Flint and Silver (25 page)

    "Here," she said, "by the window." Silver looked harder and thought he saw her outline. But even the stars and the moon were going out now, and it was hard to see.

    He dragged himself across the dark cabin, towards the row of lights at the stern: lozenge-shaped panes of crude glass, leaded into the wooden frames. Flint had had a padded seat built across the width of the cabin: about ten feet long and three deep. He slept on it sometimes. Now Selena was crouched on the seat, with her back against the side of the hull and her knees drawn up under her chin. Silver hauled himself up beside her, unshipped his crutch, laid it aside, and dusted himself off. Lightning flickered far away and a distant thunderclap sounded. As the storm grew louder, up on deck Billy Bones was bellowing himself hoarse. Selena jumped at the thunder, but she eyed Silver steadily.

    "What are you doing here?" she asked again, and for want of anything better to say, Silver told the simple truth.

    "Ain't no use for a one-legged man up topsides."

    "Oh," she said, and looked away, then jumped as a fizzing bolt of lightning lit the sky, and another thunderclap rumbled, this time much closer. Selena shivered. She had never liked thunder, even ashore, let alone on the heaving ocean. A squall of rain thrashed down upon the ship and the wind began to blow in earnest. Every time
Walrus's
plunging gave a view of the waves outside, they seemed higher and blacker and angrier. A third thunderclap came simultaneously with the brilliant blue-white flash, and so hideously loud that even Long John twitched in fright, and Selena threw herself at him and clutched her arms tight around him, with eyes screwed shut.

    "Aye, my lass," he said, "we're in for a blow, and no mistake." He stroked her hair and patted her back, and searched his memory for words of comfort and tenderness. But he'd lived a hard life and the ludicrous best he could do was borrowing from Joe Flint.

    "There, my chicken," he said. And, straining his powers of imagination to the limit, "My chick, my little chicky…" And with these attempts at tenderness, there flowered within Long John Silver something that had been waiting to grow ever since that day in Charley Neal's storeroom.

    Meanwhile the wind roared, the seas thundered, the ship's timbers shrieked and crackled and howled, and the entire narrow, dark world of Flint's cabin tossed and bounced like a pannier on a galloping horse. Selena was outright terrified. She clung to Silver like a child to a mother. But let no man or woman think the less of her for doing so; not unless they too have been on board a two hundred ton wooden ship in a tropical hurricane, and managed to bear themselves better than she did - and
that
the first time they've experienced it, besides.

    For his part, Long John had near twenty years of seafaring behind him and had seen worse storms in worse ships. He knew that
Walrus
was well found and Flint a masterly seaman. So he wasn't afraid. He wasn't afraid, but he was powerfully confused, because he'd got the very thing clutched to his chest that he'd been hungering after for months. He had an armful of smooth, luscious, youthful flesh. He could feel the plump breasts and the warmth and scent of her body.

    It is unshakable truth that none of these foregoing facts were such things as should cause a jolly sailorman to worry. Under normal circumstances, Long John would have known exactly what to do, and delighted in the doing of it. What's more, he knew by happy experience what a splendid trick it was to get a woman frightened of ghosts and hobgoblins in the night, in order to get her braced for a galloping. His heart thumped as he imagined himself hauling the shirt and breeches off her, and rolling her on to her back.

    He even got as far as undoing a button or two of her shirt, and getting a hand inside her clothes for a grasp of her bouncers. Jesus Christ, they were juicy! Firm as roundshot and the nipples standing up like marines on parade. He wandered his hand further, sliding down the smooth belly. He shifted the weight of her to spread her legs a little and got his hand right down into the silky-smooth inside of her thigh. The whole of his body prickled, and a ship's bowsprit - hard and fierce - stood up before him. Any doubts he might have had concerning manhood were left drowning in the ship's wake. He searched further…

    Selena groaned and her eyes flicked open.

    "No," she gasped. Silver withdrew his hand and sighed.

    "Not if you say so, my chick." And he held her gently in his arms.

    "I'm frightened, John," she said.

    "Aye, lass."

    "Are we going to die?"

    "No. The old
Walrus'll
weather this one. Flint'll see her through."

    "He's no good, that Flint."

    "No, lass, he ain't. But nor ain't none o' the rest of us, neither!"

    "You are."

    "What?"

    "Yes."

    "Well, shiver me timbers!" Silver was genuinely amazed.

    "That time, in Savannah…" she said.

    "Aye?" said Silver, deeply ashamed.

    "You didn't know, did you?"

    "No," he said. "It ain't no excuse, but I took you for one of Charley's girls."

    "Well, I'm not. I'm not a whore!"

    "No, my girl. Not whilst I draw breath…" Long John paused, uneasy with feelings he'd never had before. He struggled to put words to them. His lips worked until the pressures within forced out the strange and unpractised words.

    "I love you, my lass."

    Selena smiled and opened her shirt, and took his hand, and placed it over her breast. She turned her face and curled an arm around his neck and kissed him.

    "I've never done this before," she said.

    "No?"

    "No."

    Silver and Selena were consumed with happiness. Each found the other so very beautiful, even in the dark, even by silky touch alone, relishing the slippery smoothness of cool naked flesh. And what if John Silver was missing a leg? Experiment soon showed that it was wonderful what a one- legged man could achieve when duty called. Selena was amazed and Silver delighted, and between them they managed the task so many times that the forty-eight hours which followed were some of the best in their entire lives, and often in later years when either was troubled or in pain, they would go back in memory to Flint's cabin, on board the good ship
Walrus,
riding out a hurricane in more ways than one.

    But eventually, the storm blew itself out, and Flint ordered the hatches broken open. He went down to his cabin to find Long John Silver there with Selena. The noise of freeing the hatch covers had given plenty of warning, but Silver was sat with an arm around Selena, and a hand casually resting on one of his silver-mounted pistols. He stared Flint in the eye, bold as brass.

