Pieces Of Eight js-2

by John Drake

  There were more than a hundred of them.

  Chapter 39

  Afternoon, 26th February 1753

  Flint's Cove

  Flint looked through the thick, green undergrowth which was entirely different from the undergrowth anywhere else in this strange place. Little lizards like salamanders — perhaps actual salamanders — were crawling across fat, glossy leaves, feeding on the tiny black ants that swarmed there. And the ground was firm beneath the trees, not damp and soft.

  Flint looked and nodded quietly. There they were: four of them, the men picked out by Ben Gunn, according to orders. But there was no Ben Gunn anywhere in sight. Doubtless gone a-wandering. Still, the mad creature had done his duty all right. The four men were exactly what Flint wanted, that much was clear even from this distance.

  Well done, Mr Gunn, thought Flint, while the four sat anxious and afraid and constantly looking over their shoulders. They'd obviously heard the sounds of fighting, for they'd got themselves into a nice tight corner, with a cluster of huge rocks behind, so they couldn't be crept up on. A-ha! thought Flint, taking in the boat: a fine big launch, hauled well clear of the tide. And Good! as he cast an eye over the timber slides laid out in front of the launch and greased, in accordance with his orders. The heavy boat would go smoothly down to the water, hauled by the few hands available. What fine lads they've been, and no mistake! thought Flint. Everything so tight and seamanlike.

  Better still, staring hard at the boat, Flint could make out one of the chests that made up a fine fat half of its cargo, the same chests that had been left in the cove three days ago by his six spadesmen — a body of men who had now rejoined their comrades, but upon whose absolute discretion he could rely. He could rely on them because he'd extracted the most fearful oaths, given by moonlight, with round eyes shining, and right hands raised, and Flint blessing their smooth cheeks and knowing that in no time at all they'd be beyond all possibility of betraying anybody.

  And so back to the present…

  Flint deliberately rustled the undergrowth and the four men jumped up and levelled muskets.

  "Who-zat?" they cried. Flint stepped forward.

  "Who goes there!" he chided. "You must say that, lads. For it's proper."

  "Who goes there?" they said, and "Cap'n!" for they were immensely relieved.

  "We heard shooting, Cap'n!" said one.

  "And gunfire from the ships!" said another.

  "Aye!" they all said.

  "Lads," said Flint, "there's nothing to worry about!"

  "No?" they said.

  "No! So let's sit down, and I'll explain."

  So they sat down, and Flint smiled, and insisted they take a pull of the rum.

  Then he explained as only he could explain, with his wonderful charm: the smooth, easy companionship that kept his audience enthralled, and more than that privileged to be part of so wonderful a scheme, and fully understanding why — temporarily — they alone must go forward to the Patanq Squadron, through the archipelago, taking two chests of silver and one of gold — happy smiles all round at this — together with that other half of their cargo, which lay square in the centre of the launch, covered in a tarpaulin.

  Morning, 26th February 1753

  The Patanq Camp

  Of the twenty white men that had sat down to council the previous evening, only four were left alive after the fight. They were swiftly killed and plundered, and their bodies burned.

  "So," said Laoslahta, "we have two dozen good scalps, and now we turn to greater matters. Come close, my children!"

  They gathered round him, standing shoulder to shoulder, feathered and painted, with guns, knives and hatchets. They formed the dense half-circle that was the proper way to stand when a great man spoke. There were over a hundred and fifty of them now, the scouts and separated forces having been drawn in, save only a few keeping watch on the red-coats.

  Now all stood listening: Cut-Feather and the other sachems in the front rank, and the others behind, in strict order of precedence.

  "Listen to my words!" said Laoslahta.

  "We listen, O father!" came the rumbling response.

  "We are in hard times, my children."

  "We listen, O father!"

  "Many have died," said Laoslahta, "but worse may come, for it is bad enough for warriors to die — and my cheeks run with tears for those we have lost — but now death falls upon our women and our children!"

  It was formal. It was poetic. It was paced by Laoslahta's pauses and the deep-voiced chanting of the listeners. But it was sharp as a razor, telling every man his duty and his task, and as soon as Laoslahta finished speaking, the warriors split into three groups.

