Pieces Of Eight

Chapter 23

Flint was called from sleep after a day of exhausting work. It was dark and Walrus was rolling gently at her moorings when a boat bumped alongside, the boatman shouting and yelling. Selena was brought aboard and fell into Flint's arms, tearful and frightened, which delighted Flint, who assumed she was appealing to him as her saviour and champion.

But the reality proved more complex, and even as he took her in his arms and closed his eyes in pleasure, she was in a turmoil. Certainly there was relief at being within his protection, but she was morally exhausted by her need to keep him alive, yet to control him — if she could — and somehow find some independent future for herself, if only she could escape the gallows, having — this time — just committed undoubted murder.

If that wasn't enough, she looked around and saw that the ship was full of Indians: fierce Patanq warriors, many of them sleeping on deck because there was no room below. The ship stank of them, a sharp animal smell. They rose and stood like silent grey statues: bizarre, exotic, and wrapped in their blankets with guns enfolded in their arms.

She didn't know what to do for the best, so she calmed herself as best she could, and simply told Flint everything that had happened that evening. What else could she do? And he listened and smiled in pride.

"Two of them! Two? God bless my precious soul!" He kissed her. The crew stared. The Patanq looked on impassive. Flint laughed. "My little tigress!" he said. "My Amazon, my chickie!" He swung her off her feet and kissed her again. Then he frowned.

"The boatmen," he said. "They'll know!"

"Leave them," said Selena. "They're Pimenta's men.

But Flint trusted nobody. Not when he didn't have to.

"Allardyce!" he cried. "Get 'em aboard. Now!" But the boatmen had been listening. They shoved off and pulled for their lives.

"Shall we sink the buggers, Cap'n?" said Allardyce. "All guns is loaded."

"No," said Flint. "We'd wake the anchorage." He turned to Selena.

"What about Pimenta? What'll he do?"

"He'll hide the bodies, and his household's sworn to silence. They're all slaves, Joe, under fear of being sold away. They won't dare talk…" she paused. "And he said to tell you…"

"Tell me what?"

"He says he's got to tell the navy."

"Oh, has he now?"

"Yes. He has to think of his reputation. But he'll wait till tomorrow."

"How kind!"

"He said there's an ebb tide just before dawn."

"And?"

"He'll wait till it turns before he tells the navy. To give you a chance."

"Hmm…"

"And he said… he said… he still wants to do business with you, if…"

"God in heaven and all his angels!" said Flint.

He laughed. He laughed long and loud, with a hot, unholy laughter, and the crew looked on. Some laughed with their captain, but not the brighter sparks among them. They knew it wasn't healthy. Not when he laughed like this. Flint had been a new man since leaving the island, and better still since he took to gazing at Miss Selena. But it looked like the old Flint was coming back, and there wasn't a man present who didn't shudder at the prospect, not even when they outnumbered him so many times over, and every man of them was armed, 'cos with Flint, a blade or a pistol might be no more defence than empty hands.

Then Flint stopped laughing and wiped his eyes. He smiled and stood up straight and took command, and Walrus was made ready for sea at utmost speed. A boat was sent to Captain Bentham aboard Hercules, warning him to do the same, and to do it in silence. Another boat was sent to Van Oosterhout aboard Lucy May, ordering the Dutchman to take the Patanq fleet to sea so soon as Flint was cleared and gone.

So… topmasts and yards were sent up, anchors and cables got in, boats hoist aboard as they returned, log line, sandglass and lead made ready, and breast lines secured in the chains for the leadsman. And all this was done quietly. The very windlass pauls were muffled with rags, and there were no shanties, no bosuns' calls, no shouted orders — not even a boot up a seaman's behind to help him on his way.

Other ships in the anchorage — honest merchantmen — made all the noise they wished, ready to sail on the ebb tide, and welcome to it. They had no reason to avoid the attention of King George's four ships and seven hundred men, still quietly anchored and mostly asleep.

With dawn coming up on the Atlantic, the tide rolled out past Fort Johnson and the miserable little fleet bearing the women and children of the Patanq nation. These poor creatures waved and called to Walrus, Hercules and Sweet Anne as they thrashed past under an easterly with the Patanq warriors standing straight-backed, unmoving and seemingly unmoved. But in the privacy of their minds, they trembled at this alien, ocean adventure, having no experience to guide them in all the history of their people, and trusting only in the wisdom of their leader.

Through sheer necessity, Flint had given Bentham the island's latitude and sailing instructions, but he planned to sail in company, for neither Bentham nor Captain Parry of Sweet Anne was a navigator capable of finding a pin-prick on the empty ocean, and Flint needed all his three hundred fighting men. This worked well until mid afternoon, in bright sunshine and calm seas, when the weather turned flat and dull and calm, and the wind — which had been erratic from the start — died away completely.

