“Like here, as I recall …,” he began, crossing his fingers for luck, “officers were put off at Spithead and Plymouth. Here … there are officers who have already gone ashore of their own volition. And I must tell you true … does this ship not take down those yard ropes, lower the red flags, and return to duty … I am ordered to depart and take all officers and midshipmen with me. Leaving you your appointed captain and mates … Seaman Bales, Mister Handcocks, and that lot … .”
He was heartened more than he could have ever imagined to hear so many voices raised in sudden, distressful woe that he was going to leave them!
“ … every captain remaining will do so, every officer still on mutinous ships!” he shouted. “The good’uns … and the bad!” Lewrie added. “Did Admiral Lord Howe agree to that at Spithead, it was after officers had gone ashore from those ships too. I don’t know how they agreed to it, how the lists were made up … how they determined which officers did not return aboard, but … damme, lads, d’ye think it’s a thing they’d scribble down for all to see?”
Oh, Christ, I’ve just cut my own throat, he told himself; there goes my good odour, my career! I’m tellin’ ’em how to purge officers, pushin’ ’em to winnow the gunroom!
While they had a hearty laugh and began to hoot, whistle, and catcall in what he hoped he could construe as appreciation, he dared to glance over at his officers, warrants, and midshipmen. They looked dumbstruck by his admission, some outraged, some queasily appalled.
“Now as for the rest of your demands …” Lewrie roared, raising one hand to gather their attention again. “What … for ships to be paid arrears in wages down to six months before sailing. They can’t help you on that’un, lads … there’s a war on, and England’s short of cash. In peacetime, they might could, but not now. That rise in pay you’ve already won … even if you never mutinied … thanks to Spithead, that increase for pensioners too, for sick-berth hands and those crippled to be paid off … the increase in rations to sixteen ounces, instead of twelve or fourteen, that takes money too!
“You said you wanted new-come pressed men to get two months’ advance in pay, like a Joining Bounty for volunteers … . Admiralty can’t afford that either. Back wages and indemnification made to men who’ve run once before then gone back in service … the same problem with that. And, an encouragement to bounty-jumpers, who’d do it over and over again and deprive you of funds! Useless damned shirkers the lot of ’em, and well you know it! Given a choice, would you have a thing t’do with ’em? No, I tell you!”
Damme, I’m rollin’, now! Rantin’ like a leapin’ Methodist!
“Your delegates wanted those jumpers and runners to keep what they’d stolen from your mouths when you were ready to sign on, serve King and Country, heart and soul! And then … not be arrested as deserters when justice caught up with ’em! What, you want them rewarded? Is that what real English sailors wish … or is it some foreign, radical shit someone in Paris dreamed up to undermine the Royal Navy?”
More hoots, more claps and cheers, and cries of “No!”
Damme, he exulted; no wonder the reverends look so smug. This is fun!
“You said you wished a fairer split of prize-money,” he ranted on, rocking on the balls of his feet, gripping the cap-rail to lean out over them as he got on shakier ground. “Three-fifths ’stead of your two-eights. Well, if Spithead could concede that point, and the prevailing division wasn’t cause for them to kick furniture, then should it not be good enough for you?”
Uh-oh … losin’ ’em.
“Well, as long as a fine frigate such as our Proteus is swingin’ ’round the anchor in the Nore … you’re not takin’ prizes, are you?” he hooted. “You give me my ship back, I’ll take you out where we can find prizes, scourge the seas, and give you a chance to get bloody rich … even under the old division!”
That got them back. They were, the bulk of them, growling like famished tigers for a chance at pillaging enemy ships. The hard-core mutineers could only glower, grim-lipped, and swear to themselves.
“And the last … alterations and amendments in the Articles of War.” Lewrie deigned to sneer. “But … you’ll note your committees and delegates never spelled out what changes or deletions they wished, did they? Because some of ’em are wanted men … pickpockets and thieves who’ve stolen from shipmates before? Duck-fuckers and buggers who prefer the ‘windward passage,’ who don’t want to be court-martialed for it? Maybe it concerns Article Three … Holding Illegal Correspondence with Enemies. Article Five, the one against spies or Seducing Letters? Or Numbers Eight or Nine, about stripping anything they want out of a prize, and stripping and abusing people taken aboard a prize? Damme, do away with those, and we might as well hoist the ‘Jolly Roger’ and become pirates! Is that what you want?”
