On both of our pirate ships, the hearties sprawled on the weather decks in almost no clothing, sporting their battle scars and basking in the relentless sunshine while we sailed towards the fabled Andaman Islands east of India and north of the Strait of Malacca. The prevailing winds and currents were in our favor, and that meant we were swiftly putting India’s Bay of Bengal behind us.
After our midnight raid on the gold bazaar high on the West Indian coast inland from the tiny smugglers’ port, we thought we would probably not be welcome on those shores again. That was just as well, I thought, because pirates like us belong at sea.
Captain Morgan hatched the plan to steal the Indian gold, and as usual I executed his plan to perfection—with luck and the help of those of our hearties who formerly had been slaves. We had only just finished our circumnavigation off the Persian Gulf littoral, during which we captured, looted and sank three dozen prize vessels. We had then sailed down into the Arabian Sea through the wide bend of the Strait of Hormuz.
We had been careful before we made the strait to steer clear of the sheikdom, where we had left the sheik with the comely head and body of his concubine as a grisly farewell present.
Once we were well south of that bit of trouble and out of the Gulf, Captain Morgan called for a gam on the becalmed water to discuss how we might steal the mountain of gold that lay near a now-familiar small smugglers’ port in India.
We plotted in our tethered whaleboats, drinking from bottles of un-watered rum. We were visible to both crews as we sat between Captain Morgan’s ship, the Sweet Cutlass, and my ship, the Night Lightning. As was his habit, the Captain sang the pirates’ song, “Fifteen Men on a Dead Man’s Chest,” and talked about the gold and then sang again about a beautiful woman with a strange disease, “The Lady Should Have Told Me but She’s Dead.” The more the Captain talked, the better his idea of getting the gold settled in my mind, though I did not like making a steady business of doing piracy on land.
In any event, I need not have worried as much as I did about our being attacked by troops during our approach to the bazaar’s gold repository or during our taking of the treasure while we were there. I should, however, have worried about the ever-present brigands who appeared out of the forest on our way back to the port and tried to relieve us of our hard-won treasure of gold.
They made a lot of noise, but we discovered that brigands know nothing of fighting with cutlasses and knives as we pirates do. We cut the brigands all to pieces and then debated rifling their new hide, but we did not know their hide’s precise location in the dense forest. We were already loaded down with gold and running late, so we returned with the treasure to our two waiting ships.
As for the scope of our pelf, it was beyond our wildest expectations. As our ships sailed south in tandem while hugging the Indian shore, we Captains counted the mounds of yellow coins and bars in our cabins.
Later we found a secret place to bury part of our treasure ashore in the pirate way near the tip of the continent. When our gold, pearls and jewels were securely underground with a fresh female corpse to guard them until we returned to exhume them, we turned our ships to a northerly heading, always remaining in sight of land while looking for prize ships offering booty on the bounding main.
I thought that the Captain would not miss his woman Alia since she had betrayed him with Benjamin. The Captain had cut off her head in a drunken rage when he found the two naked, with her moaning in ecstasy under the enormous black man. He did not threaten Benjamin for having had his way with the fickle woman, but he snatched Benjamin’s beloved talking parrot from his shoulder, wrung its neck and plucked its colorful feathers. To show his displeasure, the Captain ordered Benjamin to roast the dressed bird for his supper.
The next day when we left the ship to bury our treasure, the Captain ordered Benjamin to carry Alia’s head and body inland to be interred with the treasure. As Benjamin lowered her body parts into the hole, I thought the Captain would kill him on the spot. Instead, the Captain brought out a bag of colorful parrot feathers and scattered the feathers over the woman’s cold, naked corpse and head. He laughed, drank rum and sang bawdy sailor songs—“She Surprised the Sailor with Her Charms” and “Bawdy Wench a Long Time Seeking” —while Benjamin filled in the hole and tamped it down. The former slave then carefully smoothed over the surface and covered it with cut foliage so that the place would not be found.
In a far better mood after exacting his vengeance, Captain Morgan returned to business matters and told me he had sailed in the Andamans as a young sailor. I believed him because he had experience of the whole world. He was impressed back then with the simple, happy lives that the Andaman islanders led. He said the young men traditionally set out on the sea to find adventure and possibly wives, since there were so few eligible women among them. They were not congenital pirates like the Malays, so they had no earthly ambitions. Captain Morgan called them “the lotus eaters” because they were as innocent as if they had been born in Eden and desired no possessions on account of their nomadic lives on the sea, where possessions would be a hindrance to their movements. Those nautical young men and boys, the Captain said, made excellent replacements for pirate hearties that had been lost in battle.
So Captain Morgan planned for us to shanghai a dozen or so strong, young men each to fill out our crews that had been thinned by our constant fighting. He had seen this done to good effect on the ship he had sailed when he was here last. He said that kidnapped Andaman islanders had adapted readily to the seagoing life, and they apparently never regretted sailing far from their home islands. They had no loyalty to any place or person, so they were natural pirates if only they could discover the right leadership.
