The Pirates!

by Gideon Defoe

  The pirates all looked at each other in surprise. It wasn’t exactly the announcement they had been anticipating.

  ‘Las Vegas?’

  ‘That’s right. Las Vegas. The city of dreaming spires.’

  ‘But you’re always saying how gambling is terrible, Pirate Captain. You said it was even worse than calling people names.’

  ‘But then we had that adventure where you wagered the whole boat and crew that nobody could beat you at thumb-wrestling.’

  ‘Which is it, Pirate Captain?’ said the albino pirate. ‘Is gambling terrible or good?’

  ‘We are not,’ said the Pirate Captain, ‘going to Vegas to gamble.’

  ‘Oh. Why are we going? Is it the women?’

  ‘No, it’s not that either. Come on, you lubbers – what else is Las Vegas famous for?’

  The pirate crew gave a collective shrug.

  ‘Showbusiness! You know how good I am at telling anecdotes. And we’re always having adventures. It’s just the sort of place an entertaining act such as ourselves could be a hit.’

  The pirates wriggled uncomfortably from foot to foot. A couple of them tapped their heads meaningfully.

  ‘Come on!’ bellowed the Pirate Captain. ‘It was bound to come down to this sooner or later. Why are you all looking so put out?’

  ‘It’s just … I don’t think we realised you had ambitions in that particular direction,’ said the pirate with a scarf.

  ‘It’s not just one of my fads, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Are you sure about this, Captain?’ said the pirate in red.

  ‘I do have a sensitive side, you know,’ said the Pirate Captain with a pout. ‘I realise you lot tend to think I’m just about the hair and the grisly murder, but that’s simply not the case. You might be surprised to hear that sometimes I enjoy taking a little time out to read Shakespeare, and make daisy chains, and artistic stuff like that. I’ve always felt a certain calling for the stage. In many ways I think that’s why I got into piracy in the first place, because it’s quite dramatic.’

  ‘Sorry, Captain,’ said the pirate in green. ‘I hope you haven’t felt too misunderstood all these years.’

  ‘Aaarrr, that’s okay. It’s a lonely job, being a Pirate Captain. I knew that when I signed on.’

  The crew were pretty tired by the time the Lovely Emma arrived in Las Vegas,14 because even though this adventure was taking place in America, they still had to sail across Texas and half of Nevada. There was a hair-raising encounter along the way with a shoal of box jellyfish, which washed up onto the deck during a typhoon, and the Pirate Captain had to make sure the crew were all wearing their pirate shoes: ‘Something you should do anyway,’ he pointed out, ‘because of verrucas.’ The pirates had then spent an enjoyable afternoon running around the boat smacking the jellyfish with spades.

  Luckily for the pirates the Las Vegas of those days was a lawless place, so just for once they didn’t have to disguise themselves as washer-women or scientists or anything like that to avoid getting arrested. In fact, life in the American Wild West was really a lot like life on the High Seas. Obviously there were a few minor differences, but these were pretty superficial – it was mostly a matter of certain things being known by different names. The pirate with a scarf gave out a list to the rest of the crew, just to avoid any confusion whilst they were there:

  The crew all dutifully memorised their lists, parked the boat in a lake next to some cowboy wagons, and went to have a look about the place. The pirates were very excited by the Las Vegas buildings, which were in the shape of buildings that you wouldn’t expect to find in the middle of the desert. The Pirate Captain tried to look nonchalant, because he didn’t want to undermine the world-weary been-there-done-that image he liked to cultivate, but it wasn’t easy because he was almost as excited as the men.

  ‘Look at that one,’ said the pirate in green. ‘It’s like a real medieval castle! Like we have in England!’

  ‘That one’s shaped like a pyramid!’

  ‘And that one’s shaped like a pirate boat!’

  The pirates couldn’t help but gawp at all the bright lights and the glamorous people walking down the strip. The prevalent fashion in Las Vegas appeared to be ten-gallon hats and handle-bar moustaches for the men and ‘almost bare’ for the ladies.

  The pirates all looked with big longing eyes at one of the glittering casinos. And then they all looked with big pleading eyes at their Captain. A few of them started to bounce up and down on the spot, which was always a sure sign that they were getting overexcited.

