Siren's Call
I: An Ornery Wench
1775
All was still that early morning.
A considerable fog on the horizon, but nothing the esteemed Captain Brennan hadn't navigated before. In his less-than-humble opinion, he'd tamed these open seas, fought its fiercest foes and protected His Majesty's various bouts of precious cargo from unimaginable threats, foreign and domestic. Captain Brennan considered himself quite eligible for an appointment to Admiralship, but that was just him.
Captain Brennan liked to rouse himself early in the morning to get a status reports from his various officers. It kept his ship at the top of its game and his crew in shipshape.
"This fog makes it difficult to see past two points, Captain," said Midshipman Chubb. A young, willing lad of 16, eager to learn the ways of maritime life. "Are you sure we're going in the right direction?"
"The West Indies are simple to navigate, Mr. Chubb," replied Captain Brennan, eyes peeled into the shaded distance. "I have no doubt we are exactly where we need to be."
The HMS Chastity was one of the prides of the Royal Navy. She'd never lost a firefight, and any precious cargo under its decks had always been delivered safely to its destination. No, Captain William Brennan wasn't the least bit worried that early, foggy morning. In fact, he was quite content. In a month's time, he would be taking a bit of shore leave to visit his dear wife Imogene and their son, Nathaniel.
"Sir?" Chubb's telescope was pointed north, into the thick mass of fog. For the life of him he could have sworn he saw a dark shape out in the expanse of the fog bank. But he also acknowledged that it might be his nerves playing tricks on him again. He still had yet to get his bearings at sea. All this rocking and wide open ocean was quite nauseating.
"Do you see something?"
The young Midshipman glanced nervously at the Captain, unsure of what he may or may not have seen, terrified of making an error of judgment. "I ─ It was only for a moment. I thought I saw a shape, is all, sir."
"Oh?" Captain Brennan trusted his instincts in situations like these, and nothing seemed amiss. Nonetheless, he listened intently to the quiver in his midshipman's voice before summoning a second opinion. "Mr. Courtenay!"
"Sir!" Midshipman James Courtenay bounced up to his side.
Folding his arms behind his back, he asked, "Did you see this similar 'thing' that Mr. Chubb is referring to?"
The young boy paused. "Can't say that I did, sir."
"There now, Mr. Chubb," said the Captain, patting the boy fondly on the back, "not a thing to be seen. Still, it's right to be cautious at sea. You don't know what might jump out at you."
Swallowing back his failure, the young midshipman nodded his head. "Y ─ Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
Captain Brennan chuckled. "No need to be so meek, boy. You made a mistake! The best of us do in the beginning. Why, I'm sure one day you'll captain a fine ship much like this one."
"Do you really think so, sir?" This all depends on whether or not he grows up to be less finicky, thought Brennan, but he decided not to voice that. A boy needed to believe in himself to grow into the man God intended him to be!
"Of course. Why, I remember─!"
Captain Brennan's fond anecdote of shenanigans from his boyhood was interrupted by the most unsettling sound. In the early morning silence came what appeared to be, at least to his ears, a high-pitched war cry that resounded into the foggy air.
An involuntary chill ran down Brennan's spine as he looked to the crew standing behind him for some answers. "What in God's name was that?"
"We better be prayin' to God, Cap'n," came the trembling report of one of his seamen, "That sound only means one fing. Barbary Banshee's on our tail."
"Barbary Banshee?" He repeated, eyebrows furrowing. "Nonsense. That's nothing but a legend passed around by old drunks."
"Ya better start believin' in legends quick, Cap'n." One of the oldest members of the crew, one Jonathan Hollum. "Or we might just end up another tally on the Banshee's headboard."
One of the many virtues he prided himself on was realism. The Barbary Banshee was an absurd legend passed around by fishwives and their drunkard husbands, nothing of substance─
The good captain's train of thought was cut off when cannon balls went sailing straight into the quarterdeck, debris and chips of wood flying in every which direction. In the distance, he could see it. A fearsome man-of-war creeping out from the fog and a figure perched just at the tip. Its flag was nothing he recognized and belonged to no foreign enemies, a black background with the white silhouette of what appeared to be a Medusa-like character. This was no French privateer.
Pirates. Oh, bloody hell.
"BEAT TO QUARTERS!" he cried. "EVERYONE IN POSITIONS! I WANT THAT DAMNED SHIP SUNK AND ITS CAPTAIN HUNG!"
The men all scrambled into position as more cannonballs flew and the wounded became more noticeable on the deck. Brennan leaped into action and ordered them below deck to see the physician before screaming out other orders to the men. These pirate scum had taken them by surprise but damned if he was going to get caught with his trousers around his ankles.
