The Pyrates

For the first time Vanity’s intrepid spirit quailed. “Not the Helena Rubinstein!” she quavered. “You can’t get it these days … ah, of your pity, dark and sinister woman, not that! The line’s been discontinued …”

“Don’t I know it?” growled Sheba, scooping up the precious pots. “Haven’t I scoured every boutique in Tortuga? Away with her, Firebeard!”

As Vanity, wailing piteously, was dragged out, and Sheba was sizing up a suede number by Balmain which might just do if it was let down a smidgin, the other passengers were likewise being rudely hustled aloft. Blood, an old hand at being apprehended and frogmarched, was murmuring: “Right, all right, fellows, I know the way,” as they thrust him up the companion; Avery, tight-lipped and pinioned, came face to face with Rooke, who was still in his night-shirt, leering pirates grasping his elbows. The Admiral was in fine voice, though, damning them for pirate scum and promising to see them quartered and sun-dried; he cheesed it momentarily to inquire of Avery in a hoarse whisper: “Is it safe?”, and Avery, inwardly cursing this indiscretion, nodded imperceptibly. Not imperceptibly enough, however, for a silky voice cut menacingly in:

“Is what safe?”

And there, on the ladder just above them, was the fearsome figure of Black Bilbo, who had come aboard and made straight for the quality’s cabins in the hope of finding some Sea Island steenkirks or spray-on talc. He lounged wolfishly, hand on hilt, taking snuff delicately from the case proffered by Goliath the dwarf.

“Now, gentles,” quo’ he softly, his dark eyes gliding from one to t’other, “what precious item, what thing o’ price, is this – that is ‘safe’, ha?” They remaining silent, Bilbo nodded, making play with a soiled lace kerchief from which, to his annoyance, he realised he had forgotten to remove the laundry tag. “So, so,” he hissed, clipping Goliath over the ear for luck, “we shall discover anon. Keep me this bellowing bullock below –” he kicked Rooke savagely “– and hale the fighting cock on deck.”

The scene which met Avery’s eyes may be old stuff to you if you saw “The Black Swan”, but it was new to him – a helpless merchantman in the talons of the hawks of the sea. Chaps in hairy drawers and coloured hankies staggering about, draped in loot, letting off pistols, getting beastly drunk, singing “Blow the man down”, throwing bottles around, and manhandling hapless prisoners. Firebeard had thrust Vanity sprawling on the deck in her scanty night-rail, to the accompaniment of wolf-whistles and cries of “Hubbahubba!”; she scrambled up, trying to look haughty, which isn’t easy when there’s nothing between you and the goggle-eyed rabble except a wisp of brushed nylon and a few ribbons. “Shake it, blondie!” they chorused, and Avery clenched his teeth in fury.

Looking down from the quarter-deck was the stalwart figure of Calico Jack, the barbaric splendour of Akbar, and the slender finery of Happy Dan, who viewed the scene through his quizzing-glasses and exclaimed Froggishly.

“What is what is this what? I am aboard. I look about myself. Zut alors donc! What a doll, that! What talent! Ah, ma chérie, mon coeur est toujours à toi! How about it, hein?” He minced and bowed and fluttered his fingers at Vanity, while Akbar’s eyes glowed with strange fires, and Rackham threw up a hand to silence the motley mob swarming beneath – bearded white faces, coal-black Nubians, slant-eyed Chinese devils, swarthy Asiatics, squat and evil Malays – the usual lot on pirate ships in those days. Now among them glided Black Sheba, her glance dwelling darkly on the bound figure of Avery ere she took her place, lounging on a convenient capstan.

