Dewey Lambdin - King`s Captain

"Bloody…!" Lewrie yelped, as if stung. He dashed forrud to see for himself, careening off Haslip and his marine guards. Out upon the gun-deck, up a ladder to the quarterdeck to peer out hatless, and suddenly breathless from more than haste. He lunged for the binnacle rack for a telescope, then froze… for it really wasn't necessary.

Sandwich… Latona… Inflexible… Champion, a 20-gunner, the old stores-ship Grampus… every line-of-battle ship, every vessel in the Nore…! And they all flew the red mutiny flags, sported damnable yard ropes from their course and tops'l spars! In fact, HMS Proteus was about the only Royal Navy vessel that didn't!

"Christ, not here too!" Lewrie felt like wailing.

"Lord, sir, what'll we do?" Lieutenant Wyman almost begged.

Now there was a good question, if Lewrie'd ever heard one!

H is first instinct was to beat to Quarters, to load and run out his artillery, raise the anti-boarding nets, open the arms chests, and prepare his crew to defend the ship until they could get sail on her and escape the anchorage.

But so far Proteus had spent most of her time in "River Discipline" at the rawest basics-knots, tracing the rigging, the making or tending of sail, anchor and cable work, striking and raising top-masts, or hoisting boats off the cross-deck beams, lowering them overside, and then recovering them, along with some practical oar-work about the harbour or mooring. Until he had formed a full crew, he hadn't planned on telling-off gun crews, so only the seamen with previous experience were adept at gunnery practice. That would have been part of this new week's curriculum, he'd hoped. Now, though…

Short of rations, water, firewood, powder, and shot, Proteus had only one chance of being swept up in mutiny: flee at once, escape the Nore, and try to make good her lacks at another Royal dockyard!

"Mister Pendarves?" he shouted. "Mister Devereux?"

"Here, sir," the marine officer called back from the quarterdeck, already immaculately turned out in full kit.

"Turn out your Marines, sir, at once!" Lewrie snarled. "Armed, mind… to the teeth!"

"Captain?" the Bosun queried from below in the waist.

"Bosun, pipe 'All Hands.' Muster hands to man the capstan, then prepare to make sail!" Lewrie called down to him. "We're leaving harbour quick as we can. If you have to cut the bower and kedge away, so be it."

Pendarves's silver call began to peep and shrill, joined by the sounds from his junior, Towpenny's. Feet, shod or bare, began to drum on the oaken decks as the crew responded to their summons, racing from below to mill and bleat in confusion. Some knew the call and went to their proper stations at once. Others, the fresh-caught landsmen, had the civilian penchant for chattering about it before being collared by the yeomen or detail "captains"; berated, shoved, fisted, or "started" to their proper positions. Spry young topmen clambered aloft, up the rat-lines and out over the futtock shrouds to the fighting tops, beyond to the tops'l yards to scoot out precariously on the foot-ropes to loose harbour gaskets and brails to free sails.

Lewrie took time to have another gander round the anchorage. A cutter was stroking for Proteus 's larboard entry-port, filled with seamen from HMS Sandwich, whose rigging was filled with cheering sailors..

"Glass, Mister Nicholas," Lewrie demanded of the sweet-natured fourteen-year old midshipman who was near the binnacle cabinet darting eyes about in wide-eyed wonder, as Devereux's drummer began a long roll and a fife joined the urgent shrieks of the bosun's calls. The lad fetched him a telescope.

"Damme, not a night glass, Mister Nicholas!" Lewrie howled with impatience, after one look through the telescope, which, unlike the day glasses, turned everything upside-down and backwards.

"Here, sir?" Midshipman Elwes Fetched a substitute, having seen Nicholas's mistake and corrected it.

Better, Lewrie thought, taking a peek at the oncoming boat; well, not really! Damme… no midshipman steerin '… eight oarsmen, nigh on a dozen more aboard… armed!

He'd seen the spikey danger of erect musket barrels, the gleam of wan sunlight on fixed bayonets and bared cutlass blades.

"Mister Devereux! A file of your men to guard the entry-port!" Lewrie shouted. "No one from yonder cutter is t'be allowed aboard!"

"Aye, aye, sir. Corpr'l Plympton…?"

"Shoot if you have to," Lewrie fretted in a loud voice. There was a sentiment in the Navy that officers, captains especially, should ever strive to maintain the disposition of a stoic, no matter how dire the circumstances; that they should present the world a calm, unruffled demeanour, reassuring those under them to behave properly. Should a tidal wave arise to swamp their ship and take them all down to Perdition, a proper captain should pull out his pocket watch, stare at it glumly, and announce, "Ah, right on time!"

Not Alan Lewrie, unfortunately.

"Andrews, fetch me my hat," he bade to his Cox'n, who stood by the top of the after-companionway ladder to his private quarters. "My sword, and the double-barrel pistols too!"

"Aye, aye, sah!" Andrews said, hustling below at once.

The cutter was about a single musket shot away from them, coming fast. Lewrie turned to look inboard, at his crew on the gangways and the capstan.

"Ready, sir," Pendarves reported. "Hands at Stations for Leavin' Harbour.' "

"Very well, Mister Pendarves. Mister Ludlow? Set a buoy on the kedge anchor and haul us in to short stays on the bower. Stand ready to make sail."

"Aye, sir!" Ludlow barked. "Mister Peacham, free the kedge… buoy the bitter end o' the cable. Forrud, there! Fleet the messenger to the capstan… nippermen, ready? Breast to the bars…"

The younger lads brought the lighter, dry messenger cable out, took three-and-a-half turns about the capstan drum, and fastened the nippers to the much thicker anchor cable, which could never be reeled in directly. Bars were dropped into the pigeon-holes, and three men to each bar faced-to, placed their hands in front and below the bars, with thumbs out and up to avoid pinching, shoved their chests against the bars, and stood poised to begin shoving to wind the messenger in.

