by Perrin Briar
“He refused at first, but he gave up after the third night of sleeping on the hard floor. There is honesty among pirates, not that they like to show it. Then one day he had a heart attack. It was strange, because he had never shown anything but the best health. But sometimes there is no rhyme or reason for things. I knew then there would no longer be any protection for me.
“I had to escape, get away. The last words from Smee was the emergency escape plan he’d made for himself to get off the ship. He had planned on taking me with him, but at the time things had been going well for us. But it turned out his plans weren’t as closely a guarded secret as he thought they were. Two other crewmates knew what he had been up to.”
“Rupert and Manuel,” Bill said.
“There’s only so much secrecy you can expect when you’re jammed on a boat full to bursting with desperate men,” Jenny said. “They must have known what he was up to by what he was hoarding for himself. They would have kept a close eye on old Smee and me. They were waiting for me when I headed for the boat.
“They threatened me, saying they would tell the others if I made any noise. I often wonder why they didn’t kill me that night. It would have lightened the load and guaranteed they would have made it to shore faster than they otherwise would have. I guess they wanted a lackey to do all their cooking and cleaning for them. But we never got that far. We were captured by the natives.”
“So it’s true,” Liz said, looking at the figure lying crumpled in the dirt before them. “Won’t the pirates have protocols in place? If she’s not back within a certain amount of time? They’ll come looking for her?”
“Yes,” Jenny said.
“How long do we have?” Bill said.
“Until morning,” Jenny said.
“Then they come?” Bill said.
“Then they come,” Jenny said with a nod.
“Couldn’t we play innocent and tell her crew we met with her, that she left and never came back?” Ernest said. “That will at least buy us some time.”
“And you think the pirates will just return back to their ship?” Jenny said. “No harm, no foul?”
“No,” Bill said. “They will attack us anyway, tearing this place apart looking for her.”
“Then what do we do?” Liz said.
“We fight,” Bill said.
Jenny stepped forward.
“They’re after me,” she said. “Not you. Or your family. Me.”
“After you?” Fritz said. “What do you mean?”
“The maps,” Ernest said with a nod. “The location of the caches of weapons.”
Jenny nodded.
“As I said, I worked with Smee on the secret locations of the caches,” she said. “Smee was their cartographer. With no electricity or modern technology they had to revert to old ways of navigating, using the stars and reading the swells. Smee made their maps, and it was his responsibility to makes the maps of the places they were going to and where they had buried their treasure.”
“Treasure?” Ernest said. “They don’t still collect treasure?”
“They do,” Jenny said. “But it might not be the kind of treasure you’re thinking of. They collected guns, ammunition, enough to destroy anyone they came across. They spread it across a number of different islands, but the captain is nothing if not cautious, fearing mutiny, and ordered for the maps to be destroyed. Smee and I had to remember the location of all the caches.”
“How many men are there?” Bill said.
“Difficult to say,” Jenny said. “They were always changing. One day you would wake up and a few would be missing, and then replaced again before noon. Usually there were around seventy to eighty men in all, I’d say. And they’ll be armed. Heavily.”
The family hardly had time to recover from their previous encounter and now they already had to deal with this, a shipful of hardened pirates?
Chapter Thirteen
RUPERT’S BREATH sawed in and out of his throat, its teeth sharp and unrestrained. He’d never felt this exhausted his whole life. And yet he somehow kept on moving, kept on going, fueled by his will alone. One step after another, and another, he ate up the jungle.
But in the back of his mind was the knowledge that no matter how fast he went, no matter how far, Manuel would always be there, always on his tail, always ready to take him out at a moment’s notice. He ought to just give up and be done with it.
But he couldn’t. It just wasn’t in his DNA. It wasn’t in Rupert to give up. He had never given up on anything his whole life—even those things he knew he should have. Why? He couldn’t say. But he had to keep going. He just had to.
Human hope was a terrible and dangerous thing. It forced desperate men to maintain their current trajectory, no matter what. But eventually hope should die. It had to die, to leave way for despair to do its work, and allow the person to finally, sweetly, pass into unending silence. Except Rupert didn’t have that feeling, that sense. There was never a time when he lost hope.
Despite all the things he had done, all the evil he had committed, Rupert was one of the most hope-filled vessels in existence. The best survivors always were. It was those who lost hope, lost their emotional footing, that ultimately ended up losing their lives. They gave up when they shouldn’t have. They should have kept going, should have kept fighting the good fight, because it was the only one worth having. The only one we were all eventually judged upon when the time came.
Rupert skidded to a halt, estranged hair clouding his view and making it difficult to see. But there was no missing the cliff edge he was perched upon, the drop of a hundred feet on the other side. His feet were balance on the edge. He leaned back, and fell onto his backside, scrambling away from the edge.
He turned to look toward the jungle foliage. There was no Manuel. Not yet. Rupert needed to keep moving, keep going…
But what was the point? He was only extending his own suffering. Manuel was going to get him, was going to tear him to pieces. There was no stopping the juggernaut that was Manuel. Rupert should know. He had helped create him. There was no going back now.