    "Found your island, Cap'n Flint?" he said. Flint's face darkened and the Devil stoked his temper till it rose like the molten rock from a volcano.

Chapter 28

25th July 1752

Aboard Walrus

The Southwest Atlantic

    Flint stood at the door of his cabin and saw Silver sitting at ease with an arm around Selena's shoulders, and the girl nestled up against him with every sign of being well content. Emotions washed over Flint like the three tides over a hanged and gibbeted pirate at Execution Dock, Wapping. First there was disbelief that the girl could give herself to a cripple. Then there was fierce, wounding envy that the cripple had obviously done the thing that he was forever incapable of doing. And finally there was poisonous hatred.

    Flint snarled, drew a knife, and stepped forward. Silver drew a pistol and levelled it at Flint.

    "What?" said Flint. "Will you murder me? Me with my priming soaked?" He gestured at his own pistols, drenched by the storm, and the two men faced each other, neither moving, eyes locked and limbs shaking with rage. But neither made a move, while Selena, the seeming object of this final outright break between the two men, stared in amazement.

    "Come on then!" said Flint.

    "Whenever you choose, Cap'n," said Silver. But still they didn't move. Selena looked at the hard faces and tensed hands.

    They were a split second from coming to blows, but something was stopping them.

They're afraid,
she thought.
Afraid of each other. That's why it's gone on so long.
She'd spotted something nobody else had noticed. But even so, she'd only got part of the truth. Even she never realised that both men would, even now, have healed the breach if only they could, despite the fact that the whole world could see it was past healing. The most painful time of a broken friendship is the time when old friends are making ever more futile and extravagant attempts to compromise, and make allowances, and are steadfastly refusing to face the truth.

    Then Billy Bones came thundering down from the quarterdeck and barged into the cabin crying out as he came.

    "All secured, Cap'n," he said. "Permission to stand down the larboard watch, and issue…" He blinked at the blade and the pistol. He had nowhere near Selena's insight, and simply saw danger to the man he worshipped like a god.

    "Uh!" he grunted and instantly stumped forward, unarmed as he was, to stand between Flint and the pistol. "Gimme the word, Cap'n," he said, spitting fire and fury at Silver. "Gimme the word and I'll have the bollocks off the sodding old ruin!"

    "Billy-my-chicken," said Flint, and he barked with laughter. His quick, flickering mind could turn to humour in the instant, and he laughed at Bones's stupidity… his stupid bravery and his very great usefulness. "Will you split the marrow-bones, of him, my Billy? Will you pop out his eyes with your thumbs?"

    "That I will, Cap'n!" said Bones.

    "Will you, though?" said Silver. "Will you, indeed!" And he hopped to his feet, hauling the long crutch under his arm, and shoving Selena out of harm's way. "Well then, you swab," he said, "I challenge you, man to man, and according to articles. I challenge you to face me with the weapons your mother gave you, on fair and level ground and with no man to intervene."

    Billy Bones blinked a while, pondering the legality of this appeal to articles. He searched his memory for what he'd signed, nodded unconsciously as he recalled the article in question… and a fat, slow grin spread over his heavy face.

    "Aye," he said, "on fair and level ground, with no man to intervene." He turned to Flint. "That's fair and proper, Cap'n. According to articles, and only your permission is awaited. I duly asks for that permission."

    "As do I!" said Silver, and Flint nearly bust himself holding back the hysterical laughter. But it wouldn't do, at this vital moment, to piss into Mr Bones's font. Not when Mr Bones was about to oblige by battering Silver senseless with mighty fists, before kicking in Silver's skull with heavy boots.

    And what a fine thing that would be, thought Flint. Once the decks were scrubbed and hosed down, he would make a speech, sorrowing over Silver's fall into decrepitude and praising his past triumphs, and so bringing his rival's remaining supporters over to his own side. And then, if anyone thought the worse of Billy Bones for killing a poor old cripple, well, so much the worse for Billy-boy. He could always be replaced.

    But first there were formalities to be observed. The crew had to be mustered, the Book of Articles brought forth, the articles read, and the combatants searched for hidden weapons. Finally the hands were warned, on pain of death, that nobody must interfere.

    The excitement was immense. Such yelling and shouting and eager jostling, and such innocent delight on all sides at the prospect of so wonderful a fight. So Flint led Silver and Billy Bones to the quarterdeck, where the ship offered its nearest equivalent to
fair and level ground
, and each man took off his hat and coat, and stood to face the other. Bravado drove Billy Bones to haul off his shirt and stand like the pugilist he was, chest matted in black hair and tattooed arms bulging with strength. All of Flint's supporters, and many of Long John's too, roared their approval and admiration at the sight of him, while Long John stood waiting and trembling. He was visibly shaking. His face was white. His lips were black. He looked already dead. He looked a lost man, and Selena gaped in horror and tried to stop the inevitable. She appealed to Flint, and was ignored. She appealed to Long John, who seemed barely to hear her. She appealed to the crew, who howled and roared and ridiculed.

    "So," said Flint, drawing a pair of fresh-primed pistols, "I charge all hands to stand back and take no part of this fair and chosen fight, remembering that, if any does interfere, then he shall die by my hand!"

    He turned to Billy Bones. "Are you ready, Mr Bones?"

    "Aye!"

    "Are you ready, Mr Silver?"

    "One thing more -" cried Silver.

    "What is it?" said Flint.

    "Does Mr Bones agree that I takes no unfair advantage over him?" said Silver. "Does he agree that I has no weapons other than what he sees. And that
this
-" he gestured at himself, "as I stand here, is the thing he fights?"