Silver’s Revenge: Return to Treasure Island
Of Silver we have heard no more. That formidable seafaring man with one leg has at last gone clean out of my life…
Jim Hawkins
Being the further memories of the late Captain James ‘Jim’ Hawkins, as written by himself in his own hand and transcribed after his death, with editing for the sake of decency and correctness, by his nephew
Mr David Balfour, esq, who solemnly adds THIS WARNING:
ANY SOUL who discerns in the pages that follow puzzles, riddles or codes which may lead to Captain Hawkins’ lost silver statuette must bear responsibility for the dangers any attempt to find said bauble may inflict.
Chapter One: Ruin
It is with a heavy heart that I once more take up my pen to relate events which some may find distasteful, and others incredible. And yet I, and the others who survived them, will swear to the truthfulness of this account. If you, dear reader, feel yourself likely to be horrified and sickened by the tale I am about to tell, with its bloodshed and fearsomeness, its vicious cut-throat characters and violent emotions, lay this book aside now, and seek solace in literature more delicate and genteel. I am unwilling, indeed unable to varnish reality.
My name is Jim Hawkins, and I am no longer young, or innocent enough to be called ‘lad’. There is one man who will call me that, however, until one of us dies. I remain alive, if somewhat scarred, these days, and worn beyond my years. As for the fate of the man known variously as the Sea-Cook, Barbecue and various other names too foul to mention, I am uncertain. A deep suspicion rests within me that despite his advancing years, the eternal deserts of Long John Silver may be delayed for a long time. Some have voiced the opinion that he is not wholly, or even partly human. The demonic certainly lies within him. But of late I have begun to wonder if the demonic may lie in me, too. Such are the perils of encountering evil. May God have mercy on us all.
You may be familiar with the tale that brought me to a position of some wealth, if not, given my age and standing in society, authority. The son of an innkeeper does not rise to the heights of society by acquiring money, and certainly not the kind of tainted lucre that was my share of the legendary Captain Flint’s pirate trove. When we returned to Bristol from Treasure Island and divided the gold and coin we had obtained there, Squire Trelawney and Doctor Livesey made sure that the debts accrued by my poor late father during his tenure of the inn then called The Admiral Benbow were paid off. I was able to set my mother up comfortably in a revived and extended establishment, with reliable servants, new stabling and with a sign painted by the best commercial artists in the south west. I insisted, too, that we change the name of the inn, in remembrance of the 17 crewmen who had died in our quest for treasure; Seventeen men, some of them admittedly traitorous, who had set sail from Bristol aboard our well-founded and in the end, trustworthy schooner.
And so The Admiral Benbow became The Seventeen, which some may think a solemn name, but I felt was a just reminder of what, after all, had begun when that old buccaneer Billy Bones had turned up with his sea-chest and his map. I thought I was being wise and perhaps rather sentimental, if a tad bloodthirsty. I admit that I felt the association with past piratical events could provide an increase in business.And so it was that i commissioned the West Country’s best sign-painter to etch the figure ’17′ with that exact number of crossed cutlasses around it. It was a warning, too of the perils of treasure-hunting. But just as altering the name of a ship is the worst kind of luck, it may be that the same applies to licensed premises. Certainly, no good came of it, as you will see.
Owing as I did my life and much else to the good Squire and the doctor, I was happy to take their advice on the future direction of my life and indeed the disposal of my excess funds. They, and I felt that my upbringing in the licensed trade was a firm foundation for the future, and so the purchase of a sailor’s inn In Bristol was arranged, along with some solid help in the field of management.
‘A home and a business,’ said the good Dr Livesey. ‘And with the Admiral….forgive me, The Seventeen, a veritable portfolio! The remainder of my share in the treasure hoard was invested in the newly-founded Bristol and Edinburgh Commercial Bank, formed by the Doctor and Squire, as well as various Scotch associates, and heavily dependent on the gold we had brought back from our adventures. I received a small annuity and the right to access my personal funds when I reached the age of 25. It was six months short of that date when the bank failed, largely due to its fulsome commitment to a colonisation scheme in South America. A new country, no less, had been annexed by Great Britain and was alleged to be rich in both mineral resources and a population willing to exploit them, under of course, direction from British managers. The directors of the Bristol and Edinburgh Commercial Bank, enthused, it must be said, by the always excitable Squire Trelawney, invested too heavily. When the mines proved too easily flooded, and the population became dissipated through too-frequent slaving raids, the bank crashed. One particular Scotchman absconded with as much gold as he could fit in a Dutch lugger, and fled the Forth for Holland. Myself, Dr Livesey and Squire Trelawney were left, if not penniless, then embarrassingly lacking in the wherewithal we had become used to .
