Flint and Silver

“Well, Cap’n,” said Silver, “every quarter-hour by the sand-glass, the log is hove at the stern to find the speed of her through the water.”

“Aye,” said England. “Let’s say the log’s been heaved, and her speed is five knots …”

“So,” said Silver, “that’s five knots for a quarter-hour, north by northwest.” And he set a peg in the board accordingly, and looked at England. “For that is the purpose of the board, Cap’n: to keep a reckoning of her course and speed, every quarter-hour, throughout the watch.”

“Splendid!” said England. “And what happens at the end of the watch?”

“Why,” said Silver, “the officer of the watch –” he instinctively touched his hat to the mate – “he takes the board and marks out how she’s run – her course and speed – during the watch.” He paused for he was now entering unknown waters. “He marks it out on the chart, Cap’n …” Silver blinked. “Which is all I knows o’ the matter.” His smile faded a little.

“We’ll come to that!” said England confidently. “But first, here’s the end of the forenoon watch about to be struck …”

Clang-clang! Clang-clang! Clang-clang! Clang-clang! The bell sounded from its little temple at the break of the fo’c’sle.

“Eight bells! Change the watch!” yelled the boatswain, and there was a rumble of bare feet on the boards as the hands of the starboard watch ran to relieve the larboard watch, who were now standing down. They doubled to it like men-o’-warsmen because Captain England would have it no other way. At the same time England’s servant came up from below with a big triangular wooden case. He opened it and presented it to England.

“Cap’n,” he said respectfully, and England took out a complex ebony instrument with brass scales, a miniature telescope, and lenses, filters and other mysterious appendages besides.

“This is a quadrant, Long John,” said England. “For this first time, I shall instruct you in its use, but afterwards, the second mate shall be your teacher.”

He nodded at the second mate, who touched his hat respectfully before taking his own quadrant out of its case and standing beside the first mate, who already had his quadrant ready.

“ ‘Tis noon,” said England. “The ship’s day begins at noon, each day, and at that time we …” England paused. “Long John?” he said. “What is it?”

Silver was looking at the quadrant. It unsettled him. It worried him. He’d seen officers using quadrants and the like ever since he first went to sea. But he’d never before been asked to use one, and he stared in morbid dread at the unfathomable complexity of the thing. Some men are disturbed by heights, some by spiders or snakes. Some cannot bear to be enclosed in a small space. Long John was weighed down by the thought of having to swallow such an appalling meal of abstract thinking, which was so different from the simple, physical seamanship that he’d learned by hard labour.

“No matter, Cap’n,” he said. “Show me the workings of her.” Long John was no coward. So he took the quadrant when England offered it, and he paid his best attention to the explanations, so carefully given, and he did his best to ask questions.

But it was no good. The worry turned to fear: fear of being exposed as an incompetent before England and the crew. Later, in England’s cabin, when the captain tried to explain latitude and longitude and how a ship might find its way across the empty oceans, it was even worse. Long John tried to the very utmost of his ability, but the bearings and degrees and minutes had no meaning to him. Instead, his head felt thick and hot, a band of pain clamped round his brow, and his eyes watered like a blubbering child’s. Finally, as England waved a pair of elegant brass dividers with blue-steel needle-points, trying to explain dead reckoning, Long John Silver swayed and stumbled with nausea, and had to be helped into a chair by a dumbfounded Nathan England.

“What is it, John?” he said. “Have you got the ague? Is it some damned fever? What is it, shipmate?”

“Can’t do it, Cap’n,” said Silver. “Show me any other task. Let me dive for gold on the sea bed. Let me lead boarders into a three-decker’s broadside. Anything.”

“What d’you mean, lad?” said England, more concerned than he’d realised. England had no son. He had no family at all. He’d taken powerfully to John Silver and it had become England’s hope and pleasure to see the younger man advanced in his profession.

“Can’t do it, Cap’n,” Silver repeated. “Not with charts an’ all. Please don’t ask me.”

“Nonsense!” said England. “Everyone thinks they can’t do it at first. We shall persevere.”

And so they did. Neither man was one to give up easily. They persevered for weeks. Sometimes Long John even thought he was getting a grasp on the thing. But the best he ever achieved was like the performance of a clumsy musician who sounds one plodding note after another, to the dismay of those around him, and to his own despair, recognising his failure.

