Pieces Of Eight

Chapter 20

Six men moved like cats. They crept on tiptoe. They did not breathe. They gripped their muskets with sweating hands and judged the distance.

"Nicely, lads!" said Long John, and smiled at the monkey squatting in the branch of a big tree. "Here, my pretty," he said, waving a piece of fruit at the beast, "come and get it." For once, Silver's parrot wasn't perched on his shoulder. She couldn't abide monkeys. She'd have squawked her head off and frightened it. That was why she'd had to be left back at Fort Silver, secured to her perch.

"Think I can hit the sod from here, Cap'n," said one who thought himself a marksman.

"You wait till you're bloody sure, Conky Carter," said Long John. "And all the rest of you draw a bead, and be ready in case the bugger jumps."

At first it had been easy shooting the almost-tame monkeys. But the creatures were clever and learned to run off when a man with a musket got close. Fortunately they weren't quite clever enough and there was a distance from which they could be hit with an ounce-charge of the goose-shot saved from Lion's cargo.

That worked, provided the marksman moved slow and careful.

"Bang!" went Conky Carter's musket.

"Damn!" said Silver, as the little swine leapt at the flash of the lock, getting a split second's warning before the charge whistled past beneath its flying feet.

Bang-bang-bang! The others fired, knocking the monkey clear out of its tree and on to the ground, where it lay wriggling and shrieking with two limbs shattered and much of its tail blown off.

"Gotcher!" they cried in fierce delight. They hated monkeys now. Hated them with a passion, because they were afraid of them: deep, cruel afraid.

"Reload!" cried Silver. "Get it done, lads!" There was a scraping of ramrods, and powder and shot and wadding. Then a volley of shots ended the monkey's life and shut off its cries. There was no going near the little bastards while they were still alive. Trouble was, shooting them spread bits of monkey all over the ground.

"Spades and shovels, now," said Silver, and stood back as they got on with it. Drawing on what he'd read in the old Jesuit's journal, they had worked out a drill. For there was no leaving the monkeys be. They were too inquisitive, and every man was afraid of waking up one morning with one of them on his chest, pawing him with tiny pock-marked hands.

So Silver had teams out shooting them. Each team was accompanied by at least one of the half-dozen men who'd survived smallpox and had the scars on his face to show it. These did the shovelling and scraping of remains, while the rest piled wood on top and lit a fire.

"To the windward, lads!" said Silver as the flames rose. "Let's not breathe the smoke."

They stood and watched the fire.

"Is this what the old Jesuit did, Cap'n?" said Conky Carter. "Burned 'em, like?"

"No," said Silver, "he buried 'em. Didn't shoot 'em, neither. He trapped 'em and drowned 'em. Took him years. But he got 'em all in the end. Drove him barmy though, 'cos they was all the company he had."

"Where'd he bury 'em?" said Carter.

"In the cemetery. Dug a big hole, chucked 'em in, and filled it up bit by bit."

"But burying ain't no good."

"He didn't know that."

"What about our monkeys? Why didn't he do for them?"

"Different tribe," said Silver, depressed by the whole business. "The old Jesuit left 'em alone, for they never had the smallpox. Not until Ben Gunn gave it to 'em!"

That evening Silver was even more depressed. As he approached Fort Silver, back from his monkey-shooting, he could hear angry voices from within the earthworks.

"Shiver me timbers!" he said, and stopped and listened. There were no sentries outside the walls, nor up on the lookout tower.

"Come on!" he said to the six men behind him, and plunged forward as fast as he could go. There was no challenge on the drawbridge across the moat, nor was there any discipline within the walls. Just bellowing and shouting and slurred voices… they'd been at the rum.

"Avast there!" cried Silver, and some two dozen men turned round and gaped at him and all began to speak at once. It was almost comical. The neat tents were knocked askew, faces were flushed, there were smashed bottles and broken noses. Billy Bones was stamping towards Silver, yelling louder than all the rest, and Israel Hands was slumped on the ground, propped up against a cask with blood streaming from a head wound.

Silver as nearly gave up in that moment as ever in all his life. All his careful work was wasted. If the men wouldn't pull together, they might as well blow out their brains right now, to save Flint the trouble.

"Billy Bones!" he said. "What's happening here?"

"It's all that bugger!" said Billy Bones, pointing at Israel Hands, and he thrust his red, sweating, boozy face at Silver. "I'll not take no more 'oss-shite, not from him, nor you, John Silver! I'm as good a man as any here, and what I say is this: why don't we give the captain a chance when he comes back? Cap'n Flint, that is! Why don't — "

But that was as far as he got, because Silver's temper snapped. He leapt forward, one-legged, caught the back of Billy's head with his left hand, and drove a big right fist — smack, smack, smack — three times into the middle of Billy Bone's face. Bones was half drunk, taken by surprise, and in any case he was afraid of Silver and already cringing. Down he went, with split lips and swollen eyes, leaving Silver wobbling and swaying but master of the field.

"Here, Cap'n!" said Conky Carter, snatching up Silver's discarded crutch.

"Now then," said Silver, getting the timber under his arm and taking a firm grasp of a pistol butt, "next man's a dead 'un what speaks Flint's name to me!" All the shouting died then, and there was silence except for the eternal, dismal surf.

"Huh!" said Silver, and singled out three of the biggest men. "You there! Take up this swab — " he jerked a thumb at Billy Bones "- heave him outside the fort, and tie him fast to a tree. And you two — " he chose two that were passing sober "- look to Mr Hands, and get him shipshape."

