Overboard! Page 5

  The Golden Octopus however was a curious organisation. It was effectively a council in its own rights, but gathered to represent the interests of all pirates whether they wanted it to or not. Mackrell was to say the least wary of any organisation that sought to dominate the huge amounts of gold and treasure that passed through the entirety of The Seven Tines, and Hard Knocks in particular. However it was a mutually beneficial arrangement given the pirate’s general lurch towards total anarchy. The Golden Octopus dealt with the distribution of all sums gathered by the pirates, acting as a largely legislative body by dealing out its own unique form of justice by its own hands. This left the mayor with both the funds and the manpower to run the rest of the city. That both bodies found this mutually beneficial went without saying, and both parties were keen not to be seen to rock the boat. Mackrell though had the advantage of (seemingly) operating out in the open, whilst the activities of The Golden Octopus by and large did not. Of course to all intents and purposes neither organisation gave the general populace of Hard Knocks and indeed the Seven Tines in total any idea at all of what it was up to at all. Fear was an important advantage for both parties, thus creating a situation where it was very difficult for most people not in either organisation to come to a final decision as to which party of the two they were most scared of. This was a situation that the Council and The Golden Octopus had worked very very hard for the last fourteen years to achieve.

  He stood there for a moment longer, lost in his thoughts as from his lofty perch he watched the ships swaying in the harbour. Concentrating on the narrow dockside streets below him he suddenly noticed a small scruffy looking man carrying what was obviously a large broom. Mackrell’s eyes locked onto the labourers at almost exactly the same time, and the man nodded, doffed his cap and then scooted off into the shadows. The mayor smiled slightly to himself. Such incidents were rare. Hardly anyone at all ever cast their eyes on the dome, even though it was completely transparent. The word in the taverns of the entire islands that made up The Seven Tines was that Bradley Mackrell watched everyone from his viewpoint. Hardly anyone therefore dared to cast his or her eyes up at the dome, just in case they found that this was actually true. The common assumption was that Mackrell was indeed watching. The mayor reluctantly turned his attention away from the streets below as he heard the door opening on the other side of the room.

  “Erasmus Blake.” announced McDowall from the other side of the room as he ushered a large, swarthy looking man into the room. Blake was dressed from head to foot in black leather, a small tri cornered hat of the same colour completing the look. As he entered the room he swept the hat almost casually from his head and bowed slightly.

  “Mayor.” he said, his voice deep and oily. Mackrell nodded in response and motioned for the butler to leave. Mackrell was of course familiar with Blake, as indeed he was with every member of the Golden Octopus, and he knew that the man was a relatively highly ranked member of the organisation, a fact that he considered very carefully. Obviously the messenger had something of import to relate, or more likely request of him.

  “That will be all Mr Tea cup.” he said and as the butler left the mayor motioned for Blake to take a seat as he placed himself back behind the desk. Blake sat himself down, noticing as he did so that the chair he was now sitting on had considerably shorter legs than the one the mayor was now sitting in. Mackrell peered over the desk at him suspiciously. “What can I do for you, Mr Blake?” he asked, and the large pirate smiled nervously, taking in the array of wooden playing pieces on the surface of the large desk. As he did so the mayor leaned forward as if he was suddenly totally oblivious to the other man, and tipped one piece in the shape of a ship on to its side. It clattered loudly as it tipped over. Blake tore his gaze from the wooden piece to see Mackrell staring at him with a large broad grin, waiting for his reply.

  Attempting to gather his thoughts, Blake could not help but stutter a little, his composure temporarily lost before a cool air of calm seemed to settle on his face once again. “The Golden Octopus wishes you to know we have collectively reached a solution for several...” he paused slightly as if searching for the right word. “Ah... problems you have brought to our attention.” The mayor leaned over his desk towards the pirate and winked broadly, before turning his gaze to a small piece that almost seemed to be in the shape of a mermaid. Blake moved back slightly. He was more used to being on the giving end of a spot of intimidation, and was surprised to find that the mayor wasn’t intimidated by him in any way whatsoever. Quite the opposite seemed to be the case in fact. True to form the mermaid was tipped on to its side. Blake grimaced inside, but his face was a perfect picture of total composure. The pirate could not help but feel that cracks were possibly beginning to appear in his mask of serenity, however.

