Attack of the Giant Sea Spiders

by Gareth Jones

  “Dropping off or picking up?” he asked in an accent as thick and French as the baguette he was eating.

  “Dropping off. We’re bringing new recruits from Barbary Bay,” said Inkybeard.

  The man shrugged and said, “Dock your ship with ze others and continue on foot. Au revoir. Sorry, I mean goodbye. We’re only to speak English ’ere. Not zat I ’ave anyone to talk to. Boring, stupid job… And my baguette is stale.”

  The man went into a small hut and Captain Clockheart brought the Leaky Battery in to dock between two much larger boats. The only light inside the cave was from oil lamps that hung off the walls.

  Inkybeard gazed up at the other ships admiringly. “A nice collection of unguarded vessels, eh, Nancy?”

  “We’re not here so you can steal a ship,” said Captain Clockheart.

  The other Steampunk Pirates reappeared.

  “This is all a bit easy so far, if you ask me,” said Gadge.

  “Only because I knew the signal to get in,” said Inkybeard. “Without us, you’d never have got so far.”

  “I’m not sure we should leave the ship here unguarded,” said Lexi. “Perhaps I should stay behind.”

  “You’ll come with me,” said Captain Clockheart. “Mainspring, wrap yourself up, too. Gadge, you stay here and watch the ship with Pendle and the others.”

  “Why me?” said Gadge.

  “Because something tells me we’ll need to be ready for a quick getaway,” replied the captain. “And because it’s hard to blend in with an arm the size of yours.”

  “Secret mission! Secret mission!” squawked Twitter.

  “Hush up, you,” scolded Captain Clockheart. “Twitter had better stay behind, too. He’ll give us away as soon as he opens his beak. Pendle, make sure everyone keeps out of sight, will you, lad?”

  “Aye aye, Captain,” said Pendle. “Please be careful, Captain.”

  “Don’t you worry, lad,” said Captain Clockheart. “If I had a middle name, it would be ‘Caution’. Now, where’s that villain, Inkybeard?”

  “He’s there, leaning over the bow of the ship,” said Lexi.

  “Inkybeard, time to go.”

  Inkybeard turned round. He looked startled for a moment, then smiled. “All right, keep your springs on, we’re coming.”

  Even with material covering the Steampunk Pirates’ faces and bodies, they hardly looked normal. Pendle noticed that Lexi’s word-wheel kept snagging on the scarf wrapped round his head and how strange Mainspring’s key looked under the coat he was wearing.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Gadge,” she said.

  “Aye, I know what you mean,” said Gadge. He cleared his throat and quietly sang a song as the others disappeared down a tunnel.

  It wasn’t the first time Nancy the squid had been inside a cave, but this one felt different. Most of the smugglers’ caves that she and Inkybeard visited were small and dark. This one went on and on, leading deeper and deeper underground. As well as the sound of dripping stalactites and echoing footsteps, Nancy could hear the distant shouts of men, the cracking of whips and the clinking of metal against metal.

  “It sounds as though there’s some kind of workshop down here,” said Quartermaster Lexi.

  “Click, which would explain, tick, why they need, tock, all those men,” said First Mate Mainspring.

  “What are they making, though?” asked Captain Clockheart.

  “Steady now, Nancy,” said Inkybeard, feeling the tension in the squid’s tentacles. “Everything is all right.”

  Of this, the only word Nancy understood was her own name. Not that it mattered what anyone said. So long as Inkybeard continued to feed and water her, Nancy would return the favour with ink to keep his beard black. It wasn’t exactly the life Nancy had expected when she had been a baby squid, but if living on top of a pirate’s head had taught her anything, it was that you never knew what was around the next corner.3

  “Keep your voices down,” said Captain Clockheart. “We’re getting close.”

  An opening in the tunnel wall revealed a much larger cave, full of men hammering glowing bits of metal. The cave was hot and steaming from the great furnaces being used to heat the metal.

  “It’s an ironmonger’s,” said Inkybeard. “And a big one at that.”

  “It reminds me of somewhere,” said Captain Clockheart.

