The Further Adventures of Captain Danny Roberts

Today we spend some time in the company of Captain Roberts

The Further Adventures of Captain Danny Roberts

Ship’s Log, day something or other.

May you live in interesting times, so the Chinese curse goes. Well life on board the Anna Livia Plurabelle has certainly been interesting for the last few days. And goddam noisy.

It’s a rarity that I sail as far north as the North Atlantic, but reading out a random page in the Wake (page 310 for anyone keeping count: The harmonic condenser enginium (the Mole) etc.), I happened to find myself in that part of the world in some version of the summer of 1953 and some presentiment told me I should sail around for a time and see what I might find.

It may have been summer, but it was still raining and spraying sea water all over the shop, so I sealed the forward section around the instrument panels off from the elements, lowered and inclined the wheel on its housing, just to the right height so I could grab a copy of Toni Morrison’s Jazz out of the library, pull up a chair and rest my feet on the plane of the wheel and steer with my feet as I read.

The weather was atrocious, too rough for straight sailing, so I deployed the external engines port and starboard, the power of their tubular lengths reducing the pitching and rolling of the North Atlantic waters to mere pitching, which is more manageable. The hemisphere of holographic sensor displays hung in the air above my head. The sounds of Count Basie, Billy Holiday and Duke Ellington pumped through the ship’s speakers. Issy slept on a sofa in the alcove behind me.

I was fifty pages into Jazz when the sensors registered the first object in the water. I calmly finished the chapter I was on then turned hard to starboard. It wasn’t long before the on board cameras started to pick out the first bodies in the water.

Wrapped in an oilskin, I headed out on deck, giving control to Anna and telling her to bring the ship to manoeuvring speed. The engines retreated inside the ship’s trunk and we crawled ahead on thruster jets.

There were bodies everywhere. More than a hundred. Obviously a ship had gone down, but the was no sight of a wreck above the surface. Sonar was picking up a faint signal. I ordered Anna to launch one of the remote submersibles to get a fix on its location, but simply by heading in the direction of the greatest density of bodies, I figured I could get a rough reckoning. Whatever had happened had obviously happened fast, but I still wanted to scout around for any survivors in the water.

I wasn’t finding any. Everybody in the water had been there for some time and were starting to bloat. Some had injuries so horrific that I guessed they’d been dead long before they’d had time to drown. I thought about what Leonardo Da Vinci says in his notebooks, that drowned men float on the water face up, but drowned women float face down. I hadn’t really believed him until that point, but I could see that he was right. I morbidly wondered whether this was nature’s kindness to women or a cruel joke on those of us that would have to fish them out of the sea.

The submersible tracked the wreck to the ocean floor, a couple thousand feet down. From the video feed I guessed it to be a small passenger liner. Looked pretty obsolete even for 1953. I ordered it back whilst I brought the ship to as near above the wreck as possible and then sent out all three aerial remotes in sweeps of ever increasing circles to see if there was any Ishmael that had managed to survive by clinging to some piece of flotsam.  

Better than Ishmael, Remote no 2 (I call him Dick) sent back images of one wooden lifeboat. Whilst the other two remotes (Tom and Harry) increased their sweeps in the hope of finding anyone else, I steered the A.L.P. north-north-east in the direction of the lifeboat.

The craft had drifted fifteen miles away from the site of the wreck, which probably meant the ship had gone down in the last six to eight hours. I cleared the outer ring of bodies at a respectful speed then increased to full ahead in their direction, only slowing down for the last half a mile. Conditions had deteriorated fast. I could have sailed a couple of hundred yards from their location and they would never have even known I was there. Thank the maker (i.e. Andy) for infrared sensors. And thank the heavens for the weather, for I do love to make a dramatic entrance. I put on my captain’s jacket and hat and brought the ship abaft of them, where I could open the back doors to the dry dock.

“Looks to me like you folks could use some assistance.”

If you can’t get a cheer as the conquering hero, a woman’s plaintive tears of relief will do just as well. There were nine of them in the boat, the only nine survivors, as I was to discover, from the RMS Cairngorm. I threw out a rope to secure to a ring at the stern, then deployed the winch mechanism to bring the whole boat on board.

