by John Drake
"And you didn't find means to persuade him?"
"No," said Silver, thinking of her. "For aboard my ship, it's all sweet kindness."
"Rubbish," said Chester. "You're being stupid."
"Watch your lip, mister! Don't be a clever bugger with me!"
Chester blinked, swallowed, and tried another approach.
"If you knew where he was going, you could lie in wait… for others like him!"
"Ahhhh!" said Silver. That was much better! That was prizes and plum duff!
"And maybe find out what that Spanish squadron's doing…?" said Chester.
"Wouldn't that be jolly, an' all?" said Silver with a sour smile.
"Yes," said Chester, knowing he'd got most of what he wanted. So he smiled, and they drank up, and they parted as friends… almost. For just as Silver was leaving, Chester had a final, little word.
"Captain Silver," he said.
"Aye?"
"I knew Charley Neal very well."
"Did you?"
"Yes. And he mentioned that there was an island…" Silver frowned "… where your friend Flint… left some goods…"
Thump! Thump! The crutch bumped over the floorboards and Silver stood dark and tall over Jimmy Chester. He stood so close that Chester could hear the hiss of his breath as Silver whispered in his face with quiet, deadly menace:
"Cock an ear, mister," said Silver, and Chester's knees quivered and his hands shook. "Now there ain't no blasted island, nor there ain't no blasted goods. D'you hear me?"
"Yes."
"And we'll be jolly companions, you and I, if you never mention this again."
"Yes."
"Well and good!" said Silver. "And how do I get to see that Spanish captain?"
An hour later Silver and Israel Hands were at the town-side gates of Fort Savannah, a hundred-yard square of puncheon logs with a ditch all round and bastions at the four corners, mounting heavy guns. They clunked across the drawbridge and were challenged by redcoat sentries with muskets. There were great works in hand with pick, spade and wheelbarrow: deepening the ditch round the fort, and throwing up the spoil to strengthen the bastions, and a battery being emplaced to command the river. And all this for fear of the Spanish, and the work so urgent that not only slaves were sweating in the sun, but white men too, including most of the fort's militia, which numbered many hundreds of men.
Silver tipped his hat to the sentries, showed a paper signed by Mr President Chester, and was saluted and let in. The same paper, presented to a sergeant, then to a captain, got Silver and Israel Hands into the inner quadrangle of the fort, with a militiaman to lead them past its barrack block, bakehouse, officers' quarters and well, to a squat gaol, which doubled as a lazarette for persons with dangerous infections.
"Very tight," said Silver, looking at the massive log walls. "Very nice. And is the Spanish gentleman in there?" He pointed at the heavy door.
"Yessir," said the militiaman. "T'ain't locked, sir. But him being a Dago, we didn't know where else to put him. We done the best we can, sir, an' the 'pothecary'll be round later, to let him some blood."
"What a blessing that'll be," said Silver. "Should do him a power of good! And is there a grog shop in the fort?"
"Canteen, sir. Over there, sir."
"Then here's a dollar for you and my shipmate here, to take a drop on me."
"Thank you, sir. Proper gennelman, sir!" said the militiaman.
"You sure, John?" said Israel Hands, frowning. "Don't you want me to…"
"No," said Silver, "you take a drink, my old messmate."
Silver watched them walk off. He tried the door. It opened. He went into the cool, dark interior which reeked of piss and vomit. There were a few narrow wooden beds. The Spaniard lay on one. He was awake and alert, but too weak to get up.
Silver hopped across and stood beside the bed, with his long crutch and swirling coat-tails, looming huge and menacing over the helpless man, who looked up in great fear. And the parrot which had sat happily on his shoulder thus far, squawked and flew off and fluttered to the door. Silver watched her for a moment, scratching at the planks with her great talons, and cursing fluently in five different languages. Then he let her out, and closed the door behind her, and went back to the bedside.
"Buenas tardes, Capitán Ibanez," he said.
"Buenas tardes," said the hoarse, quiet voice.
