Begin the Pirates

I told them that odds were good the ship wasn’t a threat. I told them that it was a big ocean, lots of ships, most captains and sailors only wanted to make it home safe without inviting trouble. I told them I often visited with other ships while out on business or pleasure. We’d trade supplies, stories, and information. We’d all enjoy a brief reprieve from the solitary nature of our respective journeys then be on our way. I told them that occasionally we’d even caravan to the same port. I knew ships and crews across the globe, this could be a friend or acquaintance who recognized my sails and was coming to say hello. That’s what I told them.

I put the spyglass down and went back to Elizabeth in the galley. “You still remember how to get to Zheng’s?”

“Captain. You wrote out the course. The triangulation. Islands we’ll pass. Everything. We went over it yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that. Yes, I remember.”

“Good. Good.” I absently picked at a loaf of bread. “You remember where her colors are stored?”

“Yes, Captain.” Elizabeth stopped mixing whatever she was mixing in a bowl. “Something the matter?”

“Possibly.” It was more of an admission than I’d given Izzy. “You haven’t forgotten how to shoot?” Now Elizabeth dropped her wooden spoon, wiped her hands and walked up the steps. A moment later she was back.

“There’s a ship,” she announced. “I don’t like that ship. Where did it come from?” She seemed just as miffed as I did about missing the arrival of that ship off our stern. She wasn’t blaming the portal like I was, just our own lack of awareness. “Do we raise more sails? Pick up speed and run?”

“They are on the same wind we are. If they put out the oars they’ll catch us. If they plan to attack we will just have to meet it. It’s possible they are friendly.” We met each others’ eyes and silently weighed the odds that we were about to make new friends.

“Captain, suppose I go review the arsenal?”

“Yes. Do that. I’m going to go keep an eye on the ship.”

Elizabeth went down the short hallway to a trapdoor which led to a smuggling area/bilge pump/arsenal closet. I went back up top.

I kept the Try Your Luck on a steady course throughout the rest of the day. When the sun set, I forbid any electric lights. Candles and lanterns only tonight. Izzy and John Henry were the most upset about this. They liked watching movies on her laptop or his tablet together in the evenings.

I could see the lights from the other ship flickering across the water. We were now close enough to hear a few shouts across the water, nothing intelligible that I could make out, nothing to distinguish any aggression. I didn’t even pretend to sleep. When the sun rose, the ship had gained on us a little. We could still only see them with the spyglass and, by the occasional flash of light, I knew they could see us with their own lenses.

They gained on us through the night and by sun up they were close enough to begin signaling. I started pulling flags and colors out of a storage bin. Zheng’s colors went at the top, followed by my own flag, followed by several signal flags that would indicate that if attacked I would fight back. I still held out hope that the ship might see Zheng’s colors and back off either because it was one of her ships or it wouldn’t want to make Zheng angry.

The ship responded by raising its own colors. The language of flags is amorphous at best in this era but it was clear they weren’t interested in negotiation or trade.

Then a sharp crack and puff of smoke emanated from the following ship. Crap on a cracker. Warning shots were far easier to interpret than flags. Several more shots followed. They were still too far off for any lead to reach us. This was a scare tactic.

“What the fuck was that?!” Izzy raced up to me, wound her arm through mine, binding me to her side. Her eyes were glued to the oncoming ship. “Are...are they firing?” she hissed in my ears. I turned to look her square in the eyes but nothing came out of my mouth.

“Captain?” Elizabeth and Catherine had drifted over to look and hear what I had to say.

I looked at my crew and back towards the ship off my stern. Catherine and the baby would need to be hidden. Elizabeth could shoot and Izzy would be useful with her bow and some arrows. Maybe flaming arrows. Both women were young and petite. When –- if it came to hand to hand fighting they’d quickly get overwhelmed. My arsenal had weapons that were sure to give us an advantage but it wasn’t inexhaustible and there was nothing on board that could sink an attacking ship.

“Elizabeth,” I handed her the spyglass, “stay at the rail, I want an accurate count of how many men are on that ship. Catherine, go to your cabin, pack a bag of supplies for you and the baby. Figure you could be hidden for days. Wear pants or something light. You’ll be hot under there. Izzy, they are going to need food. Catherine and the baby will be hiding, possibly for over a week. She’ll need food that won’t need heat and won’t spoil.” Izzy was panicking already. That would not do right now. “Come on, Izzy, eyes on me not that ship. Help me bring the weapons up. I’m going to stay out of sight of them today. If we are going to survive this we’ll need an element of surprise. It’s possible they haven’t gotten a count on us yet.”

“Survive?” Catherine clutched John Henry to her chest, what little color she’d acquired from the sun drained out of her cheeks. I went right up close to her and put one hand on the baby’s back and one hand on her back and looked her right in the eyes.

