Rating: PG
Pairing: None
Feedback: to hrafn@hrafn.co.uk
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Chapter 1 The deck was warm beneath his feet, the sun a weight on his head, golden and shining as a doubloon. The metal trinkets in his braids burnt against his skin. Smoke still wisped up into the heavy, indigo sky, smelling of sulphur and fire.
It was hot enough for hell, yet the man standing scowling in the midst of Jack's victorious crew was chill; poised and private as though a wall of ice stood between him and his captors. A different world, he seemed to occupy, from this scene of splintered wood and spilled gore. Though he'd fought handily enough, nothing but the ropes around his wrists marred the crisp perfection of his uniform. Oh, a scattering of bloodstains on his lace cuffs perhaps, to mark the untimely demise of more than a few of Anamaria's new recruits, though Jack was pleased to note his own had given the man a wide berth and come away unscathed.
"Why if it isn't me old friend, Commodore Norrington, come to make me a present of a brand spanking new ship all agleam with fresh paint and enthusiasm, and a lovely little thing she is."
"Me a present!" Anamaria broke in, her tone barely short of another slap. "You owe me that ship, Jack Sparrow, and don't be forgetting it."
"Would I forget such a thing, m'darlin'... with you bellowing it in me ear all day long? Seems to me you'd better get your men aboard, and such as you don't want to keep of the good Commodore's effects moved out of his cabin, afore I decide I don't want to part with yon fine Navy boat..." He smiled winningly, leaned towards her, "or your delightful company. At all." And she grimaced, spun on her heel, and began ordering her own crew off the Pearl, onto the soon to be renamed HMS Nimrod.
Though the Nimrod - a thirty two gun frigate - was more of an Interceptor than a Dauntless, the Pearl had been running light on powder after an altercation with a Spanish galleon that ended disappointingly with the latter being sunk. This battle with His Britannic Majesty's Royal Navy had been not at all what Jack was looking for, though it had turned out well enough in the end. Fortuitously - as it might be - the Pearl was overmanned. When it came down to hand to hand fighting on the Pearl's black decks, it had been Anamaria's extra crew that'd swung the battle for them, and that narrowly.
Jack - if he had not been the legendary Captain Jack Sparrow - might have been concerned at just how difficult it had been. But he was the legendary Captain Sparrow, and his speciality was snatching triumph from the claws of certain defeat. He was not going to trouble himself with snatching thoughts of failure from a certain victory. Besides, it wouldn't do for the Commodore to know he was becoming a serious threat, the man was insufferable enough as it was.
He paced slightly closer, noting the way Norrington's eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared in disgust. Funny, Jack thought, and annoying in equal measure. It wasn't wise or polite to be so clearly disapproving of a man's walk, when you were a defenceless prisoner on his ship. But it was nicely consistent - it gave him a small stab of homesickness, a feeling that there was still some constancy in this reeling world.
"Now, now, Commodore - no call to be looking like you smelled something bad. I had a proper bath only a fortnight ago."
"That was a month, Jack," said Gibbs over his shoulder, as he motioned with his pistol to keep the captive sailors more interested in getting into the longboat than in the fate of their commanding officer. "If you call being soused in the contents of a horse trough a proper bath."
Jack pouted winsomely, but the expression seemed to do him no good with either Gibbs or Norrington. Probably something they put in his Britannic Majesty's godawful rum rendered all Navy and ex-navy men immune to a bit of honest charm. Dishonest charm, he corrected himself, and paused. Maybe the narrow-eyed look wasn't disgust at all. It certainly wasn't fear.
He swayed even closer, so that his fine velvet coat brushed against all that showy gold braid. Tilted his head to examine the commodore's face, delighted by Norrington's struggle to accept this without stepping back - for stepping back would press the edge of Cotton's cutlass hard against his spine. Who'd have thought it? Green eyes. The colour of Northern sunlight slanting through alder leaves. And maybe there was a little fear after all - but more fury. Disappointment too? Certainty, uncertainty, and resolution. The man was like an iceberg; everything visible was polished and pristine, but by God there was so much going on underneath the surface.
"You will give my men a cask of water and a compass."
"It's to be negotiations!" Jack gave a bright smile and danced a jig around his prize. "How far we've come already. Only our last meeting you were all set to kill me, and now you want to talk? We'll be best o'friends afore the week is out."
As he swung around past the stiff blue shoulders, Jack caught a fleeting glimpse of the clear up. The ship's carpenter was already at work on the holes, and the bodies were being tied with rope and ballast to send them to the kingdom of the dead at the bottom of the sea. Only Anamaria was having problems, trying to peel one of her sobbing recruits away from a casualty. He would get no sympathy there. Them as falls behind gets left behind. A pirate could not afford to waste heartache over the misfortunes of others.
"I am not negotiating with you, Sparrow. Mr. Turner seems to think you are a good man. I am giving you an opportunity to prove it."
Jack raised his eyebrows. Now that was a new one. "A good man," he paused, "and a pirate. So let's say I want to give your little lads a few home comforts - even though they should by rights be able to navigate by the stars, and raw fish is good for a parched thirst, if you're not too picky about drinking fish blood - and who would be after a couple of dry days? Still got to make it worth m'while, savvy?" He took a breath, looked up into the twisted frown that Norrington seemed to wear as part of the uniform. "And it's Captain Sparrow, eh? Specially as I've got the ship and you aint. Mr Norrington."
This was fun! Jack hadn't put too much thought into the decision to send the Nimrod's crew home in a longboat, but keep the Commodore. It just seemed to be happening that way, and he for one was quite happy with it. There probably was some diabolically cunning reason, bubbling away in the dark recesses of his mind, which only required a bit of rum and peril to bring to the fore - he'd learned to trust these things. But in the mean time, standing next to all that chill was making the oppressive Caribbean sun seem kindly on him, and his freedom that much more of a treasure.
The barb must have hurt. Norrington bowed his head so that the brim of his hat obscured the expression in his eyes, and sighed. "What do you want?"
Behind Jack, the weeping man began to shout. Anamaria's voice raised in a tirade against him; and say what you liked, she was a harridan, but she was a bloody good pirate. The sooner her crew learned that, the better. It would not help her authority if Jack was to intervene, so he let it pass, obscurely annoyed that the Navy man should see such slack discipline on his ship. "I'm a gentleman of modest wants, James..." he smiled at the look of disapproval and surprise. Honestly, as though looking a man's Christened name up in the Navy Lists was tantamount to theft! "I can call you James, can't I, since we're going to be such good friends. It's like this. You promise not to kill any more of my lads. I promise not to kill any more of yours. Deal?"
Norrington took a deep breath and let it out through the nose, then he raised his head and gave a small, wintery smile. "From a man as twisted as yourself, Captain Sparrow, I would like something slightly more specific. You provide my men with enough fresh water to take them back to Port Royal, and a working compass. Then you let them depart in safety. And in return I swear upon my honour as a gentleman, I will not kill any of your crew while I am a captive aboard this vessel."
"Ah, you see that's not what I really meant. I meant 'you promise not to kill us at all'. Not by skewer or garrotte or hitting over the head, or any other means accidental or intentional during the course of any - as it might be - escape attempt, nor blowing up me ship, nor taking us captive by cunning plans and stratagems on this or another occasion, and hanging us by the neck till we be dead. Y'have such a fascination for the noose, mate. Y'understand the concern."
There was British weather in Norrington's eyes; a play of clouds and storm. Jack felt, again, a recognition, a nostalgia, at the thought. But he shook it off. No cause to get sentimental over a frigid killjoy who was having so much difficulty with the concept of not wanting him dead.
Truth was he'd meant to see the longboat provisioned adequately all along. Freedom was one thing, cruelty another, and it didn't seem sporting to send his pursuers away to die of thirst in the middle of the mocking sea. But Norrington didn't need to know that, and if some concession could be wrung out of him in the belief that he was paying for his men's safety, more fool him. Could have trusted me to do it. Could've trusted in me essential goodness, like Will did.
Behind him there was the sound of a slap, and a man's harsh exclamation, half mad with rage; "He killed my...!"
"I don't give a leper's kiss what he did! Obey my orders or get off my damn boat!"
Norrington looked up with the same expression he'd worn as he watched them put the rope around Jack's neck. It was funny, now Jack thought of it, how it had been James who looked condemned that day. Himself, he'd known something would come up. It always did. "I cannot..." the commodore began.
And Anamaria screamed "Jack!" just as a sharp crack echoed off the Pearl's black gunwales. The shot hit Norrington in the chest. He recoiled - looking hardly more than surprised - into Cotton's cutlass, and then fell; silently, neatly, as befitted an English gentleman, blood staining his braid and turning his blue coat black. Smoke and the smell of powder expanded against a beat of silence. Then Captain Payton of the Nimrod - the last to get below into the longboat - was struggling and cursing against his captors.
"Murdering bastards! Pirate scum! I'll see you all hang for this!"
Gibbs manhandled him away, but not before Jack had seen the tale of it; how Port Royal, and every British ship in the Caribbean would shiver over the merciless pirate who waylaid his nemesis and executed him in cold blood, while the brave young officer was trying to bargain for his men's lives. There would be a new, sinister twist to the fame of Captain Jack Sparrow, which would darken his name forever, and might even buy him his peers' respect.
Anamaria knocked out her errant crew member with a left hook, and looked over long enough to say "Good riddance."
But legend and personal misgivings aside, this was not what Jack intended at all. In fact, it was like watching Barbarossa make off with his ship again. It was downright unjust. "This wasn't supposed to happen!" he told the universe at large. As usual, it laughed at him. "Oh god, not good. Not good at all."
Chapter 2 He was in hell. He could see the blood pulse scalding through his closed eyelids, feel his skin tighten beneath the licking flames. When he breathed the air was molten lead, when he tried not to, he smothered and panic forced him to open his mouth and gasp the boiling metal once more.
He supposed indeed the punishment was just. There were men dead whom his additional diligence might have saved, lives and livelihoods lost because he had not worked hard enough, women defiled whom he had failed to protect, and foulnesses in the very fabric of government that he had not challenged. What good he had achieved was more than outweighed by the evil he had failed to prevent. He should have done more.
Hell tossed like a ship in a quartering sea, and his voice joined the groan of timber, as agony tore the outcry from him, mocking his pride, his dignity and strength.
"We're just coming about, mate. It'll be easier soon."
Oh God! He was in hell with Jack Sparrow. A torment individually and lovingly crafted by the Devil's own brand of humour. Unlike the pain, he was not altogether certain he deserved this.
The heat had become a living thing. He lay in the breath of the dragon. The blast of this creature was sweeping across the whole Caribbean; fire was descending on his house. The garden he had planted for Elizabeth - in the hope it would say for him what he could not find the words to express - was withering, petals charring to dust. Making a choked noise he struggled to get up. Pain burst beneath his ribs like the powder magazine going up. "Have to... water... the roses."
A quiet laugh in the darkness, as he fell back, defeated. "I'm impressed, Commodore. It's not every man that can rave genteel-like."
"The garden.. you don't..." You don't understand. Nobody does.
