From the article archive
World A Week: Mutiny
I woke in the common room of a pub to the sound of bodied being dragged out. Jolly tars in white shirts, blue pants, and a red sash were toting the drunks about me outside.
Not being totally up to speed, I protested when they came to me.
"Ye've taken the Queen's mark haven't ye, ya' landlubber scum?" *smack*smack*smack* The heavy sticks landed on my skull or thereabouts with professional economy.
The rest of the trip to the ship I did not protest since I was unconscious. Later I found they rolled the dead into the harbor, but unfortunately I survived. Although, I saw double for a week afterwards.
After three days, I was rousted out of my hammock by a villainous lot who seemed to delight in sadism. They had me climbing the rigging before I could see which rope was real, and which was an illusion generated by my fogged brain. So I closed my eyes, and relied on my sense of touch.
This earned me a nickname, 'Blind bat' or 'bat' for short.
By now it should be obvious that much of my preternatural skills did not function. Although I healed faster than a normal man might have due to my prayers and my herbs, still this was a far sight from conjuring a water elemental to carry me away from this pestilential rats' nest.
The first time they struck me with a knotted rope, my training I had received at the hands of Master Wau Lei kicked in. Grabbing the rope, and jerking the bosun's mate off his feet was instinctive. So was wrapping the rope around his neck.
I seriously considered just having it out with the lot of them right then and there, but I thought too long. The marines arrived, and beat me into unconsciousness with the butts of their muskets. Waking up tied to a mast is not a fun experience.
The Captain had me 'helped to see the light' by a flogging. Then he tried the good cop method of kindly explaining to me the necessity of his methods. The crew were the scum of the Dockside. Modern American killers would have fainted with terror at being caught with much of them. But several were decent people who had the bad luck of being walking down the wrong street when an impressment gang swept the street into the service of the Queen.(I was not even sure of her name, or the nation.)
We spoke a vaguely English/Germanic tongue with spots of Spanish. It was close enough to English and German and Spanish that I had quickly learned it. Versers pick up an astonishing array of langueages. I recall a man who claimed to know two hundred separate languages, and at least thirty of them were alien.
He had a point, harsh methods were needed to deal with most of this lot. Of course, those methods tended to create some of the problem. And I really resented such treatment. And I had seen the Captain licking his lips while they flogged me. He enjoyed it despite his fine words.
But we kept on across the sea, and after demonstrating in a few fights that I should not be messed with despite my relatively sane countenance, they left me be. I took to protecting the few other decent folk on the ship. This was not well-looked upon by the wolves whose primary entertainment was pestering(in a very rough way) my new friends, and openly betting about what day which of them would finally commit suicide.
More than a few times, I looked at the whole ship, and envisioned killing the lot of them.
Then pirates showed up, and our crew showed their fighting spirit. Literally. The captain passed around mugs of strong liquor to get them intoxicated so they would fight. Cowardice and the need to kill something wavered for control in their heads. The rotgut and the whips and swords of the officers tilted the balance, and the crowd of scum rose to the occasion.
We roared into the fight. It was a chaotic horror. But we won, and only one of my friends died. Another proved himself by cooly using a fallen sniper's rifle to take out the enemy captain.
As part of the boarding party, I saw horrors which made my ship seem like a paradise. I shall not go into them here, but I could see the Captain's viewpoint a little more.
A prize crew took the battered hulk of the pirate ship to the nearest port, and my crew was ectstatic at the prospect of prize money. The regimen relaxed as the officers felt that the men were in a good mood, and did not need to be rode so harshly.
It is often a mistake by a dictatorship to liberalize its rule. The French aristocrats did not march to the guillotine because they maintained their harshness. No, they marched because they decided to be nice, for a change.
The crew's avarice grew, and they thought how nice it would be to have another prize. Naturally, the officers did not approve. They were slightly more sane than the men. They were aware of our damage, and the men dead, and the loss of the prize crew as a fighting force on this ship. The men just saw in their liquor edited memories how easy it had been.
So, they mutinied. And one of my friends was caught with them when the storm surge whipped up a passageway. They were met with extreme forcefulness. The Captain dressed to the nines, and loaded with five horse pistols barred their way, and cowed the treacherous lot.
I stood on the side as I had been scrubbing the deck. For some reason, I filched a neighbour's broom, and snapped it in half. One end was jagged and sharp.