“Camarados, brothers!” cried Rackham. “We ha’ ta’en this fine ship, and released our dear comrade and fellow-skipper Sheba from durance shameful and doom o’ hellish slavery! (Cries of ‘Hear, hear!’, applause, breaking of bottles, and an attempt by the little Welsh pirate to lead a chorus of ‘We’ll keep a welcome in the valleys’.) And we ha’ ta’en also captives o’ rank and quality – a Lord Admiral, no less –” Yells of hatred and blowing of raspberries, with Firebeard bawling: “Hang him up! Rip his guts out! He’s an honest man – I hate him!” He rolled on the deck in a frenzy of rage, and the pirates cheered amain. Bilbo sauntered forward, sporting his shabby finery, his tight boots squeaking painfully.

“All in good time, lambkin,” quotha. “But, by y’r leave, Brother Rackham, I ha’ matter to impart to the company. (Cries of ‘Order, order!’ ‘Chair, chair!’.) I learn that there is some precious ‘thing’ aboard this vessel, and that this –” he flicked a tiny poniard from his sleeve so that it quivered in the mast by Avery’s ear; a shocking show-off, Bilbo was “– fortunate fellow is privy to its whereabouts. Shall we inquire, ha?”

“Aye, aye!” roared the pirates. “Go on, ask him; it can’t do any harm.”

“Well, bully?” said Bilbo silkily. “What is’t, and where, eh? Discourse, friend, and discover. Don’t be shy.”

This was the chance that Avery had been waiting for. Jumping on tables, pinking adversaries, was all right in its way, but this is the kind of moment he is in the book for, really. His handsome head came up, his contemptuous glance swept from sinister Bilbo to frowning Rackham to swarthy Akbar to epicene Happy Dan, to the ring of hideous snarling ruffians, dwelt softly for an instant on Vanity, beauteously pale, got contemptuous again, and finally settled back on Bilbo with unfaltering disdain. Avery’s lip curled, and his perfectly-modulated voice might have been addressing a careless servant as he spoke with the calm good-breeding of his kind.

“Up yours,” he said crisply. He had no idea what it meant, but he had heard it hurled at the Moors by an officer refusing to surrender one of the Tangier bastions, and had rather liked the sound of it. Brief, punchy, and definite.

The pirates went bananas at his defiance. They howled round him, hurling vile threats and making lurid suggestions for his interrogation. A heated debate broke out, the nub being to decide which torture would best satisfy the twin requirements of getting the information and providing an interesting spectacle. Happy Dan Pew’s proposal was finally carried, and a bucket of offal was hurled over the side to attract sharks, while Avery was lowered by one leg from the ship’s rail until his head was just above the water racing past the ship’s side.

This is a rotten position to be in, and it taxed even Avery’s powers to keep up a dignified appearance. He preserved a poker-faced nonchalance, of course, but this was wasted since no one could see it. The spray lashed through his hair, the salt water stung his eyes, and the rope round his ankle burned like fire; up on deck Vanity was swooning on the planks, and the callous villains holding the rope were saying grace. A yell of delight greeted the sight of two hideous dorsal fins cutting the water towards the ship’s side, at which point they lowered Avery so that his head and shoulders were immersed.

Our hero was now perturbed. Not on his own account – this, he told himself, as his keen eyes pierced the green murk and detected the great dark shapes homing in on him, was what he was paid three shillings a day for – nay, his concern was all for the fair and graceful figure which he had seen collapsing becomingly when they gave him the old heave-ho. What should become of her, when the sharks had retired burping gently to look for the sweet trolley, and all that remained of him was a sock and a buckled shoe? He must get out of this somehow, for her sake … and Captain Avery’s eyes narrowed underwater, his lips parted in that grim fighting smile as he observed the horrible monsters rolling neatly to get under him and come zooming up, their enormous jaws parting to reveal serried rows of glittering fangs. That gave him an idea – he would bite the brutes; it was the last thing they would expect …

But even as he prepared to meet them, tooth to tooth, he felt himself suddenly whirled upwards, into the fresh air, just as the first shark leaped and snapped its great jaws close enough to clip his hair. He banged painfully against the ship’s side, and then he was hauled brutally over the rail and dropped on the deck, opening his eyes to find a pair of Gucci boots bestriding him, and hear Black Sheba’s voice scorching the pirates who yet clamoured for his blood.

