On the sea's, the name, Captain Blackman was taboo, cursed like Davey Jones's Locker. The legendary female captain of the Drunken Monkey was feared from Panama to China, and she knew it. She takes no prisoners, no man, woman or child is spared. So w...
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Queen Anne's Flying Circus
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Things were looking bleak for Commander Robinson. The American Colonies had only just declared their independence from England and they were now on the brink of war. To combat this, Charles had been sent for Captain Elinor Blackman, a known associate of the newly appointed General Washington, and was to bring her back dead or alive (though preferably dead). He hadn't known what his plan would be but he figured that it would come to him by the time he reached Boston. Part of him hoped that she would fall into his hands and that the job would be done with no hassle so that he could return to England to find his sister, whom he hadn't heard from in some months. He had imagined it in so many different ways, in each he portrayed himself as a courageous hero and Elinor as a horrifying she-devil. In all of the long voyage, he hadn't imagined this.
He hadn't meant for it to go the way it had. He hadn't thought that he would be bested by a mangy looking troop of pirates. He hadn't meant for so many to die. He hadn't expected any to die. Pirates don't usually kill. But she had damned them all without so much as a second thought. If only he had known it would go so wrong. So terribly, horribly, wrong.
He cried out in distress, landing multiple hard blows on the iron door in front of him. He had been locked up for God knows how long and he had no idea where he was, his whole body ached and he couldn't sleep a wink in the position he had forced himself into. Charles now knew the reason the room he was locked in was called "The Hell." It was located on the bottom-most deck where the keel began to curve towards the bowsprit and it inflicted agony upon his legs keeping himself upright. Apon all that, he was wet to the bone. He sat in what he swore was near half a meter of water, shivering in the cold ocean. If this wasn't meant to be torture, he didn't know what was.
Loud, off-pitch singing floated down the decks of the Drunken Monkey, making it's way to the brig and into the Charles' miserable, waiting ears. He scoffed in disgust. They were taunting him, teasing him, laughing at his wretched misfortune. They had pirated his ship, killed his crew, and were now celebrating their victory, reveling in their spoils. It was revolting, and he was jealous.
He was the one that was meant to be reveling in their downfall, carousing his humble victory. Instead, he had been locked away while the pirates he had set out to seize were celebrating in his stead.
Slow, unsteady steps sounded outside the door of his cell, the lock clicked, and the door swung open. The figure of Elinor Blackman stood in the doorway, a menacing silhouette. Half of her face was illuminated by a distant candle, forming shadows that increased her haunting features tenfold. Her eyes seemed to be sunken into her head, giving her the personification of death and her scarlet hat sat perched on her head sloppily as if it were an ill-timed joke.
She stood in the doorway eerily, watching him as if he were a monkey in a cage. "Tell me, commander," she finally spoke, "what is it that you fear the most?" The ship was deathly silent, save the sloshing of water and creaking of the wood as the ship rocked on the waves. "What is it that makes you shiver in fright?"
Charles didn't answer. He strained to keep his trembling muscles still under her cold gaze. "Knowing your kind, it would be something disgustingly noble and heart-wrenching." She moved closer, her long boots kicked at the water that pooled around them. "It seems we need to have a little chat. Mano e' mano." Elinor sat on her haunches, looking him in the eye.
For hours, she pressed him for information, and he sat in stubborn silence. What she needed this for, he was sure he knew — it had been why he had been sent to kill her, make an example of her. Charles would not speak, not a morsel of information passed his lips. Many times, as she sat in the doorway, she would take out her small pocket watch and sneer at it, and him, as they sat in near-absolute silence. She only left after Henry's fifth attempt to make her come and eat, supper had cooled hours ago and she must get out of the water she had been sitting knee-deep in soon or she would catch cold. Minutes after she left, Charles collapsed in exhaustion.
The next day Elinor barged into his cell, like a fury come to drag his immortal soul to an eternity of torment and damnation in Hell; with flames in her eyes, she hauled his sleeping form over her shoulder, as he awoke with a start, and up to the top deck. Charles's eyes flooded with blinding light as his manacles were hooked to a spare line and hoisted from the deck until he was near two feet in the air. Pirates littered the decks and rigging, watching with interest as they went about their tasks. A crowd of small eyes had formed on the mast above him and peered down with curiosity. "You will come to find that I am not a patient woman." Elinor stood before him in all of her fearsome glory. "I always get what I want, one way or another."
Taking a long dagger from her belt, she pulled his soaked shirt away from his skin and cut it loose from his body, letting the fabric fall to the ground. "You'll be let down when you are willing to cooperate." Elinor turned on her heel and marched away, to a place where she could easily watch him, the sea breeze catching on her billowy shirt and brunette hair.
Charles didn't know what manner of torture this was meant to be. The sun and cool wind felt good on his skin, and muscles that had begun to knot were being stretched as he hung from his wrists. He was confused, to say the least. "Back to work, you lazy swabs, or I'll string you up next to the miserable wretch." She called from where she stood next to Mr. Giles, at the helm, eyes fixed on her prisoner.
For the next hour or so, Henry stood silently observing Elinor from the corner of his eye as he kept the ship on course. They watched from the helm as the crew cowered under her malevolent, steely gaze. "You don't seem yourself," he said cautiously, watching as Arthur, a young cabin boy, struggled with a large bucket of ocean water and his mop.
"Washington has been breathing down my neck about getting information from the ruddy lobsterbacks. Keeps asking about Boston Harbor, he must be planning something. " She yawned as if this was old news. "If I know Ole Georgie, and I do, it'll be big." She continued to watch as young Arthur tripped over his mop and spilled the content of the bucket all over the deck.
"And that constitutes this madness?" Henry exclaimed, gesturing to the half-naked man hanging by his wrists from the mainmast, with a flabbergast expression on his face and in his tone. "You have no idea if he even knows what you're asking of him. This all seems mildly superfluous, even for you."
Elinor turned from Henry and her gaze was once again cast upon Charles, agony apparent on his face. Finally, she was getting somewhere. "Washington wants British secrets. And it is British secrets he will get."
