Pieces of Eight

“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.

“And Flint,” said Silver, “Never mind, Billy-boy, for it comes to this: You know the lie of this island: latitude, longitude and all. I want you to tell me how soon Flint’ll be back, so’s I can be warned.”

“And why should I help you?” said Bones.

“First, ’cos I saved your neck from a stretching–which it still might get, if you ain’t careful–and second because we’ve found your old sea-chest, with all your goods aboard, and none shall touch it but you.”

“Oh…” said Billy Bones, for a seaman’s chest held all that was dear to him. “Thank you,” he mumbled, and thought vastly better of Long John. But Silver’s next words stung him.

“Good! Now listen while I tell you how that swab Flint has betrayed you.”

“Never!” said Bones fiercely, making as if to stand.

“Billy!” said Silver. “Don’t!” And he laid a hand on his pistol butt.

“You daresn’t!” said Bones, but he sat down again.

“Billy,” said Silver, gently, “Flint left you, and ain’t never coming back except to kill you, along of all the rest of us.”

“Huh!” sneered Bones. “You just want that black tart–Selena. You can’t stand that Flint’s aboard of her, fuckin’ her cross-eyed!”

“Ugh!” this time the pistol was out and cocked and deep denting Billy Bones’s cheek. Silver was white and he leaned over Bones like a vampire over its prey.

“Don’t you ever say that again, you lard-arsed, shit-head, land-lubber! Just listen to me, Billy, for there’s things about this island that ain’t right and I need you to explain ’em, and I need you to make ready for Flint–’cos if you won’t help, then we’re all dead men…but you the first of all of us! So what course shall you steer, Billy-boy?”

Chapter 3

15th August 1752 The Bishop’s House Williamstown, Upper Barbados

The Bishop of Barbados refused.

“There can be no wedding!” he said. “I am well aware that Mr Bentham–who is a damned pirate–enters into so-called marriages every time he visits this island, choosing as his bride any trollop that takes his fancy, and whom he might have had for sixpence, and whom afterwards he abandons!”

“Quite so!” said his chaplain, standing beside him in nervous defiance of the crowd of garishly dressed, heavily armed men who were crammed into the bishop’s study.

“I’m sorry, Your Grace,” declared Brendan O’Byrne, who commanded the intruders. He was frighteningly ugly and the gallows were groaning for him, but he’d been raised to give respect to a bishop. “I’m afraid you mayn’t say no, for I’m first mate to Captain Bentham, and Captain Bentham is resolved upon marriage. So, will you look at this now?”

He produced a little pocket-pistol, all blued and gleaming. Then, showing its slim barrel to His Grace, he explained what he was going to do with it, and had his men remove the chaplain’s drawers and breeches, and bend the chaplain over a table, to demonstrate precisely how it would be done.

Five minutes later, His Grace was stepping out under a burning sun, sweating in mitre and chasuble, with crosier in hand. His chaplain followed bearing a King James Bible and a Book of Common Prayer while attempting to keep the hem of the bishop’s robes clear of the mud and dog-shite of Queen Mary Street, main thoroughfare of Williamstown.

Beside the bishop marched O’Byrne, arms crossed and a pistol in each fist, while two dozen of his men capered on every side, taking refreshment from bottles. No matter how the bishop looked with his quick, clever eyes, there was no way out but forward, and he made the best of it by smiling to the cheering populace who’d turned out for Danny Bentham’s latest wedding.

“Bah!” said the bishop in exasperation as O’Byrne turned him left into Harbour Street, in sight of the dockyard and the Custom House with its Union Flag, and a small group of the island’s foremost citizens: those who by blind-eye and bribery allowed outright piracy to flourish when it was stamped out in every other place but this.

“Cap’n!” roared O’Byrne, seeing Danny Bentham among them. He waved his hat in the air. “Give a cheer, you men!”

“Huzzah!” they cried.

