Silver (14 page)

Natty seemed not to notice this change in my mood, but kept looking round brightly and remarking on every twilit field and barn and farmer with a kind of astonishment. This told me that however much she loved her father, she was very glad to be free of him, and had soon found a way of putting him out of her mind. Spot, whose cage she had hung from a peg in the roundhouse, so that he swung with the rhythm of the ship, seemed equally at ease, and whistled at shipmates as they passed, or made occasional requests for ‘A little bit of cheese; a little bit of cheese’.

Captain Beamish on the other hand was practical in everything he did and said; his concentration, as we slid down the crowded current, restricted him to speaking only when he had orders to give. Once we had left the estuary, however, and were riding the steadier pulses of the channel along the coast of Kent, he began to mix his instructions with remarks about our progress (which was apparently good) and anything that happened to take his fancy on the shore – including some sort of fair, or circus, that had set out its stalls on one particular strand, and flicked its lights very prettily over the dark water.

The crew continued to go about their work with such enthusiasm, it seemed second nature to them. This was especially evident the first time they set all our sails – main, top and gallant on both sticks, and even the bowsprit to give us dash. Nothing in my acquaintance with the river had prepared me for such a grand performance, since I had previously been occupied merely with rowing-boats and suchlike. Here, suddenly, the whole sky seemed carved into solid squares and oblongs, each of which had a mind of their own and yet belonged to us – filling and heaving as we commanded, and putting a skip into our step so the
Nightingale
seemed to fly across the surface of the waves rather than cut through them.

Once this was done, it required several hands to keep an eye on
the weather, ready to make changes if the need arose. The rest of the crew now had more liberty to do as they pleased, which meant that after evening had fallen several gathered in the forward part of the ship, where they hung two or three lanterns and began talking among themselves. They did this with so much affability, I began to trust what Natty had told me about their good character.

This was especially striking since, when all was said and done, our cruise was nothing other than a treasure hunt, and therefore bound to stir an unusual degree of excitement. And it is true to say that most of the conversations on deck, including this first one I overheard, always ended with the same subject, which was the bar silver. My shipmates knew from the captain that the majority of it would be given to Mr Silver, our patron; they had also been assured that a percentage would be shared among them as payment and reward when the trip was finished.

The badger-bearded fellow I had seen supervising the loading of our supplies, and whom I now gathered went by the name of Bo’sun Kirkby, was at pains to dampen expectations on this score. He insisted (which I understood was true enough) that the great bulk of treasure had been removed from the island during my father’s visit. Several others were reluctant to believe this, or interpreted ‘a modest amount o’ bounty’ as a considerable hoard – none more so that the party who said least, but whom I saw repeatedly clasp his fingers together, then unknot them to touch the scar beneath his mutilated ear.

‘Who is he?’ I asked Natty, with a tilt of my head. By this time we were off the coast of Sussex and well under way, with our sails fairly bulging.

‘Jordan Hands,’ she said at once, and pulled down her hat until the brim was touching her eyebrows. ‘He is the nephew of Israel Hands.’ She spoke with no great emphasis, and might have been telling me the price of herring.

‘Israel Hands?’ I repeated, astonished. ‘The man my father killed? Israel Hands who was Captain Flint’s gunner in the old days?’

‘The same.’

I stared at her, still incredulous, but she would not meet my eye and continued quite calmly. ‘Jordan is a careful young seaman, and you have nothing to fear. He is not the same man as his uncle. He bears you no ill will, my father assures me of that. Besides, my father has chosen him to come, so come he shall.’

‘But you told me the captain had selected all the crew,’ I protested.

‘And so he has,’ Natty replied. ‘All excepting Jordan.’

‘He must know who I am,’ I continued. ‘He will tell the others.’

‘That cannot be his plan,’ Natty said. ‘If it was, he would have done so already. You are making a fuss, Jim; there is no reason to worry. The captain is content.’

