by Gideon Defoe
He took out the pirate with a scarf’s useful table from a pocket and grumpily doodled an extra couple of columns:
He was just about to add a third column about how much better his removable shiny pirate boots were compared to the dirty old cowboy boots that cowboys couldn’t take off when, with a tap tap tapping sound, who should they spot but Ahab hurrying down the dusty street.
‘Hello Ahab,’ the Pirate Captain called out. ‘Any joy? Whale-wise, I mean?’
Ahab hobbled sternly towards them. ‘Ill-fortune besets me as ever, Captain. The leviathan has eluded me once again – the men tell me he must have slipped out the back of the casino just as we arrived.’
‘He’s a tricky so-and-so, isn’t he?’ said the Pirate Captain. ‘You wouldn’t expect something that big to be so stealthy, would you? Considering he’s got no legs.’
Ahab glowered. ‘I could spend an afternoon telling you tales of the beast’s monstrous cunning, Pirate Captain. But I have an appointment to keep, so I cannot stop and chit-chat.’
‘Oh, off anywhere interesting?’
‘I am visiting a theatre show.’
The pirates were a little put out by this. ‘I thought you said you were too busy to go to see shows?’ said the pirate with a scarf.
‘Ahab is a solemn fellow,’ said Ahab. ‘I take no pleasure from playacting. But the men insisted that after the white whale left the casino, they spotted him buying tickets for a show. This, apparently, was his choice.’
Ahab handed the Pirate Captain a theatrical flyer. The Pirate Captain’s beetling brows almost leapt off his face.
‘Hell’s teeth! The rogue!’
For there, printed in a gothic pirate script above a picture of a boat, they read:
‘So that’s why nobody came to our show!’ exclaimed the pirate in green.
‘It’s almost as if he does this sort of thing just to cause us mischief!’ said the pirate in red.
‘Whilst I have no time for such fripperies, one must admit that it’s very clever how they’ve done all those Ks, do you not think, Pirate Captain?’ said Ahab.
The Pirate Captain was so angry that he didn’t even stop to buy popcorn before he, Ahab and the pirates burst into Black Bellamy’s show. Black Bellamy was already up on stage, halfway through taking questions about cuisine from a girl from the audience who was sat on his knee.
‘What’s the bounciest meat in the world?’ asked the girl.
‘Good question,’ said Black Bellamy. ‘There isn’t actually a bounciest meat in the world, but the chewiest meat is beef jerky, which comes from dry cows.’
‘I see no sign of the accursed sea-beast,’ said Ahab, scanning the auditorium, ‘but my godforsaken crew are obviously enjoying themselves,’ he added bitterly, looking at his whalers sat in the front row. Ahab paused, and turned to the pirates. ‘You might say that they are having a whale of a time.’
The pirates looked at Ahab. There was an embarrassed silence.
‘That was a joke,’ said Ahab. ‘Whale of a time. You see?’
The pirates went on looking at Ahab.
‘I rarely make jokes,’ said Ahab, a little sadly. ‘I don’t really have the delivery.’
Black Bellamy had finished with his question-and-answer session, and now he had begun to recount a story about the time he had disguised himself as Admiral Nelson and sunk Napoleon’s flagship.
‘It’s funny, it’s moving and it’s educational,’ whispered one of the audience to their neighbour.
‘Much better than that other pirate last night. Much classier.’
‘And I like the way his beard goes right up to his eyes.’
The Pirate Captain was just about to tap the fellow on the shoulder and point out that Black Bellamy was just an old ham, by which he certainly did not mean the good kind of mouth-watering old ham, when there was another wild round of applause.
‘Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Black Bellamy, waving for them to calm down. ‘I’m now going to sing you a shanty that is very close to my heart. As you know, I care a great deal about the environment … This one is called “The Last Dolphin In The Sea”.’
‘Oh, honestly!’ cried the Pirate Captain. ‘That really is the final straw! Excuse me, Ahab.’ And with that the Pirate Captain charged up through the audience and onto the stage.
