"Aye-aye, sir!" said Billy Bones. Ward indeed. But if that's what Flint said, then so it should be. "You can leave the hands to me, Cap'n," he added.
"Oh, I do, Mr Bones. Indeed I do," said Flint. "And now, John, let's settle this matter over a glass of rum, like good companions, eh?"
"With all my heart, Cap'n," said Silver, and the two of them went below. Billy Bones's spirits fell when he saw that, but he perked up later when a raging and a hollering of voices could be heard coming up from Flint's cabin. Billy guessed the stern windows must be thrown open for the fresh air, since the sound was coming up over the taffrail. He would dearly have liked to get himself and his ears astern to hear what was being said, but he dared not. In any case the little madam was wandering round the deck among the men, and his presence was badly needed beside her.
She was still hanging on to whatever came to hand, bracing herself against the heaving deck which she hadn't yet come to terms with, but she didn't seem one bit afraid, and she wasn't going to be sick after all. She stared at every ordinary item of the schooner's gear as if it was all brand new and she didn't know a jibboom from a jackstay. In due time, the wheels of Billy Bones's mind turned, and he managed to calculate that this was indeed the case, what with plantation slaves not being bred up to the ways of the sea.
The trouble was that Billy knew he must either follow her round like a nursemaid, or at least take a turn about the ship to warn the hands what would happen to them should they not mind their manners. So he had to abandon the fascinations of eavesdropping just at the very moment when he was learning to relish them.
Round the ship he went, as fast as he could, to give the crew their orders in the hope that he could get back to the stern without delay. But to his surprise he found that the men were not interested in the juicy bit of tail that was parading itself round the deck, because another piece of news had sped round the ship ahead of him. All the crew wanted to hear about was the split between Flint and Silver. And there was a dimension to this that had hitherto escaped Billy Bones's understanding, for he'd been too busy rejoicing at Silver's fall from the post of Flint's chief favourite.
"Which are you for, Mr Bones?" said Mad Pew, way down below where he had a little cabin — dark, close and lantern- lit — for his sailmaking gear. There was no other person present, but Pew looked around as if for hidden listeners in the shadows, and he nipped Billy Bones's arm with hard sinewy fingers in the way he had when talking, which made men's flesh creep. Billy guessed that Pew was frightened, but it was hard to read Mad Pew's expression when he was disturbed in any way, for on those occasions such a twitch jumped in the corner of his eye that it was impossible to notice much else about him.
"Haul off, you bloody lubber!" said Billy Bones, shuddering and shaking off the thin, strong hand. "What the buggeration d'you mean, 'which one'?"
"Flint," said Pew, "or Sil-ver?" His Welsh voice made two sounds out of the name.
"Bladderwash!" snarled Billy Bones, "You fucking mad bastard!" And he read Pew the rule book concerning black girls aboard ship, and went stamping on his way. But the next person he met was Israel Hands, the gunner, coming out of the magazine, and Israel Hands was not mad, nor a fool, nor anything other than a prime seaman.
"Bad business, Billy," said Hands, with a deadly serious look on his face.
"What is?" said Billy Bones, staunchly managing not to grasp the point.
"Why… Flint and Silver, shipmate," said Israel Hands. "If they steers their separate courses, then some'll go with the one, and some the other."
"Bollocks!" said Bones. "Who'd follow any other man than Flint?"
"Aye…" said Hands carefully. "Who would, an' all?"
"See?" said Billy Bones, believing he'd won the argument.
"Let's hope things don't turn nasty, Mr Bones," said Israel Hands, "or none of us'll dare to sling a hammock for fear of a knife from below whiles we sleep."
Billy Bones thought this over and shook his head.
"No," he said, "not aboard the old Walrus. Not while we're jolly companions one and all."
"Aye," said Israel Hands. "Whatever you says, Mr Bones." But he was glad that, as master gunner, he slept in a nice solid wooden bunk.
Chapter 14
"We're all going to die," said Mr Midshipman Hastings, "and that's God's truth." And he curled himself into a ball in the sternsheets of the wallowing longboat.
"Hell and damnation, George," said Mr Midshipman Povey, kneeling down and putting his hands over his friend's ear so he could whisper without being heard, "If you don't buck up soon, that's just what we shall do. Now bloody well stand up and do your duty! I can't do it, I'm too small. They won't listen to me."
"Shan't," said Hastings, "it's too much." He shoved Povey's hands away and looked up at him. "Just too much! All that on that stinking island… and now this — " He raised his head slightly, peered between the backs of the three marines sat stolidly on the aftermost thwart, as a protective screen from the hands.
Povey followed his gaze. Rough, fearful faces glared back in a mass. The men were growling and moaning. Worse still, some of them were sobbing in despair. Cast loose upon the deep without charts, compass, instruments or any hope of
salvation, they were twenty-three lost souls a tiny wooden shell, surrounded by an endless desert of ocean.
If they were lucky and the weather was foul, they might be swamped and drowned. But given fair weather… it would be a hideous lingering death by thirst: the worst of all ways for a seaman to die. Povey's heart sank.
"Oh, what's the use…" he said.
"What's goin' on!" said one of the hands, reading Povey's expression. He lurched forward, trying to see what the mids were doing, only to be grabbed by a marine and thrown back to his place.
"Fuck you, lobster!" said the seaman, and sneered. "You ain't got no bloody musket now, have you? Don't you touch me, you bloody lubber!"
"Aye!" growled the rest.
"Where's the rum?" said one.
"AYE!" they cried, and surged forward in a body to seek an answer.
The boat rocked horribly as a fierce struggle took place between seamen and marines. There were no weapons among them — they'd been plucked clean of those — but there was gouging and kicking, and heads slammed hard against the planks.
"George! George!" said Povey. "For God's sake stand up!"
The longboat was a big one — thirty-six feet long by a dozen broad at the waist. She was ponderous and heavily timbered, but with twenty-one men fighting viciously on board of her, she was rolling gunwale-under and shipping it green.
"George!" said Povey, shaking the other as hard as he could, but Mr Midshipman Hastings sat staring with his mouth hung open, head lolling from side to side with the sickening motion. "Right then," said Povey, "here's the way of it, George Hastings."
He let go of Hastings and fell back. "If you won't stand up and do your duty, as the senior of us two, then… then… I'll cut you in town, I'll tell my servants to shut my door to you… and I'll never speak to you again!"
"Oh…" said Hastings, and sat up just as a seaman threw himself clear of the fight and landed belly-down between Hastings and Povey, and got both hands lovingly round the rum cask. His feet were firm caught among the bellowing crowd forrard so he couldn't get up, but from the look on his face, he wasn't ever going to let go.