Chapter the Eighth, or The Great Wen.
by Hunt N. Peck
"You did not save the ship, it is true, Jemmy,” said Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges. “The sailing-master had already seen the white of the waves upon the rocks – a ship does not depend upon the sight of one pair of eyes alone – but your warning was timely and seamanlike. It has restored your good name among the crew, too. Why do you wish to pay off and go ashore? I am curious.”
The Captain sat at his desk in the Great Cabin of the pirate frigate Ark de Triomphe, with a tankard of London-brewed ale in his hand.
Jemmy Ducks spoke, after a little thought.
“I am glad to have regained the trust of my messmates, indeed, I am, but I am not, by my own nature, suited to the life of a pirate, Captain. I have been in some brisk engagements, and I believe I have not shown a want of courage?” Jemmy Ducks looked hopefully at the Captain, who nodded his agreement. “And yet I get but little pleasure from being in an action. Not like the others, to whom fighting is like nuts and cake. I am proud to have been a buccaneer, and consider myself fortunate to have served under your command, Captain, but, in all truth, I find I cannot make it my life, so I intend to use my portion of the plunder to seek another path more suited to my nature.”
The Captain turned his attention to Jack Nastyface, who was standing next to his friend, staring at him with an expression of amazement upon his long face.
“And you, Jack?” said the Captain. “What is your wish?”
“That poor fellow Jack Nastyface actually squirmed,” said Captain Greybagges to Blue Peter, while pouring ale for them both. “I have never seen anybody squirm before, I think. Not properly. His whole bony frame was twitching. I could see his toes wriggling in his shoes.”
Blue Peter grinned and drank some ale.
“All very well for you to snigger, Peter, but I could not laugh. After a while he squeaked ‘I wish to remain, Cap’n! I wish to be a buccaneer!’ while tears came to his eyes.”
“And you accepted?” said Blue Peter, one eyebrow raised.
“Indeed I did. I had planned to let them both pay off, and maybe keep Jemmy Ducks if he insisted, but Jack had chosen the ship and the pirate’s life over his best and only friend, and in a moment, too, so I felt that I must allow him the confidence of his own decision. Oddly enough, Jemmy was not much surprised, and shook Jack’s hand and wished him well. They are off ashore now, getting themselves drunk.”
“And swearing eternal friendship, too, I do not doubt. It is sad, you are right, but I am impressed by Jemmy’s decision, and by Jack’s, too. I had not thought them so mature in their considerations. How many have you paid off now?”
Captain Greybagges took a swig of ale and consulted the papers on his desk.
“One hundred and sixty-two. Most of them willingly. Old Joshua from the larboard watch did not want to go, but I persuaded him that a turn ashore living in comfort would set him up ready to sail again in the future. I don’t think he ever will, mind you. I arranged for him to buy a cottage near his sister in Gravesend, and made him see a surgeon about his bursten belly. He wishes to put his nephews through school, and that too is arranged. Eton would not have them, of course, the stuck-up sods, but Christ’s Hospital school at Greyfriars were not so particular. Our Bank of International Export loaned them the money for their chapel roof so I had them recommend the two little thugs to them as souls worth saving. They will have to wear those blue coats and yellow stockings, which will make them more humble, and perhaps the beaks there will thrash some learning into their dirty little heads. One of those brats tried to lift my purse, you know, when I took Old Joshua down to Gravesend.”
“That one will grow up to be a minister of the Crown, surely,” laughed Blue Peter, “or an archbishop. Speaking of ministers of the Crown, did you see your school-friend Billy Pitt?”
“We had a decent dinner yesterday in Dirty Dick’s tavern at Bishop’s Gate. He is a shrewd fellow. He has taken on some of the business that other ministers disdain, the kind of work that does not allow for entirely clean hands.”
“Intelligencing, you mean?”
“Exactly. He has a relish for it, the bloodthirsty little devil. I was able to assist him by offering our Bank of International Export as a conduit for funds to pay his agents, since we have branches in foreign parts, and he was able to assist me by helping to keep our affairs discreet.”
“How so?” said Blue Peter, refilling their tankards. “This is good ale.”
“Indeed. Some say the finest ale is from the countryside, but a London brew is hard to beat in my opinion, provided it has not been watered, of course. We are currently still masquerading as the Groot Ombeschaamheid, but that vast and well-informed enterprise the Dutch East India Company has surely heard reports by now that they have a ship that they do not have, so to speak. Billy Pitt will be able to confuse the matter a little by feeding them false information. Otherwise, we are well concealed, yet in plain sight. Listen …”
The noises of the waterfront murmurred through the open stern windows. The Pacific Wharf at Rotherhithe was only recently constructed, a fine new quay of timber pilings and planks with a wide apron of rammed gravel behind it, so making a solid wall to shoulder against the weight of the slapping River Thames. It hummed with activity. Stevedores rolled barrels and staggered under the weight of sacks and crates, Waggons and carts came and went, their wheels crunching on the gravel, their drivers cracking whips and roaring imprecations at each other. Persons of importance, by their own estimations or otherwise, clad in broadcloth, fustian, nankeen or silk, topped by powdered wigs and hats limited only by their purses and the fevered imaginations of milliners, came and went in sedan chairs, shays, fiacres, flys, dogcarts, coaches, diligences, carrioles, sulkies and even a solitary four-in-hand, their coachmen returning the costers’ curses with enthusiasm and wit, real or imagined. A light breeze carried the scents of spices, tar and sawn timber, the rot-stink of a slaughterhouse, the acrid stench of a tannery, the wet earthy smell of the river. The Ark de Triomphe moved gently with the breeze and the slapping of the river-waters, and the oakum dodgers that protected it from the rough-planked quay squeaked and the hempen mooring cables, as thick as a thigh, creaked and groaned sullenly. From the taverns, wine-shops and bawdy-houses that backed the wide quay came occasional shrieks, shouts and gusts of drunken laughter.
