Better late than never

Madame Jo-Jo ran a tight ship. Certainly, few drill instructors could shout shriller or for that matter with any less patience, for she took great pride in suffering neither fools nor jessies gladly. The ceaseless threat of shame and woe ensured that no swab fell behind, for those who so much as considered lagging were cut to the quick by her vicious sarcasm, save when her mouth was full of grog, and her ornamental kedge anchor would impact them instead. To be sure, her tutelage left all but the most gifted cur black and blue in mind, body and spirit. Vis-à-vis our own crew, the vocal exercises alone resulted in numerous counts of bleeding gums, one crushed larynx, and at least a dozen broken toes.

Imagine then her lack of amusement when the door was blown from its hinges, and in blustered an excitable wench with smoking cannon who apologised for running “a tad late”, and asked whether any after-dinner mints remained uneaten. Her error soon apparent, she improvised instead, curtsying to Madame Jo-Jo and, blowing the trumpet of her own intellectual prowess, offered to conjugate any verbs that our teacher might have lying around, y’know, spare like.



Flag Lieutenant
“Salty” Meg Schifffarht
Likes: myths
Dislikes: legends

Perhaps tonight, Josephine

Slumping further into her chair, our host regressed into incoherent muttering, followed by incoherent dribbling, and eventually rather lucid snoring. Feeling short-changed by events, certain foolhardy swabs attempted to rouse her, prodding her in an increasingly firm manner, with increasingly sharp implements. If one were to assess the upshot of this tactic by the extent to which the slumbering Scot was stirred to action, then the stratagem certainly passed muster. For indeed, when she awoke to find a cutlass hanging out of her bicep, she leapt to her feet and let rip with such a flurry of steel that the aforementioned malefactors were in no time negotiating call-out charges with the local hook-and-peg prosthesis vendor.

Subsequently, with all pertinent extremities suitably hacked, she tossed back her locks, smiled for her audience, and slipped back unconscious with peerless elegance. The extinguished lights of our exalted host signalled an apposite end to the evening, and we bid adieu to avoid being co-opted into the dish-washing detail.

Before hauling anchor, however, it became clear that some of the greenhorns were still having problems rolling their ‘arrghs’. To address this development need, we made a quick diversion to Madame Jo-Jo’s College of Advanced Nefariation.


Personal Trainer
Madame Jo-Jo
Likes: pie charts
Dislikes: second-class mail

Flower of Scotland

Three desserts and no coffees later, the swabs dived as one for the rum and baccy. Their commander, however, remained aloof, preferring to attend to her postprandial oral hygiene by scraping her tongue free from the film of deep-fried sorbet, a claymore being her instrument of choice. This was, of course, “Sink ‘em all” Sinclair, a whimsically ruthless heathen from the darkest, most northern Highlands, where your average wee bairn is not allowed solid food until it can pluck out a man’s eye.

An unusually refined brigand (she liked *both* types of wine), she was also one of her country’s healthiest criminals, devoutly consuming five vegetable portions each day through a balanced diet of crisps and fermented grape juice.

Given her seniority and notoriety, we were surely in for a classic night of after-dinner speaking. A minute or two of her hawking and hem-hemming built up an air of anticipation so tense you could have cut it with an oar. With both tongue and throat cleared, she took a long tug on the bottle marked “RED”, wiped her chin on her sleeve and giggled coquettishly before collapsing back in her chair, whistling the dance of the sugar plum fairy.



Cheerleader
“Sink ‘em all” Sinclair
Likes: Bohemian rhapsody
Dislikes: the rhumba

Rich pickings

Now, I enjoy slaughter and pillaging as much as the next pirate, but I would still argue that one can have too much of a good thing. Of course, not everyone would agree. For example, Miss Ivy’s idea of respite was to charter a slow boat from China and idle away the months conducting wanton villainy with rancour aforethought. Bereft of compass – magnetic or moral – she wreaked havoc with such gay abandon that the respective brethren of the coast could suffer her mischief no longer and banned her from six of the seven seas.

Nonetheless, her life aquatic was presently academic: there was but one exit from the room, and it was presently occupied by Commodore Filthy, a silvery old tar with more chatter than a parrot’s union rep.

The other hearties were playing a waiting game, for as sure as night follows day, the first to pass within two yards of the old boy would be sucked into the vortex of his relentless monologue. Once hooked, resistance was futile, for this ancient mariner was supernaturally compelled to share his epic story, albeit juiced up with the odd giant squid, a well-oiled Amazon or two and an exceptionally large number of nymphs.

