The two men made small talk and shortly Jenny arrived with the evening meal. Both men ate hungrily and then relaxed with a pipe afterwards. As the remnants of tobacco burned up in their pipes, the Captain said, “Well Mr. Greene, I know Robinson is waiting for your assistance in organizing the cargo hold, so you should take your leave of me now.”
“You know about that, huh?”
“Of course, I gave Robinson the assignment and suggested that he enlist your help. I trust that you do not object.”
“No, not at all,” Jeff grinned. As Jeff opened the door to leave, Coxen added, “I will see to it that your work is not disturbed.”
“Thank you, Captain. I’ll make sure to do a good job!”
The Captain smiled, “I know that you will. Good night, Mr. Greene.”
“Good night, Captain.”
Jeff made his way to the cargo hold where Jenny had moved crates around to produce a hidden spot in the back. Jeff was pleased to find the sacks were covered with some fine bed linens that had been part of the haul from a recent raid. “Shall we get to work?” Jeff asked as he closed the door to the hold behind him.
“Yes,” Jenny smiled. It’s a big job. This might take all night!”
In the afterglow of the first round on the makeshift bed, Jeff turned to Jenny and said, “You know, if I do get the opportunity to go back to my time, you could come with me.”
Jenny looked at him and sighed, “I won’t say that I’m not flattered and even tempted, but no. Jeff, I do cherish our moments together, but it would not be right for me to join you in your time. What would I do in the 21st century? Things in your time would be so strange to me. This is my time and it is where I belong.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Jeff agreed, “It would be quite a challenge to get you assimilated in my time. Just trying to get you a legal identity would be impossible!”
Jenny leaned over and kissed him. “Some things are not meant to be. But for as long as fate allows us to be together, let us enjoy it,” she said softly.
“Yes, by all means. I for one am ready to enjoy it again! How about you?” Jeff asked, to which Jenny smiled and pulled him to her.
After a few more hours together in the cargo hold, Jeff and Jenny snuck out to their bunks to get some sleep. The next morning, he helped load a few remaining supplies on the longboats and watched as they rowed over to the sandbar to begin repairs on the Grand Booty. The rest of Jeff’s morning was spent attending to the wounds of his patients. He was happy to see that everyone was still doing reasonably well and that none had any signs of serious infection.
As he headed out on deck to get some air before lunch, he could hear sounds of hammering and sawing coming from the sandbar. The Booty had suffered quite a bit of damage and Jeff figured it would be at least a few days before she was seaworthy again. As Jeff periodically checked up on his patients, day gradually turned to night once again, and on this night, some of the men from Jamison’s crew came over to the Wench to share some dinner, rum, and tall tales. The party went on late into the night and Jeff dragged himself off to his bunk after several of the men simply passed out on the deck.
After a few days, Captains Coxen and Jamison agreed that the Grand Booty was in good enough shape to make sail, but she would need more extensive repairs before she was ready for another fight, so further raiding would be postponed. Despite the fact that there was a writ out for Coxen’s arrest there, they decided that the only real option was to head for Port Royal, Jamaica to get the needed repairs and to sell off some of the spoils of their raids. But first was the matter of getting the Grand Booty off of the sandbar.
Re-floating the Booty proved to be no easy task. Although the beaching had been done at a relatively low stage of the tide and most of the cargo had been offloaded, even at high tide, the heavy wooden ship rested firmly on the sand. Several ropes were tied off to the ship with the other ends tied to longboats crewed by the strongest-armed men available. Meanwhile, several other crewmen set about digging away the sand from under the hull. The men in the longboats rowed as hard as they could as the men on the sand bar dug at the sand. At first it looked to Jeff like the efforts would all be in vain, but to his surprise the ship finally started creeping back off the sandbar and soon was being towed slowly out to the deep water of the cove. After the intense efforts of their men, the Captains opted to delay their departure for Jamaica until the next morning in order to give the crews time to rest.