It was always going to end this way, he supposed. There was no avoiding the inevitable. He was Frankenstein, Manuel his monster.
Then he saw it, and hope rekindled in his chest after it had momentarily flickered out.
A ship. Down below.
He’d just caught sight of its great mast, rearing agonizingly into the sky. The great billowing sails that, had its anchor not been put out to sea, would have tugged it into the world beyond.
And then Rupert’s smile faded. He dropped to his knees as he realized with horrifying clarity that this ship was not altogether unknown to him.
It was The Red Flag.
They had found him. After all these weeks of escaping Shih’s clutches, they had finally found him. He dropped to the deck, lying flat on his stomach.
Now he was truly stuck between a rock and a hard place. Who would have thought Shih would have been so desperate to get her claws back into Rupert and the others? Or perhaps they were here on some other errand… But that was too much to hope for. No, they were here for him. No question about it. Shih wouldn’t stop, not until she had them back.
Rupert was overtaken with despair once again. If a miracle happened and Manuel did not get him, Shih most certainly would. Rupert was a rat trapped in a maze with no exit. He might as well throw himself over the cliff edge. At least then the death would be quick, instantaneous.
And then he had an idea.
It was so obvious! Instead of trying to avoid the two factions, he should be bringing them together, forcing them into a confrontation so one would destroy the other.
Rupert had seen Manuel in action. There was no stopping him if he came from nowhere. He could take out five, six men before they managed to put him down. And they would put him down. It was so deliciously simple that Rupert could barely contain his excitement.
He got a second—or perhaps it was a third or fourth—wind and began to trot along th
e jungle’s edge. Manuel hadn’t emerged yet. Why, Rupert didn’t know. Didn’t want to even consider. He could be hiding in the jungle, Rupert’s imagination going wild. Manuel wasn’t capable of such thoughts. The only thing he understood was to follow, attack, and destroy. That was all.
Rupert liked to think he could always tell when an idea he had was going to work. It seemed to glow brightly in his mind, and he couldn’t wait to get started. Hope was on the horizon, and he was running directly for it.
He would use Shih and her men to distract Manuel. At the very least they would knock him unconscious so Rupert could finish him off himself. It was going to work, he told himself. All he had to do was find Shih and direct Manuel at them. Rupert might even be able to get hold of one of their guns. If he could do that… All his worries would be over.
There was one place he could start—the same place he’d started when he’d first arrived on this damn island. The only place that had anything worth exploring. The Flowers’ home.
Rupert began at a decent pace. He wanted to get there before it was too late.
Chapter Fourteen
FEAR WAS a powerful motivator. When used correctly it was almost as powerful as love. It was certainly safer. Fear prevented those from taking action who would otherwise do you harm. And if they had loved ones they feared for, knowing what would happen to them if they didn’t follow your rules, all the better.
Kristian was afraid of Captain Shih. He made no apology for it. Furthermore, Captain Shih knew he was terrified of her. She could do anything she wanted to him and he would not retaliate.
Kristian checked his pocket watch again. Shih was late. She was never late. Now Kristian was stuck, not sure what he should do. Shih had never been late before, and Kristian was not confident about assuming command of the crew as dictated by the rules of seniority. Who knew how Shih would react. Might she think he had attempted to take the crew and power for himself? The thought alone gave Kristian goosebumps.
It was mostly because Kristian owned that watch that he was still alive. He possessed it, therefore he was the one most qualified to operate it. It hadn’t been true when he had received this position, but he had made damn sure he knew everything about the inner workings of that watch afterwards.
He did not possess the photographic memory Smee had, or his assistant Jim, but that didn’t seem to matter. Captain Shih wanted Jim back because he was the only one who now knew the location of all the weapons caches they had buried. Without them, Shih’s teeth would be drawn. There were other pirate captains in these waters and if they discovered Shih’s weakness… It wouldn’t end well for any of the crew.
Kristian could have taken The Red Flag for himself and sailed into the sunset… Except he was too afraid of Captain Shih to do that. All the crew were. That was why none of them even contemplated doing it. The captain was a legend already, and there was no doubt in any of their minds that should they take The Red Flag, Captain Shih would find them at some point. The thought of turning around to find her standing there, her blade buried in his ribs and that half-crazed smile on her face…
Kristian shivered. It was too much to bear. But it wasn’t worth worrying about anyway. There were far more pressing concerns He doubted he would survive long enough at sea before the crew committed mutiny. They would never follow him as their leader. He was far too weak.
He knew full well that was why Shih had chosen him to be her first mate in the first place. He was the weakest of all the crewmembers, and if he displeased her, he would be put amongst them, a lamb amongst the wolves. He would be dead before the sun set on the first day.
In choosing him as her leader, Captain Shih had made a grave error. For, in situations such as this, when Kristian needed to step up and take the helm, he needed to be strong, a leader. But he was far too weak. The crew were more likely to ignore him than follow him.
The only way Kristian stood a chance of success was if he went onto the land to find Captain Ching Shih. It was his only hope.
