Skull and Bones (16 page)

    "Oh dear," said Katty Cooper, with trembling lower lip. "I do hope you shall not disappoint me. For I am quite alone in the world…"

    Selena looked at her. Katty, utterly feminine as always, had adopted her pleading look: a tragic expression of innocence wounded. On those rare occasions when people refused to do her bidding, she invariably resorted not to anger but tears, and her helpless, pretty, tear-stained little face became an iron lever that she pulled without mercy, to crush the will of others and force them to her bidding. For Katty was a woman who saw her own point of view with such blinding clarity that she was unaware, even, that others had feelings.

    "Hmm," thought Selena, for she was beginning to understand Katty Cooper. But… on the other hand… Katty had been extremely helpful in enabling Selena to be accepted aboard this ship. It was thanks to Katty that nobody now paid any mind to the fact that Selena had come aboard with no story to explain what she'd been doing among pirates. Katty had taken Selena's vague mumblings in response to questions about her past and enlarged upon them with remarkable skill, such that Selena now had a surname and a family - not her real family, who had been left behind on the Delacroix plantation - but a pretend family invented by Katty Cooper, and a sad tale of how she lost them when pirates stormed a merchant ship, slaying all aboard but herself. Even Captain Fitch had shed a tear when Katty told that one.

    Selena sighed. What
did
she want? Even being an actress couldn't be as bad as some of the things that had happened to her aboard Flint's ship… and Long John's…

"Ah!"
thought Katty Cooper, reading the signs. She turned off the mask of tragedy and took Selena's face in her hands.

    "Listen to me, my beautiful creature," she said, looking Selena in the eye. "If you follow me I will promise you wealth beyond your dreams. You shall never want! You shall never be afraid! The world shall court you and adore you. You shall make towers of guineas and roll… you shall
roll…
in strings of diamonds."

    Katty Cooper managed - just - not to say "roll
naked
in strings of diamonds", something which gentlemen never failed to appreciate.

    "Shall I?" said Selena.

    "Oh yes!"

    Selena shrugged. In the absence of a better offer, that didn't seem too bad. And there were no better offers available. In fact, there were no other offers. Not one. So she smiled. Perhaps she might be an actress after all.

    And Katty Cooper smiled, too, pleased that
the theatre
was such useful bait, and a subject of which she knew so much, since she had indeed been an actress herself… until superior opportunities presented. Her tales of the London stage would do to keep Selena happy for now, and in time she would learn as Katty Cooper had learned.

    "So let us be happy, my dear," she said. "We are bound for England!"

    Yes,
thought Selena.
Bound for England and the stage. And who knows where that might lead?

Nightfall (there being no watches kept nor bells struck owing to the mutiny in progress)

12th April 1753

Aboard Walrus

The Atlantic

    So determined were the hands to hang Norton that, when Silver spoke up for him, Tom Allardyce - white-faced in rage - drew steel and rushed at Silver from behind and swung a blow aimed at splitting his head to the chin.

    Which gave Norton his chance. As the two men holding his arms flinched at Allardyce's charge, Norton wrenched himself free, struck left and right with his elbows, smashed a fist into the nose of one who still hung on, then sprang forward to grapple Allardyce from the side in full run, throwing him skidding over, with Norton biting flesh to the bone of the wrist that held the cutlass, and punching with a hard right hand into the soft meat between Allardyce's thighs.

"Aaaaargh!"
shrieked Allardyce, then "
Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!"
as Norton spat out his wrist, took his head by the ears, and slammed it three times into the deck, before leaping up, kicking away the cutlass, and slamming a boot repeatedly and with mighty force into Allardyce's kidneys until he was dragged off by his victim's mates.

    "Bastard!" they screamed.

    "Gut him!"

    "Chop him!"

    There was a rush for the quarterdeck companionways, but:

    Bang! Bang! Silver let off a pair of pistols into the air, while Israel Hands, Mr Joe and Black Dog instantly lined up alongside him and drew weapons and levelled them at the mob.

    "'Ware the buggers!" cried the crew, and two or three dozen firelocks were made ready and aimed. Anger was rampant: it scorched the decks, it addled their brains until mass, mutual slaughter was a second away.

    "Hold hard there!" cried Long John, yelling above all others. "And blind the bastard with red-hot irons who fires on his own shipmates!"

    "Arrrrrrrgh!" they growled, but they stopped.

    "Captain!" cried McLonarch, stepping forward. "May I say…"

    "NO, YOU MAY NOT!" roared Silver in uttermost rage. "By God and all his bleedin' angels you've had your whack, my son, and now it's my turn!" He appealed to the hands: "Ain't that fair, brothers?"

    "Aye!" roared Israel Hands, Mr Joe and Black Dog.

    "Aye," said others, but with bad grace.

    "So!" cried Silver, pointing to Norton. "You're set to hang him, are you?"

    "Aye!" they screamed and shook their fists in the air.

    "Shiver my timbers," said Silver, "if that don't beat all for piss-brain-pleased-with-shit-head-stupid!"

    "What?" they said.

    "D'you not see?" he cried. "Norton's the only bugger aboard what's fit to plot a course! We're all fo'c'sle hands as can
steer
a course, but who's to
set
one? Who's to labour with quadrant and dividers?"

    "Oh!" they said, even McLonarch, who'd not thought of that.

    "Ah!" cried Silver, seeing the change. "Or maybe I'm wrong? Maybe you swabs is happy with miscalculations and endin' up lost in the ocean on a spoonful of water a day?"

    They were not. The anger ran out and the guilt ran in.

    "So," said Silver, "make safe them barkers! Stick 'em where they'll do the most good… and then listen to me!"

