With his cutlass clamped tightly between his teeth and two primed pistols tucked into his waistband, the pirate captain vaulted from the forecastle of the Flying Dragon onto the deck of the captured ship, avoiding the sword fight that was engaging most of the crew. He scaled the rigging like a monkey, hand over hand, pulling himself up to the topmost spar before launching himself on a rope across the deck, swinging like a pendulum over the heads of the struggling sailors, from where he was able to pick off both the ringleaders, with two carefully aimed shots.

After that, the battle was over, save for the trussing up of the defeated sailors and the symbolic walking of the plank. The pirates had discovered that it was more lucrative to ransom captured sailors than push them into the sea, but as the sailors did not know this, the pirates enjoyed lowering the plank over the gunwale and watching the prisoners cower as they teetered on the bouncing board, pleading for their lives.

“You won’t get away with this!” shouted one of the victims, as he was led down to the hold, “there’s a bigger ship coming after us and when they catch you, you’ll all hang!”

The pirates laughed and set to looting everything of value from the ship.

“Shall we scuttle her?” asked one of the pirates, getting ready to chop a hole in the side of the captured ship, as was their usual custom.

“No, let’s keep this ship,” said the captain, so the pirates raised their own flag on her and set sail, in convoy, for the sheltered bay where they had established their winter quarters.

It was a very convenient hideaway. Wide sandbanks protected the bay, and tall cliffs provided a good lookout, making it hard for enemies to approach unseen, whilst a tree lined river that flowed into the bay provided fresh water. The only problem was the women who had taken up permanent residence by the sea shore, and who had re-buried the pirates’ treasure, refusing to divulge its new hiding place.

“Avast, ye landlubbers,” cried One-eyed Pete, standing up in the longboat and shaking his fist at the women standing on the beach as two junior pirates rowed him ashore. “This is our camp, so move off, if you don’t want to become shark bait.”

The two women laughed, and waved their weapons: a pistol and a nasty looking axe. The longboat slid onto the sand and Pete jumped out, raising his hands in the air as one woman pointed the pistol at him, while the other lady minced up to him and, dropping the axe on his toes, put her arms around his neck and planted a kiss on his cheek. One-eyed Pete cursed, and kept his good eye on the pistol, worried that it might go off, but then he noticed the medallion hanging around her neck.

“Hey, that’s mine! Where did you get that, you little strumpet!” he shouted, but had to step backwards into the water as the woman advanced on him waving her pistol.

“That’s our treasure!” said Pete.

“And this is our land,” said the woman, gesturing around her. “You can visit here, and re-supply your boat, but you leave us in peace, and in return, we keep your treasure safe.”

While Pete gnashed his teeth and stomped in the sand, keeping his distance from the women, another longboat slid onto the seaweed, bringing several more pirates, armed with the usual cutlasses and pistols. The captain leapt ashore, but instead of disarming the welcome party he swept his hat off his head and made a smooth bow.

“Well, my lovelies, have you missed me?”

“Captain Jasper, come back to visit us again, have you?” said axe woman, kissing him, and winking at Pete, who curled and uncurled his fists, glaring at both women.

“I couldn’t stay away, darling,” replied the captain, squeezing her round bottom, which earned him a clout on the head from the axe.

The longboats made several trips to and from the ships, transporting the captured sailors who were made to walk up the beach and into a hut made of stout logs with a door secured by a heavy bolt.

“Not more mouths to feed,” said axe woman, “it’s bad enough having you louts here once a month, scaring all the fish away.”

“Don’t worry, Marianne, darling; they’ll be gone as soon as we get paid for them, and then you can have your house back,” said the captain.

“House, indeed!” she harrumphed, but she swung her hips as she walked back into the trees.

With the prisoners stowed out of sight, the pirates got down to the serious business of celebrating their haul, while the women, now numbering several dozen, listened wide-eyed to their tales of adventure. By the time two casks of rum had been emptied and the last cooking pot had been licked clean, there was not a sound to be heard from the beach but snoring.

A few hours later, the sun rose slowly, majestically, almost unnoticed, sending out fingers of light, tentative at first, soft pink hues as if testing the terrain and then longer, more definite rays, broken only by puffs of clouds, which reached to the farthest corner of the shoreline, turning each blade of dune grass and each strand of seaweed a brilliant green, where once they had appeared black and sombre, and dispatching the morning dew into a gentle mist that rose to the heavens in the endless cycle of water and cloud.

Down at the beach the pirates lay in a drunken heap, eye patches askew, cutlasses tossed aside, while crabs scuttled into and out of their discarded boots. A couple of the women had lit the cooking fires and were brewing coffee, with much banging of pots and muttering about good-for-nothing layabouts, while the birds, who had been up for hours, cawed to each other from the tree tops until a sudden disturbance sent them all flying away.

