Rebellion

“How was that, Mr Smith?” The lieutenant, one hand thrust into his jacket pocket, the other still attached to the binnacle, gave one of his trademark grins, though Hawkwood thought it might have been a little forced. “Bracing enough for you?”

At that instant a white-hot bolt of lightning shot across the cutter’s starboard bow. In the space of a heartbeat night became day, followed a split second later by a colossal thunderclap that sounded as if the entire sky had split asunder.

Several of the cutter’s crew flinched; some ducked as though expecting an enemy broadside.

“Lord save us!” Tredstow exclaimed loudly. He stared heavenwards.

Hawkwood wasn’t certain if it was the reflection from the lightning that had turned the lieutenant’s face pale or if the blood had drained away of its own accord.

Griffin’s commander found his voice. His jaw tightened as he said hollowly, “It would seem the storm’s a lot closer than I’d thought.”

A profanity hovered at the tip of Hawkwood’s tongue. He swallowed it back quickly and let out his breath.

“Which places us in a dilemma . . .” Stuart continued. “We’ve still a fair distance to cover. In clement weather I’d raise more canvas, but with the storm upon us, I can’t risk it. I’ve no option but to reduce sail. We’ll do our best but it could be that our only option is to try and ride it out.”

The words had barely been uttered when the rain began to lance down.

It shouldn’t have come as a shock. Its arrival had been prophesied only a few hours before, but the sheer force of it took every man by surprise.

God really does have a sense of humour, Hawkwood reflected bleakly, as icy needles rattled against his face and shoulders with the force of grape shot.

“At least it’ll keep the Frogs at bay,” Stuart said, grimacing at the sudden inundation. “If they’ve any sense, they’ll still be a-bed.”

Which is where I should bloody well be, Hawkwood thought. On dry land, if possible.

“Perhaps you’d rather go below?” Stuart offered.

Hawkwood suspected that the lieutenant had made the suggestion not so much to keep him out of harm’s way as to prevent his one and only passenger from getting under everyone’s feet and jeopardizing the safety of the ship.

The prospect of returning to the cabin’s claustrophobic interior held little appeal. The combination of the ship’s gyrations and the odours below deck would more than likely result in him spewing his guts out the minute he lay down. Retreat, he decided, was not an option.

He shook his head. “If it’s all right with you, Captain, I think I’d prefer to remain upright.”

At first, Hawkwood thought the lieutenant was about to deny him the choice, but his feelings must have been evident in his expression for Griffin’s commander merely nodded. “Very well. In that case, I’d be obliged if you’d keep your movement about the deck to a minimum. We don’t want any accidents.” The lieutenant’s gaze shifted. “Stand by to reduce sail, Mr Welland, if you please!”

“Aye, sir!” Welland raised a hand in acknowledgement. From the speed of the response, it was clear the bo’sun had been waiting for such a signal. He yelled across the deck: “Stand by fores’l!” He turned and eyed his lieutenant expectantly.

Stuart nodded. “Now, Mr Welland!”

The bo’sun’s face streamed with spray. He turned back towards the men waiting by the ropes. “Take in fores’l!”

Blocks squealed like stuck pigs as the jib and bowsprit were hauled in. Hawkwood marvelled at the men’s skill. He stared up at the mast and yards and the huge mainsail and the spider’s web of rigging and pulleys radiating from them. It was a miracle, he thought, how anyone could tell one rope from another. Nautical jargon had never failed to confuse him, nor, if he were honest, had it held much allure. It was a language as foreign as any he’d encountered during his long army service.

And yet, he wondered, would it be any different for a sailor who found himself marooned on a battlefield? Was army slang any more intelligible to the uninitiated? Probably not, he decided. And, be he sailor or sapper, so long as every man knew what he was doing, what did it matter?

Hawkwood became aware that someone was leaning towards him. It was Tredstow. Water coursed in shiny rivulets down the seaman’s grizzled cheeks. He put his lips close to Hawkwood’s ear, while a hand gripped Hawkwood’s arm like a steel claw. “I were you, I’d hang on tight. This ’un’s going to be a right cow!”