“Unthinking dolts! He’ll never talk! I know his kind!” And she flashed him a glance in which he seemed to read yearning admiration behind the feral glare of the amber eyes. “But he’ll sing like a canary if you threaten his friends!” she added spitefully, and Avery groaned inwardly as the ruffians roared approval and seized on the swooning Vanity with cries of “Now you’m talking! Heave the doxy over! Har-har, here be plumptious titbit for the sharks, wi’ a curse, an’ that!”

“Belay that!” snapped Sheba, and drawled cruelly: “We’ll find a better use for her mealy milksopishness, damn her! No … that one!” And she flung out a hand towards Colonel Blood.

You may have wondered what the Colonel was doing during all this excitement. Looking inconspicuous, that’s what, and wondering how he could pass himself off as one of the pirate gang. Even now he tried to look puzzled, glancing over his shoulder to see whom Sheba meant, but it was no go. They whipped the rope round his ankle, bundled him protesting on to the rail, and were about to launch him when he found his breath and wits together.

“What’s the hurry, now?” he wondered. “Let’s talk it over, boys … don’t do something ye’ll regret.”

Firebeard, gripping the Colonel’s shoulders, hesitated, growling and rolling his eyes. “What was it you were asking, now?” inquired the Colonel, and Avery, in sudden alarm, cried from the deck: “No! Blood, you cannot! You must not!”

“Och, be reasonable,” said the Colonel, slightly exasperated. “D’ye expect me to be a fish’s dinner for the sake of your bloody crown?”

Since the answer to that was “Yes”, but it isn’t the sort of thing that any self-respecting hero can say, Avery was silent, but the glare he shot at Blood would have curdled minestrone. His first instinct had been right – why, the blighter was a blighter, after all; when any decent chap would have been spitting in their eyes with a dauntless smile, he was actually perspiring shiftily and demanding:

“If I tell ye, will ye spare our lives?”

The pirates growled, disappointed of their sport. There were cries of “Yes!” “No!” and “Toss for it, best out of three!”, and then Rackham came shouldering through the press to confront the desperate Colonel.

“Speak,” said he bluntly, “and the sharks can go hungry.”

It wasn’t total reassurance, exactly, but when you’re perched on a ship’s rail with Firebeard giving you the benefit of his halitosis and the jumbo-sized piranhas waiting underneath, it’s worth stretching a point. “Under the bunk in his cabin,” gasped Blood, nodding at Avery, and as the Captain’s furious gaze took on a disgust so icy that it almost froze the sea-water in his hair, Blood added philosophically: “Ye see, Captain, where I come from there are no heroes’ graves – just holes in the ground for fools.”

You may imagine the indignant rage that boiled through Avery’s manly thorax at this caddish cynicism, but it was nothing to the shame and anguish he felt when the Madagascar crown was exposed in all its brilliant effulgence on the deck, and the pirates, after a moment’s stunned silence, stood around exclaiming “Hot tamales!” and “Jackpot!” and “You won’t pick up one o’ those at Woolies!” while their leaders regarded the unbelievable glittering prize with racing thoughts. For each realised that this was the Big Time, with a vengeance – to Akbar, grinding his molars and tugging his forked beard, it was the bankroll that should buy him his way to supremacy in Barbary, perhaps even to the throne of the Sublime Porte itself; to Bilbo, as he clenched his soiled kerchief in nervous fingers, it was that estate in Bucks, a seat in the Lords, and – oh, rapture! – membership of the Army and Navy Club; to Rackham, slightly pale under his tan, it was a fortune invested in Building Societies with enough over to start a modest pub; to Happy Dan Pew it was a villa at Antibes, his own permanent private suite at the Negresco, and a custom-built coach with tortoiseshell panels rolling him along the Croisette while starlets from the Comédie Française vied for his attention; to Black Sheba it was her own private desert island plantation where all the enemies and oppressors of her past should labour in misery and torment while she lived it up in Balenciaga creations (this was her fondest dream, and with a start she realised that it now included Captain Avery, in powdered wig and buckled shoes, taking her in to dinner and exchanging glances of adoration with her from the other end of their sumptuous table). To Firebeard, the sixth of those desperate commanders, it conjured up visions of unlimited booze, wrecked taverns, senseless constables, and shattered fruit machines – and the wherewithal to impress that snooty barmaid at the Bucket of Blood in Tortuga, the blonde one with the big knockers.

