‘Let’s feed him to the sharks!’ said the pirate with gout. He bit his cutlass to look extra fearsome.
‘Slice his gizzard!’ said the albino pirate.
‘I’d like to see the colour of his innards!’ said the pirate who liked kittens and sunsets.
There was quite a lot of excited roaring and the suggestions for revenge on Napoleon became more robust and bloodthirsty.
‘Better than that, lads,’ said the Pirate Captain. ‘Get the dressing-up box.’
22 Liechtenstein women got the vote in 1984, which is a full two years after Tron came out.
Twelve
CREATURE
PARADE!
apoleon’s bedroom was tastefully decorated with lots of paintings of the great man himself. There was one of him standing on a pile of dead Spaniards with two women in chain-mail bikinis clinging adoringly on to his shoulders. Another showed him standing on top of a pile of dead Russians with two women in fur bikinis and Cossack hats clinging adoringly on to his legs. The paintings went on in pretty much this same vein right around the room. But at the moment it was difficult to appreciate the artwork, because it was night and the lights were out. Everything was still and silent, except for Napoleon’s snores and a faint scratching sound from outside. Gradually, the window inched open and a host of shadowy figures crept inside the room.
‘Shh …’ said the shadowy figure with the stentorian nose.23 ‘Don’t make a sound until everyone is in position.’
The last two shadowy figures closed the window behind them and opened the curtains to let the moonlight in, while a third tip-toed over to Napoleon. He placed a pale hand on his shoulder and shook it gently. Napoleon opened his left eye.
‘Why,’ said Napoleon, ‘is there an ant with a scarf standing over my bed? Is this a new trend for burglars? Dressing as anthropomorphic insects?’
The ant with a scarf composed himself. ‘You are dreaming, Napoleon. I am an ant with a scarf who walks like a man, which is so surreal that it could only be part of a dream.’ He paused and waggled his abdomen. ‘Now, hold my ant hand and I will take you on an amazing fantasy ride that will astound you and also provide useful advice on your waking life. Come!’ The ant with a scarf took Napoleon’s hand, and made some whooshing noises to imply movement.
‘Where are you taking me? Are we going to fly through the sky or something?’ asked Napoleon.
‘Um, no,’ said the ant with a scarf. ‘This dream will happen entirely in your bedroom.’
The Pirate Captain had once told the crew that if you ever found yourself having a two-way conversation with a piece of furniture or dancing a waltz with a man made out of spaghetti, then the chances were it was a dream, because that sort of thing very rarely happens in real life.24 The way to be really certain that you were dreaming was to look out for food that you had eaten the previous evening playing an active part in what was going on. Sure enough, in this dream there followed a sequence of bizarre imagery, no doubt loaded with symbolism and the kind of food one would expect a Frenchman to eat before bed, especially if you had been through his bins earlier that evening. Half a dozen hens chased some croissants around the room, a baguette did a little dance, and then a couple of snails waved their eye stalks around and sang a song about guts without much enthusiasm.
‘Tell me, ant, does this dream go anywhere?’ said Napoleon. ‘It seems a little directionless.’
‘It’s definitely dream-like though?’ said the ant with a scarf.
‘Oh yes. Very confusing and unlikely,’ said Napoleon.
‘Good. Now, Napoleon, you shall encounter the first of three famous generals. They’re all very keen to meet you and want to pass on some valuable advice. So, without any further ado, he’s come all the way from Ancient Greece, he conquered most of the known world and he died from drinking too much … let’s have a big hand for Alexander the Great!’
A small troop of Greek soldiers shuffled out of Napoleon’s wardrobe and had lots of fun bashing their swords together and banging shields in a pretend fight. In their enthusiasm, they may have used more nautical expressions than you would expect from a bunch of Greek hoplites, but the effect was certainly dramatic. Eventually the soldiers parted to reveal Alexander the Great who, presumably because of twisted dream logic, looked a lot like a Victorian lady dragged up as a man, complete with toga, helmet and a pencil-thin moustache that later generations would identify with David Niven.
