Skull and Bones (37 page)

    "Hmmm," said Chester, "you, see, Captain Silver, the king's navy acts on orders from London… which does not precisely share our interests." Chester dismissed this awkward matter with a shrug. "So," he said briskly, "what've you found out about the Spanish?"

    Silver and Israel Hands looked at one another. They said nothing, and stared steadily back at Chester.

    "As little as that?" said Chester, and laughed. "And you don't care, do you?"

    Silver smiled a sly smile.

    "You're smart, you are, Mr Chester, smart as paint. I knew it the first instant I saw you. But how does a poor matelot know who he can trust in these dangerous times?"

    "Trust?" said Chester. "And you a pirate?"

    "I'm a privateer!" said Silver. "With Letters of Marque."

    "Is that what you think?"

    "Bah!" said Silver.

    "See here," said Chester, and leaned forward and lowered his voice.

    "Well?"

    "The cargo aboard
Inez de Cordoba
: pork, biscuit and the rest…"

    "What about it?"

    "Didn't you wonder what it was for?"

    "Why should I?"

    "Because it's victuals!
Inez de Cordoba
was on her way to provision a fleet."

    "How would you know that?" said Silver.

    "Because there's a Spanish squadron in these waters."

    "So?"

    "So didn't you ask that Spanish captain where he was going?" Silver shook his head. "Didn't you ask him anything?"

    Silver shrugged. "He wouldn't talk. He said I was a damned pirate and he wouldn't talk."

    "And you didn't find means to persuade him?"

    "No," said Silver, thinking of
her.
"For aboard my ship, it's all sweet kindness."

    "Rubbish," said Chester. "You're being stupid."

    "Watch your lip, mister! Don't be a clever bugger with me!"

    Chester blinked, swallowed, and tried another approach.

    "If you knew where he was going, you could lie in wait… for others like him!"

    "Ahhhh!" said Silver. That was much better! That was prizes and plum duff!

    "And maybe find out what that Spanish squadron's doing…?" said Chester.

    "Wouldn't that be jolly, an' all?" said Silver with a sour smile.

    "Yes," said Chester, knowing he'd got most of what he wanted. So he smiled, and they drank up, and they parted as friends… almost. For just as Silver was leaving, Chester had a final, little word.

    "Captain Silver," he said.

    "Aye?"

    "I knew Charley Neal very well."

    "Did you?"

    "Yes. And he mentioned that there was an island…" Silver frowned "… where your friend Flint… left some goods…"

    Thump! Thump! The crutch bumped over the floorboards and Silver stood dark and tall over Jimmy Chester. He stood so close that Chester could hear the hiss of his breath as Silver whispered in his face with quiet, deadly menace:

    "Cock an ear, mister," said Silver, and Chester's knees quivered and his hands shook. "Now there ain't no blasted island, nor there ain't no blasted goods. D'you hear me?"

    "Yes."

    "And we'll be jolly companions, you and I, if you never mention this again."

    "Yes."

    "Well and good!" said Silver. "And how do I get to see that Spanish captain?"

    An hour later Silver and Israel Hands were at the town-side gates of Fort Savannah, a hundred-yard square of puncheon logs with a ditch all round and bastions at the four corners, mounting heavy guns. They clunked across the drawbridge and were challenged by redcoat sentries with muskets. There were great works in hand with pick, spade and wheelbarrow: deepening the ditch round the fort, and throwing up the spoil to strengthen the bastions, and a battery being emplaced to command the river. And all this for fear of the Spanish, and the work so urgent that not only slaves were sweating in the sun, but white men too, including most of the fort's militia, which numbered many hundreds of men.

    Silver tipped his hat to the sentries, showed a paper signed by Mr President Chester, and was saluted and let in. The same paper, presented to a sergeant, then to a captain, got Silver and Israel Hands into the inner quadrangle of the fort, with a militiaman to lead them past its barrack block, bakehouse, officers' quarters and well, to a squat gaol, which doubled as a lazarette for persons with dangerous infections.

    "Very tight," said Silver, looking at the massive log walls. "Very nice. And is the Spanish gentleman in there?" He pointed at the heavy door.

    "Yessir," said the militiaman. "T'ain't locked, sir. But him being a Dago, we didn't know where else to put him. We done the best we can, sir, an' the 'pothecary'll be round later, to let him some blood."

    "What a blessing that'll be," said Silver. "Should do him a power of good! And is there a grog shop in the fort?"

    "Canteen, sir. Over there, sir."

    "Then here's a dollar for you and my shipmate here, to take a drop on me."

    "Thank you, sir. Proper gennelman, sir!" said the militiaman.

    "You sure, John?" said Israel Hands, frowning. "Don't you want me to…"

    "No," said Silver, "you take a drink, my old messmate."

    Silver watched them walk off. He tried the door. It opened. He went into the cool, dark interior which reeked of piss and vomit. There were a few narrow wooden beds. The Spaniard lay on one. He was awake and alert, but too weak to get up.

    Silver hopped across and stood beside the bed, with his long crutch and swirling coat-tails, looming huge and menacing over the helpless man, who looked up in great fear. And the parrot which had sat happily on his shoulder thus far, squawked and flew off and fluttered to the door. Silver watched her for a moment, scratching at the planks with her great talons, and cursing fluently in five different languages. Then he let her out, and closed the door behind her, and went back to the bedside.

    "Buenas tardes, Capitán Ibanez,"
he said.

"Buenas tardes
," said the hoarse, quiet voice.

