Author's Note: All etc. etc. belong to Disney. This is the first in a series of vignettes, some longer, some shorter, that take place during and after At World's End.
Defeat from the jaws of Victory
May 19th, 1729
Approximately 140 nautical miles east of the Kingdom of Siam
It was enough to make me want to tear the broad-brimmed hat – and the thrice-damned white wig that accompanied it – off of my head and throw it into the deeps. It had been a mistake for Lord Beckett to put his trust in the mercenaries and privateers that made up the majority of this "armada." It had been a mistake to divert six squadrons of the British Navy from their duties and drag them over hundreds or thousands of miles to chase this ragged "Brotherhood of Pirates." And it had certainly been a mistake of the first degree to put trust into that unholy witch-vessel and its devil Captain, and to risk the finest naval mind since Drake by assigning him to oversee the Flying Dutchman!
And now all I could do was grind my teeth in frustration as I paced the command deck of the Pride of Elizabeth, peering through my spyglass as the Dutchman and the Black Pearl circled each other like savage dogs in a pit-fight, caught in some kind of mystic maelstrom-from-nowhere. I didn't care overmuch about the crew of the Dutchman being lost into the depths – for one thing, I had seen that damned ship sail beneath the ocean on more than one occasion, and for another, it was only Company mercenaries and those strange demon pirates manning it – but His Majesty's Navy had a great asset in Admiral James Norrington, and it was foolish in the extreme for Lord Beckett to put it at such risk.
"We need Admiral Norrington on the Endeavor, directing the fleet, not babysitting pirates…" I muttered.
Unfortunately, my Executive Officer, a senior Leftenant named Daniel Morris, had sharp ears, and he strode across from the helm, his expression solicitous. I looked disapprovingly at the excess of finery and gold that adorned his frock jacket; the Company had been generous in providing the officers – both privateer and Royal Navy – with decorative uniforms and other perks and privileges. It's not-so-subtle attempt to buy the loyalties of His Majesty's naval officers annoyed me, not the least because they were, on the whole, more effective than not. My Executive Officer's coat was much finer and more ornate than my simple blue-and-white Captain's frock, and was a constant reminder that the Company and not the Crown was at the origin of my orders.
I hated it.
"What was that, Captain?" my second-in-command asked.
"Nothing of any import, Leftenant," I replied, probably more sharply than necessary. "Maintain our course and canvas, and inform the Gunnery officer to load the fine-grained powder into the long guns." I nervously gripped the small-sword at my hip and glanced at the threatening sky. If this storm continued to worsen, I feared that we'd have the wind against us in the coming battle, and that meant the pirates could maneuver around us. We'd need to do as much damage as possible at long-range before they could cross our quarter or bow…
"Mary, Mother of God…" Leftenent Marris whispered, and I followed his gaze to where it looked like the sea swallowed the Dutchman whole. Thunder cracked across the sky, though even as we watched the clouds started to dissipate.
One of the young midshipman commanding the helm shouted for my attention. "Captain Grey! Captain Grey! The Endeavor has put on full canvas and is pulling away from the armada!" He was right. Beckett was, apparently, going to personally destroy the now-badly-damaged Black Pearl in his flagship. It wasn't going to be much of a fight, I mused – the Endeavor's 120 guns to the Pearl's 44 would have made for a one-sided battle even before the Pearl had suffered such extensive damage in it's dogfight with the Dutchman.
"Form up with the rest of the van," I shouted to the midshipman supervising the helm. I quickly ordered the signalman to raise the flags signaling our intentions in the hope that at least the other Royal Navy ships would get into some kind of battle formation, even if that was probably too much to ask of the mercenaries and privateers.
"Mr. Morris," I said calmly, "we expect that the pirates will attempt to get in under our guns and board us, to minimize their disadvantage in size and broadside power. Arm the crew to repel boarders and put the marines in their… what in the name of God is going on out there!?"
