Fic: Crossing the Bar (17/?)
Jul. 23rd, 2006 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
honoratAuthor: Honorat
Rating: PG-13 for language
Characters: Jack Sparrow, Gibbs, Anamaria, the crew of the Black Pearl
Pairing: Jack/Anamaria if you squint
Disclaimer: The characters of PotC! She’s taken them! Get after her, you feckless pack of ingrates!
Summary: Jack begins to plot. How can he commandeer an armed and fighting Navy warship when he has no guns? The chase continues. The Navy pursues. The Black Pearl is falling apart. Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Norrington has finally got the Black Pearl trapped. Jack is bound to do something crazy, but will it be the last thing he does?
Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
geek_mama_2 for the beta help.
1 Ambush
2 No Regrets
3 The Judgment of the Sea
4 The Sea Pays Homage
5 Risking All That Is Mortal and Unsure
6 Troubles Come Not Single Spies
7 To Dare Do All That May Become a Man
8 Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
9 A Special Providence in the Fall
10 For Where We Are Is Hell
11 To Beat the Surges Under and Ride Upon Their Backs
12 One Equal Temper of Heroic Hearts
13 Though the Seas Threaten, They are Merciful
14 He Jests at Scars Who Never Felt a Wound
15 To Strive, To Seek, To Find, And Not To Yield
16 A Kind of Alacrity in Sinking
* * * * *
17 A Fine-Baited Delay
The last spent light of that dreadful day seeped weakly through broken panes of glass and shot-crazed timbers, running a soft brush of pale grey over the two injured sleepers in the captain’s bed. Into this scene, so still and funereal, Captain Jack Sparrow sparked and crackled like the flare of a flintlock before the powder ignites.
“Awake, you drunken slugabeds!” he caroled. “Now is not the time for inebriated snores, me hearties! Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me!”
Gibbs winced, sincerely pitying the two with all his heart. After all their suffering, sleep would have been a blessing could they have afforded the luxury. But Jack was worse than a young cockerel at dawn when it came to letting sleeping pirates lie.
Duncan, who’d been out the longest, began to stir the first, his peaceful, quiet snores becoming snagged and snorting.
“So sorry t’ have spoilt your nap, mate,” Jack apologized unrepentantly. “But your presence is required at the Black Pearl’s high council of war. Your conscious presence that is.”
Duncan’s eyelids clenched more tightly, then flickered muzzily open. “Wha?” he said intelligently. Then he groaned.
At least it was nearly dark in the room. Gibbs figured he’d have quite the head on him after all that rum. Light would have been superfluous agony.
“Give the man a pint o’ Adam’s ale,” Jack instructed his quartermaster.
They’d made a side trip to carefully draw off some of their precious fresh water, knowing that both Duncan and Anamaria would be in need of something for thirst. Gibbs wasn’t sure he’d ever filled his flask with anything so prosaic before.
“Alas, it’s not coffee,” Jack lamented, “nor tea. That’s all been contaminated. And besides, the stove’s broke. But it’ll do ye good. So drink up, there’s a fine lad.”
In an uncomprehending haze, Duncan did as he was bid, gulping the water down methodically. Gradually, his eyes started to clear, although he did not look like he was enjoying the process of becoming more alert. “Who you callin’ a lad?” he growled at his captain.
Jack peered at him, the whites of his wide eyes gleaming in the gloom. “I was navigatin’ m’ first ship while you were still in little wee dresses, Duncan, me lad. You are never goin’ t’ catch up.”
“Humph,” Duncan said under his breath. “Din’t know they let babies navigate.” But then he subsided. A man suffering the aftereffects of that much rum had a poor sense of self-preservation if he took on a sober Jack Sparrow in a battle of wits, and Duncan was no fool. Besides, a new development seized his attention as he figured out just exactly which of his fellow pirates he was sharing a bed with. “Oh shit!” he exclaimed, lurching towards the cabin side, as far away from Anamaria as he could get without sliding through a crack in the planking and clinging to the exterior of the hull.
Jack began to laugh, then thought better of it and smirked. “No worries, mate. She’ll not bite this time. And think of the stories ye’ll have t’ tell! Sharin’ the captain’s bed with the first mate! They’ll all be in awe of you!” A thoughtful look crossed his face. “Even I haven’t done that.” He glanced guardedly at the somnolent Anamaria.
The honour or the notoriety did not appear to tempt Duncan, who began edging off the end of the bed with extreme caution. As soon as his boots touched the deck, he was up and across the room with great alacrity, in spite of his broken arm and stitches.
“Not bad, for a man with a hangover like you must have,” Jack said admiringly. “Pull up a chair—lad—and put your anchor down.”
“Aye, aye, old man,” Duncan saluted snidely, seating himself with the table safely between himself and the first mate. “Now what’s in the wind? I take it from the fact that we’re even havin’ this conversation that we didn’t get shot t’ hell by the Dauntless?”
“Oh, we most certainly did,” Jack said airily enough, though Gibbs noted his fingers never stopped exploring a deep gouge in the table top, mapping its length and breadth by touch. “But we’re tryin’ not t’ notice. Just givin’ hell a run for its money right about now. The devil’s takin’ us down a piece at a time.”
