Dewey Lambdin - King`s Captain

"Sorry, sir… can't do that just yet." Handcocks disputed in a sad tone. "Not 'til word comes from Portsmouth. Not 'til all grievances're satisfied. What they demand, we want, too, Captain, sir. And we won't obey orders t'sail. Do we not take hands with the other lads, well… there's a chance we won't be included in the settlement, d'ye see? Like it only applies t'them? Not us?"

"Oh, don't be a complete fool, Mister Handcocks!" Lewrie sneered. " Portsmouth, Plymouth… that's half the Fleet in home waters. Don't you think Admiralty needs this over, quick as dammit? All of it over? Of course it'll be Navy-wide!"

If they've any bloody sense, he thought, hoping he wasn't lying.

"Wouldn't be so sure o' that, lads!" the well-armed stranger from the cutter shouted, barging his way through the press to confront Lewrie, with his drawn cutlass in his hand and a brace of pistols in his waistband. "Cheese-parin' bastards'd starve us t'death 'fore we see a shillin' more'n necessary. Congratulations, mates! You stood up an' took her like real men, soon'z ya saw th' red banners, an' proved faithful t'th' cause!" he orated, flinging his arms about to brandish his sword, bellowing to be !heard. "Huzzah, brother seamen! Cheer, now, lads! Hip-hip-hooray!"

They did, rather more lustily than Lewrie expected; though there were an encouraging number who only went through the motions unwilling.

Sadly, though, he also noted more than a minority eagerly at the halliards, lowering the Red Ensign to replace it with the plain battle flag, or out on the course-yards' tips, reeving ropes… to which hanging nooses could quickly be bent!

"Now then, brothers…!" the squat stranger cajoled.

"Now then," Lewrie countered quickly, "you can get your arse off my bloody quarterdeck. And put that damn' cutlass away 'fore you hurt yourself."

"Oh, I'll sheathe, sir," the stranger rasped, looking sly. "Do these tyrant officers sheathe alike. I'll let 'em keep 'em, for now…"

"How bloody gracious of you!" Lewrie sneered, so adrip with acid that most within earshot were forced to laugh.

"Aye, 'long'z they stow 'em below in their cabins an' appear on deck unarmed, sir. You're the Captain, I take it, sir? Here, see me do it, sir; I'm sheatin' my cutlass now. An' I'm… requestin'… yer officers do the same?"

Lewrie looked at Ludlow and Devereux. They were glaring, panting with anger and outrage. Ludlow looked glazed-over, ready to lash out; Devereux's slyer eyes were calm, half-slitted, darting about for an opening or an advantage. He'd be the more scientific fighter, did that come, the more dangerous. Ludlow, though, was about to go off at half-cock, draw blood out of rage, and that'd…!

"Mister Ludlow," Lewrie said, in a captain's proper stoic tone, "in the face of overwhelming opposition, I request that you put your sword away. As the Master Gunner said, there is no call for you to perish without a chance to alter the situation. Or aggravate it?" he hinted. "Lieutenant Devereux, my pardons, sir, but I have to ask the same of you. I would not have you fall needlessly, sir."

"Very well, Captain." Devereux sighed, sounding disappointed, as he released the watch-spring tension of his body with an exhalation that sounded like a deflating pig-bladder, rose an inch or so from the taut crouch he'd held, and flourished his sword in a circle before he sheathed it, gaining a bit of his own back by making the nearer mutineers flinch from its wickedly sharp tip.

"Mister Ludlow?" Lewrie was forced to insist.

"Gahh!" Ludlow spat, making a chopping motion with his sword out of sheer frustration. "Damn you all! Yer scum… fuckin' scum! Damn' fools! I'll see you all in chains; I'll break the lot of you! Signed your death warrants, ya have, every last mother's son!"

But Ludlow raised his scabbard and clumsily stabbed at it, to jab his sword-tip into it and ram it home. He glared at Lewrie, with ultimate scorn and bloody murder on his phyz!

