Art:AADM/Second round/Forlorn Hope

The Short
= The Entry =

A note from PTG
This entry was recieved with the line breaks more or less fixed in place. As there is no way easy way to remove them without spending several hours of my life incessantly going up-backspace-down-end-backspace, I have left them in this story. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Forlorn Hope
I took a deep breath and offered up prayers to Poseidon as I heard the captain shout, "Haul away!" and the rope jerked taut around my ankles, plunging me into the briny deep, bumping me along the bottom of the ship.

The barnacles tore at my flesh, stripping away the soft skin of my past. Lace top, satin doublet, and the ribbon rosettes handed to me by a lover I would not return to, gripped by nature’s teeth and offered to the depths. They killed me that day, and in that watery coffin I was reborn.

“You go down a boy, you come up a pirate.”

I was naked when I heard these words. Nature had sketched her brutal art upon my body. Where there was skin there was wounds, where there was no wound there was blood. He placed a tankard before me and bade me to drink.

“You think I’m cruel,” he spoke. Stated. Knew. “You think it unnecessary.”

In my eyes there was only a shape of a man, a shadow. In these eyes of mine I was still down there, being ripped asunder, murky shapes my only company.

“You think me a common bilge rat. You can’t wait to see the day when I waltz with old Jack Ketch, when I hang.”

His shape swam from view, and heavy warmth wrapped my shoulders. Hands clasped at my neck, pinning my shuddering body to a heavy chair.

“Do you know why you didn’t get away? Do you know why your friends are dead?”

I tried, but the answers eluded me. Ropes were twisted till palms bled, we juried the mast and tossed out the bilge till our knuckles split.

“This is why, lad.”

Pain has a focusing nature. The sea water in my eyes shrank inside my skill, and the world was clear. In his hand he holds the answer, offering it to me. A thick grey tooth worn by the sea, a barnacle which had feasted on my torn flesh. Now it was filled to the brim and overflowing with my meat. He scattered it carelessly over the thick table of his cabin and whispered to me.

“You’ll never do a sloppy job of careening my vessel now, will ya lad?”

This is how life begins. I scrape at the wood with a coarse stone, I wear away at the hull, because I know that tomorrow I could be beneath it once more.

It is on this beach that I first glimpse the man who made me. My now late father used to tell me that behind every pirate was a weak man. To one degree, he may have been correct. Without the billowing smoke chasing their heels, and the torn sails flailing in my face they were malnutritioned, ill treated, and unintelligent men.

Captain Roche was slight of build and hollow of cheek. On the day I was captured he wasn’t in the centre of the deck bellowing orders, nor was he over seeing and scheming and planning … He was just there. He was in front of you, or behind you, but not in any noticeable way. You thought he was too far, you thought you were safe, then it was a blade at your throat and a gun in your side.

He stands now, watching, silhouetted by the dying sun, dull grey smudges painted between his eyes, sand gritting into a delicate moustache. He ignored the men shoulder rocks and wood to be ballast in the hull, he listens only casually to the sizeable first mate. He’s watching me, watching me scrape savagely at the keel that tasted my blood. It must have taken at least fourteen hours to careen her hull that first time.

She was The Forlorn Hope. A forty foot long flat brig; my father’s merchant vessel dwarfed it in comparison, but somehow we ended up here on this beach, and I was cleaning the enemy’s hull.

Captain Roche took his time preparing his vessel. They left the Hope boldly on its side, baking belly up in the sun. They smoothed out every inch with sand paper, they replaced torn sail, and organised my father’s goods.

They didn’t speak my name. I was ‘Bilge Rat’. Sometimes just rat, sometimes just bilge. Bilge, the water that gathered in the depths of the ship, the extra weight that snuck aboard proud and dank vessel alike. That was me.

There was no escape aboard a ship like the Hope. It needed four sailors to tack the sails and capture the wind. Not even Captain Roche was truly in charge in such a place. Majority was the true leader of the vessel: that mischievous character. He slipped in between the crew, and danced on the deck unseen. Captain Roche was always one step ahead. Things always seemed to dance his way.

I don’t know what day it is. The sun peers over the horizon and splashes into the surface of the water. This is what life on the ocean is like. On the open ocean everyone is equal, everyone is Jack. Roche says Jack Tar to the crows nest, it means whoever’s closest. We’re all Jack. Jack of trades, Jack Tar, Jack all … That is until a ship strays near.

