Skull and Bones (30 page)

    And London trembled from east to west and north to south as such a cheer arose from Tyburn as had never been heard in all its five hundred years as a place of execution…

    … as Flint dropped free of the gallows and fell into the chaise!

    Silver heaved mightily to get the rope from his throat, and rubbed his chest and chafed his limbs and prayed for the life of the man he detested above all others, while Flash Jack kicked the dead from the chaise and whipped up the horses and drove speeding through the mob, which opened like the

    Red Sea before Moses, except that Moses wasn't cheered, idolised, adored and urged onward as he passed.

    Thus the chaise rocked and galloped away down Oxford Street, heading for London at dizzy speed, while Silver's and King Jimmy's men merged into the wildly milling crowd, and the newspaper writers ruptured themselves in the speed of their pencilling and loosing pigeons, and the few remaining javelin-men were beaten senseless, and the lightly wounded lay groaning, the heavily wounded lay dying, and the already dead lay stiffening, with the pickpockets feeling for their goods.

    But the mob wasn't done. Not it! Not yet! It was more worked up than it had been for years. It had smelled blood. It had killed and had men killed. It boiled and seethed, and - fired up with wicked glee - it sought further entertainment.

    First it robbed the pie-men and gin-sellers, then it wrecked and burned down the grandstands where the wealthy - now wisely departed - had sat. Next it conducted a diligent search of itself for Catholics, Jews, dissenters, foreigners and others whom it did not like, and sent them on their way with bloody noses and a boot up the arse. Then, swaggering, roaring and vastly steaming in the cold November air, it rolled down Oxford Street in the very tracks of the chaise that had rescued its hero, where it got to down to some serious work by overturning carriages, smashing windows, looting shops and setting fire to any houses thought to be owned by persons hostile to the bold Captain Flint.

    Meanwhile Flash Jack shook in horror in the galloping chaise, for the things he'd seen and the things he'd done, which were such as he'd never experienced in all his comfortable life. Then a voice yelled in his ear:

    "Avast!" said Silver. "Back your topsail. Heave-to you swab!"

    "Oh…" said Flash Jack, and hauled on the reins and brought the horses to a trembling walk, and they gasped and panted, as he did himself.

    "Where are we?" said Silver, looking round the empty streets.

    "Near Tottenham Court Road," said Flash Jack, born and bred in London.

    "Poor bloody Jimmy!" said Silver. "Was he dead?"

    "Yes… I think so."

    "But you heaved him over anyway, poor bugger!" Silver shook his head. He pointed to the roadside. "Drop anchor over there."

    With the chaise stopped, Silver knelt beside Flint, who was laid under the seat, unmoving. He put his head to Flint's chest. He took a silver dollar from his pocket, rubbed it on his sleeve and held it to Flint's lips.

    "Pah!" he said in disgust.

    "God, let him live!" said Flash Jack.

    "Devil, more like!" said Silver… as Flint opened his eyes and looked at Silver, for he was indeed alive. He was alive but sunk in dread. He'd known what it was to die. He
had
died as far as he knew, and even the most tremendous of minds doesn't come clean away from
that
: not clean nor quick nor unharmed, and Flint shuddered and shook, as once again - in burning memory - he suffered the agonies of death by strangulation.

    "John…" he said to the familiar face, and groaned and raised a hand to clutch for light and life, and escape from torment.

    "Joe," said Silver, "you stay there. We can talk later." Then he threw a blanket over Flint so he'd not be seen, and sat up on the seat beside Flash Jack. "You're the fly cove! You're the bounding boy! So where are we going? We planned for Jimmy's warehouse, but all my dealings was with him. I can't trust his people without him."

    "I've got a house," said Flash Jack, "off Cable Street."

    "I knows of none better," said Silver. "Whip 'em up. But slow an' easy." He looked at the near-deserted streets. "There's no bugger, hardly, here to see us, what with 'em all gone to the hanging. But make it slow and easy."

    Later, the chaise drove into Well Close Square, by the Danish church, and into a yard behind the house, where there was a small stable for the horses, and they got Flint to his feet and led him staggering inside, leaning on the two of them.

    "Nice!" said Silver, when the door was shut and locked and Flint had been settled in a big Windsor chair in the parlour.

Nice
was hardly the word. The room was exquisite: burnished, cleaned, polished, and neat beyond all reason. The whole house was the same, and fitted out with the most beautiful of furniture, ornaments and pictures: all in harmony, all elegant, all beautifully chosen.

    Flash Jack smiled.

    "It is my little quiet place," he said. "Where I bring friends."

    "Do you now?" said Silver.

    "Yes," said Flash Jack, for it was true, though the
friends
were always paid.

    "Drink," said Flint, swaying and hanging on to the arms of the chair. "Drink, for the love of God." He was pawing at his throat, where a red weal had been burned into his skin by the rope. He was shuddering and shivering.

    Flash Jack took over. He was an excellent host, an excellent cook, and kept a fine cellar. Soon he emerged from his kitchen with a couple of bottles of claret and a dish of buttered bread slices, cut into triangles, with sliced beef and pickles between.

    "Very tasty," said Silver, munching one of the triangles.

    "Johnny Montagu's own recipe," said Flash Jack, an incurable name-dropper. "He tells me they're to be named after himself:
sandwiches
- for he's the Earl of Sandwich, as you know."

    But they weren't listening. Silver was looking at Flint, and Flint was looking at Silver. For them there was nobody else in the room. Far too much had passed between them for that.

    Flint drained a glass, breathed deep, and spoke. His voice croaked and he was weak. He wasn't himself. Not nearly. Not by a hundred thousand miles.