The news came to me at The Spyglass, the inn once owned by that repository of evil and charm, the man known as Long John Silver, to whom we owed our lives and very nearly our deaths. It had been shuttered and empty on our return from Treasure island, and with no sign of Silver or his Caribbean wife, Lizbet, it had been put up for sale by a local firm of solicitors. It was surprisingly expensive, though freehold, but I had not flinched form spending the money. Men, and to an extent women, must after all eat and drink. Sailors to an even greater degree.
So I learned my trade, catering for the better quality of seagoing man, for the most part, under the authority of the man who truly had guided us safe home to harbour on that trip into the jaws of death and back again. Captain Smollett, grievously wounded in our battle with the pirate band on that foul island, had retired from the sea and agreed to join me in my endeavours. He it was who applied for and was given a license to sell strong drink. And it turned out his authority and ease with seafarers were the ideal qualifications for a waterfront host. I gained much from him. I should have gained, and kept more, had I listened to his deep-rooted suspicions of banks and all the landlubbers who sail in those leaky vessels! For he had ploughed all his gold, he said, into property, notably in the sleepy village of Clifton.
It was Dr Livesey who came in the double doors of The Spyglass that quiet summer noonday, his normally cheery countenance suffused with sadness and, for the first time in my knowledge of him, what seemed like terror. He who had bravely, calmly faced down the mutineers , fought gladly and then, unheeding of his own safety, attended to the wounds of those who had sought to kill him!
‘Ah, Jim,’ he said, slumping onto a bench. ‘A glass of Madeira, I think, something to sweeten the bitter pill I cannot bear to swallow. And You will need a drop too, I fear.’
Captain Smollett was casting his careful eye over the accounts, which he did himself, entrusting all cash receipts to a safe before transfer to the Bank, something he did reluctantly. He heard the good doctor’s words.
‘I’ll join you too, Dr Livesey, as I have a dryness about my throat after battling with these figures.’ And at these word,s so innocent in themselves, Dr Livesey seemed to turn even more into a beaten, wounded man.
‘Battling with figures, indeed! Your wisdom should have inspired us all, Captain Smollett. For I fear that your suspicions concerning the Bristol and Edinburgh Commercial Bank have proved sound. Jim’ – and he grasped my arm as I placed a glass of sweet Madeira wine on the counter in front of him – ‘here’s the bald fact if it: all our wealth is gone. The bank has crashed, one of the Scotch directors has fled with what assets he could scramble out of the coffers. Squire Trelawney is distraught, and you are deprived of your deserved apportionment of cash.’
I sat down opposite the Doctor, perhaps buoyed by the confidence and verve of youth, and poured myself a small glass.
‘Ah, doctor,’ I said, ‘fear not for me. My mother is well provided for, I have The Spyglass, which turns a pretty profit, thanks to Captian Smollett’s admirable attentions. Our safe contains three weeks of coin, so we can pay our bills. If worst comes to worst, I can live within my means here on the Bristol quayside.’ Nevertheless, I felt a slight qualm at the thought of my hard-earned money having simply disappeared. ‘Is there no hope of recovery?’
‘No, Jim,’ said the doctor. ‘And it is not for me that I grieve, not my comfort or that of my family. It is the hospital.’
Suddenly I understood the doctor’s depression. I had not thought him a man much consumed by the desire for wealth, but I had forgotten his great project, to build a hospital for the poor and indigent of the seaport and the wider oceanside villages of the west. He had chosen a site and contracted builders. Work was due to start within the month.
‘How is the old squire taking it?’ Captain Smollett, solemn and to the point as ever, seemed curious rather than moved.
‘He is looking to sell some of his lands and property,’ said the doctor. ‘He should have enough then, if invested wisely’ – and here he looked with what seemed like a kind of yearning at Captain Smollett – ‘ to pass him tolerably into old age and beyond.’
‘Aye, well,’ said Smollett. ‘Property is the soundest place for gold, in my opinion, bricks and mortar can’t be easily run off with, not even by a Scotchman.’