Duncan looked confused, so Gibbs quickly preempted whatever bizarre narrative Jack had been about to tell, and filled Duncan in on a rough outline of their situation. Duncan looked grave when he’d finished. “Well, it’s better ‘n it could’ve been, but I’ve still seen prettier middens,” he commented thoughtfully. Looking up at the captain he asked, “And just what is it ye want me t’ be doin’ here?”
“You’re here t’ represent the crew’s opinion. And for a mere stripling, you’ve got a good head on your shoulders.” Jack observed Duncan’s rolled eyes consideringly. “Even if ye’ve pickled your brains with rum at the moment.”
“Grandfather,” said Duncan, “even with my rumhead, I can outthink your senile mind without half tryin’.”
Jack snorted in patent disbelief. “I’ve a kindness for ye, lad. So I’m goin’ to let that pass this time. But you just let me know if I’m goin’ too fast for you.”
Duncan leaned back in his chair. “Wake me when ye get t’ the point, old man.”
Jack grinned. “You’ll tell me how the crew’ll see this, Gibbs’ll tell me what bad luck it is, and Anamaria . . .” he glanced down at his first mate, leaned over and shook her shoulder a little. “Anamaria, love, are you with us?” Anamaria made a small noise combining a whimper and a growl and didn’t wake up. Jack straightened and shrugged his good shoulder. “Anamaria is here to tell me I’m a chowderheaded gudgeon and I’m like to get you all killed, except she’s goin’ t’ kill me first—have I about covered it?”
“Don’t forget the slap,” Duncan offered lazily.
“Right,” said Jack. He reached down and brushed a tangled snarl of hair away from Anamaria’s face. “Never mind, darlin’. You just keep sleepin’. I’ll slap meself.” He turned back to the men gathered at the table. In the dim light the fine details of his face faded into obscurity.
“You want me t’ get that lit?” Gibbs pointed to the lantern above the bed.
Jack shook his head with a faint chime. “No lights if we can help it. Not where they can see to target. I’m not makin’ this easy for them.”
As if to prove his point, the Pearl shook with a glancing blow from another of the Defender’s shots. Shards of glass on the floor of the cabin chimed and hissed, and the wooden splinters rattled.
Jack glared towards the stern, then leaned on the table with one hand. “Gentlemen,” he said earnestly. “It’s time we made some plans.”
“Plans for what?” Duncan asked.
Gibbs just shook his head and grimaced.
“Plans,” said Jack, “to acquire the materials and stores we need from the Royal Navy over on that little brig.”
“Oh,” Duncan said weakly. “Is that all?”
“That’s all,” Jack replied. “Shouldn’t be too much trouble t’ figure out for a bright spark like yourself, eh?”
“Oh, aye,” Duncan said, sarcasm thick in his voice.
“And now, Captain,” Gibbs voice was light on the deference and heavy on the acerbity, “we’re waitin’, hangin’ on your every word. You goin’ t’ enlighten us how you plan on takin’ a Navy warship—without any guns?”
“Or even any chickens?” Duncan added with a slow chuckle.
“I don’t plan on tryin’ to take her, gentlemen,” Jack glanced at his bed, “and lady.”
“But you said . . .” Gibbs spluttered. “Don’t tell me you’ve actually acquired some sense in your cockloft, Jack Sparrow!”
“Nothing of the sort, Mr. Gibbs.” Jack’s smile lit crazy gold fires in the dusky room. “I’m going to let the Defender take the Black Pearl.”
Silence met his statement like the sea in the eye of a storm.
Finally a single barely-audible voice broke its glassy surface. “Jack Sparrow, there been times when I hoped that head o’ yours held at least one shot of wit, but now I know ‘tis unloaded.”
The men glanced at each other. That hadn’t been any of them.
The captain grinned and turned to the lump in his bed. “Anamaria. Welcome back. I knew you’d say that. Here, let me prop you up so I can hear you lambast me better.”
In the end, he had to ask for help with that, since he couldn’t support her shoulders and plump cushions behind her back with only one hand. But with Gibbs’ assistance, Anamaria eventually achieved a rather wilted-looking semi-upright position. The only spark of life about her was her eyes, although even they were scarcely half her normal caliber.
Noticing her licking dry lips, Jack remembered. “Gibbs, give the lass some o’ that swill so she can talk proper.”
Anamaria accepted the flask from Gibbs, gripping it tightly with both hands. The stale, warm water tasted foul, but it was wet, which was all that mattered at the moment. Her head felt fuzzy and flat, as though she had a bale of cotton sitting on it. Her leg was clamouring to claim her attention, but she ignored it.
While she was making inroads on the water, Jack made an ostentatious production of seating himself in a tattered chair, attempting to put his boots up on the table in his favourite pose for briefing his inner circle. But when he received notice from his ribs that such a maneuver was contraindicated, he settled for a more prosaic attitude. Tilting his head, he watched his audience with bright, challenging eyes. Confounding his crew was one of the captain’s many perverse little amusements, and Anamaria, for one, was relieved to see he still had the spirit to do it.
