by John Drake
"Thus Lion shall guard Walrus," he said, "and Walrus shall guard Lion, and either shall fire into the other, should a landing party be seen going over the side."
"Aye," they said, and looked at one another, and were reminded - from that moment on - that they were not one crew of jolly companions, but two crews of rivals.
* * *
Chapter 33
5th September 1752
First dog watch (c. 5 p.m. shore time)
Aboard Lion
The southern anchorage
It took six men to put Billy Bones in irons.
Two or three others went down, battered by Billy's fists as the tangle of bodies rolled across the main deck, and Silver clumped about yelling and bellowing while those not engaged in the fight shouted encouragement and blessed their luck that they'd not been chosen for this particular duty.
Finally, when Billy Bones's strength was exhausted and men were hanging on to each of his limbs, Israel Hands hauled off Billy's shoes and put a pair of U-shaped iron hoops over his ankles, then ran a short rod through eyes in the ends of the loops. One end of the bar had a head that wouldn't pass through the eyes, and the other end Mr Hands hammered over so it wouldn't go through either. That left Billy Bones's feet firmly fixed together so he could stand - or hop - but not walk. He was as firmly clapped in irons as any seaman ever had been.
"There you are, Mr Bones," said Israel Hands, "all snug and tight."
"Go fuck your mother," said Billy. "I'll do for you yet, you bastard!"
"Not if I do you first," said Israel Hands, and added mockingly, "Billy-my-chicken!"
Billy Bones found strength to shake off some of the men and lunged forward in a ferocious attempt to get a stranglehold round Israel Hands's neck.
"Avast!" said Silver. "Haul off, Mr Hands."
"Aye-aye, sir!" said Hands, but sneered at Billy Bones sideways when Long John wasn't looking.
"You men," said Silver to the six holding Billy Bones, "take him - careful, mind - and get him below to the hold. And you, Mr Hands, come with us and bring your chains and your hammer."
So they took Billy Bones below, those he'd walloped a thousand times with the rope's end. They took him below with many jolly bumps and cheerful knocks, and they heaved him on to the ballast like a sack of collier's coals. Then they ran a chain between his legs and his irons, and secured him to a timber, and left him sitting on his arse with a lantern to see by. He was a sorry sight: covered in blood and bruises, clothes ripped, hair breaking loose from his pigtail, and one toe poking white and comical from a hole in his stocking. The fall of one who'd been the terror of the lower deck drew jeers and laughter from all sides.
"Belay that, you swabs!" cried Silver. "Get about your duties!" Silver frowned. The trouble was, lying five days at anchor waiting for Flint to finish with his burying, most of them didn't have any duties and the ship was full of idlers. Worse still, the whole crew had seen Silver make a considerable fool of himself and now thought less of him. Silver sighed as painful thoughts filled his mind, and he tried to fix on the business in hand.
"Well then, Mr Bones," he said when they were alone. "I'm sorry to see you nailed like this, I take my affy davy on it! You'd not have been brought below like dunnage for stowage if you'd listened to myself instead of Flint. You know you can't trust the bugger, so what's holding you to him? What's he offered you?"
"Ax mine arse!" said Billy Bones, loyal beyond reason to his absent master.
"Is that the way of it, then?" said Silver. "And there's me thinking we'd sailed a few leagues as shipmates. Can we not make and mend? We're both aground on the same shoal."
"Kiss mine arse!" said Billy Bones.
"Billy," said Silver, "I asks you once more - you as knows Flint better than any of us - what's he doing? What's his plan?"
"Don't know," said Billy Bones. "An' I won't tell!"
"Huh!" said Silver. "You ain't the sharpest, are you, Billyboy?"
"That's all you know!" said Billy.
"Billy," said Silver, "what if I let Israel and some of the others ask you?"
To Silver's amazement, Billy Bones grinned.
"You daresn't," he said.
"Don't I though? You sure o' that?"
"Aye!"
