Here are
the major references to Captain Flint’s deeds and
character in Treasure Island:
(Note: Despite all
the mentions of Flint, not once is his first name given.
The only clue is the initial “J” on the map at the front
of the book.)
Treasure Island, chapter 3*
Billy
Bones: “I was first mate, I was, old
Flint’s first mate and I’m the on’y one as knows the
place [where the treasure is buried].
He gave it (the map) to me in
Savannah, when he lay a-dying…”
Treasure Island, chapter 6
Squire
Trelawney: “He was the
bloodthirstiest buccaneer that sailed. Blackbeard was a
child to Flint. The Spaniards were so prodigiously
afraid of him, that, I tell you, sir, I was sometimes
proud he was an Englishman.”
Treasure Island, chapter 11
Long John
Silver: “…the old Walrus, Flint’s old
ship, as I’ve seen a-muck with the red blood and fit to
sink with gold.”
Long John Silver: “They
was the roughest crew afloat, was Flint’s; the devil
himself would have been feared to go to sea with
them…lambs wasn’t the word for Flint’s old buccaneers.”
Treasure Island, chapter 15
Ben Gunn: “I
were in Flint’s ship when he buried the treasure; he and
six along – six strong seamen. They were ashore nigh on
a week, and us standing off and on in the old Walrus.
One fine day up went the signal, and here come Flint by
himself in a little boat, and his head done up in a blue
scarf. The sun was getting up, and mortal white he
looked around the cut-water. But there he was, you mind,
and the six all dead – dead and buried. How he done it,
not a man aboard us could make out. It was battle,
murder, and sudden death, leastways – him against six.
Billy Bones was the mate; Long John he was
quartermaster, and they asked him where the treasure
was. ‘Ah,’ says he, ‘you can go ashore, if you like, and
stay,’ he says; ‘but as for the ship, she’ll beat up for
more, by thunder!’”
Treasure
Island, chapter 19
Ben Gunn: “…the
old stockade, as was made years and years ago by Flint.
Ah, he was the man to have a headpiece, was Flint!
Barring rum, his match were never seen.”
Treasure
Island, chapter 31
Long John
Silver, on finding a pirate’s body laid out like a
marker towards the treasure burial site: “…by
thunder! if it don’t make me cold inside to think of
Flint. This is one of his jokes, and no mistake. Him and
these six was here alone; he killed ‘em, every man; and
this one he hauled here and laid down by compass, shiver
my timbers!”
One of the
pirates: “…but if ever sperrit walked, it
would be Flint’s. Dear heart, but he died bad, did
Flint.”
“Ay,
that he did,” observed
another; “now he raged, and now he hollered for
the rum, and now he sang. ‘Fifteen men’ were his only
song, mates; and I tell you true, I never rightly liked
to hear it since. It was main hot, and the windy was
open, and I hear that old song comin’ out as clear as
clear – and the death-haul on the man a’ready.”
Treasure Island, chapter 32
“He
were an ugly devil,” cried a third
pirate with a shudder; “that blue in the face,
too!”
“That
was how the rum took him,” added Merry.
“Blue! Well, I reckon he was blue. That’s a true word.”
“Fetch
aft the rum, Darby! …They was his last words,” moaned Morgan,
“his last words above board.”
Well, let me
correct you, Morgan. Those are not his last words. Captain
Flint speaks loud and clear in my book, Tread Carefully on
the Sea.
From the
time I read Treasure
Island as a child, it seemed wrong that this
powerful figure, Captain Flint, was only recorded
posthumously. To me, Flint deserved a story of his own.
There was only one way to accomplish that – write a
prequel to Treasure
Island.
It not
only gave me the opportunity to piece together Flint’s
story and character, but also allowed me to answer the
many questions arising from Treasure Island,
such as:
- Why and
how did Flint come back alone after taking six men to
bury the treasure?
- How did
Billy Bones come by Flint’s map where X marked the
spot?
- How did
Long John Silver lose his leg and Blind Pew his
“deadlights” in the same broadside? (There’s some
explanation in Treasure
Island about Silver’s mishap, but remember that
Silver was an inveterate liar and what he reveals to a
young mutineer about his past just does not stand up
to scrutiny of the dates and events mentioned.)
- Who were
the fifteen men on a dead man’s chest (in the
recurring Treasure
Island song “Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum”)?
- Who was
the “one man of her crew alive what put to sea with
seventy-five” in the same song?
Maddeningly, there’s a
paucity of dates in Treasure
Island. In the very first sentence, the first-person
storyteller, Jim Hawkins, says: “I take up my pen in the
year of grace 17--.” Why, oh why, esteemed Mr. Stevenson,
did you not give us the full year?
Flint’s
treasure map is more instructive. The margins contain the
information that the map was drawn in August 1750, and
handed to Flint’s first mate, Billy Bones, on July 20th,
1754.
Pirates
and Privateers