Another loud outburst of “Noes!”
“Is it Twelve they object to, the one against Cowardice in Action, and Neglect of Duty?” he posed, strutting now, as aggressive as a guinea cock. “Fifteen … desertion or running away with a ship and its stores? Sixteen … the one against desertion itself? Enticing others to desert? Or are they trying to cover their arses by doing away with Nineteen, Twenty, and Twenty-one … the ones covering Mutinous Assemblies … Seditious Words … hiding or covering Mutiny and Sedition … shit-stirring over unwholesome victuals! They put that in your compact so no one would be punished later? Well, what d’ye think the King’s Pardon is about, then!”
“Twenty-six!” Bosun Pendarves roared from the base of the main-mast. “Maybe they like to neglect the steering … the cunny-thumbed bastards!”
“Twen’y-seven … an’ we’ll all be allowed t’sleep on watch!” a sailor on the larboard gangway shouted.
“So what the Devil is it they wanted, then? Does it make any sense to you, lads?” Lewrie asked them, once that laugh had run its course. “What do your delegates really want? Look you yonder.”
He pointed ashore towards Sheerness.
“Yesterday, lads, you could see a flag flying on top of a house ashore … the flag of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. Lord Spencer was here, I’m told. They came to negotiate, to tell your delegates that the Spithead terms were official Acts of Parliament, show your leaders that the King’s Pardon was real. Well, do you see their flag flying now?”
An hundred heads craned to look.
“No, you don’t!” Lewrie screeched. “And why is that? Because your delegates spoke for you and told ’em to bugger off! That they wanted more … that you wouldn’t take the Spithead terms of settlement and wanted to hold out for all sorts of impossible things. That you’d defy your King, turn your back on your Country when it needs you the most, and spurn a perfectly good offer … turn your guns upon Sheerness, defy the rest of the Fleet … threaten the nation! So they had no choice but to leave and cut off the dockyard stores, cut off the ration boats. Wasn’t wicked ministers … wasn’t a tyrannical King caused that! ’Twas the pride and arrogance of your delegates … !”
“That’s enough!” Bales howled, summoning his stoutest henchmen. “Said he’d answer questions, not rant! Lads, he lies … !”
“No, let ’im speak, damn yer eyes!”
“Arra, th’ Cap’um’s talkin’ sense!” Desmond countered.
“Give it up!” someone cried. “Give it up! Take the terms!”
“No, you damned cowards! Lickspittles!”
And where’s my sword when I need it? Lewrie goggled, seeing a pushing, shoving match break out on every hand. It was happening … a sudden, un-organised counter-mutiny!
“Lookit t’other ships! They’re striking colours! Runnin’ up white flags!” Ship’s Corporal Burton screamed. “Givin’ it up too!”
It was true! From what Lewrie could see as he whirled about in a furious, dis-oriented fugue that almost made him dizzy, there were at least a half-dozen warships where the same sort of melees were breaking out, where the ominous yard ropes were being hauled down to snake back to the decks, and the unadorned red ban
ners of rebellion were fluttering down, to here and there be replaced with proper naval ensigns and white flags of submission!
Hands were springing to the flag halliards, to the racks of belaying pins or bitts which secured Proteus’s yard ropes. Just as many were swinging their fists, flailing about with gun-tools or whatever fell to hand to prevent them. The cowards, the confused, or hesitant, the women and children were hanging back, thundering in panicky herds from one gangfight to another, turning this way and that in response to cries for help from those who’d strike, to bitter battle-cries from those who’d hold out, resist.
“Take her back, lads!” Lewrie yelled, stumbling as someone to his left shouldered into him. He shoved back, faintly recognised one of the afterguard before bringing a roundhouse right fist into juncture with the fellow’s skull. “King and Country!” He stooped to pick up the dropped belaying pin the man had been about to cosh him with and waded in on those who were shouting objections the loudest. He heard a rabbity scream, got a quick glimpse of a loyal sailor being stabbed in the belly with a clasp knife. Heard the dread popping of a pistol! Right, he thought; a real battle and no quarter!
Haslip came at him with a cutlass, lips drawn back in a feral grin, almost hissing with delight. A turn or two, a parry or two, and Lewrie had the man’s blade far out from his body. He clubbed Haslip on the forehead as hard as he could and danced away as the man went down like a toppled marble statue, landing so hard on his back that Lewrie might conjure that he’d shatter.
