Flint and Silver Read online

  Two figures came scrunching across the shimmering white sand and into the dark of Springer's tent. Flint and Billy Bones were coming to call. Flint with his eternal parrot on his shoulder, and Billy Bones in his wake.

  "Cap'n, sir?" said Flint, rapping his knuckles on the spar that acted as a tent post.

  "Uh? What?" said Springer, starting out of his doze. Flint nudged Billy Bones and nodded his head quickly towards the empty bottles under Springer's hammock. Bones leered back. They'd become very familiar, these two.

  "Sorry to disturb you, Captain, sir," said Flint, advancing into the tent with a paper rolled up in his hand.

  "Damn you, you bloody sod," said Springer with reddened eyes. "Whassit now, you rat-piss streak of piddle?" He reached for a pistol that he kept by him and cuddled its heavy brass butt.

  Flint saw the movement and smirked. Springer's face swelled and his teeth ground together. He hated Flint beyond reason, and the more so because he didn't know why. But his fingers twitched and lay still. He was a law-abiding man, incapable of putting a pistol ball through another officer in cold blood. Anyway, he was half asleep, half drunk, and having trouble keeping awake.

  "Here's the chart, sir," said Flint, displaying the finished map of the island. "You'll see I've taken the liberty of naming the prominent features: Spy-glass Hill, Mizzenmast Hill, North Inlet, and so on." He pointed with his finger: "And here, sir, you can see that there is a better harbour than this, to the south." He nudged Billy Bones again, craftily so Springer could not see. "But, of course, we never got the chance to try it."

  "Damn you, you whore's whelp… you walking abortion… you…" Springer mumbled on and Flint spoke over his incoherent curses.

  "I'm glad you approve of the chart, sir," he said sarcastically. "For it was drawn entirely by myself."

  He rolled up the chart and produced another paper showing the lines of the little sloop that the carpenter's men were building. "But that is not why I am here, sir, disturbing your rest." He made a show of presenting the plans to Springer. "Here's our little Betsy, sir. She'll be sixty tons, two masts, sweet as a nut, and able to bear six guns." He flicked a glance at Billy Bones, then continued: "Six guns and maybe forty men. Fifty at the uttermost, sir. We cannot build her bigger."

  "Damn you…" murmured Springer and fell completely asleep.

  "So most of the people must stay on the island, sir…" said Flint, making a pantomime of deference to the unconscious Springer, "… while Betsy sails to bring rescue to those who remain."

  It was the plain truth and Flint had known it from the moment he and the carpenter had designed the new vessel. There was only so much that make-and-mend initiative could achieve, and some of Elizabeth's timbers were rotten besides. The carpenter had been sworn to silence under pain of death at Flint's own hand, should the secret leak out, plus the promise of being one of those to be embarked in the new ship.

  But it would eventually become obvious to even the stupidest among the crew that there would not be room for all of them aboard Elizabeth's child. Any decent officer would therefore have summoned his men, given them the truth at once, and trusted to their good nature as seamen to understand that there simply was no other way forward. And any decent crew would have understood. But Lieutenant Joseph Flint had fallen so deeply into temptation that he was now driven by quite another logic than that which applied to decent officers who led decent crews.

  "Thank you, sir," said Flint, as Springer - lost in sleep - snorted and gargled like a hog. "Bah!" said Flint. "Will you just look at the swab?" He plucked out the pistol from under Springer's hand and turned to Billy Bones. "Give me your chaw, Billy," he said.

  "What?" said Bones, his brow furrowed in puzzlement.

  "What, sir!" said Flint. "Just spit out your chaw, at the double now." Flint held out his hand.

  "Me chaw?" said Bones, tested beyond comprehension. "Into your hand, sir?"

  "Spit!" said Flint. "Now!"

  "Aye-aye, sir!" said Bones. He'd seen the look in Flint's eye and dared not disobey. So he leaned forward and spat out a plastic gob of black-brown tobacco, sticky and slimy with saliva. It splattered into the palm of Flint's hand. Flint smiled without the least sign of disgust. He squeezed and moulded the tobacco to his liking, then he filled half the barrel of Springer's pistol with sand, and rammed the sticky plug of tobacco down on top of it as a wad. Finally he deftly replaced the pistol without waking Springer.

