A small candle flickered meekly in the oppressive dark of the reigning night sky. It hardly bothered to illuminate much of the ship’s deck as I sat, hunched against the wind, on the bow. The waves grasped at the hull of the ship as it floated amidst the teaming nightmares baying in the dark. The ship creaked silently as the masts groaned in the hurried winds of the cold black air. Salt spray spat up from the bow of the ship as I lay my leg over the post rail. My hand cradled the candles base gently as I held it steady in the rocking waves. The tortured creaks of the hull belonged to the Black March, the last vessel of Commodore Mackett's cursed fleet. This wretched vessel now sails empty except for my lone candle and I. My blood soaked boots hang heavy over the bow of the ship. I feel the thing crawling slowly and torturously under my skin. I only wish that I might finish my story before the creeping darkness drags my wretched corpse to hell, least I am already there damned to ride the bow of the Black March for all of eternity. Everything leading up to our sail out of Tortuga is worthless prologue. I will start there.
***
The stench of weak-bellied sailors filled the air as the Black March cleared the bay. Not even on open sea and some of the men, even former Limeys, were casting their innards to Davy Jones. The Black March was a gutted beauty and rode at speeds that easily outpaced most other vessels on the sea. Stripped of all but two long nines kept to the front of the vessel to persuade merchant ships to surrender, the vessel weighed much less than originally designed and had massive sails attached to it in makeshift manners by some of Mackett’s engineers. The vessel had previously served a Captain Leer. A captaincy cut short by an overconfident challenge to Mackett in a duel, or so rumor held.
Mackett had, as of late, become obsessed with a legendary chest, a chest whose contents are the talk of every sailor in the Dry Tortugas. It’s said that this chest contains within the secret to eternal life. A small flask filled to the stopper with water from the Fountain of Youth, sought years ago by Ponce de Leon and his band of French miscreants. The final stroke of paint on his canvas of madness had been a map sold to him by a French speaking Maroon that marked the waterways around an island that he dared not share the location of. Mackett used his amassed gold to assemble a crew of hearty sailors and murderous cutthroats to find this treasure, led of course from Mackett’s flag ship The Crimson Wraith. The Crimson Wraiths red sails held taught against the ropes as it veered about to bring its sails under wind. The sails were reminiscent of the many bloody battles the vessel had seen, parts of the ship appeared to have been taken whole from other vessels. Hardly any piece of the great nautical giant was an original piece. Mackett’s engineers from the Royal Navy were the only thing holding the boat afloat.
The reason this sizable crew had been assembled is all because of the myth of the chest. The one said to contain the flask of Captain Regulous, a man left to die in the swamps of La Pascua Florida by a band of traitorous curs who had served under him. After making off with his vessel and his gold, the crew left him with but a flask and his clothes. He searched madly for escape from the island, tales of his mad dash through the swamps tell of such preposterous things as dragons that lurked below the waves of the swamp and angry gods taking the form of swamp men trying to drag him beneath the constant knee deep surf of the island. The air was so hot and wet that Regulous soon felt he had to halt his mad flight through the swamp, least he become ill beyond recoup. No sooner had he decided to make camp than did he see a sight that left him in awe.
A great stone rose up from the swamp in front of Regulous. The stone had a basin in its top that held within a clear liquid that smelled of all the prettiest bar maidens in Port Royal. It was an intoxicating fume that drew him in to its grasp. No tales recount his return journey, nor in fact the rest of his life right up ‘til his death. With him he had carried the flask of liquid taking periodic sniffs of the fumes, believing the enchanting odor to bring him immortality. His final moments lay once again in mutiny, a rash of murders had occurred in a local port and the crew sold out the captain claiming him a demon possessed wretch. Captain Regulous was hanged by the neck for a list of crimes as long as the Governors coattails. His final words were of the resting place of his flask. Words that fell hollow to all but one man who laboriously set about its retrieval. This man was Commodore Mackett.