"Tengo unas preguntas," said Silver. "I've got some questions…"
Chapter 32
Evening, 23rd May 1754
The confluence of the Youghiogheny and Monongahela rivers West of the Colony of Pennsylvania
In disputed land
The Indians roared with laughter in the flickering light of the campfires as Long-Hair jumped up and hopped from foot to foot with blood dripping from his cut hand. They yelled and stamped and whooped.
"Are you done?" said Flint. "So soon? Am I among men or boys!"
And the Indians howled and shrieked and playfully shoved Long-Hair from one to another, as he clutched his bloodied hand, but grinned and yelled with the best of them, to show that he saw the joke, and was indeed a man.
Flint smiled. He sat cross-legged before a flat rock and placed the knife down again, with the blade facing himself and the handle towards the Indians. It was his knife, a fine knife with an antler hilt and a razor-edged blade. It was a knife any man would covet.
"Sun Face! Sun Face!" cried the Indians, and whooped all the louder, for they loved Flint. They loved him for his lightning speed and the grim darkness of his humour, which tickled their savage souls.
"Why do they call him Sun Face?" said Washington, thirty feet off by the white men's campfire that was likewise surrounded by grinning faces.
"It's what them others called him, sir," said Billy Bones. "Them Indians on the island, sir. Someone must've told 'em," and his jaw dropped and he looked away. "Oh!" he said, knowing he'd done wrong.
"Ah!" said Washington. "This Island that Mr Flint does not discuss."
"Dunno, sir," said Billy Bones. "But them Indians, they called him Sun Face."
"Aye, sir!" said Black Dog. "That they did, an' all."
"Did they admire him as much as our Indians do?" said Washington.
"Yessir," said Billy Bones. "But then, we all did… we all do, sir."
"Aye, sir!" said Black Dog. "There ain't none like him, sir!"
"Aye," said Billy Bones. "Not as a seaman, a leader, nor a man!"
Meanwhile the Indians had settled down, nudging and leering.
"So," said Flint, "I will remind you good fellows of the game… Flint's game… I shall put my hands in my pockets… like this… and I shall await any man to sit opposite me… and pick up the knife by the handle, and take it as his own."
The Indians screeched and yelled and found a volunteer: one who'd managed to get some trade gin inside him, for all that Washington forbade it on the trail. This was Broken- Foot, a man in his forties, who should have known better.
He sat down, grinning stupidly. He looked at the knife. The entire camp fell silent. It would be so easy… Sun Face would have to pull out his hands, and reach over the blade to get the handle, while he — Broken Foot — had only to pick it up!
He paused.
He tensed.
He pounced…
… and howled with pain as his hand closed on sharp steel, and Flint snatched it free by the handle, and jauntily tapped the blade against his own nose, leaving a tiny smudge of blood.
Flint grinned, Flint smiled… which the Indians and Washington saw. But they didn't see what went on inside of Flint's unique and remarkable mind. They didn't see him howl with laughter and hug himself with glee, and roll over with his legs kicking the air… at least in spirit… because Flint could see that all things were becoming right again, having been dreadfully wrong for weeks.
He chuckled and cleared his throat… A-hem. Then he looked at them all: especially Washington. Flint touched his hat as if respectfully, and saw the big man nod. H
e'd had Flint close-guarded, so he couldn't run, then taken along on this expedition into the primeval forest: this voyage up the bum-hole of nowhere — leaving Selena behind with Silver! Flint bowed his head. He was so tormented with jealousy that he could bear it only by slamming the truth behind locked doors, in the cellars of his mind, and never, ever going there… except by chance, like now…
He groaned. He shook his head. Better to think of other things: even other pains, such as the fact that — once in the forest — they'd not even had to guard him, for it was trackless wilderness, which only the Indians knew and only they could find the way back to the coast. So Flint was as much trapped as if he'd been in prison, especially as those same Indians had the uncanny ability to track any fugitive attempting to run.
Flint smiled, because all this made the Indians so wonderfully important, and so very much worth recruiting to the true cause… the cause of Joe Flint.
And so… Broken Foot was jumping round dripping blood from his cut hand, and the Indians howling with laughter. But Washington frowned.
"Enough!" he said, and looked at Flint. "I want fit men, not cripples."
