And most aren 't, I take it, Lewrie could only silently conclude.
"Now though, Sergeant… how close might we be?" Alan pressed.
"They're low, sir," Skipwith pondered. "Havin' the Leftenant sent away… seein' how far the delegates'll go t'get what they wish too, sir? Told 'em, the Leftenant'd be ashamed of 'em did they keep on with this. Corp'ral Plympton an' me made sure the lads know they're runnin' outa chances t'make him proud… be proud of themselves, too, sir. They're close t'givin' it up, I think. Be hard to get anything done on the sly though, sir. Committee has said they won't let anyone assemble below, after Lights Out, anymore. Don't want any of what they call perjurers to the oath, sir."
"But you could still stir the pot, Sergeant?" Lewrie queried. "Into Sheerness… out to sea, either way, depending on when it comes, and the tide state… we'll need to be ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. Fiddle with your watch-and-quarter bill perhaps, isolate O'Neil and that Mollo, the others, in one watch…?"
"Half-and-half, sir," Skipwith suggested. "Then it's only three t'overpower on deck, and three t'jump below decks."
"Just as long as they don't get excited and start titterin' in their hands," Lewrie warned. "Give the game away, 'fore…"
"Aye, they're young'uns, I'll allow, sir," Skipwith gloomed, "but there's some with foreheads bigger'n a hen we could tell off at first," he quickly added, with a hopeful set of his shoulders. "And you know how it is, Captain, sir…" Skipwith leered. "As scared of a noose as most of'em are, now they see how things stand, p'raps they'll be more gulpy-nervous than titterin', an' the ringleaders'd not know the diff rence. And they are Marines, sir. Hard as recruitin' gets… desp'rate as we are for warm bodies… an' low-down, dumb, an' hopeless as most recruits are, sir… they are Marines. Means they stand head an' shoulders above yer av'rage tar or Redcoat when it comes to wits, sir. Beggin' yer pardon, o' course, Cap'um, sir."
"Well, there is that…" Lewrie felt he had to admit.
"Won't let you or the Leftenant down again, sir. Swear it. Now they see two other frigates managed to cut free… well, sir!"
"I'm certain they won't, Sergeant… Thankee," Lewrie replied, giving Skipwith's shoulder a grateful squeeze. "You carry on with the undermining and shuffling, and I'll search us out the opportunity. Do you tell 'em I'll move Heaven and Earth to get their officer back."
"Aye, sir, I'll pass that along, sir!"
Pleasin', Lewrie felt like humming to himself as he resumed his strolling, all but strutting with delight; it's comin' together, maybe as soon as tonight, once it's dark as a boot? Sheerness, or seaward, that's the question. Seaward, I'd prefer, but… inshore might have to suit. Look up Mr. Wyman, the middies… have 'em in for dinner, aha! Let 'em know we can now count on the Marines, make a final list of friends or foes… Hell's Tinny Little Bells! As downcast, as shit-scared! as most of the people look this mornin', we justmight could pull it off tonight/ Backed into a corner, damned by everyone from Land's End to John O' Groats… time runnin' out on 'em… one word'd send 'em to their knees in gratitude, most-like. We could…
Cheering interrupted him, making him snarl petulantly; a reedy, thin distant cheering from down the line of anchored ships that began at the far end and swelled towards Proteus like the onset of a gale. He went to the bulwarks to see what nonsense had them going this time. Another parade of boats and bands?
"Oh, Christ!" he gasped, espying a cloud of sail offshore. "A glass! Now!" he bade, turning his head to see Midshipman Sevier near the binnacle cabinet. "My glass, Mister Sevier, quickly!"
Once he had it in his hand, he slung it over his shoulder like a carbine and scampered into the larboard mizzenmast shrouds 'til he was above the cat-harpings near the fighting-top.
Dutch… French, he fretted, opening the tube out of its full extent. Panting a bit too, and damning the enforced idlness of these last few days; surely it wasn't his fault that a brief ascent winded him! There! Enemy ships, come from the Texel before Admiral Duncan could take up his blockade… the van division of a feared invasion?
No, they were beam-reaching off a Northerly, which would blow a "dead-muzzier" for the Texel 's narrow North shore exit, so they couldn't be the Dutch Fleet.
French then? No again, he grumbled. They'd have had to come up-Channel, first, weather the Straits of Dover, the Downs, and Goodwin Sands.
Channel Fleet, itself, come to shoot the Nore ships into submission? Well, maybe, but the tail-end ships seemed as if they'd come from the North, scudding off the Northerly winds before they wheeled about inline-ahead to follow the others which were coming in for the Queen's Channel and the outer anchorage on a soldier's wind.
" Duncan!" he cried with glee. "The North Sea Fleet, ordered to the Nore to put the mutiny down! Someone found his nutmegs, at last! Now we'll see something, by God!"
He lifted his glass again, leaning back into the shrouds, with one arm cocked through the rat-lines, smug with victory, and pitying the poor fools who were cheering the sight of the arriving ships. In a half-hour, when they opened their gun-ports and ran out their batteries, they'd be laughing out the other side of their necks!
"Ah…" He shuddered.
Perhaps not.
For atop the on-coming line-of-battle ships' foremasts, he saw a dread, red plainness to the flags they flew. No royal cantons, no cross of St. George or St. Andrew…
Plain, stark red battle flags-mutiny flags!
Aye, the North Sea Fleet had arrived. In open rebellion!
CHAPTER THIRTY
A bloody, unmitigated damned disaster!" Lewrie fumed, pacing furiously from starboard to larboard in the day-cabin of his quarters, while his remaining officers and midshipmen stood or sat.
"Enough to make a man weep, sir," Mr. Winwood spat, looking as close as he'd ever come to letting his despair overpower him. "Thirteen sail of the line they have now. Nigh on ten thousand seamen and marines in rebellion. Encouraged…" he trailed off in a sigh.
"There's been battles won with less," Midshipman Catterall had the lack of tact to say almost under his breath, and even Mr. Adair's warning elbow in his ribs only caused him to grunt and glower back in ill humor. He was senior midshipman, two years older than Adair, and the cock of the orlop cockpit; ever the nudger, not the nudgee:
"Oh, yes, there have been, Mister Catterall," Lewrie sniped back. "Thank you so much for bringing that historical fact to our attention!"
"Uhm, sorry sir," Catterall reddened, trying to pull his head in like a tortoise. He found something intricate in the Turkey carpet's design to be fascinated by.
The heart of Admiral Duncan's North Sea Fleet, the bulk of his two-decker, 64-gun warships-Montagu, Belliqueux, Repulse, Standard, Lion, and Nassau, along with the Inspector sloop and the fireship Comet__had come in around 5:00 p.m. the previous afternoon. Captain William Bligh's HMS Director had been part of that fleet, but had mutinied whilst anchored at the Nore, so no one expected that Admiral Duncan had much left to work with, if he still intended to blockade the Texel channels. If it came to a fight with Channel Fleet to put down this mutiny-if one could still call it a strictly naval mutiny and not a burgeoning revolution-it would be a close-run thing, even if Channel Fleet owned larger, more powerful 74s, 80s, and ships of the 1st and 2nd Rate, compared to the weaker, shallower draught 64s from Great Yarmouth, more useful near the Dutch shoals.