‘It is well said.’ Dr Livesey sighed. That fine man was by no means greedy or concerned for his own welfare, I was certain. But the fate of many hundreds, perhaps thousands over the years to come, of the hungry and ill, weighed heavily upon him. I could see he was thinking about those who would fall ill or die, those who could have been cured, their hopes of healing now lost to the greed and stupidity of bankers, and the uncertain whims of the market.
‘Well said, perhaps. But there is more to money than gold,’ said Smollett. ‘And I have noted that there is, in the current climate, a great lacking of silver.’
The word fell like a coin into a sudden deep, dark well of silence.
‘Silver,’ I said. ‘Do you mean that evil charmer Long John, or…’
‘I mean silver,’ said Smollett. ‘The metal. And a great deal of it. A fortune, several fortunes, and left behind on that accursed, fever-swamped island we all remember so well.’
And into my head came the words I had memorised so long ago, and which still haunted my nightmares:
‘The bar silver is in the north cache; you can find it by the trend of the east hummock, ten fathoms south of the black crag with the face on it.’ And the strange words, badly faded on the rear of the ragged chart: ‘Forget not the silvered tears of Flint’. Silver. the word was everywhere.
But we had never even looked for it, satisfied as we had been by the overwhelming wealth bestowed by Captain Flint’s gold. What need did we have of plain, bar silver? it was the merest ballast? Truth to tell, by the time our small band had carried the treasure from Ben Gunn’s cave and loaded it aboard the good schooner Hispaniola, we were tired, and not a little fearful of the three pirates left roaming the island. We were desperate to be gone.
‘Silver attracts Silver,’ said Dr Livesey, heavily. ‘I fear that rogue of rogues, Long John, will have pursued what was left of his old captain’s cache. Or the three gentleman of the sea we left on that poisonous pustule of land will have found it.’
‘And murdered each other for it,’ I said. ‘Besides, they have not the wit nor the directions. Silver had the map, true enough, but it was returned when he found himself deserted by his villainous comrades. Yet you are right, doctor. The keen intelligence of that educated, virulent soul would have sucked up those words and kept them safe. It was the kind of thing he would do. But…
‘Silver is dead,’ said Smollett. ‘I know this to be true from a naval commander who was supping in this establishment only yesterday. I have not had a chance to share the information with you, Jim, as I was unsure how you would take it.’ And indeed, I felt a sudden great lifting of depression or fear, as well as a commensurate sadness and even grief. Silver had been a man who made a huge impression, for both bad and good.
‘How….how did he die?’
‘Taken by Barbary Pirates off the coast of Africa. You would have heard the tales: that he had returned to his evil ways, doubtless consumed by greed, or perhaps even seeking a return to Treasure Island to avail himself of that silver we’ve been discussing. But the temptation of innocent merchant ships proved too much for his depraved soul. And so he ran up the black flag once more.’
You could not work an inn such as the one under the sign of the Spyglass, hard by the seething piers of Bristol’s docklands, without hearing such tales. I had been fascinated, fearful, wondering if one day, that one-legged pirate would once again come smiling through my doorway, his peg clattering on the floor like a drumbeat, and that disgusting parrot of his, Captain Flint, a century old or more, they said, howling out his vile cackle: ‘Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight.’
‘Taken by Corsairs does not necessarily mean death,’ said Dr Livesey. ‘Their purpose is to enslave those they do not kill in the seizure.’ But Captain Smollett was shaking his head.
‘No. If Long John did not fall with his cutlass in hand, as would be expected of such a brave renegade, then his age and disability would count against him. For the Corsairs are nothing if not practical. They seek health, usefulness, purpose and youth. A one-legged old man would have been cut down without hesitation, and used, pegleg aside, of course, as fish bait. My naval commander acquaintance was bearing down on the altercation between Silver’s barquentine - I believe she was called The Revenger - and the Barbary galley, when the wind fell to a dead stop, and he was becalmed. He and his crew could only watch as The Revenger was stripped, set afire and what was left of its crew put to the sword or rendered in chains. Then the galley slaves pulled at their oars, and the absence of breeze became nothing but advantage for those followers of Allah.’
I felt stunned. Long John was dead. The cleverest and most twisted of the pirates, perhaps, had departed for a kingdom where his evil deeds would be measured up to the most just of punishments. Yet I could feel nothing but a sorrow I was also ashamed of.
