The Eye of the Storm

by Pil Lee

Ramsey’s glass eye was missing. Haggerty polished a cup on his sleeve and held it up while Scoon poked inside the socket with a fork.

“Yup, it’s gone,” said Scoon.

“I know it’s gone,” said Ramsey, pushing him away with a growl. “What I want to know is where it’s gone to.” He grabbed the cup from Haggerty and inspected his reflection. Shrunken sun-scarred skin puckered around his socket like the brown lips of a dead sea urchin. He roared and threw the cup across the room.

“Get me The Bencher.”

Lying exhausted on his bunk three cabins away, Murray Farris, QC, groaned and pulled a flea-ridden pillow over his head. It had been two months since The Storm had captured the Lady Anne and burned her to the water and not for the first time Murray wished he had gone down with her. He wasn’t sure which of this illiterate bunch could have possibly understood what the initials QC meant on his valise, but the black bastard of a Captain had quickly grasped the possibilities.

Murray had been ushered into the main cabin on the poop deck, still an experience he counted as his worst on this voyage. The two naked women chained to the foot of the giant bed sometimes begged him for mercy in his dreams, and he often imagined he could smell the mixed stench of lust and fear wafting up to the deck.

The Captain immediately let him know why he’d survived. “So you’re a Bencher, eh Farris?” He pushed Murray’s trembling body on the rug with his boot. “Eh?”

“Yes,” he replied.

The boot moved with a blur and Murray felt like his chest had exploded. “Yes Sir,” he gasped in terror. “Queen’s Counsel, Sir,” he added quickly before the boot could move again.

“Well, now you’re going to be Captain’s Counsel,” said the seven foot albino with a snort of laughter.

Murray tried smiling weakly and the boot sent a shaft of agony through his left arm.

The Captain sat in front of him and leaned down. “It’s not always easy being captain,” he said after a pause. “Every time something goes wrong the crew expect me to fix it, and then when I can’t it becomes my fault.” He leaned closer conspiratorially. “Sometimes I can just kill the troublemakers and then it’s all fine, right. But pretty soon you end up with no crew, and the laddies are harder to find than you might think. So you are going to be their Counsel. You are going to adjudicate their squabbles.” He paused again and repeated the word “adjudicate”, rolling it round his mouth with a satisfied expression. “Hmmm. And as well as adjudicating, you can solve their petty problems and take the blame when they don’t like it.” He smiled and stretched his arms above his head. “What do you think, Bencher?”

So Murray had become lawyer, judge and even detective to thirty-five foul-mouthed pirates. He still couldn’t believe how many disputes there were each week and he was always black and blue from disgruntled clients. The Captain stopped the crew from causing him any permanent damage, “You’re supposed to share, people, share,” he exhorted them, but that didn’t protect him from supposedly accidental injuries that caused him constant pain.

This morning he tried to block out the sound of Ramsey’s roar but a minute later Scoon burst into his room.

“Ramsey’s eye has gone,” he rasped, as if everyone on board hadn’t already heard. “We need you Mr Farris.”

Murray heaved himself off the bed and reflected that if there was one thing that really put the icing on the cake it was having a protege amongst this group of cretins. In the past couple of months Scoon had show more and more interest in Murray’s work until now he thought of himself as some sort of assistant detective. He had taken to calling him Mister when the others weren’t around and even making his own notes on a case. Murray would bet his only blanket on the fact that Scoon couldn’t even write his own name so the Lord knows what he was scribbling and he didn’t ever want to see.

Ignoring his filthy law clerk he made his way to the mess where Ramsey was starting to wrestle his crewmates to the floor and search their clothing.

Murray banged the judge’s gavel that Scoon had carved him on the nearest table.

“About time,” said Ramsey, dropping the bosun to the floor with a crash. “What are you going to do about my eye!”