Captains Stupendous

by Rhys Hughes

  ‘Will that suffice to save us, I wonder?’

  ‘Probably not from Mario.’

  ‘We never did get to taste an avocado as large as a human head. That’s one regret I’ll take to the grave!’

  ‘I doubt we’ll be buried in a grave, Mr Griffiths.’

  ‘What will they do with us?’

  ‘Feed our bodies to the dogs and centipedes.’

  ‘The despicable villains!’

  I have already explained where the deflected bullet went, but doubtless you are wondering what happened to the cue ball bullet? It didn’t do any damage to anything, merely embedding itself into the wooden wall of one of the nearby buildings. Thought I should clear that up before Mario puts an end to my life forevermore …

  He shook his trident under a cloudless sky. ‘I want your blood to spill in the sand, amigos. That’s where it belongs! The gold point of my trident is holiness; the black is war. I will jab at you with the latter! The qualities of the brown point are unknown.’

  ‘The steenking sand ees thirsty!’ chortled Pancho Lackey.

  ‘I’ll slake it soon enough!’ Mario’s nostrils flared as he added, ‘Death is the best condition for you two!’

  I disagreed with him about that; but who am I?

  Merely a fungoidal journalist.

  A Welsh one at that!

  Gathering Storm

  From every corner of the European continent, from every secret alcove, niche and cranny came the fascistic volunteers to the dread cause of the hubristic Italo-Mexican, Signor (or Señor) Granieri. In black, brown and green uniforms they marched onwards, chins mostly square and shaved, windswept fringes at 45° angles on thunderous brows. All of them were committed to power, strength, blood, iron, purity, race, honour, war and inequality. They were thugs and ranters.

  From Romania came men with bags of soil around their necks, earthy reminders of the magical force of their homeland; from Norway came the descendants of Vikings, who still believed that Thor and Odin were gods fit for humanity; from Ireland came mystical warrior-poets who sang and jigged away each twilight; from Bohemia came men with sneers sharper and deadlier than daggers; from Hungary, Germany, Poland, Croatia and Estonia, they came. From everywhere.

  Even from Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, San Marino.

  Not forgetting the Papal Lands!

  Due to some quirk of timing, they all converged in a narrow mountain pass over the Pyrenees. Recognising each other by a prearranged salute, a matter of clenching one’s fist and biting down on it, they combined forces to cross into Spain in a single mass.

  Towards Almería they went, kicking up dust clouds.

  The peasants who witnessed this influx shook in their sandals, if they could afford sandals, or trembled in bare feet if they couldn’t: they didn’t try to oppose them. Armed with weapons of all types and ages, including maces, swords and halberds, this gargantuan legion was a hideous sight, a grotesque invasion of motley maniacs.

  Europe had gone mad; the world was utterly insane!

  Contrast this scene with another …

  A liner packed with assassins has finally reached its destination, which happens to be Santander in Cantabria, a region of Spain. Though cramped by the voyage, these assassins disembark flexibly enough. Led by Unkoo the ape-man, they proceed toward Almería, pausing only while he sniffs the ground. Armed with weapons of all types and ages, including rapiers, throwing stars and hatchets, this gargantuan legion is an appalling sight, a grotesque invasion of motley maniacs.

  Did you spot the difference between the two armies?

  I didn’t. And I’m a professional writer; Lloyd Griffiths is my name, but you knew that already. What’s yours?

  It’s almost inevitable that the two legions will collide!

  But what will happen then?

  I have no idea. Nor does Hubengo Gordbloaton.

  Nor does Mario Granieri …

  At the very moment in time that all this is happening, Dom Daniel in Brazil is seated at his study window staring out at the jungle. The sounds of a saw and an axe disturb his reverie; the majestic trees are being felled all around him. He sighs at this destruction, for soon his beloved country will be a wasteland of stumps and starving animals. He has done what he can to save the flora of the rainforest. His sad thoughts turn to daydreams of that implausible Arctic island, that paradise concealed among icebergs and snowfalls; unknown Hippolytomia.

  Unlike Distanto, he has never actually been there.

  So his daydreams aren’t coloured with the crayons of experience; they remain abstract, archetypal, wondrous.

