Pieces Of Eight

Chapter 7

It was some days before Cornelius Van Oosterhout and Teunis Wouters became gentlemen of fortune, and even then only with Captain Flint's most grudging approval, for he hated all the nonsense — and equality — that went with it, and he insisted — with much truth — that there was heavy work to be done: replacing the smashed windlass, making proper repairs to the plugged shot-holes, and trimming the ship afresh, now that her hold was bulging with stores.

Much of this time, Captain Flint spent in discussion with Van Oosterhout in Walrus's stern cabin, where Flint's big table, which all but spanned the cabin, was covered with charts, papers, navigational instruments and books of tables wherein numbers marched in ranks and columns, smart as Prussian guardsmen. They were books so boring as to suck the life out of most men. But not Flint. In him they excited all the lust of the Devil in pursuit of a soul.

"The tables are the key," said Van Oosterhout the first time they were brought out. "Are you a navigator, Captain? How good a landfall do you make?" And he twirled the ends of his moustaches, brushing them fiercely upward, all the while casting an appraising eye at Flint like a schoolmaster quizzing a pupil.

"I can get to within ten to twenty miles of my destination," said Flint, "running down my latitude."

"Hoof!" said Van Oosterhout, puffing out his cheeks. "Good! Most men are wrong by scores of miles, maybe worse! Me — I get to within a few miles."

Flint met the Dutchman's challenging gaze with a frown. Either the man was a liar or the finest navigator God ever made.

"So," said Van Oosterhout, "we begin the explanation. Longitude is time, and time is longitude, yes?"

"Yes," said Flint. "And on land we find longitude from observation of the occultation of stars. But it needs a steady surface and repeated observations from the same site over many days. So it can't be done at sea."

"Oh, but it can, Captain," said Van Oosterhout. "Imagine, it is night; I take a quadrant. I measure the height of the moon. I measure the height of the chosen star I measure the angle between the star and the moon. And so to the calculations…"

The first time Van Oosterhout determined Walrus's longitude, Flint worked separately — using Van Oosterhout's tables and method — to see who should finish first. Flint worked swiftly but the task took hours, and when he was done, Van Oosterhout was waiting with a smile on his face. Eventually Flint smiled too. It was nothing that he couldn't learn in time, but he wasn't going to waste hours every day in tedious calculation.

So Van Oosterhout was rated as first mate; or, as Flint saw it, a navigating engine for heavy mathematical labour… which happened to suit Van Oosterhout splendidly, for he relished the work and constantly sought to improve it by practise. But he had other skills too, as Walrus's crew discovered when one of them, a carpenter's mate named Green, walked past the new first mate without a respectful touch of his hat and casually knocked Van Oosterhout aside.

Green was a big man who thought himself superior to mere Dutchmen, but Van Oosterhout reacted with lightning speed, flashing one hand across Green's face to draw attention, poking his eyes with two fingers of the other hand, deftly tripping him as he staggered blinded, and then stamping between his legs… And all done so neat it was more like a dance than a fight.

"Ahhhhh!" said the fallen one, and "Ooof!" as Van Oosterhout stamped again and drove the breath from his belly. But Green was a hard man and now he was angry. He jumped up, only to find Van Oosterhout calmly waiting, poised like a pugilist but with hands open-palmed, not clenched. "Swab!" said Green, and went for the Dutchman hammer and tongs. At least he tried to, but couldn't get to grips. Instead he was repeatedly tripped and thrown, and kicked in painful places, until even his mates laughed at him. Finally, trembling and sweating with not a drop of fight left, Green thought it best to beg forgiveness and hobble away.

"It is called silat," said Van Oosterhout, when Flint asked about this peculiar manner of fisticuffs. "My father served the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie. What you call 'Dutch East India Company'. Thus I was born in Batavia where the natives fight this way. It is a great art." He shrugged. "I know a little."

"I think you are modest, Mr Van Oosterhout," said Flint.

"Perhaps."

After that, the hands remembered their manners where Van Oosterhout was concerned, and Flint realised that he'd got a proper first mate — not just an arithmetician.