But that was all they did. That was as far as they went.

"Sir!" Midshipman Peacham yawped from back aft. i

Four men of the afterguard stood about the jear bitts, to which the light kedge cable was warped. Protecting it from being undone!

"Goddammit!" Lewrie growled. "Mister Langlie, go aft, assist Mister Peacham. Let go the kedge cable… buoy bedamned."

"Nossir," some loud naysayer shouted.

"What?" he screeched, in total, goggling disbelief.

"Nossir!" The Master Gunner, Mr. Handcocks, had dared to mount to the quarterdeck, with his mate, Mr. Morley, behind him, and the Yeoman of the Powder, that pale spook Kever, in tow. "We won't be sailin', sir."

"Damn you, Mister Handcocks, get your arse back on the gun-deck at once! There'll be no mutiny in this ship!"

"But there is, Captain," Handcocks disagreed, in almost a reasonable voice of amiable, idle disagreement. "We're decided. The Nore will support the grievances o' the Spithead lads."

"Mister Devereux, you will clear the quarterdeck," Lewrie said to his marine officer. "Place any hand who resists making sail under arrest. You can start with Mister Handcocks."

"Aye, sir," Devereux snapped, drawing his slim sword. "Corp'ral O'Neil, seize those men."

"Uh, wellsir… uh…" Corporal O'Neil waffled, still standing at attention with his musket by his side. "Don' reckon I kin do that, sir. Can't obey that order, sir."

"You… bloody… what?" It was Lieutenant Devereux's turn to yelp.

"Won't raise hands 'gainst no man, sir… not 'til terms're all agreed at Portsmouth. Maintain proper order, sir, but…" The Marine blushed, his tongue tangling over unfamiliar concepts, shrugging helplessly, looking to his squad of privates for eloquence.

' 'Hoy, the boat!" Corporal Plympton was shouting to the cutter as it came alongside, levelling his musket down at an extreme angle to aim at the men he thought were leaders. "Sheer off. You're not t'come aboard, d'ye hear me?"

"Sir, it'd be best were ya t'hand over the keys t'th' arms chests, 'fore someone gets hurt for no call, Captain, sir," Handcocks suggested, with his hand out, as if Lewrie had the precious keys on him.

"I'll be damned if I do, Mister Handcocks," Lewrie shot back at him. "Try and take 'em, and I'll make sure they hang you higher than Haman."

"Get below where you belong, you buggers!" Lt. Ludlow roared, stepping forward to cuff Mr. Morley and the wispy Kever, shoving them towards the larboard quarterdeck ladder. "Lay hands on me and you'll swing at Execution Dock. Don't!" he cautioned Handcocks, who had raised his fists and a belaying pin to defend his minions. "Do ye disobey, you're gallows-meat!" He lunged and shoved Handcocks back to join his followers, then drew his sword.

But there were other sailors dashing for the quarterdeck with belaying pins in their hands, boarding pikes stripped from the chained beckets about the base of the masts.

Some were surrounding the Marines by the entry-port, shouting in their ears, overbearing and daunting them, pressing so close they had no room in which to lower their muskets or draw their hangers.

"Andrews?" Lewrie bellowed, daring to glance aft to see if his Cox'n had fetched his weapons yet. "Damn!" He sagged.

Andrews was back on deck… so was Aspinall and his clerk, Mr. Padgett; all with their hands bound and clasped firmly in the grip of mutineers from the afterguard. Midshipman Peacham and Lt. Langlie were off to one side, closely surrounded by others, who still would not dare actually lay hands on them, but hemmed them in so snugly they had no room to defend themselves or take a single step either.

Pipes were shrilling urgently, panicky, and the gun-deck seethed with arguments pro and con, with the whines of the dazed and confused. And cheering, as the passengers from the cutter below the entry-port got aboard, despite Lewrie's orders, despite the musket-armed Marines, who were either disarmed by now or firmly aligned with the mutiny to begin with! Mustering to a new leader!

"Man the yards, lads!" one of the new-comers was crying, waving a cutlass in the air. "Reeve yard ropes aloft, d'y ehear there? Break out the battle flags from the taffrail lockers, you lot! Declare for the cause… be quick about it! Huzzah for sailors' rights! Huzzah!"

"Please, sirs…" Handcocks interrupted. "Do ya sheathe them swords, Mister Ludlow. LePten't Devereux, sir? Yer out-numbered… no call for violence. Ship's ours now, sirs, same'z t'others. Won't make no point. We've the artillery."

Handcocks gestured to the guns. One of those brutal 12-pounden carriage guns had been rolled back from its port, freed of its tackles, and secured to other deck ringbolts, aimed aft at the door to Lewrie's cabins. Lighter 2-pounder swivel guns sprouted from their stanchions along the gangways-pointed aft and inboard! Seamen stood by them, fondling cartridge bags of grape-shot and canister, which they had yet to ram down the muzzles; grape-shot and canister which could scour the quarterdeck or gun-deck cleaner than a billiards table was there any resistance or disruption. They didn't look particularly glad about it-but they were standing ready, with flintlocks fitted and the trigger cords in their hands!

"Damn you all!" Lewrie snarled, whirling about to face the men nearest him, the uneasy Marines who still held weapons, the sailors who sported belaying pins, crow-levers, or rammers from the quarterdeck guns, boarding pikes, marling-spikes, tar-paying loggerheads, or clasp knives. "Admiral Lord Howe is in Portsmouth to settle things. They may be settled as we speak. Come on, lads… don't do this! Any man proved a mutineer… in arms!… laying hands on superiors, threatening superiors, will hang when this is over! Drop your weapons, go back to your stations, and submit to orders."