SirJediFrank´s Entry:
“Captain Butler’s Journals”
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London, England. March 27, 1609.
For the Royal Ministry of Marine
In the name of His Divine Majesty, Jacob I of England
Subject: Final Report of The Watcher shipwreck.
Sir Walter G. Jones.
Minister of Marine
Following your orders, the investigation made by the Commission led by your humble server, appointed to conduct the studies of the remains of the warship from His Majesty Naval Fleet known as The Watcher and the causes that originated its shipwreck, found in the Atlantic sea near the Azores Islands, have arrived to its conclusion.
As your Grace shall remember, the referenced vessel sailed on September 16 of the year of our Lord 1608, from the docks of Southampton and it was never seen again by any other English or foreign ship until some Portuguese civilian fishers found what was left of it, along with the only survivor: the Captain of The Watcher itself, Frank Butler, on December 14 of the same year. Butler’s mission, as registered in the Ministry’s Surveillance and Research Affairs Office notebooks, was to look after a mysterious ship, probably from English or Spanish pirates that had been attacking and sunk trade ships on their way to the American colonies.
The existence of such pirate ship in particular was brought to His Majesty’s attention due to the radical methods used by the criminals, since rarely they left survivors if any, and most peculiar, in all the cases such survivors were found in a state of complete mental insanity, but having in common the description they provided of the hostile ship: a “fully black”, “ghostly”, “silent” ship, they all mentioned. Thus, your Grace appointed Captain Butler to command The Watcher warship in order to intercept, capture or destroy that Pirate ship in particular.
Butler is being attended as of now in the St. Peter Home for the Mentally ill in Essex. The civilian fishers that rescued him, which statements are included in one of the appendixes of this Final Report, declared that he was stranded nearby the floating remains of The Watcher, suffering hypothermia, and was holding his haversack containing only a pistol and Butler’s personally handwritten Journals, whose words were mostly lost by the seawater.
The first appendix included in this Final Report is precisely a few excerpts of the journals that could be rewritten by our experts, and even though they are not many, they reflect the Captain’s first impressions of the mission and as the weeks turned months, they also sadly reflect the progressive madness that The Watcher’s crew and my old friend Frank Butler suffered.
Since more attacks from that Pirate “Black Freighter” ship have been reported ever since, we must conclude that the mission did not succeed, and more so, based on the content of the journals, we can conclude that The Watcher´s crew apparently caused its own shipwreck.
Sincerely yours,
Long Live The King.
______________________
Admiral David A. Moore
Director. Surveillance and Research Affairs Office
Royal Ministry of Marine
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Appendix I.
Captain Butler’s Journals: The pursuit of the Pirate ship called “The Black Freighter”
Tuesday, August 20, 1609. London
Today I received a new mission.
A messenger from the Royal Ministry of Marine delivered an order from the Minister himself, Walter Jones… or as he is to be called now, “Sir Walter G. Jones”.
Apparently there have been more attacks from pirates to ships navigating to the New World, and it looks like there is this Pirate Ship in particular that they want me and The Watcher to go out and capture it: “The Black Freighter” as people have used to call it…
I only know two ways of “capturing” pirates: with a robe around their necks hanging from a tall tree’s branch on land, or tying the same rope around his wrists and ankles…when you push them out of the plank to the sharks. Pirates are afraid of me, I have seen their true face.
Friday, August 23 1609. Essex
I was allowed to come home for the weekend before I leave to Hampshire to oversee my warship’s preparations. I hear from my parents that my good friend David came to visit them last month. He and I come a long way.. [Unreadable]…..Research Affairs Office for a year now. Good for him
Thursday, September 06 1609. Southampton port, Hampshire
Jones sent another letter wishing me and my men all the luck in the world and in the name of His Majesty, remembered to us the importance of keeping the trade routes to America safe and.. [Unreadable].
I can not help but wonder how a man’s luck can change so fast. Minister Jones was only a Scottish Admiral seven years ago. When our beloved Queen Elizabeth passed away and then his cousin became King, a lot of Scottish army and naval officers were appointed by the new government and …[Unreadable]..
Saturday, September 15 1609. Southampton port, Hampshire
All is set. The crew has reported completely. The artillery is ready as always. I trust my men. Specially Sanders, my second on command. He has saved my life in battles as many times as I have saved his.
Sunday, September 16 1609. Open Sea
We left the Southampton port in the morning. This will be an odd mission because of the trajectory we have planned in order to “catch” or “be caught” by the pirates: We will navigate the trade routes from England to New York, back and forth, specially around the coordinates where the few survivors from the attacked ships were found.
Monday, October 12 1609.