“This wharf is new, yet bustling,” Captain Greybagges sipped his ale. “This means that our barky will be less noticed and less remarked upon, especially as the wharfage fees are promptly paid and small gratuities distributed to certain persons of influence. The bustle of the wharf covers the Ark de Triomphe in distractions. The distance from the City and the recent construction of the wharf reduces the number of watching eyes with established links to interested parties – London’s flourishing and resourceful criminal underworld, London’s quick-witted and venal merchants, London’s many spies and government informers, as if one could tell the difference between those classes, or indeed if one was innocent enough to attempt to make such a distinction – The small bribes ensure that at least some of the watching eyes are on our own payroll, at least in theory …” Captain Greybagges sighed.
“And the watchers that you had me station up and down the quay in shabby clothes, pretending to be idlers and along-shore men, will tip us off to any untoward interest in us,” completed Blue Peter.
“Yes, indeed. Yet we may not remain here too long, Peter, or else some clever soul will wonder why the Dutch East India Company, not known for its prodigality, pays steep daily wharfage fees when there is not much loading or unloading of cargo. We must be away from here in a day, or two at the latest. The crew who are no longer needed are paid off, very handsomely paid off, and happy. They are ashore, but not cast off like an old shoe, and so still feeling part of the pirate brotherhood and not likely to gossip. Some new crewmen, with skills that we shall need, are arriving daily. When the ship’s complement is aboard we shall slip away into the sea mists.”
“Where did you find these new recruits? They are mostly young, but already have some sea-going skills and discipline.”
Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges smiled smugly and drained his tankard.
“All apprentice-boys dream of being pirates, Peter. Being young and full of hot blood, do they not wish to romance Spanish senoritas, to fight with cutlasses and to fill their pockets with reales and doubloons and moidores? Of course they do! I had some broadsheets printed, copies of the actual ones but with a notice added in the ‘men wanted’ part asking for apprentice buccaneers. I had them left in the coffee-houses and pie-shops that apprentice-boys frequent. I harvested a fine crop of young fellows – clerks, mechanics, foundrymen, blacksmiths, whitesmiths, tinsmiths, carpenters, printers – and had them practice swordplay and musketry in secret on evenings and weekends. Those that boasted to their friends, despite strict warnings, I dropped. Those who could keep a silent tongue in their heads I moved on to more training in small sailing boats. Some of them I have used to man our Bank of International Export, here and abroad, some to do other work for me ashore, which you will see the fruits of in due course. Many of them are doing the same jobs that they have always done, but the knowledge that they are now secretly pirates, and a little extra money in their pockets, makes them happy and loyal whereas before they were bored and discontented and hated their masters.”
“I am impressed!” said Blue Peter. “Organising their selection and training cannot have been easy.”
“Indeed not, especially as I had to do much of it by correspondence. I was lucky in my first recruits, though, and they did a lot of the work once they were properly instructed. The biggest problem was finding places for them to practice the arts of war. There are few halls to rent, and apprentice-boys have a reputation for political trouble-making. In the end I bought some vacant buildings and established them as clubs for playing pall-mall. I thus had control of the meeting-places, and a sporting activity as a cloak for comings and goings at odd hours. Pall-mall has become so popular that the clubs even make a fine profit! Ain’t life strange?”
“Is it a game, then? I have not heard of it.”
“It is a game played with wooden balls that roll upon a levelled floor of packed earth, struck with long-handled mallets. The Italian for the game is pallamaglio, but it’s called pall-mall since Londoners talk as though they have a permanent head-cold.”
“I have heard the word, but I thought that it was a street of commerce.”
“Indeed it is, but the street had no name until a covered alley for pall-mall was built there. I don’t know why the cockaignies don’t say ‘pall-mall street’, though, which would make more sense.” The Captain shrugged and drank some ale, as though dismissing the foibles of Londoners.
“These apprentices, with their varied skills, are required for your plan for revenge upon the extramundane creature, I assume,” said Blue Peter carefully. He had refrained from asking the Captain further questions since their discussion during the banyan day at Porte de Recailles, but the choice of new crewmen with diverse skills had aroused his interest.
“Indeed yes,” replied Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges. “I need to make some alterations to the Ark de Triomphe in furtherance of my plan, and they are the fellows to do it, with Frank Benjamin as their overseer and tutor. Mostly the metal-workers and mechanics, of course, not the clerks and book-keepers, who shall stay ashore and run our banking business. I have retained about ninety of the original crew – I have specifically chosen those who are not afraid of new things, and who are, so to speak, not overly superstitious – and with about fifty new fellows we shall be able to get the work done over the coming winter, if all goes well. That gives us a crew smaller than before, but we shall not need so many fighting men and gun-crews as I intend to take no more prizes as we are well in funds, but we shall need excellent smiths. I have ordered and paid for the things that I shall need for the work well in advance, so they shall be ready in a timely fashion.”
