Owned by the Ocean

by Christine Steendam

  Brant watched, fists clenched tightly at his side. He could see right from the start that LaFleur was outmatched, if not in skill, then age. He moved sluggishly compared to Jacob’s robust youth as he deftly matched every step the captain made.

  LaFleur was good with the blade. It moved like an extension of his arm, blocking Jacob’s thrusts and slashes effortlessly, at first. But he was growing tired, slowing, while Jacob only pushed harder.

  The fight seemed to have only just begun, when LaFleur stumbled. Brant reached for his sword, ready to leap to his aid, but Karl laid his hand on his arm to hold him back.

  It happened quickly, but to Brant it seemed to move in slow motion as Jacob lunged forward and his cutlass bit into LaFleur’s stomach and protruded out his back. A dark stain slowly spread across his tunic and he fell to his knees. His face paled and lips turned an unnatural blue.

  Brant tried to lunge forward but Karl held his arm firmly. “No, boy. You ain’t gonna do any good.”

  Slowly, Jacob pulled his blade from the fallen captain’s stomach and turned his back to him, crimson betrayal dripping off the shining metal and onto the deck. He said nothing, walking away from the mess he had created and entering LaFleur’s cabin. He’d made his point.

  Once the cabin door shut Karl let go of Brant’s arm and he leapt forward, at LaFleur’s side. He was lying on the deck, a pool of blood quickly surrounding him, but Brant didn’t notice as he knelt in the warm liquid and held the dying man’s hand.

  “You don’t do anything dumb now, you hear?” said LaFleur through sputters and chokes.

  Brant shook his head. “This is wrong. They just turn on you, for what?”

  “I got soft. You and Karl tried to warn me but I was a fool.”

  Karl had joined Brant at LaFleur’s side, but he stood, stalwart and calm. He was no stranger to death.

  LaFleur’s breath grew shallow and his eyes fluttered and Brant thought he had passed on when LaFleur squeezed his hand and his eyes opened again. “You keep my girl safe and well, you hear me? You keep her sailing strong.”

  A ragged breath ripped through his body, gurgling in his lungs as his soul clawed its way to freedom. Brant had never stopped to watch someone die. He’d always thought it was more peaceful and calm than this, despite the pain of injury that brought it about. Instead, the life tore out of LaFleur, escaping as his corporeal body fought to hold on. It was in man’s nature to survive, it seemed that never went away, not even in the last moment of life.

  LaFleur’s jaw relaxed, open, as if shocked at his own mortality. His hand was limp in Brant’s.

  Brant didn’t look up as Karl walked away. He held tightly to his fallen captain’s hand. He wasn’t a praying man. He’d never really been religious, but his mother had taught him to pray for the souls of those less fortunate and her words came to him now. Silently, he mouthed the words that he hoped found their way to listening ears. “Lord, have mercy on his soul,” he repeated over and over.

  Chapter Six

  Brant clenched his fists tightly and took a deep breath. “Sir, we should take this route to Port Royale and unload. We’re sitting low in the water and if a storm blows in—”

  Jacob, the new captain, held up his hand. “We’re not heading in yet. She’s a good ship and she’ll weather a storm.”

  Brant looked over at Karl, silently begging him for help, but he just shrugged. “Plot the course, Brant.”

  Brant sighed and collected his tools up from the desk that Jacob never should have been sitting behind, and walked out of the cabin, Karl following close behind.

  Depositing his tools on a table near the ship’s wheel, Brant turned to Karl and threw up his hands. “He’s going to have us all at the bottom of the ocean!”

  Karl nodded, his face grim. “He’s a fool and knows nothin’ of running a ship. You see him after the last raid?”

  Brant nodded. Jacob had celebrated with the crew members a little too hard, and had spent the entire day afterwards holed up in his cabin. No one had been allowed to disturb him except to bring him coffee and breakfast. The men had joked about how he was going soft, but if he kept this up it wouldn’t be jokes for much longer. “He wants respect, but he doesn’t want to give up his place among the crew.”

