Fic: Crossing the Bar (8/?)
May. 10th, 2006 08:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
honoratAuthor: Honorat
Rating: PG-13 for language
Characters: Commodore Norrington, Gillette, Groves, Jack Sparrow, 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: The battle begins. For all of you who’ve been waiting for Norrington to take a shot at the pirates, and with apologies to all of you who’ve been hoping I wouldn’t do this. 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
The shrilling of the boatswain’s pipe and the staccato drill of snare drums beating the crew to quarters vibrated above the roar of the storm that sank its teeth into the reefed topsails and rigging of the Dauntless. As the great ship shrugged her shoulders through the heavy seas, her entire crew leapt into action, the off-duty watches boiling from their berths, the thunder of boots rumbling up out of the hatches, the thud of bare feet running on decks and companionways. The sounds never failed to reach a fist into Commodore Norrington’s gut and take a half twist. For good or ill, he was sending his ship and his crew into combat. The wheel had been spun, and it remained to be seen whom Fortune would favour. For the first time, he was taking the Dauntless up against the Black Pearl when Jack Sparrow would have no choice but to engage instead of whirling his fleet ship, spitting insulting stern chasers, and lighting off for the horizon. He had no idea how that daft pirate would respond to this checkmate. There was nothing but the legend of terror left by Barbossa on which to base his estimate of that dark ship’s abilities in pitched battle. Damnation! How he hated working blind!
He paced the quarterdeck, the familiar orders rapid-firing like pistol cracks, oblivious to the pitch and roll of his ship as she drove hard towards their quarry in the wake of the Defender, ignoring the rain that was now annoyingly running inside his uniform into every nook and cranny of his body.
“All hands clear the ship for action! Run out the port battery!”
Choruses of “Aye, sir’s” echoed as his commands were passed along. Every sailor, every marine, every gunner hurried to his combat position. His men knew their grim work well. The commodore could feel the tremors through the soles of his feet as the bulkheads on the two upper gundecks fell away, the gunports slammed open, and the hungry sakers sprang from their confinement. Rivers of bright red marines coagulated at their battle stations. Norrington could hear the gun crews straining against creaking tackles and handspikes to lever their charges into position.
Down in the belly of the ship, powder monkeys scurried to the opening in the dampened woolen screen before the magazine entrance, carefully receiving the cloth-covered cartridges of black powder through it. Once in possession of the perilous substance, they shielded the cartridges from rain and sparks within their jackets as they ran to their respective guns, beginning the stockpiles.
In the gray light flooding each of the gundecks, loaders rammed the death-dealing cartridges and shot into the smooth bores of the cannons—roundshot to hole the pirate ship’s hull and blast her decks, grape- and canistershot to chew her crew and sails to ragged shreds, even some chainshot from captured French vessels to crack her masts and pull down her rigging. Commodore Norrington was not going to let 90 years of failed British Naval doctrine stand between himself and this prize. Then the entire gun crews heaved their backs into the task of running out the grim black muzzles. When the orders were given, they would train those well-blooded, pirate-hunting guns on the Black Pearl and touch fire to that powder. Norrington observed the organized commotion with satisfaction. He had tested and tried these men, brought them through many fierce skirmishes, and he would be willing to wager there wasn’t another crew in the Royal Navy that could match them for speed and accuracy.
He had men to spare for these tasks since the lower gunports would have to remain closed during this engagement. The loss of those 32-pounders was regrettable. The more lead he could pound into that ship from farther away, the greater his chances of success in this venture. However, at thirty yards even his 18-pounders would be sufficient to drive round shot through a yard or more of hardwood. That range would unfortunately work just as well for Sparrow. Most pirates did not sail large, heavily-armed vessels. In this, as in so many other things, Sparrow was the exception. The Pearl bristled with twenty guns to a side, and all of her starboard battery could be run out on her windward flanks as she heeled hard over. With the weather gage, the Dauntless would be burying her lower ports in the heavy seas. She might be forced to meet the Pearl on nearly equal terms if they could only utilize her top two decks.
In preparation for what the commodore feared would be very warm work, the wardrooms were being cleared to receive the wounded and dying, and the ship’s surgeon, Samuels, was laying out his instruments. The sanded decks awaited the wash of blood.
The commodore’s responsibility. This was the price James Norrington had agreed to pay when he’d accepted this commission. He’d paid it before and doubtless would again very soon, now. The commodore knew he would have to close with the Pearl if he hoped to take her.
With swift grace Norrington ascended the steps to the poop deck in order to confer with his helmsmen. “Mr. Mickel, Mr. Arrington, as soon as the Black Pearl makes it past the Defender, I want you to come up on the wind and lay us alongside her. Get as close as we can afford in these seas.”
The stage was nearly set for this epic clash of Titans. One thing remained for him to arrange—stationing the men whose duty would be to trim sails for battle maneuvering and to clear the Black Pearl’s decks with musket fire in close action. That would be a task best delegated to his first lieutenant.
As though reading his commanding officer’s mind, the young man materialized at his side. His eyes shone with that fey light they always had before combat. His stillness seemed to overlay a seething energy.
“Sharpshooters to the top, Gillette,” Norrington ordered.
“Aye sir.” Gillette nodded briskly. He turned and shouted for the marine sergeant, but discovered the canny man already approaching him.
“Ah, Bevington. Just the man I was looking for,” the lieutenant said. “Take your section to the maintop.”
“Aye, Lieutenant.” The sergeant turned, intent on carrying out his orders.
