The Old Sea Captains' Tale

Word Count: 1744


"Aye Captain" Hayes shouted back. The sea was swelling and the wind was becoming stronger and more violent by the moment. Lightning sparked, illuminating the gray skies, thunder rattled the decks and rain struck the sails like balls of lead. " Furl the topgallants mister Hayes and secure the foresail, and let us not be too hasty about it now, aye Mister Hayes." Hayes translated the last part as a use of sarcasm by the captain, given the dire circumstances. "Aye, Captain!" he responded and relayed the order out to the crew. "Get those topgallants furled on the fore and main!" Hayes directed. "You, there!" he selected the closest sailor with two free arms. "Take this length of rope and secure the foresail, grab some men on the way to help." "Aye, Sir" the sailor responded. As he hauled the rope up over his shoulder and started toward the bow Mister Hayes shouted to him, "Those bonds better hold back Neptune himself son." The sailor acknowledged him with a muffled aye. Suddenly a massive swell breaks over the port side of the ship, washing men, barrels, crates and anything else not tied down over the starboard side. Some of the men are thrown overboard, along with a plentiful supply of their top side cargo. Mister Hayes was clutching onto some rigging around the mainmast gasping for breath. Finally unclenching his grasp, Hayes turned his head around the deck assessing the damage. Some of the crew were laying about the deck, possibly knocked unconscious by debris or maybe dead. Others were trying to save the men that had been swept into the sea. Tossing lines out in an attempt to lasso and retrieve their fellow seamen. It was proving to be a futile effort with the sea swelling to massive heights and the wind on the verge of a rage.

" Mister Hayes! Mister Hayes!" hollered out the Captain. Half way down the quarterdeck Hayes could hardly hear the Captain, but did hear him nonetheless. He headed towards the poop deck where the Captain stood at the helm. "Aye, Captain." " Rally the men Mister Hayes, this breeze won't stay cool forever." Hayes looked at the Captain who had a strange smirk-like facial expression, it could almost be mistaken as a smile, but anyone who knew the Captain knew that was a feat most unattainable. "Ha!" the Captain shot out at his perplexed quartermaster. " There's a break in the storm mate, not 2 leagues northwest." "What? How can you possibly know that, with all due respect Captain, I can't see 5 fathoms. Between the rain, the wind and clouds." The Captain pointed his arm out and up, "There Mister Hayes, in the sky. Can you see that cloud formation, white as your knuckles. Everything else is dark, that bright spot is the break mate." Hayes looked out and although he could recognize the slightest color difference far out in the sky, he could hardly conclude that would signify a break in the storm. “Ah, I see Captain, and so it is." There wasn't much devotion in his tone. Gazing out with his telescope the Captain again shot out "Ha!" followed by a much lighter "haahmhm", and again the smirkish-like expression. "What's going on with the Captain, has he gone mad?" Hayes thought those words but he dare not speak them aloud. "That's not all Mister Hayes" the Captain said. With that he reached out his telescope and handed it over to Hayes. "Just port, off the bow, and nearly 6 lengths up the rigging on the foresail, straight out on the sea." Mister Hayes took the telescope from the Captain and used his directions to search out on the roaring sea. A task complicated by the ships' movement with the swells. Compensating as best he could, Mister Hayes couldn't seem to see anything aside from ocean. "I don't see a thing Captain" Hayes moved the telescope up and down side to side trying to find something, anything to confirm his Captains assertion." Bloody hell, maybe he has gone mad" again, a thought Hayes thought not to alert his Captain of. "There, !" the Captain grabbed the scope and maneuvered it while Hayes was still looking through it. " See it now mate?" he said. " We're not alone out here Mister Hayes." As the image in the scope came into focus for Mister Hayes, he saw it.

