Pirates

      Dreamed I was captain of a wooden sailing ship, we were moving slowly out of port on just the Mizzen and Jibs. Before we sailed past a frigate at dock, a small schooner entered the harbor, with the skull and crossed sabers flying over it.
      The Frigate, being on the lookout for pirates sprang to life. She had no sails aloft, but didn't seem to need them, as the schooner was sailing right into her broadside. I suppose the captain of the schooner thought he was going to sail right past them. I sighed and turned to my first mate.
      "Run up our battle colors and launch our boat to pick up survivors. Get the sharpshooters into the rigging."
      I called up the gunner's mate. told him to move the crews to their stations, but quietly.
      I watched helpless as the frigate's gunner's mate called out "Rake the waterline!"
      A full broadside rippled the waters of the harbor, and holed the schooner so thoroughly that it began to sink on the spot. The Schooner survivors jumped into the water. Their captain climbed atop the boom as the hull sank.
      Our colors were up, a brown flag, the color of old blood. (It may have, in fact, been dried blood.) The device was a four-pointed chess queen symbol in mustard atop an overturned chess king symbol in black.
      I hailed the Frigate and asked them to stand down and allow us to pick up survivors. Though we were a tad smaller than the Frigate, we were almost directly astern of them, and they only had one or two guns pointed at us, un-crewed, at that. I pointed a single finger at my gunner's mate, and our bow gun, a three inch, blasted a hole through the captain's stained glass windows and into the stern of the ship. "That is my only warning, and need be the last shot fired today, sir." Since they were still tied to the dock, my ship about to sail 20 guns unanswered across their stern, and my marksmen already in the rigging, they struck their colors. I saluted then went over the side on a rope ladder. I rowed out with my crew to recover our countrymen. All the time we pulled the crew out of the water, I had left the captain of the schooner holding on to the top stays of the last nine or ten feet of his sunken ship's mast. He'd managed, up to this time, to stay dry.
      The crew of the Frigate were all on deck laughing at him. To be fair, so was my crew.
      I drew within 10 feet of him and stopped the boat.
      "Thank you, sir. I despaired of rescue and these boots are new."
      "Well, sir, you have some choices. You can hang here, then hang in France, or you can swim over here and get a chance to make up for this stupidity."
      The expression on his face, when he realized that there were only two people on the harbor not smiling at him: one, captain of the now trapped frigate, the other, me, was priceless. Though for different reasons, the captain of the French frigate and I both felt he deserved the same fate. I guess it was obvious in my expression.
      He didn't say another word. The dandified captain just jumped into the water and swam over. No one on my crew offered a hand to bring him aboard. I reserved that honor for myself, I was none to gentle about it, either.
      Of his crew of twelve, I'd only been able to rescue five. If he didn't make the number a nice even half, I would have turned him over to the French captain. We were not at war with the French. I had letters of Marque from the French Government. (Though they would happily send any pirates they found to the bottom. It wasn't an easy relationship.) I had my midshipmen put the schooner captian in irons and we rowed next to the French vessel. Through an interpreter, I apologized for messing up the captain's cabin. He apologized for sinking the schooner. I believe he really was sorry; partly because he was trapped until the schooner could be raised or towed away.
      As we rowed back to the Bonnie Anne (my ship) my prisoner started to get nervous, I hadn't removed the chains.
      "Aren't we going to rake their decks with grape and take the frigate, we'd have half again as many guns."
      "If you don't shut up, you'll be dangling from a yard before we make the breakwater." I was thinking I might do that anyway, even though I wasn't happy about it.
      He shut up.


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