AN APPOINTMENT.

WITH STABBING!.

hree miles out to sea, the Pirate Captain and Napoleon eventually began to realise the scale of their predicament.

'This seems to have got somewhat out of hand,' said the Pirate Captain.

'Yes,' said Napoleon, spitting out a starfish and a mouthful of water. 'It has rather.'

The two of them hauled themselves onto a piece of driftwood and didn't say anything for a while whilst they got their breath back. The currents had carried them so far from the sh.o.r.e by now that St Helena was just a speck on the horizon, and the rolling grey Atlantic stretched out seemingly for ever in all directions, like a boring geography lesson.

'I declare this piece of driftwood the sovereign property of Napoleon,' said Napoleon.

'You can't do that, because I already declared it the sovereign property of the Pirate Captain.'

'You did not.'

'I did. But I said it quietly under my breath, so you probably just didn't hear.'

'Fine. You see that line of lichen? Everything to the left of that is mine. Please stay off my property.'

'Happy to.'

The Captain turned his back on the general and thought about his adventure with Darwin. He stared at his reflection in the water and tried with all his remaining strength to evolve gills.

'Why are you pulling such a ridiculous face?' enquired Napoleon.

'I'm trying to mutate into a mer-person. I'd advise you to do the same, because I think we could be out here some time.'

'How long do you think we might survive on a diet of barnacles?' asked Napoleon, after a couple of hours had pa.s.sed, more to break the silence than anything else.30 'Oh well, I believe they're quite nutritious,' said the Captain, trying to sound upbeat. 'Though you'll starve to death long before me, because look.' He nodded at his glove. 'I've still got a couple of dead bees stuck to my glove.'

Napoleon sighed. 'It strikes me, Pirate Captain, that all this has become ... a trifle petty.'

The Pirate Captain looked at the line of lichen, and at the little French flag and pirate flag they had each carved into their respective halves of driftwood, and he couldn't help but feel that Napoleon might have a point. He tugged at his eyebrow for a moment, and then he picked up one of the bees and held it out to his rival.

'Dead bee, Napoleon?'

'Don't mind if I do. Thank you, Captain.'

The two men chewed thoughtfully on their dead bees for a minute or two.

'Listen,' said the Pirate Captain eventually. 'I really am sorry about that weight remark. I got in a bit of a muddle and thought we were trash talking, like that time during my adventure in Harlem, but that's no excuse.'

'Perhaps you had a point, Captain.' Napoleon picked a bee leg from between his teeth and patted his belly with a rueful air. 'I have been letting myself go of late.'

'Nonsense. I was just perpetuating unrealistic body standards. I should know better.' The Pirate Captain squinted up at the sun, which had come out from behind a bank of clouds and was now starting to beat down on them remorselessly. 'Wish I hadn't lost my tricorne. This dying of exposure business is going to play havoc with my skin-care regime.'

'I wonder who won the election?' said Napoleon.

'Hardly seems to matter now,' said the Pirate Captain.

'No, I suppose not. In fact, I can't really remember why it seemed so important in the first place.'

The Captain scratched his soggy beard thoughtfully. 'Normally, Napoleon, I have to say, I'm not much of a one for emotional journeys. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I pride myself on remaining completely unchanged by my adventures. But this time, during my brief stay on St Helena, I've come to realise two important home truths. Firstly: bees are fickle *@%$#s who'll let you down soon as look at you. But also, and perhaps more importantly, I've learned that just because I'm never going to be Pirate of the Year, that's no reason to stop doing what I love. Self-worth shouldn't come from awards and trinkets and getting the respect of your peers, it should come from within.'

Napoleon frowned. 'Surely by that logic anybody can declare themselves a success no matter how useless and ineffectual they are? You know, like homeopathy.'

'Well, I didn't say it was a completely coherent personal philosophy,' said the Captain, shrugging.

Napoleon jutted out his chin and gripped the Captain's shoulder. 'Really we are much alike, you and I.'

'You mean the hats?'

'No, Pirate Captain, I mean that we have both of us lost our way. I deluded myself that besting you in various pointless endeavours was somehow a good subst.i.tute for conquering the entire known world. But it isn't. It's not even close. I'm not quite sure how I got in such a muddle. The fact is, when it comes to the heart of the matter, we've both been running away from ourselves.'

'The last time I did that it turned out to be a papier mache version of me that Black Bellamy had built as a prank,' said the Captain, nodding sagely. 'Scared the living daylights out of me.'

'I mean in a slightly more metaphorical sense, Captain.'

'Aarrrr, got you. Ironic for us to have all these epiphanies whilst facing certain death in the middle of the Atlantic'

'Very.'

'Don't take it the wrong way, Napoleon, but I'm starting to have one of those delusions where I'm seeing your face, but sat atop a gigantic mouth-watering steak instead of a normal body. You have delicious cupcakes for eyes and a strip of bacon for a mouth.'

'I, too, am suffering hallucinations, Pirate Captain. I keep on thinking I can see a ship over there on the horizon.'