And that was all Billy Bones would say. Silver got not another word out of him, and made his way slowly up on deck again. He was now very nimble, but climbing would always be hard for a man with one leg. Two bells sounded as he pulled himself through a companionway in the waist. Two bells of the second dog watch - seven p.m. shore time - and it was dark. He glanced ashore and saw a fire burning and heard the faint sound of singing: the lucky six and Captain Flint.
He looked across the anchorage to where Walrus lay, visible only by her lights. Selena was somewhere aboard. At the thought of her, the despair sat down upon him. When the grand council ended and Lion's crew went back to their ship, she'd gone with Flint, who'd promptly insisted that Silver should have Billy Bones again… in compensation! Selena he'd not seen since, but Billy Bones had stuck like shit to a blanket… apart from the half-day he spent aboard Walrus looking for his lucky gold piece.
So what did it mean? What had Flint said to Billy? Why should Flint want Billy Bones aboard Lion? What was Flint doing ashore, with six men and eight hundred thousand pounds? Silver sighed. He ignored Israel Hands and the others, who were waiting for him to see what he'd learned from Billy Bones, and he went down to the stern cabin and found a bottle of rum.
It was a bad time for Long John Silver. Perhaps the worst time in his life, because he was facing failure - utter failure - at a time when he was still grieving for his lost leg and trying to face life as a cripple. He counted the score in his mind: Item one, he'd found a woman that he loved, and had insulted her and lost her because he couldn't trust her. Item two, losing her was a pain like Surgeon Cowdray's knife. Item three, he'd failed to show the light to Billy Bones. Item four, he'd failed to talk the hands out of Flint's burying of the goods. And item five - if the mutterings and saucy behaviour among the crew was anything to go by - then he'd failed as Cap'n Silver.
He took to the bottle and was well into draining it when, some hours later, a hand tapped at the cabin door.
"Cap'n?" said Israel Hands's voice.
"Go away!" said Silver. But the door opened, and three men entered: Israel Hands, Blind Pew and Sarney Sawyer. Hands and Sawyer had their hats in their hands, and Pew was clutching his eyeshade. They were bobbing and nodding like Flint's parrot. All three touched their brows and stamped the deck in salute, and they stood in a row with their heads bowed. Lion's small stern cabin was too low for men to stand in comfortably, but they'd probably have stood like that had they been in a cathedral. They were nervous.
They were nervous and something else. They were shocked at the spectacle of Long John Silver far gone in drunkenness, stretched unkempt and slovenly in a chair, with his one leg perched on a table and his favourite pair of pistols in front of him. He looked all the worse by comparison with the neat cabin, all white-painted and picked out in gold leaf, and brightly lit by beeswax candles in glazed lamps. The three of them would have been even more shocked had they known what Silver - in his despair - had been thinking of doing with his pistols.
"What's this?" said Silver, peering with red eyes. "A deputation?"
"Cap'n," said Israel Hands, "what did Billy say, beggin' your pardon?"
"Nothing," said Silver.
"Let me ask him, Cap'n," said Israel Hands, "with a belaying pin."
"Aye," said Blind Pew, "or a little fire under his toes."
"No!" said Silver. "You've signed articles."
"But we's split," said Israel Hands. "An' the articles is broke."
Silver sighed, hauled himself upright, shoved his pistols out of reach and tried to act the part of a ship's master.
"Mr Hands," he said, "bend an ear, for here's the way of it. If this happy company be split - which p'raps it may be - then we needs Billy Bones mo
re than ever, for I reminds you that only he, aboard this ship, could bring us safe home to Savannah. So, even if there was no articles, we can't break his bones nor burn his toes nor anything other than guard him like a mother's child."
"Oh!" said the three, all together. They'd not thought of that.
"Aye," said Silver. "And somebody has explained the matter to Billy, who'd never have worked that out for himself - not for all his 'rithmatic and calculations. Now, who d'you think that might have been?"
"Flint," said Blind Pew.
"Aye," said Silver. And there was a silence while Silver emptied another glass and the three men stood looking at one another. Then Pew nudged Israel Hands.