“Now,” growled Gibbs, plunking himself down with the air of a man who will do violence if he doesn’t receive answers immediately, “will you get t’ tellin’ us just exactly why, after goin’ t’ such a mess of trouble t’ keep away from them Navy dogs, we’re goin’ t’ surrender? I thought we’d voted we weren’t doin’ that.”
“Who said anything about surrendering?” Jack asked indignantly. “This is just like huntin’ tigers, only we’re usin’ ourselves as bait. We only need to lure them close enough by lettin’ them think we’re an easy kill. Then . . .” he slapped his hand on the table loudly enough to make everyone jump, “then, they’ll be in our trap.”
His fellow pirates looked contemplative. There were possibilities in the captain’s suggestion.
With ardent persuasiveness, his voice as luring as any snare, Jack continued, “Even with a third of our men down, we’ll still outnumber the crew of a brig that size by nearly two to one. Granted, those aren’t great odds when they have firepower, and we have none. However, if they want to take the Pearl, their captain is goin’ t’ have to commit the greater portion of his crew to boarding. Which will leave his ship vulnerable. We’ll just sneak across and nab her!” he finished with a triumphant flourish.
“The boats are gone, Jack,” Gibbs pointed out with much-tried patience. “How you plannin’ on sneakin’ across? Seems the grapnels and planks’ll be a bit obvious.”
“That’s why we’re going to swim,” said Jack, as though anyone should have been able to figure that one out.
“Swim,” said Anamaria flatly.
“Swim?” asked Duncan incredulously.
“Did somebody let that parrot in here?” Jack made an exaggerated show of peering around. Finding no parrots he returned to the discussion, trying in frustration to illustrate his points with only one hand. “Yes. We’re going to swim. Those are Navy sorts. Most of ‘em don’t swim, so it’s not a tactic that springs trippingly t’ mind for ‘em. Why do you think I spent all that time drown-proofing this crew? Bunch o’ bloody superstitious sailors. You’d ‘ve thought that I’d ordered ‘em t’ commit suicide.”
“Won’t they notice a bunch o’ live people in the water?” Gibbs asked.
“We won’t be in the water. Not at first. These are the British, remember. They’re as dedicated to attacking from the windward side as if it were part of the Ten Commandments. So, to get close, they’ll come in to starboard and heave to. While the Defender’s crew is boarding the Pearl, we’ll drop out her larboard gunports, swim around t’ the stern of that brig, board over her taffrail and through her aft gunports, and likely have a three or four to one advantage over what men are left on that ship.”
There were gaps in that plan through which one could sail a first rate ship, and there were enough places where it could go wrong to give every one of Jack’s listeners a case of the chills. But the hail of objections died down gradually as it became obvious that no one could think of a better idea.
Finally Gibbs, who had an old tar's fervent distaste for saltwater unmediated by a ship’s hull, caved in. “All right,” he grumbled. “Supposin’ you’re right an’ we do manage t’ steal a boardin’ party onto that brig. Even imaginin’ you do succeed in commandeerin’ her, that still leaves the Pearl in Navy hands, don’t it? How ye plannin’ on dealin’ with that?”
“That’s where things get a little tricky,” Jack admitted.
A little tricky, the man said. Gibbs decided he’d never understand Jack Sparrow’s concept of the use of language. Communication clearly played no part in it. The way Gibbs saw it, the Black Pearl, left with her wreckage of a crew and the few men like himself who could only manage a frantic dog paddle for a very few moments, would be swarming with unfriendly British sailors and marines bristling with bayonets and pistols and swords and every manner of instrument designed to turn living flesh into dead or dying flesh. If they were extraordinarily lucky, Captain Sparrow, not so very undamaged himself, would be on that brig trying with all his twisted power over words to hoodwink the commander of the Defender into believing the pirates had the tactical advantage. But the only real advantage Jack would have would be if he succeeded in seizing control of the brig’s cannon, and then only if he were willing to use them. Now there was a thought that didn’t bear looking at too closely.
Nevertheless, Gibbs found himself asking the question: “If they won’t surrender, will you fire on the Pearl, Captain?”
Jack didn’t answer him immediately. When he did speak, his voice was flat and emotionless. “They’re goin’ t’ have to believe I will, won’t they?” He paused, bowing his head for a moment, his face shielded by the curtain of his hair. When he looked up, mad sparks gleamed in his eyes. “Nothing has changed, Gibbs. I’m not letting them have the Pearl if it means I have to take her down myself.”
No one spoke as the import of his words dropped and sank. None of them had ever considered what it might mean for Jack to be forced to destroy his own ship. The concept scarcely seemed to have any real significance.
“We can only pray that won’t be necessary,” Jack said at last with a sigh. “We’ll hope it only requires a small taste of hot lead to persuade them I mean what I say.”
Anamaria was the one to break what threatened to be an unending silence. “It seems to me, we’re gettin’ ahead of ourselves a bit here. Before you can board that ship, don’t we need to come up with a way to convince them to board us without doin’ the sensible thing and settlin’ down at a nice safe distance to blow us to kindling and shark bait first?
“You make a most salient point,” Jack agreed as though relieved to have the topic changed even by the introduction of another thorny difficulty. “Any suggestions as to how we perform said miraculous feat?”
“We could always strike colours,” Duncan offered slowly, as though his thoughts were still mired elsewhere.
