Tag Archives: Grim Pitch

The Pitch Black Adventure

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The Pitch Black Adventure

Gaargh, there’s a mean-looking fish-legged fellow at me door, using a trident as a door bell. Tis likely to progress in an ill manner for all concerned, namely meself. I’ve been evading these sea men for these past weeks but they’ve finally caught up with me. ‘Tween times they’ve plagued me with oceanic assaults and scores o’ noisome sea beasts.

The last maritime misfortune I’d suffered by the fins of them merfolk was the sad loss of Grim Pitch, the cabin lad. The manner of his death called to me mind the ancient curse we’d once found and largely ignored as we plundered an undersea cave: “Dare ye to dip ye mitt in a mermaid’s purse, And Neptune’s foamy fist’ll bring down on ye a terrible curse.” Twas not redolent with clarity about the nature of the curse though some annoyance on the sea’s part was plain. But since I’d begun me wooin’ of mermaids I’d felt a teeming worry about King Clam’s paternal temper. For the merfolk are a proud and warlike people and take such sea-shufflin’ shenanigans most seriously.

Ye may not directly perceive the link to the death of me third-favourite cabin boy, but tis me belief that all bad things congregate by the window when ye feel a mite blue, and those nearby may find ‘emselves splashed with the calamitous cast-off. I fear that poor hapless, stupid and unlucky Grim Pitch was the accidental victim of me merwenching lifestyle. I’d never taken the boy with me when I sought out me saucy sea life – tis only metaphorically that I suggest he were caught between me and me mermaid matin’. Twould be an inappropriate venture for a lad o’ his indeterminate age.

Grim’s me lad for patchin’ of the sails, for his grip’s fine and his head for heights second to none. After taking issue with a flock o’ Gobshite Gulls our sailcloth was the worse for wear and needful o’ Grim’s magic slathering. The lad’s tar was freshly drawn and ready for use when a freak swarm of Tiger-Faced Penguins took the ship by storm. The ferocious harbingers o’ nasty pecks and shin-kicking barrelled up out of the water and smashed through or over our railings. They set to their notorious war-warbles and grumpily pecked at me crew with their cruel pointy beaks. Huge and striped like the tigers that also bear their names they lack some of the felines’ artistry and cunning. But they make up for it with their weight of numbers and slappy fin-wings. They’re beasts that call for up close punchin’ in the feather-patch.

Alas, in the excitement no one thought to safeguard the bubblin’ pitch. The added weight of the penguins had the Good Ship Lollipop pitching and yawing like a fat man struggling out of a bath tub. As poor Grim fought with one of the vicious bird-fish creatures the bucket flipped over and engulfed them both in boiling gunk. The wailing and fowl squalling were piteous and irritating in equal measure, though the latter did motivate me to boot another Tiger-Faced Penguin right in the air-sacs and hurry to Grim’s aid.

Twas like watching an exotic love-dance under a black silk sheet, though involving a great deal more pain and but a man and a penguin. There was little we could do but knock ‘em overboard in the hope of cooling the stinky burn fluid. The explosion o’ vapour as they hit the sea saw off most of the Tiggy-guins. The steam took the eyes of Watchful Harry and perfectly prepared a pair of penguins for our postmeridian picnic. Poor Grim and his Siamese twin penguin sank without a trace.

Gaargh! I was enraged for I takes the care of me crew as of at least middling importance and we really had needed that bucket of pitch. I bellowed me defiance at the skies, and then realisin’ me error, re-directed me complaints to the sea and that miserable King Clam whom I were certain lay behind our recent spate o’ watery worries. I suppose I could have recanted me invective but I was fond of the King’s daughter and her scaly thighs and pouted petulantly at the though of nevermore tickling her teasing tail.

Now, o’ course, as the sound of the mermen beating down me door alternates with the sound of ‘em falling over and hauling themselves back up again I’ve cause to regret me angry words. Maybe I’ll just climb out of this window and see if I can give these flippery slap-footed lads the slip.

 

Captain Pigheart’s Exquisite Mermaid Adventure

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Gaargh, the view from the crab’s ichorous peeper-pockets was narrow, but directed me eyes onto the Queen’s bosomous bounty. I was content. But me contentment was disturbed by the hammerin’ at ye door. I attempted to better obscure meself behind the kelpen curtain and a hideous vase. Twas tricky, for me own limbs were ill-stuffed into the recently vacated crab shell; I scuttled as if recently scuttled.

The cause of me cuckoldish caution burst into the chamber in a rush of bubbles, thrashing his scaly tail behind him. Twas King Clam of the merfolk, fresh returned from his extermination of the Snorks (a peaceful but rightly despised cock-headed sea people), and was understandably ill-tempered to be find his bed-chamber locked, his bride within.

She, the queen, lounged negligently in a negligee; the negligible garment drifting alluringly in the current like the diaphanous tips of her fins. Not five minutes before she’d been demonstratin’ the ticklishness of her lady scales. I’d borrowed the crustaceous carapace from one of her personal guards, whose innards now quivered in the vase before me.

Delightful though me time in Queen Acacia Finest Tuna’s embrace had been, the return of her genocidal spouse spurred on me roaming spirit. Twas time for me to once more taste that sweet air to which me lungs’re accustomed. After tumbling out of Kemberton Shatz’ misshapen grasp I were taken deep into the cold darkness of the ocean. From beneath me I thought I heard the alluring ruckus of Murray Eel’s Planktones playing ‘Under the Sea’ and then… nothin’.

