let me out. He was Captain Ribs, he announced, the leader of the pirates, and he had a proposal for me. He led me to his cabin and asked me to sit down and offered the chips and beer I craved. When I was full, he scrutinised me closely and said:
“‘We’re a man short and to run the ship with maximum efficiency I need to find a replacement. You’re the only candidate for the position and so I want to offer you the job. If you don’t want it and would prefer the life of a slave in the hellish butter mines of Kowpoo, I’ll understand.’
“‘I need to think about it. What exactly is the job?’
“‘Lookout. Our last lookout fell to his death last night, just like his predecessor, and the lookout before him, not to mention the lookout before him, and so on. Without a lookout we don’t know where we’re going and won’t recognise it when we get there, so it’s a very important post carrying a great deal of responsibility.’
“I was about to declare that I wanted nothing to do with responsibility of any kind but then it occurred to me that as a member of the ship’s crew I stood a better chance of escaping and paying you the money I owed than if I ended up working in the butter mines of Kowpoo. So I accepted. Captain Ribs was delighted and explained my new duties. I had to climb the tallest mast to the crow’s nest and call down whenever I saw anything noteworthy. He gave me a comprehensive list of things considered ‘noteworthy’ and it consisted of the following: land, storms, whirlpools, treasure ships, rival pirates, reefs, cannibals, whales, giant squid, mermaids, lifeboats, seductive cloud formations, alterations in the shape, colour or tensile strength of the horizon line.
“My job began immediately and I climbed the rigging with a queasy stomach. Higher and higher went I, my fingers rubbed raw on the rough cords, my feet slipping, the sweat pouring off my brow in droplets as thick and yellow as chip oil, but determined to reach the top without admitting defeat. I got there safely, in case you’re wondering! The crow’s nest was hardly bigger or more secure than a large wok with slippery sides and the precariousness of my position generated little or no contentment in my heart. I wondered how long it would be before I too fell to my doom. Fortunately the sea was calm at this particular time and I was able to discharge my duties to a satisfactory degree. Whenever I spied an object on the surface of the ocean I checked the list to see if it merited a shout. ‘Large floating log’ did not, but ‘Large floating log with a man sitting on it’ did. And so it went.”
Paddy interrupted the story by asking, “How did you sleep?”
“Badly is the honest answer,” sighed Castor, “but I was able to curl myself into a ball tight enough to fit the crow’s nest. It was cold at night, even in the tropics, maybe because I was so high up. Don’t ask how food and drink was delivered to me: if you do that, I’ll also have to explain how I relieved myself! While my fellow pirates far below gorged themselves on watermelon and toast spread with butter from Kowpoo, and drank rum and lime juice, I went largely without, but there were occasions when I was allowed to descend. Each time we docked at a port, I had permission to go ashore with the rest of the crew.”
“How many ports did you visit?” wondered Harris.
“Too many to remember! We sailed around the world several times and stopped off in Bombay, Rangoon, Surabaya, Shanghai, Osaka, Lima, Montevideo, Luanda and the strange seaside towns that dot the coasts of Lowest Bo, Zing and the Mediocre Utopia, among others. Once we even docked at Tenby in Wales and I saw a chance to jump ship and make my way back to Porthcawl on a bus, with a change at Swansea, but Captain Ribs detained me and so the opportunity was lost. He had something important to say and I had no choice but to let him say it.
“‘Look here, Master Jenkins,’ he began, ‘of all the lookouts I’ve ever employed you are the best by far. You always shout out at the earliest moment, you never make mistakes and you haven’t yet fallen to your death. You are so perfect I wish I could keep you forever! Promise me that if you ever marry and have a son, you’ll name him after yourself and bring him up to be exactly like you in every way. That’s how highly I regard you. I hope your friends appreciate you?’
“‘That they do,’ I assured him.
“And so I remained in the service of Captain Ribs and my work got harder rather than easier. He was driven by some unspecified urge, a quest he was unable to articulate even to himself; and I could never work out if his ultimate goal was a distant country, a horde of treasure, international notoriety or some way of forgetting his past. Whatever it was that motivated him also drew us along, in his spiritual wake, as it were, until we became like sacrificial victims who desire our own demise. I recall with a shiver certain adventures in abandoned temples on overgrown islands, engagements with intelligent apes armed with blowpipes, races against ghost ships…
“We committed our fair share of atrocities. We were pirates, never forget that, and I feel terrible shame at some of the things we did. We pillaged the coastal settlements of a dozen nations. Once we discovered the factory where calendars are made, there’s only one in the whole world, and sabotaged the delicate machinery by throwing a spanner into the works, a spatula actually. Another time we sailed the wrong way up a river during a charity raft race, scattering the entrants like the smug middle class skittles they were. It was a violent career and I risked a horrid injury every single working day.
“On one occasion we sailed up a narrow channel between two obstacles that struck terror into my heart. The first was a vast iceberg, the second was a smoking volcano newly arisen from the sea. The waters of the channel churned awfully and our vessel swayed from side to side, almost capsizing, and I felt like the weight at the end of a metronome pendulum. As we passed the crater of the volcano, the top of the mast and the crow’s nest dipped into the sulphurous flames. Contact lasted only an instant but it was long enough for my clothes to burst into fire. Fortunately the mast then dipped the other way and quenched me on the surface of the iceberg with a gigantic hiss. Such extreme occurrences were quite commonplace!
“This life might have gone on forever, or at least until Captain Ribs led us to our deaths, but one cloudy morning I had an encounter that changed everything. The clouds were thick but very low, practically resting on the surface of the sea, but the top of my mast protruded above them. I was able to look out across a vast fluffy expanse and the effect was very soothing. To my astonishment I noticed a man standing on the clouds far away, but this was just an optical illusion. As he approached it became obvious he was a lookout like me, balanced in a crow’s nest at the top of a tall mast. We waved to each other. The situation was very dreamy: we seemed to float like angels, the ships below us completely forgotten, and the serenity of the scene distracted us from performing our duties. Suddenly I realised we were on a collision course!
“It was too late to shout down a warning. The snapping of wood and popping of nails was background music to my prolonged descent into the ocean. I was flung out of my nest far into the mass of clouds and through them into the cold salty water. I thrashed and gasped, my senses reeling, my eyes stinging, and by sheer luck my flailing hands grasped a barrel that had floated free from one of the holds. I hauled myself up, sat astride it and found myself blinking into the face of a beautiful woman. We were the only survivors and she permitted me to share her barrel in return for keeping her company. I entertained her as best as I could by telling her strange but true tales until we were cast ashore on a desert island.”
“What tales did you choose?” asked Paddy Deluxe.
Castor Jenkins sniffed. “I can’t rightly recall. I think that my encounter with the King of the bicycle-centaurs was one. I mended his puncture in return for my life, as it happened. Anyway, we lived on the desert island, the woman and I, in a sort of paradisal harmony, eating fruit, walking on the beach at night and laughing at the stars. For some reason she found the constellations funny, especially Gemini and Cassiopeia, who knows why? Her name was Charlotte Gallon and she was