‘Hello Pirate Captain,’ said Black Bellamy in a laconic voice. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’
‘Don’t you “hello” me,’ said the Pirate Captain, waggling his cutlass. ‘You’re stealing my material, you cove!’
‘Pirate Captain! I don’t even know how to begin to respond to such a baseless accusation.’
The Pirate Captain drew himself up to his full height of five feet and nine inches. ‘I’ve had enough, you swab. We’re going to settle this in the time-honoured pirate fashion!’
‘Cutlasses?’ shouted a helpful audience member.
‘Pistols maybe?’ shouted another excitedly.
‘Wrestling naked in front of a roaring log fire?’
‘Is it something to do with eating?’
‘No,’ said the Pirate Captain, turning to the audience. ‘We’re going to have a shanty battle. Mano-a-mano, with only our voices and ready wit as weapons! What do you say, Black Bellamy?’
‘Why not?’ roared Black Bellamy.
The audience cheered as the pirate with the accordion began to play a simple hornpipe. The Pirate Captain tapped his foot a few times.
‘Walking with my big pirate boots on the deck,
Here comes the Pirate Captain with my broad neck,
I sing with confidence, finesse and flair,
My clothes are the best and so is my hair!’
The crew and audience joined in on a chorus of ‘Yo ho hos’ and the Pirate Captain fixed Black Bellamy with a challenging eye. Black Bellamy swaggered confidently to the front of the stage.
‘When admirals cry into their pillows at night,
It’s Black Bellamy who caused their terrible plight!
I’ve plundered all of the Seven Seas and more,
Get out of my way when you hear me roar!’
As the crowd sang the chorus, Black Bellamy did a special backwards walk that looked as if his feet were walking forwards. The Pirate Captain stepped up.
‘I move across the stage with sinuous grace,
Singing all the while from my pleasant, open face,
This Black Bellamy’s show is a useless waste,
And if you think otherwise then you have no taste!’
On the last line, the Pirate Captain pointed an accusing finger at the audience and was met with a chorus of markedly less enthusiastic yo ho hos.
‘The only thing more famous than my piratical crimes,
Is the super quality of my amazing rhymes
You try your hardest, but your shanties are jokes,
And then you insult these stand-up folks!’
Black Bellamy gestured to the crowd, who nodded and glared at the Pirate Captain. The Pirate Captain puffed out his chest.
‘Only idiots couldn’t see that you’re a fraud.
I should have expected this from people abroad!
They’re vulgar and crass and …’
‘I don’t think they appreciated you saying that about their mothers, Captain,’ said the pirate with a scarf as they sprinted down the street a few minutes later.
‘You may be right, Number Two,’ said the Pirate Captain, using his cutlass to knock aside a bottle that was aimed at his head.
‘It’s been a while since we’ve had an angry mob after us, hasn’t it, Captain?’ said the pirate in green.
‘Not since the adventure with the Catholic girls’ school!’ said the pirate with long legs.
‘I feel a bit bad about Ahab.’
‘You mean his leg snapping off? I’m sure he’s got lots of spares.’
‘Yes, I suppose being trampled by furious cowboys would be nothing compared to having your leg bitten off by a
whale.’
‘I’ve decided that showbusiness isn’t really for me,’ said the Pirate Captain, trying to remember where they had left the boat.
‘It’s a bit shallow, Captain,’ agreed the pirate with a hook for a hand.
‘Exactly,’ said the Pirate Captain. ‘The public aren’t really ready for my material. It may be that I’m one of those innovative types who are doomed to only be appreciated by future generations.’
Seven
At the Court of the Crabs!
Next morning, after a terrible dream involving Cutlass Liz and his beard and a big pair of rusty scissors, the Pirate Captain woke to the sound of bits of pirate bones trickling through the egg-timer. He tramped bleary-eyed into the boat’s breakfast room. Usually he would have expected to find it full of the merry sounds of pirates staging little naval battles, with their cornflakes as tiny galleons and the milk as the sea, and the sizzle of bacon as distant cannon fire, but today he was greeted only by a restrained munching.
