The Pyrates

  In a trice Blood had been flung down by brutal soldiers and neatly attached by wrists and ankles to four mettlesome chargers whose riders waited eagerly for Don Lardo's signal. The Viceroy was in a frenzy of self-congratulation, mitting his assembled troops who, under Enchillada's frantic cheerleading, flung up their morions in acclaim. Heedless of the tin hats which rained around her. Vanity fronted the armoured giant in fearless fury.

  “Oh, base!” she shrilled. “So to impose on a lady in distress, with fair words and foul sticky wine! Well, I'd sooner have the new Beaujolais, so there! Of all the mean tricks, to wheedle information out of me unaware – and I thought you were a gentleman! Fie, you stinker! Know that I am a British subject – so's he, for that matter -” she indicated Blood, who was creaking slightly as the riders took up the slack “ – and unless you release us with handsome apologies, 'twill be the worse for you!”

  For a moment it seemed that Don Lardo would dash her to the ground with one sweep of his armoured hand, but a shower of falling morions impeded him long enough to regain his cool. He seized her proud chin 'twixt cruel metal fingers.

  “Snarl at me, would you, Lutheran whelp! Aye, but I'll give you cause! When your fellow there has spoken his piece, and I have that pirate hoard for my war chest, you shall see how much protection your precious British crown can afford you – or any other of your heretic brood! For not only shall I cleanse the American seas of the pirate filth, but every foreign settlement with them -English, Dutch, French, Walloon, Scowegian—”

  “Don' forget flags of convenience, Excellencee,” put in Enchillada.

  “All of them! Every vile interloper who does not acknowledge the sovereignty and supremacy of Spain!” bawled Don Lardo. “My fleets shall sweep from the Florida keys to the Amazon, my armies shall make rubble of your Limey, Frog, and Squarehead outposts, and no man, woman, child or farmyard animal shall remain! New Spain shall extend from Canada to the southernmost seas, and the tides that wash the Antilles shall be crimson with Protestant blood – which reminds me,” he roared to the four horsemen. “Take the strain, and when I say heave—”

  “Do your worst!” cried the indomitable Vanity.

  “Wait your hurry!” thundered Don Lardo. “I'm not finished yet! Where was I? Ah, por los entrañas de Dios—”

  “‘The Antilles shall be crimson,’” prompted Enchillada.

  “Right!” Don Lardo gloated down at his fair prisoner. “And when I sail on my great crusade of the Faith, to purge the New World of your northern corruption, I shall take you with me, proud Admiral's daughter, to afford me amusement on the voyage. You will make a piquant change from yon dusky charmer over the way—”

  “One for odd days, one for evens!” chortled Enchillada. “Good thinking, boss!”

  Even in her fraught situation, Vanity could not suppress a yip of astonishment as her eye fell on Sheba for the first time. “'Tis she! Her! That woman who filched my Helena Rubinstein and had designs on my darling Ben! Where is he, you horrid wench?”

  “You should worry,” sneered Sheba. “We are not like to speak him this voyage.”

  “Nay!” cried Vanity frantically. “He's around some place, and will haste to my aid!”

  “You'd like to think so, wouldn't you?” Sheba taunted, spiteful to the last. “'Twas not your milky softness that he rescued from Dago dungeon! If he hastes to anyone's aid 'twill—”

  “Stop them! Gag them!” screamed Don Lardo, his eyes rolling horribly as he clutched his temples. “Do something, Enchillada!”

  “Can I say something?” Blood, taut in his bonds, spoke in an anguished voice.

  “Yes!” shouted Don Lardo, recalled to the business in hand. “You can scream! – unless you reveal this instant where I may find the treasure trove! Speak, and I spare your miserable life – for the moment, anyway. Remain dumb, and you'll be a quintet! Horsemen, on your marks! Ready … get set …”

  The riders steadied their mounts, and the spreadeagled Blood squawked as the ropes tightened. Don Lardo cackled fiendishly and swung round on Vanity. “Well, madonna, will he talk – or will you?”

  “We will never submit!” cried Vanity. “I defy you! So does he! Listen to him, constant to the end! Go on, Colonel – tell him what he can do with his foreign threats!”

  All eyes turned on Blood, who was twanging like a guitar string. A grimace which might have been of pain, or defiance, or resignation, or just wind crossed his tanned features. Then in a voice that rang clear, if somewhat strained, he spoke.

