Full or not on Navy fare, the hands drifted over to see what he had, up on the gangway to peer over the bulwarks, or below its lip to grumble and insist that Bales let him come aboard. Most especially the whores.
“Might not see another, Brother Bales.” Handcocks speculated. “Tyrants’ ve most-like scared th’ rest o’ th’ bumboatmen from tradin’. Threatened t’take away their permits, sure.”
“Very well,” Bales sighed. “No private spirits, mind. We’ve articles against it, Mister Willis,” he warned the vendor. “You’ve no doxies in your boat, so I can’t see the harm. Let him enter!” Bales decreed in a loud voice, like Moses reading the First Commandment, to a glad cheer from the bored crew and the deprived womenfolk.
Willis the vendor and several of his assistants clambered up to the gangway. Some of them descended into the waist to show off samples of their wares. Children began shrieking over gooey sweets or stickily sugared buns they wished. The warship’s waist quickly became a village green on Market Day.
Willis the vendor came aft to confront Lewrie and the rest of his officers, who had come up fingering their own purses or delving in their breeches’ pockets to purchase those luxuries which enlivened their own lives.
“Oh, sirs, I’ve so many fowl, I’m chicken-pore, an’ they’ll go for less’n anybody else’d charge ye, my Bible-oath ’pon it! T’others cut off from tradin’ … skeered off from tradin’ by that Admiral Buckner and that new Gen’r’l Grey just come t’Sheerness with all his soldiers?” The man bubbled most brightly. “Wines, sirs. Brandies, sirs. Not for the likes o’ them lads down yonder, but off’ cers can have private wine-stocks. Good vintages an’ more’n reasonable. Here, Captain, sir. We see ya, all but slobb’rin’ over these here fine shoats. Brace of them, good Captain, an’ I swear ya could feast fer four days runnin’. Half-crown each, Captain, sir. A crown, th’ pair.”
“Damme, that’s … more’n reasonable,” Lewrie was forced to say.
“Bought up th’ stock o’ other vendors!” Lewrie could hear a vendor’s assistant on the lower deck bawling the explanation. “Bought for a song, when they saw ’twas ruinous for ’em, th’ craven poltroons! Bought cheap, sold cheap! Come one, come all. No pushin’ there, lad!”
“I’ll take the shoats,” Lewrie said, looking for Aspinall to come and take charge of them and opening his purse for solid coin. “A brace of geese too. A full pound for all, is it?”
“An’ here’s yer change, good sir!” The vendor winked, handing Lewrie a folded square of paper. “Shame it is, good Englishmen forced t’use paper money, but there ’tis.” He winked again.
Lewrie pocketed the note in his breeches and gave this fellow Willis a dumbstruck nod of understanding.
“No matter th’ rest o’ th’ cowards, sir,” Willis assured him, “you can count on Willis’s fer all yer needs. Be back whene’er th’ ole Nore weather allows me, sirs. Keep ya in yer best tucker. Cheer ya with spirits, as good as any fine merchant in London would, and so I will. Good as … Willis’s Rooms’d treat a lodger such’z yerself.”
“I know it well,” Lewrie admitted with a nod, keeping a grin of comprehension from giving the game away. “But … ah … ?”
“Thought ya would, Captain Lewrie.” This Willis whispered as he twisted his torso to one side to pocket more money from the other officers who’d made purchases. With another brief wink.
“You will come often then, I take it, sir?” Lewrie asked.
“Ev’ry t’other day, do th’ weather allow, sir,” Willis boasted in a normal voice.
“Good.” Lewrie smiled. “I’d hate to be deprived out here. Of anything needful. A newspaper … ?”
“Next trip, sir, or my name’s not Willis.” The man guffawed, as if at a private jest. “Zachariah Willis.”
“Ah!” Lewrie nodded, the scales of mystery torn from his eyes.
Of course, every arm of HM government had been sicced on this mutiny, on the Spithead mutiny before it. Nepean had said that agents working for the Duke of Portland, the King’s “Witch-Finder” and seeker of dangerous dissidents, had been delving ’round Portsmouth and Plymouth for signs that the mutiny was foreign-sponsored.