Just after dawn the next morning, the three ships set sail for Jamaica. As most of Jeff’s patients were now healing quite well on their own, there was once again little for him to do. Fortunately the sail to Port Royal would only take a few days and from what Jenny and the others had told him, unlike the Port Royal on Roatan, the one in Jamaica was a very large town for the 17th century and there would be much to do and see when they arrived.
Chapter 13: Port Royal, Jamaica
Jeff had come to accept that the pirate’s life was one of often long periods of monotony and boredom punctuated by intense periods of excitement, fear, and bloody violence. The sail to Jamaica was the former and was essentially uneventful with the exception of the periodic episodes of “Lefty” cursing Jeff when he changed his bandages and applied more of his stinging lime juice antiseptic treatment. Jeff was thankful to hear the Captain yell out, “Land ho!” as they came within sight of their destination.
Due to the writ for his arrest that had been issued by none other than the famed Henry Morgan in his capacity as lieutenant governor of Jamaica, Captain Coxen needed to keep a low profile. To this end, he remained aboard the Wandering Wench, which anchored well offshore in an attempt to avoid detection by the Jamaican authorities. Jeff, Jenny, and several other members of the crew took longboats over to the Grand Booty with the cargo to be sold in town and they and The Crow continued into the port.
The ships tied off next to each other at the end of a dock. Captain Jamison and a few members of his crew went into town to arrange for the needed repairs and to find buyers for their cargo while Jeff and the others remained on the ships to guard them. An hour or so later, Jamison returned with a few men with wagons and the offload of the cargo began. All hands participated in the offload and within a few hours it was done. Jeff and most of the remaining crew members were then allowed to go into town to seek out their preferred forms of entertainment, with instructions from Captain Jamison to return by first light the next morning.
While they started out as a group, by the time they had gone just a few blocks, the others had all dispersed to seek out their particular interests and Jeff and Jenny were left to themselves. Although he could tell from the ship that Port Royal was a much larger town than anything else he had seen during his time in the 17th century, Jeff was amazed at how big it actually was once he was in the middle of it. While much of the activity seemed to center around the entertainment of pirates and sailors, with the brothels, gambling halls, tattoo parlors, and taverns that their shipmates had no doubt disappeared to, there was actually quite a variety of businesses present in the town.
Jeff and Jenny walked slowly taking it all in as they politely declined the offers from the numerous prostitutes lining the streets. “Have you been here before?” Jeff asked Jenny.
“Yes, a few times. It seems there are new things to see every time though.” She replied.
“Do you have any suggestions on what to do?” Jeff inquired, raising his voice to be heard over the clatter of a horse-drawn wagon.
“Well, we could hire a couple of these lovely ladies, or perhaps we could get a room to relax in at the Hotel Royale. Some of the rooms even have copper bath tubs and for a small fee, they’ll bring up buckets of hot water.”
“Sounds good to me, but how much does it cost? I didn’t bring a lot of silver with me.” Jeff replied.
“Not to worry, I was planning on it, so I brought plenty of coin,” Jenny assured him.
“I always wanted a sugar momma,” Jeff said with a grin.
“A what?” Jenny asked.
“Sugar momma – a woman who pays my way.” “Oh, I’m not a sugar momma. You will be paying me your share when we get back to the ship!”
“That’s how it is, huh?”
“That is how it is – if you wish to share my hotel room and bath!” Jenny replied.
“Very well, lead the way.” Jeff said with a wave of his hand.
The pair made their way down a side street and soon were standing in front of the hotel. Jenny turned to Jeff and said, “I’ll go in and make arrangements for the room and the bath. You wait here. It would look a little odd for two men to request a room together. Once the bath is ready and there won’t be any interruptions, I’ll call you up from the window.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Jeff acknowledged. Jenny entered the hotel and Jeff leaned up against the railing that ran across the front porch of it to watch the happenings on the street. From the stories he had heard about Port Royal, it was a pretty wild place. Even in the daytime, there were a number of prostitutes on the street and they were having no trouble finding customers. Just as numerous were the drunks, some staggering down the street, and others passed out in out of the way corners. Periodically, wagons drawn by horses, mules, and occasionally men would pass by loaded down with everything from sacks of food, to barrels of rum, to parts for ships.
