Pieces of Eight

“Aye-aye, sir!”

The two vessels rose and fell, rubbing paint and splinters off one another as the grappling lines bound them together.

“Boarders away!” cried Flint, leading the scramble up on to Walrus’s bulwark. He leapt aboard the Dutchman followed by nearly sixty men, all of them armed to the teeth, fighting mad and seeking vengeance for their dead and wounded mates.

A mere handful of the Dutchman’s crew remained alive amongst the wreckage of broken timbers, shards of iron, smashed gratings and hanging sails that encumbered the narrow, smoke-clouded deck. It was hard enough to walk the deck, let alone fight on it. But fight they did, with pike, pistol and cutlass, led by a man in a grey coat boasting a big voice.

“Christiaan Hugens!” he cried, calling on the name of his ship.

“Christiaan Hugens!” cried the others, and then it was hand-to-hand.

Slick! And a man shoving a blade at Flint found the steel parried and himself spouting blood from a cut throat. Thump! And another man, pulling the trigger with his pistol aimed right at Flint’s chest, found Flint gone and a cutlass cleaving his own skull. But that was all the fighting Joe Flint had to do that day. Six men cannot fight sixty. Not for long, however brave they may be. Soon all was quiet except the sounds of the sea and the groaning, creaking of ships’ timbers.

A thick, squat man came lumbering through the wreckage. He was Alan Morton, Flint’s quartermaster, and he saluted Flint with his best man-o’-warsman salute: hand touching hat and foot stamping the deck.

“Cap’n,” he said, “there’s just three o’ the buggers left alive, and a dozen o’ dead-’uns, mostly killed by our gunfire afore ever we stepped aboard.” He pointed to the three prisoners, waiting by the mainmast. “There they are, Cap’n. Shall we slit ’em and gut ’em?”

“Good heavens, no!” said Flint, jolly as ever after a fight. “Not at all, Mr Morton–I have other plans for them.” He smiled and most cordially took a handful of Morton’s shirt front to wipe the blood off his cutlass. “Just make the gentlemen fast and we’ll see to them later. But now we have work to do.”

Flint sighed inwardly. It was on such occasions that he missed Billy Bones, who’d once been his first mate, and whose heavy fists had driven men to their duties without Flint having to do the tiresome work of punching heads and kicking behinds. Flint sighed wistfully. Bones did so wonderfully have the knack of terrifying the men, combined with just the perfect quantity of initiative: enough to fill in the outline of his orders without ever daring to question them.

“Huh!” Flint peered at Morton, now shuffling his feet and looking puzzled under his captain’s gaze. The low-browed, stupid clod was the best fist-fighter on the lower deck–which was why he held his rating–but like the rest he was infected with the equality of those blasted “articles” which were Silver’s legacy to Walrus; Silver who, believing himself a “gentleman of fortune” had drawn up a list of articles like those of Captain England, Captain Roberts and all the other pirates who wouldn’t admit what they were.

The thought that Morton believed Flint was captain by consent and could be deposed at will made Flint laugh out loud. Morton, basking in the sunshine of Flint’s merriment, grinned back at him.

“So,” said Flint, “here is what we must do, Mr Morton…”

“Aye-aye, sir!” said Morton, saluting and stamping again. At least he was keen.

The rest of the day passed in work: intense and heavy work, as everything useful was stripped out of Christiaan Hugens, which proved to be an expedition ship, fitted out by Utrecht University and sent to study celestial navigation in the West Indies, in the hope of advancing Dutch trade. Flint gleaned that from the papers in her master’s cabin. He had no Dutch, but many seafaring and astronomical words were similar to the English equivalents, and he filled in the rest by intelligent guesswork.

This was one of the rare occasions when Flint was happy to take a prize which carried no rich or valuable cargo: no silks or spices, no bullion nor pieces of eight–the fine Spanish dollars that the whole world used as currency. No, this time his most pressing need was ordinary ships’ stores. He especially valued the excellent compasses, charts and navigational instruments.

Flint’s men also took sheet lead, nails and carpenter’s tools to repair the shot-holes Lion had blown through Walrus’s hull, along with some spars and planking, a windlass and a fine new kedge anchor that was better than Walrus’s own.

