The tavern was alive with vigor, for the swash-bucklers had mead to drink and grub to eat. They clinked their mugs and shoveled down meat while they sang A Pirate’s Life For Me. Some were already passed out on the tables, while others circulated in and out to piss or puke. All but ole’ Captain Avery were cheery. He just sat there in his corner with a loaded pistol and an unfinished brew. Retirement didn’t come easily to a career buccaneer. The governor had been paid handsomely to fake his death. Avery had even given up his flagship, the Fancy, to present to the king as a symbol of his alleged demise. Avery just hadn’t processed the idea of retirement ‘till now though. He felt trapped and unamused, and eventually grabbed up his pistol and stepped outside when he couldn’t stand the racket any longer.
The sea breeze hit him immediately and he envisioned himself at the helm of his ship, a master and commander. “Prepare raiding parties!” he had chanted, just two weeks prior. He jumped off the tavern porch and landed on the hard ground. It lacked the satisfying shift of sand or the creak of deck boards.
A fortnight had passed since the greatest haul of their careers. It was an unremarkable Spanish galley, just one in a fleet of equally common ships, but that had made the ruse all the more clever. It had certainly fooled Avery and Barnes. The Spanish crew were navy men, and fierce ones at that. What had been a routine raid for supplies, had quickly turned into a fight for their lives as angry armed men poured out of the hull by the dozens. When the musket smoke had finally cleared, Avery was the first to descend below deck on the Spanish galley to see what the fuss was all about. Silver. Barrels and barrels of raw Latin silver.
His first mate Barnes had been the one to convince him to broker a pardon with the local British governor. Said to do it for the sake of the crew, and consider themselves lucky enough to end their lawless days. Retire rich and free. That reckoning hadn’t sat well with most of them though, as “privateering” had been the only life they had ever known or loved. So with their shares of silver in hand, half the bastards had deserted at the first port they landed at, to continue their lives, albeit to a more lavish degree. They were the smart ones.
It still bothered him that Barnes had disappeared after the first night, probably off to marry some lass he had fancied over the years and to settle down. The crew had been everything to the old captain, and the loss of the man he had thought to be his best friend often gave Avery too much to think about in a place where there was too little to do. “He’ll have a family, and what’ll I? The whores? The drunken leftovers of my crew?”
Avery wandered down the street and reminisced of past thrills and near-death experiences, until he happened upon the town marina. The Royal Navy had left a lone schooner stationed there along with two guards who were evidently far more concerned with a card game than watching their ship. A fair breeze began to roll across the bay and Avery mused over the situation for several moments, until a smile crossed his face and he could no longer resist.
"It's a pirate's life for me!" he sang for years and then on.
Comments