#15 The Red X
The red X, an omen of doom, the portent of down-right shitty...shit. It struck fear in the hearts of even the most courageous men. The mere thought of the red X was wholly capable of sending even the bravest of souls into a catatonic stupor. It plagued men's dreams like a wailing banshee. Women would weep, men would gnash their teeth, and children would scream in horror. Actually, it was more of an orangish hue...but that's beside the point; and to be quite frank, recollections of the red X are usually accompanied by laughter. But this is a pirate tale and as such, I have chosen to depict the red X as a most vile symbol. The idea of a light-hearted pirate tale enervates me to an egregious extent. Alas, I digress.
The red X first appeared on May 12th 1743. "Red Sunday" it would later be called. Samuel Boothe of Brighton, a small fishing village in Southern England, had become rather inebriated on that fateful evening after consuming copious volumes of ale in the local pub. Young Sam had recently been dissed by a chick he was hot for. Thus on this particular evening, he was engaged in the task of getting hopelessly horse-faced. Poor Sam had made the unfortunate mistake of spilling a tumbler of ale into the lap of the stranger sitting next to him. The fellow's trousers were thoroughly soaked and he was not the agreeable sort of chap. Sam, being the conscientious lad that he was, apologized repeatedly and ordered the fellow another drink.
Sam's gestures made no difference to the stranger who, as it turns out, was the captain of a small French pirate ship that had been careening aimlessly about the channel pilfering fishing boats. I must emphasize the word "pilfering" for the pirate captain's crimes were theretofore of such diminutive magnitude, that he had failed to secure the notoriety that he so desperately longed for. Needless to say, said captain was suffering from insecurities that manifested themselves in Mr. captain's marked propensity for over-reaction and uber-violent behavior. Sam, Lord love him, was oblivious to this bit of information and so he was a bit startled by the stranger's outburst.
The captain made such a fuss that the entire pub grew silent as everyone's attention turned to him. Now, Sam was a sizeable lad and he was more than capable of defending himself, with or without his mates. The captain had noted this and had thus made the wise choice not to get physical with big Sam. His fury he instead chose to project verbally and this manifested itself in an endless trail of broken English and French profanity, much of which was, more or less, aimed at insulting Sam's mother.
Now, Sam was a polite and attentive fellow and he focused intently on the captain's convoluted blabbing. He was more than a little confused but when he heard the word "mother" followed closely by the word "pig" in the torrent of French expletives, he had a fair idea of what was going down. Sam, like all good lads, loved his Ma dearly and never took kindly to those who insulted her. "That'll do, you greasy Franco bastard you!" Sam shouted before punching the captain in the gut. The captain crumpled to the floor and remained there for several minutes whilst Sam returned to the task of getting tanked.
The captain eventually managed to stand and he gave Sam a dirty look before storming out of the pub. Sam continued to drink late into the evening until he lost consciousness. The bartender, who was a friend of Sam and his family, closed the pub that evening but allowed Sam to sleep in one of the booths until morning.
Meanwhile, the captain, after departing from the pub, had made his way swiftly to the dinghy that he had moored at the wharves. Here he discovered that two of his crewmen had busied themselves with the task of loading a barrel of stolen ale into the small wooden vessel. The crewmen, who had already consumed a fair portion of ale themselves, had failed to take into account the barrel's weight and had succeeded in dropping the container through the floor of the boat. In seconds, both the boat and the barrel were on the bottom of the harbor.
Now the captain's rebuke was both foul and verbose. Had he his rapier or pistols, he would certainly have provided the two lads with swift and abundantly painful deaths. But the captain, being French, had not bothered to collect his instruments of carnage before leaving the ketch earlier that day. At the apogee of his rage, however, the captain smashed an empty wine bottle and collected the treacherous fragments. He had intended to use these poorly crafted weapons to slit the throats of his inebriated minions but had succeeded only in slicing his hands to ribbons. The lads fled the wharves, leaving the captain alone, cursing, and bleeding profusely.