  “He don’t start listening to someone, there’ll be another mutiny before long. Mark my words.”

  The scary thing was; Karl was right. In the weeks since LaFleur’s murder—that was what Brant had come to think of it as—Jacob had quickly showed his true colors. He was young, and green. He knew nothing of what it took to be a leader, or how to maintain control. He seemed to think he could order the crew around like his word was law, sit back and watch them do all the work, and then join in when it came to fun. In all his years serving under LaFleur, Brant had learned that as a captain you had to make certain sacrifices to differentiate yourself from the rest of the crew.

  LaFleur would have a drink, maybe two, with his men. But he never overdid it and he always remained in control. He never asked more of his men than he was willing to give and he always pulled his own weight.

  Jacob was riding high on power, refusing to listen to reason or advice. Brant and Karl had been patient with him, willing to help and offer advice, but he wanted nothing of it. It seemed like he had branded them traitors, followers of LaFleur, and didn’t trust them.

  Brant spread out his chart and began working on adjusting their course back into heavier trade routes. If Jacob wanted gold and blood, he’d get it. He only hoped that it wouldn’t be the BlackFox that ended up washed red with the lost lives of men he called brothers.

  Karl tapped his table a few times and clucked his tongue. Looking up, Brant raised his eyebrow. “Yes?”

  “This island, you can bring us right by it?”

  Brant looked at where Karl’s finger was tapping and made a few quick calculations. “Yeah. Can we unload our hold there?”

  Karl shook his head. “It be empty. Figure we keep it close by, just in case.” He let out a sigh, like it was a great weight to let those words out, then tapped the chart one last time before walking away.

  Brant frowned and looked back down at the map. Just in case. The way things were going it wasn’t “just in case”, it was just a matter of time.

  ***

  Brant sat in the mess hall that night in silence, surrounded by men that had him both disappointed and feeling a little sick. They had willingly betrayed and murdered their captain, and now their murmurs of discontent were rising up again; this time against the man that they had put into power.

  Their course had been altered to go near the island Karl had pointed out, but they wouldn’t be near there for another week. Brant hoped things would hold together until then. Another mutiny would tear the crew apart. If LaFleur had three loyal followers, Jacob easily had close to half the crew, but the other half was growing more and more upset with his poor leadership. If it reached a boiling point, the BlackFox would be washed in blood, and no one would make it out unscathed.

  A couple men sitting beside Brant were muttering angrily to each other as they ate stale bread dipped in stew.

  “This swill ain’t worthy of a dog,” muttered one man, tossing the hard lump of crust aside. “We need to make port and stock up and we ain’t near no harbor.”

  The man beside him nodded. “Cap’n don’t know what he’s doing. Picking on the wrong ships. We ain’t had a good raid even once this whole season.”

  Brant got up and took his empty bowl to the washing pot and deposited it there, then walked on deck. Karl was already up there, smoking his pipe in the cool evening air.

  “Tis calm,” he said when Brant walked up to join him.

  “Too calm. There’s a storm brewing.”

  “Aye.”

  But Brant wasn’t referring to the weather, and although it was calm out, the belly of the ship was simmering slowly into a boil. “We won’t weather this one well.”

  Karl shook his head, puffing thoughtful
ly on his pipe as he stared out at the ocean. “One good raid, it’ll calm things for a time.”

  “Long enough?”

  Karl nodded.

  “What if we don’t get that raid?”

  Karl smiled and pointed ahead. “Can’t see her yet, but I saw a ship from the nest through the glass. She’s sittin’ low. We’ll be on her tomorrow sometime.”

  Brant smiled slightly, but it was bitter sweet. He wasn’t sure he could stomach more blood, but Karl was right; it would blow off enough steam to keep the men under control until they were in a better position.

  “If a stray bullet found the captain—” Brant trailed off. He could end things tomorrow if they were in a raid. No one would notice that friendly fire had taken down their captain.

  “There’ll be a power struggle for who be captain. Best we let things be until the last possible moment, then take public action. Establish leadership.”

