Then the schooner's topmen spilled wind from her sails. She slowed.
"Uh?" thought Heffer.
She slowed, at the precise moment necessary to line her up square alongside of Leaper, before Heffer could order grapnels away, at a range of twenty feet… and then she gave her entire broadside in a thundering cascade of flame and smoke, with guns aimed high to send a scything blast of chain shot into Leaper' s rigging: ripping spars, chopping lines and leaving the mainsail shredded and flapping like rags on a line.
In the same instant, shrieks and war-whoops rose from Walrus's decks as over a hundred and fifty half-naked savages leapt up from where they'd been hiding, and gave such a volley of musketry as put the maindeck guns to shame, dropping men dead, ruined and wounded all over Leaper's decks, and her helm unmanned, and her sail trimmers fallen, and herself falling off the wind, and left trailing and tattered in the wake of the speeding schooner.
Lieutenant Heffer had made a serious error. Something a more experienced man wouldn't have done. He should have waited until his full force of three ships could act together. As it was, his ship was thrashed, while the enemy, unharmed, was proceeding northward at great speed.
Heffer however was past caring, having been hit by a three- foot length of chain that flew somewhat low. As Leaper drifted in disarray, he lay like a fish on a slab: stone dead and gutted, with his entrails around him.
Israel Hands's gun-captains fired as the sloop came under their guns. They all knew their master gunner. They knew his ways and they knew not to waste shot — even those who, until half an hour ago, had thought themselves Flint's men. But Israel Hands couldn't help bellowing out the words of command:
"Let 'em come, boys! Wait your target! Fire as the guns bear!"
Walrus shuddered as the guns bounded back, jerked to a stop by their tackles, and Silver, standing by the helmsman, jabbed the end of his crutch against a brown figure laid flat on the deck.
"Now!" he said, and Cut-Feather jumped up, screamed a war-cry, and all around Patanq warriors came pouring out of the hatchways, and out from behind every scrap of cover where they could hide. Soon Patanq were blazing away with their muskets into the sloop that had been decoyed into trying to board, and was now falling astern in ruins.
The Patanq by this time were crowded into the gundeck, grinning and chattering and pointing at the sloop, and getting in the way of the gun-teams as these experts fell on their pieces with swabs and rammers and wads to re-load.
"Get 'em clear!" cried Silver from the quarter deck. "Cut- Feather — if you're a bloody officer, then act like one! Clear your men from the guns! Get them into the fo'c'sle and the rigging with their muskets!"'
Considering he'd never been aboard a ship in action, Cut- Feather learned most wonderfully fast. In a matter of moments he'd got his men where Silver wanted, leaving the gun crews to re-load and run out.
Meanwhile Silver found Van Oosterhout at his elbow, full of self-importance and tugging at his sleeve.
"What d'you want, damn you?" said Silver, who had two more ships to fight and wanted to be left alone to do it. They were trying to cut across his bow even this precious second, and would do it, too, if he didn't look sharp.
"You must take Flint's Passage!" said Van Oosterhout.
"What's that?"
"We go to the Patanq fleet, yes?"
"Yes. That's what he wants." Silver looked round for Dreamer, and saw him slumped with his back to the taffrail and his head in his hands. "Huh! What's wrong with him? Is he hit?"
"No," said Selena, "he's ill. He's ill all the time."
"What are you doing on deck? I told you to go below!"
"John," said Selena, "listen to him! To Van Oosterhout!"
"Why?"
"He's special. He's a better seaman than Flint."
"He's what?"
"He does a thing Flint can't do."
"What thing?"
But her answer was lost, for at that moment ship's guns roared, and shot screamed. Lieutenant Comstock of Jumper had calculated, correctly, that he couldn't get across Walrus's bows — she was just too fast. So he brought his ship around and gave his broadside, slow and steady, five guns, carefully aimed, in the hope of doing some damage that would slow her down.
ZOOOOOM! VOOOOOM! said the two closest misses, which were close enough to make Walrus's people duck, and the Patanq cry out in fright. But Jumper scored no hits.
"Hold your course!" cried Silver to the helmsman. "Steady as she goes!"
"Aye-aye, sir!"
"What thing?" cried Silver to Selena. Even in the heat of action he was intrigued, for Flint was a masterly seaman, and Long John knew of none better. "What can he do that Flint can't?"
"I find longitude. I find it at sea!" said Van Oosterhout.
"Bollocks!" said Silver. "Can't be done… can it?"
"Yes!" said Selena.
"Yes!" said Van Oosterhout.
"Well, stap my liver!"
"Cap'n!" said Israel Hands. "Belay this jawing — that bugger's got the wind of us!" He pointed at the third sloop, the one best placed to intercept Walrus.
"I know," said Silver, "and I'll do my best, Mr Gunner, if you do yours. Now then, madam — " he looked at Selena "- get below and out of the reach of shot. And you, Mijnbeer: get a pair of barkers and stand by to fight with all the rest. But first, tell me this: is our present course good enough for Flint's Passage?"
"Yes, Captain. But you will need my guidance to pass through. Without that, the ship will be lost."
"Well and good. Come to me later, then. For now I must hold this course and not delay, or we'll have the two of them to fight all at once."
So Silver pushed Walrus as hard as she'd go, trimming her sails to utmost advantage, even heaving her two foremost guns over the side and shifting stores below, so she'd sit more by the stern in the water, and which he felt would give her more speed… which didn't quite work.
Bounder was the furthest out to sea. She was best placed to cut across Walrus's bow — and cut across she did.
But she wasted her chance. With Long John steering as best he could to avoid her, she still managed to run slantwise across Walrus's bow, firing off her guns as she went. It would have been a classic piece of seamanship — had she not been so eager. She should have hung back a little, and waited until she was all but snapping Walrus's bowsprit… Instead, most of her shot went nowhere, just two thundering hits on Walrus's bow, with heavy crashes but negligible damage.
And then Bounder was left behind, Walrus's guns firing long-range in an attempt to do some damage in return, while the sloop tacked frantically in an effort to get back into the fight.
As Walrus surged onward, heeled to the wind, foam under her bows and all aboard cheering — except the Patanq, who were whooping and dancing like madmen — Silver looked back at the sloop.
We done it! thought Silver. He could scarcely believe it, but it was true. They weren't maroons no more. They weren't meat for the savages to roast. They weren't pirates to be turned off and hanged. There was clear water ahead, and the navy astern, and Van Oosterhout the only one what knew the way through the archipelago, and all those as tried to follow liable to run on to the rocks! And Selena was beside him and throwing her arms around him, who'd not gone below, not for a second, and Long John Silver had a good ship, jolly companions and the woman he loved and all the world was his. He'd even got a quadrant-monger to replace Billy Bones!