  “Click, it’s like Mr Richmond Swift’s workshop,” said Mainspring. “Tick, I was always our creator’s favourite. Tock, until Clockheart came along.”

  Hundreds of men in ragged clothing were working away on the metal, with chains around their ankles. Soldiers in blue uniforms held whips and watched over them.

  “So that’s it. Defoe has got all these men working for him in this ironmonger’s,” said Inkybeard. “That French swine is turning good honest pirates into slaves.”

  “Can we go back to the ship now?” asked Lexi.

  “Click, not until we know what they’re making,” said Mainspring. “Tick, and that’s where we’ll find out.” He pointed to a sign above a doorway:

  “Just look at all this delicious fuel,” said Clockheart, pointing to the piles of coal being used to feed the furnaces.

  “Click, don’t even think about it,” said Mainspring.

  “First Mate Mainspring is right,” said Lexi. “You know how you get when you eat too much coal. All that extra energy can make you a little, ahem … rash.”

  “Ah, but a couple of bricks won’t do any harm,” said Clockheart.

  “Tick, no. Tock, come on,” said Mainspring.

  Nancy watched as the three pirates ventured into the workshop.

  “This is where we say goodbye to our metal friends, my love,” whispered Inkybeard, turning and walking back down the winding tunnel.

  3 For more insights into Nancy’s thoughts, we recommend finding a copy of her autobiography: Nancy: A Squid’s Life as a Pirate’s Wife, although only a few copies were printed, due to lack of ink.

  TINK… TINK… TINK…

  The sound of iron being bashed into shape filled the cave. All around, sparks flew like exploding fireworks. Clockheart, Mainspring and Lexi walked as casually as possible through the workshop, unaware that Inkybeard was no longer with them. The pirates kept their heads down to avoid drawing any unwanted attention, but their disguises were falling apart.

  “Captain,” said Lexi, “I’m a bit concerned that these clothes are inadequate, poor … flimsy.” As his word-wheel turned, the mechanism caught on the thread of his headscarf and unravelled it.

  “Click, I agree,” said First Mate Mainspring, whose key had worn through the coat on his back.

  Captain Clockheart’s disguise was no better. The steam blowing out of his head had made the material wet.

  “Hey, you!” A blue-suited soldier pointed his pistol at them. “Where are you going and why are you not in uniform?”

  “Leave this to me,” said Lexi. “Bonjour, mon ami. Je m’appelle…”

  “No French,” snapped the soldier.

  “Sorry,” said Lexi, “we’ve only just arrived.”

  “Zen you must go over zere where you will find uniforms.” The man pointed at the far side of the workshop. “Ze boss will not be ’appy if he sees you in rags.”

  “He’ll not be a pea?” said Clockheart.

  “’Appy,” said the soldier. “As in, if you are ’appy and you know it, clap your ’ands. Now, GO!”

  “We’d better do as he says,” whispered Lexi.

  “Right.” But Captain Clockheart wasn’t listening. He’d spotted a trolley of coal trundling past. “Don’t mind if I do.” He reached up to snatch a lump, but First Mate Mainspring grabbed his wrist.

  “Click, no,” he said. “Tick, if anyone sees you eating coal, tock, we’ll all be exposed.”

  “What are you waiting for?” demanded the soldier, eyeing them suspiciously.

  “Nothing,” said Captain Clockheart, dropping the coal.

  The pirates made their
way to the other side of the cave. As they passed one chained man, they heard him sing a slow ballad to the rhythm of his banging hammer.

  “Stop that. No singing allowed,” yelled a soldier, cracking his whip.

  In the corner of the workshop, the pirates found crates of blue uniforms piled high. “Fetch four, Lexi!” said Clockheart.

  “Er, Captain, I think we only need three,” said Lexi.

  “What?” The captain spun around to find that Inkybeard had gone.

  “Click, he must have given us the slip, tick, back at the entrance, tock, to the workshop,” said Mainspring.

  “Maybe it’s not such a bad thing,” said Lexi. “If you ask me, he’s been trouble since the start.”

  “Aye, you may be right,” said Captain Clockheart. “Let’s get ourselves into uniform so we can find out what’s going on here.”