Meanwhile repairs proceeded, until eventually the works were complete and Walrus was as well-found as if fresh from a royal dockyard. The crew, who'd been waiting for this moment, came to their captain in a body, seeking boldness in numbers as they faced him on his quarterdeck. Even so they were at the limit of their courage, standing with their hats in their hands, and grubby fingers to their brows.

The quartermaster, Morton, with a good tot of rum inside him, was their spokesman. Those behind egged him on, while poised for retreat should Flint turn nasty.

"A word, beggin'-yer-pardon, Cap'n, beggin'-yer-pleasure…"

"Oh?" said Flint, acting surprised, as if he hadn't seen this coming. "And what would that concern?" He blinked dangerously.

"All's got to be made shipshape according to articles, Cap'n."

"Aye!" said his mates, trembling.

"What has, my good man?" said Flint.

"New brothers, Cap'n. The old ship — why, she's runnin' slick as grease, an' the work's done, and…"

"Stop!" said Flint sharply, and forty men flinched as he raised his hand, but they relaxed when he smiled and continued: "The work is done when I say that it is done."

"Aye-aye, Cap'n, that it is, sir," said Morton, attempting to bend his squat body into a bow. But still he pressed on, insisting with desperate politeness that the two Dutchmen must sign articles and become brothers according to tradition.

Watching from the fo'c'sle, Selena and Cowdray saw the terror that Flint inspired, and the cruel wit that alternately made men shake with laughter and then with fear as he mocked and resisted their entreaties.

"He's mad," said Selena, "you know that, don't you?"

"Yes," said Cowdray, "I know that very well. Piscem natare doces — you're teaching a fish to swim."

"Then why do you stay with him? I'm a prisoner, but you're free."

Cowdray gave a grim laugh. "Free till the hangman catches me, you mean."

"But you can say you were forced."

"Perhaps."

"You're a surgeon — and a fine one. You saved Long John's life!"

"I'm glad of that."

"So why do you stay with him?"

Cowdray looked away, then at the crew as they roared at Flint's latest joke.

Flint was prancing about in his laced coat, plumed hat and bright sash: handsome and brilliant with shining eyes and teeth.

"He saved me," said Cowdray, "when I was ready to open my veins."

"How?" said Selena.

"In Charlestown, where we're going; I was fallen very low. I was pox-doctor and abortionist to the town."

Another roar of laughter from the crew. Cowdray looked miserable, and hesitated, and finally took the risk, and told the rest of his story, for all men wish sympathy from a beautiful woman.

"Selena, I'm a simple man. I know surgery, anatomy, and craft. I learned by doing and not from books. And when I began developing theories that the physicians didn't like, I was laughed out of my post, and then from England — even though I was right." He shook his head. "They hated me for being right, and they sneered that I learned Latin to try to be like them. And I still use Latin, even now, which shows what a fool I am!" He smiled weakly, and glanced across at Flint. "But him… he needed a ship's surgeon. He could find none better, so he took me. And I can never cease to be grateful. For now I am a surgeon again, and a good one, as you say."

"Bring forth the postulants, Mr Morton!" cried Flint, conceding at last. "Bring forth the Book of Articles! Bring forth the black flag… and bring forth the fiddler and the rum!"

"AYYYYYE!" they roared.

Having plenty of time, and only two brothers to induct into the fellowship, Flint's crew, led by Allardyce and Morton, made a holiday of the affair and wallowed in the full ceremonial. Van Oosterhout and Wouters were stripped, blindfolded and subjected to a variety of horseplay, and to duckings in a big tub brought up from the hold for the purpose. But finally Allardyce called for silence and off-hats, and the two men, dripping wet and gleaming white in their nakedness, were brought before Flint, and before the Book of Articles which had been laid reverently on a table spread with the black flag.

Van Oosterhout was made to read the articles aloud, then the two Dutchmen signed their names beneath all the others — mainly crosses and similar scrawl — already in the book.

