Alexis Carew: Books 1, 2, and 3

by J. A. Sutherland

  She squinted against the light outside and recognized the spacer standing by the hatchway. The man straightened from where he was leaning against the bulkhead and Alexis saw that he was holding a pistol. They’ve done it. They’ve really gone and done it.

  “Lufkin.”

  “Mister Carew, sir, I’ll have to ask that you stay in the sick berth, sir.”

  Alexis considered how to proceed. A mutiny could go one of many different ways. She wondered how many of the officers and crew were dead already. “Is the ship taken, then, Lufkin?”

  The spacer looked down at the deck, then back at her. “It’s done, sir. They’re all up on the mess deck considering things right now.”

  “And how many are dead already?”

  Lufkin looked down again and said nothing. Alexis took a step around him and headed for the companionway.

  “Mister Carew, sir! I’m to keep you here!”

  “Follow and help me or shoot me in the back, one, Lufkin,” she said, not looking back, “but I’m going up to speak to the lads.”

  “Mister Carew, sir, at least dress a bit!” Lufkin said, rushing after her.

  She started climbing the steep ladderway to the gundeck and then up to the mess deck. A few steps up and she gasped as she felt a new tear in her back and a warm trickle flowed down her skin.

  “You’re bleeding, sir, please come back down and let the surgeon fix it up!”

  “Just keep them off me, Lufkin, and let me have my say. Then I’ll do as you ask. Fair enough?”

  She could hear them now, a muted roar of shouting from the deck above. She reached the hatch and rested her hand on it and took a deep, steadying breath. She slid the hatchway open and the roar of shouting men flowed over her. Men were crowded onto the mess deck, many pushing and shoving. She could only see a few feet in, as her view was blocked by the backs of those standing closest to the hatch.

  “Let me through, lads!” she called, but they didn’t move. There were more shouts and a gunshot rang out, followed by a cry of pain. Alexis raised her arms and struck the two nearest men hard on their backs. “Make a lane! Lively now!” The men spun around angrily, arms raised to strike, but froze when they saw her. “Did you hear me, lads? Make a lane!”

  The two men stepped aside and she strode out into the mess deck, but didn’t get far — the deck was crowded and chaotic and her first steps brought her to face two more backs. Without her having to ask, the two men who’d first gotten out of her way tapped the next two on the shoulder. They turned around and after a moment’s stare at her, quieted and moved out of her way. She stepped forward and the process repeated, until, by the time she was halfway down the length of the deck, all of the men were silent and had turned to watch her.

  She knew she must look a fright. Her hair, which she’d never properly dried, was out of its customary ponytail and it had dried in an unkempt rat’s nest. She was barefoot and barelegged below the sick berth gown that reached past her knees. That gown gaped open in the back and the air was cool on her bare skin and the marks from the bosun’s cat. More than one of the stripes from that cat had reopened and several trickles of blood ran down her back. The sting from those marks made her wince with each step, but she clenched her jaw and kept going.

  A lane had opened up to the other end of the deck and she could see what had been the focus of the men’s attention. Captain Neals, dressed in his nightshirt and surely dragged from his bed, was kneeling on the deck, his hands bound behind him. Next to him were several of the officers, in uniform or not depending on whether they’d been on watch, also kneeling and bound. She saw that Lieutenant Dorsett was missing, and Lieutenant Roope, as was Midshipman Brattle.

  As she drew closer, she saw the first bodies. Three, scarlet-clad, piled by the far bulkhead. She swallowed hard and forced her eyes away. She’d known the marines would be the hardest hit by this — the men would have to take those on guard and stop the others from rallying to defend the officers. Some of those she’d sparred with every day and who’d become the closest thing to friends she had aboard Hermione would be lying dead on the deck, killed by spacers she’d worked with and cared for just as much.

  She forced that thought down, as well — this wasn’t the time for the right and wrong of what the men felt they’d been forced to and there’d be time enough for the dead later, now was for the living and to see that they stayed that way.

  Morrey Hacker, pistol in hand, was standing amongst the kneeling officers on the raised platform from which Captain Neals typically addressed the crew. He glared at her as she approached and then behind her.