This was said with a rather haughty air, as if I were foolish to think there might be anything untoward. But I could not help my surprise turning into something like anger. ‘How can you say he bears me no ill will?’ I said. ‘By the look of him, I’d say he wants me dead in my boots.’

Natty folded her arms and turned her back to the wind; her face glowed faintly in the light of the lanterns. ‘He is melancholy,’ she said, ‘that is all. He gives the same greeting to everyone.’

‘Which is no greeting whatsoever,’ I replied. ‘My father has spoken of Israel Hands more than any of the crew who went before us, apart from your father himself. He was a murderer, that is all.’

‘Israel was a companion to my father,’ said Natty. ‘But he did not …’ She paused, and bit the inside of her lip. ‘He did not
adapt
like my father.’

‘He did not adapt?’ I said quickly. ‘He could not adapt because he was lying on the seabed. Because my father killed him.’

I expected Natty would at least show some sympathy at this, preferably for my father and what he had done to save his life. But none was forthcoming. She merely shook her head, as if to show that everything I had said was an exaggeration she could not take seriously.

I shook my own head in return. I felt I had been tricked, and made to accept a danger where none needed to exist. But there was nothing I could do to lessen it, except be vigilant. Be vigilant and, if I did not want to sour everything between myself and Natty, let the matter drop, which I immediately did. At the same time, I reckoned it cavalier of her, and surprising of the captain, to assume they would have my agreement on so delicate a matter. It told me how much they were both in thrall to Mr Silver. The old man’s force of personality was evidently still extraordinary, although his body had almost ceased to be.

When I turned my attention back to the rest of my shipmates, I found they had almost exhausted the subject of treasure, except to remind one another that the bar silver had been left by Captain Flint at the same time as he deposited the larger hoard – the one my father had already taken. The hushed tone in which they spoke of what they hoped to discover was quite unlike the rapaciousness my father had found on his own voyage. Instead, it seemed to bestow a magical quality, even a luminosity, on everything they said; I think they felt the words glowing in their mouths as they talked, in the same way they imagined the ingots themselves, shining in their hiding-place beneath the sand.

This kind of dreaminess ended when Mr Tickle (whom I had noticed before on account of his yellow pipe and fuzzy beard), brought up the matter of the
maroons –
the three pirates left behind by the
Hispaniola
. Mr Tickle wondered aloud what had become of them.

‘Turned into skeletons,’ said Bo’sun Kirkby very abruptly – which I thought showed that he did not like to think of their suffering.

‘Turned into gardeners,’ said another by the name of Mr Stevenson – a Scotsman and a wisp of a fellow, whose place was generally in the crow’s-nest, where he acted as our lookout.

‘Eating each other,’ said Mr Allan, which – judging by their laughter – the others thought was a cook’s prerogative. But when this merriment had died away, another voice added his thoughts, and this belonged to Jordan Hands; it was the first time I had heard him speak.

‘More likely they’ll have prospered,’ he said. His voice was very quiet but at the same time definite, as though his remarks were based on knowledge and not conjecture (which was of course impossible). ‘They were left a good stock of powder and shot, along with a few medicines, and some other necessaries such as tools, clothing, a spare sail, and a fathom or two of rope. Also, I believe, a handsome present of tobacco.’ He broke off to swallow with a dry click. ‘And the bulk of the salted goat, which they could eat before they set about the animals that are native to the island, and the berries, and the oysters. Oh, they’ll have prospered, no doubt on that score. Prospered very nicely, I expect.’

This verdict cast a chill over everyone, and although daylight had now entirely drained from the sky, I was still able to see disappointment hollowing their faces, as they absorbed the idea that the island might not after all be theirs and theirs alone.

