Silver (22 page)

Scotland said that his hopes of freedom were crushed as soon as he reached the island – because the slaves had landed in the exact spot where the maroons had made their camp. As I heard this, I remembered that when the wreck occurred, these maroons must previously have lived in solitude for almost thirty-five years – which gave me some idea of how wild they might have become. In any event, it was clear from Scotland’s account that they had very quickly suborned the ten guards who survived the storm, and made them instruments of their will in subjugating the slaves. These poor wretches then became victims of the most barbarous appetites imaginable.

As we digested this information, Bo’sun Kirkby wanted to know how well armed the tyrants might be – which struck me as a sensible question, given the revenges we were already beginning to contemplate. Scotland replied that there were swords aplenty, and a few guns and rifles. These firearms, however, were very little used, since the weather on the island had made them rusty, and the original stores of powder and bullets were anyway almost exhausted.

This might have been a kind of comfort to us, except that Scotland then insisted any kind of weapon would be less fearsome than the men themselves. I understood from this that he meant the headman, Smirke (which was the name of the lounging beast I had seen in the judge’s chair), the executioner, Stone, and their lackey, Jinks, were all so absolutely depraved, they kept the whole community in
a state of passive terror. The maroons might be some sixty years old, but their demands and desires had been violently increased by their long isolation from humanity, and were insatiable. This thought alarmed me so much, I did not immediately appreciate the small mystery in what Scotland had told us. I mean: that the names these men used were not the same as those I had heard from my father. I could only assume that Smirke was the anonymous pirate, and that Tom Morgan and Dick had both chosen a new moniker which they thought suited their new life; Dick, I thought, was probably Jinks – for no better reason than the two sounds resembled one another – and Tom Morgan was Stone.

I kept those thoughts to myself, since they seemed trivial in comparison to what Scotland had forced us to consider – and felt all the more justified in doing so when I noticed that as Scotland reached this part of his story, his pace begin to slow and his footsteps to grow more erratic. I might almost say he staggered, as if remembering the weight of blows and other suffering he had endured. For five years there had been desperate labour for the imprisoned men, who were always viciously oppressed by beatings and insults of every kind; for five years there had been degradation for the women, who were deemed to exist for no reason except the pleasure of their masters; for five years there had been neglect for the children (even those whose fathers were their tormentors); and for five years there had been such impoverishment for the elderly, they passed their time begging that it would soon be at an end.

It was impossible to hear Scotland speak of such things and not feel compelled to show some signs of reassurance – which now we did. Mr Lawson set aside his shyness and became very eloquent with his sympathy; Bo’sun Kirkby and I patted Scotland on the arms, and said what we could. Natty took both his hands and rubbed them tenderly between her own. Scotland did not appear to notice
any of these things, or to feel any good effect from them, but only produced more instances of the horror he had endured until his voice began to fail. Eventually he pulled away from us entirely, covered his face with his hands, drew to a halt, and wept.

By this stage on our march we had reached the backbone of the island and were among the pine trees, with the bare flanks of Spyglass Hill now falling behind us. By the standards of Treasure Island it was a kindly place, where the only surprising sounds were made by the squirrels as they crackled through their high branches. Although it would have been callous to say aloud that these things might benefit Scotland, I could not help but think so.

Whether Natty felt as I did was impossible to say. Ever since we had rescued Scotland her face had become closed, which was characteristic when she was debating a difficult question with herself. I knew her well enough to feel sure that if I tested her quietness, she would lock herself away even more securely. For this reason, I had tramped beside her in silence during the last mile or so.

Now, as Scotland began to recover, wiping a hand over his face and clearing his throat for conversation again, Natty seemed to have reached the end of her deliberations. She stepped forward and laid her right hand on his shoulder, where the smooth honey colour of her skin made Scotland seem all the darker and more injured with bruises. In my mind’s eye, I saw her father lying on his bed in London, with Natty nuzzling his face. There was the same feeling of intimacy.

‘You are safe now; you are safe now,’ Natty said, as if she were speaking to him in private.

