"How did your crew get here?" Harmony asked. "Of all the loathsome places? Will you share your story John Hallet?"
After a long pause and short soak, the Midshipman amiably nodded. "The year…" he began, wiping his brow, "was 1787. Seems like a thousand years ago now and perhaps it was. Perhaps it was. The Bounty left Portsmouth bound for the West Indies and the ends of the earth. To this day I can still hear the crowds royally cheering us out of the harbour, can still see the women waving handkerchiefs and holding up sons to see off fathers. How naive I was then, how proud, how adventurous!" He groaned after another ache. "Forty six officers and men under the hand of Lieutenant William Bligh. Never a greater navigator lived, but gifted men have wretched flaws. Drunks pressed ganged into service and able seamen alike suffered ten months under his torture — floggings to the bone, desperate starvation and worse thirst! More than a hard taskmaster, Bligh was a tyrant plain and simple, and we men suffered till we could take no more of it!"
"You mutinied?" said Harmony, captivated.
"Led by the master's mate, Fletcher Christian, we cast Bligh and eighteen loyalists on open-boats and seized the Bounty for ourselves!" His dripping, enthusiastic face told us that even now, he did not regret that decision. "We settled on Pitcairn and burned the Bounty on its rocks. This was our hideaway island, wrongly charted on British maps; the Admiralty never did find us…"
"Pray," pondered Eddinray; "but if you burnt your ship, why is it here now? In one piece?"
"Why is anyone here?" he returned. "I died on my island an old man with two wives, eleven children and sixteen grand-children. It was God who cast me here, reunited with my younger self, with Bounty…and every last mutineer."
"And the captain?" I asked him, "Fletcher Christian? Are you aware of his plans? For his ship? For us?"
"Only Christian could say. Those men upstairs may mock me…but we dearly love our captain, sir. He sails us through Hell keeping hope in hearts; hope that we'll reach land, hope that the Devil will one day spit us out!"
He sucked the draining water from his cupped palm, then carefully added,
"Only Christian and I know the truth, the awful truth of it."
"What's that?" I whispered back.
Hallet crept closer, eyes becoming strained slits. "There is no way out,” he rasped. "This ocean is for the damned sailors of Earth and elsewhere, for scoundrel pirates and mutineer scum like us. We broke the sacred code of the sea, and for that folly we pay with our souls, forever."
"God forgives,” said Harmony. "There are pardons for those who earn redemption. Your time will come John Hallet."
The midshipman sarcastically chuckled, then leant so close to Harmony that she could feel his stubble brush against her cheek. "God…has forsaken us!"
Stretching upright with his near empty bucket, Hallet peered admirably at the rotten beams and centipedes overhead. "If it weren't for the captain…That man has seen us victorious through many a battle. He is everything — our Father, our Commander, and our God now."
"Nonsense!" scoffed Harmony. "Talk like that it's no wonder you're in such deplorable condition!"
Hallet's subsequent scowl seemed to age him fifty years before us. "Captain works his own miracles, angel!” he sniped. “He has given us more than your invisible God ever has!"
Not the time or place for the argument, I interrupted Harmony's inevitably pious reply. "You've fought here?" I asked him. "On these seas? With other ships?"
"Ships like us,” he answered "Navies from all nations, of all times. Come across one every year or so, and every year or so we plunder the lot. Us against them, and we leave only bloody decks behind us."
"Is that why so few remain?" Eddinray asked. "Lost in…battle?"
A petrified pallor came over Hallet now, fear throttling its unseen hand around his neck.
"Good God!" exclaimed Harmony, startled. "What's wrong with you?"
Shaking his mind clear of the past, Hallet's following sentence was as lifeless as his expression.
"The samurai…will be executed tomorrow. Captain's orders."
John Hallet then returned up the steps with his bucket…to join a scant crew of privateers above.
***
Later, Kat opened his eyes to Harmony's bright smile. "How are you?" she asked.
Ignoring her, Kat thrust his arms forward and was given a jolt by the chains keeping him to the wall.
"We've already tried!" I said, exasperated. "Believe me!"
Kat slumped back to feel the pain of a migraine. "Who…struck me?" he hissed, keen to return the favour. "Tell me who?"
Harmony and I fumbled our eyes past a guilt ridden Eddinray, who spoke up before we could lie for him,”One of the cowardly sailors clonked you from behind! A tall fellow and brutally ugly! Rest assured Kat, I gave the blaggard what for! No need to thank me of course, I know gratitude is not your way, however some form of appreciation would be welcomed."
Kat turned his sour face from our sight, examining the lantern, the many open casks of black powder, cannon balls, cables and canvas. "We could start a fire,” he said, his mind enjoying the delightfully dangerous idea. "Take them and their ship out!"
"Shit,” I said, amused. "There's enough explosives in here to blow us all to kingdom come. None would escape the blast."
Kat appeared indifferent to the loss of us all, so sullenly, we rested in silence for many minutes. I knew Harmony was considering how to inform Kat of his approaching execution, could see the subject itch her lips. But for all her grace and well-meaning words, she would tactfully beat around the point, so I saved her the trouble. "They're going to kill you Kat. You'll be executed first thing for murdering that sailor. If I can have a word with the captain before then, I'll try to explain."
"It was self defense!" added Harmony. "That's what to do Daniel. The captain cannot be an unreasonable man."
Still looking away, we thought it best to leave Kat to his mood.
"A game then?" suggested Eddinray.
"Another?" Harmony sighed. "Suppose it will pass the time. What game shall we play Godwin?"
"How about guess the sea shanty?" he exclaimed. "I'm terribly excellent at that! There…once was a lad named Jack! Who was lost at sea in a hold with three, and now he doesn't know where he's at!"
"No, no, no!" squawked Harmony. "Dreadful! Perhaps a blinking competition? Yes! The French are renowned holders of the blink you know, and I can confidently boast to be the best in my class!"
"Nonsensical notion!" jeered Eddinray. "Now arm wrestling my dear, there is your game! Who dare face me first?"
Harmony rolled her eyes back. "Can hardly arm wrestle in this state Godwin. Besides, your arms appear extremely stringy under that armor; they would likely snap if put against Kat's formidable strength."
I smirked as she carried on. "But the stare, hardly a mere game knight; it improves focus and concentration; a true commanding of the senses. First to blink loses. Godwin, you and I first."
Enthusiastically the pair faced, preparing in all seriousness to out stare the other. "Daniel," she said, "you are to judge."
Eddinray rattled the blinks out of his system before meeting Harmony's bluest eyes; and after a three-second countdown, their duel began.
One minute passed with both unflinching. I leant closer to fairly referee the contest and suddenly found myself engrossed in this foolishness. Eddinray's eyes watered as Harmony continued to beam them down. In this game, she was merciless. Inevitably then, Eddinray wobbled as if a strained scaffold, and his blink conceded the contest. "I win!" cheered Harmony. "Hurrah!"
"You cheated!" he protested. "Blew into my eyeballs you conniving French frog!"
"How dare you!" she returned. "I am no cheat, and to suggest it of an angel is a ludicrous contradiction! What say you referee?"