The Admiral Benbows

[Stanislaw]

I be thinkin, since there be a number o sea savy folks about, many o them being mates o mme ship, whats if with somes o our booty we sets up this little tavern. Here maybe we'd swap some tales, have a pint, or looks for recruits.

So the rules o the pub is, if ye gots a tale to tell, states yer name, tells yer tale, and then buys a round fer yer mates, mind ye, tales can be true er not, but shoulds atleast be entertainin, this be a tavern avterall.

[Stanislaw]

I'll start off this first round o tales:

This is the tale o how I lost me eye, and why's I be havin such a hate on fer the Ninjas...

A few years back there was a minor feud ower which group be the better, and from this there be a small war eruptin see? So my allegiences were pretty set with the pirates, and for there side I did lay down quite a beeten o the ninja brow. Buts on one fair voyage the ships I was on, now mined ye this be not me ship I was but a mate on thison, so when this piece o junk, har har har har har, piece o junk...heheheh you be gettin that joke mates? anywho, this junk comes out o this harbore we was headin for and lets loose on the ships with these robotic ninja warriors with lazer eyes, and they sets to try an iradicat us fer good...they darn near did, I lost an eye, buts many o'mate lost worsen that, and after that conflict the pirates hid in seclusion waitin fer a counter attack see? and from thats time is when I gots me own ship, but that be a tale for another time, I gots to be headin back to the dasterdly stan's to oersee the loadin o'cargo. G'day mates.

[Scheherazade]

Ha! Is that how you explain how you lost your eye??? :rolleyes:

And here I was thinking you lost it when you 'accidentally' fell upon my sword!

http://talk.thewb.com/sns/images/smiles/icon_pirate.gif

[Stanislaw]

Ha! Is that how you explain how you lost your eye??? :rolleyes:

And here I was thinking you lost it when you 'accidentally' fell upon my sword!

http://talk.thewb.com/sns/images/smiles/icon_pirate.gif

garr, let me be tellin the stories here lass, and fer poisidons sake put that er way befere ye takes out me other eyi.... I be meanin to say its all fun an games till capt'n stan looses an eye, er no wait...garr. gots to be going now, er to the ship, Ai to the ships...need to check the er, anchor ai ther anchor, top o the mornin. :D

[Whifflingpin]

From a letter of Cuddie Collingwood 1801.
In Jamaica, about 1800, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker's "intrigues with the French women were abominable, and the stories that are told of them neither do grace to his head or heart. The woman he brought to England was bought of her husband for a sum of money with which a brig was purchased and fitted out as a privateer - in which the Frenchman (depending perhaps on the powerful patronage that supported him) committed such piracies that he was at last taken and brought to Jamaica: he was in gaol and no doubt of his conviction. The French party, his wife at their head, persuaded him not to suffer the disgrace of an ignominious death; to be hanged would reflect infamy on them all. There was only one way to escape it, and the countess, being a good cook, prepar'd him a pigeon for dinner, that removed the necessity of providing supper. He was taken from the prison and buried in the crossing roads with a stake through his body. After which, the countess enjoyed uninterrupted felicity with her gallant protector"

[Stanislaw]

so, what be with the stake, dids they fear he be comin back from the grave?

[Whifflingpin]

Dunno, peraps they thought he'd ha dun better wi stake than pidgon, keen sabby as the dons say.

Oh ay - a round o' flip for ye messmates

.

[Nightshade]

No, they did do that to pirates. It being a degridation to the body and their death.
Of course It be easy for a woman to escape the hanging.

Now I have a tale of the time I put to sea under Captin the Lady Mercy. A right terrible one she was too. Back then if youll rember one copuld not set sail in the 8th sea wihout hearing of her. Her hatred of the Nijas was great. SO great that she would have them streched over the nine arms and brass monkeys placed upon their backs t high sun.
You could smell there flesh acooking. and that was when she was feeling merciful.
I was but a youngun at the time a powder monkey . ah but that she put the fear into the souls of the men.O'course shewas eventually burnt at mast as a witch by mutineers who got suspison. I werent wth her on that voyage Id skipped ship a year back to learn the artys of magic ye know?
:D

[Stanislaw]

So longs as she dids atack o ninjas, it be no crime! :D

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Here's a yarn I heard in Plymouth. It's a mite scary, so those of a nervous disposition, read no further! It's also a tad long for one post, so I'll chop it into bite-sized chunks for you all.


In the year of 1550, a child, the youngest of 7 boys, was born to a seafaring family in Plymouth. When he was only 5 years old, his father, second mate aboard the Deuce o’ Diamonds, was lost at sea while standing the second dog watch en route to the New World; some say he was washed overboard by a freak wave, others that he had an argument with one of his shipmates, others still that he was seized by a sea monster in the dead of night. Whatever the explanation, the loss put such a fear of the sea into his youngest son, that he swore he would never set foot onto so much as a rowboat, much less a ship. I would tell you the childs name; but to this day it is said in Plymouth town to be the very worst of luck to so much as whisper it. I shall refer to him only as,

The Lad That Wouldn’t Go To Sea.