  The atlas of Hippolyto Joseph da Costa featured notes scribbled in the margins in that alchemist’s hand: his discovery of the anomalous island had been an accident. He had lived there for a year, had fathered a child by an ape-girl; nobody would ever be aware of the fact, but Hippolyto was the ancestor of Unkoo, which is how that hairy assassin was able to pick up the languages of the civilised world so easily. The tongues of our own culture were already locked in his genes.

  But we didn’t know much about genes back in 1914.

  The atlas said nothing about dinosaurs.

  It’s inconceivable that Hippolyto could have lived there without seeing at least one of those awesome beasts. They dominated the island, roaring and stamping all over the place, leaving footprints on the beaches. So his silence on the matter suggests self-censorship. If he regarded them as too ridiculous, he would have feared ridicule from readers of the atlas. Had I been in his position, I too would have said nothing about them. Once lost, an honest reputation is difficult to recover.

  Curiously enough, Hippolytomia is extremely similar in all its aspects to Alirgnahs, the land hidden away in the Himalayas that both Mario and Sadegh have mentioned. Alirgnahs is not technically an island; but it acts like one in every particular, for it is ringed by mountain ranges as difficult to cross as the waves of a tempestuous sea.

  There are dinosaurs there also. Hairy yeti too.

  Only occasionally visited by outsiders, Alirgnahs is currently host to a brave man from the Rif region of Morocco.

  Mulai Ahmed el Rais Uli is his name. A hero.

  He arrived by motorjet aeroplane.

  Despite the excellence of its design, the engine had faltered, had given up in mid flight; his craft had stalled. He managed to glide it to a ruinous landing on the hard-packed snow, saving his own life but utterly wrecking the aircraft. He was marooned in Alirgnahs!

  But he was not entirely without resources. He had his long musket, so long that it might serve as a scabbard for Jason Rolfe’s improvised lance; and with this he could hunt dinosaurs for food. He had his kettle and a wad of mint tea; always refreshing. He had also a radio transceiver, and with that he planned to send a message to friends.

  His first concern wasn’t to summon help. Rais Uli was a different kind of man from those who weep and blubber at every fantastical setback. All he wanted was to reassure them he was safe.

  And so he laboured to set up his transceiver, to erect an aerial.

  Inquisitive tyrannosaurs had to be warded off!

  He had plenty of ammunition for that …

  Because this world of ours is a place of startling coincidences, please make no mistake about that, Sadegh Safani, the man who had named and mapped Alirgnahs, was rapidly approaching its borders. Jason Rolfe, his new friend, was proving to be a pleasant travelling companion. All across Persia they had rolled, through the lands of the Jafar Khan, into the wilder domains of Afghanistan. Fruit still fell.

  They would have reached the Himalayas in good time had not a weird accident befallen them. Jason took a wrong turning and ended up getting stuck inside a waterwheel. Round and round it went at ludicrous velocity, accelerated to a hitherto unheard of rate of revolutions per minute by the spluttering pulsejet engine of his bicycle.

  The engine pushed the bicycle; the bicycle turned the waterwheel. The most bizarre disaster imaginable for any cyclist! The riders had no choice bu
t to wait for the wheel to shake itself apart and set them free again. This would happen much sooner than you might expect, for the wooden wheel hadn’t been constructed to endure such treatment for long. Nonetheless it meant a delay in their arrival at Alirgnahs.

  To pass the time more agreeably, Sadegh lectured Jason in alchemy. It might be worth detailing his lectures here, but unfortunately I wasn’t there to hear them, and so I am ignorant of the finer points of his discourse. But it seems likely he talked about the blending of substances and soul energy to create the philosophical egg, which might then be hatched into a chick of perfect wisdom ripe for raising into an adult bird of omniscience. That is an oddly extended metaphor, by the way.

  Sadegh’s vast turban probably sparkled with dew and windfallen fruits and nuts. His dark eyes twinkled no less compellingly. He touched on the mixing of holiness and war; surely this was a coincidence. Such a fusion couldn’t be undone, he said, without leaving a residue. Jason wondered at the qualities of this residue. Sadegh grinned at the back of his questioner’s neck and said, ‘It is dark brown in colour and its properties are unusual. I’ll describe them for you now. They are—’

  The Point

  Mario strode over the sand, swinging his trident. A fluid movement of his wrist and the three blades flicked out of the end. Distanto stood still, eyes narrowed, lips compressed; I stepped back a pace, but my retreat was still blocked by the Mexican mob behind me.

