William Hunt, Shipman

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee

from Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

Prologue

"God damn, it! What happened?" The Captain pushed through the crowd of shipmen all talking amongst themselves. "There's work to do!"

"We can't find Hunt, sir." One of the shipmen said loudly from the back.

"What do you mean you can't find him? Where could he have gone? Let him not forget today is his trial day." He stomped around hastily. "The other captains will be here any moment, I need him found and I need this place clean..." He marched off to find Hunt.

The shipmen were still standing in a semi-circle, all sort of bunched together at either side. "So..." the same shipman began. "Does anyone think they know what happened to him?"

A young boy with a mop responded. "If we can't find him, there's only one place he could be..." And they stared out into the ocean all at once.

Part One: The Fight

A great and wonderful darkness filled the air as the birds circled and cawed overhead. He stood, staring into the night sky, feeling like it was reciting his name back to him in a ghostly whisper. "William Hunt!" came the bellow from the captain's room. It broke the silence, ripped through the cold air and very much, he thought, reeked of death.

"William Hunt, you have been accused of starting a fight with your fellow shipmen regarding the capture of a slave woman who was brought upon this ship to cook and serve...Is this the case?" But Hunt didn't respond straight away. He stared into the depths behind the captain and into the room that without a candle - was pitch black. He swallowed hard as the captain furrowed his brow, stern and purposeful. Hunt eventually, slowly, nodded his head - hanging it as if it were already upon a noose.

The fight was not his fault - or so he thought. The shipmen had dismounted at a harbour William Hunt was not familiar with. The women were all carrying baskets and pots and pans lay in every direction along the alleyways. Hunt was told that he and his fellow men would have to pillage and find things of worth before the pirates got to them first. "And who are the pirates, sir?" Hunt had his hand in the air as if he were asking permission to speak. The other men simply laughed at him before one of them, another shipman named Nathaniel Rose, rose from his chair to speak.

"Are you stupid?" He cockily walked up to Hunt with a grin of achievement on his face. Both men had never been to school and yet, in that moment, it felt as though Rose was degrees ahead of Hunt in the managings of the sea-trade. "The East India Trading Company of course." He got into Hunt's face this time. "If we don't take what is rightfully belonging to the English, the trading company will have their hands on it before this time tomorrow."

"And what is rightfully ours?" Hunt started. "I am sure there are people living there. Is it not theirs?" But Rose laughed and shook his head, telling Hunt he was full of great jokes.

The dismounting and locating of worthless pots and pans was easy enough, the men didn't bother with them though. This was East India territory and they knew for a fact that if any one of them was caught, they would be killed on the spot. The pay however, was great and would afford William Hunt to send his younger sister, Freya, to school.

He thought about it often, Freya getting a good education and growing up to work in a rich man's household looking after the art, being a lady-in-waiting - he had great hopes for her since their parents had died when they were both too young. Freya, younger still. Hunt toed on, the dry floors providing the perfect ground on which to walk as quietly as possible, covered by the cold anxiety of the night.

He saw from corners in his eyes, the other shipmen bringing back bags of gold and silver, some coins and some artefacts. Men had also taken it upon themselves to steal jewels and yes, East India branded items. Hunt took a sigh out into the night as Nathaniel Rose pushed past him carrying a large sack of rattling goods and, on his other arm, a dark-haired, dark-skinned maiden dressed in emerald green rags.

Hunt grabbed Rose by the arm. "What on earth are you doing?" His voice was a sharp whisper, cutting through the cold with even more cold.

"I'm taking some stuff back to the ship. Why, what's wrong with you?" Rose pulled his arm back from Hunt and momentarily let go of the maiden.

"Who is this?"

"She's a woman as you can see..." Rose's condescension was coming through. "The captain said we needed a cook upon the ship and so, I have brought the cook from their local communal area..."

"You mean their church?"

