by Gideon Defoe
Above the ever-present fog they could see the dim lights of the city stretching out in all directions. The dirigible bobbed across central London at quite a rate, and soon they had Big Ben in sight. The Pirate Captain did a pirate gob on one of the tourists below, and was pleased to see his aim was still good.
‘Heavens to Betsy!’ cried Darwin. ‘We’ve only got three minutes! We haven’t time to try to find purchase on the roof. One of us will have to jump across!’
There was the unmistakable sound of several pirates staring at their fingernails.
‘Honestly!’ bellowed the Pirate Captain, very disappointed at his lads. ‘I’ve been attacked by jellyfish with more backbone than you lot! Well, then. If none of you lubbers will volunteer, we’ll just have to settle this the old pirate way.’
The crew looked deathly serious – the Pirate Captain could mean only one thing!
A few moments later the albino pirate took a deep breath, counted to three, and held out his clenched fist. He tried to look apologetic, but a big grin spread all across his face.
‘Sorry, Captain. Pirate stone blunts your pirate scissors.’
‘Whatever,’ said the Pirate Captain tetchily, thinking for a moment about trying to pretend that the two fingers he was holding up were actually supposed to represent a narrow piece of paper rather than a pair of scissors. But ancient pirate tradition was ancient pirate tradition, and there was no use arguing with it. He bent down to make sure his bootlaces were done up, checked he had as big a run-up as possible, let out a mighty roar, and leapt the gap between the airship and Big Ben.
The Pirate Captain had been expecting to smash right through the gigantic glass clock face, thereby making one of his famously dramatic entrances, but he just slapped against it with a sound like a side of beef hitting a chopping board, and slowly began to slide down in a daze. Luckily the Pirate Captain had the presence of mind to grab at the huge cast-iron minute hand, and there he hung, his coat-tails flapping. He took a deep breath to relax himself, but the buffeting winds were doing nothing to calm his nerves and even though he didn’t mean to, he glanced down. The people on the streets below looked just like ants, thought the Pirate Captain, but not regular ants, more like some kind of sinister super-ants that wore clothes and hats and carried newspapers instead of bits of leaf. Noticing the worried looks on his crew’s faces as they leant anxiously out of the airship’s gondola he felt like he ought to make some sort of wisecrack in an effort to look hard-boiled and nonchalant, possibly involving a play on words with ‘time’, something like: ‘I’m not having the TIME of my life!’ But he didn’t, he just grimaced a bit instead. With an effort he managed to twist himself about, and give one of the glass panels in the clock face a big kick. To the Pirate Captain’s relief the panel shattered with the first blow and, after some grunting and sucking in of his gut, he was able to clamber inside.
The Pirate Captain rushed over to help Jennifer first, because she was the prettiest. He hefted the top off the big glass tube and helped her climb out. Jennifer flung her arms round his sturdy shoulders.
‘Thanks! I thought I was going to end up as a bar of soap for sure! My name is Jennifer.’
‘And I’m the Pirate Captain. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’
‘Likewise.’
‘I have my own pirate boat, you know.’
‘Really?’
‘It has twelve cannons.’
‘Goodness! That’s a lot of cannons. Your beard is fantastic, by the way.’
‘That’s nice of you to say so. You yourself have a lovely face.’
‘Oh! You’re sweet.’
‘Us pirates aren’t just the weather-beaten rogues we’re portrayed as. We have a soft side too. Also, my boat has silk sheets.’
There was a sudden sickening crunch of metal against bone, and an alarmed yelp. The Pirate Captain pulled a guilty face and slapped his forgetful forehead. He rushed over to the gigantic cog and dragged Erasmus Darwin from between its monstrous teeth.
‘Sorry about that,’ said the Pirate Captain with an apologetic grin. ‘I’d forget my own head if it wasn’t nailed down.’
‘Oh! My arm!’ wailed Erasmus.
