Skull and Bones (44 page)

    "Aye-aye, Cap'n!" said Israel Hands, and within seconds the big Spanish banners that Burillo had brought aboard were breaking from the halliards and catching the wind, to a huge cheer from the Spanish soldiers, and a great waving of hats and raising of muskets in delight.

    "Bring the longboat alongside!" cried Burillo. "All hands, stand by for boat drill!"

    "Bugger!" said Silver, studying the battery, which was ideally placed to hurl shot right through his decks, for the smoke of the first fire was blown clear and he could actually see the black muzzles running out into their embrasures, as the crews behind them heaved on their tackles.

    "John!" said Selena, and tried to say something, clutching and hanging on to his arm. But he wasn't listening.

    "Clap a hitch, my lovely!" he said, and looked down into the small, beloved face, and in that terrible instant he damned the fighting and bitching there'd been between them. He damned it from the bottom of his heart, and wept for the lies and broken promises he'd made. Then, in fear of imminent death, he cast his arms around her and kissed her and pushed her towards Mr Joe.

    "Take her below, lad," he said. "Take my girl below, for I can't see no harm come to her! Not one hair nor one fingernail!

    "Aye-aye, Cap'n!"

    "Just get her out of reach of shot!"

    Mr Joe vanished below decks, dragging Selena behind him, even as dozens more Spanish soldiers poured up from their hiding places, all cheering and waving along with the rest. Burillo and his officers were bellowing and calling, and shoving them into line, and a picked team of soldiers and Spanish seamen were hauling the longboat alongside, then discipline finally fell upon the whole seething mass of men, muskets, bayonets, cartouche boxes, and rank and file formed, with a regimental flag to the fore, and the drums sounding a long roll.

"España!
" cried Burillo, skewering his hat on his sword and holding it high.

"ESPAÑA!
" they roared.

    But the deep bellow of pride, even from two hundred and fifty men, was drowned, flattened and overwhelmed by the thunder of eighteen-pounders as the battery fired again… and all aboard
Walrus
cringed to the hideous screech of hurtling iron. And this time, timber splintered, planking erupted, rigging parted, and the precious living flesh of men was smashed, ripped and pulped into rags of offal, into out- jutting fractured bone, and into such mutilation as blasted the eyes of those who lived to see it.

    A full salvo of roundshot and grape had struck fair and square into the heart of Teniente Burillo's parade.

    Flint was running with all his might; running with heart, soul, mind and strength: all of it, every last ounce. He ran through the wildly milling crowd, leaving Chester and his followers behind. He ran through the rolling powder smoke, along the edge of the precipice river bank, he ran around the earthworks protecting the battery, and in among the gunners, who with hats and coats thrown off, had re-loaded the five pieces and were running them out again.

    "Heave-
ho
!
Heave-ho!"
cried the teams, hauling on their lines, and…

    "Left-left-left!" cried the gun-captains, as men strained with handspikes and tackles to train the guns around to bear on the target - a moving target that slid under reefed topsails to attempt an anchorage below.

    "Bland!" cried Flint, with the taste of blood rasping in his throat, and his chest heaving. "Bland! Not that ship! Not
Walrus!"
Flint staggered, exhausted into the arms of Colonel Bland, who was standing with the artillery captain in charge of the battery and a battery sergeant major.

    "What?" spluttered the captain. "Who's this, Colonel?"

    "It's Flint," said Bland.

    "Ahhh!" said the captain and sergeant major, and they looked at one another with raised eyebrows, for Flint had a great reputation in Savannah.

    "Don't fire on that ship, Colonel," gasped Flint. "You'll kill Silver and lose everything!
Everything
! D'you understand me?"

    "Oh!" said Bland, understanding instantly. "Oh, my eyes and limbs!"

    "Let them get into the boats," said Flint, "
then
fire! But not at the ship!"

    Yet Bland hesitated.

    "They're Spaniards, dammit! They ain't just pirates come for treasure. This is war!"

