Chapter 31 – A Fool's Wager
May 26, 1660
"Sail ho!" Melody called the next evening. That she saw sails and not land had me digging my spyglass out and looking for the proffered ship only to find it in the distance heading in the exact same direction we were.
"Trouble?" Governor Arendelle asked me as he joined me at the railing.
"Likely a merchant on its way to port," I said as I looked the vessel over but something nagged at me as I studied it. "It just seems too tall, though."
"Too tall?" Elsa questioned me. "Like a tall ship such as a frigate?"
"A frigate can be good or bad, merchant or man-of-war," I remarked as I studied the ship further but couldn't make out the sails. After lowering the spyglass and looking up to the pennants for the direction of the wind, I blew out a sigh and made a decision.
"Helm, one point to port," I ordered of Ariel who nodded and silently made the correction as I shouted to Timon. "Full sail and trim her out! We run that ship down!"
"Is that wise?" Governor Arendelle asked me as my crew erupted into cheers.
"If its not friendly, I might be able to warn them off," I advised the governor. "We are a brig-of-war."
"They could be bigger," the governor warned me.
"They could be friendly," I said as I looked the ship over again but this time caught sight of something else among the sails being raised.
"I see something," the governor said and I lowered the spyglass and offered it to him.
"British battle ensign," I said as he took the instrument and looked the ship over.
"A ship that big…" the governor said before falling silent.
"I assume they wish to sack Saint Martin," I told him and he looked crestfallen. "The defenses were in shambles last time I was there."
"If they take the island, I'll be ruined," the governor told me. "You must do something!"
"Let me think," I said as I thought it over. I needed to make a tall ship, every bit my equal in battle if not my superior, turn and run or surrender. Problem was, I lacked a full crew while they were likely fully manned.
"Father?" Elsa said as she saw our glum faces. I couldn't help but look at her beautiful face and want to comfort her, but I was out-manned, outgunned and if I tried to get close enough to pelt her crew with grapeshot they could turn and run me down.
"Shall I raise the colors?" Timon asked as he joined us. "We are going into battle?"
"Yeah," I said then smiled at an idea. "We still have Hook's pirate flag?"
"Sure," he said with a shrug. "I put it with the rest of the signaling flags."
"Raise it!" I said with a devilish smile. "Swords, overcoats and what hats we have for everyone!"
"Sir?" Timon said as he gave me a curious look.
"Lively, Timon!" I ordered my sole officer. "I'm going to make that British captain think Captain Hook himself is after him!"
"Aye sir!" Timon said as he caught on to my plan.
"Is that wise?" Governor Arendelle said as Timon began to issue orders.
"We just need that ship to run," I told him as my crew began to work. "Shang, load grapeshot and take the rear wheels off the cannons. We need maximum elevation to fire on their main deck."
"Aye," he said before he began to issue orders as well to the cannoneers.
"Sir," Pumbaa said as he saluted me and handed Elsa a coat and a cutlass.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" Elsa asked.
"Don the coat and look menacing," I told her with a smirk. "At distance you'll look like any other sailor aboard."
Elsa didn't look sure as she donned the coat and orders were issued to the various other ladies on how to act as a black flag bearing a skull and crossbones was raised over the brig once more. I went below to my cabin and retrieved the scarlet overcoat Ella and Monica had finished for me and donned my rapier. As I situated the coat with a last flounce, I looked at my hands and then realized I needed one last item which I had to retrieve from my private desk. I'd always figured the silver hook was a spare, but as I retrieved it, was glad for its existence.
"What are you supposed to be?" the governor asked as I ascended to the main deck.
"Captain Hook," I told him as I situated the black tricorn on my head. "I might not look like the scoundrel, but I can carry his presence."
"Orders, sir?" Timon asked as I situated the hook in my left hand. Jasmine had already cut the sails on the Sea Poppet to hang back out of the line of fire. If we failed, she had orders to run to safety and as the senior officer aboard, would also be its captain.
"Time to bluff the enemy," I told him as I forced a sneer and the game began.
Standing tall on the poop deck with only Ariel for company, I made sure I was easy to spot as we hurriedly caught up to the ship. I continued to study it as we approached, Governor Arendelle nearby for me to relay information to as I got it.
The ship was indeed huge, with a full length gun deck under her main deck giving her two full rows of cannon. As we neared, I could see that she was not under full sail as of yet, allowing me to catch up with ease. Whether that was for us to fight or to examine our claim was unknown, but I could feel the fear grow in my chest as the moment edged closer.
