TAKE TWO TWICE A DAY
Large blue ones
Funny little yellow-and-black striped ones, resemble wasps, best not to look too closely, eh?
Professor Jas Gabbering, Pharmaceutist by Appointment to Her Gracious Majesty, and Son's Famous Original Medium-Sized Orange Ones
The Horse-Choker for Horses
Teeny tiny injectable green ones (keep separate from grit) |
|
|
 |
The sea is an uneven mistress and the men who court her risk much in the hope of securing her favours. Among such men bravery and daring is as unremarkable as the top hats on the gents strolling down Piccadilly. Yet sometimes there comes a man of such character, of such courage and nobility that he stands out even amid those who make their lives atop creaking timbers. Such a man was Dashing Pirate John Boults. And I should know for - though you'll not believe it to look at me here - I served as cabin boy under him when I was scarcely more than the age you are now.
He took me under his wing in '69. Another man might never have noticed a skinny, bookish young boy in just another Cornish fishing town. But Dashing Pirate John Boults happened upon me as he returned to his ship after a hearty session sharing ale with his shipmates. I remember his broad grin and his booming voice as he swept me up with a single hand, away from my passing mother - who squealed and fussed like a hen until Dashing Pirate John Boults's laughing men heaved her into the harbour (where she took more care to scold them loudly than not to drown) and on to his ship. I might have missed the land at first, but with my mother gone and learning that my father died by his own hand shortly afterwards, there seemed little point in looking back. Dashing Pirate John Boults kept me below decks, to acclimatise, for the first few months. There, out of the light, I learned to find my way around every inch of the ship by touch alone - a skill that could have come in very useful during one adventure if only I'd been there.
Stumbling upon me with mock surprise and a faux drunken roar during our fourth month at sea, Dashing Pirate John Boults sought to haul me aloft in one of his great fists. However, the lack of daylight had taken its toll and a huge clump of my hair merely came away in his hand. He squinted with surprise for a moment, then let out a great, stentorious laugh, twirling my errant locks into a roll and affecting a moustache with them. I couldn't help but smile. From that moment on we were inseparable. Dashing Pirate John Boults called me "his lucky charm" and would always insist on having me right there in front of him during the many battles we fought. He was a soaring man who liked the open sea, a good mug of ale and to harvest the riches of smaller, unarmed vessels as a farmer might live from the earth. Not for him the pale smallness of a fixed home or book-bound words or ablution. Yet, in a time when division was commonplace in the hearts of many, Dashing Pirate John Boults was a man who never distinguished between men, women or children and who would not patronise a cripple or the elderly and blind. Modest and voluble, he talked about his exploits and the bigger part played in them by others for hours before the magistrate could listen no more and hanged him. It was a sad day - I remember the sadness of it now much more clearly than the touch of the branding iron - and the usually irrepressibly chortling Dashing Pirate John Boults wept unashamedly as they led him to the scaffold. Not for himself, nor even for his companions whom the magistrate had rounded up and had burnt after talking to him, but for me. He wept, I know, to see that I was sad.
It was a terrible moment, and I don't think I ever really recovered until a chance meeting hooked me up with the Dashing Pirate Charles Savage the following May. |
|
FURTHER OPENING GAMBITS
Ignatieff's Spit
My Horsey to That Black Square
Farnmore's Wriggling Defence
"Don't move there. Nor there. Sfff, no. Yes, that's good. Do that. Ha! Checkmate"
E2-E4
Rub the Queen's Face (Spone's variation)
King's Bishop's Knight to Over the Left a Bit
"Aieee! They're tiny frozen beings!"
Wroley's Stabbing Pencil
The Four Knights and Whistling Game |
|
|
