Mutiny(103)

'So there is no mistaking the situation. I will go over the main points. At the moment there is at our most vulnerable point a battle fleet fully armed and manned by desperate men, larger by far than even Jervis and Nelson had at St Vincent. With the final rising there is now no chance whatsoever that any force can be brought to bear to end this situation.

'We have endured this blockade as long as we can. Our losses are catastrophic and there are no more reserves. And now Captain the Earl of Northesk has brought the final disgrace, an ultimatum addressed to the King himself. I will attend His Majesty after this meeting.'

He paused, choosing his words. 'The mutineer chief now has a number of possibilities, all of which are deadly to this country. He can sail wherever he wishes, and menace whoever he will. He is untouchable. He may wish to use this power to threaten us, and by that I include the promise to deliver his fleet to the enemies of this country, France, the Dutch, any. I need hardly say that, in that event, England is certain of defeat. I confess before you now that I can no longer see any further act of significance that can have any effect on the outcome of this miserable affair.'

'There's still Trinity House, Prime Minister,' Spencer stuttered.

'Yes, my lord, you'll spare me the details of my worthy and salty old gentlemen's valiant endeavours, please. But in the main, just what are their chances?'

'They have started at the northern limits, around the Swin, but there is difficulty . . .'

'Quite so. I understand,' Pitt said wearily. 'Putting that aside, we have to face reality, gentlemen. And that is, we have tried and we have lost. There is now no further course left. Except one. Grenville, it is with the deepest reluctance imaginable, but I have decided that the time has come to approach the French and treat for peace.'

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'