Mutiny Read online

  SCRIBNER

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2003 by Julian Stockwin

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  First Scribner Edition 2004

  Originally published in Great Britain in 2003 by Hodder and Stoughton, a division of Hodder Headline

  SCRIBNER and design are trademarks of Macmillan Library Reference USA, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, the publisher of this work.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Stockwin, Julian

  Mutiny : a Kydd novel / Julian Stockwin.—1st Scribner ed.

  p. cm.

  1. Kydd, Thomas (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—History, Naval—18th Century—Fiction. 3. Seafaring life—Fiction. 4. Sailors—Fiction. 5. Mutiny—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6119.T66M88 2004

  823′.92—dc22

  2004042958

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-8974-7

  ISBN-10: 1-4165-8974-0

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  The Articles of War, 1749

  If any person in the fleet shall conceal any traitorous or mutinous practice or design, being convicted thereof by the sentence of a court martial, he shall suffer death….

  MUTINY

  PROLOGUE

  Damme, but that’s six o’ them—an’ they’re thumpers, Sir Edward!” The massive telescope that the first lieutenant of HMS Indefatigable held swayed in the hard gale, but the gray waste of winter sea made it easy to see the pallid white sails of line-of-battle ships, even at such a distance.

  Captain Pellew growled an indistinct acknowledgment. If it was the French finally emerging from Brest, it was the worst timing possible. The main British battle fleet had retired to its winter retreat at Portsmouth, and there was only a smaller force under Rear Admiral Colpoys away in the Atlantic, off Ushant to the north, and the two other frigates of his own inshore squadron keeping a precarious watch—and those an enemy of such might could contemptuously sweep aside. Heaven only knew when the grudging reinforcements from the Caribbean would arrive.

  “Sir—” There was no need for words: more and more sails were straggling into the expanse of the bay. Silently, the officers continued to watch, the blast of the unusual easterly cold and hostile. The seas, harried by the wind, advanced toward them in combers, bursting against their bows and sending icy spindrift aft in stinging volleys.

  The light was fading: the French admiral had timed his move so that by the time his fleet reached the open sea it could lose itself in the darkness of a stormy night. “A round dozen at least. We may in truth say that the French fleet has sailed,” Pellew said dryly.

  The lieutenant watched eagerly, for the French were finally showing after all these months, but Pellew did not share his jubilation. His secret intelligence was chilling: for weeks this concentration of force had stored and prepared—with field guns, horses and fodder—and if reports were to be believed, eighteen thousand troops. If the entire fleet put to sea, it could have only one purpose …

  “Desire Phoebe to find Admiral Colpoys and advise,” he snapped at the signal lieutenant. However, there was little chance that Colpoys could close on the French before they won the open sea. In the rapidly dimming daylight, the swelling numbers of men-o’-war were direful.

  “Sir! I now make it sixteen—no seventeen—of the line!”

  A savage roll made them all stagger. When they recovered it seemed the whole bay was filling with ships—at least the same number again of frigates; with transports and others there were now forty or more vessels breaking out into the Atlantic.

  “Amazon is to make all sail for Portsmouth,” Pellew barked. It would reduce his squadron to a pitiable remnant, but it was essential to warn England while there was still time.

  Yet the enemy sail advancing on them was not a line of battle, it was a disordered scatter—some headed south, shying away from the only frigate that lay across their path. Strings of flags rose from one of the largest of the French battleships, accompanied by the hollow thump of a gun. The gloom of dusk was fast turning to a clamping murk, and the signal was indistinct. A red rocket soared suddenly, and the ghostly blue radiance of a flare showed on her foredeck as she turned to night signals.

  “So they want illuminations—they shall have them!” Pellew said grimly. Indefatigable plunged ahead, directly into the widely scattered fleet. From her own deck colored rockets hissed, tracing across the windy night sky, while vivid flashes from her guns added to the confusion. A large two-decker trying to put about struck rocks; she swung into the wind, and was driven back hard against them. Distress rockets soared from the doomed ship.