There, rising and falling in the swelling sea, was the mast of a ship. An entire mast, completely intact floating with sails up from the topgallant to the mainsail. Leaving the only possible explanation, that an immense wind snapped the mast at it's base like a splinter. Looking closer still, Hayes discovered that not only were the sails and rigging intact, but there was also the ships' flags. "A Spanish ship Captain?" "Mister Hayes, a ship of Spain, missing a mast. Think of the enduring circumstances that would lead to such a loss. Surely mate, a storms fury that vengeful would take more than just her mast." All the while the Captain and Mister Hayes were surrounded by the same ravaging storm, waves crashing into the deck, the rain sounded like drums beating on the sails with the ever present screams and howls of the roaring wind. Members of the crew scattered about, re-tying rigging, securing sails, gathering dead and injured crewmen. As the ship grew closer and closer to the Captains' claimed break in the storm, the mast of the Spanish ship passed right off the starboard side. It was massive, even bigger than Hayes and the Captain had first thought. "A Spanish galleon, Mister Hayes, hhm hhm ha." Again, that strange noise and look from the Captain. "There's men in the water!" a crewman hollered from the down on the quarterdeck. "A lot of them!"

"The crew of our wounded Spanish galleon Mr. Hayes?" the Captain sarcastically asked. At last the ship was upon the edge of the storm, from slow transition to an almost sudden stop, they were in the break, the eye as it were. "He was right, but I'm still not ruling anything out" Hayes thought to himself. The sky was clear blue and the water was calm as a frog pond, a break in the storm perhaps 3 leagues wide. All around, the edges were dark violet, almost black, the lightning could be seen dimly through the dark cloud cover, and the thunder still heard but no longer felt. And there half-way from the center of the break, was a large behemoth of a ship, sitting still as a stone. Over her port side was a long protruding pole partly into the water. Another dislodged mast.

Hugging close to the edge of the break, to use the only wind available, as the closer to the center there was nothing but dead air. The Captain saw more bodies floating in the water. Upon observing the very first bodies along with the mast, Hayes delegated the task of counting the floating dead to a younger sailor. " What's the count now swabbie, with these ones too?" A few moments of delay and the young crewman answered him, “Aarr, Uh, that makes two...two hundred..uuhh twenty four and uhh...seventy one, uuh it makes about 300 or so Sir." " Three hundred Captain." "Three hundred Mister Hayes, three hundred. What do you think to how many standard crew aboard a ship that size Hayes?" Not actually seeking Hayes to answer, the Captain quickly obliged. "I say no more than 500 men, no less the 300. Being in the middle lets' call it 400." " A crew dissolved, a ship destroyed and full of gold, lets go. Fly the Spanish flag Mister Hayes, we'll get'em by surprise." the Captain said eagerly. They closed in on the ship and came up to her starboard side, crewmen threw grappling hooks across her gun rails and pulled the ships together. To the crews' surprise, the deck of the Spanish galleon was empty. Eventually, every member of the crew had traversed over to the galleon, searching through the many decks and cargo holds.

Although the honeycomb structured interior was expansive and difficult to navigate, load after load of gold and silver coins were hauled out of the galleon, precious gems and treasures of all kind. After stripping the very last of anything and everything of value the crew began to head back to their own ship. "Mr. Hayes, what say you of our newly acquired riches?" the Captain said, followed by a "humph." " I can't believe it, I just can't believe it. I can't believe you were right about the break in the storm. I can't believe you just happened onto a ships' mast to lead you to an abandoned ship full of treasure. It just seems too incredible too be the truth. I cannot believe it. I just can't believe it." Hayes continued over and over and suddenly the break in the storm they sat in began to close in around the ship. The galleon they had just ransacked every room of which, began to disappear. Slowly the galleons' decks and hull began to fade. Down in the hold of the ship the bags, crates and trunks of treasure that not moments ago were placed there, began fading away.

Consumed already by a fit of disbelief, Mister Hayes noticed none of these things, continuing to repeat himself. " I just can't believe it." The perfectly calm waters and wind that had been their refuge evaporated, the sea began violently swelling almost instantaneously. The wind shot out of the sky as if it was thrown by the Gods. So violent did it become and so rapidly, that the ship began to break apart. Men were swept away by the sea and ripped overboard by the wind. The hull creaked and cracked, the masts twisted and splintered, the sails sheared by the force of the wind. Rain that hit so hard it could pierce the skin, and left dents in the wood beams of the ship. Finally Hayes came to the realization to what was happening around him. "What? What happened, what's happening? The ship, the treasure, the calmness, Captain was it real? What's going on" The Captain looked at him, in a disappointed tone he said " I believed we would make it, and so we did. Trusting in the order of the world can lead to vast wealth, and not strictly in a monetary sense, but choosing to dis-believe what's right in front of you can lead to disastrous consequences."