Pieces Of Eight

Chapter 45

"Yes!" said Flint as the monkey clung to the line and the line was hauled in. "Go on, my little fellow!" he said, even as his neck ached from looking up and the boat swayed under his feet, bumping against the massive hull of the collier.

Flint could hear muttering from the four men behind him, nervously fingering their muskets and eyeing the progress of Silver's boat, which was coming on fast. It was still two hundred yards off, though; already they were too late. His plan was secure. The Indian women — hordes of them — were hanging over the side, chattering and giggling. By some quirk of good fortune, they'd all been brought together in one great mass, instead of different ships, as he'd been expecting — for that would have posed a problem even Flint had no solution for, though he'd been wrestling with it for days now.

He watched the monkey on its way. Up, up, up it went.

"A present for you, my ladies," said Flint. And they laughed and he laughed, and they stretched out their hands, each trying to be the first to snatch the pretty little creature from off the rope. To snatch it and stroke it and comfort the poor thing from its dreadful fright, from hanging over the fearful wet sea.

Chk-chk-chk! said the monkey, which was, in all truth, terrified. And everyone was reaching out for it, with Sally leaning out the furthest and Captain York grinning and hanging on to her behind, and she stretching… and stretching…

"Yes…" said Flint.

And her fingertips were closing towards the fur…

"Go on!" said Flint.

Smack-crack! The ball arrived before the sound of the shot, thumping into the small, furry body, knocking it clean off the rope, and spattering blood all over Flint. But whether by pure blind chance or the grace of a beneficent God, no blood, no fur, no tissue, no nothing came aboard Lord Stanley, nor did any of it touch those aboard.

The dead monkey plummeted into the mighty ocean which, forever and uncomplaining, swallows the filth of the land.

The women screamed. York cursed. Flint stood speechless with the blood spatter unwiped from his face…

A hundred yards away, with oars backed and the boat stopped and steady, Dreamer was rising to his knees, his long- rifle in his hands, and the white smoke clearing from the bow. Then the boat was rocking as all aboard cheered and reached out to clap him on the back.

But Flint wasn't done. Never one to give up, he fought on, even if what he was now doing was driven purely by spite — for there was no chance now of his ever getting aboard Lord Stanley. Not with York bellowing at him, and Van Oosterhout, Dreamer and John Silver yelling too, and their boat under way again, and Flint's four men grabbing at him and demanding to be off, so that Flint had to flatten one of them to show the others… And when that was accomplished he got back to battering open the monkey-cage with the butt of his pistol, so that he might let out the other three, and throw, hurl, cast — whatever it took to get them aboard that ship and exact his revenge on the Patanq.

Silver's boat charged forward, backed oars, and within moments five muskets and six brace of pistols crackled and roared, and men went down all around Flint, but not before they'd fired too, each man with two brace, and a musket each, and two blunderbusses in the boat besides. Sparks and smoke and wadding flew in every direction in the ferocious fire-fight that ensued, at a range so close that it was all but impossible to miss, and not one man in either boat escaped unharmed.

Aboard Lord Stanley the women screamed and screamed, while York and his crew gaped at the battle — and took cover. When the firing stopped, they got up and looked, and saw two boats wallowing in their own powder smoke, and men sprawled out and bleeding and twitching.

Flint's crew were finished: all of them dead or rattling out their last breaths. Flint himself was pierced through the arm and leg, but not seriously. Aboard Silver's boat, Dreamer was hit low in the body, Van Oosterhout in the chest and hand, Silver had two deep shot-furrows gouged across his belly, and Mr Joe — who'd been burned by powder flash — was in the water, where he'd jumped to put out his burning clothes. Of the other four men, only one was still conscious.

Still Flint wouldn't give up. He stood. He raised his pistol butt, and smashed open the monkey cage.

"Kill him!" cried Van Oosterhout to York. "Cold shot — drop cold shot on him!"

Obediently York ran to the shot rack beside one of his ship's few guns.

Flint seized a shrieking, wriggling monkey. He threw it at the ship, but it fell back into his boat. He chased it.

"Stop him!" cried Silver, and Van Oosterhout seized a boat hook and tried, one-handed and dizzy with pain, to hook on to Flint's boat.

"No! No!" said Silver. "We can't touch him! Not him or them monkeys. It's death to all hands!"

Van Oosterhout dropped the hook and fell back, too sick to do more.

York's men began to heave six-pounder shot at Flint, but missed with every one. As projectiles rained into the sea around him, Flint grabbed another monkey and tried to throw it into the ship. The frightened creature bit him viciously, causing him to fumble and drop it, and as he staggered the boat slid under him, out away from the ship, and away from Silver's boat.

"Reload!" said Silver, snatching up a musket even though he was light-headed from loss of blood. "You there!" he croaked to York. "Never mind cold shot — get a bloody gun into action!"

Dreamer clutched the wound in his side and said nothing. The injury was painful but he knew it would not kill him. And he saw that Flint would escape. Silver was feebly trying to load. Van Oosterhout was barely moving. The men on the great ship were fumbling with a cannon. And Flint's boat was drifting clear. Flint, the left handed twin, the Devil in flesh, was escaping with his demons. And if he escaped, he could return another day.

Dreamer leapt out of the boat. He came down with a splash and swam the few strokes to Flint's boat. He tried to board. Flint struck at Dreamer with an empty pistol, but he wasn't quite himself. Hysterical with rage, he missed his stroke; Dreamer seized his hand, pulled Flint into the water and scrambled aboard. He chased the monkeys and struck them down with his hatchet, covering himself with their blood, guts and spittle. It was slow work because the monkeys were swift and agile and had to be caught.

Flint's knife took Dreamer by surprise. He hadn't seen Flint climb back aboard — but even if he had, he'd not have stopped what he was doing. As Flint seized him, he brought down the tomahawk one final time, before Flint's knife stabbed into him, and kept on stabbing and stabbing and stabbing until finally Flint heaved him out of the boat.

When he saw the dead monkeys, Flint let out a cry of rage and pain as if in the utmost desperation of his entire life, and damned all the world and those within it. Then he took two oars in his hands and began pulling with all his might.

The single shot that Silver managed with his musket achieved nothing. Neither did Lord Stanley's hastily loaded gun, which York and his men were firing for the first time in years. Flint pulled for the open sea. Then he got the launch's sail up and ran westward into the mist-shrouded archipelago.

York and his men launched their own boat. They came alongside Silver's and found Long John and Mr Joe holding one end of an oar, with Dreamer — still alive in the blood- clouded water — clinging to the other. The two pirates were faint and weak, but they were hanging on.

"Leave go, shipmates," said York, clambering into the boat beside them and putting a hand on the oar. "We've got him now. We'll bring him aboard and look after him!"

"No!" said Silver.

"No!" said Dreamer.

"Why not?"

"He can't come aboard," said Silver.

"No," said Dreamer.

"Why not?"

"Smallpox."

York had many questions, but Silver just shook his head.

"So why are you hanging on to him?" said York finally.

"Dunno," said Silver, but he did know. And so did Dreamer, and they looked at one another as long as they could, and Silver hung on, and Dreamer hung on… until Dreamer could hang on no more. Finally, when his time was come, Dreamer slipped loose, and drifted off and quietly sank. Silver watched him go. Silver took off his hat.

"And so we commend his body to the deep," he said. Then he turned to a sorely puzzled York. "It's what we say, lad," said Silver quietly, "us gentlemen o' fortune." He looked at the spot where the waves had closed over Dreamer. "You don't let a man like him die all alone."