Skull and Bones (32 page)

    "Oh no!" said Flint, cursing himself even as the blow struck.

    "Bugger!" said John Silver, hopping and scrambling to catch up, and with Israel Hands behind him. "What have you done?"

    "She had a pistol!" cried Flint.

    "Aye!" said Billy Bones, and three men knelt by the small, fallen body, while Silver loomed over them on his crutch.

    "It's all right!" said Israel Hands. "She's stunned, that's all!"

    "Thank God!" they cried.

    "Damn!" said Flint. "What could I do?"

    "Dunno, Joe," said Silver, and reached out and pulled Flint to his feet.

    "Billy," said Flint, "pick her up! Bring her!"

    Billy Bones swept Selena up in his arms, Flint threw her dressing gown over her, and Silver stroked her face, groaning at the blood in her hair.

    "What about him?" said Israel Hands, looking at Sir Matthew, who was stirring.

    "Kill him!" said Flint, and pulled a knife from his sleeve.

    "No!" said Silver. "He owns half Berkshire! It'd raise old Nick if we slit him!"

    "So?" said Flint. "They can only…" He was going to say
hang us once,
but he couldn't. He couldn't get the words out. They revolted him to the very core of his self. He shuddered heavily, and felt his neck, and looked to Silver for guidance, but Silver was frowning and looking round the beautiful room.

    "Wait a bit," said Silver. "Why's this been so easy? Where's the bully boys?"

    "Aye!" said Israel Hands. "This is supposed to be a knocking shop."

    "And no man's fought back, than him!" said Silver, pointing to Sir Matthew.

    "It don't
look
like no knocking shop," said Israel Hands.

    The four men fell silent. They could hear Sir Matthew's heavy gasping and the muttering of their fellows guarding the servants downstairs.

    "Hark to that!" said Silver. "There's no bugger here but them -" He looked at Sir Matthew and Selena. "Them an' some maids and a cook." He shook his head. "This ain't right, shipmates!"

    "Flash Jack said she was dragged here," said Israel Hands.

    "Dammit," said Flint. "Are we nincompoops?"

    "Best be gone, Cap'n," said Billy Bones, "whatever we be!"

    So it was downstairs, and the servants locked in the cellar and the door closed nice and quiet, and Selena carried gently into a closed carriage with Flint and Silver inside, and Billy Bones and Israel Hands on the box, and the rest of Silver's men quietly making off on foot. A few faces appeared at windows, and curtains twitched in the houses alongside, but nothing else. They'd made little noise. That part - at least - of their plan had worked.

    Within the hour, all hands were aboard
Walrus
and "Captain" Warrington was pacing his quarterdeck while "his" crew got up the anchors and made sail. Some of the remaining store of McLonarch's coin eased the suspicion of the Trinity House pilot, and that of other shore authorities, that
Walrus
was setting sail so abruptly. It was given out that she was bound for Newcastle to take on a load of coals for London, which would bring a good price with winter coming on. So, with a strong westerly, and the tide in their favour,
Walrus
cleared the pool of London and was off Canvey Island at the mouth of the Thames within twelve hours.

    Meanwhile, Selena was made comfortable in a hammock slung in the great cabin, and Dr Cowdray bound up her head and said that her life was in the balance, and she must have utter quiet. Even Flint and Silver kept away from her after that, and it wasn't for many hours that Cowdray brought them in to see her, semi-conscious and murmuring to herself.

    They stood looking at her and each other, awaiting Cowdray's words, in the gently rolling, lamp-lit cabin.

    "She'll live," he said. "No bones are broken, and the scarring will be hidden by her hair… but what in God's name did you think you were at?" he demanded. "Both of you!"

    "You heard Flash Jack," said Silver guiltily.

    "He said she was sold by Katty Cooper," said Flint.

    "Aye!" said Silver. "And you know
her,
Doctor!"

    "And
you
said this was how she worked!" said Flint.

    Now Cowdray blushed.

    "Well," he said, looking at Selena, "that's how whores are made. A procuress like Miss Cooper sells the first use of them, which is taken by deceit or by force, and then - being debauched - the poor creature is held to the life by shame."

    "And that's what Flash Jack said Katty Cooper was a- doing!" said Silver. "With that bugger of a brewer paying for it!"

    "No," said Flint. He paused and looked at Selena, and forced himself to speak a truth that he didn't want to believe. "I think she was there by choice. Of her own free will."

    Silver groaned and Flint unthinkingly put his hand on Silver's shoulder in sympathy. Cowdray gaped in wonderment, but the two men stood united by the very flaw that was Flash Jack's own. They'd believed him
because they'd wanted to,
not because it made sense. Each had wanted to come to the rescue. Each wanted Selena more than life, or reason, or sense.

    "A-hem!" said Warrington, standing hat in hand in the cabin doorway. "Gentlemen, we've dropped the pilot and the ship's ours. So I was wondering what course to set? And begging-your-pardons, but it's coming on to blow."

    Which it was. But the tempest was nothing compared with Selena's fury when she awoke.

Chapter 28

Three bells of the forenoon watch

3rd January 1754

Aboard Walrus

The Atlantic

    "Ware the bugger!" cried a voice, lost in the violence of the storm, and a pair of strong arms hauled John Silver clear of certain death as his crutch slipped on the seething, heaving deck that was knee-deep in foaming water.

    "Ah!" cried Long John as Billy Bones pulled him from the onrushing path of a loose gun: eight feet of barrel on a squat, rumbling carriage that trailed tackles, still fast-bound to the clunking, futile bolts that should have secured it to the ship's side: two tons of slick-wet, murderous oak and iron that groaned and scraped and slid from beam to beam as the ship heaved.

