A King's Cutter nd-2

by Richard Woodman

  Drinkwater was envious. Envious and not a little amused in a bitter kind of way at Richard White's mixture of boyish enthusiasm and sober naval formality. There was a good deal more of it, including the significant phrase Sir John was pleased to take notice of my conduct. Drinkwater checked himself. He was pleased for White, pleased too that his old friend, now clearly on the path to success, still considered the friendship of an obscure master's mate in an even more obscure cutter worth the trouble of an informative letter. So Drinkwater shared vicariously in the euphoria induced by the victory. The tide, it seemed, had turned in favour of British arms and the Royal Navy reminded her old antagonists that though the lion lay down, it was not yet dead.

  Then one morning in April Kestrel rounded the Scroby Sands and stood into Yarmouth Road with the signal for despatches at her masthead. Coming to her anchor close to Venerable her chase guns saluted the blue flag at the flagship's main masthead. A moment or so later her boat pulled across the water with Lieutenant Griffiths in the stern.

  When Griffiths returned from delivering his message from the frigates off the Texel he called all the cutter's officers into the cabin.

  Drinkwater was the last to arrive, late from supervising the hoisting of the boat. He closed the lobby door behind him, aware of an air of tense expectancy. As he sat down he realised it was generated by the frigid gleam in Griffiths's eyes.

  'Gentlemen,' he said in his deep, clear voice. 'Gentlemen, the Channel Fleet at Spithead is in a state of mutiny!'

  Chapter Twelve

  A Flood of Mutiny

  May-June 1797

  'Listen to the bastards!' said Jessup as Kestrel's crew paused in their work to stare round the crowded anchorage. The cheering appeared to come from Lion and a ripple of excitement ran through the hands forward, several staring defiantly aft where Jessup, Drinkwater and Traveller stood.

  Yarmouth Roads had been buzzing as news, rumour, claim and counter-claim sped between the ships anchored there. The red flag, it was said had been hoisted at the Nore and Duncan's ships vacillated between loyalty to their much respected admiral and their desire to support what were felt to be the just demands of the rest of the fleet.

  The cheering was enough to bring others on deck. Amidships the cook emerged from his galley and the knot of officers was joined by Appleby and Thompson. 'Thank God we're anchored close to the flagship,' muttered the surgeon. His apprehensions of mutiny now having been confirmed, Appleby feared the possibility of being murdered in his bed.

  Kestrel lay anchored a short cannon shot from Venerable. The battleship's guns were run out and the sudden boom of a cannon echoed flatly across the anchorage. A string of knotted bunting rose up her signal halliards to jerk out brightly in the light breeze of a May morning.

  'Call away my gig, Mr Drinkwater,' growled Griffiths emerging from the companionway. Admiral Duncan was signalling for his captains and when Griffiths returned from the conference his expression was weary. 'Call the people aft!'

  Jessup piped the hands into the waist and they swarmed eagerly over the remaining boat on the hatch. 'Gentlemen,' said Griffiths to his officers, 'take post behind me.'

  The officers shuffled into a semi-circle as ordered, regarding the faces of the men. Some open, some curious, some defiant or truculent and all aware that unusual events were taking place.

  'Now hark you all to this, do you understand that the fleets at Spithead and the Nore are in defiant mutiny of their officers…' He looked round at them, giving them no ground, despite his inner sympathy. 'But if any man disputes my right to command this cutter or proposes disobeying my orders or those of one of my officers,' he gestured behind him, 'let him speak now.'

  Griffiths's powerful voice with its rich Welsh accent seemed to come from a pulpit. His powerful old body and sober features with their air of patriarchy exerted an almost tangible influence upon his men. He appeared to be reasoning with them like a firm father, opposing their fractiousness with the sure hand of experience. 'Look at me,' he seemed to say, 'you cannot rebel against me, whatever the rest of the fleet does.'

  Drinkwater's palms were damp and beside him Appleby was shaking with apprehension. Then they saw resolution ebb as a sort of collective sigh came from the men. Griffiths sent them forward again.

  'Get forrard and do your duty. Mr Jessup, man the windlass and inform me when the cable's up and down.'

