He doesn't think that he has been in here for too long. He dose not think... he doesn't reason so... he doesn't know- does he know? Does he?
Jack rubs his bare feet together, feeling the shackles around his ankles grate against one another. It is a lovely contrast to the smoothness of his right foot's skin against his left's. Smooth…is it smooth? Or has he just felt nothing but hard for so long that his cracked, tough and gnarly feet have become soft to him?
Jack leans back against the stone wall. His spine pops in different places and he feels a sense of relief. Oh good, he's still got his spine, he was beginning to worry for a few months there.
The Man, working for The Man, always working for The Man. Jack rocks back and forth as he has come to do, with no deck swaying beneath him in so long he has come to swag himself just to feel the pitching sway- for one last time- to have a few moments at least were he can forget…
Forget about the shackles, the stone walls, the bars and the entire prison all together.
Jack needs wind; Jack needs his ocean and his salt. He needs his boat- oh his boat! She is not just wood and sails to him, she is freedom. If only freedom had not been yanked out from under him by that fucking man. The Man. Working for The Man, he had always been working for that fucking man.
Jack Gibbs spends half his day in despair and the other half dreaming up revenge on The Man.
That was until The Man came, and offered him a choice. Freedom, but with the price of working for The Man again. Jack doesn't mind working, but he has always hated working for The Man. If only Jack was his own Man, if only he was the Man. His own Man.
. . .
Elizabeth worked every day of her life. Stuffing the lobster for a pirate captain just back from finding a treasure trove. She watering down the rum with rat piss for the drunk off his face grunt sailor. Both of these customers would be run-off-their-ass broke by the time they set sail out of here, but then, that is why you come to this port, to have every pleasure given and every coin taken. That is Tortuga.
Elizabeth worked in peasant dresses, she had to be pretty yet practical, for she worked out the front handling the customers and also worked out the back, handling the raw chicken and the potatoes. Her apron front would be splattered with soapy hot water and blood while her pockets were filled with coins and notes. She worked all night, serving the pirates, and cleaned all day, serving the odd bothered local some water.
She had worked here all her life, all the life that she bothered to remember in any case. She was the only stable employee in the business. The chef and the dishwasher positions were always changing face every month or so. She was the only reliable one, she lived above the restaurant with the owners, she deserved better.
She deserved better, for them to- to just...leave her. The owners, Mr and Mrs Finnegan, they packed up the entire valuable cutlery and sold the rest, setting sail for "better waters". They called her a daughter; they nicknamed her Saint Mary because she saved their business too many times to count with her quick thinking and quick hands.
They waved her goodbye as she stood on the shore, they smiled at her as she stood there in that blood stained apron. They sold everything she knew on her and left her. Left her. Left her jobless. Left her jobless in Tortuga. That fat fucking cow and her fat fucking husband.
. . .
One day William was sitting in a ratty chair, watching the busy harbour from where he was up on the sunny, breezy balcony of a pub. He recognised a certain ship, and watched it very carefully as it sailed into and harboured. Will watched the men scrabbled around and jump off onto the jetty, he watched the Captain hunch his way through the busy crowd which parted in fear before him.
"That's Bootstrap Bill!" Someone whispered behind where Will was sprawled out on the ratty chair. The man's friend responded back, still whispering as if the Captain in the port below they could possible over hear them.
"Pirate Lord of the Caribbean!"
"They say he had a son, you know, who got killed years ago in battle, that's why he always looks so sad."
"Really? I hear that his son got kidnapped by Gentleman Jocard and now he does the man's bidding to keep his son safe."
Will, having run through the jungle that entire morning to lose the Navy who had been tailing him, was too tired to turn around fully towards the bearded gossipers behind him, so he just settled for tilting his head around and watching them out of one eye.
"You know," he said, breaking into the conversation. "I heard that his son ran away because he was sick of having to meet so many expectations."
"Oh hey? Where did ya hear that one from?" One asked while his mate drank at his bottle of rum until it was dry.
"Oh, just he son himself," said Will casually, liking the way the one drinking a tiny spit take into his glass, before continuing to drink, attempting to act as if nothing had happened.
"Really?" The bigger one asked, for who cares if it's false, it's juicy gossip and a pirate never passes off a chance to learn more. "You met him?"
"On one storm night, I think I might have met the boy."
"He would be a man now," the drinking one said to his mate, elbowing him in the ribs softly.
"Yeah, imagine that." Said Will to them as he turned fully because he neck had started to ache. "A fifteen year old son leaving you, and if you ever did find him, he would be a man."
"Bit tough," the one that that been drinking said, putting a straw hat on his head. The sun had just come back viciously from behind one of the many giant clouds in the darkening sky that day.
"So ya met the son?" The bigger one asked, trying to get back onto the details.
"I," replied William Turner. "Sick of working but never bein' good enough." Will eyed his father, he looked small down in the harbour but still impressive in his sharp coat and with the many weapons at his hip and to his back. "Sick of always being compared."
Will started to roll himself a cigarette as he talked. "And now the poor bugger is just like the rest of us bums, no money, no job, no love and absolutely no life." He got up and left them without even a wave. "Just another pathetic body to be thrown around in the giant's war." With a tip of his head in the direction of the Pirate Lord below him and to a cheap portrait of the King on the pub wall, Will likes to think they understood what we meant by giants.