Voice of Reason

“Filthy” Rich Argenti
Likes: megamixes
Dislikes: radio edits

Meaner than a dockyard croc

Sated with tallow, the wretched professor crawled back into his coop, hoping that some fitful kip might encourage the calories to burn more slowly. His dreams perchance to sleep were sadly not to fruit, as the object of his disprized love was taking bets on how long the arrant knave could suffer their slings and arrows before emitting some feeble grunt or snarl of anger.

Chief among the abusers was “Poison” Ivy Harding, a vile streak of malice with a pedigree so cruel that even the most oblique reference to her would make hardened curs suck their teeth and change the subject.

As an apprentice with East India Company separatists, her probationary period had been prematurely curtailed when, on being taken off village-razing detail, she stowed aboard the company flagship, hogtied the Governor-General, and sunk said vessel with all hands.

Voyaging further towards the rising sun, she hungrily devoured the teachings of the Far East’s most seasoned sea-rats, learning everything the Orient had to offer vis-à-vis cruelty to man and beast. All good things must come to an end, however, and when she saw that her mentors could teach her no more, she thanked them all with arsenic and confiscated their assets.



Apothecary
“Poison” Ivy Harding
Likes: rap sheets
Dislikes: rap music

Achtung baby

Accompanying the wily she-devil was a wee lad she had picked up while despoiling the German hinterlands. More plaything than toy-boy, the fellow showed little evidence of wanderlust, largely due to the tight rein she kept on his choke collar (on the occasions he had leave from his cage).

That she had not previously discarded said shackled Saxon was surely due to her exceptional capacity for schadenfreude. Intellectual prowess being her pet hate, the matter of the young buck becoming a distinguished professor prior to the age of majority both got her goat and cooked her goose.

Seeing that he was wise of words but not of the world, that night she began her cruel seduction. And lo, by the time Dawn came with rosy fingers, the giant siren had the young academic, quite literally, in the palm of her hand.

Henceforth, via assorted vile schemes of insidious villainy she began crushing the stripling by slowly rotting his mind, body and soul. Within a week, the starry-eyed boy was a waif on a string.

Time had however mellowed her, and in her more tender moments, she would tease him with Teutonic coochie coos and let him suck the grease from her fingers.



Wiper
Professor Plum
Likes: in the ballroom
Dislikes: in the secret passage

Afeared in Provence

As the starters arrived, so the other mademoiselle stirred from her drunken snooze. Seven-foot high – while seated – she arched over the table to advise her yard-high counterpart of the ongoing dockside unrest. More specifically, said the statuesque rogue, a young ruffian was – as we spoke – slandering the venomous gnome, accusing her of debility, cowardice, treachery – only one of which was technically true. At this, the poison dwarf slammed down her tankard and stomped off to wreak havoc, pausing only to pick her teeth with the hatchet she kept for such ends. Her mischief made, the aforementioned giantess permitted herself a smug snort of satisfaction before digging into the munchkin’s hors d’oeuvres.

It was thus in this manner that we first met Aurélie la Vagabonde, daughter of Gargantua and bane of Marseille. Her feral nature and remarkable guile were the result of a childhood sans role models – as an infant she had been abandoned by wolves and forced to live by her wits alone. While other youngsters were playing hopscotch and kiss-chase, this colossus-to-be would exercise her deviousness and depravity by conning foxes, just to watch the vermin scowl. Like an inferior vin de table, she hadn’t improved with age.


Cherry-picker
Aurélie la Vagabonde
Likes: John Lewis
Dislikes: John Le Carré

French nickers

Engaging as it is to make small-talk with the self-anointed, we figured it prudent to avoid sticking out our necks unnecessarily, and curtsied our well wishes to the hoighty toighty decapitator, moving on with requisite haste.

Next in line to her throne stood a pair of Gallic boat-snatchers, dichotomous in size, but equally rotten to the core. Being so unusually petite, the smaller of the two compensated for her deficient stature with a vicious streak so malign that, given the choice, most men would rather be dragged through briar in a sack of wasps than ask her for the time of day. Her razor-sharp tongue, for example, was the stuff of legend. Indeed, short-lived was the felon who thought he might profit from her reduced reach, for the appendage in question had been replaced with barbed-wire plaits, and she could lick a man to shreds in minutes.

For the time being, however, she chomped distractedly on some brimstone amuses-bouche of her own design. Fearing a tongue-lashing, we pretended to wolf some down before commenting favourably on their acrid flavour and steering the conversation towards such idle banter as the shipping forecast and recent murders and coastal pillaging.


