"Don't you?"
Cowdray went quiet. "You saw Sweet Anne under fire as we came in."
"We both did!"
"And you heard the cannonading, yesterday?"
"Yes."
"That was a Patanq attack being thrown back with dreadful losses."
"Yes. I heard. Some of the men told me."
"I think John Silver has made most careful preparations."
"What preparations?"
"Forts, entrenchments, infernal engines… All very clever. I'm no soldier, but he seems to have achieved much success… and you might be safer with him than Flint."
"Hmm… So how would you get me ashore?"
"Ah! These matters are connected."
She shrugged her shoulders as if bored. "Which matters?"
"For God's sake, woman, show some interest and don't play cat and mouse!"
"I'm sorry." She reached out and touched his arm. She smiled and Cowdray tingled with delight. He was more smitten than he'd thought. It was such a joy when she smiled at him. "Ah-hem," he said, hoping he wasn't making a fool of himself.
"Well," he said, "I've set up a hospital ashore, where the wounded are being treated. There are about a dozen of them, all Patanq savages, and they need the attentions of a nurse…" "A what?"
"A nurse."
"Me?"
"Well, yes. You are a woman, the only one here."
"That don't mean I'm dancing round with piss pots, wiping men's butt ends!"
"Dammit, Selena, all the world thinks that's women's work; even Flint and his crew! They'd accept it as natural, and it'd get you ashore!" He paused, and in his confusion, he took refuge in Latin: "Now est ad astra mollis e terris via!"
"What's that?"
"Seneca: There's no easy way from Earth to the stars."
Selena frowned. It was time to decide exactly what she did want.
The day after the attack on the fort, Flint set up camp close to where Silver's battery had been. Tents were raised, stores unloaded, and all hands sent ashore who hadn't duties aboard. And when the noonday heat passed, he took a stroll along the beach accompanied by Danny Bentham.
"This is the very spot where my career began," said Flint. "Those few timbers there…"
"Would be HMS Elizabeth," finished Bentham.
"Why, Danny," said Flint, "how well you know my story!"
"How well indeed, Joe!"
Flint smiled. Bentham smiled, and all the other leading men of the expedition clustered round, and they smiled, too, as they gazed upon the wreck of a fine ship. Like Bentham, these men — Allardyce, O'Byrne and the rest — were keeping constant company with Flint, for Flint knew where the gold was buried, and nobody else did. More than that, they'd heard about Flint… how he'd raised mutiny, killed his own captain, murdered most of his shipmates, and became a gentleman of fortune… before meeting John Silver and falling out as badly with him as he had with King George.
For Flint was the rollicking boy, and no mistake! You jumped when he said jump. You doffed your hat. You addressed him as "sir". You didn't dare cross him. And you didn't turn your back on him, not for a second — not ever! You wanted Flint in front of you, where at least you could keep an eye on him, for all the good it'd do you.
On the way back to the camp, Flint and his followers met Dreamer, Cut Feather and five others of the Patanq, who'd come from their own camp, which by mutual consent had been set up apart from Flint's.
The Patanq had their nose-rings and bracelets again, and their formal robes and moccasins.
"Joe," said Bentham, "they've come to talk. We'll have to sit down with them."
Flint sighed. He didn't like the long-windedness of Patanq negotiation. It was tedious… except that this time it wasn't. It was fascinating.
Dreamer led them to the treeline where the beach merged into forest, and they sat in a circle, the Patanq spreading elaborately decorated deerskin bags on the ground in front of them. After formal greetings on either side, Dreamer nodded and the Patanq unfastened the bags and took out long, slender guns with little brass trapdoors in the butts, and double triggers, and barrels that weren't round but octagonal in cross-section.
"These are not common guns," said Dreamer. "These are long-rifles. They are new. There are few in all the land and only seven in the Patanq nation." The white men nodded. Dreamer continued. "Sun-Face," he said, "after the battle, I promised you a better way to take the forts."
"Yes," said Flint.
"This is the way," said Dreamer. "With these rifles."
"But rifles are for hunting," said Flint, "not for war."
"These rifles are for both," said Dreamer.
"But rifles can't stand against muskets," said Flint, frowning. "They shoot too slowly. I've seen it. You load an oversized ball, knock it down the barrel with a mallet and ramrod for the ball to grip the rifling. And a man with a musket fires five times while you do that!" He shook his head. "No — rifles are fine for hunting, where the beast don't shoot back, but they won't serve for fighting."
"Aye!" said most of the other white men, for it was the universal opinion of fighting men.
Dreamer, however, was unmoved.
"Do not the German white men use rifles in war?" said Dreamer. "In their homelands across the sea?"
"Perhaps," said Flint, uneasy at Dreamer's knowledge of the world. "But I don't know. I'm a sailor, not a soldier!"
"Wait a bit," said O'Byrne. "I was a soldier once, and I know Germans. I served under Frederick of Prussia. And he had men called Jaegers, the which are huntsmen that are used as scouts. And they shoot rifles." He pointed at Dreamer's rifle: "But not like that. Theirs are short, with thick barrels."
"You speak truth," said Dreamer. "For many years I have spoken with the Germans of Pennsylvania. I know their ways. They are the best gun-makers in all the land, and their rifles are just as you have said… But I have caused new rifles to be made: differently and to my own wishes. See-"
And he explained, using his own rifle.
A musket took a ball of fourteen to the pound, and a Jaeger rifle some twenty. But Dreamer's rifle took balls of fifty to the pound, and the powder charge was proportionately smaller, enabling far more rounds to be carried — vital to a far- travelling woodsman. And the barrel was long for accuracy's sake, and to burn all the powder and waste none, and drive the ball fierce and hard. And there was no need for a mallet in loading; a measured charge went down the barrel from a powder horn, then a thin, greased leather patch — from the trapdoor in the butt — on the muzzle, and a ball on the patch, and both driven home with a steady pressure of the ramrod.
Priming was the same as for any gun, but then there were two triggers.
"How do they work?" said Flint.
"I will show you," said Dreamer. "Stand!"
Flint stood up, brushing the sand from his clothes. Dreamer stood. He loaded smooth and easy. Then he primed the rifle and set it to half-cock. He passed it to Flint.
"Sun-Face," said Dreamer, "do not touch the triggers!"
"At your command, sir!" said Flint, and bowed.
"Raise the gun," said Dreamer.
Flint levelled at the horizon. He frowned.
"The barrel's heavy," he said. "It's clumsy! It don't come up to the shoulder like a musket."
"No matter," said Dreamer. "Now, there are two triggers — yes?"
"Aye-aye, sir!"
"One trigger is broad and curved. One is thin and straight. Yes?"
"Aye-aye, sir!"
"Good. Now cock the rifle fully."
"Aye-aye, sir!"
"Now… carefully… pull the curved trigger."
Flint pulled. Click went the lock. But the rifle didn't fire. Not yet.