Flint and Silver (14 page)

    She'd covered less than a mile before
El Tigre
was got before the wind and came surging forward with the water foaming under her bow. Fear ran the length and breadth of
Betsy
and the men broke and tried to run away. But Flint cut down the first of them, and the others howled and ran back to their duty… for a while.

    "'Tain't no use, Cap'n," said Billy Bones miserably, "them buggers is coming and we can't stop 'em."

    "Billy-my-chicken," said Flint, "I'll run you through the liver if you say that again, I take my oath on it."

    BOOM! A gun fired and another roundshot flew.

    But it wasn't the Spaniard. Heads turned in amazement as a big, fast schooner came plunging down from the north. She was a mile away and closing fast. The lookouts hadn't seen her, for most of them were dead, and the others had eyes only for the immediate enemy.

    "By God and the devil!" said Flint. "See her colours?"

    "Stap me!" said Billy Bones. "The black flag, like our own!"

    The schooner flew sable banners from her fore and maintop. Each displayed a grinning skull over crossed swords. She came tearing down, straight for
El Tigre,
which turned away from
Betsy
and made ready to receive the newcomer.

    The two ships were very evenly matched. They were closely similar in size, in guns, and in the number and skill of their crews. A long engagement followed with much careful long- range shooting as each captain tried to place his ship to some advantage over the other. The result was a great burning of powder, but to little effect, since neither party saw any benefit in closing to a range where hits were certain, for neither would risk a lucky shot that left his own ship dismasted or harmed in her spars, such that the enemy could place their broadside under his stern and hammer him into surrender.

    At first,
Betsy
took no further part in the fight, for she'd suffered grievous loss of life, and Flint's methods of rousing flagging spirits were of his own, highly ambiguous and uncertain nature. But eventually he got a spar lashed to the stump of the foremast, and set a sail upon it. Then, with the wreckage heaved over the side, and a few guns manned by crews who were more frightened of Flint and Billy Bones than they were of the Spaniards,
Betsy
made the best of her clumsy way towards the two circling, thundering opponents.

    Flint was doing this only because they were now downwind of him, and
Betsy
was incapable of anything other than running before a fair wind. It was his fixed intention to pass through them, or by them, to make his escape, and he'd had guns manned strictly to assist this principal objective. But Lieutenant De Cordoba knew none of this. He only saw a second ship, flying the black flag, coming to join the one that was already his equal.

    De Cordoba hung his head, heaved a sigh, and asked God and his king to forgive him. Most of his powder and shot was used up. His guns were so hot that the carriages were smoking. His men were exhausted. They were in no condition to fight two ships, especially if it came to close quarters, since the men of two ships must surely outnumber his one.

    With utmost reluctance, De Cordoba therefore hauled out of the fight and ran before the wind. From his point of view, it was an un-heroic decision but a wise one.

    But to Flint and his men, it was joy. It was relief. It was repeal, redemption and resurrection! They cheered and yelled with delight to see the Spaniard go. And other cheers came across the water from the schooner. This broke the first wave of delight. With
El Tigre
growing smaller with every minute, the schooner swung out her cutter and manned it, and the cutter pulled briskly across to
Betsy.

    When this happened, Flint, and those left standing of his crew lined the shot-broken sides of their ship and wondered if they'd been rescued or simply taken by a different enemy.

    They were glad to see the Spaniards go, of course, for the Spaniards would've hanged the lot of them without so much as a trial. But what did the schooner want? Who were her people? They flew the black flag, like
Betsy
did, but what did that matter? It wasn't like one of King George's ships coming to the aid of another. Flint frowned and bit his lip, and considered the oncoming cutter. He'd never go to help another ship; not him! He'd take his Bible oath on it! But there was nothing to do but wait, for even the cutter was faster by far than the half-ruined
Betsy,
and soon it bumped and ground alongside, and men were scrambling aboard by the main chains.

    The first of them was a tall man with a mane of fair hair starting out from under his hat. He had long limbs and an active, alert face. He had the air of a man used to authority. He shook his head at the damage done to the ship.

    Flint stepped forward and the fair-haired man looked him over.

    "English?
Français? Portugês
?" he said.

Chapter 13

10th June 1752

Aboard Walrus

The Savannah River

    Billy Bones was the happiest man on board as
Walrus
worked her way downriver and out past Tybee Island. He chucked and smiled, and he kicked the men to their duties in the most good-hearted way, punching their heads cordially and with humour.

    "Haul away, you buggers!" he cried to the waisters running with a line to raise the mainsail. "Pull, you whores' abortions!" he bellowed at the boat's crew labouring to get out a kedge anchor for warping the ship when the wind failed. He laughed and beamed and showed the mettle of his wit by flicking men's ears with the tip of a rope's end and tripping the unwary down hatchways. And all the lower deck nudged and winked, and thanked their lucky stars that Mr Bones was in so jolly a mood.

    The cause of all this happiness was that Billy had just spent a week ashore, galloping every tart he could get his leg across, and drinking himself roaring drunk every night. Best of all, he had enjoyed a most delightful, and profitable, prizefight with a sergeant from the garrison who was reckoned the best exponent of fisticuffs in all the American colonies. A huge crowd had gathered to witness the encounter, which took place at night, by torchlight, on the West Common by the bay.

    After only twenty-five rounds of bare-knuckle fighting, the sergeant was showing signs of wear, while Billy Bones was just nicely settling down to work. Taking advantage of the slackening of his opponent's attack, Billy Bones put him down with a cross-buttock, and began industriously to kick him in the kidneys, until he was hauled off by a band of soldiers who broke through the ring to rescue their man.

