Log of Sloop RedWolf
3/30/32

“Pirate’s Cove”, Casino Island.
Intended to have left for South Island today, but last night received a note from Shanghai Sadie that someone had been asking about me. I called the number they’d left and am to see the man later this evening.

 The Marleybone Grand Hotel is not the sort of place I usually visit, but that’s where my instructions said to go. I was looking around the lobby when I was approached by a very large tiger wearing the characteristic turban and beard of a Sikh. “The Sahib wishes to see you upstairs,” he said with a bow, and I followed him to one of the hotel’s office suites on the 3rd floor. When he opened the door, I saw an oddly mixed company seated around a large table. Besides a small pack of unspecified canines in the unmistakable garb of Khyber Hills men, there was a Dingo in regulation khaki shorts and cocked-up felt hat, a fat Indian Ape in a pink turban, a large bear in an open-necked white silk shirt & jodhpurs, and rising to meet me, a coyote wearing the brown leather jacket and fedora that seems to be the current ‘adventurer’ uniform of the day.

 “You must be Capt. Gary,” he said, shaking my hand. “Let me introduce you to our little group here! This old chap,” (pointing to the bear) “is Ramsey. Over there in the Turban is Babu. These are Ali and his Sons,” (indicating the Hills men). “Jerry Ross here, is the Aussie, and you’ve met our Mr. Singh on the way up! Me, I’m James Gringer, but everyone just calls me Jimgrin!”

 Introductions and handshakes out of the way, I thought it was time to get down to business, but a cup of rum punch was put into my hand and I was willing to let things take a bit longer! While the rum in this part of the world isn’t bad, it’s still nothing like the real Jamaica product! Eventually, though, the story came out that Jimgrin and his mates were on a treasure hunt! It seems that they usually harbor in India, but a Priest friend of theirs who goes in for collecting old books had come across a ship’s log from the 1700s. None other than the Black Dolphin, the ship of the notorious Pirate Dick Redpaw himself! What’s more, from some cryptic entries in the log, they were sure they were onto the location of where the old Sea Dog had buried his treasure…right here in the Spontoon Islands!

 I’ve heard of lots of ‘authentic pirate treasure maps’ in my days, though few had led to any more treasure than what went into the pockets of them what sold them in the first place. While I wished these lads well on their hunt, I failed to see why they needed me in on this! Certainly I could never ship all this crew aboard my little Red Wolf! Jimgrin explained, though, that what they wanted was someone familiar with sea charts and local sailing conditions to go over their own calculations. Seems the directions they were so sure they’d found out had led them nowhere once they actually arrived here at the Islands.

Laughing at my own foolishness in getting involved with something as silly as this, I said I was too old for treasure hunting, “but send me a dozen doubloons if you find them & a couple bottles of this fancy rum, & I’ll be happy to try and help.”

Spreading out a large chart of the archipelago, they gave me compass bearings they’d deciphered from the old log. Sure enough, it took them nowhere but deep water off the north coast of the Main Island. “Your first problem,” I told them, “is that you’re being too exact and new-fangled! You just read me off bearings in degrees, whereas the old-time sailors used compass points like ‘North-by-Northwest’ and the like. Now let’s try those bearings again using the old style of directions.”

The new results were a bit more promising. While the lines no longer came to a clear convergence, they now described a triangle over a spot on the Main Island’s northern shoreline. Two of the triangle’s points were on the island itself; one at the top of a steep crag; and the other in a small marsh near its base. The third was on a small rocky islet about 100 yards offshore.

“That offshore rock there is your most likely spot,” I told them. “You have to think like a Pirate, who’s nothing more than a lazy sailor, when you come down to it! Would you haul a heavy load of gold all the way up to the top of that crag? Or carry it through a stinking swamp hoping to find a safe spot to leave it? That’s far too much work either way! Now look: This islet is located where the low tide would carry a boat right to it, & high tide would take the boat right back to land again. And tides are known to cut sea caves out of just the sort of soft rock you’d find around here. Sink me if this rock isn’t likely to have a cave on the inland side that’s accessible by low water & safely covered over by high water, and no digging required! So that’s my advice, mates, for what it’s worth; though I still think you’re more likely to find a wild goose than any pirate treasure!”

I left with Jimgrin’s thanks and an unopened bottle of his rum for my trouble, & set sail for South Island as planned on the next morning’s tide.

It wasn’t until a few months later that I washed ashore into Shanghai Sadie’s again. I was just settling down into a nice cheeseburger washed down with a Navy Grog, when Sadie comes up and hands me a package that she said some foreign gentlemen left for me some time ago, saying it was “something I’d asked them for”. Opening it, I found two bottles of expensive Jamaican Rum, and a pouch containing exactly 12 gold doubloons!

G.