‘Silver’s gone, and the silver’s still on that accursed island’ said Captain Smollett, as jaunty as i could ever remember him. ‘It seems, given the privations suffered by my partners in that former endeavour, a shame to leave it there. According to that erstwhile castaway Benn Gunn, now a poor and allegedly honest church warden in one of your Squire’s estate livings, if I’m not mistaken, there was a frigate’s ballast in silver still be unearthed.’ He turned to the doctor. ‘Allowing for exaggeration, I should say that there might be a hospital’s worth.’
The expression on the doctor’s face was of incredulity first, and then dawning hope.
‘But Captain, that’s…I mean….’ Then his visage clouded again.’But what would we do for a ship?’
‘Oh’ said Captain Smollett. ‘I believe, as you know in property as a sound home for investment. But I am not entirely without a sense of romance and adventure. Or call it nostalgia if you will. I have an interest in a trading schooner, a well-fitted ship, maintained at my own demands and to me standards, and which you may be familiar with, gentlemen.’ And the captain, once a fearsome curmudgeon of the high seas, smiled. ‘She’s called the Hispaniola, presently lying at Avonmouth after a run from Ireland with a cargo of linen. You may be familiar with her.’
Chapter Two: Captain Smollett’s secret
The surprise Dr Livesey and I felt at Captain Smollett’s revelations soon vanished amid excitement. Truly, I was consumed with it. Dr Livesey was hesitant at first, but the hope of seeing his great healing scheme brought to fruition soon overcame his natural diffidence.
‘By God, Smollett,’ he said, toasting the good captain in the finest Madeira the Spy Glass could muster. ‘Generations may have cause to be grateful to you and your careful nature.’
‘Careful now, doctor,’ said the captain. ‘Don’t you get swept away ona false tide. There’s a lot to do before we let the ebb take us out to sea. As for you Jim, I once said you were altogether too much the favourite to come to sea with me again.’
I must have gaped, crestfallen at this terrible reminder. But then the captain laughed and slapped me on the shoulder with his great, rope-hardened hand. ‘Times have moved on apace, though, have they not? You installed me as your captain here at the old Spyglass, and, despite your having every reason to lord it over me, a mere employee, you were the soul of apprenticeship. You’ve grown from a boy to very nearly a man, Jim, and it’s time you got the chance to prove it. It’s time, too, that I proved I’m more than a silent sailing partner, and a skipper of more than this fine tap-room.’
Dr Livesey rose then, a look of determination on his face.
‘I must to the squire. This news will lift his spirits. He is far gone in despair and, I dare say, some degree of compensation in the bottle and the breadboard. He may not be able to join us in our quest. Unless, that is, we find a special gangplank to support his weight.Or perhaps a winch.’ And with this he was gone, leaving both Captain Smollett and myself somewhat shocked at his levity. It seemed the squire had run to fat. or even more so, for he was never a sylph-like creature.
*** *** ***
The next day, a message reached us from the Squire’s estate, sent by way of a fast rider whose panting stallion indicated the sense of urgency which clearly possessed the doctor and the Squire, and now infected us: They would meet us two days hence for supper at Avonmouth, in a chop house called The Spanish Main, to view the Hispaniola and begin making preparations for departure. If, it was added in some apology, this met with the approval of our sponsor and leader, Captain Smollett. The letter reeked of urgency, indeed desperation, and I felt the first qualms of concern conditioning my excitement. I was a little older and wiser than in my former treasure hunting days.
Avonmouth, at the mouth, it may not surprise you to learn, of the river Avon, where it meets the great wash of the Severn, is only three hours ride from Bristol and, so we were able, with a clear conscience, to deprive our customers at The Spyglass of their evening grog and pasties, closing the inn at five of the clock. We had good, solid, slow horses, but we made good time and the summer afternoon had barely began to dip towards evening when we encountered the straggle of dockworkings that was beginning to spread along the joining of river and estuary. Captain Smollett had already sent word the to skipper of the Hispaniola, a man called Kemnett, that we would be arriving, and had invited him to join us.
‘The Spanish Main is hardly a proper place for squires and doctors, let alone owners of fine establishments like the Spy Glass and The Admiral..the Seventeen’ grumbled Captain Smollett. ‘Still it is all Avonmouth has to offer at this youthful point in its history. The chop-house is upstairs, quite separate from the tap-room; We shall have privacy. We do not need to mix with the riff-raff.’
