Florence Earle, The adventures of the Sapphire

III

We arrive at Tortuga after two days of sailing. When we make port we can already hear the loud buzz of the brothels and taverns. We leave the ship and set out to buy new supplies. I quickly lose all my men in the crowd of pirates and prostitutes. Victoria is still walking behind me. I turn to her. "Welcome to Tortuga, love. The place where there's something for anyone" I see her looking a bit disgusted. "Let's buy some of the supplies before we get too drunk, shall we"  We stock up on rum and dry food. "You never buy any fruit or vegetables?" Victoria asks. I shake my head. "Fruit never stays fresh and it's incredibly expensive.""But you have all the money from my father right?" "I guess" And so we buy the last bag of apples in whole Tortuga. We bring all the food on the ship and go beneath deck, checking out places to store the food out of reach of the damaged cannons, in case there's another storm. After that we get rid of the damaged cannons and wet powder and stock up on new ones.
We get back to the busy part of town, a tavern is the centre of attention. We go to check out what's going on. "Curse you for breathing, you mutinous dog!" I hear the screams from the middle of a fight. I immediately recognize the voice. "Goddamnit William." I curse under my breath. I turn to Victoria. "We're going in to get him and the others to the boat so one of them doesn't get himself killed. You'll have to explore Tortuga another time, sorry darling" She nods and I hand her a sword and a pistol, which she attaches to her belt. "Let's go" She says when she's ready. We push ourselves through the drunk fighting people to the middle. They're drunk, every single person in that tavern is drunk. Some of them are fighting with swords though most of them have lost their weapons and are just beating in on each other with their bare hands. I pull my sword and fight over to William. He doesn't recognize me at first because he is to busy fighting off three men, whom I'm guessing he owes money. I knock one of them out and kick the other in the crotch. He falls down screaming. I've lost Victoria in the fight somewhere. William knocks out the last guy. I grab his arm and whisper in his ear: "Why did you start a fight?" "He knocked my rum out my hand" I let out a long sigh. "Where's the rest of the crew?" I ask. He pulls up with shoulders and shakes his head in ignorance. I look around, I can spot some of them but they're all mixed in fights. "We're never gonna get them all out of here" I yell to William. He shakes his head again and loses his balance, causing him to fall over onto the guy who was standing behind him. Another fight ensues and I shake my head and go to help him fight again.
A gun shot sounds and everyone stops to look where the sound came from. I turn around. Victoria is standing on a table, pistol in one hand and sword in the other. "Listen to me, whatever started this fight, I don't care. I'm here to pick up my crew and get out, so you're all going to let them go easily or I'll shoot every one of you. All of the crew of the Sapphire outside." She pauses as everyone looks confused, as why they were to take orders from this unfamiliar woman. Another shot. "NOW!" she yells. I pull William off the floor and we make our way to the door, the crew is gathering there, pushing themselves through the crowd. The crowd splits and Victoria comes marching through, pushing Curley out in front of her with a pistol pushed tightly into his back. "Let's go" she says as she walks past me. She's good at this, she'd make a great captain.  

We hoist the sails and set off to anywhere else, not having much of a purpose but glad to leave the fight behind us. Not sure if we're going to be welcome in Tortuga after this I look behind me, saying goodbye to the lights flickering in the distance.