“Where will these alterations be done?” asked Blue Peter.
“I have purchased a boatyard, a very suitable boatyard” said the Captain, with a wink that ended further questions.
There was a knock at the door of the Great Cabin.
“Who be it? Damn and blast yer eyes!” roared Captain Greybagges.
“It is … it be … only I, Frank Benjamin,” came a voice through the door.
“Come in then, Frank Benjamin, wi’ a curse!” roared the Captain.
Mr Benjamin entered, looking slightly unnerved. The Captain smiled and indicated a chair.
“Excuse me, Frank. There are certain formalities to being a captain of buccaneers, and I did not know it was yourself.”
Mr Benjamin looked relieved and seated himself. Blue Peter grinned at him, his filed teeth gleaming whitely. He took the jug, poured a tankard and gave it to Mr Benjamin.
“There is nothing finer than a good London brew, Frank, provided it has not been watered, which is to say diluted with a small portion of the river Thames.”
“Don’t be such an ass, Peter,” laughed the Captain. “Tell me Frank, have you been introducing yourself to the new lads?”
“Indeed I have,” said Mr Benjamin, sipping the ale, “and they are good fellows. Skilled at their trades. Adroit with their hands. Alert in their minds. Full of the fine intelligent curiosity of the mechanic, although I could not sate that yearning, except to tell them that all would be made clear in time.”
“And indeed it will be,” said the Captain, “as indeed will your fine intelligent curiosity also be satisfied, Frank.”
There was a another knock at the door, and Bulbous Bill and Israel Feet entered without waiting for a response. The First Mate’s head still had a bandage around it, but he looked cheerful and pain-free. They helped themselves to ale. Bulbous Bill scowled at the First Mate and went to take the tankard from him.
“Nay, Bill. Mr Feet may surely have a wet of ale if his headaches have diminished. No rum or other spiritous liquors for the present, mind,” said Mr Benjamin.
“Thank’ee kindly,” said the First Mate. “Please do call me Izzy, since you have joined the ship proper-like.” Mr Benjamin nodded in acknowledgement, replying that Izzy must surely call him Frank, as indeed must all of them.
They sipped ale in silence for a while, listening to the noises of the wharf.
“We must away soon. Tomorrow, or the next day at the very latest. Tell me the state of things,” said Captain Greybagges.
The Captain’s officers made their reports. New sailcloth and cordage had been delivered, said Bill, but new sheaving-blocks, paint and pitch were still awaited. He had been promised them for tomorrow morning for sure. Israel Feet recounted how he had settled in the new crew, allotted them their watches and messes, told the old hands to show them the ropes and warned them to be sober and careful. The old hands who had been allowed ashore to visit families, wives and girlfriends were all now returned, except for two, and they had sent messages. Blue Peter confirmed that powder and shot had been delivered and stowed safely, and that timber and strap-iron had been brought, too, so that the carpenter could make some small but necessary repairs to the gun-carriages. Mr Benjamin confirmed that the carpenter’s stock of fine copper wire had be replenished and that certain tools and equipment had been received, or else were expected on the morrow.
“Well, it seems that we shall depart the day after next,” said the Captain reflectively. “Upon the morning ebb, with luck, in the afternoon, against the tide, if there are any last-minute hitches. Things are nicely ship-shape, so it may be that I shall go ashore myself and grow my beard a little, and you gentlemen must join me, for your company is welcome, and we have seen but little of London’s society.”
The others murmurred appreciatively.
“Go and check everything once more. The watchers on the wharf must keep a sharp look-out. Tell Loomin’ Len and his boys to come to me for their orders.”
The officers left the cabin.
“Jake!” roared Captain Greybagges. “Come here, and bring the boot-polish!”
Blue Peter Ceteshwayoo lay in his bunk in his tiny cabin in the Ark de Triomphe, but sleep would not come easily, despite the food and drink that he had consumed during the afternoon and the gentle rocking of the ship. I do not like London that much, he thought. It may well be the greatest city of the entire Globe, but I am greatly disappointed with it. Perhaps after all I have read, and all the tales I have heard, my expectations were too high. In the Caribbean it is warm, and here it is cold and the the sun hardly shows its face. The nights of the Port de Recailles are made for talking, for music, for dancing, for drinking, for taking one’s ease with friends, but here the cold black nights are uncomfortable and threatening. Everybody must be home before dark because of the fear of footpads and the like, and yet the day ends very early. Even if they stay in their own parlours the penny-pinching sods begrudge the cost of a tallow candle. The very rich can carouse through the midnight hours, of course, but they have coaches to take them home, servants to guard them and many bright lights to illuminate their feastings and shindiggeries, the lamps burning that great new luxury, the oil of whales. The night belongs to the thieves, the burglars and the highwaymen as well as to the wealthy, mused Blue Peter, and I suppose I shouldn’t mind that, as I am a pirate and so first cousin to them. The growing of the Captain’s beard had started on a strange disquieting note, too, he recalled. Israel Feet had declined to come with them at the very last moment; it would be no great pleasure going out upon the fuddle if he could not drink rum, he had said, and someone should stay with the ship, for Loomin’ Len had not the wit to deal with the unexpected. If that great roisterer Izzy was seized by a mood of responsible sobriety, even allowing for his convalescent condition, then what was afoot? Indeed there is a serious and sombre mood aboard the barky, especially so given that a new draught of young crew is settling in, and we are after all a pirate ship and freebooters are rarely so sequacious. The surprising atmosphere of discipline that has prevailed since the greening of the Captain’s beard must be partly responsible, thought Blue Peter, but there is something else. Even though the Captain says nothing of his plans and there is little discussion of our destination, there is yet a feeling that we are upon a dangerous enterprise. A voyage into the unknown, one might say, and that will make intelligent men thoughtful, and most of the stupid ones have been paid off and gone ashore to enjoy their shares in the plunderings of the past year.
