Pirate's Wraith, The

by Penelope Marzec

  “Get a good grip on him, boy.” The doctor lowered the knife.

  “Stop!” Lesley ripped a strip of cloth from the wounded man’s pants and picked up a wooden dowel lying beside the other surgical instruments. She gagged as she slid the cloth beneath the man’s upper arm. Knotting the cloth, she twisted it tightly using the dowel.

  The thought of what this poor man would suffer without anesthesia made her ill.

  “You can start cutting now.” She held onto the unfortunate victim as the keenly honed steel of Gilroy’s blade slid into the soft flesh. The boy gripped the man’s legs.

  When the patient screamed, she jammed the braided rope between his teeth, but moments later his body went slack. She could not watch the primitive procedure. Yes, she had hoped to be a doctor, but not a surgeon. She knew her limits. However, what she witnessed could not be classed as surgery. It reminded her of a butcher’s shop.

  Dr. Gilroy picked up a fine-toothed saw to hack into the patient’s bone.

  Her knees nearly buckled as she heard the limb fall away. Another sailor came up with a pot of foul-smelling, bubbling black tar. After dipping the stub of the victim’s arm in the tar, two other men hauled him away. Moments later, the men placed another wounded sailor on the table for the next amputation.

  She retrieved the dowel and ripped up another pair of pants to apply another tourniquet. This is hell! She gagged at the amputations of a foot, then an arm, and finally a leg. Somehow she managed to keep standing. Though she prevented some loss of blood, she did not know whether it would make a difference. She did not abandon her assigned station and miraculously, she did not pass out.

  Above them on deck, the battle raged but Lesley paid scant attention to the sounds of war. She concentrated on her task. After what seemed like hours, the doctor put down his saw.

  “All of them will die.” She mumbled as she wiped away the sweat on her forehead with her blood-covered sleeve. “This is not a sterile environment. There isn’t any antiseptic or even pain medication. If they don’t die of blood loss, they’ll die of shock or an infection.”

  “Aye, some will die but some will live.” The doctor wiped his knife. “You may go back to the cap’n’s cabin now.”

  She stared at the odd old man. “Is the battle over?”

  “Aye, and we’ve won.”

  She glanced around at the unconscious, tortured souls on the wooden floor. “How can you tell?”

  “The other ship is lying on the bottom and we have taken prisoners.”

  “Will they be forced to walk the plank?”

  “We have lost a good many of our crew but the quartermaster has a way with prisoners. He gets them to sign the ship’s articles. They will have the opportunity to join us.”

  “That’s insane. How can you trust them? They tried to sink this ship.”

  “What does it matter who they sail with as long as the rations are hearty and there’s rum in the water?” He waved his hand to dismiss her. “Get along. You did a fair job—better’n many.”

  “Why, because I didn’t faint?”

  “There’s them that can stab an enemy in the heart but when they sees their own blood the fits grab hold of ‘em.”

  Sticky with other men’s blood, she climbed upward toward fresh air, but she discovered that the morning’s clear skies had changed. A gentle rain poured down upon the Lyrical and its crew. Lesley lifted her face to the cold rain, welcoming the light cascade. She rubbed away the blood on her skin and in her hair. If only she had a bar of soap. She wanted to strip away her clothes and toss them overboard. She would never be able to remove all the stains and she would never be able to wash away the memory of the horrific scene below decks.

  The crew appeared busy at various tasks. Some sewed the dead into rough canvas shrouds. Other men made repairs since many sections of the ship had been split by cannonballs and portions of the railings on the side of the ship had been blasted away.

  When she reached the captain’s door, she heard the sound of laughter within.

  “A clever ruse and worthy of imitation.” Christopher Moody’s voice trilled with obvious merriment.

  “Devious bastards.” Captain Sterford rumbled.

  “Their leader proved a most cunning fellow.” Came the quartermaster’s voice, deeper than the others.

  “By now he should be in hell where he belongs,” the captain growled.

