John Drake - Skull and Bones

But they weren't listening. Silver was looking at Flint, and Flint was looking at Silver. For them there was nobody else in the room. Far too much had passed between them for that.

Flint drained a glass, breathed deep, and spoke. His voice croaked and he was weak. He wasn't himself. Not nearly. Not by a hundred thousand miles.

"You got my offer, John?"

"The treasure for your life?"

"Yes."

"Aye. I got it, from him -" Silver nodded at Flash Jack. "Why else would I cut you down?"

Flint nodded. He shuddered, and in the extremity of his horror at meeting death, his mind was so altered that he was honest.

"The treasure?" he said, and drew a neat little silver cylinder from his pocket. About the size of a man's finger, it was a porte-crayon, designed to hold a pen or pencil… but this one didn't. Flint unscrewed a cap at one end, and shook out a tight roll of papers, covered in tiny handwriting… Flint's handwriting.

"The map," he said, "merely finds the island, where you can search for ever and not find the goods."

"I know!" said Silver.

"But these notes," said Flint, "give precision."

Flash Jack looked at the papers.

"Why so much detail?" he asked.

"To begin with," said Flint, "there are several burial sites, not one. They are in jungle clearings which even I couldn't find again without the bearings and measurements I took from such points as nature provided: great rocks and giant trees." Flint shook his head. "If once you go wrong, you'll never find the next bearing point. So it's all or nothing. Even half the papers would be useless."

Flint sank back, his voice weak from so much speech, and Flash Jack reached out to touch the cylinder.

"No!" gasped Flint. "Don't touch it, Mr Jackson. You can guess where I hide it, when searched." "Ugh!" said Flash Jack, and recoiled as if from a spider, for he was intensely fastidious in all matters of hygiene.

"So," said Silver. "How's things, my cocker?"

Flint sighed.

"I never did admire that appellation, John. For it is crassly vulgar."

"Huh! So you ain't quite dead!"

"No," said Flint, straining to speak and fingering his neck. "But I'm not quite alive, neither, for the belly and bowels of me think that I'm dead!" And he shook violently as emotions heaved in the depths of his soul.

"Joe!" said Silver, half out of his chair, for the friendship had once been great, and Flint was suffering.

"No!" said Flint. "Be still." And he forced out words with great difficulty. "Here's a thing, John…"

"What?"

"When I was on the rope…"

"Leave it, Joe," he said. "Maybe later, when you're fit?"

"No. It must be said. When I was on the rope… and dying…"

"Don't, Joe!"

"I expected to see my father at the gates of Hell."

"What, to save you?"

"No! As my punishment." Flint looked at Silver. "Did you have a father?"

"Aye!"

"Was he a good man?"

"A rough bugger," said Silver. "Laid on hard with the belt."

"There are worse things," said Flint, and bowed his head and sat quiet a while. Then he looked up. "My father was not there," he said.

"No?" said Silver.

"But you were, John. I saw you."

Now Silver shuddered.

"What was I doing?"

"I don't know. But you were reaching out."

"Was I trying to save you?"

"I don't know."

"Why not?"

"Because she was beside you, and I was looking only at her."

Silence. Profound silence.

"And what was she doing?" said Silver, finally.

"Nothing. She wouldn't look at me."

Flint groaned, for the rejection was worse than death. It was damnation. He closed his eyes, ground his teeth, clenched his fists, and managed – just – to fight himself up out of the deep of despair… only to find a tempest of passions awaiting on the surface: unbearable relief, gratitude for life, guilt, remorse, and more. And under these tormenting forces, acting on irresistible impulse, he did a most tremendous thing…

He took up the papers which led to the treasure.

He folded them diagonally in half.

He pinched the fold tight with his fingernails.

And tore the papers in two.

"Here!" he said, handing half to Silver and keeping half himself: "Let us begin again."

Mid-morning, Tuesday, 27th November 1753 The gates of Newgate Gaol London

The ram surged ahead, heaved by several dozen of the mob's finest. It thundered against iron-bound oak, and the locks and bars groaned, while all within the prison walls gulped and trembled. A few brave souls snatched up arms and fired on the mob through the windows… and received such a hail of brick-ends and cobble stones as sent them reeling back in their own smoke, battered and bloodied, and covered in the splintered remains of frames, putty, paint and glass.

"ANOTHER!" roared the seething mass at the gates, and the ram-bearers took a firmer grip, and staggered back, bowling over and trampling down all those who failed to get clear of their ponderous recoil… then…

"FORWARD!" they cried and the ram went in again.

Half an hour earlier it had been a respectable beech tree, growing peacefully in Warwick Square, doing no harm to any man. But then it had been hacked down, lopped off, and borne away in the mighty arms of chair-men, coal-heavers, butcher boys and all such others as were ready to raise a decent sweat in a good cause.

BOOOM! went the prison gates.

"ANOTHER!" roared the mob, now in its second day of fun, and dangerously swollen with all the trollops of the town, egging the men on and pouring drink down them, and charging sixpence for a stand-up against the wall.

The mob was tens of thousands strong. It was a pandemonium of wicked glee. It was an elemental force that carried all before it, invincible, unconquerable and unstoppable – except by the army. But the army was still in barracks, while the mob was fired up and bent on vengeance against the hated Newgate Gaol, where the hero Joe Flint had been incarcerated.

CRRRRRRRRUNCH! said the gates to the gaol, and a mighty cheer arose as the timberwork gave up the fight and splintered and sundered and fell open, and the ram was dropped, bouncing, booming and recoiling and smashing feet and breaking limbs… and the mob was jamming, cramming and forcing itself into the narrow doorway and into the gaol, waving axes, hammers, knives, cudgels, and flaming torches.

At the back of the commotion Flash Jack watched and grinned. There were others like him who hung back from the action: sharp, slippery persons who trailed after the mob, grinning and winking, ever seeking safe opportunities for gain, but keeping well clear of the dangerous work of smashing gates and cracking heads.

Flash Jack smiled and looked around, and told himself how clever he was to go forth in the shabby clothes that he affected when he chose to. For he'd been a poor man once, and had had no choice, but when he did get money and put on fine raiment and became Flash Jack… why, he'd found that no man knew him if he took them off again, and put on his rags. They were, of course, very clean rags, but so long as he went discreetly and met no eyes… it was as if he were invisible.

This fascinating discovery had, for years, enabled Flash Jack to pass unknown through the streets of London, and was the reason why he'd gone with Silver and King Jimmy to rescue Joe Flint without the least fear of being recognised.

"And so!" he said to himself, and he let the mob and its followers leave him behind, and stood alone for a while before walking off through the deserted streets towards Covent Garden and Jackson's Coffee House. He had to walk, because it wasn't safe to be out with a carriage – not with the mob on the streets – and he entered Jackson's by a private back door with a private key, and so to his own room and hot water and soap, and his beautiful clothes and his splendid wigs and all else that made him Flash Jack once more: to be bowed to and grovelled to by his staff. So, straightening his back and fixing a smile, he opened the door to the big main room and went into the light and bright, and was pleased to see that, even today – with the mob not come to Covent Garden – there was good business and a body of patrons who saluted him, and nodded and smiled.