by B. L. Morgan
Creeping, drifting slowly and silently like a huge ghost in the night The Bad Omen slipped through the water around the curve of the shore. With only the slightest slap of water against the hull and the smallest ripple of the sail on the night breeze to betray we were there, The Bad Omen came past the edge of the land and pulled up alongside the huge Spanish Galleon blocking her inside the mouth of the lagoon.
We were positioned sideways beside the large warship, just where we wanted to be.
That was when with loud whooping and hollering from two points on the shore on both sides of the lagoon the two members of The Bad Omen crew cut loose with blunderbuss and pistols firing at the Galleon.
There was instant pandemonium on the big ship’s deck as orders were shouted to find out who was shooting at them. Life boats splashed into the water from the landward side of the Galleon and sailors began climbing down ladders.
That was when we let our presence be known.
Carmel was at the rail with Johnny and me on both sides of her. At her command grappling hooks were thrown and snagged the side of the big ship. At the same time hand grenades and stink pots were thrown over the rail to explode on the deck.
The hand grenades were made from emptied liquor bottles and were filled with gunpowder, broken glass and small jagged pieces of iron. They worked just like Molotov cocktails with lit fuses.
Stink pots were small clay pots filled with burning sulfur. Wherever they landed anyone near them got an instant case of burning eyes and throat.
After we bombarded the surprised, disoriented Spanish crew with these and a few rounds of shots from whatever firearms the Bad Omen crewmen had several of the Spanish sailors started leaping overboard.
What Carmel had planned worked perfectly. They thought we were a far larger boarding party than we were.
We pulled the Bad Omen close to the side of the Spanish Galleon. With very little resistance, because most of their crew was battling fires by then, we leaped aboard.
The fighting was fierce.
Carmel swung over from The Bad Omen to the Galleon like some sort of wild jungle girl on a rope from a grappling hook that snagged the rigging. But this jungle girl was swinging a gleaming cutlass as she landed lightly on the Spanish deck.
“Surrender now,” she shouted with me and Johnny standing on both sides of her and the rest of her crew coming over the rail. “Surrender and quarter will be given. Resist and we will kill the lot of you!”
That was met by a curse from the Galleon’s commander who flung himself at us.
If he was by himself that would have been a short fight but he was backed up by at least a dozen sailors who turned away from the fires on the deck and charged.
On the voyage to this island Johnny and me had tested our skills with these blades by fencing with each other and what we had come to assume we now found to be fact. We were some bad mother-fuckers with long blades in our hands.
We met the Spanish sailors charge with cold steel.
As for the Spanish Commander, he broke off his part of the charge just as soon as his sailors jumped at us. Evidently he was a better cheer leader than fighter because he spent most of the time standing off to the side urging his men into the fight while in the clear himself.
As I said before, the primary purpose for me and Johnny was to guard Carmel. I doubt that Carmel really needed any guarding at all. In fact, I think that everybody else needed guarding from her.
That girl leaped forward screaming like she had a rat shoved up her ass waving her sword like she didn’t have a brain one. If she’d have charged me like that I’d have backed the fuck up.
The Spanish sailors froze.
That was not a good idea.
Carmel leaped among them slicing to the left and right like a doubles tennis player on crack. Arms flew through the air, cleaved completely through.
All the rest of the pirates, Johnny and me included, gave Carmel a good wide area to work in. The way she was slinging that blade and running around like she was insane, half the time I don’t think she knew who the hell she was hacking.
The Spanish sailors retreated under Carmel’s attack. They could have stood their ground with all the rest of us. Who knows, maybe they could have fought off our surprise attack if it hadn’t been for that bitch going crazy on them.
They just didn’t have any idea of how to deal with her.
Even though Carmel tried to kill everybody herself me, and Johnny did get to do a little bit of sword fighting that day.
Carmel backed up six sailors all the way across the deck against the far rail when two of them, one on each side, tried to slide off to come in at her from behind. These were the two boys we took care of.
Keeping an eye on how Johnny was doing I fenced with a tall brawny guy who suddenly rushed in past my blade and tried to stab me with a dagger. Knocking his knife thrust off to the side with a forearm shove I grabbed him by the collar with my left hand, jerked him to me and head butted him to the nose.
The bridge of his nose crunched and he staggered backward. A kick to his nuts then put him to his knees and a backhanded slice cleaved the head from his shoulders. He went to meet his ancestors with a scream on his lips.
Johnny sent his guy bleeding over the side rail. Carmel, well she wasn’t giving anybody a chance to retreat. Two of hers were down and bleeding their lives out on the deck. When the other two attempted to jump ship she parted ones hair right down to his eyebrows. The other guy she ripped a slice right across his ass as he jumped up on the rail to leap over.
He screamed and splashed a moment later.
I knew that boy would be shitting tenderly for a long time. If it was possible I knew he’d want to take his dumps standing straight up.
Thank God I didn’t have that problem.
It was at that moment when I noticed that we’d cleared the deck of all the Spanish sailors, except for one.
