You shall hear from me shortly,” he said. “Meanwhile, rest assured that I shall find your friend Tinkler if he is to be found in England.”

Our conversation had taken place in Captain Montague’s cabin. The other prisoners were anxiously awaiting my return to the gun room. Sir Joseph was the first visitor we had had; in fact, we were not permitted to see anyone except persons officially connected with the forthcoming court-martial. Sir Joseph was not, perhaps, so connected, but his interest in the Bounty and his influence at the Admiralty gave him access to us.

I gave the others an account of my conversation with him, omitting only his opinion of the fate in store for Millward, Burkitt, Ellison, and Muspratt. These men were, he thought, doomed past hope, with the possible exception of Muspratt. Byrne was entirely innocent of any part in the mutiny, but the poor fellow had been treated as a condemned man for so long that he had more than half come to believe himself guilty. As for Coleman, Norman, and McIntosh, it was inconceivable to any of us that they would be convicted. Morrison was in a situation only less dangerous than my own, and it grieved me to think that I was responsible for it. Our delay below decks on the morning of the mutiny, in the hope of getting possession of the arms chest, was known only to ourselves, and the chances were that the story would be regarded as a fiction invented afterward to explain our absence at the time the launch put off.

We had talked of the forthcoming court-martial so often during the long passage to England that we had little more to say to each other now that the event loomed so ominously near. At times, as a relief from anxiety, we spoke of our happy life at Tahiti, but for the most part we spent our days silently, each man engaged in his own reflections; or we stood at the gun room ports looking out at the busy life of the harbour. There were times when I was seized with a sense of the unreality of this experience, like that one feels upon waking from some dream in which the events have been more than usually disconnected and fantastic. Hardest of all to realize was the fact that we were indeed at home again, lying at anchor only a few miles from Spithead, whence the Bounty had sailed so long ago.

Meanwhile, owing to the kindness of Sir Joseph, we were provided with decent clothing in which to appear before the court-martial. This small diversion was a most welcome one, and to be properly clothed again had an excellent effect upon our spirits.

Ten days passed before I had further word from Sir Joseph. The letter I then received I still have in my possession, although it is now faded and worn with age. To reread it is to recall vividly the emotion I felt on the morning when it was handed to me by the corporal of the guard at the gun room door.

My dear Byam:—

I can imagine with what anxiety you are awaiting word from me. I regret that I cannot go to Portsmouth at this time, for I should much prefer to give you my news by word of mouth. This being impossible, a letter must serve.

Upon returning to London I went directly to the Admiralty office, where I learned that Fryer is now at his home in London, awaiting summons to testify at the court-martial. I sent for him at once and learned that Tinkler, shortly after his return to England, was offered a berth as master’s mate on the Carib Maid, a West India merchantman. The captain of the vessel was a friend of Fryer’s, and as it was a good berth for the lad, offering opportunity for advancement, he accepted it.

Tinkler returned from his first voyage a year ago, and shortly afterward set out on a second one. Fryer received word, not three months since, that the Carib Maid was lost with all hands in a hurricane near the island of Cuba.

It would be useless to deny the fact that this is a great misfortune for you. Even so, your situation, I believe, is not hopeless. I have had a long conversation with Fryer, who speaks of you in the most friendly terms. He is convinced that you had no hand in the mutiny, and his testimony will be valuable.

Cole, Purcell, and Peckover I have also seen. They are now stationed at Deptford, awaiting summons to the court-martial. They all speak highly of you, and Purcell tells me that you yourself told him of your intention to leave in the launch with Bligh. They all know of Bligh’s conviction that you were an accomplice of Christian, and it speaks well for your character among them that they all believe you innocent.

My good friend, Mr. Graham, who has been Secretary to different admirals on the Newfoundland Station these past twelve years, and who has, consequently, acted as Judge Advocate at courts-martial all of that time, has offered me to attend you. He has a thorough knowledge of the service, uncommon abilities, and is a good lawyer. He already has most of the evidences with him.

Farewell, my dear Byam. Keep up your spirits, and rest assured that I shall be watchful for your good. I shall certainly attend the court-martial, and now that my friend, Graham, has consented to go down, I shall be more at ease than if you were attended by the first counsel in England.

