Flint and Silver (43 page)

    There was shouting. She wondered if they'd point their cannons at her, as they had at Long John. She wondered if they'd launch a boat. Taking a deep breath, Selena dived, and swam and swam and came up, gasping, and turned and saw them calling to her from the windows and from the stern rail.

    They were angry. Gaping mouths and waving fists… and some pistols spouting balls of white smoke. She was already a good way from the ship and the gunshots seemed small and weak. She never even thought to be afraid of where they'd strike, her mind still full of the pistol in Parson Smith's mouth. She shuddered, took another breath, then dived and swam again: kicking and kicking to get away.

    This time when she came up, the ship was far off. She trod water and looked for somewhere to go. She turned, round and round, and the little waves bobbed and nodded round her head. The taste of salt was on her lips and all the universe was a flat, glossy-green, liquid surface just level with her chin.

    Where should she go? Where
could
she go? Not ashore. Flint was there. And
never
back to
Walrus.
Once again she was running from a dead white man. She didn't think the pirates would be any more understanding than Fitzroy Delacroix's sons, and this time she had personally and deliberately killed someone. That left
Lion.
The choice was not a hard one. Selena struck out, intending to swim wide around
Walrus,
which was blocking her line of sight towards
Lion,
and then to head straight for Long John and his ship. It was only a few hundred yards and she'd been used to swimming all day. It would be easy.

    But she immediately discovered why she'd got so far so fast from
Walrus.
There was a powerful current sweeping round the anchorage, and it was carrying her away faster than she could swim. She tried, briefly, to beat it, but sensibly gave up. That was a sure way to exhaustion and drowning. So she rolled on to her back and floated gently, with minimal movements of hands and feet, and concentrated on keeping her head above water.

    It was warm and peaceful. The sun was hot, the water was calm, and there was no sound. It was a gentle delivery from the threats she'd lived under for so long. It was so relaxing that Selena fell into sleep - or something like it - and she thought of John Silver and Joe Flint. She dozed and dreamed and floated. It went on, and on, and on. There was no feeling of time.

    Then her heels grated against sand. She started, and pushed down with her hands. She'd come ashore. She sat up. She was in water just inches deep, and suddenly she was heavy and clumsy: not a weightless water-sprite.

    "Ah!" she wiped her eyes, and awkwardly stood up and looked around. The two ships were over a mile away, out in the bay. The beach - sizzling hot underfoot - curved like a new moon, stretching for miles, with dense palms bending down to meet it. The sand was much churned up here, and there were many footprints and trails where heavy objects had been dragged. This must be the site of the camp they'd built when they were unloading their treasure. She supposed that, even in their boats, the current must have made it easier to come here than anywhere else.

    She took a breath, and ran across the beach as quickly as she could - the sand was too hot for bare feet. She tripped and skipped, trying to make the briefest contact, and then she was in the cool shade. She sat down and sighed. She had no food, no water, no tools, no arms, no clothes. She looked into the jungle and wondered what animals might live there. That was not a pleasant thought, and fear came back. A different kind of fear, but fear nonetheless.

    Selena hadn't the least idea what to do next. So she did nothing, and a long day passed, followed by a long, cold night. But no beast with teeth or claws came out of the forest and the sun rose at last. Selena was now getting hungry and was very thirsty. She'd heard the pirates say that there were streams on the island, and if there were streams they must run into the sea somewhere, so she started out along the beach to find one.

    She found no water but found something else. She found it just before it found her. A little away from where the camp had been, there was a pole set up in the sand, and firmed into place with rocks. It was what they called a
spar,
and it had lines fastened to it for a flag. She was walking under the palms, next to the jungle, because the sand there was a little firmer than out on the beach, and so she heard the crashing of something moving through the trees, a little in front of her.

    She darted behind a tree and looked out as a man emerged from the forest and staggered out on to the beach. He plodded heavily through the sand towards the flag pole. There, he hauled on a line and up went the flag - a big, black pirate flag with a white skull and crossed bones. Then he drew a pair of pistols and fired them off, and waved towards
Walrus.
It was Flint. Selena wept in despair.

    But very visibly hanging across Flint's shoulder by a strap was a canteen. Selena had taken no drink for nearly eighteen hours. She'd licked drops of moisture from the leaves around her, but that wasn't enough in a tropical climate. Thirst, cruel and unreasoning, drove her to stand out from the trees and walk across the sand - which at this time in the morning was not yet hot.

    "Flint!" she cried. "Here!" and walked towards him. He spun round, and even at fifty yards she was shocked at the sight of him. His head was bound up in a bloodstained handkerchief and his face was black with dried blood. He was swaying on his feet and his eyes were glaring and staring.

    "Selena!" he said, then contorted with rage and pulled another pair of pistols and fired them towards her. She cringed, but he wasn't aiming at her. He staggered forward, cursing and blaspheming hideously at his parrot - which was fluttering overhead. He dropped to his knees and fumbled for powder and shot to reload.

    She went up to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. He ignored her. He carried on with his pistols and let her pull the canteen from his shoulder and take a long drink.

    "What happened?" she said.

    "Damned bird!" he said. "It's gone mad!"

    "Why?"

    "Don't know."

    BOOOM! A gun sounded from
Walrus.
Flint looked up.

    "Ah!" he said. "They're launching a boat." He looked at her and noticed her nakedness for the first time. "Better take this," he said, and gave her his coat, then turned to gaze at
Walrus
and the boat pulling for the shore. But he said nothing else. He divided his attention between the oncoming boat and the green bird circling over the trees.

