Hell's Fire - By Brian Freemantle Page 0,42

enquiry, the admiral had insisted.

Fryer shifted, uncomfortably. It was going to be an inquisition, he thought.

‘Well, was it?’ pressed Hood, curious at the master’s hesitation.

‘I have known happier vessels,’ tried Fryer.

‘Sir,’ warned Lord Hood, softly. ‘We are enquiring here into one of the worst cases of mutiny so far to be examined by a naval court … a case in which, if the evidence we have so far heard is true, a captain and seventeen of his men were cast adrift to what should have been their certain death …’

He paused, staring at Fryer until the man met his gaze.

‘I will not accept, Mr Fryer, the sort of answer you have just given. I will repeat the question. Was the Bounty a happy ship?’

‘No, sir,’ said Fryer, shortly.

‘Why not?’ demanded Snape Hammond. He was a crumpled, mottled-faced man who sat slumped in his chair in an attitude of inattention which was invariably misconstrued as boredom.

‘There were several reasons,’ said Fryer.

Then let’s have them,’ said Lord Hood, briskly. The man’s reluctance to answer was annoying the President. There was more to the mutiny than they had so far learned from the evidence, he decided.

‘… it had been a long voyage,’ suggested Fryer. ‘We had had a bad time trying to get around the Horn, fighting gales for most of a month before turning back …’

‘Conditions encountered by His Majesty’s vessels every week of the year,’ rejected Snape Hammond, positively. ‘And such conditions were long past, anyway …’

Fryer swallowed. Lord Hood ruled his life by discipline, the Bounty’s master knew. To indicate criticism of Bligh’s treatment of the crew would meet with no sympathy.

‘There were times,’ groped Fryer, uncertainly, ‘when the men complained about their food. When they felt they were being badly treated …’

Was the man a fool? wondered Hood. There wasn’t a ship in the King’s navy upon which men weren’t disgruntled with their victuals.

‘This enquiry would be greatly speeded, Mr Fryer, if you were able to respond directly to what we ask,’ threatened the President, tightly. ‘Why, sir, was the Bounty an unhappy ship?’

‘It was often difficult,’ responded Fryer, ‘to adjust to the ways of the captain.’

It was a bad reply and when he saw their reaction, the nervousness lumped in his stomach. The court martial officers sat unmoving, every eye upon him. Each man was a captain, a demander of unquestioned obedience from the rabble, often snatched from the streets of Portsmouth or Greenwich or Liverpool and pressed into service under the King’s Regulations. To imply that a captain’s conduct was wrong, as he just had, would need a lot of justification.

‘We want to know more of that, sir,’ said Captain Sir Roger Curtis, from the centre of the officers’ bench.

‘Captain Bligh had strong ideas about the diet of the men,’ Fryer tried to recover. ‘He insisted they eat and drink certain things.’

Hood sighed, irritably. The man was trying to twist away, he decided.

‘To what purpose?’ he demanded.

‘To keep away the scurvy.’

‘And did it?’ asked Snape Hammond.

Fryer nodded. ‘There was some illness, just before we arrived in Tahiti. The ship’s surgeon said it was scurvy, but Captain Bligh disagreed.

Hood frowned. ‘Had Captain Bligh any medical qualifications?’

‘Not that I know of, sir.’

‘One outbreak of something that might have been scurvy, on an outward voyage of ten months,’ elaborated Snape Hammond. ‘That would indicate the captain’s victualling was right and proper?’

‘Aye, sir,’ agreed Fryer, hopefully.

Among the prisoners, Morrison was scribbling hurried reminders for his cross-examination.

‘Why, then, the discontent?’ pressed Hood.

‘The men didn’t like it, sir.’

‘Seamen don’t like many things, Mr Fryer. That’s not sufficient to make an unhappy ship,’ insisted the President.

‘No, sir,’ accepted Fryer, dutifully.

‘Then perhaps you’d explain properly what you meant by saying it was difficult to adjust to the captain’s way,’ said Snape Hammond.

He had no choice, decided Fryer. But it would hurt him, he knew. There were twelve officers on the court martial panel, with influence throughout every fleet. He would be condemned within weeks as the man who had described the Bounty’s commander as a poor captain. That Bligh deserved that criticism, instead of the hero-worship he’d received, was immaterial. Fryer’s only concern was that his own career would not be harmed by what was said at the enquiry.

‘Captain Bligh,’ he began slowly, still seeking a safe course, ‘was a very violent man … of unpredictable temper …’

They didn’t understand, thought Fryer, seeing the expression of doubt and suspicion settling on their faces. It was difficult for anyone to understand what Bligh had really been