"Aye-aye, sir," said Flint. "I did but seek to make the men merry, sir."
Washington got up casually and stretched.
"A word, Mr Flint," he said, and walked off.
"Sir?" said Flint, following him into darkness.
"Mr Flint," said Washington quietly, "I would wish to think well of you."
"Oh?" said Flint, looking at the big face.
"Your subordinates stand in awe of you," said Washington, "the Indians worship you. Your conception of a fleet was inspired!" Washington paused. "And…" he said. "And… there is that… other matter… of such vital importance when war comes. Not only to Virginia, but indeed to the British interest generally!"
Looking up at him, Flint suffered pure torture as the old demon wriggled within him: the one demon he could never entirely control. For the earnest and honest Colonel Washington had dropped into a pit of his own digging, and Flint was bursting to laugh in his face.
Flint knew, now, that the tale of the island treasure followed him everywhere, and was the real reason he'd been brought on this expedition, since the earnest and honest Colonel Washington believed the universal myth that Flint alone knew the whereabouts of the treasure. And Washington wanted it! He wanted it as a war chest for his precious Virginia, even though it was the ill-got, bloodstained loot of murderous pirates. Hence the fun. For Washington couldn't bring himself to mention the subject except slantwise and tangentially, enabling Flint to pretend he didn't know what Washington was talking about.
"Thus I am confident, in the end, of your patriotism, Mr Flint," said Washington.
"Ya-rrrrrumph!" said Flint, striving heroically to hide a snigger behind a cough.
"Hmmm?" said Washington, frowning and wondering. For he was no fool.
"Your pardon, sir," said Flint in a strangled voice.
"Quite," said Washington. "But this game with the knife…"
"Oh?" said Flint. He scented chastisement. It killed his laughter stone dead.
"You must play it no more, Joseph."
Flint frowned.
"It is but a contest of skill, sir."
"No! It is contemptible cruelty, for none can match your speed."
Flint said nothing. "And so," said Washington, "I charge you by that high Craft which we both revere, that there shall be no more of this! Not it, nor anything like it, for it shames you and makes you less of a man."
Slowly Flint bowed his head and trembled. Washington kindly laid a hand on his shoulder.
"We shall speak of this no more," he said. "I am moved by your contrition." And he walked back to the firelight, more wrong than ever he'd been in his life, for Flint was blinded with anger, boiling with outrage, and his hands were trembling for the antler-hilt knife, which stayed in its sheath only because he knew that he couldn't run and find the coast. Not with Washington's Indians on his trail.
Thus the life of the camp proceeded smoothly and, before dawn, the Indians were sent scouting: looking especially for Hurons, their counterparts on the French side, while the white men stood on the edge of the forest, looking down on two great rivers which merged and flowed towards the Ohio: the route into the unknown interior, but also into French territory, now only a day's march to the north.
The weather was mild, and a camp table was set up with surveying instruments and a supply of paper. Flint and Washington stood at the table with Billy Bones and Black Dog, and behind them stood Washington's men. All but Washington, who was in uniform, wore faded, practical trail clothes, with fringed shirts, slouch hats, and strong boots, with a musket, powder horn and bullet-bag slung across their shoulder.
"Now, Mr Flint," said Washington, "it is time for you to display your skills!"
"With pleasure, Colonel," said Flint, and smiled as best he could, for his bitterly regretted joke about a fleet controlling the great rivers had been taken seriously. Hence this expedition, and the supposed reason for his being with it: to give expert guidance on building the fleet of the Ohio.
"There is the Monongahela," said Washington, pointing to the gleaming waters. "It is navigable all the way to the Ohio, and the Ohio is navigable for hundreds of miles beyond. So, Mr Flint — can a fleet be built from these timbers?" He looked into the mighty forest. "A fleet to keep out the French."
Flint thought, and found grudging interest in the matter.
"Yes," he said, "the Monongahela could float a squadron of the line…"
"Ah!" said Washington, eagerly. "That was my belief. But I am no expert!"
"I said could," cautioned Flint. "There are problems."
