"Jolly companions," said Flint, "One and all…" And the incredible thought finally occurred to him that Silver actually meant what he said.
"Companions and maybe more," continued Silver. He tilted his head on one side and studied Flint. "You have the look of a gentleman about you, sir," he said, "so I take it that you are used to command… and knows the ways of plotting and setting of a course with a chart and a quadrant and 'rithmatic?"
Again Flint became nervous. Again he had no idea where this line of inquiry might be leading. But Silver continued.
"The thing is, sir," he said, "Cap'n Mason was cut in half by a shot, and both the mates killed one way or another. There's still a lad aboard what's learning the ways of it, but there ain't none left as can reliably find his way across an open ocean. We're seamen one and all, who can steer a course. But who's to set one?"
"Ahhhh," said Flint, and stood six feet taller in the selfsame boots. "My dear fellow," he declared, "I dare swear our interests run in harness. Both myself and my first mate, Mr Bones, are proficient in the art of celestial navigation."
The relief in Silver's face was a delight for Flint to see, and he almost gave up thinking that an elaborate trap was still hiding somewhere.
Within a few hours, Betsy was emptied of her treasure chests and the belongings of Flint's men, and everything transferred to Walrus. Then the men themselves came across and the dead were honoured. That was the first thing that showed Flint that Silver and his men truly were different, for Silver wouldn't have the dead casually heaved over the side as had been the practice aboard Betsy. Instead, everything was done as if under King George's own flag. Silver insisted the sail- maker sewed up each man in his own hammock, with a round- shot at his feet. Then all hands were mustered and made to doff their hats, while two men balanced a plank across the rail and, one after another, the dead were placed on the plank — under Walrus's black flag — and the canvas-shrouded corpses were slid into the deep, with the boatswain and his mates sounding long calls on their pipes.
Flint looked about him. Walrus was a ship of another kind in other ways too. She was scrubbed and polished, and there was an easy comradeship among her crew. Later he learned there was no spitting on the decks nor naked lights below. That's how Mason had liked her, and England before. Under Silver's command, Walrus was got under way, and at Silver's request, Flint set a course for Savannah, Georgia, where fresh powder and shot was to be had, since Walrus had fired away most of her stores just as El Tigre had done, and Betsy's stores were ruined by the leaks she'd sprung down below.
Once the immediate pressure of work was eased, there followed a great haggling and chattering as Flint's men found themselves berths among Silver's crew and formed themselves into messes. Flint found that he was fascinated with John Silver, or Long John, as he was known. He watched the way Silver went about the ship, nimble and active: skipping down ladders and up into the shrouds with a speed and ease that made light of his bulk. Silver knew all his men and had a joke or a word for each of them. He knew his letters well enough to read and write, and he knew numbers too, and was highly adept at calculating the value to be got out of a prize. But beyond that he was pure lower-deck, with the manners, speech and tar-streaked palms to go with it.
But what impressed Flint most was the respect he was given by every man aboard. They knuckled their brows and leapt to obey, and raced one another to be first to complete the tasks he set them. And all this was done without a blow or a curse, despite the fact that one look at him proclaimed him to be a deadly dangerous man in a fight.
Over the next days and weeks, Flint observed all this and there grew within his damaged soul a positive liking for Silver, which sprang like a bright green shoot out of a dung-hill. If Flint had been an introspective man — which he was not — he would have remarked to himself — which he did not — that everything he liked in Silver was the opposite to everything that was wrong in himself.
Flint never put such thoughts into words. He never perceived them and knew them. But just the same, there was some dim awareness of this underlying truth. And neither was this the limit of Flint's education. A few days after the two crews had mixed, and with gentle weather and all secure and shipshape, Sliver mustered the hands — Betsy's men to the fore — and proclaimed that all must now be made regular and articles signed. Flint had not the least idea what this meant. But some of his men did.
"I'll put my mark!" said Israel Hands.
"I'll want to cast an eye, first!" said Billy Bones seriously.
"Cast an eye?" said Flint, struggling with the incredible fact that Billy Bones had finally managed to do something unexpected.
"Aye," said Billy Bones. "Articles, Cap'n. 'Tis the way of things among the brethren of the coast."
"The what?" said Flint.
"The brethren of the coast, Cap'n," said Billy Bones, as if to an ill-taught child. Billy Bones had been talking to the half- trained lad who was the nearest equivalent to himself aboard Walrus. He'd spoken to others too, and he'd absorbed some of their customs and lore.
"You poltroon!" said Flint in a whisper. "Brethren of the coast? That was in your grandfather's time, up north, off the…"
"These here is the ship's articles," cried Silver, producing a book very much like the one he'd signed years ago on England's quarterdeck. "I'll ask Mr Flint to read it for all those who haven't the schooling." And he solemnly handed the book to Flint. "In a bold voice now, sir! So's all can hear."
Flint opened the book and looked at the handwritten articles. He looked too, at the men crowded all around him: a sea of eyes in sun-browned, expectant faces, crammed into the narrow space of Walrus's deck. The ship was running sweetly, the wind played in the sheets, lines and shrouds, and the sails rustled up above. Flint shrugged to himself, lifted up his voice and read for all to hear. He stumbled only once, at the place where the name of the captain — Mason — had been struck out in red ink.
"What name shall go here?" asked Flint.
"All in good time," said Silver. "Be so good as to hold your course till you come safe into harbour."
So Flint read on to the end. When he'd finished, he and all those who'd come aboard with him were invited to sign, including the wounded who'd been brought up on deck for the purpose. So they signed: Flint, Billy Bones and a few others inscribing their names, and the rest with crosses or other marks, such that by the end of the ceremony, and much to his surprise, Flint's opinion had been changed. He started out in profound contempt for this nonsense, but ended convinced of its value. Seamen's minds were childlike, and Flint could see the power that the book, and the words, had worked on them. They'd be a better crew for it, and it proved exactly the buttressing of legality — or an approximation of it — that was lost when a crew breaks apart from the King's law as his own crew had done. But there was more to come.
"Now that we're jolly companions all," said Silver, addressing the whole ship, "we must elect a captain according to tradition. So will any brother step up and give a name?"
"Long John!" cried a dozen voices. "Cap'n Silver!"
"No, lads!" cried Silver. "It can't be. The captain must be a gentleman of the quarterdeck that can guide the ship over the ocean." Here he looked steadily at Flint, and Flint was as utterly dumbfounded as ever he'd been in all his life.
Is the fool handing over command to me? he thought. Impossible! But Long John continued.