I woke, drifting on a bed of sea anemones with a pair of sea horses jammed up me nose. A mite alarmed I tugged ‘em out and immediately choked, for me lungs were full o’ water. With hasty reluctance I forced the spiny squirming beasts back in. Twas then, through the gills o’ the mer-nags that I caught a scent in me nostrils, one I’d not tasted for many long moons. A scent that put wind in me sails. A scent that made me drop anchor. Arr, that’s not quite what I meant.

The clam-shell doors opened before me. Twas my beloved merwench, the one I’d spent a moonlit night with on the rocks, while Mick serenaded us with his wails of pain. She’d aged not a day. Arrr, she took me in her fins as if it were only yesterday. I protested vehemently about me current state o’ matrimony in the softest whisper I could muster. Me conscience now clear I delved into her Piscean charms. As we later lay in a thin film of her natural oils I thought I must be the happiest man alive at the bottom of the ocean, me arms wrapped about this fine fish of a woman, croonin’ in that way she’s fond of.

She said to me, “Ignatius, ye noble soul, I’ve a surprise for ye,” (for they talks as do we pirates, tis part of the charm). From under the bed she drew a mermaid’s purse, which revealed its contents with a tiny wail. Me heart swelled at the sight of the wee minnowlad. “Be he?” I asked, “He be,” she replied, “But ye…” I started, “I be” she said. “Aaarr, but he be…” said I, “Aaarr,” she agreed; “Gaargh,” I concurred. He was the spittlin’ image of his mother, down to the fetching freckles on his tail, and had his father’s beard. Sad I was to leave him and his mother, but ye troubles of merfolk on dry land’re well enough documented by the Danes and Disney.

While the mer-queen distracted her mer-king with a cool swishing of her sinuous tail, with her eyes she undressed me once again. When the urgency of ocular undressing hastened, I realised it were a hint to be fleeing. I side-stepped from the room. Twas a smooth crabwise exit, exceptin’ ye the flailing of me spasmic crablish appendages. I’d almost escaped when the claw me arm wouldn’t fit in slapped the King across his dorsal fin. For effect I twiddled the crab’s mandibles in a cheeky manner.

Then twas the running for me. I don’t know if ye’ve tried to walk in another’s shoes, but try running in a hexapoidal crust with ye own limbs in gristled gauntlets, underwater. Tis a curiously clumsy drowned ballet, punctuated with coralline snags and stumbling. My spasmodic gambol were easily outmatched by the swishing of a tail. I was out of me element. I set meself into a spin and made more ground that way, battering the King’s merguards with my chitinous clubs.

I spotted a corral of fishy steeds and lumbered desperately for them. With a  quick prayer for luck I slashed one of them free and punched it in the swimbladder. Twas more effective than I’d hoped: with a terrifying accelerative lurch we hurtled upwards in a deflatory spiral. So powerful were the launch that it tore the crab carapace from me, save for the claw with which I desperately gripped the unfortunate deflating fish.

The merfolk’s vicious tridents sliced past me as I struck the surface and fountained up in an explosion of fish and spume. I found meself tumbling down to land hard on a wooden deck. Loomin’ over me was the overly-gingered face of Grim Pitch (an ill swap for me merlass), who turned to Kemberton Shatz and muttered, “see, he be fine” before wrenching the seahorses from me nostrils. Me only possible retort were to vomit gallons of brine over the pair of them.

We set sail with haste, fearing predation from the sharp-toothed shark riding merfolk of war. In the distance I glimpsed the sparkle of sunset gleaming off the scales of me love as she dove once more into the depths. Gaargh. I’ve still the scent of her gills on me fingers.

Tragedy Strikes Mistress Squidlington’s All Singing All Dancing Cockle Club

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Gaaargh, tis oft surprising to an optimistic pirate such as meself with what swiftness a pleasant evenin’ in ye bar can descend into carnage. Twas such a night what took two of me young and enthusiastic mates and cast ‘em into ye shallows.

I’d personally rescued Kemberton Shatz and Grim Pitch from the smoulderin’ ashes of their orphanage home. There be no need to go into details o’ how it came to such incinerating – these things happen all ye time. Arr. They adapted easily to a life at sea and showed an impressive resistance to scurvy and cutlass points.

At length they were permitted to scurry about free o’ chains, and naturally visited Mistress Squidlington’s All Singing All Dancing Cockle Club, one of the Grim Bastard’s favourite hostelries. Twas perhaps a freedom they were unready for. Ye nudified wenchery and debauched sea beasties quite blew their tiny minds.

By the time the rest o’ the crew arrived Kemberton were half buried beneath a heaving mass o’ engorged jellyfish while Pitch provocatively sashayed with a sweaty porpoise. Twas a sight to gladden’ me eye and we cheered ‘em on.

Gaaargh, so fond were our enjoyment o’ Mistress Squidlington’s diverse entertainments that we noted not the attention we’d drawn with our young pups. Ye see, the Cockle Club were cunningly located within a cave giving access to both ye land dwelling folks (of which ye people be an example) and to ye denizens of ye deep (of which a vast and hungry squid be an example). The free entrance be a blessin’ upon trade up to the point at which it turns ye customers into a meal for ye swim-through visitors.

Me example of a giant squid were not as specious as ye may have thought, for one of its species did indeed rear its bulbousness from out of ye pool and with thrashing tentacles it devastated the joyful evening.

Tis hard to know whether the cephalopodous assassin sought out Kemberton Shatz and Grim Pitch for their own sweet juciness or if twere the briny sheen they gained in the Cockle Club that made ‘em so appetising. Gaargh, it took a whole week to find suitable replacements for them.