Mutiny

by Julian Stockwin

  Not a man stirred. They met his eyes steadily, neither flinching nor wavering, yet possession of a seditious document was sufficient evidence of treasonable intent whatever the circumstance. Then it dawned upon him: they had wanted him to read it. Cold anger replaced his uncertainty. “Y’ heard y’r captain—take notice o’ this jabberknowl an’ ye’ll be dancin’ at the yardarm afore y’ knows it.” In the sea service, mutiny was the one unforgivable crime, a swift court-martial and death a sure end for the offender. To see shipmates stark and still at the end of a rope for a moment’s foolishness would be heartbreaking.

  He glared at them, and met nothing but a stony gaze. His duty was plain and explicit: he should seize the culprit and haul him aft for just punishment. But which one was it? He hesitated. He went to rip up the paper but something stopped him and he stuffed it lamely into his waistcoat.

  “Ye’re all under m’ eye fr’m this hour. That’s you, Nunky an’ Lofty—you too, Farnall, ’n’ don’t think t’ practice y’r sea lawyer ways aboard Achilles. We’re true man-o’-war’s men in this barky.” He had the satisfaction of seeing Jewell’s eyes flicker and a quick look of appeal from Webb to Farnall.

  Kydd stalked away in the tense silence, hearing the low, urgent rumble of talk behind him. His mind cooled. It was clear that agents of the Spithead mutineers were at work aboard Achilles. He must bring this to the quarterdeck; but curiosity made him head first for the master’s sea cabin, which he knew was empty as Eastman was ashore. Guiltily, he drew out the paper to read.

  He scanned quickly past the wordy patriotic protestations, snorting at the references to victims of tyranny and oppression and laws of humanity. It went on to claim the support of Charles Fox—Kydd’s father had a sympathy for the radical, he remembered, but Kydd had minimal interest in politics. That was a task for the gentlemen of the land, not him.

  He read further—pampered knaves in power at Westminster, His Majesty ill advised by them … The substance of what the mutiny was said to be about was much the same as he had read in the Times. But what had his eyes returning time and again was one ringing sentence: “In all humanity is it a wrong to ask for bread and an honest wage, that it is a crime that must be paid for at the yardarm?” He could think of no easy answer, and fell back weakly on the reply that if it was the law of the land then that was how it must be.

  Carefully he folded the tract. His head told him to take the poisonous scrap aft immediately, but his heart urged him to settle things in his own mind first. He hesitated. The rain had stopped and he stepped out on deck among a general resumption of noisy quarreling and laughing humanity. It was hard to think anything through under conditions like this. If only Renzi was on hand the whole question could be logically teased out to its only possible conclusion … But Renzi was part of the past. Now he must make his own judgments.

  He roused himself. In his place what would Renzi have done? Discuss it logically. With whom? Not Cockburn, he was an officer-in-waiting, and had no way of knowing the strengths and good sense to be found before the mast—his answer would be short and implacable. The master? A long-service man of the sea with only a few years before his well-earned retirement ashore. Then who?

  “So nice in you, m’ love, to call, but if you’re going t’ stay Pr supper, then I must send for some vittles.” Kydd settled back in the chair, cradling his china mug of porter—it had on it a colorful pair of handsome sailors each side of crossed flags and “Success to the Formidables, and damnation to the French!” in gold lettering beneath.

  She had been pleased to see him, that was clear; pleasure and guilt in equal measure came to him at her warm embrace. In an awkward, masculine way he sensed that a woman could accept a situation for what it was without the need for logical justification.

  He drew out the tract, holding it gingerly. “This’n was found on the mess-decks earlier.” She took it with a questioning glance, and read slowly with a frown of concentration, her lips moving as she spelled out the words. As their import became clear, her brow lightened. “Someone is takin’ the sailor’s part at last,” she said happily. “I know about th’ vittles an’ such, Ned told me, so I know it’s true what they say.”

  “Kitty, m’dear, what you are holdin’ is an incitement t’ mutiny an’ treasonable—it c’n cost a man his neck.” She stared at him uncertainly. “It’s m’ duty to hale aft any I fin’ with this. An’ then it’s a court-martial an’ the rope …”

  She looked at him, incredulous. “Ye’re tellin’ me that you’d see a man choked off Pr this?” she said, shaking the grubby paper at him.

