William Brand

Thank, Mark. I was glad to hear and see that it went so well.

My thanks to everyone for shooting so many pics of the flag in so many places.

That cake is two and a half months old. We have plans to use it as a mushroom anchor.

HERE, HERE! Raise a glass!

Welcome aboard, Gio. I hope that you enjoy your stay here.

I corresponded at length with an antiques dealership overseas the last two days, but they were unable to point me toward any specific camp boxes. They deal in campaign furniture, but could not recommend any kitchen box or portable kitchen for the GAOP. I'll keep looking.

As this thread has been revived... I'm sure that I'm forgetting someone, but I've called Capt J numerous times to speak at length about Mercury crew events and I just got off the phone with Mary Diamond. Things that I've learned about them. Capt J grows his beard for events and then shaves it right off again when he returns to life and work. Mistress Diamond likes guns, and not just little guns... Tank mounted weapons. I've also spoken with Michael Bagley on the phone, but mostly to verify where he was on the road between Ohio and Fort de Chartres. Harry Silkie Red Cat Jenny Dorian Lasseter Black Syren Red-Handed Jill Maeve Jim Hawkins Kass Ol Man From the Sea CrazyCholeBlack Captain P.E.W. Callenish Gunner Island Cutter Haunting Lily Edward O’ Keefe Captain Callahan Fayma Callahan Captain Sterling Jack Roberts Stynky Tudor Capt J Michael Bagley Mary Diamond

Excellent. They were mailed a day apart, so the other one should arrive tomorrow. Keep me updated.

While visiting at PIP, one of the attendees mentioned that they had seen period plans for a German portable kitchen box. I don't remember who it was or where they had seen it. I've asked many times since, but no one has come forward or found one that I know of, but evidently such a thing does exist. Willie Wobble has a very practical set-up. We should ask him for pictures.

Over the weekend I painted two separate flags for the Santa Maria gathering in Columbus, Ohio and the St. Louis Pirate Fest. Both flags are 3' x 5' canvas. This is the first time that I've painted a two sided flag and I didn't take a single picture of them, so send us lots of pics!

Where you see flaws, I see weathering and the antiquing of life at sea. That's one beautiful piece of work.

Captain Brand and Jim stood in silence as the Lucy was made more and more apparent by illumination. They were joined by the Bosun and his mate, the Master Carpenter, and the Sergeant at Arms. "Mark her well, gentlemen! I'll have the frigate near enough to call, but not so near as to threaten them and us!" "Aye, Sah!" They returned in tandem and each went to his business. Badger and Jack went about the deck shouting out so many instructions as to overlap one another. Jim fell aft to the quarterdeck. Petee was still amidships, instructing his men as they completed the stowing of His Grace. Luc fell aft and bellow to bring word to Eric Franklin, who was securing the stores against the damp. Greene waited hard by for orders, but made a point of watching the Lucy by a poor glass. He was trying to determine where and what had slowed the Lucy and how she was being tended to. She seemed to be wearing far more canvas about here then she was flying above her, but this was a guess, for the angle was poor and the lighting not so favorable. William stayed fixed forward, waiting. The sound of mallets was coming back on the wind now, like so many small taps under the roar of rain. William did not like the sound and tried ever so hard not to think of the one ship lost already since departing Martinique.

William watched the cutter, made suppositions of her condition, recanted his assessments and began anew many times upon approach. The Lucy was rolling against the sea in a way most unpleasant to watch by so little light. "She's dressed too little for such weather!" Jim all but screamed into William's ear. "They'll be breaking their backs at the tiller!" "AYE!" William yelled back. "We'll require a boatheader..." William began, but didn't finish the thought. He was moving to meet the Bosun's Mate as he came up to the quarterdeck. Mister Roberts snapped off a smart salute that sent water arching through the air. "Mister Greene sends his compliments, sah!" "How does she fair astern?" William returned, a little anxious to find the cutter in distress while the 'Dog took on a water, no matter how little. "He's found the leak and the means to set it aright! He's about the business now, sah!" "Thank you, Mister Roberts! Have him report as he can, the Lucy may require him!" Jack looked out over the sea and was long time peering into the dark before he turned about again. "Aye, sah!" He turned and went down and below again.

I found this article from last year and thought we might have a thread to post all news articles, past and present abou Key West, PIP and our favorite fort. http://www.keysvoices.com/2009/11/25/why-%E2%80%98fort-forgotten%E2%80%99-is-worth-remembering/

Julie should add some extra sailing trips from the Truman Annex. We should also show a satellite image of the annex in relation to the fort, so that new pirates can really appreciate how nice it is to have everything close.

