Where Gold Lies Read online

  Israel paused in his organising of the gun crews to call, “How far off will she be?”

  This time Long John answered. “One or two cables. And the cabin lights is all of two and a half fathoms off the water.”

  More than two fathoms. This ship they were looking at was clearly no cockleshell. It was all very well to fire into such a ship, but how could we go about boarding her?

  Billy Bones clattered in again. “There’s cutlasses in the starboard scuppers, and pistols, but you’ll have to load them. D--- you! What’s all this dunnage? Get it forward.” The men clearing the guns had thrown sweeps, hen coops, buckets aside, and now the port battery looked like a wood-yard. Keeping as much out of sight as we could we started to clear them as well. They might be needed.

  The crew stood waiting in the dark in a state of twisted nervousness. The men about me were nagging incessantly at their belts, their knives, anything. One man took of his shoes, the better to climb in bare feet, and then changed his mind and put them back on again. We felt desperate to start.

  The deck started to heave beneath us as we went about, and Billy shouted “Larboard watch, larboard watch.” We tumbled out and ran to our stations. My place was in the maintop. The galleon seemed truly enormous and I looked up at masts towering above me. Flint had taken the helm and was busy cutting towards her stern. On by one, the guns rumbled out, and the wall that was the Spanish ship came nearer and nearer.

  As we started to round her quarter Israel fired. He did not disappoint us and we saw the great rudder shatter. Then we were passing the cabin lights. Two white faces, no doubt just shaken from their cots, appeared at the windows and disappeared as the glass dissolved under two charges of grape.

  “D--- me, there’s no stern chasers!” I heard Long John shout nearby. “They can’t touch us!”

  Flint was screaming, wild with blood and destruction “More grape, more grape. Israel! More grape in the cabin from the larboard guns.” We continued to swing round moving our head across the wind, and as the rudderless galleon also brought her head slowly up into the wind, I saw he would indeed have another opportunity to fire into the cabin.

  Billy sent men over to the port guns, and I too climbed down onto the smoky deck. Our deck was a vision of the Inferno. The wind had quickly cleared the smoke but not the disorder as we secured one battery in order to use the other. From every hand came the squealing of gun carriages and the shouts of straining men as guns ran in and out. Then Israel was shouting as he ran from gun to gun, laying them roughly. No time to aim now. He held an instant of tense quiet as he waited for his gun to bear, then he stood back and stabbed his linstock at the touch hole. With flash and thunder the gun bucked back against its britching, the other four following.

  “Har!” he roared. “That’ll have them. Run ‘em in.” He called up to Billy, “Grape or shot, what’ll you have?”

  “Grape, grape. Into her ports.” Flint had loosed his sheets and was using the way we still had from our short run down wind to lay us along the galleon’s starboard side. As we began to close, a gun port in that castle wall started to open. It dropped, and then lifted firmly up, showing its red-painted maw with the gun still inboard. One of Israel’s guns barked its charge into the shadow and the port dropped shut again in a whirl of splinters. A voice from behind the port raised a high animal screaming.

  As the Walrus rubbed gently into place we were off, roaring in our madness. We flew up to find the Spanish deck empty. The deck hands had fled. “The cabins,” ordered Billy. “Get as many prisoners as you can out here. Don’t miss no one.” And he started to shout in Spanish down to the gun deck.

  We swept into the cabins. In truth I recall very little of what was there. The grape had torn the partitions to pieces. In the great cabin a woman knelt beside a bloody groaning man. Despite the devastation around she seemed unhurt. There were female screams coming from one of the smaller cabins as George Merry and Chips Morgan drove two more women out on deck. I opened one cabin and found two dead men among the wreckage.

  “Out. Out on deck!” Billy was shouting. “Bring ‘em out here.” So back out we went, with our prisoners. We brought the Captain, the man from the great cabin, suffering from a fearsome splinter in his thigh. Three women, all unharmed, and two officers, one of them nursing a broken arm.