  Kydd shifted uncomfortably. “It’s m’ duty, as I said.” He could have mentioned the Articles of War and their savage view of sedition and treasonable writings, but it seemed beside the point.

  Her look hardened. “I don’t need t’ remind you, Mr. Thomas Kydd, what it’s like t’ go before th’ mast in the navy. So when some gullion says as how it is, where’s y’ great crime? Tell me!”

  “Don’t ask me that, Kitty, it’s not f’r me to say,” Kydd said, in a low voice. “All I know is, the fleet’s in open mutiny at Spithead, an’ if the French sail—”

  “Then they’ll sail ’n’ fight, they’ve promised that,” she said scornfully.

  Kydd looked at her with a frown. “Kitty, ye know a lot about this.”

  “Aye!” she said defiantly. “There’s those who think t’ make the journey all the way fr’m Portsmouth t’ the Nore just to let their brother Jack Tars know what’s happening.”

  “They’re here, now?”

  “Cruise along t’ the Chequers Inn one night, and could be ye’d hear somethin’ will get you thinking.” Her face was uncompromising in its conviction, and in it he saw an unspoken rebuke for his lack of involvement.

  Before he could speak, she thrust another paper at him, printed as a broadsheet but somewhat smudged. “It’s a petition, asking f’r redress. Sent t’ Black Dick Howe three months ago, an’ it was not th’first. Read it!”

  Before he had covered the preliminaries she was on the offensive. “Provisions at sixteen ounces to th’ pound! Common liberty t’ go about y’r pleasures ashore! T’ be paid while you’re lyin’ wounded in th’ service of y’ country!” She sniffed loudly. “Stap me, but doesn’t this sound like what th’ meanest grass-comber on the land c’n lay claim to without he goes t’ hazard his life?”

  This was not what he had come to see her for. He longed for the cool, balanced assessment he knew he would get from Renzi; her passionate sincerity on behalf of his shipmates made him feel ashamed. Stiffly, he returned the paper. “I have m’ duty, is all,” he said.

  “Duty!” she spat. “Aye—I’ll tell you about duty!” She faced him like a virago, her eyes afire. “An’ it’s to y’r shipmates—they who share th’ hazards o’ the sea with ye, who’re there by y’r side when y’ face the enemy! Not what some scrovy smell-smock in th’ Admiralty tells ye.”

  She held him with her eyes, then her head fell. When it rose again there was a glitter of tears. “Please go,” she said, in a low voice. “I’ve some grievin’ to do.”

  There was no answer he could find to what she was saying. “I thank ye for the refreshments.” He picked up his hat and, without looking at her, made his way to the door.

  “Thomas!” she called. “You’re a good man. But soon it’ll be time t’ choose.” Her eyes held his with a terrible intensity. “Y’ can never steer two courses at th’ same time. When it’s time, I pray t’ God you take the right one.”

  The Nore anchorage spread out over a mile of sea, a breathtaking display of sea power, but Kydd was not seeing it as they rounded the point. He couldn’t return the bibulous chatting of the boatswain of Director, and pretended to stare out over the anchorage.

  It had to be faced. The terrible uprising at Spithead had cast its shadow as far as the Nore and soon he would have to choose. In his heart he knew that he could never condemn a shipmate for wanting full measures from the purser. Th
e alternative, however, ran against all he had ever felt for the navy.

  On board Achilles there was unaccustomed quiet. An evening on the foredeck without dancing, grog and laughter was unsettling. Kydd could see men there, in the usual social groups, but there was none of the jovial camaraderie or careless noise, they were talking quietly together.

  Below in the gunroom there was a pall of foreboding. The gunner and carpenter had left their cabins forward looking for company and now sat cradling their glasses, gloom etched on their faces. Kydd pulled down a book, but the light of the rush dips was so bad he gave up and gazed moodily at Cockburn, who was as usual scratching out a piece of poetry and oblivious to all else.

  “Himself not back aboard, then,” offered Mr. Lane, the gunner. No one was inclined to reply. The captain’s erratic movements in the last several days needed little explanation.

  The sharp-nosed surgeon’s mate gave a thin smile. “We takes any more o’ the doxies an’ we’ll have the other half o’ the crew under Venus’s spell.”

  “What d’ you care, Snipes? Ye takes y’r silver off ’em either way,” snapped the gunner, many of whose mates would be owing some of their meager pay to the surgeon’s mate for venereal treatment.

