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honoratBy Honorat Selonnet
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: What do you say to three shillings, and we forget that I’m pirating POTC characters?
Summary: In which Jack knocks a hole in Norrie’s boat, the Dauntless doesn’t quite sink, Norrington decides to kill Jack, and Groves gets to meet the best pirate he’s ever seen. Includes such tidbits as why Norrington has Jack’s compass in the deleted scene. Outrageous sailing as promised. I don't know about Jack, but I'm exhausted. Still sailing uncharted waters. More movie novelization including deleted scenes and filler—the second trip to Isla de Muerta.
Thanks and one small Caribbean Island in a nearby universe go to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
geek_mama_2 for beta work on this. Thanks also to torn_eledhwen for helping me wrestle with the sailing terminology. Any errors and inconsistencies remain mine.
* * * * *
Commodore Norrington found Jack Sparrow hovering around the helm, frowning at his strange, non-functional compass.
The pirate looked up at him inquiringly.
“Mr. Sparrow,” Norrington said, though his jaw was so tight he could scarcely force the words out. “You say you have made this passage safely before.”
“Aye, I’ve done it,” Sparrow’s voice was non-committal.
Norrington got the feeling that there was something more he should be asking the pirate, but he could not imagine what it was.
“Very well,” he nodded. “My officers and I have agreed to let you pilot the Dauntless through to Isla de Muerta.”
The brief flash of triumph in Jack’s eyes disturbed the commodore. He told himself he was perfectly aware that Sparrow had an ulterior motive. But he couldn’t shake the conviction that he was about to make a terrible mistake.
“During this passage, I will allow you to give all orders pertaining to the sailing of the Dauntless. But I remind you that I am still the commander of this vessel and all other matters will remain in my hands. Once we have reached the island, your limited authority will be at an end. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly clear.” Sparrow waved nonchalantly, his eyes already leaving Norrington’s and straying to the helm of the Dauntless. His hand drifted towards the wheel almost with hunger.
“Sparrow!” Norrington’s voice was tense. “If you put one dent in her hull, I swear I will put an equal one in your hide!”
For some reason, this seemed to please the pirate. He smirked at the commodore in a way that suspiciously resembled his expression when he had held his arms around Elizabeth on the docks at Port Royal. “Don’t worry about your bonnie lass, Commodore. She and I’ll do fine together.”
Norrington nodded curtly. He would not be jealous over a man’s relationship with his ship!
Now it remained for him to try to explain the situation to the crew.
* * * * *
During the next hour, Jack Sparrow stirred up the entire crew of the Dauntless to prepare for the passage to Isla de Muerta. No man would be seeing his berth this night. All watches were assigned duties ranging from manning every one of the hundreds of lines controlling the yards and sails to damage control. The pirate even had the gun crews mustered to shift the heavy cannon to the windward side of each tack should it be necessary to compensate for the heeling of the ship. Norrington shuddered at the very thought of loose cannon on his decks. Apparently the concept was equally unacceptable to Sparrow, for he found the pirate down below decks working with the gun captains to design a system of blocks and tackle that would hold the great guns from ramming through the hull of the ship while they were being transferred, no matter how she pitched.
“There will be no time for orders,” Sparrow had informed the gunnery captain. “Just use your judgment.”
The thought that Jack Sparrow even felt this measure might be necessary gave Norrington a chill.
Nevertheless, the commodore was proud of the way his men responded to this complete upset of their routine. The pirate would never have a better crew to implement his crazy ideas.
Sparrow elected to bring the Dauntless into the swift current several leagues out from the entrance to the channel. Just to get the crew used to working in its flow before it was a matter of life or death, he explained to Norrington. They would lose a little time during the maneuvers, but he expected the payoff to come in their increased chance of survival.
Norrington was both reassured and increasingly disturbed. He was relieved that Jack Sparrow showed any sign of prudence—a virtue he had not much noticed in the pirate, heretofore. If Sparrow was nervous about this venture, well, a nervous captain was a man who kept his crew alive. Nothing disturbed Norrington more than a reckless captain. On the other hand, he had a feeling that things that would terrify normal men would scarcely register with Sparrow, so the idea that this passage did worry the man was not particularly comforting.
Nor did he comprehend the man’s insistence on taking the helm. A captain generally did not perform such tasks. Sparrow’s explanation had not enlightened him at all.
When questioned, the pirate had shrugged and replied, “I’ll be taking her where she knows she shouldn’t be going, so she has to trust me. And I have to feel first hand the sea and the wind against her. Besides,” Sparrow had raised an eyebrow, “I won’t be losing my nerve.”
Which implied that they were going where any sane man would lose his nerve.
The tight tacks Jack was forcing the crew to perform when there was so much sea-room gave Norrington pause as well. The Dauntless normally took eight minutes to tack and another half hour to be trimmed and secured. The commodore was used to thinking that four hours before the next tack was sufficiently short on time. Sparrow was bringing the ship about within an hour of the last tack. Was the passage really that narrow? Norrington suspected he did not want to know. He also suspected he would find out far too soon.
As the Dauntless raced through the night on the heels of her dark opponent, banks of fog began to obscure the moonlight and tendrils of thick mist swirled about the lanterns. The world seemed to be shrinking until the only thing left in existence was the fleeing ship, the only life the beings creeping about upon her deck.
Yet, as Sparrow had promised, the wind never let up. With a banshee wail it swirled and eddied through that unnatural fog, snapping the sails taut and heeling the Dauntless hard over. Her hull twisted and groaned like a living thing in torment. The head seas and battering current swept her decks like blasts of shrapnel. Her masts strained alarmingly against their stays and shrouds. Surely they must reef sails soon or her canvas would slash itself to death in the knives of the wind or her masts would wrench out of their steps. But Jack Sparrow gave no such order. And, indeed, the commodore could see that his ship was fighting stubbornly for every scrap of ground she gained, clawing her way to windward against the bludgeoning current. She needed that canvas desperately to pull the maximum speed necessary for those tacks, and somehow, that madcap Sparrow was giving it to her.
Through the pitchy haze, Norrington scrutinized the strange figure at the helm of his ship. Dressed in indistinct charcoal with a flutter of white sleeve, his long, dark hair whipping and chiming in the wind, the pirate seemed like an incarnation of fog and night, himself. Sparrow had his eyes fixed on that unnatural compass, rather than on the sea, feeling rather than seeing the air humming in the sails, as he called the orders for the rapid course changes. In the weak glow of the lantern, he was an uncanny sight. Commodore Norrington felt a moment of uncharacteristic panic. He must have been mad to agree to this . . . this impossible rescue mission.
