The Judas Goat Episode 1: Gunner Short Takes a Nap

This is the first episode of my new serialized novel about a seventeenth century privateer who’s quest for redemption takes a turn for the weird when a box of magic mushrooms sends him tripping into a wager with Hades. Enjoy!

Episode 1: Gunner Short Takes a Nap

Dave Gillespie welcomed the cannon’s cool barrel against his cheek as he estimated the range to the Spanish merchant ship through the gunport. 

“Wedge,” he said quietly.

He felt the cannon tilt as Trevor and Noah jammed a wedge beneath the breech, dropping the elevation of the barrel as they closed on the Spaniard.

Not that we’ll get a chance to use it, he griped.

As his first journey drew to a close, young Dave had discovered that the life of a privateer, supposedly full of riches, danger, adventure, and glory, was anything but—at least, that’s how it was aboard Valiant. 

Resigning himself to another boring day hauling cargo between ships, Dave started to pull back from the gunport when he heard the whoosh of air being blown through a narrow opening behind him. He froze. He’d made the mistake before of assuming that sound meant the gunner was readying the linstock—only to gag on a pungent fart. The stagnant air inside Valiant’s gun deck was bad enough, but when doubled up with one of the old fellow’s stink biscuits it grew truly foul. Pressing his face harder into the open gun port, he inhaled the clean air from outside and waited for Trevor and Noah’s reactions. If the gunner had crop-dusted them, Dave knew his mates would start retching soon enough.

Voices from the main deck drifted down into Dave’s ears. After seven months suffering their insults and torment, he instantly recognized them.

“But they’ll get all the good stuff!” Sullie whined.

“That’s the point, you idiot,” growled Bosun Livingston.

“An’ what are we supposed to do? Fall down?” Ollie added. 

“Don’t care what you do, just make it loud enough the first mate and Captain hear it from the quarterdeck. Do it right and we’re set. You two start, I’ll join in,” the bosun ordered, then stomped off.

Sullie and Ollie enjoyed the bosun’s protection and used it to browbeat the rest of the crew into doing most of their work. The only duties they actually pulled were boarding party duties, and the bosun took a healthy cut of the trinkets and treasures they pilfered from prizes as payment for letting them loaf the rest of the time. 

Dave wondered what they were up to. It almost sounded like they were plotting a mutiny but that didn’t make sense. They were in close with First Mate Cole, and it was common knowledge that old Captain Wright was retiring after this trip and was evaluating the first mate to replace him. No, the brutish trio had no reason to try and take the ship by force—it would be theirs legally just as soon as Valiant returned to England with her hold full of Spanish goods.

Which might be just as soon as we take this next prize, Dave thought, returning to scanning the Spanish merchant ship without much enthusiasm. 

The sixty-ton caravel represented what was likely to be his last chance to strike it rich on this voyage—if it carried anything valuable, and if by some miracle the primary boarding crew—Sullie, Ollie, and the bosun—needed backup. But Dave’s hopes had been dashed too many times over the last seven months to think this time would be any different. The scenario would play out like always: The Spanish captain would make a half-assed attempt to flee before giving up because it made no sense to risk damaging his ship to protect the low value goods in his hull. Then the Bosun, Sullie, and Ollie would go over to “secure” the prize, pilfer all the good stuff for themselves, and leave only scraps for the rest of the crew. 

Then Captain Wright would indulge in his favorite pastime—lecturing the captive Spanish crew on the evils of Catholicism—while the crew transferred the cargo into Valiant’s hold. When all was said and done, the two ships would sail off in different directions with the whole event more closely resembling a business deal rather than officially sanctioned robbery on the high seas.

Dave, Trevor, and Noah had started the voyage with high hopes. Word along the Plymouth waterfront was that Valiant was a good ship, a lucky ship, and the boys took that to mean a profitable ship. And she was, but only for her officers and owners. Captain Wright’s policy of avoiding treasure galleons and preying only on ships bound for the Spanish colonies brought in modest profits at low risk, and allowed him to do something few privateers ever grow old enough to contemplate; retire. 

But the rank and file crew only earned fractions of the ship’s overall take based on seniority, which meant that Dave, Trevor, and Noah, as the most junior members, would return home with just enough beer money to tide them over until Valiant set sail again. 

Dave couldn’t help feeling guilty. He’d convinced his two best friends to join him with promises of riches and adventure only to land them in nautical indentured servitude. They’d all burnt their bridges in anticipation of returning home independently wealthy; Trevor had run away from his blacksmithing apprenticeship and Noah’d abandoned his family farm just before harvest. And Dave didn’t even want to think about what he’d done to Chastity. 

No, unless they somehow got to ransack a prize before the bosun and his two thuggish lackeys, their futures held either poverty ashore or continued servitude at sea.

Seventy yards away, the Spaniard’s deck came alive with frantically moving crewmen and knocked Dave’s glum thoughts aside. They appeared to be readying the ship for action and the possibility of a real fight sent Dave’s hopes skyrocketing.

Nobody fights for olive oil—they must be carrying treasure! 

Too excited by the prospect of imminent action to worry about dangerous fumes, Dave pulled back from the open port to rub the sweat from his eyes. Blinking away the stinging salt, he quickly smooshed his face back into the narrow gap between Valiant’s oak hull and the cannon–and sighed with disappointment. Instead of opening her gunports and running out her cannons, the Spanish crew had struck her colors and was in the process of dropping her sails. 

Crap, Dave thought, slumping against the cannon in resignation.

I never should have left her, Dave thought, coming dangerously close to admitting that following his father’s footsteps had been a bad idea. From there, it would have been a short stretch to admitting he’d thoroughly screwed up by abandoning Chastity when she needed him most. Only the drive to live up to his father’s example made that decision palatable to him, and now it looked like he would never have the opportunity.

Then Gunner Short, having actually prepared the linstock quite well, took a little catnap. As he nodded off, the linstock in his hand dipped into breech and sent a double load of chain shot ripping through the Spaniard’s hull.

Dave’s world suddenly felt wrapped in cotton as the cannon went off inches from his head. Scrambling back from the hellish explosion, he found himself on his hands and knees but unable to see. Coughing and spitting on the deck inches from his face, he slowly became aware of a profound ringing and a single pinprick of light, like he was deep inside a tunnel looking at a distant entrance, that appeared before him. As the gray fuzz on the periphery of his vision receded, he sat up and saw Gunner Short staring at the smoldering linstock in his hand with the bemused look of a man who’d just woken up from a nap. 

An instant later, First Mate Cole appeared like a howling demon from hell. Shoving the old gunner aside, he grabbed Dave by the shoulders and shouted something that was lost beneath the ringing in his ears. When Dave didn’t answer, the first mate shook him like a rag doll and repeated his order with exaggerated slowness. 

“Ready—the—boarding—party!” 

 Dave’s confusion evaporated as the words he’d longed to hear registered in his concussed brain. Giving the first mate a quick nod, he turned to Trevor and Noah and found them still staring like stunned mullets at the gunner. Reaching across the hot barrel, he slapped his best friends’ sooty faces to get their attention, then shouted the good news. 

“Grab your pig-stickers and stuff—we’re going over!”

 

****To read the more of The Judas Goat, click this link: The Judas Goat on Amazon’s Kindle Vella

The first three episodes are free, and then Jeff Bezos gives you 200 free tokens to continue reading because he’s a nice guy. Oh, and if you enjoy the story, please “like” it a million times and consider writing a quick review to help other readers find it. Thanks!