    Then the boat grounded, twenty yards off on the shallow shore. Sand crunched under the bow, six men shipped oars with a rumble and rattle, and Tom Allardyce leapt out and splashed towards Flint and Selena. He stared at Flint in horror.

    "Where's the lucky six?" he said. "What's happened? What's wrong?" Then a more immediate thought occurred to him: "Cap'n," he said, pointing angrily at Selena, "that moll's done for Mr Smith. Blew his fuckin' face off, she did!"

    "Huh!" said Flint, who was worried with matters far greater than the life or death of the miserable Smith, with his all-too- obvious flaws. He looked at Selena. "Do I take it that he couldn't keep his filthy hands off you?"

    "Yes," she said.

    "Then serve the lubber right!" Flint looked impatiently at Allardyce, and waved a hand as if to brush away a fly. "Pah!" he said. "I'll hear no more of Parson bloody Smith, and you may give the word to all hands in that regard. Now! Pull for the ship and Devil take him that don't break his back!"

    That was shrieked at them in fury. The men bit their lips and avoided his eye. Flint had never screamed at them before. He'd always been smooth as silk and slick as grease. He'd never visibly lost his temper. His voice had been soft as a mother's kiss, even when smashing fingers with a belaying pin. They didn't understand this. It was frightening. So they pulled like red-hot buggery and were back aboard in no time, even with the current in their faces.

    There, Selena was shut up down below again, in the cabin smeared with Smith's blood. She found herself some clothes and sat with her head in her hands, and made the best of it. At least she was safe with Flint aboard. And it was no good swimming back to the island. She would have to be patient and hope for better days.

    Up on deck, Mr Cowdray was summoned with his instruments, and he washed and dressed Flint's wounds on the quarterdeck, blathering Latin and claiming that soap and sunshine cured all, and wielding a razor to clear the skin for sewing.

    "There, sir!" said Cowdray, after a busy half-hour, for he was proud of his work, and felt that no man could have done a better job of putting Flint's scalp back into place. He finished with a neat bandage and a word of warning.

    "There will be some scarring, sir, at the brow, near the hairline. But mostly there will be little to be seen once the hair grows back."

    Flint nodded. He'd borne the surgery manfully, since his mind had been far away while Cowdray was cutting and stitching. He'd been pulling himself back from the edge. He'd been very close last night, and even closer this morning, for there are worse depths than those which swallowed Taylor and Howard: depths which are ever-waiting for a man with a mind like Flint's. But now he was back. He was back and safe, and the edge was far away, so he thought.

    "Will you take a pull of rum, Captain?" said Cowdray. "It's usual at such a time." And Cowdray's assistant, Jobo, held out a bottle.

    "No thank you, Doctor," said Flint. "I need a clear head, and a word with the hands." He looked Cowdray seriously in the eye. "For we have been betrayed, Doctor."

    "Betrayed?"

    "Betrayed by John Silver - that unconscionable scoundrel - who put ashore a landing party, in secret and at dead of night - and murdered all my dear comrades, leaving me the sole survivor."

    "No!"

    "Yes! And therefore I must take this ship into action against his, if we are to have any chance of reclaiming our buried goods, the which he is resolved to steal and keep for himself and his men - for they are as bad as he!"

    "In breach of his oath and his articles?"

    "I heard him say it, sir! When I was forced to hide in the woods, and he did not know I was near!" Flint bowed his head in sorrow. "I know we did not part as friends, yet still I had thought more than that of John Silver."

    "Good God Almighty!" said Cowdray, horrified. He raised his voice, "Gather round, you men. Come closer! The captain has fearful news!"

Chapter 48

9th September 1752

The forenoon watch (c. 10 a.m. shore time)

Aboard Lion

The southern anchorage

    A nine-pound shot was only half an inch wider than a six: about four inches as compared with three and a half. But the greater weight of shot, and the heavier powder charge behind it, gave the nine-pounder gun its famously long reach, and a far greater capacity to smash timbers and beams. The six-pounder was a good enough gun for grape and canister, or for chain-shot to dismast, but the nine-pounder was a proper ship-breaker.

    "Can I fire, Cap'n?" pleaded Israel Hands, "before them buggers comes into range of us?" He crouched down and took two more sights over the barrel of his beloved Spanish gun: one sighting through the top notches to train the gun, and a second, for range, through the side notches.

    Range was the hard one. Training was easy: just a matter of pointing of the gun at the target, by sighting through the top-centre notch on the breech-ring, and the top-centre notch in the muzzle-ring.

    But range had to be judged - which meant
guessed -
and then the side notch on the muzzle-ring had to be lined up with one of a series of side notches at the breech, giving from one degree to five degrees of elevation. As Israel Hands had never yet fired the gun, he was ranging by guesswork and the hope that the two and a half degrees he'd chosen would reach
Walrus,
which he guessed was about four hundred yards away.

    "Can I fire, Cap'n?" said Israel Hands again, and blew on the match-cord in his linstock to make the end glow nice and red.

    "No," said Silver, "not yet. All they've done is make sail."

    "But that's against -"

    "Silence on the gun-deck!" bawled Silver, and stumped about behind Israel Hands and his gun-crew. Silver was in anguish. It was torture. His was the final decision. Should he fire on
Walrus
or not? Should he take the final step that would set jolly companions to murdering each other?

    Israel and the rest looked at Silver and waited. The ship was at general quarters. Guns were run out and loaded. Decks were sanded and the ship's boys crouched ready to run cartridges from the magazine. The larboard spring was bent to the capstan, and hands stood at the bars to swing
Lion's
battery to bear on any quarter. She was as prepared as ever she could be.