Flint and Silver: A Prequel to Treasure Island

Chapter 46

"Fox's Book of Martyrs," said Flint. "It was the constant companion of my youth." He sighed and shook his head. "Given to me by my father on my thirteenth birthday — which birthday, by Mosaic Law, made me a man, and which book, my father said, was 'the bastion of our Protestant religion against the Anti-Christ Bishop of Rome'!" He turned to his audience. "Those were his very words, lads. What do you think of that?"

"Mm," they said.

"He was a man of powerful views," said Flint, which was true. The Reverend Mordecai Flint, Presbyter-General of the Revelationary Evangelist Church, had held opinions that were rooted like mountains. Flint smiled. "And yet, he was hated by all who knew him. Hated… but feared!"

"Mm."

Flint dug into the rich, black soil of memory, and turned up a thing that smelt bad, even to him. He paused. He gathered himself. He spoke.

"Do you know, lads, he… my father… he had a particular disgust for the physical act of procreation. D'you know that? And he never ceased to punish me for my own conception." Flint raised a warning hand. "Not that he beat me! No. He never touched me. Not once, not ever. Indeed, he never touched anyone. But he had the most wonderful ability to inspire guilt."

"Mm."

"And so I took refuge in that beloved old book. It was the London edition of 1701, in two folio volumes with hundreds of wood-cut illustrations, most lavishly and beautifully worked. What do you think of that?"

"Mm."

"We had two other books in the house: the Bible, of course, and Pilgrim's Progress." He frowned. "But I could never take to them. It was always Fox's for me, and many's the happy hour I spent in study of it." He chuckled confidentially. "Well, lads," he admitted, "if the truth be known, it wasn't so much the text I studied, for I mainly looked at the pictures."

"Mm."

Flint shook his head.

"You wouldn't believe the things I saw, and the lessons I learned. You wouldn't believe the ingenious cruelties inflicted by one man upon another in the name of faith, and the agonies suffered by the blessed martyrs. And you wouldn't believe the artistic skill — and the precision of detail — with which those horrors were depicted: the rack and strappado, the stake and the thumbscrew; decapitation, immuration, ex-sanguination, and the winding-out of the gut…" He mused a while, savouring the memory. "Have you ever seen that, lads? The winding-out of the gut… with a windlass"

But his audience said nothing. They'd said little enough before, had Rob Taylor and Henry Howard, because each had a ball of cloth jammed into his mouth, secured in place by a strip of the same cloth knotted firmly at the back of the head. And now they said even less because they were tied hand and foot, sat together propped up against a tree looking at the iron windlass that Flint had brought ashore with him, and which they'd all supposed was to be used for the burial of the goods. But though they'd laboured to carry the thing round the island, it had not been used — until now.

"Fox's Book says there's over five fathoms of guts inside a man," said Flint. "I've often wondered if that really is the case."

Silence.

Flint got up from the rock on which he'd been sitting and took a turn around the little camp: the camp where Rob and Henry had — with a little encouragement — got so profoundly drunk that morning, and fallen so very deeply asleep in the midday sun.

"Here we are, then, at Haulbowline Head," said Flint. "Named and mapped by myself, these three years since." He waved a hand, as if to introduce it to them. "And d'you know, lads, I can't even remember why I gave it that name!" He laughed and looked around. It was a fine place, bracing and fresh. The view over the sea was magnificent. Like Spy-glass Hill, Haulbowline Head had a small number of big trees — not enough to constitute a forest, not enough to obscure the view, but tall and old and gnarled, for these weren't pines but something more tropical.

Flint marvelled at the variety of the island, for here was another little world within itself, as different as could be from the jungles of the southern anchorage, or the Alpine heights of Spy-glass Hill. The surf thundered even louder here than anywhere else, for the sea was ever beating at the foot of the massive cliffs, with tumbled rocks and seething white water at the base. A strong wind blew inward off the South Atlantic, driving into the wet cliffs and broken waters, and swirling up with steaming wetness that kept Haulbowline Head forever damp.

It was a fine and noble place. It was also the most dangerous place on the island, for the cliffs fell sheer as a right-angle, such that no man who went over them need ever have the least fear of being hurt. The drop was three hundred feet, straight down on to jagged rocks, and certain, instant death.

The drop was only about twenty yards away from where Taylor and Howard sat by their tree.

"Now, where's that bird of mine?" said Flint to himself, and he looked up into the branches of that very tree. "Ah! There you are." The bird squawked as he looked at it. It swayed and bobbed its head. It was peering steadily back at him, meeting his eye with an insolence that he'd never have tolerated from a man.

"You rascal!" muttered Flint, knowing that he wanted it back. In fact, he wanted it back very much indeed. It was like the first time he'd fallen out with John Silver. Flint frowned. These were strange and alien thoughts for him.

