As I sit and pen this account I must beg the readers indulgence if I give short preface. The events that I am about to recount took place many years ago now, when I was a far younger man and I have taken the liberty to do some editing of the text. I hope that the reader will sympathize with me since I did it indeed for the sake of the reader. The language and actions of the men that I was around was such that should I publish a loyal account of it my book would rightly be burned on the street corners. Even was this not the case I should not choose to poison the eyes of my readers with the crude ways of the people I was associating with.
I couldn’t look my former crewmates in the eye as I crossed over to join the pirate crew. Of course all of them knew that I had been forced, but I still felt like a traitor. I had bad luck, that was what it was. I had bad luck to be on a ship that got captured by pirates and I had bad luck to be a single young man with skills that the pirate crew wanted. My choice had been simple, either join their crew, or die. I didn’t want to die, that was one of the reasons I didn’t want to be a pirate. Pirates come to nasty ends far too often for my liking. Still it was better to join the crew and then try to escape then to be shot right then and there.
I was the only man out of our crew to be pressed. A few others joined willingly but I wanted nothing to do with them. They were the sort who wanted a short a jolly life; I wanted a long boring one. When you want excitement you don’t become cooper, which is what I am. Either that or they thought that they would never be caught, which as far as I am concerned meant that they were stupid.
My first few days on the pirate ship were pure misery; the pirates were unkind to me since I was new and clearly already unhappy. I couldn’t get used to the way that they lived. One night everyone got horribly drunk, something that happened every night, and started singing songs in religious songs in French out of a song book they had stolen from some ship. Another day they decided to throw knives at one another and any man who flinched was labeled a coward. The more I grew to know them the more disgusted I grew with their company. The more disgusted I grew with them the more they mocked me for holding myself above them. Even the captain would join in their fun; indeed I believe he was the most rough and crude of them all.
There was a man who I grew to like some for all that I disliked the rest, he seemed more noble then the others, though he joined most of their rough fun. One night he sat beside me, mug in hand, while around us the others partied and joked.
“You’re not going to last long,” he told me. “To show them scorn and refuse their company is only to shorten your own life. At least pretend to join in, it will help and you will be less likely to be shot in sport.”
“I don’t think I could bring myself to join them. I am not here of my own free will after all.” The man laughed humorlessly.
“And you think that I am? I must thank you for the compliment. However I joined no more willingly then you did and have no wish to be a pirate. Still we will be hung just the same if we are caught. It makes no difference to the law that we were forced.” I had to admit that there was justice in what he said and when he offered me a mug of punch I accepted.
I won’t say that I grew to enjoy the life, but I grew used to it somewhat. I was no longer actively miserable anyway. The man that I spoke to that night I found to be named Alexander, and we soon became friends. He was popular with the crew and I, by being friends with him, while not becoming popular became at least tolerated. I was no longer the butt of all the jokes, but that didn’t mean I was accepted as a full member of the crew. Indeed I had no wish to be.
It was my job on the ship to check the casks of provisions, most of them stolen from other ships. It was the same job I had held on every other ship I had ever worked on and it wasn’t very hard work so I found much time on my hands. Much of this time I must say was spent in plotting to get away from the ship that I was on. I came up with a lot of crazy ideas that would have resulted in my death but I was smart enough not to carry through on any of them. I wanted to survive this and go on with my life on a legitimate ship, or maybe even on land. Coopers on land didn’t get as much money and there wasn’t as much of a demand for services but as this trip was proving it was safer to be on land.
The captain of the ship was named Edwards and he wasn’t a popular man. Pirate crews only desire plunder and a captain who doesn’t provide loot will soon grow to be disliked. Like the uncivilized people they are they do not chose a leader in a respectable fashion but rather elect him by popular opinion. In just such a way do they reserve the right to remove him from power should he displease. We hadn’t captured a single ship since the one that I had sailed on, which was a relief to me, but the crew began to get restless.
Edwards must have noticed the faith the crew had in him was dwindling. He had to do something or he would lose the privileges he enjoyed as captain. A diversion was decided upon. We would land on an island, inhabited by natives who cared not whether their visitors were pirates or the navy. The prospect of seeing land again livened the crew instantly, and I myself was overjoyed. To be on land was one important step closer to freedom then I had been in a long time. On land it was easier to slip away and find a place to hide until they would give up on me and leave without me. On islands such as the one they were speaking of landing on there would be no hardship in living until another, more respectable ship, would dock and I could be rescued.
