The Pirates! in an Adventure with the Romantics Read online

  ‘Doesn’t it seem like it might be a little demeaning? Hiring ourselves out like that? We’re not circus monkeys.’

  ‘And more’s the pity,’ snorted the Pirate Captain, with a rueful shake of his head. ‘If I had a crew of circus monkeys I wouldn’t be in these financial straits, would I? I’d be a leading theatrical impresario, happily knitting you waistcoats for our next sell-out show, “The Captain and His Mischievous Capuchin Crew”. It would be adorable, whilst at the same time containing a serious message about the peaceful coexistence of species.’

  He banged his desk to show that his mind was made up and that any further discussion would be futile. The Captain often thought that if he hadn’t become a pirate, or an architect, his third choice of profession would have been a judge, because he really did enjoy banging things to make a point.

  ‘Jump to it, you swabs – new plan! I want you all looking as exotic and perilous as possible. That means scars at their most livid and stumps at their most unsightly. Hoist the jib, loosen the bowsprit, all that nautical palaver. For today . . .’ He paused and held his cutlass aloft. It felt like an important moment and that he needed to finish his sentence with something both stirring and memorable, yet at the same time pithy. ‘. . . we respond to a newspaper advertisement,’ said the Pirate Captain, who wasn’t great at thinking on his feet.

  Two

  The Boat That Bled Blood

  ‘Are you sure this is the right address?’ The Pirate Captain peered through the letterbox and tried pulling the bell-rope again.

  ‘Villa Diodati,’ the pirate with a scarf said with a shrug. ‘That’s what it says on the gate.’

  ‘You don’t think some other coves beat us to it, do you, number two? Neptune’s lips! I hope it wasn’t those confounded cowboys, peddling their idiotic Stetson- and cactus-based adventures.’

  He gave the rope a final desultory yank, sighed, and turned to face the crew, who were neatly lined up in the driveway, dressed in all their most extravagant outfits, trying their best to look employable. ‘Well, lads, sorry to get your hopes up, but it seems like this is a bust. Probably time we drew lots to see which one of you I sell to the paste factory first.’

  But before any lots could be drawn or any pirate bones could be melted down into a delicious paste, the door suddenly swung open, and a flustered young woman popped her head out.

  ‘Hello?’ she said, brushing a curl of brown hair from her face. ‘Can I help you?’

  The Captain looked at the woman and narrowed his eyes. She had cheekbones and skin and nice teeth in all the right places and proportions, and if years at sea had taught him anything, it was to be suspicious of attractive girls, in case they turned out to be sirens trying to lure him to a watery grave.

  ‘Well?’ said the woman, cocking her head.

  ‘Excuse me just one moment,’ said the Pirate Captain, stepping back and taking his deputy to one side. ‘What do you think, number two?’

  ‘Think?’ repeated the pirate with a scarf, a bit confused. The Captain’s thought processes could be a little difficult to follow.

  ‘The girl! Do you suppose she’s . . .’ his voice dropped to a whisper. ‘You know: an oceanic seductress, here to feast on my briny soul?’

  ‘A siren?’

  ‘Well, it occurs to me that even sirens probably have to move with the times, so perhaps placing a newspaper advertisement is the nowadays equivalent of luring sailor-folk with their enchanting song.’6

  ‘Hello,’ said the young woman, with a wave. ‘I can hear you. And no, I’m not a siren.’

  ‘Exactly what sirens tend to say of course,’ the Captain noted with an apologetic frown.

  ‘Yes. I imagine it would be. Look, I’m terribly sorry, but now isn’t really a great time—’

  A tremendous crashing noise interrupted her. It was instantly followed by the sort of bellowing that, two hundred years later, would be most readily associated with Brian Blessed.

  ‘Not again,’ said the woman, rolling her eyes, which, the Captain noted, were exactly the right shade of hazel, and rolled about her eye sockets in a really pleasing way. She disappeared back inside the villa, leaving the door ajar. The pirates followed, because they were pirates and so not really attuned to social etiquette.

  Inside the villa there was a lot of tasteful lubber furniture and a whole deal more banging and bellowing going on. At the top of a spiral staircase a pale and serious-looking young man hammered at a door, whilst from the other side muffled curses and the occasional roaring wail drifted out onto the landing.