We stabled our horses for watering and some oats across the unmade street from the Spanish Main itself, and wandered the quays where, to my joy, we found the Hispaniola, more spick and span than ever she appeared when I was aboard her. Indeed, she looked businesslike in a way only a well-run merchant ship can, and her hold had been extended. ‘She’s capacity enough to turn enough of a profit for all concerned,’ said Captain Smollett. ‘And Kemnett looks after her and her crew, who are all good men. Not a mutineer among them. Or not’ – and his face grew thoughtful – ‘not until the smell of gold or silver twitches their nostrils.’
Twilight was beginning to gather, with the coast of Wales looming across the Severn, as we made our way back to The Spanish Main. It was a new building of cheap brick, a street back from the quays, and indeed, it had a separate stairway leading to the chop-house where we were to meet the others. A large sign over the downstairs drinking parlour read ‘The Spanish Main – finest ales, spirits and porter’, with a lurid picture of a galleon being attacked by a smaller ship flying the Jolly Roger. That was sinister enough to my sensitive soul, but it was the small wooden sign above the chop house door, up the flight of wooden steps, that sent a tremble down the length of my spine. ‘Pieces of Ate’ it read.
‘Captain,’ I murmured. ‘I fear we may be among pirates.And buccaneers who either cannot spell, or have a very bad notion of punning.’ But Smollett laughed.
‘Ah, ’tis nothing but the romance attached by ignorant to the gentlemen of the sea, Jim! We know the true vileness of their habits, their ruthlessness and violence. Here, they are seen almost as heroes, like old Henry Morgan, that renegade who was knighted by King Charles, and fought for Britannia as well as himself and his cronies! Admiral Morgan, indeed! But we know, Jim, don’t we? There’s more to them than fine pictures and public house names.’
I said nothing. The number ’17′ echoed in my brain. But just then, the sound of singing came clearly from the inn, slurred and drunken, male singing, but distinct nevertheless. One high, grating voice:
I steered from sound to sound
And then a chorus, ragged, of several others, more or less in time and in tune.
As I sailed, as I sailed
That keening voice again, which seemed oddly familiar to me:
Oh I steered from sound to sound
And the chorus
As I sailed
The solo voice rose to a kind of cry:
I steered from sound to sound, and many ships I found
and then a great, joint shout:
AND ALL OF THEM I BURNED, as I sailed!
I glanced at Captain Smollett, but he was shaking his head in amused resignation.
‘Aye, the supposed song of Captain Kidd. the broadsheet-sellers have been peddling it in Bristol this past week. Have you not heard it before, Jim?’
‘No’ said I, ‘and it seems criminal to me,even if this is not a pirate choir, if ordinary seamen are celebrating these dastardly deeds. Piracy, murder and burning are no laughing matters!’ As we ascended the creaking stairs to the Pieces of Ate, the music followed as mockingly, blasphemously:
My name is William Kidd
God’s Laws I did forbid
And most wickedly I did
As I sailed…
As I pushed open the door to the chop house, the words fell on my ears like a curse.
Chapter three: The Grip of Black Dog
We greeted each other gladly: There was Dr Livesey, looking expectant and full of the humour which had so deserted him when last we met. The Squire, pinker and yes, larger than I was used to seeing him, but fast to his feet and also in a mood, to my relief, of great positivity. A serving girl, quite pretty, but slovenly in attire, brought us porter and bread, with a great roast of beef and oysters to follow. The food was surprisingly good.
‘Well Jim, Captain,’ began the Squire. ‘What a state we’re brought to, eh? What a state! I blame myself, of course. My enthusiasm for the Bristol and Edinburgh I put down to my Scotch ancestry on my mother’s side. Her father came from Wick, which is I believe, a far flung outpost of some poverty, were it not for that oily creature the herring. I should have known there was something fishy about the whole business!’
We laughed dutifully. Though in truth, we were simply humouring him. ”The fact is,’ continued the Squire, ‘that we are all in Captain Smollett’s hands. Those, and his nominee aboard the Hispaniola (and she, captain, I have to tell you, is looking very smart, sir, very smart indeed). What is his name?’
‘Kemnett, sir. Philip Kemnett at your service,’ came a stranger’s voice. It was quiet, well modulated, but carried well, It was a voice used to command.
We had not heard his feet on the stairway, or the door open. He was in shadow at the entrance, but when he emerged, we saw a man of perhaps 35, stocky, wearing a well-tailored sea coat, stout boots and a cutlass scar that looked to have cleaved his face in two, before some well-meaning surgeon had sewn it back together. It was as if the two sides of his head did not quite match. When he smiled, the left side did so first. It was a curious effect. and one he was plainly at ease with. ‘Some call me Cutty Kemnett, or Captain Cutty,’ he said. ‘I prefer my given name.’ But no explanation for the damage to his face was forthcoming. I wondered that he had even survived to be so open about a nickname he evidently disliked. Cutty indeed.
