When Blue Peter returned on deck Captain Greybagges was climbing down from the shrouds.
“It is Algerines, blast ‘em. A galley. With no wind we cannot even bring the guns to bear. If I launch a longboat to swing her round, then we don’t look much like a peaceable Dutch ship that has its protection paid for. I shall have to brazen it out, Peter, unless a wind comes.”
No wind came, and the galley came closer, until Blue Peter could see the massed corsairs on its deck and the glint of the bright sun on their scimitars and breastplates. The oars of the galley moved as one, like the wings of a bird, as it manoevred to approach the frigate from the prow, out of the line of fire of her broadside guns. There is something odd about those Algerines, thought Blue Peter, but I cannot place what it is exactly.
When the galley bumped gently into the becalmed frigate, its low rakish silhouette sliding easily under the bowsprit, corsairs clambered over the forepeak rail and flooded onto the ship. Captain Greybagges, Blue Peter and Bulbous Bill stood on the quarterdeck. An enormous corsair bearing a huge tulwar and a ferocious grin led the boarding-party up the steps to the quarterdeck and stood before them. They have no beards, thought Blue Peter, that is what is odd. They have turbans, curved scimitars and baggy pants, but they are all clean-shaven.
“Goed middag, heeren! Hoe ik u kan helpen?” said Captain Greybagges affably.
“Spraak-je ‘Scheveningen!’” commanded the huge corsair, waving his tulwar menacingly.
“Wat? Scheveningen! Potverdomme! Bent-jou gek?” said the Captain, with surprise.
“Hie zijn en Engelsman!” said a voice, and a pale blue-eyed man stepped from behind the huge corsair.
“Hah! A cursed Englishman!” roared the corsair, waggling the tulwar. “Dank U wel, Jan!”
“Ik bent en Nederlander, zeker!” protested the Captain.
“Hah! Nobody but a true Hollander can pronounce the word Scheveningen correctly! You are caught, cursed Englishman!” the huge corsair laughed. “Did you think our mighty admiral Suleyman Reis is such a fool? He gives me his own quartermaster,” - the blue-eyed man bowed - “to unmask such pitiful impostures. The Dutch East India Company have paid their tarifa, but you have not! Now you will pay, ho-ho-ho!”
“You speak English remarkably well,” said the Captain.
“Hah! You think compliments will make me look upon you more kindly!” sneered the corsair captain. “How little you know! My father had an English slave whom he trusted, and the fellow swore that English schools were the best in the world, and so I was sent up to your cursed Eton College. Five years of hell! Drinking! Brutality! Endless dreary sermons! Foul food! Vile infidel depravities! I have loathed the filthy English ever since. You will find no mercy in me, Englishman!”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed the Captain, “I remember you! You were one of the warts who came up to school in my final year! You fagged for Stinky Bodfish!”
“Bismallah! I remember you, too ... Greybagges, that is your name ... you clean-bowled the foul cretin Bodfish out for no runs in the House matches, third ball of his first over, middle stump with a wicked slow bouncer! That will not help you! I laughed at the vile Stinky Bodfish when you did that, and he beat me cruelly with a leather slipper, the infidel fiend!”
“He was always a bully and a sneak, that Stinky Bodfish,” said the Captain, shaking his head. “Always creeping around and peaching to the beaks.”
“But wait!” said the corsair captain, “the Greybagges chap at school had fair yellow hair, and yet you have a brown beard!”
“Merely part of the imposture,” said the Captain. He pulled a black handkerchief from his sleeve and rubbed carefully at his long beard. “There, green, can you see? I am not only the Greybagges who took Bodfish’s wicket, I am also Greenbeard the pirate.”
“Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim!” said the corsair, lowering his huge tulwar, looking at the beard with awe. “This is a sad day! The buccaneering exploits of the fearsome Greenbeard are known even here - even as the name of Abu Karim Muhammad al-Jamil ibn Nidal ibn Abdulaziz al-Berberi is known in your neck of the woods, I dare say - and that was indeed a wonderful ball you bowled that day! I remember it now! There was so much spin on it that a little puff of dust went out sideways where it bounced and jinked behind foul Stinky’s bat ... so I would dearly love to have swopped tales with you over a glass of serbet or two, but my thirty-nine pirates and I have sworn a solemn oath to be the greatest thieves on land or sea until all infidels are driven from ... from ... well, from just about everywhere, actually. It’s that kind of oath, it goes on a bit, you know? Until then we will not grow our beards, either. We follow the teachings of our mullah, Ali.”