Every arm of HM government, both the spiritual and temporal. Most-like the Established Church of England had already sent out circulars to every vicar, urging them to preach loyalty and obedience from their pulpits. And should a tiny bureau of the Foreign Office be told to delve, to finagle, undermine, and investigate—perhaps even go so far as to eliminate the most infamous rabble-rousers, well …
Zachariah! A clue to Zachariah Twigg, that cold-blooded, ruthless old cut-throat spy of Lewrie’s long, painful, and dangerous association? In the Far East ’tween the wars, the Ligurian Sea not so long ago in ’95 and ’96 … ! Someone official was establishing underground communication to him, to all captains who’d not been put off already. Looking for information … imparting information, encouragement … orders? That folded square of foolscap was burning a brand upon his thigh!
“Pity I have so little to give you, Mister Willis,” Lewrie said with an apologetic shrug. “But I didn’t anticipate your arrival. I b’lieve, though … when next you call … I’ll have a proper list of my wants and needs.”
“Ah, that’s th’ spirit, Captain, sir!” Willis cackled with glee. “All brassbound Navy like. Can’t scuttle ’cross a duck pond without a man havin’ his lists. An’ I’ll be honoured t’have ’em from ya,” he hinted.
Lewrie’s lips opened and he felt the urge to take the man by the arm that instant to pump him for more information or tell him about the state of the mutiny aboard Proteus. But this fellow who pretended to be Willis took a half-step back, squinted in worry, and gave him a brief but vigourous negative shake of his head.
“See some others’ve found th’ courage t’come out an’ trade with the ships,” Willis said instead, further pretending to frown, pointing outboard. “Hope you’ll not be fickle an’ let just anybody come sell to ya, sir.”
Lewrie looked outward. Despite the likelihood of decent profit, there did seem to be an increase in the number of traders’ bumboats by the other warships now. There were smaller row-boats from Sheerness, Minster, or Leigh alongside some, crying their fresh-dredged oysters or fresh-caught fish.
“Thrivin’ trade, sir,” this Willis simpered, “d’spite prohibitions’gainst it.”
“Admiral Buckner’s … or Parker’s?” Lewrie muttered.
“Mum’s th’ word on that head, sir,” Willis responded.
“smugglin’, are you?” Lewrie barked with amusement, and Willis looked like to about jump out of his skin in alarm. In point of fact, Lewrie suspected he had a poor repute with the Twiggs of this world; it was evident this man had been warned he was dealing with a loose-lip, a slender reed. Perhaps he’d been promoted to Nitwit, who was nowhere as clever as he thought himself.
“Well, damme …” Lewrie pretended to sigh in resignation. “How else’d I, or anyone in England, have our tea, silks, or lace without a smuggler at the root of it.”
“Ah, ha!” Willis nervously laughed at that, all but shivering in relief (1) that Lewrie had grasped that the bumboats were indeed smuggling, but in the King’s name; (2) that despite the reports, Lewrie wasn’t a raving twit; and (3) that he hadn’t gotten him killed—yet! “But a very English trade, sir, hey? ’Long as it stays solely English?” he purred in question. After he’d gotten his wits and control of his sphincter back, that is.
Which subtle query gave Lewrie pause. Damme, this is gettin’ a tad deep, he thought; bad as spoonin’ up some willin’ chit right under her husband’s nose! How to say it? He’s as good as put it to me direct: Is our mutiny home-grown or foreign-brewed? And what do I know?
“Oh there may be interlopers, now and then, who hope to prosper at it,” Lewrie cautiously replied, with wit enough to growl, indignant,”though not for very long. It’s a home-grown trade mostly. That’s to say, ah … uhmmm …” Horse turds! Even I can’
t make sense of what I just told him!
“Oh, exactly, sir,” Willis said, his eyes hooding (and crossing in perplexity) as he could take no clue from that either. “Well, sir, take joy. By yer leave, I’ll search out some other customers.”
The smuggled letter (for that was what his “change” had been) stated what he already pretty-much knew or had deduced. It began most ominously, though, with … “The Dutch Fleet is ready.”
The additional demands of the Nore mutineers had been presented to visiting Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty and had been rejected out-of-hand The Spithead terms would be all they would receive. And those terms were not the defamed Orders in Council but were legitimate Acts of Parliament for all to read. Copies of the Acts, and copies of the King’s Pardon, were being smuggled aboard the recalcitrant vessels at the Nore to convince the deluded or ignorant that they should take them and return to duty, be pardoned, without any hard feelings.
