by otis duane
Tinnie had posted lost-and-found fliers of Muenster throughout the neighborhood, but no one ever claimed him. In the meantime, the two became inseparable, and Muenster soon became an official member of the family. At first she tried naming him her movie idol, Bruce Lee, after the martial arts legend. But the finicky feline would only answer to the name Muenster, and so it stuck. To this day wherever Tinnie went, he went as well.
~*~
Muenster, swishing his long white-tipped tail back and forth, sat fixated on the birds outside. They were just a few feet away from the window bathing in the stone bird bath as his tail began to puff up. Tensing his shoulders and lowering back his ears, he started snapping his lower jaw, cackling at the birds. Like a ticking time bomb, he seemed poised to explode through the window at any moment to get at them.
Not heeding any of the obvious feline danger warning signs, Paul reached over and stroked his back.
“Hey buddy, you watching the–” but before he could finish, his hand was already receiving the business ends of Muenster’s claws and fangs.
“Holy son of a–!” Paul shrilled out in pain, coddling his bleeding hand.
Fully puffed-up and hissing, Muenster zoomed into the next room for safer ground under the formal dining room table.
“Dad! What’d you do?” Tinnie cried out, running after her cat.
Manny, ever vigilant, sprung up from his chair and quickly wrapped a paper napkin around his dad’s wounded hand.
“Pops, ya gotta be quicker than that,” he joked.
~*~
Manny was the epitome of a good kid and was always the first to offer a helping hand. Originally from Mexico, he was muscular for a teen his age and had long, wavy dark hair. Like his mom, he could go and go, and loved most sports, but wrestling for his junior high school was his thing. He also served as a great sparring partner for Tinnie whenever she would prepare for her next martial arts tournament. Having recently received his lifesaving certification, he was looking forward to working as a lifeguard at their local water park next summer.
Margie and Paul adopted Manny when he was only three from a Catholic orphanage in south central Mexico, near the Yucatan Peninsula. The nuns who lived there didn’t know much about him but believed he was of Mayan heritage. When he was just a baby, he’d been left on the orphanage’s doorstep one night, wrapped in a blanket with a note pinned to it that simply read Manuel.
The nuns were happy their Santito Manuel had found a home but were understandably heartbroken. When he walked out the front gate with his new parents and turned and waved goodbye, they all broke down in tears. Even now, every year on his birthday the sisters still send him a card with La Santa Madre, the Holy Mother, printed on it.
~*~
Manny, putting his new first aid skills to work, held his dad’s hand up above his heart as he walked him toward his mom.
Meanwhile, Heinz was winding everyone up, repeatedly clicking on an audio laugh track on his notepad.
Ah, Ha-Ha-Ha! Ah, Ha-Ha-Ha! the loop bellowed out over and over.
“Enough!” Margie scolded him, as she pulled a bottle of bourbon out of an overhead cabinet.
Heinz giggled under his breath before turning his attention back to his article.
“Over here,” Margie said in her sweet voice, waving Manny and Paul over to her.
Standing at the sink, the teen helped his mom unwrap his dad’s hand while Paul bit his lip. Wrinkling his forehead the father of three squeamishly asked, “Are you sure this is necessary?”
“Uh-huh,” she replied, unscrewing the cap on the bottle.
Holding his hand over the sink, he squeezed his eyes shut.
“Knock yourself out,” he mumbled, turning his head away.
“Love ya hun,” she said, stomping down on his foot as she poured the searing whiskey over his hand.
Dropping down to a knee, he squealed, “Make the bad lady stop!” as Manny caught him under his armpits.
“And today’s lesson was?” Margie asked as she looked down at him, still holding onto his wrist.
“Don’t pet puffy-tailed kitties,” he gasped.
“Good boy. Now go sit down…. Waffles ready!”
~*~
When everyone was seated, the family all bowed their heads and held hands as Paul led them in a breakfast prayer.
“Lord, we are truly thankful for all of the wonderful gifts you have given us in our lives. Our beautiful children... My trophy wife.”