  It was the season for variable or easterly winds in the North Sea and Duncan's preoccupation was that the Dutch fleet would leave the Texel, taking advantage of the favourable winds and the state of the British squadrons. The meeting to which Griffiths had been summoned had been to determine the mood of the ships in Duncan's fleet. The small force still off the Texel was quite inadequate to contain De Winter if he chose to emerge and it was now even more important to keep him bottled up. There was a strong possibility that the mutinous ships at the Nore might attempt a defection and this was more likely to be to the protestant Dutch than the catholic French, for all the republican renunciation of formal religion. A demonstration by De Winter to cover the Nore Squadron's exit from the Thames would be all that was necessary to facilitate this and strengthen any wavering among the mutineers. It was already known at Yarmouth that most of the officers had been removed from the warships with the significant exception of the sailing masters. They were held aboard the Sandwich, the 'flagship' of the self-styled admiral, Richard Parker.

  For a few days Kestrel remained at anchor while Duncan, who had personally remonstrated with the Admiralty for redress of many of the men's grievances and regarded the mutiny as a chastisement and warning to the Admiralty to mend its ways, waited on events.

  The anonymous good sense that had characterised the affair at Spithead was largely responsible for its swift and satisfactory conclusion. Admiral Howe was given special powers to treat with the delegates who knew they had 'Black Dick's' sympathy. By mid-May, amid general rejoicing, fireworks and banquets the Channel Fleet, pardoned by the King, returned to duty.

  There was no evidence that foreign sedition had had anything to do with it. The tars had had a case. Their cause had been just, their conduct exemplary, their self-administered justice impeccable. They had sent representatives to their brethren at the Nore and it would only be a matter of days before they too saw sense.

  But it was not so. The Nore mutiny was an uglier business, its style aggressive and less reasonable. By blockading trade in the Thames its leaders rapidly lost the sympathy of the liberal middle-class traders of London and as the Government became intransigent, Parker's desperation increased. The tide in favour of the fleet turned, and as the supplies of food, fuel and merchandise to the capital dwindled, troops flooded in to Sheerness and the ships flying the red flag at the Nore felt a growing sense of isolation.

  At the end of May there arrived in Yarmouth an Admiralty envoy in the person of Captain William Bligh, turned out of the Director by his crew and sent by the authorities to persuade Duncan to use his ships against Parker's. He also brought news that four delegates from the Nore had seized the cutter Cygnet and were on their way to Yarmouth to incite the seamen there to mutiny.

  Duncan considered the intelligence together with the mooted possibility of Parker defecting with the entire fleet to Holland or France. In due course he ordered the frigate Vestal, the lugger Hope and the cutter Rose to cruise to the southward to intercept the visitors. If Parker sailed for the Texel or Dunquerque then, and only then, would the old admiral consider using his own ships against the mutineers. In the meantime he sent Kestrel south into the Thames to guard the channels to Holland and to learn immediately of any defection.

  'By the mark five.'

  Drinkwater discarded the idea of the sweeps. Despite the fog there was just sufficient wind to keep steerage on the cutter and every stitch of canvas that could be hoisted was responding to it.

  'I'll go below for a little, Mr Drinkwater.'

  'Aye, aye, sir.' Their passage from Yarmouth had been slow and Gri
ffiths had not left the deck for fear the men would react, but they were too tired now and his own exhaustion was obvious. Grey and lined, his face wore the symptoms of the onset of his fever and it seemed that the elasticity of his constitution had reached its greatest extension. Drinkwater was glad to see him go below.

  Since the news of the Spithead settlement the hands had been calmer, but orders to proceed into the Thames had revived the tension. In the way that these things happen, word had got out that their lordships were contemplating using the North Sea squadron against the mutineers at the Nore, and Bligh was too notorious a figure to temper speculation on the issue.

  The chant of the leadsman was monotonous so that, distracted by larger events and the personal certainty that the Nore mutiny was made the more hideous by the presence of Capitaine Santhonax, Drinkwater had to force himself to concentrate upon the soundings. They were well into the estuary now and should fetch the Nubb buoy in about three hours as the ebb eased.

  'By the deep four.'

