Passage to Mutiny

by Alexander Kent

  Then a voice called, “All I done was steal a pig, sir! They sent me to Botany Bay for that. Me family was starvin’, what else could a man do?”

  Another said hotly, “My woman was slaughtered by that bastard Tuke after ’im an’ ’is devils ’ad done with ’er as they wanted!” His voice shook. “I got nothin’ to go back to England for, Cap’n. But by the livin’ Jesus I’ll fight for you if you tells me what to do!”

  Uproar broke out on the gundeck, and while the seamen and marines watched spellbound the jostling convicts faced each other in argument and anger.

  Bolitho said heavily, “It did not work, Thomas. I cannot find it in my heart to blame them.”

  Herrick snapped, “Have the boats ready, Mr Keen. Mr Fitzmaurice, make a last signal to the settlement.”

  They turned as a man called, “We know what you done for us, Cap’n, an’ what you tried to do. When you’ve been used to little better’n kicks and curses you soon gets to know what you values. Aye, Cap’n, I’ll fight for you too, an’ be damned to tomorrow!”

  A few voices still yelled out in protest, but they were drowned by a great wave of cheering, which even Jury’s resonant voice could do nothing to quell.

  As it slowly died down Bolitho said quietly, “Put them on the gun tackles and braces. Their strength and our skills are all we have. We must use them well.” He turned away, retching violently. “Move yourself, Thomas!”

  Herrick tore his eyes away. “Man the boats!” He watched as several of the convicts clambered down into them, pursued by ironic cheers from their companions. “Mr Keen! This will be the last time, so be as quick as you can.”

  He saw the small red figures by the smashed pier, one hopping on a crutch. Sick and wounded, convicts, everyone who could draw breath was needed today. But all he could see in his mind was Bolitho, fighting his own war, hanging on as his life swayed between reality and total collapse.

  Bolitho did not move or speak again until the last boat came alongside and off-loaded some marines. He had expected to see Raymond come aboard, although he could find no reason for it. So he intended to remain behind his frail defences to the end. To take credit for the victory, or as was more likely, barter for his life yet again with the attackers.

  He saw Herrick waiting by the quarterdeck rail, his face full of anxiety.

  “Drop a buoy here and moor all but the quarter boat, if you please.”

  Herrick understood. “Aye, sir.” This was one day when they would need no boats, and if all failed, they might help Hardacre and some of the others to escape.

  “Very well.” Bolitho looked around the crowded quarterdeck. “We will weigh directly. Have the capstan manned.” He nodded to Lakey. “Lay a course to weather the headland and the reef as close as you can manage.”

  He turned and saw Midshipman Romney waiting to assist Fitzmaurice.

  “Run up the colours, and tell Sergeant Quare to have his fifers play us out.”

  As Tempest weighed anchor once more and tilted reluctantly to the wind, figures moved slowly from the trees along the beach and ran to the water’s edge to watch. They saw the sails breaking out from the great yards, the minute figures scrambling above the deck like monkeys, the mounting foam beneath the gilded figurehead, and though most of them did not understand why it was so, many were deeply moved by what they saw.

  Their young chief, Tinah, stood beside Hardacre’s massive figure and raised one hand to his ear, as faintly at first, then more strongly, he heard the strains of music.

  He looked enquiringly at the big man by his side.

  Hardacre said quietly, “‘Portsmouth Lass.’ I never thought to hear it in these islands.”

  Hardacre, who hated the signs of authority and spreading power from a land he had almost forgotten, who had sought only security and peace amongst the people who had grown to trust him, was unable to control his voice as he added, “God bless them. We’ll not see their like again.”

  Once free of the land’s protection the north-westerly wind laid into Tempest’s canvas and held her hard over on the larboard tack. “East nor’-east, sir! Full and bye!”

  Bolitho nodded and walked up the tilting deck to the weather side. The rising din of shrouds and canvas, the clatter of blocks and the hiss of the sea were joined in his mind as one great tumult. He felt the deck quivering to the wind, and when he peered along the larboard twelve-pounders he saw them hanging on taut tackles as the ship heeled further and further to the thrust.

