Chapter 7

I bought nine breech-loading sawed-off double-barrel shotguns in 10-gauge and seven S&W Schofield revolvers to issue to Capt. Scruggs and the crew while the Angel’s Flight was being readied for sea duty. Nina and I already had our pistols, rifles, and regular shotguns, so I did not buy any for us. I also stocked up on ammunition because I intended to hold practice sessions with the weapons before we encountered any pirates.

We set sail with a very scruffy looking crew, since I did not bother with uniforms and other such gimcracks for them. Nevertheless, Capt. Scruggs assured me that all of them felt the same way he did about pirates, so we should be in good shape when we finally found some.

The first day out was spent in the routine of running the yacht, and Nina and I tried to stay out of the way as much as possible. Nina spent the day shadowing Capt. Scruggs. She was 100% behind my idea that he needed a bodyguard once we went into action. Meanwhile, I tried to learn as much as I could about handling the boat and setting the sails. By the afternoon, I could do almost anything that I was told to do, but I did not yet know enough to do things on my own.

Okay, I’ll admit it, I was the comic relief for the crew as I fumbled my way through the duties of a deck hand. Scruggs told me later that I had earned a lot of respect from the crew because this was the first time any one of them had ever seen an owner try to do any actual work. Mostly, they just gave useless or the wrong orders and generally got in the way of a working man.

The second day in the Gulf was pretty much a repeat of the first day, except that even I was able to contribute something to the running of the boat. However, it was on the third day that the situation changed. That was when weapons training started in earnest. I had Scruggs swap pistols from his Colt Navy to the Schofield and become familiar with the way it handled. His strongest reaction was the ease of reloading the Schofield and said, “I do not see why I need a shotgun with a pistol that is this easy to use. However, you are the boss when it comes to fighting, so I will go along with you as much as I can.”

“I appreciate that attitude, Captain, and I hope that you never do need the shotgun, but I hold to the ‘better safe than sorry’ adage.” It took about half an hour of practice for Scruggs to get the hang of the shotgun and to feel comfortable with it. He was actually enthusiastic about the shotgun by the end of his short training period.

The next man to undergo training with the guns was the cook. Cookie had never fired a gun in his life except as a teen just fooling around. Therefore, he needed a lot of practice with the Schofield revolver. Once I was sure that he was going through the motions correctly, I left him to practice while I worked with the next candidate.

I was still working with the crew on pistol work the next day, but, to be truthful, I was really working most of the time with the cook. It turned out that he was a superlative cook, and everybody wanted him to survive just based on the quality of the food he served! I figured that all of the skill the cook needed was to be able to hit a man as close as about 10 feet. Cookie was almost a lost cause, and I think that it would have been more popular to put Nina to being his bodyguard, but I got him to that minimal level of skill.

The crazy thing was that he was a natural with the shotgun! I tossed targets into the Gulf and he had no trouble hitting them from his first try. I have no explanation for his ability with the shotgun, but I would take him to back me up any time with it. Okay, Cookie just kept a loaded shotgun handy at all times and returned to his regular routine of fixing some of the best meals any of us had ever eaten. Oh, he kept the Schofield handy, too, but none of us expected him ever to use it.

Meanwhile, I had the crew practicing every day with the revolver or the shotgun, and a week of practice made them as good as they were going to get until we had real targets. We were now ready to start our serious hunting. Mostly, we had been running back and forth about 15 miles out from New Orleans, but now it was time to head for the shipping lanes used by the cruise ships.

A number of cruise ships left from New Orleans every week, so we had good bait to follow almost any day we were interested. The hurricane season was now history, so we were not concerned about big storms. On our second day of hunting, the lookout spotted a cruise ship that appeared dead in the water. Now, that was remarkable enough to warrant investigation even if we were not hunting pirates.

We came in toward the bow, and we were almost up to the ship when we saw a boat about the size of the Angel’s Flight tied to her stern. Okay, this looked like our first pirate encounter.

Capt. Scruggs’ first thought was to keep the pirate from escaping, and the best way to do that was to capture their boat. We were probably too late to help the people aboard the ship, so all we could do was to exact revenge. He ordered all of our sails furled and let us slip up to the pirates’ boat as quietly as possible. This is where our neutral color was of great help. We moved almost completely by the momentum that we had picked up as we approached the pirate.

We almost touched the pirate boat when grappling hooks were flung to catch our prize, and buffers were dropped between the two boats to soften the noise of our impact. Captain Scruggs’ maneuvering was so expert that the two pirates left on board did not even notice our arrival until it was too late. Two of our crewmen made clever use of their knives, and no warning was given to the pirates still aboard the cruise ship.

Now that we were tied up, we could hear the screaming of women aboard the cruise ship. At my command, Nina and Capt. Scruggs remained aboard the captured pirate boat to hold that in case pirates tried to get away. Meanwhile, I led the six men of the crew up the rope ladders to the aft rail of the cruise ship.

The climb was short, and we soon saw the debauchery running loose aboard the ship. As nearly as we could tell, all of the men associated with the cruise ship were dead, but the women were tied up and waiting to be raped or were already being raped. I counted 12 pirates as defined as being men not in uniform and still alive.

I ordered the men to use their pistols and to creep up on the pirates and shoot them at very close range. A bullet, even a .45 from a Schofield revolver, was not going to pass through a human body, so I had no qualms ordering that kind of attack. I also ordered the men not to mess with the women. They would be released later after we were sure that the ship was entirely under our control. Furthermore, there would be no rape!

I watched my men dispatch the pirates on deck as I had ordered, and then we split up to search the ship. I took Cookie with me to the pilot deck and sent the rest of the men below to search all of the cabins and the hold. They were to report to me when they had finished their search.

We heard a scream of pain as Cookie and I rushed up the ladder to the pilot deck. There we found the captain of the cruise ship tied to the wheel and being cut by many short knife strokes. The idea was for him to feel as much pain as possible as he bled out from all of the cuts. He was obviously almost dead by the time we spotted him, and the two men torturing him had just turned to leave. Apparently they had been so tied up with their activities that they had not noticed what had happened on the main deck.

I was really pissed off at what I saw, so I shot both men in the hip. As far as I could tell, the only weapons they had were their knives. One of the men was the captain of the pirates, but we did not know who the other one was. Him, Cookie and I just tossed over the side. The sharks jumped him before he had a chance to sink beneath the waves.

I shot the erstwhile captain in the other hip before we dragged him down the ladder. Frankly, I was looking for maximum pain before he died. Cookie suggested that we use ropes to hang him by his ankles from a yardarm. We were sure that the women would be happy to see that. Of course, he was screaming constantly after we did that.