And then the fight started. With one accord the pirates flung themselves on the marvellous trophy, clawing and biting to be at it, and if Rackham had not kept his head and hurled them back with boot and fist, aided by Bilbo’s flashing rapier and Firebeard’s enormous strength, things might have degenerated into anarchy. Back the captains drove them, a snarling, loot-crazed mob, and Rackham set the great gleaming crown on the capstan and demanded of the captives what it might be.

Avery, of course, preserved a glacial silence, but Blood, at one growl from Firebeard, sang like a bird.

“’Tis the crown for the new king of Madagascar. He was to deliver it –” this with a nod to Avery “– and if ye’ve any sense you’ll offer it for a ransom to the British Government rather than try to flog it on the open market. I’d be willing to act as go-between myself, for a consideration,” he went on smoothly. “After all, I’ve got contacts and that sort o’ thing –”

But the pirate mob would have none of this. “Shares! Shares!” they roared. “Fair does among mates! Divvy out, we’re all on the coupon!” and Rackham raised his hands to still the clamour.

“Brothers, hear me! We share, according to articles, but ’tis plain we cannot divide this great treasure among all at once. Now, there are six captains here, and six great crosses on this crown – so let each captain take one and be responsible for selling it and sharing among his followers. Agreed?”

The pirates whooped approval, and Avery watched in horror, writhing helpless in his bonds, as his precious charge was laid on the deck and a huge Chinese, wielding a massive axe, chopped it with six mighty strokes into as many glittering pieces, while the gleeful buccaneers chanted:

“One! Two! Three! …” at each blow. Then, as Firebeard turned his back, the Chinese held up each cross in turn, and according to age-old custom Rackham cried out: “Who shall have this?” and Firebeard named the captains in any order that occurred to him, beginning with Sheba and ending with himself. So each captain received a cross, and their crews crowded round, wolf-eyed, to handle the pretty baubles and gloat on the prospect of their own shares.

Avery watched the scene appalled; it occurred to him that the recapture and eventual safe delivery of the crown – which had never been far from his active mind – was now going to be rather complicated. However, he would come to that; in the meantime, could he gnaw through his bonds, or cut them on a bit of the broken bottles which the pirates were strewing carelessly all over the place, seize the half-fainting Vanity in one arm and a sword in the other, fight his way aft, release the captured loyal seamen, and turn the tables on the villains? It seemed the obvious course – yes, and then they could hang the treacherous Blood, and no doubt a dab of Airfix would put the crown to rights, and Admiral Rooke would probably recommend him for a decoration, and Vanity would be wide-eyed and weak-kneed with gratitude, and the whole affair wouldn’t do his promotion chances any damage, either. Yes, he was thinking along the right lines – but before he could put his plan into operation the pirates, having gloated their fill and finished off all the drink, forestalled him by remembering that there were prisoners to play with. With cries of “Let’s sort out the helpless captives!” “Aye, aye, let’s fall to merry torturin’ an’ that!” and “Who’s for a gang-bang wi’ the Admiral’s daughter?” they advanced on the hapless trio.

