To be a pirate or a king's man?

Chapter 5 - More Bloody Pirates

Chapter 5

They woke to the frantic ringing of the watch bell. "Pirates to the stern!" the watchman cried, "Pirates to the stern and gaining fast!" Captain Jones and Jeremiah Flint were quickly on the decks, shouting orders. "Full sail!" yelled the captain, "We'll outrun them! Watchman, are they flying the red flag?"

"No, sir. It looks like they mean to capture us." responded the watchman as the decks sprung to life and full canvas was drawn, angling to get the maximum wind advantage.

"Right. What colours are they flying?"

"I don't recognise them, sir. It's a gold serpent with a lightning tail fighting a red wolf. A green chalice is between them."

" Damn. It's Morgan, the half-faced piratical bastard. Anyway, we'll give him a race to safety, full sail!" yelled Jones. Sam ran to the ropes that loosed the sails from the deck and let the ropes slack, putting as much sail as possible into the wind. More bloody pirates. As if I've not had enough of them already. He ran to Jeremiah, "Do you have stern cannons?" he asked quickly.

"We're a merchant ship,  not a war galley. We've got ten cannon in all, five port and five starboard. That's why we're running; The Duchess is one of the fastest ships in the Caribbean!" Flint replied, looking back at the pirate ship. The other ship was a brig, put on full sail and Sam thought he could see oars coming from the lower gun ports. "They'll catch us if we're on open water much longer, look at the sails and the oars!"

"Don't worry about open water, we're close to an archipelago, look." Flint pointed and sure enough, the faint outline of several islands could be made out on the horizon. "We just need to outrun them for another half hour, which we can do easily. To take us alive, they'd have to draw up alongside and board, but they don't have the time to do that." Flint looked triumphant and Sam felt reassured. He patted The Duchess of Kent for luck before they waited for land to come into view. 

It was a tense time; ten minutes went and the land got closer, another ten and Sam could see the outline of trees and individual islands. Then a boom of thunder rolled out across the ocean from behind them, followed by a storm of bar shot that blasted away the sloop's only sail, killing about five men that were in the open on the poop deck. Sam dived to cover and looked behind the stern of The Duchess. The brig had fired the bar shot, presumably as soon as it was in range, but there had been at least six shots, and the brig should have been too small to carry a load like that on the bow. "What the hell was that?" someone asked.

"That was what's going to kill us!" another yelled, panicked. And the rest of the crew joined in, terrified of whatever sort of pirates could catch and incapacitate a fast sloop with ease.

Jeremiah stood and shouted above the clamour of panic, "Men, battle stations! They have to board us to capture us, and we're not going to let that happen, are we? If we raise the white, could we call ourselves men, loyal to our captain and our king? These are the king's goods and they are not going to be taken by pirates whilst I can still stand!" Jeremiah turned and grabbed the rifle that was offered to him, taking a cutlass as well. "Arm yourselves and stand by your posts!"

The men ran to the weapon stores and grabbed pistols, rifles, cutlasses, pikes and sabres. Sam took a sabre and a rifle for himself, in addition to the dagger that he'd picked up on the Black Cat. One of the men had climbed what remained of the mast-about five feet of wood- and was readying a rifle and had a broad cutlass in his belt. Sam stood on the stern of the Duchess and waited for brig to come within range. Three men with pikes were on each side of the ship, ready to push the sloop away from the brig and stab anyone that tried to jump over the side.

By now the brig was in range of the rifles, but there were no clear targets. The ship was almost eighty metres long and the poop deck rose six metres above the water. Dark wood that was almost black made up the exterior of the ship, but the sails were a deep red, like dried blood. The figurehead of the ship was a human skeleton, held together by wire. The skeleton had its arms by its sides, and each arm was holding a ball of glass; the left held a ball as blue as the ocean, and the right held a red that matched the sails. The eyes of the skeleton were filled with gold, poured in whilst still molten, maybe whilst the man was still alive. The flag of the wolf and snake fluttered from the top of the mainmast, but there were no men lining the rails ready to make the jump to board. The prow of the ship came to the port side of the Duchess and Sam read the ship's name; Stormprow.

 It drew up to the Duchess, stopping when it was fully drawn up. The rail of the Stormprow loomed four or five metres above the deck of the Duchess. I'm always on the smaller ship, thought Sam in awe of the height of the Stormprow. A gruff, deep voice rolled over to the Duchess. "Duchess of Kent, this is the piratical vessel Stormprow. If you do not lay down arms, we will board you and cut you down until you do surrender or you die. Then we'll take your goods anyway, savvy?"  Captain Jones squealed in terror and ran into his cabin at the stern. Jeremiah shook his head before replying to the voice, "This is Jeremiah Flint, quartermaster of the Duchess of Kent. We do not treat with pirates and I for one would rather die than kneel to a pirate!"

"So be it. Board!" yelled the voice as grappling irons shot from the deck of the Stormprow and hooked into the railing and splintered wood of the Duchess. A horde of pirates leaped from behind the rail of the Stormprow and onto the deck of the Duchess. Sam fired his rifle and noted a man falling dead back to the deck of the Stormprow.

He drew his sabre and ran into the melee, slashing and lunging at the pirates. He saw James surrender as he got surrounded whilst the man on the mast was pulled down and stabbed repeatedly, screaming. Jeremiah took a shot to the shoulder as he charged and fell to the deck, unable to rise. Sam parried an incoming thrust but was disarmed by another blade before he could counter. He leaped back, dodging the swipes that were directed at him by a slender man with a ball of green glass in his left eye. Sam then ran forward, tackling the man before whipping out his dagger and cutting the man's throat.

He was kicked in the side and rolled over in pain. Another pirate was about to finish him when his wrist was held back by another man's hand. "He's quite feisty, I could use someone of his like on the ship. Let's see if he survives the test." The first pirate grinned and dropped his arm, sheathing his blade. The owner of the hand turned and shouted, "Men, the ship is ours!" The pirates yelled and shouted, whooping and patting each other on the back. Sam just groaned and passed out, exhausted and despairing.