Skull and Bones js-3

by John Drake

  "I am optimistic, Mr Bones," said Flint.

  "Are you, Cap'n? But we're sailing for England and a court martial."

  "As we must! The ship's people would accept no other action. It is a vital part of our protestation of innocence. Any other course would betray us as seeking merely to escape."

  Billy Bones licked his lips in fear. "Shall we go before a court then, then? One as could hang us?"

  "Not if I can avoid it, Mr Bones! Much can happen on a long voyage…" And here Flint's talents turned to poetry:

  Storm and adventure, heat and cold, Schooners, islands and maroons, Buccaneers and buried gold!

  Flint laughed: "Thus some men can be lost overboard, and the loyalties of others changed…" He turned and looked thoughtfully at Billy Bones. He looked him up and down, and this way and that… and smiled. "And we must get you a new coat! I have just the thing, saved from Oraclaesus."

  "A new coat, Cap'n?" Billy Bones fingered the cuff of his old ragged coat. It was the same one he'd worn on the island. It never had fitted very well, and was now weather-stained and dirty.

  "Indeed, Mr Bones," said Flint. "For it is in my mind to rate you as acting second lieutenant!"

  Billy Bones gasped in the joy of this wonderful promotion.

  "God bless you, Cap'n. But… can you do that?"

  Flint smiled.

  "Of course! Such promotions are common enough in emergencies."

  "Aye," said Billy Bones, nodding wisely, for it was true.

  "Of course," said Flint, "their lordships of the Admiralty, would need to confirm the promotion with a commission."

  "Of course," said Billy Bones, squinting furiously and working his jaw as if chewing, the better to measure his chances with their lordships. Flint smiled again, for he saw that Billy Bones was now entirely converted into the ludicrous condition of mind that accepted the present voyage as being in the king's service and Flint as captain under the Articles of War. But Billy Bones should not be blamed for that, since there were only two men in the ship who thought differently…

  "Lieutenant Bones," said Flint.

  "Aye-aye, Cap'n!" said Billy Bones, sitting bolt upright.

  "There are two problems aboard of this ship."

  "Problems, Cap'n?"

  "Yes. A small one and a large one."

  "Cap'n?"

  "There is Mr Braddock, who has no status, no evidence, and no likelihood of influencing a court martial."

  "Oh…" said Billy Bones, brought horribly back to the present.

  "Mr Braddock," said Flint, "is the small problem."

  "Is he?"

  "Oh yes, Mr Bones." Flint smiled. "But it is my feeling that, were he to… disappear — " Billy Bones gulped, for he knew what that meant, and who was likely to be responsible for the disappearance "- few tears would be shed." Flint waved a hand. "Braddock is a landman, with ideas above his station; he is not loved by the lower deck."

  "Is he not, Cap'n?" said Billy Bones, in awe of his master's insight.

  "He is not, Lieutenant Bones." "Oh."

  "But now we turn to the real problem…" Flint sighed.

  "What's that, Cap'n?"

  "Mr Midshipman Povey. He is one of those who was not immune to the smallpox, and who caught it, and yet survived!" Flint shook his head. "What a remarkable young gentleman he is! Despite all his cramps and pains, he kept on his feet, commanding Bounder, and never gave in until I arrived to take up his burden." Flint smiled. "He is now confined to his cot, in his cabin, where he is still weak but recovering."

  "Aye, Cap'n," mumbled Billy Bones in despair, for he knew what was coming.

  "Unlike Mr Braddock, Mr Povey is in the sea service. His word is evidence. And, most important of all, he will have the backing of the powerful Hastings family, whose son — now so tragically dead — was his close comrade." Flint looked straight into Billy Bones's eyes. "All this, upon his full recovery, gives Mr Povey as much power aboard Bounder as it would in a court martial, and this is a small ship, filled with sentimental tars who will watch over their brave young gentleman while he lays a-bed." Flint smiled. "So we shall have to move very carefully."

  Then he laughed and looked at Billy Bones, who, so amusingly and so late, was developing a set of moral principles. They were little green shoots, tender and sweet… and awaiting the grinding heel.

  "So there is much to do, Lieutenant…" Flint paused. "Assuming, of course, that you wish to keep your new rank? And your neck… unstretched? And your share of eight hundred thousand pounds?"

