by John Drake
"Why… Flint and Silver, shipmate," said Israel Hands. "If they steers their separate courses, then some'll go with the one, and some the other."
"Bollocks!" said Bones. "Who'd follow any other man than Flint?"
"Aye…" said Hands carefully. "Who would, an' all?"
"See?" said Billy Bones, believing he'd won the argument.
"Let's hope things don't turn nasty, Mr Bones," said Israel Hands, "or none of us'll dare to sling a hammock for fear of a knife from below whiles we sleep."
Billy Bones thought this over and shook his head.
"No," he said, "not aboard the old Walrus. Not while we're jolly companions one and all."
"Aye," said Israel Hands. "Whatever you says, Mr Bones." But he was glad that, as master gunner, he slept in a nice solid wooden bunk.
* * *
Chapter 14
30th May 1749
Dawn
Elizabeth's longboat
The South Atlantic
"We're all going to die," said Mr Midshipman Hastings, "and that's God's truth." And he curled himself into a ball in the sternsheets of the wallowing longboat.
"Hell and damnation, George," said Mr Midshipman Povey, kneeling down and putting his hands over his friend's ear so he could whisper without being heard, "If you don't buck up soon, that's just what we shall do. Now bloody well stand up and do your duty! I can't do it, I'm too small. They won't listen to me."
"Shan't," said Hastings, "it's too much." He shoved Povey's hands away and looked up at him. "Just too much! All that on that stinking island… and now this -" He raised his head slightly, peered between the backs of the three marines sat stolidly on the aftermost thwart, as a protective screen from the hands.
Povey followed his gaze. Rough, fearful faces glared back in a mass. The men were growling and moaning. Worse still, some of them were sobbing in despair. Cast loose upon the deep without charts, compass, instruments or any hope of
salvation, they were twenty-three lost souls a tiny wooden shell, surrounded by an endless desert of ocean.
If they were lucky and the weather was foul, they might be swamped and drowned. But given fair weather… it would be a hideous lingering death by thirst: the worst of all ways for a seaman to die. Povey's heart sank.
"Oh, what's the use…" he said.
"What's goin' on!" said one of the hands, reading Povey's expression. He lurched forward, trying to see what the mids were doing, only to be grabbed by a marine and thrown back to his place.
"Fuck you, lobster!" said the seaman, and sneered. "You ain't got no bloody musket now, have you? Don't you touch me, you bloody lubber!"
"Aye!" growled the rest.
"Where's the rum?" said one.
"AYE!" they cried, and surged forward in a body to seek an answer.
The boat rocked horribly as a fierce struggle took place between seamen and marines. There were no weapons among them - they'd been plucked clean of those - but there was gouging and kicking, and heads slammed hard against the planks.
"George! George!" said Povey. "For God's sake stand up!"
The longboat was a big one - thirty-six feet long by a dozen broad at the waist. She was ponderous and heavily timbered, but with twenty-one men fighting viciously on board of her, she was rolling gunwale-under and shipping it green.
"George!" said Povey, shaking the other as hard as he could, but Mr Midshipman Hastings sat staring with his mouth hung open, head lolling from side to side with the sickening motion. "Right then," said Povey, "here's the way of it, George Hastings."
He let go of Hastings and fell back. "If you won't stand up and do your duty, as the senior of us two, then… then… I'll cut you in town, I'll tell my servants to shut my door to you… and I'll never speak to you again!"
"Oh…" said Hastings, and sat up just as a seaman threw himself clear of the fight and landed belly-down between Hastings and Povey, and got both hands lovingly round the rum cask. His feet were firm caught among the bellowing crowd forrard so he couldn't get up, but from the look on his face, he wasn't ever going to let go.
"Ah!" said Hastings, struck with inspiration. He scrambled to his feet and began kicking the seaman's hands and fingers with all his might.
"Ow! Ow! Little bastard!" yelled the tar.
"Help me!" cried Hastings.
"Aye-aye, sir!" said Povey, and laid in with the toe of his boot.
"Here!" said Hastings, grabbing the cask as the tar finally let go. "Help me lift it!"
The two mids heaved the heavy cask up and poised it on the rolling, heaving gunwale.
