Monday
"HELP! S.O.S.! I AM LOST AT SEA! If you are receiving this note, it may already be too late for me..."
This is the message I found left behind by my master. This is Reginald speaking, and being a humble manservant, I am not accustomed to this kind of frenzy and adventure. Having been employed as a manservant for forty-three years, I am used to the wild and exciting lifestyles of the various masters I have served - my present one being no exception. But while he is off exploring exotic lands and dealing with occasionally disreputable folk, I am more comfortable tending to his home, maintaining his lovely blimp between adventures, or looking after his wife. I seek no other ambitions. Being the treasurer of my chapter of the Manservants Guild is enough for me*. I suppose the fact that I am a bassist in a band is literally the most "rock 'n roll" thing about me, but even then, we never get crazier than a few up-tempo ballads.
(*Speaking of this organization, you may recall that the Guild had a decisive hand in the Great Sky Battle against the squirrels, in which many of my butlering compatriots were slain while coming to the aid of my master. I, however, missed out on the action due to a bad case of the sniffles, and I ended up napping at home through the whole battle. I regret nothing.)
I am quite content with my moderate lifestyle; therefore, I scarcely know where to begin this harrowing tale. You see, it all started several days ago. I was just returning from a late night band practice with a few of my butler friends, ready to tend to my master's home and tuck his dear wife Honeypoots into bed, when she explained to me that she had grown quite worried by her husband's absence. He was presently away on his annual trip around the world (going for a new personal record this time by taking a route less traveled, which happened to be along a more dangerous jet stream across the Pacific Ocean), but part of their marital agreement was that he would check in with her regularly while away on a blimping adventure. He, however, had failed to do so.
As she shooed me away from the bedroom, wearing a lovely silk negligée, she said, "Just look into it, will you? He hasn't called me in days. I swear, he better not come back here with another lie about being stranded on a 'dinosaur island' again."
From the other side of the closed door, I vowed, "Right away, my lady! It is my duty as a noble manservant to serve both the lord and lady of the house."
"Whatever, just stop bothering me. I'm going to bed. And I better not catch you staring at me again like some spindly-legged praying mantis!"
"I was only assuring your safety, madam!"
I heard her lock the door. I knew locating my master, somewhere on the far side of the world, would be a daunting task. Where would I even start? I hated to admit it to myself, but I knew there was only one man who could help me with such an impossible challenge. I confess I had grown tired of hearing the man's name constantly repeated by my adoring master. "You should have seen how heroic Mandelbaum was on our latest adventure!" " Mandelbaum always did things this way when he was my manservant." "Mandelbaum's thighs are much more fit than yours." Well, we can't all be Mandelbaum, okay? Sheesh.
I ultimately decided to set aside my pride, made the call, and a few hours later Mandelbaum and I met each other at the predetermined meeting place on the docks by the harbor. He mocked me a little, saying that when he was a butler, he never lost his master. What a smug son of a... I told him to put his mouth to the test, that if he were as good and loyal a man as my master had always boasted, then he'd have no problem locating him. Mandelbaum wasted no time digging into a knapsack at his side, and he pulled out small white box with a blinking light on it.
"A tracking beacon?" I asked.
Mandelbaum explained that he secretly planted one under my employer's skin about a year back, knowing full well he'd eventually have to bail the man out of some predicament at some point, such as this very one in which he currently found himself. I was admittedly a bit impressed (and it was probably an idea I should have considered myself).
I said, "Alright then, so how are we supposed to follow his signal? I don't have a blimp. Do you?"
That's when Mandelbaum explained to me that we were meeting on the docks for a very specific reason. There was a rich member of the Gentlemen's Yacht Club, a captain of industry named Nigel Hildebrandt, who owed Mandelbaum a favor. We met Nigel near his majestic yacht, the biggest one on the bay. Painted on the side of the glorious boat was the name Psyche, a name I found fitting since she was the ancient goddess of lost souls. We would need that kind of good fortune in our search, no doubt.
Nigel greeted Mandelbaum and me heartily, "Ah, welcome, gentleman! I'm so eager to show off my new cruiser, the Psyche!" (Except that he pronounced it "Sike", which made me cringe. So much for our good fortune.) "What can I do for you, my old friend?"
Mandelbaum explained that he needed to borrow the yacht, and there was no time to waste on further explanations. Nigel scratched his head a bit and said, "Well, I suppose I do owe you one after that daring rescue you provided me in the Irminger Sea. I wasn't expecting to be waylaid by squirrels from Greenland. Viking squirrels, no less. But I suppose I can go ahead and have my men get the cruiser up and running right away for you. We'll hit the seas in a matter of hours."
Mandelbaum quickly said that no, Nigel would not be joining us on this adventure. He and I could get the yacht made way for sailing faster than his crew could anyway. (I was appreciative of the compliment.) But I knew why he really didn't want Nigel to come. You see, the Gentlemen's Yacht Club was something of a wannabe version of the Blimping Corps. They constantly blew their money on extravagant adventures out at sea, only to find themselves in over their heads and completely unequipped for a truly daring challenge. They were nothing but a bunch of spoiled, rich manboys who knew nothing about true adventuring. Nigel would, no doubt, just get in the way.
He was frustrated with Mandelbaum's bold request, but ultimately he had enough honor to know when a debt required payment. He forked over the keys to the yacht, and sure enough, Mandelbaum and I had the cruiser ready to hit the high seas in no time.
The Psyche was indeed an impressive vessel, for she traveled at a speed that was surely not proportional to her size. We sailed at a breakneck pace. Mandelbaum wasn't much for chitchat on the ride, but he was a diligent navigator, never tiring and always following the beeping signal of his tracking beacon. I could only think of the trouble that Master was in, and how lonely and upset his poor wife must have been, waiting for him (and me) back home. If not I, then who would be there to comfort her with a warm embrace?
Anyway, days passed and we made our way deep into the Pacific Ocean. I was starting to become weary of being on the ocean for so long, and I never truly prided myself on having a sturdy pair of sea legs. As the story brings us back to today, it was around dusk when Mandelbaum shouted that he had spotted something a few clicks ahead of us. We pulled the yacht closer, and when I could finally see what he had seen, my heart sank into the pit of my stomach.
The wreckage of the Eurydice II, my master's blimp, was strewn about for nearly half a mile in every direction. Among the flotsam and jetsam, I spotted bits of the blimp's silver and blue balloon and the wooden planks of her deck, which had been smashed to pieces. I cried out my master's name for the next hour until my voice went hoarse, but there was no call back to me. Mandelbaum continued to steer the yacht, diligently following the signal of the beacon, but all hope seemed to be lost. What had happened to my dear employer? I couldn't bear to consider the most logical outcome or how I would ever deliver the tragic news to Honeypoots. But just then, there was a ray of hope as Mandelbaum cried out that he had found something!
We spotted an empty crate of absinthe bottles floating nearby. I lowered myself down a rope ladder and descended into the surprisingly cold waters, searching for any sign that might lead to a clear answer about Master's fate. On top of the crate was indeed the partner half of the tracking beacon, the part that Mandelbaum had once installed under my master's skin. But how had it gotten cut out of him? My stomach churned at the gruesome possibilities. Beside the beacon, there was a handwritten note. I could barely read it though the scratchy handwriting and the water-damaged paper, but it read:
"To whom it may concern, HELP! S.O.S.! I AM LOST AT SEA! If you are receiving this note, it may already be too late for me. You see, I was on my annual quest of circumnavigating the globe in my blimp, the Eurydice II, when a terrible storm overcame me. I was not expecting a tropical storm at this latitude during this time of year, but the fates had other plans for me. I tried my hardest to steer away, to raise my altitude above the storm, but despite my best and most heroic efforts, the gods of thunder and lightning descended wrathfully upon me.
"I crashed into the murky, churning waters below, and my poor blimp did not survive the fall. I cried to myself, more for her loss than for my own dire predicament. I drifted alone at sea for days, clinging to a bit of wreckage from the main rudder, and no doubt began suffering from dehydration and hypothermia in the cold water. I was reaching the point of delirium. It was only by a stroke of luck that I found this crate of absinthe, stocked with the most beautiful bottles of green magic fairy-water that I had ever seen or tasted! With each delicious bottle, I quenched my thirst and survived. Though I was now drunk and even more delirious, I was lucky to be alive.
"Somehow during my plight, I realized I had cut my arm on a bit of wreckage, possibly during the crash, and I was bleeding. I found this strange contraption imbedded under my skin. I was shocked and terrified! There was only one logical explanation for its presence in my body: ALIENS. Yes, I assumed extra-terrestrials must have caused my crash, and they had abducted me, probed me mercilessly, implanted a strange device in my arm, and then dumped me back into the sea. I was happy to be rid of the thing in my arm so they could no longer track me down for further experimentation. (I realize now that this was all most likely a delusion brought on by the absinthe, but here we are now.)
"The absinthe eventually ran out, I sobered up, and dehydration was beginning to creep up on me again. I found this piece of paper, and so it goes as I narrate my story to you - the unfortunate stranger who finds this. I can only beg you to tell my tale honestly, the way it is presented here. Please relay these messages to my loved ones. To my one true love, I'm sorry I ever left your side to go on this blimp ride around the world. But you understand how adventure is always calling me, Mandelbaum. I wish I had never parted from your presence. To my dear wife, thank you for being my sweet angel and humoring my blimping ways. To my young mentee, Freddie, I hope you become a greater blimpman and a more honorable man than I ever was. And to Reggie, my butler, please cancel my subscription to Blimpman Quarterly."
I gave the note a puzzled look, flipped it over hoping there might have been something more substantial on the back side. Nope. Nothing. I continued reading:
"So here I am now, awaiting my impending doom. It is a strange thing knowing that death is so close. We avoid even thinking about it for our whole lives, and now it's only a few inches away. It makes you think of all the things we could have accomplished, had we just been given a bit more time, and HEY, DOLPHINS!"
I rushed back onto the deck of the yacht and shared my master's note with Mandelbaum. I was curious what the final words about the dolphins had meant. Was it my master's final moment of delirium taking over his rotting brain? Was his last thought before dying of... dolphins? What could it all mean?
Mandelbaum explained that he had an idea about what the words meant. He silently turned the yacht to a new bearing, and we made headway in a new direction. His lack of explanation really peeved me. Though I may not like him, I can only hope that this "legendary" Mandelbaum fellow is as skilled and trustworthy as my master has always boasted. And accordingly, I can only hope that my poor master is still alive.
#LOST #thesearch #reginaldandmandelbaum
#aliens #dolphins #psyche
Tuesday
Reginald again, posting via satellite phone onto my master's social media in hopes that we can share the word about his need of rescue. Mandelbaum and I finally had a lead on Master's location, or at least that's what Mandelbaum seemed to believe. He plotted a course for us on our yacht, the Psyche, and we set sail for nearly a whole day in one singular direction. Just as my patience for mysteries was running thin and I demanded to know our destination, Mandelbaum pointed straight ahead.
There was indeed a pod of dolphins swimming out ahead of us. We could hear their cult-like dolphin songs even from this distance. The mysticism surrounding dolphin cults has always made me uncomfortable. It's not that I'm wary of other people's religions; it's just that dolphins have this way of really sucking you in with their hypnotic singing and overall cuteness. A fringe religious agenda on top of weird, fishy cuteness doesn't really help ease my mind. Anyway, what was really significant about the sighting was that the dolphins were swimming near a beautiful tropical island.
"Do you know this place?" I asked.
Mandelbaum nodded and said he had heard of this place but had never been there himself. It was the closest thing to "civilization" in this part of the ocean, and if my employer had managed to catch a ride on the back of a dolphin, he would have surely ended up here.
We docked the yacht near a quaint sandy beach, but we couldn't find any sign of Master anywhere. Mandelbaum called for my attention from his end of the beach, so I stopped my half of the search and rushed over to him. He had found a series of footprints in the sand. Clearly not from a dolphin. And clearly not from just one man. Before we could even ponder who might have made these prints, a band of elderly folk strode from the jungle.
"Greetings, friends," said their leader. He was an older man in his late sixties, with a long grey beard and long grey hair partially tied back in a pony tail. He continued in the most gentle and softly-flowing voice, "My name is Richard, and we welcome you to our island. Any friend of the dolphins is a friend of ours, man."
He stretched his arms out wide as if waiting for a hug, and he smiled to all the people around him. They were all wearing white linen robes, and the women had flowers adorning their hair. Each one of them seemed to be around Richard's age, all of them living relics of the Hippie generation of the 1960s.
"You are... friends of the dolphins. Right?" asked an older woman hesitantly.
"Well I can't say I know many dolphins myself," I said politely, "but they do seem nice enough."
She seemed pleased with my answer. Richard chimed in, "You'll be our friend soon enough."
I glanced curiously at Mandelbaum to make sure I wasn't the only one who found that statement slightly threatening. I wasn't.
Richard continued, "Follow us. We're excited for you to meet the rest of the Majestic Brotherhood of the One True Wave."
Then I replied, "Actually, we've come here in search of our lost friend. He was stranded at sea, and we have reason to believe that he may have found his way here. Perhaps you've seen him?"
I told them my master's name and they all exclaimed, "Oh yes!" and then there was much muttering of agreement in the crowd.
Richard said, "You mean Brother Hole?! Now there's a man who is truly a friend of the dolphins! Why didn't you say you knew him?"
I was curious why they were calling him Brother Hole, but I didn't press the issue. If they knew where he was, I demanded that they take us to him.
"Ah, well I'm afraid you're too late," said Richard. "You see, he was with us only a few days before the graces of the ocean - our dear dolphins friends - whisked him away to another dimension."
"Another dimension?!" I shouted angrily. "I swear if some harm has fallen upon him due to you and your strange cult, then there will be hell to pay!"
Richard replied that "cult" was such a pejorative term. Surely, the Majestic Brotherhood was not confined by such limited terms; according to him, they had no real agenda other than a life of dolphin watching, musical meditation, yoga, and boundless free love. "Follow me, and I believe all your questions will be answered." I didn't like the sound of that, but Mandelbaum said this was probably our best chance.
We followed the Hippies into their compound at the center of the island. There wasn't much to it: a few grass huts, a sweat lodge, a main cooking area with a campfire, lots of burning incense, and a garden that seemed to be growing only marijuana plants.
"This is where Brother Hole stayed," said Richard, pointing to a little hooch made from bamboo sticks and bits of tarp. "What a great friend of the dolphins, he was. We will surely miss him. But we're so envious he made the joyous voyage to the next dimension."
I ignored their religious banter, and Mandelbaum scavenged around inside the hooch, looking for clues. He pulled out a kerchief, which surely belonged to my master; it had his initials clearly embroidered on it.
"Oh goodie, a keepsake!" said Richard. "Those are always fun." And then he turned and made his way with the others toward the campfire. He said it was half past noon, and we were welcome to join them for a vegetarian lunch, some singing of songs, and a bit of ganja. I declined politely. I said that Mandelbaum and I were still recovering from a long journey and perhaps a moment alone in "Brother's Hole's sacred hooch" might suit us. Richard obliged.
As soon as we were alone, Mandelbaum flipped over the kerchief, and we quickly and quietly read the secret note that had been written there on the back. I knew my master was a clever one! It read:
"To whom it may concern, GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN! The innocent looking people you see here are evil! When I was stranded out at sea, I never thought being rescued would be as horrifying as this. If I had my choice, I'd beg the dolphins to take me back out to sea and dump me there. Ever since they delivered me to this island, I've been a victim of these people's incessant religious yammering and obsession with me.
"You see, I was actually dead when the dolphins brought me here (death would have been a better fate for me, honestly), but they revived me with some sort of mouth-to-blowhole resuscitation. It was weird. As I awoke and breath filled my lungs, I had a most unpleasant fishy taste in my mouth, and my lips were coated with ooze. A band of humans was pulling me out of the ocean, and they dragged me onto the sand, all the while explaining how lucky I was for the dolphins to have chosen me. It was their dream to taste the inside of a dolphin's blowhole, and only the lucky few in their ranks had ever been chosen thusly. They started calling me 'Brother Hole' and treated me as a guest of honor on the island. I really had no idea what the hell was going on, but I played along as best I could. I figured, with such an unhinged group of individuals surrounding me, playing nice and trying to fit in was my only chance of survival.
