The Grave Tattoo Read Online Free PDF Page B

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.’
Jane carried on regardless. ‘“Innocence and Corruption; the True History of the Mutiny upon the ship the Bounty in the South Seas.” Or something similarly Wordsworthian.’
‘Huh?’ Harry said.
‘They were at school together, Harry. William Wordsworth, the