The Pyrates

by George MacDonald Fraser

  “ – an' when the time comes, a right merry meeting we'll ha' on't, rack, rat, an' rend me for a sea-slug else!” chortled Firebeard. “Har-har! These misbegotten King's pimps don't dream what a flock o' lovin' lambs they's got aboard – an' when Bilbo and the lads lays alongside – why, good day an' good-bye to 'em, honest men! Then, little Sheba darlin',” gibbered the hairy scoundrel, “ye can pay 'em for this sal-oobrious accommodation, an' this jewellery they've give ye!” And he jingled her fetters gleefully.

  “Oh, friends!” Sheba, the proud, fearless sea-queen who gutted Spaniards before breakfast, and had been known to roast cathedralfuls of nuns just for laughs, choked back a sob of pure feminine emotion. A tear welled on her dusky cheek, and Firebeard wiped it tenderly away with the tail of his shirt, blushing coyly to the eyelids, the only part of him visible through his tangle of hair. “Dear comrades,” continued Sheba, “I know not what to say … shall we barbecue 'em first and keelhaul them after? Or flog and carbonado them, and then disembowel and flay them by inches? Could we, perchance, do all six, and woold and dismember them later on? Oh, I know these are mere womanly fancies,” she went on, with a catch in her voice, “but it's been so long! And if it's the last thing I do -” she clenched her fists till her chains rattled, and ground her pearly teeth “ – I'm going to fix that stuck-up little blonde bitch in the St Laurent outfit with the puffed sleeves and those pleated seams going round above the hips and gathered in under the little bows along the back so that it fits snug at the waist and looks as though it's creaseless material and probably costs a bloody fortune to have altered supposing you can get a woman to do it. She won't,” Sheba added venomously, “have much use for it by the time I'm through with her -”

  “There, there,” said Firebeard soothingly, patting her manacled ankle with his great paw, “she han't got near such nice legs as you, I'll lay, an' I bet she sunburns somethin' rotten – ha, Calico?”

  “Patience, camarado,” said Rackham. “There's long sea-miles to go afore we call our reckonin' – so mum, an' leave all to us.”

  As they were going, Sheba suddenly checked them. “Calico, wait. When they were going to flog me today …” she looked askance, and her voice was over-casual “… who was yon that loosed me?”

  “Which one?” asked Firebeard. “The cocky black Irisher or the mealy swab wi' the long legs?”

  “The Englishman,” said Sheba coldly, “thou untutored bladder.”

  “Name o' Avery,” said Rackham. “Captain in Charlie boy's navy. Why?”

  “Oh … nothing,” said Black Sheba, and stretched herself like some great black cat on her straw, her eyes stoking up 'neath lazily-lowered lids, a strange enigmatic quiver agitating her sensuously-parted toes …

  A Canberra cruise this isn't, but who can tell what lies ahead as the Twelve Apostles skids round the corner of the Kentish coast, her passengers all unaware of the mischief brewing below decks? What dark purpose does Sheba harbour Avery-wise? What will come of his infatuation with the lovely Lady Vanity? Is her dress of creaseless material, and could it conceivably be altered to fit a corsair virago six inches taller? What dark schemes revolve in the fertile mind of Colonel Blood? How would you like to be chained up in an orlop? Read on …

  CHAPTER

  THE FOURTH

  he Twelve Apostles followed the course charted by movie art directors since time immemorial, in which the image of a tiny galleon is seen gliding gently across an Olde Worlde map with whales spouting bottom right – down from the Channel, across Biscay (where everyone would be ghastly sick and heaving, but you don't see that bit), round the top left-hand bump of Africa, and down into tropic waters, at which point the map dissolves into a long shot of the actual galleon cruising briskly across a sunlit sea. Then we get a quick shot of life on board – first the captain with a telescope on the quarter-deck, just to let you know that everything's under control, possibly a long shot of filling sails in case you've forgotten how the ship is actually propelled, and lastly to the matter in hand, whatever it may be. Right.

