by John Drake
"Reserved, sir! Reserved for a large party."
"Ah!" said Silver, and nodded, and smiled kindly down on the wretched waiter in his long white apron. "Now see here," he said, "you're a bright lad: smart as paint! I see'd it the instant I clapped eyes on you." The waiter blinked. Silver patted him on the shoulder, and brought out a clunking fistful of big silver coins. "D'you know what these are?" he said.
"Spanish dollars," said the waiter.
"That they are, my lad! And could you tell a poor sailorman, fresh arrived in port, what they might be worth, in King George-God-bless-him's own money?"
"Four to the pound, sir."
"And how many pounds might a lad like you earn in a year? Ten? A dozen?" The waiter nodded. "Well, lad," said Silver, "there's four dollars here what's telling me there's room for me and my matey, over in the corner yonder."
"Ah… hmm" said the waiter. "Perhaps you may be correct, sir. If you'd just follow me…"
"Aye, lad," said Silver. "And I've another four that says, so soon as Mr Jackson's in the house, why, he'd like to lay alongside o' me, for to parlay."
The waiter went chalk white. He knew Flash Jack very well, and all his likes and dislikes. Silver saw his expression, and smiled a wide smile and winked, and prodded the waiter in the ribs and leaned very close.
"Could be more than four dollars," he whispered. "Very much more. Heaps and piles of 'em. Ready cash money. You just tell Mr Jackson that, and send him to me!"
And so they were duly seated, and served, and they drank their coffee and ate their cakes, and ignored the sneers of the other occupants of the room.
"You've grown cunning, John," said Cowdray, smiling. "The man I knew three years ago would have knocked down that waiter as soon as look at him!"
"Well, I ain't that man," said Silver with a scowl. "Not no more."
"Hmm," said Cowdray, and shrugged. "If you're offering money about, how much is left of McLonarch's three thousand?"
"Some," said Silver.
"But how much?" said Cowdray.
"Pah!" said Silver. "Let me worry about that."
"What about Allardyce? He was strong for McLonarch — "
"Who's dead!" said Silver, interrupting.
Cowdray looked him in the eye. "How did Norton do it? How did he really do it?"
Silver scowled.
"I told you. He broke free, got a knife from his boot… and did him!"
"And King Billy's men shot Norton?"
"Aye!" said Silver. "Nice drink, this coffee, ain't it? Right tasty."
Cowdray shut up and looked away. He kept quiet after that, and took refuge in the London newspapers that were lying about the table. Silver ignored him and glowered out of the window, and looked at the bustling heart of London, and ignored that too, and thought his own thoughts.
Then Cowdray sat bolt upright.
"Good God Almighty!" he said. "Flint's in London!"
"What?" said Silver. "How d'you know?"
"Look!" said Cowdray, showing him a copy of the General Advertiser.
"Where?" said Silver.
"Here… under 'Reported Explosion of the Lexicographer'."
"What?" said Silver. "Is that a ship blown up?"
"No! It's Flint, being clever, at a salon in Bramhall Square, last week."
"Are you sure it's him?"
"Read it!"
Silver peered at the article and read aloud from it: '"Such subtlety of expression as won the approval of Johnson himself, for Lieutenant Joseph Flint, whom we had previously been led to believe was a mutineer and a rogue'… It's him all right!" said Silver. "Him as knows where the goods lies. Well, bugger me!"
"If you insist, sir!" said a laughing voice, and a waft of perfume rolled across the table. Cowdray and Silver looked up at the eye-blinding sight of a creature as different from themselves as it was possible to be and yet still remain a human being. Silver recognised him instantly from King Billy's description.
"Mr Jackson?" he said. "Flash Jack the Fly Cove?"
"The very same, sir! At your service, sir," said Flash Jack, and smiled beautifully and delivered the quintessence of a bow.
Hub! thought Silver. At least he flies his colours from the mainmast. No mistaking what he is.
"And would you be the seafaring gentlemen who wished to speak with me?"
"Aye," said Silver. "I'm Cap'n… Hands… and this is Dr Cowdray."
"Gentlemen!" said Flash Jack, and sat down.