Keelhauler
Bridget the Midget
Likes: the smell of napalm in the morning
Dislikes: the sound of milkmen in the morning

Dutch Courage

The Mediterranean brigand plumped our cushions, beckoned us over and, with inappropriate zeal, begged to relieve us of our coats. Her entreaties fell on deaf ears, however, as her penchant for doublets preceded her and we were fully cognisant of the perfidious manner by which her incomparable collection of jerkins had been amassed. Firmly, but politely, I thus informed her that she’d not be getting her paws on our blousons, boleros and blazers unless she was peeling them from our cold dead bodies. She shrugged in her gallic manner and trotted back to the waterfront to swindle the lame beggars.

Stepping up next was the infamous Royal Dutch, a mariner from the Low Country, well versed in the extensive licentiousness of her homeland. A keen learner, she had studied trafficking at Eindhoven, graduating summa cum laude by her sixteenth birthday. However, her learnèd approach to freebooting was not universally appreciated and it was variously suggested that she was an uppity madam with airs above her station. That said, her critics were generally disinclined to stick their heads above the parapet, largely on account of her habit of removing them with her broadsword and using them for bunting.

Vice Squad

K.L.M. “Royal Dutch” Van Dieman
Likes: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Dislikes: The Waltons

All bound for Mu-Mu land

Outmanned and outgunned we might not have been, but hell hath no fury like a blood-lusty broad with two-foot of freshly sharpened sabre. Thus, discretion being the better part of valour, we tactically withdrew through the fire exit, hotly pursued by the psychotic hatchet-lass. No sooner were our feet back on our trusty planks, we cut and run, abandoning the whirling dervish to her splenetic jig. Even as the quayside was barely visible through our looksticks, there she was, frothing at the mouth and hurling oaths with such frenzy that even the most blackhearted of our own curs did cower.

The mainsail hoist and billowing well, we left these dark lands and progressed with good speed to rendezvous with the brethren court of the East Anglian coast. A jolly bunch of seadogs, uncommonly educated to boot, these hearties represented the crème de la crème of seaborne do-badders and skullduggerers.

Welcoming us to the roundtable came Mu the Merciless, a Catalan rogue whose cruel passion for serving the black flag was matched only by her heinous taste in shanties. Indeed, many an unfortunate soul had buried themselves at sea in order to avoid the prolonged aural assault of her caterwauling.

Soothsayer
Mu the Merciless
Likes: Martini and lemonade
Dislikes: The Mercury Prize

A family practice

In a matter of seconds, the slumped figure of the doc was knocking out Zs, and despite rigorous shaking and shouting, the best we could rouse from the drunken quack was a stale belch. No practitioner of physic was required to see that his rum slumber was not so much catnap as catatonic stupor.

With such debauch epitomising the parlous nature of the modern NHS, the British taxpayer has every right to indignant hand-wringing and outraged correspondence with the Daily Mail. To be sure, times are lamentable indeed.

As professional picaroons, however, our record of tithe payments was not exactly spotless – in truth, mild harrumphing would have wildly exceeded the scope of our entitlement. Thus, in lieu of pique, we played to our strengths and looted the old soak’s desk.

Three rubber bands and a wet dog-end later, we were no closer to early retirement when our efforts were untimely stopped by the screeching yo-ho-ho of a feisty female brigand.

‘If it’s his pieces of eight you’re after, you’ll be tasting a piece of my steel first,’ she grinned craftily, pulling out almost 30 inches of glinting Persian scimitar. ‘And in case you hadn’t guessed,’ she cackled, ‘I fights dirty.’



Payroll
Pinta Gordons
Likes: Curly-Wurlies
Dislikes: proportional representation

The life preserver

With the wench stowed, the mates mooted that shore leave was assuredly in order. A plan was thus formed to fetch back up at Doncaster and join the locals in celebrating the siege of Gibraltar.

With course set and headway good, the order was given to splice the mainbrace. The gunwales, hitherto stuffed with Caribbean firewater, were stripped bare by the grog-lusty crew, and the liquor went down faster than a torpedoed canoe.

Of the resultant ballyhoo the ship’s log says little – the sun was over the yardarm before the crew stirred, each suffering no small degree of alcohol poisoning, and, in the case of the bunting tosser, a broken nose. From what we could ascertain, his senses had been somewhat stirred by Ms Doe’s perfumed business card. His impromptu visit to her quarters, meanwhile, had correspondingly stirred her splendid right hook.

Having reached our port of call, we left her to her nosegays, knick-knacks and knuckledusters and took the misshapen lad to the infirmary, where, through clouds of tobacco smoke, the medic reluctantly viewed the aforementioned injury. He concurred – it was indeed a bloody mess – and retired to his desk for a tug on his flask and some shut-eye.


Resident Medical Officer
Ol' Dirty Kevin
Likes: high rollin'
Dislikes: fish

The whine of the latest mariner

So completed was this hellish thing, that caused us all such woe: for all averred they’d heard the word that gave us leave to go. We grabbed our kit, and that was it, the mates yelled ‘Westward Ho!’