“This is not the end. Tomorrow there will be a few rough hours and then it will be over. This will not be the first ship of men I’ve sent to the ocean floor. Come with me. I’ll take care of you.” I gestured to the steps and Catherine took the baby below. “Elizabeth, Izzy, remind me later that we need to discuss what will happen in case I’m killed.” I followed Catherine below.

My arsenal contained a few ranged weapons, guns certainly, cross bow and quarrels, a few grenades from varying centuries, and a whole mess of blades. I pumped the bilge as dry as I could and began tossing pillows and blankets down there. I charged up both tablets. They were loaded with all sorts of shows and cartoons, enough to keep one baby quiet for at least two or three hours. Odds that we would win this fight were in our favor but in the event that myself, Izzy, and Elizabeth were taken down, I wanted to stockpile Catherine and the baby with food, provisions, and distractions enough that they might survive getting towed to the nearest land mass. What the young woman would do from there would be on her shoulders but I would at least buy her some time to consider her options.

I stacked a variety of weapons on the galley table and laid them out. Next I raided the fridge and freezer of all the disgusting herbal alcohols Izzy had stored there and found some rags. There was only enough fuel for a three hour fire so they’d need to wait until sunrise to start fire bombing the other ship. The battle plan, as I was drawing it up in my head, included flaming arrows and molotov cocktails.

Now for Elizabeth. My first mate was a decent shot with her muskets and I hoped those skills would translate to modern firearms. The options were limited. I surveyed my pistols, muskets, handguns, and one of my oldest weapons, an AWM sniper rifle. I picked that up and checked the ammo. There were four, five shot magazines available. Twenty rounds. The sun was rising in the sky, if I were going to train her at all on this thing it had to be now.

“Elizabeth!” I called out.

“Yes, Captain?” She appeared down the steps in a flash. I detached the scope on the rifle and handed it to her.

“This is called a scope. It’s going to help you shoot farther and with more accuracy than any of the guns. There are a limited number of rounds. Here,” I opened the box and showed her how to load the rifle. “Practice looking through it. If the cross hairs can find your target then you can shoot them. I’m giving you five rounds to get it right.”

Elizabeth put the scope up to her eye and flinched away from the strength of the lenses in the closed environment here belowdecks.

“Take the gun up top and ask Izzy if she’ll come down. Have her bring some of the ashes and charcoal from the fire pit. Five shots. That’s all you get to practice with. Save the other fifteen for the fight.” I demonstrated how to load the magazine again and made her repeat it in front of me. The other three magazines I kept with me. She took the loaded weapon up and left.

Izzy came down with the items I’d requested. I thanked her and started mixing the charcoal with water to make a paste.

“Get your arrows. We need to set them up to burn. But don’t burn our ship. That’s really important.”

She went to the cargo hold and was back in a flash. “You really think this is going to come to a fight?” She compulsively straightened her arrows on the galley table.

“If they were friendly there would have been signs.” I heard one of Elizabeth’s rounds fire across the ocean. I hoped the men on the other ship could hear it too.

Izzy moved off into the galley and pulled out ingredients for shelf stable sandwiches. Catherine began to stock the lower bilge area where she’d be hiding. She filled a rucksack with John Henry’s rag doll, toy cars, a blanket, an iron bracelet, that giant bible, and other items she could stack around her like offerings on an altar for her to pray to for protection. Two more of Elizabeth’s practice shots sounded above us.

I counted the number of rounds in the remaining magazines over and over again so I’d remember. That was the most important part. If I messed up the count I’d mess up the timing. Elizabeth identified twelve men on our aggressor’s ship. She had three magazines. Five rounds in each magazine. Fifteen shots. My hope was she’d be able to take out at least 7 men. Izzy had 18 arrows. She’d need to reserve some of those as flaming arrows. Her range would be far shorter than Elizabeth’s rifle. Flaming arrows, even if Izzy didn’t hit anyone, would cause a panic. Chaos and panic were excellent tools to employ in a fight where you were the underdog.

Elizabeth fired her fourth practice shot.

I put a handgun to the side for each of them should it come down to hand to hand combat. When Izzy came over, I handed one to her with the stern warning to only shoot if she had a clear shot and she knew that none of her crew mates were down range.

“It's the same rules with archery, you know.” Izzy rolled her eyes, “Besides, I’ve seen shootout movies before.”

“This will be different. Just be sure of your aim. Point blank if you are going to shoot at all when the ships meet.” 

Elizabeth’s final shot sounded. She came down to report she felt confident handling the new weapon. Nothing I could do about it now. If nothing else it should scare them. I gave her a handgun and the same lecture about being absolutely sure she had a clear target before firing.

Elizabeth kept me updated on the position of the ship and confirmation of her count throughout the day. Twelve, she reported confidently each time. She and Izzy were taking turns piloting and prepping for the coming fight.