The corsairs parted, and a man stepped forward as if summoned by those words. He was small and wiry-looking, and his orange turban was the size of a prize-winning pumpkin. His shaven chin was as brown as mahogany, his nose was a blade like an eagle’s beak and his eyes were as mad and yellow as a chicken’s.
“I am Ali!” he spoke in a light musical voice, red light glinted from the large ruby that he wore on his orange turban. “Too many infidels infest the world! We shall sweep the infidels from the seas, and from the lakes, and from the rivers, and from the ... and from all the rest of the places. Thieving is not thieving if it is from infidels! So we are thieves gladly! We have sworn not to grow beards until the task is done! I, Ali the Barber, have sworn an even mightier oath! I have sworn ...”
He brought out an enormous cutthroat razor and opened it. It was as big as a scimitar.
“I have sworn that I shall shave every man who does not shave himself! I have sworn a mighty oath that it shall be so! So take your choice, captain of dogs, shall you shave yourself, or shall I, Ali the Barber, shave you?”
I have a pistol in my belt, thought Blue Peter, but my coat is buttoned over it. Can I wrench my coat open, ripping off the buttons, and get to the pistol before the big fellow splits me in twain with his tulwar? The tension in the hot air seemed suddenly to fizz and crackle. Out of the corner of his eye Blue Peter saw Captain Greybagges’s green beard, still with a few patches of brown boot-polish upon it, wave slightly and shiver as though stirred by a breeze. Yet there was no breeze, he thought, and the hairs on the back of his neck lifted.
“You should be very careful before making such terrible oaths,” said Captain Greybagges evenly. “Oaths which you cannot possibly keep.”
“I shall keep this oath! I have sworn so! Your beard will be shaved one way or another!” hissed Ali the Barber, waving the enormous razor from side to side, glints of light sliding along its honed edge.
“That is not what I meant,” said the Captain. “You swore that you would shave the beard of every man who did not shave himself, did you not?”
“I did! I, Ali the Barber, swore that! And it shall be so!”
“But who shaves you, Ali the Barber?” said the Captain, smiling reasonably.
“I shave myself, of course, you infidel fool!”
“But your oath, your mighty unbreakable oath, was that you would shave every man who doesn’t shave himself, so how did you shave yourself without breaking the oath?” said the Captain, still smiling reasonably.
“I, Ali, ...” The mad yellow eyes under the orange turban crossed slightly in thought. The thirty-nine corsairs and the corsair captain looked at each other in consternation.
“That’s ... that’s nothing but a mere quibble!” shouted Ali at last.
“No, it is not,” said the Captain. “You have broken your oath! Your mighty oath is broken and meaningless! You swore that you would shave every man who did not shave himself, then you shaved yourself and made your mighty oath into a lie!”
“I, Ali, do not shave myself. I get my servant to do it! I forgot that!”
“But then,” said the Captain, again smiling reasonably, “you should have shaved yourself, because you swore to shave every man who did not shave himself, did you not?”
“I, Ali, ...” the yellow eyes wer
e now very crossed in frantic thought.
The captain of corsairs was looking down at Ali the Barber appraisingly, his lips pursed and his brow furrowed in thought.
“Captain Greybagges would seem to have the right of this,” he said slowly. “Ali, you have misled us, I fear ...”
“Are you sure you would not like a glass of fruit juice, Abu?” asked the Captain. He and the captain of the corsairs were seated comfortably in the Great Cabin, in the shade, by the open stern-windows.
“No, Captain Greybagges,” said the big corsair, “a glass of cool beer will be perfect. Anyway, I find I am disillusioned with oaths and pledges just now. Call me Muhammed, if you will. Abu is more of a courtesy title, meaning ‘father’.”
“By all means, Muhammed. Please call me Sylvestre. We are no longer up at Eton, thank God, and need not use our sire-names.”
There was a high-pitched shriek from the deck above, followed by a rumble of laughter.
“What are your men doing to the fellow?” asked the Captain, pouring beer carefully into his tilted glass.
“They are shaving his ... his body hair with his own razor,” said the corsair, leaving the last drops of beer in the bottle so as not to disturb the yeast-lees at the bottom. “Mmm, this is good ale! I haven’t drunk its like since I left England. Your fellows are watching, and giving encouragement and advice. When they have had their fun I shall find an oar for him to pull. I dislike being made to look a fool.”
