King`s Captain

with him. There would never be a better chance not in a month of Sundays, yet…

He fretted his mouth, gnawed at his lips in indecisiveness. It could still fail, go horribly wrong, and more innocent men be killed or injured, more loyal hands hurt and let down by a second failure. After scheming for so long, feverish for an opening, if they tried again and were beaten again, there'd never be another hope of salving Proteus.

What they pay detached captains for, he writhed in silent agony; be king and foreign minister and God all rolled up into one, with yer head on the choppin' block if you 're wrong! Come on, ya damn' fool! A bit o' backbone,.. a pinch o' wits! Say something. They're waitin'.

'Forenoon… or wait 'til the First Dog,' Lewrie muttered just to fill the echoing void, to temporise a bit more while his creaky wit churned. 'Try to sail past the guns of the rest… with frigates and a sloop of war patrolling inshore? I fear it'll have to be mid-morning, gentlemen. No chance to retrieve Lieutenant Devereux and Mister Langlie 'til this is done and we can put back in for 'em.'

'But do we proceed, sir?' Lt. Wyman dared press.

'Aye, we do.' Lewrie sighed, feeling like it was wrung from him on an inquisitor's rack. 'Alert Sergeant Skipwith and Mistress Nancy. Charge your pistols and hide them on your persons. Swords might alert them. Let's say, uhm… six bells of the Forenoon. With a Rope-Yarn Day, they'll begin queuing up forrud before the rum-cask comes up in no particular order. With nothing more'n grog on their minds, we must hope. Six Bells, gentlemen. Aye… let's proceed with it.'

Gawd! he shivered as they departed, flopping half-limp into his desk chair; I'm trustin' to luck, Marines who can play-act innocent, and a pack o' whores! But he opened the mahogany box on the desktop and extracted two long-barreled, single-shot pistols to clean them and charge them, and check their flints and mechanisms. Andrews set to at his second set of double-barrel Mantons, and Aspinall and Padgett got busy with Padgett's two small, single-barrel pocket pistols.

'You hear me shout, Andrews, you come running with my hanger,' Lewrie bade him. 'Your spare cutlass, since you know how to use it. I will trust you, Aspinall, to guard my back with one pistol, and you to my other hand, Mister Padgett. Close-in belly shots, no tricky work.'

'Aye, sir.' Padgett nodded in his lugubrious, quiet way, with a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead already and his long, clerkish, ink-stained fingers juddering a little in fearful foreboding.

Daft! Lewrie deemed it; bloody, ragin' daft! Still, by 11:00 a.m. there'd be some fewer mutineers aboard. Mr. Handcocks and Morley would be aboard Sandwich for the daily wrangle, and they'd take a boat-crew with them, about half of those the diehards. Six or seven less for them to overpower, so… Christ, so hellish daft!

Half-hour to go to the appointed time for the uprising. Lewrie posing at music by the taffrails, since it was a dry day with no rain, some sunshine, and a bit of wind. Wind square out of the North, about perfect for a ship bound out so she could beam-reach at first to deep water, then haul off to Large or Fair down the Queen's Channel. Bosun Pendarves had been told off to take and hold the forecastle with some few trusty men, to cut the anchor cable and hoist the inner and outer jibs, so Proteus would bear off to her larboard, South-facing side, and drift. Mr. Towpenny and a few more would hoist the spanker from the mizzen to get some drive on her. Let fall the fore and main-course to hang loose-braced and baggy for speed and not worry about the tops'ls or t'gallants 'til they'd gotten the last of the mutineers subdued.

With a brace of long-barrel pistols shoved down into the back of his breeches under his uniform coat, sitting on the flag lockers wasn't the most comfortable thing he'd ever done, as he tootled away on that tin-whistle of his. Louder than his usual wont, to sound casual, and harmless. 'Derry Hornpipe,' 'Portsmouth Lass,' 'Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day'… he ran through his repertoire (and a damn' thin'un it was!) of the old, old airs, the Celtic, Gaelic, West Country tunes he knew.

Lt. Wyman, as jittery as a whore at a christening, sawed away on his violin, with its case ajar at his feet, where he'd concealed a brace of his own pistols in addition to the pair he'd secreted under his own coat. He struggled in mid-saw, uttering a shuddery, 'Uh-oh!' for approaching them on the quarterdeck were a clutch of Irish hands, and Lewrie wondered if a cry of, 'I didn't do it!' might help, as his tootling faltered to a stop.