"For a few nights, I was forced to join in on their sing-along jam sessions, and I was kept awake at all hours by the sounds of their nightly love-making. I was losing all grip on reality as their brainwashing took its effect on me. Then, last night, their evil leader Richard said I wasn't looking well, so he gave me a glass of water to drink. It tasted funny.
"That's when I realized something sinister had happened. The world around me began to swirl in a twirling vortex. The twinkling stars in the night sky morphed into every color of the rainbow in a vivid display of neon lights. The campfire was no longer a campfire, but a weird orgy of giggling fairies. They leapt up and down and invited me to join them, but I backed away in fear. I screamed but nothing came out of my mouth except the sound of a dolphin's squeak.
"I overheard Richard's voice saying, 'Ah, crap. The LSD didn't work. He's having a bad trip!' I ran away from the camp as fast as my legs could carry me and arrived at the beach. I looked down at my feet, and the wet sand was no longer sand but melted Jello pudding pops.
"I retreated into the ocean, and I was standing there in the water when an enormous 50-foot dolphin rose out of the sea ahead of me. He looked like the sea god Neptune, except that he was a dolphin. He held a giant trident in his flipper and had a beard of sea foam around his pointy dolphin mouth. He looked down at me, towering massively over me, and said in a booming, thunderous voice, 'Looks like you're riding the one true wave, man. Thanks for being a friend. How 'bout a kiss?' And then he leaned forward to kiss me - his massive body towering dangerously over me, enveloping me in a dark shadow and ready to smother me - and I shielded my face with my arms, trembling in fear.
"When I opened my eyes, there was no dolphin, but there was an enormous WAVE coming straight for me. It crashed on top of me and rocked my senses to their core with a wallop unlike any I'd ever felt. The swell sucked me under the water, and I knew I'd drown there in the violent undertow in a matter of seconds.
"I don't know what happened next, but I awoke back in my hooch at the camp. Brother Richard and the others were leaning over me, and my lungs felt as if they had collapsed. Plus, that familiar fishy taste from before was back in my mouth. 'You swallowed a bit of sea water back there,' said Richard, 'but the dolphins found you and brought you back to the shore. That's twice they've rescued you! You truly are a friend of theirs!' Everyone cheered and started singing and playing acoustic guitars. Then they muttered something about how I was one blowhole-kiss away from achieving ascent into nirvana and a higher dimension. Whatever, idiots.
"Meanwhile, I closed my eyes and grumbled a series of curses at those pesky, meddling cetaceans for bringing me back here a second time. Feeling a little better now, I'm able to write this note on my kerchief, hoping that whoever finds it can relay my horrendous tale to my friends and family back home. My only chance now is to steal one of the cult's short-range motorboats that they have docked on the other side of the island. I don't know how far out to sea I will be able to go, but as long as it is far enough away from this place, I am willing to try. Please wish me luck in my escape, and I shall wish you the same. God's speed."
I put down the note, and Mandelbaum and I just looked at each other. We wondered what we should do now. Mandelbaum said that our best bet was to catch up to my master and hopefully find that motorboat before it gets too far out to sea. I asked how on earth we could possibly find one tiny boat in the endlessly wide ocean, but Mandelbaum said he had an idea. Again he annoyingly felt the need not to inform me of the plan, but I suppose his method worked well enough last time. I shall follow his lead on this one and wish for the best. Ultimately, the two of us snuck away from the cult's camp as their nightly celebration wore on, and we certainly had no intention of ever looking back at those fish-loving creeps.
#majesticbrotherhood #onetruewave #hippies #brotherhole
Wednesday
Having escaped from the island of the dolphin cult, we were now in pursuit of my master's fleeing motorboat. If only he had known we were right on his tail, he'd have waited just one more day on that island for us to find him. But I really can't blame him for running; I certainly could not have endured in that place for as long and as bravely as he did.
Meanwhile, Mandelbaum's plan brought us out into a murky patch of the Pacific. We were following a signal on the yacht's very high-tech sonar, which Nigel Hildebrandt had installed for purposes of deep-sea fishing and treasure-hunting expeditions. I asked if the signal we were following belonged to my master's boat, but Mandelbaum said that we weren't capable of tracking a signal so small from such distance. Instead, we were following something much more massive. I didn't quite like the sound of that.
With every beep... beep..., we grew closer and closer to the source of the signal, so close that we were practically on top of it. My eyes still couldn't spot any other vessel out on the water. Where was this signal coming from? That's when I realized what Mandelbaum had known all along. The signal was below us, in the water. A few seconds later, I heard the waters breaking as a submersible rose up next to us. I gulped, remembering my master's stories full well. A lone submarine this far out in the ocean could mean only one thing. This was certainly a vessel belonging to the dreaded Submariners Legion.
Mandelbaum cut the engines to our yacht, and we floated there flaccidly next to the metallic submersible. He barked an order at me, and we quickly concealed ourselves in Nigel's secret treasure-smuggling cargo hold located below the deck. I waited in the darkness, trying to get control of my nervous breathing, and that's when I heard the pitter-patter of footsteps on the deck of the boat. We were being boarded - but by whom? Mandelbaum gave me a signal to stay silent; I covered my mouth. He was peering through a crack in the floorboards, and a thin sliver of light illuminated his face. Suddenly, a shadow passed over the crack and Mandelbaum saw that as a moment of opportunity.
He quickly flung open the secret door, leapt out, and snatched up one of our mysterious raiders. I rallied my courage and chased after him to lend some assistance, but I was stunned to see that Mandelbaum hadn't captured a pirate; he had captured a SQUIRREL! What were squirrels doing with a submarine? I could tell Mandelbaum was just as surprised as I was. As the other raiding squirrels beheld the capture of their friend, they ferociously bared their fangs at Mandelbaum and me. He held the captive squirrel aloft over his head and said that if the others took another step forward, their friend would be dead. They wisely kept their distance. The one captive squirrel continued to shimmy and squeak in protest, but Mandelbaum kept a firm grip on the protesting rodent. He demanded a meeting with their captain. The other squirrels muttered something to each other in the squirrel language, and I could tell they were arguing with each other for a few minutes. As the debate wound down, they finally realized they had no other alternative but to comply with Mandelbaum's demands.
They led Mandelbaum and me toward their submersible. Mandelbaum led the way down into the vessel, still keeping our hostage squeezed tightly in his hands as a ransom. I made sure to follow close behind him; I didn't want to be snatched up myself by the remaining squirrels. I knew it would only take one careless step on my part for them to easily turn the tables on us. It was a rather small vessel that we entered, as far as submarines go, and we quickly made our way to the bridge.
I could see now why Mandelbaum's plan involved making contact with a submarine: it had far more sophisticated sonar than anything that was on the yacht. We could use these tools to find my missing master. The captain squirrel was waiting there near the periscope, and he and the rest of the crew were startled by our sudden appearance. He squawked violently at his foolish minions who had allowed themselves to be duped by the humans so easily.
"Way to go, Jared!" he said angrily.
The squirrel in Mandelbaum's hands replied, "It's not my fault! His hands are like a hawk's talons!"
Then I said to the captain, "Who are you? And why do you have a submarine?"
The captain said, "You're the intruders here, so we should be asking who you are. But if you must know, I'm Stan Scoiattolo."
"Wait, the same Stan Scoiattolo of Scoiattolo & Chestnut? The blimp/dirigible insurance company?"
He replied, "We're out of the blimping game, thanks to you jacknards." Then he pointed to Mandelbaum and said, "After the big one here and his blimpman friend destroyed our zeppelins in the Great Sky Battle, we were left with nothing. But we bounced back. We're into submersible insurance now."
Mandelbaum said that, if that were the case, then they must have had frequent contact with members of the Submariners Legion.
"Of course, dummies," said Stan. "They're our biggest client. We just came from one of their submarines. And it just so happens that your previously-mentioned blimpman friend got mixed up in a bit of trouble with them."
I gasped. Stan smiled sinisterly (the only way squirrels know how to smile), and I could tell the cards were folding more in his favor now. Mandelbaum kept his cool and explained his plan. He said that if Stan and his crew were to deliver us safely to the submarine that held my master, then we would relinquish Jared and go about our business.
Stan gritted his teeth angrily, but he agreed to the terms and said, "You sure you want us to take you to the Legion? I hear they hate you just as much as squirrels do. Whatever. It's your funeral." Then he ordered the crew to turn the submarine around, and we made way.
We traveled for a few hours in the deep, dark waters, and I grew wary of being in such a confined space with those evil rodents. I imagined them turning on us at any moment, murdering us without remorse. The walls seemed to be closing in on me, due to both my growing paranoia and claustrophobia and the increasing air pressure caused by undersea travel. Mandelbaum held his ground in a defensive position in the corner of the control room, never letting his guard down for a second, keeping a firm grip on Jared, who was complaining, "Geeze, dude. Hand lotion. Ever heard of it?"
We drove onward and a while later I could feel the submarine starting to slow down in the deep waters. We gradually changed directions, and I could tell we were headed toward the surface. Mandelbaum asked the captain, Stan, why we were going to the surface, and whether the pirates on board were tipped off to our coming.
"That's your problem now, isn't it? You wanted to find them. Well here you are." Then he ordered the crew to level us out.
The hatches above our heads were opened, and the squirrels backed away, allowing us an exit. Good to his word, Mandelbaum released Jared (who cursed at him in Squikwek), but I would have felt better had he at least hung onto the captive until we reached the exit. We climbed the ladder and stood aboard the top deck of the squirrel submersible. That's when I got a good look at the neighboring submarine next to us.
It was the most massive sea vessel I have ever seen! The size of a battleship, a deep dark red hull from bow to stern. Even in her stillness, floating on the ocean surface, she caused such a disruption to the waters around her that waves were rocking our comparatively tiny vessel heavily. I presumed the identify of this infamous dreadnaught the moment I laid eyes on her: it was indeed the Crimson Bullock. This was not just any submarine; rather, this was the submarine, the most feared and dreaded block of metal to ever scar the ocean. Every manservant feared the day his adventuring blimpman master might encounter this scourge of the seven seas.
I told Mandelbaum that I didn't have the heart to board this vessel, but he reminded me that we had no choice. My master was no doubt on board, and my own death would be a far better fate for me than leaving my master to suffer alone. I painstakingly agreed, and knew I had to somehow muster the courage. We stood there on the top deck of the Crimson Bullock, not really sure what to do next, and by then, we noticed that the squirrels had had enough of our human nonsense. They had turned their own sub around, diving back down into the sea.
That left us with no option but to proceed. Mandelbaum worked the main hatch, turning the heavy wheel, and he flung it open. We took a step back, expecting a platoon of pirates to come swarming out. But... nothing happened. We peered down into the deep, dark hole; the ladder seemed to go down for miles into the massive vessel. Our voices echoed in the abyss below us. I wiped the sweat from my brow as Mandelbaum unflinchingly led the way inside.
He descended the ladder, and I followed close behind. We were very surprised that even still, no pirates revealed themselves to us. It was as if the submarine were completely abandoned. After several minutes of climbing, we finally made it to the inner deck of the submarine. A long, dark corridor lay before us with flickering fluorescent lights overhead. It was really creepy. Mandelbaum continued forward into the darkness, and I could do nothing but follow, even though panic was beginning to consume me.
Where was everyone? What kind of trap was this? I wanted to cry out to see who might return the call, but I was afraid of what sinister villain might pop out from the darkness. We marched for minutes, going deeper and deeper into the belly of the submarine, yet still no sign of pirates anywhere.
"What do you think has happened?" I whispered. "Have they abandoned ship?" Mandelbaum assured me that it wouldn't be quite that easy.
It turns out, Mandelbaum was right, as usual. As we entered what had to be the main galley of the submarine, a circular room in the center of the vessel. All around the circumference were hatches leading to other parts of the massive sub. It seemed as if we were alone, but then there was a series of clanking and clunking sounds, and the hatches surrounding the circular room slammed shut. We were trapped. A worn-out old video screen came to life on a round monitor, which I had thought was a porthole at first. A bearded and scarred face appeared, and even though I had never met this man before, I immediately recognized him based on the descriptions from my master's stories.
Admiral Archibeque let out the most evil laugh, "Did you really think you could commandeer my vessel so easily?! You two are just as predictable as your blimp-loving friend! Desdemona, they're all yours!"
And then the hatches opened and we were surrounded by a swarm of pirates with rifles pointed at our faces. Their leader marched confidently into the room, and Mandelbaum and I did a double-take at her presence, for she was one of the most stunning creatures I had seen in years. Now don't get me wrong, she did not compare to the sweet and lovely Honeypoots back home. In fact, there's no way to really compare the two, as they are two creatures on completely opposite ends of the spectrum. This new woman was tall, dark, and dangerous. A single glance from her might make the most confident and brazen bro back down in whimpering fear. This femme-fatale, Desdemona, marched straight up to Mandelbaum with sweeping, hypnotic strides of her long, booted legs, and she pointed a luger straight in his face.
"Start walking," she demanded.
Mandelbaum scanned over every inch of her body from head to toe, he smirked slightly, and finally put his hands in the air. She led him away.
Another pirate with an EYE-PATCH shoved the barrel of his rifle into my back, and I grumbled at him angrily: "Watch it, you cyclopsian galoot!" But that only made him dig the barrel into my back harder, so I started walking.
They led us deeper into the darkened corridors. Mandelbaum asked Desdemona where she was taking us, and she said, "Shut up. You'll get there soon enough. And just like our other prisoner, you'll rot in a cell until you die. Or until we jettison your body out the torpedo shoot."
I became intrigued by the clue she unwittingly delivered, "Ah, so you do have another prisoner..."
But then she kicked me in the stomach with a lightning-fast sidekick; the heel of her boot dug right into my navel. That terrifyingly beautiful limb took every ounce of breath from my lungs, and I collapsed on the floor, coughing.
"Know your place, you scrawny old manservant. No one cares what you have to say."
I could tell Mandelbaum wanted to help me to my feet, but Desdemona thrust out her pistol and denied him. He asked her smugly if guns were really the best idea on an enclosed submarine, but she was quick to retort, "They're only a problem when you miss. And I don't."
We eventually arrived at the brig. There were a half dozen prison cells lined along the corridor, but from what I could tell, only one was occupied. Desdemona led us past it, and Mandelbaum and I eagerly looked inside. But despite my hopefulness, my beloved master was not there.
At first, I thought this prisoner was a child, huddled in the shadows in the corner of his cell. But eventually I realized that it was a dwarfen man, around three feet tall. He scurried up from the darkened corner, coming into the light. He pointed a finger at Mandelbaum and started laughing hysterically, literally tossing his head back in laughter.
Desdemona kicked his cage. "Shut up, Zanzibar! Or I'll cut off every limb from your body and feed them to you piece by piece!"
But he didn't care. He continued to laugh and laugh, "Go figure! You send a couple of morons to rescue an even bigger moron, and this is what happens! Did you really think your blimpman friend was here on this submarine? What a couple of idiots!"
He continued to laugh at us as Desdemona and the others locked us into neighboring cells. It was annoying. But what stung worse was that I knew he was telling the truth: my master wasn't on board. And that left me with an even greater question than how I might possibly get out of this cell: if Master wasn't here, then where was he?
#captured #pirates #crimsonbullock
#squirrelencounter #screwed
Thursday
Mandelbaum and I spent the majority of the day in the brig. Luckily for me, I was able to smuggle my satellite phone in here (though I will spare you the details of how I did that, exactly.) The only problem is that I can't get enough signal to call for help. I can only post this message using the submarine's aggravatingly slow wifi in the hopes that someone might see this message. I know putting my hopes in a rescue, however, is futile. If anyone were to find us, it would probably be too late. Mandelbaum encouraged me to keep a level head and consider all possible means of escape. I suppose he is right; despite my feelings toward him, working together is our own only hope.
