The Pirates! In An Adventure With Napoleon Part 5

'Maybe it's a love letter from an admiral's daughter!'

'Or a chain letter telling us we'll get cursed if we don't pa.s.s it on to five people we know, in which case we should ignore it, because chain letters are a form of bullying.'

'Maybe we've won some premium bonds!'

The pirates went on discussing what the letter could be for a while, until the Pirate Captain strode over from the breakfast table and picked it up with a flourish.

'Never occurs to you lot to just open something, does it?' he said, shaking his head in exasperation. 'We do have cutla.s.ses for a reason, you know.'

The Pirate Captain slit open the envelope, and pulled out an embossed square of paper. It read: 'Wow, that's a fancy invitation!' exclaimed the pirate with long legs. 'Look, he's done all raised lettering. And feel how thick the paper is that it's printed on! It must be at least 150gsm!'

'It certainly makes those invitations you sent out written on bits of seaweed look a bit poor, doesn't it Pirate Captain?' said the pirate who liked kittens and sunsets.

The Captain's beard shook in a way that the pirates recognised signified either trouble or the presence of an approaching typhoon, and for a moment he seemed lost for words. Eventually he found his tongue. 'He can't throw a housewarming party the very day after I've thrown a housewarming party! It's against all known social etiquette. The cheek of the man!'

'Is Napoleon your new nemesis, Pirate Captain?' asked the pirate in green, who liked to try and keep track of these kind of things.

'At this rate I think he might very well be. But not the good kind of nemesis like Black Bellamy who you have a grudging respect for. He's the terrible kind who just gets on your nerves.' The Captain glowered. 'And do you know what the worst thing is?'

'Ooh, I do!' said the pirate with gout, putting up his hand. 'It's unrequited love. You know, when a girl with hazel eyes and flaxen hair who's your whole reason for living hardly even notices you exist. That's the worst thing ever.'

'Yes, true enough, but the worst thing at this particular moment is that I don't have a thing to wear. Come on, number two, let's see if we can wash some of that octopus ink out of my spare blousy s.h.i.+rt.'

'Is this what our life is going to entail now?' asked Jennifer glumly. 'An endless series of polite dinner parties?'

'That dead jellyfish you served at your party was lovely, Pirate Captain,' said Napoleon, bringing in a big plate to the dining table where the pirates, the Governor and the rest of the islanders were gathered. 'I hope this small selection of sweetmeats, stuffed artichokes, pressed quail's eggs and caviar, brought with me from the finest Paris delicatessen, will live up to your exacting standards.'

Everybody tucked eagerly into their food, the pirates because they always tucked eagerly into anything put in front of them, and the islanders because it was clearly years since any of them had eaten something that wasn't the colour and texture of old flannels.

'I like your wallpaper, Mister Napoleon,' said the pirate in green, through a mouthful of duck livers.

'Yes, it is nice, isn't it?' said Napoleon, taking a seat and lighting an expensive-looking cigar. 'A gift from the British, to show that there were no hard feelings.'

The Pirate Captain leaned over to the pirate with a scarf. 'You see what he's doing?' he whispered.

'Being a consummate host?'

'He's trying to show me up. "Impromptu little gathering" my hat. Look, he's even stolen that swan napkin idea of mine.'

'I don't think you invented folding napkins into animal shapes, Captain.'

'So, let me get this straight,' said Jennifer, who was frowning in a pretty way. 'St Helena doesn't have any volcanoes, cannibals, smugglers or sinister Prussians. What does that leave? Ghosts? You must have a ghost?'

'I'm afraid not, my dear,' said the Governor.

'Not even one?'

'Well ...' The Governor chewed thoughtfully for a few moments. 'We did have a rock that several of the islanders thought looked a bit like a ghost. But it fell into the sea, ooh, at least ten years ago.'

Jennifer slumped, in as much as she could slump, because as a Victorian lady she had naturally good posture at all times.

'You may be interested to know that I have had an encounter with the supernatural realm,' said Napoleon, patting Jennifer's hand, his eyes gleaming. At the other end of the table the Pirate Captain made a groaning noise, but the little general did not appear to notice.