  There were three reasons Pendle didn’t usually join the crew at meal times:

  1. She didn’t eat coal (or charcoal or bits of broken-up furniture), which is all that Old Tinder the cook served.

  2. Some of the greedier crew members would sing very loudly and out of tune.

  3. All that fuel produced some foul noises and smells from the crew.

  But since there was little else to do inside the cave, Pendle sat down at the large oak table next to Gadge in the dining cabin of the Leaky Battery.

  “Grub’s up.” Old Tinder wheeled himself in with a large steel pan on his lap.

  “Let me give you a hand with that,” said Gadge.

  “I’m perfectly capable, thank you very much,” said Old Tinder. He chucked the pan on to the table so that its contents spilled out.

  “What is it today?” asked Loose-screw.

  “A couple of tables, a sideboard and a cabinet,” said Old Tinder. “I removed the glass, chopped up the wood and seasoned it with fish oil. Delicious, if I say so myself.”

  The pirates wasted no time in grabbing the bits of wood and chomping them down.

  “Make yourself useful, Pendle lad,” said Old Tinder. “Pour out the water. After all, we need fuel to burn, but it’s steam that keeps our pistons pumping.”

  Pendle picked up a jug of water and walked round the table, filling everyone’s cups.

  “Thanks, laddie.” Gadge downed the water then used his skewer attachment to pick up a piece of wood. “All this waiting around’s no fun, is it?”

  “It’s awful,” said Pendle. “I don’t like this business at all. They’re off with that Inkybeard and we’re stuck inside this big cave. We should be out at sea being pirates, not spying for a harbour master that we’ve never even met.”

  “You know what the captain’s like when he gets an idea in his head,” said Gadge.

  “And what if Mainspring decides to do something silly? You know he still wants to be Captain. Why can’t he just accept that Clockheart is in charge?” Pendle went on.

  “Search me,” said Gadge.

  “I’ll tell you why,” said Old Tinder. “Because he thinks clockwork is better than steam power, that’s why.”

  “Aye. He finds all this combusting disgusting,” said Hatchet, letting out a loud gassy burp that smelled strongly of furniture polish. “Sorry, I think that was a door handle. Door handles never agree with me.”

  “Better out than in, eh?” said Gadge.

  “I never really understood why Richmond Swift only made one of you clockwork,” said Pendle.

  “Swift was always tinkering with our design,” said Old Tinder. “With each one of us he learned how to improve on the last one. I was the first one he made. Mainspring was supposed to be the last. He was supposed to be our leader.”

  “I’ve never heard about this,” said Gadge.

  “Oh yes.” Old Tinder had got the whole room’s attention. “Swift made him clockwork because he thought it would be more accurate … more reliable. Mainspring was his favourite. He used to tell him so, too.”

  “I remember that,” said Blind Bob Bolt. “Then one day he came up with the idea for a steam-powered pirate with a clockwork heart. That was Clockheart, Swift’s new favourite and our captain.”

  “Aye,” said Old Tinder. “Mainspring never got over that.”

  None of this was making Pendle feel any better about Clockheart and Mainspring having disappeared down a tunnel together, but that wasn’t the reason she made her excuses and left the dining room. It seemed that door handles had an equally revolting effect on a number of the other crew members, too.

  Dressed in their blue uniforms, Captain Clockheart, First Mate Mainspring and Quartermaster Lexi made their way across the factory floor but, by the time they reached the entrance to the construction area, their clothes were already showing signs of wear and tear.

  This second cave was even busier than the first. The metal that had been bashed into shape next door was now being bolted together. On one side, chained men were building what looked like enormous legs. On the other, curved sheets of iron were being fixed together.

  “Click, what are they making?” whispered Mainspring.

  “Whatever it is, we’ve seen enough now,” said Lexi. “Shouldn’t we get back to the ship?”

  “In a minute,” said Captain Clockheart. “I want to know who that is.”

  In the centre of the room stood a man surrounded by armed guards. He wore a large hat, high heels and a jacket covered in so many medals that he had to lean back to avoid falling forwards. Everything about the man’s appearance was carefully designed to hide the fact that he was extremely short.

