Flint's Island

by Leonard Wibberley

  All this time, neither the captain nor Mr. Arrow left the poop, but stood together by the starboard rail, examining the details of the island as they came into view. We sailed at a tangent along a heavily wooded and hilly coast covered with pines or firs, and two of the three smaller peaks we had sighted had soon lined up on our starboard. When they did, Captain Samuels called to Mr. Peasbody for a bearing on them, but that unhappy man, who had returned from the waist, was gawking at the island and had not his wits about him.

  “Northwest by the compass,” I cried. “And the great peak north by west.” Mr. Peasbody repeated the information, and then told me loudly to watch my course, which was typical of the man, for when he was neglectful of his own duty his defense was to pretend to find fault in others. We were headed for a point on the southern end of the island with beyond it a hill. The seaward end of this point showed white, and Mr. Arrow examined it intently through the glass.

  “Breakers?” asked the captain, and Mr. Arrow said, “No, sir. Not breakers. White rocks.” He looked about him, at the great peak and two smaller ones and the white rocks on the point ahead, like one who thinks he had been dreaming and finds his dream to be real.

  “I believe I know this island, sir,” Mr. Arrow said at length. “Indeed, I know it well.”

  “You do?” said the captain. “And what island is it, pray?”

  Mr. Arrow’s face was hard set as he replied, “It is Flint’s Island, sir,” he said. “Flint of the Walrus.” And at the mention of that name, clearly heard by all around, a kind of fear settled on us all.

  CHAPTER 2

  THERE WAS NO man engaged in the coastal or offshore trade in those days in the American colonies, or living within a hundred miles of the coast, who had not heard of Flint. His was a name to strike fear in the heart of the stoutest captain, and the sight of his topmasts off the coast was enough to panic a whole countryside. We all have our childhood fears. Some are brought up to fear Satan, and others to fear ghosts. But every child in New England, I think, feared Flint before any of them, and if half the tales told about him were true, Flint must have been wickedness itself in human form. My own childhood, I being Salem born, was full of tales of Flint, and my mother had only to hint that Flint would get me and I’d be sure to be home well before dark, whatever the temptation to stay out and play.

  I do not know how many towns and hamlets Flint had sacked and burned to the ground (often for sport, it was said). The list embraced the Atlantic coast from the Carolinas to Maine. We in Salem knew Flint well, for he had once, to gratify some blasphemous spite of his, sailed his old black bark Walrus into Salem Harbor, summoned the townsfolk, and demanded that they attend a funeral service immediately for one of his wretches who had died aboard, some said of plague and others said cut down with a stroke of Flint’s own cutlass. My father told the story often. The funeral, he said, was held with the whole town in attendance and Flint presiding. The corpse, wrapped in a sail instead of in a coffin, was buried in the churchyard, with all compelled to shout “Amen” to Flint’s horrid prayers. No help could be mustered from nearby communities. A horseman sent secretly to Mystic for aid reported that the whole community took to the fields on hearing that the Walrus was in Salem Harbor. My father said that on this occasion he had seen Flint plain, being nearby.

  “He was not big,” he said, “but under the average height, and as thin as a corpse. His eyes were hard as jet, and his skin, which was deathly white, had still a bluish tinge to it about the jowls. He preached a sermon full of hell-fire and quoted the Bible like a Trinity scholar. Mr. Wedscomb, the parson, said afterwards that he had every passage right to a ‘T’ and if he had not been a pirate he would have made a notable bishop.”

  When he’d preached his sermon and buried the seaman, my father said, Flint set fire to the church and then withdrew. There was some talk, when he had gone, of digging up the body and flinging it into the bay, for it seemed an outrage that such a wretch should lie neighbor in death to decent folk. But when it came right down to digging, nobody in Salem wanted to touch the grave, lest Flint hear of it and come back again. That part of the cemetery fell into disuse and there the moldering bones were allowed to lie.

  Such was the story my father (now dead) had told of Flint. It was mild enough, compared with many of the buccaneer’s other exploits. The list of ships he had taken would, I think, fill twenty pages. He’d died at last off Savannah, Georgia, some say of rum and some of yellow jack, and it was stated that even after he was dead none of his crew dared enter his cabin for two days for fear of him.