Norrington hesitated a moment, undecided. Then he took a half-hitch on his determination and hauled in tight. If they were going to do this at all, then they must do it right.
“Mr. Bevington.”
His words halted the marine sergeant. Gillette, too, pivoted back and raised a curious brow.
“Aye, sir?” Bevington responded.
Duty demanded he do this. Norrington took a deep breath. This was war, after all. He reminded himself that he was eliminating a pirate threat, not betraying an acquaintance. Steadily, as though it meant nothing to him how a man died, he gave the orders. “The pirate captain—Jack Sparrow—tell your men to look for him at the helm of the Black Pearl. He’s often there when the going gets heavy.”
It was done. Norrington let out his breath. After all, it was not unlikely that Sparrow’s sharpshooters would have instructions to keep a sharp eye out for the commodore.
Bevington tipped him a quick salute. “Aye, sir. I’ll let ‘em know.”
The man trotted off to fulfill his given duties. Norrington and Gillette exchanged sober glances. Gillette gave a short understanding nod. He knew this had never been an easy hunt for the commodore.
Letting his breath out slowly, Norrington attempted to speak more briskly. “Lieutenant, You’ll be leading the boarding party should one become necessary. See that the marines are furnished with pikes, cutlasses, and pistols.”
“Of course, Commodore.” Lieutenant Gillette’s expression intensified. It was no enviable job to meet desperate men, hand to hand, in the cramped quarters of a ship, but a victory would likely bring him the captaincy of the prize. And a pirate ship such as the Black Pearl would likely be a rich prize indeed. Norrington noticed a hungry look in Gillette’s eyes. Good. He couldn’t ask for a more motivated commander for this expedition.
When the lieutenant had departed, Norrington stared after him. He prayed that this battle would take as little human toll as possible. He prayed that his men would live.
* * * * *
“I’m not giving orders on this one, gentlemen,” Captain Sparrow announced, standing alone at the break of the poop deck, the wind whipping his rain-drenched great coat and dashing his ornamented hair against his face. He brushed the wild strands aside, but they promptly returned, leaving stinging marks on his skin. “This is a job for volunteers.”
The crew selected to bend on the sails tossed uneasy glances back and forth amongst themselves. They’d hauled the tons of bundled sails up on the decks. They’d bent on the gantlines and attached them to those sails. But who, in his right mind, would choose to crawl out on the ends of those bucking yards in order to attempt to attach the head earrings? Standing on the footropes was one thing—body braced against a yard and pressed against it by the wind. Perching, straddled on a narrow yard end with one leg hooked around the brace and the other swinging in space as the ship tried to lay down into the sea and the wind strove to tear away that fragile connection between man and spar was an entirely different matter. Fortunately Jack Sparrow specialized in talking people out of their right minds.
The captain did not resist the silence with impatience. Instead, he watched his men, seeing the reluctance that was born of real self-doubt, sifting it from the paralyzing fear. He did not need men forced against their will on this deadly task. What the undertaking required was sheer gritty determination. It called for men who would take their fear in their teeth and crush it, drawing strength from its blood. He needed men who understood at the bottom of their souls that every man died once and what mattered was the way of it and not the when. He needed men who saw their deaths in those two ships nearly upon them now, and who were willing to pay the price to give the rest of their mates a chance. He needed men who were just a touch mad. And above all he needed men on whom Fortune smiled.
He grinned at the pale faces, etched with exhaustion and dread. “Anyone feelin’ ‘specially lucky today?” he asked whimsically.
The first man to step forward was Requin. He looked as if half of him wanted to back up and run, but he stood his ground.
“Wind in your sails, eh lad?” Captain Sparrow asked, the corners of his mouth curving up.
Requin took a deep breath. “Aye, sir,” he said almost firmly, pressing his lips together.
The captain gripped him by the shoulder and nodded. “Good man.” Keeping a supporting hand on the boy, Jack scanned the rest of his men. “Anyone else willing to keep him company?”
No one was more astonished than Ragetti himself when he raised a tentative hand and joined Requin. He was still afraid. His arms still felt the burn of that breakaway yard. But he was really undamaged. Pain could be ignored. He only knew he would do anything for a chance at approval again.
Captain Sparrow lifted a quizzical eyebrow. This development was certainly unexpected.
“Y’ great blitherin’ idiot!” Pintel hissed, cuffing Ragetti on the arm. “Now look what ye’ve done t’ us! One bloody big save, an’ ye think ye’re a blasted hero!”
“I-I-I’m s-s-sorry,” Ragetti began, cringing back in the old way.
“Don’t be,” Jack Sparrow told him. “You are ‘a blasted hero,’ Ragetti. Go up there and give ‘em hell. And Pintel,” he turned to the shorter man, “it’ll do you good to follow him for once.” Jack eyed the stocky pirate critically, with a crinkle of amusement at the corners of his eyes. “Ye look like ye could use the exercise, mate.”
With three men offering to take the dangerous yard ends, Captain Sparrow quickly filled the other three positions. Courage could be as contagious as fear. He had five square sails to hoist, but only one could go up each mast at a time.
Addressing his intrepid crewmembers, he ordered, “As soon as the men on the capstan haul that canvas up, you’ll stretch out the sails along the yards. The rest of you,” he turned to the others who would remain on the footropes, “light out the heads of the sails to them. When you’ve got ‘em tied up to the jackstays, the fun begins.”
The men exchanged wry glances. That could have been irony, but their captain probably would consider hanging about like a monkey in the rigging in the midst of a tempest to be fun. Too bad the man had broken ribs.