“And give that symbol the lie? Is that what you’re suggestin’?” Jack asked. “Surrender and then attack?”
“We’re pirates. What does our word mean?” Duncan shrugged.
“Aye, we’re a scurvy lot.” The captain nodded. “But a lowered ensign assures a man of safety as he boards—means he don’t come over the top firing. If we stop observin’ it, we water it down. I’ll not be doin’ that, mates. If we ever need t’ ask quarter, I’d want it to be honoured. Besides,” he continued, “the Black Pearl is not going to strike her colours to the Royal Navy. Not this time. Not after all we’ve been through. So it’ll have t’ be some other form of deception.”
“Some lies are too much, even for a pirate?” Duncan quirked an eyebrow.
“Stupid lies,” Jack said firmly. “So find me a smart one.”
They did their best. Two chunks of former hull became the Pearl and the Defender as they played out different strategies. But every ploy came back to the same impasse. Any commander with the brains God gave an oyster would fire first and then come poking about the remains when he was good and sure there were next to no survivors.
As the small council of pirates continued to toss ideas into the air and sharpshoot them down, Captain Sparrow grew quieter and quieter, until he had withdrawn from the fray entirely. The shadows that were gradually devouring all colour and distinct shape in the cabin gathered around him until he seemed sunken in a darkness that touched none of the rest of them. Anamaria was the first to notice it.
“Jack?” she asked carefully. “What is it?”
The eyes he turned on her were blacker than stormy night, glittering fey and horrified. She did not think he saw her.
“Jack!” she demanded sharply. “Get back here! What’s wrong?”
Recognition seeped in, as though he were returning from some lost labyrinth of his mind. “No,” he said firmly.
The others looked at him blankly.
“Will somebody please slap that man?” Anamaria asked plaintively. “I can’t reach him.”
Three hands were raised, but Jack beat everyone else to it, smacking his own cheek smartly. His eyes warmed a little at Anamaria’s startled, quickly-muffled laugh. The tension that had suddenly weighed in on the room dissipated on a puff of air.
But the captain’s face remained uncharacteristically grave as he elaborated. “No, those plans will not work. None of them.”
“And why is that, old man?” Duncan asked.
“Because, lad,” Jack’s smile ghosted briefly, “we haven’t yet committed to what we have t’ do.”
A babble of protests arose at this accusation.
“What do you think we’re doin’ here, you daft fool?” Gibbs’ voice rose above the others
“You don’ t understand,” Jack persisted. “We’re lookin’ for a way we can deceive the Defender into believin’ we’re helpless when in fact we are not.”
“That was the general idea, yes,” Gibbs grunted. “Your general idea, if I remember right.”
“Well it won’t work,” Jack said. “They will come up on us, already wary of a trap. But they must not be suspicious. They must know we are helpless because, in fact, we are.”
Three sets of eyes narrowed at Jack threateningly.
“For the last time, Jack Sparrow,” Anamaria growled in exasperation. “Will you stop talkin’ in riddles and explain, before I shoot you to put us out of our misery!”
“Your powder’s wet, love.” Jack smirked, but his heart was clearly not in the banter. He sighed and laid his hand perfectly still and flat on the tabletop. “All right. I’ll be plain. I’m talkin’ about dismasting the Pearl.” He did not look at them, simply stared at his hand as the fingers curled up into a fist.
For once, no one could think of a word to say.
Finally Gibbs managed hoarsely, “Do you know what you’re sayin’?”
“Aye,” said Jack, his voice as drained of colour as the light, “I know.” He stood up, achingly slow, and moved to stand by one of the cabin windows, looking out at the last remnants of dusk, his hand tracing the framing. “It means we risk all on a single roll of the dice. They’ll believe their bombardment weakened our masts and the storm took ‘em down. They will believe their eyes because it will be the truth—the Pearl will be dead in the water. We will have only one chance. If we do not take the Defender, she will most certainly take us.” He turned back to meet their shocked eyes. “But we forfeit this game if we do not throw.”
Stunned silence answered him.
“Am I wrong?” the captain asked gently.
“You should be!” Gibbs found his tongue. “There’s bound t’ be somethin’ wrong with such a bloody nodcock bacon-brained scheme!”
It was bad enough that they should sacrifice their hard-won ground, but to cut off every chance of escape? To leave no second plan, no room to maneuver, no margin for error? And that Jack should suggest it, for whom the Black Pearl was the god of his idolatry—that convinced them, if nothing else had before, how truly dire was the condition of their ship.
They argued with him half-heartedly, tossing a few highly improbable alternatives around. But in the end, as night closed in and the Defender ceased fire in favour of running silent and listening hard, they gave in. First Duncan, then Gibbs, finally Anamaria.
At last Anamaria was alone in the cabin with the captain.
“Jack,” she asked. “Can you do this?”
He was silent for a long time. When he answered, his voice was level and controlled, but she could hear the dread and anguish rip through the center of his words like shot through canvas. “Have to, don’t I?”
* * * * *
TBC
18 To Watch the Night in Storms
Rating: PG-13 for language
Characters: Jack Sparrow, Gibbs, Anamaria, the crew of the Black Pearl
Pairing: Jack/Anamaria if you squint
Disclaimer: The characters of PotC! She’s taken them! Get after her, you feckless pack of ingrates!
