Edwards improvised tents out of sailcloth for himself and those he favoured. The prisoners scorched in the sun. ‘We appeared as if dipped in large tubs of boiling water,’ Peter Heywood later wrote to his sister Nessy. Their only means of shelter was to bury themselves up to their necks in the burning sand. Heywood asked Edwards if they might make use of an old sail salvaged from the wreck. His request was refused.
After three days the crew and prisoners, in the four boats, headed for Timor and the mercy of the Dutch. They stopped at island shores for oysters and fresh water. At the rocky outcrop Bligh had called Sunday Island, they were attacked by fishermen with bows and arrows. On 2 September, at the north-east point of New Holland, they launched into the Indian Ocean. Ahead of them was a thousand-mile voyage. Their suffering was extreme, ‘their temper cross and savage’.
Connell died. The rest reached Timor after eleven ghastly days. ‘Nothing could exceed the kindness and hospitality of the governor and other Dutch officers of this settlement, in affording every possible assistance and relief in our distressed condition,’ Edwards wrote. For three weeks the men recuperated, then went on a Dutch ship, the Rembang, to Samarang, where they were reunited with the crew of the Resolution. They all went on to Batavia then home in an English ship, the Gorgon.
They arrived at Spithead on 19 June 1792. It was a repeated saga: another ship lost, another court martial, another story of cruelty, heroism, suffering, death, endurance and chaotic departure from the original life plan.
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Sir Roland remained elusive, though two replies came from London Rookeries. One, asking for a donation, was from a nature reserve with charitable status. The other, from a Mr Stasinopoulos who ran a small hotel in Euston, voiced concern about an elderly guest who called himself Rommel, owed a great deal of money and appeared to have no relatives. Could he be the one we were looking for? My own news was equally discouraging: an automated out-of-the-office reply from Verity and – as ever – alarming news of mother. She’d assaulted one of the residents and caused confusion with the emergency services by her repeated dialling of 999. Firemen had insisted on evacuating the building. There was talk of moving her to a secure psychiatric institution.
I walked to the village square and felt watched by unseen eyes. Bea, the policewoman, was in her garden building a boat, helped by Len, her elderly uncle. They worked with speed and confidence using a handsaw and a hammer and without drawings or reference. I thought of the ‘pirates’ schooner’ the Resolution, and how it withstood cruel seas for thousands of miles. I asked questions about the craft of Polynesian boatbuilding and if this boat could reach Mangareva. Bea said it might, if the weather was good.
None of the buildings in the square was locked. There was no theft on the island. The courthouse where the trials were to be held was a simple room with plain tables and chairs and a photograph of Queen Elizabeth the Second on her throne. Pinned on boards outside were public notices to do with the erection of a garden shelter without Council approval and a missing library book, which had a green cover with a computer on it. More urgent notices voiced anxiety and anger about the impending trials:
It has been brought to my attention that some very serious accusations is being sent and passed on from Pitcairn to outsiders concerning people on Pitcairn. This is classed as malicious gossip and like I asked at the public gathering when I made the statement on the same issue, it is a serious offence and that the police can get involved.
If anymore issues are brought to my attention then the police will deal with it immediately. Please let us all try to work together for the good of the island and stop making lives miserable for others.
Thanking you
Steve Christian
Island Mayor
As from 7 June 2004 the Council has passed a resolution that in cases when islanders are involved in personal incidents that could be sensationalised in the media, to refrain from publishing a report of the island until all parties concerned have been consulted. This is in the best interest of all parties concerned and the well being of the island.
Such public trials in this lost and private place seemed harsh – the division of the islanders one against the other, the blame and shame. And there was another missive pinned to the board that would not excite the world’s attention. It was from Dr Thomas H. Scantlebury and dated May 2004. He wrote of his ‘undying appreciation to my Pitcairn brother Randy for saving my life and for the cool head which he demonstrated. I will never forget him and will consider him to be a part of me and my family until my dying day.’ He thanked Steve too ‘for coming into the cave in terrible weather conditions on 11 May at Gudgeon. And no less everlasting appreciation to Jay …’
I asked Rosie about this story. Dr Scantlebury was a Florida doctor who’d served a three-month stint as a Pitcairn locum. One afternoon he went out in a boat with Randy Christian, Steve’s son, to take photos of the cliff face and its caves. The sea grew huge, waves whipped up, the boat smashed against the rocks. Both men were big. Scantlebury cracked his head against a rock. Randy dragged him to a secret cave, known to the Pitcairners, beneath the cliff face, at the back of which was dry sand out of reach of the sea. He stemmed the bleeding from the doctor’s head. They huddled together for warmth. By evening the islanders feared for them and in treacherous weather Steve and Jay took a boat out to the cave and rescued them.
‘Those were acts of heroism,’ I said to Rosie. ‘Oh it’s what
