Captain Rouge - The honourable pirate

This is a story about Captain Barbe Rouge, a pirate with strong morals

Captain Barbe Rouge was a man of principles. He neither misbehaved with women nor succumbed to temptations like drinking or smoking. True, he was a pirate, yet he never dishonoured the women aboard the ships he hijacked. Once, when a male member of his crew assaulted a woman prisoner, the Captain ordered him hung upside down and lashed fifty times in full public view. The man nearly died, but Captain Barbe Rouge remained unmoved. To him, dishonouring a woman was unforgivable.

His wife and children feared him for his unyielding moral standards. Once, when his teenage son was reprimanded for teasing girls in school, the boy begged the principal not to inform his father. He eventually confessed to his mother, who chose to keep the incident from the Captain.

Life at sea was long and lonely. When his crew gathered over bottles of wine to break the monotony, the Captain stayed away. Discipline, he believed, left no room for indulgence.

His children longed for affection from him. They respected him, but it was a respect born of fear rather than love.
There was also the matter of his estranged younger brother.

The Captain was the eldest of three siblings. When their father died, he was only twelve, yet the burden of the household fell squarely on his shoulders. He cared for his mother and raised his younger brother and sister. With little money to spare, he abandoned his education after Class 7 and joined the family business.

Those early sacrifices secured a modest middle-class life for his family, but they left the Captain embittered. He put his siblings through college while his own dreams withered. As a boy, he had wanted to become a doctor. Fate had other plans.

Throughout his life, he worked relentlessly to keep others comfortable. Everyone sought his advice, his help, his strength - but no one ever asked him if he was happy, or whether he wanted something for himself. Surrounded by family, he felt profoundly alone.

Piracy was never his ambition. It was desperation. After his father’s death, he was broke, and a friend suggested they hijack ships to survive. What began as necessity hardened into profession.

Years later, his younger brother - now a senior government official - was suspended for corruption. The Captain was enraged. Dishonesty was intolerable. Without hesitation, he banished his brother from the family. Even after the brother served a two-year prison sentence, the Captain refused forgiveness. Blood, to him, did not excuse corruption. The brother left and never returned.

Time passed. The Captain’s children grew up.

His daughter fell in love with a college classmate. After they settled into their jobs, she decided it was time to tell her family she wished to marry him.

But there was a problem.

The man she loved was the son of a politician who had served jail time for embezzling public money. Would the Captain accept such a man’s son into the family?