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

by James Schannep

  The Master-of-Arms raises his own weapon, as you do the same.

  • Wait him out—force him to shoot first.

  • Aim for the body. All you need to do is draw blood to be declared victor.

  • Aim for the head. If you don’t kill the man, you’ll never be rid of him.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Up She Rises

  You’re awoken the next morning by a shouted, “Weigh anchor!” from one of the midshipmen. The Hornblower is fully resupplied and ready to depart the safety of the fleet once more. You head towards the capstan, helping fit the capstan-bars, ready to do your part to turn the wheel and raise the cable attached to the anchor. And you’ll start, just as soon as the sea shanty does.

  “Oooooh!!!” belts out one of the older seamen. “What shall we do with a drunken sailor? What shall we do with a drunken sailor? What shall we do with a drunken sailor? Ear-lie in the mornin’!”

  That’s when you start to push with the other seamen, while you shout in chorus with them, “Weigh-hey, and up she rises! Weigh-hey, and up she rises! Weigh-hey, and up she rises! Ear-lie in the mornin’!”

  Another of the men takes the next verse. “Put’m in the long boat ’til he’s sober! Put’m in the long boat ’til he’s sober! Put’m in the long boat ’til he’s sober! Ear-lie in the mornin’!”

  “Weigh-hey, and up she rises! Weigh-hey, and up she rises! Weigh-hey, and up she rises! Ear-lie in the mornin’!” you all shout in refrain.

  “Give’m a taste of the Cap’n’s daughter!” another sailor starts in. “Give’m a taste of the Cap’n’s daughter! Give’m a taste of the Cap’n’s daughter! Ear-lie in the mornin’!”

  Finishing out the sea shanty, you bring up the anchor and set sail for foreign seas. Oh, and a taste of the captain’s daughter, in this sense, is to be on the receiving end of a flogging. Fortunately, Captain Longwick has not shown much interest in corporal punishment. Yet.

  * * *

  Days go by, each with the same duties performed in myriad ways. Sundays are usually easier; when the men tend to sew garments, cast lines into the sea in hopes of fresh provisions, or a few even read books or write letters home.

  Weeks go by in this way, the ocean gradually changing from indigo to turquoise as shallower seas, reefs, and sandbars threaten the ship’s path. The sun hangs longer in the sky, giving warmer, near-equatorial heat, and rain becomes a welcome relief for an English sailor.

  Events of note during this month-long voyage: Monks, the gunner, manages to catch a sea-turtle when fishing, and there’s a frenzy of bidding to get a taste of something other than salt beef. The carpenter’s mate breaks an ankle, and is reassigned as the cook’s mate. The carpenter is promised his old mate will be off-loaded and traded out at the first Caribbean port upon which you make landfall. The scurvy has set in, with four sailors starting to show signs. One has already lost three teeth.

  It’s a particularly hot day when you’re to make for port. You’re sailing along a series of islands, and the men are practically frothing at the bit for some shore leave. A change of pace would certainly be welcomed.

  “Sails, ho!” Lieutenant Dalton shouts.

  “Looks like one’a ours. What flag’s she flying? England?” Midshipman Magnus asks.

  “No… she’s flying the black,” Dalton answers.

  Could it really be? A pirate vessel?!

  “Landsman, rouse the cap’n!” Magnus shouts, pointing your way.

  You rush up to the quarterdeck and to the captain’s cabin, remembering only at the last second not to barge in on the Master and Commander of the ship. Reporting in as you’ve been trained, you relay the sighting of the black flag with only minimal excited stammering.

  Captain Longwick gives the briefest hint of a nod, then rushes past to discuss the situation with his officers.

  “Sir, it appears we’ve happened upon a band of brigands,” Lieutenant Dalton says.

  Examining the situation through a looking glass, the captain practically growls, “The Cooper’s Pride.”

  “You know her, sir?” Midshipman Magnus asks.

  “A merchant ship, under the command of Arthur Bullock, or at least she was last. A draconian captain by all accounts, but still an Englishman.” Then, lowering the spyglass, adds, “Well, gentlemen, if the Pride has been taken by pirates, I suppose it’s only proper we take her back.”