“Somehow,” Jack continued, “you’re goin’ t’ have t’ reeve and lead the running rigging before those sails shred themselves or take off for Calcutta. Every sail that goes just has to be run up again, so try to keep them in one piece. If that works, and I mean if, all sheets, braces, tacks and clew lines will have to be attached. They ain’t goin’ t’ want t’ be, if ye know what I mean,” he snorted.
His crew rolled their eyes or shrugged, depending on their characters. Anamaria just shook her head and winced. Crazy, futile action was vintage Jack Sparrow.
The captain turned as if he were finished, then pivoted back, waving his hand in afterthought. “Oh, and since our dear friends, the Royal Navy, will be trying to shoot you out of the trees, do your best to duck, and don’t let go of the ship.”
“We’ll do our best, Cap’n,” the grizzled Quartetto grimaced.
“Can’t ask more’n that,” Jack agreed. “Now off with you. Scoot.” He flapped an arm at them, his hand waving delicately. “Don’t forget to stay alive.”
* * * * *
“Commodore.”
Norrington turned to see Groves waving a spyglass in the direction of the pirate ship.
“Commodore, you should take a look at this,” his second lieutenant called.
As Norrington raised his own instrument, cursed, wiped the rain off the glass, raised it again and tried to focus on the pirate ship, Groves continued. “Sparrow is actually trying to bend on canvas in this gale, sir.”
Squelching the word “Impossible” with the resigned sense that it would never have any real application where Jack Sparrow was concerned, Norrington looked for himself.
Like fragile leaves on wind-lashed branches, Sparrow’s crewmen were clinging to the bare yards, dancing on the slippery, plunging footropes, reaching for the already furled sails being drawn up the masts, as spars might be, by the men on the capstan. Of all the insane, unlikely, ridiculous plans! It was not improving the commodore’s mood to realize that it just might work. Even as he watched, a tumble of canvas thunder-cracked from the Pearl’s main topsail yard, raging against the storm in self-destructive fury, forcing the pirates to battle it in a grim tug-of-war between their own survival and that of the sail.
How Sparrow had managed to force his men out on the ends of those whipping yards in that raving tempest, Norrington could only imagine. He must have had to threaten to shoot them—given them the option of certain death versus merely very likely death.
Whatever the means, the end was obvious. The Black Pearl was attempting the unattainable. Sparrow was going to run. He wasn’t going to succeed. The Dauntless would be on him before he had a chance to fill those new sails. But the magnificence of that effort quite took one’s breath away.
“I see,” he muttered, pocketing his glass.
Groves had that glowing look of admiration about him again, Commodore Norrington noticed grumpily.
“That’s got to be . . .” the man began.
“Stop it right there, lieutenant, unless you want to be broken back to midshipman!” Norrington snapped. “I don’t want to hear it.”
Groves grinned unrepentantly at his commanding officer. “Aye, sir. I’ll not bruise your tender sensibilities any longer. But forgive me for saying, sir, a hunter is allowed to appreciate the beauty of the stag.”
Norrington raised an eyebrow. “And just how much poaching did you do in your misspent youth, Mister Groves?”
“New World deer, sir,” his second lieutenant assured him virtuously. “Venison is a treat after months of salt horse and weevils—with a side dish of rat.”
“Go away, lieutenant,” Norrington shook his head with fond impatience. “Surely I’ve given you more than enough to do.”
“Aye, sir.” Groves saluted merrily and jogged off. No amount of rain or repressive superiors or bloody great black pirate ships with forty-some guns could quench that young man’s enthusiasm.
Commodore Norrington huffed a resigned laugh.
The commodore’s attention returned to the labouring pirate ship. He pulled out his glass and trained it again on his enemy, feeling an empathetic speeding of the pulse at the completely mad, utterly valiant battle of the pirates out on those yards. Then a flicker of black and white caught his eye. Switching his focus, he watched the wind spread the scrap of fabric that had signaled terror across the Caribbean—the skull and crossed sabers of the Black Pearl’s ensign. After that crossing of the bar, he hadn’t really expected Sparrow would surrender without a fight, but the evidence of that determination still had the ability to race his heart.
This was it. This would be the first real cross of blades between himself and Jack Sparrow since that aborted hanging. The first match between the Dauntless and the Black Pearl. The gauntlet had been thrown. In minutes, it would be picked up. The Defender was already sending aloft her meteor flag.
“Mr. Hastings,” Norrington lowered his glass and turned to one of the midshipman on the lee of the quarterdeck, “run up her colours.”
He squinted up into the rain as the red and white explosion on the blue field rattled up its line. This was their answer to Sparrow’s challenge—their firm commitment to tolerate no piracy, to spend their lives to protect the ships and shipping of the British Empire whatever the cost, and to fight to the bloody end to eliminate all threats to law and order. This was the emblem of his duty, the symbol of the ideals to which he had dedicated his life. Commodore Norrington drew fresh resolve from the ensign’s bright spark of colour against the gray sky.
* * * * *
Captain Sparrow remained motionless beside the Black Pearl’s helm, aware with every nerve and sinew of the changes going on around him as his crew contended with the tons of soaked canvas. The men sweating up those sails were repeatedly compelled to cease hauling, belay the lines and jump for the lifelines or rigging as the decks flooded with tons of overpowering water. They swam as much as they walked. The tiny figures out on her yards seemed every moment to be almost flung into the sea.
