Skull and Bones

Thus the Prime Minister himself stood behind the expedition and he had taken an active interest in many of the posts within it…including that of Dr Stanley, who now turned to another of the spectators, Mr Lemming the ship’s surgeon. Lemming had been summoned to the deck by Stanley in readiness for this moment, and was now wrenching his hat into rags in trepidation at the role he must play.

“Captain,” said Dr Stanley, “Mr Lemming will vouch for the truth of what I say…” He turned to Lemming.

“Um…er…” said Lemming, in terror of his captain’s wrath.

“Come, sir!” said Stanley to Lemming. “A good three-quarters of this ship’s people and those of Bounder and Jumper are struck down with fever and headache, are they not?”

“Yes, sir,” said Lemming, for it was unchallengeable fact.

“And it is the invariable characteristic of West India fevers,” said Stanley, “that they strike worst upon ships anchored close inshore, and especially those in enclosed anchorages such as this –” He waved a hand at the great crescent sweep of the shore, over three miles from end to end, that curved in foetid embrace around the anchorage, with festering swamps and steaming, livid-green jungles crowding down upon the white sands of the beach. It was a bad enough fevertrap by itself, made worse by the small island that lay close off it, preventing the sea breeze from sweeping away the miasma.

“Yes,” said Lemming, finding courage in truth. “Damn place stinks of fever. I said so as we came in.” Which latter statement was only partly true, for he’d said it to himself and hadn’t had the courage to voice it aloud, not when all hands were wild eager for a treasure hunt.

“There, sir!” said Stanley, to Captain Baggot’s back. “There you have it from our surgeon. If we stay anchored here – for whatever reason – we shall see this fever grow among the crew, perhaps taking the lives of all aboard.”

“Aye, Cap’n,” said Lemming, at last. “The yellow jack and the ague can kill seven in ten of those that ain’t seasoned. And we don’t even know what this fever is, for I’ve never seen the like before.”

But Captain Baggot wasn’t quite ready to give in. Not yet. Not even when he was unwell himself, having brought up his last meal like a seasick landman, with the pain throbbing behind his eyes and getting worse with each passing hour.

“Flint!” he spat. “It’s all down to blasted Flint. He knows this blasted island and all its blasted tricks. Damn me if I’ll not go below and question him again.” He turned to face Stanley. “And you, Mr Chaplain, shall come with me!”

“Gentlemen,” said Flint, smooth face glowing in the lantern light, “I really do not know how I can be of service to you.” Graceful and elegant, he was an intensely handsome and charismatic man, with Mediterranean, olive skin, fine teeth, and a steady gaze that made lesser men nervous – most men being lesser in that respect.

“But I must protest again,” said Flint, “against the monstrous injustice that has been done to Mr Bones, here, who is a loyal heart and true.”

“Aye!” said Billy Bones. “And ready to do my duty now, as ever I was before!”

Bones was the perfect opposite of Flint: a huge, broken-nosed, lumpish clod with massive fists, broad shoulders and a strong whiff of the lower deck about him – for all that he’d been a master’s mate in the king’s service, accustomed to walk the quarterdeck and take his noon observation.

Flint and Billy Bones had spent the last week secured down below, deep in the damp, evil-smelling, hold where it was always dark and the rats cavorted and played. Both men wore irons on their legs and a chain passed between them, secured to a massive ringbolt driven into the thickness of the hull.

“You’re a bloody rogue and a pirate, Flint,” said Baggot. “The only reason I don’t hang you now is that I’m ordered to take you home for the Court of Admiralty to string up at Wapping!”

Stanley sighed. The interview was going the way of several others that had preceded it. Baggot could not control his lust for gold and his hatred of a mutineer, and the sight of the urbane Flint, smiling and smiling and talking of innocence, provoked him beyond endurance. But where others were concerned, Flint was devilish persuasive. Stanley looked at the two marines who’d accompanied them, bearing muskets and ball cartridge as a precaution. They were hanging on every word Flint uttered, and Stanley knew that rumours were circulating on the lower deck that Flint wasn’t a pirate and mutineer at all, just a victim of circumstance, while Mr Bones was innocent of all charges whatsoever. That was Flint’s work, day by day talking to the hands sent down to deliver food and water and take away the slops.

