Chapter 6

We had the money, so Liz and I decided to take that cruise that we had talked about for years. Talk about dumb decisions! The novelty of the situation held our interest for three days—just long enough for us to get far enough out to sea to keep us from abandoning the cruise ship and returning home. Hell, we were bored to death! Neither one of us found it the least bit entertaining to lie on a reclining chair in the sun and watch the waves break.

Oh, sure, it was fun for the first few hours to look at the hard bodies in swimsuits that barely covered the essentials. However, as for me, I quickly realized that if I was going to enjoy seeing a nearly-nude woman, I preferred to look at my wife. Liz reported to me that she felt the same way about me. The top deck was declared "clothing optional," and we went up there for nearly an hour. The problem was that there were so many sagging bellies and sagging tits that it took all of the pleasure out of the affair.

Anyway, we were already counting the minutes until we could hop aboard a plane and head back to Worcester. Sure, we were going to lose a lot of money because the remainder of the ticket was not refundable if the reason was boredom, but we decided to chalk that up to a learning experience. We inquired and were told that we could get a flight home at our next port, which would be in four days. Dammit, I wondered if my patience would last that long!

The next day, we got a break. It was about 10:00 AM when the ship came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the ocean. The Captain came on the PA (Public Address) to announce that we had stopped to pick up some people floating on a raft. It appeared that they had been on a boat that had sunk, and these were the survivors.

All of the passengers ran to one side of the ship to watch the rescue. I had to admit that it was quite exciting compared to what we had been subjected to on the cruise, so far. I had to admit that the people who were rescued looked the part of accident victims. Never in my life had I seen a more ratty looking group of 12 people, mostly men.

Once the victims were all on deck, they snatched automatic weapons from various places and threatened to shoot anyone who did not do as they were told. By God, these were authentic pirates out of the adventure stories! One of the men did fire off a short burst from his AK-47 just to prove that they did have bullets.

Dammit, we had left our guns at home since this was supposed to be a vacation. Right then, I swore to myself that I would never let that happen again. Well, we were not going to be without weapons for very long. We sneaked away and headed for one of the casinos that was decorated with an old sailing ship motif. Down there, we equipped ourselves with belaying pins that were used for decoration along the walls. I don't know if these belaying pins were of the authentic size and weight, but Liz and I had commented earlier that they would serve as useable weapons if we ever got into an appropriate situation.

We each took two belaying pins, plus I took a section of fishing net that was tastefully draped over one wall. I had no immediate plans for the net, but I figured that it might come in handy. While we were about this, we heard the captain over the PA system ask that every passenger assemble in the largest of the rooms used for a dance hall. We went to the meeting so that we could hear what the pirates had planned for us, but we stayed near an exit and stashed our weapons where we could get to them easily and quickly when it was time for us to leave.

The Captain opened the meeting with an announcement, "Ladies and Gentlemen, this boarding by pirates is a real raid by them and not some sort of amusement staged for your enjoyment. As it stands, they are the ones with guns, and we are at their mercy. I have been told that they have no compunction about shooting anyone, no matter what the age or gender of that person might be. Therefore, I beg of you to do whatever they order you to do and not to try to resist. We don't want anybody wounded or killed because of some misplaced heroics.

"Mr. Esteban, the leader of the pirates, has told me to tell you to return to your cabins and not to leave except for meals. You will be told when and where to go for each meal. Please do as you are told.

"Mr. Esteban has promised not to hurt anybody as long as we cooperate with his group. However, any action taken against them will meet with harsh consequences, including death.

"Now, Mr. Esteban will address you, himself."

We listened as he ordered us to put our valuables, no exceptions, in a pillow case and place it on the floor just outside our cabin door. The pillow case would be picked up sometime during the night. Once all of the pillow cases had been collected, the pirates would leave the ship. The problem with that was that there were over 500 cabins aboard ship, and there was no way that they could collect all of the pillow cases in one night unless they enlisted some of the crew to help them. I wondered if that had been arranged even before our cruise had started.

