The Master of Budding-Bright Hall Shorts: A Sailor’s Life

“Get this wreckage off my decks and Hansen, take some men aloft and see to them sails… Bobs, you take a party to splice that sheet. This tub ain’t going nowhere fast if I can’t put a strain on that mast.”

“The prisoners captain” Milo Finn interrupted “There be twenty fit for duty on the Scar, if you’ll have them, but I don’t like the looks of a one of them and would toss them over the side. They’ll be nothing but trouble, mark me, and we need salts as can be counted on.”

“Now Milo, don’t be so hard on the lads. Everybody deserves a chance. I give you a chance, didn’t I? And you ain’t let me down since you signed aboard.” Captain Manning said, turning to see the prisoners.

“And what a fine looking group of pretties, you are too.” He sneered at the beaten men, a collection of merchant sailors and new hands who had fitted out for some sort of adventure and wandered right into a war instead. Still, some of them looked proper salts and in his many years at sea Jack Manning had turned many a green lad into aa loyal shipmate. Milo was one of those boys and now he was about to be appointed a prize captain for this very ship, the Price Glory. Good name, good ship and taken without much damage. She could be fitted out for duty and make a second ship for his squadron. This war would see him sitting pretty, before long, if it lasted long enough that is. “Bring me up the officers. He shouted and two men were dragged forward by four of his own and thrown down at his feet.

“Get up, get up damn you. Act like men!” Manning said with polished theatrics. “These boys fought for you and here you are acting like dogs! Disgraceful!” He hauled up the younger of the two, who was too clean in the wake of a battle and whose hands saw no sign of hard labor and toil. “Ship’s navigator by the looks of him, or maybe the surgeon.” Milo said, “Found him hiding below decks in the stores.”

“Hiding? Hiding while men died for your ship?” Captain Manning shouted, in fine form. “What kind of man don’t fight for his mates? You the surgeon, some noble snot just along for the sea air? Speak!”

“I... I’m the ship’s load master, my family sent me to see the cargo fetched a good profit.” The boy moaned. “I wish I’d stayed home, I didn’t come along to fight pirates.”

“Pirates?” Manning growled. “Better pirate than coward! I ought to run you through myself for that or turn you over to the men you betrayed!” he roared, but then leaning in closer he whispered “Unless you’re worth something to someone. Anybody back home willing to ransom you boy? Tell me quick, or I’ll gut you here and now. Will you fetch me some gold?”

“My father will pay.” The poor boy whispered back. “Please” he said louder.

“Please, is it?” Captain Manning sneered, “Well so be it! Never let it be said that Jack Manning ain’t merciful and just.” At that he grabbed the boy roughly by his arm and tossed him to the men who had hauled him up there. “Take this one onboard the Scar, he can work a slave detail until I find a better use for him, or grow tired of the sight of him. You want to see that cargo fetch a good profit? You’ll live long enough to hear how much it fetched, though you’ll see no share. Shares ain’t for slaves, only crew earns a share of any booty or bounty took.” And with that the lad was dragged wailing over to the Scar where he was never seen again by his former shipmates.

                Next up they tossed Captain Manning the other prisoner, but this one was a proper officer, first mate of the Price Glory, a man by the name of Ted Wooley and he wasn’t to be trifled with, had fought hard, led his crew proper and had the wounds to prove it. His men trusted him, looked up to him and he wasn’t likely to play the role Captain Manning wanted him to play. Manning needed a sniveling beaten man, and Wooley was anything but that. No matter, Jack Manning could adapt. Quick as a lightning bolt Manning had his knife out and it slashed across Ted Wooley’s throat before he could say a word. Wooley fell back dead, but Manning now had something he could use from the First Mate.

“There was a brave man.” Captain Manning pronounced. Pick him up gently boys and ease him over the side with dignity. At that point he turned his back on the scene to face the twenty shocked surviving crew of the Price Glory while Jack’s men did anything but what he had said so solemnly. They grabbed at the body, looted his pockets and checked his mouth for gold teeth, then they kicked the corpse to the rail, hauled him over the side and walked off laughing as the body hit the water. All the while Jack Manning was talking to the crew, but few of them had focused on what he was saying until after the brutal scene behind him was played out. Now they were all eyes and ears on Captain Manning, who seemed to be repeating some offer he might have already spoken. “Well then, what say you all?”

Jack Manning was waiting. “Well? Make your choice men! Will you ship out as crew on the Scar? Share in her prizes and fight with your mates, or will you join your officers? Be sold as slaves for the duke’s mines, or meet the fate of that Mate? The choice is yours. I have no time more to waste, for I must be away and any a man who doesn’t sign papers and swear the accord to Scar’s Company will be left behind on this deck to either slavery or death, I care not either.” And with that Captain Manning moved off and swung back over the side to his ship while the dead and wounded were thrown overboard.

