Kitabı oku: «Pieces of Eight»

Chapter 2

Early morning, 30th September 1752 The southern anchorage The island

“Remember,” said Long John, “a round turn and two half-hitches! Keep it simple. Don’t go trying to work a Turk’s head, nor a cable-splice!”

Ratty Richards, ship’s boy, grinned. “Aye-aye, Cap’n!” he said. Skinny, tired, and dripping wet, he was the only one of the seventy-one men and three boys on the island who could dive in six fathoms of water and still do a few seconds’ work at the bottom.

“You sure, lad?” said Long John. “You’ve already had a good whack. You don’t have to go again if you don’t want to…”

“I’m ready, Cap’n!”

“Ah, you’re a smart lad, you are. I knew it the moment I set eyes on you. So here’s your sinker and in you go.”

Splash! Ratty Richards rolled over the gunwale of the skiff into the cool water, one hand pinching his nose and the other clasping the heavy boulder that would take him down. As he sank, the safety line round his waist and the heavy rope looped through it paid out from their coils while Long John, Israel Hands, Sarney Sawyer and George Merry leaned over the side to see him go down.

“Bugger me!” said Israel Hands. “Is this goin’ to work, John? I’ve lost count how many times he’s been down.” He sighed heavily. “Don’t want to drown the lad.”

“Oh?” said Long John. “Weren’t it yourself as pleaded for the Spanish nine?” He jerked a thumb at the sea bed. “For myself, I’d not’ve tried to raise a twenty-six-hundredweight gun with this–” He looked at the two boats, joined by a pair of spars, floating with barely a yard between them. Long John and Sawyer were in the skiff, with Hands and Merry in the jolly-boat; Ratty Richards’s rope fed into a heavy block suspended from the spars and then to an iron windlass that had been firmly bolted to the midships thwart of the jolly-boat. The block-and-tackles were sound, but the boats were too small. Unfortunately, they were the only boats on the island.

“He’s down, Cap’n!” cried Sarney Sawyer, looking below. “And he’s workin’ on her. Go on Ratty, my son!”

“Go on, Ratty!” they all cried, peering through the clear water pierced to the bottom by the hot morning sun, showing every movement the boy made.

Down in the booming depths, the weight of water crushed Ratty’s chest as if a horse were rolling on him, and he strained to remember his orders. Water bubbled from his mouth as he grabbed one of the gun’s dolphins. The Spanish founders had followed obsolete style in adding these elegant decorations, but they were ideal for work such as this. The plunging sea-beasts, cast integral with the barrel, formed loops of iron perfect for lifting the gun. Ratty tugged the rope from the line round his waist then slid it through one dolphin and into the next.

So far, each attempt had failed. Now, lungs pounding, he struggled to secure the rope. In a ship, he could tie a knot without thinking; it was bred into him, instinctive. But not down here.

He threaded the rope through the second dolphin…a round turn… Ratty passed the rope around itself…and two half hitches… he tied the first hitch…torture and suffocation…he fumbled for the second hitch. He lost the rope. He fumbled again and again…blindness and agony…fear of death…Ratty kicked his bent legs almightily against the gun, launching himself like a soaring lark…up, up, up, frothing and bursting and spouting breath and blood and stretching for the blessings of light and air.

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” he thrashed and splashed and breathed water and choked and broke surface.

“Gotcher me lad!” cried Long John, hauling him into the skiff and dumping him between the thwarts.

“Urgh! Uch! Yuch!” Ratty’s guts vomited seawater and his eyes stared wide, not quite believing he wasn’t dead.

“Did you do it lad?” said Long John, looming over him. “Did you make fast and secure?”

“Dunno,” said Ratty.

“Bugger!” said Israel Hands.

“Clap a hitch there, Mr Gunner!” said Long John, and laid a hand on Ratty’s shoulder. “This man’s done his best, and no man can’t do no more!” He stabbed a finger. “Or p’raps you’d like to heave off your britches and take a dive yourself?”

