Skull and Bones

Chapter 18

The night was alive with flaming torches. Walrus was enclosed within boatloads of angry men, and the shining, black river reflected the flames rising over the little fleet. There were twenty boats in all, with more than three hundred men aboard… and drawn steel and firelocks gleaming in the torchlight.

One boat pulled forward, and a man stood up in the stern. He was thick-bodied, stubble-chinned, and grim-faced. He wore cross-belts loaded with arms, and a hat stuck with three huge white ostrich plumes. Cupping his hands round his mouth, he let forth a shout:

"Ahoy, you bastards! I'm Jimmy Ogilvy, king o' the river, and I'm come for what I'm owed!"

"AYE!" roared his men, and there was a great waving of torches and shaking of arms.

"Stand forward, him who's in command, say I!" cried King Jimmy. "Stand forth or be boarded, plundered, and burned!"

"AYYYYYE!"

"What the buggery is this?" said Long John to Warrington, as all hands stood to action stations, looking out on a force that outnumbered them nearly five to one, and had crept up so quiet, and with torches unlit, that they were all around the ship before the watch had even seen them.

"It's King Jimmy," said Warrington, legs trembling in fear.

"I can see that, you swab!" said Long John. "But what's he want?"

"Revenge, Captain. For the shaming of his men!"

"God damn it, this is bloody London. What bloody law runs here?"

"His!" said Warrington, looking at King Jimmy. "So long as it's dark, and there's nobody to come to our aid."

"STAND FORTH!" cried King Jimmy. "LAST WARNING!"

"Oh, Mary and bleedin' Jesus!" said Silver.

"What we going to do, John?" said Israel Hands.

Silver sighed. He tipped his hat back, stroked the parrot, and thought. Too late to run out the guns and sweep the buggers with grape. They'd be aboard as soon as they heard the gun-trucks squeak. Too late to rig boarding nettings, even if Walrus had any — which she didn't — and it couldn't come to a hand-to-hand fight, not against so many. So what to do?

"Can they be paid off?" said Silver to Warrington, who trembled and shook.

"I don't know. They may want blood for blood!"

Silver cursed horribly.

"Then we'll just have to find out!" he said, and called his people together. "This is what we'll do… And you, Mr Mate — " Silver poked Warrington in the chest "- you pay close heed to me…"

"WITH ME, BOYS!" cried King Jimmy. "GIVE WAYYYY!"

A great roar went up from the boats, followed by a clunking of oars, as the mudlarks pulled to grapple and board.

"Wait! Wait!" Warrington, having clambered up on the bulwark by the main shrouds, was hanging on with one arm, a sheer drop into the Thames looming in front of him. He was plainly terrified, puffing and wheezing and glancing nervously back at the man behind him holding his legs so he shouldn't fall off. "We've ten thousand Spanish dollars aboard," he cried, "and willing to pay reasonable reparation!"

"What?" cried King Jimmy, and turned to his men. "Hold hard, my lovely boys!"

"What?" they said, and laid on their oars.

"Who are you, you fat sod?" cried King Jimmy to Warrington.

"Master of this ship!"

"What's this about dollars?"

"We are willing to pay reparation, for the insult done to your people."

"A-ha!" cried King Jimmy, and stood up and twirled his ostrich plumes and looked round at his men. "See, boys?" he cried. "Ain't I king o' the river and no mistake? See what I can get you?"

"AYE!" cried some, but not those with shaven heads and the tar still clinging to their balls. They wanted the red meat of revenge, not the gruel of money.

"I want his teeth for a blasted necklace!" cried one of the shaven, pointing at Warrington. "And twelve dozen of the cat for all hands, and… and…"

"Yes, yes!" said King Jimmy, "time for that later — let's get the dollars first!" "AYE!"

"Then please to come alongside," said Warrington, and he reached down to those behind him and was handed something, which he hurled towards King Jimmy's boat… and there was a twinkling and glittering and chinking of metal as the little missiles landed aboard.

"Dollars!" cried King Jimmy's oarsmen. "Dollars, lads!"

"Huzzah!"

"We are not the valiant who taste of death but once!" said Warrington.

"Bollocks!" cried a voice from the boats.

"Friends, Englishmen, countrymen, lend me your ears! We seek mercy!"

"Pig-shite!"

"For the quality of mercy is not strained!"

"Fuck off!"

"It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven."

