AN ISLAND RACE

Well, The Autolycan is back!  An adventure story for you this month, loosely based - OK, extremely loosely based - on one of the classics.  Hope you like it, and if you're new to the blog it might be best to go back over the past two or three editions and read those before embarking on this one.  I don't suppose it'll make much more sense if you do, although it might just set this latest effort in context.

AN ISLAND RACE

The UK is full of heavy drinkers with bad eating habits who are ignorant, intolerant and too nationalistic – so it’s just as well that we are also very polite.

It might sound like a stereotypical list of national traits, but these are the views of more than 5,000 young adults from five different countries who were asked to give their opinion on modern Britain by the British Council.                                          The Independent

Jim's the name. Jim Orkins, if I've spelt that right, probably not. But who gives a stuff anyway? All I ever wanted was a quiet life really, never thought of meself as having adventures, unless I could get on X-Factor. I could do Land of Hope and Glory. That'd show 'em. You don't need to know how to spell difficult stuff like 'tallent' for that, though to be fair you probably need some. Pity.

Not too bad a place to grow up, really, a pub. The Admiral Benbow was its real name, near Bristol, though my Dad who ran the place used to call it the Amoral Bimbo. Dunno what the first word meant, perhaps he just couldn't spell 'Admiral', even if it was on the sign over the door. Wouldn't be surprising, none of us couldn't spell nothing, not even our own names, like you just saw, but he was dead right about the bimbos who used to turn up weekends. Most pubs in the area wouldn't serve Guinness and peach schnapps, but Dad says give 'em what they want and we made a killing, so to speak.

Anyway, one day all hell breaks loose. Bloke comes in, don't look well, orders up a double Jack Daniel's and vodka, says it always makes him feel better. Don't know if it was that or yesterday's chicken nuggets warmed up, but half an hour later he keels over and pops his clogs! Coppers everywhere. Me and Dad went through his stuff though, know what I mean?, and found a map of some island what was supposed to have buried treasure. There was an X showing where.

'Aye, aye,' says Dad, quick on the uptake, like, 'what we need is a few of the lads out the public bar to nip over and dig it up, they haven't got a match till a week Sunday, plenty of time.'

'Probably need someone who's got a boat then,' I said.

He looked at me.

'Good thinking, son,' he said, 'I'll give Smollett a bell.'

Smollett takes a bit of liquid persuasion like, specially when Dad says he knows a bloke who can cook a bit and when he turns up he's only got one leg and says to call him Long John Silver. Anyway, the lads from the public bar are up for it, and load this boat – the Hispaniola it's called - with as many cases of lager as they can squeeze in. Dad says I can go too if I want, and off we all go.

All goes well at first, but after a bit Smollett works out the lager isn't going to last and says we'll have to ration it. That's when things first start to kick off a bit, lads up in arms, Long John Silver winding them up like bloody Disraeli on heat. Smollett threatens the cat o' nine tails, all very commanding like, but looks a bit of a berk when it turns out Long John Silver has got it and has been using it to stir the porridge.

Over on this little island itself, it turns out, there's just one bloke lives there all alone, Ben Gunn they call him, probably gone a bit doolalley what with living by himself for years. Course, he's got no idea about Smollett and the lads coming his way. First inkling he gets is when lager cans start drifting in on the incoming tide. Hundreds of 'em. Then he notices all these seagulls on the island, all of them looking fat and content and getting stuck into pizza and chips, some of the pizza still in cardboard boxes. He puzzles over this for a bit, then the penny drops.

'Oh God,' he says to himself, 'Brits. Could be in for a bit of a barney here.'

Day or so later, his suspicions get worse. Sailing ship appears on the horizon, steering a zigzag course at best and going round in circles for much of the time, sails rigged – if that's the word – Grand Old Duke of York style, neither up nor down. Then he catches a kind of loud belching followed by a raucous bellowing on the wind, but the bellowing don't make no sense to him – 'Chelsea till I die!', 'In-ger-lund! In-ger-lund! In-ger-lund!' What can it all mean?

