Foul winds and Captain Aaarsbeard had driven us out of our comfort zone into a running sea battle. We’d valiantly discharged our balls into Aaarsbeard’s stern till there was naught left but a flaming ring upon the waves.Though victorious, our own portside resembled a whore after happy hour, full o’ holes with seamen falling out. Our sails were in tatters and we limped along until we ran into a smashing reef. Away we swam, and dragged along them souls still bafflingly unable to swim, to the island which the reef encircled.
It were the kind of island where a man longs to bury his treasure. Alas, me gold was now being colonised by humourous octopi who amused themselves by hurling coins at me splashing crew.Now I knows ye may be afeard for the safety of meself and me crew and yet ye should worry little, for this maroonin’ lark is bread and butter to us pirate types. Ye forestation were lush as Eve’s own lady garden before she choked on the serpent’s apple, so we’d not want for sustenance. In time we’d assemble a rude craft to take us back to our wives and other foes. In the meantime we rigged shelters and foraged amongst the local flora for spit-roastable fauna.
I must confess it were a tasty isle with such rare delights to me tongue as I’ve rarely had to me loins. Gaaargh. Each beast tasted sweeter than the last, none more so than the friendly monkeys with the imploring eyes who hopped into our laps.
Understand this, we’d not planned to munch on ‘em, for cute they were with their plushness and appealing blinketing. Twas fate that pushed them twixt our teeth, for they were unwise in the ways of me men. Through excessive petting one grew over-excited and bounced into the fire where it was immolated with an adorable squeak. Why, it would be churlish to waste its accidental encookination… Monty McBuboe served the long-tailed sweetmonkey coiled on a bed o’ forest cabbage with a garnish of amphibious foreskin.
Gaargh… After that we hunted them rapaciously, desperate to cram as much of their divine flesh into us as possible. Every day me and the lads’d rise, with increasing difficulty, and go monkey-crooning.
Whilst out on ye hunt, by which I means casually hooting and herding the keen little beasts into a sack, No Hands Mick were pounced upon by one of the lemurian lunches. The little snackle-ape took exception to the tone of his croon (Mick were apt to ignore me schoolin’s) and it snapped at him with unusual force. Luckily Mick had lost both hands in a tragic oyster incident so when ye monkey latched on, twas only to wood and brass, granting Mick the freedom to bounce it off a rock. It rebounded into First Mate Billy no Mates’ arms, with whom Mick’d been reluctantly saddled.
The stripe-furred ingredient landed in his arms akimbo, its huge pain-filled eyes bored into Billy’s own and as it twitched convulsively, young Billy saw a possible friend at last. He ran back to camp, ignoring Mick’s hungry bellows and barricaded himself in his shack where he stuffed the beast fat with desperate friendship and fruit.
Meanwhile, our epicurean spasms made us rotund and liable to roll into the sea where we’d bob like apples till rescued. And worse, we’d devoured almost every living thing on the rock. And in further worsening, the food was fighting back. We’d found old Archibald Flim-Flam lying in a ring o’ monkey dung, his spectacles speckled with blood and his bones picked clean. Me cankled crew spotted the last vanguard of them gibbon-goujons above him, but no amount o’ hurling their weight at the tree could relax their delicious digits’ grip.
We’d grown short of plans (and breath) till one day as we lay walrusine on the sand, Billy No Mates emerged from his shack, cradling that piteous and well-stuffed monkey like a dead twin. Hamish noted a likeness twixt its big blue eyes and strippled fur and the devilry that spat at us through the canopy. And so a ploy congealed twixt me ears: we’d use Billy’s tufted moppet to lure out the last of his kind and furnish ourselves with another meal. (After which we really must attend to the matters of ship-building and escape.)
Billy took some catching, for he’d grown thin while the floppy ape grew fat on his doting. Twas an effort just to stop me peg leg from sinking up to me hip, let alone run about. But at last we pinned them both down and, to placate Billy’s pleading, tied ‘em together in a pit beneath the monkeys’ tree. I’d no desire to eat the sickening beast for it mainly shivered and slavered whenever Billy hugged it, whispering into its ear.
Me and the fat lads waited in the bushes, attempting for quiet but falling foul of various gastric ailments and the need to chew on anything nearby. Thankfully the howling of the monkey, or Billy (twas hard to distinguish ‘em) veiled our greed nicely.
The sweet simians showered us with bum-berries and abuse in the chittering tongue they employed instead o’ English. Once they’d beaten us off they seized the baboony babe and Billy and buggered off into the bushes.
Gaargh, we found Billy No Mate’s bones some days later. Ye could tell it were him since he were missing. And also his skull had the same look of pathetic friendlessness as when it were clad in skin.
So that were it, no more food. We turned at last to ship-building and on each other. I’d found a handy conch shell and I used it to summon me men. We used dice to make a simple choice, for we’d found that delicious though ye monkeys are, they’d found an even finer meal in us.