The captain removed his white handkerchief from his pocket with the intent to bandage his butchered mits. He paused and studied the white silk handkerchief and then proceeded to draw a large red "x" on it with the blood that dripped from his wounds. He then stood and admired his work and bandaged his wounds using the cloth from his shirt.
Armed with his newly decorated kerchief and the lust for vengeance, the spurious captain removed his boots and dove into the channel and swam out to the ketch. Once onboard, the captain ran the red "x" handkerchief up the mainmast and let it fly like a flag. The captain, who was now without crew, weighed anchor and sailed the ketch straight back to the wharves.
Meanwhile, back at the pub, Sam awoke from his drunken slumber, alone and disoriented. He arose and staggered outside into the moonlit, cobblestone street. It was a glorious evening and Sam, took this into account and decided to head down to the wharves and smoke a bowl or two under the stars. Sam fetched his pipe from the pocket of his vest and stuffed it with tobacco as he walked. He paused next to a pile of barrels and crates to strike a match* and light the pipe. The match he then tossed aside absent mindedly.
Sam was greeted at the wharves by the smell of manila rope and creosote. He paused just long enough to blow a couple of smoke rings before smiling to himself and continuing his stroll through the wharves. A thick fog had descended on the harbour, one could barely make out the ghostly masts that protruded from the mist-covered water. The sound of gentle waves lapping at the barnacle encrusted columns was a soothing one. The creaking of rope moorings and the whistling of the breeze in the rigging generated a stochastic and yet enchanting symphony. Sam puffed eagerly at his pipe as he meandered through canyons of barrels, ropes, nets, and crates. The crunching of broken glass underfoot, drew his eyes downward. Sam was delighted to discover a very mint pair of black leather boots. Sam paced thoughtfully around the boots, admiring the exquisite craftsmanship.
"I shall have these magnificent boots," Sam declared aloud. No sooner had he knelt to collect the shiny boots than he heard an oddly familiar voice screaming irately from somewhere out on the channel. Sam righted himself and squinted as he strained and surveyed the mist-covered waters. The voice was growing louder at an astonishing rate. "Whoever this raving lunatic is, he's converging on my location at an alarming rate," Sam thought to himself.
The captain's rage had abducted his better judgment and confined it in the remotest regions of his being and now he was sailing madly at a beam reach on a course straight for the heart of the harbor. His caution he had tossed over the leeward gunwale. A deranged juxtaposition of French and broken-English expletives poured from beneath his over-waxed handlebar mustache. He so loathed these English folk, so gay and lively with their sheep, boats, pubs, and their primitive parochial traditions.
Sam, meanwhile, stood on the wharf with a boot in each hand; his pipe dangled lethargically from his lips. The awful racket that assailed his ears had captured his full attention. He stood resolutely, peering into the fog. The vile screaming grew closer by the second. Then suddenly, a bowsprit shot from the fog followed closely by the stem and prow of a small ship. The deafening crunch of splintering wood resounded in the brisk night air as the ship's hull made war with the wharf. Poor, confounded, Sam's lips parted and the pipe tumbled from his gaping mouth. He stood motionless as the bowsprit shot over his left shoulder, missing his ear by a cock's breadth. The ship thundered to a halt amidst an acrid dust cloud and a twisted mountain of shattered wooden planks. The bow had plowed a substantial furrow in the wharf and by the time it came to a halt, the bow stem was mere inches from Sam's nose. Throughout the merciless onslaught, Sam had remained motionless, overwhelmed, I suppose, by the sheer violence of the mayhem. He stood dumbfounded, covered in dust, with a boot clutched in each mit.
The captain had been tossed from the helm at impact and lay in a crumpled, moaning, heap on the foredeck. Aside from a few cosmetic blemishes, both the ship and her captain had suffered no harm. The obstreperous explosion of the impact had roused the town's canine population to action and an unholy chorus of barking and howling arose. The captain sat up. He'd lost his tricorne hat and greasy jet-black ringlets of hair hung in his face. Shouts and the din of bustling feet and hushed voices were accompanied by the amber glow of lanterns as the townsfolk emerged from their parochial dwellings.