“Mr Flint,” said Stanley, “cannot we set these matters aside? We are faced with an unknown fever, and we seek your advice. So I beseech you to behave…” Stanley paused for effect “…to behave as a man should…who must soon face divine judgement.” The chaplain peered closely at Flint, trying to gauge the impact of his words. “So, what is this pestilence, sir? Speak if you know, for your mortal soul is at risk.”

Flint contemplated Dr Stanley.

Clever, he thought. Very clever. Then he turned to Baggot, a man for whom he had nothing but contempt. If he, Joe Flint, had been granted power over a man with hidden treasure, that man would have been put to merciless torture until he revealed its whereabouts. So he sneered at Baggot; for any man who denied himself these obvious means deserved to stay poor! Stanley, however, was clearly a different proposition; subtle means would be required with him.

“Dr Stanley,” said Flint, and lowered his eyes, “it is true that I myself am beyond hope…” He raised a weary hand, as if against life’s iniquitous burdens. “Evidence is contrived against me and, corrupt and mendacious as it is, nevertheless it proves too strong for truth to prevail!”

“Oh, shut up, you posturing hypocrite!” said Baggot. “Lying toad that you are!”

“Sir!” protested Stanley. “I beg that you allow me to conduct this interview.”

“Damned if I will!” said Baggot and turned to go.

“Gentlemen!” cried Flint. “I beg that you listen. I am a lost man, so take these words as dying declaration, and accord them the special credence that is their due…”

There was silence. Such was the power of Flint’s address that no man moved or spoke, not even Captain Baggot, while the two marines were goggling and even Dr Stanley was impressed.

“I offer truth for truth!” said Flint. “I shall tell you the source of this island fever. I shall give it to you freely. But in exchange I ask that you accept this blameless man –” he looked at Billy Bones – “as the innocent that he is.”

Stanley looked at Baggot. Baggot looked at Stanley. The two marines looked on. Baggot frowned.

“What about the treasure?” he said.

“Sir,” said Flint, “I swear on my soul, and in the name of that Almighty Being before whose throne I must soon present myself…that I know nothing of any treasure.”

“Oh bugger,” said Baggot, but quietly.

“And the pestilence?” said Stanley.

“It is caused by the island’s monkeys, sir,” said Flint.

“WHAT?” Baggot, Stanley and the marines spoke as one.

“The monkeys. Because of them, you dare not land on the island.”

“But we’ve got one aboard!” said Baggot. “Little Groggy.”

“Then kill him!” cried Flint. “And get to sea. You are in peril of your lives!”

“Oh Christ!” said Baggot.

“Sir!” protested Stanley.

“Sorry, Mr Chaplain…but, oh Christ!”

There was a pounding of feet as four men raced for the ladders and companionways that led to the light. Then there was a great shouting, and drums beating, and calling up of all hands, and the rattling, clattering, rumbling, squeaking of a great ship getting ready for sea, with capstans clanking, blocks humming, yards hauling aloft and the anchor cables coming aboard, dripping wet and shaking off their weed, to the stamping and chanting of the crew.

Down below, forgotten for the moment, Joe Flint and Billy Bones sat with one dim lantern between them, listening to the sounds that had defined their lives as long as they could remember.

“Why did you tell ‘em about the monkey?” said Billy Bones. “You brought him aboard on purpose, for to spread the fever!”

Flint smiled. “Indeed, Mr Bones. But now his work is done. He’s been aboard all three ships.”

“How d’you know that?”

Flint sighed. “Don’t you ever listen, Billy, to the men who come to feed us?”

“Oh.” Bones frowned. “But you didn’t tell ‘em it was smallpox the monkeys bring. And a special smallpox besides, that’s fearful worse than usual.”

“No. They’ll find that out soon enough…when it kills nine out of ten of them.”

“But some’ll be unharmed?”

“Yes. Those who’ve had it before and survived.”

“And you and me, Cap’n.”

“Yes. For you’ve had it, and I’m protected.”

“And will I be freed, now, for what you told that Parson?”

“I think so. The learned doctor believed me.”

“And then what’ll I do?”

