Passage to Mutiny

by Alexander Kent

  Allday said, “I’ll take the helm.” He looked at Bolitho. “Ready, Captain?” He spoke so casually he might have been suggesting a stroll.

  Bolitho knew him so well that he could see past the calm voice. Like himself, Allday was stretched like a halter. Only when they were finally committed would he show his true self.

  The boat lifted and splashed in the shallows, the men on either side easing it into deeper water as more of the boarding party clambered into her and flattened themselves on the bottom boards like corpses.

  “Enough.” Bolitho looked for Quare and Midshipman Swift. “Keep the rest of the men out of sight if you can. If any more ‘pirates’ come from the headland, you know what to do.”

  He nodded to the sergeant. The work of the marines was over, and if things went wrong Quare and his little group would have to hide and wait for Herrick to come for them.

  He climbed into the boat very carefully, his sword bared against his chest.

  “Shove off!” Allday crouched forward. “Easy, you noisy bugger!”

  The clouds had thickened even in the time taken to get this far. It might mean a tropical downpour, but not for some while. Bolitho drove the doubts aside. If he waited for rain to deaden his approach, he might wait forever. He looked at the panting oarsmen. They had pulled only a few yards and were already finding it hard work with so many inert passengers. If he stopped the attack now he doubted if he could rouse them to fight again.

  Keen whispered, “Shall I tell the swimmers to leave now, sir?”

  Bolitho nodded, and saw two figures, their naked bodies shining in the filtered moonlight, rise up and then slide over the gunwale with barely a ripple.

  It had all sounded so dangerous and difficult when they had discussed it on the island. Now it seemed impossible.

  He tore his eyes from the two swimmers and concentrated on the ship. How large and near she looked now. Surely somebody would challenge them soon? Maybe they had already been seen for what they were, and the loaded guns were being quietly depressed towards them.

  Bolitho heard one of the oarsmen curse and then gasp as something rolled between the boat and the dipping blades. It was a corpse, turning over loosely as a man will do in bed. The one they had seen cast overboard, caught and carried by the current, unable to free itself from the bay.

  “Easy on the stroke, Allday.”

  Bolitho felt the pistol in his belt. They must give the swimmers time to reach the anchor cable and haul themselves aboard without discovery. It was all too easy, but then, why not? The pirates, or whoever they were, had bluffed their way past a British man-of-war and had sent away a boarding officer convinced of their identity. At anchor in a safe bay, with sentries posted ashore, why should they not feel secure?

  The challenge when it came was loud and startling.

  “Boat ahoy?” An English voice.

  Allday dragged two empty bottles from between his feet and hurled them into the bottom of the boat, throwing back his head and roaring with laughter as he did so.

  Bolitho heard other voices from the ship, but no further challenge. The empty bottles were more convincing than any password.

  “I saw one of the men on the beakhead, sir!” It was Miller straining his head above the gunwale. “They’re aboard, by God!”

  The boat was very near the side now, and Bolitho saw the entry port, two dark figures watching their slow approach. He could even smell the ship, the familiar tang of tar and hemp. One of the men by the port swung towards the forecastle as a figure appeared in a shaft of moonlight swaying from side to side and snatching at rigging for support.

  Allday hissed, “That’s Haggard, Captain! A better actor than topman by the looks of him!”

  But the seaman called Haggard had the full attention of the watch on deck, as with sudden dignity he reeled and fell over the side with a violent splash.

  Two things happened almost at once. The watch left the entry port and disappeared towards the bows, imagining that one of their own had fallen over the side. And then out of the darkness came a terrible thrashing sound, like something being hauled through water at a great speed.

  They all heard Haggard yell, “My leg!” Then he screamed, the sound cut short as he was dragged bodily under the surface.

  Bolitho’s mind accepted all these things even as he dashed towards the bows of the boat, and a grapnel soared up and over the Eurotas’s bulwark. He had not thought about sharks, had never imagined they would enter the bay. The drifting corpse must have attracted one, and Haggard had been seized and crushed to bloody pulp in those great jaws.

