A VOYAGE OF DANGER
The Mutiny on the Flowery Land
IT is significant to note that, in the merchant service, most of the mutinies on the record of shame have as their ringleaders—and rank and file—foreign sailors aboard British ships; and the mutiny on board the Flowery Land was no exception.
The Flowery Land, laden with wines, and a mixed cargo besides, left the Port of London on July 28, 1863, bound for Singapore. Crew and officers numbered twenty, the captain bearing the honest, if common, name of John Smith; with him, as a passenger, sailed his brother George.
They had not been at sea long before Captain Smith found that he had a very tough set of men to deal with. They were a cosmopolitan crowd—Spaniards, Turks, Greeks, Norwegians, Chinamen, and a sprinkling of Englishmen, these latter being Karswell, the first mate, and William Taffir, the second mate. The seamen, being far from sweet-tempered, and giving evidence every now and then of insubordination, had to be taken pretty strongly in hand, which took the form of rope’s-ending some of them occasionally to quell their unruly spirits. Such treatment, however, only seemed to arouse the antipathy of the crew, who secretly plotted against the captain and his officers; and when one day George Carlos, the Greek, after a particularly flagrant piece of insubordination, was hauled on deck and strapped to the bulwark for a while, it made them more determined than ever to get their own back. Not that this treatment of Carlos was anything out of the way; it was a very frequent form of punishment for the law-breaker at sea. And, as a matter of fact, Carlos did not get all he deserved, for Captain Smith took pity on him, and had him released sooner than he need have done, and went so far as to physic him and let him go to his bunk for a rest.
But what harsh treatment did not effect, kind was unable to, and Carlos nursed revenge in his heart. With his cosmopolitan comrades he worked up a mutiny which broke out on September 10, at about three o’clock in the morning.
The captain was below at the time, and Karswell was on deck, it being his watch; and the conspirators had timed things so that the two could not help each other. Suddenly the storm burst; one party made a rush for Karswell, who, taken unawares, was felled to the deck with handspikes.
“Mercy!” he cried in his agony; but the ruffians were out for blood, and, not heeding his cries, struck him again and again, battering in his head and smashing his face. Then, having taken so much of revenge, they picked the still screaming man up from the deck, carried him to the side, and heaved him into the sea.
Meanwhile, down in the cabin, the captain had heard the noise, and, jumping up, had rushed half-way up the companion-way. He got no farther; several men met him, including Francisco Blanco and Brasilio de los Santos, and, armed with handspikes and daggers, they fell upon him with fury. Clinging to the ladder, seeking to work his way up, the captain was hacked, stabbed, and stabbed again, and then chased below and beaten till his body was racked with pain.
Taffir, the second mate, also roused by the hubbub, tried to get on to the deck, but was stopped by a struggling crowd on the companion, who were treating another man as they had treated the captain. A handspike sent him spinning down again; but once more he ran up, and caught hold this time of the man, and tried to pull him out of danger. He did not know then what had happened to Smith, and he called out lustily on the captain for help. There was no answer; only another blow that sent him hurtling below.
Picking himself up, he ran to the captain’s cabin, only to find it empty. From there he hurried to the main cabin, and here the flickering light of the untrimmed lamp showed him the captain lying in a pool of blood. The mutineers had finished him off there. He was dead. Half maddened by the horror of it all, Taffir rushed to the berth of the captain’s brother. That also was empty. George Smith had been beaten on the head with handspikes till the life was out of him, and then had been pitched overboard. Realising now that there was little mercy being shown to whoever fell into the mutineers’ hands, Taffir sought safety in his own cabin, where he locked himself in, and waited in anguish for about three-quarters of an hour, refusing to answer the calls of the seamen as they pounded at his door.
In the meantime the mutineers were having a clean sweep up; they knocked the carpenter, Michael Anderson, on the head, and ransacked the ship to see what they could find. Then they bethought themselves of Taffir again. Although he did not know it, Taffir was destined to be saved, for the sole reason that, now that they had disposed of the other officers, he was the only man who knew anything about navigation; and, even when you’ve got a ship in your hands, it’s not much use unless you can do something with it.
So down they went to Taffir’s cabin, and on his refusing to open the door to them, they smashed it in and marched into the cabin, where, as bloodstained, ruffianly looking a crew as man ever saw, they stood in a half-circle round his berth.
“Come out!” cried John Lyons, a Spaniard. “Come out!”
