1792 and fourteen captured sailors were on board HMS Pandora bound for England's channel port of Portsmouth to stand trial for their part in a notorious mutiny that occurred three years previously. Their accuser was the hero Captain William Bligh. Among them was the cabin boy Thomas Ellison (16years) a junior officer, Peter Heywood (18years) and junior warrant officer James Morrison. They all faced the mandatory penalty for mutineers, death by strangulation at the end of a pulled rope...

"Then sue God!" snapped James Morrison. In the same Pacific ocean that extinguished HMS Bounty, His Majesty's Schooner Pandora wallowed in a greasy sea and Morrison and the others rolled likewise in their prison. It was a dark, specially constructed wooden cell aptly named Pandora's box. "Just don't complain to me about what you think of navy justice!" The half-blind Burn still whined and muttered though with a little less insistence. It was not a subject Morrison or any of the more sensible prisoners wanted to discuss. "You all expect me to get you out of this," Morrison growled. "Why me?"
         This particular day James Morrison was more on edge than usual. His measured tones becoming harsh and impatient. He had learnt to speak only when absolutely necessary as the effort seemed to sap his energy. His face twitched in the dark as he reached down and found a fat insect attached to his leg. He squeezed hard, felt it pop then flicked it away. He was aware most of the others looked to him as their leader. It was a circumstance he neither enjoyed or encouraged. Why me? I'm the one should be complaining. I'm the one that'll be tasting salted eel. Not you! The thoughts were difficult to contain but as usual Morrison held his temper. Tasting salted eel, he smirked at the irony of that through his cracked, dry lips—it was sailors' talk for being flogged. The eel was the cat of nine tails and the salt was the brine used to wash the wounds. What most disturbed Morrison was not the punishment so much as the waiting. He didn't know whether his taste would come today, tomorrow or next week, and moreover, there was nothing he could do about it—not a damned thing! He turned away and felt his bare flesh slide in the slime of his own sweat. Damn it all why didn't he go with Christian when he had the chance! How naively stupid he was! Three months ago he believed in honour and justice. Now that seemed like another lifetime. They were the thoughts of a fool, someone who lived up in the clouds and looked down and saw only beautiful fluffy white mists floating by. A person who had little knowledge of the rugged terrain underneath. Well now he had crashed down on to those sharp rocks. Morrison wished it would end; suddenly he wished everything would end.

         Aye man, don't you talk to me of justice!
         He closed his eyes, hoisted his body to relieve a numbed hip and remembered back to the day HMS Pandora first appeared as a dot on Tahitie's sunlit horizon. The tiny speck grew and grew, and two hours later the large Royal Naval schooner had dropped anchor in Matavia Bay. His young friend Peter Heywood had spied the familiar red and white flag, way off, and they had whooped, danced and hugged each other. Salvation! They were going home. Heywood had torn off his shirt and swum out to greet their rescuers.

But their joy was short lived—so very short thought Morrison—what fools they were! Everyone had thought it impossible Bligh would ever make it home—and even if he did that he would never name them as mutineers! Why them, what did they do wrong? How quickly their hopes were dashed. Treated worse than Pandora's livestock, they were unceremoniously arrested shackled and imprisoned in a crude rough box. A twelve foot by eight foot by five foot prison of slab timber, Captain Edwards had ironically named it 'Pandora's Box,' he said for the evil it contained. They had been there, crouched down ever since, twelve of them, for three long months.

