Pieces of Eight

“Ahoy there!” it cried, and Israel Hands grinned, knowing himself favoured, and he plodded on.

He smiled again as he looked at Mr Joe marching ahead, a heavy Jamaican cane-cutlass in his belt, ready to clear a path if need be. The lad was a slim, wiry black who’d grown up with such a quick temper that he failed to see the joke when an overseer, finding Joe bent over to cut cane, had merrily cracked his arse with a whip. Thus Joe replied with a cutlass slash that removed a diagonal quarter of the overseer’s head, plus all hope of promotion for Joe in his career as a plantation slave, obliging him to seek advancement elsewhere.

Israel Hands grinned at the thought. Joe was quick and intelligent, and under Hands’s instruction he was speedily learning his letters and his numbers, to the point that he was now rated gunner’s mate, and addressed as Mr Joe by all hands, even Long John himself.

Joe had his little faults, of course. He could not stand to be teased, and he was dreadfully afraid of the dark, since as a child he’d been told by his mother that, if he didn’t behave, at midnight the Jumba-Jumba man would come in his big black hat and fetch Joe away in a sack. Even at nineteen years of age, Joe was still looking out for him, but Israel Hands thought no worse of the lad for that, since all sailormen believed such things: Mr Hands himself–when alone–would never look over the side at night for fear of seeing Davy Jones, the hideous fiend that lay in wait for the souls of drowned men.

A day’s marching, with stops for meals and the heat of noon, had taken Israel Hands’s team clear of the palms and sweltering jungle that lined the island’s southern shores. Steering by a small brass compass, they had moved steadily north into a terrain of sandy hills interspersed with small, open clearings surrounded by broadleaf trees: mainly live-oaks, but with an increasing number of pines, and all with dense foliage at their bases. With night falling, they set about making camp–and made their first discovery.

“Look, Mr Hands,” said Joe. “You see them stumps there?”

“Aye, lad,” said Israel Hands. The spot they’d chosen was a clearing that the forest was slowly reclaiming. About a dozen big trees, all pines, had been felled many years ago, leaving stumps which were now so heavily overgrown with moss and fungus, and so surrounded by undergrowth and young trees, that it was hard to spot them. But they were there if you looked; proof that men had been this way before.

“Looks like this island ain’t so secret as some would believe!” said Israel Hands.

“Aye, Mr Hands,” said Joe, peering into the darkness between the standing trees. “Now we get back with the others, eh? And we make the fire?”

“Aye,” said Israel Hands, smiling, for the others were only a few steps away.

That night Joe had the horrors and no mistake. He woke constantly. He heard noises in the night. He got up and paced about, and repeatedly told the sentries to keep a sharp lookout.

“Yes, Mr Joe! No, Mr Joe!” they said, levelling their muskets at nothing, just to keep him quiet.

They all thought him a bloody fool, until early next morning when the expedition made its second discovery. As the sun came up, those on guard duty saw a figure peering at them from behind a tree: looking, but afraid to come forward.

“There he is, Mr Hands!” said one of the sentries. “It’s a white man, not a savage. Miserable-looking sod, though.” He cocked his musket. “Shall I take a pop?”

“No!” said Israel Hands, as the camp stirred and men gathered around him. “I think I know who that is!” He stepped forward and called out:

“Ahoy there! Come alongside! We’re all friends here. Friends and jolly companions.”

There was a stir of surprise as the bedraggled figure left the cover of his tree, and–with utmost nervousness–crept forward, hunched over in humble supplication, with fearful eyes staring out of a simple, pleasant face. He was bareheaded, bare-chested and barefoot, deeply sunburnt with a sprouting beard and hair like broken straw. All that he had in the world was a pair of breeches, an old belt, and a sailor’s knife in a sheath. But the thing that drew gasps of surprise was the creature holding his hand like a child and scampering along beside him: a large and most beautiful monkey.

The ape was handsomely marked, with thick fur–mostly dark brown, apart from its creamy breast, arms and face–and a shock of black, upstanding hair on top of its head. It had the most appealing and intelligent face and came forward entirely without fear.

When the man thought he was close enough, he stopped, and began to speak in a self-pitying whine.

“I’m Benn Gunn, I am,” he said, shaking off the monkey and clapping his hands together as if in prayer. “Poor Benn Gunn, what’s lived alone for weeks with not a bite of Christian food, nor what’s not spoke to a Christian soul.”

