John Drake - Flint and Silver

"Well," said Flint, "go to it with a will, Farter! There's our shipmates down below, working like plantation niggers, and ourselves idling away the hours."

"Aye-aye, Cap'n!" said Fraser, and he glanced at the four men, little dot-figures in the distance, alongside the spar that they'd raised as a marker. Then, catching the merest hint of a fading in Flint's smile, Fraser swiftly laid down his bundle, opened it and set Flint's compass on the rock, together with his notebook and other tackles. The compass was a heavy, boxed instrument, normally used in Walrus's longboat, and almost the size of those in a ship's binnacle.

"There, Farter," said Flint, tapping the compass. "Lesser men than ourselves would build cairns, or blaze marks upon trees and expect to find them on their return. But we shall take bearings from the immovable and the unsinkable!" Flint stamped his heel on the mighty rock and knelt down to take a bearing of the burial site where the gold had been buried.

And then Flint frowned. He laid aside the pencil and notebook that he was using to record the bearing. He stood up. He tipped back his hat. He scratched his head and peered thoughtfully at the burial site so far away and yet in plain sight. And then he shaded his eyes and looked southwards, and miles further, out to the anchorage where Walrus and Lion lay. There wasn't much that could not be seen from here and Flint managed a mighty sigh.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Fraser had caught the change of mood and was watching intently. Well and good. Let him watch. Flint scowled and bit his lip and took a few paces up and down the rock. He turned as if to speak to Fraser. He blinked and shut his mouth. He paced the rock again. He stopped and stared at the burial party.

"No!" he murmured. "Not them. Not Henry and James and Franky. Not little Rob!"

"Cap'n?" said Fraser. Drury Lane had lost a mighty actor in Joe Flint, and his audience was too captivated not to respond.

Flint jumped as if pricked.

"Fraser," he said, "Iain, lad… forgive me, shipmate, it's just that…"

"What, Cap'n?" said Fraser, now seriously alarmed, for Flint's face was grey and there were tears in his eyes.

"Iain," said Flint, "I'd hoped to spare you this. I'd hoped it would keep until we were back afloat with our comrades around us…" He frowned. "Those we can trust, that is!"

"Trust, Cap'n?" said Fraser. "Trust who?"

"It's a plot, Iain!" said Flint, as if sunk in tragedy.

"A plot?"

"Aye, lad! Did you think poor Peter Evans died naturally?"

"No, Cap'n…" said Fraser. He said it very carefully indeed, and avoided Flint's eye, for he'd thought a bit since sunrise and he'd come up with some very plausible explanations for creeping night-time horrors and howls in the dark, not to mention who it might have been that had strangled Peter Evans.

"Ah!" said Flint. "I always knew you were a sharp 'un, Iain, and I am resolved to take you into my confidence, for I'm putting together a new crew – a crew that I can trust… even if it must be a greatly smaller crew."

"Oh?" said Fraser, instantly appreciating that even so large a sum as eight hundred thousand pounds would be all the more for being shared by less. This beautiful thought cleansed his mind of any suspicion of his noble captain. It cleansed it, purged it, scrubbed it and purified it of any such wicked thoughts.

"Aye, lad," said Flint and, reaching into his pocket, he came out with a bottle. He pulled out the cork and took a gulp. Fraser smelt rum and licked his lips. The day was improving, minute by minute.

"Here, shipmate!" said Flint. "Sit alongside of me on this old rock, and take a drop, and I'll tell you the length and breadth of it."

So Captain Joe Flint and Iain Farter Fraser shared a pleasant half-hour, and a full half-bottle – most of it going to Fraser as Flint explained the burdens of command and the awful iniquities of treacherous shipmates, such that no man could tell whom to trust, nor from which direction a fatal stab might come. The sad conclusion of this tale was that all aboard Lion and most aboard Walrus – were back-stabbing, no-seamanly lubbers who were out to steal other men's shares, and so should be denied their own… such that the goods would be shared not between one hundred and forty-seven men but twenty-five!

Farter Fraser beamed happily as he got up to go and piss, which eventually he had to do. He lurched off on wobbling legs, with the rum warm and cosy in his belly.

"God bless you, Cap'n!" he said. "And a clap o' the pox on them others!"

"Thank you, lad," said Flint, pointing. "And just you go over that way, shipmate, and you can bring back that old shirt of mine, and we'll have that rabbit out for our dinner. A bit of fresh meat, shipmate!"

"Aye, shipmate!" said Fraser, greatly daring. He undid his britches, relieved himself, buttoned up, and staggered over to Flint's shirt, which lay squirming in the shade of a broom bush.

"A rabbit?" he said. "Bugger of a funny shape for a rabbit!"

"Open it, lad," said Flint. "You'll see. The rabbits hereabouts ain't like ours in England."

Fraser fumbled with the shirt. Drunk as he was, he couldn't manage to untie the sleeves. So he picked it up to bring it back to Flint. But he dropped it. He laughed. Flint laughed. The shirt wriggled and gave out a peculiar pattering, scratching sound.

"Whassat?" said Fraser, and Flint's parrot spread its wings and flew away. Flint hardly noticed it go. He was at his sport, as the parrot was well aware.

"It's the rabbit, lad," said Flint. "Never mind untying the knots, Iain lad, just out with your knife and cut the damn thing open!"

"But it's your shirt, Cap'n," said Fraser.

"God bless you, lad, don't mind that," said Flint. "We're men who soon shall own half of England! What's a shirt to us?"

"Aye!" said Fraser, shaking his head at his own stupidity for not thinking of that. He fumbled at his belt and pulled out a dirk half the length of his arm. It had a keen edge and a decent point, but in his fuddled state it took a while for Fraser to get it properly into the shirt and rip open a hole.

He peered into the dark recesses of the shirt where it lay writhing on the ground.

"Bugger of a funny rabbit," he said.

"Just stick a hand in and pull it out," said Flint, and stood up and moved closer for a better view.

"Aye-aye, Cap'n, God bless you!" said Fraser, still full of wonderful thoughts of riches. After a brief groping, he added, "Aaaaaaaaagh!"

"Why stap my vitals!" said Flint. "Do you know, Farter, I think you may be right. I really don't think that is a rabbit after all."

"Aaaaaaaaagh!"

"Do you know, what I think that is, Farter?"

"Aaaaaaaaagh!"

"I think that may be a snake."

"Aaaaaaaaagh!"

"A rattlesnake."

But Iain Fraser paid no attention to Flint. He ran aimlessly in all directions, issuing thunderous farts, while three and a half feet of serpent hung writhing and lashing to his right hand, which was firmly clamped in its jaws, while its blunt tail-tip issued the dry rattling clatter for which its family is named.

"Dear me," said Flint, as Fraser stormed past on a southern run. "Could I suggest you retrieve your knife and cut off its head?"

Flint even exerted himself so far as to pick up Fraser's dirk and to hold it out, butt-first, for Fraser to grab on the return leg. Fraser took the blade, but hadn't the dexterity to achieve very much, left-handed. All he did was anger the snake by scratching its scaly hide with superficial cuts which persuaded it to dig in all the harder.

Eventually, when his breath failed, Fraser sat down, heaving and sobbing, on the big grey rock with the snake still firmly attached to his hand.

"Help!" he pleaded. "Help, Cap'n."

"Don't rightly know how, shipmate," said Flint. "Though I do believe that they generally let go of their own accord, once they've bitten enough."