that satisfaction, like he had robbed him of everything else.
‘Murder!’
Bligh seemed conscious for the first time of the enormity of what was happening. He screamed the word, suddenly, jerking back further in his bed, so that the cutlass point was temporarily away from his throat. Everyone jumped and was immediately embarrassed by their reaction.
‘Murder! To arms!’
Christian pinned him again, driving his head up, the doubts he’d had washed away by the momentum of the events.
‘Aye, sir,’ he said. ‘There may well be murder. And I’d be justified in doing it, well justified.’
Bligh stared back, balefully. He still wasn’t frightened, Christian knew. Damn the man: damn him in hell. He pushed back against those crowding into him.
‘Give me room, I say,’ he demanded. ‘Don’t crowd upon me so.’
Bligh appeared to be listening, expecting to hear the sound of his rescuers.
‘There’s no man on this vessel who will help you,’ predicted Christian.
‘You,’ said Bligh, softly. ‘You, Mr Christian. Of all people.’
‘Tie him up,’ demanded Churchill, from behind. ‘He’s a shifty bugger. Let’s not leave him loose.’
The captain’s screams had echoed throughout the ship and there was noise everywhere now. Churchill moved away, making more room in the tiny quarters.
‘Hand down some rope,’ he yelled up the companion-way, unable to see who was above. ‘Something to secure the captain.’
There was the sound of shuffling, but no reply.
‘A line,’ shouted Churchill. ‘Give me a line.’
It was Mills, one of the first to follow Christian, who responded. He went to the mizzen and cut off a section of the cord matching that which Christian still wore around his neck, weighted by the suicide lead. He threw it down and Churchill bustled past Christian, grabbing at Bligh’s hands. Christian moved back, glad to be away from the unremitting stare. Churchill pulled the tiny, fat-bellied man out of his cot, then turned him, to face down over it. The balding master-at-arms screwed the cord tight into the captain’s wrists, as determined as Christian for him to cry out in pain. Bligh winced, but said nothing. The end of his nightshirt was caught up as he was tied, so that his thighs and buttocks were exposed to the grinning men. It would have taken the smallest tug to cover the man, but no one moved, enjoying his humiliation.
In the cabin opposite, the startled Fryer was staring at the wavering pistol held by Sumner. It had been a frightening awakening, the sound of Bligh’s screams coming at the very moment his door opened, splitting back upon its hinges. He crouched up, still unsure, trying to see into Bligh’s quarters. Men were milling about in the captain’s cabin, colliding and getting in each other’s way. There was no order among them, he saw.
Quintal stood between him and the cupboard in which the pistols were kept, Fryer realised, coming back to his own surroundings. He’d be blown apart before he could get his legs off the sea-chest. It was the time for talking, not fighting. Perhaps that would come later. There was much to learn first.
‘What’s afoot?’ he demanded.
‘Mr Christian has seized the ship,’ reported Quintal, eagerly. ‘The captain has been overthrown.’
‘What’s to become of him?’
‘Cast adrift,’ said Sumner. ‘With the pig’s rations he’s expected us to eat.’
‘In what?’ asked Fryer, thinking clearly now. He wasn’t frightened, he realised, in sudden self-admiration. Fryer was a sharp-featured, querulous man whose annoyance throughout the voyage at Bligh’s over-bearing, nagging attitude to his officers and men had finally led to his refusal to sit at the captain’s meal-table. But the man’s overthrow was wrong. Without Bligh in command, he thought, it would be difficult to get the Bounty to a place of safety. Certainly Fletcher Christian would have difficulty in doing it: Fryer didn’t share Bligh’s confidence in the younger man’s seamanship.
‘The cutter, sir,’ said Sumner.
‘Then he’ll die,’ said Fryer, immediately. ‘The bottom has rotted out and well you know it. You might as easy throw him overboard to the sharks and be done with it.’
‘It’s a matter for Mr Christian,’ avoided Quintal, hurriedly. He kept looking over his shoulder, more interested in what was happening in Bligh’s cabin.
‘You’ll hang, you know,’ warned Fryer. They weren’t completely committed, he guessed. If he worked cleverly, he could sabotage the uprising. He decided to experiment.
‘Go to the captain’s cabin, if you so desire,’ he allowed.
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Quintal, instinctively, moving back. He snapped around at Fryer, knowing he’d been tricked.
‘Take care, Mr Fryer,’ he warned, uneasily.
Quintal was definitely unsure, decided the master. If Quintal were,