“Mr Ledward, as I live and breathe, there is no finer barber-surgeon on these seas. My good man, you are an artist.”

“Why, you’re too kind, captain,” Ledward replied amiably. “Rather thought I was rusty at it but turns out it was just my knife,” he japed, wiping the scalpel down on his jerkin, though with it as soaked in claret as the blade it did little to clean it.

The woman, restrained to the barber-surgeon’s chair by her wrists and ankles, flinched back as the captain approached. "Kill me and be done with it," she whispered weakly. “Or I swear if it’s the last thing I do, I’ll murder every last one of you scum in your beds. Starting with you, captain.” She spat the last word, a mouthful of pink spit landing at his feet.

“Quite the tongue on her,” he noted.

“I can change that for you if you like,” the barber-surgeon said eagerly, already raising his scalpel

“No, no. Just a figure of speech. That won’t be necessary. Not yet. Save your energy for the others, my good man. Now, if you may do the honours, I'd like to see the rest.”

The barber-surgeon grinned proudly and lowered the scalpel, cutting through the thick swaddling of bandages wrapped about the ex-seaman’s chest, and began tearing and peeling them away with the flair of a chef unveiling an exquisite delicacy. Indeed the two upswells of flesh that bulged from the top of bandages jiggled like trifle as the surgeon roughly ripped the bloodied linen. He only needed to cut through half of them before the breasts burst free of their own accord.

At the sight of such splendid and sizeable adornments, the captain could do nothing else but give a gasp, and the man a much-needed round of applause.

Captain Bligh stooped, his calloused fingers caressing the exquisitely soft orbs, flawless except for a smattering of vulgar sailors' tattoos stretched across the filled flesh.

“How in the devil do you get them so large?”

“Other parts of him mostly. Take the parts you chop off and shove them back into the chest. Just like filling a sausage casing. There’s fat and a lot of gristly bits you gotta take off a man if you want to stop him being a man, so there’s handfuls of it to be going at.”

“But so soft? They feel like the real article.”

“Ah! Well that’s a trade secret, captain. But, er, I’d avoid the minced beef in the galley for a while. At least 'till I rinse the machine down.”

The captain continued his examination of the mutineer, taking his time as he studied each part with eyes and hands. Mr Ledward and his knife were worth their weight in gold out here in the remote ocean, where the highest and only authority to be seen was that of the captain of the ship and his ability to enforce order. Had he known Ledward was capable of this, he might have had Fletcher feminised earlier, and nipped the whole mutiny in the bud.

The atmosphere on board was still charged like the air before a storm, but the sight of the first feminised mutineer being paraded before the crew - chained, stripped, and beautiful - had soon put paid to any spirit of uprising from the remaining men. He knew he would have no more trouble before getting back to port. After all, the trigger had been over the sailor’s want for women, and there would soon be more women aboard than men.

“What should I do with her?” asked Mr Ledward.

The captain considered it. “Give her to Coleman. He's a loyal sort. Tell him that she’s his to do with as he pleases, but his alone. I don’t want the men sharing her like they did the last one. It’s unseemly.”