Men Against the Sea, by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall (HC, 1935, $5, which is 1/3 the internet price)
Captain Bligh had a good reputation before the mutiny. He had been chosen as the sailing master for Captain Cook's third voyage. He was even known to discipline less than most captains. Yet in 1789 his first officer and 18 men mutinied, forced him and 18 loyal crew into a 23 foot open boat, and set them adrift without chart or compass. Was Bligh as bad as the mutineers said? Had the mutineers just gotten too used to living the Tahitian life? We will never know.
What ever the truth behind the mutiny, we do know how the story ended. For 47 days Bligh kept his boat afloat, and on course, until they reached Timor 3,600 miles away. There had been islands in between, but it hadn't been safe to land. The men battled storms, fatigue, sun, hunger and thirst. They survived having their rudder break. Somehow they made it.
While I was reading this, I thought it was the story told by one of the crew. Actually it was the second of three novels based on the mutiny. The first novel told the story up till the mutiny. The third related the story of the mutineers.
Two facts struck me as ironic. During the voyage on the Bounty, the captain never even got to use his master captain's room because it had been converted into a greenhouse for the plants he was bringing back to England! Instead he lived in a cramped officer's room. So much for the idea that he had been living an easy life before the mutiny! The other irony was a later ship's crew that he captained also mutinied. This time the mutiny wasn't personal, but a protest against the royal navy's low pay and involuntary service. (Involuntary, because the navy could legally kidnap men off the street and force them on board to become sailors.)
Look for this novel on the new fiction table. (Avail. 6/20)
