Hugh Cook - The Walrus and the Warwolf

'For sure he lives,' called one of the sealers. 'Why? Are you lovesick for him?''Aagh, jalk up, you ganch,' yelled Drake.

Thus starting an exchange of obscene insults which continued – pirates could sometimes show remarkablestamina – until the sealing boat was out of earshot. * * *

Thinking of Atsimo Andranovory, Drake experienced a little frisson of something which was most certainly not pleasure. He remembered that ugly inviting him to suck, then stringing him up on refusal. He remembered . . . swinging from a rope, yes, tied to a spar by his ankles . . . an agony which seemed to go on forever . . . Whale Mike singing a lullaby . . . the cold on the rocks . . .

He would never forget. Although even now the details were hazy. So much had happened since!

'What's your interest in Andranovory?' asked Jon Disaster, as they waited for the incoming tide to float the Warwolf off the rocks she had grounded on.

'I told him the truth about his ugliness,' said Drake. 'Tell me – what's between our captain and this Walrus?'

'Man,' said Disaster, 'That Walrus isn't properly human. Slagger Mulps, they call him – that's his proper name. He's weird, like. Thin as an eel, with gangling arms with two thumbs on each hand. Green hair, green-'

T know all that,' said Drake, impatiently. 'I've been up against him before. But what's his quarrel with Jon Arabin?'

'Why, man, friend Walrus has been the Warwolf's favourite enemy, ever since the day he seduced one of Arabin's wives. Aye. Got over-excited. Bit off her left-hand nipple. From whence Arabin loathes him.''Are we at war then?' said Drake.

'There's no war between pirates, lad. Not on the Greater Teeth. Not in theory, anyway.'

'Why call me lad?' said Drake, feeling he deserved better than that (and feeling, too, that there might be war on the Warwolf in a moment, unless he got an apology).Jon Disaster laughed.

'Man, you want to be more than a lad? Then use your time well. Here at the Teeth, you can learn boats proper. Take every chance to go boat for the fish and the seals.'

'I've no need of more boat learning,' said Drake. 'Why, I sailed round Island Tor entire!'Jon Disaster had the gall to chuckle.

'Not quite,' said he. 'The judgment of sailing is whether you finish with the same boat you start with. And there, I think, you can hardly claim success.'

The rising tide took them clear of the rocks with no damage worth speaking of, and, later in the day, they docked in the Inner Sleeve, a rock-locked harbour on Knock.

Drake, remembering the narrow slot they had squeezed into at Gufling, expected another equally claustrophobic prison-hole. But the Inner Sleeve proved to be a regular little harbour. Admittedly, it was sunless-gloomy, sunk between ramparts of rock. Nevertheless, with care and effort a dozen ships could have berthed there, and in fact nine were in port when the Warwolf tied up.One of the nine was the Walrus.

This had not always been a pirate ship. Indeed, some months earlier it had been an honest slaver, and, bearing the name Gol-sa-danjerk, had sailed from Androlmarphos with a cargo of felons – one of whom had been Drake Douay.

The green-bearded Slagger Mulps had captured the Gol-sa-danjerk, and had put a prize crew on board. Thus, after he had been rescued from the Gaunt Reefs, he had still had a ship to his name. And there, on the deck of it, he stood, arms folded.

Also on deck was Atsimo Andranovory in all his glory -grinning as he recognized Drake. He had a good head for faces.

'Hello darling!' he called. 'Like to give me a suck?' 'I'll see you suck on this first!' shouted Drake, drawing his dirk.

'Once you've taken it up the arse I'll love to,' retorted Andranovory.

And of course their dialogue did not end there, for, being who they were and where they were, they vented their spleen with all the eloquence available to them, which was considerable in both cases. And the crews of both ships jeered or cheered each sally, depending on their allegiance.

And while this was going on, a couple of workaholics who had no appreciation of theatre were busy tying up the Warwolf and lowering the gangplank.

And then the men of the Warwolf came swaggering off the ship like the heroes they were. For had they not faced storms, aye, and hurricanes, and tornadoes too? And had they not fought monsters, yes, doing battle with half a dozen Neversh for the possession of their ship? And had they not drunk five pubs in Narba stone-bone dry, a feat which fifty eminent philosophers and a panel of high-class theologians and over-paid jurists had declared to be nine-tenths impossible? And had they not been to Ling, and deflowered five thousand of the virgins of the place, yes, and pleasured the mothers of those girls as well?

But the heroes of the Warwolf failed to meet with the universal applause they deserved, for the crew of the Walrus (idle slobs, scabs and fish-fornicators that they were) jeered at them because they had been engaging in honest trade, of all things, which was surely anathema, even if it was for pearls, aye, and dangerous, and highly profitable into the bargain.

'What's lower than a merchant-trader?' cried a crewman from the Walrus. 'A coward!' came the reply.And the fight was on.

In the fracas, Drake went chest to chest with Bucks Cat and sustained three broken ribs, a mild concussion, a black eye and a seven-stitch gash to his left forearm. But he thought it worth it, for he was now well and truly one of the crew.

And, indeed, Drake got a crewman's share of the voyage profits, which Arabin had withheld till then so his men would not booze away the money in Narba. By now, Drake knew that the strange coinage of the Greater Teeth was actually the common currency of Narba, the only port which would trade with them. He also learned that the more sober-minded pirates banked there, and the lucky few who survived to the age of arthritis retired there to drink away their dotage in comparative comfort.

The Warwolf would not put to sea again for some time, not least because Jon Arabin would be busy with his harem, which he was having shipped from Gufling. Jon Arabin was ascetic yet devout, and his own religion – the Creed of Anthus – enjoined each man 'to plant a tree for each you cut down, and father a man for each you kill'.

Jon Arabin, having done a lot of killing in his time, was always kept busy when he was at home. Unfortunately, his frantic exertions tended to lower his sperm count below the level at which impregnation was likely. Fortunately for the ease of his conscience, other men helped him out behind his back, and he was now three killings in credit.

Just because they were not at sea did not mean there was no work to do. Jon Arabin was true to his vow to have the Warwolf overhauled. So there was sanding, sawing, hammering and whitewashing, and there was a drydock to be pumped out, and then there was singeing and scraping to clean the hull. The garden of weed Drake had first noticed at Ling was torn from the hull in wet reeking clumps, or burnt off along with goose neck barnacles and other rubbish.

And then, since Jon Arabin had decided to experiment with mailletage (that is, covering the timber with nails) there was a blistering amount of hammering to be done.

Crewmen from the Walrus dropped by on a jegular basis to jeer at the sailors doing this slave work. Jon Arabin had gone into debt after he lost his ship on the shores of Lorp, and was taken prisoner by the most vicious people to be found in all of Argan. He had spent three miserable seasons eating sheep's guts and pigs' eyes before the laborious efforts of some trusted retainers had delivered his ransom. He was now finally out of hock, but still could not afford to buy new ship-working slaves.