Something wet touched his lips. He licked them - water and rum, tepid and soft, the water soothing in his parched throat, the rum making him drift. A cold hand settled on his forehead. Sighing, his mind filled with Elizabeth; smiling, roses tossing about her like the breakers of the ocean. Their scent filled the evening like the gentle fall of cool rain.
When he woke again, it was to find himself cradled in a man's embrace - his head tucked beneath a bristly chin, his cheek lying against rough linen and a strong heartbeat under his ear. It was a mark of his weariness that this was not so unpleasant an experience as it should have been.
"Who...?" he said, pleased to at least be making sense.
"Gibbs," a pause, and a tensing of the muscles against him. Then, unexpectedly; "Sir." The voice seemed familiar, and the concession unlikely from a pirate. 'Gibbs'? Where had he heard the name before? He twisted, trying to sit up, bring the face into focus, and a hot slice of pain went through his lower back.
"'Old 'im still Mr.Mate. I'll have a map of Jamaica drawn ere in scars at this rate."
It didn't seem like Hell any more, except in the metaphorical sense, but it was still very difficult to conceive of an alternate explanation for why Jack Sparrow might not only have failed to kill him, but actually taken the trouble to return him to life. Fingers lit gently on his back, then the chill of a knife blade; a tug, and the brief searing sting of a cut stitch being pulled out. There was something distinctly insulting about it - that they could afford to show him mercy. But it was also disquieting to think that Sparrow at least must have wanted to. Why? What was his plan?
He cleared his throat. Two, three... how many more stitches to go? OW! And that was just the cutlass wound. God knew how he'd survived the shot. "Gibbs from the Endeavour?" He was good at remembering names, skills, circumstances. Not so good at translating that knowledge into fellow feeling. Laid off in Antigua, and refused references by Captain Mayhew for persistent drunkenness. It had been a petty and unjust decision, as he remembered; for despite being lordly sodden in his off time, Gibbs had only appeared on deck drunk once, and many a man had been merely lashed and returned to duty for worse.
Mayhew had run a nervous, unhappy ship - taut as a sail raised in too much wind. A smart ship, zealous, neat as a pin, but just a little too tightly strained. Despite his taste for liquor and superstition, Gibbs had been a loss to her - he had a skill for getting the best out of the crew, and a reassuring presence the boys had missed.
"Good man," James said, unable to fit this lengthy reflection to speech.
Again there was a pause, and a grudging, surprised "thank'ee Sir."
The Pearl was now making only the contented creaks of a ship well sailed before a good following wind. He'd been angled into a position where the sunlight from the cabin's small starboard window would fall across his back, yet it was dim in here, and warm, and but for the regular hot stabs of stitches being removed he would have found it very easy to fall back to sleep. There was a tired, intimate mood which encouraged reminiscence.
"Do you know what happened to the men who were laid off with you? Peterson...?"
"Hung himself, Sir."
"And his.. um... friend? Lambton?"
"Went a bit funny after the Pillory. Blew his brains out, poor sod."
"Damn." He shouldn't have asked. Now he felt both accused, responsible for this - for who else should shoulder the burden of the Navy's honour - and terribly regretful. He didn't even remember what Lambton looked like, but he had been a good sailor, and that was a rare blessing in a service filled with impressed men and petty criminals. "Waste..."
"Aye," said Gibbs, with a note of strange humour. "Should've come along of me. Plenty o'their kind among the Brethren."
This was not an encouraging thought. Particularly when one was half naked and weak as a kitten, alone in a cabin with two of them. He tensed, and as a result the last stitch coming out was like a mule's kick. The sting of it made his eyes water.
"Brace yourself," said Jack's voice behind him, slurred and amused, and that was all the warning he got before a cloth full of sea water was wrung out over the wound, salt making every fibre of his body scream in protest. "There, that's not so bad if I say so myself - and it'd be a worrying thing if it was me speaking but it wasn't myself, wouldn't it? So I suppose I do say so and it isn't bad. What do you think?"
Red waves of shock and pain broke over him. He gritted his teeth and rode them out grimly. "Hurts.. like.. buggery!"
"Mate," Jack's mocking drawl was no less insulting for being soft, "if that's what buggery feels like to you, you're doing it with the wrong gents. I'd be more than happy to give you a demonstration of how it should be done, if you find yourself with an interest."
And now he had some inkling of the terror Elizabeth must have felt, in her own imprisonment on this ship. Like her, he was damned if he was going to show it. "Mr Gibbs?" He laughed instead, coldly. "Please do me the favour of shooting me again. This time in the head."
o0o
"He bloody meant it!"
"I know, Jack, and it'd be a good idea. It's bad luck, having the likes of him on board - and I'm not saying nothing the rest of the crew aint thinking."
The Pearl rode at anchor off Aruba, its scrubby villages and barren fields gilt in glory by a sky on fire. The sea was dark and sleepy beneath her, almost too calm. The furled sails were silent, and the wind barely trembled in the rigging. From where he sat on the roof of the Captain's cabin, Tearlach played, the sweet notes of the pipe skirling over the water like hunting swifts, like swallow flight. At the stern, Quartetto grumbled beneath his breath at having been left behind - for the rest of the crew had taken the jolly-boat and gone ashore, to spend some of the Nimrod's unwanted silver.
Jack was not in the mood for revelry. Nor was he in the mood for peace. Truth was, he wasn't sure what he was in the mood for, though getting drunk in the process sounded good. He was like the Pearl, he thought, the wind had gone from his sails, and he was waiting, becalmed, for it to turn.
Finest ship in the world, in tribute, he took a long pull on this evening's drink - Captain Payton's pilfered brandy. "Port," he said aloud, sniggering, "should have been porter."
"Eh?"
"'Captain Payton's pilfered porter'," he grinned as Gibbs gave him one of those looks, "'S got more of a ring to it."
"Are we free men or not? The crew's got a right to know what you're thinking, Jack. We got a right to our say. He makes us nervous, and it'd be easier to be rid of him now, afore 'e starts waking up to where he is; poking about in our business. Talking."
"Seemed to me you two were getting on right matey - old brothers in arms; catching up with fallen comrades. Now you want me to slit his throat on the quiet and dump him overboard?"
Gibbs looked ill at ease, and Jack wondered how much Navy loyalty there still was, lurking unacknowledged in his piraty heart. "We could maroon him. Somewhere... nice. Lots of food, no way home."
"I'm more worried about the 'sir' thing, meself."
"That!" the first mate scratched his sideburns meditatively, gave an expression that was half smile, half grimace. "Don't mean nothing. 'E's just a 'Sir' and you're a 'Jack', Jack. You can scrub at it but it don't come off..." He turned his flask upside down and looked sadly at the single drop that quivered in a bead of amber at its lip. "Thing is, he may not be as slippery as you - God knows few men are - but he's strung up almost every other pirate that dared sail British waters. You can't keep him on board like a ship's mascot; he's not safe."
Not safe. That thought rang a waking bell in Jack's soul. Fact was, after facing the undead, gambling with eternal damnation in the moonlight, even the horizon seemed a little tame. He'd chased after the Pearl for ten years, every thought focussed on that goal, and now the dream was achieved; there was nothing left to challenge him, nothing left to overcome, but for this man.
It rankled with his pride that he had not truly escaped from Port Royal. Norrington had let him go, like a man deliberately losing at chess because he played with a child. The gesture threw him further off course the more he thought about it. It deserved a devastating response, something Norrington could carry with him for the rest of his life, knowing himself defeated. Thinks he's so above me he can afford to show me charity, does he?
"So what's your plan?"
"I do have one." Jack held up a finger to emphasize the point. "I do. But the thing is, see, it's a plan of such monstrous cleverness, of such diabolical ingenuity and ironic undertones," his hands danced in the air, tracing its subtleties, "that mere words is not sufficient - not eloquent - enough to capture its elegance."
Gibbs pulled the seal from a bottle of rum with his teeth, and spat it over the side. The sea was so smooth, Jack fancied he could feel the ripple of impact up through the Pearl's planks and through the soles of his feet.
"You don't know what to do with him either."
Jack laughed and shook his head till the beads jingled. There were times when Gibbs was too clever by half. "'Aven't got a clue, mate."
Chapter 3 There was something very wrong, Jack thought, with a world in which the dreaded pirate hunter of Port Royal was a wary young man with eyes the colour of absinthe and hair the colour of rough Caribbean rum. Just for a moment, Jack thought the commodore had been spirited away by mermaids; an unknown Lieutenant in shirt and white breeches left in his place, propped up against the cabin wall, looking out of the open window to the swell and murmur of the sea.
It was a crying shame it hadn't happened earlier, in Jack's opinion. The wig and uniform added age and authority; stopped you looking at the man underneath, and maybe that was the point of them. Didn't seem likely anyone ever wore them for comfort, after all. But by all the powers it was odd to peel that away and find a person, passing strange to see that Norrington was at least a decade younger than he was, and as fragile as any other human being.
At that age, Jack had been naive enough to think all pirates were as dishonestly honest as himself. Or at least, as honestly dishonest. Too blithe to notice Barbossa filling up his crew with thugs, insinuating himself into Jack's secrets like the worm in the apple. From the hardening of the Commodore's face as Jack shut the door, ducked past the hanging lantern, he doubted that a similar excessive trust was one of Norrington's failings. Well... good for him. It was a lesson Jack had paid dearly for over the last ten years.
"Brought you some soup," he said, rotating the bowl into view with a small flourish, aware that soup-carrying was probably the last thing expected of him. "And, y'men got their water after all, so I'm taking it as agreed you're not going to try an clap me in irons if'n I hand it to you."
"Agreed," said Norrington, with a small ironic smile, as though he knew he was being humoured, was too polite to point it out, but not quite polite enough to let it go by unmarked. He took the bowl, having to concentrate hard not to drop it. His face was still as white as his shirt, and all his movements laboured and deliberate, painful to watch.
"So," Jack took a hank of bread out of his hat brim, and a silver spoon from up his sleeve, passed them over, "is it proved to your satisfaction yet? Hand on heart, 'young William was right about you after all, Captain Sparrow, I'm ashamed I didn't see it earlier?'"
"A large concession for a bowl of soup." Norrington cleaned the spoon pointedly before eating a few mouthfuls. Exhausted even by that effort, he closed his eyes and leaned his head against the bulkhead briefly, before rallying to say "You had done better to let me die."
"One good turn deserves another, eh? You didn't kill me when you had the chance, now I've returned the favour. We're square."
That little smug smile. The snarkiness went right down to the core of him, then - didn't disappear when he was afraid. If he was afraid. "I help you regain your ship. You steal two of mine. I let you go free. You take me prisoner. You'll forgive me if I do not consider the tally quite even." Putting the bowl down, Norrington frowned again, his voice going from bitter to disappointed, like a tutor exchanging sarcasm for weary scorn. "You were supposed to go away, Sparrow. Leave British waters and become an annoyance for someone else. What is the point of sparing you if you're just going to turn around and run your neck back into the noose?"
"What is the point of sparing you if you're just going to turn around and run my neck back into the noose?"
"Indeed."
Jack considered the soup - it was easier to think about than the measured dance of death he found himself engaged in with this man. The bowl looked precarious where it was, and the steam had stopped rising. There was fresh meat in it, and greens, good enough to stop your teeth from aching. Shame to waste it.
