Silver (35 page)

It was during this spinning time, when I was sometimes in my right mind and sometimes not, that I came closer than ever before to thinking what it would be like to vanish entirely from the earth. All through my childhood, and especially when left to my own devices on the marsh and other solitary places, I had made myself familiar with the facts of our mortality. In particular, I found that as I studied the lives of creatures while they preyed on one another, I was always led to thinking about my mother – whose own life, or rather whose
end
of life, was the foundation of everything I knew about the world.

Since leaving home I had seen the face of Death and studied its expressions more closely – in the tragedy of Jordan Hands and his victim, Mr Sinker; in the work of Smirke and his crew. None of these had actually made me fear for my own life, not even when I had taken my swim, and the sea had shown me the way to heaven. Either I had been too surprised by my peril to assess it properly, or I had expected a miracle to save me, which indeed is what seemed to have happened. Capture, I feared. Pain, I feared. Cowardice – I feared that too. But in my youth and conceit I had thought I was immune to injury. In all my imaginary scenes of disaster, I was always the survivor.

Now, with rain-drips squeezing inside my clothes, and the wet foliage knocking against my cheek, my belief in myself wavered. Because I was my mother’s son, I was Adam’s son. I was bound to die – perhaps this morning, when Smirke might snuff me out like a mosquito. I would never find England again, or hear the river beneath my window. I would never be reunited with my father, or walk on the marshes under the wide sky. I would never see Natty, or know what had become of her.

When Captain Beamish shook my shoulder I lay still, staring without blinking so he might think I was already awake. ‘Well done; good fellow,’ he said – which allowed me to look around without losing any dignity. A confused light was soaking into the sky, mostly pale green and purple; several minutes would pass before it lifted into blue.

‘Are you ready, lad?’ the captain went on; he was speaking so close, I felt the heat of his breath.

I nodded eagerly, to show sleep had not destroyed my good sense, and climbed to my feet. To tell the truth, my thoughts were still fixed where they had been a moment before, on Natty and on Scotland, though my eyes were turned towards my friends. Bo’sun Kirkby and Mr Tickle, Mr Stevenson and Mr Creed. All stout hearts – but, with their hats pulled down, and their collars turned up, and
smudges of the forest on their faces and their clothes drenched, as ragged-looking a crew as the pirates below. I took this to be a kind of encouragement, should it come to fighting.

The captain touched my shoulder again, and pointed down the slope. There was now enough light to see the stockade clearly. None of the pirates had broken their habit of sleeping late; even Jinks, whom I had seen Smirke berating, was slumped forward again in his chair outside the prisoners’ door. I wanted to think this must be a good sign – for surely if they had captured Natty, her guard would be more vigilant?

The captain took a long look at each of us in turn, then set off downhill and expected us to follow. We very soon reached the bushes where we had made our reconnaissance earlier. Then we had walked upright, knowing we could not be seen as long as we were silent; now we hunched as though a bullet might be about to buzz through the leaves. None of us quite believed what Scotland had said about the pirates’ powder being in short supply, even though reason told us it must be true.

The captain gave us a second once-over, staring into our eyes as if a part of his own courage might enter us that way, then whispered, ‘Come on, boys,’ and set off again.

Making ourselves as much like ghosts as possible, we swooped and soon faced the stockade. The captain went over the fence first, which I knew would always be his way – though the effort of hauling his large body over the obstacle, and the oath that escaped him as the tail of his coat snagged on one of the pointed timbers, causing it to tear as he dropped down on the farther side, somewhat spoiled the effect. My own climb was easy, which he acknowledged when I landed beside him. ‘Well done, young man,’ he whispered, and cast a rueful glance at the gate in the southern wall, which he had chosen not to use.

