DISCLAIMER: I do not own The Pirates. Unless I pull a Sam Lowry.
"Got ya now!" said the pirate who triumphantly opened the door of the Barnacle's Face. "Come out where - "
"I CAN SENSE YOU, PEST!" the Pirate King crowed as he swatted the unfortunate man aside with his meaty hand. "My piratical instincts are far superior to yours! Do not prolong this business by hiding!"
Nothing happened.
"...Did you not hear me?"
Still nothing. In fact, the tavern was completely empty.
"Your Majesty!" a voice called from outside. "Come and see!"
He went around to the back of the building, where a group of pirates stood looking down at something with concern. It was the cellar door, lying open.
That was when they heard the shrieks. "Somebody stop them!" "What do they think they're doing?" "They've all gone mad!"
Sailing away from the island was a sight that, for the first time in his life, left the Pirate King utterly speechless.
Of all the ways which the king had to display his authority, his personal favorite was his boat. Already a mighty warship when he had captured it using nothing more than his voice and bare hands, he had set about making it even mightier. Plates of iron now protected its thick wooden hull, from which cannonballs harmlessly bounced. A statue of himself in mid-bellow served as its figurehead. The whole vessel was painted a brilliant white and gold, and it was said that any enemy who looked upon it promptly surrendered. To glimpse its sails was to know true fear.
And the Pirate Captain was waltzing off with it.
Legend says that the ensuing roar could be heard on islands a day's journey away.
The Albino Pirate laughed as he watched the now-distant figure hop around waving his fists. "What do you suppose he's saying, Pirate With Gout?"
"Somethin' nice and colorful," his friend replied. "No, not the good colors. The other ones."
A fanfare from the Pirate With An Accordion cut them off. The Pirate Captain had strode onto the center of the deck with a look of determination on his face that his crew rarely saw. "We all know what we're doing, lads, now let's get to it! Someone turn this thing northeast!"
The Pirate Who Liked Sunsets And Kittens spun the wheel around, and the ship went off through the ocean like a flaming knife through butter.
"He wants a chase?" the captain proclaimed, darting to the bow. "Then by Neptune, we'll give him one!"
Neptune seemed to have a decidedly more favorable opinion of the crew's endeavor than the Pirate King, for they had a fine wind behind them and a dearth of sea monsters in their path. It still took a week of madly racing across the sea, but before long they were there.
"Land!" the Albino Pirate yelled from the crow's nest one day. "I can see some land!"
Scrambling up the mast, the Pirate Captain whipped out his telescope and peered through it anxiously. They were approaching a small, sandy coast that was devoid of life. In the captain's eyes, however, nothing had ever looked grander.
"Good work, lads!" he yelled down at the deck. "Now I want you to run her aground!"
The crew looked up at him with a mixture of perplexity and horror. "Why...?"
"Just do it!"
Within a few minutes, the great ship was sitting on the beach, completely immobile and probably getting its paint scratched.
Pushing some barrels together to make a table, the Pirate Captain spread out Napoleon's map for everyone to see. "It's very simple. We're here," he said as he pointed to a spot on Belgium's coast, "and we need to be here." He moved his finger over Waterloo and tapped on it authoritatively. "Any questions? Besides 'how are we going to get there in time?'"
Good. Question.
The captain smiled. "There's no need to ask a question when you've already got the answer." He then turned to the Pirate With A Scarf, who was standing behind the wheel. "You can turn it on now, Number Two!"
The Pirate With A Scarf flipped up a small switch on the center of the wheel. A loud clanking filled the air as the ship began to rise off the ground, growing several feet before snapping to a stop.
"The king may not be that pleasant," the Pirate Captain said, "but you got to give him some credit. When he says he thinks of everything, he means everything."
Four large iron wheels had descended from the hold of the boat, two in front and two in the back. They seemed to carry the craft's weight quite easily.
"They say he wanted these so he could go sailing on land, but he never tried them out," the captain explained. "What do you say we take them out for a bit?"
"But there's nothing to make them turn!" the Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate said.
"Number Two?"
The Pirate With A Scarf flipped another switch on the wheel, and the sound of grinding machinery began to rise up from the hold. The wheels moved - slowly and hesitantly at first, then faster and more fluidly. They drove the boat forward, taking it off the beach and towards the countryside up ahead. Within a few minutes, it was practically flying over the terrain.
Beaming happily, the captain joined his first mate at the wheel. "You know, we really ought to get this for the boat."