Afterwards, when Van Oosterhout was dressed, and before he could take too much of the rum now going round — and for which he definitely had the taste — Flint drew his first officer aside for another private conversation in his cabin.

"There's much for you to learn, Mr Mate," said Flint.

"Aye-aye, sir," said Van Oosterhout, grinning and red-faced.

The grinning stopped when Flint told the story of his island, explaining what had happened there, and what had been left behind, and how he intended to get it back… and just how large Van Oosterhout's share would be. A story which captured Van Oosterhout's profoundest and uttermost attention.

Naturally, the version of the story which Flint presented was one which reflected to John Silver's utter discredit, depicting him as a master of spite, greed, and treachery. And as always with Flint, it was amazing how few lies he needed to tell in order to give the exact opposite of the truth.

Finally he produced a map: the map, the map of the island. The only map in existence which showed everything of the island, including its true size, the extent of its surrounding archipelago, the location of the treasure… and the latitude and longitude.

"Ah!" said Van Oosterhout. "Was it you found the longitude?"

"Yes," said Flint. "An earlier map existed, but the latitude and longitude here — " he tapped a finger on his map "- were found by myself."

"I congratulate you, Captain," said Van Oosterhout.

"Thank you, Mr Mate, but I direct your attention to the archipelago, which I was the first to survey and to chart properly, and the details of which are known only to me."

"Wait, Captain," said Van Oosterhout, befuddled by drink and confused by conflicting emotions. This was the same murderous pirate who'd killed his friends and burned his ship, yet now he was treating him as an equal — even a favourite — and offering a share in a fortune. "Why do you show me these things? It is great confidence in me… why do you do this?"

Flint gazed at Van Oosterhout's solemn, gleaming face. The temptation to laugh sprang urgently within him and was instantly suppressed. Instead of laughing, just for once, Flint told the truth… or half of it, at least.

"The reason I confide in you, Mr Van Oosterhout, is because I stand in vital need of your skills. Thus I must have another navigating officer aboard, in case of any accident to myself."

Van Oosterhout nodded and Flint smiled, for he'd not mentioned the other reason for his trusting the Dutchman, which was Mr Van Oosterhout's sure and certain fate, the moment he was no longer needed. Meanwhile…

"Look here at the archipelago," said Flint. "Do you see? There is something here that will be of utmost use to us…"

Van Oosterhout looked, and listened carefully, and nodded in approval, and even made constructive suggestions of his own. In the days that followed, Flint found him to be an excellent officer, obedient, dutiful and competent. Soon all matters of navigation were delegated to the Dutchman, leaving Flint with two nasty festering splinters to trouble him.

First, Flint's vanity was wounded that any man should be his master as a navigator; second, he was deeply jealous when Van Oosterhout, like Cowdray, found natural companionship with Selena. This was a new emotion for Joe Flint; being incapable of physical love, he'd always been immune to jealousy. But Selena fascinated him, and was beginning to arouse the sort of passions any normal man felt for a woman. And this fierce resentment at Selena's friendships with other men was made all the worse because Flint could not admit his feelings to himself.

And there was more. Something heavy and dark that sat upon Flint's soul. These three — Selena, Cowdray and Van Oosterhout — whom Flint could not harm or remove, now constituted a faction that would constrain his behaviour. It was like the days when he'd sailed with Silver and was constantly looking over his shoulder to see if he approved… tainting his enjoyment of practices such as playing with prisoners. Flint sighed. The plank would not be appearing again for a while, and just when he'd discovered its possibilities!

By day, Flint bore these burdens manfully: there was much to do in driving the ship hard, watching constantly for another prize on the horizon — not to mention avoiding the ships of the various navies that infested these waters. These activities kept Flint merry all day, and Walrus's people enjoyed a pleasant voyage to Savannah. But by night Flint groaned for the loss of the freedom he'd enjoyed on his island. At night, in his dreams, that part of the human mind which is animal, primeval and beyond conscious control, punished Joe Flint with memories of the most dreadful time in his entire life. The time when he had enjoyed no freedom at all, only bitter constraint… His childhood.