bout de papier, Vol. 20, No. 1 (2003) — Spring/Summer 2003 // Printemps/Été 2003, pp. 40–44
“Missing?” cried Chief MacBannock. “H script man across the table shrugged an states lost patience with how we treater First Avenue is gone, leaving only a new tle saying, ’What part of YES is it that you the disappearance took place on the w the President came to address the Gene and sank without a trace.”
Macßannock blanched. “I’d better call in reinforcements.” Minutes later, they were joined by ace logician Ludwig Liebnitz and his top analyst, Esmeralda Beluga. The Chief explained, “United Nations headquarters has disappeared. This is the top remaining UN official, Gordon San Ytère.” The visitor summarised the situation. Questioned by Liebnitz on possible motive, he added, “Our best guess is that the vanishing act was organised by Defence Secretaries Ginsfeld and Loon after the Secretary General refused to sign international letters of marque allowing their ships to stop and search any ship on the high seas without regard for international law. They wanted such letters as backing for the President’s new privateering security initiative. I was involved in the debate as head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Centre for Responsible Action on Piracy. (It’s the only UN agency without an acronym.)”
Liebnitz nodded sharply. “That would fit in with intelligence just received from one of our agents. An unknown man with a thick Texas accent recently applied to Rialto Sleazewagon’s Scoundrels-Я-Us outfit for the clone of a famous dead pirate — we don’t know which one. Sleazewagon also supplied the clone with an unusual mix of equipment
– heavy-duty mining lasers, four hundred zeppelins and the sternwheeler Robert E Lee. My guess is that the pirate crew cut off the entire UN complex from its foundations, suspended it from the balloons and towed it away.” Esmeralda sputtered, “And nobody noticed?” San Ytère shrugged, “New Yorkers, you know? But it would explain the unscheduled fireworks display and old ships parade reported by a few tourists. To say nothing of the dents in the Brooklyn Bridge. But where is the complex now? If we could only find it, we could force its return — its not as if the pirates or their employers could pretend it was some other UN headquarters.”
Liebnitz looked thoughtful. “As it happens, we have an agent in place at the secretariat building — Ms Beluga’s husband, Attila McGee. And we haven’t seen him since Friday.” Esmeralda gasped, “When he didn’t come home, I just assumed he got lost in the elevator again!” “What was he doing at the UN?” the Chief asked his ace logician. Liebnitz replied, “Working on a secret project to revitalise its debates, especially the problem of delegates drowsing off. As you know, UN meetings are simultaneously interpreted in six languages, but the earpieces have lots more channels. So we are programming channel seven to play a continuous loop of music
– with the volume control stuck at VERY LOUD. : Delegates who fear they will pass out can cut : to that channel for a jolt. We started with the marches of John Philip Sousa but have received many other suggestions — the 1812 Overture with cannonfire actually trained on the orchestra, selected battle scenes from Chinese opera performed on the didgeridoo, In-A-Gadda- Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly (no way to increase the volume of the original), The Ride of the Valkyries played by the massed bagpipe bands of the Glasgow school system. As a wrinkle, we were considering putting an antisocial 14 year old boy in a glass booth over each meeting room and giving him control of a remote control button that would allow him to switch any delegate’s earpiece to channel seven if they had actually fallen asleep.” “That would certainly liven things up,” admitted San Ytère, “but how does it help us?” Esmeralda replied, “It explains the strange MP3 download I got this morning by e-mail. It was a music file containing all the pieces you just mentioned — but with the addition of a long piece by Erich Wolfgang Korngold — the greatest composer of background scores for pirate films. It must be a message from Attila. “ Sure enough, MacBannock’s technicians found that McGee had used a steganographic algorithm to hide a complex message in the Korngold score by altering the notes slightly. “That explains the flat C# in bar 17 of the oboe part,” murmured Liebnitz, as the decryption printer spat out three sheets of paper. Liebnitz studied the first one — which bore the text “TSCG MCRD]IS: LCICNCEACE” and said, “a cyphertext, probably simple letter substitution, but not enough letters to do a frequency analysis.” Esmeralda studied the other two sheets, a list of clues on a pirate theme and a matrix half-filled with crosses. “The matrix is a skeleton puzzle — how appropriate. Attila has added 14 small letters in italics. According to standard cypher procedure, if we fill in the matrix with the answers to the clues, then the letters written into the squares with the italic inserts set up one-to-one substitution linkages.” “What?” said MacBannock and San Ytère in stunned unison. Liebnitz explained, “If for example we write an O into a box that already contains an italic P, then that means we replace O with P whenever it appears in the cypher-text, to get a clear message.” “Oh right, of course,” mumbled the Chief.