“Huzzah!” cried the mob, and everyone dashed forward, the bishop and his chaplain bundling up robes, dropping and retrieving sacred books, and managing by sweat-soaked miracles of footwork to avoid falling over completely, Finally, bedraggled and gasping, they arrived at the Custom House, where a wizened man in a red coat stepped forward to greet them.

“My lord!” said Sir Wyndham Godfrey, the governor, doffing his hat and bowing in his ceremonial uniform as colonel of the island’s militia. The bishop caught his breath, took the thin hand, and nodded curtly. The governor had once been an honest man who fought corruption, but now he was a figure of pathos: disease and the tropical climate having taken their toll.

Standing next to him was Captain Danny Bentham, with his bride-to-be. He was a huge man, six foot five inches tall, muscular and upright, with blue eyes, a heavy chin and a thick neck. He wore a gold-laced blue coat, a feathered hat, gleaming top-boots, and a Spanish rapier hung at his side. Sir Wyndham introduced this thieving, murdering rapist as if he were a nobleman.

“It is my pleasure, Your Grace, to present Captain Daniel Bentham, a worthy master mariner and owner of two fine vessels.”

“Milord,” said Bentham, taking the bishop’s hand. “Gaw’ bless you for agreein’ so kindly to do the honours!” The voice was soft but the handshake crunched like pincers. The bishop winced as he looked up into the tall man’s eyes, and was surprised at Bentham’s youth, for the big chin was as smooth as a boy’s.

“And this is my little Catalina, milord.” A small, plump tart was pushed forward in a cheap dress, a lace cap, and half-naked breasts. She was a mulatta: dark-skinned, pretty and with big eyes, the sort that Danny Bentham liked. He gazed upon her with urgent lust, hoisted her off her feet, and kissed her deep and hungry, with loud groans of pleasure.

His men cheered uproariously and fired pistols in the air, while Sir Wyndham and his followers simpered, and the bishop wished his post abolished and himself back in England, albeit as the lowest curate in the land.

“My little Catalina,” said Bentham, putting her down and wiping the slobber from his lips. “Fresh from the Brazils, milord, and speaks only Portugee, of which I has a few words meself. So she don’t know all our ways.” For some reason this provoked laughter from Bentham’s men, but he swiftly went among them and restored order with his fists and shining boots.

The rest of it passed in horror for the bishop, as a procession set out from the Custom House, led by the garrison band and a company of grenadiers. Next came the bishop and the Happy Couple, followed by the governor and prominent citizens, then the populace in general, with slaves, dogs and hogs to the rear.

The destination was Miss Cooper’s whorehouse, a large, stone-built mansion to the windward side of Williamstown, all laid out for a huge banquet.

But first there was the wedding ceremony, which took place in Miss Cooper’s salon: a splendid chamber, but it was Sodom and Gomorrah combined, so far as the bishop was concerned. He looked despairingly at Captain Bentham standing before him doting over his Catalina, while behind them the room was packed stinking full and sweltering hot with coarse and leering persons, mostly drunk and none of them quiet, with the governor and his entourage long gone.

“Ahem!” said the bishop. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here this day in the sight of God and this congregation…”

Eventually they let the bishop go, shoving him out the front door, his chaplain close behind. There, Mr O’Byrne capped insult upon injury by presenting each clergyman with a gratuity of fifty Spanish dollars in a purse tied up with ribbon.

Bang went the door, and they were free. For an instant the bishop stood trembling and close to tears. Then he snarled, “Give me that!” And, snatching the chaplain’s purse, he hurled it, together with his own, straight back into the house through one of Miss Cooper’s windows. If he’d hoped the gesture to be accompanied by the smashing of glass, he was disappointed; all was thrown open for the cool night air. “Bah!” he cried. “A lost labour and an affront to God!”

“What is, Your Grace?” said the chaplain.

“This!” said the bishop, spreading his arms to encompass the entire island.

Inside, roaring and swaying in unison, the men of the company were helping Cap’n Bentham upstairs for his wedding night, bellowing obscene advice. The women, meanwhile, were assisting the new Mrs Bentham out of her clothes, before tucking her into the house’s best bed.