As we neared enough for the spyglass to no longer be necessary, I pocketed it and drew my sword as I moved forward behind the various crew and ladies doing their best to shock the crew as we drew alongside. It was as the distance closed to almost shouting range that I saw the enemy captain, an older fellow with white hair at his temple turn to a fellow officer and tell him something. Drawing my sword as I readied for all hell to break loose, I almost missed the lowering of the White Ensign from their mast.
"They're striking their colors!" Timon yelled and my crew cheered. I raised my rapier in triumph, but then, I heard it.
"That's not Hook!" the other captain shouted clear enough I heard it without issue. "To arms! To arms!"
"Shang!" I shouted as we passed the stern of the enemy vessel and slashed down with my sword. "Fire!"
The cannons roar was deafening as we fired up into the railing full of the enemy crew and the fight was on as they charged the railing in an attempt to swarm us with sheer numbers. Step, parry, pirouette and a burying of the hook into a man's throat bought me me a moment to see the governor herding his family below-decks and out of the line of fire. I let them go, glad to be protecting such beauty as I set to the grisly task of saving my own hide as I stabbed my rapier into a man who twisted and wrenched the blade free of my hand with his death. Using my bare hands, I grabbed a man attacking a young woman from Neverland which she used as an excuse to cut his belly open and spill his innards.
Taking the dying man's cutlass, I leaped into battle as more men poured over the railing but for what seemed like an eternity, it was all slash and cut, parry and pirouette until they thinned. Leading the charge, I and my faithful crew stormed the railing and began to cut the remaining enemy asunder. Even holding onto the cutlass was difficult as I led the way through the ship as the young men and boys tried to load the cannons and bring them to bear though I had no recollection of the enemy ship ever firing. It was only when I led the way through the bilge and we found the ship empty that the world seemed to return.
"Bury the dead," I told them as I dropped the blood covered cutlass into the bilge water to stain the water red.
"Aye," someone who looked ready to puke said as I passed. It was in ascending the steep stairs I discovered how blood soaked I was and I felt sick as well. Desiring solitude, I went aft to hide in the officer's dining room, shutting the door before collapsing into a chair.
I was alive, though how I did not know beyond that I slaughtered every face I saw. One face came to me, a boy not yet a man, who had held up his hands in obvious surrender but I had cut him without pause or mercy. Looking at my hands again, hands that shook, I realized I had taken absolutely no prisoners like the pirate I was pretending to be.
"What god do you serve?" a voice demanded of me. Pulled to the here and now, I realized Ariel had entered the dining hall without me even noticing.
"What do you mean?" I asked her as I wiped my bloody hands on the scarlet coat.
"You sing the songs of worship of the Christians without ridicule or scorn, yet you took this ship without taking a single loss," she told me. I was too stunned by her report that she just kept on going.
"And this?" she said as she pointed to her jacket and several severe slashes. "I was run through five times yet I am whole still. What god do you serve?"
"I don't know," I told her as I leaned back into the chair as she stared unbelieving at me. "I didn't even think this possible."
"You had to have met someone," she demanded to know.
"A woman," I said as her lovely features came firmly into my mind's eye. "Lovely to look at. Offered me her services for a price but I refused her to watch the ship's sail by. She called me a 'true man of the sea.' Offered me the chance to live this life like I wanted…"
"Calypso," Ariel spat. "Did she ask anything of you?"
"No," I said as something occurred to me. "She did ask me about this very scenario. Taking a ship-of-the-line with a brig while being outnumbered. I told her it was a matter of tactics but it could be done."
"For what price?" she then asked me.
"I don't know," I told her honestly. "I thought she might have done this for free even though I've always heard magic has a cost."
"I don't know," she admitted as she sat beside me, her entire attitude changing. "I do know she's always changing her mind. She's known for that."
"So," I said as the ship creaked and groaned with the occasional sailor's shout interrupting the quiet. "I guess I should clean up."
"Yeah," Ariel said with a sigh. "We'll likely be tied up here all evening long just getting the dead ready to bury."
"Which means a funeral either late tonight or in the morning," I sighed as I stood by the door. "At least with Calypso's blessing I'm not burying any of ours."
