Pieces of Eight. John Drake

      “But look to the north, and look to a compass point east and west of north on either hand.” Billy Bones looked. “D’you see the fog-banks there?”

      “Aye,” said Bones.

      “And d’you see the broken water an’ all?” Billy Bones peered hard. He swallowed, he fidgeted, he blinked. He said nothing. “Here–” said Silver, handing him the telescope. Bones drew it and took a brief look, and gave it back to Silver.

      “It’s an archipelago of rocks and islands, mostly half-sunk, and there’s massive sandbanks like the Goodwins,” he babbled nervously. “And there’s always fog about, for a vast oceanic current of cold water wells up from below, and meets the warm wet air–” he waved a hand. “And the sands are all around, and there’s more ’n we can see, an’ no ship can’t come safe to this island, but from the south…”

      Bones stopped in mid-flow as he saw the expression on Silver’s face.

      “Why, you’re a sharp ’un, Mr Bones,” said Silver. “All that from one squint through the glass?” Silver laughed. “And arky-pel-argo? And oshy-anic? Shiver me timbers, but them’s monstrous words for the likes of you!” He put his head on one side. “You knew all that already, didn’t you, Mr Bones? You knew it ’cos Flint told you!” Billy Bones fell silent again. “Never mind, Mr Bones,” said Silver. “I thank you for warning me, fair and square, that we must look to the south for Captain Flint, which should make our work all the easier. I’ll keep a man up here, just to be sure, but the main danger comes from the south–don’t it, Mr Bones?”

      This was plain truth–at least, Silver thought so–but Bones just mumbled and looked at his boots.

      “Huh!” said Silver, and shook his head.

      There was no more work that day. It was late afternoon, and Silver wouldn’t risk the island’s coast in a jolly-boat except in full daylight. They made camp by the beach, lit a fire, and settled down for the night.

      Just before Silver fell asleep–and into nightmares of parting from Selena–he thought how nervous Bones had been when talking about the rocks and sandbanks. Now what could have caused that? Obviously it was one of Flint’s secrets; Bones must be frightened of giving something away. Was it that Flint wanted rival treasure-seekers wrecked on the sandbanks or lost in the fog? Silver didn’t know. But he wondered just what Flint had told Billy Bones about his precious archipelago.

       Chapter 7

      Three bells of the first dog watch 11th October 1752 Aboard Walrus The southern Caribbean

      It was some days before Cornelius Van Oosterhout and Teunis Wouters became gentlemen of fortune, and even then only with Captain Flint’s most grudging approval, for he hated all the nonsense–and equality–that went with it, and he insisted–with much truth–that there was heavy work to be done: replacing the smashed windlass, making proper repairs to the plugged shot-holes, and trimming the ship afresh, now that her hold was bulging with stores.

      Much of this time, Captain Flint spent in discussion with Van Oosterhout in Walrus’s stern cabin, where Flint’s big table, which all but spanned the cabin, was covered with charts, papers, navigational instruments and books of tables wherein numbers marched in ranks and columns, smart as Prussian guardsmen. They were books so boring as to suck the life out of most men. But not Flint. In him they excited all the lust of the Devil in pursuit of a soul.

      “The tables are the key,” said Van Oosterhout the first time they were brought out. “Are you a navigator, Captain? How good a landfall do you make?” And he twirled the ends of his moustaches, brushing them fiercely upward, all the while casting an appraising eye at Flint like a schoolmaster quizzing a pupil.

      “I can get to within ten to twenty miles of my destination,” said Flint, “running down my latitude.”

      “Hoof!” said Van Oosterhout, puffing out his cheeks. “Good! Most men are wrong by scores of miles, maybe worse! Me–I get to within a few miles.”

      Flint met the Dutchman’s challenging gaze with a frown. Either the man was a liar or the finest navigator God ever made.

      “So,” said Van Oosterhout, “we begin the explanation. Longitude is time, and time is longitude, yes?”

      “Yes,” said Flint. “And on land we find longitude from observation of the occultation of stars. But it needs a steady surface and repeated observations from the same site over many days. So it can’t be done at sea.”

      “Oh, but it can, Captain,” said Van Oosterhout. “Imagine, it is night; I take a quadrant. I measure the height of the moon. I measure the height of the chosen star. I measure the angle between the star and the moon. And so to the calculations…”

      The first time Van Oosterhout determined Walrus’s longitude, Flint worked separately–using Van Oosterhout’s tables and method–to see who should finish first. Flint worked swiftly but the task took hours, and when he was done, Van Oosterhout was waiting with a smile on his face. Eventually Flint smiled too. It was nothing that he couldn’t learn in time, but he wasn’t going to waste hours every day in tedious calculation.

      So Van Oosterhout was rated as first mate; or, as Flint saw it, a navigating engine for heavy mathematical labour…which happened to suit Van Oosterhout splendidly, for he relished the work and constantly sought to improve it by practise. But he had other skills too, as Walrus’s crew discovered when one of them, a carpenter’s mate named Green, walked past the new first mate without a respectful touch of his hat and casually knocked Van Oosterhout aside.

      Green was a big man who thought himself superior to mere Dutchmen, but Van Oosterhout reacted with lightning speed, flashing one hand across Green’s face to draw attention, poking his eyes with two fingers of the other hand, deftly tripping him as he staggered blinded, and then stamping between his legs…And all done so neat it was more like a dance than a fight.

      “Ahhhhh!” said the fallen one, and “Ooof!” as Van Oosterhout stamped again and drove the breath from his belly. But Green was a hard man and now he was angry. He jumped up, only to find Van Oosterhout calmly waiting, poised like a pugilist but with hands open-palmed, not clenched. “Swab!” said Green, and went for the Dutchman hammer and tongs. At least he tried to, but couldn’t get to grips. Instead he was repeatedly tripped and thrown, and kicked in painful places, until even his mates laughed at him. Finally, trembling and sweating with not a drop of fight left, Green thought it best to beg forgiveness and hobble away.

      “It is called silat,” said Van Oosterhout, when Flint asked about this peculiar manner of fisticuffs. “My father served the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie. What you call ‘Dutch East India Company’. Thus I was born in Batavia where the natives fight this way. It is a great art.” He shrugged. “I know a little.”

      “I think you are modest, Mr Van Oosterhout,” said Flint.

      “Perhaps.”

      After that, the hands remembered their manners where Van Oosterhout was concerned, and Flint realised that he’d got a proper first mate–not just an arithmetician.

      Meanwhile repairs proceeded, until eventually the works were complete and Walrus was as well-found as if fresh from a royal dockyard. The crew, who’d been waiting for this moment, came to their captain in a body, seeking boldness in numbers as they faced him on his quarterdeck. Even so they were at the limit of their courage, standing with their hats in their hands, and grubby fingers to their brows.

      The quartermaster, Morton, with a good tot of rum inside him, was their spokesman. Those behind egged him on, while poised for retreat should Flint turn nasty.

      “A word, beggin’-yer-pardon, Cap’n, beggin’-yer-pleasure…”