by David McDine
‘Seems as if they were determined to mutiny whatever you told them, sir?’
‘That’s about the size of it. Would you believe that I myself was threatened with a broadside by those mutinous wretches in Inflexible! The hellish thing is that this damned mutiny puts our blockade of the Frogs’ Dutch allies in the Texel at risk.’
Anson asked: ‘Admiral Duncan’s ships?’
‘Yes, Duncan. But now he’s only one ship of the line to maintain the blockade and he’s been reduced to bluffing by signalling to his non-existent fleet!’
Anson was shocked. ‘Good grief!’
‘Good grief indeed! He only managed to retain control by holding an agitator who had defied his authority over the side and threatening to let go unless the scoundrel agreed to return to duty. He’s a powerful man, is Duncan, and doesn’t believe in shilly-shallying. That’s the way to handle these wretched rabble-rousers!’
The admiral banged his desk with his fist. ‘But mark my word, these radical scoundrels are not going to get away with it!’
‘Is there anything I can do, sir?’
‘No. The Sheerness garrison’s being reinforced by three thousand soldiers but for the time being there’s not much anyone can do but await developments. I’m hopeful that left to stew in their own juice for long enough, cut off from the shore and without any chance of being resupplied, the mutineers’ll start to fall out among themselves. It only needs one ship to haul down the red flag and return to duty and the whole shameful business will collapse like a pack of cards.’
There was nothing Anson could say, so he held his peace although his mind was in a whirl and he felt desperately weary and low-spirited. His world, the navy’s world, had been turned upside down.
Noting his distress, the admiral attempted reassurance. ‘Don’t be too depressed about all this, my boy. If we hold our nerve I’m confident we’ll win through …’
Then, ascertaining that Anson’s family lived near Canterbury, he told him: ‘Since there’s nothing you can do for the present you may as well get yourself home for a while. Leave details with Captain Wills at Chatham of where you can be contacted and you’ll be sent for if the need arises.’
As an after-thought, he asked, ‘By the way, are you related to the Anson?’
Anson, head pounding, passed his hand over his feverish brow. ‘Only very distantly, I’m afraid, sir.’
The admiral nodded. ‘Nevertheless, you are fortunate to share any blood with the great man. But you look done in, my boy. My secretary will arrange for you and your baggage to be returned to Chatham in Sprite. Then go home and take a well-earned rest.’
It was an order that Anson was only too happy to obey.
****
‘You, sir!’
Homeward bound in the stagecoach, Anson struggled back from a fitful semi-nightmare, not surprisingly peopled by highwaymen and mutineers waving red flags, to focus on an elderly gentleman in the corner seat opposite who was evidently trying to attract his attention.
‘Me, sir?’ Anson croaked, wiping perspiration from his burning forehead.
The man – slim, white-haired and soberly dressed – looked concerned.
‘Yes you, sir. Are you unwell?’
Still befuddled, Anson managed to stammer: ‘Just a little tired—’ before a wave of dizziness and nausea overcame him and he pitched forward in a dead faint.
6
Ludden Hall
It was a clock striking seven that woke him. But was it seven in the morning, or evening? And where was he? Not at sea, that was clear. Nor was he in a coach.
After a few minutes his mind cleared enough to confirm that he was in a four-poster bed, but not at home in his father’s rectory. The curtains were drawn but the daylight shining through a gap in them told him that, no, this was definitely not his bedroom.
Nor could he remember getting here, nor when.
He could remember his horror at seeing the red flags flying from the mastheads of the ships in the Nore anchorage, and delivering the warning letter to the admiral, coming back to Chatham in Lieutenant Holman’s cutter and catching the stage.
But after that everything was blank. Except that he had a vague recollection of being carried into a large house, undressed and laid in this wonderfully comfortable bed, where blessed sleep had overtaken him.
Thereafter, he thought, there had been flashes of consciousness, a curiously detached feeling of observing someone soothing his fevered brow with damp cloths and helping him sip liquids.
At one stage he had come to for a few minutes to find the white-haired gentleman from the coach standing beside his bed with a plainly-dressed man he thought might be a doctor apparently earnestly discussing his condition.
Then nothing, except the impression of the occasional presence of someone ministering to him and the gradually less-fevered rest.
Until now, that was. Until the clock struck seven.
He pulled the covers back a little and was puzzled to find that he was wearing a night-shirt. Looking around, he could see that the room he was in was large but sparsely furnished with the bed, a wardrobe, chest of drawers and washstand with jug and bowl, small writing desk and chair beside the bed. A few framed antiquarian prints on the plain white walls were the sole ornament.
Apart from the loud ticking of the clock there was no other sound and it occurred to Anson that he should call out to let whoever had brought him here know that he was back in the land of the living.
But first he urgently needed to answer a call of nature, so he swung his legs over the side of the bed and tried to stand. But his head spun and he fell heavily, hitting his forehead on the bedpost on the way down.
****
He came round again to find himself back in bed, his head throbbing.
Forcing his eyes open, he saw that someone was sitting in the chair and, despite his blurred vision, thought he recognised the soberly-dressed old gentleman from the coach.
