VII Swift Bird

"Rosalind, do you know how to use a sword?" Peter asked. They were relaxing on a beach. Most of the crew were preparing for a barbeque. Rose wasn't even sure which island they were on. -"No, should I?" Rose answered questionablely. "I got a sabre, on the Narwhal. Want to learn how to use it?" Peter didn't really wait for an answer but was off and soon had two sticks of about one and a half arm-lengths long. And before Rose knew it, a relaxing day on the beach involved an awful lot more ducking, jumping and getting whacked with a stick on her bottom than she'd imagined.

The Narwhal was sailing along with only the staysail set forward of the mast and a reefed mainsail. There was quite the wind blowing that morning. But above the islet the pirates had spotted a single mast on the leeward side of the island, and they were going to check it out, and see if there maybe was some goods to liberate and redistribute. The Narwhal sailed north around the islet, giving them the longest approach so they'd have time to have a good look. "Good news cap. There is a solo flag in her rigging." Eloise called down, she had climbed up on the spreader of the mainmast with a pair of binoculars to have a look at their intended prey.

It was a small aluminium catamaran anchored near the beach. The sails were stored away nicely, and all hatches were opened. That boat wasn't going anywhere fast. "Dingy on the beach." Eloise reported from her spotting position. That would indicate that the single person sailing on that boat was not onboard, both simplyfying and complicating their operation. "Do you see a person?" Jan de Jongh called up to Eloise. "Bo'sn, prepare our boat to intercept." Captain Jacobson instructed Michael.

"SHALLOOW" Eloise called out. And the following tug on the helm by the captain almost launched Eloise from the mast. The sea floor suddenly came up on this side of the island. There was not enough water for the Narwhal to sail in. "Michael, Aleksey, Jack, Rose, Jan, Lester, Roy. To the boat. Go." Peter had his eyes on the prize now, and was not letting go. He hadn't expected this side of the islet to be shallow, but that wouldn't slow them down much. "One medium aged man is on the beach to the south of the boat, building a fire" Eloise reported from the mast. And with that information, the boat was let go from the Narwhal

Michael navigated the small RIB in such a way that the anchored catamaran was in between them and the person on the beach. When they were getting close to the cat, Jan spoke. "Michael, Lester, Roy, to the beach. The rest of you swim." And Michael slowed down abruptly and jan dropped himself overboard, quickly followed by the others. Michael immediately sped up again and swerved around the catamaran towards the beach.

"We probably don't have much time, we all know what we are looking for." Jan told the group when they climbed onboard the cat. Rose actually had no idea what they were looking for, but just followed Aleksey into the saloon. From the outside, the boat looked nice, but inside was a mess. Dirty pots on the stove, garbage bin overflowing. A pile of clothes filling the space between couch and table, hiding where one ends and the other begins. All kinds of random stuff on the deck. Rose looked around as the others were opening drawers, flipping through the piles of stuff, pulling out even more items from cabinets they managed to pull open despite the amount of junk laying in front of them. She flipped up the lid of the chart table and discovered two handheld radios still in the plastic packaging and quickly dropped those in the watertight bag Jan had given her. She tossed in the brass chart dividers and fancy looking wooden parallel ruler for good measure as well. Then she went down into the port-side hull. The bed was unmade with sheets in a pile on it, the matrass looked disgusting. But her eyes landed on an old book standing among the rubble on the shelf at the head end of the bed. Old books could bring in some money, and with nothing else there, she might as well take it. It was a Bible hold closed with a rubber band. Rose pulled the band off to quickly open the book to look at the pages. But there was a surprise, the book was hollowed out, and the pages replaced with five hundred euro bills. "HA." Rose laughed out loud. She quickly closed the book and put the band back around it before putting it in her bag.

Rose was squeezing out the water of her hair while the Narwhal was already healing over to get out of there at speed. "Let's see what we all got."It was Jan again, who was going through the bags, complaining that it wasn't really worth the diesel they were burning to get out of there. "Rose, love, bibles are not really worth that much, there are way to many." "Look inside Chief, before you trow it overboard." Rose answered. Jan looked up at her and then pulled off the rubber band. "Oh, I like this version of the Bible." It counted out to forty-four five-hundred euro bills.

Aleksey pulled out a small wooden box, or small in his hands, from the bag he had brought back. "Cap, I think we can give this to your girlfriend." Captain Jacobson looked inside the box and then passed it onto Rose. There was a pistol inside the box, and two magazines filled with bullets. There was a brochure stuck in the lid of the box. The title said; 'Arsenal Force Stryk-B, combat', with a subtitle 'Swift Bird' Rose looked up at Peter. "Your share of today's score." That was not why she'd looked up at Peter, but "Thanks guys" was what she answered none the less.

The Narwhal had stopped the engine at nightfall, and was sailing through the night, navigation lights turned off. The wind had picked up so they didn't increase sail. Rose was in bed, listening to the water passing the hull on the outside. When Peter came in, without turning on the cabin light, he undressed and crawled into the bed, his bed, next to Rose. "Girlfriend?" Rose asked. Peter answered by wrapping his arm around her. "Mine."