"Then this could go on forever," Lt. Ludlow gloomed. He'd not made many appearances lately, and when he had attended officers' meetings he'd kept his own counsel, merely frowning, glowering, or grimacing without venturing either opinions or suggestions, or any comments that hadn't been elicited by a direct question. He'd not kept up his toilet either, Lewrie noted. Ludlow 's waist-coat was dingy with smut and food-stains, his shirt tanned at collar and cuffs from long wear, and his beard stubble a light coal-dust smear on his chin and cheeks.
"No, not forever, Mister Ludlow," Lewrie countered. "Did any of you take a gander at the shore today? Note what's happening in Sheerness?"
"Uhm… that it seems rather quiet, sir?" Midshipman Catterall ventured, "without the seamen allowed ashore…"
"Do you lift a telescope, you'll find some pleasing sights ashore." Lewrie beamed. "Now let me ask you all another question… What will be served for dinner?"
"Sir?" Had he been driven daft by the mutiny was the look they shared-had Proteus stolen the wits of another captain?
"What's cooked for the hands' dinner, Mister Coote?"
"Uhm… the usual Tuesday rota, sir. Pound of biscuit and two pounds of salt-beef per man per day," the Purser informed him.
"No shore 'Tommy'… no beeves or hogs for slaughter," Lewrie pointed out. "Nor will there be in future. Vice-Admiral Buckner and Commissioner Hartwell have not seen fit to deliver fresh victuals out to the ships this morning. Really, gentlemen, you should take more notice of things around you," he chid them with mock severity, tsking a time or two with a sly leer. "Do you look shoreward, you will see soldiers and workmen atop the forts… mending what's been neglected for far too long, I shouldn't wonder. Troops of militia and regulars patrolling the streets? Standing guard over the dockyards and quays? You could espy civilians departing… evacuated or of their own accord. Oh, there'll be some tavern keepers and whoremongers who stay and reap the bounty from all these soldiers. Soldiers, gentlemen," he said, beaming his delight, "most-like with orders to arrest any mutineer who gets ashore, to cut them off completely. I believe Our Lords Commissioners have been down to Sheerness and told Parker and his men to get stuffed! Perhaps it wasn't our mutineers' idea to avoid shore, hey? And, gentlemen… do you look close, you may see some activity, just a bit upriver of Garrison Point. Boats working… looking very much to me as if they're laying a stouter boom across the Med-way."
His suppositions sounded inspiriting; they all seemed to perk up-yet didn't dash to the bulwarks that instant, looking hesitant. Tell me what I'm s posed to think, Lewrie sighed to himself; / swear, what a pack of cod'swallops!
There was a glad interruption from up forrud. Some hands were squabbling over the rum issue! One man had offered half his ration to a whore, but it sounded as if he already owed "gulpers" to one of his messmates, who wasn't going to be shorted. Neither would the doxy take less than a full half of a half!
"Don't you see, gentlemen?" he posed to them. "This isn't any fun anymore. They've had their Rope-Yarn days, their drunks, their ruts. They're as broke as convicts. No more skylarking ashore, and no more fresh food either. No more quim, 'less they resort to rape. Have to live on sea-rations, share spirits and victuals with women they can't have, 'less they trade food or drink. Too many mouths aboard and short-commons, if this goes on much longer. Anchored out where it's boresome and there's nothing to do but stew and fret 'bout what Admiralty's doing, when it's going to end. And how. Now do you take pains to make 'em see what's going on ashore… and why…"
"Undermine their morale, sir!" Catterall piped up, tumbling to it at last. "So they give it up, take the pardon…"
"So close to the Queen's Channel too, Mister Catterall," Lewrie muttered, stepping into the taut half-circle of officers, warrants, and junior petty officers. "Where a crew, a ship, did they get fearful or their commitment to the mutiny had begun to waver… might think that escape from the Nore might be the best choice, sirs. As a way to take the Spithead terms, the pardon… and signal their denial of the mutiny by a return to duty. Sea-duty! God bless the mutinous members of our little… 'Parliament,' " he sneered. "Putting us where it'd be easier to sail off… when we re-take the ship, sirs."