    "Treasure?" said the other two, their eyes round; for in Savannah, certain secrets weren't as tight as they should have been.

    "None o' your business, dammit!" said Bland.

    "No!" said Flint.

    Meanwhile, off to one side…

"FIRE!"
cried the young lieutenant in charge of the guns.

    B-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! cried the battery with earth- shivering thunder, and the young lieutenant, whose name was Laurence, saw his shot strike home with dreadful effect as hurtling balls ripped through the clustered mass of white- coated troops, sending fragments of men tumbling into the air, to cascade in soggy splashes into the river.

    "Bloody Dagoes!" he said, and turned in pride towards Colonel Bland and the rest, and was amazed to see the colonel, white-faced and angry, running towards him crying:

    "No! No! No!"

    "What?" said Laurence, for he'd very properly been concentrating on his target, he'd certainly paid no attention to the discussions of his superiors, and in any case he was half-deaf from the concussion of the first salvo.

    But Flint was close behind Bland, and threw himself on Laurence with unhinged anger, such that Laurence survived
only
because Flint's ever-present knife - the one which lived up his sleeve - was no longer present, having been shaken out, dropped, and left behind by Flint's desperate running. Added to that, Flint was still so exhausted that Bland was able to pull him off when - abandoning the futile search of his sleeve - Flint tried to wring Laurence's neck.

    "Uch! Uch!" said Laurence, staggering back.

    "Flint! God bless my eyes and limbs!" said Bland. "What is it?"

    "Tell him not to fire on
Walrus!
" said Flint, unhinged in his fury.

    "Nor shall we!" said Bland, turning to Laurence. "Lieutenant! You shall concentrate your fire upon the second ship, until such time as the enemy may attempt a landing, then you shall fire on his boats! Is that understood?"

    "Yes, sir!" croaked Laurence, gawping at Flint, and rubbing his neck.

    "Go on then!" said Bland.

    "Yes, sir!" said Laurence, and staggered off to his gunners.

    "God bless my precious soul, what's the matter with you, Flint?" said Bland.

    "Nothing," said Flint.

    "Huh!" said Bland, and stepped back a pace as Flint, who'd been so reasonable a gentleman until now, stared into his eyes with such an expression as would befit some basilisk of mythology rather than a civilised man. Bland gulped and shuddered. To say that Flint was mad was to say that the sea was wet. The hairs stood up on the back of Bland's neck.

    "Ah… hmm…" said Flint, seeing Bland's reaction and recovering himself such that the manic light went out of his eyes. "Just don't fire on
Walrus!
" he said. "Don't do that…"

    Bland was bright enough to realise that - as far as Flint was concerned - there was far more aboard
Walrus
than some papers that led to treasure! Wealth and riches made a pretty pair, but a man didn't go galloping mad for them. No, there was something else that Flint valued more than life and soul. Bland wondered what it was.

    Teniente Burillo looked up. He was overjoyed to see the Spanish colours that gleamed in brilliance against the blue sky. He smiled and tried to look around him, but he couldn't.

    He could only look up. Nor could he stand or move, nor even hear very well, for all the vast bustle and commotion around him sounded strangely flat and quiet. Then Aspirante Alvarez's face filled his vision. It was pale and shouting and horrified.

"Teniente! Teniente
…" said Alverez's mouth, but Burillo could no longer hear.

"TENIENTE!"
screamed Alvarez, who was old for an aspirante, being an incompetent seaman who'd failed to distinguish himself at sea. He was pot-bellied, pop-eyed, the butt of his comrades' jokes, and now he knelt beside the smashed, limbless torso of his commanding officer, where it lay in a pool of its own entrails. "Ugh!" said Alvarez, shuddering as the life went out of Burillo's face and his eyes closed.

    "Get your men in hand!" cried a voice at his elbow, and Alvarez looked up to see the English-Portuguese captain with his long crutch towering over him, his coat-tails swirling as he reached down to haul Alvarez to his feet. "Get up! On your feet," he commanded, "for there's no man left but you!"