"Then why let me go in the first place?" he said, and thought back to the moment on the fort wall where Norrington's resolve to see him hang had faltered. The mess of obligation he now found himself in began there, with unexpected, unasked for, though not unwelcome mercy. "No - don't tell me; I know this one - you let me go cos you couldn't bear to disappoint Miss Lizzie, who'd taken quite a liking to me. But Lizzie herself... "
Miss Elizabeth had swung into that encounter like a man-o-war, like a hundred cannon ship of the line, invulnerable and with all the ammunition. Jack wasn't sure she'd even noticed the devastation her broadside had caused; too focussed on winning the battle to care about the casualties. But he'd seen. He'd noticed. "She was your Pearl, mate," he said, surprised a second time by sympathy. "She was y'Pearl, and you had her. Why let her go? Seems mighty out of character for a man who can't bear the sight of me unless it's in irons."
Norrington grimaced and his gaze cooled, "I don't expect a pirate to understand the meaning and responsibilities of freedom."
"That's one of them moronic things, ent it?" Startled, Jack slipped into mockery. "Aunty... elderly..."
"Oxymoronic. No, it is not."
"See," Jack picked up the soup, stirred it to break up the skin that had started to form, "freedom is you and the ship and the next horizon; taking what you want and being beholden to no one. Responsibilities... that's just another word for chains." Why was he talking about this? With Elizabeth he'd been drunk - drunk enough to forget about the legend and let her see, for a moment, the reality on which it was based. But he was not drunk now, so why venture into these perilous waters with Norrington? Except... except that he was getting paid coin for coin with the Navy man's own honesty - getting to see something beyond the defensive irony and chill. It was fascinating, and risky, like mapping a new world.
"Your 'freedom' is..." Norrington stopped, looked out of the window, breathed in, and tried again. "Have you ever been in a town after it's been sacked by pirates?" He sneered, managing a passable imitation of his usual hauteur. "No, of course you have not. You sail in, take what you want, and leave. I..." Clasping his hands together in front of him, he forced down some gesture of distress. "I am the one who walks the street and counts the corpses. I see the broken lives and orphaned children, the widowed women and the babes born nine months later to be quietly smothered in revenge. Freedom - has to be paid for, and that is the cost of yours."
Alarmed, Jack swayed back, lifted the silver spoon like a charm against such ill omened words, and Norrington silenced his open mouth with an angry movement that became a flinch of agony. "No, you asked, now hear me out. I..." the pain made its way into his eyes. Or perhaps it had been already been there, muted by discipline and resolve.
"I am not good with sympathy. I cannot heal. But I can and will protect them. I can give them the freedom to live their lives as they will. I stand against the threat that everything they have - everything they work for, sweat over, everything they love - will be stolen by some whoreson bastard who cares nothing for any freedom but his own. That is why I let Elizabeth go, Sparrow. Because her liberty and her happiness are more precious to me than my own. Because I would not take what did not belong to me. Because I am not a pirate."
There was a silence, Norrington closed his eyes again and wilted against the Pearl's hull, spent by this outburst. Jack pondered his half formed plan of letting the Navy go on thinking its Commodore was dead, and luring him instead into a life among the Brethren. Frankly, it wasn't looking hopeful. But it was a good plan, and worth at least dangling into the water, to see whether anything at all rose to the bait.
"And there ye are, left all alone with naught but a pretty sword and your duty to comfort ye at night. It's a fine ideal mate, but what's in it for you?"
Surprisingly, this made James smile - and he was a 'James' when he smiled, for all Gibbs' talk of 'Sir'. "Other than self-respect? Prestige? As much adventure as a man needs? The loyalty and comradeship of my men? The gratitude of Governor and people? A squadron of ships at my command? Oh, and a more than adequate salary? Nothing. I am the most unfortunate of men."
Bloody Norrington! Jack ate the soup and tried not to feel sorry for himself. Remembering Payton, consumed with fury when his commander was shot, shouting death threats at armed pirates in complete disregard of his personal safety, he couldn't help but remember that the greatest aim of his own crew was to do right by themselves. "Not interested in a career in piracy then?"
"Certainly not."
More silence. Jack felt a pressing need for rum and rummaged in the sea chest beneath the cot to bring out a half empty bottle. The wind through the open porthole smelled of rain - heavy rain, due in an hour or two. He took a long drink, then poured a slug into the flagon by his bed and filled it up with water. When he turned back to pass it over, it was to find Norrington watching him, with an open, thoughtful look on his normally closed face.
"It is a troubling thing to spare a man's life," he said, softly. "You become responsible for him. Whatever he does next is as much your deed as his."
And of course he'd know. But it was a relief all the same to have it said. Jack put down the lid of the chest and slumped on it ruefully. "Aye, that's it. Thought ye'd understand. You and me mate - unless we can find some way out of this - we're bound together now..." actually when he put it that way it didn't sound so bad. He grinned. "'Til death do us part."
Norrington wished the pirate would stop doing that. Every so often he would forget he was dealing with a depraved maniac; he would bring himself to overlook the clothes, and the hair, the painted face and mincing walk, and deal only with the wit and intelligence that lay so incongruously housed amid the frippery. Every so often he would think of Jack as someone deserving - at least - the respect accorded to a dangerous foe. And then Sparrow would turn around and drag the conversation back into the mire, flirting clumsily, without any apparent realization of how ridiculous it made him look. Even had he been a woman, such behaviour would have been appallingly unattractive. In a man it was ghastly. "That could be arranged," he said, quellingly.
The pirate actually pouted, leading him to wonder what difference it would have made if Sparrow had been a woman. If the interest had been genuine, instead of a ruse designed to discomfort him. There was no denying he would have made a beautiful woman, with those dark Spanish looks. A fascinating one too. Lively, valiant, incorrigible - like Elizabeth. The thought gave him a wrench of sorrow. But Sparrow had none of Elizabeth's loyalty, nor her uprightness, nor her honour. What a wife she would have made! Sparrow, had he been female, would only be the sort of mistress who spent a man's money, ruined his reputation, slept with his servants and moved on, leaving him beggared and broken hearted. Had he been a marine, Norrington would not have trusted him with a loaded musket.
He closed his eyes, dog tired, and sipped the watered rum. Yet Sparrow had honour enough to return a kindness. That was more than he'd expected. Troubling, even.
"Y'know, there's pirates in Tortuga that spend their whole lives looking for revenge on the Navy," said Jack, his tone both petulant and accusing. "Lads that couldn't square with being rodgered by the officers and then lashed for it - lads that survived one keelhauling and weren't about to go back for more. Lads who their Captains let starve, while they ate off silver plates. Kids stolen from their homes who wouldn't stand to be flogged no more."
"We do not keelhaul in the British Navy," James kept his eyes shut, ashamed that he could not deny the rest. Not on his watch, not under his command, but it still happened, and he knew it.
"Aye, well, you don't expect those that do to admit to it now, do you?"
"Your point?"
"See, I'm not blaming ye for that. I'm just sayin. Not all Navy men are alike, and likewise y'do us wrong to think all pirates are the same." The mattress bowed a little as Jack sat on it, and his skin prickled at the closeness, protesting. Pride demanded he open his eyes. The effort was considerable, and the reward - seeing Jack leaning in toward him, black eyes intense and one splayed hand almost touching his throat - should have given him more alarm. Frankly, he was too tired to care.
"Take Gibbs, fr'example. 'Good man,' says you, 'aye' says I, yet he's a pirate - didn't 'ave much choice in the matter did 'e? Or Anamaria. Beautiful black slave girl that she was - y'know what she'd have been used for in your fine society. You saying she should prefer that to being free, and Captain of her own ship?"
The worst thing about Sparrow was that he was too clever, and sometimes - just sometimes - he had a point. Some part of a point, anyway. Enough of a point for it to hurt when he drove it home. But not the whole. "Captain of my ship, actually. And therein lies my difficulty." It seemed inadequate to say that he regretted the misfortunes that drove decent men into this life - he did - but the fact remained that their freedom was built on the suffering of others. He'd seen too many merchants ruined, too many families thrown out on the streets because they invested in a cargo that was subsequently 'commandeered' by pirates. The rich complained bitterly, and accepted their insurance monies with an ill grace. But the poor starved in silence. It would not do.
It was heavy going, discussing moral philosophy with a half mad thief, especially as movement still hammered a boarding spike through his chest whenever he forgot himself and tried to really breathe. But he could smell thunder on the air, and his soul yearned after the downpour - the promise of cool water reminding him of his dreams, and of England. Strange how you could miss the rain so badly, and the softness of pearl grey skies.
"And even supposing there is a difference," he said, half asleep despite his pride, "between good pirate and bad, how am I to tell, when there is but a moment to act and I must seize it?"
"In my case ye might have noticed my first deed was to save your lady, though there weren't no profit in it and it turned out badly enough for me."
Norrington laughed; the hoarse chuckle that was all he could manage at the moment. "Your first deed was to trespass on the Interceptor and boast of your intention to steal her. Having been apprehended by my marines it was to your advantage to curry favour by appearing selfless and noble - unconvincing though the performance was."
"Bloody Hell," Jack sounded almost admiring. He swayed back and his hands fluttered like heavy butterflies, "you're a suspicious bastard, Norrington."
"You're a suspicious character, Sparrow."
His eyes drifted shut of their own accord - so heavy. Reefing the lids up with sheer willpower, he surprised a look of stillness and intent on Sparrow's face; the whirlwind of taunts and lies still for just one instant, and perhaps a glimpse of something real behind the mask.
"But y'wouldn't hang me now you know me," Jack said quietly. "Admit it, you do like me a little bit."
"I like you a little bit," it was easier to acknowledge, after that second of intimacy. Easier to stop fearing humiliation and mockery, and just to tell the truth. "But I'd still hang you. What kind of justice would it be, after all, if I only executed the criminals I didn't like?'
Chapter 4
When Norrington woke again, he felt recovered. Oh he still hurt as though the anchor hawser were wrapped around his chest, squeezing, but the merciful detachment had fallen away, leaving him fully aware of his precarious and unpleasant position, and his duty to escape it by whatever method he could. He got up, gingerly, and investigated the cabin. Everything in it was grubby, and things lay scattered about in wanton untidiness - scarves spilling out of sea chests, curios and crusted plates on the floor, a ruby the size of a musket shot lying in the darkness beneath the swinging cot next to a stem of grapes that were well on their way to raisinhood.
Many of the lockers were empty; there were no charts, no weapons, no log book, though of course that would be because Sparrow had them in whichever of the officer's cabins he had removed himself to belowdecks. Nor could he find his shoes or coat, and his stockings seemed to have been cut up for bandages, though he discovered his cravat wedged into the window. He took it out and tied it, yearning for warm water and soap and fresh linen, while the wind rattled the frame and the keen hum of the rigging sang through the timber and spoke to him of recklessness and speed.
He was trying the door when it opened, and something azure and citrine exploded into his face with a flurry of wings. By the time he had fended the parrot off, the harmless looking elderly man who had come with it had set down his tray and pulled a pistol from his sash. "Awk! Dead men tell no tales!" cried the parrot, circling back to sit on its master's shoulder. "Once for a doubloon!"