Summary: Jack begins to plot. How can he commandeer an armed and fighting Navy warship when he has no guns? The chase continues. The Navy pursues. The Black Pearl is falling apart. Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Norrington has finally got the Black Pearl trapped. Jack is bound to do something crazy, but will it be the last thing he does?
Thanks to
geek_mama_2 for the beta help.1 Ambush
2 No Regrets
3 The Judgment of the Sea
4 The Sea Pays Homage
5 Risking All That Is Mortal and Unsure
6 Troubles Come Not Single Spies
7 To Dare Do All That May Become a Man
8 Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
9 A Special Providence in the Fall
10 For Where We Are Is Hell
11 To Beat the Surges Under and Ride Upon Their Backs
12 One Equal Temper of Heroic Hearts
13 Though the Seas Threaten, They are Merciful
14 He Jests at Scars Who Never Felt a Wound
15 To Strive, To Seek, To Find, And Not To Yield
16 A Kind of Alacrity in Sinking
* * * * *
17 A Fine-Baited Delay
The last spent light of that dreadful day seeped weakly through broken panes of glass and shot-crazed timbers, running a soft brush of pale grey over the two injured sleepers in the captain’s bed. Into this scene, so still and funereal, Captain Jack Sparrow sparked and crackled like the flare of a flintlock before the powder ignites.
“Awake, you drunken slugabeds!” he caroled. “Now is not the time for inebriated snores, me hearties! Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me!”
Gibbs winced, sincerely pitying the two with all his heart. After all their suffering, sleep would have been a blessing could they have afforded the luxury. But Jack was worse than a young cockerel at dawn when it came to letting sleeping pirates lie.
Duncan, who’d been out the longest, began to stir the first, his peaceful, quiet snores becoming snagged and snorting.
“So sorry t’ have spoilt your nap, mate,” Jack apologized unrepentantly. “But your presence is required at the Black Pearl’s high council of war. Your conscious presence that is.”
Duncan’s eyelids clenched more tightly, then flickered muzzily open. “Wha?” he said intelligently. Then he groaned.
At least it was nearly dark in the room. Gibbs figured he’d have quite the head on him after all that rum. Light would have been superfluous agony.
“Give the man a pint o’ Adam’s ale,” Jack instructed his quartermaster.
They’d made a side trip to carefully draw off some of their precious fresh water, knowing that both Duncan and Anamaria would be in need of something for thirst. Gibbs wasn’t sure he’d ever filled his flask with anything so prosaic before.
“Alas, it’s not coffee,” Jack lamented, “nor tea. That’s all been contaminated. And besides, the stove’s broke. But it’ll do ye good. So drink up, there’s a fine lad.”
In an uncomprehending haze, Duncan did as he was bid, gulping the water down methodically. Gradually, his eyes started to clear, although he did not look like he was enjoying the process of becoming more alert. “Who you callin’ a lad?” he growled at his captain.
Jack peered at him, the whites of his wide eyes gleaming in the gloom. “I was navigatin’ m’ first ship while you were still in little wee dresses, Duncan, me lad. You are never goin’ t’ catch up.”
“Humph,” Duncan said under his breath. “Din’t know they let babies navigate.” But then he subsided. A man suffering the aftereffects of that much rum had a poor sense of self-preservation if he took on a sober Jack Sparrow in a battle of wits, and Duncan was no fool. Besides, a new development seized his attention as he figured out just exactly which of his fellow pirates he was sharing a bed with. “Oh shit!” he exclaimed, lurching towards the cabin side, as far away from Anamaria as he could get without sliding through a crack in the planking and clinging to the exterior of the hull.
Jack began to laugh, then thought better of it and smirked. “No worries, mate. She’ll not bite this time. And think of the stories ye’ll have t’ tell! Sharin’ the captain’s bed with the first mate! They’ll all be in awe of you!” A thoughtful look crossed his face. “Even I haven’t done that.” He glanced guardedly at the somnolent Anamaria.
The honour or the notoriety did not appear to tempt Duncan, who began edging off the end of the bed with extreme caution. As soon as his boots touched the deck, he was up and across the room with great alacrity, in spite of his broken arm and stitches.
“Not bad, for a man with a hangover like you must have,” Jack said admiringly. “Pull up a chair—lad—and put your anchor down.”
“Aye, aye, old man,” Duncan saluted snidely, seating himself with the table safely between himself and the first mate. “Now what’s in the wind? I take it from the fact that we’re even havin’ this conversation that we didn’t get shot t’ hell by the Dauntless?”
“Oh, we most certainly did,” Jack said airily enough, though Gibbs noted his fingers never stopped exploring a deep gouge in the table top, mapping its length and breadth by touch. “But we’re tryin’ not t’ notice. Just givin’ hell a run for its money right about now. The devil’s takin’ us down a piece at a time.”
Duncan looked confused, so Gibbs quickly preempted whatever bizarre narrative Jack had been about to tell, and filled Duncan in on a rough outline of their situation. Duncan looked grave when he’d finished. “Well, it’s better ‘n it could’ve been, but I’ve still seen prettier middens,” he commented thoughtfully. Looking up at the captain he asked, “And just what is it ye want me t’ be doin’ here?”