  ‘Please, Pirate Captain!’ said the pirate with rickets.

  ‘Please,’ said the pirate with gout.

  ‘We could get one of those almost bare ladies to blow on our dice with real lady breath,’ said the pirate in red.

  ‘I heard it’s impossible to lose when they do that!’ said the pirate with a nut allergy.

  ‘Snake eyes!’ shouted the albino pirate. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but he wanted to join in.

  The Pirate Captain sighed. ‘I suppose it wouldn’t be the end of the world. And besides, let’s not forget that last adventure we had in a casino,’ he added, winking at his second-in-command. ‘There’s always the chance that some bored millionaire type will offer me a fortune to let him spend one night with the pirate with a scarf.’

  The pirates headed straight for the roulette table15, because it had a big shiny spinning wheel on it, and just like magpies pirates tend to find themselves drawn to shiny things.16

  The pirates tried to decide if it was best putting their doubloons on black or on red. Half of the pirates argued that it was best to put them on black, because that was the colour of their sturdy pirate boots. And the other half thought it was best to put them on red, because that was the colour of blood, and they wanted to show that they were a murderous bunch. In the end they compromised and put their doubloons on the little green zero, because that was the colour of rolling fields back in England, and they were all feeling a little homesick.

  Ten minutes later, having lost not only the emergency doubloons taped to the bottom of the teapot but also the teapot itself, the pirates were starting to think that perhaps the Pirate Captain had been right in the first place, and that maybe gambling wasn’t so great after all. They decided to go and play on the slot machines with their last few pieces of eight.

  ‘I think it’s obvious that table was rigged, Pirate Captain,’ said the pirate in green.

  ‘And I didn’t like the look of that croupier. Did you notice that he had no ear lobes? I remember hearing that’s a sure sign of dishonesty in a man,’ said the pirate with gout.

  ‘Don’t be too disheartened, lads,’ said the Pirate Captain. ‘After all, you’re forgetting the actual reason we’re here. We’ve come to put on a show!’ To illustrate the point he did a little tap-dance while holding an imaginary cane, and in the process accidentally bumped into an elderly man who was sat at one of the slot machines a little way along. The man let out a muffled curse, and his leg clattered onto the floor.

  ‘Oh good grief! I’ve knocked your leg off! I’m so sorry!’ said the Pirate Captain, stricken. ‘I don’t know my own strength sometimes.’

  It was then he noticed that the leg which was lying on the floor wasn’t a normal-looking leg, but a chunk of glinting whalebone. He looked up to see a scowling face with a livid scar that he recognised as belonging to the friendly stranger from Nantucket docks.

  ‘Ahab! It is Ahab, isn’t it?’ said the Captain.

  ‘Pirate Captain,’ said Ahab.

  The Pirate Captain handed Ahab his leg back.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ahab, and then he rather joylessly turned back to the slot machine.

  ‘Fancy seeing you here! I thought you were off looking for that whale.’

  Ahab turned a sullen eye on the Captain. ‘Aye, Pirate Captain. Ahab does not rest. Some of my whaler crew told me that the white fiend had been sighted here.’

 
‘Really? Here in the desert? Not the usual habitat, is it?’

  ‘He is a mighty devious beast, Captain.’

  ‘I suppose he must be,’ said the Pirate Captain thoughtfully.

  ‘The men informed me that they had seen the whale entering into this very casino. Gambling is a filthy vice, as I’m sure you would agree, but one I find not in the least surprising from a creature so lacking in honest virtue.’

  There was a sharp pinging sound from Ahab’s slot machine, and a pile of shiny doubloons poured out onto the old whaler’s lap. The Pirate Captain looked at them wistfully.

  ‘Ahab seems to have got three lemons,’ said Ahab. He scooped up his winnings and heaved a weary sigh. ‘But what is money to me? Only cold revenge can soothe a soul such as mine.’

  ‘Yes, cold revenge sounds good. Or maybe you should go and take in a show,’ suggested the Pirate Captain with a hopeful grin. ‘It just so happens that me and the lads here are planning on putting on a bit of a performance ourselves. I’m sure you’d enjoy it, and it may take your mind off the whaling for a while.’