As he spoke, Warrington threw more dollars and the boats crowded in beneath him, King Jimmy's in the lead, and all aboard sneering and laughing at the miserable figure spouting above, who was giving in so easily and without a fight… And thus the mudlarks came alongside of Walrus, slow and easy, and threw no grappling hooks and made no attempt to board but sat looking upward in expectation, until…

CRRRRASH! A tremendous, rolling volley of small-arms fire roared out from Walrus and night turned to day in livid daggers of muzzle-flash as Silver's men fired every pistol, musket, blunderbuss and carbine in the ship into the writhing mass of men in the boats alongside, only spitting distance away. Over a hundred rounds of well-aimed lead came sizzling down into flesh, timber, blood, bone and some of it into Father Thames. Ears were deafened by the roar, and eyes temporarily blinded by the flash.

A horrible moan arose from the mudlark boats even as a picked team of men, all good swimmers and led by Mr Joe, dropped over the side from Walrus — splash-splash-splash — while a reserve of five of the ship's best marksmen, armed with muskets, kept up a steady fire into King Jimmy's boat so that none aboard should hinder Mr Joe's team as they hauled themselves into the launch. Some went down, nonetheless, under cutlass strokes and pistol fire, but most clambered aboard and set about seizing the oars. And all the while Walrus's people were loading and ramming with fresh cartridges and ready for another united volley… which they gave with a flash and a roar, at Long John's word, as the other mudlark boats saw what was happening to King Jimmy and tried to go to his aid, only to find themselves on the receiving end of another withering storm of lead that smashed and pierced and tore, until one boat began to fill and to settle as holes were knocked squarely through its bottom.

"Ahhhhh! Ahhhh! Ahhhh!" cried the mudlarks.

"Fire at will, boys!" cried Long John as the smoke swirled over Walrus's decks, "but bring Mr Joe safe aboard: him and all his lads — and that swab of a King Jimmy — and then run out the guns and load with grape!"

"Huzzah!" roared the crew, and soon the dazed, bedraggled king o' the river was dragged over Walrus's rail with three of his men, while the long black snouts of her main battery rumbled clear of the ship's sides, proclaiming death and disembowelment to any fool who chose to approach unasked aboard of a boat, which none did, for they saw they were beat and hung back.

The butcher's bill for Silver's men was three dead or drowned, and Tom Allardyce still so deep unconscious that Dr Cowdray feared for his life. But the mudlarks suffered worse, with bodies face down in the water and cries and moans, and one boat sunk, and blood in the bilge water, and oars smashed and their captain taken… who nonetheless would not give up.

"You'll pay for this, you…" he shrieked into Silver's face, and let loose such a string of filth as left even Walrus's men impressed. "You can't touch me!" he cried. "I got a lord mayor's badge! I got magistrates! I can buy every damn glut- man, lumper and revenue-man on the river. I can — "

Thump! Silver clouted him with a heavy fist, and King Jimmy staggered and suddenly fell over as his left leg twisted… came apart below the knee, and a wooden peg-leg rattled and bumped and rolled across the deck. King Jimmy fought to get up: growling, cursing and helpless… and a great pity fell upon Silver, and guilt for what he'd done to a man like himself: a poor ruined cripple. For deep inside of John Silver, the pain had never gone away: the awful grieving over the cruelty of his own mutilation, and the loss of his manly swagger. It hadn't gone, nor ever would it, and in the present moment it swelled into agony.

"Ugh!" cried Silver, and wiped away the self-pitying tears with the back of his cuff. "Here, shipmate!" he said, reaching down to haul King Jimmy up… where he stood hopping and balancing, and hanging on to Silver's hand for support.

"You long streak o' fuckin' piss," said King Jimmy. "Why don't you gimme a loan o' your'n?" And he pointed at Silver's crutch.

Silver laughed uneasily, staring at King Jimmy. "Huh!" he said finally. "Fetch him his timber limb, lads!" And a couple of hands found it and helped King Jimmy strap it in place, so he could stand up like a man again, even if a far smaller one than Long John, who towered over him.

"What am I going to do with you?" said Silver.

"Hang him! Gut him! Skin him!" cried the crew.

"Belay all that, you swabs," said Silver, "for I'm taking this bugger below, for questioning."

And so John Silver found a new friend in a strange place, for as he sat in his cabin with a couple of men outside, in case King Jimmy turned nasty, he was amazed how much he had in common with his prisoner.