They spoke for an hour, but achieved little. Flash Jack knew of no such girl as Silver wanted, and he knew every new arrival in town. The best he could do — for the promise of a hundred in dollars — was to alert Captain Hands aboard the good ship Walrus anchored off Wapping Stairs at such time as his young lady should appear.
The one-legged captain and his friend, who had remained silent for the most part, were getting up to leave when the latter spoke:
"Mr Jackson?"
"Yes, Dr Cowdray?"
"What do you know of Flint — Lieutenant Joseph Flint? I believe he is in town…"
"Flint?" said Flash Jack, and his shutters closed with a slam. "Who would that be? Flint the bookseller? Flint the juggler? I know several gentlemen of that name."
"He is a seaman," said Cowdray. "An old shipmate."
"Back your topsail, matey," said Silver, and laid a hand on Cowdray's arm. "We shan't go bothering Mr Jackson with old tales o' the sea." He smiled. Flash Jack smiled. Cowdray shrugged his shoulders… Then Silver tipped his hat to Flash Jack and led the way up the aisle, hopping his leg and bumping his crutch, and out through the front door with Cowdray astern of him.
Well, gentlemen, thought Flash Jack, and looked at the long-case clock that stood by the serving counter, and which showed that it was nearly noon, if only you'd stayed a little longer! And a short time after, Flash Jack's heart fluttered as the door opened and Lieutenant Flint himself came in, and smiled his wonderful smile and came to sit with Flash Jack, whose every nerve tingled and whose eyes shone like stars.
"Jackie, my boy!" said Flint. "Have you found me a ship?"
Flash Jack smiled.
"For you… it can be done," he said. Flint looked into Flash Jack's eyes, and Flash Jack nearly swooned. He was so transported with delight that he missed Flint's next few words, and only recovered when Flint shook his arm.
"… how much?" Flint was saying. "What's it going to cost?"
"Ah!" said Flash Jack, and named an enormous sum. He might be in love, but business was business. Flint laughed and Flash Jack nearly swooned again. Then Flint thought fast and made a series of promises about great monies hidden in strange places.
"Hmm," said Flash Jack, when this discussion of finance ran quite entirely aground. "Someone was asking after you this morning. A sailor with one leg."
"WHAT?" said Flint, and Flash Jack was astonished at the strength of his reaction, and was forcibly pumped dry of all memory of his conversation with a man who Flint assured him was called John Silver. The inquisition was utterly thrilling to Flash Jack, and he loved every moment of it, for it felt as if Flint was physically laying hands on him. When Flint was finally done with him he was so exhausted that he had to lie down with his dreams.
Flint frowned all the way back to Sir Frederick's house. His mind was galloping. Freedom would be his only if he could find ready money: the fatuous, ludicrous, ridiculous Flash Jack wouldn't move without it! Meanwhile, what did Silver want? Damn, damn, damn Silver! Thus Flint was so occupied that he failed to notice there were people waiting for him at Sir Frederick's. Perhaps it was because the Piazza was especially crammed that day. So he failed to observe the four blue-jacketed, canvas-trousered tars who were following him with pistols and cutlasses in their belts. And more of the same were waiting round the corner, just out of sight — his sight but not theirs — by Sir Frederick's house. And a good many more persons were waiting inside.
Flint, blissfully unaware of this, leapt up the stairs, hammered on the knocker, and only k
new anything was wrong when the door swung open to reveal Mr Midshipman Povey with a pair of sea-service barkers in his hand, and the barkers levelled at Flint, and a couple of gold-laced grim-faced lieutenants behind him, and a lobby-ful of marines and Bow Street men behind them, and a scraping and ringing of steel behind Flint, and a dozen tars at the foot of the stairs with blades leaping out of scabbards and points twinkling in his face.
Flint could fight any man who ever lived, and the wise chose not to face him. He was unnaturally quick and uncannily accurate in every blow he struck. But even he had his limits. He couldn't fight thirty armed men with nothing in his hands.
Someone had taken careful measure of Flint, and come with sufficient force and more.
Povey stepped forward. He looked like death. His face was spotted with little scars. His eyes were sunken. He was thin and ill, and his hands were like birds' claws. But he gripped his pistols hard and glared at Flint with sizzling hatred.