'Yes, I'm having that hallucination too. Oh, and now your ears have turned into lamb cutlets.'

30 It's possible to live without food for several weeks, but without water you'll be dead in three or four days. The longest solo survival at sea is a Chinese man who survived for 133 days adrift on a raft after his ship was torpedoed during the Second World War.

Three Months Later

Sixteen.

LOST IN THE SNOWS.

OF TERROR.

he pirate with a scarf stood on St Helena's little beach, skipped a stone into the sea, and stared out towards the horizon. Even though the stone bounced six times before it sank beneath the waves, which the pirate with a scarf was pretty sure must be a world record, his heart felt as heavy as a cannonball. He sighed, because he knew that the Pirate Captain, had he been there, would have come up with a much better comparison than 'heavy as a cannonball'. He'd have probably known the weight of some sort of dinosaur, or a special cut of meat, and would have used that instead. 'Heavy as half a stegosaurus or two pork bellies', something along those lines.

'He's not coming back, you know,' said Jennifer, appearing at the pirate with a scarf's side and putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. 'The Captain's gone to that great pirate feast in the sea. The one he was always talking about, where the waitresses all wear those off-the-shoulder medieval-style lacy tops, and they never run out of grog or chops.'

'I guess so,' the pirate with a scarf said sadly. 'I just hope there's somebody there to wipe the meat grease from his beard in the afterlife. You know what a messy eater he is.'

'Come on, we'll be late. They're about to unveil the memorial.'

A solemn crowd waited outside the St Helena Museum of Natural History and Antiquities, which now had the large red curtain from the town hall tacked onto one of its walls. Everybody looked sad but slim, because they were wearing black, which is flattering to the fuller figure. Several of the gamine lady islanders blew their noses noisily into their handkerchiefs. Even the 'Monstrous Manatee' had come out to pay his respects.

'We're gathered here today to remember our island's two greatest residents,' said the Governor, standing on top of a small box in front of the curtain. 'Now, unfortunately we can't carry out the Pirate Captain's exact wishes for his memorial, because we don't have either the troupe of dancing girls or the swimming pool full of jelly. Nor can we implement Monsieur Bonaparte's desires to the letter, because the technology has yet to be invented that can rearrange the stars in the night sky so that they form a big dot-to-dot picture of his face. But hopefully, were they able to be here today, they would both approve of this little memorial. May it be a lesson to us all.'

He yanked on a piece of rope and the curtain fell away to reveal a large mural. It showed the Pirate Captain and Napoleon, each atop a brightly coloured pony, galloping down a road made out of rainbows whilst an a.s.sortment of woodland creatures looked on. At the bottom were the words: In loving memory of the pirate captain and napoleon Bonaparte, washed out to sea whilst having a duel. Why can't we all just get along?

'Would you like to add a few words, pirate with a scarf?' asked the Governor.

The pirate with a scarf stepped forward and awkwardly traced a little picture in the sand with the toe of his boot. 'I don't really know what to say. It's true the Pirate Captain wasn't perfect. He could be pretty forgetful to be honest. He got through astrolabes like you wouldn't believe. He tended to rely on "running people through" as a subst.i.tute for reasoned arguments. And he certainly had some strange ideas about where babies come from. But despite all that '

The pirate with a scarf stopped dead. Most of the audience grumblingly muttered that they thought this was a pretty poor eulogy, but then they followed the pirate with a scarf's startled gaze and saw two shambling figures emerge from the sea and wander up the beach towards them.

'Sea Monsters!' exclaimed the albino pirate.

'Come to feast on our guts!' wailed the Governor. 'Or whatever bit of anatomy it is sea monsters eat at this time of day.'

As the two figures got closer the pirates saw that it wasn't sea monsters. In fact, it seemed to be a pair of surprisingly burly, bearded washerwomen. They were laughing and having quite an animated chat.

'h.e.l.lo, you scurvy knaves,' roared one of the washerwomen, in a familiar booming voice. 'What on earth is all this? Where are my dancing girls in jelly?'

'Pirate Captain!' exclaimed the pirates, because that's who it was. They rushed forward, and then checked themselves when, as one, they all had the same thought.

'Are you a ghost or are you a zombie?' asked the albino pirate tentatively. 'If you're a zombie then don't just say "ghost" in order to gain ready access to our brains.'

The Captain patted him on the head rea.s.suringly and looked the mural up and down. 'Not sure you've done justice to my famous hourgla.s.s figure,' he sniffed, hands on hips. 'But I like the ponies, they're a nice touch.'

'Your pony is called Starchaser. And Mister Napoleon's is called Moon jumper,' said the pirate in green eagerly. 'I've written some stories about the adventures you get up to riding about on them in the afterlife.'

'And they've done you very well, Napoleon,' added the Captain, turning to the other washerwoman, who the pirates now saw was actually the moonfaced little general. 'Really caught the quiet strength of your eyebrows.'

