Flint and Silver: A Prequel to Treasure Island

Chapter 19

Selena was coming to terms with a very cruel truth. Deep in thought, and idle as ever aboard Walrus, she was on the quarterdeck with Flint and Billy Bones below, while Silver spoke to the helmsman, Tom Allardyce.

When the watch changed, another man took over the helm and Allardyce went below. The new man was not a crony of Silver's and Silver looked around for someone to talk to. He saw Selena and smiled. She'd noticed him looking at her before, and she could see he was trying to make up for what he'd done in Savannah. She was very bored, by then, with nobody for company other than the ship's boys, and they were beginning to snigger and take liberties. As for Flint, he showed less interest in her these days than he did in his parrot. He seemed to have got what he wanted from her, without ever touching her.

And beyond that, like any human creature, she was missing her parents and her brothers and sisters, and she was trying to face up to the fact that she would never see any of them again. Not in this life. Not in this world. Not when plantation slaves could not leave the plantation; and not when a sure and certain hanging awaited her if ever she should return.

As long as she'd lived ashore, even in Savannah, she'd managed not to face the truth, but life at sea had changed everything, so strange and wonderful as it was, and so utterly far from home as it had carried her. Now she was struggling to remember their faces, especially the little ones — the dearest of all — with their young, unformed features that she could no longer picture in her mind.

In the depths of her loneliness, she looked at John Silver's broad shoulders and his intelligent eyes and judged him as if at first meeting. She smiled, offhand and casual, and saw the pleasure in his face; and Providence was kind to her, for she instantly discovered the ancient and fascinating sport that God has made for all the women of the ages in offering enough bait to lure a man forward for closer inspection, while giving nothing much away. It was a game she'd never have had the chance to play on the Delacroix Plantation. There, she was just cattle to be worked and bred from, while on board Walrus she enjoyed all the privileges of a free-born woman, and one with powerful backers.

But the ancient game worked both ways. Silver proved to be charming and amusing company, with a store of tales to tell about strange places and strange things that he'd seen.

"Chinamen, ma'am, with fingernails so long, they bend like the bones in a lady's stays." She smiled, remembering the wonderful gowns that Miss Eugenie wore, and all their complex underpinnings.

"Monkeys, ma'am? Have I seen monkeys? Why, baboons is the king o' monkeys. I've seen baboons out of Africa, with jaws like mastiffs, and arses — begging your pardon, ma'am — striped blue and red and all the colours o' the rainbow!"

She laughed to show she wasn't such a fool as to believe this nonsense.

"And great snakes called pythons, in the East Indies, that can swallow a whole hog…" he winked and grew so familiar as to jab her gently in the ribs with a finger "… or a plump little thing like yourself, if he could just clap a hold on you." She could see that it wasn't just the python that would like to clap a hold on her, given the chance. So she frowned to put him back in his place.

But she carried on talking to Silver. She did it often after that, and found that it infuriated Flint. Perhaps she even did it because it infuriated Flint. It was exciting, and she was too young to realise how dangerous it was. Flint reacted by devoting more time to her. He got Mad Pew, the sailmaker, to sew her a dress from ship's stores. Since Pew had never done the like before, and hadn't the least idea how to go about it, the result was not a specially fine dress. But it was a dress, and Flint made her wear it for dinner. Then he had his cook prepare special meals and made his officers turn out to dine with her in their best clothes and on their best behaviour. They were a rough lot aside from Mr Cowdray, who'd once been a surgeon in London, and Mr Smith the purser, whom the men called "Parson".

Selena didn't much care for Parson Smith, because he stared fixedly at her breasts with his mouth hanging open whenever he thought nobody was looking, and he had fat, pink little fingers with disgustingly bitten nails. He was clearly ashamed of whatever it was that had driven him from England, and he wouldn't be drawn to talk about it. But Mr Cowdray was much better. He was clever and friendly. He had lived in the great world among ladies and gentlemen. He'd seen the King and Queen and he'd been to the Opera House. In fact, Selena liked him so much, and was so fascinated by his stories about the clothes and hairstyles worn by London ladies, that Flint never asked him to dinner again. And Silver was never asked at all.

