a huge quantity of food and drink in his stomach, and sick from the pain of the blow, Delacroix suddenly vomited heavily, gulped and choked … and inhaled a good lungful of half-digested beef and claret. He then throttled and kicked for a minute or two, before expiring purple-faced and pop-eyed at Selena’s feet, with his tongue lolling out of his open mouth.
Philosophers would argue that Delacroix was entirely responsible for his own death – and a shameful death too – from gluttony and attempted rape, but Selena knew that the world would see things differently. A slave found with her dead master was just meat on the hoof. They’d not ask her what had happened. They’d simply hang her.
Fear and panic surged out of the dark corners of the room. There was no refuge on the plantation. They’d hang any slave who tried to help her, and her mother’s house was the first place they’d look – even supposing for one minute that her mother would take her in. But beyond the plantation was the great, wide world: the outside world that Selena had never even seen, let alone visited. And now she had to get out into that world and make her way, and not get caught. And all she had to guide her was her own native wit.
24th March 1749 The island
On the morning after his secret conference, when Flint had taken his irreversible step and now stood at risk of betrayal by too many men for him to face down, he went to Captain Springer.
The man was sunk beyond belief in drunkenness. As far as Flint could judge, Springer was a worse hulk than Elizabeth. He was decayed and rotting in his tent. Flint sighed. By the look of Springer, this would delay vital preparations by a week or more; or at least by however long it took to get Springer off the rum and looking like some passably good imitation of an officer. But since Springer was unconscious, Flint went and found Springer’s servant and put Billy Bones to work, kicking the servant’s unfortunate arse around the camp for sufficient time to drive home the message that the captain was to receive no more strong drink, no matter what threats or entreaties he might offer.
In the event, Flint was lucky. Springer came from a tough old breed, and his liver was so powerfully exercised by its life’s work that it had him sobered up that very evening.
Then, after a day spent in blinding headaches and purgative vomits, Springer was fit to walk, talk and to be washed and shaved and put into a clean shirt by the morning of the day after. Flint duly presented himself at the captain’s tent, and – as his deputy and representative during the captain’s indisposition – he gave Springer an account of all the island’s news that was masterly in the very small proportion of untruth that was added in order to deceive Springer completely, and to set him off on the false trail that Flint had planned.
When Flint was done, and was standing humbly before his captain with his hat in his hands, Springer glared at him with bloodshot yellowed eyes and with hatred that could have been cut into blocks and sold by the pound as rat poison. But Springer knew his duty (or so he thought), and he never hesitated.
“Muster the men, you bloody lubber!” he growled. “This is your fault, as I’ve always said, and I’ll see you broke for it as soon as we rejoin the squadron!”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” murmured Flint, with downcast eyes. And after suffering a sufficient quantity of oaths and curses from Springer, Flint withdrew, found Billy Bones, and gave his final instructions.
Half an hour later, every soul on the island, excepting the four marines still guarding the useless blockhouse, were mustered on the beach under the hot sun, before the tented encampment and the almost-completed Betsy, while stuck on her sandbank a cable’s length off, the empty corpse of the Elizabeth was a constant reminder of past failures, and a spectator to what happened next.
Springer got up on a chest, the better to speak to the men. He sweated heavily in his uniform coat and cocked hat, and his shirt and stock. But these were the indispensable icons of his rank, especially given the shockingly ugly mood of the men. Springer had never seen the like before, and he stuck out his chin and clenched his fists in anger. He wasn’t the man to tolerate skulking and scowling from the lower deck, as they would bloody soon learn!
Around him, in their blue navy coats, stood Lieutenant Flint, Acting-Master Bones, and five midshipmen. The surgeon and the purser stood to one side of them, with a group of senior warrant officers including the boatswain, the gunner and the carpenter. Further off still was the comforting block of twenty-nine marines, drawn up with bayonets fixed, under Sergeant Dawson and two corporals.
Facing Captain Springer, divided into starboard and larboard watches, stood nearly two hundred lesser folk and foremast hands of the manifold varieties of their kind: topmen, coopers, waisters, cooks, afterguard, boys and so on. Springer ground his teeth at the muttering and scowling that came from them, and the insolence on their stupid faces.
“Avast there!” he bellowed. “Silence on the lower deck!”
They looked at him and waited, still defiant but listening to what he might have to say. When it came, it wasn’t very much, and it wasn’t very clever. Springer was no maker of speeches: he simply stamped and spouted and told them to do their duty and God help them as didn’t! Since the men had already been flogged and punished beyond all reason, this was the last thing they wanted to hear. But Springer didn’t know that, for Flint hadn’t told him, and finally, the captain got round to the subject of leaving the island.
“Our new ship lies a-waiting and ready to bear away for Jamaica!” he cried, pointing to the Betsy. “She’s well found and ship-shape and will bear fifty men …” At this there came a deep, animal growl from the belly of the crowd. “Silence!” yelled Springer, but all he got was a chorus from the play so lovingly crafted by Mr Flint, who nearly choked with laughter as his actors delivered their lines.
“What about the Dons?” cried one.
“What if they come back?” cried another.
“AYYYYYE!” the crowd roared.
“What?” yelled Springer. “What bloody Dons?”
“Them as was seen from Spy-glass Hill!”
“Them as was looking for a landing!”
“They’ll murder every man jack of them as gets left behind!”
Now other voices joined in, genuinely frightened of a mass slaughter at the hands of the Spaniards. Frogs and Dutchmen was one thing; even the Portuguese; but they’d get no precious mercy out of the Dagoes!
“Mr Flint?” said Springer, looking down at his subordinate. “What the poxy damnation are the sods blathering about?”
“I cannot imagine, sir,” said Flint with a sneer. “Why don’t you ask the men?” In that instant, seeing the look in the other’s eyes, Springer came as close as he ever did to understanding Flint and to guessing what was actually underway.
“You whoreson bastard!” he said, and he cast about, this way and that, wondering what to do next. He was the very picture of indecision, and to the angry mob in front of him, he looked exactly like a man who’d been found out.
“See!” cried Israel Hands. “The bugger knew it all along. He’s leaving us to the bloody Dons!”
“No!” cried Springer. “No! No! No! The ship’ll take a good fifty, maybe more, and I’ll come back for …”
“And who’s to say who goes and who stays?” cried George Merry, in wild terror. Swept on by the furious emotions around him, Merry – who in any case was not one of the brightest – was now so deep into the role given him by Flint, that he actually believed it.
“ARRRRRGH!” roared the crew.
“Sergeant Dawson!” screamed Springer, as the mob rolled