Barrie James Matthew - Hooks tale : being the account of an unjustly villainized pirate written by himself

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2017 by John Pielmeier

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First Scribner hardcover edition July 2017

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Interior design by Kyle Kabel

Jacket design Jennifer Wang

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-5011-6105-6

ISBN 978-1-5011-6107-0 (ebook)

For Tiger Lily and Wendy

and my dear Daisy

James Cook

For Irene,

who is my Tiger Lily and my Wendy

and sometimes my Josephine

John Leonard Pielmeier

W hen I was six years old or thereabouts, I had a horrific nightmare that I still remember quite clearly.

Earlier in the day I had gone walking alone in the Kensington Gardens, which was quite close to my home. I was an independent child, and the dangers lurking in wait for independent children of today were unknown back then, so I felt quite safe. I came upon a thick thorny shrub during my walk, in the middle of which rested a tiny nest containing four eggs. Curious to examine them, I reached my little hand through the thorny protection and was startled when, before I could come close to touching the nest, there appeared out of nowhere a small white bird that began attacking me from above. Undoubtedly, this was the mother keeping a lookout for predators, and on spying my intent she swooped down on me with a sharp high cry. I ducked away from her attack, at the same time jerking my hand out of the bush, and in doing so I scratched myself on the thorns rather badly. With blood running down my fingers, I raced home.

That night my dreams took me back to the incident, only this time, as the bird swooped, the tiny eggs hatched four little monster-birds who began jabbing their needle-long beaks into my hand. One of them caught hold of a vein and began tugging it as if it were a worm. The others took hold of it too, and started fighting for possession. With each yank more and more of the vein emerged until it broke in two, spouting blood. The pain was excruciating. I seized the babies, all four, in my fist and crushed them, while my free hand grabbed hold of the mother. I put her head in my mouth and bit down hard.

I awoke screaming, my tongue bloody from where I had bitten it. My mother arrived at my bedside, and I was soon comforted, but what strikes me to this day is this: this nightmare of the innocent intent, the swooping bird, the bloodied hand, and my murderous revenge was but a foreshortened narrative of the rest of my life.

* * *

Everything you think you know about me is a lie.

* * *

I was born James Cook on the twenty-third of February in the year of our Lord 1860. I knew little of my father, James, who was a captain in the Royal Navy and who was lost at sea in the year of my birth. My mother and I lived in a small town house in Kensington, supported by an annual stipend bestowed on us by my fathers family, not a single member of whom I had ever met and who steadfastly refused contact with us but for the January deposit paid into my mothers banking account. She missed my father terribly. In me, I imagine, she saw a shadow of his likeness.

My mother and I were quite close. An emotionally delicate woman, she depended on me for company and it was I alone who could brighten her life. She suffered from frequent and severe headaches, punctuated by bouts of melancholia, and would often, during those early years, disappear into her room for days at a time, emerging with apologies and much self-recrimination. I never minded being alone in our little house, however, it being filled with memories of my father.

The ground-floor back room of the house was his library and was stocked with books he had acquired on his travels or received as gifts. Though I was a precocious lad, I did not learn to read until, beginning at the age of seven, I was sent to Mr. Wilkinsons private day school in Kensington. From there I returned nightly to dine with my mother and, once my reading skills were up to it, to devour many of these books, hoping to find some clue as to my fathers nature and interests. Most of the books were of the sea.

My favorite of these, A History of the Voyages of Captain James Cook, was inscribed with my fathers name and the date of his graduation from Eton College. It was, according to my mother, a gift from my fathers father, who was a direct descendant of the brave captain himself, though I never knew whether that blood came to me legitimately or by more questionable means. I devoured the History as if it were my own.

Cook was quite a famous person even in my day; indeed he was perhaps the greatest English explorer who ever lived. He circumnavigated the globe two and a half times, discovering most of what we know today as the South Sea Islands, not to mention New Zealand and Australia. Much maligned and misunderstood by people then and now (as am I, dear reader), he was a man of science, of peace, and of unbounded curiosity. He was murdered in the middle of his last voyage by the natives of the Sandwich Islands. They reportedly cooked and ate him. My young imagination envisioned them serving him with grilled tomato, in a sandwich.