  The smile vanished. Morice, the carpenter, stirred and looked significantly at the two subdued midshipmen at the end of the table boning their best shoes. Without a word, Kydd reached for a fork and, blank-faced, jammed it into a well-worn cleft in a deck beam. The midshipmen looked up, and quietly left. Morice leaned forward. “I’ve heard as how we got Spithead men aboard,” he said quietly.

  “Aye.” The gunner would be more in touch than the carpenter with the main body of sailors and their concerns. “Can’t stop ’em coming aboard to see their mates in course.”

  “I bin in a real ’nough mutiny once,” Morice muttered. “Ain’t something y’ forgets too easy.”

  Lane glanced at him with interest, and Cockburn stopped his scribbling and looked up.

  “Yair, Culloden in th’ year ’ninety-four.” Morice, aware of the attention he was getting, became animated. “That’s right, Troubridge was our cap’n, an’ a right taut hand was he. A fine seventy-four she was, Slade built an’ a fair sailer—”

  A polite cough from Lane steadied him, and he went on, “Ship lyin’ in Spithead, they thinks t’ send us t’ sea short on vittles. Ship’s company doesn’t like this idea, they just in fr’m a cruise an’ all, ’n’ starts talkin’ wry. Then one o’ the quartermaster’s mates—forget ’is tally t’ my shame—we calls him Cocoa Jack on account of him being touched b’ the sun, fine, hard-weather kind o’ man …”

  The carpenter’s expression grew troubled at the memory, and his voice changed when he resumed: “Yeah, fine sort o’ seaman. Well, he sees we ain’t the stores aboard ’ll let us sail, an’ gets to speakin’ with the men. Right reasonable he was, says Cap’n Troubridge would see ’em right if they shows firm.” He looked around the table gravely. “He says as if they weren’t t’ take the barky to sea until she was stored proper, it was only their right. Gets half a dozen of his mates an’ goes about th’ ship organizin’. S’ next mornin’ they all stands fast when it’s ‘hands t’ unmoor ship’—jus’ that, willin’ t’ do any duty but unmoor, they was.”

  “Well, where did you stand in this?” Kydd asked.

  Morice’s eyes flicked once at him, and he continued, “An’ the cap’n listens, calm as y’ like. Lets Cocoa Jack have his say, nods ’n’ says, “Fair enough,” or some such. “Yes,” he says, when they asks f’r a pardon if they goes back t’ duty”

  “Did they get one?”

  “Sure they did, and fr’m the cap’n’s own mouth in front of the whole company.”

  Kydd let out his breath. “So all square and a-taunto then,” he said.

  “Not quite,” Morice said, in an odd manner. “Hands turn to, but quick as a flash, when they wasn’t expectin’ it, Troubridge has ’em all clapped in iron garters, an’ before they knows it they’re in a court-martial in the flagship f’r mutiny.” He paused significantly. “They claims pardon—but funny thing, mates, th’ court couldn’t find any evidence o’ one, no written pardon.” Another pause. “So five on ’em, includin’ Cocoa Jack, gets taken out ’n’ hung on the fore yardarm afore the whole fleet.”

  While he drained his pot noisily the others exchanged glances. Letting the atmosphere darken, Lane waited and then growled, “I was in Windsor Castle previous t’ this’n, left before they has their mut’ny.” He looked for attention. “Now that was a downright copper-bottomed, double-barreled swinger of a mut’ny.

  “Remember it’s a bigger ship, ninety-eight she was, a stronger crew, and they has the admiral an’ all on board. An’ it’s just the same year as yours, mate, but out in th’ Med. Can’t swear t’ the details, ’cos I’d left b’ then, but I heard it all fr’m mates later. Now, ye’ll find this a tough yarn, but it’s true enough—in the flagship an’ all, so hear this. They mutinies because they don’t like the admiral, the cap’n, the first l’tenant an’ the bo’sun, and demands they all gets changed!”

  There was a shocked silence, until Morice chuckled. “Yeah, heard o’ that one,” he said, to the chagrin of Lane who was clearly winding up to a climax.

  “Well, what’s t’ do then?” Kydd demanded.

  Lane finished resentfully, “No court-martial—barring the cap’n only, I should say, an’ the cap’, first luff an’ not forgettin’ the bo’sun, all gets turned out o’ their ship, just as they says.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Is all,” confirmed Lane, “’ceptin’ they gets a pardon, every one.”