Flint told him: in detail. Billy Bones pondered, asked a few more questions to be sure, and then the two sat quiet as the massive wooden hull began to move.

“Cap’n,” said Billy Bones, finally.

“What?”

“The goods, Cap’n. The gold…”

“Well?”

“They took all your papers and such, didn’t they?”

Flint smiled. “Did they?”

“So how’ll we…how’ll you…find the goods again, without charts and notes?”

“Billy, my Billy! Billy-my-little-chicken! You really must leave all such matters to me. Do you understand?”

Billy Bones gulped. The tone of Flint’s voice had barely changed but Billy Bones knew that this subject must not be raised again. He was immune to smallpox, but not to fear of Flint.

“You just do as you’ve been bid, Mr Bones. When the time comes.”

“Aye-aye, Cap’n,” said Billy Bones, for Livvy Rose had measured him with the precision of her father’s mathematical instruments, recognising that the faithful Billy was born to follow. And now he would follow Flint – even stripped of rank and bound in chains – and keep on following him to the ends of the earth. For Flint was Billy Bones’s chosen master.

Chapter 3

Dinner time, 12th March 1753

Aboard Walrus

The Atlantic

All aboard who weren’t on watch gobbled down their dinners with knives, fingers and spoons, lounging among the guns on the maindeck in the sunshine, while Walrus bowled along under all plain sail. They cheered and raised their mugs, spluttering grog and food in all directions as they bawled out their song, to the tune of a fiddler and a piper.

Here’s to Bonnie Prince Charlie,

That does our king remain,

And save him from his exile,

To bring him home again!

Two men looked on in silence. They were not gobbling their dinners because they were on watch, and they weren’t singing because they weren’t Jacobites. They were Long John Silver, elected captain of the ship, and his master gunner, Israel Hands. Both wore the long coats and tricorne hats that proclaimed their rank, and they stood by the helmsman at the ten-foot tiller on the quarterdeck, braced against the ship’s canted deck with practised ease, even Long John with his timber limb.

Israel Hands smiled to see Long John recovering at last, after wounds that had struck him down in the fight with the navy over Flint’s Island, which Walrus barely escaped, leaving Flint in the navy’s hands, and his Treasure still hidden ashore.

Now Tom Allardyce the bosun was on his feet and giving the second verse. He was a tall, yellow-haired Scot who’d fought at Culloden seven years earlier, when the English army’s modern musketry butchered a medieval mob of Highland swordsmen: the Protestant House of Hanover defeating the Catholic House of Stuart.

Here’s to the devil to take fat George,

And fetch him down to Hell,

To trim his Hanoverian ears,

And roast his arse full well!

Allardyce was a Jacobite to the soul and hated King George with a passion. As he sang, he went among the crew slapping shoulders while they cheered him on. Some cheered because they supported his cause, while others had no loyalty to a king who was chasing them with a noose.

“Merry buggers, ain’t they?” said Israel Hands, looking at the crew. Then he glanced anxiously up at Long John’s big, square face.

“Will they do, John? And have you chosen your course?”

Silver reached up to pet the big green parrot that sat with its claws clamped into the material of his coat.

“What do you think, Cap’n Flint?” he said, tickling the bird’s chest. She squawked and shifted her feet and nuzzled his ear.

“Merry Buggers!” she said, for she had a perfect gift of mimicry, and used words to purpose, and with meaning.

Long John sighed, for he had much on his mind.

“Well, the ship won’t do,” he said, looking Walrus over. She was a New England schooner: two hundred tons burden, a hundred feet from bow to stern, sharp-hulled and with a broad spread of canvas on two raked masts. She mounted fourteen six-pounder guns and had once been a swift, handy ship, but she’d suffered a battering in recent actions, and hadn’t been careened for months, which meant – in these tropical waters – that the underwater hull must be a seething tangle of weeds and growth.

“A Thames barge would out-sail her as she is!” said Silver.

“Does that mean we’ll be chasing one?” said Israel Hands.

“We’ve just thirty-two hands,” said Silver, ignoring the remark.

“Gentlemen o’ fortune every one!” said Israel Hands.

“Mostly…but them two ain’t! Useless bloody lubbers!”

