Wendy and no Peter Pan

The night was hell. Wendy was chained in a damp, pitch-black dungeon in the lowest part of the ship. The irons on her wrists and ankles were cold and cut into her skin with every movement. Water dripped incessantly from the ceiling, soaking her thin maid's dress until she was chilled to the bone. Rats scurried past her in the darkness, their small claws scratching across the wet planks. But the physical torment was nothing compared to the storm in her mind.

Again and again, she saw Hook's face, distorted by a rage so profound it threatened to consume everything. His hiss—"You have dishonored me. Me!"—echoed in her ears. She thought of the boy, who was weeping in a neighboring cell, and of the children, whose fate was now more uncertain than ever. Fear was an icy knot in her stomach that tightened with every passing hour. What would the morning bring?

It brought grey, merciless light and the rough hands of two pirates who dragged her from her dungeon and onto the deck. The entire crew was assembled. The pirates' faces were an unreadable mix of curiosity, anticipation, and fear. A table had been set up on the stern. Behind it sat Captain Hook in his finest waistcoat, his face an impassive mask. To his right and left sat his First and Second Lieutenants as assessors, their gazes fixed on the horizon. It was a tribunal.

"The trial is now in session!" Hook's voice boomed across the deck. "Bring the first defendant forward!" The cabin boy was shoved forward. He trembled all over and didn't dare to look up.

"The defendant," Hook read from a parchment, "is accused of trespassing against the captain's personal property and of grossly undermining ship's discipline. What is his testimony?" The boy stammered something unintelligible. The sailmaker was called as a witness and briefly described what he had seen. There was no defence. There was no mercy.

"The court finds the defendant guilty," Hook declared with icy calm. "The sentence is death by hanging. The execution will take place at sunrise tomorrow." A collective, low murmur went through the crew. The boy collapsed with a whimper and was dragged away.

"The next defendant!" Hook cried.

Wendy was pushed before the table. She fell to her knees, the chains rattling.

"Wendy Moira Angela Darling," Hook spoke her full name as if poisoning it. "You are accused of fornication, betrayal, and willful deception of the captain. What do you have to say in your defense?"

"I was blackmailed!" Wendy cried, her voice breaking. "I didn't want this! The boy... he saw me with the children. He threatened to tell you if I didn't... if I didn't submit to him." She looked up pleadingly. "I only did it to protect the children! To not anger you!"

Her words died in the silence. Hook's face remained impassive, as if carved from stone. The lieutenants did not stir. Her justification met a wall of deaf ears and cold hearts.

"So you confess," Hook said quietly, leaning forward, "that you disregarded my direct orders and visited the prisoners without my permission?"

Wendy froze. He had twisted her desperate defense into an admission of guilt.

Hook rose to his full, terrifying height. "The court will retire to deliberate." With a curt gesture, he motioned for his lieutenants to follow him into his cabin. The heavy door closed behind them, leaving Wendy alone—in chains, on her knees, at the center of the gawking, silent crew. The waiting began.

The minutes stretched into an eternity. The sun climbed higher, beating down on Wendy's uncovered head. Finally, the door to the captain's cabin opened again. Hook and his lieutenants emerged and resumed their seats. An ominous silence fell over the deck.

Hook stood up. He did not look at Wendy, but addressed the entire crew. "On this ship, there is only one law: my law. There is only one authority: my authority. Every man—and every woman—on board is subject to this law. Without exception. Disobedience is mutiny. And mutiny will be eradicated, root and stem."

He paused dramatically, his gaze sweeping over the faces of his men. Then he lowered it to Wendy. "The court finds the defendant, Wendy Moira Angela Darling, guilty on all counts."

Wendy closed her eyes. This was it.

"For the offence of willful disobedience, conspiracy with a condemned criminal, and undermining order on board, she will be punished according to the law of the sea. She will not be treated as a woman who made a mistake, but as a member of this crew who betrayed her duty." His smile was thin and cruel. "She will feel the cat-o'-nine-tails."

A shock went through the ranks of the pirates. Even these hardened men muttered in surprise. Flogging a woman was an unheard-of brutality, even for them.

"Three dozen lashes," Hook continued unflinchingly, his voice cutting through the silence. "Administered to her entire naked upper body. The sentence will be carried out tomorrow morning, immediately after the boy's execution."

He paused, clearly savoring the horror that was dawning on Wendy's face. Then he added the final, perfidious instruction. "She will fashion the instrument of her own punishment. The sailmaker will show you how to tie the tails of a proper cat. Make sure there are many small, tight knots in every tail. So the lesson sticks."

His gaze grew even colder, if that were possible. "And the children... will watch as well. They should see the consequence when their little mother betrays the captain."