Quite some time and several propositions from the working women later, Jeff was starting to wonder what was keeping Jenny when he heard her voice from above him. “Mr. Greene?” Jeff stepped into the street and looked up at the second floor of the hotel to see Jenny looking out of the last window on the end of the hotel. She didn’t say a word and merely cocked her head to the side, gesturing for him to come up. Jeff walked into the hotel and saw the stairs next to the front desk, which was unattended at the moment. Jeff quickly made his way up the stairs and down the hall to the end room. Jenny was awaiting his arrival and opened the door just as he raised his hand to knock. She was already naked and she grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him into the room, closing the door behind him. “Come on, the bath will not stay hot forever!” she urged him as she pulled his shirt over his head.
She led him over to the large copper bath tub and climbed in while he slipped off his pants. He carefully lowered himself into the water facing her and leaned back, splashing a little water over the rim of the tub. While the water was not exactly hot, it was the closest thing to a hot shower Jeff had experienced since arriving in the 17th century, and it felt great.
After the initial joy of feeling the warm water against his skin, he noticed an odd foam floating on the surface of the water and was struck by a familiar smell. “Is it just me, or does this bath smell like… food?” he asked.
Jenny, who was just finishing washing the grimy disguise from her face, replied, “Yes, I think they were using this water to boil potatoes before they brought it up for the bath.”
Jeff nodded, “That would explain the weird foam too. This is one high-class establishment!”
Jenny laughed, “Only the best potato bath for you, my dear!”
Jeff smiled, “I shouldn’t complain. In my time there are probably spas where people would pay big money for a potato bath! It’s not really a bad thing, but somehow I feel like I’m an ingredient in soup!” The two sank back in the tub and relaxed in the warm water. The copper tub held the heat of the water remarkably well and by the time it started to cool, both Jeff and Jenny were so relaxed that they could barely climb out of it.
They dried off with the rough pieces of cloth that served as towels and Jeff was struck by the fact that hotel towels had not improved much in 300 years. Once they had dried off as thoroughly as they could without removing skin layers with the sandpaper-like towels, the two plopped down next to each other on the bed, such as it was. It was no wider and was significantly shorter than a modern twin bed and their legs hung over the end a good foot or more. The mattress appeared to have been filled with a mixture of straw and feathers, providing a surface that was remarkably lumpy and poked at the skin.
“The pile of sacks in the cargo hold was a lot more comfortable,” Jeff commented, “But this bed would be great for anyone into S&M!”
“S and M? Those candies you spoke of once?” Jenny asked in confusion. “No, those are M&M’s – very different from S&M! S&M is sado-masochism – when people get off sexually from causing or receiving pain.”
“I see, but why would someone get pleasure from pain?” Jenny asked with curiosity.
“It’s not my thing, but some people are really into it for whatever reason,” Jeff replied.
“So you didn’t enjoy your encounter with the crab our first time together?” she asked with a giggle.
“No, I think it would be best to avoid crabs of all kinds when it comes to sex,” Jeff chuckled, “Now, I don’t know about you, but I think I better get off this bed before it draws blood! Care to join me on the floor?”
Jeff and Jenny carefully climbed off the bed and spread out a blanket on the floor. The two laid down beside each other and while the floor was pretty hard to lie on, it was better than getting jabbed from all angles on the bed. Jenny snuggled up against Jeff and kissed him softly. The two quickly became engaged in the throes of passion. Some time and several bruises and abrasions dealt to them by the hard, rough floor later, the two rolled onto their backs to catch their breath.