  In this case we see Captain Yardley and Admiral Rooke looking down indulgently on a specially-holystoned part of the main deck, where Lady Vanity, clad in biscuit-coloured muslin, is playing shuffleboard with Captain Avery, trilling merrily when she wins, and pouting prettily when she loses. She doesn't often pout, because Avery is the shuffleboard champion of the Royal Navy, and his keen eye and sinewy wrist enable him to leave his rings just that bit short every time, or nudge Vanity's shots into the centre of the target. (After all, he's besotted with the girl, and knows that his wooing won't prosper if he whitewashes her 12-0 every time.)

  And as they play, the jovial Firebeard galumphs about retrieving the rings and crying “Rare shot, milady!” and “Bravely thrown, cap'n!” and “Bloody hard lines, ma'am!” and bobbing and grinning and knuckling his forehead and generally grovelling like anything. For he and Rackham have shipped aboard under the names of Knatchbull-Carshalton and Wentworth respectively (Bilbo's suggestions, naturally), and have been at pains to impress their superiors with their trustworthy, seamanlike, forelock-tugging qualities. With the result that Captain Yardley has remarked to Admiral Rooke on the rare good fort'n, by cock, of getting two such prime hands, and Rackham has won such golden opinions by his resolution and intelligence that he has been appointed quartermaster, with responsibility for steering in the night watches. (Significant, eh?) Firebeard isn't much good at navigation (let's face it, when he watches the sunrise he has to spin a coin to decide whether he's looking east or not), but he is something of a mascot because he organises dice-horse-racing and deck quoits and sweeps on the ship's mileage for Vanity's amusement, and is the caller for Bingo in the evenings, crying “Eyes down, look in, clickety-click, legs eleven, Kelly's plonk, blind sixty” and the like, to the hilarity of all. Vanity thinks he is a perfect pet, and calls him (wait for it) Master Nittywhiskers, and generally treats him like a tame retriever, and no one ever notices the occasional mad piggy glint in the eyes of the grinning, fawning sycophant.

  Not even Blood, with his villain's nose for villainy. For he had other things to think about. To start with, he found himself sent to Coventry in the first week, after Avery suddenly remembered where he'd heard the Colonel's name before, and the Admiral, Yardley, and Vanity were thunderstruck to discover that their fellow-passenger was the notorious ruffian who had recently scandalised London by his attempt to glom the Crown Jewels, for which daring exploit he had unaccountably been pardoned by King Charles and set at liberty. (Fact, and no one has solved the mystery to this day.) However, after that it was the cold shoulder all round for our Tom, the gentlemen turning sharply on their heels and Lady Vanity elevating her exquisite little retroussé nose and daintily fanning the air if he came within ten feet of her. The Colonel endured philosophically his exclusion from after-dinner whist and “I spy”, and having to eat in his cabin alone, and not having anyone tell him the right time. His isolation enabled him to ponder two matters which were intriguing him – one being the mysterious oak box which Avery kept hidden in his cabin (the Colonel having watched its bestowal from a convenient skylight on the first day of the voyage), and the other being how to arrange an undisturbed visit to the orlop to teach Sheba postman's knock. Being a patient man, he set himself to wait, ignoring the slights of Cabin Society, and fingering his clarkie moustache with a slow smile as he leaned nonchalantly against the rail.

  His double opportunity came on a balmy tropic night as they sailed smoothly down towards the Cape over a limpid azure sea beneath a moon so golden that it almost dripped in the purple sky. Stars twinkled, scented breezes blew, in the great cabin the Admiral and Yardley, stuffed to surfeit and drowsy with port, hiccoughed and reminisced, and in the seclusion of the stern gallery Captain Avery and Lady Vanity clung in an ecstatic embrace, munching each other's lips and only occasionally coming up for air.

  (Avery? Necking? Has our idol got feet of smouldering clay? By no means. Left to himself, he would ha
ve worshipped his blonde divinity from afar, or rather from close quarters, but never laying a glove on her; he didn't have all his Scout badges for nothing. His love was chaste and holy, and he had never so much as held hands at the church social. But Vanity soon took care of that. Delicately nurtured at a finishing school where panty-raids by ardent young males were commonplace, and where she and her schoolmates had been wont to classify Society bucks as N.S.A.V., N.S.I.S.C., and N.S.A.* respectively, she had quickly realised that this dream-man was such a spiritual Galahad that he would need tuition in how to get physical. Her course of instruction took about eleven seconds, consisting of a glance at the moon, a gentle sigh, a hand on his arm, her eyes wide and uplifted to his, a parting of her moist lips, and before the hypnotised Avery knew what he was doing he was glued to her like the Magdeburg hemispheres, finally parting after three solid minutes of osculation with the sound of a drain unblocking. After that first memorable kiss, which he quickly convinced himself was not only a perfectly seemly, but courteous thing to do – for this adorable girl deserved every treat she could get – it was plain sailing; Vanity could relax contentedly and let him make the running – all good clean fun, mind you, for she was a proper and toward young lady who permitted no undue familiarities, which she guessed Avery wouldn't know how to make, anyway.)