They were less than twenty miles south of Charlestown with the American continent a black line on the horizon. The three ships rolled on a slow, heavy swell and such that even hardened seamen felt the motion, and the Patanq warriors hung groaning over the rail, heaving up their guts to King Neptune.

Selena, now in her boots, breeches and shirt, with pistols in her belt and a scarf round her hair, stood beside Flint, who was looking back towards Charlestown.

"Let's see," he said, "we've just struck two bells of the first dog watch. That's about twelve hours from the turn of the tide we came out on, and the next tide is on the ebb in Charlestown harbour. That means — if Mr Pimenta's kept his word — they should be bellowing like bulls aboard Scott- Owen's squadron, and the bosun's mates laying on with rope ends. Then, once they've cleared the harbour, they'll stop every ship they meet to enquire after our course."

"But we've escaped," she said. "They can't catch us now."

"D'you think so, my chickie? You don't know the navy."

Nothing happened for hours. The day passed. Dinner was served. The Patanq were too sick to eat but got drunk on the grog. The seamen waved and shouted from one ship to another. Night came. Men slept. And then the dawn came up with just the present Flint didn't want.

"There they are, Cap'n," said the lookout, a Cornishman named Penrose.

Flint, having made the climb to the maintop, braced himself on the swaying, heaving platform high above the deck, and let go with both hands for a good look through his telescope.

"Damnation," he said. There were two… three… no… four of them, under every stitch they could set, and the sails hanging slack and barely filling. But they had a bit of wind and were still moving. Scott-Owen's squadron was coming after Joe Flint.

"I'd say they're ten mile astern of us, Cap'n," said the lookout, "makin' a couple o' knots at most. If you ask me, Cap'n…"

"Penrose, would you prefer the deck or the sea?" said Flint, not taking the telescope from his eye.

"What?" said the lookout.

"Shall I throw you to the deck or into the sea?"

Penrose gulped. This was the old Flint, all right. Penrose took care to say nothing more and was exceedingly wise to do so. Flint ignored him, then went swiftly down the shrouds to give his orders. But he was intercepted.

"Flint," said Dreamer, coming on to the quarterdeck with Dark Hand at his side and many of his men behind him.

"Not now," said Flint.

"Now," said Dreamer. Flint looked at the tall, stern figures. Like Captain Foster of Lucy May, he was no longer master of his ship.

"What is it?" snapped Flint.

"What is happening?" said Dreamer. "You are afraid."

"Damned if I am!"

"Then why do you look back in fear?"

"It's the blasted Royal Navy, that never blasted gives up."

"So they follow us?"

"Yes."

"Will they catch us?"

Flint blinked and thought of pistolling the savage, or cutting him down.

"Dreamer," he said, barely in control of himself, "there are things I must do, ship's things. I have no time to talk. You must trust me."

Dreamer looked at him, considered the words, remembered where he was, and nodded and stood aside.

Flint instantly set to work. Walrus's two boats were swung out to warn Hercules and Sweet Anne of what must be done. The ships would have to be taken in tow by their boats. Thus, on their return, Walrus's boats were packed with round-shot to give them weight, and double-manned. Then a towline was passed from the ship's bowsprit to the cutter, and another from the cutter to the launch. Then the launch pulled ahead of the cutter and the cutter pulled ahead of the launch… till boats and ship were nicely in line and the towlines tightened.

"Now, my boys, my jolly boys," said Allardyce in the cutter, "give way together — now! Heave, me buckos, heave away! Heave, me buckos, heave away!"

Hercules and Sweet Anne likewise rigged for towing. Soon there were dozens of men swaying under a hot sun in six boats, sweating rivers, cracking muscles and succeeding — on the uttermost limit of what human strength could achieve — in hauling a combined burden of three ships and nearly seven hundred tons, at a pitiful crawl across a flat sea. But at least they were moving.

"How long can they keep that up?" said Selena.

"Till they drop," said Flint. "Then I'll change the crews. All hands must take their part, and God help him that doesn't!"

It went on for hours. The boats' crews did indeed pull till they dropped. They had to, and they knew it. There was a hanging looming for every man aboard if the navy caught them, so they pulled to exhaustion. Then more crews took their places and they pulled until they dropped. And so on.

But it didn't stop the pursuit. The squadron still had a breath of wind and came up over the horizon: first white canvas, then as black hulls, and finally whole fighting ships in all their complexity of rigging and gear.