  “Can’t last,” muttered Pellew, at the general mayhem. The driving gale from the east would prevent any return to harbor and the enemy had only to make the broad Atlantic to find ample sea-room to regain composure.

  The mass of enemy ships passed them by quickly, disdaining to engage, and all too soon had disappeared into the wild night—but not before it was clear they were shaping course northward. Toward England.

  CHAPTER 1

  Bear a fist there, y’ scowbunkin’ lubbers!” The loud bellow startled the group around the forebitts who were amiably watching the sailors at the pin-rail swigging off on the topsail lift. The men moved quickly to obey: this was Thomas Kydd, the hard-horse master’s mate, whose hellish open-boat voyage in the Caribbean eighteen months ago was still talked about in the navy.

  Kydd’s eyes moved about the deck. It was his way never to go below at the end of a watch until all was neatly squared away, ready for those relieving, but there was little to criticize in these balmy breezes on the foredeck of the 64-gun ship-of-the-line Achilles as she crossed the broad Atlantic bound for Gibraltar.

  Kydd was content—to be a master’s mate after just four years before the mast was a rare achievement. It entitled him to walk the quarterdeck with the officers, to mess in the gunroom, and to wear a proper uniform complete with long coat and breeches. No one could mistake him now for a common sailor.

  Royal blue seas, with an occasional tumbling line of white, and towering fluffy clouds brilliant in southern sunshine: they were to enter the Mediterranean to join Admiral Jervis. It would be the first time Kydd had seen this fabled sea and he looked forward to sharing interesting times ashore with his particular friend, Nicholas Renzi, who was now a master’s mate in Glorious.

  His gaze shifted to her, a powerful 74-gun ship-of-the-line off to leeward. She was taking in her three topsails simultaneously, probably an officer-of-the-watch exercise, pitting the skills and audacity of one mast against another.

  The last day or so they had been running down the latitude of thirty-six north, and Kydd knew they should raise Gibraltar that morning. He glanced forward in expectation. To the east there was a light dun-colored band of haze lying on the horizon, obscuring the transition of sea into sky.

  The small squadron began to assume a form of line. Kydd took his position on the quarterdeck, determined not to miss landfall on such an emblem of history. His glance flicked up to the fore masthead lookout—but this time the man snapped rigid, shading his eyes and looking right ahead. An instant later he leaned down and bawled, “Laaaand ho!”

  The master puffed his cheeks in pleasure. Kydd knew it was an easy enough approach, but news of the sighting of land was always a matter of great interest to a ship’s company man
y weeks at sea, and the decks buzzed with comment.

  Kydd waited impatiently, but soon it became visible from the decks, a delicate light blue-gray peak, just discernible over the haze. It firmed quickly to a hard blue and, as he watched, it spread. The ships sailed on in the fluky southeasterly, and as they approached, the aspect of the land changed subtly, the length of it beginning to foreshorten. The haze thinned and the land took on individuality.

  “Gibraltar!” Kydd breathed. As they neared, the bulking shape grew, reared up far above their masthead with an effortless immensity. Like a crouching lion, it dominated by its mere presence, a majestic, never-to-be-forgotten symbol: the uttermost end of Europe, the finality of a continent.

  He looked around; to the south lay Africa, an irregular blue-gray mass across a glittering sea—there, so close, was an endless desert and the Barbary pirates, then farther south, jungle, elephants and pygmies.

  Only two ships. Shielding her eyes against the glare of the sea, Emily Mulvany searched the horizon but could see no more. Admiral Jervis, with his fleet, was in Lisbon, giving heart to the Portuguese, and there were no men-o’-war of significance in Gibraltar. All were hoping for a substantial naval presence in these dreadful times … but she was a daughter of the army and knew nothing of sea strategy. Still, they looked lovely, all sails set like wings on a swan, a long pennant at the masthead of each swirling lazily, a picture of sea grace and beauty.