“Sparrow!” He interrupted the man’s concentration, shouting to be heard over the racket of the wind in the rigging. “Let me know when is our last chance to cry off this venture!”
“It’s already too late.” The pirate’s grin glittered gold and feral in the lantern light, although he did not take his eyes from the compass.
So, they were now in the channel. There would be no going back.
“Jack Sparrow,” the commodore spoke through clenched teeth. “Tell me that I am not going to regret this.”
“Commodore Norrington, you already do.”
* * * * *
Never had Norrington been through a more nightmarish passage. The sea, swathed in dense black fog, moaned with the straining hull of the Dauntless. The dim glow from the ship’s lanterns gave up in despair and faded to black almost immediately. In the suffocating darkness he saw imaginary cliffs loom up to devour them and did not see real ones until they were upon them. Occasionally the gaunt spar of a sunken vessel would stare up out of the water into the feeble light of a lamp, mute and threatening, and they’d hear an ominous scraping along the hull. Men’s hearts failed for fear, and he saw more than one sailor snatch a moment to cross himself and murmur a fervent prayer. They sailed, a moving island of the living, over a graveyard of dead ships.
James Norrington could scarcely remember a time in his life when he had not been on ships at sea, but he had never experienced anything that felt so wrong as this headlong flight into oblivion. Gritting his teeth, he peered into the cloying blackness, straining to catch sight of obstacles, even though he knew they would be impossible to avoid by the time he did see them. Every instinct screamed that they should sail slowly and cautiously, sounding the bottom with the lead, following a clear chart with a functioning compass. That is every instinct that was not crying that they should not be here at all. But he knew they had to outrace the current he could hear groaning against the rocks in the dark.
And so Jack Sparrow flung the Dauntless blindly into the night, all her canvas straining, close hauled to the wind, down an invisible chasm. Her decks sloped forty-five degrees towards the frothing seas as she heeled hard to leeward, often actually dragging her rail through the waves. Beneath his feet, Norrington could hear the gunnery crews struggling to lend the weight of their charges to leveling the ship’s keel. Somehow, every time the wind shifted slightly as they passed an island or a branching channel, Jack had already given the command to trim the sails, enabling the Dauntless to take full advantage of every gust of air. How the pirate knew where to direct the ship was an utter mystery. It seemed a feat not humanly possible.
Judging from the look of the man, it was not an easy one. Sparrow’s knuckles were white as he gripped the helm, twin lines of concentration furrowing his brows as he called the ship about with split second timing. Sweat glistened on his face, plastered strings of dark hair to his neck, and slicked his grubby shirt to his body. But the mad grin never left. It was as if he delighted in this battle of wills with the vicious current and hammering winds. Like Ulysses sailing between Scylla and Charybdis, the legendary Captain Jack Sparrow threaded the Dauntless through the ravening rocks of the narrow passage to the Island of Death.
Norrington shook himself. He had not actually thought that, had he?
Yet he feared they would not get out of that dark night without meeting their own monsters in the rocks.
A horrified shout from the bows of the Dauntless riveted the commodore’s attention ahead. Their insane pilot was driving the ship straight into a cliff. They were all dead men! He’d let Sparrow kill them all!
Then suddenly they were within walls of rock. With a chill of combined relief and horror, Norrington realized that he could nearly reach out and touch the stone on either side of the vessel. The lower sails lost the wind, but with momentum and the help of the topgallants, the ship was still making way against the current. Somehow in the tarry black, Sparrow had aimed the Dauntless at the only possible passage through the rocks. If they’d been one tack off, half a yard off, they’d have been scattered at the base of the cliffs like so much kindling.
“I was hoping she’d fit,” Sparrow commented to him airily.
Norrington resolved to murder the man the minute they were in safe waters again. A square-rigged ship was never meant to sail this close to land. She was too vulnerable to a sudden shift in wind or current crashing her onto the rocks. How dared that pirate endanger his ship and his men this way!
The tight squeeze was mercifully a short one, but the instant the bowsprit cleared the narrow passage into open water again, Sparrow was shouting orders for the ship to tack violently to port.
As the Dauntless’s sails filled again, Jack brought the helm hard down, calling, “Helm’s a-lee!”
At his word, the men rushed to ease the jibs and the staysails, letting the air slip. Others hauled the spanker and topsail in hard to provide leverage for the weight of the wind. With the pressure off forward and increased aft, the ship began to turn.
Amidst the slatting of jibs, the knocking of sheet-blocks, and the thunder of sails coming off the wind, Jack’s voice rose, “Raise tacks and sheets!”
With her main lines let go and her clew lines hauling up her sails to swing free, the ship pivoted. In the dark, it was impossible to see the aft sails becalmed by the foremast sails, but Jack seemed to sense when the bowsprit came within a point and a half of the wind.
“Main sail haul!” he hollered above the rattling and flogging of sails, the vibration of the masts, and the detonation of the waves against the hull.
Crewmembers rushed to haul fiercely on the main and mizzen braces, bringing the sails about parallel with each other, fighting the massive tonnage of the great yards on to the port tack. The Dauntless’s bow began its swing through the wind.
“No!” Commodore Norrington exclaimed. It was too soon. They’d crush her stern if they came about this early.
But the Dauntless’s sails were already beginning to fill.
“Now!” Sparrow roared. “Let go and haul! Brace the foreyards you dogs! Brace ’em now or I’ll keelhaul the lot of you!”
In the murk of night the port watch blindly found the lines they needed and hauled fast and furiously on the foreyard braces while the starboard watch scrambled to set the mainsails. They cursed Sparrow to the deepest circles of hell, but they struggled to obey his orders, every one of them knowing in their bones how far beyond anything in their experience or even their comprehension this madness was. They had to trust him because none of their knowledge offered any hope of survival.
The massive ship somehow swung free of the cliffs in an agonizing twist, now close reaching on the port tack, gaining momentum as her sails filled again. Norrington had never seen her come through the eye of the wind so swiftly.
Then he realized the reason for the desperate maneuver as the Dauntless shuddered and lurched, brushing up against rocks that Sparrow had known were there. In horror, he heard the terrible sound of cracking timber.
