MAROONED: Will YOU Endure Treachery and Survival on the High Seas? (Click Your Poison)

by James Schannep

  In unison, two dozen eyes grow wide, then the men scatter—jumping off the ship with haste. Several plunge straight into the harbor, while others slide down lengths of rope or nimbly hop from crate to crate to disembark with speed.

  “That’s right. Good,” you say, nodding to mask your surprise at how enthusiastically they followed the order.

  Not knowing what else to do, you turn back to nod at Joe and Robin, only to find fifty uniformed men marching down the wharf to arrest Captain Saltboots and the crew of the Cooper’s Pride. Most hold muskets at the ready, and the rest carry iron shackles to help transport your men to the gallows.

  * * *

  “Hostis Humani Generis,” the Reverend begins his remarks. The man is jowly, his white powder wig parted down the center, curls raised to either side. He struts in his black cloak before your crew, the magistrate, and the gathered crowds beyond the gallows, lining the near shore and perched atop neighboring Broughton Hill for a better view.

  The Reverend continues, “Enemies of all mankind. Nothing good can be asked of thee, save the lesson to others by your death. I will take your final admonitions, for though you are condemned to hang by the laws of man, prithee ask for the Lord’s mercy on your eternal souls. Jeremiah 31:20 tells us, ‘I will surely have mercy on them, saith the Lord.’ And now, in the last moment of your lives, if you do truly repent and believe in the Glorious Redeemer unto the saving of thine souls and the pardon of all thee sins, ye shall be saved forever and ever. Amen.”

  “Thank you, Reverend Mather, as always,” the magistrate says. “These brigands are indeed condemned for actions most piratical and felonious in the murder of their captain and the capture of his ship. They put their honest shipmates in corporeal fear of their lives and deigned to sell these ill-gotten gains for profit. You may each take a moment now to repent for your souls and to say any final words.”

  Then all goes silent.

  The gathered crowd, hundreds of people, wait with hushed and eager anticipation for the pirates’ last words. The magistrate and reverend simply wait. The hangman stands at the ready.

  “Wine,” Rediker says, clearing his throat. “Awful parched, I am.”

  The magistrate nods and an underling runs to fetch a bottle. This buys you a few minutes to compose your thoughts.

  • Repent. It has been known to happen that the governors and magistrates offer pardons from time to time. There’s still a chance!

  • Do not repent. Not many are offered the chance to go out with dignity, so make your last words count.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Hang Together

  Joe and Robin untie the ship from the wharf and make for departure, the bosun piping commands on his whistle while the gunner hefts the last few crates of victuals to resupply the ship. It was a hasty stopover, without time to collect much more than fresh water, and you’ll need more provisions as soon as you’ve cleared the harbor.

  The veteran crewmembers snap to and help get the ship to sea, but the new pirate crew idle about. You turn towards Rediker to admonish him for his recruits, but there’s no time.

  “Cap’n, looks though we may have company,” the older sailor Marlowe says.

  You turn back, only to find fifty uniformed men marching down the wharf to arrest Captain Saltboots and the crew of the Cooper’s Pride. Most hold muskets at the ready, and the rest carry iron shackles to help transport your men to the gallows.

  “Rediker! Get these men moving!”

  Rediker nods, turns and shouts, “Hard-o’-hearing? Shove off! Man the capstan! Barlow, a pirate shanty t’get us under way, if ya please!”

  His mustachioed mate obliges with a sing-song, “Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate’s life for me. We pillage, plunder, we rifle and steal. Drink up, me hearties, yo-ho. We kidnap and ravage, delight in their squeal. Drink up, me hearties, yo-ho!”

  The soldiers on the wharf line up in clean ranks, the first kneeling and the next row aimed over their shoulders, muskets readied as commands are called.

  “Gunner! Prepare to return fire!” you cry. “A full broadside onto the wharf!”

  Robin looks your way as if hoping he’s misheard. Rifle fire peppers the ship, taking two of the new recruits with the first volley. That gets him moving. Having lost a pair of their comrades, the new pirates look back to the wharf with menace and eagerly help the gunner to the task.