  ‘What on earth is he doing in there?’ cried the woman, bounding up the stairs towards her companion.

  ‘I’m afraid,’ said the pale young man, ‘that he’s having one of his bleak tempestuous moods.’

  ‘Oh, good grief. What’s it about this time?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Everything was fine a moment ago: he was wagering that he could swallow an entire Toblerone in one gulp, which I contended to be impossible, because of that particular confectionery’s awkward shape. Then he said that triangles and nougat were no match for the tempests that rage in a man’s soul, and stomped up here. He bellowed something about ending it all, and now he’s locked himself in.’

  The woman hammered at the door again. ‘Byron? Can you hear me? This is ludicrous! Please come out.’

  The Pirate Captain had almost never encountered a situation where he didn’t fancy himself the best man for the job despite the lack of any evidence to suggest that he was.7 This being no exception, he strode across the hallway and started up the staircase, hoping that any onlookers would notice how he took the steps three at a time.

  ‘Spot of trouble?’ he said, flashing the woman a grin that was a slightly different shape to his earlier ‘winning grin’ because this one was meant to convey ‘devil-may-care confidence’. ‘Not to worry, attractive brunette; and whoever you happen to be,’ he nodded vaguely at the pale man. ‘I think I might be of assistance.’

  ‘Who on earth are you?’ said the man, looking the Captain up and down in surprise.

  ‘I’m the Pirate Captain,’ the Pirate Captain replied, with a quick flourish of his hat. ‘Think Zeus, a bottle of Château Lafite or a mudslide. And these are my pirate crew,’ he pointed at the crew who were dutifully following up the stairs behind him. ‘This is my loyal, though somewhat dull, deputy, the pirate with a scarf. That’s the albino pirate, who’s probably best described as the boat’s happy idiot. That’s the pirate in green, he’s sort of an everyman type. The pirate in red is the surly one. The rest are pretty interchangeable. I wouldn’t bother trying to keep track of them if I were you. Oh, and this is Jennifer, a genuine lady who we met on an earlier adventure in London.’ The Captain suddenly pulled a knowledgeable face and nodded at the door. ‘So. Delicate business. But as luck would have it, I’m something of an expert at emotionally charged situations such as these. Brace yourselves.’

  He took off his coat and started to roll up his sleeves. The pirate with a scarf tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Are you sure you’re an expert at emotionally charged situations, Pirate Captain?’ he asked quietly. ‘You’re not just thinking about the time you tried to talk Little Jim out of killing himself? When he jumped to his gruesome death, even though he’d only gone up the mast to clean the crow’s nest in the first place?’

  ‘That’s not how I remember it at all, number two,’ said the Captain, one of whose many skills was remembering things differently to how they had happened, which is a useful trick to pick up once you get past the age of thirty. He turned back to the young woman and adopted an authoritative tone of voice. ‘Now: when dealing with a potentially unbalanced person contemplating suicide, the important thing is to make sure you have the element of surprise on your side. Catch them unawares.’

  And with that, before anybody could challenge this piece of psychological reasoning, the Captain charged at the door with a great piratical roar, sending it splintering off its hinges. He careened right
through and straight into a bookcase. Manuscripts fluttered about like a lot of papery rectangular seagulls.

  Across the room a strapping man with a cascade of wavy black hair so shiny it looked like it had been conditioned in something really expensive, like lobster sweat or dolphin’s eggs, balanced on the balustrade of an ornate balcony. The sudden appearance of a pirate didn’t appear to bother him at all. He furrowed his brow, and held up two billowy shirts. ‘Which one do you think would look best on my shattered, yet still unfeasibly dashing corpse?’

  ‘I like the one with the ruffles,’ said the Pirate Captain, picking himself up off the floor. ‘You can’t go wrong with a lot of ruffles.’

  ‘Yes! Quite right!’

  The man quickly stripped off his shirt and changed into the one with more ruffles. Then he pulled a pistol out from his belt. ‘Be a stand-up fellow and pass me that bottle, would you?’ He pointed rakishly to the mantelpiece, upon which sat a small green bottle that had the same logo on the side as the pirates had on their flag.8 The Captain obliged. He was impressed, because pointing rakishly isn’t an easy thing to pull off. The man attempted to get the top off the bottle, but it was difficult because he already had the pistol in his other hand. Then he tried holding the pistol in his teeth, but the stopper was obviously jammed tight. Eventually he got it out with a pop, but spilt half the poison down his freshly laundered shirt. He cursed a bit.