From what I could tell of this place, the submarine has never moved from its original location. I wondered why we were still sitting here on the ocean surface. In the cell adjacent to us was Captain Zanzibar, our fellow captive. I wondered what kind of ill behavior had led to his capture by his own fellow members of the Submariners Legion. If he had earned his comrades' ire, he must have been as dastardly an individual as my master had described to me in his stories.
Zanzibar seemed pleased to have a bit of company in the brig; he was rambling excitedly to us all day, even when we tried our best to ignore him. Mostly, it was ramblings about how incapable of a leader Admiral Archibeque was and how Zanzibar himself would have been better suited to command the Legion. We tried pressing him for more information about my missing master, but he refused to give up the intel.
"Hah! Information comes at a price, buddy boys! And in your current situation, you haven't a bit of currency to spare!"
Mandelbaum said the best course of action was just to ignore him as best we could. It turns out that Mandelbaum was right because the silence was what really got to Zanzibar. The more we ignored him, the more it was starting to break his spirit. The little fellow grew angry, and the silence was really grinding his gears with each passing moment. He rattled his bars in a (somewhat adorable) temper tantrum.
After a couple hours of being ignored, he began to sulk. "Fine. Okay? If you really want to know what happened to your friend, I can tell you. But... it will require a trade."
I perked up in the corner of my cell, and Mandelbaum agreed that a trade of information was reasonable. I said, "You first, Zanzibar. Tell us what happened to my dear master."
"Fine," he said, "we ran into your man, alright? He was dumb enough to get himself mixed up not with one crew of submariners, but with two. You see, it all started earlier that day. The Admiral and his crew were following a signal on their sonar when they came across your friend drifting along in the current on a powerless motorboat. He was completely out of gas, that jackass. They scooped him up in passing, and they immediately recognized him as one of their blimpman enemies. They decided to throw him in the brig, no doubt figuring he'd be good for a pricey ransom at some point. I would have thought the same, honestly, had I been in their shoes.
"But it turns out they didn't have too much time to spare in dealing with your friend. They had other business to attend to, and that business involved me and my crew. You see, the Admiral was greatly displeased with my gambling operation aboard my submarine, the Neptune's Phallus. They said I had been skimping on a fair cut of the casino's profits which were due to the Legion, all of which was total crock! Admiral Archibeque is as crooked a thief as there ever was, and he was simply trying to use his position of authority to steal from my much more profitable operation.
"He and the Crimson Bullock waylaid my sub in a jealous hissy fit, but we met them heroically in battle. I'm ashamed to admit that in the fight, I could not prevent their much larger crew from boarding our vessel, and they were able to capture me after a good fight. They killed every man in my crew, dumping their bodies into the ocean like chum for the sharks. It was only my valiant first mate, Helmuth, who managed to escape. Good ol' Helmuth! I can always count on him to scrap it out 'til the end!
"Anyway, I got thrown into the brig here, but your friend's fate was even worse. I can't say I felt an ounce of pity for him, given the fact that he put me through hell in the past. He didn't stick around for very long because soon after my arrival, the squi--"
And just then, there was a commotion in the main corridor of the brig. The seductive first mate from earlier, Desdemona, had entered and she cut Zanzibar's story short. She pointed at me and said fiercely, "The Admiral demands to see you."
I was shocked and terrified. I gulped. What could he possibly want with me? Then she pointed to Mandelbaum: "And you too. Stop smiling, you idiot."
I looked over at Mandelbaum's cell, and he was indeed grinning at the fearsome pirate lady. He said something smooth about who really wanted to see him: the Admiral? or her? I rolled my eyes at him. This really wasn't the time for him to be putting the moves on a gal. And a piratess, no less.
"Shut up and start walking," she said, opening our cells and pointing her pistol at us.
Zanzibar chimed in, "What about me, Desdemona? When do I get to talk to him? That old popsicle can't keep me in here forever!"
She spat angrily at the dwarf, "You're of no concern to Admiral Archibeque, you skimping little imp!"
With that, Desdemona and that nasty eye-patched fellow led Mandelbaum and me toward the main control room of the submarine. I noticed that Mandelbaum kept looking back at her.
"Eyes forward, big guy, or I'll put a bullet in your forehead."
I whispered bitterly at him, "Stop trying to hit on her! She's not interested."
But he just smirked and said something about how he liked a challenge. She overheard our whispering and got real close to Mandelbaum's face, practically whispering so that her breath was no doubt caressing his lips. "You're not my type." Then she punched him in the stomach so hard that it would have crippled any normal-sized man (but I'm pretty sure the unexpected wallop just aroused him more).
As we continued our march toward the bridge's control room, we passed a secondary corridor branching off to the side. I snuck a glance down the hallway and noticed that there were about ten or so pirates scrambling from one end to the other. They were carrying heavy-duty wrenches and other tools and shouting something about "tightening the hatch" and "water in the aft turbine", but I couldn't quite understand what was happening.
Desdemona dug her pistol angrily into my back and I winced in pain. "Mind your business!" she barked. (My back was really getting a raw deal in this kidnapping.)
We arrived in the control room, and Admiral Archibeque was awaiting us in the big captain's chair at the center of the room. The periscope rose up into the ceiling, he spun around villainously and said, "So I understand you've had an interesting chat with your prison mate." Then he tapped a video screen nearby, which showed Zanzibar standing in his cell. He continued, "You must know that I have eyes and ears everywhere on my sub."
I said, "Well, then you must know that he was about to tell us what happened to my master."
"Ah yes," said the Admiral, "your foolish friend got himself into some real trouble, didn't he? Well if you must know, he's not here. In fact... I'm fully willing to take you to him."
I nearly leapt in excitement. "You are?!"
But Mandelbaum was wise to the ways of pirates. He elbowed me and explained that none of their words could be taken at face value; there was always a catch and there would no doubt be a price to pay on our end.
The Admiral laughed, "Hah! Indeed that is true. You see, we are willing to make a trade, and it will be a far better one than Zanzibar was about to offer you. So here's what you're going to do. You're going to go back into your cell and hear the rest of Zanzibar's story. He will, no doubt, eventually arrive at the point where he asks you for assistance in planning his escape. Here's the catch..." I listened closely as he continued, "You're going to help him."
I glanced over at Mandelbaum, not really sure where the Admiral was going with this. But the old pirate explained, "Yes, you're going to do what he asks, and you're going to help him escape."
I was very confused by this strange request, but after a few moments of thought the truth finally dawned on me. "Ah, I see what's happening here," I said. "His submarine disabled yours in whatever skirmish you had. You might have captured him, but his crew got the better of you in the fight. That's why your sub has been floating here like a dead fish. That's why your crew is scrambling in the back corridor to repair a leak. You need him to escape because your only hope is that he can somehow make contact with the Neptune's Phallus. You're hoping he'll order his mate to come back to rescue him, and when that happens, you plan to have your revenge by taking his working submarine."
"You'll mind your place, you worthless manservant!" he barked angrily at me. "Because if you ever want to know what happened to your master, you'll do what I say!"
Even though the Admiral was angry and seemed backed into a sticky corner, I realized that he was probably right. Mandelbaum and I looked at each other, but we knew no words needed to be said.
"We agree to your terms," I said. "We'll help Zanzibar escape. And as soon as his submarine arrives, you will tell us what happened to my master, and you will release us to safety before your battle starts."
The Admiral strode forward and held out his hand. "You have my word as a submariner." I'm not sure how much weight that word truly held, but it was the best option I had in that moment. I shook his bulky hand.
Desdemona and "Eye-patch" returned us to our cells (and Mandelbaum checked out her firm rear end as she walked away). Zanzibar was quick to press us for information about what the Admiral had said in our meeting. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually felt bad for the miniscule man as I lied straight to his face.
"It wasn't anything important," I said. "He knows you're plotting an escape, but he said that if we try anything, he'll skin us alive and feed our flesh to the sharks."
Zanzibar laughed and said, "Well the old fool is right about one thing! I sure as hell am plotting an escape!" He continued to laugh, but I was growing weary with the mindless shenanigans of these pirates.
"Stop laughing and tell us what happened to my master," I said. "I demand an answer!"
"Ohhh, you demand?!" mocked Zanzibar. "Well if you must know, I was telling the truth when I said he wasn't here. In fact, you were probably just a few feet away from him at one point, and you never even knew it."
That last comment really puzzled me. I demanded to know what Zanzibar meant by it.
"Don't you fools get it?" he said. "You said you were brought here on that squirrel submarine, right? And the squirrels said they were here earlier? Well, why do you think that is? They were here because this blasted vessel is dead in the water! My submarine shot a torpedo right into her hold. Archibeque was filing a claim with the insurance agency. And how do you think he paid those rascally squirrels?!"
Zanzibar continued to laugh, but I knew where he was going with this. I finished his thought: "Archibeque paid the squirrels by ransoming my poor master..."
Zanzibar laughed, "Spot on! It was a fair trade, if you ask me. There's no price more valuable to a squirrel than a blimpman's hide. Your friend was probably bound and gagged in the cargo hold of that very submarine that brought you here, and you were standing right there on deck with no idea! What a couple of morons!"
I kicked myself, knowing full well that Zanzibar was right. We had stood right there on the deck of that squirrel submarine, and we didn't even consider that Master had been there too. My poor sir was probably crying out from the back room through the gag in his mouth, and we never even heard his cries for help.
"So," continued Zanzibar, "I gave you the information you requested. And a deal's a deal, right? So now it's time to play your part. You're going to help me escape from this damned prison cell."
I didn't have the energy to respond to him after that. I simply sank down into the corner of my cell, clutched my head in my hands, and cursed myself for being so foolish.
#theplotthickens #howcouldibesostupid #escape
#pirateschemes #mandylovesdesi
Friday
I looked back onto my actions this week (had it really only been a week?) and thought how horrible my situation was. I missed my band and playing our favorite songs. I missed my warm and humble butler's room in my master's home. I missed the pleasant sound of his wife's voice as she sang in the shower. As a dutiful manservant who entered this occupation willingly, I prided myself on serving a master without fail. Yet here I was, thrown in the brig of a submarine with no solid plan of escape, and my master was undoubtedly in an even worse situation than I.
As we listened to Zanzibar's half-assed plan for escaping from the brig, Mandelbaum and I kept quiet about our directive from Admiral Archibeque. Although we didn't say this aloud, I could tell we were both on the same page: our best course of action was to play both sides against each other. We would seemingly help Zanzibar escape from the brig, and likewise we would feign an alliance to Archibeque's side. Hopefully, in the end, the two scheming sides would destroy each other, and we could escape in the ensuing ruckus. Then, somehow, we would have to make our way back to the squirrel submarine where my poor master was being held captive. The entire plan hung onto a thin thread and had the most miniscule chance of success. Any small deviation and we would meet a terrible fate with no hope of ever rescuing my employer, or of surviving.
Captain Zanzibar explained that our best chance of escape lay with the first mate of the Crimson Bullock, the female pirate Desdemona. Mandelbaum said that fine, fine, he'd seduce her, if that's what it really took for this plan to work. But Zanzibar brushed him off.
"Don't you see?" he said. "She has the most to gain from this entire situation. For years it was she who was the captain of this vessel. She and the crew of the Bullock traveled the seven seas for years, wreaking havoc on unsuspecting cruise liners and raiding cargo ships for their valuable goods. She was an unstoppable pirate queen. It was only her pride and her sense of family rivalry that held her back from true victory.
"As it happens, Desdemona had a distant ancestor whose infamy had always cast a shadow on her own fame and glory. He was a legend amongst submariners. In fact, he was the founding father of the Legion. Way back in the 1700s, when the privateering business was in its prime, this particular pirate was the curse of all who dared to sail the seas. He traveled in a fully metallic vessel which was capable of underwater travel. It was known as the Cursed Johnny and was unlike anything in its time. The captain of the Cursed Johnny would raid unsuspecting ships who never even saw him coming, until it was too late. This innovative striker - the very first submarine, designed by some unknown benefactor - was a true nightmare to all sailors. And by now you may have guessed who this pirating ancestor was. It was indeed Archibeque, the very same man who captains this vessel we find ourselves on today."
I squinted, amazed at the very bending of natural laws that this tale would require, if it were true. I tried doing the math in my head, but Zanzibar continued, "You may be asking how it can be that Archibeque stands before us today, over 250 years later. Well let me explain. Had luck gone his way, Archibeque would have gone on to be one of the most horrendous villains of all time. He controlled more ocean territory than any other pirate. It was only a single ill-fated journey that changed the course of history.
"You see, Archibeque was one of the early explorers of the ice continent of Antarctica. He saw its potential as a fortified headquarters for his operation. No sea vessels at that time could ever break through those icy waters, except for the Cursed Johnny, and he knew he would be impervious to an attack from this location. But Archibeque's greatest vice caught up to him.
"Turns out, he had a nasty addiction to squid liquor, and one night he got so drunk that he stumbled out into the icy Antarctic wasteland wearing nothing but a pair of socks and his buccaneer hat. He got so turned about in the snowy gale that his crew was never able to find him. They assumed he had been frozen somewhere out there in the ice, and he was never seen or heard from again. With him gone, his crew wasn't worth much without his cunning leadership, so eventually British sailors were able to rally against the Cursed Johnny and sink it somewhere in the Atlantic. But the legend of Admiral Archibeque continued to live on.
"When Desdemona, his distant (something like) great-great-granddaughter, rose to power, she was an equally formidable pirate. Here on the Crimson Bullock, she terrified innocent ships and raided them without abandon. But even then, no one gave her due credit. They mocked her for being one of the only ladies in an all-male pirating business. Even in her times of success, as cutthroat as she was, no one mentioned her name unless it was followed by that of her dead ancestor, Archibeque. 'She's still clinging to that family name,' they'd say. She hated it more than anything. Why should she, a ruthless pirate in her own right, be forced to live in the shadow of some drunken old man who died so embarrassingly in the Antarctic ice because he couldn't hold his liquor?
"She decided there was only one thing to do; she would travel to Antarctica and create the unbreachable fortress for herself, the one that Archibeque had only dreamt of creating. There, she would aspire to reign as a pirate queen and eventually rise to the highest rank in the Submariners Legion. But fate was not on her side.
"While traveling on the continent, she happened to come across Admiral Archibeque's frozen remains there in the ice. I'm no science man, but it just so happens that his body had entered some sort of cryogenic sleep, and he had been perfectly preserved over the course of time. In fact, he was still living! But only barely. I don't know what possessed Desdemona to thaw the old goon and waken him; perhaps she just wanted to bring him back to life so she could have the satisfaction of later killing the man who had haunted her her whole life. She just wasn't counting on how cunning the old pirate would be.
"Within days, Archibeque rallied enough strength to lead a munity in her crew. Many of the pirates aboard the Crimson Bullock were much more inclined to fall in line under a male leader, so they easily betrayed their queen. It must have been some sense of family loyalty, however, that led Archibeque to spare Desdemona's life. He could have easily hauled her out into the middle of the ocean and left her to drown, but instead he gave her an ultimatum: she could become fish food, or she could fall in line as his first mate aboard the Bullock. She chose the latter.
"So now it goes," Zanzibar concluded, "that Desdemona is most likely biding her time. She awaits the prime opportunity to have her revenge on Admiral Archibeque. If we were to convince her of a common cause in sticking it to Archibeque, we may indeed be the allies she has always needed."
I looked at him, still processing the mound of information that came along with this fantastical tale, and said, "Why would she align with us? What can three men (well, two and a half, given your stature) do against an entire crew of pirates?"
Mandelbaum said that I didn't need to worry about that; all it would take was a bit of seduction on his part. After wooing the cunning temptress, she would be putty in his hands. I rolled my eyes at him for being so overconfident.
I knew full well that all of this was moot. Archibeque was undoubtedly listening to every word we said on his secret monitors. Even if Desdemona was willing to betray him, she would never attempt such a boldfaced mutiny with the likes of us at her side.
