by John Drake
The excitement was immense. Such yelling and shouting and eager jostling, and such innocent delight on all sides at the prospect of so wonderful a fight. So Flint led Silver and Billy Bones to the quarterdeck, where the ship offered its nearest equivalent to fair and level ground, and each man took off his hat and coat, and stood to face the other. Bravado drove Billy Bones to haul off his shirt and stand like the pugilist he was, chest matted in black hair and tattooed arms bulging with strength. All of Flint's supporters, and many of Long John's too, roared their approval and admiration at the sight of him, while Long John stood waiting and trembling. He was visibly shaking. His face was white. His lips were black. He looked already dead. He looked a lost man, and Selena gaped in horror and tried to stop the inevitable. She appealed to Flint, and was ignored. She appealed to Long John, who seemed barely to hear her. She appealed to the crew, who howled and roared and ridiculed.
"So," said Flint, drawing a pair of fresh-primed pistols, "I charge all hands to stand back and take no part of this fair and chosen fight, remembering that, if any does interfere, then he shall die by my hand!"
He turned to Billy Bones. "Are you ready, Mr Bones?"
"Aye!"
"Are you ready, Mr Silver?"
"One thing more -" cried Silver.
"What is it?" said Flint.
"Does Mr Bones agree that I takes no unfair advantage over him?" said Silver. "Does he agree that I has no weapons other than what he sees. And that this -" he gestured at himself, "as I stand here, is the thing he fights?"
Billy Bones sneered with contempt at the cripple leaning on his crutch. "Aye," he said.
"Then go to it!" said Flint, which words were the signal for deafening shouts and cries of delight from the happy onlookers, fiercely shaking their fists and urging on their man to inflict death and mutilation. They filled the shrouds for a better view, they crowded all round in a ring. They jumped and fought to see, and the ship rolled and plunged beneath them. And Billy Bones grinned and stepped forward, waving his fists in little circles to exercise his arms.
"Cripple," he said, "I've been waiting for this. I'll stamp your face in!"
And then there was a gasp of amazement.
Long John swung his crutch out from under his shoulder. He balanced neatly on one leg and threw the heavy timber like a javelin. It caught Billy Bones squarely between the eyes. Bones staggered. His knees buckled. His arms drooped. Long John leapt forward and slammed the top of his head straight into Billy Bones's face, with all the weight of his body behind it. Billy Bones's nose crunched like a smashed apple, spraying blood left, right and centre… And down went Billy. Down went Long John too, right on top of him, driving the point of his knee hard into Billy Bones's belly, so the breath wheezed out in a gasp, then heaving him on to his face and wrenching his arm behind his back to twist the shoulder joint till the dazed and semi-conscious Billy Bones woke up again and roared in pain.
"Here we are then, Billy-my-chicken!" cried Long John, and got himself more comfortably seated on Billy's back, and got a better grip of his arm. He might have lost a leg, but he still had plenty of dead weight to hold Billy down, and all the powerful muscles of his arms and shoulders were fighting- fit and ready to put some real pressure to the wrestler's hold he'd applied.
"Bastard!" screamed Billy Bones. "I'll kill you!"
"So now who's the better man, of us?" hissed Long John, face close to Billy Bones's ear and the sweat dripping off his nose.
"Fuck you!" screamed Billy. "Fuck your mother! Fuck your father!"
Billy Bones was tough as granite and immune to pain - or so he'd thought. He struggled fiercely to unseat the one-legged man, but Silver hung on. He hung on like a spider round a fly. He hung on and he worked at Billy Bones's shoulder joint until eventually even Billy couldn't stand it any more, and stopped bellowing and started yelping.
"Now then, Billy," said Silver, when he thought he had Mr Bones's full attention, "shall I pop this shoulder out of her joint?" He looked up and nodded at the crowd. "There's Mr Cowdray over there, our surgeon, and he can always put her back in for you… unless I does a real job and tears the flesh and sinews of her, in which case she won't never work again. And then who'd be the cripple, Billy-boy? So here's a few more pulls, just to make sure you've got the feel of it. Are you ready, Billy?"