'Go on,' said Jennifer eagerly.

'It was during my invasion of Northern Italy. We were marching through deep snow by the light of the moon, a terrible blizzard blowing up around us. Eventually it got so bad that I decided we must stop and find shelter. By luck, the blizzard slowed for just a moment and we caught sight of a small village up ahead. The peasant shacks were dark and forbidding and even I, Napoleon, felt a s.h.i.+ver of apprehension as we approached.'

One of the younger pirates began to suck their thumb nervously. Napoleon leaned forward and continued. 'Despite the bitter weather, outside each hut huddled a peasant family, looking back at us with dim, idiot eyes. I demanded that they bring us food and fresh horses, but they just stood there. So I grew angry and fired my pistol into the air, but still there was no response. It was as if they were statues!'

'Dear me, are you scared of statues?' asked the Pirate Captain. 'Is it because they look like people but actually they're made out of stone?'

'I hadn't finished,' said Napoleon. 'Anyway, to cut a long story short it turned out that all the peasants were werewolves and so we shot them with cannons.' He leaned back in his chair and grinned. 'Pretty spooky stuff, eh?'

Most of the pirates and islanders agreed that it was a very scary story and they couldn't imagine anything more frightening. The Pirate Captain stifled a yawn. 'I suppose werewolves are fairly spooky,' he said.

'I didn't know you'd ever met werewolves!' exclaimed Jennifer.

'Oh yes. We had bucket loads of adventures with werewolves back in the day. So many in fact I'd almost forgotten that some people find them terrifying.'

'Surely,' said the Governor, who had now turned quite white, 'you're not suggesting that you've met something more spooky than a werewolf, Pirate Captain?'

'Most days. An obvious example that springs to mind is the adventure where we were searching for some mythical Olmec gold. Sailed all over the place looking for it. Tricky customers those Olmecs, they have a tendency to stash their treasure in really inconvenient and unexpected places. We ended up at a haunted house in Raynes Park. Do you know Raynes Park?'

The islanders fell into an animated discussion, but none of them had heard of Raynes Park. Napoleon sat with his arms folded and made a face.

'It's a suburb just south of London,' explained the Pirate Captain helpfully, 'between Wimbledon and New Malden. It's not that eldritch a place to be honest, but this particular haunted house was really awful ... you know, holes in the roof, bats, glow-in-the-dark stuff hanging off the trees in the garden. We could hear a blood-curdling noise coming from the attic, so me and the lads knocked down the door and crept up the stairs, which were all creaky like you'd expect. Ghosts are notoriously lax at house repairs. I a.s.sume it's because when you're dead it wouldn't seem that important, would it? Stands to reason. Anyhow, as we got onto the landing, the noises became louder and even more sinister. But bold as bra.s.s I gripped my cutla.s.s and marched straight up to the little attic ladder, expecting monsters. Sure enough, there were a load of them in there, making a horrible racket. Monsters! And they were sat round a table just like this one.' The Pirate Captain lowered his voice eerily. 'But where you're sitting,' he pointed at the islanders in turn, 'was a zombie! And where you're sitting was a dracula! And in your place was a triffid and next to you was a Creature from the Black Lagoon! And, Governor, in your seat there was a painting where the eyes follow you about the room!'

The Governor put his hand to his mouth and let out a stifled shriek.

'And where you're sitting,' said the Pirate Captain, looking directly at Napoleon, 'there was little chubby maggot. Imagine that! I'll bet none of you have ever heard of anything so spine-chilling.'

Napoleon began to say that in fact he had just remembered an even more shocking and dreadful story, but the Pirate Captain held up his hands to cut him off. 'Listen, Napoleon,' he said. 'I'm sure we could spend all night telling stories about how brave we are. But I'm a man of action, not words. So what do you say to a little contest?'

'What did you have in mind?' asked Napoleon, his eyes narrowing 'Well,' said the Captain, 'I was thinking along the lines of a "Draw a Monster" compet.i.tion. We get some paper and pens and each of us draws something scary. The winner is the one who scares the other one most. If both of us are equally scared, then we'll try them on the Governor here.'

