by Michael Cox
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Footnote
A Word from the Author
Chapter One
In the year of 1588, a battered, old pirate ship full of battered, old pirates was making its way up the River Thames towards Old London Town. The pirate ship was called the Grumpy Roger. It was painted bright green and covered with patches of all shapes and sizes that covered the dozens of holes in its creaking timbers. Flying from its main mast was an enormous and extremely tatty pair of underpants painted with a skull and crossbones.
A large, cheerful-looking man with a warty nose, missing teeth and big, gold earrings was standing on the bridge. He was dressed in a velvet waistcoat, frilly white shirt, black stripy stockings and a huge, tri-cornered hat with a pink feather stuck in it. As he jauntily swung the ship’s tiller this way and that, he hummed cheerfully to himself. Every now and again, he would also wobble his bottom saucily, and then do a frisky little dance, but only when he thought no one was watching. This was the Grumpy Roger’s captain. His name was Cornelius Codswallop.
Standing next to Captain Codswallop was a small, curly-haired boy aged about eleven. This was Norris, the Grumpy Roger’s cabin boy.
Beside Norris stood an even smaller red-haired man with a droopy, ginger moustache and an enormous, ginger beard. A green, checked bandana kept slipping over his eyes every time he moved his head. This was Horace Hale. But everyone called him Ginger Hale, because of his red hair. Ginger was Captain Codswallop’s first mate (they’d been pals ever since they were both knee-high to a barnacle). Ginger was also first mate of the Grumpy Roger.
As Captain Codswallop, Norris and Ginger scanned the horizon and occasionally exchanged happy smiles, another ten pirates were busy doing all the stuff that pirates normally do. This included things like running up and down the rigging, picking the weevils out of their rations, picking their rations out of the weevils, pumping bilge, talking bilge, and taking turns to sit in the crows’ nest (which, of course, annoyed the crows no end).
The pirates were on their way to a quayside tavern called the Dirty Duck. They were all in a really good mood, so they were singing their favourite song:
The pirate had a wooden leg
He called it Auntie Flo
And everywhere the pirate went
The leg was sure to go
Ho ho!
The reason the pirates were all feeling so happy was that a couple of days earlier they’d been sailing around looking for some mischief to get up to when they’d spotted a pair of magnificent, four-masted merchant ships parked in the Bay of Biscuits. After taking a long and careful look through his spyglass, Captain Codswallop had clapped a hand to his brow and cried, ‘Well I’ll be jiggered, lads! I can’t see a single sailor aboard them there boats! I wonder where they all can be?’
‘Look, cap’n!’ Norris, the sharp-eyed cabin boy, had said. ‘They’re over there. In the sea. They’re playing water polo!’
He was right. All the sailors were splashing about in the water playing a game with a large, white, minty sweet with a hole in the middle. Completely unaware that they were being spied on by the pirates, they laughed and shouted happily as they threw the sweet back and forth, all totally absorbed in their hilarious inter-ship polo match. It was too good an opportunity for the pirates to miss!
‘Now, shipmates!’ Captain Codswallop had said. ‘I think it’s time we went over there and took a look at what they’ve got on board them there merchant ships. From their posh looks, I suspect it might well be a prize worth taking. But we must do it very stealthily. We don’t want to interrupt their little game, now do we? So remember, lads! No chin wagging, no whistling and definitely no yo-ho-hoing! And leave your parrots in their cages.’
At this, all the pirates had put their fingers on their lips and nodded, grinning with excitement and winking at each other mischievously. Then, setting off in a couple of rowing boats and taking great care not to make any big, noisy splashes with their oars, they’d rowed themselves over to the unguarded ships and climbed aboard.
To their absolute delight, they’d discovered that both ships were loaded with dozens of large chests, many of which looked as though they must certainly contain important and valuable cargo. As quickly and quietly as they could, the pirates had loaded the chests into their rowing boats, made their way back to the Grumpy Roger, and then headed for the horizon as quickly as they could!