Nine survivors, two men, three women and four children, three boys and a girl. All but one of the women consisted to form two families. Clarissa, the one lone woman, had been travelling with her sister but they’d been separated in the melee and she feared the worst. Her demeanour quickly deteriorated into one of hysteria, but they were all suffering from a mixture of shock and relief and I thought the first thing I should do was get them up to the Ward Room and fix them all a drink.

Brandy, cognac is you please, is a great settler of mood and warmer of frozen limbs. The children aged between eight and fifteen, but I dished out the Remy Martin nonetheless, despite their parents half-hearted objections, doses given according to age, the youngest, Peter, receiving two tea spoons worth of bronze fire. He clacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth like he’d been fed cough medicine. “Burns.” he said.

“Means it’s working.” I said, winking.

I was keen to hear their story, but everyone was soaked to the skin from having spent uncertain hours being tossed around by the North Atlantic waters, so I thought it best to get them shown to their quarters so everyone could get cleaned up and dry their clothes and meet up later for something to eat and hear their tale.

Ship’s protocol was easy enough to decipher in this instant (it isn’t always so easy, even though I made the rules up myself). The two families would take the state rooms, the Isis and Lucia cabins, Clarissa was given the V.I.P. quarters in the Barnacle Suite. I made sure the heat in each set of rooms was turned up hot enough that everyone would feel drowsy. I figured what they most needed now was a few hour’s sleep.

Clarissa was the first to emerge a few hours later, the evening light starting to fade. She took an immediate interest in Issy (it’s not every day that you meet a Jaguar on board a ship), but was understandably pensive, petting the amenable Issy with a faraway look in her eye. She wanted to know if there was only the two of us aboard and how I could sail such a ship all by myself. Given the time period, I had powered down all of the computer and holographic readouts. Anna held her silence. I received all on board information projected through a single contact lens in my left eye and an microscopic earpiece in my right ear.

The families emerged soon after. There was Malcolm and Agnes, with their son, Peter, and Terrence and Marjorie, with their sons, Terrence and Clive and daughter, Jane. I knew Terrence, Snr was going to be a royal pain in my arse right from the off. His family “had had a gander” around the ship and wanted to know why Clarissa had been given the much larger Barnacle Suite when him and his family were crammed into the Isis Cabin. Crammed, I ask you, on any other ship the Isis Cabin would be the state room. I explained that ship’s protocol demanded that two families of equal status receive equal living space. He started on about how it wasn’t fair, he had three kids compared to one in the other family, and growing bored with his shitty attitude I matter of factly told him it wasn’t my fault if he couldn’t keep it in his pants. He made to start afresh, but an angry growl from Issy brought his gob shutting with a pop. I love that cat. Such a good judge of character.

As they’d slept, I’d already set to work preparing a meal down in the main kitchen, a novelty given that I usually only need to cook for myself and rarely stray away from the smaller kitchen in my own quarters. I went for something traditional, roast beef and potatoes, boiled carrots, cabbage and corn on the cob, along with an excellent batch of Yorkshire pudding that Gaynor taught me how to make back before the rift. You superheat a glass dish in the oven, coated in olive oil, then pour the pudding mix into the heated dish and cook for quarter of an hour for perfect results. Apple crumble and custard or ice cream followed for desert and as we ate at the Captain’s Table, they told me what had happened.

As far as anyone could tell, they’d hit a mine. Probably left over from the war. Actually, there was some disagreement, with Terrence Snr thinking it was a mine, but Malcolm, Agnes and Clarissa thinking it sounded more like two mines had exploded. Certainly they had heard two explosions. Loathed as I was to agree with Terrence Snr, the injuries that I had seen on the corpses in the water suggested that an engine had exploded, which would have accounted for the two explosions, one a mine going off in near enough proximity to cause something mechanical to explode.

It had all happened so fast, it was only because the two families were at that point taking some air on the observation deck and Malcolm had reacted quickly in getting one of the lifeboats deployed (Malcolm had served in the Royal Navy during the war and been torpedoed by a German U-Boat during convoy duties) that they had lived to tell the tale. Clarissa, getting lost in the confusion, had come floundering onto deck just as they’d been in the process of abandoning ship and been manhandled aboard the lifeboat despite her protestations.

Everyone became quiet after a while and seeing no right time to bring the subject up, I asked what was to be done about the bodies. “Leave them.” was Terrence Snr’s predictable reply. “Sea creatures will take care of them. We just want to get home to Blighty.”