“Sorry! Sorry love!” Sparrow was gasping, straining on the wheel to whip the great ship around. “Hold hard there, darling! There’s a brave bonnie lass!”
He was talking to the Dauntless! The man was a raving lunatic! But there was no time to lock him up. And to interrupt him even to commit justifiable homicide would be to endanger their lives even more. The ship was dragging her hull along the lethal, invisible rocks, picking up speed. At any moment she could be stove in.
“Damage control!” Norrington bellowed and pelted down the stairs to the nearest hatchway. Belowdecks organized chaos reigned. The cannon, he realized were being hauled to the opposite side of the deck from where water was rushing, in an effort to raise the hole above the waterline. Ship’s carpenters were dashing across the sloping planks lugging repair materials. Further below, he could hear men manning the bilge pumps. Somehow it did not surprise him when a dingy white figure caught the glow of the single lantern on her way to help patch the tear in the Dauntless’s side. Elizabeth, her arms full of material to pack the leaks, was still as ubiquitous as a cockroach, still always precisely where a man did not want her to be.
“Elizabeth!” he called, hoping, with no foundation, that he could convince her to go to safety. But either she did not hear him or she was ignoring him. And now she had disappeared into the stygian darkness.
His crew seemed to have the damage well in hand. Elizabeth was gone. He could see that they were in no immediate danger of sinking. Now would be a good time to go kill Sparrow.
As he re-emerged on deck, he met Lieutenant Gillette.
Looking at Gillette’s pale, horrified face, Norrington asked plaintively, “Remind me again. Why did I agree to this?”
“Sir,” the lieutenant responded in a strained voice, “I have no idea why you agreed to this.”
“I am going to kill Sparrow,” Norrington informed him with cheerful fatalism. “You can come along and watch.”
“Thank you, sir.” Gillette’s reply was fervent.
Bounding up the steps, the commodore pulled up short at the sight of Sparrow, bent over the helm, stroking it as a man might a frightened horse, and murmuring to the Dauntless.
“’S alright, love. You’ll be right as rain. Just hold it together for ol’ Jack. That’s a girl.”
Norrington cleared his throat. “Sparrow, what the hell do you think you’re . . .”
Straightening up, the pirate turned to face the commodore, his eyes like burnt holes in his face.
“Commodore,” Sparrow’s voice was breathless as though he had been running. “This is the final tack. It’s a straight run from here. We’ll soon be in the lee of Isla de Muerta and the current’s easing off. Take this compass.” He held out the dark box. “Do not lose it. And follow this course.” He demonstrated the direction indicator. “Do not deviate from it no matter what. Call me when we come out into a small bay.”
Commodore Norrington made as though to call the helmsman.
“No,” Jack Sparrow insisted. “She’ll be wantin’ her captain. And I’m not givin’ this to anyone else.”
As Norrington took his ship’s wheel—not something he had done recently—he looked down at the odd object the pirate was offering in a now nerveless grip. “How does it work?”
“Don’t know, mate,” Sparrow shrugged. “Just does.”
Opening his mouth to object to this unscientific reply, Norrington saw the pirate sway and reach for a rail to support himself.
Jack’s other hand waved at him in dismissive frustration. “Just pretend you trust me on this one, alright?”
The commodore realized that Sparrow had been piloting this nerve-wracking passage for over nine hours now on top of another fourteen hours of navigating before they’d hit the channel. Perhaps the man had earned that trust. Norrington closed his mouth. He stared down at the incomprehensible compass in his hand. Follow this course. He imagined he could do that.
* * * * *
Jack made his way to the waist of the ship, his usual boneless walk a little exaggerated with fatigue. Finding an area away from any of the decreasing commotion of sailing the Dauntless, he sank down and leaned his head back against her rail. “Good work, Madame Behemoth,” he told the ship. The Dauntless was a true Navy ship to her core, he reflected. Gallant and tenacious and indomitable. “I wasn’t sure we were going to make it there for a minute.” He patted her deck. “Sorry about the little bump, but these Navy blokes’ll soon have you put to rights.”
“Captain Sparrow?”
At the sound of his title, Jack looked up startled. The only person who might have addressed him as “captain” on this ship would be Elizabeth, but that hadn’t been Elizabeth’s voice.
In the faint moonlight now filtering through the scattered rags of fog, Jack could make out that the voice belonged to a young lieutenant, one who was unknown to him.
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
“I’ve brought you a tot of grog, sir. And a bit of salt beef,” the young man replied.
“Son,” Jack said with feeling, scrambling to his feet again. “That’ll be counted to you for righteousness!” He held out his hand and felt a metal mug being handed to him. He’d been trying not to think how dry he was. The lukewarm, rum-laced liquid was coming in a close second to being the most wonderful thing he’d ever tasted. He flashed a genuine heartfelt smile at the lieutenant. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
“What’s your name?” Jack asked as he accepted the proffered beef. Like all Navy rations it had the consistency of boot leather, but he wasn’t complaining.
“Groves, Captain Sparrow,” the young man held out his hand. “Lieutenant Theodore Groves, at your service, sir.”
Transferring the salt beef to the fingers also gripping the mug, Jack held out his other grimy hand to shake the lieutenant’s. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Lieutenant Groves.” He wasn’t lying. This had to be, for the record, the politest naval officer he had ever come across.
“The pleasure is mine, sir,” Lieutenant Groves spoke enthusiastically. “Captain Sparrow, I just wanted to say that I have never, and I mean never, seen such an incredible job of piloting, and I very much doubt I ever shall again!”
“Well now,” Jack grinned, pleased. “There was a bit of a bump . . .” he admitted modestly.
“Any other man,” the lieutenant’s voice was emphatic, “would have lost the ship and all hands on a passage like that!”
“P’raps any other man wouldn’t have been daft enough to attempt it,” Jack pointed out dryly around a mouthful of salt beef.
“Perhaps,” Lieutenant Groves agreed with a smile. “But it was still an amazing feat. I do rather wish you were a member of the Royal Navy, sir, so that I could learn a thing or two from you.”
That had to be a first. “Lad, I think the Royal Navy would likely be flogging me before the week—forget it—before the day was out,” Jack grimaced. “But I’ll tell you what. I wish you were a pirate, and then I’d be glad to be sharing what I know with you.”