  “Indeed, you sent him there with the fatal blow, Sterford. Right to the heart.” Moody’s voice sounded merry.

  Lesley shuddered. Captain Sterford was a murderer. The men on the Lyrical were all murderers. Her stomach clenched tightly as she rapped her knuckles against the door. The men’s conversation ended.

  When she entered the cabin, the captain glowered, Moody smiled, and the quartermaster narrowed his eyes as if he could see right through her. A chill ran along her shoulders.

  Their glasses held a dark amber liquid. Blood splatters soiled their disheveled and torn clothing.

  “Aha! Our new cabin boy! What a pity you spent your time with Gilroy when you could have fought with us.” Moody’s fleshy face held a ruddy glow.

  “It is a battle to save men’s lives.” She wondered how the old doctor had found the strength to keep at his grisly assignment.

  “Did you do any stitching?” Moody chuckled.

  She shook her head. She wished she had some antiseptic. She wanted to douse herself in it from head to toe.

  Moody grabbed one of her hands. She tried to pull it away, but he held on. The power in his grip sent a black wave of fear coursing up her arm. He was Christopher Moody—one of the wickedest pirates ever to sail the seas.

  “Your fingers are so delicate. Surely, they could piece together a fine seam,” he said.

  She stifled a gasp. Had the captain divulged their secret? But the captain sat frowning into his drink as if he studied his own features in the mirrored surface. Mr. Hooper, the quartermaster said nothing, though he glanced not only at her but at the other men’s faces and at the door—as if he expected someone to enter it.

  “I have never picked up a needle, sir.” Her bald statement held the truth. She regularly used the services of an excellent tailor.

  “Pity—for my coat is apparently ruined.” Moody sighed and dropped her hand to finger the slashed edges of his brocaded jacket. “It has been one of my favorites. I acquired it from a French duke—a most conceited man.”

  She wanted to wipe away the stain of Moody’s sweat but her blood-stained clothes had not a clean spot anywhere.

  “We must commit our dead to the sea, Mr. Moody. Assemble the crew.” The captain ordered.

  “I must interrogate the prisoners.” Mr. Hooper spoke up.

  “The prisoners can wait. Sitting in the dark hold may give them time to think about their situation.” Captain Sterford finished his drink. “It may help to convince them of our munificent offer.”

  “As you wish, sir. I will wait until later for my amusement.” Mr. Hooper rose, but a depraved gleam lingered in his cunning gaze.

  Lesley shivered. She did not want to think about the methods of torture Hooper would use on the prisoners to convince them to join the pirate crew.

  Moody gulped down the rest of his drink. “We had a good fight but there’s little to show for it.”

  “We sunk the ship.” The captain poured more liquid into his glass.

  “Ah well, there is that.” Moody shrugged and exited the cabin.

  Lesley stood and watched the captain mull over his drink. How could he be so calm?

  “Half our crew is either dead or wounded and the ship is leaking far worse than it did before the battle,” he muttered.

  Knowing the ship leaked badly sent a frisson of panic along her already overwrought nerves. The lamp in the cabin swung to and fro and her stomach quivered with nausea again.

  “Dr. Gilroy did not know about tourniquets,” she blurted out. “The wounded probably won’t live to see the dawn.”

  The c
aptain shrugged and drank down more of his potent brew. “I cannot comprehend half of what you say. Is it the language of the Devil you speak?”

  She fisted her hands and fought for control. “Tourniquet is a French word. Hasn’t anyone invented it yet in this backward century? A tourniquet squeezes all the blood vessels so tightly no blood can get through—which isn’t a good thing unless there’s no hope for the limb. In 2011, there are surgeons able to re-attach limbs.” She swallowed hard and struggled to hold in her emotions as she thought of the men and their broken bodies. She continued on in a near whisper, “Though it depends on whether the limb is salvageable. I doubt if even a very skilled, modern surgeon could piece those poor souls body parts together. And they ... they didn’t have the benefit of morphine either.”

  Tears threatened to overflow, but she held them back.