45°40’41”N, 31°29’23”. Island Bender can be seen from the distance, Sanders told be that a few of the crew are unusually anxious and that they want to.. [Unreadable]
Monday October 19, [unreadable]
[several pages unreadable]
Saturday November 10 [ ]
33°10’31”, 66°18’52”. Near the Summers Islands….[] and there is no sign of such an absurd ship. The Ministry orders were to be on the mission as long as at least two round trips. That means we have to keep. .[] . . many of the men are ill now. Maybe it is the water we stored but Sanders says some are having hallucinations in the day and nightmares at night.. []
Tuesday November 13. 1609
35°05’37”, 47°43’55”. In the middle of nowhere, at noon, we found what was left of the Spanish ship “El Búho Nocturno”. We could find only one survivor, a young man called Francisco. Thanks to one of my men who lived in Madrid we could get information from him but very little, since the boy’s mind was in complete madness, trying to describe the Pirate ship that approached them..[ ].. killing each other of their own Spanish comrades with the blades they carried and the muskets from the hold. I did not understand the part where he said something about “our cannons fired down”
Wednesday November 14. 1609
Some of my men said they saw it. Sanders said he saw it too. I didn’t see a damn thing. It was just before dawn, but some of the crew in charge of the cannons swore to me they saw a black ship that “vanished” in the middle of the fog… I am starting to worry that the superstition has clouded their minds and.. [ ]..
[several pages unreadable]
Sunday November 31, 1609
I have ordered to abort the mission and return to England. 6 men of the crew are missing. I saw one of them jumping to the sea, screaming like if the devil was chasing him…I remember his face, I never saw something like that, not even in battle []…Francisco has been seen awaken all day and night because of his fear.. the fog is too dense.. I have not been able to sleep .. I have seen it.. too.
Monday December 8, 1609
Panic is the word that best describes what the crew has lived in the last few days.. The damn Pirate Ship has been spotted around us too many times, in all directions… North, West, South... impossible.
[ ].. so we have locked 3 more men this week.. they killed the boy and 5 other people when they were on their sleep…the rest of the crew that is left, I don’t trust them now.. only Sanders, Lt Andrews and myself are trying to encourage the ones working in the sails and the mast to survive this madness..[ ].. we have stored some food and water in our cabinets, though none of us feel like eating by now. .if only we could get to the Azores in time for.. [unreadable]..the fog. . the black ship… the darkness… it is out there.. it is in here..
Friday December 12, 1609
I am writing these words with the hope that someone understands one day. This Journal is the only thing that keeps me [ ].. .there has been no control of the navigation in the last 3 days, but I have checked my compass enough to know that we are near the islands.. [ ]... . all that is left up there on the deck is dead bodies and the living ones killing each other.. Andrews and Sanders died this morning, when we tried to stop …[].. the cannons in the artillery hold, but we failed… I am so thirsty.. all the water we kept is gone..
I think I understand what the Spanish boy meant when the madness took over his ship.. and what he meant about the cannons from his own ship.. I have a ready pistol by my side all the time.. I have obstructed the door.. I am all alone now.. [ ].. I can hear the screams anyway.. the smell of powder and dead.. the heat in here is unbearable, but I wouldn’t dare to go out, not even for all the gold and silver in the colonies or …[ ]....all I can do is to watch the hourglass on the table.
.. [ ].. I am sure that black ship is out there, though I can not hear it…it is out there, in the eternal fog, like a dark silhouette, like a ghost.. The Watcher is his to claim. We are his crew now.. now I know.. .I Know now...
-.-.-.-
End of Appendix I.
Captain Butler´s Journals: The pursuit of the Pirate ship called “The Black Freighter”
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End of SirJediFrank´s Entry. I hope you enjoy it, I had a blast writing it!! . ;-]
Notes:
+There was a Captain Butler that did exist. He was an English who organized the territories of Bermuda for England, but like around 50 years after my story..it was very funny that the actor Gerard Butler voiced the character from the Black Freighter dvd!! …
+The coordinates are real, I got them from google earth..and the names of the Islands were the names of how they were called by the 16th and 17th century, according to Microsoft Student Encarta, of course if I understand the info right.
+The minister, the ministry itself and the rest of the characters are entirely fictional, except the King´s name, Jacobe I (Which is the king that was ruling in the date that I FORCED: March 27, 1609 to begin with!!, and so I learned that Eliabeth I died in 1603 bla bla bla) haha that was soo funny. I started with the date 400 years ago from today, March 27 2009! If this FAN FIC CONTEST woul´´ve been in, say 2002, the Ruler I would have used would´ve been Elizabeth, for example.