He proceeded to walk to the next town a few kilometres down the beach, so as to be far away from his father and the crew, and get drunker than he had been in a very long time.
. . .
Jack Gibbs wondered through the port he had been released at. He staggered around and swayed against this new phenomenon called wind that he was having trouble encountering. He hadn't been in there for that long, just a year they had told him, just a year mate! Jack walked, the clothes that they had given him jingling and ruffling. He would have felt more comfortable in his old Navy uniform or something less…less everywhere. Jack snarled at the Caribbean sun which burned down on his paler than usual skin. He ran his tongue over his teeth, frowning as he recognised for the first time that he had swollen and bleeding gums.
Jack waved his hands at the sun 'shoo!' he said to it, but forgot to actually make the sounds. He staggered backwards and slipped off the side of the wharf, into the murky brown water. Upon splashing his gasping way back to the shore, Jack promptly feel asleep in the sand.
He had his first good sleep in a year, with the sand and the salt and the waves and the birds and the sound of creaking, harboured ship around him.
He had been told to come here and wait for the captain. What captain? Which ship? Where is where? Here?
. . .
Elizabeth had been job hunting for the last three months, and every response had been along the lines of 'no, we don't have any jobs but' -cue eyeing her body up and down- 'I think I know a place that would be more than happy to' cue her either slapping them or storming out, depending on how obvious they were about it. She was no whore and no one was going to make her into one, whether that person be a suggesting employer or the god of poverty himself. She slept in the stables, made do with the leftover food and rum on the tables and continued on circulating through the town; the good side and the bad side, the sailors in the harbour, looking for a cook maybe, and the locals who might be in need of a maid at home.
She had found no one, but she had found her distant friend Will Turner walking through the streets one day. She called out to him and ran over, hoping he might have some change to lend or a job on offer. Turns out he was flat broke and with too much debit to count (as usual for Will Turner), but he did have a job on offer. Something she had never expected to be asked, ever.
"I need to have someone I can trust and right now you're the only person I can find who I know is capable." William stamped his cigarette out on the floor, which he always did when a serious conversation came up. Full attention, it said to her, the outcome means something to him.
"If you were looking for a capable person, Will, then Tortuga should have been the last place for you to look." Elizabeth hassled him, Will just groaned because she was too busy looking at the ground than at him. He needed her to seriously consider this!
"I know, but I didn't have a lot of choice, I just worked on the first ship out of town and it sailed here." Will said, trying to explain to the woman quickly. Elizabeth looked up at him, her brown eyes looking into his own with a mysterious sort of venom swirling around in them.
"I wish work was that easy to come by for a woman," she said wishfully. Will shook his head at Elizabeth, who had always been easily distracted around him, annoyance tugging at his gut.
"You in?" He asked, offering his hand.
"I don't know…" she mumbled, regarding his blistered fingers with what looked like a sort of small anxiety attack going across her grubby face.
"Come on, you're the best person I can think of, you'll learn on the job- you're good a learning, you've got a quick mind." Will settled back on the old 'compliment until they drop' rule. He reached for Elizabeth's hand and made the handshake himself, closing the deal.
Turning suddenly, exhilarated with the win, Will walked at her slow pace, explaining the situation better to his shell shocked companion. Lighting himself a cigarette and smiling non-stop, just altogether pleased that he now had at least one person to guard his back. William wasn't used to that, he had lived years without anyone; how was he going to cope now with a lady to keep an eye out for? Will wasn't too sure, and so he stopped smiling.
. . .
They found him leaning against the wall of an alley, singing a pirate song, which when looking back on it, hadn't been one of Will's greatest ideas. But, hey, he was coming off a hangover at the time.
A smart lad who looked rather boyish came up to him. Will knew he was probably younger than the Navy man, judging by the uniform.
"Are you a pirate?"
"What's it to you?"
"I have got a job for you, if you are, in fact, a pirate."
"Whadda need me for?"
"Sailing one of my ships, I need something but it is only a treasure that a pirate captain could find."
"A treasure? Sure, I'm a pirate."
"A good pirate?"
"Was raised on salty meat and rock hard biscuits, mate."
"Good, but you can't be well know, I don't want your... buddies..." he said it with no small amount of disdain coursing across his face. "...to recognise you while you sail disguised as a Navy man."
"What buddies? Look Navy guy, I'm disgraced and have been on the run for the last eight years of my life." Will paused, thinking. "Of my life." He repeated, for some reason thinking that he had to elaborate on that.
"Good, you get a boat and I've got some desperate enough officers rotting in jail to take the offer to sail under you. They might be a touch insane though." The wigged man warned, stamping a few letters and deeds at his office desk. When had they gotten into the office? Oh, man, such a massive fucking hangover.
Obviously he had said that out loud, because the Navy man was looking at him, smiling at Will's grumbling misfortune.
"First off," the wigged man said, "I am not with the Navy, I am with the East Indies Trading Company."
"Yeah, but you still serve the King." The man sighed, so Will moved on to the next question on his deliberated mind. "Okay, what ya need me to trade for you?"
"In this case it is a mythical treasure that I am interested in but cannot officially pursue." Will caught on, his foggy mind clearing more and more as he realised his current situation.
"But unofficially," Will filled in the gap, the wigged man smile meaning that he had gotten it right. "And with a captain and crew desperate enough to gamble their lives?"