  “If ye go back up the jungle trail for seven hours, ye'll come to the beach. There's a big palm tree, an' ye go left a couple o' miles, and there'll be bodies all over the place, because that's where Happy Dan's boys got their lumps from the Indians. Right, that's where ye start diggin' …”

  Well, it's nice to know that all his hardships haven't warped Blood's instinct for self-preservation. Vanity may be disappointed in him, but at least he's still in one piece as Don Lardo, his dentures secured and his hapless prisoners in tow, sets off to dig up the pirates' treasure and then spread bloody ruin and destruction the length o' the Caribbean, by the powers! Aye, and who's to stop him? Our hero was last seen helpless i' the merciless grip o' slave-traders, our female leads are all in the clutches o' Bestial Villainy, Blood's had it up to here and can't be relied on, Solomon Shafto's barmy, the pirate fraternity are scattered and dispersed (Goliath probably hasn't even got a new leg yet), and poor old Admiral Rooke has spent the whole of Book the Second adrift in the Indian Ocean. Here, that's a bit rough; the old boy's due a few pages, isn't he? After all, he's a peer of the realm (and can probably make a ton of trouble if we neglect him much longer). So, knuckling our forehead apologetically, we shall butter him up with a chapter opening all to himself … aye, and more than a mere chapter, my lord, d'ye see, for here, by y'r lordship's favour, endeth the Second and Beginneth the Last Book of

  THE PYRATES

  BOOK THE THIRD

  CHAPTER

  THE FIFTEENTH

  he worthy and popular Lord Rooke came thundering ashore at Libertatia in a towering rage – and quite right, too. Since the pirate villains had set him cruelly adrift he had been sailing in circles (not his fault, mind, but that lubber Yardley's) and met with misdventures fit to curl his grizzled hair (for a full and luxuriant growth had his lordship, and those tales about his being bald beneath his wig were malicious focsle gossip). Aye, thanks to Yardley's bungling, the long boat with its loyal castaways had blundered around the Indian Ocean hitting reefs, splitting strakes, fouling oil platforms, and finally getting pinched by a Burmese coastguard for illegal fishing. His subsequent appearance in police court, confiscation of tackle, scathing remarks from the bench, sentence to death by the Thousand Cuts, and unfavourable press publicity, had worn the Admiral's patience thin. By the time he and his crew had filed through their shackles with the bosun's manicure set, tunnelled out of the condemned hold, overpowered the crew of a dilapidated junk, set fire to Rangoon, had a vitriolic argument with the harbourmaster, and finally put to sea, his lordship's temper was beginning to boil; capture by Borneo pirates, slavery at the oar of a galley, escape by swimming down the crocodile-infested Papar river, and having to pay over the odds for passage west on a coal-boat, did nothing to restore his good humour, and by the time he and his whining followers had landed at Libertatia, where the coal-boat accidentally ran aground, the admiral was fit to bite lumps out of the pier. Nor was his temper improved by the discovery that all the pirates had sloped off to the Caribbean.

  Like all other visitors to that port o' missing men, Rooke wound up in the establishment of Vladimir Mackintosh-Groonbaum, demanding transport at the top of his voice. Vladimir, who was busy calculating what Avery's annual income would be, with bonuses and graduated cost-of-living, by the time he was forty, surveyed the ragged but imposing admiral calmly and asked:

  “Business or pleasure?”

  “Both, damn your eyes!” bellowed Rooke. “Know, little shyster,
that I command His Majesty's East Indies squadron, wherever the hell it is, and my urgent need is a sloop to the Cape, there to raise my powers and smite the Brethren o' the Coast. Business! Aye, and rare pleasure, split me, to hale those bloody rascals to Execution Dock!”

  Vladimir shook his head sympathetically. “Sorry, mate, yer too late. My boy's takin' care o' them.”

  “Your what?” blared Rooke, bewildered.

