penny-whistle, as Lewrie raised a knee and got him a good'un in the nutmegs, which whooshed the last startled air from the man's lungs! Then Desmond and Furfy leaped into the fray, pawing Bales/Rolston down and piling on to drag him to the deck and seize his sword-hand. Lewrie at last got his pistol out, shoved over near the larboard ladder rails, and leveled it at Corporal O'Neil, who was ready to skewer him with an infantry hanger. The dog's-jaws already back at full cock, a hasty trigger-pull… BLAM!
And Corporal O'Neil's rage was quite flown away-along with the back of his head, splattering gore and brains on the other mutineer who'd been holding Private Pope. He'd lost his stomach for mutiny and dropped his weapon, raised his hands, and knelt as Pope scooped up both pistol and cutlass and gave him a boot in the belly before spinning off in search of someone else to fight!
A fight, By Jesus, yes, Lewrie crowed to himself, seeing melees on every hand. Old Trollop and Sally Blue whacking the stuffing from a mutineer who'd displeased them or cheated them most-like, swinging sand-filled leathern coshes with Amazonian howls of glee! Some of the waverers, the sheep-in-the-middle, bleating in alarm and backing up to the trunk of the foremast, hands conspicuously empty and un-involved! Bosun Pendarves on the forecastle, hewing about with a tar-paying iron loggerhead as the Armourer, Mr. Offley, was hacking at the bower cables, and four men, defended by Pendarves, hauled away lustily to hoist the jibs! And Andrews, eschewing his pistol but clashing his cutlass against Mr. Morley's!
Lewrie stopped to pick up the cutlass at his feet, pulling like he'd jerk a turkey leg off the carcass to wring the leather wrist strop from Bales's/ Rolston's hand and making him howl, while Desmond and Ahern lay atop him to keep him out of action.
Aha! Lewrie espied Haslip and stalked after him. Haslip had no taste for danger, like all sea-lawyers, and gibbered in spittley panic as he back-pedaled. Before Landsman Furfy came up from his offhand side, that is, plucked a pistol from Haslip's nerveless fingers, and lifted him high in the air as easily as if Haslip was a kitten! The Irishman gave him a fearful shaking, then took a deep swing like some foredeck hand ready to swing the lead to sound the water's depth, and hurled Haslip, screeching thin and rabbity-Gawd, Lewrie could not quite feature it, but Haslip cleared not only the lip of the gangway but the larboard bulwarks as well, blubbering, 'I cain' swim/''before he dropped from sight, followed by a most-welcome, but mortal, splash!
'Spanker!' Lewrie roared, dashing back to the quarterdeck in a giddy, bounding rush, where he could see better. His quarterdeck once more, where he could command! Robbed of re-enforcements, taken unaware and surrounded by secret defectors, all but the last of the mutineers were now out of it: dis-armed and held down, out cold, or bleeding on the decks and gangways. 'Mister Towpenny! Hands to the fore-course halliards! Hands to the starboard braces! Mister Pendarves, sheets! Jib sheets! Sheet home, and flat-in yer jibs!'
With a groan and a gun-shot-like pop, the bower cable parted in a flurry of dry rope- shards and slithered out the hawse hole and over the side. Proteus was free of the ground! HMS Proteus was free, and paying off her bows to point South towards the Isle of Sheppey, paying off and shuffling alee as the out-rushing tide took her! Backed jibs were barn-siding taut, bellied out, the spanker above his head winging and fluttering as it soared aloft, the gaff- jaws and wood-ball parrels groaning and squeaking as the upper gaff scaled the mizzen as high as the cro'jack yard. Bowsprit jutting upward, sweeping Sou'easterly to parallel the Queen's Channel.
'Mister Winwood, sir!' Lewrie called out. 'Lay her head East-Sou'east. Mister Towpenny, the fore-course, smartly now! That's the way, my bully lads! That's the way, my Proteuses! Haul away all!'
He couldn't help giggling, stamping his foot, and flinging wide his arms to hoot and howl to the heavens as Proteus began to gather way, singing along with the beginning notes of a ship under sail, with the gurgle and chuckle of salt water 'round her rudder and transom post and under her forefoot, the apparent wind just beginning to whistle in the rigging! 'Free, by God! Free!' he bellowed.