They took particular delight in seizing Christiaan Hugens’s entire stock of foodstuffs: salt beef, salt pork and biscuit, together with more exotic victuals: ham, cheeses, tongue, tea, coffee, gin, brandy and wine, for the ship was only two weeks out of Port Royal, Jamaica, and was bursting with fresh provisions. There was even a coop full of chickens on the fo’c’sle; these hardy fowl survived the battle only to have their necks pulled by Flint’s cook, to provide fresh meat for the gluttony and drinking that always followed the taking of a prize.

Later, with a fiddler playing and all hands half drunk and full of good food, and the blazing hulk of the Dutch ship lost under the horizon, Flint stood before the tiller, with Selena, Allardyce and Morton beside him, to address the crew. Mr Cowdray, the ship’s surgeon, who had been busy with the wounded below, now joined them on deck. Like the rest, he was in his best clothes for the occasion. He nodded to Selena, who smiled.

For Selena, this was a cruel time. John Silver was stranded on Flint’s island where she might never see him again, while Flint’s stunted desires for women were changing and growing. She desperately needed a friend, and–aboard this ship–Mr Cowdray was the only honest man.

“Well,” he said, “have you seen a battle?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you think of it?”

“I’ve seen worse.” It was true. She had.

“Hmm.” Cowdray frowned. “Be careful. There might be more.”

“What?”

“Brothers and fellow gentlemen of fortune!” cried Flint, in a great and happy voice. Cheers followed, with raised bottles and hearty toasts. “Thank you, brothers!” said Flint. “Look at our ship! Go on, my lads, look at her!” That puzzled them. They stared around almost nervously. “Soon she’ll be good as new,” said Flint. “Re-fitted, re-provisioned, leaks plugged and rigging spliced. We’ve all the tackles and all the gear…and her luck shall be re-made!”

That was clever. They all knew Flint’s treasure had been left behind on the island and that, until she was stabbed in the back by Billy Bones, Lion had had the better of them. Nobody dared say it who sailed under Flint, but they all feared their luck was broken. Now they cheered and cheered and cheered.

“Brothers!” cried Flint, raising a silver tankard. “Here’s to old friends and new luck!”

“Old friends and new luck!” they roared.

“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest…” began Flint, lifting up his fine, ringing voice and the fiddler following him.

“Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” roared the crew.

“Drink and the devil had done for the rest!”

“Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

When he chose to be, Flint was irresistibly charming and now he worked his magic, with verse after verse of his favourite, hideous song, each more grim than the last, but always seeming funny when Flint sang it; he passed from man to man, pulling noses, clapping shoulders, poking ribs, and all the while dancing to the beat of his own song. Even Selena and Cowdray laughed, who both should have known better. As for the crew, they worshipped and adored their captain in that happy moment.

But Cowdray was right. There was worse to come.

“Now, shipmates!” cried Flint when the song was done, and he beamed at the close-packed ring of red faces, leering as the tropical sun went down. “Now, my jolly boys…” And Flint changed the entire mood with a solemn expression and hands raised to heaven. “Lads, let us remember those of our brothers foully slain in today’s action. Those slain against all the laws of war, when we had offered honourable surrender!”

“Aye!” they roared.

“What’s he saying?” said Selena to Cowdray. “That’s nonsense.”

“I think you might wish to go below, my dear,” said Cowdray.

“Why?”

Cowdray looked away. “Experto credite!” he said. “Trust one who knows.”

Selena paused. She looked at Cowdray. He was a scholar who loved Latin, and had the habit of spouting it when swayed by strong emotion, be it happiness, fear…or shame.

“What do you mean?” she said.

“Just go below.”

“I see you recognise the villainy we endured today!” cried Flint. “And since we still have, under hatches, three of the guilty ones…” A deep and animal growl drowned out his words. “Silence between decks!” cried Flint, and instantly they obeyed.

“Since we have three of them, I have made preparations in the name of justice.” He grinned wickedly. “Justice–and your amusement. So, clear the decks, and hold your patience!” He nodded to Allardyce and Morton, who had their orders and immediately stepped up to the lee rail.