“Piss-poor sailor … piss-poor swordsman too!” Lewrie sneered as he traded the belaying pin for the blade. He hobbled off aft, under a misdirected swing or two, jabbing at shins or knees to gain running room, as he tried to join Lieutenant Ludlow, who had both hands around a man’s throat and was squeezing him blue. Midshipman Peacham was partnered with Ludlow, of course, laying about with an iron crow-lever from one of the quarterdeck carronades, and two sailors who’d tried him on were already down and bleeding. “Give it up!” Lewrie urged to all. “Give it up!”
“Rally!” Lt. Devereux was crying. “Rally on me! Come on, men!” And two or three of his Marines were with him, fist-fighting their way forward to reinforce Lt. Langlie and the other midshipmen.
There was a sudden report, the stink of powder, and the fearsome “thud!” of a .75-caliber ball slamming into someone quite near. Another shot, and Lewrie heard and felt a ball sizzle past his ear. Even more shots up forrud, another scream of anguish, almost lost in the high-pitched screams of terrified women caught in the middle of this fight.
Then the deep, door-slam BOOOMMM! of a cannon.
“Drop it, sir!” Mr. Handcocks snapped, facing Lewrie with his own cutlass. “Best, sir … really,” he wheedled, nothing like aggressive. “We’re winnin’. Got th’ pistols. Got th’ muskets.”
Lewrie brought his cutlass up to touch blades with Handcocks’s, batting at it to beat it aside, as the Master Gunner retreated, keeping his sword in play, but only on the defensive. Lewrie had no time to sport with him. He launched himself into the drill with a right-to-left downward slash, and Handcocks responded with a two-handed parry, stamping his foot for a backward slash, though yelping and giving ground, never trained in using an awkward cutlass the same as a smallsword, avoiding the point which Lewrie was probing at him.
Another loud cannon boom, then another! Quite near. A splash of water that towered over the quarterdeck, as one of the two-deckers anchored close to Proteus started firing on any ship which looked like it was defecting from the mutiny.
“Throw down yer arms ’fore I kill him!” Marine Corporal O’Neil screamed to one and all, holding Midshipman Elwes with one arm, with a wickedly gleaming midshipman’s dirk to the terrified boy’s throat!
Punctuated by another cannon blast from the two-decker. Which, this time, rattled everyone’s teeth as a solid 24-pounder round-shot struck Proteus in her timbers in the lower wale below the gun-ports.
Bales strode up, a pistol in his right hand with the lock back at full cock, another in his left at half-cock. He jammed the right-hand pistol hard against Lewrie’s skull, stiff-armed, from his side.
“Throw down before I kill him!” Bales roared, panting with exertion and emotion, yet grinning like a death’s head, and seeming eager for the opportunity. “It’s over! D’ye hear, there!” he bellowed, throwing his head back like a wolf at the moon. “By Jesus, does any man-jack continue to resist the lawful committee, I’ll put a ball in the Captain’s head … hear me? Surrender, you perjurers! You lying, canting hounds! Run up the red flags ’fore we get shot to flinders!”
Lewrie’s cutlass was too long to do anything with it with Bales so close to his right side. He changed hands, laid the blade flat upon his chest, so he could stab to his right with it. He moved it forward, felt the tip meet resistance against flesh, pucker a dingy chequered calico shirt … almost begin to grate upon a rib?
“Be the last thing you ever do, Captain Lewrie!” Bales grinned, yet almost on tip-toe to back off and still keep his pistol in contact with Lewrie’s skull.
“Then it’d be worth it, you shit-eatin’ dog!”
They glared at each other, each determined to die if it came to it, neither yielding the other even a blink as they locked eyes in a moment of ultimate truth. Yet, grinning.
Clatter of steel on oak though. Cutlasses, clasp knives, iron marlingspikes, and gun-tools being dropped. The thuds of wooden weapons being abandoned too, as the threat took the last resistance away.
“No, lads, don’t give up on me!” Lewrie pled. “We almost had her back!”
“Too late!” Bales sing-songed, triumphant.
Lewrie almost wet himself, as he felt something cold and sharp poke at the left side of his neck. Handcocks, with his cutlass. Even if he took Bales with him, he’d still die. He didn’t dare turn to look.