  Brant reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette, slightly bent and wrinkled. He lit it and inhaled the smoke. Karl was right, if he ended it during a raid, in secret, it would tear apart the crew more than any mutiny would. They had to be perfect in their timing and act just at the point before boiling, when the men were good and ready to accept a leader who would present himself but not quite ready to draw blood. The only problem was finding that perfect moment.

  ***

  Karl was right, there was a raid the next day. But it didn’t go as expected. Jacob was over eager, making the wrong calls at the wrong time and refusing to take advice from the more seasoned sailors on his crew.

  Brant took second watch that night. He wandered the deck, cigarette hanging from his lip and staring out at the water on all sides. He couldn’t look down at the deck, still stained with the blood of crewmembers that shouldn’t have been screaming in pain, dying, bleeding out on the deck boards of their home. The raid today had been a blood bath. They’d lost three men. Three! Three good men that shouldn’t have been lost if Jacob had just let his pride go and allowed men with more experience advise him. There were another two in the infirmary. One had lost a leg, the other had a stab wound.

  There had been no celebration tonight.

  Jacob had tried to bring out the rum and start festivities, but the men had only somberly taken a swig, said a few words for their fallen mates, and passed the bottle off. Once it had made its rounds the remainder was poured into the ocean, a kind of peace offering.

  Maybe it was then that Jacob realized that he had made a mistake. One of his mates had pulled him aside and since then Brant hadn’t seen him. The glow of the oil lamp had shone from the captain’s cabin window until well past midnight, but now in the wee hours of the morning it was dark and silent. Brant hoped his dreams were haunted by the blood on his hands, by the screams he had caused.

  Brant hadn’t had a chance to talk to Karl yet, but the fact that the raid had gone so badly meant they were short on time, and it was unlikely they’d make it to the island before things blew up. They had shared a look earlier, when the men had been paying their respects to their fallen comrades. Brant had seen the tired look in the old man’s eyes, the look that said he was losing hope for the crew and ship.

  “Hey, Foxton, yer off for the night, go get some shut eye,” said Curly, a red headed Scotsman that had found himself on the crew just last season.

  “Thanks, Curly. Not sure I’ll be able to sleep though.”

  The Scotsman clucked his tongue but nodded. “Aye, I been tossing and turning myself. Yesterday don’t sit well.”

  Brant nodded, but didn’t encourage the conversation.

  “Cap’n… he made some bad calls and a lot of the men are beginning to talk.”

  “Maybe the men should be content with who they put in charge,” spat out Brant. It still didn’t sit well with him how they had turned on LaFleur.

  “Aye, you were close with LaFleur. I can’t help but think we were better off with him, even if he was gettin’ soft.”

  “You aren’t the only one with that sentiment,” muttered Brant, but he’d had enough of the conversation and he walked away, taking the ladder below deck where his bunk was waiting for him.

  If men like Curly were beginning to come forward and speak openly of their unhappiness with Jacob, then they had less time than Brant had hoped. They were looking to recruit men to their cause, make sure sympathies lay in the right place. It wouldn’t be long now. A ship was a small place and people knew where your allegiance lay pretty quickly. The question was; who was heading it all up, and when were they going to make their move?

  Brant tossed and turned, true to his prediction, and drifted in and out of sleep. Any sleep he managed to get was full of nightmares, dreams of LaFleur bleeding out on the deck, dreams of him begging Brant to step forward and speak up on his behalf, to fight for him, to show his loyalty.

  Brant hadn’t slept well since the night of the mutiny. He’d been haunted by dreams and guilt. He knew LaFleur wasn’t speaking to him from beyond the grave, blaming him for not speaking up, but he still felt the guilt weighing down on him.

  He’d been voluntarily taking the second watch every night, usually tired enough by the end to catch a few hours of sleep before the day began. Today was different though. Perhaps it was the rising discontent among the crew that had the air electrified and dangerous—keeping Brant’s mind too busy to consider sleep.

