NO ONE CAN GO THROUGH LIFE without getting a little luck on their side from time to time and I’ll be damned if my little bit of luck didn’t come around when we reached False Bay, an inlet where the Bounty docked after rounding the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa. For weeks I had been hoping that the chance would come for me to get off the ship and make my escape and, finally, without warning, it was upon me and I saw my opportunity.
I had been following our progress daily on the charts in Captain Bligh’s cabin and could tell that we had made good time through the waters that brought us from stormy South America to sunny South Africa and there was great relief and cheer among the men when land finally appeared in our sightlines. We anchored the ship while Mr Christian and Mr Fryer – together – went ashore to see whether this was a friendly environment, and when they returned we were informed that we might stay there for a week to replenish the ship and make repairs for the remainder of our outward journey towards Australia and Otaheite. They also brought with them an invitation from Commander Gordon, who was in charge of the Dutch settlement at False Bay, for Captain Bligh to dine with him. On the chosen evening I laid out his finest uniform for him in his cabin and was busy examining the local terrain on the wall charts when he came in to change.
‘Turnstile, what’s the matter with you, lad?’ he asked me, blustering into the room, full of good cheer. ‘Have you nothing better to do than stand around idly? Look lively, there’s a good fellow. There’s plenty of work to be done on deck if you can’t find something to occupy your time down here.’
‘Yes, sir, sorry, sir,’ said I, wishing to study the map for a little longer as I was examining the area around the Bay for potential escape routes.
‘What were you looking at there anyway?’
‘Where, sir?’ I asked nervously.
‘You were looking at my maps,’ said the captain, coming over now and looking at them suspiciously. ‘Why would you be doing that? Finally taking an interest in the nautical life, are you?’
I felt my face take on the reddenings and a moment, an hour, a lifetime, seemed to pass as I sought an answer before, finally, a memory of how my story had begun came to me and I blurted it out, not caring how ridiculous I sounded.
‘China, sir,’ said I. ‘I was looking for China.’
‘China?’ asked Captain Bligh, frowning and staring at me as if I was lying there in my cups and making no sense at all. ‘Why on earth would you be looking for China on a map of Africa?’
‘It’s only that I wasn’t sure where it was,’ I replied. ‘I happen to have read two books on China, as it goes, and they caused me a great deal of interest.’
‘Did they indeed?’ he asked, more willing to believe me now before turning round and examining the freshly laid-out suit for creases. ‘And what were they about, these books of yours?’
‘The first dealt with an adventure,’ I told him, ‘And a series of tasks, followed by a marriage. The second …’ I hesitated now, remembering that the second was a saucy book, with pictures of an immoral nature contained within. ‘The second was much the same,’ I said then. ‘Another adventure. Of a sort.’
‘I see,’ said he. ‘And where did you get these books, might I ask? I don’t recall there being much in the way of leisure reading on board the Bounty.’
‘Mr Lewis gave them to me,’ I explained. ‘Him as looked after me when I was a lad.’
‘Mr Lewis?’ he asked. ‘I don’t recall you mentioning his name before.’
‘I haven’t,’ I said. ‘You’ve never asked me where I came from before I ended up here.’
He turned round slowly then and stared at me, narrowing his eyes, wondering whether I was cheeking him, I dare say, although I wasn’t. It was merely a statement of fact. A silence hung in the air between us for a few moments, but finally he just sighed and turned back to his vestments.
‘You may leave now while I change,’ he said. ‘I have what has the makings of a very pleasant evening ahead of me and I’ll be damned if I haven’t earned it.’
As things turned out it must have been an even more pleasant evening than he had imagined, for the next I saw of him was at the crack of dawn the following morning when, with the tip of his boot, he knocked me out of my bunk to the floor, returning me to consciousness without so much as a by-your-leave, a fate I was growing more and more accustomed to.
‘Come along, lad,’ he roared cheerfully. How he managed to keep his wits about him and retain an air of jollity at such an ungodly hour is anyone’s guess. ‘The two of us are going ashore this morning.’
‘Ashore?’ said I, opening my eyes wide now, for here was my chance to get off the blasted ship at last. ‘Both of us?’
