“Let us enjoy this moment,” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, “but let us not become complaisant. The treasure is vast, but it is not yet in our hands, shipmates. There is much plotting and planning to do if we are to take possession of this great fortune. To be sure, the King of Spain does not really need it, he has much wealth already, and he would only waste that fine silver paying Irish mercenary soldiers to keep Flanders in the Catholic faith. The quickest way of turning the Dutch Protestant is to tell them they must be Catholic, of course, but I wander from my point. The Plate Fleet will be at anchor in a secluded bay on the darkest of nights, thinking themselves safe because nobody knows that they are there. By careful planning we can take each ship in turn by stealth alone, and thus we need involve nobody else. We shall need no partners to ensure the success of this venture. No partners to share the booty. No partners to gossip and yakkity-yak, either, and that is important. The only ones who knows about this are us four - Bill’s mate Denzil and his witch-doctor both thinks the fleet carries crockery - so let us keep it strictly to ourselves until we are at sea. Look miserable, too. No grinning, no laughing, no dancing of jigs. Keep our good fortune hidden to yourselves alone until we are at sea again. If we does this venture right then we are in clover. Blue Peter will be able to raid the slave-masters of Virginny and Kentuck until he is satisfied that they are contrite, and pay for the expeditions out of his small change without thought of profit.”
“You jest, Captain, because you have never endured the pain and humiliation of slavery. I may very well do just what you suggest solely for the sheer vengeful joy of it,” said Blue Peter, a wicked smile revealing his pointed teeth.
“As I say, Peter, we must first take possession of this great bounty. That must be foremost in our minds from now on. If we thinks too much of the spendin’ of the loot we will not be thinking enough about the plunderin’ of it. I meself could easily waste hours thinkin’ about how a certain jumped-up Welshman’s nose will be put properly out of joint, but I will forego that pleasure until the silver bars are safe in my hands. Well, then, let us drink a draught o’ rum to toast this venture,” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, “then return to the barky and gets ourselves an early night, shipmates, for it is now my intention to sail on the mornin’ tide.”
CHAPTER THE THIRD,
or a Foregathering in Nombre Dios Bay.
The frigate Ark de Triomphe slowed as the foremast jacks cast off the sheets and the wind spilled from the sails. The night was as black as Indian ink. No moon. No stars. Two dim glimmers of red light showed from the loom of the land to the west, where the pirates had mounted lanterns in the jungle two days earlier as navigation beacons. The lanterns had four-gallon oil reservoirs to burn for a week, and were shielded with black-painted canvas so that they were only visible from a particular bearing. When both lanterns were to be seen the Ark de Triomphe was in position for the raid on the fleet, with Nombre Dios Bay to the north just around a concealing point of land.
“Let go the anchor!” hissed Bulbous Bill Bucephalus, and the anchor was slid into the water slowly and carefully, without making a noise.
Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges was clad entirely in black, even more black than was his normal custom. His beard was wrapped in black cloth, his head was covered with a black knitted cap and his face was blackened with soot. In the dim light from the dark lantern by the wheel only his pale grey eyes were easily seen. There was a low mutter of voices and a soft splash as the skiff was lowered over the side by black-clad pirates.
“Less of the chatter, ye swabs!” hissed Captain Greybagges. He turned to Bulbous Bill Bucephalus and spoke softly. “I shall make me reconnaissance quick as I can, but I cannot hurry. Maybe half an hour. Maybe an hour. Keep the men at readiness until I return, then we’ll go quickly. Try and keep the swabs from talking or making a row. If I am gone more than three hours, or iffen you hears a shot, then I will have been taken. In that event make sail at once, Bill, and no argument, for this venture requires complete surprise and without it you too will be taken.”
Bulbous Bill nodded, and Captain Greybagges climbed over the side. The skiff was difficult to find in the dark by the side of the frigate, for it had been painted black. The Captain found it with his foot and climbed in. The oars were also painted black and muffled with black rags tied around the blades. Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo and Israel Feet looked down from the ship’s rail, but the Captain was almost invisible in the moonless starless night. They heard a soft splashing and sensed rather than saw him row away towards the headland.
