Mutiny (11 page)
The boatswain had Kydd
tumbling into the launch with a full crew of oarsmen. This was the biggest boat
aboard, and he took the tiller knowing that his task would be to stream the
kedge to its full extent. 'Out oars, give way together,' he growled, and began
a sweep about to pass round Bacchante's stern to the kedge anchor stowage, atop
the sheet anchor.
'Belay that!' The boatswain's bellow
sounded above. 'We takes th' stream killick!' The stream anchor was ten
hundredweight of iron, more than double the sinking weight of the kedge, and
would bite well in the shifting sandy sea-bed. Kydd shoved over the tiller to
come up on the stream anchor. Already seamen were at work on the outside stowage,
bending on a fore pendant-tackle to take the weight of the big anchor while
casting off the sea lashings.
'Oars,' Kydd ordered.
There was no point in closing until they were ready aboard the ship. A yardarm
stay tackle was secured to a ring stopper and shank bridle, and the tackles
were eased off until the anchor was ready to be got off the bows — Kydd kept a
comfortable distance while the weight was taken up.
He watched while a
capstan bar was fetched and given to a brawny fo'c'sleman on the foredeck. When
the big anchor rose to life, he plied it to pry the fluke clear of the
timberhead, pivoting the moving anchor around the other fluke resting on the
bill-board.
This was the moment Kydd had been
waiting for. The massive anchor now lay suspended and clear of the ship's side,
the imperfections and hammer-marks of the forge visible in the black iron
swaying so close above him. He stood in the sternsheets, bringing the boat
carefully closer and to seaward. 'Cast y'r bight!' A stout painter was passed
around the throat at the base of the anchor, and paid out. Kydd's arm shot up
as a signal, and the anchor started to dip into the sea, sliding in until only
the broad wooden stock and ring showed. Another painter secured on the shank
was quickly brought into the boat, and the most difficult part of the exercise
approached.
Eased down, the anchor
disappeared into the sea, but the first painter was heaved up on the opposite
side of the boat. 'Right glad it ain't a bower,' muttered one seaman — a bower
anchor was four times the size and another boat and sweaty labour indeed would
have been needed to handle it.
The shank painter
brought the stock of the anchor close and, working together, the two lines
eventually persuaded the anchor to come to rest beneath the boat, hauled
athwart the bottom, only the shank above water. The launch setded low in the
water under the weight, the painters were secured to each other and they were
ready.
Kydd again held up his
arm, and the fall of the stay tackle was eased away until the boat had the full
weight. Kydd's eyes darted round the boat — the dripping lines seemed in order,
straining over the gunwales. He slid out his knife and, with a sailor gripping
his belt, leaned far out and down into the water to get at the seizing of the
suspending hawser. A vigorous sawing, and the thick rope fell free.
The deep-laden boat
moved sluggishly; Kydd's men tugged at the oars with ponderous results. The sun
was now uncomfortably high. They passed heavily down the length of the ship and,
as they reached the stern, the end of a deep-sea lead line was thrown to them.
This would be their measure of where to let the anchor go, and Kydd cleared it
watchfully over the transom as they crabbed their way through the wind and
waves.
He glanced back. A
cable was being lowered through the mullioned windows of the captain's cabin
into the smaller cutter; no doubt it would pass into the ship in a direct line
to the lower capstan. That way there would be opportunity to man the capstans
on both decks, doubling the force.
The cutter made good
progress, and by the time the lead-line suddenly tautened, the cable was on
hand, fully extended and ready to seize to the big forged-iron ring of the
anchor. There was no need to wait for a signal from the ship: Kydd took up a
boarding axe, and brought it down on the painters straining across the boat.
The severed ropes
whipped away and, with a mighty bounce of the boat at the relieved buoyancy,
the anchor plunged down. Now it was the turn of others — Kydd knew that the
capstans would be manned by every possible soul. Bleakly he reminded himself
of the penalties if they could not win the ship back to deep water.
Laying on their oars, the aching men in
the launch waited and watched. The martial sounds of fife and drum sounded
faindy; every effort was being made to whip them into a frenzy of effort. Time
wore on, but Bacchante was not advancing to her anchor. Uneasily, Kydd threw a
glance at the shore. The skyline was reassuringly innocent, but for how long?
The sun beat down. A
peculiar smell - goats, dryness, sand — came irregularly on the light breeze
that fluffed the sea into playful wavelets. It was peaceful in the boat, which
was hardly moving in the slight sea, just the odd creak and chuckle of water.
The recall came after
another twenty minutes. Kydd did not envy the captain in his decision - the
ship was not moving. The next act would be to start water casks over the side,
perhaps even the guns. And that would certainly mean the end of their mission,
even if the move was successful.
Coming aboard again,
Kydd could feel the tension. The captain was in earnest discussion with his
officers on the quarterdeck. Renzi was there also; he regarded Kydd gravely,
then cocked an eye at the shore. Kydd's saw that the low scrubby dunes were now
stippled with figures.
'Moors — the Bedoo of the desert,'
Renzi murmured, as Kydd took in the exotic scene; camels, strings of veiled
Arabs still as statues, staring at the ship and more arriving.
Forward, men were
grouping nervously. Everyone knew the consequences of being taken on the
Barbary Coast. Renzi pursed his lips. 'It's not the Bedoo that should concern
us,' he muttered. 'They can't get to us without boats. But your Moorish
corsair, when he has his friends, and they make a sally together . . .'
The worried knot of
officers around the captain seemed to come to a decision. Stepping clear of
them, the boatswain lifted his call, but thought better of it, merely summoning
the captain of the hold, a senior petty officer. 'Start all th' water over the
side,' he ordered. Tons of fresh water gurgled into the scuppers from the
massive leaguer casks swayed up from the hold.
