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They faced each other on the narrow gallery in the moonlight, the ship’s bright wake creaming beneath them. “When you fall,” said Avery sternly, “I may be hard put to it to explain why we met thus irregularly, but it sorts not with mine honour to let you live who have sullied a fair lady’s good name with –”
“Save it, son,” said Blood coolly. “Any explaining will be in good hands – mine. You can kiss it goodbye.” He was grinning and snaking his blade in and out á la Rathbone, and Avery drew himself up, very academic as you might expect, and slid a foot forward into the attack, his eyes like chips of solid helium.
Well, you’ve seen it before – glittering blades rasping, feet slithering, close-ups of Blood’s grinning teeth and rumpled curls, and Avery’s icy composure as he breathes brilliantly through his nostrils. Gosh, he was good – so was Blood, of course, but bouncing about with cits’ plump wives and drinking mulled canary at 4 a.m. had sapped his vigour and slowed him down just that little bit. Avery, by contrast, was trained to a hair and pure of heart, so it was inevitable that after one of those engagements in which the blades whirl too quickly for the eye to follow, Blood should spring back with a curse, a livid cut across his left forearm, and gore dripping on the planks.
“Lucky bastard!” was all he said, and sprang again to the attack, but with his fertile brain ticking over at speed. This boy was hell on wheels, all right, he was thinking, but he was Olympic gold medal material, no more – wide open to such unorthodox stunts as a good kick in the crotch, for example. Yet how should that profit Blood now? Even if he killed Avery, he had taken a wound and there was blood on the deck – even dimwits like Rooke and Yardley would be bound to connect these facts with the young Captain’s disappearance. So … the crown in Avery’s cabin must wait for another day. In the meantime, how to emerge from the present hoo-ha with his life – and, if possible, lull Avery’s enmity for the nonce, perhaps even win something of his regard? A tall order, but meat and drink to our Irish mountebank.
So he bore in with all the considerable science at his command, recklessly expending his energy while Avery broke ground with close-playing wrist (whatever that is) and perfect control, husbanding his strength, as prudent heroes always do, until his opponent’s fury should have spent itself, which it inevitably does. Blood, lashing away like a carpet-beater gone berserk, bore him back by main force until they were in that well-known close shot, chest to chest, both heaving away like crazy, the baddy fleering and sneering sweatily, the goody keen-eyed and straining manfully, at which psychological moment Blood asked casually:
“Tell me captain – when I’ve fed ye to the fish, what becomes o’ that precious bauble in your cabin?”
Since he was almost on his knees with exhaustion, the words came out in a sort of ruined wheeze, but they earned full marks for effect. For a split second Avery’s icy composure faltered; to be honest, he gave a passable imitation of a gaffed salmon, and in a trice the crafty Irishman had stamped on his toe, disarmed him by seizure, and whipped his point against Avery’s Adam’s apple. And there they stood, Avery aghast and biting his lip with vexation, Blood panting asthmatically and trying to hold his sword steady. At last, having regained his wind, he lowered his point and stepped back, looking for somewhere to lean on.
“Ye know,” he remarked, “you’re a mighty pretty swordsman, but ye’re not fit to be let out alone, so you’re not. An old dodge like that – letting your opponent talk ye into a tangle. Faith, it’s as well I’m not the rogue ye think me, or it’s dead meat ye’d be by this. And where would your bonny jewelled crown be going then, eh? Not to Madagascar, sonny.”
Avery, hero though he was, looked (and probably felt) as though he’d been jumped on by the Wigan front row. “The Madagascar crown?” he gasped. “What know ye on’t?”
“Everything,” fibbed Blood smoothly. “What d’ye think I’m here for?”
“You mean – y’are an agent of Master Pepyseses?” stammered the Captain, his eyes like bewildered gimlets. “But … but he told me none knew of the mission save he and I, his majesty, and my Lord Rooke!”
“That’s the civil service mentality for you,” sighed Blood sympathetically. “Never tell you a damned thing.” He improvised boldly. “I’ve been privy from the first. They thought the job was too important for just one man.”
Just one man! The words were a karate chop across the windpipe of Avery’s self-esteem. “I could have done it standing on my head!” he snapped.
“So we’ve noticed,” said Blood drily, but the Captain wasn’t listening. His nostrils flared delicately with mistrust.
“And you’d have me believe they sent you to guard me?” he cried. “Nay, ’tis thing impossible! Y’are a notorious foul villain of rank repute and noisome infamy, steeped i’ knavery and treason, a seasoned rascally cutpurse profligate who tried to nick the Crown Jewels, a foresworn skunk, crud, creep, and renegade –”
“All right, all right!” Blood interrupted warmly. “Can you think of a better cover?” he asked knowingly.
