No. 15.—Falsebeard the Pirate, Part 2.

(Continued from Part 1.)

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IMMEDIATELY I ROUNDED up my men, ignoring for the moment the stench of bubble gum on their breath, and brought them all back to the Mary Livingstone as quickly as our launches could carry them. But how would we prepare for an attack by the notorious Falsebeard? With other pirates, it would simply be a matter of manning the cannons and directing the ship’s orchestra to play something lively by Wagner or Liszt. But Falsebeard relied on infiltration rather than overt violence in his depredations. I will not say that my heart sank—the heart of a ship’s captain must necessarily be unsinkable—but it was definitely taking on water as I reflected that, even now, Falsebeard was most probably already aboard my ship, employing one of his devious disguises to conceal himself, perhaps even under the form of one of my own men. Indeed, the more I considered the matter, the more certain I was that one of my crew, no matter how apparently innocuous, must be the crafty pirate Falsebeard.

My first step, therefore, must be to interview every member of my crew. It was a tedious process, but one by one I called each man into my own quarters and asked him a few probing questions, which I had devised expressly for the purpose of unmasking any impostor among us. My first question was quite direct, since there was no time for circumlocution: “Are you Falsebeard the pirate?” A positive answer to this question would, of course, have terminated my investigation; all but one of my crew, however, answered in the negative. Higgs, the boatswain, at first thought he might be Falsebeard, but on some reflection decided that he probably was not, and became quite certain when I attempted to remove his face to see whether it might be a mask.

Since everyone answered the first question in the negative, it was necessary to move on to the second question, viz., “Are you positively certain that you are not Falsebeard the pirate?” Receiving negative answers to this one as well, I was compelled to think up a number of other questions, such as “Are you lying right now?” and “How much are seventeen and twenty-three?” (pirates being notoriously bad at ciphering, a skill at which all true navy men excel). I thoroughly interviewed every man on board until it was well past nightfall. I even interviewed the ship’s cat, whom the men called Maisie; I did not recall her as being ten feet long from nose to tail and standing nearly four feet high at the shoulder, but then it was true that I normally had little interaction with the creature. Finally, to leave no stone unturned, I interviewed myself, standing in front of the full-length mirror in my quarters. My answers, I must confess, were disappointingly evasive. I did nothing but repeat my own questions like a Rogerian therapist; and I was beginning to grow deeply suspicious of myself, when suddenly an alarm was raised outside.

“It’s Falsebeard the pirate!” I heard voices shouting. “We’ve found him!”

I dashed out on the deck, where most of my crew were gathered, shouting and gesticulating in a confused and agitated manner.  At first I was unable to comprehend anything they were saying, but at last my boatswain Higgs managed to silence the rabble and make himself understood.

“Thar he be, Cap’n,” said Higgs in his colorful nautical vernacular. “Bald pate shinin’ like the moon, just like you told us.” He pointed to the horizon, where a nearly full moon had just risen above the scraggy palms of Palmes Jaunes.

Patiently I explained to the men that, in the description we have been given by the Admiralty, the words “a bald pate that shone like the moon” were not to be interpreted in the literal sense, but rather in the allegorical sense, reminding them of the hermeneutical instruction I had given them on previous occasions when questions arose about the meaning of orders from the Admiralty. I commended them for their vigilance, but advised them to limit their search to the terrestrial sphere. Having encouraged them with a few more words of inspiration, I retired once again to my quarters, where my reflection in the full-length mirror greeted me with a few derisive remarks.

That my own reflection should be so ill-bred as to treat a captain of Her Majesty’s fleet with contempt renewed my former suspicions, and I reached into the mirror to grasp the offending image by the lapels. That no glass stood in my way was, upon reflection (so to speak), even more suspicious.

The image fought back manfully as the ship’s orchestra struck up the lively central section of Les préludes, and I was not at all surprised when my moustache and eyebrows—or rather the identical moustache and eyebrows on my reflection—fell away, revealing the hitherto unseen face of Falsebeard the pirate. I soon gained the upper hand in our contest, and with a mighty thrust sent my opponent reeling back into the closet from which he had sprung.

Reduced to desperation and obviously cornered, Falsebeard had recourse to his usual expedient, pelting me with eggs. Here, however, I was truly one step ahead of him: knowing as I did his propensity for resorting to egg-throwing as a last resort, I had taken the precaution of replacing all the eggs in the ship’s larder with egg-shaped stones; so that, instead of covering me with a runny, sticky mess, Falsebeard merely pelted me black and blue.