Thinking that acquiescence was the safest thing, Taffir got out and stood before them.
“Are you going to kill me?” he asked, anxiously waiting for the answer, and half fearing what it might be. He had little reason to expect mercy from men who had so far shown none.
“No,” said Lyons. “But we’ve killed the skipper and the mate, and the captain’s brother has got away somewhere. We want you to work the ship to somewhere. Will you do it?”
For a moment or so Taffir thought. To say “Yes” was to lend himself to the crime; to say “No” was to ask for death. And, after all, refusing would do nothing for the men who had been killed, whereas to agree might lead to the bringing of the ruffians to justice.
“All right,” he said presently, and the party went on deck again.
Going to the main cabin, Taffir saw that Captain Smith’s body had a rope round it, and that Watto, the Turk, was going to haul it up on deck to heave it overboard.
“Hold! Let me sew it up in canvas,” cried Taffir, with all the sailor’s reverence for the dead; and the mutineers, knowing that, after all, they must humour the mate, consented. Taffir performed his sad office, and Captain Smith had a decent burial at sea, minus the service.
It was five o’clock before Taffir went up on deck, and as he did so he passed Santos, who flourished a big knife at him, as though he would much like to do with Taffir as he had done with the captain.
Having seen that the ship was going all right, Taffir went back to the cabin, and remained there till about eight o’clock, when all the hands except the man at the wheel came down to interview him.
“Come into the captain’s cabin,” said Lyon sternly.
“What for?” Taffir asked, though he had already guessed what was afoot.
“We want to see what money and clothes he’d got,” was the reply; and although he did not say so, Lyons’s idea was that, if they got Taffir there, and made him share with them, they could say that he was a party to the whole affair.
Needs must when the devil drives; and so Taffir went into the cabin, standing by while Santos, Blanco, Carlos, Watto, and Lopez ransacked it for everything of value. They broke open boxes and chests, wrenched open the desks, and, gathering all the money they could find, took it into the main cabin, where they laid it upon the table for division.
“Dole it out in seventeen parts,” said Lyons to Taffir.
“No!” screamed the Turk. “Make it eight!”
“Shut up!” said Lyons threateningly, and Taffir thought that the thieves were going to quarrel amongst themselves. However, the matter was smoothed over, and Lyons had his own way.
Into seventeen parts the money was divided.
“Here’s yours,” said Lyons to the mate.
“I won’t touch a cent of it,” said Taffir, seeing what the idea was.
“You’ll do as I tell you,” cried Lyons, “or——”
He let the rest go by default, and Taffir knew what he meant. There was nothing for it, and, taking the share, the mate carried it to one of the writing-desks and put it in there, though he never saw it again. Perhaps the greedy Turk had it.
Next the mutineers allotted out the captain’s clothes, though they did not give Taffir a share of them. When they came to Smith’s watch they decided that, as they couldn’t very well divide that, they would keep it till they landed, when they might be able to sell it. The timepiece was therefore put into the writing-desk with Taffir’s money; but that also disappeared, and later was a source of trouble.
Having settled up these little matters fairly amicably, the question was to get to land, and Taffir was made to navigate the vessel, while the crew, when it was not necessary for them to work, regaled themselves with champagne and overhauled the cargo for valuables.
For some days everything went on smoothly, and then a ship was sighted. She proved to be the Friends, of Liverpool, and Taffir steered the Flowery Land towards her. Acting on instructions from Carlos, who was in charge of the ship, and had ordered her to be set for Buenos Ayres, under threat of death Taffir told the Friends’ captain that she was the Louiza, bound for Valparaiso.
Then the two ships parted company; and barely had the Friends got away when the crew rushed towards Taffir, and, with daggers drawn, stood and jabbered at him like so many monkeys. Although he couldn’t understand what they were saying, there was no mistaking their attitude. Evidently they were angry with him for something, and it would have gone ill with Taffir had not Lyons come along. Quieting the angry crew, he abstracted from them the fact that they thought Taffir had just told the Friends the whole story of the mutiny. Lyons soon put them right on that little matter, and they went back to their champagne, appeased.
The incident showed Taffir how slender was the thread on which his life hung, and he knew that he would have to be careful, for if these men suspected that he was playing them false there was little doubt that they would kill him out of hand, and risk what happened afterwards. They were like so many madmen, and one day Taffir saw the Turk go up to the Chinese steward and gash his arm open with a large knife for no apparent reason whatever. It turned out that they were forcing him to collect all the ship’s papers, which they threw overboard. Then they had a row about the captain’s watch, which was missing, and accused Taffir of having stolen it. It never was found, and was a sore point all through.