  We had not been aboard long for as we returned Israel’s gun crews were just mounting the rail. Billy grabbed the uninjured officer and shook him roughly, shouting at him all the while in Spanish. I could just make out (having picked up a little of that language) that he was threatening murder if the man did not co-operate. Wisely, the officer started to shout below in a tremulous voice, calling on the men to surrender. A strong voice from below asked for the Captain, and the officer replied that the Captain still lived. There was silence from below.

  “The swabs are running out a gun,” Long John’s voice called from the deck of the Walrus. “Stop them, or they’ll have the mast.”

  When I ran to the rail to see what was afoot, I could see we were in trouble. One of the great guns had already been run out. The galleon being so much higher than the Walrus, it pointed out across the deck. Long John, his crutch hanging from its lanyard about his neck, was standing on the railing and reaching up to jam his cutlass deep into the gun. Like a cat, he dropped to the deck and with rare speed hopped clear, trying to untangle his crutch as he went. He had well away when a thunderous crash told that the gun had burst. The deck above it tore open, timber and splinters whirring up into the rigging.

  All on deck flinched instinctively as the fragments pattered down around us. As we straightened up our ears were filled with the awful roaring of some poor injured sailor below.

  Flint appeared unshaken. “Israel, take four men and get below. Hold your pistols on them until I call you.” Looking around, he picked on the officer with the broken arm. “Billy, make him tell us what’s on board.”

  Billy, never a man to shrink from such a task, shook the man violently by the shoulder before demanding gold from him. The man groaned deeply and looked set to faint, but the effect of Billy’s shaking was felt most by the women who screamed in unison and then reverted to weeping hysterically. The oldest of the three then started to shout at the Captain (she was undoubtedly his wife) and I caught the words oro and tesoro. Both of them meant a great deal to us—gold and treasure.

  If the Captain had not been defeated by grapeshot and cutlass, he had certainly been out-manoeuvred by his wife. Resignedly he admitted to twenty-seven chests of the Spanish king’s treasure, and more belonging to the passengers.

  Strangely, it did not seem in the least unusual that our small band should hold the crew of such a large ship at pistol point. We accepted it, and so did they. Flint had the seamen brought on deck and seated where they could be commanded by two swivel guns mounted on the railings of the poop deck. A party of Indians were set to hauling the chests out of their cabin aft. It took only moments to pass these heavy little chests down to the Walrus. Then we cut the galleon’s halyards to give ourselves time to get clear, and we were off.

  The crew wanted to open the chests there and then, but Flint would have none of that. “Victuals first, my lads, and then we’ll see.”

  Now the custom on the Walrus was to divide our spoils just as soon as we could. A system of shares had grown up—one third for the ship, one third for her captain, and one third for the crew. So once we had finished our salt pork and beans, everyone came on deck to witness the division into three. First we opened all the chests and many contained money in leather bags, all neatly labelled. These we readily split into three heaps. The other chests yielded ornaments and jewellery, strings of pearls and church plate. A beautiful sight they made, scattered on the rough deck, glittering in the sunlight.

  By the time we had finished we had made three heaps, each about as wide across as a carriage wheel. Their foundations were of money-bags and we topped them off with the other items, lying on the cloth wrappings in which
they had been stored.

  “Ain’t that a pretty sight?” chuckled Flint in a fine good humour. “Now which will you be taking?” Custom also held that the crew should have the privilege of choosing which third they would take. We crowded around Israel all giving our opinion on which would be preferable. Reaching agreement was easy. We all wanted to hold treasure in our own hands, and we did not care too much which pile it should be.

  We made our choice, and the heaps for Flint and the ship were packed back in their chests. Then the whole business started again as we divided up our third. Long John and Billy got four shares a-piece. Israel got three, and the cook and the carpenter two each. The rest of us received one share. Any boys or slaves (we had none just then) would have got a half share each. So again the booty was divided into equal shares, and the most junior crew member allowed to choose first.

