Laurie King - Pirate King - A novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes

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The actors divided forces, Fflytte taking the girls away to some backstage room while Hale drew the men (less Frederic and the Major-General, they being too grand for rehearsals) into a circle. The cameraman’s assistant carried out a tea-chest, setting it with a flourish before Hale. Hale squatted, working the latch with enough drama to make the overhead ropes draw a bit closer, and eased back the lid. He reached inside, coming up with a wicked-looking knife nearly two feet long, its blade sparkling in the light. The pirates leant forward, interested at last. Hale held it high – then whirled to plunge the fearsome weapon into “Gerald’s” chest.

In the blink of an eye, twelve marginally smaller but equally wicked knives were also sparkling in the lights. Hale exclaimed and stumbled back from the steel ring, permitting the great knife to spring away from Gerald’s person and tumble to the boards with a dull thud.

Only half the pirates noticed. The others were in motion, and Hale would have been left haemorrhaging onto the stage if Samuel hadn’t been faster yet. I didn’t even see the man move before Benjamin’s hand was slapped into that of Irving, who in turn bumped into Jack. An instant later, La Rocha’s voice reached the others; they stopped dead.

Hale looked down: A knifepoint rested against his waistcoat. A button dropped, the sound of the bone disk rolling along worn boards clear in the stillness.

Then Gerald gave a cough of nervous laughter and bent to pick up the fake weapon. Knives vanished, manly exclamations were exchanged. Hale fingered the tiny slit in his clothing and slowly regained colour. I took a shaky breath, and fetched the first-aid kit to repair the slice Irving’s blade had left in Jack’s hand.

We’d been at the theatre less than an hour, and had our day’s first bloodshed, our first narrowly averted fatality.

Following that little demonstration of stimulus and response, Hale took care to explain the stage props. The cutlass he took from Gerald’s hand might collapse into its handle, but the blade was steel. Even dull, it could inflict damage if used for anything but a flat stab. For slicing motions, there was another tea-chest of weapons with similar looks but made of painted wood, wide and blunt enough to be aimed at clothed portions of the body. For faces, there was a third set made from rubber, although their appearance was not entirely satisfactory.

In the matter of luncheon, compromise had been reached, on the days when a matinée was scheduled, anyway: We would work straight through, fortified in the late morning by a brief respite with the despised sandwiches, then end at three o’clock.

So the pirates merrily slashed away at each other for a few hours, and we broke for our not-a-luncheon, after which Fflytte returned with Mabel and her sisters.

And I had my first inkling of the true problems of a film-crew.

By this time, the men – who, as I said, had not begun the day in the most pristine condition – had been leaping vigorously about for a couple of hours, and were not only tired and aromatic but had relaxed into the novelty of being paid to play games.

Then the girls came in.

I should explain that the way Fflytte and Hale intended to compensate for the lack of sound in what is basically a musical event was to design a chorus of motion instead of voices. For example, in the opera, the girls’ initial appearance is cause for a song- “Climbing over rocky mountain, Skipping rivulet and fountain”em› and so on – but in a moving picture, there would be little point in showing thirteen mouths going open and shut. Instead, they would skip gaily, a chorus of motion along a flower-strewn stream, pantomiming the incipient removal of shoes and stockings for the purpose of a paddle whilst the increasingly shocked (and stimulated) Frederic looks on from his hiding place.

On the ship from England, I had been dimly aware that Graziella Mazzo (the tall, voluptuous, and generally barefoot Italian who had trained under Isadora Duncan [and with whom (despite a comical eleven-inch difference in height) Randolph Fflytte seemed to be much taken (which, come to think of it, suggested what, or who, had so startled the hotel cleaners)]) would occasionally assemble the girls on a free patch of open deck, or below decks when the weather was unfriendly, humming while they progressed in unison with exaggerated gestures of coquetry, alarm, or humour. They looked insane, but then, a group of girls often does.

By now, the thirteen sisters were well practiced in coordinated movements. Shortly before mid-day, the girls came back onstage, name cards pinned to their frocks, hair freshly combed, eager to return to their alphabetical counterparts amongst the pirate crew.

Who were instantly struck dumb. Even the older men looked down at themselves, abashed, and ran their hands over their heads. They watched the girls trip merrily over to the trays of sandwiches, commenting on the choices, exchanging wide-eyed exclamations, laughing at each other’s jests, utterly ignoring the males.

The tension between the two groups grew like a taut-strung wire: the silent men on one side, the girls with their increasingly self-conscious laughter on the other, until I thought I should have to do something. It was Benjamin who broke it, one of the younger pirates. His clothing was a shade more modern than some of the others’, and if his hair was rather long and tousled, he had at least shaved that morning. Girding himself for battle, he swaggered across the boards to the luncheon spread, took possession of a plate, laid a sandwich on it, and raised his deep brown eyes to the girl opposite him – shy, myopic Celeste.

“ ’Allo,” he said, and with a lift of the eyebrow, added, “I am Benyamin.”

Titters broke out anew, but with the first venture made, the others surged forward. I watched with an almost parental pride as two cultures met, and achieved flirtation.

Some minutes later, I became aware of a presence at my side, and looked up at Hale, then down at his de-buttoned waistcoat. “I’m glad our Samuel is fast on his feet.”

“Not half as glad as I am. I should’ve known better.”

“I take it one doesn’t expect a group of actors to have knives?”

“In England, a pocket-knife might be used for opening adoring letters. Those blades were the real thing.”

“Perhaps for safety’s sake, we ought to collect their armament each day. It would be unfortunate if one of them grabbed a real weapon by mistake.”

“That’s an idea.”

“Interesting, how many of them speak some English. I haven’t found that among the populace in general.”

“Yes, I was just noticing that. I wonder if La Rocha specified English speakers when he put out his casting call?”

“Whatever, it’ll make things easier for you and Mr Fflytte.”

“In some ways,” Hale said. “Perhaps not in others.”

I followed his gaze to the far end of the luncheon table. There stood Annie and Adam, the two tallest among their respective choruses and thus our designated eldest. He was holding out a plate to her. Her peaches-and-cream complexion had taken on a becoming degree of pink, her eyes were downcast; his dark stubble looked romantic rather than unkempt. He was all but crowing with manliness.

“Oh, dear,” I said.

SERGEANT: When the enterprising burglar’s not a-burgling,

When the cut-throat isn’t occupied in crime,

He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling

And listen to the merry village chime.

THE NEXT DAY was Sunday. This being an emphatically Catholic nation, an odd assortment of things were shut. Which included our theatre, whose management was not about to provide the keys and electricity for a group of Protestant (or Jewish) heathens to risk their immortal souls by committing labour.