The Captain took the matter in hand, and pointed out the five in front when he knew that the true ringleaders were mostly in the back pushing the mob forward. My friend, a decent sort who would never agree to this, but no one but the few of us liked him because he was quiet, and decent. In this lot of boisterous braggarts who would knife their own mother that was a capital offense being a good man.
So they laughed to see the pale, but composed face of my friend, and I saw the Captain's eyes and I knew he had planned that. I saw the shining in them, and I knew he wanted to kill the innocent.
I try not to be a braggart. Of course, being a verser makes bravery so much easier that it is not really much at all to speak of.
I protested, and the Captain sadly denied my request. So from twenty feet away, I flung the broom handle through the Captain's left eye and into his brain.
Then I sprinted forward and vaulted up on the quarter deck, and shot the first two crew men who were charging me with the Captain's own pistols. I turned and shot the first mate, a beastly thing, who was coming up behind me. Then with a pistol in each hand, my last two, I hollered above the madness.
"I'm the Captain, anyone who says differently step forward now."
This converted the mob of men and the mob of officers into groups of individuals who each asked themselves if they personally wanted to take me on, right now.
One very large brute took the challenge, and I was much relieved. I plucked the broom handle from the Captain's eye, and put up the guns in my waistband. I walked past the men I had shot, and the few others who had made it up to the quarter-deck without showing my fear of a knife in the back.
The humongous brute came to the base of the stairs, and I flung the broom handle into his throat. The sheer shock of seeing a ninja technique on their European ship made it even more effective. None of them could have pulled off that stunt. It made them wonder what other trump cards I held.
"Gentlemen, and I use the term loosely, we are going pirating. Strike the colors, and run up a black flag." Somehow, I was sure that it would not be hard to find scum in this world that in my moral view deserved a pirate attack. And I would drop my friends off in a nice port with enough gold to make up for the trouble, and get them home.
"And oh, by the way, my name is not Captain Bat, it is Captain Roberts, the Dread Pirate Roberts." I laughed almost hysterically in relief of tension at my little joke, and they joined in even if they gave me strange looks. But sanity is not a requirement of pirate captains.
We lasted almost two years of freeing slaves, hunting pirates, releasing impressed sailors, and double-crossing corrupt Imperial governors. But finally, a squadron caught up with us, and rather than fight to the last man, they dumped me overboard in a ship's boat. And my crew ran for it. Understandable really.
Tadeusz
Not being totally up to speed, I protested when they came to me.
"Ye've taken the Queen's mark haven't ye, ya' landlubber scum?" *smack*smack*smack* The heavy sticks landed on my skull or thereabouts with professional economy.
The rest of the trip to the ship I did not protest since I was unconscious. Later I found they rolled the dead into the harbor, but unfortunately I survived. Although, I saw double for a week afterwards.
After three days, I was rousted out of my hammock by a villainous lot who seemed to delight in sadism. They had me climbing the rigging before I could see which rope was real, and which was an illusion generated by my fogged brain. So I closed my eyes, and relied on my sense of touch.
This earned me a nickname, 'Blind bat' or 'bat' for short.
By now it should be obvious that much of my preternatural skills did not function. Although I healed faster than a normal man might have due to my prayers and my herbs, still this was a far sight from conjuring a water elemental to carry me away from this pestilential rats' nest.
The first time they struck me with a knotted rope, my training I had received at the hands of Master Wau Lei kicked in. Grabbing the rope, and jerking the bosun's mate off his feet was instinctive. So was wrapping the rope around his neck.
I seriously considered just having it out with the lot of them right then and there, but I thought too long. The marines arrived, and beat me into unconsciousness with the butts of their muskets. Waking up tied to a mast is not a fun experience.
The Captain had me 'helped to see the light' by a flogging. Then he tried the good cop method of kindly explaining to me the necessity of his methods. The crew were the scum of the Dockside. Modern American killers would have fainted with terror at being caught with much of them. But several were decent people who had the bad luck of being walking down the wrong street when an impressment gang swept the street into the service of the Queen.(I was not even sure of her name, or the nation.)
We spoke a vaguely English/Germanic tongue with spots of Spanish. It was close enough to English and German and Spanish that I had quickly learned it. Versers pick up an astonishing array of langueages. I recall a man who claimed to know two hundred separate languages, and at least thirty of them were alien.
He had a point, harsh methods were needed to deal with most of this lot. Of course, those methods tended to create some of the problem. And I really resented such treatment. And I had seen the Captain licking his lips while they flogged me. He enjoyed it despite his fine words.