My feeling upon reading this letter may be imagined. Sir Joseph had done what he could to soften the blow to me, but I was under no doubt as to the seriousness of my position. I knew that, without Tinkler’s evidence, my case was all but desperate, no matter how ably it might be presented. Nevertheless, I clung to hope as a man will. I resolved to fight for my life with all the energy I possessed. In one sense, the stimulus of danger was a blessing in disguise, for it kept me from brooding over my mother’s death. I put out of mind every thought not connected with the approaching trial.

Sea officers, as I had been informed by Sir Joseph, have a great aversion to lawyers. I was well content, therefore, to have Mr. Graham, a Navy man himself, as my representative. Morrison resolved to conduct his own case. Coleman, Norman, McIntosh, and Byrne, who had every reason to hope that they would be cleared of the charges against them, secured the services of a retired sea officer, Captain Manly, to represent and advise all four of them; and an officer from the Admiralty, Captain Bentham, was appointed by the Crown to care for the interests of the other men.

We were visited by these gentlemen during the following week, but the first to come was Mr. Graham. He was a tall spare man in his late fifties, of distinguished bearing, and with a quiet voice and manner that inspired confidence. From the moment of seeing him I was sure that my fortunes could not be in better hands. None of us had any knowledge of court-martial proceedings, and at my request Mr. Graham permitted us to question him with respect to these matters.

“I have the morning at your disposal, Mr. Byam,” he said, “and I shall be glad to be of what assistance I can to any of you.”

“I mean to conduct my own case, sir,” Morrison said. “I should like particularly to know the exact wording of the Article under which we are to be tried.”

“I can give you that precisely, from memory,” Mr. Graham replied. “It is Article Nineteen, of the Naval Articles of War, which reads as follows: ‘If any person, in or belonging to the Fleet, shall make, or endeavour to make, any mutinous assembly, upon any pretense whatsoever, every person offending herein, being convicted thereof by the sentence of the Court-Martial, shall suffer death.’ ”

“Has the Court no alternative course?” I asked.

“None. It must acquit, or convict and condemn to death.”

“But supposing, sir, that there are extenuating circumstances,” Morrison added. “Supposing that a mutiny arises in a ship, as it did in ours, where a part of the company have no knowledge of any intention to seize the vessel, and who take no part in the seizure?”

“If they remain in the vessel with the mutinous party, the law considers them equally guilty with the others. Our martial law is very severe in this matter. The man who stands neuter is considered an offender with him who lifts his hand against his captain.”

“But there were some of us, sir,” Coleman added, earnestly, “who would gladly have gone with Captain Bligh when his party was driven from the ship into the launch. We were retained against our will by the mutineers, who had need of our services.”

“Such a situation calls for special consideration by the Court and will doubtless receive it,” Mr. Graham replied. “If the men so retained can prove their innocence of any complicity, they stand in no danger.”

“Sir, may I speak?” asked Ellison.

“Certainly, my lad.”

“I was one of the mutineers, sir. I’d no hand in starting the trouble, but like all the rest of us I had no love for Captain Bligh, and I joined in when I was asked to. Is there any hope for me?”

Mr. Graham regarded him gravely for a moment.

“I prefer not to give an opinion on that,” he said. “Suppose we let the question be decided by the court-martial itself.”

“I’m not afraid of the truth, sir. If you think there’s no chance, I’d be obliged if you’d tell me so.”

But Mr. Graham would not commit himself. “Let me advise all of you not to prejudge your cases,” he said. “I have sat through many a court-martial, and, as in any civil court of law, one is not justified in forming an opinion as to a possible verdict until all the evidence is in. And so you see, young man,” he added, turning to Ellison, “how mistaken I should be in attempting to tell you what I think.”

The days dragged by with painful slowness. Before this time most of the men had received letters from their families. Some of them were many months old, but they were read none the less eagerly for that. With the exception of the letter received from my mother, at Tahiti, no news from families or friends had reached any of us during the more than four years we had been absent from home. Poor Coleman’s family lived in Portsmouth, but he was not permitted to see them. Of all the married members of the Bounty’s company, he was, I suspect, the only man who had remained faithful to his wife during our sojourn at Tahiti. To be prevented from seeing her and his children after all these years was a cruel blow.

July passed, and August, and still we waited.