  He heard himself yell, “Up, lads! Let’s be at them!”

  The spell snapped, and the horrified seamen were all at once on their feet, fighting like wild things to reach the steps to the entry port.

  A pistol exploded from the gangway and a ball sang past Bolitho’s face as he hauled himself on to the deck. The two men on watch were caught in the pale light, one looking at Bolitho, the other still gaping towards the forecastle as if expecting to hear another scream.

  Seamen surged on to the deck, knocking each other aside in their eagerness to reach the two men. Cutlasses swished in the air, and the men fell with barely a sound.

  From the poop came more shouts, and it sounded as if others were clambering through the forward hatch towards the forecastle.

  But Keen and his men were already dashing along the gang-ways, firing into the hatch and towards the starboard cathead where a man had been clinging to get a view of the shark, or to hide.

  Bolitho ran wildly towards the poop, almost falling as a figure loomed from behind a companionway and barred his path. He ducked aside and cut out with his sword, feeling it jar against steel as the man met his attack. Hilts locked they lurched towards the wheel, while seamen charged past, and others paused, feverishly trying to reload their weapons.

  In the far distance Bolitho heard the crackle of musket fire and knew Quare was dealing with the sentries from the headland. He could feel nothing but cold hatred for the unknown man who was pressed against him. It was like being somewhere else. An onlooker. The man’s breath, strong with brandy, the heat of his body, were all part of the unreality.

  Bolitho felt the heavy thrust of the man’s forearm. He stepped back, catching him off balance and swinging him round against the bulwark. Something flashed past his eyes, and he heard the sickening crunch of steel in bone as Allday sent the man pitching down a ladder. Allday spun round again, reaching out with the cutlass, as a dark figure ran from the poop, saw him and hesitated just too long. Allday, his legs carrying him across the deck like a charging bull, hacked the man across one shoulder, and as he fell shrieking finished him with a heavy blow on the neck.

  Another was on his knees, babbling and pleading in a language which might have been almost anything, although the meaning was clear enough.

  Miller seized him by the hair and then drove one knee into his face before lifting him bodily and pitching him over the rail. The attendant thrashing and bursting spray alongside showed there were other sharks hurrying to an unexpected prize.

  Light flowed from a door below the poop, and Bolitho saw a man framed in it, crouching as he peered blindly towards the din of steel and yelling seamen. Bolitho dragged out his pistol and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened, so he hurled it at the door and ran straight for it, the speed of his charge almost dragging the sword from his grip as he plunged it into the man’s body.

  He half turned, hearing cries and more shots, seemingly from the water itself. Someone was getting away in a boat.

  But he could leave that to Keen. He kicked the door aside, thrusting the dying man off the coaming, and then leapt into Eurotas’s poop. It was like a scene from bedlam. Cabin doors hung open or were smashed down. Clothing, weapons and all manner of personal belongings were strewn everywhere.

  On the deck above he heard a voice, shrill with terror, and then Miller’s loud and menacing, “Stand still, you little bastard!” The so
und ended with a body slithering across the poop deck and one final gasp.

  Bolitho stepped slowly aft, his sword across his body, his feet stepping carefully so as not to trip in the scattered and looted confusion.

  “Easy, Cap’n!” He recognized Jenner’s drawl. “Next cabin.”

  He ducked past Bolitho, his shadow swaying across the screen doors, with two more seamen close on his heels. His face lit up as a pistol exploded from the cabin, and the man nearest him fell clutching his stomach, blood already gushing from his mouth. Jenner drew back his arm and a small dirk flew through the door like a flash of lightning.

  When Bolitho reached the door Jenner was tugging the blade from the victim’s chest, wiping it carefully on the man’s leg.

  More feet clattered along the maindeck, and Keen burst into the poop, a curved hanger in one hand, an empty pistol like a club in the other.

  “We’ve taken the forecastle and the rest of the upper deck, sir.” He was breathing very fast, and his eyes were shining in the lanternlight with the desperate wildness of battle. He added, “Some got away in a boat, but I think the sharpshooters are trying to mark them down.” He looked at the corpse. “We managed to seize two prisoners.”

