HERE’S HOW WE DID THINGS. Every afternoon, around four bells, the captain went to his tent for his afternoon nap. He was always an early riser, was Captain Bligh, and if he didn’t get to sleep for a few hours before his evening meal he could be a real tartar. Before he drifted off, I made sure to leave a bowl of fresh water by his bedside so that he could splash himself back to life when he woke up if I hadn’t yet returned. And then I left.
I ran southwards from the camp into an overgrown area of trees and bushes, the type of flora I had never encountered in my life before, but I saw little of it as I hurried along, eager for my destination. I was not there for a sightseeing exercise, nor was I interested in pretty garlands; I had a finer prize awaiting me. I continued running and took a left here, a right there, a leap over some rocks that would appear before me by surprise, a circle round a mound of trees that gathered together in a circle as if protecting some creature in its home within. And then I came out into a clearing where the island fauna scurried around with a sense of great importance; I paid them as little heed as they did me.
By now I would be able to hear the gentle lapping of the water in the streams and the fall of the water slipping into the lake below and I would know that I was close, and when that happened I’d get the motions, knowing what lay ahead for me. There were more trees then, and a sudden burst of sunlight, and before very many more minutes had passed I was greeted with the sight I had been longing since our last parting: Kaikala.
She was the same age as me, I think, maybe a year older. Perhaps two at a stretch. Probably three, if I’m to be entirely honest. And when she smiled at me she made me feel that no one in my life had ever thought as highly of me as she did, or considered me quite such a dashing chap, an assessment that was probably a fair one. She couldn’t get her mouth around the name John, and had no ability whatsoever for Turnstile. Fortunately, having never seen a turnip in her life, she had no intention of calling me by that blasted name either and I believe it would have brought tears from my eyes had some miscreant told her of it and she had found it amusing. And so she settled on my middle name, Jacob, which she pronounced to sound like Yay-Ko, and in this way the two of us, Kaikala and Yay-Ko, formed our alliance.
It was common knowledge that every man on the island had sought companionship with the womenfolk – every man with the exception of Captain Bligh, that is, whose heart belonged to Betsey back home in London. These were not affairs of the heart, for the most part, but some of the younger fellows, such as myself, less accustomed to the affections and intimacies of women than our elder colleagues, perhaps mistook these signs of warmth for something more than they truly were. Kaikala had made it clear from the day that we had first met that I belonged to her and that I was to be her willing slave, ready to go where she wanted, when she wanted, and to do whatever she bade me. This was a role I accepted with willingness and delight. The more she asked of me, the happier I was to fulfil her desires; I was no longer Mr Bligh’s servant-lad, I was hers. As we lay by the lake together, touching each other gently, my fingers able to explore her titties now as freely as I might have shaken the captain’s hand, she asked me about my life back home in England.
‘My home is in London,’ I told her, playing the toff even though I had never been north of Portsmouth in my life. ‘I have a charming house just off Piccadilly Circus. The floors are marble and the banisters are made of gold, although the sheen has come off them a little so I left instructions with my servants to have them buffed and shined for my eventual return. I summer at the country house, however, in Dorset. London is a frightful bore in the summer, don’t you think?’
‘You are a rich man?’ she asked me, eyes opening wide.
‘Well, the thing you have to remember is that it’s vulgar to say that you are,’ I explained, stroking my chin sagely. ‘So let us just say that I am comfortable. Very, very comfortable.’
‘I wish to be comfortable,’ she said. ‘You have many friends in England?’
‘Oh, but of course,’ said I. ‘We are heady members of society, my family and I. Why, only last year my sister Elizabeth had her coming-out ball and within ten days she had received four proposals of marriage and a rabbit of unusual colour from an admirer. A maiden aunt has taken her for a companion in the meantime as she completes a walking tour of Europe, where I dare say she will engage herself in any number of romantic misunderstandings and alliances, and she can recite her numbers in French, German and Spanish.’
She smiled and looked away and I could see that she liked the idea of this. She had an air about her of someone who knew nothing of the world outside her own, but who was aware nonetheless that there was one out there, a better one, and she wanted some of it.