Mind you, said Blue Peter to himself, the fellow Frank Benjamin was in fine spirits. The coach-ride that took us into the City of London itself would have been a mumpish affair without Frank jesting about yokels losing their hearts to pretty ewes, and hallooing and waving his hat at the country-girls we passed along the road. Once the coach had left the little knot of taverns and warehouses fronting the Pacific Wharf at Rotherhithe they had been rolling through open countryside, rich with fields of crops despite the lateness of the year, the red-brick of the occasional farmhouses standing out against their greenness. That England is what I wished to see, perhaps, mused Blue Peter, the strong bones of Albion. Perhaps it is only London that I don’t like. What was it that the wit Sam Johnson called it? ‘The Great Wen’, that was it. London is not easy to love, despite the fine great dinner we had, and those French wines which were worthy of the well of Hippocrene itself. The Red Cow at Wapping was perhaps a poor choice of tavern, though, being so close to Execution Dock where pirates such as we are hanged, and the tarred corpses of a couple of them hanging from a gibbet almost outside the window of the upstairs room where we dined. Frank Benjamin is a good fellow, thought Blue Peter, as he felt himself falling asleep at last. He was very enthusiastic for the game of pall-mall, there were wooden balls flying everywhere like a cannonade, and none through the hoop. He is an empirical fellow, though, with a passion always to try things out to see what happens, and that is both a curse and a blessing; I must be careful if I ever let him near the guns, for he is sure to ask. Ha! That strutting fool of a bruiser on the door of the Red Cow called me a blackamoor, but Frank snarled at him that he is not as black as your black heart, you whoreson jackanapes, and the bruiser had quailed before the Frank’s fiery indignation. Blue Peter smiled, then he started to snore.
Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges awoke at first light with a hangover. He blinked a couple of times, then sat up and swung his legs onto the deck, the painted canvas deck-covering cold to the touch of his feet as he steadied the swinging of the hanging bunk. He rubbed his face and shouted for Mumblin’ Jake. Despite his crapulence there were things to do, and he must be about them. Mumblin’ Jake came, mumbling curses under his breath, with a cannikin of hot coffee which he thrust into the Captain’s hand then went out again, still mumbling. He returned with a bowl of hot water and shaved the Captain’s head while he drank the coffee, then, on the Captain’s instructions, applied brown boot-polish to his green beard where the previous application had rubbed off on the pillow, mumbling about the hard, the washerwoman’s, work to get boot-polish out of linen pillowcases, damn yer eyes, yer sod.
The Captain dressed himself carefully, not in his accustomed black, nor in the fine gold-frogged powder-blue uniform of a kapitein van schip in the Dutch East India Company, but in an unremarkable buff coat and breeches, grey hose and stout buckled shoes; he had no intention of drawing attention to himself.
While Mumblin’ Jake fetched him some breakfast he took out his writing-case and penned one last letter to add to the bundle that he had written the day before. It read:
My dear friend Muhammed,
I trust this missive finds you and your family in good health and prosperity, and that your fine crew of corsairs is in good spirits.
I recently had an excellent lunch with the pipsqueak Billy Pitt, who asked to be remembered to you, and spoke of you with great fondness. He had news of your old chum Stinky Bodfish. An uncle of the fellow’s passed away last year and, since he expired without issue, Humbertus de Pfeffel Bodfish is now the Earl of Jobberknowle and possessed of a very considerable fortune. Bodfish has wasted no time in putting his new-found wealth to work. He has purchased a colonelcy in the Royal Bumbleshire Light Horse (known as the ‘Never-Show-Fears’ because of the brown breeches of the regimental uniform) and has used his presence at Horse Guards Parade and the influence of his inheritance to have himself appointed an attache to Britain’s Consular Mission to the Kingdom of Naples. He will be taking up this posting in the spring of the New Year, and will in consequence be travelling from the port of Southampton to Napoli aboard the barquentine Alcibiades, his voyage commencing shortly after the midwinter festivities of Yuletide. As he will be passing through the Mediterranean Seas I am sure that you will be eager to take the opportunity to meet him again to renew old friendship and to congratulate him on his accession to an Earldom and his acquisition of such a large fortune. I am sorry that I shall not be able to be there for such a joyous reunion of old school-friends!