Mr Allan tried to rally them by repeating ‘goat and berries and oysters’ twice more, in an admiring murmur as any cook might. But his good cheer was now in vain, and the conversation was done. Within a moment, the men had found an excuse of work to finish, and the whole long deck was empty except for the captain at the wheel, and Natty at my side. Then Natty said she was going to our
cabin, and yawned to show me why, before saying goodnight to Spot at his place in the roundhouse (by draping his orange cloth over the cage) and vanishing towards the companionway.

The suddenness of these departures was surprising. But the novelty of the situation, and my pleasure in having myself to myself, persuaded me I should feel grateful and seize the chance to take stock. Accordingly, I moved forward to the prow of the
Nightingale
, beyond the reach of the lanterns, where I could look over the glimmering water that stretched ahead of us.

A feeling of great solitude came over me – one that took no account of the captain at the wheel, or Mr Stevenson above, where he had climbed to keep the first watch of the night, or the dozen other warm bodies below, including Natty. I told myself this was because I had a proper sense of the largeness of the world for the first time in my life, and also of its indifference. Our prow broke through the waves with a grace that was wonderful, but knew nothing of wonder. The moon, which was now beginning to climb between the clouds, timed our progress but knew nothing of time. The waves produced a most delicate mingling of cream and brown, and blue and black, but knew nothing of delicacy.

All this might have been alarming, yet it filled me with a profound sense of quiet. I held my arms straight down at my sides and let the breeze rush over my face and chest, cleansing me of everything that had weighed on me during my previous life. As I did so I heard a tune strike up, which I turned to see the captain was squeezing from an accordion. It was a far cry from the ‘Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest’ and the ‘Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum’ they had sung on the
Hispaniola
. Drink and the devil had done for those endless old ballads. The captain’s song was ‘The Sailor’s Farewell’, a love-ditty that anyone might learn in their youth when they begin
to follow the sea, and which he now played while leaning against the wheel:

The captain’s voice was very deep and true, and his song made me think of ancient things – the thoughts I had known, or rather felt, about my mother and father and the land where I was born. These lived very vividly in me for several minutes, but soon their beauty became too difficult to bear. I called goodnight to the captain and quickly went below decks, where the darkness felt more comfortable. When I looked at Natty on the pillow she appeared to be asleep, so I continued gazing in silence for a moment, admiring the dark beauty of her face, and especially of her closed eyes, which seemed to tremble beneath their lids as though they were conscious of my attention. This gave me a delicious feeling of conspiracy, but was at the same time disconcerting. A moment later, I had climbed up my little ladder, lain down on my bunk, and closed my own eyes tight shut.

The weather treated us kindly, and within two days the
Nightingale
lay off Start Point on the coast of Devon, which was our last view of old England. The crew came on deck around sunset, and stood in silence as I had once or twice in my schooldays seen the audience do at a theatre. Our entertainment was not in the foreground, which showed nothing more interesting than a few seagulls wheeling through the uncertain light, but rather in the background, where smoke rose from cottage chimneys, fishing-boats returned to their harbour, and miniature figures melted from the quays. None of these things showed much evidence of particular lives, yet they suggested an
idea
of life that we were sorry to lose – however great our reward might soon be elsewhere. It was my first apprehension of a reliable truth: that every sea-journey gives a presentiment of death, before allowing us to be
born again. This discovery made me one of several who sat down very quietly to Mr Allan’s food that evening, and went to bed early.

I dare say my shipmates were not surprised to see me do this. Because my place on board was neither precisely crew nor guest, I had already set myself apart from the flow of things. It was the same for Natty, who of course was universally known as Nat. In the days that followed, when the rhythms of our journey were established, we were confined to a role that might at best be called
skivvying
(coiling ropes, scrubbing decks, painting bulwarks, et cetera), and at worst
idling
(sleeping, staring, daydreaming). Natty, I might add, was often chided in a harmless sort of way for being a very girlish sort of boy as she set about her tasks – no matter how she bulked herself up and used a gruff voice. She took this in good part as though entirely used to such banter, which proved an effective way of concealing the truth of her situation.