  “My boy. Cap'n Ben Avery”, explained Vladimir complacently. “'E's prob'ly got most of 'em under wraps by now – well, 'e's bin gorn three weeks, 'asn't 'e? Bags o' time fer a fit young chap like him to pull the rug aht from—”

  “AVERY!” bawled Rooke apoplectically, and shattered Vladimir's desk with a blow of his horny fist; timber and spilt tea flew amain. “That forsworn weasel! That renegade yard o' Brylcreem! He that betrayed us, the cowardly napkin-carrier, the smooth-sole purse-snapping pimp, wi' his Oxenford airs and his safety razor, damn him to hell! He'll be the first to go up in the air, by this hand! Aye, tarred and filleted and a-clank in chains 'neath high water mark, rot his patent-leather pointy-toed boots—”

  “Beggin' yer lordship's parding, but if I was you,” interposed Vladimir frostily, “I'd watch me lip. That's slander, that is, afore witnesses – Gawd, I'll bet they can 'ear yer in Bombay! Nah, take it easy, stop turnin' purple, an' perpend.” He raised an admonitory unwashed hand before the goggling admiral. “One thing at a time … or rather, three things …”

  And so saying, he rummaged in the splintered remains of his top drawer and displayed before the other's stupefied gaze three dull crosses of undoubted gold, crusted with gems; in one shone the blue radiance of an enormous sapphire, the second was alight with the shimmering white of a splendid opal, and the emerald in the third rivalled a go-light for size and brilliance. “Why don't yer sit dahn, yer lordship,” suggested Vladimir considerately, “an' I'll get the boy ter fetch yer a cup o' cocoa wi' some-thin' in it.”

  Rooke subsided, giving a creditable imitation of a turkey in labour, and Vladimir continued. “Where'd I get 'em, you may be askin'? Well, I'll tell yer – where but from my client Cap'n Avery, wot you bin miscallin' so reckless.” His gesture stilled Rooke's explosion of amaze and protest. “I dunno wot rags o' the gutter press you bin readin', milord,” he added severely, “or wot malishus scuttlebutt 'as bin dropped in yore dainty shell-likes, but I'm 'ere to testify that Cap'n Avery, far from betrayin' anyfink, 'as bin flyin' rahnd the seven seas like an 'awk wiv a wasp up its frock, recoverin' bits o' Madagascar crahn faster'n I can enter 'em in me book. Oh, an' 'e's signed orf Akbar the Damned permanent, jus' by the way …”

  Rooke couldn't believe it, of course – but there were the three crosses, and when it finally sank in the admiral's bellowings of disbelief turned to eruptions of delight. He punched the air, threw up the remnants of his hat, stamped around the room, and reduced a chest of drawers to matchwood in his glee – it was rather, reflected Vladimir gloomily, like having a disgruntled Firebeard loose on the premises. At last the admiral sank back, fanning his beaming brow.

  “I'm all took aback!” he roared. “Sink me, that's a noble lad! And I misjudged him! Nay, but I'll hear no evil of him after this! Why, that lying hellspite Sheba! She misled me a-purpose – damme, but she did! Brazen as monkeys, butter wouldn't melt, told me young Ben had ratted, never batted an eyelid! Women! By cock,” he rumbled, “it makes ye wonder! And that sterling young feller has copped back three o' the crosses already—”

  “Jus' like that. Prob'ly got t'other three by now, an' all.”

  “ – and sent bloody Akbar post-haste to Hell!” Rooke shook his massive head in admiration, then grew more sober. “Mind you, he could do no less. After all, 'tis no more than making amends for losing the crown i' the first place. Dooced careless, that.”

  “'Arf a mo!” cried Vladimir indignantly. “You ain't 'eard nuffink yet, milord! 'E also rescued your lordship's daughter from 'ell of shame an' slavery—”

  “Me daughter!” Rooke gaped in sudden recollection. “Little Vanity! 'Slife, I knew there was another score 'gainst those pirate villains! But rescued? Nay, where, sirrah? How? My darling child – where is she?”

  “Well, nah,” said Vladimir primly, “I look arter Cap'n Avery's business affairs, but 'tain't for me to pry into 'is private life, is it? Mind you, I did 'ear talk of a desert island, like,” he added, reflecting guiltily that he hadn't bothered to have Vanity collected from Aves. Rooke started violently.

  “An island? D'ye mean she and Avery ha' been on tropic isle together – alone, ha?” His brow darkened ominously and he took grizzled chin in mighty paw. “Gad's death! My little innocent… solitary, wi' a man … and she a tender virgin maid! Nay, here's food for thought, rabbit me!”

