beyond his years; there was beneath his composed exterior a hint of steely power, etc., etc. You get the picture.
For the record, this wonder boy was six feet two, with shoulders like a navvy and the waist of a ballerina; his legs were long and shapely, his hips narrow, and he moved like a classy welterweight coming out at the first bell. His face was straight off the B.O.P. cover, with its broad unclouded brow, long fair hair framing his smooth-shaven cheeks; his nose was classic, his mouth firm but not hard, his eyes clear dark grey and wide-set, his jaw strong and slightly cleft, and his teeth would have sent Kirk Douglas scuttling shamefaced to his dentist. His expression was at once noble, alert and intelligent, deferential yet commanding … sorry, we’re off again.
In short, Captain Avery was the young Errol Flynn, only more so, with a dash of Power and Redford thrown in; the answer to a maiden’s prayer, and between ourselves, rather a pain in the neck. For besides being gorgeous, he had a starred First from Oxford, could do the hundred in evens, played the guitar to admiration, helped old women across the street, kept his finger-nails clean, said his prayers, read Virgil and Aristophanes for fun, and generally made the Admirable Crichton look like an illiterate slob. However, he is vital if you are to get the customers in; more of him anon.
Secondly, and a sad come-down it is if you’re a purist, meet Colonel Tom Blood, cashiered, bought out, and all too obviously our Anti-Hero, in his lodgings, a seedy attic in Blackfriars, with a leaky ceiling and the paper peeling off the walls in damp strips. He has five pence in his pocket, his linen is foul, his boots are cracked, he hasn’t shaved, there’s nothing for breakfast but the stale heel of a loaf and pump water, and his railing harridan of a landlady has just shrieked abusively up the stairs to remind him that he is six weeks behind with the rent. But Colonel Blood is Irish and an optimist, and lies on his unmade bed with his hands behind his head, whistling and planning how to elope with a rich cit’s wife once he has brought the silly bag to the boil and she has assembled her valuables. He’d need a razor from somewhere, to be sure, and a clean shirt, but these – like poverty, hunger, and a shocking reputation – were trifles to a resourceful lad who had once come within an ace of stealing the Crown Jewels.
One should not be put off by the bad press given to Blood by that prejudiced old prude, Mr Evelyn, who once had dinner with him at Mr Treasurer’s, and kept a tight grip on his wallet during the meal, by the sound of it. “That impudent bold fellow”, he wrote of the gallant Colonel, “had not only a daring, but villainous unmerciful look, a false countenance, but very well spoken and dangerously insinuating”. Not quite fair to a dashing rascal who, if not classically handsome, was decidedly attractive in a Clark Gable-ish way, with his sleepy dark eyes, ready smile, and easy Irish charm. Tall, strong and well-made, perhaps not as slim as he would have liked, but trim and fast on his feet for all that; an affable, deceptively easygoing gentleman and quite a favourite with the less discriminating ladies who were beguiled by his trim moustache and lively conversation. A tricky, dangerous villain, though, when he had to be, which was deplorably often, for of all the Colonel’s many and curious talents, finding trouble was the first.
So there they were, the two of them, miles and poles apart, and hardly a thing in common except youth and vigour and blissful ignorance of the fate that was being determined for them four thousand sea-miles away …
For now the scene shifts abruptly, to grim Fort St Bartlemy, lonely outpost of England in the far Caribbean, where at the watergate of the great rockbound castle, bronzed and bare-backed seamen sweated in the humid tropic night as they carried massive iron-studded chests up from the boats at the sea-steps, and along the arched, stone-flagged tunnel to the strong room deep in the heart of that impregnable place. Guttering torches lit the scene as the sailors grunted and heaved and chewed quids of plug tobacco and spat and swore rich sea-oaths as they laboured, for every tarry-handed mother’s son of them had learned his trade in the Jeffrey Farnol School of Historical Dialect, and could growl “Belike” and “Look’ee” and “Ha – cheerly messmates all!” in that authentic Mummerset growl which would one day keep Robert Newton in gainful employment. So with hearty heave-ho-ing and avasting they worked, under the stern blue eye of their grizzled commander, a weather-beaten salt of suitably bluff appearance with a blue coat and brass-mounted telescope, who may well have been called Hawkins or Bransome, but not conceivably Vavasour d’Umfraville.