In my cabin I pulled out an old wetsuit from the bottom of a drawer. It was a full body suit, including feet coverings, gloves, and a hood. It was black. It’s what I wore to take ships down in the Pacific. I put it to the side of my bed. I’d change into it later before I left tonight.

As the afternoon wore on, Elizabeth took the brunt of time at the helm while Izzy helped below and cooked and prepped and cleaned and fretted and tried to shove food at me to calm her nerves. I wasn’t accepting food or any medicine from her. I needed a clear head and steady blood sugar levels. It was my old routine from when I fought for Maui in the Pacific. It had served me well then and it would serve me well now.

Catherine and the baby stayed close by me the whole time. She was a more calming presence than I expected. She was not startled by any of the things I said or did. She did not question any of my ideas. Deserved or not, the young woman trusted me…at least in this instance.

I took a moment to consider her. Catherine was a child bride, shipped to a hot blooded husband thousands of miles from her homeland against her consent. The girl was, beyond a doubt, treated harshly by him in bed years before she should have known in intimate detail what a man’s body was capable of. Then she’d found and pursued love in an illicit affair, grown and birthed a baby in a time of high maternal fatalities, and raised what just might be the most adorable baby I’d ever laid eyes on. Catherine would do just fine tomorrow.

I poured her a small glass of scotch and we drank together. “It will be dry enough down there for you and the baby. Cover his ears and keep your faith that we’ll get through this.”

“Captain, we will get through this.” She said it with absolute certainty and for a split second I wasn’t sitting in my ship’s galley with this young wife from Bermuda, I was at the kitchen table with my mother.

“Anne,” Mom looked at me sternly as the empty dock loomed out the kitchen window, “we will get through this. We will survive. We will be stronger without him.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“He chose to leave us. See that you make different choices in your life. Don’t let his bad example be the one that you follow.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Yes, we will get through this.” I’d barely given the young mother the time of day before she got on my ship. Since then I’d discovered there was plenty in her to admire. I found I actually liked her. There was some real grit in her character. So long as we all survived tomorrow, there was a real chance for friendship here.

At dinner time the whole crew gathered in the galley. The following ship had gained on us and everyone was looking nervous and excitable. They were young women, not soldiers, and nerves created chaos. The antidote to chaos was preparation and review.

“Catherine, you and the baby need to be in that bilge space before the sun rises. The pirates will be upon us probably an hour after that,” I reviewed with them for the thousandth time that day. Catherine nodded. “As soon as it’s dark out I’ll be leaving. You all will be on your own. I’ll make my way to their ship and mop up whoever you haven’t been able to take down. The more you do the less I’ll have to do. Stay calm and breathe.”

I couldn’t tell what Izzy was thinking. She was a great actress at heart. She could even make me believe that she was calm and put together in the face of what was surely to be a brutal affair tomorrow.

“If all goes well, I anticipate the fighting to be over within 40 minutes of the first shot.” To me this phrase was reassuring. Forty minutes was quick. You could do anything for 40 minutes; you could get through chemistry class, a doctor’s appointment, a wedding, a battle. Anything.

“Captain, what do we do if you die?” Elizabeth clutched her scope and looked at me solemnly. Catherine reached her hand out to me and gently laid it on the back of mine. I held her hand back in reassurance; no one ought to ever be more scared than necessary.

“You’ve all seen the scars. I am difficult to kill. In the event that I get – become– if I –” why did they all have to look at me like that? “If I die, don’t believe it. Do not bury me or put me in the water. Just keep me safe until you find Zheng. If I’m not back by then, she’ll know what to do.” I watched their faces and committed them to memory. If this was the portal’s punishment then I was not sure if I’d see them tomorrow…or ever again. I stroked John Henry’s cheek. Poor baby.

The party broke up soon after that. Catherine went to put the baby to sleep, Elizabeth was taking the second shift and also went to sleep. I watched the sun sink below the horizon through the galley windows. It was almost time for me to go. My stomach clenched as I considered what I was about to do. No lights, I’d told them all. No candles, no lanterns, no electricity. We were running dark tonight.

I went into my cabin before the sunlight completely failed and began to change. The neoprene was warm now but I was looking at a long cold night. I fitted the foot coverings on and put my hair back in tight new braids to fit under the hood. Back out in the galley I grabbed my mixture of charcoal ash, water, and lotion and began smearing the concoction in lines on my face to resemble moonlight on the water. I belted my weapons and tools tightly into place. I’d chosen to leave my favorites here aboard and take good sturdy knives and swords that were lightweight but sharp. I would dearly love to bring my trusty mace but it was heavy and I needed to stay as buoyant as possible tonight. By the time I was done I looked and felt like a ninja from some bad 90’s movie.