The others arrived beside us with such a performance of jangling and thudding, I thought it would be loud enough to raise the dead as well as the drunk. But only silence followed – silence of such peculiar density, we seemed to have dropped into a different universe, where the inhabitants did not breathe the same air as ourselves. This sense of
weight
was caused by the pervasive sweet smell, drifting from the distillery the pirates had built alongside their cabin. And also by the degradation we found everywhere. Grass, that here and there had attempted to sprout across the middle part of the compound, sprawled as lank and flat as unwashed hair. The vicinity of the cabins was strewn with filthy tankards, and scraps of clothing, and broken utensils, and fragments of glass. The surfaces of the court had a repulsive shine, which was actually dew but looked as sticky as sweat.

The captain paid no attention to any of this. Moving with remarkable speed for so large a man, he flew towards the prisoners’ quarters. Being directly behind him, I saw his right hand drop to his side as he went, and slide his knife from its sheath. In the same instant, I noticed the twisting pattern of a snake engraved along the blade – and felt it told me something I had not known before. The captain seemed so peace-loving and composed, it was shocking to find he had a knife that was
decorated –
as though he had a secret relish for the violence he professed to deplore.

As we rushed past the court, the captain appeared to swell – which must, in fact, have been his long coat billowing away from his body. Whatever the reason, I lost sight of Jinks as we drew close to him – but I guessed from the captain’s suddenly even greater acceleration that the rogue had woken, and noticed our approach, and was beginning to struggle to his feet. All I know for certain is: the captain straightened to his full height without a pause, lifted his right arm as if he were about to make a declaration, then
plunged it down with the knife gleaming like a fang. There followed two quite separate sounds. One was a grunt from the captain, as he threw his weight into the blow. The other was a kind of exhausted whistle, as the breath left Jinks’s body. When I reached the veranda myself, which was only a moment later, the fellow was still seated in his chair, with his hat pulled forward over his eyes, and his legs stretched in front of him. Nothing about him seemed to have changed – except that a red flower had been pinned to his chest.

Bo’sun Kirkby, Mr Tickle and our two other shipmates now followed onto the veranda and took their positions either side of the cabin door. Because I knew they were peaceable sailors, I was surprised none of them considered the dead man to be worth a second glance, but instead kept their attention fixed on the compound, and especially the pirates’ log-house. It was a sensible precaution – but there was still no sign of alarm, just a drooping plume of smoke, which struggled from the chimney and crawled along the roof. For a moment, we seemed to be holding our breath. A crow flopped onto the ground and began prodding its thick beak into the earth. The cockerel stalked towards him, lifted his head enquiringly, then returned to his brood. Nothing else moved.

More remarkable still was the hush of our friends inside their quarters; even while the captain slid back the pole that acted as both lock and key to the door, there was not so much as a whisper from inside. And when the door opened, which happened with a squeal that froze us in our boots, a most astonishing spectacle presented itself. Herded together in confusion were the shadowy shapes of arms, chests, legs and heads – like an assortment of broken effigies.

The captain was the first to move, stepping towards the threshold of the cabin, whereupon the arms and legs assembled into human forms, and Scotland himself appeared from the gloom to seize his
liberator by the hand. My first thought was: if he is alive, Natty must be nearby. But my hopes were crushed when I looked into Scotland’s face. There was nothing like pleasure in his eyes. For a moment I persuaded myself this was due to the beating he had evidently taken after his recapture: the lacerations on his neck and shoulders were painful even to look at.

‘Master Nat,’ he whispered in his rolling brogue.

‘Yes?’ the captain said, leaning forward so their heads almost touched.

‘He was taken with me. And brought here with me – Stone found us.’

‘Ah!’ the captain groaned.

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ Scotland answered, shaking his head miserably.

‘Sorry for what, man?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Don’t know what? What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know where he is. I don’t know where they took Mr Nat.’

The captain lifted his right hand, meaning I think to rest it on Scotland’s shoulder to comfort him, but he dropped it again because the skin was raw.

‘Did you see anything?’ he asked.

‘Only them taking him away. Taking him there.’ Scotland gestured towards the pirates’ hut.

At this point I could not contain myself any longer. ‘Into the hut, you mean?’ I said. ‘They took him into the hut?’ I marvelled even as I spoke that I had remembered to say ‘him’, and not ‘her’.

