Free Casca 15: The Pirate by Barry Sadler

English "who thees one she esta?"
    Casca told him. And Julio who had not hitherto been consulted on the matter yelled, "By the Mother of God, no! I will not! No! No! But never!"
    "You want to stay on this shitass island?"
    "But Honor!" Julio went off into Spanish so fervent and rapid that even Casca could not keep up with it. And that was when the lookout up on the mountain yelled, "Sail making for the island!"
    Casca called: "What kind of ship?"
    "Sloop."
    "There! That does it! A sloop we can take." He turned to Julio and said in Spanish, "This is one we can handle. What about it?"
    The young Spaniard looked despairingly around at the semicircle of pirates. One of the Brotherhood men spat to leeward and said: "Shit, kid, ain't nobody going to hold it against you." The words meant nothing to Julio, but he understood the tone.
    "All right. Now ."
    "Captain!" One of the quieter Brotherhood men, a Yorkshireman by the look of him, interrupted. "I can improve on what you had in mind. I spent four years apprenticed to a portrait painter in London." The pirate's voice was soft and his diction unexpectedly above the servant class. Casca guessed he probably preferred boys to girls, but that was his business. Now his deep blue eyes were looking questioningly at Casca. "I want to get off this island, too," he added.
    "What do you have in mind?" There wasn't much time. If the sloop was making any headway at all and judging by the stiff breeze coming in from the sea she ought to be they had less than an hour to set up an ambush.
    "If the captain pleases, leave that to me."
    Hell! Why not? There were other matters he had to tend to. "All right. But step lively, dammit!" He looked out to sea where the top of the sloop's mast was now becoming visible from the beach. He would have to get his men in position ; he had never seen the terrain farther down the beach where the sloop would land if it landed
    If it passed by now , that, dammit, would tear it all . But he didn't mention his fear to the men. He headed them down toward the landing and then momentarily looked back out to sea. More of the sail was now visible. The sloop was making good time.
    Casca wondered what the sloop's captain was doing at the moment. He certainly wouldn't be expecting twenty nine men to ambush his men and take over his ship.
     
     

CHAPTER NINE
    The sloop's captain was standing aft by the rail, holding a half empty bottle of rum by the neck, idly watching the black slaves work his ship, and thinking of nothing in particular. The one female slave, naked from the navel up, was leaning against the rail to the leeward side watching the green shape of the island come up out of the water. The female slave was the captain's personal property, but at the moment he was not looking at her, nor was anyone else. The way she was standing the big teats on her full brown breasts pointed down at the whispering green sea and swayed with the roll of the ship. Leaning against the rail she had a little the look of a cow but of a cow that had been milked too often.
    "Put yet into idt der Godt damn butts!" the captain suddenly roared at the slaves forward. His mulatto third mate obediently brandished his whip.
    Slaves! The captain was in a foul mood, and he was more than willing to take it out on the slaves. He was running a cargo of sugar. The hold was packed with hogsheads, and there were even half a dozen or so lashed on deck. The sugar hogsheads were heavy, overloading the sloop, making her ride very low in the water, and the extra tonnage would probably have slowed her down had she not already been hampered by the heavy barnacle growth on her old hull. The captain was a mean, brutal, small minded lout but he was also a reasonably competent seaman. If this ancient sloop were not careened and the barnacles scraped from her she would take forever to make the passage to New Orleans if she made it at all. He had sailed these waters a long time. He could practically smell the storms that