“You’re here t’ represent the crew’s opinion. And for a mere stripling, you’ve got a good head on your shoulders.” Jack observed Duncan’s rolled eyes consideringly. “Even if ye’ve pickled your brains with rum at the moment.”
“Grandfather,” said Duncan, “even with my rumhead, I can outthink your senile mind without half tryin’.”
Jack snorted in patent disbelief. “I’ve a kindness for ye, lad. So I’m goin’ to let that pass this time. But you just let me know if I’m goin’ too fast for you.”
Duncan leaned back in his chair. “Wake me when ye get t’ the point, old man.”
Jack grinned. “You’ll tell me how the crew’ll see this, Gibbs’ll tell me what bad luck it is, and Anamaria . . .” he glanced down at his first mate, leaned over and shook her shoulder a little. “Anamaria, love, are you with us?” Anamaria made a small noise combining a whimper and a growl and didn’t wake up. Jack straightened and shrugged his good shoulder. “Anamaria is here to tell me I’m a chowderheaded gudgeon and I’m like to get you all killed, except she’s goin’ t’ kill me first—have I about covered it?”
“Don’t forget the slap,” Duncan offered lazily.
“Right,” said Jack. He reached down and brushed a tangled snarl of hair away from Anamaria’s face. “Never mind, darlin’. You just keep sleepin’. I’ll slap meself.” He turned back to the men gathered at the table. In the dim light the fine details of his face faded into obscurity.
“You want me t’ get that lit?” Gibbs pointed to the lantern above the bed.
Jack shook his head with a faint chime. “No lights if we can help it. Not where they can see to target. I’m not makin’ this easy for them.”
As if to prove his point, the Pearl shook with a glancing blow from another of the Defender’s shots. Shards of glass on the floor of the cabin chimed and hissed, and the wooden splinters rattled.
Jack glared towards the stern, then leaned on the table with one hand. “Gentlemen,” he said earnestly. “It’s time we made some plans.”
“Plans for what?” Duncan asked.
Gibbs just shook his head and grimaced.
“Plans,” said Jack, “to acquire the materials and stores we need from the Royal Navy over on that little brig.”
“Oh,” Duncan said weakly. “Is that all?”
“That’s all,” Jack replied. “Shouldn’t be too much trouble t’ figure out for a bright spark like yourself, eh?”
“Oh, aye,” Duncan said, sarcasm thick in his voice.
“And now, Captain,” Gibbs voice was light on the deference and heavy on the acerbity, “we’re waitin’, hangin’ on your every word. You goin’ t’ enlighten us how you plan on takin’ a Navy warship—without any guns?”
“Or even any chickens?” Duncan added with a slow chuckle.
“I don’t plan on tryin’ to take her, gentlemen,” Jack glanced at his bed, “and lady.”
“But you said . . .” Gibbs spluttered. “Don’t tell me you’ve actually acquired some sense in your cockloft, Jack Sparrow!”
“Nothing of the sort, Mr. Gibbs.” Jack’s smile lit crazy gold fires in the dusky room. “I’m going to let the Defender take the Black Pearl.”
Silence met his statement like the sea in the eye of a storm.
Finally a single barely-audible voice broke its glassy surface. “Jack Sparrow, there been times when I hoped that head o’ yours held at least one shot of wit, but now I know ‘tis unloaded.”
The men glanced at each other. That hadn’t been any of them.
The captain grinned and turned to the lump in his bed. “Anamaria. Welcome back. I knew you’d say that. Here, let me prop you up so I can hear you lambast me better.”
In the end, he had to ask for help with that, since he couldn’t support her shoulders and plump cushions behind her back with only one hand. But with Gibbs’ assistance, Anamaria eventually achieved a rather wilted-looking semi-upright position. The only spark of life about her was her eyes, although even they were scarcely half her normal caliber.
Noticing her licking dry lips, Jack remembered. “Gibbs, give the lass some o’ that swill so she can talk proper.”
Anamaria accepted the flask from Gibbs, gripping it tightly with both hands. The stale, warm water tasted foul, but it was wet, which was all that mattered at the moment. Her head felt fuzzy and flat, as though she had a bale of cotton sitting on it. Her leg was clamouring to claim her attention, but she ignored it.
While she was making inroads on the water, Jack made an ostentatious production of seating himself in a tattered chair, attempting to put his boots up on the table in his favourite pose for briefing his inner circle. But when he received notice from his ribs that such a maneuver was contraindicated, he settled for a more prosaic attitude. Tilting his head, he watched his audience with bright, challenging eyes. Confounding his crew was one of the captain’s many perverse little amusements, and Anamaria, for one, was relieved to see he still had the spirit to do it.
“Now,” growled Gibbs, plunking himself down with the air of a man who will do violence if he doesn’t receive answers immediately, “will you get t’ tellin’ us just exactly why, after goin’ t’ such a mess of trouble t’ keep away from them Navy dogs, we’re goin’ t’ surrender? I thought we’d voted we weren’t doin’ that.”