“You mean,” whispered Avery incredulously, “that you’re not really a notorious foul villain of ill repute –”
“Rank repute.”
“– rank repute and noisome infamy, steeped i’ –”
“If I was, you wouldn’t be standing here running off at the mouth, remember?” snapped Blood. “Some of us,” he went on virtuously, “don’t mind being given a bad name if it enables us to serve his majesty the better. We don’t insist on going poncing about like Sir Walter Raleigh. We are content to wear,” he added bitterly, “dishonour’s mask in honour’s cause.” Here, that’s not bad, he thought; a nifty to remember.
“But if you’re not a seasoned rascally cutpurse profligate,” demanded Avery, “what were you climbing all over that poor defenceless black female for?”
“Your benefit,” said Blood, and got all austere. “I have observed you, sir, and methinks you spend overmuch time in dalliance wi’ my Lady Vanity, to the neglect of your duty. Nay, belt up till I ha’ done. Marking this, I provoked you – the black trull means no more to me than a squashed grape; such carnal employs engage not my senses, I thank God – to test me your metal, to recall you to your duty, and to inform you –” and here he laid a hand on Avery’s astonished shoulder, “– that in whate’er perils may lie ahead, y’are not alone.” Rugged nobility was just oozing out of him.
“Stone me!” was not an expression that Captain Avery ever used, but it was a near thing. For what Blood had told him was flawlessly logical when weighed in an ice-cool brain – he must be a Pepys muscleman, or he’d have used his momentary advantage – a cad’s trick, incidentally, stamping on a chap’s toes – to kill Avery and trouser the crown. And it was just like those old sneaks at the Admiralty to stick a second man on the job, without telling a fellow. Blinking cheek, thought Avery, and quite unnecessary – and then a flush of shame mantled his fair young brow as he remembered how he’d been canoodling with Lady Vanity and never thinking twice about his precious charge. He let out an anguished woof.
“And I was found wanting!” His face was pale as a mortified parrot’s. “You are right, sir – a fine guardian, I, spooning and duelling to indulge my base appetites!” He ground his flawless molars in remorse, while Blood patted his arm reassuringly.
“We all make mistakes, lad,” he crooned. “Bedad, on me own first mission, charged wi’ letters o’ rare import to the Grand Sophy – ye won’t believe this – didn’t I get so engrossed in ‘Paradise Lost’ that I missed the last caravan to Aleppo … or was it to Damascus … no, t’was there I slew the four Spanish agents, was’t not? No matter. Anyway, I nearly blew the whole deal.” He made a deprecating gesture, and blood from his wounded arm splashed on Avery’s snowy shirt. The Captain yipped with contrition.
“And I wounded you!”
“Pish!” said Blood. “A flea-bite.” For which you’ll pay, my smart-assed friend, he thought grimly, while yet smiling so winningly that Avery gulped with emotion. How could he ever have mistrusted this honest, sturdy gentleman?
“Colonel Blood,” said he, frank and manly, “I ha’ done you great wrong. You’re all right. One of the lads. My eyes are opened.” He proved this by giving Blood his steady First XI glance, and clasping his hand. “What more’s to be said, save that I –” he shrugged modestly, “– yes, even I, shall sleep sounder o’ nights knowing that in you I have a loyal and steadfast … ah … assistant.”
You do that, son, thought Blood, and arm in arm they repaired to the slumbering passenger quarters ’neath the poop, where all was still save for the sweet murmurous breathing from Admiral Rooke’s berth, and the thunderous snorting from Lady Vanity’s. (Eh?) There they bade each other a comradely good-night, and sought their respective cabins, Avery thinking, what a worthy fellow, and Blood thinking, what an amazing birk.
Hand it to Blood, he’s slicker than wet paint. What next impudent villainy does he intend? And Avery, that honest lad – are his dreams refreshed by pure, blissful visions of Lady Vanity, or do strange phantasms of our Ebony Hebe disturb his repose? Does Vanity really snore? Who’s minding the ship? Let’s lay aloft, says you, and we’ll ascertain.
*Not safe at Vauxhall, Not safe in sedan chairs, Not safe anywhere.
CHAPTER
THE FIFTH
Silence … as the Twelve Apostles glides on over the dark green sea bounded by distant banks of thin sea-mist. The moon is down, the sky a dark arch overhead, eastward there is still no shimmer of dawn. Upstairs the ship is deserted, save for the yawning lubber propped against the wheel, and the look-out in the crow’s-nest who has finished Moll Flanders and is frowning over the crossword in the South Sea Waggoner. One across, “What ships usually sail on”, three letters. Rum? Bog? He peeps down to see what the Twelve Apostles is floating on at the moment. Water? Too many letters. He sighs; another bloody anagram, probably … what kind of nut thinks these things up?