As soon as they’d put a safe distance between themselves and the merchant ships, and Captain Codswallop was completely sure there was no chance of them being pursued, he’d ordered Ginger Hale to take over the tiller. Then he went below decks with the rest of the crew to inspect their booty.
‘Right, lads!’ Captain Codswallop had cried. ‘It’s time we took a little peep at today’s pickings. Let’s start with this here great big chest.’
The chest which the captain had chosen was secured with two huge padlocks, so it took him and the other pirates quite a long time to get it open. But the results were certainly well worth waiting for!
‘Prancing porpoises and jitterbugging jelly fish!’ cried Captain Codswallop, as he lifted the lid. ‘Would you look at that!’
The crew took two paces back and gasped in awe! The chest was absolutely overflowing with glittering gold sovereigns and sparkling silver crowns! There must have been thousands and thousands of them!
‘Phwoar!’ cried the pirates. ‘What a lot of dosh!’
‘Ho, ho, lads!’ cried Captain Codswallop. ‘I think today must be our lucky day! And just to think, this is only the first chest! There are still lots more to open!’ Then he paused, took a deep breath and said, ‘You know what this means don’t you, my hearties?’
‘Yes, we do, Captain Codswallop!’ cried the crew. ‘We’re rich beyond our wildest dreams!’
‘We certainly are, my lads!’ laughed Captain Codswallop. ‘There’s enough dosh in this here chest alone to keep every one of us in luxury parrots and designer swashbuckles for the rest of our lives! I think our stroke of fabulous good fortune calls for a celebration. Let’s all go to the Dirty Duck and make merry. And let’s not waste another second!’
So, without even taking the trouble to open the other chests, Captain Codswallop and his crew had set sail for Old London Town.
Chapter Two
The Grumpy Roger had now almost reached the famous quayside tavern, and all along the riverbank people were looking alarmed and scrambling for cover.
‘Look out, everyone!’ yelled a grizzled, old seafarer. ‘It’s Captain Codswallop and the Grumpy Roger. He’s about to dock. And we all know what he’s like at parking! Oh no, would you look at that! He’s heading straight for the jetty! There’s bound to be an—’
All at once there was a horrible grinding noise and, the next moment, the Grumpy Roger crunched into the wooden landing jetty which jutted out from the quayside.
‘—accident!’ said the seafarer, as he toppled into the water.
Two seconds later, the entire jetty collapsed into the river in a shower of sticks and splinters. It was closely followed by the rest of the people who’d been standing on it!
‘Who put that there?’ yelled Captain Codswallop, as he watched the unfortunate folk tumble into the river. ‘What a stupid place to leave a jetty!’
‘You bungling buccaneer!’ cried a sailor, as he thrashed about in t
he water. ‘Why don’t you look where you’re going?’
‘Yes, you feather-brained freebooter!’ yelled his pal, as they doggy-paddled towards the quayside. ‘You could have drowned the lot of us, you short-sighted, old swashbuckler, you!’
‘Oh, stop complaining!’ shouted Captain Codswallop. ‘A drop of water never hurt anyone. Anyway, you two look like you could do with a bath!’ Then he began wildly pushing the tiller this way and that as he yelled, ‘I think I’ll try reversing in this time, Ginger!’
Five minutes later, after lots more grinding, crunching, crashing and bashing, Captain Codswallop finally managed to steer the Grumpy Roger alongside the quay.
‘Well done, captain!’ cried Ginger Hale. ‘You seem to be getting the hang of this parking lark at last! You only destroyed one jetty and six boats. And they were just titchy ones!’
‘Shiver my shirt-tails and blast my braces,’ roared Captain Codswallop. ‘I’ve got us as snug as a tug in a jug! And bless my blithering britches, if we aren’t almost in the front parlour of the Dirty Duck. You lot get in there and order up some grub ‘n’ grog. I’ll just weigh the anchor.’
‘Won’t it weigh the same as it did last time, captain?’ said Norris.