When we reached the north islands, for a month we sailed around looking for men and boys we could lure onto our ships to augment our crews. For the promise of food or rum, or both, they flocked to ship aboard, and we had the fittest of those to choose from. To show we meant business, we made examples. When two potential recruits openly flaunted our offers, we slew them immediately and left their headless bodies as examples for the others.
We each selected twelve young men, and as we continued to scour the islands, we substituted a better new recruit for a worse among the former selectees. This did not faze our kidnapped males because they saw that merit was rewarded on pirate ships and that pirates ate well—far better than those who chose to make their home in the islands. The mates were in charge of the training of these new pirates, and individual hearties were identified as mentors to show the boys the ropes.
Before six weeks were over, our new watch standers were being schooled to watch the horizon for ships, to furl and unfurl sails and to do the thousand odd tasks that a pirate had to perform on the average day or night watch at sea. They each received a knife to use as a weapon, and we taught them to throw the knives and to use them in close combat. They lived with their new weapons and kept the knives razor sharp. A few we taught to use cutlasses and swords also. Before long, these men were going to need skills; without skills, the new men as pirates would surely die.
Our new sailors liked to be out on the weather decks in rain and shine. They were sure footed as they climbed the ropes and rigging and ran up and down the ladders extending from below decks to the weather decks. They quickly learned to drink rum and sing our pirate songs. Their needs were few, and they never complained of bad treatment when the hearties lost their tempers. One newbie named Hamad, who was raised as a devout Muslim, seemed to command respect among all his fellows, and he was a quick study. I ordered my First Mate to groom this lad as the future leader of the islanders for both ships. Hamad was a natural leader and excellent interpreter for his people, and he made friends with Benjamin, who as the natural leader of the former slaves was his counterpart.
No matter what else pirates do in their times between maritime battles, they prepare for what they must do in the dangerous trade of piracy. They practice throwing grapples, swinging through the rigging, sword fighting and knife fighting. These exercises are not games, but by encouraging the hearties to compete, I discovered that they could excel above their expectations.
So I encouraged completion among the Andaman islanders and among the former slaves as I did among the hearties.
Once a week for a bottle of rum I would have the crew throw knives and swords at targets, climb the rigging to the crow’s nest, run from the weather decks down the hatches to the keel and back again, dive into the sea and swim around the ship three times without being eaten by ever-present sharks. The winner of each event received a long pull at a bottle of rum. The crew would vote the best overall performer, and he would claim a whole bottle of rum as his reward.
Captain Morgan did the same among his crew, and once a month we practiced our skills by conducting boarding exercises from one ship to the other. Captain Morgan also liked to swap the crews so that half of his came to my ship for a week while at the same time half of mine went aboard his. We did this to give our hearties a sense of comradeship across both ships.
We used our time in the north Andamans to bring our crews together and to overcome the petty differences that sometimes arose when the pressures of sailing soared, while at the same time the experience levels vastly differed among the crew members. The old hands were used to the changes wrought by bringing new crew aboard, but the former slaves were frustrated if the islanders did not respond perfectly the first time when ordered to do a task and every time thereafter. I kept reminding the mates and the hearties that not long from now we would be up against bloodthirsty opponents like the Malay pirates who knew nothing about mercy. My hounding sounded extreme to the crew until we had our first introduction to the fierce south islanders.
The north islanders knew the south islanders as a different race. Where in the north everything was assumed to be shared by everyone, in the south the islanders fought for what they individually owned and captured whatever they could from others. I frankly liked the fighting spirit of the southerners, and I was bewildered by the insouciance of the northerners about treasure.
When we were anchored off the southern islands, the inhabitants would swim out to our ships and climb aboard any way they could. They would steal things and leap into the sea. So I offered a bounty to my crew for stopping the marauders, dead or alive.
Hamad took this to mean that the southerners should be killed rather than captured. So the north islanders of my crew began to repulse the south island boarders, and often when a south islander managed to get aboard and steal something, he met with swift justice in the form of a thrown knife in the back or a throat slit ear to ear.
When Hamad brought me a living south islander who had been trussed, I asked him what he thought should be done with the captive. Hamad did not answer in words but drew his razor-sharp knife and slashed his captive’s throat. He then threw the body off the Night Lightning into the water while his fellow north islanders applauded him. From that day, I was sure that the new recruits could do what was necessary for successful piracy.
As we sailed from island to island in the south of the Andamans, we became aware of the large number and great variety of creatures that populated the land and waters of the region. Marked was the contrast of the north and south islands. Where in the north a few shells or native fruits were bartered, in the south the natives looked for gold and silver coins in all our exchanges. In the north, we never feared that the islanders were a threat to us, but in the south we saw good reason to be afraid of the denizens’ perfidy.
