Mutiny

_{'Moors — the Bedoo of the desert,' Renzi murmured, as Kydd took in the exotic scene; camels, strings of veiled Arabs still as statues, staring at the ship and more arriving.}

_{Forward, men were grouping nervously. Everyone knew the consequences of being taken on the Barbary Coast. Renzi pursed his lips. 'It's not the Bedoo that should concern us,' he muttered. 'They can't get to us without boats. But your Moorish corsair, when he has his friends, and they make a sally together . . .'}

_{The worried knot of officers around the captain seemed to come to a decision. Stepping clear of them, the boatswain lifted his call, but thought better of it, merely summoning the captain of the hold, a senior petty officer. 'Start all th' water over the side,' he ordered. Tons of fresh water gurgled into the scuppers from the massive leaguer casks swayed up from the hold.}

_{'Rig guns to jettison.' Murmuring from forward was now punctuated with protests, angry shouts following the gunner's party as they moved to each gun, knocking free the cap-squares holding the trunnion to the carriage and transferring the training tackle to the eyebolt above the gunport. Now it only needed men hauling on the side-tackles and, with handspikes levering, the freed guns would tumble into the sea — and they would be defenceless.}

_{A shout from a sharp-eyed sailor, who had seen something above the dunes along the coast, stopped progress. It rounded the point and hove to several miles off; twin lateen sails and a long, low hull gave no room for conjecture. 'We're dished,' said Kydd, in a low voice. 'There'll be others, and when they feel brave enough they'll fall on us.' Another vessel, and then another hauled into view.}

_{The captain's face was set and pale as he paced. The master went to him diffidently, touching his hat. 'Sir, the ship settles in th' sand — if it gets a grip even b' inches, the barky'll leave her bones here.' He hesitated. 'I saw how Blonde frigate won free o' the Shipwash.'}

_{'Go on.'}

_{'They loose all sail, but braces to bring all aback — every bit o' canvas they had. Then ship's comp'ny takes as many round-shot as they c'n carry, doubles fr'm one side o' the deck to the other 'n' back. Th' rhythm breaks suction an' the ship makes a sternboard 'n' gets off.'}

_{With a fleeting glance at the gathering predators, the captain told him, 'Do it, if you please.'}

_{The master went to the wheel. 'I takes th' helm. Kydd, you're th' lee helmsman.' Kydd obediently took position and waited. Sail appeared, mast by mast, hesitantly, shrouds and stays tested for strain at the unaccustomed and awkward situation of the wind taking the sails on the wrong side.}

_{'Mark my motions well. When we move, it'll be dead astern, an' if we mishandle, we'll sheer around an' it'll all be up wi' us,' the master warned. A ship going backwards would put prodigious strain on the rudder, and if they lost control it would slew sideways and slam the wind to the opposite side of the sails. At the very least this would leave Bacchante with broken rigging, splintered masts and the impossibility of getting away from the gathering threat.}

_{Kydd gripped the spokes and stared doggedly at the master. His job, as leeward helmsman, was to add his weight intelligently to the effort of the lead helmsman, and he knew this would be a fight to remember.}

_{Shot was passed up from the lockers in the bowels of the ship, each man taking two eighteen-pound balls. 'One bell to be ready, the second and you're off,' the first lieutenant called from the belfry forward.}

_{One strike: the men braced. Another — they rushed across the deck, more perhaps of a reckless waddle. They turned, and the bells sounded almost immediately. They rushed back. Some saw the humour of the situation and grinned, others remained straight-faced and grave.}

_{Twice more they ran. Kydd snatched a glimpse up at the bulging, misshapen sails fluttering and banging above; the men were panting now. The boatswain had a hand-lead over the side, and was staring grimly at its steady vertical trend.}

_{Near him Kydd could hear a deep-throated creaking amid the discordant chorus of straining cordage. He dared not look away — the moment, if it came, would come suddenly. The bells and thumping feet sounded again — and again.}

_{The deck shifted under Kydd's feet, an uneven rumbling from deep within, and the boatswain's triumphant shout: 'She swims!'}

_{Forced by the wind, the frigate started to slide backwards. The wheel kicked viciously as the rudder was caught on its side. The master threw himself at the wheel to wind on opposite helm, Kydd straining with him, following his moves to within a split second. The pressure eased, but the ship increased speed backwards, at the same time multiplying the danger in proportion.}

_{The master's lean face became haggard with strain and concentration as together they fought the ship clear. A fraction of inattention or misreading of the thrumming pressures transmitted up the tiller ropes and at this speed they would slew broadside in an instant.}

_{The rumbling stopped — they must be clear of the sand. Orders pealed out that had canvas clewed up, yards braced round and a slowing of their mad backward rampage. The master's eyes met Kydd's, and he smiled. 'That's cutting a caper too many f'r me,' he said, in a gusty breath of relief.}

_{Kydd returned a grin, but he held to his heart that this fine mariner had called on him, Thomas Kydd, when he needed a true seaman alongside.}

_{The beat north through the Adriatic was an anticlimax. After re-watering from a clear stream on the remote west coast of Sardinia, they had thankfully rounded Malta and Sicily at night, through the Strait of Otranto and on into the Adriatic. The stranding had not had any observable ill-effects.}

_{They now flew the red swallow-tail of Denmark. It was unlikely that any French at sea would interfere with a touchy Scandinavian of a country they were in the process of wooing into their fold.}

_{In the event, they saw no French. But they did, to Kydd's considerable interest, sight all manner of exotic Mediterranean craft. Built low but with a sharply rising bow in line with sea conditions in the inland sea, there was the three-masted bark, with its canted masts, lateen sails and beak instead of a bowsprit; the pink, which could use the triangular lateen sail interchangeably with the familiar square sail on its exotically raked masts, and the more homely tartan coaster.}

_{Once, sighted far off and in with the coast, they saw a galley, fully as long as Bacchante, sails struck and pulling directly into the wind. The dip and rise of the oars in the sunlight was steady and regular, a never-ending rhythm that went on into the distance.}

_{They were getting close to Venice at the head of the gulf, and that evening Kydd caught Renzi gazing ahead with an intense expression. 'Y'r Venice is accounted a splendid place, I've heard,' Kydd ventured.}

_{Renzi appeared not to have heard, but then said distantly, 'It is, my friend.'}

_{'A shame we can't step ashore. I'd enjoy t' see the sights.'}

_{Renzi responded immediately: 'In Venice you'd see spectacle and beauty enough for a lifetime.' He turned on Kydd with passionate intensity. 'There you'll find the most glorious and serene expressions of the human spirit - and in the same place, soul's temptation incarnate, licentiousness as a science, a pit of profligacy! E sempra scostumata, if you'll pardon the expression.'}

_{Kydd tried to resist the smile pulling at his mouth; at last, this was the Renzi he remembered, not the cheerless introspective he had seemed to become of late.}

_{Renzi noticed and, mistaking its origin, frowned in disapproval. 'This is also, I might point out, the Venice of the Doge and his cruel prisons, where torture and death are acts of state and the Council of Ten rules by fear.}