Below, the crew packed tight in their focsle hammocks have really got their heads down; even the rats and weevils are flat out. Aft, in the First Class, everyone is lapping it up except Captain Yardley, who pores over a chart in his great cabin, scratching grizzled pate and muttering “Belike an’ bedamned” as he plots his u-turn round the bottom of Africa. Vanity, beautifully made up even in slumber, sighs gently as the distant tinkle of eight bells is faintly heard. Of course she doesn’t snore! It was Rooke all the time, sprawled in his cot across the passage, his stentorian rumblings bulging the ship’s timbers and causing his dentures to rattle in their glass. Avery, in his cabin, is kipping away like an advertisement for Dunlopillo, eyes gently closed, hair neatly arranged, mouth perfectly shut and breathing through his nose. A smile plays about his mobile lips: he is dreaming of Vanity darning his socks in a rose-bowered summer-house, you’ll be glad to know. Over the way Blood grunts and mutters in his sleep, one hand on the hilt of a dagger ’neath ’s pillow – if you’ve a conscience like his you keep your hardware handy. And deep in the foetid orlop Sheba writhes restlessly on her straw, her fetters clanking dismally.
Everybody bedded down, right? All serene? You know better.
As the last bell sounded, ending the middle watch, a stalwart figure in neatly-pressed white calico took over the wheel, and a massive untidy heap crouched by the side-rail clawing his red hair out of his eyes the better to scan the distant sea. Seeing nothing, he started striking matches, instinctively setting his beard on fire and having to put his head in a bucket of water to douse the blaze. But the brief conflagration had served its purpose; far off in the sea-mist a pale light blinked, and as he coughed and spluttered and threw away clumps of burned hair, Firebeard was able to cackle triumphantly:
“’Ere they be, Calico! Good dogs! Brave boys! They’m dead on time, wi’ a curse, say I, an’ that! Unless,” he added doubtfully, “it’s some bloody fool as we don’t know on, playin’ about wi’ lights unauthorised an’ wanton! Eh?” Rage suffused his unwashed features. “I’ll tear him, I’ll kill him, I’ll cast anchor in him!” he was starting to rave, until a curt word from Rackham sent him lumbering below, where he blundered about among the hammocks whispering: “We have lift-off! Rise an’ shine! Rogues on deck, honest men stay where ye are! Get your cold feet on the warm floor! Up and at ’em!”
In a trice his accomplices among the crew had piled out, pulling on their socks, hunting for their combs and toothbrushes, adjusting their eye-patches, and scampering silently up the companion, while the honest sailors turned over drowsily muttering: “Shut that bloody door! Is that you up again, Agnes?” and the like, before resuming their unsuspecting slumbers. Up on deck the little knot of rascals received Rackham’s urgent whispered orders, and scuttled away to seize the arms chest and guard the hatchways, the tardier spirits among them goofing off and tying knots in the rigging to make it look as though they were working. Firebeard blundered up last, to report “All villains roused an’ ready, by the powers, d’ye see, Calico camarado, aarrgh like!” and Rackham despatched him to the mast-head to deal with the look-out. Firebeard panted busily upwards, taking several wrong turnings along yardarms and getting his leg stuck through futtock-shrouds, lubbers’-holes, and possibly even clew-lines, before he arrived at the crow’s-nest to hear from within fevered mutters of “Pot? Tea? Gin? It’s another flaming misprint, that’s what is is!” Firebeard sandbagged the look-out smartly, snarling “Take that, ye bleedin’ intellectual!” and hastened down again to join Calico Jack who, grimly smiling, was at the rail watching Black Bilbo keep their rendezvous.
Out of the mist they came just as the first glimmer of sun topped the eastern horizon – three fell shapes o’ doom and dread, surging in on the hapless merchantman. First, the rakish corsair galley of Akbar the Damned, its great steel beak aglitter, the green banner of Islam aloft, its oars thrashing the water as the drivers flogged the naked slave-rowers and rounded up those who had nipped aft for a quiet smoke. Its deck crammed with swarthy, bearded rovers of Algiers and Tripoli, flashing their teeth, brandishing their scimitars and getting their spiked helmets caught in the rigging, the galley was a fearsome sight to Christian eyes, and hardly less disturbing to Buddhists or even atheists. And naught more fearsome than the dark, hawk-faced, hairy-chested figure of Akbar himself, lounging on his stern-castle in gold lamé pyjama trousers, his forked beard a-quiver as he munched rahat lakoum proffered by nubile dancing-girls, his fierce eyes glinting wildly as he practised cutting their gauzy veils in two with his razor-edged Damascus blade.