  “Shall I set a course to intercept?” Dalton asks.

  “We don’t want to spook them just yet. If there’s a hidden way through these islands, you can bet your hat these pirates will know it. Best not force them into the shallows, where we can’t follow.”

  “Those scoundrels ain’t no match for the Hornblower, sir!”

  “Magnus, why must you speak when you have nothing to say?” Longwick replies. “Dalton, bring the relevant maps and charts to my cabin. We will use the terrain to our advantage, not the other way around. As for the men—action stations!”

  “Action stations!!!” Midshipman Magnus bellows in response.

  The order means you should muster with your gun crew, but likely you could also form up with the boarding parties. How often will you get a chance to fight pirates face-to-face?!

  • Gun crew. We’ll rake her with the broadsides. This time, we’re the bigger ship!

  • Boarding party! These pirate dogs will need to be captured and tried for their crimes against the crown!

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Useful

  “Into the pump room with ya!” Billy cries, then, turning back to the other sailors, continues, “You there! Grab the second axe and go aloft! Waste not another minute!”

  You head down inside, battered about by the rolling of the ship as you go, into the pump room as ordered. She’s a tight ship, but not immune to water cresting over her sides, and all that excess is weighing her down. The muscle-bound and tattooed Robin is here with a pair of other seamen, manually working the pumps to free the Cooper’s Pride of bilge water. At your arrival, Robin simply nods, and you take a turn at the pumps. It’s backbreaking work, but it serves as a much-needed outlet for your panic and adrenaline.

  In this way, you help keep the ship afloat, and survive the storm. Sadly, as you’ll later learn, three of your crewmates did not. It’s only the end of the first day, but with the man crushed by crates and the three casualties, this ship of twenty-one souls is already reduced to seventeen. The workload increases proportionally, though, much to the grumbling of the men, the rations and pay do not rise to meet the intensified demands.

  There’s barely time to mourn the fallen, for their deaths are overshadowed by the need to re-mast the ship from that lost in the storm. Extra timbers are stored for exactly such a case, with nearly all of Sherwood Forest cut down sent across the seas. It’s a Herculean effort, but the ship’s carpenter—Chips—is an expert in his field. Still, short-handed and exhausted, raising a new mainmast in the face of continuing tempests feels like a somewhat Sisyphean endeavor.

  Sevennight passes, each evening with wicked weather. Your digestive tract gradually empties itself of countryside finery (butter and milk and cheese), and is resupplied with hardtack and “Irish Horse” (coarse sea biscuits and salt-beef), which helps harden your constitution.

  Then a fortnight goes by, finally without any seasickness, and with skies clearing up. In this time you “learn the ropes”—what to call them, what they do, how to tie, knot, and splice them, crawl upon them, with muscles and skin hardened from their handling.

  Yet your education is not a solely physical one. The deep-sea ship is the height of technology in this era, with its own language for operations. You familiarize yourself with the Cooper’s Pride forwards and backwards, bow to stern, larboard and starboard. In addition to the names of ship quarters and knots, there are whole vocabularies for sails, masts, and rigging. You learn the lexicon of winds, currents, basic navigation, stars and constellations, maneuvers at sea, other manner of ships seen on the horizon, as well as that of
your crewmembers and their swears.

  Despite a youth spent in scholarly pursuits, the low-threat environment of Latin and the classics was nothing compared to this new education and to what Rediker cynically calls “The Seven Liberal Sciences” one learns from a life at sea: Cursing, Drinking, Thieving, Whoring, Killing, Deceiving, and Backstabbing. Thankfully, you’ve only been exposed to the first two, so far as you know.

  A month passes as you gradually become a useful member of the ship’s company. There are no other major injuries or fatalities in this time, save for a pig that appears to have been strangled. An odd occurrence that Butch says could “possibly” be due to disease, which thankfully fails to spread. Captain Bullock orders the sow thrown overboard just to be safe, and the men watch on hungrily as the sharks feast on gammon. Indeed, a constant grumbling these weeks has been the worsening of the ship’s stores and a lack of fresh provisions, with the occasional speculation as to the fineries feasted upon by the captain and his mate.