“Step up, Ben Gunn!” said Israel Hands. “You know me, don’t you?”

“That I do, Mr Hands,” said Ben Gunn. “An’ you knows me, for I’m Ben Gunn what was blown clear o’ the old Walrus in the battle, and what clung to a shattered timber and what floated ashore and what’s lived on fruits and roots these past weeks and never a taste of pork nor cheese…especially cheese.”

Ben Gunn was duly fed and watered, and the monkey became an instant favourite for its friendliness and cleverness. Jumping from man to man, it took the bits of fruit they offered, and looked its benefactors in the eye with the most charming expression.

“Bugger’s almost human!”

“Ain’t he a jolly little bleeder!”

“Look at the little face on him–he’s laughing!”

“Chk-chk-chk!” said the monkey, climbing into Mr Joe’s arms and reaching its small, inquisitive hand towards one of the pistols hooked to his belt.

“Belay!” said Joe, laughing. “Don’t touch that, child, else you be blowin’ me bollocks off me!” And the men laughed.

But always the creature ran back to Ben Gunn.

“Followed me, he did,” said Ben Gunn, stroking its head. “There’s a whole tribe of ’em in the trees, up that way–” he pointed vaguely into the forest. “Don’t reckon they ain’t never seen men before, and they’s tame as pussy-cats…ain’t you, matey?”

“Chk-chk-chk!” said the monkey.

The rest of Israel Hands’s expedition was uneventful, except that it took nearly five days to reach the far north of the island and return to Camp Silver in the southern anchorage, not the two days they’d expected. Sarney Sawyer and Black Dog told the same tale on their return–the island was at least twice the size they’d supposed it to be, based on what Flint had told them.

There was just one further discovery to be made, which awaited Israel Hands on his return.

“Look, Mr Gunner,” said one of those who’d been guarding the camp. He was holding out the remains of a small, broken egg. “Long John’s parrot laid it. It’s a she!”

“Well bugger me tight!” said Israel Hands. He looked at the big green bird, rocking on its perch nearby. “That’ll tickle Long John when he gets back!” Hands halfway reached out to stroke the bird, but then recalled Black Dog’s missing fingers and thought better of it.

“Bugger me tight!” said the parrot.

Silver’s voyage round the island, taking bearings and soundings, took a week. The morning after the jolly-boat had finally grounded in the shallows of the southern anchorage, he called a council of his leading men in his tent–the biggest in the camp–where there was a table and some chairs saved out of Lion.

First on the agenda was the matter of Ben Gunn. With his monkey trailing along behind him, Gunn was brought before them. He stood outside the big tent, in the cool of the early morning, awaiting their judgement.

“Well, Ben Gunn,” said Silver, “it appears you’ve been Flint’s man. So, whose man are you now?”

Ben Gunn blinked in fright. He shuffled his bare feet in the sand, and looked up at the tall figure of John Silver in his blue coat. He marvelled at the sight of Captain Flint’s parrot on Silver’s shoulder, nuzzling his ear as once it had Flint’s. Ben Gunn was further puzzled by the presence of Mr Billy Bones, standing alongside Israel Hands, Black Dog and Sarney Sawyer. The latter three, he knew to be Silver’s men…But Billy Bones was Flint’s to death and beyond…or so Ben Gunn believed.

“Mr Gunn’s been living wild,” said Israel Hands. “He’s more than half witless and he was frightened to come near us. He was starving when we found him, weren’t you, Ben Gunn?”

“Aye,” said Ben Gunn. “Mr Hands gave me some cheese!” He smiled. “He likes cheese, does poor Ben Gunn!” The smile died. “An’ he don’t like bein’ hungry, an’ he don’t like bein’ lonely, an’ he stands ready now to sign articles and do his duty…if only he might have permission to come aboard.” And with that he raised a dirty finger to his dirty brow, and held it there, mouth open, awaiting Silver’s decision.

“Huh!” said Silver. “Come aboard, Benn Gunn! There’s work to do, and a need for hands to do it. You shall sign articles, and be judged afresh.” He pointed to a gang of men standing ready with their tools for the day’s work clearing the final remains of Lion. “You join them there. At the double now!”

“Aye-aye, sir!” said Ben Gunn joyfully, and he skipped off at great speed before Silver should change his mind.