‘Hail, Napoleon!’ said Alexander the Great in a voice rather higher than Napoleon expected. ‘I am Alexander the Great, scourge of the Persians. For my whole life I fought many battles, conquering all before me and riding my horse about.’
‘Bucephalus,’ said Napoleon.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Alexander the Great.
‘Bucephalus – your horse. That was his name.’
‘Was it?’ said Alexander the Great. He slapped his thigh and gave Napoleon a dazzling grin. ‘How exciting! It must have been great to ride about across the world and conquer things. But yes, Napoleon, I remember now, and he was a lovely horse, very keen on sugar lumps.’
Alexander the Great strode back and forth across the room while a couple of Greek soldiers unfurled a map of the Ancient World. ‘Observe, Napoleon – the world of my day. Do you recall the siege of Termessos?’
Napoleon sat up in bed. ‘I do! It’s one of my favourite battles! It was a masterpiece of strategy, because even though you lost, you understood the …’
‘Excuse me, it’s my story,’ interrupted Alexander the Great. ‘Yes, I marched my armies to the city and surrounded it. We besieged its walls, but soon I realised that Termessos was impregnable. There was no way I could win and if it had been a man rather than a city, it would have been the better man in this instance. So I effectively surrendered to the better man.’
‘You could put it like that,’ said Napoleon doubtfully.
‘I do,’ said Alexander, ‘and by conceding this battle, I went on to win many more and got my name in all the history books, so ultimately it was a good thing. If I had wasted my time on fighting a hopeless lost cause I might not be here to tell you this today. Heed these words! And on that note, here’s your second visitor from the past.’
Alexander opened the wardrobe and waved another figure forward. This general was preceded by a small crowd of scruffy-looking men whooping and riding brooms as if they were horses.
‘Make way, my Mongol hordes! Make way for your captain, the terrible Genghis Khan!’ Genghis Khan rode through the Mongols on his broom, knocked over a vase and did a little pantomime where he pretended his horse was out of control. For some reason, Genghis Khan wore a ten-gallon hat and had a long thin moustache sprouting from on top of another moustache. He also had a magnificent beard and a pleasant, open face which looked quite sleepy, as if Genghis Khan would normally be in bed at this time of night.
‘Yee ha!’ said Genghis Khan. He threw his cowboy hat into the air and shot it with a pistol. ‘Howdy, pardner. I’m Genghis Khan. Way back in the olden days, I pillaged my way across Asia, Europe and I think India as well. My horsemen rode across the prairies, causing trouble and making mayhem.’
‘Of course, Genghis,’ said Napoleon. ‘I know all about it. I’ve spent years studying your campaigns. You were my specialist subject at General Academy.’
‘Then you will know my greatest mistake, Napoleon Bonaparte. The mistake that cost me my life and my reputation, leaving me as nothing more than an academic footnote of interest only to boring history students who don’t get invited to parties. Yes, if I could live my life again I would be a good deal less stubborn. I never retreated and that, alas, was my downfall.’
‘Never retreated? Yes, you did, Genghis. That was the whole point of being a Mongol, you’d attack people and then dash off on horses, then come back and fight a bit more and then ride off again. You invented that kind of fighting.’
Genghis Khan played with the ends of his moustache and thought for a moment. ‘Is that
what they’re telling you in the future? Aarrr. That’ll be because history is written by the victor, whereas I was the loser on account of my inability to retreat. And look at me now, you scurvy knave – I’m dead! Remember this. Remember. REMEMBER!’
With that Genghis Khan galloped back into the wardrobe. Napoleon yawned, and glanced at his bedside clock. ‘Who’s the third general, ant with a scarf? Ideally I’d like to meet Boudicca or Sun Tzu. Is that possible?’
‘Better than that,’ said the ant with a scarf. ‘You are about to meet a general of warfare yet to come. Say hello to General 2893B, from the year 1988!’
This time the wardrobe opened and a regimented unit of black-clad figures marched in robotic unison towards the bed, humming a sinister dirge.25 At their head stood an awkward figure with a hook for a hand and tin foil on his face.
‘Hello, General 2893B,’ said Napoleon, waving. ‘I don’t know anything about you, but I have a suspicion as to what you’re going to tell me.’