Secondly came that gaily-decked galleon of evil repute, the Grenouille Frénétique, or Frantic Frog, flagship of Happy Dan Pew, French filibuster, gallant, bon vivant and gourmet, who was given to dancing rigadoons and other foreign capers as his vessel sailed into action. Clouds of aftershave wafted about his ship, whose velvet sails were fringed with silk tassels in frightful taste, its crew of Continental sea-scum lining the rails crying “Remember Dien Bien Phu!” and “Vive le weekend!” as their graceful craft seemed to can-can over the billows with élan and espièglerie.
[In fact, Happy Dan Pew wasn’t French at all. His real name was Trevor O’Grady from St Helens, but he had been hit on the head by a board-duster while reading a pirate story during a French lesson, and his mind had become unhinged. From that moment he suffered from the delusion that he was a Breton buccaneer, but since he spoke no French beyond Collins’ Primer, his crew had a confusing time of it.]
Third and last came Black Bilbo’s ghastly sable barque, the Laughing Sandbag – he was last on account o’ he bein’ barnacled, d’ye see? Or, in the rather coarse expression of the time, his bottom was foul. Consequently Bilbo was in a rare passion, stalking the poop, inhaling snuff and pistolling mutineers with murderous abandon. He couldn’t bear being second to Happy Dan, who had pipped him for Best-dressed Cut-throat o’ the Year.
As his fellow-rascals brought their ships in against the ill-fated Twelve Apostles, Calico Jack snapped to his small band of villains, “Down and take ’em, bullies!” and with glad cries of “Geronimo!” “Carnival!” and “After you!” they raced below to overpower anyone who happened to be around – crewmen who were still in the focsle ringing for their coffee, or had gone to the bathroom, or were doing their early morning press-ups. Having disposed of these, the pirates stormed howling to the stern of the ship, recklessly disregarding the “First Class Passengers Only” notices, and bursting into the cabins without knocking. Thus:
Captain Yardley stared at his chart, in which a thrown knife was quivering beside his pencil point; ere he could so much as cry out a despairing “Belike!” pirates were jumping all over him, binding and gagging him, untying his shoe-laces, giving him a hot-foot, and playing with his set-square and compasses. His discomfiture was complete.
Admiral Rooke awoke to find an apple being stuck in his open mouth, and Firebeard’s shaggy countenance leering down at him yelling: “Breakfast in bed, milord, har-har? Nay, then ’ee’ll make a rare boar’s head, wi’ a curse! Haul him aloft, give him the message, do him the dirty, wi’ a wannion, by the powers, har-har!” And as the unfortunate Admiral was secured, gasping and choking, Firebeard began to break up the furniture.
What of our two bright boys? Blood, seasoned in alarms, was rolling out of bed, sword in hand, even as the first pirates came ramping in yelling: “Surprise, surprise!” He blinded one with hair-powder, kicked a second in the stomach, crossed swords with a third, and then, having weighed up the odds, dropped his weapon and raised his hands, automatically reciting: “I’ll-come-quietly-officer-but-devil-a-cheep-ye’ll-get-out-o’-me-till-I’ve-talked-to-a-lawyer.” Thus tamely did the rascal chuck up the sponge.
Not so across the passage, where a flashing-eyed Avery was holding crowds of desperadoes at bay with his whirling blade, jumping on tables, swinging from chandeliers, throwing chairs at their shins, knocking over candlesticks, and swathing his attackers in torn-down curtains. It couldn’t last, of course; it never does. They bore him down, cursing foully (them, not him, he never cursed), and he struggled vainly in their brutal grasp, his hair becomingly rumpled, his shirt slightly torn, and the teeniest trickle of blood on his determined chin. But his eyes gleamed undaunted; by Jove, they’d better watch him.
Down i’ the foetid orlop an exultant Sheba was being unchained by the little Welsh pirate, who had also brought her a fresh wardrobe so that she can be properly attired for the big confrontation scene on deck, which comes in a minute. She hurled aside her loathed fetters, gnashing with delight, and the little Welshman modestly looked away as she donned her scarlet silk breeches and shirt, buckled her diamanté rapier at her hip, drew on her long Gucci boots, exclaimed at the state of her coiffure, clapped on her plumed picture hat, dabbed a touch of Arpège behind her ear, and then spent ten minutes selecting one long earring and applying her lipstick. Finally, with a curt “Tidy up!” to the little Taffy, she strode lithely up the companion, pausing briefly at the full-length mirror in the gun-crews’ recreation room, to adjust her hat fractionally and turn her voluptuous shape this way and that, wondering if she had lost weight during her captivity. A pound? Pound and a half? Mmh, maybe not … still …
She was brooding about this when she stepped into the cabin passage, to meet a bawling Firebeard, who had bagged Rooke’s coat and wig, thrown on any old how, and was kicking in doors just for laughs. He swung her up in his hairy arms, yelling:
“She’s all ours! Ho-Ho! We’m masters o’ the ship, look’ee, and Bilbo an’ t’ others be layin’ alongside, shiver me timbers! Har-har! Tear ’em up, bully boys! Sick ’em, pups!”