"Cap'n," said Hands, "you was right. We are a deppytation."
"Are you now?"
"Aye, Cap'n."
Silver knew what was coming. They'd had enough of him. It was the black spot.
"Out with it then, curse you!"
"Cap'n, this crew has been talking…"
"And?"
"Cap'n, you must know…"
Ba-bang! Ba-ba-bang! A volley of shots came from the shore, sounding clearly through the open stern lights.
* * *
Chapter 34
5th September 1752
Dusk The island
Flint was deeply happy. The goods were buried and only he knew where.
Well, the lucky six had an approximate knowledge of the burial sites - he looked at their ugly faces as they sat patiently in the sand, awaiting his orders. They were illiterate clods. Even if he'd given them his notebook with its careful bearings and measurements, they couldn't have used it. Nonetheless, they'd remember trees and rocks and other landmarks, bless their hearts. But that didn't matter. Not at all. Not as far as Joe Flint was concerned, because here on the island he was unchained from any limitations on his ability to deal with these unfortunates.
More precisely - did he but know it - here on the island he'd been joined by his old friend Temptation, who'd returned chuckling and merry, and just bursting with new ideas. Always previously Flint had been constrained by higher powers: King George's law, John Silver's articles, even the stolid conservatism of Billy Bones. But not here! Here he was alone with the lucky six, and boundless opportunity.
He fondled the shifting, muttering parrot that swayed and fidgeted and rubbed itself against his head, and he looked towards Lion and Walrus, moored out in the smooth waters of the southern anchorage. They were both still visible in the tropical dusk, though a tired red sun was touching the horizon in the west.
Now then, my jolly boys… thought Flint, studying the ships, are you awake and lively to your duties, there on board?
Clang! said Walrus, the bell sounding clearly across the water.
"Ah!" said Flint.
Clang! said Lion after a pause, for no two ships kept quite the same time.
One bell of the first watch, thought Flint, time for sunset, and he turned to those who considered themselves so fortunate to be ashore with him, and he smiled with gleaming teeth as the sun surrendered to the darkness and delivered up the island unto the terrors of the night.
"Build a fire, my hearties," he cried. "Build her big, for it's time to feast. Biscuit and pork, sauerkraut and salt herring!"
"And rum, Cap'n?" they said.
"Aye, lads!" said Flint, and playfully pulled the nose of the nearest man. "Grog for all hands, like the good fellows you are." They cheered wildly and set to, running about like schoolboys on holiday.
"Aren't they just the roaring boys, though?" he said confidentially to the bird. Two were Silver's men: Rob Taylor, and James Cameron. The rest were his: Franky Skillit, Henry Howard, Peter Evans, and Iain Fraser. Six men: the lucky six, as the rest had believed when lots were drawn. Flint positively wriggled with glee at the thought of that, and of the downcast, miserable faces of all those whose luck had failed them, keeping them out of the burial party.
The burial party, thought Flint. God damn and gut me! That's what they called it. Their own precious words! He marvelled at the eternal truth that no wit is sharper than that of actuality.
So he watched contentedly as they built a huge bonfire, far too big for their needs, and he watched as they skewered chunks of salt pork and fish, and stove in the head of a cask of sauerkraut. He looked around the little camp they'd set out on the beach, all calm and snug and quiet… and inky-black dark without even the moon for company. But the jolly red faces beamed in the firelight and the men jostled one another for the best places to roast their meat, and the rum pannikin went round. Flint laughed, and raised his voice.
"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest!" he sang.
"Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum…" they replied.
"Go it, you bold dogs," cried Flint, and they took up the song.
Flint took a cut of pork, offered by one of the half-drunk men, bit into it and swallowed and choked himself laughing at the thought that - at the great council - all hands, led by Blind Pew, had solemnly voted that the only man they would trust in the secret burial of the goods was… Cap'n Flint. He'd not even had to argue the point! Flint chewed the succulent pork and the juices ran down his chin, and his shoulders heaved in silent laughter. He was enjoying himself enormously, and the best was yet to come.