“Right, you lily-livered scum, what’s it going to be? You heard the Captain.” Shouted Captain Finn. “This here is my ship now and I ain’t as generous or patient a man as our good Captain Manning. Stay here and like as not you’re dead before we sight land. But you make your mark and joint our crew, then you can leave these cursed decks for the Scar before she sets sail. Maybe you’ll live to be sold as slaves, but you’ll never get home, never see anyone you love again, never be free until they cover with clay or toss you overboard.” At this Milo motioned Scar’s Quartermaster forward who had a small table set and took out the ship’s articles and ink. “Hear me now, you sign up as crew for just five years and you’ll all go home rich men. The choice is yours; I’m done talking. Stay with this ship and like as not you may never make it to port, for as I stand here, I don’t like the look of any of you and don’t think you’re worth the bother of the slaver’s whip. Mark me now, here you’re more likely to be fish food before nightfall!”

                All but two signed papers right away, and Milo, true to his word, gave no second chances. He had the others moved off to the rail, ready to swing over to the Scar, but the two who couldn’t bring themselves to join, he ran through himself and had the corpses join their First Mate and the other dead. It was the last sober lesson the eighteen new crew were to learn from the Price Glory, because the Quartermaster ordered them over the side to Scar and those of Scar’s original company hurried them along before they could think or mourn their old shipmates. Everyone left aboard now was part of Milo’s prize crew and had they their hands full and their work cut out for them, because there was still work to be done before the Price Glory could be called ship shape again. In maybe a fortnight, maybe less with luck, they would strike the coast somewhere well south of Brenhaven and offload their cargo, refit, take on new hands and then come back to join the Scar. That was, of course, many weeks away and until they returned, Captain Manning would be short crewed. Such was the nature of this business. Milo had seen his fair share of prize crews sail off to leave them shorthanded before and the Manning’s Scar always managed, but seeing her sail off that way, down more than half the crew already, gave him a peculiar feeling and put him ill at ease for several days to come.

                Back on the Scar, the new recruits divided and bullied to their stations, Captain Manning was also ill at ease and for the same reasons. It was a gamble leaving his ship with less than a hundred onboard and not all of them his best in foul weather or a fight, but the Price Glory was too good a prize to burn. Burning was the game, and he was under orders to burn them right within sight of Brenhaven anyway, so he’d have to be a bit more ruthless for the rest of this patrol. That wouldn’t sit well with the crew, because they’d counted looting, booty and prize money as their rights and while the duke was paying for them to bottle up the Brenhaven ports, he was a cheap one and didn’t pay half enough to keep a salt happy. These things ran through Jack Manning’s head, but he had more practical concerns to deal with too, so it was best to put the prize money out of everyone’s thoughts with a quick lie and a double ration of liquor. He called the crew to the deck and swore that he would give each man a bonus for every ship the helped send to the bottom until the rest of their own ships returned. He swore he gave Milo direct orders to bring back the bonus money the duke had promised for the crew and the passed out his double ration of drink to the men as a toast to the duke.

“Get the men back to their stations and let go them sails. Wheel, bring us about, North Northwest.” Manning ordered. “Senior mates to the aft deck rail, all others look sharp. There’s work to be done!”

“We moving close to the city again, Captain?” the Quartermaster asked. “Bad business for the crew.”

“We’ve gone through this before, had them fighting further to sea, but a job’s a job and our job is to make sure Brenhaven sees us cut them off, make them pay, make them suffer” Manning snapped.

                That put an end to any further debate on the matter. Like it or not, crewed by men from the basin or not, they had contracted a job and signed papers. Every one of them signed and you didn’t break an accord and you didn’t cross the Dabrova. They were in it until the end, so the sooner Brenhaven was starved out the better and maybe the less harm done by getting it over with all the faster. Scar swung about as she answered to the wheel and the deck moved comfortably under foot. Manning went over the return to their orders, burning and sinking of all ships approaching Brenhaven, with crew aboard. He had modified the orders once the fast merchantman Mary’s Star fell into his hands and now, he had Price Glory, a three ship squadron and a proper command, but that was enough. The whole point wasn’t about ship prizes and profits with the Duke of Dabrova, it was about revenge, and he meant to do that by fear and starvation. Jack Manning was out here for just such a purpose, though he could barely stomach the idea for low wages. He and a few others were to bottle up the harbor and when possible, to take and sink ships withing sight of those ashore. That, they were told, would take the heart and the fight out of the human towns and force them to surrender to Dabrova’s elves.

“Ship approaching!” the lookout shouted down and everyone shook themselves from their thoughts.

“Where away?!” Bud Meese, the 3rd Mate shouted back.

“Two points off the port, aft!” came the call, in return.

“Glass!” Manning shouted, “Someone fetch me my glass. I can’t see a damned thing in the haze.