  Bolitho said tightly, “Open the after hatch, but be ready for tricks. Tell Mr Ross to take over the upper deck. Someone might try to cut the cable.”

  He walked past the last of the cabins to the large one in the stern. Again the disorder of clothing and sea chests. A meal half-eaten on the master’s table. A woman’s dress too, with blood on it.

  It was suddenly very quiet, as if the whole ship was listening, stricken with terror.

  “Come.” He strode out of the cabin, Allday behind him, his head turning from side to side as if to protect Bolitho from attack.

  When the hatch was opened, and not without difficulty as it was wedged tight with bars and chains as if in a slave ship, Bolitho was sickened by the stench of bodies and fear which rose to meet him and his men.

  Still no sound at all. Just the regular creak of spars and rigging. Perhaps they had killed everyone aboard?

  Allday whispered, “If anyone’s down there, Captain, they must think hell itself has boarded the ship.”

  Bolitho stared at him. Why hadn’t he thought of that? The horror they must have endured, the sheer terror of the past weeks, and then the deafening onslaught of Tempest’s seamen. No wonder there was no sound.

  He stood on the edge of the hatch, ignoring Allday’s sudden anxiety and the fact he was probably framed against the moonlight.

  “Stand fast below!” He waited, hearing his voice echo around the deck. “You are in the hands of His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Tempest!”

  For a moment longer he imagined his worst fears were realized, and then as if out of the bowels of the ship he heard a mounting, combined chorus of cries and sobs.

  “Down quickly, lads!”

  Bolitho waited as more seamen dashed to the hatch with lanterns and then stumbled with them to the deck below. Here there was another hatch, beside which stood a chair from the officers’ quarters, a tankard near it to mark where a guard had been sitting at the moment of attack.

  They withdrew more heavy bars and lifted the hatch. It was a small hold, one which had been used for cabin stores, without light or much ventilation. It was packed from side to side and bulkhead to bulkhead with people. It was like looking down at a solid carpet of upturned, terrified faces. Men and women, dirty, dishevelled, and at the last stage of survival.

  Bolitho kept his tone as level as he could. “Have no fear. My people will take care of you.”

  He thought about his small boarding party. He did not yet know how many of them had died or were wounded. If this crowd chose to attack them, they would stand little chance, weapons or no weapons. There must be close on two hundred souls down there.

  Miller strode to the hatch. He seemed calm again, his voice crisp as he gestured for some hands to enter the hold. But from the side of his mouth he said quietly, “Mr Ross ’as three swivels loaded with canister and trained inboard, sir. If they start to show their metal he’ll sweep the deck afore they knows what’s ’it ’em.”

  So he was not fully recovered from the killing.

  It was terrible to watch as the people began to emerge from the packed hold. Some held on to each other from weakness and from fear. For whatever Bolitho’s voice may have implied, he knew he and his men did not look like part of the King’s Navy.

  One man, cut above the eyes, and his face so bruised it was almost black, was wearing the jacket of a sailor.

  Bolitho asked, “Who are you?”

  The man stared at him blankly until Allday took his arm and guided him away from the slow-moving procession.

  Then he said, “Archer, sir. Ship’s cooper.”

  Bolitho said quietly, “The passengers, where are they?”

  “Passengers?” It was an effort even to think. “I—I think they’m still on the orlop deck, sir.” He gestured about him. “Most of these are being deported.” He almost fell. “We bin down there for days.” He stared around. “Water . I must have water.”

  Bolitho snapped, “Broach every cask you can find, Miller. Sort them out. You know what to do. Tell Mr Ross to send a boat for Sergeant Quare’s party at once.” He sheathed his sword, his mind rebelling against the necessary details. To Allday he added, “Orlop. Lively now.”

  Another hatch, another ladder, and down below the water-line. Even in a ship of Eurotas’s tonnage and girth there was no room to stand upright between deck beams.