Warily, Norrington waited for the inevitable demands, conscious of the round muzzle aimed at his stomach. Being shot was so much more pleasant without the anticipation beforehand. Indeed the expectation was almost worse than the experience itself. "Yes?" he said, growing impatient with the silence.
"Once for a doubloon!" said the parrot again, and fixed him with a tremendously self satisfied look. The man continued silent, but gestured towards the tray with his free hand. Taking his attention from the pistol with some difficulty, James investigated and found - by Hob! - coffee, ship's biscuit, and shaving tackle. Another evidence of decency he had no intention of spurning.
Ignoring the armed pirate, he sat and shaved. His hands shook with weakness but with concentration he only cut himself twice. Then he softened the biscuit in the coffee, ate and drank, and decided that even if today was the day of his death, it was starting off remarkably well.
When he had handed back the razor, the pistol was put away. It made him smile a little. He had thought himself too much a bleeding heart at times, for not throwing Sparrow in the brig during the voyage to the Isle of the Dead. But now he reaped the benefit of that kindness. Evidently, even in this case, one good turn deserved another.
The door was left open as the silent man departed. James set his hand to the latch, and paused. On the Dauntless, Sparrow knew he would not be assaulted or murdered except by Norrington's command, but Norrington had no such assurance here - indeed he had already been nigh killed out of turn. Whether Sparrow wanted him alive or not, a pirate captain in situations of peace had little sway over his men; could not tell them where to go, what to do, or who to spare. Jack had been a great deal safer on the Dauntless than James was on the Pearl.
Nevertheless, he was not going to cower in the cabin like a landsman in a storm. He straightened his back, winced as the posture pulled at raw scars, opened the door and dared the quarterdeck.
The sun was rising, the wind nor-nor-east. The Pearl's great press of canvas bore her eagerly forward at a rate of - he thought - about 9 knots. Most likely heading toward the Antilles, and at this speed due to make landfall in less than a week.
It was comforting to see proper sailcloth above, rather than the eerie, tattered sheets that had borne the ghost ship into Port Royal. Even now, the thought of her sailing beneath that cobweb seemed more unnatural to him than the walking skeletons of the crew. Didn't Ezekial say that God could raise up dry bones and make them live? The possibility of corpse-pirates therefore had solid Biblical authority behind it. But a ship could not - should not be able to make way when her sails were nets of rottenness. It flew in the face of all reason, and he was glad to see it over with; the natural order of things prevailing once more.
The decks were not even tolerably clean, and there was not a spark of polished brass to be seen. But the pirates now looking at him with expressions of glowering gloom had an air of fallen gentility about them; old men worn and withered by the sea, faded and twisted as driftwood. He noticed his waistcoat on the back of a handsome black man, and his wig on the head of a stooped grandfather in a gentleman's frock coat. Good grief! How did they man the topgallants with these ancients?
Looking up, he studied the rigging. Old fashioned as the crew, but seamanlike for all that. Evidently they managed - and he had known men of sixty, seventy even, to be sprightly and nimble enough, at times. Even so, there would have been younger men in Tortuga eager to sail with a pirate as notorious as Sparrow, particularly once he could show them the Interceptor, taken almost single handed from beneath Norrington's very nose. The pirate could have had a crew as lethal as his last...
He became aware that just as he was staring curiously down on the men, so they were staring back at him with open malice. He could not stop himself from smiling slightly. The crew of the Dauntless could outdo them for surly staring any day. There was nothing quite like a waister with a post shore leave hangover for a truly heart stopping evil glare.
"Alright ye lubbers, back to work!" Gibbs stepped up to the quarterdeck. "Fine body of men, eh?" he said, with some pride.
"You chose them?"
"Aye, handpicked the lot of em," reaching under his arm, Gibbs proffered James' hat - it was crushed out of shape and had a mysterious stain soaked into one corner, which smelled strongly of cat, but he put it on gratefully nevertheless and sighed with relief at the shade. "Jack's none too clever at knowing the difference between 'charming scoundrel' and 'utter bastard' between you and me."
Norrington's smile broadened slightly, and saddened to the same degree. Sparrow, well, he chose this life and seemed at home in it as the flying fish - absurd little creatures - were in the sea. If he was caught and killed it would be inevitable as a fish being hooked - a very mild matter of regret. But Gibbs... in another life Gibbs might have been master of the Dauntless by now, a trusted and valued man. It was going to pain him to hang Gibbs.
"As is probably why he's keeping you around."
"Indeed. Most unwise of him."
"Like I told him m'self. Ye should be shot, Sir, or marooned. No disrespect."
"None taken, Mr Gibbs."
"S'when's the wedding?" Jack's mocking voice cut into the conversation, forcing Norrington to finally have to acknowledge the pirate who stood at the wheel in scarf and trinkets and his best bullion-braided blue coat. Jack looked briefly disgruntled, but the expression was gone before Norrington could tell what it meant, or even if it had been genuine, leaving a bright, wicked grin in its place. "An which one of ye's to be the bride? Ave to be you, Commodore darlin' - Gibbs aint so pretty, and I swear the mutton-chops wouldn't look good in a frock, lacy veil or not." He paused, considered this, and added generously, "though I do know of them that like it better that way; s'the contrast, see?"
The combination of gold teeth and gold braid in the dazzle of the Caribbean sun was dizzying. Much like the flow of arrant nonsense. "Sparrow, I wonder that you trouble to speak at all when you cannot say anything of worth." He sighed, feeling nowhere near as robust as he would have liked. He felt, indeed, like a sail, taut and strained before forces he could not control, hoping only to hold until the storm was over. But it would not do to show it.
Jack handed the wheel to Gibbs and paced over to him. His gait was steadier on the pitching ship, and the bloodstained coat of a Post-Captain of the Royal Navy looked good on him, in a barbaric way. Somewhere between a tribute and a trophy. I should have worn full Dress James found himself thinking, amused, so that Sparrow could prowl the streets of Tortuga in an Admiral's uniform. He felt a surprising lack of outrage. After all, there were men in the Service who deserved their captain's rank less, had talent been the only issue.
Sparrow got him by the elbow and drew him away to the taffrail. "Let's you an me have a little talk, eh?" he looked uncharacteristically earnest. "It's Captain Sparrow, Commodore. Seeing as how we're on my ship, and I'd like me crew to show a little tiny bit of respect, because if they get used to you giving me trouble, next step it'll be them giving me trouble, and mutiny, and hello deserted island, bye bye Pearl, and Gibbs gets to shoot you all he wants, Sir."
Fear. It was the first time he knew beyond doubt or deception what was in Sparrow's mind. Jack had suffered mutiny once, and never again would its threat be merely academic to him. Norrington, who had held crews together through some appallingly tense times, understood the feeling of helpless dread well enough. It was a terrible thing for a Captain to be so humbled - a thing that broke men, where fear of death did not. To come back afterwards and command again... it must be hard.
"My apologies, Captain Sparrow," he said, loud enough for the nearest tars to hear it, and sketched the smallest of bows, "I am a little out of sorts today."
"Knew y'could be reasonable," Jack smiled, but for an instant there was puzzlement in his dark eyes. He had evidently not expected capitulation, and now had to work out whether it was prompted by self interest, or sympathy. Neither of which - Norrington flattered himself - must seem likely. "So. Ave a nice chat with Mr.Cotton?" He indicated the silent man who had brought breakfast.
Norrington sighed again, wishing they could get down to further negotiations before he collapsed. Already his legs had begun to tremble beneath him, and though it gave some relief to lean casually on the gunwales, he doubted his strength would last. "I don't speak Parrot, Jack."
"Ye could learn. I could teach you! Sensible birds, macaws. More brains than a dog. Heh, more brains than some o'your fancy folk back at the fort. Put a wig on 'im and 'e'd rival a gentleman." He lifted his head, swept the deck with his gaze and bellowed out "Matelot! The ropes if you please."
James' heart sank, then lifted again when the young man wearing his waistcoat struggled up to the quarterdeck with a canvas sack full of snapped and worn cable. Not a threat after all, then.
"Thought ye'd like to set your hands to something. Keep you occupied and out of mischief, while we have our chat."
Norrington thought about this. Did mending a pirate ship's shrouds count as 'aiding and abetting the enemy'? Or did it delay the time when they boarded some unsuspecting merchantman to steal the money to buy new? He had no illusions - if he pressed too far, nothing at all stood between him and humiliating abuse. Sparrow was taking quite a risk already in treating him like a guest, rather than a prisoner, when a little game of 'torture the Commodore' might be more to the taste of his crew.
Deciding that it was definitely in his interests to maintain the civil tone, and relieved simply to be able to sit, he sank down by the tangle of ropes and began to sort and pair them. When he had teased out the weakened fibres of the first and begun to splice two lengths together, Jack threw himself down to lounge next to him with a laugh. "Quids in," he said, and twirled one side of his moustache meditatively, "I had a guinea bet with Tearlach that you had no idea how to do an honest bit o'work."
"Because, of course, all we do in the Navy is sit and sip tea all day long."
"S'right. And speaking of rope - which we were. Alright, maybe not of rope, but having a conversation in the context of rope, I had a new idea about what to do with ye, seeing as y'wont join the crew. Thought I'd run it past you, see what y'think, savvy?"
It did not take a great wit to leap to the conclusion, not while his fingers were busy twisting together strings of hemp, and his mind was stocked with thousands of names of pirates, who had met their deaths on the scaffold in the grey stone heart of Fort Charles. Indeed, but for the strange feeling of disappointment - as though for some unknown reason he had expected better of Sparrow - it was laughably appropriate. A bitter, sickening irony he could appreciate as fitting.
"Thought we'd take ye into Tortuga," Jack was watching him carefully for a reaction, with those eyes that looked so warm and yet were so unreadable; flattering and decieving in turns. "Give ye a proper trial - all above board, as you like it. Then hang ye for crimes against the Brethren. Maybe dangle y'tarred body from the harbour wall afterwards, with a sign saying 'Navy bastards beware.' How does that strike you for a plan?"
Chapter 5 Jack did not take his gaze from Norrington's face; he'd learned already what changeable waters the Englishman's eyes were, full of shifting currents, the shadows of reefs and things long sunken. But clear, clear right down to the bottom. Shock. Then just for a moment a pale memory of that anguish he had worn on the harbour wall. It made Jack think unkindly thoughts of Miss Elizabeth, for he had nursed the man for nigh on a month, and threatened him with a public and squalid death, and still there was not half the look of heartbroken betrayal she had achieved with two words.
But there was some, even so. Enough for him to realize that Norrington had begun to think of him more friendly-like. Enough for him to feel a kind of triumph and sadness both, for it was not in Jack to enjoy being thought a betrayer.
Norrington's disappointment became a smile of costly amusement, and then a more inward look; dispassionate, professional. Jack almost laughed; so vulnerable the man seemed - so young and friendless and maybe even a bit beautiful, with that white shirt and pale skin sleeked by the golden sun - yet the fact was that taking the uniform away had not made him any less the Commodore. No part of his personality had changed with the shed clothes, and the look in his face now was the strange, chill joy of a Navy commander about to go into his last battle.
"I think it a fine plan," he said. "Comical, in a gallows fashion. I heartily approve. Let it be done at once."
