Chapter 8: The Plan

12 July, 1686 Early Morning

"So Isabel, are you absolutely certain you are agreeable with this?" Carmen asked the young Spanish girl.

"After everything others have already done to me, and what waits for me back there, by the powers, yes... I'm fine with it," Isabel answered honestly.

It was early morning two hours before sunrise the bay was still mired in fog but high above was a clear black sky sprinkled with stars. A waxing moon shined down, giving both the anchored ships and the fog an eerie glow. All four women were aboard a small jollyboat, Carmen and Isabel were clothed in two of the sister's dresses and rowing toward the Angry Whore while Constance and Claire were lying concealed under a heavy tarp in the boats prow next to the pull cart containing the money and clothing chests.

That past evening Claire, clad in one of the dresses she had brought with her from Europe, had entered one of the lesser frequented Taverns, and under the ruse that her master had sent her out to purchase two small pig-barrels of his finest rum, and four bottles of sleeping drought, she had made the purchase and then quickly returned to where the other three women waited.

After un-corking the barrels they poured the sleeping drought inside then re-corked the containers. "I don't expect this to knock them out completely, but by the west wind I pray it will make them at the very least groggy as hell," Carmen had told the other women.

Then they waited until early morning, praying that once they had control of the Angry Whore a favorable wind and the morning tide would see them well away from Port Royal before they were discovered. Carmen utilized the time to describe in minute detail, the procedure for getting the ship underway once they had control of it.

The Angry Whore lay some way out, and they rowed under the figureheads and around the sterns of many other ships, and their cables sometimes grated underneath the jollyboat's keel, and sometimes swung above them. At last, however, they got alongside, and Carmen called out, "Ahoy! Ahoy there, Angry Whore!"

Eventually one of the ships crewmen hung his head over the rail, "Aye, who goes there?" He was a full bearded ugly man with a heavily pocked marked face.

"Yer Cap'n sent us out with two barrels of Port Royals finest, not like what grog ya been a drinking, he also asked that the pair of us offer you and your mates a bit o' entertainment," Carmen told him.

"Well now," He responded, "I'd say that's a mite better un kissun the gunner's daughter all right. Handsomely now then, tie off on the anchor chain and I'll toss ya the ladder," then his head disappeared.

They had just finished tying off the jollyboat when the ships rope ladder fluttered down to them.

"Send down a rope for the rum!" Carmen called up.

A few moments later a rope was tossed down and after Carmen tied the small barrels off they were hauled up.

As soon as Carmen and Isabel had scrambled up the ladder and had gotten on deck the pocked marked pirate squeezed each of their breasts, "Mighty fine o' the Cap'n to be sending ya, and this here rum, it is, there's the man for me," he commented.

"How many hands on board," Carmen asked slapping his hand away.

"There be six o' us. Think the two of you can handle all six?" He laughed while trying to reach his hand down the front of Carmen's dress.

"Too be sure," She laughed pushing his hand away, while giving a slight sigh of relief that she had been correct concerning the number of men that would be on board. "You'll have plenty of time for that later, for now let's get this rum to your mates before they come looking for it."

"Aye," he said picking up both barrels while being mindful not to tip the lantern he was holding lest it should tip over, "this way then."

The two women followed him along the deck to a door which opened into the ship's forecastle crew quarters located in the bow of the ship. The crew's quarters were lined with wall to wall, floor to ceiling, rows of hammocks, now made cramped because of a large number of sacks thrown about. Three pirates who really should have been keeping watch, instead were lying in hammocks with several empty wine bottles in a pile below them.

"Crew's quarters," their guide told them setting down the rum then sweeping his hand across the scene. It was dim and smelled of tar, sweat, spices and coffee. The deck was also cluttered with several big canvas sacks piled atop one another and against the bulkheads.

"Coffee beans?" Carmen asked.

"Aye, looted from a carrack sailing for the West Indies, Cap'n didn't want um down in the hold. Guess e' figured on tak'n in a might more swag than what we did on our last salvage," he said as the three crewmen rolled out from their hammocks just as another two motley and misfit pirates entered from outside.

"Bout time the Cap'n was sendn' us some women!" One of them said. He was a tall man, over six feet tall, and broad in proportion, and he had a bluff, rough-and-ready face, all roughened and reddened and lined in his long travels. His eyebrows were very black, and moved readily, and this gave him a look of some temper.

"I'll be having me some of that young one straight off," said another looking toward Isabel. The man was ugly as an eighty-year-old pug dog. He had a mouth full of black teeth, a twisted nose and skin so scarred he looked like he'd walked into several pilings covered with barnacles and refused to turn around.

"Uh... Now don't hang yer jib so quickly mates, you'll all be get'un your fill of woman afore the sun's fully up, but first pour yourselves a tankard or two of rum. The Cap'n told me it was the finest on the island," Carmen quickly interjected.

It didn't take them long to get the barrels open and start drinking, then the tall pirate said, "Now you two get yourselves naked. And put on a little show for us while doing it!"

The girls looked at each other, then both of them starting dancing as slowly and seductively as they could.

The pirates cheered and hooted as they watched the women dancing. Fortunately, they also continued drinking heavily.

Unfortunately, it only took the girls ten minuets before all six of the pirates were clambering around them touching and grabbing everywhere.

As Carmen fought off their hands she couldn't be sure but she thought the men were now a little drugged, because they laughed and talked foolishly with voices that sounded sluggish.

Without farther ceremony the tall pirate pushed Carmen onto a tarp lying on the deck then positioning himself between her legs he tried pushing up her dress.

Carmen playfully fought back keeping her dress down with her hands while laughing, twisting and occasionally pushing back on his chest as if she were enjoying what he was doing to her.

The pocked marked sailor similarly pushed Isabel down next to Carmen and with just as little concern for her as the tall man had had for Carmen he positioned himself over Isabel. Like Carmen Isabel squirmed and squealed under him as if delighted while managing to keep the drunken and drugged sailor at bay.

It wasn't long before the other four men decided to participate. Moving in on both Carmen and Isabel they began pawing and pinching everywhere.

Even with all the extra under garments and crinlins they had worn, both Carmen and Isabel knew if Constance and Claire didn't show up quickly there would be little hope of keeping the foul smelling crew members from having their way with them.

Down in the jollyboat feeling they had waited long enough, Constance and Claire, armed with cutlass, rapier, and pistol departed the small craft then slowly climbed up the ladder. Once on deck it was easy to ascertain exactly where their friends and crew were located by the noise the men were making.

They walked quietly across the deck in the darkness to the forecastle door. Constance stepped onto something that clanked. Both she and Claire froze, listening for any one coming to check the noise. No one came. Constance reached down to touch the bag beneath her feet. There was metal inside. She stepped as quietly as she could over the pile of goods then proceeded. A shaft of light from under the door was all they had to see by. Constance opened the door slowly and peered inside. The crew's quarters was piled with several large bags that smelled of coffee. Using the bags of coffee as cover they crept silently, yet fearfully farther into the room until they came upon the six crewmen hovered over the prone forms of Isabel and Carmen.