Gideon Defoe - The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!

3i

about the deck. 6You could fit two whole pirates on each shell. They constructed an obstacle course from bits of old rope and rigging, but the turtles proved a lot less resil­ient than they had hoped. A few of the pirates then had the bright idea that if they caught enough of the huge diaphanous jellyfish that circled about the boat, they could construct a kind of bouncy castle. This kept them occu­pied for a few more hours, but it didn't really work, and eventually they got tired of it, and found that they had jellyfish guts stuck all over their pirate boots.

The pirate dressed in green went downstairs to get a glass of water because he was nervous and his throat was dry. There was a note stuck next to the ship's sink, written in the Pirate Captain's familiar bubble writing. It read:

Will whoever keeps taking my mug STOP IT. It is very annoying. Have a little respect for other people's property. The Pirate captain.

Life at sea was tough and unforgiving, and tensions could run quite high on board a pirate boat, especially when crockery was limited and people didn't always do their washing-up, but generally the pirates all got along fine. The pirate dressed in green gulped down the tap water - it was much nicer than seawater - and tried to pluck up courage for the task ahead. He'd been putting it off for ages, but now seemed as good a time as any.

There was a knock at the Pirate Captain's door, and then the pirate in green came in.

'Sorry to be bothering you, Captain,' he said. The Pirate Captain looked up. He had a lot to sort out in preparation for their imminent and audacious attack, but he made a point of always having time for the men.

'What can I do for you . .. uh . . . my fellow?' said the Pirate Captain, who often found it diffi­cult to tell his crew apart from one another. 'Grog? Ham?'

'No thanks, sir. I was wondering if I could ask you something?'

'It's what I'm here for. You don't mind if I help myself?' said the Pirate Captain, indicating the slices of ham. 'Now, what is it?'

'Well, I was thinking of getting a tattoo.'

'They're quite popular.'

'Yes, Captain.'

'But they don't come off, you know' 'Yes, Captain. I've thought about that.' 'Well then.'

'I thought it might be good to get a Skull and Crossbones, like we have on our flag, but it turns out a couple of the men have already got that. So ... I was wondering ... that's to say ... would you have any objections

'Spit it out man!'

'. . . if I got your face done instead? I was thinking of adding a little speech bubble, with -ha - you saying "Scurvy knaves!" like you

always do. It would be on my arm, if that's all right.' He indicated the patch on his upper arm where he was going to have the tattoo.

For a moment, the Pirate Captain was speech­less. The ham on his fork just hung in mid air.

'Of course ... I... ah ... I don't know what to say,' he said.

'Are you okay, Captain?'

'Yes . .. it's just this, um, ham. It's very spicy, and it's making my eyes water.'

In all their many adventures, even the one where they had battled zombie pirates, the Pirate Captain had never been so touched by a gesture from any of his loyal pirate crew. His lip began to tremble, and the pirate in green was mightily relieved when at that point the pirate with an accordion, breathless with excitement, hurried into the Captain's office.

'Sorry to interrupt, Captain, but we've caught sight of a ship, and we think it's the Beagle, because it has a funny-looking dog painted on the side. Should I get the men ready for boarding?'

The Pirate Captain swiftly regained his

composure, and started to bark out orders. 'Get the cannons ready first, and remind the pirates not to stand right behind them this time,' he bellowed. The Pirate Captain had explained basic Newtonian physics and the principles of recoil to his men more times than he could remember, but it just didn't seem to go in.

'And I want to hear plenty of roaring until we've secured the enemy vessel,' he said, pick­ing up a telescope and marching onto the deck, where several of the pirates were already gathered.

'It's just a ten-gun brig,' said the scarf-wear­ing pirate, scratching thoughtfully at a livid scar that ran the length of his cheek. On most people a scar can be quite disfiguring, but several of the pirates thought that in the pirate with a scarf's case it actually added to his rather rugged appeal.

A ten-gun brig? Really?' said the Pirate Captain, frowning at the news.

'I was expecting something bigger. Seeing as it's carrying all this gold for the Bank of England,' said his number two.

'Perhaps they're trying to keep a low profile,'

said the Pirate Captain, with some misgivings. 'Are those cannons ready?'

'This sort of makes us bank robbers, doesn't

'Aaarrr. But you knew you'd be bending a few laws when you became a pirate. I'm not sure the ivory smuggling we were doing the other week was entirely respectable. Or all that trawling for cod, come to think about it.'

'Cannons ready, Captain.'

An eerie silence suddenly becalmed the pirate chatter, as the crew waited for the Pirate Captain to give his order to make good the attack.

'Fire a cannonball at that boat!' said the Pirate Captain.

Four

WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE UNFORGIVING DEEP?

‘C onfound it, man!' said Robert FitzRoy, captain of the boat about to be attacked by the pirates. 'I told you women and the sea were a mighty bad combination.'

FitzRoy was young for a ship's captain, just twenty-seven, but the man he stood back to back with was younger still, a full five years his junior. Yet neither bore the frisky demeanour that you would expect to find in people under thirty.

'I can't help myself, Robert,' said his compan­ion, Charles Darwin, cradling his big round head in his hands. 'I love her, and I mean to marry her!'

'But I love her too!' said FitzRoy. 'She drives me to distraction! You already knew that.'

'Damn women, with ... with their hair ... and their faces ...' muttered Darwin.

'I must demand satisfaction,' said Captain FitzRoy. 'You don't leave me any choice.'

The cabin was a little small for a duel, neither

man quite being able to stand up properly with­out grazing his head, but needs must at sea.

'Three years' voyage ... and it should come to this,' said Darwin, shakily pouring powder into his pistol. 'May the best man win.'

'You're a botanist. 7I'm a trained naval officer. I don't fancy your chances much,' said FitzRoy.

The door was flung open with a crash that made Darwin wince, and in ran the breathless cause of the two men's argument, the lovely Lady Mara. 'Please stop!' she said with her lovely mouth. 'There's—'

But before Lady Mara could say any more, a cannonball splintered through the cabin wall at tremendous speed, and buried itself in the side of her pretty head, knocking her off her feet, and leaving her quite dead on the floor. Darwin and FitzRoy stood, dumbfounded.