‘But why then is Yay-Ko here on this ship?’ she asked me. ‘Do you not want to stay in England and count your money?’
‘It’s my old papa,’ I told her with a terrible sigh. ‘He made his money in shipping, you see, and before handing the business over to me he insisted that I learn something about the sea. Terribly old-fashioned, but what can you do? One must humour the old pater. And so he arranged for me to have this posting. He’s a game old thing, but he might not have long left in him and he wanted to be sure that he was handing over to someone who knew the ropes. I am Captain Bligh’s closest adviser, though,’ I assured her. ‘The Bounty would practically sink if I wasn’t on board.’
‘The captain, he scares me,’ she said with a shudder. ‘I see him look at me and I think he wants to kill me.’
‘His bark is worse than his bite,’ I reassured her. ‘I will tell him what a wonderful girl you are and then he will treat you differently. He listens to me more than anyone else.’
‘And those two at the gardens,’ she added, shaking her head and curling her lip. ‘I do not like them at all.’
‘That’s Mr Christian and Mr Heywood,’ said I. ‘One’s a popinjay and the other’s a scut, but you don’t need to worry about them. I’m above them and they must do as they are bid. If they attempt anything unpleasant with you, then you must tell me at once.’ This is what I lived in fear of the most, hearing that Mr Christian had pursued an advantage with Kaikala. Or – worse still – that Mr Heywood had.
‘They are bad men,’ she hissed under her breath. ‘The men from your ship are kind, mostly, but not them. They treat us badly. They treat all the girls badly. We are afraid of them.’
There was something in her tone that made me want to know more and yet at the same time made me not want to listen. I had never got along with the scut or the dandy but, still, they were Englishmen and I didn’t like to hear that they were behaving in an upsetting fashion towards the natives.
‘And the king,’ she asked afterwards. ‘King George. You are acquainted with him?’
‘Acquainted?’ said I with a laugh and sitting up on my elbows. ‘Acquainted, you ask? Why, me oh my, I have been good friends with His Majesty since I was a bairn. Many’s the time he’s had me up to the palace and we sit around and play cheroot together or maybe a hand of Ruff and Trump and stay up late into the night, talking affairs of state while drinking the finest wine.’
Kaikala looked thrilled by this idea. ‘And ladies?’ she asked. ‘There are ladies at his court?’
‘Many ladies,’ said I. ‘The most beautiful ladies in England.’
She looked away from me then and turned her lip. ‘Yay-Ko has a lady he loves at the court,’ she said sadly.
I jumped to my own defence. ‘Never!’ I cried. ‘Not in this world! I held out against them, waiting for the right one. The most beautiful woman, not in England, but in the whole world. That is what I came to Otaheite for. And that is what I discovered here.’
I took her hand at that, acting like such a nance that I’m ashamed to recall the moment now, and moved closer towards her, wishing that we could be left alone in that place together for ever.
‘I make you happy,’ she said, moving around so that I was lying on my back and she was seated atop me. ‘You want Kaikala to give you pleasure?’
‘Yes,’ I squeaked, but even as she undid my britches I could feel the motions, which had hitherto been full of purpose, leaving me until I was naught but a shrivelled wreck beneath her. She looked down at me in disappointment, for it happened every day, and then looked directly into my eyes.
‘What is the matter?’ she asked. ‘Yay-Ko doesn’t like me?’
‘I do,’ I replied defensively, willing myself into action. I reached up and cupped her titties in my hands and, much pleasure as I got from the touch, I could not transfer that into action. My head became filled with pictures of the past, the time before, Mr Lewis’s establishment and all that he had made me do there. If I closed my eyes I could hear the sound of gentlemen’s boots on the step and the clod-clod-clod as they ascended the stairs towards us boys. And so our afternoons together always ended the same way; with me running back through the jungle, pulling my pants up as I went, returning close to the camp, only to find that what had failed me before was full of life now, and hiding in the hedges to find a little pained relief before returning to the captain’s side and my duties.
I hated Mr Lewis and all he had done to me. And I sought a cure.