Captain James Hardy http://www.tdcooperbooks.com
Captain James Hardy, a striking man with an evil heart,
and devilish blue eyes stood in full view
of his crew on the fo’csle. He brandished
a pistol in his right hand and chugged
from a bottle of rum in his left. His dark matted hair and full chin of whiskers dripped with ocean spray. The night
before a member of his crew had betrayed
him. Captain Hardy was determined to discover the traitorous pirate and send
him to the bottom of the Caribbean Sea where he deserved to float.
“Crewman, secure that sheet… Quartermaster,
heading is north by northwest… Brady, tend to the nest!” he shouted out orders.
Hardy watched as Gunner Brady climbed through the
rigging and up the mainmast to the crow’s nest. His mind flashed back to the
day he met the young Brady.
Trevor Brady had arranged an evening of excellent food, drink, and the company of a
female. It had been an enjoyable evening
but ended unfortunately. How was the
Captain to know that the girl meant something unique
to the lad?
Brady had reacted to the news of her death as expected,
with tears and slobber. After all, he was a boy of fifteen, but he emerged strong and committed to Hardy and the
Stephanie. Hardy rewarded Brady with his personal, prized, ruby-studded dagger. The same one he’d used to kill the girl, and a coveted position on the Stephanie. He’d even taken
Brady under his wing and taught him how to defend himself. In return, Brady had
risen through the ranks to the gunner,
fifth in line to the captain. Also, Hardy
had trusted him with the ledger, where Brady divided the bounty for the crew
and officers.
“No way Brady betrays me, but he’d been aboard the
Stephanie when the girl was brought here tonight. My most trusted servant, surely,
he wouldn’t commit mutiny against me!” the Captain swore.
The Stephanie rocked back
and forth on the growing ocean swell. Hardy swayed from drink and anger. He wasn’t
new to betrayal, but this was a crewmember, someone he had handpicked and
brought aboard his ship… Someone James
trusted with his life.
“Boy, bring me a new bottle… Now!” Hardy shouted at
the Cabin Boy.
“Aye, sir!” the youngest member of the crew replied
and ran to the Captain's quarters on the
poop-deck.
“The Kings Navy will be pursuing, soon! All hands on
deck?”
“My deceiver
could not also be my Gunner,” Hardy muttered staring up at Brady in the nest. “Or
could he? Old wounds…”
“Quartermaster Rogers, north by northwest,” Hardy
shouted, wondering why the course correction hadn’t been made.
“Aye, aye, Captain… Captain, do you see the storm
building on the horizon?” the Quartermaster asked.
“Do you dare question your captain?” Hardy sneered,
turning up the bottle of rum, and guzzling it.
“No sir,” the Quartermaster
said, making the necessary adjustment.
Hardy swallowed another big gulp of rum and recalled
the days of his youth, including the betrayals. It began with the whore that
birthed him and deposited his bloody body in a garbage heap in downtown London.
A night watchman heard his cries and handed him over to the local orphanage.
James spent the next ten years cleaning floors of the
institution and serving royalty in every capacity for which the orphanage was
paid handsomely for his services.
One night while the duke slept James thrust a knife
from the food cart deep into the man’s chest and escaped into the streets.
There he learned to lie, steal, and kill
to survive. By the time, he’d reached the age of fifteen he’d made the streets
his home, saving, befriending, or rescuing other young boys that shared his
fate. They formed a gang with Hardy as their leader.
One night, James found himself in the company of a
royal of France; he was looking to hire captains to sail under France’s colors
as buccaneers. Hardy took his street urchins and a few other seasoned sailors
and boarded the Stephanie. They became a feared pirate ship, navigating the
crystal blue waters of the Caribbean, where they raped, pillaged, and murdered,
never returning to France. Everyone aboard owed him a debt, so who had betrayed
him? Brady’s face appeared in his subconscious every
time he asked the question.
“Quartermaster, did I not put you in charge of my
prized treasure this evening?” Hardy shouted.
“Aye, sir.”
“How did you let her escape?”
“Captain, I still have the key here in my pocket, the
door to your cabin is still locked, and I never left the poop-deck,” the
Quartermaster explained. “She just disappeared.” He shrugged.
“How would you know? She could have stepped right over
you, and you’d never have known because you
were passed out, drunk in front of her door.”
“No one was here except Gunner Brady and me,” the Quartermaster said.
Hardy growled.
“Ship Ahoy!” Brady shouted down to the captain.
“Quartermaster, pull in these sheets and sail into
that storm,” Hardy shouted.
The sea churned, and
the rain pummeled the deck. Lightning flashed, and
thunder roared as Hardy watched Brady sway precariously in the crow’s nest
sixty feet off the deck. He motioned for
Brady to return to the deck as the sea
swell increased and the ship pursuing them grew closer. He needed Brady to operate
the cannons below deck if the King’s Navy caught them in this storm.
“Quartermaster, never betray me again!” Hardy bellowed.
The lightning flashed, and
a loud pop echoed before the thunder clapped. Quartermaster Rogers fell to the
deck, dead. Hardy threw the single shot pistol across the fo’csle and staggered to the rails edge.
“This is going to be one hell of a storm!” he muttered
to himself. “Lower the sheets and make ready to fight!” he shouted out orders.
The waves broke over the rails, and the sheets
whipped loosely in the wind. Crewmen roped themselves to any solid object to keep
from being swept overboard. The darkening skies left
the Stephanie without visual contact with the pursuing Navy or the hazards of
the sea.
In the distance, a deafening rumble echoed, but before the Captain
could determine the direction, the
Stephanie crunched into a towering stone and Brady
was washed overboard into the violent, churning Caribbean Sea.
Hardy threw his empty bottle in the
same direction. “Two traitors have been taken care of tonight,” he said grinning.
The next thing Hardy saw was a giant wave cresting over the Stephanie’s mainmast,
and the entire crew swept into the sea.