“You’ll hang for that, Mister Handcocks,” Lewrie swore. “Even if you don’t hang for the rest … you’ll die for that.”
“Give it up, please sir,” Handcocks begged. “Short, sharp … but th’ donnybrook’s done, an’ we’ve th’ ship again. No harm done.”
“Give it up, you lot!” Bales snapped to the men behind Lewrie. “Midshipman Elwes … your precious captain. Think your little band’ll prevail? Even if it costs two more lives? Gentlemen, gentlemen! Men most-like dead already here!” Bales cajoled. “For nothing! See the masts? Yard ropes rove again … flags hoisted again. You made this happen, out of pride and arrogance! Now atone! Give it up!”
Another, final clatter of weapons as they hit the deck; curses as proud men were forced to surrender.
“You last, sir,” Bales said, swivelling his gaze back to meet Lewrie’s. “Corporal O’Neil, un-hand the wee midshipman, will you? And Mister Handcocks, I’d admire did you step back. Not too far. Surrender your cutlass, Captain Lewrie. It’s not as if it’s your own sword of honour, is it. Drop it … or die. For nothing.”
“I’ll see you in Hell, Bales,” Lewrie spat, knowing he was going to drop the sword and hating himself for it. “Soon as I’m ashore your name’ll be known as a murdering bastard. And there’s no place on earth you can ever run and hide, not from the Navy you can’t.”
“I’ll take the chance.” Bales shrugged, as if was no threat at all.
Lewrie gritted his teeth and straightened himself erect. With a forceful exhalation, he lowered the cutlass’s tip to the deck by his left side, willed his fingers to let it go, to clatter on the pristine white-sanded quarterdeck, and turned on his heel to walk away.
To see the pain, the accusing pain, in the eyes of his officers! He’d failed! He’d been a coward before them! Better he’d died, with his pride, his honour intact … !
“By God, Captain,” Lt. Wyman muttered brokenly, with tears in his eyes, one hand out as if to shake. “I am so sorry, sir! I let you and the rest down, but I couldn’t see Mister Elwes butchered … nor you shot down, sir! Forgive me!”
“Ah?” Lewrie gawped, realising
it wasn’t accusation he’d seen but commiseration! And the shame of their own surrenders! “You’re a brave young man, Mister Wyman, and an honourable one. Had it been a fair fight, without such a dastardly ploy …”
Christ, and when did I ever fight fair? he chid himself; haven’t I sneered my whole life at the very idea? Get the knife or the boot in first … and make it look honourable? Fair fight, mine arse!
“Almost took her, sir,” Lt. Devereux gruffly muttered, coming up to offer his hand as well. “Do better next time, what?”
“Now we know there are more than we thought who’re with us,” Lewrie agreed, taking his hand. “I count on it … as I count on you, Lieutenant Devereux. All of you. For a moment there …”
“Took us all by surprise, sir,” Lt. Langlie said, staunching a bloody bruise on his handsome brow. “Be better prepared, organised … ?”
“Aye … though we are ordered ashore. I hope there’s a next time, but in the face of that …” He gloomed, looking about. “How many are hurt? Mister Shirley? Where’s Mister Shirley and his mates?”
“’Ere, sir,” Surgeon’s Mate Mr. Durant piped up, clambering to the quarterdeck from the waist. He had his leather “butcher’s apron” on, fresh from the lower-deck surgery. It, his hands, and rolled-up shirt cuffs were speckled with blood. “The surgeon an’ M’sieur Hodson are below, sir. There are several wounded. An’ one dead, sir. A man sous le nom de …’scuse. ’Is name is Beamish. ’E was stabb-ed, sir.”
“I saw that.” Lewrie nodded grimly. “Uhm … the man here who was shot … I thought I heard a man being shot too, Mister Durant.”
“Ah, oui, Captain.” Durant shrugged with Gallic coolness. “’E is ver’ bad hurt. Anozzer loyal seaman, c’est dommage. Per’aps an even dozen below who need care too? Et vous, m’sieurs? Any of you who need care? Lieutenant Langlie, your brow, sir? Lieutenant Ludlow?”
“Nothing to you, sir!” Ludlow snarled. “Bucket o’ sea-water’s a better cure than your sort’d give me.”
“Mister Ludlow!” Lewrie seethed. “Mind yer manners, sir.”
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