Flint and Silver (13 page)

    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 sad, 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.