The night was black as pitch and silent, occasionally a bird’s call could be clearly heard from the jungle by the shore. A seaman by the compass-binnacle coughed. Bulbous Bill reached across and grabbed him by the ear.
“Iffen yez coughs again, cully, I shall quiet yez by a-squeezin’ yer throat,” he whispered.
Time passed slowly. After a seeming infinity had passed there was a soft thud as the seaman at the binnacle turned the hour-glass. One hour. Bulbous Bill, Blue Peter and Israel Feet said nothing, waiting by the rail in the silent darkness.
Another infinity of time passed. Another soft thud. Two hours. Blue Peter shifted himself uneasily. The three buccaneers glanced at each other, but still said nothing.
Blue Peter walked to the binnacle and looked at the hour-glass; the third hour was nearly passed. Suddenly Israel Feet hissed and pointed. Neither Blue Peter or Bulbous Bill could see anything at first, but they began to hear a rhythmic splashing, then a faint white blur became visible in the darkness. As the blur came nearer it resolved into a naked man rowing. A little nearer and they could see it was the Captain, the great tattoo of bat-winged Satan upon his back. He was pulling on the oars of the skiff like a man possessed, the little craft almost leaping out of the water with each heave of his broad shoulders. When the skiff came to the ship Captain Greybagges dropped the oars, stood up, turned and hurled himself onto the side. He scrambled up the tumblehome of the wooden planks like a great white spider, his eyes and mouth like three black holes in his face in the dim light of the dark lantern. He stood on the deck completely naked, shivering as though with the ague, and his three lieutenants stared at him in shock. The Captain took a step forward and seized Bulbous Bill by the arm.
“Make all sail now. Waste no time. Cut the anchor loose and go. Now!” he hissed. His pale grey eyes bulged from his head and his face was etched with dark lines from some awful horror. Slowly his eyes rolled up under his eyelids and his knees buckled. He would have collapsed onto the deck but Blue Peter slid a mighty arm around his shoulders to support him, then the other arm under his legs as he fell backwards and lifted the Captain and carried him like a baby down to the Great Cabin.
Blue Peter carefully laid the Captain into his hanging bunk and wrapped blankets around his shivering body. The Captain’s eyes were open again but they seemed sightless, as though he stared into a different world. By the dim light of the single candle Blue Peter could see the Captain’s lips moving soundlessly as though in prayer. Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges looked older, as though he had been gone several years and not three hours. From overhead came the tramping of feet on the deck as the frigate made sail, then the ship heeled as it caught the wind to flee from Nombre Dios Bay.
Blue Peter sat by the Captain all through that long night. Several times he tried to give the Captain water to drink, but it just dribbled out of his lips. The Captain said not a word, and his eyes still seemed to stare into some other place. As he watched the Captain’s face Blue Peter became convinced, to his great unease, that the Captain had aged several years. His face was more lined, different somehow.
The worst horror, though, waited for dawn, for as the sun rose and clear light streamed through the tall stern windows into the Great Cabin he saw that the Captain’s long beard was no longer the bright yellow of Spanish gold but had become green. As green as spring grass.
Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo nursed Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges wit
h great tenderness as the Ark de Triomphe sailed dolorously back to Porte de Recailles, unburdened by silver ingots, its commander shocked into catatonia. On the second day he managed to get the Captain to eat. Bulbous Bill Bucephalus made a special burgoo, seething milk with a strip of cinnamon bark before pouring it onto the oatmeal, sweetening the burgoo with honey and a mashed roasted banana as it simmered. Blue Peter held the Captain with an arm round his shoulders and spooned the burgoo into his mouth as though he were a child. Bulbous Bill then made a medicinal grog. He put a double handful of camomile flowers, a handful of African rooibosch leaves and two teaspoons of poppyseed into a pot with water and set it to simmer. He melted a large lump of butter in another pot, waited for it to foam and added a cup of brown Demerara sugar, stirring it rapidly with a wooden spoon. He added the herb infusion to the caramelised sugar and butter a little at a time, straining it through a cloth and stirring continuously. Then he added rum, a very special dark rum that he had been keeping in his seaman’s chest, a black syrupy rum of great strength that has only ever been drunk by pirates, and which has not been made since the time of Captain Flint. Blue Peter lifted the Captain and held a mug of the grog to his lips. The Captain drank the mugfull. Then another. Then a third, and then his tormented grey eyes closed at last and he slept.
