"This is stormboot (...)
Position 5412-0524 East.
This is stormboot, please come in!
I repeat - (...) anyone read me?!"

JIJ ZULT VERZUIPEN IN JE EIGEN BLOED!

(You will drown in your own blood!)

In the age of electricity and oil,
My tugboat ploughs through waveless liquid soil.
Cruising at thirteen knots on a pitch black sea.
There's a strange object on the radars
In front of me.
Still nothing I can see.
Just an open dreary sea...

Several attempts to contact that
What appeared to be the size of a ship.
No response 'till I receive
Transmissions of hostile nature.
These voices cursing my goddamn name.
Hell, is this witchcraft or am I insane?

All of a sudden a dark silhouette
Ascends through ghostlike mist.
While it comes closer, I recognize
The image of an old deserted ship.

I am aghast at the sight of a derelict vessel
Sailing this awkward night, appearing like a black floating cadaver.
There's not one single man aboard.
Her torn sails cloaking her like a cobwebbed widow,
Posing against this sad nightmarish horizon.

The temperature suddenly dropped.
My great-grandfathers clock, just ticking, now stopped.
I am smothered by a sudden shroud of fear.
For there's a ghost ship 'pon a funereal quest.
With a black bird circling hypnotic
Around its rocking empty crow's nest.

Fortunately this atrocious mystery sets sail away from me.
Some sailors claim other seamen beheld such sights.
Most died weird deaths during fog-clad days and nights.
The ship vanished as suddenly as it appeared.
Should I feel fear?
Was it even here?

He came home with trembling bone and spoke:
"Evil roams the sea!"
I caught a glimpse of something I describe as witchery.

They must think I am weird. My wife and daughter upset by what they hear.
As we go to bed, I kiss my loves goodnight
Then close my eyes to forget.
Soon a lucid dream!
The room around me shifts into a bleak and dismal scene.

Once my consciousness has vanished deep within my mind,
The first thing I realize is taking a severe beating from
Someone in the middle of the night.
Between the shocking fragments of cold fists ponding on my face, I can see a man
Wearing a black hat causing harm upon me.
While he's laughing and punching simultaneously, I manage to grab his
Throat with both hands and push him over to the left side,
Where my wife sleeps at night.
Grabbing the knife on the pedestal cupboard, not thinking twice.
And I stab into his face until both eyes liquidize and facial bones collapse.

Haphazardly in anxiety I maim his face extremely
And still he's laughing loudly.
His clothes look rather old; a stench like dead things and a ragged captain's coat.
This dream is so ghastly and surreal.
So many stabwounds, sixty, maybe more.
His face simply shattered while blood decorates the floor.

Then there is this sound like a snarling hound.
I leave the room to look around.
It guides me to my daughter's room.
Her door is locked.
I am terrified of what I might find behind.
So quickly I climb the stairs to the old attic and find my double-barrelled shotgun. Ammunition.
The weapon's loaded.
I need this nightmare to be done.
Done!

I break down the door forcefully.
A vicious false dog is what I see.
And still he's laughing loudly.
It's not my child for this beast seems foul and wild.
Two close ranged shots, still alive,
Brutally finished with the knife.
Now guess who's gargling closely behind me.
I turn around and again I am just an inch away
From that face I carved up previously.
Still laughing... Suddenly...

Thank god I am awake!

Laying in my bed, covered in sweat.
The horror I have seen, was just an awful dream.

Clouded is my sight, finding bloodstains on my hands as I rub my eyes.
No! what have I done?!
My wife besides me, still alive, but her face is simply gone.
Beauty has been maimed by my hand, disfigured.
Our kiss will never be the same.

Now where the fuck is my little girl?!
And a dead hound is not what I found,
Bloodstains on the wall.
There's my daughters corpse,
Slaughtered on the ground!

One last kiss upon my wife's trembling hand
Before I shoot her through the head
To set her free from this misery.

Imagine the shotgun standing upside down
With the barrel in my mouth.
The sighting was a portent of doom and the consequence definitely macabre.
And before my last tear hits the soil I...

"Weigh the anchor and hoist the sails!
Work harder ye drunken snails!
For treasury like pepper as gold.
Let this nautical voyage begin.
We are powered by strong European winds."

The triumph of The United Dutch East-India Company.

We run a monopoly: spice trade, violence and slavery.
"Full speed ahead!"
He's hollering as if he is mad.
This ship is captained by a successful psychopath.

Fearless...
No conscience...
The infamous Captain Van Der Decken.

So obsessed to be best.
Nothing less.
A crude master yet staunch, refusing to back away from any kind of tumult.
For mace, nutmeg, clove and cinnamon.
For silk, porcelain, ivory and opium.
Victoriously sails the VOC!

Through the foulest gates, along dangerous reefs and treacherous bays.
Respect and obedience.
Under his command they felt challenged but safe.
Determination and greed is what he felt.
Possessed and focused on profit and wealth.

"Weigh the anchor and hoist the sails!
Work harder ye drunken snails!
For treasury like pepper as gold.
Let this nautical voyage begin.
We are powered by strong European winds."

"Bring me the rum
To celebrate the fortunes to come.
Let us sing and drink on a rich and glorious time.
For we shall succeed just like this harmonious rhyme."

Come Catharina and kiss the gold medal
A trophy for the most respected man around.
Breathe with me from the opium pipe and drink a little more wine.
I love you, but not as much as my sea, ship and crew.
What?!
Now you hide your fears lest it becomes your fault should I choose to molest you.

Catharina!
If you try to leave, there will be grief.
A wonderful house built for my wife to dwell
Still nagging like one of my annoying men.
Catharina!
He defies the trust in marriage and god.
For there are bloodstains on the captain's log.

