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