‘The damn rascals,’ spluttered Howlett. ‘They’ll swing for it now!’
‘Once in mut’ny, always t’ be distrusted,’ Gilbey growled. ‘We’ll have no truck wi’ mutineers, I hope. I remember in ’ninety-seven when Black Dick Howe—’
Kydd cut in sharply. ‘They’re about their duties, we can’t move against them.’
‘They’re a scrovy lot as will fall on us when our back’s turned. Sir, we should—’
‘No, Mr Gilbey. If they meant to rise, they wouldn’t warn us like this.’ Uneasily, however, Kydd remembered Hermione: Captain Pigot, with all his officers, had died at the point of a cutlass in an insane mutiny in a similar-sized frigate.
Howlett cleared his throat. ‘Sir. The situation is plain. They’ll not bend sail unless it suits ’em and in anyone’s book that’s rank mutiny. We must send for troops, clear the ship and haul ’em ashore to answer for it. No other way.’
‘Mr Clinton? What of the Royals?’
The young man started, his pale face set at the thought of two dozen marines facing more than two hundred desperate men. ‘I – they’ll do their duty, sir. Sar’nt Dodd is posting them about the ship agreeable to my orders.’
Kydd cleared his head to an icy coolness. Whatever happened to them depended on what he did next, and he had no wish to rush into a confrontation. ‘Gentlemen. They’re going about their duties in accordance with orders given. For now there is no offence.’
Howlett snorted, but Kydd went on quietly, ‘Let ’em carry on. There’s a good chance their nerve will fail before it’s time to weigh.’
‘Sir, I must protest! This note is an insult and an abomination – and under the Articles of War constitutes a treasonable communication. We have no alternative but overbearing force while we can.’
‘I take mind of what you’re saying, Mr Howlett, but it’s my decision to wait it out for now.’
He looked gravely from one officer to the next. ‘On no account will I allow hasty words or other provocation to spark a rising. Confine yourselves to calm and lawful orders. If you feel the need for a weapon, a pistol concealed in the pocket will serve – no swords or similar on display. Any questions?’
There were none and L’Aurore’s officers returned to the quarterdeck. There was an unnatural calm: the men went about their work steadily but in a stiff silence with glances flashed down the deck towards the captain.
Kydd paced slowly, outwardly dignified and calm but his thoughts whirled. Already, as Howlett had pointed out, he was technically in breach of the Articles of War and could be dismissed his ship. Yet if he finally gave orders to weigh anchor and they were obeyed that would be the end of it all, dissolved into the blessed release of making the open sea.
At the forefront of his mind was the one towering imperative: to get his frigate to Nelson. All else was secondary. If he called for soldiers and cleared the ship he would get sympathy but would be left as before, without the men to sail her, and Nelson would be deprived of a most valuable asset. It was a frightful dilemma.
The morning wore on. Powder arrived and was stowed without incident. More stores came aboard and found their way to the boatswain’s and gunner’s lockers on the orlop. There was nothing to suggest that L’Aurore was a ship in mutiny.
As noon approached there was again the question for Kydd: did he allow the customary grog ration or suspend it for fear of inflaming the situation further? If he stopped their grog it would be seen as vindictive or a punishment so he let it go ahead.
The midday meal passed and the seamen remained at their tables, stony-faced. Kydd ordered all officers and warrant officers out of the mess-deck to allow them privacy to talk, hopefully to see the futility and danger of the course they were taking.
As the hour for their meal drew to a close the master-at-arms sidled up to Kydd. ‘I know ’oo it is, then, sir.’
‘What do you mean?’ Kydd had disliked Jolley on sight: sly and vicious, he was too like the first of his kind he had met as a raw pressed man.
‘Why, it’s Paddy Doyle, o’ course. Seen ’im flogged f’r wry words in Alceste more’n once. He’s forrard in the bay now, talkin’ with his mates – and I’m standing by the bitt pins, I was, an’ heard him bold as brass cry up a reg’lar-built mutiny.’
This Kydd could not ignore: it could be the spark that ignited the horrors of a full-scale rising.
‘Mr Jolley,’ he said heavily, ‘arrest Doyle and hale him aft.’
Howlett came across. ‘Trouble, sir?’
‘Rash talk only, Mr Howlett.’
‘That’s as it may be, sir, but we have to consider—’
Suddenly a muffled angry uproar surged from below, died away, then renewed into a storm of cheers and catcalls. The officers looked at each other, then at the fore ladderway. Jolley and his corporal emerged with Doyle between them and dragged him aft, followed by an excited rabble. Kydd hurried down into the waist – and his worst fears were confirmed.
The master-at-arms’s nose was streaming with blood but, with a smirk of triumph, he grated, ‘Did strike me, his superior officer, Captain! An’ before witnesses, sir.’
Kydd took one look at the wild-eyed Doyle and knew he had no choice. ‘Double irons and a sentry, Mr Jolley. The rest o’ these men – back to your duties!’
All around the deck men stood in shocked stillness. Others backed away in horrified expectation. Clinton hurried up and looked questioningly at Kydd.
‘Draw up your men on the quarterdeck, sir, with ball and cartridge but, for God’s sake, man, make it look like you were exercising ’em.’
There was no going back now. At the very least there would be a court-martial and the stark sight of a corpse at the fore-yard before L’Aurore had sailed an inch. It would take weeks to convene, needing five post-captains to sit on the trial. Only then, and under a dark shadow of ignominy, could L’Aurore look to finally taking the seas.
‘Send to the garrison, sir?’ Howlett asked Kydd.
L’Aurore’s captain paused. There would be hotheads among Doyle’s friends who could turn the situation into bloodshed in an attempt to free him from certain death. It was on a knife-edge of spiralling chaos. The whole cursed thing had one and only one cause: his own act in turning over the Alcestes. If there was any moral element it was that Doyle was going to pay for his own impetuosity.
Was it too late? Once the incident and news of the mutiny were thus made public it would inevitably play out to the end like a Greek tragedy. Had he lost the game?
Kydd stepped to the ship’s side, staring out over the deserted anchorage to the dark green verdancy of the land. He needed to think, for what he was now considering was a desperate move that could make him a byword for lunacy in the Navy.
But it might work. And might yet allow him to sail to Nelson.
He wheeled on Howlett: ‘I’ll deal with Doyle now. Pray clear the lower deck and muster all hands.’
Astonishment chased puzzlement on the first lieutenant’s features but he touched his hat and summoned the boatswain to set in train the gravity of a captain’s table. The die was cast. Feeling light-headed with the implications of what he proposed, Kydd went below.
Renzi looked at him strangely, but kept discreetly quiet. He had no role in this and knew it: Kydd would face the consequences of his own decision alone.
‘Ship’s company mustered, sir,’ Howlett reported.
Gravely Kydd left his cabin for the wan sunlight of the main deck. A lectern stood next to a table where the waiting ship’s clerk made much of arranging the books and inkwell. In front of him was a silent mass of seamen, the marines lining the gangways above.