Hawkwood had once been told that on clear days, depending on the location, it was possible to stand on an English clifftop and view the other side of the Channel. Sometimes, it was said, France looked close enough to touch.

Had he first heard that from one of Griffin’s crew, he’d have considered the man at worst a liar, at best an imbecile. Cloaked in darkness and dwarfed on every side by waves almost as high as the cutter’s main yard, the prospect of an imminent landfall looked an unlikely prospect. For all the headway she was making, Griffin might as well have been not two leagues from France but two hundred. But she was trying her best to get there.

Cutters, Hawkwood knew, were built for speed. It made them ideal for patrols and the carrying of dispatches. He did not know, however, how many men it took to crew one. If pushed, he’d have hazarded a guess and estimated about forty. From what he could see, every man jack of them appeared to be topside, including, he supposed, Purser Venner, though it wasn’t easy to make out features in the tumult and the darkness. Either way, every spare inch of decking looked to be occupied, with the men at their stations, ready to defend the ship against the elements; which they were doing, heroically.

From the moment of its opening salvo the storm had raged without let-up, increasing in strength with each passing minute. Under the relentless assault from wind, rain and waves the deck had become as treacherous as an ice sheet. All hatches had been battened down and it would have been a foolish man who tried to make his way from bow to stern unaided, so safety lines had been rigged, running fore and aft. With a dark and angry sea only too eager to ensnare its first victim, the men of the Griffin were clinging on for dear life.

Hawkwood knew that in the running of the ship he was no more than excess cargo. The knowledge didn’t sit well. He’d never been comfortable with the role of spectator. It was one thing to relinquish all responsibility for transporting him to his destination to the lieutenant, but to entrust his safety to another party made him distinctly uneasy. He needed to be doing something.

So he’d put his proposal directly to Griffin’s commander.

“I’m a spare body, Captain. Put me to work.”

The lieutenant had been about to dismiss Hawkwood’s offer out of hand but then, as before, the look on his passenger’s face had made him pause. After an exchange of meaningful looks with his second-in-command, he’d nodded, turning quickly to his two helmsmen.

“Fitch! You’ve a new volunteer! Bates, you’re relieved! Report to Mr Welland for new duties! Before you do, find Mr Smith a tarpaulin jacket.” To Hawkwood, he said, “It’ll be less cumbersome than that riding coat you’re wearing.” Adding, “Please do exactly as Fitch tells you. No more, no less. Is that clear? Anything happens to you, they’ll have my innards for garters!”

“He yells pull, I pull,” Hawkwood said.

Stuart nodded. “You have it. Tell me, Mr Smith, do you know your opera?”

Hawkwood stared at him.

“‘Heart of oak are our ships . . .?’ It’s something my father used to sing to me. I suspect we’re about to discover if the words hold true. Bates! Hurry up with that damned coat!”

The moment the helmsman, Fitch, moved along, allowing him room to grasp the tiller bar, Hawkwood discovered why it was a two-man job. Above him, Griffin’s mainsail still stretched between gaff and boom but under the lieutenant’s orders the sail had been reefed in tight, leaving just enough canvas aloft to enable the helmsmen to preserve some semblance of authority. Trying to maintain steerage-way, however, was like wrestling a bucking mule. It felt to Hawkwood as if his arms were being torn from their sockets. There was only one course of action: hang on, obey Fitch’s directions as best he could, and trust to salvation.

In times of adversity he’d often wondered whether death might not be some sort of merciful release. Inevitably, the feeling had always dissipated, but every now and then a new situation would arise when the notion reared its ugly head. This night was fast turning into one of them.

Fighting in the Spanish mountains, he’d known cold and rain, but nothing like this. The wind force hadn’t lessened either. If anything, it had escalated substantially, causing them to tack more times than Hawkwood could remember, with the inevitable drenching results. Despite the tarpaulin jacket, he’d never been so wretchedly wet in his entire life. Spray or rain, it made no difference. His hands were numb; he could hardly feel the ends of his fingers. He’d also lost all sense of time. The passing of the hours had become irrelevant. All that mattered was survival.