“Ah!” said Bentham at last, leaning his back against the locked door, and “Huh!” as from outside there came the rumble and thunder of Mr O’Byrne removing all those who would have pressed their ears to the wood for further entertainment.

“Now, my little Catalina!” said Bentham.

“Oh, senhor!” she said, and the blood pumped into his loins at the sight of her, sat small and helpless against the pillows, with a linen sheet pulled protectively under her chin. Miss Cooper’s girls had expertly combed out her hair and spread it around her shoulders, while Catalina herself had been a virgin recently enough to remember a maiden’s modesty, and to deliver a representation of it sufficiently convincing for Danny Bentham.

“Senhor,” she pleaded, “seja delicado…”

“Be gentle?” said Bentham. “I’ll show you gentle, my girl!” and he swept off clothes, boots, belt and sword, to stand magnificently naked before his bride, legs spread wide and hands on hips.

“Oh!” said Catalina, sitting up straighter and staring in wonderment, for Danny Bentham’s body was something to see: slim-waisted, smooth and muscular, with long legs, strong arms, and gleaming skin. Catalina thought it a sight to please any bride–apart from the undoubted presence of a fine pair of breasts and the undoubted absence of anything between the legs that stood to attention, or even dangled at ease. In fact there was simply nothing. (Indeed there was doubly nothing, since to explain his smooth chin, Cap’n Bentham called daily for razor, soap and water, and having nothing else to shave, shaved what he had.)

“Hmm…” said Catalina, who understood a lot more than these stupid English thought, and who’d never for a moment believed she’d got a permanent husband: one that would last longer than the dollars she’d been paid. But she had thought she’d got a handsome husband and had been looking forward to the wedding night.

Que piedade, she thought; what a pity. But Captain Bentham thought otherwise. There was not the slightest equivocation in “his” mind as he leapt on to the bed, throwing sheets aside and seizing his wriggling, naked bride with absolute conviction, abandoned passion, and remarkable technique, for Danny Bentham liked women, and only women, and had learned how to please them.

Outside, Mr O’Byrne was at his station, lounging in a chair backed against the door with a bottle of rum for company, still keeping dirty-minded eavesdroppers from their sport.

“Uh! Uh! Uh!” came Bentham’s voice, muffled through the door.

“Go to it, me hearty!” said O’Byrne, and drank a toast.

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” came the other voice.

“Give her one for me, by Christ, Cap’n!”

“Oh! Oh! Oh!”

“Go on, my galloping boy!”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Chapter 4

Two bells of the forenoon watch (c. 9 a.m. shore time) 7th October 1752 Aboard Walrus The southern Caribbean.

“No!” said Selena, “I won’t go below. I want to see.”

“Damn it, girl, do as you’re bid,” said Flint, while beside them at the tiller, Tom Allardyce the bosun worked hard not to notice the argument, focusing instead on the ship they were chasing.

“She’s Dutch, Cap’n!” he said. “Round stern and bilanderrigged, and she’s hard up in a clinch with no knife to cut the seizing!”

Flint snapped out his glass and looked. Allardyce was right–he must have marvellous eyes: it was a Dutchman, heavily storm-damaged, and plodding along helpless. So much the better! He turned to Selena. “Go below, girl!” he muttered. “Don’t play the little madam with me!” Then he raised his voice cheerfully to the men standing to the guns and ready at the sails: “There’s our dockyard, lads!” he cried. “Our planking and rum, and our pickles and pork!”

The men cheered. Walrus had taken a battering in the fight against Lion; heavy shot into her hull had spoiled stores, sprung leaks, wrecked her windlass, and blown away her binnacle and compasses. Desperately short of provisions and fit only for a short voyage, Walrus remained sound aloft. Now, charging onward under foresails and gaffs, mainsail and topsails, she was going like a mail-coach on a turnpike.

“Go below!” said Flint. “There’s danger…and things unfit for you to see.”