Silver nodded at a pair of men who were sitting miserably apart from the crew. They wore long coats and were the ship’s navigating officers – such as they were – for neither Silver nor anyone else aboard had that skill. The pair of them had been taken out of the merchant service under Silver’s promise to be freed at Upper Barbados – Walrus’s destination – for they were honest men. Honest, but found wanting. They might be able to feel their way up a coastline, but they were at a loss on the deep waters, and growing more nervous each day.

“Them swabs has only got this far by dead reckoning and fair weather!” said Silver. “One good blow, and we’ll be off their charts. Then God help us all!”

“Never mind them,” said Israel Hands. “We’ll hire afresh and take on others, too.” He looked sideways at Long John and decided to broach the great question: “What worries me, John, is that thirty-three hands is plenty for a merchantman, but not for such business as ours.”

Silver, however, wouldn’t be drawn. He shook his head and fell deep into his own thoughts. He’d never wanted to be a pirate – a “gentleman o’ fortune” – but had become one because it was that or certain death. And thus by easy stages to robbery and murder, and putting a pistol ball into a child – which, of all the things he’d done, came back most often to flog him with guilt, though he’d done it of necessity, to stop the spread of island smallpox. Even now he could feel the jump of his pistol firing and see the open-mouthed disbelief on the face of Ratty Richards, ship’s boy, as he dropped down dead; slaughtered by the captain he worshipped.

And now he had a wife whom he loved fiercely, and who’d made clear that she’d not live with him unless he became an honest man. Or so she said…But did she mean it? She loved him; he knew that much. Or so he thought.

So…there was what the crew wanted, which was prizes, gold, tarts and rum. There was what she wanted, which was an honest life for Mr and Mrs Silver. And then there was what he wanted…which he didn’t know, and couldn’t decide because he couldn’t live without her and maybe couldn’t live with her. The bitter internal conflict was turning him sour and angry.

“John,” said Israel Hands and nudged him, “it’s her…”

Silver turned. She’d come up from below decks without him even seeing. Now she stood with her hands on her hips facing him. She was a small, slim, black girl, not yet eighteen years old, extremely lovely in face and figure, with a dainty elegance of movement, and of speech and manners too. She stood in a cotton gown and a straw hat, looking up at Silver and defying him.

“Well?” she said, but he avoided her eyes and said nothing. “Huh!” she said, investing the simple sound with eloquence.

All hands were watching. They shifted and muttered and a few got up for a better look. These arguments had gone on for days, and now Silver roused himself and tried to speak gentle. He tried to explain. So did she, for a while, but soon they were shouting and screeching, with fists clenched and words spat viciously, as tempers burst and fury rose in the passionate rage of a man and woman for whom no one else in the whole wide world mattered quite so much as the other.

As for the spectators, they shrugged their shoulders and scratched their armpits and turned away, no longer entertained by a piece of theatre that had been played out flat. They thought Silver should put the rod across her plump little arse till she saw reason. But that was his business and they’d chosen him as their leader, so there weren’t no more to be said in the matter. Selena was his wife and that was that.

But later, the ship’s surgeon, Mr Cowdray, was forced to join the quarrel. The only gentleman in the ship, he’d practised in London till learned rivals drove him out for his ludicrous insistence on boiling his instruments before surgery, which he said prevented sepsis, and which they couldn’t abide because it did. Selena liked Cowdray and valued his opinion, and thus she’d asked him to meet her on the forecastle after dark.

“What do you want, girl? Bringing me here?” he looked back down the dark length of the ship, past masts and bulging sails, and hung on to the rail against the ship’s motion, flinching as spray came over the plunging bow.

“It’s wide open here,” she said, “so nobody can say you’re meeting me in secret.”

“And why should I do that?” he said.

She shrugged. She’d seen how he looked at her. He might be a surgeon, but he was a man, even if he was middle-aged.

“You can always say you were going to use the heads,” she said.

“Huh!” said Cowdray, looking at the “seats of ease” on either side of the bowsprit: a pair of squat boxes with holes cut in them for seamen to relieve themselves. “So what is it?” he said.

“Why won’t he give up being a pirate?”

“He’s not a pirate, he’s a gentleman of fortune.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“No! We sign the Book of Articles and every man votes. It is the democracy of the Greeks.”