  “Fire at will!” you command.

  The pair of larboard carriage guns roar out with a deafening KABOOM!!! And slam back against their restraints with incredible power. The cloud of gunpowder dissipates, allowing you to see the resultant carnage. Robin’s aim was true, and the wharf now lies in splinters, the men scattered like so many pins on a bowling green.

  “Three cheers for Captain Saltboots!” Butch the surgeon cries. “Hip-hip!”

  “Hurrah!” The crew supplies in unison.

  But before they can start the second volley, Joe leaps forward with, “Cap’n, the fort! We’ll never make it!”

  It’s true. Castle Williams looms, large like a mountain, standing mightily between the harbor and the open seas. You can hear the grinding of metal on stone as the soldiers at the fort hastily reposition the cannons to sink your ship.

  “There! Pull us alongside that schooner!” you cry, singling out a merchant vessel already on its way out to sail. “Put her between us and the fort!”

  Marlowe offers a steady hand on the helm, guiding the Cooper’s Pride up against the merchant while Rediker and his new recruits throw grappling hooks to pull the ship ever closer. Robin mans one of the swivel guns, aiming it directly at the terrified merchant captain, should he get any funny ideas to suddenly change course or drop anchor.

  “Steady, man, and you’ll live to see supper!” you cry out.

  The ploy works wonderfully. Castle Williams finds itself unable to fire upon your escape, for fear of collateral damage, and soon you’re out of the harbor and ready to make a clean getaway.

  “Release that ship! Make all sail!” you cry.

  And the Cooper’s Pride is underway once again.

  “Cap’n, what course?” Marlowe asks, once the commotion of the moment has finally settled. It’s a good question, one that you take a moment to consider.

  Rediker steps forward, speaking loudly for all to hear, “Well, we done finished the plan t’Boston—and got out by the skin-o’-our teeth. By rights, the crew should vote on what’s next to come…”

  “I see. And vote on a captain to lead on the next journey as well, I suppose?” you say, seeing the writing on the wall.

  Barlow clears his throat. “Saltboots did well freein’ us-o’-the tyrant, Bullock. But were a landsman only two months hence. Talks fancy like a ship’s master, yet knows the least ’bout the ship.”

  It’s said in an odd, stilted cadence so that you can be sure the line was rehearsed. This usurping of power was well-planned, probably from the very day you stepped in and altered Rediker’s ideas for mutiny. Now the would-be master and commander begins his own well-rehearsed monologue:

  “Aye, and we’ll always be grateful, Saltboots. But inspiring gratitude ain’t the same as leadership. No one here wants t’go back to London, ye can lay t’that. Men-o’-fortune are free t’make our own destinies, but we need articles t’live by. We need to sort these laws much as we should sort shares for prizes, and injury pensions for good men made lame fighting for their brothers. We can’t drift t’the back-o’-beyond without aim. We need a cap’n with experience in such matters.”

  That leaves an empty silence until Rediker turns to Barlow, clearing his throat.

  “Oh, right. Eh… served on a privateer, did ye not, Rediker?” Barlow says, catching his cue.

  “So I did, lad. And I’d be honored t’be entrusted with this responsibility here and now.”

  “Would you have us be privateers then, Rediker?” you ask, pivoting off his talking points.

  “Indeed, not! Why let a bureaucrat in London dictate what prizes we take? We no
longer sail the Cooper’s Pride for King George. We sail under the banner-o’-King Death! I say we raise the black flag on a newly christened ship—the Deleon’s Revenge—t’claim eternal glory, Spanish gold, and live like kings ourselves!”

  “Huzzah!” the new recruits cry in unison.

  But the old crew still see you as their captain, and wait for your response.

  • Say: “Very well, you’ve convinced me, Rediker. You have my vote for captain.”

  • This is your ship! Give your own impassioned appeal for captain.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Half-Empty

  The barkeep gives you a nasty look, but you’ve paid your tab and there is no short supply of sailors willing to accept the drink on your behalf. Once settled, you offer a curt nod and turn to go. With your eyes fully adjusted to the dull candlelight of the tavern, you give another desperate scan, but see no sign of James. One older seaman watches you go, tendrils of smoke from a hookah pouring from his nostrils and swirling about his grey muttonchops.

