Gus Openshaw's Whale-Killing Journal (19 page)

“It’s true,” said Moses, “but it wasn’t entirely my fault.”
He climbed down to the whaleboat to give the crew his
explanation. From the looks of them, if it wasn’t extra-super-
double-damned good, Moses’d be the recipient of a few of the
knives meant for the whale. If it was good, I’d be the recipient of
the knives.
“First, let me say that prior to today I was always high,”
Moses said, “so it never crossed my mind that I was imperiling
my shipmates. I feel terrible about it, as well as what I did
to those whales—particularly now that I can see things from
Dickhead’s point of view.”
Nelson looked at Moses askance. “You’re seeing things
with the whale’s eyes now?”
“I mean from the point of view of a father who’s lost his
wife and kid. I’ve learned about it from Captain Openshaw.”
Other than the tears battling to get out, Moses’s eyes were clear
for the first time. His voice too, and his bearing was straight for a
change. I judged this new, sober Moses before us to be sincere in
his remorse. Whether he’d be forgiven was another story.
“I’m willing to accept responsibility for my actions,” Moses
continued, “but you ought to know that I was just a perpetually
stoned pawn.”
In summation of the crew’s sentiments, Duq tightened his
grip on his lance.
“Think, Captain Openshaw,” Moses begged. “Why has
Admiral Vurman been chasing you around the Caribbean?”
“Violation of Chapter XXII, Article VIII of the Tortolan
Penal Code with a side dish of personal reasons.”
“No, sir, it was to silence me, his only surviving employee.
For years Vurman had been dealing on the side in illegally
obtained sperm oil—the Argentines pay a fortune for it because
they believe it helps their skin stay young-looking. Once Vurman
had the chance to become King of Conch though, he couldn’t
risk having his illegal whale-killing crew squawking to the
whale worshippers. The other three men ‘drowned’ in separate
incidents, plus Vurman’s parents—the accountants who’d done
his books—died from ‘bad breadfruit.’”
The crew set down their whale-butchering weapons.
Those among them who knew Vurman weren’t surprised. “Both
Vurman’s first and second wives,” Flarq said, “choked to death
on raisins.”
I think I summed up the feelings of all when I said,
“Moses, I understand that you were sick and I accept your
personal apology.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“Still, there’s a price to pay. I can’t say what it’ll be—maybe
you’ll get time off for exposing Vurman—but, if for no other
reason than to clear my name, you’ll have your day in court.”
“No, that won’t do,” came a whiney voice from the far side
of the Georgette. It was none other than Admiral Vurman. He
rounded the stern in a Tortolan navy lifeboat. “Particularly now
that I’m the King of Conch, I cannot permit that to happen.”
Also in his boat were Mutherford and Sybil. My heart
leaped (cause of Sybil, not Mutherford). Sybil’s hands were
cuffed behind her back by brass darbies—Vurman must
have figured out she pulled the Neptune gambit. She was,
inexplicably, the portrait of sullen. Of note: what little blood
the lawyer had in his face before had vanished with Vurman’s
confession.
“You and what navy are going to stop us?” I asked
Vurman. Other than a ceremonial sword, he was unarmed.
“I and my Employee of the Year,” he replied with a nod
towards Nelson. On cue, Nelson drew his .357 Magnum.
P.S. A quick note to other captains: You may not want to let
traitorous former pirates among your crew have their confiscated
.357 Magnums back.