Just then, as if my mind were being read, the main hatch opened and Desdemona, Admiral Archibeque, and "Eye-patch" entered the corridor of the brig. I could see Mandelbaum perk up, and he posed his muscular frame up against the bars of his cell. Desdemona ignored him, however.
"That's quite an interesting tale, Zanzibar," she said. "I especially like the part about my great-great-grandfather here."
Then she reached out a hand, whisked the Admiral's hat right of his head, and KISSED HIM RIGHT ON THE MOUTH. We gasped as they started making out sloppily all over the place. Oh, it was sick!
I was about to gag. Mandelbaum's jaw was practically hanging on the floor. Then she pulled away from the Admiral, and a bit of wet spittle still clung to their lips. She turned to us and said, "It's too bad that your story is total crap. A 250-year-old frozen pirate? The Cursed Johnny? You've got quite an imagination."
By this point, Captain Zanzibar was laughing hysterically and rolling like a maniac on the floor. He pointed a finger at us mockingly as he laughed - no doubt because we had fallen for his ridiculous tale, which still made no sense to me. He couldn't even breathe he was laughing so hard.
The Admiral said, "I especially like the part about how you're planning a mutiny, Desdemona. Where do you come up with this stuff, Zanzibar?"
The little captain finally got control of his laughter and said, "I figured you two would be spying through the monitors and listening to that old yarn, clinging to every syllable of that tremendous tale from beginning to end - no doubt waiting for me to spill my secrets. But don't you get it, you idiots? That was all just a distraction. For any second now, I'll have full control of your submarine. Why, just ask my man Helmuth over there!"
We all turned toward the main hatch, and sure enough that annoying fellow with the EYE-PATCH was pointing his rifle at us. Desdemona made a move toward her pistol, but he pointed his gun at her and she stopped.
Zanzibar continued, "My crew may have been some of the most dishonest, ill-tempered, foul-smelling miscreants to ever sail (God rest their souls), but like I said, I can always count on my man Helmuth to come out of a scrap in one piece! He survived the scuffle, and just like I ordered him, he snuck aboard as part of your crew. Now if you don't mind, he'll be unlocking this infernal cage so that I can get to the control room of my new submarine." The one-eyed Helmuth, keeping his gun expertly trained on the others, silently snatched the keys and let Zanzibar loose from his cell.
I was amazed at how daring this whole escape had been and how Zanzibar really did seem to be pulling it off without a hitch. But we were all suddenly startled by a booming electronic voice on the intercoms and a screeching siren: <<INCOMING TORPEDO>>.
Before we knew it, the whole submarine was rocked to one side, and we tumbled over to the ground. Whatever had happened, it tipped the entire vessel on an angle, and we scrambled as tables and chairs, once situated on the floor, came spilling across the upturned room. We all looked at each other in confusion; I figured this was Zanzibar's doing, but even he seemed to have no idea what was going on.
The Admiral spat at him, "Some plan you've got there, aye?! You torpedo my sub, what do you think happens to you? You die, dummy!"
Zanzibar shouted back, "That wasn't me!"
"I don't have the patience for your games, Captain Zanzibar!"
"How the hell would I fire a torpedo at you if the Neptune's Phallus is being piloted by...?"
And then he trailed off. He scoffed and brushed a hand toward the rest of us, and he took off running down the corridor with Helmuth. Archibeque and Desdemona chased after them.
Mandelbaum noticed that the keys to the cells had fallen onto the floor in the confusion, and he quickly reached for them in order to free us. It was in this moment that I began to realize something that hadn't occurred to me until now. "Wait, so if Helmuth has been here the whole time... who is piloting the Neptune's Phallus?"
Mandelbaum let me loose from my cage and we too took off running down the corridor. We followed the others into the main control room of the submarine. By the time we arrived in the bridge, a video link had been brought up on the screens connecting us to the attacking vessel. Now we could see the person who was piloting the Phallus.
I exclaimed in sheer excitement, "MASTER!"
His familiar faced leaned in closer to the camera from the other side of the screen, and he blinked at me. "Reggie? Mandelbaum? Is that really you? What on earth are you two doing on that submarine?!"
I truly couldn't believe my eyes - he was alive! The words for the moment escaped me, "We could ask you the same thing, sir! How did you escape from the squirrels???"
"Squirrels?" he asked. "What squirrels?"
Desdemona chimed in, "He was never with the squirrels, you fool. Zanzibar just said that because he was too ashamed to admit he had let his sub get stolen by a blimpman."
The tiny captain scowled at her. I was so confused and asked, "But how did he escape from here?"
Again, Desdemona rolled her eyes at me. "How are you still not getting this? You can't believe anything this little liar says. He was never even here on this ship."
Master added, "That's true. I was drifting out at sea, and I must have arrived at the wrong place but at the right time. I saw two submarines. Archibeque was there carting off Zanzibar and his crew after some sort of battle they just had, and that's when I noticed that this submarine was completely unmanned. I snuck aboard unnoticed and shanghaied her for myself. Damn tricky to pilot, this thing is! It certainly lacks the fine craftsmanship of a blimp!"
Mandelbaum stepped in and asked: if my master didn't know we were on the Crimson Bullock, then why did he come back here?
He replied, "Well, the truth, my most loyal friend, is that I have no idea how to navigate this damn thing. I mean seriously, it's like steering a tin can full of beans in a bathtub. So I've just been drifting about aimlessly for a couple days now. I ran into a pod of those pesky dolphins, and they said they'd get me home as long as I helped them with a bit of their evangelical ministry. That's right, they needed some help seeking out new converts to their ridiculous cult. I guess the Hippies were getting on their nerves. So guess who gets to take a sip of that fish-flavored Kool-Aid now?"
The Admiral took a step forward and barked, "Good luck taking any of us submariners without a fight, you dog!"
But Master was unphased by his threat. Over the video feed, I saw him press a button on his control console and suddenly a horrible shrieking sound knocked us all off our feet. We held our ears as the piercing dolphin song resounded throughout our sub. Even though the Neptune's Phallus was a good distance away, her sonar was strong enough to pound our sub with a vicious sonic attack.
"Enjoy the hymns of the Majestic Dolphin Choir, chumps!" cried Master over the speaker.
As everyone writhed around on the ground holding their hands over the ears, Mandelbaum and I made eye contact and realized that the pirates had dropped their guns onto the deck. Now was our only chance! I rolled over quickly, easily snatching up Helmuth's rifle. But Mandelbaum was a half-second too slow, for when he reached for Desdemona's pistol, she intercepted him.
The two of them scuffled about on the ground for a second, rolling over each other like two twisting otters in the throes of mating. He came out on top in the more dominant position, pinning her to the ground under his bulky weight. Victory was his, but suddenly, his eyes went wide and there was a small click. He looked down, and even though Desdemona was pinned beneath him, she had managed to cock her pistol and had it pointed straight at Mandelbaum's crotch.
"Nice try," she said.
He looked over at me and apologized for not being fast enough; he told me that I should leave here a free man while I still had the chance. I could still make it over to the Neptune's Phallus and escape with my employer. Unfortunately, it was too late for Mandelbaum. I turned and looked back at the exit, then back at him, then back at the pirates staring me down; I knew I only had seconds to make my choice.
An idea dawned on me. I walked over to Mandelbaum, where he had Desdemona pinned down on her back, I bent down on one knee, and I kissed her on the lips as long and as passionately as I could manage. Her femininely delicate, yet piratey-harsh and liquor-traced breath filled my mouth, and she backed away at first, but then I could swear that she leaned into the kiss, urging me with her tongue to give her more. The dolphin song kicked into a crescendo as our kiss wore on.
When I pulled away from her succulent lips, I noticed that all eyes were on me. I had clearly shocked everyone in the room. No one's eyes were wider than Mandelbaum's, except for maybe Desdemona herself. Then I held up the pistol that I had managed to slip out of her hands during our distracting make-out.
"Here you go," I said, and I handed the pistol over to Mandelbaum.
Now that the two of us were armed, we made toward the exit. I pressed the comms button on the console and said, "Master, we're alright here. We're on our way over to the Phallus!"
As we ran, Captain Zanzibar shouted to us, "You better not put a scratch on my sub, you rats!"
And Admiral Archibeque chimed in, saying, "Don't worry. They won't put a scratch on it, but I will!"
We knew there was no time to waste, so we ran and never looked back. I've had my fill of pirates for one lifetime. We managed to get down the main corridor and up the escape ladder with no further harassment. We reached the upper deck of the sub, breathing in the salty air of the sea, and shielding our eyes from the bright sunlight we hadn't seen in days.
Floating just 50 meters away was the long blue Neptune's Phallus. I watched as the wheel of the main hatch spun, and the door opened up perpendicularly to the deck. Out popped Master's head.
"Ahoy, mateys!" he shouted cheerfully. It felt so good to see him alive and well! I was just about to cry out his name when--
A TORPEDO shot out of the Crimson Bullock and blasted the other sub all to hell. Shards of blue metal from its hull were flying everywhere in a mix of fiery explosions and torrential waves. Mandelbaum and I were tossed into the ocean as the impact of the explosion threw us backward. When I came to my senses, I realized I was under the water.
I still miraculously had a bit of breath left in my lungs, but I knew I only had seconds to spare before the cold waters sapped me of my energy. I swam as fast as I could, thinking only of the welfare of my dear master. Was there any chance that he survived the explosion? Or where was my dear friend Mandelbaum? I swam with all my might toward the location of the Phallus, scouring through the murky waters for signs of life, and the salt water burned my eyes.
Even now, I don't really recall the strange series of events that happened next. But somehow this is what I remember: first, I managed to reach out and find a piece of rope that had been tossed in the chaos. With that rope, I was able to snag a passing dolphin as he was swimming by. I wrangled the creature and made an impromptu saddle on his back. With a few tugs in one direction, I was able to steer him where I wanted him to go. On the back of my steed, I dove down deep into the water where I saw Mandelbaum's unconscious body sinking toward the ocean floor. I scooped him up onto the back of the dolphin with me. With his limp body hanging over the edge, the dolphin and I lifted him to the surface. I looked back and noticed that he had come to his senses. He thanked me for saving his life and called me a good friend. I was truly thankful to have earned this great hero's respect and admiration over the course of our journey together, and I was indeed thankful to call him a friend after our adventure.
But I had no time to think fondly on that moment. My manservant training kicked into gear (as they say it always does in a moment of crisis), and I knew I had work to do. I simply rolled him over onto a floating piece of wreckage from the Phallus and left him there so I could continue my relentless rescue effort for my master. For several more exhausting minutes, the dolphin and I bobbed up and down, in and out of the water, catching a quick breath of oxygen where we could, before plunging back down to continue the search.
I couldn't find signs of Master anywhere, no matter how hard I looked, but then my dolphin steed let out a squeak. I looked over and saw Master! ... but he looked far worse than Mandelbaum did when I found him. He was under the water, and blood was pouring from a gashing head wound, making a cloudy red wake that trailed behind his sinking body.
I tugged the dolphin's reins and we dived down quickly. Deeper and deeper we descended, and my lungs began to burn. I knew I was about to run out of oxygen and there was no way I would be able to reach my master. The piercing pain filled every square inch of my chest, but I was too resolved to turn back. I knew that if I were to die, it would be in the dutiful service of my master.
Suddenly, the dolphin squeaked, and I realized he was signaling for me to do something. He clacked his toothy jaws and bucked a little, and I realized that he wanted me to put my mouth onto his blowhole. I didn't even give it a second thought; I quickly plugged my lips around that fleshy flap and took in a deep, satisfying breath as the dolphin's exhale filled my lungs with glorious yet fishy air. With this, I had enough strength to continue the dive, and I scooped Master's body into my arms.
His body was so cold, and his skin was so blue. I knew in my heart that it was too late. He was dead...
We reached the surface, and I begged and pleaded with my dolphin to lend some assistance. "Please-- Please! I don't know what magic you dolphins possess, but you have saved this man's life twice before. Please help him one more time! I cannot let him die, not here, not like this!"
I continued to cry for help, but my dolphin just thrust his head up and down, splashing water and squeaking unintelligibly.
"I don't know what you're saying!" I shouted angrily.
Hopeless tears were filling my eyes as I sobbed, and I was consumed with indescribable despair. But suddenly I realized that more dolphins had arrived. My steed had summoned them. As the pod drew closer to Master and me, their squealing songs grew louder. Dolphin songs have always creeped me out, but hearing them sung together in unison is even creepier. But I was desperate for a miracle, so my heart became open to any possibility, no matter how weird. All I wanted was my dear master back. They swam around us in a synchronized circular motion, slowly building a whirlpool around us. Then they started pounding my master's body with the flat side of their tail fins. They got about a dozen good whacks on him when suddenly he gasped for air. He was alive! His eyes shot open wide as the amazing breath of life filled his lungs once again!
"MY POOR BLIMP!" he cried. And then he fell back asleep.
...
Hours passed and night fell. Though he was alive and well, Master had suffered a heavy trauma and remained fast asleep on the back of one of our dolphin steeds. I wrapped a cloth around his bleeding head. I had also managed to scoop up Mandelbaum by then, and the three of us rode on the backs of the dolphins until we were a safe distance away from the submarines. I had no intention of ever looking back or even giving a consideration to what might have happened to them. If Admiral Archibeque got his sub back up and running, or if Captain Zanzibar remained his prisoner, or if Desdemona would look back on our passionate kiss fondly - none of these were of any concern to me.
At one point, Mandelbaum leaned over and gave me a pat on the back. He praised me for my daring efforts, and thanked me for saving both his own life and the life of his companion. Though I assured him I was simply doing my job as a loyal manservant, he disagreed. He said, yes, saving my master was my duty, and if I had truly been doing my job, I would have saved my master first and would have been distracted by nothing else. But I hadn't saved him first; I saved Mandelbaum. Only one thing would have been powerful enough to cause a manservant to break his vow to his master: saving the life of a friend. He thanked me, and it was a sincere and honest affirmation of gratitude. To be considered a friend of this great man is indeed the highest compliment I can imagine.
It must have been late into the night, when the moon was high in the sky and the dolphins finally wound down their singing, when Master finally opened his eyes. He was still dazed from his injuries, but gradually a smile filled his face.
"YOU SAVED ME!" he shouted in the most heart-warming and thankful rejoicement I had heard in ages. "I knew! I always knew you'd be the one to save me, Mandelbaum!"
He leapt off his dolphin and swam over to Mandelbaum's. He climbed aboard and gave Mandelbaum the most appreciative hug, kissing him on the cheeks. "Thank you," he cried with joyful tears in his eyes. "Thank you!"
I don't really know what I thought in that moment. Who was I, a simple manservant, to ever take credit for such a rescue? It was my job, wasn't it? To serve my master in all endeavours? I didn't need credit or praise for simply doing my job.
Mandelbaum let out a little cough, nodding his head humbly toward my direction. Master finally looked over and spotted me. "Oh hi, Reggie. Didn't see you there. Wait... if you're here, who's tending the house? Did you tell Honeypoots you were coming here? She's going to be furious!"
I simply laughed and nudged my dolphin forward. Onward we'd ride. It was morning the next day when we were finally spotted by a passing vessel. It just so happened to be Nigel Hildebrandt, the man from the Gentlemen's Yacht Club who had lent us his boat. When Mandelbaum and I never returned with the Psyche, he had set out on a search party with some of his comrades. Up until that point, I had always underestimated the Gentlemen's Yacht Club as incapable adventurers up until that point, but here they were, proving their worth.
Nigel was furious to learn that we had lost his poor vessel during our encounter with the squirrels, but Mandelbaum promised to repay him with a future service. That debt seemed good enough for now.
All I can say is that I am happy to be headed home, for a return to the humble life of a manservant and a rock n' roll bassist sounds most appealing to me now than ever. I'll leave the adventuring to my employer and his dear companion. A little tune came into my head, however, as we sailed along, and I'm eager to see what my band thinks of it. I call it, "The Ballad of Reggie and Mandy."
#theend #rescue #epicfinale #submarinebattle #taleofthecursedjohnny
#pirates #hotkiss #dolphinrides #reggieandmandy
"HELP! S.O.S.! I AM LOST AT SEA! If you are receiving this note, it may already be too late for me..."