  Out front, the driver has disappeared. “The rapscallion!” you shout in frustration. Though you shouldn’t be too surprised. He told you you’d need to pay him to stay, and he didn’t much want your fare to begin with.

  “Cursing like a sailor already,” a familiarly dour voice croaks.

  You turn back to see Spotted Dick, the hunched and scabbed man you avoided last time around the port. It looks like he was waiting for you.

  “Getting awful dark out,” he continues, looking up to the sky for emphasis. “Far past the hour that business conducted above-board should be concluded, wouldn’t ya say?”

  “I’m afraid I no longer have fare to give your cabbie friend,” you say. “Not if I should want supper too, and I think that’s where I should head now. So I’ll bid you—”

  “Not so fast! Why, what else is friends for if not t’be there for us in time of need? If ’tis a bite t’eat that ya need, you’re lucky to have found me!” he cries, coming closer.

  Dick removes a bread tin from his cloak, peels back the lid, and offers you a look inside. It’s a traditional pudding, a cake of suet mixed with dried fruit, which, as a Brit, you recognize immediately.

  “Spotted dick?” you say, calling the dessert by name.

  “The best you’ll ever taste! How else d’ya think I got me nickname?” he asks, scratching at one of his multitudinous sores without a hint of irony.

  He holds the tin out in offering, and you’re surprised to feel your stomach grumble with hunger. Haven’t eaten since breakfast, after all.

  • Sure, why not? If it’s the best I’ll taste, I can placate the man, thank him, and be on my way.

  • Best not. The man is clearly a rogue. Who carries a tin of spotted dick and calls himself the same?

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Half-Full

  “A refund? Carriage drivers don’t give refunds!”

  “But you didn’t take us home!” you protest.

  “I’m willing to, by God, it’s you who’s refusing the bloody fare. I’m trying to do you a favor here, but you’re so blind to the situation, you can’t see the nose at the end of your own damnable face.”

  Reflexively, you try to look at your nose, going momentarily cross-eyed. Then you shake your head, huffing with impatience. “I’m trying to do what’s right as a matter of course. If you’d take all the money I have in the world and leave me penniless, at night, then you’re no better than the brigands that stalk these planks!”

  The driver recoils. You can tell you’ve wounded the man, and you’re moved to apologize, but before you can he digs into his coin purse. He tosses a small satchel your way and yells, “Half! I’m taking the other half as payment for services rendered. Not least of which is scaring off that crimp ’twas skulking around following ya. If you’re to be a fool, let it not be on my conscience that you’d end up a dead one for lack of coin. Best-o’-luck!”

  Then he snaps his reins and the carriage starts away into the darkening night. You watch him go, weighing the significantly lighter coin purse in your hand as he disappears.

  “Your cousin James wouldn’t happen to be known as Jimmy Saltboots, would he?”

  Turning, you see the mutton-chopped sailor who was looking at you in the tavern now standing at the threshold of the doors. He’s well-dressed for a seaman, at least by your limited experience, though his garb holds tightly to a frame expanding with recently added weight. Getting a closer look at the man, you see his grey whiskers are stained rust-red around the mouth from habitual tobacco use.

  “Do you know where he is?” you ask, suddenly hopeful.

  “I can do ya one better. I know where he was, and I know where he’s headed still.”

  “And I suppose you’ll want the other half of my coin to tell me, that it?”

  “No, nothing of the sort. I’m an honorable soul, or so I try to be, like yourself. I just want to tell ya, and maybe you’ll do me the favor of hearing my offer to help further, by the by.”

  After a moment’s consideration, you say, “I make no promises, though I should like to hear what you know about Cousin James.”

  The man nods, stepping out from under the tavern roof and looking up to the night sky before turning his attention back to you. “If it pleases, call me William Greaves while we’re here on land, though I’m best known as Billy, mate of the Cooper’s Pride. Ya see, ’twas that ship your cousin set sail with last time she was a’ port. Jimmy were a good lad, ready to work hard and earn his keep. Took to the sea like a dog just learned that his whole life, well, he’d really been a seal all along.