However, the captain never took his eyes off the approaching brig. The Black Pearl dwarfed her smaller opponent, but the little warship resembled nothing so much as an eager hound, closing in for the jugular of a great stag at bay. Or perhaps she was like the sharks he’d seen take down massive whales, sleek and deadly, all teeth and razored hide. She sliced through the high seas, an assassin’s blade aimed for his heart, her spars like crosses, masts raked forward as she ran under reefed topsails before the wind, rushing up the backs of waves and plunging down their glassy slopes amidst curtains of silver spray. So bloody beautiful.
When would she strike?
He was not going to be able to avoid letting her rake the Pearl’s bow. He could only hope the wind and the waves would limit the damage she could do before they were past. He knew that Royal Navy captain had to be expecting the Pearl to rake his stern with her overwhelming broadside as soon as she had sailed by; nevertheless, the man showed no hesitation. The gallant brig drove on.
If only he could grant his lady her wings! But even though his crew had just let fall her foretopsail and mainsail, want of tacks and sheets rendered them almost useless.
There was only an instant of warning when the mists of spray and rain that blurred the outline of the Navy brig lit carmine and gold and then plumes of smoke swallowed her entirely.
Her first shots were wide of the mark. The sea boiled with their impact. But then she drew in range.
“Down! All hands down!” shouted the lookout Jack had sent up to the crosstrees.
Then the rumble of firing guns trembled the Pearl’s deck.
The men hauling the lines to raise canvas dropped as though already struck. The deck resounded with the thud of their bodies. Those crewmen, unprotected aloft, grabbed hold with everything they had and hugged the yards. And then the world blew apart. Shards of rail and deck plates, splinters of deadly wood, joined iron projectiles in spraying across the Pearl’s decks. Shots cut away ropes and pierced wind holes through her sails.
Beside Cotton, Jack clenched one bone-whitened hand around the handle of his ship’s helm, his face twisted in a bare-teethed snarl.
* * * * *
Aboard the Dauntless, Commodore Norrington forgot to breathe. His eyes burned with the strain of watching the Defender challenge the infamous Black Pearl.
Walton was double- and triple-shotting his guns, making the most of his brief opportunity to rake the vulnerable bow of the Black Pearl with his thundering broadsides. Norrington could hear those cannon roaring death into the Pearl’s unprotected hull, the shot howling down the length of her decks, mowing down anything in its path, gouging 300 foot sprays of lethal splinters out of her planking.
However, no answering spurts of crimson fire spat back from the Black Pearl’s bow chasers. Her gunports remained resolutely fastened down. Her weatherdeck cannons crouched still and impotent in their restraints. He could only guess that something must have happened to her powder magazine.
Defenseless. Dear God! That ship was defenseless!
Never, in his most unachievable dreams had Norrington imagined such a scenario. The Royal Navy would not be fighting the Black Pearl this day, after all. It was to be a hunt and a slaughter. No wonder Sparrow was risking the lives of his crew to crack on all possible canvas to his crippled ship!
The commodore turned, a cold chill that had little to do with the wind on his rain- and spray-soaked uniform, prickling his neck. He prayed he never had to experience what Sparrow must be enduring now, facing a first rate ship of the line and an agile brig with a wounded and weaponless vessel. But he couldn’t afford to imagine too precisely the carnage happening at the moment nor that which was to come—not if he wanted to do his duty as he must. Norrington turned away from the sight of the tragedy being enacted before his eyes, the weight of his obligations crushing sharply into his shoulders.
Tactics and strategy. This was a question of tactics and strategy, not blood and bone. This was a question of duty and responsibility.
He had to order his men to wedge the fronts of half the gun carriages. The others would strike below the waterline to sink the pirate ship. There would be no point in aiming for her gundecks. Sparrow had all his men on her sails.
* * * * *
In the absence of the Pearl’s batteries of guns detonating, the concussive explosions of battle seemed muted, somehow, as though Jack were hearing them under water or from a greater distance. Every jolting impact that rippled the plates under his feet sent a resonating bolt through his heart. It had been so long since he’d had to force a ship to endure this kind of punishment. Jack Sparrow had always counted on the intimidation wielded by his dark lady and her reputation to castrate his victims’ will to fight. And when he had faced any opponent who had the ability and the resolution to really inflict damage, he had relied on the Black Pearl’s fleet cloud of canvas to outrace the fire.
This time he had no choice. His ship could neither run nor fight.
She shuddered around him again and again as the 12-pound roundshot slammed into her hull, blasting her railings, gashing her decks. She cried out with the voices of his men as grapeshot and shrapnel and flying slivers hailed across her decks, shredding into flesh, flinging bodies through the air with the heart-stopping bonelessness of puppets. Up on her yards his men fought to bend on new sails to provide her with the wings she needed to flee this horror. But around them whispered the deadly silken flights of the shot from Naval sharpshooters trying to pick them off. Their only salvation was the storm. With both ships climbing the tall slab-sided seas and rushing into the troughs, twisting and rolling, any sort of aim was next to impossible.
Jack could feel his brave ship fighting around him, rearing up her bowsprit to take shots that would damage her hull far less than her fragile crew, swinging her spars like a flinching horse away from the stinging shots that sought to drop her crew to her decks or the raging seas. But she could not save them all.
Each green sea that shipped over her decks washed up red in her scuppers.
The ache in his chest was beyond the pain of broken ribs, the sting in his eyes more than the effect of smoke and salt spray. The water on his face was—rain.
