Scorbutics

Cleaving, pounding frothy waves
Heading for the south
A three-master manned with buccaneers
Scourges of the New World
Recognise no law
Brotherhood of hardened privateers
Jolly Roger fluttering
Shameless and scornful
40 loaded heavy guns on deck
Tortuga awaits them
Wenches, rum and gold
The captured frigate on its way back
Their last raid successful
All holdings stuffed with loot
The merchant vessel never stood a chance
No quarter was given
Pennon coloured red
Stabbing, guttering ad its code demands
The Portugese was scuttled
Leftovers for the sharks
Great whites feeding wild on piracy
After the wine and bloodfloabs
They sleep off their debauch
Speeding on the flush of victory
Then all of a sudden breaking weather
Puts an end to their prosperity
Entering weeks of steerless,
aimless floating
In the calm and the merciless heat
Rapidly provisions are decreasing
No more fruit and vegetables to eat
Scorbutics
Ravaging, the terror of scurvy
Livid creatures begging for their god
Intestinal haemorrhages,
bones wasting away
Corroding gristle, urinating blood
Fatiguing insomnia, teeth and hair fall out
The rancid stench of living human rot
Scorbutics
Raving in delirious desperation
The last of the freebooters slowly dies
Amongst the pus, the blood, the bones and
bodies
Seagulls swallowing dead gazing eyes