Sam coughed and blinked before taking several shaky steps backward. His mouth remained open and his blank gaze never left the bow of the ship that sat like a peevish mother albatross atop her tortuous splintered nest of shattered lumber. "Dear, Christ..." he blurted hoarsely.
The captain cursed under his breath as he struggled to stand. He waved his hand in front of his face in an unsuccessful effort to create a pocket of fresh air within the dust cloud. His sneezing was interrupted by brief interludes comprised of blasphemous utterances. The thickness of the dust cloud was remarkable and the captain staggered forward blindly with his arms outstretched.
By this time, the townsfolk had arrived and were spilling out onto the wharf. Most were eager to see what it was that had caused such an awful ruckus. Many, though, were apprehensive and these had come bearing pitchforks, axes, and all manner of other illconceived engines of war. Sam stood out in front of the disgruntled citizenry, still mesmerized by the stranded ketch. A desultory band of young boys, barefoot and clad only in flannel nightshirts, had approached the wreckage and were busy climbing on the insuperable mass of splintered lumber. Some had pried the surliest and sharpest of the splintered fragments from the pile and were preoccupied with the task of beating each other mercilessly with these semblances of swords. They fought vigorously, seemingly oblivious to the discordant diatribe that erupted from the town’s distaff population.
A sudden hush fell over the crowd as the captain appeared at the forward gunwale railing. He gripped the railing tightly with both hands and began coughing violently. The young boys dropped their swords and scurried back to the safety of the crowd. The captain cleared his throat and pushed his hair up and out of his face. He had returned to the wharf for two things; his boots, and sweet vengeance. The boots he cherished more than life itself, and Samuel Boothe he now loathed to an extent unspeakable. Thus one could imagine his disgust at finding the objects of his affection clutched in the paws of the object of his wrath.
*The first friction match was invented by English chemist John Walker in 1827. Early work had been done by Robert Boyle in the 1680s with phosphorus and sulfur, but his efforts had not produced useful results (Wikipedia). Thus it is highly unlikely that Sam lit his pipe with a conventional match in the Spring of 1743.
TO BE CONTINUED...
The red X first appeared on May 12th 1743. "Red Sunday" it would later be called. Samuel Boothe of Brighton, a small fishing village in Southern England, had become rather inebriated on that fateful evening after consuming copious volumes of ale in the local pub. Young Sam had recently been dissed by a chick he was hot for. Thus on this particular evening, he was engaged in the task of getting hopelessly horse-faced. Poor Sam had made the unfortunate mistake of spilling a tumbler of ale into the lap of the stranger sitting next to him. The fellow's trousers were thoroughly soaked and he was not the agreeable sort of chap. Sam, being the conscientious lad that he was, apologized repeatedly and ordered the fellow another drink.
Sam's gestures made no difference to the stranger who, as it turns out, was the captain of a small French pirate ship that had been careening aimlessly about the channel pilfering fishing boats. I must emphasize the word "pilfering" for the pirate captain's crimes were theretofore of such diminutive magnitude, that he had failed to secure the notoriety that he so desperately longed for. Needless to say, said captain was suffering from insecurities that manifested themselves in Mr. captain's marked propensity for over-reaction and uber-violent behavior. Sam, Lord love him, was oblivious to this bit of information and so he was a bit startled by the stranger's outburst.
The captain made such a fuss that the entire pub grew silent as everyone's attention turned to him. Now, Sam was a sizeable lad and he was more than capable of defending himself, with or without his mates. The captain had noted this and had thus made the wise choice not to get physical with big Sam. His fury he instead chose to project verbally and this manifested itself in an endless trail of broken English and French profanity, much of which was, more or less, aimed at insulting Sam's mother.