‘Aye, both of us,’ he snapped, suddenly irritated (he really was a one for a change of mood). ‘I’m always having to repeat myself around you, Turnstile – why is that? Sir Robert is taking me to the hills to show me some of the excellent flora that graces the land here and is allowing me to take some cuttings back to Sir Joseph in London.’
I nodded and pulled myself together. He was already walking past me and marching down the corridor, so I suspected I was not to be given the benefit of breakfast; instead it was all I could do to keep pace with him in his excitement. (From that day to this, I’m not sure I’ve ever known a man who could survive on such little sleep as the captain and still manage to keep his wits about him.) On deck, he gave some instructions to Mr Christian, who looked at me a little uncertainly.
‘Perhaps I should come with you, Captain,’ he said, the smarm. ‘Mr Fryer or Mr Elphinstone can take charge of the boat. Why take Turnip with you anyway? He’s just a servant-lad.’
‘And a very fine servant-lad he is too,’ replied the captain, slapping me on the back as if I was his own son. ‘Master Turnstile will be responsible for gathering the cuttings in a basket for me. But I need you here, Fletcher. Keeping the men busy with the repairs. I don’t want us having to stay in Africa any longer than necessary even though it is, as you can see, a very pleasant diversion for a couple of days. We’ve lost enough time as it is.’
‘Very good, sir,’ said Mr Christian with a sigh.
I didn’t dare offer him the smug look that I was harbouring inside lest it came back to haunt me at a later date. I knew that he would have preferred to stay a little longer, as the gossip had already spread around the ship about a dalliance he was enjoying with a local molly. I had the mark of him already, that was for sure.
A carriage awaited us at the end of the gangway and a few minutes later the captain and I were on our way through the dusty streets, leaving the shadow of the boat behind us.
‘You mentioned Sir Joseph earlier, Captain,’ said I after a few minutes, turning from looking out at the unfamiliar surroundings and back towards him in curiosity.
‘I did indeed.’
‘You’ve mentioned him many times on our voyage, in fact. Might I ask who he is?’
He stared at me and smiled. ‘My dear boy, haven’t you ever heard the name of Sir Joseph Banks?’
I shook my head. ‘No, sir,’ I replied. ‘I haven’t. Except from your own lips, of course.’
The captain looked startled by my innocence. ‘Why, I thought every lad of your age knew the name of Sir Joseph and idolized him for it. He’s a great man. A very great man indeed. Without him, none of us would be here.’
For a moment, I thought he was comparing him to the Saviour himself, but this was just a fancy; I said nothing, just continued to look at him and await an answer.
‘Sir Joseph is the finest botanist in England,’ he said finally. ‘Ha! Said I England? I should say the world. A brilliant collector of rare and exotic plants. A man of great taste and sensibility. He sits on numerous boards and committees and advises Mr Pitt on many matters of social and ecological interest, as he did for Portland, Shelburne and Rockingham before him. He owns a great many conservatories and is the recipient of so much correspondence from keen botanists around the world that they say he keeps a dozen secretaries on hand to answer them all. And above all that, it was his idea for us to undertake our mission.’
I nodded, unembarrassed by my ignorance. ‘I see,’ I said, leaning forward. ‘A famous chap, then, I imagine. And, Captain, may I ask one further question?’
‘You may.’
‘This mission of ours … what is it exactly?’
The captain stared at me before letting a roar of laughter escape his lips and shaking his head. ‘My dear boy, how long have we been on the Bounty together now? Five months, is it? And every day you have stood around my cabin, or in it, and listened to the conversation of the officers and the men and you mean to tell me that you don’t know what our mission is? Can you be quite so ignorant or are you performing a turn for me?’
‘I apologize, sir,’ said I, sitting back, my face scarlet with embarrassment. ‘I didn’t mean to make you ashamed of me.’
‘No, it is I who should apologize,’ he replied quickly. ‘Truly, Turnstile, I was not mocking you. I merely meant that this is a matter that must have crossed your mind on any number of occasions since we set sail and yet you have never raised it until now.’