Grabbing a telescope from one of the men, he held it up to scope out what they were dealing with. In golden letters on the enemy ship the words Banshee's Cry stood out loud and clear to him. Suddenly all those blasted tales of Barbary Banshees that he had promptly ignored rushed back into his memories and he kicked himself for not being more privy to these stories.
"I need a damage report!" he roared as he turned on his heel, storming down the deck at anyone with their limbs still intact.
"Sir! The taffrail!" Brennan strode down to the railing around the stern of the ship. One of the men was hoisted down to view the damage by a rope and as he leaned over, the expression he was met with did not make him feel good about himself.
The man, Johnson, gave him a grave look. "Rudder's been shot to hell, Cap'n ─ steering don't answer!"
He swallowed the lump in his throat. "Are you telling me we're sitting ducks, Johnson?"
A frown. A nod. The last thing he needed to hear. "Aye, sir."
Captain Brennan exhaled through his nose, pressing the bridge through his index and thumb in a feeble attempt to come up with a plan.
"She's coming towards us, sir!" Despite being a man-of-war that damned ship was fast. Whatever orders he had to dish out, he had to dish them out fast or they were all doomed to sink to the bottom of the ocean. He cursed the captain of that ship and yet had no choice but to admire the precision with which the attack was executed.
It came right out of nowhere and hit them with a full broadside, cutting across the tail to take out the rudder. By all accounts they should be firewood by now.
"We need to be pulled into that fog!" said the captain. "Get the boats and prepare to row us forth!"
"More than half the boats been totaled, sir." Midshipman Courtenay reported with a pronounced look of fear in his eyes.
"What?"
"A cannonball got 'em, sir!"
"Blast it all to hell, does this bastard know the geography of my ship?" cried Brennan, wracking his brains for a backup plan. But that came too little, too late and the ship wracked with a warning cannonball to its side by the enemy.
He wasn't going down without a proper fight. "Seize your weapons! We'll fight these pirate bastards and show him the true meaning of His Majesty's Royal Navy!"
The crew roared and the unanimous sling of weapons rung into the air. Mere moments later enemy troops had swung onto the deck of their ship and the battle had begun in earnest. The ringing of steel meeting steel hissed in his ear as he charged at one of the pirates.
Chaos had been unleashed on the deck of the HMS Chastity and his crew had already been decimated because of cannon fire. All he wanted to do was to cross swords with the bloody captain and run his sword through the bastard's gut for putting such holes in his ship. Pirates were a breed of filth that needed to be washed away; starting with this Barbary Banshee fellow.
The sharp curve of a freshly sharpened scimitar pressed to his throat and he felt his body go rigid. Be careful what you wish for, Will, he thought. A scent of spices came to his nose and he realized he was being forced to lean against something soft. He cringed as the sound of a pistol shot into the air and silenced those battling, stopping in their places. The captain had been stopped right next to the helm.
"Lay down your arms," came a smooth, accented voice, "and I will spare your captain's life."
The voice, the posture, and the physicality told him everything he needed to know, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the Barbary Banshee up close and personal.
Shoved out of this woman's grip he was immediately restrained by a large black man, a dark glare piercing into his skin and unsettling him. His sword was yanked out of his hand and tossed to another of the pirates standing nearby.
"Command your men to do as the Captain says," he said, his accent sounding distinctively French.
With a reluctant sigh, he conceded. "Lay down your arms, lads."
The woman nodded once with a triumphant swing in her step and addressed his crew as if she were the Queen of Sheba. "I shall make this quite simple for all of you. I am Captain Rana Demir of the Banshee's Cry. You know who I am, and you know why I am here. No one need die if they are smart about it, yes?"
Her accent indicated a Middle Eastern background; likely Ottoman. This woman had a head of impossibly thick, black-brown hair that flowed freely down to her mid-back. She was young. Embarrassingly young given the defeat he had suffered at her olive-toned hands. She seemed in her mid 20s. Her body dipped and curved with the vitality of her youth and when she turned to look at her he was briefly struck by her dark brown eyes and the fire they held.
Hers was not a beauty that would be celebrated back home. It was wild and unsettling. Strong. Intimidating. Like staring into the face of a lion poised to pounce. She carried herself with a man's swagger, a sway in her hips that expressed confidence, assurance in her position in life. She wore trousers, boots, a finely crafted black velvet hat adorned with a single peacock's feather. This woman's existence went against everything he was raised to believe and she knew it.
"I am led to believe this is a cargo ship," she said, the tip of her scimitar tilting his chin to look at her. "Am I correct?"