A moment later, a young boy came racing down the hillside onto the beach, scattering sand onto the sleeping pirates and yelping with excitement.

“A ship! A ship! It’s coming around the headland!”

“What sort of ship?” asked Marianne, throwing a bucket of water over Jasper, who sat up with a start, reaching for his pistol.

“A big ship,” said the boy, “it has guns at the side.”

“Who was on lookout duty?” roared Jasper, kicking the nearest pirate, who grunted and then covered his head with his hands as Marianne threw water on him and his companion. Either the cold water or the unwelcome news had a sobering effect on the pirates who began to scramble up and pull their boots on, sending the crabs flying.

“There must have been a warship following the ship we boarded,” said One-eyed Pete, “that’s why the prisoners said help would be coming soon. Now what do we do? We can’t get the Flying Dragon out of the bay in this low tide.”

“You men take your ship up the river,” said Marianne, “and leave the warship to us, but bring me some rope.”

“How long do we have?” Jasper asked the boy who had brought the news.

“The big ship was rounding the point, and it seemed to be coming fast,” the boy said, his eyes bulging out of his head.

The pirates struggled to their feet and collected their cutlasses. The more sober ones were already rowing out to the Flying Dragon and shouting for the sails to be raised and they quickly steered the pirate ship into the mouth of the river where it was concealed by the tall trees, leaving the looted ship anchored alone in the bay, still flying the pirate flag. The women cleared away all signs of revelry from the beach and then trussed each other up like turkeys and waddled into the wooden hut where they knocked the terrified prisoners unconscious.

“Drag some of those green branches over here and set fire to them, to make smoke,” shouted a woman to one of the pirates, “but mind you don’t cook us – put some water on the roof first!”

As the building began to burn, the women began to wail and screech like banshees and the remaining pirates sneaked off into the trees.

It was not long before the warship arrived and soldiers landed on the beach and rushed up to the burning building, carrying buckets of water to put out the flames, creating more clouds of smoke, while the distressed damsels all cried at once about the evil, depraved pirates who had tied them up, and worse, and clung to the soldiers in gratitude for their rescue. In all the commotion the group of unconscious sailors went unnoticed, and so did the small posse of pirates who swam out to the captured ship, clambering on board in time to repel a boarding party of soldiers.

By the time the soldiers who had remained on the warship realized that the pirates had overcome their comrades the tide had turned and the warship was stuck in the soft sand, her cannon pointing uselessly at a sandbank.

Pirates swarmed out of the trees and overpowered the soldiers on the beach, while the women resumed shrieking and flailing about with smouldering branches. Within an hour the pirates had roped the soldiers together and were unloading the supplies from the warship, while the women huddled to one side, whispering among themselves.

“This is treason!” cried a soldier.

“No, this is piracy,” said One-eyed Pete, grinning.

“I ask that you spare the women,” said another soldier, who had obviously been brought up on tales of chivalry.

“Spoils of war!” cried one of the pirates, drawing a finger across his throat and making a gurgling sound, which caused several of the soldiers to flinch, and shuffle backwards.

It took some time to ferry all the soldiers out to the captured ship, where they were laid out on the deck in rows, like sausages, each with a cannon ball positioned on a delicate part of his anatomy, and then the pirates and the women sat down to parley.

“They’re our prisoners; we lured them onto land,” said the women.

“They came searching for us, so they’re ours,” said the pirates, “besides, we swam out to the ship, and we fought the soldiers. All you women did was weep and wail.”

“We were being burnt to a crisp!” said one woman, pointing to the soot marks on her face.

“It seems to me,” said Jasper, rubbing his hand along his stubbly chin, “that we should come to an agreement. If some of us were to stay here permanently – for protection, you understand – then perhaps we could share the ransom money.”

“Stay here?” repeated the pirates, with a mixture of horror and excitement. “What would we do here?”

“Well you could build me a house, for a start,” said one of the younger women, sidling up to the pirate and putting her arm around him. “This is a great place to live.”

The other pirates whooped and slapped their thighs, which seemed like an invitation for other women to make similar offers.

“But won’t the Flying Dragon be shorthanded?” said one pirate. “And how do we know you’ll come back for us?”

“Oh, we’ll be back,” whispered Jasper, “after all, the treasure is here somewhere, and it’s your job to find out from these sirens where they’ve hidden it.”

And so, gradually, a small settlement grew up around the bay. Several times a year the pirate ship called in for supplies; sometimes one or two of the pirates would stay and settle down, and sometimes one or two of the settlers who wanted adventure, or just to get away from their women, would join the pirates. The young boys were always eager to spend time on the pirate ship, returning home months later with tall tales of plunder and pillage. The girls were content to stay in the bay, waiting for their sweethearts to come back to them, for the girls shared a secret which they guarded fiercely and would tell to nobody, even to this day: the secret of the buried treasure.