The pirates had started telling each other jokes in an attempt to ward off the inevitable boredom between feasts, because there wasn't much else to do on board a pirate boat. They had been at sea for a couple of days now, searching high and low for the Beagle. When the boat had first reached the tropical waters surrounding the Galapagos Islands the pirates kept themselves amused by capturing a couple of the giant turtles that frequented this part of the world, and then racing them
3i
about the deck.6 You could fit two whole pirates on each shell. They constructed an obstacle course from bits of old rope and rigging, but the turtles proved a lot less resilient than they had hoped. A few of the pirates then had the bright idea that if they caught enough of the huge diaphanous jellyfish that circled about the boat, they could construct a kind of bouncy castle. This kept them occupied for a few more hours, but it didn't really work, and eventually they got tired of it, and found that they had jellyfish guts stuck all over their pirate boots.
| 6 Nowadays Galapagos Giant Turtles often accidentally eat plastic bags left as litter by unthinking tourists, mistaking them for tasty jellyfish. |
The pirate dressed in green went downstairs to get a glass of water because he was nervous and his throat was dry. There was a note stuck next to the ship's sink, written in the Pirate Captain's familiar bubble writing. It read:
Willwhoever keeps takingmymug STOP IT. It is veryannoying.Have a little respect for other people's property. The Pirate captain.
Life at sea was tough and unforgiving, and tensions could run quite high on board a pirate boat, especially when crockery was limited and people didn't always do their washing-up, but generally the pirates all got along fine. The pirate dressed in green gulped down the tap water - it was much nicer than seawater - and tried to pluck up courage for the task ahead. He'd been putting it off for ages, but now seemed as good a time as any.
There was a knock at the Pirate Captain's door, and then the pirate in green came in.
'Sorry to be bothering you, Captain,' he said. The Pirate Captain looked up. He had a lot to sort out in preparation for their imminent and audacious attack, but he made a point of always having time for the men.
'What can I do for you . .. uh . . . my fellow?' said the Pirate Captain, who often found it difficult to tell his crew apart from one another. 'Grog? Ham?'
'No thanks, sir. I was wondering if I could ask you something?'
'It's what I'm here for. You don't mind if I help myself?' said the Pirate Captain, indicating the slices of ham. 'Now, what is it?'
'Well, I was thinking of getting a tattoo.'
'They're quite popular.'
'Yes, Captain.'
'But they don't come off, you know' 'Yes, Captain. I've thought about that.' 'Well then.'
'I thought it might be good to get a Skull and Crossbones, like we have on our flag, but it turns out a couple of the men have already got that. So ... I was wondering ... that's to say ... would you have any objections
'Spit it out man!'
'. . . if I got your face done instead? I was thinking of adding a little speech bubble, with -ha - you saying "Scurvy knaves!" like you
always do. It would be on my arm, if that's all right.' He indicated the patch on his upper arm where he was going to have the tattoo.
For a moment, the Pirate Captain was speechless. The ham on his fork just hung in mid air.
'Of course ... I... ah ... I don't know what to say,' he said.
'Are you okay, Captain?'
'Yes . .. it's just this, um, ham. It's very spicy, and it's making my eyes water.'
In all their many adventures, even the one where they had battled zombie pirates, the Pirate Captain had never been so touched by a gesture from any of his loyal pirate crew. His lip began to tremble, and the pirate in green was mightily relieved when at that point the pirate with an accordion, breathless with excitement, hurried into the Captain's office.
'Sorry to interrupt, Captain, but we've caught sight of a ship, and we think it's the Beagle, because it has a funny-looking dog painted on the side. Should I get the men ready for boarding?'
The Pirate Captain swiftly regained his
composure, and started to bark out orders. 'Get the cannons ready first, and remind the pirates not to stand right behind them this time,' he bellowed. The Pirate Captain had explained basic Newtonian physics and the principles of recoil to his men more times than he could remember, but it just didn't seem to go in.
'And I want to hear plenty of roaring until we've secured the enemy vessel,' he said, picking up a telescope and marching onto the deck, where several of the pirates were already gathered.
'It's just a ten-gun brig,' said the scarf-wearing pirate, scratching thoughtfully at a livid scar that ran the length of his cheek. On most people a scar can be quite disfiguring, but several of the pirates thought that in the pirate with a scarf's case it actually added to his rather rugged appeal.
A ten-gun brig? Really?' said the Pirate Captain, frowning at the news.
'I was expecting something bigger. Seeing as it's carrying all this gold for the Bank of England,' said his number two.
'Perhaps they're trying to keep a low profile,'
said the Pirate Captain, with some misgivings. 'Are those cannons ready?'
'This sort of makes us bank robbers, doesn't
'Aaarrr. But you knew you'd be bending a few laws when you became a pirate. I'm not sure the ivory smuggling we were doing the other week was entirely respectable. Or all that trawling for cod, come to think about it.'
'Cannons ready, Captain.'
An eerie silence suddenly becalmed the pirate chatter, as the crew waited for the Pirate Captain to give his order to make good the attack.
'Fire a cannonball at that boat!' said the Pirate Captain.
Four
WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE UNFORGIVING DEEP?
‘Confound it, man!' said Robert FitzRoy, captain of the boat about to be attacked by the pirates. 'I told you women and the sea were a mighty bad combination.'
FitzRoy was young for a ship's captain, just twenty-seven, but the man he stood back to back with was younger still, a full five years his junior. Yet neither bore the frisky demeanour that you would expect to find in people under thirty.
'I can't help myself, Robert,' said his companion, Charles Darwin, cradling his big round head in his hands. 'I love her, and I mean to marry her!'
'But I love her too!' said FitzRoy. 'She drives me to distraction! You already knew that.'
'Damn women, with ... with their hair ... and their faces ...' muttered Darwin.
'I must demand satisfaction,' said Captain FitzRoy. 'You don't leave me any choice.'
The cabin was a little small for a duel, neither