Bashfully grinning, Margie affectionately squeezed his hand.
“Our vicious black cat,” he continued as Tinnie bit her lip and kicked his chair.
“These awesome waffles, and our trip to the Bahamas.”
“Amen,” they all replied, except for Margie, whose eyes popped wide open. Holding Paul’s hand in something of a death grip, she stared at him but he avoided any eye contact with her. Instead, under the table he wrestled his hand away from her, all the while fronting a forced smile.
“When do we leave, Dad?” Manny eagerly asked.
“It’d better not interfere with my Kung Fu test,” Tinnie sharply added.
“Boats and ho’s,” Heinz said with an ear-to-ear grin as he methodically nodded his head. Dropping her jaw wide open, Tinnie flip-smacked him with the back of her fingers. Giggling, he was amused at how easily he could antagonize her and then took a bite of his waffle.
Margie, now glaring at Paul said, “Honey, didn’t we talk about this? No extra expenses since we both got a p-a-y-c-u-t.” When Margie was upset she tended to spell.
“Mom, we know how to spell,” Tinnie was quick to remind her.
“You got docked at work?” Heinz blurted out.
“We’re fine,” Margie replied. “We just need to stick to a budget,” she said, glaring at Paul again.
~*~
After breakfast, Paul and Margie were standing side-by-side, doing the dishes in the sink, when she handed him another plate to dry and asked, “When were you going to tell me?”
“I didn’t want to say anything until I had done some more research.”
“And what exactly does research have to do with the Bahamas?” she asked, getting a little impatient.
“Let’s just talk about this later.”
“When later? … Exactly?”
“After I get back from the library,” he responded.
Turning to her, he placed a hand on the side of her shoulder and reassuringly added, “I promise we’ll talk about it.”
Just around the corner, in the dining room, Heinz stood nodding his head. Turning around, he pushed his black-framed glasses up on his nose and grinned.
Sounds like the old man has something up his sleeve… and I’m gonna find out what it is.
Chapter 6 - Pirate Battle
Summer, 1689 ~ Lexington Warship ~ Barbary Coast Waters
On the Lexington’s main deck, Captain Darcy was checking his nautical map when a lookout excitedly shouted down from the crow’s nest and pointed out to sea.
“Captain! Five o’clock… three vessels on the horizon!”
Darcy reaching into his weathered jacket withdrew his spyglass. Flipping it with his wrist, he snapped the telescopic brass tube, extending it to full length. Adjusting the lens, his eye bore down on the trio of distant ships as they gradually came into focus.
“Triangular sails sir! Barbary corsairs!” the young seaman shouted.
“Aye,” Darcy acknowledged.
Collapsing his telescope, he turned to his second in command, Jonathan Fairfield.
“Lieutenant, hard about.”
Fairfield’s eyes widened as he grinned back at his captain. Finally, they were in pursuit of some real Barbary pirates.
Fairfield nodded to his captain, then turned and bellowed up to the bridge.
“Helmsman, hard about, starboard!”
“Aye aye sir.”
“Ensign, signal flare!” Darcy ordered aloud.
Moments later he heard the ensign announce, “
Fire in the hole!” as a flare skyrocketed up into the air, where it exploded into a starburst pattern, high above the Lexington.
Soon, the rest of the trailing convoy ships merged into a single file battle column behind their flagship.
“Well, at least they know how to follow basic drill orders,” Lieutenant Fairfield dryly commented to the captain, in regard to the other ship commands.
Gazing out at the distant pirate ships, Darcy pulled a couple of Cuban cigars from a leather pouch and handed one over to his lieutenant. Striking a match, Fairfield lit the captain’s cigar first, then his own, before tossing it overboard. The two men took long draws off of their Havanas, blowing out large clouds of smoke, filling the air with their hearty aroma. For the better part of an hour, they patiently watched as they slowly gained on the corsairs.
When his cigar had finally burned down to a nub, Fairfield took one last drag and tossed it into the sea. Exhaling the smoke out of his nostrils, he locked eyes with the captain and solemnly nodded. They both knew they were going to get bloody on this one.
