“They’ve been through a serious mutiny, sir. They’re melancholic, down-hearted. For myself …”
“Yes?”
“I believe there’s no better medicine than the open sea. Work to do, a different view each morning. Idleness at anchor can only breed … unhappiness.”
“My feeling exactly, Mr Le Breton.”
At last a principal in Tyger he could rely on!
As he left, Kydd heard the faint strike of eight bells. The men would be going to their grog and evening meal-he would give a lot to hear what was being discussed over the mess-tables.
The thought of this brought on a pang of hunger. In his anxieties he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. And pointedly there had been no invitation from the wardroom to dine.
“Flynn!” he called.
There was no response. The man was probably at his own meal and grog, and Tysoe was still ashore.
Kydd was suddenly overcome by a wave of desolation as he looked about his bare cabin, shadows deepening in the evening gloom. Would he still be standing at the end of it all?
His steward finally appeared, resentfully wiping his mouth.
“You mentioned a bite?”
“Officers’ cook ain’t victualled for youse … sir, and y’ didn’t bring yer own.”
“Then I’ll take a dish of mess-deck scran.”
Flynn blinked and looked at him as though he hadn’t heard right.
“Now!”
In theory Kydd was, as any officer, entitled to take ship’s food, but the captain?
He ate slowly by a single candle, listening to the timber creaks and muffled groans as the ship lifted to the slight swell and snubbed to her anchor. Every vessel had a different pattern, which varied as well with the direction of the roll. How long would it be before Tyger’s characterful sounds became familiar?
There was little more he could do before morning but so much would face him then.
Paperwork by the mountain was needed to complete the handover. He was expected to sign that he accepted the state of accounts of the three main figures: purser, gunner and boatswain. In the usual formal procedure he would have taken the time to have them mustered before him, and the outgoing captain would have an interest to make sure it went smoothly.
Now he was being asked to sign for them unseen and take personal responsibility for deficits.
And, crucially, did he have sufficient confidence in his officers that he could take Tyger to sea? He had grave reservations, but unless he went with what he had, there would be endless weeks of soul-destroying idleness.
If he ordered them to up anchor, would the hands obey or would it trigger a bigger, final, mutiny?
He pushed away the remains of the pottage, unable to finish. His time among the indulgences of London had spoiled him but these were now but a dream in the face of what threatened.
The empty cabin smelt alien and musty and he felt another wave of bleakness clamping in. He got up and made for the open deck. It was dark and, except for a lanthorn suspended in the rigging above the huddled watch, there was nothing but the dimness of a cloudy night and the occasional fleck of foam.
A figure among the watch group straightened in alarm. It was Nowell, the third lieutenant.
“Why, Mr Nowell, what brings you up on deck?” Kydd asked mildly. “Is there any complication at all?”
While at anchor it was quite in order for the officer-of-the-watch to spend time in the warmth of the gun-room, on call by the mate-of-the-watch.
“N-no problems, sir,” the young man stuttered. “I thought as I’d, er, take the air for a space.”
Kydd sensed agitation. “That’s well, Mr Nowell. It’s my invariable practice to take a turn around the deck before I retire. Shall we walk together?”
He waited until they were out of earshot and opened, “Your first ship as lieutenant?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“A hard enough thing to face a mutiny, then.”
There was no answer, and Nowell stared obstinately out into the blackness.
“I was once in a mutiny,” Kydd continued. “At the Nore in ’ninety-seven. Not as I’d wish to go through it again. We were five weeks under the red flag and-”
“It’s not over, I know it. They’re talking, whispering and I’m … I’m not easy moving about the ship at night. They look at me without saying anything but when I pass by, give me a cruel smile as if …”
Kydd felt for him. The young lad, so recently a midshipman, was having to find his place as an officer and had been pitchforked into the worst kind of situation to be found at sea.
But the fact that he was confiding in his captain was disturbing: it meant that his fellow officers were not extending a comradely understanding, were keeping aloof. Had they retreated into themselves, separate islands, as the vital officer corps of the ship fell apart?
“It’ll be better for everybody once we get to sea, Mr Nowell, just you see.”
There was a question he had to ask: “If you say the mutiny is still threatening, that means the ringleaders were not all caught. Have you any notion of who it could be that’s causing unrest among the men?”
“None, sir,” he said miserably. “They don’t talk in front of me.”
Shunned by the men, left on his own by the officers, the young man was going through hell.
“Well, I don’t expect trouble but if you do hear anything, don’t hesitate to let me know.”
“I will, sir. And … thank you, sir.”
As he returned below he tried to put the young officer’s troubled admission aside, but it stayed.
“L’tenant Payne to report.”
The young marine officer came in hesitantly. “You wanted to see me, Sir Thomas?” He looked as edgy as Nowell had.
“This is a ship lately out of mutiny. I don’t want to know what happened, but it would oblige me should you tell me your dispositions for the night.”
He gulped nervously. “Oh, er, the same as Captain Parker posted up.”
The man had obviously been left on his own to take responsibility for the ship’s main recourse in time of mutiny, and he without even the time at sea that Nowell had had.
“So where …?”
“Magazine, your cabin, spirit room, gun-room door, hourglass-”
“Very good.” These were the usual postings but if more were added this would not only goad the sailors to see themselves under guard but would reveal that their captain was afraid.
“Look after your men. We may have need of ’em.”
A brief flash of terror showed. “Yes, sir,” he replied faintly.
Last Kydd saw the master-at-arms, making his routine report that the silent hours had begun and that all lights had been doused. “Come in, Mr Tully,” he called, to the dark figure in the doorway. His corporal stayed outside with the lanthorn.
“I want you to tell me the temper of the people,” Kydd asked quietly.
The man’s face tightened. “Nuthin’ to report, sir.”
“That’s not what I asked. It’s your opinion I’d like to hear.”
“Not for me t’ say, sir,” Tully said, in a flat voice.
“Well, are they, who shall say, reliable?”
“Can’t answer that, sir.”
The gaze was steady, the replies quick. This man stood between the seamen and the officers and in normal times his allegiance was a given. But Tully was a survivor: things could go either way.
It was disquieting. It could only be that subversion was so widespread and imminent that Tully couldn’t now risk being seen on the wrong side. Not only did it imply that his loyalty was in doubt but it also appeared he had certain knowledge of a conspiracy that had every chance of succeeding. Why did he not tell of it?
“Very well,” Kydd said. “You’ll inform me if you hear anything.”
“Sir.”
Kydd lay awake, every strange noise and playful slap of a wave jerking him alert. At last he drifted into a troubled sleep.
The night passed without incident and the ship met a cold dawn with little ceremony. If there was any defiance or rebellion brewing they were probably biding their time until they knew more of their captain.
Kydd took a quick breakfast of burgoo and went up to see the change of watch.