"AAAARGH!" Billy Bones shrieked in agony.
"I asks you once more, Billy-boy: Who's the better man?"
"Ohhhh.…" groaned Billy Bones, "no more…"
"Last time, Billy, or out she comes. Who's the better man?"
"Owww… It's you."
"Say it loud, Billy-boy. Good and loud."
"YOU'RE THE BETTER MAN!" cried Billy Bones, and he wept for the humiliation of it.
Long John rolled clear of Billy Bones and stood up, throwing his weight on to his leg and driving himself upright all in one movement. He stood swaying and balancing, hopping occasionally and stretching out his arms for balance. The hands cheered in delight and surged forward, but not before Long John had hopped a few neat steps, and bent at the knee, and stooped, and heaved upright again, retrieving the crutch that had knocked the wind out of Billy Bones. All this he did by himself, and he stood head and shoulders over the men who came forward to acclaim him.
He was Long John Silver again.
Except that he wasn't quite the old Long John. He was something else. The men didn't clap him on the back as they would have done before. They pressed close and they nodded and saluted. But they didn't dare touch him. There'd been something serpent-like in the one-legged man leaping and hopping; and where the old Long John would have knocked down Billy Bones with his fists, the new Long John had won by cunning and by torture. Long John himself felt the change, but at least he knew by the respect - and fear - in men's eyes that there'd be no more reference to cripples. Not aboard this ship.
Billy Bones certainly felt the change, for he'd always feared Long John before and now feared him twice as bad, and never dared challenge him again. Flint saw it too, and knew there'd be no easy solution to the split in the ranks that left half following himself and half his rival. And Selena saw it and pushed through the men around Silver. She pulled at his arm, and he grinned, and waved the hands away, and they obeyed like sheep, and left him and the girl alone. She was puzzled.
"Why'd you do that?" she said. "If you'd fight Billy Bones, then why not Flint? Are you afraid of him?"
"Huh!" said Long John. He frowned deeply, and searched within himself for an answer. He might even have managed one, but he was interrupted.
"Sail-ho!" cried the masthead lookout.
"Where away?"
"Two points on the larboard beam!"
"Hands to quarters!" cried Flint.
At the sniff of a prize, all else was forgotten for the moment, and the ship cleared for action at a speed that would not have disgraced a man-o'-war.
It took a speedy, well-found ship like Walrus little time to come alongside of the vessel the lookouts had spotted. There'd not been so much as a reef-point torn free during the storm. As Long John had said, Flint was a fine seaman, and now Flint stood by the tiller, hands behind his back, parrot on his shoulder. Billy Bones, still nursing his wounded shoulder was already stamping up and down, bawling at the men, as Walrus bore down on a fine little brig that was rolling and wallowing as if no man were aboard of her.
Flint backed his main topsail and ordered a boat's crew to pull across to the brig. He looked at the vessel carefully, and turned to Israel Hands, the gunner, and grinned.
"You can send your cartridges below, Mr Hands," he said. "No need to burn powder today."
Long John also considered the new vessel. Flint was right.
There was nobody at the wheel, not a man in the rigging, and the remains of her sails were flapping in streamers where they'd been blown out of their reefs and repeatedly split by the force of the tempest. The brig yawed and staggered, coming into the wind and falling off as the waves and weather played
with her. But for all that, she was an uncommon fine little craft and, despite the storm damage, she appeared quite new.
She was about ninety-five foot in the keel, a hundred and fifty tons burden, and of a most graceful and pleasing form. The hull was painted white, picked out in brown, with actual gold leaf glittering around the frames of her stern windows and the carvings round her broadside of four gun-ports. Her name was Susan Mary and a united murmur of appreciation arose from Walrus's men in contemplation of her, for any seafaring man takes pleasure in a beautiful ship.