Now, Sam was a polite and attentive fellow and he focused intently on the captain's convoluted blabbing. He was more than a little confused but when he heard the word "mother" followed closely by the word "pig" in the torrent of French expletives, he had a fair idea of what was going down. Sam, like all good lads, loved his Ma dearly and never took kindly to those who insulted her. "That'll do, you greasy Franco bastard you!" Sam shouted before punching the captain in the gut. The captain crumpled to the floor and remained there for several minutes whilst Sam returned to the task of getting tanked.
The captain eventually managed to stand and he gave Sam a dirty look before storming out of the pub. Sam continued to drink late into the evening until he lost consciousness. The bartender, who was a friend of Sam and his family, closed the pub that evening but allowed Sam to sleep in one of the booths until morning.
Meanwhile, the captain, after departing from the pub, had made his way swiftly to the dinghy that he had moored at the wharves. Here he discovered that two of his crewmen had busied themselves with the task of loading a barrel of stolen ale into the small wooden vessel. The crewmen, who had already consumed a fair portion of ale themselves, had failed to take into account the barrel's weight and had succeeded in dropping the container through the floor of the boat. In seconds, both the boat and the barrel were on the bottom of the harbor.
Now the captain's rebuke was both foul and verbose. Had he his rapier or pistols, he would certainly have provided the two lads with swift and abundantly painful deaths. But the captain, being French, had not bothered to collect his instruments of carnage before leaving the ketch earlier that day. At the apogee of his rage, however, the captain smashed an empty wine bottle and collected the treacherous fragments. He had intended to use these poorly crafted weapons to slit the throats of his inebriated minions but had succeeded only in slicing his hands to ribbons. The lads fled the wharves, leaving the captain alone, cursing, and bleeding profusely.
The captain removed his white handkerchief from his pocket with the intent to bandage his butchered mits. He paused and studied the white silk handkerchief and then proceeded to draw a large red "x" on it with the blood that dripped from his wounds. He then stood and admired his work and bandaged his wounds using the cloth from his shirt.
Armed with his newly decorated kerchief and the lust for vengeance, the spurious captain removed his boots and dove into the channel and swam out to the ketch. Once onboard, the captain ran the red "x" handkerchief up the mainmast and let it fly like a flag. The captain, who was now without crew, weighed anchor and sailed the ketch straight back to the wharves.
Meanwhile, back at the pub, Sam awoke from his drunken slumber, alone and disoriented. He arose and staggered outside into the moonlit, cobblestone street. It was a glorious evening and Sam, took this into account and decided to head down to the wharves and smoke a bowl or two under the stars. Sam fetched his pipe from the pocket of his vest and stuffed it with tobacco as he walked. He paused next to a pile of barrels and crates to strike a match* and light the pipe. The match he then tossed aside absent mindedly.
Sam was greeted at the wharves by the smell of manila rope and creosote. He paused just long enough to blow a couple of smoke rings before smiling to himself and continuing his stroll through the wharves. A thick fog had descended on the harbour, one could barely make out the ghostly masts that protruded from the mist-covered water. The sound of gentle waves lapping at the barnacle encrusted columns was a soothing one. The creaking of rope moorings and the whistling of the breeze in the rigging generated a stochastic and yet enchanting symphony. Sam puffed eagerly at his pipe as he meandered through canyons of barrels, ropes, nets, and crates. The crunching of broken glass underfoot, drew his eyes downward. Sam was delighted to discover a very mint pair of black leather boots. Sam paced thoughtfully around the boots, admiring the exquisite craftsmanship.
"I shall have these magnificent boots," Sam declared aloud. No sooner had he knelt to collect the shiny boots than he heard an oddly familiar voice screaming irately from somewhere out on the channel. Sam righted himself and squinted as he strained and surveyed the mist-covered waters. The voice was growing louder at an astonishing rate. "Whoever this raving lunatic is, he's converging on my location at an alarming rate," Sam thought to himself.