"These are not people of God, Hunt." He tied up the sack and thrusted the woman towards Hunt. "Now here, make yourself useful and take her back to the ship. I've still got things to do down here." He brought out a small knife from the pocket on his navy blue trousers, blackened by dirt and grime, and ran off into the distance. When Hunt looked back from the woman to the direction Rose had ran, it was as though his shipmate was never even there.

Hunt hauled the woman back to the ship and took her to the captain, the sound of a defeated sigh pulling across his face as the sun began to rise on the horizon. "Captain, Rose captured this woman to cook aboard ship." He tried his best to sound formal but the underlying sadness of his vocal chord were being played like a string instrument on its last leg. The Captain thanked him, told him he would commend Rose and sent Hunt on his way. There was still more to do and the shipmen weren't due back until the sun was completely above the horizon. At the moment, the faint orange glow in the distance looked as though God, in anger, was about to set the world on fire.

By the time all the shipmen had returned, each of them except for Hunt had brought something of value. It was all about outrunning East India - getting there first to take the things of most value. Hunt ran his fingers through his hair and tried to get some sleep not knowing that Rose had noticed that he hadn't brought anything back with him. "You've got morals, Hunt." Rose laughed from his bed, neither men turning to see the other but knowing who was speaking to who. "That won't treat you well on the open ocean."

"I just don't see the point of stealing. It's not like any of us are going to get to see any of what we pillaged." Hunt's echo strained the room into an uneasy stir. Shipmen began to whisper about how he was right, every one of them would still be as poor as they were afterwards, just with their pay. "Has nobody ever questioned why we get paid far less than what we pillage? How we must have stolen millions of pounds worth of gold and yet, we get just enough to send one of our loved ones to school for a few years? How when we get home, some of us will still struggle to afford food?"

With this, Rose started up from bed and stomped towards Hunt. "It's not about the money Hunt, it's the principle. I'm going to be forever known as the man who brought a woman to cook us food upon our journey. What will you be known as?"

Hunt didn't answer. But he knew he had stirred the interest of the men around him. He also knew that Rose didn't believe a word of what he himself was saying. Instead, he lay there staring at the wooden ceiling, the holes becoming bigger with each tiny insect bite and the cold seeping in from bursts of water in the floor each time the ship swayed with the oncoming thunderstorm.

His sudden epiphany made him sit up in bed and quickly climb down. Rose had given him perspective and in that moment, he ran for the door in a way which awoke every shipman in his path. He opened the door upon the deck and stepped on to the staircase leading down to the kitchen.

"Perhaps I'll be known as the man who let her go."

And he slammed the door behind him.

Rose was on his trail but lucky enough for Hunt, he was smaller and so, was able to travel lighter into the kitchens. He noticed that the Captain had stopped Rose as the shipmen were ordered to bed for a few hours, Rose was not meant to be awake. Hunt closed the door to the kitchen lightly behind him and saw that the woman was laying on the cold floor without a blanket, shivering. It would be only some moments until the ship left the port and travelled into the storm and so, he led her to the nearest exit. Halfway up the stairs and through a door where ammunition was stored. "You will have to crawl through the cannon socket." He pointed to it and she tucked her dress below her legs, crawling quick and light through the darkness, emerging at the other side in the haze of orange.

She ran to the alleyways from where she was kidnapped and hid amongst the pots, the pans, the random sacks of seeds that littered the area. She would hide there until the ship was far from their sight.

By the time Hunt had been able to escape back up the stairs, Rose was waiting for him in the shipmen's quarters. "You think you're smart, don't you Hunt?" He walked up to his shipmate as the others were now getting dressed for the day. Hunt walked straight past him, refusing to acknowledge him at all costs. But Rose pulled him by his shirt back towards the centre of the room.

"You thought you could steal from me and that I'd just let it go..." With this, Hunt turned on his heels, the scuff of his boots vanishing on to the wooden floor.

"Steal from you?" He whispered. "What part of that human being was yours?"