One apparently mild mannered south islander grabbed one of the north islanders and drew his knife blade over the man’s neck. He had seemed to be friendly right up until he committed his hostile act. Just after his crime Hamad’s knife found the man’s back. While the man died in agony, Hamad was inconsolable about the loss of one of his people. He told me that he would henceforth kill any south islander who came aboard my ship. He said this with such conviction that I knew he had been changed since his departure from his island—for the better from the pirate’s point of view.
Our first taste of Malay pirate blood occurred while were still in the south Andamans. A pirate ship crowded with Malay pirates aspiring to loot the Night Lightning came head-to-head to ram us and board. As they maneuvered to come alongside, three score grappling hooks came flying through the air, and right afterwards the pirates swung like a myriad of monkeys towards our decks. The mates had readied the hearties for just this form of attack, and they moved to the sides with cutlasses and knives slashing every which way.
This show of resolve was new to the Malay pirates, yet they pressed their attack anyway with increasing vigor and savagery. I ordered my boarders to swing onto the Malay ship and fight their way below decks to scuttle the enemy ship.
Meanwhile, I ordered my mates to be alert for the Malays to do precisely the same thing when they swung aboard the Night Lightning.
In the melee I saw two of the new sailors and one of the former slaves cut down by the swarms of Malay pirates, and over the din of the shouting and fighting I heard the loud report of a cannon followed by the hollow sound of a tremendous explosion. I guessed correctly that my boarding party had reached the pirate ship’s magazine and fired cannon filled with shot directly at the pirate’s powder room, as they had been instructed and drilled to do. Immediately the Malay pirate ship began to list to starboard from taking on water below decks.
My hearties pressed against the Malays, forcing them either to return to their sinking ship at once or to die and be cast off the decks of the Night Lightning. Hamad and the remaining islanders ran amok at the Malays who were still on board our ship. They slashed in frenzy on all sides, and the Malays could not make a stand. To avoid being hacked to bits, the Malay pirates swung back on board their ship and feverishly began to cut all lines that led to our ship.
With the lines removed, the Night Lightning broke free and came about while putting distance between itself and the rival ship. Four of my hearties kept slashing at the pirates on the Malay ship, but they saw the way the battle was going, so they jumped into the shark-filled water and swam as fast as possible towards the Night Lightning where their mates had dropped lines over the sides so the swimmers could be hauled up onto our deck. Only one of the four swimmers was actually taken by a shark, and he died screaming. The other three swimmers made it to the lines and pulled themselves out of the water while my hearties on deck raised the lines to bring their comrades up to the deck’s level and safety.
The Malay pirate ship that had attacked us did not sink all at once. It slowly rolled onto its side and continued to take on water yet stayed afloat a while. The remnants of the pirate force aboard her saw the feeding frenzy of the sharks in the water, and they knew that soon they would become the fishes’ dinner. Some jumped into the water holding onto planks and other flotsam from their vessel, but their legs and arms were easy targets for the massive sharks that snapped at anything that moved or hung down into the water.
I offered no quarter to that vicious Malay pirate crew. In fact, I mused that if they had remained aboard my ship and we had taken them captive, they would now be walking a plank and falling into the same fish feed that they were soon going to experience. When the Malay pirate ship finally did sink, all the remaining pirates thrashed in the water until one by one they were taken under the surface by hungry predators. Finally the sea was entirely clear of all bodies and body parts. Everything indicating that a raging battle had taken place was reduced to a stream of bubbles that rose to the surface from the submerged and slowly sinking pirate vessel.
I asked the mates to muster the crew before the mast and report. We had lost six men, including two islanders, one former slave and the hearty who had been eaten by the shark. Three hearties had also been wounded, one so seriously that I gave him the coup de grace myself and ordered my hearties to add his body to the watery feast with the mantra, “More for the rest of us.” I saw that the other two wounded had their flesh wounds bound with cloth tourniquets. I ordered a rum ration for all hands for a job well done: the crew had gained good experience fighting the Malay pirates together, but ours was a costly lesson. I vowed that we would suffer fewer casualties the next time around.
While the Night Lightning had fought one Malay pirate ship, the Sweet Cutlass had fought another just like it. They also slew all the pirates, but instead of sinking the vessel, they towed it while the Captain’s crew raised the ship’s treasure and valuables from its hold. The Sweet Lightning had lost seven men as the Night Lightning had done, and four of those had been among our former slaves. When we held our gam to assess the damage and decide what to do next, Captain Morgan said that we should ship aboard replacements to bring our crews to complement before we headed south through the Strait of Malacca to confront the rest of the Malay pirates on the sea lane and in their lairs along the Malay coast. Since we had a third ship now, the Captain suggested that we use it as both a training vessel in the short term and a lure in the long term.
