"Foster…" said Dreamer.
"Aye-aye, sir," said Foster instinctively, and touched his hat.
"Why does the fleet not sail?"
"Sprung foremast aboard of Dungeness Rose, Mr Dreamer, sir."
"Yes," said Dreamer. He already knew that. "And what is the cure?"
"Carpenters hammering home new wedges, sir."
"Foster," said Dreamer, "if this fleet does not sail within five days…"
"Sir! Sir!" said Foster. He looked at the tall, dark, tattooed men all around him. He looked at their snake-eyed faces. They were gargoyles and demons to him and he was very afraid. "Mr Dreamer, sir," he said, "I swears on me children's lives, it ain't no more'n to be expected with a shoal of queer-arsed old hulks like these 'uns, and every fucking thing's been done — and is being done — to get the fuckers fit for sea, and I take my bible oath and God blind me if it ain't Gospel truth, sir!"
Dreamer nodded. The emotions of white men were shown on their faces for all the world to see. They could not withhold these signs as true men did. So he waved a hand and sent Foster back to his mates, wiping the sweat from his brow as he went.
"There is no deceit," he said to Dark Hand.
"I agree," said Dark Hand, and the warriors dispersed, contented.
When the warriors were gone, Dark Hand spoke.
"Dreamer, even if Foster speaks truth, he cannot make the wind."
"I know."
"So what if the good wind never comes?"
"It will come."
"If it does not come, we shall die here."
"Trust me. We shall not die here."
"We will spend all our gold, eat all the food, and see the children starve."
Dreamer sighed.
"Dark Hand, listen to me. The Patanq shall not starve aboard these ships, I promise you this. Because Satan is coming, and he brings another death entirely — I have seen it."
Chapter 20
Six men moved like cats. They crept on tiptoe. They did not breathe. They gripped their muskets with sweating hands and judged the distance.
"Nicely, lads!" said Long John, and smiled at the monkey squatting in the branch of a big tree. "Here, my pretty," he said, waving a piece of fruit at the beast, "come and get it." For once, Silver's parrot wasn't perched on his shoulder. She couldn't abide monkeys. She'd have squawked her head off and frightened it. That was why she'd had to be left back at Fort Silver, secured to her perch.
"Think I can hit the sod from here, Cap'n," said one who thought himself a marksman.
"You wait till you're bloody sure, Conky Carter," said Long John. "And all the rest of you draw a bead, and be ready in case the bugger jumps."
At first it had been easy shooting the almost-tame monkeys. But the creatures were clever and learned to run off when a man with a musket got close. Fortunately they weren't quite clever enough and there was a distance from which they could be hit with an ounce-charge of the goose-shot saved from Lion's cargo.
That worked, provided the marksman moved slow and careful.
"Bang!" went Conky Carter's musket.
"Damn!" said Silver, as the little swine leapt at the flash of the lock, getting a split second's warning before the charge whistled past beneath its flying feet.
Bang-bang-bang! The others fired, knocking the monkey clear out of its tree and on to the ground, where it lay wriggling and shrieking with two limbs shattered and much of its tail blown off.
"Gotcher!" they cried in fierce delight. They hated monkeys now. Hated them with a passion, because they were afraid of them: deep, cruel afraid.
"Reload!" cried Silver. "Get it done, lads!" There was a scraping of ramrods, and powder and shot and wadding. Then a volley of shots ended the monkey's life and shut off its cries. There was no going near the little bastards while they were still alive. Trouble was, shooting them spread bits of monkey all over the ground.
"Spades and shovels, now," said Silver, and stood back as they got on with it. Drawing on what he'd read in the old Jesuit's journal, they had worked out a drill. For there was no leaving the monkeys be. They were too inquisitive, and every man was afraid of waking up one morning with one of them on his chest, pawing him with tiny pock-marked hands.
So Silver had teams out shooting them. Each team was accompanied by at least one of the half-dozen men who'd survived smallpox and had the scars on his face to show it. These did the shovelling and scraping of remains, while the rest piled wood on top and lit a fire.
"To the windward, lads!" said Silver as the flames rose. "Let's not breathe the smoke."
They stood and watched the fire.
"Is this what the old Jesuit did, Cap'n?" said Conky Carter. "Burned 'em, like?"
"No," said Silver, "he buried 'em. Didn't shoot 'em, neither. He trapped 'em and drowned 'em. Took him years. But he got 'em all in the end. Drove him barmy though, 'cos they was all the company he had."
"Where'd he bury 'em?" said Carter.
"In the cemetery. Dug a big hole, chucked 'em in, and filled it up bit by bit."
"But burying ain't no good."
"He didn't know that."
"What about our monkeys? Why didn't he do for them?"
"Different tribe," said Silver, depressed by the whole business. "The old Jesuit left 'em alone, for they never had the smallpox. Not until Ben Gunn gave it to 'em!"
That evening Silver was even more depressed. As he approached Fort Silver, back from his monkey-shooting, he could hear angry voices from within the earthworks.
"Shiver me timbers!" he said, and stopped and listened. There were no sentries outside the walls, nor up on the lookout tower.
"Come on!" he said to the six men behind him, and plunged forward as fast as he could go. There was no challenge on the drawbridge across the moat, nor was there any discipline within the walls. Just bellowing and shouting and slurred voices… they'd been at the rum.
"Avast there!" cried Silver, and some two dozen men turned round and gaped at him and all began to speak at once. It was almost comical. The neat tents were knocked askew, faces were flushed, there were smashed bottles and broken noses. Billy Bones was stamping towards Silver, yelling louder than all the rest, and Israel Hands was slumped on the ground, propped up against a cask with blood streaming from a head wound.
Silver as nearly gave up in that moment as ever in all his life. All his careful work was wasted. If the men wouldn't pull together, they might as well blow out their brains right now, to save Flint the trouble.
"Billy Bones!" he said. "What's happening here?"
"It's all that bugger!" said Billy Bones, pointing at Israel Hands, and he thrust his red, sweating, boozy face at Silver. "I'll not take no more 'oss-shite, not from him, nor you, John Silver! I'm as good a man as any here, and what I say is this: why don't we give the captain a chance when he comes back? Cap'n Flint, that is! Why don't — "
But that was as far as he got, because Silver's temper snapped. He leapt forward, one-legged, caught the back of Billy's head with his left hand, and drove a big right fist — smack, smack, smack — three times into the middle of Billy Bone's face. Bones was half drunk, taken by surprise, and in any case he was afraid of Silver and already cringing. Down he went, with split lips and swollen eyes, leaving Silver wobbling and swaying but master of the field.
"Here, Cap'n!" said Conky Carter, snatching up Silver's discarded crutch.
"Now then," said Silver, getting the timber under his arm and taking a firm grasp of a pistol butt, "next man's a dead 'un what speaks Flint's name to me!" All the shouting died then, and there was silence except for the eternal, dismal surf.