Renzi returned to the Shippe Inn, tired
and dismayed after his early morning walk. Despite his warnings, nothing had
been done to prevent the blockade. It had been days, and the entrance to the
Thames was now a chaos of jammed shipping, the wealth of England wasting away
on the mud-flats. It could only be a short while before the nation collapsed
into anarchy.
The oystermen grinned a
welcome: his liking for a daily trip to the Nore was a profitable sideline. The
smack put out from the Queenborough jetty, went smartly about and beat out to
the anchorage.
Renzi sat bolt upright.
To his shock there were now additional ships, big ones, settling to their
moorings at the Great Nore. With them how many more thousands of sailors had
swelled the numbers of mutineers? It was a fantastic, unreal thing that was
unfolding, unparalleled in history.
As he let the fishermen
circle the anchored warships he counted and memorised. It was a difficult and
brain-racking chore to come up with small gems of intelligence gleaned from his
observations yet which obeyed the principles he held. But it was vital if Kydd
was going to have any chance to escape his fate.
The smack returned,
Renzi careful to rhapsodise on the quality of the sunlight on cliffs, seagulls
and sails. With as much patience as he could muster, he allowed the oystermen
to fuss him ashore, brush him down and set him on his way.
The situation was now a
matter of the greatest urgency. He wandered about the village and, when sure he
was out of sight, stepped rapidly along the path to the dockyard. The amiable
sentry passed him through and Hartwell came immediately. 'Sir,' said Renzi
abrupdy, 'I advise most strongly that tonight is the best — your only chance.'
'Do
I understand you to mean—'
'You do. Trinity House!
Pray lose no time, sir. I need not remind you of what hangs on this night'
He left immediately, and on the way to
Queenborough he kept looking over his shoulder. Before he was half-way, to his
immense satisfaction, the telegraph on its stilts above the dockyard clashed
into life, the shutters opening and closing mechanically with their mysterious
code.
The afternoon passed at
an interminable pace, giving ample time for reflection. The stark fact was that
he had chosen a course of action that contradicted the principles he had
arrived at: he could alert the mutineers and nullify the action, but this he
had coldly and logically decided was a matter touching on the safety of the
realm, and it must remain.
Now it had to be. Renzi
knew that the attention of the mutineers would be on celebrating the arrival of
their powerful new brothers; this would be the only time that the daring
operation planned by the Elder Brothers of Trinity House had even the slimmest
of chances.
It was, besides, a source of some
satisfaction that Hartwell had trusted him enough to divulge the plot and
consult him on the timing. His strategy was working.
At last, sunset He
waited for a further hour, then made his way in the dark to the jetty.
'Why, sir, you haven't a grego,' an
oysterman said kindly. 'Ye surely needs one on th' water at this time o' night'
Renzi accepted the
fishy-smelling surcoat and boarded the smack by the light of one dim lanthorn.
'How exciting!' he made himself say. 'What kind of creatures are abroad at this
hour, I can hardly conceive!'
Under easy sail to the
night airs, the smack put out into the Swale. The moon came and went behind
ragged clouds, and Renzi scanned the night tensely.
A splash nearby
startled him. 'Don' never mind him, sir. Jus'a fish out on a frolic'
They met the
Medway and paid off to starboard. Still no sign. Then he caught a sudden
blackening of the wan glitter of moon on sea. 'What's that?' he asked quickly.
'That? Oh, jus' the Trinity
Yacht, sir. Don' righdy know why she's abroad now, don't usually.'
Renzi setded back with
relief. It was happening. His part was now finished.
From seaward, the approaches to
London beckoned with lights in a confusion of beguiling sea-paths — hundreds of
golden pinpricks ashore and afloat, the larger navigation beacons and the Nore
light-vessel.
The Thames met the sea
in a maze of sandbanks that stretched out to sea for miles, each one marked
with the wrecks of countless unfortunate vessels that had strayed from the
deep-water channels. No sailing master in his right senses would attempt to
enter or leave without thankful reference to the buoys and lights set and
maintained by the brethren of the Corporation of Trinity House, whose ceaseless
work continued even in wartime.
On this night, Trinity
House began a different task. To the seamarks of the Whiting, Rough and
Gunfleet to the north, Girdler, Shivering Sand and Pan in the centre, and the
Blacktail, Mouse and Sheers, their vessels converged under the command of
Captain Philip Bromfield.
The Trinity Yacht, purpose-built
for buoy lifting and heavy cable work, slipped through the night to her first
rendezvous. She was fitted with a massive capstan and particular cathead to
starboard. Her decking was of Danzig deal for laying out buoy and ground
tackle, but her captain did not rig for buoy lifting. Instead, the buoy was
hove short and the night's quiet was broken by the sound of men wielding axes
and hammers, smashing into carefully crafted staves, wrecking tightly caulked
seams. Then the buoy was let go, to disappear into the black depths.
One by one the
seaward buoys that the buoy warden of Trinity House had dedicated his life to
preserve were sunk without a trace. The work continued through the night, as
quietly as possible, as they approached the Nore and the mutinous fleet.
By morning it was
complete, carried off during the only night when there was any chance of
success — a daring feat that so easily could have gone wrong. To seaward not a
buoy or beacon remained: the Nore fleet was trapped, unable to get out across
lethal sandbanks now lying concealed under an innocent sea.