I know I only have a few days to save my life. They’ll never just let me walk without blood on my hands. This is common sense. This is what I expect, but when captain Roche calls me out with blade in hand, I thought it was over. Perhaps he had grown sick of me, perhaps he wanted to taunt me on a childish whim, whatever it was he stood there sword in hand and waited on my approach.

“Pick up the stick Bilge Rat,” he spoke whilst looking out to sea.

I expected a circle to form, some kind of viewing audience. Something to tell me that this wasn’t normal, that my death might mean something. There was none, and I chose my weapon. A two and a half foot long pole.

“There’s a ship out there, see it?”

I did. It was about the same size as my father’s, flying a flag of parley. They would want the recent news from port, assuming we had sailed out from the Spanish Main, and not a tiny patch of sand.

“In a few hours, we’re going to be on that ship. They’re going to kill you. Do you understand?” He turned to face me on heel. His hands, and sword, behind his straight back, “you might be thinking to warn them, you might be thinking to join them, but you’re going to be first Jack on that deck. You’re going to be the first to die. Do you understand?”

His blade hovered around his sides, waiting. It’s hard to concentrate when a man may lunch at you at any moment.

“Ever had a sword lesson, Bilge Rat?”

I had, many an hour I spent sparring aboard my father’s sunken vessel. I thought it may fill me with confidence when the time came. Surely, any well trained sailor could defeat a common pirate?

Roche watched how I prepared for his attack. My footing was perfect, my wrist motions taught to me by the most exquisite fencer in my home town, and my pants were close to wetting. His blade circled my stick, precariously deciding what part of my scarred body to skewer.

“Do you know how many lessons I have had, Bilge Rat?”

It was obvious. His feet moved in make shift pattern, he lacked balance and finesse. His wrist cocked at an awkward angle, certainly not a fencer’s wrist. His eyes watched my weapon, not my shoulders. This should’ve been easy. I should have parried away his blade and dazzled the crew with my fancy foot work. Instead he slashed at my pants and turned them down around my land lubber ankles.

“Fear, Bilge Rat. Forget the lessons, forget the foot work, forget it all. Fear!”

I tripped away from my fallen breeches. His blade caught the light and swung in imperfect circles at my upper body. There was no aim, no skill, just the threat of my heart falling from my chest unceremoniously. My stick waved and swam about with a life of its own; it didn’t want to touch that metal. My thighs stiffened awkwardly, as Roche advanced boldly.

“Do not fear me, Bilge Rat. Fear me, you die.”

I tried to find me feet, as they scrambled across the deck; going anywhere but in time with my upper body. Roche threw a careless lunge above my head and into the rigging. He had over extended, this was it! This was my time to prove myself. I hesitated for the briefest moment and threw myself right onto … a heavy crane hook. It poked into my skin and knocked me off balance. I refocused and he was there again, here and there, swinging his blade then vanishing among rope and wood.

“If you do not fear a man, you can kill him. Even if he kills you first, even if he strikes first blood, you can take him with you. Do not fear me, Rat.”

I spoke to my pounding heart and shaking limbs, I begged them to stop their twisted motion. I wanted to live, I didn’t want to die here. Revenge or flight be damned, I wanted to live. I stuck out clumsy blow after clumsy blow; I stuck the cabin boy in the face, and made the rigging dance with my anger. I would not die here!

“That’s it, Bilge Rat, do not fear me!”

Roche’s chest was my target, brazen exposed to the deep rising sun. Sweat spilling down his chest and darkened his top, his delicate features glistened and shone, the smudges beneath his eyes were now filled with youthful glee. He lived for these moments; unfortunately this moment was my last.

His blade snapped into my chest with one fluent motion. I looked up at him in shock. He wouldn’t would he? No, such a death would be an insult. I look down, and there it is: A bloody red welt in a perfect line across my scarred chest. The bastard had assaulted me with a blunt weapon all along!

Rage builds inside me, with thin wooden supports carved of insult and forgotten fear, but then there is something else. Something that fills my body and pushes my muscles to act, he’s retreating now that I know the truth, now that I’m in charge. Wood shall break his vicious bones, and I will be the victor this day.

I expect him to race back, run across the deck and yell for help, but to no avail. He stands proudly, motionless save for the snapping motion of his neck when I strike him. The cracks in his lip trace out a treasure map in blood, and he displays teeth, wooden teeth stabbed into his gums.