‘I didn’t like to ask, sir,’ I said.
‘If you don’t ask, you shall never discover. Our mission, my dear young boy, is one of the utmost importance. You are aware no doubt of England’s slave colonies on the West Indies?’
I knew nothing of these so did the only thing that seemed sensible in the circumstances. I nodded my head and said that I was.
‘Well,’ continued he, ‘the slaves there … regardless of their savage nature, they are still men and they want feeding. But as to the cost to the Crown of keeping them, well, I don’t have the exact figures but they are considerable. Now some years ago, when Captain Cook and I were on board the Resolution, we brought home to England various samples of plant and food life which we discovered on the islands of the South Pacific and among them was a particular item known as the breadfruit. It’s an extra-ordinary thing. Shaped rather like … like a coconut, if you can believe it, but growing in the soil. An excellent source of nourishment and protein, and cheap to produce too. We go to collect as many thousand of these breadfruit as we can procure and transport them on our way home to the West Indies, where they will be replanted and more grown, thus saving the Crown considerable expense.’
‘And keeping the men in chains,’ said I.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘Our mission is to make it cheaper to keep men enslaved.’
He stared at me and hesitated before answering. ‘You say that … Turnstile, I don’t follow you. Do you feel that we shouldn’t feed the men?’
‘No, sir,’ I said, shaking my head. He was not the type to follow my line of thinking; he was too well educated and of too high a social class to have respect for the rights of man. ‘I’m glad I finally know, that’s all. Our great cabin will be filled with these bread-fruit soon enough, then, I expect.’
‘As soon as we can get there and collect them, yes. It’s an adventure of great merit that we are engaged in, Turnstile,’ he told me then, wagging his finger at me as if I was a babe in arms. ‘Some day, when you are an old man, you will look back and tell your grandchildren of it. Perhaps their own slaves will be fed on breadfruit then too, and you will feel enormous pride at our achievements.’
I nodded but wasn’t sure that I would. We travelled on in silence then for some time and I looked out of the window of the carriage, pleased to be able to lay my eyes on something other than the vast blue water of the ocean for a change. All the same, I felt disappointed that the terrain was mostly green and mountainous and seemed to offer little in the way of roads or villages to which I might escape.
We came to a stop in the centre of a small village and the presence of our carriage, along with another of equal splendour, seemed out of place there, but as we pulled in, a man emerged from a saloon and strolled towards us with his arms outstretched, smiling pleasantly.
‘William,’ he cried in a hearty voice. ‘So pleased you could make it.’
‘Sir Robert,’ replied the captain, stepping down and shaking his hand. ‘I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. I brought my lad with me to carry the cuttings. I hope that’s all right.’
Sir Robert’s face grimaced for a moment as he sized me up and down and finally he shook his head, as if he disapproved of me entirely. ‘If you don’t mind, William,’ he said, leaning forward, ‘my own man will accompany us for that. There are state matters of an urgent nature I wish to discuss with you and it would be inappropriate for me to do so in front of strangers. I dare say he is trustworthy, but—’
‘Of course, of course,’ said Captain Bligh quickly, taking the baskets off me and placing them back in the carriage; another fellow, older than I and far more serious-looking, emerged with baskets from the saloon and stood near by. ‘Turnstile, you may go back to the boat.’
I looked around, disappointed, for I had been looking forward to a long walk and an opportunity to see the land and plan my route. It must have been obvious, for Sir Robert caught the expression on my face and clapped me on the back.
‘The poor boy’s been on that boat for so many months,’ he said. ‘Perhaps, William, you wouldn’t object to him waiting for you in the saloon here where he can be given lunch and you can return together later?’
The captain thought about it for only a moment and then, to my delight, nodded his head. ‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘A fair response. But let us begin, Sir Robert. I am anxious to see as much of your plant life as I can. As you know, Sir Joseph expects …’
His voice grew more distant as the two men strolled away from me and I turned to look at several of Sir Robert’s servants, who nodded in my direction and motioned me indoors and out of the sun.
‘No need to look so despondent,’ one of them said as I walked. ‘Believe you me, you’re better off sitting here for the day than walking up and down mountainsides all afternoon.’
