Flint's Island

by Leonard Wibberley

  The gale came with the dark on that third day. There was no sunset—just the disappearance of light, while south and east of us a black bar of cloud, solid as iron, formed and moved toward us. No ship, whatever the experience of her captain, was ever ready for that force of wind. Before the wind hit, we heard in the darkness the roaring and thundering of the seas around. Then the wind struck, leaping on us out of the dark, and flung the Jane leaning over on her beam ends. She lay there as if she must capsize. Slowly she righted herself and had hardly staggered up when the first of those terrible seas we had heard thundering to weather crashed into her stern and the whole hull was lost in a roaring cataract. I was swept off my feet and down into the storm of water which covered the waist of the ship. There I would certainly have gone overboard, but I was brought by chance up against the foremast life rail and, gripping the halyards in my arms, held on for life.

  It was minutes before the brig could struggle free of the grip of the sea and I could get to safety at the break of the deck. The yawl, stowed amidships, had come off her chocks and was in danger of being smashed to pieces. She could be cut free to join the gig, which was already overboard, and that was my intent, but Captain Samuels signaled she was to be relashed. How we managed this, I do not know. Twice we had her almost cinched down and twice were washed off our feet by seas boarding us. In the end we made her fast, the carpenter driving enough wedges under her, as he said later, to build another boat.

  I had thought the first hour of the storm might see us through the worst of it, but the winds mounted hour by hour, and in heavy gusts a man caught on deck would have been blown overboard but for the lifelines.

  About midnight a terrible moon showed, white as death in a sky that seemed to be of polished black metal. The sea around us, in the ghastly moonlight, was like a snowfield, being all foam and showing only here and there the writhing darkness of the water. Over this stark ocean, when dawn came, tiny birds fluttered on trembling wings—Mother Carey’s chickens, for whom a full gale is fair weather.

  The shrieking of the wind in our rigging was past all description, and added to this was the terrible roaring of the water, as sea after sea rushed down upon us seeking to destroy us. By dawn we had endured ten hours of this fury, the wind increasing all the time but moving ever to the southwest. About noon there was a little lessening of the wind, and clinging to the lifelines, we were able to rig the pump. We discovered that whatever damage had been done to the hull in the grounding at North Inlet was very much worse now. Four hours of pumping were needed before we sucked air. Thereafter, the pump was manned whenever the opportunity offered, but for the next two days, during which the storm moved around to southeast and then passed away, we could do nothing but work to save rather than sail the brig.

  On the first day of the storm, we had only ship’s biscuit and cold pork for food. But in the forenoon watch of the second day, Long John appeared on deck through the companionway aft, struggling on his crutch but still able to carry in one hand a pot of hot soup with a pannikin in it. He had an old sea cloak lashed over him to protect the kettle of soup as much as himself, and was as cheerful as a schoolboy on a holiday.

  “How did you contrive this?” I cried.

  “I have a trick or two,” roared Long John in my ear, “and keep a little firewood in my bunk with me.” I could not but admire him. Pirate he certainly was, and murderous too. But he was a seaman to put beside Drake.

  Captain Samuels stared at the steaming soup and turned away. But when Long John had gone, I persuaded him to have a pannikin of it, it being his duty to keep up his strength, and he did so, swallowing it as if it were poison. But I think he too was impressed, though he uttered not a syllable of thanks.

  On the fourth day, then, the storm had diminished sufficiently to set reefed topgallants and an outer jib, and we were able to assess our hurts. “Ship first and then the crew” was ever Captain Samuels’s way, and indeed so the sea demands, so I was soon down with Smigley in the forehold, looking for our leak. We found three ribs cracked above the futtocks, and two planks stove in such a way that there was no repairing them from within the hull. The ribs we sistered—that is, fastened supporting pieces beside them—but the planks were stove right beside the ribs, and though patching reduced the leak, we could not make a sound job of it. In the end, we resorted to fathering as well. That is to say, put an old sail over the side, folded, and half a gallon of paint dumped in the fold. This, positioned over the stove planks, was driven by water pressure into the break. Smigley went over the side in a bosun’s chair with a pouch full of nails to tack the sail in place as well as he could above the water, but we had to rely on lines passed beneath the hull to secure it, and these, our bottom being foul, were likely to chafe through on barnacles. Although this patching and fathering did not entirely stop the leak, it greatly reduced the amount of water we were taking.