The Spanish Commander, the guy who’d stood off to the side urging his men to fight and die for him, somehow got himself trapped up by the Captain’s Wheel. He backed himself up there without thinking and was surrounded.
At about the same moment as when I spotted him so did Carmel and Johnny. It was also at that same moment that the Spanish Commander suddenly realized that he was on his ship by himself.
He knew his position was hopeless. With three pirates holding bared steel in their fists he surrendered without a moments notice by throwing down his sword and shouting, “Quarter! Quarter! I beg quarter by the code of the sea among fighting men.”
The pirates held off momentarily from finishing him and looked to Carmel.
Carmel strode straight through her men, then up the stairs and stood directly in front of the trembling Spanish Commander. The way she walked, her entire manner told me she was not going to be discussing the most recent fashions in Spain.
“So, it’s quarter you ask me for?” she hissed.
“Yes,” the Commander said a quaver in his voice. “I beg for quarter and according to the honorable Code of the Sea among fighting men you are to grant me such.”
“Is that so?” Carmel asked her blade dropping to her side. “So there is a Code of the Sea among fighting men?”
“There is,” he answered. “And you must abide by it.”
Carmel looked directly into the eyes of the Spanish Commander who trembled before her.
“I had not known of this code,” she told him and then glanced to the sailors that stood around them. “Perhaps that is because I am not a man.”
She jerked her blade up and ripped it to the side neatly slicing a line across the Spanish Commander’s throat.
He stumbled backward clutching his neck, blood bubbling out between his fingers. He went to his knees then collapsed to the deck his life pouring out.
Standing over him Carmel announced, “I am no man and so I follow no man’s code. Beware all who would attempt to rule Captain Carmel by the laws of man!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
In Betweens
We spent that night loading The Bad Omen with all the supplies that the Spanish Galleon possessed. It was well stocked with dried meats and foodstuffs designed for a long ocean voyage. But that wasn’t what interested the men the most.
There were ten crates below deck of a type of crude Spanish beer. The men cheered when they spotted those.
Carmel gave an immediate order that not a drop was to be touched until we were well away from the island. She didn’t want the entire crew to be wasted and passed out if the Spanish sailors decided to try to retake their ship.
In the Captain’s cabin we found what every pirate searches the Seven Seas for: Treasure.
In a small padlocked wooden chest there was a sizeable amount of Spanish Doubloons. It wasn’t a fortune but even divided up there was enough to keep the crew happy for awhile. My guess was that this was the payroll for either the Spanish crew or a military fort the ship was headed for.
Either way, it was ours now.
There was next to no fresh water or fresh fruit on board. This ship came to the island for the same reason we had.
It was decided immediately that in the morning we would send in a landing party to get fresh water and gather fruit.
After everything that we needed was loaded onto the Bad Omen we spread lantern oil all over the deck. After we cast off from the Spanish Galleon and drifted away by at least fifty feet a lit torch was thrown across to her deck.
We drifted back and watched as the Galleon caught fire and went up like a Viking Funeral Ship. But not one of us shed a tear.
The rest of that night was spent dividing up the Spanish Doubloons.
Carmel had a right as Captain to two shares while the rest of the crew would get a share apiece. She surprised me because she didn’t take her extra share. Carmel made sure everything was divided evenly.
She was smarter than I gave her credit for.
Sea captains who treated their crew as equals were rare. A pirate captain who treated their crew as equals was completely unknown. These men knew that they would never find a more fair deal anywhere than what they would get aboard a ship captained by Carmel.
She bought their loyalty by showing a lack of greed.
After catching a few hours of sleep while a quarter of the crew kept watch, we lowered two life boats and headed in to shore. As the oars cut the water I for one was looking forward to putting my feet on solid ground again.
Maybe in this life I’d spent a lot of time at sea, but the truth was I was always going to be a land-lubber. I’d never get completely used to the feeling of standing on a slick deck that rocked beneath my feet even in calm weather.
Sea gulls screeched overhead as we hit the shore and pulled the boats up onto the sandy beach.
We left two men to guard the boats and keeping our eyes peeled for hiding Spanish sailors, we headed inland looking for bananas and coconut trees. Fruit on this small island was plentiful. It wasn’t long before we found both of them.
The bananas were low enough to just pick without even climbing.
The coconuts were a different matter. A young agile sailor who actually liked climbing around on The Bad Omen’s top rigging volunteered to climb for coconuts.
When he started bragging that he was the best climber on the ship I just told him, “Have at it boy. It’s your broken neck.”
We carried back to The Bad Omen a good supply of bananas and coconuts and even though I felt like we were watched every step of the way, the Spanish Sailors stayed the hell away from us.
When all of us were back aboard the anchor was raised and it was back to the open sea for us.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Crazy Bitch
The buccaneer’s money pouches were full and they were itching to find somewhere to do away with their newfound wealth so Carmel set a course for Casablanca. With the wind in the sails and the salty sea spray blowing through our hair we headed for what was known at that time as one hell of a wild town.
