Pirate Ophelia, Part 2
Chapters 3–5
Chapter III: The Crew
Ophelia was finally happy on the ship. The horrible captain was gone and the crew was in a much better mood. They had unanimously voted Janneke to be the new captain, which she tried to decline several times before accepting the position. Unlike the previous captain, she asked for the crew’s input before making decisions. She also appointed Erik to her previous position of bosun, which he gladly accepted and took pride in his new responsibilities.
Janneke had been the captain for only a month, but they had already taken at least a dozen merchant ships. To avoid angering the crown, she insisted they stick to privateering and only attack ships bearing the flags of the crown’s enemies. Even though England was at war with both the Dutch and the Spanish, Janneke was of Dutch ancestry and had said it felt wrong to attack their ships. Besides, the Spanish had plenty of cargo to plunder, and sometimes their ships carried a lot of gold.
Janneke also insisted that excessive use of violence would be punished. They had only been attacking merchant ships — they didn’t often have a lot of defenses and rarely put up much of a fight. Some of the crew disagreed with this idea, but they still followed their new captain’s orders. Ophelia now…