  He rolled out of his bunk a half hour early and pulled on his boots, walking up on deck. Curly was seated by the mast smoking, giving Brant a nod but not bothering to approach. Brant gave a nod back, and took the stairs to the upper deck where he found Karl, standing and staring at their wake.

  Without a word Brant started lowering the rope to measure how many knots they were traveling at. He did this three times a day; once first thing in the morning, once mid-day, and once in the evening.

  “Curly approached me this morning,” said Brant.

  Karl nodded. “Things are deteriorating fast.”

  “We won’t make it to the island.”

  Karl shook his head.

  “I think we need to move, soon.”

  Karl nodded. He didn’t seem to have many words this morning; he was somber, deep in thought. But Brant wished he would offer some kind of advice, the next step in their plan, because he was feeling a little lost and alone right now.

  “Mayhaps we should just let things play out and find a new billet next port,” offered Karl. It wasn’t what Brant wanted to hear.

  Brant wanted to yell at the man, scream at him that he was giving up, that LaFleur had charged them with making sure his ship kept sailing strong and proud, but he didn’t. Maybe a part of him had been expecting Karl to back down. He wasn’t young anymore; he didn’t have the energy for politics and intrigue.

  “You do what you feel is right,” said Brant, finished measuring the knots. The rope lay coiled neatly at his feet, and he turned away to go make note of the time and speed in the ship’s log.

  Brant’s ship’s log was different from the captain’s, and he kept it below deck in a small desk with his tools. When he went down to make his notes, the sleeping quarters were slowly stirring to life as men were getting up, stretching and pulling on their breeches and boots, but the good natured joking that should have been happening among the more lively bunch was missing. The crew was quiet, somber, reflective of Karl’s own disposition, but there was a hum of danger in the air; like the rising humidity just before a storm.

  Fine, if Karl wasn’t going to give him guidance, if he wasn’t going to fulfill LaFleur’s dying wish, then Brant would have to take matters into his own hands. He filled in his log, then strode over to his bunk, grabbing his brace of pistols off his hook and strapping them on. He knew men were staring at him, but he didn’t care. He drew one of his pistols, checked that it was loaded, and ran up on deck.

  Bursting into the captain’s cabin without so much as a knock, he was met with the sight of Jacob still asleep in bed.

  It se
emed fitting, that Brant drag this supplanter from his bed like he had done to the rightful captain.

  Jacob slowly stirred, and looked at Brant in confusion. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Brant said nothing, strode forward and grabbed the man by his shirt and forcefully yanked him from bed. He was deaf to Jacob’s shouts of protests as he pulled him from the cabin and onto the deck, where a group of men had already gathered around.

  “Prepare a boat,” growled Brant to Curly, who was the closest. The man nodded, eyes wide.

  “What are you doing? You can’t do this! I’m your captain!” shouted Jacob, but Brant ignored him.

  “Listen up!” shouted Brant, calling attention from the angry captain he had clutched in his free hand. “A few weeks ago you all rose up against your rightful captain and allowed this man to kill him in cold blood.

  “You had it good. LaFleur looked after us; always made sure we had food in our bellies and gold in our coffers. But that wasn’t enough for you. You ungrateful dogs wanted more, and you got this man.

  “The ship has fallen apart quickly since he took over. I hear your whispers. I feel the discontent. You men would turn so quickly on a man you set in place? That you chose? Fine. You can’t make up your mind, you would rather whisper treason and mutiny until it exploded in more blood, blood that still stains this deck from the deaths of our mates and captain? Then I will act for you.”

  Brant paused in his speech, looking around the faces of the men around him and seeing shock unanimously registered in everyone’s eyes.

  “You all disgust me. You would see this ship torn apart on the reefs rather than sailing strong like she has for years. I can’t allow that. I promised LaFleur I’d keep her sailing strong and proud, and I intend to do that.

  “I won’t kill this man you named captain,” he spit out the title, dragging Jacob to the boat that was now extended beside the ship’s rail, ready to be lowered. He pushed Jacob forward and pointed his pistol at him. “Climb in,” he ground out through gritted teeth.