The Governor didn't look too happy about this. 'It's getting very late, Pirate Captain. Perhaps it would be best if we all shake hands and get off to bed?'

'No!' exclaimed Napoleon. 'Let it never be said that Napoleon evades a worthy challenge. Please fetch some paper and pens from my desk.'

The Governor reluctantly went to get the required stationery while Napoleon flexed his drawing hand and the Pirate Captain ran through a few quick stretches. He was hoping Jennifer might offer to ma.s.sage his shoulders and mentioned a few times how tense they were, but she didn't seem to take the hint.16 'Gentlemen,' said the Governor, once everybody was ready. 'You have twenty minutes to draw a monster. I'd rather we were all good sports and didn't copy or try to distract the other compet.i.tor. Your time starts now!'

Before putting pen to paper, the Pirate Captain decided that he needed a strategy. He didn't know Napoleon very well, but he realised that he had to somehow get under the French Emperor's skin, to work out what made him tick and, most importantly, to discover what would terrify him out of his wits. 'If I was in his place,' thought the Pirate Captain, 'what would frighten me? I've always been a keen amateur psychologist, this should be easy enough.' Then the Pirate Captain remembered that he had often felt like he might be psychic, on account of the many bizarre and unexplainable things that had happened to him, such as the time when he found out he had the exact same birthday as a total stranger he once met on holiday.17 With a psychic brain like that, he could probably just extract Napoleon's greatest fears through telepathy. He put one finger on each temple and stared at the back of Napoleon's head, which is where he a.s.sumed the frightening stuff was kept.

'What are you doing?' whispered Jennifer. 'Why have you gone cross-eyed? Are you ill? Was it last night's jellyfish? I still say we should try frying them instead of boiling.'

'Shh ... I'm sucking Napoleon's greatest fear out of his head with my mind powers.'

'Mind powers? When did you get those?'

'I don't know. I'm probably a mutant or descended from Gypsies. Do you mind being quiet?'

Jennifer apologised and left the Pirate Captain to it. She thought of sneaking a look at Napoleon's picture, but he had covered it with his arm so that n.o.body could see.

The Pirate Captain rapidly came to realise that psychic powers were much harder to use than he had expected. And with only a few minutes left he wondered whether he might be better off letting his powers flow through his pen. This worked slightly better and before long he had drawn a monster with eight or nine googly eyes, tentacles, plenty of fangs and scales rather than skin. There was no time to colour it in, but the Captain figured that a monster might be scarier in black and white because it was 'stark'. Just as the Governor was telling them to put their pens down, he quickly sketched a few more heads a dragon, a cat and a hen sat back and folded his arms.

'Gentleman, if you could reveal your monsters,' said the Governor, a serious look on his face. The Pirate Captain pushed his picture forward as boldly as he could.

'There you go,' he said. 'I'm afraid it hasn't got a name.'

Seeing the Captain's drawing Napoleon suddenly screwed his sheet of paper into a ball and, with a sort of strangulated yelp, flung it into the Governor's fireplace. Then he sat back and mopped his brow.

'What on earth are you doing?' asked the Captain, shocked.

'I am sorry, Pirate Captain,' said Napoleon, shaking his head and suppressing a shudder. 'But my picture was so terrifying that had anyone, other than I, Napoleon, looked upon the thing, it would have caused their hearts to explode. That's how scary it was. It's almost as if my skill as a draughtsman had actually summoned a demon from the occult realm.'

Several of the a.s.sembled islanders 'oohed' and 'aahed' at this.

'Well then,' said the Governor. 'I suppose we must declare Napoleon the winner. For though your picture is very good, Captain, it hasn't made anybody's heart explode, thank the stars.'

'Don't feel bad, my friend,' added Napoleon consolingly. 'It is only because of my iron const.i.tution that I was able to withstand it myself. More quail's eggs?'

16 Things don't always go smoothly with girls. Famously, when Napoleon first tried to make love to Josephine he was bitten on his leg by her pug.

17 If you are in a room with only 23 people there is a 50 per cent chance that one of them shares your birthday.

Eight.

SNAKES.