There was an intense buzz of conversation among the hands as Allardyce and Morton took a two-fathom plank (fresh from Christiaan Hugens) and shoved it over the lee rail so that half its length stuck out over the side, while the rest remained inboard, nailed firmly to the top of a heavy barrel. When this was done, they went below and brought up one of the prisoners. Barefoot, wearing only a pair of calico slops and with his hands tied behind him, the man was already shaking with fright, and he flinched pitifully as Walrus’s crew bayed like the mob at the Roman games. Finally, Allardyce and Morton heaved him bodily up on to the plank, where he stood swaying and shaking and gazing about in terror.

“What is this?” whispered Selena to Cowdray.

“I don’t know. This is new.” He turned to face her. “But I am going below now, and I think you should too.”

“No…”

“Selena, please follow me.”

“Can’t we stop him?”

“Flint? Never! But I beg you, on my knees, not to see this.”

Selena, horrified and fascinated, remained where she was.

Cowdray sighed and shook his head. “On your own head be it!” he said, and vanished down the quarterdeck hatchway.

“Brothers!” cried Flint. “Those who know me will recall some of my merry games–Flint’s games!”

“Aye!” they roared, nodding at one another in glee. There was one that they knew all too well, played atop an overturned tub with a belaying pin, where all the player had to do was move faster than Flint to avoid getting his fingers broken. They laughed and laughed, even those whose fingertips had been smashed. Indeed, some now displayed their scars with pride, and laughed louder than all the rest.

“But this is a new game,” said Flint, lowering his voice like a conspirator. “And this the first time it’s been tried. So watch me, shipmates. Watch and learn!”

With that, Flint picked up a boarding pike and began to sing his song again:

“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest…” He cocked an ear to the audience.

“Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” they cried, and burst into laughter as–on the word rum–Flint pricked the victim’s side with the sharp point of the pike.

“Aaah!” cried the man.

“Drink and the devil had done for the rest…”

“Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

Flint jabbed again, sharp on cue, and blood flowed. Selena, sobbing, finally took Cowdray’s advice and ran below.

“Aaah!” cried the victim.

And so it went on. Since the plank led out over the side, even the dullest spectator knew how the game must end, and any fool could simply have driven someone off its end with prods of a pike. But Flint was an artist. He worked to music and to rhythm, constantly leading his man to the end of the plank, then allowing him to stagger to safety, only to drive him back again or push him to one side, then to the other, with a dozen wounds oozing blood and the poor devil deranged with horror and begging in his own language for mercy.

The special horror of it was any man’s innate fear of falling, especially from a wobbling plank run out over the ocean, so the victim collaborated in the entertainment, even torturing himself by fighting to keep his footing, leaning against the sharp point that was driving him into the sea in a desperate attempt to resist the final plunge, hands-bound, into the hungry waters below. And Flint’s evil genius–his unique gift–was to make this funny.

Finally, when Flint judged the time was ripe, he paused proceedings for conversation with the victim.

“My dear fellow,” he said, “King Richard of England was ransomed with one hundred thousand marks. What will your nation pay for you?”

This brought howls of laughter from the crew, and desperate pleas–understood by nobody–from the victim.

“What will you give me then for your life?” said Flint, snarling and vicious now, rousing the blood lust of his crew. “Nothing?” said Flint. “Then take this…” Slowly and deliberately he pushed the steel pike-head into the man’s flesh, forcing him agonisingly backward, resisting all the way and spattering blood and sweat, shaking his head and grinding his teeth.

“Goodbye!” said Flint, and pushed him off the edge with a final thrust.

The crew shrieked in delight and Walrus rolled heavily as they rushed to the side to see him drown.

The game wasn’t over yet, though. It was time for the second Dutch prisoner to be brought up, the man in the grey coat who’d led the fight by Christiaan Hugens’s people. He was fit and muscular with sandy hair, a beard and moustache, and high, slanted cheekbones that made him look more Slav than Hollander. He struggled cunningly as he was dragged forward, being particularly nasty in the way he kicked: cracking sharply into shins and stamping a heel sideways into one man’s kneecap such that he limped ever after. But finally he was heaved up on the plank and menaced by blades so he couldn’t jump off.