"NO!" wailed the horrified tar. He drew breath and gave out an ear-splitting shout, "Ahoooooy, shipmates! 'Ware astern! Look what the little sods are a-doin'!"
The instant they clapped eyes on the awful thing the mids were doing, the men gave a collective groan and magically ceased to fight.
"Now then," screeched Hastings, having been handed his audience without even having to summon it, "pay attention, you men!" Silence fell. He looked at Povey. He looked at the wobbling cask "Can you hold it?"
"Aye-aye, sir."
"Right!" said Hastings. "Now listen to me: either I shall have discipline aboard of this ship, or that cask -" the men gaped in round-eyed horror "- goes over the side!" He turned to the other mid: "Isn't that so, Mr Povey?"
"Indeed, sir!" said Povey, and wriggled the cask.
"Uh!" gasped the hands.
"Now then…" said Hastings, his hands clasped behind his back in the style of an officer. Drawing on all he'd learned in a year and a half afloat, he then behaved like an officer and divided the men into starboard and larboard watches, appointed captains of each watch, rated the man with stamped fingers as boatswain (to keep him out of mischief) and rated the eldest of the marines as acting-corporal. He then threatened stopped-grog for all future offenders, reminded them that the longboat was rigged for sail and in all respects seaworthy, and assured all present that he and Mr Povey would now confer to agree a course to the nearest port. Then - putting the larboard watch on duty - he sat down, exhausted.
This cheered the men wonderfully. Gloom vanished. Smiles returned.
"Gaw' bless-you for a young gen'man, sir!" said a voice.
"Aye!" said the rest.
"Well done, sir!" said Acting-Corporal Bennet.
"By Jove!" said Povey. "Well said, George!"
"I do hope, so," said Mr Midshipman Hastings quietly. "Just as I hope you know how to find the bloody land, because I'm damned if I do."
* * *
Chapter 15
1st February 1750
The Spanish Main
Flint stared at the yellow-haired man, who seemed fluent in a number of languages.
"I am English, sir," he said. "My name is Flint, and I am commander of this vessel." He took off his hat and bowed. He knew himself the weaker party, and so he was polite. To his surprise, the tall man doffed his own hat and bowed in return.
"John Silver, at your service, Captain," he said. "John Silver of the good ship Walrus, and until this morning under the command of Captain John Mason, God rest his soul!"
"Your captain was killed in the action?" asked Flint - the action indeed! He was consciously modelling his bearing on that of this amazing visitor. Flint was in the other's power, so if he wanted to play the gentleman instead of the pirate, then so would Joseph Flint.
"Aye, sir!" said Silver. "And him one o' the finest who ever served under Captain England, the which I had the honour to do myself."
"Captain England?" said Flint. "The famous pirate of the East Indies?" That was genuine and not role-playing. Flint had heard of England and the huge prizes that he took.
Silver smiled an odd smile.
"Not pirate, sir," he corrected, "but a gentleman o' fortune. One of the brethren of the coast, and a true buccaneer in the old style, that was Cap'n England; and Cap'n Mason was one just the same. Why, the instant he saw the Don's colours matched against your own, he sent hands to quarters
and made sail to come up with you to take your part. That was England's way, and it was Mason's too."
Flint clung hard to his reason. He was dumbfounded. He heard the words. He understood the meaning of each one separately. But put the words together, and there was no meaning to be had; not by Joe Flint, at any rate.
"You came to our aid," he said, in as neutral and careful a voice as he could. His instinct was to be friends with this fellow, and to be just such a creature as he was. This could not be avoided. Not while Silver had the bigger ship, more guns and more men.
"Aye, sir," said Silver, "we acted in the old way, as gentlemen o' fortune should." He smiled and took Flint's hand and looked him in the eye, honestly and without guile. Then he grinned at the parrot nestling against Flint's ear.
"Fine bird that, sir," he said. "By repute, they talks as well as a Christian, and they lives for ever mostly." He reached out and stroked the green plumage, and the bird nuzzled his hand. Flint's eyebrows went up. Most men kept clear of the bird. Most men were afraid of losing a finger, and were justified in their fear.
