King`s Captain

likewhipped puppies when just a second ago they were eager to start cajolin' the people/

'We'll begin making preliminary lists, sir,' Lt. Langlie said quickly. 'Right, lads? Who to approach first. And we'll keep our ears and eyes open, sir, as you ordered. All of us, sir.'

'Very good, Mister Langlie,' Lewrie relented, forcing himself to grin in gratitude. 'I know I am a very fortunate captain to have a set of officers on whom I may completely rely,' he told them. With another 'so there!' glare at Ludlow as he sprawled at the table, insensible to almost everything by then.

'Keep our own counsel,' Marine Lt. Devereux added, glowering significantly first at Ludlow, then at some others. 'And most especially our tempers, in the doing, Captain, sir.'

'Thankee, Mister Devereux. Thank you all,' Lewrie said. 'Now, I will plague you no longer, and I am grateful for you allowing me to interrupt your off-duty time. I will have my Cox'n send down written invitations to dine with me tonight. Once you've made first stabs at winnowing our chaff, hmm? Good day, gentlemen.'

'Good day, sir,' they chorused, rising as he departed. Ludlow even managed to stagger to his feet. With a bit of help.

Lewrie emerged on the gun-deck, took a deep breath of air, and scowled at his crew gathered in the waist beneath the boat-tier beams. They were still dancing hornpipes, slapping time with their hands on their thighs, beating time with stacks of spoons, as the fiddler and the marine fifers supplied the tune. He saw the Black Irishman, Desmond, strangling what looked to be a long-necked cat, making a reedy wailing over a flute-like tube. That must be what he called uillean pipes, softer and mellower than their blaring Scots cousins. Everyone seemed to be having a grand time, except for Landsman Haslip, of course. He had been left where he'd fallen and was still being studiously ignored by his 'shipmates.'

Lewrie climbed to the quarterdeck, feeling a bit smug about how he'd handled that problem. He'd found him guilty oЈ theft, doomed him to a dozen lashes, and also broken up the elections of delegates by having 'All Hands Aft To Witness Punishment' piped.

A neat little homily he'd preached, about crime and sailors who were unworthy of being called 'shipmates,' the sort never to be trusted. He'd seen at least a dozen sets of teeth grinding in the mouths of the most dedicated mutineers-and had begun a short list of his own!

Then after Haslip had taken his dozen lashes from the 'cat'-wielded most enthusiastically by Bosun Pendarves and his mates, in the place of authority-he'd turned Haslip over to the crew.

'I've given him my dozen,' Lewrie had declared, 'but a rogue of his… stripe… will only resent me, and authority, for it. Now he's yours. Prove that you won't tolerate a thief… form a gauntlet!'

They'd leapt to it, forming two lines facing each other, fists and rope-ends ready, and Haslip had been dragged from the hatch grating, back bloody and wailing in pain. Bosun Pendarves stood ahead of him with a cutlass leveled at Haslip's breast, so he'd be forced to a slow pace and not run down the gauntlet quickly, if he didn't want to be skewered. Haslip had been pummeled and bludgeoned, beaten senseless, shrieking and cowering from their blows. A dash of salt water to wash the cat-o'-nine-tail's cuts as he lay prostrate, a surgeon's mate with warm tar to daub his wounds… normally, once punishment was done, the malefactor's mates would help him below, sneak him a tot of rum, tell him how well he'd borne up. But not for Haslip.

Pray God, Lewrie thought, studying his cavorting crew; they've no use for this mutiny, once news comes from Portsmouth either!

He cocked his head as Desmond, on his odd pipes, and the fiddler, began a new tune. Lewrie smiled to realise it was the same one that his father Sir Hugo had marched his militia to… 'The Bowld Soldier Boy'!

Some of his men looked up at him, as if 'cocking a snook' at him with that Irish air, waiting for his reaction. They were disappointed if they thought he would mottle or glower with anger though, for his right hand began to beat the measure on the cap-rail of the quarterdeck nettings. Toulon, intrigued, leapt from out of nowhere to preen, arch, and pace the rolled hammocks stowed in the nettings, as Lewrie petted him with his other hand. And smiled, in spite of himself.