Esteban was still talking when Liz and I left the meeting, picking up our weapons before we left the area. The first thing we did was to rush to our cabin to prepare our pillowcase. We dumped some bars of soap, ash trays, and other things into the pillowcase. There was nothing of any value in there. We hid our valuables in various places around the cabin and dropped our pillowcase outside our door. We also scooted away from our cabin after locking the door. That was a trivial thing because the pirates could easily get a pass key, but we wanted to annoy them as much as possible.

We had changed clothes to sturdy pants, shirts, and deck shoes. Now, we were ready for action! The first thing we wanted was to relieve one or more of the pirates of their AK-47s. The belaying pins were great when we had the advantage, but it was obvious that we were going to need the guns in order to overcome the pirates completely.

We figured that most of the pirates would be stationed at fixed posts, but some of them would, of necessity, roam the ship looking for troublemakers. Those were the ones we were going after first. We set up a search pattern and started on the top deck, but we carefully avoided any place where we could be seen from the bridge. There was likely to be a lookout up there, and it was imperative that we kept out of sight as much as possible in the early stages of our fight.

Yeah, there was a person roaming that top deck, and we saw her first. By this time, the sentries had been out for a couple of hours, and they were bored to tears. That made it easy for us to sneak up on the female guard. We found her because she was smoking a cigar, and we could smell it and her well away from where she was lolling.

We were absolutely certain that she was the only guard on this deck; there just were not enough pirates to do a good job of patrolling such a large ship. They had certainly bitten off more than they could chew! The guard was standing at a junction of two passageways, and that made it easy for us to attack her.

I went down one passageway where I could not be seen. There, I tipped over a potted plant and began to cuss in a loud voice and hash my words like I was too drunk to know what I was doing. Naturally, the guard came to investigate, and Liz followed her very quietly from the other passageway.

The guard got to me and demanded to know why I was out of my cabin. I claimed that it was after 4:00 o'clock and I needed a drink. I was looking for an open bar, and I asked her if she knew of one. I took a step toward her and pretended to trip. I fell to the deck and started to moan. In disgust, the woman walked up to me and used both hands to try to roll me over onto my back.

That was what Liz was waiting for. CRACK! The woman's head was split open by being struck with the heavy end of the belaying pin. There was no question that she was dead. Blood and brains spattered her hair and the floor. Liz wiped the crud off her belaying pin and stuck it behind her belt. She picked up the AK-47 and checked that it was in operating condition. It was, and she also liberated the four extra magazines that the woman had been carrying. Liz stood guard while I pulled the woman into an empty room and made some effort to clean up the spot on the carpet outside the door. It wasn't very obvious, and we hoped that none of the pirates would notice it when they came looking for the woman. I did lock the door to the room as we exited. Okay, that was one AK-47; now to try for another one.

We went down one deck and began our search for another pirate. This one was a man who was taking his job a little more seriously. He was smoking a cigarette, and that did make it easier for us to find him. We saw him walking toward us, and we decided to use the same plan that had worked so well just a few minutes ago. The difference was that this time Liz would be the bait, and I would be the attacker with the club. We didn't want to shoot at this point because we were trying to keep down the noise.

Liz hid her gun and leaned against the wall. She started singing Lili Marlene in German. Liz has a beautiful voice, and her song easily carried to the guard. He did not need to know any German to be emotionally affected by the song's lyrics, and he rushed to see where the music was coming from. He had been holding the rifle as if he was ready to shoot, but he just let it hang from the sling over his shoulder when he saw Liz.

He rushed up to her, and she gave him a very seductive look as I came up behind him. I was trying to be quiet, but he was so enraptured by Liz and her song that he might not have heard me if I had come up on a motorcycle. Anyway, I had no trouble getting close enough to him to slug him with my belaying pin. I didn't hit him as hard as Liz had hit the woman, so his skull was not crushed. However, I wanted to be sure that he was dead so I kicked him in the throat to crush his windpipe. He was going to suffocate long before he regained consciousness. We pulled him into an empty room and locked the door. Now we were both armed with AK-47s and ready to do some serious hurt!

We had headed for the next deck down when we heard the Captain announce that supper was ready for the passengers on Orange Deck (#4) in the largest banquet room. We backed off on the ladder (stairs) until the last of the passengers had filed out to eat. We figured that Deck 4 was now empty and it was safe to fire our weapons if it became necessary.