Parker shouted at the top of his voice now, calling for three cheers. ‘And this is to men who have not had their ship taken off them, but have handed it back.’
The sound of cheering was in their ears as Harry and Pender pushed their way back down to the entry port, and to their wherry.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THE Inflexible was in just as much turmoil as the Sandwich, but the balance was very different, so much so that they had great trouble in getting aboard. The split on the upper deck was the same in terms of positions, but the men gathered in the forepeak were few, and there were no officers to lead them. Harry managed to elicit from one of the mutineers that they were still confined, while a discussion was going on in the great cabin to decide whether to string them up or let them loose. Both men pushed their way through the throng, and came face to face with a scared individual guarding the cabin door, who had a forehead so thin that it hardly seemed to exist.
‘Nobody gets in here, mate.’
‘Not even a delegate?’ demanded Harry.
‘You? I’ve seen ’em all, and never your face afore.’
Harry had the bones out, though the rattle, in the confined space, was far from perfect. ‘Sounds good enough for a purser’s death rattle.’
‘That’s my bit,’ snarled the guard.
‘Open that damned door, you oaf,’ Harry replied, his voice even more harsh. ‘If you don’t, there’s not a man in that cabin who will see tomorrow’s dawn.’
Still he hesitated. But when Pender pushed past, slipping under his arm, he let them through. The cabin was full of the smoke from a dozen pipes, with anxious-looking sailors sitting around a large table. For men under threat of execution, they were strangely lethargic. One, at the head of the table, did half rise, and Harry recognised the man who’d challenged Flowers when he’d first played his bones in the Chequers.
‘What do you want?’ he demanded thickly, in heavily accented English.
Harry looked around the cabin, wondering if Joyce and Parker had been right. He’d never seen a bunch of men who could so easily fit the bill as conspirators. But that didn’t matter now, since he had no way of establishing the thing one way or the other. He threw the bones on the table, and they slid across to come to rest in front of the delegate.
‘Parker sent me.’
‘Never!’ snapped a man right beside Harry’s leg, who swung round to show a vicious knife. ‘Parker wouldn’t do that.’
‘No, mate. But Valentine Joyce might.’
That made them sit up and take notice, so much so that Harry was allowed to move round to join the Frenchman who was apparently their leader.
‘Parker’s surrendered.’
‘The slimy sod.’
‘He had no choice,’ Harry yelled, as the noise began to rise. ‘And if you want to know, I offered him a chance to get away, yesterday, and leave you all in the lurch.’
The French speaker had picked up the bones. After looking at them he tossed them back to Harry. ‘Play, English.’
Harry obliged, adding the passwords as soon as he finished. But the man who’d challenged him wasn’t convinced. ‘You are not one of us.’
‘No,’ Harry replied, gesturing vaguely upriver towards London. ‘But neither am I one of them.’
‘Then why have you come?’
‘To advise you to leave now, while you have the chance.’ That set up a buzz of conversation, which Harry allowed to continue until it subsided. ‘You’re probably the last ship in the fleet with the red flag still flying. And from what I can see, a good number of the crew want to haul it down. When they find out the Sandwich has struck, that number will treble.’
‘You’re very sure of yourself, mate,’ said a voice through the tobacco smoke.
‘That would be because he was right,’ said Pender, speaking for the first time.
The reply that got earned a stifled laugh. ‘An’ I thought you was just a monkey.’
‘If you ain’t got the brains to see what’s what, then you must be too thick to swing in the trees.’
‘But not too thick to swing on a rope,’ Harry added. ‘The men on the deck can surrender without pain. They have a pardon. But you lot will be classed as ringleaders, and you will hang.’
Another voice spoke, proving that whatever kind of meeting it was, it was democratic. ‘So what do you suggest?’
‘Run.’
‘Where to?’
‘Anywhere away from here.’
‘Funny, that,’ said the French speaker. ‘We was debating where to take the ship.’
‘That will need the officers.’
‘A knife to their throat will suffice,’ said the man who’d waved the blade.
‘Leave the ship, and the officers.’
‘Don’t sound right to me.’
