The Pirate Vortex

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 13: CAPTURE

I couldn't really get to sleep that night. Neither could Wendy. She was in one of the blackest moods I'd ever seen her in. Nothing I said could cheer her up.
After a while I gave up and pulled the blankets over my head. I was still nowhere near sleep when I heard Wendy's voice, soft and somehow not really there.
"There's a ship out there," she said.
I tried to ignore her.
"It's got lights on and it's coming closer," she said. "It looks exactly like ours."
I kept on ignoring her. She fell silent after that and I thought I might get to sleep.
But after a while, I felt light on my eyelids. Irritated, I opened them.
Through the porthole, I saw a sailing ship, exactly like ours, drawing closer and closer. Every window was illuminated. From every mast hung a torch. It shone on the sea like a giant beacon. Headed our way.
Wendy must have fallen asleep, because she wasn't talking or moving. I got out of bed as quietly as I could, and crept out to the passageway. I climbed up the ladder and stood on deck.
There was only a half-moon tonight, so it was pretty dark. But the ship on our right had drawn so close that it cast a faint orange glow over the Que Sera. And I could hear noise now - long-off shouts, songs and rallying cries.
I meant to creep across the deck and wake Dad up. But with a shock I realised it was too late. The ship beside us was now so close I could see individual crew members - their handlebar moustaches, their bandannas, striped shirts and torn pants - and make out individual voices.
The ship was right alongside ours. I cowered in the shadows as ropes were cast onto our ship. Pirates leapt onto the deck, tied the ropes, and pulled our ships together. All together, there must have been about forty pirates, and they made an incredible noise.
Then, when the tying was done, the pirates spread out, swords and torches in hand. Searching.
I cringed back, but a scruffy pirate with a long curving sword found me almost immediately. He snarled at me and yanked me up. "Got one!" he cried. The pirates around him cheered. He pointed his sword at me and forced me forward.
I was scared out of my mind. Planks and ramps were being thrown between the two ships. The pirate made me get up on a plank and cross to the other ship, where a circle of pirates with flaming torches and snarling faces were gathered. Into that circle I fell, until rough hands picked me up and thrust me against the main mast. Someone tied my arms into the ropes, painfully. The pirates jeered.
Soon Dad came stumbling across the ramp, pushed on by more bloodthirsty pirates. He was tied up beside me. "Don't worry, Matt," he said, though he didn't sound very convincing.
Last came Wendy. She was frightened, and the pirates, in a rare show of humanity, helped her up on the ramp. I think they were a bit confused to find just the three crew members, two of them kids.
Eventually, a kind of silence fell amongst the pirates. We looked up, and there on the upper deck, drawing forward into the torchlight, were two pirates. One had a bushy black beard, great strong throat, and a stout body like a barrel. I think each of us put a name to him that very moment: Raw Throat Hugo.
Behind him stood an older, leaner pirate in a grey bandanna, his arms folded.
"SILENCE!" roared Hugo. Those few pirates that had been talking stopped talking. Hugo paused, milking the moment, and in the silence we heard a dragging sound. I risked a look around, and saw another plank being tied to the deck of the ship. They were going to make us walk it.
Hugo wasn't yet talking to us. He was addressing the pirate crowd. "Pirates one and all," he said, "we have waited three hundred years for this night. Now in one stroke not only will the slaughter of our crew members be avenged, but we shall punish the thieves of our treasure! Before the night is out, we shall be AVENGED!"
The pirate throng cheered. Hugo held up a hand for silence, and got it. "These three before you," he said, pointing at us, "are among the most vile people you will ever see. For three hundred years they have kept us at bay! Kept us from the ownership of the Que Sera, which is rightfully ours!"
More roars from the pirate crowd. "Cut their throats!" yelled somebody. "Disembowel them!" yelled another. "Throttle them! Quarter them! Burn them!" Everybody was offering advice on how to get us killed.
Hugo turned to us. "What do you have to say?" he asked us face stern.
Dad, somehow, found his voice. "I have nothing to say," he said defiantly. I looked up, and his face was set. Somehow it gave me heart.
"Nothing?" said Hugo. "NOTHING!? BY THE SEVEN CROWS OF GALLOWS POINT YOU SHALL DIE!" He spat at us.
In amongst all the jeering, a space was made in the pirate crowd. Two pirates were coming back over the ramps, holding a chest between them. The treasure chest.
The pirates roared as they saw it. Hugo smiled down at them magnanimously. Then, as the pirates stepped onto the deck of the ship, an uneasy silence fell among the pirates.
I couldn't work it out. They had their treasure. What was bothering them?
One of the treasure-bearing pirates went up the stairs. He and Hugo had a short conversation, of which we heard absolutely nothing.
Hugo nodded, dismissed the pirate, and turned to us. "Where is the second treasure chest?" he asked.
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Dad.
"YOU HEARD ME!" roared Hugo. "THERE ARE TWO TREASURE CHESTS! MY MEN HAVE ONLY FOUND ONE! SO WHERE'S THE OTHER?"
Dad kept silent.
Hugo was about to yell more abuse at him, when he stopped himself. Instead, he looked down at his motley pirate crew. This was a momentous night, unheard of in three hundred years. Obviously, in order to get the most respect from his crew, Hugo wanted the night's celebrations to be the best ever. If he lost his temper with us, it'd spoil things.
Hugo turned and spoke to the darkness behind him. Out of the darkness came three burly pirates. As they climbed down the stairs, Hugo turned back to the crowd below him. "My pirates," said Hugo, "tonight is a night greater than any we have experienced. We have recovered the Que Sera. We have the treasure. In the morning we shall get the rest. So now I say, let the celebrations begin!"
All around us the pirates roared. The three burly pirates came and untied us from the mast. Holding us securely, the pirates bustled us down a trapdoor and along a passage.
Behind we heard the sound of celebration and drinking and mock swordfighting. And we were being led right into the heart of the pirate ship. It seemed there was no hope for us at all.

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