When he'd done with the meat, and wiped the tears from his eyes, Flint sat beside the fire in the sand and took a modest sip from the rum, and became the jolliest companion any of the rest had ever known. He laughed along with them and told them what fine fellows they were, and how they'd drive in their carriages in England, with a tart on either arm, to take their seats in the House of Lords.
"Three cheers for Cap'n Flint!" cried Iain Fraser, and they gave three cheers that set the hills echoing.
"Thank you, lads," said Flint, and stretched his limbs and stood up by the fireside in the velvet night with the insects twittering loudly and the dull rumble of the breakers ceaselessly pounding the westward rocks and cliffs. "But there's no cause for cheers," he said, and smiled indulgently as the fools cheered and cheered again.
"God save the Cap'n!" cried Rob Taylor, who was a small man and whose curse it was that whenever he drank round for round with his mates, he got drunk first, for there weren't many places in his small body for the drink to go to, other than his head.
"Thank you, Rob," said Flint, and almost lost control of the mood of solemnity he was now trying to create. The trouble was that the look of spaniel-eyed worship on little Taylor's face was almost beyond bearing. And look at the rest of them! How easy it had been to win their affection with a few days ashore and their bellies full of food and drink.
"Ah-hum!" said Flint, clearing his throat and striking a more serious pose. "Lads," he said, "on the morrow, with all the digging done, and our spades and picks laid aside, we begin the final task of taking precise bearings." It was nonsense, of course, for all necessary bearings were already in his notebook. Damn it! He had to cough hard to disguise the unstoppable snigger at their solemn faces.
"So sleep well, like the good fellows you are," he said, grinding his fingernails into his palms so that the pain would kill the laughter. "And don't be afeared of anything in the night, for we shall set a guard as before… even though I doubt there's much to worry about, these days," and he peered out thoughtfully into the night.
His words set the mood. His manner sent signals to the others, and they too squinted out into the dark, though they knew not what for, since none of them had ever been on the island before.
"I know this place, lads," said Flint. "I was here years ago. It offers a safe anchorage, with good water to fill the butts, and a fine stand of timber for spars and planking, and with goats for fresh meat besides…" he paused and looked into the eyes of each man in turn. "But every night or so, we'd lose a man…"
Flint had himself well in hand now, and he was playing them like a flute.
"We never did find the cause," said Flint, "though we posted guards, and double guards, and doubled them a
gain." Flint shuddered as if some evil thing had walked past in the dark. "All we did know, lads, was that it wasn't just men. Not savages even… but something worse." He waved a hand towards the dark woods. "Some said it was hairy apes that hid in the depths of the forest and only came out at night. Others said they'd seen… things…"
There was dead silence now from his little audience. Meat and drink were laid aside and they gaped at him open-mouthed with terror and wished themselves safe aboard ship. In their own element, with their mates around them, facing dangers they understood, they were brave men; but not here, not against the unknown and the occult. Especially the latter.
"Being as it was a king's ship," continued Flint, "we had marines to do the soldiering for us, and they were our guards. One night a whole company of them gave a volley out into the dark, all together at ten paces, when a dark shape was seen creeping towards our camp. But not a hair or a drop of blood did we find in the morning. After that, why, some of the men went looking for silver to cast into bullets."
"What for?" said Taylor nervously. "Why'd they do that?"
"Why, Rob," said Flint, "I'd have thought you'd have known. 'Tis a proven fact that a silver bullet will kill where a lead bullet will not… where creatures of the night are concerned… things that are unholy, if you take my meaning."
They did take his meaning. They took it into their bones, and their teeth fairly chattered in fright. But Flint merely shrugged his shoulders and sighed. "That's the long and short of it, lads, so let's be merry again and empty the bowl, and eat hearty. For who knows what the morrow will bring?" He smiled his great smile again, and sat down and helped himself to more food. He ate hearty, just as he'd bid the others to do. He did, but they did not.
"Cap'n," said Howard.
"Aye?"
"How was it done?"
"How was what done, Henry?"