But Kristian wasn’t without his strengths. He was a good observer, and noticed how Smee always puffed and panted when he was forced to run. He was always heavily out of breath. Kristian was lucky that his mother had suffered from a similar list of ailments reserved for the overweight and unfit. Even a slight uptick in heart rate could kill him. And so Kristian took it upon himself to shout, screaming at Smee one night when he was out walking the decks, lost in thought. Others would hear the scream, of course, but Kristian knew they would have assumed it was Smee himself who had cried out.
Smee ought to have died immediately, but he hadn’t. It took several minutes for him to die, his trusted assistant Jim bent over him. Jim would be an added benefit, Kristian had thought, licking his lips.
With Smee dead, that left his position open. Kristian stepped up with his pocket watch, and assumed the role. But he never got the opportunity to take advantage of Jim. He was gone by the time the sun rose. They had been searching for him ever since.
All that had led to this moment, with Kristian facing the crew, each with arms larger than Kristian’s legs. Not one of them wasn’t battle scarred and missing digits on their fingers, or eyes from their sockets. Kristian’s voice shook when he spoke.
“Listen up men,” he said. “The captain is late in returning to The Red Flag. We all know the drill. We’re to go onto the land and retrieve her. No matter the cost. Understood?”
No one uttered as much as a mutter.
“Then let’s get to it,” Kristian said.
He would need to keep eyes in the back of his head. One of them would likely attempt the same double cross he had played out on Smee. Kristian took a few calming breaths and began to climb the ladder down to the rowboats. He’d never signed up for this.
Chapter Fifteen
“THEY’LL BE coming from the eastern shore,” Jenny said, pointing at a map. “That’ll bring them through the jungle in this direction. We only have a little time, so we need to prepare everything we can in a short amount of time. Is there anything you can think of that we might use in this area as defense?”
“We set up an assault course of pit holes there before,” Fritz said. “When an undead horde came at us.”
“It’s still functional?” Jenny said.
“Should be,” Ernest said. “They’re just holes.”
“We don’t know if they’ve been sprung or not already,” Bill said.
“We do know,” Liz said. “The first was. Not the rest. I saw them just yesterday. Believe me, most of them haven’t been sprung.”
There was something in her voice that Bill couldn’t help but pick up on. Something that told him something bad had happened there, something she couldn’t shake from her mind. But now wasn’t the time to be discussing it.
“Good,” Jenny said. “That ought to take care of some of them, and at least buy us some time. Then they’ll be heading this way.”
She slid her finger through the dense jungle and circled the two trees that were the Flowers’ home.
“Any other defenses you’ve got available?” she said. “Anything that we can set up within the next couple of hours?”
“We have walls in place,” Liz said. “Bill, the boys and Rupert and Manuel set them up. They were meant as a way for us to deal with the natives, should they return here. Obviously, that never happened.”
“We expected the natives to take position behind those walls and use them to fire at us,” Bill said.
“Isn’t that defeating the purpose of having the walls in the first place?” Jenny said. “If you’re giving them somewhere to attack you from?”
“That’s what I thought at first,” Bill said. “But think of it this way: if we know where they are, then that makes attacking them a lot easier.”
“Yes,” Jenny said. “I see what you mean.”
“What do you suggest we do?” Liz said.
“Do you have oil?” Jenny said.
“Yes,” Liz said.
“Bowl
s?” Jenny said.
“Yes,” Liz said.
“Then we’ll heat them up and put them on top of the walls, with vines attached so we can pull on them and they’ll tip over onto the pirates,” Jenny said.
“You don’t believe in half measures, do you?” Ernest said.
“They’re pirates,” Jenny said. “They’ll do a lot worse to us if they can get their hands on us, believe me.”
“It’s not enough,” Fritz said, peering intently at the map. “It’s all good, and it’ll delay them, and incapacitate some of them, but it’s not going to be enough to stop them.”
“These are merely distractions,” Jenny said. “We’re going to have to use guns.”
“Guns?” Liz said. “But they’re living people.”
“I’m afraid that if you want to continue you’re going to have to get your hands dirty,” Jenny said.
“No,” Liz said.
She shook her head and peered round at her boys, her family.
“We can’t do this,” she said. “I know we want to live, but taking someone else’s life when they’re still alive…”
“There’s no other way for it,” Jenny said. “Either that, or they will come and take your lives, and those of your family. They do not have the same compunction you do. They will do everything they can to take you. You should be willing to do the same in return.”
Liz shook her head.
“I don’t think I can do this,” she said.
“Maybe there’s a way around this,” Ernest said.
“This is no way around it!” Jenny said. “We either do this, or we don’t. If we don’t we need to think of some other way to destroy them.”
“What if we fired the guns, but we weren’t the ones to pull the triggers?” Ernest said.
“Then who would pull them?” Jenny said.
“They will,” Ernest said.
“Who?” Jenny said.
“The pirates,” Ernest said.
Jenny frowned and let what Ernest had just said roll over her. She didn’t know specifically what he had planned, but she believed in his confidence when he looked like that.