  Flags rose to Glorious’ signal halyards. They both altered course in a broad curve toward the far-off anonymous cluster of buildings halfway along at the water’s edge. As they did so, the gentle breeze fluttered and died, picked up again, then dropped away to a whisper. Frustrated, Kydd saw why. Even this far out they were in the lee of the great rock in the easterly; high on its summit a ragged scarf of cloud streamed out, darkening the bay beneath for a mile or more. He glanced at the master, who did not appear overly concerned, his arms folded in limitless patience. The captain disappeared below, leaving the deck to the watch. Sails flapped and rustled, slackened gear rattled and knocked, and the ship ghosted in at the pace of a crawling child.

  Kydd took the measure of the gigantic rock. It lay almost exactly north and south some two or three miles long, but was observably much narrower. There was a main town low along the flanks to seaward, but few other buildings on the precipitous sides. On its landward end the rock ended abruptly, and Kydd could see the long flat terrain connecting the Rock of Gibraltar to the nondescript mainland.

  It wasn’t until evening that the frustrating easterly died and a local southerly enabled the two ships to come in with the land. Kydd knew from the charts that this would be Rosia Bay, the home of the navy in Gibraltar. It was a pretty little inlet, well away from the main cluster of buildings farther along. There was the usual elegant, spare stone architecture of a dockyard and, higher, an imposing two-story building that, by its position, could only be the naval hospital.

  Rosia Bay opened up, a small mole to the south, the ramparts of a past fortification clear to the north. There, the two ships dropped anchor.

  “Do you see …”

  Kydd had not noticed Cockburn appear beside him.

  “Er, no—what is it y’ sees, Tarn?” The neat, almost academic-looking man next to him was Achilles’s other master’s mate, a long-promoted midshipman without the proper interest to make the vital step of commission as a lieutenant, but who had accepted his situation with philosophic resignation. He and Kydd had become friends.

  “We’re the only ones,” Cockburn said quietly. “The fleet must be in the Med somewhere.” Apart from the sturdy sails of dockyard craft and a brig-sloop alongside the mole in a state of disrepair, there were only the exotic lateen sails of Levant traders dotting the sea around the calm of Gibraltar.

  “Side!” The burly boatswain raised his silver call. The captain emerged from the cabin spaces, striding purposefully, all aglitter with gold lace, medals and best sword. Respectfully, Kydd and Cockburn joined the line of sideboys at the ship’s side. The boatswain raised his call again and as the captain went over the bulwark every man touched his hat and the shriek of the whistle pierced the evening.

  The captain safely over the side, the first lieutenant remained at the salute for a moment, then turned to the boatswain. “Stand down the watches. We’re out of sea routine now, I believe.”

  The boatswain’s eyebrows raised in surprise. No strict orders to ready the ship for sea again, to store ship, to set right the ravages of their ocean voyage? They would evidently be here for a long time. “An’ liberty, sir?” he asked.

  “Larbowlines until evening gun.” The first lieutenant’s words were overheard by a dozen ears, sudden unseen scurries indicating the news was being joyfully spread below.

  At the boatswain’s uneasy frown, the lieutenant added, “We’re due a parcel of men from England, apparently. They can turn to and let our brave tars step off on a well-earned frolic, don’t you think?”

  Kydd caught an edge of irony in the words, but didn’t waste time on reflection. “Been here before?” he asked Cockburn, who was taking in the long sprawl of buildings farther along, the Moorish-looking castle at the other end—the sheer fascination of the mighty rock.

  “Never, I fear,” said Cockburn, in his usual quiet way, as he gazed at the spectacle. “But we’ll make its acquaintance soon enough.”

  Kydd noticed with surprise that Glorious, anchored no more than a hundred yards away, was in a state of intense activity. There were victualing hoys and low barges beetling out to the bigger ship-of-the-line, every sign of an outward-bound vessel.