“Who said anything about surrendering?” Jack asked indignantly. “This is just like huntin’ tigers, only we’re usin’ ourselves as bait. We only need to lure them close enough by lettin’ them think we’re an easy kill. Then . . .” he slapped his hand on the table loudly enough to make everyone jump, “then, they’ll be in our trap.”
His fellow pirates looked contemplative. There were possibilities in the captain’s suggestion.
With ardent persuasiveness, his voice as luring as any snare, Jack continued, “Even with a third of our men down, we’ll still outnumber the crew of a brig that size by nearly two to one. Granted, those aren’t great odds when they have firepower, and we have none. However, if they want to take the Pearl, their captain is goin’ t’ have to commit the greater portion of his crew to boarding. Which will leave his ship vulnerable. We’ll just sneak across and nab her!” he finished with a triumphant flourish.
“The boats are gone, Jack,” Gibbs pointed out with much-tried patience. “How you plannin’ on sneakin’ across? Seems the grapnels and planks’ll be a bit obvious.”
“That’s why we’re going to swim,” said Jack, as though anyone should have been able to figure that one out.
“Swim,” said Anamaria flatly.
“Swim?” asked Duncan incredulously.
“Did somebody let that parrot in here?” Jack made an exaggerated show of peering around. Finding no parrots he returned to the discussion, trying in frustration to illustrate his points with only one hand. “Yes. We’re going to swim. Those are Navy sorts. Most of ‘em don’t swim, so it’s not a tactic that springs trippingly t’ mind for ‘em. Why do you think I spent all that time drown-proofing this crew? Bunch o’ bloody superstitious sailors. You’d ‘ve thought that I’d ordered ‘em t’ commit suicide.”
“Won’t they notice a bunch o’ live people in the water?” Gibbs asked.
“We won’t be in the water. Not at first. These are the British, remember. They’re as dedicated to attacking from the windward side as if it were part of the Ten Commandments. So, to get close, they’ll come in to starboard and heave to. While the Defender’s crew is boarding the Pearl, we’ll drop out her larboard gunports, swim around t’ the stern of that brig, board over her taffrail and through her aft gunports, and likely have a three or four to one advantage over what men are left on that ship.”
There were gaps in that plan through which one could sail a first rate ship, and there were enough places where it could go wrong to give every one of Jack’s listeners a case of the chills. But the hail of objections died down gradually as it became obvious that no one could think of a better idea.
Finally Gibbs, who had an old tar's fervent distaste for saltwater unmediated by a ship’s hull, caved in. “All right,” he grumbled. “Supposin’ you’re right an’ we do manage t’ steal a boardin’ party onto that brig. Even imaginin’ you do succeed in commandeerin’ her, that still leaves the Pearl in Navy hands, don’t it? How ye plannin’ on dealin’ with that?”
“That’s where things get a little tricky,” Jack admitted.
A little tricky, the man said. Gibbs decided he’d never understand Jack Sparrow’s concept of the use of language. Communication clearly played no part in it. The way Gibbs saw it, the Black Pearl, left with her wreckage of a crew and the few men like himself who could only manage a frantic dog paddle for a very few moments, would be swarming with unfriendly British sailors and marines bristling with bayonets and pistols and swords and every manner of instrument designed to turn living flesh into dead or dying flesh. If they were extraordinarily lucky, Captain Sparrow, not so very undamaged himself, would be on that brig trying with all his twisted power over words to hoodwink the commander of the Defender into believing the pirates had the tactical advantage. But the only real advantage Jack would have would be if he succeeded in seizing control of the brig’s cannon, and then only if he were willing to use them. Now there was a thought that didn’t bear looking at too closely.
Nevertheless, Gibbs found himself asking the question: “If they won’t surrender, will you fire on the Pearl, Captain?”
Jack didn’t answer him immediately. When he did speak, his voice was flat and emotionless. “They’re goin’ t’ have to believe I will, won’t they?” He paused, bowing his head for a moment, his face shielded by the curtain of his hair. When he looked up, mad sparks gleamed in his eyes. “Nothing has changed, Gibbs. I’m not letting them have the Pearl if it means I have to take her down myself.”
No one spoke as the import of his words dropped and sank. None of them had ever considered what it might mean for Jack to be forced to destroy his own ship. The concept scarcely seemed to have any real significance.
“We can only pray that won’t be necessary,” Jack said at last with a sigh. “We’ll hope it only requires a small taste of hot lead to persuade them I mean what I say.”
Anamaria was the one to break what threatened to be an unending silence. “It seems to me, we’re gettin’ ahead of ourselves a bit here. Before you can board that ship, don’t we need to come up with a way to convince them to board us without doin’ the sensible thing and settlin’ down at a nice safe distance to blow us to kindling and shark bait first?
“You make a most salient point,” Jack agreed as though relieved to have the topic changed even by the introduction of another thorny difficulty. “Any suggestions as to how we perform said miraculous feat?”
“We could always strike colours,” Duncan offered slowly, as though his thoughts were still mired elsewhere.
“And give that symbol the lie? Is that what you’re suggestin’?” Jack asked. “Surrender and then attack?”
“We’re pirates. What does our word mean?” Duncan shrugged.