"Hmm," said Flint, still in the dark as to Silver's intentions, but beginning to hope that dawn might be approaching. For, as far as Flint could judge, Silver was living out a dream of buccaneering on the Spanish Main, as it had existed forty years ago. Either that or he was plain mad. Flint was inclined to the latter supposition, but decided to wait upon events and to see what the other did, as opposed to what he said.
And again Flint was amazed. Silver and his men bustled about the smashed and battered Betsy, going to the aid of the wounded, taking a hand at the pumps, helping to clear away the wreckage, and in every way anxiously seeking to make right and mend. After a while of this, and when everything was done that was urgent, Silver took Flint aside and spoke to him.
"Cap'n Flint," said he, "asking your pardon, but it won't do and that's the truth."
"Won't do?" said Flint. Terror struck him like a knife, and his imagination conjured the horrors of hell. Here it comes, he thought, awaiting a cut throat and a plunge over the side.
"No, sir, it won't," said Silver. "Here's you with seventeen whole men, and twenty wounded and your ship leaking and her rigging cut to ruins…" He paused to run a highly critical eye over Betsy's timbers and fittings. "And your ship not one of the best to begin with, begging your pardon."
"She was built from the ruins of another," said Flint, stung to the defence of his ship. "Built on a sea shore under conditions of utmost inconvenience and difficulty."
"Ah," said Silver, "I thought she weren't Bristol-built." He smiled and continued, "So let's make the best out of the worst, and fetch away yourself and your people and repair on board of the old Walrus and be good companions one and all."
"Aye," said Flint, still waiting for a trap to spring, "but what about the ship?"
"Flotsam an' jetsam, Cap'n," said Silver. "One good blow'll see her dismasted and rolling like a barrel. Better you should come on board with us."
But Flint hesitated, thinking of the loot down below. He thought of it even though he knew it was no longer his. It belonged to the man with the greater strength. Even so, Flint was constitutionally incapable of giving it up willingly.
"But… ah…" he stumbled for words. Without thinking, he looked towards the hatch in the waist. Silver was far too sharp to miss that.
"I see, Cap'n!" he said, and tapped a finger alongside his nose. "You've a cargo below decks," he smiled. "Well done, sir! But never you mind about that, for we'll hoist it out, and across to the old Walrus, and all shall share and share alike: your goods and our goods, and jolly companions one and all."
"Jolly companions," said Flint, "One and all…" And the incredible thought finally occurred to him that Silver actually meant what he said.
"Companions and maybe more," continued Silver. He tilted his head on one side and studied Flint. "You have the look of a gentleman about you, sir," he said, "so I take it that you are used to command… and knows the ways of plotting and setting of a course with a chart and a quadrant and 'rithmatic?"
Again Flint became nervous. Again he had no idea where this line of inquiry might be leading. But Silver continued.
"The thing is, sir," he said, "Cap'n Mason was cut in half by a shot, and both the mates killed one way or another. There's still a lad aboard what's learning the ways of it, but there ain't none left as can reliably find his way across an open ocean. We're seamen one and all, who can steer a course. But who's to set one?"
"Ahhhh," said Flint, and stood six feet taller in the selfsame boots. "My dear fellow," he declared, "I dare swear our interests run in harness. Both myself and my first mate, Mr Bones, are proficient in the art of celestial navigation."
The relief in Silver's face was a delight for Flint to see, and he almost gave up thinking that an elaborate trap was still hiding somewhere.
Within a few hours, Betsy was emptied of her treasure chests and the belongings of Flint's men, and everything transferred to Walrus. Then the men themselves came across and the dead were honoured. That was the first thing that showed Flint that Silver and his men truly were different, for Silver wouldn't have the dead casually heaved over the side as had been the practice aboard Betsy. Instead, everything was done as if under King George's own flag. Silver insisted the sail- maker sewed up each man in his own hammock, with a round- shot at his feet. Then all hands were mustered and made to doff their hats, while two men balanced a plank across the rail and, one after another, the dead were placed on the plank - under Walrus's black flag - and the canvas-shrouded corpses were slid into the deep, with the boatswain and his mates sounding long calls on their pipes.