* * * * *
TBC
9 A Special Providence in the Fall
Rating: PG-13 for language
Characters: Commodore Norrington, Gillette, Groves, Jack Sparrow, 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: The battle begins. For all of you who’ve been waiting for Norrington to take a shot at the pirates, and with apologies to all of you who’ve been hoping I wouldn’t do this. 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
The shrilling of the boatswain’s pipe and the staccato drill of snare drums beating the crew to quarters vibrated above the roar of the storm that sank its teeth into the reefed topsails and rigging of the Dauntless. As the great ship shrugged her shoulders through the heavy seas, her entire crew leapt into action, the off-duty watches boiling from their berths, the thunder of boots rumbling up out of the hatches, the thud of bare feet running on decks and companionways. The sounds never failed to reach a fist into Commodore Norrington’s gut and take a half twist. For good or ill, he was sending his ship and his crew into combat. The wheel had been spun, and it remained to be seen whom Fortune would favour. For the first time, he was taking the Dauntless up against the Black Pearl when Jack Sparrow would have no choice but to engage instead of whirling his fleet ship, spitting insulting stern chasers, and lighting off for the horizon. He had no idea how that daft pirate would respond to this checkmate. There was nothing but the legend of terror left by Barbossa on which to base his estimate of that dark ship’s abilities in pitched battle. Damnation! How he hated working blind!
He paced the quarterdeck, the familiar orders rapid-firing like pistol cracks, oblivious to the pitch and roll of his ship as she drove hard towards their quarry in the wake of the Defender, ignoring the rain that was now annoyingly running inside his uniform into every nook and cranny of his body.
“All hands clear the ship for action! Run out the port battery!”
Choruses of “Aye, sir’s” echoed as his commands were passed along. Every sailor, every marine, every gunner hurried to his combat position. His men knew their grim work well. The commodore could feel the tremors through the soles of his feet as the bulkheads on the two upper gundecks fell away, the gunports slammed open, and the hungry sakers sprang from their confinement. Rivers of bright red marines coagulated at their battle stations. Norrington could hear the gun crews straining against creaking tackles and handspikes to lever their charges into position.
Down in the belly of the ship, powder monkeys scurried to the opening in the dampened woolen screen before the magazine entrance, carefully receiving the cloth-covered cartridges of black powder through it. Once in possession of the perilous substance, they shielded the cartridges from rain and sparks within their jackets as they ran to their respective guns, beginning the stockpiles.
In the gray light flooding each of the gundecks, loaders rammed the death-dealing cartridges and shot into the smooth bores of the cannons—roundshot to hole the pirate ship’s hull and blast her decks, grape- and canistershot to chew her crew and sails to ragged shreds, even some chainshot from captured French vessels to crack her masts and pull down her rigging. Commodore Norrington was not going to let 90 years of failed British Naval doctrine stand between himself and this prize. Then the entire gun crews heaved their backs into the task of running out the grim black muzzles. When the orders were given, they would train those well-blooded, pirate-hunting guns on the Black Pearl and touch fire to that powder. Norrington observed the organized commotion with satisfaction. He had tested and tried these men, brought them through many fierce skirmishes, and he would be willing to wager there wasn’t another crew in the Royal Navy that could match them for speed and accuracy.
He had men to spare for these tasks since the lower gunports would have to remain closed during this engagement. The loss of those 32-pounders was regrettable. The more lead he could pound into that ship from farther away, the greater his chances of success in this venture. However, at thirty yards even his 18-pounders would be sufficient to drive round shot through a yard or more of hardwood. That range would unfortunately work just as well for Sparrow. Most pirates did not sail large, heavily-armed vessels. In this, as in so many other things, Sparrow was the exception. The Pearl bristled with twenty guns to a side, and all of her starboard battery could be run out on her windward flanks as she heeled hard over. With the weather gage, the Dauntless would be burying her lower ports in the heavy seas. She might be forced to meet the Pearl on nearly equal terms if they could only utilize her top two decks.
In preparation for what the commodore feared would be very warm work, the wardrooms were being cleared to receive the wounded and dying, and the ship’s surgeon, Samuels, was laying out his instruments. The sanded decks awaited the wash of blood.
The commodore’s responsibility. This was the price James Norrington had agreed to pay when he’d accepted this commission. He’d paid it before and doubtless would again very soon, now. The commodore knew he would have to close with the Pearl if he hoped to take her.
With swift grace Norrington ascended the steps to the poop deck in order to confer with his helmsmen. “Mr. Mickel, Mr. Arrington, as soon as the Black Pearl makes it past the Defender, I want you to come up on the wind and lay us alongside her. Get as close as we can afford in these seas.”
The stage was nearly set for this epic clash of Titans. One thing remained for him to arrange—stationing the men whose duty would be to trim sails for battle maneuvering and to clear the Black Pearl’s decks with musket fire in close action. That would be a task best delegated to his first lieutenant.
As though reading his commanding officer’s mind, the young man materialized at his side. His eyes shone with that fey light they always had before combat. His stillness seemed to overlay a seething energy.
“Sharpshooters to the top, Gillette,” Norrington ordered.
“Aye sir.” Gillette nodded briskly. He turned and shouted for the marine sergeant, but discovered the canny man already approaching him.
“Ah, Bevington. Just the man I was looking for,” the lieutenant said. “Take your section to the maintop.”
“Aye, Lieutenant.” The sergeant turned, intent on carrying out his orders.
Norrington hesitated a moment, undecided. Then he took a half-hitch on his determination and hauled in tight. If they were going to do this at all, then they must do it right.
“Mr. Bevington.”
His words halted the marine sergeant. Gillette, too, pivoted back and raised a curious brow.
“Aye, sir?” Bevington responded.