Scotland looked at the ground. ‘I’m sorry, Master Jim,’ he said, speaking so softly I had to crane forward as close as the captain had done. ‘Into the hut? I didn’t see that. I went this way, they went that way. It is all I know.’

The captain interrupted us; I understood from the sad twist in his face that he wanted more news, but felt we must drive on. ‘Now is not the time,’ he said sorrowfully. ‘We will return to this; we shall find what we shall find.’

Scotland nodded and I did the same, knowing I had no choice – but all the anxieties that had drawn me across the island now suddenly vanished. Sadness flooded into their place. Sadness, and dread, and also determination. We would find what we would find, as the captain had said. The chance for happiness was distant, but it was still alive.

The captain evidently thought so as well, explaining to Scotland that he should lead the prisoners across the compound, with Bo’sun Kirkby and Mr Tickle to accompany him. They would skirt the Fo’c’sle Court, leave by the gate in the southern wall, then congregate on the beach. The captain would follow, keeping myself, Mr Stevenson and Mr Creed for support, in the event of the pirates coming to their senses and resisting us.

Scotland gripped the captain on the forearm; the pink of his palm was bleeding, and left a damp imprint when it touched the cloth. Then he spoke over his shoulder, passing back the details of our plan while the captain and I stood aside to form a guard as the prisoners emerged.

Scotland led the way, walking very upright and tall, with a blank look at Jinks and a glare of defiance across the open ground ahead. At his side was a woman whose only clothing was a shabby canvas sheet, in which a hole had been cut for her head, and which was fastened round the waist by a rope. Although she did not speak or look at Scotland, I assumed this was his wife. Barefoot and bedraggled, and with scabs along her arms and legs, she looked about her with an appearance of
right –
not pride, or the presumption of authority, but something akin to reasonable expectation.

After these two, their companions crept forward. The menfolk came first, many with their arms folded across their chests for warmth – even though the sun had cleared the horizon by now, and was shining directly into the compound. Some carried bundles that were all they possessed. Some propelled themselves on sticks, or supported one another with arms around shoulders. Many bore the marks of beatings: I saw deep welts across backs and foreheads, and ankles swollen by ropes that had been used to bind them. I clenched my jaw tight shut and promised I would never forget.

The later part of the exodus was more shocking still. Evidently the prisoners had made arrangements inside their quarters, whereby the men slept in the part near the door, while the women lay further off, in the blackest part of the place. This was done to protect them – although it was obvious the measure had amounted to nothing. Although I was not, at this time of my life, much acquainted with the depths to which men can sink in their pursuit of pleasure, it was as much as I could do not to cry out in sympathy as these wretches passed before me in a thin and shivering line.

The cuts on faces, the bloody wrists and feet, the broken lips, the near-nakedness spoke of cruelties that exceeded anything Scotland had told us. The looks in their eyes confirmed it. Each of these women gazed at a point in the distance – a point that moved as they moved, and seemed to hold them in a state of trance. Only one showed a spark of familiar life: a woman who clutched a book in one hand – the binding was very torn, and I supposed it was the Bible. When she stopped in the sun, she pressed her free hand against my cheek as though doubting my existence. ‘I am Rebecca,’ she said, and smiled at me. Her fingers were cold as snow.

When this procession had ended, the captain paused at the doorway, then took a deep breath and disappeared into the darkness to make sure no one had been left behind. Although I knew he was
walking on tiptoe, I heard the unsteady scuff of his boots, and this was enough to make me imagine what sights he must be seeing – sights I pushed out of my mind as soon as he reappeared. He wiped a hand across his face like someone smearing away cobwebs, then closed the door and slid the locking-pole into position.

By the time this was finished, the head of the procession had crossed the compound and reached almost as far as the gate – our whole troop, over fifty strong, was extended across the open ground. A part of me hoped that so many people would seem a form of strength, and therefore aid our escape. Another part despaired because the majority were weak as grass, and would therefore be cut down like grass.