Desmond, Furfy, a few others, nodded back at him, even tentatively smiled. 'Twas a faint sign, but a hopeful one, Lewrie dared think.

CHAPTER TWENTY

No, this'un wasn't the same sort of mutiny as the one he'd seen at Portsmouth, Lewrie decided early on. There was nothing orderly or even sane about it.

The frigate San Fiorenio had come in, all tricked out in holiday best, to bear the newlywed Princess Charlotte and her princely German groom over to the Continent for their honeymoon. When San Fiorenio had balked and attempted to sail free, she'd been fired upon, her rigging cut up by solid shot! Moments later, she'd reluctantly decided to enlist in the cause of their so-called 'Brother Seamen.'

The Fleet Delegates had also moved eight small gunboats from the Little Nore anchorage into the Great Nore, to secure their weaponry for their own use. On their way out, all of them had fired their artillery at the shore forts, again with solid round-shot. Perhaps it was to show the mutineers' resolve to the Admiralty and its local officials. Or a first round, Lewrie feared, to spur the beginning of a nationwide rebellion? Certainly, they weren't celebration shots, not with solid ball!

News-a mere rumor so far-had come from London that Admiral Lord Howe had succeeded in negotiating a settlement of the original Spit-head mutiny. Working parties ferrying supplies from shore had come back, whooping and hollering with delight over the tidings. Portsmouth and Plymouth, the entire Channel Fleet, were said to be returned to discipline and duty. Word was, 'Black Dick' and his lady-wife had gotten a fete, their carriage unhorsed and drawn through Portsmouth 's streets to the town's largest inn by teams of grateful sailors; where Howe had dined-in the chief mutineers and drunk toasts with them-as 'matey' as anyone could ask for!

Yet so far in Sheerness and the Nore, those rumored tidings hadn't done much to ease the fervour of the newest mutineers. If anything, news of a peaceful, agreeable settlement had only sparked a new wave of frolic, riotous street parading and shore drinking-but no hint of acceptance of a settlement here.

So for another morning, Lewrie studied the shore with a glass, so close off Garrison Point, he could all but taste the meat and drink. Sailors, done with meetings at Checquers Public House, their chosen shore rendezvous, paraded the streets, tricked out in red cockades and waving their infernal plain red flags of rebellion. Each large group had its hired band, and the sounds of competing melodies blended into an atonal jollity as one pack collided with another with a rival band and simply had to out-tootle, out-blare, or out-drum the others. Even atop the ramparts of the shore forts, drunken sailors could be seen-troublingly arm-in-arm with equally drunken soldiers, or hanging with arms round each other's necks, swaying and singing airs.

Respectable citizens of Sheerness, Lewrie didn't doubt, were all inside behind locked doors, huddled over their silver plate and valuables. Yet the streets were full of garish trulls and sharpers; poorer civilians out for a good time as long as it lasted; or secret traitors and rebels of Republican bent out to stir up even worse troubles?

Children and women also capered and danced with the sailors. There was a chance they were legitimate wives, come down to Sheerness to support their sailor menfolk. Or, as Lewrie also sourly surmised, whores out to make a killing off the myriad of sailors given liberal amounts of shore leave for a rare once.

Not that they had to go ashore for that, Lewrie sighed, as he lowered his telescope and collapsed its tubes; publicans' and pedlars' bumboats plied the harbour waters, ferrying cargoes of gew-gaws out to the ships, proffering the temporary 'wives' to seamen who had coin enough to support and claim them. Without a strict watch set by the Bosun and harbour watches, he was mortal-certain every doxy bore small flasks of spirits under her gowns, inside her stockings or hat, to sell in spite of the Fleet Delegates' edict against private spirits.

Oh, Proteus was a merry ship! Music wafted up from the seamen's mess deck, from the forecastle too, for several bumboats lolled under her entry-ports, and real wives and children, and false wives,