~*~
Darcy had dealt with cutthroats of this ilk before. It was years ago, during his last Caribbean tour. He and his crew were conducting shipping lane patrols to intercept and confiscate pirate ships from the West Indies.
These hijackers made their living sacking Cuban molasses ships, usually murdering their crews, and then trading the stolen cargo for refined barrels of rum in New York. From there, they’d sail up the coast to the Port of Boston, where they’d make a killing reselling these barrels to Dutch exporters.
If there was one thing the captain had learned from those skirmishes, it was that pirates would never give up without a hell of a fight. Sure, these outlaws might try to outrun you at first, but if you cornered them, they’d surely turn and hit you with everything they had.
These corsairs were no different. Surrender was not an option for them. They knew if they were captured alive, it would be the executioner’s chopping block or a noose hung from the yardarm for them.
~*~
Minutes later, as the Lexington drew within a couple of miles of the pirates, Darcy said with a sinking tone in his voice, “Oh no…” and lowered his spyglass.
“What’s up capt’n?” Fairfield asked.
“Slave galleys.”
“How can you tell?” he asked as Darcy handed him the spyglass.
“Look closer, and you’ll see they’ve got oars jutting out from their sides. Also, they’re on a heading straight for Algiers.”
Both men were well aware the port city was the heart of the North African slave market and a thorny subject between the Sultan and the crown.
“Their hulls are riding low, too,” the lieutenant observed. Most likely they were overloaded with Northern European slaves.
~*~
Recent reports had told of Barbary pirates like these raiding fishing villages as far north as Iceland. Nordic men were a hearty breed and made good laborers. The women too, with their fair skin and blue eyes, were coveted treasures for any slave owner. Wealthy sheiks would often get into bidding wars over some of these exotic beauties in hopes of adding them to their harems. For these reasons Nordic slaves would command premium prices at auction.
~*~
Closing in on the Barbary pirates, Darcy’s original plan was to pull up alongside them and blast their hulls with cannon fire until they sank. But now, the game had changed. He couldn’t sink vessels with innocents onboard. After all, they weren’t animals like these corsairs.
“There’s probably slaves chained to those oars, so we can’t pull their plug outright,” the captain said turning to his lieutenant.
“Aye captain,” Fairfield replied in a deadly serious tone.
~*~
Although he was a blue-blooded parliamentary officer, Lieutenant Jonathan Fairfield reveled in his families’ royal naval tradition. He was one of the few who respected the crown and avoided any untoward relationships with parliamentary bureaucrats.
The Fairfield family had proudly served with distinction in His Majesty’s navy for generations. Their affluence alone was enough to persuade a ranking Lord to commission him with no strings attached; a rare feat in today’s political landscape.
~*~
“No shots to her hull and go easy on strafing her deck,” the captain ordered. “We’ll blast her sails and masts instead. Disable ’em, but not sink them. Aye?”
“Aye,” the lieutenant answered.
“And get the decks sawdusted.”
“Aye-aye sir,” Fairfield replied, snapping to attention and crisply saluting him before he spun about on his heels.
The lieutenant then hastily went about disseminating the captain’s orders to all of Lexington’s gun batteries and boarding parties. The crew was itching for a fight, but they weren’t too keen on boarding a hostile ship without first strafing her deck with ample rounds of grapeshot. The shotgun-like blasts were perfect for cutting down naval infantry and made boarding an enemy ship much easier.
~*~
Down on one of the lower gunnery decks, Lieutenant Fairfield called out, “Seaman Barnes, front and center!”
The sailor, who was swabbing out a cannon muzzle, immediately stopped and shuffled over to his superior officer.
“Aye sir,” he responded, snapping to attention.
“You and Jansen get busy sawdusting the decks.”
“Aye,” he replied with a quick salute and then ran off to gather up the sawdust buckets.
Minutes later, he handed a couple of them to the greenhorn, Seaman Jansen.
“What’s this for?” the newbie asked.