  ‘I don’t want to be rude, but do you maybe think this is overkill?’ said the Captain, gesturing to the balcony and the gun and the poison.

  ‘No, sir!’ said the man. ‘It is to be the most spectacular suicide ever witnessed! A truly tortured and poetical end, destined to echo down the ages. I was going to involve a gas stove as well, but there were logistical complications.’

  He raised the gun to his head and the bottle to his lips. A fountain burbled in the garden below. ‘Right, here goes,’ he said, striking a pose so heroic it made several watching pirates, who had piled into the room after their Captain, faint clean away. ‘My glorious final act! Goodbye, cruel world!’

  ‘Byron! Stop!’ cried the young woman, hurrying towards him.

  The Captain remembered why he had gone in there in the first place. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, putting his hand up.

  ‘Yes?’ said the man, pausing on the very edge of the balustrade.

  ‘We all have those bleak sort of days when everything seems hopeless. A monkey’s eaten your sextant, some native witchdoctor has sold you a cursed eye-patch, your crew won’t shut up about gastropods. But before you go ahead with this, I’d like you to take a moment to think about all the other more life-affirming things knocking about the universe.’

  ‘That does sound like it would be fun, but I don’t want to miss the light,’ the man waved at the sunset. ‘It’s going to really add to the poignancy of the moment.’

  ‘It won’t take long,’ said the Captain, pulling another napkin from his pocket. ‘I happen to have made a list. I like lists.’

  ‘Oh fine,’ said the man. ‘Go on then.’

  ‘Right,’ said the Captain. He ran through his quicker vocal warm-up exercises and then began to read. ‘A list of items I consider to be so miraculous and unexplainable that they make life worth living: Giraffes’ necks. Magnets. Lava. Shooting stars. Rainbows. Pelican beaks . . .’

  ‘Goodness,’ said the woman, half an hour later. ‘It’s quite a long list, isn’t it?’

  ‘The Captain’s very thorough,’ agreed the pirate with a scarf.

  ‘. . . that odd neat handwriting psychopaths have. Venn diagrams. Snow globes. Tiny cheeses. And, last but not least, girls in thigh-length boots.’ The Pirate Captain stopped, wiped his forehead and gave a bow. ‘That’s it.’

  ‘You forgot dressing up a sausage dog in a coat shaped like a bun,’ said the man.

  ‘It is good when people do that,’ agreed the albino pirate.

  ‘But you get the gist?’ asked the Captain.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘So, faced with all that natural wonder in the world, why are you throwing yourself to your doom?’

  ‘Boredom, sir!’ cried the man, waving his arms hopelessly. ‘The sheer grim, unremitting tedium of it all! We came to this godforsaken country because, for some unfathomable reason, it has a reputation as the most romantic place in the world. A “heavenly valley”, Coleridge said, unmatched by any other.’

  ‘That’s the sort of stuff people end up spouting when they put opium on their crumpets instead of butter,’ explained the young woman with a sigh.

  ‘Are you sure this Coleridge chap wasn’t just pulling your leg?’ asked the Captain. ‘I’ve got a nemesis who’s always doing that sort of thing. Well, I say nemesis, but you know, we rub along all right, really. I suppose a more accurate description would be “constant thorn in my side”. His name’s Black Bellamy. Have you met him?’

  The man shook his head sadly. ‘No, sir, I have not, but would that I had, for he sounds more interesting than anything Switzerland has to offer. For the entire duration of our stay it has rained, a ceaseless, idiotic drizzle.9 And in two months – two months! – we have failed to undergo a single spiritual epiphany, have a senses-shattering encounter, or enjoy an unexpected escapade. The closest we’ve come to anything like that was three weeks ago, when Percy here spotted a cow out of the window that we all agreed had nice eyelashes, and yesterday, when Mary scored fifteen points for the word “Quagmire” whilst we were stuck inside playing yet another game of that infernal Boggle.’

  ‘Well, if that’s the only problem then you’re in luck,’ said the Captain. ‘Because, as it so happens, we’re here about your recent advertisement.’ He held up the newspaper and pointed to where he’d circled the advert.