Upon receipt of those, did his crew still refuse to return command of his ship to him and return to discipline, the letter bore specific orders for all captains and officers still aboard mutinous ships to quit their vessels at once and report to Admiral Buckner ashore!
“Damn, damn, damn!” Lewrie sighed, hunched over the letter at the transom sash windows right aft, huddled up in a corner of the settee atop his lazarette stores. How could he leave her when his plots to retake her had barely been set in motion, had yet to bear fruit? he agonised. With the King’s Pardon and Acts of Parliament aboard for all to see, there was more than a good chance that Proteus would strike the mutineers’ flags and hoist her proper colours!
But it was a direct order, scribbled at the bottom with Vice-Admiral Buckner’s signature; to dis-obey, did the crew prove obstinate, was to risk not only this command but his entire career!
He crumpled it up into a tight ball, thinking hard; which gay noise brought Toulon from a sound nap atop the wine-cabinet, swishing his tail in expectation of a brand-new, un-munched, un-swatted “toy.” He plopped to the deck, meowed enticingly as he hopped into his owner’s lap, trying to paw it or bite it from Lewrie’s hand.
Lewrie idly stroked him, as he unfolded the letter to give it a second reading, hoping for an escape clause. No, no hopes of that, but … information he had leapt over before: Channel Fleet was returned to duty—Admiral Duncan at Great Yarmouth was to sail to the Texel Channel to block the exits of the French-controlled Dutch Batavian Navy.
Channel Fleet would be no help here; Brest, Cherbourg, St. Malo, and Le Havre already bristled with warships, invasion galleys to carry troops, and escorting gunboats. That armada was weather-bound, so far, but was rumoured to be on tip-toes, prepared to descend on Ireland or, perhaps, even on England’s south coast. It was vital, therefore …
“And blah-blah-blah,” Lewrie softly groaned. “Sorry, puss, not a toy for you.” To his ram-cat’s dismay, he shredded it to tiny bits, before someone else could read it. “Well, you can have it … later.”
He could toss it out the transom sash windows, but that might raise suspicions if someone spotted him doing it. But turned into a heaping handful of foolscap, the letter would do main-well for filler in Toulon’s litter box! After a fragrant spritz or two of cat-pee, no spy in the world would even try to retrieve it, much less piece it back together!
“Oh, sometimes you’re so useful, Toulon,” Lewrie told him. “Do you know that? Yayysss, ’oo are. I’ll give you another sheet to play with … would you like that?”
Toulon did, eagerly bounding off to football, pounce, and mutter over a blank sheet, most intriguingly balled; far forrud into the dining-coach and back.
“Damme, and it was such a good plan we had going too,” Lewrie sighed, quite bleakly, as he gingerly “disposed” of that incriminating letter’s remains.
That late in the afternoon, the tide was starting to turn. His frigate, streaming back from a single bower, was beginning to swing on her cable, turning her stern shoreward as the evening flood tide took her. In the transom sash windows, the alluring vista of an open horizon, the puddled-steel glitter of the North Sea, and freedom, was slowly being replaced by the sight of low-lying fen land to the north—Foulness and Shoeburyness, the villages of Great Wakering and Southend, the partly exposed Leigh and Maplin Sands at low tide.
An embaying fen land—hemming him and his ship in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
When in doubt … mope, Lewrie told himself, of half a mind to begin packing his sea chests. And of half a mind to have himself one more glass of claret and wait ’til after Aspinall and his cook served up that goose they’d cooked for him. A dull rumble interrupted his foul mood though, the sounds of many voices. And a knock on the door.
“Captain, sir?” Mr. Midshipman Sevier cheeped, leaning in the doorway to bare his noddy’s face. “Disturbance on deck, sir. They’re arguing amongst themselves, and some are calling for you, sir?”
“Haven’t built themselves a guillotine out o’ bosun’s stores yet, have they, Mister Sevier?” Lewrie frowned at him, slumped quite comfily on the starboard side settee with his feet and legs out-splayed.
“Uhm … a guillotine, sir?”
“You know … King of France … chop-chop?”