‘Try to take this ship, and they’ll chase you to the ends of the earth. The same goes if you touch a hair on one of those officers’ heads.’
‘You’re a fine one and no error!’ a voice shouted from the far end of the table. ‘How the hell are we to get anywhere safe without we has a ship?’
‘I’ll give you a ship.’ That produced a gasp or two, but most just looked at him in wonder. ‘She’s no beauty, but she floats well enough. And since no one knows where she lays, she won’t be missed.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Faversham,’ said Harry.
‘Why are you doing this?’ asked the French speaker. ‘I for one don’t know you.’
Harry looked round the table again, peering through the smoke at the suddenly curious faces. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I just feel in my bones that no good will be served by a spree of hangings. Perhaps you men here have a different agenda from those outside, and always have had.’
They stiffened at that, but no one spoke. Harry jerked his thumb back in the direction of the deck. ‘What they were asking for was no more than their due. But some wanted too much.’
‘Any other reason?’ asked a man with a heavy Irish accent.
‘Yes. I met a fellow sailor who told me that you were good men. His name was Valentine Joyce, and he had a fear.’
‘Which was?’
‘That if certain men were taken from the Nore, then the meaning of those bones would become known. They won at Spithead. But if anybody gets wind of an organised conspiracy they will pursue it to the bitter end, and it won’t be confined to ships in the Medway.’
‘How much time have we got?’
‘None!’ snapped Pender. ‘If’n I was you, I’d be running for this barky’s boats.’
Harry had expected trouble in getting hold of the Inflexible’s boats, but clearly these men still wielded enough authority to impose themselves. Those who might have stopped them were in the bows, and the boats were lashed to the stern. They ended up with more men than they’d anticipated, as each man who left the cabin seemed to have a friend he wished to take along.
Pender and Harry led the way in their wherry, rowing along in the dark, two lanterns lit bow and stern, innocents out for a night’s fishing, with three of the Inflexible’s boats unlit and following their wake. There were blockading ships and guard boats out, and at one time Harry was stopped by the crew of a cutter who were speaking a language he guessed to be Russian. While he argued, the men from Inflexible stood off, lying low and silent to avoid detection. The loud farewells that Harry made told them it was safe to proceed, steering the course set for them by the lantern.
Harry was having a devil of a time navigating, since the darkness was close to total. He kept running into shallow water then having to heave himself out, an action which forced those following him to back-paddle noisily. Once they were clear of the eastern edge of Sheppey the odd twinkling light from the coastal villages helped him to frame a course for Faversham, heading across to the Kentish shore, where the Swale channel began to narrow.
As soon as he reached the creek that ran up to the harbour he ceased to row, and called softly for th
e boats to come alongside. Buildings of one sort or another lined the shore, and Luddenham Court, the local mansion, was well lit up, which meant that running aground, not too much of a problem in a boat anyway, was near impossible.
‘We left the Good Intent back in the hands of two old sailors,’ he whispered. ‘They’re useless sods, but they are also drinkers, and likely to be asleep. I will take you past her, but I’m not coming aboard. They know me and Pender too well. If we’re seen I’ll have to flee to France with you.’
Harry went on, explaining where they would find charts, what landmarks to look for, and how the ship handled. ‘Take those two old goats with you. They know every channel and sandbar in the Thames Estuary.’
‘And what do we do when we get there?’ asked the French speaker.
‘Send them back with it. Whatever you do, don’t try to keep the boat. The navy is bad enough with mutineers and deserters, but take a rated ship of theirs, even a tub, and they’ll chase you for ever.’
‘What,’ exclaimed one of the Irishmen, ‘in the name of Jesus, are we going to do when we get there?’
‘Without a bloody boat to even fish with,’ added another.
‘Don’t fish in anything but a river,’ Harry said, emphatically, ‘and an inland one at that. Stay well away from the sea for the rest of your lives. And never, even just to jog your memory, play a set of bones.’
Standing on the deck of the Sandwich, Harry recalled very clearly the image of the Good Intent making her way out into the Thames Estuary, with some of the men he’d helped get away actually waving to him. Had they been as innocent as they seemed, those Inflexibles? Or were they the reason things had turned so bad at the Nore?