  The first, some hundred strong and led by Laoslahta himself, set off for the northern inlet to secure the ships. The second, thirty strong and led by Cut-Feather, ran southward to harass and slow the advance of the red-coats, with strict orders to fall back before them and not press home an attack.

  The third, a group of just five men, the best trackers in the nation, was tasked with finding Flint. Laoslahta took them aside and greeted each one by name. He gave them their orders: special and solemn orders. Then he embraced them and blessed them and thanked them. Finally he knelt before them, with tears in his eyes, and begged their forgiveness, which they freely gave, being brave men.

  He did not expect to see any of them again. Not this side of the grave.

  Then all three groups ran off about their duties. They moved with utmost speed, for time was short and the peril was great.

  Late afternoon, 26th February 1753

  Flint's Cove

  The launch ran smoothly over the slipway: two dozen six- foot logs, greased and laid across the boat's path to keep her clear of the sand that would cling, and drag, and stop her moving. Flint didn't even have to lend a hand. He stood back smiling as his four men heaved with a will, and got her under way. And once they were on the sloping run to the water's edge, the boat's own weight sent her down with a rumble and a roar, splashing into her natural weightlessness as the salt water took her.

  "All stores aboard!" said Flint. "Leave nothing behind." There was no such a thing as a small boat over-provisioned for a voyage. Every cask of water, every tub of biscuit, might be needed.

  "Aye-aye, sir!" they said, and three leapt to it, while one stayed with the boat, even without orders, so she shouldn't float off on her own.

  Such good lads, thought Flint, and he tried to laugh at them and be merry… but couldn't quite manage it. Something was troubling him now that they were leaving. He wondered what.

  So he stood back and let the four of them get aboard with what they'd recovered, and he let them take up their oars, and sit up like good boys, and face astern while he clambered aboard and sat in the sternsheets and took the tiller.

  "Give way!" said Flint, and the boat pulled out of the small cove, and was soon in the fresh air and heaving rollers of the open sea. "Rig for sail!" said Flint, and he looked back at the island — and felt a surge of pain. He frowned. He worried… which wasn't like Joe Flint at all. He'd made his decision. He knew what had to be done. He was confident that — as before — he would leave the treasure safe and cosy, and come back in strength another day. He'd got his copy of the map, and his notebook, and enough coin aboard to pay for a new expedition, and — once he'd dealt with all those persons who were surplus to requirements — he'd have at least one good ship, and a crew to man her, to take him wherever he needed to go. So what was it that he was missing?

  Flint had a most wonderful mind. It was inventive and organised. It was full of tight compartments with strong doors, guarding the places where thoughts were stored, letting them out on command. It was what made him so single-minded and formidable a man. But one door had burst open all on its own. He couldn't keep it shut, because he knew what was inside it. He'd known all the time what it was that he was missing. And it wasn't it. It was her… of course.

  "AAAAAAAAAAAH!" he roared in anger and pain. T
he hands gaped in fright at their captain beating his fists against the thwart, like a child in a tantrum, crying, "No! No! No!" to the four winds and the open sea and the calling gulls.

  "Cap'n?" said the man nearest to Flint. "What is it?"

  He should've kept quiet. He got a kick that smashed front teeth and bloodied his nose, and a torrent of filthy abuse such as no man had ever heard before from Joe Flint, who never used a cuss-word nor an oath, and despised those who did.

  But Flint recovered. He wiped his face. He tidied himself. He leered at the hands and went round pulling their noses — except him with the blood on his face; Flint patted his cheeks instead — and laughed.

  "Well, my boys!" he said. "We're situated as we are, and that's a fact. As we are and not as we'd wish to be!"

  "Aye-aye, Cap'n," they said warily.

  "So here's to some other day."

  "Aye-aye, Cap'n."

  "And meanwhile there's work to do."

  "Aye-aye, Cap'n."