  ‘I am sorry, Captain. I have no time for such things,’ said Ahab, screwing his whalebone leg back into place and getting up from his stool. ‘And the beast appears to have given me the slip once more, so if you’ll excuse me, Ahab must take his leave.’

  And with a brisk nod of his well-weathered head, Ahab stalked out of the casino.

  ‘Are all your friends that dour, Captain?’ asked the pirate with a hook for a hand as the pirates wandered back to the Lovely Emma.

  ‘Only the ones racked with eternal torment,’ explained the Captain. ‘The rest are pretty frivolous.’

  The pirates quickly busied themselves making a little stage out of some barrels and planks of wood from the boat’s lumber room. They used one of her sails to make a theatrical curtain and put out deckchairs at the front for the audience. Meanwhile the Pirate Captain locked himself up in his office with a broad selection of coloured pens, scissors and glue. When he eventually came out he was looking pretty pleased with himself. He unfurled a huge banner:

  ‘What do you think, lads?’

  ‘I like the alliteration, Pirate Captain,’ said the pirate with a scarf.

  ‘Yes,’ said the Pirate Captain proudly. ‘I thought of doing it with Ks – you know, Kavalcade of Kutlass Kapers. But then I thought that might be a bit much.’

  ‘I can see that,’ said the pirate with a scarf. ‘Are you really going to knock out a ferocious lion?’

  ‘Not as such. Well, no. I might have been embellishing.’

  After the pirates had hung the banner over the back of the Lovely Emma and had gone round the dusty little town handing out a few flyers, the Pirate Captain decided it was time to rehearse.

  ‘Right, lads, let’s get this show on the road! I thought we’d start by workshopping a few scenes – you know, to get a feel of our roles.’

  ‘Erm … I was just going to do a couple of shanties, to be honest,’ said the pirate in green. ‘I was thinking educational for the matinee and a little more bawdy in the evening.’

  ‘That sounds good,’ said the Pirate Captain. ‘What about you, Jennifer? How’s the knife-throwing coming along?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve not really tried it yet,’ said Jennifer airily. ‘But it can’t be that hard, can it? It’s only knifes after all. Just to be on the safe side, I thought I’d use the pirate with a peg-leg as my partner, seeing as he’s already so used to losing bits and pieces.’

  Jennifer smiled at the pirate with a peg-leg. The pirate with a peg-leg looked a bit miserable.

  The pirate in green went round the audience with his hat to collect the night’s takings. Just about all of Wild West life was there – millionaires, cowboys, native Americans, and even a few women of ill-repute. He knew that the people in Vegas had a bit of a reputation, so when he was collecting the doubloons he bit down on them, because he had seen people do this before, but he wasn’t sure why, because all he could tell was that it made his fillings hurt.

  Behind the curtain the Pirate Captain was doing a few stretching exercises and going over his lines.

  ‘Now. Do you think I should do the mosquito anecdote?’

  ‘I should say the shark anecdote is better, Captain,’ replied the scarf-wearing pirate.

  ‘It occurred to me, as some sort of framing device, I might explain the story behind each of my scars.’

  ‘That’s a good idea, Captain.’

  ‘This nasty one here? That’s the time I had my BCG.’

  ‘Yes, Captain. I remember the nurse said you were very brave.’

  ‘I think the rest are all from slipping over in the bath.’

  ‘The ocean certainly is a rocky mistress.’

  The scarf-wearing pirate gave the sassy pirate a nod, the sassy pirate tugged on a rope and up went the makeshift curtain.

  ‘Hello Las Vegas!’ said the Pirate Captain, waving to the audience with both hands. ‘It’s lovely to be here!’