On October 2 land was sighted, and now that they had no further use for him, the mutineers sent Taffir to Coventry. No one spoke to him or took any notice of him; they even refused to let him work the ship, which they turned about. They sent Taffir to his cabin then, where he remained all day. At night Blanco went down and ordered him up on deck, where he found that they were clewing up the sails and getting the boats out.
“What are you going to do?” he asked Lyons.
No answer; only surly looks.
“What’s going to be done with the ship?” he asked another of the Spaniards present, Marsolino. “And what about me? Are you going to kill me?” For Taffir was convinced that momentous things were about to take place.
“We’re going to scuttle the ship,” said Marsolino. “And as for you”—he leered—“as for you, I’m not going to kill you—but I rather think Blanco is,” he added grimly.
Naturally, Taffir was now all anxiety. Here he was, with a ship full of mutineers whose hands were already stained with innocent blood, and who were evidently preparing to leave the ship he had navigated for them. What a prospect was before him! He could almost feel the dagger eating its way into his body as the bloodthirsty Blanco looked across at him every now and again.
Three-quarters of an hour of such anxiety passed, and then Taffir was flung into one of the boats, which contained the cook, the steward, Frank Powell, Watto, and the ship’s boy, named Early. Evidently he was not going to be murdered after all. In another boat, riding at the stern, were several other men, while the rest were still on board the Flowery Land.
Presently the boat in which Taffir had been thrown was pulled away from the ship, but had only gone about a hundred yards when those on the Flowery Land called her back. Taffir’s heart sank. Was he, after all, going to be hauled back to death? He took heart again the next instant, for the men in the boat, with the exception of Watto, did not want to go back, and refused to pull towards the ship. Powell, who steered, refused to turn her head round, and Taffir thanked him in the silence of his own heart. Suddenly Watto, seizing an oar, threatened to knock Powell’s brains out if he didn’t do as he was told; and the boat’s head swung round, and she sped towards the ship. They were anxious moments for poor Taffir, whose mind was not set at rest when Lyons, on the Flowery Land, ordered the lot of them to get back on deck.
Why they were called back Taffir did not know, and was not told; probably it was because the others did not want one boat to start before the rest. Anyhow, for a long time Taffir was kept on deck; and though he could see but little in the darkness, he heard the noise made as the scoundrels loaded the boats, not forgetting the champagne, bottles of which they lowered into the craft riding at the sides. The Chinese steward fell into the water while trying to get aboard from the boat, and while struggling for life was pelted with bottles of champagne till he sank. Taffir saw his own fate there.
Soon, however, as though to prolong his agony, they threw him into a boat, this time the one in which Lyons and Blanco were to sail. The fact that it was Blanco’s boat was anything but pleasing to Taffir, who remembered what Marsolino had told him, and trembled for his life. Durrano and Lopez, other Spaniards, also got into this boat, which was presently pushed off; and almost immediately afterwards the Flowery Land, which had been scuttled, and had begun to settle some time before, gave a final plunge and dived beneath the surface. Through the darkness Taffir could see the Chinese boy and the cook clinging to the top; they had been left to their fate, and not a hand was held out to save them.
Lyons’s boat towed the other towards land, which was reached at four o’clock in the afternoon of October 9. Taffir was told that, if he valued his life, he was to say that the vessel was an American ship from Peru, bound for Bordeaux, and that she had foundered a hundred miles from land, that the captain had got into one boat, and had not been seen since, and that the two boats which had come ashore had been at sea for five days and nights.
In his heart Taffir had made up his mind to tell of the tragedy as soon as an opportunity presented itself. That night the party slept at a farmhouse, and the next day the farmer drove them to Rocha. Watching his time, Taffir managed to find out that at a place called Camp, twenty miles away, was a man named Ramoz, who could speak English; and one night he slipped out of Rocha and made his way to Camp. He located Ramoz, to whom he told his tale, and later he was taken to the authorities, where once more he recited the events that had taken place on the Flowery Land, with the result that eight of the mutineers were captured, and in due course put on their trial at the Central Criminal Court, London. Lyons, Durrano, Santos, Watto, Blanco, Marsolino, and Lopez were found guilty of murder, Carlos being acquitted.
Altogether, the mutiny of the Flowery Land is a lurid story of the sea.