'Sir,' Mr. Winwood said, coming to his side. 'Don't know the channel all that well, sir. Hoped we'd have a pilot aboard. Do you allow me to steer more Easterly, out to mid-channel? Hate to take the ground. An outbound ship to guide us, like San Fiorenio, t'other…'
'Anyone know the Queen's Channel good as a harbour pilot?' Lewrie roared down to the gun-deck, where the Bedlam was at its greatest, with mutineers herded to one place, sail-handlers trying to do their work in the room remaining, Mr. Shirley and his mates poking and prodding those still down on the deck, and a pack of loblolly boys traipsing along in their wake with their narrow carrying-boards.
'Er… know it pert' well, Cap'um!' Old Man Grace shouted back. 'Me an' me son been up an' down it fer years, sir. Not in a big ship, but…'
'Come up here, Seaman Grace, you and your son! Hell, bring the grandson too! Assist the Sailing Master 'til we reach deep water.'
'Aye, aye, sir!'
Skreakings and squeals of the lignum-vitae sheaves of the pulley blocks as the fore- course finally reached its limit of travel and the main-course began to ascend too, more squeals as the brace-blocks to the courses took a strain, as the braces were trimmed in to cup wind.
BOOM! From astern at last, and a few seconds later a cannon-ball went shrilling past Proteus's starboard side, very wide of her and hopelessly high. The ball's first graze raised a feathery plume at least a quarter-mile beyond and well alee.
'Showin' 'em our stern, Mister Winwood. Aye, Easterly, as much as you wish,' Lewrie agreed, crossing to the binnacle rack to fetch a telescope. He could see several ships near their recent anchorage that had opened their gun-ports; but it was a haphazard thing, as irregular as a beggar's teeth, and he doubted if they'd get off a killing broadside before Proteus got out of range. BOOM! another piece spoke, but it was a forecastle carronade on one of the 64-gunners, not a long-range gun. This ball was closer to line-of-aim, but couldn't even begin to reach her and fell very short, not even skipping near.
'Sergeant Skipwith?' Lewrie demanded, pacing back to the hammock nettings.
'Aye, aye, sah!' Skipwith said, stamping to attention.
'You and the Master At Arms, the Ship's Corporals assist Mister Offley. I want all our mutineers taken under arms in chains at once!' Lewrie ordered. 'Especially that bastard!' he said, pointing at Bales with the tin-whistle, which was by then pretty-much the worse for wear.
Rumbold, Smyth, and Mash, Mr. Handcocks, Mr. Morley, and Private Mollo, two of the Sailmaker's crew, Bales, and two other of the Marines, a few more faces he'd come to loathe by then, scooped up from where they lay or slumped on the deck, some dragged up from below already in irons, hooted and jeered by the victorious doxies who'd bamboozled the lot of 'em. Seventeen, altogether, less Haslip and O'Neil. He hoped Proteus had enough restraints to hold them. If Proteus had sailed into Sheerness through a blizzard of gunfire, he'd have been able to dispose of them with the authorities. Now, though, escaping to sea, he was stuck with them and he doubted his died-in-the-wool mutineers would go quietly. They'd finagle and whisper, perhaps cry out to the rest of the crew for help, try to turn them back into mutineers and free them, retake Proteus… Bales especially. There were a whole nest of vipers in his breast, and he needed to be shot of them as quick as he could. How, though? Hmmm.. . goodquestion, he mused.
More cannonfire, as Proteus got a bone in her teeth and began to put on speed, gathering way out into Queen's Channel, beginning to bend her course a touch Sutherly at Elder Grace's suggestions, sailing Large off that North wind, and the sea round her peppered by misses still, but more guns were now involved. And there was a mutineer frigate far up near The Warp, off the North shore, that was speeding down on Proteus to intercept, abandoning her clutch of ten or twelve captured merchant ships to punish a defector.
'Mister Wyman?' Lewrie snapped, turning to his Second Officer. 'Aye, sir,' Wyman replied, still smiling dreamily over retaking the ship. 'You are now my First Officer, Mister Wyman,' Lewrie said. 'Ah… I see, sir. My goodness gracious!' Wyman sobered. That was an onerous job of work he hadn't thought to expect, sure that Lieutenant Langlie, or even Ludlow, might return aboard.
'Get sail on her, Mister Wyman, quick as dammit!' Lewrie said. 'Before yon rebel frigate catches us up. Tops'ls