“When I was a bit of a lad,” Lieutenant Groves confessed, “I did think I’d like to be a pirate.”
“Well there y’are. P’raps someday when you’ve had your craw stuffed full of idiotic orders and you want to shed those gold shackles,” Jack flicked a finger at the stripes on Groves' sleeve, “you might drop in to Tortuga and leave a message for Captain Jack Sparrow where you’re to be found. And next time I’m by, why, I’ll sign you aboard m’ship and there you’ll be.”
“Oh, I love what I do, Captain Sparrow, so that’s probably not in the stars. But I do thank you for the offer.”
The lieutenant seemed sincere, and Jack was moved to say, “”S a waste, boy. A terrible waste. But if it’s what you want . . .” He paused, having an agreeable thought. He pointed at the lieutenant. “I don’t s’pose there’s any chance of ol’ Norrington getting a promotion, as it were, and yourself taking over command of Fort Charles?” he asked hopefully. Now here was a man with whom he could work.
“Not for a long time yet,” Groves laughed. “And Lieutenant Gillette, you know, the man from whom you stole the Dauntless, would have seniority.”
“Oh well,” Jack sighed. “I always knew Lady Fortune had it in for me.”
At the sound of a shouted order, Lieutenant Groves looked up. “I believe I have to go now, sir. But it’s been an honour meeting you, Captain Sparrow.”
“'S good t’meet you too, Lieutenant Groves.”
Jack watched the lieutenant disappear in the direction of the quarterdeck. If that didn’t beat all. Two surprises in one day. He’d managed to fit Madame Behemoth through a needle’s eye in the dark. And he’d discovered a friendly naval officer.
TBC
Peas in a Pod
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: What do you say to three shillings, and we forget that I’m pirating POTC characters?
Summary: In which Jack knocks a hole in Norrie’s boat, the Dauntless doesn’t quite sink, Norrington decides to kill Jack, and Groves gets to meet the best pirate he’s ever seen. Includes such tidbits as why Norrington has Jack’s compass in the deleted scene. Outrageous sailing as promised. I don't know about Jack, but I'm exhausted. Still sailing uncharted waters. More movie novelization including deleted scenes and filler—the second trip to Isla de Muerta.
Thanks and one small Caribbean Island in a nearby universe go to
geek_mama_2 for beta work on this. Thanks also to torn_eledhwen for helping me wrestle with the sailing terminology. Any errors and inconsistencies remain mine.* * * * *
Commodore Norrington found Jack Sparrow hovering around the helm, frowning at his strange, non-functional compass.
The pirate looked up at him inquiringly.
“Mr. Sparrow,” Norrington said, though his jaw was so tight he could scarcely force the words out. “You say you have made this passage safely before.”
“Aye, I’ve done it,” Sparrow’s voice was non-committal.
Norrington got the feeling that there was something more he should be asking the pirate, but he could not imagine what it was.
“Very well,” he nodded. “My officers and I have agreed to let you pilot the Dauntless through to Isla de Muerta.”
The brief flash of triumph in Jack’s eyes disturbed the commodore. He told himself he was perfectly aware that Sparrow had an ulterior motive. But he couldn’t shake the conviction that he was about to make a terrible mistake.
“During this passage, I will allow you to give all orders pertaining to the sailing of the Dauntless. But I remind you that I am still the commander of this vessel and all other matters will remain in my hands. Once we have reached the island, your limited authority will be at an end. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly clear.” Sparrow waved nonchalantly, his eyes already leaving Norrington’s and straying to the helm of the Dauntless. His hand drifted towards the wheel almost with hunger.
“Sparrow!” Norrington’s voice was tense. “If you put one dent in her hull, I swear I will put an equal one in your hide!”
For some reason, this seemed to please the pirate. He smirked at the commodore in a way that suspiciously resembled his expression when he had held his arms around Elizabeth on the docks at Port Royal. “Don’t worry about your bonnie lass, Commodore. She and I’ll do fine together.”
Norrington nodded curtly. He would not be jealous over a man’s relationship with his ship!
Now it remained for him to try to explain the situation to the crew.
* * * * *
During the next hour, Jack Sparrow stirred up the entire crew of the Dauntless to prepare for the passage to Isla de Muerta. No man would be seeing his berth this night. All watches were assigned duties ranging from manning every one of the hundreds of lines controlling the yards and sails to damage control. The pirate even had the gun crews mustered to shift the heavy cannon to the windward side of each tack should it be necessary to compensate for the heeling of the ship. Norrington shuddered at the very thought of loose cannon on his decks. Apparently the concept was equally unacceptable to Sparrow, for he found the pirate down below decks working with the gun captains to design a system of blocks and tackle that would hold the great guns from ramming through the hull of the ship while they were being transferred, no matter how she pitched.
“There will be no time for orders,” Sparrow had informed the gunnery captain. “Just use your judgment.”
The thought that Jack Sparrow even felt this measure might be necessary gave Norrington a chill.
Nevertheless, the commodore was proud of the way his men responded to this complete upset of their routine. The pirate would never have a better crew to implement his crazy ideas.
Sparrow elected to bring the Dauntless into the swift current several leagues out from the entrance to the channel. Just to get the crew used to working in its flow before it was a matter of life or death, he explained to Norrington. They would lose a little time during the maneuvers, but he expected the payoff to come in their increased chance of survival.
Norrington was both reassured and increasingly disturbed. He was relieved that Jack Sparrow showed any sign of prudence—a virtue he had not much noticed in the pirate, heretofore. If Sparrow was nervous about this venture, well, a nervous captain was a man who kept his crew alive. Nothing disturbed Norrington more than a reckless captain. On the other hand, he had a feeling that things that would terrify normal men would scarcely register with Sparrow, so the idea that this passage did worry the man was not particularly comforting.
Nor did he comprehend the man’s insistence on taking the helm. A captain generally did not perform such tasks. Sparrow’s explanation had not enlightened him at all.
When questioned, the pirate had shrugged and replied, “I’ll be taking her where she knows she shouldn’t be going, so she has to trust me. And I have to feel first hand the sea and the wind against her. Besides,” Sparrow had raised an eyebrow, “I won’t be losing my nerve.”
Which implied that they were going where any sane man would lose his nerve.