The captain's rage had abducted his better judgment and confined it in the remotest regions of his being and now he was sailing madly at a beam reach on a course straight for the heart of the harbor. His caution he had tossed over the leeward gunwale. A deranged juxtaposition of French and broken-English expletives poured from beneath his over-waxed handlebar mustache. He so loathed these English folk, so gay and lively with their sheep, boats, pubs, and their primitive parochial traditions.
Sam, meanwhile, stood on the wharf with a boot in each hand; his pipe dangled lethargically from his lips. The awful racket that assailed his ears had captured his full attention. He stood resolutely, peering into the fog. The vile screaming grew closer by the second. Then suddenly, a bowsprit shot from the fog followed closely by the stem and prow of a small ship. The deafening crunch of splintering wood resounded in the brisk night air as the ship's hull made war with the wharf. Poor, confounded, Sam's lips parted and the pipe tumbled from his gaping mouth. He stood motionless as the bowsprit shot over his left shoulder, missing his ear by a cock's breadth. The ship thundered to a halt amidst an acrid dust cloud and a twisted mountain of shattered wooden planks. The bow had plowed a substantial furrow in the wharf and by the time it came to a halt, the bow stem was mere inches from Sam's nose. Throughout the merciless onslaught, Sam had remained motionless, overwhelmed, I suppose, by the sheer violence of the mayhem. He stood dumbfounded, covered in dust, with a boot clutched in each mit.
The captain had been tossed from the helm at impact and lay in a crumpled, moaning, heap on the foredeck. Aside from a few cosmetic blemishes, both the ship and her captain had suffered no harm. The obstreperous explosion of the impact had roused the town's canine population to action and an unholy chorus of barking and howling arose. The captain sat up. He'd lost his tricorne hat and greasy jet-black ringlets of hair hung in his face. Shouts and the din of bustling feet and hushed voices were accompanied by the amber glow of lanterns as the townsfolk emerged from their parochial dwellings.
Sam coughed and blinked before taking several shaky steps backward. His mouth remained open and his blank gaze never left the bow of the ship that sat like a peevish mother albatross atop her tortuous splintered nest of shattered lumber. "Dear, Christ..." he blurted hoarsely.
The captain cursed under his breath as he struggled to stand. He waved his hand in front of his face in an unsuccessful effort to create a pocket of fresh air within the dust cloud. His sneezing was interrupted by brief interludes comprised of blasphemous utterances. The thickness of the dust cloud was remarkable and the captain staggered forward blindly with his arms outstretched.
By this time, the townsfolk had arrived and were spilling out onto the wharf. Most were eager to see what it was that had caused such an awful ruckus. Many, though, were apprehensive and these had come bearing pitchforks, axes, and all manner of other illconceived engines of war. Sam stood out in front of the disgruntled citizenry, still mesmerized by the stranded ketch. A desultory band of young boys, barefoot and clad only in flannel nightshirts, had approached the wreckage and were busy climbing on the insuperable mass of splintered lumber. Some had pried the surliest and sharpest of the splintered fragments from the pile and were preoccupied with the task of beating each other mercilessly with these semblances of swords. They fought vigorously, seemingly oblivious to the discordant diatribe that erupted from the town’s distaff population.
A sudden hush fell over the crowd as the captain appeared at the forward gunwale railing. He gripped the railing tightly with both hands and began coughing violently. The young boys dropped their swords and scurried back to the safety of the crowd. The captain cleared his throat and pushed his hair up and out of his face. He had returned to the wharf for two things; his boots, and sweet vengeance. The boots he cherished more than life itself, and Samuel Boothe he now loathed to an extent unspeakable. Thus one could imagine his disgust at finding the objects of his affection clutched in the paws of the object of his wrath.
*The first friction match was invented by English chemist John Walker in 1827. Early work had been done by Robert Boyle in the 1680s with phosphorus and sulfur, but his efforts had not produced useful results (Wikipedia). Thus it is highly unlikely that Sam lit his pipe with a conventional match in the Spring of 1743.
TO BE CONTINUED...
posted by Reckless at 11:15 AM
1 Comments:
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Post a Comment
<< Home