Issue 9 - Gold Dust magazine

their misery.
"Bastards," Barnaby
says, neck bent to the heavens.
"Hmm?" Fenwick says. He
rows furiously, in smooth
Olympic motions, muscles like
cantaloupes or perhaps grapefruits
rolling under his skin.
Barnaby can't look for too long.
"Nothin'. We got a problem,
though," Barnaby says. "We
don't have much food left. We
only had the few fish you managed
to lure aboard by singing
'Ave Maria', and they're almost
gone." Here Fenwick lifts his
head and notes roll forth - a surprisingly
angelic falsetto.
"Ave Mariiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiia…"
Barnaby waves his hands.
"Stop! Stop!"
"Gratia Plena Mariiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiia
- " Fenwick stops, because Barnaby
has clubbed him with a paddle.
"And I was going to say, 'if
you sing that one more time, I'll
be forced to hit you with a paddle!'"
Fenwick rubs his head. "I
know 'Danny Boy'…" Barnaby
raises the paddle. "All right! But
– what ho!" Fenwick leaps to
the prow and points to the horizon.
"The scoundrels' vessel! It
nears!"
"It's stopped," Barnaby
says.
And indeed it has. Gregory
Two-Legs, seeing that they are
not pursued in any measure
worth considering, has halted
the vessel for the evening so
his gentlemen may count their
gold coins, or step out for a
smoke or a quick quadrille on
the quarterdeck, or retire to the
stern and attempt to render the
rich blues and purples of a
Caribbean night in watercolor.
All this so that he, the rakehell,
the rascal, may have half a
moment to have a go at Lady
Loverly without some damned
fool sticking his head in every
two minutes with a question or
complaint: "Captain! One-leg
Jim's got 'is 'ead stuck in the riggin'
again! Cor!" or "Captain!
'ow can we eat these oranges
an' limes to ward off the scurvy,
when we ain't got teeth
because of the scurvy?" or "But
captain, I don't want to sack
Cartagena, I want to sack
Havana!" Christ. He can't be
arsed! There are bosoms to
heave!
Barrel-Bones Bill, né
William Erschwite-
Grabbensport, dips his brush in
the violet, regards his canvas,
and finally makes a short horizontal
stroke. He instantly
regrets it.
"She's a devil, this
Caribbean night. I coulda done
a Baltic sunset, or midday o'er
Gibraltar anyday," he says to
Bloods McMangle, who was
once known as Martin Lansford.
"She don't give much," he
agrees. "Fr'instance – how you
choose to represent the moon?
I can't get the tone right – I see
you went with yellow, more of
an eggshell tone than I did."
"Arr!" says Barrel-bones.
"But it changes all the time –
another fr'instance for ye. What
about that little boat in the middle
distance? It catches the light
www.golddustmagazine.co.uk - Issue 9 - Winter 2007
Fenwick’s Endeavor [cont’d]
in a curious way."
"What little boat?"
"That little dinghy, there,
with the two figures plungin' into
the water an' swimmin' furiously.
You can see 'em by the glints
of cold, murderous steel. See?"
He points.
"Ya-har! I see 'em, all right!"
Bloods says. "Hard to paint,
indeed, bugger me for a barnacle
else!"
"Especially as they won't
hold still. See – a second ago,
in the water, an' now they're aclamberin'
up the stern, like a
coupla moon-faced monkeys."
"Yup! An'," Bloods frowns,
"the play o' moonlight on their
rapiers is most difficult to a
novice like meself. Yaarrrgh!"
he says, because Fenwick has
skewered him like a shrimp on
a toothpick.
"Hardly sporting!" Barrelbones
says as Barnaby slashes
his throat and kicks his carcass
into the sea.
"We claim this ship for His
Majesty the King!" Fenwick
shouts as they climb onto the
quarterdeck. The quadrille
breaks up amid a flurry of
protests and lavender taffeta.
The pirates face the interlopers
and weapons sprout like blossoms
from a many-tentacled
hellplant captured in time-lapse
photography.
"Yar! We have successfully
founded and maintained a
socialist brotherhood on the
sea, free of sovereigns, where
each gives according to his ability
and takes according to his
need!" a buccaneer cries, bran-
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