Skull and Bones (12 page)

    "I see," said Cowdray. "But why need there be a decision now? We could take both men to England, ask questions when we get there, and decide
then
what to do with them." He bowed his head in thought. "The great prize would be a pardon. That would be precious beyond riches." He looked up, the evidence weighed, a decision reached: "We should go to England! Then, at worst, if the matter proves too complex, we could set Norton and McLonarch ashore in two different places - thus keeping Allardyce happy and ourselves still holding the dollars."

    "Bugger me blind!" said Silver, tipping back his hat and gazing at Cowdray in admiration. "Where have you been all these months, Doctor? You never speak at our councils and yet here you are, the sharpest man aboard!"

    "I never thought the hands would listen to a sawbones," said Cowdray.

    "Well, I'm damned," said Silver. "You almost persuaded me."

    "Oh? Will you not go to England?"

    "I don't know. The risk is so great. We might be found out. We might be taken…" He looked around King William Square. "
This
place might be up for bribes, but the Port of London won't be. And the seas'd be thick with navy."

    "Well," said Cowdray, looking sideways at Silver, "England is where your wife has gone…"

    Silver groaned and rubbed his face with his hands, for
that
was the heart of his troubles, not the choice between McLonarch and Norton. It was the unspoken pain that not even Cowdray had dared mention until now.

    "Did you hear what she said to me?" said Silver. "Aboard the prize?"

    "No. I was down below, reducing Mr Miller's fracture of the tibio-fibula."

    "Oh. How's he doing?"

    "Nicely, Captain. I am pleased to say that he will walk again on two legs!"

    "Huh!" said Silver.

    "Oh!" said Cowdray, mortified. "I do apologise. How thoughtless. I am so sorry."

    Silver sighed again.

    "I tried to stop her," he said. "Told her what I thought. Then she told me what
she
thought, which was 'no more gentleman o' fortune'… and so we fell to hammer and tongs again, and then that pretty-faced cow stepped up and took her part, and said she'd carry my girl off to England and make a great actress out of her. And she believed it, and so she went."

    "What pretty-faced cow?"

    "The actress. She's supposed to be famous in England."

    "Who told you that?"

    "Cap'n Fitch and the rest, aboard
Venture's Fortune."

    "What was her name?"

    "Cooper. Mrs Katherine Cooper of Drury Lane. Said my Selena was so beautiful - which she is - that she
must
succeed upon the stage." He smiled sadly. "I hope she does."

    Cowdray shot bolt upright in his chair.

    "Captain," he said, "was this a small, very pretty woman in her fifties?"

    "Aye. That'd be her."

    "And her name was Katherine Cooper?"

    "Aye."

"Katty
Cooper?"

    "I did hear that was her name… among friends."

    "Friends?" said Cowdray. "Friends be damned! Katty's her
professional
name. She's no actress! She's
Cat-House
Cooper, the procuress! She ran the biggest brothel in the Caribbean, and made a speciality of importing fresh young black girls from the plantations. God help us… we've sent Selena to London to be made a whore!"

Chapter 10

An hour after dawn (there being no watches kept nor bells struck)

2nd April 1753

Aboard Oraclaesus

The Atlantic

    Billy Bones ran from end to end of the lower deck. He'd already checked the hold.

    "Ahoy!" he roared. "Shake out and show a leg!" And he beat a drum roll on the ship's timbers with a belaying pin, brought down for the purpose. Finally he stopped to listen: there was silence except for the ship's own creaking and sighing, almost as if she knew what was coming. "With me!" he said, and ran up to the main deck with two men in his wake, and roared out the same challenge.

    He bellowed and yelled from end to end of the ship, past the silent guns, staggering under the sickening motion of the rolling, hove-to vessel that clattered its blocks and rattled its rigging and complained and moaned.

    "Ahoy there! Show out, you lubbers!" cried Billy Bones. But nobody answered. The ship was empty except for him and his two men. Finally they checked the quarterdeck, the fo'c'sle and the tops… all of which they already knew to be empty. But Billy Bones checked them anyway. Only then did he give the order, and one of his men opened the lantern kept secured on the quarterdeck and took a light from the candle within, and lit the three torches: long timber treenails with greasy rags bound about their tips. Taking the torches, Billy and his accomplices doubled to the three carefully prepared fire points in the hold.

    In each place a pile of inflammables had been assembled: crumpled paper, leading to scraps of small timber, leading to casks of paint, and linseed oil ready broached, and finally to stacked heaps of canvas and small spars: a vile mixture aboard a wooden ship, and one which made Billy Bones's flesh crawl, for the time he'd done the same aboard Long John's ship,
Lion
, for which action he was deeply ashamed. Old Nick would surely claim him for that deed when the time came.

    But this was different. They were burning a plague ship under Captain Flint's orders, to save poor mariners from certain death should any come upon her afloat and the miasma of the sickness still aboard - which, from the stink of her, it certainly was. Bones and his men had already set
Jumper
aflame for the same reason, and now it was the frigate's turn.

    Billy's face glowed in the firelight as he waited a minute to see that the fire was really under way. Then, with the crackling flames eating hot upon his cheeks, he cried: "All hands to the boat!" And he leapt to his feet and got himself smartly up on deck. Not running, for that might unsettle the hands, but moving at a brisk pace to get away from the flames now roaring down below. And he was right not to run, for the two men were waiting on deck with round eyes and mouths open in superstitious dread of what they'd done.