"You are a smart man; perhaps you are better suited than I first thought." The man laced his fingers together and leaned back in his chair, indicating with his eyes for Will to inspect the neat pile that had been slowly gathering before him as they had talked.
"For years I have search, and this is all the information I have managed to scrap together. Last week during a raid, one of my officers seized an old book which had a page on this particular treasure. If says that it was last seen in Morocco and details its location further, I will be expecting you to start your search from there."
"Morocco?" Will echoed, "Africa, Spain… gonna have ta cross the Atlantic ocean. The ship you handing me right for that?"
"Oh good, so you know your geography." The man leaned forward, elbows resting on his lavish desk. "Trust me, Randy Brown; I have taken too much personal interest in this treasure to send you off in a termite infested rowboat." Will nodded his head at the man, flashing him a smile while wondering inside how dumb the man though he was and why the hell the man was calling him Randy Brown. Far, far too much of a hangover if he was forgetting parts of their conversation.
"Ah, good." Will said lamely. "Do I get to bring me own first mate, to, you know, watch out for my back since the crew will be your own men. You know," Will reached for his neck to signify what he meant, "pirate haters and all that."
The man smiled sourly,
"Of course, as long as he has no one that will notice him missing."
"Ah, good, good," said Will standing up and ready to flee.
"You can read, can you?" The man asked in concern when Will started up what had been piled before him, what looked like a new log book and four small scrolls.
"Of course I can," Will said with a small tug of fury at his voice. "I was raised to be a pirate captain, so what captain would I make if I could not read the maps or count the gold?" William pushed his chair in and nearly dropped one of the scrolls. The man threw him a leather bag.
"Carry them in there, pirate man." Will considered it for a moment before throwing it back.
"A bit…womanly?"
"Better than losing all that precious information,"
"Oh please, these are probably just the copies you inked out, you've got the originals snug in your archives, don't ya?" Will waved his free hand to the shelves of books round him. He could just see the 'smarter than I thought' comment running across the man's mind.
"Tell ya what; give me a nice over coat with those handy pockets on the inside." The man got him one, but it was obviously Navy.
"You sure?" he asked sceptically.
"I'll just say I stole it," Will said, winking, tucking the log book away and the thin scrolls into the coat's safe, deep pockets. "Oh, and a cutlass to protect 'em." Will stated, patting the coat and eyeing the man, seeing how far he could milk this.
The man got him a rusty old thing from the armoury.
"And if you don't mind, some money to take care of me self with."
The man pulled nearly fifty worth of notes out of his pocket.
"Jesus Christ, no wonder we attack you snotty guys so often!" Will deducted from the man's flat look that he had better he going.
"Everything is in the book," the man instructed to Will's shuffling back. As a last though, the man said. "Nice doing business with you Randy Brown." Will turned and nodded to the man, and deducted from the name plate that had been on the man's desk what his name was.
"Nice doing business which you, Lord Beckett."
. . .
Jack was able to buy some food. Jack was able to drink some rum. Jack was able to talk to someone without being yelled at instantly to 'shut up you filthy prison dog'. Jack was able to sit were he liked, and then get up. Get up. Get up and walk away. When he liked.
Jack was still getting used to the whole out-of-jail-now concept. Jack wrote a letter home to her parents, Joshamee and Sofia Gibbs, yes he was fine, yes he was out of jail, yes he was fine, yes he was working but it was hushity-hush and yes he will be visiting when he got the first chance to. Jack was able to shave and get his goatee back in its marvellous state, but not much could be done for his matted hair, so he just fiddled some beads in and knotted some pretty stuff. Who cares, he was disguised as a pirate, the worse the better and, truthfully, he really liked it like this.
Jack sat on the ship, endlessly fulfilled with the way it rolled about on the steady harbour waves. It was deserted, but was meant to be the one which he was assigned to; he waited for the pirate captain to come, wondering which no name he was going to be and who his choice of first mate was. Jack was wondering what their reaction was going to be when they realised that the famous Jack Gibbs had been realised from jail and is now serving underneath them. Jack thinks that Lord Beckett only ever released him because he had become unrecognisable. Jack thinks Lord Beckett is a twat and deserves to have his intestines pulled out across the floor. No one betrays Jack Gibbs and gets away with it. Jack's sleepy face scrunches up as he starts to plan revenge on The Man again. Always working for The Man, only to be betrayed. The Man gonna die. Then Jack will become his own man. Jack working for Jack.
. . .
Elizabeth's was feeling shivers run up and down her spine when she saw the ship in the harbour. Will nudged her along, helping her through the morning fisherman crowd.
As they walked towards it, William explained what it was exactly.
"Some sort of Caravel, they've got shallow hulls, so that's good for unknown waters, they can said windward and only need a small crew considering her size." Will whistled as they got closer. "A hundred miles a day," he turned to her, a hand resting on her shoulder. "Don't worry, she's good. You're gonna be a great first mate after a few days out at sea. If you manage her like how you managed that restaurant then we're all in capable hands." He watched her, his brown eyes searching.
"But Will," she said, her voice starting to waver a bit in panic, "I don't know a thing, and you said the crew are navy men-they won't respect anything I say and I will probably stuff up so many times!" She lowered her voice. "I can't go this."
"No," said Will sternly. "Ya can," and with that he turned and climbed onto the ship. Elizabeth watched how he jumped aboard easily, wishing she knew what he was honestly thinking.