  The surprised grunts that this received were quickly replaced by a thoughtful quiet. Cockburn soberly interjected: “This is different. At Spithead it’s not just one ship but the whole fleet. The Admiralty will never forgive them—there’ll be corpses at every yardarm for months.”

  “I saw in th’ Times the mutineers are talkin’ to Parliament, even got ’em to print their demands in th’ paper. It’s already past the Admiralty—wouldn’t be surprised if Billy Pitt himself ain’t involved,” Kydd said.

  “Good Lord! I didn’t know that.” Cockburn appeared shaken by the news. “If that’s so then this—well, it’s never gone so far before. Anything can happen.”

  Lane’s face tightened. “O’ course, you knows what this means f’r us …”

  “It’s about to start here,” said Cockburn.

  The gunner gave a hard smile. “No, mate. What it means is that Parlyment has t’ finish this quick—that means they’ll be askin’ us an’ the North Sea fleet t’ sail around to Spithead an’ settle it wi’ broadsides.”

  “No!” Kydd gasped.

  “C’n you think else?” Lane growled.

  “Could be. Supposin’ it’s like y’r Windsor Castle an’ they agree t’ do something. Then it’s all settled, we don’t need t’ sail.”

  “You’re both forgetting the other possibility,” Cockburn said heavily.

  “Oh?”

  “That the Spithead mutiny spreads here to the Nore.”

  A wash of foreboding shook Kydd. Out there in the night, unknown dark forces were tearing at the settled orderliness of his world, upheavals every bit as threatening as the despised revolution of the French.

  “Need t’ get me head down,” muttered Morice. “Are ye—” The little group froze. From forward came a low rumble, more felt than heard. It grew louder—and now came from the upper deck just above. It came nearer, louder, ominous and mind-freezing. It seemed to be coming straight for them, thunderous and unstoppable.

  Then, abruptly, the noise ceased and another rumble from forward began its fearful journey toward them. Unconsciously, the surgeon’s mate gripped his throat and, wide-eyed, they all stared upward. The gunner and carpenter spoke together: “Rough music!”

  This was a rough and ready but effective way for seamen to let the quarterdeck know of serious discontent. In the blackness of n
ight on deck, a twenty-four-pounder cannonball from the ready-use shot garlands would be rolled along the deck aft, the culprit impossible to detect.

  It was nearly upon them—whatever storm it was that lay ahead.

  * * *

  They were waiting for him at the fore jeer bitts, hanking down after re-reeving a foreyard clew-line block, making a show of it in the process. Standing in deliberate, staged groups, eyes darted between them.

  Kydd saw the signs and tensed. “Ah, Mr. Kydd,” Jewell said carefully, inspecting critically the coil of line in his hand as though looking for imperfections.

  “Aye, Nunky,” Kydd replied, just as carefully. The others stopped what little work they were doing and watched.

  “Well, Tom, mate, we’re puzzled ter know what course we’re on, these things we hear.”

  “What things, Nunky? The catblash y’r hearing about—”

  “The actions at Spithead, he means, of course.”

  Kydd turned to Farnall, sizing him up. “And what’ve y’ heard that troubles ye so much?” He was not surprised that Farnall was there.

  “As much as you, I would say,” Farnall said evenly.

  Kydd colored. “A set o’ mumpin’ villains, led like sheep t’ play their country false, the sad dogs.”

  Farnall raised an eyebrow. “Sad dogs? Not as who would call the brave victors of Saint Vincent, just these three months gone.”

  Pent-up feeling boiled in Kydd and, knocking Jewell aside, he confronted Farnall. “You an’ y’r sea lawyer ways, cully, these ’r’ seamen ye’re talkin’ of, fine men ye’d be proud t’ have alongside you out on the yard, gale in y’ teeth—what d’ ye know o’ this, y’ haymakin’ lubber?”

  Jewell spoke from behind. “Now, Mr. Kydd, he’s no sailor yet, but haul off a mort on ’im, he’s tryin’.”

  Breathing deeply, Kydd was taken unawares by the depth of his anger: Farnall was only an unwitting representative of the rabid forces of the outside world that were tearing apart his share of it. “Aye, well, if ye runs athwart m’ hawse again …”