The Hero of Trafalgar
Chapter One – Portsmouth Harbour
"Good morning, Mr. B!" the incredibly cheery voice of Baldrick sounded, as the door to the kitchen slammed behind him and his usual dirty and unpleasant face popped up in front of Edmund Blackadder, the Prince Regent's butler and housekeeper.
Blackadder, previously occupied with the morning's copy of The Times, rolled his eyes and ironically said, "You better eat those words, Baldrick, before I suddenly decide to violently push them back in your throat." Baldrick merrily smiled. "Fine by me, Mr. B, have not had any breakfast today." Blackadder resisted the sudden welcoming feeling he had to do as he had spoken, and got on his feet instead.
"Did you get what I asked for, Baldrick?" he asked and hid the paper aside. He could read the rest later, if the ridiculously-looking-and-witty-unintelligent-Prince could spare him just five minutes to spend in the kitchen. Baldrick boldly placed a basket on the floor, filled with a lot of cabbage. The butler, amused of the fact that the not-so-quick Baldrick had completed the task, did not say a thing before he had grabbed one of the cabbages and looked them over. "The finest of Portsmouth, Sir," Baldrick replied and suddenly got a very sharp and evil-looking look from the tempered black-haired man he had spent some years with.
"Portsmouth, you say?" Baldrick nodded eagerly. "What the devil did you do in Portsmouth, Baldrick?! It is in the southern part of England, we are in the northern!" Blackadder said, mostly out of the mere startle he had got to see the basket of cabbages he had ordered Baldrick to buy. But he was puzzled with the fact that Baldrick, who was not even aware of why Napoleon Bonaparte was an enemy, could manage to get all the way to Portsmouth without ending in Bristol.
Baldrick had the answer ready and he said with a bold smile, "You see, Mr. B, I have a cousin living in Portsmouth..." Blackadder shook his head, mumbling something that sounded like "Oh God, not another Baldrick to poison my innocent living…" and Baldrick continued, unaffected with the obvious state of Blackadder's mind: "Well, me cousin Bentley told me that he had seen a suspicious looking banana-looking thing in the middle of the dock, and he told me to hurry down!"
Blackadder dared himself to ask, "Is it a rule that everyone in your family has to be stupider than the fool upstairs?" referring to the Prince Regent, who you could hear cursing upstairs about not being able to find his socks. Baldrick, taking it as a compliment, nodded. Blackadder raised his fist and grabbed Baldrick by his collar, dragging him up in mid-air and at the same time obeying his lust for punishing someone. "Now, be a good fool, Baldrick, and tell me exactly what you saw down at your cousin's." The tiny, yet quite astonishing dirty man spoke up as if it was as natural as breathing when his master pulled him off the ground, threatening him. "Well, we went to the docks where he said he had seen it, and I saw it! It was huge! It was a vote!" he merrily said and smiled. Blackadder suddenly realized what exactly Baldrick had referred to. "You mean you saw a boat… In the Portsmouth Harbour?" he asked, and the asked person nodded as if it was highly suspicious when boats came into the harbour. Blackadder shook his head. "For your information, Baldrick, a harbour is a place where boats usually are parked due to the lack of space in the city." He said, but did not have more time to chat, as a furious yell upstairs made him think of going up to assist His Royal Foolishness. "Well, Baldrick, I will give you five seconds in advance to think up of a cunning good explanation why the boat was there. In the meantime I will check up on the creature upstairs."
"Good morning, your Highness." Edmund Blackadder greeted, as he entered the Prince Regent George's sleeping quarters. He took a brief browse around, noticing that every wardrobe had been opened, and clothes had randomly been tossed to the floor. "Ah, there you are, Blackadder. It is curious, I once again cannot find my socks!" the Prince complained. He had a look in his eyes similar to a student, who could not understand the secrets of Astronomy though he had tried about a hundred times to comprehend it.
Blackadder coughed slightly to keep his laughter down, and made it look like he had something in his throat. "I think that that suspiciously-looking rebellious creature downstairs is eating my socks!" the Regent said and tossed a pair of trousers aside from his wardrobe. Blackadder could not resist a smile. "Baldrick, Sir? Socks are far too noble to be eaten by him." He added in the lowest voice he could muster, "Though your socks might live up to his standards."
The Regent, as usual ignoring his smart butler, kept on dragging pieces of clothing out of his wardrobe, and it came to an end when the wardrobe was swept clean for clothing. He looked very disappointed, but lightened up again. "Now, I better go out and see if I can find something good in the paper." He cheerfully said, and pranced merrily out of the room. Blackadder, left alone in the enormous heaps of clothing, yelled something that we will not allow written due to the possible cause of having misheard him, but it did sound somewhat familiar to the word "Damn!"