Elizabeth rubbed her arms, watching the sailors toil about her and wondering if any of them were her new crew. She wondered why this treasure was so important. Cautiously and painfully slow she followed where Will had put his feet, jumping over and onto the deck.
She had worked in Tortuga for nearly ten years now and she had seen plenty of ships. But she had never seen one like this before, a runner, not a fighter. It sat low in the water and had a jungle of rigging and different sails above her, making the deck dabbled with shade. She noticed the sleeping man on deck and quickly darted after Will who had just disappeared into the cabin area.
The captain's quarters- that was where he had been going, to lock the book and scrolls up in the empty desk's draws. Will turned back to her as she stood in the doorway.
"Wanna tour around?" He asked, and Elizabeth could tell that he himself was extremely excited to explore the ship as well, never having expected something this generous.
By the time they came out onto the deck, seven more people had gathered and the sleeping man had woken up.
"This is all of us," said a blue eyed man, stepping forward and eyeing Elizabeth warningly. "You aren't bringing your whore along, are you?" Elizabeth gasped a little shallow breath, it was not the language that shocked her, it was a combination of many things, partly because she was nobodies whore, partly because she was definitely not William's whore and partly because she was right about the crew not respecting her, so how was she going to "command" them if she had no credibility whatsoever?
"She's not a whore and she not mine," said Will steadily, judging what the value of the men in front of him was. "She's the first mate."
Everyone kept strangely silent in response to that.
"Bad luck to bring a woman aboard," said the man who had once been sleeping.
"That's just nonsense," the crew looked at her closer, trying to see a sailor in her face.
"I don't think she should be here," said a different blue eyed man (Elizabeth noted that half of them were all blued eyed, the Navy must have a preference for them, "well-bred" and all.) The once sleeping man was the one to defend her this time,
"One of the Pirate Lord's a woman," he said casually from where he was lazing about on the deck, having not even bothered to stand up from the shade of the mast. Which side was this man on?
They kept very quiet indeed after it was settled that she was to stay as second in command.
That night they spent in the harbour. William had decided to sail out that morning.
The problem of sleeping arrangements occurred and Elizabeth was generally startled at how quickly William came to the decision that she would have the Captain's quarters and he would sleep with the eight other men.
That night, on the ship in the harbour, she had one of those terrible dreams again.
"Father, why is the sky blue?" She asked from where she was, far, far shorter than she was when she went to bed.
"Because that's how God made it, lovely and blue so as to cheer you up in the morning." Replied a wigged and jolly looking man to her- her father apparently.
"Why is it always rainy and grey then?"
"Because there are too many people living here in London, they are making too much smoke, dear Elizabeth, that is why we should go."
. . .
Small, not much space for cargo, light, only two cannons on board. Will knew he was going to be a hopeless captain, within a week Elizabeth would be ordering him around. But at least he knew he was hopeless, which counted for a lot out on the seas.
William patted the strong wall of the ship's cabin before hopping up into one of the many hammocks. Some of the men were watching him with new curiosity; a captain sleeping with them? Really, William had been waiting for the right excuse to not sleep in the captain's quarters. He hated those things; he had spent enough time with his father to know that they were stuffy, quiet and only served to cut you from the crew.
They locked a captain away; they made the crew feel resentful, their dark curtains made his stomach crawl with resent. He hated his father, he hated that he was always locked away in that room.
They said it was better for him to stay. Stay put, stay out of the way, stay to the side, stay safe…stay.
. . .
Jack was half way through telling his small audience about a werewolf he once wrestled when Elizabeth walked in.
"Ah! Here is the missy!" He said, jumping off where he had been squatting on a crate and jumping over to the woman.
"Any instructs, Ma'am?" He asked, wishing and washing his hands around because…because …there was some reason. He was sure.
"Ah, mister…" she asked, inquiring for his name. Jack really had to think hard to remember.
"Jack Gibbs," said Jack, taking the missy's hand in his raggedy one. "Pleasure," he assured her, glancing as he felt the warmth of her hand. Too warm- too warm- he didn't like it. Jack quickly pulled his hand back and wiped it on his messy clothes. "The first time you've crewed?" Jack asked, squinting his sleep troubled eyes. He was honestly interested and had no inkling that what he had just done had demolished the last of Elizabeth's walls.
Elizabeth just watched him with a clam flesh white face, the worry streaks around her mouth reappearing. She felt humiliated.
…
Will told her to be careful, yet she hadn't thought he meant to be weary of something like this. Elizabeth struggled against the crew member, his hairy arm pinning her against the hull.
"'My lady Mary." The man spat, his true anger coming out now that there was no one else around to see it. "Die in accident before you bring anymore curses upon us."
Elizabeth screamed as he hit her head, but the crashing waves drowned her out. The man yanked her up again, no trace of sick humour on his face, only a man doing what he honestly believed was best.
That's when she realised what she was up against. Stone cold belief.
The grumbled words coming from the man's diseased mouth, "witch", was the last thing she remembered.
. . .
William was born honest and plain. He had to learn everything else, more often than not the hard way. He had to learn to deceive and fight, to plunder and manipulate a man.
And now he was addressed with a problem, he had a whole crew to manipulate as they careened over the Atlantic. How to uncover them, the puritans and the unfaithful? He needs to weed them out, he has to. Will watches Elizabeth's battered body rise and fall in shallow breathes. He had realised she wasn't there, he had found her just- the barest form of just- in time.
