Play@YSDC

Lulio Bazile steams the Celeste out of Pointe Pierre with Lt Etienne and Laurent. The mate is still aboard, and Laurent learns his name is Junior, he's barely older than Laurent himself and doesn't seem very impressed at their mission. He keeps away from Laurent and the Lieutenant, busying himself clearing the crates and boxes on the deck.

Although still grumbling to himself, Bazile seems in his element. Gently steering the boat out into a calm sea under a clear bright sky. As they motor into the bay. Bazile points out the Île du Vent, ‘It was an old buccaneer island back in the day, Henry Morgan and the Bretheren of the Coast used it.’ He gestures to the great panorama of the calm and clear blue sea, ‘You couldn't get a better bay to stow your ships, calm as you like. There's no whirlpools out here.’

Bazile is right that there's certainly no sign of a boat, or debris from a wreck.

'What about the island, could they have stopped there, if there was a storm or something?' asks the Lieutenant.

Captain Bazile laughs, ‘Maybe, but there's nothing there, a few St Joe peyizan, there's no roads, nothing much there at all, it's probably the same as when the pirates used it. I'd have turned back to Dame Marie if it was me. If there was a storm. Which there wasn't.’

"They might have, if they were having trouble with their boat and couldn't make it all the way back," says Laurent.

Huffing and muttering, Bazile looks questioningly at Lt Etienne who just nods. ‘Fine, fine, I'll take you all the way to the island.'

The water remains calm and there's no breeze.



While most of the Île du Vent is green and flat, the part that directly faces Dame Marie and the mainland of St Joseph is rocky and barren. There are no easy harbours and the pirates would have tied up on the far side of the island, sailing around the coast to harass the shipping passing by from the Spanish Main.

There's no sign of any boat, wreck, or people here. Except...

OOC:   Wanna give me a roll for searching the waters

It's hard for Laurent to see anything in the water.

Roll to search the water (human die only):
1d6

Laurent thinks he can see something by the rocky shore, some kind of shape. He's not sure, maybe it's nothing.

"I think I see something!" says Laurent, pointing it out to the others. "Let's take a closer look."

Bazile takes the boat in a little closer to the rocks. ‘What is that, some kind of animal? A seal maybe.'

Laurent doesn't think it is a seal. It is turning and rolling in the turf like a coconut log. But it's pale, maybe a dead animal, maybe it is a seal after all.

Leaning over the side of the boat, Laurent can get a slightly better look. It isn't a seal at all. It's the body of a man.

With some difficulty, Laurent helps Junior pull the body onto the boat. Junior uses a boat hook to pull the body into the water and tug it towards the vessel. Every time the metal hook sank into the flesh Laurent felt a little taste of bile in the back of his throat. Eventually, with the man alongside the boat they used ropes and nets to haul the corpse aboard.

Sprawled out on the deck it is clearly the naked body of a man, a white man. Bloated and grey. One hand is missing, and the rest of the body has clearly been gnawed at extensively by sharks or other sea creatures. Where the boat hook has tugged at the flesh, great folds of skin and fat have been displaced and some of his viscera are bulging out through the ragged holes. Peering into the face to see if he recognises the man, Laurent sees something squirming in an otherwise empty eye socket. He recoils and Lt Etienne places a reassuring hand on his shoulder, 'It probably just washed up here from deep out at sea. Do not worry, ti gason.'

OOC:   Roll Insight

Laurent is sick over the gunwale. "I wonder who he was?" asks Laurent after he recovers. "Could he have been on the Ti Maman?"

Insight roll (current level 2) for seeing the corpse:
1d6
Insight increases to 3.

Forcing himself to look back the half eaten face of the man, Laurent realises he knows him. The long thin face is swollen and distorted but there are the same thin lips, weak jaw, close cropped white hair. It's Lawton Lindo, the American he met on the beach last night. Only this time his face doesn't just appear like a mask in the moonlight, in death it has taken on the porcelain sheen of a carnival mask, devoid of any spark of life.

"I recognize this man!" says Laurent. "He's an American named Lawton Lindo, and he was on the beach last night. He wasn't wearing any clothes then either."

'Ah, oui, I remember you chasing the naked man. You think it is him?' says Lieutenant Etienne.