Under Billy Bones's urging, the men swung out a boat and its crew pulled across to the brig. They went over the side with a customary cheer, and pistols and cutlasses in their belts. But it was more for form than anything else. Everyone could see there would be no resistance. Long John and Selena watched as they thundered across her small decks, whooping and yelling, and then vanished below. The sounds of their busy searching and breaking things open came clearly across the water.
Walrus's men shifted enviously and muttered to one another, feeling left out of the fun. More than that, they feared the natural tendency of small and precious items of loot to find their way into the pockets of the first finders, rather than into the general pile, whatever the articles said on the matter.
Then Black Dog, who was in command of the boarders, appeared at the rail and called across the short space of water.
"Five left living, Cap'n!" he said. "Six months out of London, and foul winds the whole while…" He paused, and looked at things hidden by Susan Mary's rail from the sight of those aboard Walrus. "'Tis the scurvy, Cap'n. The swabs ain't got a tooth in their heads, nor a limb without sores. These aboard is what's left out of twenty-three, and the rest buried at sea or swept away last night."
"What's her cargo?" cried Flint.
"Plantation goods, Cap'n: herring and slops for the slaves mainly, with bar copper and lead, and some powder and muskets."
"Well, my chickens," said Flint, turning to his men with a smile, "here's a piece of Flint's luck and no mistake. The ship and cargo will fetch a fine price at Savannah, and all without the effort of a fight." The men grinned and nodded to one another, and squinted at the brig and made their well-practised estimates of what might be their own shares from this excellent piece of business.
"Cap'n Flint," said Long John, and silence fell as Flint turned to face him and the good humour drained from his face.
"Aye?" said Flint, and his eyes wavered as Silver stared steadily back at him.
"Cap'n," said Silver, "all hands knows that there must come a parting, sooner or later, between you and I."
It seemed as if even the wind and the sea fell silent at these words, for it was the first open saying of a truth that all parties had tried hard not to notice.
"Either that," said Silver, "or this happy crew shall split, and messmates shall spill one another's blood." Flint looked about him, and his parrot hissed and clucked and shifted its claws, sensing the discomfort in its master. As for the crew, they hardly breathed. Even those aboard the brig could hear enough to know that a momentous event was taking place, and they strained their ears and leaned over the rail to catch what it was.
"Perhaps," said Flint, scowling and ever-suspicious of a trap.
"You know it, Joe Flint," said Silver steadily. "And I know it. And there ain't no perhaps about it." Flint still said nothing, but looked away.
"So I says this," said Silver: "Here's to old times and new luck!" He paused and took a breath and came out with it. "I'll take that vessel -" he pointed at the brig "- and them as takes the fancy may follow me… together with our share of the goods." Flint sneered nastily at this and shook his head emphatically. Silver ignored him and continued.
"And so," he said, "we'll sail in company. That way we shall be jolly companions still, without being forced to rub along together, Joe, for we ain't never going to do that again."
"And who's to set a course for you, John?" said Flint. "Or have you finally learned the way of it, while below decks these weeks past?"
"Bah!" said Silver, expecting the jibe but still smarting from it. "No need to worry about that, Joe. Just you give me Billy Bones, there, for you've told us many times it's only you and him as knows how to find your precious island. So lend me Billy-boy until we're done with the island and we come safe into Savannah, and I'll get me my own quadrant-monger after that. I'll hire one, as you would a coachman or a kitchen maid."
Billy Bones's jaw dropped to his very breast, and he turned to his master, shocked to the marrow, and terrified too. Flint stamped his foot in anger and the parrot squawked and fluttered its wings.
"And is that all then, John?" he said. "A brand-new ship, half the goods, the pick of the crew, and the best man among 'em, apart from myself?" he sneered. "John, your brains are rotted with the opium the surgeon fed you to stop you blubbering over your wound!"
Silver kept a tight hold on himself, for he could see that Flint had chosen to bargain rather than fight. That was good. That was very good. It was all that mattered. It was now just a matter of settling the details. So Silver argued his case.
He argued fluently and well, just as he always did. Then Flint took his turn, and he argued impressively, just as be always did. But the men had to have their say too, and ideas and suggestions were yelled from all sides, and the result was a most excellent compromise; which is to say that it was something both Flint and Silver detested equally.
