The Pirates! in an Adventure with the Romantics (4 page)

‘But you get the gist?’ asked the Captain.

‘I do.’

‘So, faced with all that natural wonder in the world, why are you throwing yourself to your doom?’

‘Boredom, sir!’ cried the man, waving his arms hopelessly. ‘The sheer grim, unremitting tedium of it all! We came to this godforsaken country because, for some unfathomable reason, it has a reputation as the most romantic place in the world. A “heavenly valley”, Coleridge said, unmatched by any other.’

‘That’s the sort of stuff people end up spouting when they put opium on their crumpets instead of butter,’ explained the young woman with a sigh.

‘Are you sure this Coleridge chap wasn’t just pulling your leg?’ asked the Captain. ‘I’ve got a nemesis who’s always doing that sort of thing. Well, I say nemesis, but you know, we rub along all right, really. I suppose a more accurate description would be “constant thorn in my side”. His name’s Black Bellamy. Have you met him?’

The man shook his head sadly. ‘No, sir, I have not, but would that I had, for he sounds more interesting than anything Switzerland has to offer. For the entire duration of our stay it has rained, a ceaseless, idiotic drizzle.
⁹
And
in
two
months
–
two
months
! –
we
have
failed
to
undergo
a
single
spiritual
epiphany
,
have
a
senses
-
shattering
encounter
,
or
enjoy
an
unexpected
escapade
.
The
closest
we
’
ve
come
to
anything
like
that
was
three
weeks
ago
,
when
Percy
here
spotted
a
cow
out
of
the
window
that
we
all
agreed
had
nice
eyelashes
,
and
yesterday
,
when
Mary
scored
fifteen
points
for
the
word
“
Quagmire
”
whilst
we
were
stuck
inside
playing
yet
another
game
of
that
infernal
Boggle
.
’

‘Well, if that’s the only problem then you’re in luck,’ said the Captain. ‘Because, as it so happens, we’re here about your recent advertisement.’ He held up the newspaper and pointed to where he’d circled the advert.

‘Advertisement?’ The man looked at him blankly. ‘What in the ocean’s thundering swell are you talking about?’

‘I was under the impression that you were seeking
an exciting adventure
?’

There was a small cough from the other side of the room. Everybody turned to look at the young woman, who blushed.

‘Sorry, I should have mentioned that,’ she said, with an apologetic smile directed at her companions. ‘It just seemed like it might be a good idea. You’re not the only one who’s been going a bit loopy, B – the thought of having to go on one more alpine jaunt makes me want to eat my own elbows. So a few days ago I took it upon myself to put that advert in the paper. Though to be honest, I’d rather given up hope – so far the only responses have been from people trying to sell us second-hand cuckoo clocks.’

The pale man gave the girl a rather disapproving look, and the wavy-haired man scratched his chin thoughtfully. Then, his impending suicide seemingly forgotten, he roared with delight, and jumped down off the balustrade. ‘Why, that’s fantastic! Good thinking, Mary! Bright cookie, this girl.’ He threw the poison and pistol over his shoulder, because littering wasn’t considered antisocial in those days, then crossed the room towards the Pirate Captain and gave him a hearty handshake. ‘What did you say your name was again?’

‘I’m the Pirate Captain,’ said the Pirate Captain.

‘I like your neck, Pirate Captain! That’s a man’s neck! Like an oak!’

‘You’ve got a very impressive neck yourself.’

The man roared again, apparently for no real reason beyond the love of roaring, and smacked his pale friend on the back, making him wince. ‘Isn’t that brilliant, Percy?’ He paused and suddenly looked serious. ‘But I’m sorry! Where are our manners? We must introduce ourselves!’ He turned and beckoned to the young woman. ‘This ravishing beauty is Mary Godwin.’ The girl smiled and did a sort of half curtsey, half wave. ‘This cloud of tubercular vapours is Percy Shelley.’ The young man gave an awkward little bow. ‘And I’m George Byron. You may have heard of me, if you happen to subscribe to
Young, Brooding and Doomed
, the quarterly newsletter that details my exploits. We’re poets.’

None of the pirates subscribed to
Young, Brooding and Doomed
, because they tended to go for less erudite nautical publications like
Ports Illustrated
and
Teen Scene
, but they did their best to look impressed anyhow.

Byron flopped into a big armchair and lit a cigar. ‘So –
adventure
! Not a word to be trifled with. What kind of adventures do you offer?’

‘What kind of adventures
don’t
we offer might be a simpler question,’ replied the Captain. ‘Though actually no, probably asking what kind we offer makes more sense. So far we’ve had an adventure with a Man-panzee, one with a great white whale, another one with some communists, and one with Napoleon Bonaparte himself. Wall-to-wall action, every one. Sometimes there’s even a vague sort of theme. Anyhow, I can provide references if you want.’ He got the pirate with a scarf to waggle a pile of references. ‘You’ll notice that they’re all written in different colour pens, so they’re definitely genuine. And now, if you’ll permit, my crew will perform a medley of pirate things to convince you to hire us.’

