Part 12

“Drop the topsails,” he bellowed, “bring her around.” With a violent jerk, the ship came up in the wind and stopped. Ahead of us, not more than five hundred yards away, loomed a giant iceberg. As we watched it, it sank deep in the black water and then, as if it were some living beast, it heaved high out of the sea. The swish of the water around it, the suction of its movements, made a dangerous current. We began to drift nearer to it. Our ship had no power except that of the sails, and the wind had dropped and left them limp and powerless.

“Throw over the kedge anchors,” Father ordered. Kedge anchors are small, and used for emergency cases. The men rushed aft and threw one over each side the vessel. They gave weight and pulled us back from drifting head on to the iceberg. For a few minutes they held, but the water around us was a seething mass of cross currents. Other bergs, larger and deeper, were in the offing. We had run into a whole nest of them. A steamer could have backed away, turned around, and left the place of danger, but our ship was helpless to move. The bergs made deep valleys, and whatever wind there was was cut off by their height. The water sounded as if it were boiling around us. The mate threw over a chip of wood to see which way we were drifting, but the chip just whirled around and went down. A typhoon would have been a welcome visitor then, for at least its wind would have carried us away—but just being becalmed, waiting for the jaws of the iceberg to finish us, was like a terrible nightmare.

The cabin-boy and the Jap cook crouched behind the galley, pale and shaking with fright. Father’s face was set grimly. A frozen death awaited us. Things at sea seem to take on human qualities. The perversity of the wind was the curse of some dead sea captain, and baffling calms were from the souls of lost sailors. That nearest iceberg was like a sea beast gloating over us as its prey.

“All hands on deck!” went the cry from Father, and it was repeated down the fo’c’s’le. The men came scrambling up, buttoning their oilskins and sou’westers around themselves closely. When they were all ready Father turned to them:

“You’ve got one chance in a thousand to get out of here with your lives. Throw overboard the cargo.”

In a flash the crew were tearing away the battens off the hatches. If the heavy cargo was thrown overboard, the ship would ride lighter and higher on the waves, and the impact from a smash would be lessened. The curses of the men in the hold as they chucked up sacks of salt beat a staccato on the still air.

“Joan, you and the cook and cabin-boy load up the lifeboat. Put tins of hardtack, a keg of water and a tarpaulin in it.” With those instructions he took his post at the fo’c’s’le head and watched our ship go nearer the bergs. Two frigate birds with long spiked tails hovered above. A frantic little mother-carries-her-chicken bird flew around and around in a dizzy circle near the stern. And Father just waited! With each roll of the ship we came nearer. The crew worked throwing out the sacks of salt like men possessed, and the ship lightened.

Father ordered the rope bumpers put out, and two cork buoys lowered over the bowsprit to break the crash if we hit the iceberg. The ship wouldn’t answer to the rudder, for the currents were more powerful. Just as we braced ourselves for the destroying collision we were caught in an eddy that lifted us high on the water and sent our ship dizzily about one hundred yards past the iceberg. Our relief was so great that we didn’t mind the loss of cargo.

All night long we drifted in the ice floes, miraculously avoiding being crushed by them.

The following morning we found ourselves afloat in a world of white icebergs and thick mist. It seemed as though we were at the end of the world. It was difficult for Father to figure out our position, as there was no sun, and to navigate by dead reckoning was useless as the log line couldn’t register how much we had drifted in the cross currents. For a week that continued—breathless days and nights that were ghostly in those white canyons of frozen water.

Sometimes in the night we could hear the screech of sea birds leaving the ice, and then silence again.

Whenever any real danger was upon us my father used to whistle or sing, or play his old water-soaked violin. I asked him how he could be so gay when death was staring us all in the face, and he said:

“What the hell do you expect me to do, bawl about it? Besides, if the crew hear me singin’ they’ll think there’s nothin’ to be afraid of and it keeps their guts from freezin’ inside of them.”

He sang often in the two weeks that followed as we blindly picked our way out of the iceberg region. The first time the sun shone after that was about three hundred miles southeast of New Zealand. A stiff breeze cleared the sky, and our sails bellied out tautly under it.

“We’ll sail due East, Mr. Swanson,” Father said to the mate, “and try and make Pitcairn. I haven’t been there for years and I want Joan to see it.”

I had heard the name of Pitcairn Island all my life. Every sailor looks upon it as the haven for seafarers. From their descriptions it was the one perfect spot on earth, free from worries, money, and work.

Old Stitches used to tell me about Pitcairn and its qualities of a paradise, but I thought it was the ravings of a mind that had had too much liquor and too many girls in port.

