John Drake - Skull and Bones

"So we're bound for England, Cap'n?"

"Bound for England – and God knows what we shall find there!" Two bells of the second dog watch 6th April 1753 Aboard Venture's Fortune The Atlantic

Given the blessing of easy seas and good weather, Miss Cooper and Miss Henderson stood wrapped in their cloaks on the quarterdeck in the soft evening. It was nearly dark, and the light gleamed from the binnacle into the faces of the men at the wheel, with more light shining up from the skylights of the cabins below. The ladies were talking about the usual subject, for Miss Cooper was endlessly persistent.

"Cannot you see how advantageous it would be, my dear?" she said.

"To become an actress?" said Miss Henderson.

"Yes! You were born for it, believe me."

"But I've never seen a play, or been to a theatre."

"Then trust me – I know every theatre in London and all the managers."

"But how can I remember all those words?"

"Bah! The audience will want to look at you, not listen! Half the actresses in London fake their lines." Katty laughed. "Well, the beauties do, anyway!"

Selena sighed. The truth was that she didn't know what she wanted, nor whether she'd done the right thing in leaving John Silver. She knew only that she thought about him every day, and every night. As for the theatre: the idea of standing up in front of thousands of people and pretending… acting… It sounded terrifying, and she shuddered and shook her head.

"Oh dear," said Katty Cooper, with trembling lower lip. "I do hope you shall not disappoint me. For I am quite alone in the world…"

Selena looked at her. Katty, utterly feminine as always, had adopted her pleading look: a tragic expression of innocence wounded. On those rare occasions when people refused to do her bidding, she invariably resorted not to anger but tears, and her helpless, pretty, tear-stained little face became an iron lever that she pulled without mercy, to crush the will of others and force them to her bidding. For Katty was a woman who saw her own point of view with such blinding clarity that she was unaware, even, that others had feelings.

"Hmm," thought Selena, for she was beginning to understand Katty Cooper. But… on the other hand… Katty had been extremely helpful in enabling Selena to be accepted aboard this ship. It was thanks to Katty that nobody now paid any mind to the fact that Selena had come aboard with no story to explain what she'd been doing among pirates. Katty had taken Selena's vague mumblings in response to questions about her past and enlarged upon them with remarkable skill, such that Selena now had a surname and a family – not her real family, who had been left behind on the Delacroix plantation – but a pretend family invented by Katty Cooper, and a sad tale of how she lost them when pirates stormed a merchant ship, slaying all aboard but herself. Even Captain Fitch had shed a tear when Katty told that one.

Selena sighed. What did she want? Even being an actress couldn't be as bad as some of the things that had happened to her aboard Flint's ship… and Long John's…

"Ah!" thought Katty Cooper, reading the signs. She turned off the mask of tragedy and took Selena's face in her hands.

"Listen to me, my beautiful creature," she said, looking Selena in the eye. "If you follow me I will promise you wealth beyond your dreams. You shall never want! You shall never be afraid! The world shall court you and adore you. You shall make towers of guineas and roll… you shall roll… in strings of diamonds."

Katty Cooper managed – just – not to say "roll naked in strings of diamonds", something which gentlemen never failed to appreciate.

"Shall I?" said Selena.

"Oh yes!"

Selena shrugged. In the absence of a better offer, that didn't seem too bad. And there were no better offers available. In fact, there were no other offers. Not one. So she smiled. Perhaps she might be an actress after all.

And Katty Cooper smiled, too, pleased that the theatre was such useful bait, and a subject of which she knew so much, since she had indeed been an actress herself… until superior opportunities presented. Her tales of the London stage would do to keep Selena happy for now, and in time she would learn as Katty Cooper had learned.

"So let us be happy, my dear," she said. "We are bound for England!"

Yes, thought Selena. Bound for England and the stage. And who knows where that might lead? Nightfall (there being no watches kept nor bells struck owing to the mutiny in progress) 12th April 1753 Aboard Walrus The Atlantic

So determined were the hands to hang Norton that, when Silver spoke up for him, Tom Allardyce – white-faced in rage – drew steel and rushed at Silver from behind and swung a blow aimed at splitting his head to the chin.

Which gave Norton his chance. As the two men holding his arms flinched at Allardyce's charge, Norton wrenched himself free, struck left and right with his elbows, smashed a fist into the nose of one who still hung on, then sprang forward to grapple Allardyce from the side in full run, throwing him skidding over, with Norton biting flesh to the bone of the wrist that held the cutlass, and punching with a hard right hand into the soft meat between Allardyce's thighs.

"Aaaaargh!" shrieked Allardyce, then "Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!" as Norton spat out his wrist, took his head by the ears, and slammed it three times into the deck, before leaping up, kicking away the cutlass, and slamming a boot repeatedly and with mighty force into Allardyce's kidneys until he was dragged off by his victim's mates.

"Bastard!" they screamed.

"Gut him!"

"Chop him!"

There was a rush for the quarterdeck companionways, but:

Bang! Bang! Silver let off a pair of pistols into the air, while Israel Hands, Mr Joe and Black Dog instantly lined up alongside him and drew weapons and levelled them at the mob.

"'Ware the buggers!" cried the crew, and two or three dozen firelocks were made ready and aimed. Anger was rampant: it scorched the decks, it addled their brains until mass, mutual slaughter was a second away.

"Hold hard there!" cried Long John, yelling above all others. "And blind the bastard with red-hot irons who fires on his own shipmates!"

"Arrrrrrrgh!" they growled, but they stopped.

"Captain!" cried McLonarch, stepping forward. "May I say…"

"NO, YOU MAY NOT!" roared Silver in uttermost rage. "By God and all his bleedin' angels you've had your whack, my son, and now it's my turn!" He appealed to the hands: "Ain't that fair, brothers?"

"Aye!" roared Israel Hands, Mr Joe and Black Dog.

"Aye," said others, but with bad grace.

"So!" cried Silver, pointing to Norton. "You're set to hang him, are you?"

"Aye!" they screamed and shook their fists in the air.

"Shiver my timbers," said Silver, "if that don't beat all for piss-brain-pleased-with-shit-head-stupid!"

"What?" they said.

"D'you not see?" he cried. "Norton's the only bugger aboard what's fit to plot a course! We're all fo'c'sle hands as can steer a course, but who's to set one? Who's to labour with quadrant and dividers?"

"Oh!" they said, even McLonarch, who'd not thought of that.

"Ah!" cried Silver, seeing the change. "Or maybe I'm wrong? Maybe you swabs is happy with miscalculations and endin' up lost in the ocean on a spoonful of water a day?"

They were not. The anger ran out and the guilt ran in.

"So," said Silver, "make safe them barkers! Stick 'em where they'll do the most good… and then listen to me!"

There followed a shame-faced clicking of guns being set to half-cock. Then all hands – and the McLonarch – looked up at Silver.

"Here's my word in the matter," he said. "It's Dr Cowdray's plan for me! So him there -" he pointed at Norton "- is rated first mate. And him there -" he pointed at McLonarch "- is rated ship's guest, and neither to bear arms nor strike the other, nor any man to take their part… until we reach England, and there a full council of brothers will decide what we shall do with 'em!"