As they’d prepared earlier, the crew shuffled forward and started to do a mostly uncoordinated display of stuff that they thought people would associate with pirates. Jennifer did her impression of a sultry Spanish Princess and heaved her bosom whilst pretending to be overcome by the drama of the cutlass fight being staged by the pirate with gout and the pirate with a hook for a hand. The albino pirate said ‘avast’ in a way that suggested he didn’t actually know what it meant. The pirate in green gave a short presentation about the importance of tar. And most of the rest of the crew just walked around in circles because they couldn’t think of anything more appropriate.

When they had finished, Byron looked confused, Shelley looked dubious and Mary of course was a woman, so her feelings were impossible to guess.

‘As you can see – all the romance and thrills of the High Seas, in one colourful package,’ the Captain said, handing out a brochure he’d got some of the more visually creative pirates to knock up that morning. ‘You’ll find the details in there. You get to stay on an honest-to-goodness pirate boat. There’s a guaranteed minimum of two feasts per day. All toiletries and towels will be provided. And there’ll be more swashbuckling than you can shake a parrot at. Best of all, it’s a special one-time-only bargain price of only a hundred doubloons per adventure.’

‘A hundred doubloons,’ said Mary, flicking through the brochure. ‘That does seem very reasonable.’

‘Plus sundries,’ said the Captain.

Three

The Spectral Brine

‘I can’t believe we’re having an actual feast with actual pirates!’ exclaimed Byron, happily thumping the boat’s dining table. ‘See here – this placemat is in the shape of a treasure map! Brilliant!’

The pirates had spent the afternoon giving their guests a tour of the boat, taking care to point out the important nautical bits, like the sails. The Captain, worried they might be disappointed with how small the place was, ended up walking Byron and his friends around it three times, but in a variety of directions, giving the masts and cannons different names on each circuit. After that he’d got the lads to sing a few of the more risqué shanties, and now they were in the midst of a pirate feast. In honour of their guests being poets, the pirates had laid on a menu of dishes made out of food that rhymed, because they wanted to look classy.

‘Of course – being a pirate is not
quite
as glamorous as people make out,’ said the Captain, thinking he could afford to dial it back it a little, having just finished an unlikely story about blowing up the kraken by a kicking a barrel of dynamite at its head. ‘There’s a surprising amount of paperwork these days. And it turns out there’s a lot of boring technical what-have-you that makes the boat go along. You can’t just strap a porpoise to the wheel and swan off to have cocktails. Learnt that the hard way.’

‘Pfft!’ roared Byron, taking a big bite out of his lamb and clam ciabatta. ‘I won’t hear it! What a life. Not knowing what the next day might bring! Adventuring! Derring-do! Boys wearing outsized jewellery! It’s exactly the kind of thing we’ve been looking for.’

‘But you say you’re writers? That must be interesting too,’ said the Pirate Captain, turning to Mary and waggling his eyebrows at her in as debonair a way as he could. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m something of a gentleman of letters myself.’

‘Really?’ said Mary, incredulous. ‘You write? What sort of things do you write about?’

‘Oh, you know,’ said the Captain, waving his fork in a vague circle and looking to whichever side it is that you look to when you’re not being entirely honest. ‘Emotions. Waves breaking on a rocky shore. The usual artistic bits and bobs.’

‘We’re not just “writers”,’ interjected Shelley, picking unenthusiastically at his spam and yam salad. ‘You can’t reduce a man to the label of his profession.’

‘Look!’ said Byron, ‘now I’m drinking pirate grog out of a mug made from a skull! It’s as atmospheric as it is impractical!’

‘So how
would
you describe yourselves?’ asked the pirate with a scarf.

‘We . . .’ said Shelley, flicking his hair with a flourish, ‘. . . are
romantics
.’

‘Ah,’ said the Captain, after a long pause, and with what he hoped would pass as a ‘wise’ nod. ‘Is that like a gang?’

Shelley visibly bristled. ‘No, Pirate Captain. It is not “like a gang”.’

‘Are you sure? You do
seem
a lot like a gang. You’ve obviously got a brave and headstrong leader,’ he waved at Byron, who was too busy laughing at a spoon with a mermaid drawn on it to notice, ‘a plucky girl,’ he indicated Mary, who just arched an eyebrow and went on thoughtfully licking her ham and jam popsicle, ‘and a slightly ratty one,’ he pointed back at Shelley, who frowned. ‘So you’re pretty much there. Though you should probably get a loyal dog with a sensitive nose as well. Always find it’s best for gangs to have a loyal dog with a sensitive nose. And matching jackets! The jackets could have some romantic emblem on the back. An albatross? They mate for life, you see, so it’s one of the most romantic creatures. Though it might look too much like a seagull unless you write the word albatross underneath it. Only then people could think your gang was called “the Albatrosses” rather than “the Romantics”. Doesn’t have to be an albatross. I’m just brainstorming here.’

‘It’s not a gang,’ Shelley persisted, sounding petulant. ‘In fact, we don’t approve of
any
sort of organisations. We believe in the individual! It’s a whole new way of looking at life.’

‘Oh, right, got you,’ lied the Captain.

Shelley leaned forward, and his eyes blazed a bit. ‘We have a dream, Captain. Imagine, if you will, a world run not by politicians . . . but by artists.’