  Spray spurted over the nettings and stung his cheeks, but he barely flinched. He saw faces he did not know being hustled to various parts of the ship, some gazing at him as they hurried past. He no longer thought of them as convicts, but found himself wondering what they had once been. Again, much like his own men. Driven from the land by necessity, or lured to the sea by impossible dreams. But for their circumstances they might have ended in a King’s ship anyway. The impartial callousness of a press-gang, a need to escape like Jenner or Starling, it might be fate after all which set the stage for man.

  “More brandy, Captain?”

  He turned, holding firmly to the hammock nettings, and saw Allday watching him.

  “Later.” He forced a smile. “You’ll have me three sheets to the wind!”

  Allday did not smile. “Help me, Captain. I don’t know what to do. I can’t stop you, an’ I can’t aid you either.”

  Bolitho reached out and gripped his arm. “You are helping me. As you have always done.” He saw Allday’s face fade momentarily as if a mist had formed over it, and added tightly, “Just by being here.”

  “Deck there! Sail on th’ larboard quarter!”

  Herrick swore, “Damn! They will hold the weather-gage.”

  Bolitho beckoned to Romney and seized the telescope from him. His heart was going like a smith’s hammer, and it took time and effort to steady the glass. He saw the blurred outline of the headland falling rapidly away on the quarter, its silhouette made more confused by the spray which was bursting across the reef in wild abandon.

  There she was, just as he remembered, thrusting towards him with all but her royals set to the following wind. Her beakhead vanished repeatedly in great swooping plunges, and he could imagine the sea sluicing over her guns as she was driven to her capacity.

  He heard Lakey say, “Pity the wind don’t shift and dismast the bastard!”

  Bolitho forgot the voices around him as he concentrated on a sliver of sail which had appeared almost astern of the other frigate. The second schooner. He lowered the glass, biting his lip to control his reeling thoughts. Viola had told him about the other schooner. When she had been Tuke’s captive. There would probably be another heavy cannon aboard her, too. Some may have been transferred to Narval also.

  He pulled himself along the spray-soaked planking until he had reached the tail above the nearest twelve-pounders.

  He saw Borlase and Swift pause in their walking between the guns and called to them, “I want you to double-shot the guns.” He held up his hand to silence Borlase’s protest. “After the first broadside there’ll be no time. It’ll be gun for gun.” He felt the grin prising his lips apart. “What say, lads! Give him a headache from the start!”

  Somebody gave a cheer, and he saw Blissett, his corporal’s chevron very bright against his scarlet tunic, waving his hat in the air.

  Sprawled in the maintop, the marine called Billy-boy examined his long musket and eased the stiffness in his leg.

  Behind him the captain of the maintop asked uneasily, “What d’you reckon?”

  The marine shrugged. “Two to one. I seen worse. Anyroad, I’d rather be here than on some poxy island.”

  The other man looked at the mast, trembling to the great weight of spars and rigging. He was thinking of the man he had replaced. Blasted to bloody pulp by one of those iron balls.

  Bolitho said, “Prepare to shorten sail, Mr Herrick. We’ll have the t’gallants off her directly.”

  He pictured the other ship in his
mind, flying downwind towards their quarter. Tuke would be expecting a fight, and would need to get to grips while he held the wind. Against that, Tempest’s heavier build would slow her when she came about on the opposite tack. It would be a temporary advantage, but it was all they had. They would never match the French ship for agility. He knew Herrick was thinking the same.

  Herrick raised his speaking trumpet. “Hands aloft! Take in the t’gans’ls!”

  Romney peered up at the tightly braced yards. It would be no easy work up there today, with the wind buffeting the bulging canvas and trying to dislodge the topmen one by one.

  Bolitho felt the deck trying to level off as the sails were fisted and hauled into submission and lashed to the yards.

  He made himself look towards the Narval again, and saw she was much closer. No more than a league away. He saw a brief puff of smoke, and flinched as a ball moaned overhead to raise a feather of spray on the opposite beam.

  Keen said, “They must have one of Eurotas’s twenty-four-pounders as a bow chaser.”