'Rig guns to jettison.' Murmuring from
forward was now punctuated with protests, angry shouts following the gunner's party
as they moved to each gun, knocking free the cap-squares holding the trunnion
to the carriage and transferring the training tackle to the eyebolt above the
gunport. Now it only needed men hauling on the side-tackles and, with
handspikes levering, the freed guns would tumble into the sea — and they would
be defenceless.
A shout from a
sharp-eyed sailor, who had seen something above the dunes along the coast,
stopped progress. It rounded the point and hove to several miles off; twin
lateen sails and a long, low hull gave no room for conjecture. 'We're dished,'
said Kydd, in a low voice. 'There'll be others, and when they feel brave enough
they'll fall on us.' Another vessel, and then another hauled into view.
The
captain's face was set and pale as he paced. The master went to him
diffidently, touching his hat. 'Sir, the ship settles in th' sand — if it gets
a grip even b' inches, the barky'll leave her bones here.' He hesitated. 'I saw
how Blonde frigate won free o' the Shipwash.'
'Go
on.'
'They loose all sail, but braces to
bring all aback — every bit o' canvas they had. Then ship's comp'ny takes as
many round-shot as they c'n carry, doubles fr'm one side o' the deck to the
other 'n' back. Th' rhythm breaks suction an' the ship makes a sternboard 'n'
gets off.'
With a fleeting glance
at the gathering predators, the captain told him, 'Do it, if you please.'
The master went to the
wheel. 'I takes th' helm. Kydd, you're th' lee helmsman.' Kydd obediently took
position and waited. Sail appeared, mast by mast, hesitantly, shrouds and stays
tested for strain at the unaccustomed and awkward situation of the wind taking
the sails on the wrong side.
'Mark my motions well. When we move,
it'll be dead astern, an' if we mishandle, we'll sheer around an' it'll all be
up wi' us,' the master warned. A ship going backwards would put prodigious
strain on the rudder, and if they lost control it would slew sideways and slam
the wind to the opposite side of the sails. At the very least this would leave
Bacchante with broken rigging, splintered masts and the impossibility of
getting away from the gathering threat.
Kydd gripped the spokes
and stared doggedly at the master. His job, as leeward helmsman, was to add his
weight intelligently to the effort of the lead helmsman, and he knew this would
be a fight to remember.
Shot was passed up from
the lockers in the bowels of the ship, each man taking two eighteen-pound
balls. 'One bell to be ready, the second and you're off,' the first lieutenant
called from the belfry forward.
One strike: the men braced. Another —
they rushed across the deck, more perhaps of a reckless waddle. They turned,
and the bells sounded almost immediately. They rushed back. Some saw the humour
of the situation and grinned, others remained straight-faced and grave.
Twice more they ran.
Kydd snatched a glimpse up at the bulging, misshapen sails fluttering and
banging above; the men were panting now. The boatswain had a hand-lead over the
side, and was staring grimly at its steady vertical trend.
Near him Kydd could hear a deep-throated
creaking amid the discordant chorus of straining cordage. He dared not look
away — the moment, if it came, would come suddenly. The bells and thumping feet
sounded again — and again.
The deck shifted under
Kydd's feet, an uneven rumbling from deep within, and the boatswain's
triumphant shout: 'She swims!'
Forced by the wind, the
frigate started to slide backwards. The wheel kicked viciously as the rudder
was caught on its side. The master threw himself at the wheel to wind on
opposite helm, Kydd straining with him, following his moves to within a split
second. The pressure eased, but the ship increased speed backwards, at the same
time multiplying the danger in proportion.
The master's lean face
became haggard with strain and concentration as together they fought the ship
clear. A fraction of inattention or misreading of the thrumming pressures
transmitted up the tiller ropes and at this speed they would slew broadside in
an instant.
The rumbling stopped —
they must be clear of the sand. Orders pealed out that had canvas clewed up,
yards braced round and a slowing of their mad backward rampage. The master's
eyes met Kydd's, and he smiled. 'That's cutting a caper too many f'r me,' he
said, in a gusty breath of relief.
Kydd returned a grin,
but he held to his heart that this fine mariner had called on him, Thomas Kydd,
when he needed a true seaman alongside.
The beat north through the Adriatic
was an anticlimax. After re-watering from a clear stream on the remote west coast
of Sardinia, they had thankfully rounded Malta and Sicily at night, through the
Strait of Otranto and on into the Adriatic. The stranding had not had any
observable ill-effects.
They now flew the
red swallow-tail of Denmark. It was unlikely that any French at sea would
interfere with a touchy Scandinavian of a country they were in the process of
wooing into their fold.
In the event, they saw
no French. But they did, to Kydd's considerable interest, sight all manner of
exotic Mediterranean craft. Built low but with a sharply rising bow in line
with sea conditions in the inland sea, there was the three-masted bark, with
its canted masts, lateen sails and beak instead of a bowsprit; the pink, which
could use the triangular lateen sail interchangeably with the familiar square
sail on its exotically raked masts, and the more homely tartan coaster.
Once, sighted far off and in with
the coast, they saw a galley, fully as long as Bacchante, sails struck and
pulling directly into the wind. The dip and rise of the oars in the sunlight
was steady and regular, a never-ending rhythm that went on into the distance.
They were getting close
to Venice at the head of the gulf, and that evening Kydd caught Renzi gazing
ahead with an intense expression. 'Y'r Venice is accounted a splendid place,
I've heard,' Kydd ventured.