Message In A Bottle

My Dearest Polly, My Love

I am so sorry, I am lost. It's all my fault, but know that I love you and I always will, but I am alone now with no hope.

We argued and I walked out and got so drunk. It was stupid of me, I knew the press gangs were out in Bristol that night, and I was so out of it that they just dragged me onto their filthy boat, and when I woke well below deck I realized what had happened. I was crawling with bedbugs, the food we were given was full of maggots. I did not want to be here, I wanted to be home with you Polly.

By that time we were out in the Atlantic and heading for the Caribean looking for plunder.

I didn't want that, I wanted to be back in Bristol with you, my love.

I thought that this was a naval vessel, but it wasn't it was a pirate vessel, and the chances were if we got caught we'd either be killed or hung for piracy, even though I had not chosen this.

We attacked a supply vessel bound for Port-Au-Prince but I was not part of the boarding party. I was horrified by what the pirates did to the few survivors after they had ransacked and sunk the other vessel. The three survivors were keel-hauled twice and then whipped until there was no flesh left on their backs before being thrown overboard for the fish to finish.

The crew knew that any insubordination would mean that was them, so I tried to be as careful as I could, I believed that I would get the opportunity to slip away and find my way back to you my love.

We attacked three more ships, and I managed to avoid boarding them or fighting, even though I had been given a cutlass, but we didn't put into shore so I had no opportunity to try and escape.

Then it happened. The Royal Navy found us and cut our ship down with cannon fire which killed many of the crew, before the navy boarded us and started killing us, they were not taking prisoners. This was going to be a mass execution.

The ship was sinking and the Naval soldiers were bayonetting and killing every living member of the crew they found, I went down, to the lowest deck which was flooded but there were holes where the sea was coming in and I pushed myself out and started to swim away from the soon to be shipwreck.

I kept underwater as long as I could but figured that the Navy would assume anyone who went overboard would not last long in the cold Atlantic and I felt I knew why, but my love for you Polly kept me going.

I saw the Navy ship leave and our boat go down and thought that was it for me, but then I saw what I thought was a lifeboat so swam toward it. It looked empty, but when I pulled myself in, I saw the occupant dead in a pool of blood. When he escaped he must have been hit badly and died soon after. I pushed his body over the side and looked about and found a few bottles of whiskey and water, some maggoty biscuit and some paper and a pencil, and that is what I am using to write you this final letter to you, Polly.

The sea is quite calm now, but I don't know where I am, and if a ship does pick me up it is either going to be another pirate ship, or the Royal Navy who would arrest me and hang me for being in a boat that belonged to a pirate.

I will row, and hopefully find a friendly boat or landfall but I am not hopeful about that working out which is why I am putting these words to paper for you.

I wish I could fly like the gulls that I see, wing over the waves to the Bristol Channel and back home to you, but I am just a single man in a lifeboat, here because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and that has taken me far away from my true love.

I can catch fish so I won't starve but water will be a problem. You are on my mind and I know you must be thinking the worst of me. You don't know where I am and may think that I deliberately went off and left you.

Now there will be no children or family for us because of my stupidity. The reason I am here is my fault alone and I hope this will at least let you know what really happened if it finds its way into your beautiful hands.

Time seems to be stopped on the ocean, the sea is calm and flat, almost like you could walk on it, and maybe other lost sailors have believed that they could do that and ended up in Davy Jones' Locker.

I pray that you are safe and you will have a long and wonderful life and will shed tears because I am sure that I will not be part of it.

I hope you believe that I truly love you and wish this had never happened, but it has and I am out here, lost on the Atlantic Ocean.

My tears have stained the paper, so you will have some of me when this falls into your hands.

These are probably the last words we will share Polly, my love. I will wrap up this letter, cork it and put it in the bottle, then drop it over the side into the Atlantic and hope that it finds its way to Bristol and you to remember me. You will always be in my heart, and I in yours my love.

Yours, with everlasting love

Mike

I Will Love You Forever Polly 💜