It was the damned Dutchman again, rising out of the water – at least, it must have been, since no earthly ship could command the seas in such a way, but it hardly resembled the barnacled hulk that had sunk beneath the waves minutes before. It was a true warship; an old-fashioned style, for sure, the kind of war galleon that had turned back the Spanish Armada centuries before, and battered by age and the sea, but a warship nonetheless. Even as I tried to grapple with this new development, I could see frantic movement on their poop deck.
With a sick feeling in my stomach, I watched them raise their true colors – a red hourglass on a black field, a pirate's flag. "Bloody PIRATES!" Leftenant Morris shouted, drawing his sword in impotent rage at the traitors, and thrusting it into the air. A moment, he sheathed it again, breathing heavily. "Captain, I hope the Endeavor will show those traitors the what-for… sir! What are they doing?"
It looked like the Endeavor was trying to close to boarding distance! What was Beckett thinking!? He had more guns than both of the pirate ships combined! Why in the name of God did we put this civilian in charge of our flagship!?
"Captain! Captain! Why don't they fire? Why don't they fire, sir!?" Morris was starting to panic, and I knew with horror what was coming. Somehow, chain of command on the Endeavor had broken down, and the gunnery crews, with the iron discipline that was the pride of the British fleet, were holding their fire and waiting for an order that was never going to come.
Suddenly someone was screaming, jumping onto the handrail and waving his sword at the doomed ship. Order the guns to fire, you damned popinjay! His Majesty's sailors look to you! FIRE! FOR GOD'S SAKE, SOMEBODY FIRE! With a vague sense of unreality, I realized it was me…
I just stared as cannonballs ripped our flagship apart, until one shot hit the magazine and the entire 120-gun Ship of the Line exploded into splinters. I felt a red rage build up in me, fed by years of escort duty and pirate-hunting as a Leftenant in the Mediterranean. I couldn't believe that these mangy pirates had scored a win, but I snarled to the officers and sailors on the command deck that they wouldn't get another.
"All men to the guns! Signal the attack, and raise canvas! We'll lead the van and blast those pirate dogs straight to the Devil!" All around me, the ship exploded into life as sabers and muskets were handed out, lines were hauled and sails were raised. I glanced up at the rest of the armada, looking to the signal flags to see who was forming up behind us…
Morris must have heard me choke, and he turned to look at me. My expression must have given him a clue, because he followed my gaze to the next ship down the line. His face flushed a bright red in rage and disbelief. "Sir, why are we being ordered to withdraw?"
"I don't know, Mr. Morris… I just, I just don't know." There was a brief moment of silence between us, and then I turned to the helmsman and gave him a new course.
"Captain Grey! You can't actually be thinking of fleeing the field…"
"Mr. Morris, we have our orders."
"Even with the loss of the Endeavor, we have fifteen hundred-gun ships of the line! We have thirty-two 38-gun frigates, specifically built to defeat pirates! There must be fifty privateers as well! The pirates don't have half as many men or a third as many guns! Sir, why are we retreating?"
I knew why. In the depths of my soul, I cursed the system that made seniority in rank dependent solely on time in service – and the system that would not force its officers to retire. With Lord Beckett dead and the Admiral either slain or captured by the traitorous pirates on the Dutchman, command of the entire armada would devolve to Post-Captain Benning. Benning had been a post-captain for thirty years, and would never make Admiral – he was given command of the Singapore squadron as a sinecure, to keep him away from where he could do the fleet any real damage. It was his incompetence and cowardice that had allowed the pirates in the South China seas to flourish even as we had begun to drive them from Europe and the Caribbean… and now he was in charge of the largest British fleet this part of the world had ever seen.
I looked again at the flags signaling the retreat, and I thought for a second of ignoring the command. The Pride of Elizabeth had 100 cannon and 760 men – we would be more than a match for any three pirate vessels, even the Pearl or the Dutchman, and I knew that most of the frigate captains would follow me into battle, and perhaps a few of the braver or more greedy privateers. We could still win this battle, and end the pirates as a significant threat forever.
"We could do this, Mr. Morris," I said in a low voice.
Somehow, the Leftenant knew what I meant. He gulped, but drew his sword. "My captain, your men will follow where you lead… or they will answer to me."
