Flint and Silver

When the sun set that night there were less than a hundred men left alive on the island. Flint stood in the dying light and eyed the wreckage and slaughter all around. He stroked his parrot and smiled.

“Well, Billy-boy,” he said to the creature that clung to him even closer than the green bird, “it seems we are become free men, to go a-privateering after all. Isn’t it a shame that Mr Springer never saw reason in the first place, to save me all this trouble?” And Flint laughed and laughed and laughed.

But there had to be a few more risings of that sun before Flint got entirely what he wanted. To begin with, Betsy wasn’t quite as ready for sea as had been hoped, and vital work remained to be done, and also Flint had to deal with the remaining loyal hands on the island.

Some of them weren’t hard to find, since they came limping into the camp at North Inlet in ones and twos, begging for food. The others were hunted down with whooping and haloo-ing and merriment, at least on Flint’s part, for he took a lead in all such congenial operations, leaving Billy Bones the task of completing Betsy’s fitting out.

“Chop ‘em down, lads!” he cried, on the first occasion they took captives. “Chop ‘em down like so much pork!” But in this he was baulked. To his surprise, his men turned nasty as their consciences stirred. After all, as far as they knew, they’d mutinied in face of abandonment and certain death, and then they’d fought the marines when fired upon. But they’d never set out to cut the throats of their own shipmates. What’s more, the captives included Mr Hastings and Mr Povey, the last surviving midshipmen: two youngsters who were good officers and popular with the crew.

Flint glowered and cursed, but saw that he could not oppose the men in this matter. He was well aware that not everyone on the lower deck was stupid. Some were capable of working out that Flint had taken command from Captain Springer by force. In that case, what was good for Springer might become good for Flint, should Flint upset the men too much. This gave Flint a nasty fright. It was his first sight of a problem that – for all his cleverness – he had not foreseen, and which would come back to sit upon his shoulder like his parrot. Given his great pride and vanity, it was deeply disturbing.

But the prisoners were spared: all of them.

Finally in late May of 1749 when Betsy was warped out into the North Inlet, laden with men and stores and guns, to spread her sails and head north, she towed astern of her a longboat containing the remaining loyal hands. There were twenty-three of them, but the longboat was a good, big one, so they weren’t too crowded. They had their own store of food and water too – the crew had insisted on that – and this proved a blessing, since soon after Betsy had left the island under the horizon, the towline somehow got slipped during the dead of night.

Flint explained that this had been an unfortunate accident which was all for the best, since it removed those who had unaccountably refused to win wealth and riches by privateering. For their part, with the longboat gone and nobody forced personally to witness what might be the fate of the boat’s occupants, the crew allowed themselves to believe Flint’s words, and were thereby led down a slippery path towards outright bloody-handed piracy.

In this profession – having at last got what he wanted – Flint proved a passing fair success. Or perhaps he just was lucky. Whichever, he took some good prizes, and beat up and down the Caribbean for many jolly months before fate caught up with him.

Chapter 11

1st June 1752 Savannah, Georgia

In Selena’s world there was no time for self-pity. When the shaking stopped, she went back to work.

She picked her way over and around the customers in the liquor shop, and made an effort to clear up the mess that they had made. Some of them were stirring now, and calling for more drink. Selena served them, and prodded the other girls awake to help her.

Later in the evening, after lamp-lighting time, when Flint and Neal came back to the liquor shop, a second round of debauchery was well under way. Flint and Neal were like brothers; satisfied with their business and now looking to take a drop or two in celebration. Flint merrily kicked three or four men out of their chairs and swept their pots and plates off the table to make way for himself and Neal. Roars of approval greeted their arrival, and the musicians woke themselves up and joined in the din.

This time Flint leapt on a table top, threw back his head and led the singing. His men cheered madly when they heard the song, for it was a piece of his own creation, that he sang only when in the best of spirits. Joseph Flint sang beautifully, with a high, carrying voice that was lovely to hear, and once heard never forgotten. He gave each line of the song, with his men roaring out the chorus.

“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest –” “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” “Drink and the devil had done for the rest –” “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” “But one man of her crew alive –” “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” “What put to sea with seventy-five –” “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

The song went on, verse after verse, getting steadily grimmer and darker, but with Flint so beaming and charming, acting out the horrors of the story in such splendid good humour that everyone laughed at the wickedness he was proclaiming.

When he finished, he sat down to mighty cheers, and smiled like the sun in his glory. Neal smiled too, though he’d no taste for Flint’s kind of music. His mind was still full of delightful calculations concerning the cargoes in the holds of Flint’s two prizes. Selena came to their table at once, with rum. Flint raised his glass to her in a polite toast. His sharp eyes swept her up and down. He frowned. He saw the miserable expression on her face and her red eyes.

“What rogue has upset you, my African Venus?” he said. He stood up, and took her chin gently in his fingers, the better to study her. “I dare swear you’ve been crying. Just tell me who it was,” he said, in a soft, quiet voice. “Just tell me his name and I’ll have the liver out of him. I’ll rip it out, and slice it narrow, and feed it to him in strips.” Charley Neal blinked anxiously. When other men said things like that, they weren’t really thinking of opening a man’s belly and sticking a hand inside to pull things out. But when Flint made the threat …

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