  ‘I’ll just use the war prong to deal with you!’ Mario cried.

  There was nowhere for us to run.

  ‘What shall we do?’ I whimpered; and for an instant I felt disdain for the airship captain. I felt sure Scipio wouldn’t have gotten me into this mess. But that was unfair, the bitter reflections of a journalist about to die in an awfully painful manner; Scipio wasn’t really much more competent than his brother. Distanto turned to face me.

  ‘Relax. I’ll think of something,’ he said blandly.

  Mario raised and aimed the trident.

  ‘Hurry, Monsieur!’ I hissed.

  Suddenly Distanto bawled, ‘Don’t let him stab you with the war prong. That’s the black one. Impale yourself on one of the others first!’ And with a reckless laugh, he rushed forward.

  Mario was caught by surprise. Before he could lower his trident, it was already receiving the body of Distanto Faraway. The holiness prong, with a sort of deflating hiss, slid into the diaphragm of the oncoming pilot. The blood was less than I might have expected. Fixed there, on the cruel barb of the point, Distanto was safe from impalement on the war prong, for he occupied one position that other blade could never reach. Turning to look over his shoulder, he croaked:

  ‘Come on, Mr Griffiths! Cheat him of victory!’

  I saw the wisdom in his words.

  But he had left me with the brown prong, the one of unknown quality. What if the effects of that blade happened to be even worse than those of the war prong? The gamble didn’t fill me with confidence; and yet it was worth taking, for the war prong was certain doom, but this one … With a laugh far less reckless and convincing than Distanto’s, I flung myself onto it. Mario was unable to twist it away because Distanto prevented him. So I transfixed myself solidly and groaned.

  Something was activated in the shaft of the trident.

  Some battery or other power source …

  The shaft glowed as the energy stored within it pulsed into the blades. I felt it flood my body; it filled me up on the inside. It wasn’t pleasant but it wasn’t utterly foul either. It was brown light; a mundane contrast to the golden light that now suffused Distanto.

  Steam rose from the trident shaft. Mario yelped.

  He let go and it quivered next to him, the weight entirely supported by the two bodies of its willing victims.

  Then the last pulse of energy was drained from it.

  The trident was empty; we were full.

  Mario studied us carefully. He placed his hands on his hips and shook his head in a style that was the essence of negation. Then he cried, ‘You tricked me! Whatta mistake to make!’

  ‘Why was it a mistake?’ queried Distanto serenely.

  ‘Because now you die!’

  ‘But we were going to die anyway, weren’t we?’

  ‘You will die by the gun …’

  And he stamped back into the saloon and returned with a rifle. I think it was a Winchester repeater, but I’m no expert on firearms. He aimed it at Distanto and dribble poured down his chin. He was so furious that he’d lost control of his saliva glands.

  I stood next to Distanto and turned my face away. We were still stuck on the prongs of the trident; probably fatally. But it didn’t appear we would be given a chance to bleed to death.

  Mario intended to shoot us before that could happen!

  Then Distanto did something.

  He smiled with the tranquillity of a cherub.

  He lifted one hand to his chest and touched his left nipple. I felt rather uncomfortable at this display of self-love; but I had misjudged him. Not a decadent of that sort was he. Gripped between first finger and thumb, the nipple rotated. He tweaked it and kept tweaking it. Then I noticed why. A strange object was shimmering into existence directly above his head, an outline that slowly acquired solidity.

  A circle of light. A halo! A halo on his head!

  Truly he had absorbed the outflow of the holiness prong in full! As he continued to tweak, the halo grew brighter and brighter; he was adjusting its glare, turning it to maximum!

  I was unable to bear the radiance any longer!

  Nor was the rascal Mario!

  The Italo-Mexican scoundrel dropped his rifle and covered his eyes. I felt a tug deep inside me, insistent and agonising. Distanto was moving, taking the trident with him; and me with it. Pancho Lackey blundered in futile loops, colliding with the minor henchmen. No-one was able to see anything in that glare, a scream of visible intensity that exceeded by far the power of the midday sun. I felt a wrench. The trident was out, thrown aside by the airship captain’s fingers.