“Put me down, you walking tank of pigswill,” hissed Sheba, “and if you’ve got spots on my new outfit I’ll carbonado you! And get that drunken rabble on deck!” She pointed imperiously at Firebeard’s mob who were looting and rampaging and writing graffiti on the walls and knocking the tops off bottles. They cowered before her flashing eyes, knuckling their foreheads and belching guiltily, and Sheba scorched them with a look before pirouetting neatly to the last unopened cabin door. She flung it wide, and –
Lady Vanity sat bolt upright in bed in a froth of lace, gold ringlets, and confusion, blue eyes wide, ruby lips parted, eye-lashes fluttering like net curtains in a high wind. She was distraught, astonished, and envious all in one at the brilliant spectacle of Sheba swaggering in, a hateful smile on her proud lips, one fist poised on a shapely hip as she gloatingly pondered the petrified English rose. What an absolutely stunning colour combination, thought Vanity – lipstick not quite the right shade, though, but what else could one expect? … and then she saw the monstrous Firebeard rolling and goggling in the doorway, and squealed with indignation.
“How dare you come in here without permission? Leave at once, you inferior persons! Underlings! Peasants! Savages!”
“Savage! That’s me!” howled Firebeard gleefully, drumming his chest with his fists. “I’ll show ye savage, me little honey-flower! Har-har!” And he rushed lustfully towards Vanity, great mottled hands outstretched, but Sheba, whose hips were not just for decoration, body-checked him elegantly as he galloped past, and he went flying in a tangle of shattered furniture and lay there roaring. Sheba stalked past him to a table where fruit and sweetmeats o’ Peru were temptingly piled, and crammed handfuls into her mouth, for prison rations had left her with that between-meals feeling, and she wanted to restore that pound-and-a-half without delay. Vanity shrieked with outrage.
“Put that down this instant! Oh! How dare you, you insolent black wench! Those are my personal goodies! Put them –”
And she scrambled out of bed indignantly, only to be met by a well-aimed squashy fruit, and staggered back, tripping and falling into the embrace of Firebeard, who crowed with unholy joy, pinning her arms and pawing and nuzzling lasciviously. “Wriggle away, me plump little dove!” he chortled. “Split me, but ye’ll coo soft enough presently!” And it might easily have been X-certificate stuff then and there (always assuming that Firebeard, not overbright at best and in a confused state after his fall, had been able to remember what to do next), had not Black Sheba, gulping a final avocado and wiping the juice on Vanity’s costly coverlet, kicked him sharply in the groin.
“Drop it, thou whoreson randy old badger! She’s not for thee – yet. Take her on deck!” And she turned her attention to Vanity’s dressing-table knick-knacks while Firebeard, muttering “Coo-o-o!” and holding himself painfully, hauled his struggling captive to her feet as she beat dainty fists on his matted chest.
“Let me go! Ah, unhand me thy vile clutches, reeking knave! Oh, the indignity! That this should happen to me, Deb of the Year and daughter of an Admiral! Eek! My jewels – put them down, thief!”
This last was addressed to Sheba, who was proddling with her rapier in Vanity’s jewel-box, sneering at the merchandise but privately thinking that these Society bitches did all right on Daddy’s allowance. With one vicious sweep of her blade she sent box and all in a glittering cascade across the room, and stalking menacingly over to Vanity, thrust her dusky face to within an inch of that pale peach-blossom complexion.
“Your jewels, sister? Pah!” Sheba’s voice was like oiled gravel. “You have no jewels, tender little lady – no perfumes o’ price, no fine garments, no dainty kickshaws and furbelows – none!” Her sword swept Vanity’s scent-flasks away in splinters, and slashed great rents in those hanging dresses which Sheba had decided were too short in the sleeve anyway. “And soon,” the sepia nemesis chuckled evilly, “shalt have no body, neither … and no soul! I see you use Helena Rubinstein’s pasteurised special,” she added, “but I’ll find a home for that, since you won’t be needing it. Take her away!”