  “Problems, you say?” enquired the mayor, a dark look running his ruddy features. Blake felt himself twitch slightly. Mackrell cast his gaze to the ceiling as if trying to place a previous conversation he had had with the Golden Octopus, before lowering his gaze back to the pirate sitting before him. It seemed to Blake that the mayor was running through a very long and potentially lethal checklist in his mind. “You mean that not right in the head insane bastard, “Mad Dog” Jenkins?” he enquired brightly. Blake smiled back at the mayor, a slight twitch playing across his face before he had a chance to subdue it.

  “Indeed.” he nodded. “Whilst the Golden Octopus is reluctant to distance itself from one of its own we feel a certain element of...” he smiled smugly at the mayor, “Concurrence with, and perhaps more than a little sympathy with your opinion that Mad Dog Jenkins is... ah... bad for business?” The mayor twitched slightly as Blake finished. He had a pet hate for any bugger that finished a sentence by raising their voice into a squeak.

  “Bad for business, you say, old son?” smiled the mayor before reaching forward and taking hold of one of the pieces in the shape of what could have been a capstan, before moving it to the other side of the desk and then after a moment returning it to where it had been in the first place. Blake smiled thinly, trying his very best not to look rattled.

  “Bad for business you say? Well let’s take a look at Mr Mad Dog, shall we?” The mayor fumbled below his desk and produced a large ledger from a drawer and banged it down on the table, carefully avoiding the pieces on the top of the desk. Licking his fingers, he flicked through the ledger before stopping about half way through the book. He prodded the entry he was obviously looking for with a grin. “Here we go. Last year during a sortie down the gold coast of Maritane he had flogged half of the crew by the end of the first day and keel hauled the other half by the end of the second. Upon encountering a school of dolphins he had them flogged too. Lost half of his ruddy crew trying to catch ‘em. Then there was the unfortunate incident with the ostrich.”

  The mayor paused slightly as if trying to remember something. Carefully he leaned over and tipped over another piece in the shape of a ship, whilst at the same time sniffing loudly. “Or at least we think it was an ostrich.” Noticing Blake’s gaze was now fixated on the several fallen playing pieces scattered about his desk Mackrell loudly slammed the ledger shut. Blake squeaked out loud and rose a foot or two into the air before settling back on to his chair. Attempting to gather his wits he noticed that the mayor was smiling sadly. “Now an unfortunate loss of life I can cope with. After all, it’s not a job for the feint hearted piracy, is it now?” Blake found himself nodding in agreement. “But I have a great deal more difficulty in the fact that he also threw half of his no doubt ill-gotten gold over the side of his ship on his return journey because he said, “It smelt funny.””

  Blake shuffled uneasily on his short chair. “Indeed.” he agreed. “Nevertheless we have come to a plan that ah... solves our problem with Captain Jenkins flights of Erm... fancy, shall we say.”

  “What’s that to be then?” enquired the mayor, tipping over a playing piece shaped like a barrel and then quickly moving another piece that looked like a small wood
en chest right to the edge of the table. Blake stared blankly at the wooden chest as Mackrell leaned in closer to the pirate, a broad grin playing wildly across his face. Blake could not help a picture of a cat looking at a cornered mouse forming in his mind. “Davy Jones’s with a mortar filled overcoat is it? Too good for him, I say.” Blake smiled.

  “Not at all.” Said the representative of the Golden Octopus, and he leaned in closer to the mayor himself. He was by now not surprised at all to discover that the mayor did not flinch or move at all. Nevertheless he continued. “We are dispatching Captain Jenkins on a search for the lost island of Capability Jones.” He paused as a deep silence set about the room. Mackrell was not moving at all, almost as if he had suddenly been frozen to the spot. Blake could hear the wind whistling outside the dome, and somewhere quite nearby but presumably outside the large round room he thought he could just make out the sound of a kettle whistling. Suddenly the silence was broken as the Mayor flew back in his chair, roaring with laughter. Blake smiled briefly, before taking his chance to add, “We believe he has a map.” The mayor continued to roar with laughter, his face now turning a very unhealthy shade of purple.