"Never thought I'd see the day a Royal Navy captain'd just give up his ship at the first whim o' cut-throats an' trash!" Ludlow snarled, as he turned away to stomp his way below, shoving the close press apart with his shoulders, glaring defiance, and muttering dire imprecations.

"See how th' proud're brought low, lads, an' tyrants banished!" the stranger hooted. " 'Least yer captain's sensible."

"Fuck you, too!" Lewrie hissed back with an evil grin.

"Thomas McCann, sir. Able Seaman. An' you're Captain Lewrie."

"I am. McCann," Lewrie grudgingly allowed, taut-lipped.

"Heard o' ye, we have," McCann leered. "Called 'the Ram-Cat' I heard-tell. Fightin captain. Not so cruel an' high-nose proud'z some. Though, ye all are. Firm but fair, hah! Don't mean dis-respect, sir…"

"Do you not, McCann?" Alan scoffed. "Does this not?"

"Delegates've decided, sir," McCann ploughed on, oblivious to Lewrie's scorn. "Officers behave, they won't be discomfited. Ship's discipline t'be maintained. Officers, warrants, mates, an' midshipmen t'be obeyed 'long as it's run-o'-th'-mill duties. Barrin' th' last few minutes, sir, no man'll raise a hand 'gainst any superior nor show any signs o' disrespect. Belong-in's t'be safe, even personal pistols an' swords…'long as they're below an' unloaded. We give ye a promise on that. 'Cept, we'll turn out the man-killers an' tyrants as soon as we name 'em."

"How reassuring," Alan drawled, with one brow up.

"Just 'til word comes from Portsmouth that them bloodsuckers at Admiralty's declared all our demands're met, sir," McCann ranted, with an odd look to his eyes. "That all brother seamen been victorious, do ye see. As a caution, like… so none o' us're ordered t'fight brother sailors at Spithead or Plymouth an' we know for certain we're included in th' terms an' them bastards won't betray us. Our cause is just, I tell ye! Their grievances're ours too!" McCann all but raved.

Christ, I'm dealing with a bloody lunatick! Lewrie realised.

"So's we don't get betrayed like them Cullodens!" someone back in the crowd crowed. "Pay, more pay!" howled another. "Fairer share o' prize-money!" suggested another. "Proper rations an' honest weights… shore leave whene'er we wish… bigger rum ration!" they gabbled.

"Turn out th' villains put over us… like Ludlow!"

"Lash 'em bloody, then turn 'em out!"

It dissolved into a bedlam of things they wanted, their shouts blending into a brutish cacophony, even less musical then the baying of wolves, 'til their inchoate roars became a general, lusty cheering. It had to peter out, after a while, and it did, though McCann and several others pumped their arms like orchestra leaders to sustain it.

"Now, sir…" McCann leered. "I'll be havin' th' keys to th' arms chests."

Lewrie looked at him askance, cocking his head to one side. He looked aloft at those new flags flying from every mast, as if bemused. He took time to study the gloss of his boots, clasped his hands behind his back…

"No," he said at last. "I don't think so."

"Now, lookee here, sir, don't ye…!" McCann blustered.

"Didn't you just say that no violence would be offered, McCann?" Lewrie said, dead-level serious. "That means the crew has no need for weapons, doesn't it. Did you not say that proper order and discipline, and respect for officers, will be maintained? In normal usage, the arms chests would be locked anyway. Therefore… unless you break your word and lay hands on me, rifle my possessions, or put a knife to my throat, the keys will stay in my possession. You claim to hold Proteus already. Therefore you don't need weapons. No, sir, I refuse to hand the keys over to you. Totally."

"But…" McCann blubbered, his eyes almost crossed in concentration, sputtering and bending to mutter with his fellow mutineers, to try and find some loophole in the logic of Lewrie's statement, or make sense of such high-flown, "break-teeth" speech. Instead, he turned on Handcocks, Morley, and Kever, urging them to do something.