“Well done,” he smiles.

My heart relaxes, my breath returns, I remember where I am now. I remember where I am, and I’m still the victor. I grin and feel brimming with confidence, confidence I have never felt before, confidence that can only be described as being a pirate. Confidence that can only be ended by … a slender boot between my legs.

When I open my eyes Roche is walking away, and I am clutching my children never to be.

“Good Bilge Rat, now just do that when we board, and we’ll all be happy.”

The ship is almost upon us when my swollen gonads take rest inside my body. They let me be for the time that may be my last. I sat as far away from Captain Roche as was possible on an open decked ship. I would have been vomiting, I may have been clutching my stomach in tense fear, but Captain Roche did me a favour by kicking me square; with pain comes a certain sobriety and realisation.

Every Jack was quiet as we closed. The pirate’s attempts at going about their innocent duties seemed obvious now to my eyes. It is different being the hunter than the hunted. The hunted assumes the best, the hunter knows the worst.

Eyes cast towards the innocent vessel, they trail across its deck, they pick their targets. We’re crossing into the safe distance, the distance for acceptable parley. Their row boat drops a party to meet us and the well rehearsed play begins. Roque, the first mate, struggles with the sails, his lithe form taut against the heavy ropes to pull the sail around. I remember the words of my father as he peered at the advancing Forlorn Hope.

“They’re under crewed, send a boat, offer them a tow back to harbour … Green merchants.”

It was I that went in that first boat floating out towards my new destiny. All the while The Hope kept drifting, trailing towards my father’s vessel. Beneath deck our downfall huddled together in the bilge, peering through cracks in the upper deck. Blade, pistol, and knife stuffed in every part of their tattered clothes. They waited, where I wait now.

Roque greets the three sailors on the deck with a wide grin. He shakes their hand and discusses’ the port’s news. He tells them of his lack of sailing experience, his failed attempted to become a trader, his over estimation of his skills, and now his inability to shift the sails. The captain is starting to notice, we’re trailing into a perfect broad side. He’s peering below deck at the closed cannon ports. He’s starting to become suspicious. He calls for eyes on our deck, he demands the crew begin to load cannon and shot as the trusting away party begin to turn the sail around.

That’s when it happens. The sails collapse in on themselves, the cannon ports open wide, and the hull of a merchant vessel spills open to the sound of exploding gunpowder. The away party reaches for their weapons, but Roque is no where to be seen. The hold is locked, their boat raised from the water, and the sails collapsed. They’re trapped.

The return fire is anticipated, demanded, but ultimately futile. The Forlorn Hope has drifted too close, the cannons can only pepper the deck with shot, the guns are too high to smite the hull and too low to pepper the sails. They gun down their own party in a hail of fire except one who was lucky enough to be tacking the mast …

And in that hold of theirs is no man save a startled cabin boy. He stares blankly at the line of muskets now facing him, his face slightly blackened from shot and wood. The boarding planks slam into the gaping hull, heavy nails and metal hooks gripping their vessel. Ropes latch to the sides. They expect men, they expect a boarding action, they don’t expect to be drawn closer.

And Roche is there all the time, watching his well worn crew working with rehearsed unison. No orders, no yelling, just draw it closer, pull the hooks and get it that last few feet. They know their sinking, they know that water is filling their hold, what they didn’t anticipate are the crew of the Forlorn Hope, and there is me racing over first. The blue eye cabin boy finds a pistol and fires into the mob; to his eyes it does nothing. Gun, blade, and eye face him.

I will not kill a young boy, I cannot. This is not my fight. I’ll wait on the next, I tell myself, I’ll skewer the first merchant into this hold, but not the boy. This was till his hands find a rigging knife and his heart the courage to thrust at mine face. He would have been the next great adventurer, he was bound to discover new lands and strike rich, but now he explores the depths of the ocean, floating with my blade in a fresh pouting wound.

A man pauses when he tastes his own evil. He pauses because he wants to believe that he has changed, that something has driven him to this evil end. The truth, however, is before I stepped aboard that hold, I wanted it. I craved my blade to taste flesh to save my own hide and become a part of this. Roche had the talent to inspire these feelings of people. It sickens me to say, but I felt a glow in my cheek and energy in my bones when he pressed the hilt of his sword into my hand.

He stripped my clothes, and now my spirit, and now he asks, “How do you feel?”