“It’s to soak up the blood when the splinters are flying.”
“What?” Jansen asked in a sinking voice.
“Spilled blood on the planks gets slippery and you’ll bust your arse on ‘em,” Barnes replied with an amused smirk as he slung sawdust around a cannon battery.
Taking a big gulp, all the color soon ran out of Jansen’s face. He was only 16 years old and new to the fleet. Aside from a few back alley fist fights, he’d never seen any real combat, and naval warfare was a nasty business.
Looking all around, he saw most of the veterans bore the scars to prove it. Some wore eye patches to cover a missing eyeball, while others hobbled around on pegged legs or had hooked prosthetics for hands. Most everyone on the crew, including the officers, had been stabbed, shot, or hit with shrapnel at one time or another.
Even Captain Darcy bore several combat scars. Running diagonally across his chest was a thick, healed-over scar, made when he was slashed with a pirate’s cutlass. On his left bicep was a circular scar, a puncture wound the size of a Groat coin. He’d sustained the injury when an enemy sailor charged with his musket, impaling him with its bayonet. The captain survived only after bludgeoning the man with his pistol butt.
Like all newbies, Seaman Jansen was assigned to the initial boarding party, better known as the fodder squad. It was so called because of the unusually high casualty rate expected when storming an enemy’s ship in the first wave. Greenhorns like him always bore the brunt of the ship’s most tedious and dangerous assignments.
Aboard a warship, until a newbie paid his dues, he wasn’t considered much more than fodder for cannon fire. Most of the older sailors didn’t even bother to learn their names until they’d managed to survive at least a handful of battles.
~*~
Another half hour passed before Barnes tossed his last handful of sawdust down.
“There,” he said, wiping his sweaty brow.
By then the Lexington was about a quarter mile behind the pirates’ trail ship and closing in fast.
“Topside,” Captain Darcy said to his signalman in passing as he headed up the staircase to the main deck.
Once on the bridge, he turned to the ensign and said, “Signal flags.”
Snapping to attention the young sailor nodded to him and awaited his further instructions.
“Follow my lea
d … Disable … Board … Capture in series,” Darcy commanded.
“Aye captain,” the ensign confirmed and then hoisted up a string of flags to the top of a nearby mast.
In turn, each of the trailing convoy ships fired a green flare up into the air, confirming the flagship’s orders.
~*~
Minutes later, the Lexington caught up to the first pirate ship.
“Come about broadside!” Darcy shouted to his helmsman. “Run over their oars!”
“Aye captain!” Gerhard replied, using his iron hooked prosthetic to turn the ship’s wheel.
The Lexington’s gun crews eagerly stood by their cannon batteries poised for action.
The plan was to break the slave ship’s oars and blast away at her masts and sails in order to disable the vessel. Then, the next convoy ship, behind them, would actually raid and capture the ship. The Lexington would sail on to the next ship and repeat the process until they engaged and boarded the last pirate galley themselves.
“Steady as she goes,” the captain urged his helmsman as the two of them stood side by side on the bridge, firming their grips on the wheel.
The Lexington was swiftly coming up alongside the pirate ship, and was only a few feet away, when suddenly they were jolted forward and heard a series of loud crackling and popping noises. Their heavy hull was smashing through the first of the pirate’s oars, snapping them in two like matchsticks.
Then, without warning, the pirate cannons erupted to life at point blank range. Their deadly fireballs blasted into the Lexington, sending exploding timbers spraying across her decks. The screams of the many injured were all but drowned out by the deafening booms of cannon fire. The ferocious volume of incoming artillery was much heavier than what Darcy had expected.
Looking down from the bridge deck, he watched on in horror as his men were getting torn to pieces. Leaning over the railing, cupping his hands around his mouth he shouted, “FIRE!” but no one could hear him over the thunderous onslaught.
Running over to a set of bridge stairs, he jumped down the entire flight and hit the main deck running. Crouching down, covering his head, all around him cannon balls were exploding, spraying shrapnel everywhere as he headed toward his own cannon crews.
