Greenbeard (9781935259220) (44 page)

The pale clouds fell away from the stern of the
Ark de Triomphe
faster and faster.

“Har-har, shipmates! Now yuz all can see that the world is truly a globe! A globe, alike to the one in me own cabin below!”

A murmur, almost of anguish, came from the crew.

“Be yuz all of strong heart, shipmates! Remember we be within the bubble o' protection, so nothing may cause us harm!”

Captain Greybagges stood and watched the disc of the Earth slowly diminish behind the frigate. The crew were completely silent and awe-struck.

“Now we shall go even more swiftly, shipmates! We need not tarry in such a well-found ship as this!” roared the Captain to the crew, then in a lower voice, “Bill take the X-FORCE gently to the maximum! Frank, do you now go and check the connecting bars! See that they are not becoming too hot, if you please!”

Mr Benjamin tore his wide eyes from the sight of planet Earth dwindling behind them and went down the companion-steps, swaying slightly as if drunk.

“Har-har, me hearties! We have now passed the point o' greatest peril ... for we have not crashed ourselves into the poor old Moon! Har-har-har! Pardon me little jest!”

The Captain's words seemed to break a spell for the crew, for they broke into loud talk, with many a profane exclamation and heartfelt curse.

“Be ye not a-feared, shipmates!” roared the Captain over the hubbub. “We be safe within the bubble o' protection! Yuz have seen the highest seas, blue waters that could daunt any stout heart! Yuz have fought in many a battle where a cannon-ball could have sent yuz to hell in a moment! Yuz have sailed the oceans of the world! None o' that cast you down, so why be a-feared when you are safe as mother's milk, when no wave or storm do threaten yuz? Especially when we sails to find wealth beyond measure an' fame beyond the poor imaginings of landlubbers. Yuz be sailors of the starry voids now, pirates of the skies, and yuz will have tales to tell! Be cheery! You there, Jake Thackeray! Strike up a song now! A song to stiffen the brave hearts of stout buccaneers!”

Jake Thackeray was pushed forward and encouraged to stand upon a barrel. He looked lost for a moment then smiled and launched himself into song, a song
that the crew knew well, and roared out in harmony:

“Jake Thackeray, I shall personally bury
you
in dung iffen you cannot think of a more encouraging song!” shouted Captain Greybagges over the laughter of the crew, but he was grinning. The song, and the moment of humorous relief, seemed to have taken away the crews' apprehensions.

Jake Thackeray thought for a moment, then struck a pose, and sang again:

The pirate crew sang lustily, and with good heart, as planet Earth receded behind the frigate
Ark de Triomphe
until it was no more than a star among the other stars in the velvet black of the sky.

“Well, that went as well as it could have done, I suppose,” said Captain Greybagges, then took a large swallow of rum.

“It is not every day that a fellow may see his home world disappearing behind him into the night sky, so I would have to say it went
very
well. Very well, indeed. It was a sight that both afrighted the wits out of me and enthralled me at the same time, and I am not sure that I will ever feel quite the same when I gaze at a sky full of stars,” said Mr Benjamin. Then he too took a large gulp of rum. The door of the Great Cabin creaked open and Blue Peter and Bulbous Bill came in.

“As you can hear, the crew are still a-roistering,” said Blue Peter. The crew could be heard singing, accompanied by a wheezy concertina, a badly-tuned fiddle and some sort of squeaky flute. “I told Izzy to let 'em have rum and beer with their supper, and I set the bully-boys to watch ‘em, so that they don't drink too much.” He and Bill sat down at the table and helped themselves to rum.

“How long will it be before we … drop anchor again?” asked Blue Peter.

“The journey will take about three weeks,” said Captain Greybagges, “but it will seem to us to take only ten days or so.”

Blue Peter raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“The flow of time is apparently reduced by travel at high velocities,” said Mr Benjamin. Bulbous Bill nodded sagely, and said, “To a cully a-watchin' us through a strong spy-glass it would take three weeks by his timepiece, but by
our
timepieces it will be less.
An' both of us will be right
, which is a thing I find most wondrous, 'pon
my soul I do! The Captain showed me an' Frank how the figuring of it be done, but I be none the wiser for the figuring of it, I will lay to that!”

“I had the way of it explained to me,” said Captain Greybagges, “but it is mysterious to me also, for I am no great natural philosopher. I doubt if even Doctor Newton himself could make sense of it, but it is so.”

“The numbers astound me!” said Mr Benjamin. “The planet Mars is presently a little more than
thirty-two million sea miles
from our Earth, or about twelve and one-half million leagues. That is, I am told, the closest that the two bodies do ever approach each other in their endless circumgyrations around the sun, which is convenient for us. Such distances are meaningless to my poor mind, though, so I am trying not to think of them. Best if they remain merely figures to be writ on a piece of paper, or clicked into the dials of the demiheptaxial mechanism, which seems to understand them far better than I!” Mr Benjamin took another gulp of rum, his
pince-nez
spectacles gleaming in the lamp-light.

Blue Peter made as if to speak, then thought better of it and stayed silent. The four of them all stayed silent, sipping their rum, each lost in their own thoughts.

Although the frigate
Ark de Triomphe
was travelling at a great speed, and indeed accelerating at a great rate, it seemed to be hanging in the empty void of space in its enclosing ‘bubble o' protection'. This gave the days that followed a dreamlike quality, the passing of time only measured out by the bell that rang to change the watches. The pirate crew ate well, imbibed rum and beer (under the watchful eyes of the bully-boys), gambled at card-games or crown-and-anchor, sang and danced (to an impromptu band, under the direction of Jake Thackeray, when he wasn't baking pastries and cakes in the galley's electrical oven) and took their ease. Jack Nastyface and Jake Thackeray still met at the mainmast cross-trees to smoke their pipes, but confined their conversation to mere commonplaces, for, like the rest of the crew, they found it easier to ignore the circumstances of the voyage than to acknowledge them by discussion. At regular intervals Mr Benjamin and his assistants would open a cylinder of compressed air (with a loud “bang!”
and a penetrating “hissssss'), then bring a keg of slaked-lime up from the hold and empty it over the side into the pool of sea water in which the
Ark de Triomphe
was apparently floating. Despite this, the air inside the bubble became quite bad-smelling, but this was the only real hardship, and easily borne by the crew, most of whom had, after all, been born and raised in the filth and stink of London.

If Miriam was not sharing Blue Peter's narrow bunk the ship's cat would often climb in, burrowing under his arm or laying at his feet, but its purring warmth was companionable in the dark of his cabin. Sometimes he would have half-remembered dreams, dreams in which the leopardess with cutlass-teeth and cannon-claws appeared to him again, with the wings of an eagle rising from her shoulders.

Every six hours Bulbous Bill Bucephalus took sightings of the stars with the telescope and alidade, comparing his readings and calculations with the dials of the demiheptaxial mechanism. On the second watch of the fifth day of their voyage he informed the Captain that the frigate had reached the mid-point of their course, and would now be reducing its speed to approach to the planet Mars. Captain Greybagges called the crew together and spoke to them in a somber and serious manner, with his blackboard once again set up on the quarterdeck. He announced that after that evening there would be no more drinking, except for a mug of ale with their supper (“boo!” muttered the crew, but with good humour) and he began to instruct them in the duties that they must perform when they arrived at their destination. The rifled muskets were brought out, cleaned, oiled and checked. Cutlasses and boarding-axes were sharpened. Squads of pirates were drilled over and over in their appointed tasks, with charts to study and written lists to memorise, so that every man should know his part in the coming action. The red disc of the planet Mars was now apparent ahead of them, and it was growing in size in the black sky.