The sense of dread rose in his chest as, yet again, the cutter’s bow disappeared beneath another enormous wave. As the mass of water exploded over the forecastle it looked for one terrible moment as though the end of the shortened bowsprit had been sheared away. But then, ponderously, Griffin began to rise. At first, it was as though the sea was refusing to relinquish its grip until, with a supreme effort, she broke free, thrusting herself into the air like a breaching whale, the water running in gleaming cataracts from her forward rigging. Her bow continued to climb until it seemed she would fall back upon herself, such was the steep angle of her ascent. Finally reaching the vertex, Griffin hovered, but only for a moment before gravity took hold once more, drawing her back down into the seething well below.

The hull shuddered under the impact. A vivid streak of lightning zig-zagged across the sky. It was followed by another massive rumble directly overhead. As the echoes died away, it struck Hawkwood that if there was such a thing as the voice of God, it would probably sound a lot like that last roll of thunder.

And if thunder was a vocal manifestation of the Almighty’s wrath then the howling of the wind had to represent the grief of ten thousand souls trapped in purgatory. Which was why Hawkwood missed the warning shout. The first he knew something untoward had happened was when he saw a knot of seamen break apart as if a grenade had been tossed into their midst.

He heard Fitch bellow, “Keep hold, God damn it!” and as he hung on to the tiller he watched helplessly as the carronade broke free from its cradle and 10 cwt of cast-iron ordnance careered towards the lee bulwark, shedding slivers of twisted eyebolt from the damaged carriage in its wake, along with threads of pared cordage that were left whipping to and fro across the deck like decapitated sea serpents.

Gathering momentum, the carronade headed for the port scuppers, trailing mayhem as the more quick thinking among Griffin’s crewmen tried to grab on to the pieces of rope still attached to the metal barrel. The slippery conditions proved too much for them, however, and they found themselves dragged along by the weight, while others scrambled aside, slipping and sliding on the water-soaked planking, some falling full length as they tried to get out of the way. The sound of the carronade hitting the bulwark was loud enough to be heard over the storm. As was the scream.

The bulwark absorbed the brunt of the collision, the remainder was borne by the one crew member who’d been unable to scramble clear in time. Sent sprawling, he’d only been able to watch, paralysed with fright, as the heavy metal cylinder hurtled towards him. As the carronade hit the raised side of the ship it tipped, trapping the seaman beneath it, crushing his chest and shoulders and shattering his ribs and pelvis into matchwood.

It took eight men under the guidance of Lieutenant Weekes to pull the wreckage free and drag the body to one side, but by then it was too late. The crewman was beyond help. Even as they strove to gather up the corpse the rain and seawater were already rinsing the blood from the scuppers.

As the debris was cleared away and the dead man was carried below, Fitch turned and glared at Hawkwood over his shoulder. Despite the water teeming down the coarse face, there was no hiding the anger in the helmsman’s eyes. “By Christ, I hope you’re worth the bloody trouble!”

Hawkwood kept silent. There was nothing to be gained by responding to Fitch’s outburst. Had he been in the helmsman’s position he’d probably have come close to voicing the same sentiment and if he hadn’t put it into words, he’d likely have thought it. Seafaring men, much more than soldiers, were prone to superstition. Any break with routine that resulted in catastrophe was likely to be deemed portentous by the less rational members of a close-knit crew. He suspected the men of the Griffin were no different in that regard. They’d now lost one of their own and despite the death occurring while the ship was effectively on a war footing, it wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility that given the absence of both women and albatrosses, they’d place the blame for the freak accident squarely on the presence of a stranger. Which, Hawkwood supposed, was true, indirectly, though he’d had no personal hand in the man’s death. But suspicious minds had a habit of creating their own twisted brand of logic. The diplomatic thing to do, therefore, was remain silent, let Fitch vent his spleen and pray they didn’t lose anybody else.

For the storm showed no signs of weakening; unlike the cutter’s crew who, bruised and battered by the ordeal, were growing ever more weary.