Jeff awoke with a start as the pins and needles sensation in his arm jabbed him to consciousness. After the vigorous workout on the floor, he and Jenny had fallen asleep with his arm around her. At some point she had shifted her position and was now cutting off the circulation in his arm. The orange glow of sunset shined through the window in a way that made Jeff think of his bedroom back home and it took a moment for him to realize where, and when, he was.
Jeff tried to slide his arm out from under Jenny without disturbing her, but she opened her eyes and smiled at him. “Trying to sneak away, Mr. Greene?” she asked sleepily.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you, but I needed to get circulation back in my arm.”
“No matter,” she replied, “I think I’d like some supper now anyway.”
The two found their clothes in the dimming light and got dressed. Jeff looked around the room and asked, “How are we going to man-up your face? There’s no grease or mud or anything.”
“I brought this from the ship,” Jenny said as she pulled a small can from her pocket. A bit of ash and grease from the galley should do it.” She smeared some of the black mixture on her face and Jeff nodded his approval. The walked out of the room and made their way down the stairs. A large, overweight man was at the front desk, but was so engaged in a plate of chicken and a bottle of rum that he made no notice of the pair as they walked out of the hotel.
“So, a tavern then?” Jeff inquired as they hit the street.
“Well, the food at the taverns is fine, but I was thinking we could sample the food from the street vendors,” Jenny suggested.
“Fine with me,” he replied, “You lead the way.” The two made their way back towards the docks and arrived at a small line of wooden carts that had been converted into open-air kitchens. Sailors, prostitutes, and all manner of townspeople crowded the carts to buy food. Several rats weaved fearlessly through the crowd eating scraps that had been dropped and would occasionally go for a big score directly from one of the carts before being chased away with knives, cleavers, and any of a variety of blunt objects the cart owners had on hand.
Although the entire scene would have been shut down immediately by a modern day health inspector, by now Jeff was quite used to the less than sanitary conditions of the 17th century and he had thankfully become relatively immune to food borne illness. Jeff and Jenny bought a sampling of the local fare, as well as a bottle of grog to share, and walked to the end of a nearby dock to eat and watch the remnants of the sunset.
“This is pretty good,” Jeff commented between bites.
“Aye,” Jenn
y agreed, “Port Royal has the best food of any of the places I’ve been.”
By the time they had finished eating, the sun had sunk below the horizon and it was getting dark. Jenny rose to her feet, “Come on, there’s a shop I want to go. We’ll have to hurry to make it before they close!”
Jeff jumped up and followed her as she walked quickly up the dock. “What kind of shop?” Jeff asked as he caught up beside her.
“They sell pastries, but I don’t care about that. They make a drink of chocolate and that is what I want!” she explained with excitement.
After running the gauntlet of prostitutes and drunks, they finally arrived at the shop. As they walked in the door, a man looked up from sweeping the floor. “I be just about to close. I’m afraid I don’t have much left fer ye,” the man said.
“Do you have any chocolate drink?” Jenny asked hopefully.
“Aye, a little. Methinks it be enough fer two.”
“We shall gladly take whatever you have left,” Jenny said with a smile. The man stopped sweeping and walked behind the counter.
“I sell most o’ this to the ladies,” he said as he picked up a pot and scraped the remaining contents into a jar, “It be a bit strange for not one, but two men to have a taste fer it.”
“We’re ahead of our time,” Jeff replied.
Jenny pulled out a few coins and paid the man. “Enjoy yer chocolate!” the man shouted after them as they walked out.
Jenny eagerly took several sips of the thick liquid before handing the jar to Jeff. She watched for his reaction as he took his first sip. “Well?” she asked.
“It’s good,” he nodded.
“As good as S&M’s?”
“M&M’s,” Jeff corrected, “And yes, it’s as good as M&M’s. So, what do you want to do next?”
Jenny thought for a moment. “Want to try to get lucky?” she asked.
“Sure, but don’t you want to explore town a bit more before we go back to the hotel?” Jeff asked.
“What?” Jenny replied with a confused look.
Pirates of the Storm (Stranded In Time Book 1) Page 18
