by John Drake
When he finished, he sat down to mighty cheers, and smiled like the sun in his glory. Neal smiled too, though he'd no taste for Flint's kind of music. His mind was still full of delightful calculations concerning the cargoes in the holds of Flint's two prizes. Selena came to their table at once, with rum. Flint raised his glass to her in a polite toast. His sharp eyes swept her up and down. He frowned. He saw the miserable expression on her face and her red eyes.
"What rogue has upset you, my African Venus?" he said. He stood up, and took her chin gently in his fingers, the better to study her. "I dare swear you've been crying. Just tell me who it was," he said, in a soft, quiet voice. "Just tell me his name and I'll have the liver out of him. I'll rip it out, and slice it narrow, and feed it to him in strips." Charley Neal blinked anxiously. When other men said things like that, they weren't really thinking of opening a man's belly and sticking a hand inside to pull things out. But when Flint made the threat…
"Don't you mind her!" cried Neal, half standing. There were limits to what the colony's trustees would ignore - even for cash payment in gold. "Leave her, Joe," he said. "These black girls are ten a penny!" And he dared actually to reach out and clutch Flint's arm, as if to restrain him.
Flint was not pleased at the gesture. He frowned slightly and turned his eyes first on Neal's hand, and then on Neal himself. The Irishman fell back as if a blow had been struck.
"Sorry, Joe!" he begged. "Sorry-sorry-sorry!" He raised his hands in placation.
"Thank you, Charley," said Flint. "But be assured that this lady is not to be compared with others, and is not to be sold at the price of one tenth of a penny."
"No!" said Charley. "No, no, no!" And he shook his head as if to shake it off.
"I am glad that we are agreed," said Flint, and ignored Charley Neal. Flourishing a silk handkerchief, he made a great play of dabbing it at the corners of Selena's eyes. "So who was it that offended you, my dear? Only give me a name."
"It doesn't matter," said Selena, seeing the imploring look on Neal's face. She could not afford to upset her protector- in-chief. Neal sighed gratefully. Flint shrugged his shoulders and deigned to smile again as he looked at the girl.
"By George!" said Flint. "Where did you find such a beauty, Neal? Is this what you keep hidden at home?" He laughed and his white teeth shone. He bowed and indicated a chair. "Will you honour us, ma'am?" Selena hesitated. Neal nodded furiously. As far as he was concerned, Flint could have any girl in the house free of charge, and he could do anything he liked with them.
Flint drew out the chair and ushered Selena to her place as gallant as a nobleman with his lady, and she with her torn and tattered cotton print, and her bare feet.
This drew hoots of laughter from Flint's men, who assumed he was playing some game with the girl, and they extemporised lewd and obscene advice, which they bawled out at the tops of their voices, concerning what he should do next. But they had mistaken their captain's intentions. White showed round Flint's eyes, and Billy Bones - never far from his idol and knowing him better than anyone - silently stood back and took cover.
BANG! BANG! Flint drew and fired a pair of heavy pistols with the speed of thought. Smoke rolled and twinkling red fragments of wadding sprayed about him. He'd aimed left and right at random, not caring where the balls might whiz. He set the smoking pistols carefully back in his belt and produced a second, smaller pair, with which he menaced the room.
"Silence!" he roared, as the women shrieked and men howled.
"Aaah!" moaned a voice. "Me arm! Me sodding precious arm!"
"Who is hurt?" cried Flint. "Show yourself!"
"It's me," said a voice, "Atty Bolger." And a man stood up with a ruined arm hanging by a shattered shoulder and the blood in a growing puddle at his feet.
"God bless me!" said Flint. "Why, it is Atty Bolger, I do declare! That's a nasty wound, old shipmate. Does it hurt?"
"'Course it hurts, you cunt!"
"Uhhhhhhhhhhh!" gasped the room.
"Then shall I help you, Atty? Shall I take away your pain?"
"Aye," said Bolger, who was not one of the brightest.
CRACK! went Flint's pistol.
"And does it hurt now?" asked Flint, but Atty said not a word. And neither did any other man or woman in the room, where utter silence reigned as Flint held two hundred people by the unaided force of his own terrifying personality.