The game proceeded as before; the crew, deeper in drink by this time, were bellowing Flint’s song, while their captain danced and spun and switched hands on the pike-staff, all the while jabbing and jabbing and jabbing. As before, it ended with the prisoner, dripping blood, at the end of the plank with the pike’s tip in his guts and Flint demanding a ransom. The only difference was that this man spoke English. He spoke it well enough to curse Flint–which Flint played upon with cruel skill to make the game even more entertaining. His men were near paralysed with laughter and begging for him to stop.

“King Richard of England was ransomed with one hundred thousand marks…” said Flint.

“You go fuck your mother!” cried the man.

“Sadly she is deceased so I cannot,” said Flint. “But what will your nation pay to ransom you?”

“Damn you to hell!”

“Where else? But how much?”

“Bastard!”

“Perhaps,” said Flint. “But how much?”

Finally, judging his moment, Flint turned nasty, spitting out his words in anger.

“I say, for the last time, what will you give me for your life?” He twisted the pikehead into flesh.

“Argh!” gasped the man on the plank.

“Nothing?” said Flint. “You have nothing for me? Then over you go!” And he readied the pike for a long, slow thrust.

“Longitude!” cried the man.

“What?” said Flint, lowering the pike.

“I give you longitude. I find it at sea.”

“Nonsense,” said Flint, “that’s impossible!”

“No! I do it by lunar observation.”

Flint blinked, and his heart began to thump as he realised what quality of man he was about to push into the sea: a man who offered longitude in the face of death. Flint thought of every year’s crop of shipwrecks and the thousands drowned, the rich cargoes lost through ignorance of a ship’s true position. Fine navigator that he was, he was limited like all others to working by latitude. If he could find longitude at sea, it would give him the most colossal advantage over the rest of seafaring mankind…It was an undreamed of prize. It was magnificent. It was priceless. Flint made another quick decision, this time an easy and obvious one.

“Take him down!” he said. “You! Allardyce and Morton! Take him down and free his hands.”

The crew didn’t like it. They didn’t know longitude from a loblolly boy. They wanted their fun, and they bellowed in anger at being deprived of it. Allardyce and Morton worked fast. They hauled the man off the plank and dragged him aft, followed by Flint.

“Get him below, quick!” said Flint.

“No!” said the man. “I am Cornelius Van Oosterhout. I am a Christian and I do not move from here.”

“What?” said Flint. “Are you mad? Get down to my cabin this instant, before they turn ugly.” He looked at the crew, muttering and scowling.

“You want longitude, yes?” said Van Oosterhout.

“Yes,” said Flint. He wanted it like all the jewels of Arabia.

“Then you save the man below. He is from my crew. If you put him there–” he looked at the plank “–I tell you nothing. I jump in the sea. You don’t need to push!”

“Poppycock!” said Flint, sneering. “Do as I say, or I shall put you back on the plank, and you’ll sing any tune I choose!”

“No,” said Van Oosterhout firmly. “One day I stand before God. I am responsible. You save two, or you save none. It is your choice.”

Chapter 5

Morning, 24th September 1752 Charlestown Bay, South Carolina

Drums beating, colours flying and bayonets fixed, the eight hundred men of the Craven County Regiment of Militia marched splendidly into the tented camp established on the southern bank of the Ashley River where it opened into Charlestown harbour, less than a quarter of a mile from the town itself and close enough that their fifes and drums could be heard from the city walls. The officers were in British scarlet, with gorgettes and soldierly cocked hats, while the ranks wore whatever was practical for campaigning in the field. But every man shouldered a Brown Bess musket and carried sixty rounds of ball cartridge in his pouch, and stepped out to the beat of the drum.

They advanced in two columns, and between them–escorted, guarded and enclosed–came the Patanq nation: First the warriors, then the old men, then the women and children burdened with all the nation’s goods. The marching militia–in columns of three–just covered the three hundred and four warriors, leaving the tail of old men, and women and children stringing along behind. Nobody worried about them.

The formation was received with drum-rolls and dipped colours by the remaining five militia regiments of the Royal Colony of South Carolina, paraded in arms, and which–together with the Craven County Regiment–numbered close on six thousand men, not to mention the three troops of horse militia that trotted outside the marching columns, with spurs and broadswords jingling, and who were over one hundred strong in their own right.

