George Fraser - The Pyrates

“’Ere they be, Calico! Good dogs! Brave boys! They’m dead on time, wi’ a curse, say I, an’ that! Unless,” he added doubtfully, “it’s some bloody fool as we don’t know on, playin’ about wi’ lights unauthorised an’ wanton! Eh?” Rage suffused his unwashed features. “I’ll tear him, I’ll kill him, I’ll cast anchor in him!” he was starting to rave, until a curt word from Rackham sent him lumbering below, where he blundered about among the hammocks whispering: “We have lift-off! Rise an’ shine! Rogues on deck, honest men stay where ye are! Get your cold feet on the warm floor! Up and at ’em!”

In a trice his accomplices among the crew had piled out, pulling on their socks, hunting for their combs and toothbrushes, adjusting their eye-patches, and scampering silently up the companion, while the honest sailors turned over drowsily muttering: “Shut that bloody door! Is that you up again, Agnes?” and the like, before resuming their unsuspecting slumbers. Up on deck the little knot of rascals received Rackham’s urgent whispered orders, and scuttled away to seize the arms chest and guard the hatchways, the tardier spirits among them goofing off and tying knots in the rigging to make it look as though they were working. Firebeard blundered up last, to report “All villains roused an’ ready, by the powers, d’ye see, Calico camarado, aarrgh like!” and Rackham despatched him to the mast-head to deal with the look-out. Firebeard panted busily upwards, taking several wrong turnings along yardarms and getting his leg stuck through futtock-shrouds, lubbers’-holes, and possibly even clew-lines, before he arrived at the crow’s-nest to hear from within fevered mutters of “Pot? Tea? Gin? It’s another flaming misprint, that’s what is is!” Firebeard sandbagged the look-out smartly, snarling “Take that, ye bleedin’ intellectual!” and hastened down again to join Calico Jack who, grimly smiling, was at the rail watching Black Bilbo keep their rendezvous.

Out of the mist they came just as the first glimmer of sun topped the eastern horizon – three fell shapes o’ doom and dread, surging in on the hapless merchantman. First, the rakish corsair galley of Akbar the Damned, its great steel beak aglitter, the green banner of Islam aloft, its oars thrashing the water as the drivers flogged the naked slave-rowers and rounded up those who had nipped aft for a quiet smoke. Its deck crammed with swarthy, bearded rovers of Algiers and Tripoli, flashing their teeth, brandishing their scimitars and getting their spiked helmets caught in the rigging, the galley was a fearsome sight to Christian eyes, and hardly less disturbing to Buddhists or even atheists. And naught more fearsome than the dark, hawk-faced, hairy-chested figure of Akbar himself, lounging on his stern-castle in gold lamé pyjama trousers, his forked beard a-quiver as he munched rahat lakoum proffered by nubile dancing-girls, his fierce eyes glinting wildly as he practised cutting their gauzy veils in two with his razor-edged Damascus blade.

Secondly came that gaily-decked galleon of evil repute, the Grenouille Frénétique , or Frantic Frog , flagship of Happy Dan Pew, French filibuster, gallant, bon vivant and gourmet, who was given to dancing rigadoons and other foreign capers as his vessel sailed into action. Clouds of aftershave wafted about his ship, whose velvet sails were fringed with silk tassels in frightful taste, its crew of Continental sea-scum lining the rails crying “Remember Dien Bien Phu!” and “Vive le weekend!” as their graceful craft seemed to can-can over the billows with élan and espièglerie.

[In fact, Happy Dan Pew wasn’t French at all. His real name was Trevor O’Grady from St Helens, but he had been hit on the head by a board-duster while reading a pirate story during a French lesson, and his mind had become unhinged. From that moment he suffered from the delusion that he was a Breton buccaneer, but since he spoke no French beyond Collins’ Primer, his crew had a confusing time of it.]

Third and last came Black Bilbo’s ghastly sable barque, the Laughing Sandbag – he was last on account o’ he bein’ barnacled, d’ye see? Or, in the rather coarse expression of the time, his bottom was foul. Consequently Bilbo was in a rare passion, stalking the poop, inhaling snuff and pistolling mutineers with murderous abandon. He couldn’t bear being second to Happy Dan, who had pipped him for Best-dressed Cut-throat o’ the Year.

As his fellow-rascals brought their ships in against the ill-fated Twelve Apostles , Calico Jack snapped to his small band of villains, “Down and take ’em, bullies!” and with glad cries of “Geronimo!” “Carnival!” and “After you!” they raced below to overpower anyone who happened to be around – crewmen who were still in the focsle ringing for their coffee, or had gone to the bathroom, or were doing their early morning press-ups. Having disposed of these, the pirates stormed howling to the stern of the ship, recklessly disregarding the “First Class Passengers Only” notices, and bursting into the cabins without knocking. Thus:

Captain Yardley stared at his chart, in which a thrown knife was quivering beside his pencil point; ere he could so much as cry out a despairing “Belike!” pirates were jumping all over him, binding and gagging him, untying his shoe-laces, giving him a hot-foot, and playing with his set-square and compasses. His discomfiture was complete.

Admiral Rooke awoke to find an apple being stuck in his open mouth, and Firebeard’s shaggy countenance leering down at him yelling: “Breakfast in bed, milord, har-har? Nay, then ’ee’ll make a rare boar’s head, wi’ a curse! Haul him aloft, give him the message, do him the dirty, wi’ a wannion, by the powers, har-har!” And as the unfortunate Admiral was secured, gasping and choking, Firebeard began to break up the furniture.

What of our two bright boys? Blood, seasoned in alarms, was rolling out of bed, sword in hand, even as the first pirates came ramping in yelling: “Surprise, surprise!” He blinded one with hair-powder, kicked a second in the stomach, crossed swords with a third, and then, having weighed up the odds, dropped his weapon and raised his hands, automatically reciting: “I’ll-come-quietly-officer-but-devil-a-cheep-ye’ll-get-out-o’-me-till-I’ve-talked-to-a-lawyer.” Thus tamely did the rascal chuck up the sponge.

Not so across the passage, where a flashing-eyed Avery was holding crowds of desperadoes at bay with his whirling blade, jumping on tables, swinging from chandeliers, throwing chairs at their shins, knocking over candlesticks, and swathing his attackers in torn-down curtains. It couldn’t last, of course; it never does. They bore him down, cursing foully (them, not him, he never cursed), and he struggled vainly in their brutal grasp, his hair becomingly rumpled, his shirt slightly torn, and the teeniest trickle of blood on his determined chin. But his eyes gleamed undaunted; by Jove, they’d better watch him.

Down i’ the foetid orlop an exultant Sheba was being unchained by the little Welsh pirate, who had also brought her a fresh wardrobe so that she can be properly attired for the big confrontation scene on deck, which comes in a minute. She hurled aside her loathed fetters, gnashing with delight, and the little Welshman modestly looked away as she donned her scarlet silk breeches and shirt, buckled her diamanté rapier at her hip, drew on her long Gucci boots, exclaimed at the state of her coiffure, clapped on her plumed picture hat, dabbed a touch of Arpège behind her ear, and then spent ten minutes selecting one long earring and applying her lipstick. Finally, with a curt “Tidy up!” to the little Taffy, she strode lithely up the companion, pausing briefly at the full-length mirror in the gun-crews’ recreation room, to adjust her hat fractionally and turn her voluptuous shape this way and that, wondering if she had lost weight during her captivity. A pound? Pound and a half? Mmh, maybe not … still …