When we landed on the island my plans for escape were postponed by the careening of the ship. I would have been missed instantly during that tedious task since I was forced to play carpenters mate, they having no better person to play the role. As soon as the careening was finished however they fell to celebrating with some of the local girls and grew so staggering drunk that I had no difficulty at all in slipping away. I wanted to say goodbye to Alexander but I knew that he would try to prevent me from leaving and might even feel compelled to raise alarm.
I had never been on a tropical island before, in the past I had only sailed ships that kept to the north. Everything was strange to me and as I ran from the pirate camp I grew more and more lost in my unfamiliar surroundings. It was night and there were strange sounds and sights that gave everything a nightmare like quality. By daylight even if I had wanted to return to the pirates I would have had no way to have done so. I was truly lost in a place like no other I have seen before or since, the deepest jungle.
It is a wonder that I survived to tell this story, I have heard since of people getting lost in the jungle and never being seen again. I thank providence every day for allowing me to live through the experience. I was determined not to shoot my gun, though I had one, because I was worried that it would give away where I was to the pirates. Instead I lived off of plants, trusting to luck and God to tell me which ones were edible and which weren’t. I fished a little when I went near water, and caught some fish that way. In other words I was always in danger of poisoning myself. Indeed I finally did, eating some plant; I don’t remember even what it looked like now, that I should not have. I thought I was going to die and it was only after great pain that I was able to move around again. I was still very weak but hunger drove me to go about and search for food. I couldn’t bring myself to try eating any plants again after my last experience, and came to the decision that it ought to be safe to use my gun. I had no way of telling how long it had been that I had been gone from the pirate camp but I could only assume that they had already left.
I was wrong, only an hour after I brought a bird with my gun the pirates descended on where I was in force. I was bound and gagged and they even set up a mock court to condemn me. I had no doubt what my fate was and was surprised that they didn’t shoot me on sight. It was only a postponement I was sure however. The only luck that I had was that I was resigned to my impending doom and therefore showed no fear when being led into the court they had made out of a clearing in the woods. The pirates took it as bravery which raised me in their esteem some, for there is nothing that they hold worse then cowardice. It is a crime that they frequently feel deserves a death penalty.
The judge that was presiding over the whole affair had perched himself in a tree above all of us and I was placed in front of him and tied to a tree so I couldn’t run away. The judge had been made a robe, out of some sail cloth, and the whole thing seemed very much a joke for everyone, except me of course. The gag was removed from my mouth and I was asked how I pleaded to the charge of deserting the crew. I was about to answer guilty and have done with it when Alexander stepped from the crowd.
“If we are going to do this like a trial,” he said, “we ought to do it right. The defendant must have a lawyer to defend him, I offer my services.” The others howled with laughter and another stepped from the crowd.
“Well in that case I will be the prosecutor, first time I’ve ever been on the right side of the law,” he joked. This brought another laugh and finally proceedings were allowed to continue. Alexander wouldn’t allow me to speak however; as I said he had grown friendly with me and wasn’t willing to allow me to throw my life away, which is what I had been prepared to do.
“Your honor,” he said in half jest to the man sitting in the tree. “You will not deny that all of us were drunk on the night that Mark disappeared, presumed deserted. Nothing could be farther then the truth however. We were all drunk, he simply wandered from camp while drunk and then couldn’t find his way back. There is no crime in that. He has never been in this part of the world before and it was dark, it was easy for him to get lost in the condition he was in.”
“Your honor,” said the persecuting lawyer, mimicking my self proclaimed lawyer’s behavior. “He seems mighty sure of his story, but he hasn’t even talked to Mark. He’s making it all up for sure.”
“That was only on example of what might have happened. I didn’t mean to say that it is what happened,” Alexander declared firmly. “I was merely stating that you are too quick to assume that he is at fault. So you sit around and you wait for the slaughter, I say let him have his say first.” To my surprise the men around the clearing cheering and looking like they agreed with Alexander. I had thought that I was lost but new hope sprang in my breast. It was as if Alexander was offering me life with every word he spoke.
“Let Mark say what he was doing,” the crowed shouted. I had the chance yet again to witness what I had observed before. Pirate crews were fickle, inconsistent, and easily influenced. Alexander gave me a strange look and then nodded to me.
