Pieces Of Eight

Chapter 17

"Now, lads," said Silver, "you must follow me, just as if we was goin' over the side to take a prize!"

"Aye!" they said: twenty men, every one a volunteer, and every one with a loaded musket and a belt full of pistols. They stood round the tall figure of Long John Silver in the thinning forest, in the fading light, with the waters of the inlet visible through the trees, and just a glimpse of the wreck of the Elizabeth.

"I've told you what has to be done, and why," he said. "So, are you with me?"

"Aye!" they said, but they said it half-hearted. Silver looked them over and wondered how far he could trust them. He wondered if they'd obey orders should it come to the last extreme. And could he even rely on himself?

"Maybe we won't have to do it, lads," he said. "But follow my lead." He turned to his two best men: Israel Hands and Billy Bones. "You, Mr Gunner, to one side, and you, Mr Mate, to the other, and all hands to advance in line-abeam between you, so soon as we's on the sand."

"Aye-aye, Cap'n."

"With a will, lads!" said Silver and led them out of the forest, and on to the beach, where they could see the glowing fires and huddled figures of the camp set up by Sarney Sawyer and his men, some two hundred yards off.

"Shoulder-to-shoulder, now," said Silver. "And no man fires before I gives the word. Come on, lads!"

They moved forward with Silver a few paces ahead, and Billy Bones and Israel Hands dressing the line as they went. It was an uncanny moment, for the enemy they faced wasn't mortal… and the light was going. The figures round the campfire stirred and murmured. But they didn't get up as they should have done. They didn't wave, and shout, and joke. They were a circle of grey faces, listless and slow, and not making enough noise to be heard even over the soft crunch of footsteps in the sand.

Then one of them did get up and swayed and staggered and moved towards the oncoming line of men.

"Cap'n!" said a boy's voice. "Cap'n, you've come!"

"Avast!" cried Silver, raising his hand. The marching line stopped and the steel barrels came up together. "Is that you, Ratty Richards?" said Silver. "Stay put, boy!"

But Ratty Richards kept coming, and round the campfire others were moving. They were hauling themselves up. They were leaning on each other. They were getting to their feet. In a second they'd be coming forward.

"We sent a runner, Cap'n," said Ratty, "but he never come back."

"Stay there, Ratty!" cried Silver as the boy slowed but kept walking.

"But, Cap'n…"

"Drop anchor, my son!" cried Silver fiercely. "Not another inch!"

Ratty Richards stopped. He was only ten yards away. Silver tried to make out his features. He tried his utmost. But in the near darkness he couldn't see Ratty's face… not properly.

Still Silver raised a pistol and lined up the barrel on the centre of Ratty's chest. The pistol shook because Silver's hand was shaking.

"Make ready!" bawled Silver, and clack-clack-clack went the locks.

Ratty Richards gaped at the line of muskets, every one aimed at himself.

"But it's me, Cap'n," he said. "It's me!"

Silver groaned. It all depended on an old book. A book written by a poor devil tortured with loneliness. They'd all- died of it, had the Portuguese. All those that went ashore. All but Father Lucio and three others who proved naturally immune. That was nine out of every ten who'd been touched by the monkeys. Then the galleon sailed so her crew shouldn't catch it, and never returned, leaving the old Jesuit to bury the other two as they fell to old age, and himself the last of all, in his little house by the graveyard, weeping and raving in his journal.

Weeping and raving… and one other thing.

He killed every monkey with scarred hands.

De Setubal had learned that there were two tribes of monkeys, which never met, for they detested each other. One tribe — the one his shipmates had found — had the smallpox, while the other did not. Over the years, he trapped and caught every infected monkey. He grew very cunning at this and he did the foul job with kindness, where he could. Thus he caressed those he caught: he calmed them and stroked them and fed them… then killed them at night, and buried them in secret, so the rest shouldn't see. It was his personal mission to save others from the pestilence, should ever anyone return to the island. But to him it was like killing children. It drove him mad in the end, and he died cursing God.

Silver shuddered at the thought of it, and peered over the trembling barrel and tried to decide if it was possible for the same pestilence to jump out of the ground after sixty years and infect the second monkey tribe, because he still couldn't get a good look at Ratty Richards's face, and he dared not move closer.

Ratty stood wondering and puzzled, looking as if he might step forward at any minute, and he was only a few paces off…

"Go on, Cap'n!" cried Billy Bones. "Drop the sod!"

"Aye!" said some.

"No!" said others.

"How do we know he's got it?"

"Looks all right to me!"

"Aye!"

And the line of muskets wavered, and wobbled… and came down. Ratty was the youngest of them all. They could see no harm in him. Not in Ratty Richards.

"Hallo, Ratty!" said a voice.

"Hallo, Ratty!" they cried. "Here we are, lad!"