  “I told you to keep her in the sick berth, Lufkin!”

  “And what was I to do when she wouldn’t, then?”

  Hacker waved his free hand in frustration. “Put her back through the bloody hatch, man! She’s not but half your size, for pity’s sake!”

  “I see you weren’t just towed along in it after all, Morrey Hacker,” Alexis said.

  He returned his gaze to her and narrowed his eyes at her words. “We’ve no quarrel with you, Mister Carew, you’re not like these others.” He waved his hand at the kneeling officers. “Best you stay in the sick berth until it’s all over.”

  “Until what’s all over, Hacker? It appears it is. What’s left to be done, then?”

  “Back to the sick berth, Mister Carew — this is none of yours here!”

  “I think I’d like to address the crew, Hacker.” She stopped just short of the platform at the very edge of the crowd.

  “We’ve taken the ship! We’ll hear no more from officers!”

  “But I’m not an officer, am I, Hacker?” She took a step forward. She could see some confusion in Hacker’s eyes. He hadn’t wanted to be involved in mutiny, but if it was coming he’d wanted to lead it. And now she could tell he wasn’t entirely sure where to take it. “If I’m disrated and one of the crew, then I’ve as much right to be here as any man aboard, haven’t I, Hacker?” He started to speak, but Alexis cut him off, seeing an opportunity. She hopped up onto the platform, feeling yet another line on her back split open and fresh blood flow. “And if I am an officer, then I should be with the others, yes? Kneeling there. Are you captain now, Hacker, and we should kneel for you? Do you want me kneeling, just like Neals did?”

  Hacker looked around and realized what it must look like, him standing alone on the platform with the officers kneeling. “No, damn you! That’s not what I meant! You’re twisting —”

  “Let her speak!” Someone in the crowd yelled, followed by others.

  “Her back’s bloodied as ours, she’s the right!”

  Hacker shrugged and Alexis turned to the assembled crew. Her eye was drawn to the port side where a small group of men, perhaps no more than sixty, huddled looking on. Those would be the ones who’d not participated in the mutiny. Most of those who held a warrant position to the ship where there — the carpenter, the gunner, the purser, and their mates. Those men held too much position to risk it in mutiny. She didn’t see the bosun and wondered if Mister Maslin was now one of the dead, but she did see most of the men of her division in the group. She didn’t take the time to mark them all, but she was relieved they hadn’t participated.

  But the rest of the crew clearly had and she was surprised that it had been so many. She would have expected, as she’d overheard in the hold, that it would be a much smaller group.

  She took a deep breath.

  “So what should I speak to, lads? You’ve taken the ship and there’s no going back from that,” she called out. She tried to meet each man’s eyes in turn, noting who looked away and who glared back at her. She waved a hand at the kneeling officers. “Is it this lot you’re deciding on?”

  She could tell from their silence that this was it. With the actual fight for the ship over, there’d be some who’d be eager to take their revenge on the officers and others who’d have had enough of the violence. Could she appeal to the latter and how? She scanned their faces again. The hard
cases, the ones from the gaols, would be no help — they’d not care, might even relish the killing. And they’d, none of them, want to hear about the right or wrong of it. She wasn’t sure of that herself. For Neals, at least, she could see the justice in it for the men to have their revenge.

  But that would be all it was, revenge. Not killing in the heat of a fight, but cold with the victim unarmed and defenseless. And she knew from her dreams that it was a thing that haunted you, even when it was needful as it had been with Horsfall. She’d not want Captain Neals haunting any of her lads’ dreams. But that wasn’t a thing they’d want to hear, either. They’d not welcome the suggestion that they’d one day regret the act — it would seem cowardly to men like this. No, the reason would have to be something else.

  “You can’t kill them,” Alexis said simply. “Not now they’re taken.”

  “After all they’ve done it’s only just!”

  “Even little Ledyard, there?” she asked pointing.

  “He’s the worst of the lot!”

  “And look at what example he had!” she cried pointing at Captain Neals. “Will you kill a child for doing as he’s taught is right?”