  The old fashioned longboat carrying the senior hands ashore was good-natured about diverting, and soon they lay under oars off the side of the powerful man-o’-war, one of a multitude of busy craft.

  “Glorious, ahoy!” bawled Kydd. At the deck edge a distracted petty officer appeared and looked down into the boat. “If ye c’n pass th’ word f’r Mr. Renzi, I’d be obliged,” Kydd hailed. The face disappeared and they waited.

  The heat of the day had lessened, but it still drew forth the aromas of a ship long at sea—sun on tarry timbers, canvas and well-worn decks, an effluvia carrying from the open gunports that was as individual to that ship as the volute carvings at her bow, a compound of bilge, old stores, concentrated humanity and more subtle, unknown odors.

  There was movement and a wooden squealing of sheaves, and the gunport lid next to them was triced up. “Dear fellow!” Renzi leaned out, and the longboat eased closer.

  Kydd’s face broke into an unrestrained grin at the sight of the man with whom he had shared more of life’s challenges and rewards than any other. “Nicholas! Should y’ wish t’ step ashore—”

  “Sadly, brother, I cannot.”

  It was the same Renzi, the cool, sensitive gaze, the strength of character in the deep lines at each side of his mouth, but Kydd sensed something else, something unsettling.

  “We are under sailing orders,” Renzi said quietly. The ship was preparing for sea; there could be no risk of men straggling and therefore no liberty. “An alarum of sorts. We go to join Jervis, I believe.”

  There was a stir of interest in the longboat. “An’ where’s he at, then?” asked Coxall, gunner’s mate and generally declared leader of their jaunt ashore—he was an old hand and had been to Gibraltar before.

  Renzi stared levelly at the horizon, his remote expression causing Kydd further unease. “It seems that there is some—confusion. I have not heard reliably just where the fleet might be.” He turned back to Kydd with a half-smile. “But, then, these are troubling times, my friend, it can mean anything.”

  A muffled roar inside the dark gundeck took Renzi’s attention and he waved apologetically at Kydd before he shouted, “We will meet on our return, dear fellow,” then withdrew inboard.

  “Rum dos,” muttered Coxall, and glared at the duty boat’s crew, lazily leaning into their strokes as the boat made its way around the larger mole to the end of the lo
ng wall of fortifications. He perked up as they headed toward the shore and a small jetty. “Ragged Staff,” he said, his seamed face relaxing into a smile, “where we gets our water afore we goes ter sea.”

  They clambered out. Like the others Kydd reveled in the solidity of the ground after weeks at sea. The earth was curiously submissive under his feet without the exuberant liveliness of a ship in concord with the sea. Coxall struck out for the large arched gate in the wall and the group followed.

  The town quickly engulfed them, and with it the color and sensory richness of the huge sunbaked rock. The passing citizenry were as variegated in appearance as any that Kydd had seen: here was a true crossing place of the world, a nexus for the waves of races, European, Arab, Spanish and others from deeper into this inland sea.

  And the smells—in the narrow streets innumerable mules and donkeys passed by laden with their burdens, the pungency of their droppings competing with the offerings of the shops: smoked herring and dried cod, the cool bacon aroma of salted pigs’ trotters and the heady fragrance of cinnamon, cloves, roasting coffee, each adding in the hot dustiness to the interweaving reek.

  In only a few minutes they had crossed two streets and were up against the steep rise of the flank of the Rock. Coxall didn’t spare them, leading them through the massive Southport gate and on a narrow track up and around the scrubby slopes to a building set on an angled rise. A sudden cool downward draft sent Kydd’s jacket aflare and his hat skittering in the dust.

  “Scud Hill. We gets ter sink a muzzier ’ere first, wi’out we has t’ smell the town,” Coxall said. It was a pothouse, but not of a kind that Kydd had seen before. Loosely modeled on an English tavern, it was more open balcony than interior darkness, and rather than high-backed benches there were individual tables with cane chairs.