The Grave Tattoo

‘His tattoos?’ Dan asked.

‘Black tattoos. What does that say to you?’

Dan shrugged. ‘Apart from David Beckham, nothing at all.’

‘Eighteenth century, sailors, South Sea islands. Lots of them got native tattoos when they went there. Like Fletcher Christian.’

Dan grinned. ‘Your favourite rural legend.’

‘What are you two on about?’ Harry asked.

‘What do you know about the mutiny on the Bounty?’ Jane said.

Harry shrugged. ‘Mel Gibson. Very cute in those tight trousers.’

Jane groaned. ‘Good to see you were paying attention.’

‘Hey, I’m only joking. I’m not just a bimbo, Jane,’ Harry protested. ‘I remember the bit where Mel stages the mutiny and casts the evil Captain Bligh adrift in an open boat then sets sail for Tahiti.’

‘Very good, Harry. Except it wasn’t actually Mel Gibson, it was Fletcher Christian who led the mutiny. And what I’m interested in isn’t the mutiny as such, it’s the aftermath. After Bligh made his epic voyage to safety and finally got back to London, the navy was alerted to look out for the mutineers and to bring them back to London for court martial. Years later, a group of them were found on Tahiti and shipped back. But the fate of Fletcher and the other hard-core mutineers remained a mystery for a long time. They actually ended up on Pitcairn Island with some of the native women and men and settled down there.’

Harry nodded. ‘Pitcairn…They had that child sex scandal a couple of years ago, didn’t they?’

‘Right. Featuring direct descendants of some of the mutineers. But that wasn’t the first trouble in Paradise,’ Jane said. ‘Basically, there weren’t enough women to go round. The official version is that the mutineers had a falling-out with the natives and there was a massacre. Supposedly Fletcher Christian was the first white man killed. End of story.’

‘But…? I mean, there has to be a but, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t be getting excited about some dead body with a bunch of black tatts,’ Harry said.

‘This is Jane’s fantasy bit,’ Dan chipped in.

Jane looked faintly uncomfortable. ‘There’s always been a rumour in the Lake District that Fletcher Christian didn’t die on Pitcairn. That the massacre was just a cover-up. Somehow he managed to flee the island and make his way back to England, where he lived out the rest of his days hidden from justice by his family and friends. It was a pretty risky enterprise for everyone concerned. If Fletcher had been betrayed or discovered, he would definitely have been hanged for leading the mutiny. And so would anyone who had knowingly had contact with him without handing him over to the authorities.’

Harry’s expression shifted through surprise to incredulity. ‘You’re kidding, right? I mean, this is just gossip?’

‘Like I said, it’s Jane’s favourite rural legend,’ Dan said, lighting a cigarette.

Jane shook her head, her long curls catching the light. ‘It’s not just gossip. John Barrow’s book raises the question as far back as 1831.’

‘As conspiracy theories go, you have to admit it’s a goodie,’ Dan said. ‘Mr Christian staged a massacre and sailed off into the sunset. Oh no, wait a minute. How did he get away, Jane? They burned the ship, didn’t they?’

Jane leaned on the bar. ‘They did. But the Bounty had two ship’s jolly boats on board and they’ve never been satisfactorily accounted for. Also, there’s the matter of the missing log.’ She grinned. ‘That’s where you’re supposed to say, “What missing log?”’

Dan inclined his head and held up his hands in mock astonishment. ‘What missing log?’

‘Fletcher Christian was an officer of the watch. He was accustomed to keeping a log. It would have been second nature to him.’

‘Makes sense,’ Harry said.

‘It would be extraordinary if there was no record kept of how they settled Pitcairn. There was no shortage of paper and pens. They were still using them years later in the school they set up for their kids. But the only documentary account ever seen was written by one of the other mutineers, Edward Young. And it doesn’t start until after the massacre, which implies someone else was keeping notes until that point. Who else but Fletcher? If he’d died, it stands to reason that the journal would have survived him. But if he took to the sea…’ Jane’s voice trailed off.

‘He’d have taken it with him, right?’ Harry concluded. She could see he was interested too, in spite of his perpetual assumption of cool. ‘OK, I’ll grant you that that’s suggestive, if nothing else. But, as you say yourself, it’s all circumstantial.’

‘Not quite all of it. Let me tell you about Peter Heywood. He was one of the mutineers who came back. But unlike most of the others who were court-martialled, his family had the cash and connections to secure their blue-eyed boy a pardon. Instead of being hanged, he went on to have a glittering naval career. But the really interesting thing about Peter Heywood is that he was a distant cousin of Fletcher Christian. He grew up on the Isle of Man, where Fletcher spent a fair bit of his own youth. So, as well as sailing with him, Heywood was personally connected to Fletcher. He knew him well,’ Jane said. ‘And in 1809 or thereabouts, Peter Heywood saw Fletcher Christian in Plymouth.’

Harry frowned. ‘But Plymouth was a naval base, wasn’t it? Surely he’d have had to have been insane to walk around Plymouth in broad daylight? Here’s the most notorious mutineer in the history of the British navy. I mean, even somebody like me with no interest in history has heard of him. And according to you, here’s a man who went to extraordinary lengths to stay out of harm’s way after the mutiny, a man who’d be a cert for the hangman’s rope if he’d ever been caught. And yet here he is taking an afternoon stroll in a city that’s awash with naval officers and ratings. And who does he bump into but his old mucker Peter Heywood.’ Harry spread his hands in the manner of a man making an unanswerable case. ‘And even supposing it did happen, if Heywood and Christian were as close as you say, why would he admit to having seen Christian? It makes no sense.’