General 2893B looked down at a piece of paper and spoke in a deep monotone. ‘People of earth, I am General 2893B of the future. With my mindless legions I have fought throughout the solar system, on the surface of the moon against monsters, in the gas mines of Jupiter against robots and on the ice fields of Mercury against the Irish. I am undefeated because I have complete knowledge of all the greatest generals in history.’
‘And what do they say about me in 1988?’ asked Napoleon.
‘I had never heard of you until I was asked to appear in your dream, when I thought it was only polite to look you up. It turns out that in my time Napoleon is known for only one thing – being beaten in an election for Head of the Residents’ Association on St Helena. He lost to the greatest man we know of, the legendary Pirate Captain. You are almost forgotten, simply because your foolish pride prevented you from letting the Pirate Captain win uncontested. It’s a crying shame.’
General 2893B bowed, whispered, ‘Was that all right?’ to somebody behind him, and then squashed back inside the wardrobe with the other bits of dream.
‘So, Napoleon, to sum up, what have we learned from tonight?’ said the ant with a scarf. ‘We have seen generals from the past and future and all three have illustrated the advantages of caving in to your opposition. I hope that’s pretty clear.’
‘Oh, dream spirit, you have shown me such wondrous things,’ said Napoleon, ‘and it’s a bit much for me to take in right now. I’ll certainly bear in mind everything I have seen and I wouldn’t want you to think you’ve wasted your time. But this dream has made me strangely tired, which is odd given that I’m supposedly fast asleep.’
‘We will now depart for mysterious realms,’ said the ant with a scarf, ‘but it really is incredibly important to pay attention to these prophetic dreams. Ignore them at your peril.’ He drew the curtains and waited until Napoleon’s snores resumed. The generals clambered back out of the cupboard.
‘He’s off,’ whispered Alexander the Great. ‘Let’s get out of here before he wakes up and ruins the whole thing.’
‘Absolutely,’ said Genghis Khan, ‘just as soon as we’ve all had a chance to go through his drawers and try on his medals.’
23 Legend has it that the Sphinx lost its nose when Napoleon’s artillery shot it off during target practice. In fact, sketches from the early eighteenth century show a noseless Sphinx, suggesting that it was lost long before Napoleon’s expedition in 1798. It is far more likely that it was knocked off by Obelix, as depicted in Asterix and Cleopatra (Goscinny & Uderzo, 1965).
24 The lack of logic in dreams is probably linked to the reduced flow of information between the hippocampus and the neocortex during REM states.
25 The best sinister futuristic dirges were made by Daphne Oram and Delia Derby-shire at the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop. If you prefer something a bit more melodic try Paddy Kingsland instead.
Thirteen
CRASHING ZEPPELINS
FOR A LIVING
he Pirate Captain and Napoleon stood behind a curtain at the village hall, each trying to look more relaxed than the other. Napoleon did this mainly by ostentatiously yawning, whilst the Captain pretended to be busy concentrating on the newspaper crossword.
‘So,’ said the Captain, in as blasé a voice as he could do. ‘Had any interesting dreams lately?’
Napoleon stopped yawning and nodded. ‘Do you know, as a matter of fact, Captain, I have. I dreamed that a rather overweight cowboy man was trying to persuade me to do something, though for the life of me I couldn’t work out what it was.’
‘Really? No clue at all?’ said the Captain, a little crestfallen. ‘Because I knew a fellow once who ignored his dreams and he ended up cursed. Smelt like asparagus from that day on. Couldn’t do a thing about it. So best to take them seriously.’
‘The strange thing is,’ said Napoleon, ‘my dreams are usually very realistic. Whereas this one was like something an idiot child might have staged.’
‘Still. Those idiot children know things, don’t they? I generally do whatever they tell me.’
The Pirate Captain was about to go into more detail about the many things he had done at the behest of idiot children, but at that moment the curtain came up and the Governor called them forward onto the stage. The pirate crew were all loyally sitting in the front rows and a handful of St Helena residents were lounging at the back. A goat wandered around the hall eating the chairs. There was a ripple of polite applause as the candidates took their places behind two lecterns. Napoleon saluted the audience whilst the Pirate Captain waved with both hands and stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled.