'Hang on,' said Jennifer. 'Do you mean to say you two like each other now?'

'Yes, it's amazing what five days sharing the same bit of driftwood will do for a relationship,' said Napoleon, winking. 'It's real kill-or-cure stuff. I think they should recommend it to married couples going through difficulties.'

'But where have you been all this time? And why aren't you in the afterlife?' asked the pirate with gout.

'Like Napoleon says, we drifted around for a while. Endless lapping waves, unremitting tedium, all the usual lost-at-sea stuff. But Neptune must have been in one of his better moods, because just before we got to drawing lots for who got to eat my succulent thighs first, we were picked up by a pa.s.sing ship. Of course, slightly less fortunately it turned out to be a slave-ship run by those black-hearted brigands from the East India Company. So before you could say "I like ham" we were thrown in the hold and clapped in irons.'

'Dear me. How on earth did you escape?' asked the Governor.

'Aarrr, well. It's a bit of long story.' The Pirate Captain sat down on a rock, adjusted his frock and lit a cigarette. 'There we were, halfway to the other side of the world, hanging upside down in the bowels of this devil ship, facing certain death or worse ...'

'... and that's how we defeated the combined forces of the East India Company, the Jade Emperor's golden hordes, the King of the Cowboys, and the International Crime Cartel, armed only with a piece of seaweed and six barnacles.'

All the pirates and islanders clapped, because it was easily the most exciting tale any of them had ever heard, or would ever be likely to hear, with inciting incidents and second-act climaxes and setbacks and moments of despair and character arcs and long dark nights of the soul and last-minute reprieves in all the right places.

'The only thing I don't quite understand,' said the Governor, frowning, 'is how you ended up emerging from the sea dressed as washerwomen?'

'Oh, let's not get into that right now,' said the Pirate Captain, yawning. 'Because it's a whole other kettle of fish that I may or may not choose to explain at a later date, depending on how the mood takes me.'

'Fair enough, Captain,' said Jennifer. 'We're just happy you're back. Anyhow, you'll be delighted to know that we kept up with the bee-keeping. We've become quite proficient at it. It turns out the albino pirate is a bit of a natural.'

'Yes, Captain,' added the Governor happily. 'Famous Nautical Honey is now St Helena's most popular export.'31 'Aaarrr, about that,' the Pirate Captain said, absently twirling a lock of beard hair around his finger. 'I hate to disappoint you, lads, but I've had another one of my unpredictable changes of heart.'

'You mean we're going to be pirates again?' asked Jennifer, clapping her hands in delight.

The Captain grinned. 'Maybe I am a bit of an antique when it comes to modern piracy. And possibly we're not the most successful bunch of brigands ever to sail the seven seas. But I still have a glossier beard and better tattoos than any of these young idiots with their all their fancy side-partings and qualifications. So just as soon as we've patched up the boat, who's up for finding some treasure? Even if it is guarded by Giant Crabs with terrible clacking pincers?'

The pirates waved goodbye to Napoleon and the Governor as the pirate boat sailed away from the island. They rubbed their faces against the rigging and happily inhaled the smell of tar and weevils. A few of them fell over, because they'd been on land so long that they hadn't found their sea legs yet, except for the pirate with a hook for a hand, who'd found his sea legs because they were prosthetic and made out of wood, and he kept them safely in a trunk next to his hammock.

'It's good that Mister Napoleon has decided to go back to trying to conquer the world once he's finished his memoirs,' said the pirate in green.

'And we're glad you decided bee-keeping wasn't being true to yourself, Captain,' said the pirate with a scarf. 'In fact, the lads clubbed together and made you something.'

The pirate with a scarf beckoned to the albino pirate, who stepped forward sheepishly. He handed the Captain a little trophy that appeared to be made mostly from foil and sticky tape. The Pirate Captain held it up in the sunlight and peered at the inscription.

'For the Pirate Captain,' he read. 'You'll always be OUR Pirate of the Year. Love, the crew.' The Captain paused, and bit his lip. 'Boys, I don't know what to say. I mean, obviously this trophy is extremely poorly made and of no monetary value at all, and I don't suppose the judging process was particularly rigorous, but still, I'm touched. Anyhow, it's been a long day and I need to get out of these washerwoman clothes,' said the Pirate Captain, handing the wheel over to his second in command and heading towards his cabin.

'Oh, and lads?' The Pirate Captain stopped mid-stride, turned round and pulled a serious face. 'The best thing about the seaside is the Punch and Judy shows.' Then he marched through the big oak doors to his office.

'He's right, said the pirate in green. 'It is the Punch and Judy shows.'

'Especially the bit with the crocodile and the sausages,' said the albino pirate.

And with that, the pirates went downstairs to do some shantying.

31 In the UK alone it is estimated that bees' contribution to the agricultural economy stands at 1 billion, but this is threatened by the alarming recent spread of Colony Collapse Disorder, which has already wiped out a quarter of America's 2.5 million honeybee colonies.