‘Ka-boom!’ said the Pirate Captain, as he sat down and spooned some cereal into his mouth, pretending it was Royal Navy boats and that his mouth was a big whirlpool.
‘Hooray! Take that Royal Navy!’ a couple of the crew replied, but more than a little half-heartedly.
The Pirate Captain scratched glumly at his bushy eyebrows. ‘Number Two,’ he said to the pirate with a scarf. ‘As soon as these breakfast things have been cleared away, I want us to make sail for Nantucket.’
‘What about the six thousand doubloons?’ asked the albino pirate, not able to look the Captain in the eye.19
‘Aaarrr,’ said the Pirate Captain. ‘We just have to face it, lads – I’m not going to be able to raise the cash in time. I’ve given it my best shot. We’re going to have to hand back the boat.’ The men stared at their plates. ‘Besides, there’s always a chance Cutlass Liz will decide that a stern telling-off would be a lot less bother than all that messy murdering,’ the Captain added unconvincingly.
‘Can’t give up now, sir,’ said the pirate with rickets. A few of the pirates whispered to each other and then the albino pirate held up a little bag.
‘We’ve had a bit of a whip-round, Captain,’ he said, passing it rather shyly across the table. The Pirate Captain tipped the bag out next to his plate. It contained:
• 3 pieces of eight
• Some foreign coins
• A chocolate groat with fluff on it
• A ‘one child gets in free’ voucher to see the lunatics at Bedlam
• An apple core
‘Oh …’ The Captain pushed the contents about with his fork. ‘Is that it?’
‘Those foreign coins could be valuable,’ said the pirate in green hopefully.
‘This one’s from Water-flumeland,’ said the Pirate Captain, holding it up to the light, ‘which I don’t think is even a real country.’
‘We tried our best!’ said the pirate with rickets, distraught.
‘I know you did,’ said the Pirate Captain. ‘And I’m touched, really I am. But we’re in a pickle. We’ve tried treasure maps and showbusiness, and you’ve already said you don’t much care for me pulling the gold teeth from every man here. So if you know any other way a pirate can come by a bit of loot, I’d certainly like to hear it.’
‘Why don’t you become the spokesperson for treasure?’ said the sassy pirate. ‘My uncle was the spokesperson for Beecham’s Pills, and he got a lifetime’s supply of them for free. You should do that, but for gold and jewels and that kind of thing – I’m sure they’d like to be associated with you.’
‘Or we could start making shell animals, to sell as souvenirs. Everybody likes shell animals, and we have ready access to plenty of shells.’
‘Or we could,’ said the pirate in red, rolling his eyes, ‘try some pirating.’
‘Eh?’
‘You know – attacking boats and making off with their treasure. What with us being pirates and all.’
Even though the Pirate Captain didn’t care much for the pirate in red’s tone, he had to admit that the idea had a certain logic. Now the pirate in red had pointed it out, the Pirate Captain wasn’t really sure why it hadn’t occurred to them earlier. So after they had finished their breakfast and drunk some coffee, the noisy pirate climbed up to the crow’s nest20 to look out for passing boats to plunder, whilst the rest of the crew got busy, polishing the cannons and swabbing the decks. They hoisted the Jolly Roger, to show they were back in business, but some of the younger pirates felt the skeleton face was a little too frightening, so they took it back down and used a flag that showed the Pirate Captain waving instead. The Pirate Captain himself took up his position at the ship’s wheel and rested his hat on a barrel in order to let his glossy hair and beard billow in the wind. He was just thinking how he might get a portrait commissioned in exactly this pose when they spotted their first boat.
Pirating being a lot like riding a bicycle or making out with a pretty girl, the basics soon came back to them. They braced the mainsail and fired the cannons and fixed their faces into terrible grimaces, did all the usual roaring and generally made for a fairly horrific sight.21 The pirates were slightly disappointed that the boat turned out to be a leper ship. The lepers were really very understanding, and the pirates came away with some nice bells and a hefty stack of old leper parts, which they thought they might be able to sell to hospitals later on.22 The second boat they attacked was full of children out on a school trip. The pirates made a few doubloons by selling the children some opium, and they all had a great time together building Frankensteins out of the bits of leper they had just collected. When it was time to go home several of the children asked if they could maybe stay and be pirates too, but the Pirate Captain was adamant that they should get back to their mothers, who would be worrying about where they were.