  "There," he said quietly as he wiped his hands on Billy Bones's shirt. "Just in case he ever gets the courage, eh, Mr Bones?"

  "Aye-aye, sir," said Billy Bones.

  Then they walked out again into the fierce heat and the high, blazing sun.

  "We'll set them building the blockhouse tomorrow, Billy- my-chicken," said Flint, "and you can let the word out among the people that Captain Springer is going to abandon them."

  Billy Bones licked his lips. He blinked and trembled. He muttered and groaned. He summoned every grain of his courage… and he ventured to dispute the matter.

  "Bugger of a risk, this mutiny, begging your pardon, Cap'n," said Bones, instinctively adding that last word - the supreme honorific of his vocabulary - in the hope that it might protect him. It was an arm raised in anticipation of a blow.

  "Billy-boy, Billy-boy," said Flint in a peculiar soft voice, without ever giving Bones so much as a glance, reaching instead to pet the green bird that clamped its claws in his shoulder and chuckled and nuzzled his ear. "Don't ever question my orders again. Not so long as you wish to live. Do you hear me?"

  Billy Bones was armed equally as well as Flint with pistols and cutlass. He was the bigger man, being taller and broader in the chest. He was a man in the prime of his strength and was used to keeping discipline over the scum of the lower deck. But he gulped and swallowed in terror, he bowed his head, he shook in fright. Then he took refuge in the seafaring man's universal safe response to the words of his betters.

  "Aye-aye, sir!"

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  1st June 1752

  Savannah, Georgia

  As Long John laughed, he took care to keep an eye on the girl. He laughed till his belly ached at what she'd said. He laughed wildly over the thought that - of all the warped and twisted fiends that came in nightmares - Flint might be a gentleman. It was the solemn way she'd said it. It was the innocence of it, God love her, with her plump little arse and her big eyes and her bouncing tits. So even with the tears blinding his eyes, Long John kept a close watch on her, and on the room itself, Charley Neal's liquor store.

  The door was the only way out. The walls were heavily built, with one high window covered by an iron grille to make sure that the liquor did not wander off during the night. Still laughing, Long John kicked the door shut behind him, and leaned himself against it to make entirely sure she'd not escape.

  He took these unconscious precautions because Walrus had been months at sea and not a sight of anything female had Long John taken in all that time, and when coming ashore to Charley Neal's house Long John was as used to making up for lost time as any other seafaring man.

  Finally, Long John drew forth a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. He took a deep breath, sighed happily and smiled at Selena, who all the while had kept an even closer watch on him than he had upon her. She was watching and waiting. She knew precisely what was in the man's mind, and she knew that all the other girls were at that very moment laid on their backs with drunken sailors snoring contentedly between their legs, breeches blown to the four winds and hairy buttocks displayed to the world. She knew too, that each girl would be clutching a fistful of gold, which (after Neal's percentage) they would keep for their own selves.

  "Now then, my girl," said Silver, "what might your name be? For I've taken the most powerful fancy to you, and no mistake!"

  The words were true in a constricted sort of way. Long John looked at Selena in the dim light of the hot storeroom and he liked what he saw. The cheap cotton gown was her sole garment
and it was thin. It covered her nakedness for decency's sake, but all the pleasures beneath jutted and curved most appealingly.

  "My name is Selena," she said. "And I'm no whore." She had made her decision and set down the rules. All she had to do now was enforce them.

  "Indeed you ain't," said Long John. He smiled and produced a large gold coin. He held it up and turned it so it gleamed and shone.

  "It's no use," she said.

  "Oh?" said Silver, and looked at her afresh. "Aye," he said thoughtfully, and nodded. "You ain't like some o' them dog- faced drabs neither, nor ain't you neither. You're quality, my girl. That you are!" He produced another coin. She sneered. He produced a third. There was now more money on offer than Selena could earn in years by any other means.

  "I told you, John Silver, it's no use. I've never been a whore, and I'm never going to be one."

  "Oh?" he said, with a sneer of his own. "Don't tell me there's been a virgin found in Savannah, for there ain't never been one yet!"

