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"Don Samuel, aquí!" a reedy voice calls from the port side of the galleon. "Tenemos una she'elah." The captain grunts and finishes tying up his prisoner before responding. "Lahda, Ya'qub! I'll be there in a moment."
He gives the Spanish captain a gentle shove with his booted foot. "You stay put," he says, dropping the Arabic lilt from his Spanish accent for a moment to reinforce his position of power. "I will deal with you when I am ready. Usted Comprende?" The prisoner quivers as if contemplating resistance and then nods.
He turns now, making his way across the topdeck toward his third mate. The deck is a mess, strewn with overturned barrels and battered crates. The last of the fires have been extinguished, but the acrid, woody smoke, salty sea air, and piquant blood smell still blend into a devastating aroma. It is the odor that Samuel's experienced nose associates with battle, an olfactory sensation he has experienced hundreds of times. More often than not, as now, it is the smell of victory.
Samuel bounds over crates torn apart by close fighting with the spryness that the Lord has blessed him past his time. While other men retire to positions as honored family patriarchs, he is still fighting his war against the Spaniards. He is still nimble, inspiring, and cleverer than any Spanish seadog he's ever matched wits with.
"Jaap," he says, pulling up next to his third mate (brown-haired and swathed in his first, scraggly beard) and a set of crates and casks that have survived the fighting. He heaves his chest, leaning forward the barest amount on the point of his rapier, trying not to show how hard he is fighting to maintain control of his heartbeat. "Tell me what you need a posek for."
"Sí, Don Samuel. The boy and I have rounded up all the intact food supplies from the hold. The salt pork, of course, is not kosher and we set it aside over there." He gestures to a pile of boxes toward the stern. "Same with the brandy," he laments, waving at the casks next to the unkosher meat. "There are assorted new world fruits that I assume are okay to eat..." Samuel nods his agreement. "The question is the hard tack. Can we eat it, Rabbi?" On the seas, Samuel only accepts that title when he is rendering a halachic decision.
He thinks for a moment. "The cook who baked it, he is not available?" Jacob shrugs, embarrassed, and gestures across his throat with his right index finger. Hmm... The question is whether he can assume that no unkosher ingredients were used in the baking. Samuel goes through his mental inventory of hard tack recipes, the dozens of ways he's learned to make the shipboard staple over his years on the high seas. When his decision is made, he stops stroking his beard.
"Unless we hear otherwise from a prisoner, we will trust that our late, lamented cook did not lace his tack with lard. Okay, Diego?" Jacob nods. "Distribute the fruit among our crew as a reward for a job well done. Leave the pork and brandy here on board to feed our prisoners, and move the rest of the food back to the Phoenix."
"Yes, sir."
What does a Jewish Pirate wear on his head?
A Yarrrrrrrrrrmulke!