If we can get the boat, the Pirate With A Scarf thought. "So what's going on down there, anyway?"
"Oh, it's one of those steam engine things with gears and chains and such...best if you not think too hard about it, really..."
Several Days Later
Waterloo - Outside the Encampment of the Seventh Coalition
It didn't look good, the troops were saying. Their enemy was waiting just beyond the ridge, eager for the coming fight. The wily fox himself was commanding them. Planned to be eating breakfast off a silver plate while his soldiers plowed through them. Oh, where on earth were the Prussians? It'd all be over tomorrow morning without them...
Their low murmurs were cut short by a shrill scream. One of the scouts, a waif of a lad, was frantically stumbling down the hill towards the camp, yelling his head off all the way.
"Are they coming?" someone asked him as he arrived.
He shook his head and pointed a quivering finger behind him. "Worse!" he panted. "It's...it's a..."
"Tell us, boy!"
He didn't need to, for at that moment the mysterious attacker showed himself. Or rather, itself.
Terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought, the men could only stare as a gigantic ironclad on wheels came sailing over the hill and headed right for them like a harbinger of the Second Coming.
The scout resumed screaming, and this time he was joined by everybody else.
People rushed all over the place as the ship plowed into camp, grinding to a halt in the midst of the chaos it had caused. A large man with an even larger beard vaulted over the side, landed feet first on the ground and grabbed the fleeing scout. "Now then, where is he?"
"Where's who?"
"You lot know perfectly well who I'm talking about! Either you tell us where Napoleon is, or you face the consequences! And believe me, they are most unpleasant."
"Napoleon isn't here!"
"See? That wasn't so...not here? What do you mean, he's not here?"
"W-We're not French, sir! We're the Coalition!"
"...Oh." Suddenly much more amiable and a little bit embarrassed, the Pirate Captain released the boy. "Could I have everybody's attention, please?" he shouted, but no one one could hear him.
BOOM! A cannon blast rang out above the din, quickly silencing it.
The Surprisingly Curvaceous Pirate poked his head out from one of the cannon windows. "Think that shut 'em up, Captain!" he said happily.
"Thank you." The captain returned his attention to the soldiers. "Terribly sorry about that, gentlemen. Navigational error. If you'll just point us in the direction of the French camp, we'll be on our way."
"Who are you?" a man asked.
"Let's just say we're on your side for the moment and leave it at that. We're here to get Napoleon, same as you."
"If anyone's being got," someone snapped, "it'll be us."
"Come again?"
By now, the other pirates had lowered the gangplank and were coming off the ship. "Is there a problem, sir?" the Pirate With A Scarf asked.
"Quite possibly."
The scout piped up again. "We can't fight them on our own!" he said, pointing to a steep ridge ahead of them. "We barely had time to raise an army, he came so suddenly. He's cut us off from our reinforcements and trapped us here."
"So what's Plan B?"
"Hold this ground and pray they get here before he does."
"Well, that's rubbish! Hasn't your general got something better cooked up?"
"He went over the ridge and never returned. We think he's been captured."
"You think. Didn't you bother to find out?"
A number of the soldiers looked away guiltily.
The Albino Pirate was only vaguely aware of what was going on. The crew had succeeded in capturing Napoleon while these men hadn't, and that was the limit of his understanding. "Our captain's better than your general, then," he said cheerfully. The Pirate With Gout tried shushing him, but he kept on rambling. "Why, he managed to make a fool of that silly little man. Didn't you, Captain?"
The Pirate With Gout clapped a hand over his mouth, but it was too late. Every soldier around them was staring at the Pirate Captain, eyes wide and mouths hanging open in astonishment.
"Yes...yes, I suppose I did."
The Pirate With A Scarf tugged on his arm. "We'd best be off, sir - "
He instantly found himself staring down the barrel of a musket. "He's not going anywhere!" the soldier pointing it said.
"First things first," said the captain as he swatted the barrel aside, "no one threatens my lads. If you want my help, you'll remember that."
The soldier withdrew. "Very well. Head over there," he said, gesturing to a tent beneath a tall elm tree at the center of the camp.
The Pirate Captain set off, flanked by his crew. "Now," he continued, "we're going to need maps, some weevil-free biscuits and those little models that you push around with a stick."
As you might expect, the next chapter's gonna be a doozy. And to prepare for it, I'm playing BBC History's Battle of Waterloo recreation game. Boy, Europe would've been toast if I'd been in charge. Let's hope the pirates do better!
~ A. Kingsleigh
