"Hoy, where they be takin' us then?" Old Trollop barked, getting to her feet in a huff. "Dear God, not t'France, surely!"
"No, just a bit across the Great Nore," Lewrie patiently explained, putting on a sad smile to calm her. "Recall what that delegate said… about blockading London? They're shifting ships so they have a line right across the Thames approaches. Further apart, d'ye see…"
Further out from each other, he schemed hopefully, where they'd have to guess the range and would have to be quick off the mark to hit Proteus with their first un-organised broadsides, before she got far enough away to show them a clean pair of heels! Far enough that it would take too long for a re-enforcing boarding party to come help their mutineers, should they overpower them? Aha!
"We didn't want no part o' this, Cap'um, sir!" Nancy insisted. "Kept us aboard, press-ganged! Wasn't our doin'! You could speak up for us, couldn't ye, Cap'um Lewrie?"
"Kept us broke an' poor as them, th' shitten cheats!" one more spoke up sarcastically, one of the more pragmatic variety. "Here! We could go 'board them new ships, 'long as this'n writes a letter to th' magistrates, tellin' 'em we're innocent. 'Long as we're kept out here, why can't we turn a shillin'r two, I ask ye? We gotta eat!"
"No visiting 'tween ships," Lewrie pointed out quickly. "That's one of their rules. Besides… the way I hear it told, the North Sea ships came here to get paid, 'cause they're stone-broke too!"
"Ya mean they're 'skint' too?" Nancy sneered. "Gawd, I just knew it. E'en with our gowns on, we're just fucked, is all."
"Wouldn't be th' first time that 'appened, Nancy," Old Trollop hooted. "Wi' half our trade 'knee-tremblers' in an alley! Cheap shits, too cheese-parin' t'rent a room, an' all that tar an' splinters from crates'n barrels on me bum, come mornin'…"
No, he didn't particularly wish to picture that-ever!
"Gawd, whatever'll we do then?" Lissome Daughter blubbed, tears streaking her face. "Hung or transported fer life. Oh, we're jus' whores, not like respectable folk, so they won't care if they string us up by th' dozen! After we done so much fer th' Navy too!"
"You can help me," Lewrie suggested, "help me take the ship."
"Wot?"
"Do something else for the Navy, ladies," Lewrie muttered covertly, suddenly inspired as he paced out between them. "You know who the real hard-bitten mutineers are as good as us. You live a rough life… cheats who won't pay first, pimps trying to recruit you, and take all your earnings… others of your sort who'd fight you for the good corners, the better taverns, right? Don't you have to carry some… uhm, 'persuaders,' for your own protection?"
Aye, they allowed-yes, they did. Coshes, leather sacks full of lead balls, Dago or Spanish knives that flipped open, or wickedly sharp shaving razors. Lissome Daughter brought forth a pair of hatpins and rewarded him with a happy nod of understanding. Lewrie rewarded her with a beamish leer and a sly-boots chuckle. Lissome Daughter sprang to her feet and walked right up to him, all smiles.
"Lor', Cap'um Lewrie, sir!" she gushed, throwing her arms about him, going on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. "Feller smart'z you, a fine gentleman, I just knew you'd find a way t'save us!"
"Well, thankee, uhm… don't b'lieve I ever caught your name…?" Lewrie blushed, quite happy to return her warm, promising embrace.
"Sally Blue, sir," she giggled, swaying back and forth as if it was a dance. "Sally fer me name… an' Blue fer me eyes."
"Well, uhm… well, pleased to make your acquaintance, Mistress. Sally Blue, rather. Well, uhm…" he flustered, wishing he was alone with her, and the rest shooed out to commit mayhem that instant. She took the hint and flounced quite coquettishly back to her wine glass, with a practiced but fetching gleam in those blue eyes of hers.
"Now give 'im 'is bloody watch'n chain back, Sally," Mistress Nancy wryly sniggered. "Gawd! Men's brains…!" They all shrieked.
All Lewrie could do was shrug haplessly as Sally Blue returned his watch to him. He felt like patting himself down, just to see what else her clever fingers had pilfered. The coy little minx!
"So yer sayin'…" Miss Nancy puzzled, after draining off her wine and beckoning Aspinall for a refill. "With us, you'd have more'n enough t'overpower Bales an' his lot, that right?"
"Assumin' they keep their brains where it seems I keep mine," Lewrie confessed with a disarming, sheepish grin, "aye."
"So do we come over all lovey-dovey an' swoggle 'em, you'd clap 'em in irons an' take your ship back," the buxom lass conspired. "Keep some of 'em below… an' busy long 'nough…"
"Exactly, Nancy. To a Tee." Lewrie smiled.
"Then ya put us ashore, 'cause we ain't gonna stay out here not a minute after," Nancy declared for them all, turning to see them agree with her, "not with ev'ry hand turned against us if we stay longer than we have to."