"Flint!" he said. "Got you, you bastard!"
Chapter 23
The evening performance
Saturday, 17th November 1753
Croxley's Odeon Theatre
Drury Lane
London
The applause hit Selena like the blast of a siege gun. It bellowed and echoed from the pit and the four tiers of galleries of the biggest theatre in London, which supposedly held an audience of six thousand, but on a night like this, when the bodies were crammed, jammed and rammed into the groaning boxes and on to the endless rows of benches, there were far more — dangerously more — bodies in the house.
They clapped and roared and cried encore, and the smiling company pushed Selena forward in her boots and spurs, and she strutted and slapped her thigh and stamped her feet, and the cheering rose to yet more deafening heights. Then she took up position, front and centre stage, and raised a hand for silence… which came… and she nodded to the orchestra and the conductor waved his baton… and the jolly, jaunty music started up again…
And so, for the fourth time, she sang "The Pollywhacket Song" the clever little ditty that Mr Abbey had composed for her, and which she'd taken from one end of England to the other, with its nonsensical chorus:
Pollywhacket! Pollywhacket!
Pollywhacket! Pollywhacket!
Pollywhacket diddle-diddle eye-dee-oh!
Which didn't sound half so nonsensical when thundered out by an enraptured audience of eight thousand, ranging from London's finest, in jewels and powder in their boxes, to London's lowest, in rags and lice, up near the ceiling, close to God.
Being tired, she sang just one verse and the chorus, and was grateful when the audience let her off with only two more encores. Then at last the curtain came down, and the company could sigh, and smile and hug one another at a wonderful house and a darling audience, and Mr Croxley himself — a vastly fat man whose belly protruded like the ram of an Athenian galley — came bustling forward with Mr Abbey, Katty Cooper and a tail of privileged favourites. Croxley clapped shoulders, pinched cheeks, and beamed in the sublime relief of an impresario who has backed the right horse and sees money coming in on the tide.
"Mrs Henderson!" cried Croxley, advancing through the press of gaudy, half-clad artistes, who bowed and made way and smiled, as he spread wide his arms and smiled in joy. "Mrs Henderson, my own darling girl! Come and give me a kiss!" and…
"Ahhhhhh!" they all cooed as she stepped forward, dainty and lovely, and kissed the fat cheek, and accepted the bear- hug, and the slopping return kiss, and was swept off her feet and swung around and around, and planted down again, and introduced to such a choice selection of the Town's finest gentlemen as transported Mr Croxley into further raptures at the joy of having them within his walls. Meanwhile a pair of maids pressed forward with Mrs Henderson's dressing gown, which they struggled to wrap round her, while the gentlemen bowed and ogled her luscious limbs and fine breasts, seen almost in a state of nature, and for the first time at close range.
Croxley boomed and laughed and chattered, left lesser beings in his wake, and led his little star to a private room, where a meal had been prepared for his special guests, and where later — after much drink and food had gone down, and Mr Croxley was leading the singing of the Pollywhacket song… one of the gentlemen — a lumbering, ugly fifty-year-old by the name of Blackstone — managed to take Selena aside.
He was excellently dressed. He was excellent company. He was excellently attentive, and he made no excuses for his plain, rough self. For he was Sir Matthew Blackstone the brewer: member of parliament, fellow of the Royal Society, and celebrated patron of the arts. He was highly amusing, with choice tales of the other gentlemen now sinking rum punch alongside Mr Croxley, and getting drunk.
He made Mrs Henderson laugh. He put her at ease. He was kind and patient, and only when Selena was entirely charmed did he make his gentle, civilised approach.
"I've got a stallion worth a fortune which I bought for his beauty," he said.
"Have you?" she said.
"And I've got a house in Berkshire, which is the most beautiful in the county." "Oh?"
"And paintings, and statues, and porcelain… all beautiful." "Oh?"
"All that… and an ugly wife."
Silence.
"She had land, you see. And family. And my pa insisted."
Silence.
"I love beauty, Mrs Henderson, and you are — without doubt — the most beautiful creature, the most perfect piece of loveliness, the most glorious work of God, that I have ever seen in all my life."
