The Captain's Game

Larabie’s right hand crept surreptitiously towards the hilt of his sword. Julieth, who saw all, caught his eye, and shook her head a single infinitesimal second, understanding that the man’s hatred of the captain was something that must never be revealed.

Julieth placed a hand upon the captain’s shoulder when she noted his eyes narrow suspiciously at Larabie.

“YAR!!!” cried the boisterous man with the gold epaulets as he slammed the table with his open palm, wooden steins rattled, the inkpot jittered, and the cup of quills fell over. “War is the greatest game of them all!”

“Game sir?” Hurly, the first mate asked. “We lost near half the crew. Mew’s lost a leg, Polly’s lost an eye, at least a dozen more be bleedin ta death. We’re weak with hunger and rotted wi scurvy…tis no---”

“The grandest game of them all! Where winner takes all!”

“Pardon Captain, but we seem to be on the losing side of this ‘game’.”

“Not at all lad, not at all. We have the added bonus round left…the bilge.”

 A knock sounded, then the largest man in the crew entered. Six-four, black as coal, bald as a cue ball, Manny the Wicked only smiled when he was drawing blood. His dark oily skin was scarred methodically to form pale ridges in the form of triangular patterns over his arms and bare chest. The white greasepaint streaked over his pocked cheeks flew from his skin in shocking contrast and made the whites of his sunken eyes yellow as beewax.

“Speak of the devil,” said the captain cheerily.

“Prisoners secured Captain.” His voice was deep and rumbly, if a prize bull could talk, it’d be Manny.

Captain Winterfell clapped his hands together, the dirty lace of his sleeves fluttered like brown moths. He grinned and Larabie noted how white and perfect his teeth were, his gums healthy and pink. He was a ruggedly handsome man, his face lined and weathered under a short cropped light brown beard. His blue eyes flickered with the flame of madness as he exclaimed, “Bonus round!” He stood, wobbled a bit, then picked up his stein and chugged the last of its contents. He grabbed a handful of Julieth’s buttocks and squeezed.

She winced and Larabie’s eyes narrowed. Then she laughed and Larabie shook his head in disgust. The long white egret feather in his tricorn flicked like an angry cat’s tail as he followed Manny out the door. Hurly, stocky and pale with greasy shoulder dark length hair framing a roundish face, hesitated, his eyes round and wide beneath thick round glasses. Winterfell shoved him and said, “Don’t imagine you’d like to partake wouldja?”

Hurly was silent as he exited before the captain, Julieth came last.

The foursome strode through the upper gallery, enduring the cries of agony from the cotridden. At the stairs to the lower gallery, Hurly turned away and ascended to the main deck. Julieth followed him, sparing Larabie a last look and wondering how much of the ‘bonus round’ he’d be able to endure. She’d witnessed torture as a young girl. She’d tried to banish the sight from her memory bank, but her brain was scarred and insisted upon reminding her every night in her sleep. The man she loved was sensitive on the inside, she alone knew the true inner being. On the outside he was a ruthless killer.

Larabie was tall and muscular, with strong square jaw beneath a full red beard and piercing steel-blue eyes that were just as quick to anger as they were to laugh. Under his black tricorn, his auburn hair was close cropped and free of lice. The men looked up to him, calling him Larry the Red.

Within five minutes the first of the screams rose from far below the deck. They used the bilge room for torture: dank, dark, and smelly, with ankle deep water, putrid and black- it was a setting that set a depressing, hopeless mood.

Julieth looked back to the deck, but Hurly had gone back to directing what was left of the deck crew who faced the daunting task of razing the new foremast and repairing the sails.  She set out to find the surgeon and was thankful the sickest of the men were in the top galley towards the bow…farthest one could get from the bilge though the screams were getting louder and permeated every nook and cranny from tiller to stem.

She passed men who stumbled about in a daze, working on autopilot it seemed, for their eyes were glazed, their faces bloody, their mouths oozing with rot. They were in pain and angry. But weak. They appeared to be dying. They leered at her as she passed, some bumped her rudely, but they spoke not a word and dared no confrontation. They believed it was bad luck to have a woman on board and a woman who lived on a ship had the powers of a witch. She didn’t hate them for it but pitied their weak minds instead. She herself, was weary and bloodied and bruised. She’d nearly lost a finger in the battle, it was wrapped in part of her grimy yellow shirt.

Her vest was torn and maroon with the blood of a dozen of the king’s guards. Under the dried gore, her boots would once again shine up fine; the hat upon her head was black with golden trim. She wore an ivory scarf embroidered with green parrots over her light chestnut tresses because the hat was too big. She’d taken it from a head she’d separated from its body.

A firm hand gripped her elbow and she turned defensively, hand on the hilt of her sword.

“Easy Lass,” said Larabie and she let out her pent-up breath.

“Darling. You ought not sneak up like that, likely to get a bloodied lip.”