The tight tacks Jack was forcing the crew to perform when there was so much sea-room gave Norrington pause as well. The Dauntless normally took eight minutes to tack and another half hour to be trimmed and secured. The commodore was used to thinking that four hours before the next tack was sufficiently short on time. Sparrow was bringing the ship about within an hour of the last tack. Was the passage really that narrow? Norrington suspected he did not want to know. He also suspected he would find out far too soon.
As the Dauntless raced through the night on the heels of her dark opponent, banks of fog began to obscure the moonlight and tendrils of thick mist swirled about the lanterns. The world seemed to be shrinking until the only thing left in existence was the fleeing ship, the only life the beings creeping about upon her deck.
Yet, as Sparrow had promised, the wind never let up. With a banshee wail it swirled and eddied through that unnatural fog, snapping the sails taut and heeling the Dauntless hard over. Her hull twisted and groaned like a living thing in torment. The head seas and battering current swept her decks like blasts of shrapnel. Her masts strained alarmingly against their stays and shrouds. Surely they must reef sails soon or her canvas would slash itself to death in the knives of the wind or her masts would wrench out of their steps. But Jack Sparrow gave no such order. And, indeed, the commodore could see that his ship was fighting stubbornly for every scrap of ground she gained, clawing her way to windward against the bludgeoning current. She needed that canvas desperately to pull the maximum speed necessary for those tacks, and somehow, that madcap Sparrow was giving it to her.
Through the pitchy haze, Norrington scrutinized the strange figure at the helm of his ship. Dressed in indistinct charcoal with a flutter of white sleeve, his long, dark hair whipping and chiming in the wind, the pirate seemed like an incarnation of fog and night, himself. Sparrow had his eyes fixed on that unnatural compass, rather than on the sea, feeling rather than seeing the air humming in the sails, as he called the orders for the rapid course changes. In the weak glow of the lantern, he was an uncanny sight. Commodore Norrington felt a moment of uncharacteristic panic. He must have been mad to agree to this . . . this impossible rescue mission.
“Sparrow!” He interrupted the man’s concentration, shouting to be heard over the racket of the wind in the rigging. “Let me know when is our last chance to cry off this venture!”
“It’s already too late.” The pirate’s grin glittered gold and feral in the lantern light, although he did not take his eyes from the compass.
So, they were now in the channel. There would be no going back.
“Jack Sparrow,” the commodore spoke through clenched teeth. “Tell me that I am not going to regret this.”
“Commodore Norrington, you already do.”
* * * * *
Never had Norrington been through a more nightmarish passage. The sea, swathed in dense black fog, moaned with the straining hull of the Dauntless. The dim glow from the ship’s lanterns gave up in despair and faded to black almost immediately. In the suffocating darkness he saw imaginary cliffs loom up to devour them and did not see real ones until they were upon them. Occasionally the gaunt spar of a sunken vessel would stare up out of the water into the feeble light of a lamp, mute and threatening, and they’d hear an ominous scraping along the hull. Men’s hearts failed for fear, and he saw more than one sailor snatch a moment to cross himself and murmur a fervent prayer. They sailed, a moving island of the living, over a graveyard of dead ships.
James Norrington could scarcely remember a time in his life when he had not been on ships at sea, but he had never experienced anything that felt so wrong as this headlong flight into oblivion. Gritting his teeth, he peered into the cloying blackness, straining to catch sight of obstacles, even though he knew they would be impossible to avoid by the time he did see them. Every instinct screamed that they should sail slowly and cautiously, sounding the bottom with the lead, following a clear chart with a functioning compass. That is every instinct that was not crying that they should not be here at all. But he knew they had to outrace the current he could hear groaning against the rocks in the dark.
And so Jack Sparrow flung the Dauntless blindly into the night, all her canvas straining, close hauled to the wind, down an invisible chasm. Her decks sloped forty-five degrees towards the frothing seas as she heeled hard to leeward, often actually dragging her rail through the waves. Beneath his feet, Norrington could hear the gunnery crews struggling to lend the weight of their charges to leveling the ship’s keel. Somehow, every time the wind shifted slightly as they passed an island or a branching channel, Jack had already given the command to trim the sails, enabling the Dauntless to take full advantage of every gust of air. How the pirate knew where to direct the ship was an utter mystery. It seemed a feat not humanly possible.
Judging from the look of the man, it was not an easy one. Sparrow’s knuckles were white as he gripped the helm, twin lines of concentration furrowing his brows as he called the ship about with split second timing. Sweat glistened on his face, plastered strings of dark hair to his neck, and slicked his grubby shirt to his body. But the mad grin never left. It was as if he delighted in this battle of wills with the vicious current and hammering winds. Like Ulysses sailing between Scylla and Charybdis, the legendary Captain Jack Sparrow threaded the Dauntless through the ravening rocks of the narrow passage to the Island of Death.
Norrington shook himself. He had not actually thought that, had he?
Yet he feared they would not get out of that dark night without meeting their own monsters in the rocks.
A horrified shout from the bows of the Dauntless riveted the commodore’s attention ahead. Their insane pilot was driving the ship straight into a cliff. They were all dead men! He’d let Sparrow kill them all!
Then suddenly they were within walls of rock. With a chill of combined relief and horror, Norrington realized that he could nearly reach out and touch the stone on either side of the vessel. The lower sails lost the wind, but with momentum and the help of the topgallants, the ship was still making way against the current. Somehow in the tarry black, Sparrow had aimed the Dauntless at the only possible passage through the rocks. If they’d been one tack off, half a yard off, they’d have been scattered at the base of the cliffs like so much kindling.
“I was hoping she’d fit,” Sparrow commented to him airily.
Norrington resolved to murder the man the minute they were in safe waters again. A square-rigged ship was never meant to sail this close to land. She was too vulnerable to a sudden shift in wind or current crashing her onto the rocks. How dared that pirate endanger his ship and his men this way!
The tight squeeze was mercifully a short one, but the instant the bowsprit cleared the narrow passage into open water again, Sparrow was shouting orders for the ship to tack violently to port.
As the Dauntless’s sails filled again, Jack brought the helm hard down, calling, “Helm’s a-lee!”
At his word, the men rushed to ease the jibs and the staysails, letting the air slip. Others hauled the spanker and topsail in hard to provide leverage for the weight of the wind. With the pressure off forward and increased aft, the ship began to turn.
Amidst the slatting of jibs, the knocking of sheet-blocks, and the thunder of sails coming off the wind, Jack’s voice rose, “Raise tacks and sheets!”