    When the beaters-out had cleared the ring with cudgels', and the fight resumed, the sergeant having been revived with cold water and brought up to scratch, the military man found that his heart wasn't really in it any longer, and Billy Bones polished him off in four or five easy rounds. Later, Billy still had the appetite for three bottles of French wine and a hoggish portion of pork and corn, and he still had the strength to give the redoubtable Mrs Polly Porter one of the most vigorous servicings she'd known in all her professional experience. Indeed, it was the talk of Savannah that Mrs Porter was unable to receive customers for three days afterwards.

    Besides all this, Billy Bones was merry because Captain Flint was merry, and that long-nosed, yellow-haired sod, John Silver, was not. Billy had seen the black girl that Flint brought aboard, and had whistled to himself at the look of her and the shape of her. Billy didn't like black girls normally, and would pay over the odds for a white girl, or at the very least a mestiza. But this one, by God, was different. She had a figure like a sand-glass and the prettiest little face, and the most enormous eyes, and the shiniest hair that Billy Bones had ever seen. And all the lower deck thought so too.

    Billy turned this over in his mind, since, in the normal way of things, it was bad luck to bring a woman on board - any woman, let alone one like this. But Flint was captain, along with that swab John Silver - even Billy Bones had to admit the truth of the double command - and the crew would take their lead from the captain as long as he brought home the goods. So… the girl being Flint's property, no man dared oppose her being on board, and it was beyond all imagining that anyone would even
think
of laying a hand on her. Billy Bones alone would see to that, never mind Flint.

    So
Walrus
rounded Tybee Island and forged out into the open sea, and the wind came on to blow, and Billy summoned all hands to shorten sail. The thundering rumble of feet on the planks and the yelling of the boatswain's mates brought Flint up on deck, and he smiled his wide smile at Billy Bones. This simple instant of approval from the man whose slave he was provided the capping joy for Billy Bones. His simple, brutal heart soared to the heavens and all around him was happiness to the far horizons.

    Meanwhile, beneath his feet was the living, straining timber of a fine ship, and above him the topmen leapt to their work among the crackling roaring sails, and above them the gulls wheeled and turned and cried. On deck men were hauling on the braces to trim the mainyard and the well-greased blocks hummed and clacked with the strain. From forrard the salt spray came up like mist from the plunging bow, and the smell of the sea and the freshness and newness of it was all around.

    Every seaman knows the thrill of that moment of setting out, with the land falling astern and the whole world opening ahead, and Billy Bones knew it no less than any other. It was the very heart and soul of why men went to sea, and gloried over the miserable landsmen who stayed ashore and never knew such wonders.

    Flint came to stand by Billy Bones, alongside the helmsman at the tiller. He studied the set of the sails and then the compass in its binnacle.

    "Well enough, Mr Bones," he proclaimed. "What course, helmsman?"

    "A point north o' southeast, Cap'n."

    "Well enough," repeated Flint. Billy Bones could see the satisfaction on his captain's face.

    He grinned to himself, for he knew exactly what was making Flint so sweet. Billy Bones thought what he'd like to give that little piece of black mischief, if only he could get his hands on her, and never a doubt but that the Cap'n was giving her just the same. Billy Bones imagined the high, jutting breasts and the swell of her black rump from the slender waist, and he cursed hard and silently to himself, and wished mightily that it was himself doing the work and not Flint.

    "Ah, John!" said Flint, as the hulking figure of Silver emerged from the quarterdeck hatchway. "Come and keep me company. I feel the need for honest conversation."

    "Aye-aye, sir!" said Silver with that eternal cheerfulness that turned Billy Bones's stomach. What was wrong with
him?
Why couldn't the Cap'n have
honest conversation
with Billy Bones? Weren't he an honest man?

    And so the happy moment was broken, and Billy Bones suffered the bitter jealousy of a child whose best friend has been taken away by another. For Billy Bones loved Flint. He loved him as a son loves his father or a patriot loves his country. He was sunk in awe for Flint's cleverness and his quickness and his terrible ability to strike fear into the hearts of men. And since Billy Bones's admiration of Flint was without end, he didn't mind that Flint treated him like a donkey, because such a man would do that to anyone.

    What Billy Bones did mind, was the easy equality with which Flint treated John Silver. As far as Billy Bones could see, there wasn't anything that Silver did that merited this, and Billy Bones sneered. But he turned his head away to do it, and walked to the rail and stared into the sea, that his expression might not be noticed.

    "Now where have you been these days past, John?" said Flint.

    "Enjoying my shore leave, Cap'n," said Silver. "And doing it in those ways that the tradition of our trade requires!"

    Flint laughed. "And myself busy all the while, in action against Neal the Irishman, making the best of our business."

    "And yourself the best man of us to do it," said Silver. They both laughed and Billy Bones ground his teeth to see the friendship between them, and the obvious pleasure that each took in the other's company. But then there was a stirring and a whispering and a curious murmuring among the hands.

    "Bugger… me… tight!" said the helmsman, each word forced out between gritted teeth. Billy Bones turned to see the cause of this.

    "Jesus fucking Christ!" he said, turning piously to religion in the extremity of his emotion, for he saw that Flint's black girl had come up on deck and was standing, holding on to a rack of belaying pins on the weather side to keep her footing, which she couldn't do without hanging on, what with her being a landsman… lands
woman,
rather.