Dewey Lambdin - King`s Captain Страница 33

Usually, it was a cheerful time when the crew lined up to take their ration, jealously watching for the slightest shortage when their measure was poured out. It signalled the end of the morning's exercise at sail-drill, small arms, or gun-drill, and the onset of their midday meal. For rum issue, the off-going watch and the on-coming both mingled for a while, crowding them all forrud toward the foc'sle belfry.

This time, it was even more crowded, as wives, children, and the whores gathered round for their share, wheedling, whining, bawling, or cajoling. If the men didn't have money anymore, at least they had rum to offer- the whores'd settle for that.

"How are we fixed for rum, Mister Coote?" Lewrie enquired.

"Twelve weeks' worth, sir… at normal rates of issue. Longer, did we water it at three-to-one," the Purser answered crisply, knowing his sums to the groat. "We did not receive our total due before…"

"Which'd be cause for mutiny of itself, sir," Lt. Langlie said.

"The pigs," Midshipman Peacham felt free to interject.

"Pigs… ah," Lewrie breezed on, as if he hadn't a care in the world. "Reminds me; thankee, Mr. Peacham. Speaking of trough, Mister Coote, how stands our food supply, then?"

"Nigh on the full sixteen weeks, Captain, sir," Mr. Coote told them. "Depending on whether we are responsible for victualling the dependents. With them aboard, sir… more like ten weeks' worth. Nine… are we profligate."

"Then this could go on forever," Lt. Ludlow gloomed. He'd not made many appearances lately, and when he had attended officers' meetings he'd kept his own counsel, merely frowning, glowering, or grimacing without venturing either opinions or suggestions, or any comments that hadn't been elicited by a direct question. He'd not kept up his toilet either, Lewrie noted. Ludlow 's waist-coat was dingy with smut and food-stains, his shirt tanned at collar and cuffs from long wear, and his beard stubble a light coal-dust smear on his chin and cheeks.

"No, not forever, Mister Ludlow," Lewrie countered. "Did any of you take a gander at the shore today? Note what's happening in Sheerness?"

"Uhm… that it seems rather quiet, sir?" Midshipman Catterall ventured, "without the seamen allowed ashore…"

"Do you lift a telescope, you'll find some pleasing sights ashore." Lewrie beamed. "Now let me ask you all another question… What will be served for dinner?"

"Sir?" Had he been driven daft by the mutiny was the look they shared-had Proteus stolen the wits of another captain?

"What's cooked for the hands' dinner, Mister Coote?"

"Uhm… the usual Tuesday rota, sir. Pound of biscuit and two pounds of salt-beef per man per day," the Purser informed him.

"No shore 'Tommy'… no beeves or hogs for slaughter," Lewrie pointed out. "Nor will there be in future. Vice-Admiral Buckner and Commissioner Hartwell have not seen fit to deliver fresh victuals out to the ships this morning. Really, gentlemen, you should take more notice of things around you," he chid them with mock severity, tsking a time or two with a sly leer. "Do you look shoreward, you will see soldiers and workmen atop the forts… mending what's been neglected for far too long, I shouldn't wonder. Troops of militia and regulars patrolling the streets? Standing guard over the dockyards and quays? You could espy civilians departing… evacuated or of their own accord. Oh, there'll be some tavern keepers and whoremongers who stay and reap the bounty from all these soldiers. Soldiers, gentlemen," he said, beaming his delight, "most-like with orders to arrest any mutineer who gets ashore, to cut them off completely. I believe Our Lords Commissioners have been down to Sheerness and told Parker and his men to get stuffed! Perhaps it wasn't our mutineers' idea to avoid shore, hey? And, gentlemen… do you look close, you may see some activity, just a bit upriver of Garrison Point. Boats working… looking very much to me as if they're laying a stouter boom across the Med-way."

His suppositions sounded inspiriting; they all seemed to perk up-yet didn't dash to the bulwarks that instant, looking hesitant. Tell me what I'm s posed to think, Lewrie sighed to himself; / swear, what a pack of cod'swallops!

There was a glad interruption from up forrud. Some hands were squabbling over the rum issue! One man had offered half his ration to a whore, but it sounded as if he already owed "gulpers" to one of his messmates, who wasn't going to be shorted. Neither would the doxy take less than a full half of a half!

