#conman and swindler extraordinaire

[honourablejester]

Random Interlude

My father, while we were talking about Shannara and Wishsong of Shannara and Slanter the gnome and pragmatic cowards with a badly hidden honourable streak, reminded me of another rank cad and shirker and dishonourable coward, with not so much of a honourable streak: Colonel Thomas Blood, from George MacDonald Fraser’s ‘The Pyrates’ (yes, based -if loosely- on the historical Colonel Thomas Blood, the one who tried to steal the crown jewels, had a chat with the king, and got off scott free from it). The Pyrates is one of the original golden age of piracy spoofs, written in the 1980s, and primarily follows Captain Benjamin Avery of the King’s Navy, a fully over the top parody of a classic swashbuckling hero, who gets embroiled in the theft and search for a jewelled crown that’s been taken and split into six parts by a cadre of pirate captains (who, again, are ‘loosely’ based on RL golden age pirates). But also embroiled in said mess, as a counterpoint, is our own Irish Colonel Thomas Blood, who is, to put it mildly, a card-carrying scoundrel.

Now, this was from the 80s, and a parody, so the treatment of various topics and the behaviour of some of the characters is a bit … yeah. But. I do enjoy it for what it is, and I’ll always remember one particular Blood and Avery moment, very early in the book. Blood has gotten in a fight with Avery, thinking the dashing blond idiot will be easy to knock off, and then he can snaffle the crown for himself. But he gets injured during the fight, which will ID him if anyone goes looking for whoever knocked off Avery on deck during the night, so he has to recalculate and make Avery believe it on the fly. So he decides to abruptly, mid-fight, to disarm the man with a dirty trick and then pretend to be another Admiralty agent sent to shadow and test Avery, and we get this gem:

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“All right, all right!” Blood interrupted warmly. “Can you think of a better cover?” he asked knowingly.

“You mean,” whispered Avery incredulously, “that you’re not really a notorious foul villain of ill repute—”

“Rank repute.”

“— Rank repute and noisome infamy, steeped i’—”

“If I was, you wouldn’t be standing here running off at the mouth, remember?” snapped Blood. “Some of us,” he went on virtuously, “don’t mind being given a bad name if it enables us to serve his majesty better. We don’t insist on going poncing about like Sir Walter Raleigh. We are content to wear,” he added bitterly, “dishonour’s mask in honour’s cause.” Here, that’s not bad, he thought; a nifty to remember.

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I just love that abrupt mid-combat switch, where the murder failed, so it’s time for a quick change-of-pace con to get him back out of the hole again. And Avery, being a very logical and virtuous hero-type, and also familiar with the British Admiralty and their tendency to just do things and not tell the Joe Soaps on the ground about it, buys this hook line and sinker. And is all anguished that he failed the test, and is found wanting, and not only doubted but wounded this ‘honest, sturdy gentleman’. They head back below decks arm in arm, and as they part:

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There they bade each other a comradely good-night, and sought their respective cabins, Avery thinking, what a worthy fellow, and Blood thinking, what an amazing birk.

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It is a fun book, and Blood is easily the best part of it. ‘Here, that’s not bad, he thought; a nifty to remember.’ It’s a great line, dishonour’s mask in honour’s cause, and he’s just making it up off the cuff based on what he thinks this idiot will swallow.

You’ve got to love a quick-thinking swindler, even when he’s got no particular morals to speak of. Just for the craft. Heh.