"Supplies for the army to suppress the colonial revolt," he said through his teeth. "Nothing of value for pirates."
Dark eyebrows shot up. What appeared to be a mocking smile tugging at the corners of her lips. "Nonsense! I quite like cargo. Cargo means that my crew does not starve to death in the middle of the ocean. Don't you prefer that option, Jacques?"
"I prefer it, capitaine," said the man restraining him.
"We have two options in this situation," she said, pacing with pursed lips, the soles of her boots clicking against the wood on the deck, "I could take every last bit of cargo on this ship and leave your survival to the Providence of the Divine that you English cherish so much or I could leave just enough to get you to the nearest port."
"We serve our country!" Came a young voice in the crowd of his crew, watching the ruckus. "God would protect us!"
The pirate woman quirked a smile with a musical laugh. "Would He? I am not so sure." Looking out to the men on the ship, she ordered everyone below deck to be brought above immediately. Every man that manned the guns or swabbed the decks or did all the lowly work was brought squinting into the sunlight. The ship's physician, Doctor Crabbe, alongside them.
Trotting down the steps, she made her way over to one of the servants. A boy of roughly 17 that had been a source of rebellion since he came on board. A tall, lanky boy with broad shoulders and a head of unkempt dark hair that hung in his face. The doctor said it was saving him, but the captain hadn't been sure.
The boy's eyes shot to the size of plates as she spoke to him. "What is your name, boy?"
Without hesitation, he said, "Name's Jack Firebrace, ma'am."
"Firebrace," she said. "I prefer the title Captain, if you do not mind. Tell me, how did you come to serve on this ship?"
"Taken off a London harbor, Cap'n," he replied. "I'm pressed, as it were. I hate workin' on this bloody ship."
She nodded, hands on her hips. "You look like you have not eaten anything in days."
"They give me breadcrumbs, Cap'n Rana," he snarled, wringing his hands in the tattered cloth of his trousers.
Eyebrows shooting up, she turned to address the crew again. "Is this the glory of His Majesty's Navy? Forcing boys to serve, and then starving them when they do so? Tsk tsk, God would not approve of such practices, I think."
Silence. Press ganged? The doctor hadn't mentioned that. He had specifically spoke against such a practice. It didn't exactly inspire morale or loyalty in one's captain. He needed men who were proud to serve in the Navy, and this entire situation was why.
"Tell me, Firebrace, which option would you choose?"
"Aside from the officers, Cap'n, these is good men," he said with a solemn nod of his head. "I'd choose the second option. Let 'em make their repairs and get back to port."
She threw her head back in a laugh. "It appears your lives have been spared by the rare instance of morality!" The pirate looked to her crew. "Leave enough for them to make it to the nearest port half-starved, and the supplies to fix their rudder!"
"Captain Demir!" Firebrace bounded up to her, dropping to one knee. "I'd very much like to join your crew, if you'll 'ave me."
The request amused her and made Captain Brennan's blood boil beneath his skin. "What makes you think my crew is any different than the one you see before you, Jack Firebrace?"
"I feel it in me bones, Cap'n."
"You would be an outlaw," she said, crossing her arms across her chest. "And if you were caught, hung for the crime of existing as a pirate."
I could have told him that! thought Captain Brennan with a deep-set scowl.
It didn't shake his resolve, however. "Better 'anging than staying with this lot."
"Fair enough. Welcome aboard, Jack Firebrace," she said with a slap to his shoulder. "Jacques! I shall handle the good captain. Acquaint our new crew member with his responsibilities, hm?"
"Oui, capitaine."
Brennan gasped for breath as the large man went off to do his duties. This was a humiliating blow to his pride on all accounts and it was made worse when the Ottoman woman sashayed up to him and surveyed him up and done.
"I prefer your hat to mine," she said as if speaking to a drinking companion, swapping his for her own, adjusting his dark blue tricorne on her head. "It makes me look more official. Adds on to the irony of the situation, yes?"
At that point, he was trembling with anger. "The King will have your head for this."
"Will he?" She cocked an eyebrow, unfazed by the threat, practically dripping with the arrogance of her victory over him. With one clean yank she ripped the jacket off of his body, a dagger in her left hand to warn him against struggling or fighting back. "Your George has yet to catch me. I invite him to try, however. For now, it appears I have soiled the chastity of your ship. She can never be married now ─ such a pity."
Plucking the feather from the hat now on his head back onto hers, she whirled on her heel, pausing only to throw him a simpering look. "Give my regards to your King, captain. And tell him no hard feelings, yes? We all must make a living in this cruel world."