"Don't you see, gentlemen?" he posed to them. "This isn't any fun anymore. They've had their Rope-Yarn days, their drunks, their ruts. They're as broke as convicts. No more skylarking ashore, and no more fresh food either. No more quim, 'less they resort to rape. Have to live on sea-rations, share spirits and victuals with women they can't have, 'less they trade food or drink. Too many mouths aboard and short-commons, if this goes on much longer. Anchored out where it's boresome and there's nothing to do but stew and fret 'bout what Admiralty's doing, when it's going to end. And how. Now do you take pains to make 'em see what's going on ashore… and why…"

"Undermine their morale, sir!" Catterall piped up, tumbling to it at last. "So they give it up, take the pardon…"

"So close to the Queen's Channel too, Mister Catterall," Lewrie muttered, stepping into the taut half-circle of officers, warrants, and junior petty officers. "Where a crew, a ship, did they get fearful or their commitment to the mutiny had begun to waver… might think that escape from the Nore might be the best choice, sirs. As a way to take the Spithead terms, the pardon… and signal their denial of the mutiny by a return to duty. Sea-duty! God bless the mutinous members of our little… 'Parliament,' " he sneered. "Putting us where it'd be easier to sail off… when we re-take the ship, sirs."

Mouths gapped even wider, as jaws dropped at the idea. Sneaky grins replaced puzzlement.

"With two two-deckers anchored near us, sir," Lieutenant Ludlow said, with a sneer of hopelessness, "upper-deck gun-ports open and primed to fire on any ship that shows a scrap of sail, tries to up-anchor…"

"Damme, Mister Ludlow," Lewrie scoffed. "And here I thought you were the firebrand, determined to draw blood t'other day."

"When it seemed we had a chance to keep the ship, sir," Ludlow shot back. "Not just surrender her like a craven…!"

"Consider yourself under arrest, sir!" Lewrie barked, suddenly fed up with the man. "Go below and confine yourself… and your insolence… to your cabin! By God, you go too far, sir! Have done since I came aboard."

Ludlow 's jaw found cause to drop, and he visibly paled, like to faint. He seemed to reel or stagger, whether to fall to his knees in apoplexy or take a damning step forward to threaten a superior officer, it could be taken either way. Marine Lt. Devereux reached out to take him by the upper arm, to support or restrain him, this could be taken either way too "You…!" Ludlow blustered. "Now see here, sir…! Ah… I see sir Un-hand me, you tailor's dummy! Ah. Ah. Very well, sir. I will, as always obey my captain's orders, sir."

"Very good, sir," Lewrie sniped through hair-thin lips. "Then kindly do as I have ordered, Mister Ludlow."

Ludlow had mastered himself, had control of his body once more though he never would learn how to conceal the emotions that erupted on his phyz, and those were stony and bloody! He doffed his hat and made a leg in a most-formal conge, then turned on his heel to stamp away, after sharing a bleak but knowing look with Midshipman Peacham.

"Uhm, sir"-Lt. Langlie whispered, after a long, embarrassed silence- "though he stated his case, uhm, well, insolently, there is the problem of those two-deckers and their guns."

"I doubt they keep a zealous watch, Mister Langlie," Lewrie muttered back. "Too bored. We've not held sail-drill lately, or had our people at the artillery. With the shore cut off from them and our mutinous committee worried, suggestions from us as to drilling back to passing competence might find a welcome ear. No shot, no powder in the guns, but…? Make and furl sail; put men aloft on the yards? If we do it often enough, then it may not draw much attention when we do it for our escape. When we cut our cables."

"No pilot aboard, sir," Mr. Winwood pointed out, lowering his voice to a conspirator's hiss. "Tricky passage: shoals, sands, flats where we could run aground."

"But could you do it, Mister Winwood?"

"Aye, sir," Winwood allowed, and that rather reluctantly. It would be a perfect bitch did they take the ground, and under fire from a two-decker's heavy guns. "The tides, though. Do we sail out with the ebb to speed our way, it'd have to be in daylight, sir. The flood runs at night, and will take us into the Medway or Sheerness. Might be a safer escape, sir, if the government has garrisoned Sheerness 'gainst the mutineers retaking us. Dark as a boot, scudding off a North, Sea blow, sir? Harder to shoot at."

"There is that, Mister Winwood," Lewrie allowed. "But we'd have to run past a great many ships before we got there. Here…"he said, casting a hand out toward the beckoningly empty eastern horizon, "we're less than a mile, mile-and-a-half… the Range-To-Random-Shot of an 18-pounder… from showing them a clean pair of heels. We're in the outer I row of the Great Nore, less than a mile from the buoyed channel. Most of the other ships are streamin' back from a single bower. When the flood runs, they point outward. When the ebb runs, they're facing Sheerness. Sail exercise… make a slow way up to short stays, under reduced sail, then furl and fall back. Do that a few times each morning and, sooner or later, they'll take no more notice of us. But one time… the last time… we cut and keep on going. Turn of the tide, Mister Winwood? With a suitable slant o' wind? Do-able, d'ye think?"

