The Pirates! in an Adventure with the Romantics (8 page)

The Pirate Captain was relieved to see that Babbage’s calendar featured sexy logarithm tables rather than firemen. The mathematician sighed and waved them into his study.
¹⁸
It
was
choc
-
a
-
bloc
with
clutter
,
but
the
room
’
s
most
striking
feature
was
a
huge
complicated
machine
,
covered
in
dials
,
numbers
and
brass
cogs
.
Hundreds
and
hundreds
of
cogs
,
all
whirring
and
clicking
back
and
forth
like
nobody
’
s
business
.

‘That’s a lot of cogs,’ said the Pirate Captain politely.

‘Damn straight it’s a lot of cogs,’ said Babbage.

‘Is it some sort of trouser press?’ Mary gave the contraption a bit of a poke.

‘No, it is not some sort of trouser press. It is a
difference engine
. A mechanical brain, if you will. Not something a poet or a sexy fireman could really be expected to understand. Please don’t touch it.’

Babbage pointed sternly to where he’d taped a cardboard sign onto the wall:

‘It’s very impressive, Mister Babbage,’ said Jennifer, smiling sweetly. Jennifer was good with people.

‘TEACH ME WHAT IT IS TO BE HUMAN,’ said the pirate with gout, doing a difference engine voice. A few of the other pirates giggled, until a glower from Babbage made them stop and stare at the floor.
¹⁹
The
mathematician
went
back
to
studying
his
blackboard
. ‘
Now
,
tell
me
your
problem
and
then
shoo
.’

‘Well, you know how it is,’ said Byron, looking around hopefully for some gin. ‘A man with my hair and physique mustn’t trouble himself with numbers. They’re literally poison to me. Did I ever tell you how I once caught consumption simply from being in the same room as a times table?’

‘Oooff,’ Babbage sighed again. ‘Do get
on
with it, man.’

‘Now, Babs, if you’re going to be like that,’ said Byron, ‘then perhaps we’ll take my friend’s
mysterious code
elsewhere . . .’ He winked at the Pirate Captain.

Babbage straightened up a bit, equations apparently forgotten.

‘Did you just say “mysterious code”?’ For the first time since they arrived, he almost made eye contact. ‘Well why didn’t you say so in the first place?’ He hurried over to shut the door, then turned to face the Pirate Captain. ‘I do apologise, sexy fireman. I get quite wrapped up in my numbers, and Byron’s maths questions are usually so frivolous that I want to tear my hair out and eat it. But I do love puzzles! And codes are the best kind.
²⁰
Can
my
butler
get
you
anything
?
A
cup
of
tea
?
What
do
sexy
firemen
normally
drink
?
Let
me
take
that
hose
,
it
looks
rather
heavy
.
Sit
!
Sit
!’

‘Oh, no offence taken,’ said the Captain. ‘We all have our little obsessions. As a sexy fireman, I’m really into sexy fires.’

‘Yes, and numbers are so marvellous!’ said Babbage, not really listening. His cross owl face had become rather animated, and now looked like an owl who had just awoken from a nice dream about mouse heads. ‘You can do anything with numbers. Did you know that at the heart of everything there lies a mathematical formula that explains it?’

Byron flounced into a huge armchair and put his feet up on an abacus. ‘Not this again!’

‘Honestly, Mister Babbage,’ said Shelley, shaking his head. ‘Do you really think you can explain the maelstroms of the human heart with your confounded algebra?! Ridiculous.’

Babbage ignored them. Byron took the hint and decided to occupy himself by pulling stuffing from the chair and using it to make funny eyebrows.

‘Yes. So, this code. Could I see it?’

The Pirate Captain started to unbutton his shirt. Babbage’s face instantly creased back into a scowl. ‘For pity’s sake! Not
another
strippogram! Will you never tire of this prank, Byron?! Get out, the lot of you!’

‘No, wait, you’ve got it wrong,’ explained the Pirate Captain. ‘I haven’t done a strippogram for well over a year now. It’s simply that the code is a tattoo on my belly, put there by my old pirate mentor when I was at college.’

‘What was a pirate mentor doing at Fireman’s College?’ said Babbage.

The Pirate Captain tried to think fast. Should he say it was a cultural exchange? Pretend he hadn’t heard? Feign rabies? Before he could come up with a clever answer, he realised his mouth was already talking.

‘I’m not really a sexy fireman,’ said the Pirate Captain, ‘I’m a Pirate Captain.’

The crew all covered their ears and waited for Babbage’s head to explode. To the mathematician’s credit, his head remained intact and his face pretty much unmoved.

