Flint and Silver (10 page)

    He reached up and scratched the poll of his green parrot.

    This had become a habit of his when wrapped in thought. The midshipmen looked at one another and at the size of the pines on the hill, and they were glad that they wouldn't personally be doing the physical labour.

    "You will trim and shape the trunks, and they will be used to build a blockhouse according to this plan," said Flint. He produced a rolled-up paper and looked around the hot, thick, pine-smelling forest with its buzzing insects and soaring trunks. There was not a rock or a bush or a bank of earth; only columns of living wood and the sandy soil beneath. There was nothing to rest the paper on.

    "You there - Billingsgate!" he called to a seaman standing a respectful distance away, burdened with a heavy bundle of canvas for making tents. "At the double now! Here, Fido! Here, Prince! Good dog!" He smiled his shining smile and the seaman dropped his bundle and sped forward. "Down, Rover!" said Flint, forcing Billingsgate on to all fours. "And don't you move, not on fear of a striped shirt."

    The man's back formed a sufficient table to spread Flint's plan. Like everything Flint did, it was beautifully done. It showed a loop-holed blockhouse of heavy timbers, with an encircling palisade of split logs. The mids leaned forward and examined the design. The more intelligent - or perhaps not - of them, Mr Hastings, frowned and spoke up.

    "Please, sir," said he, "don't this plan more readily suit a defence against armed men already ashore? So wouldn't we be better strengthening the seaward batteries up at… ugh!"

    He shut up as the elbow of his less - or perhaps more - intelligent comrade, Mr Midshipman Povey, caught him hard in the ribs. He looked up to see the deadly smile splitting Flint's face, for Mr Hastings had spoken the unchallengeable truth. Flint's blockhouse was a nonsense. Any threat could only come from the sea and was best countered by batteries covering the few places on the island where ships, or ships' boats, could make a landing. But from Flint's point of view, the blockhouse was a most wise and sensible thing to build, since it kept himself so visibly away from Mr Bones's politics at the other end of the island.

    "Mr Boatswain!" he cried, and acting-boatswain Tom Morgan came doubling through the tree trunks. "Get yourself a cane, Mr Morgan, and stripe this insolent child a couple of dozen across the fat of his arse." The colour drained from Mr Hastings's face and he swallowed hard. Flint turned his face to the other mid. "And then deliver two dozen unto this one, for he's as insolent as the other." Flint smiled and tickled his parrot. "I'll not have nasty young gentlemen answering back to their betters."

    Two weeks later the blockhouse was built and ready for occupation. Where only virgin forest had stood, there was now a great clearing with a massive log-house in the centre, surrounded by the stumps of the trees that had been sacrificed for its construction. As a fortification, it was thoroughly well made, commanding a clear field of fire in all directions, while the six-foot palisade was well placed to break up an assault, but too insubstantial to enable an enemy to take shelter there.

    Had there been any real need for such a building, it would have served to perfection, and Flint even attended to minor details such as the fact that there was no natural basin around the spring from which water might be drawn. He had a large ship's cauldron brought up, and the bottom knocked out of it, so it could be sunk in the ground at the spring-head to provide an artificial tank that constantly filled and brimmed with fresh water.

    With the blockhouse built, Flint left a guard of four marines to occupy it, and marched his command back to the North Inlet, the
Elizabeth,
the
Betsy,
and Captain Springer. The long, straggling column, heavy-laden as it was (by Flint's own design), laboured heavily to complete the journey and suffered various casualties. One man broke his leg, one got lost, four developed severe blisters from the straps of their packs and fourteen presented themselves to the surgeon with rashes from poisonous jungle plants.

    Flint dealt promptly with all these accidents. He had the gratings rigged and awarded a dozen each to the rash-sufferers for carelessness, two dozen to the lost soul for stupidity, three dozen to the blister brigade for incompetence in lashing their kit, and four dozen to the broken leg (so soon as he could stand on it) for wilfully rendering himself unfit for duty.

    With these punishments and others, there was now hardly one man of the three hundred foremast hands and petty officers that once had been
Elizabeth'
s people who had not felt either the lash or some more spiteful punishment. The mood of the crew was sullen and resentful, and only one push was needed to drive them to the great leap that Flint had planned: some of them… enough of them… sufficient for Flint's purpose.

    By now, too,
Betsy
looked like a ship rather than a collection of timbers. Her lower masts were stepped, and her standing rigging in place. The carpenter and his mates had even contrived to serve her hull with pitch and paint, to offset the worm. All she needed was men turning the capstan and she'd warp herself sweetly down the greased slide-way already laid out before her, and she'd swim in the waters of the North Inlet.

    Flint saw that things had reached the moment of truth, and he held a conference that very night, safely away from the camp and out in the dark forest, with Billy Bones and some others including Israel Hands and Black Dog, who were the most intelligent, and others who were the least stupid of the chosen ones. Flint explained what each of them had to do, and made each man repeat it until it was clear they'd understood. Hands and Black Dog learned fast enough, but for the rest Flint had to keep his temper entirely under control. For once, he had to be patient and encouraging as these morons stumbled and mumbled and struggled towards learning their parts.

    He could not afford any noise or dispute at this stage, for now he, Joseph Flint, was personally involved, and the danger to himself was acute.

Chapter 9

3rd April 1751

The Delacroix Plantation,

South Carolina

    Selena fought all the way, but her mother was twice her weight and three times her strength. The woman just put her head down and took the blows she received from her daughter and never gave back one - which amazing behaviour frightened Selena more than anything. Instead, her mother got sullen and angry and tried to persuade.