"Eh?" There weren't many folk who managed to surprise Jack - after Barbossa he'd sworn there would be none. Everyone had an eye for the main chance, and he'd been a fool to think otherwise. Everyone did right by themselves first; difference was that pirates were the only ones honest enough to say so. Yet this was the third time James had failed to jump the right way. He didn't rise to the bait of glory, he gave up the girl, and now... now what the hell was going on in his head?
"Thought y'wouldn't be thrilled. Ye're supposed to go 'no Jack, anything but the humiliation - if the offer's still open I'd rather join y'crew, mate, thanks all the same.'"
Norrington looked up with that arrogant little jerk of the chin he gave when he was feeling particularly pleased with himself. "If you make a public spectacle of hanging me, Captain Sparrow - a rout of common criminals daring to pass judgement on a Commodore of the British Navy - it will be such an affront to the Crown as to constitute an act of war. Every ship we possess will be thrown into destroying you utterly. We will raze your ports to the ground; burn everything at anchorage there. The seas will be white with sail. You cannot imagine! So I say yes, let us go to it without delay. I am impatient to begin."
"Mother o'God!" Jack almost found himself recoiling, turned it into a semi drunken stagger only just in time. "Y'take the prize for bloodthirstiness, mate. Never met a pirate like it."
Norrington gave him a level look; calm, decided. "Yours was the threat, Jack. Mine is only the response."
Now it was Jack's turn to feel disappointed. He'd thought James' look of regret, on the day of his hanging, meant the man was not one of those with an appetite for death. He'd thought the Commodore was someone who did a distasteful job well because it was his duty. It lowered his opinion, to think Norrington shared with Barbossa an enjoyment of the terror he caused. "You'd like that, would you? To see all the taverners and the doxies and their kiddies wiped off the Caribbean, like swabbing a bloodstain off y'scrubbed decks?"
"You misunderstand me." Frowning, James wiped a hand over his face, pausing to rub his forehead as if to soothe away a pain. He bent his head and returned doggedly to the splicing, though Jack noticed how his fingers shook from the effort. "No, I don't relish the thought of slaughter. I should prefer to carry on as I am, taking pirate ships one by one, in fair fight, making sure no innocent is harmed. But I cannot contemplate the full mobilization of the Navy - her glory, her awe and majesty - on my behalf, without feeling a certain anticipatory thrill, even if I were not there to see it."
With the kind of satisfaction that came from having a locked box in your possession for years and suddenly being handed the key, Jack stroked the Pearl's dark hull reassuringly, in case she should get jealous. Just the one of ye's enough for me, lass. For a moment there he had seen a sea brilliant with the many coloured, polished, shining hulls of a thousand ships, all different, all united. All sailed by officers Norrington understood like childhood friends, having grown up under the same regime. Ships changed, Captains and postings changed; lovers, wives and parents had to keep pace or fall behind. For only the Service and the sea endured.
"Not Elizabeth at all, then," Jack said.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Granted." It was a little early in the day, but this deserved a toast - this moment of insight, this revelation. He got up and found the bottle of rum he'd left by the twelve pounder last night, wedged between a half empty powder canister and a clutter of chicken bones the cat was licking clean.
"What were you going to say about Elizabeth?" Norrington came to his side, looking ready to drop, but aggressive for all that. Prepared to call him out for the sake of a lass who could damn well take care of herself, as far as Jack could see.
"Just that I thought she was to you what the Black Pearl is t'me, but now I see ye may love her sore, but she's still not that. S'why y'aint destroyed at losing her. S'why y'still are who y'are. All the little ships and all the little men. It's the Navy, aint it, for you?"
"I'm not following." At the lack of insult, James - who had been staring at the deck, trembling gently with fatigue - collapsed slowly down to sit against the great gun, his head thrown back to rest on the warm brass, mouth open, eyes shut. It surprised Jack with a swell of unwanted affection. The bloke really had no idea, did he? Completely innocent of the picture he presented - as artless as Lizzie in her shift, and all the more alluring for it.
"Listen," he said, "I'll mix ye some grog. Less'n y'would rather have plain water."
"'M a sailor, Jack. I drink grog."
"Course y'do mate," said Jack fondly. "O'course y'do." And he took himself out of temptation's way, fetching a mug and standing looking down into the dark mirror of the water butt for some time. Young Lizzie had offered him encouragement on that island - thrown herself into his arms, no less - which made her fair game. But the Commodore was a very different matter. It would not do to be complicating things with him, in case it came to the noose after all.
Not that it will, for my part, he conceded, and not because of James' vision of avenging warships. He could just imagine what would really happen, if he tried to walk into Tortuga with Norrington in uniform and irons beside him. He'd never make it to trial, they'd fall on him and... They'd have the pride and the snark and the humour and the dignity out of him in mere hours, but they'd keep him screaming for days. Jack would not do that to his worst enemy, and Norrington was - despite their slight professional disagreements - very far from being Jack's enemy. Opponent, for certain sure. Personal pain in the arse? Ha, if only. But not enemy. Nah, another plan bolloxed up, back to square one.
It was beginning to look as though Gibbs notion of marooning would be the way to go, but it was unsatisfying. Unimaginative. Not worthy of either of them. "No bloody fun!"
"Gimme a brace of pistols an I'll make im dance for'ee, Cap'n."
Jack looked around, then down. Still wasn't sure whether the beard braid qualified as the sincerest form of flattery, or theft of his own fine idea. Mind you, he was sure he carried his off with more aplomb, for whatever words came into his mind on seeing Marty down there, 'debonair' and 'handsome' did not come into it. "Hasn't got more'n a hop in him at present, Marty me old chum. Some other time, eh?"
Carrying the mug of grog back to the cannon, he found Norrington with his sleeves rolled up, rearranging the tie on the bandage that covered his chest. He hoiked the shirt down swiftly enough at Jack's tread and glanced up with a conscious, embarrassed look; a touch of fear. "Do you mean," he said, so quickly that Jack was hard pressed to stop from laughing - obviously trying to head off the dreaded salacious remark, "'Is the Navy my vocation'? The thing I feel I was put on earth to do? If so, then yes. But I fail to see how the Pearl can be that to you."
He slowed, warming to his theme - genuinely interested now, and Jack was taken aback slightly to realize the expression in those meaningful eyes was something verging on sorrow. Maybe even pity.
"How can a ship be enough? You, and it, alone? What about society? Fellow feeling? Friends? What about the satisfaction of knowing you are part of something greater than yourself? It seems a terribly empty universe in which you live, Sparrow. Inhuman, almost."
I seen enough of humans to last me a lifetime, mate, Jack thought to himself bitterly. He found himself fingering the long scars that ran up his forearm. A ship you could rely on to be... well, to be a ship. But relying on other people? That was just asking for pain. He thought about Bootstrap, who he would have sworn was a friend - and how Bootstrap had been in on the mutiny, taken his ship and left him to die. Then he thought of Bootstrap's son, young Will, who smacked him in the face with an oar and left him to die on Isla de Muerta. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate Will's heroic rescue - he did - he would just have appreciated it more if it had not come on top of betrayal.
But y'knew where you were with the Commodore. Even if that was on the end of a noose, there was a certain certainty about it that made him feel easy. You could rely on the sun to rise, and the horizon to fall away before you. You could trust the Pearl to bear y'up over the fathomless deeps. And you could trust the Commodore to deal honourably with sweetheart, rival, and enemy alike. It gave Jack a surprising wrench to think of that being lost - Norrington being replaced by someone as venal and bribable as the snake in the grass he'd succeeded.
Better for piracy maybe. Not better for what really mattered in this world.
"I am part of something greater'n meself, lad." There was the tickle of an idea just at the base of his skull - not ready to come out, but there all the same, he could feel it lurking. He scratched at the tangled elflocks, examined the dirt under his fingernails. It did seem to be saying something. "I'm part of the legend of Captain Jack Sparrow!"
"That pack of lies?"
Jack grinned and waved an admonishing hand under James' nose. "Uh, uh, uh! I did do all them things, as you have cause to know yourself, having underestimated me sorely when last we met and learned better to your cost. And maybe there's one or two little exaggerations, but that's all to the good, cos it aint lies, it's a legend. S'a story savvy? And what's a pirate story without a few sea monsters and cannibals and curses?"
He thought of myths and Mount Olympus - which in his mind was a volcanic peak rising out of a tropical sea - the gods striding out over the ocean. Bright Apollo, bringer of light and reason; bit of a stuffy, straight laced chap, in Jack's opinion, but fair, reliable. Honest as the day was long. And Dionysus, dark, giggling in his cups, dancing over the waves to bring a little madness into the dull world. In Jack's thoughts, Dionysus had always worn a red scarf and baubles in his hair; too beautiful for a man, too sharp for a lass. Something indefinable and dangerous and nigh uncatchable.
He'd always thought Apollo blond - what with the sun connotations - but didn't it just seem right that the god should have clear, thoughtful, sea green eyes, and a jawline that practically had 'dauntless' tattooed on it. Governor Swann must be Jove - bewigged and genial; thought himself in charge. Lizzie was Venus, and Will managed to combine perfectly both of that supernatural strumpet's lovers, for he was Mars and Vulcan both... And now he was just getting too metaphorical for his own good, and he'd lost what he was thinking of in the confusion of gods.
"What was I saying?" he took a pull of rum to settle the fancies down and got back before the wind of his idea, "See, a pirate don't get to pass on much of a legacy. Only a story. But a story can teach folk to be free - show em something beyond their dull, dutiful little lives, something that wakes em up and makes em snuff the wind, like. And it can make me live forever. The immortal Cap'n Jack Sparrow, famous as Robin i the Hood. Hundreds o'years in the future, they'll still be telling tales of me."
He leaned forward confidingly, spread his hands on James' chest and whispered in his best bedroom voice "ye could be part o that, if it pleased you."
Norrington edged away, but he smirked, a crooked little upturn of the mouth that made him quite lopsided. "I could be your Sheriff of Nottingham? Is that what you're saying? I don't see all your money in the hands of the poor, Sparrow."
"Details, details," said Jack, amused. "T'aint the same story, is it? What'd be the point of that?"
No, this was a good idea, for all the best stories had something in them of what Barbossa had suggested. 'Two immortals locked in unending combat.' Pox-begotten son of a whore that he was, Barbossa had understood Jack more... more than was safe. Thought he could steal and trick his way into Jack's eternity. Thought he was Jack's equal, his foil. An thought wrong, didn'ee? Not sharing my legacy with the likes of him.
The question was, then, whether Norrington was up to the job. Wouldn't want to be locked in eternal combat with someone he didn't like. No fun in it. But at the same time, he wouldn't want an adversary that wasn't worthy of the tale.
And here was the solution, arriving fully formed like the breath of genius. He'd give the bloke one chance - that was only fair, as Norrington had no Will to engineer the opportune moment for him. If he took it, not only would this problem of what to do with him be solved, but Jack would know he was dealing with quality. If he let it slip, then he wasn't up to snuff, and Jack could maroon him with a clear conscience; put this whole messy entanglement behind him, knowing it wasn't worth his trouble.