Blue Peter sat by him through the night as he slept and dreamed. The Captain’s slumbers were riven by nightmares and he ground his teeth and cried out. Once the Captain spoke in his sleep as though revisiting some scene from the past:
“Welcome, sir! Welcome to the Mansion of the Glaroon! The boy will park your skimmer, sir. Let me take your helmet and cape, sir. Follow the footman, sir, and he will lead you to the festivities. Welcome, sir! Welcome to the Mansion of the Glaroon! Why, Great Cthulu, sir! How pleasant to see you here again! And Mrs Cthulu, too! Why, you are looking in the pink, my lady! Or should I say green, har-har! And your daughter, too! Why, Miss Lulu Cthulu, you look lovelier each passing week, I do declare! Har-har! The Glaroon is in the Games Room, Mr Cthulu, sir, I am sure he will be delighted if you join him there. Welcome, sir! Welcome to the Mansion of the Glaroon! The boy will park your skimmer, sir ....” The Captain’s voice trailed off into unintelligible mumbling.
How can this be? thought Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo. He has been away three hours and yet he has been away years. And he has known the pain and humiliation of slavery, too, which I would not have wished on his noble freedom-loving pirate’s soul for all the silver in Spanish America. And his beard is turned green. Not dyed green, but turned green, for it is growing green out of his skin. How can these things be?
The pirate frigate Ark de Triomphe was safe at last, moored to the quay of Porte de Recailles. Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo joined Bulbous Bill Bucephalus and Israel Feet in the officers’ wardroom, where they were gloomily drinking rum.
“I believe he is on the mend,” said Blue Peter. “He has slept now for three days, and the colour has come back to his face. He is no longer dreaming nightmares, but sleeps easily and restfully. I think we should leave him until he awakes of his own accord. Loomin’ Len is sitting by him, and one of the bully-boys guards the door. It is best that the crew do not know that his beard has turned green just yet. They are naturally restive that a great fortune in silver has disappeared from before their eyes. Anything strange may cause mutiny. A Captain with a long yellow beard is one thing, a Captain with a long green beard is entirely another thing.”
“Iffen it ain’t the damnedest thing I ever did see,” said Israel Feet, “an’ iffen it ain’t you may boil my arse in oil, you may. An’ I will lay to that, else, messmates!” He took a drink of rum.
“Indeed, there is much about this whole affair that I find strange and unnatural,” said Blue Peter. “I should have been wary when a medicine-man was involved. We have those fellows back in Africa, you know, and I wouldn’t trust a one of them as far as I could throw him uphill. They are always talking to spirits and devils and suchlike, and that cannot be right, no matter which church you worship in.”
“I don’t think it were the brujo’s fault,” said Bulbous Bill Bucephalus slowly. “I was asking some questions of the man Denzil, to try and get this straight.” He sipped his rum. “I think it were more a problem of translation, like.”
“How do you mean?” said Blue Peter, pursing his lips.
“Well, Denzil he reckoned he translated that indian lingo as best he could, and it were a crockery fleet, just like I said at first. T’weren’t Spanish, either. Some other bunch I’ve never heard of. It wasn’t the Spanish Plate Fleet,” he sipped his rum again, “it was the Martian Saucer Fleet.”
CHAPTER THE FOURTH,
or the Captain Has A Banyan Day.
Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo rode a Percheron mare down the winding path to Porte de Recailles. The plough-horse was quite old and he had bought it very cheaply, but it was big enough and still powerful enough to carry the weight of his huge frame with ease. A smaller horse would have been overloaded, and Blue Peter abhorred cruelty to animals. It was the early morning and the air was still cool and crisp, which was pleasing to both man and horse. The late-summer day would soon become bakingly hot as the sun rose high over the Caribbean island.
