John Drake - Flint and Silver

"Cap'n, sir!" cried Allardyce, "we got to get her under way!"

"Damn your eyes and bones, you mutinous bugger!" said Flint. "I said fetch me some small shot and a fowling piece!"

The men looked at one another in fright.

"Well? Well?" cried Flint.

"Don't rightly know that we've got any, Cap'n," said Allardyce. "Not small shot. And we surely ain't got no fowling piece on board."

Flint's hands were around his throat in an instant, throttling and spattering blood from his fresh-opened wound.

"Then get me a bloody musket, and cut up a ball with a knife. Cut it into many pieces and load it well, or I'll cut the liver and lights out of you!" He turned on the rest of them who'd left their guns and their duties and were gazing in horror at their captain. "And all hands, out with your barking irons and shoot me that bloody bird!"

He set an example by dragging a musket out of a rack by the mainmast and blazing away at the unfortunate parrot, which abandoned the maintop and fluttered to the fore- topmast.

His deeply puzzled men fired a reluctant volley at the creature who had been Flint's pride and joy. They all hated it, but none had dared lay a hand on it. Not in Flint's sight, anyway. And now, since none dared oppose him, men were loading and firing at it as if nothing else was happening, while Flint sat on the deck, making parrot-shot out of musket balls, in company with Allardyce and one or two others who were more afraid of Flint than they were of death.

And CRASH! – another round from Israel Hands, who'd got the range nicely and was hitting Walrus at a comfortable, steady rate of about one shot every two minutes. They could have fired much faster, but Hands had a firm deck under his feet, and a good crew, and a target that was sitting still and not hitting back.

It was just a matter of time before Walrus was knocked into splinters.

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

The boom and rumble of a gun reached Billy Bones, where he sat in his chains. The sound came down through two decks, loud and clear and unmistakable, and it set the very ballast stones a-tremble.

"Ah!" said Billy Bones, throwing off the leg-irons that he'd long since filed through and had left in place only for appearances, to keep Silver's men happy when they came down to feed him and to empty his slop-bucket. He frowned, for they'd done that none too often. It was usually the nippers they sent down to do it and the little bleeders delighted in spilling the stew on Billy Bones's legs – God an' all his little angels help 'em if Billy ever got his hands on 'em!

He stood up and stretched. He'd been four days down here. He was cramped and stiff. He'd been sat on his behind the whole time, unable – in his irons – even to take a step, and afraid to take them off to exercise for fear of losing them in the gloom and blowing the gaff. Now he wriggled his toes for the pins and needles, and he rubbed his arms and worked his shoulder joints. He grumbled and mumbled a bit, but he was a stoic beast. He was no more capable of self-pity than a cart-horse or an ox.

"Now then!" he said, as he took a good grip of the iron bar that had held the shackle-loops to his ankles. It was about eighteen inches long and three-quarters of an inch thick. He felt the weight of it. Not really big enough, should it come to fighting, but it would have to do. Then he felt in his pockets for the tools that Flint had given him. The file had done its job, and now it was time for the other.

BOOM! Billy Bones looked up at the deckhead as a gun went off above. Oh yes! Lion and Walrus were at it hammer and tongs – not that he hadn't guessed it already, what with Silver bellowing, and the crew clearing the decks and hoisting out the boats. Billy Bones grudgingly approved of that. It was man-o'-war practice, was hoisting out the boats: getting them out of the way of shot, and ready for use in case of need, especially in shoal waters like this, where a captain might need to haul his ship out of danger by putting out a kedge anchor.

He took a step forward, wincing at the stones under his stockinged feet, and he paused and looked at the big ship's lantern that had been his sun and moon the past few days. He was tempted to take it, but he had much to do and couldn't do it heavy laden. He looked about and made plans.

They'd put him next to the well that fed the ship's pumps – the well and the shot locker. There was a little area of naked ballast down here, but the rest of the hold was taken up with water-butts and other heavy stores. It was crammed and dark. He pursed his lips and thought heavily… and started forward.

Round the well he went, and up on to the water-butts and aft, where a half-deck began, packed with more stores, then up a ladder, now in darkness beyond the feeble light of the lantern. He stopped for an instant to get his bearings. There should be only a thin bulkhead, now, between him and the wardroom.

BOOM! The gun fired again, and Billy Bones heard Lion's men cheering and the unmistakable sound of Silver's crutch thumping the deck.

"I'll show you, John Silver," he thought, "won't I just!" And he felt in the darkness for the hatchway that he knew was there… There it was. He ran his fingers round the coaming and tried to get the iron bar into the small gap. It was too big to fit. But never fear: out with the file, a bit of scraping and cutting, and he'd opened up a gap for his lever. A moment later he'd forced open the hatch. It wasn't properly locked, just fastened with a wooden catch on the other side.

Light stabbed his eyes. After almost a week in the gloom, the brilliant tropical sun was blinding and painful – even when it had to make its way down through a skylight and into the shadowy wardroom. Billy waited, blinking and rubbing his eyes. Everything was bright and loud, and a companionway led straight up to the quarterdeck, just to his left, letting in more light. The crew were yelling and cheering, and Israel Hands was calling out as he trained a gun… "Right! Right! Right!"

Billy Bones hesitated a moment. Lion's crew were all around him. They were only a few feet away…

BOOOOM! The gun fired and the men cheered.

Billy bent to his task. This wasn't really a wardroom. Not like the real thing on board a warship. They just called it that as a sort of joke. It was a narrow space, lit from above, with cabins on either side for the ship's officers: little boxes four feet wide and just over seven feet long.

Quickly, Billy pulled all the doors open. He dragged out everything from the cabins – especially papers and small timbers – and scattered them on the deck. Then he found a knife and ripped open all the straw mattresses he could find and shoved some of them in a pile and dragged others into the stern cabin, aft of the wardroom, and heaved the cabin furniture on them, and opened the stern lights.

From his own cabin he dragged his old sea-chest, and hauled it back through the hatchway and into the hold. Then he opened it, pulling out the papers that Flint had given him, and a gallon bottle of olive oil. That went all over the pile of rubbish in the middle of the wardroom and stern cabin, and slopped towards the hold.

Then Billy Bones got himself back into the hold with his box, and looked out through the rectangle of light before producing Flint's final gift. It was – or had been – a gentleman's pocket pistol, one of the tiny, box-lock kind with a screw-off barrel that enables it to be loaded at the breech. With the barrel removed and the wooden butt cut away, there was very little left of it: just a few inches of steel mechanism.

In that condition, and loaded only with powder and wadding, it was useless as a pistol… but excellent as a firelighter.