We sailed north and visited the Andaman Islands, to the east instead of the west this time. Hamad was our recruiter because he spoke the islands’ citizen’s languages and could tell personal tales of his recent acts of bravado and daring while fighting against the ruthless Malay pirates. With his credibility among his people, we had no trouble adding fifty young men to our stable in one week.
Captain Morgan wanted not fifty, but one hundred prime recruits, and he wanted to cull out the weak and unfit early. He told me that we should bring aboard at least two hundred men and by testing and training work the number down to one hundred.
So we sailed from island to island for three months, growing our pool of north islanders as recruits and swapping out the better for the worse. We kept the recruits aboard the Malay pirate ship rather than the Sweet Cutlass and the Night Lightning.
Our Third Mates were put in charge of training, and the two alternated as Captain of the training vessel, which we renamed the Black Lagoon. That gave them experience of command at sea that they could not have obtained in any other way. It also created a third entity in our cabal, but we did not foresee the trouble that portended at the time.
Our three ships made a handsome sight when with full sail they raced and maneuvered around the Andaman Islands. Each day we all practiced closing and boarding, swordsmanship and knife handling, swimming and grappling and seamanship.
At one point we had two hundred and fifty able bodied recruits, and through attrition they became one hundred and twenty-five, and then one hundred. Only three men were killed during our training exercises. Carelessness and incompetence were the causes of two deaths, and an argument of one recruit with Hamad caused the other.
Hamad made his leadership over his people clear by slitting the throat of the would-be competitor before a direct challenge to his authority could be raised. After that incident, no one else ever tried to challenge Hamad’s authority.
Captain Morgan placed his own First Mate in charge of the Black Lagoon when it was time to move south towards the Strait of Malacca. Fifty of the best, hand-picked recruits were integrated as two equal groups into the crews of the Sweet Cutlass and the Night Lightning. Captain Morgan stationed Benjamin on the Black Lagoon to serve as a kind of second in command and master at arms.
As I look back on this choice, I discerned the Captain’s malice aforethought. What better way to achieve his revenge on Benjamin for sleeping with Alia than to send him on an impossible mission against bloodthirsty Malay pirates with a green crew?
The mission of the Black Lagoon was to serve as a lure for pirates in the Strait. They were to fly the French flag, unfurl maximum sail and speed well ahead of our other two ships, with her crew sunning themselves on the weather decks and appearing to have no real defenses against predators. When the Malay pirates tried to board her, the crew would bring their weapons from hiding and return the favor of the pirates by taking the attacking ship captive.
Captain Morgan and I decided we would lend a hand if necessary, but otherwise we would let the chips fall where they might.
We thought it was a good plan at the time. What we had envisioned was one attacking pirate ship, but when the Malay pirates attacked with three ships it was clear that all our forces had to mass to repel them. Two of the pirate vessels boarded the Black Lagoon to port and starboard simultaneously, while the third rammed her astern and boarded her from there.
The four ships were in minutes bound by lines with grappling hooks so that all four decks featured a melee of killing with men swinging from ship to ship.
Captain Morgan and I struck our false French colors and raised the Jolly Roger. We came outboard of the knot of four ships on either side and fired our cannon at close range to disable the mainmasts of all three pirate vessels and do as much damage to the structure of those ships at and below the waterline. We boarded from port and starboard with grappling hooks and lines fusing our ships with the others.
Now the Malay pirates fought us at the center on the Black Lagoon, where the casualties were many and across the decks of all the other ships. Since the Malays could not escape, they fought desperately, for they were without hope. We saw the meaning of the word “amok” for the enemy fought in desperation wildly and without discrimination.
I sent my Second Mate with a small party to scuttle the pirate ship next to the Night Lightning and simultaneously sent my Third Mate with another small party to scuttle the pirate ship that lay astern of the Black Lagoon.
Captain Morgan, seeing that the crew of the Black Lagoon was beleaguered and had been decimated by the fighting, sent most of his hearties into the thick of the fight, keeping only a few on board to defend the Sweet Cutlass.
I saw an opportunity to kill the three pirate Captains and seized it. I brandished my cutlass, grabbed a stray line and swung aboard the adjacent ship in the area of the helm, where I beheaded the Malay Captain. I then hewed left and right through the enemy until I saw a way to jump aboard the stern of the Black Lagoon and immediately jump to the focsle of the pirate ship at her stern. I had a long way to cut and slash through Malay pirates to reach the helm area, and I picked up a pirate’s cutlass in my free hand so I could slash with two weapons at once as I proceeded.
At my side suddenly was Benjamin with two cutlasses in his hands. Like a two man killing machine, we lopped hands and heads all the way to the helm. There I let Benjamin have the honor of beheading the enemy Captain and slaying those who tried to defend him.