“Go on and tell them what it was you were doing. You weren’t trying to escape from the crew were you?” he asked.
“I wasn’t trying to escape. Nor I must say, was I overly drunk that night, it is well known that I don’t drink in large amounts. I was only slightly under when I thought I heard a noise in the woods and I went to look,” I said thinking fast. If my story held then I would live and I suddenly found to my surprise that though I thought I was resigned to my death I really wanted to survive this ordeal. That meant that I had to come up with a story that was different from the one Alexander had thought up at first but still made me innocent enough that I wouldn’t be shot. “It would be of less of an embarrassment had I been drunk since I did indeed get lost as soon as I left the sight of the fire light. I wandered for a long time but to no avail.”
“Is this true?” asked the man who was the mock judge.
“I have said nothing but the truth,” I assured him and I could see the audience swayed by my earnest lies. Even the man who was pretending to be prosecutor looked as if he half believed in my innocence. Then unfortunately the captain stepped forward. I had rarely seen Edwards sober and so I had never realized that he was truly a smart man, but he quickly showed that he was.
“I wonder that you didn’t shoot your gun before you did, we would have found you then,” he said. He glared at me and my confidence was destroyed. He knew that I was lying and there was no way to escape. That isn’t to say that I did not try.
“I did not think you would rescue me if I shot the gun, I am not one of the popular members of this crew and didn’t think to shoot before. Even when I did I did it on a chance rather then in faith that I would rescued,” I said. Even as I said it I knew I wasn’t making much sense. My lost confidence had also lost me my eloquence.
“It must have been difficult to get food without shooting, unless of course you were hiding from something,” I knew that I was trapped and the men around had started to demand my demise again. I wanted nothing more now then to get it over with and hope that they didn’t torture me. I had heard stories before about what pirates could do when they were angry with someone.
“I tell you that Mark didn’t run away, nor did he have any intention of doing so. He has told you what it was that he was doing while he was missing.”
“Yeah and we don’t believe you or him, shoot him,” shouted one man in the audience.
“I don’t think we can win,” I told Alexander. I expected him to abandon me and allow them to do what ever they liked to me. He was going to go down with me if he continued to side with me. If I had learned anything in my short time on the ship it was that reputation and public opinion of one was very important on board. Alexander surprised me again however. This time he took out a pistol from his belt. I will say that first thought was that he had decided to head the advice of the crowd and shoot me where I was bound to the tree. I only gave him the kindest thoughts however, thinking he either had decided, reasonably that I wasn’t worth risking his life for, or that he had decided it was better to kill me quickly himself. The pistol wasn’t pointed at me however.
“I have tried to be reasonable about this,” Alexander told the audience with the pistol pointed at them. “The first man who goes for his gun to shoot Mark will be shot himself. Does anyone want to try it?”
The men around us fell silent for a short time and then slowly they backed down. I have no doubt that Alexander meant what he said. Rather then have an actual confrontation everyone just sort of disappeared. Alexander was popular enough that no one desired to shoot him nor did they seem to want to kill me enough to cause a fight with him. That left him to unbind me. We didn’t say anything to one another, though I suppose that I ought to have thanked the savior of my life. I returned to the ship without a comment since I knew that it would have caused him difficulties had I not and I consider that thanks enough.
That incident took away the crews’ task for island sport. Nothing more was said of it but we sailed shortly afterwards. Alexander was just as popular as ever with the crew but I might as well have not existed for all the attention they gave me and I was thankful of it. I did my work on the casks and they made no comment. Alexander even kept away from me, most likely frightened of what would come of him if he showed himself friendly with me.
We continued to not capture any ships, though we sailed long and far. Our ship was plagued by bad luck and even I began to wish that we would meet with another ship as we had been put on rations for the first time since I had been with the crew. No longer were we able to eat as much as we liked, and water had grown very dirty and scarce. I dreaded what I might be forced to do should we meet another ship, I could not afford to anger the crew any further, but I would be thankful for the food.
As things grew worse day by day the crew again grew angry and restless. Finally one day they gathered on deck, with Alexander at their head, and demanded that the captain step down from his position. This he was forced to do, as I have stated before captains are subject to popular opinion in the most disgusting way. Then it came up to who would replace Edwards.
To be continued...
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