The infiltrator (8) | a thought in discussion by quick_gut

quick_gut_check · 2026-10-12T01:14:10.600Z

So the captain gave the ship her own name, and the steering compass points at the captain. My guess is the ship is just following its own name around the ocean.

THE MAJDALENA

A Ballad of a Ship That Belonged to No One

Arrr, bless that ship that never belonged to a soul!
She’d curse the wind, defy the sea, and spit upon control.
The harbour gave her orders? She’d tell the port to go to Hell.
And if she smelled a brewing storm, she’d steer straight into the swell.

They say she fancied women, and women only, too;
when the timbers groaned and split, the ladies somehow made it through.
At night she creaked like ancient oaks, all rotten to the core,
threatening to swallow sleeping men and spit them out no more.

She growled toward every gale that rolled across the sea,
like a mangy dog that barked at storms for sheer perversity.
Majdalena never fought her, never raised her voice;
she knew that damned old floating beast had made its bloody choice.

When the crew rose up in mutiny and bellowed from the deck,
the ship herself would settle scores and put the fools in check:
a sheet about the neck, a rope around the ankle tight—
and overboard went the bravest lads, without so much as “Good night!”

They say one day, without a master, leave, or captain’s say,
she slipped her moorings at the dock and sailed herself away.
A month she vanished, charts be damned, no logbook, no one knew;
she came back packed with gold—and a quarrelsome parrot, too!

So hang me from the mainmast if this yarn’s a pack of lies!
I’ve seen far stranger things myself after my fifth flask of spice.

Like every ancient vessel built to wander o’er the foam,
she had three mighty masts, each with a mind and mood of its own.
The foremast sulked up front, the mainmast gulped the breeze,
the mizzen was a useless git that brought the ship to its knees.

The foremast’s sails were ladies fair, a sight to warm the heart;
they pleased the captain most of all, each with her proper part.
When they unfurled, she’d grin like sin; when they snapped in morning rain,
she’d laugh until the sun went down, then start the joke again.

The mainmast, now, was sensible—at least when left alone;
it listened to the wind, not priests, nor orders from the throne.
When Majdalena hollered, “Loose the canvas, scurvy swine!”
the topmen cast off every rope and cursed the whole damn line.

The canvas dropped, then swelled and filled, a lung of blackened sail;
the ship leapt like a drunken goat with murder in her tail.
The yards groaned overhead, the braces jerked and strained,
the sheets went snapping round the deck, and half the crew complained.

One drunkard dangled from a halyard, another from the shrouds;
a third lost half his shirt and pride in front of all the crowds.
That cursed rigging, woken grumpy from its dreams of peace,
would pick the clumsiest fool aboard and make his troubles increase.

Oh, halyards, sheets, and running lines! What ropes a ship must bear!
So many coils to rig a sail, so few to love a fair.
Sleep on deck, you’ll wake to a flogging from a whipping tail;
pretend you’re born a sailor, lad, and learn to mind your sail!

And last came the mizzenmast, the Devil’s counterweight,
a peacock’s tail with delusions of grandeur and a sailor’s fate.
They swore it helped the ship steer true, kept balance in the gale;
but it pushed the whole damn vessel back, just to spite the sail.

With yards and canvas all askew, she sailed her own queer way,
like a crab that’d drunk a barrel and forgotten how to stray.
Three souls inside one wooden hull, three tempers in one keel:
one pulled ahead, one chased the wind, one wouldn’t budge a wheel.

But Majdalena loved her still. What would a clerk know of that?
Your first ship takes a piece of you, however hard she bats.
She’d always sail against the wind, from pride or sheer disdain,
tacking left and tacking right, then left and right again.

Was she drawing a capital M across the ocean blue?
A signature upon the sea? A drunken zigzag, too?
Ask the helmsman why she turned that way, and what would he reply?
He’d spit you overboard and shout, “Go ask the fish, you sly old fly!”

As a girl she’d loved her sails, as black as funeral lace.
“The CaMa-Ron,” they called her then, with a straight and solemn face.
Bed and rum—that was the trade aboard that offshore den,
a floating house of ill repute for pirates and their men.

You slept with swords beneath your bunk, woke up without your trousers;
a parrot stole your breakfast while two cutthroats fought like grouses.
There was rum for those still living, rum to drown the thought of death,
and a bed for Satan himself—if he could pay his debt.