                Eyes strained. There was something out there, just over the horizon and moving at speed, but none of them could make it out clearly for the deck below. Up in the rigging things weren’t much better as every eye seemed to see things differently. “A white ship!” shouted one, and “There’s something strange about her.” Called another. “It, it looks like the masts are swinging like oars!” called a third, and all the while those standing with Manning tried to make sense out of the haze. Something was out there, just on the edge of seeing. Something was moving fast and there was all manner of motion and shifting off the foggy horizon. It was maddening, but finally the glass came up and Manning had a look proper. He peered an eye and then quickly brought the glass away, looked again and then all but dropped the thing. By now, and against all reason, the ship, if ship it was, had gained on them and this with Scar well set to canvas. With a third of the distance between them crossed you would have thought that the ship would be clearer to the eye, but the haze which had obscured her on the horizon seemed to follow her and keep them from getting a good fix on the approaching vessel. Manning passed the glass to Bud Meese who couldn’t make his mind and eyes tell him anything that made sense in the waking world, because while some saw an odd white ship with shimmering sails and others a shimmering hull with sails spinning about their masts, tornado-like, what Bud saw was a giant swan.

“Whatever she is, at this rate she’ll be on us in an hour.” The Quartermaster said and Bud thought better than to say they were being approached by the mother of all angry swans. He handed the older salt the glass and he too had to look a times before his brain caught up with him. “Is that?” he started, but then he shook his head and peered again, hard and focusing. “It an elf ship, maybe fairy built. I seen them once, merchantmen, huge buggers, grain carriers if I recall right.”

“If she’s a grain carrier, then let’s take her.” Bud said, optimistically.

“Aye, if she’s carrying grain, but what if they’re troops for the siege, she can hold a thousand men and her normal crew is twice our number even if her cargo is grain.” The Quartermaster said bluntly.

“Well, she’ll be in range of our war engines come next bell, we can just sink her.” Bud insisted, but the captain made short work of the debate once again. “Belay that talk!” Manning hissed. “That’s a Fairy ship and if there’s a single Fay on her then you might already have been heard and either way if we dare fire on that ship, she can reach out even from here and swat us like a fly.”

                Everyone had been stunned into silence, but time hadn’t stood still, men were still shouting, ordered and control were needed. The officers were shaken, but the men couldn’t see that. It was at times like these that Captain Jack Manning could show his metal. He had the horn sounded and the drummer beat to quarters. Men scrambled up and down the rigging and ladders, pipes called out and all the shouting now came from those men the others looked to for strength and focus. This was the start of nearly every fight they had been in, had practiced so often it was second nature, and the very routine of it all put the crew back at ease. Manning was in his element, directing the ship from the rail and it was no surprise when he ordered the ship to come about. Manning wouldn’t let Scar be chased so, but what followed wasn’t routine, or second nature for Manning’s crew.

“Set sail and a new course due south and away from the harbor!” he ordered. “Look lively, she’s coming up on us too fast and we dare not be in her way when she gets here.” Once more the crew were just standing about and unsure of themselves.” “Make haste you lubbers!” Bud yelled, breaking the spell. “You heard the captain! We need to give that one a wide berth.”

Not another word was heard, or question raised as the Thailian Swan Ship grew ever larger, ever more quickly off to port. Soon they put her approach aft of them, but they were still too close for comfort when the Thailian crossed her stern and sailed on unopposed for Brenhaven, ignoring the Scar.

On that massive steel ship with her whirligigs for sails and her misty illusion that constantly tried to trick your brain into seeing a real giant swan instead of what she was. And who can blame your head for wanting to accept the swan over the steel behemoth, because at least a swan, even one beyond all proportions, was still somehow more natural than that metal monster that passed astern.

The scale of the thing was difficult to fathom for the seamen on the Scar. Up close as she sailed along, powered by what only the gods might know, for her sails, if sails they even were, were nothing more than metal fins whirling by some infernal means about impossibly thick and tall metal masts, the hull rose to dizzying heights above Scar and her length was longer than any ten ships any of them had ever seen. All about the decks were elves, men and other creatures, going about their business and largely ignoring the menace of Scar altogether. And there were definitely fairies aboard, two of which were Fay, by the look of them, must have been ten feet high, standing casually atop the deckhouse, dwarfing all the others, pointing at Scar and chatting to themselves as if out on holiday.  Maybe to them they were, for surely now no one doubted that Captain Manning was correct to turn tail; Scar would never had stood a chance. On the Swan ship’s decks, one could just see what must have been a dozen war machines and cranes, each as tall as Scar stood out of the water, with a range if size difference could be the judge, of five times anything Scar carried. Then too the salts recalled the long night stories told to young boys about the magic of the Fay being sufficient to sink a ship without anything more than a thought and a wave of the hand. Scar cracked on all the sails she could manage and continued south, outmatched, out maneuvered and outclassed but at least still alive, thanks to Good Old Jack Manning.