Flint and Silver (21 page)

    "You'll die, if I don't," was all she said.

    "Ah, Mr Silver," said Mr Thomas Cowdray in his bloodstained leather apron and rolled-up sleeves. "I'd thought better of you:
aut vincere, aut mori:
either conquer or die." He shook his head. "I see that you have done neither!"

    Mr Cowdray had once been an educated gentleman, and still was an excellent surgeon: quick, adept and intelligent, and nothing like the rum-sozzlers usually to be found afloat. He'd once practised at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, and there his brother surgeons had mocked him for his insistence on cleanliness, and on boiling his surgical instruments in a cauldron of water before use. Cowdray had claimed this to be a sovereign remedy against post-operative rotting of wounds, but when it was discovered that he'd learned it from a gypsy sow-gelder, he was laughed out of the hospital. His learned colleagues might have forgiven him the ludicrous source of his methods, but they could never -
never
- forgive him the superior results that he achieved with them.

    His subsequent career - via gin, gambling, and relieving ladies caught pregnant without husbands - had taken Mr Cowdray away from England and to the West Indies, and so by easy stages to privateering, piracy, and finally to his current post as surgeon to Captain Flint.

    Cowdray frowned as he saw the extent of Long John's injuries. He looked at the other wounded, made a judgement, and turned to his assistant, a mulatto named Jobo, chosen for strength, who also served as cook's mate.

    "Silver next," said the surgeon, and a wild roar came from Long John, who did his best to climb out of the hold unaided. "Some of you lay hands on him and bring him here," said Cowdray.

    Selena, Jobo and one or two of the other less-badly wounded, grappled with Long John and got him on to Cowdray's table. They cut off his breeches at Cowdray's command, and Jobo slipped on a tourniquet and twisted till the bleeding stopped.

    "You!" said Cowdray to Selena. "Take the broken leg and hold it out straight." She hesitated. "Go on, girl!" barked Cowdray. "Pick it up! It won't bite!" And he turned to the rest: "
You -
get up behind him on the table and wrap your arms round his chest.
You
- hold his good leg. And,
you -
hold his arms."

    Cowdray reached for a sickle-shaped amputation knife, razor-edged on the inside.

    "Rum!" cried Long John. "Rum, for the love of God."

    "Later," said Cowdray, and dropped to his knees, facing Long John. He slipped his arm under the injured leg, which Jobo raised to receive him. He bent his elbow back around the limb so the curved knife sat beneath the thigh, tickling the taut skin. He set his teeth and he pulled with all his strength.

    Long John howled like a damned soul as the knife cut skin, fat, muscle, tendon, nerve and blood vessel in one almighty slicing cut, right down to the bone. Cowdray leapt up, laid aside the big knife and swiftly ran a lancet around the bone, severing any remaining shreds of tissue.

    "Jobo," he said, "stump!" And Jobo slid a pair of leather straps into the wound, and hauled on them, squeezing the red flesh towards the hip to expose an inch more of the bone.

    Cowdray pounced with a fine-toothed saw and went through the femur in six sharp strokes, leaving Selena holding a severed leg: limp, heavy and dead. The vivid reality of its final separation from the living man caused her to drop the horrid thing and stagger back with her head spinning sickly. She was at - and past - her limits. She hurried away, groping for ladders, in search of fresh air.

    Barely noticing her absence, Jobo kicked the dead leg aside and let loose his straps so the flesh swelled forward, burying the cut end of bone so it couldn't stick out of the stump when it healed.

    "Slacken off!" said Cowdray, and Jobo let the tightness out of his tourniquet till little jets of blood revealed where the arteries lay. Cowdray caught each one with a long-handled hook, pulled it out and tied it off, leaving long threads trailing after the knots. Then off came the tourniquet and the operation was complete. It had taken less than two minutes, and Silver was still bellowing lustily, while aside from Cowdray and Jobo, every creature present was yellow in the face and sweating heavily.

    But Cowdray wasn't quite done. He dressed the wound carefully with lint and linen, and finally added a woollen cap - like a short, fat stocking - to finish the job.

    "Next man!" said Cowdray, and Jobo lifted Long John off the table and laid him alongside the others that Mr Cowdray was done with.

    "Give him a pull of the rum, Jobo," said Cowdray, glancing down.

    But Long John had to wait, for down the ladders there came a second rush of wounded, bumping and howling and bleeding.

    These were not victims of
John Donald's
artillery but of their own captain and first mate, who'd passed among the surly survivors and reasoned with them after Flint's style until
Walrus's
crew returned to their duties and the dead and the offal were heaved over the side, and repairs were made, and lines were spliced, and the decks were swabbed till no stains were left. Soon
Walrus
was sailing like a lamb, and all was jump-to-it discipline and jolly fellowship once more, since any man who chose not to be jolly was beaten senseless by Mr Billy Bones.

    And all the while, Long John was left to bawl to his heart's content, and nobody paid him the least attention - not with a dozen more doing the same all around him, and a merry little company they made. All it needed was the Devil to join them, scraping his fiddle and beating time with his hoof, and all hands would have known themselves already transported to that very place which was their ultimate destination.

    Hours later, delirious and hot, and with the raw stump swollen and hammering, Long John felt a bottle pressed into his hands. Exhausted as he was, he instantly tried to scream - for every touch was agony - but all that came was a harsh gasp. The rum helped a lot. It took away some of the pain, and what was left was blunted at the edges. Finally, after most of a pint had gone down, it brought unconsciousness.