OOC:   Lindo was the first guy you met on the beach, dressed all in black. Later you chased another naked guy from the direction of Anse Douce. It wasn't Lindo and from what you later found with the clothes, with the story about swimming and being bitten (you saw a bite mark on the naked guy's leg), and meeting him and hearing he used to be a world class footballer, you think that it was probably Paul Henninger you chased.

"Wait, there were two men on the beach that night," says Laurent. "I think I mixed them up. This man, Lindo, was wearing all black clothes. It was the other man who was naked. He said he had been swimming and was bitten, and there was a bite on his leg. He used to be a football star. I think he was Paul Henninger."

Lt Etienne rolls over the body and looks at the leg, 'He's been gnawed all over but there's nothing obvious here. I suppose this must be your Mr Lindo.' He indicates to Bazile to crawl around the coast of the Île du Vent a bit more but there are no more bodies to be seen or any evidence of a wreck, no debris or anything else floating.

'I do not think we will find the Ti Maman here. Kapitènn Bazile, please take us back to Pointe Pierre. But first, show me where you found Mrs Langer.' Lulio Bazile grumbles and brings the boat back out into the middle of the bay and then a little further towards Cap Matelot. He brings the boat to a stop and it floats lazily on the calm water, drifting gently in the weak current and with the residual momentum.

Etienne leans over the side of the boat and stares into the clear blue water, seemingly deep in thought. 'Go around in widening circles compère, see what we find.' But after an hour of fruitless searching and Bazile becoming increasingly agitated eventually he snaps and shouts at the Lieutenant, 'Bondye mwen, there is nothing to find Lieutenant.'

"How did he end up here?" asks Laurent. "What was eating him, sharks?"

Etienne prods the body and turns it over. 'Dieu seul sait, my boy, God only knows what he was doing out here.' He crouches down and looks at the ragged stump where Lindo's hand once was. He takes out a pencil and starts poking it. 'I am not a doctor but I would say something big has been munching on your Monsieur Lindo.' He ushers Bazile over, 'A shark maybe Kapitènn?'

Bazile is clearly not particularly keen to be looking so closely at the body and mutters perfunctorily, 'Wi, maybe a reken, a shark, but that's a big bite and there's creatures in the deepest waters haven't even been named yet, but it doesn't matter, he's dead and he won't be needing the corps cadavre anymore. His gros bon ange flowed back to the Gran Met.'

"Maybe Dr. Clermont should have a look at him," suggests Laurent.

Lt Etienne huffs his agreement with Laurent's suggestion and signals to Bazile to sail back to Pointe Pierre. It's been several hours since they left and most of the hubbub on the pier has dispersed. Dr Clermont and Elizabeth Langer are gone.

Of the Lavigne family, only Pierre remains, sitting with his legs dangling off the wooden walkway, talking animatedly with an anguished looking white man who lies across the boards with his head resting on his arms. Without that pained expression he might even be handsome, not pale like a lot of those doctors at the Azagon, he had more of a ruddy complexion, close cropped blonde hair and oddly contrasting black eyebrows, his prominent jaw like some kind of parody of the Hollywood film stars. Laurent recognises him immediately, it's George Benson.

"What's wrong?" Laurent asks as he approaches Pierre and George.

'What's wrong?' Benson repeats despondently in English. He gestures out to the sea, 'My boat, the Ti Maman, it's gone.'

Pierre places a hand on his arm reassuringly, 'Nou pa konnen, we don't know it's gone...' he pauses, 'We've just not found it yet...unless, Laurent, what did you find out there, any sign of the boat?

"Not the boat, but we did find the body of Lawton Lindo on an island," says Laurent. "Was he aboard the Ti Maman?"

Benson looks confused, 'I don't know any Lindo fella, it was Felix Abry took the Ti Maman, you know, the politician from St Joe City. He went out with Jan Langer from the Plantation Margot, I think Felix owns a lot of stock in the plantation. They brought their wives but they should be back by now. And now Elizabeth Langer has been found, saying the Ti Maman went down.'

He looks distressed and runs his hands through his short-cropped hair in an agitated fashion.

"Lindo was an American I met on the beach the other night," says Laurent. "Maybe we should ask Elizabeth Langer if he was aboard the boat. Dr. Clermont should examine the body to find out how he died."