Even so, I know not what the outcome of our contest might have been, had not Maisie, the ship’s cat, chosen that moment to amble through the door. Seeing Falsebeard moving in a lively and animated manner, her interest was attracted. With one vigorous sweep of her paw, she knocked the wicked pirate senseless; and she might well have done him even more mischief, had I not admonished her severely.

Little remains to be told of Falsebeard the pirate. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to a course in Investment Banking for Beginners at the Community College of the Antipodes. Maisie was awarded the Order of the Silver Whisker, the highest com­mendation a ship’s cat can receive in Her Majesty’s navy. I must add, for the benefit of any young captains who may be reading this narration, that the breed of cat found along the Bengali coast, where my crew informed me they had acquired Maisie, is a loyal and useful addition to any ship’s crew; and that, furthermore, the animal’s unusual orange coat, with its striking pattern of vertical black stripes, makes it an ornamental as well as useful acquisition for any ship.

No. 14.—Falsebeard the Pirate, Part 1.

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THE SUCCESSFUL CONCLUSION of the Spanish war gave Her Majesty’s navy the leisure to address the vexing problem of piracy. With no Spanish warships to distract us, we put our backs into the work, and in quick succession captured Black­beard, Redbeard, Brown­beard, Bluebeard, Blond­beard, Strawberry­blond­beard, Auburn­beard, Flaming­magenta­beard, Herman, and Greybeard, packing them all off to our Antipodean colonies, where I understand they have all reformed and become successful investment bankers. Only one of the pirates remained at large: Falsebeard, the wiliest and most devious buccaneer who ever sailed the seven seas.

My ship, a jolly brig named the Mary Livingstone, was assigned to the difficult job of capturing Falsebeard and bringing him to justice. It was an unenviable task:  every captain who had attempted it so far had ended up with egg on his face—quite literally, since eggs were Falsebeard’s weapon of choice when he was cornered.

I knew little of this Falsebeard, though I was better informed on the subject than most of our officers. This Falsebeard was a crafty fellow who employed a remarkable array of clever disguises. It was said that no one living had seen his real face, and the dead men who had seen it were curiously reticent. No accurate description of the man was to be had. In the Admiralty’s files, to which I was given privileged access before our departure, he was described as a man, or possibly a woman, of a height in the range of three feet six inches to eight feet four inches; missing one or more limbs, or endowed with a number of superfluous limbs; and with flourishing long hair in black, or brown, or gold, or green, or a bald pate that shone like the moon; speaking with a pronounced Lancastrian, or High Dutch, or Milanese, or Punjabi accent. This description, therefore, I gave to my men, so that they would know what to look out for. We then set off for the tiny and lawless Caribbean port of Palmes Jaunes.

Our journey across the Atlantic was uneventful; indeed, I believe the Mary Livingstone still holds the record in the fleet for uneventfulness of an Atlantic crossing, although it is, I regret to say, an unofficial record, since we had no official naval historian aboard to attest to it. When at last we arrived at Palmes Jaunes, I gave my men shore leave, though with a strict admonition to stay far away from bubble gum and other vices to which sailors are notoriously addicted.

We arrived at Palmes Jaunes in the hot and lazy middle of July, when the town was mostly inert; although a good bit of the inertia (I say with pride) might be attributed to the exemplary activity of Her Majesty’s navy, piracy having been formerly the mainstay of the town’s trade. The inhabitants of the town were beginning to feel the pinch, as the boys in the rigging say, and many of them were desperate to find some substitute for the income they had until recently derived from the now-transported pirates. Since the rumor of an expedition to capture Falsebeard had preceded us, the more entrepreneurial citizens had quickly deduced that information on the location of Falsebeard, who was a known frequenter of the port, was their most valuable commodity. As I marched down the dusty main street, I passed numerous scruffy-looking men carrying hand-lettered signs advertising “KNOWN LOCATION OF FALSEBEARD, 3s” or “FALSEBEARD’S LATEST WHEREABOUTS, 2/6.” At last I came to a disreputable-looking tavern or public house, whose owner had hung out a bedsheet painted with the words “YOUR FALSEBEARD INFORMATION SUPERSTORE.” This, I decided, would be my first stop.

I entered the place to find it silent, hot, and still. A few of my sailors were sitting at tables, and from the corner of my eye I could see a few of them discreetly spitting out bubble gum; but I decided not to be severe upon them. Instead I walked straight to the bar, where the master of the house had placed a number of banners reading “BIG FALSEBEARD INFO SALE” and “ONE STEP AHEAD OF FALSEBEARD.”

“I understand you may have information about the whereabouts of Falsebeard the pirate,” I said to the man, who was as scruffy as the rest of the townspeople I’d passed.

