you're doing!' There was another shot, seemingly from high up, and a body crashed across the deck above like a heavy log.
'Ready?' Bolitho took her wrist. 'Don't provoke anyone.' His eyes flashed in the dimness. 'One wrong move…' He did not finish it. Someone drove a musket-butt through the skylight and yelled down, 'Come on deck! No trouble, y'hear, or we'll cut you down!'
Bolitho saw Jenour slithering into the unused cabin where Ozzard was already waiting to cover the gunport with some of the stored cabin goods and chests.
Wild thoughts ran through his mind. Suppose Jenour could not get through it? And even if he did, what were his chances?
He saw Allday and Tojohns at the foot of the ladder, the shadows of other figures who were waiting on deck to confront them.
He took Catherine's arm and turned her towards him. 'Remember, Kate, I love thee.'
Keen passed them. 'I shall go first, sir.' He sounded completely calm. Like a man facing a firing squad when all hope is gone, and even fear can find no cause to gloat. 'Then we shall know. If I fall, I pray to God that He will protect you both.'
Then he walked to the foot of the ladder and took the handrails without hesitation. He paused just once by the small polished coaming, which was folded back when not in use, but which, in rough weather, was supposed to prevent incoming seas from cascading down the ladder to the deck below. Not even Bolitho saw the deft movement as he touched the butt of the pistol he had lodged there during the night.
On deck, even though it was only dawn, the sight that awaited Keen was as sickening as it was predictable. Bezant the master lying on his side gripping his thigh as blood poured on to the pale planking around him. A corpse sprawled wide-eyed in the starboard scuppers, with a gaping hole in his throat where Bezant's pistol had found its mark. Small groups of men, some armed and threatening the others, the rest staring around as if still expecting to be rudely awakened from a nightmare.
Up in the weather shrouds a man was casually reloading his musket. He must have marked Bezant down the moment he had burst on deck. The mate, Jeff Lincoln, faced Keen, his beefy hands on his hips; there was blood on one sleeve but it was not his own.
'Well, Captain?' He watched him for any hint of danger. 'Are you alone?'
Keen saw the wavering muskets, and more professional handling by men who were obviously the released soldiers. All except one. He sat against the mainmast trunk, crooning to himself and taking long swallows of rum from a stone jug.
Keen said, 'My companions are coming up, Mister Lincoln. If you lay a finger…'
Lincoln shook his head. 'You give no orders here, sir. I understand you have lately taken a young wife?' He saw Keen flinch. 'So let us not make her a widow so soon, eh?'
There was a lot of laughter, a wild sound: men committed without realising yet what they had done.
Keen regarded them. 'You could still relent. Any court would show mercy under the circumstances.' He did not look at the big, beetle-browed mate. He wanted to strike out at him. Kill him before he himself was hacked down. He continued, 'You know the navy's ways, Mr Lincoln.' He saw the new mate Tasker staring at him, his eyes shifting quickly between them, and continued relentlessly, 'Mutiny is a bad thing, but to seize people as important as my vice-admiral and his lady…'
Tasker said hoarsely, 'We didn't know they were going to be aboard!'
Lincoln swung on him and snarled, 'Shut your face, man! Can't you see what this bloody aristocrat is trying to do?' To Keen he said, 'I command here.' He glared at the wounded master. 'If you want to save him, and yourself, lend that old bull a hand!'
Keen knelt down beside the groaning master and tied his neckcloth tightly above the wound. The ball was lodged there, small and deep, and from a musket, so that it had probably deflected against bone.
All these things passed through his mind, but his eyes were on the hatch measuring the distance, one last strike at the enemy if all else failed.
He saw the boatswain, Luke Britton, being supported by two of his men, blood running from his forehead where he had been savagely attacked. At least he had stayed loyal, as were the men around him. Frightened maybe, because mutiny was as much feared as yellow jack. But more so, perhaps, of what would happen to them when they were caught.
The released prisoners were the most dangerous. Men who knew harsh discipline were usually the first to run wild if that same control was broken. They had nothing to lose but their lives. They had all known that when they enlisted, or had been coaxed into taking the King's shilling in exchange for a brief, drunken taste of freedom.
Lincoln's shadow passed over them. ''Ere, fetch a cask!' To Keen he added, 'Get this bugger to sit up beside the wheel. I can keep an eye on him there.'
An unknown seaman shambled aft and shouted, 'He gave me the cat, the bastard! Give him to me, I'll lay his back in ribbons!'
Lincoln faced him with cold contempt. 'Can you navigate these waters, you oaf? You asked for that punishment-if the master hadn't ordered it, damn your eyes, I'd have laid into you meself!' The sailor staggered back as if he had been punched.
Everyone fell silent as Catherine and Bolitho came on deck, the maid clutching her mistress's hand while she stared fixedly at the deck. Catherine turned slowly and looked at the watching figures. 'Rabble.'
Lincoln glared. 'Enough o' that!' He saw Bolitho's old sword at his hip and said, 'I'll have that, if you please.' Something in Bolitho's grey stare must have warned him that his plan might go astray before it had really begun, and he relented. Instead his fist shot out and he seized Sophie's wrist and dragged her to his side where she began to shake like a puppet.
Catherine said, 'Are you so brave?' She gently released herself from Bolitho's restraining grip and stepped towards him. 'If you need a surety, then take a lady, not a child.'
Several of the onlookers laughed, and a soldier yelled, 'An' I'm the next after you, matey!'
Catherine forced herself to show no emotion; nor did she look at Bolitho. The least sign, the smallest action and he would lose his self-control. She said, 'Go to Mr Yovell and the others, Sophie. I will remain with this gentleman.'
Bolitho stood beside Keen, his mind held in a vice. He said to the groaning Bezant, 'They will kill us-you know that, don't you?'
'I-I don't understand.' He seemed more shocked than angry now that it had happened. 'I've always been a fair man.'
'It's over.' He tightened his hold around Bezant's bulky shoulders and stared hard through the spokes of the wheel. 'You are the only one who can prevent it.' He felt Keen tense suddenly as Lincoln touched one of Catherine's earrings, his thick fingers playing on the edge of her gown and against her skin. Any second now and all reason would go. Not even a mutiny, but brutality and murder at its worst.
He heard her say in reply to something Lincoln had asked or implied, 'I value my life more than precious things.'
The man called Tasker said urgently, 'Tell 'em what to do! They're 'alf-stupid with drink already, God damn them!' He turned on Catherine and said quietly, 'I shall give you a time to remember, my bloody ladyship! I was in a slaver afore this, an' I've learned a trick or two on them long passages with our black ivory!'
Lincoln pushed him aside, angry or jealous at his intrusion, it was hard to tell. All Bolitho could think of was her lovely body in their hands, her despair and agony acting only as encouragement to men such as these.
Bezant took a grip on himself. 'You don't know what you're asking of me. You of all men should know!'
Bolitho stepped away from him and murmured, 'Remember what I said.'
Lincoln stood on a hatch cover, his legs braced against the deck's uneven roll. To one of the soldiers he said, 'Watch our master at the wheel. If I order you to shoot him, then do it. I'll not risk an ounce of gold for a few moments of drunken lechery.' His eyes moved quickly to the woman who stood just below him. He would tame her. She might fight all she could, but he would do it. A creature like her, the kind of woman he had never seen or known in his whole life.
He took a grip on himself. 'Begin hoisting the boxes from the hold.' He pointed at the boatswain with the bleeding wound on his head. 'Take charge of rigging tackles and see to it that each box is secured and guarded.' Again the casual signal to the soldier. 'If he disobeys, kill him!'
