“You,” he indicated the main offender, “Quartermaster Towers, have been found guilty of acting as ringleader of the mutiny, the main cause and inciter of those among the crew too ignorant to know better. In an interview previous to this court-martial you asked for justice, and justice you will get. It is well known that justice in the case of mutiny means hanging from the yardarm until you are dead. Being English, you will know that in His Britannic Majesty’s Navy you could expect no less.” He paused for effect. During the first two sentences voices had risen in whispers; now breath was held. The commodore glanced down at his papers for long seconds, then up at the pale face of the accused. “However, Mr. Towers, you are in the American Navy, and we have own justice.
“For your heinous and despicable crime, this court-martial decrees that at this hour tomorrow you will suffer two hundred and fifty strokes of the lash on your bare back at the gangway. All hands will be present to witness the punishment. You will then be sent ashore with the remainder of your compatriots.”
There was an audible gasp from the crew. True, Paul Jones had not ordered him hanged, but hanging would have been a blessing compared to the whipping. There was very little chance Towers would still be alive when he left Bonhomme Richard.
***
The cat-o’-nine-tails whispered with the deadly hiss of an angry cobra. With a flicker like lightning in a summer sky, the nine leather thongs cracked then sank their teeth into the prisoner’s flesh. On the first strike Quartermaster Towers’s body jerked rigid, suspended by his wrists between the gangway timbers. Hands knotted into fists, the muscles in his arms contracted, his collection of tattoos dancing. His head was thrown back, mouth soundlessly agape, eyes squeezed shut. The petty officer unwrapped the cat-o’-nine-tails from around Towers’s back then drew back his arm for the next stroke. And the next. He quickly gained a rhythm, until after thirty lashes he stopped, the cat’s knots flailing briefly on the deck as they came to rest.
Towers’s back had been flayed to pulp before their eyes. The entire ship’s company, drawn up in ranks, watched silently. Even those who had been against the mutiny and had no liking for Towers at all, watched with pity. Each one of them knew the prisoner could so easily have been himself.
Towers was already broken. Soon after the first welts had risen to be cut open by the next crack of the lash, he had screamed. Only once, it was the howl of an animal. Unable to clench his jaws any longer under the onslaught of the beating, the whip-cord tension of his body had snapped and now he hung from the ropes between the two posts, bleeding where the hemp sliced into his wrists. His face was drenched in sweat, his curls limp and shining. Agony scarred his face, lips trembling. A single stream of saliva dribbled down his chin.
The petty officer’s whip hand hung loosely at his side, the cat’s leather, stained dark with blood, curled about his feet. He used his left wrist to wipe his forehead, then spat into his right hand and rubbed it down his trouser leg before gripping the cat again.
Paul Jones stood with shoulders braced, eyes cold as they stared into the distance. Richard Dale glanced at the commodore’s dissatisfaction, then leaned forward.
“Lieutenant Stack! Continue the punishment!”
The young lieutenant standing behind the petty officer stiffened, eyes shifting to the row of officers on the bridge. He loosened his jaws and bellowed. “Mr. Beaumont! If you please!”
The petty officer’s head dipped. “Aye aye, sir.” He drew a deep breath and swung. What had been a crack when the cat bit flesh had become a soggy thud. He swung again and again. Lt. Stack, aware the commodore’s eyes were on him, called the count loudly. When there was a lull between lashes he shouted: “Lay on there, Mr. Beaumont!”
“Aye aye, sir.” There was no enthusiasm in the reply. Gritting his teeth he drew back his arm in a concentrated effort to throw his weight behind the next blow.
“Fifty! Fifty-one! Fifty-two!”
Towers was whimpering now. Tears blended with sweat where his face had taken on the texture of melted wax. No more damage could be inflicted on his ruined flesh. Carved open to the backbone, blood poured down over the waistband of his filthy trousers to stain them scarlet, droplets flying each time the cat’s vicious tails struck.
“One hundred! One hundred and one! One hundred and two!”
Richard Dale felt sick. He looked away from the spectacle, in his opinion more in keeping with the barbarity of ancient Rome than the modern navy. He had witnessed floggings before, and no doubt would again, but this had gone beyond comprehension. Further along the row of attending officers he could see the ship’s surgeon, Dr. Brooke, red-faced as he stared down from the bridge. Lt. Dale shuffled.