  “Neals then!”

  “Not even him!” she yelled back. “Look, lads, you’ve taken the ship and you’ll be known for that now, but don’t make it worse with more killing.”

  “Hang for the ship or hang for the ship and killin’ them! It’s all the same!” one of the men called out.

  Alexis hopped down from the platform and rushed forward to confront him, the other men standing quickly out of her way.

  “It’s not all the same, Waller Campton! Not one bit! It’s one thing to kill a man in heat, but to do it cold, as this would be? That’ll be looked on differently and you well know it!” She turned slowly looking at the men around her, singling out those she knew sent part of their pay home. “You all have families. Wives, children, fathers, mothers … what you’ve done will affect them, too. Annis, what will your mum think when she hears?”

  “You leave me mum out o’ this!”

  “Well, and it’s you who brought her into it, didn’t you! When the word reaches her, what will she think of you? What will her neighbors think of her?” She tried to remember what she knew of the men around her, who had a wife and children and which sent money home to an elderly parent each month, singling them out one by one.

  “‘There goes old Mrs. Whitehurst, there, aye — you know her boy, Halden, was part of that business on Hermione, poor lad to be serving under that bastard of a captain, just couldn’t take it no more.’” She turned to another. “‘Poor Mrs. Ficke, her man Dunleigh had no choice but to run, the way he were treated.’

  “But kill them in cold blood, lads, and you know it’ll be different. It’ll be the busy neighbors whispering and the cuts from the shopkeepers and the parson’s ladies talking. ‘Oh, Mrs. Hatchell, her boy went bad, you know. Fair bathed in blood on that ship.’”

  She froze as she turned, seeing Nabb in the circle around her. Oh, Nabb, not you. She felt her chest clench at the thought of what would be in store for him now. He’d have to run far, for any of the mutineers caught would surely hang. There’d be no more of his pay sent home to wife and children, and surely there’d never be enough coin for them to join him wherever he made his way.

  “‘Look at Mrs. Nabb, there,’” she continued, hardening her gaze, “‘walking bold as brass with her little ones, and the oldest just the age of the boy her Wallis strangled with his own hands on that Hermione.’ Is that what you want for them, lads? Is it?”

  “Why’re ye trying to save ‘em, Mister Carew? They treated ye bad as us, the lot of ‘em.”

  Alexis stepped up to Nabb and raised her hands to cup his face tenderly.

  “Damn you, Wallis Nabb, are you so blind? It’s not them I’m trying to save.”

  Sixteen

  “Wait. Commodore Balestra, she will come soon,” the Hanoverese lieutenant said as he slid shut the hatch. The two armed guards stayed behind, one to either side of the hatchway.

  Alexis shuffled nervously into line with the other officers from Hermione, not at all certain she should be there with them. Though the crew had kept her with the officers since the mutiny, Neals had not spoken to her — not a word, and the other officers had followed his lead. So not only was she at loose ends as to her status amongst Hermione’s crew, she was even more confused about her status with the Hanoverese.

  After her appeal to the crew aboard Hermione had been successful in quelling their desire for revenge, the officers had been locked in Neals’ cabin for the duration. Alexis had gone with them and so knew little more than they did about the decisions the crew made, but she did feel their decisions made a certain sense. Left with control of a warship, they had few choices of where to go — two, really. Or only one, if one considered that the ship was in a border area between only two nations and staying in New London space would see them taken up and hanged for mutiny.

  Instead, they’d sailed for the nearest Hanoverese port.

  In the end, they hadn’t needed Alexis or any of the officers to navigate the ship. It had only taken a very bright helmsman who had his eye on one day becoming a sailing master, and, so, had listened intently to the navigation lessons the midshipmen were given while he was at the helm. After successfully proving himself by sailing to the nearest uninhabited star system, he’d plotted Hermione’s course toward the border.

  What the Hanoverese had thought of a New London frigate sailing into their system with her colors doused and signaling surrender without a single shot being fired, Alexis couldn’t imagine. She did know that many amongst the crew, even amongst the mutineers, were unhappy with the decision — it was one thing to rebel against Neals, it was quite another to turn the ship over to the enemy in time of war.

