Skull and Bones (45 page)

    Clunk-clank! Clunk-clank! Clunk-clank!

    But then the black muzzles found their way, and roared together and shot flew through the air again.

    "Where's this bastard shot-hole, then?" said the carpenter's mate as he dashed forward to find Silver, Israel Hands, Mr

    Joe and all the rest who were free, waiting for him in the companionway outside the stern cabin.

    "There ain't none," said Silver. "But them Dagoes is going to be gone in a brace o' shakes, and most of our lads is in irons below. So I've summoned all hands, for this is our chance to take back our ship!"

    "Aye!" they said.

    "Aye!" said Silver, and he thought long and hard, and listened to all the noise and fury around him. The soldiers were all on deck, yelling encouragement to their mates in the longboat, while below decks all was quiet.

    "Have you got your tools, Mr Carpenter?"

    "Aye-aye, Cap'n!"

    "And you, Mr Gunner?"

    "Aye-aye!" said Israel Hands.

    "So let's strike the chains off our lads, and be a crew once more!"

    "Aye!" they all said.

    "And set sail!" said a voice.

    "Aye!" they roared.

    "No!" said Silver.

    "What?"

    "We'll take the ship, and break out the fire-arms and man the guns!"

    "Aye!"

    "But then…we must hold hard, and stay put."

    "Why?"

    "First, because we don't know who's going to win the fight up above, and whoever wins'll be master of that battery, the which we can't get away from, without the wind changes, for we'd be sunk before we could warp out!"

    They nodded. It was true.

    "But," said Silver, "there's more…"

    "What?" they said.

    "Have we come this far to walk away penniless, shipmates?" said Silver. "Penniless, when we could be rich men riding in carriages? You all know I've only
half
the papers that lead to the treasure, while that bastard Flint has the rest."

    "Aye!"

    "So are we gentlemen o' fortune or bumboat men? Shall we let Flint keep us from what's ours?"

    "No," said the old hands. But some of the youngsters were silent, for not all had sailed with Flint, and to them, his treasure was a fine tale but not reality.

    "So what would you do, John?" said Israel Hands.

    "What would I do? Why," said Silver, "I'd let the Spanish and the Savannians knock seven bells out of each other, and while they're at it - perhaps tonight - then a band of us shall go ashore, find Jimmy Chester - him as will lead us to Flint - and get them papers off the swab, and his silver case too, if we have to cut it out of him while we roast his arse on a fire!" Silver growled in venom and spite, he clenched his fist and stamped his crutch on the deck. "And by thunder, I'll do it an' all," he said.

    There was another silence, then Israel Hands spoke again.

    "Beggin' your pardon, Cap'n," he said, touching his hat formally, "but this is for all hands to decide, in council. For we're gentlemen o' fortune, like you said, and there's some what'd wish to take their chances with the battery, or sail upstream, past their reach, and wait for a better wind."

    "Aye!" said the others, and Silver nodded, for he had no choice.

    "So be it," he said. "Let the council be held!"

Chapter 39

Morning, 20th July 1754

The Savannah River

    The longboat bumped into mooring posts at the foot of the timber stairs. The men cheered. Alvarez shrieked in relief and joy. They'd made it! They'd come ashore! They'd got under the reach of the slaughtering, murdering battery. They couldn't be hit any more! And thump-bump-crunch, the second longboat -
La Concha's
- was alongside and crammed with yelling mouths, glittering bayonets and black moustaches. The second boat had been badly hit by grape and there were dead and wounded rolling in her bilges, but she still disgorged a load of fighting men.

    "Santiago!" cried Alvarez.

    "SANTIAGO!" they all roared.

    "Follow me!" cried Alvarez, swept away by the triumph of the moment, and he made ready to jump for the stairs with sword in hand.

    "Aspirante," cried Sargento Ortiz, grabbing his arm, "shall we not send the boats back for more men?"

"Oh! Ah!
ⁿ
cried Alvarez. "Soldiers of Spain, follow me! Seamen, return for another load!" And then he was off, fired with fury, erupting with passion, and for once in his life leading from the front with his men following after, boots

    pounding, muskets clattering, swarming, tumbling out of the wallowing boats, with the seamen urging them on, and thundering up the wooden stairs that creaked and swayed under their load, and pouring out at the top, with Alvarez leaping with excitement and the civilian population of Savannah shrieking and screaming and running in all directions: men and women, children and adults, black, white, red and mulattos of every shade scattering. Some ran to their houses, some to the forest - but mostly they ran pell-mell towards the heavy grey timbers and the smooth, looming earthworks of Savannah's fort… and never a blow struck in defence of the town and never a glimpse of a red coat… except a hundred yards off to one side, where the troops in the now- silent battery stood in their smoke and peered through the embrasures at the Spaniards, now firmly in control of Savannah's stairs.

    "Cease firing!" cried Lieutenant Laurence, hoarse with shouting, deafened by his guns, and eyes streaming from powder smoke. "They're under our fucking reach and it ain't no fucking good!"

    And the men gulped and sweated, and stood by their hot black guns and trembled with the effort they'd put out in serving them. They'd hit one of the boats, and mauled it badly, but now they couldn't depress their guns any lower. They couldn't even see the boats.

    Laurence sighed. Left to himself, he'd have stood back and waited for a target, but Flint was on him like the wrath of God, with Colonel Bland after him, at first for fear Flint had lost his temper again, and then understanding and yelling agreement wildly.