    "You got my offer, John?"

    "The treasure for your life?"

    "Yes."

    "Aye. I got it, from him -" Silver nodded at Flash Jack. "Why else would I cut you down?"

    Flint nodded. He shuddered, and in the extremity of his horror at meeting death, his mind was so altered that he was honest.

    "The treasure?" he said, and drew a neat little silver cylinder from his pocket. About the size of a man's finger, it was a porte-crayon, designed to hold a pen or pencil… but this one didn't. Flint unscrewed a cap at one end, and shook out a tight roll of papers, covered in tiny handwriting… Flint's handwriting.

    "The map," he said, "merely finds the island, where you can search for ever and not find the goods."

    "I know!" said Silver.

    "But these notes," said Flint, "give precision."

    Flash Jack looked at the papers.

    "Why so much detail?" he asked.

    "To begin with," said Flint, "there are several burial sites, not one. They are in jungle clearings which even I couldn't find again without the bearings and measurements I took from such points as nature provided: great rocks and giant trees." Flint shook his head. "If once you go wrong, you'll never find the next bearing point. So it's all or nothing. Even half the papers would be useless."

    Flint sank back, his voice weak from so much speech, and Flash Jack reached out to touch the cylinder.

    "No!" gasped Flint. "Don't touch it, Mr Jackson. You can guess where I hide it, when searched." "Ugh!" said Flash Jack, and recoiled as if from a spider, for he was intensely fastidious in all matters of hygiene.

    "So," said Silver. "How's things, my cocker?"

    Flint sighed.

    "I never did admire that appellation, John. For it is crassly vulgar."

    "Huh! So you ain't quite dead!"

    "No," said Flint, straining to speak and fingering his neck. "But I'm not quite alive, neither, for the belly and bowels of me think that I'm dead!" And he shook violently as emotions heaved in the depths of his soul.

    "Joe!" said Silver, half out of his chair, for the friendship had once been great, and Flint was suffering.

    "No!" said Flint. "Be still." And he forced out words with great difficulty. "Here's a thing, John…"

    "What?"

    "When I was on the rope…"

    "Leave it, Joe," he said. "Maybe later, when you're fit?"

    "No. It must be said. When I was on the rope… and dying…"

    "Don't, Joe!"

    "I expected to see my father at the gates of Hell."

    "What, to save you?"

    "No! As my
punishment."
Flint looked at Silver. "Did you have a father?"

    "Aye!"

    "Was he a good man?"

    "A rough bugger," said Silver. "Laid on hard with the belt."

    "There are worse things," said Flint, and bowed his head and sat quiet a while. Then he looked up. "My father was not there," he said.

    "No?" said Silver.

    "But
you
were, John. I saw you."

    Now Silver shuddered.

    "What was I doing?"

    "I don't know. But you were reaching out."

    "Was I trying to save you?"

    "I don't know."

    "Why not?"

    "Because
she
was beside you, and I was looking only at
her."

    Silence. Profound silence.

    "And what was she doing?" said Silver, finally.

    "Nothing. She wouldn't look at me."

    Flint groaned, for the rejection was worse than death. It was damnation. He closed his eyes, ground his teeth, clenched his fists, and managed - just - to fight himself up out of the deep of despair… only to find a tempest of passions awaiting on the surface: unbearable relief, gratitude for life, guilt, remorse, and more. And under these tormenting forces, acting on irresistible impulse, he did a most tremendous thing…

    He took up the papers which led to the treasure.

    He folded them diagonally in half.

    He pinched the fold tight with his fingernails.

    And tore the papers in two.

    "Here!" he said, handing half to Silver and keeping half himself: "Let us begin again."

Chapter
27

Mid-morning, Tuesday, 27th November 1753

The gates of Newgate Gaol

London

    The ram surged ahead, heaved by several dozen of the mob's finest. It thundered against iron-bound oak, and the locks and bars groaned, while all within the prison walls gulped and trembled. A few brave souls snatched up arms and fired on the mob through the windows… and received such a hail of brick-ends and cobble stones as sent them reeling back in their own smoke, battered and bloodied, and covered in the splintered remains of frames, putty, paint and glass.

    "ANOTHER!" roared the seething mass at the gates, and the ram-bearers took a firmer grip, and staggered back, bowling over and trampling down all those who failed to get clear of their ponderous recoil… then…

    "FORWARD!" they cried and the ram went in again.

    Half an hour earlier it had been a respectable beech tree, growing peacefully in Warwick Square, doing no harm to any man. But then it had been hacked down, lopped off, and borne away in the mighty arms of chair-men, coal-heavers, butcher boys and all such others as were ready to raise a decent sweat in a good cause.

    BOOOM! went the prison gates.

    "ANOTHER!" roared the mob, now in its second day of fun, and dangerously swollen with all the trollops of the town, egging the men on and pouring drink down them, and charging sixpence for a stand-up against the wall.

    The mob was tens of thousands strong. It was a pandemonium of wicked glee. It was an elemental force that carried all before it, invincible, unconquerable and unstoppable - except by the army. But the army was still in barracks, while the mob was fired up and bent on vengeance against the hated Newgate Gaol, where the hero Joe Flint had been incarcerated.

CRRRRRRRRUNCH!
said the gates to the gaol, and a mighty cheer arose as the timberwork gave up the fight and splintered and sundered and fell open, and the ram was dropped, bouncing, booming and recoiling and smashing feet and breaking limbs… and the mob was jamming, cramming and forcing itself into the narrow doorway and into the gaol, waving axes, hammers, knives, cudgels, and flaming torches.