Where I slept peacefully, until the screams started.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
MAJOR-GENERAL: In fact, when I know what is meant by “mamelon” and “ravelin,”
When I can tell at sight a Mauser rifle from a javelin …
I SHOT UPRIGHT in my hammock, instantly flipped over, and by dint of hanging on hard to the canvas, managed to describe a complete circuit before crashing dramatically to the floor. The hold seemed to be populated by dangling pupae with startled faces, but everyone else managed to remain in their canvas, and no one appeared to be writhing in agony or fighting off an attack. I snatched my glasses from the nearby shelf and looked again. No: The noise was coming from above.
Grabbing my dressing-gown from the laden row of hooks, I tied the belt while hurrying up the companionway towards the thin dawn light. When I stepped out on the deck, I knew I was still dreaming.
The last time I’d seen Captain La Rocha, near midnight, he’d been dressed in a pair of striped pyjamas and a dark dressing-gown – extraordinary in their unexpected ordinariness. Now …
Either our Captain had decided to immerse himself wholeheartedly in his assigned rôle, or I had knocked myself cold falling from the hammock.
His hat was scarlet. From it danced an emerald ostrich plume the length of my arm. His jacket was brocade, orange and red, over a gold waistcoat, burgundy trousers, and knee-high boots a Musketeer would have killed for, also scarlet. His small earring had doubled in size overnight, and half a dozen fingers bore rings – gold rings, with faceted gems. The henna in his beard gleamed red in the sunlight.
The only missing details were an eye patch, a peg-leg, and a parrot.
“Good-morning, Miss Russell,” his incongruous voice piped. “Meet Rosie.”
He tipped his face upwards. I, too, lifted my eyes to the rigging, then lifted them some more, wondering what female on board the ship would dare to clamber the lines. Surely Edith wouldn’t have – then the scream came again, and I saw its source.
A parrot.
I felt someone beside me and looked over, then down. Randolph Fflytte, who for the first time looked almost nondescript in a violet dressing gown, was rubbing his eyes.
“This is your fault,” I said bitterly.
His eyes caught on La Rocha and went wide. His jaw made a few fish-like motions; at Rosie’s next shriek, it dropped entirely. He stood gaping at the bird, who screamed its challenge at the rising sun, then turned to me. “I never,” he declared.
“You wanted a pirate,” I told him. “You got one.”
“Jaizus” came Will’s voice in my ear, “he’s even put up a pirate flag!”
He was right. A skull and crossbones taller than a man rippled in the bow breeze, flashing its grin at the pirate, the parrot, and those of us along for the ride. The Jolly Roger, a declaration that no quarter would be given. The voice of the Byron-loving Miss Sim seemed to thrill in my ear: These are our realms, no limits to their sway- Our flag the scepter all who meet obeyem›.
“Is that legal?” It was a woman’s voice – Mrs Hatley, sounding disapproving. I had to agree: Surely maritime laws frowned on such frivolities as pirate flags?
The rising sun touched the top of the mast, exciting our avian alarm. It flapped its brilliant wings and shouted something in response.
“What did it say?” someone asked.
“Probably Portuguese,” came an answer.
“Not Portuguese,” said a man – our pirate crew was now awake, too, and clearly as astonished by La Rocha’s antics as the English passengers.
The bird screamed again, and I blinked as the sign-board appeared before my mind’s eye:
“Actions are propaganda!”
I repeated it aloud.
Fflytte said, “What the devil does that mean?”
“I don’t know, but that’s what it said.”
“She’s right,” said Will.
Three dozen people in various stages of undress, and one pirate in extraordinary dress, stood agog, awaiting the next pronouncement. The bird gazed down at its audience.
“Destroy the state!” it shouted.
“Those are Anarchist slogans!” I said. “It must have belonged to Anarchists.”
Our necks were growing stiff, but we listened, wrapt, for the next pronouncement. What came was a long garble of apparent nonsense. We looked at each other. “Did you catch that?”
It was Annie who ventured a translation. “ ‘I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree’?”
Followed the sound of forty-some people puzzling.
Clearly, I had knocked myself unconscious.
* * *
I waited in vain for an awakening hand on my shoulder, but with reluctance decided that I was not lying stunned. I went below with the others, some of whom attempted a return to sleep, but I had smelt the coffee and got dressed instead, to join the first seating at Maurice’s breakfast, questions at the ready. Annie was there, looking remarkably chipper after a night dangling above the floor, and was already grilling Adam about the newest member of our crew.
The parrot – a scarlet macaw – had been a last-minute addition: La Rocha’s idea, Mr Pessoa’s find. Its cage had been brought on board under heavy shrouds, that the creature might wake to a new day in a new home, undistracted by the call of the land.
Its original owner had been a lady much taken by lyric poetry in the English language – Longfellow proved an avian favourite. When she died, the bird took up residence with her grandson, who had flirted with the attractions of Anarchist doctrine from the comfort of his twenty-room estate on the outskirts of Lisbon until his arrest a few months before, followed by the sale of his house, lands, and possessions. The bird had several Portuguese phrases, and a handful in French, German, and Spanish, but he – and it was a he, despite the name given him by the old lady, who’d thought it inappropriate for a maiden lady to have a male companion – seemed to prefer English.
A few of his Portuguese utterances, to judge by the reactions of the crew, would have condemned him to his cage – if not to Maurice’s pot – had they been in English. When Kate and Linda began to, well, parrot those phrases, I had a word with their mothers.
The political and poetic exhortations would soon become a part of the background noise of the ship, punctuating the sounds of sail and rigging, hull and voice. At least while the bird was talking, it did not emit those blood-curdling screams.
Piecing together this narrative took our allotted breakfast time, was continued on the deck, and was still under way when the second seating began to emerge into open air: Annie’s questions were occasionally pertinent but often most roundabout, and her dual flirtations with Adam and Bert did not speed the flow of information.
The girls came up, dressed now and exclaiming at the prettiness of the morning. The pirates followed, exchanging glances at the prettiness of the girls. Rosie grumbled and recited from her perch at the Captain’s left hand, taking the occasional snap at anyone else who ventured within range.
By the time Fflytte came on deck, the bird was taking a nap, the sail-makers were hard at work, the girls were lounging in the sunny spots, and the pirate crew were busy at various tasks (and shooting the girls looks both admiring and disapproving, as the girls shed clothing and lit cigarettes).
Our diminutive leader rubbed his hands together, then frowned at the vast canvas drapes on all surfaces.