Author’s Note: Hope you’re ready for a good one, friend…

Warning: This is not a pirate story.

I hope you weren’t expecting the usual! The name of the tale is “Privateer”, a story about a young English lass who joins a crew of rebel sailors and watches her life change on the sea. If you read the story the first time it was up, welcome back! If this your first time aboard…leave me a note, won’t you:-) D.G.

---

I could not keep myself from thanking God as the slim ship Lucretia pulled away from the Portuguese port, and I upon her solid frame. A funny name for a military vessel, I thought, the Lucretia. She could be called the “Rusty Bucket” for all I could care at that moment, because I would soon be home safe in England, speaking my language to men of my race, and that was all I think of in a chorus of thanks to the Lord.

The nightmarish scenes from the past six weeks of my life seemed to be fading away like the shadows of the port. While I related to Mr. McCoy, the first mate who I had thrown myself at on the dock, the story of how I came to be so far from home, it felt as if I were telling a poorly written fairy tale.

“I was engaged to a seemingly perfect man,” I began, leaving out all romantic details, for in all his generosity, Mr. McCoy was a stranger. At these words, he laughed slightly. “He was so sure of a seemingly perfect business in Sagres that would give us an aristocratic wealth.” I heard the bitterness in my own words, but my heart had not been hurt as much as my pride in the entire ordeal. “Well, we came and tried to organize our funds, but it seems as if things weren’t quite all settled. Richard couldn’t even afford the marriage certificate; everything including my dowry was lost.”

“That’s a sorry tale, Miss,” Mr. McCoy had sighed while I wiped my wet cheeks. I had gotten a little hysterical on the docks, but I was desperate. Richard was already making plans to leave the country, and I knew I was not included in them. I had to find any way home. Penniless, friendless, and close to hopeless, I had seen Mr. McCoy walking in his faded British coat. His hair was fair and red, with pale blue eyes like my father’s. I knew instantly he had been a God-send when I heard his perfect English in replies to my plea.

“I don’t believe there’s anyone sorrier than I at this moment,” I mumbled, hugging myself with the coarse woolen blanket they had given me around my shoulders. “I almost hate to tell my parents when I return to London.” He smiled again, which I found very strange, both in its appearance and timing. The entire crew of the Lucretia had been so kind to me; I wouldn’t let anything about them worry me. I hid whatever reservations I had about that moment behind the cup they had given me. I say the entire crew, but Mr. McCoy had been the only mate I had actually met. He mentioned the men who were giving up their room to me and of course, Captain Brickham. I would write a letter to the governor myself and have Captain Brickham promoted. I would sacrifice my own self-respect by telling the whole story of how I was abandoned in Portugal and then rescued by the wonderful Captain Brickham and his crew.

“I may relieve you in that matter, Miss,” Mr. McCoy replied in his warm voice, although that strangeness had settled in his eyes. “We won’t be going to London.” I suppose I was so mixed in emotions that I assumed he meant we wouldn’t be going to London first. The First Mate excused himself for a moment to check something on deck, and when I asked him after he had returned when we would reach England again, I learned the horrid truth of the matter.

“We won’t be going to England, Miss Dover,” he repeated calmly while doing something nautical with a thick rope. It was cold, the blanket I had was beginning to itch, and the darkness that had settled on the floor of the Lucretia made it seem abandoned. All of this strangeness overwhelmed me in the hollowness of Mr. McCoy’s answer.

“You must dock at England when you finish your campaign,” I half-laughed. He did not smile. “The rest of the British Navy will think you have been captured by pirates if you don’t report to your superior.” Mr. McCoy suddenly burst into a wild peal of laughter that seemed to shake the entire ship; it made me shiver as the sea wind rushed over the planks.

“Miss Dover, you are quite the charm.”

“I thank you,” I muttered, confused, “but you have not answered my question.”

“Yes, I have,” he gruffly argued. “We will not be going to England, Miss Dover, because this ship has no superior. You are on a pirate ship, my dear. There is no telling where we will be docking next, but it certainly will not be any where near the British Navy.” He began to laugh again, probably at the completely stunned expression on my already reddened face, and returned to his work as if he had played a fairly good joke. I wanted to believe it was a joke, but the only trick I saw was how I had convinced myself I was safe. Mr. McCoy finished his work under the mast and started to walk across the deck. I followed, feeling as if I had been dropped into the ocean.

“You brought me aboard under the Citizen Code,” I cried. “If you were not obligated as an officer to offer a legitimate British citizen a safe journey home—“

“Yes, you mentioned this Code,” Mr. McCoy interrupted, “before witnesses that believed our ship was a military ship. If I were to kindly decline on account of being a renegade privateer, that wouldn’t have been too convincing.”

“You lied, then!” I gasped.

“It wouldn’t be the worse thing I’ve done, Miss,” he haughtily answered. I stood in the center of the lower deck, feeling as if I were standing next to Richard in the bank office back in Sagres: humiliated. Cold tears began to run from my eyes again—I would never see home again. Pirates, my mind echoed emptily. What would become of me? I should have stayed in Portugal. Richard was a cad, but he was an honest cad. These men were criminals. Mr. McCoy no longer looked like my father but a man who couldn’t be trusted. “Why don’t you go back below, Miss Dover,” Mr. McCoy suggested as if nothing had changed. “It’s going to be cold, and you’ve had quite a day.”

“I wish to see Captain Brickham,” I asked. “If I must bargain for my life, I wish to do it as soon as possible.” I had no idea if my life was in danger, but seeing as I was not a sailor and had confessed to being poor, there was no reason for them to keep me alive. Whatever reason there could be, my mind was afraid to discover.

“That won’t be necessary,” Mr. McCoy chuckled while ushering me to the room I had been given. “Captain Brickham isn’t in the habit of killing runaway brides.”

“I fear to imagine what the habit of most pirates may be,” I shuddered before the door was closed behind me.

“Captain Brickham isn’t most pirates.”

That somewhat jesting response was the only hint I had to my fate aboard the Lucretia.