  Billy Bones thought this over and hung his head in shame, for he found that he wanted to keep all these things.

  "Good!" said Flint. "Now pay attention to me…"

  Chapter 11

  One minute before two bells of the forenoon watch

  2nd April 1753

  Aboard Venture's Fortune on course for Polmouth

  The Atlantic

  Dinner time aboard Venture's Fortune was an hour after noon, to allow Captain Fitch to take his observation, make his calculations and be ready at the head of the table to receive his passengers, which now included Miss Selena Henderson, the ship's darling, the delight and despair of every man aboard. It was her presence that demanded Fitch spend much more time in his cabin, before dinner, powdering his wig, washing his face, and peering into the mirror at his grimacing teeth to convince himself that they weren't too bad, and that he himself — while not the tallest of men — was a fine enough fellow for his age, and a master mariner besides.

  Clang-Clang! said the ship's bell, and Fitch gave a tug at his wig, straightened his neck-cloth, took a final glance at the mirror, left his quarters and stepped the short distance to the great cabin. Aboard a big ship like Venture's Fortune, the cabin was spacious and elegant, and presently set for dinner with a service of fine china and real silver on the table, and a white cloth spread, and servants — foremast tars with white cotton gloves over their ever-black nails — standing by each chair, to hold everything secure against the ship's motion, which was now heavy, for they were getting the back end of a storm.

  "Oof!" said Fitch, as the ship took a deep plunge. "And up she rises!" he said as the deck heaved up beneath him, and he grabbed one of the brass hand-rails that lined the cabin. They were intended for the succour of no-seaman supercargoes, but were damned useful even to himself on days like this.

  "Gentlemen!" he said as Mr O'Riley and his son entered, looking green. They were father and son, the elder being a rich planter, a man in his fifties, who'd sold up and was on his way to England to become a country gentleman. They staggered and gripped the hand-rails, gazing fearfully at the big wet waves that rolled up and down on the other side of the windows that spanned the entire stern of the cabin.

  "Urgh!" said the elder O'Riley as he caught the scent of food — fish soup — in the big tureen balanced in the hands of the cook's mate. Then "Urrrgb!" he said, and turned on his heel, and fought his way out of the cabin, past his son and past Mr Roslind, a middle-aged planter like himself and likewise on his way to the country life, but blessedly immune to the ship's motion. Roslind grinned as O'Riley went past, and nodded to Fitch.

  "Captain!" he said.

  "Captain!" said the younger O'Riley.

  "Be seated, gentlemen," said Fitch. "We await the ladies."

  So servants bowed, chairs scraped and the gentlemen — powdered and dressed in their best — waited and made conversation for the ten minutes that Mrs Cooper always allowed to be certain of arriving last. Or at least Fitch and Roslind spoke. Young Patrick O'Riley was devoting all his strength to not being nauseous, so that he should appear a man in the eyes of the glorious Miss Henderson. Soon after, Fitch's first mate joined them: a thin, mournful man named Gladstone with an old-fashioned pigtail and no powder on his hair. He was pure tarpaulin and didn't care who knew it.

  Then female laugher was heard outside, and a servant was opening the hatchway.

  "Ah!" said Fitch.

  "Ah!" said Roslind.


  "Ohhh…" said O'Riley.

  Chairs scraped again as the gentlemen stood and Mrs Katherine Cooper entered with her protégée close astern. The gentlemen gaped at Miss Henderson, barely noticing the elder woman. But Katty Cooper smiled. She didn't mind that. Not at all.

  Then the whole ship shuddered as she buried her bow and shipped it green over the fo'c'sle.

  "Whoa!" cried Fitch.

  "Huh!" cried Gladstone.

  "Ohhh," said O'Riley.

  "Oh dear!" cried Mrs Cooper and raised a dainty hand to her brow, for although her stomach was granite, she affected the mal de mer for femininity's sake.

  "Poor Katty!" said Miss Henderson, and put an arm protectively round her patroness, for Miss Henderson moved easily aboard a ship underway. Indeed — as everyone had remarked — she was wonderfully expert in all matters appertaining to seafaring.

