In an Adventure With Napoleon (10 page)

‘What on earth are you doing?’ asked the Captain, shocked.

‘I am sorry, Pirate Captain,’ said Napoleon, shaking his head and suppressing a shudder. ‘But my picture was so terrifying that had anyone, other than I, Napoleon, looked upon the thing, it would have caused
their hearts to explode
. That’s how scary it was. It’s almost as if my skill as a draughtsman had actually summoned a demon from the occult realm.’

Several of the assembled islanders ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ at this.

‘Well then,’ said the Governor. ‘I suppose we must declare Napoleon the winner. For though your picture is very good, Captain, it hasn’t made anybody’s heart explode, thank the stars.’

‘Don’t feel bad, my friend,’ added Napoleon consolingly. ‘It is only because of my iron constitution that I was able to withstand it myself. More quail’s eggs?’

ost of the pirates were in the kitchen having afternoon tea. Some of them were balancing pieces of toast on top of each other, because they’d discovered that balancing things was one of the very few perks about being on dry land. The rest were taking it in turns to heave heavy sighs.

‘Oh, come on, lads. You know I don’t usually object to a bit of theatrical sighing, but it’s getting quite tricky to read my newspaper.’ The Captain waved his copy of the
St Helena Gazette
at them. ‘You keep blowing the comics section away.’

‘Sorry, Pirate Captain,’ said the pirate in green, who was absent-mindedly carving a little picture of a starfish
into the kitchen table. ‘It’s just I think we’re all missing the piratical life.’

‘Not this again. If it really means that much to you we can always go and pirate some rocks or moss or something,’ said the Pirate Captain magnanimously.

‘It’s not the same on dry land,’ muttered the pirate with a nut allergy. ‘Without the romance of the sea, pirating just seems like quite antisocial behaviour.’

‘If you go about with that kind of negative attitude then of
course
everything looks grim. You have to try to see the natural beauty in things.’ The Captain pointed out the window, towards where two goats were stood shivering on a grassy knoll. ‘Look, over there. Those two goats. Clearly very much in love with each other. Doesn’t that touch your soul?’

A few of the pirates peered at where the Captain was pointing.

‘Why is the big goat biting the other goat on the thigh?’ asked the albino pirate.

‘It’s an affectionate love bite,’ the Captain explained.

‘Oh! Now the little goat has responded by trying to hit the first goat round the head with a hoof,’ said Jennifer.

‘He’s stroking her. That’s a goat caress,’ persisted the Captain.

‘And now a whole load of other goats have joined in. It looks a lot like a fight.’

‘It’s a party. They’re exuberant creatures.’

‘Oh look, they’ve eaten the first goat now, Captain. There’s just a skeleton left.’

‘My point still stands,’ said the Captain, forgetting what his point had been.

With a spray of rain and a gust of wind the cottage door swung open and in tramped two extremely dejected-looking pirates. After fighting for a few moments to close the door behind them, the pirate in green and the pirate with asthma stood shivering and looking like their world had ended. The pirate with asthma was crying.

‘What’s the matter, lads?’ asked the Pirate Captain, sensing something was wrong. He prided himself on his ability to pick up on the moods of his crew, no matter how subtle the clues.

‘Can you imagine a boring museum, Pirate Captain?’ sniffed the pirate in green, sitting down miserably.

‘It’s difficult,’ replied the Captain. All his experiences in museums had involved the exhibits being either cursed, mysterious or really educational. It seemed unlikely that any museum could be boring.

‘Well, there’s one right here on this island,’ said the pirate with asthma through his tears. ‘It wasn’t exciting, there weren’t any adventures and we didn’t learn anything. And you know how much we love learning!’ He sniffed noisily and blew his nose on his sleeve.

The Pirate Captain nodded and handed him a tissue. He
did
know how much the crew loved learning. The pirate in green continued. ‘Most of the exhibits are just
rubbish that you can find on the beach and the shop only sells leaflets and pens that don’t work.’ He showed the Pirate Captain a little pen with ‘The National Museum of Antiquities and Natural History, St Helena’ written down the side in wobbly handwriting.

‘But surely there was something worth seeing?’ said the Pirate Captain encouragingly. ‘It’s like I’ve just been explaining to the rest of the lads: try to concentrate on the positives.’
¹⁸

‘There
is
one of Mister Napoleon’s handkerchiefs,’ said the pirate with asthma, brightening up a bit. ‘He was just donating it to the museum as we got there, which was very good of him. It’s on a plinth in a big jar of formaldehyde and there’s a label explaining that it was the actual handkerchief he had in his pocket at the victory of Arcola, where he joined his infantry in a bayonet charge. That was quite interesting, I suppose.’

‘Dear me. It
does
sound like a terrible museum,’ said the Pirate Captain. He paused to take a couple of thoughtful sips of his tea. ‘And, you know, as a responsible member of society I feel a certain obligation to help out.’

‘You’re noble like that,’ nodded the albino pirate.

‘I am. So, come on, lads, let’s have a look through the treasure for something good to donate.’