With her main lines let go and her clew lines hauling up her sails to swing free, the ship pivoted. In the dark, it was impossible to see the aft sails becalmed by the foremast sails, but Jack seemed to sense when the bowsprit came within a point and a half of the wind.
“Main sail haul!” he hollered above the rattling and flogging of sails, the vibration of the masts, and the detonation of the waves against the hull.
Crewmembers rushed to haul fiercely on the main and mizzen braces, bringing the sails about parallel with each other, fighting the massive tonnage of the great yards on to the port tack. The Dauntless’s bow began its swing through the wind.
“No!” Commodore Norrington exclaimed. It was too soon. They’d crush her stern if they came about this early.
But the Dauntless’s sails were already beginning to fill.
“Now!” Sparrow roared. “Let go and haul! Brace the foreyards you dogs! Brace ’em now or I’ll keelhaul the lot of you!”
In the murk of night the port watch blindly found the lines they needed and hauled fast and furiously on the foreyard braces while the starboard watch scrambled to set the mainsails. They cursed Sparrow to the deepest circles of hell, but they struggled to obey his orders, every one of them knowing in their bones how far beyond anything in their experience or even their comprehension this madness was. They had to trust him because none of their knowledge offered any hope of survival.
The massive ship somehow swung free of the cliffs in an agonizing twist, now close reaching on the port tack, gaining momentum as her sails filled again. Norrington had never seen her come through the eye of the wind so swiftly.
Then he realized the reason for the desperate maneuver as the Dauntless shuddered and lurched, brushing up against rocks that Sparrow had known were there. In horror, he heard the terrible sound of cracking timber.
“Sorry! Sorry love!” Sparrow was gasping, straining on the wheel to whip the great ship around. “Hold hard there, darling! There’s a brave bonnie lass!”
He was talking to the Dauntless! The man was a raving lunatic! But there was no time to lock him up. And to interrupt him even to commit justifiable homicide would be to endanger their lives even more. The ship was dragging her hull along the lethal, invisible rocks, picking up speed. At any moment she could be stove in.
“Damage control!” Norrington bellowed and pelted down the stairs to the nearest hatchway. Belowdecks organized chaos reigned. The cannon, he realized were being hauled to the opposite side of the deck from where water was rushing, in an effort to raise the hole above the waterline. Ship’s carpenters were dashing across the sloping planks lugging repair materials. Further below, he could hear men manning the bilge pumps. Somehow it did not surprise him when a dingy white figure caught the glow of the single lantern on her way to help patch the tear in the Dauntless’s side. Elizabeth, her arms full of material to pack the leaks, was still as ubiquitous as a cockroach, still always precisely where a man did not want her to be.
“Elizabeth!” he called, hoping, with no foundation, that he could convince her to go to safety. But either she did not hear him or she was ignoring him. And now she had disappeared into the stygian darkness.
His crew seemed to have the damage well in hand. Elizabeth was gone. He could see that they were in no immediate danger of sinking. Now would be a good time to go kill Sparrow.
As he re-emerged on deck, he met Lieutenant Gillette.
Looking at Gillette’s pale, horrified face, Norrington asked plaintively, “Remind me again. Why did I agree to this?”
“Sir,” the lieutenant responded in a strained voice, “I have no idea why you agreed to this.”
“I am going to kill Sparrow,” Norrington informed him with cheerful fatalism. “You can come along and watch.”
“Thank you, sir.” Gillette’s reply was fervent.
Bounding up the steps, the commodore pulled up short at the sight of Sparrow, bent over the helm, stroking it as a man might a frightened horse, and murmuring to the Dauntless.
“’S alright, love. You’ll be right as rain. Just hold it together for ol’ Jack. That’s a girl.”
Norrington cleared his throat. “Sparrow, what the hell do you think you’re . . .”
Straightening up, the pirate turned to face the commodore, his eyes like burnt holes in his face.
“Commodore,” Sparrow’s voice was breathless as though he had been running. “This is the final tack. It’s a straight run from here. We’ll soon be in the lee of Isla de Muerta and the current’s easing off. Take this compass.” He held out the dark box. “Do not lose it. And follow this course.” He demonstrated the direction indicator. “Do not deviate from it no matter what. Call me when we come out into a small bay.”
Commodore Norrington made as though to call the helmsman.
“No,” Jack Sparrow insisted. “She’ll be wantin’ her captain. And I’m not givin’ this to anyone else.”
As Norrington took his ship’s wheel—not something he had done recently—he looked down at the odd object the pirate was offering in a now nerveless grip. “How does it work?”
“Don’t know, mate,” Sparrow shrugged. “Just does.”
Opening his mouth to object to this unscientific reply, Norrington saw the pirate sway and reach for a rail to support himself.
Jack’s other hand waved at him in dismissive frustration. “Just pretend you trust me on this one, alright?”
The commodore realized that Sparrow had been piloting this nerve-wracking passage for over nine hours now on top of another fourteen hours of navigating before they’d hit the channel. Perhaps the man had earned that trust. Norrington closed his mouth. He stared down at the incomprehensible compass in his hand. Follow this course. He imagined he could do that.
* * * * *
Jack made his way to the waist of the ship, his usual boneless walk a little exaggerated with fatigue. Finding an area away from any of the decreasing commotion of sailing the Dauntless, he sank down and leaned his head back against her rail. “Good work, Madame Behemoth,” he told the ship. The Dauntless was a true Navy ship to her core, he reflected. Gallant and tenacious and indomitable. “I wasn’t sure we were going to make it there for a minute.” He patted her deck. “Sorry about the little bump, but these Navy blokes’ll soon have you put to rights.”
“Captain Sparrow?”
At the sound of his title, Jack looked up startled. The only person who might have addressed him as “captain” on this ship would be Elizabeth, but that hadn’t been Elizabeth’s voice.
In the faint moonlight now filtering through the scattered rags of fog, Jack could make out that the voice belonged to a young lieutenant, one who was unknown to him.
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
“I’ve brought you a tot of grog, sir. And a bit of salt beef,” the young man replied.
“Son,” Jack said with feeling, scrambling to his feet again. “That’ll be counted to you for righteousness!” He held out his hand and felt a metal mug being handed to him. He’d been trying not to think how dry he was. The lukewarm, rum-laced liquid was coming in a close second to being the most wonderful thing he’d ever tasted. He flashed a genuine heartfelt smile at the lieutenant. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
“What’s your name?” Jack asked as he accepted the proffered beef. Like all Navy rations it had the consistency of boot leather, but he wasn’t complaining.