“Not I,” said Israel Hands. “Ah, you’re right, John! Bloody gun’s too big. What we needs is a proper longboat, and a good big ’un.”

“The which we ain’t got,” said Long John.

“Aye, but the gun did have dolphins,” said Israel Hands wistfully. “And Flint left us this, or we’d never have tried.” He patted the powerful iron windlass that sat beside him, “I wonder what he wanted with it?”

“Nothing good,” said Long John. “And I’ll have less jaw and more work, if you please, Mr Hands, else we’ll never recover your blasted nine-pounder!”

Silver sighed. They were marooned on the island, with Flint’s treasure buried who-knows-where, and Flint liable to return at any moment with a shipload of men hell-bent on skinning, gutting and roasting every one of them. Since they couldn’t build a vessel to carry all hands before Flint returned, and none could be left to face him, their aim was to defend the island. But how? Long John worried worse than anyone, being in command, for he’d been duly elected captain by all hands…excepting only Mr Billy Bones, who was still loyal to Flint, and who couldn’t now be harmed because he was the only man capable of navigation and would be indispensable if ever they did get off the island.

And so the old guilt came pressing down upon Long John for his total inability to master the art of navigation…

Israel Hands saw the look on his face.

“Easy John,” he said. “We follow where you lead. We all…”

“Cap’n!” cried Sarney Sawyer, hauling on the rope. “He done it! The little bugger done it!”

“What’s that, Mr Bosun?” Silver was so deep in thoughts of Flint that he’d forgotten the Spanish gun.

“He made fast the line, Cap’n!” Sawyer grinned. “Double grog for Mr Richards, and no mistake!”

“Did I do it?” said Ratty, “I thought I didn’t.”

“Well, you did, lad,” said Silver, “and well done indeed, for it was you alone as was down there! So it’s all hands to the windlass!”

In fact, there being only two cranking handles and little room for manoeuvre, it fell to George Merry and Israel Hands to man the windlass. As the two of them groaned under the strain and the pauls of the windlass clattered merrily, Long John, Sawyer and Ratty Richards peered intently at the black shape of the gun, half-buried in sand, still in the wreckage of its carriage.

With Merry and Hands heaving on the rope like a pair of tooth-pullers on a molar, the windlass began to slow, the rattling giving way to a groaning of the rope, until suddenly the gun gave a mighty tremble. Then:

“Whoa!” they all cried as the nine-pounder lurched almost free of its carriage, hanging on by one half-shattered capsquare. Having cleared the swirling, sand-clouded bottom, it now hung, swaying to and fro on the rope, rocking the boats alarmingly.

“’Vast hauling!” roared Long John. “All hands stand fast!”

Nobody moved. They hung on, white-faced, until the gun finished its turning and the boats stopped plunging. It was fearfully easy to overturn boats and, swimming was rare among seamen; of those aboard, Ratty was the only one who could swim. If the boats sank it would be death for all but him.

“Right then, lads,” said Long John, when the boats had steadied, “handsomely now, and up she comes. Give way!”

Hands and Merry cranked the handles round, but much more slowly now. The rope grew taut as an iron bar as the gun rose from the sea bed. Straining and groaning, the two men laboured and the gun moved inch by painful inch…and then stuck.

“Stap me, John!” gasped Israel Hands. “Can’t do it.” He and Merry were soaked with sweat and their arms trembled with the effort.

“Lay a hand there, Mr Bosun!” said Long John, and he and Sawyer clambered awkwardly from skiff to jolly-boat, cramming themselves alongside Hands and Merry. With the strength of four men behind it, the windlass began to turn again. Until:

“Ahhhh!” The gun broke suddenly free and spun viciously on the rope. Both vessels wallowed violently; Silver and Sawyer were sent tumbling as the jolly-boat rolled gunwale under and began to sink, while the joining spars lifted the skiff out of the water entirely.

“We’re goin’!” screamed George Merry.