*** *** ***
And so we talked of treasure. The failure of the bank we left unmentioned. Instead, the bald facts were detailed: the bar silver, its location, and the position of the island. The squire still had his original copies of Captain Flint’s map, and he unfolded it from a leather wallet for us all to glance once more at, and Kemnett to examine in profound detail.
‘The getting there,’said the Squire ‘is not a difficulty.’ Never was such a statement to prove so horribly inaccurate. But we all nodded, save Kemnett.
‘Many’s the slip,’ that precise, quiet but strangely commanding voice mused, ‘twixt cup and lip. Who knows what dangers we may encounter?’ And that strange cut and twisted face seemed to turn inwards on itself.The squire’s usual short temper, which had in our former voyage found Captain Smollett’s grim demeanour irritating in the extreme, was piqued.
‘Negativity, sir! Negativity! ‘Twill gain us little in this endeavour! Captain Smollett, do you vouch for this young man? Can we depend on him to carry through with us to the conclusion of the mission?’
Smollett gave a small smile. ‘As much as I can depend on anyone. Mr Kemnett is my late elder sister’s son, and dependable he has proved in his seaborne years in my association. And in his previous occupation. Permit me, Philip’ – Kemnett was looking flushed and embarrassed – ‘he is a former sergeant in His Majesty’s Royal Marines, invalided out due to injuries suffered during an attack on Algiers, an attempt to punish the Corsairs who conduct their evil business of enslavement from that suppurating city. He is equal partner with me in the Hispaniola, and I have trained him to be its skipper,. I will happily serve as mate to him, but I will not supplant his position. You can call him Captain from now on, not me. That is,if he agrees to this undertaking.’
There was a silence, broken only by the dull thump of tankards on tables from downstairs, and the weird whistling shriek of a small button accordion. Then Kemnett spoke.
‘You have the chart and you have the experience, gentlemen. The difficulties seem to centre on the voyage itself, as no-one can tell how easy or difficult it may be, and what we may meet on the way.’ At this he fingered the dreadful scar on his face. ‘We know not what state the men left on the island may be in. And have you considered that they too may have found the silver?’
‘I see it as unlikely,’ said Dr Livesey. ‘They were the scum of the earth, enlisted for rum and riches. if they are not dead by now, they will be mad with fever.’
‘Then for me, the issue will be simple: secrecy.’ Kemnett had his eyes fixed on the Squire when he said this, and all of us remembered what had happened before our first voyage. How the Squire’s dreadful choice of men had brought mutineers and pirates aboard, and especially that conniving charmer Long John Silver. Also, that blustering loose talk in various inns had made the trip the talk of Bristol.
‘I…I…am outraged by your attitude, sir!’ But the swelling floridity of the Squire suddenly collapsed like pricked balloon. He heaved a great sigh, and seemed to collapse onto the great deal table, with its cargo of stained plates and spilled beer. ‘But I know you speak true. I am an old and ruined man. I should not take any further part in this voyage. I will be only a liability.’
It was Captain Smollett of all people, the Squirte’s old enemy, who saved the situation from excruciating embarrassment. He leaned over and put his hand on the Squire’s plump wrist.
‘Squire Trelawney,’ he said. ‘I personally would count it a priviliege to once more have your company on the high seas. We need your good humour and your enthusiasm. Just as we need the quicksilver wit and adventurous spirit of Jim, the boy who has become a man and with whom, I once said, I would never go to sea again. ‘
Dr Livesey siezed the jug of porter and slopped that strong beer into all our glasses. ‘A toast!’ he cried. ‘To success! to the second voyage of the Hispaniola! Our return to Treasure island!’
‘Return!’ we all cried, clinking glasses, Kemnett included. And suddenly we were together, a band of fellow adventurers, ready to go boldly where we had already gone, but facing new mysteries, new perils,. new glories.
I stood up as everyone but Kemnett began to fill their clay pipes. I had always detested the smell of tobacco. smoke, particularly the foul black shag favoured, I now discerned, by Kemnett. As it happened, I had a pressing need to be elsewhere. ‘Please excuse me, gentlemen. The porter and those hours in the saddle weigh heavily on me.’ And I made my way to the doorway to find the privy.
