The captain leant on the railings. "I see noth… Wait!"
"You see it?"
"Shh! Yes, yes. Damnable bastards! It is ill to say so, but I do. Lookout!" he bawled. "Lookout! Train your glass upon the east! What do you see?"
There was a moment's silence, then an answering call from the crows' nest above the whales' backs. "It is a saucer, sir, or a dish. It skips through the sky like a flat stone on water. It is like naught I have seen before."
"A dish! A dish! He has found me! Damn him, damn his eyes and those of his Dalmatians! Ah! I searched so hard, and now he arrives at the point of least convenience!" the captain snarled. He tore off his coat and handed it to a crewman. "Take that to my cabin," he bellowed. "Man the cannon!" He ran to the steps at the rear of the ship, taking them two at a time as he went onto the poop deck. Richards followed him. Piccolo went to the stern parapet and the great telescope fixed there. "Extinguish the lamps!" he shouted. "Make ready for battle!"
"What is it?" asked Richards.
"Damn him!" shouted the captain. "It is my arch-enemy, the Punning Pastry Chef. His craft the Flan O'War follows in our wake. We are in for a hard fight."
The pursuit lasted through the rest of the day and all through the night. The whales were goaded until they sang songs of annoyance. Piccolo clambered up the rigging in between their car-sized heads and urgently whispered to them. After this they fell silent and redoubled their efforts. Masts extended to either side of the ship, triangular sails unfurling from each to terse heave-hos and the rattle of cranks.
"Deploy keel sail!" shouted Piccolo. Sailors worked a further mechanism at the centre of the ship. The deck jolted and they made fast their lines.
"The sails are an affront to Nikim and Nikogo," said Piccolo. "They are proud, you see, but they understand we are sorely pressed. It is a glad happenstance we have a following wind, or the Flan O'War would be upon us."
"This Pastry Chef must be one tough cookie," said Bear to Richards. "I'd not expect our gabbling captain to run from anything."
Richards did a double-take. Bear wore a massive fur coat. It must have taken three buffalo to make.
"What?" said Bear.
"Bears don't wear clothes," said Richards.
"Hmph, just because I'm a bear doesn't mean I can't wear clothes. It's bloody freezing up here, if you hadn't noticed. Besides, as you have pointed out, I'm not a real bear."
Morning came. The mountains reared up icy and unknowable before them. A mile astern came the Flan O'War, a tin pie dish domed over with riveted plates. The lower portion spun, the central, upper segment steady as a rock. Three chimneys at the apex in the shape of blackbird pastry ornaments spouted smoke. The dome was broken twice by broad fighting decks, and cannon muzzles pointed outward all round the circumference of the dish. A turreted cannon was mounted at what Richards thought of as the front, if only because that was the direction of travel.
An amplified voice crackled across the air. "Your bun is done! Your piccolo has piped its last! Stand down now, my favoured enemy. Eat humble pie and give me your ship and foolish hat and I may allow parts of you to live awhile!"
A pirate handed Piccolo a loud-hailer. "Never!" he screamed. "I will never surrender to you, you ill-begotten baker!"
"Come, come now," the voice replied, louder as the Flan O'War closed. "What's done is done. You have lost. Your sad boat and silly whales cannot best my flying pie, my iron-clad confection, my Flan O' War! You know that, Percival Del Piccolo. Pie thief! Stealer of delicious tarts! How I will make you rue the day you chomped on my eclair!"
"To arms!" shouted Piccolo.
"To arms!" roared Bear.
"You really enjoy all this, don't you?" said Richards.
"Yeah. So?"
"Otto'd fucking love you," he grumbled.
"It'll be a cracking fight," said Bear with a wicked grin.
Richards shook his head in disbelief and took a revolver from a barrel full of weapons. He looped its cord round his wrist. Tarquin growled, and turned to stone.
There was a ringing of steel as the pirates drew their cutlasses. Flintlocks were powdered, matches sparked. The gun-hatches of the Kurvy Kylie II rumbled open and the wide eyes of cannon pushed unblinking into the morning air.
"Sorry, my friends," said Piccolo. "We will be back about our business as soon as we have dealt with this gibbering pastry maker and his pie-problem. Right!" he shouted. "Men, we cannot let the Flan O'War get above us and harm Nikim and Nikogo. We must board that ship. It may be faster, more heavily armed and better armoured than our beautiful Kylie, but what are his crew?"
"Dough balls!" cried one pirate.
"Baker's lackeys!" called another.
"Fat little boys who eat too many cakes!" roared Bear.
"And what are we?" shouted Piccolo.
"Pirates!"
"Fighters!"
"The scurviest airdogs that ever there were!"
"Giant toy bears!" added Bear.
"We are going to storm that ship and cut that pie-lubber's gizzard! We'll bake him in a pie!" crowed Piccolo.
Half the pirates ran to the gunwales, ropes and irons in their hands, while the remainder manned the guns. The Flan O'War came closer. There was a hissing sound, and a dozen sharpened flan-cases thudded into the deck feet away from Richards.
"Hard a port, gain altitude! One hundred feet up!" called Piccolo, orders repeated as they worked their way down the chain of command.
The Kurvy Kylie banked directly towards the Flan O'War, cannons blazing, shots bouncing from the iron pie's armour. One knocked the foremost blackbird askew; another found its way onto the lower fighting deck, where it bounced about like a pinball, turning cook's whites red.
"Reload!" ordered the gun captains. Piccolo called to the whale goaders, and the starboard side dipped slightly.
"Fire!" The cannons belched smoke and flame. The Flan was slightly below the Kylie and coming edge-on, and most of the cannonballs sped over the pie-plate's low profile. It retorted horribly. Seven flan-flingers spoke. Their cookware sliced through the air. Pirates' limbs flew and bandanna'd heads bounced upon the deck. Several sharpened pie plates buried themselves deep in the starboard whale. It called piteously, and blood gushed quickly, as if the whale's fluids could not wait to be free of it. The whale sagged as gas bladders deflated. The ship lurched starboard as a second volley of flan cases sliced through the whale's harness. A pirate went screaming overboard, holding a spouting stump of a wrist in front of his face, bouncing from the Flan O'War as he fell.
Piccolo kept his nerve. "On the next pass, lads!" he cried. Richards stood on the gunwales and clung to the rigging, letting off shots at any target he could find. The ships jockeyed for position in the sky, cannonballs and flan cases reaping a deadly harvest on both sides.
"Now lads, now!" bellowed Piccolo. Forty pirates hurled their irons. The armoured walls of the Flan 's fighting decks provided a firm anchor for grappling hooks. The pirates leapt overboard and shinned up the ropes and onto the Flan 's decks. The sounds of close-quarter combat joined the tumult of battle, and the flan-flingers fell silent one by one.
"Rargh!" roared Bear. Fur coat trailing behind him, he jumped and hit the Flan with a soft thump. He slipped. Pulling back one paw, he punched his gauntlet blades straight through the Flan 's hull. In this manner, paw over paw, he pulled himself up the skyship. One hit brought forth a torrent of steam. The blackbirds spat sparks amongst their smoke, and the Flan 's spinning became an erratic wobble. Bear pulled himself onto the lower fighting deck, and laid himself hard into a gaggle of screaming baker's boys.
The Punning Pastry Chef had one last trick up his sleeve. The top turret swivelled round, its cannon fixing itself upon the injured air-whale. A loud bubbling sound built in its muzzle. Richards ducked as a jet of strawberry-scented napalm splashed onto the whale above, dripping onto the listing deck, setting all ablaze.