‘Aaarrr. Let’s not get too precious about an arm,’ said the Captain. ‘Some of my crew don’t even have legs! Just little wooden pegs. I swear, half of them are more like chairs than pirates!’31
The Pirate Captain began to untie the ropes attaching the pirate with a scarf to the huge cog.
‘I wish you wouldn’t get yourself into trouble like this,’ he scolded his trusty number two. But he meant it in an affectionate manner. You could tell this because when the Pirate Captain scolded somebody in a manner that wasn’t affectionate they tended to end up with a cutlass in their belly. ‘You’re definitely the best one out of my whole crew. You’re worth ten of any of the rest of them . . .’ the Pirate Captain paused and fought back a grin ‘. . . because you have so many gold teeth!’
The pirate with a scarf laughed. The Pirate Captain always made that exact same joke, but they both knew that he really would be sorry to see anything happen to his able second in command. For a start, without help from the scarf-wearing pirate, the Pirate Captain probably wouldn’t have remembered where they had left the boat.
The Pirate Captain turned to give Darwin, FitzRoy and the rest of the pirates bobbing about in the dirigible a wave through the shattered bit of clock face to show them that everything was fine, and in the process almost tripped over the pirate with an accordion, who was sprawled across the floor.
‘What’s up with this swab?’ asked the Pirate Captain, nudging him with the toe of his shiny pirate boot.
‘He died of scurvy, sir,’ said the pirate with a scarf.
‘Aaaarrr. I hope that’s proved a useful lesson to you. Ham is all well and good, but make sure you get your vitamins! Scurvy is no laughing matter,’ said the Pirate Captain. ‘Except in those rare instances when a fellow’s head swells up like a gigantic lemon,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘Which I grant can bring a smile even to my salty old face.’
29 To this day one of the best things you can buy in the Natural History Museum gift shop is a lenticular dinosaur ruler. When you waggle it back and forth, the dinosaurs appear to attack each other in an exciting fashion.
30 Much like bananas, supplies of helium may also run out within the next twenty years. Helium is not just used in party balloons, it is also important for the manufacture of superconductors.
31 Loss of limbs was an occupational hazard for pirates. As a result most ships offered a degree of compensation for pirates injured in battle. Loss of an eye would net you 100 pieces of eight. Loss of a right arm 600 pieces of eight, and loss of a left leg 400 pieces of eight.
Thirteen
TO THE PIRATE COAST!
‘. . . Seven . . . eight . . . nine. Nine hams. Nine juicy hams.’
The Pirate Captain made a note on his clipboard. ‘Well, that’s just about everything.’
The pirates were back in Littlehampton Docks, and they had just finished loading up the pirate boat with fresh supplies of meat and grog. The only thing that remained to be wheeled on board was the pirate with an accordion, who the other pirates had decided to have stuffed and nickel-plated, because they thought it was what he would have wanted, and besides which the pirate boat could never have too many lucky mascots. Jennifer, who the Pirate Captain had made an honorary pirate, reckoned it was a bit on the creepy side, but pirates were a superstitious bunch.32
Darwin, Erasmus and Mister Bobo had come down to wave them off. Darwin was almost unrecognisable from the callow youth the Pirate Captain had first met on this adventure – he had started to grow a little beard, his clothes were of the best Savile Row cut, and he had his arms round two vivacious-looking brunettes.
‘Good luck then, Charles. I hope all the science goes well,’ said the Pirate Captain, shaking him warmly by the hand.
‘I think I’m really getting the hang of it,’ said D
arwin eagerly. ‘I’ve got a lot more ideas to keep the audience on their toes. I’m going to fit a soundproofed box in the corner of my lecture theatres where I‘ll invite scientists too frightened to hear the shocking conclusion to my nightmarish theories to sit out the rest of the talk. And I’m offering life insurance policies to everybody in case my terrifying ideas scare them to death. I’m trying to work out a way to make all the seats vibrate. I’m calling it “Evolvovision”. Me and Mister Bobo are going to be the smash-hit of Victorian science – and I owe it all to you and your pirates, Pirate Captain!’
