text: Early the next morning you are woken from your sleep by wild and confused shouting that seems to come from all around the ship. You and the other sailors spring from your hammocks and rush out on deck to see a bizarre sight. Christian and several other men armed variously with bayonets, cutlasses and muskets are herding a loudly protesting and threatening Bligh out onto deck. His hands are tightly bound behind his back.
  
  Christian seems half-crazy, he is alternately yelling at Bligh and talking to his fellow mutineers and has a heavy sounding plummet hanging from his neck (you later learn it was so he could jump overboard and drown if the mutiny failed).
  
  "Knock Christian down men," Bligh is shouting. "Knock Christian down!"
  
  "Hold your tongue or you are a dead man!" Christian screams in his face.
  
  John Fryer emerges on deck at cutlass point.
  
  "Fletcher, you must stop this," he calls out.
  
  "I have been in hell for weeks past!" Christian shouts at him. "Commander Bligh has brought this on himself!"
  
  You are not sure what is going on but Christian and at least a dozen of the crew seem to have taken control of the ship and no one is really opposing him, the only person arguing against him is the vitriolic Bligh. Christian has decided to cast Bligh and his loyal companions adrift and orders the jolly boat lowered but it found to have several leaks so he orders the cutter lowered instead. It soon becomes apparent that the cutter is too small for all the loyal crew who want to leave with Bligh.
  
  "You are all pirates!" Bligh shouts at Christian. "Any man who stays on this ship is a pirate and will be hunted down and hanged by the Royal Navy!"
  
  "Get him away!" men shout loudly.
  
  The launch, a twenty-three-foot-long boat designed for fifteen men is soon in the water and Bligh is roughly thrown in. Several other crew members starting with Fryer join him, not so much because they like him but because they don't want to stay on the ship and be labelled as pirates, a crime which carries the death penalty. Soon there are more people in the boat than there is room for and still others want to get in, the ship seems almost equally divided between Bligh Loyalists and Mutineers.
  
  You stand by the rail looking down at the crowded boat. The island of Tofua is visible nearby and as Christian is throwing a sextant, compass, charts, tools and even four cutlasses (!) down into the boat it seems the nineteen, loyal people in the boat have a good chance of reaching it in safety. It seems that the twenty-five mutineers or pirates remaining on the Bounty (including at least four people who want to go with Bligh but who there is no room for) are planning to return to Tahiti.
  
  You must choose whether to go with Bligh or remain aboard the Bounty, a decision that will affect the rest of your life.
  > remain abouard the Bounty with the Mutineers and Christian
  You remain aboard the Bounty with the twenty-five Pirates and watch as the boat containing Bligh and his companions fades away into the distance. Christian quickly assumes command of the ship and the navigating, realizing quickly that Tahiti will be the first place that the Royal Navy will look for you all but that Bligh will not get back to England, if he gets back to England, for at least one year and a ship from England would not arrive at Tahiti at least until the summer of 1791.
  
  Christian sets course for an island called Tubai hundreds of miles south of Tahiti which was sighted once twelve years ago but never visited. On arrival the Bounty is attacked by hundreds of warriors in canoes firing arrows at the ship. You and the other sailors return fire killing twelve of the Natives and forcing the rest to scatter. After three days off the island Christian decides to return to Tahiti to seek supplies and support from among the friendlier Natives there. You return to the welcome shores of Tahiti that June.
  > The Battle for Tubai
  Christian lets you all stay on Tahiti just ten days, long enough to pick up fresh supplies and twenty-eight Tahitians before sailing back to Tubai to try and seize control of it from the Natives. He builds a Fort which he calls Fort George and tries to man it against all comers. When the Natives attack they are repulsed again and again and sixty-six of them were killed, the only casualty on your side being Seaman Thomas Burkett who is speared through the side. Finally, Christian allows a vote between returning to Tahiti or staying on Tubai. The Pirates vote 16-9 to return to Tahiti. Christian sighs.
  
  "Gentlemen, I will carry you and land you wherever you please. I desire none to stay with me but I have one favor to request: that you will grant me the ship, tie the foresail, give me a few gallons of water and leave me to run before the wind and I shall land upon the first island the ship drives to. I have done such an act that I cannot stay on Tahiti. I will never live where I may be carried home to be a disgrace to my family."
  
  "We shall never leave you Mr Christian," Midshipman Edward Young promises him. "Go where you will!"
  
  After just three months in Tubai Christian sails the Bounty back to Tahiti. There the sixteen men who voted to remain there disembark the ship while Christian remains aboard with eight other companions. You have a decision to make now: you can remain on Tahiti knowing that it will probably be the first place the Royal Navy looks for you and your companions (if they look for you) or you can join Christian in sailing into the unknown to find the most obscure island possible, knowing you will probably never see England again.
  > remain on Tahiti
  You remain on Tahiti and in the autumn of 1789 you watch the Bounty sail away for the last time. There is little left to do now but settle down to living among the Tahitians and hope that the first ship to visit the island will be a friendly one. Like many of the Mutineers you get into a long-term relationship with a beautiful Tahitian woman and enjoy long days spent relaxing on the beautiful island and nights of hard-drinking and partying with the locals. Seven months after the Bounty leaves violence erupts, threatening to destroy your peaceful existence.
  
  The problem is Matthew Thompson, a middle-aged and brutal man who alone out of all of you doesn't have a romantic partner as the Native women avoid him. One day there is chaos in the village and you learn that Thompson, drunk on strong spirits, has tried to rape a Tahitian woman but was fought off when her screams brought her brother and other men running to her aid.
  
  You go out of your hut and walk towards Thompson's, as do several of your companions, to find him outside his hut shouting at a small crowd of angry Tahitians to go away. He has a musket in his hands and without warning he raises it and fires it at a man. The bullet passes through a baby the man is holding in his arms and into his chest, killing them both. Reversing the musket Thompson swings it in a wild arc, cracking a woman in the head and knocking her unconscious to the ground. The rest of the crowd flees.
  
  Thompson sensibly flees to the shoreline, steals a canoe and paddles away to a small nearby island called Taiarapu. The rest of you have a meeting with the Tahitians where you emphasize that Thompson's actions had nothing to do with the rest of you and you all condemn his cruelty. The Tahitians accept your explanations, largely because Quartermaster Charles Churchill has been adopted by a local chief and is gaining considerable status among the Natives.
  
  After some talk you decide on what to do: you will send a messenger to Thompson telling him he can safely return to Tahiti and when he comes back one or two of you will steal his muskets and cutlasses from his hut and give him no more to prevent him doing anymore harm. It is a risky thing to do as Thompson is a violent man but Churchill volunteers for the task.
  > join Churchill in stealing Thompson's weapons
  You send a Native to Thompson telling him all is forgiven and he can return and a suspicious Thompson dutifully returns to Tahiti. About a week after his return when Thompson is elsewhere you and Churchill sneak into his hut, take his weapons and hide them in your own huts. Thompson is absolutely furious when he discovers the theft unfortunately for you a Native man with a grudge against Churchill tells him who stole the weapons.
  
  You are standing talking to Churchill one day when, without warning Thompson, comes up behind you and shoots you in the back of the head with the musket he has recovered from your hut. You fall instantly dead to the ground and a moment later Thompson shoots and kills Churchill with a second weapon. It might be some consolation for you that your Tahitian friends avenge your death and beat Thompson to dead with rocks later that same day.