Mouths gapped even wider, as jaws dropped at the idea. Sneaky grins replaced puzzlement.
"With two two-deckers anchored near us, sir," Lieutenant Ludlow said, with a sneer of hopelessness, "upper-deck gun-ports open and primed to fire on any ship that shows a scrap of sail, tries to up-anchor…"
"Damme, Mister Ludlow," Lewrie scoffed. "And here I thought you were the firebrand, determined to draw blood t'other day."
"When it seemed we had a chance to keep the ship, sir," Ludlow shot back. "Not just surrender her like a craven…!"
"Consider yourself under arrest, sir!" Lewrie barked, suddenly fed up with the man. "Go below and confine yourself… and your insolence… to your cabin! By God, you go too far, sir! Have done since I came aboard."
Ludlow 's jaw found cause to drop, and he visibly paled, like to faint. He seemed to reel or stagger, whether to fall to his knees in apoplexy or take a damning step forward to threaten a superior officer, it could be taken either way. Marine Lt. Devereux reached out to take him by the upper arm, to support or restrain him, this could be taken either way too "You…!" Ludlow blustered. "Now see here, sir…! Ah… I see sir Un-hand me, you tailor's dummy! Ah. Ah. Very well, sir. I will, as always obey my captain's orders, sir."
"Very good, sir," Lewrie sniped through hair-thin lips. "Then kindly do as I have ordered, Mister Ludlow."
Ludlow had mastered himself, had control of his body once more though he never would learn how to conceal the emotions that erupted on his phyz, and those were stony and bloody! He doffed his hat and made a leg in a most-formal conge, then turned on his heel to stamp away, after sharing a bleak but knowing look with Midshipman Peacham.
"Uhm, sir"-Lt. Langlie whispered, after a long, embarrassed silence- "though he stated his case, uhm, well, insolently, there is the problem of those two-deckers and their guns."
"I doubt they keep a zealous watch, Mister Langlie," Lewrie muttered back. "Too bored. We've not held sail-drill lately, or had our people at the artillery. With the shore cut off from them and our mutinous committee worried, suggestions from us as to drilling back to passing competence might find a welcome ear. No shot, no powder in the guns, but…? Make and furl sail; put men aloft on the yards? If we do it often enough, then it may not draw much attention when we do it for our escape. When we cut our cables."
"No pilot aboard, sir," Mr. Winwood pointed out, lowering his voice to a conspirator's hiss. "Tricky passage: shoals, sands, flats where we could run aground."
"But could you do it, Mister Winwood?"
"Aye, sir," Winwood allowed, and that rather reluctantly. It would be a perfect bitch did they take the ground, and under fire from a two-decker's heavy guns. "The tides, though. Do we sail out with the ebb to speed our way, it'd have to be in daylight, sir. The flood runs at night, and will take us into the Medway or Sheerness. Might be a safer escape, sir, if the government has garrisoned Sheerness 'gainst the mutineers retaking us. Dark as a boot, scudding off a North, Sea blow, sir? Harder to shoot at."
"There is that, Mister Winwood," Lewrie allowed. "But we'd have to run past a great many ships before we got there. Here…"he said, casting a hand out toward the beckoningly empty eastern horizon, "we're less than a mile, mile-and-a-half… the Range-To-Random-Shot of an 18-pounder… from showing them a clean pair of heels. We're in the outer I row of the Great Nore, less than a mile from the buoyed channel. Most of the other ships are streamin' back from a single bower. When the flood runs, they point outward. When the ebb runs, they're facing Sheerness. Sail exercise… make a slow way up to short stays, under reduced sail, then furl and fall back. Do that a few times each morning and, sooner or later, they'll take no more notice of us. But one time… the last time… we cut and keep on going. Turn of the tide, Mister Winwood? With a suitable slant o' wind? Do-able, d'ye think?"