  She blinked, considering her own precise status in that regard, following attentions pressed upon her by a certain Mr Fitzroy Delacroix, who had once been her owner. Long John grinned, mistaking the signs.

  "Well, there you are then, my little bird," he said. "What was good for them, is good for me. And I ain't no Jew nor Scotchman when it comes to paying the reckoning." He flourished his three gold pieces. He set them on a nearby barrel. He thought the matter settled. "This'll do nicely," he said, looking round the room. "Private like, and quiet as a church."

  He threw off his hat and pulled his shirt over his head. He was a fine-muscled man: strong in the arms, flat in the belly, with a dominating physical presence. Selena crushed the impulse to run because there was nowhere to go. Instead, she stood her ground.

  "I said, I am not a whore!" she cried, with all the force in her body, but she was seized by two powerful hands and hoist up off her feet, her eyes level with his.

  "Well then, madam," said Long John, glancing at the gold pieces, "just what is the price, then?" He grinned. "And don't I get a little something for what I already laid down?"

  He tried to kiss her lips, but she turned her face away. He ran his tongue all over and around the silky black column of her throat. She stayed rigidly still. He gave up. He set her down. He was puzzled and annoyed.

  "Beach and burn me, girl!" said Silver. "Just how much d'you expect? You're a rare fine shaped 'un, I'll grant you that, but this ain't Paris nor London, and you ain't King George's mistress!"

  "I told you. I'm not a whore!"

  "Oh yes you are!"

  "Oh no I'm not!"

  "No?"

  "No!"

  "You bitch!"

  "You bastard!"

  "Whore!"

  "I AM NOT A WHORE!"

  In his anger and balked desire, Silver swung back his hand. But when it came to it, he couldn't bring himself to strike the small, helpless figure. So he sighed and growled and cursed. And then, eventually, and very late in the day, it occurred to him that it just might be a good idea to pay some attention to what she'd been saying.

  "Are you really not a whore?" he said.

  "Are you deaf!"

  "But all Charley's girls are."

  "EXCEPT ME!"

  "Oh… well… I…"

  He fumbled for words. He was a stranger to the art of apologising and no words came. Instead a heavy guilt fell upon him: the guilt that sits on a man who knows he's behaved very badly. Beyond that, as he looked at Selena, a tiny barb had been driven into Long John Silver, and it smarted. For a long time he didn't even recognise what was happening, because he'd not had such feelings for years.

  He picked up his clothes and his money and left, slamming the door thunderously behind him. And later, when he encountered Polly Porter, who'd gone out for a breath of air while Billy Bones was asleep, and she - ever open for business - welcomed him with open arms, he couldn't bring himself to do it. There was no joy in a sweating copulation with a fat tart when his mind was full of the small, lovely, black figure staring back at him with fierce determination.

  When Long John was gone, Selena was seized with a terrible shaking. She'd kept herself bold and calm while danger threatened and, now that it was gone, her legs shook and her teeth chattered, and there were tears too. There was a great quantity of these. She was very young and entirely alone and the world was a very hard place.

  * * *

  Chapter 8

  20th February 1749

  The island

  Billy Bones trod heavily across the sand, making his way towards the marine sentry on guard at the latrine trench.

  It was night but there was a bright moon and the marine recognised Mr Bones easily by the hulking shoulders and the blue officer's coat with its rows of shiny buttons. Also there was a heavy 'Pfff! Pfff! Pfff!' of exhaled breath in time with the laboured footfalls, which was unique to Mr Bones. It was his unconscious and wordless protest at the need to struggle over soft sand in a hot climate.

  The wretched marine drew himself to attention and reviewed all those little sins of omission and commission in the doing of his duties of which private soldiers can be found guilty by any superior officer who has a mind to do so.

  It was bad enough being stuck out here by a stinking bog- pit to make sure that the bastard matelots shovelled sand over their shit when they'd shat, but it weren't fair - not at all - for Mr bastard Billy Bones to come out to check that all was to rights. It was usually one of the mids, and they were all right. A quick "All's well?" and off the little bastards went, holding their bastard noses. Then a shudder of ice ran down the marine's backbone.