"We take her back, Nancy," Lewrie promised. "I'll see that you all get ashore and back to your own beds. Back to making money. With a letter to Admiral Buckner, praising you for what you did for me, with all your names on it. Why, you might even be called heroines! Get your names in the paper, thanks of the Admiralty, the King…"
That would mean sailing in towards Sheerness. He regretted it, but if that's what he had to do to gain allies…
"Fiddler's Pay," Old Trollop snorted in derision. "Thanks an' wine, an' then… get out th' door. Hmmph!"
"Aye, Cap'um Lewrie…" Nancy smirked at him. "That's all well an' good, but… times is hard, an' money's short. So… what's in it for us?"
Uk-ohl He flinched.
The mutinous ships at the Nore were now arrayed in a single long line, right across the navigable waters of Queen's Channel and Thamesmouth, with a half-mile separation between ships. Proteus hadn't gone very far, and was in fact now directly North of Minster and Cheyney Rock Oyster Ground; and when the ebb ran, she streamed back from her anchor into the Queen's Channel, into deep water, with her stern half facing the inviting escape route into the North Sea. Several smaller warships patrolled the inner and outer face of that barricade to stop and inspect the papers and cargoes of every vessel that tried to sail up or down the great river. So far, McCann's ravings hadn't come true; no provisions from civilian merchantmen had been removed and shared out to those ships short of supplies. Of course, Lewrie was now beginning to understand, just like there were tyrants, and then there were tyrants, there were delegates, and then there were delegates, and McCann didn't speak for them all-thank God.
Proteus began her ship's routine at daybreak, with the hands up to scrub decks and stow bedding. There would be no more drills though; Bales had had enough of those and was leery of any more sail-making.
After the decks were spotlessly sanded and sluiced to pristine white, perhaps as a way to regain the crew's lost enthusiasm for the evolving mutiny, Seaman Bales decreed a day of "Rope-Yarn" sloth and led them into the requisite morning "three hearty cheers" before dismissing them for their breakfasts and got back what sounded a bit like proper йlan in their open-throated response.
"Rope-Yahn, sah." Andrews smiled, ducking back into the cabins. "Evahbody gon' caulk or idle."
"Aha," Lewrie sighed, looking glum. It was perfect, the enforced half-mile separation, the crew restive and gnawing on their worries, and now idled for the day. Plenty of reason for any sharp-eyed watcher to nod off and let his guard down, plenty of time for his new "vanguard" of prostitutes to insinuate themselves with the diehards and disarm them… one way or another. He looked at Wyman, Winwood, and his midshipmen, who were aft to breakfast with him. There would never be a better chance not in a month of Sundays, yet…
He fretted his mouth, gnawed at his lips in indecisiveness. It could still fail, go horribly wrong, and more innocent men be killed or injured, more loyal hands hurt and let down by a second failure. After scheming for so long, feverish for an opening, if they tried again and were beaten again, there'd never be another hope of salving Proteus.
What they pay detached captains for, he writhed in silent agony; be king and foreign minister and God all rolled up into one, with yer head on the choppin' block if you 're wrong! Come on, ya damn' fool! A bit o' backbone,.. a pinch o' wits! Say something. They're waitin'.
"Forenoon… or wait 'til the First Dog," Lewrie muttered just to fill the echoing void, to temporise a bit more while his creaky wit churned. "Try to sail past the guns of the rest… with frigates and a sloop of war patrolling inshore? I fear it'll have to be mid-morning, gentlemen. No chance to retrieve Lieutenant Devereux and Mister Langlie 'til this is done and we can put back in for 'em."
"But do we proceed, sir?" Lt. Wyman dared press.
"Aye, we do." Lewrie sighed, feeling like it was wrung from him on an inquisitor's rack. "Alert Sergeant Skipwith and Mistress Nancy. Charge your pistols and hide them on your persons. Swords might alert them. Let's say, uhm… six bells of the Forenoon. With a Rope-Yarn Day, they'll begin queuing up forrud before the rum-cask comes up in no particular order. With nothing more'n grog on their minds, we must hope. Six Bells, gentlemen. Aye… let's proceed with it."
Gawd! he shivered as they departed, flopping half-limp into his desk chair; I'm trustin' to luck, Marines who can play-act innocent, and a pack o' whores! But he opened the mahogany box on the desktop and extracted two long-barreled, single-shot pistols to clean them and charge them, and check their flints and mechanisms. Andrews set to at his second set of double-barrel Mantons, and Aspinall and Padgett got busy with Padgett's two small, single-barrel pocket pistols.
"You hear me shout, Andrews, you come running with my hanger," Lewrie bade him. "Your spare cutlass, since you know how to use it. I will trust you, Aspinall, to guard my back with one pistol, and you to my other hand, Mister Padgett. Close-in belly shots, no tricky work."
