It was only when I bewilderedly glanced over at Silver, who was himself looking a bit concerned, that I began to sense I was again in real trouble. The sudden mass growl from the other pirates helped me form this conclusion, also. It wasn't until I looked around at the grubby corsairs glaring at me, with their dirty fingernails, greasy faces, and unwashed clothing, all while the soft tropical breeze wafted towards me from them a combination body odor of a pro football team's locker room and a goat farm during a record rainy season, that I finally realized the reason for their abrupt change of mood into one of dislike for me. Damn that man with his hook leaning back in his chair and smirking at me!
One of the things the authors always skipped in those boys' adventure stories about the days of sail, and later on in the movies with all the directors' shots of pirate ships and men-of-war cruising on the bounding main into a gaudy sunset, was the vulgar fact that before the Age of Steam, sailing ships stank to high heaven.
The smell rose from the bottom up, where everything collected and rotted in the noisome bilges that could never be fully pumped dry, from the usual dead rats to the waste products from the crew and livestock that were carried as cargo or fresh meat in an age without refrigeration. (If you're wondering about there being a big ocean outside the ship, where surely a seaman could have a tinkle into, for the crew there was usually a space at the forepeak [the interior part of the ship nearest the bow], with one or two holes cut in a plank, which made for a truly interesting experience during heavy seas. The officers had a slightly better room in the stern, or they used chamber pots. Just makes you want to run off to sea and become a cabin boy in a clipper ship, doesn't it?)
Everyone afloat back then became inured to it, particularly the crew hard at their work, who also had to live with wearing on their skin and clothing such things like food scraps, sweat, soot, tar, dirt, paint, cargo deposits, gunpowder stains, and everything else. With no baths or laundry, ever. Fresh water was simply too precious for drinking purposes, and to a lesser extent, cooking. That vital fluid was never to be wasted for something so trivial as keeping the crew clean. Seawater didn't work very well at all for a soak, with any constant use of it for more than an occasional sluice of a bucket onto oneself producing a gummy residue that could bring on agonizing salt-water blisters. Using the same bucket of seawater to douse your dirty clothes into that pail only wore them out faster, making it pointless to keep them clean in the first place.
Oh, there was the occasional rainstorm at sea where a quick wash was possible, but that could never be counted upon, and anyway, the sailors would soon get dirty again and head back into the fug of their reeking quarters, there to regard with growing suspicion anybody complaining about the smell or trying desperately to keep themselves tidy and spotless. While there was an actual word as 'shipshape' for being neat and in good order, bathing wasn't part of it, and managing to keep yourself clean risked being considered by the other sailors to be using more than your proper share of the fresh water. Which was almost as bad as actually being caught stealing from your shipmates.
All sailors hated that, with even pirates considering a thief among them, rather than against any others they attacked, to be the lowest of the low, and being found out as a water thief was just as injurious to someone's reputation, and possibly as potentially fatal. Something that Captain James Hook indeed knew quite well, as that disgraced son of an aristocratic family sat back more comfortably in his chair and gleefully watched, as I frantically tried to think of some way to get out of this before a quick lynching was held, with me as the main guest of honor.
Once again, Silver came to the rescue. In his own unique way, of course.
"HAH!" That abrupt bellow probably scared passing seagulls flying along a few miles out in the bay It certainly startled me, particularly when after trumpeting that, Long John now stumped around me in a quick circle, all the while sweeping his intent gaze up and down my body, from head to toe. Finally finishing his exaggerated examination, Silver slammed to a halt, wheeled around to face the other pirates, and glared at them all while growling in a hoarse whisper that made those curious corsairs lean forward as they strained to hear.
"'Tis true, as me faithful comrade over there" (Hook's face instantly went beet-red in sheer apoplexy at hearing that) "from his own personal experience, I'm sure, has struck the nail on the head! There's no question that, and may I never have me lips touch rum again if I'm wrong, but this laddie has had, no later than a week ago, an actual…BATH!"
That last word was roared with supreme disgust at the full force of Silver's lungs, making all the other pirates flinch back, Hook included, as the man with a peg leg shot out his right arm to point an accusing index finger directly into my face, as I incredulously heard him go on. "Ye know what that means, don't you, me hearties? Back then, this imp of Satan stepped up to a vat of water heated hot enough to melt a brass statue, and without a second thought, he put a toe…a foot…a leg…nay, even what I can hardly bear to speak of, but I shall! Aye, he brazenly dipped his weddin' tackle into that steamin' cauldron!"
In unison, the crowd of pirates standing there all shuddered at that final appalling image. However, Silver wasn't finished yet.
"And as he was sitting there in the bubblin' barrel of degeneracy, without a care in the world, this fiend in human shape reached out and took hold of a chunk of that vile substance that ain't ever spoken of in polite company! He brought it up to his face and, oh, the cruelty of it all, he then stroked this corrosive corruption onto his countenance! YES! This inkblot on the page of humanity standin' before ye, he washed behind his ears with SOAP!"