“Aye, and better than that,” he affirmed. “I can tell you which ship is next on his list of victims. You’ll be one step ahead of the man, just like the sign says. That’s got to be worth something, hasn’t it?”

“And what will it cost me to find out?”

“Well, let me see. Regular price is five shillings, but of course you get your threepenny discount for officers in uniform, and then there’s the information excise tax and the entertainment tax—it would make Her Majesty very sad if we forgot the taxes, wouldn’t it?—so altogether, in toto, it comes to thirty-eight pounds three shillings tuppence halfpenny.”

I immediately handed over the money in gold specie, which he accepted with alacrity and a bit of Worcestershire sauce.

“And now,” I said, “you may tell me which ship is next to be attacked by Falsebeard.”

“Certainly, cap’n. Got it right here.” He produced a little wad of paper from his grubby pocket and unfolded it into quite a broad sheet. “The next ship on Falsebeard’s list—let me see now—yes, here it is—the next ship to be attacked by Falsebeard is a brig, I believe, called the Mary Livingstone.”

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Continues in Part 2.

Texas Edition.

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Alamo. Sam Houston could never remember the name “Alamo,” consistently pronouncing it “Amalo.”

Houston Statue. The statue of Sam Houston in Huntsville, Texas, is the tallest statue of Sam Houston in the world.

Gold. In Texas, gold is commonly known as “yellow oil.”

San Antonio. Recent explorers have reported that the legendary city of San Antonio consists of an airport, a hotel, and a string of strip malls connecting them.

Stars. The stars in Texas skies are so big that only one of them will fit on a flag.

Texas. Texas is larger than any other state that is not Texas.

No. 13.—The Desert Isle, Part 2.

Continued from Part 1.

THE CREATURE BORE some resemblance to a man, but dressed in such an outlandish fashion as I had never seen in all my travels. He wore a pair of trousers or breeches that came down a little past his knees; simple sandals in a garish red color; the most outrageously colored blouse or shirt with printed pictures of palm trees and sunsets in bright reds and oranges; a pair of glasses with the lenses darkened, so that I wondered how it was possible for him to see at all; and a kind of hat made of a sort of net or mesh, with a protrusion jutting out over his brow, as though it had once had a brim but three-quarters of it had been cut off, and the outline of a palm tree emblazoned on the front of it. The whole effect was something unearthly and yet sinister. I have had dealings with the demonic forces before, but none that frightened me so much as this strange being.

“Welcome to Sandy Palms,” said the strange being. “You must be one of our lucky vacation winners. Why don’t you come in and join the others while I explain a little about how the vacation-ownership concept works?”

No matter how demonic the appearance of my interlocutor, good breeding and native charity have long since taught me to respond with perfect politeness. “I fear you may have mistaken me for someone else,” I told the strange apparition. “I am but a poor shipwrecked sea-captain, making a humble attempt to survive on this island, which I had previously supposed to be uninhabited.”

“You are not one of our happy party of vacation winners?” The creature’s face momentarily turned purple, but then immediately a calm and sunny smile spread across his visage. “Won’t you please join the rest of us inside my trailer, then? I may be able to be of some assistance.”

I cannot say that I suspected nothing. But my choices were to trust this strange fellow, who seemed at least to have some notion of civilization, and who had indicated that there were persons, possibly of my own species, within the confines of his strange abode; or to turn in unbecoming fear and flee, knowing that, without help, I was unlikely to escape the small island on which the object of my unreasonable terror also resided. Picking up my little bag of supplies, I stepped through the door into the dim structure.

No sooner had I stepped inside, however, than the demon slammed the door shut behind me and blocked it with his own considerable bulk.

“Now,” he said with a fiendish cackle, “you are in my power, and you will not leave until you have thoroughly understood the awe-inspiring benefits of time-share!”

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I could see a few rows of simple chairs arranged to face a blank wall on which a kind of magic-lantern show was projected. The chairs were occupied by a dozen or more persons of the most appallingly haggard appearance, pale and emaciated, staring at the images as if in a Mesmeric trance. From some hidden source a mild and monotonous female voice could be heard making soothingly vacuous remarks about something called “vacation ownership.”

“Despicable villain!” I cried with all the justified indignation I felt. “What have you done to these people?”

“They are merely happy vacationers who have had the good fortune to be introduced to the concept of vacation ownership. It’s very simple, really. Luring them with the promise of a free vacation to this deserted spot, from which they cannot escape without my assistance, I offer to sell them a property—but one which they are allowed to use only one week per year, since I intend to sell the same property fifty-two times over. They quite naturally laugh in my face. Then—ha ha!” (He laughed a wicked laugh.) “Then the torture begins! I break their spirits with endless presentations and pep talks, until they are completely under my command! Soon they will sign any paper I put in front of their noses, if only I will promise to take them away from this endless torment!”

