Scurvy Stories: Trouble on the Deck
Scudder Stops a Pirate Tussle
“Somethin’s burnin’ on the ol’ ship
It’s just the crabby old weathered pip
Called old Gruff and his old nasty stew
He whips up weird feasts old and new!”
Scudder didn’t sleep well that night, he couldn’t stop thinking about the evil Dreaded Pirate Roberts Drefuse who was a spirit cursed to balance the debts of shipmen and pirates alike and had appeared to old Black Beard last night.
He scared him into paying the debt to the Sea Serpent Denneson who had kidnapped his wife, Pearl.
Scudder awoke to hangovers in angry fits of his fellow pirates aboard the Lady Kraken.
“Who’s alarmin’ at this hour?” a young pirate screamed.
The signal went up, and the ringing of an old rusty bell on the deck alarmed the crew members upon Black Beard’s adventurous ship.
“I say, quit it with that ringin’!”
“Who be ringing that hellish bell?”
Snores and sudden yawns burned throughout the ship’s quarters as everyone awoke.
It was Sunday, supposedly the one day off for the crew, but not this morning.
“Wake up, ya ol’ scalawags, get up! Rise for yer bright morning has started!”
Cackling, H. Wallace III burst everyone’s scurvy eardrums. A contorted toothless smirk showed for all to see. His blond locks waved in the morning sunny breeze as everyone erupted and startled from their nasty dreams.
Scudder rose and found himself on the deck as the poop deck crew swept and mopped the deck ferociously.
“Here ya go, lad! Come on!”
One-eyed Patch Pat the Pirate threw a bucket at him as he caught it nearly dropping it. He followed Pat through the excrement wooden boards as he went flying like the speed of sound following his journeyman.
Scudder was quick but Pat didn’t care for the lad and cursed scolding his every move.
“Come on, lad, faster! Faster, boy!”
It went on for two hours when finally, the Captain came strutting out and watched his working crew.
“That’s right, fellas,” Black howled.
“Keep movin’, keep heavin’!”
He came down with his sword sheathed in his dragon skin and his large black hat with a skull and cross bones knitted obnoxiously shined in the breezy morning. The sea roared and welled up crashing into the ship.
“Ya missed a spot, ya did! Come on, come on!” Black laughed heartily.
Scudder was relentless and followed Pat as he finally finished the entire deck gleaming with a nice shine.
“Aright, lad, not bad. Here.” Pat gave him the mop. “Clean it, now.”
“Alright, you mean whackin’ philistines, break,” Black declared.
“But while I have ya here, listen up!” Black Beard roared as the men looked at him grimly with hate in their eyes.
“I’m here to tell ya, that we’ll be doin’ somethin’ new. We’re gonna start workin’ seven days now.”
Groans and moans went up as it swelled to yelling.
“Now, now, now! Enough, you ol’ filthy sea maggots! I won’t hear that now. We’re behind as it is.
“No more card playin’ late into the night, no more drinkin’ too much. There’s gonna be a change and I’m here to tell yous that gamblin’ of any kind will quit this very day. Work comes first until we come to the port.”
Murmurs and whispers shot out and echoed through the company.
“Alright, we’re gonna have order on this, here, ship. We’re gonna have discipline as you’ve never seen it before. Take the rest of the day off, but startin’ tomorrow, no funny business. Not until we get to where we need.”
“And where’s that Captain,” Gruff shouted.
“That is what I still have to figure out, my dear chef. You cookin’ up something worthwhile today, ol’ Gruff?”
Gruff stood with his ugly gray braids unveiling, red bows strung up in his beard and spoons sparkling and hanging off his algae sailor cap.
Nobody laughed because they were all mad at the terrible unutterable news.
Muttering again an old man called, “And why haven’t ya decided, Captain?”
It was a shriveled pirate who was hobbling on one leg and had a gash across his fat belly, a balding head with a piece of flesh hanging off his ugly scalp.
“I’ll let yas as soon as I know. Don’t ya go and fret now, I say. It would be ill-advised. Now, enjoy yer rest, you silly liver smackers!”
He howled and then tipped his hat and disappeared into the lower deck.
The men all dispersed and muttered chuckling as they went. Some started to laugh wildly and others went to their rooms saying nothing and curtly slammed their cells shut.
Then two small pirates in the crew started to push and shove one another.
“Hey, you filthy maggot!”
“Watch where ya steppin’!”
“No, you, you silly lugger!”
“Who are you callin’ a—”
Then one of them punched the other as they tussled and struck each other. Cruelly like rabid dogs the crew crowded around and chanted and cheered. They pushed and shoved their fellow man, calling and yelling viscously.
Scudder approached seeing them from the start and pushed his way through.
The one big tattooed olive-skinned brute was beating the small pale kid, a little older than him, to a pulp. Blood splattered everywhere as he wailed and struck at the poor scrawny teen.
The terrible grimaced pirate guffawed wildly, “You like that, you skinny skeleton!”
Beating him like a bruised apple, he kept hitting him and struck him violently never to relent.
“Hey, hey, stop that!” Scudder shouted out of desperation and fear.
He sensed the big bald man with a half-chewed ear would kill this kid and nobody, not even Black would stop it, and even if he did he was going to be too late.
So, vengefully and out of a misplaced pity, Scudder small and agile saw next to him a pirate’s belt, a dagger dangling with a shark etched on its handle eating an octopus.
Gazing at it mysteriously and with malicious honor, he drew the small blade and attacked the big pirate stabbing him in his flabby side.
The large crew member stopped and held where the dagger impaled him groaning in agony.
Scudder pulled it out quickly and stabbed him again in the front as he twirled around. Staring at the lad, he looked down horrified at the bloody knife.
Scudder pulled it out again as he collapsed and fell dying instantly.