  "Mygawdamighty!" he said as he realised what a fool he was, being afeared of Mr Bones, for if the bastard officers were walking the guard posts themselves and not sending of the mids… then the next one might be… Oh my eyes and soul… the next one might be Flint!

  "Stand easy there!" said Billy Bones. "All's well?"

  "Aye-aye-suh!" said the marine, looking rigidly to his front.

  "Huh!" said Billy Bones. He looked all around into the dark, as if a horde of wild savages was creeping inwards with sharpened spears. It was all for show, of course, as everyone now knew the island was uninhabited.

  "Keep a sharp look out," said Billy Bones.

  "Aye-aye-suh!" said the marine. But Billy Bones lingered, cleared his throat, spat, and condescended to conversation.

  "Damned hot," he said.

  "Aye-aye-suh!"

  "Shouldn't wonder if we don't have fever on the lower deck before the week's out."

  "Aye-aye-suh!"

  And so they continued for some little time until one Emmanuel Pew came out to relieve himself in the trench. Pew was known to his mates as Mad Pew for his speaking of the Welsh language, and for being not quite right in the head.

  "Ah," said Billy Bones, and he waited until Pew had finished grunting and heaving, and had hauled up his breeches and buckled his belt. Then he turned and affected to take note.

  "You there!" said he. "Damn your blasted eyes! Shovel away there with a will, like the blasted surgeon says, or I'll flay the living skin off your blasted back!"

  Pew jumped in terror and filled in half the trench in the excess of his desire to please Mr Bones.

  "Now, back to camp at the double," said Billy Bones. "And I'll walk beside you so you don't drown yourself falling into the blasted ocean."

  The marine went limp with relief as the big figure rolled away, puffing and cursing beside the thin, nervous, dark-eyed matelot who'd become the target of his attentions.

  "Serve the bugger right!" thought the marine. "Bleeding mad bastard that one is an' all, that bastard Pew."

  But the aforesaid Mad Pew was the objective of Mr Bones's walk out to the latrine trench. As ever, Billy Bones marvelled at the acuteness of Flint's observation, and his penetrating knowledge of the characters of the men.

  Flint knew that Pew went to shit well after lights out, because at that time there was nobod
y there, and he wouldn't be jostled and hurried. Some men are like that, and Flint's knowledge of Pew's habits enabled Billy Bones to get him alone for a few minutes' conversation in the dark, with no possibility of being overheard. It thereby enabled Billy Bones to put certain proposals to Pew, and to ask certain questions of him, without risk of a hanging for the pair of them. And of course - did Mr Bones but know it - the fact that Lieutenant Flint was no part of the conversation meant that there was absolutely no risk to Flint himself. Indeed, Flint would have been the first to denounce Billy Bones as a traitorous mutineer, should the need arise.

  So Billy Bones sounded out Pew and explained that Captain Springer was going to abandon him to his fate, but that there was a way out which was very much to Pew's advantage. Pew nearly dropped in his tracks with amazement once or twice, to hear such things from Billy Bones. But he saw reason.

  Over the next few weeks, Billy Bones had similar conversations with a number of others, all carefully chosen by Flint, and always in circumstances where Flint was saved harmless from any consequences, and always where nobody could see or hear what passed between Billy Bones and the other. Each man chosen was a skilled seaman, and together they formed the nucleus of a crew: Ben Gunn the helmsman, Israel Hands the gunner's mate, Peter Black (better known as Black Dog) the carpenter, and Darby M'Graw the master-at-arms. These, together with Mad Pew the sailmaker, were the principal figures in Flint's plan, but there were others too: foremast hands to haul on lines and work a ship.

  Thus all this dangerous, careful work was planned by Flint, while all the actual risks were taken by Billy Bones. In this secret division of labour, Joe Flint wasn't quite the perfect judge of men that he thought he was, for Flint believed it was no end of a joke that Billy Bones should stand between himself and danger, and what a fool Bones would think himself should he ever find out. But the truth of the matter was different. So great was Billy Bones's devotion to Flint that he'd gladly have volunteered for the duty, if ever it had occurred to Flint to be honest with him. But such a thing would never have occurred to Joe Flint.