Please excuse the briefness of this communication, but I have much business to attend to at the present, and but little time for its accomplishment.
Your friend ,
Sylvestre de Greybagges
After the last scritch-scratch of his quill as he signed his name with a flourish Captain Greybagges sanded the letter, read it through again, smiled to himself and sealed it with the green sealing-wax that he had recently bought. He tucked the letters into an inside pocket of his coat, tucked a small double-barrelled pistol into a waistcoat pocket, clapped a short brown scrub-wig and a brown felt hat upon his bald head and called for Mumblin’ Jake to send for two bully-boys.
On the wharf Captain Greybagges found that there were no coaches willing to go to the City; those that were there had all been secured to wait for clients by non-payment of the outward fee and promises of a tip after the return. He was annoyed by this, but returned to the Ark de Triomphe and had the longboat launched, with four of the new intake of crew to assist the bully-boys in pulling the oars. As the longboat was pulled against the slackening tide up the river he was glad that he had done so. He never really felt comfortable in a coach – nasty rattling contraptions, unlike a ship or a boat – and the day was pleasant, although cold. After rounding the first bend Captain Greybagges shed his buff coat and took an oar for a while to warm himself, He found his hangover and sour mood lightening to a more equable state of mind, and he chaffed the new crewmen to put them at their ease, the two bully-boys pulling steadily and saying nothing. It took nearly an hour and a half to reach Blackfriars, where he leapt nimbly ashore. The bully-boys followed him, slipping oaken cudgels under their coats. He left the four new crewmen to watch the boat, tossing them a few coins for an ale and a pie each, warning them with a wink to keep a sharp lookout for wicked pirates.
Captain Greybagges sent some letters from a postal agent’s office, then went to the representatives of Tristero’s secret mail service, a ramshackle shop dealing in second-hand clothes and moth-eaten wigs. The place smelled sourly of old sweat from the piles of apparel, none of which seemed to have been washed, but he found the box marked W.A.S.T.E behind a pile of ragged undergarments and slipped a bundle of sealed and stamped letters into it. The keeper of the shop, a fat slatternly woman in a mob cap and shawl, had no letters for him. He tossed her a silver coin anyway, which she bit, then winked at him lewdly as she hid it in the folds of her gown. The bully-boys waited patiently for him out in the narrow street, but as he was about to walk away he saw a shop nearly opposite. The dusty window was full of bottles on wooden stands. His curiosity made him walk over and peer through the dusty glass. Each of the bottles had a small ship inside it. The Captain felt a pleasurable surprise; how did the little barky get into the bottle through so small a neck? He smiled, as though at a sudden thought, bade the bully-boys to wait, and entered the shop, a bell above the door jangling discordantly.
The shop was filled with bottles of all shapes each containing a tiny ship, and unbottled models of ships of all sizes and types, crammed onto shelves, in glass-fronted counters, hanging from hooks in the the ceiling. A teak model of a pleasure-yacht as large as a kayak, gaff-rigged with red cotton sails, sat on the floor in a cradle of varnished yellow deal. Next to it was a very small ship’s cannon with a bore of no more than an inch, perfect in every detail, even to tiny Chatham proof-marks stamped into the brass barrel next to the touch-hole.
“Can I assist you, good sir?” came a deep voice from the rear of the shop.
The Captain walked towards the voice, pausing to admire a beautiful Spanish galleon in a two-gallon rum-jug, its sails of silk stiffened with starch to appear filled with a stiff breeze, the pennons flying from its mastheads almost seeming to wave.
“Come, sir, let me see you!” said the voice.
As the Captain reached the back of the shop he saw a broad black-haired bearded face peering over a counter-top, and the gaping brass mouth of a blunderbuss post-carbine pointing unwaveringly at him. Bright blue eyes regarded him from under bushy black brows. He was about to ask the fellow why he was on his knees, but the bearded head moved along the top of the counter and around the end and he realised that the man was a hunchbacked dwarf, his chin barely higher than the Captain’s belt. He had the appearance of a keg on stumpy legs, his arms heavily muscled and covered with tattoos. The gun pointed unwaveringly at the Captain’s midriff.
“Come, sir! Can you not speak?” he rumbled.
“My apologies, sir. I am Captain … er … Oplichtenaar. I mean you no harm, I vow!” said the Captain, removing his hat and bowing politely.
“No, perhaps you do not,” said the dwarf, lowering the gun, carefully slipping the flint to half-cock before placing it behind the counter, “but one cannot be too careful. There are many wicked thievish characters a-circulating around these opprobrious lanes, rascally cullies – aye, and infandous mollies, too! – alike to pi-dogs around a shambles. Now, how may I be of assistance to you this day?”
“How do you get the ships into such tiny bottles? I confess myself amazed!”
The dwarf put back his head and roared with laughter. “Hah! Maybe you would not steal my purse, but you would surely steal my arts, if you could! As would many curious and grasping knaves! Why only last month the fool of a pie-maker next door drilled a hole through yonder wall hoping to espy me about my labours and to learn my secrets. I squirted vinegar and pepper in his stupid eye with a barber’s ear-syringe, then sued him for the cost of repairs to the wall. The lawyer took as his fee a brandy-bottle with a little desk inside, and upon it a wee ink-pot and quill, some papers tied about with pink ribbon and a wig on a stand. The pink ribbon was the very devil, but by chance I found some very wispy French silk knickers, cut thin strips of the fabric, treated them with a special solution and made them flat with a pressing-iron the size of a thimble. ”
The Captain joined him in his merriment, until he had to wipe tears from his eyes.