  So they smooched away blissfully and decorously, as lovers will, until Vanity decided that she had now got this superman softened up sufficiently to start moulding him to her imperious will – a necessary preliminary to the marriage which she had determined would follow eventually, when she felt like it. From this point the lovers were observed by Colonel Blood, out for a twilight prowl, and cheerfully eavesdropping from the stern rail above their heads, the swine. This is what he heard:

  VANITY (panting): Easy, boy, easy! Golly, you don't know your own strength! Is my hair a mess?

  AVERY: Nay, sweet goddess, 'tis immaculate as thy perfect self. (With an indulgent male chauvinist smile.) I fear me y'are well named Lady Vanity.

  VANITY (checking make-up in mirror): Too right. I'm gorgeous, proud, and insufferably spoiled. Very properly. Now, what's all this rot about getting off at Madagascar, and leaving me to be bored witless all the way to Calicut?

  AVERY (sighing): Alas, dearest, I have my duty.

  VANITY: Indeed? I can see we shall have to get your priorities straight. One, duty is what other people do. Two, if ever you find yourself faced with a choice between duty and me, I shall whistle – once. Three, if you're to be Sir Benjamin before your twenty-fifth birthday, and we're to be Earl and Countess before you're thirty – for I won't settle for less, and flag rank for you into the bargain –

  AVERY: Angel, I shall win these trifles and lay them at your feet!

  VANITY: Trifles, quotha! You win whatever you like, Tyrone, and I'll manage the essentials. For know that I am an Admiral's daughter, a Very Important Lady with immense influence – the King has spoken politely to me –

  AVERY (frowning): Has he, though?

  VANITY: – and before I'm through you're going to have a seat in the Cabinet. Don't fret, I can keep Charlie at a distance, and arrange your preferment, advancement, and finances perfectly satisfactorily. Ah, 'twill be very bliss, you and I together, our future golden –

  AVERY (friendly but firm): I still have to get off at Madagascar.

  VANITY: Forget it – I shall speak to Father –

  AVERY: Dear heart, even he is powerless. 'Tis royal command.

  VANITY: Straight up? Oh, blast! Then let us make the most of what little time is left to us for the moment. Hold me, my darling … renew our fleeting rapture …

  AVERY (ardently): Yum-yum!

  VANITY (slightly muffled): Mind my beauty patch …

  By this time Blood had given up in disgust, not untinged with envy, and judging that Avery would be occupied for some time, descended stealthily to the young captain's cabin and began operations on the oak box with great patience and a bent nail. (No end to the fellow's criminal versatility.) Presently he had the lid up and was squatting reverently muttering “Bejazus!” as he contemplated the gleaming glory of the crown. So this was the precious secret – and it was going to Madagascar! Fat chance. For about five seconds he gloated greedily, and then, being a highly practical scoundrel, relocked the box and went on deck, where he lurked chin in hand – and he wasn't considering his next contribution to Dr Barnardo's, either. How to acquire this wondrous bauble – it must be thought upon. In the meantime, with the crew all asleep and the Quality either swilling port or snogging, it occurred to the Colonel that he knew an excellent way of celebrating his splendid discovery. Watching all that boy-and-girl stuff on the stern gallery had reawakened the beast in him, rakehell that he was …

  Captain Avery, having bidden the delectable Vanity good-night with a last fond grapple at her cabin door, had thereafter repaired rather unsteadily to his quarters for a cold bath. He had been hopelessly in love for several weeks now, but actually petting with beautiful blondes was something else – so that was what Ovid and Count Orsino and the poet Herrick got all worked up about, he reflected breathlessly. Well, he could see what they meant. Wow! And she loved him, and melted in his arms, and her kisses were like perfumed darts from Cupid's bow … but enough was enough – well, no, it wasn't, but in the meantime he was Captain Benjamin Avery, after all, with responsibilities and duties and things, and it was time to climb off Cloud Nine for the moment. He would take a brisk walk round the deck before retiring, and this slightly dizzy feeling would go away.