He had stepped in and watched Elizabeth slowly make a puddle of blood around where she lay.
"Now that's not good," he had chided the big man, one of the strongest on the crew. William was really sad that he had to go.
"Take her up on deck, I didn't want it to come to this, but if this is how the crew feels." William threw a convincing, long suffering sigh in there for good measures. "I suppose I should give the crew the chance to vote on her fate." The man stood still, waiting to find out if he had been caught red handed or was being praised. Will patted the guy's thick shoulder.
"We all have our own beliefs," Will bent to pick up Elizabeth's battered body, "I can't fault a man for defending what he believes in."
In reality he does, and he is, he is the damn captain and he is a damn pirate and what he says damn well goes.
Just for now, just for a while he needs the crew to think that he's fine with it though. Trick them into stepping forward. He can't have incidents like this happening again.
Will thanked god that he had brought Elizabeth along, even if it ended in sure punishment of the girl. She was cunning and cruel, she just never noticed those moments when she was. Will had noticed through, Will had them lodged in his brain. Will was thankful he had someone like her as his first mate, not some like the big man who stood dumbstruck down below.
William needed to be craftier than he had ever been in the next hour if he was to escape a mutiny.
William watches the crowd, the crew had all drawn together, attracted by the sight of Elizabeth's limp body. They have no doctor, but even if they did, he wouldn't have called them to bandage her.
He needs everyone's full attention.
"What's happened, Captain Brown?" One man asks him, others nodding their heads in agreement.
"I've decided to hear your plight," said Will, remembering that to them he is Randy Brown, no family, no hope, drunk off his face when found and supposedly sailing them for some mythical treasure or another.
"If you don't like the woman being here, than come forth, I hold no grudges." William tries to play nice, no grudges, I understand, show yourselves, I want to make a deal…
The big man who started this all comes forth, his slightly blood covered hand raised in the air. There is a mixture of shame, not knowing if he is the only one or not, but the Captain already knows what he thinks so why hide it?
Another step forward after that… and another and another. He studies them, all dumb eyed from their years in prison and filthy from their lack of respect for their own selves. Will burns their faces in his mind, he does not know names but he can learn their faces.
"Why?" he asks, voice tilting on the edge. Why? He desperately wants to know just why a man could hate a lady so much, for nothing but bad luck. She been cursing us since we started- she will never be able to pull her weight-she a witch- she isn't supposed to be here.
"Would you like me to shoot her dead?" He asks them, gesturing to her body with a shotgun he had just praised from his coat. Eventually they all nod, looking from one to the other.
"You sure? Take her life? That would be the only way to please you?" They nod, more assured this time. Will notices the way the others of the crew flinch when he points his gun at Elizabeth. Good, he has some smart ones.
He quickly flicks the gun up, aims for the big man; he shots him in the neck. William is glad they are on the deck; it makes it easier to sweep the blood over board. Now is the crucial moment, he's made his intentions clear, they realise, they still have enough manpower to their cause to fight back. William puts the now empty gun away and draws his sword.
"He deserved that; he was the one that did this." He swipes his hand in Elizabeth's direction and draws his sword. "I'll give ya an option," Will say, stalking towards the remaining three. "Walk the plank or fight me." He grins and cocks his head, realising that he had really missed sword fighting, his blood vessels burned in anticipation for it.
"Is marooning a possible option," one rat like sailor has the gall to ask snidely. Will walks up to him.
"Were days away from any land," William says, liking the way the high sun has started to suck away all the shadows, burning all exposed skin. The man snarls his lizard like teeth at him.
"Well than, what would be the point in walking the plank if there's no way of survival?" He becomes cat like, and William thinks he is more of a witch than Elizabeth.
"There's always being picked up by a passing ship, mate." Will steps close, lowers his voice and moves his toes around inside his boots, waiting, preparing, enthralled.
"I think I'm going to stick with fighting you," the sailor tilts his chin up smugly, drawing his own sword from his hip. The two other men draw their own as well.
"You sure?" Will asks, liking-loving- being underestimated. They have never seen him do squat in the way of fighting, they think he's Randy Brown, unless and no one. (He used to be William Turner, not a good as your father I hear.)
"You sure you can even fight, you lazy ocean grit?" William loves the way that moment tastes, when the man charges him and they're swords clash. This is the world that William loves, the impossible is possible, they tell you it's only in bed time stories but it's not. The Kraken lurches, the mermaid's sing, the cursed treasure waits and the zombies walk among the men. This is a world where he can twist his blade so slightly and manage to finish a man's sad life without even a heartbeat of pause.
"That's not a very good way to address your captain," William toys with the man, feeling his sword squeal and hum in delight even though the nuns told him otherwise.
"I am a man of the Navy, I will never serve under a pirate captain!" That was just what Will had wanted him to say, that was the undercurrent that he had sensed from day one. They hated him, because even though the Navy had thrown them away, they were still proud soldiers of the King.
The King, what does that fool know? William only serves one man.
And that man is himself.
The men hid their resent around him… all but that Gibbs, that one odd one didn't have any hatred to hide, he had a different air, a slur on his presence that made William feel like he was among his own vulgar class. A pirate. Yes, now that he counted the numbers, Gibbs and only two others will be all he has left after he culls through these prison weak and ocean thick men.
