It is said that one should eat breakfast like a King, lunch like a Prince, and dinner like a pauper.. but what if that breakfast was an ever-expanding egg made demonic by the cursing witchery of a Dalmatian gypsy? I fear then, my friend, one would be placed in the precise predicament that a certain heroic Captain of the fleet was placed in as he drove his ships along the Adriatic coast…
Captain Montgomery Ignatious Hillier the 3rd was a brusk and roguish cove. His quick wits, sharp mind and false neck had seen him rise through the ranks like a grog fuelled rocket. He had an eye for the ladies, a tongue for a tale and a small cottage in Torquay. He was the toast of the Navy, and his crew. So, when British interests in the Adriatic were being threatened by resurgent Dalmatian piracy, there was only one man to put the scum to the sword and beat back this vile tide!
‘AHAHAHA!!’ exclaimed the Captain as he swung playfully from the gib of the aft-deck. ‘Does the sea breeze not rattle even the Gods today!.. ‘Tis certain we shall be upon those ruddy cheeked Dalmatian swine before St. Keiths day or my name is not Captain Montgomery Ignatious Hillier the 3rd!!’
‘Of course Sir!’ Replied the 2nd Leuitenant, Lord Marmaduke, ‘But has not your name already been established in the prologue Captain?’
‘AHAHAHA!!’ Insisted the Captain, the tip of his whale bone pipe gripped by the two rows of his earthenware teeth. ‘Sharpen the mizzen-mast, tack the quarter pipes and strike fast with the tootle polls Mr Marmaduke!’
‘Aye aye Sir!’ replied the Lord lustily, and away he went to see to the ships yearning and creaking passage.Hilliers ship, the ‘HMS Mottled Gambit’, cleaved it’s way through the dark waters with a pulsating roar driven from the full sail. It had taken her only 3 days to traverse the squally waters of the Adriatic peninsular and slice into the calmer seas of the Dalmatian coast. The pirates had so far eluded the British with their foreign disposition of running away, but the small harbours and villages that aided their cause had been identified. At the very least the British Marines aboard could storm the shore and seize supplies meant for the piratical blagards! The Earl of Stanford, acting 3nd Leuitenant aboard ship, stood on the pontoon deck, bracing himself against the rolling sea by gripping a small cabin boy betwixt his legs. He took the telescope from his eye and raised an arm in a straight line to the North.
‘Captain! The coastal village ahead Sir!.. ‘tis where reports say the pirates are harbouring themselves and whatnot!..’
The Captain, his eyes crackling with glowing fury , growled out a command as he audibly became tumescent. ‘Set too Gentlemen! There’s our goal, there’s our target! I’ll give a Shilling to every man who brings me the head of a Dalmatian pirate! Or the head of a pirates Dalmatian, which ever comes first…AHAHAHA!’ With a heave of rigging and a heft of the rudder the Mottled Gambit carved a path into the sleepy harbour, weighing anchor as close as she dare. A cool diligence set among the crew as they set too with the tender boats and readied their powder and cutlasses.
The Captain languidly eyed the crew. There was Old mate Bill, 67 if he was a day and twice as old as he was when he was half his age, there was Mad Jack McJackington, the ships osteopath, he’d been by his side through the terrible weavel storm off the coast of Chad and there still during the attack on the Spanish galleon near Cadiz in ‘78, an attack, the Captain ruminated, that had claimed one of his knees and several pints of spit. There was Roger the Poop-deck lad, barely 16 and already turning the air blue with curses and his controversial opinions on the Roman Catholic papal schism of 1378 to 1417..there was Tom-tom Langtry the cook, Little-Minotaur Cathedral the Balinise giant, Keith Pepper the chartered surveyor and Long-tooth Mckinley, the myopic deck hand who’s tales of his days as the only pygmy rent-boy in Brighton brought a tear to the eye. His plaintive catchphrase of ‘I was more sausage skin than man!’’could be heard most evenings.. All brothers, all his crew. All his stinking, fetid family.
