John Drake - Skull and Bones

"Captain!" he said.

"Captain!" said the younger O'Riley.

"Be seated, gentlemen," said Fitch. "We await the ladies."

So servants bowed, chairs scraped and the gentlemen – powdered and dressed in their best – waited and made conversation for the ten minutes that Mrs Cooper always allowed to be certain of arriving last. Or at least Fitch and Roslind spoke. Young Patrick O'Riley was devoting all his strength to not being nauseous, so that he should appear a man in the eyes of the glorious Miss Henderson. Soon after, Fitch's first mate joined them: a thin, mournful man named Gladstone with an old-fashioned pigtail and no powder on his hair. He was pure tarpaulin and didn't care who knew it.

Then female laugher was heard outside, and a servant was opening the hatchway.

"Ah!" said Fitch.

"Ah!" said Roslind.

"Ohhh…" said O'Riley.

Chairs scraped again as the gentlemen stood and Mrs Katherine Cooper entered with her protйgйe close astern. The gentlemen gaped at Miss Henderson, barely noticing the elder woman. But Katty Cooper smiled. She didn't mind that. Not at all.

Then the whole ship shuddered as she buried her bow and shipped it green over the fo'c'sle.

"Whoa!" cried Fitch.

"Huh!" cried Gladstone.

"Ohhh," said O'Riley.

"Oh dear!" cried Mrs Cooper and raised a dainty hand to her brow, for although her stomach was granite, she affected the mal de mer for femininity's sake.

"Poor Katty!" said Miss Henderson, and put an arm protectively round her patroness, for Miss Henderson moved easily aboard a ship underway. Indeed – as everyone had remarked – she was wonderfully expert in all matters appertaining to seafaring.

Then the company sat down, and they laughed, except for Mr O'Riley, and made a good dinner, except for Mr O'Riley. They laughed as the crockery slid up and down the heaving table. They laughed as the cook's mate spilled much of the fish soup, through mis-timing his lurch to set it down. They laughed as a bottle leapt off the table and bounced merrily across the deck, slopping wine, and they laughed as the cook's mate – attempting to retrieve it – skidded over and sat down in a pool of claret.

And all the while, every man in the cabin continued to gaze adoringly at Miss Henderson. By now, they'd profoundly forgotten their first reaction to her: which was that, however lovely she might be, she was undoubtedly black, and therefore ranked somewhere between the raggedy-arsed ship's boys and the livestock carried aboard for fresh meat. But that was before Mrs Katty Cooper had taken the girl in hand and dressed her in some of the many gowns she had in her numerous sea-chests, and before even Katty Cooper herself realised that Selena had no need of training in drawing-room etiquette, for she knew it already.

"Ahhhh!" Katty Cooper had said, when Selena revealed that she had been raised as a slave, but a slave who had been the childhood favourite of her master's daughter, living in the Big House, and receiving – side by side with the white girl – the same privileged education, which even included mastering fluent French. It was no surprise therefore that Selena held a table knife or a teacup with the same daintiness as her every movement, for even setting aside her training, the girl had the most magical, graceful elegance. And she was quite young… only seventeen…

Katty Cooper saw a great future for her. Oh yes indeed she did.

"So shall you make an actress of our Miss Henderson?" said Fitch, turning the conversation to the London theatre, which he loved and which he visited every time he was in port. To him it was a surreal world of wonders, with its miraculous stage machinery and its special effects that caused dragons to appear, water to cascade, and girls to dance upon pillars that rose up out of the stage.

Katty Cooper smiled and patted Selena's hand.

"What do you think, my dear?" she said.

Selena shrugged.

"Perhaps," she said.

"We could make an Ophelia of you, or a Portia?"

"Bah!" said Fitch. "None o' that Shakespeare claptrap, ma'am! That's for mincing macaronis. What Miss Henderson wants is a thundering melodrama. She must be the heroine chased by a villain with big hairy hands, trying to strangle her! That's what brings in the public!"

"Aye!" said the gentlemen, nodding furiously – even Mr O'Riley – for they were not men of exquisite taste, and they licked their lips at the thought of stranglers' hands, slender necks, and luscious flesh bouncing as it was chased across the stage.

"Buckets of blood and gore!" said Fitch. "Murder and pirates!" He laughed… then plunged into guilt as Miss Henderson looked away in tears. "Oh! Oh!" he said. "I do apologise, my dear miss. I should never… I'm so sorry. I do declare such matters must be beyond your experience… That is, no… I mean…"

"Captain, I do wish you would be a little more solicitous of a lady's feelings," said Mrs Cooper primly, and the rest of the meal passed in silence, for the gentlemen saw a long voyage ahead and wanted the pleasure of Miss Henderson's smile, and couldn't bear to upset her, while Miss Henderson herself didn't know what she wanted, or where she should go, or what she should do.

Early morning, 7th April 1753 Dry Dock 1, Williamstown Harbour Upper Barbados

It would be pointless to describe Walrus as being in a bugger's muddle, since – in her present state – that was a condition to which she could only aspire.

Her foremast was out, much of her rigging was gone, her crew was ashore and her decks were spattered with pitch and wood chips, timber and tools, and stank of bilge water and tar, sawdust and beer, and steak-and-onions frying over charcoal braziers. Caulkers sat on their boxes battering merrily, while women hawkers yelled their wares of bread, fish and fruit. Bosuns' pipes shrieked as teams of men hove powder and shot aboard, small boys dashed everywhere on errands, and the crowded voices of a dozen trades bellowed and yelled and squabbled.

Long John stamped through this pandemonium with Israel Hands in tow, haggard exhaustion etched on his face. He'd not slept for two days, nor slept soundly since Dr Cowdray had told him where Selena was gone.

"Ah!" said Silver. "There he is!" And he shoved through the press, clambering over an empty gun-carriage, a spar, two pitch buckets and a caulker's mallet, to get at a grey-wigged gentleman in a long coat who was standing by the quarterdeck rail with a couple of shirt-sleeved, waistcoated minions in attendance.

"Mr Pollock!" cried Silver, coming alongside of this gentleman and forcing himself to touch his hat.

"Ah, Captain Silver!" said Pollock, touching his own hat. "I suppose it is the usual question?" He smirked and his followers sniggered.

Silver ground his teeth.

"It is, Mr Pollock," he said. "So, when might my ship be floated out?" Silver resented the careful politeness required to get these blood-sucking bastards of dockyard clerks to do their duty. Even normal, decent bribes weren't much good: not when there was an endless queue of ships waiting, and a huge sum already gone into Sir Wyndham's pocket just to get Walrus into the dockyard at all.

"When, sir? When?" Pollock pursed his lips. "Oooooo," he smiled, winking at his sycophants. "Why, sir, she will be floated out, sir… the instant she is ready, sir!" And he laughed, and his men laughed, and none of them knew how close they came to butchering bloody slaughter on the spot.

"John!" said Hands, seizing Silver's arm. "Come away! Leave 'em to it!"

Silver was white with anger, but he let himself be led off for he knew that one more spark of wit from Mr Pollock would see his hands around that gentleman's neck like a Spanish garrotte.

So Israel Hands and Silver went aft.