"Yet," Ariel said as I opened the door to feel a cold shiver go down my spine and I couldn't help but think she was right. If Calypso, who was known to change her mind, favored me now, what would happen if she decided to curse me?
Probably nothing, I finally decided. This...fiasco...was primarily based on my own pride in that I could scare this ship off its course by pretending to be a legendary pirate. Even if I lost my blessing from Calypso, I was already in charge of a smallish ship-of-the-line and mere hours from port and more crew. Short of a massive boarding action, as I had done with Hook, or acting stupidly and letting another ship take control of an engagement as I normally did when coming upon another ship, and really, who the hell would want to engage a ship-of-the-line when we dwarfed almost all other ships in size and combat prowess? Even a brig-of-war like the Sea Wrench paled to compare to this new ship.
"Timon," I said to gain the red haired man's attention. He wasn't as blood covered as I was, but still sported the grisly results of our last battle.
"I've had the anchor lowered and signaled the Sea Poppet to join us," Timon told me and I nodded. "It'll take the rest of the day to tie all this up."
"Good," I told him and was glad for what he was doing. "Any sign of our guests?"
"Ella and Monica have them down in the officer's area of the Wrench," he told me. "They came through without a scratch."
"Good," I told him as I gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Wrap it up here and set a watch for tonight. We'll hold services in the morning. Any casualties on our side?"
"A few scratches," he told me then gave a wry chuckle. "It's surprising really."
"Just the crew fighting for their lives," I said as I played it off as I didn't want to explain my possible deal with Calypso to him. "A man fighting for something is far deadlier than a man fighting for nothing. If caught, they would have been tried for piracy under the flag we flew and then hung. Especially if I hadn't survived the fight."
"Yeah," he drawled as his shoulders sagged. "Not the brightest move."
"It worked," I said with a smile of my own and he gave me a curious look. "We took the ship without losing a single person."
"Yeah, but I'm not sure I'd ever want to do it again," he finally confessed.
"To what end?" I asked him as I stamped a foot down on the deck. "What ship are we likely to face now that's going to be bigger than this?"
I left him with that thought as it seemed to sink in what ship we had just taken as I swung down to the Wrench and made my way below. I found Monica serving food to the governor's family and looking guilty until I gave her a smile as I removed my scarlet overcoat.
"If you would bring me a change of clothes and the bathing supplies along with the boot polish?" I told her as I opened the door into my room.
"Yes, sir," she said as she went to fulfill my request.
"The other ship?" the governor asked me.
"Taken-a-prize," I told him with a wan smile.
"You don't seem happy with it," Elsa told me as she saw the flinch in my reaction and not being overly happy with the outcome.
"It isn't uncommon for a few sailors to be killed in a boarding action," I told her as I chose my words carefully. "However, they fought to the last man in defense of their ship, their fellow sailor and their king."
"My word," Iduna said as she covered her mouth and her eyes seemed to fixate on my clothes.
"That is...unfortunate," the governor conceded as he seemed ready to throwup as he too realized my bloody state and what it meant. "But such a ship it is."
"With her prowling the area around Saint Martin and the crew I will soon gather to man it, I doubt there will be many problems coming in your immediate future," I informed the governor as Monica returned with my clothes. "The Wrench I will soon sell to you as the king's agent and, as a brig-of-war, will be another powerful deterrent to those encroaching on Saint Martin's waters."
"A fair, and powerful, point," Elsa said as her father seemed too shocked to answer.
"Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to retire for the evening," I told them. "I would also not venture above decks until morning as...it isn't a pleasant sight."
"Thank you for your concerns," the governor said as he found his voice. "And thank you for your service."
I nodded, not knowing what to say to add to that or bow out with grace so I just bowed out. In my room, I stripped down and bathed myself with the tub of water then redressed in clean clothes. Monica came not long after so she could scrub my clothes clean of the blood and launder them which just left me with the boots which I polished to a shine as I worked to keep my mind off the recent and vivid memories of the dead then began to play guitar to just distract myself as I tried to wind down. Even when I tried to go to sleep my mind raced with the recent carnage forcing me to toss and turn as my waking nightmares were of the slaughter. Eventually I was forced to accept that I was going to have to wait for sleep to find me and, after having secluded myself in the cabin for a long time, decided to walk the ship for some exercise to further tire myself out so I wouldn't dream so much.