“How many bullets do you have?” Vurman asked Nelson.
“Enough.”
“Shoot Moses first, then Openshaw, then the two
harpoon goons, then the psychotic cook. Stupid George I want
spared for scientific research. And last but not least, waste the
traitorous bitch,”—he paused for a self-satisfied giggle—“whose
demise will just happen to make me the sole ruler of Conch.”
Neither me or the crew were near enough the lances or
knives to huck one at Nelson, though we all would’ve liked
nothing more at the moment.
“You’re probably thinking that after all we’ve been
through,” Nelson said to me, “I’m a total jerk for selling you
out,”
“I’m not all that surprised by it,” I said.
“Well, that makes me feel really crappy about myself,” he
said.
Then he turned the pistol on Vurman. I felt a stirring in
the vicinity of my heart—Nelson had placed his loyalty to me over
a ton of dough and all the virgins on Conch.
“We made a deal, Nelson!” Vurman protested.
“Haven’t you heard?” Nelson said, “I’m duplicitous.”
“Did you catch that at your brothel?” asked George with
concern.
Before Nelson could respond, his gun leapt from his hand
with an earsplitting ring. It slid like a puck on the whaleboat’s
prow then plopped into the sea. The reason for this: A second
Tortolan lifeboat, with a sharpshooter on her prow, had arrived.
“Remind me to dock them for lateness,” Vurman snorted.
Within a minute, a half-dozen of his sailors—each armed
with the sort of rifles capable of taking a house down—had me
and the crew and Sybil on the deck of the Georgette, cuffed with
brass darbies to the starboard rail. For Bob the rat they used a
twisty tie.
To his credit, Mutherford came aboard and pleaded our
case—which is to say the case against Vurman—to the Tortolan
navy men. As a rebuttal, Vurman said, “Darby him with the
other scum.”
The sailors obeyed.
“Now shoot them all,” Vurman ordered.

A firing squad guy.

Vurman’s sailors stood in a row and raised their rifles to execute
us.
“Per tradition,” we were told by Vurman’s first mate, a briny old
salt named Lochs, “the highest in rank among ye may express a
last request.”
“Do the Stoertebeker thing,” Nelson urged me. (He was
referring to the pirate captain whose last wish at his execution
had been to have his head chopped off with his crew standing in
a row beside him—however many of them he could run past once
headless would be spared.)
I had another idea though.
“I’d like, per the Code Duello,” I told Lochs, “to challenge
Admiral Vurman.”
My thinking was, all of these guys revere the Code, of
course, and a duel’d put me and the crew and Sybil in a position
to save our sterns. At the very least it’d give me a few whacks at
the true bastard responsible for the deaths of my wife and kid.
Vurman scoffed and strode aft as if he had more
important matters to attend to there.
“Per the Code,” Lochs explained to me, “ye have to have
been sufficiently insulted. Otherwise every common criminal
like yerself would be able to duel the Admiral.”
“The Admiral stole Sybil from me,” I replied, “brought
her along while he was trying to kill me, then, while my body
grew cold, he planned to go with her to Niagara Falls for a
honeymoon.”
“Actually, the newspapers reported that wrong,” Sybil said.
“We were going to go to Montreal for the honeymoon. Niagara
Falls was just to celebrate your body growing cold.”
The sailors lowered their rifles slightly. Lochs turned to
Vurman with a look of reproach.
Vurman reddened. He saw he had no choice. “Fine, fine,
I’ll duel him,” he said, unsheathing his ceremonial—or so I’d
thought—sword. It appeared sharp enough to hack the Georgette
in half. He whipped the air with it so fast it looked and sounded
like a tornado. Evidently he knew what he was doing with the
thing.
“According to the Code,” Thesaurus said to Lochs, “the
Captain is allowed to be armed with a similar weapon.”
“Aye, of course,” said Lochs. He offered me his own
ceremonial sword. This one really was just ceremonial as my
luck had it. It didn’t seem sharp enough to hack a loaf of bread
in half. But since the next best option was a blubber knife—
compared to which Loch’s sword was Excalibur—I accepted it.
Vurman then produced a shield.
“Now that’s not fair,” I said.
“Sob, sob,” said Vurman.
“Sorry, Captain,” Thesaurus said. “There’s no provision in
the Code for shielding a one-armed man.”
“But he is allowed to have a second,” said Dealer Dan,
leaping aboard from the Nycroft cruiser that had just glided up.
“I’ll be Captain Openshaw’s second.”