Paul Jones turned a jaundiced eye on him, noting his ashen face. “Pay attention to the punishment. You may find it disturbing, but it will continue until he has received his sentence.”
“But…” Dale faltered.
The commodore’s voice was cold. “What you are watching, Mr. Dale, is punishment for mutiny, the worst offence that can take place on any ship, whether at war or not. However cruel it appears, perhaps he will live afterwards. If so, he should consider himself fortunate. It is necessary for every man on this ship to realize the consequences of mutiny. I want that word never to enter the brain, never mind reach the lips of any man who serves under me.” He glanced down at the broken body hanging at the gangway. Already it seemed to carry the stench of death. Two seamen were sluicing the unconscious Towers with buckets of seawater to bring him around so the punishment could continue. “Do you think he would have thought twice about taking your life if he had succeeded in gaining command of Richard?”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” Dale offered timidly, “but he knows no better.”
The commodore was grim. “But you do.” He gestured to the horrified faces of the crew. “And now they do too.”
***
Perhaps they knew better about mutiny, but the crew still learned the hard way, Paul Jones reflected as he leaned against the weather rail, watching men stream across the yards above the main deck to reef slack sails. Barely days after Quartermaster Towers had been flogged to within an inch of his life before being put ashore into a French prison, justice had again to be served. While the commodore was ashore attending to business in Lorient, the coxswain and crew left his personal barge unguarded while they visited several local taverns and whorehouses. Paul Jones had been forced to hire a fishing boat to ferry him back to Richard. Another boat had to be lowered to round up the drunken barge crew. Any semblance of a court was unnecessary. In the cold light of the following dawn when the men were again sober, they were triced to the rigging and flogged in full view of the ship’s company. If stomachs had been soured and morale lowered by the repetition of punishment, then at least discipline improved. The new men drafted in to replace the hundred English mutineers learned their new commodore was not a man to suffer breaches of duty lightly. Now when orders were called, they jumped.
“A curse on the wind, wherever it is,” Richard Dale mumbled as he climbed the companion ladder to the poop deck.
The commodore’s gaze swept from the men aloft to the lieutenant’s ruddy yeoman face. He echoed Dale’s curse wholeheartedly. The sea all about Richard showed not a ripple, no whisper of breeze to ruffle the leaden waters. Eight days out from Lorient and this morning they had sighted land. By noon they were five miles south-south-west of Great Skellig which guarded the south entrance of Dingle Bay, the gateway to southern Ireland.
“What time is it?” Paul Jones’s eyes were fixed on the coast in the distance.
“Four o’clock, sir.”
The commodore glanced at the sun as though to check Dale’s answer. “By my reckoning those outcrops are the Blaskets at the north entrance of Dingle Bay. That’s if I judged the wind right. What there was of it.” He extended his telescope and made a quick survey of his squadron. Every vessel was on station, each as motionless as Richard, all drifting with the tide. Canvas hung limp
like wet sheets on washing day. Nothing as depressing as a hopeful spread of empty sails, he thought.
For a moment Paul Jones felt deflated. Even the deck was still beneath his feet. He compressed the telescope and tucked it under his arm. “I’m going below to study the charts. If we drift too far let me know.”
“Aye aye, sir.” As the commodore crossed the deck to the ladder, Dale saluted smartly, then turned his attention to the men of the port watch who were idling on deck. “Mr. Fanning!” he bellowed at the midshipman who was deep in conversation with a petty officer. His face swung to the bridge.
“Ah, Mr. Fanning, I have your attention! Find those men some chores before their hands grow too soft to work this ship!”
***
“What do you suggest, Mr. Dale?”
The lieutenant peered at the land closing on the starboard quarter, the breakers at the foot of the Skelligs clearly visible. There was still no wind but the sea was growing, the swell pushing Bonhomme Richard inshore. It was now eight o’clock and there was the likelihood that unless checked, the tide would drive them ashore during the night. He looked back at Paul Jones who seemed to be repressing a smile.
“Well sir, I think we should put out a boat to tow us clear. We can’t be too careful.”