"So," he grinned at the wind and the sky, "On another subject entirely..." A narrow look to see if James was following, but damn if he wasn't, he was doing that lounging thing again. Jack slapped him on the shoulder to wake him up. "Boring ye, am I? On an other subject, as I was saying, tis time we took on more powder and shot, and that means finding ourselves a pretty prize. Guests get first choice, s'only polite. Name a ship, any ship."
The look of horror on the Englishman's face was a treat. "You want me to single out your next victim?" But it was disappointing too. Obvious, unimaginative. He thought this was a mockery, a kind of torture. Despite his resolve not to prejudge the issue one way or another, Jack found himself thinking, come on, mate, work the maths, don't be s'bloody slow.
Then Norrington dipped his head on the pretext of looking into his grog, and suddenly those tell tale eyes were in shade, obscured, the rest of his face giving nothing away. "Then we'll take the Conquerant. She's a French privateer, her captain is Antoine Le Pelley, and she makes berth at Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe."
Jack's turn to gape. "Guadeloupe?" With the two French ships of the line, the dozen or so fast Brigantines and the fort on its lovely headland just ready to pound shot into his poor innocent boat? The thought had a kick rougher than rum. "I'm gonna have to talk t'ye about this death wish o'yourn."
"Are you, or are you not, the best pirate I've ever seen?"
And there it was, the challenge in return. He could have laughed, for what better proving ground for this mad strange conspiracy of theirs than a place that chewed up Navy and honest pirates alike, never to spit them out again. "Listen," he said, aglow with the thought of it, "Just keep repeating this, aye? One day it'll come t'you natural. O'course I am, lad. I'm Captain Jack Sparrow."
Chapter 6 Try as he might, Norrington could not be entirely easy in his mind about the gunpowder. He avoided lanterns, hugged his chest defensively if there was ever pistol fire on deck. At first he had congratulated himself - on noticing the half full canister slovenly abandoned by the cannon; on contriving to fall down in such a way that it was hidden behind him; and on taking the opportunity when he was unobserved to unwind some length of bandage and knot the loose powder into it. At the last, he had almost been caught, finishing only just in time to pull his shirt down and try to look innocent.
It was surprising he'd not given himself away; he was not an actor, he could not keep the flare of fear from his eyes when he glanced up and found Jack watching. But thankfully, Sparrow seemed to have taken it as further evidence of his maidenish modesty, and not looked closer. There was some advantage in being known as a prig.
From the tinder box kept below the lamp in Jack's cabin he had taken one of the flints, which he kept rolled up in his shirt cuff. These two disparate ingredients were the closest thing to a weapon he had yet managed to find - the pirates slept with their cutlasses and pistols, and kept an unerring eye on him when axes and marlin spikes were in use. He found it reassuring to know he had some secret advantage, but it would have helped his mood greatly if he'd known what he meant to use it for, and how, and if he had not had to contend with being embarrassingly explosive in the mean time. The danger was one thing, but he was sure that not even in the afterlife would he be able to bear the shame of having accidentally blown himself up.
Now he considered abandoning the powder - it would certainly be of material disadvantage in any boarding action against the Conquerant. As he was relying on the smoke and confusion of such a battle to enable him to arm himself with some dead Frenchman's sword and pistol, it would be a hazard at the very point where he needed it least. But it felt too much like defeat to let go of even this one small possibility of surprise. Unhappy though he was at admitting it, he knew he was not as cunning, as machiavellian as Sparrow, so any other advantage he could lay hands on should be exploited to the full, even if he didn't yet know how.
"Le Pelley," he said, leaning gently over the great chart of Guadeloupe's torturous coastline - spread on the table in Jack's cabin and weighted down by a full rum bottle, a brass monkey, a soup plate and a shrunken head - "will almost certainly be here, heading for home after a successful sweep on the trade route between Georgetown and Port Royal. If we lay off the headland of this cove we should be invisible both to the fort and to the Conquerant herself until she's almost on top of us. A swift action and you can be away before the French fleet even knows you're there."
Jack walked his fingers over the map, calculating angles. Tilting his head to one side, he frowned, bit his lip, waved his hand in a non committal way, sidled backwards, then grinned. "It's not a bad plan at that. Dull." He nodded, as if to agree with himself that yes the plan was very dull. "Not much call for feeling m'lovely Pearl's wings. Not a flying plan, with a rush and a chase and a 'let slip the dogs of war'. Which is not to say I'm not denying that it might very well work. Because it might at that. It's just a little, well, Commodore-ish, if y'catch m'drift."
"I fail to see why everything must be a drama." Sparrow could afford to have flying plans, James thought, as could any man in possession of the fastest ship in the Caribbean. The Dauntless, bless her valiant heart, was not by any stretch of the imagination a cutter, so Norrington had learned to anticipate where the prey would be, and to lie in wait. As this had proved an extremely successful strategy, he felt no need to apologize for it. "But I'm sure we could fit in some zombie skeletons if you feel it would add to the ambience."
Sauntering to the cabin's largest chest, Jack gave him a smile of such radiant mischief that he felt, very briefly, a wish that he could be equally carefree. He shook it off, as a child's desire, not a man's, just as the pirate raised an explanatory finger in his direction. "Your lieutenant Gillette - now there's a lad who could do to get into a different line o'work - gave me this idea. Had been saving it up for him, but I'm guessing he won't be commanding a ship o'is own in the near future, and it's callin out to me. Jack, Jack, it's sayin' I'm gettin' s'bored o'sittin in yer head. Let us out! So y'can see if it'd have the same affect on a different Frenchman - a more French Frenchman, agreed?"
And he pulled from the chest a high piled, elaborately curled lady's wig, and a froth of blue material which shook out to form the tapering sweep of a tail. "Done zombies. Always a bad mistake to do the same thing twice. But mermaids - mermaids luring the poor doomed ship into the grasp o' the notorious pirate? Now that's a tale worth telling. Right legendary eh?"
Looking up at the youngest of the pirates - Matelot and a fine-featured, elegant Chinaman whose name he did not know - sitting on the headland attired in tails and flowing locks, scowling at the horizon, Norrington had to admit that this would not have formed an element of one of his plans. Of course that might be because he would not dream of subjecting Groves or Gillette to such an indignity. He tried not to snort with laughter at the thought and succeeded in only coughing delicately into a hand that covered the tell tale smile.
"Even men who've been at sea for months are not that desperate, surely?"
"French," said Jack, dismissively. "And a man that'll pine for a eunuch'll pine for a lass who's half fish, like as not. No accounting for taste." There was an element of readiness to his relaxation, as he swept the decks with a proper Captain's look - the clutter had been cleared and the splinter nets rigged, the guns run out ready for action almost as sweetly as a proper Naval crew could do it. Norrington turned his eye back to the mermaids. In addition to being a distraction they were the Pearl's lookouts, for on deck, even in the crows nest, only the bay's rocky sides could be seen, dotted with guillemots and speckled with clinging grasses that hissed in the warm wind. A strong breeze came off the headland, lush with the scent of jungle, and if Le Pelley shortened sail as he came around the point - the better to gawp at real live mermaids - then the Pearl, in addition to surprise, would have the weather gauge of him.
The anticipation of action began to curl slowly through Norrington's blood, and his fingers itched for a sword. Not long now, and the pirates would be too distracted with fighting to keep an eye on him. Doubtless Sparrow thought he had chosen the Conquerant as prey because, whoever won, one more threat to British shipping would be removed. And that was true enough. Whatever happened, James would have the satisfaction of having dealt another blow to his country's enemies, and done it while powerless and imprisoned.
But what he had not told Jack - nor would, for it formed the secret kernel of his own strategy - was that Le Pelley had been targeting British sloops, making a small fortune in head money for captured officers and men of the Royal Navy. If luck and the best intelligence held, Le Pelley's brig would be full of angry Englishmen. In the confusion of battle, all Norrington had to do was to get aboard the Conquerant, sneak down to the hold and liberate them - and then.. then things would become a little more even, and considerably more interesting.
There was a cry, reedy and thin down the wind. The lookouts were signalling, turning their flailing gestures abruptly into pantomime beckoning. Jack's face was alight with a joy Norrington recognized only too well - he could feel it dancing through his own bones, an intoxication with danger and death that made life seem wholly brilliant and bright, swift as shot, sharp as a blade.
"Weigh anchor! Full sail! Up into the rigging ye swabs and lively with it!"
The sails sheeted home. Pearl shuddered like a race horse gathering her haunches beneath her, and sprang forward. For a moment James was entranced by the long, eager glide of her through the waves; the song of the rigging scaling up from deep to shrill as topsails and togarnsls followed courses. The masts bent beneath sudden strain, eased back bravely as she began to fly.
The Conquerant came into view around the cape, and yes, she was spilling her wind, listing to port as all her complement crowded to the rail to see the mythical maids. Even the lookout had his glass trained on the waving decoys - Matelot blowing him a kiss - as the Pearl ran out behind them, stole the very wind from their sails and began the turn for a broadside. James kept his breathing even and deep with some effort. Soon... soon the privateer would be close enough for him to leap the gap, lose himself in the knots of fighting men. The chance tasted like brandy; warming, soaring. He was ready.
"Gibbs? Take the Commodore below and lock 'im in the brig. Don't want i'm gettin no ideas now do we?"
Sparrow watched him with a mocking little smirk as his fighting spirit became fury. Damn it! That was not how it was supposed to work! In the brig? Locked in the hold like a civilian? Unable to do anything until it was over? No!
"Anyone'd think y'didn't want t'stay in our fine company, James. A man could feel unappreciated."
As if he'd decided that plainly one was not quite enough to be certain to kill, Gibbs had a pistol in each hand - one trained on Norrington's face, the other at his heart. There was just a touch of apology in his determination, but nowhere near enough for Norrington to feel charitable to him. Bloody pirate!
"Down'ee go then, sir."
Only bitter, ingrained pride prevented Norrington from answering him with a string of curses. He bowed his head and began the climb down below decks, rethinking. It had been too much to ask for. Of course Sparrow was clever enough not to let him take part - but perhaps if Gibbs came a little closer... just a little closer and he could turn; a well placed kick and the chances were both shots would go wide. He'd put all his mind into resting and recovering this past week, and he was certain he could take on a middle aged drunkard with little difficulty, once the pistols were out of play.
But Gibbs was obviously well aware of the same thing, for he never did come close enough.
Norrington smelled the brig before he saw it. A sweet, nauseating reek of decay, like the smell of the hanging corpses on Dead Man's Cay, but heavier - the miasma not swept away by the cool sea. The iron cage was open, but there was a figure propped against the hull, hat over his face, his hands bloated and livid, the stench like a visible veil over him.
"Ah God blind me!" said Gibbs, gesturing for James to go on inside, "forgot about that. Name of Skankin. Took a cutlass cut from one of the Nimrods and died of the gangrene couple o' days ago. Didn't wanna be buried at sea, the lubber. Tis terrible bad luck to be carrying cadavers - last wish or no - but ye'll find him quiet enough company if y'hold yer nose. All the way inside if you please sir, and just turn about while I lock the door."
Had it not been for the corpse, Norrington would have lingered in the doorway, forced the pirate to come closer by sheer disobedience and tried an ill advised and obvious attack. After all, fortune favoured the brave. But now he had a different idea, equally foolish, but worth trying. He bowed his head meekly and walked to where the cage was made fast to the hull, leaned his hands and forehead against the planks and waited for the grind of the key. The wood beneath his palms was trembling with fierce life, dry, taut, hollow - above the waterline.