“What are we going to see on Pitcairn?” I asked my father.

“White natives. It’s the only South Sea island that has a tribe of English-speaking, light-skinned inhabitants.”

I was thrilled at the prospect of visiting Pitcairn—for white people were more of a curiosity to me than natives. As our ship nosed her way across the sea towards Pitcairn, I spent many hours listening to tales about that strange island from my father and two old sailors who had been there often.

When Kipling gave to the world his much overquoted lines, “East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet,” he probably forgot that in the most remote part of the South Seas, East and West had met and had formed a race of people, living in a high degree of civilization and in a community almost free from sin—to disprove his theory.

I looked up the island on the chart, and found it marked there with an inconsequential dot, and flaunting the austere name of “Pitcairn, 23 degrees S. latitude, 120 W. longitude.” By latitude and longitude I can locate a spot on the ocean as accurately as a landlubber can find 42nd Street and Broadway.

Father saw me studying the chart, and observed:

“On the approach from the southeast the island looks like a cone of rock juttin’ out of the sea. Some times mariners call it ‘Neptune’s Thimble’ because of its resemblance to a thimble in shape.”

“How did anybody get on a rock island so far away from the big island groups?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you, Joan, because I think you ought to know the whole romance of Pitcairn. Lots of folks has written about it, but none of them know all the facts like we sailormen know.”

“Have the islanders been there forever?” I wanted to know.

“Nope. You see in the year 1789 His Majesty’s Ship _Bounty_ was sent out from England to the South Seas to gather breadfruit trees for the purpose of transplantin’ the same in the British West Indies. In command of the _Bounty_ was a tyrannical, overbearin’ taskmaster, a regular s.o.b. His name was Lieutenant William Bligh, and the crew was afraid of him, and at the same time they hated his guts.

“For months there had been a seething undercurrent of revolt brewing in the fo’c’s’le, and it was led by the ship’s carpenter, a Mr. Christian. They laid their plans carefully for mutiny—but they bided their time until the _Bounty_ sailed into the vicinity of Tahiti.”

“What good would it do to mutiny in the South Seas?” I asked, for I knew that escape in the islands was almost impossible for a white man fugitive on English possessions.

“Huh,” snorted Father, “those bastards were so sore on Old Man Bligh they didn’t give a damn what became of them just so as they got rid of him and his officers.” And from Father I learned how the “white native island” was founded.

When Mr. Christian learned from one of the officers that the _Bounty_ was about two hundred miles off Tahiti he gave the signal for the mutiny. With more daring than the pirates of the Arabian Nights the crew mutinied. They bound and gagged the captain and those officers that were loyal to him, and set them adrift in the open sea in the ship’s cutter which they had provisioned and watered. Christian assumed command of the _Bounty_ and her mutineers.

The abandoned captain and officers drifted for weeks through uncharted, shark-infested waters. They circumvented a dangerous coral shoal to land on what appeared to be a fertile uncharted island, only to be driven from there by the cannibalistic inhabitants. After a time their supplies ran short, and they subsisted on turtle, sun-dried fish—and saved the raindrops for water.

Bligh was stricken with a peculiar malady from the strain and exposure. His officers had to save his life because he alone knew how to navigate, and that little cutter had to make some port soon, or their goose was cooked. They didn’t dare land on any of the islands that weren’t charted because they might run into a nest of cannibals again.

Nowadays we have charts and surveys of the islands, but in 1789 a lot of these atolls were never heard of.

They had to get some fresh water and food for Bligh or he’d die on them, so one night the officers put into an atoll island and stole fresh fruits and coconuts to nourish him. Weeks drifted into months and at the end of five months they reached New Guinea, a distance of three thousand five hundred miles from where they were set adrift. From New Guinea they secured passage on a trading schooner to Australia. Lieutenant Bligh lost no time in informing His Majesty of their predicament. Some time later he was rewarded by being appointed Governor of New South Wales.

Indignant upon learning of the mutiny of his sailors, King George ordered H.M.S. _Pandora_ sent to the scene of the rebellion.

In the meantime the _Bounty_ was cruising around the South Seas looking for a place to land and at the same time avoid capture. Fourteen of the _Bounty_ crew who had mutinied went ashore at Tahiti and took up native lives in preference to being “stretched by the neck” by His Majesty’s officers if they were caught. Besides, those fourteen men preferred a life among beautiful native girls to that of hard work on shipboard. They used poor judgment, however, for the officers of the _Pandora_ found them and took them prisoners. They were chained like dogs to the stanchions of the ship, and put on rations of bread and water. The _Pandora_ set sail for England where a death penalty would have been dealt to the mutineers, but she struck a submerged coral reef and became a total wreck. That reef is now known as Pandora Reef on the charts. While the _Pandora_ was smashing to pieces on the sharp reef, the officers tried to get away, but they made no attempt to free the prisoners from their chains and they left them to a miserable slow death. They didn’t give them the fighting chance that the mutineers had given Bligh and his men.