Later, in Silver's tent, with a candle lit and Israel Hands's head bound up with strips torn from a shirt, and over some more rum — because Silver needed it after the day he'd had — Silver asked what had happened.

"Well," said Israel Hands, "we was arguing over Flint."

"Flint, eh? And Billy Bones arguing the loudest?"

"Aye."

"So who hit you, Israel?"

"Dunno, Cap'n. We was throwing bottles."

"You too?"

"Me too."

Silver sighed, and slumped into a chair. What chance was there, if all hands didn't pull together? And in the morning it was worse, for Billy Bones was gone, and nearly half the men in the fort had gone with him, taking arms and ammunition and supplies. Silver was plunged into guilt.

"Why didn't I set a proper watch? How did they do it? Why didn't I wake up?"

"John," said Israel Hands, "you've done the work of ten these last weeks and — beggin' your pardon, Cap'n — you're a one-legged man that's gone from end to end o' this island, where any whole man would be wore out! So it ain't no mystery that you sleep sound."

As ever when anguished, Silver reached up and stroked the parrot, which nuzzled and nipped his ear and muttered words and bobbed her head. She was a great comfort to him, and he smiled.

"This old bird's got more sense than me!" he said. But then he set to and sent out men to find Billy Bones, and made sure the fort kept proper watch and proper duties, including the daily removal of a calendar peg as the ship's bell struck noon. There were forty pegs left after that day's peg was removed.

Finding Billy Bones wasn't hard. Knowing that he'd not be welcomed in any of the other forts Silver had built, Billy had gone to the one Flint had built, years ago: the log blockhouse, up in the trees above the southern anchorage. His sole plan was to wait for Flint's return, and fall on his mercy so that he might again bask in the grace of his hero. So there he sat with the ten men that had followed him, and who now spent their time sweeping and cleaning, and polishing everything made of brass or steel, all the better to win the Cap'n's favour on his return. Thus for a little while Billy Bones was happy, since he'd been used all his life to chasing men to their duties, and was never happier than when doing so.

He was a simple soul at heart, and his simple pleasure lasted until noon on the second day of his rebellion, when — convinced that Silver had seen sense and left him alone, and dozing comfortably inside the blockhouse, confidant that all decent men were doing much the same — Billy Bones's teeth rattled, and the heavy timbers of the blockhouse shook, to the thunder of a ship's gun fired close by. A great cloud of smoke followed, rolling choking and stinking through the blockhouse fence, and in through its open door.

"Mr Bones!" cried John Silver from outside. "Can you hear me?"

Billy Bones jumped up, and ran round kicking men awake and thrusting weapons into their hands.

"Alllllll hands," he cried, "stand by to repel boarders!" Up they got and stumbled dozy-eyed to their stations, and slid their muskets out through the loopholes and clacked their locks, and stood in the dark, hot shadow, peering out over gleaming barrels into the blazing sun.

"Mr Bones," cried Silver, "I'm willing to speak to you if — "

"Go fuck yerself!" yelled Billy Bones. "Go fuck your one-leggity self!"

"I'm warning you, Billy…"

"Bollocks!"

"Give 'em another," said Silver.

The gun spoke again, deafening at close range, and the shot howled, screaming over the blockhouse roof. When the smoke and noise died, Silver spoke again:

"Last chance to all within the blockhouse," he cried. "Next round is fired for effect, and fired by Mr Hands who never misses, and is the first of as many after that as it takes to knock you mutinous swabs into splinters!"

"Bugger…" said Billy Bones, which he shouldn't have, for it gave the game away to all hands, and they pressed forward to the side of the house facing Silver, and looked out… and saw the tall figure, in his familiar long coat and hat, and the green bird on his shoulder, and a four-pounder gun, mounted on an improvised land carriage, with solid planked wheels that somehow — at enormous labour — had been built and dragged through the forest and brought to bear on the blockhouse at the very hour when Billy Bones and his men would least expect it. Bones groaned. That was Silver, that was. Only Silver could do a thing like that… and Flint, of course… so he thought.

"Stap me vitals!" said Billy Bones, as the men round the gun aimed it square at the house, and Israel Hands swung a match-cord to make the tip burn bright. The gun wasn't six feet from the fence, and so close it couldn't miss.

"Last chance!" said Silver.

"Stand fast all hands!" cried Billy Bones.

"Fire!" said Silver.

Boom! said the gun and smoke billowed and a thundering blow struck home and every log in the blockhouse jumped and spouted dirt and muck, and the roof timbers cracked open and sunbeams stabbed the darkness, bearing oceans of swirling dust.

"Give 'em a volley!" snarled Billy Bones, and Bang! Bang! his own pistols spoke. Two men pulled triggers, but only two. They were half-hearted, and soon the four-pounder roared and the blockhouse trembled as Israel Hands put a second shot into the same spot as the first, knocking the jagged ends of a log into the dark inside, and killing a man stone dead with his teeth smashed out through the back of his head.

Which was the end of the rebellion. The men in the blockhouse threw down their arms and jammed the doorway to get outside. Once there, they fell to their knees, raised their arms, and begged for mercy, which Long John granted, as he had to. There couldn't be any hangings or shootings for he had too few men as it was.

Long John knew that from now on he would have to abandon all other plans and keep most of the men in one place, under his leadership, for his command of the island depended on it. To delegate would risk losing the lot of them in this endless fighting.

It was a dire prospect. Even Long John, in his heart, was beginning to give up.