TOWARDS HOME we may have been aiming, but towards home we did not yet advance, for a series of islands were lying to the north-east of Tofoa and Mr Bligh determined that it would be a sensible thing for us to rest at another of these on this day and discover whether there might be something edible to be dis covered on their terrain. The island that he selected was chosen on account of the fact that there was an easy inlet through which we could land close to the rock-face of the atoll itself and also because there was a row of thick, long-lying vines strung from the top of that same rock to the ground below, left there no doubt by natives of these islands who had used them to find their way to the top.
‘I shall venture up myself, I believe,’ said the captain, surprising each one of us by the decision, for it would be no mean feat to scale that sheer face; it would require monkey-powers.
‘You, Captain?’ asked Mr Fryer in surprise. ‘Would it not be more sensible to send one of the men?’
‘I am a man, Mr Fryer,’ came the saucy reply. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, His Majesty places his best men in command of his ships, so why should I not ascend? Mr Nelson, sir, you will join me?’
All heads turned at once to stare at the botanist, Mr Nelson, who appeared at that moment to be engaged in the fine art of scratching his bollix, for his hand was tucked within his breeches and was finding quick purchase there. He had not perhaps been listening to the conversation between the two officers but, becoming aware of our sudden interest in him, he removed his hand from his nether regions without an ounce of shame, sniffed at it for a moment, pulled an appreciative face as if he was mightily pleased with what it offered him, and then looked towards the assembled audience, raising an eyebrow in surprise.
‘What?’ he asked. ‘Can a man not scratch himself without charging a penny for viewing-rights?’
‘Mr Nelson, you have not heard me, sir,’ shouted the captain from the fore, straining to keep a note of jollity in his tone. ‘I plan to scale the rock-face we see before us by means of the vines that lie along them to determine whether there is aught to be found at the top. Will you join me?’
Mr Nelson frowned for a moment and looked at the sight ahead of him and shook his head as if he was actually considering it. ‘My legs are a little weak this morning, sir,’ he said. ‘And my arms too. I don’t know if I have the strength for it.’
‘Nonsense,’ said the captain cheerfully, standing to his feet and beckoning the botanist to do the same. ‘On your feet, man. The exercise will do you good. Between the two of us, I say that the second man to reach the top is a dandy.’
Mr Nelson gave a deep sigh but stood up, aware that the captain’s request was no request at all, but an order, and one that must be obeyed, even if the boatswain did not have the tools of his trade alongside him to punish the mischievous. The rest of us, I recall, shrank back in our places, eager that the captain and his chosen companion would be on their way and that none of us would be enjoined to accompany them.
‘Captain,’ said Mr Elphinstone, helping Mr Bligh out of the boat, whereupon he was immediately submerged waist high in water but had no more than twenty feet to walk to where the vines hung. ‘Do you think this is sensible?’
‘I think it is a mighty sensible thing to discover whether there might be food atop those cliffs,’ said the captain. ‘I don’t know about the condition of your belly, Mr Elphinstone, but mine wants filling.’
‘I only ask, sir,’ he replied, ‘because it is a dangerous climb, and a difficult one, and if there is naught at the top of interest, then it will have been a wasted one as well.’
The captain nodded for a moment and looked over at the vines and then upwards to the top of the cliff, whose bounty was hidden to us from this vantage point. ‘I would ask you this, Mr Elphinstone,’ said the captain eventually, as if he was explaining an obvious matter to a simpleton child: ‘why would the natives of these islands put so much effort into creating these floral ladders were there not something of interest to be discovered at the top of them? Can you think of a reason for it, sir?’
Mr Elphinstone considered the sense of this for a moment before shrugging his shoulders, nodding his head and retaking his place in the tub. Mr Nelson, in the meantime, had stood erect but failed to place one foot before the other and the captain summoned him with a click of his fingers. ‘Quick, quick, now, Mr Nelson,’ he said. ‘Join me, if you please.’
Within a few minutes our small crew, depleted now to seventeen, were in our places, turning our heads to watch the climbing-race of the two men up the side of the cliff. It was not difficult to guess who would be the winner; the captain was a fine healthy specimen of a man and, despite a few initial difficulties finding purchase between hand, feet and mossy stone, he ascended with no more difficulty than a spider along a wall-face. Mr Nelson, on the other hand, struggled a little more and we could not help but show concern that he might fall backwards, crash on to the rocks below, and provide a more permanent depletion to our crew.
Among much cheering from the men, however, our two fellows were soon at the top and struggled their way over, disappearing from our sight for a time. We sat and talked among ourselves, at first happy that they had made it, and then slowly beginning to worry why it was taking so long for them to reappear. I looked across at the two remaining officers, Mr Fryer and Mr Elphinstone, and watched their faces for similar signs of concern, but if they had any they kept them carefully concealed.
The sun was high in the sky and I looked down at my feet in order to ease the light in my eyes and the crick in my neck, and then a strange thing happened. The men let out a roar at once and looked upwards. I turned to look too and, as I did so, their faces turned to surprise and I thought they were pulling away from me. Knowing not what was the matter I tried to look up again, but the sun was too bright and I could see naught but a blinding sensation, and then what appeared to be a missile heading towards me, and then before I could scramble out of the way my own lights went out and a blackness took its place.
It was, I was told, some fifteen minutes before I returned to full consciousness. In the meantime, the men had been throwing sea water in my face, taking care that I would swallow none of it, and slapping my cheeks to revive me, but it took a time for my sensibilities to return and, when they did, it was with a great sickness of the head. I reached a hand up and felt a tender mark above my eyes and what appeared to be the beginnings of a great bruise. I hissed when my fingers touched it and attempted to sit up and when I did so, who was seated before me only the captain himself, looking both amused and embarrassed.
‘Sorry about that, Master Turnstile,’ he said. ‘You don’t seem to have an awful lot of luck, do you?’
‘I was attacked, sir,’ I cried. ‘A missile of some sort.’
‘A coconut,’ he replied, indicating a dozen or so of these hairy items that were now placed at the fore of the boat. ‘Very few to be found, I will grant you, but they will be of great assistance to us in the days ahead. Mr Nelson and I threw them from the top. I think you got in the way.’
I nodded and felt insulted by the whole experience, but a few minutes later, when the captain deigned to crack open one of the coconuts and distribute its flesh among the men, he handed me a slightly larger portion than was my due – and for that, if nothing else, I was grateful.
I forgot my injury quickly, but I began to worry that these stomach pangs were of a more serious nature than any of us was conceding. We could only hover among these islands for so long; at some point we would have to put to sea, and when we did, what would become of us then?