Silver's boat charged forward, backed oars, and within moments five muskets and six brace of pistols crackled and roared, and men went down all around Flint, but not before they'd fired too, each man with two brace, and a musket each, and two blunderbusses in the boat besides. Sparks and smoke and wadding flew in every direction in the ferocious fire-fight that ensued, at a range so close that it was all but impossible to miss, and not one man in either boat escaped unharmed.
Aboard Lord Stanley the women screamed and screamed, while York and his crew gaped at the battle — and took cover. When the firing stopped, they got up and looked, and saw two boats wallowing in their own powder smoke, and men sprawled out and bleeding and twitching.
Flint's crew were finished: all of them dead or rattling out their last breaths. Flint himself was pierced through the arm and leg, but not seriously. Aboard Silver's boat, Dreamer was hit low in the body, Van Oosterhout in the chest and hand, Silver had two deep shot-furrows gouged across his belly, and Mr Joe — who'd been burned by powder flash — was in the water, where he'd jumped to put out his burning clothes. Of the other four men, only one was still conscious.
Still Flint wouldn't give up. He stood. He raised his pistol butt, and smashed open the monkey cage.
"Kill him!" cried Van Oosterhout to York. "Cold shot — drop cold shot on him!"
Obediently York ran to the shot rack beside one of his ship's few guns.
Flint seized a shrieking, wriggling monkey. He threw it at the ship, but it fell back into his boat. He chased it.
"Stop him!" cried Silver, and Van Oosterhout seized a boat hook and tried, one-handed and dizzy with pain, to hook on to Flint's boat.
"No! No!" said Silver. "We can't touch him! Not him or them monkeys. It's death to all hands!"
Van Oosterhout dropped the hook and fell back, too sick to do more.
York's men began to heave six-pounder shot at Flint, but missed with every one. As projectiles rained into the sea around him, Flint grabbed another monkey and tried to throw it into the ship. The frightened creature bit him viciously, causing him to fumble and drop it, and as he staggered the boat slid under him, out away from the ship, and away from Silver's boat.
"Reload!" said Silver, snatching up a musket even though he was light-headed from loss of blood. "You there!" he croaked to York. "Never mind cold shot — get a bloody gun into action!"
Dreamer clutched the wound in his side and said nothing. The injury was painful but he knew it would not kill him. And he saw that Flint would escape. Silver was feebly trying to load. Van Oosterhout was barely moving. The men on the great ship were fumbling with a cannon. And Flint's boat was drifting clear. Flint, the left handed twin, the Devil in flesh, was escaping with his demons. And if he escaped, he could return another day.
Dreamer leapt out of the boat. He came down with a splash and swam the few strokes to Flint's boat. He tried to board. Flint struck at Dreamer with an empty pistol, but he wasn't quite himself. Hysterical with rage, he missed his stroke; Dreamer seized his hand, pulled Flint into the water and scrambled aboard. He chased the monkeys and struck them down with his hatchet, covering himself with their blood, guts and spittle. It was slow work because the monkeys were swift and agile and had to be caught.
Flint's knife took Dreamer by surprise. He hadn't seen Flint climb back aboard — but even if he had, he'd not have stopped what he was doing. As Flint seized him, he brought down the tomahawk one final time, before Flint's knife stabbed into him, and kept on stabbing and stabbing and stabbing until finally Flint heaved him out of the boat.
When he saw the dead monkeys, Flint let out a cry of rage and pain as if in the utmost desperation of his entire life, and damned all the world and those within it. Then he took two oars in his hands and began pulling with all his might.
The single shot that Silver managed with his musket achieved nothing. Neither did Lord Stanley's hastily loaded gun, which York and his men were firing for the first time in years. Flint pulled for the open sea. Then he got the launch's sail up and ran westward into the mist-shrouded archipelago.
York and his men launched their own boat. They came alongside Silver's and found Long John and Mr Joe holding one end of an oar, with Dreamer — still alive in the blood- clouded water — clinging to the other. The two pirates were faint and weak, but they were hanging on.
"Leave go, shipmates," said York, clambering into the boat beside them and putting a hand on the oar. "We've got him now. We'll bring him aboard and look after him!"
"No!" said Silver.
"No!" said Dreamer.
"Why not?"
"He can't come aboard," said Silver.
"No," said Dreamer.
"Why not?"
"Smallpox."
York had many questions, but Silver just shook his head.
"So why are you hanging on to him?" said York finally.
"Dunno," said Silver, but he did know. And so did Dreamer, and they looked at one another as long as they could, and Silver hung on, and Dreamer hung on… until Dreamer could hang on no more. Finally, when his time was come, Dreamer slipped loose, and drifted off and quietly sank. Silver watched him go. Silver took off his hat.
"And so we commend his body to the deep," he said. Then he turned to a sorely puzzled York. "It's what we say, lad," said Silver quietly, "us gentlemen o' fortune." He looked at the spot where the waves had closed over Dreamer. "You don't let a man like him die all alone."
Chapter 46
The council held on the quarterdeck was a long one, even though some of the chief participants sat heavily bandaged in their chairs in the front rank, while the rest — and a great crowd of them it was, too, made up of warriors, seamen and gentlemen of fortune — sat or stood behind them, with those who'd signed articles shouting their comments whenever they wanted, as was their right, while the Patanq were shocked at such chaotic informality and spoke only when the ceremonial pipe was in their hands.
All of which was a considerable trial to the wounded.
Van Oosterhout had been lucky. Lucky in the man who treated him and who undoubtedly saved his life. Summoned from Walrus, Cowdray probed the Dutchman's chest wound, found the lung untouched, and removed a pistol ball, the shank of a brass button, and a bit of Van Oosterhout's coat. Thanks to Cowdray's obsession with boiling instruments before surgery, and with total cleanliness thereafter, a very dangerous wound was cleaned and drained, and healed well. Van Oosterhout was up and about the next day. He was even able to help Israel Hands bring Walrus safe through Flint's Passage, and out to join the Patanq fleet.
Mr Joe was lucky, too. His burns were superficial, and Cowdray laid on goose-fat and clean bandages, and healed him without scars.
Silver was lucky to be alive at all, but less lucky in his wounds. Cowdray cleaned the broad gashes across his body, but couldn't close them with stitching, because they were too wide. Despite Cowdray's best efforts, the wounds swelled and grew hot and painful. They would take weeks to recover fully.
With Silver quieter than usual, the discussion was led by Israel Hands and Cut-Feather, and agreement was slow despite the profound gratitude of the Patanq nation, and a procession of sachems who came forward, one by one, to kneel before Silver and Van Oosterhout, and pronounce their thanks. The problem, as ever in this wicked world, was not high principle, but low money, for Flint's five chests had been opened and found to contain an astonishing amount of silver and gold — plenty enough and more for the Patanq nation to buy its new lands in the North.