By 1934, Thomas Paine was well known all over France for he had fought the buccaneers of the Atlantic Ocean. He and his shipmates were travelling to America and as far as it is known, none of them except Thomas and Benito De Soto had survived the unavoidable conflict. The pirates’ origins were not known and it was never discovered for this event happened in the 1890’s when Thomas Paine was very young.
Thomas was currently in his deathbed while his son was sitting beside him at the foot of the bed and the whole of Paris was dissolved in mourning. His son had in his arms the same brown memoir which Thomas’s hands had written about thirty years ago. Tim Paine was reading out to his father from the reddish-brown memoir while his father was listening intently to the only worth of his life.
Tim looked down at the book and read carefully “On 1896, I set to sail for America with eight of my best friends. All of them were sailors and I was one too. We set out on the 23rd of December when it was bitterly cold. We had set off from Brest and we were headed to Boston. We set off in a catamaran which had two parallel hulls. The catamaran was named the ‘Atlanta’. We had named the hulls as the port hull and the starboard hull according to the side in which they lay. The multihulled boat was known for its speed and it was a very unusal ship to be found in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The vakas was huge. The akas itself was a hundred feet long.
“The days passed peacefully with the wind carrying us towards our destination. We had no fear of the wind getting changed for it was usual for the wind to blow towards the west during this time of the year. Yet, we were carrying supplies for ten days and also some safety weapons and extra suppiles. Having covered a considerable part of the journey in a day, our hopes brightened and we expected to complete the journey in seven days at this rate. On the second day, the wind became stronger but the water kept its direction opposite to the way we were sailing. I controlled the rudder but gave it frequently to other hands. Charles Vane, the Chief engineer, did the work of putting up the single mast and rigging it and sometimes trimming it. Benito De Soto, the chief officer, trimmed the hull and kept the boat stable. Calico Jack, the boatswain, was the watchstander. We usually had our meals upon the deck where the weather would be calm and mild and we would enjoy our meals more than anything else.
“One night, we were sitting upon our table when I found that Carlico was not among us. ‘Where is Carlico?’ I asked to my shipmates. ‘He’s down with fever. Yesterday, he overloaded himself with work and tired himself out. He will be needing rest for a day or two and then he will be able to work but I would ask you not overload him with work’ replied Benjamin Hornigold, the Marine physician assistant. ‘His work will have to be taken over by someone, chief’ I said to Charles. He nodded and said ‘Black Ceaser can take it over. He has not much to do these days’ and Ceaser, the third officer, nodded in agreement. We continued our talks into the hours of the night.
“The change having been made, we went on for two more days whence Charles recovered and took over his job again. On the night of 27th December, it was found that Charles had not come down from the watchstand since three in the afternoon and nobody had noticed it. The reason of everyone’s negligence was that the ship had been unbalanced in the day time by the changing waters. Then the heel operated to keep the boat upright and the officers adjusted the cargo on the deck. When Benjamin went up to see, he found him out of his senses. We took him to the portside hull leaving three of the crew- Edward England, the third engineer; Christopher Mings, the second engineer and Black Bart, the second officer- on the deck to look after the ship. We discovered that Charles’ breathing had become shorter and heavier. At about nine, he died in the multihulled ship. This was his last voyage. We had a short ceremony in his memory and we spent the night mourning for him letting the ship drift the way it wanted to.
“In the early hours of the morning I went up to the deck and saw a horrible sight. The vessel was heading towards a blockade. After close observance from the watchstand I found that it was a pirate blockade about which we had not known. I called for the others and they too saw the breathtaking sight. After close observance by each of us for an hour or two, we met in the superstructure.
“I learned in that room that there were at least ten of them in the craft that was at the head of the blockade. The other ships were lined one after the other horizontally and they did not allow passage as they were joined by the rigging that had probably been used in their masts. All of them were anchored and were dirty but the one in which the pirates were present was lit. ‘Why didn’t they tell us about this before?’ I hammered. ‘They didn’t know themselves’ said Benito De Soto. ‘They told me that the way was safe and that ships frequently passed from here. Can’t we go around by the side?’ he asked me. I observed the angle and the windspeed and said ‘There is very little chance of success but we must try.’