  I chose a lot that consisted of two bags of silver, a purse of gold pieces and a large shining emerald the like of which I have never seen. I believe now it would have been worth much more than the Walrus, if only the right king or prince could be found to take it. I am afraid my bags of money did not last me long. Young men have a great tendency to waste without thought and my gold and silver soon went, leaving me with nothing to show for it. The emerald I kept, as much for its beauty as for its value.

  But now I was separated from my emerald by the distance from the Savannah quayside to the Walrus. It had gone forever, along with all my shipmates’ savings. We vented our frustration on Billy Bones, cursing and wondering where he had gone. Then someone suggested setting out to look for him.

  “Belay that!” ordered Long John. “The Factor sailed for Charleston on the tide and you may lay to it that our Billy is tucked up in a fine cabin a-reading of the chart just now.”

  We had all been taken aback by the events of the last moment and as sheep turn to their shepherd, so we turned to our quartermaster. Even here we had no succour. Long John cut us adrift.

  “You’ll have to take care of yourselves, melads. I’ve a friend will hide me here. Just as well, for I’d be left far behind your two legs.

  “If I was in your shoes, I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d march out of town making as much noise about it as I could. Make out I was bound for Mexico or Port Royal. Then I’d steal a cockle or anything that could take me up the coast, along with a couple of these here Indian canoes. Lay up the cockle across from the harbour, and use the canoes to run in to the Walrus after the moon sets. If you keep it quiet and don’t cut no throats, you’ll get your purses and no questions asked. But don’t you go sticking no one or trying to cut the Walrus out, or you’ll have all the ships them sainted merchants and tobacco factors can raise sent out after you. Just cut and run, lads, cut and run. Do it nicely, and you’ll all be square.

  “Now, look’ee. Get up to Charleston, and try and get your hands on Billy. Or better still, get hold of the chart. But I doubt you will. Our Billy’s too fly by half. The Factor is a trim barky and he’ll be in Charleston in no time. An’ he’ll ship out just as soon as he can. But Long John knows where he’s bound. Long or short, he’s for Bristol, or maybe Plymouth. He’s a soft spot for the Old Country, has our Billy. That’s where we’ll get him. One day he’ll pull his nose out of his grog pot just in time to see Long John setting up to feed his liver to the gulls, d--- his rotten heart.

  “Make it Bristol, lads. Keep close hauled and ask for Long John just as soon as you step ashore. I’ll have space for you to stow your duds. And d--- me for a Dutchman if we don’t clap onto Billy smartly, and roast him ‘til he sings. Make it Bristol, lads.”

  He spun on his crutch and swung off. As he stepped out, there was a rush of feathers and with a loud squawk, Flint’s parrot crashed onto his shoulder. Without looking round, Long John marched on. The parrot swayed on his shoulder, croaking and whispering into his ear. Off he went and the crowd of gawpers that had gathered opened to let him pass, and closed behind him. We felt it was truly a day for great losses.

  Please excuse me. Already I am several pages into my story and you still do not know how it concerns you. The truth is that Long John was your grandfather. I am sorry, but there it is. He was your grandfather, and I have been telling very little about him. Livesey wrote a great deal of him, and painted him very black. Did he paint a fair portrait? I am bound to say that, as far as it went, it was not too unkind. Especially in his prime when he had both his legs, Long John was a rogue, a black-hearted pirate who cared little for God’s creatures. His soul was stained with the blood of many a poor man foolish enough to stand in his way. God knows that our crew were mostly mindless fools. They gave as little thought to killing a man as you do to squashing a horse-fly, and Long John was their quartermaster.

  Both in body and character he stood head and shoulders above the rest of us, and above Flint too. He was a handsome man and a fine sailor. He had black hair, bound up in a short tarred pigtail. His eye was clear and he had an air of breeding about him. Flint trusted him with any difficult job that came up. I believe Flint would never have a clever man or a strong one as his mate, and it may be that is why he and Long John kept their distance. But when the need arose, Long John was the man called on. He was also the only man Flint feared.