Mounted, uniformed, and with flashing swords drawn in salute, the colonels of the five regiments stood before their men, with Colonel Douglas Harper of the Charlestown Regiment–who was the senior–in the middle and a horse length to the fore, an aide on either side of him.

They sheathed swords and Colonel Harper spoke to the young officer to his right, who on other days was his eldest son Tom.

“Fine sight, Lieutenant!”

“Indeed, sir!”

“What a day for the Colony!”

“Aye! Damned Indians.”

“Hmm,” said Colonel Harper, and pondered, for he’d been a great man in the Charlestown fur trade, and had grown rich by it, and every fur he ever sold was trapped and brought in by the Indians. Still…he looked back at the walls of Charlestown, which weren’t there to protect against the French and Spanish only, but against Indians too. And today the Colony was taking the wonderful opportunity to rid itself of the entire Patanq nation, all fifteen hundred of them, in their moccasins and blankets. These days they weren’t the most numerous of the Indian nations, but they were Indians and times were changing, and better they should live anywhere other than South Carolina, and preferably in the moon if only they could be got there. So thought Colonel Harper.

“Pa?” said Lieutenant Harper.

“Colonel!” corrected Harper.

“Sorry, Pa…Colonel.”

“Well?”

“Why’s there so many of us? All the regiments? There’s more of us than there is of them, even counting the women and little ’uns!” Harper frowned.

“Don’t you ever listen? Haven’t I told you about them savages?” Colonel Harper was fifty-five years old and had been more things than a trader. He’d fought the Patanq in his time, and shuddered at the thought of it. Especially the recollection of going to battle against them in the woods. “Listen, boy, if there’s enough of us here today to put the idea of fighting clean out of their heathen heads, then there’s not one man too many! So shut up and face your front.”

Colonel Harper looked at the Indians, raising dust as they tramped in, bedraggled from their long march. In fact Tom was right in a way; there were not more than a few hundred warriors in all. But you never knew with the Patanq. They moved like ghosts, you wouldn’t hear them coming, and you’d only realise they’d cut your throat when your shirt front turned red.

He turned in the saddle and raised his voice:

“Three hearty rousing cheers for the Craven County men. Hip-Hip-Hip…”

Thundering cheers bellowed out as the mustered regiments raised their caps on their bayonets and gave three tremendous huzzahs. In response to the cheers, bells clanged and pealed from the town.

“Colonel?” said a voice from his left: Lieutenant David Harper, his second eldest, and by far the brightest son. “Is that the Dreamer?” He pointed to the head of the Patanq column.

“Aye,” said Colonel Harper, pleased that one son had paid attention, “that’s him, their famous medicine man. And that’s Dark Hand, the war sachem, or chief, at his side.” Harper looked at them as they came past. He knew Dreamer very well. Him and all the Patanq leaders. Now he drew steel to salute them. And the sachems raised their right hands formally to acknowledge him. For they knew him, too.

There were a dozen of them, leading their nation in procession with Dreamer and Dark Hand. Dreamer was a small, shrivelled man, marked by long illness. He looked a miserable creature beside Dark Hand, but he was the soul of the Patanq nation, and a formidable negotiator–as Harper knew all too well, having attended the lengthy council sessions that had brought the Patanq here today, granted safe passage and a fleet of six ships to carry them off, along with the gold they’d accumulated through years of fur trading and bringing in scalps for the bounty.

The thought of scalps made Harper glance nervously at the warriors, fearful creatures that they were…tall men every one: lithe and muscular, upright, hook-nosed, black-eyed and stone-faced. They wore bright-coloured trade blankets round their shoulders and carried long guns in their arms. Their heads were shaven except for dangling, befeathered queues, their cheeks were tattooed in geometric lines and they wore silver nose-rings and elaborate, beaded jewellery.

At last the Patanq came within sight of the harbour, and the ships anchored under the guns of Fort Johnson, with the launches and longboats beached and ready on the shore. And a chatter arose, first from the sachems, and then from the warriors. Harper shook his head in wonder. This was an unheard of vulgarity for the Patanq, who habitually endured the shocks of life in silence. But the chattering was nothing to the shrill cries of the women and children, to whom the ships and the boats and the endless rolling waters were magical wonders.