To those ashore, we waved some more while sailing from the fen. Then all averred they were deterred from coming back again. ‘Twas right, said they, that come what may, we’d ne’er consult these men.

We flew with haste to prior place, as it was told to me, that our quick pace had left in place a water rat – a she.

Beyond Whitehall and further west, she waited all alone; she’d walked herself to Aylesbury – some four-score leagues from home.

Under a freezing winter’s sky, we met her there at noon. As we arrived, she wiped her eyes, and cursed us all quite soon.

Hour after hour, hour after hour, we paused for her to cease, like waiting for immortal wars to reach eternal peace.

Bawling, bawling, all the while, and all our ears did ache. Bawling, bawling, all the while, until our knees did quake.

My very soul did rot with guilt that ever this should be. She stormed onboard our slimy deck and left her bags with me.

Pressgang Officer
Jane Doe
Likes: monkey business
Dislikes: shenanigans

**Intermission**

Detained in brig. Release date scheduled for mid-July. See you land-lubbers soon...

Lawrence of Melancholia

Matters sartorial now shipshape we proceeded to the business of buccanerial discord. As part of a results-driven hardball programme to get our ducks in a row, the crew was broken into numerous focus groups. Over a moveable feast of low-hanging fruit we then netted out our goalposts while the Admiral kept his balls in the air. Finally, having strategically fit our ticks in the blue-sky boxes, we were ready to put our game plan to bed and concentrate on actioning our no-brainers and fast-tracking our big-ticket items.

Naturally, before we could discuss the lessons learned, we needed someone to benchmark our metrics. Key to this process was Mr Sad, a fellow of infinite gloom whose dejected aura caused the ambience such injury as to make an undertakers’ convention a more likely source of merriment.

With our notes and a heavy sigh, he retired to his murky corner, the sole ornament of which was a faded print of notable storms. Like broken convicts en route to the Gulag we attended our fate in mute anticipation.

Only when our hearts were fit to explode did he finally decide our fate and, in his hushed tones, solemnly deliver his decision: “Your team dynamic, sir, is OK”.

Grand Inquisitor
Larry Sad
Likes: nothing
Dislikes: everything

Where’s Wally?

Keen to reassure my good fellows that everything was proceeding *exactly* according to plan, I bade him desist with his tomfoolery, and shifted his patch so it no longer obscured his good eye.

“What miracle is this?!” he begged. “For five years have I seen naught, but now thou hast my sight restored!” He embraced me like a long-lost son, and told of how he had awoken one morning, blind as the proverbial. Ever the sage, he had attributed this novel handicap to the questionable moonshine he’d knocked back after a particularly hard night of dice and wenching.

With the benefit of hindsight, he now realised that said impediment was more likely due to his wayward valet, who on finding the opportunity for mischief had evidently seized it with both hands before scarpering toot-suite to the ale house.

With great fury and oaths he strode to the door and bellowed for his manservant. The rascal appeared directly and, without missing a beat, asked whether the admiral should care to have his breeches fetched before or after the imminent disciplinary hearing.

And so, gaze averted, we waited for the gentleman’s gentleman to confine the admiral’s gentleman to quarters more befitting the occasion.


Gentleman’s gentleman
Wally Wallace, The Plunderer of Penzance
Likes: electricity
Dislikes: icebergs

Cabin fever

Rascals and curs they may have been, but depriving these swabs of their liberty and forcing them to live cheek by jowl was both cruel and unusual. To subsequently set them adrift the Alley-alley-oo, bobbing, for all intents and purposes, towards who knows where, thus fell somewhere between inhumane and frankly not cricket. The squall, therefore, was inevitable.

Breaking rank, the first mate stepped forward and uttered those words I had for so long been dreading:

“We wants a training day!”

Mutinous this may have seemed, but I had to concede that the team dynamic had been somewhat fraught of late. Furthermore, they numbered sixteen and there was but one of me.

It also happened that through previous networking I knew of the godfather of one of London’s most respected criminal syndicates. He could also conduct a mean business needs analysis – if anyone could identify our onboard skills gaps, it was he.

We arrived at his country retreat to find him barking orders at anyone in earshot, including his neighbours, passing vessels and a knob of quarrelsome widgeon. He eyed me from top to toe, greeting me warmly, “Ahoy there Sally!” This failed to buoy the crew’s confidence.


The Godfather
"The Admiral" Al Slasher
Likes: tavern wenches
Dislikes: Diet Coke

Queen of the South

Finally, and with great reluctance, came Francisco’s wench – Cilla the South Sea Stealer. This maiden of mischief, born of sheep thieves and common thugs, Francisco had found while traversing the distant hemisphere, his lecherous smirk causing her heart to melt. And, to be sure, the amour was reciprocal, as her light and quick-witted fingers and deft stiletto technique were to be much admired.