"Did you really need to do that?" He asks, giving the guy a chance he didn't intend to honour. It was more of the game anyway, more for the dramatics of the moment. More so as to gather the most amount of respect he could for the ones watching at a safe distance.
After he had culled them off with almost dainty like quickness, he hears his question echo by Gibbs.
"Did you really have to do that?" He asks, hair ornaments tickling to a tune of their own.
"For this crew's life expectancy to be more than two months, yes, yes I did."
. . .
"Brown!" Jack yelled out, coming up to his captain who was currently scrubbing the deck, which no self respecting true captain should ever do, but this one seems fine with doing. "We may have a problem which will lead to the eventual death of the crew." Jack watched as Will watched him, but then he grew bored and started picking at his nails. Jack carelessly examining his many rings, "never realised I had these," he mumbled to his Captain. Will raised an eyebrow and Jack quickly got the message. Jack 'ahhed' then spun, walking like he was going over hot sand barefoot.
"This way!" He called back gruffly. "See for yourself, mate, so we are all savvy on this."
Jack showed his captain, with enough waving of hands to make sure his point got across, that there was simply not enough supplies left to last them throughout the crossing. He also explained that what they did have seemed to be pretty well rotten by this point.
"How could this happen?" Brown asked, running his hand through his hair and pacing around the limited space available. "Why wasn't I notified sooner? Why didn't the cook tell me?"
"Ah!" cut in Jack, "I am the cook…sir." Jack didn't like the look that was crossing the Captain's face.
"What took you so long? Why didn't you tell me…" Brown trailed off in confusion, too furious to get words through his clenched jaw.
"Well, this sort of thing is the captain's responsibility and so…I just assumed…" Jack shrugged, which was probably one of the worst things to do in hindsight.
"Just assumed?" Brown hissed at him.
"Well, yeah, that's what I said. Like how you 'just assumed' that there was enough supplies at the port. You were too lazy, weren't you captain? You just through 'oh well, supplies are supplies' didn't you, Captain?" Jack decided to shift the blame to its rightful owner. "It's your fault," Jack poked his Captain in the chest. "You know, once your pretty maiden wakes up and gets a few good weeks of sailing in her belt, she's going to be four times a better Captain then you." Jack let that sit in the air, the starving chickens and bony pigs the only ones making a noise.
Brown's anger seemed to melt.
"That's what I had been betting on," he whispered, before leaving for the tight stairs.
"Who do you thinks going to die first?" Jack yelled after him in good humour. He got no response.
. . .
Most of the time, all Elizabeth can think about his how horrible and painful she feels. Her skin burns hot and her insides squeeze themselves into painful knots. The recovery process is a painful one when there is no doctor or medication aboard. She lies in the Captain's bed, wet towels draped over her head, someone she thinks is Will coming from time to time to check on her, re-soak the towel, make her choke some water and scraps of potatoes down, and change any dirty bandaging that needs to be thrown.
She feels like death has its claws embedded in her gut and won't give up on taking her.
Throughout this time, she is plague by dreams. Of the wigged man, of Father, of riches and finer food than she has seen but never seen, of things that feel familiar and faces that she is strangely acquainted with. They are memories, because no dream can pull at her like these are. She feels like she's experiencing a heavy bout of nauseating déjà vu.
She remembers when Will had come and carried her away from the bed; she remembers weakly wrapping her arms around him for support. She remembers how he placed her down in the corner of a room that had been bedded with straw and old cloth for her.
She is still here, watching the hammocks swing. Wondering why she was taken out of the Captain's lodgings now of all times. Wondering why there are only three sailors left alongside Will and her.
She needs to recover, recover, recover. Will said that the minimum of people needed was six and right now there seemed to be only five on-board. She needed to get recover, recover…recover… (She remembers the doctors that she used to have when she was back in London, with their many jars of medicine and plush beds for the sick patients. She wishes for that.)
. . .
Will lies in his hammock; rest is a rare thing now that the crew numbers are far too low to be any good at all. He can't get to sleep, he kicks his bare foot up and looks at the same ceiling that many grunt men had stared at before him. He feels…he feels…
Will goes to check on Elizabeth, walking for the door that has inscribed on it (in typical Navy fan-fair) 'Captain's Quarters'. William walks past the empty desk which should be filled with maps and have a strong captain sitting behind it. It should be a symbol for the men, he should be a symbol…he feels…he feels…
Will never wanted to be a captain, and he was sure he made a bad one. But now that he was here, and his decisions had to be lived with, not just run away from…Will decided what he felt.
He spent some time making sometime similar to a nest in many ways for Elizabeth down in the crew's sleeping quarters. He spread his small amount of personal belongings over the desk in an effort to make it look cluttered and full, he then set out doing what should have been done in the first place.
He worked through the harsh days and worked equally throughout the nights with the three other men aboard. But now he was thinking about the ship in the ways a Captain should, not in the ways of a son along for the ride or a grunt working through timeless days.
Will hated that it took him so long, but you see, he was born honest and plain and had to learn everything else the hard way.
They were twenty three days into a seventy four day voyage, food was at its end, Elizabeth was starting to awaken and Will was keeping the remaining men from cooking him for dinner by leading them.
