Pete
Pete staggers to the hammock. Another trying day with ungrateful tars and scallywags. Two small sloops bound from Jamaica and all the rum you could swally was all she wrote. Rum punched one and all they blather on about not enough coin jingling the trouser as the pillage turned glum.
He remembers the days in old Main Brook. A welcome sight after weeks at sea and the hearty and hale at Fred's Lounge, a place before it's time. Plunder a plenty back then but the scarce times came fast as kings and queens fell and no privateer knew who to trust.
At anchor in Spirity Cove, he sensed his days were numbered as the leader his loyal but frustrated crew. Maybe time would soon come to take Con up on his offer to buy the small inn in St. John's, become a publican. A few more raids, enough pirated bounty to ease into a landlubber's life. The slow trough shifted his hammock, and ale days ashore, sea legged no more, became a dozy respite.
A morning rap on his cabin door, boozy slumber gone. Tars out of hand. This time at anchor to divvy and nurse wounds and pride having run rough with a frenchie in bergy bits. Now soused, a devil's racket, green tars pressed ganged jacks all, wagering on swimming ashore. Fortune with each stroke.
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