Nearly a year had passed since the beard of Captain Greybagges had been turned green by the horrors he had encountered in Nombre Dios Bay, and these months had been very good to the pirates of the frigate Ark de Triomphe. The disaster in Nombre Dios Bay – the sad failure to take the Spanish plate fleet, the mysterious greening of the Captain’s beard – had seemed like a terrible portent, but the pirates had been extraordinarily lucky in the aftermath. Captain Greybagges’s bright green beard had not made him an object of mockery, but had instead given him a fell and perilous aura of the supernatural. Ships that could easily have out-run or out-fought the Ark de Triomphe had hove-to at the first sight of Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges standing grim-faced on the quarterdeck, his sombre all-black clothes emphasizing the brilliant grass-green of his long beard. The mystery of how his beard had become green was now a legend across the Spanish Main, and he was feared in a way that no ordinary captain of buccaneers could emulate. The fortunes of the Ark de Triomphe had prospered accordingly.
The horse whickered and tossed its head, and Blue Peter patted its neck affectionately.
Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo had invested a small part of his treasure in a cottage high in the hills above Porte de Recailles. He spent time there when the frigate was in port, adding to his growing collection of books, improving his grasp of Greek and Latin. He even wrote poetry occasionally, seated at an inlaid oak escritoire by a window with a view down onto the smoking chimneys and the squalor of Porte de Recailles, over the forest of masts in the harbour and out over the clean blue of the sea. In a small way this satisfied his desire to be a gentleman; a true gentleman would surely have such a refuge in which to write and to study, away from the cares of the world. A true gentleman, thought Blue Peter, might also have a groom, so he wouldn’t have to chase his own carthorse up and down the field himself, for the old mare had been frisky that morning. He patted its neck again.
The larger part of Blue Peter’s treasure remained in the keeping of Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, as did the bulk of the treasure of the rest of the Ark de Triomphe’s crew. This was unusual, to say the least. Buccaneers were not by nature or experience trusting creatures, and would commonly demand that all plunder and loot be divvied up as soon as circumstances allowed. Captains of pirates who kept all the boodle, telling the crew with a wink “I’ll keep this safe and sound fer yez, shipmates, and there’s my affy-davy on that, wi’ a curse!” were viewed with darkest suspicion, for amongst the brotherhood of pirates the Seven Deadly Sins were not unknown, and Greed was almost a celebrity.
But when Captain Greybagges had given each man only a portion of his share of the loot nobody had complained. The pay-outs had been substantial, it was true, but the Captain had not pretended that they were complete. Nor had he offered an
explanation.
Blue Peter mused upon this as the old padnag plodded on down to Porte de Recailles in the cool morning air. There was no doubt that Captain Greybagges had been changed by his strange and unearthly experiences in Nombre Dios Bay, and not just in the colour of his long beard. The Captain had possessed a whimsical sense of humour and an almost boyish sense of mischief, but now he was grim and distant. In the times before the Captain’s beard had been turned green he would not have been able to hold back treasure from an open division of the spoils under the strict rules of the Free Brotherhood of the Coasts. If he had tried then it was certain that a voice from the back of the assembled crew would have made a smart-alecky comment, Captain Greybagges would have made a witty rejoinder and so the reasons for keeping back the loot would have been teased out of him with good humour. But now the crew - and a crew of lusty pirates, too – accepted it without question or comment. It was very odd. The crew of the Ark de Triomphe were more disciplined, more efficient, under the cold grey eyes of this grim new Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges, but Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo found this unsettling. In truth, he feared for his friend.
Captain Greybagges was reading some very unusual books, too. The Captain was a literate man, and had always enjoyed reading a good rollicking yarn – Tobias Smollet was a favourite, or that hussy Aphra Behn (a woman writing books, what a disgrace!) – but lately the Captain had been nose-deep in Professor Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Robert Hook’s Micrographica and other such rum stuff. He had even been reading the works of the heretical monk Giordano Bruno, who had claimed in his De l’Infinito, Universo e Mondi that the stars in the night sky were suns like the sun of daytime, but very far away, and who had been burned at the stake for cherishing such offensive and blasphemous thoughts. Blue Peter recalled that the deranged monk had even suggested that those faraway suns could have planets like the Earth itself and that creatures might live on them, even races of intelligent beings. Blue Peter had seen many wonders since leaving Africa as a child, and learned many things in his extensive reading, but planets of strange beings orbiting distant stars? That was such a disturbing idea that he wasn’t really surprised that the Inquisition had torched the monk. Why was the Captain delving into such arcane stuff?
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