“How can it be, John?” said England at last. “I’ve seen you calculate the value of a ship’s cargo down to the penny – and that done in your head without pencil and paper. How can you manage that, yet not master this piece of glass and wood?” He held up a quadrant.

“Cargoes is things I can touch,” said Silver. “But that bloody thing …” he stared hopelessly at the instrument “… that’s black magic!”

England sighed. “It’s no good, is it, shipmate?”

“No,” said Long John. “And happy will I be to try this no more!”

“So be it,” said England. “I shall rate you as an officer, nonetheless: whether it be coxswain, master-at-arms or something of my own invention, for I still say that men follow where you lead. But the fact of it is, John Silver, that only a gentleman and a navigator may command a ship, and I fear you will never be one.”

Chapter 4

4th January 1749 Aboard HMS Elizabeth The Caribbean

Flint crept silently down a companionway, drawn by the unnatural silence on the dinnertime gun-deck, which should have been rattling and echoing with noise. The silence could only mean some punishable insubordination and it was his delight to catch them at it. He was enjoying the anticipation of a hunter who takes his prey unawares, especially when at last he stepped through a hatchway and caught sight of the whole crew gaping at Ben Gunn, their stupid mouths hanging open, still speckled with food and dripping with grog.

This was the delicious moment. The moment just before the trap was sprung, when a word from him would jump the swabs out of their skins. Prolonging the pleasure, he nuzzled his parrot and held his hand over its beak to keep silence. Flint wondered what the solemn and miserable Ben Gunn might have to say that could so captivate them.

Had he been only a little more patient he would have found out; and then he too would have been captivated. He would have been captivated, bound in chains and sunk beyond soundings in the limitless depth of interest in what Ben Gunn was about to reveal … but he couldn’t contain himself. The anticipation of the moment was too exquisite.

“What’s this?” he boomed. “Is there disaffection among the hands? Is there wickedness in the wind?”

A hundred men leapt in terror as the fear of hell took their hearts with an icy claw, for they’d spun round to see Flint, smooth and shining, neat and suave, with his parrot on his shoulder. He gazed upon the sea of terror and shook with laughter, tickled beyond bearing by their comical faces. His parrot flapped and cackled, he snapped his fingers and stamped his foot in glee. Then he walked up and down between the mess tables, making jokes and clapping men on the shoulder in merriment. The coin of Flint’s character had spun and come up bright, and now he worked black magic with his charm and his wit, and there wasn’t a man present who could help but like him, and smile in admiration of him.

Afterwards, though, nobody could ever persuade Ben Gunn to finish his story, and the mystery of an unspeakable past hung about Flint and made them fear him more than ever.

And all the while Springer watched in dull, uncomprehending hatred. He was sixty-two years old. He’d been at sea fifty years. He’d learned his trade in King Billy’s time, when precious gentlemen despised the service, and he knew no other way than a rough way. He’d kicked arses and knocked men down all his life, and he believed flogging was the only way to keep idle seamen to their duties. What’s more, Elizabeth under Flint’s hand was the tightest ship Springer had ever known. And yet … there was something about the way Lieutenant Flint went about his duties that upset Springer, and it nagged at him that he couldn’t make out what it was.

The sorry truth was that Springer had not the wit to distinguish the ruthless, straight discipline that he practised himself – and which seamen respected – from the sadism inflicted upon them by Flint. So Springer avoided Flint and spent many hours in his cabin, reading and re-reading Commodore Phillips’s orders and studying the rough map that Phillips had got from the hands of the dying Portugee. Phillips’s eyes had blazed over the island, thinking it would be another Jamaica: a sugar island to coin money. Springer hoped Phillips was right, and he hoped he might get his hands on a little of the money.

Then he’d roar for his servant to bring a bottle, and he’d damn the lure of Flint’s plan, which he knew might bring a quick return, whereas any benefit from the island was far distant and entirely dependent on the goodwill of the commodore, whose arse was as tight as a Scotchman’s purse.