  “The lost island of El Bongo?” he roared, and Blake nodded, relaxing back in his chair himself. “Well tha has played a blinder there, son!” he snorted. “A bigger lot of nonsense I’ve ever heard in my life. Hidden island with a great treasure?” Mackrell burst into laughter once again, tears now rolling down his face. “In all my years!” Blake noticed that the kettle had now stopped whistling. “I must have seen about twenty different authentic copies of that map over the years. Every one of them completely the same too. It’s just a load of old bilge water. Ruddy Capability Jones hasn’t been seen for some thirty years or more. Bugger just vanished.” The mayor attempted to compose himself and fell into a long chain of deep chuckles. Blake smiled sweetly.

  “We believe the captain may be gone for some time.” he said, and the mayor slumped back in his chair. “If indeed he returns at all. The ah... statistics available to The Golden Octopus would seem to indicate that his return is by no means… certain.” Blake sat back, pleased with the reception of the plan, but then decided to press his advantage whilst the mayor was so obviously amused. “Which brings us to a small matter you could assist the Golden Octopus with.” he said. Mackrell gathered himself. It was not unusual for the members of the Golden Octopus to return a favour with a request. Blake sat back on his chair, waiting to see which piece the mayor would move next. He rather fancied it would be a smaller ship just to his left, or more likely another wooden chest in the centre of the table. To his dismay however, the mayor sat completely still.

  “What’s that then?” he asked, his eyes never leaving Blake’s face at all.

  “There’s a young man set up shop in town, offering his services as a pirate consultant.”

  “Con -sul -tant?” spluttered the mayor. “Ruddy hell - right under my nose as well.” Blake twitched as a small ships wheel on the edge of the table was suddenly tipped onto the floor. It was a well-known fact of course that the mayor did not have a great deal of time for modern thinking business practices. The only focus group he had time for was usually gathered around the safer end of a thirty-two-pound cannon, and as far as he was concerned “blue sky thinking” could only be achieved by a large amount of gunpowder and a match.

  “Absolutely.” nodded Blake. “The Golden Octopus feels that he would most definitely be detrimental to business. In fact, we believe he may have had something to do with the sinking of The Rose of Mateus last week.” The mayor looked solemn.

  “Aye. A bad business, that. What’s the name of this con - sul -tant, then?”

  “Neep Neep mayor.” pronounced Blake. From nowhere there came a loud sound as if something was speeding past them very, very quickly for a few seconds and then just as quick as it had begun it faded, leaving just the sound of the breeze blowing against the large glass dome.

  “What was that?” asked the mayor, looking nervously about him.

  “Dunno.” mumbled Blake, taking a casual glance under the desk. When he straightened up again he could not help but notice that the mayor seemed lost in thought. There was a gap of about a minute during which the clock on the wall seemed to tick louder and louder by the second. Finally, the mayor seemed to reach a conclusion.

  “I think it would be a much more ah... useful outcome if the Golden Octopus dealt with Mr Neep directly, don’t you think?” said Mackrell darkly. Blake nodded in agreement and with his business now finished rose from his stool, as he now thought of it.

  “Agreed. The Golden Octopus did not want to be seen to taking an ah... interest without consulting you first, of course.”

  “Of course.” agreed the mayor. The relationship between the council and The Golden Octopus worked like a well-oiled piece of machinery. There was of course the occasional “misunderstanding”, but nothing that could not be sorted out with the use of a large amount of gunpowder or a finely sharpened sword. Such incidents were of course rare, but when they did occur they were savagely and swiftly dealt with. This also goes some way to explaining why such occurrences were rare in the first place. Both parties seemed to have a finely tuned sense of exactly where the line was that they should not cross, and went to great lengths to ensure that they were at all times on the correct side of it too.

  “Well if that concludes our business?” Blake nodded and the mayor shouted for the representative to be shown out. The mayor completely ignored the member of the Golden Octopus as he was led from the room by the butler, now seeming to be fully occupied once again with the small wooden pieces on his desk. Blake reached the door, gave a nervous bow to the mayor who simply waved his hand in dismissal without looking up, and the messenger from the Golden Octopus left the room feeling more than a little rattled.