The pirate with a scarf picked up a telescope – making sure to check the eyepiece first, because on board the pirate boat the general consensus seemed to be that ‘the old gags were the best’ – and scanned the horizon.
‘Ship ahoy, Captain.’
‘Well, third time lucky,’ said the Pirate Captain, a little wearily. ‘It’s definitely not penniless refugees or a ghost ship or something like that?’
‘Can’t quite tell, Captain. Bit small. Well weathered, but somehow … I don’t know … almost noble. And she’s covered with ivory, by the looks of it.’
‘That sounds more like it. Ivory. White gold! Remember our adventure with elephants?’
‘Does it have a name?’ said Jennifer, biting excitedly on a cutlass blade.
‘The Pequod.’
‘Funny sort of name for a boat.’
‘Pirate Captain!’ cried the albino pirate, and he came hurrying up, all out of breath and anxious-looking. ‘We haven’t got any cannonballs! We used them all up on the lepers and the school kids.’
‘Honestly!’ roared the Pirate Captain, ‘what sort of an outfit are we running here? How can we not have any cannonballs?’23
‘Well, we haven’t got much of anything.’
The Pirate Captain had the scarf-wearing pirate bring up the inventory to conduct a quick recap:
20 limes
1 Prize Ham
2 dry-cured hams
3 barrels of tar
1 pirate with an accordion (deceased and subsequently electroplated)
‘We’ve finished all the biscuits?’ asked the Captain in dismay.
‘I’m afraid so, Captain.’
‘We could fire a lime, sir,’ suggested the pirate with a scarf. ‘They’re sort of the right shape.’
‘Aaaarrr. Fair enough,’ said the Pirate Captain. ‘But dip it in tar so they think it’s a cannonball. Otherwise we risk looking stupid.’
‘Can we wear those dinosaur masks we picked up at the Natural History Museum on our last adventure?’ asked the pirate who was always getting nosebleeds. ‘I really think they add to our ferociousness.’
‘Why not?’ roared the Pirat
e Captain. ‘You know I’m always encouraging you lot to improvise. Express yourselves! Above all else remember that it’s meant to be fun – that’s the secret of good pirating.’
So the pirates fired the Lovely Emma’s cannons a couple of times and drew up alongside the Pequod. The Pirate Captain grabbed hold of a hefty rope, swung across to the other boat – showing considerable athleticism, and not a little leg – and landed square in the middle of its deck. One of the Pequod’s men charged forward waving a dangerous-looking harpoon, but the Pirate Captain hacked at him with his cutlass and the man dropped to the deck, split right down the middle. Seeing this grisly spectacle, the rest of the Pequod’s crew backed off a bit, and the Pirate Captain was left face to face with a single brave soul.
‘I’m the Pirate Captain!’ said the Pirate Captain, twirling his cutlass like a baton in a move he had been up practising all the previous night. ‘And I’m here for the loot!’
The man made no reply, but somehow his silence was fearsome in itself. A horrible sense of familiarity settled over the Pirate Captain. He squinted again at the fellow, and at his mop of straggly grey hair, and at the ugly scar that ran the length of one of his cheeks, and at the ivory leg poking out from the bottom of his trousers, and began to realise the terrible awkwardness of his situation.
‘Oh dear,’ said the Pirate Captain, turning a bright red.
Eight
Damn You I Say, Dr. Chesington!
In piratical circles this sort of thing was social death. For a moment the Pirate Captain thought about trying to pretend that he and the crew were some sort of pirate-a-gram, sent by one of Ahab’s whaler mates. But whalers were a notoriously humourless lot, and it didn’t seem likely they would have instigated such a thing.
‘How incredibly embarrassing,’ stuttered the Captain, grinning a weak grin. ‘What are the odds? I mean, all the traffic cluttering up the shipping lanes nowadays, and I should run into you …’