“You can’t just leave them.” Malcolm responded. “They’re human beings, they have the right to simple dignity. Their families have the right to give them a proper Christian burial.”

“Well what are we supposed to do about it?” Terrence Snr asked.

“Captain Roberts, I take it that you would have no objections to retrieving the bodies. You seem to have the space”

“None at all. I have a small infirmary on board that’s served as a morgue on more than one occasion. There’s also a utility room on deck and the dry dock. Any room can be made a cold as ice or as hot as hell. It’s a grim job, but manageable.”

“This is ridiculous, I won’t have any part of this.”

“Mr Madden, I am captain of this ship and I will decide what is to be done. What’s more, so long as you are on board my ship, you will be treated as guests or crew as I see fit. If you don’t like that, I can always put you back in your lifeboat and you can float home on your own. Blighty is about eight hundred miles west of here, though I’d be happy to loan you the use of a compass and sextant. Do I make myself completely and unemphatically clear?” He grunted. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“You do.”

“Good.”

“Though I should like to say that I think you are a bully.”

“And I should like to say that I think that you are a self-centred cunt.” There was a gasp. “Excuse my foul language ladies, but sometime a Captain has to stamp out a mutiny before it gets started. Do not test me Mr Madden, or you will discover just how much of a bully I can be. If you wish, you may try to gain control of my ship, though I should warn you, she has eyes and ears only for me.”

“If I may speak at this point. “ Clarissa spoke up.

“Of course.” I said.

“I should like to help recover what bodies can be recovered as I should like to find my sister, if she is out there. Oh I know she may have gone down with the Cairngorm, but even if we don’t find her, I know that anybody we can recover will save a family the anguish of never knowing.” She burst into tears at this point and even the shameless Terrence Snr was sufficiently moved to become misty eyes. Everyone around the table shed a few tears at least.

“It’s settled then.” I said, clearing the lump in my throat. “We’ve been treading water here since I picked you up. At first light I’ll turn the ship around and head back. I don’t think there’s any need to involve the children and there’s plenty of entertainments on board to keep them distracted. Yet even between the six of us, it shouldn’t take more than a day or two to get everyone stowed on board. Madame et Monsieur, I know that you’ve all had a sleep already this afternoon, but I think it’s best if you all retire for the evening. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

The following day came and some of what I saw that day will haunt me for years, even after having travelled to some of the least civilised periods in human history. I’ve seen hangings and beheadings, poor souls burned at the stake and corpses left to rot upon high as a warning to others, but there’s nothing quite as disturbing as body that’s been left in the water for a day or two. I’ve heard talk of bodies literally falling apart as they’re being pulled out of the water, but luckily we didn’t have any of that nonsense. I said it was nature’s cruel joke to let women float face down and the way the facial features start to dissolve are not something I will soon forget.

It took a day and a half to get the 126 corpses aboard, deploying the smaller boat, Issy-la-Chappelle for greater manoeuvrability. Myself, Malcolm and Terrence, Snr retrievied the bodies and returned them to the A.L.P. for the women to move into storage. The infirmary above the dock quickly filled up, at which point we used the utility room. The last forty bodies or so were laid out on the deck of the dock once the Issy-la-Chappelle was safely back on board. Peter, Clive and Jane happily played games on deck as we worked, but Terrence, Jnr showed great fortitude in helping the women with moving bodies. Greater fortitude that his father, certainly. I lost count of the amount of times we had to stop to let him be sick over the side. Sea sickness he claimed. Cunt.

A grim task but we got it done and then it was time to sail for England. The Madden family were Londoners, the rest of the passenger from Scotland, so I decided to compromise and head for my favourite port of Liverpool, radioing ahead with news of our unpleasant cargo. At near full speed, we were able reach port in a little under a day. The authorities were waiting for us and despite the year, they did a fine job of continuing the respect we had shown in bringing so many loved ones home. We never did find Clarissa’s sister, Emily. It’s my one regret.

Despite our disagreements, Terrence thanked me for saving his family and offered me his hand. I gave him a hug instead and apologised for what I had called him. I hoped that he now saw that it was right what we had done and he agreed that it was. We left on reasonably good terms.

