He did not know what to do, but he knew he must do something. It appeared to him most unlikely that the mutineers had failed, most unlikely that he would find his uncle living, or indeed any of the officers. He had a damned fair idea of Plumduff’s fate, and of his own if he appeared among the glorying crew and was taken. But he knew he had to act.
In the long time of silence behind the heavy curtain, in the long minutes after all frantic noise had ceased, he had tried hard to make a decision about right and wrong. He had a vision of monstrosity concerning Thomas Fox that almost choked him; he had a distaste for his uncle’s excesses of conduct that amounted to physical horror, that made his muscles crack with tension and his flesh crawl. And yet – and yet… Mutiny. Ah Christ, no, it was impossible. And gunfire, and Plumduff, and such filthy mindless beasts as Henry Joyce.
He made the climax of revulsion and confusion project him from the alcove. The pistols were ready, heavy and reassuring in his hands. He moved swiftly and quietly to the door of the cabin, which was swinging open, and looked forward along the dark and silent deck. He took a step, then stopped. If he went forward, if he reached the upper deck from that direction, he could only be taken, it was inevitable. He must try for surprise.
As William turned to go back into the captain’s cabin, there was a movement in the dimness before him. He froze, his eyes glaring at the dark shadows around the hatchway to the deck below. He pressed himself behind the door, one long pistol hanging ready by his side to be jerked up and fired. He waited.
There was an odd sighing noise as the shadow moved again. A sighing and a shuffling. It was a man, climbing from the lower deck. He was breathing noisily, almost panting, with the queer sighs intermixed. If no one challenges this noisy item, thought William, at least it will prove the place is empty. He waited, impatient and afraid.
As the figure crawled into a lighter patch, he came near to gasping. The object had on a wig, and a pair of bent-wire spectacles, and was drunk, dead drunk. On an impulse, he went up to the crouching figure and spoke; it was worth a try.
‘Mr Marner,’ he hissed. ‘Mr Marner it is I, Will Bentley. Pull yourself together man, and quickly. I need your help.’
He supposed that Marner had been skulking below all the time, had missed it all, rolled in his blankets, and had been missed in his turn by the wandering mutineers. He jerked at the old schoolmaster’s shoulder none too gently.
‘Get up, damn you, and listen. We will find you an arm. This ship has fallen to a mutiny, Mr Marner, and we are the only men left free. Do you hear me, sir, do you hear me? You are a gentleman, God help us, and you will aid me in this. Do you understand?’
The filthy, drunk old man was on his hands and knees.
Very slowly, he pushed his trunk upwards until only his knuckles were on the deck. His face was pale beneath its sheen of dirt. He was dribbling a little, trying to form a smile.
‘Mr Bentley,’ he mumbled, and his voice was slurred. ‘If you care to go below, sir, to our quarters, you will find your little friend. Little Jimmy Finch, sir, little Jimmy Finch, God rest his soul. They stuck him, sir, like a little squealing pig, from the arsehole to the crown. He is dead. Oh very, very dead.’
Mr Marner dropped forward on his hands again, and let out a drunken cackle.
‘And I hope,’ he said, when he had got his breath, ‘I hope, oh how I hope, that when they catch you, sir, they’ll do the same to you.’
He slowly sank, as his elbow strength gave way. He was old, and stinking, and unsavoury. William Bentley regarded him through tears. He pulled a sleeve roughly across his blinded eyes, and dashed aft through the captain’s cabin.
On deck, a very strange situation had come about. After the explosion of energy and hatred, an odd, dislocated calm had settled on the ship. Captain Swift, with all the loyal men, had been gathered on the quarterdeck, penned in at musket-point by the marines who had joined the mutiny. They were disarmed, and ragged, and bloody, some lying on the planks still bleeding while their fellows made rough tourniquets and bandages. There was an air of dull expectation, of awaiting their fate. Which could only be putting over the side, in boats, to sink or swim.
The mutineers, if anything, were even more upset. It appeared that Matthews was in command, with Broad his right-hand man. Henry Joyce, a cutlass through his belt and two pistols in a band across his chest, hovered near them, with a dangerous, arrogant air. His cronies, now half drunk, stayed close by, also heavily armed. Mr Allgood, with the ship under way and safe again, had gone to the waist, where he stood grasping the main lee shrouds and gazing morosely across the grey waste of water. He had taken no part in the proceedings, and refused to answer when Matthews had tried to make him speak. Around the mainmast was the largest group; the seamen who were definitely ‘in’ but were desperately unhappy. They sought work to occupy their minds – had started off by hurling overboard the many corpses of their shipmates – but had a hopeless air of anxiety and distress. Their injured were in front of them, and Mr Adamson was moving around with brandy and bandages.
He had not yet attended to the captain’s party.
It was this silent, grim scene that met Bentley’s eyes as he looked cautiously over the taffrail, after climbing from one of the stern windows of the cabin. He took in the great pools of blood that lay around, and the awful wounds that many carried. He saw the tired greyness of all their faces, the stooped, exhausted look of mutineers and captives. No one was looking aft.
Almost without thinking, he hauled himself over the rail and walked to within point-blank range of Matthews, Broad and Joyce. His pistols were cocked, primed, and rock-steady.
‘In the name of the King,’ he shouted, and his voice nearly broke on it. ‘And the powers vested in me by the Articles of War. I place you under arrest. Drop your weapons.’
Twenty-Eight
The voice cut into Broad’s brain like a knife. He recognised it, high and unsteady though it was, and it flashed through his mind that he had not seen the boy since he slipped away before Thomas Fox was murdered. He turned slowly and faced Bentley. The midshipman was still dressed in blue, still unbloodied and unhurt, still unsweaty; unique among the men on board. His face under his blond hair was quivering with strain. His eyes flickered from the three of them, to the captain’s party, to the waist of the ship. But the pistols were steady, and close. Broad, who had only a knife in his belt, dropped it to the deck with a clatter.
He watched the faces of Matthews and Joyce. Matthews’ gave away nothing. The lantern jaw, the secret eyes, the tight mouth. But he dropped his musket and a pistol, gazing at the boy. Henry Joyce was different. His eyes rolled in his wild, hairy, filthy face. His lips twisted with rage and hatred. A thick growling came from his throat. It seemed for a moment as if he would make a lunge.
Bentley made a vivid gesture with the horse-pistol in his right hand. Its muzzle was only three feet from the bulging stomach.
‘I count to two,’ he said. His voice was transformed, steady. There was a note almost of menace in it. ‘One…’
In all this time, and it seemed an age to Broad, no one else on the quarterdeck had moved. The marines still trained their muskets on Swift and his men, the captain stared with the rest at the form of Bentley. Breathing was suspended as he confronted the bull of a man who defied him.
It did not take Joyce long to make his decision. He pulled out the pistols between finger and thumb and dropped them. The cutlass followed.
‘Stand by the rail,’ said Bentley. The three men moved across.