“Groves, Captain Sparrow,” the young man held out his hand. “Lieutenant Theodore Groves, at your service, sir.”
Transferring the salt beef to the fingers also gripping the mug, Jack held out his other grimy hand to shake the lieutenant’s. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Lieutenant Groves.” He wasn’t lying. This had to be, for the record, the politest naval officer he had ever come across.
“The pleasure is mine, sir,” Lieutenant Groves spoke enthusiastically. “Captain Sparrow, I just wanted to say that I have never, and I mean never, seen such an incredible job of piloting, and I very much doubt I ever shall again!”
“Well now,” Jack grinned, pleased. “There was a bit of a bump . . .” he admitted modestly.
“Any other man,” the lieutenant’s voice was emphatic, “would have lost the ship and all hands on a passage like that!”
“P’raps any other man wouldn’t have been daft enough to attempt it,” Jack pointed out dryly around a mouthful of salt beef.
“Perhaps,” Lieutenant Groves agreed with a smile. “But it was still an amazing feat. I do rather wish you were a member of the Royal Navy, sir, so that I could learn a thing or two from you.”
That had to be a first. “Lad, I think the Royal Navy would likely be flogging me before the week—forget it—before the day was out,” Jack grimaced. “But I’ll tell you what. I wish you were a pirate, and then I’d be glad to be sharing what I know with you.”
“When I was a bit of a lad,” Lieutenant Groves confessed, “I did think I’d like to be a pirate.”
“Well there y’are. P’raps someday when you’ve had your craw stuffed full of idiotic orders and you want to shed those gold shackles,” Jack flicked a finger at the stripes on Groves' sleeve, “you might drop in to Tortuga and leave a message for Captain Jack Sparrow where you’re to be found. And next time I’m by, why, I’ll sign you aboard m’ship and there you’ll be.”
“Oh, I love what I do, Captain Sparrow, so that’s probably not in the stars. But I do thank you for the offer.”
The lieutenant seemed sincere, and Jack was moved to say, “”S a waste, boy. A terrible waste. But if it’s what you want . . .” He paused, having an agreeable thought. He pointed at the lieutenant. “I don’t s’pose there’s any chance of ol’ Norrington getting a promotion, as it were, and yourself taking over command of Fort Charles?” he asked hopefully. Now here was a man with whom he could work.
“Not for a long time yet,” Groves laughed. “And Lieutenant Gillette, you know, the man from whom you stole the Dauntless, would have seniority.”
“Oh well,” Jack sighed. “I always knew Lady Fortune had it in for me.”
At the sound of a shouted order, Lieutenant Groves looked up. “I believe I have to go now, sir. But it’s been an honour meeting you, Captain Sparrow.”
“'S good t’meet you too, Lieutenant Groves.”
Jack watched the lieutenant disappear in the direction of the quarterdeck. If that didn’t beat all. Two surprises in one day. He’d managed to fit Madame Behemoth through a needle’s eye in the dark. And he’d discovered a friendly naval officer.
TBC
Peas in a Pod
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Date: 2005-09-17 10:03 pm (UTC)Forgot to tell you I adored this passage too.
Sorry it took me so long to finish editing this. It's a great chapter.
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Date: 2005-09-17 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-17 11:49 pm (UTC)“Sir,” the lieutenant responded in a strained voice, “I have no idea why you agreed to this.”
“I am going to kill Sparrow,” Norrington informed him with cheerful fatalism. “You can come along and watch.”
“Thank you, sir.” Gillette’s reply was fervent.
*giggles madly*
This was lovely, and nerve-wracking, and wonderful.
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Date: 2005-09-18 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-18 04:54 am (UTC)I love all the I-am-so-going-to-kill-him moments with Norrington. * . *; He was talking to the Dauntless! The man was a raving lunatic! But there was no time to lock him up. And to interrupt him even to commit justifiable homicide would be to endanger their lives even more. Favorite line! XD Justifiable homicide indeed! *laughs*
Also, Groves is a great character. I'm glad you've put him in here; he's such a nice guy! He doesn't get enough screentime, so his cameo here was welcome. ^^
Finally... that bit about how long and hard Jack worked to make that passage - that was wonderfully described. In movie-time, it's hard to remember that in the case of piloting a real ship in those days, a trip like that WOULD have taken hours to complete, and that was a pretty nasty journey...
Yay! *glee*
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Date: 2005-09-18 05:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-18 12:52 pm (UTC)I am quite in love with your Norrington. He is so quintessentially British, and he works as a brilliant foil for Jack. Justifiable homicide indeed. You can't help but wonder whether Jack is just playing up to his new role just to be incredibly infuriating and knowing that he is going to get away with it.
Once again with the ships' personalities! The Dauntless certainly suits the name 'Madame Behemoth'. I do like Jack's instinctive sailing, though I have to admit to being on the edge of my seat quite often, much like poor Norrington.
Finally, what a lovely closing conversation. Groves creates a much more rounded view of the Navy here, and also allows Jack's character more room to develop. I can imagine Groves and Elizabeth having conversations about pirates, actually, when no one else was listening.
Greatly looking forward to the next chapter-- poor Norrington won't know what's hit him.
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Date: 2005-09-18 01:23 pm (UTC)Nautical terminology--I can't begin to describe how much research I had to do to write this sailing section. I'd be perfectly happy (teacher instinct you know) to explain any part of this you'd like. Having had to fight through incomprehension to understanding myself, I know how it is. I'm glad the tension comes through, even if the picture is a little foggy.
I'm glad you're still enjoying my Norrington. He's such a fun character to write. So competent in his field. So knowledgeable about his craft. And so baffled by Jack who breaks all the rules, from moral to civil to physical.
These ships in this movie have pretty much become characters to me. I do think of them like horses--I used to work with about 60 horses at a summer camp and I always said that even blindfolded, I could tell which horse I had in about two minutes. They all have their own personalities and way of going.
Groves is one of my favourite characters because his perspective is so different. Jack thinks he could get more cooperation out of Groves, but I wonder if a man like Groves could get more cooperation out of Jack. That conversation between Elizabeth and Groves would be a fun one to overhear.
