Chapter 21: Steady as She Goes

I think that the executions for rape did more to cow the pirates than anything else. That, and having the seven female captives supervise stripping the surviving pirates. We let the captives dress themselves from the clothes taken from bodies, with a promise that when we were done with the day’s work they could wash them as they wanted.

Each pirate, starting with Captain Black, had to strip completely naked, hand his clothes to the women, and then get dressed again after they had gone through them. One pirate refused to undress. The Guard Captain nodded at the nearest Guard, and he stepped up with his sword and ran him through. The women had to strip the body but they didn’t seem to mind the extra work, and after that they had the pirates toss him over the side.

There were no more arguments after that. We weren’t going to kill them for scowling at us, but they had made their captives strip for their amusement. If they weren’t going to obey orders that they had no problem giving their own captives, they could go feed the fish.

The women took everything they found except clothing and an eating knife. We ended up with a good pile of money pouches and assorted other odds and ends. A couple of the pirates apparently liked to whittle, and at least one of them was very good, judging from what was in his pockets. It all counted as loot, and we had the captives carry it all over to the Place.

Between casualties during the fight, the executions for rape, later deaths due to wounds and a few other incidents, by the time we had verified that none of the pirates had weapons there were fewer than forty of them left. I talked it over with my officers -temporarily including Captain Black and his remaining two assistants- and we decided to leave them all on their ship. We didn’t want any of them on the Wrong Place causing trouble.

Except for Phil and Mickey, who had been accepted after the fight as two of ‘us’ now instead of two of ‘them’. Certainly, if they had any ideas that what happened at Widemouth was a fluke, what had happened to the Sea Fortune should have settled them back down.

We needed a prize-crew, though. “Filo, would you like a promotion to Captain of a captured pirate ship?”

“Yes, Lord, thank you. I’ll feel a lot more comfortable here than on over on your ship. You have made too many changes.”

“Right. I can run the Wrong Place without you if I have to. Not as well, but I can do it. I understand the rig. And, you can run this ship just fine, where I’d have trouble with it and you’d have trouble over there without me. Very well, you can take one lieutenant. Not Garth or Jenn. You don’t need any seamen, you’ll have plenty, and Captain Black will act as crew leader if you need him to.”

Then, to the Captain of the Guard “Captain, I’m really tired of us having the same titles. You command the Guard detachment here. Can we all call you ‘Commander’?”

“Yes, Lord, I think that would work better. Where do you want me?”

“I want you to take six of your shield-and-sword men, and a third of the archers, and stay here on the Sea Fortune to back up Filo’s authority. He is Captain and commands the ship. Accept no argument. If he gives an order and the pirates don’t jump to obey, just start killing them. They’ll get the idea soon enough, and the survivors will do what they are told.”

Next. “Mr. Black, I’m not going to call you Captain any more, we’ve got too damn many captains here. What’s the problem with your mast? Is it broken, just dismounted, or what?”

“It is broken about halfway between the foot and the deck. I don’t know how you did it, but I will advise every island captain I meet to just surrender if they see you. Those two blows killed or wounded almost eighty of my men, and completely disabled the ship.”

“Very good. Understand, we took extra effort to not sink you, because we wanted to capture you instead. It would have been much easier for us to sink you. Filo, you know what you’re doing. Drop the sail, drop the yard and use it to prop up the mast. Chop the bottom of the mast loose and re-mount what’s left. Re-rig the yard, raise the sail, and get underway for Bridgetown. It will be lower, but it will let you sail so that the crew doesn’t have to row the whole way. Mr. Black, the Wrong Place will be coming and going as I try to map the coastline and investigate other ships. You couldn’t outsail us when the ship was in good condition; there is no way to evade us as it is now. If we go somewhere and come back to find that your men have killed all of our people, well...”

“I know, you will kill all of us. I’ll make sure the men don’t do anything unwise.”

“Very good. I think that’s all for now. I’ll take all of the captives back to my ship, unless they want to stay here. I can’t imagine that any would, but if they want to I’ll allow it. We’ll find somewhere for them to sleep. Preferably, not all in my bed.” That made them all laugh again.

As satisfying as it was to capture a pirate ship, it completely blew my plan to quickly run down the coast, pull into a couple of ports to look around, and race home again. We couldn’t leave Sea Fortune alone. Captain Black and his crew may be completely cowed, but if we took off and they were found by another pirate ship with a full crew, Filo and his Guard detachment would get overwhelmed. They had no long-range weapons beyond their bows, and no way to outmaneuver anyone else and thus manage the boarding action the way we had. Unless he could get the crew to choose slavery over freedom, he wouldn’t have a chance.

So, we were tied to Filo and his crippled prize. Our expected four or five days to cross the south edge of the island had expanded to at least seven or eight and maybe more. And I couldn’t call Millie on our cell phones to let her know I’d be home late for dinner. Well, I could try to map the coast better while we escorted them to safety.