  Once Blake had gone Mackrell opened the draw and with a half-smile upon his face he swept all of the wooden playing pieces back into it. He went to close the drawer but then remembered the budget meeting later on. Rummaging around for a minute or so he then placed more pieces onto the top of his desk from what appeared to be a completely different set of shapes and pieces. This set seemed to mostly be in the shape of small bags of what was obviously meant to be gold, the occasional hangman’s noose, and several in the shape of what appeared to be hands with all the fingers cut off. There were also several shaped in the fashion of small wooden cash tills amongst them.

  Arranging them once again seemingly at random he stood back satisfied, then crossed his office and stood staring out of the window across to the sea again. Suddenly he burst into loud laughter.

  “The lost island!” he roared, “The map. Oh my. What a pig’s ear that will be.” He burst into laughter even louder than the first time and then suddenly roared across the room.

  “Mr Tea Cup! Mr Tea Cup! Stop mithering thisen and fetch me more tea!

  Chapter 3

  ~ Bed knobs and Bailiffs ~

  Neep raised his head from his pillow and sneezed loudly. From the street below he could hear the furious sound of loud banging on the front door of the boarding house. Groggily he pushed the blankets away and edged his feet into his slippers by the side of the bed. He sat there for a moment as the loud banging continued and yawning, pulled himself to his feet. As he did so he sneezed loudly once again, the result of which was his night cap flew through the air and landed on the small chest at the foot of his bed. Neep gazed at it for a moment still half asleep as the banging on the front door started again. This was this time accompanied by deep voices calling to open the door. With a sinking feeling in his stomach he thought he heard the word, “bailiff” mentioned. Swaying slightly, he crossed to the small window and parted the moth eaten curtain slightly, carefully glancing down into the street below.

  He jumped back quickly as he saw two very large men standing before the door. The largest one of the two caught the movement of the curtain and Neep jumped back into the room just as the knocking be
gan once again.

  “Ere!” shouted one of the men from below. “We know you’re in there, Mr Neep. You owe the Society of Piratical Endeavours a few bob, you bad boy!” There was a loud snickering from below at exactly the same time that Neep registered the sounds of Mrs Bunion, his landlady, making her way up the stairs yelling his name. Almost as if in protest at this rude awakening, Neep sneezed loudly once again.

  “Mr Neep! Mr Neep!” there came another loud banging from the door of his room as his landlady reached his door. As if in unison the banging from the front door began once again, only this time louder. “You’ve brought bailiffs to my door, Mr Neep!” shouted Mrs Bunion through the keyhole. “Shame on you for setting money collectors on the house of an old lady.” Neep blushed deeply as he stood in his nightshirt in the centre of the room uncertain of what to do. Mrs Bunion was not done yet though. Through the keyhole came the sound of her raised voice. “And what with you not having paid rent for the last month. Turning the place into a regular den of thieves you are, Mr Neep, and that’s for sure!”

  Neep considered returning to bed and pretending to be asleep but the loud banging from the street started twice as loud as before. There was a sudden loud crack of what could only be the besieged door and Neep was relieved to hear Mrs Bunion head back across the landing towards the stairs. “Don’t you think I be forgetting about you Mr Neep!” she called and Neep automatically took a step backwards away from his room door as she shouted to him. “I’ll be back in a moment to deal with you! Taking food from an old woman's mouth you are!” There was a further bustle as she descended the stairs, turning her attention on the bailiffs. “If you’ve broken that door you’ll pay for it you pair of dullards! Don’t think you can come around to a defenceless old lady’s house and go on breaking her door! I’ll take a stick to you; I will so help me and see if I don’t!” Neep sighed a breath of relief as she disappeared down the stairs, where there now came a rather more muted banging on the door. Crossing the room once again he looked through the curtain to see the door fly open and Mrs Bunion rush out, flailing at the two bailiffs with what appeared to be a small stick. Though the two men were without doubt huge, she set about them with a vengeance, much to the amusement of several passers-by. Grabbing a pair of trousers and hastily putting them on, Neep kept a close eye on the progress of Mrs Bunion’s assault in the street below whilst at the same time searching for his boots.