Captain's Surrender by Alex Beecroft Read Free Book Online Page B

gentleman could be treated like a common man. The sense of disorientation, of the world gone mad, was more frightening than the punishment itself.
Summersgill himself, not bound by naval tradition, had left the quarterdeck so that he might not see his young friend being flogged like a common tar, and now Kenyon acknowledged that kindness by a slight lift of the lips. "I'm prime, thank you, sir. Yourself?"
"I admit to feeling somewhat oppressed." Summersgill looked down to where the body of Chips lay sewn into a hammock. "Something has to be done," he said. "Must you bear this? Can you not call him out? I swear to God if he had done the same to me, I would!"
Kenyon smiled, as though charmed by the thought of Summersgill dueling. True, he was not the most likely combatant, but there were some insults even the most peaceable of men could not endure. Honor would demand action, even from him.
"The captain would be quite within his rights to refuse a challenge," Kenyon said softly, his voice rough. Frowning at the sound of it, he turned away to watch the sea. His hands were white on the rail, and there was a persistent tremor in the muscles of his arms. "It isn't possible to maintain discipline in a ship where the officers are fighting duels over every trifling slight. We must learn to accept a certain amount of humiliation in the exercise of our duty, so the admiralty says. And if I were to fight him despite a refusal, not only would it be murder, but it could well precipitate the mutiny we fear."
"Would that be such a bad thing?"
Kenyon laughed, ducking his head. The movement concealed his eyes but bared the spreading bloodstain on his collar. Summersgill looked away quickly, as he would from any obscenity.
"It has the potential to be very bad indeed. Yesterday I would have said I could hold the crew together through my own authority." The half hidden smile shaded into bitterness. "But you've seen what has become of that. And the authority of the other officers, with me. If we may be punished like ordinary men, why should we be obeyed like gods?"
"You're saying it wouldn't stop with the captain?"
"Exactly so." Kenyon raised his head. With the sea shining behind him only the small lines of endurance around his mouth distinguished him from the figure of a martial saint painted on a church wall. "I don't think they would kill me at first—the stripes might save me for a few days, until they realized I wasn't going to join them. I don't think they would kill you or your wife..." he sighed, "but it would not surprise me either. They would certainly kill—possibly torment—young Hawkes and his messmates. Anderson, too, if he survives the surgery. And I hope I do not need to mention the fate that would be suffered by your ward and her maid. You have no conception, sir, of what these men are capable of when their blood is up."
Peter shuddered. It was only a small, involuntary flinch, but from a man who faced Walker every day, it spoke volumes. Summersgill thought about Emily and the twelveyear-old "young gentlemen" and felt his throat close with dread. He drew out his handkerchief and pressed it to his lips, forcing himself to breathe in the calming smell of lavender.
"Sir?" said Kenyon, watching as Chips' tie-mate, Boyd, made to shake his fist at the quarterdeck. The coxswain caught the arm, pulled it down, and hurried him away, pressing a packet of tobacco into his hands. "If I can keep the crew together until we strike soundings in St. George, can you get the captain removed once we arrive?"
"I think I can!" Summersgill had not been thinking so far ahead, but now he thought about Admirals Sullivan and DeBourne who both had sons involved in minor smuggling activities. They would undoubtedly prefer the young men to be gently warned rather than prosecuted. "Yes, yes, almost certainly. If I write the letters today I can have him diverted into a career in the dockyards within a quarter ... or perhaps better say a half year."
Kenyon