Flint and Silver: A Prequel to Treasure Island

Chapter 11

In Selena's world there was no time for self-pity. When the shaking stopped, she went back to work.

She picked her way over and around the customers in the liquor shop, and made an effort to clear up the mess that they had made. Some of them were stirring now, and calling for more drink. Selena served them, and prodded the other girls awake to help her.

Later in the evening, after lamp-lighting time, when Flint and Neal came back to the liquor shop, a second round of debauchery was well under way. Flint and Neal were like brothers; satisfied with their business and now looking to take a drop or two in celebration. Flint merrily kicked three or four men out of their chairs and swept their pots and plates off the table to make way for himself and Neal. Roars of approval greeted their arrival, and the musicians woke themselves up and joined in the din.

This time Flint leapt on a table top, threw back his head and led the singing. His men cheered madly when they heard the song, for it was a piece of his own creation, that he sang only when in the best of spirits. Joseph Flint sang beautifully, with a high, carrying voice that was lovely to hear, and once heard never forgotten. He gave each line of the song, with his men roaring out the chorus.

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest — "

"Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

"Drink and the devil had done for the rest — "

"Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

"But one man of her crew alive — "

"Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

"What put to sea with seventy-five — "

"Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

The song went on, verse after verse, getting steadily grimmer and darker, but with Flint so beaming and charming, acting out the horrors of the story in such splendid good humour that everyone laughed at the wickedness he was proclaiming.

When he finished, he sat down to mighty cheers, and smiled like the sun in his glory. Neal smiled too, though he'd no taste for Flint's kind of music. His mind was still full of delightful calculations concerning the cargoes in the holds of Flint's two prizes. Selena came to their table at once, with rum. Flint raised his glass to her in a polite toast. His sharp eyes swept her up and down. He frowned. He saw the miserable expression on her face and her red eyes.

"What rogue has upset you, my African Venus?" he said. He stood up, and took her chin gently in his fingers, the better to study her. "I dare swear you've been crying. Just tell me who it was," he said, in a soft, quiet voice. "Just tell me his name and I'll have the liver out of him. I'll rip it out, and slice it narrow, and feed it to him in strips." Charley Neal blinked anxiously. When other men said things like that, they weren't really thinking of opening a man's belly and sticking a hand inside to pull things out. But when Flint made the threat…

"Don't you mind her!" cried Neal, half standing. There were limits to what the colony's trustees would ignore — even for cash payment in gold. "Leave her, Joe," he said. "These black girls are ten a penny!" And he dared actually to reach out and clutch Flint's arm, as if to restrain him.

Flint was not pleased at the gesture. He frowned slightly and turned his eyes first on Neal's hand, and then on Neal himself. The Irishman fell back as if a blow had been struck.

"Sorry, Joe!" he begged. "Sorry-sorry-sorry!" He raised his hands in placation.

"Thank you, Charley," said Flint. "But be assured that this lady is not to be compared with others, and is not to be sold at the price of one tenth of a penny."

"No!" said Charley. "No, no, no!" And he shook his head as if to shake it off.

"I am glad that we are agreed," said Flint, and ignored Charley Neal. Flourishing a silk handkerchief, he made a great play of dabbing it at the corners of Selena's eyes. "So who was it that offended you, my dear? Only give me a name."

"It doesn't matter," said Selena, seeing the imploring look on Neal's face. She could not afford to upset her protector- in-chief. Neal sighed gratefully. Flint shrugged his shoulders and deigned to smile again as he looked at the girl.

"By George!" said Flint. "Where did you find such a beauty, Neal? Is this what you keep hidden at home?" He laughed and his white teeth shone. He bowed and indicated a chair. "Will you honour us, ma'am?" Selena hesitated. Neal nodded furiously. As far as he was concerned, Flint could have any girl in the house free of charge, and he could do anything he liked with them.

Flint drew out the chair and ushered Selena to her place as gallant as a nobleman with his lady, and she with her torn and tattered cotton print, and her bare feet.