Duty demanded he do this. Norrington took a deep breath. This was war, after all. He reminded himself that he was eliminating a pirate threat, not betraying an acquaintance. Steadily, as though it meant nothing to him how a man died, he gave the orders. “The pirate captain—Jack Sparrow—tell your men to look for him at the helm of the Black Pearl. He’s often there when the going gets heavy.”
It was done. Norrington let out his breath. After all, it was not unlikely that Sparrow’s sharpshooters would have instructions to keep a sharp eye out for the commodore.
Bevington tipped him a quick salute. “Aye, sir. I’ll let ‘em know.”
The man trotted off to fulfill his given duties. Norrington and Gillette exchanged sober glances. Gillette gave a short understanding nod. He knew this had never been an easy hunt for the commodore.
Letting his breath out slowly, Norrington attempted to speak more briskly. “Lieutenant, You’ll be leading the boarding party should one become necessary. See that the marines are furnished with pikes, cutlasses, and pistols.”
“Of course, Commodore.” Lieutenant Gillette’s expression intensified. It was no enviable job to meet desperate men, hand to hand, in the cramped quarters of a ship, but a victory would likely bring him the captaincy of the prize. And a pirate ship such as the Black Pearl would likely be a rich prize indeed. Norrington noticed a hungry look in Gillette’s eyes. Good. He couldn’t ask for a more motivated commander for this expedition.
When the lieutenant had departed, Norrington stared after him. He prayed that this battle would take as little human toll as possible. He prayed that his men would live.
* * * * *
“I’m not giving orders on this one, gentlemen,” Captain Sparrow announced, standing alone at the break of the poop deck, the wind whipping his rain-drenched great coat and dashing his ornamented hair against his face. He brushed the wild strands aside, but they promptly returned, leaving stinging marks on his skin. “This is a job for volunteers.”
The crew selected to bend on the sails tossed uneasy glances back and forth amongst themselves. They’d hauled the tons of bundled sails up on the decks. They’d bent on the gantlines and attached them to those sails. But who, in his right mind, would choose to crawl out on the ends of those bucking yards in order to attempt to attach the head earrings? Standing on the footropes was one thing—body braced against a yard and pressed against it by the wind. Perching, straddled on a narrow yard end with one leg hooked around the brace and the other swinging in space as the ship tried to lay down into the sea and the wind strove to tear away that fragile connection between man and spar was an entirely different matter. Fortunately Jack Sparrow specialized in talking people out of their right minds.
The captain did not resist the silence with impatience. Instead, he watched his men, seeing the reluctance that was born of real self-doubt, sifting it from the paralyzing fear. He did not need men forced against their will on this deadly task. What the undertaking required was sheer gritty determination. It called for men who would take their fear in their teeth and crush it, drawing strength from its blood. He needed men who understood at the bottom of their souls that every man died once and what mattered was the way of it and not the when. He needed men who saw their deaths in those two ships nearly upon them now, and who were willing to pay the price to give the rest of their mates a chance. He needed men who were just a touch mad. And above all he needed men on whom Fortune smiled.
He grinned at the pale faces, etched with exhaustion and dread. “Anyone feelin’ ‘specially lucky today?” he asked whimsically.
The first man to step forward was Requin. He looked as if half of him wanted to back up and run, but he stood his ground.
“Wind in your sails, eh lad?” Captain Sparrow asked, the corners of his mouth curving up.
Requin took a deep breath. “Aye, sir,” he said almost firmly, pressing his lips together.
The captain gripped him by the shoulder and nodded. “Good man.” Keeping a supporting hand on the boy, Jack scanned the rest of his men. “Anyone else willing to keep him company?”
No one was more astonished than Ragetti himself when he raised a tentative hand and joined Requin. He was still afraid. His arms still felt the burn of that breakaway yard. But he was really undamaged. Pain could be ignored. He only knew he would do anything for a chance at approval again.
Captain Sparrow lifted a quizzical eyebrow. This development was certainly unexpected.
“Y’ great blitherin’ idiot!” Pintel hissed, cuffing Ragetti on the arm. “Now look what ye’ve done t’ us! One bloody big save, an’ ye think ye’re a blasted hero!”
“I-I-I’m s-s-sorry,” Ragetti began, cringing back in the old way.
“Don’t be,” Jack Sparrow told him. “You are ‘a blasted hero,’ Ragetti. Go up there and give ‘em hell. And Pintel,” he turned to the shorter man, “it’ll do you good to follow him for once.” Jack eyed the stocky pirate critically, with a crinkle of amusement at the corners of his eyes. “Ye look like ye could use the exercise, mate.”
With three men offering to take the dangerous yard ends, Captain Sparrow quickly filled the other three positions. Courage could be as contagious as fear. He had five square sails to hoist, but only one could go up each mast at a time.
Addressing his intrepid crewmembers, he ordered, “As soon as the men on the capstan haul that canvas up, you’ll stretch out the sails along the yards. The rest of you,” he turned to the others who would remain on the footropes, “light out the heads of the sails to them. When you’ve got ‘em tied up to the jackstays, the fun begins.”
The men exchanged wry glances. That could have been irony, but their captain probably would consider hanging about like a monkey in the rigging in the midst of a tempest to be fun. Too bad the man had broken ribs.
“Somehow,” Jack continued, “you’re goin’ t’ have t’ reeve and lead the running rigging before those sails shred themselves or take off for Calcutta. Every sail that goes just has to be run up again, so try to keep them in one piece. If that works, and I mean if, all sheets, braces, tacks and clew lines will have to be attached. They ain’t goin’ t’ want t’ be, if ye know what I mean,” he snorted.