  “Fair-weather patching,” grumbled Smigley when he came on board again. “We can’t fetch Savannah with old sails for planking.”

  The old carpenter always took such a gloomy view of every circumstance that I paid no attention to this remark, but later, during my watch that evening, I was surprised by Hodge’s asking whether he might not now alter course to westward to put in perhaps at the Bahamas or, if too far north, the Floridas. I told him I considered that very unlikely—Captain Samuels, in view of the treasure and the uncertainty of our relations with Spain, being determined to make Georgia. That this was so was soon confirmed, for the sky clearing by midafternoon to windward, we shook out the reef in our topgallants and added reefed topsails, and another jib.

  “Keep her north,” said the captain to the man at the wheel, and the hands belaying the topsail sheets exchanged looks and went forward somewhat sullenly.

  CHAPTER 15

  CALKINS DID NOT survive the storm. In addition to his smashed knee, he had sustained, you will recall, a cutlass stroke across the back which had laid the flesh open almost to the ribs. He had been brought aft to lie in a hammock in one of the companionway cabins, and in the gale the hammock had had to be lashed to prevent him smashing into the bulkheads. Nonetheless, the stitches in his back had torn open, he had lost a deal of blood, and so he died—the fifth among us to die in the three short weeks since we had sighted Flint’s Island.

  Captain Samuels conducted the funeral service, and Calkins’s poor belongings, in a battered wooden locker, were brought aft from the forecastle to be put in the captain’s care. The contrast between the simple honest chest of the seaman, with its rope handles and his name burned into the top with a hot iron, and those four iron-bound treasure chests alongside of which it was now stowed struck me like a blow. Calkins’s contained some sea clothes, foul-weather gear, a suit of brown homespun for going ashore, two pounds of twist tobacco wrapped in sailcloth, some letters (all printed by hand) from his wife, and a sheath knife. The sum of one man’s possessions after a life honestly spent did not equal in money the value of the smallest bauble in the treasure chests. The contrast was not lost on Captain Samuels either.

  “I’d sooner stand before my Maker with Calkins’s chest than all those other four,” he said. “There is another world where many of the values held in this one are reversed, and that must be our consolation.”

  “He’d a wife and a young sister living with him, half-witted,” said one of the hands who had brought the chest aft. “And it’s in this world that the two of them will have to fend for themselves alone.”

  “They shall have his full share, to the last farthing,” said Captain Samuels. “I will stake my honor on that.”

  Two others of our crew were now in a bad way, one of them Mr. Hogan, who had fallen into a fever from his wound, and another a man whose seemingly superficial hurt—the result of a pistol ball which had grazed his shoulder—was now swollen and of a greenish tinge with the undeniable stench of gangrene.

  Our position, according to the noon sight (our first for five days), put us in the latitude of Florida, t
hough how far east of that coast was a matter of guesswork. Captain Samuels reckoned a hundred leagues, for we had been driven eastward during the gale. Given fair weather, we could make the Florida coast in but three days at the most, and there was now a strong sentiment among the crew for putting in at Florida, whatever might be the disposition of the Spanish.

  Silver never said a word one way or the other, though Florida would certainly suit him. He bustled around in the forecastle attending to the wounded, cooking the meals, and handing out a tidbit at the end of the watch to the hands going below. Any destination was better for him than one of the British colonies, and he would not be concerned that the Floridas were Spanish territory. Spanish governors were by no means averse to piracy. Yet I could not say on any direct evidence that Silver was responsible for the crew’s growing desire to put in at St. Augustine or some other Florida port.