"That's better," he said. "Now… should any man here have anything else to say about this lady -" he bowed gracefully to Selena "- then let him step up now and say it to Joe Flint… just here -" he indicated a spot a yard in front of himself. After a due pause and a most remarkable absence of any sound at all, let alone further comment on Selena, Flint smiled his dazzling smile and sat down again. He ignored the rest of the room, and the din slowly returned.
Selena was goggling at Flint with big round eyes. Her ears rang with the detonation of the pistols and her mouth hung open in amazement.
"Pop!" said Flint, flicking a finger under her chin and snapping her mouth shut. He laughed and looked her over once more. Flint had been at sea just as long as John Silver and the others, and like them he had need of a woman. But his needs were more singular. For one thing, Flint was extremely particular where women were concerned. He demanded considerable beauty, and specific circumstances. He had just found the former, and now he set about procuring the latter.
Flint could be very charming when he wanted. He had a store of wit and clever stories, mostly at the expense of others and mostly cruel, but funny nonetheless. He made Selena laugh. He even managed to say something amusing when four men passed carrying the profoundly limp and silent Atty Bolger. In short, Flint exerted himself to please. He was attentive to whatever Selena said. He ordered food and drink for her, and served her himself, anxiously inquiring whether the rum and water was not too strong for her taste.
She was puzzled and flattered. No man, black or white, free or slave, had ever treated her like this. She saw no sign in this fine gentleman's face of the hot passions she stirred in others. And he was clean and didn't smell of sweat and filth like most others did. His teeth were beautiful and his face was handsome, and he was immeasurably the finest-dressed man she had ever seen.
Selena relaxed. She smiled. She laughed.
And all the while Charley Neal thanked the saints that the slaughter seemed to be done for tonight (and all due to accidental pistol shots that the authorities would understand) and nobody's liver had been laid out on the floor.
Better still, Charley saw that the topsails of another fine bargain had just hove up over the horizon as, little by little, Flint led the conversation towards Selena herself. Her age, her thoughts, her hopes, her plans: small and piteous as these were, for the blessings of a clean bed, a full stomach and a little kindness. Finally, Flint made his move.
"My dear," he said, leaning forward with a serious expression on his face, "if I had a daughter, I'd not let her be bred in such a nest of vice as this -" he waved at everything around them, including Neal (who was already working out the price for what was now, clearly, on its way).
"Forgive the precipitousness of my impetuosity," said Flint. "Attribute this to the sincere philanthropy of my intentions."
Selena chewed hard on these huge and ponderous words, the like of which the plantation and the tavern had not prepared her for.
"What I propose," said Flint, "is that I adopt you as my legal ward, my dear, and fetch you aboard my ship to live under my protection." Selena's eyes widened. Neal's closed in satisfaction. Selena dreamed of freedom. Neal dreamed of profit. "Will you come, my dear?" said Flint. "I swear by the Almighty Being who made Heaven and Earth that you shall have nothing to fear." So powerful was the force of his argument that Billy Bones, watching and listening nearby, nodded in enrapt agreement and mouthed the words, nothing to fear.
Selena looked at Flint. She looked at Neal. She looked around the room. She measured Flint against every man she had ever met, and by that s
ad, debased and impoverished standard, Flint shone like the evening star.
"I will come with you, sir," she said. And it was settled as far as she was concerned. The squaring of Charley Neal took longer, for he could show impressive papers demonstrating his undoubted ownership of Selena. He also had charge of such money as Selena had hoarded and was honest enough to make clear that it would go with her. It was furthermore very much to Neal's credit that he dared to press Flint for assurances that the money would remain Selena's once she passed into his power.
But eventually all parties left smiling and certain figures in Neal's ledgers were adjusted to his advantage over that of Captain Joseph Flint. When the dealing was done, Flint stood up and offered Selena his hand.
"Mr Bones," he said, "lanterns and a boat's crew, if you please. I'm returning to the ship at once."