    There followed a shame-faced clicking of guns being set to half-cock. Then all hands - and the McLonarch - looked up at Silver.

    "Here's my word in the matter," he said. "It's Dr Cowdray's plan for me! So him there -" he pointed at Norton "- is rated first mate. And him there -" he pointed at McLonarch "- is rated
ship's guest
, and neither to bear arms nor strike the other, nor any man to take their part… until we reach England, and there a full council of brothers will decide what we shall do with 'em!"

    There was silence. Silver looked at Israel Hands.

    "All show for Brother Silver!" cried Israel Hands, and he, Mr Joe, Black Dog, Dr Cowdray, Blind Pew and others instantly voted for Silver. Then, slowly… first one hand went up… then another… and another… until a good majority showed.

    "All against?" said Israel Hands.

    No hand was raised.

    And that was it. The ship returned to normal and arms were put away. Silver wiped the sweat from his brow, Israel Hands and Mr Joe clapped him on the back and smiled, and Cap'n Flint the parrot rubbed her head lovingly against his cheek. She was a great comfort at such times.

    "You're the boy, John!" said Israel Hands admiringly. "Ain't none like you!"

    "Aye!" said all who heard.

    But later, Silver spoke privately both with Norton, whom he liked, and the McLonarch, whom he detested. He told each that he would take his part when they reached England. For Silver was desperate to save his lady and didn't know who he might need on his side, so he played both ends against the middle. And that wasn't the old John Silver. That wasn't
him
any more. That was something new.

    In his cabin, alone with a bottle of rum and Cap'n Flint, he sighed and tickled the parrot's beautiful green plumes.

    "We're bound for England, my girl," he said. "And God knows what we'll find there!"

Chapter 14

Dusk, 10th June 1753

Shooter's Hill

In the ancient borough of Greenwich

Southeast London

    The Berlin was a magnificent example of the coach builder's art. It was light and strong, with big dished wheels, and the body hung on leather braces. It thundered onward at cracking speed, sending dust and clods flying in all directions, driven from the box by a liveried, plume-hatted coachman who thrashed mightily on the backs of the four horses, them being mere post-cattle, put on at the last change five miles back, and himself resolved to go up this famous hill in style and not like a fat-arsed yokel on a farm wagon.

    "Go on!
Go
on!" he yelled.

    Crack! Crack! Crack! went the whip and the wretched beasts leapt onward.

    Under its layer of road dust, the coach body gleamed splendidly: the result of many dozen coats of olive green paint, and the arms of the Second Earl of Maidstone applied to its doors. But it swayed and rocked, since, for all its sophistication of design, it was rumbling over the rutted, potholed, cart-track that these modern times called
"a highroad"
and which a Roman engineer would have laughed at.

    In the velvet comfort of the coach, with its luminous glass windows and rich upholstery, two gentlemen sat side by side, hanging on to hand-straps against the motion. They were Lieutenant Flint and Lieutenant Lennox, now dressed in fashionable civilian attire, complete with wigs. Flint beamed for the hundredth time upon young Lennox, who'd turned out to be most wonderfully well connected: his uncle being Admiral Sir Toby Lennox, in command of the Channel Fleet at Portsmouth, and his father Lord Anthony Lennox, Second Earl of Maidstone from whose great house the Berlin had started on its journey to London that morning.

    Flint chuckled.

    "What is it, Joseph?" said Lennox, smiling, for he idol- worshipped Flint and was delighted to see his hero happy.

    "Nothing, dear fellow," said Flint and smiled back. He was reflecting on the happy accident that the house of Hastings which stood for Mr Midshipman Povey and against Joe Flint - was Whig, while the house of Lennox… was Tory. Thus they'd gobbled up every word of young Lennox's outburst of admiration for Flint on arrival aboard his uncle's flagship at Spithead: telling how Flint had fought the pestilence, put hope into the crew, excelled in leadership, shone in seamanship, overcome perils at sea, etc, etc, etc… and brought all hands safe home!

    Likewise they'd swallowed Lennox's vehement protestation modestly supported by Flint - that Flint was not only innocent of all charges against him, but was a hero, a true-born Briton, and undoubtedly the victim of some foul and deep- laid plot!

    Meanwhile, the representatives of Clan Hastings had carried away poor Mr Povey, still swimming deep between life and death, and unable to bring his vital evidence to bear on the case… which was not surprising, considering the amount of laudanum that had been poured down him over the preceding weeks. Indeed, it was his exasperating refusal to
die
under the treatment which had caused amazement in some quarters.

    Since Clan Lennox's power was rooted in the navy, and it was the navy that had hold of Flint, great levers were pulled in the Admiralty such that Flint emerged a free man… pending Mr Povey's recovery, and a search for any others whose evidence Clan Lennox considered relevant. Meanwhile Flint was taken to Maidstone House in Kent to meet Lord Maidstone, and was entertained, and shown off to rural society, until - desperate in every way to escape - he suggested a journey to the culture and sophistication of London, which he claimed never to have seen.

    Such was the Berlin's capacity for speed, and so frequent the changes of horses, a mere five hours on the road had brought them some fifty miles to Shooter's Hill, where Lennox insisted that Flint must not miss the inspirational first sight of London from this famous vantage point, and neither should the faithful Mr Billy Bones, for whom there was not room in the two-seater coach body, leaving him perched in the servants' seat behind, which at least had its own little hood in case the weather turned nasty.

    "Whooooooa!" cried the coachman as they reached the top of the hill. He hauled on his reins, stopped the coach, set the brake, then clambered down, rigged the passengers' step, and threw open the door, doffing his hat and bowing low, with his whip held respectfully across his chest.