Meanwhile, I made my way back to the Black Lagoon and swung over to the pirate ship that lay next to the Sweet Cutlass. There by the helm I saw the Malay Captain shouting orders vainly to his dwindling crew. He did not see me come alongside him until it was much too late for him to react successfully, and as he raised his sword to strike me, I hewed his neck and his legs simultaneously so his head, torso and legs fell separately onto the deck with his useless sword all at the same time.
Now that the Malay pirates were without leadership on any of their ships, it was time for me to fight my way back to the Night Lightning. Two of the pirate ships were listing in the water because my hearties had scuttled them. When I reached my flying bridge, I yelled out for my hearties to cut all lines between the pirate ships and ours. I saw that my hearties had brought treasure out of the holds of the pirate ships they had scuttled. They were transferring the treasure to the Night Lightning before they shipped back aboard themselves. I understood and allowed the transfer but urged haste.
The denouement was balletic, I thought, as my hearties grabbed lines like dancers to swing back aboard and simultaneously cut all ties with the sinking pirate vessels. The remaining pirates had swung back to their sinking ships, learning only too late of their mistake. The Night Lightning drifted out to port from the two sinking pirate ships while the Black Lagoon drifted to starboard. Because of the blood in the water, a great many giant, hungry sharks had begun to gather for a feast, and the still-living Malay pirates learned to their horror that they would soon be food for those sharks.
I saw that on the other side of the Black Lagoon, the Sweet Cutlass was pulling off to starboard while the pirate ship to its port was listing badly and starting to sink. The hearties of the Black Lagoon were working frantically to cut all lines binding the sinking pirate ship to its starboard. Finally, she broke free from all the pirate ships sinking to her port, starboard and stern. The hearties aboard all three of our ships then scoured the decks for the bodies and limbs of dead Malay pirates and our own crews. As they cleared the decks and threw the human remains overboard, the fins of feeding sharks swirled in the blue and the water seemed to boil with feeding activity. The pirates on the sinking ships joined the feeding frenzy as food when their ships sank beneath them. Those who attempted in desperation to swim to one of our ships were torn apart by ravenous jaws and dragged down to the depths.
In a gam in the aftermath of the pirate raid, Captain Morgan and I reviewed the status of our crews. In our whaleboats we enjoyed some of the liquor that we had seized from the pirates. The Night Lightning had lost five hearties and the Sweet Cutlass had lost four. Of the crew of the Black Lagoon, twenty had been lost. All had gone to Davy Jones along with all hundred-odd Malay pirates.
Treasure seized from the three pirate vessels included gold and silver coins and bars, jewels, pearls, rich corals, ivory tusks, spices, bottles of wine and casks of liquor. The Captain opined that it had been a good day’s work, but with far too many casualties. He said that we should try the same gambit tomorrow and hope that the Malay pirates came in a single ship only.
I told him that Benjamin had done valiant service this day, but the Captain only scowled in response and did not want to hear the details of Benjamin’s service. We had lost none of our mates, he said, so we would not have to shift any of the crew. As for losing the north islanders, they were green and the survivors were now battle hardened. The lessons would make the survivors twice the men they were before the fight for their lives.
At first light the next day, the Black Lagoon sailed well in advance of our other two pirate ships, and it sported the French flag as before. A single Malay pirate vessel sped to intercept and board to starboard. The pirates were surprised that the apparently docile French ship turned out to be full of battle-hardened pirates who cut down all those who tried to board her.
The Black Lagoon quickly reversed roles with the pirate ship, and after killing the enemy pirates, they took time to rifle the stores of the pirate ship before scuttling her. After the pirate ship went down to Davy Jones, Captain Morgan and I sailed close enough to ask whether the Black Lagoon needed any assistance. Benjamin waved us off with his broad ivory smile and held aloft by its hair the severed head of the Malay pirate Captain.
The Black Lagoon then proceeded to unfurl its sails while the other two ships luffed sail to lend some distance between the vessels.
In the mid-afternoon a second Malay pirate ship intercepted the Black Lagoon and tried to board her, but it met with the same success as the prior pirate ship. This time some of the Malay pirates threw down their weapons and surrendered, but they were not held captive long before one by one they walked the plank into the shark-infested waters. When all her treasure and valuables had been transferred to the Black Lagoon, the pirate ship was scuttled and sank to Davy Jones.
Throughout that day, the Black Lagoon only lost five of her crew, three during the first attack and two during the second. She celebrated her victories late into the night with rum for all hands because tomorrow promised to be a very busy day.
The pirate coast was drawing nigh, and Captain Morgan’s plan was to hug close to shore so that the Malay pirates would come out of their bays and attack in large numbers. Each ship was to be its own lure, surprise its attackers, seize the pirates’ treasure and scuttle their ships.
