Flying Dutch

“Very possibly, Sebastian,” said the Flying Dutchman, “very possibly.”

“Good,” Sebastian said. “I always loved pirates,” then he opened the door and walked in. There was a searing flash of blue light, and the world was blotted out.

¦

Half an hour later, Sebastian got up. He looked around, pinched himself, and swore.

“All right then,” he said to the sky, which was visible through a large hole in the ceiling. “I give up. Forget it. You win.”

He realised he was still holding the handle of the door. The rest of the door was nowhere to be seen. Then he noticed something else. He sniffed.

“Hello,” said the voice from under the fallen lump of ceiling. “Is anybody there?”

“Is that you captain?”

“Yes. Sebastian?”

“Captain,” Sebastian said, and his voice was rather shaky, “I don’t think I smell any more. Do you think I smell, skip?”

“I don’t know, Sebastian. I’m not sure. Perhaps if you got this slab of concrete off me, I might be able to give you a considered opinion.”

Sebastian thought for a moment, and then went to get the others. This took time, as some of them were similarly covered in architecture, but eventually they were all assembled and together they heaved Vanderdecker out from under the slab.

“Thanks,” he said, brushing dust off himself. “You’re right, Sebastian, you don’t. Has anyone seen my egg?”

“Which egg?”

“The shiny Stone egg that plays tunes, Antonius.”

“Oh,” said the first mate, “that egg. Here you are.”

“Thank you.” Vanderdecker looked at it for a moment. “Well,” he said, “fancy that. Maybe it’s just broken.” He shook it vigorously. The needle stayed resolutely on Normal.

“In fact,” Vanderdecker said, “none of us do.”

“Do what, skip?”

“Smell, Antonius. The smell would seem to have disappeared. Isn’t that jolly?”

There was a ripple of whispering, and the crew of the Verdomde sniffed at each other. Then they started to cheer.

All except Antonius, the first mate. He would have cheered, but something was puzzling him. As always, when he was puzzled he consulted his captain.

“Skipper,” he said, “why don’t we smell anymore?”

“That,” Vanderdecker replied, “is the thousand moidore question. Why indeed? I can only imagine…”

“Yes?” Antonius said, his eyes alight with anticipation. Vanderdecker didn’t reply. He was frowning too.

“Well anyway,” he said. “I owe you a pint.”

“Why, skipper?”

“I promised I’d buy you a…”

“No,” said Antonius, “not that. Why have we stopped smelling?”

“I don’t know,” Vanderdecker confessed. “I really don’t. Nor do I know why the power station has stopped burning and the radioactivity has dropped down to its normal ambient level. I’d ask the professor, only he isn’t here. It’s a real mystery, if you ask me.”

“Oh.” Antonius’s face had caved in. “You sure you don’t know?”

Vanderdecker suddenly felt terribly guilty. “Of course,” he said. “I’m only guessing, but purely off the top of my head it would just be that we took the full black of the explosion when Sebastian inadvertently opened some sort of pressure lock and triggered off the nuclear reaction, and that all the radiation crashing into our systems carried out some sort of molecular change that counteracted the molecular change that took place when we drank the elixir in the first place. Meanwhile, the sheer force of the explosion, which must have used up all the available oxygen inside the place, just snuffed out the flames and furthermore triggered off some sort of chain reaction which somehow or other reprocesses away all the loose radiation which had escaped previously. And here we all are. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

“No,” said Antonius happily. “But if that’s what you say happened, that’s good enough for me and the lads. Isn’t it, lads?”

The lads, of course, hadn’t been listening. They were too busy cheering and yelling and generally not smelling horrible to listen to anything. But Vanderdecker had thought of something; what if the reaction had indeed reversed the effects of the elixir? And they were now all mortal again?

“I wonder,” he said to himself.

“What’s that, skipper?” Antonius asked, and Vanderdecker pigeonholed the immortality question. He was just starting to realise what life without the “smell” could possibly mean. So maybe he wasn’t immortal any longer. Maybe. There was no need to put it to the test immediately, now was there?

“I was wondering,” Vanderdecker said, “where we can get a pint or so of beer in these parts.”

“And some clothes, skip,” Antonius said. “We haven’t got any. They got burnt,” he explained.

“So they did,” replied the Flying Dutchman. “We’d better get some more, hadn’t we?”

“Good idea, skip,” Antonius said. “Where?”

Vanderdecker smiled. “Tell you what, Antonius,” he said. “You think of something.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“Oh.” Antonius considered. “I don’t know,” he said.

“Don’t you?” said the Flying Dutchman. “Sorry, I thought you were just going to volunteer to walk over to the nearest evacuated village, break a few windows, and come back with some clothes for us. Wasn’t that what you were just going to suggest?”

“No,” Antonius replied truthfully.

“Well,” Vanderdecker said, “what do you think of it, as a suggestion? You can be honest with me if you think it’s no good.”

“I’ll give it a shot, skipper,” Antonius said. “Which way to the village?”

FIFTEEN

Inside the helicopter, the party was still going on. It was a bit cramped, and it swayed about rather more (considered objectively) that the hotel in Dounreay, but it was the considered view of the crew of the Verdomde that while there was moonlight and laughter and Scotch and romance, they might as well face the music and get pathetically drunk. It wasn’t every day, after all, that you escape from a four-hundred-odd-year-old curse.

“Here,” Sebastian was saying to a bulkhead, “you remember that time in Nijmegen?”

“That wasn’t Nijmegen,” Pieter replied, “that was Antwerp.”

“No it wasn’t,” Sebastian retorted. “Antwerp was when you and me and Wilhelmus got completely ratted and went round smashing up all the watchmakers’ shops.”

“Exactly,” Pieter said, nodding vigorously, “that was Antwerp, not Nijmegen.”

“That’s what I just said.”

“You said Nijmegen.”

“Hold on,” Wilhelmus interrupted. “Nijmegen——Nijmegen was when we nicked that old girl’s donkey and Jan Van Hoosemyr…”

“I know,” said Sebastian angrily. “That’s what I was trying to say. That was Nijmegen. Antwerp was when we smashed in all the watchmakers’…”

“But you just said…”

The camera crew looked at each other. “Reminds me of that time in Tripoli,” said the cameraman. In fact,