Practically in a Dog Watch, he had been reduced from a powerful warship captain to a mere centurion, mouthing repetitions of his tribune-wife's dictates to their hired labourers, without even half a clue to what they portended or a decent idea of what proper work such orders involved, or how such labour was to be carried out!
On top of that, the household was also feverishly engaged with the dreaded spring cleaning; and did he not wish to be "press-ganged" into moving furniture or emptying pantry shelves, a man still possessed of his higher faculties would make himself scarce, perhaps oversee the boiling of water, as one did for childbirth at best, and leaving the womenfolk to their "pagan" rites, rituals, and mysteries.
Simpler societies, such as the South Sea Islanders or the Seminole and Muskogee Indians he had dealt with in '82, had solutions for menfolk and warriors in situations such as these, Lewrie recalled-the Long-House where women were barred. London had its clubs. Lewrie, and Anglesgreen had the public houses.
After a horseback tour of his acres, a word or two with the new foreman and his mates, Lewrie betook himself to the Old Ploughman tavern.
The pub was uncrowded in the morning hours of course; the real farmers who knew what they were about were out busily doing it. Even the more-gentlemanly Red Swan Inn that he rode past, where he was anathema as long as any Embleton still drew breath, only had a coach or two, a saddle horse or two, out front.
Lewrie handed his reins to the Ploughman's newest boyish "daisy-kicker," said hello to old Mr. Beakman and his spinster daughter (whom Will Cony had jilted years before, Lewrie recalled with a newfound sadness for his missing Bosun), ordered up a mug of light, sprightly new spring ale to steel himself for a look at the even more troubling world beyond, and called for the newspapers.
Mr. Beakman's own Publican's Advertiser was warmly supportive of the mutiny, and the seamen's cause, but wisely shied away from seeming too "political"-unless it wished to be suppressed by the government, of course! Last evening's London Courier, and the fresh-come morning Chronicle, were Whig papers and Fox-ite; they hardly even said that the mutiny was even a mutiny yet! Just the "disturbance at Spithead " or… oh, Christ, Lewrie groaned! The Chronicle bore the disturbing tidings that the mutiny had now spread to the dozen line-of-battle ships based at Plymouth too! A list of ships that had raised the red flags was included. Hmmm, he puzzled; very few of the frigates were listed… yet. But that made sense; pay didn't matter aboard frigates. It was all prize-money they were after, and frigates were more comfortable ships, with more room per hand, not so crowded… and a lot less dull a life than plodding aboard a "liner" or swinging at anchor waiting for the foe to come out and challenge them.
For a brief, hopeful time, the mutiny had appeared to be ended, just after he'd come back from Portsmouth. Parliament had been rumoured to be meeting, the House of Commons to debate a bill for supplementary funds that the Prime Minister and Councillor of The Exchequer-William Pitt the Younger-were drawing up to add to the annual Admiralty expenditures. "His Nobs," King George, had been rumoured to have left off dunking and gambling at Bath and had seemed amenable to the general pardon the mutineers requested. Tory, pro-government dailies had hinted that crews were returning to full discipline, taking their exiled officers back aboard…
A few days later though…
Pitt had spoken to the Commons, rambling through a speech that notably omitted any mention of Navy, Mutiny, Seamen, Pay, or even Water! The Whigs and Fox-ite factions had been on him like dogs on a butcher's castoffs; questions had been raised, enquiries into the matter threatened. Elderly Admiral Lord Howe had had to rise to defend himself.
Howe had admitted that he had gotten anonymous copies of their demands weeks before but had been reassured by Sir Hugh Seymour, the Admiralty's senior man at Portsmouth, that he'd seen no signs of mutinous assemblies, seen any grievance letters, and had thought that the copies Howe had gotten were the work of a malicious individual. Pitt and his First Lord of The Admiralty had been forced to admit that they had had inklings of mutiny-and had sat on it!
Following Pitt's dreadful speech, the sailors had put officers ashore once more, re-hoisted the red flags, and re-rove the yard-ropes, sure they were being set up with false promises for another betrayal, soon to be winnowed and hung as Culloden's ringleaders had been.
To make things worse, the Earl Spencer had told Commons that he had ordered completely new sets of weights and measures to be used for sailors' rations-Admiralty could not redress that grievance until the new weights were available.
That, Lewrie scoffed, was a bald-faced admission that corruption and graft went from bottom to top, from ships' pursers to the dockyard warehouses, from jobbers to the Victualling Board itself! That even civilian purveyors were being cheated when they put their goods on the Admiralty scales!
Panicked by the resurgence of the mutiny, Commons had elected to scrounge up an extra Ј900,000 for the Navy Estimate, and the King signed a pardon, but by then it was too little, too late!
"Not over yet, sir?" Beakman's daughter enquired as she fetched him a top-up of spring ale.
"No, and God knows when it ever will be… thankee," Lewrie told her.
"Poor Mizzuz Cony, not knowin'…" the daughter said, with a tiny cluck of her tongue, before returning to the long, oak bar counter.
Never married after Will took up with Maggie, Lewrie speculated; gettin long-in-tooth and haggard. God, a publican's daughter not taken yet, even did she look like the arse-end of a sheep? He rather doubted that Mistress Beak-man had much real sympathy in her soul for Maggie Cony; spite and glee for a long-awaited comeuppance was more like it!
He turned to the Tory papers. Both The Times and the Gazette were incensed that the mutineers were demanding relief from tyrannical officers and mates too. How dare "common" seamen hope to dictate to the aristocracy, the squirearchy, their "betters" to decide who was capable, or suitable, to command them! Never in Hell, both papers were firm in saying, should HM government, Admiralty, or the landed gentry surrender their rights as honourable gentlemen; why, it violated that sacred principle of the gentleman-officer, the dignity of the Navy-the dignity of the monarch himself! Why, with times so parlous, and revolution run riot on the Continent, in America…!
Lewrie shoved The Times away in disgust. Right here, on this very village commons the day before, the local Yeomanry and Militia had drilled. As his father had said, to prepare them should they be called out to march to Portsmouth -just in case.
Would the mutineers turn their artillery on the shore, fire upon British troops, if their demands were not met? Would British soldiers fire upon British tars? Lewrie wondered with a frown; that was even a more disturbing question. For if that happened, all bets were off, and England might go the way of France, with blood in the streets and the aristocracy, the King and Queen-and serving officers! Lewrie queasily imagined-thrown out, thrown in gaol, even guillotined, just like it had come to the port of Toulon and his now-dead French Royalist compatriots in '93. Would he and Caroline and the children end up as refugees in foreign lands as those Royalists had? Or dead, like Charles Auguste, Baron de Crillart, and all his kin but Sophie de Maubeuge?
Caroline had kin-Rebel kin-in the Cape Fear country, back in North Carolina. And Caroline and her parents and brothers had fled them too, become refugees in England. Had the American Chiwicks mellowed enough for a welcome, he wondered? But what joy was there in that- the United States had practically scrapped their navy once the Revolution was over, and what could he do, except… farm! Jesus!