This is the message I found left behind by my master. This is Reginald speaking, and being a humble manservant, I am not accustomed to this kind of frenzy and adventure. Having been employed as a manservant for forty-three years, I am used to the wild and exciting lifestyles of the various masters I have served - my present one being no exception. But while he is off exploring exotic lands and dealing with occasionally disreputable folk, I am more comfortable tending to his home, maintaining his lovely blimp between adventures, or looking after his wife. I seek no other ambitions. Being the treasurer of my chapter of the Manservants Guild is enough for me*. I suppose the fact that I am a bassist in a band is literally the most "rock 'n roll" thing about me, but even then, we never get crazier than a few up-tempo ballads.
(*Speaking of this organization, you may recall that the Guild had a decisive hand in the Great Sky Battle against the squirrels, in which many of my butlering compatriots were slain while coming to the aid of my master. I, however, missed out on the action due to a bad case of the sniffles, and I ended up napping at home through the whole battle. I regret nothing.)
I am quite content with my moderate lifestyle; therefore, I scarcely know where to begin this harrowing tale. You see, it all started several days ago. I was just returning from a late night band practice with a few of my butler friends, ready to tend to my master's home and tuck his dear wife Honeypoots into bed, when she explained to me that she had grown quite worried by her husband's absence. He was presently away on his annual trip around the world (going for a new personal record this time by taking a route less traveled, which happened to be along a more dangerous jet stream across the Pacific Ocean), but part of their marital agreement was that he would check in with her regularly while away on a blimping adventure. He, however, had failed to do so.
As she shooed me away from the bedroom, wearing a lovely silk negligée, she said, "Just look into it, will you? He hasn't called me in days. I swear, he better not come back here with another lie about being stranded on a 'dinosaur island' again."
From the other side of the closed door, I vowed, "Right away, my lady! It is my duty as a noble manservant to serve both the lord and lady of the house."
"Whatever, just stop bothering me. I'm going to bed. And I better not catch you staring at me again like some spindly-legged praying mantis!"
"I was only assuring your safety, madam!"
I heard her lock the door. I knew locating my master, somewhere on the far side of the world, would be a daunting task. Where would I even start? I hated to admit it to myself, but I knew there was only one man who could help me with such an impossible challenge. I confess I had grown tired of hearing the man's name constantly repeated by my adoring master. "You should have seen how heroic Mandelbaum was on our latest adventure!" " Mandelbaum always did things this way when he was my manservant." "Mandelbaum's thighs are much more fit than yours." Well, we can't all be Mandelbaum, okay? Sheesh.
I ultimately decided to set aside my pride, made the call, and a few hours later Mandelbaum and I met each other at the predetermined meeting place on the docks by the harbor. He mocked me a little, saying that when he was a butler, he never lost his master. What a smug son of a... I told him to put his mouth to the test, that if he were as good and loyal a man as my master had always boasted, then he'd have no problem locating him. Mandelbaum wasted no time digging into a knapsack at his side, and he pulled out small white box with a blinking light on it.
"A tracking beacon?" I asked.
Mandelbaum explained that he secretly planted one under my employer's skin about a year back, knowing full well he'd eventually have to bail the man out of some predicament at some point, such as this very one in which he currently found himself. I was admittedly a bit impressed (and it was probably an idea I should have considered myself).
I said, "Alright then, so how are we supposed to follow his signal? I don't have a blimp. Do you?"
That's when Mandelbaum explained to me that we were meeting on the docks for a very specific reason. There was a rich member of the Gentlemen's Yacht Club, a captain of industry named Nigel Hildebrandt, who owed Mandelbaum a favor. We met Nigel near his majestic yacht, the biggest one on the bay. Painted on the side of the glorious boat was the name Psyche, a name I found fitting since she was the ancient goddess of lost souls. We would need that kind of good fortune in our search, no doubt.
Nigel greeted Mandelbaum and me heartily, "Ah, welcome, gentleman! I'm so eager to show off my new cruiser, the Psyche!" (Except that he pronounced it "Sike", which made me cringe. So much for our good fortune.) "What can I do for you, my old friend?"
Mandelbaum explained that he needed to borrow the yacht, and there was no time to waste on further explanations. Nigel scratched his head a bit and said, "Well, I suppose I do owe you one after that daring rescue you provided me in the Irminger Sea. I wasn't expecting to be waylaid by squirrels from Greenland. Viking squirrels, no less. But I suppose I can go ahead and have my men get the cruiser up and running right away for you. We'll hit the seas in a matter of hours."
Mandelbaum quickly said that no, Nigel would not be joining us on this adventure. He and I could get the yacht made way for sailing faster than his crew could anyway. (I was appreciative of the compliment.) But I knew why he really didn't want Nigel to come. You see, the Gentlemen's Yacht Club was something of a wannabe version of the Blimping Corps. They constantly blew their money on extravagant adventures out at sea, only to find themselves in over their heads and completely unequipped for a truly daring challenge. They were nothing but a bunch of spoiled, rich manboys who knew nothing about true adventuring. Nigel would, no doubt, just get in the way.
He was frustrated with Mandelbaum's bold request, but ultimately he had enough honor to know when a debt required payment. He forked over the keys to the yacht, and sure enough, Mandelbaum and I had the cruiser ready to hit the high seas in no time.
The Psyche was indeed an impressive vessel, for she traveled at a speed that was surely not proportional to her size. We sailed at a breakneck pace. Mandelbaum wasn't much for chitchat on the ride, but he was a diligent navigator, never tiring and always following the beeping signal of his tracking beacon. I could only think of the trouble that Master was in, and how lonely and upset his poor wife must have been, waiting for him (and me) back home. If not I, then who would be there to comfort her with a warm embrace?
Anyway, days passed and we made our way deep into the Pacific Ocean. I was starting to become weary of being on the ocean for so long, and I never truly prided myself on having a sturdy pair of sea legs. As the story brings us back to today, it was around dusk when Mandelbaum shouted that he had spotted something a few clicks ahead of us. We pulled the yacht closer, and when I could finally see what he had seen, my heart sank into the pit of my stomach.
The wreckage of the Eurydice II, my master's blimp, was strewn about for nearly half a mile in every direction. Among the flotsam and jetsam, I spotted bits of the blimp's silver and blue balloon and the wooden planks of her deck, which had been smashed to pieces. I cried out my master's name for the next hour until my voice went hoarse, but there was no call back to me. Mandelbaum continued to steer the yacht, diligently following the signal of the beacon, but all hope seemed to be lost. What had happened to my dear employer? I couldn't bear to consider the most logical outcome or how I would ever deliver the tragic news to Honeypoots. But just then, there was a ray of hope as Mandelbaum cried out that he had found something!
We spotted an empty crate of absinthe bottles floating nearby. I lowered myself down a rope ladder and descended into the surprisingly cold waters, searching for any sign that might lead to a clear answer about Master's fate. On top of the crate was indeed the partner half of the tracking beacon, the part that Mandelbaum had once installed under my master's skin. But how had it gotten cut out of him? My stomach churned at the gruesome possibilities. Beside the beacon, there was a handwritten note. I could barely read it though the scratchy handwriting and the water-damaged paper, but it read:
"To whom it may concern, HELP! S.O.S.! I AM LOST AT SEA! If you are receiving this note, it may already be too late for me. You see, I was on my annual quest of circumnavigating the globe in my blimp, the Eurydice II, when a terrible storm overcame me. I was not expecting a tropical storm at this latitude during this time of year, but the fates had other plans for me. I tried my hardest to steer away, to raise my altitude above the storm, but despite my best and most heroic efforts, the gods of thunder and lightning descended wrathfully upon me.
"I crashed into the murky, churning waters below, and my poor blimp did not survive the fall. I cried to myself, more for her loss than for my own dire predicament. I drifted alone at sea for days, clinging to a bit of wreckage from the main rudder, and no doubt began suffering from dehydration and hypothermia in the cold water. I was reaching the point of delirium. It was only by a stroke of luck that I found this crate of absinthe, stocked with the most beautiful bottles of green magic fairy-water that I had ever seen or tasted! With each delicious bottle, I quenched my thirst and survived. Though I was now drunk and even more delirious, I was lucky to be alive.
"Somehow during my plight, I realized I had cut my arm on a bit of wreckage, possibly during the crash, and I was bleeding. I found this strange contraption imbedded under my skin. I was shocked and terrified! There was only one logical explanation for its presence in my body: ALIENS. Yes, I assumed extra-terrestrials must have caused my crash, and they had abducted me, probed me mercilessly, implanted a strange device in my arm, and then dumped me back into the sea. I was happy to be rid of the thing in my arm so they could no longer track me down for further experimentation. (I realize now that this was all most likely a delusion brought on by the absinthe, but here we are now.)
"The absinthe eventually ran out, I sobered up, and dehydration was beginning to creep up on me again. I found this piece of paper, and so it goes as I narrate my story to you - the unfortunate stranger who finds this. I can only beg you to tell my tale honestly, the way it is presented here. Please relay these messages to my loved ones. To my one true love, I'm sorry I ever left your side to go on this blimp ride around the world. But you understand how adventure is always calling me, Mandelbaum. I wish I had never parted from your presence. To my dear wife, thank you for being my sweet angel and humoring my blimping ways. To my young mentee, Freddie, I hope you become a greater blimpman and a more honorable man than I ever was. And to Reggie, my butler, please cancel my subscription to Blimpman Quarterly."
I gave the note a puzzled look, flipped it over hoping there might have been something more substantial on the back side. Nope. Nothing. I continued reading:
"So here I am now, awaiting my impending doom. It is a strange thing knowing that death is so close. We avoid even thinking about it for our whole lives, and now it's only a few inches away. It makes you think of all the things we could have accomplished, had we just been given a bit more time, and HEY, DOLPHINS!"
I rushed back onto the deck of the yacht and shared my master's note with Mandelbaum. I was curious what the final words about the dolphins had meant. Was it my master's final moment of delirium taking over his rotting brain? Was his last thought before dying of... dolphins? What could it all mean?
Mandelbaum explained that he had an idea about what the words meant. He silently turned the yacht to a new bearing, and we made headway in a new direction. His lack of explanation really peeved me. Though I may not like him, I can only hope that this "legendary" Mandelbaum fellow is as skilled and trustworthy as my master has always boasted. And accordingly, I can only hope that my poor master is still alive.
#LOST #thesearch #reginaldandmandelbaum
#aliens #dolphins #psyche
Tuesday
Reginald again, posting via satellite phone onto my master's social media in hopes that we can share the word about his need of rescue. Mandelbaum and I finally had a lead on Master's location, or at least that's what Mandelbaum seemed to believe. He plotted a course for us on our yacht, the Psyche, and we set sail for nearly a whole day in one singular direction. Just as my patience for mysteries was running thin and I demanded to know our destination, Mandelbaum pointed straight ahead.
There was indeed a pod of dolphins swimming out ahead of us. We could hear their cult-like dolphin songs even from this distance. The mysticism surrounding dolphin cults has always made me uncomfortable. It's not that I'm wary of other people's religions; it's just that dolphins have this way of really sucking you in with their hypnotic singing and overall cuteness. A fringe religious agenda on top of weird, fishy cuteness doesn't really help ease my mind. Anyway, what was really significant about the sighting was that the dolphins were swimming near a beautiful tropical island.
"Do you know this place?" I asked.
Mandelbaum nodded and said he had heard of this place but had never been there himself. It was the closest thing to "civilization" in this part of the ocean, and if my employer had managed to catch a ride on the back of a dolphin, he would have surely ended up here.
We docked the yacht near a quaint sandy beach, but we couldn't find any sign of Master anywhere. Mandelbaum called for my attention from his end of the beach, so I stopped my half of the search and rushed over to him. He had found a series of footprints in the sand. Clearly not from a dolphin. And clearly not from just one man. Before we could even ponder who might have made these prints, a band of elderly folk strode from the jungle.
"Greetings, friends," said their leader. He was an older man in his late sixties, with a long grey beard and long grey hair partially tied back in a pony tail. He continued in the most gentle and softly-flowing voice, "My name is Richard, and we welcome you to our island. Any friend of the dolphins is a friend of ours, man."
He stretched his arms out wide as if waiting for a hug, and he smiled to all the people around him. They were all wearing white linen robes, and the women had flowers adorning their hair. Each one of them seemed to be around Richard's age, all of them living relics of the Hippie generation of the 1960s.
"You are... friends of the dolphins. Right?" asked an older woman hesitantly.
"Well I can't say I know many dolphins myself," I said politely, "but they do seem nice enough."
She seemed pleased with my answer. Richard chimed in, "You'll be our friend soon enough."
I glanced curiously at Mandelbaum to make sure I wasn't the only one who found that statement slightly threatening. I wasn't.
Richard continued, "Follow us. We're excited for you to meet the rest of the Majestic Brotherhood of the One True Wave."
Then I replied, "Actually, we've come here in search of our lost friend. He was stranded at sea, and we have reason to believe that he may have found his way here. Perhaps you've seen him?"
I told them my master's name and they all exclaimed, "Oh yes!" and then there was much muttering of agreement in the crowd.
Richard said, "You mean Brother Hole?! Now there's a man who is truly a friend of the dolphins! Why didn't you say you knew him?"
I was curious why they were calling him Brother Hole, but I didn't press the issue. If they knew where he was, I demanded that they take us to him.
"Ah, well I'm afraid you're too late," said Richard. "You see, he was with us only a few days before the graces of the ocean - our dear dolphins friends - whisked him away to another dimension."
"Another dimension?!" I shouted angrily. "I swear if some harm has fallen upon him due to you and your strange cult, then there will be hell to pay!"
Richard replied that "cult" was such a pejorative term. Surely, the Majestic Brotherhood was not confined by such limited terms; according to him, they had no real agenda other than a life of dolphin watching, musical meditation, yoga, and boundless free love. "Follow me, and I believe all your questions will be answered." I didn't like the sound of that, but Mandelbaum said this was probably our best chance.
We followed the Hippies into their compound at the center of the island. There wasn't much to it: a few grass huts, a sweat lodge, a main cooking area with a campfire, lots of burning incense, and a garden that seemed to be growing only marijuana plants.
"This is where Brother Hole stayed," said Richard, pointing to a little hooch made from bamboo sticks and bits of tarp. "What a great friend of the dolphins, he was. We will surely miss him. But we're so envious he made the joyous voyage to the next dimension."
I ignored their religious banter, and Mandelbaum scavenged around inside the hooch, looking for clues. He pulled out a kerchief, which surely belonged to my master; it had his initials clearly embroidered on it.
"Oh goodie, a keepsake!" said Richard. "Those are always fun." And then he turned and made his way with the others toward the campfire. He said it was half past noon, and we were welcome to join them for a vegetarian lunch, some singing of songs, and a bit of ganja. I declined politely. I said that Mandelbaum and I were still recovering from a long journey and perhaps a moment alone in "Brother's Hole's sacred hooch" might suit us. Richard obliged.
As soon as we were alone, Mandelbaum flipped over the kerchief, and we quickly and quietly read the secret note that had been written there on the back. I knew my master was a clever one! It read:
"To whom it may concern, GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN! The innocent looking people you see here are evil! When I was stranded out at sea, I never thought being rescued would be as horrifying as this. If I had my choice, I'd beg the dolphins to take me back out to sea and dump me there. Ever since they delivered me to this island, I've been a victim of these people's incessant religious yammering and obsession with me.
"You see, I was actually dead when the dolphins brought me here (death would have been a better fate for me, honestly), but they revived me with some sort of mouth-to-blowhole resuscitation. It was weird. As I awoke and breath filled my lungs, I had a most unpleasant fishy taste in my mouth, and my lips were coated with ooze. A band of humans was pulling me out of the ocean, and they dragged me onto the sand, all the while explaining how lucky I was for the dolphins to have chosen me. It was their dream to taste the inside of a dolphin's blowhole, and only the lucky few in their ranks had ever been chosen thusly. They started calling me 'Brother Hole' and treated me as a guest of honor on the island. I really had no idea what the hell was going on, but I played along as best I could. I figured, with such an unhinged group of individuals surrounding me, playing nice and trying to fit in was my only chance of survival.