His crew rolled their eyes or shrugged, depending on their characters. Anamaria just shook her head and winced. Crazy, futile action was vintage Jack Sparrow.
The captain turned as if he were finished, then pivoted back, waving his hand in afterthought. “Oh, and since our dear friends, the Royal Navy, will be trying to shoot you out of the trees, do your best to duck, and don’t let go of the ship.”
“We’ll do our best, Cap’n,” the grizzled Quartetto grimaced.
“Can’t ask more’n that,” Jack agreed. “Now off with you. Scoot.” He flapped an arm at them, his hand waving delicately. “Don’t forget to stay alive.”
* * * * *
“Commodore.”
Norrington turned to see Groves waving a spyglass in the direction of the pirate ship.
“Commodore, you should take a look at this,” his second lieutenant called.
As Norrington raised his own instrument, cursed, wiped the rain off the glass, raised it again and tried to focus on the pirate ship, Groves continued. “Sparrow is actually trying to bend on canvas in this gale, sir.”
Squelching the word “Impossible” with the resigned sense that it would never have any real application where Jack Sparrow was concerned, Norrington looked for himself.
Like fragile leaves on wind-lashed branches, Sparrow’s crewmen were clinging to the bare yards, dancing on the slippery, plunging footropes, reaching for the already furled sails being drawn up the masts, as spars might be, by the men on the capstan. Of all the insane, unlikely, ridiculous plans! It was not improving the commodore’s mood to realize that it just might work. Even as he watched, a tumble of canvas thunder-cracked from the Pearl’s main topsail yard, raging against the storm in self-destructive fury, forcing the pirates to battle it in a grim tug-of-war between their own survival and that of the sail.
How Sparrow had managed to force his men out on the ends of those whipping yards in that raving tempest, Norrington could only imagine. He must have had to threaten to shoot them—given them the option of certain death versus merely very likely death.
Whatever the means, the end was obvious. The Black Pearl was attempting the unattainable. Sparrow was going to run. He wasn’t going to succeed. The Dauntless would be on him before he had a chance to fill those new sails. But the magnificence of that effort quite took one’s breath away.
“I see,” he muttered, pocketing his glass.
Groves had that glowing look of admiration about him again, Commodore Norrington noticed grumpily.
“That’s got to be . . .” the man began.
“Stop it right there, lieutenant, unless you want to be broken back to midshipman!” Norrington snapped. “I don’t want to hear it.”
Groves grinned unrepentantly at his commanding officer. “Aye, sir. I’ll not bruise your tender sensibilities any longer. But forgive me for saying, sir, a hunter is allowed to appreciate the beauty of the stag.”
Norrington raised an eyebrow. “And just how much poaching did you do in your misspent youth, Mister Groves?”
“New World deer, sir,” his second lieutenant assured him virtuously. “Venison is a treat after months of salt horse and weevils—with a side dish of rat.”
“Go away, lieutenant,” Norrington shook his head with fond impatience. “Surely I’ve given you more than enough to do.”
“Aye, sir.” Groves saluted merrily and jogged off. No amount of rain or repressive superiors or bloody great black pirate ships with forty-some guns could quench that young man’s enthusiasm.
Commodore Norrington huffed a resigned laugh.
The commodore’s attention returned to the labouring pirate ship. He pulled out his glass and trained it again on his enemy, feeling an empathetic speeding of the pulse at the completely mad, utterly valiant battle of the pirates out on those yards. Then a flicker of black and white caught his eye. Switching his focus, he watched the wind spread the scrap of fabric that had signaled terror across the Caribbean—the skull and crossed sabers of the Black Pearl’s ensign. After that crossing of the bar, he hadn’t really expected Sparrow would surrender without a fight, but the evidence of that determination still had the ability to race his heart.
This was it. This would be the first real cross of blades between himself and Jack Sparrow since that aborted hanging. The first match between the Dauntless and the Black Pearl. The gauntlet had been thrown. In minutes, it would be picked up. The Defender was already sending aloft her meteor flag.
“Mr. Hastings,” Norrington lowered his glass and turned to one of the midshipman on the lee of the quarterdeck, “run up her colours.”
He squinted up into the rain as the red and white explosion on the blue field rattled up its line. This was their answer to Sparrow’s challenge—their firm commitment to tolerate no piracy, to spend their lives to protect the ships and shipping of the British Empire whatever the cost, and to fight to the bloody end to eliminate all threats to law and order. This was the emblem of his duty, the symbol of the ideals to which he had dedicated his life. Commodore Norrington drew fresh resolve from the ensign’s bright spark of colour against the gray sky.
* * * * *
Captain Sparrow remained motionless beside the Black Pearl’s helm, aware with every nerve and sinew of the changes going on around him as his crew contended with the tons of soaked canvas. The men sweating up those sails were repeatedly compelled to cease hauling, belay the lines and jump for the lifelines or rigging as the decks flooded with tons of overpowering water. They swam as much as they walked. The tiny figures out on her yards seemed every moment to be almost flung into the sea.
However, the captain never took his eyes off the approaching brig. The Black Pearl dwarfed her smaller opponent, but the little warship resembled nothing so much as an eager hound, closing in for the jugular of a great stag at bay. Or perhaps she was like the sharks he’d seen take down massive whales, sleek and deadly, all teeth and razored hide. She sliced through the high seas, an assassin’s blade aimed for his heart, her spars like crosses, masts raked forward as she ran under reefed topsails before the wind, rushing up the backs of waves and plunging down their glassy slopes amidst curtains of silver spray. So bloody beautiful.