The family were put on a train for London and I ended up sailing the Scottish contingent home as far as Ayr. It was good to be heading back to the country in which I was born and nice to enjoy the company of my guests without Terrence, Snr’s bullish attitude. I usually have little patience for children, but I found Peter to be pleasant company, so inquisitive and full of questions, which I did my best to answer. After they disembarked, I did some checking. He went on to be an engineer. Ship design. Excellent career choice.

Well the ship’s been hosed down and disinfected, but the nightmares are quite bad for the moment. Apart from having so many dead things on board, I always get like this when I’ve had company on board. Nothing to do now but get stoned and stare into space. Maybe watch The Abyss. I’m joking of course. I quite like the 1950s. Bought myself some 50s shirts while I was on Merseyside, waiting for the inquest to conclude. Heading back across the Atlantic at the moment, heading for a break in the Caribbean while I figure out what to do next (m’m, black women). Might head for Cuba, see if Hemingway’s knocking about. If I remember rightly, he’s either there or in Africa about now.

“Hey Anna, do we have Michael Palin’s Hemingway series in the data banks? Excellent, be a love and pull up the entire thing and rout it through the digital projector in the alcove. Full speed ahead for Cuba.”

Until next time…

Get it done.

Pilot

Today's post is actually something I wrote a year ago, but hasn't been posted in full until now. Originally meant as the opening monologue/pilot episode of Danny Roberts' Heuristic Tales. 

Pilot

Captain's Personal Log: Stardate 47552.1. By which I mean to say, hello. (groans). Captain Roberts here. Laid up and alone. Usually I'd write, but I've dislocated my shoulder. My good shoulder. Tried typing one handed, but it gets tiresome. But I've been watching old episodes of Deep Space 9 and that got me thinking about an audio log, until I can get out this sling. Besides, I've grown used to the sound of voices on board again after the days sailing Agatha and her people to safety.

These won't be long entries. I used to talk to myself a lot as a kid and these days talking out loud when there's no one there makes me uncomfortable. You'd think I'd be used to myself by now, I do it all the time anyway. And it's not like I'm really alone, there's Anna and Issy for company. Issy understands a lot of what I say, she's very smart for a jaguar. Must be from growing up on this ship. Anna understands things in her own special way. That's what I get for naming the computer and the ship after a character in an obscure book. Still, it's the power of the book that gets us around.

You find us out in the Azores. I've tried drifting down to the tropics to recuperate, but it was far too hot. I drifted further north, up into the North Atlantic, but that really is the worst, even at in the calmer seasons. So then I sailed south until I found the Goldilocks zone and dropped anchor. And this is where I ended up. On the holo-displays I can see islands to the north, north-west and east, but I just want to sit up on deck for a few weeks and catch up on some reading and do some physio and plan my next move.

***

So I bet you're wanting to know how I did my shoulder in. Well alright then. I haven't told it yet and I suppose this is as good an outlet as any. First, here are some things you might need to know.

My ship, the Anna Livia Plurabelle, is a magic ship. She travels through space, time, reality itself. I call myself Captain, but I am also her high priest, intoning words from a special book to jump from one place to another. The words are culled from dozens of different languages and almost always obscure. But they do lead to interesting places.

So what I've spent some years doing is sailing around, reading out parts of the book at random and mapping where the words lead me. Seeing what I can find. This time the words were:

Only the caul knows his thousandfirst name, Hocus Crocus, Esquilocus, Finnfinn the Faineant, how feel full foes in furrinarr!

Said it was gibberish. Unless you know. Generally the whole page has to be read up to the trigger words, so I am safe in reciting portions. And then there's anything from a pop to an explosion and the scenery vanishes and a fresh vista appears.

All I could see was sea at first. Then I turned around and saw the beanstalk. It reached up from an island in the sea. I was twenty miles off, the base covered in jungle, over which a thick fog hung. The beanstalk shot up from the centre of the island and into the clouds. The clouds were green.

As I came further I could see that what I thought was a beanstalk was more a ginormous tree. It tapered inwards towards the clouds, but spread out into a single bower above the clouds, turning the sky green with foliage. I could see something moving up there. A big something. I was hoping it hadn't seen me. I sent out a couple of remotes and fired up the engines.