  The matter came to a head before the end of the week. A deputation led by Green called on the captain very politely with a request that he put in at Florida or the nearest land, “to save those in danger of death among us.” That wording, I will swear, was Silver’s, though he took no part in the deputation, staying close to his galley and his pots.

  Captain Samuels dealt with the deputation briefly. He had no charts aboard of the Florida coast, which they all knew to be strewn with reefs. It was Spanish territory and their status once they gained shore would be uncertain. The Florida coast was feverish, as they well knew, infested with flies, and the sick would be no better off on shore than they would be aboard the brig. Finally, whether we were at war with Spain or not, the Spanish would not part with a brig loaded with treasure which in all probability had been theirs in the first place.

  “Bear this in mind,” the captain added, “I offered to leave the wounded men ashore on Flint’s Island, and they begged to be taken aboard, agreeing to assume any risk. Well, aboard they are and will stay aboard until we fetch the king’s domains. The safety of this ship, of the treasure, and every man on her is in my care, and my judgment is that we must avoid foreign ports. You can best serve your own interests by working cheerfully with me until we are off Savannah, which I judge will be the case in a week at most.”

  Despite the civility with which he received the deputation, there was no disguising the fact that Captain Samuels suspected that Silver lay behind it, and he all the more bitterly regretted the circumstances which had forced him to allow Silver the freedom of the ship. He could, of course, clap him in irons even now. I have no doubt that he weighed doing so. But, outwardly at least, Silver had been a model of good behavior since we left Flint’s Island, and to chain him on mere suspicion seemed outrageous and certainly would not set well with the men, among whom Silver was again a favorite.

  All went well for a day or so, during which time we made but little northing, the wind being contrary. One evening, having the night watch from eight to midnight of land time, I had stopped in to see poor Mr. Hogan, now confined to his bunk by his wound and a fever. He was awake and we fell to talking about our poor progress and of the disposition of the crew and the plight of the ship.

  “Tom,” he said, “watch Silver closely. Whatever his present attitude, that man is not to be trusted. If there is trouble, Silver will be behind it. Of that I am sure.”

  “Have you heard anything?” I asked.

  “No,” said Hogan. “But has it occurred to you that if Silver could master fourteen of Flint’s hands when they were marooned on that island, though he had to kill seven of them, handling this crew will be no great problem for him? Why, I think if the ship’s officers were removed, the crew would vote Silver captain tomorrow.”

  “There’s some not deceived by him,” I said. “Hodge, for one. And Smigley. And Captain Samuels has his measure to the inch.”

  “And you?” asked Mr. Hogan.

  “I feel sorry for him at times,” I said. “Had he had some other kind of childhood, he might have been a man of great parts. It is no easy thing as a boy to see your father hung at Tyburn.”

  “Tom,” said Mr. Hogan. “I no more believe that Silver’s father was hung at Tyburn than I believe that Silver lost his leg at Quiberon Bay under Hawke. You see how it is, Tom. If you, with your learning, have some sympathy for him, judge how matters stand with the crew. That’s the danger of the man. He is as subtle as a serpent.”

  He was silent for a moment, and then said, seemingly changing the topic, “Stennis is to lose his arm, I hear.”

  Stennis was the man whose wound had turned gangrenous. “So it would appear,” I said.

  “It was Silver who dressed his wound,” said Mr. Hogan mildly. “It was Silver, too, who found Calkins bleeding in his hammock and his stitches torn open. I won’t have that man near me.”

  Mr. Hogan’s meaning was quite clear to me. He suspected Silver of tampering with the wounded men and so driving the ship closer to crisis. And yet the suspicion was almost too horrible to entertain and I remonstrated with Mr. Hogan about it.

  “Tom,” said Mr. Hogan, “consider not Silver’s words but Silver’s deeds. How many men has he killed? How has he lived? How much repentance has he shown over those deaths? Then ask yourself whether Silver would not put a little dirt in a man’s wounds or pull open a helpless seaman’s stitches to save his own neck. Watch him, Tom. He’s up to something. And whatever it is, it may cost us our lives.”