"Aye, sir. Do-able," Winwood replied gravely. But with a nod of conviction and determination.

"The gunboats, sir…" Lt. Wyman enthused, almost hugging himself to contain his eagerness. "They've lost 'em, sir. There's no one to chase us, did we get a way on."

On Restoration Day, during the gale, when even massy two-deckers had been tossed about, the eight commandeered gunboats which had been stationed at either end of the fairly snug double crescent of warships had been all but swamped by breaking waves and had finally gone into the calmer waters of the Medway for shelter, just in time for Admiral Buckner to stir himself to action at last and take them away from the mutineers.

"Uhm… there is the additional problem of arms, sir," Marine Lt. Devereux sighed, pulling at his nose in thought. "Beyond our own, we've none. Though we have identified hands who remain loyal, and we know who supports the mutiny… would fight to keep the ship… we are a bit thin on the ground compared to their numbers. And they now are armed, sir."

Another pesky problem, that; Bales had finally tired of being denied the arms chest keys by Lewrie's aloof truculence and had torn the locks and hasps off the chests with crow-levers from among the gun tools hung over every mess table, to distribute muskets, pistols, and swords.

"Aye, they are, Lieutenant Devereux," Lewrie sombrely agreed. "But then… so are the loyal men. Damme, sir… they were forced to take the oath… they wear the red cockades, don't they? And so do a goodly number of the fearful and the un-committed who'd let themselves be blown will-he, nill-he by either faction. Let themselves be blown to sea, and out of danger, if it came to it. There's a mixture of all factions in every watch good sir… every division or work-party. We know who the ringleaders are, who the firmest supporters are. Do we get the drop on them when the time is ripe, take the deck and keep a fair number of true mutineers below long enough…"

"Arms are common, aye, sir." Lt. Devereux pondered, his aristocratic features creased in thought as he pondered something pleasant, put his wits to work on a tactical situation, a lightning raid, a coup. "They have to allow all hands have arms, watch-and-watch. Else it…"

"Else it seems as if the real mutineers don't trust the rest." Lt. Langlie smirked. "And they can't have that sort of resentment in their ranks."

"As if they don't now, sir?" Midshipman Catterall quipped, in sotto voce.

"If they don't have it now, we could make sure they do soon," Lewrie hinted. "Do we drop a few sly rumours. There's grievances beyond the mutineers' demands aboard. We must exploit them. We believe we know who among the crew we can trust… those clever enough to keep mum 'til our time comes. Those who can chat up the rest and sow even more seeds of discontent. The mutineers have helped us in that."

It was goggling time for his officers again, one more reason to stare at him as if he'd grown antlers or broken out in purple blotches.

"They've cut off news from shore, d'ye see," Lewrie slyly explained. "No more rowing 'tween ships to visit cousins, brothers, or old shipmates either. What morale our people have is become entirely internal to Proteus. They're already showing signs of boredom with cheering and speechifying. Now what else d'ye think they could get hellish tired of… do we put our wits to it, hey?"

"When our chance comes then, sir…" Mr. Winwood gravely mused, "shouldn't we get the women and children off the ship? Out of the way of any fighting? It'll require some fighting, I expect, sir. Without their wives, and uhm… without the distracting, er… that is to say, entertaining presence of the, ah… them." Winwood flummoxed, trying to find a Christian way to name that which he disdained.

" 'Thout the whores an' strumpets, Mister Winwood?" Lewrie rephrased for him; taking a bit of joy in twitting the man by employing plainer terms.

"Ah… aye, sir." Winwood actually blushed. "Fallen women or not, sir they are the frailer sex. T'ain't right for them to be exposed to violence, no matter their stripe or station. Without women aboard, would they not become even more dispirited with nothing to do but dwell upon their dismal situation? And I believe Mister Coote will bear me out that they are eating us out of house and home, sir. Week or two more of feeding useless mouths and we'll deplete our victuals. Then when we do cut free, we'd not be at our best state for duty."

"Hmmm…" Lewrie frowned in thought, clapping his hands in the small of his back and studying the toes of his boots, the tarred oakum seams in the quarterdeck planking. "No, Mister Winwood. Their being aboard and out of reach for want of money is troubling to our tars, so… we'll keep 'em as one more cause for upset. If they are eating us out of house and home, then Bales and Handcocks might put them on half-rations… put the whole crew on half-rations sooner or later. No quim and short-commons? Our jacks'll never stand for that! We've need of the whores, believe me."