This drew hoots of laughter from Flint's men, who assumed he was playing some game with the girl, and they extemporised lewd and obscene advice, which they bawled out at the tops of their voices, concerning what he should do next. But they had mistaken their captain's intentions. White showed round Flint's eyes, and Billy Bones — never far from his idol and knowing him better than anyone — silently stood back and took cover.

BANG! BANG! Flint drew and fired a pair of heavy pistols with the speed of thought. Smoke rolled and twinkling red fragments of wadding sprayed about him. He'd aimed left and right at random, not caring where the balls might whiz. He set the smoking pistols carefully back in his belt and produced a second, smaller pair, with which he menaced the room.

"Silence!" he roared, as the women shrieked and men howled.

"Aaah!" moaned a voice. "Me arm! Me sodding precious arm!"

"Who is hurt?" cried Flint. "Show yourself!"

"It's me," said a voice, "Atty Bolger." And a man stood up with a ruined arm hanging by a shattered shoulder and the blood in a growing puddle at his feet.

"God bless me!" said Flint. "Why, it is Atty Bolger, I do declare! That's a nasty wound, old shipmate. Does it hurt?"

"'Course it hurts, you cunt!"

"Uhhhhhhhhhhh!" gasped the room.

"Then shall I help you, Atty? Shall I take away your pain?"

"Aye," said Bolger, who was not one of the brightest.

CRACK! went Flint's pistol.

"And does it hurt now?" asked Flint, but Atty said not a word. And neither did any other man or woman in the room, where utter silence reigned as Flint held two hundred people by the unaided force of his own terrifying personality.

"That's better," he said. "Now… should any man here have anything else to say about this lady — " he bowed gracefully to Selena "- then let him step up now and say it to Joe Flint… just here — " he indicated a spot a yard in front of himself. After a due pause and a most remarkable absence of any sound at all, let alone further comment on Selena, Flint smiled his dazzling smile and sat down again. He ignored the rest of the room, and the din slowly returned.

Selena was goggling at Flint with big round eyes. Her ears rang with the detonation of the pistols and her mouth hung open in amazement.

"Pop!" said Flint, flicking a finger under her chin and snapping her mouth shut. He laughed and looked her over once more. Flint had been at sea just as long as John Silver and the others, and like them he had need of a woman. But his needs were more singular. For one thing, Flint was extremely particular where women were concerned. He demanded considerable beauty, and specific circumstances. He had just found the former, and now he set about procuring the latter.

Flint could be very charming when he wanted. He had a store of wit and clever stories, mostly at the expense of others and mostly cruel, but funny nonetheless. He made Selena laugh. He even managed to say something amusing when four men passed carrying the profoundly limp and silent Atty Bolger. In short, Flint exerted himself to please. He was attentive to whatever Selena said. He ordered food and drink for her, and served her himself, anxiously inquiring whether the rum and water was not too strong for her taste.

She was puzzled and flattered. No man, black or white, free or slave, had ever treated her like this. She saw no sign in this fine gentleman's face of the hot passions she stirred in others. And he was clean and didn't smell of sweat and filth like most others did. His teeth were beautiful and his face was handsome, and he was immeasurably the finest-dressed man she had ever seen.

Selena relaxed. She smiled. She laughed.

And all the while Charley Neal thanked the saints that the slaughter seemed to be done for tonight (and all due to accidental pistol shots that the authorities would understand) and nobody's liver had been laid out on the floor.

Better still, Charley saw that the topsails of another fine bargain had just hove up over the horizon as, little by little, Flint led the conversation towards Selena herself. Her age, her thoughts, her hopes, her plans: small and piteous as these were, for the blessings of a clean bed, a full stomach and a little kindness. Finally, Flint made his move.

"My dear," he said, leaning forward with a serious expression on his face, "if I had a daughter, I'd not let her be bred in such a nest of vice as this — " he waved at everything around them, including Neal (who was already working out the price for what was now, clearly, on its way).

"Forgive the precipitousness of my impetuosity," said Flint. "Attribute this to the sincere philanthropy of my intentions."

