Captain James Hardy

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.