Ye know, folks often asks me about me life - Where was ye born? they asks. How many men have ye slaughtered? Where be yer ship anchored? Where's the treasure buried? Whats all this I hear about goats? - that sort of thing.Sometimes these questions is from an admiring public, hangin' on me every utterance, sometimes they is from officers of the law what have strapped me to a rack and threatened me extremities with hot pokers to aid their investigations. Naturally I've remained resolutely silent on the subject and have either made good my escape or bludgeoned the inquisitive rascals to death for their impertinence. But maybe, as me middle years approach, it is time for a little reflection and a settin' down of such particulars for posterity's sake - perhaps as a useful guide to the pirate life, perhaps as a warning to others, or perhaps just to make a little money on the side entertaining those snooping lowlifes what likes to pick over the grisly and sordid details of other folks business.

Let me introduce meself - I am Captain Sir Nigel Blackheart - a buccaneer. I come from a long line of buccaneers, my father was a buccaneer, so was his father afore him and his father afore him, and so on, right back to old Black-Hearted, One-Eared, Cut-Throat Jake - the Terror of Old Cadiz back in the 16th Century who didn't have no father so they said, although not in so many words. Folks called him a Terror but I doubt he was even half as bad as that. He'd be tame by today's standards. Probably no more than Horrid. In fact I'll wager his gravestone epitaph paints a far more even-handed picture of him than some of the gruesome, blood-drenched tales his so-called victims would have ye believe:

Here Lies the Terror of old Cadiz - Black-Hearted, One-Eared, Cut-throat Jake -
Wastrel, Gadabout, Buccaneer and Rake,
He could get pretty irate,
Even for a Pirate,
But he was a pretty good bloke,
Who liked to have his little joke,
If you offered him a beer,
He'd say: No thanks, I've got one ear.
He took all of life's hard knocks
But died ignominiously of the pox.

Not a great epitaph but at least he got one. There's plenty o' folks get tipped over the side without so much as wave goodbye.

Anyways, back to me. My story begins at the tender age of 3 when I was sent to the St Oliphaunt's Academy For The Cherished Offspring Of Cultivated Gentlefolk set in the beautiful rolling countryside of deepest Sussex. Sadly, despite the tender ministrations of the kindly headmistress Mrs Theodoria Applecheeks, my time there was not a happy one - I was disruptive and mutinous and was soon expelled for refusing to drink me mug of bedtime cocoa. From then on, as ye can imagine, it was an inevitable downward spiral into piracy. I cut off me ringlets, stole a pig and ran away to sea. Of course I wasn't really runnin' away as such because all me relatives was either already on the sea, at the bottom of it or at least no more than a trollop's bed's distance of it. So I was just followin' me destiny. Why they sent me to that fancy nancy Academy in the first place I'll never know. What was wrong with Captain Tobias Bloodwhip's Correctional Institute For The Unwanted And Wayward Fruit Of Dastardly Pirate Loins - where me father went? Perhaps they wanted an honest upright citizen in the family for a change but me genes and me fateful dislike of cocoa said otherwise. Either way, that was the end of me edjication.

As a youth I played the honky-tonk piano for a while in a 24 hour dockside pox house run by a Mrs Molly Legge. Ahh, dear old Molly - her motto was inscribed above the door in gold leaf: Legge's - We Never Close. That job taught me much of the ways of the world, some handy pox remedies, how to avoid flying daggers whilst playing a twelve bar pirate blues with a drunken doxy on me lap. All of which stood me in good stead fer me subsequent life of robbery, murder and debauchment. Then, after that - well, now I come to think of it, after that its all a bit of a blur. Things get a little vague. I remember lots of blood and guts, death, disfigurement, grog, wenching, wild roistering, a great deal of sailing, cannon fire - bang bang bang, yes plenty of that - dismemberment, disembowelment and then lots more grog and wenching. Not much in the way of dates or names or faces. I has a dim but fond recollection of a youthful drunken escapade in a lodging house involving three jolly slatterns and a large fresh cod but the details are hazy at best.

So there ye go - me story to date, such as it is. Oh...and .... I once had a dog called Horace. Not much of a memoir, I confess. That'll be down to the grog and too many knocks on the head, I'll wager. So perhaps instead I'd better set down the story of me life from this point onwards. I'll note it down in the form of a diary or, as we matelots call it, a log.