  The show got off to an energetic start, with all the pirates doing a shanty about swimming really fast. Next up was the tallest pirate on the Seven Seas, who came on and did a little dance to the sound of an accordion. The tallest pirate on the Seven Seas was wearing a very long coat and had a normal-sized head that looked a lot like the pirate in green’s head. When the tallest pirate on the Seven Seas left the stage to a polite round of applause he nearly fell over as his top half turned to bow to the audience and his bottom half continued into the wings.17 Then there was some tumbling from some of the more lively pirates and after that the Pirate Captain invited a few children up onto the stage. He magicked some eggs from behind their ears, sat them all on a bench and got them to sing a jolly shanty about the harsh life of a pirate. The Pirate Captain warned them that the theatre was haunted and that they had to keep singing – even if a scary ghost came and touched their shoulder. As the children sang, the albino pirate sneaked on and chased them off one by one, until only the littlest kid was left, absolutely terrified out of his wits, whilst the Pirate Captain chuckled away. Then the Pirate Captain told him that it was all okay and that the ghost was actually just an albino. He let the littlest kid feed the albino a couple of pieces of meringue to see how harmless he was. Then the Pirate Captain sang a shanty to the kid about how we have to look after the children, because they are our future. The show finished with the Pirate Captain’s moving environmental monologue, which he had entitled ‘The Last Dolphin In The Sea’. It was a bit downbeat, because he had written it when he was in a mood and it had been raining, but the pirates all agreed that the environment was a serious matter and needed to be treated as such. Halfway through the monologue the accordion broke, but fortunately the pirate with asthma was on hand to step up and do ‘human accordion’, which was a bit like human beatbox, but with more emphasis on wheezing.

  ‘… where are my friends,

  Oh where can they be?

  Life is so lonely when you’re

  The last dolphin in the sea!’

  ‘Remember. There’s magic inside each and every one of you. Never forget that,’ said the Pirate Captain, wiping a tear from his cheek and bowing to the audience as the curtain came down. All the pirates were buzzing.

  ‘That went brilliantly, Captain!’ said the pirate with a scarf, clutching a big bag of the evening’s takings. He’d drawn a big thermometer to show how close they were getting to the six thousand doubloons and he set about colouring in the current total.

  ‘It did go well, didn’t it?’ said the Captain, dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief. ‘I think I was born to the stage, lads. This is my calling. If you cut me, do I not bleed greasepaint?’

  ‘I’m sure that during our adventure with a circus you said you had sawdust in your veins, Captain.’

  ‘Aaarrr. Yes. Also greasepaint. Sawdust and greasepaint.’

  ‘That must make a sort of gooey paste, Captain.’

  Six

  Death Feast of the Panther Women!
/>
  ‘…So I said to him, “Larry – you can’t go on like that, you just can’t!”’

  The Pirate Captain was regaling the pirates with a theatrical anecdote.

  ‘And do you know what? He bloody did! He went on and bloody stormed it. Great times, lads. Great times.’

  The pirates all sighed and shook their heads at Larry. Since the night before, the Pirate Captain had become an even better raconteur than ever, with a ready supply of funny and moving tales from the wonderful world of showbusiness.

  ‘Five-minute call, Mr Captain!’ shouted the pirate with a strawberry birthmark, and the pirates started scurrying about for the second night’s performance. The Pirate Captain took a moment to tease his eyebrows into points. He stopped to look approvingly at himself in a mirror.

  ‘ME ME ME. MO MO MO. MA MA MA,’ he said to his reflection. The pirate in green straightened his hat for him. ‘They’re pretty quiet out there, Captain,’ said the pirate in green.

  ‘I expect they’re trembling in anticipation. They’ll have been looking forward to it all day.’

  The Pirate Captain closed his eyes, took a deep breath and bounded onto the stage.

  ‘Laaaadies and Gentlemen! Live on stage, fresh from the Seven Seas, it is I, the Pirate Captain! Raarggh!’

  He waited for the applause. And he waited. After a bit more waiting he opened his eyes. There was nobody there. Just row upon row of empty deckchairs.18

  ‘You can come out,’ said the Pirate Captain. ‘I’m not really that terrifying!’

  * * *

  ‘I don’t understand it, Captain,’ said the pirate with a hook for a hand, as they wandered disconsolately down one of Las Vegas’s brightly lit streets.

  ‘The reviews felt you were a “powerhouse of performance”,’ said the pirate in green.

  ‘Fame is fickle,’ said the scarf-wearing pirate wisely.

  The Pirate Captain shook his head. ‘It doesn’t make any sense, lads. Yesterday we were all the rage, and now we can’t shift a single ticket. It’s a mystery.’