“Ali the Barber speaks English very well,” said the Captain.
“Winchester College,” said the corsair.
“A Wykehamist! Why am I not surprised?” said the Captain.
“Yes, indeed! As some wise cove once said; ‘You can always tell a Wykehamist, but you can’t tell him anything much’.” Muhammed al-Berberi, the captain of corsairs, sipped his beer and smiled the wolfish smile of a Barbary pirate, his teeth white against his sunburned face.
In the gloom of the gundeck Blue Peter was facing a minor mutiny, his gun-crews wished to go on deck and view Ali the Barber’s humiliation.
“Gun-crews never see anything! It goes with the job, you know that, you lubbers! There’s nothing to see through a gun-port except the side of another ship and clouds of smoke! Anyway, you’ve seen a fellow getting his nadgers shaved before. We do it to somebody every time we cross the Equator, don’t we?”
In the end Blue Peter allowed the youngest gunners and the powder-monkeys to go on deck, but the remaining crew must stow the gun-locks, stopper the touch-holes with spiles and the bores with greased tompions, lash down the guns and sweep and water the deck first. Thorvald Coalbiter, a Dane from the Faeroe Islands, master of the starboard number-three gun Tordener, was still aggrieved, as he had wished to see the giant razor. Blue Peter made safe the powder-magazine, locked the copper-sheathed door then took the lantern from its glazed box on the magazine bulkhead and blew it out. He went on deck. The freshly-shaven Ali was being manhandled over the rail into the galley. The corsairs and the pirates were socialising warily, and bartering Ali’s clothes and possessions. A corsair was washing suds and hairs from the giant razor in a bucket. He wiped it dry, oiled it and put it in a velvet-lined box. Blue Peter had a thought.
“Ali the Barber will not be needing that anymore, I think,” he said to the corsair. The corsair had no English, so Blue Peter repeated it in Swahili, and was answered with a nod. After some negotiation Blue Peter acquired the huge razor for five gulden and a bottle of rum, the corsair insisting that the rum was not for drinking, but as liniment for his baridi yabisi. Blue Peter had not heard the words before, but the corsair’s mimed pain suggested rheumatism. Yes, indeed, thought Blue Peter, liniment to be applied from the inside, but kept a straight face. The corsair stashed the coins in a fold of his sash and the bottle in his baggy shirt.
Blue Peter showed the razor to Thorvald Coalbiter.
“I have never seen one as big as that,” said Thorvald wonderingly. “The engraving is very pretty, isn’t it?”
The rectangular blade of the razor was as long as Blue Peter’s forearm and as wide as his hand. The black-filled etching on the silver-steel blade showed a hunting scene in rolling countryside, the huntsmen and hounds in the middle distance with sly reynard in the foreground. The other side of the blade was etched with a pattern of curlicues and whorls around the words:William Occam
fine cutlery
Sheffield, England.
“I think it must have been made to go in a shop window,” said Blue Peter, “as an advertisement of the cutler’s skill. It will make a good keepsake for the Captain, and we can use it for the next line-crossing merriments. Neptune’s court will have some fun with it, I feel sure.”
Blue Peter folded the blade back into the ebony-and-silver handle and put the razor back in its box.
“... and the Pipsqueak, what of that little devil?” asked Captain Greybagges.
“Ho! Billy Pitt! The fellow acquired a taste for old port wine and got gout! Only fifteen and he got gout!” said Muhammed, shaking his head.
“He always was an adventurous little scallywag.” The Captain sipped his beer.
“Indeed! Pluck of a lion. Crafty as a fox, too. He was forever reading Demosthenes in Greek, looking for tips. The Philippics mainly, as I recall.”
There was a knock on the door, and Bulbous Bill entered with the blue-eyed corsair. Bill’s meaty hand rested on the Hollander’s shoulder in a friendly way, but the corsair looked rattled nonetheless.
“I thought I’d bring myneer Janszoon down here, Cap’n. The crew was miffed he tricked you, like, and wished to shave him, too,” fluted Bill.
“Sit you down, mister Janszoon! That was indeed a wily ploy! Scheveningen!” the Captain chuckled. “A shibboleth, ‘pon my word, and I am caught alike to an Ephraimite! Does it indeed work for all who are not Dutch?”