‘Thank heaven you are all right, young man. For a time there I thought we might have lost you!’
Anson groaned and put his hand to his head. ‘I’m not all right. I feel like death, like I’ve taken a terrible beating. And I’ve no idea where I am, or how long I’ve been here …’ Even to himself, his voice sounded hoarse and feeble.
The old man nodded understandingly. ‘Of course, of course. Allow me to explain, my dear fellow. You were taken ill on the coach from Chatham and when we reached my destination, Ospringe, I was met by my own carriage and brought you home.’
‘Your home?’ Anson asked weakly.
‘Yes, you are at my home, Ludden Hall, not far from Faversham. You see, your uniform told us you were a naval officer, but no-one on the coach knew who you were. Clearly you needed medical attention, so I brought you here and sent for our local doctor. He said you had some sort of virulent fever brought on by total exhaustion and ordered complete bed rest …’
Anson nodded. ‘So, how long have I been here?’
The old man smiled. ‘Let me see, it’s been six days now—’
‘Six days? Good grief!’ Anson was astonished. He tried to sit up but the effort was too much and he sank back on the pillows.
‘Yes, and much of the time you have been dead to the world. But now the fever seems to have burned itself out and, despite your argument with the bedpost, with God’s providence you will soon recover your strength. You are young, after all, and you have been well nursed by Emily.’
Anson blushed to think that some female had been seeing to his every basic need for the best part of a week. Was it one of the two pretty young maids he had noticed peeping round the door simpering at him behind the old gentleman’s back? Or perhaps he had a daughter?
‘I must thank this, er, Emily. Is she, perhaps, your wife, your daughter, or one of your maids?’
‘Good heavens, no! I am unmarried. My niece Cassandra lives with me, although she is away at present, visiting her cousins. Our maids are, well, rather young, in their early
teens. It wouldn’t have been proper for them to have nursed you, much though they wanted to do so. No, that would not have been proper, so I called on the services of Emily, from the village.’
Anson wondered what this angel of mercy might be like, and was soon to find out.
His host explained: ‘You have only been taking liquids, a little nourishing soup and so on, so you are very weak, hence your fall when you tried to get out of bed. Ah, here’s Emily with Doctor Hawkins …’
Anson had envisaged a ministering angel, but was startled to see that his nurse was in fact a large middle-aged lady with work-coarsened hands and a noticeable moustache.
The doctor confirmed that there were no longer any signs of fever, examined the egg-sized lump on Anson’s forehead, tutted, sent a maid for a cold compress and announced that the patient would live.
His host saw the doctor out and returned to announce: ‘Now, Emily here is patiently waiting to give you a bed bath, so I will leave you in her very capable hands.’
Anson made to protest: ‘I’d rather, er—’
‘No arguments, my boy, Doctor Hawkins said it will make you feel ten times better …’
Emily nodded in agreement and Anson could see that it was a battle he could not win.
As his host left the room Anson looked up apprehensively to see Emily rolling up her sleeves, favouring him with a gap-toothed grin and assuring him: ‘No need to feel shy, young sir. I’ve had two ’usbands, brung up five boys, and I lay out the dead in this parish, so you don’t ’ave anything I ’aven’t seen a ’undred times before.’
****
Her ministrations completed, Emily left Anson to rest, comfortable except for the lingering pounding in his head from his battle with the bedpost.
Eyes closed, he let his mind wander over the events of the past few weeks until he fell again into a deep sleep.
Overnight he emerged partially from his semi-comatose state only occasionally, conscious of the burly but kindly Emily tending him, drifting off again into confused nightmares of grappling with a grey-bearded villain atop a lurching coach and trying to deliver vital messages but being unable to find his way.
He awoke in daylight to find the doctor at his bedside examining the lump on his head. Seeing that his patient was now awake, he pronounced: ‘The swelling is much reduced and there is now no evidence whatsoever of fever. You are lucky to have been born with a thick skull, young man.’
Anson croaked: ‘It’s been said by some of my naval superiors that I am inclined to be somewhat thick, so I’m not sure if that is a compliment or not, doctor …’
‘In this context it is. In your weakened state such a blow could have proved fatal to someone with a thin skull.’
The old gentleman entered and asked: ‘How is the patient, doctor?’
‘Much improved, I am pleased to report. But, I should warn you, he is in a much-weakened state. He has lost a good deal of weight and now that the fever has passed he needs a strengthening diet. Beefsteaks, chicken and vegetables are prescribed and on no account is he to attempt to get out of bed unaided.’
When the doctor had left, Anson tackled his saviour. ‘I am greatly embarrassed, sir, that I do not even know your name, nor you mine I presume …’
‘I am Josiah Parkin, pleased to be of service to you. And you, sir? We found nothing on you to reveal your name or where you were heading.’
‘My name is Anson, and as you will have deduced from my uniform I am a lieutenant in the navy.’
‘Anson? Merciful heavens! Are you related to …?’
This was the question Anson was always asked. ‘To the great circumnavigator? No, sir. Only very distantly—’
‘No, no, I mean the Reverend Anson, rector of Hardres-with-Farthingham.’