Kydd found Parker forward, right in
the eyes of the ship, alone. He was gazing out across the smooth, unblemished
sea to the hard grey line of the horizon, his face a picture of grief.
'Why? Why do they force
my hand in this way?' Parker mouthed.
Kydd mumbled something,
but his own mind was in a chaos of feeling. Just hours ago they were dictating
terms to the King himself, now they were trapped in their own impregnable lair.
He could see nothing but the blackness of defeat ahead. Their mighty fleet was
impotent - they would rot in place until...
Kydd forced himself to the present.
'What was that ye said, Dick?'
Parker turned to him with an
intense expression of noble suffering. 'My friend, by their stubbornness,
stupidity and malice they have forced me into the position where there is only
the final sanction, the last move in the game. They insult us to think we would
carry the fleet over to the enemy, for they've shown by their actions last
night that this is their concern. Very well, this is barred to us. But this we
can do. I have ten thousand men and a thousand guns at my command. At the
expiry of our ultimatum, if the King is led by false advice to deny us our
right, then we sail, up-river, to the capital. There we shall demand our due,
and if not we shall with broadsides reduce the City to utter ruin.'
'Yer mad bastard, ye've lost y'r
mind!' shouted the Lancaster delegate.
'Damn yer blood, c'n ye think of a
better?' snarled Hulme.
Kydd put down his pen. In the violent
discussions nothing was being decided. 'Mates, do we have t' fire on London t'
get our way? Is this the only thing t' do?'
'Shut yer face, Kydd, you ain't a
delegate,' snapped Blake.
Hulme
added, 'An' yeah, if it saves our necks, cully.'
'I don' like this a-tall,' MacLaurin,
delegate of Lancaster, said. 'Can't be right, firin' on our own, like that.
There's kitlings 'n' all ashore, like t' stop a ball. I tell yer, we—'
Kydd was nauseous, his head ready
to burst. He excused himself, went to the captain's sea-cabin and pulled out
the victualling list. Some ships were running far short of proper rations.
'Director needs six
tons o' water b' sundown, Mr Kydd.' It was the dour purser's steward of the
ship; he had asked before, but Kydd had been caught up with the endless
arguments in the Great Cabin.
'Ye
can't have any now,' Kydd snapped.
'I
asked ye yesterday forenoon, Mr Kydd.'
'Goddamn it t' hell! Listen, the
water-hoy won't come 'cos the dockyard maties want t' slit our throats, Proserpine's
waterin' party was all took b' the soldiers, an' Leopard thinks now a good time
t' find her water foul 'n' wants more fr'm the fleet.'
'I said, Director needs
'er water,' the purser's steward repeated obstinately.
Blind rage surged up. 'You come here
pratin' on y'r problems — y' fuckin' shaney prick, you — you— Get out! Out?
The man left
soundlessly, leaving Kydd to hold his head in his hands.
How long could he
hold on? Pulled apart by his loyalty to the navy and that to his shipmates, in
a maelstrom of half-belief in the wickedness of the highest in the land, he had
now to come to terms with the prospect, if the mutineers voted it, of doom and
destruction to the heart of his country.
He threw himself out of the suffocating
closeness of the cabin, needing the open sky and air. At the main shrouds he
stopped, breathing heavily. He grabbed one of the great black ropes, wanting to
feel in his hands its thickness, its seamanlike simplicity. He looked up at the
towering maintop: its stark, uncompromising outline was urgent with warlike
strength, yet in its form there was also grace and beauty for those who knew
the sea.
Not long afterwards red
flags descended on three of the smaller ships and were replaced by white.
Fighting could be seen on the decks of one, and the red flag ascended once
more, but the other two slipped away round the point to the dockyard, and
safety.
Parker came on deck.
'They're deserting their shipmates!' he called loudly. 'Damn them to hell,
don't we say, men?' There were weak cheers and cursing from those in earshot.
But Kydd could see he was pale and shaking.
'There goes Leopard, the bloody dogs!'
someone called excitedly.
Fearon, delegate to the
Leopard, raised his fists. 'I know the gib-faced shab 'ut did that. When I get
aboard . ..'
The bigger 50-gun ship
slid away with the tide. Others in the fleet opened fire on her but she made
her escape. Then it was the turn of Repulse — but her furtive setting of sails
had been spotted by the alerted fleet and guns started to go off.
'Captain Davis, call away my barge,'
shouted Parker. 'I'm going to send those beggars to the devil by my own hand,
see if I don't!' The boat put off, and pulled madly for Director.
Repulse's sails caught
the wind and she heeled, gathering way. Parker scrambled up the side of Director
and could be seen arguing with her gun-crews — they had not opened up on Repulse
as she slipped away — but then Repulse suddenly slewed and stopped, hard
aground.
Parker flew into his
boat again, and stood in the sternsheets wildly urging on its crew as it made
for Monmouth, the closest to the stranded ship. He swarmed up the side and ran
to her fo'c'sle. An indistinct scrimmage could be seen around a nine-pounder.
Then it fired — and again.
Kydd watched in misery
as Monmouth and other ships poured fire on Repulse. All the high-minded
sacrifice, hard work and dedication, the loyalty and trust, now crumbling into
vicious fighting.
Hundreds of Sheerness
folk lined the foreshore to watch as the mutineers' guns thundered, the stink
of powder smoke drifting in over them. They would have something to tell their
grandchildren, Kydd thought blackly.