***

So where did we get to yesterday? Oh yes. So I fired up the engines and soon I was just a little way off the shore. The fog got thicker the nearer we got, but it was no match for the sensors. You couldn't see as far as the bow, but through the honeycomb of displays encircling me, I saw like it was clear. The remotes had already mapped out most of the shoreline and were making their way inland. So I kitted up, lowered a boat down from the dock into the water and me and the cat went ashore.

The second we landed I felt like I was in a chose your own adventure novel. This happens a lot if I'm honest. I never really got into computer games, but reading adventures books always thrilled me. I got to use my imagination. This was the most I'd felt it though, what with the beam of light shining through trees in a halo of light. Issy growled beside me and the labile rippled from finger to elbow. I let it do its thing and it flowed into my hand and formed a broadsword. Then it jumped the gap to my other arm and gave me a shield for protection. I took a step forwards.

I felt we were being watched. Issy felt it too, the low rumble in her throat given as a warning. Only I heard the agitation in her growl. But we were left unmolested to approach the tree at the centre of the island. The path was well tramped, it took barely an hour.

The other reason it didn't take long was because of the sheer size of the trees trunk. The remotes had its circumference measured out as a mile and a half at the base. There were vines and all kinds of plant leaf growing on it and I quickly found that not only could I start to climb quite easily, but so could Issy. Her claws dug in where necessary, but for the most part she jumped from one floral shelf to the next. We made good time.

After climbing for an hour or so, we came to a road. Planks of wood were embedded into the trunk to form a surface. Like running the wrong way up a helter-skelter. And then there were gaps, where instead of road there were branches to climb up like great rungs in a ladder. Issy could still climb some sections, but I had to use the labile as a harness to winch her up some of it. The stifling heat of the jungle was long below us. It was freezing up there and getting colder. Good job I brought coats for both of us.

Up and up we went, the way now almost entirely paved with timber. And that's when we ran into two more adventures. They had the high ground and were keen to defend it, swords bared at us. Issy was ready to tear them apart, but I held her by my side with a raised hand. I had no doubt she could take both them out in an instant, but people always deserve a chance. I told them I mean them no harm and asked them who they were and I waited to see how they'd respond.

***

The taller of the two men spoke and when he did I knew instantly that he didn't understand my language. Luckily, I understood or something like it. It was Greek. Ancient Greek that is. A dialect of it at least. I've been learning the language for years and only recently got the hang it when I went to Greece for the first time. This sounded more Ionic than Attic to my ears and I blurted out what little I could remember. He spoke a little Attic too and through a mishmash of half uttered sentences and hand signals, we told each other our stories.

He said a giant lived at the top of the tree. The giant had stolen his wife and his son and daughter and his friend's family and many families from lands all over the area and brought them here. Most he ate. Some he kept as servants. They had come in from a cove to the west of the island, the opposite way I arrived. They said the cove was littered with the boats of the men who had come to rescue their families and never returned. I had seen the corpses in the undergrowth as I'd started to climb. Lot of bones around there too.

I offered my sword and my cat to them and they accepted and we climbed the last mile together. They were called Cyril and Cletus, I kid you not. I established that they were farmers by day but also served as soldiers when it was needed and knew how to use their sword. I quickly led them to believe that I was some kind of minor god. Unethical it may be but you have to speak to people in their own language and it's simply quicker than having to explain a piece of technology like the labile. Far better to let them believe in magic. Things get done quicker that way.

After a bit more of a climb and a bit of cat hoisting, we reach the top. It was like something out of a fairytale. The clouds at our ankles. I'd expected to see a castle or a palace, but instead what we found was a gigantic log cabin. It sat at the end of the space, surely only incredulity keeping it there. At the opposite end of this top tier was the rubbish dump. A graveyard of bones and half eaten corpses.

There was movement inside the cabin and the giant emerged. He stood maybe thirty foot tall. The three humans fanned out into an arc around us. Issy hung back like she was told. We tried to keep our distance, but I stepped in and got too close and he grabbed the tip of my sword and yanked me up and threw me backwards. And that's how I did my shoulder. So now you know. So I can stop now, right?