The ruse worked like a charm. By evening, each ship had attracted three Malay pirate marauders. In the end all the enemy pirates had been killed, their treasure seized and their ships sunk. Two of the crew of the Black Lagoon had perished, but none had died on the Night Lightning or the Sweet Cutlass.
At our evening gam, I joked with Captain Morgan that we were doing the good work that the great powers should have undertaken to rid the sea of Malay pirates. The Captain responded by having a long pull of rum and singing some of his bawdy pirate songs, including two of his all-time favorites, “The Wench Wore the Pirate’s Pantaloons” and “His Behind Arrears Before the Mast.” I could tell the man was bored sick because the action in the Strait of Malacca so far had been unchallenging. He told me that he intended to pull out into the main and go after merchants instead of preying on the Malay pirates any longer. He needed the Night Lightning to provide over watch for him in case a warship tried to interrupt the fun.
I suggested that the Black Lagoon accompany us since it would otherwise be naked to attack by Malay pirates in great numbers.
In retrospect, it was prescient of the Captain to want me to watch his back, because he spied three rich Dutch merchants sailing in company and needed all three of our ships to pillage them.
Each ship intercepted one of the Dutchmen, and their sailing in company did no good for their security because none was a warship. We pirates had easy pickings. Each of our ships drew alongside her target and grappled aboard. All Dutch treasure, valuables, food, liquor and water were transferred to our ships before their ships’ Captains were beheaded and their ship’s crews were forced to walk the plank. We sank the three vessels rather than leaving them adrift in the Strait; with the three ships safe with Davy Jones, there would be no evidence of our piracy.
As evening fell, my lookout shouted that a warship was on the horizon, so we steered for shore and our fellow pirate ships followed us to an anchorage for the night.
Patrols of warships are mysterious to us pirates. I would prefer not to combat them because of their superior armor and fire power. They have a few things of great value, like small arms, gunpowder, shot, cannon, victuals, potable water and sometimes rum, but the sacrifice of crew for that kind of plunder is often not worth the bother. Running before the wind in flight is preferable to picking a fight with a warship, and only when you absolutely have to fight do you look for the best angle of attack and tactics that will mask your intent.
The next morning we observed that the warship we had remarked the night before was keeping station offshore from the location where we had chosen to anchor for the night. The warship’s intention was clearly to board and inspect as many ships as it could while seeking pirates and treasure.
I did not like waiting for warships to come to me, so I set sail early with full sails and the French flag flying. I was trying to make it appear that mine was a pirate vessel trying to escape the one-ship blockade. The warship noted my tactic and set out to intercept. It fired cannon over the bow of the Night Lightning, so I luffed sail and waited for the ship to approach. My crew was all on the weather decks, trying to look innocent while concealing their weapons, all except for my gunnery hearties.
As the warship drew alongside and prepared to board, my cannon took out their main brace and the shot leveled the troops on the enemy’s decks. My hearties uncovered their grapples with lines and hurled them so as to capture the warship. Over side swung my hearties as our cannon balls broke through the warship’s hull and found the magazine with a dull explosion. The marines aboard the warship had been surprised by a hardened force like ours, but they were nonetheless formidable enemies because of their courage. Our desperation and innovation won over their heroism and drills.
My hearties slashed and stabbed their way across the warship’s decks to her flying bridge, where they slew the Captain and bound the helm with line. They made their way below decks to haul up plunder while their comrades tidied up by killing all forces from the crow’s nest to the keel. My hearties set up a high line for conveying the arms and pelf, and the transfer began in earnest when rum was discovered below.
I went aboard the warship for a time to see what was in the recently deceased Captain’s cabin. I returned to the Night Lightning with papers that held much needed intelligence for me and gold that the Captain had hidden in a compartment. I also shipped aboard the warship’s deceased Captain’s private collection of fine vintage wines.
When I take a warship, I want no loose ends. I saw the last marines walk the plank and all that was left of the munitions, swords, knives, pistols, powder and shot transferred to my ship. I had my hearties fire the warship’s own cannon so that her bottom would be breached.
All my crew returned to my ship before the warship keeled over and sank beneath the waves. I kept as a trophy the brass plate with the name of the warship that I took from the Captain’s cabin, but that was the only remnant of that once proud warship after she went with her Captain and crew to see the bottom of the sea.
The papers that I found in the deceased Captain’s cabin described a strategy for using many such warships as we had just sunk. They were supposed to be spaced all along the Malay coast to roust out the pirates in an operation that was meant to end the Malay piracies once and for all. This was bad news for pirates of all origins, including mine, and I had to get this vital intelligence to Captain Morgan as soon as possible.
When I returned to the anchorage that I had left earlier that day, I discovered only one ship at anchor, the Sweet Cutlass. I anchored nearby and called for a gam immediately. With Captain Morgan, I intended to discuss strategy for dealing with the situation of the warship blockade of the Malay coast.