  Lanterns swayed to greet them as more seamen entered the orlop deck by another hatch further forward.

  Tiny cabins, like hutches, lined the sides of the hull. Much like those in a man-of-war where the ship’s professionals lived and slept, always cut off from natural daylight. Sailmakers and coopers, like the man Archer. Carpenters and quartermasters.

  “Open the doors!”

  He heard a woman weeping hysterically, and a man further down the line of cabins pleading with her to be brave.

  Allday snapped, “Here, Captain!”

  Bolitho strode to the door while Allday held a lantern for him. She was sitting on an upturned chest, her arm around a girl with long black hair, probably the one they had seen chased around the upper deck.

  The girl was moaning, her face hidden against Viola Raymond’s shoulder, her fingers digging into the cream-coloured gown like small, frantic claws.

  Bolitho could barely speak. At his back he could hear the confused cries and sobs of people being reunited, and others looking for friends and relatives without success.

  But it was all part of something else.

  Viola stood up slowly, taking the girl with her. She said softly, “Go with him.” She tightened her grasp as the terror shook the girl’s body. “He is a good man and will do you no harm.”

  The girl moved from her, one hand still held out. As if she was being cut adrift, Bolitho thought.

  Allday had left the lantern and closed the door behind them.

  Bolitho reached out and held her shoulders, feeling her reserve crumbling as she threw her arms round his neck and buried her mouth against his cheek.

  “You came!” She gripped him even tighter. “Oh, my darling Richard, you came back for us!”

  He said, “I’ll take you aft!”

  “No. Not there.” She looked up at him, and he could sense her disbelief. “Take me on deck.”

  They made their way through the jostling crowds of men and women, seamen and the newly arrived marines until they reached the high poop. Then she stood facing the wind, repeatedly pushing her fingers up and through her hair, and taking long breaths as if each was to be her last.

  Bolitho could only watch her. Afraid for her. Wanting to help.

  He made himself ask, “Your husband? Is he safe?”

  She nodded slowly and then turned towards him. “But where is your ship?”

  He replied, “It was too great a
risk. They would have killed everyone by the time Tempest worked into the bay.”

  She walked across the deck, her gown swishing on the worn planking. She did not speak, but kept her eyes on him until their bodies touched.

  Then, and only then, did she break down, sobbing into his chest, oblivious to the ship and everyone around her.

  Keen paused with one foot on top of the poop ladder, his mouth set to frame a dozen questions for his captain. Seeing them together he changed his mind and returned to the maindeck, his voice suddenly firm after the madness he had seen and shared.

  “Lay aft, Mr Ross. Mr Swift, tend to the wounded, and then report to me!”

  Allday watched him, remembering him as the young midshipman he had once saved from an agonizing death. Now he was a man. A King’s officer.

  Then he turned and glanced towards the poop. Well he should be a good one, he thought. He had the best there was as his example.

  6 REVENGE

  BOLITHO put down the pen and stretched his arms. It was early evening. Too soon for a lantern, but not bright enough for any more writing. He glanced around Eurotas’s big cabin, picturing it as it had been when he had burst through the door. Now, with the deck cleared of looted boxes and clothing, it looked almost normal.

  He stood up and walked to the tall windows. Away on the starboard quarter, leaning to a fresh breeze, his own ship, Tempest, made a perfect sight, her topsails and topgallants pale pink in the sunlight, her stem throwing up spray as she ploughed indifferently across each rank of rollers.

  Herrick was holding Tempest well up to windward, just in case there should be another attack. If anyone was foolhardy enough to make such an attempt, he would bring the frigate dashing down at full speed, presenting the other face Bolitho had seen just three days back.

  As he had taken Eurotas carefully from her anchorage in the bay, Tempest had tacked around the headland, exactly as he and Herrick had originally planned. It was the first time Bolitho had seen his own ship cleared for action from outboard. She had looked more than hostile with her guns run out like black teeth, her big courses brailed up to the yards to reveal the crouching marines in the tops and against the hammock nettings, muskets already trained on the slow-moving merchantman.