were you summoned before it?’
‘It happened about halfway through the voyage,’ remembered Purcell. ‘We’d reached an island … we called it Sunday Island, after the day. We’d touched land before and managed to collect some shellfish and berries. Captain Bligh told us to forage again, the understanding being that each man provided for himself. I did rather well, collecting a lot of oysters and clams. But when I got back to the launch the captain, who had little, demanded I hand them over. He said the food was to be communal and everyone should benefit. I said that wasn’t the agreement. He said it had been his order and we began to argue. I called him a confounded liar, as he’d proven himself to be in the past …’
‘You called your commander a liar?’ interrupted the President, incredulously. Even allowing for the circumstances, for discipline to have collapsed to that depth was amazing, he thought.
‘He was, sir,’ defended Purcell, sensing the attitude of the court. ‘Even castaways like we were, he was cheating us on our victuals, like he had aboard the Bounty.’
‘Go on,’ coaxed Bunyan.
‘He started up at this … said he was going to settle the dispute between us and with it all the disputes that existed in the boat. He grabbed a cutlass and slashed it over my head … I could hear the blade whistling, it was so close … he said I should take up another sword and we should fight, to see who was the better man …’
‘This happened in the launch?’
‘No, sir,’ clarified Purcell. ‘We were on the beach. Almost everyone was watching. I refused. I said that no matter how badly I thought of him, I would not fight … that he was still the captain …’
‘And there the matter ended?’ encouraged Bunyan.
‘No, sir. He kept cutting at me with the cutlass, so that I had to keep moving backwards. If it hadn’t been for Mr Fryer, I think I would have been cut down.’
‘What did Mr Fryer do?’
‘He returned from his foraging at about this time … he interposed himself between me and the captain and told the captain it was not the way to settle any disagreement between us … it took a long time, but gradually Captain Bligh calmed down …’
Bunyan detected movement beside him and smiled, recognising his neighbour’s agitation.
‘Where did you get the cutlasses from … those that were in the launch?’ he asked, helpfully.
‘Mr Morrison threw them to us, just before we were set adrift,’ said Purcell, looking to the man on Bunyan’s right.
‘You saw him take no part in the uprising?’
‘I saw him cleaning out the launch, prior to its being unshipped. But I assumed he was doing that under the instructions from the mutineers.’
‘What about Mr Heywood?’
‘I can’t remember seeing him at all.’
Another excellent day, reflected Bunyan. From the evidence they had so far heard, Heywood would have to be acquitted. He nodded his thanks to the court and sat down. Morrison’s cross-examination, already largely covered by Bunyan’s questioning, was again very brief, and then Hood gestured along the table, inviting questions from the officers around him.
Sir Andrew Snape Hammond responded, predictably, huddled in his chair.
‘Did you regard Captain Bligh as a good commander?’ he demanded, directly.
Purcell hesitated, more concerned at the interrogation from naval officers than he was at that from a civilian lawyer.
‘The ship was run efficiently,’ he offered.
‘Were the chance to present itself, would you sail again on a ship under Captain Bligh’s command?’ pressed the officer.
‘No, sir.’
‘Why not?’
‘He frightened me,’ blurted Purcell.
The reply surprised everyone.
‘Frightened you?’ picked up Hood. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He was a man with whom it was impossible to feel anything but unease,’ replied Purcell, desperately. His earlier reply had been instinctive and the truth. Bligh had frightened him. But he knew it would be impossible for unsympathetic officers, in the calm and safety of a ship at anchor off Portsmouth, to understand what he meant. They sat waiting, staring at him, demanding more.
‘… with most captains, you learn what sort of men they are,’ groped Purcell. ‘You come to recognise their ways, anticipate how they will react to certain situations. It’s important, even. It’s the sort of understanding that makes for the running of a good ship. But with Captain Bligh that was never possible. From the time the Bounty sailed from here, in December 1787, I was daily in the company of Captain Bligh for almost two years … in the open boat voyage, I