'Beggin' yer pardon, sir,' Desmond said, doffing his hat and making a short bow. 'Know we ain't t'be on th' quarterdeck without an off cer's leave, sir, but… d'ye know a slip jig, sir?'

They haven't tumbled to it yet, thankee Jesus! Lewrie shivered.

'A slip jig?' he managed to enquire with forced cheer.

'Aye, sir… slip jig or hop jig, they calls 'em. English don't allow our music played back home, sir, but there's times we sneak away an' play 'em still… in a remote shebeen. Here's one, sir, by your leave?' Desmond smiled, producing his lap-pipes. Furfy was with him, along with Ahern, Kavanaugh, and Cahill, and they took seats flat on the deck. The ship's lamed fiddler joined them. 'One o' th' easier ones t'play, sir… called 'Will You Come Down t'Limerick.' You'll master th' tune easy, Cap'um, sir… Mister Wyman, sir.'

It was a catchy tune, though a difficult one to follow, for the tempo changed several times, throwing Lewrie and Wyman off, so for the first few minutes they sat with their hands in their laps.

'You try her now, sir,' Desmond urged, as Furfy swayed and beat the time on his meaty thighs, and the other three began to dance stiff-armed but footloose. They were beginning to gather a crowd of sailors who had nothing better to do on a Rope-Yarn Day and temporarily allowed access to the quarterdeck by their leaders.

Lewrie shared a sick look with Wyman as they lifted their instruments, thinking they were exposed and a step away from being seized and disarmed. And, for the short meantime, mocked and derided!

'A fine auld air, sir,' Desmond rhapsodised, as he pumped away with his elbow to stoke the uillean pipes in his lap, keyboarding the notes. 'Suitin' for lads who cling to th' auld ways an' legends. An' tales o' th' auld gods, sir,' Desmond added, when he saw that his hint wasn't broad enough. 'Seen selkies for real, have ye, Cap'um Lewrie? Arra, yer a blessed man, sir. An banshees in th' riggin', croonin' th' poor lad a keen, ah?'

'Aye, pretty much like that,' Lewrie replied, hiding his gasp, still not knowing if he was being twitted or re- enforced.

'For th' auld god who can't be named, sir… and for his ship,' Desmond muttered with a proud smile and an affirmative nod of his head. 'Do ye let us play an' sing our auld songs, sir, and we're yours. You say th' word, Cap'um, an' we'll be like th' 'Minstrel Boy' I spoke t'ye of… 'our swords at least thy right shall guard… an' one poor harp t'praise ye.' ' Desmond shrugged modestly about his talents.

'My word on't,' Lewrie blurted out at once, in spite of a nagging fear he was exposing the plot to a clever burrower.

Desmond widened his smile and gave one more cryptic nod as his lips encompassed the mouthpiece of his pipes; and when Lewrie looked up, Landsman Furfy, that simple soul, was beaming fit to bust.

We can't fail now! Lewrie thought in secret glee as he essayed a passage of 'Will You Come Down to Limerick ' on his tin-whistle; with a fair portion of the Irish lads with us.. . who can be against us?

'Boat ahoy!' though, was shouted down over the larboard side. 'Delegates!' the boat's bowman cried back. 'Proteus delegates!' Damn, damn, damn! Handcocks and Morley returned, and at least four mutineer oarsmen in the boat-crew with them! A cause for another speech or harangue, with all hands summoned on deck to listen, and no chance to delay or disarm their supporters below.

It had certainly drawn Bales already, with Haslip, Mollo, and a few committeemen up from a meeting on the berth-deck. Men who held arms at their sides or in their belts by dint of long custom by now.

They played through the rest of the tune, and Desmond began to rattle on about another he particularly liked, whilst Handcocks and his partner clambered aboard and had a few words with Bales on the gangway. Try as he might, Lewrie could not help riveting his gaze on them to see what would happen. Which was pretty-much nothing after a minute, for they broke up and drifted away, as lackadaisical as anything.

Still ignorant of what we've planned. Lewrie sighed in relief.

Then Bales looked over his way at the impromptu concert, and he smiled; one of his astute, knowing, and pleasureably evil smiles, which made Lewrie come within a cropper of filling his breeches in terror!

He knows! he chilled; or he has somethin' wicked in mind. And he didn't know which was worse to fret over!