Tortuga, 1651:
Beneath the watchful guns of a French fortress, a pirate sloop named the Fortune's Folly enters the harbor at sunset, battle-damaged and barely crewed. The desperate hands aboard know a great secret that might bring them substantial wealth - but first they must refit their ship for the adventure ahead. The night begins...
Our five hearty pirates paddle ashore in the ship's longboat, leaving the mortally wounded Captain "Brimstone Jack" McCall and a few other sailors to guard their battered ship. We meet:
- Eve, the Quartermistress of the Folly (played by Melanie)
- Jean, the Folly's enormous cook (Gerald)
- Jerome, lately of the French navy, now a sailor aboard the Folly (Matt)
- Guillaume, well-provisioned doctor of the Folly and all-round man of science (Elin)
- Nebuchadnezzar, the Folly's gallant bo'sun (Padraic), and
- his little dog Jack
Bonfires, small tents, and palm-leaf shelters dot the beach, each with a few beachcombers or old salts a-playing at cards or quietly passing around a bottle of wine. Beyond the beach, at the base of the island's lone rocky hill, lies the bustling town of Tortuga, from which the sounds of music and laughter drift softly down. To their left, a torn fragment of ship's sail serves as an awning for a oceanside bar at which pig on the spit is being served in rough wooden bowls; to the right, the silhouettes of tall ships against the gathering dusk indicate the location of the town's wharf.
Taking stock of their funds (one lonely pouch full of Spanish pieces-of-eight), the pirates find that they have the following goals:
- To sign on more crew. The Folly can carry up to 60 sailors.
- To buy more (or heavier) guns. The Folly has just two three-pound cannon left; it can carry 10.
- To refresh the ship's magazine (more powder and shot for the men and guns)
- To resupply the ship's naval stores (pitch, rope, tar, etc.), as well as her stocks of food, water, and other provisions
- To repair, or sign on a master carpenter to repair, the Folly's damaged hull
Tortuga town has a festive air, with a well-lit main square surrounded by old colonial Spanish buildings. The largest, the old governors' mansion, has become Los Dos Pilares, a bath- and pleasure-house with gambling tables on offer. The second largest is a covered market, from which dozens of merchants cater to a mix of townsfolk and the quartermasters of various visiting ships. The large building, an old mission church, is quiet except for a small throng of begging children circulating between the crowds on the square and one of the church outbuildings.
With their single pouch of pieces-of-eight nowhere near sufficient to refit the Folly, the pirates split up to pursue various "fundraising opportunities."
- Jerome notices a more successful subset of begging children who have the front of the gambling house staked out and report to three armed thugs in an alleyway on one of its sides. He considers assaulting the men, but elects to wait until they have collected more money
- Eve enters the gambling house, and begins playing (and winning) at some of the smaller tables in order to work her way up to more lucrative fields
- Guillaume goes to the covered market to talk to the town's apothecary, Sister Constance, from whom he learns that there are a dozen sick sailors in the church's lazaretto. These men, the sister claims, would be available for service if only she could refresh her supply of a specific healing herb
Meantime, down at the wharf, Jerome and Nebuchadnezzar have not only found the Dagger, but also the Resolute (a freshly repainted 20-gun brig from whose deck the soft sound of African drums and the smell of cooking soup can be perceived) and the Maid of Copenhagen, a heavily laden merchant ship. There are also a dozen other smaller ships, a mix of pirates and traders.
Jerome investigates the Maid, discovering that she is in fact much more heavily armed than she might seem, before he and Nebuchadnezzar walk onto the Dagger for a parlay. There, they are greeted with friendliness but also some caution by a small party of the crew, who speak a strange dialect of Spanish and seem to lead unusually moderate lives for pirates. Mentioning that they have met Israel leads the crewmen to ask Jerome and Nebuchadnezzar whether they are here to sign on to the crew; it seems that the Dagger is looking for more hands on deck!
Israel soon arrives and explains that the Dagger is in fact seeking more officers, not just sailors, to serve as the prize crew for a ship they intend to take. He is reluctant to tell them more unless they sign the ship's articles and join the crew, but offers to allow a few sailors from the Dagger to transfer to the Folly if they do so - a trade of two officers for up to a dozen hands. Nebuchadnezzar accepts Israel's offer; Jerome does not. As Jerome goes off to find the others, Nebuchadnezzar discovers that the Dagger's intended prey is in fact the Maid of Copenhagen: they have been waiting in port for her to arrive. He reveals what he knows about her hidden weaponry, thereby advancing his reputation as a trustworthy new member of the crew.
As Eve continues to increase her winnings and work her way to bigger and bigger tables (and perhaps even to the select table of Madame Deliah, the owner), Jean and Jerome re-unite and sneak out after a merchant who is leaving Los Dos Pilares; he has his winnings, and they have larceny on their minds! Unfortunately for the pirates, they bungle their ambush, and not only does their quarry escape but both Jean and Jerome are wounded in the brief exchange of pistol fire that takes place. Luckily Guilliame is on hand to patch the requisite holes, if only his limping patients will accompany him into the countryside in pursuit of Sister Constance's missing herbs...
Guillaume has already learned from Pepe, a curandero who supplies the herbs to Constance, that the grove where Pepe harvests the leaves has been occupied by an evil rival - "the Jumbee man". Pepe claims that this man is not only an evil magician but also a servant of Satan himself. Guillaume, Jean and Jerome pad cautiously into the misty grove, where Jerome captures the Jumbee man despite the various terrifying phantoms that he seems able to project at them using a feather-trimmed fetish. Then, while trimming the medicinal leaves, Guillaume sees a small green snake and imagines that he hears a voice promising great rewards if he shoots Jerome - is this Satan, the Jumbee man's master? Or just more phantasms?
Guillaume fails to give in to temptation, and the matter remains a mystery as the party returns to Sister Constance's lazaretto. There, between Guillaume's own skills and the power of the leaves (which are used to make a broth), the Folly soon has twelve new crewmen.
In Los Dos Pilares, Eve finally reaches the point of no return: she is head to head with Franz Schoenmacher, a suspicious merchant. Four pouches of gold lie on the table between them. By a hair, Eve has the better hand, and leaves Los Dos Pilares with her winnings despite Schoenmacher's dire threats that "she has not heard the last of this." Turning to the covered market, she allocates her winnings to buying new stocks of powder, shot and naval stores, as well as hiring a few more sailors and a master carpenter. With her cannon complement unaltered, the Folly is now nonetheless well crewed and capable of seizing other ships if only she can grapple them. New adventures await on the seas of the Caribbean!