So it continued for hours, with the men-o-war steadily closing and all those not undergoing torture in the boats crowding the sterns of the fleeing ships, measuring distance, guessing times and calling on seaman's lore to send a wind. One tried a little too hard: Penrose the Cornishman, an expert on such matters.

"Don't worry lads," he said, "I've stuck me knife in the mainmast, which is sure to fetch a wind."

"Shouldn't we whistle for one?" said one of his mates.

"No!" said Penrose, with profound seriousness. "On'y the boys must whistle, not the men, and never a landman — " he looked uneasily at the Indians "- like them buggers" he whispered. "Don't want none o' them doin' it, or we'll get a soddin' hurricane!"

"What about throwin' a coin overboard?"

"Aye," said Penrose, "that's good!"

"Mr Penrose," said Flint, "will you be so good as to keep your thoughts private?"

He said it quietly. He didn't shout. But those that knew him should have taken heed, for Flint was under tremendous stress: the frigate alone could pulverise Walrus and her companions, never mind the sloops.

"Aye-aye, sir!" said Penrose, but his mates were around him and encouraging him, and Penrose had never been one of the sharpest hands aboard, so the talk continued in hissing whispers.

"What about an' old broom? I've heard that if we throws one over…"

"No," said Penrose, "only the head, you lubber. You throws the head in the direction you wants the wind to come from. Only the head."

Flint punched through the crowd. He ran to the mainmast arms rack. He snatched a boarding axe. He ran back. He grabbed Penrose by the hair, kicked his legs away, threw him over, and swung the axe thumping down on his neck. The axe was blunt. It took many blows, and finally the bone wouldn't part except by Flint dropping the axe and twisting two-handed to a sharp, nauseous… snap! Then he stood up, blooded to the elbows. He raised the dripping horror for all to see, and hurled it over the side.

"Is there any other man," he cried, "that wishes to summon the wind?"

There was not. Indeed there was not. The crew, like Selena, were sickened and terrified, and none dared meet Flint's eyes. But the Patanq were tremendously impressed. They were even more impressed when the sacrifice, while not bringing wind upon Flint's ships, took it away from the pursuers, who had to launch boats and begin their own long tow.

Flint's men cheered at that, but the cheers died when, about an hour afterwards, it was seen that Scott-Owen was acting clever, and the boats of the squadron concentrated on towing her, abandoning the sloops and bringing the frigate's battery of twenty-eight twelve-pounder guns steadily closer.

So team after team of Flint's and Bentham's men took their places in the boats, and came back half-ruined. Even seamen's leathery hands had their limits, and skin and blood were shed, and a few men strained their backs and could pull no more, and — in time — others couldn't be roused, even with kicks and blows, when it came to their turn in the boats again. It was the same on all three ships. And the navy was steadily gaining.

Flint stared through his telescope at the big frigate, under tow from no less than eight boats, including a heavy longboat — ideal for the work — and all of them packed with men. Flint slammed a fist against the taffrail. What could he do?

"Cap'n," said Allardyce, daring to approach him. Daring to speak. "The hands is done in, Cap'n, and I wants to put them savages to work, but they won't go, Cap'n, and…"

"Oh!" said Flint. "Will they not indeed?" And he sought out Dreamer, among his followers in the waist. But Dark Hand saw him coming and saw the look on Flint's face. He gave an order and Flint was facing a dozen raised guns. Flint stopped, his face white, his lips black, and he wrenched a pair of pistols from his belt. Seeing their captain threatened, Walrus's crew stood behind him.

"Wait," said Dreamer, and pushed Dark Hand aside. "What do you want?"

"Your men must take their turn in the boats."

"No. We are not black slaves that do the white man's work."

Flint nearly tore his hair.

"But every man must pull his weight!" he said.

"You have not," said Dreamer.

Flint was silenced. No, he hadn't pulled his weight, and he thought of John Silver who would have been the first in the boats to encourage the rest. Flint had been very close to John Silver once…

"Dreamer, listen: pulling is men's work. It is honourable. I will go into the boats myself… if you will sit beside me and show the way to your men."

So Flint sat beside Dreamer and none could tell who enjoyed it least. But they took their turn, and came away shaking and exhausted, and by their example, three hundred Patanq warriors added their strength to the task.

There was no rest when night came. All Flint could do was change course, hauling the three ships eastward in the hope of losing the pursuit in the dark. That's what he'd have done under sail, and it would have worked. But it was no good when towing at less than one knot. Not when one ship could spot another from the masthead at twenty miles. There just weren't enough hours of darkness.

At dawn, with the tow in its twenty-fourth hour, and all hands exhausted aboard Walrus, Hercules and Sweet Anne, the sloops were out of sight but the frigate was not. Flint's ruse had failed.