The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!

how they get the words] inside sticks of rock. Aargh! I'm just pulling;! your leg. Don't look so worried. I've sailed the seven seas, and I've never had an unsuccessful adventure yet!'

'Really? You've sailed all seven seas?' asked Darwin admiringly.

'Every last one!'

'What are the seven seas? I've always wondered.'

Aaarrr. Well, let's see...' said the Pirate Captain, scratching his craggy forehead. 'There's the North Sea. And that other one, the one near Mozambique. And ... what's that one in Hyde Park?'

'The Serpentine?'

'That's the one. How many's that then? Three. Um. There's the sea with all the rocks in it... I

think they call it Sea Number Four. Then that would leave .. . uh . .. Grumpy and Sneezy ...'

Darwin was starting to look a little less impressed.

'Would you look at that big seagull!' said the pirate Captain, quickly ducking into a beach hut.

Seven

_{TARGET: PIRATES!}

A

nd so the pirates and their companions arrived in Victorian London. It was not the London you would recognise from nowadays -there was no Millennium Wheel or Tate Modern or Eurostar or Starbucks or Millennium Dome or Jubilee Line Extension or any of the other things you probably assume have always existed. There was soot and orphans everywhere, and gas-lit cobbled streets full of fog and sinister gentlemen out for a night of illicit murder. It was a strict and unforgiving society - looking at a piano, eating too much butter, dancing with elan - the sour-faced Queen Victoria forbade all these things. Also, it was always raining in the London of themadays - dirty grey slabs of rain that left everywhere shining and slippery.

To Darwin's continued dismay the Pirate Captain insisted they visit London Zoo before doing anything else. All the pirates agreed that it wasn't

14 London Zoo is still going today, and this year's baby bear naming competition was won by Sandokan Soloman for his name 'Ursula'.

as good as Berlin Zoo, which they had visited on a previous adventure to Germany, and that it had far too large a hoofed-animals section. 'Who cares about hoofed animals? They never get up to anything!' said the pirate in green, wisely. The chimps were an especially sorry bunch - the chimps in Berlin Zoo had put on quite a display when the pirates had visited, shouting and weeing right in front of shocked tourists, but the London chimps just rocked back and forth, obviously suffering from zoo-psychosis. Mister Bobo stared sadly at them through the glass, a bit embarrassed on their behalf. The albino pirate noticed a sign which pointed to an exhibit of 'The Most Destruc­tive Animal in the World!'. Some of the pirates had bets on whether it would be a bear or a shark, but it turned out to be a big mirror. The most destruc­tive animal in the world was mankind itself! Especially pirates! But to show they weren't all bad, two of the pirates decided to sponsor a polar bear.¹⁴

After that, even though Darwin kept on looking pointedly at his watch and rolling his eyes, the pirates went shopping in the West End. Several of them got themselves the latest pirate stylings from Carnaby Street. Apparently that year's fashion could be summed up as 'the more buck­les the better!', and the pirates now made a loud clanking noise as they walked along. They also all bought a few postcards and union jacks. The pirate in green who wanted to have the Pirate Captain drawn on his arm had managed to find a tattoo parlour in the Soho district, and now carried a bundle of pamphlets with titles like 'Inky Skin', which he said he'd picked up because he was now very interested in tattoos, and not because of the pictures of ladies wear­ing next to nothing, but the other pirates weren't sure they believed him.

As they trailed down Charing Cross Road, finally exhausted from their exciting day out m the Big Smoke, the Pirate Captain noticed a poster stuck to a pillar box. It said in olden-days writing:

Р.Т. Barnum

(in association with the Bishop of Oxford) is proud to present his WORLD -FAMOUS

_{Circus of Freaks}

featuring the Elephant Man! The Mer-maid! A Beard of Bees! Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday are

'Ladies' Nights!' Free entry all day to ladies.

'That's a lot of ladies' nights,' said the Pirate Captain thoughtfully.

'Yes,' said Darwin. 'It's a peculiar thing. I heard from my cousin that ever since the Bishop of Oxford became the major shareholder in the circus - about seven or eight months ago - the number of ladies nights has risen dramatically, to at least five a week.'

'I wonder if that foreshadows anything sinis­ter?' said the Pirate Captain.

'We shouldn't leap to conclusions, just because the unspeakable Bishop is our enemy,'

said Darwin reasonably. 'After all, it may be that he feels sorry for ladies, and thinks they could do with some free entertainment.'

'Why would he feel sorry for ladies?' asked the albino pirate.

'Well, what with so many of them going miss­ing lately, and then being found washed up in the River Thames, all shrivelled and lifeless.'

'How long has that been going on?'

'Oooh, about seven or eight months, I should say.'

The conversation was interrupted when the pirate with a scarf spotted a policeman coming along the street towards them. The pirates and their companions quickly ducked into Leicester Square.

'It's not safe on the streets for you pirates,' said Darwin, still pushing Mister Bobo along in a pram so as not to draw any unwanted attention. 'Upstairs in the Natural History Museum there is the Royal Society Gentlemen's Club, where we might plan our course of action.'

'Will they have grog there?' asked the sassy Pirate.

'Yes. And cigars. But I don't think they'll let pirates in. And lord knows what my colleagues] would think if they saw me associating with sea-dogs like you.'

The pirates were a bit hurt by this, and Darwin was quick to try to save their feelings.

‘I mean, obviously, FitzRoy and I know that you're stand-up fellows, it's just the other] members ... they may be rather quick to judge.']

'There's only one thing for it then,' said the Pirate Captain, a gleam in his eye. 'We'll have to] disguise ourselves as scientists!'

Holding pens and rulers, and with white lab coats covering their piratical paraphernalia, the; pirates followed Darwin into the Royal Society Gentlemen's Club.[4] There were several famous

scientists present, some sitting around smok­ing, some engaged in animated discussion about the latest scientific topic, and some just watching the dancing girls. The smell of opium hung heavily in the air.

'Anyhow,' one of the scientists was saying to another, 'there simply isn't room in the muse­um's Fishes Hall, so we've decided to pretend to the public that a whale is actually a mammal without any legs. It's patently ridiculous -