  “Those chickens’ eggs got t’be goin’ somewhere, and it ain’t our bellies,” is a common refrain.

  * * *

  You’re presently idling between watch duties, journaling about this month past, when you’re given a sobering reminder of the need to learn one’s duties properly. All hands are called to witness a flogging.

  When you reach the top deck, you find most of the crew already assembled, gathered around a shirtless young sailor whose hands are tied to the larboard gangway. Joe, the bosun, holds a green broadcloth bag, from which Captain Bullock removes the infamous cat-o’-nine-tails.

  “What’d the poor soul do?” an older sailor, Marlowe, asks in a low whisper.

  “Used the wrong sheet in sew’n a sail. Ruined the whole bolt-o’-cloth and wasted two days’ work, so I heard,” Barlow replies, stroking his mustache.

  “Oh, Christ be merciful,” Chips swears. “’Twas me ordered the lad t’the task. Shoulda kept an eye on him…”

  “Too late for that now, cat’s out-o’-the bag,” Rediker says.

  All eyes go to the captain as he calls out, “Mr. Greaves! As I call out a full dozen!”

  Captain Bullock passes the whip to his mate, who accepts the burden with a simple nod. Then Billy raises the cat and lashes the young man across his back. The snap reverberates over the silent deck, each man on the crew flinching in empathetic pain. Nine red lines appear, marking where each of the tails ripped across skin.

  “One!” Bullock cries and Billy pulls back for another swing.

  Abused, cross-hatched flesh seeps blood down the youth’s back, staining his trousers crimson. On and on it goes, painfully slow, until the twelfth and final lash.

  “Take him down,” Captain Bullock orders as Billy passes the cat to the bosun. He gives no other reprimand, letting the whipping speak for itself. “Bosun, strict orders to the surgeon: nothing for the pain. Once he has dressed this man’s wounds, have Butch report to my cabin.”

  “Aye, cap’n.”

  “Market day’s over!” Billy cries. “Back to your watches!”

  Murmured prayers are offered, and the men disperse, with heads hanging low.

  • That’s awful. I’m going to take my next tot of rum down to the man.

  • That’s a lesson this sailor won’t soon forget, nor I. Best keep my head down and steer clear.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Vengeful

  Crack! You fire the pistol and Barlow falls to the beach, dead.

  Rediker goes for his own pistols, and you bring out the other flintlock; the one you’ve saved for revenge. But his hand shakes, unsteadily, and just before you fire he lowers his weapon. Rediker looks to Barlow on the sand, swallows hard, and turns to face you.

  “Go on then, finish it, ya devil,” Rediker spits out, hatred in his eyes.

  “You brought this on yourself, Rediker. The day you decided to be a mutinous pirate, judgment started following you like a shadow. Only now, it’s finally caught up.”

  At this, he laughs. “Ye’ve murdered more men than I, by a long shot. The mutiny were never about Bullock or the Pride. Living life as a free man, as a privateer—that ain’t a life a man can turn his back on. Never did spill blood that ain’t deserved it, but you? Look! Gunned down an innocent in cold blood. How can that be justice?”

  A splash pulls your attention to the shore, where Dudderidge the cook and a few others launch the jolly boats out for escape. They must have seen the island aflame and decided to flee.

  Crack! Rediker’s shot echoes out on the beach. You clutch your gut from the wound, drop the pistol, then stagger and fall.

  “I make me own justice. Thank ye kindly for the reminder, Saltboots.” Rediker stands over you, watching you slowly die. But with his crew dead or fleeing, this is the end for him too. He can’t sail the ship by himself, so in essence, he’s the marooned one now. He claims the pistol you dropped for himself, examining the weapon. “Kept this the whole time?”

  “One shot, to end it,” you say, then with your last ounce of strength, pull out the fifth and lay it out at his feet. “And… for the courage… to do so.”

  All goes dark as consciousness fades away.

