Poseidon

His eyes glinted in desire, taut skin crinkling with pleasure. Shrewd eyes roved over our boat, his imagination taking flight. “Aye mates, I see some gold there!”, he cackled. Behind the first mate, other pirates restlessly milled about the quarterdeck, glaring at us. “Ho! Give no quarter men!”, someone roared.

Deep blue sea yawned around us, as we frantically sped across the water. Our merchant captain, a strong man in his bronze years, gritted his teeth painfully and hoarsely hollered orders. Furious waters crashed against our hull, spitting froth into the anguished sailors. A wee boy next to me crashed against the gunwale, unloading brackish bilge water into the sea. “Worm, get to work!”, the second mate bit at me, his face an artwork of undisguised desperation. Our merchant caravel, the Fortuitous, suddenly tilted to the right. The poor sailor next to me swore.

The galleon chasing us was extravagantly eye-catching. A richly painted figurehead threatened us, adorned with handsome ornaments. A golden crown lay atop its ferocious face, haughty eyes glaring at us. In its hand bore a large trident, rimmed with gems and sharpened to points. Just like the pirates eyeing us with condescension, the figurehead seemed to mock us, ridiculing our hopeless attempts to escape. But its looks weren’t everything. Two rows of seven cannons each lined its body. Its gun deck was swelling with metal wrought cannons. As the sun glanced off the ocean’s surface and winked at us, the pirate ship elegantly veered right, all the while closing the distance between us. Voices from our ship’s lookout hollered, and all the pathetic young sailors looked back with dread.

The second pirate ship came into view.

It was a sleeker, smaller boat, that skimmed over the blue waves. The sloop had only two sails, but it was no less intimidating. Dark wood shiny from the water’s onslaught was embellished with gold designs. In a matter of seconds, the sloop overtook the galleon, and veered off to the left. Raucous laughter boomed from this ship, as men cawed like crows for blood. Unruly monster-like-men stood about their main deck, taunting us.

The mood in our boat has changed. The panic has diminished, the misery deadened. Men who fear death fear losing their lives. But we had already lost it. As the ship still caught wind and blew on, I saw men dispiritedly give up, doing their chores with lesser intent, miserable men quietly break down inside. The man beside me let go of his rope, gently trailing its surface with his thumb as he stared forlornly at the incoming sloop. The captain had vanished. And the vessel began slowing down.

Like lions chasing a deer, both ships expertly manoeuvred us along the wide seas. The grey afternoon stretched out above us, clouds lazing about after a long day. Long silver swords were passed around, and some holstered their pistols. We stopped work, and lingered near the edge of the main deck. Grim determination lined the men’s brows, sweat licking the tips of their lashes. Sooty hands gripped sword handles, as twitchy fingers absently scratched the leather of their pistols. I had a sword in my hands, the handle devoid of decoration except for a small scribble that denoted it a property of the “Fortuitous”.

The galleon was practically touching our stern, while the sloop was already alongside our vessel. Spying across, I could see the yellow in a pirate’s teeth, his ugly scowl disfiguring his scarred face. Suddenly the fear came back to us all. Men were visibly panting now, frantically spilling words that praised the Lord for whatever he did to us. “Arrrr!!!” Pirates with hooks, weird jangling adornments, crude fur-like clothing grinned at me, as they bunched their muscles together and hurled insults at us. Brandishing lean swords they roared at the fumbling group of sailors. Then, the first deafening boom of the cannons tore the sky, and metal boulders crashed into our ship.

Black balls zipped above our heads, leaving a wake of fizzling flashes of fire, as they rammed into wood like biting into cake. Tiny shrapnels of wood sprayed into us, and the deck was havoc. While I lay on the floor dazed from the pirate’s onslaught, I witnessed the men leaning across the gunwale. They pulled out the hooks that the galleon threw at us. Another round of cannonfire shook the weakening ship, and the ground tilted below me. When I looked up again, pirates from the sloop were leaping into our sinking vessel.

“Do whatever you love men! Bring the whole ship to Davy Jones’ locker!”, a pirate warmly cheered, and pleasantly shot a screaming sailor. My ears rang with the bellows of men, as pirates flooded our hulk. I looked back again. The galleon now floated right next to our vessel, pirates streaming in. Other sailors were cut apart gruesomely, or swiftly shot in the head, an arc of red blood springing from their limp bodies. As my fellows died on our boat, their faces were of shock and pain, pale skin withering from the loss of blood. I set my leg back, and thrust my sword into a pirate looking away from me. Jumping forward, I cut two other men and pushed my body into the third, tackling him into the floor. The last thing I saw, before I felt the inevitable plunge of a sword through my back, was a tall woman enter our boat, daintily swishing her cloaks aside before crossing a dead sailor. Black seeped into my eyes, and exhaustion made me close them.

It was over.