    Billy Bones took one last look - fore, aft, aloft - at the great and beauteous work of man that they were destroying: the soaring masts, the wide yards, the sweet-curving coppered hull and the mighty guns; the cables, anchors, boats and spars; the stores of beef, beer and biscuit, of oil, pitch and tar, of candles, tallow, rope and twine. God knows what she'd cost the king and the nation!

    More than that, a ship was a community afloat, bearing the cooper's adze, the tailor's shears and the chaplain's bible, together with all the small and beloved goods of her people: their books, letters and locks of true-love's hair.

    By Flint's orders, all possible goods and stores had been taken off, including the squadron's war chest of two thousand pounds in gold. All else had been left behind - including the personal wealth of her officers: their purses, pistols, jewels, watches and wines - for even when it came to such precious items as these, there was a limit to what could be crammed into a sloop one quarter the size of the big frigate. And in any case, so far as Billy Bones was concerned - now increasingly believing that he served the king once more - it was grave-robbing and an unclean deed to pillage the sea-chests of brother officers.

    So all these wonders were put to the flames, including the contents of the ship's two magazines: which - even leaving aside the ready-made, flannel cartridges - contained two hundred ninety-pound, copper-bound kegs holding a total of eight tons of powder.

    "Go on!" said Billy, and the two hands were over the side at the main chains and scrambling down into the boat that was bumping and rolling alongside. It was a launch, chosen for speed, and six nervous men were waiting at the oars. Billy Bones's two men made eight: enough to make the launch fly. He sighed, and followed at the dignified pace of the senior man. "Give way!" he cried at last, and the oarsmen threw their weight - heart, soul, mind and strength - upon the oars in their eagerness to escape the doomed ship and her brim- full magazines.

    It was woven into Billy Bones's nature to tell
any
crew of oarsmen to put their backs into it; to spur them on, just as a matter of principle… but even he could see that it wasn't needed on this occasion. The hands were terrified and pulling like lunatics. For one thing, they could see what was happening astern. They could see the red flames pouring out of
Leaper'
s hatches, and the smoke curling up from
Oraclaesus.
But Billy Bones thought it beneath his dignity to look back, and he steered for the distant
Bounder
where Flint awaited with the new crew, and the new future.

    They were nearly alongside of her when the first explosion came, and the oarsmen lost stroke as they gaped at the ghastly sight. Now even Billy Bones couldn't resist looking, and he turned in time to see
Oraclaesus
break her back: stern and bow drooping, and midships blown clear out of the water by the enormous violence of an explosion that threw flame and smoke and fragments of smashed gear tumbling high into the air, including - hideous to see - the entire, massive, one- hundred-and-eighty-foot mainmast - topmast, t'gallant and all - hurled its own length and more, straight up, with the great yards snapping like cannon-fire and trailing a tangle of rigging and sailcloth… only to hang… and curve… and fall smashing and rumbling down into the blazing wreckage of the ship, throwing up sparks and flame and ash.

    Billy Bones sobbed. He was a seaman born and bred, an embodiment of the sea life, and he couldn't bear to see a ship - especially so fine a ship - come to such an end. As for the oarsmen, they'd served aboard
Oraclaesus
and she'd been their home and their pride: they threw their faces into their hands and wept… and the launch lost way and rolled horribly, with her oars to all points of the compass.

    Soon after,
Jumper
exploded, the flames for some unfathomable reason taking that bit longer to find her powder. But there were no more tears, only dull misery, for Billy Bones had his men pulling again, and running alongside
Bounder,
where he went up the side and was received by tars saluting. Having lifted his hat to the quarterdeck, he made his way aft to report.

    Flint - who didn't share Mr Bones's views on grave-robbing - was immaculate in a cocked hat and the gold-laced uniform coat of a lieutenant, with a fine sword at his side. He was standing at the windward side of the quarterdeck with his officers clustered in his lee as tradition demanded. These were Lieutenant Comstock, a lad of twenty, lately in command of
Leaper
and now rated first lieutenant; the red-coated Lieutenant Lennox, who was even younger; and finally Mr Baxter, ship's carpenter, but rated a watch-keeping officer by Flint. There was also the equivocal Mr Braddock, who was no seaman at all. He'd been Captain Baggot's band-master aboard
Oraclaesus,
and being in the captain's personal service was excused fighting and flogging, and considered himself a gentleman.

    Billy Bones looked at Braddock and sniffed. The lubber was full of himself and needed taking down. Then Billy glanced at the hands in the waist, and nodded in approval. Having combined the surviving crews of three ships, Flint now had a total of thirty-three men aboard
Bounder,
including twenty-five able seamen, one sergeant of marines, and two marine privates: a full and satisfactory number to work a two-hundred-ton, two-masted sloop and sail her anywhere in the wide world, especially as she was now provisioned to bursting point. Nonetheless, thirty-three was only a small complement should ever it be necessary to man her twelve six-pounders.

    "I'm come aboard, Cap'n!" said Billy Bones formally, giving a smart salute.

    "Well done, Mr Bones!" said Flint. "It is a sad task, that with which you were charged, but a needful one, and you have acquitted yourself well."

    Billy Bones bathed in the warmth of his master's approval, and also in pride at his master's splendour and all that he had recently achieved. Flint had saved all aboard
Oraclaesus,
and made the hard decision to abandon the frigate and concentrate all hands aboard
Bounder,
and to fire the other ships. He'd persuaded the men to follow him, and had acted in so fine and officer-like a manner as to prove that he was indeed the matchless leader that Billy Bones knew him to be… enabling Billy Bones - despite hideous and recent experience - to hope that his beloved master had changed for the better and become - once again - the man who'd won his undying allegiance all those years ago.