  No one answered him.

  Bolitho concentrated on the other ship, expecting her to follow his example and shorten sail. There was some activity on her upper yards, but not enough to hold her headlong attack. If Tuke tried to make a violent alteration of course in either direction, to follow Tempest or to track her round on a new tack altogether, he would, as Lakey remarked, tear the masts out of the ship.

  “Stand by to come about!” Bolitho had to cup his hands because of the boom of canvas. “Mr Borlase! Are you ready to engage with the starboard battery?” He saw him nod, confused no doubt by the fact that the enemy was on the opposite side. Bolitho added, “Well, tell me in future! I am not a magician!”

  He walked back to the nettings, fighting for breath, angry with himself for wasting energy, with Borlase for being so stupid.

  Herrick looked up the slanting deck, his eyes very clear in the light. “Ready, sir!” He glanced up with a start as a ball whipped between the main and mizzen without hitting even a halliard. He had not even heard the gun fire.

  Bolitho glanced quickly aft to the helm and the leaning group of men around it. Lakey, dependable and as steady as a rock. Keen with his gun crews, and the marines spread along the nettings behind him, their muskets already cradled over the tightly packed hammocks.

  He turned to look forward, seeing the new men at the braces, grim-faced, some no doubt wondering if their momentary heroics were worth all this.

  The older men were waiting to let go the headsail sheets so that Tempest would swing unhindered across the wind’s eye, and near them he saw Pyper and the crews of the two carronades waiting for a chance to pour their murderous charges into the enemy’s stern if a chance offered itself.

  “Ready! Put the helm down!”

  Slowly and noisily, Tempest started to swing to windward, the air shaking to the onslaught of shrouds and vibrating rigging. He saw men hauling at the braces, one falling in a confused heap as he lost his footing, only to be chased and pushed back to his position by Schultz, the boatswain’s mate.

  Round and further still, the tossing panorama of breaking crests and glass-sided troughs swinging across and under the jib boom while every stitch of canvas protested noisily.

  And there, like an hitherto unseen vessel, was the Narval, rising above the starboard bow instead of the opposite quarter, her pyramid of sails creamy white in the sun’s glare.

  Bolitho saw the deep shadows on her forecourse and topsail and knew she was trying to alter course. The sails hardened again, and he guessed Tuke knew it was impossible to match his opponent’s manoeuvre.

  Bolitho ignored the confusion on deck, the whine of blocks and the overwhelming groan of spars as the yards were hauled still further round to lay Tempest on the opposite tack. He watched intently, seeing the other ship forging towards his jib boom, making an arrowhead between them. It was the best part of a mile away, although it looked from aft as if both bowsprits would lock like tusks.

  “As you bear, Mr Borlase!” He felt unsteady and sick.

  Borlase sliced the air with his hanger. “Fire!”

  Double-shotted, the starboard guns crashed out in one tremendous broadside, the trucks hurling themselves inboard while dense smoke funnelled through the open ports in a choking cloud.

  Above the receding echo of the broadside Bolitho heard a terrible scream and saw blood splashed across the deck close to where Borlase was standing. One of the convicts had changed his position at the moment of recoil and had been smashed in the chest by one of the guns as it came hurtling inboard.

  Borlase tore his eyes from the droplets of blood which had spattered across his legs and yelled, “Stop your vents! Sponge out! Load!” His voice as shrill as a distraught woman’s as he peered through the swirling smoke.

  Bolitho saw the smoke swirl and quiver as the French frigate fired back. Iron hammered into the lower hull, and he heard the whine of more balls passing overhead. Tempest’s sudden change of tack had confused their aim.

  The smoke thinned and billowed away downwind, and Bolitho caught his breath as he stared at the enemy. Sails punctured in several places, and at least two gun ports empty of muzzles.

  Herrick yelled, “Well done, lads!”

  Prideaux said, “We’ll not surprise that one a second time.”

  Bolitho strode to the compass, ignoring the stained faces of the men who watched him pass. At the compass he consulted the set of the sails, the position of the other ship as she carried on downwind, her topmen already reducing her show of canvas.