The Governor motioned for quiet and sat down at a desk in the middle of the stage with a little stack of cards in front of him. Each card had a question on it which he had carefully copied out of an old copy of Hansard the night before, because despite repeated requests, the islanders hadn’t submitted any questions at all and the pirates seemed to have missed the point of the debate entirely and focused on queries that were either rhetorical (‘What’s up, candidates?’) or irrelevant (‘Who is Britain’s heaviest farmer?’). The Governor shuffled the cards and everyone held their breath:
Napoleon held his breath because this was a tense moment.
The Governor held his breath because he didn’t want to accidentally blow the questions all over the floor after spending so much time getting them neatly stacked.
The Pirate Captain held his breath because he was trying to use his ‘powers’ to force a question about beard maintenance to mystically rise from the pack.
The pirates held their breath because of the ‘elephant in the room’. There wasn’t an actual elephant in the Village Hall today, but if there had been, knocking over stacks of leaflets and drinking the Pirate Captain’s tea, it would have had ‘Pirate of the Year Awards Debacle’ painted on its flanks. Holding their breath wouldn’t make the Pirate Captain any better at answering questions, but the pirates wanted to fit in.
The goat didn’t hold its breath.
The Governor cleared his throat and picked up a card. ‘Candidates, here is your first question: as Head of the Residents’ Association, how do you plan to boost St Helena’s image overseas and increase our popularity as a tourist destination? Monsieur Bonaparte? Would you like to kick us off?’26
‘A fine question,’ said Napoleon, thumping his lectern dramatically. ‘We need to play up what this island is already famous for. So I intend to construct a theme park called Napoleon Land. The centrepiece will be a rollercoaster shaped like my hat, which will not only be a physical rollercoaster, but also an emotional one as it will reflect the ups and downs of my celebrated life to date. And you will be able to buy “Napoleon-floss,” though this will just be garlic-flavoured candyfloss.’
Everybody clapped, and the Governor turned to the Pirate Captain, who tugged thoughtfully at his lapels. ‘My esteemed opponent makes an interesting case,’ he said, ‘but what you have to remember about tourists is that when they’re vis
iting an exotic island like ours they expect a bit of anthropological colour. So to this end I have bold plans for every St Helenite to wear those great big plate things in their lower lips. And maybe get some of those brass rings that make your necks go all long and floppy, like the hill tribes have. Finally, I’m all for stealing one of the big heads from Easter Island, if that’s what it takes.’
The audience applauded again and a few of the pirates did their best impressions of Easter Island statues. The pirate with a scarf stopped chewing the tip of his scarf quite so nervously and breathed a sigh of relief, because the Captain seemed to be handling the situation much better than he had expected.
The Governor picked up another question. ‘St Helena has a reasonably stable housing market. However, if circumstances were to change, what fiscal measures would the candidates take to restore equilibrium? Mister Bonaparte?’
‘Well, Governor, as a man who follows the property market with great enthusiasm …’
As Napoleon began to drone on, the Pirate Captain realised he was in a bit of a fix. The problem was that several of his crew had recently hit that age where all they ever wanted to talk about over feasts were either having babies or getting mortgages. Eventually the Pirate Captain had found himself so busy having to run through pirates who started on these topics of conversation that he had banned any mention of them from the boat. And as a result he didn’t know the first thing about housing markets.
Fortunately, the pirate with a scarf had thought ahead. The Pirate Captain felt around in his pocket for the piece of paper that his loyal deputy had pressed into his hand that morning. ‘Please read this before the debate, Pirate Captain,’ he had said, ‘it will help you deal with any question thrown at you.’ The Captain really had intended to read it beforehand, but he hadn’t quite got round to it, because instead he’d ended up playing a game with the crew that involved seeing who could fit the most marsh-mallows in their mouth and still say ‘big barnacles’. He had managed eighteen. So now, as surreptitiously as he could, he slipped on his reading glasses and unfolded the note.
In an Adventure With Napoleon Page 9