Scarborough Fair - Chris Scott Wilson [36]
It seemed there was something badly wrong. A sideways glance at Midshipman Fanning who had come to fetch him from the hotel only heightened his suspicions. The boy could not sit still, flicking imaginary fluff from his white breeches, shuffling as though the discomfort of a ship’s boat was a new experience. Fanning’s eyes skittered from Richard’s towering masts, yards full of dormant sails down to the battened gun ports of her broadside before coming to rest on his commodore. When he met Paul Jones’s gaze he became more agitated, nervous at being caught nervous.
What could have been so urgent to induce Richard Dale to request his presence that afternoon when he was well aware the commodore was due to repair on board the following morning? The midshipman offered no excuse, only Dale’s request, an urgent request. Paul Jones looked back at the land where the houses on the seafront looked sturdy and inviting. He thought wistfully of his comfortable room, the appetizing meals prepared by the hotelier’s wife and of the shy glances of the raven-haired chambermaid. For a moment he wished himself back there. He knew he still looked pale and haggard, hair lankly drawn back into a queue. The illness had hung about his shoulders during the weeks ashore and now his attention was again demanded by the squadron.
His sigh was lost in the wind.
At the gangway a flustered Richard Dale stood surrounded by heavily armed marines, their scarlet and gold coats gaudy in the sunshine. Men were clustered all over the weather deck in groups, some penned by grim faced marines with bayonets mounted, the polished steel glinting threats. Prisoners, clothes torn and spattered with blood were haranguing their captors, spitting and sneering in an attempt to break the soldiers’ immobile expressions. Groups of free sailors hurled abuse at the prisoners’ waving fists, their voices lost in the jumble of international tongues.
Irrationally, Paul Jones thought how strange it was that the first words of any new language the sailors learned were always the crudest of swearwords. He blinked the notion away as the marine officer, Colonel de Chamillard, stalked toward the rowdiest group of sailors, barking staccato orders to the half a dozen men who followed in his footsteps. Immediately, the marines broke ranks to form a line abreast, muskets tilted into the advance position. He spat another order and they moved forward, two paces then pause, driving the bawling crew at bayonet point in a ragged retreat toward the bows.
“What in God’s name is going on here?” Paul Jones demanded.
“Mutiny, sir.”
“Mutiny!” The commodore bellowed the word, then coughed, shoulders wracking, a hand to his mouth. He had hoped never again to hear that worst of words on one of his ships. It always comes back to haunt me, he thought bitterly.
“All under control now, sir.”
Jones stared, eyes filled with tears from his searing cough. He looked away to the confined groups on the deck. The prisoners’ tongues had quieted. Slowly, the curses from the rest of the crew were dying out, here and there an oath heard in Portuguese. Paul Jones jerked a beckoning wrist at Lt. Dale. “Come below.” Without waiting for acknowledgement he strode to the companion ladder.
Richard Dale glanced about the deck to assure himself the prisoners were well contained. He had been right. On the appearance of the commodore, the ultimate symbol of authority, the mutineers had begun to realize the depth of trouble in which they had jumped headlong.
In the comparative gloom of the stern cabin, the commodore’s eyes burned feverishly in his blanched face. “When did this mutiny occur?” he demanded, noting the buttons torn from Dale’s uniform. “Did you fight hand to hand?” Without allowing Dale to answer, he turned away to splash brandy into a glass. He swallowed quickly, the liquor burning a furrow down through his chest. He began to pace back and forth across the narrow cabin, his figure a blurred silhouette against the daylight of the stern lights. After forty or fifty paces he came to a halt, hands resting