*** *** ***
The serving girl, on my inquiry, blushed and pointed mutely down. I took it from her signing that I would find the usual crude facility at the rear of the premises, to be shared by customers of the appallingly-named Pieces of Ate and the Spanish Main itself. At the foot of the stairs, the sound of the squeezebox, plaintive and wheedling, grew louder. Light and an increase in noise spilled occasionally from the door to the seamen’s bar as its clientele came and went. A tall man, clearly the worse for rum, appeared in the alley which ran between the building and what seemed to be a ship’s chandlery. As he was adjusting his dress, I took it that the privy was in that direction, and started along the dark passageway.
I had finished my ablutions and was halfway back along the alley when the music from the inn changed once more from the instrumental to what I am forced to call the choral. That motley crew began once more to sing, and this time the song was all too familiar to me:
Fifteen Men on a dead man’s chest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Drink and the devil have done for the rest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
That dastardly ditty had stalked my waking days and my nightmares, ever since Billy Bones had first sung it to the paralysed, fearful assembly in the Admiral Benbow. I had heard it aboard the Hispaniola, and on Treaure Island itself. It s evil words were branded into my brain. I was rigid with fear, rooted to the spot. And then, after a round of drunken applause, that same reedy voice from the earlier rendition of Captain Kidd’s shanty began to quaver again:
Blacker than sin, boys, blacker than sin
That there’s the condition, me hearties, we’re in
Blood on our hands, boys, blood on our hands
Proud to be under the sea-cook’s command
And then the whole inn seemed to bellow:
And we’ll slice ‘em, and stab ‘em, ’til the ocean runs red
And we’ll dance on their skulls ’til we’re that they’re dead
As bait for the great whale their bodies we’ll drag
All under the black flag, me boys, the black flag
The music finished, but I did not move. I was in a daze, my mind feverish with speculation. Under the sea-cook’s command? ‘Sea-cook’had been one of John Silver’s many titles among his fellow evil-doers, along with the associated moniker ‘Barbecue’. Was it possible that we had, by accident or design, fallen among some former members of his most recent pirate crew? And just then a hard, cold hand closed around my wrist like a caulking-clamp, and a voice that was quakingly familiar addressed me.
‘Now, who’s this a-lurking in the dark,maybe dancing a lonely hornpipe to hisself, I shouldn’t wonder?’ From the tone and rhythm I could tell it was the singer, the leader of song, the precentor, the choirmaster. And now at last, from his grip on my arm and his spoken words, I knew him.
‘Black Dog,’ I gasped. I felt him recoil in surprise.
‘Black Dog some calls me, and some who does only gets those two words out before falling dumb forever,’ he said. ‘Come into a bit’ o’ light and let me see who knows me by my touch and my dulcet voice.’ He dragged me only a few feet towards the dim light at the entrance to the alley, and revealed himself as a tall, tallow-yellow figure. I noticed that he now had three fingers missing from his left hand, not two as before, and one shoulder was hunched higher than the other. Billy Bones had cut him horribly in a cutlass-brawl at the Admiral Benbow, before the captain had the first of the strokes that killed him.
‘Well, well, shiver me timbers and splice the ribcage of an innocent clergyman,’ said Black Dog. ‘If It isn’t the young laddikin from the Hispaniola, and the Admiral Benbow, all that time ago, the varmint who swindled Long John and me mates out of their rightful gold, Captain Flint’s gold. All growed up and strong, too, but not strong enough to break the grip of Black Dog!’ I tried to jerk my arm away but could not prevail, and cried out in rage as well as pain. From the corner of my eye I glimpsed the door at the top of the staircase opening a crack, as someone prepared to leave the Pieces of Ate.
‘Hah! And my share too, lost! All lost to the already rich and gentrified! I was promised my taste, boy, oh yes, seeing as I couldn’t join the crew of that cursed ship the Hispaniola, what I see coming and going here in trade, a perpetual sneering at me and mine, or what shoud have been mine, she is, every time I sees her.’ He drew – with amazing dexterity for one so disabled in his right hand – a long dagger from his belt and held its point against my throat. I felt the tiniest prick of bleeding and grew very still. ‘What should I do with ‘e, I wonders, boy? Or boy-man, as you’ve become? Me reduced to singing for me beer and potage , singing songs and running errands for them that daren’t show their faces in their homeland again? Scraping by, nigh on a beggarman. Maybe I should slit your scrawny throat until it gapes like the Jolly Roger’s grin, boy? Eh? Eh?’ And he lifted his knife from my thraot as if preparing to strike a death blow.