Pretty soon the cottage was a mess of upended treasure chests, their contents strewn about the floor. Most of the
treasure turned out to be straw, but there were also some sweet wrappers and a few dead rats.

‘It’s not looking very promising, is it, Captain?’ said the pirate with a scarf, holding up an old, slightly petrified lamb chop.

The Pirate Captain sat amongst the mess for a few moments, at a bit of a loss. Then he looked up at the pirate with long legs and a wily look crept across his face. Several of the pirates got quite excited, because ‘wily looks’ tended to prefigure ‘sticky situations’.

‘How much would you say you weighed?’ asked the Pirate Captain.

Not long after, the Captain was knocking at the museum door, whilst two of his crew struggled with a heavy-looking bundle wrapped up in some sacking. There was the sound of running feet and eventually the Governor appeared, wearing a peaked cap with ‘Curator’ written across the band.

‘Pirate Captain! Hello!’ said the Governor. ‘Here to visit our national museum?’

‘I am, yes,’ said the Captain, beaming. ‘Always been a big fan of this kind of cultural thing. Perhaps you could give me a little tour?’

The pirates hadn’t been exaggerating about the museum. It was dark and damp, and smelled mostly of
fish guts. The Governor was obviously so pleased to have a visitor that the Pirate Captain felt obliged to smile and make intelligent comments, but there were only so many things you could say about a collection of two thousand carefully catalogued pieces of driftwood, though he did manage to remark that the display of dead birds made him ‘think about mortality’. The Governor got most excited when they reached a series of miniature dioramas.

‘And this …’ the Governor said proudly, ‘is the prehistory of the island.’ He pointed at a model of St Helena covered in a lush tropical jungle with sparkling waterfalls and trees heavy with exotic fruit. A couple of dinosaurs were standing next to a flag pole saluting the Union Jack.

‘That was
this
island?’ said the Pirate Captain, incredulous. ‘What happened to all the plants?’

The Governor pointed at the next diorama, which featured a boat stuck on some rocks with a goat peeping out of a porthole. ‘In 1567, a ship carrying the King of Spain’s goats ran aground on the island. Two years later …’ he ushered the Pirate Captain on to the next diorama, ‘this was all that was left.’ It showed the familiar windswept scenery, complete with a couple of goats looking moody as they polished off a dinosaur skeleton. Only the Union Jack remained.

‘Bad news those goats,’ said the Pirate Captain. He patted the Governor on the shoulder.

‘England will prevail, Pirate Captain. England will
prevail. And finally, we have our star exhibit, as donated by our most celebrated islander, Mister Napoleon Bonaparte.’
¹⁹

‘Ah, yes, well, as a matter of fact, Curator, I’m in a bit of a hurry,’ said the Pirate Captain, suddenly clapping his hands. ‘So I suppose I ought to present you with my generous donation.’

‘A donation? For us?’ exclaimed the Governor.

‘Seems only right that a man of my stature should help patronise such an important place of learning as this. Bring it in, lads!’ The pirates dragged in the bundle and propped it upright.

‘Now,’ said the Pirate Captain, ‘I’m sure you’re familiar with my most famous adventure?’

‘Is it the one with the slugs?’

‘No,’ said the Pirate Captain, ‘guess again.’

‘Ah!’ said the Governor, ‘it’s the adventure where you left your tax return to the last minute!’

‘Actually, it was Black Bellamy who had that adventure. I always do mine in April,’ said the Pirate Captain. ‘One more try.’

The Governor spent a couple of minutes thinking very hard and looking slightly blank.

‘
The Monstrous Manatee!’
exclaimed the Pirate
Captain, finally losing his patience. ‘Everyone knows that. I fought him with my bare hands! It lasted six days! The Monstrous Manatee! I’ve told you about it at least three times since I arrived here.’

‘Of course,’ said the Governor, ‘the Monstrous Manatee. An excellent adventure. I’d hate to meet that brute in person.’

‘Funny you should say that.’ The Pirate Captain grinned and whipped the sacking away from the bundle. ‘Ta da!’

If you took a loyal but miserable pirate, put his legs in a sleeping bag, tied his arms to his sides as makeshift flippers, dangled seaweed from his head and put some teeth made from orange peel in his mouth, you’d have something that was pretty close to how a monstrous manatee might look. Certainly close enough to fool a landlubbing museum curator, providing you’d told the pirate to stand very still.

The Governor recoiled in fear. ‘My goodness, Pirate Captain! Is that him?’

‘Certainly is. Stuffed and mounted. Unfortunately he shrank to about a quarter of his size in the process. Note the fearsome claws. He nearly had my eye out with those.’

‘Amazing. They look rather like common table forks, but then you did tell me that he was an uncanny and unnatural monster. It really is awfully generous of you, Captain.’

‘Oh, it’s nothing,’ said the Captain modestly. ‘The least I could do.’

He looked around the museum and tapped his teeth with his fingernail. ‘Now, where to put it? It would be a shame to hide him away, don’t you think? What about here, smack bang in the middle of the room? You could put some lanterns on the floor to uplight his face so that he looks extra scary.’