  What happened to the Walrus after Flint’s death nobody knew for certain. We had heard in Salem that two of the crew had died in a little English hamlet on the Bristol road in curious circumstances. One, who had been a mate on the Walrus and had the appropriate name of Bones, fell dead in an inn in which he was staying; his death being due to a stroke. Another, a blind man by the name of Pew, was run over by a coach near the same inn. Rumor had it that the Walrus’s crew had found Bones at the inn and were determined to get from him a chart showing the location of an island on which Flint had buried his treasure. There was a story that a ship had been fitted out in Bristol, England, later and had found the island and the treasure, the name of the ship being given as the Hispaniola. Whether that was true or not, I could not say. But there was no doubt in anybody’s mind that Flint had had vast treasure when he died, and had buried it, either on an uncharted island or, more likely, on one of the small uninhabited islands of the West Indies visited occasionally by whalers in search of fresh water or goat meat.

  When, then, Mr. Arrow said that the island now lying before us was Flint’s Island, every head turned to look at it, the faces a study between fear of Flint and thoughts of treasure. Captain Samuels bellowed to the hands to get about their business and set Mr. Peasbody sharply forward with orders to put a good hand in the chains with a lead line. But he was himself shaken by Mr. Arrow’s news and I watched him, out of the corner of my eye, staring at the island as we neared that point with the white rocks, debating, as I thought, whether we should sheer off or put in for a rest and repairs.

  “Is there an anchorage in the lee beyond that point, Mr. Arrow?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir, there is,” said the mate. “That hill you see beyond the point is Skeleton Island. There is a passage running roughly north-northwest between it and the point, with three fathoms clear in the center. We can come in there if the wind will hold, and anchor in quiet water between Skeleton Island and the main, or Flint’s, Island. The bottom is mud and sand, the mud above and the sand half a fathom below. It is good holding ground and is called Captain Kidd’s Anchorage.”

  The captain received this information with some distaste. “Skeleton Island,” he said. “Captain Kidd’s Anchorage. There’s not much that’s wholesome in that. Were you long ashore when you visited here, Mr. Arrow?” The manner in which he put this question hinted that he suspected there was something more than a casual call for water in the mate’s visit to the island.

  “You mistake me,” said Mr. Arrow. “I was never here before. The knowledge I have of the island comes only from a chart which I saw once and which I had good reason to study.”

  “An Admiralty chart, sir?” asked the captain.

  “No, sir,” said Mr. Arrow. “Not an Admiralty chart.” But he offered nothing further.

  “What is the name of the big peak?” asked the captain.

  “Spyglass,” said Mr. Arrow. “The one to the north, which is lower, is called Foremast, and there is one to the south which we should see shortly, called Mizzenmast.”

  “Hmmmmmmm,” said the captain. “Named by a seaman for sure, and not a Spaniard. A Don would have used the names of saints.”

  “A seaman indeed,” said Mr. Arrow. “And an Englishman, I regret to say.” Their eyes met, but Mr. Arrow said nothing more. Just at that moment the hand in the chains called out, “By the deep, seven,” and then, “By the mark, six,” indicating
that the bottom was shoaling fast.

  “Bring her in then, Mr. Arrow,” said the captain.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” said the mate. “I should like to have topsail set, for the wind will turn light at the point.”

  “Make it so,” said Captain Samuels, and the hands were soon aloft setting the new canvas. The wind did indeed turn when we got the point abeam, and lighter still when, in answer to Mr. Arrow’s order, I spun the wheel to starboard, to go up the channel between Skeleton Island and Flint’s Island.