  'Sommat ahead, sir!' The sudden cry from the lookout forward.

  'What is it?' He went forward, peering into the damp grey murk.

  'Dunno sir… buoy?' If it was then their reckoning was way out.

  'There sir! See it?'

  'No… yes!' Almost right ahead, slightly to starboard. They would pass very close, close enough to identify it.

  ''s a boat, sir!'

  It was a warship's launch, coming out of a dense mist a bowsprit's length ahead of them. It had eight men in it and he heard quite distinctly a voice say, 'It's another bleeding buoy yacht…', and a contradictory: 'No, it's a man o'war cutter…'

  Mutually surprised, the two craft passed. The launch's men lay on their oars, the blades so close to Kestrel's side that the water drops from their ends fell into the rippling along the cutter's waterline. Curiously the Kestrels stared at the men in the boat who glared defiantly back. There was a sudden startled gasp, a quick movement, a flash and a bang. A pistol ball tore the hat from Drinkwater's head and made a neat hole in the mainsail. There was a howl of frustration and the mutineers were plying their oars as the launch vanished in the fog astern.

  'God's bones!' roared Drinkwater suddenly spinning round. The men were still gaping at him and the vanished boat. 'Let go stuns'l halliards! Let go squares'l halliards! Down helm! Lively now! Lively God damn it!'

  The men could not obey fast enough to satisfy Drinkwater's racing mind. He found himself beating his thighs with clenched fists as the cutter turned slowly.

  'Come on you bitch, come on,' he muttered, and then he felt the deck move beneath him, ever so slightly upsetting his sense of balance, and another fact struck him.

  He had run Kestrel aground.

  Kestrel lay at an alarming angle and her sailing master was still writhing with mortification. Used as he had been to the estuary while in the buoy yachts of the Trinity House the situation was profoundly humiliating.

  Lieutenant Griffiths had said nothing beyond wearily directing the securing of the cutter against an ingress of water when the tide made. It was fortunate that they had been running before what little wind there was and their centre plates had been housed. The consequences might have been more serious otherwise. An inspection revealed that Kestrel had suffered no damage beyond a dent in the pride of her navigator.

  Below, Griffiths had regarded him in silence for some moments after listening to Drinkwater's explanation of events. As the colour mounted to Drinkwater's cheeks a tired smile curled Griffiths's lips.

  'Come, come, Nathaniel, pass a bottle from the locker… it was no more than an error of judgement and the consequences are not terrible.' Griffiths threw off his fatigue with a visible effort. 'One error scarcely condemns you, bach.'

  Drinkwater found himself shaking with relief as he thrust the sercial across the table. 'But shouldn't we have pursued sir? I mean it was Santhonax, sir. I'm damned sure of that.' In his insistence to make amends, not only for grounding the cutter but for his failure earlier to report the presence of the French agent, the present circumstances gave him his opportunity. For a second he recollected that Griffiths might ask him how he was so 'damned sure'. But the lieutenant was not concerned and pushed a full glass across the table. He shook his head.

  'Putting a boat away in this fog would likely have embroiled us in a worse tangle. Who ambushes whom in this weather is largely a matter of who spots whom first,' he paused to sip the rich dark wine.

  'The important thing is what the devil is Santhonax doing in a warship's launch going east on an ebb tide with a crew of British ne'er-do-wells?'

  The two men sat in silence while about them Kestrel creaked as the first of the incoming tide began to lift her bilge. Was Santhonax a delegate from the Nore on his way to Yarmouth? If he was he would surely have used the Swin. Their own passage through the Prince's Channel had been ordered to stop up the gap not covered by Vestal, Rose or Hope. And it was most unlikely that a French agent would undertake such a task.

  If Santhonax's task was to help suborn the British fleet he had already achieved his object by the open and defiant mutiny. So what was he doing in a boat? Escaping? Was the mutiny collapsing? Or was his passage east a deliberate choice? Of course! Santhonax had attempted to kill Drinkwater. Nathaniel was the only man whose observation of Santhonax might prejudice the Frenchman's plans!

  'There would seem to be only one logical conclusion, sir…'

  'Oh?' said Griffiths, 'and what might that be?'