Nonetheless, things were not all rum and ginger, for the bilge master had neglected to account for one key detail: for all her criminal pedigree, she was no pirate born. Green around the gills before reaching the gangplank, the smoky stink of the hearties’ pipes brought to her cheeks vibrant new shades of ailment. For medicinal purposes, the mates offered her a swig of nutmeg liquor. The linctus proved less than successful – the bouquet alone elicited first ague and secondly her breakfast.

We hoped she would be fortified by the forthcoming banquets of fresh mackerel, lumpsuckers and sabre-toothed blenny. However, the prospect of nightly fish suppers she considered no better than cold poison luncheons. Thus, she resigned herself to a diet of biscuits and weevils in return for labouring only when we were firmly secured to land.


Stevedore
Cilla the South Sea Stealer
Likes: three-piece suits
Dislikes: three-piece suites

The Barbary Butcher

As Pitbull composed haikus out of pennants, we watched the next rogue swagger onboard. The wiry cur leered at me, boasting how he had conquered the brethren of the Caribbean, armed with but a rusty cutlass and a blunderbuss. Over said cutlass did he then leer at the other hearties, bragging of how he had slain the skeletal warriors of the Amazon, the dog-apes of Allansia and the ape-dogs of Khul. Finally, from his pocket he drew forth a small mirror into which he leered at himself until the urge abated, some five minutes later.

Taking a moment, he then surveyed the crew, snorted “Jackals!” and returned to his looking-glass.

The interminable self-satisfied sneering was eventually broken by the thundering of the man’s belly. Pursuant to this din, he pulled a chicken leg from his breeches, removed its claws with his teeth and began to gnaw, declining all offers to cook the pullet first.

Following this impromptu repast, the heathen expressed some wind of contentment and explained his vision for the future. Key points included teaching toddlers to skin cats, painting all fish black, and changing the number eight to “biscuit”. Such claptrap was best kept as far below deck as possible.


Master of the Bilge
Francisco the Kitten Eater
Likes: harpoons
Dislikes: buskers

The lead swinger

Creeping in next came Brawlin’ Matt Pitbull – sneak, skulk and general malingerer. This idler and ne’er-do-well’s love of plunder was second only to his love for himself. How he had latched himself onto this party was a mystery – his infamy was such that most freebooters considered him the basest of scoundrels and gave him sufficient berth in which to swing a bargepole.

A narcissistic dandy with a ken for skiving, the Pitbull had never worked a day in his life. Through his pretty-boy features and copious preening and fawning, however, he had had great success in ingratiating himself with the aristocracy. The countless ensuing affairs and subsequent blackmail had secured him a not inconsiderable stipend.

However, since he was prone to blowing his doubloons on fancy rags and cheap harlots, he found himself in need of an alternative revenue stream. To this end he was now using forged articles to claim looting shares on passing vessels engaged in the sweet trade. The anecdotal honour among thieves clearly did not extend to this blackguard.

Thus, in recognition of the reprobate’s silver tongue, we left him in charge of the communication flags. Surely there was a limit to how much damage he could do there?


Bunting tosser
Brawlin’ Matt Pitbull
Likes: voodoo
Dislikes: embroidery

Hitting the high C

Having balanced the demands of the helm with the joys of chronic substance abuse for so long, the fact that Captain Dirty was not yet in some watery grave was a sure sign of outrageous fortune. Indeed, except by Neptune’s whim, how else was he still on the drink and not in it?

The masses say that behind every great man, there has to be a great woman. Of what is found behind the irretrievable souse, however, the great unwashed seldom speak.

And yet it was no surprise that in the squalid drunk’s wake bobbed a once-great woman so bent, broken and beat by her husband’s ignominy that she was but a fraction of her former self. Plainly, keeping the soap-dodger on the deck and out of the blue had reduced the mighty marchioness of Rockingham to the miniature malefactor of Ramsgate.

As taming his vice was as futile as taming the tide, she fostered his oblivion by topping up his grog, snatching respite while he was out cold. In these lulls she entertained herself by taking candy from babies and devising her own shanties. Her latest ditty, ‘Who wants to skewer the hog-tied coastguard?’ would prove a most excellent ship’s anthem.


Bard
Lady Gordon, Fugitive Marchioness
Likes: maulin'
Dislikes: musicals

Jack Tar

Like moths to a lantern, the other brigands dumbly stumbled after the rotgut. Leading the party was Captain Buck Dirty, the grizzly, weather-beaten skipper of many a craft now languishing in Davy Jones’ locker. His shaking hands guarded his rum, as he fixed his glassy eyes on the mid-distance and his concentration on not collapsing on deck.

