John Drake - Skull and Bones

But Pat Cobbler hadn't lived Billy Bones's life. He'd never fought to kill. He'd always fought by rules, and was used to fighting clumsy, drunken yokels, or other professionals like himself, who likewise fought by rules, and only for money. Certainly he used dirty tricks, as they all did, but he'd never seen decks slopping in blood, and men's limbs torn off, or heard the shrieks of the wounded and the groans of the dying.

And he didn't fight like Billy Bones: head down, shoulders forward, never retreating, and hammer hammer hammer with both fists, up to and beyond exhaustion, and ignoring the pain, and never, ever, admitting defeat. This ferocious, simple- minded discipline, born of a ferocious, simple-minded life, and matched with the powerful body God had given Billy Bones, put Pat Cobbler over on his back after five long, punishing rounds, such that not even repeated buckets of cold water could get him up.

So Billy Bones got his ten pounds, and was chaired by the mob, shoulder high round the Piazza. Then he picked one of the tarts who'd ogled him, took a private room at an inn and rogered her till she squealed, and was so heartened by his victory that courage rose within him: courage to do the thing that he had been dreaming of since first he came to London, and that otherwise he'd not have dared to do.

Three bells of the morning watch 12th June 1753 Aboard Walrus The Pool of London

The night was alive with flaming torches. Walrus was enclosed within boatloads of angry men, and the shining, black river reflected the flames rising over the little fleet. There were twenty boats in all, with more than three hundred men aboard… and drawn steel and firelocks gleaming in the torchlight.

One boat pulled forward, and a man stood up in the stern. He was thick-bodied, stubble-chinned, and grim-faced. He wore cross-belts loaded with arms, and a hat stuck with three huge white ostrich plumes. Cupping his hands round his mouth, he let forth a shout:

"Ahoy, you bastards! I'm Jimmy Ogilvy, king o' the river, and I'm come for what I'm owed!"

"AYE!" roared his men, and there was a great waving of torches and shaking of arms.

"Stand forward, him who's in command, say I!" cried King Jimmy. "Stand forth or be boarded, plundered, and burned!"

"What the buggery is this?" said Long John to Warrington, as all hands stood to action stations, looking out on a force that outnumbered them nearly five to one, and had crept up so quiet, and with torches unlit, that they were all around the ship before the watch had even seen them.

"It's King Jimmy," said Warrington, legs trembling in fear.

"I can see that, you swab!" said Long John. "But what's he want?"

"Revenge, Captain. For the shaming of his men!"

"God damn it, this is bloody London. What bloody law runs here?"

"His!" said Warrington, looking at King Jimmy. "So long as it's dark, and there's nobody to come to our aid."

"STAND FORTH!" cried King Jimmy. "LAST WARNING!"

"Oh, Mary and bleedin' Jesus!" said Silver.

"What we going to do, John?" said Israel Hands.

Silver sighed. He tipped his hat back, stroked the parrot, and thought. Too late to run out the guns and sweep the buggers with grape. They'd be aboard as soon as they heard the gun-trucks squeak. Too late to rig boarding nettings, even if Walrus had any – which she didn't – and it couldn't come to a hand-to-hand fight, not against so many. So what to do?

"Can they be paid off?" said Silver to Warrington, who trembled and shook.

"I don't know. They may want blood for blood!"

Silver cursed horribly.

"Then we'll just have to find out!" he said, and called his people together. "This is what we'll do… And you, Mr Mate -" Silver poked Warrington in the chest "- you pay close heed to me…"

"WITH ME, BOYS!" cried King Jimmy. "GIVE WAYYYY!"

A great roar went up from the boats, followed by a clunking of oars, as the mudlarks pulled to grapple and board.

"Wait! Wait!" Warrington, having clambered up on the bulwark by the main shrouds, was hanging on with one arm, a sheer drop into the Thames looming in front of him. He was plainly terrified, puffing and wheezing and glancing nervously back at the man behind him holding his legs so he shouldn't fall off. "We've ten thousand Spanish dollars aboard," he cried, "and willing to pay reasonable reparation!"

"What?" cried King Jimmy, and turned to his men. "Hold hard, my lovely boys!"

"What?" they said, and laid on their oars.

"Who are you, you fat sod?" cried King Jimmy to Warrington.

"Master of this ship!"

"What's this about dollars?"

"We are willing to pay reparation, for the insult done to your people."

"A-ha!" cried King Jimmy, and stood up and twirled his ostrich plumes and looked round at his men. "See, boys?" he cried. "Ain't I king o' the river and no mistake? See what I can get you?"

"AYE!" cried some, but not those with shaven heads and the tar still clinging to their balls. They wanted the red meat of revenge, not the gruel of money.

"I want his teeth for a blasted necklace!" cried one of the shaven, pointing at Warrington. "And twelve dozen of the cat for all hands, and… and…"

"Yes, yes!" said King Jimmy, "time for that later – let's get the dollars first!" "AYE!"

"Then please to come alongside," said Warrington, and he reached down to those behind him and was handed something, which he hurled towards King Jimmy's boat… and there was a twinkling and glittering and chinking of metal as the little missiles landed aboard.

"Dollars!" cried King Jimmy's oarsmen. "Dollars, lads!"

"Huzzah!"

"We are not the valiant who taste of death but once!" said Warrington.

"Bollocks!" cried a voice from the boats.

"Friends, Englishmen, countrymen, lend me your ears! We seek mercy!"

"Pig-shite!"

"For the quality of mercy is not strained!"

"Fuck off!"

"It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven."

As he spoke, Warrington threw more dollars and the boats crowded in beneath him, King Jimmy's in the lead, and all aboard sneering and laughing at the miserable figure spouting above, who was giving in so easily and without a fight… And thus the mudlarks came alongside of Walrus, slow and easy, and threw no grappling hooks and made no attempt to board but sat looking upward in expectation, until…

CRRRRASH! A tremendous, rolling volley of small-arms fire roared out from Walrus and night turned to day in livid daggers of muzzle-flash as Silver's men fired every pistol, musket, blunderbuss and carbine in the ship into the writhing mass of men in the boats alongside, only spitting distance away. Over a hundred rounds of well-aimed lead came sizzling down into flesh, timber, blood, bone and some of it into Father Thames. Ears were deafened by the roar, and eyes temporarily blinded by the flash.

A horrible moan arose from the mudlark boats even as a picked team of men, all good swimmers and led by Mr Joe, dropped over the side from Walrus – splash-splash-splash – while a reserve of five of the ship's best marksmen, armed with muskets, kept up a steady fire into King Jimmy's boat so that none aboard should hinder Mr Joe's team as they hauled themselves into the launch. Some went down, nonetheless, under cutlass strokes and pistol fire, but most clambered aboard and set about seizing the oars. And all the while Walrus's people were loading and ramming with fresh cartridges and ready for another united volley… which they gave with a flash and a roar, at Long John's word, as the other mudlark boats saw what was happening to King Jimmy and tried to go to his aid, only to find themselves on the receiving end of another withering storm of lead that smashed and pierced and tore, until one boat began to fill and to settle as holes were knocked squarely through its bottom.