“Cut the line!” yelled Silver, struggling to dislodge Sawyer, who had landed across his one leg, stunned senseless by the fall. Hands and Merry, cramped against the windlass, pulled their knives, but Merry’s was knocked from his hand as the boat lurched, while Hands was held fast by the iron handle jammed into his chest and could only hack feebly with his left hand, barely able to reach the rope.

“God save us!” screamed Israel Hands. “She’s lost!”

“Gimme a cutlass!” yelled Silver, for he’d left his own weapon in the skiff. Ratty scrambled to pick it up and made to throw it–scabbard, baldric and all–across to his captain.

“No!” cried Silver. “Draw the bugger!”

“Here, Cap’n!” said Ratty, passing the blade, hilt-first.

“Ah! said Silver and sat up, grabbing the gunwale to steady himself. With the boats going over, over, over…he swung with all his might…and thump! The rope snapped like a gunshot, the jolly-boat rolled, the skiff hit the water, spray flew in all directions and Silver, Israel Hands and George Merry wallowed in the saved but half-sunk boat as flotsam, jetsam and the bailing bucket washed around their knees.

“Ohhh!” said Sarney Sawyer, roused by the wetting.

For a while four men and a boy sat gasping and glad to be alive.

“That’s enough!” said Silver, finally. “We’ve got the four-pounders out of Lion and we’ll have to make do with them. Let’s get ship-shape and pull for the shore. And that bugger–” he jabbed a thumb at the lost nine-pounder–“stays where it is!”

Soon they were pulling past the burned-out wreck of Lion herself, beached in the shallows of the southern anchorage. Once she’d been a beautiful ship, but all that was left of her now was the bow and fo’c’sle, clean and bright and untouched by the fire that had destroyed her. Aft of the mainmast, she was black, hideous and chopped-off short.

“Huh,” thought Silver, “’tain’t only me what has a stump!”

He stared miserably at the wreck where it lay canted over: masts and shrouds at a mad angle, and yards dug into the shallow, sandy bottom. It felt indecent, gazing upon the insides of the ship with everything on view instead of planked over. These days she was more of a shipyard than a ship; her decks rang to the thump and buzz of tools as a swarm of men, led by Black Dog, the carpenter, carried out Long John’s orders to salvage everything useful: guns, rigging, timbers and stores.

“Cap’n Silver!” cried Black Dog, as they pulled level. “A word, Cap’n.”

“Easy all,” said Silver. “Stand by to go alongside.” The awkward double-boat nudged up against the wreck until Silver sat almost eye-to-eye with Black Dog, a tallow-faced creature who never darkened in the sun, and who’d lost two fingers of his left hand to Silver’s parrot, back in the days when it was Flint’s. He was working, bare-legged with slops rolled up, on the waterlogged lower deck, and he touched his brow in salute.

“Cap’n,” he said, “see what we found!” Then he yelled back over his shoulder, “Haul that box aft!”

A rumble and bumping followed as a man came backwards, dragging a large sea-chest. It was like any other seaman’s chest, except that the initial “B” had been burned into the top with a hot iron, and the corners were somewhat smashed and broken by rough usage.

“What’s this?” said Silver.

“Why, it’s Billy Bones’s!” said Israel Hands.

“That’s right, Mr Gunner,” said Black Dog. “You and me had the ballasting of the old ship, and we came to know every man’s sea-chest what had one.”

“That we did, Mr Carpenter,” said Israel Hands. “But it ain’t right that a sod like Billy-boy should get his precious goods back when better men than him has lost their all,” he scowled. “And him the bastard what started the fire in the first place! I say we open her up and divvy her out!”

“Belay that!” said Silver. “How many times must I tell you swabs that we needs Billy Bones plump and fair and on our side?”

“Easy, Cap’n,” said Israel Hands. “We knows it, but we don’t have to like it.”

“Like it or not,” said Long John, “just you heave that chest into this boat, and back to Billy Bones it goes. I needs a word with the swab and this’ll make it all the easier.”