True to his word, at the age of 13, the lad shunned the nautical life and was apprenticed to a ship’s chandler, where he set to learning the art of trading in sailcloth, ropes and all of the myriad supplies that a ship of the day would need for a voyage. But there were those that knew his father and brothers that muttered that he was wasting his life as a shopkeeper, that he should take to the sea like a real man. These mutters grew to catcalls and insults, which grew in turn to arguments and fistfights. Thus the lad, out of necessity as much as anything, grew into a fine figure of a man and a match for anyone in a fight by the age of 16.

His troubles weren’t over though. There were less that dared to challenge him to his face, but plenty that still muttered and this time the mutterings turned into a plot. The plot came to fruition in 1568, when the lad was still a week shy of his 18th birthday and the conflict in the Spanish Main was at it’s height. Men were wanted to man ships to plunder the Spanish treasure that was so abundent in that part of the world. So it was, that one August night, as he was drinking a glass of ale in the Threemaster tavern, someone slipped a potion into his glass and he awoke on board the Queen’s Prize, already the best part of two days towards the Main.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Here's part 2.


From the moment that he awoke, the movement of the ship had him retching and puking. The experienced hands laughed; they’d seen this many times and knew he’d soon settle down once he got his sea-legs. But days passed. And those days joined to make a week without the young man showing any sign of acclimatising to the unfamiliar situation. Everything he ate was ejected minutes later. He could take no more water than that needed to wet his lips and tongue without his stomach turning itself inside out yet again. The ship’s doctor was at a loss to explain it, “If only I had some leeches.” He’d say, “that would fix ‘im! Bad blood’s what it is, mark my words.”

All day and all night he lay on his bunk and moaned and dry-heaved. The other sailors grew so tired of being disturbed by his constant illness, that they slung a hammock for him in the bilge, squeezed between piles of tools and brick-a-brack and in the company of the ship’s rats, 2 feet above the foul bilgewater and a similar distance below the low ceiling. The captain resolved to put this useless seaman ashore at the first land they encountered.

For a further two days he lay there, growing weak with hunger, thirst and lack of sleep. He tried his hardest to eat what he was given but with the usual results. Eventually, a storm blew up. The wooden ship was tossed and thrown from one side to the other. The water in the bilges was splashed over the lad; a couple of times he was thrown from his hammock into it by the force of a particularly violent lurch. When the storm passed, the ship was becalmed, the mountains of water that had risen twice the height of the ship were now a flat, glasslike plain that stretched to the horizon. Seafaring folk being what they are, it wasn’t long before the lad in the Queen's Prize’s bilge was blamed for their misfortunes. He was looked upon as some kind of latter-day Jonah; to be honest, his filthy, emaciated, unshaven appearance did little to dispel the rumours.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

And here's the last of it - Be warned! This is the scary part! :eek2:


That is when something strange happened. As the boy lay there, his stomach still turning cartwheels despite the motionless ship, he heard a knocking. At first he thought it came from the trapdoor hatch above him but as he turned his head to see, he realised that it came from the opposite direction completely, from outside! Frozen with fear, he moved towards the sound and heard a low, dreadful voice. The kind of voice that a man with lungs and mouth filled with seawater would have. The voice of a drownded corpse. That wasn’t the worst of it though, not nearly the worst. As he got used to the unearthly vocalisation he realised with a piercing shaft of terror that the voice was calling his name!

His fear driving him into action, he leapt out of the hammock and scrambled up the short ladder and through the hatch. He tried to explain what he had just heard to the men in the crew-quarters above but they just laughed, called him a fool and kicked him back down into the bilgewater below. He tried to climb out again, crying, “You must listen! It’s God’s truth I tell you!” but they slammed the hatch shut on his fingers and he heard them drag something heavy over it. He hammered on the underside of the trapdoor for a while, his bloodied hands leaving red stains on the wood, but to no avail. At last he stopped banging. But the banging didn’t stop with him. It came from the ship’s hull as before. The terrible voice called out again, crying his name with a sound like heavy stones moving against each other on the seabed.

“Let me in!” it cried, slow and mournfully, “It’s so cold out here.”

“Who are you?” He yelled back, surprised at the hoarse, rasping, high-pitched sound of his own voice. “In God’s name, who are you?”

“You know who I am.” Came the reply. And he did. He knew it very well indeed.

“How can I let you in?” He asked the voice. But he knew the answer to that too.

For the first time since waking nearly two weeks earlier, the lad didn’t feel sick at all, as he sloshed through the filthy suds of bilgewater, over to the pile of tools thrown against the bulkhead by the force of the storm, selected a large fire-axe, and proceeded to open a passage through the hull for his father.