  For us youngsters in the crew, Long John was someone to look up to and emulate. We would jump to any order he gave, and accept blows and rebukes without rancour. I treasured every bit of praise he gave. It never occurred to us to question the order of things, the Captain in his cabin and Long John slinging his hammock along with the cook and the carpenter. Why did Long John never cross Flint and take over the ship? Why did he stay content to take orders from a man who feared him?

  Looking back now, I can see your grandfather had already embarked on a different voyage to the rest of us. At sea he pulled the crew along in his wake when we had Satan’s work to do, but then he cut us adrift on shore. Not for him the wild carousing in tavern and bawdy houses that wasted the substance of the rest of us. Once in port Long John kept to himself until the time came to ship again.

  I believe it suited him very well to have Flint as captain, and to have Flint’s name painted in bloody letters up and down the Caribbean. He made only one voyage as captain, and I believe that was his last before he left the sea and disappeared. For the rest, he stood in the background and we, poor fools, stood in his shadow.

  So where did he go when he left us all aground on that steaming day in Savannah? Where did he swing off to through the crowd? The answer to that was his great secret. He stepped back into his other life. He marched back to your grandmother Sally. Long John might be a pirate at sea, but in port he was a simple, respectable sea-farer living with his wife and daughter. It may seem strange to you that a man as prominent and identifiable as Long John could hide himself ashore, especially in a busy port. Things are different across the sea. Savannah is a great mix of black and white, slave and master, Spanish and English. Like most of the ports around the West Indies, it can sell you anything you can imagine. If you could see the silks from China, the lace from France, dainty ladies boots from Spain, I am sure you would never wish to go to Exeter again. Ships are always coming and going, discharging cargoes from England and the countries of Europe and the South Americas, and sailing out east or south fully laden.

  The people too, come and go. The life of the port changes with the seasons and the years. The inhabitants no more belong to Savannah than the muddy water that swirls in and out of the harbour twice daily.

  Even His Majesty’s servants are temporary. The fine lieutenants and commodores, the revenue officers, the governor himself, do not belong in Savannah. As soon as they have lined their sea-chests with the pickings of the wharfs and counting-houses, they set sail for old England where their money is as good as the next man’s, indeed often better, being minted from fine Spanish gold. And any poor soul obliged by slavery or indenture to remain will soon be carried off by yellow fever, black jack, ague, flux or any of the other myriad plagues wai
ting to strike down those whose blood is not accustomed to the climate.

  Long John was able to live unmarked, hidden away in Savannah, or Port O’ Spain or any of the other ports in which Sally set herself up. All the time he was salting away the money that we ship-mates scattered to any tavern-keeper or pretty girl that would help us spend it. Where did Long John keep his gold? He was too clever to stuff his mattress with it, or hang it about his wife’s neck. I learnt later that many a tun of tobacco loaded for Bristol, or rum for Boston, belonged to Long John. In fact, there is today in Bristol a ship-owning family, one of the finest, that would be obliged to stand at the door cap in hand to welcome the ghost of your grandfather, should he ever decide to pay a visit.

  He was already a man of substance when Livesey met him, but he had a dream and he needed Flint’s treasure to bring that dream ashore. Poor Billy Bones! He hated and feared Long John but a twist of his simple mind made him steal Flint’s chart, knowing he would let loose a demon from Hell on his trail.

  For us gathered at the foot of the gang-plank, the most important thing on our minds was to get back on board. Israel opened the door by shouting to the sergeant that we wanted to come back and collect our duds. The sergeant was a hard nut and declined to answer, but then the officer came out of the cabin. After a moment’s consideration he ordered, “Let them aboard, sergeant. Two minutes below, then back on deck.”

  The sergeant swallowed. “You heard the lieutenant. Get below on the double and back in two minutes.”

  We scrambled aboard and hurriedly wrapped our valuables into what good clothes we possessed. Then climbed back up to the deck, to face a ring of hard-faced marines with muskets levelled. What green fools we were! At the head of the gang-plank we and our bundles were searched, and we lost everything of value. The spectators on the quay loved the circus, and cheered each new find of gold or gems flourished aloft by the marines. Once stripped, we were bundled off the ship to shrieks of laughter.