But we kept on across the sea, and after demonstrating in a few fights that I should not be messed with despite my relatively sane countenance, they left me be. I took to protecting the few other decent folk on the ship. This was not well-looked upon by the wolves whose primary entertainment was pestering(in a very rough way) my new friends, and openly betting about what day which of them would finally commit suicide.
More than a few times, I looked at the whole ship, and envisioned killing the lot of them.
Then pirates showed up, and our crew showed their fighting spirit. Literally. The captain passed around mugs of strong liquor to get them intoxicated so they would fight. Cowardice and the need to kill something wavered for control in their heads. The rotgut and the whips and swords of the officers tilted the balance, and the crowd of scum rose to the occasion.
We roared into the fight. It was a chaotic horror. But we won, and only one of my friends died. Another proved himself by cooly using a fallen sniper's rifle to take out the enemy captain.
As part of the boarding party, I saw horrors which made my ship seem like a paradise. I shall not go into them here, but I could see the Captain's viewpoint a little more.
A prize crew took the battered hulk of the pirate ship to the nearest port, and my crew was ectstatic at the prospect of prize money. The regimen relaxed as the officers felt that the men were in a good mood, and did not need to be rode so harshly.
It is often a mistake by a dictatorship to liberalize its rule. The French aristocrats did not march to the guillotine because they maintained their harshness. No, they marched because they decided to be nice, for a change.
The crew's avarice grew, and they thought how nice it would be to have another prize. Naturally, the officers did not approve. They were slightly more sane than the men. They were aware of our damage, and the men dead, and the loss of the prize crew as a fighting force on this ship. The men just saw in their liquor edited memories how easy it had been.
So, they mutinied. And one of my friends was caught with them when the storm surge whipped up a passageway. They were met with extreme forcefulness. The Captain dressed to the nines, and loaded with five horse pistols barred their way, and cowed the treacherous lot.
I stood on the side as I had been scrubbing the deck. For some reason, I filched a neighbour's broom, and snapped it in half. One end was jagged and sharp.
The Captain took the matter in hand, and pointed out the five in front when he knew that the true ringleaders were mostly in the back pushing the mob forward. My friend, a decent sort who would never agree to this, but no one but the few of us liked him because he was quiet, and decent. In this lot of boisterous braggarts who would knife their own mother that was a capital offense being a good man.
So they laughed to see the pale, but composed face of my friend, and I saw the Captain's eyes and I knew he had planned that. I saw the shining in them, and I knew he wanted to kill the innocent.
I try not to be a braggart. Of course, being a verser makes bravery so much easier that it is not really much at all to speak of.
I protested, and the Captain sadly denied my request. So from twenty feet away, I flung the broom handle through the Captain's left eye and into his brain.
Then I sprinted forward and vaulted up on the quarter deck, and shot the first two crew men who were charging me with the Captain's own pistols. I turned and shot the first mate, a beastly thing, who was coming up behind me. Then with a pistol in each hand, my last two, I hollered above the madness.
"I'm the Captain, anyone who says differently step forward now."
This converted the mob of men and the mob of officers into groups of individuals who each asked themselves if they personally wanted to take me on, right now.
One very large brute took the challenge, and I was much relieved. I plucked the broom handle from the Captain's eye, and put up the guns in my waistband. I walked past the men I had shot, and the few others who had made it up to the quarter-deck without showing my fear of a knife in the back.
The humongous brute came to the base of the stairs, and I flung the broom handle into his throat. The sheer shock of seeing a ninja technique on their European ship made it even more effective. None of them could have pulled off that stunt. It made them wonder what other trump cards I held.
"Gentlemen, and I use the term loosely, we are going pirating. Strike the colors, and run up a black flag." Somehow, I was sure that it would not be hard to find scum in this world that in my moral view deserved a pirate attack. And I would drop my friends off in a nice port with enough gold to make up for the trouble, and get them home.
"And oh, by the way, my name is not Captain Bat, it is Captain Roberts, the Dread Pirate Roberts." I laughed almost hysterically in relief of tension at my little joke, and they joined in even if they gave me strange looks. But sanity is not a requirement of pirate captains.
We lasted almost two years of freeing slaves, hunting pirates, releasing impressed sailors, and double-crossing corrupt Imperial governors. But finally, a squadron caught up with us, and rather than fight to the last man, they dumped me overboard in a ship's boat. And my crew ran for it. Understandable really.
Tadeusz
Recovered from the Gaming Outpost database backup. Original wording is preserved; damaged punctuation and presentation markup have been repaired. Historical links without a local match point to the Internet Archive.