The Captain told me that when I had set out to draw the warship away, the Black Lagoon had set out in the opposite direction to escape the blockade and go pirating on the main.
I told him that, under the circumstances, the Black Lagoon might now be in grave danger.
The Captain seemed to be preoccupied with his rum and his pirate songs, and he looked out on the Strait with a distracted expression as I told him the dimensions of the warship blockade.
When I had finished, the Captain said that we were likely to lose one or even two of our ships within the next two to three days. In all our days sailing together, I had never seen the man more melancholy.
He saw my concern and brightened up. He advised me to drink and eat heartily and to give rum rations to my hearties because tomorrow we might all die.
I told the Captain what else I had found on the warship I had sunk, and he nodded as if he did not think that mattered much in the long view. Then we returned to our respective ships. After brooding in my cabin for a time, I decided that I did not want to chance fate by just waiting for it to knock on my door, so I weighed anchor and sailed out into the Strait to see what had become of the Black Lagoon.
In fact, I discovered that the Black Lagoon had experienced a very good day of piracy and plunder. She had taken a French merchantman and transferred everything of value to its hold before scuttling the vessel. I had a gam with the now-Captain, who was of a mind to go on his own now that he had achieved a number of successes. I told him about the warship blockade, but he scoffed at the idea of that being a hindrance to his good piracy. When I asked him whether Benjamin was of a similar opinion, the man gave me a fierce look but he agreed to let me speak with Benjamin for a few minutes. I therefore ordered my coxswain to steer for the Black Lagoon, and when we came alongside the Black Lagoon, I called Benjamin down into the whaleboat and explained the situation to him.
“Benjamin, warships are covering the entire Malay coast. They mean to root out pirates, and that will include us if we remain in this vicinity. Your Captain wants to break away from Captain Morgan and me and go pirate all on his own. That may or may not be a good idea, but it is certainly a dangerous idea at this time. We might be stronger if we stayed together than if we go alone. I know how you and Captain Morgan feel about each other after Alia’s death, but I beseech you to come with me and let the Black Lagoon find its own path.”
Calmly and respectfully, Benjamin said, “Captain Abe, you’ve always told me the truth, and I appreciate it. Captain Morgan and I will never be friends after what I did with Alia. I won’t drive wedges between you and him, and I have allegiance to the Black Lagoon now, so I have to return to my Captain and crew. I’ll see you when we meet Davy Jones together.” I understood the man’s point. I might have tried to force him to come with me, but that would not resolve his fundamental issues. Besides, he was a free man now and entitled to go his own way.
That was the last I saw of Benjamin face-to-face, an honorable pirate to the end. After we had conferred, I ordered my coxswain to return our whaleboat to the Night Lightning.
Once on board I immediately set sail for the shoreline, where I wanted to talk more strategy with Captain Morgan now that I had learned that the Black Lagoon had decided to strike out on its own. That evening in a gam by torchlight, the Captain clenched his fists, raged and fumed, but he knew that nothing could be done now to remedy the situation with the Black Lagoon. In a very black humor, the Captain drank rum and sang dark pirate songs of death, ghosts, loss and loneliness, like “The Pirate’s Ghost Danced for Davy Jones.”
The Captain suddenly had enough of dejection. He shook his head, drank rum and, with a sparkle in his eyes, told me, “The only option for us is immediate clandestine flight to the South China Sea. I’m setting sail this very night, and I advise you to follow me.”
I understood his logic and decided to follow his lead. We agreed to use Dutch flags as our cover, and by dawn we were pretending to be two Dutch merchants sailing in company in the middle of the Strait, both heading slowly on the usual commercial passage to the South China Sea.
As it happened, our course intersected that of the Black Lagoon, which was being boarded by marines from a warship that had found her suspicious. A second warship stood off covering the first, making rescue not only risky but also nearly impossible. We had the option to try to save the Black Lagoon, but we no longer owed the ship anything. We decided though as with a single mind to interpose.
The Sweet Cutlass headed straight to intercept the warship that was conducting over watch.
The Night Lightning headed to intercept the warship that was now boarding the Black Lagoon. We took the warships completely by surprise since they considered no opposition was likely or even possible.
As we approached, we hauled down our false colors and raised the Jolly Roger. We saw that our approach heartened our comrades on the Black Lagoon. They began to fight fiercely and loosed their cannon in a series of volleys as the boarders fled from her decks to defend against our oncoming vessels.
The Sweet Cutlass rammed the warship that was her target, and she came athwart ship and let forth a volley from her cannon that leveled the troops standing on her decks and took down her main brace.
The Night Lightning turned hard right and brought all her cannon to bear on the warship that was tightly coupled with the Black Lagoon. Withering volley followed withering volley, and the above-decks personnel fell while the masts split and shattered with splinters flying all over her decks. Another volley with balls aimed at the waterline breached the warship so badly that she began to list in a direction away from the Black Lagoon, whose crew cut all lines for fear of being pulled to the bottom as she sank.