Pandora's cursed box James Morrison winced. Not even room to stand!
         Don't talk of justice!
         A neighbour groaned and Morrison wiped his cheek on his naked shoulder. It came away wetter than before. He tasted the salt.
         The tropical heat was so intense rivers of sweat trickled into tiny blocked scuppers and produced maggots. The filthy hammocks were breeding stations and home for all variety of vermin; some visible and others known only by the sting and swelling of their bites. Bedding was so lice infested the prisoners had unslung their hammocks and slept on the boards and as they lay naked against one another their sweat ran into the scuppers. In a corner, two containers were provided for bodily functions. They stood uncovered and humming with flies but no one noticed the stench any more. Morrison heard a different groan and peered into the darkness. It was his friend Midshipman Peter Heywood, the only other officer among the prisoners.
         "Aha," came the sound as Peter Heywood clutched at his stomach and removed his head from the stinking bucket. The dry-retching and the cramps had returned with a vengeance and Peter Heywood felt much worse than last week when the cramps crippled him. His glazed eyes searched the gloom but the teenage officer registered nothing in his brain. All he could do was feel the pain in his stomach.
         Morrison knew there was nothing anyone could do to help his friend and he slumped back against the heat of the searing jack-wood planks. He closed his eyes still muttering, 'Don't talk to me of justice.'
         Twelve prisoners, including Morrison, Peter Heywood and Tom Ellison had no options but to lie atrophied in their semi-darkness while outside the tropical sun blazed hot and white. Morrison closed his eyes and tried to empty his mind.
         "Wake up, wake up!" The shrill voice pierced the mesmerising sounds of flapping canvas and slapping sea and the prisoners groaned. It was the unmistakable voice of their jailer Thomas Hayward. As usual, the cherub-faced Lieutenant banged the hilt of his cutlass on the side of Pandora's box. Morrison stiffened and scratched the edges of the tropical ulcer growing on his left ankle. The others mostly shifted from their own torpidity into pain and consciousness.
         Five feet above them the rusty steel hatch bolts clanked and rattled as they were withdrawn and slapped down. Salty hinges squealed as the top-hatch was forced. Eleven men and a boy sucked at the new air. A few came awake from dreams of cool winds and England's green fields. Forearms shielded eyes as the opening produced a shaft of brilliant blinding light. Tiny particles spiralled weightlessly about and were caught as the slanting beam illuminated the doom. Morrison watched a few rising gnats, flies and other winged insects. He had read a book about Egypt and thousand year old crypts under huge pyramids and wondered what it would be like to be inside when one was opened. Now he thought he knew.
         A set of stubby steps snaked down making a thump as the stumps hit the floor.
         "Wake up, wake up you scum of the sea," came a familiar high pitched whine. Known as 'the catspaw' among the prisoners Lieutenant Thomas Hayward had grown in confidence from the time he realised a number of the younger midshipmen seemed impressed by boldness. Never before had he tried to be assertive, he had always just stood on the sidelines and waited for his chance. It was his sworn policy to leave the dangerous work to others. Now things had changed and he had 'respect.' To top it off, when his hero Captain Edwards had called him 'responsible' his chest had swelled so much he felt it might burst and his heart fall out and go bouncing around the deck. A ship's surgeon on Bounty had once told him his heart needed more bounce and the words had stuck in his mind.
         He banged the hilt of his cutlass hard against the hatch. Most of the Bounty prisoners still gave him no respect so Thomas Hayward hated them all. They were all old shipmates, the same Bounty bastards who cast him out, and he wanted his vengeance. Now the tables were turned it was ripe for them to squirm, to suffer like he did when they made him go with Bligh in the boat. If Captain Edwards called them the flotsam of the navy why should Lieutenant Thomas Hayward argue? To him they were just that and worse. Some kept begging him to inform the Captain of their innocence, to explain their unwillingness to join with Fletcher Christian and to tell that they only did so by force. Thomas knew there was no reward for him in that so bugger the lot of them. He particularly despised the their growing mateship and superior airs. He banged the box again. "Shift yourselves you useless scum!"
         What annoyed the young Lieutenant even more was that some of Pandora's midshipmen deliberately confused him with the prisoner Peter Heywood, and continued to ask if he was related. More jokes at his expense. It was a mystery why some of his own messmates still picked on him.
         The prisoners watched as Hayward's shiny brass-buckled shoes and silk-stockinged legs entered the box. Hayward stopped and posed in the light, one hand rested on his hip the other on the hilt of his cutlass.