Having swung too many ways in so few weeks he was beyond caring. He would probably never know, and if that held true for everyone else, then his promise to Valentine Joyce would be fulfilled. If they were indeed Jacobins, United Irishmen, or avid subscribers to The Rights of Man he couldn’t be brought to care. At least they weren’t here, on this deck.
He looked at the faces around him, most eager. There was some laughter too, as if what they were about to witness amused them. Harry himself could not suppress the odd shiver, though the morning air was anything but cold. A glance at his watch, when he heard the footfalls on the companionway, showed it was well past half-past eight.
Parker emerged on to the quarterdeck, staggering slightly as he saw how many people had come to see him die. Was Harry alone in wondering if he could spot the scaffolding specially erected on the Isle of Grain so that the local populace would not be denied the pleasure of seeing him swing? The parson stepped forward, offering his services in prayer, an overture the prisoner seemed eager to accept.
‘Might I be allowed a chair,’ said Parker, his voice surprisingly strong, ‘and perhaps a glass of wine?’
You had to admire the man. If this was to be his last public engagement, he was determined to play it properly. He took the wine, which was quickly produced, and once that was consumed he stood up and bowed his head to pray, being joined in this by those who had condemned him.
The words of the prayers were suddenly drowned out by the firing of a gun. Everyone on the deck jumped slightly, except Parker, who continued his prayers as if it was another man facing the rope, not him. Those finished, he offered his hand to Mosse, the captain of the Sandwich, the hope that he would accept this as an act of reconciliation stated loudly enough to carry. Then his arms were bound, and the shuffling group of onlookers followed him as he was led to the forecastle.
Harry stayed still, not wishing to be any closer in the final moment. But Parker, turning round, saw him, and produced a sudden smile that made every head turn to see who was so favoured. Having been in the area for several weeks now, his identity and occupation were known. A growl slipped out of several naval throats, and he knew, in their minds, that he was no better than the victim of this judicial revenge.
Parker walked up the scaffold which projected out over the side of the ship. The men who would hang him stood ready, the end of the rope that ran up to the yard in their hands, while the halter was placed around Parker’s neck. After a moment to compose himself, he allowed the executioner to place a cap over his head, which was drawn forward to hide his face. But he held up his hands to stop it for a second, and turned to say something to the men who had, so recently, been his shipmates.
The cap was pulled down and the men steadied themselves to pull. Suddenly Parker stepped forward and jumped off the end of the scaffold, jerking as his body weight was arrested by the rope. Harry saw the spasms, as his feet kicked out at the air beneath them. The second gun, which should have been the signal to pull, went off and the crewmen obliged, raising Parker’s body well above the deck. But the feet had ceased to jerk and Harry knew that in his own small way Parker had cheated the Royal Navy. He’d managed a final act of defiance, and hung himself.
Reaching into his pocket he took out Flowers’s bones, still not sure why he’d brought them along. Walking to the side, he was just about to throw them away when Lieutenant Flatt, who’d been Parker’s adversary on this very deck just a few days before, stopped behind him.
‘Well, Ludlow, that is an end to all the nonsense.’
‘Do you think so, Lieutenant?’ said Harry, over his shoulder. ‘If I were you I’d hurry up and win a fleet action, or posterity will forget you.’
Harry turned round and pointed to the body, swaying on the end of the rope. ‘But they won’t forget him, nor the men he led. They, I have to tell you, will live in men’s minds for ever.’
About the Author
JACK LUDLOW is the pen-name of writer David Donachie, who was born in Edinburgh in 1944. He has always had an abiding interest in history: from the Roman Republic to medieval warfare as well as the naval history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which he has drawn on for his many historical adventure novels. David lives in Deal with his partner, the novelist Sarah Grazebrook.
Copyright
Allison & Busby Limited
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First published in 1997.
This ebook edition published by Allison & Busby in 2015.
Copyright © 1997 by DAVID DONACHIE
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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ISBN 978–0–7490–1932–7
Game of Bones Page 37