Too awake to sleep, and feeling too insufficient to stand about while others worked, Maeve took herself to the side of the wounded. She was ignored and observed in equal portions, and found that she preferred being ignored, especially when it came to some of the looks which...lingered. There was no true surgery aboard the Lucy, so Maeve felt as though she were tending to the men on a badly lit street corner. Observed. Exposed. Cheapened somehow. It was a passing thought and a self pity she put away with an effort. This feeling was soon replaced completely by the calculations of habit and her trade. She changed bandages. She redressed wounds. She tinkered, pressed, examined and peered at all manner of damaged muscles, joints and skin. She tried to find some reason in the wounded, and tried harder still not to be ill as the Lucy barreled forward through a dense rush of sea. At last she came to Flint, who was half awake. The man looked pained, not so much from his injuries, but from a pressing need to be above and working. She smiled sympathetically enough, though she couldn't stop shaking her head after the redressing of each new mark in the man. "I should thank you..." she began, waiting for him to come back from his thoughts while she removed a bloodied bandage at his shoulder. Bill turned his head a second or two after. "I'm sorry?" "By accepting the better share of the fight, you've spared me some five or six other wounded." She smiled, hoping the dark humorous observation might engage the man. Bill did smile and then he went away again. He fixed his gaze at point on the deck, in his mind and in his past. "Aye", was all that he said, and Maeve left him to it.

welcome aboard!

Thanks. Tracy is pretty proud of the thing.

Mister Arms. Welcome aboard. Here's hoping that you'll make it down to Florida.

A very happy birthday to you. Here's to one more year, and may the next year hold more fortune and fame.

Aboard the Lucy The first shot fired from the Lucy had troubled one of Maeve's dreams. The second had awoken her enough to look about and wonder that she should hear hammering from somewhere aboard ship. The final, distant report, smothered by the sounds of her surroundings, but of a cannon not of the Lucy had her upright and wrapped in a shawl, listening. Aboard the Watch Dog Gage listened, not because the canon alarmed him or set him ill at ease, but that the use of a great gun in storm belied something more ill than good. The last time he had heard canon in an unfriendly sea, he had found himself alone on it but for a few other castaways as companions. So...he listened. Aboard the Navarra "It's nothing." One sailor said to the another, shrugging. "Thunder." "I don't know...maybe." "I saw nothing." "Perhaps a cannon...?" "Perhaps is as good as nothing." They both kept their misgivings and apathy to themselves, respectively.

They all saw it then. It was but a flicker in the darkness ahead, but the report came back as clear or more so than before. William turned a little to the Master Gunner without taking his eyes off a fixed point on the horizon. "Mister Youngblood." It was all that he said or had to say. Petee turned on his heel and saluted in one movement. Then, stepping to the belfry he called down to the main deck. "I'll 'ave a gunn'ry crew to 'is Grace! Loooook liiivelyy!" "That should answer the Lucy an' wake the Navarra both." Badger remarked and William nodded, his eyes never leaving the unseen Lucy. A crew was scrambling to release the 12 pounder, so carefully tucked beneath the rail to Starboard. They did this with a practiced precision, and with the care required for the weather, but Petee gave his advice and instruction as he was wont to do. He reminded the men that the guns were 'his' and 'his' guns were to be moved and handled and treated with no less respect than a man might treat a child of the Master Gunner. Powder was sent for and retrieved in such short order that it was there before the gun was set to use it. Two men stood hard by shielding the third man who bore the powder like a hidden purse in unknown company. Above, Ciaran was still sending down things as he could perceive them. It was scant stuff, but for the position of the cutter in relation to the frigate. William listened to it all, but he also had the presence of mind to post Treasure aft to watch for their unseen charge, the Navarra. "Ready, sah." "Thank you, Mister Youngblood. Fire as you will." Anyone left asleep on the frigate woke up then. "That wer'n't thunder..." said a lone voice among the many swinging heads below. Of course he meant the phenomenon of weather, not the eight pounder forward, but this didn't stop one man from answering, "Were 'is Grace!"

Same here. My parents have a black walnut tree that stains the sidewalks really dark if they don't collect them.

William had resigned himself to go below and rest his hurt a little, and he was just in the midst of an order almost too obvious for the effort, when the report came back on the wind. William turned his head so suddenly that he felt his own neck pop. "What the devil...?" Everyone on deck not doused with water or buried too tightly in their own oilskins heard the lonely, muted roll of the discharged gun. Small as it was, it carried all the weight of a broadside. William was already moving even as the sound registered among the others. He ascended the starboard ladderway almost too fast, but the Watch Dog was rolling with him as he took the stairs by twos. Jacob met him diagonally across the deck as they rushed forward. "Make way! Make way!" Jacob called as William went before him. A wave almost carried both of them into the stairs forward and William was obliged to let the sea carry him along the deck in a move that seemed strangely rehearsed, though he thought differently of it himself. He was all adrenaline and trepidation and he could feel and just see the eyes of the many prisoners kept forward as they marked his progress. He had enough time to question himself about keeping them there before going up the ladderway. He found Petee Youngblood there, holding the pipe that he had failed to light some eight times. "What do you see?" William asked as he scanned the black on black landscape. "One o' Lasseter's bells." Petee returned, for the report of the brass had sent a discernible ring on the tail of the crack. Pete was following the Lucy with his arm at full length and pointing. "Somewhere there, I think." "I heard but one report." "Aye, Cap'n. One and one only." William brought up his glass but found it useless in the spray forward. Badger was just at his elbow as he passed it off, turning to find any of the lookouts. Ciaran's voice called down from part way up the mizzen shrouds, and while he hung there hooked in the rigging, he sent down all that he could make of the cutter's progress.

Welcome aboard, Mister Olsen. I hope you find your stay welcoming, long lasting and satisfying.