“My heart and liver, sir, but you are a droll fellow! I confess myself very pleased to make your acquaintance!” Captain Greybagges shook his head. “Your ship-models, your mijnheertjes, as a Dutchman might say, are not only finely-wrought but also very accurate in their representation of the full-sized article. Am I correct to assume that you have been to sea?”
“I have indeed. I was a ship’s carpenter for many a long year. Sailed upon many seas, upon waters grey, white and blue. Across the German Ocean, back and forth until I could tell the longtitude by my sense of smell alone. To the Americas. To far Cathay. Sailed in rotten tubs not fit to be broken up for kindling-wood, and in fine ships with bottoms of copper and gold-leaf upon their transoms and figureheads. Served under some of the greatest captains, and endured servitude under dunces, and tyrants, too – I will not dignify them as captains, nor even as commanders – who had but little claim to be even the basest forms of humanity, more alike to devils.” He regarded the Captain steadily from under his bristling brows. “Jebediah Vane was the worst. Couldn’t keep his hands off a coin. Couldn’t keep his manhood in his britches. Couldn’t keep a bottle from his lips. The crew voted him out at the last, and we pleaded for pardon from the governor of Virginia, who obliged us in that for only about half of what we possessed. T’was Vane that gave me the notion for my business, though. He would always be a-mocking me for my size. ‘Har-har-har!’ he’d say, ‘ship’s carpenter be yuz? Yuz be such a damn-yer-eyes runt yuz oughta make little ships for sailin’ around in the bottoms of bottles, round ‘n’ round ‘til yuz goes aground on the lees, ye swab! Har-bloody-har-har.’ When I heard he’d been hanged I am ashamed to say I celebrated, which is how I came across the wispy pink French silk knickers, for I am not a frequenter of such places in the normal course of things, only when I have had one too many.”
“Good Lord!” said Captain Greybagges, eyebrows raised. “Do you mean to say that you were once a pirate?”
“No more than you, Captain Oplichtenaar, who has two pistols in his weskit pockets, a stiletto in an arm-sheath in his left coat-sleeve and two bully-boys outside big enough to pull a ox-plough.” The bearded dwarf managed to look innocent and amused simultaneously. Captain Greybagges regarded him for a second, then burst into laughter again.
“I shall ask you no questions, mind you!” said the dwarfish man, “for your business is yours as my business is mine, and I think you wish to consult me in my professional capacity, not I in yours, and that may be done more companionably over a glass or two of hot rum-grog, surely? Tell your two bruisers to take a drink in the corner ale-house. I will put up the ‘back-in-an-hour’ sign and nobody will bother us while we yarn awhile.”
“A very singular fellow, is Alf Docklefar,” said Captain Greybagges, “very singular, indeed.”
The remains of a very late supper covered the table in the wardroom of the Ark de Triomphe: a ham, with not much ham left upon its bone; the skeletal remains of several roasted chickens; heels of loaves; the crumbs of a Spotted Dick, soaking up the last dribbles of a warm sauce of Muscovy sugar, spices, egg-yolks, cider and rum; rinds of cheeses; a large brown-glazed ale-jug and assorted wine-bottles.
“And here is a very singular bottle for you. One which you may not empty, but wonder instead at how it came to be filled.”
Captain Greybagges passed a cloth bundle to Bulbous Bill Bucephalus. The sailing-master unwrapped a clear glass wine-bottle and peered at it.
“It be a tiny ship! A barquentine … no, a hermaphrodite brig! … no, more of a brigantine, hmm….”
“Give it here, you lubber, wi’ a curse!” said Israel Feet, taking the bottle and pering into it. “It be more of a large poleacre, upon my oath!”
“I thought it more of a balener, though it could be a ballinger. Tis surely not a barque, a bilander or a bergantina, that much is clear,” said the Captain, sipping ale, and winking at Blue Peter. “The after-mast being a luffing gaff-rig throws it all into the darkest of confusion, d’you see? And that stun-sail on the topmast royal is ambiguous to say the very least. Alf Docklefar makes ‘em.”
“That cannot be a stun-sail!” said Bill hotly. “It can only be a sky-scraper try-sail, jury-rigged in the Corsican manner! Given the shape o’ the rest o’ the riggin’, o’ course.”
“I think the puzzle is not what type of vessel it is,” said Blue Peter, who had taken the bottle in turn, “but how the vessel got into the vessel, ho-ho!”
Frank Benjamin took the bottle and studied it.
“Is there some doubt about which type of boat this is?” he said, examining the small model closely, his pince-nez spectacles on the end of his nose.
“Mr Docklefar has a prodigious knowledge of ships, and that small facsimile is cunningly wrought so that it cannot be easily categorised or given a name. An amusing enigma for sailors to ponder and dispute over. Why! One could claim the lower gun-ports were really unused oar-holes and it thus could be a dromond or even a galleass!”