Captain Morgan was not going to let this exercise be profitless, so he closed on his target and boarded her, with grappling hooks and lines flying and his hearties flying even before she made fast to her prey. The slaughter began immediately, and it did not cease until all the marines aboard were dead and sloughed off board to become shark meat. When all men were dead on their prey vessel, the hearties quickly made off with all things of value from the warship’s armory to the hold of the Sweet Cutlass. The Captain’s First Mate went to the cabin of the warship’s Captain and came away with the gold the now deceased Captain had sequestered there. All the warship’s stores were high lined to the Sweet Cutlass, and when this had been accomplished, Captain Morgan ordered the warship to be scuttled.
Meanwhile on the Night Lightning, I saw that the warship had rigged the Black Lagoon to be breached by her own cannon and sunk. There was nothing I could do to prevent the outcome. A tremendous explosion rent the ship in twain, and she sank at once with all hands. This was an affront to us pirates that I could not tolerate, so I ordered our cannon to fire unrelenting until no trace of the offending warship remained on the surface.
There was no sense searching for survivors of either vessel because the sharks feasted on all who hit the water from both the warship and the Black Lagoon. Thus I never saw the bodies of the Captain or of Benjamin. Unlike Captain Morgan, I did not have the sweet profit from the venture of destroying the warship that had sunk the Black Lagoon. I had only had the satisfaction of sweet revenge. My hearties told the mates that they were gratified that we had taken our revenge as they had comradeship with the members of the crew of our sister pirate ship.
When it was clear that the encounter with the warships had been resolved in our favor, the Sweet Cutlass and the Night Lightning hauled down the Jolly Rogers and hoisted false Dutch flags again. As if nothing extraordinary had happened beforehand, we sailed forth into the South China Sea, passing vessels sporting many different flags that were coursing both ways in the busy seaway that was the southern entry to and exit from the Strait of Malacca.
After we had sailed through the Strait, I followed Captain Morgan’s lead as he steered a course along the eastern rim of land that marked the boundary of the Asian landmass. We began to see in these crowded waters junks of all sizes that in hundreds pursued fish and small cargo vessels that carried freight from port to port along the coast and then to mysterious China, hermit-like Korea and martial Japan. We knew that the pirates of the Philippines were active farther north, but for now we had no competition in our piratical trade. Therefore we began to pick our targets carefully and continue to do what we had always done.
We found that Dutch merchants and English were the richest to be plundered, but American and English were good targets also. So we came alongside and boarded almost four dozen vessels in the course of five weeks, and we took on gold and silver, jewels and pearls, silk fabrics and exotic minerals like jade and jadeite.
Until we reached the Philippines we brooked no opposition, and we pleasured ourselves by sending many vessels to see Davy Jones with all their crews. Sometimes we anchored off islands that were nothing more than seamounts, and sometimes we luffed sail to ride out typhoons and monsoon rains in the open sea. Once we saw the clouds turn golden by agency of a fine dust that blew out from China’s vastness over the sea. We anchored off lands whose rivers emptied into the South and East China Seas, and there we let the hearties spend some time ashore buying women and trinkets while we took on water and provisions.
We had come a long way from the Persian Gulf, but we were still in sight of Asia. Captain Morgan and I considered what we should do in these waters, and we decided to plunder the ships that were heading to, or returning from China, Korea and Japan. Our expectations were fairly certain. We thought that those merchant ships that were inbound would be carrying gold and silver mainly and that those that were outbound would be carrying the goods of East Asia.
It turned out that the cargos were mixed. The best we harvested were warships because they carried gold and rum. There was, of course, a limit to what we could do with warships because nations under threat could band together against a common enemy. That is why our time in East Asia was limited.
So before five months had passed, at a gam off northern Japan, Captain Morgan and I began to consider what we would do next. He had been in these waters long before, but not much had changed in the interim. He suggested that we should provision ourselves well and then follow the trade routes across the vast Pacific towards the Americas, taking prizes as we went, and then follow the coast to Tierra del Fuego and sail around Cape Horn. That sounded fine to me.
I frankly liked the exotic East, but I knew that the pirate spirit in me would win out against my healthy but unprofitable curiosity.
Besides, I had found a beautiful and daring young girl named Xiaohong at a Chinese port we had visited. She had decided to join me in my cabin and explore the world with me. My cabin boy had long since grown into a man who needed to join the hearties to grow in the trade. So he was now on watch in the crow’s nest, and gentle Xiaohong was in my bed.
Captain Morgan liked her so much he wrote a pirate song about her, “Red Port and Red Lady a Pirate’s Love Affair.” That was about the simplest summary of my trip to China, and the woman, the farthest thing from a curse upon my vessel, turned out to be worth her weight in gold.