  Then the company sat down, and they laughed, except for Mr O'Riley, and made a good dinner, except for Mr O'Riley. They laughed as the crockery slid up and down the heaving table. They laughed as the cook's mate spilled much of the fish soup, through mis-timing his lurch to set it down. They laughed as a bottle leapt off the table and bounced merrily across the deck, slopping wine, and they laughed as the cook's mate — attempting to retrieve it — skidded over and sat down in a pool of claret.

  And all the while, every man in the cabin continued to gaze adoringly at Miss Henderson. By now, they'd profoundly forgotten their first reaction to her: which was that, however lovely she might be, she was undoubtedly black, and therefore ranked somewhere between the raggedy-arsed ship's boys and the livestock carried aboard for fresh meat. But that was before Mrs Katty Cooper had taken the girl in hand and dressed her in some of the many gowns she had in her numerous sea-chests, and before even Katty Cooper herself realised that Selena had no need of training in drawing-room etiquette, for she knew it already.

  "Ahhhh!" Katty Cooper had said, when Selena revealed that she had been raised as a slave, but a slave who had been the childhood favourite of her master's daughter, living in the Big House, and receiving — side by side with the white girl — the same privileged education, which even included mastering fluent French. It was no surprise therefore that Selena held a table knife or a teacup with the same daintiness as her every movement, for even setting aside her training, the girl had the most magical, graceful elegance. And she was quite young… only seventeen…

  Katty Cooper saw a great future for her. Oh yes indeed she did.

  "So shall you make an actress of our Miss Henderson?" said Fitch, turning the conversation to the London theatre, which he loved and which he visited every time he was in port. To him it was a surreal world of wonders, with its miraculous stage machinery and its special effects that caused dragons to appear, water to cascade, and girls to dance upon pillars that rose up out of the stage.

  Katty Cooper smiled and patted Selena's hand.

  "What do you think, my dear?" she said.

  Selena shrugged.

  "Perhaps," she said.

  "We could make an Ophelia of you, or a Portia?"

  "Bah!" said Fitch. "None o' that Shakespeare claptrap, ma'am! That's for mincing macaronis. What Miss Henderson wants is a thundering melodrama. She must be the heroine chased by a villain with big hairy hands, trying to strangle her! That's what brings in the public!"

  "Aye!" said the gentlemen, nodding furiously — even Mr O'Riley — for they were not men of exquisite taste, and they licked their lips at the thought of stranglers' hands, slender necks, and luscious flesh bouncing as it was chased across the stage.

  "Buckets of blood and gore!" said Fitch. "Murder and pirates!" He laughed… then plunged into guilt as Miss Henderson looked away in tears. "Oh! Oh!" he said. "I do apologise, my dear miss. I should never… I'm so sorry. I do declare such matters must be beyond your experience… That is, no… I mean…"

  "Captain, I do wish you would be a little more solicitous of a lady's feelings," said Mrs Cooper primly, and the rest of the meal passed in silence, for the gentlemen saw a long voyage ahead and wanted the pleasure of Miss Henderson's smile, and couldn't bear to upset her, while Miss Henderson herself didn't know what she wanted, or where she should go, or what she should do.

  Chapter 12

  Early morning, 7th April 1753

  Dry Dock 1, Williamstown Harbour

  Upper Barbados

  It would be pointless to describe Walrus as being in a bugger's muddle, since — in her present state — that was a condition to which she could only aspire.

  Her foremast was out, much of her rigging was gone, her crew was ashore and her decks were spattered with pitch and wood chips, timber and tools, and stank of bilge water and tar, sawdust and beer, and steak-and-onions frying over charcoal braziers. Caulkers sat on their boxes battering merrily, while women hawkers yelled their wares of bread, fish and fruit. Bosuns' pipes shrieked as teams of men hove powder and shot aboard, small boys dashed everywhere on errands, and the crowded voices of a dozen trades bellowed and yelled and squabbled.

  Long John stamped through this pandemonium with Israel Hands in tow, haggard exhaustion etched on his face. He'd not slept for two days, nor slept soundly since Dr Cowdray had told him where Selena was gone.

  "Ah!" said Silver. "There he is!" And he shoved through the press, clambering over an empty gun-carriage, a spar, two pitch buckets and a caulker's mallet, to get at a grey-wigged gentleman in a long coat who was standing by the quarterdeck rail with a couple of shirt-sleeved, waistcoated minions in attendance.