  “Blimey, yore 'ard to please!” snapped Vladimir. “I wish it 'ad been one o' my bleedin' daughters – but they're all orphans, beggin' an' thievin' an' workin' the kinchin lay rahnd Aldgate Pump, wiv never a thought for their pore ole Dad, wot brought 'em up to the age o' three -an' four, in Gayleen's case.” He sniffed and wiped away an oily tear.

  “Ungrateful little barstids. Yore bleedin' lucky,” he added resentfully. “I mean, I'm glad to be Cap'n Avery's agent, but I'd a sight sooner be 'is flamin' favver-in-law, wouldn't I?”

  “Father-in-law?” Rooke went purple. “D'ye tell me the dog aspires to my daughter's hand? He – a penniless captain? A landless nobody – and she the daughter o' a peer and admiral and tennis captain o' Cheltenham Ladies—”

  “You weren't!” exclaimed Vladimir incredulously.

  “Not me, you fool, her!” roared Rooke. “Why, here's insolence! Why, the upstart rascal! Not,” he admitted reasonably, “that he isn't a dab hand at recovering stolen goods and slaughtering corsairs, but dammit, I design her for a certain Duke's son!”

  “Café society riff-raff!” scoffed Vladimir. “Not in the same class as my boy Ben. Look, guv, get realistic – it's an investment, see? I mean, you're not goin' to be short of a bob in yer old age if your daughter's married to that ball of fire, are yer? 'E's goin' places, is that boy – an' by the time 'e's finished toughin' up the Coast Bruvver'ood, 'e'll be laughin' all the way to the bank!”

  Rooke's complexion faded to beetroot, and he plucked thoughtfully at a lip like a lifebelt. “D'ye tell me?” he said at last, and shook perplexed head. “H'm … I know not what to say …”

  “‘Bless yer, my children’ should cover it,” said Vladimir. “You want to push this thing along, milord.”

  “Ye think so?” wondered Rooke, and frowned. “What the hell am I discussing my intimate family affairs with you for, anyway? What's my daughter's future to thee, shyster?”

  “She's goin' to be my client-in-law, so to speak,” said Vladimir. “I got a sort of avuncular interest. An' I reckon these two young love-birds need all the 'elp they can get from us older an' wiser 'eads. So while I continue to manage the business side, why don't yer lordship get yer fleet together – our boy's ragin' rahnd the Caribbean at the moment, beatin' the bejeezus aht of every pirate in sight, but I'm sure 'e'd be grateful for any assistance from 'is lovin' favver-in-law to be.” Vladimir stroked his nose conspiratorially. “An' arter-wards, if you was to report favourably on 'is conduck to the King an' Admiralty – well, it wouldn't 'urt 'is prospecks, would it?”

  “I suppose not,” rumbled the Admiral pensively. He eyed Vladimir shrewdly. “You see a bright future for the lad, ha? Harumph! A … rich future?”

  “Stinkin'”, replied Vladimir. “The prize-money from this lot, 'e'll be able to buy 'arf Yorkshire.”

  “There's the mortgage on Torpedo Towers,” mused Rooke. “And between ourselves, Vanity costs a packet…”

  “Not any more, she wouldn't,” chuckled Vladimir.

  “Bigod, no – he'd have to support her! Well, the young must face their responsibilities sooner or later …”

  “… an' repay the love an' care of elders wot guided their youthful footsteps.”

  “
Thou sayest true, Master Pawnbroker! Why, have we not earned our repose?”

  “You better believe it, squire! Slavin' over accounts -”

  “Assembling fleets!”

  “Sacrificin' our today for their tomorrer …”

  “Mind you, that's what life's all about, I suppose. And they're worth it, bless 'em …”

  “Ow, yerss, a lovely couple …”

  The upshot was that Lord Rooke sailed for the Cape on the next tide, there to summon his fleet, and Vladimir, pondering their conversation, wondered if it was not time that he, too, shifted operations to his Caribbean branch office, there to keep a closer eye on his protégé. After all, hero though he might be, Captain Avery was a right mug in worldly matters, and would be none the worse of his agent's guiding presence, if only to count the prize money and outstanding Madagascar crosses which ought to be rolling in by now.

  So where a lesser man (and they didn't come much lesser than Vladimir, normally) would have kept a safe distance from the action, Master Mackintosh-Groonbaum put up his shutters, packed his bags, and took a through ticket to Port Royal, change for Nassau, Roatan, and the Mosquito Coast. He travelled first, since he was on his client's business, and consoled himself that it was all deductible anyway.