Come Young Pirates, That Brackish Fire Awaits Me Still (31)

My English companions to the Southeast withdrew; a fine plan I envisioned and the details grew; the ninety gunned Neptune striking from the North aided by the Namur would mount a frontal assault. My crew and I would land South in blanketed night; the temptress moon our lamplit host and guiding light, sneaking upon their colony unawares and give their stored shot and powder kegs to the air. The fort boasted mighty guns deep in a mountain's side, ships sunk beneath the sights of those merciless eyes! Here tis said; 'this fortress hides buckets of gold, ' these were recitations the captured Spaniards told. Once destroyed all defenses would be compromised, and in the name of the Queen, we will take our prize. Then my promise to the Queen would be fully met and I free to wallow in my accomplishment. Anxiety plagues me, this I can tame, it's before battle when the terror came; stalled fitful moments between doubt and dread wavering voices screaming in my head, footfall's echoing just beyond the gate once breached, the smell of blood and death await. Each sound amplified by my probing ear for a slight advantage that I might hear; then that courageous spirit steels the eye with lids wide open and the mouth goes dry, this conflict deadlier than the one before that insufferable thought the silence bore. Bracing for combat, the fury of the gale, war whoops! and battle cries! the anguished wail! My heart infected with a feverish mood reasoning in unfettered solitude, these brief moments on which to meditate, pondering each misstep that I call fate; it is the first to cut and last to mend, unreachable till the murderous end, no one to confide in, no one to tell, that I accept my dues and graced death well. In my enemies, my plunging sword cries: 'Can bloodstained hands be cleansed by lye? ' How much misfortune can godless flesh bear when shrinking faith epitomizes fear? Valor is then the language that I claim to speak and what saves me from the shame; routing clerics who preach heavenly love bowing to ego then fencing their blood, praying for a dubious paradise reserving their own seats before they die! Whatever outlaw thought I still maintain is governed by hubris and sustained pain, if lack of faith breeds incurable ill then that brackish fire awaits me still!