“Poor sod!” said Sarney Sawyer.

“He were a good man once, Mr Bosun,” said Israel Hands. “He were a prime seaman, till he got flogged and it turned his mind.”

“Flint’s work?” said Sawyer.

“No,” said Billy Bones stoutly, “Cap’n Springer’s! That no-seaman swab as ran the Elizabeth aground. Ben Gunn was at the helm, and Springer flogged him for it, though it were Springer’s fault, as all hands knew!”

“Aye,” said Black Dog and Israel Hands.

“Flint warned him!” said Billy Bones. “Flint wanted a boat ahead taking soundings, but Springer wouldn’t have it. Flint had the right of it all the while.”

“Aye!” said the others, for it was true.

“Flint’s a seaman and no mistake!” said Black Dog admiringly.

“Aye!” they said, nodding in united agreement.

“Split my sides!” cried Silver, who’d been listening in growing amazement and anger. “It sickens my heart to sail with you!” he glared at them. “Have you lubbers forgot what Flint did to Springer and the rest! And have you forgot who’ll be back here in a month or two, a-cuttin of our precious throats if we don’t look sharp!”

“Oh…” said Israel Hands and Black Dog, while Billy Bones blushed and studied his boots.

“Now batten your blasted hatches till you’re spoke to,” said Silver. “And come along o’ me!”

He led the way to his tent and sat down, fuming, and daring any man to speak before he was allowed.

“Put your blasted chart there, Mr Bones,” he said, “and find something to hold the bugger down!”

Billy Bones produced a big, rolled chart, which he laid flat on the table–and for want of anything better, pinned it down with his pistols.

“Now, see here,” said Silver, as they all leaned over the map, “this is Mr Bones’s map, drawn of its shores and with all included as you swabs has learned from marching up and down of it…” He waited till they’d had a good look, then produced another sheet, this time showing the planned location of four forts.

“And now here’s my own plans, drawn by myself,” he said, and calmed as he warmed to his subject. “What do you lubbers know of entrenchments and suchlike…?”

Hours later, Sarney Sawyer and Israel Hands, sent about their duties, had a brief word while spades, picks and axes were handed out to their men.

“Was Long John ever a soldier?” said Sawyer.

“Not him!” said Hands. “Begotten in the galley and born in a boat.”

“So where’d he get all that learning about forts?”

“Along o’ Cap’n England. He were the one for forts, was England.”

“And Long John served under him?”

“Aye, in the days when John had ten toes.”

What Israel Hands didn’t say was that England had a reputation for cracking forts. He cracked them like walnuts. But he’d no reputation for building them. Israel Hands shrugged. Perhaps it was the same thing in reverse. He hoped so, because forts were desperately dangerous things; especially for a sailorman.

Chapter 11

Afternoon, 3rd October 1752 Fort Ferdinand Isabel Island, Niña de Cuba

Capitan Zorita looked at the two tenientes and five young guardia marinas who were under his command in the task of stiffening the defences of Niña de Cuba against the coming world war. Zorita pointed at the longboats and their bustling crews, and he shook his head at the puzzled faces of his subordinates.

“Do you not see through it?” he said. “It’s an old trick of the English pirates–Morgan and England used it on many occasions.” There was a silence and all present tried to avoid his eye.

“So!” said Zorita, and shrugged. “Well, gentlemen, you must listen carefully, for the object of these…activities,” he looked at the boats, “is to make us think that a major force has been landed for an assault upon the northern walls of the fort, compelling us to move our guns up here, leaving the other walls undefended.”

“Oh?” they said, for they’d been duly deceived and would have done as he said.

“But,” said Zorita, “they’ve overdone it. Let’s say each of those boats holds thirty men, besides the crews. That’s ninety per trip, yes?”

“Yes, Capitan!”

“And this is their fourth trip, making three hundred and sixty men landed.”

“Yes, Capitan!”

“Which is a great number of men to land from ships of their modest size.”

“Yes, Capitan!”

“But what they’re actually doing is rowing ashore with the men sitting upright, and rowing back with them hidden in the bottom of the boats.”

“Ahhhhhh!”

“And if they keep on doing it, then I’ll be certain it’s a ruse, for they’ll be pretending to land more men than they could possibly have on board.”