Horrified awe grew upon the features of the rapt pirates, who now began shooting me looks of fearful respect, particularly when Long John Silver began vividly describing my actions then in the bath with a long-handled scrub-brush, painting pictures with words that would have made an impressed ex-girlfriend of mine start taking notes about opportunities for punishment or rewards, or even both.
I stood there looking stern, while struggling inwardly to not explode with laughter. It didn't help when my necklace charm now began to vibrate in short dashes, in the signal for complete success, an event that made my spirits soar even higher, until I finally lost control, and allowed a wide grin appear from ear-to-ear on my face. Unfortunately, that caught the suspicious eye of someone who was balefully observing me, and caused him to decisively react.
"QUIET!" roared Captain Hook in his own thunderous bellow, managing the rare feat of cutting off Long John Silver in mid-word. Ignoring this, the furious man in the chair pointed his trembling hook at me, hissing, "Lads, this perisher's up to something! I can feel it in my water, and I'm going to find out what's going on right now! So then, you landlubber, even if you're as big as a reprobate and miscreant as any of these scum here breathing down my neck, why should we have you as our king? If we ever actually need a ruler, it'll be someone who can lead us to glory! To loot the entire Caribbean, set the Spanish Main ablaze, take and raze all the cities and homes of our enemies! We want someone who'll attack the Pearly Gates and rob the pockets of God Himself! You…what have you ever stolen? A bus ticket, the discarded hair on the floor of a barber's, an orange peeling from a baby's carriage? Tell me here and now, why should we call you a brother thief?"
Oh, you can live your entire life without ever getting a straight line like that. As I stared back into the fascinated faces awaiting my reply, I devotedly hoped that enough time had elapsed, or I was really going to look like an idiot. Nevertheless, I drew myself up in a clear signal, but instead of speaking, I slowly turned in a half-circle, to then abruptly bring up my right arm and hold it stiffly straight at shoulder level, as I pointed down the main street of the village. Since I was also looking down this avenue, to where it changed into the town's wharf at the shoreline, I couldn't see the reactions of my audience, but I did hear the puzzled murmur of the crowd as they followed the direction of my gesture.
Still holding my pose, I fixedly kept watching, and after a few really anxious seconds, I saw what I was praying for. Past the wharf, across the bay glittering in the tropic sunlight, to the headlands at the mouth of the bay, something was moving on the ocean about a mile past the right headland, as this object now fully revealed itself when it sailed into view. Even at this distance, I knew everyone else in the crowd, being seamen all, had instantly recognized the vessel now gliding across the mouth of the bay as being a small schooner, a fast sailing ship having a pair of masts and with her sails set lengthwise fore-and-aft.
I then dropped my arm, to next confidently fold both of these limbs across my chest, as I turned back to the confused crowd, with about a dozen of these perplexed men, including both Hook and Silver, taking out their personal telescopes from their pockets, pulling open these devices for looking at distant objects and bringing them up to their eyes, while others clustered around these privileged persons, as they waited for news about that ship out there, and why I had shown it to them at all.
In the next few seconds, every single pirate looking through their telescopes had their mouths fall wide open in sheer shock, with most also turning dead white, actions not calculated to reassure the other corsairs who were starting to demand at the tops of their lungs from the watchers what was going on, and what were they seeing that was making them all look absolutely sick?
Still with my arms across my chest, I smirked at everyone there, not needing a telescope of my own, as in my mind's eye, I could perfectly see the good ship Sunnydale skimming through the ocean waves, Captain Rupert Giles standing on the quarterdeck, happily polishing his glasses and then replacing these on his face, as Bos'n Dawn expertly handled the wheel, with that young lady maniacally grinning past the spokes in her firm grip, while up in the rigging, Second Mate Faith was balancing on a line as nimbly as a monkey despite the heaving motion of the sailing ship, as she ran through her entire repertory of obscene gestures, directing these toward the shores at the watchers she knew were there, with an equally gleeful grin on this woman's dark face, and finally, on the forecastle deck, her blonde hair flashing in the sunlight as she gaily skipped while jumping rope, First Mate Buffy was having her own gloriously wonderful time.
Particularly as this young seawoman's jump rope was probably the most valuable children's toy ever made, with it being a nine-foot long strand of pearls, every single one of those gleaming-white spheres being the size of golf balls. And it wasn't even the most valuable thing in the heaps of treasure that filled every square inch of the schooner's hold and the cabins, and also spilled out to pile up knee high on the deck in mounds of jewels and gold coins, bars, ingots, cups, and anything else that could be worked into precious objects!
Back in Pirate Village, as these inhabitants slowly lowered their telescopes, their aghast faces cutting off the anxious questions of the others, they all now stared at me calmly regarding them, until I then cheerfully informed every single pirate there: "You wanted to know what I've stolen? Okay, then, today me and my friends, using the plan I thought up, while I came here to distract you all, they sneaked through the back of the town into your treasure vaults, broke in, and hauled off to our ship every single bit of your loot, down to the last bent penny!"