The Proverbial War

With a protesting creak of the pulleys the boat began to lower over the side. Both Koke and the other man glanced around furtively for any sign of stirring pirates, but they snored on dead to the world.

The boat touched the water with a louder splat of sound than either man had intended. None of the sleeping pirates stirred though.

Those in the boat below cast off the ropes and immediately started rowing away from the pirate galley. Koke and his helper stared in shock at the betrayal of them by the others. Both men were going to have to dive for it to catch up with the boat.

"Where's my boy stud!" Came a drunken shout.

It was Sally the Captain and she saw both men at virtually the same moment as they saw her.

"Get them!!!" Captain Sally screamed out in fury.

Koke's helper jumped up onto the ship's railing to dive overboard, only to pitch over the side with a cry of pain. A cutlass was stuck fast in his back from where a pirate had thrown it overhand.

Koke flipped over the railing, but was hung up from dropping to the water as a knife transfixed his hand to the ship's railing. Crying out in the pain it caused him Koke yanked the knife free, but before he could drop to the water rough hands seized him and the edge of a rusty cutlass was held against his throat by none other than an enraged Captain Sally.

Her face was a caricature of a human in that moment that appeared more skeleton than it did flesh and blood.

"Not so fast loverboy! I'ze gonna have your hide for this!"

Koke struggled against the hold on him that was dragging him back on board. In his struggle to be free he caught sight of the fleeing rowboat. The layers of civility gained from a life in the social graces of a polite society disintegrated as he yelled out at the departing boat, "I curse you cowards for this!"

It took several pirates to stifle Koke's adrenalined attempt to be free, but in the end he was pulled back on board.

Captain Sally in a crazed manner turned to a gunnery crew, "Billy light'em up!"

Several seconds later a cannon reared back on its pins as it belched flame and smoke. The rowboat in the distance along with its occupants disintegrated into fragments as the well-placed shot blew it up.

Captain Sally was back in Koke's face in an instant. Her spit landed on his face as she spoke out loudly, "Now I has just the likes of you to play with sugar boy! Tie him to the mast! I'll have the flesh off of him for this! Fetch me the cat-a'nines!