What answer does a man give when a child dies upon his efforts? A feeling of remorse perhaps? Not I. A feeling of triumph? Here was no triumph to be had.

I answered with as much truth as I could muster, “I feel like a pirate,” then we continued the killing.

The deck is saturated with the blood of the dying. The slashed and stabbed try to race back to the upper deck before their vision blurs and they collapse into the rushing water. The desperate merchant sailors scramble to patch the gaping mouth which greedily swallowing the sea spray. The ship was going down, make no mistake, but if they could hold for a few hours they could find an island, they could stand a chance … They bottle neck down into the hold onto the shot and blade of pirate and friend a like. The ship begins to tilt, we can feel it in our calves. Only a dead man dances on a sinking ship, and I have no intention of waltzing tonight.

I feel the water churning beneath, my feet struggling to find safety. The board blanks are splintering, each hesitant step seems to take me further away. Almost there, I’m reaching for that last step when the soaking blank begins to bend. Is it rotten? It can’t be. No. It can only be …

A hand grips arm, and the booty falls onto a water. Ropes above me, ropes and running bodies. I look to the stairs, but there’s something in the way.

“Please, take me with you!” He screams. “Please! I want to live!”

I want to push him away, hurl him into the depths. I can kill a cabin boy but not a begging man. I grit my teeth and grab his hair, tossing him towards the opening of our vessel. I can hear the rolling and scrapping of barrels sloshing around in the doomed hull behind me. The screams of the men that reach at my heels, but I am gone back into the hull of the Hope.

“Why?” Roche asks. It’s for the third time, and he still isn’t satisfied with the answer.

“I can’t kill a begging man,” I state.

“You could have just left him.”

The man in question waits for us outside. A father of two, with a wife waiting back in a port somewhere. This was his last trade run.

“Why don’t you kill him then?” I ask.

Captain Roche snorts a deep breath of sea air. I notice the bloody hand print gracing his collar. “It’s bad for morale,” he shrugs, “we’re pirates, not executioners.”

“Let him join us.”

He strokes that delicate facial hair, contemplating the future of a family. “We have to port.”

“You can’t hold him for later?”

“If he had blood on his hands, we might,” he smirks to me, toying with a chart spread across his table. “We will be in Tortuga within the hour, I can’t risk a whole crew; a crew that likely won’t return to the vessel intact. Tortuga is a … tempting place for a man with a share of gold.”

“I’ll return,” I offer. “If you give him a chance.”

“A chance? … I’ll give him the same chance I gave you. If he survives …”

My mind casts back to the murky depths, to the icey barnacles rending my flesh into bloody strips. A fate I would wish upon no man. “An extra man is an extra man, no?”

“Dying men belong in front of me Bilge Rat, not behind my back crying for help. If he survives …”

“He’ll hate you … or you could be his saviour.”

Roche shows me his wooden teeth in a leer. “Do you hate me, Bilge Rat?”

With blood still staining my tunic there’s not reason to lie. “I’m not particularly fond of you.”

“I saved you, Bilge Rat.”

“From yourself.” I raise an eye brow towards him. I killed a boy for this man, and he is my saviour?

“Bilge Rat,” he whispers, “if it wasn’t me it would have been a rock, or a storm, or another pirate. I have put you on the path to be a good sailor.”

“You’ve put me on the path to Jack Ketch, that’s all you’ve done,” I spit. “Good sailors don’t send their crew the keel.”

Our defiant eyes meet in a lingering moment, a thin sheet of air escapes from his throat and fenced teeth; he is not the undead after all.

“Good sailors, great sailors, do what’s required.” He reaches to his belt, for a moment I believe he has grown tired of my thoughts … It’s a pistol or a blade, my time aboard The Hope is over. Instead, however, he simply opens his bloodied shirt. “What’s required.”

Scars similar to my own, a map to the past scratched across his flesh, and then I’m left sitting to listen to the passing waves that urge my thoughts. I listen to the shuffling from out side, that delicate voice calling the very same orders I once heard when I died.

“Stand him up.”

Perhaps there is something human in him after all.

“Do you know why your friends are dead?”

Perhaps he once went sailing with his father.

“Well, I’m going to show you.”

A life of piracy started being torn beneath the keel of a ship.

“I’m going to show you the proper distance to keep between you and a ship in parley.”

A life lost beneath the waves.

“HAUL AWAY!”