  Flint looked at the tarpaulin and what it covered. Then he got out his map and looked at the boat's compass, and made sure they were on course for Flint's Passage through the archipelago. Hmm. The wind was fair, the boat was charging along merrily. Flint smiled. It should be interesting. It would certainly be something new.

  Late morning, 26th February 1753

  The northern inlet

  Silver threw himself upright in the speeding boat. Selena looked back. The Indians were racing along the beach with sand flying from their heels. But they were a good two hundred yards off, while there was less than thirty yards between herself and Silver's boat. She looked at Silver. He looked at her.

  It is a fact of human nature that, on sudden meetings, first reactions are true reactions, for truth comes quick and instinctive. And it comes all the faster with a tribe of savages bearing down with knives, hatchets and muskets.

  "John!" she said, and ran towards the boat.

  "Selena!" he said, and leapt clumsily out, and hopped forward and — wonder of joyful wonders — Silver was staggering back as the small, dark figure threw herself at him and clung to him, and him to her, and with only three legs between them, they wobbled and swayed… while certain death came on, a hundred and fifty strong, and a nasty death besides. But all doubts were blown away and all fears made nothing, and eyes clenched in absolute happiness, and each only aware that in all the world there was none other, and never would be, never could be, never should be, not for ever and ever amen.

  "John! John! Get aboard!" cried Israel Hands. "Swing the boat, lads!"

  They nearly did it. They threw Selena aboard. They heaved the boat round, all hands together. They pointed the prow at safety. They seized oars and pulled for their lives. A man can't run in water over his thighs, and he certainly can't fight another man in a boat. That's all it would take. A few strokes, good strokes, and they'd be free. Silver, meanwhile, was hauling his pistols and aiming and shooting at the savages: Click. Click. Soaked priming! Nothing! So he and Selena — the only ones not rowing — commenced picking up every firelock in the boat, and pulling them out of men's belts, and blazing back at the dense, on-rushing hordes and dropping two, but not stopping the rest. Then they were battering pistol-butts into the heads and arms of the brown devils that came plunging and whooping forward, and the boat rocking from the impact, and slippery wet bodies climbing aboard, and cutlasses and knives out, and the men dropping the useless oars and fighting for their lives, and roaring and yelling and crying. It went on, and on, and on…

  And then it stopped. It stopped when Silver and his men grew tired. For the Patanq weren't fighting. They were defending and hanging on. They were taking wounds, and some even dying, but they weren't striking back. Silver was held down by three of them. Every man in the boat, and Selena too, was held helpless by overwhelming weight of numbers. A great mass of humanity filled and pressed down on the launch and gasped and panted and sweated and slowly got back its breath.

  Utter despair filled Silver. It was over. All over.

  Chapter 40

  Late morning, 26th February 1753

  The northern inlet

  "Where is One-Leg?" cried a voice.

  "Here!" cried the three men hanging on to Long John.

  They spoke in their own language, so Silver didn't understand. He only knew that he was wrenched up and out of the wallowing launch — which was nearly sunk with the weight of bodies aboard — and thrown face down into the water to gasp and splutter, and attempt to struggle upright, and which is so difficult a thing for a one-legged man to do that he'd have drowned if hands hadn't seized him and pulled him upright and dragged him to the shore, hopping and scraping his one foot and trying to keep up, and still coughing up so much salt water that he hadn't the strength to fight.

  "John Silver!" said a voice in English. Silver wiped his streaming eyes, and swayed to keep upright, as the same voice said, "Find his staff. Give it to him!" And Silver steadied as his familiar crutch was shoved under his arm. When his eyes cleared, he saw a small, red-brown man with a stone-hard, cruel, face: tattooed, painted, and bald with a single topknot of hair that was stuck with a feather. Though he looked ill and shrivelled, he seemed totally in command. The other savages pressed round, half-naked, fiercely armed, and glaring at Silver, while two more hung on to his arms. But they kept a respectful distance from the little man, and treated him with profound respect.

  "I'm Silver," said Long John, "I'm him!"

  "I see that," said the Indian, as anyone would have. Silver was by far the biggest man present. "And I am Dreamer."