No, second thoughts, I'll call it a diary. Don't much like the word Log. It has.... associations.
So, here we goes:

Captain's Diary - First Day.
Olde Havana Towne. Not quite sure what day it is but its nice out with a stiff Nor-Wester blowin'. They obviously cared little for my reputation as a notorious and uncompromising wealth re-distribution agent when they unceremoniously ejected me from the Saucy Trollop Tavern this morning. My only misdemeanour was to suggest to that leathery old trout Three Tooth Meg that perhaps payment for my lodging might be deferred for a week. Unfortunately she wasn't nearly as amenable as I'd been led to believe she would be and after a minor scuffle and some gunfire I was forced to take my leave. And sadly, after our little altercation Three Tooth Meg is now down to just the one tooth. Her calling cards are going to need updating. In truth, I believe she prefers just plain Meg these days in any case. And never was a nickname more profoundly deserved.

So I had to take rooms at the Slovenly Slattern - a far less salubrious watering hole. But it was a fortuitous ejection because, as I wended me way uptown to me new abode, I bumped into an old colleague of mine - Cap'n Findlay 'The Sleazebag' O'Houlighan - who has but one arm - he lost the other in a wager on the horses.
"Sleazebag!" says I, "How's about ye share a flagon with an old pal? And a damned odd way to lose an arm by the way." But before he could reply poor Sleazy staggered, turned purple, began to gasp and quiver and fell to the ground.
"Blackheart" he croaked, "Thank God it's you. I've been a-huntin' for ye. My time is up, I'm done for - take the map, hidden down me breeches. There be hidden treasure - lots of it.....go on, just take a look down me breeches.
" "Hmmm," I says, a-rubbin' me chin, "that might work with some unworldly maiden you've just lured into a haystack ye lecherous old dog but......
" "No, no really." he gasped, grabbing me sleeve. Luckily a passing trollop was happy to assist (for the promise of a shiny sixpence) and furtled around in his breeches for a while, eventually hauling out an ancient, creased, stained and disturbingly warm Treasure Map.
"This," he gasped, "is a Treasure Map - take it - it shows the location of..... "
Yeah I knows the rest Sleazy," I said, "I have been in this business a while ye know." and I left him to expire on his own in the dust, quietly arranging himself, for some reason, into the shape of a Double Sheet Bend and Half Hitch. Hmmm.

Now its been a long while since a Treasure map fell into me hands and the last one had a very large and unmistakable X in the middle marking the spot where the loot was buried and was as easy to follow as a Yellow-Spotted Sumatran Tree Sloth with a powerful case of the squits. But this was no ordinary map - it had no X on it but it did have a riddle - some might even call it...a code. Possibly an ancient and secret code known only to a few, a very select few. Unfortunately I'm not one of 'em and I must confess meself stumped. Here be the damned riddle:

THE DEAD LETTERS MUST I PUN. R I P
OH DE FAT MAN BE RIGHT O
LION AND RAT GUTS.

This curious conundrum brought to mind the wise words of me old Grandpa Sir Toby 'Grab me Vitals' Blackheart, who was as shrewd as he was fat:
There's plenty o' things to see for them what has eyes to see 'em with.
And plenty to sniff for them what has a nose.
There's a similar point to be made about ears and tongues.
But watch where ye puttin' yer hands.


But his words left me none the wiser. I sat meself down on the old sea wall to study the map further. It was drawn on the back of a portrait of a 'lady' of my 'acquaintance' - that chubby baggage Fat Fat Sally 'Two Chins' Maguire. To the untrained eye it's a straightforward portrait of a homely wench smiling sweetly if mysteriously. But if ye looks closer ye can see her left forefinger is pointing - pointing to a bucket of fish heads in the corner, upon which sits a enigmatic Seagull who looks like he has something to hide. Look closer still and ye see Sally's right leg is raised high in the air, seemingly in a show of careless girlish abandon, but the stubby big toe points puzzlingly to the North Star - a symbol, which as any student of ancient Sumerian mythology knows, represents "The Sky".
Fat Fat Sally is long dead now but I knows someone who isn't who may be able to shed some light on all this - Fat Fat Sally's fat half sister Pat. I shoved the map into me pocket, thanked old Sleazy for his kind donation, even though he was already cold, and went on me way.

to be continued.....