A small procession left Neal's house and marched through the warm night to the music of a thousand twittering crickets. Flint led the way with Selena on his arm as they took the short walk to the stairs down to the river. There, Walrus's jolly-boat was launched for an even shorter pull out to the ship herself, and soon Selena was overcome with wonder at the size and mystery of the ship: its crammed and complex machinery of ropes and tackles and bolts and spars, half visible and all the more strange in the night. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of tar and timber, salt and fish, and things faintly rotting in hidden corners.
"Come below, my dear," said Flint, and the anchor watch and the boat's crew leered and nudged one another. Billy Bones made the ancient gesture of slapping his left palm into his right elbow and jerking the right forearm erect, fist clenched, like a phallus. He did this - but by God Almighty and all His angels - he took care to make sure Flint didn't see him do it.
"You shall have my own cabin," said Flint, "and a bath shall be rigged of good fresh water, and clean clothes provided afterwards." He turned to his men. "Mr Bones, what slops have we to suit my lady?"
"No women's traps, Cap'n," said Billy Bones, "but I'll root out the smallest we've got in shirts and britches."
"Clean, Billy-my-chicken!" said Flint. "Let everything be clean."
Later, Selena was left entirely to herself in Flint's cabin at the stern, below the quarterdeck. It was a fine place, lavishly furnished with tables and chairs, chests and carvings, shining cutlasses and mysterious seafaring instruments. Candles glowed in hanging lanterns and a tub of fresh water, lined with sail-cloth for smoothness, was filled and waiting for her in a space cleared in the middle of the cabin. The result aroused unfortunate memories of a certain "special house", the only other place Selena had ever seen that had an equal quality of furnishing, and there'd been a bath there too. But here she had privacy, something she'd never known before in all her life, and the thought of it was almost mystical. She locked the door, drew off her single garment, bound up her hair, and slid into the cool water.
Flint was watching her.
He had a sleeping cabin to one side of the main cabin, and his eye was pressed to a fresh-bored hole in the bulkhead. He looked at the lovely round limbs, the high breasts standing out in their youth, the slim waist and the gorgeous female swell of the hips, the beauty of her face, and the girl's natural daintiness. She was a thing of uttermost loveliness and Flint's breath came in gasps. His mouth was wet and drooling and his member rose painfully below his belt.
Flint groaned in shame. It was his curse that he could not penetrate and enter a woman as other men did. The urgent need for virility simply drained the strength from him, and so he turned to stratagems such as this. He thrust his hand into his breeches and worked steadily, as if pumping out the bilge.
* * *
Chapter 12
1st February 1750
The Spanish Main
His Catholic Majesty's sloop El Tigre came foaming across the enemy's bow and delivered her broadside of double- shotted six pounders one after the other, each gun captain choosing his moment as his own piece bore on the target.
Ten guns boomed and bounded back, gouting thunderclouds of smoke. Ten stabs of flame licked the victim's planking, and twenty iron balls tore through the air. Some missed and fell foaming into the sea, for even at close range it was hard for the gunners to time their moment precisely. But more than half of the Spanish shot crashed, ripped and tore its way from end to end of the island-built Betsy. At the stern, surrounded by whirling splinters and dying men, bawling at them to stand and fight, and damning their yellow livers, was Captain Joseph Flint, the celebrated mutineer, who was coming to the conclusion of an eight-month career as a pirate.
His performance in this trade had been erratic.
He had indeed taken some Spanish prizes and wallowed in slaughter. He had indeed got some gold under hatches; quite a lot in fact, and thus far, success. But he'd lost half his men in plots, counter-plots and the subduing of mutinies that were entirely caused by Flint himself. With independent command, all his old faults had swollen and grown monstrous large, to the degree that, for all his talents, Flint could never become a leader of men. He could only set one faction against another. If the Spanish navy hadn't very efficiently searched for him and caught him, then his own men would have done for him, soon enough, and he knew it. But that didn't concern Flint at this particular moment.
El Tigre had been battering Betsy for the best part of an hour. She was a better ship, better manned, better armed and with a loyal crew. All the Spanish captain was doing now was making sure there'd be no serious opposition when finally he led his boarding party over Betsy's rail. Either that, or he was attempting actually to sink her.