"Tengo unas preguntas,"
said Silver. "I've got some questions…"

Chapter
32

Evening, 23rd May 1754

The confluence of the Youghiogheny and Monongahela rivers West of the Colony of Pennsylvania

In disputed land

    The Indians roared with laughter in the flickering light of the campfires as Long-Hair jumped up and hopped from foot to foot with blood dripping from his cut hand. They yelled and stamped and whooped.

    "Are you done?" said Flint. "So soon? Am I among men or boys!"

    And the Indians howled and shrieked and playfully shoved Long-Hair from one to another, as he clutched his bloodied hand, but grinned and yelled with the best of them, to show that he saw the joke, and was indeed a man.

    Flint smiled. He sat cross-legged before a flat rock and placed the knife down again, with the blade facing himself and the handle towards the Indians. It was his knife, a fine knife with an antler hilt and a razor-edged blade. It was a knife any man would covet.

    "Sun Face! Sun Face!" cried the Indians, and whooped all the louder, for they loved Flint. They loved him for his lightning speed and the grim darkness of his humour, which tickled their savage souls.

    "Why do they call him
Sun Face
?" said Washington, thirty feet off by the white men's campfire that was likewise surrounded by grinning faces.

    "It's what
them others
called him, sir," said Billy Bones. "Them Indians on the island, sir. Someone must've told 'em," and his jaw dropped and he looked away. "Oh!" he said, knowing he'd done wrong.

    "Ah!" said Washington. "This
Island
that Mr Flint does not discuss."

    "Dunno, sir," said Billy Bones. "But
them
Indians, they called him Sun Face."

    "Aye, sir!" said Black Dog. "That they did, an' all."

    "Did they admire him as much as our Indians do?" said Washington.

    "Yessir," said Billy Bones. "But then, we all did… we all
do,
sir."

    "Aye, sir!" said Black Dog. "There ain't none like him, sir!"

    "Aye," said Billy Bones. "Not as a seaman, a leader, nor a man!"

    Meanwhile the Indians had settled down, nudging and leering.

    "So," said Flint, "I will remind you good fellows of the game…
Flint's game
… I shall put my hands in my pockets… like this… and I shall await any man to sit opposite me… and pick up the knife by the handle, and take it as his own."

    The Indians screeched and yelled and found a volunteer: one who'd managed to get some trade gin inside him, for all that Washington forbade it on the trail. This was Broken- Foot, a man in his forties, who should have known better.

    He sat down, grinning stupidly. He looked at the knife. The entire camp fell silent. It would be so easy… Sun Face would have to pull out his hands, and reach
over
the blade to get the handle, while he - Broken Foot - had only to pick it up!

    He paused.

    He tensed.

    He pounced…

    … and howled with pain as his hand closed on sharp steel, and Flint snatched it free by the handle, and jauntily tapped the blade against his own nose, leaving a tiny smudge of blood.

    Flint grinned, Flint smiled… which the Indians and Washington saw. But they didn't see what went on inside of Flint's unique and remarkable mind. They didn't see him howl with laughter and hug himself with glee, and roll over with his legs kicking the air… at least in spirit… because Flint could see that all things were becoming right again, having been dreadfully wrong for weeks.

    He chuckled and cleared his throat…
A-hem.
Then he looked at them all: especially Washington. Flint touched his hat as if respectfully, and saw the big man nod. He'd had Flint close-guarded, so he couldn't run, then taken along on this expedition into the primeval forest: this voyage up the bum-hole of nowhere -
leaving Selena behind with Silver!
Flint bowed his head. He was so tormented with jealousy that he could bear it only by slamming the truth behind locked doors, in the cellars of his mind, and never,
ever
going there… except by chance, like now…

    He groaned. He shook his head. Better to think of other things: even other pains, such as the fact that - once in the forest - they'd not even had to guard him, for it was trackless wilderness, which only the Indians knew and only
they
could find the way back to the coast. So Flint was as much trapped as if he'd been in prison, especially as those same Indians had the uncanny ability to track any fugitive attempting to run.

    Flint smiled, because all this made the Indians so wonderfully important, and so very much worth recruiting to the true cause… the cause of Joe Flint.

    And so… Broken Foot was jumping round dripping blood from his cut hand, and the Indians howling with laughter. But Washington frowned.

    "Enough!" he said, and looked at Flint. "I want fit men, not cripples."

    "Aye-aye, sir," said Flint. "I did but seek to make the men merry, sir."

    Washington got up casually and stretched.

    "A word, Mr Flint," he said, and walked off.

    "Sir?" said Flint, following him into darkness.

    "Mr Flint," said Washington quietly, "I would wish to think well of you."

    "Oh?" said Flint, looking at the big face.

    "Your subordinates stand in awe of you," said Washington, "the Indians worship you. Your conception of a fleet was inspired!" Washington paused. "And…" he said. "And… there is that…
other matter
… of such vital importance when war comes. Not only to Virginia, but indeed to the British interest generally!"

    Looking up at him, Flint suffered pure torture as the old demon wriggled within him: the one demon he could never entirely control. For the earnest and honest Colonel Washington had dropped into a pit of his own digging, and Flint was bursting to laugh in his face.

    Flint knew, now, that the tale of the island treasure followed him everywhere, and was the
real
reason he'd been brought on this expedition, since the earnest and honest Colonel Washington believed the universal myth that
Flint alone
knew the whereabouts of the treasure. And Washington wanted it! He wanted it as a war chest for his precious Virginia, even though it was the ill-got, bloodstained loot of murderous pirates. Hence the fun. For Washington couldn't bring himself to mention the subject except slantwise and tangentially, enabling Flint to pretend he didn't know what Washington was talking about.