But there was a sudden, flickering blur of metallic light, and Black Dog’s dagger flew into the air. I noticed with an almost complete absence of horror that his remaining two fingers were still attached to it. The howl of agony and rage that came from that tall, thin figure was fit to wake the dead. All went suddenly silent in the Spainish Main. The button-box player stopped his reels and jigs.
Philip Kemnett - Cutty - Captain Kemnett…the names all came to mind at once. I saw him sheathing, one-handed, a curiously-curved small sword of strange design which seemed to disappear within his clothes. Its blade, so briefly seen, seemed made of twisted steel, oddly coloured.
‘Jim Hawkins,’ he said, in that now-familiar, even tone. ‘Stand fast.’ Kemnett had Black Dog by the throat. The pirate was holding his injured hand, blood oozing blackly from between his remaining fingers. ‘Now sir,’ he addressed the musical pirate. ‘What was your business with this young man?’
‘What is going on here?’ It was a woman’s voice, that of a mature woman too, inflected with a foreign lilt. And as I looked towards the Spanish Main’s entrance, I saw an aged but strikingly beautiful woman, her black skin shining in the light reflected form the lantern she held in one hand. This was tthe establishment’s proprietrix. And although I had seen her only once or twice previously, when she was consort to the previous owner of my own Spyglass in Bristol, I knew her.
She was Long John Silver’s African wife. Truly, we had fallen among thieves. Behind the woman I could see the rest of her customers, a desperate, ill-assorted bunch, piling out in an attutude of nervous belligerance.
‘Here, what’s doing?’ said one. ‘Sea-Doggy’s been cut, look see! We need him to sing some more old shanties!’
‘Who’s that holding him? came a slurred and rum-soaked voice. ‘Get him, boys!’
At that Kemnett released Black Dog and in a flash drew that strange curved sword, which I could now see was a form of Turkish scimitar. His scarred face caught the light, as did the weapon, and both the black woman and the crowd shrank back.
‘That’s Cutty.’ came a thin, wheedling screech. ‘That’s Cutty Kemnett. He’s got the blood of hundreds on his hands. That Saladin sword of his’ll slice through a spine like butter…’
‘What’s going on here?’ This voice was clear and full of authority. Emerging from the Pieces of Ate were the Squire, Captain Smollett and Dr Livesey. It was the doctor who had spoken. And I noticed, too, that Captain Smollett was casually holding across his chest one of the paired pistols he habitually carried when he went abroad of an evening.
Kemnett’s odd sword once again disappeared from view.
‘Why, little enough,’ came his soft voice. ‘I was just interviewing this….’ andhe turned to look for Black Dog. But the scoundrel had disappeared.
I found my voice.
‘Black Dog, sirs! It was Black Dog! One of Silver’s men. The man who first came to the Admiral Benbow in search of Billy Bones. We’ve stumbled into Silver’s very den! That’s his wife sir, that’s Silver’s wife! Lizbet!’
But the negro woman began to laugh. She was left facing us alone. The scurvy knaves who had threatened us had disappeared back inside the inn. Drink was calling them, and the reputation of Cutty Kemnett was clearly both widespread and powerfully intimidating. Thesound of the accordion started again.
‘Silver?’ The woman’s voice was more tuneful than the music coming from her inn. ‘I’m his widow and better off for it, sirs. Lizbet is my name. you couldn’t say my true family name, though Silver could.I haven’t laid eyes on the one-legged pirate , God rest his soul, since the day he fetched me out of the Spyglass and installed me here in Avonmouth, with this precious inn not even out of its foundations. Then I gets sent enough money to pay the builders and place off, and then a message that the old man’s dead. Killed by my own people, they said. He said. Meaning people of a similar colour, no doubt.’
‘Who said, madam?’ The voice was Squire Trelawney’s.
‘Why, that yellow-faced figure your tame killer Cutty just sliced and chased, sir. And, begging your pardon, way, your account for tonight’s repast is awaiting you, so don’t think this is an excuse to leave without paying your due! No, the Sea Doggy was always John’s messenger and confidant. It was Black Dog brought me my share of his cash, and Black Dog who told me he was dead.’
Copyright Tom Morton, 2009. All rights reserved. No reproduction in any shape or form without permission.