He turned, examined the box in which he found himself. Gibbs lingering, disconcerted, outside the door. "Best wish us luck then. Or you'll be going down with the ship."
The Pearl's broadside sounded out, a distinctive sound - the low, deep roar of fore and aft carronades mingled with the higher whining din of grapeshot from the main battery. "I think not," said Norrington, noticing with a rising of the heart that the lock plate of the door and the pins of the hinges were steel. Le Pelley returned fire, and impact jolted in six nervous shudders through the whole frame of the ship, sending Gibbs racing above deck, leaving him alone and finally unobserved.
Working with the rapid calm he'd learned as captain of a gun crew, he unwound the bandage in which he had knotted the gunpowder and poured all but a handful of it together, transferring it from the less flammable silk to a large square of linen he tore from the sleeve of his shirt. When he had a small, fabric wrapped bomb, he jammed it into the space between the cell's first iron bar and the hull - hoping that the metal would direct the blast outward. If it didn't, he was willing to wager that the cage itself would pull away from its bolts in the wall and he could pass that way.
The fuse was a long linen thread rubbed in the remaining powder, and it brought him almost to the opposite corner - still ridiculously close. He would be lucky if he didn't blow his own head off with this trick, but if Sparrow could swan about the cranes in the harbour with a hundred marines shooting at him, Norrington was damned if he was going to let the risk deter him.
Le Pelley's broadside was faster, but lighter, there was a great boom and cloud of dust, a groan from the wall as a ball hit the brig and bounced off. It was probably the first time in his life he had wanted to cheer for the French. That weakening of the timbers should make everything easier.
Well, now or never. He took the flint from his cuff and spent some anxious moments striking sparks that would not catch from the lock plate, before finally obtaining a small, red cinder in the corner of his discarded sleeve. Taking a deep breath, the glow cradled in his hands, he commended himself to providence, touched the spark to the end of the fuse. It burned eagerly, snaking across the darkness, nosing towards the wall, and he got hold of the corpse - fingers sinking into ghastly suppleness - folded small as humanly possible into the corner and draped the dead man over himself, tucking in, trying not to retch at the feel and the stench and the liquefying stickiness of it.
So long. It took so long, a small eternity of darkness, waiting, while the decayed flesh pressed softly into his face, and something trickled down his arm, and then - horrifyingly sudden - a red blaze and heat he felt even through closed eyes, a crack of noise so loud it stopped his heart for a second, set it racing after, his veins flooded with fury. The spine burst and cold blood and matter sprayed as a plank drove straight into the corpse's backbone; ribs pushed into his, slamming against the tender skin of his newly healed wound. A yard long splinter sliced through the body's flank, pinned his abused shirt to the floor. Instinctively he held on, ducked and huddled closer, and then it was over and the cell was full of dim light, and the wind off the sea flowed into the cage clean and bright as salt.
He pushed the mess away, yanked the splinter out of his shirt - amazed to see it had passed close enough to bruise, but had not cut him - and walked to the hole he had blasted in the side of Jack's ship. After some struggling with loose planks he managed to squeeze through, to find himself standing in a corridor of wood. Above, the rails of the two ships came at times close enough to touch, sidled apart only to pull taut the network of boarding cables. Beneath him, a strip of shadowed sea knocked hollowly against the two hulls, the guns fallen silent. Distantly into the dim cool came the yells of battle, the screaming of injured men.
Picking the splinter up - it would double as a smallsword until he found something better - he sighed with satisfaction. Free. He was free. Determined to stay that way, he smiled, put the weapon between his teeth, and lowered himself gently down into the sea.
Chapter 7 The thrown chain hit the wall, ricochet'd off and fell with a rusty, disconsolate clatter. Captain Peyton sighed and signalled for them to haul in the cable again. "This is our last chance before we all find ourselves rotting in a French jail," he said wearily. "We will try until we succeed."
"But it's not working," Mulroy grumbled as he pulled the inadequate grapnel back by its rope of knotted cravats. Since the guard had left to join the fighting above decks they had been trying to hook the ring of keys from where it hung on a nail in the partition wall opposite. Trying and trying again for what seemed like hours, without result.
"Not working yet sir, is what he means," Murtogg supplied, helpfully. "Here, let me have a go."
The manacles on the end of the makeshift rope - all they had been able to find in the brig - were more than adequate for heft during the throw, but consistently refused to attach to the keys. Still, there was always the possibility that if they hit the ring hard enough it would bounce upwards off the hook and fall to the floor. From there it should be a simpler matter to drag it within reach. The hope was all they had to hold on to.
"Unless you have a better idea, Mr Mulroy?"
Behind Mulroy there was a gasp. Able Seaman Willis elbowed him in the ribs, pointed. Rope forgotten in his hands he turned to look, felt cold go over him like a wash of moonlight, a memory of nightmares made flesh. "Could try praying, Cap'n"
For there was a ghost in the doorway. Light from the grating in the deck slanted in a grille of shadow over the white form, making it hard to pick out the arrogant, elegant poise and the chill face of Commodore Norrington, who had been shot dead before their very eyes. Now his ghost, stripped of rank and uniform, returned out of a watery grave - you could hear the drip, drip as salt water snaked from his shirt, from his short cropped hair, down the sword he held in his undead hand, mingling with the blood on the blade, falling with small, eerie splashes onto the deck.
Unfinished business, thought Mulroy with a shiver; something to do with that Black Pearl. Probably wouldn't have no rest until she was sunk and her captain hanging from a noose in Port Royal. Either that or... a worse thought struck, he pulled Murtogg's sleeve, looking for comfort. "Y'don't think he found out about the dice game? Or the extra grog ration we snuck off the Interceptor? He wouldn't come back for that, would he?" He could just see the Commodore as the kind of vengeful spirit who paid attention to such details.
"Nah," said Murtogg, looking pale, "more probably here on account of we left him to die at the hand of Jack Sparrow. Come to scuttle us han't he? And then there'll be a crew o'Navy ghosts to follow the undead pirates about the Caribees until the end of time."
As Murtogg's words so often did, this brought a certain reassuring confusion back into his life. "But I thought the undead pirates were more actually what you might call properly dead now?"
"Yeah, well that's my point isn't it?"
"It is?"
The ghost looked about himself carefully as if making sure he was unobserved, then walked - walked, mind you, leaving wet footprints - over to the wall and lifted the key down. Out of the fractured light of the grating he looked more solid, less luminous. Thinner than in life, slightly tanned. He turned with the key in his hands and that rare smile of his that sometimes rewarded a perfect gun crew or a flawless setting of sail "Gentlemen, you are a sight for sore eyes."
The silence persisted. Norrington seemed momentarily taken aback by the sight of so many gaping faces, the scent and feel of awe, then he frowned and walked forward to set the key in the lock, turn it, open the door. Mulroy found himself squashed as the press of men before him edged back, away from freedom, away from the walking corpse, who straightened his back and looked down at the Captain with a more familiar expression of puzzled disappointment. "Is there a problem?"
Captain Peyton snapped to attention - Lieutenants Ellis and Stevens cramming aside so he could move his elbows - "Sir! With respect, sir, the men are a little concerned that you are dead."
"Hmn," said the Commodore, eyes crinkling and his lips pressed tight, holding back a laugh. "Why should that prevent you from escaping to engage the enemy? I'm proud to say that none of you let supernatural phenomena stop you the last time."
"But are you in fact dead, sir? If you are, you should be relieved of command."
Norrington shook his head, held out his hand. Gingerly Peyton took it, Mulroy half expecting him to scream and fall to his knees, transfixed by the unearthly cold. Instead, relief spread over his broad face, followed by a grin that turned his grey eyes into gleaming slits. "I'm no more dead, Frank, than you're floating in a longboat between here and Port Royal. Other circumstances intervened, which we can discuss later. Le Pelley is fighting the Black Pearl as we speak. This is our chance to make prizes of both."
"Aye, Sir!" Peyton beamed again, stumbled stiffly out into the hold, unused to free movement after the crush. He rounded on his men. "You heard the Commodore. Are we pleased about having our ship stolen from beneath us? Are we happy at being forced to sleep standing up in a Frog's brig for a week? No? Up and at them then, and God damn the man that hangs back."
"So," Mulroy limped from the cell with a good will - the pins and needles in his legs something savage. "Is he dead or isn't he?"
Murtogg sighed, "'E's as dead as we are in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean."
"But we're not in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean," he said, trying to follow this. Or were they - because surely you could say that a ship was a boat that could be rowed, couldn't you, and didn't that make it..?
Annoyingly, Murtogg gave him a huge smile of encouragement at the words, as if they explained everything. "Exactly!"
It was easier just to concentrate on 'up and at em'. You knew where you stood with an order like that.
"Mr. Stevens?" Norrington looked at the stiff, dishevelled forms of his men and felt like cheering. Who would have thought the Nimrod's crew in their longboat would have been picked up for head money by the very ship he had set his sights on? Perhaps the gods did not always smile on the pirates after all. "Take your best topmen and get into the rigging - I want her ready to sail at my command."
Lieutenant Stevens looked deeply disappointed at being thus denied a chance to join in the fighting, but nodded and began to assemble his team, calling out several names, taking the men aside to give them his own instructions.
"Midshipman O'Connor? You swim, don't you?" The lad - a lanky, freckled youth with carrot-red hair - nodded eagerly at the thought of being singled out for an important mission, and for a moment Norrington's happiness faltered. Since when had fourteen started looking so young? "Then you may swim to the Pearl and find a way of pouring her water stores into her powder magazine. Back over here as quick as you can, and don't get caught at it."
"Black Jack?" Black Jack was a towering man with a grizzled beard and curled hair white as milk. Norrington had always suspected him of being a runaway slave, but had been careful not to ask. So many poor fishermen and farmers were impressed against their will, why on earth should the Navy turn away any man who came gladly? "You're to stand guard over the rudder chain. The helm must answer when I need it." He would not fall for that trick twice!
"Captain Peyton, I propose to take the helm and keep it. We will then disengage from the Pearl, come about and give her our broadside. She's short on powder, and what she does have I'm relying on O'Connor to quench. Le Pelley's guns are not powerful enough to hull her, so we'll aim to take down her masts. Without her guns and her famed speed she'll have no option but to strike colours. Both prizes are yours if you can take them."
"Aye Sir!"
He stepped back, listening to Peyton bark orders, separating the remaining men into gun crews, fore and aft men, marines. Then, taking Lieutenant Ellis and a couple of burly waisters with him, Norrington headed for the deck.
There the fierce sun blazed on smoke; the billowing clouds of gun-recoil and the acrid stench of the mizzen topmast staysail, which burnt with slow, smouldering fire. The world was a swirling confusion of salt-petre and shadows, men looming out of the yellow fog - dark blurs armed with steel. Pirates and French alike, fighting for their lives, hardly registered the furtive shapes of Englishmen passing them, scrambling up into the shrouds, drifting to the rail and taking boarding axes to the cables there.