The following clues all relate to matters piratical (broadly defined). The numbers at the end of each clue indicate the number of words in the answer and the number of letters in each word (e.g. [5,7] would mean an answer of two words with five and seven letters in that order). The answers come out in alphabetical order according to a key word in each answer; this key word is usually but not always the first word in the answer. There is at least one key word beginning with each letter of the alphabet.
(1) Captain Kidd’s most famous ship
19, 6]
Caribbean pirate, name derived from
the French slang of the time for
“barbeque” [9]]
(3) A winch used to raise the anchor [7]
(4) Mediterranean pirates, especially
North African [8]
(5) He plays Jack Sparrow in “Pirates of
the Caribbean” [6, 4]
(6) Spanish coins: when they are broken
up as intended, “two bits” of them
makes a quarter [6, 2, 5]
(7) Surname of the man who played
“Captain Blood” and many other
movie pirates [5]
(8) Sir Francis Drake’s ship [6, 4]
(9) Peter Pan’s opponent [7, 4]
(10) Island groups in East and West
versions, both pirate haunts [6]
(11) Robert Louis Stephenson novel [8, 6]
(12) The pirate banner [5, 5]
(13) Captured by pirates in 75 BC, he
talked them into demanding a
higher ransom for him because he
considered the first one demeaning
[6, 6]
(14) A privateer from New York, he preyed
legally on French ships but was hung
as a pirate after his biggest prize
turned out to belong to the East India
Company [4]
(15) A Chinese Ming general opposing
the Qing takeover, he captured
Taiwan in 1661 and used it as a base
for piratical raids [7]
(16) A pirate with a parrot and crutches,
played by Robert Newton on 50s TV
14,4,6]
(17) Strands someone on a desert island,
colourfully [7]
(18) Jules Verne submariner, a pirate to
many navies if not to himself [4]
(19) River on the north coast of South
America, a pirate haven 17]
(20) Gilbert and Sullivan operetta [7, 2, 8]
(21) Aftermost and highest deck of a
sailing ship [4]
(22) Blackbeard’s ship [5, 5, 7]
(23) Daniel Defoe’s novel, based on the
experiences of Alexander Selkirk,
victim of 17 above [8, 6]
(24) North coast of South America and
the Caribbean, to pirates of the
golden age [7, 4]
(25) Blackbeard’s surname [5]
(26) Pirate haven off the north coast of
Haiti; its name means “turtle” [7]
(27) Anglo-French war settlement of 1713
that put a lot of privateers out of
work – and into piracy [6, 2, 7)
(28) Northern sea-raiders who destroyed
the monastery of Lindisfarne in 794
[7]
(29) Leave the ship at sword-point
without a boat [4, 3, 5]
(30) Traditional instructions on finding the
location of treasure on a map [1, 5,
3,41
(31) The ends of spars hung horizontally
across a mast to support the sails [8]
(32) Pirate haven and East African
sultanate [8]
The answers will also fit into the attached
skeleton chart – and only one way will work.
Esmeralda and Ludwig worked assiduously
and quickly solved the clues, the skeleton
matrix and the cypher, to provide the UN
official with the name of the pirate clone and
the former pirate haven to which he had towed the UN complex. Soon it was back in place on the East River, with Attila at work on a new revitalisation proposal — adapting the principles of reality TV to UN negotiations. You see, at the end of each week, the negotiators get to vote on eliminating the most obstreperous delegation …
Can you duplicate Liebnitz’ and Emeralda’s feat by naming the pirate and his haven? Not necessary to enter the contest, but can you also provide answers to the 32 clues and place them in the matrix? (The Internet site at www piratesinfo com may help.) bout de papier will decide the winner by drawing from a box containing all correct entries received by September 30, 2003. The winner will receive a book autographed by A Aalto — George MacDonald Fraser’s Pyrates, which inter alia provides interesting background on one of Don Gordo’s direct ancestors.
View the original scanned pages →
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 20, No. 1 (2003) — Spring/Summer 2003 // Printemps/Été 2003, pp. 40–44. Read the rest of this issue →
