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by Muser on Wed May 21, 2008 11:50 pm
The last beams of a fiery orange sunset streaked out across the dark ocean, providing a few final moments of warm light to the pirate ship before the sun slipped below the horizon, plunging the ocean fully into night. The moon had already risen slowly during the sunset, and now cast dark blue moon shadows across the pirate ship's deck. As soon as the sun disappeared, the night sky opened up, revealing millions upon millions of twinkling stars and planets; the celestial bodies that astronomers were just beginning to understand. More than one man upon this ship had gazed up at those stars and searched for some sort of meaning or guidance, perhaps from their heathen pirate gods. The stars flickered on with their existence, oblivious of the hearts and souls that dreamed of them.
Matthew English watched the sun crash with a final explosion of purples and oranges into the horizon from the gun port, and took another swig of foul flavoured rum from Tom's ration. He swirled it around in his mouth, swallowed it with a smirk and passed it back to Tom with a nod. The earlier roar of the quartermaster, Conan, had spurred everyone into action and Matthew and Tom had spent the rest of the afternoon oiling and cleaning the cannon, getting more cannonballs ready and topping up their store of gunpowder. They sat now in the gloom of the inside of the pirate ship, lit only by flickering lanterns, smoking foreign flavoured cheroots. They took turns blowing rings of hazy smoke into the air, competing as to who could make the most stable rings and watching them drift lazily out the gun port and off into the star filled night. Matthew took a particularly long drag and exhaled it slowly from his lips. It seemed to drift like fog slowly moving over a swampy moor in some far off dream Matthew had of England. Tom chuckled and did the same, however doing it much better.
"It been far too long since you and me be sharing da smoke, Matt young boy." Tom spoke quietly, his eyes focused out towards the star lit sky. "When you got yourself lost out in da ocean, I and I was thinkin' it all be ovah. It not be easy to find a bastard you can be trustin' wit your life, y'know?" Matthew nodded, blowing another puff of smoke out of his mouth. A small chunk of ash fell from the end of the cheroot, and landed silently on the deck at Matthew’s booted feet. With a small movement he crushed the ash out, smearing black dust upon the stained wood.
"You're telling me, Tom, you're telling me." He let the matter drop into silence as he took one last drag on his cheroot and filled his lungs with smoke. Matthew held it in just long enough to feel his lungs begin to burn and complain, then exhaled rapidly, blowing a long stream of smoke out of the port and into the growing dusk. He stood up then, crushing the spent cheroot beneath his boot and patted Tom on the shoulder as he passed him. “Just stretching the ol’ legs mate. Back in a while.” Even though he wasn’t really a tall man, Matthew still had to duck to avoid the low support beams as he made his way through the ship. Darkness always seemed to add an extra essence of malice to the inner workings of the ship, the lantern light failing magnificently to illuminate the majority of the walkways and rooms. All they succeeded in was adding a frightening glint to a man’s eyes, if the light reflected just right. More often than not, as Matthew passed, the eyes that followed him lit up like the Devil himself. As much as Matthew had been welcomed back by those he had been closest to, he supposed he was a stranger now to most of these men. And a stranger could be a serious problem.
Problems always had a way of being sorted out with violence on a pirate ship like this.
A while later, Matthew found himself a few decks down from where he had been sitting with Tom, and the stench had become even more powerful, if that was believably possible. He held his bare forearm up to his nose, trying to block it out as much as possible. The lower decks smelt of excrement and fear, sweat and blood; a foul concoction that pleased only the most vulgar and barbaric of men. Matthew might have been a scoundrel, a murderous and black-hearted sort of man, but even he had limits to his evils. Granted, those limits could be stretched, but still, some men took it a few steps beyond. And they never came back from there. Here in this part of the ship was where the worst of the debauchery happened; the raping and defiling of captured women. Matthew stepped over a torn piece of clothing that was stuck to the wooden planks with a mixture of blood and God knows what else. The majority of the women were alone now, chained to bars and clutching their mostly tattered clothing to their mostly naked bodies. A few more insatiable pirates were still at it with their ‘treasures’, their guttural grunts lowered to just the faintest of sounds.
Matthew shook his boot loose from the sudden grip of a terrified woman, with messy tangle of blonde hair that was pleading with him to let her go. He muttered something about not having a say in her future, and pushed her away. She cursed him, but her words fell on deaf ears; he had been cursed so many times in his life, the novelty had worn off. Other women began to shout at him, some asking for begging for release and freedom, others swearing at him. Matthew was beginning to wonder if wandering down here had been a mistake when a metal cup struck him in the back. He turned quickly on his heel, eyes scanning the darkness for the culprit. Most of the women shrank back, suddenly falling silent in the wake of his smoldering anger. But one woman did not. She would have had a pretty face, but for the bruises and cuts, the smears of blood and filth. Her eyes burned with a naked defiance, a stunningly pure hatred of him. Matthew didn’t even bother asking whether or not she had thrown the cup. It really didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. He strode towards her, and with a flash in the dark, struck her cheek with the back of his hand. She fell back, surprised by the strength of the hit. She tumbled into another woman and the two collapsed in a heap on the ship’s deck. She turned slowly back towards Matthew, a huge red mark pulsing on her cheek and tears welling her eyes. She spat towards him in the gloom, and the gobbet of phlegm landed just inches from his boot.
“Spirit will only get ya so far, bitch,” he spoke calmly, breathing out as his anger ebbed away, “But ‘opefully for you it will be far enough.”
“M-m-matthew?” A voice stuttering far behind Matthew made him turn around and search the gloom. He stalked forward, ducking under low beams and stepping over unconscious, ravaged women. He found the source of the voice quickly in the form of a shivering woman with tear stained eyes. Jenny sat huddled in a far corner of the room, her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms subsequently crossed over those legs. Her clothes had been ripped to shreds and she clutched what she could in her shaking hands. Her light brown hair, usually clean and tied back, hung loose over her face and was matted into clumps and strands by her sweat and blood. “I recognized… your voice… it sounded far away… like a dream, like I was… home again.” Her baby blue eyes were only half focused, and in many ways, had lost their usual sparkle and joy. Matthew knelt down in front of her, reaching one of his tanned and calloused hands out to touch her cheek. She shrank back from his touch, and fresh tears sprang from her already red-rimmed eyes. “It hurts, it hurts so very much.” Her head tilted down, away from his eyes and Matthew followed her gaze down to between her legs and was greeted by the sight of the crotch of her dress stained dark with blood. Matthew had no words of comfort for her, nothing soft to whisper her to soothe her pain at being violated over and over again in the darkness of this room. Nothing could remove the scars now firmly slashed into her mind, scars she would carry for the rest of her life, however long that might be. Matthew kept his hand on her cheek, and slowly wiped a single tear from her face with his thumb.
He should have said something.
But as he held Jenny in his arms, the faintest Pop! sounded in the distance. Moments later the far side of the room exploded in a shower of wood and metal, vaporizing the bodies of the nearest men and women upon impact, showering everyone else in blood and gore. A second cannonball struck the ship, higher up this time, but the impact still rocked the other decks, sending Matthew sprawling onto the ground.
The Navy had caught up with them.
Last edited by
Muser on Sun May 25, 2008 2:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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