At the helm, Norrington fought a hard pressed, bloody duel with Le Pelley's Mate. A gallant thing, all sharpness and style, that left him regretting he did not know the man's name. Once the station was secured he put his hands to the wheel and felt the final stay separate, the Conquerant slip free. Above, Steven's men laid in her courses, cut down the burning staysail and dropped it over two of the Pearl's cannons.
The smoke began to blow away. The sails billowed and caught the wind. A thrill of life went through the wheel as the Conquerant answered, slowly whispering forwards, pulling away from the pirate ship on her lee. Every seaman on board could feel it, and as he swept the decks with a glance, Norrington saw scattered clumps of French driving forward with a last desperate vigour - bloodstained, nearly beaten - while the pirates looked at the Pearl falling away from them with panic. With a roar, three tried to charge the helm, balked at the sight of Ellis' salvaged pistol and the muskets at the shoulders of his two men.
"Quick trip back to the gallows, gentlemen?" said Norrington with a satisfaction he could taste like honey. The look on their faces was a sweet revenge for a month of fear. For a breathless moment they thought about this, the dark muzzles of the guns trained on their faces, then they broke, running for the rail, swinging back onto the black decks or diving for the sea.
"Bloody good thing we didn't have to fire, sir," said Ellis with a grin. "Not a single shot between us."
With the pirates gone, the few Frenchmen left standing gave a ragged cheer, falling into horrified silence when they looked up, saw their prisoners in the rigging; saw Englishmen at their cannons, marines facing them with cutlasses grasped meaningfully in their hands. Then a short man in a ridiculous hat broke away from the knot of officers. Running to the rail, he threw himself into the sea and began to swim for shore. It must have been Le Pelley himself, because at the sight every vestige of fight went out of his crew. Those who could swim followed him into the water. Those who could not let fall their weapons and were rapidly bound and taken down to their own brig.
Only in the bows was there still a pitched battle. There Norrington could see Peyton - picking him out by his wig, which the Captain had managed to retain unstained throughout captivity - trying to force his way through the last of the pirates to engage Sparrow. Sparrow himself was standing on top of the Conquerant's swivel gun, watching his ship fall behind with the look of a man crashing through thin ice.
At this moment of victory, James was tempted to be merciful. Tempted not to take the Pearl; just to sail away, leaving the pirate ship to hobble back to port, manned by whoever had returned to her. As long as the Royal Navy existed, he felt that he himself would never be entirely defeated. Surely it would be the same with Sparrow and his Pearl? Should Jack be his prisoner on the Conquerant - should he hang, even - it would still be too cruel to take his ship from him, repaint it in Admiralty colours and refloat it as part of the Fleet.
But he had to. Honour and the Articles of War demanded it. So he called out the turn to Stevens, came about, and began to run in to bring the Conquerant's light broadside to bear on the Black Pearl's masts.
It irked him to be at the helm, conserving his wavering strength. On some low, instinctual level it troubled him that anyone should fight Jack but him. Sparrow was his opponent, and he found himself jealous of that right.
Reason, however, told him that his breath was short, his shoulder ached like the very devil and his hand had cramped with pain and fatigue even fighting Le Pelley's Mate. In this state, he could not give Sparrow the match he deserved - the courtesy of meeting him man to man, at the top of his game. He could not give his erstwhile host the satisfaction of treating him as he would a fellow gentleman, a worthy opponent. Once more - as at the execution - he realized he was hoping Jack would get away, so that someday - someday soon - they could have a truer reckoning. A more meaningful confrontation.
All of which complex of factors made it the right thing to send Peyton rather than going himself. Unlike James, Peyton was not compromised by liking, or the overtures of strange, impossible friendship. Peyton would do his job, and not suffer for it.
As Norrington watched, Jack turned slightly, the wind setting the ends of his sash and his scarf flying. He looked straight down the clean sweep of the deck, dark gaze and golden smile seeming to steal James' very thoughts. Sweeping off his hat, he gave a teetering, elaborate bow, hopped down behind the gun and turned it. For a moment Norrington closed his eyes, imagining the shot barrelling through the Captain, his marines, his gun crews. Nothing he could do to stop it.
The blast roared out. He cringed inwardly, but forced himself to look, just as the ball - beautifully placed - cracked against the end of the jib boom. The stays burst, rope groaned and separated, and the whole slender length of mast slowly sagged until the tip of it rested on the Pearl's stern cabin, linking the two ships, preventing the Conquerant from being able to come up far enough to bring anything but her bow chasers to bear.
Jack ran along the boom like a tightrope walker, wobbled comically in the centre and then stood, perfectly balanced and nonchalant, grinning. "James, mate, listen," he shouted. Twice the volume, but that same posture - holding up one finger as if he just wanted to say something very reasonable, and surely no one would be so rude as to interrupt. "That day at the fort? Ye didn't help me go, y'only let me go. See the difference? Now I done the like to you, and y'have your ship. We're square, savvy?"
Norrington had not suffered from seasickness since the age of twelve, but Jack had the uncanny ability to make him feel the same nauseating upheaval, as though nothing in the world would ever be stable again. What was he saying? That this was all part of his plan? Had he... lead Norrington to the gunpowder? Had he somehow known the Nimrod's crew would be aboard the Conquerant? Had James played into his hands even at the moment he thought himself triumphant? Or was it all the most audacious bluff?
And did it matter? He drew a deep breath, calmed himself, annoyed that Sparrow could vex and provoke him like no other. "Yes, Jack, we're square. No more debts between us. Next time I catch you, you will swing."
"Eh," the pirate spread his arms with a showy flourish, "but this is yet another day you haven't caught Captain Jack Sparrow." Considering, hand pressed to his lips, he went on brightly, "next time I catch you, ye'll walk the plank."
"Hmn. I tremble."
Jack raised his eyebrows with a look that Norrington had only previously encountered behind a lady's fluttering fan. It did not - in his opinion - go well with the beard. "And mate? Love the wet white linen look on you. Stokes the imagination no end."
Oh good grief! It was hard to believe that even Sparrow would say such a thing in full view of his whole blasted crew. Mortified, James spun the wheel, took a certain satisfaction when the boom separated loudly from the Pearl, sending the abominable pirate headfirst into the waves. Wish you may dine with a thousand sharks, he thought bitterly, looking up in time to see the sodden form of O'Connor double up by the rail, bright red with suppressed giggles.
"Something the matter, Mr. O'Connor?"
The boy leapt up, choked a little at the chill tone in his voice, turned white, and stood rigidly to attention. "Beg to report about half the Pearl's powder spoiled, sir. They got wind of me in the end an I ran for it."
"Very good. Lieutenant Ellis, the helm is yours. Captain Peyton, bring the Pearl's masts down, if you please. I'll make that damn pirate choke on his insolence, spar by spar."
But it was not to be. "On deck there!" cried the lookout. "Three sails from Pointe-a-Pitre. Couple o'brigantines and a two-decker."
Someone on shore must have seen the battle and alerted the French Navy, Norrington thought with a sense of doomed inevitability. The Conquerant was already beaten down, sails, rigging, hull and masts all battered by the Pearl. She could not take on a French man-o-war, and in her present state he doubted she could outrun the brigantines. Would he and Jack end up incarcerated together in a jail in Guadeloupe? It sounded likely. What a pitiful end to an action that had seemed to be going so well.
The Pearl had also seen the threat. Her dour canvas was sheeting home with practised efficiency and she was already pulling away, heading out into the open waters, Sparrow clinging onto her side with one hand, waving his hat in farewell.
A famous pirate, James thought, watching the enemy ships approach. A legendary pirate indeed, and on a ship whose strangely shaped hull and black sails were even better known than he was himself. Certainly the French would recognize the Black Pearl for what she was. However they would recognize the Conquerant as one of their own, a ship which sailed under French colours. How were they to know she had been taken by the English? And if they did not know, why should he be the one to tell them?
Leaning down, he stripped the coat from Le Pelley's Mate, put it on. "All hands to look French," he said, decisively, his spirits soaring. "Mr Ellis, find the Captain's signal book and run up this message: 'Making for port. No help required. Prize is Black Pearl, worth 4,300 doubloons. Good hunting'."
For a long, anxious period, they waited for discovery; limping - deliberately slow and lubberly - towards Pointe-a-Pitre, while the waisters found hammocks to sew the corpses into. The topmen began hauling up a new staysail, and the marines - unrecognizable out of their lobster-red coats - helped carry timber up from the hold, looking disgruntled at the demotion.
Fear peaked on the moment when the warships must reduce sail, if they meant to intercept the Conquerant. Norrington stood with Le Pelley's glass pressed to his eye, and could not help but whisper 'huzzah!' as both brigantines and man of war swept majestically past in pursuit of the pirate ship, none the wiser.
Lead them as merry a dance as you've lead me, he thought, looking out at a horizon beneath which the Black Pearl had vanished like a sailor's improbable yarn in the cold light of day, and perhaps I will think myself in your debt again, Sparrow. God speed.
"Gentlemen," he said, smiling through the cheers, "A fine piece of work well done. Now, let's go home."
Jack cradled the brandy to himself and sang, off key and proud of it:
"I asked that girl to marry, won't you go my way
She said she'd rather tarry, won't you go my way..."
They had lost the man-o-war in the little islands surrounding St.Kitts. Lost one of the brigantines in the reefs - the Pearl's beautiful shallow draught letting her slip through where the Frenchman could not go. The third he'd driven onto a rock and plundered. Now his stores were full of fresh powder to replace what Bloody Norrington had spoiled, his cabin was full of French brandy, and his crew was back to full strength with French sailors who'd preferred to sign the Articles than be set adrift.
"She spent my money freely, won't you go my way
She grabbed the lot or nearly, won't you go my way..."
"Told'ee y'should've shot him," said Gibbs, settling to the sandy ground beside Jack and reaching for the bottle. Holding it tighter, Jack felt about behind him until he found another, passed it over. "They'd've put someone like Old Snory in charge in 'is stead - remember him? Life would've been easier... back to the good old days when there was more pirates than bluecoats on the water."
The good old days of being one among many; of finding it all just too easy, of no one knowing or caring who he was. Jack shook his head, watching the stars wheel above the palm trees, the sparks wheel up from his fire. "Nah. Didn't like the good ole days. Like the good new days better. Got me ship, got me rum - well, at present got brandy but it'll do - got me friends, got the wind back in me sails. What more could a man want, cept maybe someone t'share it all with?"
The moon hung golden in the warm sky. Out at anchor the Pearl rode sleepily against a phosphorescent sea, and around him the French lads were drinking their ex-Captain's wine and discovering that piracy was sweet. "Tell you a secret," Jack said, leaning forward and - after a couple of attempts - managing to lay his finger along the side of his nose. "Found me'self a treasure, aint I?" Not a pearl this time, but something that looked like ice but was not cold; clear as crystal, hard as nails. "Great big shiny diamond o'treasure. Just gotta figure a way t'make it mine."
That part might prove difficult, of course, but the challenge was half the fun. He would succeed in the end. After all, he was, Captain Jack Sparrow. "Meantime, ye need to stop fretting. Life's good and can only get better. Jest you have yourself a little drink and sing along of me...
Oh round her up so hearty, won't you go my way,
Yo-ho, oh Jack-me-hearty, won't you go my way?"
The End.
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