He cussed by way of introduction, coughed rapturously by way of emphasis, and let cigarette ash fall onto his belly as an encore. More accomplished soak than able seaman, it was hard to imagine him successfully navigate his way to the toilet, never mind the high seas.

His irregular rise to captaincy began with his receipt of a commodore’s outfit, a twenty-first birthday gift from his doting parents. After donning said costume, he marched brazenly onto the Ark Royal and began barking orders at the bridge crew. Crying mutiny as he was dragged to the brig, his subterfuge was sufficiently audacious that instead of keelhauling him there and then, the Admiral of the Fleet mistook him for the Lord Lieutenant of Monmouthshire and had him demoted to captain of HMS Quorn. The rest, he said, was history.


Coxswain
Captain Buck Dirty
Likes: Pot Noodle
Dislikes: alarm call

The fallen madonna

Over a mug of caramel, Wangford introduced me to his wench: Tarbox Annie, erstwhile scholar, chorister and lady of *good* standing. When he first met Little Annie, as she was then known, she was the vicar’s darling, a vice-free cherub, lionised by squire and villager alike.

Crafty Wangford, however, had other plans for her. Sure enough, with his bon-bons and pictures of puppies, he did lead her into temptation. Nonetheless, by the time her corruption was absolute the poor sweet angel did not, as such, find herself delivered unto Evil – possibly because she was a reckless inebriate and worth less to Evil than a tinker’s cuss.

The Tarbox cast a slender silhouette, a fact she proudly attributed to her strict regimen of steak and gin. On close inspection, however, her sunken eyes and bleeding gums were a clear indication of scurvy, for the only fruit she’d touch was the occasional margarita.

Together, Annie and Wangford had become the Bonnie and Clyde of liquor-store hold-ups. Their unconventional technique of leaving the cash and making off with the Blue Nun had earned them notoriety, if not respect. Wangford clanked her boozy stash onboard and informed me there was a new sommelier in town.


Sommelier
Tarbox Annie
Likes: grog
Dislikes: fruit

Any port in a storm

The inclement weather worsened as we voyaged home, forcing us to drop anchor in no man’s land. Normally naught but a ghost town, the settlement was abnormally populous on account of the tempest, and we bumped into a gang of coves, whiling away the hours with grog, dice and cussing.

"No Teeth" Wangford was the most senior – in seadog years at least. Despite his long stretch in the trade, Wangford had never progressed from the must junior rung. But what he lacked in ambition, he made up for in vice. He had been given the boot from numerous vessels for (among other things) tapping the barrel, smoking the hemp ropes, and lechery with the captain’s daughter.

As well as losing numerous commissions, he had also lost all his teeth, on account of his weakness for sugar. His daily routine would begin with a cup of treacle (milk, two sugars) and a bowl of shredded beet. Throughout the day he’d chow straight from the lassy keg, and last thing at night he’d snort a line of demerara (“for sweet dreams”). As for personal hygiene, each Christmas he would bathe in golden syrup, whether he needed to or not.

Cabin boy
"No Teeth" Wangford

Likes: suckin'

Dislikes: chewin'

Baby I got your money

Under the strict direction of Madam O’Nine Tails came her light-fingered beau, Bad Paddy Trickpurse. Brought up in the bohemian quartiers of Europe – Vienna, Prague, Swindon, etc, he had been educated well in the visual arts and his family had high hopes for him as a designer of tactile plastics. Bad Paddy, however, had other ideas. He had found a greater love: lucre.

A felon extraordinaire, ol’ Trickpurse started out by dipping his fingers into his elders’ pockets to steal their tobacco, as, at eight years of age, the local store was still declining his requests for Marlboro. By fourteen he was smuggling Gitanes from Paris, and by seventeen ran a complex bootlegging empire spanning from Upper Silesia to Dubrovnik.

He was also a master of cons both long and short, most recently having clinched the sale of Versailles by throwing in Montmartre as a sweetener.

Taking one look at our crew, Bad Paddy identified our lack of chief financial officer as a key oversight, and – with no small amount of snarling menace – directly volunteered for the role. The sole proviso was that he’d also get to look after the parrot.


Bursar
Bad Paddy Trickpurse
Likes: spiral perms
Dislikes: cruelty to animals

A change of tack

Christmas in Yorkshire was to yield little more than a mixed-nut selection, which I was under strict orders to keep out of Mad-eye’s line of sight, “on account of almonds sending him crazy.” I locked them away with my private stash of booty, just in case our next business needs analysis called for a nut-fuelled berserker in the forecastle.