  'Santhonax must be going to bring aid to the Nore mutineers…' He outlined his reasons for presuming this and Griffiths nodded slowly.

  'If he intends bringing a fleet to support the mutiny or to cover its defection does he make for France or Holland?'

  'The Texel shelters the largest fleet in the area, sir. Given a fair wind from the east which they'd need to get up the Thames with a fair certainty of a westerly soon afterwards to get 'em all out together… yes, I'll put my money on the Texel, anything from Brest or the west'll have the Channel to contend with.'

  'Yes, by damn!' snapped Griffiths suddenly, leaning urgently forward. 'And our fellows will co-operate with a fleet of protestant Dutch and welcome their republican comrades! By heaven Nathaniel, this Santhonax is a cunning devil! Cythral! I'll lay gold on the Texel…'

  The two of them were half out of their chairs, leaning across the table like men in heated argument. Then Griffiths slumped down as Kestrel lurched a little nearer the upright.

  'But our orders do not allow me discretion. Santhonax has escaped, in the meantime we must do our duty' He paused, rubbing his chin while Drinkwater remained standing. 'But,' he said slowly, 'if we could discover the precise state of the mutiny… if, for instance there were signs that they were moving out from the Nore, then, by God, we'd know for sure.'

  Drinkwater nodded. He was not certain how they could discover this without running their heads into a noose, but he could not now tell Griffiths of the encounter in Sheerness and the premonitions that were consuming him at that very moment. For the time being he must rest content.

  Two hours later they were under way again. The breeze had come up, although the fog had become a mist and the warmth of the sun could be felt as Kestrel resumed her westward passage. It was late afternoon when a cry from forward caught the attention of all on deck.

  'Sir!'

  'What is it?' Drinkwater scrambled forward.

  'Sort of smashing sound,' the man said, cocking one ear. They listened and Drinkwater heard a muffled bang followed by crashes and the splintering of timber. He frowned. 'Swivel gun?' He turned aft. 'Call all hands! Pass word for the captain! Clear for action!' He was damned if he was going to be caught a second time.

  In a few moments the lashings were cast off the guns and the men were at their stations. Griffiths emerged from the companion-way pale and drawn. Drinkwater launched into an explanation of what they had heard when suddenly the fog lifted, swept aside like a curtain, and bright sunshine dappled the wat
er.

  'What the devil…?' Griffiths pointed and Drinkwater turned sharply, then grinned with relief.

  'It's all right, sir, I recognise her.'

  Ahead of them, a cable distant, lay an ornate, cutter-rigged yacht, decorated aft like a first rate, with a beak head forward supporting a lion guardant. Alongside the yacht the painted bulk of the Nubb buoy was being systematically smashed by axes and one-pound swivel shot.

  'Trinity Yacht ahoy!' Faces looked up and Drinkwater saw her master, Jonathan Poulter, direct men aft to where she carried carronades. He saw the gunports lift and the muzzles emerge.

  'Hold your fire, damn your eyes! We're a King's cutter,' then in a lower voice as they closed the yacht, 'Heave to, Mr Drinkwater, while we speak him.'

  The two cutters closed, their crews regarding each other curiously. 'Do you have news of the Nore fleet, is there any sign of them moving?'

  A man in a blue coat stood beside Poulter and Drinkwater recognised Captain Calvert, an Elder Brother of Trinity House.

  'No, sir,' Calvert called, 'and they'll find it impossible when we've finished. All the beacons are coming down and most of the buoys are already sunk. Another night's work will see the matter concluded… is that Mr Drinkwater alongside of you?'

  Drinkwater stood on the rail. 'Aye sir, we had hopes that you might have news.'

  'They had a frigate down at the Middle flying the red flag yesterday to mark the bank and the fear is they'll try treason… they've gone too far now for anything else… my guess is they'll try for France or Holland. Are you from Duncan?'

  'Aye,' it was Griffiths who spoke now. 'Are you sure of your facts, sir?'

  'Aye, sir. We left Broadstairs yesterday. The intelligence about the frigate we learned from the buoy yacht Argus from Harwich; I myself called on Admiral Buckner at Sheerness on my way from London.'