‘He didn’t admit it, Harry. Not publicly anyway. It never came out until after his death. And I can speculate,’ Jane said, her voice mild. ‘What if he’d arranged to meet Heywood then, at the last minute, Heywood couldn’t disentangle himself from one of his colleagues? And when Fletcher saw Heywood wasn’t alone, he took to his heels.’

Harry shook his head. ‘But why would Fletcher Christian leave Pitcairn in the first place? He was safe there, surely? Why throw that away?’

‘I’m not so sure that he felt safe,’ Jane said. ‘It’s clear there were deep divisions between the mutineers themselves as well as the problems with the native men. There’s also some evidence that the other mutineers resented his authority as the only officer left among them. And he was a decent man, remember? Maybe he wanted to make his peace, like the Ancient Mariner. Maybe he wanted to explain why he’d been driven to mutiny in the first place,’ Jane argued. ‘Only, when he got back, he discovered that Bligh had not only survived, he’d become a hero thanks to his amazing navigation of the Pacific. Not to mention the fact that he’d had plenty of time to get his version of the mutiny out there. Whatever Fletcher’s motives were for inciting the crew against Bligh, it was too late for him to make his case.’

‘But what case could he have made?’ Harry asked. ‘Mutiny’s mutiny, isn’t it?’

‘There was one defence to mutiny that Christian could have relied on,’ Dan said.

Harry’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Suddenly you’re the expert on naval law?’

‘No, but I do know something about the history of gay oppression, sweetheart,’ Dan said. ‘What if Christian alleged sodomy against Bligh? That was a hanging offence back then, wasn’t it? If he could demonstrate that Bligh had forced him to have sex against his will, wouldn’t that have mitigated the mutiny?’ He paused, his brows furrowed, teeth gnawing his lower lip. ‘Of course, he would have needed a third-party witness to make it stand up. Back then, because it was such an easy allegation to make and so hard to substantiate, the courts martial insisted on more than one man’s word against another. And Christian must have known that.’

‘Maybe there was a witness,’ Jane said slowly. ‘And maybe part of the reason Fletcher led the mutiny was to protect the witness…’ her voice trailed off and she stared dreamily across the empty bar.

‘What do you mean?’ Harry was still intrigued.

Jane held up a finger, giving herself a pause to consider her position. ‘Let’s go back to Peter Heywood,’ she said, her eyes focused inward as she searched through the knowledge she’d amassed over years of fascination. ‘Fletcher had sailed previously with Bligh and it’s on record that he was the captain’s favourite. Same story during the Bounty’s voyage as far as Tahiti. Then Fletcher spends six months ashore, takes himself a native concubine…’

‘Concubine, I love that word,’ Dan said, rolling it on his tongue.

‘Anyway,’ Jane said forcefully, ‘when the ship leaves Tahiti, Fletcher doesn’t want to go back to being Bligh’s…’

‘Catamite. That’s the word you’re looking for. Another lovely one,’ Dan interrupted.

‘Whatever. And Bligh starts treating him like shit. And Fletcher’s decision has also put him on the horns of a dilemma. He feels he owes a duty of care to young Peter Heywood, his kinsman. Because it was also well documented that Heywood was Bligh’s second-favourite after Fletcher. So Fletcher wants to protect Heywood, but not at the expense of submitting again to Bligh.’

‘And so he leads a mutiny, knowing he faces certain death if he’s ever caught? All to protect the honour of Peter Heywood?’ Harry sounded dubious.

‘Maybe he’s also protecting himself,’ Dan said. ‘If Bligh had made a move on Heywood too, then he was Christian’s witness. Then Christian could argue that mutiny was the only way to stop a sexual predator exploiting his crew far from their home port. Wouldn’t that work?’

‘It might, I suppose,’ Harry said grudgingly. ‘Man, you’ve changed your tune. You were the one calling this Jane’s fantasy. Now you’re defending her ideas and I’m the one not seeing evidence of anything except Jane’s imagination.’

Jane got to her feet and headed behind the bar to finish clearing up. ‘That’s my womanly powers of persuasion, Harry. And besides, you’re wrong. There is something a little more concrete. The mutineers who ended up being court-martialled were the ones who asked Christian to take them back to Tahiti, Peter Heywood among them. Those guys never made it as far as Pitcairn. When the two groups were parting company, Fletcher took Heywood to one side. And when Fletcher said his private farewell to Heywood, he asked him to pass some information to the Christian family back home. But Heywood never disclosed what Fletcher had said. Why would he keep shtum, unless the message was something that would have been viewed as shameful, presumably to himself as well as to Fletcher? That something might have been Fletcher’s underlying reason for the mutiny–Bligh’s sexual abuse of Christian and Heywood.’

Harry laughed out loud. ‘Jane, you should be writing fiction, not criticism. Is this what passes for intellectual rigour in the English Department?’ He joined her behind the bar, taking glasses from the dishwasher and replacing them on the shelves.

Jane leaned on the counter and grinned. ‘Maybe I should turn to fiction. And if I did, I’d start with William Wordsworth’s lost epic’

‘Wordsworth’s lost epic?’ Harry said, sounding bemused.

‘She’s kept the best till last, Harry,’ Dan said. ‘This is the “woo-woo” moment. You’re going to love this one.’