‘Aaarrrr! Don’t mention it! It’s been a pleasure,’ said the Pirate Captain. ‘I have to say, when I first saw you, I thought – there’s a man whose face isn’t really big enough for the size of his head. But you’ve proved me wrong. Oh, and by the way . . .’
The Pirate Captain paused.
‘Indian, North Pacific, South Pacific, Antarctic, Arctic, North Atlantic, South Atlantic. I’m not a complete idiot, you know.’
The pirate boat slowly pulled out of the shabby dock, and all the pirates waved the steadily shrinking trio goodbye. The Pirate Captain smiled. There were good bits about the land, he reflected, like the shops and the way it didn’t wobble about all the time, but he’d missed the ocean. The Pirate Captain actually became quite lost in his thoughts about how much he liked the crashing waves and seaweed and being a pirate and that, until an indignant cough jolted him back to the moment.
‘And what do you propose to do with me?’ said the Bishop of Oxford, who had been lashed to the boat’s mast.
‘We’ll find an uninhabited island someplace,’ said the Pirate Captain, ‘and then we’ll maroon you. It’s the pirate way.’
‘I don’t much like the sound of that.’
‘Oh, it’s not so bad. For some reason Pirate Law says you’re allowed to take a few records. And the odd book. I think it’s eight of each.’
‘Can I take the Bible?’
‘Oh, you get that anyway. And the complete works of Shakespeare. But the rest is up to you. Don’t be clever and choose Robinson Crusoe – everybody does that.’
The Pirate Captain turned back to watch Littlehampton’s amusement arcade fade into the distance.
‘That went pretty well, don’t you think, number two?’ he said to the pirate with a scarf.
‘Yes, Captain. Though maybe our next adventure should be a little less episodic? And not be so confusing at times?’ said the pirate with a scarf, leaning on the boat’s safety railings and enjoying the spray of the sea on his face.
‘Aaargh. You’re right. And towards the last half of this adventure, I don’t know if you noticed, but we stopped having half as many feasts. That was a pity.’
‘And we didn’t really end up with much treasure,’ said the albino pirate sadly. ‘Which is usually the best bit about our adventures.’
‘Oh, I didn’t come away completely empty-handed,’ said the Pirate Captain with a grin. He rummaged about in the silky folds of his beard where, amongst the ribbons and the luxuriant hair, something shiny seemed to be lodged. The Captain eventually prised it free. He held up a large nugget of metal. It gleamed white in the evening sun, and the pirate with a scarf whistled in admiration.
‘Ruthenium!’ said the albino pirate.
‘Aaargh. That it is. Atomic number forty-four. Most valuable metal in the world.33 Better than gold – and you know how highly I rate gold, so that’s saying something.’
All the pirate crew cheered their Captain, and then they went downstairs to do some shantying.
And with that, the pirate boat sailed about for a bit.
32 There are several seafaring superstitions. It is widely believed that redheads bring bad luck to a ship, though this can be averted if you speak to the redhead before they speak to you. Flat-footed people are also considered best avoided, as is dark-coloured luggage.
33 Ruthenium is one of the ultra-rare ‘Platinum Group metals’. It has a melting point of 2250°C and a boiling point of 3900°C, 44 protons, 44 electrons and 57 neutrons.
Comprehension Exercise
Answer all questions to the best of your abilities
1. What do you think the themes of this book were? Several commentators have described the main theme as ‘pirates’. Another theme might be said to be ‘ham’. Would you agree?
2. Which do you think is more important to the Pirate Captain – ham, or his luxurious beard? If you had to choose which was more important to you, which one do you think you would pick?
3. On The Late Show, one of the critics, who has a face that looks like it’s made of mallow, said to Germaine Greer, ‘I wish there were more of Black Bellamy in The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists, he was the best character ever.’ Would you agree with this assessment?
4. Apart from Brian Blessed, who do you think should play the Pirate Captain if they were ever to make a movie of this book?