Naturally, they concentrated on Vanity, who shrank back in terror from the bearded leering faces and lecherous paws while Avery struggled like a madman in his bonds, but before their sweaty hands could tear away her shortie nightdress and confront the censor with all sorts of problems, Black Sheba had slipped lissomely between, one hand outflung to restrain them, the other on her rapier hilt.

“Hold!” cried she, and before the command in those fiery amber eyes, the hardened ruffians paused. As Goliath the dwarf, with a chortle of “Bags I first!”, made a grab at Vanity’s thigh, Sheba kicked his wooden leg from under him and sent him sprawling on the deck. “Calico, I claim disposal o’ this woman!”

At this there was hubbub and amaze, in which you may well be sharing. What is this? Has womanly pity touched the agate heart of the ruthless corsair queen? Is she moved by finer feelings to shield Vanity from shame and ravishment? Perchance has some memory from her own dark past – as when she was the star attraction of “Strip, Strip, Hooray!” at the Port-o’-Spain Rotary stag night, and the patrons rushed the stage at the torrid climax of her bubble dance before she could escape to the wings – stirred her compassion for the defenceless English maid? Don’t you believe it. Baser motives far were at work in Sheba’s evil heart. She had remarked the distraught looks of anguish and concern that Avery had been shooting in Vanity’s direction, and had thought: aha, so he’s got the hots for Miss Cheltenham of 1670, has he? Right, we’ll fix her wagon. And reasoning that the satisfaction of seeing her rival ravished by the crews of three pirate ships would be better foregone in the interests of getting the insipid pullet out of the way permanently, thus leaving Sheba a clear field with Avery, the sepia Medusa had hatched a diabolic plan.

She fronted the frustrated pirates imperiously, while the tremulous Vanity clutched her flimsy nylon about her and wished she’d gone in for sensible long flannelette.

“Back, blind besotted curs!” snarled Sheba. “You can’t all have her – why, ’tis pampered, puling ninny would die o’ the vapours wi’ the first of you! But –” and her eyes narrowed in a cruel smile “– all can share in the price if we sell her!” She jerked Vanity brutally to her feet and held her in a steely grasp while she stroked a dark finger across the girl’s soft cheek. “Think what the rich rajahs and fat degenerates will pay for such a plump white pigeon in the slave-marts of Basra or Goa! You know how they go for Bluebell Girls – she’ll fetch enough to buy each of you a real wench, not some flabby reserve for the Upper Fifth tennis team. Let Akbar take her and sell her on behalf of us all!”

Prolonged applause greeted this monstrous proposal, and Sheba turned with a triumphant sneer to run mocking fingers through the ringlets of the horror-stricken prisoner.

“Try that on your clavichord, duchess!” she hissed spitefully. “Golden Vanity – pah! We’ll see how you enjoy your slavery!”

If aught had been required to cement Avery’s adoration for the Admiral’s beauteous daughter (and frankly, not much was), it would have been her response to Sheba’s gloating taunt. Her face pale but proud, her bosom heaving with hauteur in a manner which caused some of the pirates to wonder whether selling her was such a bright idea after all, Lady Vanity countered with a swift one-two. “Among slaves I shall still be a lady,” she cried proudly. “Among ladies you will always be a slave!” Even the callous ruffians could not forbear to chant their approval of her dauntless spirit. “One in a row, boo-boom!” they cried, while Sheba sprang clawing to avenge the insult. But Akbar, with a hellish laugh, had already swung Vanity’s struggling form up on his shoulder, and bore her swiftly to his galley while Avery went ape, alternately cursing his captors and demanding that they sell him in Vanity’s place. They pointed out, reasonably enough, that he was down-market stuff by comparison.