I was pleasantly surprised at how fast Filo got a sail up. It was jury-rigged on some spare spars, but it was sail area and it was up in the wind, and they were underway slowly on sail power before dark. They kept working on the mast after sunset, too. Both ships had some lanterns, but as long as the sky was clear the stars gave enough light to sail by as well as work outside. They had to use lanterns in the hold, of course, but we stayed near enough to hear if any one cried for help, and we could tell when they knocked off work for the night.

We had several small cabins under the quarterdeck for the officers. I had my own at the stern, with windows so that I could see the sun and the weather and incidentally hear if anyone at the helm was calling for me. On one side I had a bed, and on the other side I had a sort of table or desk on top of several chests that I could store valuables in. Aldo slept in a hammock right behind the door. That was a security precaution as much as anything; if anyone burst into the cabin in the middle of the night, the first thing they would run into was Aldo in his hammock.

I also had a hammock that could be run above my bed for sleeping in severe weather. Or, if it was just moderately bad the hammock could be tied loosely and it served to keep me from rolling out of the bed. The ship was gently rolling on the eastward tack we held all night, so Ceecee (Cici?) and I shared my bed. She made trying to sleep a lot more pleasant than it had been. Sharing a hammock probably wouldn’t work.

When the sun came up in the morning we could tell that they had remounted the mast before quitting for the night. I had to mentally approve of Filo’s decision there. Mounting the mast at night was doable, as all the work was on deck or in the hold. Sending men up the mast in the dark of the night would just be demanding that Murphy kill a few of them. With the mast remounted -they called it being ‘stepped’ on Earth but I wasn’t going to insist on that term here- the Sea Fortune was balanced again with all weight centered, and the ship’s list was gone. Filo had sent the men to rest, and now in the morning light they could re-rig the yard and then hang the sail properly from that.

Once they had the sail back where it belonged hanging from the yard it was higher than their jury-rig. That was important; the wind was stronger the higher you went. It was also stretched out better, to catch more wind. Almost as important, mounted properly on the mast they could jack the yard around some to get the best angle for the wind and get the most out of it.

Which was good, since we never had gone back to pick up their dropped oars. By the time we thought of them again, they were long gone. We didn’t even know what direction to go looking in. I supposed that we could donate some of the Wrong Place’s oars, but that wasn’t happening. Nope, not happening.

We closed with the Sea Fortune to check on them, and then left them plodding slowly eastward. We headed north closer to the shore to work on my map some more.

This mapping effort clearly wasn’t going to work, as I knew nothing about the shore we had passed during the night. Assume that we’re going three knots, okay? Assume a 12-hour day and a 12-hour night. Traveling at a rate of three nautical miles per hour for 12 hours, we would have traveled 36 nautical miles in the dark. The horizon, on the other hand, was only four or five miles away assuming that I was ten or so feet up. Call it a maximum of ten miles from one side to the other, that I could see from the quarterdeck. Thus, there would have been about 25 miles of coastline that I completely missed while it was dark.

On top of that, no one had ever called me an artist. Drawing a map was not one of my skills. Mechanical drawing, sure. Even drawing a new machine in the dirt for illiterate medieval fishermen to build, I can do that. Drawing an accurate and to-scale coastline when I have no navigation aids like a compass or a speedometer? Not so much.

I could get a rough idea of the island’s shape this way, but if I really wanted detailed maps I was going to have to hire one of the fishing boats to make them. They wouldn’t lose any part of the coast, because they would pull into a convenient beach or inlet before dark and wait until sunlight again before continuing. How much would that sort of effort cost me, and was it worth it? Did I really need detailed maps?

Not really. It was one of those things that I took for granted on Earth, but developing them without any sort of navigation or surveying tools would be miserable, and the result would be crude at best. Still, it would be nice to know where all the towns were and what kinds of attitudes they had. If it was affordable I’d do it. Maybe King Tom would help pay for it.

And, what else were we going to do? We had to stay near our prize. The seamen only needed so much practice trimming the sails. To tell the truth, us officers needed the practice more than they did, since they just had to do what we told them when we told them to, while we had to figure out what we wanted done and how to do it before we could give any orders. So, we exercised the hands aloft while working on my map. We checked on Sea Fortune about mid-day, and before the sun set we went back to keep them company for the night.

We spent several very boring days like this, checking on our prize, working on my maps, and practicing the various evolutions that it took to run the ship. If I had enjoyed cruises on Earth, this would have been nice. Especially with Ceecee keeping me company at night.

Besides ensuring that I slept well every night, Ceecee also took over some of Aldo’s duties. She got me my meals and helped keep track of my belongings, allowing Aldo to put more time into taking care of the officers and crew. Neither of them could read or write, and they couldn’t count much past twenty, so they couldn’t help inventory anything but they could help the crew do the day-to-day maintenance and cleaning that every ship needed.

We allowed the rest of the rescued captives to move into the forecastle cabins. Within a few days a couple of them had joined our crew, but most just wanted to be set ashore as soon as possible. At their homes which had been magically repaired from being burnt down, of course.