“You shall not break my spirit,” I warned him. “Your wretched tortures may bring civilians to their knees, but you have now met with a captain in Her Majesty’s navy.”

“Ha!” the fiend laughed. “What power can you possibly oppose to the mighty force of my timeshare presentation?”

“Merely this,” I answered, and with a lightning movement I whipped it out of my bag and struck the fiend a resounding blow with Brandt & Screever’s Comprehensive Guide to Tuscany, a book I heartily recommend as essential equipment for any traveler.

Having prostrated the villain, I found the magic lantern and stopped the procession of hypnotic images, freeing the unfortunate prisoners from the thrall of the fiend. We all retired to the modest cabin I had constructed, where we made ourselves quite comfortable.

Doubtless you have heard the rest of the story: how we made use of the small rotary press to print a large number of warning posters, which we put up all over the island, to keep the unwary from falling for the wicked schemes of the time-share charlatans; how we printed a plea for our rescue and sealed it in the cookie jar; and how I fitted the cookie jar with a sail and, by calculating the wind and current with a fair degree of accuracy, was able to send it toward the main shipping lanes, where it soon attracted the attention of a passing vessel. These things are common knowledge; but, until now, I have not had the opportunity to present my own account of the transactions on that little island. I confess that it does not compare in historical interest to some of my other adventures; but I do have some hope that my example will inspire younger people to stand up against injustice, and to come to the aid of all who are oppressed by evil wheresoever such evil may be found.

No. 12.—The Desert Isle, Part 1.

WE WERE ROUNDING Cape Derision in the Antipodean territory of New South Blawnox when a sudden Antarctic squall blew up from the south—so sudden, in fact, that we had no time to find a sheltering harbor, or even to drop an anchor. My ship was blown hundreds of miles before the storm, tossed among the raging waves; and my crew, a loyal but clumsy lot, all slipped off the heaving deck into the churning water within the first few minutes. Only I, who had the presence of mind to hold on to the rail, remained on board; though I cannot say that my lot was better than theirs, as I later learned that the entire crew had washed up on the sandy shores of New South Blawnox and been welcomed as gods by the peaceful but gullible natives of that place. I, on the other hand, was driven northward far into the tropics, as the storm pummeled my sturdy but helpless ship day after day and night after night, until at last, just as the storm had begun to abate, the ship was splintered against a coral reef.

Organizing a few of the splinters into a hastily improvised raft, I paddled myself toward an island I had spotted in the near distance, taking with me what little equipment I had managed to salvage—viz., a small rotary press with which we had printed the ship’s newsletter, a copy of Brandt & Screever’s Comprehensive Guide to Tuscany, an empty cookie jar in the shape of a humorous cartoon turtle (which had been a Boxing-Day gift from Admiral Blanderson), a small electric waffle iron, and three mismatched xylophone mallets.

Having paddled my way to the shore, I immediately set about making myself as comfortable as possible. It goes without saying that an officer in Her Majesty’s fleet has seen many a shipwreck, and past experience had taught me to make good use of the materials presented by your typical regulation desert isle. Within a few hours I had provided myself with shelter, using palm stalks and the leaves of arboreal herbs of the family Musaceae to construct a modest ten-room cabin with a pleasant verandah overlooking the sea.

With that basic need attended to, I turned my attention to supplying myself with food. The island’s ample supply of starchy roots presented itself as a ready staple. Using Brandt & Screever to pound the roots into a kind of flour, I was able to make some very passable waffles, the scorching heat of the tropical midday sun taking the place of the electric power normally required to heat my waffle iron.

Man does not live, however, by waffles alone. The spirit as well as the body must be nourished. I had just set out in search of some reasonable hardwood with which I might construct a simple xylophone when I came across incontrovertible evidence that I was not alone. Unmistakably human footprints in the sand led toward the interior of the island. The track was not difficult to follow; it led to a small clearing in which I could see a human habitation, though of a remarkably strange sort. The hut or cabin was oblong and rectangular, apparently built of some kind of metal; and beneath one end of it were two sets of wheels, suggesting that the whole assembly could be moved intact, as though some nomadic South Seas islander had contrived to take his whole house with him in his wanderings.

But what was my horror you may easily imagine, when the door to this mobile domicile swung open to reveal the most hideous and terrifying creature I had ever laid eyes on.

(Continues in Part 2.)