Victor Nelson seemed like he would make an excellent pirate someday. He was a strapping youth, rosy-cheeked and quick to lend a hand with work or sing a bawdy song. He could shimmy up a rope like a monkey or scamper through a packed hold like a rat. He might not have been as muscular or as manly as the other pirates on the Brigand, but he made up for that with enthusiasm for all things piratical.

The pirates started to notice that something about the cheeks was a little too rosy, and those legs were very shapely for a man’s. When the men asked Victor if he was really Victoria, the youth laughed and admitted the deception. “I always wanted to be a pirate, like you lads!” she said.

On any other pirate ship, Victoria’s virtue would be in great jeopardy, but fortunately for her, the Brigand made more “wenching stops” than any three other ships in the Caribbean.

This kept the crew from discovering the Victoria was, in fact, a boy pretending to be a girl pretending to be a boy.

The men never suspected.