Disclaimer: All I get from this is a pathetic sense of achievement. Disney owns Pirates of the Caribbean, I mean no harm with the writing of this oneshot; it is meant purely for entertainment. Neither do I own the incorporated (and slightly adapted) JFK quote, which is quite obvious seeing as he said it about twenty odd years before I was even born. Please review, thank you.
We Lay to Fiddler's Green
Yo ho, haul together,
Hoist the colours high.
Heave ho,
Thieves and beggars,
Never shall we die.
The king and his men
Stole the queen from her bed
And bound her in her bones.
The seas be ours
And by the powers
Where we will we'll roam.
Yo ho, haul together
Hoist the colours high.
Heave ho,
Thieves and beggars,
Never shall we die.
Some men have died
And some are alive
And others sail on the sea
With the keys to the cage…
And the Devil to pay
We lay to Fiddler's Green!
The bell has been raised
From it's watery grave
Do you hear its sepulchral tone?
We are a call to all,
Pay heed the squall
And turn you sail toward home!
Yo ho, haul together,
Hoist the colours high.
Heave ho,
Thieves and beggars,
Never shall we die…
He had always loved the sea. He didn't know why it was so, he just knew it was. To be at sea was to be at peace with himself he mused, to be at sea was to be free and that was all he wanted.
Life had begun for him in Southampton as the son of a dock worker. Many a day he would sit atop a barrel and watch the ships arrive in port, unload their cargo and leave soon after, taking back with them whatever they were paid to carry. He often wished to be aboard one of those ships, to seek out adventure and live life on the high seas. His father told him great tales, stories of blood thirsty buccaneers plundering and pillaging the ports of the world, creating havoc and revelling in the riches that filled the gorged hulls of their gargantuan tall ships. He knew what they did was wrong but piracy seemed to him to be the most exciting adventure of all, and whereas the Navy offered good morals and an honourable way to live, piracy offered freedom and it was freedom his father longed for him to have.
But as time passed, he soon came to the realisation that some people were not meant to embrace their dreams and so life went on, him sitting and watching his father work and ships dock daily, his dreams and wishes remaining nothing more than whispers of his heart and soul.
Or so he thought.
His father's chance encounter with a pirate captain who had secretly put in at Southampton Port under the guise of an honest merchant led to his becoming a cabin boy. It was a hard day's work and never usually ended once the sun had set and gloam veiled the skies; errand after errand, order after order found him running about the glorious wooden deck of his captain's galleon, famished, sweaty and ready for his hammock but unwilling to rest and leave the vast ocean out of his sight even for a few hours. Of course he could hear it down below, the waves slapping against the hull, the bobbing of the ship as it crested swell after swell, the cry of the gulls circling in the air above them; the humming of the wind that often became a throaty roar pulling them from their hammocks. He loved the sounds dearly, but what he loved most of all was the feel of the sun upon his back and the sea spray misting the bare skin of his face and torso. To him, that was the feeling of freedom and there was nothing else like it in the whole world.
Many of the crew mocked him, teased him because of his young age and scrawny appearance- his desire to be a pirate. Most of them had resorted to piracy because they had nothing else, he was one of the few that had dreamt of such a life and chased it. They commented regularly on how he was too small, too young to be a pirate of any worth, that he would have to grow another foot before he could even be known as a buccaneer.
His was a glorious, marvellous life so far apart from all he had known back in England living with his mother and father and three younger sisters in a small house not a stone's throw from the docks.
But just as quickly as it had started, it ended.
Like a tidal wave, news of the expansion of The East India Trading Company's power and influence over the seas of the Earth had been discovered by all whom it mattered to. Lord Cutler Beckett's Armada was growing with rapid fervour with each victory securing the fate of hapless pirates everywhere to dance the jig of the Hangman's noose. The end of the age of piracy seemed nigh, but some still held hope- they weren't all dead just yet.
He had hope, but he would not be one of the lucky ones.