He glanced at her wrapped up hand and said, “Aye. Quite so, my formidable lass.” Curls of amusement lifted his lips and twinkled his eyes. “Off to see the surgeon I suspect?”

She nodded. “You not interested in ‘the bonus round’?”

“Not my cuppa tea. The first one cracked fast…” he was careful not to go into details, she’d told him of her family’s grisly demise. “He was the navigation officer and possessed the schedule for the next landing.”

“To bargain with?”

“On the contrary. He thought he could keep it safe. It was up is arse.”

Julieth smiled then. “You serious? He musta not heard tale o Manny then…that be the unsafest place of all.”

The screams went on.

“That bastard!” Julieth spat. “Jus killem already. I need some peace.”

“And some stitches. Come on.”

They walked beneath the foresail and looked up. It was the only sail untorn and unburnt, white and billowing against the pink sky. Above it was the black one. The skull upon it white as bone and laughing, the daggers crossed beneath it promised all those who crossed the path of The Twisted Cock a bloody game indeed.

They went below deck and found the surgeon amid a crowded gallery room reeking of blood and unwashed bodies. A black man lumbered out past them, giving Julieth a two-fingered hex sign then shying away from Larabie. Jackson the surgeon was removing four-inch-long splinters from a man’s belly. He soaked a cloth with rum (it was the only stuff left in abundant supply) and wiped away the blood, revealing the large tattoo of a buxom mermaid he claimed he could make swim when he undulated his torso.

Jackson was a weasel of a man, thin, brown, wirey whiskered and slippery looking. He heard all that went on and all that was whispered on the ship, as if he were a shadow, stealthy as night itself. He wore a long beige coat that may have once been white like a regular doctor’s. His close-cropped black hair was silver at the temples and sweat-plastered to his rat-like head. His beady dark eyes caught Julieth’s and he beckoned her forward. Grumbles erupted from the crew who’d been waiting but none dared speak distinctly.

“I don’t mind wait---”

“Hush-up. Come ere.” Both Julieth and Larabie came closer. “Ugh,” he said when he unwrapped her hand. “That’s got to come off.”  The forefinger was cut through the bone halfway. “I could sew it back on, make ye a cast…but…” he shrugged and looked around at the filth. “The rot’ll getcha. An infection---”

“Yes yes. I understand. Be quick then, eh?”

Larabie said, “your sword hand? Are you sure?”

“I can fight just as well wi me left.”

Larabie smiled. He was entirely smitten with this woman. So, what to do about the captain? He’d not just give her up. Under his breath, as Jackson prepared his shears and rags and rum at the ready, he said softly, “What word of the cat?” This was code for the plot that was rumored to be brewing.

“Alive and gettin fatter. We supposedly heading to the ass port…”

Larabie was not surprised the shadowy man had heard so quickly of the secret rudder.

“…where we may skin it for its meat, ye reckon?”

“Aye,” Larabie said and nodded his understanding. The men behind them were silent. They were all in on it too. They looked around grinning, their pains dulled.

Up on the deck, John Larabie and Julieth Spartan reveled in the fresh air, inhaling deep. The sky was purple now, with small indigo-bellied clouds on the horizon. And still the screams went on. They walked out along the bowsprit, the farthest possible place from the bilge. The wind silenced the screams and tore away their pain. They stood out there unable to touch for fear eyes be watching. They were so close now. The Caribbean night winds were warm and soft, begging for romance…upon the platform they looked down upon the masthead. She was a woman with breasts pointing the way ahead; she had the head of a rooster- green feathers, golden beak, red comb and wattle to her collarbone.

Julieth said, “I’ll miss this ship. It’s been my home since…”

“Yes. I have a fondness for her also. But after the next port, we can be landers. Go back to Wales, raise a family.”

“Listen.”

“Oh, thank God.” There were no more screams and Larabie wondered just how long they’d been silent for. He didn’t dare kiss his love, but he did dare to whisper, “I love you.”

Julieth smiled and turned away, her eyes moist and burning.

The next morning the weary crew grew excited as a seagull flew over their masts. No doubt they drooled but regained their focus upon the horizon to where the bird flew off to.

Captain Winterfell licked his parched lips. He’d run out of the limes he’d taken from Larabie two months before and though still scurvy free, it was one of his greatest fears. He was a vain man and insisted upon doling out the spoils of the game as be his right. He showed no weakness. He showed them strength and power and control…and still they plotted mutiny. They were close to land, and better still, the port that the poop-stinky rudder had indicated be the port the Spanish galleon lay ready to sail with all the riches he desired and promised to his crew. All they had to do was defeat the redcoats that protected her. He ordered the Jolly Roger taken down and the sails furled. One look at the crew and the port protecters would believe their story about being attacked by the pirates of The Twisted Cock. They’d drink and eat and carouse and then one by one take out the Redcoat’s three ships.