  "Mr Pollock!" cried Silver, coming alongside of this gentleman and forcing himself to touch his hat.

  "Ah, Captain Silver!" said Pollock, touching his own hat. "I suppose it is the usual question?" He smirked and his followers sniggered.

  Silver ground his teeth.

  "It is, Mr Pollock," he said. "So, when might my ship be floated out?" Silver resented the careful politeness required to get these blood-sucking bastards of dockyard clerks to do their duty. Even normal, decent bribes weren't much good: not when there was an endless queue of ships waiting, and a huge sum already gone into Sir Wyndham's pocket just to get Walrus into the dockyard at all.

  "When, sir? When?" Pollock pursed his lips. "Oooooo," he smiled, winking at his sycophants. "Why, sir, she will be floated out, sir… the instant she is ready, sir!" And he laughed, and his men laughed, and none of them knew how close they came to butchering bloody slaughter on the spot.

  "John!" said Hands, seizing Silver's arm. "Come away! Leave 'em to it!"

  Silver was white with anger, but he let himself be led off for he knew that one more spark of wit from Mr Pollock would see his hands around that gentleman's neck like a Spanish garrotte.

  So Israel Hands and Silver went aft.

  "See here, Cap'n," said Israel Hands, looking over the ship, "we ain't done so bad as all that. We could've been here months! She was heavily hit and she was thick with weed." He took in the busy activity on board. "She looks a mess, but I'd say the job's nearly done and she'll be afloat in a couple of days."

  "D'you think so?"

  "I do."

  "But they may be in England now… her and that cow."

  "John, there ain't nothing more we can do."

  "Ain't there, by thunder? 'Cos by Jesus and Mary I'll find a way if there is one! Any damned way. I'll piss on God and kiss the Devil's arse, if that's what it takes to save that girl!"

  Silver's face contorted as horrible images burst into his mind: images of men slobbering over the woman he loved, while she smiled and opened her legs and let them do it.

  "Hellfire!" he said. "Bloody hellfire!"

  "I know, John."

  Fortunately Israel Hands was right. Walrus floated out of the dry dock two days later, and with some furious work by a sheer hulk's crew to re-step the foremast, and all hands to set up rigging, she was under way and outbound from Upper Barbados on the morning tide of 17th April, in all respects fit for sea, and a dozen extr
a hands aboard: each one carefully chosen.

  In addition, the two reluctant navigating officers were gone, and in their place stood Mr Warrington, rated as first mate: a vital necessity in case Mr Norton might not be willing to take up duties again. Warrington was a stout, greying man, who came with his own charts, instruments and tables. But unlike the foremast hands, he'd not been carefully chosen.

  "Dirty bugger, ain't he?" said Israel Hands to Long John, as Mr Warrington came up on deck for his noon observation, doffing his hat towards his captain. His coat was soiled, his fingernails were filthy and a broken feather drooped from his hat.

  "Aye," said Silver, as Warrington went to the rail with his quadrant for a view of the sun. "But he's all we could get! There's a shortage of first mates in Upper Barbados… or at least there is for our trade!"

  "He stinks, too," said Israel Hands. "Let's hope Mr Joe ain't made the wrong choice." Silver grinned and looked at

  Mr Joe. He'd started out as gunner's mate under Israel Hands, who'd taught the lad his letters and his numbers, only to find that he liked them so much that he wanted to be a navigator and not a gunner! This left Israel Hands jealous but Silver delighted that so intelligent a member of his crew was showing interest in one skill that he himself could never master.

  Now Mr Joe was standing beside Warrington, receiving instruction in the use of the quadrant — and an odd pair they made: the slim, serious young black with his handsome face and his eye-patch, and the sweating, greasy Warrington with his loud voice and his coarse, leering jokes.

  Later, it grew worse. Warrington got roaring drunk at dinner time, and bellowed verses at the top of his voice until a bucket of water was thrown over him. Then he staggered on deck, still grinning and sniggering, and played the dirty- minded trick of creeping up behind another man and grabbing his arse with a middle finger upraised between the cheeks: not the wisest of tricks to play upon a gentleman o' fortune. Warrington got badly beaten, suffering broken ribs, a dislocated thumb, severe bruising about the face, and a split forehead for Dr Cowdray to sew up.