“How it is put inside is no mystery,” said Mr Benjamin. “One’s first thought is that the bottle has been cracked open and then re-joined with a transparent spiritous glue, but even the finest shellac has a slight yellow tinge and there is no sign of that. The ship must necessarily have entered through the neck of the bottle, therefore. I think I can see how that could be done, but I shall forbear to say more. Is Alf Dockelfar the only manufacturer of such trifles?”
“Alf claims to be the originator of the art, but others have followed his example,” said the Captain. “A tar can work on such a thing in a berth below decks and keep it in his seamen’s chest between-times, alike to scrimshaw work on bones and on walrus-ivory. Many of the bottled argosies in his emporium were made by sailormen. He acts as a sort of pawnbroker for them, gives loans on ‘em and buys and sells ‘em. There is a demand for them in London, as it sees itself as the great mercantile port of the world. I do not doubt that soon there will be a ship in a bottle in every ale-house, every broker’s office and on the mantelpiece of every shipping-clerk. He does make models of ships that ain’t in bottles. Shipwrights use miniature representations to show to customers what they will be getting for their money. Toys for the children of the wealthy, too, little toy yachts and jolly-boats to sail on duck-ponds. He sells bits and pieces to the other fellows that make little ships. Little anchors of cast printers-lead, little cannon barrels of brass lathed on a watchmaker’s turn, that sort of thing, in all sizes.”
“How is it done, then?” said Israel Feet, contemplating the ship in the bottle. “If you knows, Frank, speak plain!”
Frank Benjamin opened his mouth, but Captain Greybagges put up his hand.
“Frank is right to keep his council. Alf Docklefar’s art is entertaining for as long as it mystifies, and what is life without a few mysteries? Thus you have a congenial puzzle to charm you as you slip into the arms of Morpheus, Izzy, for now we must all retire. There will be much to do tomorrow.” The Captain drained his tankard. “The mystery I shall take with me to my bunk is how the devil Alf Dockelfar knew I had two pistols and a knife concealed about me! Good night to you, gentlemen!”
The next morning Captain Sylvestre de Greybags paced the quarterdeck of the pirate frigate Ark de Triomphe, dressed once again as a kapitein van schip, his head freshly shaven and his beard freshly boot-polished. The last few deliveries of stores were awaited, and the crew were preparing to set sail. He paced the deck impatiently, accompanied by Mr Benjamin.
“Take my advice, Frank. Wait for your sea-water bath until we are actually at sea. Excuse me – belay that there! Yer damn-yer-eyes lubber! Let me sees yuz usin’ a grandma’s knot like that again an I’ll sees the colour of yer liver, yer swab! ‘Pon my oath I will! – Sorry, Frank, these young fellows are eager, but sadly ignorant yet. Where was I? Yes, take your bath when we are in the German Ocean, where the water is contaminated only by the sweat of fish. A bath in Thames river-water could easily be fatal to somebody who is not a cockaignie.”
“I’ve seen the seen the boys swimming off the wharf,” said Mr Benjamin, “but I’ve also seen what floats by at times. You are right, of course. Why are they called cockaignies?”
“London fellows of the lower orders of society who find themselves in Paris – as some must inevitably do – are observed by the Frenchies to be forever complaining about the food. Why, in Lunnon-town there is roast beef! And roast mutton! And roast capons! And beer! The French populace, much oppressed by their evil king and his greedy aristocrats and so existing upon thin gruel and bread made of sawdust, mock such fellows and say that they must come from cockagne, the fabled land of the fairies where there are fountains of sparkling wine and where meat-pies grow on trees. The lowlifes of London have adopted this cognomen with pride, and so refer to themselves thus.”
“Would your ships-in-bottles fellow describe himself as a cockaignie?”
“I should not think so. He craves a degree of respectability, and to call oneself a cockaignie is rather to proudly deny that one has any repectability at all, or indeed any desire for it. It is mostly the young fellows.”
“He cannot be too respectable, not if he can tell that you are carrying concealed weapons.”
“Respectability is something to be attained, surely, even when starting from a state of brutish and light-fingered poverty. Since Alf Docklefar’s respectability started when he purchased a pardon from the gallows for piracy he may be assumed to have a keen sense of its monetary value. He has a sharp eye, though, and I dare say his past experience has made him alert to possible trouble. The outline of a pistol against the cloth of a waistcoat is easy to spot if you are looking, I suppose, and very difficult if you do not look, as most people do not look at most things.”
The Captain and Mr Benjamin talked on about the oddities of perception; examples of legerdemain, the obvious frauds which could ensnare even clever people at times, why mirrors turn one side-to-side but not top-to-bottom. Captain Greybagges would occasionally roar curses and instructions at one of the new crewmen.
Down below in the dark of the gun-deck Blue Peter and Torvald Coalbiter were patiently explaining the loading, aiming and firing of a cannon to a group of apprentice pirates.
“Safety must be your watchword!” said Blue Peter in his deep rumbling voice. The young pirates nodded cautious agreement; his size, his scarred blue-black face and his filed teeth did not seem to invite discussion. “The idea is, you see, to blow the other ship to pieces, not this one. The gun-deck is prepared for action by wetting the planking, by hanging wet sacks over doors, by dowsing all lights that are not behind glass and so on, to prevent any spark from entering the powder-magazine. But you yourselves must be prepared for action, too, so that nothing can go amiss with you. You must learn to do your tasks in the right way, tedious though such rote-learning may seem right now. Any questions?”