For now then, this festering berg had exhausted its potential, and so we left for pastures more genteel. I knew a governess at Althorp whose nefarious cv would serve as an excellent foundation for attending to the professional development of our burgeoning crew.

No common pirate she – Nat O’Nine Tails had been among the landed gentry since she could first wield a chimney brush. Haughty, proud and chic, she was every bit the lady pirate of popular lore.

Many a cur had she licked into shape and helped to fulfil their potential. Thanks to her careful instruction, the courts of Europe were bustling with princes she had indoctrinated in wrongdoing at sea and misuse use of tax havens, while the Palace of Westminster was full of politicians who could now operate cutlery.


Senior Vice President, Knowledge Management
Nat O'Nine Tails
Likes: pieces of eight
Dislikes: After Eights

Grim up north

Peg-Leg Lynn bade me welcome to her office, a smart little cubicle much like any corporate office, but with posters of parrots and swarthy mariners, most of whom were amputees.

Assuring me that she had the skinny on all the local buccaneers plying their trade from this town of iniquity, she proudly showed me her bulging dossier of Doncaster’s most wanted. It wasn’t easy reading – not least because the resumés had all been filed under ‘P’ for pirate.

So what did the dregs of the dregs have to offer? Actually very little – Christmas is not the ideal time for looking for fresh labour, given as most old tars are catatonic with rum and steamed pudding. The only man whose availability she could guarantee was her husband: Mad-eye Pete.

Mad-eye had never been the same since his fight with electricity (for the record, electricity lost). He was prone to arguing with all and sundry (including himself) and was very wary of copper. He was also most keen to stress how he had recently “got into” Olivia Newton-John.

“He may be a loose cannon but he’s great with gunpowder”, his wife promised me.

What could possibly go wrong?


Powder monkey
Mad-eye Pete, Scourge of the North
Likes: booty
Dislikes: bifocals

The north wind doth blow

So there we had it – phase 1 of the recruitment drive was, in a manner of speaking, over. That is to say, my crew wasn’t going to get any bigger if I just sat here supping my ale and scratching my bedsores. For enlistment to begin in earnest, I really needed to get out of my comfy chair and onto the road.

But where to start?

“Arrr”, said the first mate – prefacing a nugget of her cruel wisdom – “this place be full of cissy stock. A hive of scum and villainy is what you’ll be needin’, and none more wretched than the one I knows no man knows not says I,” she said.

(I record her words verbatim to maintain her central thesis, since, aside from its lack of pluperfect tense, I am still not au fait with the intricacies of pirate grammar.)

I asked her to clarify.

“Doncaster.”

Heavens to Betsy! Of course! The Gateway to the North! From time immemorial the town has been a hotbed of felony, and if anyone knew anything about anybody around that way, I knew just the woman: Peg-Leg Lynn – fighter, biter, and all-round gossip.


Human resources manager:
Peg-Leg Lynn "The Lyncher"
Likes: Norse gods
Dislikes: Morse code

What to do with the drunken sailors

Below Bertie’s private squall, an eerie hush prevailed. Her presence had turned the band of fearsome hearties into a rabble of fearful land-lubbers. The only sound below deck was that of the crew checking their contracts – having signed up for high-jinx on the high seas, the prospect of confining themselves to quarters was understandably unappealing.

We were minutes from mutiny.

Fortunately, pirates are a simple bunch and easily distracted – the mind of the rank and file brigand contains little beyond shanties, pieces of eight, and wondering where the next weevil is coming from.

Thus, for the yang to offset Bertie’s yin, it was necessary to find some bawdy amusement. After the manner of the royal court, this would historically have taken the form of the ship’s fool. Political correctness has since proscribed such demeaning nomenclature, and we ended up with a light entertainer: Jolly Roger.

By the close of the night he had furnished everyone with balloon animals and treated us all to his full repertoire of guild-approved jokes. For the ladies there was a special treat in store – a whole hour of Brian May impressions, sporting naught but a pair of Speedos and an air guitar.


The Jolly Roger
Jester-in-Chief
Likes: barnacles
Dislikes: icicles

The filthy corsair

Hellknuckles didn’t come on board quietly. That wasn’t entirely her fault – due to her present incapacity she’d press-ganged her mother into carrying her personal possessions.

The old gorgon was a high seas veteran with an array of oaths to make fishwives swoon. Moreover, her profound blasphemy was documented as having a distinctly negative impact on the life expectancy of the clergy.

The source of the daughter’s vicious streak was immediately apparent – Cussin’ Bertie, otherwise known as the Cannonball Dwarf on account of her two peg-legs, was not only the patron saint of volcanic rage, but also the dirtiest scrapper in the shire, with a reputation for coshing bar staff with the aforementioned prostheses.