That night there was a great lighting of campfires and making of noise at the north end of the island, where those ashore–under Cap’n Bentham’s orders–gave the fort to believe that a large storming party was bedding down for the night, ready for an assault next day. Meanwhile the same boats that had been busy all day crept quietly down the eastern side of Isabel island with muffled oars, making their way slowly across the shoals and sandbanks to land a large force of men on the beach facing the fort across a few hundred yards of still water.

Neither was it a quiet night in the fort, where Capitan Zorita ensured that guns were indeed moved and prepared, and the ready-use lockers filled with cartridges and shot, and the crews made sure of their duties.

At dawn, Bentham’s northern shore party opened fire on the fort with a six-pound gun, brought ashore for the purpose and emplaced on planking so the trucks of its sea-carriage shouldn’t bog down in the soft ground.

Bang! went the gun, and its cannonball screamed through the air and…crunch! It buried itself harmlessly in the twenty-foot thickness of brick-faced earth ramparts that formed the outer defence of the fort’s inner stone walls. It did no harm, and wasn’t meant to. The gun was burning powder only to keep the fort’s garrison focused on the northern wall. In that case, the six-pounder crew might have taken early warning from the fact that the fort didn’t bother to reply to the insult…

Down at the southern tip of the island, Danny Bentham–followed as ever by Mr O’Byrne–waved a cutlass over his head, called for three cheers, and led the rush to the boats, which were swiftly launched and oars manned, and filled in deadly earnest with armed men–over two hundred of them–equipped with scaling ladders, ropes and grappling hooks.

“Now, my boys,” cried Bentham, “pull your hearts out! Break your backs! It’s Spanish dollars for all hands, and whores aplenty!”

Clank! Clank! Clank! The boats drove forward, crammed with yelling, cheering men, aiming for the south-east walls of the fort, which by Cap’n Bentham’s matchless cunning would have empty emplacements, blind of guns.

Unfortunately they weren’t the only boats setting forth with deadly intent, and four gunboats pulled clear of the small jetty that Bentham should have noticed as he came up Ferdinand channel. Each was nearly twice the length of a longboat, driven by fifteen pairs of oars and commanded by a guardia marina–a midshipman. And each mounted a twenty-four-pounder in the bow: a tremendous armament for so small a craft, and one that was capable of swift movement, to fire from any quarter, irrespective of wind and weather.

“Pull!” cried the guardia marinas, leaping with boys’ excitement as the graceful oars beat and swayed, sending the gunboats forward like the triremes of Athens. Capitan Zorita watched from the walls of the fort. He nodded. He knew now that he’d guessed correctly, for his lookouts had heard the boats in the night, even with muffled oars. The pirates were making their real attack on the south-east. The demonstration before the northern walls was a sham…one which served Zorita well, since by placing so many men ashore the pirates would have left their ships half-manned, firmly anchored, and utterly vulnerable to what was bearing down upon them as fast as Zorita’s oarsmen could pull.

“With me! With me!” cried Bentham as he leapt over the bow of his boat, splashing knee deep into tepid, flat water and charging up the beach towards the walls of the fort and the V-bottomed dry-ditch that encircled it. There came a huge cheer and a roar from those behind him, and Bentham’s heart soared in delight at his own cleverness, for not a gun was in action in the walls ahead, and not a single snout of a firing piece was visible in the embrasures that faced him.

A rumble and battering of shoe leather, and screeches and cries from all hands brought the pirates to the brink of the ditch, and still no gunfire. Bentham was yelling at the men, shoving half a dozen of them into the ditch to form a human bridge, and leading the way over, boot heels grinding into arms and shoulders, standing on the narrow walkway under the wall, and unwinding the line and grapnel from his waist, and beginning to swing it, O’Byrne beside him, ugly face yelling in delight, and more and more men and ladders raising and figures scrambling up and over the wall…

And then the wrath of God beat down upon Bentham’s men. The sound alone was enough to strike men bleeding and broken. The orange flame seared and sizzled. It scorched and burned and turned living bodies into blackened, red-glowing rags of meat.

An unseen heavy gun had fired from the inner angle of one of the fort’s bastions, from an emplacement designed for just such a moment, and which enabled the gun to fire horizontally across the face of the wall. Capitan Zorita had prepared most carefully and made best use of the guns that he had. Thus the load was double canister: forty-eight pounds of musket balls, sewn up in canvas bags: some eight hundred projectiles blasted forth in a hideous cloud by gunners who instantly served their smoking gun, ramming home a second charge, and running out and firing again.