  THE END

  The Volley of War

  Learning to be a sailor these last few weeks has been essential to your survival, but unlike a merchant vessel, on the HMS Hornblower you’ve also been training for battle. This is the Royal Navy in wartime, and war against the Spanish is the whole reason they’re impressing sailors, so in addition to seamanship you’ve been also been drilling on how to fire the cannons.

  Yours is a crucial position: you swab the bore before the cartridge and shot is loaded, thus preventing accidental ignition (and the accompanying fatal explosions). You’ve got your bucket of seawater and your swab at the ready. Soon, you’ll get to put all this training to practice. Soon, you’ll fire upon the enemy!

  Only you’re stationed on the wrong side of the ship.

  The enemy warship approaches from the starboard side, yet you’ve been set up on a gun team under Lieutenant Saffron on the larboard side; the complete opposite from the action! Still… that might be a good thing. You peek out across through one of the starboard gun ports at the approaching ship, and swallow a throat dry with fear. The Spanish warship is identified as the Don Pedro Sangre, a first-rate ship of 74 guns. By comparison, the Hornblower has only 36, of which only eight point in the right direction here on the lower gun deck. A daunting prospect, to say the least.

  “Lieutenant, would you please keep your men out of my gun ports,” the starboard broadside commander says to you, despite his words directed at your superior.

  “Back to stations,” Lieutenant Saffron orders. Then mutters to himself, “We’d do better to put oars out these gun ports.”

  The report of musket fire from above decks brings back the threat of action, and the men ready themselves at battle stations. The gun deck feels like a tinderbox—ready to blow.

  Finally, the time for battle comes.

  “Rear battery, fire!” the Captain issues loudly, which is relayed down to your command.

  “FIRE!!!” the starboard broadside is ordered, signaling the last two guns.

  The resultant explosion is unlike anything you’ve ever heard. As the cannons boom, your ears ring out, and the guns themselves slam backwards against their breech ropes. Seeing the several-ton weapons hurled violently backwards is a shock to the system, more so even than briefly going deaf from the cannon shot itself.

  Then all hell breaks loose, as the Spanish return fire.

  The gun deck explodes in a hail of splinters as cannon shot from the Don Pedro Sangre bombards your ship. Several men take splintering—though you yourself are spared, with the men on the starboard side acting as unwitting human shields. But you barely have time to feel lucky before one of the men is blown apart by a direct hit to the ribcage. The pressure from the blast sprays viscera across the gun deck. It’s complete carnage, with all the seamen dumbly looking t
o the ranking lieutenant for an order. You don’t even remember falling, but you find your footing and look to Saffron. The man is shell-shocked, and every minute counts.

  Time to take action!

  • See to the wounded. Several who need to be shuttled down to surgery are clearly unable to do so of their own accord; yet they can still be saved!

  • Rush over and replace one of the wounded men on the active gun teams. You’ve got to keep those rear batteries firing! If you don’t return cannon fire, the Hornblower will be blasted to pieces.

  MAKE YOUR CHOICE

  Volunteer as Tribute!

  Pushing your way through the crowd, you shout, “Take me! Place me on the same ship as my cousin, this man here, and I volunteer to serve in His Majesty’s Navy!”

  The gathered crowd is shocked into silence, with all eyes on you. James’s are the widest and he shakes his head, either in a mix of disbelief and terror, or perhaps trying to silence you.

  Too late for that now.

  “I don’t suppose you have any naval experience?” the magistrate asks at length.

  “Admittedly, no. But I’m a fast learner and a hard worker.”

  “Silence, cousin!” James hisses.

  “Very well. We need more honorable sorts sailing our seas,” the magistrate says, before continuing to address the confined men. “I hope the rest of you lot can learn from this. Defending the realm is a matter of duty! And so, by the authority of a wartime hot press, I hereby order your sentences commuted to the HMS Hornblower, under direct supervision of Captain Charles Longwick.”

  The crowd cheers and your head swims, unable to accept this new reality. You’ve just been pressed into the service of the Royal Navy! Finally, the ceremony is over and you’re led away from the court. Where are they taking you? Will you head directly to the ship?