Christian had sailed the _Bounty_ to Ruratu. His men grew so restless and lonely, that he advised them each to take to himself a native wife. Fascinated by the white skin of the sailors, their peculiar clothing and strange language, the young native girls looked upon them as gods, and showered gifts of fruit and flowers upon them. Mr. Christian, acting in the capacity of minister, conducted the ceremony, and each man became a husband to a native girl.

The Chief of Ruratu had a daughter Loa-Lea of unusual beauty who offered herself to Christian. This so angered the old Chief that he was planning to exterminate every white man of the crew, along with their native wives who had set a bad example for his Loa-Lea. His plans were frustrated in their inception because Loa-Lea loved the Lily-Man, or “he of the white skin” as she termed Christian, because he treated her with such kindness—such respect. To be treated with deference was a new experience to her, for native women have little or no importance in a tribe other than as creatures of convenience and producers of sons.

Loa-Lea brought news of her father’s plan to exterminate them to her “lily-man,” and Christian secretly departed in the night with all his men, their native wives and Loa-Lea, whom he married.

Christian had heard that the seas were being combed for them, and so he sailed far to the westward to escape His Majesty’s forces. Just as our ship was heading now, the _Bounty_ was heading. Fifteen hundred miles south of the Equator and about the same distance west of the coast of South America, they came upon an uninhabited island.

They had great difficulty in finding a way to land on the island, as there was no beach and the cliffs were almost perpendicular. Christian and a handful of men went ashore to explore the island’s possibilities. On the east end they found a cove, overlooked by a plateau, which had the semblance of great steps up the side of the cliff, as if some sea giant had carved them for doorsteps to his castle. On the table top of the island they found an abundance of fresh fruits, water in springs, and wild birds.

Christian returned to the _Bounty_, called his people together and impressed upon them that if they landed on that island it was to be forever, as he intended to destroy the _Bounty_, and with it gone there would be no means of escape. With one accord the mutineers agreed to colonize the island of rock. They named it after General Pitcairn.

The mutineers set about to strip the _Bounty_ of all metal which they would use ashore. They set their supplies adrift on rafts to float in shore. Those who did not swim in went to the landing in small boats. When the last man had left the vessel, Christian lashed the helm amidships, headed her bow directly into the island and deserted her.

Gathered on the cliff of their new colony, the crew watched the ground swells of the Pacific wash the _Bounty_ in toward the cliffs, until with a mighty crash she struck the wall and sank into the unsounded depth of the sea. Gone forever was their hope of ever leaving the island, but also, gone forever was any evidence of the _Bounty_ to betray them into the hands of His Majesty’s officers.

Each man and wife set about and built a hut and portioned off a plot of land for a home. Every variety of tropical fruit and berries grew in great profusion. There was more than enough of everything for everybody. But in spite of that all did not run smoothly on Pitcairn. Christian was chief. The Bible was the only form of government. Their religion was and is to this day Seventh Day Adventism.

In time children were born to the mutineers by the native wives, and the children were white. South Sea natives have intermarried so much for generations that their blood is depleted and the white man’s blood predominated.

The sailors call Pitcairn Eden, and rightly perhaps, because a woman was the cause of a quarrel which proved fatal to the whites. One of the mutineers, a Mr. McCoy, had sent his wife to gather sea bird eggs from the rocks on the edge of the cliff. Losing her foothold she fell a thousand feet to the reef below and was instantly killed. As there was only an equal number of women and men, and all of them married, the mutineer, when he became lonely, took to himself the wife of one of the men. That so angered the husband that he killed his wife. McCoy became an outcast, and all the husbands looked upon him as a danger to their happiness. From that time on dissension and intrigue flourished. Several of the mutineers set out in a small boat to find another island, and that left McCoy, Christian, a Charles Adams, and seven other whites with their native wives on the island. The natives there now are the descendants of those families.

Those whites and natives have a colony now without quarrels. They are industrious and God-fearing—but lockjaw is rapidly wiping them out.

* * * * *

The mate came up on the poop deck to where Father was sitting and asked,

“Shall we give the Pitcairn Islanders some rope and canvas this trip, Captain?”