I stand for greed, lust and the willpower to defeat.
The mask I wear is kind, with a distorted face underneath.

I believe in bliss through violence and suppression.

Take, rob and rape.
Don't let these filthy foreigners escape.
On our pillage through the Indian seas, we sail heartless under the flag of piracy.
Ravish and ruin their lives.
Execute their children right before their eyes.
My treasure chambers, teeming with the riches I adore.
I call it passion, not a sin, to kill for more and more.

Come Catharina and kiss the gold medal
A trophy for the most respected man around.
Breathe with me from the opium the opium pipe and drink a little more wine.
I love you, but not as much as my sea, ship and crew.
What?!
Now hold your tears lest it becomes your fault I should choose to violate you.

Once he sailed the course of trade and righteousness.
A stern, yet stout, master of the sea.
Now his soul drowns in condescension.
His mind corrupted and martyred by greed.
Bloodstains on the captain's log!

This storm, lighting, fierce winds and monstrous waves.
A demonic tempest. My men complaining...
I command! We set sail!

"I beg you my captain!
Christ has forbidden to set sail on Easter Sunday!"

"What?! Your God?! May he suffocate! May he rot!"
Kept the bible close to me.
His book of lies I shall now cast into the sea.

"This is blasphemy!"

"You hold your tongue or I'll rip it out
and have you hanged for mutiny!"

"No! You cannot send us into madness. We shall not obey."

With my knife I penetrate his tender throat.
I curse in rage:

"Godverdomme! Wij zullen vaeren!
Al betekent het mijn dood!"

The crew froze as he wiped the blood off on his coat
And threw the helmsman ruthlessly overboard.
In defiance of the storm, that kept them anchored for so long
He swore an oath to forfeit right and wring. irreverent he cussed loudly:
"I will round the cape, even if I have to sail until doomsday!"

Their petrified facial expressions could tell:
Their master was like a devil on this floating piece of hell.
There and then he gave the signal of departure.
"Make sail and weigh the hook!" And so they left the harbour.
Hear the Easter bells tolling through the roaring sound of a rough sea,
Accompanied by the sight of a ship sailing towards her destiny.
What a spectacle of blasphemy.
There was no rejoice after his mad choice.
Sails were lost, decks were flooded
And lightning turned their ship into a coal-black carcass.
Anxiety replaced vainglory.

The storm died down but a sinister shroud of darkness remained,
For the daylight came no more.
Floating in unending dusk, adrift on liquid ground.
Months went by and land was never found.
Food supplies putrefied and pestilence broke out.
Suicide became routine, some chose suspension, others jumped and drowned.
The dead were sown in hammocks
And disposed of in the sea, buried in a watery grave, after a short ceremony.

The crew froze as he left his cabin with knife and gun,
Slaughtering what was left of them one by one.
There was an evil murderous glimpse in his eyes.
By the time he was done, the ship was desecrated by death and demise.

Van der Decken lashes himself to the wheel, swearing at Christ:
"I shall not yield!"
All at once a new storm rose and lightning struck.
The top mast broke off, impaling him, a shard of the crest piercing his chest,
In a standing position nailed to the deck.
And so a man dies, and a ghost resurrects.

Lots of tears, months became years.
Their mothers wept for many nights,
Wondering if their sons died.
Just when the grief became permissive and brief
Tales of a ghost ship were spread...
The same vessel where their brood found death.

A craft made of mist, coursing in a timeless direction.
This cadaverous sighting, causing mayhem through reflection.

These dark words are whispered in the local hangout of our port.
Sailors and captains sketching a ship's hull with a black shape aboard.
Robust dauntless sea-dogs speak with a frightened tone in their voice:

"Blue was the sky and the sun smiled at the crew.
Then a storm came forth, moving swiftly from the north.

Claps of thunder rumble, cold winds whining loud.
A ghostly solstice, weeping thick tears from its dreary clouds.
As if these raindrops awoke something from its sleep,
Ticking on a liquid grave
To evoke a devilish ship from the sea.

The rise of a haunting in the form of a demon vessel.

Now this black ship veered it's bow.
Changing her course, sailing straight into our direction.
Anxious seamen screaming out loud: Search for protection!
Right before it collides, a dark figure was seen,
Standing on the prow with a black hound by his side.
Surrounded by corpses. A sardonic smile
And a sinister glance in his eyes.

No movement, not one single tremor was felt on board.
This spectral ship sailed straight through our vessel
And our soul. The only thing we sensed was a bleak gust,
A chill breeze... so cold."

A black shape sits on a deck in a red glistening puddle,
Sobbing and shaking, curled up in a huddle.
The shape of a man amidst silence and slaughter,
Clothes torn and drenched in blood and salt water.

"His fortune to dust, his fortune to dust!
His triumph in vain, his triumph in vain!
Riches to ashes! His tears lost in rain!"

A ship made of mist like quicksilver thread.
This skeleton vessel sings songs for the dead.
To take a deep breath and set his mind back in motion,
He stumbles upright and fumbles to the prow.

His eyes now closed to hear his dear ocean,
He feels the world has altered somehow.
Deafening silence, the ocean seems gone.
Hardly a whisper nor notes of wind song

"His fortune to dust, his fortune to dust!
His triumph in vain, his triumph in vain!
Riches to ashes! His tears lost in rain!"

In a final attempt to end this bitter roam,
He looks at the stars with their comforting glare.
But the lights above that once guided him home,
Scattered and shattered, are no longer there.

Now dawning upon him like rays of the sun,
His state and fate cannot be undone.
The captain now trapped on this skeleton vessel,
Adrift on the void in a black floating castle.

Chained to a twilight and bound to his boat,
Swearing his vengeance on others afloat.
Lights at the end that have the world in their grip.
He shall have his conquest
As death came through a phantom ship!