“No!” she said. “Not this time. I won’t be shut up below!”

Flint’s eyes showed white all round. Nobody said no when Flint said yes. In agitation he reached up to his shoulder to pet the parrot that was his friend and darling…and which was no longer there because he’d lost it to Silver. Just as he’d got Selena, Silver had got the parrot.

“Huh!” he said, snatching down his hand before anyone should see. “You shall do as you are bid!” And he grabbed Selena, pulling her close and breathing the scent of her. He breathed it deep and felt her warmth and looked into her eyes. This was a new game. He knew it. She knew it. He’d been playing it ever since the island: finding excuses to brush past her, to touch her, and even–on one occasion–attempting to slide a hand inside her shirt to touch her naked skin.

Yes. A shining dawn was breaking for Joe Flint. Thanks to Selena, his lifelong, shameful incapacity seemed to be on the mend, and the dormant contents of his breeches were stirring. Conversely, Selena felt that for her the sun was going down. Flint was master aboard Walrus and would take whatever he wanted the instant he became capable of taking it.

“Flint!” she said sharply. “Look!” Flint turned and saw every eye was on himself and the lovely black girl in her boots, shirt and breeches, with two pistols stuffed in her belt. It’d been Flint’s joke to rig her out like this, but by God Almighty didn’t it just suit her! And now the swine were ogling and nudging one another for the fun of seeing a shapely seventeen-year-old defying him on his own quarterdeck.

Flint measured choices: he could wrestle her bodily through a hatchway–proving to all hands that she was beyond his command; he could order someone else to do it–allowing another man to handle her…or…

He came to a swift decision. “So be it, my chick!” he cried, slapping her backside merrily, as if it were the biggest joke in the world to have a woman on deck as the ship went into action. Turning to his men, he smiled his glittering smile…and it worked! For Flint was a man to admire: handsome, charismatic and splendid.

“A-hah!” roared the crew, united in shared pride of their magnificent captain…even if he was a mad bastard that popped out men’s eyes like pickled onions when the mood was upon him.

“So, my dear,” Flint said to Selena, smiling and smiling, “do try to keep your limbs clear of flying shot, and let’s see how much you relish what you now shall see!” He dropped his voice: “Because you won’t like it, not one little bit, that I do most solemnly promise you!”

The chase was short, for the wretched bilander was as slow as Walrus was fast. As soon as he came within cannon shot, Flint broke out the skull and swords–his personal variation of the black flag–and on the upward roll discharged a thundering load of chain-shot into the Dutchman’s rigging: some ten pounds of iron apiece from each of Walrus’s seven broadside guns. It was more to terrorise than to disable, for the bilander was already in ruins aloft: jury-rigged on the stump of her foremast, most of her bowsprit gone and the big crossjack yard on her mainmast fished with a spar where it had sprung.

The Dutchman shuddered under Walrus’s fire and those aboard were blinded in the smoke. She was a little ship, no more than sixty feet in the hull and a hundred tons burden, with an old-fashioned rig and shallow draught to suit the Netherlands’ waters. Against the heavily armed, sharp-keeled Walrus she was already lost. But she raised the red, white and blue of her native land and fought like a tiger.

One after another, the four one-pounder swivels that were all she had for a broadside blasted their charges, hurling dozens of pistol-balls across Walrus’s decks, prompting roars of rage as men were struck down or staggered back under the impact of shot, even as they stood ready to hurl grappling lines.

“Bastards!” cried Walrus’s men.

“Give ’em another!” cried Flint. “Grape and round-shot!” And it was a race between his gunners and the Dutchman’s as to who would fire next. The Dutchman won, and got off just one more volley of canister, killing a few more of Flint’s men before Walrus’s main battery, thundering fire and smoke, comprehensively smashed in the Dutchman’s bulwarks, blasting half her men into offal, and sending her swivel guns tumbling into the air as iron wreckage.

“Stand by, boarders!” cried Flint. “Put us alongside of her, Mr Allardyce!”