    "Listen!" cried Flint, seizing hold of Laurence, "they'll come ashore up that blasted staircase! I shall drag out two guns to bear upon it!
You
will stand by your remaining guns, laid on your last sight of the boats, and stand by to fire as they emerge to collect more men! You will ensure that fire is properly controlled such that each boat is pounded, and you will not - under any circumstances - fire upon
Walrus!"

    "Yes! Yes!" cried Bland, nodding his head off at Flint's words, and marvelling that ever he'd doubted the sanity of so superb an officer, so steady under fire, and so much a master of the hour.

    But Flint wasn't done, for the swirling clouds of his personality always had contained - amongst all the rest - a very fine officer indeed. So he clapped his hands behind his back as a sea-officer should and turned on Colonel Bland and gave him his orders.

    "Colonel!" he said.

    "Sir!" said Bland instinctively.

    "You will take command of all your forces and engage the enemy!" Flint nodded towards the Spanish troops that were driving Savannah's people before them, led by an officer who leaped and cavorted and waved a sword over his head.

    "You will bring the garrison from the fort!"

    "Sir!" said Bland.

    "You will send out your woodsmen to fall upon the enemy's rear!"

    "Sir!" said Bland, and saluted.

    Without a word, without hesitation, Bland dashed off towards the fort where his men were waiting, while Flint took command of two gun crews and began hauling guns out of their emplacements and around the earthworks to face the river bank, the stairs and the Spaniards. It was heavy work and slow, because the guns' small wheels constantly bogged down in the soft earth. But with Flint leading, the gunners persevered.

    "Heave-
ho
! Heav
e-ho!
" cried the Spanish oarsmen, and they backed water to clear the stairs, then each helmsman steered for his ship, for
Walrus
and for
La Concha,
and without the weight of a cargo of men the big boats made better speed. From the two ships came cheers and cries to urge them on. Even the wounded in
La Concha's
boat did their best to cheer, and gave up groaning.

    "Heave-
ho
! Heave-
ho
!" The boats pulled for their ships, and came out from under the protective brow of Savannah's river bank… and once more into the sight of the eighteen- pounders, which opened up, at maximum depression, with a bound and a roar and a bank of smoke. But this time it was three guns, not five, with two firing at
La Concha's
boat and only one at
Walrus's.
More than that, the soldiers aboard
Walrus
had the sense to open fire with her two-pounder swivels, which, small as they were, had the advantage over her carriage guns in that their mountings allowed unlimited elevation, enabling an aim to be taken - by squint and by guesswork - at the battery up on the river bank.

    Following the example of their comrades, those aboard
La Concha
likewise loaded the swivels mounted on her gunwale and aimed up at the battery and cracked and banged in company with
Walrus's
fire, sending a steady stream of iron shot whistling up at the earthworks… where they did no harm at all to the eighteen-pounders or their solid defences, for most missed entirely or buried themselves in the earthworks, but one or two lucky shots howled over the heads of the gunners, reminding them of mortality and making them flinch.

    More important, with eight or more swivels burning powder, a nice cloud of white smoke began to roll around the anchorage below Savannah's stairs, making it hard for the gunners in the battery to see what they were aiming at.

    "Damnation!" cried Lieutenant Laurence. "Load grapeshot! No more solid ball!"

    "Sir!" cried his gunners, for it was good sense. Grape might not sink a big longboat as a roundshot shot would, but it greatly increased the chances of a hit. And soon Laurence's men were cheering as water foamed in a deadly circle all around
Walrus's
longboat, now re-filled with Spanish soldiers and pulling for the shore, and a good dozen one- pound iron balls crashed into the boat such that blood, bone and flesh leapt into the air and cascaded down and smeared the living survivors with the guts and slime of their mates, and fragments of teeth, skin and hair, and pieces of fingers and limbs.

    But the boat didn't go down! It wasn't holed so bad that bailing couldn't save it, and most of the oarsmen survived and pulled on with desperate strength, and the dead and dying hanging over the sides between the heaving oars, and a greasy trail of blood and tissues trailing aft like the slime of a monstrous slug.

     "Aspirante!" cried Sargento Ortiz. "The battery! We must silence the battery!" Ortiz was weakening. He'd lost much blood. The stump of his arm was pounding horribly, and seeping and dripping, and Ortiz was gasping from chasing Aspirante Alvarez and trying to get the little sod to take command of the men, who'd soon be breaking doors and looting if they weren't stopped.

    "Oh!" said Alvarez, and looked around, and saw the empty streets and the few running figures, and his grinning, gasping men, and Sargento Ortiz's accusing face. And then… B-Boom! the battery fired again, and Alvarez remembered and rushed back to the river bank and looked down at the dead and dying and the wreckage floating in the Savannah River. Five hundred men had mustered in arms on the maindecks of
Walrus
and
La Concha.
Of these, as Alvarez could plainly see, a good hundred were already dead or ruined, and now the oarsmen were losing their stroke aboard one of the boats, and looking over their shoulders for the smoke and flash of the battery's guns, and the other boat was landing more men at the bottom of the stairs, and the river was filling up with smoke from the battery, and - Alvarez gaped in surprise - swivel guns were firing from the two ships.

    "The battery, senor," said Ortiz, and staggered. His face was yellow-white around the black moustache. "We must storm the battery or we cannot take the town."

    Alvarez blinked, and tiredness fell upon him from too much running and shouting. He was spent. He'd never been a very good officer, he'd got this far through hysterical excitement, and now that was gone. Seeing that, Sargento Ortiz swayed with sickness and groaned.