“An’ anyways, we got a better use for you, cully, an’ ye may lay to that!” bawled Firebeard. “What say we keelhaul him, mates? It’s ages since we had a good keelhaulin’ –”

But again Sheba barred the way. “Avast there, blubber-guts!” She paced slowly to Avery, thoughtfully plucking her nether lip ’twixt shapely fingers. “This King’s captain is too good a man to lose – ’tis lad o’ rare mettle has earned the right to join us as a free companion, if he so chooses. That – or slow death,” she added, with a look of smouldering ardour at Avery that would have melted treacle. At which the pirates nudged each other and stifled discreet coughs, glancing innocently at the mast-heads and whistling airily. Happy Dan Pew sniggered and grimaced froggishly.

“Great round basins behind the house of Monsieur and Madame Desgranges!” exclaimed he, all roguish-like. “One addresses to oneself the question: what companionship does La Belle Noire have in mind for our prisoner so stalwart and gallant, hein? Is it to make the promenade au bicyclette in search of cabbages, jewels, small pebbles, and stained-glass windows? Not on votre vie, if you ask me!” And he minced and chuckled lewdly, while Rackham frowned ’neath knitted brows and glanced from Sheba to Avery.

“Well, bully, what say ye? Wilt join us on th’account, ha?”

Avery was on the point of replying coldly that he would rather be shot from a cannon, but it occurred to him that there was no point in putting ideas into people’s heads, so he maintained a contemptuous silence. Not so Blood, who clamoured to join, inquiring eagerly about pension rights, sickness benefits, and overtime. They shushed him impatiently, crowding round Avery with menace in their looks, while Sheba gnawed her lip in anxiety and tensed herself to spit the first man who laid a finger on him. It was one of those explosive moments when eyeball rolls at eyeball and wills clash in ponderous confrontation and no one has much idea what the hell is going to happen next because they’ve forgotten what the question was in the first place. Rackham, that canny leader of men, read the situation in one shrewd glance, and moved to defuse it.

“Right,” quo’ he, “break it up. We’ll give him a few hours to think it over. Not fair to rush the chap. Put ’em both in irons – and then let’s get sail on this rust-bucket afore she grows barnacles! About it, ye dogs! Firebeard, man the larboard scuppers! Bilbo, have thy villains lay aft the focsle! Sheba, your mascara’s running! Happy Dan, write out the verb être six times before lunch, and the rest of you for heaven’s sake join in the chorus!”

These sailorly words acted on the fractious pirates like magic. In a trice they had hustled Avery and Blood below decks, swept up the broken glass, clewed up everything in sight, and repaired to the Merino Lounge for before-lunch cocktails while they discussed the exciting events of the day so far. Only Black Sheba brooded sombrely on her high stool at the bar, and many there were who remarked how she was moodily squeezing that pink pimento stuff out of her martini olives, and wondered what this might portend.

Well, it’s all happening, and no mistake. Our principals are right in it. Will Avery join the pirates? (Don’t be daft, of course he won’t.) But what then? Will Sheba’s unholy passion for him provide the twenty-four hour all-round body protection that every young executive needs? Will the insurance company pay up on the Madagascar crown? Will Lady Vanity’s purchaser be able to get her a work permit? It’s all very worrying.

CHAPTER

THE SIXTH

It was really rotten down i’ the foetid, stinking, dim-lit orlop, where timbers creaked and rats scuttled, etc. Blood and Avery had been fettered wrist and ankle to facing bulkheads, which was uncomfortable enough, but to make matters worse the cleaners hadn’t been in, the straw hadn’t been made up, or the scuppers hoovered, or the bilges refilled, and there wasn’t any Kleenex left. To cap it all, the pirates had taken over the ship’s intercom, and instead of the normal hymns and rousing sea shanties, the muzak now consisted entirely of dirty drinking songs illegally taped from Radio Tortuga. Avery bore it all in stoic silence, the chaotic mess of his tortured thoughts concealed ’neath a cold, imperturbable mask, but Blood griped incessantly; it was just like these swindling foreign tour operators, he said, to grab your money and then forget you existed; he should have read the small print when he came aboard, and so on, and so on, until even Avery’s icy control snapped in one bitter denunciation of his fellow-captive.