“I went up and ordered England to trim the mast as the wind was very strong and it was blowing us towards the blockade. The water had also turned itself and was blowing towards the blockade. I turned the Tiller towards the left. By ill luck, something got stuck in the rudder and I lost control over it. The ship sailed on and on towards the blockade. All of us gathered at the bow and prayed to the Almighty. We realised that our fate was not good. We crashed into the dinghy.
“I acted fast as I knew that the pirates would soon be upon us, so each of us armed ourselves with different guns. I took the Arquebus and the Blunderbuss but it was tough to carry both of them. I also took a dagger with me. The others were armed with daggers, Musketoons, wall guns, grenade launchers, submachine guns, pistols, machine pistols and revolvers. I took Benito De Soto and Edward England with me and boarded the dinghy. I ordered Christopher Mings to take charge and told them to row to the ship of the pirates and engage the brigands while we would attack from behind and take them by surprise. The plan was agreed and we went towards the main ship hanging onto the ropes and chains and passing the decks; hiding and walking in pairs.
“We saw how our catamaran moved towards the ship where the bandits were waiting for something to get caught into their trap. Before long, gunshots were heard. We began hurrying and neared our enemies. When we reached the adjacent ship we saw that there were thirteen of them among which six of them were women. They were armed with Muskets, Musketoons, Blunderbusses, pocket pistols and cutlasses and grenades. The head of the buccaneers, Enrique Brower was carrying a Flintlock pistol and was firing with true aim. ‘What should we do?’ Benito whispered to me. ‘They should not learn that we are here. We can easily kill them from here so we will. But we will only fire when we see one of our men firing from the boat. When our shot will hit them, they will think that it was the shot from the catamaran that had hit them’ I said. ‘Okay, captain!’ they replied. We took chances at firing at the pirates and I killed one of them called Hector Barbossa when I saw Calico Jack firing from the boat. Hector was probably their quartermaster. We killed two more Powder monkeys named Jackman and Morgan. ‘They are ten now’ I said.
“Even the people on our boat had not realised that we had killed them and they were also thinking that it was their bullets that were hitting the bandits. The first to die among our men was Black Bart. After he was dead, the pirates went back to their hull. ‘Let us get into their vessel’ I said and jumped onto their deck and waved at my shipmates. They waved back and I signalled to them that the pirates had taken shelter. We were taking all the precautions not to make a noise but we were not successful. One of the girls named Neptune emerged from below and shot at us. I and Benito dived into the icy sea. But Edward did not follow and we pitied for him. We swam to our boat taking care not to come above the waters so that we would not be seen. We got up onto our ship at the stern and made way into the starboard hull to find Black Bart breathing his last.
“‘What should we do now?’ Black Ceaser asked and I thought over for a minute. ‘I think we should go and embark into their ship and block all their exits before they come back onto the deck’ Benito said. We followed his suggestion. As soon as we landed upon their deck, we surrounded all their exits and I and Benito ventured to go down. I bade each of my shipmates because it was not sure whether I would see them again. We went on very cautiously. To our utter amazement, we did not find even a single soul inside the hull even after we searched each and every chamber and each and evrey corner of the large hull. ‘Where could they have disappeared?’ I asked him. Instead of his answer, I received the echo of many voices from the deck and we ran all at once towards the deck but as soon as we stepped out two bullets passed my left ear. I got in altogether with Benito behind me and we went back down not daring to show up again. ‘Are our men all dead?’ I asked him. ‘No, I saw three of them crouching behind some cargo’ he replied.
“‘What a mess I have made of this!’ I exclaimed. When I leaned against a door in agony, it opened and showed way into the hull of the adjacent ship. ‘It is all interconnected!” my companion exclaimed and we ran up to the deck of the other ship and found only two of the pirates piling up ten bodies who had died of a grenade explosion. I understood that this had been done by Black who was carrying the grenade launcher. We killed the two of them with our daggers and piled them upon the heap. I was just relaxing when Benito exclaimed ‘none of our men our left! But one of the pirates is still left!’ I found that Neptune was missing and when I looked at the deck of the main ship; I found her there, we had missed her when we had last stepped upon that deck as we were very furious and excited. She was shot in the head and beside her lay Edward with his Musketoon in his hand, victorious”
Tim bunged the memoir and looked up. There were tears in his eyes for Thomas Paine; the captain of the ‘Atlanta’ had passed away into the realms of death.
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