  I had a chance to talk to the captain that very night, for he came on deck at six bells and, on my saying that I wished to speak to him, took me aside to the taffrail, well out of earshot of the helmsman. I told him of my talk with Mr. Hogan and he listened carefully to every word I said. When I was done, he said I had told him nothing new but his hands were tied for the present. “If I forbid Silver to tend the men and their condition worsens, I will be blamed and held inhuman,” he said. “If I put Silver in irons, they’d mutiny in an hour. That man has outmaneuvered me on my own ship. I believe he is more master of my crew, or the greater part of them, than I. But until he makes an overt act, I am powerless to move against him. We must hope for a fair wind and keep our eyes open. Four days now should see us off Savannah and an end to our troubles.”

  Peasbody was to relieve me at the change of the watch, and before turning in, my mind I suppose running on the ship’s troubles, I took a lantern and, going forward, went down into the hold to inspect the leak. All was well enough there, for Smigley, despite the pessimism of his nature, was a fine carpenter, and there was only a slow seepage from the stove planks, which the pumps could well take care of. When I returned on deck, however, to go aft to my own quarters, I noticed the hands still working at the pump, discharging more water than seemed possible since the bilges were last pumped. Troubled, a terrible suspicion flashed through my mind and I scooped up a handful of the water gushing out of the pump and tasted it. It tasted sweet—only slightly brackish.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Peasbody, who had the watch. “That water is fresh,” I cried. “You are pumping the ship’s drinking water overboard.”

  Down I went into the hold then and moved aft to where our water barrels were kept. They were stored high in a small hold of their own to keep them out of the bilges. Each barrel was held in place either by chocks or by lashings to prevent it bumping into the other in the rolling of the ship. An appalling sight greeted me as I slipped through the hatch into the hold where the barrels were stored. The whole place was strewed with barrels, their sides stove in, their contents spilled.

  Not a cask had been spared, and it was plain we had not as much as ten gallons of fresh water left on board. I surveyed this wreckage, holding a lantern aloft in silence, and was interrupted by Silver thrusting his huge fair head over the hatchway to peer down at me and the chaos which had been made of our water supply.

  “Well now, Tom, here’s an unlucky ship if I ever saw one,” he said. “Half the crew on their backs, wounds going rotten for all our care, and hardly a sip of water to pass out among the hands.”

 
; “Silver,” I cried, “this is your doing!”

  “Tom,” said Silver, shaking his big head in reproach, “that ain’t what I’d call civil. Here’s me working me blessed heart out attending the sick and cooking for all hands, blow high, blow low, and there’s that Captain Samuels choking on every spoonful and not seaman enough to look to his fresh water after a blow. Not civil, Tom. Not civil by a long haul.”

  CHAPTER 16

  WE HAD NO CHOICE now but, turning west, to run in on the Florida coast. The most careful questioning of the crew failed to reveal who had cut our water casks loose, though there was no doubt in my mind that Silver was behind it. Silver had won the greater part of the crew over to his side; such is the corruption that can be spread among men when the prospect of riches is laid before them. That same crew, which without treasure aboard would have stood by their captain and their ship in every hardship, was now utterly disaffected, looked to Silver as their leader, and some among them had the temerity to cheer the announcement that we must now head for the Florida coast.

  When that course had been set, Captain Samuels summoned his officers aft and put the case clearly to us all in the privacy of his cabin.

  “I have lost control of this ship in all but name,” he said. “I should have kept Silver in irons from the word go, but I was persuaded against it. I accept the fault, however, for the decision was mine. We must rely on fetching St. Augustine and appealing to the Spanish authorities. I can think of nothing else. Meanwhile, let every man be on watch. St. Augustine may by no means be to Master Silver’s fancy. The Tortugas or Jamaica would be more to his liking, I’m sure. I don’t know whether he has corrupted my hands to the point of downright mutiny and murder, but watch behind you when you are alone on deck.”