Jones nodded. “A wise decision. Better make it my barge. It should suffice with this sea running. If it starts away, then there’ll be wind to use.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Dale grinned, pleased to earn praise. In a second he was leaning over the rail, shouting orders. Cutting Lunt, the sailing master, moved to the topsides to supervise personally the launch, glad to have work for his men. A tarpaulin was removed and lashing freed. The rattles and squeaks of the pulleys mingled with the grunts of the sailors, strangely loud in the stillness of evening as the barge was lifted clear and swung out on its davits. A coxswain and six men climbed in. They pulled free the oars, propped them vertical to avoid contact with Richard’s hull while the coxswain took a thick coil of spare cable should they need a longer tow.
“Clear those falls there! Right-o, lower away!” Blocks squealed, a line of hands easing the fall tackle. The barge sank slowly, jerking against the tension in the thick hemp. With a splash she was down. Over the side Richard Dale could see the tops of the sailors’ heads as they stove off, their oars dipping a ragged line, churning white foam from the dark ocean. They rowed for’ard to catch the hawser by the bowsprit trailing from a bridle port. Deftly, the coxswain took hold and wound it around the stern cleats of the barge. He took his seat then waved.
“Haul away, boys! Stroke!”
The six oarsmen bent their backs, pulling in unison. Slowly, the barge built up momentum until it was cleaving the sea at a steady rate, the towing cable dragging behind. Ten yards ahead of Richard’s bows the hawser began to ease out of the water in a lazy arc, the hemp already darkened, dripping. It grew taut until the barge crew found themselves straining against the full weight of the tide driven Bonhomme Richard. It was as if they had rowed into a brick wall. The sound of the coxswain’s voice carried over the water as he bawled crude encouragement.
On the poop Richard Dale scowled. He recognized that voice. It was the coxswain who had been flogged at Lorient for getting drunk and leaving the commodore’s barge unattended. He turned to Paul Jones. “Excuse me a moment, sir.” The commodore nodded his permission as Dale moved for’ard to the rail. “A word here, Mr. Lunt! If you please!”
Cutting Lunt was leaning out over the gunwale by the head, watching the progress of the towing boat. He turned to acknowledge the lieutenant’s call, then pushed away from the timbers to walk aft. They met by the mainmast, Lunt rubbing the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Sir?”
Dale had lost his color. “Is the coxswain in the barge the one who was flogged at Lorient?”
“Yes, sir. He’s the commodore’s coxswain. There were no orders to change that after he was punished.” He sniffed. “I think he learned his lesson.”
“What of the barge’s crew?”
“They are the same, too, sir.”
“What nationality?”
Cutting Lunt shrugged. “I’m not sure. Irish, I think.” For a moment uncertainty clouded his eyes before they cleared and he smiled confidently. “I don’t think there’s any cause for worry, sir. At heart they’re good lads. There’s no liquor out there, sir.”
Richard Dale could not hide his agitation. “But there’s liquor ashore, and it’s their home country.”
Lunt shrugged it aside. “I’d count on them. They’re sailors, sir. This is their ship. Their first duty is to her.”
***
Cutting Lunt was right. Their first duty was to the ship. But by half past ten, night had fallen and Bonhomme Richard was clear of danger. It was then the towrope parted. In the light from the lantern on the barge nothing seemed amiss. When the lantern died, the alarm was raised.
“Ahoy there! We’ve lost the tow!” a voice called from the bows.
Cutting Lunt was sipping water from a ladle at the mainmast drinking butt. His head came up and he dropped the ladle with a clatter. He strode for’ard, his thick pigtail bouncing against the nape of his red neck. At the cathead, a seaman was holding the slack hawser. Lunt gave it a cursory glance then turned and waved men forward. “Haul it in! Look lively now!”
Moments later the coil of sodden hemp lay curled on the deck. Cutting Lunt held the end in his hand, his thumb rubbing over the break. “He’s cut it, the bastard.” Indecision lasted a brief moment. “Beaumont! Launch the jolly boat! Nine men, yourself included, to crew it. Wait for me before you lower away. I’m coming too. All right, get to it.” He dropped the rope and hurried aft. On the poop Richard Dale listened white faced to Lunt’s tale, cheeks drawn tight.