He sat down. The verdict had been delivered.

"Sailmaker!" Hook called. "Take her away. You have much to do."

The sailmaker, a gaunt man with skin weathered by tar and saltwater, grabbed Wendy's arm and dragged her from the deck. He led her into the depths of the ship, to a small, windowless room that smelled of old rope and mildew. A single oil lamp cast trembling shadows on the walls. In the middle of the room stood a low stool. On the floor lay a short, thick wooden handle and nine tails of stiff, waxed rope.

"These are the materials," the man grumbled, shoving her onto the stool. "Your work." He took one of the tails and, with quick, practiced movements, showed her how to tie the first knot. It was a small, complicated, and viciously tight knot. "Like this. And you make as many of these as will fit on the tail. Close together. And do that for all nine. At the end, they get attached to the handle. Understood?"

Wendy just stared at the rope. Her hands were trembling.

The sailmaker sighed in annoyance. "Listen, girl. This is no game. You have until the morning watch begins to finish this thing. Every tail must be full of knots, tight and clean. If you don't finish in time..." He paused and studied her with his cold, expressionless eyes. "...the punishment will be carried out anyway. But with one of my whips. And the captain has ordered that in that case, the number of lashes be doubled. That's the law on board. So get to it."

He left her alone in the darkness. The door fell shut with a heavy thud.

Wendy hesitantly picked up the first tail. The rope was rough and cut into the soft skin of her fingers. Her first attempts to replicate the knot failed miserably. They were too loose, uneven. She undid them and began again. The friction of the rope chafed her fingertips raw.

And then she heard it.

Through the thin wooden wall to her left came a sound. A quiet, suppressed whimper. It was the cabin boy. He was locked in the cell right next door, on his last night. His crying wasn't loud or angry; it was the broken, hopeless sound of a boy who knew he was going to die.

This sound became the cruel rhythm of her work. With every knot she laboriously forced into the rope, she heard his sobs. Her fingers began to bleed, and small red stains colored the light-colored rope. The pain was sharp, but the sound from the next cell was worse. She was tying the weapon for her own torture while listening to the death throes of another, for whom she felt partly responsible. Tears ran down her cheeks and dripped onto her bleeding hands. She worked on mechanically, driven by the fear of the doubled punishment. Knot by knot. Tail by tail. Every single movement was an agony, another step into her personal nightmare, accompanied by the heart-wrenching whimpering of a boy condemned to die.

The morning came not with gentle light, but with the harsh sound of a bolt being drawn back. The door swung open and in the pale light of the corridor lantern stood the sailmaker and the mate, a burly man with a scarred face. In Wendy's hands lay the finished whip, her fingers bloody and stiff. The mate snatched it from her hand and examined it with a contemptuous snort.

"You call this work?" he scoffed, holding another whip under her nose that he had brought with him. It was an old, dark "cat," its tails so covered in hard, almost stone-like knots that they were barely recognizable as rope. "Look at this. This is what a proper whip looks like. Yours is practically a caress."

"She did what she was told," the old sailmaker grumbled. "The knots are tight. There are enough."

"The First Lieutenant will decide that," the mate said, grabbing Wendy's arm. "Come on. It's time."

They dragged her up the stairs into the grey morning light. The air was cold and damp. The entire crew was assembled on deck, silent and with grim faces. A simple gallows had been improvised at the mainmast; a rope with a noose dangled from a crossbeam. And in front of it, sitting on the wet planks in the front row, were the lost children. Their faces were pale with fear, guarded by two armed pirates who made sure they could not look away. They had been forced to be here to learn the lesson in its full brutality.

A single, slow drumroll began.

Two sailors shoved the cabin boy out of a hatch. He wore only the rags of his trousers. When he saw the gallows, his legs began to shake and he would have collapsed if they hadn't held him up. They dragged him to the centre of the deck.

"To make his crime visible to all," Hook's voice called down from the quarterdeck, "let him face the world as he was born. Naked and shameful!" The sailors tore the trousers from his body. The boy tried in vain to cover his nakedness while laughter and jeers came from the ranks of the pirates. Then the rough noose was placed around his neck.

On the Jolly Roger, there was no chaplain to say last prayers, no final mercy. Hook gave a curt signal. The designated sailors, four in number, took the loose end of the rope and began to walk slowly. There was no drop, no quick breaking of the neck. The boy's body was slowly pulled into the air. His feet left the planks; he wriggled and kicked at the air. A horrifying gurgle escaped his throat as the noose tightened. His face turned dark red, then blue.