  “Two thousand eleven—in the future.” He rubbed his forehead as if it ached.

  She paled. If he accused her of being a witch would she be forced to walk the plank?

  The captain walked to a small shelf and took a book from it. “Did you use sorcery to make this... this tourniquet? Did you call upon the Devil?”

  Her nerves tensed. Obviously, she could get herself in deeper and deeper trouble by telling him about the future. Struggling to keep her composure, she answered. “I used a dowel and some cloth—a very rudimentary substitute but it worked. It stopped the men from bleeding out.”

  “Did you not use any potions or herbs?”

  She wrapped her arms about her. “The doctor had one of the other crew members sprinkle vinegar about—and vinegar does kill some germs—”

  “Germs?”

  “Disease.” Dammit. She could not communicate with him. Germs—in the medical sense—were probably unknown in 1711. “Poisons. Sick men have bad poisons in their body and those poisons can be passed on if the doctor doesn’t sterilize his instruments before he works on another patient.”

  “Who gave these men poisons?”

  “The poisons are already in them. Like hepatitis and staph and...you have no idea what I’m talking about but they are bad infections, which the body has to fight with a fever.” She sniffed and held onto her emotions. “Some of the men may simply die of shock. I never saw such carnage.” She clenched her teeth in a further effort to control her emotions.

  “Indeed, our opponents fought fiercely.” He sat at his desk and leafed through the book as if nothing had happened. He had killed somebody today—with a knife to the heart. Yet, he believed her to be a witch and in league with the Devil. How could a brutal tyrant and pirate have any right to accuse her of witchcraft? He robbed and murdered.

  “What is it with all this hostility? You would think the human race would have some sense after a while, but no--men and women are still dying in wars, still fighting over some insignificant parcel of land. Still robbing and pillaging. What is the point?” A sob escaped her lips before she could squelch it. All the faces of those men who had suffered such torture, all the blood, all the screaming and moaning—and the sickening smell of death.

  “Dammit. I want to go home. I want to go home right now.” She knew she couldn’t. She would die here in 1711—and probably rather soon. She had almost gotten clobbered by a falling mast and dodged some flying cannonballs. Living on a leaky ship with blood-thirsty pirates could substantially shorten her life.

  She slid to the floor. Drawing her knees up, she wrapped her arms around them and tucked her head down. “I used to complain about so many inconsequential things—like when the waiter brought me lukewarm soup. I was a bitch.” She tried to blot out the day’s images but it didn’t work. “Why did you attack that boat? Why didn’t you just run away from it?”

  “They provoked the assault.”

  “They knocked down your mast. Big deal. You’ve lost more than half your crew—and the ones who are injured are in horrible shape—mangled and crippled for life. What did you win?”

  “We killed the bastard and sank his ship.”

  “You paid a high price for your revenge, but I don’t doubt that tomorrow when some other idiot lobs a cannonball in your direction, your testosterone will kick in and you will forget all about the consequences of today’s mêlée. You’re treating life as a cheap commodity. All your men probably have sweethearts or wives and children. What are they going to do now?” A hot tear rolled down her cheek and she couldn’t stop it. Her nose dripped.

  Dammit. Nobody had invented tissues yet either.

  He touched her shoulder and a warm shimmer tingled along her nerves, a sensation which baffled her because it could not be real. There had to be some sort of explanation for it. Could there be an unusual electrical force field on the ship? When lightning hit her car, had her body soaked up some of the charge? Since she came from another century, did they react to each other like the opposite poles of a magnet?

  She glanced up and saw him holding out the glass to her. The liquor glistened in the lamplight and she realized she could not remember the last time she had something to eat or drink. She accepted the glass and took a huge gulp. It burned her gut all the way down, but she couldn’t remember anything ever tasting quite so good.

  “Touch this.” He held out the book. It looked like an antique Bible.

  She reached up and smoothed her fingers over the leather cover.

  “Does it burn you?” He peered at her with intensity.

