Free The Pirates! by Gideon Defoe

harpoons and settled grumblingly back into their seats.
    â€˜Are you mocking me, sir?’ asked Ahab with a steely stare.
    â€˜Goodness! No! Not at all,’ said the Pirate Captain defensively. ‘It’s just – look, it’s made from mashed potato.’ He spooned a dollop of potato from the whale’s flank. ‘See? We thought it would be a nice surprise,’ he added sadly.
    Ahab exhaled. ‘I apologise. The truth is I’m tired, Pirate Captain. Tired of the ocean, and of this chase. In fact, we were heading back to Nantucket when you attacked.’
    â€˜Oh dear,’ said the Pirate Captain. ‘You mean to say you’ve given up? You’re just going to let that whale mess about in the sea, splashing around and biting bits off of people?’
    Ahab stood up and tapped the table with his whalebone foot until he had everybody’s attention. His baleful eyes swept the room and seemed to look deep into the souls of every man there.
    â€˜Hold!’ he shouted. ‘Before you stands Ahab, a man. For the past age I have abandoned myhumanity in pursuit of the demon that ate my leg. I have stared at raging seas, through storm and rain, until moss grew upon my clothes and icicles hung from my ears and nose. Aye! I have not relented. The bulldog which grips on until death – that has been Ahab. The sun which beats on the desert without reprieve – that has been Ahab. The stubborn stain which soap will not shift – that has been Ahab. The Vale of Death holds no horrors for me, for I seek only vengeance, which I shall pursue even after I lie beneath the mould of the grave.’
    The Pirate Captain was about to suggest that perhaps Ahab might want to think about developing some other hobbies outside whaling, but the old whaler had not quite finished.
    â€˜My destiny is fixed – I shall be avenged. But of late I have grown weary and my stomach queasy when we hit choppy waters. Also, this is my last spare whalebone leg and if he snaps this one, Ahab is stuffed. So!’ Ahab paused and did his looking-into-souls-with-his-eyes trick again. ‘I have decided to put a price on the whale’s accursed head and return to Nantucket.’
    The whalers gasped and not a few of them looked absolutely delighted. Ahab produced a sheaf of leaflets which he handed to the Pirate Captain.
    â€˜Take one and pass them on, Captain. And read it – read it well. For I offer a reward of six thousand doubloons to the man who brings me the white whale.’
    The pirates looked at the leaflets, which showed the details of the reward above a picture of a whale chomping on a leg.
    â€˜SIX THOUSAND DOUBLOONS!’ shouted Ahab, to emphasise the point. Then he sat down and tucked into his fruit medley.
    â€˜That’s a big reward,’ remarked the Pirate Captain, ‘for catching a fish.’
    Ahab shrugged. ‘I told you. I really,
really
don’t get on with him.’

Nine

I Ride with the Bandit King!

    After a game of chess that the Pirate Captain later told the pirates he deliberately let Ahab win because he still felt guilty about Mister Starbuck, they waved the crew of the
Pequod
goodbye. The Captain ordered all the pirates into one of the
Lovely Emma
’s spacious meeting rooms, where they sat trying to look studious as he wrote some things down on a blackboard. It wasn’t easy, because keeping quiet and sitting still were not traits at which pirates tended to excel. The Pirate Captain wrote down TREASURE HUNTING in capital letters and then he crossed it through. Then he wrote SHOWBUSINESS and he crossed that out too, but with a bit more venom this time so that the chalk snapped off and hit the octagon-faced pirate in the eye. After that he wrote ACTUAL PIRATING and he crossed that out as well. Finally he wrote down WHALING and instead of crossing it out he drew a little tick and a smiley face next to it.
    â€˜I hope that makes everything