John Drake - Flint and Silver

"What happened?" she said.

"Damned bird!" he said. "It's gone mad!"

"Why?"

"Don't know."

BOOOM! A gun sounded from Walrus. Flint looked up.

"Ah!" he said. "They're launching a boat." He looked at her and noticed her nakedness for the first time. "Better take this," he said, and gave her his coat, then turned to gaze at Walrus and the boat pulling for the shore. But he said nothing else. He divided his attention between the oncoming boat and the green bird circling over the trees.

Then the boat grounded, twenty yards off on the shallow shore. Sand crunched under the bow, six men shipped oars with a rumble and rattle, and Tom Allardyce leapt out and splashed towards Flint and Selena. He stared at Flint in horror.

"Where's the lucky six?" he said. "What's happened? What's wrong?" Then a more immediate thought occurred to him: "Cap'n," he said, pointing angrily at Selena, "that moll's done for Mr Smith. Blew his fuckin' face off, she did!"

"Huh!" said Flint, who was worried with matters far greater than the life or death of the miserable Smith, with his all-too- obvious flaws. He looked at Selena. "Do I take it that he couldn't keep his filthy hands off you?"

"Yes," she said.

"Then serve the lubber right!" Flint looked impatiently at Allardyce, and waved a hand as if to brush away a fly. "Pah!" he said. "I'll hear no more of Parson bloody Smith, and you may give the word to all hands in that regard. Now! Pull for the ship and Devil take him that don't break his back!"

That was shrieked at them in fury. The men bit their lips and avoided his eye. Flint had never screamed at them before. He'd always been smooth as silk and slick as grease. He'd never visibly lost his temper. His voice had been soft as a mother's kiss, even when smashing fingers with a belaying pin. They didn't understand this. It was frightening. So they pulled like red-hot buggery and were back aboard in no time, even with the current in their faces.

There, Selena was shut up down below again, in the cabin smeared with Smith's blood. She found herself some clothes and sat with her head in her hands, and made the best of it. At least she was safe with Flint aboard. And it was no good swimming back to the island. She would have to be patient and hope for better days.

Up on deck, Mr Cowdray was summoned with his instruments, and he washed and dressed Flint's wounds on the quarterdeck, blathering Latin and claiming that soap and sunshine cured all, and wielding a razor to clear the skin for sewing.

"There, sir!" said Cowdray, after a busy half-hour, for he was proud of his work, and felt that no man could have done a better job of putting Flint's scalp back into place. He finished with a neat bandage and a word of warning.

"There will be some scarring, sir, at the brow, near the hairline. But mostly there will be little to be seen once the hair grows back."

Flint nodded. He'd borne the surgery manfully, since his mind had been far away while Cowdray was cutting and stitching. He'd been pulling himself back from the edge. He'd been very close last night, and even closer this morning, for there are worse depths than those which swallowed Taylor and Howard: depths which are ever-waiting for a man with a mind like Flint's. But now he was back. He was back and safe, and the edge was far away, so he thought.

"Will you take a pull of rum, Captain?" said Cowdray. "It's usual at such a time." And Cowdray's assistant, Jobo, held out a bottle.

"No thank you, Doctor," said Flint. "I need a clear head, and a word with the hands." He looked Cowdray seriously in the eye. "For we have been betrayed, Doctor."

"Betrayed?"

"Betrayed by John Silver – that unconscionable scoundrel – who put ashore a landing party, in secret and at dead of night – and murdered all my dear comrades, leaving me the sole survivor."

"No!"

"Yes! And therefore I must take this ship into action against his, if we are to have any chance of reclaiming our buried goods, the which he is resolved to steal and keep for himself and his men – for they are as bad as he!"

"In breach of his oath and his articles?"

"I heard him say it, sir! When I was forced to hide in the woods, and he did not know I was near!" Flint bowed his head in sorrow. "I know we did not part as friends, yet still I had thought more than that of John Silver."

"Good God Almighty!" said Cowdray, horrified. He raised his voice, "Gather round, you men. Come closer! The captain has fearful news!"

9th September 1752 The forenoon watch (c. 10 a.m. shore time) Aboard Lion The southern anchorage

A nine-pound shot was only half an inch wider than a six: about four inches as compared with three and a half. But the greater weight of shot, and the heavier powder charge behind it, gave the nine-pounder gun its famously long reach, and a far greater capacity to smash timbers and beams. The six-pounder was a good enough gun for grape and canister, or for chain-shot to dismast, but the nine-pounder was a proper ship-breaker.

"Can I fire, Cap'n?" pleaded Israel Hands, "before them buggers comes into range of us?" He crouched down and took two more sights over the barrel of his beloved Spanish gun: one sighting through the top notches to train the gun, and a second, for range, through the side notches.

Range was the hard one. Training was easy: just a matter of pointing of the gun at the target, by sighting through the top-centre notch on the breech-ring, and the top-centre notch in the muzzle-ring.

But range had to be judged – which meant guessed – and then the side notch on the muzzle-ring had to be lined up with one of a series of side notches at the breech, giving from one degree to five degrees of elevation. As Israel Hands had never yet fired the gun, he was ranging by guesswork and the hope that the two and a half degrees he'd chosen would reach Walrus, which he guessed was about four hundred yards away.

"Can I fire, Cap'n?" said Israel Hands again, and blew on the match-cord in his linstock to make the end glow nice and red.

"No," said Silver, "not yet. All they've done is make sail."

"But that's against -"

"Silence on the gun-deck!" bawled Silver, and stumped about behind Israel Hands and his gun-crew. Silver was in anguish. It was torture. His was the final decision. Should he fire on Walrus or not? Should he take the final step that would set jolly companions to murdering each other?

Israel and the rest looked at Silver and waited. The ship was at general quarters. Guns were run out and loaded. Decks were sanded and the ship's boys crouched ready to run cartridges from the magazine. The larboard spring was bent to the capstan, and hands stood at the bars to swing Lion's battery to bear on any quarter. She was as prepared as ever she could be.

Silver looked at Walrus. He'd been studying her through a glass since just after dawn when Flint's signal had gone up. He'd seen Allardyce take a boat ashore and come back with Flint: just Flint and none of the burial party. Just Flint, and Selena in Flint's blue coat, the sight of which set Silver's mind wrenching and churning and doubting all over again, wondering what in Heaven and Hell was going on.

And then Walrus had upped anchor and made sail! And all without a word sent over to Lion. Silver had immediately made ready to fight, knowing that, with springs on his cables, he couldn't be out-manoeuvred, and equally that there was no way out of the anchorage for Walrus other than past Lion, for on Walrus's side it ran to shoals and sandbanks.

He'd not set sail either. With the navigable waters of the anchorage over half a mile wide, it was possible that Flint would pass well clear of Lion and avoid a fight, heading for the open sea, but Silver couldn't see him doing that. That would mean leaving the island free and open for Silver to go ashore and search for the goods. And Joe Flint would poke his own eyes out before he'd do that.