Back on the Hispaniola there's pretty much only me and Smollett what's sober and still remembers why we've come on this trip, and between us we manage to steer more or less towards the island. Fifty yards or so out, Smollett says we can't go no closer, they'll have to wade, and the lads start disappearing over the side. God knows what Gunn makes of them, yelling and hollering like a pack of bloody hyenas, plus shaven heads, tattoos, Union Jack shorts and baseball caps, sunburnt beer bellies, the lot. It's like the Sealed Bloody Knot re-enacting the first Battle of Magaluf. Smollett reckoned he'd never heard Rule Britannia sung so tunelessly, albeit lustily. Course, the lads have forgotten all about the treasure, they're hoping for bars and local women instead, but they're about to be cruelly disappointed. I thought that might be when things turn nasty, but Smollett just smiles and says 'it'll be fine, they're Brits, remember, models of old world politeness.'

To everybody's surprise, this bloke Gunn appears on the shore to meet them. Tall, unshaven but a big welcoming smile, he sticks out his hand to greet them. Long John Silver advances at the head of this alarming gaggle of dripping wet drunks and for a moment I think perhaps Smollett's got it all wrong about being polite. But no! Long John Silver grasps Gunn's hand and goes 'Good afternoon sir, delighted to make your acquaintance, thank you for the wonderful welcome, perhaps I could introduce the lads.'

'An absolute pleasure!' murmurs Gunn, relaxing a bit, and there follows a whole load of handshaking plus 'How do you do?', 'Lovely place you have here!', 'I say, what perfectly charming gladioli! Did you grow them from seed?', all that. The lads really turn on the courtesy, and one even presents Gunn with a Chelsea pennant, which – luckily – he accepts with due reverence.

And Gunn's just the same. He doesn't quite know why, but questions like 'Have you come far?' and 'And what do you do?' keep occurring to him, and it don't seem to matter that he don't get no real answers, largely down to the lads not having a clue by now.

Then Smollett looks at me cunning like, and says 'Look, there's still plenty of lager left, more than I let on, what if you and me ferry it all ashore, keep the party going, you rustle up a whole load of burgers, we're up to the ears in ketchup, even they can't get through all that. Then we wait for them all to crash out and while they're sleeping it off you and me nip out to where X marks the spot, dig up the treasure and disappear sharpish.'

'OK,' I says, but once the lads are well and truly plastered and we nip off we finds to our horror that there ain't no treasure, all been dug up years ago. Smollett turns purple and lets out this great bellow of rage.

'Well, well, well!' says this voice behind us, and we spin round to see Gunn, big smile on his face. 'No treasure here,' he says, 'used to be but it's long since gone.'

'But the bloke in the pub,' stammered Smollett, 'the one who died, he had a map, showed it all here......'

Gunn looks shocked at this, seems he knew the bloke.

'Died?' he says, 'Died?' and there's a long pause. When he looks up he says 'Well, that's the last bit of fun I'll be getting for a while then.'

'Fun?'

'Yes. We were working together - he'd lure parties of treasure seekers out here and we'd watch what happened when they found there wasn't any. I got plenty of material that way. Well, it rather seems the party's over and this is the final act in the story.'

'Material? Final act in the story?' repeated Smollett. 'I don't understand. Who are you? And where are we?'

'My name is Gunn. Ben Gunn. But I think I'm going to have to change it for something with a bit more gravitas. Something that suits a literary figure rather better.'

'Literary figure? Why? But.....'

'As for where we are, that is quite straightforward. I moved here to this tiny dot of land not far from the French coast some years ago. You see, until I gave up work I was the last Commissary of the Demesne of Sequelle on the island of Alderney. Life grew a bit too hectic for me there, and I retired here to the tiny island of Prequelle where I write stories. I find myself increasingly interested in exploring antecedents and origins, and have started to write about what has happened in the past to help bring great events about. I'm afraid this particular story now seems to have come to an end, and I shall have to write something which explains how I got here, how the treasure got here, what has happened to it and where you fit in. Think of it as a prequel – what happened before you got involved. I must think of a snappy title for it, though.'

'And what about your name?'

'I want something more imposing than Ben Gunn, something more fitting for a man of letters. Three names sounds distinguished, wouldn't you say? You know, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. That Arthur Conan Doyle is shaping up to be very good.'

'So what are you going to choose?'

'Well, I've been thinking. Robert Louis Stevenson sounds suitably grand, don't you think? But I still need a title for the story.'

Smollett is still furious over there being no treasure, and comes over all sarcastic like. 'I'd call it Unreal Disaster,' he growls.

A light comes into Gunn's eyes. 'Do you know,' he says, 'I think you've got it, sort of. I think there could be a decent anagram there.'                                                                                                                                                                                      

(BONUS) ANAGRAM CORNER

                                       NICOLA STURGEON

                            I URGE SCOTLAN' ON!