“Ja, kapitein, even for Germans, who are by us in speech.” The Dutchman grinned uneasily.
“I do love a subtle stratagem!” said the Captain. “Do not quake so! We captains of buccaneers do not bear grudges! We do not have the time for ‘em, we be too busy killin’ people! Har-har! ... Jake! Bring some Hollands jenever for the quartermaster of Suleyman Reis!”
The Dutchman did not look entirely reassured, and downed the gin in one gulp.
“The wind do seem to be stiffening, too, Cap’n,” said Bulbous Bill.
“Get the jacks back up the masts, then, Bill,” said the Captain.
“In that case I shall go to my ship,” said Muhammed al-Berberi, “but I will escort you into the port of Sfax myself, if you will permit me, and please consider my house to be your house for as long as you shall stay.”
They went up on deck. Bulbous Bill started shouting orders to the foremast jacks. Jan Janszoon stayed warily close to the corsair captain.
“What do you seek in Sfax, Sylvestre?” the corsair captain asked. “I do not wish to appear inquisitive, but perhaps I may be able to aid you.”
“I wish to ransom a fellow from slavery. A Mr Frank Benjamin,” the Captain said.
The captain of corsairs nodded, then went to board his galley. The Dutch corsair hung back for a moment.
“The false name of your disguised ship, ‘Groot Ombeschaamheid,’ is chosen well, kapitein.” The Dutchman smiled, then ran to catch up with Muhammed al-Berberi.
The wind was playful; gusting airs and small calms. The frigate would lead for a time, then the breeze would wane, its sails would flap, and the galley would pull ahead. As the ships passed the crews would shout cat-calls, and Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges and Muhammed al-Berberi exchanged friendly insults from their quarterdecks.
“If it were not for the slaves a galley would be a fine vessel,” said the Captain admiringly. “They do indeed resemble a large bird in slow flight, as the ancient Greek coves used to say.”
“The Greek triremes of old had hand-picked crews of volunteers,” said Blue Peter. “If Thucydides wrote truly, then they could top eleven knots,
and keep that up for a whole day and a night. The port of Piraeus to the island of Melos in twenty-four hours.”
“I ain’t fussed ‘bout that Ali the Barber a-pulling on an oar, the tom-fool,” piped Bulbous Bill, keeping an eye on the sails.
“Indeed, he was a klootzak,” chuckled the Captain, “and now he has a shaved klootzak, har-har-har!” He saw his friends’ incomprehension. “It means both ‘idiot’ and ‘clot-bag’ in Dutch, d’you see?”
“Blood and bones! They bain’t be funny iffen yez has ta spell ‘em out, Cap’n, and damn me for a lubber, else!” said Israel Feet.
“Arr! Izzie, an’ thou art a klootzak, too! Get yerself about readyin’ the barky to anchor, there be a smudge o’ land on the horizon.”
The pirate frigate Ark de Triomphe, masquerading as VOC schip Groot Ombeschaamheid, lay at anchor off the port of Sfax. The sun was setting behind the low hills and the first stars twinkled in the deep-blue sky. Captain Greybagges had changed into his customary all-black clothes and wrapped his long green beard in a black scarf, only his face and hands showed clearly in the twilight.
“Hear me, yez lubbers! We be havin’ the goodwill of one Barbary pirate, mateys, but there be more than one, so I will keeps yuz gussied-up as Dutchmen whilst we be in these waters, and yez shall keep a sharp look-out, too. The Master Gunner has not drawn the charges from the guns, and yez will surely have espyed that we be not in the inner harbour, drawn up at the quay alike to a pie on a window-ledge, so yez can see that I be not a trustin’ sort of cully. Yez’ll be not missin’ much by not goin’ ashore, as there be no drink there, which being why they corsairs was so eager to buy your’n. If any little boats comes yuz must point muskets at ‘em, not buy dates from ‘em. I must go to parley with Muhammed al-Berberi. Keeps yer eyes peeled!”
Captain Greybagges waited while Loomin’ Len Lummocks and the crew of bully-boys lowered a keg of beer into the longboat, then clambered down the side of the ship. There was a splash of oars and the longboat rowed away to Sfax. Blue Peter, leaning on the quarterdeck taffrail, watched them go. In the gathering gloom he could just make out the longboat tying up at the harbour wall, the bullyboys passing up the keg, then the darkness became too profound.
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