"For a few nights, I was forced to join in on their sing-along jam sessions, and I was kept awake at all hours by the sounds of their nightly love-making. I was losing all grip on reality as their brainwashing took its effect on me. Then, last night, their evil leader Richard said I wasn't looking well, so he gave me a glass of water to drink. It tasted funny.
"That's when I realized something sinister had happened. The world around me began to swirl in a twirling vortex. The twinkling stars in the night sky morphed into every color of the rainbow in a vivid display of neon lights. The campfire was no longer a campfire, but a weird orgy of giggling fairies. They leapt up and down and invited me to join them, but I backed away in fear. I screamed but nothing came out of my mouth except the sound of a dolphin's squeak.
"I overheard Richard's voice saying, 'Ah, crap. The LSD didn't work. He's having a bad trip!' I ran away from the camp as fast as my legs could carry me and arrived at the beach. I looked down at my feet, and the wet sand was no longer sand but melted Jello pudding pops.
"I retreated into the ocean, and I was standing there in the water when an enormous 50-foot dolphin rose out of the sea ahead of me. He looked like the sea god Neptune, except that he was a dolphin. He held a giant trident in his flipper and had a beard of sea foam around his pointy dolphin mouth. He looked down at me, towering massively over me, and said in a booming, thunderous voice, 'Looks like you're riding the one true wave, man. Thanks for being a friend. How 'bout a kiss?' And then he leaned forward to kiss me - his massive body towering dangerously over me, enveloping me in a dark shadow and ready to smother me - and I shielded my face with my arms, trembling in fear.
"When I opened my eyes, there was no dolphin, but there was an enormous WAVE coming straight for me. It crashed on top of me and rocked my senses to their core with a wallop unlike any I'd ever felt. The swell sucked me under the water, and I knew I'd drown there in the violent undertow in a matter of seconds.
"I don't know what happened next, but I awoke back in my hooch at the camp. Brother Richard and the others were leaning over me, and my lungs felt as if they had collapsed. Plus, that familiar fishy taste from before was back in my mouth. 'You swallowed a bit of sea water back there,' said Richard, 'but the dolphins found you and brought you back to the shore. That's twice they've rescued you! You truly are a friend of theirs!' Everyone cheered and started singing and playing acoustic guitars. Then they muttered something about how I was one blowhole-kiss away from achieving ascent into nirvana and a higher dimension. Whatever, idiots.
"Meanwhile, I closed my eyes and grumbled a series of curses at those pesky, meddling cetaceans for bringing me back here a second time. Feeling a little better now, I'm able to write this note on my kerchief, hoping that whoever finds it can relay my horrendous tale to my friends and family back home. My only chance now is to steal one of the cult's short-range motorboats that they have docked on the other side of the island. I don't know how far out to sea I will be able to go, but as long as it is far enough away from this place, I am willing to try. Please wish me luck in my escape, and I shall wish you the same. God's speed."
I put down the note, and Mandelbaum and I just looked at each other. We wondered what we should do now. Mandelbaum said that our best bet was to catch up to my master and hopefully find that motorboat before it gets too far out to sea. I asked how on earth we could possibly find one tiny boat in the endlessly wide ocean, but Mandelbaum said he had an idea. Again he annoyingly felt the need not to inform me of the plan, but I suppose his method worked well enough last time. I shall follow his lead on this one and wish for the best. Ultimately, the two of us snuck away from the cult's camp as their nightly celebration wore on, and we certainly had no intention of ever looking back at those fish-loving creeps.
#majesticbrotherhood #onetruewave #hippies #brotherhole
Wednesday
Having escaped from the island of the dolphin cult, we were now in pursuit of my master's fleeing motorboat. If only he had known we were right on his tail, he'd have waited just one more day on that island for us to find him. But I really can't blame him for running; I certainly could not have endured in that place for as long and as bravely as he did.
Meanwhile, Mandelbaum's plan brought us out into a murky patch of the Pacific. We were following a signal on the yacht's very high-tech sonar, which Nigel Hildebrandt had installed for purposes of deep-sea fishing and treasure-hunting expeditions. I asked if the signal we were following belonged to my master's boat, but Mandelbaum said that we weren't capable of tracking a signal so small from such distance. Instead, we were following something much more massive. I didn't quite like the sound of that.
With every beep... beep..., we grew closer and closer to the source of the signal, so close that we were practically on top of it. My eyes still couldn't spot any other vessel out on the water. Where was this signal coming from? That's when I realized what Mandelbaum had known all along. The signal was below us, in the water. A few seconds later, I heard the waters breaking as a submersible rose up next to us. I gulped, remembering my master's stories full well. A lone submarine this far out in the ocean could mean only one thing. This was certainly a vessel belonging to the dreaded Submariners Legion.
Mandelbaum cut the engines to our yacht, and we floated there flaccidly next to the metallic submersible. He barked an order at me, and we quickly concealed ourselves in Nigel's secret treasure-smuggling cargo hold located below the deck. I waited in the darkness, trying to get control of my nervous breathing, and that's when I heard the pitter-patter of footsteps on the deck of the boat. We were being boarded - but by whom? Mandelbaum gave me a signal to stay silent; I covered my mouth. He was peering through a crack in the floorboards, and a thin sliver of light illuminated his face. Suddenly, a shadow passed over the crack and Mandelbaum saw that as a moment of opportunity.
He quickly flung open the secret door, leapt out, and snatched up one of our mysterious raiders. I rallied my courage and chased after him to lend some assistance, but I was stunned to see that Mandelbaum hadn't captured a pirate; he had captured a SQUIRREL! What were squirrels doing with a submarine? I could tell Mandelbaum was just as surprised as I was. As the other raiding squirrels beheld the capture of their friend, they ferociously bared their fangs at Mandelbaum and me. He held the captive squirrel aloft over his head and said that if the others took another step forward, their friend would be dead. They wisely kept their distance. The one captive squirrel continued to shimmy and squeak in protest, but Mandelbaum kept a firm grip on the protesting rodent. He demanded a meeting with their captain. The other squirrels muttered something to each other in the squirrel language, and I could tell they were arguing with each other for a few minutes. As the debate wound down, they finally realized they had no other alternative but to comply with Mandelbaum's demands.
They led Mandelbaum and me toward their submersible. Mandelbaum led the way down into the vessel, still keeping our hostage squeezed tightly in his hands as a ransom. I made sure to follow close behind him; I didn't want to be snatched up myself by the remaining squirrels. I knew it would only take one careless step on my part for them to easily turn the tables on us. It was a rather small vessel that we entered, as far as submarines go, and we quickly made our way to the bridge.
I could see now why Mandelbaum's plan involved making contact with a submarine: it had far more sophisticated sonar than anything that was on the yacht. We could use these tools to find my missing master. The captain squirrel was waiting there near the periscope, and he and the rest of the crew were startled by our sudden appearance. He squawked violently at his foolish minions who had allowed themselves to be duped by the humans so easily.
"Way to go, Jared!" he said angrily.
The squirrel in Mandelbaum's hands replied, "It's not my fault! His hands are like a hawk's talons!"
Then I said to the captain, "Who are you? And why do you have a submarine?"
The captain said, "You're the intruders here, so we should be asking who you are. But if you must know, I'm Stan Scoiattolo."
"Wait, the same Stan Scoiattolo of Scoiattolo & Chestnut? The blimp/dirigible insurance company?"
He replied, "We're out of the blimping game, thanks to you jacknards." Then he pointed to Mandelbaum and said, "After the big one here and his blimpman friend destroyed our zeppelins in the Great Sky Battle, we were left with nothing. But we bounced back. We're into submersible insurance now."
Mandelbaum said that, if that were the case, then they must have had frequent contact with members of the Submariners Legion.
"Of course, dummies," said Stan. "They're our biggest client. We just came from one of their submarines. And it just so happens that your previously-mentioned blimpman friend got mixed up in a bit of trouble with them."
I gasped. Stan smiled sinisterly (the only way squirrels know how to smile), and I could tell the cards were folding more in his favor now. Mandelbaum kept his cool and explained his plan. He said that if Stan and his crew were to deliver us safely to the submarine that held my master, then we would relinquish Jared and go about our business.
Stan gritted his teeth angrily, but he agreed to the terms and said, "You sure you want us to take you to the Legion? I hear they hate you just as much as squirrels do. Whatever. It's your funeral." Then he ordered the crew to turn the submarine around, and we made way.
We traveled for a few hours in the deep, dark waters, and I grew wary of being in such a confined space with those evil rodents. I imagined them turning on us at any moment, murdering us without remorse. The walls seemed to be closing in on me, due to both my growing paranoia and claustrophobia and the increasing air pressure caused by undersea travel. Mandelbaum held his ground in a defensive position in the corner of the control room, never letting his guard down for a second, keeping a firm grip on Jared, who was complaining, "Geeze, dude. Hand lotion. Ever heard of it?"
We drove onward and a while later I could feel the submarine starting to slow down in the deep waters. We gradually changed directions, and I could tell we were headed toward the surface. Mandelbaum asked the captain, Stan, why we were going to the surface, and whether the pirates on board were tipped off to our coming.
"That's your problem now, isn't it? You wanted to find them. Well here you are." Then he ordered the crew to level us out.
The hatches above our heads were opened, and the squirrels backed away, allowing us an exit. Good to his word, Mandelbaum released Jared (who cursed at him in Squikwek), but I would have felt better had he at least hung onto the captive until we reached the exit. We climbed the ladder and stood aboard the top deck of the squirrel submersible. That's when I got a good look at the neighboring submarine next to us.
It was the most massive sea vessel I have ever seen! The size of a battleship, a deep dark red hull from bow to stern. Even in her stillness, floating on the ocean surface, she caused such a disruption to the waters around her that waves were rocking our comparatively tiny vessel heavily. I presumed the identify of this infamous dreadnaught the moment I laid eyes on her: it was indeed the Crimson Bullock. This was not just any submarine; rather, this was the submarine, the most feared and dreaded block of metal to ever scar the ocean. Every manservant feared the day his adventuring blimpman master might encounter this scourge of the seven seas.
I told Mandelbaum that I didn't have the heart to board this vessel, but he reminded me that we had no choice. My master was no doubt on board, and my own death would be a far better fate for me than leaving my master to suffer alone. I painstakingly agreed, and knew I had to somehow muster the courage. We stood there on the top deck of the Crimson Bullock, not really sure what to do next, and by then, we noticed that the squirrels had had enough of our human nonsense. They had turned their own sub around, diving back down into the sea.
That left us with no option but to proceed. Mandelbaum worked the main hatch, turning the heavy wheel, and he flung it open. We took a step back, expecting a platoon of pirates to come swarming out. But... nothing happened. We peered down into the deep, dark hole; the ladder seemed to go down for miles into the massive vessel. Our voices echoed in the abyss below us. I wiped the sweat from my brow as Mandelbaum unflinchingly led the way inside.
He descended the ladder, and I followed close behind. We were very surprised that even still, no pirates revealed themselves to us. It was as if the submarine were completely abandoned. After several minutes of climbing, we finally made it to the inner deck of the submarine. A long, dark corridor lay before us with flickering fluorescent lights overhead. It was really creepy. Mandelbaum continued forward into the darkness, and I could do nothing but follow, even though panic was beginning to consume me.
Where was everyone? What kind of trap was this? I wanted to cry out to see who might return the call, but I was afraid of what sinister villain might pop out from the darkness. We marched for minutes, going deeper and deeper into the belly of the submarine, yet still no sign of pirates anywhere.
"What do you think has happened?" I whispered. "Have they abandoned ship?" Mandelbaum assured me that it wouldn't be quite that easy.
It turns out, Mandelbaum was right, as usual. As we entered what had to be the main galley of the submarine, a circular room in the center of the vessel. All around the circumference were hatches leading to other parts of the massive sub. It seemed as if we were alone, but then there was a series of clanking and clunking sounds, and the hatches surrounding the circular room slammed shut. We were trapped. A worn-out old video screen came to life on a round monitor, which I had thought was a porthole at first. A bearded and scarred face appeared, and even though I had never met this man before, I immediately recognized him based on the descriptions from my master's stories.
Admiral Archibeque let out the most evil laugh, "Did you really think you could commandeer my vessel so easily?! You two are just as predictable as your blimp-loving friend! Desdemona, they're all yours!"
And then the hatches opened and we were surrounded by a swarm of pirates with rifles pointed at our faces. Their leader marched confidently into the room, and Mandelbaum and I did a double-take at her presence, for she was one of the most stunning creatures I had seen in years. Now don't get me wrong, she did not compare to the sweet and lovely Honeypoots back home. In fact, there's no way to really compare the two, as they are two creatures on completely opposite ends of the spectrum. This new woman was tall, dark, and dangerous. A single glance from her might make the most confident and brazen bro back down in whimpering fear. This femme-fatale, Desdemona, marched straight up to Mandelbaum with sweeping, hypnotic strides of her long, booted legs, and she pointed a luger straight in his face.
"Start walking," she demanded.
Mandelbaum scanned over every inch of her body from head to toe, he smirked slightly, and finally put his hands in the air. She led him away.
Another pirate with an EYE-PATCH shoved the barrel of his rifle into my back, and I grumbled at him angrily: "Watch it, you cyclopsian galoot!" But that only made him dig the barrel into my back harder, so I started walking.
They led us deeper into the darkened corridors. Mandelbaum asked Desdemona where she was taking us, and she said, "Shut up. You'll get there soon enough. And just like our other prisoner, you'll rot in a cell until you die. Or until we jettison your body out the torpedo shoot."
I became intrigued by the clue she unwittingly delivered, "Ah, so you do have another prisoner..."
But then she kicked me in the stomach with a lightning-fast sidekick; the heel of her boot dug right into my navel. That terrifyingly beautiful limb took every ounce of breath from my lungs, and I collapsed on the floor, coughing.
"Know your place, you scrawny old manservant. No one cares what you have to say."
I could tell Mandelbaum wanted to help me to my feet, but Desdemona thrust out her pistol and denied him. He asked her smugly if guns were really the best idea on an enclosed submarine, but she was quick to retort, "They're only a problem when you miss. And I don't."
We eventually arrived at the brig. There were a half dozen prison cells lined along the corridor, but from what I could tell, only one was occupied. Desdemona led us past it, and Mandelbaum and I eagerly looked inside. But despite my hopefulness, my beloved master was not there.
At first, I thought this prisoner was a child, huddled in the shadows in the corner of his cell. But eventually I realized that it was a dwarfen man, around three feet tall. He scurried up from the darkened corner, coming into the light. He pointed a finger at Mandelbaum and started laughing hysterically, literally tossing his head back in laughter.
Desdemona kicked his cage. "Shut up, Zanzibar! Or I'll cut off every limb from your body and feed them to you piece by piece!"
But he didn't care. He continued to laugh and laugh, "Go figure! You send a couple of morons to rescue an even bigger moron, and this is what happens! Did you really think your blimpman friend was here on this submarine? What a couple of idiots!"
He continued to laugh at us as Desdemona and the others locked us into neighboring cells. It was annoying. But what stung worse was that I knew he was telling the truth: my master wasn't on board. And that left me with an even greater question than how I might possibly get out of this cell: if Master wasn't here, then where was he?
#captured #pirates #crimsonbullock
#squirrelencounter #screwed
Thursday
Mandelbaum and I spent the majority of the day in the brig. Luckily for me, I was able to smuggle my satellite phone in here (though I will spare you the details of how I did that, exactly.) The only problem is that I can't get enough signal to call for help. I can only post this message using the submarine's aggravatingly slow wifi in the hopes that someone might see this message. I know putting my hopes in a rescue, however, is futile. If anyone were to find us, it would probably be too late. Mandelbaum encouraged me to keep a level head and consider all possible means of escape. I suppose he is right; despite my feelings toward him, working together is our own only hope.