  He tried to hold the sickness aside, but it was dragging at him. Pulling him down with relentless strength.

  It was all suddenly quite clear. He was going to die. This day, on this deck. It was merely a matter of time.

  He dashed the sweat from his eyes and peered at the compass.

  South-west, and there were two islands overlapping across the bows, misty and beckoning as in a dream.

  “Let her fall off two points, Mr Lakey. We will follow Narval round.”

  “Steady she goes, sir! Sou’ sou’-west!”

  There was a rumble of cannonfire, and men ducked in confusion as Narval’s next broadside swept over the water. A different sound this time. Chain and bar shot, in an effort to cripple Tempest’s rigging.

  The nets above the gundeck bucked and rebounded under an onslaught of severed cordage, blocks and a man who had lost both legs yet was still trying to drag himself to safety.

  “Fire!”

  Tempest shook violently, the guns spitting out their long orange tongues, deadly and vivid in the choking smoke.

  The frigates were a bare half-mile apart now, with Tempest’s bowsprit level with the other’s mainmast. Again and again the guns thundered across the water, the passage of their shots marked on the sea by burning wads and by the force of their wind above the waves.

  Tempest’s forecourse and main were punctured in several places, and above the sweating gun crews the torn rigging trailed in the wind with few men spare to repair it.

  A violent flash exploded from Tempest’s poop, as if a magazine had ignited deep in the hull. Bolitho slipped and fell to the deck as splintered planks, upended cannon, men and pieces of men were flung about him. Voices called and screamed, and as he struggled to his feet he saw that half of the helm had been smashed to fragments, the quartermaster and his mates strewn around it like bloody rags.

  Lakey was unmarked and unharmed, although he had been standing just inches away. As others ran to assist him he croaked, “That schooner! The bugger’s put a shot through our counter!”

  Herrick pointed to the smoke which billowed up through the shattered skylight and companion. “Must have been double-shotted with a load of grape for good measure!”

  He hurried aft as Jury, his legs and shoes splashed with blood, yelled, “Steerin’s carried away!”

  True enough. With power gone from her rudder, Tempest was already falling away downwind, exposing her st
ern towards the other frigate.

  More shots tore into the hull, and others raised fountains of spray against the side.

  Bolitho shouted, “Must get steering-way!”

  He turned, sickened, as a ball crashed through a port and took the head from a crouching gun captain, leaving the torso standing for just a few terrible seconds.

  Herrick shouted, “What’ll we do, sir?”

  Bolitho squinted through the smoke, watching the Narval’s yards swinging round as she halted her charge and began to turn in pursuit. He saw the schooner closing from the opposite quarter, her captured gun firing again, the ball shrieking through the rigging, breaking the maintopsail yard like a carrot. The great spar, and all the weight of rigging and sail, plunged through the smoke and across the gundeck, ripping the maincourse into flap-ping streamers as it fell. Men cried out in terror as they were pinned or trapped by the wreckage, others searched for friends, or struggled to free their guns and train them on the enemy.

  Swift, his mind and body reeling with horror as he stared at Borlase crushed and mangled beneath the broken yard, one arm still moving frantically, fought to stop himself from running below to hide.

  Then he saw something pale across the larboard quarter and shouted desperately, “The schooner! Stand-to!” He raised his arm and saw with astonishment that he had lost two fingers, but had felt nothing. “Fire!”

  The ragged, badly aimed broadside spouted from Tempest’s side, although less than half of the twelve-pounders would bear, or were still able to shoot.

  The schooner’s foremast quivered, the sails all in torment, and slid down into the smoke, slewing the vessel round and rendering her helpless.

  Bolitho saw it and more beside, although faces and events were all somehow merged in his cringing mind. The schooner was out of the fight. But for her he would have been able to take on the enemy ship to ship. But now . . . He stared at the havoc, the struggling, filthy figures who were trying to clear the wreckage from the decks. Dead and dying were everywhere, and there was blood running down the foremast, while high above the torn body of a topman dangled and swayed with the wind, snared in some of the broken rigging.