The Pirate Problem

I was woken early one morning by the Captain bellowing in my ear.

“Time to get up, Cuthroat Jed,” he said, “great booty is afoot. We shall plunder and pillage ‘til nightfall or my names not Captain Alun.”

It was Captain Alun.

I quickly climbed out of my hammock, dressed as fast as I could and followed the captain onto the deck, where he was barking orders to the crew.

“It’s a merchant ship, Jed,” the Captain explained, “laden with booty, not 3 fathoms from here.” He passed me the spyglass. Sure enough there it was, a merchant vessel, flying the mainland flag and where there is a mainland flag there is gold and goods.

“Boatman, catch that ship,” Alun barked at The Boatman, who was at the helm. I’ve never understood why we called him The Boatman, as the entire crew had lived together on the same boat for twenty years, but once a name is given it can never be taken away.

With our superior sail-power we soon caught up the merchant ship. We fired cannon shot to send shivers up her timbers, pulled along side, locked onto her and boarded in our cutlass-waving, evil, pirate masses. They put up very little resistance, barely a musket was fired in anger before we had the entire crew at our mercy.

“Where’s the gold, man?” Captain Alun asked their captain, who, as chance would have it, was also called Alun. But there was no time to discourse this unlikely coincidence, as we were hungry for our prize.

Captain Alun took out his knife and asked their captain again. Their captain pointed to the chests of gold and in no time our crew were busy loading gold onto our ship.

“You’ll never get away with this,” their captain said.

Captain Alun grabbed the man by his lapels and if his furious sneer didn’t reveal the seriousness of his threat then the knife he slammed against the man’s throat did.

“Never use clichés like that,” Captain Alun snarled, “someone’s got to read this you know.”

“But it’s true, it’s a trap. There is a king’s gunship just behind us, we were just bait to lure pirates. You’re for the gallows one and all.”

“He’s lying Cutthroat Jed,” he said to me, “lying in clichés.” But despite his dismissive words Captain Alun ordered our immediate withdrawal. “We’ve plundered enough.”

No sooner had we returned to our ship than the king’s gunboat came into sight. It was a mighty vessel, with more cannon than I have seen in all my days on the sea and before we could set sail the ship was alongside and the cannon were blasting at us, making noise like the thunder of a thousand angry gods. I felt the shock run through me as a cannon ball thudded into our hull

The king’s ship pulled alongside ours and we were blasted with musket-fire. I saw many of my friends fall beside me, but had no time to tend to them, nor even to check who had fallen, in the madness of battle they were just bodies and I was simply glad that they weren’t mine, at least not yet.

Luckily, by this time our ship had set sail and it is the fastest vessel on the seas. Somehow, in the madness of conflict, we managed to get away, to outrun them. The gun and cannon-fire become a distant hum, then nothing. We sailed at full speed for hours, without so much as checking our direction, we were grateful to the wind for taking us away.

As the ship sped I took the helm and Captain Alun went to check on the rest of the crew and the state of the ship. He returned, after what seemed forever, in sombre mood.

“They’re all dead Jed,” he said, “every last one of ‘em. It’s just you and me now.”

“Well, we can man this ship between us. We’ve been on it this year and twenty.”

“No Jed, it’s not just the crew that’s been savaged, the boat’s been hit bad. We’re soaking up saltwater. Another six hours and we’ll go down like the Titanic.

The Titanic was the name of Captain Alun’s first pirate ship. It was a magnificent vessel, but tragically it had sunk on its maiden voyage following a fight over an iceberg lettuce. The loss of so many friends so early on in his life had left a dark mark on him that remained to this day.

“So we’re doomed,” I said.

“Not quite, Cutthroat Jed. I’ve checked our bearings and we’re not so far from land. We’re going home Jed.”

“Home? To the mainland? But we’re pirates. The king himself has decreed us outlaws of the highest order. We’ll hang the first step we take onto the land.”

“We’ve no choice Jed, there’s no other land we could reach before the boat sinks. It’s hang or be drowned.”

I did a quick calculation. “We could reach France,” I said, “that’s within a six hour sail as well.”

“France, pa,” he spat, “it’s hang or drown I say.”

“Hang it is then.”

“If you have a god, Jed, now is the time to say ‘hello’. For if there is a higher being we need his aid and I for one will make a pact with him never to rob or cheat again if god has the grace to spare me.”

I had never heard Captain Alun speak like this and I prayed to such gods as might care to listen to me and my blackened soul.

“To think, Jed, our ship is laden with bounty we will never spend. Let us hope that gold is legal tender in the Devil’s realm.”

No words could follow these and we sailed in silence towards the king’s shore. It was no easy sail, with just two crew alive and a frantic wind, our course was wayward and I was something like 40 miles off course from our desired port. Thankfully we were not so astray that we missed land altogether and the Captain let up a yelp to indicate that land was in sight.

“Look at this Jed.” He passed me the spyglass.

“Islands,” I said. “Why, we must be 1,000 miles off course, what land is this?”

“Tis the mainland Jed. We’ve discovered a new archipelago, one yet to grace the king's maps. The perfect hideaway. Even the king can’t hang a man if he doesn’t know he’s there. Whichever god you prayed to has delivered.”

We chose the most anonymous looking of the islands and pulled into a bay.

We broke up the boat over the coming days, so as not to leave a trace should the gunboat follow us this far, using the wood to build temporary accommodation.

The treasure was enough to buy the soul of many a good man, but we had no means to spend it. The knives, muskets and our wits were the only currency of any merit on this land and we buried the gold under the Big Tree in the centre of the island.

We kept our silent promises to the gods, gave up our lives of plunder and malice and settled on this god-given sanctuary for the rest of our days. Sure, adventure did find us, and we weren’t as alone as we’d thought. But that, dear reader, is another story, or a whole series of stories if ever I gets the time to write them.