It has been left to me, Sybil, Queen of Conch, to record today’s
events aboard the Georgette.
First, please permit me a moment to say that I am,
unlike my robotic creations, human. After he left Conch, my
heart was warmed by the mere thought of the onetime cat
food cannery employee (contrary to popular belief, the smell is
barely detectable). My mind, however, fell prey to Pragmatism—
no friend to Romance. Ricardo Vurman is highly educated,
my advisors said. Plus he’s cultured, they cooed, an admiral, a
statesmen, in possession of all his hair and limbs, and all else
that a Queen would want in a King. In short, he is everything
that Gus Openshaw is not. Just a few hours into my marriage to
Ricardo Vurman, I realized that that was precisely what’s wrong
with him. In addition, he wets the bed.
Determined to rejoin Gus in this lifetime, I reprogrammed
the Neptune launchers so that the missiles would disable the
Tortolan fleet in such a way that the sailors would have a chance
to flee via lifeboats. This was a mistake on my part insofar as
Vurman and six of his men managed to later take the Georgette.
I also thought I might flee. However, as the Neptunes roared
back towards the Tortolan fleet, I got carried away writing an
e-mail to Gus. To make a long story less so, Vurman caught me
and I am at present darbied to the starboard rail of the Georgette
along with her crew.
The lone scenario I correctly anticipated was that if
captured, Gus would challenge Vurman to duel and the latter
would take advantage of the noble Code in cowardly fashion—
taking up a shield knowing that Gus lacked a hand with which
to do likewise. Accordingly, I e-mailed my old boss a schematic of
a crude nine-volt battery-powered prosthetic arm, one that could
be assembled in a matter of minutes.
Dealer Dan brought the completed product in his boat.
Regrettably, he lacked sufficient means to capture the Georgette
(had Dan’s pilot up in the F-15 fired, everyone aboard the
Georgette would have been imperiled). Still, Dan was eager to
help us thwart the Tortolans (I had promised him I would buy
the F-15, although we have no air force or licensed pilots on
Conch {the jet is, however, in near-mint condition—if interested
in it, please e-mail me at [email protected]}). He
succeeded in securing the position as Gus’s second in the duel
and thus was permitted to board.
Having done so, he fitted the prosthetic arm to Gus’s right
shoulder. It flexed at the elbow joint, but little more. At least
it enabled Gus to hold a shield. As irony would have it, Dan
stocks twenty different kinds of knives and swords, seventy-seven
firearms, myriad explosive devices, rockets and launchers, tanks,
jets, and intercontinental ballistic missiles. But he didn’t have a
single shield. With no time remaining to craft one, Dan grabbed
a lid from a steel trash can. “It’s the solid, expensive kind,” Dan
said to mollify me. “Same one the Reggae guys use for their steel
bands.”
Thus armed (as it were)—and inspired I hoped by my
expression of undying love and the news that those who
had advised me to marry Vurman were now on racks in my
dungeon—Gus set bravely across the deck of the Georgette to do
battle.
Right away Vurman lunged, his rapier aflame in the late
afternoon sun. I’m sorry to report that, as a boy, while all the
others were playing with snakes and snails and puppydog tails,
Ricardo Vurman was fencing with a private instructor.
Gus managed, with a creak (I should have had the
prosthetic arm’s elbow hinge oiled) to raise the shield in front of
his own face. The rapier struck it with (Dan was right) a pleasing
note.
Though shaken, Gus fired back. His weapon fell short by
several feet though as Vurman danced away with a superfluous
spin. “Openshaw, you couldn’t hit the broad side of a whale,”
he said, and, with a laugh, indicated the blubbery bastard,
struggling to stay afloat on the other side of the portside rail.
Flarq, Thesaurus, Moses, and George cheered for Gus—
even the rat seemed to jump up and down in exhortation—but
their eyes belied their fears.
Nelson and Duq wagered on the outcome of the duel,
drawing the ire of Flarq. “How dare you be against the Cap?”
Flarq asked Nelson.
“Of course I want the Cap to win,” Nelson said, “but
whatever’s gonna happen is gonna happen. Also, Duq gave me
ridiculously good odds.”
Meanwhile, Gus gamely blocked several blows from
Vurman. Finally, he lunged himself. In defense, Vurman swept
Gus’s sword back with such speed that it gave the illusion his
rapier was a second shield. The rasp of steel against steel stung
the eardrums of all within leagues of the Georgette.
Vurman then sallied forth and shot his rapier anew.
Hoisting his de facto shield, Gus managed to repel it with a
resounding peel. Vurman immediately sent his blade hissing
forth in a blinding series of slashes from which no one but an
expert could escape unblemished. With a groan Duq fished his
wallet from his pants to pay Nelson.
{Shite! The battery on Gus’s computer is out of bars. I will
recharge it and then continue…}