From what I could tell of this place, the submarine has never moved from its original location. I wondered why we were still sitting here on the ocean surface. In the cell adjacent to us was Captain Zanzibar, our fellow captive. I wondered what kind of ill behavior had led to his capture by his own fellow members of the Submariners Legion. If he had earned his comrades' ire, he must have been as dastardly an individual as my master had described to me in his stories.
Zanzibar seemed pleased to have a bit of company in the brig; he was rambling excitedly to us all day, even when we tried our best to ignore him. Mostly, it was ramblings about how incapable of a leader Admiral Archibeque was and how Zanzibar himself would have been better suited to command the Legion. We tried pressing him for more information about my missing master, but he refused to give up the intel.
"Hah! Information comes at a price, buddy boys! And in your current situation, you haven't a bit of currency to spare!"
Mandelbaum said the best course of action was just to ignore him as best we could. It turns out that Mandelbaum was right because the silence was what really got to Zanzibar. The more we ignored him, the more it was starting to break his spirit. The little fellow grew angry, and the silence was really grinding his gears with each passing moment. He rattled his bars in a (somewhat adorable) temper tantrum.
After a couple hours of being ignored, he began to sulk. "Fine. Okay? If you really want to know what happened to your friend, I can tell you. But... it will require a trade."
I perked up in the corner of my cell, and Mandelbaum agreed that a trade of information was reasonable. I said, "You first, Zanzibar. Tell us what happened to my dear master."
"Fine," he said, "we ran into your man, alright? He was dumb enough to get himself mixed up not with one crew of submariners, but with two. You see, it all started earlier that day. The Admiral and his crew were following a signal on their sonar when they came across your friend drifting along in the current on a powerless motorboat. He was completely out of gas, that jackass. They scooped him up in passing, and they immediately recognized him as one of their blimpman enemies. They decided to throw him in the brig, no doubt figuring he'd be good for a pricey ransom at some point. I would have thought the same, honestly, had I been in their shoes.
"But it turns out they didn't have too much time to spare in dealing with your friend. They had other business to attend to, and that business involved me and my crew. You see, the Admiral was greatly displeased with my gambling operation aboard my submarine, the Neptune's Phallus. They said I had been skimping on a fair cut of the casino's profits which were due to the Legion, all of which was total crock! Admiral Archibeque is as crooked a thief as there ever was, and he was simply trying to use his position of authority to steal from my much more profitable operation.
"He and the Crimson Bullock waylaid my sub in a jealous hissy fit, but we met them heroically in battle. I'm ashamed to admit that in the fight, I could not prevent their much larger crew from boarding our vessel, and they were able to capture me after a good fight. They killed every man in my crew, dumping their bodies into the ocean like chum for the sharks. It was only my valiant first mate, Helmuth, who managed to escape. Good ol' Helmuth! I can always count on him to scrap it out 'til the end!
"Anyway, I got thrown into the brig here, but your friend's fate was even worse. I can't say I felt an ounce of pity for him, given the fact that he put me through hell in the past. He didn't stick around for very long because soon after my arrival, the squi--"
And just then, there was a commotion in the main corridor of the brig. The seductive first mate from earlier, Desdemona, had entered and she cut Zanzibar's story short. She pointed at me and said fiercely, "The Admiral demands to see you."
I was shocked and terrified. I gulped. What could he possibly want with me? Then she pointed to Mandelbaum: "And you too. Stop smiling, you idiot."
I looked over at Mandelbaum's cell, and he was indeed grinning at the fearsome pirate lady. He said something smooth about who really wanted to see him: the Admiral? or her? I rolled my eyes at him. This really wasn't the time for him to be putting the moves on a gal. And a piratess, no less.
"Shut up and start walking," she said, opening our cells and pointing her pistol at us.
Zanzibar chimed in, "What about me, Desdemona? When do I get to talk to him? That old popsicle can't keep me in here forever!"
She spat angrily at the dwarf, "You're of no concern to Admiral Archibeque, you skimping little imp!"
With that, Desdemona and that nasty eye-patched fellow led Mandelbaum and me toward the main control room of the submarine. I noticed that Mandelbaum kept looking back at her.
"Eyes forward, big guy, or I'll put a bullet in your forehead."
I whispered bitterly at him, "Stop trying to hit on her! She's not interested."
But he just smirked and said something about how he liked a challenge. She overheard our whispering and got real close to Mandelbaum's face, practically whispering so that her breath was no doubt caressing his lips. "You're not my type." Then she punched him in the stomach so hard that it would have crippled any normal-sized man (but I'm pretty sure the unexpected wallop just aroused him more).
As we continued our march toward the bridge's control room, we passed a secondary corridor branching off to the side. I snuck a glance down the hallway and noticed that there were about ten or so pirates scrambling from one end to the other. They were carrying heavy-duty wrenches and other tools and shouting something about "tightening the hatch" and "water in the aft turbine", but I couldn't quite understand what was happening.
Desdemona dug her pistol angrily into my back and I winced in pain. "Mind your business!" she barked. (My back was really getting a raw deal in this kidnapping.)
We arrived in the control room, and Admiral Archibeque was awaiting us in the big captain's chair at the center of the room. The periscope rose up into the ceiling, he spun around villainously and said, "So I understand you've had an interesting chat with your prison mate." Then he tapped a video screen nearby, which showed Zanzibar standing in his cell. He continued, "You must know that I have eyes and ears everywhere on my sub."
I said, "Well, then you must know that he was about to tell us what happened to my master."
"Ah yes," said the Admiral, "your foolish friend got himself into some real trouble, didn't he? Well if you must know, he's not here. In fact... I'm fully willing to take you to him."
I nearly leapt in excitement. "You are?!"
But Mandelbaum was wise to the ways of pirates. He elbowed me and explained that none of their words could be taken at face value; there was always a catch and there would no doubt be a price to pay on our end.
The Admiral laughed, "Hah! Indeed that is true. You see, we are willing to make a trade, and it will be a far better one than Zanzibar was about to offer you. So here's what you're going to do. You're going to go back into your cell and hear the rest of Zanzibar's story. He will, no doubt, eventually arrive at the point where he asks you for assistance in planning his escape. Here's the catch..." I listened closely as he continued, "You're going to help him."
I glanced over at Mandelbaum, not really sure where the Admiral was going with this. But the old pirate explained, "Yes, you're going to do what he asks, and you're going to help him escape."
I was very confused by this strange request, but after a few moments of thought the truth finally dawned on me. "Ah, I see what's happening here," I said. "His submarine disabled yours in whatever skirmish you had. You might have captured him, but his crew got the better of you in the fight. That's why your sub has been floating here like a dead fish. That's why your crew is scrambling in the back corridor to repair a leak. You need him to escape because your only hope is that he can somehow make contact with the Neptune's Phallus. You're hoping he'll order his mate to come back to rescue him, and when that happens, you plan to have your revenge by taking his working submarine."
"You'll mind your place, you worthless manservant!" he barked angrily at me. "Because if you ever want to know what happened to your master, you'll do what I say!"
Even though the Admiral was angry and seemed backed into a sticky corner, I realized that he was probably right. Mandelbaum and I looked at each other, but we knew no words needed to be said.
"We agree to your terms," I said. "We'll help Zanzibar escape. And as soon as his submarine arrives, you will tell us what happened to my master, and you will release us to safety before your battle starts."
The Admiral strode forward and held out his hand. "You have my word as a submariner." I'm not sure how much weight that word truly held, but it was the best option I had in that moment. I shook his bulky hand.
Desdemona and "Eye-patch" returned us to our cells (and Mandelbaum checked out her firm rear end as she walked away). Zanzibar was quick to press us for information about what the Admiral had said in our meeting. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually felt bad for the miniscule man as I lied straight to his face.
"It wasn't anything important," I said. "He knows you're plotting an escape, but he said that if we try anything, he'll skin us alive and feed our flesh to the sharks."
Zanzibar laughed and said, "Well the old fool is right about one thing! I sure as hell am plotting an escape!" He continued to laugh, but I was growing weary with the mindless shenanigans of these pirates.
"Stop laughing and tell us what happened to my master," I said. "I demand an answer!"
"Ohhh, you demand?!" mocked Zanzibar. "Well if you must know, I was telling the truth when I said he wasn't here. In fact, you were probably just a few feet away from him at one point, and you never even knew it."
That last comment really puzzled me. I demanded to know what Zanzibar meant by it.
"Don't you fools get it?" he said. "You said you were brought here on that squirrel submarine, right? And the squirrels said they were here earlier? Well, why do you think that is? They were here because this blasted vessel is dead in the water! My submarine shot a torpedo right into her hold. Archibeque was filing a claim with the insurance agency. And how do you think he paid those rascally squirrels?!"
Zanzibar continued to laugh, but I knew where he was going with this. I finished his thought: "Archibeque paid the squirrels by ransoming my poor master..."
Zanzibar laughed, "Spot on! It was a fair trade, if you ask me. There's no price more valuable to a squirrel than a blimpman's hide. Your friend was probably bound and gagged in the cargo hold of that very submarine that brought you here, and you were standing right there on deck with no idea! What a couple of morons!"
I kicked myself, knowing full well that Zanzibar was right. We had stood right there on the deck of that squirrel submarine, and we didn't even consider that Master had been there too. My poor sir was probably crying out from the back room through the gag in his mouth, and we never even heard his cries for help.
"So," continued Zanzibar, "I gave you the information you requested. And a deal's a deal, right? So now it's time to play your part. You're going to help me escape from this damned prison cell."
I didn't have the energy to respond to him after that. I simply sank down into the corner of my cell, clutched my head in my hands, and cursed myself for being so foolish.
#theplotthickens #howcouldibesostupid #escape
#pirateschemes #mandylovesdesi
Friday
I looked back onto my actions this week (had it really only been a week?) and thought how horrible my situation was. I missed my band and playing our favorite songs. I missed my warm and humble butler's room in my master's home. I missed the pleasant sound of his wife's voice as she sang in the shower. As a dutiful manservant who entered this occupation willingly, I prided myself on serving a master without fail. Yet here I was, thrown in the brig of a submarine with no solid plan of escape, and my master was undoubtedly in an even worse situation than I.
As we listened to Zanzibar's half-assed plan for escaping from the brig, Mandelbaum and I kept quiet about our directive from Admiral Archibeque. Although we didn't say this aloud, I could tell we were both on the same page: our best course of action was to play both sides against each other. We would seemingly help Zanzibar escape from the brig, and likewise we would feign an alliance to Archibeque's side. Hopefully, in the end, the two scheming sides would destroy each other, and we could escape in the ensuing ruckus. Then, somehow, we would have to make our way back to the squirrel submarine where my poor master was being held captive. The entire plan hung onto a thin thread and had the most miniscule chance of success. Any small deviation and we would meet a terrible fate with no hope of ever rescuing my employer, or of surviving.
Captain Zanzibar explained that our best chance of escape lay with the first mate of the Crimson Bullock, the female pirate Desdemona. Mandelbaum said that fine, fine, he'd seduce her, if that's what it really took for this plan to work. But Zanzibar brushed him off.
"Don't you see?" he said. "She has the most to gain from this entire situation. For years it was she who was the captain of this vessel. She and the crew of the Bullock traveled the seven seas for years, wreaking havoc on unsuspecting cruise liners and raiding cargo ships for their valuable goods. She was an unstoppable pirate queen. It was only her pride and her sense of family rivalry that held her back from true victory.
"As it happens, Desdemona had a distant ancestor whose infamy had always cast a shadow on her own fame and glory. He was a legend amongst submariners. In fact, he was the founding father of the Legion. Way back in the 1700s, when the privateering business was in its prime, this particular pirate was the curse of all who dared to sail the seas. He traveled in a fully metallic vessel which was capable of underwater travel. It was known as the Cursed Johnny and was unlike anything in its time. The captain of the Cursed Johnny would raid unsuspecting ships who never even saw him coming, until it was too late. This innovative striker - the very first submarine, designed by some unknown benefactor - was a true nightmare to all sailors. And by now you may have guessed who this pirating ancestor was. It was indeed Archibeque, the very same man who captains this vessel we find ourselves on today."
I squinted, amazed at the very bending of natural laws that this tale would require, if it were true. I tried doing the math in my head, but Zanzibar continued, "You may be asking how it can be that Archibeque stands before us today, over 250 years later. Well let me explain. Had luck gone his way, Archibeque would have gone on to be one of the most horrendous villains of all time. He controlled more ocean territory than any other pirate. It was only a single ill-fated journey that changed the course of history.
"You see, Archibeque was one of the early explorers of the ice continent of Antarctica. He saw its potential as a fortified headquarters for his operation. No sea vessels at that time could ever break through those icy waters, except for the Cursed Johnny, and he knew he would be impervious to an attack from this location. But Archibeque's greatest vice caught up to him.
"Turns out, he had a nasty addiction to squid liquor, and one night he got so drunk that he stumbled out into the icy Antarctic wasteland wearing nothing but a pair of socks and his buccaneer hat. He got so turned about in the snowy gale that his crew was never able to find him. They assumed he had been frozen somewhere out there in the ice, and he was never seen or heard from again. With him gone, his crew wasn't worth much without his cunning leadership, so eventually British sailors were able to rally against the Cursed Johnny and sink it somewhere in the Atlantic. But the legend of Admiral Archibeque continued to live on.
"When Desdemona, his distant (something like) great-great-granddaughter, rose to power, she was an equally formidable pirate. Here on the Crimson Bullock, she terrified innocent ships and raided them without abandon. But even then, no one gave her due credit. They mocked her for being one of the only ladies in an all-male pirating business. Even in her times of success, as cutthroat as she was, no one mentioned her name unless it was followed by that of her dead ancestor, Archibeque. 'She's still clinging to that family name,' they'd say. She hated it more than anything. Why should she, a ruthless pirate in her own right, be forced to live in the shadow of some drunken old man who died so embarrassingly in the Antarctic ice because he couldn't hold his liquor?
"She decided there was only one thing to do; she would travel to Antarctica and create the unbreachable fortress for herself, the one that Archibeque had only dreamt of creating. There, she would aspire to reign as a pirate queen and eventually rise to the highest rank in the Submariners Legion. But fate was not on her side.
"While traveling on the continent, she happened to come across Admiral Archibeque's frozen remains there in the ice. I'm no science man, but it just so happens that his body had entered some sort of cryogenic sleep, and he had been perfectly preserved over the course of time. In fact, he was still living! But only barely. I don't know what possessed Desdemona to thaw the old goon and waken him; perhaps she just wanted to bring him back to life so she could have the satisfaction of later killing the man who had haunted her her whole life. She just wasn't counting on how cunning the old pirate would be.
"Within days, Archibeque rallied enough strength to lead a munity in her crew. Many of the pirates aboard the Crimson Bullock were much more inclined to fall in line under a male leader, so they easily betrayed their queen. It must have been some sense of family loyalty, however, that led Archibeque to spare Desdemona's life. He could have easily hauled her out into the middle of the ocean and left her to drown, but instead he gave her an ultimatum: she could become fish food, or she could fall in line as his first mate aboard the Bullock. She chose the latter.
"So now it goes," Zanzibar concluded, "that Desdemona is most likely biding her time. She awaits the prime opportunity to have her revenge on Admiral Archibeque. If we were to convince her of a common cause in sticking it to Archibeque, we may indeed be the allies she has always needed."
I looked at him, still processing the mound of information that came along with this fantastical tale, and said, "Why would she align with us? What can three men (well, two and a half, given your stature) do against an entire crew of pirates?"
Mandelbaum said that I didn't need to worry about that; all it would take was a bit of seduction on his part. After wooing the cunning temptress, she would be putty in his hands. I rolled my eyes at him for being so overconfident.
I knew full well that all of this was moot. Archibeque was undoubtedly listening to every word we said on his secret monitors. Even if Desdemona was willing to betray him, she would never attempt such a boldfaced mutiny with the likes of us at her side.