“Articles! He talks about them all the time, and he –”

“Selena, listen to me.”

“But he does.”

“Please, please, listen. I can’t be him. I can’t speak for him.”

“So who do you speak for?”

“For the crew! It’s a good life for them. Equal shares and light work. Merchant owners save money with small crews that must rupture themselves to work the ship, while we have many hands to ease the load. And we sail in soft waters: the Caribbean, the Gold Coast, the Indian Ocean…You should try the whale fisheries, my girl, up beyond Newfoundland! The ice hangs from the rigging and the lookouts are found frozen dead when the watch changes. And with us, there’s no flogging the last man up the mast nor the last to trice his hammock as the navy does, and there’s music and drink when you want it, and the chance to get rich –”

“By thieving and killing!”

“In which regard we’re no worse than the king’s ships, that kill men and take prizes!”

“But that’s war.”

“Dulce bellum inexpertis: war is sweet to those who don’t know it!”

“Bah!” she said, striding off and leaving him in the dark. Him and his annoying habit of spouting Latin.

So the matter was not resolved, and Silver and Selena lived apart in the ship and couldn’t meet without a quarrel. And Silver became bad tempered, and not the man he had been. And that was bad…but worse was to come.

Chapter 4

Half an hour before sunset

12th March 1753

Aboard Oraclaesus’s longboat

The southern anchorage

Flint’s Island

Boom! A signal gun blew white powder smoke from Oraclaesus’s quarterdeck, and echoed across the still waters. It was the signal for boats to give up for the day and return to their ships.

“Thank God!” said Mr Midshipman Povey to himself, and “Hold water!” he bellowed at the boat’s crew. At least he tried to bellow, but his throat was sore and his head ached, and he hadn’t the strength.

Twenty sweat-soaked men collapsed over their oars, shafts stabbing raggedly in all directions, crossing and clattering in a disgraceful fashion that should have earned a blistering rebuke from the coxswain. But he was preoccupied with scratching the blotches on his face and barely hanging on to the tiller, he was so dizzy.

“Bloody shambles,” mumbled Povey. He looked across the anchorage in the dimming light, taking in the idly swirling boats and ships, and the voices everywhere raised in bickering argument. There was no wind in the anchorage, so the squadron was kedging out: each ship launching its best boat, a light anchor slung beneath, waiting until the smaller vessel had pulled ahead and dropped anchor before manning the capstan to haul on the anchor cable, thereby laboriously drawing the ship forward. Then up anchor and do it again! Then again and again till the sails should feel the wind of the open sea.

The drill was simple. It was heavy work needing no unusual talent. The squadron should have been out of the anchorage and under way in a few hours. But they weren’t. Everything had gone wrong: cables fouled, oar stroke lost, tempers gone and men falling exhausted at their duties who couldn’t be roused, not even with a rope’s end.

It was the island fever. The enemy that they were trying to escape was already among them! Povey grinned stupidly, thick-headedly. It was just like those dreams where you were desperate to run but couldn’t because your legs were made of lead. The fever was doing its utmost to keep them on the island.

“Cast off hawser!” said Povey, and the hands made clumsy shift to loose the heavy rope by which the anchor was suspended beneath the boat. The boat wallowed heavily as the great load was shed, and the anchor went down to the bottom; they’d find it easily enough tomorrow by following the cable. “Back larboard, pull starboard!” said Povey, and the longboat turned in the water. “Give way!” he commanded, and they began pulling for their food and their grog, and a few hours’ sleep. That should have cheered them up, but it didn’t. Povey looked down the banks of oarsmen, most of whom were sweating heavily even though it was cool evening. Some – like the coxswain – were coming out in a rash.

Bounder and Jumper were likewise recovering their boats and dropping their main anchors to moor for the night, as was the flagship. Povey sighed at the thought of all the heavy labour of weighing that would have to be performed again in the morning. But by this time they were bumping against the high oaken side of Oraclaesus and he was ordering “Toss Oars!” – the hands making a dog’s breakfast of this simple command – and himself about to go first out of the boat and up the ship’s side…when the officer of the watch leaned over the rail and called down to him.