“Uhm … nossir. It’s getting heated though, sir. The people wish you to address them.”
“Ah, then!” He brightened. Those smuggled Acts of Parliament and the King’s Pardon must have encouraged the moderates and faint of heart to relent already! He rose, tugged down his waist-coat, plucked his shirt cuffs, and clapped on his hat.
He emerged on the gun-deck to witness a slanging match between determined mutineers, ditherers, and quitters. They’d formed sides in unconscious scrums, dividing themselves into packs laced with uncomprehending children and hectoring wives and whores pretty-much allied to the loyal side, or the ditherers in the middle, with but a few harpies siding with the committee or the leaders.
They quieted their arguments as he appeared and made his way to the starboard quarterdeck ladder, parting before him, even as Seaman Bales was still expostulating from the nettings overlooking the waist.
“ … cutting off all food to us, brothers!” Bales bellowed, to exhort his minions before Lewrie could speak. “Not even their damned substitute flour will they give us! No more candles, rum, small beer! Damme, no more rope, tar, or lumber either.”
“Treachery!” the determined side shouted.
“Now you see what our King thinks of us, mates. How little he thinks of you, his long-suffering and loyal tars. How could a loving King deprive you thus, who’ve served him so well in the past? Or let criminals like Pitt, Henry Dundas, and Spencer try to starve us out to get what they want … ?” That drew many boos and catcalls.
Lewrie scowled as he ascended to the quarterdeck. Bales’s hot-blooded talk was dangerous dissident cant, the sort that could get any civilian tossed into gaol for treason. He might have something interesting, indeed, to pass on to that Willis fellow when next he came out to offer his wares! He scowled too, because he was loath to be drawn into a noisy Beggar’s Opera, a bit of political theatre, as it now seemed the mutiny had become!
“But here’s your captain, brothers … . You wanted him to speak to you, and I’ll not have it said your committee, your ‘Fleet Parliament,’ won’t abide by your wishes,” Bales hurriedly summed up as Lewrie stalked up to his side, almost shouldering him aside from his rightful place. Bales tossed him a sneerful, high-nosed glare of satisfaction, as if he’d finessed Lewrie into an impossible situation. His smile of welcome, and reason, was a bloody sham for the others.
“Very well, men,” Lewrie said, looking out and down. “You say you wish me to speak with you. About what? Out with it.”
“The terms, sor!” Landsman Desmond was quick to shout. “Them they got out to us … are they true?”
“They are,” Lewrie assured them. “Just as Parker told you … when he was last aboard. Pay rise and all. Everything Spithead won for themselv
es is now yours. If you submit and take the pardon.”
“Don’t say nothin’ ’bout riddin’ th’ ship o’ bad officers an’ mates,” Mr. Morley objected. “Doesn’t give us th’ liberty we wanted either! What about them?”
“Say ‘sir,’ Mister Morley,” Lewrie chid him, glaring at him as long as it was going to take, ’til he swallowed hard.
“What about them, Cap’um, sir?” Morley blushed.
“You know the objections to shore leave, to inland leave-tickets, Mister Morley,” Lewrie explained, turning to speak to them all. “The Admiralty never knows when the foe will pop out. They can’t idle their ships with a third or a half of the crews out of reach. They leave it to the discretion of captains. Now I ask you, lads … how many of you have ever had a captain that wouldn’t grant shore leave to those hands he thought he could trust to come back, hey?”
Damned few, aha! he thought; and so much for how dangerous that question was!
“And how many of you knew men who couldn’t be trusted to come back, who were just looking for the first chance to scamper, that you would trust?” he dared pose. “Slackers, idlers, backbiters …”
Quite a few, it should be said.
“But Spithead put off’cers an’ mates ashore, sir!” a foremast sailor queried. “Acts don’t say nothin’ ’bout it. Does that mean we cain’t?”
Lewrie had wondered about that unwritten clause. The settlement had reputedly contained that term, and the last newspaper he’d gotten his paws on, before this mess had started, of course, had decried the removal or replacement of officers the Spithead mutineers had thought as tyrants, cruel floggers, and “drivers.” This was dangerous ground. Did he sound approving of it, he’d be labeled a radical himself! Did he not … he might lose this wondrous, un-looked-for chance to finagle his crew back to duty!
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