In fact, Springer need not have worried about Phillips’s greed, because the commodore would soon be incapable of enjoying that deadly sin. In a matter of weeks, a violent storm would run Phillips’s squadron on to a reef off Morant Point, Jamaica, with the loss of over a thousand men. This catastrophe would leave all knowledge of the island of São Bartolomeo exclusively in Springer’s command, to the degree that even the name São Bartolomeo would never be heard again.

What Springer should have worried about was the temper of his crew under Flint, whose reign over the lower deck was unpredictable in the extreme. On the positive side, Flint had some excellent qualities. He knew the name of every man on board, and all their characters and peculiarities. He was a superb seaman and navigator, and his exacting standards were evident in the gleaming brass and snow-white decks. Above all, men leapt to his orders like lightning.

Many of the crew, led by Billy Bones, would have followed Flint into the cannon’s mouth. Billy Bones was a big, plain, simple man with a dog’s need for a master. He had enough education to find his latitude and plot his course. He had enough – plenty enough and more – of muscles to knock down any man he didn’t like. Beyond that, he had the wit to recognise Flint’s talents, and to envy the swaggering style and bearing of the man – a style and bearing which shone so brightly compared with his own, with his leathery face, his knotted hands and his tarred pigtail.

But Billy Bones saw no further and no deeper, and certainly acknowledged no fault in Flint. This was partly because he didn’t want to: he’d found his idol and that was that. But there was more. There was fear. There was a great fear that Billy Bones bowed down to and which made his idol all the greater.

With Flint, everything hinged on fear. At a deep and instinctive level, all men look at each other on first meeting to assess who’d prevail in a fight, but no man had ever looked into Flint’s eyes without blinking, for there was something about Flint that was manic and unholy, something best left unchallenged. Something that resonated with the horrors hinted at by Ben Gunn.

In some officers, this could have been a strength: an instant source of discipline. But in Flint’s case it was an iron lid screwed down on a boiling pot. As his cruelties grew steadily worse and resentment festered among the men, Captain Springer, who could not bear what Flint was doing, stayed mostly below decks, thereby removing the restraint his presence would have had on Flint’s behaviour. It was a situation that could not last. The lid must eventually blow off the pot.

But Phillips’s mysterious island came first. Having run up the Trades to get wind of the island, according to the rough chart, Elizabeth ran south-southwest and made a commendable landfall. Springer and Flint (and even Billy Bones, with deep-furrowed brow and tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth) had completed a most effective piece of navigation.

The hail of “Land ho!” from the masthead brought a surge of excitement, and the hands ran to the fo’c’sle and into the foremast shrouds to see. Even Springer came up on deck, bringing his chart. Flint raised his hat and smiled. All hands cheered, and for a moment everyone was happy.

“The anchorage is to the northeast, Mr Flint,” said Springer, offering Flint his first sight of the dead Portugee’s map.

Flint studied the crude sketch and sneered.

“Pah!” he said. “Damn near useless. No soundings, no bearings. We shall have to go in like an old maid in a dark bedroom.”

“Not at all, Mr Flint,” said Springer. He’d become protective of the old chart and, besides, he hated Flint. “This is a good, safe anchorage, and we have no need to fear.”

“Hmm,” said Flint, spotting the bleary-eyed look on Springer’s face and wondering how much drink he’d got down him. “We’d be as well to sway out the launch, though, and sound ahead as we go, don’t you think, Captain?”

“Aye-aye, sir!” said Billy Bones, at Flint’s elbow, and he turned to give the order. Springer’s face filled with indignation.

“Belay that!” he cried. “Mr Bones, keep your bloody trap shut, you insolent sod! I’m master here and I shall con this ship safe to her anchorage, and there won’t be no need for bloody boats!”

Flint blinked in amazement and Billy Bones’s jaw dropped.

“But –” said Bones.

“Shut your mouth, you mutinous bastard, and attend to getting the guns run out!” said Springer, and turned to his bulldog. “Sergeant Dawson,” he cried, “muster your men! I’ll have an armed landing party ready against any eventualities.” Springer turned to Flint and Bones: “Against all eventualities!”

Some hours later, the big ship worked round the northernmost tip of the island, keeping well out to sea, for vast rollers thundered ashore at every point, throwing up clouds of spray off huge rocks where hundreds of black beasts, glistening like monstrous slugs, cavorted and displayed themselves in the angry waters. Those who’d seen the like before named them for their mates as “sea lions”.