Nobody moved.
No one stirred, everyone fell silent, and shock hit them like a million brilliant pearls.
Scudder stood unmoved staring at his red-stained hands and the crimson corpse that lay on the once-clean deck.
Shifty stood up and took the knife away from the kid.
“Alright,” he said quietly understanding. “That’s good, lad. Alright, let’s go. Over here.”
Pat called out, “Clean up this mess, scum! Yeah, you! Get over here.”
Two men took the body and cast it into the green sea as the corpse was swept away in the roaring foamy waves.
Helping the skinny pirate up, Pat guided him downstairs to the unorganized Infirmary.
Shifty sat down and took off his weathered peg leg rubbing his amputated foot.
“Hey, lad, how are ya?”
Scudder didn’t know what he felt but looked at his scarlet hands mystified.
“Have you ever killed anybody, Shifty?”
“Aye, many men. Murdered too many to count. My braids are how many lives I’ve taken but I stopped that a long time ago. Killing lost its fun a while back. Now it’s like breathin’.
“Here.”
He gave him a handkerchief embroidered with a beautiful mermaid to wipe his bloody palms. Scudder wiped them clean and then in the mighty ghost-like wind released the white cloth as it blew across the expansive world.
“Lad, you be young and nimble. And now ya killed a man.”
“Will I be punished?”
“Nay, you were defending a fellow crew member. That be defending the innocent, the weak.”
Shifty untied his red bandanna around his neck and wrapped it around Scudder’s small round head.
“Here ya go, lad. Now ya look like a real pirate. A mighty fierce one as I did ever see.” He laughed wildly.
“But our crew has done a lot worse than what you did. A lot worse. You be fine. Captain, I don’t think we’ll blink an eye.”
“Captain. He’s a strange man, isn’t he?”
“Aye, and a fool. Between you and I, Scudder, I think you’ll be a valuable asset to me crew.”
“Your crew?”
Scudder looked and saw in Shifty’s brown glazed eyes a hungry greedy thirst for gold and a lust for power.
“Aye, Scudder. I trust ya now. Now that ya killed, havin’ a taste for it, you can join us.”
“Us? They’re more of you?”
He nodded.
Pat One Eyed climbed out of the musty cabin into the sunny day. His scruffy lightly clad physique looked like he was going to kill at any moment with a perpetual snarled expression.
Gruff the cook with eating utensils dangling from his braided gray hair came behind him wearing a green and red lining cap. Then two more younger pirates tall and buff played cards across the deck from the two cursing at the other.
“Well let’s talk, now that everyone’s here, in private. This way. Come on, boys. Let’s show our new crew member where we meet. Aye?”
They shouted laughing merrily, “Aye!”
Shifty led Scudder down into the room where they had played cards the night before and locked the giant lock with a skeleton etched on it bulging out and encased in a stringy cobweb.
Gruff turned the metal key and put it in his shirt pocket. As they all gathered around the circular table, Scudder nervously sat down across from Shifty.
“I don’t think ya know, these two mates. Scudder, meet Bruce and Forger, good pirates, I say. Twin brothers.”
“Pleasure.”
Scudder clasped their forearms staring in their red and yellow eyes as they glared back without a word. They looked into his peepers and warned him that they didn’t trust Scudder.
“Well, let’s start the meetin’! Status on findin’ the gold?”
Scudder was mesmerized, little did they know he had talked with Black Beard about keeping an eye out for any suspicious activity and here it was unfolding right before his blue eyes.
“Nothin’ Shifty,” Gruff said.
“Nothin’,” Pat said. “I looked everywhere down below here. Nothin’.”
“What about you two?”
“Nada, Captain. No gold or silver,” the twins said nonchalantly.
“What about rubies!”
“No rubies,” Forger said flatly.
“Alright, well, we got to find somethin’. I mean anythin’ even some parchment and take it. It took me a long while to get onto the crew, especially of the infamous Black Beard, and I won’t have yas spoilin’ the fun!”
“Have you found anything,” Gruff asked annoyed.
Shifty glared at Gruff a long time until he sighed in amusement and threw a knife at him. It stuck in the table to his left because he impaled it on purpose.
“Don’t you go testin’ me now, Gruff! You’re still the chef. If you weren’t, I’d have killed ya meself.”
“What about the kid? Can’t he look for it,” Pat said pointing to Scudder.
Scudder gulped anxiously.
“Aye, that’ll be a fine thing. Whadya say, lad? Can ya do some snoopin’?”
“I uh… I guess I could.”
“Right now! Get goin’ we won’t wait up on ya! Now you know who to talk to, we have other business to talk about. Run along now! Meeting adjourned!”
The rickety door shut abruptly as Scudder almost fell back because then he heard screaming and cursing up on the deck.
Scudder flew up the stairs.
All of a sudden, the man Gilly Leggs on the ship’s crow nest shouted mightily,
“Ahoy! There be a ship! Coming straight for us!”
Everyone turned as one-eyed and peg-leg pirates turned. Their slashed faces saw three ships headed right for them flying a dangerous and green flag with an owl staring down at them in the center.
“Great mother of the sea,” Leggs muttered with horror.
“It’s the Fleet of George Tumber!”
The crew went mad.
Black appeared quickly at the head gazing out and taking his telescope seeing the ships heading right for them and George Tumber sharpening his contorted sword with a gash across his left eye.
The gash Black had given him the last time they met.
“Great ragin’ sea,” he muttered.
Scudder saw and gazed out at his Uncle George Tumber terrified because now he knew his secret. Huddling in the shadows for years disappearing and reappearing, Scudder’s uncle George Tumber finally resurfaced.
He knew who Uncle George was now: a filthy good-for-nothin’ pirate.
To Be Continued…
