"On the Account": Gunpowder and Rouge (Session 1.5)

The Leeward Isles, January 1651: The Aquila and the Fortune's Folly have been at sea for three hard weeks, but their destination is on the horizon. The Folly raises a signal flag, the two ships draw alongside one another, and the officers convene...

Brimstone Jack, who is finally able to stand after almost a month of convalescence, cuts directly to the chase: to keep their arrival in the seas around St. Martin as quiet as possible, the company must temporarily split up. He will take the ships, the cacao, and the bulk of the officers and crews to Saint-Barthélemy, where the Folly and the Aquila can be careened and otherwise made ready for battle. Meanwhile, three volunteers must proceed either to the nearby Dutch settlement at Philipsburg, or to the French colonial capital at Basse-Terre on St. Kitts, to trade the Turkish treasure for more cannons and if at all possible, the services of a master gunner for the battle to come.

Joe, Guillaume and Red Knife volunteer, select St. Philipsburg as their destination, and are put to sea in the Folly's launch. A day's sailing across the open sea brings them to the town's bustling harbor just as the fishing fleet is returning, and they slip into the bay without drawing any attention.

St. Philipsburg is a grimy, hard-working town filled with salt dredgers and merchants from across the Low Countries, and guarded by three stone forts looking down from above. Over glasses of jenever in a wharfside tavern, the three pirates hatch their plan: before investigating the town's cannon foundry, they will try to convert the Turkish treasure into coin at an advantageous rate by selling the items to a collector. A coin tossed to Hendrik, the potboy, results in a lead: a visiting French Jesuit, Frère Robert, is a well-traveled expert on antiquities. Perhaps he would be interested in taking a look?

The pirates track down the priest, who is found engaged in congenial dinnertime debate as a guest at the house of St. Philipsburg's town minister. Although he is not interested in purchasing the treasure himself, he is able to increase its value by assaying certain significant items, which will help them get a better trade for it should they try to turn it into cannons in the future.

The evening is passed in tale-telling and genever-drinking under Dominee Barendse's roof, and Frère Robert sends his new friends on their way the next morning with an open invitation to join him at the island monastery he is journeying towards: Santa Marta de las Islas, just north of San Juan.

At the cannon-foundry, Guillaume converses with the bewigged and highly efficient proprietor, Mijnheer Jans Oppendijk, who takes their order for ten light cannon and also offers to cast them two heavy demi-cannons to use as chaser guns - if they can get hold of the bronze it would take to do so.

Oppendijk's last shipment of bronze was brought in by a Dutch privateer which is still in the harbor, and following this trail brings the pirates to the great cabin of the heavily customized sea-galleon Vurenschijter, where they meet the scientifically-knowledgeable and red-blooded Kaptein Hillegont van Breda.

Van Breda bats aside offers to buy her remaining bronze with a job offer: she needs someone briefly kidnapped and brought to her ship so that she can interrogate them. Following the interrogation, they are to be returned safely to where they were taken. She cannot use her own crew for this task, as the subject is also Dutch and it would show her in a bad light were anything to go wrong. In exchange for this service, she will hand over the bronze that the three pirates need for their demi-cannons. Joe and Guillaume's enthusiasm for doing van Breda this "favor" wins Red Knife over and they accept, promising to return at sunset for more details.

In the mean time, the matter of a master gunner still needs to be attended to. Dropping some of their treasure into the apron pocket of Paulus, Hendrik the pot-boy's father, gets them a few bottles of his most expensive jenever and his assistance for the day. Paulus introduces them to a stonemason called Hiram, who offers to see if any of the bored cannoneers up in the forts above might prefer a more adventurous life at sea. With the help of one of Oppendijk's apprentices the pirates arrange for a damaged cannon to be hauled over to the inn, and using the cannon as a testing tool they are able to identify the most qualified applicant. This is Jaap de Ruyter, a somewhat lazy but highly competent middle-aged artillerist who gladly accepts their offer to join the company.

With light cannons purchased and a master gunner signed on to direct their use, only one thing remains: the kidnapping job. The target is identified as Paulus Henriksen, the navigator of the a Dutch man-o-war anchored further out in the bay. Van Breda wishes to ask him some technical questions about a timing device she is working on, but he has refused to see her - thus necessitating, in her eyes, the business at hand.

A row-boat with muffled oars has been made available, and with Guillaume providing the seamanship and Joe providing the stealth, the little vessel is soon drawn in under the Vergulde Zon's stern. Although Guillaume is disconcerted by a familiar violin tune that he hears echoing out from the open cabin windows above them, and Joe is concerned by the conscious absence of lanterns at the ship's aft railing, but these misgivings are pushed aside as they clamber silently up the hull and draw themselves up to the cabin's windowsill.

Within, a scene of surprising opulence is visible. Silks, velvets and cloth-o'-gold have been draped around the cabin, an enormous pile of fresh fruit spills from a woven basket on a table on the far side, and a veiled woman seated by the door plays a violin. In the center of the cabin, a masked and wigged figure wearing a Dutch naval officer's uniform stands at ease while a second masked figure with long blonde hair and a silk shift kneels at his feet to employ an ornate boot-polishing kit.

Led by the ever-impulsive Joe, the pirates leap into the room to seize their prey, but things go wrong quickly; Joe fumbles his attempt to knock the standing figure's saber away, while Guillaume is forced to employ his sedative kit to prevent the violin player fleeing out of the cabin. Red Knife and Joe have just managed to wrestle the officer to the deck and unmask him when the boot polisher stands, snatches a double-barreled pistol from a nearby bench, and fires both barrels at Red Knife's head!

As everyone's hearing returns, Red Knife is bleeding from two hair's-breadth bullet grazes to his scalp and ear, Joe is using his axe to hold the unmasked "naval officer" - in fact, just a slim boy of around 14 - hostage, and the boot polisher has removed their mask and blonde wig to reveal a droopy white mustache and bald scalp: this, not the boy dressed as an officer, is the pirates' real target.

Hendrikssen's gun is empty, but two shots have been already been fired and boots can be heard in the passageway outside. What will the pirates do - stand or run? 

While Guillaume slams the cabin door shut, Joe gives Hendrikssen an ultimatum: call off the approaching marines, or he will use his axe on the hostage. A wrench of the axe handle brings a trickle of blood to the boy's throat and lends weight to the threat, and Hendrikssen shouts through the bulkhead that the shots were an accidental discharge and that everything is fine. The marines are heard dispersing, and after Guillaume's sedatives are once more employed (on Hendrikssen) this time, the pirates are soon rowing away with the boy bound and gagged in the cabin and Hendriksen and the violin-player - a slave called Fabienne - in tow.

Back at the Vurenschijter, Hendrikssen - who has revealed a deep antipathy for both women and pirates as the source of his reluctance to meet with van Breda - is handed over for a brief interrogation. A half hour later, he is paddled back across the dark waters of the bay and returned to his ship. A tense moment passes when the pirates are spotted making their retreat and are forced to abandon the rowboat amidst a hail of musket fire from the Vergulde Zon's sentries, but the absence of a boat is no impediment to these sons of the sea and all are soon reunited on the deck of Kaptein van Breda's ship. The bars of bronze change hands, Mijnheer Oppendilk's apprentices begin work on casting the Folly and Aquila's new 36-pound chaser guns, and the pirates arrange for a hired vessel to take them, their new master gunner, and his new hardware north to Saint-Barthélemy to rendezvous with Brimstone Jack and make ready for the arrival of L'Estrella in the waters of the Caribbean...

On to Session 6!