They needed to recruit more men to take the galleon, but take each ship one by one, and men fall in as opposed to death. The dream of riches shining in their eyes and freedom to carouse and be wild was appealing. Winterfell knew this from experience. The person he showed his crew was not the person he was. It was all The Game. It was coming to an end. They were going to mutiny after this haul. He had his own spy amongst them. Someone trusted to that slimy surgeon. 

“Land Ho!!!” cried the man in the crow’s nest and all able-bodied men ran to the north facing ships deck. Lights flickered there before a mound of black. As they drew nearer, they could see it was a curved line of lights- a cove. The cove. Closer still, they saw the Spanish galleon, The Seas Revenge, and all eyes glittered with dreams of riches and gold. The oldest dreamt of retirement, the youngest of being a captain of their own crew.

Larabie dreamed of running with his love, far into the Spanish hills…maybe make wine, maybe have a dozen children. It was all before him now…as they entered the next round of The Game. The captain was a cruel, sadistic man, doomed for mutiny, but Larabie would fight by his side to get what he desired…what he was owed. He had been a great part of the plot of mutiny, riling the crew up, fueling their suspicions…the fact that he’d sacrificed so many men just to find this damn ship in this damn port…it was as if the captain was working with him on a suicide mission.

A month in the port and one by one the king’s ships had been taken. The crew of The Twisted Cock was healthy and eager and grown back to a respectable number. The bosun had been promised captainship upon the death of Captain Winterfell and so was intent on carrying out the plot. Larabie and Julieth grew lackadaisical about their affair…

Julieth cried out in her sleep as she did every night since her family’s demise. Larabie was astounded to hear her words in her sleep, so awful for a girl child to endure, he wept for her silent tears.

In her sleep Julieth saw her baby brother’s head smashed in by a musket. That was the worst. She saw her mother bent over their table, her skirts pushed up as the redcoat took her. Her father’s body was piled in the corner of the room, just a dark shape with no power or voice. The redcoat turned and grinned as he always did in the dream, reaching out for her. She was ever the frozen little girl, unable to save them.

Larabie reached over and pulled her to him, “There there, it’s okay, sweetheart. It’s just a dream.” He always awoke her before the end, he couldn’t bear to see her in pain. And he hated Winterfell inch by inch, dream by dream, the sick, sadistic murdering bastard.

Julieth knew better but was grateful for his strong arms. The dream was fading, and she was needing her sleep. She brushed his hands away from her privates and faked a snore loudly. Gads! Men were so transparent. She got up and raced upwards to the captain’s chambers where he’d be waiting. She snuggled into the captain’s bed. He smelled of rum and body stink. She could barely sleep waiting for the morning, as the besotted man lifted an arm to encircle her.

The Spanish galleon was not in the port.

It was left unguarded, the redcoat troops that were left were land bound and it would take days for the King’s fleets to make it to the cove. It had snuck away in the dark of night. Winterfell was furious, “Have I no eyes upon the quarry?” He strode back and forth, “You!” he pointed at the crows nest guard, “Were ye asleep at yer post? And youse- were you not awatch at the ready?” He thundered as he pointed at crew members trembling with fear. The captain was sadistic and cruel and took no pussies cries for apologies. “Manny!” he bellowed, and the fearsome torturer appeared like a spirit as always.

“Take these men below.”

“Aye captain,” the imposing black figure said with a grin.

Winterfell felt the men stirring and staring. He knew of their plot and welcomed a chance to sever some infidel’s heads. But… the ship lay ahead.

Larabie stood by Winterfell’s side as they cruised towards The Seas Revenge. Julieth was at the captain’s other side. One last game and we can leave and be together upon land. Raise children.’ The torture of her family’s demise was brought forth from her nightmares and she forced them away.

Canons fired as the faster ship, The Twisted Cock, took position alongside at 200 feet of The Seas Revenge. As the pirates threw their hooks and prepared to board, cries went up and out, bloodcurdling and raw. The blackest of the pirates went over first to scare the bejesus out of the crew, like demons spawned from the deepest pits of hell. Then came the swordsmen, then the sharp shooters, taking out those who the men were battling with. All in all, it was a losing battle. A losing game, for the Spanish.

There ship was left to burn. The cove ripe with merriment and looting, shrieks filled the night, some gleeful and some in anguish.

During the last war, the last tile placed into the board of the game, he’d lost sight of his love, his brave and beautiful lion-like woman. But he couldn’t falter, the remaining crew now looked up to him. The captain was also said to be demised in battle.

For Larabie, that was fortunate, for he’d not have to deal with the plot that he’d instigated. The mutiny. “Ach!” he’d said aloud as tears came to his eyes. He looked to the sea. She was gone and he’d never love another as he’d loved her.

Julieth looked over the land with her man by her side. Captain Winterfell had saved her long ago. She was happy to be on land with him.