         A real peacock, Morrison thought disgustedly..
         Uppermost in Lieutenant Hayward's mind was another comment made just five minutes past by his captain who, referring to the prisoners had smiled and remarked, 'they seem to be causing us no trouble at all, 'well done Thomas!' It was this very comment that precipitated this present un-scheduled visit. He stepped down a rung or two and swung his upper body imperiously about as he bent his head and peered into the darkness. He held no fear because he knew illness and cramp had already destroyed the spirit of his prisoners. Instead he tried to think of something to say some announcement to justify his visit. As usual he was never caught short when it came to speech making.
         "Traitors," he hissed, "attend me well! For a life of ease and to breech some brown-skinned, virgin's vault you would cast your shipmates to their doom, eh?" He paused and peered into the shadows. "So far as I am concerned you are all traitors, navy riff-raff . Cast me out would you! If it was by my hand you would all be swinging—scragged, bagged and ottomised."
         This produced a groan or two and some sliding noises as the prisoners sweating bodies glistened snake like in the half light. Morrison, nearest the ladder, held his ground while his black eyes bored into his tormentor. "You bastard Hayward,." he said as fiercely as he could manage. Morrison was no stranger to punishment and had himself had occasion to wield the lash, but as boatswain's mate it was his duty and there was never any joy. Fate and circumstance had put him in this hell hole, nothing else. Low born his commission was earned not bought like the peacock on the ladder. He knew Hayward's type well enough, the navy was full of them, common and cowardly individuals who abused underlings in direct proportion to the force of authority they would accept from their own superiors. They were the worst of all bureaucrats and at the first sign of danger they usually hid or wailed for protection. Morrison grimaced as Hayward's hand went to his cutlass. "Going to draw your sword against bare hands you damned coward?" Morrison sneered and jerked mockingly forward.
         Hayward flinched, and dropped his hand. His blue eyes blinked with suppressed anger. "You won't be talking like that soon Morrison, your punishment is scheduled for today."
         As soon as the words were out Hayward regretted them. Now the black-eyed bastard Morrison would have a chance to prepare himself, he cursed inwardly.
         To recover his lost poise, the young Lieutenant shrugged, spun around and addressed the rest of the prisoners. "I have decided to notify you as to what pleasantries await when you reach Portsmouth. You will be transferred to another ship where you will receive no special treatment or favours, but you will receive protection from the population who will, no doubt, be in attendance to see your necks stretched. Rarely do they have the opportunity to welcome such a notorious band of human flotsam! At the transfer you will remain in your manacles with the addition of leg irons and waist chains. You will have no family visits; in truth, you will have no visits at all apart from naval officers involved in your prosecution or, God forbid, your defence! Nor will you be entitled to receive any goods or food from friends or relatives." Hayward rubbed his chin as he had momentarily run out of words. "And I wish you all the pain and misfortune that was the unhappy lot of your victims—remember it was your selfishness that caused Mr Evans to be slaughtered at Tofua, and Leward, Elphinstone and the others to die in Batavia? You are all responsible for our suffering, their deaths and the grief our their families; and – damn you – you will all hang" As a parting shot he pinched his nose between thumb and forefinger and sneered, "I don't know how you exist in this appalling cesspit?"
         As Thomas Hayward climbed back up the steps, instead of the feeling the euphoria he expected, all he felt was the dissatisfaction of the hunter who discovers his ammunition exhausted while his wounded game limps off. That damned Morrison always made him feel like that, but he consoled himself with an image of the man screaming and bleeding under the waiting lash. Well at least he hoped Morrison would let out a scream or two.
         The hatch slammed shut.
         As one the prisoners looked forward to Portsmouth. They looked forward to cool air and less cramped conditions even if in the bowels of some anchored man-o-war.
         Morrison gently turned to see what the cabin boy Tom Ellison thought of it all. He saw the youth was asleep. Had he slept through Lieutenant Hayward's whole performance?
         "Aye, that lad would sleep through his own execution," muttered the envious Able Seaman Milward who shared a leg iron with the teenager and responded to Morrison's look. Millward was under no illusion as to what awaited him and the boy when they arrived home—that was if they ever got there for, with Captain Edward's constant punishments, doubtful seamanship and their own illnesses there was great doubt they would make it at all.
         "Don't talk to me of justice," Morrison whispered to himself and turned away.

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