With the speed and efficiency expected of the Queens Navy the tenders were manned and were soon resting on the pale yellow sand at the harbours quay. The crew was now stalking the fishing village, but something was wrong. Something was eerily, strangely, silently, wrong.
‘Tis empty Sir.. the village be deserted!’
Called Lord Marmaduke, and he was not wrong. Not a soul could be seen. The Captain forced open a nearby cottage door to find it full of empty people. Gone. Not a crust in the kitchen nor an ember in the fire. The Captain clenched his ears in rage.
‘To be outfoxed by these Dalmatian peasants! Unthinkable! They can only run so far before I, Captain Montgomery etcetera.. etcetera.. shall catch their worthless hides!’
‘Not all have run, Sir!’ Exclaimed the Earl, suddenly dragging an old crone up the cobbled street ahead of him. ‘There is still this old hag.. I found her whittling a chicken in the town square!’
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‘Are you Captain?...’ She cackled in faltering English.
‘Aye, you fetid piece of bowel voidance.. I am the Captain.. what say you of your village? Where have they run too now?!’
The crone let out a juddering splutter of laughter that only enflamed the Captains anger.
‘Now look here old woman.. less of your lip and more of your answers!’ Exclaimed the Earl, releasing his grip on the woman and letting her slump forward, her scimitar spine barely allowing her to remain upright.
‘I have message for Captain…’ she spluttered out, foam flecked spittle forming at the corners of her mouth.
‘A message for me! AHAHAHA! Since when did a foul Dalmatian succubus like you converse with me, a Captain of the Royal Navy?!’
The old hag tried to draw herself up, her eyes widening with ever mounting evil until she looked the Captain full in the smirking chops and hissed..
‘Ever since this Dalmatian hag decided to curse you, you accursed dog!’
She raised a shaking boney finger up to the captain in a swift movement that belied her age, and as her pale, translucent skin flushed with a touch of crimson she screamed:
‘I curse you, you foul dog, I curse your thuggish crew and your boat too! We are simple fishing people, we bare you no harm yet here you come, to destroy our village and to plunder us so no pirate may reside here.. we know you well Navy man, and the misery and pain you have brought to half this coast.. we were lucky to hear of you well Navy man, lucky enough to find refuge in the surrounding mountains afore you came, far from your claws! We give no sanctuary to Pirates Navy man.. but that would not stop you from your heavy-handed barbarism!’
‘Her English is very good.. you have to admit that..’ said Lord Marmaduke, genuinely impressed.
The Captains face had drained, his eyes locked into the old womans as she continued her hate fuelled frenzy.
‘Enjoy your cursing, Navy man! Septum eggy-numdiam giganticus! Septum eggy-numdiam giganticus! Septum eggy-numdiam giganticus!..’ The hag droned on, and on, her eyes closed now.. catatonic with the rhythm of the ancient words.
‘No! Someone stop her! Earl Stanford.. Lord Marmaduke!..she must be stopped!’ exclaimed the Captain, terror cracking his voice.
‘Now don’t be so silly old boy…’ replied the Lord, demonstrating the calm brevity that had 3 times won him the title of ‘Peer most likely to not-overreact over a Gypsies curse’.
‘This is all poppy-cock and balderdash!.. nothing more than meaningless foreign words meant to incite and scare old boy!’
But the old hag kept on…’ Septum eggy-numdiam giganticus! Septum eggy-numdiam giganticus! Septum eggy-numdiam giganticus!...’ The monotonous incantation unnerving to even the most sea-hardened of the crew.
Morning on the Mottled Gambit. The slow swell of the coastal waters had done little to calm the nerves of the crew. Few had slept, most had exorcised their superstitions and fears in a sleepless cavalcade of terror. Voices had been constantly raised throughout the still night, crew members leaping terrified from their hammocks over a shadow or noise. One half-crazed deck hand claimed to have been woken by a tiny crimson pie filled with steam that threatened to work a spoon into his sex hole, others swore blind they had witnessed a fiery serpent rise from the boiling sea and fart glitter into the night sky, others reported massed galleons on the horizon, typhoons, tidal waves.. all personal demons brought to life by this accursed curse.