"Stand off, Ratty," Silver pleaded. "Stay there, sonny, I'm beggin' you…"

But Ratty Richards blinked and stepped forward. And behind him the men round the campfire began slowly to walk towards their captain. Silver could see them. It wasn't just Ratty. They'd have a dozen in their arms in a minute or two.

Silver thought of Father Lucio who'd gone mad… who might have been wrong… who might have been mistaken…

But what if he'd been right?

"Hallo, Cap'n," said Ratty Richards, "I don't half feel buggered…"

BANG! Silver's pistol flashed and roared. It jumped in his hand and put a twenty-bore ball into Ratty Richards, eleven years old, who could work in six fathoms of water. By God's grace in an evil hour, the ball struck him instantly dead. The small body dropped like a stone and never moved.

"Bastard!" said a voice.

"Bloody bastard!" said another, and Silver's men muttered and started towards Ratty's body.

"NO!" cried Silver at the top of his voice, and hauled out another pistol. He was tortured with guilt for the thing he had done. It would be his burden and nightmare forever, and it would change him. "Not another step! You've seen me kill a child, here, so d'you think I'd think twice about shooting any of you?"

They growled and cursed but stood fast while Silver hopped as close as he dared to Ratty Richards's body, and finally got a good look at the pale face, staring up at the stars.

Ratty was heavily disfigured. It was worse than ordinary smallpox, and that was bad enough! The rash was continuous. Whole, thick sheets of skin were peeling off the face, and arms and neck, and every other inch of skin that Silver could see. Blood wept and crept out from the cracks between the dying skin, and red-raw flesh gaped naked and oozing where the skin had dropped off.

"Ugh!" said Silver, and leapt back. He'd been right. The old book was right. But in that dreadful moment it didn't make him feel any better. "Keep clear o' that!" he said, pointing at Ratty's body, but he needn't have bothered. They'd seen him jump. "Now, let's get this thing done," he said, and led them through the darkness. He led them to within hailing distance of the camp, but no closer.

On both sides, a lesson had been learned. Silver's men raised their muskets, and those by the campfire made no attempt to move.

"Where's Mr Sawyer?" cried Silver.

"Here, Cap'n," said a weak voice.

"He's bad, Cap'n," said another voice. "He can't get up."

"Then listen to me, shipmates," said Silver. "I've always told you the truth, good or bad, and this time it's bad." He paused, searching for words. "It's the smallpox, only worse. It's something brewed on this island. You got it off Ben Gunn's monkey, and anyone as comes nears you gets it too, 'cept only them what's had it before, like Mr Bones, here. So we brought you all the supplies we could carry, and plenty o' rum, but you've to stay here and not move. I mean it, lads, I'll shoot any man as tries to come near the rest of us!"

There was a long silence. Then Sarney Sawyer spoke in the darkness.

"Are you leaving us to die, Cap'n?"

Silver looked away. He was deeply ashamed. And it didn't help that he could see no other way.

"Yes," he said finally. "It's that or lose all hands."

"Can't nothing be done, Cap'n?"

"No." Silver struggled for words. The best he could manage was: "But we did bring you the rum."

"Thanks, Cap'n."

"Sarney?"

"Aye-aye, Cap'n?"

"We'll be gone in the morning, but a few hands has volunteered to keep watch. Some of them what's had the smallpox. They'll be keeping watch… understand?"

"Aye-aye, Cap'n," said Sarney Sawyer. "But me an' these poor lads here… we been low for days, Cap'n, heaving of our guts up, an' aching. So set your guards if you must, but we ain't going nowhere."

Nor did they. Of the twenty-four Silver had left behind at the northern inlet, all but one died within a week. The body of the runner — a ship's boy sent out for help — was found later, near the swampland where he'd fallen, too sick to move, and slowly died. Like all the rest, he was buried — at Silver's orders — in the old Portuguese graveyard, together with the skin and bones that had been Father Lucio.

If ever there was a tribute to John Silver's leadership, then it was that graveyard, since all the disgusting work of corpse-hauling and burial had to be done by the half-dozen hands who — like Ben Gunn and Billy Bones, but not Silver himself — were immune to smallpox, having had it and survived it, and this work they did because they trusted Silver; who'd told them it was the proper way to honour their fallen comrades, every bit as much as standing to attention with hats off as a man's body went over the side, beneath the flag, sewn in his hammock, to the sound of the bosun's call.

Now Silver had only forty-eight men to defend the island. Forty-nine, if he included Ben Gunn, who was anchored somewhere downwind of peculiar. Silver searched to the depths of his imagination for a plan, something that might suit. He remembered the words of the men whom he'd served under in the past, especially Captain England and Captain Mason. Good men and true. Gentlemen of fortune! He wondered what they'd have done, if placed as he was.

He wondered, but found no answer. So what was he to do?