Oh ok then, So the two Aegeans went for him next and he carried Cleitus away he wasn't as lucky, 'cause the giant ripped him two and spilled his guts everywhere and threw the two halves of him over the ledge. And then I finally saw what danger we were in and I had to act quick. I commanded the labile to my will and I willed to fly at the giant. And as it did so, it flattened out into a sheet and blinded the giant. And as he struggled, it wrapped itself around his neck. And as it grew tighter, he stumbled closer and closer to the edge with a little gentle encouragement, the giant fell over the edge. The labile wrapped on to the bough as it passed and the giant's body hung there limp for a little while. Then the labile slowly released its grip. The giant's body fell to the heap that he had consigned so many too. The labile found its way back to nestle on my arm.

***

Cleitus was dead and there were tears in Cyril's eyes as he mourned his fallen friend. I felt terrible. If I only I'd been quicker, he might still be alive. Still, Cyril's tears were soon turned to joy when his family came running out. They had seen what had happened and hugged him and offered thanks to me. We ransacked the place for loot (them more than me, I don't have much need of gold these days), then began the descent.

We had with us twenty seven refugees. On the way down they told me of their problems. There were giants all over these parts. I guess I must have wandered into the mythical realms. Cyclops and all kinds around here. Most of our refugees were children and most of them were now orphans thanks to the giant. A few were mothers, but many of them were little more than children themselves. If they went back to their homelands they would only have fallen prey to some other giant eventually, so I decided on that long climb down to find them a new home.

As we descended I could feel all the things that had watched us on the way up were now racing ahead of us to the ground. A second confrontation was coming and I put Issy and Cyril on standby. As we reached the forest floor, I saw how right I was. A dark circle of beats encircled us. But the kids weren't afraid anymore, not with the giant's blue face sticking out the jungle at them, and they raced out at the mass, sending it scuttling.

We got everyone on board in five trips and were under sail by nightfall. If they had any doubt about my godlike status before, they soon melted away when I showed them around the ship. Well even people from my era are awestruck by the old girl (sorry Anna). And we got the kids set up in the barracks rooms on the bottom gundeck and set up some camp beds in the empty room up on deck and gave Cyril and his wife and family and some of the other adults use of the three state rooms.

Amongst the women was Agatha. She was in her late twenties, had lost her husband and two children, boy and girl, to the giant and had her one surviving seven year old with her. Gaiane. Her family had once been Athenians and she spoke the nearest to a Greek dialect that I recognised. She became the liaison for the Greeks. 

And liaison is the right word, because for most of the nine days we were at sea she lay with me in my quarters. She was my nurse as well as a lover, tending the arm. Her daughter slept in the hammock in my ready room, Issy curled up at her feet, content as a lamb. We were a little family for a while there, I even asked her to consider staying on board. But she quite sensibly wanted to start a new life somewhere else and found a new society. She asked me to beach my ship and turn the timbers into a home, but I said I could not. We lay in silence that last night together.

I found them a land that was fertile but not isolated and gave them the means to defend themselves. I gave them technology too. Some would be appalled at giving people in the past technology, but once a thing has been invented, who cares who has it? That's discrimination against the temporally challenged. I told them what they needed to know and what they were curious about and left them to it. I sailed away and moped for a while and watched DS9 episodes as I drifted back out the Mediterranean a meandered around the Atlantic. And then I started to speak and here we are.

***

Still bored. The arm's out of its sling at long last. Stiff, but the movements slowly returning. Should be fit in a few more days. Might weigh anchor and sail off in search of some adventure. Maybe read a passage out of the book. Or mooch over to one of the reality crossroads. Amsterdam or round the horn, up to Madagascar. There's Timbuktu, but there's nowt but desert out there. Need me some water to reach a place.

Weather's turned, can see a storm coming in on radar, so I guess the decision's already made. It occurs to me that I have never seen a fjord. Which is to say, I have yet to see a fjord. Think I'll sail up to Denmark and do some fjord spotting and then swing back down to Amsterdam when I'm done. I always enjoy Amsterdam. You always hear the best stories there. Second only to Tokyo for inter-dimensional rifts. Can always catch a new torrent in the surrounding areas. Remind me to tell you some time about the couple that crossed through one of the rifts to find a man in Montana who send them back to when they were kids. Remind me also to tell you of the fate which befell them.

So I'm ofsky. I might try some light typing tomorrow. Just a more efficient way to get out what's going on in my head. Although I can see myself retuning to this method again at times. It has its uses. Speak to you again some time.

***

Get it done.