With a knock on the door Lord Marmaduke entered, doffing his tricon hat as he stooped to enter the dark wood paneled room. ‘You really must not dwell so much Sir..the old crones words mean nothing.. the mens reaction is understandable given the traditions and suspicions of men at sea.. ‘
The Captain managed to raise a smile.
‘You are right Lord Marmaduke.. it will take more than some old gypsy to quell the heart of this British subject.. but it is disquieting so, having the men rattled..’
‘Indeed ’ continued the Lord, ‘..but the ship must have it’s Captain fit in body and well of mind if it is to continue on to find those dastardly pirates, come, you haven’t touched your breakfast!’
The Captain again managed a wry smile and pulled the pewter plate closer to him.
Suddenly an urgent and insistent knocking came upon the door – followed in a breath by the ruddy cheeked and clearly distressed Earl of Stanford, as he swung the door near off its hinges!
‘Sir! No!’ Before either the Captain or the Lord could react the Earl dashed in and swept a hand across the table, sending the plate, egg and bread crashing into the wall and onto the floor!
‘You mustn’t eat the egg Sir! ‘Tis cursed! ‘Tis voodoo!’
‘Voodoo?!’ exclaimed the Captain.
‘Voodoo!’ replied the Earl.
‘Who do?’ queried the Lord.
‘She do!’ Came the Earls reply.
‘The curse Sir! I looked it up in the big bumper book of Dalmatian Gypsy incantations Sir..’ Septum eggy-numdiam giganticus’ roughly translated into English means ‘ The ever-expanding egg of death!’
The Captains face fixed into a resolute stare. He stood, and began to move slowly to where his breakfast had come crashing to the floor. The steamed bread was dashed to crumbs upon his bronzed speculum hanging on the wall, and there was the dented plate, but what of the egg? He carefully drew his sword, and using the tip moved papers and manuscripts away from the darker corners of his room.
‘There Sir, there!’ Came the excited Earls pronouncement, his quivering hand pointed into the corner near the Fax machine.
There lay the egg. Upright on its rotund base, mocking the three men with it’s barely contained insolence.
‘So.. you are the harbinger of my doom as brought about by the old crone, eh?..’ whispered the Captain. ‘..and what would have been the manner of my demise my little devilish ovum?’
With the Captains words a sudden flash engulfed the room, stunning the mens senses and turning the cabin bleached white. A fiery buzz throbbed through the mens minds for a split second.. then silence!
As the three staggered back to full realisation, and regained their faculties.. they instinctually looked upon the cursed egg. To find it had grown one full three quarters of an inch!!
‘By great God Captain, the egg has grown.. somewhat..’ remarked the Lord, still blinking as to adjust his vision.
‘So that was the plan!’ exclaimed the Captain. ‘ I eat the cursed egg and it expands in my guts to eventually pop me like a ripe boysenberry!.. ingenious..’
‘I’m not sure about ‘ingenious’..’ remarked the Lord, to no-one in particular.
The Earl, still breathless from the excitement, drew his sleeve across his forehead, and with it drew a sickening conclusion.
‘My Lord Sir, as you have not eaten the egg.. it is here, free on the ship.. by the God grace you did not eat it Sir.. but now that means we are all doomed! For it shall grow and grow until it does engulf the room, the ship, the very sea in which we sail Sir! Then the world!’
The stark bitterness of the situation etched it’s vigor across the Captains face.
‘My God man, you’re right..’
As if to confirm the terrible inevitability of their fate the room flashed white once again! Blinking in fear and confusion the men could again see the egg had grown another three quarters of an inch.. it’s inexorable appetite to destroy the known world now clear and unswerving!
‘Oh my Lord.. oh my Lord..’ sniveled the Earl, the enormity of the situation seemingly crushing his spirit like an anvil falling on a cat full of spam.