Paul Jones wasted no time. “Was this not foreseen?”
Cutting Lunt grimaced, embarrassed. “Mr. Dale warned me, sir, but I thought…”
Jones cut him short. “Save that for later. Launch a boat in pursuit. Take two midshipmen.”
Lunt nodded. “It’s already being done. With your permission, sir, I should like to go too.”
“Out of the question. Your job is sailing Richard, not chasing about after…” Jones read the flashes in the sailing master’s eyes, quickly understanding Lunt felt it his duty to rectify personally his error in judgment. Jones knew he would have felt the same. “Very well, you may go with them.”
Lunt’s smile was a brilliant gleam in the lantern light. He flung a salute and turned away.
“Mr. Lunt,” the commodore said, his voice almost a whisper. The sailing master paused expectantly. “Mr. Lunt. Catch them. Whatever you do, catch those deserters.
***
Paul Jones hunched his shoulders, drawing his uniform jacket tighter about him. The fog seemed to soak through his clothes to hold his body in its damp embrace. His face felt as though a wet rag had been squeezed against his skin, and his hands felt clammy, the cold brass of the telescope like ice in his fingers. Five yards beyond the rail the leaden sea and sky were blanketed by the fog, the first smoky patches thickening into a gray wall that seemed to cover Richard like an impenetrable dome. It reminded him of a child’s toy; one of those little glass things that when shaken produces a snow storm to swirl around a miniature ship. He glanced aloft to where the masts and rigging disappeared into the shifting grayness. Even snow would have been preferable. He hid his disappointment and turned to Richard Dale who was also staring bleakly at the shrouded sea.
“News?”
“None, sir.”
“None? It’s almost two days. What of Le Cerf?”
Dale shook his head. “Since you dispatched her to search for the two boats yesterday, nothing has been heard from her.” He stared back at the sea.
“Is it my eyes, or do you think it’s clearing?”
“I would like to agree, sir.” As they watched, the fog began to move, thinning into patches before thickening again. It was so
lid for a moment then broke into tendrils waving like a squid before being spirited away. Above their heads canvas slapped. Richard moved restlessly beneath their feet as though ready to dance to the tune of the coming wind. Ropes and spars began to creak like the bones of an old man waking to greet the coming day. Suddenly out of the gloom, vessels materialized. Alliance, Pallas, and Vengeance appeared like ghost ships, still and eerie. The two officers could see their sails slowly rippling, catching the wind as the fog blew slowly away, rolling across the water.
“Wind at last!” Dale exclaimed.
Paul Jones had his telescope to his eye, raking the hulls of the squadron. “Hoist a signal for all ships to follow the flag, then set a northerly course away from this accursed shore. We’ll leave Cerf to search for Mr. Lunt’s boat and that of the deserters.” He lowered the telescope and peered at the threatening sky. “Well, we wanted wind. If I’m not mistaken it looks like we’re going to get more than we prayed for. A real blow. When darkness falls, burn a lamp at the masthead and fire a gun on the stroke of every hour. Perhaps that way these Frenchmen might not lose us.”
Aloft, the canvas was full, the hard over helm forcing Richard to come about, holding her station while the signaling midshipmen ran up an array of color-coded flags that snapped open gaily in the growing breeze. Bonhomme Richard pitched, the mounting seas piling against her transom, eager to speed her away.
Lt. Dale passed the new course to the helmsman and the junior lieutenant who had taken over the sailing master’s duties. He felt uncomfortable without Cutting Lunt’s capable hands in charge of Richard. Glancing astern, he wondered how the sailing master was faring in the jolly boat on the open sea.
***
Le Cerf plowed blindly through the gloom. Lieutenant Varage stood in her bows, frowning at the solid wall of fog ahead. Trust him to have to go out and pick up the pieces. In this filth too. The deserters would long since have made landfall, and if the commodore’s sailing master had any sense, he would have beached to wait for a break in the fog. Varage was worried. He was close inshore and although Le Cerf drew a shallow draught, his charts were old and not too well drawn. Besides, he wasn’t exactly sure where he was anyway. There was nothing to take a sighting from. Nothing but fog and dark water. He didn’t like either.
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