  Alexis didn’t approve, but she also couldn’t see an alternative that would leave the men alive and free, for the butcher’s bill from the mutiny was already greater than she could bear. Fully half her beloved marines and their officers, down to the last sergeant, were dead, along with two dozen of the crew. None of her own lads were dead, thankfully, but she’d lost Nabb forever, no matter what the Hanoverese had in store.

  At least for her, Rochford had been allowed — ordered by the crew, really — to treat the wounds from her flogging. The pain was mostly gone now, though her back still felt tight and odd, something the men told her she’d get used to in time.

  The Hanoverese lieutenant slid the hatch open and gestured for them to enter. Alexis was at the end of the line, behind even Ledyard. The Hanoverese had insisted on keeping her with the officers so far, despite Neals’ attempts to tell them she belonged with the crew.

  As she entered the commodore’s day cabin, Alexis felt her mouth open in shock and quickly closed it. It wasn’t the commodore’s rank, nor even the uniform, which was rather more ornate than Alexis felt strictly necessary — no, it was the fact that Commodore Balestra was the first other female naval officer Alexis had ever seen. Tall and blonde, with sharp, striking features, and a uniform covered in gold braid, medals, and a gaudy sash.

  The woman sat down at her desk and began reviewing her tablet without a glance at those assembled before her. After a moment, Neals’ face began to redden and he cleared his throat. Balestra held up one hand, index finger extended in a “wait a moment” gesture, never looking up from her tablet. Alexis saw Neals’ face redden further and she suppressed a smile of satisfaction. I shouldn’t like her — she’s the enemy, after all — but it’s worth a bit to see the captain put in his place.

  Finally, Balestra took a deep breath and looked up.

  “Capitaine Neals, I have reviewed the situation and I am prepared to dispose of you.”

  Neals’ eyes widened, as did those of Hermione’s other officers. The Hanoverese lieutenant cleared his throat.

  The commodore leaned back. “Que?”

  The lieutenant whispered in her ear and Balestra frowned.<
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  “Merde. Non. I make the … disposition? Of your status, yes?” she said. Seeing them relax, she continued, “The mutins, the ones who take the ship, they are free to go where they will.” Neals opened his mouth to speak, but Balestra held up her finger again. “Non, this is decided. I have no love of mutins, but we are at war with you. It is decided. They will go free. The others, the crew who stay with you, and yourselves, you are now prisoners of le Hanovre. Do you understand?”

  Neals clenched his jaw tightly and his nostrils flared. “Yes.”

  Balestra’s eyes narrowed and she raised a hand to her shoulder. She tapped two fingers sharply on her rank epaulet. “Do you understand, Capitaine Neals?”

  Neals flushed again. “Yes, sir.”

  Balestra frowned and turned to the lieutenant. “‘Monsieur’, Delaine?” The lieutenant whispered to her again. “Porcs sexistes,” she muttered and shook her head. Alexis watched this with gleeful fascination. Neals was clearly in a position he hated and she was relishing his discomfort.

  “Your crew, of course, will be under guard, but you, the officers, may give your parole, yes?”

  Neals nodded. “You should know, Commodore Balestra, that Carew there is no longer an officer.”

  Balestra turned to look at Alexis. Alexis met her eyes for a moment, but wasn’t at all sure how she felt that the foreign commodore had known exactly who she was when Neals named her.

  “Oui,” Balestra said, “I have seen your log.” She smiled thinly as Neals blanched white. Bad enough he’d lost his ship, Alexis knew, but he’d not had an opportunity to purge the logs or other systems. In addition to Hermione, the Hanoverese had received all of her logs and signals, as well. Until Admiralty was notified and able to change them, the enemy would be able to read all of New London’s private signals. “And seen your … Delaine, the word, un enfant pétulant agissant en colère?”

  The lieutenant looked at Neals with a slight smile. “Tantrum,” he said distinctly.

  Neals’ face turned scarlet. “How I run my ship, Commodore Balestra, is none of your concern, I think.”