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wasn’t thinking of blending in “The Charge of the Light Brigade”: Cannon to the port of them, cannon to the starboard of them; some Major-General had blundered …
    Where were we? “So, you load everyone on a boat for Africa?”
    “Lisbon first.”
    “Don’t tell me: Mr Fflytte also wants to hire swarthy actors?”
    “In part—and it’s true, English actors just don’t look very piratical. Plus, Will the cameraman threatened mutiny at what an extended period of sand would do to his delicate machines, even though I don’t believe Salé is very sandy, and Bibi—the female lead—put her tiny foot down at the idea of what sand would do to her delicate complexion, so compromise was reached. We’ll cast the parts in Lisbon, then start rehearsals and work out the choreography of the fight scenes. After ten days, we’ll load the entire circus onto a boat—everything but the horses, thank heavens: I managed to convince Randolph that horses were one thing Morocco had plenty of—and sail to Salé. Or actually Rabat across the river, which I am told is friendlier to infidels.”
    “And you’re filming there so as to capture the essence of a seventeenth century pirate kingdom within a nineteenth century comic opera for the edification and amusement of twentieth century house-maids, factory workers, and garage mechanics.”
    He grinned. “You’ve got the idea now.”
    Even in the early stages, it turned out, the script would make for a two-hour picture, and Hale admitted that it was likely to grow by at least half. Apparently, embedding an operetta into a film, then making a film of the process, requires time.
    And although the The Pirates of Penzance is all about the songs and the silliness, Pirate King would be dead earnest and without the songs.
    In addition, to put the cap on the enterprise, certain portions of the film were due to be tinted, in an as-yet secret (and, I suspected, as-yet unperfected) technique similar to the DeMille-Wyckoff process, which Fflytte intended to patent under his own name.
    Pirate King would either set the standard for movie-making for a generation to come, or it would set a match under the Fflytte fortune, incinerating a boat-load of careers along the way. And displeasing the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the current resident of Buckingham Palace, and a number of Peers of the Realm.
    Actual peers, one assumed, not fictional and piratic peers.

CHAPTER FIVE

FREDERIC [ looking off ]: By all that’s marvellous, a bevy of beautiful maidens!
             RUTH [ aside ]: Lost! lost! lost!
    T HAT FIRST EVENING , Hale and I worked until nearly midnight. At 7:00 the next morning I turned the key to the Covent Garden office, and the telephone rang: The shipping agency was concerned that a trunk labelled with the name of Scott appeared to be leaking something that smelt of whisky. I made a note for Hale, reached to take off my hat, and the instrument rang again. I laid the hat on the desk and took up the receiver: An irritable voice demanded Hale, asked who I was, said never mind that I’d do, and issued a command that the offices were under no circumstances to be left unattended for so much as ten seconds that day since a delivery was to be made that would have disastrous consequences if someone were not there to receive it. Or so I guessed was the message, it was a bit garbled and before I could get a single word in, the man rang off. I set the earpiece into its hooks, reached for the buttons of my coat, and it rang again.
    It did not stop ringing until the evening, alternating with the arrival of telegrams. (The new actress whom Geoffrey Hale had offered a part the previous afternoon agreed to his terms: I found the blank forms in a filing cabinet while the telephone balanced atop the files, its cord stretched to its full length; typed in the relevant information as I fielded three more telephone calls; handed the forms to Hale for signature as he dashed past an hour later;