“Um, cannot we speak more like pirates, if we want to?” said one of the braver apprentices.
“Indeed you can, and Mr Hands the First Mate will be giving you lessons in the language of the freebooter,” said Blue Peter, improvising, “but he is presently slightly indisposed from a blow on the head. In the meantime it’s best not to stand upon ceremony, and to speak as we are able, to avoid confusion.”
Blue Peter was soon sidetracked into an explanation of the First Mate’s wound, an account of the night attack and thereby on to an account of the Captain’s defeat of Ali the Barber by the cunning twisting of words. Torvald Coalbiter fetched the giant razor and showed it to the apprentice pirates as proof of the tale. They were duly impressed.
“There is much for you to learn about the profession of buccaneering,” said Blue Peter. “It’s not all rum and cutlasses and ‘Arr! Me hearties!’ There’s some of that, of course, but this is a modern pirate-ship, run on progressive principles, so we operate in a more disciplined way than some others, like Captain Blackbeard, for example.” And I hope that accords with what the Captain is planning, thought Peter, whatever it is.
Torvald Coalbiter took up the lesson in Blue Peter’s silence, and repeated his tale about his name, and the virtues of avoiding trouble if there was no profit in it. Some of the apprentice pirates disagreed mildly on philosophical grounds, pointing out that if piracy were too well-organised it would be the same as serving before the mast on a merchant-vessel.
“Why, not at all!” said Coalbiter. “it is the spirit of the thing that counts! And all enterprises require a degree of efficiency or they will not work at all! For example, the modern pirate has to be alert to the possibilities arising from the fast transport of information. He must be, or be beached or hanged, else! Even the beserkers, who I have just disparaged for their stupidity, knew full-well the value of an efficient postal system. My uncle Erik Bloodsausage used to recite a poem to us when we were little, just to remind us of this inescapable fact.”
Torvald Coalbiter drew himself up, and declaimed:
“Many years ago, an old Norse berserker,
told me a stirring tale, a real tear-jerker,
about how he’d never been a shirker,
when he was a Scandiwegian postal-worker.
He said the Vikings never sacked a town,
Unless first they’d parcelled it up in paper brown,
sealed with sticky tape well-thumbed down,
and hempen string knotted all around.
Up in the North it was often dark and damp,
but in the temporary sorting-camp,
each parcel was addressed and stamped,
by the yellow light of tallow lamps.
Then the long ships raced under oar and sail,
with mail-sacks stacked right up to the rail,
because they must never ever slow or fail,
nothing stops the Scandiwegian mail!
When the town was posted-off, except the pub,
the postmen would sit down for some grub,
they’d dine on pie-and-chips and syllabub,
then belch and grab themselves a club.
The folks of the town they’d gather up,
then bash each one on the head, just like a seal-pup,
it was hard graft after such a hearty sup,
but those carbs helped to keep their blood-sugars up.
When all the savings accounts were discharged,
they’d go back to the boats to get undisembarged,
and with their purses much enlarged,
they could afford an afternoon snack of bread and marge.
If you ask any Norse postman I betcha most’ll,
tell you straight, insist that always our boast’ll,
be that in mailing matters, whether ashore or coastal,
there’s no one like a beserker for going postal!”
His words being being proven true at that very moment, as a last packet of post was passed to Captain Greybagges even as the mooring-cables were slipped from the bollards. A small group of apprentice-boys went ashore and disappeared into the crowds on the wharf, and the gangplank was drawn up. Hired boats slowly pulled the Ark de Triomph out into the stream, turning her to go south-southeast with the current and tide. Captain Sylvestre de Greybags paid them with coins thrown from the quarterdeck rail and an exchange of friendly insults. Bulbous Bill Bucephalus howled at the men in the rigging and the topsails dropped and unfurled to catch the slight breeze, the convenient easterly breeze. Within ten minutes the Ark de Triomph turned the bend of the river looping back around the Isle of Dogs and was lost from sight.
A horse rode to the edge of the wharf, and its rider dismounted and looked at the empty quay where the Ark de Triomph had been. A tall angular man in a long black cloak and a battered black slouch hat, his lower face hidden by a scarf to ward off the dust of the road, his eyes in the shadow of the hat-brim. He asked a nearby idler to confirm the name of the ship so recently set sail, his voice deep and harsh. The idler acknowledged that the ship had indeed been the Groot Ombeschaamheid, a Dutch merchantman out of Rotterdam, then moved away from the stranger as quickly as he could without seeming to hurry, unsettled by the man’s abrupt question and angry manner. The man remounted his horse in one agile movement like an experienced cavalry-trooper, swinging a heavy boot over the horse’s rump, his black cloak flapping. The horse whickered and pranced sideways a few steps, but the black-clad figure mastered it instantly and swung it round so he could stare once more down the river before he turned the horse and rode away. The idler looked back over his shoulder, and as he did a chance ray of the early sun slid under the brim of the black slouch hat and lit the face of the man.
The idler went into one of the taverns facing onto the wharf and bought a large measure of gin. It must just have been a trick of the light, he told himself as he gulped the gin. Nobody has green eyebrows.