  ‘Advertisement?’ The man looked at him blankly. ‘What in the ocean’s thundering swell are you talking about?’

  ‘I was under the impression that you were seeking an exciting adventure?’

  There was a small cough from the other side of the room. Everybody turned to look at the young woman, who blushed.

  ‘Sorry, I should have mentioned that,’ she said, with an apologetic smile directed at her companions. ‘It just seemed like it might be a good idea. You’re not the only one who’s been going a bit loopy, B – the thought of having to go on one more alpine jaunt makes me want to eat my own elbows. So a few days ago I took it upon myself to put that advert in the paper. Though to be honest, I’d rather given up hope – so far the only responses have been from people trying to sell us second-hand cuckoo clocks.’

  The pale man gave the girl a rather disapproving look, and the wavy-haired man scratched his chin thoughtfully. Then, his impending suicide seemingly forgotten, he roared with delight, and jumped down off the balustrade. ‘Why, that’s fantastic! Good thinking, Mary! Bright cookie, this girl.’ He threw the poison and pistol over his shoulder, because littering wasn’t considered antisocial in those days, then crossed the room towards the Pirate Captain and gave him a hearty handshake. ‘What did you say your name was again?’

  ‘I’m the Pirate Captain,’ said the Pirate Captain.

  ‘I like your neck, Pirate Captain! That’s a man’s neck! Like an oak!’

  ‘You’ve got a very impressive neck yourself.’

  The man roared again, apparently for no real reason beyond the love of roaring, and smacked his pale friend on the back, making him wince. ‘Isn’t that brilliant, Percy?’ He paused and suddenly looked serious. ‘But I’m sorry! Where are our manners? We must introduce ourselves!’ He turned and beckoned to the young woman. ‘This ravishing beauty is Mary Godwin.’ The girl smiled and did a sort of half curtsey, half wave. ‘This cloud of tubercular vapours is Percy Shelley.’ The young man gave an awkward little bow. ‘And I’m George Byron. You may have heard of me, if you happen to subscribe to Young, Brooding and Doomed, the quarterly newsletter that details my exploits. We’re poets.’

  None of the pirates subscribed to Young, Brooding and Doomed, because
they tended to go for less erudite nautical publications like Ports Illustrated and Teen Scene, but they did their best to look impressed anyhow.

  Byron flopped into a big armchair and lit a cigar. ‘So – adventure! Not a word to be trifled with. What kind of adventures do you offer?’

  ‘What kind of adventures don’t we offer might be a simpler question,’ replied the Captain. ‘Though actually no, probably asking what kind we offer makes more sense. So far we’ve had an adventure with a Man-panzee, one with a great white whale, another one with some communists, and one with Napoleon Bonaparte himself. Wall-to-wall action, every one. Sometimes there’s even a vague sort of theme. Anyhow, I can provide references if you want.’ He got the pirate with a scarf to waggle a pile of references. ‘You’ll notice that they’re all written in different colour pens, so they’re definitely genuine. And now, if you’ll permit, my crew will perform a medley of pirate things to convince you to hire us.’

  As they’d prepared earlier, the crew shuffled forward and started to do a mostly uncoordinated display of stuff that they thought people would associate with pirates. Jennifer did her impression of a sultry Spanish Princess and heaved her bosom whilst pretending to be overcome by the drama of the cutlass fight being staged by the pirate with gout and the pirate with a hook for a hand. The albino pirate said ‘avast’ in a way that suggested he didn’t actually know what it meant. The pirate in green gave a short presentation about the importance of tar. And most of the rest of the crew just walked around in circles because they couldn’t think of anything more appropriate.

  When they had finished, Byron looked confused, Shelley looked dubious and Mary of course was a woman, so her feelings were impossible to guess.

  ‘As you can see – all the romance and thrills of the High Seas, in one colourful package,’ the Captain said, handing out a brochure he’d got some of the more visually creative pirates to knock up that morning. ‘You’ll find the details in there. You get to stay on an honest-to-goodness pirate boat. There’s a guaranteed minimum of two feasts per day. All toiletries and towels will be provided. And there’ll be more swashbuckling than you can shake a parrot at. Best of all, it’s a special one-time-only bargain price of only a hundred doubloons per adventure.’