Leaving my cabin, I found the ship dark as the crew had apparently gone to sleep for the night. Working my way by memory, I found the ladder near my quarters and ascended to the main deck which was lit mostly by the moon overhead. A look to the poop deck showed Ella standing at the railing as she looked out to the horizon and was struck by how much she had changed in recent months. She now wore a black leather bodice over her blue peasant blouse and brown breeches and had a red sash tied around her waist which held a sword and pistol with a red bandanna around her golden hair to look more like a lady pirate than lady of the house.
"How goes it?" I asked her as I ascended the stairs to the poop deck.
"Oh, captain," she said as I had apparently startled her. "Timon posted me to keep watch."
"It's alright," I told her as I approached. "Haven't seen much of you since we headed off to Noord."
"You've been so busy with the governor's family," she told me as I leaned against the railing to talk with her. "Especially the daughters. That, and I get nauseous around boot polish."
"Boot polish?" I said as I looked down at my boots quickly before Ella hung her head over the side and threw up. Several long moments later, she finally sagged on the railing with her head bowed.
"Get some sleep," I told her as I patted her back as she shook from the exertion. "I'll take the rest of the watch."
"Alright," she said as she shakily stood up and gathered herself.
"When we get to port tomorrow, I want you to see a physician," I told her as I watched her force herself not to gag.
"Alright," she repeated as she started for the stairs, moving slowly as she held her middle before stopping. "Um, Nagler will be along at midnight to relieve me."
"Got it," I said as she headed down leaving me alone with the Wrench. It had served me well these past few months, mostly on my trip to Noord though I had taken two ships with it. A look to the newer ship showed it to be a good half deck taller, it's gun deck almost level with my main deck and the main deck was still taller than my poop deck with its own poop deck looming tall over the Wrench. A quick count of her cannon showed almost twice as much broadside but their didn't seem to be any give in her officer's area for extra cannon. She was a beautiful ship, long and fat with cannon and possibilities, but I still couldn't help but wonder if it was worth the cost.
"Do you like it?" a voice asked me. I spun to find a woman leaned against the railing and immediately knew this was Calypso, if only because what she wore wasn't invented yet and all the ship's lanterns flaring bright as streetlights to clearly illuminate the vessels. Dressed in ten inch metal stilettos and a super tight red lace dress, the woman was now a lithe platinum blonde whose blue eyes gave me a come-hither look.
"I assume this is part of your offer?" I said as she pushed off the railing to walk like a predatory cat across the deck.
"Maybe," she said as she eyed the vessel. "You have my blessing though I've never met you."
"Not yet," I told her as I eyed her as she passed me before spinning to smile at me. "If I understand the flow of time, we don't meet for almost three hundred and sixty years."
"That's good to know," she said with a bright smile. "That means my plan works."
"What plan?" I asked her.
"The winds of change come to all things," she told me as wandered to the helm and fingered the wheel. "Even to the gods. The portents say I will soon die, but if we meet in your future, I am alive and well."
"Unless there's something neither you, or I, know about," I said as Back to the Future spun through my mind. "Something I change."
"Change, yes," she breathed as she turned sultrily to me. "Even now, they gather to challenge me."
"Who?" I asked her as her eyes flashed angrily.
"Traitors," she spat. "Long they have asked for my blessing and sailed my waters, but they in their greed have begun to skip on the payment."
"What do you expect me to do?" I demanded of her. "Hunt them all down?"
"With extreme prejudice," she told me. "This ship is the most powerful in the Caribbean. You should have no trouble ridding me of the traitors."
"And what do I get out of it?" I asked her pointedly. "Hunting down pirates wasn't in the agreement."
"You have done so before," she pointed out. "Even if you only needed a touch of help."
"And I would have lost if not for the company of soldiers sent with me," I told her defiantly. "All I had to do was land them on Hook's ship and let them overpower his own men."
"And the lucky throw of one Simba," she said cattily. "If not for me, Hook would have sailed on by."
"And what do I need you for now?" I asked her. "I already have THE most powerful ship and tomorrow I start gathering a crew to properly man it."
"But can you keep it?" she said as anger flashed in her eyes. "Maybe I should let you experience the real perils this life has to offer."
"I think I can handle it," I told her confidently.
"We shall see," she said as the lights in the lanterns flared out to leave me in the stark darkness of a moonless night. After my eyes had adjusted to what little light the stars had to offer, I found I was again alone but her words haunted me.
Had I really just told a goddess to eff off?