"Aye, sir." Padgett nodded in his lugubrious, quiet way, with a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead already and his long, clerkish, ink-stained fingers juddering a little in fearful foreboding.
Daft! Lewrie deemed it; bloody, ragin' daft! Still, by 11:00 a.m. there'd be some fewer mutineers aboard. Mr. Handcocks and Morley would be aboard Sandwich for the daily wrangle, and they'd take a boat-crew with them, about half of those the diehards. Six or seven less for them to overpower, so… Christ, so hellish daft!
Half-hour to go to the appointed time for the uprising. Lewrie posing at music by the taffrails, since it was a dry day with no rain, some sunshine, and a bit of wind. Wind square out of the North, about perfect for a ship bound out so she could beam-reach at first to deep water, then haul off to Large or Fair down the Queen's Channel. Bosun Pendarves had been told off to take and hold the forecastle with some few trusty men, to cut the anchor cable and hoist the inner and outer jibs, so Proteus would bear off to her larboard, South-facing side, and drift. Mr. Towpenny and a few more would hoist the spanker from the mizzen to get some drive on her. Let fall the fore and main-course to hang loose-braced and baggy for speed and not worry about the tops'ls or t'gallants 'til they'd gotten the last of the mutineers subdued.
With a brace of long-barrel pistols shoved down into the back of his breeches under his uniform coat, sitting on the flag lockers wasn't the most comfortable thing he'd ever done, as he tootled away on that tin-whistle of his. Louder than his usual wont, to sound casual, and harmless. "Derry Hornpipe," "Portsmouth Lass," "Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day"… he ran through his repertoire (and a damn' thin'un it was!) of the old, old airs, the Celtic, Gaelic, West Country tunes he knew.
Lt. Wyman, as jittery as a whore at a christening, sawed away on his violin, with its case ajar at his feet, where he'd concealed a brace of his own pistols in addition to the pair he'd secreted under his own coat. He struggled in mid-saw, uttering a shuddery, "Uh-oh!" for approaching them on the quarterdeck were a clutch of Irish hands, and Lewrie wondered if a cry of, "I didn't do it!" might help, as his tootling faltered to a stop.
"Beggin' yer pardon, sir," Desmond said, doffing his hat and making a short bow. "Know we ain't t'be on th' quarterdeck without an off cer's leave, sir, but… d'ye know a slip jig, sir?"
They haven't tumbled to it yet, thankee Jesus! Lewrie shivered.
"A slip jig?" he managed to enquire with forced cheer.
"Aye, sir… slip jig or hop jig, they calls 'em. English don't allow our music played back home, sir, but there's times we sneak away an' play 'em still… in a remote shebeen. Here's one, sir, by your leave?" Desmond smiled, producing his lap-pipes. Furfy was with him, along with Ahern, Kavanaugh, and Cahill, and they took seats flat on the deck. The ship's lamed fiddler joined them. "One o' th' easier ones t'play, sir… called 'Will You Come Down t'Limerick.' You'll master th' tune easy, Cap'um, sir… Mister Wyman, sir."
It was a catchy tune, though a difficult one to follow, for the tempo changed several times, throwing Lewrie and Wyman off, so for the first few minutes they sat with their hands in their laps.
"You try her now, sir," Desmond urged, as Furfy swayed and beat the time on his meaty thighs, and the other three began to dance stiff-armed but footloose. They were beginning to gather a crowd of sailors who had nothing better to do on a Rope-Yarn Day and temporarily allowed access to the quarterdeck by their leaders.
Lewrie shared a sick look with Wyman as they lifted their instruments, thinking they were exposed and a step away from being seized and disarmed. And, for the short meantime, mocked and derided!
"A fine auld air, sir," Desmond rhapsodised, as he pumped away with his elbow to stoke the uillean pipes in his lap, keyboarding the notes. "Suitin' for lads who cling to th' auld ways an' legends. An' tales o' th' auld gods, sir," Desmond added, when he saw that his hint wasn't broad enough. "Seen selkies for real, have ye, Cap'um Lewrie? Arra, yer a blessed man, sir. An banshees in th' riggin', croonin' th' poor lad a keen, ah?"
"Aye, pretty much like that," Lewrie replied, hiding his gasp, still not knowing if he was being twitted or re-enforced.
"For th' auld god who can't be named, sir… and for his ship," Desmond muttered with a proud smile and an affirmative nod of his head. "Do ye let us play an' sing our auld songs, sir, and we're yours. You say th' word, Cap'um, an' we'll be like th' 'Minstrel Boy' I spoke t'ye of… 'our swords at least thy right shall guard… an' one poor harp t'praise ye.' " Desmond shrugged modestly about his talents.
