Pieces Of Eight

Chapter 24

Billy Bones was in irons. Not proper leg-irons, for there * were none on the island. They were the best Israel Hands could forge out of iron barrel-hoops, with a flat rock as an anvil and old nails serving as rivets to close the links around Billy's left ankle.

Clang! Israel flattened the last nail, and stood up dusting the sand off his knees. He pointed his hammer at Bones, who sat scowling under a tree with his legs stretched out in front of him. Billy-boy couldn't stand. There were too few links for that, but at least he had a bit of shade.

"There!" said Israel Hands. "And serves you right if they chafe your precious skin, you no-seaman lubber. Me, I'd have slit you from ear to ear!"

"Belay that, Mr Hands," said Silver. "Just make sure the swab can't get free."

"Not him, Cap'n!" said Israel Hands. "It ain't a clean job, but it's a good 'un."

"Aye," said Silver, for it was. The crude chain ran from Billy Bones to the tree-trunk, where it was secured by an inch- thick copper bolt from Lion's keelson, passed through a hole bored in the trunk and clinched over on the other side, so nothing short of a crowbar could shift it. Silver looked down at the prisoner. "Well, Billy-boy, here you are in the bilboes and only yourself to blame, for I shan't trust you again. Not this voyage nor never."

"Bollocks!" said Billy Bones. "Go fu-"

"Ah, stow it, Billy! Don't you never say nothing new? Don't you never learn? Flint'll gut you like a herring when he comes!" There were jeers from the hands, most of whom were idling on the beach nearby, waiting for the day's orders. "And you swabs can belay that too!" cried Silver, irritated beyond measure by Bones's stupidity, who'd otherwise have been a most useful officer.

"Pah!" said Silver, and left him cursing and spitting under his tree, still loyal to the master he worshipped. Israel Hands followed with Sam Hayden — the last of the ship's boys — carrying his bag of tools. Silver looked back at the boy.

"You're to see him victualled, Sammy lad," he said. "Food and water so the bugger don't die. God knows when we might need his blasted quadrant."

"Aye-aye, Cap'n."

The rest of Silver's officers were waiting in Fort Silver by the big tent. They doffed hats as Silver appeared: Black Dog the carpenter, who wasn't gifted with brains; Blind Pew the sailmaker, who was, despite being near as mad as Ben Gunn — now rated ship's looney and left to wander; and Mr Joe, gunner's mate — a bright candle in a dark night, and Silver wished for more like him! Time was growing short now, with just thirty-seven pegs left in the timber calendar.

As ever, Silver told them the truth. There was monstrous heavy work to be done. They'd have to re-build the forts to fit smaller garrisons, levelling one completely, for there were only enough of them to man three, and they must complete the battery up at the northern inlet that Sarney Sawyer's men never finished. That and some other ideas Silver had for making life hard for Flint. Considering the ugly mood of the men, the thought of such labours brought protests, especially from Blind Pew, whose sharp mind pounced on flaws.

"Forts? But you wants to keep all hands to-ge-ther!" said Pew in his Welsh lilt. "To-ge-ther, so's we don't go splitting and fighting, yes?"

"Aye," said Silver, "I wants 'em under my hand!"

"So where's the sense in three forts and a battery? Don't that divide us?"

Silver sighed. He put his head in his hands. Pew had hit the mark dead centre.

"Now listen to me," said Silver, "I've told you why we can't just sit behind ramparts, haven't I? And how we must take the fight to Flint or we're lost?"

"Aye," they said.

"And the best chance of doing that is with ourselves in more than one strong place so we can move round the island."

"But…" said Pew.

"Wait!" said Silver raising his hand. "I knows we might split among ourselves. I knows nothing's certain, and I'm just hoping to spot some chance when it comes, for if we sits in one place, then Flint'll trap us in it, and keep us in it, then leave us to die on this blasted island like that poor bloody Jesuit and his mates."

There was silence.

"So," said Silver, "let him speak up as has a better plan, say I!"

Nobody spoke. Not even Pew. There was no more argument. Silver nodded, and moved on to the new design for the forts.

"See here," he said, producing a drawing. "This is a star fort, what can be held by as few as a dozen men…"

They leaned forward. It was a plan for a four-pointed earthwork, surrounded by a ditch. Near the tip of each point was an emplacement for a four-pounder gun, shielded by gabions musket-proof, earth-filled baskets improvised from saplings. This allowed each gun to be trained such that any attack must face at least two of them, while being held up by a palisade on the outside of the ditch, and pointed stakes sticking out of the bottom of it. It was a far more formidable design than Flint's old blockhouse — but that had never been intended as a serious fortification.

"What's this, Cap'n?" said Mr Joe, pointing to a circle drawn at the centre of the star.

"That's the redoubt," said Silver. "My orders to all hands should a fort look like falling — is to run. Just kill as many of 'em as you can, and then cut your cable and make for our nearest fort. But should you be surrounded and they're coming over the wall — why, then you gets in here as your last chance. It's an earthwork circle, raised higher than the rest, with a firing step inside, and muskets ready, and these — Israel…?"

Israel Hands reached into his bag of tools and brought out a rum bottle with a fuse sticking out of it.

"Grenado," he said. "It's packed with powder and pistol balls. You light the fuse, duck down and drop it over the wall. Don't have much range, but if the buggers is alongside of you, it'll blow right up the leg of their drawers!"

It was nearly noon by the time they were done, so there was no work until the mid-day heat had passed. But then Silver mustered all hands, gave them their orders, and marched the whole company northward, leaving only two men and a boy to guard Billy Bones. It was a long march with so many men and so much gear, and they didn't reach the northern inlet until the next day. But once there, Silver found great advantage in having the extra men. The battery, already marked out by Sarney Sawyer's men, was completed in four days, the men proving surprisingly cheerful and setting to with a will.

When they were done, six of the brass nine-pounders stood mounted on good carriages, on planked platforms, behind banked-up sand, revetted with timber, and ready with all necessary stores and tackles, and with powder and shot stored under weather-proof shelters. Six guns was a compromise, being as many as men could be spared for. The rest of the guns, Israel Hands ruined — to deprive Flint of their use — by laying each in turn on a pile of sand, close up before a mounted gun, and blowing off one of its trunions with a round-shot. It was dangerous work, with all hands kept clear and only Mr Hands or Mr Joe setting off the charges, Israel Hands insisting the latter do some of the work exclusively by himself, as part of his training, and which he did to Mr Hands's beaming satisfaction.

With the task complete, Silver stumped up and down the battery, parrot squawking on his shoulder, for a final inspection. Then he addressed the men. He praised them for their efforts, made them laugh at what the guns would do to Flint. Finally he surprised them.

"Now, listen to me, lads," he said, "for this here battery ain't meant to stop the enemy from landing."

"No?" they said.

"No, lads." He waved a hand at the inlet, which was four miles deep and a mile across at its widest. Standing on the sands between the waters and the trees, Silver and his men were just a speck on the beach. "There's too much room for boats to get round us," he said, "especially at night. So I've got other plans…"

They listened and they cheered him for it, and Silver smiled. The air was fresher up here, and the men were cheerful. Silver himself felt optimistic and threw off the depression that had sat on him since Billy Bones's rebellion. Things were looking better. Whenever he did return — and return he would, never doubt it — Flint would be met with round-shot, lead and steel.