“Aaargh!” cried the burly captain, twice for emphasis. “Aaargh! Easy, handsomely, I say, wi’ they chests, rot ’ee! ’Tis ten thousand pound you’m carryin’, ye lubbers!” This was his normal habit of speech, since anything else would have been incomprehensible to his crew. “A pesky parlous cargo it be, an’ all, an’ glad am I to be rid on’t, burn me for a backstay else.”
“Not as glad as my garrison will be to see it,” replied the fort commandant, a stout and sunburned soldier who was equally perfect casting in his buff coat, large belly, and plumed hat. “Three years without pay is a long time in such lonely fortalice as this.” He hesitated, and ventured to add: “Damme for a lizard else.”
“For a what?” inquired the captain, rolling an eye.
“A lizard,” said the commandant defensively. “You know.”
“Aaargh!” said the captain thoughtfully. “A lizard, eh? Humph! Us seamen don’t use to swear by no crawlin’ land-lubberly varmints, us don’t. Handspikes an’ marlin-spikes an’ sich sailorly things be good enough fer we, by the powers, choke me wi’ a rammer else. Howbeit,” he went on, “I be mortal glad to see the last o’ these damned dollars; a thousand leagues from old England be a long way wi’ such a lading, through pirate waters an’ all, d’ye see, rot me for a Portingale pimp if it bain’t.” And he dashed the sweat from his brow with a horny hand. “Aye, split an’ sink me, a risky v’yage, look’ee, a passage right perilous, an’ happy I am ’tis done wi’, an’ they doubloons snug i’ the cellar at last, scuttle me for a—”
“How about some supper?” said the commandant quickly.
“Vittles, sez you!” cried the captain, rolling both eyes. “Why, then vittles it is, sez I, wi’ all my heart, aye, an’ a flagon o’ ale, devil a doubt, or Spanish vino, sa-ha! to wet our whistles, an’ damn all, wi’ a curse. Scupper me wi’ a handspike,” he added triumphantly, “else.”
The commandant having conceded game set and match, they rolled off to supper, while the toiling seamen heaved and beliked and spat as they trundled the last of the precious chests into the strongroom, and the great door clanged to and was locked with a ponderous key. Thereafter they repaired to mess with the garrison, while in the commandant’s chambers the officers supped off pepper-pot and flying-fish broiled, with many a tankard, and the sea captain amazed his hosts with the richness of his discourse. Sentries stood outside the strongroom, but the long stone tunnel to the watergate lay deserted, and from the sea-steps outside the fitful light of the torches shone on empty water to the little harbour entrance. Above on the battlements other sentries lolled – those dispensable sentries of fiction who doze at their posts in their ill-fitting uniforms, mere cannon-fodder to be knocked on the head or smothered by agile assailants, or at best wake up too late to fire a warning shot and yell “Turn out the … ugh!” If the commandant had lined the walls of that lonely fortress with his entire force, instead of boozing and stuffing and throwing his wig aside in the carouse, all might have been well, but of course he didn’t. They never do.
So within Fort St Bartlemy was all cheery complacency and unbuttoning, and without the tropic moon shone on that familiar scene … the grim silhouette of the castle, the torch-lit peace of the watergate, the wind sighing gently through the palm trees, the soft surf lapping the silver sand. All was tranquil, the moon’s wake throwing its golden shaft across the rum-dark sea, the scent of bougainvillea and pimento on the breeze, and one might have imagined the soft strains of “Spanish Ladies” on the lulling air, fading gradually away …
… to be replaced by another music, the almost imperceptible beat of something far out on the dark water, the chuckle of foam under a bow, the faint creak of cordage and timber, the soft whisper of a command, and the rising ghostly cadence of a wild sea-march as a great dark shadow came gliding, gliding out of the night. For an instant the moonlight