* * *
Chapter 29
25th July 1752
Aboard Walrus
The Southwest Atlantic
A terrible fear gripped Long John when a final agreement was reached on the terms he must bear for getting command of the schooner.
The proposal was put by Blind Pew, of all people. It wasn't often these days that he had a man's role to play. Mostly he was tolerated as a sort of pensioner, working below decks, getting steadily more peculiar, and somehow managing to do his work as sailmaker entirely by touch.
For a brief time - now passed - he'd cherished hope of getting his eyes back, since they'd begun to feel pain in bright sunshine. He'd thought this proved that they weren't fully dead, and he took to wearing a green shade over his brow, to nurture further recovery. But blind he was and blind he remained, and while the eye shade eased the pain, it gave him a still more sinister and unholy appearance than he'd had already. Mostly men steered clear of him, and the whole crew knew that he was still aboard only out of Long John's pity for the man that was ruined in the same broadside that took off his leg.
But horrid and friendless as he was, Pew had sharp ears, he was fiercely stubborn and intensely argumentative. He loved a debate in a way that few of his fellows did. So having followed the speeches with serious concentration, he'd shouted his way to the front, and when it came to giving a summary of what the hands wanted - to the surprise of all present - none could do it better than Blind Pew. There he stood, thin and grey: a creature from the dark below, brought up into the light, but gifted with a clear voice and even a certain gift of speech - Celtic and poetic.
"So, Silver to take the ship - says I - and Flint to keep the Walrus. So, Silver to pick his crew - says I - and Flint to keep the goods. So, Silver to take Mr Bones - says I - and Flint to keep Miss Selena. So, all shall share the duff - says I - and all shall bear the shite!"
The roars of approval from all hands made the result a foregone conclusion. But Flint meticulously went through the procedures laid down in the ship's articles. He'd grown used to doing things that way, and even he now thought them proper.
"All for brother Pew shall show," said Flint, and Pew stood tall and proud, nodding and basking in the attention of his mates. He didn't see the forest of hands that went up, favouring his proposal, but he heard the cheer and he grinned. Those around him clapped him on the back and said he was no end of a clever 'un, and they dug him in the ribs and called him a sea-lawyer, and he puffed up with self importance. It was just as well that he couldn't
see the look on the face of Long John, who thought this a poor return for kindness.
"Any against Brother Pew's proposal?" said Flint, and a derisory howl greeted the few hands that went up.
"Flint!" cried Silver, filling with anger and ready to fight the whole ship. Flint spun round and laid a hand on his sword, but Selena caught Silver's arm and hissed in his ear.
"Come away, John," she said, "now!" And she led him to the stern where they could talk together without being heard.
"John," she said, "it don't matter."
"Stap my heart and soul, but it does!"
"No, it don't. Not a bit."
"How can I leave you with that bastard?"
"You've got to. Or you'll lose everything."
"You're my everything, girl. Nothing else counts."
"John, Flint is nothing. He's never touched me."
"What? Not never?"
"No."
"But I thought you was his piece. Ain't that why he fetched you aboard?"
"S'pose so," she said.
"Well, why didn't he touch you? There's not a man aboard as don't want to!"
"Flint don't want to."
"Why not?"
Selena sighed, she laid a hand on his arm and smiled. She knew how it hurt him. It hurt her too.
"Listen, John," she said, "he's never so much as laid a hand on me, d'you hear? So you go on that ship, and don't worry about me. Then we'll go to Savannah, after the island, and… if you're still minded… then maybe we can get together." She looked up at him in hope, but with fear too, because even as she dared to speak of the future, a poison worm wriggled in her mind. She knew how white men treated black girls, and she wondered - now that he'd had what he wanted - if he might look elsewhere.
Unfortunately Silver entirely missed the subtle fear. He was turning over the news that Flint hadn't touched her. He was still jealous and, at the same time, questions had sprung into his mind about Flint.
"He could've had you if he'd wanted."
"S'pose so."