Once on board there was no removing her. She set up a rude camp in the crow’s nest, snapping at the fingers of those imprudent enough to attempt parley with her.

I threw her a raw steak to calm her blood lust and let me get in the odd word while she tore at the flesh. In between the champing and snarling, I’d like to think she accepted the role of watchperson. Not that it mattered – the prospect of any other cove getting a look-in was now largely academic.

Lookout
Cussin' Bertie the Profane

Likes: bitin' and scratchin'

Dislikes: Queensbury Rules

The gunner’s daughter

Said wench was so heavy with child I feared she’d be naught but burden. But with a fierce drunk on one side of me, and the vexatious ordinance of equal opportunities legislation on the other, I was indeed between the devil and the deep blue sea.

As if that wasn’t enough, she was the fighting sort – quick to temper and doggedly cold in revenge. No deck-swabber she. Not that I could I countenance such a career move, for only that yuletide morning had she appropriated our mop to stave in the skull of an excessively lively youth who had had the temerity to bid her glad tidings before she had lit her first pipe of the day.

Yet what some people may think of as a character flaw, I prefer to see as a strength *overdone*. There had to be a way to profit from this ruthlessness. If I couldn’t harness it for good, then at least I could give it some focus and direct it away from me.

I smiled warmly and welcomed on board the ship’s new facilities manager.

Within minutes her dastardly agenda was finalised and she was already researching stationery vendors.

Facilities manager
Skinhead Hellknuckles, The Five Fisted Romany
Likes: lechery
Dislikes: static caravans

Bristol fashion

Two may be company, but it’s by no means a crew. So far I had the vision and the executive officer. The next obvious step was to recruit someone with a bit of nous that might prove useful in making things work – an engineer no less.

On reflection, ships without engine rooms possibly don’t require engineers per se. At the time, however, the recruitment drive was more led by grog than common sense. Besides, I’m sure that engineers have a whole host of transferable skills, such as, er, being good with anchors?

The aforementioned brother in law stepped up to the breach. In addition to a glorious résumé of outstanding achievements and employee-of-the-month decorations, I recalled he also plied his trade from the busy port of Brizzle, so I was certain he’d seen a boat or two in his time. Plus he knew how to operate a compass, or so he claimed.

Due to the man’s voracious appetite for liquor, agreeing personal terms proved tough. A fierce negotiator, he demanded an inordinate share of the ship’s rum, even if it meant sacrificing other fringe benefits such as pension and medical insurance. He also demanded I find a role for his wench.


Chief engineering officer:
JB "Sleazy Lover" III
Likes: Depeche Mode
Dislikes: Antiques Roadshow

First call for shipmates

Recruitment for the inner circle started right away.

Calling to mind the wisdom of old wives (or possibly old mobsters) I remembered the following cardinal rules:

Rule 1(a): Blood is thicker than water
Rule 1(b): You can’t pick your family, but you can pick your friends
Rule 1(c): Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer

So what does that mean vis-à-vis the staff? I’m not entirely sure. If I knew more about algebra and loci I could probably work out something, but unfortunately I majored in pirate mathematics rather than the regular kind – I may not have successfully measured the height of the maths building, but it was my long division that split the booty after we looted the art block. Who’s laughing now, Pakrash?!

Sums aside, we return to the conundrum of crew, namely where to turn first.

I needed someone who could invest in the corporate vision; a mover and a shaker; someone who eats goalposts for breakfast. I needed a first mate, one who wasn't afraid to use that cat o’nine tails should the rank and file step out of line.

In short, I needed to bring the missus on board.


First mate:
Deb "Dark Heart" O'Stone
Likes: eatin' raw children
Dislikes: mercy

Here be the rationale

Christmas 2007 – that’s when the patch and earring came into my world. My brother in law had seen it while away on business, and decided, there and then, that I *needed* it.

He was right, you know.

Before the patch, my life had no focus. What was I achieving? Nothing. Where was my life going? Nowhere. I may as well have been a battery bunny in a hamster wheel, powering a treadmill factory run by sausages. For all I know I was.

Then it hit me. I should leave it all. Run away to sea. Make a living through deft cutlass work and buccaneering.

At which point my dad gives me the reality check, pointing out that were I to try and live by my hands I’d starve in a week. He’s wise like that, my dad. He knows full well that I progressed no further than the reef knot at cubs, and that anyone leaving their rigging in my mitts will be run aground in minutes.

So I put that one on the backburner and revisited my cv. Relevant skills: nil. Hmmm. Sounds like management material to me. All I needed was a crew.



The skipper:
"Long Nails" Jonas Stone
Likes: fightin' and readin'
Dislikes: chewin' and chokin'