‘Indeed I am, sir. His middle son, Oliver.’
‘The Lord be praised, here you were all this time and if only I had known I would have sent for your father, whom I know very well indeed as a fellow antiquarian. I must write to inform him you are here and of your illness. Your people must be very worried that you have not arrived home.’
‘Not at all, sir. No-one knew I was coming. It was a, shall we say, spur-of-the-moment thing, so I had no time to inform them.’
‘Well, I will soon put that to rights. I will write to your father this minute.’
Anson held up his hand. ‘As I said, sir, my family are unaware that I was on my way home and I would sooner not alert them now.’
‘Why not, pray?’
‘Well, sir, I was on my way home for a few days’ rest before a summons I’m expecting to return to Chatham for …’ He hesitated: ‘… for duty in connection with the, er disobedience the navy is experiencing there.’
The old gentleman smiled. ‘You mean the mutiny? No need to use a euphemism, my boy. A spade is a spade and disobedience in the fleet is mutiny, is it not?’
Anson could not argue. ‘So I take it news of the, er, mutiny has spread?’
‘It has indeed. The news-sheets are full of it and being so near Chatham it’s on everyone’s lips hereabouts.’
Anson sighed. ‘So, sir, do you have any information about the latest situation?’
‘Only that the red flags are still flying and the hotheads are threatening to blockade London, but it’s rumoured that may be a step too far for some and there’s said to be muttering against it in many of the ships.’
Anson thought for a moment. ‘If that is the case a message could come for me from Chatham at any time, but the navy will assume I am at home—’
‘Then our course is clear, young man,’ said Parkin, evidently pleased with his nautical metaphor. ‘You must write, or dictate if you are as yet unable to wield a pen, to let the navy know that you can be contacted here, and not at your home.’
The thought of wielding anything at the moment was beyond Anson. ‘I should be greatly obliged to you if you would write it to my dictation, sir, and arrange for it to be sent to Chatham at the earliest opportunity.’
‘It shall be done immediately and I will ensure that it’s forwarded by the very next coach.’
And so, brushing aside the old gentleman’s mild protestations at the mention of his hospitality, Anson dictated a note to Captain Wills:
“Having been taken ill on my way home following my call on you at Chatham on Tuesday of last week, I am now almost fully restored to health having been most kindly looked after by Mister Josiah Parkin at Ludden Hall near Faversham, where the summons for my return to duty should be directed.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant …”
Parkin looked up from the writing table and gave Anson a quizzical look and commented amiably: ‘You realise that not only have you given me an undeserved mention in your despatch, but you have imparted virtually no information to your superiors, and, what’s more, you have told a deliberate lie!’
Anson guessed what was coming.
‘You are by no means almost fully restored to health. Far from it …’
‘But you see, with the excellent treatment I am getting here, by the time this message has been received and a reply sent I am confident I will be as fit as a flea.’
‘Hmm.’ Parkin was clearly far from convinced.
7
HMS Euphemus
All was quiet on board the 64-gun third rate ship of the line HMS Euphemus lying at anchor among the mutinous fleet congregated in the Great Nore anchorage.
Most of the ship’s company were sleeping below and there was not a single officer on board. They had all been banished ashore when the red flags were hoisted.
Each ship had elected delegates, but the Euphemus representatives were not on board. They had left by boat in the afternoon for a meeting in the Sandwich with Richard Parker, the charismatic but insubordinate former midshipman selected by his fellows to be the so-called President of the Committee of Delegates.
He was the man chosen by the men to present their list of grievances to the flag officer, but now many of the less radic
al men feared escalation and were wavering.
With the main agitators temporarily out of the way, a select band of level-headed men gathered in the great cabin of Euphemus, until recently the hallowed preserve of the captain, now kicking his heels ashore with the rest of the officers.
The men entering now had two things in common: they were the ship’s key warrant and petty officers; and not one of them had been in favour of raising the red flag. But they had been swept aside by the tidal wave of mutiny that had engulfed the Nore fleet – and now they wanted to put an end to it.
Called together by the bull-necked boatswain, Bert Rook, they included his two trusted mates, George Jebb, a tough Liverpudlian, and Joseph Kelly, a Newfoundlander of Irish descent who had fished for cod on the Grand Banks before volunteering for the Royal Navy largely because of his dislike of the French.
Both petty officers were feared for their ruthless dedication to ensuring that the men “perform their duty with alacrity and without noise and confusion” as the Admiralty required. This they achieved through their piped calls and loud, hectoring voices, by “starting” slow seamen with a whack from the spliced rope’s end they carried almost as a badge of office – and, when required, wielding the cat-o’-nine-tails at floggings.
The master, responsible for the navigation of the ship, and who as the senior warrant officer might have been expected to summon rather than be summoned, was a reluctant attender. William Sadler, a gawky man with weathered face and stick-out ears, had entered from the merchant service and although competent at pilotage he was inclined to be over-cautious – and was no leader. He had melted into the background when the ship’s rabble-rousers joined the firebrands throughout the fleet and forced their officers ashore, and he was no keener to stick his neck out now. But if it was decided to try and take the ship in, the how and wherefore would be down to him.