  So he dressed rapidly, and going quietly on deck, was just in time to see a stealthy figure descending the main hatchway. It looked like that awful scoundrel Blood … in a moment the lover was transformed into the cool, alert man of action as the captain, narrow-eyed and treading softly, followed to see what mischief the fellow might be up to when all decent folk were in their pits for the night.

  It did not occur to the Captain that there was anything demeaning about snooping after his fellow-passenger in this fashion. After all, Blood was widely known to be as bent as a boat-hook and, as head prefect at Uppingham Avery had been accustomed to trailing nocturnal bounds-breakers and confiscating their illicit cherry brandy and copies of Playeboye. So now, his magnificent shapely ears pricked, he crept down the companion after the softly sneaking Colonel; past the focsle where the crew snored and the atmosphere was thick enough to sell as coal briquettes, past the main cargo deck, into the hold, and then through dark narrow ways among the piled-up gear, where rats squeaked and scuttled, and only the occasional horn lantern guttered i' the gloom. Once the Captain paused, when his foot got jammed in a bucket, and then he was hurrying ahead towards a distant gleam of light, whence came the sound of voices, one tense with fury, the other soft and sinisterly mocking …

  “Get away from me!” Black Sheba, crouched against the orlop bulkhead, clutched her rag of shirt across her breasts with one hand and swung the slack of her fetters with the other. “Another step and I'll lay your face open!”

  “Now, stab me if I understand you,” Blood was saying, and Avery could picture the sinister smile on his lips. “What's the matter with me? I'm good-looking, young, charming, clean, amiable, and I shaved this morning. Bigod, ye don't know what a lucky girl ye are; all I want is to help you pass the time pleasant-like -”

  “Some day I'll pass the time with you,” snarled Sheba, her bazoom heaving like anything, “and you'll beg to be let die!”

  “Ah, come off it,” said Blood, eyeing the fetters warily. “It's going to happen to you in Calicut anyway. You'll be sold off, every delectable pound of ye, to some greasy old hog of a planter, and he won't take no for an answer. Whereas with me, it'll not only be a rewarding experience, I'll even engage to buy you myself – if I can raise the money …”

  The artful stinker had been edging closer, and as Sheba let fly with her chains he ducked nimbly underneath, and with a caddish chuckle tackled her low and pinned her on the straw, smiling mocki
ngly into her blazing eyes. She struggled vainly while he got himself comfy.

  “Now, then,” he said, “what I propose is one little kiss, and if ye don't like it, then on my honour I'll leave you be. Tom Blood doesn't stay where he's not wanted. But I can't believe a fine strapping lass like you won't think better of it …”

  And the bounder's lips were descending on hers when steely fingers closed on his shoulder, and he was dragged up to meet Avery's eyes glittering wrathfully, and Avery's voice ringing in icy scorn:

  “Muckrake! Stinker! Jerk!”

  And he hit the Colonel a big one, splat! which sent the startled amorist hurtling headlong across the orlop, and serve him right. Avery, fists clenched, towered over him in manly indignation, while Black Sheba crouched on her straw, wide-eyed. The Colonel presently sat up and nursed his jaw reflectively.

  “Some days are like this,” he sighed. “Ye just can't please anybody. A man goes about trying to promote a little happiness, but …” He shrugged and came to his feet, smiling to conceal his anxiety about his bridgework. “That's a fair wallop ye have in that hand, Captain. Is it as ready when it's holding steel?”

  “Get out,” snapped the Captain, in refrigerated contempt.

  “So soon?” wondered the Colonel amiably. “We could have a three-handed game of brag … no?” He winked regretfully at Sheba. “Sorry, sweetheart, ye'll just have to contain your passion for another time. If you're staying, captain, and she starts fiddling with those chains – duck.”

  And with insolent aplomb the hardened scoundrel tipped them a salute and went off, whistling. Avery waited till his footsteps died away, and then glanced at the swarthy Juno crouched at his feet.

  “Did he hurt you?”