Instead of comforting Scotland, this seemed to jolt him; he rounded on Natty and stared at her with wide eyes; his face was glistening with tears.

‘We are not the same,’ he said.

‘But my mother …’ Natty began – and then paused; she did not know whether to finish her sentence.

‘We are not the same,’ Scotland said again after a painful interval. ‘You cannot understand.’

Natty withdrew her hand. ‘We will look after you,’ she said, in the same crooning voice.

‘I have a wife!’ Scotland said. ‘She is still there.’

Now it was Natty’s turn to seem startled, asking, ‘Where?’ – as though Scotland might have meant Africa.

Scotland did not answer her directly, but kept with the story he had just begun. ‘We escaped from Smirke and the others together,’ he said. ‘We ran into the bushes. But things separated us.’

‘What things?’ Natty wanted to know.

‘We were confused,’ Scotland told her. ‘We had no idea where to be safe. Then I was trapped.’

‘Where is she now?’ said Natty, returning to her original question. ‘Inside the stockade?’ She seemed to have recovered from her surprise, and sounded nothing more than reasonable.

Scotland nodded again. ‘Inside the stockade. If that is what you call it. We have another word.’

Bos’un Kirkby could not help asking what other word this might be, but when Scotland rolled his eyes, showing he was not inclined to spell out something so obvious, I thought it best to put a different question.

‘How long have you been married?’ I said. ‘I did not think …’

‘You thought it might not be allowed?’ Scotland’s interruption proved this subject was no easier for him. He lifted his head and looked at me proudly. ‘Well, you are right. She is my wife to me, as I am a husband to her. What the law says is no matter to us.’

‘We will find her,’ I told him, more in hope than conviction, but with sufficient force to bring our exchange to an end. When I looked
round at the others I saw they were nodding in agreement – Bo’sun Kirkby and Mr Lawson with a sincerity that proved they shared my embarrassment at not being able to put Scotland more quickly at his ease.

Scotland himself had his own solution to this awkwardness, which was to bow his head briefly against Natty’s shoulder, and close his eyes. I told myself this was only a sign of gratitude, and meant to include us all – but when he opened them again and looked into her face, I saw a kind of recognition pass between them, in spite of what he had said a moment before. I have to admit this perturbed me, and I was on the point of urging us onwards again, when Nature herself came to my rescue. Five or six yards away, perched quite still in the shade of a pine tree, and watching us with eyes as dark as plums, was another of the squirrels we had seen earlier in the day.

This specimen was larger than the first, almost the size of a small pony, and with fur of such deep and glowing redness it might have been made of embers. Bo’sun Kirkby saw it in the same instant as I did, and by the sound of him felt as grateful as I was to have this distraction.

‘Damn my lamps,’ he said softly. ‘What have we here?’

The creature was not in the least alarmed by the sound of his voice, which made me think it had seen so few people, it did not know how dangerous we are. I felt sure of this when I saw Natty take hold of a pine cone that lay on the ground close to her, and roll it forwards as though beginning a game. The animal allowed the cone to follow its curving course then stop within easy reach, whereupon it picked up the gift, raised it to its nose, considered for a moment, then re-placed it carefully on the ground with a distinctly apologetic air. When this was done it clasped its two front legs – which I might call
hands
, except their nails were thin and
yellow and pointed – and gave a comical sort of bow. Mr Lawson, who had been chuckling throughout this performance, bowed back, which the squirrel appeared to think was permission to depart. He dropped silkily onto all fours and, with a speed that seemed truly astonishing because of his large bulk, scaled the pine tree behind him with a loud scratching noise, and rustled into the canopy and disappeared.

Scotland, when I turned back to him, was smiling broadly; the tears had dried on his cheeks, and the sad anger had lifted.

‘You have seen this before?’ I asked.

‘The squirrels?’ he said, rolling the ‘r’s very impressively. ‘Yes, there are plenty of them about.’

‘We have squirrels in England,’ I told him, ‘but this size’ – and held up my hands to show what I meant.

‘Very small!’ Scotland stretched his eyes.

‘No!’ said Natty. ‘Here they are very big. Gigantic!’