  “Of course, certain… events… can weigh on a young man his first time at sea. When half your chums become chum, or an oasis port brings the other half to desertin’. See, ’tis a lonely life, when all’s said and done. If he were here, now, Jimmy would tell you he’s done with life as a Jack Tar, but what he’s soon to learn is that once the sirens call ya out t’sea, that they never truly let ya be. He’ll have his share of drink and lays, but by end-o’-week he’ll be back on the briny fields of destiny, if you’ll pardon an old sailor his romantic notion of things.”

  “So… you don’t really know where he is,” you say.

  “We’re all lost souls, caught between the Devil and the deep blue sea.”

  You take a moment to ponder Billy’s words, his reference to Homer’s Odyssey and the sirens not lost on you. That’s the kind of coincidence that those who believe in it would call “fate.”

  “I said I’m the mate-o’-the Cooper’s Pride. So it is that we have an opening or two on board, if ya wanna take Jimmy’s spot. She’s a decently fast ship, tight as a drum—and ready to be filled with treasures. Cap’n Bullock’s a fair and honorable man, too, and good, honorable seamen are in short supply. The position comes with a pay advance, of course, which many find helps ease the woes of the family left back home.”

  You’re overwhelmed by the unexpected offer, and your thoughts stray from your cousin, if only for a moment. You, a sailor? You’ve dreamed of adventure for so long…

  “Where’s she headed?” you ask, wistfully.

  “The American colonies,” Billy answers with a knowing twinkle in his eye. “I’m offering you a chance t’see a whole new world.”

  Taking a moment to consider, you finally say:

  • “Sign me up! James won’t be the only adventurer in the family. I’ll need a ream of paper and a goodly sized bottle of ink to draft a letter home, and to keep a journal of my days at sea.”

  • “You’re kind to think of me so, but indeed I do try to do the honorable thing. In this case, I must find my cousin, whether he’s ready to be found or not.”

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Hard-Pressed

  It’s backbreaking work, but the other men are happy to have your help, so long as you don’t get in the way. You start by taking small crates or sacks of sundries meant for the stores. Then you offer your hand to share the larger loads. By the end of
it, you’re aching in places you didn’t even know a body had muscles, but the seaman give a nod of thanks and you’re treated—more or less—as an equal, if only for a few hours. The work leaves you exhausted, proud, and with a mighty thirst.

  The group eventually disperses, and you’re issued a hammock (as well as a uniform of utilitarian linen clothing), and sent to the front of the hold to find a spot to hang it. This is communal living, with hammocks hung every few inches apart. The men down here all have their own sea chests; a foot locker for goods stored beneath their swaying beds. Looks like you’ll have to pick one of those up when you can. Cousin James is within sight, just down the row, hanging his own hammock, so you find an opening nearby.

  “I’m beat,” you complain, muscles shaking as you try to mount your bedding. James helps, and you see his forearms are newly tattooed with his initials, cut and filled black with gunpowder.

  “Weren’t me choice,” he explains. “If the ship’s magazine should blow, they can identify which parts belong to what man.”

  “All hands on deck!” someone shouts before you can reply. “Captain’s address.”

  You follow the procession of sailors up top, find a place near the mizzenmast, and await the arrival of the Master and Commander of the HMS Hornblower. And… you wait.

  There’s some grumbling from the men, having to muster just to wait on the Captain, and your own aching muscles grumble of their own accord. Then a rapid pressure change falls over the quarterdeck and the men go silent before snapping to attention. You follow suit. Best not to stick out.

  “Cap’n on deck!” the Master-of-Arms shouts.

  Captain Longwick emerges in full uniform, his blue coat smart and tidy, buttons gleamed to a high shine. He’s younger than you might have expected, and his hair is coal-black, rather than the gray or powder-white of the current fashion. His eyes, deep-seated, glitter like black pearls. He paces, though deliberately. Coupled with his dark, soulless eyes, he gives the impression of a Mako shark on the constant hunt for quarry.