"All of it." Rose replied, striding up to Hunt once more, this time more purposeful in his movements. Before Hunt could reply to this arrogance, Rose swung at him from the right, catching Hunt's jaw and making his mouth bleed. He dragged Hunt by the shirt and pinned him to the ground, elbowing him in the chest, making him vomit up even more blood. The shipmen around him jeered Rose on.

The fight lasted only a few moments, but Hunt got back on to his feet and held Rose by the hair, slamming his face into a wooden beam, knocking him unconscious. It would be two days until they were all informed that Nathaniel Rose had died from his injuries.

Part Two: The Aftermath

"William Hunt, you have been accused of starting a fight with your fellow shipmen regarding the capture of a slave woman who was brought upon this ship to cook and serve...Is this the case?" William Hunt shook his head. It had been two days and one savage night in which his brain wracked with the injuries he had caused Nathaniel Rose.

"My apologies, sir." He lifted his head. "I did not mean to kill him." His own injuries still glowed like fire on his arms and on his face, places where Rose had hit him and hit him and hit-

The other men testified surprisingly opting for truth - they told the story of how Rose first attacked Hunt and how Hunt issued only one blow to defend himself. The Captain was not fully convinced though, he stated that even though Hunt might be the innocent party, a trial was still needed to prove that. All of the major shipmen and captains from three ships over would attend to decide the fate of William Hunt for the murder of Nathaniel Rose.

That word, Hunt thought: murder. It didn't sound like he was defending himself now. Murder. The word sat on his brain, wrapped around his mind and eventually gave him a headache. He got on with his duties for the day and yet, he could not wipe the word from his skin. It was an itch, a disease - it bled him dry.

From the corner of his eye, he could see the East India ships, the distance blurry but unusually familiar. He took the telescope and viewed the ships through it, knowing he wasn't supposed to but now, his fate was most likely sealed. Fatalism took over his body. Out of the telescope it was clear, East India had captured the woman he had let go from their ship. He took a gulp of air and his mouth, dry with possibility, turned his stomach upon itself as he saw her led into the depths of the ship.

He watched the thunderstorm clear up and made his way to the Captain's room, knocking loudly upon the door. The Captain stepped out with a look of utter disdain on his face for being disturbed. "Hunt! Haven't you done enough?" He snapped.

"Sir, I have a question about our enemies..." He tried his best to sound sincere. "When they capture people, what do they do with them?"

"They harvest the organs to sell. That's what I've heard. Now why on earth would you want to know that?" The Captain stopped himself from talking any further as Hunt became visibly ill. "The woman...they've captured her, haven't they?" Hunt nodded. "Well, Hunt. I hope you can live with yourself. I guess we have something else to add to your trial." And with that, he shut the door on William Hunt who stood, shivering in the aftermath of the thunderstorm, the air stocky with rain-cold air - biting and brutish like sharp, jagged teeth.

William Hunt spent the evening on the deck, crying quietly to himself whilst the other men ate supper in their rooms. Nathaniel Rose was dead in an act of self defence, yes, but now the woman he was trying to save - oh how it had all gone horribly wrong for him. The good intentions he had made him feel almost superior to these other, more haggard men and yet, when he opened himself up and took out his soul - he was simply more of the same. His heart beat in his chest loud enough that in his own ears, it drowned out his quiet sobs. His stomach churned with anxiety and his mind felt like it would catch fire any moment now. He stood up to see that even the stars were nowhere to be seen. His legs quaking with the unimaginable weight of responsibility, accountability, thinking not about what he would say in court - but what he would say to God.

He stepped upon the wooden beam holding the mast and stared up into the empty black sky, wondering what future he had here. He thought about Freya and how she would now never get her education. He thought about his parents, looking down upon him in disappointment. His eyes were filled with tears as he gazed into the distance, the fire of an island going out, the sea with its calming rush pushing the ship here and there, the silence of nature. He shut his eyes to feel the back and forth of the deck, the tears rolling down his face as he scrunched his eyelids tight. His hands let go of the mast and he pushed off with trembling legs, down into the ocean.