‘Don’t you try to tell me how to do my job, Norris my lad!’ snarled Captain Codswallop. ‘Or I’ll give you a taste of the cat!’
Everyone went quiet. They hated it when the captain made them taste the cat.
So did the cat.
As Captain Codswallop was weighing the anchor, he listened to the happy singing of his crew coming from the front parlour of the Dirty Duck.
We’re going to have a nosh up
We won’t even have to wash up
Cos we can cough the dosh up
Ho ho!
‘Well, they sound like they’re having the time of their life,’ he said to himself. ‘I’ll just check that everything’s shipshape before I go and join the party!’
Then, with a contented smile on his face, his hands on hips and his chest puffed out proudly, he stood back on the quayside and admired the Grumpy Roger.
There was no doubt about it. It was definitely shipshape. His old dad, Captain Cuthbert Codswallop, had taught him that he must always make sure that his boat was shipshape. He often wondered why.
After all, the Grumpy Roger isn’t likely to have suddenly become carrot-shape … or stagecoach-shape! he thought to himself.
As he clumped happily towards the tavern, Captain Codswallop was so busy sniggering at his little joke that he failed to notice the two sinister, masked figures who had just crept out of a dark alley and onto the quayside. They were now lurking in a shadowy doorway and eyeing Captain Codswallop and the Grumpy Roger very suspiciously indeed.
If Captain Codswallop had spotted them, he might have saved himself and his crew a great deal of trouble.
Chapter Three
As soon as Captain Codswallop had disappeared into the Dirty Duck, the two masked figures emerged from the shadows and crept over to the Grumpy Roger.
‘It’s loads bigger than a stagecoach,’ whispered the smaller one.
‘Of course it’s loads bigger than a stagecoach!’ hissed the taller one. ‘It’s a blithering pirate ship … stupid!’
‘We’ve never pinched a ship before, Dick,’ said the small one. ‘We’ve only pinched stagecoaches … and horses. I don’t know how to ride a ship!’
‘You don’t ride it, Nick! You drive it. It’s a boat!’
‘Well, you can drive it, I’ll trot along at the side.’
‘You’d better be wearing your water wings then, Nick!’ growled Dick. ‘Now listen, it’s not as though we’ve got a choice! The queen’s men have us surrounded. It’ll only be a matter of minutes before they find us. Then we’ll be for it! After what we’ve just gone and done, there’s no telling what sort of horrid things they’ll have lined up for us. But one thing’s for sure: it’ll most certainly end up with the pair of us dangling from the gallows!’
‘So, what you’re saying, Dick, is that you’re not too keen on hanging around!’
‘Exactly!’ replied Dick. ‘And pinching this here ship is our only chance of escape. We’ll sail it back up the Thames. Then, as soon as we get to Oxfordshire, we’ll sell it.’
‘What, Oxfordshire!?’
‘No, the boat, blunder brains! We’ll use the money to buy ourselves a couple of new horses. Before you know it, we’ll be shouting “stand and deliver” again!’
‘More like “stand in the river”’ mumbled the small one.
In case you haven’t realised by now, this was none other than the famous highwayman, Dick Turnip, and his somewhat less-famous, younger brother, Nick. They were in big trouble. Earlier that day they’d spotted a very grand-looking coach making its way through the English countryside. It was plain to see that it belonged to someone extremely wealthy and successful. So, of course, the Turnip brothers instantly realised that there were rich pickings to be had.
After quickly putting on their highwaymen masks, they’d taken a short cut across the fields in order to get ahead of the coach and ambush it. Then, finding a good hiding place in some woods, they’d cocked their pistols, drawn their swords and prepared to relieve the coach’s unsuspecting passengers of all their money and valuables.
The moment it had come clattering around a bend in the road, the two Turnips had galloped out of the trees, spurring their horses, wildly firing their pistols in the air and shouting things like, ‘Give us yer dosh, Mr and Mrs Posh! We’re the terrible Turnip brothers! We robs the snobs and we boffs the toffs!’