Flint looked about him. Walrus was a ship of another kind in other ways too. She was scrubbed and polished, and there was an easy comradeship among her crew. Later he learned there was no spitting on the decks nor naked lights below. That's how Mason had liked her, and England before. Under Silver's command, Walrus was got under way, and at Silver's request, Flint set a course for Savannah, Georgia, where fresh powder and shot was to be had, since Walrus had fired away most of her stores just as El Tigre had done, and Betsy's stores were ruined by the leaks she'd sprung down below.
Once the immediate pressure of work was eased, there followed a great haggling and chattering as Flint's men found themselves berths among Silver's crew and formed themselves into messes. Flint found that he was fascinated with John Silver, or Long John, as he was known. He watched the way Silver went about the ship, nimble and active: skipping down ladders and up into the shrouds with a speed and ease that made light of his bulk. Silver knew all his men and had a joke or a word for each of them. He knew his letters well enough to read and write, and he knew numbers too, and was highly adept at calculating the value to be got out of a prize. But beyond that he was pure lower-deck, with the manners, speech and tar-streaked palms to go with it.
But what impressed Flint most was the respect he was given by every man aboard. They knuckled their brows and leapt to obey, and raced one another to be first to complete the tasks he set them. And all this was done without a blow or a curse, despite the fact that one look at him proclaimed him to be a deadly dangerous man in a fight.
Over the next days and weeks, Flint observed all this and there grew within his damaged soul a positive liking for Silver, which sprang like a bright green shoot out of a dung-hill. If Flint had been an introspective man - which he was not - he would have remarked to himself - which he did not - that everything he liked in Silver was the opposite to everything that was wrong in himself.
Flint never put such thoughts into words. He never perceived them and knew them. But just the same, there was some dim awareness of this underlying truth. And neither was this the limit of Flint's education. A few days after the two crews had mixed, and with gentle weather and all secure and shipshape, Sliver mustered the hands - Betsy's men to the fore - and proclaimed that all must now be made regular and articles signed. Flint had not the least idea what this
meant. But some of his men did.
"I'll put my mark!" said Israel Hands.
"I'll want to cast an eye, first!" said Billy Bones seriously.
"Cast an eye?" said Flint, struggling with the incredible fact that Billy Bones had finally managed to do something unexpected.
"Aye," said Billy Bones. "Articles, Cap'n. 'Tis the way of things among the brethren of the coast."
"The what?" said Flint.
"The brethren of the coast, Cap'n," said Billy Bones, as if to an ill-taught child. Billy Bones had been talking to the half- trained lad who was the nearest equivalent to himself aboard Walrus. He'd spoken to others too, and he'd absorbed some of their customs and lore.
"You poltroon!" said Flint in a whisper. "Brethren of the coast? That was in your grandfather's time, up north, off the…"
"These here is the ship's articles," cried Silver, producing a book very much like the one he'd signed years ago on England's quarterdeck. "I'll ask Mr Flint to read it for all those who haven't the schooling." And he solemnly handed the book to Flint. "In a bold voice now, sir! So's all can hear."
Flint opened the book and looked at the handwritten articles. He looked too, at the men crowded all around him: a sea of eyes in sun-browned, expectant faces, crammed into the narrow space of Walrus's deck. The ship was running sweetly, the wind played in the sheets, lines and shrouds, and the sails rustled up above. Flint shrugged to himself, lifted up his voice and read for all to hear. He stumbled only once, at the place where the name of the captain - Mason - had been struck out in red ink.
"What name shall go here?" asked Flint.
"All in good time," said Silver. "Be so good as to hold your course till you come safe into harbour."
So Flint read on to the end. When he'd finished, he and all those who'd come aboard with him were invited to sign, including the wounded who'd been brought up on deck for the purpose. So they signed: Flint, Billy Bones and a few others inscribing their names, and the rest with crosses or other marks, such that by the end of the ceremony, and much to his surprise, Flint's opinion had been changed. He started out in profound contempt for this nonsense, but ended convinced of its value. Seamen's minds were childlike, and Flint could see the power that the book, and the words, had worked on them. They'd be a better crew for it, and it proved exactly the buttressing of legality - or an approximation of it - that was lost when a crew breaks apart from the King's law as his own crew had done. But there was more to come.