    Alvarez stood. He looked around him. It was blood and death on all sides. At least thirty men were dead or laid in pitiful ruin: moaning, slobbering, and broken - and that included all the officers, even the other aspirantes. Meanwhile men ran hither and thither, some trying to bring the longboat alongside, others - the seamen - trying to work the ship and make good her damage. They worked with a will, Spanish beside English, in the manner of their trade, but the soldiers were near despair, and if they'd been ashore they'd have run away.

    Then the guns thundered again: the guns up in the English battery, and Alvarez shuddered as the shot flew overhead and screams, crashes and falling timbers sounded astern, from
La Concha.
Instinctively, Alvarez thanked God for the respite, and then was ashamed for wishing death on his comrades. But the English captain was shaking his shoulder and shouting again.

    "I'll sail the ship," said Silver, over the din of gunfire, cries and screaming. "I'll con her to anchor, but you must take command of your men or we're lost. I can't sail her out, for the wind's against us, and we'd have to kedge or warp, which is too slow and they'd sink us! So the only hope is for your men to take the battery. It's that or the ship's lost - and all aboard of us! Can you do that? Can you do it, senor?"

    "Yes," said Alvarez. But his face said "no".

    "Huh!" said Silver, and grabbed hold of one of his own men, and gabbled at him in harsh, barking English, before turning back to Alvarez. "We're hit below the waterline, which I must attend to… So, can you do it, senor? Take that battery?"

    "Yes," said Alvarez in a tiny voice, and he shook as the guns fired again.

    "Come on," said Silver, desperate to put heart into the little swab, desperate to save the ship and the woman he loved.
"Santiago!"
he said. "Go on, boy, shout it out!"

    "Santiago!" said Alvarez, mouthing the war cry of Spanish Christendom.

    "No," said Silver.
"SANTIAGO!"
And he yelled with all his might.

    "Santiago!" echoed some of the Spanish soldiers, turning round.

    "There! Go on, my son," said Silver.

    "Santiago! Santiago! Santiago!" cried Alvarez, and the Spaniards cheered.

    Better yet, a big
sargento
named Ortiz - a veteran with a fine moustache - got up from where he'd been sitting in misery with an arm off at the elbow, lashed a line around the stump, and came and stood beside Alvarez.

    "Santiago!" cried Ortiz in a deep bellow.

    "So!" cried Alvarez, and found his way to his duty. "Bring the longboat alongside." He said it weakly, anxiously looking for reassurance at Sargento Ortiz, who nodded firmly, such that Alvarez drew breath for a real shout: "All hands to boat drill! All hands fall in by the larboard rail!"

    The men cheered again. One of them picked up the regimental colour that had gone down when the standard-bearer fell. He raised it, and waved it, and emotion filled them all, as they did their country proud, in the skill and efficiency with which they hauled in the longboat, dropped Spanish seamen into her to man the oars, then filled her with every last man she could hold, which was fifty soldiers and ten oarsmen, the boat being an exceptionally big one, which like
San Pedro de Arbués
that owned her, was built in the style of the last century.

    Alvarez went over the side last of all, and all aboard cheered… and all aboard were lucky, for the plunging shot and howling grape that sizzled down from the battery was concentrating exclusively on
La Concha,
which now slewed crab- wise with yards dangling, sails trailing, blood running from her scuppers, and a slaughterhouse of dead and mangled humanity cramming her decks among the shattered gear, shards and splinters.

    And yet, even
La Concha
was manning her longboat. Smashed and bedraggled as the ship was, the men aboard hadn't given up, and their own shouts of "Santiago!" echoed across the water to sound beside those of Aspirante Alvarez and his men. Soon two boats were pulling for the landing and the stairs, crammed and manned to the gunwales, and enjoying a brief respite from the fire of the battery, as if the guns didn't know which target to choose, allowing the Spanish seamen to pull their hearts out…