From time to time, Selena would be sent deep down below to hide among the coiled mass of the anchor cable. This was when Walrus pounced on a ship that the pirates wanted to rob. The hideous noise of the guns, firing over her head, and the stench of powder smoke were so bad that she begged Flint to let her stay on deck at these times. But on this, he was as immovable as a mountain.

"No, my little flower," he would say, firmly shaking his head. "It isn't just what would happen should you get in the way of a shot, it's the things you might see."

And all the while, the poison between Flint and Long John grew worse. There were arguments over everything. They quarrelled over the set of the sails: Silver always wanting less for safety, Flint always wanting more for speed. They quarrelled over swabbing below decks: Silver against, for the damp it caused, Flint in favour for the greater cleanliness. They quarrelled over watering the grog, over setting the watches, over gun-drill, musket-drill, and what to do with prisoners. Flint always wanted them butchered, Silver always wanted them marooned or set adrift.

But the greatest quarrel was over Flint's wish to bury the wealth that was accumulating below decks, not only from coin and bar silver taken directly from captured ships, but from Charley Neal's payments for jewellery and prizes sailed into Savannah.

Selena felt that this latter argument was different. She didn't begin to understand the bickering and shouting over ship things, as she called them — swabbing, gun-drill and the like for these at least got settled one way or the other, and the arguments stopped. But there was no decision on burying the goods, and the arguments just got worse.

Finally one night there was a serious quarrel, even though it wasn't about the burying but a different matter entirely. Long John, Flint, Billy Bones and some of the other officers every man of the crew who was consulted on important matters — were down in Flint's cabin. Selena, of course, was not among them, but she heard the angry shouts right enough.

Everyone did, and they listened with giant ears to the noise coming up from below.

"Damned if I'll turn for Savannah!" cried Flint.

"An' damned if you don't!" cried Silver. "We've beat about and quartered the ocean hereabouts for far too long. Every shipmaster for a hundred leagues knows Flint's about, so it's time for Flint to be gone."

"Who's cap'n here?" came another voice, that of Billy Bones. He had the loudest voice in the ship and every word came up as clear as if he was standing on the quarterdeck.

"Shut your trap, Billy!" said Silver.

"An' who's to make me?"

"Shut it, Billy," said Silver. "I say that one more prize is one too many. The next one might be a man-o'-war out looking for us."

"Yellow-livered bugger!" came Billy Bones's roar.

At this there was an explosion of anger from below, followed by a rumble and a breaking of furniture, and all the unmistakable sounds of a fight. There was even the bark of a pistol, and the grunts of men giving and taking heavy blows. The eyes and mouths of those on deck grew rounder and rounder as the whole crew came astern, dim figures in the dark, to hear what was going on in Flint's cabin. For the few minutes the fight lasted, there was no proper lookout kept, nor attention to the helm, nor to any other thing that interfered with listening.

Soon the sounds of combat ceased and the crowd dispersed rapidly as Flint and Silver came on deck. They were not on speaking terms and took opposite sides of the deck, glowering into the night and exchanging curt words with a few favoured ones who congregated around them, staring angrily at the other group.

They were followed a while later by Mr Billy Bones: he who'd defeated the foremost pugilist in the Americas. Billy Bones moved unsteadily, hanging on to hand-holds like a drunken man. He violently kicked the backside of the first man he passed, damned his mother as a poxy whore, and told him to haul up a bucket of water. Billy Bones knelt down and plunged his head into this, and washed the blood off his face, and groaned and fingered his bruises. He kept darting nervous glances at Silver and muttering to himself. The crew whistled and drew their conclusions.

But if Silver had won the fight, he lost the argument. Walrus did not return to Savannah. Flint had his way. He would not listen to Silver's warnings as he would have done in the past. He would not listen because there now stood between the two men a prickly hedge of mistrust and anger. This was a great pity. It was a very great pity indeed. In fact it is barely possible to put into words how great a pity it was — especially and tragically for Long John Silver — because Silver had been absolutely right and Flint had been wrong.