Caribbee(91)

‘Let’s keep our tempers, gentlemen,’ Bowden said, then asked, ‘Doctor, we have to take some kind of action. Is there a middle course, one that recommends he be retired immediately on grounds of ill-health, or some such?’

The surgeon shook his head mutely.

‘You’ll get no sense out of that lubber,’ Jowett growled. ‘We’ll have to do the business ourselves. Anyone knows the symptoms of mad?’

‘Hold hard, Mr Jowett,’ interposed Maitland. ‘You’re not reckoning on the consequences.’

‘What fucking consequences?’

‘If we declare him mad but the ship’s doctor declines, it’ll be taken as an act of open mutiny.’

The table fell into an appalled silence.

‘So we just carry on as before? I don’t think so,’ Griffith said slowly. ‘He’s getting worse, thinks there’s plots against him – he’ll one day likely up and skewer some poor wight he thinks is after his blood.’

‘Or worse,’ Briggs said morosely. ‘I’ve heard of things happening in Bedlam that would—’

‘Where did you …?’

‘When I was young, my aunt was taken to the asylum with the night terrors and shakes. We had to visit her as she got worse.’

His face fell sombre in recollection. ‘To see how she changed, why, it was—’

‘Yes, well. So, then, you’re the one to tell us the symptoms,’ Jowett said firmly. ‘What do we look for? What things say you’re a mad cove?’

‘Umm. Well, she used to write long letters to all us younkers and in the end the writing was so bad we couldn’t understand it.’

‘Bad writing!’ sniffed the purser, in an offended tone. ‘And that’s a thing. These days I send him papers, and get back scrawls I can’t figure and dursn’t ask.’

‘For Christ’s sake!’ snarled Griffith. ‘This has gone on long enough.’

He looked about the table significantly. ‘Whether we like it or no, whatever happens in the near future will be on all our heads, no escape for any. I’ve a notion to act now, do something before it all comes down on us in a way we won’t like.’

Encouraged by one or two nods, he went on, ‘So this is what I’m proposing. We draw up a list of all the crazy, strut-noddy things he’s done and said.’

His head whipped around to the terrified surgeon, as he snarled, ‘Then get our doctor to sign that he’s seen all this and thinks it the behaving of a cheerful, well-living cove. Or not – as the case may be,’ he concluded grimly.

‘I – that is to say, I, er—’ the surgeon stammered.

Griffith turned on him with savage intensity. ‘You’ll sign, Doctor. I take my oath on it.’

He went on more quietly, ‘In this way we can say that, while we’re no taut hands in the matter o’ lunacy, we’re standing down our captain for the good of the Service as being our judgement of his condition.’

‘Good idea,’ Briggs agreed enthusiastically. ‘And then—’

But the first lieutenant hadn’t finished. ‘Now, for this to save our skins it has to be all of us or none. Nobody to hang back. If it isn’t, we’re done.’

It didn’t have to be spelled out: in going behind Tyrell’s back to the admiral with their demand, they were in breach of every moral rule of conduct of a naval officer, and even if there were no legal consequences they would be tainted by the action for the rest of their careers.

Bowden froze. Everything in his being screamed at him to shy away from the awful chasm they were approaching, but if he did, this would be betraying not only his fellow officers but as well the countless seamen who had suffered.

‘So. How about it, gentlemen? Do we take a vote on it?’ Griffith’s eyes went about the table, to each man in turn. There was no escaping it – they were all in or …

‘Then here it is. Officers of Hannibal now assembled. Do you now accept and determine that Captain Tyrell is, um, not of sound mind as can continue in his position and must be declared unfit?’

No one dared speak. The moment hung interminably.

‘I’ll take a show of hands. Raise ’em if you’re in. Gentlemen?’

Bowden, his mind now resolved to an icy coolness, joined the rest as every hand was raised.

Griffith smiled in grim satisfaction. ‘Then we’re in agreement. We’re a day only out of Antigua. When we’re hook down, I’m going ashore with you at my back and we brace the admiral!’





Chapter 11




‘You’re sure there’s nothing?’ Renzi asked, with a sinking heart. If the secret base was not here then it must be in Martinique, a much larger island, and there he would be without the advantage of a pair of eyes on the inside.