They had been thirty leagues out of Santiago the day their ship was captured and taken prisoner by the company. His captain, his idol, had refused to give up his ship and crew, and so found himself with a lead ball between his eyes and blood coating the polished deck of his beloved ship.
And now he stood upon the gallows, his fellow pirates lined up either side of him and waiting down below for their turns to meet the caustic rope. The Hangman had obviously not reckoned on having to concern himself with someone so much shorter than the rest, for the cabin boy did not reach the noose; the Hangman had to find a barrel for him to stand on.
The piece of eight was a solid, cold mass within his shackled hands, a reminder of who he was, all he had been and all he had ever dreamt of. And as he played with it, the silver piece being turned over and over again, he was certain he could feel the rhythmic thrum of the Brethren's shanty pulse into his fingers and flow through his veins.
That had been what made his captain leave Santiago, the song of the first Brethren Court was calling those members of the Brethren of the Coast to sail home to Shipwreck City; that was where they had been headed but never had the chance to reach.
"The king and his men
Stole the queen from her bed
And bound her in her bones.
The seas be ours
And by the powers
Where we will we'll roam…"
The words left his mouth as a soft half mumbled-half sung afterthought. There was a message within those words but he was yet to work it out. But what they gave him was a new found strength he did not know he had. For days he had fought away a fear the swirled inside him but could never be defeated. It was a lingering fear of death, a fear of the unknown, a fear of failure- that he had not tasted the true freedom his father had sent him after.
He had known that death was all part of the adventure, that sooner or later he would face it and one day succumb to it as all men do, but even so, he wished that it had not come so soon.
He thought of his mother and his father and his sisters and wondered if they would ever know what fate had befallen him. He hoped they wouldn't, he hoped they would think of him as becoming one of the greatest pirates who had ever lived; who had tasted the greatest treasures freedom could offer.
"Yo ho, haul together
Hoist the colours high.
Heave ho,
Thieves and beggars,
Never shall we die…"
He thought of Fiddler's Green, the happy land of perpetual mirth where a fiddle never stops playing and the dancers never grow tired. He wondered if there was such a place as that paradise dreamt of by both sailors and pirates alike and if he would ever get to see it. Was that where seafarers journeyed to once their earthly lives had ended? He hoped so, it sounded like one of the most beautiful places imaginable to him.
The barrel on which the Hangman had stood him was slightly unbalanced, subtly tipping forward and causing him battle to stay upright.
The words of the Navy Officer repeated in his mind as his companions joined in his singing of the shanty, creating a cacophony of passionate strength that destroyed the fear and remorse they were meant to feel as they stood their awaiting death.
"These pirates shall be sentenced to hang by the neck until dead."
Pirates.
Pirates.
Flashes, memories.
"Ye're too small to be a pirate!"
"The most ye'll ever be is shark bait!"
"The boy wants to be a pirate! Ye hear that lads?! This little blighter thinks he's the next Jack Sparrow!"
"These pirates shall be sentenced to hang by the neck until dead."
"May God have mercy upon your souls."
"Repent and be welcomed at the gates of Saint Peter! God is forgiveness! Retake your rightful place in Heaven! Repent while you are still able!"
His posture straightened, his head held high as he came to one final realisation.
He had always loved the sea. He didn't know why it was so, he just knew it was. He remembered his captain telling him how all men have in their veins the exact same amount of salt in their blood that exists in the ocean, and therefore have the salt in their blood, their sweat and their tears. His captain believed that all men are tied to the ocean and when they go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it, they are going back from whence they came.
Perhaps that was why he loved it so, it was a part of him, in his blood never to leave.
"Repent and be welcomed at the gates of Saint Peter! God is forgiveness! Retake your rightful place in Heaven! Repent while you are still able!"
He could still hear the priest calling out to them as they passed by, making that final walk towards the gallows.
His lips turned up in a small, barely visible smile; he sung louder with unbreakable pride.
"Yo ho, haul together
Hoist the colours high.
Heave ho,
Thieves and beggars,
Never shall we die…"
He had no need for heaven.
For he was a pirate, and he had Fiddler's Green.