We were only about fifty miles from Pitcairn, and by nine o’clock that evening we would be hove to off it.

“Yes. We’ve lost our cargo, so we might as well divide up our supplies.”

The Pitcairn Islanders wait months and months for sailing ships to come. Very few ships ever go so far off the beaten sailing tracks, and when one does, the islanders offer up devout thanksgiving. Along about nine o’clock, Pitcairn loomed ahead. On the top of it fires were burning. First they appeared on one end of the island, then on the other. They had sighted us. The fires were beacon lights to us, so that we would not strike the shoals by sailing in too close.

“Give them the freedom of the ship when they come aboard,” Father instructed the mate. “These natives never steal anythin’.”

Within an hour from the time we hove to, three boats from Pitcairn were alongside, and about thirty-five islanders came on board. I studied them closely for signs of native blood, but they were as white as I am. They spoke English, simply, and with a peculiar accent. The women were delighted to see me, another white woman. One old dame stroked my hair; a young girl offered to trade her native fibre dress for a pair of overalls.

We went up behind the companionway and swapped the clothes. She thought she had made a grand bargain as she strutted around with my faded blue overalls on. She ran down on the main deck and brought back a tall, quiet young woman, who seemed to be revered by the natives.

“This is Frances McCoy, who is saving our people.” Miss McCoy placed both hands on my shoulders—a custom of greeting probably inherited from her native maternal ancestors.

“Did you have a peaceful voyage?” she asked, and her voice was smooth and quiet.

“No. We had the goddamndest trip we’ve ever had. We struck icebergs south of Tasmania and had to shoot our cargo of salt to hell.”

Miss McCoy turned away from me quickly and looked off to sea, but didn’t speak. McLean, who had heard me talking came over to me and said:

“They never swear on Pitcairn, Skipper,” he explained. I had offended her. On Pitcairn gentleness rules, and cursing is against their law. I couldn’t see how people could express themselves without cussing—but anyhow I watched myself with a terrific strain in my following conversations.

The young native girl in my overalls asked me:

“Have you any books to give to us?”

I was surprised that “white natives” could read, but I was anxious to make amends for my swearing, and asked her and Miss McCoy to come down in the cabin and help themselves. The only books we had on board at that time were books on navigation, a doctor book, and a partial set of the Encyclopedia Britannica with those volumes from N to S missing.

“You can take all of these,” I told them, “and the books on navigation and the charts if you want them.” Miss McCoy grabbed for the doctor book.

“My people are being wiped out by lockjaw,” she said, “and I am studying medicine from books that passing ships give me, so that I can cure them.”

That was why she was so revered by the natives. She was to save their lives!

“For years our people have begged nails and canvas and ropes from ships so that we can get enough material to make a ship to sail away in to the mainland. I am going in to get medicine and I will bring it back here to stop the deaths caused by lockjaw. There is a kind of a thorn, which when it pricks a person, gives him lockjaw,” she explained. No wonder Frances McCoy, the descendant of a pirate and mutineer, is looked upon as a saint there.

Out of gratitude for the books and charts I gave them, the two women gave me a beautiful screen made of skeleton leaves, painted with the juice of wild berries and a small chest of carved coral. After our bargain was made, we joined the others on the hatches on the main deck. One of the descendants of Christian was asking about the war.

“In the Bible we read of far-off countries going to war against each other. Is England at war now? A sailing captain of a German full-rigged ship stopped off here about three months ago and said he would never again trade with us.”

I hadn’t heard anything about the war that I could understand. I knew that the price of copra had gone up because “soldier’s foods were preserved with copra oil,” but it was just as indefinite in my mind what war was as it was in the minds of the natives.

Then the conversation skipped from war to music. One of the men asked if we had an organ to give them.

“What in the hell is the use of an organ in the South Sea Islands?” I asked. The “hell” had slipped out, but young Christian answered before anyone noticed it:

“We had one but the salt air has rusted it, so now it will give no music. Next time you come here will you bring to us another organ?”

I guess the Pitcairn Islanders thought in America we could pick organs off trees or something, so naïve and sincere were their requests.

At about midnight Father told the natives they would have to leave. Sadly they departed, begging us to sail to them again, and thanking us for our gifts to them. A Pitcairn Islander, when he is making a trade, doesn’t drive a bargain like regular natives. They put down a commodity such as two bunches of bananas in front of you, and then they say:

“I have made you a present. Now please, you will make me a present.”

It is our cue to give them a “present” in return, and if it doesn’t meet with their approval, they take back their present and say, “I do not make you a present.”