Free Casca 15: The Pirate by Barry Sadler Page A

were coming. And overloaded as the sloop was she would founder. What he really needed to do was throw some of the sugar overboard. But the greed that had put the sugar on in the first place was the greed that would keep it aboard.
    This island, now. Not on the charts but that didn't necessarily mean anything. What he could count on was that she was most certainly uninhabited otherwise she would be on a chart. And if there was a flat beach at all, then he could careen his vessel and get the barnacles off. At least that was what had gone through his mind, but there had been something else, too. If he was right in sensing that a storm was brewing, it would probably come about the time they finished the careening, and he could take shelter somewhere about the island if there was a suitable anchorage. None of this did he discuss with his first mate, the only other white man aboard, an old man, maybe over fifty, whose chief pleasure in life seemed to be seeing the blood run from the whip marks on a black slave's back. Vell, to every man his pleasure . 
    He glanced casually, at the black female slave, and the left corner of his mouth lifted beneath the shaggy mustache. She was the only woman aboard, and she was strictly for his use only. He could imagine how that galled the other officers and maybe even the slaves, too, though they, of course, were mere cattle, seeing those big brown tits and not being able to do anything about it.
    Ah! Momentarily the captain was almost happy. He swung the rum bottle to his lips and took a long pull....
    They made the island at about the middle of the day, and, yes, there was an anchorage. More, there was a long stretch of gently sloping white beach backed by a stand of big coconut palms whose trunks were sturdy enough to take tackle. Soundings with the lead as well as the color of the water showed a drop off and a gradient ideal for careening. All that momentarily bothered the captain. The site was too perfect. He swept his spyglass carefully over the entire area, looking for signs that other ships before him had careened here, but there was only the virgin land. So! Vas not only yet der uncharted island, vas one nodt yet found. Immediately he ordered the beginning of the careening, now in the hot middle of the day, seeing with pleasure the dark looks he got not only from the slave crew but from his own officers. Any reasonable captain would have waited until the cool of the evening. Ah! The boat he now sent ashore he put in the charge of the first mate, knowing that that individual hated the boatswain's guts, and the two of them would not be likely to get together against him. Besides, the first mate had an odd passion for weapons. If he behaved as he usually did, he would be wearing a double brace of pistols, a long dirk, cutlass, and carrying a musket double loaded. Not the kind of man to let a slave get away.
    Ja !
     
    Damn all slaves! Carter Jenkins, first mate of the sloop Odysseus, lounged in the stern sheets of the ship's boat, pulled up on the white sand of the beach, and waited while the wiry little mulatto boatswain organized his slave crew. There was the matter of the big hawser to be carried to the line of coconut palms and sundry other matters. Jenkins paid very little attention to that. Though he thoroughly despised the little boatswain he was satisfied that the mulatto knew his job. As a matter of fact he envied the little bastard his competence; that was one of the reasons for his hatred. The boatswain would take care of things nicely. Oh, after everything was set up he, Jenkins, might be able to find some little something to bitch about and make life a little unpleasant for the boatswain but let that come later. Right now Jenkins had other things on his mind.
    What he mostly had on his mind was the women he was going to have when they got to New Orleans. Silently he cursed the captain for dangling that female slave in front of them all the time particularly the bit about taking