King Dong

‘I know, I know,’ minced Ray. He turned to Ann. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been dancing attendance; my dear, I haven’t been feeling myself.’ He gave a squeal of a laugh. ‘Well, maybe once or twice, to pass the time. I’ve been laid low, drained, positively overwhelmed with mal-de-mer. Still, I’m feeling better now this beastly boat has stopped bouncing up and down in that alarming fashion.’ He gave Ann a sly wink. ‘And rumour has it, that’s not the only thing that’s been bouncing up and down.’

‘If I want any crap outta you I’ll squeeze your head.’

‘Oh, bold!’ Ray’s mouth twisted into a little moue of distaste. ‘Anyway, I’ve been cutting, sewing and embroidering like a thing possessed to get Miss Darling’s costumes ready.’

He was interrupted by a hail from the bridge. ‘Hi, Deadman! I’m shending in the boatsh to fill up the scuttlebutts.’ Captain Rumbuggery waved a half-empty whisky bottle at Ray. ‘That crazy fella has used all our drinking water for dyeing hish goddamn costhtumes.’

‘Philistine!’ Ray gave the Captain a savage glare and minced off, his wobbling derriere attracting almost as much attention from certain members of the ship’s company as Ann’s.

‘Boatsh away!’ Captain Rumbuggery turned his wandering attention back to Ann and Deadman. ‘You two want to come along for the ride?’

‘Sure!’ Deadman waved back, and turned to Ann. ‘Coming?’

But Ann had spotted a sun-tanned young deck-hand with oiled skin and rippling muscles. ‘I think I’ll stay here and take in a little local colour.’

Deadman followed her stare. ‘Riiiight. Be sure not to take in too much.’

Fifteen minutes later, three of the ship’s boats were pulling in an uncoordinated fashion for the shore.

They had almost reached the surf-line when Sloppy, the ship’s cook, stood up and pointed. ‘Hey, look at that.’

A rider had burst out of the forest, galloping hell-for-leather along the beach. He was a white man, wearing a battered fedora and carrying a bullwhip coiled in one hand, with which he was belabouring the flanks of his foundered horse, urging it to greater efforts.

Behind him, a war party of black-skinned warriors burst from cover. They were wearing leather loincloths and carrying buffalo-hide shields and vicious-looking short spears. They pursued their quarry with dreadful purpose, uttering savage war-cries, brandishing their spears with fearsome intent and thirsting for blood.

The rider stood in his stirrups and waved frantically. ‘Hey – you down there! Help! They’re gonna kill me!’

CHAPTER FOUR Bones of Contention (#ulink_b17a7bb6-9d1f-5a51-8bd1-5cc9d3f27984)

‘Pull for shore, men!’ cried Deadman. ‘Pull till your arms creak and your backs break. We must save that white man from those dreadful savages!’

From behind him, a sulky voice said, ‘Well, I don’t see why.’

Deadman turned to stare at the speaker.

‘As you were, Able Sheaman Obote,’ growled Rumbuggery.

‘Yes, that’s all very well,’ said Able Seaman Obote petulantly, ‘but, I mean, why automatically assume, because he’s a white guy and the black guys are chasing him, that he’s the good guy and they’re the bad guys?’

‘Obote …’

‘It makes me sick. People always make assumptions. I mean, if you saw a bunch of white guys chasing a black guy, you’d think, “Hey, that black guy must have mugged somebody or stolen a purse or something. Let’s go and help the white guys catch him,” but because he’s white and they’re black you don’t give it any thought, you just go barging in on the side of the honky. It’s just emblematic of the institutional, unconscious racism that’s fundamentally rooted in every aspect of society. I mean, he could have stolen their cattle and raped their women, maybe even the other way about, but do you ask questions? No, you just …’

At a nod from the Skipper, the coxswain had crept up behind Able Seaman Obote, and now brought a belaying pin down on the dusky sailor’s head with a solid thwack.

Obote’s eyes glazed over. ‘QED,’ he said, and collapsed.

‘Goddamn pinko liberal commie political activisht.’ The Skipper kicked the unconscious Obote into the bilges as the boat shot through the surf. ‘In oars, men!’ he commanded. ‘Break out the riflesh!’

As the boat ran up the sand of the beach, eager hands tore at the long wooden boxes that had been loaded from the Vulture. The lids flew off, and their contents lay exposed.

There was an awkward silence.

‘Ah,’ said Deadman. ‘I guess Ray must have run out of room to store his costumes and – ah – made some extra room by – ah – dumping the rifles and using the crates …’ His voice tailed off.

Rumbuggery made an executive decision. ‘Back to the ship, men!’

‘But what about the guy on the horse?’ demanded Deadman. ‘We can’t just leave him here to be speared to death by those cannibals.’

‘How do you know they’re cannibals?’ cried Obote, who had just come round. ‘Cannibalism is comparatively rare in pre-industrial societies. You just have a negative and stereotypical view of any ethnic group you deem to fall short of the arbitrary standards of your so-called civilization …’

Thwack!

‘Well done, coxswain.’ The Skipper glared at Deadman. ‘I’m not going to washte my men’s lives on a futile geshture.’ He pointed unsteadily at the oncoming war party. ‘What are we shupposed to fight them off with, seashellsh?’

‘Wait!’ Deadman was examining the flimsy contents of the crates. ‘I’ve got an idea, Skipper. Give me one minute.’

The Skipper sighed.‘ ‘One minute. And thish had better be good.’

‘Right. You men – with me!’ Deadman snatched a double armful of costumes from the crate and led the party he had selected into a nearby stand of trees.

The chase was approaching its climax. The rider had nearly reached the boats when his horse stumbled and fell. He pitched headlong from the saddle and landed, rolling. His mount gave a broken-winded neigh, and expired.

‘Come on, man!’ cried Rumbuggery.

To the astonishment of the crew, the rider, on picking himself up, stumbled back to the horse and began to fumble with the saddlebags.

‘Are you crazy?’ demanded the Skipper. ‘Get over here or you’re a kebab for sure!’

Indeed, the refugee was now within throwing range of the war party. Spears rained around him as he tugged desperately at something caught in the saddlebag beneath the horse. Eventually, whatever it was came free, just as a spear went straight through the man’s fedora, knocking it from his head. He turned, a cloth-wrapped parcel in his arms, and stumbled towards the safety of the boats, clutching the bundle to his chest. From the way he was moving, the parcel obviously contained something heavy.

Then he put a hand to his head, looked frantically about, and went back for his hat.

As his hand touched the brim, he was surrounded. The boat crew looked on in helpless horror as the pursuers loomed over the doomed refugee, raising their dreadful, razor-sharp weapons, ready to stab, rend and tear …

‘Cooo-eeee!’

Startled, the ebony warriors turned. Emerging from the jungle’s edge came a chorus line of the ugliest, hairiest matelots in the Vulture’s crew, all wearing rouge on their cheeks, curly blonde wigs, and high-waisted print dresses that revealed far too much of their preternaturally unlovely thighs. Mugging furiously, and making a variety of horrendously cute gestures, they falsettoed:

‘On the good ship sodapop

You can get sick at the toffee shop

And throw up all day

On the sunny beach of Sugarplum Bay …’

The warriors’ eyes widened. Their hair stood on end, their knees knocked. They moaned and gibbered with primeval terror.