"Always scan the horizon men, the first ship we see will be ours to plunder and take." They asks him if he's sure as they sit around a table made for a crew far, far bigger. So he tells Gibbs, Foxwoods and a man known only as Deadline, he tells them that- believe it or not- he has travelled the world and this ocean countless times. His only mistake was that it was never as a Captain. He has fixed that now, he is good, they are good, he promises to get them out of this sorry mess and he means that more than they realise.
. . .
Jack's the one who sees the ship, to the West, the next afternoon after the missy Mary Smith wakes up. She was slowly tying off some ropes beside him when he shouts out, making her jump and him grin at that.
They gather and stand still, as their Captain watches the distant ship and thinks it through.
"Let's go," Brown says, and Jack loves the feeling in his gut as they all jump into a furious motion and start rigging the ship and manning the sails, turning the quick boat for the vessel in the distance.
There ship is unmarked, flying neither merchant nor pirate nor Navy sails, so the vessel keeps a wary distance and tries to out run them.
But she is heavy and big, a whaling vessel; Jack sees with his weathered eye, she cannot hope to out run them.
And she doesn't, they pull alongside, chucking the boarding anchors over and proudly declaring that they are bare on supplies and need charity.
The thirty odd men on the other boat glance to what must be their captain, and a few laugh. As if they would just kindly hand over food and rations.
The captain laughs, as if, as if, he basically tells them. Jack watches his captain's face. His captain asks for an audience, and so Jack escorts Brown down onto the other boat, tip toeing past the whale's blood and stacked bodies. He stands outside the door like a good guard should. One of the crew members comes up to him, his ugly face twisted like he is thinking real hard.
"I know you," he says finally.
"No you don't" Jack shoots back, hoping that his Captain can't hear what's about to be said through the door.
"Yeah I do, you're Captain Jack Sparrow." Jack gets a thrill out of hearing his name, but quickly frowns at the man.
"Never heard of 'im." He says.
"What do ya mean, never heard of Captain Jack Sparrow? Hes legendary! I mean…where have you been the last few years?"
"No, no, you don't know me."
. . .
Elizabeth surveys the crowd of men on the other vessel with worry, there is no possible way they would win if this came to violence, and so she crosses her fingers and toes (something her Father taught her about) and prays for mercy.
They do not give mercy, they just laugh their few and yellowed teeth and say,
"One for his own out on the seas, mate. We've barley got enough to last us, so why waste some on yous?"
. . .
William asks to talk with the Captain in private, right now they are in a Captain's quarters that looks like its Captain is the fair deal, not just scattering his stuff to make it look so.
The 'Other Captain' motions to him to hurry up and explain why this was necessary.
"You ever heard of Bootstrap Bill?" Will starts off, and by the way the Captain's face bleeds white almost instantaneously, Will knows he's got this deal in the bag.
He gets them enough to last, bags and bags full of good food. They question him over the table-made-for-a-crew-far-bigger but he keeps his lips sealed.
. . .
Jack notes that when they sail into a port in Morocco, they all but flee the ship, leaving their Captain to tie her down and follow in their dust. Jack would have liked to stick around, but he had noticed a familiar ship also in the bay and was eager to talk and get a few facts straight.
He searches all the bars, gets distracted by a few women, ploughs on admirably and finds the man he has been looking for. It's not a very big town; he really just needs to follow the trail of whispers.
The Pirate Lord of the Atlantic Ocean reclines on the deck, talking adamantly to a group of men. Jack barges through and flops himself down.
"Sparrow…" The Pirate Lord says dangerously,
"Gentleman Jocard," Jack says back, smiling warmly at what he considers a close friend from the past.
"You're alive? It was said that the Navy hanged you nearly a year ago. Where you been?" He asks, his voice deep and booming like Jack remembers.
"In jail." Jack says bluntly, taking a grape from the table. "And in return for getting out of that jail I have been enlisted to serve as a Navy man under a pirate doing pirate-y things for the Navy, savvy?"
Jack was really, really happy to just relax and take the opportunity to simply be himself. He rested his feet up on the table and said to himself, he is Captain Jack Sparrow, he came out of nowhere, took the pirating world by storm, he was the smartest dog on the seas with the fastest ship of them all before the blasted Navy ripped that all away from him. He had abandoned the Navy; he had insulted them to their face and took off under another name. They hunted him relentlessly. That was why he was here.
Captain Jack Sparrow was back.
"What has become of my ship?" Jack asks, body language darkening within the moment.
"The Black Pearl?" Gentleman Jocard rumbles, "She be manned by your faithful crew, savagely attacking those crossing the Caspian sea and making a name." Jack smiled wickedly at that. "Ya first mate's territory, I believe."
"Yes, Hector is the Pirate Lord of that area," Jack's grin stays in place; he has a feeling he will be stuck in a good mood for some time. "That reliable old peacock…" Jack chuckles to himself. Hector had always been a vain man of questionable qualities, but he had always been loyal towards Jack in the way a cat was. You knew he was, but sometimes it seemed like it definitely wasn't.
Gentleman Jocard is chuckling a long with Jack, his face has always been wide open in wonder of the ocean, but Jack notices that it looks more strained than usual.
. . .
"What a lovely silk," Elizabeth says to the man in the market place. She glances over their wide array of teas as well and wishes she had money to spend. "If only I had some money…" she whispers to herself. The china man hears her,
"I need some spare hands, lady, would you be willing to work some hours for me in exchange for that silk?" He asks, tilting his head and trying to look as friendly as possible despite all the scars that riddle his face and neck.