5. Do you think the section in Chapter Five when the Pirate Captain forces several pirates to walk the plank is included to show that life at sea had a harsh edge to it? Or do you think the author has some other motives?
6. Choose the letter that best represents your feelings:
‘Upon completion of The Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists, I would describe my mood as .’
(A) angry (B) restless (C) excitable
(D) sleepy (E) afraid
7. Scientifically speaking, who do you think the tallest pirate in the world is?
THANK YOU
Words to Know:
lubber pirate starboard
ham sloop galley
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Firstly, to Richard Murkin, because this book is the product of us knocking about for the last ten years. Thanks also to Helen Garnons-Williams for her ace editing, Claire Paterson for her ace agenting and Caitlin Moran for actually sending it to Claire in the first place. I should mention that David Cordingly’s Life among the Pirates and Bodenstandig 2000’s Maxi German Rave Blast Hits Vol. 3 both came in very useful when I was writing this.
Plus (for a load of different reasons): my mum, Sam Brown, Chloe Brown, Rob Adey, Nicola Hughes, Dr Jack Button, Danny Garlick, Sherhan Lingham and Rebecca Andrews. And Ruth.
GIDEON DEFOE was born in 1975 and lives in London. He is also the author of The Pirates! In An Adventure with Moby Dick, The Pirates! In An Adventure with Communists, and The Pirates! In An Adventure with Napoleon. You could be forgiven for thinking he is a bit of a one-trick pony.
By Gideon Defoe
ALSO AVAILABLE IN THE PIRATES! SERIES
THE PIRATES! IN AN ADVENTURE
WITH MOBY DICK
The Pirate Captain is in trouble. Eager to appease his crew with a boat that has a functioning mast, fewer holes and cannons that actually fire, he splashes out on the fancy new Lovely Emma, spending six thousand doubloons he doesn’t have. Finding themselves in debt to the beautiful but deadly Cutlass Liz – or the butcher of Barbados, as she’s otherwise known – the pirates need to raise some money fast. In a desperate race against time, our heroes embark on an adventure that will take them from the shores of Nantucket to the bright lights of Las Vegas, to the ends of the earth in search of a mythical white whale, and even, perhaps, into the dark depths of madness. But hopefully they’ll be home in time for tea.
‘Hilarious. Destined to become a classic of pirate comic fiction’
ERIC IDLE
‘Silly, surreal and absolutely and utterly hilarious ... possibly the funniest book I’ve ever read. Guaranteed to put a smile on your face’
IMAGE
‘Funny and entertaining’
INDEPENDENT
THE PIRATES! IN AN ADVENTURE
WITH COMMUNISTS
He’s conquered the seven seas, hunted Moby Dick and rescued Charles Darwin; now the Pirate Captain and his crew are off on another adventure. Their mission this time: to sail to London, buy a new suit for the Pirate Captain and maybe have some sort of adventure in a barnyard.
But nothing is ever straight forward for the hapless pirates. In no time at all, the Pirate Captain is incarcerated at Scotland Yard in a case of mistaken identity. Discovering that his doppelganger is none other than Karl Marx, the Captain and his crew are unwittingly caught up in a sinister plot involving communists, enormous beards, and a quest to discover whether ham might really be the opium of the people.
‘Silly, charming, unique and hilarious all at once’
CHRIS ADDISON
‘Funny and entertaining’
INDEPENDENT
‘A timber-shivering adventure that speaks to the pirate in all of us’
BEN SCHOTT
THE PIRATES! IN AN ADVENTURE
WITH NAPOLEON
The Pirate Captain has finally had enough. Still reeling from the crushing disappointment at the Pirate of the Year Awards, he decides it’s time to hang up his hat and ditch his cutlass. Begrudgingly followed by his sceptical but loyal crew, the Captain fixes his sights on a quiet
life on the island of St Helena. But his retirement plan is rudely disrupted by the arrival of another visitor to the island – the recently deposed Napoleon Bonaparte. Has the Pirate Captain finally met his match? Is the island’s twenty-eight mile circumference big enough to contain two of history’s greatest