"Damme, was I in Proteus, I'd have th' arms chest keys!" MtCann screeched, then stomped off towards the entry-port, dragging his coterie of fellow mutineers with him, glowering, cursing, and muttering much as Lt. Ludlow had just moments before!

"We're allowed to carry on with a normal ship's work day, Mister Handcocks?" Lewrie demanded of his chief mutineer.

"Well… aye, sir." Handcocks blushed, looking cutty-eyed.

"I take it you think you are now in command of Proteus?" Lewrie scoffed. "You will allow me to resume my hearing on Landsman Haslip? We may man the boats and ferry supplies from shore… sir?"

"Uhm… let me, ask, Captain, sir," Handcocks mumbled, slinking off \ to join the group of Sandwiches by the entry-port, who were still deep in a frustrated conversation over the keys.

"Mister Coote, you here, sir?" Lewrie asked, turning about.

"Aye, sir," a shaken Coote replied. "I s'pose."

"Stand ready to go ashore. Mister Langlie? With Lieutenant Ludlow off the quarterdeck, do you take charge of the Forenoon Watch. Tell-off men to assist the Purser ashore. Mister Pendarves?" Lewrie bellowed down to the gun-deck. "Assemble working parties to ferry stores offshore!"

"Aye, aye, sir!" Pendarves shouted back, looking about as forlorn as a landed trout and eager for a command from a proper authority.

"Now look here, sir…!" McCann snapped, returning, reinforced by his own followers from Sandwich and the Proteus mutineer leaders.

"Proteus must be stocked with four months' supplies for sea," Lewrie informed him soberly. "We're short of salt-meat, flour, biscuit, small beer, rum, wine, cheeses, dried peas, portable soup… presently she has but half the powder and shot required. Now, sir… do you say you're loyal Britons, mutinying for your grievances… and not traitorous rebels in the pay of foreign foes! Then readying this ship for sea, does the mutiny end and we're ordered out to fight the Dutch, or the French, is vital. A normal ship's routine, which you just said you would not interfere with? Surely, even you can see that."

"Gawd, I wish…!" McCann gargled, raising a fist. "Ye an' yer sort, yer all alike! Thinkin' yer so damn' clever an' smug! I…!"

"Short of rations, powder and shot, mate," Bales hinted, from the rear of the pack, elbowing and sidling forward to stand alongside McCann. "Do they cut us off from the warehouses in Sheerness, what'll we do then? Think on't. What'll we eat 'til it's settled?"

"Th' people're for us! Th' common folk'd not let 'em!" McCann countered, eyes bulging with fervour. "Th' high an' mighty'll tremble in their beds do they even try t'cut us off! The whole nation arise…!"

"Aye, though… we should stock her, gunn'1-deep." The Gunner sighed. "Just in case, like."

"Right, then!" McCann sneered, sensing another defeat within a five-minute span. "Go 'head an' stock her. But no midshipmen, none o' their brutal sort're t'work th' boats. Senior hands. Loyal men on th' tillers an' oars… brothers t'th' cause. No escape for th' weak, them as won't swear t'uphold th' cause neither."

"Very good then." Lewrie nodded, striving to not look as glad as he felt that he was dealing with a witless escapee from Bedlam. "I assume normal duties also encompasses my hearing for Landsman Haslip? Mister Pendarves! Muster boat-crews! We will go below…"

"Nossir, ye won't!" McCann barked. "We'll do it! Man's a thief! Stole from brother sailors, so he'll get sailors' justice! An' no boat-crews t'go ashore 'til ye've elected yer delegates, Handcocks… picked yer committee 'board ship for runnin' her, an' delegates t'th' committee 'board Sandwich . " He nudged Handcocks under the ribs. "An' weed out them as'd cozen ye… Have ev'ry man-jack in an' make 'em swear on a Bible t'be loyal or else."