11 p.m., 17th November 1753
Wapping Stairs
London
Warrington gasped and groaned. He'd run all the way from Drury Lane, which was a very long way indeed and he was near dead with exhaustion and sweating under his greatcoat even on this freezing night.
"Come on! Come on!" cried Sammy Hayden, well in the lead and yelling for Warrington to keep up. "Boat! Boat!" he cried, and waved a hand in the air, shoving his way down towards the river where boatmen waited for fares. But it was a busy night and plenty of others were after a ride.
"Ger-cher! You little bugger!" cried a dark figure as Sammy bumped him. "Who you bleedin' shoving?"
"Sorry-sir-indeed-I-beg-pardon!" gasped Warrington, coming along behind, biting his lip and taking care to be polite, for London was dangerous at night. A man could get knifed in a lamp-lit theatre queue, let alone in the shadowy stairs that led down to the Thames.
"Fuck off!" said the wounded party, and Warrington stepped back and was patient, and ground his teeth and Sammy Hayden danced on the spot, until at last they were clambering into the stern sheets of a boat.
"Where to, Cap'n?" said the boatman.
"There! The schooner Walrus!"
"Right y'are, Cap'n!" said the boatman and shoved off. "What name, sir?"
"Warrington, first mate."
"Aye-aye, sir!"
Five minutes later they were under Walrus's quarter, where a ladder was rigged and the boatman calling out
Warrington's name, and Warrington giving him a coin and going aboard.
"Where's the cap'n?" he said to Mr Joe, who was officer of the watch.
"Below. In his cabin… what is it?"
But Warrington and Sammy Hayden were tumbling and rumbling down companionways and dashing to the stern cabin and hammering on the door, and bursting in, and there was Silver's parrot squawking and cursing, and Long John getting up from the long padded bench under the stern lights that he used as a bed.
"Shiver me timbers!" said Silver. "What is it, you swabs, waking me up at…"
"Tell him! Tell him!" cried Warrington to Sammy.
"It's her, Cap'n! We found her! It's her!"
Silver gaped, Silver gasped, he launched himself one-legged and hopping, leaning on the cabin table, and leaping at Sammy Hayden, and hanging on to him, and looking down into the boy's delighted face.
"Where is she?" cried Silver. "How is she? Is she… is she… is she in one o' them…
in a…" But words dried up in fear and shame.
"No, no, no!" said Warrington, seizing Long John's arms. "She's well, John! She's wonderful! She's on the bloody stage! She's Mrs Henderson, the famous Mrs Henderson that's appearing at Croxley's Odeon! I was there tonight. I took the lad. He wanted to see a theatre. And just as well, for I'd not have known who it was, never having set eyes on her. BUT HE DID!" He smiled joyfully. "It's her! It's her! She's not… she's not fallen, John… she's full, plump and happy. She must be making a bloody fortune!"
Long John blinked and felt dizzy. The relief rolled over him and his head swam and emotion soared, and the cabin swirled and whirled and turned.
Ten minutes later, he was laid out on the bench with Israel
Hands, Mr Joe, Black Dog and Warrington leaning over him.
"Take a pull, Cap'n," said Israel Hands, holding out a glass of rum. Silver struggled up, got his back against the cushions, his one leg on the floor and the parrot on his shoulder.
"Long John," she said, and stroked his cheek with her head.
He took the glass and gulped it down.
"All this time," he said, shaking his head, "looking in the wrong place."
Israel Hands grinned. "Never mind, Cap'n," he said, "at least she's safe!"
"Aye!" they all said.
He looked at their cheerful faces and sighed. And he had another drink for good fellowship, then sent them all away — all but Israel Hands, for he needed to think, and talk a bit in quiet.
"Why so glum, John?" said Hands.
Silver shook his head. There were things he couldn't say. Not even to Israel Hands. He closed his eyes, and there stood McLonarch, beside Ratty Richards, now and forever. It was bad enough doing a dreadful thing for a rightful reason… but what if there weren't no rightful reason? So Silver spoke of something else: something equally tormenting.
"All the tart shops we been in an' out of these past months!" he said, shaking his head. "We been wasting our time."