"Cart horse, it were," said King Jimmy. "Us kids was playing knock-belly, running in line under horses and slapping them, and I was last, and I got kicked, and it festered." He looked down at his wooden leg. "Local carpenter took it off with his saw. We hadn't no gelt for a surgeon. Did a rough job, and it still bleeds sometimes, for it ain't never healed quite right."

Silver shook his head in sympathy.

"Him as ampytated me was a master surgeon," he said. "Latin by the bucket! He's aboard this ship now. D'you want him to look at your leg?"

King Jimmy shuddered.

"Not for a pension!" he said. "I still remember the saw grinding the bones."

"Aye!" said Silver, and he got out the rum, and they raised glasses.

"Here's to that old actor you put up there!" said Jimmy. "Fooled me!"

"What actor?"

"Charles Warrington. Cap'n, indeed! I only recognised him when I came aboard."

"Warrington? Was he an actor?"

Jimmy nodded. "I saw him in that play where a moll gets done in by a blackamoor, and me and the lads went with cobbles to pelt the bleeder…" He grinned. "Warrington was playing the blackie, but he came on three sheets to the wind and fell into the orchestra pit."

Silver laughed, and as they talked he found King Jimmy — though completely illiterate — to be quick and clever, and facing the same problems as himself in leading men and keeping them sweet. Thus they talked, for all captains are lonely, and there are things said easier to a stranger than a friend. So they told their stories, and even found common cause.

"How did I become a gentleman o' fortune?" said Silver. "Why, my own ship was took, and I did for a few of them as took it, and they made me make up the loss."

"Oh?" said King Jimmy. "Chopped a few, did you? How many?"

"A few," said Silver.

King Jimmy winked.

"Garn! You can tell me. How many?"

Silver shrugged. "Six," he said.

"Gor blimey!" King Jimmy raised a glass in salute.

"Well," said Silver, as if in explanation, "I had ten toes in them days." "Huh!" said King Jimmy. "And now I'm a few men short, because of you!"

"Serves you bleedin-well right!"

They laughed, and the talk turned to the future and what Silver was going to do with the two prisoners he'd brought to London.

"Start with Norton," said Jimmy. "I know him — pick o' the Bow Street men. He needs to be in the river with his throat cut."

"No, no, no," said Silver, "I can't do that!"

King Jimmy shook his head.

"You're a funny bugger for a pirate, John."

"Gentlemen o' fortune! Not a pirate."

"No? Ain't you never done nothing bad?"

Silver closed his eyes… and saw Ratty Richards's face. He sighed.

"There you are then," said Jimmy. "But never mind, for others is worse: like members of parliament! You can't do their job without telling lies and getting men killed! And them bastards wants another war! How many thousands will that kill, beside the few that you and I pop off, John Silver"

Telling lies, thought Silver, for that stood out from all the rest, and it sank his heart like lead.

"John, John," said Jimmy, and leaned forward and put a thick, gnarled hand on Silver's arm. His face was battered and ugly, he was grey and stubble-chinned. He was twenty years older than Silver, and he wanted to help. "What is it, lad?"

"I don't know what to do," said Silver. "I've come here to save my wife, if she's to be saved. But I've told all hands another tale, and they've trusted me."

"Well then," said King Jimmy, "we must help one another, you and I. So set me free — "

"I'd do that anyway!"

"Set me free… with a sack of dollars, so I can go back with me head high and me feathers in me hat, and I'll be your eyes and ears in London. I knows every receiver in town, all the watchmen, the night coves, pickpockets and burglars, and the Jew-boy money-lenders too: and their fingers go up every hole and crack!" King Jimmy nodded. "Oh yes! I'll find out about your Jacobites… and… I'll send out word for a new black girl in the knocking shops."

Silver groaned and put his head in his hands.

King Jimmy patted his shoulder. "You got to face it, lad. If she's in that trade, then that's where you'll find her."

Then a thought struck him.

"Wait a bit," he said, "your girl's something special, ain't she? A real bang-up prancer: a great beauty? And young?"

"Aye," said Silver miserably.

"So, listen here, John Silver," said King Jimmy, "and I'll tell you what to do with your crew and your ship and your wife…" Then he paused and frowned. "The kiddie you want, for top-of-the-trade such as your Selena would be, is one as wouldn't let me through his door. But he might talk to you, if you was dressed up proper."

"And who's that?"

"Flash Jack the Fly Cove!"