  "Well then, Mr Dreamer," said Silver, "I knows what you're a-gonna do to me and the rest. But there's a woman among them there — " he jabbed his thumb at the boat "- and she ain't nothing to us." He shrugged his shoulders. "Why! She ain't even one of us. So just you leave her alone, d'you hear? Don't… don't…" Silver faltered. He stumbled over his words. He fell silent and looked at the ground. And when he looked up again and spoke… it wasn't very clever, and it wasn't very good, but it was all he could think of: "So don't you kill her. Don't waste such a fine woman. Take her for yourself!"

  Dreamer looked at Silver, impassive and unreadable. To Silver, he was the embodiment of pitiless cruelty.

  "I cannot take the woman," said Dreamer.

  "And why not?"

  "Because she is yours."

  "What? No she ain't."

  "Bring the woman!" said Dreamer, and Selena was pulled out of the boat and put beside Long John. He wanted to put an arm around her. His arm moved but he forced it down. That wouldn't fit the tale he was telling.

  Dreamer looked at the two of them.

  "You — woman! Selena, the black one who Sun-Face Flint desires." Selena looked at Long John. "Speak your mind!" said Dreamer.

  "She ain't mine, she's Flint's!" cried Silver, desperately trying anything to keep Selena safe. He looked at Dreamer. "Flint's a friend to you, ain't he? She's Flint's!"

  "No, I'm not," she said. "Dreamer knows that."

  Dreamer nodded.

  "But Flint wants you," he said. "Him and many others. And so does he — " Dreamer looked at Long John.

  "I told you," said Long John, "she ain't nothing to me!"

  "So," Dreamer looked at Selena, "are you John Silver's woman? Would you be his wife?"

  Selena looked at Long John. She considered the question Dreamer had just asked, and — as with her feelings on finding Silver again — her response was swift and true.

  "Yes!" she said, and threw her arms around his neck, and pulled down his head and kissed him.

  "Ah!" said Dreamer. He nodded. He stepped forward. He took Selena's left hand and placed it in Silver's right. "Then it is done," he said, and smiled. "Marriage is made by the woman's consent. So be together and be true!" The smile vanished. He looked up at Silver. "There is much to do, One-Leg. I need you and your men!"

  Two bells of the forenoon watch, 26th February 1753

  Aboard HMS Leaper


  The ocean to the west of the island

  Lieutenant Gordon Heffer, aged twenty-three years, was intoxicated with his triumph over his enemies: Lieutenant Simon Clark, aged twenty-two, in command of Bounder, and Lieutenant Arnold Comstock, aged twenty, in command of Jumper, both being junior to himself and now under his orders.

  To be precise, they were his rivals not his enemies, but Heffer couldn't help seeing them as that, for they — like himself — were junior, and inexperienced, officers in temporary command of their ships, while the true lords and masters were ashore with the commodore, digging up gold and diamonds, chasing pirates up trees and shoving bayonets up their arses. That meant that Heffer was actually in command of an actual squadron with orders to cruise the coast in search of any pirates that might be lurking thereabouts, and to inflict the most fearful possible violence upon them. Thus could Lieutenant Heffer expect to cover himself in glory and secure the promotion he craved — unless that glorious ambition was scuppered by one of his peers letting down the squadron with slackness or incompetence — or, worse, achieving some stroke of spectacular efficiency that would put Lieutenant Heffer's own efforts into the shade!

  God forbid! thought Heffer.

  "Make to the squadron!" he bawled to the signal midshipman.

  "Aye-aye, sir!" cried the mid, and Heffer's chest swelled magnificently.

  "Keep proper station!"

  The flags were bent to the halliard. Willing hands heaved. Whizz-whirr, went the blocks. And up went the totally unnecessary signal, to stream totally unnecessarily in the wind. Bounder and Jumper were already in excellent formation, in line abeam of the flagship, extended such that Leaper — sailing just offshore — got the best sight of anything anchored there, while Bounder and Jumper kept watch on whatever might be in the offing, with Bounder the furthest out.

  "Pah!" said Lieutenant Clark, aboard Bounder. "Silly bugger!"