It was a pity that the Turnips hadn’t looked a bit more carefully when they’d first spotted the coach. Unfortunately for them, they’d failed to realise that sitting inside the fabulous vehicle, was none other than Queen Elizabeth I of England! The queen had been on her way to the Kent fishing port of Crabcake (later to be renamed Sandwich), with the intention of welcoming back her favourite, daredevil, globetrotting explorer, Sir Walter Raleigh.
Sir Walter had just returned from his three-month voyage to the New World where, amongst many other things, he’d discovered an exciting and wondrous new vegetable which he was going to be presenting to her when they met.
And, of course, people like the Queen of England don’t go wandering around the dangerous, 16th-century English countryside without some sort of protection. Nor do they take kindly to being held up by common highwaymen. Not only did Queen Elizabeth have four huge bodyguards sitting next to her inside the coach but, galloping along a few hundred metres behind, and previously unseen by the Turnips, there were no less than 50 of her best fighting men. And they were all heavily armed.
So, as Dick and Nick had brought the coach to a halt with much shouting and sword waving, they got quite a surprise when the Queen of England stuck her head out of the window and yelled, ‘You are so nicked! I’m the blinking Queen of England, I am! Yes, you most certainly chose the wrong coach this time, losers! Do you like dungeon food, or what?’
Then she’d screamed for her bodyguards to arrest the Turnips, take them to the Tower to suffer extremely painful and unspeakable things, before being strung up from the tallest gallows in Old London Town.
Dick and Nick had instantly realised that this would probably be something of an inconvenience, if not to say a complete pain in the neck. So they’d taken off in a cloud of dust and a screech of horseshoes, closely followed by the enormous royal posse.
After a long and hair-raising chase through the Kent countryside, with the queen’s men hot on their heels, the brothers had finally reached the outskirts of Old London Town. However, by this time, the two Turnips’ horses were so exhausted by the chase that, on arriving at the city gates, they’d simply sat down in the middle of the road and wouldn’t run any further. Dick and Nick had immediately fallen to their knees and begged their steeds to go on just a bit further. However, despite the brothers making all manner of promises, including mountains of sugar lumps and bucke
ts of carrots, the horses had simply turned their backs on them and refused to budge another inch.
So the Turnips had had no choice but to abandon their mounts and dash into the city, desperately hoping that they might lose their pursuers in the maze of lanes and alleys that made up Old London Town. But the brothers were unfamiliar with the twists and turns of the capital. And the queen’s men were very, very determined! Especially as Queen Elizabeth had promised a reward of ten gold sovereigns to each of them for successfully bringing in one of the most notorious highwaymen in England, dead or alive!
After a terrifying game of cat and mouse, which involved lots of running in and out of taverns, shops and alleyways, the soldiers had finally chased the Turnips down to the quayside. Now, having got them surrounded, they were closing in on them. The brothers were going to have to make a quick decision if they wanted to live to rob another day.
‘Come on then. Let’s get on with it!’ said Dick, as he threw away his mask and dragged Nick up the gangplank of the Grumpy Roger. ‘We’ll check round to make sure the pirates haven’t left a guard, and then we’ll be off. Look, those stupid swashbucklers were in such a hurry to get into the pub that they didn’t even bother to take down the sails. I’ve got a feeling this whole thing’s going to be a piece of cake!’
The Turnips didn’t have to worry about a guard being on the Grumpy Roger. The whole crew was in the Dirty Duck having a fine old time, laughing like drains and slapping each other on the back, still unable to believe their fabulous good fortune, as they played Pin the Tail on the Mermaid.
As the two highwaymen wandered about the deserted ship, Dick spotted a sign which read: Before Leaving Port Always Weigh the Anchor!
He and his brother immediately hauled up the anchor and staggered around below deck looking for some scales. While they were doing this, a stiff breeze sprang up and the tide turned, causing the Grumpy Roger to drift rapidly out to sea!