‘What of my wife?..my children? I shall never see England again, feel the warmth of a summers eve kiss my cheek as I play Cricket on the village green, never horse ride amongst the bracken on an autumnal day, never slake my thirst with the first cool pint of scrumpy from the jug after a day hay bailing in the field, never taste cheese, listen to progressive jazz or murder anymore prostitutes! ‘Tis over, all over, done.. done and over Sir!’
The inconsolable Earl buckled and fell to his knees, allowing his body to break as his spirit had, a shuddering tearful wreck.
‘Well, if we could just toy with a note of reason here-‘ but the Lord was interrupted.
‘SO BE IT!’ Called the Captain, lighting his pipe and producing plumes of ink black smoke..’ This is the end eh? The end of my crew and my ship!? Well let it not be said that Captain Montgomery Ignatious Hillier the third did not go out with a fight! For the King!’ The Captain leapt from foot to foot, parrying and thrusting with his shimmering sword into tables and chairs, skewering and slicing shelves and charts. A deft flick of his wrist and the lantern above his bed was brought to the ground, upholstery and paper work were shredded and thrust into the air to mingle with the pipe smoke. Hack, slice - and the chair leg was no more! Parry, thrust - and his map case was rent asunder! The battle was unrelenting, his fight one of sheer meaningless abandon! The egg would not triumph easily, for he was a Captain, and a Captain always goes down with his ship!
The cacophony was quite perturbing to the Lord, who watched on rather bemused as the Captain doggedly attacked the wardrobe doors with the frenzied belligerence of a rapid animal. He stepped over the Earl, who had visibly soiled himself and lay in the fetal position on the cabin floor and was even now shuddering with gulping sobs.
The Lord made his way cautiously over to the egg. The flash yet once more! Neither the Earl nor the Captain had noticed – the latter of which had now moved onto smashing the hilt of his sword repeatedly into his bedstead and muttering something about a pixie called Ian.
The white fog cleared in front of the Lords eyes and the egg had indeed grown it’s usual three quarters an inch.
‘Well let’s just see about this then…’ The Lord placed his boot over the egg, and leaned steadily forward. The egg smashed satisfyingly underfoot. Raising his foot the Lord watched the albumen and yolk slowly spread out across the cabin floor.
‘There.’ He said, emphatically.
Suddenly there was silence in the room. The Captain stood stock still as the feathers from his recently destroyed pillow gently fell around him. The Earl raised his snot stricken face above the table top.
‘There..’ the Lord repeated. ‘It’s gone.. smashed.. let’s hear nothing more about it! You two have been a disgrace!’
The Captain looked at the Earl, the Earl at the Captain. Then they both hung their heads in shame.
‘I think..’ muttered the Captain.’ That it best that we never talk about this.. agreed?’ The Earl nodded, and staggered to his feet, the staining in his britches having noticeably spread up his back.
‘The quicker we leave this harbour the better… now let’s straighten ourselves and get some fresh air gentlemen!’ The Lord held out his arms and the two men allowed themselves to be calmly ushered out of the cabin.
Out on the deck the cool morning breeze did some good in dissipating the Earls thick stench.
‘What shall we do with the old woman Captain?’ asked the Lord.
‘Oh I don’t know.. have her rectum dragged up out of her nose with a barbed hook then toss her into the sea…’
‘Seems fair..’ replied the Lord.
The three men stood silent, watching the seagulls circle over head. The calmness of the day began to renew the mens strength. Soon the crew would set the ships rigging and they would be away from this foul place. Each of the three men took a deep, languid sigh of relief.
But in the cabin, among the splintered furniture and still falling feathers lay the smashed egg. It’s yolk and white merging, oozing, changing, shifting until the runny mass had clearly created a shape.. but what shape.. could it be, no.. surely not. Yes. The shape was clearly, unmistakably forming the silhouette of the as yet unborn Isambard Kingdom Brunel!
The End.
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