  “Watch for a squall when we are past the point,” said Mr. Arrow to me. The water about was entirely quiet now and I could hear the mutter of the ripples under her forefoot as the Jane slipped up the channel. The squall came as Mr. Arrow had predicted—a sudden little fury of wind which filled the topsails tight as drums and heeled the brig over on her side, very pretty like a girl at a dance. I fell off a little and then brought her up to the edge of the wind again and she slipped along as graceful as a swan. Even Mr. Arrow smiled to see her handle so well, and said, without turning his head, “Prettily done,” which greatly pleased me. We had weathered the point at but three knots, but the squall gave us a good five and we sent a bow and quarter-wave out to lap on the shore on either side. Soon the wind died altogether and we lost way rather faster than I had expected.

  “There’s a stream runs out of that little bay there,” said Mr. Arrow in explanation. “We are breasting the current. Mr. Peasbody, square the yards if you please. Bosun, is the bower rigged?”

  “It is, sir,” said Hodge, the bosun. “And I’ve a man on the cathead ready to let go.”

  We had soon come almost to a standstill and Mr. Arrow glanced at Captain Samuels. The captain strode to the side, looked about at the land to see whether we were still moving ahead. I could feel the wheel go slack, and Captain Samuels said, “You may anchor when you are ready.”

  “Let her go then,” said Mr. Arrow, and turning to me, “She will come back on her hook. See you reverse your helm and keep her as straight as you may.” There was a mighty splash from up forward and the thunder of the cable as it came out of its tier and through the hawse. “Give her twenty fathoms, bosun,” said Mr. Arrow, and when that much had run through, a turn was taken around the windlass and the ship held fast.

  I dropped my hands from the wheel and looked around. Dead ahead was a dismal-looking marsh through which a sluggish river wound into the anchorage. To the left of the river was a pine-clad hill, with one steep cliff showing like a yellow slash among the green. To the right of the river, the land was lower, though still rolling and studded here and there with pines and evergreen oaks.

  Behind us, a battered skull as it were, thrusting out of the water, was Skeleton Island, covered with low scrub and with many rocks coated with bird lime. Three pelicans in a military line glided down the quiet bay, disappeared under the bowsprit, and then soared effortlessly over to Skeleton Island to perch on the rocks. Over the whole—the water, the pine-clad hill, the fetid marsh, and the oaks—there hung a brooding, menacing silence.

  “I’d sooner be in Arctic ice with winter coming on than in this place,” growled Captain Samuels. “Mr. Arrow, if you please, there are a few questions I want to ask you.” And he led the way to his cabin.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE IMMEDIATE RESULTS OF the conference between Captain Samuels and Mr. Arrow, which lasted the better part of an hour, was that we set an anchor watch that night—two men forward by the bower, two in the waist, and two aft by the wheel. All had muskets and cutlasses, and orders to report the slightest disturbance heard ashore or around the ship. Captain Samuels made no bones about the reasons for so vigilant a watch.

  “I’m told by Mr. Arrow,” he said, having summoned all hands to the waist, “that the island we are lying off of was discovered by the notorious buccaneer Flint of the Walrus, now gone to his reward, and burning hot, I hope. It is unknown on any Admiralty charts, but Mr. Arrow says that when in private English service he once had occasion to study a chart (without latitude or longitude) detailing all the appearances of the island and this very bay in which we are now anchored. He assures me that this is the same island.

  “Now these are unhealthy waters. You would not be seamen if you did not know that. They are pirate waters and we are anchored off what I might call a pirate island. It is probably uninhabited. Whether that is so or not, we will discover tomorrow. Meanwhile, good seamanship demands that I take the view that it is inhabited and inhabited by the kind of scum who have, in the past, using small boats, seized many an unsuspecting vessel. It is my belief that no ship was ever lost to buccaneers but through lack of caution on the part of its captain and its crew. Therefore, there will be a double watch tonight, and armed, and if anything is seen to set out from the shore, if it is nothing more than a sea lion, it is to be reported immediately. If there is any unusual noise about the ship, it is likewise to be reported. Do not be afraid to be damned as a fool. It is a wise man who challenges and speaks up on a watch, and the fool who keeps silent.”

  With such instruction, you may be sure that the watch was very alert that night. For myself, I got little sleep, for the talk in the forecastle was all of the island and of that infamous pirate for whom it was named, and (more to the point) of the treasure collected over twenty years of burnings and sinkings which Flint had buried on it. That the treasure was still there, no one doubted and when mention was made of that English ship, the Hispaniola, which was reported to have found the treasure, everyone hastened to discountenance the story, though quite without reason.