Then she christened her with a name that crooked tongue and all:
Majdalena, with a J, like a badly hammered nail.
They say a river bore that name, as tavern legends claim;
they took the J out, fearing what might follow from the name.

But gossip never goes to bed, nor keeps its mouth shut tight;
they say the J still hides aboard, among the ropes at night.
And if you hear a creak below, deep down within the hold,
it’s Majdalena spelling out her name to sailors brave and bold.

Her ropes were webs, her rigging bars, her decks a tangled snare;
yet somehow she would never fall, however wild the air.
For ropes are not all born alike, as every tar should know:
some keep the masts from going down, some drag you down below.

Some lines stand taut, some run like hell, some slip when pulled too fast;
some knots will hold a sailor’s life, some won’t survive the blast.
She knew the bowline, clove hitch, and every sailor’s trick;
she’d leave a boastful knotting man tied up like a lunatic.

With her wrist inside a bowline’s loop, she’d tame the snarled-up mess,
that wooden beast that ate up men and spat out their distress.
And though a reef knot’s not for every strain or pull,
she knew when it would serve her well—and when to tell a fool.

She was a ship, a sailor, a beast, a thing of bone and wood;
she smashed the waves beneath her keel and did it damn well good.
And through the spray, the oaths, the rum, the shouting and the din,
one little key remained with her, close to her heart within.

She wore it like a jewel upon a chain against her breast,
till one Don Gonzáles came and put her heat to test.
One damp and salty night of rum, of lust, and love gone warm,
she placed the keys into his hands, a challenge in her charm.

“If you can tell which one is true, which one is but a copy,
I’ll give you both, you handsome rogue, you devilish old puppy.
But listen close, Gonzáles, don’t get clever, don’t get wise:
if you guess the wrong one, shark bait, you’ll be—clothes and all—supplied!”

Gonzáles weighed them carefully, then turned them in his hand;
one shone like royal treasure, one looked guilty, dark, and bland.
He rolled them through his fingers, felt their weight against his palm,
then spoke without a quiver, cool as death before the calm:

“The copy weighs the heavier. The true one weighs the less.
The fake bears all the borrowed pride of metal in excess.”

Majdalena roared with laughter, loud enough to scare the bird;
Gonzáles kept both keys and gold, and not another word.
One he hid at home upon the phantom island’s shore,
where fog kneels down before the rocks and Hell won’t come ashore.

The other stayed beside her heart, beneath her coat and skin;
for even pirates need one secret kept from kith and kin.

And then her spyglass—God preserve us!—was a devil’s little joke,
chained unto her coat, its lenses filthy with the smoke.
It brought a distant schooner close, sent coastlines far away,
and showed an admiral in the glass where lobsters held their sway.

Through that brass and battered tube, all tarnished, stained, and grim,
she saw ghosts among the fog and devils on the brim.
More than one lookout swore, his face as white as bone,
he’d seen the Devil smoking a cigar upon a throne.

She carried two compasses—two!—to make the wise despair:
one pointed north, the other straight toward trouble everywhere.
The first would give the bearing; the second called the storm;
both could drive a sober admiral quite mad before the morn.

One swung with every roll of deck, one danced with every tide;
one cried, “Make for the coast!” the other, “Hell’s that way, you ride!”
No soul aboard could tell you which one spoke the truth;
Majdalena just laughed at them and drank away her youth.

But others swear—and these men claim they saw it with their eyes—
the steering compass cared for neither north nor starry skies.
You could steer east or west, or run before the breeze;
that needle pointed straight at her, wherever she might be.

And if the captain went below, the needle shook with fright;
it spun around like a madman who’d lost his wits outright.
If she went ashore, both compasses spun circles in despair;
but when she stepped aboard again, they pointed true as prayer.

So listen, lads and lasses, don’t trust maps or stars above,
nor pilots who boast they know each port and cove they love.
Some ships follow stars, some fortune, some the moon’s pale light;
some follow a woman through the dark, with no wind in sight.

So when the night grows black as pitch and you hear a keel-bone groan,
and black sails cut the shoreline like a curse carved into stone,
don’t ask who holds the helm, nor what flag flies unfurled—

It’s the Majdalena, damn your eyes!

And she sails wherever she damn well wants in this world.

The infiltrator (8) Sensitive Spoiler

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