They paced aft to that companionway ladder near the taffrails once more, in silence as the afterguard trudged to the kedge anchor cable, to the jears and halliards for the mizzen tops'l and spanker.
"I don't know what led you to take part in mutiny, Mister Handcocks," Lewrie said in a low voice, "what grievances you had that stirred you to rise up 'gainst lawful authority, or take such a prominent part in it. How long you helped its planning…"
Handcocks merely breathed hard, his gaze fixed shoreward.
"But I warn you now, Mister Handcocks," Lewrie whispered, "it is getting out of hand. It's grown a life of its own, and you have no control over it. Do you have any real say in the ship's committee, it might be best did you speak out for temperance. Threatening a captain will lead to blood, sooner or later. First we move out of gun-range. Next time, will it be the Texel? A French port? Out to fight Channel Fleet… now they're restored to duty?"
"Sure I don't know, sir." Handcocks groaned, sounding strangled.
"Maybe we're being shifted 'cause Parker, Bales, and their lot're afraid of sensible hands taking the Spithead offer," Lewrie suggested. "So they don't lose control…'cause that's not what their paymasters want… a settlement. Their foreign paymasters, Mr. Handcocks."
"Sir, if ya pleasel" Handcocks begged as they got to the top of the companionway, all but wringing his hands in abject misery.
"Mister Handcocks, Bales has more in mind than redress of your socalled grievances," Lewrie intimated, striving to sound "matey" and concerned. "Ask yourself what that could be. His dislike of me, however- though I can't recall ever meeting the man before-one would think he held a personal hatred. Whatever it is, Mister Handcocks, don't be too caught up in it. This could gallop out of control in the blink of an eye! The Spithead offer… it's fair. 'Twixt you and me, I'll say it was overdue, aye. But it's all you're going to get. Don't lose your Warrant… or your head… asking for a jot more. Or let things turn violent, hmmm?"
"If you'd go below now, sir, Cap'um, sir," Handcocks replied, wincing and bobbing his head in agony. Lewrie gave him a hearty clap of sympathy on the shoulder to buck him up.
And if that didn 't light a fire under his "nutmegs, " Lewrie told himself, once below and out of sight, / don't know what will. And if he can't take a hint, then to the Devil with him!
"Brandy, Aspinall… brimmin'," Lewrie called.
"Aye, sir… comin' directly."
'Twos a near-run thing I didn't get beaten senseless, Lewrie had to admit to himself; pushed it almost too far, I did. But at least I made Bales an ogre to the hands; gave 'em another think about how dangerous this is. Put caution in Handcocks, a few others…?
Hmmm… this Bales, now… Lewrie thought as his brandy came.
He'd revealed that he'd served as a Quartermaster and Master's Mate at one time; might have aspired to Admiralty Warrant as a Sailing Master too? Lewrie pondered, idly pacing his cabins. Must've blotted his copybook though, or lost his patrons when turned over into a new ship… lost his rate when a new captain had come aboard with his own favourites in tow.
That would explain his grudge against the Navy, Lewrie decided, but… he threatened me, directly! As if I owe him for something from his past? And he'll make me pay, no matter what happens, will he?
"For the life of me, I can't recall…!" Lewrie grumbled.
"Sir?"
"Nothing, Aspinall… just maundering."
Scotching the cries for putting me ashore… as if he's savin' me for something, well… Lewrie scowled in thought; best for him, if he did! Igetunder his skin, row him to rashness… expose his weaknesses or his true motives. Reverse our positions and he'd be ashore, in irons, quick as you could say "Jack Ketch!" After a keehaulin'… or two.
It would be so easy for Bales to hide in the Navy, even was he a Bounty mutineer! There were hundreds of "jumpers" who enlisted over and over gave false names to a ship's first officer, got the Joining Bounty, then scampered, to try it on again. And what would he look like without that full beard of his, Lewrie wondered?
And why, in this particular incarnation, did Bales pass himself off as "Bales"-if former deserter, malefactor, or mutineer, he was? Had he served under the unfortunate old man; had he been aboard hard-luck Ariadne during the Revolution? Bales appeared to be in his mid-to-late thirties… old enough to have been a teenaged topman or cabin servant back then. Hmmm… that bore some thinking about.
"Christ!" Lewrie suddenly gasped, coming out of his dark study.
Proteus was underway, her hull timbers beginning to creak as she worked, slightly canted by the wind… underway under the charge of the common seamen! And that bastard Bales, or whomever he was!
Lewrie dashed to his after-companionway ladder, rushed up it, to stick his head above the hatch coaming. There was no sentry to detain him, so he cautiously climbed further, to take stance beside the flag lockers at the taffrail and sternpost, expecting the very worst.
Unfortunately, nothing was out of order.
She was well in-hand, under topsis, spanker and inner and outer jibs, everything Bristol fashion. And Bales stood with his hands in the small of his back, amidships of the quarterdeck, looking upward and outward with the cool professionalism of the saltiest watch-officer.
It seemed that the mates, the common seamen, could sail her… anywhere they wished, Lewrie grudgingly decided: Holland, France, over to Ireland… the Great South Seas if they bloody wished!
"Damme," Lewrie whispered, slinking below before anyone spotted him and hooted in derision at his surprise and disappointment.
BOOK FOUR
Tua nunc terris, tua lumina toto sparge mari;
seu nostra dolos molitor opertos sive externa manus,
primus mihi nuntius esto.
Cast now thine eyes upon the land, upon all the sea;
whether it be men of my own land or strangers
that are planning secret treachery,
be first to bear me news.
– Argonautica, Book V, 246-49
Valerius Flaccus
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
If Proteus had lacked information before, her isolation became even worse once the mutinous fleet had shifted out to the Great Nore. Their "Parliament" had already banned letters to or from shore. Now, 'tween-ship visiting, which was usually allowed, had been cancelled as well. Oh, there was still visiting; but it was done by the representatives from the "Parliament" ship, HMS Sandwich alone, the daily parade of rowing boats filled with cheering leaders and sycophants, accompanied by noisy ships' bands, and a sea of gay flags.
Monday the twenty-ninth had been Restoration Day, and to celebrate King Charles II's return to the throne after the end of commoners' rule, the mutiny ships had fired the usual 19-gun salutes and hoisted the royal standards for a time, though the weather was cold and gloomy, blowing half a gale of wind off the North Sea, even harbour waves high enough to stir and rock the line-of-battle ships like fishing smacks. A rather odd act, Lewrie had thought, for a pack of mutineers hellbent on hanging the monarch, to read their truculent diatribes!