  One of the foremost in discounting the tale was the ship’s carpenter, Smigley. It is an old saying in New England that it is a poor carpenter or a great fool who takes service at sea. Smigley, though a good carpenter, was indeed something of a fool. He was very slow in his speech and in his movements, and once he had set his mind upon anything, he could by no means be dissuaded from it. I heard Mr. Arrow say once of him that if he decided to whet the blade of his plane, he would do so though the ship was sinking and the water up to his workbench. He had round features in a round head—that is to say, the end of his nose was round and his mouth was round and his eyes were round and somewhat small, and it was a common joke among the hands to ask Smigley for a loan of his head with which to draw a circle.

  Smigley then took it into his mind to say that all the treasure had not been taken off Flint’s Island by the English ship, and he stuck to this view with the greatest air of authority whenever an opposite view was advanced.

  “Well,” I said at last, nettled by these constant denials, “how could you know the truth of the matter? You were never on this island before, nor ever in England to my knowledge for that matter.”

  “Well, I do know, Tom Whelan,” said Smigley, “and just because you’re quartermaster aboard doesn’t give you any reason for speaking against me. You were wrong about the larboard channels and you should bear that in mind before crossing a ship’s carpenter that’s been at sea ten years before you were born.”

  It was typical of the old fool to bring up the larboard channels, which I had one day remarked were made of greenheart, only to have Smigley prove that they were of white oak. He would remember and treasure that error on my part to his dying day.

  “Never mind the larboard channels,” said the bosun, Hodge. “What do you know about Flint’s treasure that makes you so sure it’s still here?”

  “Why,” said Smigley, “I sailed with one of Flint’s hands once. And he told me that there was treasure still on the island.”

  “You did?” said Sweeney. “What was his name?”

  “Gunn,” said Smigley. “Benjamin Gunn. And a proper fool he were too. Kind of sly and simple at the same time. Never asked you a question straight out but come at it first this way and then that, like a cat with a pine shaving. Well, he’d been on that same ship you’re talking about, Mr. Tom Whelan, when they got the treasure. In fact, it was he who found it, for he had been marooned on the island
some years before the English ship arrived. And he said there was treasure still unlifted there—great bars of silver, he said. And jewels too that he knowed about—crosses of gold set with emeralds and rubies and them blue stones that I misremember how they are named.”

  “Diamond,” said someone.

  “Diamonds is white,” said Smigley with great scorn. “I seen a diamond once and I wouldn’t know it from a piece of glass.”

  “And how do you know it wasn’t a piece of glass?” said one of the younger hands.

  “Would a Spanish bishop be walking around with a piece of glass in a ring, big enough to put in a bull’s nose?” demanded Smigley, and that settled that.

  “Tell us more about this here Benjamin Gunn,” said Hodge. “If he was on the island and marooned and found the treasure and handed it I suppose over to the captain of that English ship, it’s likely he got a good share, didn’t he?”

  “He did,” said Smigley.

  “Then how did you meet him at sea?” demanded Hodge. “There’s no man will take ship who has half a George in his pocket. Poverty makes seamen. That’s known.”

  “Well,” said Smigley, “there’s some you can give a dollar and they will have it in their hand the day they die, and there’s some you can give a king’s ransom and they will be looking for a loan Monday week. And that was the way with Benjamin Gunn. He had no sooner got back to Bristol than he took a coach to London and placed orders with every hatter, wigmaker, and tailor in the town. He ordered a coach and six, japanned in red enamel and with the spokes of the wheels covered with gold leaf. He was most particular about that. He hired a great house with servants that helped themselves, and met a duke in a tavern, with his duchess, that took him to their London home to introduce him to their fine daughter. Between the duke and the coach and the great house and the servants, and the wigmakers, and a few hands at cards, he was walking back to Bristol in three weeks without a penny in his pocket and the bailiffs looking for him.”