'longshore bugger, what d' you know about it?' Kydd seized the man's none-too-clean coat and forced him to his knees. 'Why don't y' let us have our vittles?'
'H-help! M-murder! Help!' The clerk's eyes rolled. Passing dockyard workers stopped. A few moved warily towards Kydd.
'Let him go, the bastard!' hissed Parker.
Kydd dropped his hands and stepped back.
The man dusted himself down ostentatiously. 'Yair, well. Since y' must know, we have orders,' he said, aggrieved but triumphant. 'An' the orders are fr'm the Admiralty, an? they say no vittles t' any ship what wears th' Bloody Flag.'
A sizeable group of dockyard tradesmen gathered at the commotion. 'T' hell wi' the black mutineers!' shouted one. 'In th' oggin wi' 'em!' yelled another.
Kydd bunched his fists. 'First man wants t' have his toplights doused, I c'n oblige ye.'
'Let's be back aboard, Tom,' Parker said. 'It's as I thought. They're going to starve us out.'
Even before they arrived back on the ship they caught sight of the 38-gun frigate Espion slowly turning, her slipped cables splashing into the water around her bows. Too quick for the mutineer vessels to bring their guns to bear, she went in with the tide and disappeared round the point.
In sombre mood, Parker and Kydd rejoined the Parliament in the Great Cabin. 'Reports,' Parker ordered.
Davis, looking cast-down and ill, opened: 'We now has Espion an' Niger in th' dockyard wi'out the red flag. I have m' doubts on Clyde and San Fi as well. They wants out, we know. Th' fleet istl, they don' know what ter do, an' when they gets noos of th' stoppin' of vittles ...'
'Brother Bellamee?'
This fo'c'sleman, a shrunken gnome of a sailor, spent his time ashore, listening and observing. He waited until it was quiet. 'Shipmates, th' sojers, they're on th' march, hundreds on 'em, an' all marchin' this way. They got this
Gen'ral Grey with 'em, an' he's a tartar. Got 'em all stirred up, settin' guns across the river to th' north, an' I heard he has clouds more of 'em all over in th' country —' 'Thank you, Mr Bellamee.'
— an' he's goin' ter put two whole reggyments inter the fort. Dunno where they'll kip down, mates. Word is, we can't go ashore any more, 'less we has a pass an' a flag o' truce.'
The mood became black: it didn't take much imagination to picture a country in arms against them, relentlessly closing in.
'I was in Mile Town, mates, an' there was a sight.' Kydd had never heard MacLaurin of Director speak before. 'See, all the folks think we's goin' to riot or somethin' fer they're all in a pelt, women 'n' children an' all, a-leavin' town, carts 'n' coaches — anythin' to get away.'
Parker shot to his feet. 'My God,' he choked, 'what are we doing?' His anguished cry cut through the murmurs of comment. Astonished, all eyes turned to him. His head dropped to his hands.
'What's wi' him?' Hulme demanded.
Blake's eyes narrowed. 'Could be he's a-gettin' shy, mates!' Growls of discontent arose — there were many who still distrusted Parker's educated tones. 'We doesn't have ter have the same president all th' time, y' knows.'
It brought all the talking abruptly to a stop.
'I votes we has an election.'
In the first possible coach, a villainous unsprung monster of a previous age, Renzi headed away from Rochester. Time was critical. The coach wound through fields and marshland, across the Swale at King's Ferry and on to the island of Sheppey. Then it was an atrocious journey over compacted, flint-shot chalk roads to his destination - the ancient town of Queenborough, just two miles south from the dockyard but unnoticed since Queen Anne's day.
There was only one inn, the decrepit Shippe. With much of the population on the move away, there was no