AMOK!.

ost of the pirates were in the kitchen having afternoon tea. Some of them were balancing pieces of toast on top of each other, because they'd discovered that balancing things was one of the very few perks about being on dry land. The rest were taking it in turns to heave heavy sighs.

'Oh, come on, lads. You know I don't usually object to a bit of theatrical sighing, but it's getting quite tricky to read my newspaper.' The Captain waved his copy of the St Helena Gazette at them. 'You keep blowing the comics section away.'

'Sorry, Pirate Captain,' said the pirate in green, who was absent-mindedly carving a little picture of a starfish into the kitchen table. 'It's just I think we're all missing the piratical life.'

'Not this again. If it really means that much to you we can always go and pirate some rocks or moss or something,' said the Pirate Captain magnanimously.

'It's not the same on dry land,' muttered the pirate with a nut allergy. 'Without the romance of the sea, pirating just seems like quite antisocial behaviour.'

'If you go about with that kind of negative att.i.tude then of course everything looks grim. You have to try to see the natural beauty in things.' The Captain pointed out the window, towards where two goats were stood s.h.i.+vering on a gra.s.sy knoll. 'Look, over there. Those two goats. Clearly very much in love with each other. Doesn't that touch your soul?'

A few of the pirates peered at where the Captain was pointing.

'Why is the big goat biting the other goat on the thigh?' asked the albino pirate.

'It's an affectionate love bite,' the Captain explained.

'Oh! Now the little goat has responded by trying to hit the first goat round the head with a hoof,' said Jennifer.

'He's stroking her. That's a goat caress,' persisted the Captain.

'And now a whole load of other goats have joined in. It looks a lot like a fight.'

'It's a party. They're exuberant creatures.'

'Oh look, they've eaten the first goat now, Captain. There's just a skeleton left.'

'My point still stands,' said the Captain, forgetting what his point had been.

With a spray of rain and a gust of wind the cottage door swung open and in tramped two extremely dejected-looking pirates. After fighting for a few moments to close the door behind them, the pirate in green and the pirate with asthma stood s.h.i.+vering and looking like their world had ended. The pirate with asthma was crying.

'What's the matter, lads?' asked the Pirate Captain, sensing something was wrong. He prided himself on his ability to pick up on the moods of his crew, no matter how subtle the clues.

'Can you imagine a boring museum, Pirate Captain?' sniffed the pirate in green, sitting down miserably.

'It's difficult,' replied the Captain. All his experiences in museums had involved the exhibits being either cursed, mysterious or really educational. It seemed unlikely that any museum could be boring.

'Well, there's one right here on this island,' said the pirate with asthma through his tears. 'It wasn't exciting, there weren't any adventures and we didn't learn anything. And you know how much we love learning!' He sniffed noisily and blew his nose on his sleeve.

The Pirate Captain nodded and handed him a tissue. He did know how much the crew loved learning. The pirate in green continued. 'Most of the exhibits are just rubbish that you can find on the beach and the shop only sells leaflets and pens that don't work.' He showed the Pirate Captain a little pen with 'The National Museum of Antiquities and Natural History, St Helena' written down the side in wobbly handwriting.

'But surely there was something worth seeing?' said the Pirate Captain encouragingly. 'It's like I've just been explaining to the rest of the lads: try to concentrate on the positives.'18 'There is one of Mister Napoleon's handkerchiefs,' said the pirate with asthma, brightening up a bit. 'He was just donating it to the museum as we got there, which was very good of him. It's on a plinth in a big jar of formaldehyde and there's a label explaining that it was the actual handkerchief he had in his pocket at the victory of Arcola, where he joined his infantry in a bayonet charge. That was quite interesting, I suppose.'

'Dear me. It does sound like a terrible museum,' said the Pirate Captain. He paused to take a couple of thoughtful sips of his tea. 'And, you know, as a responsible member of society I feel a certain obligation to help out.'

'You're n.o.ble like that,' nodded the albino pirate.

'I am. So, come on, lads, let's have a look through the treasure for something good to donate.'

Pretty soon the cottage was a mess of upended treasure chests, their contents strewn about the floor. Most of the treasure turned out to be straw, but there were also some sweet wrappers and a few dead rats.