Just then, as if my mind were being read, the main hatch opened and Desdemona, Admiral Archibeque, and "Eye-patch" entered the corridor of the brig. I could see Mandelbaum perk up, and he posed his muscular frame up against the bars of his cell. Desdemona ignored him, however.
"That's quite an interesting tale, Zanzibar," she said. "I especially like the part about my great-great-grandfather here."
Then she reached out a hand, whisked the Admiral's hat right of his head, and KISSED HIM RIGHT ON THE MOUTH. We gasped as they started making out sloppily all over the place. Oh, it was sick!
I was about to gag. Mandelbaum's jaw was practically hanging on the floor. Then she pulled away from the Admiral, and a bit of wet spittle still clung to their lips. She turned to us and said, "It's too bad that your story is total crap. A 250-year-old frozen pirate? The Cursed Johnny? You've got quite an imagination."
By this point, Captain Zanzibar was laughing hysterically and rolling like a maniac on the floor. He pointed a finger at us mockingly as he laughed - no doubt because we had fallen for his ridiculous tale, which still made no sense to me. He couldn't even breathe he was laughing so hard.
The Admiral said, "I especially like the part about how you're planning a mutiny, Desdemona. Where do you come up with this stuff, Zanzibar?"
The little captain finally got control of his laughter and said, "I figured you two would be spying through the monitors and listening to that old yarn, clinging to every syllable of that tremendous tale from beginning to end - no doubt waiting for me to spill my secrets. But don't you get it, you idiots? That was all just a distraction. For any second now, I'll have full control of your submarine. Why, just ask my man Helmuth over there!"
We all turned toward the main hatch, and sure enough that annoying fellow with the EYE-PATCH was pointing his rifle at us. Desdemona made a move toward her pistol, but he pointed his gun at her and she stopped.
Zanzibar continued, "My crew may have been some of the most dishonest, ill-tempered, foul-smelling miscreants to ever sail (God rest their souls), but like I said, I can always count on my man Helmuth to come out of a scrap in one piece! He survived the scuffle, and just like I ordered him, he snuck aboard as part of your crew. Now if you don't mind, he'll be unlocking this infernal cage so that I can get to the control room of my new submarine." The one-eyed Helmuth, keeping his gun expertly trained on the others, silently snatched the keys and let Zanzibar loose from his cell.
I was amazed at how daring this whole escape had been and how Zanzibar really did seem to be pulling it off without a hitch. But we were all suddenly startled by a booming electronic voice on the intercoms and a screeching siren: <<INCOMING TORPEDO>>.
Before we knew it, the whole submarine was rocked to one side, and we tumbled over to the ground. Whatever had happened, it tipped the entire vessel on an angle, and we scrambled as tables and chairs, once situated on the floor, came spilling across the upturned room. We all looked at each other in confusion; I figured this was Zanzibar's doing, but even he seemed to have no idea what was going on.
The Admiral spat at him, "Some plan you've got there, aye?! You torpedo my sub, what do you think happens to you? You die, dummy!"
Zanzibar shouted back, "That wasn't me!"
"I don't have the patience for your games, Captain Zanzibar!"
"How the hell would I fire a torpedo at you if the Neptune's Phallus is being piloted by...?"
And then he trailed off. He scoffed and brushed a hand toward the rest of us, and he took off running down the corridor with Helmuth. Archibeque and Desdemona chased after them.
Mandelbaum noticed that the keys to the cells had fallen onto the floor in the confusion, and he quickly reached for them in order to free us. It was in this moment that I began to realize something that hadn't occurred to me until now. "Wait, so if Helmuth has been here the whole time... who is piloting the Neptune's Phallus?"
Mandelbaum let me loose from my cage and we too took off running down the corridor. We followed the others into the main control room of the submarine. By the time we arrived in the bridge, a video link had been brought up on the screens connecting us to the attacking vessel. Now we could see the person who was piloting the Phallus.
I exclaimed in sheer excitement, "MASTER!"
His familiar faced leaned in closer to the camera from the other side of the screen, and he blinked at me. "Reggie? Mandelbaum? Is that really you? What on earth are you two doing on that submarine?!"
I truly couldn't believe my eyes - he was alive! The words for the moment escaped me, "We could ask you the same thing, sir! How did you escape from the squirrels???"
"Squirrels?" he asked. "What squirrels?"
Desdemona chimed in, "He was never with the squirrels, you fool. Zanzibar just said that because he was too ashamed to admit he had let his sub get stolen by a blimpman."
The tiny captain scowled at her. I was so confused and asked, "But how did he escape from here?"
Again, Desdemona rolled her eyes at me. "How are you still not getting this? You can't believe anything this little liar says. He was never even here on this ship."
Master added, "That's true. I was drifting out at sea, and I must have arrived at the wrong place but at the right time. I saw two submarines. Archibeque was there carting off Zanzibar and his crew after some sort of battle they just had, and that's when I noticed that this submarine was completely unmanned. I snuck aboard unnoticed and shanghaied her for myself. Damn tricky to pilot, this thing is! It certainly lacks the fine craftsmanship of a blimp!"
Mandelbaum stepped in and asked: if my master didn't know we were on the Crimson Bullock, then why did he come back here?
He replied, "Well, the truth, my most loyal friend, is that I have no idea how to navigate this damn thing. I mean seriously, it's like steering a tin can full of beans in a bathtub. So I've just been drifting about aimlessly for a couple days now. I ran into a pod of those pesky dolphins, and they said they'd get me home as long as I helped them with a bit of their evangelical ministry. That's right, they needed some help seeking out new converts to their ridiculous cult. I guess the Hippies were getting on their nerves. So guess who gets to take a sip of that fish-flavored Kool-Aid now?"
The Admiral took a step forward and barked, "Good luck taking any of us submariners without a fight, you dog!"
But Master was unphased by his threat. Over the video feed, I saw him press a button on his control console and suddenly a horrible shrieking sound knocked us all off our feet. We held our ears as the piercing dolphin song resounded throughout our sub. Even though the Neptune's Phallus was a good distance away, her sonar was strong enough to pound our sub with a vicious sonic attack.
"Enjoy the hymns of the Majestic Dolphin Choir, chumps!" cried Master over the speaker.
As everyone writhed around on the ground holding their hands over the ears, Mandelbaum and I made eye contact and realized that the pirates had dropped their guns onto the deck. Now was our only chance! I rolled over quickly, easily snatching up Helmuth's rifle. But Mandelbaum was a half-second too slow, for when he reached for Desdemona's pistol, she intercepted him.
The two of them scuffled about on the ground for a second, rolling over each other like two twisting otters in the throes of mating. He came out on top in the more dominant position, pinning her to the ground under his bulky weight. Victory was his, but suddenly, his eyes went wide and there was a small click. He looked down, and even though Desdemona was pinned beneath him, she had managed to cock her pistol and had it pointed straight at Mandelbaum's crotch.
"Nice try," she said.
He looked over at me and apologized for not being fast enough; he told me that I should leave here a free man while I still had the chance. I could still make it over to the Neptune's Phallus and escape with my employer. Unfortunately, it was too late for Mandelbaum. I turned and looked back at the exit, then back at him, then back at the pirates staring me down; I knew I only had seconds to make my choice.
An idea dawned on me. I walked over to Mandelbaum, where he had Desdemona pinned down on her back, I bent down on one knee, and I kissed her on the lips as long and as passionately as I could manage. Her femininely delicate, yet piratey-harsh and liquor-traced breath filled my mouth, and she backed away at first, but then I could swear that she leaned into the kiss, urging me with her tongue to give her more. The dolphin song kicked into a crescendo as our kiss wore on.
When I pulled away from her succulent lips, I noticed that all eyes were on me. I had clearly shocked everyone in the room. No one's eyes were wider than Mandelbaum's, except for maybe Desdemona herself. Then I held up the pistol that I had managed to slip out of her hands during our distracting make-out.
"Here you go," I said, and I handed the pistol over to Mandelbaum.
Now that the two of us were armed, we made toward the exit. I pressed the comms button on the console and said, "Master, we're alright here. We're on our way over to the Phallus!"
As we ran, Captain Zanzibar shouted to us, "You better not put a scratch on my sub, you rats!"
And Admiral Archibeque chimed in, saying, "Don't worry. They won't put a scratch on it, but I will!"
We knew there was no time to waste, so we ran and never looked back. I've had my fill of pirates for one lifetime. We managed to get down the main corridor and up the escape ladder with no further harassment. We reached the upper deck of the sub, breathing in the salty air of the sea, and shielding our eyes from the bright sunlight we hadn't seen in days.
Floating just 50 meters away was the long blue Neptune's Phallus. I watched as the wheel of the main hatch spun, and the door opened up perpendicularly to the deck. Out popped Master's head.
"Ahoy, mateys!" he shouted cheerfully. It felt so good to see him alive and well! I was just about to cry out his name when--
A TORPEDO shot out of the Crimson Bullock and blasted the other sub all to hell. Shards of blue metal from its hull were flying everywhere in a mix of fiery explosions and torrential waves. Mandelbaum and I were tossed into the ocean as the impact of the explosion threw us backward. When I came to my senses, I realized I was under the water.
I still miraculously had a bit of breath left in my lungs, but I knew I only had seconds to spare before the cold waters sapped me of my energy. I swam as fast as I could, thinking only of the welfare of my dear master. Was there any chance that he survived the explosion? Or where was my dear friend Mandelbaum? I swam with all my might toward the location of the Phallus, scouring through the murky waters for signs of life, and the salt water burned my eyes.
Even now, I don't really recall the strange series of events that happened next. But somehow this is what I remember: first, I managed to reach out and find a piece of rope that had been tossed in the chaos. With that rope, I was able to snag a passing dolphin as he was swimming by. I wrangled the creature and made an impromptu saddle on his back. With a few tugs in one direction, I was able to steer him where I wanted him to go. On the back of my steed, I dove down deep into the water where I saw Mandelbaum's unconscious body sinking toward the ocean floor. I scooped him up onto the back of the dolphin with me. With his limp body hanging over the edge, the dolphin and I lifted him to the surface. I looked back and noticed that he had come to his senses. He thanked me for saving his life and called me a good friend. I was truly thankful to have earned this great hero's respect and admiration over the course of our journey together, and I was indeed thankful to call him a friend after our adventure.
But I had no time to think fondly on that moment. My manservant training kicked into gear (as they say it always does in a moment of crisis), and I knew I had work to do. I simply rolled him over onto a floating piece of wreckage from the Phallus and left him there so I could continue my relentless rescue effort for my master. For several more exhausting minutes, the dolphin and I bobbed up and down, in and out of the water, catching a quick breath of oxygen where we could, before plunging back down to continue the search.
I couldn't find signs of Master anywhere, no matter how hard I looked, but then my dolphin steed let out a squeak. I looked over and saw Master! ... but he looked far worse than Mandelbaum did when I found him. He was under the water, and blood was pouring from a gashing head wound, making a cloudy red wake that trailed behind his sinking body.
I tugged the dolphin's reins and we dived down quickly. Deeper and deeper we descended, and my lungs began to burn. I knew I was about to run out of oxygen and there was no way I would be able to reach my master. The piercing pain filled every square inch of my chest, but I was too resolved to turn back. I knew that if I were to die, it would be in the dutiful service of my master.
Suddenly, the dolphin squeaked, and I realized he was signaling for me to do something. He clacked his toothy jaws and bucked a little, and I realized that he wanted me to put my mouth onto his blowhole. I didn't even give it a second thought; I quickly plugged my lips around that fleshy flap and took in a deep, satisfying breath as the dolphin's exhale filled my lungs with glorious yet fishy air. With this, I had enough strength to continue the dive, and I scooped Master's body into my arms.
His body was so cold, and his skin was so blue. I knew in my heart that it was too late. He was dead...
We reached the surface, and I begged and pleaded with my dolphin to lend some assistance. "Please-- Please! I don't know what magic you dolphins possess, but you have saved this man's life twice before. Please help him one more time! I cannot let him die, not here, not like this!"
I continued to cry for help, but my dolphin just thrust his head up and down, splashing water and squeaking unintelligibly.
"I don't know what you're saying!" I shouted angrily.
Hopeless tears were filling my eyes as I sobbed, and I was consumed with indescribable despair. But suddenly I realized that more dolphins had arrived. My steed had summoned them. As the pod drew closer to Master and me, their squealing songs grew louder. Dolphin songs have always creeped me out, but hearing them sung together in unison is even creepier. But I was desperate for a miracle, so my heart became open to any possibility, no matter how weird. All I wanted was my dear master back. They swam around us in a synchronized circular motion, slowly building a whirlpool around us. Then they started pounding my master's body with the flat side of their tail fins. They got about a dozen good whacks on him when suddenly he gasped for air. He was alive! His eyes shot open wide as the amazing breath of life filled his lungs once again!
"MY POOR BLIMP!" he cried. And then he fell back asleep.
...
Hours passed and night fell. Though he was alive and well, Master had suffered a heavy trauma and remained fast asleep on the back of one of our dolphin steeds. I wrapped a cloth around his bleeding head. I had also managed to scoop up Mandelbaum by then, and the three of us rode on the backs of the dolphins until we were a safe distance away from the submarines. I had no intention of ever looking back or even giving a consideration to what might have happened to them. If Admiral Archibeque got his sub back up and running, or if Captain Zanzibar remained his prisoner, or if Desdemona would look back on our passionate kiss fondly - none of these were of any concern to me.
At one point, Mandelbaum leaned over and gave me a pat on the back. He praised me for my daring efforts, and thanked me for saving both his own life and the life of his companion. Though I assured him I was simply doing my job as a loyal manservant, he disagreed. He said, yes, saving my master was my duty, and if I had truly been doing my job, I would have saved my master first and would have been distracted by nothing else. But I hadn't saved him first; I saved Mandelbaum. Only one thing would have been powerful enough to cause a manservant to break his vow to his master: saving the life of a friend. He thanked me, and it was a sincere and honest affirmation of gratitude. To be considered a friend of this great man is indeed the highest compliment I can imagine.
It must have been late into the night, when the moon was high in the sky and the dolphins finally wound down their singing, when Master finally opened his eyes. He was still dazed from his injuries, but gradually a smile filled his face.
"YOU SAVED ME!" he shouted in the most heart-warming and thankful rejoicement I had heard in ages. "I knew! I always knew you'd be the one to save me, Mandelbaum!"
He leapt off his dolphin and swam over to Mandelbaum's. He climbed aboard and gave Mandelbaum the most appreciative hug, kissing him on the cheeks. "Thank you," he cried with joyful tears in his eyes. "Thank you!"
I don't really know what I thought in that moment. Who was I, a simple manservant, to ever take credit for such a rescue? It was my job, wasn't it? To serve my master in all endeavours? I didn't need credit or praise for simply doing my job.
Mandelbaum let out a little cough, nodding his head humbly toward my direction. Master finally looked over and spotted me. "Oh hi, Reggie. Didn't see you there. Wait... if you're here, who's tending the house? Did you tell Honeypoots you were coming here? She's going to be furious!"
I simply laughed and nudged my dolphin forward. Onward we'd ride. It was morning the next day when we were finally spotted by a passing vessel. It just so happened to be Nigel Hildebrandt, the man from the Gentlemen's Yacht Club who had lent us his boat. When Mandelbaum and I never returned with the Psyche, he had set out on a search party with some of his comrades. Up until that point, I had always underestimated the Gentlemen's Yacht Club as incapable adventurers up until that point, but here they were, proving their worth.
Nigel was furious to learn that we had lost his poor vessel during our encounter with the squirrels, but Mandelbaum promised to repay him with a future service. That debt seemed good enough for now.
All I can say is that I am happy to be headed home, for a return to the humble life of a manservant and a rock n' roll bassist sounds most appealing to me now than ever. I'll leave the adventuring to my employer and his dear companion. A little tune came into my head, however, as we sailed along, and I'm eager to see what my band thinks of it. I call it, "The Ballad of Reggie and Mandy."
#theend #rescue #epicfinale #submarinebattle #taleofthecursedjohnny
#pirates #hotkiss #dolphinrides #reggieandmandy
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