Flint and Silver

30th January 1749 Aboard HMS Elizabeth The island

With the entire crew looking at him in judgement, and the ship fast aground in proof of his guilt, Captain Springer reddened and seethed and trembled.

Springer was not a clever man nor a gifted one, nor even one with any particular aptitude for his career. He’d only gone to sea in the first place because his seafaring father had sent him, and he’d learned his seamanship through hard work and hard knocks.

He had managed, through a certain dogged bravery, to win promotion in action. He was well aware that he was lucky to have risen as far as he had, and that his skills were few: he knew how to stand the enemy’s fire and how to keep the lower deck to its duties; he knew how to run down his latitude to a destination … and that was it. He hadn’t the cleverness of Flint, and nowhere near his skill as a navigator, and now he felt himself the victim of some plot of Flint’s. Well, he was having none of it. It weren’t his fault, so it had to be someone else’s.

“You bloody lubbers!” he roared at everyone in general. “You whore-son, bastard, nincompoop parcel of landsmen …”

He raved and swore, ignoring the cries of the men who’d been thrown overboard by the impact of the ship’s running aground. It was lucky for them they were in such shallow water or they’d have surely drowned. He damned and blasphemed and blasted and cursed, and comprehensively lost the respect of his people in a rage of temper that every one of them knew ought rightfully be directed at himself.

“Sergeant Dawson,” he screamed, at last and inevitably, “rouse me out that sod of a helmsman and I’ll see the backbone of him at the gratings before five minutes is out. And all the lookouts too, and all the shit-heads that went overside … and … and …”

He cast about in anger and every man wisely dropped his eyes, though one was too slow, “And that sod there!” he cried. “Him as dares to look his lawful captain in the eye in that insolent manner!”

This was a desperately bad course to steer.

For one thing, Springer was ignoring the accustomed usages of ship’s discipline that required the boatswain and his mates to administer discipline. To employ the marines was an affront to every seaman aboard, as well as being a naked display of direct rule by musket and bayonet. Even worse was Springer’s singling out Ben Gunn the helmsman – a man so respected by the entire ship’s company that it would be deemed a severe insult to the lower deck to flog him, unless his dereliction of duty was severe and was obvious to all hands, whereas in this case it was physically impossible for Ben Gunn, in his station at the whipstaff, even to have seen what hazards the ship might be running on to.

What Springer was doing was bad and despicably stupid.

But one after another the five men were stripped, triced up and given two dozen – including Ben Gunn, despite growls of anger from the crew, to which Springer responded by ordering his marines to level their muskets at the hands. This was utter madness, and even the marines were groaning as the cat fell, stroke after stroke, on Ben Gunn’s skinny back. When he was taken down, the poor creature was no longer the same man, for his pride was broken and his mind was wounded far worse than his body.

To say, therefore, that Elizabeth was an unhappy ship would be a very masterpiece of understatement. The mood of the ship’s people was even worse than it had been under Flint; then, at least there had been moments of laughter. Everything that later happened on the island stemmed directly from Captain Springer’s staggering failure of leadership. An explosion was now inevitable. But for a few weeks the disease festered under the skin and no eruptions were visible. This was thanks to the urgent need for action to get the ship afloat again.

First, Springer tried to warp her off. In theory this was a simple task which involved passing a hawser ashore to be made fast to a strongpoint such as a mighty tree. The hawser would then be bent to the capstan and all hands would heave the capstan bars around to haul the ship off the sandbank.

In practice, the effort failed. Despite the disciplined effort of teams of men passing the line ashore in the launch, sweltering their way along the shoreline to find a suitable tree, and despite the combined strength of every man aboard, pushing their hearts out on the capstan bars, Elizabeth never budged. Springer had brought her in at the flood of the high tide, such that there’d never be another inch of water to be had under her keel to lift her off. In fact, each time the tide went out, she appeared to settle in deeper. So each high tide, Springer tried another trick, each more desperate that the last, each seeking to give the capstan a better chance to pull the ship clear.

“Give a broadside, double-shotted, to shake her off, Mr Flint!” cried Springer. “That’ll break the suction.” So the island echoed to the boom of Elizabeth’s guns. But the ship never moved. “I’ll lighten her, Mr Flint,” said Springer. “Strike all topmasts! All boats out of the ship, and all spare sails and spars.” That failed too. “Guns and carriages ashore, Mr Flint,” said Springer wearily on the fourth day. “And all stores out of the hold. Everything that ain’t scarfed and bolted into the hull.” But, despite the enormous labour, Elizabeth – now more hulk than ship – simply wedged herself deeper into the sand.

As the boatswain’s pipe delivered the final call of “ ‘Vast hauling” and a hundred sweat-drenched men collapsed at the capstan, Springer chewed his knuckles in despair. Around him his officers were glaring at him in open contempt and the men were seething with hatred for Springer, and with fear at the prospect of being unable to get off the island. The crew were exhausted. The ship was gutted. Ashore lay a vast pile of ship’s stores: arms and artillery, food and drink, clothing and tools, all under a miniature town of spar-and-canvas tents above the tide-line. And in the midst of it all Captain Springer was helpless, hopeless, guilty and angry. For the first time in his career, he did not know what to do.

And so, Lieutenant Flint, who’d watched incredulous as his captain dug himself into the pit, saw that his moment had come. Thanks to Springer’s disgraceful behaviour certain wicked temptations had been laid before Lieutenant Flint, which even he fought off at first, but when they came knocking at his door, grinning and winking, day after day after day … Well, finally he gave up the fight and embraced them.

“May I speak, sir?” said he, all humble and respectful.