And that's my tale. Believe it or not, it's your choice. But the Queen’s Prize was sunk with the loss of all but 7 of her hands, 800 miles east of Bermuda. To this day, no Plymouth man will enter the bilge of a ship anywhere within 100 miles of the place. And even in this age of steel ships, there is a law against keeping an axe in the bilge of any vessel! ;)

[Stanislaw]

not that be a beut o a tale lad, a finun fer any tavern walls!, Drinks on me! :thumbs_up

[Pendragon]

My own tale is not for the faint of heart, lads. It is about the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Graveyard of the Atlantic, that she be. I go there to get away and think up new stories and paint. But once-- well.

I took the ferry across to Ocracoke Island, and had a fine time, but the fog rolled in, and I missed the last ferry back. And all hotels were booked. I'm the survivin' type, so I had a tent and things in the trunk of my car, so I went down to the beach to camp for the night.

I was downing some coffee when the wind picked up, and the odor of decayed meat hit me hard. A man stood at the edge of my fire, a big guy, looked like a pirate with a long dark beard.

"What do ye here?" He asked.

"Missed the ferry. Too much fog. Want some coffe?"

"Liar!" His voice made me jump. "D'ye take me fer a fool! There is nae fog!" He pointed, and indeed the fog was gone and a full moon was high.

"You playing Blackbea---"

"Speak not that accured name! I am Edward! Edward, d'ye hear! Get up and walk wit me!"

Too scared not to, I arose an we walked along the beach.

"Ye'll nae have a spot o' grog, mate?" He asked. The smell of decaying flesh was everywhere now.

"Um, no. No I don't."

"Call yerself a seaman!" He sneered.

"No, a writer/artist."

He glared at me. A shadow fell over us, like a horned head upon a rock by the shore.

"Ah," Edward sighed. "I may go nae further. Nor should ye! Get ye away frae here!" He fumbled in the pocket of his greatcoat. "When the grogshops open, buy yersel' a man's drink. And tell 'em! Tell 'em Tech still walks the night, and me treasure belongs only to meself and the evil one!"

Just then the sun broke above the horizon, and he was gone. Past where I stood, the beach was eroded away. I turned back. He, it, had left no footprints. And yet it was real, my mates, for I held in my hand a Spanish Dulboon!

[Stanislaw]

that be a tale o glorious beut mate, have ye not gone back to looks fer the ol' dogs treasure lad?

[Pendragon]

Well, my patch-eyed mate, I've been back several times. But they do not call that stretch o' water the "Graveyard of the Atlantic" without cause. At any given point, you look out over some 40 sunken ships. The conning tower of a Nazi submarine sticks up like the fin on a shark some 150 yards off shore. Nastsy waters for ships. The hurricanes took out the causeway, a kind of gigantic bridge, mates, so that the outer banks all but closed down for a spell. They were even forced to move the famous Hatteras lightouse furthur inland. When that was fixed, another storm tore the entire cape in half just below Hatteras village-- above the ferry landing. By the time I got back to Ocracoke Island, beach errosion was such that I could not recall where the ghost and I walked that night. And with the lapses in time during that ghostly walk that fateful night, I am not certain we even walked the beach of the present Island anyway. Old Tech was, for all intents and purposes, the Governor of North Carolina at one time, since the Governor could make no policy without consulting him. And who knows? The ghost may have lead me the wrong way any road. T'would be like him.

[Stanislaw]

I nice stretch o land it sounds like, a cursted shore to the eyes o a pirate...somes treasure be not worth gatherin barnicles o'er, no matter how it shines...if ye canna trust a sea dog by day, dinna trust by nite, if ye know the meanin o me words mate!

[Stanislaw]

s'okay, fer those o ye who still be 'ere, led me tell ye tha tale o ol captain johanne von luenhooke, he was er most feared pirate o the seas, he did such a black things that even the devil 'isself would be to scared to sets foot o his ship. He gathered up such a haul o the likes o which ye willna be able to imagine it. now, on his last voyage he set out to an old island, one that only the ancients did here o it, on that day, he took a breach o men to shore, an returned nay but hiself and er first mate. while they was on the high seas, the mate did 'ear a sound o the crew, the crew 'ed just witnessed killed. So's the mate out o fear did hang 'is self from the yarderm.

the capt'n now, he did set about sailin the ship into er port, but e never made it, somesay he crashed o a reaf on purpose, somes say the devil finally had the courage to do erway with im, but neither story, ol belze didna take im, nor did st. peter, bless 'is soul. He stayed around this world, doin black deads o the darkest sort in the cover o black fog...to this day, if yer on the sea o'er dark, an ye see a fog o black as 'ell, turn an flee, an worry not about bein' branded o land lubber, for in that cloud lurks ye old, mate, the dutchmen, and is ship...the flyin dutchman.

hands out o pint o rum barkeep, puts it on me tab.

[papayahed]

I have no stories at the moment but I sure will take a nip o' the old grog.

[Stanislaw]

I have no stories at the moment but I sure will take a nip o' the old grog.

that be suitin me fine, I could be usin a dram er two. :D