    "What you do, girl?" she cried as she pulled Selena along. "You think you not like all women? You think you better? You… you… you…"

    But her words failed. She'd never learned English very well and she switched to the liquid speech of her homeland, which the youngsters like Selena barely understood - for it earned the toe of the overseer's boot to be heard "talking African".

    But this time Selena's mother didn't just speak it: she bellowed it. And since it was dusk, and the day's work was done, the people came to the doors of their shacks as Selena was dragged by. They came to see what all the fuss was about. When they saw, they understood and they laughed or pitied according to their individual character. Mostly the men looked at Selena and licked their lips and thought their own thoughts, but the women screeched and laughed and slapped their sides in happy chorus.

    "It's your time, girl!" they cried. "Now you just like all the rest!" And they nodded to one another in righteous enjoyment at the fall of one who had put on such airs.

    "Where's Miss Jeanie?" they mocked. "You want me to call her from Paris?"

    And the children hopped and capered along behind, laughing and mimicking, even though they didn't understand. But they would, given a few years; especially the girls.

    Yard by yard, Selena was hauled away from the neat line of shacks and out towards the big house. The crickets sang, the moon came out, the stars shone, and soon the children scampered back home with final jeers, for they were getting too near the big house, and knew better than to make trouble there.

    The big house was ablaze with light and music. The master and mistress were entertaining. White-folk visitors were come from far away beyond the plantation, where no slave was allowed to go. There were carriages drawn up outside the big house, but that was at the front, which was forbidden to Selena and her mother. Instead, Selena was dragged the last few hundred yards to where Sam the overseer lived in his smart, plank-built house with the veranda and the whitewashed walls. Sam's house stood way out from the shacks where the common folk lived, and close enough to the big house to be ready for the master's call.

    Sam was a greatly privileged creature. He wore shoes and a white man's hat, and was even trusted with a gun, and now he sat with this badge of office across his knees as he rocked on his own porch.

    Selena's mother dragged her up the steps and brought her before Sam. He was a big, hard young man, chosen for his ability to knock down any other slave with his fists. But he smiled and shook his head in admiration of Selena.

    "My oh my!" he said. "Ain't you just ripe and ready." He slid his hand into Selena's cotton dress and reached for one of the hard breasts that were bouncing so appealingly as she struggled.

    "No!" barked Selena's mother, and caught Sam's arm a blow with her fist. "She not for boy like you!"

    Sam snarled and raised his musket butt to smash the woman flat. He was top dog and didn't take no crap from nobody.

    "Hold you hand, nigger-boy!" cried the woman. "My Selena, she be Master's girl -
yes
? Master do what she say -
yes
? Selena say, 'Flog Sam black ass' -
Master flog Sam black ass!"

    Sam froze. It was true. It could happen. So long as the master's fancy lasted, he'd give a girl most everything she wanted… especially if it was so little a thing as flogging an uppity slave. Sam had seen too many floggings to suffer one on his own sweet hide. He doused his anger and lowered his gun.

    He said nothing, but got up and led the way to the "special house" down in the hollow by the river, among the trees and out of sight of the big house, where it had been placed by a thoughtful husband to spare the blushes of his wife. What the mistress did not have positively thrust before her eyes, she could contrive not to know. Indeed, as far as the mistress was concerned, what went on in the house in the hollow served the invaluable purpose of focusing her husband's attentions where they would do the most good and the least harm.

    Sam had the keys to the special house. He unlocked the door and lit the candles inside. He looked sidelong at the two women to see their wonder at the fine things on display, things no field slave ever saw: the curtains, carpets and furniture, the silks, satins and linen, the wines and food, the big bed, the great mirrors and the gold-framed paintings of naked white women, luscious and plump. Tonight there was also a big bathtub, with water, soap and towels, and a selection of brightly coloured dresses.

    "Now you get that girl ready, you hear?" said Sam, for the benefit of his dignity. "You get her clean and dressed up right pretty, or it gonna be
your
black ass gets flogged!" With that, he straightened his shoulders and marched off, master of the field.

    Selena's mother sighed.

    "Get you clothes off, girl."

    "No!"

    "Get you clothes off. How me clean you, if you not take off clothes?"

    "Take me home. I wasn't bred for this!"

    "No! You stay here. You stay!"

    "Why?"

    This simple question finally broke the dam of Selena's mother's emotions. The woman burst into loud slobbering tears and called Selena a wicked girl who'd see her ma and pa sold away and all her brothers and sisters too.

    "Sold away!" cried Selena's mother, voicing the dread fear of the plantation slave. "Sold downriver. Me never see you. Me never see me man. Me never see me childrens. Never never never. That what you want? You
creature!
"

    "No!" screamed Selena, and stamped her foot, "But why should it be me?"

    "'Cos Master want you. That why he let you live in the big house! That why you get fancy clothes and fancy words. You got them 'cos he want you for
fancy piece!"

    "No! Miss Eugenie - Jeanie - she loved me!"

    "Huh! She love you when you small. You was her nigger doll. And now she gone to Paris for schooling and left you behind when she could've taken you with!"

    "No!"

    "No? So why you back in fields? Why you sleep in Mumma's house and not Miss Jeanie's room?"

    "It's all your fault! You told me to smile at the master in the first place!"

    Selena's mother bit her lip and the strength drained out of her indignation.

    "Well," she said, searching for words. She searched hard and came up with a powerful word: a white man's word. "I told you to smile 'cos it
proper
;" she said, and nodded in satisfaction.