‘That explains the skull and crossbones on your fireman’s helmet. And I was wondering when the fire brigade had replaced their traditional axe with a cutlass. Also, you do smell rather of cannons and crow’s nests. But please – go on.’

The Pirate Captain tore off his shirt and pointed a dramatic and nicely manicured finger at the tattoo. Babbage leaned forward and peered through his eyeglasses. For a moment there was no noise except the occasional clunking of cogs emanating from his machine. ‘I think,’ he said eventually, ‘that I have an idea.’

Byron slapped his thigh. ‘See, Pirate Captain! I told you he was good. Dull as ditchwater and plain as a potato, but damned clever.’

‘You said you got this tattoo when you were at college? I presume that was some time ago?’

‘Ages,’ the Captain clicked his tongue thoughtfully. ‘Back when I used to wear those trousers with penguins all over them. Height of fashion at the time. I think they were supposed to glow in the dark when you were hot, but I never saw it work. Perhaps I washed them on the wrong temperature and all the glow-in-the-dark juice came out. Hard to say.’

Babbage gave the Pirate Captain the faint smile that very clever people do when they’re trying desperately not to patronise you. ‘Would I be right in thinking that you’ve indulged yourself with a few feasts since college? Mixed grills? Hams fried in butter? That sort of thing?’

‘Once in a while.’

Babbage leaned forward and grabbed the Captain’s belly with both hands.

‘Steady on!’

‘If you’ll observe,’ said Babbage, stretching out the Captain’s belly skin with a sharp yank, ‘half the mysterious symbols were simply obscured by this roll of fat. It’s actually some numbers!’

Sure enough, when everybody peered at his midriff the code was transformed:

‘Good grief!’ exclaimed Shelley. ‘He’s right!’

‘Not quite correct, Babbage,’ said the Pirate Captain. ‘Technically I think that’s a
washboard ab
rather than a
roll of fat
, but you’re spot on about the numbers. Mystery solved! Who’s for cocktails?’

‘Actually, Captain, that’s only a quarter of the mystery solved,’ said Mary. ‘It’s still just some numbers.’

‘Bother,’ said the Pirate Captain.

‘So what can the numbers mean?’ puzzled Byron. ‘Combination to a safety deposit box? Co-ordinates for a hidden Bacchanalian isle where the lakes are made of whisky and the girls don’t know about inhibitions? The measurements of some improbable beauty?’

‘No, Byron, none of those,’ said Babbage, crossing to a bookcase and pulling out a volume at random. ‘Rather more prosaic than that. You see?’ He pointed to the book, which had a similar row of numbers to the ones scrawled across the Captain’s belly printed on the spine. ‘It is a library catalogue number. More precisely, these numbers are the code used by the greatest library in the world – the Bodleian, in Oxford!’

A few of the pirate crew did ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ noises, because it seemed appropriate, and they didn’t know what a library was.

‘Well that makes no sense at all,’ said the Captain, buttoning his shirt back up. ‘I don’t see how the key to every heart’s desire can be a
book
. Neptune’s pants, I hope this isn’t going to be like the time Calico Jack’s ultimate treasure turned out to be some nonsense about a child’s smile. I’m sorry, I should have warned you that he was prone to that sort of thing. Though it’s too late for a refund, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘A book!’ Byron clapped his hands, delighted. ‘A search for a mysterious book! This adventure gets better and better!’

The Captain suddenly remembered that the Romantics thought books were the bee’s knees, and so he tried to look a bit happier about the revelation. ‘Yes, don’t get me wrong,’ he said, waggling his fireman’s hose at Mary. ‘Books are great. And not just for propping up wonky table legs. I was assuming the key to every heart’s desire would probably be a sapphire the size of a baby, but thinking about it this is
even better
. And possibly it’s one of those books with a fancy binding that has gigantic sapphires stuck to the cover, which of course would be the best of both worlds.’

‘So!’ cried Byron happily. ‘The next chapter of our journey! Come on, Babs, pack your suitcase – we must hasten to Oxford!’

‘We?’ Babbage raised his eyebrows. ‘Why on earth do
I
have to come along?’

‘Who knows what further mysterious codes there might be to decipher along the way? Think of yourself as a portable calculator,’ said Byron with a shrug. ‘Also, having a visually uninspiring type like you along on our adventure should really help throw my swashbuckling countenance into sharp relief. You know, like a pig next to a swan.’

‘Oh, fair enough,’ said Babbage.

Seven

A Monstrous Clacking