A line of great hills, one a small mountain, rose up from the island, and trees of every kind covered the land. Huge pines towered above the rest, and sea-birds swooped and rose over all. There was some muttering that this was too small an island to be another Jamaica, but for all that the spirits of the crew lifted as it rose from the sea and revealed its secrets.

“There!” said Springer. “See the anchorage, Mr Flint? Good enough for a first-rate, say I!”

Flint looked through his glass and nodded.

“Room enough, Captain,” he said. “But I’d still like to know what depth of water was under my keel as I went in.” Having already heard Springer’s views on the matter, Flint paused and chose his words with utmost care, before adding, “Could we not send the launch ahead, sir, sounding as she goes, just to be sure?”

“Nonsense!” said Springer, so poisoned with hatred for Flint that he would deny his own half-century of experience in order to prove the man wrong. He was damned if he would pay attention to anything Flint said. Not if the sod fell on his knees and begged.

“Strike the courses and reef the topsails,” said Springer loudly. “And I’ll slide her in as pretty as poke up a tart’s arse!”

He glared at all around him defying any of them to say otherwise, and men sniffed and muttered and went about their business, while Flint shook his head and turned away. Springer was captain and Springer had his way.

The eastern side of the island was more sheltered and less battered by the waves. The anchorage opened between low cliffs like a softer, southern version of the fjords of Norway. Inside, it widened somewhat and ran for a couple of miles to a sandy, white-and-yellow shore, with thick undergrowth and green-top trees bent over the beach. Behind that, the land rose fast and sharp to high ground on all sides. It was indeed a fine anchorage, fit for a squadron of the line.

In a ship steered by a whipstaff, the helmsman – Ben Gunn on this occasion – wielded the big, vertical lever from beneath the quarterdeck, and looked out through a scuttle, giving him a view of the sails and the sky. He had a compass to steer a course by, but could see nothing else. Consequently, when coming into an anchorage, he relied entirely on the orders of his officers. Thus Springer stood by the scuttle and Ben Gunn awaited his commands.

Meanwhile, the marines remained ready to defend the ship, the gun crews stood by their pieces; the boatswain’s crew assembled at the cathead to cast off the ring-stopper and let go the anchor; the few idlers aboard got themselves where the best view was to be had, and all hands enjoyed the thrill of expectation that comes from exploring a new land. There might be gold, silver, tigers, unicorns, drink, savages … women!

The island stretched out its arms and folded them in, and waited dark and mysterious. The waters were calm, the wind was fair, the ship glided deeper and deeper into the anchorage. She came in bold and confident at a cracking pace, so that Captain Springer might show Lieutenant Flint how to come to anchor like a seaman, and not a lubberly fop … And just at the very second Springer was drawing breath to give the order to drop anchor, eight hundred tons of timber, spars, rigging, iron, brass, biscuit, salt-pork, gunpowder, canvas and men came to a full and shocking stop as the Elizabeth ran judderingly aground.

Two men fell out of the rigging into water too shallow to cover their knees. The fore topmast snapped and came down in ruin. Flint stamped his foot in disgust, the boatswain swore, everyone else looked at his mates and sneered, and Captain Daniel Springer knew himself to be a bloody fool.

Chapter 5

1st June 1752 Savannah, Georgia

The news of Flint’s arrival ran through Savannah in minutes, and every soul – man or beast – that was not physically chained down, ran to the riverside to see Flint’s ships work slowly up river, through muddy waters that ran some forty feet below. Soon the best part of a thousand people lined the banks, shouting, calling, waving and pointing out the sights to one another. There were redcoats, slaves, children, merchants, dogs, whores, seamen and even a few Indians, all shoving and jostling for a place. Flint’s men were renowned as big spenders and their arrival would benefit the whole community.

Down on the river, Captain Flint himself strutted his quarterdeck in a fine new suit of clothes, and his first mate Billy Bones bawled and roared and drove the crew to their duties as the three ships came to anchor, flying British colours out of respect to His Majesty King George II. Walrus, Flint’s own ship, was the biggest of them, followed by the brigantine Chapel Yvonne out of Le Havre, and the scow Erna van

Rijp out of Amsterdam. Both the latter showed signs of damage to their masts and rigging: damage temporarily repaired for a short voyage.