  Lexi’s word-wheel spun around. “Didier Le Bone,” he said. “High commander of France and its armies.”

  “And there’s Count Defoe,” said Captain Clockheart.

  The pirates approached the group quietly so they could listen in.

  “As you can see,” Defoe was saying, “our men are working around ze clock to meet your schedule.”

  “Our men?” said the tiny commander.

  “Ahem.” Defoe cleared his throat apologetically. “I mean, your men.”

  “Yes, my men,” said Le Bone. “I am ze ’igh commander of all of France, ze leader of its armies, ruler of its people, and yet I am not ’appy. And when I am not ’appy no one else should be ’appy. You are working too slowly! ’Ow many Sea Spiders ’ave you made so far?”

  “Only one. You see, our recruits are ’aving problems tightening ze bolts, but…”

  “No more excuses. You are supposed to be creating ze weapons of ze future and yet you ’ave made only one.” Commander Le Bone kissed his fingertips in disgust. “Zese men are untrained, unskilled and unFrench! ’Ow do you expect to make progress with chained pirates doing all ze work? No wonder you are behind. You should make use of every able-bodied soldier.”

  “We are. Your soldiers are standing ’ere now because of your visit,” replied Defoe.

  “Is zat so?” Commander Le Bone spun on his heel and almost fell over. He regained his balance and turned to the nearest soldier. “You,” he said. “Tell me, what ’ave you done to further ze cause of French world domination?”

  “Me?” said the startled soldier. “Well, I’ve only been ’ere a short time.”

  “What did you say?” exclaimed Commander Le Bone.

  “A short time. A tiny bit,” he continued. “A small—”

  Suddenly Commander Le Bone let rip with an explosion of angry French words then he exclaimed in English, “I am Commander Didier Le Bone, ruler of France and soon to be ruler of ze entire world. I demand zat you all look up to me.”

  “You’d better stand on a chair, then!” shouted Captain Clockheart. “Or better still, a ladder.”

  Mainspring and Lexi turned to look at their captain and saw that his hands and mouth were stained black. He burped out a small cloud of coal dust.

  Others were staring, too. Every soldier turned to look at him. In his fists, Captain Clockheart held two large bricks of coal. He had finally given in to the temptation of all that delicious-looking fuel.<
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  “Who is it zat dares to offend me, ze High Commander?” yelled Le Bone.

  “High?” Captain Clockheart chuckled. “I’ve seen higher earthworms than you. I’ve seen taller ants. I’ve seen bigger shrimps.”

  “Captain.” Lexi spoke out of the side of his mouth and tugged Clockheart’s sleeve. “Remember what I said about eating too much coal?”

  “Leave me alone,” said the captain, pulling his arm free and taking another bite of coal. “I’m enjoying myself. What’s the point of anything unless you enjoy yourself a bit!” He held up the lump of coal and gazed at it admiringly.

  “Could someone explain why zis man is eating coal?” demanded Le Bone.

  “Click, because he is a fool,” said First Mate Mainspring pointedly. “Tick, and his engine is burning so hot he’s not thinking straight… Tock, and he’s going to get us all killed.”

  “Commander Le Bone,” said Count Defoe. “May I present ze Steampunk Pirates! Guards – surround zem.”

  “Click, you and, tick, your stupid love of, tock, coal.” Mainspring emphasized each word with a slap to Captain Clockheart’s face.

  Clockheart grabbed his first mate’s hand to prevent him hitting him again and blinked. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re in a secret cave, surrounded by an army of hostile soldiers who are preventing our escape,” said Lexi.

  “Why? What happened?”

  “Click, you happened,” said First Mate Mainspring. “Tick, yet again let down by your greed.”

  “Ah, ze Steampunk Pirates.” Count Defoe pushed his way through the soldiers with Commander Le Bone following behind. “So you decided to come and work for us after all. How nice. You even have uniforms, I see. How stylish you look.”

  “What intriguing machines,” said Didier Le Bone, peering up at Clockheart’s chest. “Yes, you will be a welcome addition to my army.”