  ‘Run, Mr Griffiths! Back to my vessel! Quickly!’

  To make such running possible, he turned his halo down again. Along the single street we scampered, past the flagpole, under the arch of planks and out into the badlands of Almería.

  Shots rang out behind us. Puffs of dust appeared.

  At this range, accuracy in shooting was impossible, but Mario fired at us anyway, hoping for a lucky strike.

  Although I was almost out of breath, I still managed to groan, ‘Won’t we bleed to death in a few minutes?’

  ‘There’s a first aid kit back at the airship,’ said the captain.

  He exuded an air of abnormal calm.

  I found this very exasperating! And I said:

  ‘You are packed with holiness now; and that’s all well and good. You have the charisma and tolerance of a saint. Fine, Monsieur Faraway, fine. But what about me? Poor old me!’

  ‘What about you, my friend?’ he beamed.

  ‘My energy isn’t golden like yours. I am full of brown light. So what’s my talent? Any ideas? What’s mine?’

  Suited To The Task

  Hubengo Gordbloaton is anxious for news. He is impatient to know if any of his assassins has succeeded in killing me yet. This is a standard worry for anyone who commissions a murder. Another worry creases the double brow of the sartorially amalgamated man. What if an assassin turns out to be untrustworthy? He might receive a phone call from, say, the Javanese assassin, claiming that a kris knife has sundered my spine, only to learn later that it was a lie. Not every assassin is honest. Men who hire them often pay for a ‘hit’ that never actually happens. And where does one complain when an assassin is guilty of breach of contract?

  No court in the land, however corrupt, would touch such a case. There is no compensation for the victim of substandard wrongdoing; not even in Wales would redress be available. And Hubengo detests the idea of being cheated, despite his wealth. He must have evidence of success. To cav
ort and gloat over my cadaver is his desire!

  ‘Must be a way of securing evidence,’ he says.

  ‘I agree,’ comes his own reply.

  ‘But what’s the answer, Mr Gordbloaton?’

  ‘Not sure yet, Mr Gordbloaton!’

  ‘Will you attempt to think of one, Mr Gordbloaton?’

  ‘Certainly, dear fellow, I shall.’

  Hubengo is always very courteous to himself …

  His monolithic square shoulders hunch as he devotes himself entirely to the task of solving the problem. These shoulders are so square and so flat that dust has mounted on them; indeed a crow has made a nest on the left one, for it’s the kind of stable platform unavailable in the twisted trees of the dunes outside. Hubengo runs through all the options in his bilateral mind. Then he clicks his thumbs!

  ‘A matter transmitter, that’s the answer!’

  ‘Does such technology exist, Mr Gordbloaton? The year is only 1914 and we are on the verge of a war.’

  ‘Yes indeed, Mr Gordbloaton: the war to end all wars! But I believe a matter transmitter is a feasible option for us, for I seem to recall reading a newspaper article somewhere about a genius who claimed to have already designed, fabricated and tested one.’

  ‘Now I remember, Mr Gordbloaton! That article was published in The Western Mail by no lesser a personage than me. Nikola Tesla was the name of the genius; or was it Oliver Heaviside? One or the other. Funnily enough, it was Mr Lloyd Griffiths who wrote the piece. He was asked to produce a series of essays on overlooked and neglected inventors. He did one on Jason Rolfe and another on Karl Mondaugen. The third was Tesla and the fourth was Heaviside. I’m sure Tesla is the relevant one! With his aid we can obtain a matter transmitter.’

  ‘Very good, Mr Gordbloaton. Let’s contact him!’

  ‘One moment, dear fellow … What use will a matter transmitter be to us? You haven’t explained that to me.’

  ‘Ah, my apologies, Mr Gordbloaton! Well, with a matter transmitter we can project ourselves through the airwaves at a particular frequency in the form of an invisible wave. When we reach a receiver we’ll reconstitute ourselves as corporeal beings. The moment one of our assassins slices up Lloyd Griffiths, we can beam ourselves to the site instantly to witness the kill. The perfect insurance against fraud!’