Griffiths's powerful voice with its rich Welsh accent seemed to come from a pulpit. His powerful old body and sober features with their air of patriarchy exerted an almost tangible influence upon his men. He appeared to be reasoning with them like a firm father, opposing their fractiousness with the sure hand of experience. 'Look at me,' he seemed to say, 'you cannot rebel against me, whatever the rest of the fleet does.'
Drinkwater's palms were damp and beside him Appleby was shaking with apprehension. Then they saw resolution ebb as a sort of collective sigh came from the men. Griffiths sent them forward again.
'Get forrard and do your duty. Mr Jessup, man the windlass and inform me when the cable's up and down.'
It was the season for variable or easterly winds in the North Sea and Duncan's preoccupation was that the Dutch fleet would leave the Texel, taking advantage of the favourable winds and the state of the British squadrons. The meeting to which Griffiths had been summoned had been to determine the mood of the ships in Duncan's fleet. The small force still off the Texel was quite inadequate to contain De Winter if he chose to emerge and it was now even more important to keep him bottled up. There was a strong possibility that the mutinous ships at the Nore might attempt a defection and this was more likely to be to the protestant Dutch than the catholic French, for all the republican renunciation of formal religion. A demonstration by De Winter to cover the Nore Squadron's exit from the Thames would be all that was necessary to facilitate this and strengthen any wavering among the mutineers. It was already known at Yarmouth that most of the officers had been removed from the warships with the significant exception of the sailing masters. They were held aboard the Sandwich, the 'flagship' of the self-styled admiral, Richard Parker.
For a few days Kestrel remained at anchor while Duncan, who had personally remonstrated with the Admiralty for redress of many of the men's grievances and regarded the mutiny as a chastisement and warning to the Admiralty to mend its ways, waited on events.
The anonymous good sense that had characterised the affair at Spithead was largely responsible for its swift and satisfactory conclusion. Admiral Howe was given special powers to treat with the delegates who knew they had 'Black Dick's' sympathy. By mid-May, amid general rejoicing, fireworks and banquets the Channel Fleet, pardoned by the King, returned to duty.
There was no evidence that foreign sedition had had anything to do with it. The tars had had a case. Their cause had been just, their conduct exemplary, their self-administered justice impeccable. They had sent representatives to their brethren at the Nore and it would only be a matter of days before they too saw sense.
But it was not so. The Nore mutiny was an uglier business, its style aggressive and less reasonable. By blockading trade in the Thames its leaders rapidly lost the sympathy of the liberal middle-class traders of London and as the Government became intransigent, Parker's desperation increased. The tide in favour of the fleet turned, and as the supplies of food, fuel and merchandise to the capital dwindled, troops flooded in to Sheerness and the ships flying the red flag at the Nore felt a growing sense of isolation.
At the end of May there arrived in Yarmouth an Admiralty envoy in the person of Captain William Bligh, turned out of the Director by his crew and sent by the authorities to persuade Duncan to use his ships against Parker's. He also brought news that four delegates from the Nore had seized the cutter Cygnet and were on their way to Yarmouth to incite the seamen there to mutiny.
Duncan considered the intelligence together with the mooted possibility of Parker defecting with the entire fleet to Holland or France. In due course he ordered the frigate Vestal, the lugger Hope and the cutter Rose to cruise to the southward to intercept the visitors. If Parker sailed for the Texel or Dunquerque then, and only then, would the old admiral consider using his own ships against the mutineers. In the meantime he sent Kestrel south into the Thames to guard the channels to Holland and to learn immediately of any defection.
'By the mark five.'
Drinkwater discarded the idea of the sweeps. Despite the fog there was just sufficient wind to keep steerage on the cutter and every stitch of canvas that could be hoisted was responding to it.
'I'll go below for a little, Mr Drinkwater.'
'Aye, aye, sir.' Their passage from Yarmouth had been slow and Griffiths had not left the deck for fear the men would react, but they were too tired now and his own exhaustion was obvious. Grey and lined, his face wore the symptoms of the onset of his fever and it seemed that the elasticity of his constitution had reached its greatest extension. Drinkwater was glad to see him go below.
Since the news of the Spithead settlement the hands had been calmer, but orders to proceed into the Thames had revived the tension. In the way that these things happen, word had got out that their lordships were contemplating using the North Sea squadron against the mutineers at the Nore, and Bligh was too notorious a figure to temper speculation on the issue.
The chant of the leadsman was monotonous so that, distracted by larger events and the personal certainty that the Nore mutiny was made the more hideous by the presence of Capitaine Santhonax, Drinkwater had to force himself to concentrate upon the soundings. They were well into the estuary now and should fetch the Nubb buoy in about three hours as the ebb eased.
'By the deep four.'
'Sommat ahead, sir!' The sudden cry from the lookout forward.
'What is it?' He went forward, peering into the damp grey murk.
'Dunno sir… buoy?' If it was then their reckoning was way out.
'There sir! See it?'
'No… yes!' Almost right ahead, slightly to starboard. They would pass very close, close enough to identify it.
''s a boat, sir!'
It was a warship's launch, coming out of a dense mist a bowsprit's length ahead of them. It had eight men in it and he heard quite distinctly a voice say, 'It's another bleeding buoy yacht…', and a contradictory: 'No, it's a man o'war cutter…'
Mutually surprised, the two craft passed. The launch's men lay on their oars, the blades so close to Kestrel's side that the water drops from their ends fell into the rippling along the cutter's waterline. Curiously the Kestrels stared at the men in the boat who glared defiantly back. There was a sudden startled gasp, a quick movement, a flash and a bang. A pistol ball tore the hat from Drinkwater's head and made a neat hole in the mainsail. There was a howl of frustration and the mutineers were plying their oars as the launch vanished in the fog astern.
'God's bones!' roared Drinkwater suddenly spinning round. The men were still gaping at him and the vanished boat. 'Let go stuns'l halliards! Let go squares'l halliards! Down helm! Lively now! Lively God damn it!'
The men could not obey fast enough to satisfy Drinkwater's racing mind. He found himself beating his thighs with clenched fists as the cutter turned slowly.
'Come on you bitch, come on,' he muttered, and then he felt the deck move beneath him, ever so slightly upsetting his sense of balance, and another fact struck him.
He had run Kestrel aground.
Kestrel lay at an alarming angle and her sailing master was still writhing with mortification. Used as he had been to the estuary while in the buoy yachts of the Trinity House the situation was profoundly humiliating.
Lieutenant Griffiths had said nothing beyond wearily directing the securing of the cutter against an ingress of water when the tide made. It was fortunate that they had been running before what little wind there was and their centre plates had been housed. The consequences might have been more serious otherwise. An inspection revealed that Kestrel had suffered no damage beyond a dent in the pride of her navigator.