Scotland shrugged, as if to prove he was quite used to things being strange – which put a further question in my mind.

‘Tell us,’ I said, ‘what are the other animals on the island, and the birds?’

Scotland spread his hands wide, palms upwards; this allowed us to see how pale they were, and also how deeply scarred and wrinkled. ‘Plenty of birds,’ he said. ‘Plenty, plenty of birds, and plenty of animals. The doo-dah.’

We were listening hard now, craning forward since we thought he might be about to surprise us. When he said ‘doo-dah’, my first thought was he meant something like ‘et cetera’.

‘Tell us about the doo-dah,’ said Natty, which showed that she already understood him better than the rest of us.

‘Big bird,’ said Scotland, stretching out his arms. ‘No wings.’

‘A big bird that cannot fly,’ said Natty for the sake of clarity.

Scotland nodded vehemently. ‘Cannot fly, but easy to catch. People like the doo-dah.’

Compared to everything else we had seen and thought and said in the last several hours, this exchange seemed very pleasant, and persuaded us that we now liked the doo-dah as well. We liked it so much, in fact, we made it the reason for continuing our march, in the hope that we might find an example as we went.

From this point, as happens with journeys of all kinds, our way seemed much shorter and easier than it had done when we were setting out. Within thirty minutes we had left the pine woods and come to the luscious undergrowth that led down to the
Nightingale
. And within another ten we had trampled through those thick leaves, and found the mudbank where we could hail our jolly-boat and so climb back on deck and be dry again.

Just as we reached the shore, and saw our captain looking towards us, with his cocked hat on his head and his large face creasing into a frown as he noticed Scotland among our party, Natty laid her hand on my arm in that tender way she had, which made my heart quicken.

‘The doo-dah,’ she said. ‘You realise they eat it. That is why everyone likes it.’

Captain Beamish watched our approach, no doubt puzzled by how we had added to our party, but still interested in our safe arrival. If I had ever doubted his qualities, I should have known him for a good man the minute we stepped on deck. Instead of showing any suspicion of Scotland or interrogating him, he threw an old shirt across his shoulders and led him into the roundhouse, where he ordered Mr Allan to send up food and drink – explaining to us, after he had done so, that he had found plentiful fresh water and fruit on the island to add to our supplies. Spot, whose cage was attached to its usual place, seemed happy to have so much company gathered round him, and clearly announced, ‘Welcome, welcome,’ before settling down on his perch to listen.

There was a great deal of curiosity among other shipmates, who
soon appeared at the windows and began peering and pointing until they were sent about their business. All this fuss was good-natured, but might easily have become a sort of insolence; the captain was conscious from the beginning of Scotland as a
man
.

Bo’sun Kirkby and Mr Lawson remained with us, since they were anxious to tell their part of our story, and also to hear what the captain knew about the silver. I had expected their chance to tell their tale would come after we had introduced Scotland, but since he began tearing ravenously at his meal the moment it arrived, the treasure took precedence. Even before the captain began to speak, I could see from his face that his news was not likely to be good.

The time of which I am now speaking was late afternoon and, although we had scarcely noticed it in the excitement of our return, the sun had disappeared behind clouds and the wind was beginning to blow more strongly. Several of the larger plants around the inlet knocked their leaves together with heavy slaps. When I faced downriver towards the sea, I found a mass of yellowish turbulence on the horizon, like an army waiting to advance. All this gave intensity to the captain’s story. Whatever thoughts I had begun to develop about the change in our adventure, I could not deny the silver was still a part of it.

The captain, along with the four crew that went with him, had found the same difficulty as ourselves in leaving the valley: they had been obliged to crawl, weave, sidle and plunge when they wanted only to walk upright. Also like us, they had emerged from this primitive vegetation into a pine wood as soon as they reached level ground. But whereas our trees had been evenly spread, and were pleasant to walk under, theirs grew very sparsely and were stunted by fierce winds. If the island did indeed resemble a dragon on its hind legs, the creature could be said to be going
bald
, and to possess
a head that was more pitted, weathered and ancient-looking than the remainder of its body.