"Why," she isn't sure what to make of it, is it a decent offer or not? Elizabeth decides that the last month of hard sailing was enough to make her strong, or at least quick enough, to escape if it was a black offer.
Besides, they are in a crowded market place, how much could they get up to?
So she gets to work taking money and passing out merchandise, the shop owner impressed that she knows how to count so well. It was a very rare thing for a woman to know. Elizabeth likes this slower, more domestic job, selling silks and tea from the back of a junk boat straight onto the crowded Moroccan street. She does not know their language, but they know hers and they all know the language of money.
Koh Lin was his name, she slowly come to learn that he was very patient and quiet spoken over the day. Her hands, nearly blistered from being burned with rope throughout the past months, sighed with relief at the new light labour. When the time passed, Elizabeth was more than happy to continue working for joy of having a place and a companion to talk to. Ever since they had landed here she had seen hide nor hair of her captain. Sometimes she would sleep on the ship, other times in hotels. She would bump into Jack, Foxwoods or Deadline in amongst the town. Mostly they would chat only breifly before continuing on with their own vacation time. Those brief chats were always about the Captain though, where was he? Where had he gone? Was he all right? Had you seen him lately?
As the night, with her newly earned silk around her shoulders, Koh Lin and the rest of the merchant boat's crew invited her to drink with them. It was in amongst the cheap wine and by-the-barrel-beer that Elizabeth found out that they were actually pirates. They were selling supplies they had stolen from merchant ships on their journey over from Indonesia.
She was shocked, but didn't care; after all, she was in the same league as them now. The whale boat incident coming to mind, they had barely enough to feed themselves, yet they gave up so much. She and the crew still remain mystified over why they had. Elizabeth thinks that that had been the moment that Will had proved himself as Captain to the men.
She skulls her bottle, cracks it own on the deck where they were all spread out cross legged, and thinks that they were the ones more shocked when she admitted that she, too, as also a pirate. She forgets to stumble back to the boat and so ends up sleeping, passed out really, with the tea selling pirates.
Life is good, the stars are many above her head and Elizabeth is fine with the way the wind tugs playfully at her hair.
She plots how she is going to escape to London under Williams's nose.
She is ready to meet these haunting dreams halfway.
. . .
The map flutters in William's hand. The sand rasps across him, all of him, the sand is everywhere. He is wrapped like an infant, the blue and old robes chasing and slashing around his image. He follows the map with a few men, he didn't question it until they start to dig.
And dig.
And dig.
And find nothing.
The sweat is biting into him, the two men are muttering their own language. The sun snarls at them from where it is perched on the land.
Will spins and sees nothing but flying sand and wonders how he could be so concentrated on the map and the shovel that he forgot his surrounds. He also watches the two men that came with him, for some food, he offered them a few meals in return for their guidance. And now they face death as the impending night seeps through the sky. One is leaning on his shovel, watching Will very, very closely. The other is sitting, playing in the massive hole they had dug, his turban the only thing visible.
Will slings his own shovel over his shoulder, turns to the man, and is glad that he is not like most captains; pride over preservation.
"Your in charge now," he says to the man who is watching him, very, very closely. The man frowns.
"We still gets meal?" Will looks skyward, deciphers through the accent and responds with a strong nod of his head.
"Sure, you worked, only fair."
The man bends back to catch a glimpse of the other man down in the hole.
"I think he should be in charge." The man says, before shouting in his language- which sounds to Will like a man was caught between singing beautify and trying to spit out phlegm. The playful one jumps out of the hole, glances around, shouts and points in a certain direction and sets off like he should be studded in metals not sweat stains and moth holes.
Will likes these men. What are there names? Mohamed and Jim.
They travel through the night, the eerie sounds of night birds screaming in the distance and the shifting of moonlight over the backs of scorpions and silver outlines. "Death stalker" the bar man told him, that's what they are called.
Will's feet sink, and every step takes the effort of ten. Yet still Mohamed leads him, Jim occasionally looking back to make sure the "white man, don't forgetting my meals" has not dropped dead. William was of no illusion that if any moisture was to be had in the air, it would have formed ice crystals on his eyelashes.
Sometimes, he swore he saws the flashing shadow of a train of camels on the distant ridges. Somewhere, at sometimes, here is now, William's body is meeting its screaming end in the Sahara desert.
Eventually, his feet stop sinking up to their ankles with every step. Its rock, steadily growing steeper. Eventually, his path is not just two pairs of footsteps, it is many and also pattered now with hooves and camel toes. Eventually, he will make it out, back to the shore where he has left his crew for nearly a month now.
This own overbearing woman, hips usually filled with children, has a lot to say to him considering her small amount of English.
"Stupid going out with no camel."
"Flat head, you died"
"You nearly walked two boys of the desert to their deaths. Do you know how hard that is?"
Will takes it, he is a man, he is a captain. He buys his two guides meals in the small Saharan mountain village. More of a post really, for the nomads and gold traders coming through. Will asks the two men if they would like to join his crew. Muhammad says no, he is a man of the desert, not the sea. Jim says yes, he is a man of poverty, he takes whatever he can.
Will says to him, that if he were a pirate, he would have finished his last sentence and "and give nothing back."