    It was freezing winter. The blocks were jammed with ice. The sails were sheet iron. No man could feel fingers or toes, and it was devil's work to go aloft. An hour ago the gale had split the topsails, and without the steadying pressure of lofty sails,
Walrus
rolled horribly, causing one of the biggest guns - hanging by its tackles - to draw its bolts where hidden rot had spoiled their grip of the ship's timbers.

    CRRRUNCH! The gun ground into the lee bulwark.

    Already there was one man with a smashed leg, and the gun - having tasted blood - was clearly out for more. All hands were on deck with rolled hammocks, trying to get them under the gun's trucks to catch it and stop it. And all the while the gale was howling, the ship plunging, and themselves wrapped in hampering winter gear: fur hats, mittens and greatcoats with tarred waterproofs on top.

    Flint was leading the hunt for the maddened gun. The crew looked to him for leadership in the matter, for
he
had two legs.

    "Get below, Cap'n!" cried Billy Bones to Long John. "Ain't no place for a man what's lost a pin!" He wasn't mocking. He was concerned.

    Silver marvelled at the change in Billy Bones, even as another thunderclap roared and lightning flashed, and hailstones came down like grapeshot that battered and bounced and made the decks yet more dangerous than already they were. Wedging his crutch under his arm, Silver clung on to a lifeline and looked at Billy Bones: alive and alert in this deadly danger; and roused from the solemn sadness that had been his when first he came aboard behind his master.

    Meanwhile
Walrus
plunged her sharp prow deep into a wave, driven by the colossal pressure on her remaining sails, and green water rolled from bow to stern, just as Flint hurled himself in the path of the gun and got a sodden mass of hammock under the fat oaken wheels, and stopped the gun… only for the wave to sluice and lift and heave… and free the gun once more, and Flint staggered back, clear, by inches, as the gun charged forward like a bull.

    He fell into the arms of Israel Hands and Mr Joe, who were hanging to lifelines, and he laughed and caught Silver's eye, for if Billy Bones was changed, Flint was changed marvellously. He laughed in the icy wet. It was fresh and clean. It was ruthless and simple. And there was a man's job to be done.

    Flint leapt again, snatching a hammock from Israel Hands. Any other man would have gone to his death under the grinding wheels of the gun as the ship's motion set it off again. But not Flint. He was too quick. He caught it just as it boomed against the mainmast, smashing the stand of pikes that surrounded it, and he jammed the hammock under its wheels, and all hands fell on with lines to lash and secure the gun to the mast, and Flint stood back, gasping and panting… and happy.

    "John! John!" he cried, clapping Silver on the shoulder, beaming a radiant smile.

    And Silver cherished the warm belief that this was indeed a new dawn of old times. As for Billy Bones, he grinned from ear to ear, and was profoundly happy even on a bounding deck, soaking wet, and frozen to the marrow.

    "Well done, Joe!" said Silver, with a full heart: not that any of this speech was heard, not with the heavens in fury and the wind roaring at the wild sea.

    "Huh!" said Flint, in the comradeship of the moment, and saw so much that was good around him, and so little that was bad… Just two problems, of which the lesser was ignorance on their present position; Flint didn't know where he was within a hundred miles.

    Later, in the master's cabin, Flint explained this to the ship's navigating officers: Warrington, Billy Bones and Mr Joe. Likewise Silver, who was no navigator nor ever would be but was captain… at least for the moment. The five men stood close together in the small cabin, peering down at a chart, under the light of swinging lanterns. The ship groaned and creaked around them, and the elements beat in anger on the planks above their heads, but at least they could hear one another's voices.

    "So where are we, Joe?" said Silver. Flint frowned.

    "Our course should have been south to the latitude of the Canaries or Cape Verde Islands, then westward to seek the trade winds to carry us across the Atlantic."

    "Aye!" they said. They all knew that, even Silver. It was every mariner's route to the Americas.

    "But…" said Flint "… first we were blown northwest for days, and now southeast - which is no bad thing in itself - but we're running before the wind, going two hundred miles a day or more - and even that's a guess, for the last time we hove the log, we lost it!"

    They nodded. There'd been no measurement of the ship's speed for days, nor sight of the sun or stars.

    "So," said Flint, pointing down at the chart, "we could be off Portugal, or Spain, or even North Africa!"

    "But what's your guess, Joe?" said Silver, and reached up to pet the big green parrot that sat on his shoulder again, now that he was out of the storm. Flint looked at the bird that had once been his, such that he could stroke her without fear of losing fingers to the savage beak. But not any more. They'd parted badly. Which reminded him of the second problem: the greater one, the problem that bore equally on Flint and on Silver.

    "I'm done with you both!" she'd said once she was awake: not angry or shouting, for she was more disgusted than anything else; disgusted that she'd been snatched away like a piece of property…
like a slave.
It hurt all the more for her steady, measured voice: "Matthew Blackstone was a kind man," she'd said. "Better than either of you, and I was making my own way, by my own choice! I was paid a fortune in Drury Lane to make people
happy!
What do I want with you bloody-handed
animals!'"
The last word hurled with shrivelling contempt, right in their faces: an ugly thing for men to hear from the woman they've been dreaming about for month upon lonely month, she being the one above all others who stabs the heart with longing…

    And when they'd explained there was no turning back - not with hangings awaiting in England, and the wind driving them on - then she really did lose her temper and every man aboard heard what she said.

    It had been bad, very bad, for both men. And yet it united them.

    "Joe?" said Silver. "Where are we?"

    Flint said nothing, but Warrington and Billy Bones scratched their heads and screwed up their faces in concentration.