Later, Long John led Billy Bones away from the palm tree to which he’d been tethered to the camp of tents set up on the shores of the southern anchorage, which was Silver’s headquarters. Cap’n Flint, the parrot–who hated boats and had waited ashore–was back on his shoulder. Silver moved at ease over the soft sand, thanks to the wide wooden disc secured around the end of his crutch to stop it sinking. He was fast as any ordinary man, and faster than Mr Billy Bones, who plodded deep and slow, puffing and blowing as he went.

Billy Bones was a big heavy man, broad-chested, with thick arms and massive fists. He was a pugilist of note, the terror of the lower deck, and had once been a sea-service officer: one of the old school, with mahogany skin, a tarred pigtail and pitch-black fingernails. But the service had lost him to Flint. For Billy Bones was Flint’s through and through. That was why he’d set fire to Lion and why now–even though Silver was the only man in the world who Billy Bones feared, and Silver was armed and he was not–Billy’s arms were secured with manacles and two men walked behind him with muskets aimed into his back.

“Now then, Billy-my-chicken,” said Long John, drawing to a stop. Even leaning on his crutch he was taller than Bones, just as he was taller than most men. He took off his hat, wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief, and stared into Billy Bone’s eyes, until Bones flinched. “Huh!” said Silver, and Billy Bones bit his lip and looked sideways at Silver’s big, fair face. Silver wasn’t a handsome man like Flint, but he had the same overpowering presence, and he made Billy Bones nervous.

“See that sun, Billy-boy?” said Silver. Bones looked up at the blazing sun, climbing to its full height in the deep blue sky. “Precious close to noon, and it’ll soon be too hot to fart, let alone talk, so I want this over quick.”

“What?” said Bones, eyes widening in dread. “What d’ye mean?” He glanced back at the two men with muskets.

“No, no, no!” said Silver. “Not that, you blockhead. If I’d wanted you dead, I’d have hung you. There’s plenty of men wanting to haul you off your feet, and only myself stopping ’em.”

“Well what then?” said Bones, still mortally afraid.

“Just look,” said Silver. Bones looked. He saw the sands shimmering with heat, and the salvage crew wading ashore from the wreck, all work having stopped, while men fresh from other duties were getting themselves into the shade of the neat rows of tents where all would soon be sleeping until the mid-day heat was past.

“Look at what?” said Bones, deeply puzzled. Long John sighed.

“Billy-boy,” he said, “you never were the pick of the litter when it came to brains! I meant you to see the works what’s going forward.” Bones blinked, still fearful, not knowing where this was leading. Silver looked at the coarse, thick face with its deep-furrowed brow, and sighed that such a creature could wield a quadrant while he could not.

“Billy,” he said, “did you ever know me to lie?”

“No,” said Bones after intense pondering.

“Did you ever know me to break a promise?”

“No,” said Bones, with surly reluctance.

“Heaven be praised! Then here’s a promise: If you come and sit with me in the shade of them trees–” Long John pointed at the line of drooping palms that edged the vast curve of the sandy shore “–and if you promise to listen fairly and act the gentleman…why! I’ll send these two away,” he nodded at the guards, “and I’ll send for some grog and a bite to eat. But if you try to run, Billy-boy, or if you raise your hand…I promise to shoot you square in the belly and dance the hornpipe while you wriggle. Is that fair, now?”

“Aye,” said Bones, for it was much what he would have done in Silver’s place, especially the shooting in the belly. So they found a comfortable place to sit, and took a mug or two, and some fruit and biscuit, and Long John brought all his eloquence to bear on Billy Bones.

“Billy,” he said, “Flint’s been gone a week. My guess is he’ll head for Charlestown to take on more men and arms, and he’ll come straight back, at which time I want to be ready. He’ll have greater numbers, but we’ve got plenty of powder and shot and small arms, and most of the four-pounders saved out of Lion, besides which Israel Hands says there’s the wreck of a big ship up in the north anchorage, with nine-pounders that we could use, though they’re too heavy to move very far.”

“Aye,” said Bones, “that’d be the Elizabeth. I sailed aboard of her with Israel and…” He dropped his eyes.