‘You might not say that had you been stuck on board a ship for the last five months,’ I countered, but the quick appearance of food changed my mind, as my plate contained meat and potatoes and vegetables, freshly cooked, a feast I had not expected or seen since before Christmas.
I ate quickly and hungrily as various members of Sir Robert’s entourage talked to me, trying to learn as much about our ship as they could. The Dutch settlement had existed at False Bay for many decades and, as it turned out, most of the people working on it were as anxious to return to Holland as I was to escape the Bounty. But would they leave me alone? They would not. Finally I got them engaged on the subject of geography and learned that the nearest city was Cape Town, and resolved that I would make my way there. It was only late in the evening, when alcohol was served, that I finally managed to make my way out of the saloon and find myself alone.
The sun had gone down and in truth I was surprised that the captain and Sir Robert had not returned yet, but it made it more difficult for me to find my way to the path. There were no signs anywhere and I knew nothing of Cape Town other than its general direction, north-west, and resolved that I would find somewhere to hide over night and then judge the compass by the rising of the sun the following morning. I had not gone ten minutes down the road when I started to hear sounds.
On board ship, all is either quiet or noise. Either we are in calm waters, when the men are silent and stare ahead and keep the ship at peace, or in noisy waters, when they shout and create a great clamour. At Mr Lewis’s establishment, there was never anything but noise – from my brothers, from the streets below, from the gentlemen in their cups. But here, in this strange place with nothing but mountains and hills around me, I fancied that I could hear animal life ready to attack me and claim me as a worthy dinner. And then footsteps. And voices. I knew there were often criminals hiding out in places like this, but I convinced myself that these sounds were no more than my imagination playing tricks, until they grew louder and louder and I realized that from the direction in which I was walking there were men walking towards me. I hesitated, looked to my left and right in the darkness, and was about to break into a run in the opposite direction, when a hand landed heavily on my shoulder and I jumped and shouted out in fright.
‘Turnstile,’ roared the voice. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’
My eyes grew accustomed to the darkness and my ears recognized the familiar voice.
‘Captain,’ said I. ‘I got lost.’
‘Lost?’ asked Sir Robert. ‘You’re a good fifteen minutes away from the saloon. What has brought you out here at this time of night?’
I could tell that the captain was staring at me in surprise and I thought on my feet. ‘I came outside to relieve myself, sir,’ said I. ‘And I went a little too far away from the saloon to do so. When I was finished I couldn’t find my way back. I ended up here.’
‘A good job we found you, then,’ said Sir Robert, laughing. ‘You might have wandered all night. You might have ended up in Cape Town, you’re headed exactly in that direction.’
‘Aren’t there conveniences at the saloon?’ asked the captain suspiciously.
‘Oh, yes, sir,’ said I. ‘Only, I didn’t think to use them on account of my being naught but a servant. I thought they were reserved for the quality.’
He nodded then and indicated that I should follow them, and so I did, angry with myself for getting caught, my first chance of escape destroyed. Sir Robert’s man was laden down with baskets of cuttings, roots and smaller plants and when we arrived back at the carriage they were placed carefully on the floor between us.
‘I hope I’ve not overdone it,’ muttered Captain Bligh as we took the carriage back. ‘But I swear that I could have taken a tenfold amount, there was so much of interest. I must give these to Mr Nelson when we’re aboard and see that he keeps them well. Sir Joseph will be delighted.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said I, watching ahead for the ship. The water appeared suddenly, as if out of nowhere, and upon it I saw our tall sails blowing back and forth in the breeze.
‘Turnstile,’ said the captain as we drew closer to it. ‘Earlier, when we found you, you were lost, weren’t you?’
‘Of course I was,’ said I, unable to look him in the eye. ‘I said as much, didn’t I? I couldn’t find my way back.’
‘Only, there are serious penalties in His Majesty’s navy for deserters. Just so you remember that.’
I said nothing, just looked outside at the Bounty, the place I had lived for the past five months and which, to my surprise, I was not unhappy to see again. It was a home, of sorts.