"We must strike, Cap'n!" cried Billy Bones into Flint's ear, over the thunder of the guns. Billy was grey-faced with fright, and crouched almost to the deck, as if that would save him from the hurtling shot.
"Strike?" cried Flint. "Strike to the Dons?" And he laughed hysterically.
"We're beat, Cap'n," said Billy Bones, and looked about the deck.
Dead and wounded lay everywhere, all over the shot- ploughed planks. Guns were dismounted and the foremast was working like a loose tooth. Those hands left fit were looking over their shoulders for somewhere to run. That was a bad sign. Next thing they'd be running below, out of reach of shot. Flint waved his sword.
"Death to him that shirks his duty!" he cried, and the men looked at him like the lunatic which he very nearly was. Then they cringed and stared as the foremast went rumbling over the side in a great crackling of parting stays and sundering shrouds.
El Tigre's men cheered wildly as she passed completely across Betsy's bow with the wind fair on her larboard quarter. She had totally outmanoeuvred the enemy vessel, which now lay wallowing like a drunken pig. Lieutenant De Cordoba, El Tigre's commanding officer, instantly put down the helm, aiming for the bold stroke of coming round through the wind to bring his un-fired starboard battery to bear. In this he was over-ambitious. Either that or unlucky, for El Tigre missed stays and hung in the eye of the wind, with her canvas flapping and roaring and De Cordoba stamping his foot in anger and screaming at his men.
Seeing this glimpse of hope, Flint drove his wavering crew to cut free the foremast and bring the shattered Betsy before the wind, under her after sails. Some furious minutes later, Betsy gathered way and rolled miserably downwind, discoursing heavily and needing constant helm corrections, and moving away from the Spaniard at a bare walking pace.
She'd covered less than a mile before El Tigre was got before the wind and came surging forward with the water foaming under her bow. Fear ran the length and breadth of Betsy and the men broke and tried to run away. But Flint cut down the first of them, and the others howled and ran back to their duty… for a while.
"'Tain't no use, Cap'n," said Billy Bones miserably, "them buggers is coming and we can't stop 'em."
"Billy-my-chicken," said Flint, "I'll run you through the liver if you say that again, I take my oath on it."
BOOM! A gun fired and another roundshot flew.
But it was
n't the Spaniard. Heads turned in amazement as a big, fast schooner came plunging down from the north. She was a mile away and closing fast. The lookouts hadn't seen her, for most of them were dead, and the others had eyes only for the immediate enemy.
"By God and the devil!" said Flint. "See her colours?"
"Stap me!" said Billy Bones. "The black flag, like our own!"
The schooner flew sable banners from her fore and maintop. Each displayed a grinning skull over crossed swords. She came tearing down, straight for El Tigre, which turned away from Betsy and made ready to receive the newcomer.
The two ships were very evenly matched. They were closely similar in size, in guns, and in the number and skill of their crews. A long engagement followed with much careful long- range shooting as each captain tried to place his ship to some advantage over the other. The result was a great burning of powder, but to little effect, since neither party saw any benefit in closing to a range where hits were certain, for neither would risk a lucky shot that left his own ship dismasted or harmed in her spars, such that the enemy could place their broadside under his stern and hammer him into surrender.
At first, Betsy took no further part in the fight, for she'd suffered grievous loss of life, and Flint's methods of rousing flagging spirits were of his own, highly ambiguous and uncertain nature. But eventually he got a spar lashed to the stump of the foremast, and set a sail upon it. Then, with the wreckage heaved over the side, and a few guns manned by crews who were more frightened of Flint and Billy Bones than they were of the Spaniards, Betsy made the best of her clumsy way towards the two circling, thundering opponents.
Flint was doing this only because they were now downwind of him, and Betsy was incapable of anything other than running before a fair wind. It was his fixed intention to pass through them, or by them, to make his escape, and he'd had guns manned strictly to assist this principal objective. But Lieutenant De Cordoba knew none of this. He only saw a second ship, flying the black flag, coming to join the one that was already his equal.