The children screamed, some covering their eyes with their hands, but were forced by the guards to look again. Wendy stared, mesmerized, at the horrifying sight. The body twitched, the hands clawed at the air. In a final, terrible act of the dying body, his member stiffened into an involuntary erection. The death struggle was long and agonizing. He slowly suffocated before everyone's eyes. When the twitching finally stopped and the body hung limp in the wind, its member still erect, a deep, eerie silence fell, broken only by the crying of the children and Wendy's own silent tears.

The First Lieutenant stepped forward, took the self-made whip from Wendy's hand, and compared it to the mate's. His gaze was cold and professional. "The work is inadequate," he declared loudly. "According to the law on board, the punishment must be doubled."

Six dozen lashes. Seventy-two. The number echoed in Wendy's head. She wouldn't survive that.

But then Hook's voice rang out from the bridge, surprisingly calm. "The First Lieutenant's judgment is correct. The punishment is doubled." He paused, and all eyes turned to him. "But," he continued, a flicker of something that looked like twisted pity crossing his face, "I am not a monster. The punishment will be carried out with the whip she made."

A murmur went through the crowd. It was a small but crucial mercy.

"Furthermore," he added, looking at Wendy, "six dozen to the upper body would be too much of a good thing. The lashes shall be distributed over her entire body. Bring her forward."

The mate and the sailmaker grabbed Wendy and dragged her forward, directly under the gallows. The boy's body still dangled above her, his shadow falling on her like an evil omen.

"Strip," the mate ordered.

Wendy hesitated, her whole body screaming in protest. But the look he gave her left no room for resistance. Slowly, with trembling fingers, she began to take off her maid's dress. Piece by piece, she exposed herself before the entire crew, before the children, under the corpse of the boy. The humiliation was total, a wave of shame as hot and painful as the whip itself would be.

When she was naked, the sailmaker ordered her to stand with her back to the mast, facing the crew. They put ropes around her wrists and pulled them up until her arms were tied to the gallows' crossbeam above her head, her toes barely touching the planks. More ropes were tied around her ankles and her legs were spread wide apart, fixed to the deck. And so she hung, completely exposed, helpless, and on display for the entire crew.

The drumroll began again, this time louder, more demanding. The punishment was about to begin.

The mate was the first to step forward. He spit into his hands, rubbed them together, and grasped the whip that Wendy had made. He let the nine tails run through his fingers appraisingly and grinned maliciously. Then he stepped back, drew his arm back, and let the whip hiss through the air.

ONE. The knots struck Wendy's abdomen. It felt as if red-hot iron was being pressed onto her skin. A scream, shrill and full of shock, tore from her throat. Her whole body strained against the ropes.

TWO. The lash landed on her thigh. Again, the burning, tearing pain. Again, a scream.

THREE. FOUR. FIVE. The mate worked methodically, without haste. He distributed the blows as he had been commanded. Across her breasts, her legs, her stomach, her arms. Each blow left immediate, red welts, from which small beads of blood began to seep after a few seconds. Her screaming became a whimper, punctuated by sharp gasps for air. The children wept uncontrollably, some turning their faces away, but they could not escape the sound of the blows and Wendy's cries of pain.

After the twelfth blow, her skin was already a lattice of bleeding wounds. The pain was no longer a single event, but a constant, all-consuming fire. Her mind began to retreat. She saw the pirates' faces only as blurry patches. She heard the mate's counting, but the numbers lost their meaning.

"Thirty-six!" the mate finally called out, stepping back, panting. He was sweaty, but satisfied. The first half was done. Wendy's body was covered in bloody welts. She hung limp in the ropes, her head slumped on her chest, her breath coming in shallow, rattling gasps.

The old sailmaker took his place. He took the whip, his expression unreadable. He wasted no time. His first blow was short and precise, striking her on the ribs. Wendy flinched, a low moan her only response. His blows were faster, less brutal in their execution, but no less painful. He worked his way systematically from her shoulders down, across her back, her hips, the backs of her legs.

At some point, Wendy stopped counting. She stopped feeling where the next blow would land. It was just an endless, throbbing agony. The world was reduced to the sound of the hissing rope and the impact on her skin. Dark spots danced before her eyes. She thought of Peter, of her mother, of a warm bed in London. Every memory was a desperate attempt to escape from the hell in which she hung.

"...Seventy-one!"

The final blow was imminent. The sailmaker drew back his arm. The whip struck her across the backside. A final, convulsive jerk went through Wendy's body. Then nothing.

"Seventy-two!" the sailmaker cried, letting the bloody whip fall to the planks.

The drumroll fell silent. The punishment was over. A dead silence settled over the deck, broken only by the soft lapping of the waves and the whimpering of the children. Wendy hung motionless in her bonds, her body a single, destroyed wreck. Her head was tilted to the side, her eyes closed. Whether she was conscious, no one could say.