The trip to Casablanca was supposed to take about a week. I say it was supposed to because the speed in a sailing ship depended entirely upon the strength and direction of the wind and currents. If the wind and the currents aren’t going the direction you want to go, you may never get to where you want to go.
On the second night on the trip to Casablanca a group of us were sitting in the deck or leaning against the rail drinking Spanish beer and slinging the shit.
The group that was sitting around was me, Johnny, Kane, Carter and Beltrain.
Beltrain was a guy who I haven’t mentioned as yet. He was a bit older than the rest of us. He had gray hair and mean eyes. He’d been a shopkeeper in Jamaica until he was press ganged into the crew of an English Frigate. Being press ganged means being kidnapped and thrown onto a ship and being forced to become a member of the crew.
By the time Beltrain got back to Jamaica his wife, who thought he’d been murdered was married again. This time she was married to a wealthy merchant who treated Beltrain’s children well.
Since they were doing better than what he could do for them Beltrain decided to leave them as they were. He joined a merchant crew after that and was later recruited by Carmel when he was on a drunken binge in Cuba.
We sat around and drank beer. Me and Johnny mostly let the others tell the tales of their lives. We didn’t speak much about ours because we knew that no one would believe a thing anyway. Although why they wouldn’t, I wasn’t sure.
All of them thought that we’d come back from the dead, so what the hell could be more unbelievable than that?
There was a guy that sat a little distance from us who was strumming a thing that was something like a guitar and was attempting to sing. He sounded like shit. Actually, he sounded just like Bob Dylan, which was the same thing. It was singing that sounded just like a dog getting his balls stepped on.
I was glad he was some distance away. Otherwise I’d have had to have broken that fucking guitar thing over his head.
The night was warm.
The breeze moved the ship.
We got lit on the beer and talked like men do about the conquests of our lives. Whether the stories told had ever happened or not didn’t really matter. It was just the idea that all of us wanted the same thing.
When Carter told of his marooning on a small island where he met and fucked an entire family of mermaids we knew he made that one up.
“Arr! Them were some scaly lasses, they were,” he told us. “Getting at their sweet spot done rubbed the inside of my legs raw and made my balls swell up like coconuts for awhile. But it was worth it, it was.”
Johnny slapped him on the back as we all laughed about that one.
“You talk about a woman that made me sore, dam Carmel did a real good job on me.” Johnny said.
Just a little distance from us Carmel was at the Captain’s Wheel and was listening to our stories.
“Yes, indeed,” she told all of us. “I be the crazy bitch!”
Johnny went on without missing a beat.
“Yeah on that first day when we got back Carmel jumped on top of me and started riding the rod. She started yelling, ‘Who’s the crazy bitch? Who’s the crazy bitch?’ I know none of you know what the hell Rap Music is, but I know who the hell invented it now.
“Shit, I thought the girl had done lost her mind, but dam, it was good!”
Carmel smiled a toothy smile at Johnny. Her teeth were green and brown and all fucked up just like everybody else’s.
“Well Jonydavid, who is the crazy bitch?”
“You are darlin’,” he answered.
“Yes, and don’t you ever forget it,” she told him.
We sailed throughout the nights and days and before we knew it the lookout spotted the Port of Casablanca.
Many ships were coming and going as Carmel guided The Bad Omen in between the ones coming out and slid her up to a dock where we tied off. It was late evening when we arrived and from the docks the city looked like an
y other I’d ever been in; a whole hell of a lot of people crammed into some really tight places.
Of course this was not like any city that existed in the world where I’d come from; the world of the twentieth century. There were no cars or electric lights but there were horse drawn carts and buggies. Most of the buildings were made of rough cut stone and lanterns shone from practically every window.
On the deck lots were drawn to see who would have to stay on the boat and who could go ashore. Even in dock the ship had to be guarded or someone would sneak on and steal whatever they could lay their hands on or worse yet they might steal the entire fucking boat.
Me and Johnny were exempted from that lottery.
Carmel was going ashore and Johnny was going with her no questions asked. Me being a paid body guard gave me an automatic shore leave so I could help watch out for Carmel’s hide.
Donovan was one of the guys that stayed behind. It was him and two other guys whose names I can’t remember.
Packing money in our pouches we went into town.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Casablanca
The smell at the Casablanca docks was incredible. Discarded rotting fish mixed with sailor vomit and piss and shit doesn’t make for a great room freshener. This stuff was enough to make your eyes burn.
With every step we took on the splinter-filled boards I was appreciating the wide open sea breezes more and more.
On the borderline between where the docks ended and the city streets began there were droves of beggars pleading for a handout. People with nothing, begging from people with next to nothing, that didn’t make any sense to me. I guess that the rich people were too smart to give them anything. So the beggars went where they at least had a chance of getting something.
Prostitutes were hanging out in this area too. But I tell you, these girls were so mangy that only a blind man could handle the way they looked. Come to think of it, they’d be shit out of luck with blind guys too because these girls stank like hell.