When would she strike?
He was not going to be able to avoid letting her rake the Pearl’s bow. He could only hope the wind and the waves would limit the damage she could do before they were past. He knew that Royal Navy captain had to be expecting the Pearl to rake his stern with her overwhelming broadside as soon as she had sailed by; nevertheless, the man showed no hesitation. The gallant brig drove on.
If only he could grant his lady her wings! But even though his crew had just let fall her foretopsail and mainsail, want of tacks and sheets rendered them almost useless.
There was only an instant of warning when the mists of spray and rain that blurred the outline of the Navy brig lit carmine and gold and then plumes of smoke swallowed her entirely.
Her first shots were wide of the mark. The sea boiled with their impact. But then she drew in range.
“Down! All hands down!” shouted the lookout Jack had sent up to the crosstrees.
Then the rumble of firing guns trembled the Pearl’s deck.
The men hauling the lines to raise canvas dropped as though already struck. The deck resounded with the thud of their bodies. Those crewmen, unprotected aloft, grabbed hold with everything they had and hugged the yards. And then the world blew apart. Shards of rail and deck plates, splinters of deadly wood, joined iron projectiles in spraying across the Pearl’s decks. Shots cut away ropes and pierced wind holes through her sails.
Beside Cotton, Jack clenched one bone-whitened hand around the handle of his ship’s helm, his face twisted in a bare-teethed snarl.
* * * * *
Aboard the Dauntless, Commodore Norrington forgot to breathe. His eyes burned with the strain of watching the Defender challenge the infamous Black Pearl.
Walton was double- and triple-shotting his guns, making the most of his brief opportunity to rake the vulnerable bow of the Black Pearl with his thundering broadsides. Norrington could hear those cannon roaring death into the Pearl’s unprotected hull, the shot howling down the length of her decks, mowing down anything in its path, gouging 300 foot sprays of lethal splinters out of her planking.
However, no answering spurts of crimson fire spat back from the Black Pearl’s bow chasers. Her gunports remained resolutely fastened down. Her weatherdeck cannons crouched still and impotent in their restraints. He could only guess that something must have happened to her powder magazine.
Defenseless. Dear God! That ship was defenseless!
Never, in his most unachievable dreams had Norrington imagined such a scenario. The Royal Navy would not be fighting the Black Pearl this day, after all. It was to be a hunt and a slaughter. No wonder Sparrow was risking the lives of his crew to crack on all possible canvas to his crippled ship!
The commodore turned, a cold chill that had little to do with the wind on his rain- and spray-soaked uniform, prickling his neck. He prayed he never had to experience what Sparrow must be enduring now, facing a first rate ship of the line and an agile brig with a wounded and weaponless vessel. But he couldn’t afford to imagine too precisely the carnage happening at the moment nor that which was to come—not if he wanted to do his duty as he must. Norrington turned away from the sight of the tragedy being enacted before his eyes, the weight of his obligations crushing sharply into his shoulders.
Tactics and strategy. This was a question of tactics and strategy, not blood and bone. This was a question of duty and responsibility.
He had to order his men to wedge the fronts of half the gun carriages. The others would strike below the waterline to sink the pirate ship. There would be no point in aiming for her gundecks. Sparrow had all his men on her sails.
* * * * *
In the absence of the Pearl’s batteries of guns detonating, the concussive explosions of battle seemed muted, somehow, as though Jack were hearing them under water or from a greater distance. Every jolting impact that rippled the plates under his feet sent a resonating bolt through his heart. It had been so long since he’d had to force a ship to endure this kind of punishment. Jack Sparrow had always counted on the intimidation wielded by his dark lady and her reputation to castrate his victims’ will to fight. And when he had faced any opponent who had the ability and the resolution to really inflict damage, he had relied on the Black Pearl’s fleet cloud of canvas to outrace the fire.
This time he had no choice. His ship could neither run nor fight.
She shuddered around him again and again as the 12-pound roundshot slammed into her hull, blasting her railings, gashing her decks. She cried out with the voices of his men as grapeshot and shrapnel and flying slivers hailed across her decks, shredding into flesh, flinging bodies through the air with the heart-stopping bonelessness of puppets. Up on her yards his men fought to bend on new sails to provide her with the wings she needed to flee this horror. But around them whispered the deadly silken flights of the shot from Naval sharpshooters trying to pick them off. Their only salvation was the storm. With both ships climbing the tall slab-sided seas and rushing into the troughs, twisting and rolling, any sort of aim was next to impossible.
Jack could feel his brave ship fighting around him, rearing up her bowsprit to take shots that would damage her hull far less than her fragile crew, swinging her spars like a flinching horse away from the stinging shots that sought to drop her crew to her decks or the raging seas. But she could not save them all.
Each green sea that shipped over her decks washed up red in her scuppers.
The ache in his chest was beyond the pain of broken ribs, the sting in his eyes more than the effect of smoke and salt spray. The water on his face was—rain.
* * * * *
TBC
9 A Special Providence in the Fall
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Date: 2006-05-14 11:15 pm (UTC)From the way the story has unfolded, it would have been a cheat if you hadn't made this a truly horrible gauntlet to run. But with the Pearl at a virtual standstill and most of her sails not even flying, let alone set to catch the wind, I don't know how she can get up the speed to get past the Navy boys. Am quite grateful for the storm-caused wind and rough seas impeding aim!