“Fire!” cried the senior guardia marina, and four heavy guns thundered and slid back up the ingenious slides designed to absorb their recoil. Even so the gunboats heaved backwards, but the oarsmen took the way off them and lined up the boats again, so their guns bore directly into the stern windows of the chosen ship: Favourite was its name, picked out in yellow paint just over the rudder.

The range was too close for a miss and the gunboats were placed so that they could fire into Favourite from a position where none of her guns, nor those of her consorts, could retaliate. That was why Favourite had been chosen. Like everything else in the Spanish attack, it was logical, skilful and effective.

“In your own time, now…fire at will!” cried the senior guardia marina, but he needn’t have bothered. The gunners were fighting mad, delighted to punish a despicable enemy, and cheering at every ball they sent tearing from end to end of the damned-to-hell pirate ship with its black flag and its crew of heathen savages come to burn churches, rape maidens and to piss upon the holy banner of Spain.

Bentham was lucky. So was O’Byrne. So was Parry. By the caprice of war, they were untouched. Captain Nichols was not lucky. He was among the one hundred and sixty-three left dead or wounded. Or perhaps he was lucky, since he was killed outright, unlike the man next to him: still alive and sat stupefied with the side of his skull blown away and mashed brains running down his neck.

Captain Danny led the rout. He ran. All those who could came after him, to the total of twenty-eight fit men. They managed to launch a boat, and pulled away, closing their hearts to their shipmates that slithered after them on shattered limbs, begging not to be left behind. They didn’t need to close their ears, for they were all deaf for days afterwards, thanks to the concussion of the single gun that had ruined their attack with just a few rounds fired at point-blank range into a packed and helpless target.

Hercules and Sweet Anne likewise cut their cables, abandoning Favourite to the enemy. And they too were lucky, for there was just enough wind in the anchorage for steerage way, and just enough hands aboard to man the guns. But even so they were comprehensively shamed, for once the gunboats had smashed Favourite into a wreck, and seen her heel over till her yards touched bottom in the shallow bay, they went after the pirates like hungry sharks, seeking to get under their sterns where no enemy gun could return fire, and the pirates all the while manoeuvring crabwise, constantly attempting and failing to deliver a broadside of grape into their agile enemies.

Only at the mouth of Isabel Bay, where the fresh wind gave advantage to the ships, did the gunboats back oars, but they had the satisfaction of one enemy sunk, dozens of prisoners taken for the hangman, and a goodly tonnage of shot sent thumping into the two ships that they’d driven off for the honour of His Catholic Majesty King Ferdinand VI.

Then, as the oarsmen headed for home with the guardia marinas standing at their tillers, heads held high, perhaps they were careless, perhaps they dwelt too much on the hero’s welcome awaiting them ashore, else they should have seen the longboat creeping out from behind Isabel Island, and pulling desperately after the pirate ships. As soon as they were sure the gunboats weren’t coming after them, this bedraggled crew raised a shirt on an oar and waved it to attract the attention of uncaring shipmates who were forging out to sea under all plain sail.

“Bastards!” said Bentham. “Can’t they see us?”

“Swabs!” said O’Byrne. “Wouldn’t trust a mother’s son of ’em!”

“The sods are going to leave us!”

But they didn’t, and Bentham and the rest were saved. They were saved by that last, pitiful companion of the desperate, the sentiment that remained in Pandora’s box when all the world’s evils escaped. For when those aboard Hercules saw the longboat, they found that they still cherished hope: the beloved hope that the storming party might have come away from the fort laden with Spanish dollars.

So Hercules backed her topsail, hove to, and took the longboat aboard. Then all hands peered mightily into the bottom of her for any sign of treasure chests.

They found no treasure, only their captain and twenty-eight desperately shaken men, most of whom hadn’t even the strength to go down to the spirit room to get drunk. They just called for rum and sat about looking dismal, some sobbing with self-pity, when their mates asked what had happened.

Only O’Byrne was anything like himself. He went round cussing and blinding, and punching the heads of all those he considered to have been safe aboard while better men died. But even that was only for show. They could tell. So it was a dangerous time for Danny Bentham and there was much muttering in corners as Hercules rolled onwards and left Niña de Cuba behind.