“Aye, we’re a scurvy lot.” The captain nodded. “But a lowered ensign assures a man of safety as he boards—means he don’t come over the top firing. If we stop observin’ it, we water it down. I’ll not be doin’ that, mates. If we ever need t’ ask quarter, I’d want it to be honoured. Besides,” he continued, “the Black Pearl is not going to strike her colours to the Royal Navy. Not this time. Not after all we’ve been through. So it’ll have t’ be some other form of deception.”
“Some lies are too much, even for a pirate?” Duncan quirked an eyebrow.
“Stupid lies,” Jack said firmly. “So find me a smart one.”
They did their best. Two chunks of former hull became the Pearl and the Defender as they played out different strategies. But every ploy came back to the same impasse. Any commander with the brains God gave an oyster would fire first and then come poking about the remains when he was good and sure there were next to no survivors.
As the small council of pirates continued to toss ideas into the air and sharpshoot them down, Captain Sparrow grew quieter and quieter, until he had withdrawn from the fray entirely. The shadows that were gradually devouring all colour and distinct shape in the cabin gathered around him until he seemed sunken in a darkness that touched none of the rest of them. Anamaria was the first to notice it.
“Jack?” she asked carefully. “What is it?”
The eyes he turned on her were blacker than stormy night, glittering fey and horrified. She did not think he saw her.
“Jack!” she demanded sharply. “Get back here! What’s wrong?”
Recognition seeped in, as though he were returning from some lost labyrinth of his mind. “No,” he said firmly.
The others looked at him blankly.
“Will somebody please slap that man?” Anamaria asked plaintively. “I can’t reach him.”
Three hands were raised, but Jack beat everyone else to it, smacking his own cheek smartly. His eyes warmed a little at Anamaria’s startled, quickly-muffled laugh. The tension that had suddenly weighed in on the room dissipated on a puff of air.
But the captain’s face remained uncharacteristically grave as he elaborated. “No, those plans will not work. None of them.”
“And why is that, old man?” Duncan asked.
“Because, lad,” Jack’s smile ghosted briefly, “we haven’t yet committed to what we have t’ do.”
A babble of protests arose at this accusation.
“What do you think we’re doin’ here, you daft fool?” Gibbs’ voice rose above the others
“You don’ t understand,” Jack persisted. “We’re lookin’ for a way we can deceive the Defender into believin’ we’re helpless when in fact we are not.”
“That was the general idea, yes,” Gibbs grunted. “Your general idea, if I remember right.”
“Well it won’t work,” Jack said. “They will come up on us, already wary of a trap. But they must not be suspicious. They must know we are helpless because, in fact, we are.”
Three sets of eyes narrowed at Jack threateningly.
“For the last time, Jack Sparrow,” Anamaria growled in exasperation. “Will you stop talkin’ in riddles and explain, before I shoot you to put us out of our misery!”
“Your powder’s wet, love.” Jack smirked, but his heart was clearly not in the banter. He sighed and laid his hand perfectly still and flat on the tabletop. “All right. I’ll be plain. I’m talkin’ about dismasting the Pearl.” He did not look at them, simply stared at his hand as the fingers curled up into a fist.
For once, no one could think of a word to say.
Finally Gibbs managed hoarsely, “Do you know what you’re sayin’?”
“Aye,” said Jack, his voice as drained of colour as the light, “I know.” He stood up, achingly slow, and moved to stand by one of the cabin windows, looking out at the last remnants of dusk, his hand tracing the framing. “It means we risk all on a single roll of the dice. They’ll believe their bombardment weakened our masts and the storm took ‘em down. They will believe their eyes because it will be the truth—the Pearl will be dead in the water. We will have only one chance. If we do not take the Defender, she will most certainly take us.” He turned back to meet their shocked eyes. “But we forfeit this game if we do not throw.”
Stunned silence answered him.
“Am I wrong?” the captain asked gently.
“You should be!” Gibbs found his tongue. “There’s bound t’ be somethin’ wrong with such a bloody nodcock bacon-brained scheme!”
It was bad enough that they should sacrifice their hard-won ground, but to cut off every chance of escape? To leave no second plan, no room to maneuver, no margin for error? And that Jack should suggest it, for whom the Black Pearl was the god of his idolatry—that convinced them, if nothing else had before, how truly dire was the condition of their ship.
They argued with him half-heartedly, tossing a few highly improbable alternatives around. But in the end, as night closed in and the Defender ceased fire in favour of running silent and listening hard, they gave in. First Duncan, then Gibbs, finally Anamaria.
At last Anamaria was alone in the cabin with the captain.
“Jack,” she asked. “Can you do this?”
He was silent for a long time. When he answered, his voice was level and controlled, but she could hear the dread and anguish rip through the center of his words like shot through canvas. “Have to, don’t I?”
* * * * *
TBC
18 To Watch the Night in Storms
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Date: 2006-07-24 01:11 pm (UTC)I think Jack figures the Murphey's have been in charge long enough and it's time to boot them downstairs. I keep backing that poor man into corners where he's got to be demented to get out of them.
I'm glad you enjoyed Duncan's relationship with his captain and the cliffhanger. There are almost no chapters in this story that aren't cliffhangers, are there? I must get that looked at.
I do appreciate all your comments. Thank you so much. *bows*