"Pah!" he thought. But he couldn't take his eyes off the bird. When first he'd confiscated it — stolen it — from some lower deck ape, he'd taken it for the swagger and colour of the creature, and the fine figure that he cut going about with it, and also for the fun of its uncanny gift for words — especially oaths and curses. But later he'd learned how intelligent it was, for it was very intelligent, and used its store of words in proper context.

"Oh dear! Oh dear!" it would say if Flint dropped something.

"Bugger off!" it would say when it disliked someone.

"Salve!" it would say to Cowdray, who always greeted it in Latin.

"Bump! Bump!" it would say on sight of John Silver and his crutch.

"And I don't even know the sex of you!" said Flint. "Don't know if you're he or she." All he knew was that he missed his constant companion. It was the only living thing that stood by him, night and day, and showed him affection… Or it had been.

"Why?" he asked himself, completely failing to make the connections that any other man would have spotted instantly. He'd even had the bird back, briefly, when he got himself out of the jungle that morning, on the way to his rendezvous with Taylor and Howard. The parrot had been waiting. It had been circling above. It had been looking for him.

"Here, my pretty!" he'd said, and for a moment it had fluttered down and alighted on his shoulder, and nuzzled his face in the old way, and a surge of happiness had filled Flint's breast. But then he'd tried to pet it… and off it had flown, screeching and howling. Flint couldn't understand it. He'd got rid of Skillit's ears, so it couldn't be them. Perhaps some of the smell of them was hanging about him?

"Ah well!" he said. "And so to business." He took off his hat and coat. He drew the pistols from his belt and pockets. He laid his cutlass aside and picked up a small bag of tools he'd brought for the occasion, and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, smirking at the rips and cuts inflicted in it by Farter Fraser.

"Now then, Mr Taylor and Mr Howard," he said, "who shall be first?" The two men wriggled and moaned. They did their utmost to hide, or to get out of Flint's way, and above all, not to be first.

The parrot screeched and flapped its wings.

"Taylor!" said Flint, and darted forward, grabbing the smaller man by the belt and dragging him towards the iron windlass.

"Mmmmmm-mmmm!" said Taylor, and the parrot spread its wings and took flight.

Flint sat on Taylor's legs and punched him heavily in the face, throwing his head and shoulders back to the ground. Stunned for the moment, Taylor lay still: helpless and doomed. But Howard did his best to wriggle away. He strove might and main. He contorted like a clumsy caterpillar, trying to put ground between himself and terror. Flint smiled at the sight of him, and turned back to Taylor.

"D'you go much to the theatre, Mr Taylor?" he said. "For we learn from that wonderful drama The Duchess of Malfi that 'strangling is a quiet death', which indeed it is, and by that means I could have seen off the six of you while you slept, and none the wiser!" He shook his head in contempt. "But any fool could've done that."

Flint opened his bag.

"Now then," he said, and drew out one of Mr Cowdray's surgical knives, and cut Taylor's shirt from top to bottom. He further produced a pair of carpenter's pincers, a large needle, and some strong linen thread.

"The trick is… to find a loose end," said Flint. "Or so I believe."

Taylor stirred.

"Mmmmmmmm!"

"We'll start here," said Flint, and carefully slit Taylor's belly.

"MMMMMMMM!"

The parrot dived like a kestrel. It dived silently and gave no warning. Claws first, it struck Flint on the top of the head. Then it took hold, and bit. It bit to the bone.

Flint screamed and raised his hands in defence, only for the bird to savage the flesh of his fingers.

"AAAAAAAAAH!" Flint leapt to his feet and struck desperate blows at the manic fury that was digging raw meat out of him. Finally, his greater strength prevailed. He tore the bird free and flung it to the ground and tried to stamp the life out of it. But the bird was off and flying free, only to turn in the air and come down again in attack.

Flint ran to where his arms were stacked. He drew his cutlass and slashed, taking feathers from a wing as the bird dodged. Then down came the bird again, and clawed for his eyes. Flint screamed and swung the blade again, and cut more feathers as the bird flew clear.

Bang! Flint fired and dropped his first belt-pistol. Bang! He fired the second, dropping that. Then the two smaller pistols. All missed, but the bird took the warning and settled in the tree again, furiously stamping and swaying and flapping and turning its head, all the while groaning and sighing and moaning.

"Look what you've done!" screamed Flint, staring mad- eyed at the bird. "Look what you've done to me!" The red blood streamed down his face, and a great flap of scalp hung gaping open, raw and ugly and sore. He cried out in pain and in protest at the atrocious cruelty of the universe. For in all his career Joseph Flint had never taken a wound. He'd seen blood and fire and mutilation. He had — with relish and a light heart — inflicted dreadful wounds on others, but he'd never, ever, been wounded… And it hurt!

"You filthy swine!" he said, and, casting around for someone to punish, he fell upon Taylor and Howard, spattering blood and spittle and spite. Considering what he'd had in mind for them, they were lucky that all he did — in his rage — was haul them, one by one, to the edge of the cliff and heave them over.