“Damn your eyes, you evil sod,” said Springer, “this is all your doing.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” said Flint, ignoring the words, which in truth had no meaning anyway. Springer wasn’t even looking at him.

“I have a suggestion, sir,” said Flint.

“Bollocks!” said Springer.

“Aye-aye, sir,” said Flint. “But we can make Portsmouth yet, sir, and do our duty to the Commodore.”

“What?” said Springer, beginning to take notice. “Can’t you see it’s hopeless, you prick-louse?” Springer gestured at the ship. “She’ll never come free. Can’t you see that, you slimy sod?”

“Indeed, sir,” said Flint, “the ship is lost. But we can build another from her timbers. We have all the tools and the necessary skills. We could easily build a vessel capable of reaching Jamaica, let alone the Spanish Americas.”

Springer gaped at Flint, consumed with relief … and then with envy and hatred. Why hadn’t he thought of that? It was bloody obvious once it was pointed out.

“I further suggest, sir,” said Flint, “that you might consider bringing the men together at once to announce your decision, and that you might further consider the issue of double grog to all hands in respect of their exceptional labours.”

Billy Bones, standing as ever in Flint’s shadow, grinned to himself. He’d make sure everyone knew whose idea it was to get them back home.

“You back-stabbing bastard!” said Springer bitterly, and he glared at Flint. “It’s all you, you sod. It’s a plot!”

“Indeed not, sir,” said Flint, and permitted himself the hint of a sneer, for although there had been no plot before, there was one a-hatching now.

But Springer had no option other than to make the best of it. He had all hands piped to the quarterdeck rail, then he made his speech and ordered double grog. They cheered him for that, knowing there was a way home tomorrow and a roaring debauch tonight. Double grog meant a full pint of strong Navy rum per man, and even sailors got drunk on that.

For the next two days, Springer’s crew were the happiest tars in the service, since on the first day they were mainly unconscious and on the second they were recovering in a warm bliss of recollection. On the third day, Flint, Billy Bones and the boatswain’s crew set them to work with the aid of rope ends knotted tight and soaked in salt water to give a good whack. The crew had had their fun, and now it was time to put the captain’s (that is to say, Lieutenant Flint’s) plan into operation.

The carpenter and his mates set about erecting a small shipyard ashore and hacking planks and timbers out of the ship herself. Another team, under the gunner and his mates, erected sheer-legs, block and tackle, and with the steady labour of twenty chanting seamen, dragged cannon bodily up to the cliff-tops at the mouth of the inlet, and established batteries to command the sea approaches.

At the same time, half the marines under one of the midshipmen began exploring the island to determine whether any danger lay at their backs. The other half, under Sergeant Dawson, deployed on the outskirts of the shore-works, in open order with ball cartridge loaded, to give warning of any attack.

Meanwhile, the cook and his mates served up victuals, the cooper filled the ship’s butts with fresh water, the surgeon drew splinters and sewed up cuts, the sailmaker cut up Elizabeth’s sails and re-sewed them according to the new pattern designed by Lieutenant Flint, and the boatswain’s crew steadily stripped the rigging and fittings out of the ship, and set up a store tent ashore. And just to keep them busy, those men not already employed were sent out in a boat, rigged for sail, with another midshipman in command, to take bearings around the entire island, and to take soundings besides. This would enable a proper map to be made.

The true master of all these works was, of course, Lieutenant Flint, who excelled himself in the efficiency with which he flogged the men to it, and in the ingenious punishments devised for those who incurred his displeasure.

“Three days without water for you, my chicken,” for a boatswain’s mate who’d smashed his toes with a dropped roundshot, which Flint interpreted as malingering.

“The one to lash the other, by turns,” he pronounced on two seamen who’d dropped a compass out of a boat in twenty fathoms. “And to continue until one or the other drops,” he smiled. “So lay on, my hearties, for whichever beats the hardest will take less back.”

And so it went on:

“Gagging with a marlin spike, while lashed to a spar in the sun.”

“No grog until within soundings of England.”

“No sleep for two nights.”

“Ducking to the count of fifty.”

“To play Flint’s game, or take two dozen.”

The result of all this was, firstly, that – in the absence of a maintop – Cap’n Flint the parrot spent a lot of time perched among the trees; and secondly that Elizabeth’s crew were prevented from being mended and made sound by the busy works that Flint himself had set in motion. Under any hand other than Flint’s, the men would have recognised the good sense of what needed to be done. They would have rejoiced in the escape from marooning, and they would have given of their best.

Alas, Flint could not deny himself these vicious pleasures. As for Captain Springer, he was worse puzzled than he’d been when at sea with Flint. He still couldn’t put a finger on what was wrong with his first lieutenant, and was furthermore weighed down by the guilt of running his ship aground and not knowing how to get her off. So he took to skulking in his tent and emptying bottle after bottle to take away the despair. He left everything to Flint, unless Flint positively forced him to play a part.

One day, three weeks after they’d come ashore, Flint came to his tent with just such an intrusion.

It was hot, terribly hot. Springer’s tent, rigged under the shade of trees along the shoreline, kept out the sun, but not the still pressure of heat. As usual, all work had ceased for the middle hours of the day when the sun blazed fiercest. A cable’s length away, where the new vessel was growing, the steady thud, thud, thud of the carpenter’s adze had come to a halt, along with the battering of mallets driving in trenails, and the groaning of saws shaping the timbers afresh. All hands were asleep, save those unfortunates on watch. Clad in an open-neck shirt, wide ducks, bare legs, with the sweat glistening on his heavy face, Springer snored in his hammock.

Two figures came scrunching across the shimmering white sand and into the dark of Springer’s tent. Flint and Billy Bones were coming to call. Flint with his eternal parrot on his shoulder, and Billy Bones in his wake.