"Name them, sir," said Washington. "That is why you are here."
Flint nodded.
"There is a need for stores and provisions of every kind," he said.
"We shall build a road to supply them!" said Washington.
"And a fortification must be built, to protect the shipyard," said Flint, looking at Washington's excellent chart of the rivers. "Here, where there is flat ground and deep water." Washington nodded. Flint turned to Black Dog. "What is your opinion, Mr Carpenter?"
"Well, Cap'n," said Black Dog, "we could fell trees, and cut timber to suit. But properly, we should wait a year or two for the timber to season."
"No!" said Washington. "There is need for haste."
"Then, sirs," said Black Dog, "that means buildin' out of green wood, which hasn't good strength, and will warp and twist besides." He saluted, and puffed out his cheeks in relief at being done. "I take my Bible oath on it, sirs," he said.
"But will such vessels last a season or two?" said Washington.
Black Dog pondered mightily.
"Aye-aye, sir," he said. "But no more."
"Good!" said Washington. "And can you, Mr Flint, contrive vessels for the purpose?"
Flint nodded. "Some sort of flat-bottomed sloop or cutter would be needed. Not too big, so they can be worked with sweeps, should the wind fail or be contrary. Vessels of perhaps fifty tons, with a few big guns and a line of swivels." He smiled, pleased with his solution to this interesting problem… and instantly wished he'd kept his mouth shut.
"Well said, Mr Flint!" cried Washington. "The Ohio valley will need your skills for years to come!"
Years? thought Flint. YEARS?
But he had no time to boil and seethe, for in that moment the camp's Indians — gone not an hour ago — came running back through the woods, led by Black-Ear, their chief. A line of black-eyed, eagle-nosed, tattooed men ran with him, swift as birds and silent as smoke.
"What is it?" said Washington.
"Hurons!" said Black-Ear.
"Dammit!" said Washington. "What numbers?"
"Many dozens."
"Strike the camp!" said Washington, "We shall retire at once."
His followers were expert woodsmen, who broke camp, triced up their gear and moved off in loose single-files without ano
ther word, with the Indians scouting ahead and covering the rear. The whole formation moved through the woods like the veterans they were, using bird calls to signal to one another, while Billy Bones and Black Dog lumped along like trolls in the middle, to the obvious disapproval of the rest.
As he walked along, trying to be as silent as the Indians, Flint noted this disciplined, skilful behaviour, but noted something else, too. When the Indians came back into the camp, and when Washington wasn't looking, Black-Ear had looked at Flint, and bowed his head, and placed a hand to his heart.
Flint smiled. It seemed that his diligent cultivation of the Indian interest had finally reached the tipping point, such that it was time to bid farewell to Washington's expedition… but not before dealing with the colonel himself…
Chapter 33
Dawn, 13th July 1754
Aboard Walrus
St Helena Sound
The Royal Colony of South Carolina
The sea was calm, the wind fair, and the warm sun rose out of the east from the depths of the sea, eating the darkness and lighting the limitless, rolling depths of the American continent, and the limitless, glittering expanse of the Atlantic, now in beauteous and peaceful mood. All the world was fresh and clean and it smiled to itself as it awoke. And with the beautiful sights came gentle sounds: ripples and breeze and birds; the quiet, morning voices of men, and the soft clunk and chatter of ship's gear.
It was such a moment as makes a seaman's heart tingle and his soul to soar unto Heaven; such a moment as can only be understood by those who have felt the pitiless cruelty of the same ocean when its wrath breaks lofty masts and mighty timbers as if they were twigs that an infant snaps with his tiny hands.
All aboard shared the moment, and stood quietly to their duties, proud of themselves and of their ship, and of their trade, and eager to swell their wealth with another such prize as Inez de Cordoba. Better still, they grinned with the happy knowledge that their captain now knew exactly where to find another prize, since he knew exactly what the Spanish were up to!
"Look!" said Warrington, standing over a chart on a barrelhead by the tiller, with Mr Joe, John Silver and Israel Hands beside him. "The whole coastline here is ragged with rivers and creeks, and with islands close offshore. This one is St Helena Island."