Alas, the next chapter belongs to Elizabeth and Jack again. Norrington is having to wait while I back up and develop Will. Will is soon going to be in the picture and I have to know what is motivating him at this point.
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Date: 2005-09-19 03:10 pm (UTC)A very satisfyingly, rich and intriguing Jack and Norrington characterization and then to throw Groves into the end. That was brilliant.
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Date: 2005-09-19 05:26 pm (UTC)Brava!
Date: 2005-09-19 07:59 pm (UTC)Re: Brava!
Date: 2005-09-19 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-21 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-22 12:29 pm (UTC)Hee! Jack just loves to get his hands on Norrie's ladies, doesn't he?
had the gun crews mustered to shift the heavy cannon to the windward side of each tack should it be necessary
!!! Wonderful shippy detail - seems obvious now that you've said it, but just thinking about what Jack wants to accomplish and how quickly they'll have to react ... well, let's just be thankful for military discipline.
relieved that Jack Sparrow showed any sign of prudence
But that should cause him to worry... Ah, it did. :) Love how this wonderful paragraph reveals so much of each of them.
Am totally envious of your ability to describe what's going on with the Dauntless. Would not be at all surprised to find my hair knotted and tangled from the wind and damp from the spray. And then,
"It's already too late." The pirate's grin glittered gold and feral
and
"Jack Sparrow ... Tell me that I am not going to regret this."
"Commodore Norrington, you already do."
Perfect. Also guh.
“I am going to kill Sparrow,” Norrington informed him with cheerful fatalism. “You can come along and watch.”
Hee! Poor Norrington, standing there (helplessly!) watching while a maniacal pirate responds to wind and currents not yet felt, avoids obstacles the others can't even see.
want to shed those gold shackles,” Jack flicked a finger at the stripes on Grove’s sleeve
Variations on a theme - tricky you! *applauds*
Oops - think you want to reverse the s and the ' here: Grove’s
You've outdone yourself on this one, my dear. 'Tis fabulous!
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Date: 2005-12-08 08:44 am (UTC)I do love writing Jack flirting with absolutely everything in sight! He does! So of course he'd make eyes at Norrie's boat.
Jack is indeed thankful for Navy discipline. These are men trained to fire and reload those cannon in split seconds, so they'll have the reflexes he needs.
I'm so glad you're finding the sailing realistic. I love writing raving sailing, but it does take some doing--I think this chapter took me longer than all the rest together--so it's nice to know it's working.
Yes, Norrington has to know he wouldn't have had a chance through that ship's graveyard without that "worst" pirate and his compass that doesn't work.
Shackles, chains, corsets--everybody's got 'em in this movie. :D
Thanks for the editing tip. I'm correcting it immediately!
I'm so glad you liked this chapter. Thank you so much for the great feedback.
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Date: 2006-08-07 07:26 pm (UTC)I loved how Jack works the navy crew. Norrington has already admitted that Jack's a competent pilot at least (if not extremely gifted, genius, etc), but seeing him take on the role of a prudent captain (of sorts) certainly did give him a turn. There's a real sense of "if Jack can't do it, it can't be done," which of course translates to "if Jack's worried he can't do it, we're probably all going to die." There's respect hidden in that philosophy, even if Groves is the only one to admit to it. The Ulysses reference clinched it. His admittance that Sparrow had earned his trust--at least as far as piloting the Dauntless safely to the island, must have been hard for him.
The scene with Groves was wonderful. I loved how he addressed Jack as captain--and Jack's ensuing surprise. The grog being the second most wonderful thing he's ever tasted.. would that come in second to the rum he found on the island the first time? One question though: when did Jack steal the Dauntless from Gillette?
As much as your characterizations make your stories truly great, the depth of your research here is what truly marks this story a cut above the rest. The little details about sailing come together to paint such a vivid picture. I saw in your user info on fanfic.net that you crew a sailboat. Not the same as a tall ship, of course, but I envy you anyway. I've lived by and loved the ocean all my life, but so far I've only read about sailing. It's always been a closet dream of mine. I love living vicariously with your Jack and your descriptions.
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Date: 2006-08-07 10:25 pm (UTC)Jack flirts with everything in the entire movie, but he does tend to have affairs with poor Norrington's ships. There's a kind of antagonistic respect between the two of them.
I loved how Jack works the navy crew.
That was much fun to write. There is a sense of total desperation about this attempt. And as usual, Jack isn't tipping his hand until it's too late for Norrington to stop him from doing what he wants. Jack knows he needs to get this huge ship through the same passage that had the Interceptor scraping against things. And the fact that they arrive at Isla de Muerta at night means that Jack got the Dauntless through in the dark! Which is pretty amazing even if the compass was telling him where to go, because it couldn't tell him how to make the ship get him there. The feat does make Norrington reluctantly admire Sparrow.
I'm glad you liked Groves' chance to meet that best pirate. I love Groves' character. You guessed right about the rum on the island the first time. And as for the theft of the Dauntless, that was the first ship Jack stole in order to get at the Interceptor. "Everybody stay calm! We're taking over the ship!" He didn't keep it for long, of course. But Gillette was the officer on duty and he was the one who gave the ship to Sparrow at gunpoint.
This story did require a lot of research. My experience with my tiny little sailboat did make me aware of how tacking and currents and wind worked, but this working a square-rigged ship is a lot more complicated, so I read a lot. I'm happy that you're enjoying the virtual sailing. I had such fun writing this that I'm writing an entire story of it set between the two movies, "Crossing the Bar". Now that has some raving sailing!
I envy you living by the ocean. I spent one summer by the sea, but mostly I live in landlocked prairie country. I've only sailed on the ocean once, and really it was a bay, and the current was as strong as the wind, so we sailed along merrily and didn't even move. We finally had to get out and tow the boat to shore to get anywhere!
Thank you for all the great feedback.
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Date: 2006-08-08 03:33 am (UTC)And I've read all 18 chapters of Crossing the Bar. I'm fly-by reviewing, so I'll get to it eventually. I will say this though, "raving sailing" is the mother of all understatements!
I live just outside of Boston, Massachusetts, and spent most summers growing up on Cape Cod. Hence, I got to see all those richer than God take their pleasure yachts for a spin through Vinyard Sound. Sometimes it looked like the Tall Ships races out there! I've known what I'd do if ever I won the lottery since I was about 10 years old.
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Date: 2006-08-08 05:35 am (UTC)