Selena chewed hard on these huge and ponderous words, the like of which the plantation and the tavern had not prepared her for.

"What I propose," said Flint, "is that I adopt you as my legal ward, my dear, and fetch you aboard my ship to live under my protection." Selena's eyes widened. Neal's closed in satisfaction. Selena dreamed of freedom. Neal dreamed of profit. "Will you come, my dear?" said Flint. "I swear by the Almighty Being who made Heaven and Earth that you shall have nothing to fear." So powerful was the force of his argument that Billy Bones, watching and listening nearby, nodded in enrapt agreement and mouthed the words, nothing to fear.

Selena looked at Flint. She looked at Neal. She looked around the room. She measured Flint against every man she had ever met, and by that sad, debased and impoverished standard, Flint shone like the evening star.

"I will come with you, sir," she said. And it was settled as far as she was concerned. The squaring of Charley Neal took longer, for he could show impressive papers demonstrating his undoubted ownership of Selena. He also had charge of such money as Selena had hoarded and was honest enough to make clear that it would go with her. It was furthermore very much to Neal's credit that he dared to press Flint for assurances that the money would remain Selena's once she passed into his power.

But eventually all parties left smiling and certain figures in Neal's ledgers were adjusted to his advantage over that of Captain Joseph Flint. When the dealing was done, Flint stood up and offered Selena his hand.

"Mr Bones," he said, "lanterns and a boat's crew, if you please. I'm returning to the ship at once."

A small procession left Neal's house and marched through the warm night to the music of a thousand twittering crickets. Flint led the way with Selena on his arm as they took the short walk to the stairs down to the river. There, Walrus's jolly-boat was launched for an even shorter pull out to the ship herself, and soon Selena was overcome with wonder at the size and mystery of the ship: its crammed and complex machinery of ropes and tackles and bolts and spars, half visible and all the more strange in the night. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of tar and timber, salt and fish, and things faintly rotting in hidden corners.

"Come below, my dear," said Flint, and the anchor watch and the boat's crew leered and nudged one another. Billy Bones made the ancient gesture of slapping his left palm into his right elbow and jerking the right forearm erect, fist clenched, like a phallus. He did this — but by God Almighty and all His angels — he took care to make sure Flint didn't see him do it.

"You shall have my own cabin," said Flint, "and a bath shall be rigged of good fresh water, and clean clothes provided afterwards." He turned to his men. "Mr Bones, what slops have we to suit my lady?"

"No women's traps, Cap'n," said Billy Bones, "but I'll root out the smallest we've got in shirts and britches."

"Clean, Billy-my-chicken!" said Flint. "Let everything be clean."

Later, Selena was left entirely to herself in Flint's cabin at the stern, below the quarterdeck. It was a fine place, lavishly furnished with tables and chairs, chests and carvings, shining cutlasses and mysterious seafaring instruments. Candles glowed in hanging lanterns and a tub of fresh water, lined with sail-cloth for smoothness, was filled and waiting for her in a space cleared in the middle of the cabin. The result aroused unfortunate memories of a certain "special house", the only other place Selena had ever seen that had an equal quality of furnishing, and there'd been a bath there too. But here she had privacy, something she'd never known before in all her life, and the thought of it was almost mystical. She locked the door, drew off her single garment, bound up her hair, and slid into the cool water.

Flint was watching her.

He had a sleeping cabin to one side of the main cabin, and his eye was pressed to a fresh-bored hole in the bulkhead. He looked at the lovely round limbs, the high breasts standing out in their youth, the slim waist and the gorgeous female swell of the hips, the beauty of her face, and the girl's natural daintiness. She was a thing of uttermost loveliness and Flint's breath came in gasps. His mouth was wet and drooling and his member rose painfully below his belt.

Flint groaned in shame. It was his curse that he could not penetrate and enter a woman as other men did. The urgent need for virility simply drained the strength from him, and so he turned to stratagems such as this. He thrust his hand into his breeches and worked steadily, as if pumping out the bilge.