Up on the river bank, Mr Charles Neal, a stocky, respectably dressed man, sweated in the oppressive heat, and shoved as close to the edge as he dared to catch Flint’s eye. At once, Flint swept off his hat and bowed low.

“Ah,” said Neal, and raised his own hat. He sucked his teeth and hissed in irritation at the damage to the brigantine’s mainmast. He could see that he would have to replace it before the vessel undertook a proper voyage. He shook his head and wondered if the likes of Flint ever considered the consequences (that is to say, the cost) of damaging so expensive an item as the mainmast of a ship. He supposed not.

“Boy!” he said, summoning the slave who followed him about with a big parasol to keep off the sun. “Best speed now! Run back to the liquor shop. Tell Selena to get out all the best. Every table and chair in the house, and all the girls washed and cleaned. Tell her I’ll be along later with Captain Flint.”

Neal thought of Selena. She would do the job. She was his best girl. For that matter, she was his best man – he laughed at his little joke. She was the only one he could trust. The best of all his people, and she’d been with him only thirteen months, and even she didn’t know how much he now relied on her. It was his good fortune that she had come to Savannah. But then, where else could she have gone? This squalid colonial outpost on the banks of the Savannah River was the only place where she could hide.

The town was no place for a man like Charley Neal, who’d been destined for the Inns of Court (or at least their Dublin equivalent) until his temper and fists intervened. Savannah sweltered and stank. It festered with diseases. Its houses were hovels of rough-hewn timber shared by men, hogs, horses and slaves, all living in a constant shadow of danger from the Indians in the surrounding forests.

Mother of God, thought Neal, it’s worse than a bog-house shit-hole!

But then he shrugged and reflected that here, at least, he did not need to watch his back as he would have done in Ireland. Here, almost everyone was welcome: English, Irish, Scots, Swiss and Germans – even dissenters and Jews – and all were left alone, and none pursued for little sins in past lands. Little sins like the mashing and smashing of a holy Jesuit Father who’d tried to take an unholy interest in one of his pupils.

Only Spaniards were banned outright from Savannah since their king had his own ideas about who owned Georgia and who did not. Spaniards were banned and Catholics very unwelcome, so Cormac O’Neil had trimmed his name slightly, and risked his soul considerably, by affecting the protestant religion. And now, Charley Neal consoled himself that Charles was not the most protestant of English royal Christian names, and hoped that God might forgive him in the end.

More to the point, Savannah was teeming with growth. It was close enough to the Caribbean sugar islands to trade with them – and there were other opportunities too. Very profitable ones, since it was acknowledged that, in Savannah, King George’s law ran only on Sundays. And in the absence of law, business worked excellently on trust. Thus Neal’s dealings with the likes of Captain Flint were conducted on that basis. Flint trusted Neal to receive the ships he brought in and to turn them into cash, while Neal trusted Flint to cut his throat if ever he attempted deceit.

Half an hour later, a roaring crowd of townsfolk arrived at Neal’s liquor shop, following at a respectful distance behind Flint, who was arm-in-arm with Charley Neal himself. The liquor shop was a long, dark timber shed with seating for hundreds on low stools arranged around long tables, with fresh sand and sawdust on the earth floor. There were storerooms attached for the drink, and a cook-house to provide food. At one end stood a row of jugs and barrels from which the drink was served. Here stood Selena in front of a row of girls, mostly black, waiting like gunners at their pieces before battle was joined. Neal looked at Selena as he entered and nodded in approval.

Their eyes met and she nodded solemnly, and without smiling, the little madam, as if he didn’t know all about her.

In fact, he did know all about her. She was a runaway. Worse, she’d committed murder. Selena had turned up on his doorstep with a sack made of bedlinen, crammed with gold and silver items she’d stolen from her master’s “special house”. She had money too, doubtless taken off his dead body when she’d finished shoving a knife in him, or shooting him, or bidding farewell to him by whatever means a slender girl finds to do away with a fourteen stone man. And then she’d got as far as Savannah!