In an Adventure With Napoleon (18 page)

‘In my old job as a Victorian lady,’ said Jennifer, ‘I had to read a lot of romantic novels. They led me to believe that duelling was both a noble pursuit and the height of civilised combat. I certainly don’t remember hair pulling or wedgies being mentioned.’

‘Are they fighting or cuddling? I can’t tell.’ said the pirate in red.

‘They’re getting terribly far from the shoreline,’ said
the Governor. ‘Do you think I should call them back? Pirate Captain! Napoleon! Please! This has become most unedifying!’

Unfortunately the Pirate Captain and Napoleon were too busy being engulfed by a great crashing wave to hear a word. Then they were too busy getting swept away in the ocean’s roaring currents. And before the watching crowd could do anything, all that was left were two pointy black hats bobbing about in the swell.

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 shore 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 passed, 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 substitute 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 mâché 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.’

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.