    After that, as far as Long John Silver was concerned, the river of time ran strange and dark: it fled the light, it went deep underground and it went round crooked ways. This was something to do with the rum and the laudanum that Mr Cowdray put in it, and it was something to do with a strong man's pride revolting at the thought of becoming a cripple. But mainly it was the natural consequence of a dreadful injury. At least the stump stayed clean and did not putrefy, otherwise Long John would have died for sure. The ignorant may have laughed at Mr Cowdray's boiling of his instruments, but it drove off the little demons that killed more men than hot lead or cold steel.

    For a long and indeterminate time, there was only confusion and pain. Then there was simply confusion, and then there was the first small clearing of the fog, which was an awareness of being out of the stinking hold, in a hammock slung under the fo'c'sle. There were wind-sails rigged to bring fresh air from above decks, and there was the sound of voices. One voice was Selena's, the other was Cowdray's. Long John couldn't move or speak, but he could listen.

    "Why not?" she said.

    "The amputation is too high."

    "So how can he walk?"

    "With a crutch."

    "What?" The voice was angry. "What? That's no good. No good at all! What sort of a doctor are you? A horse- doctor?"

    "God damn you, girl! Look here…" And Long John felt them right beside him, laying hands on his bandages. He stirred, trying to let them know he was listening, but the movement was too slight.

    "See?" said Cowdray. "The stump ends not twelve inches from the iliac crest. A peg-leg's no use on that. Perhaps in London or Paris something might be done: a false limb, sculpted, and jointed with springs at the knee and ankle, and secured with a harness. But not out here, beyond Christian civilisation. There are not the tools nor the craftsmen." Cowdray shrugged. "He'll have to go on a crutch."

    "Huh!" said Selena. "Long John's no man for that. He'd rather die!" she sneered. "You no-account, useless butcher!"

    "Hold your tongue, madam!" cried Cowdray, stung to anger. "He either goes on a crutch or on his belly. Long John Silver is become a one-legged man, and he must make the best of it."

Chapter 22

30th June 1749

Elizabeth's longboat

The South Atlantic

    Ship," said Hastings, or at least he tried to. On half a pint of water, per day, per man under a scorching tropical sun, it became hard to speak. He reached out a weary hand and pushed at Povey until the other woke. "Ship," he mouthed, and pointed. It was so hard to concentrate. It was all he could do to hold the rudder and steer, as the boat plunged onward under a steady blow.

    Povey raised his head and blinked dry eyes at the heaving waves.

    "Ship!" said Povey. He saw it. He saw topsails and mainsails. It was a ship.

    "Corporal, Mr Boatswain," croaked Hastings, "rouse the hands!"

    But nobody moved. Not properly. Bennet, the acting- corporal, managed to turn his head and at least tried to get up. But that was all. Every man aboard was roasted and feeble, and crumpled in the bottom of the boat, half-conscious and slowly dying. They looked more like the dead of a battlefield than living men.

    "Smoke," said Povey.

    When the men still had their strength, Hastings and Povey had set them various tasks, mainly to keep up their spirits. One of these was the construction of a smoke beacon: a wooden bailing bucket filled with sun-dried, unpicked cable mixed with flakes of tar and wood shavings, rigged to be set alight and hoisted up a spar as a signal to any ships they might encounter.

    "Here, Povey… take the tiller," said Hastings.

    "Aye-aye, sir."

    Hastings crawled towards the bow and the smoke beacon. It was slow, hard going, over the barely moving bodies of moribund men. They moaned and cursed, and some clutched at him and had to be shaken off. He'd got halfway before he realised he was wasting his time, and turned back weeping in frustration.

    "What is it?" said Povey as Hastings fought his way back and tried to shake Corporal Bennet awake.

    "Go way!" said Bennet.

    "What is it?" said Povey again.

    "Tinder box," said Hastings. "Bennet's got it. Dunno where."

    Hastings searched the big limp form without success.

    "Where is it? Where is it?" said Hastings.

    "Give him a drink!" said Povey. "Wake him!" With enormous difficulty, Hastings did so. Struggling to the near-empty water butt, lowering the dipper through the bung-hole, filling a cup and contriving to return without spilling it.

    But someone saw him do it.

    "Here!" said an angry voice. "Ain't time for water-rations."

    "Wot?" said another.

    "Pinchin' the soddin' water, they are!"

    "Bastards!"

    The dead began to wake. And they woke angry.

    "Here!" said Hastings, pouring water into Bennet's mouth.

    Bennet's hands came up to the cup and his eyes opened.

    "Why's
he
gettin' a bleedin' drink?"

    "Bloody lobster!"

    "Corporal Bennet," said Hastings, "look - a ship! Where's the tinder box? We have to light the beacon!"

    "Ship?" cried the living dead. "Where?"

    "There, you idle lubbers!" cried Hastings and pointed to it.

    "We're saved! We're saved!"

    "Here it is, sir," said Bennet, hauling his tinder box out from the depths of his breeches.

    "Quick, man!"

    Corporal Bennet did his best. He crawled forward - now with ready hands helping him on his way - while those who could were sitting up waving their shirts and raising a thin shout. There wasn't a man aboard capable of standing up on his legs.

    "Can't open the bugger," Bennet sobbed, his weakened fingers fumbling with the lid of the tinder box as he sat.

    "Oh Jesus," cried Povey, "she hasn't seen us! We'll lose her."

    A groan went up from the longboat as the distant ship ploughed onward with no sign of having spotted them.

    "Give me that!" said Hastings, snatching at the tinder box. "I'll do it!"

    "No!" said Bennet, determined to complete his task.

    "She's passin' us by! She's leavin' us!"

    Bennet heaved afresh at the box, which sprung suddenly open, scattering its contents over the bottom of the boat - except for the vital piece of flint, which went over the side with a tiny splash.

    "AHHHH!" said Bennet as salvation sank into the depths.