Hell's Fire - By Brian Freemantle Page 0,44

the country. And that, coupled with the financial resources of the Heywood family, there had been unlimited money available to prepare for the examination.

‘Perhaps there was more of it on this voyage than others upon which I’ve sailed,’ conceded Fryer.

Bunyan was nodding, as if the answers were conforming to those he expected.

‘Why would that be, do you suppose, Mr Fryer?’

The master shifted uncomfortably. There appeared no way, he thought resentfully, that he could avoid harming his career prospects.

‘There was an abundance of birds and sharks,’ he tried. ‘And the men had time in which to hunt them.’

‘What did they do with them?’ demanded Bunyan, suddenly harsh.

‘What?’ floundered Fryer.

‘The birds and fish the men killed. What did they do with them?’

‘Ate them,’ confessed Fryer, simply.

Bunyan was smiling happily, he saw.

‘To a question from Sir Andrew Snape Hammond,’ reminded Bunyan, ‘not one hour ago, you agreed that Captain Bligh’s victualling was satisfactory. Now you tell the court that the crew’s pursuit of additional food was such it prevented you getting a good night’s sleep.’

‘A seaman can always find room for more food,’ attempted Fryer, hopefully. No one smiled, as he had thought they might.

Bunyan spread his hands towards the court, as if the master’s answer had confirmed a point he wanted to make.

‘You told my Lord Hood that until the men entered your cabin at gunpoint, you had no hint of mutiny?’ embarked Bunyan, at a new tangent.

‘That’s right, sir.’

‘Not a whisper?’

‘I knew it was a discontented ship, no more.’

‘Hadn’t there been any discussion upon it?’

‘Sir?’

‘Isn’t it the practice for the senior officers, the captain and the master and the senior people, to eat together? And during these meals, aren’t the problems of the vessel discussed?’

Fryer nodded, reluctantly. ‘It is usually the practice to mess together,’ he conceded.

‘Usually?’ picked up Bunyan.

‘I did not eat with Captain Bligh,’ blurted Fryer, in sudden admission.

Bunyan was definitely a Christian man, determined the President, head shifting back and forth at the exchange between the two men. It had been an excellent idea to conduct the enquiry this way.

‘Why, sir?’ encouraged Bunyan, softly.

Fryer did not reply immediately. He stood, head bowed, trying to arrange the words in his mind so that the answer would not bring a fresh onslaught.

‘The captain and I disagreed,’ he said at last, inadequately.

‘About what?’ demanded Bunyan.

About what? mused Fryer. One didn’t disagree about one particular thing with Captain Bligh. You disagreed with everything: his arrogance and his conceit and his parsimony and his greed and his bullying. Particularly his unremitting bullying.

‘There had been numerous disagreements between us,’ said Fryer. ‘As I tried to explain earlier, it was often difficult to understand the captain. He would issue instructions one day and when one attempted to obey them in slightly different but still applicable circumstances the following day, it would be judged wrong.’

‘Are you saying he was unstable?’ jabbed Bunyan, hopefully.

‘I am saying he was unpredictable,’ refused Fryer.

Hood waited, expecting the cross-examination to continue about Bligh’s stability, but abruptly Bunyan switched direction again.

‘So Captain Bligh ate all alone?’ he suggested.

‘No,’ contradicted the master.

‘Ah,’ said Bunyan, apparently correcting himself. ‘Of course, I had overlooked the ship’s surgeon.’

‘Before his death, Mr Huggan, like me, had refused to sup with the captain,’ said Fryer, miserably.

‘Mr Huggan, too,’ pursued Bunyan. ‘Now why would that be?’

‘Mr Huggan drank a great deal,’ explained Fryer. ‘The captain objected.’

‘Is that all?’ demanded Bunyan.

There seemed few secrets about the ship that the man didn’t already know, decided Fryer, staring at Bunyan.

‘Mr Huggan objected to the captain’s conviction that he knew better on matters concerning the health of the crew,’ said Fryer.

‘So who was the rare man able to share the captain’s table without the apparent distaste of every other officer?’ pressed Bunyan.

‘Mr Christian,’ replied Fryer, softly.

The admission stirred through the court and several officers appeared to note it on pads before them.

‘Mr Christian!’ echoed Bunyan. ‘Mr Christian, whom we are told led the mutiny, was the only man able to tolerate Captain Bligh?’

Fryer’s head was almost sunken upon his chest now and sometimes it was difficult to hear the man’s replies to Bunyan’s persistence.

‘The two men had been friends for a long time,’ said Fryer.

‘How do you know?’

‘It was very clear on the early stages of the voyage, when we sailed from Portsmouth for our first stop at Tenerife.’

‘Do you know Captain Bligh’s opinion of Mr Christian?’

Fryer nodded. ‘There were indications enough,’ he said.

‘What were they?’

‘He thought Mr Christian a fine seaman’, said Fryer. ‘He promoted him second-in-command after Tenerife and showed him