  “No.” She gritted her teeth. Did he intend to prove she was a witch?.

  “Open it and read. Aloud.” His expression clouded as he handed the book to her.

  She took it, but first drank down the rest of the liquor in one long swallow. She opened the cover and glanced over a passage of old English printed in a horrible font, peppered with thees, thous, and thys.

  The captain waited. However, she found it impossible to focus due to the illegible font, exhaustion, and the effects of the potent drink. She closed the cover. “Could this test wait? Reading in a moving vehicle gives me motion sickness. Besides, the light in here is terrible.”

  “You are possessed.” With distrust evident from his flaring nostrils, he swiped the book from her hands.

  She glared at him, vowing to fight if need be. She would not allow him to hurt her. No man would ever take advantage of her again. She learned her lesson the hard way from Jim. Latching onto the edge of the bunk with what felt like the last of her strength, she rose from the floor.

  “How many people can read and write in 1711? How do you know I’m educated enough to do so?”

  “You have no scars, straight bones, all your teeth, and clear eyes.”

  “That proves what? Why is it you’re stuck on this witch business? I told you what I do for a living. I am a pharmaceutical rep and I am damned good at selling drugs. I make an excellent salary. There isn’t any magic involved in what I do—and no tricks either.” She paused. Okay, sometimes the statistics were a bit skewed and the advertisements were relentless, but she never used any hocus pocus. “I got struck by lightning in a spinning car and landed here in 1711. It’s not my fault. I don’t want to be here. I want to go home!” She could barely hold herself together with that thought and tears misted her eyes.

  “It is Gilroy’s experiment that brought you here.” He rubbed his temples as if a headache lurked there. “It is the work of the Devil.”

  Anguish tormented her. This had to be some perverse level of hell—one that Dante did not know existed. She sank to the floor once more wondering why she had been chosen for this particular punishment. What had she done to deserve this?

  Yet, as she touched her temples she realized once more she didn’t have a migraine—even though she spent the entire day under extreme duress. Nothing the doctors had prescribed had ever eradicated the pain until now. Though she had never believed in miracles, this sure seemed like one.

  She remembered Jim telling her how in the old days, when people could not be cured of their illnesses, the doctors would recommend a sea voyage. Nat
urally, Jim had suggested a voyage on his boat. He wanted to go around the world—using her funds.

  She ground her teeth together. The resentment lingered, but not the headache. On the other hand, her savings sat in the bank in a different century and if she did not return, her niece and nephew would have their college education paid for.

  She thought about them—and about her sister. A well of darkness settled inside her at the sure knowledge she would never see them again. She loved her niece and nephew, but her sister was her best friend. They had shared everything from their happy childhood, to their clothes, to their piano teacher. Her sister’s marriage had not changed their relationship for they continued to call each other frequently and sent text messages every day. Her sister had spent months trying to convince her marrying Jim would be a mistake. She would be devastated when she discovered Lesley had vanished.

  Hurt threatened to overwhelm her and she sought for some scrap of hope to hold herself together. The only bright prospect that came to mind was the possibility of Jim being accused of murder. She slid her hand over her cheek, but the swelling had vanished along with the pain where he had slapped her. Evidently, going backward in time erased the bruise.

  If she could not go home could she get a message to her sister?

  Why couldn’t Lesley have become a scientist like Albert Einstein? Why had she majored in biology? Everyone knew about biology. Men and women had been biologists since the dawn of time. A roll in the hay and nine months later, junior is born. Easy. But to manipulate time ... that took a genius.

  She did not get into medical school. She labeled herself a failure. Selling drugs to doctors who needed them for patients did not take a lot of brainpower.

  None of her carefully planned goals would ever come to fruition. She thought about that small cradle back home and how much she had wanted to fill it with a pink-cheeked child of her own. Her heart ached with loss.

  She would spend the rest of her life stuck in this 1711 hellhole, on the Lyrical, with a pirate captain, his murderous first mate and their ragged though bloodthirsty crew.