I looked at the naked steel, at the burning splinters of the ruined Endeavor, at the two pirate ships that were turning and fleeing to the safety of their own armada, and up at the British flag on the top of our mainmast. That was it, really. Like the brave sailors on the Endeavor standing by their unfired cannons as their ship exploded around them, our famed naval discipline, our great strength, had become our weakness. I could no more disobey a direct order, no matter how cowardly or ill-advised, than I could bring myself to stop breathing.
"Put our fantail to these vermin, Leftenant. We will go with the rest of the fleet."
Leftenant Morris' face was conflicted, ugly. His sword-hand shook with repressed emotion as he replaced his weapon in his sheath. "Those are your finer orders, Captain Grey?"
"Yes. I shall retire to my quarters. Inform me of any new developments as per my standing orders."
"Aye, captain."
I turned away, but before I went belowdecks, I turned back. "Don't take it so hard, XO. We know where their haven is, now. We'll be back with a proper squadron, under the command of a Vice-Admiral of the Blue, and we'll turn these bastards' homes into so much flotsam and jetsam. This victory of theirs means nothing in the long run – their era is still over, their breed is still dying out."
With that, I went through the gilded door to my stateroom, and stared out the stern windows at the burning wreckage of the Endeavor as it sank beneath the waves. It would be some time before the Company would be able to reassert its power in this region – perhaps I could get a letter to the Admiralty in time, form my own squadron, and do the work of King and Empire for a change. Perhaps.
Author's Endnote:
I was watching the movie, and I thought "why the devil did the Armada retreat? Even with the Dutchman, the pirates didn't have a chance," and this is my own justification for it. Also, why didn't the sailors in the Endeavor shoot back? And for heaven's sake, what is up with the "Company" uniforms you see everywhere? So, to explain these for my own satisfaction: 1) some cowardly 3rd or 4th in command didn't want to run the battle with both Norrington and Beckett dead. 2) They were never ordered to. They held their fire to the death, abd that's pretty heroic if you ask me. 3) Mercenaries and privateers. When the Company used the British Regulars and the Royal Navy, it just happened "off screen."
Also, regarding the type of ship the Dutchman was: The whole ship was a pure Hollywood fantasy. But, we know that Davy Jones was alive in the 1580s (since he was at the First Brethren Council with Henry Morgan), and the narrow, stately, and deadly War Galleon was the kind of warship a powerful pirate would have wanted at the time, so I don't feel bad about that little stretch there.
A number of naval and archaic terms were used in this vignette.
#-gun Ship – the number of full sized cannon on board the ship. Bigger ships had more guns, usually.
Bow – the front part of the ship
Drake – Sir Francis Drake, a noted English naval leader who led the fleet that defeated the Spanish Armada. Also a notorious pirate – who says that pirates and the government can't get along?
Executive Officer – the second-in-command of a warship. His job is to handle the day-to-day tasks of running the ship so the Captain can focus on the "big picture"
Fine-grained powder – much more expensive than coarse powder, fine-grained powder burned cleaner and hotter, giving cannonballs more range and power.
Flagship – the ship with the senior-most officer on board. Usually the largest and best-armed ship in a fleet.
Frock – the not-quite-formal service dress of a naval officer.
Galleon – a style of ship characterized by a long bow and high poop deck
Helm – the great wheel that controlled the ship's course
Midshipman – officers-in-training assigned to ships.
Poop deck – also known as the command deck and (in modern usage) the bridge, this elevated area had the helm, as well as the navigation center and was the nerve center of the ship in battle
Post-Captain – someone who has been assigned to the rank of Captain by the British Admiralty. Not all Post-Captains were Captains (in charge of a ship), and not all Captains were Post-Captains.
Quarter – the rear fourth of the ship, including the stern.
Ship of the Line – the equivalent of modern battleships, these large ships were the mainstay of major nations' naval power. They carried 80 or more cannon and had crews of several hundred.
Siam – modern day Thailand
Signal Flags – flags flown at the top of the mast, used to communicate between ships in the days before radio
Van – in naval warfare, it is the first series of ships in the line of battle. They would typically run past enemy squadrons so that every ship in the van could give a full broadside to the enemy