Waste Not
Chapter 3
Tattoos were painful to get. Barbossa figured it wasn't likely that Elizabeth would have gotten them for no reason. He wouldn't have cared one way or the other, but after she had acted so flustered about it at dinner, his curiosity had been piqued. Now that he knew the true meaning, it all made sense, but he felt almost like he knew too much.
"Fire!" Barbossa yelled.
"Fire all!" screamed Elizabeth.
The canons unleashed their fury like thunder, peppering the starboard side of the unfortunate merchant ship. Musket balls whizzed through the air as the sailors returned fire, but they had no real hope against the Pearl and her motley crew.
"Prepare to board!" ordered the captain.
They sailed in close and the men began to swing across onto the opposing vessel, attacking any who stood against them. The mercantile sailors fought bravely, but really they were no match in the end, and their ship was left burning around them. The pirates quickly began to empty the ship of its cargo and loot the dead.
Those who remained alive were disarmed and lined up across the deck of the Pearl. Elizabeth walked in front of Barbossa towards the prisoners. She stopped in her tracks, however, when she saw that one of the sailors held a boy, dead in his arms. She just froze and stared, getting in Barbossa's way.
"He was the truest little cabin boy we'd ever had," wept the sailor, "And you blasted him. Just ended his little life right in its tracks."
Barbossa looked between the man and Elizabeth for a few seconds, then pushed her out of the way and stood in front of the man himself. "Keep walkin'", he said to her, then addressed the sailor, "Merchant, yer a little old to have yet learned a lesson so fundamental in life, and that's that bad things happen. Yer boy here was below when the canons hit, and that's regrettable, but he's met his Maker and I expect he's at peace."
The man was about to speak out, but Barbossa didn't give him the chance.
"Now the question is…" He drew his pistol and put it in the man's face. "…will yeh be joinin' him, sailor?"
There was a tense moment of silence, and then Barbossa pulled back and addressed the entire line of prisoners, waving his gun for emphasis.
"The same goes for the lot o' yeh! Yer at a crossroads, gentlemen. From this moment on, yeh be pirates, or yeh be dead men. Take a moment, sirs, and make yer choice."
There was another tense moment. Finally, the sailor with the boy stepped forward.
"I will never be a pirate," he said passionately.
"In yer case, mister, I can't say that I'm surprised." Barbossa raised his pistol and fired, burying a bullet in the man's head without further ado. "Don't mistake me, gents. I can't be wastin' ammunition on the rest of yeh. The act of mercy yeh just witnessed was an expensive one at that. If yeh choose death, yeh choose the plank."
There were seven sailors remaining. Four of them walked the plank. The other three were escorted to the brig until further notice.
"Get this deck swabbed!" Barbossa ordered, "Make way, yeh bloomin' cockroaches! All ahead full!"
Everyone hopped to it. Everyone except Elizabeth, who was sitting on the bottom step of the helm. She was just as pale as a ghost. Barbossa shook his head and walked over to her, leaning against the railing.
"…Yer young, Elizabeth. Yeh'll learn how to better swallow this sort o' thing in time."
"That poor boy", she replied hoarsely, "He couldn't have been more than ten years old. And that poor man…"
"Go to me cabin and pour yerself a short drink. Get yerself right again, and then return to yer station. We survivors have got to go on livin'." And with that, he left her to deal with herself.
Elizabeth didn't join him for dinner that evening, and Barbossa more or less respected that. After all, she'd witnessed a difficult thing. She had seen death before, of course. She'd even killed her fair share. But this was likely the first time she'd seen a kid get caught in the crossfire. And the way he'd handled it might not have improved her opinion of him. But what had she expected him to do? The boy was dead; there was no fixing that. The man was suffering; Barbossa ended it quickly for him. All he could do after that was business as usual. Elizabeth would just have to toughen up.
He went to bed with these thoughts, and though he felt quite at peace over the business of the day, he found himself unable to sleep. Such being the case, he got out of bed and strode quietly about the ship, stem to stern, personally looking everything over. He made it all the way to the galley before he noticed anything amiss, and he wouldn't have noticed at all if he hadn't heard a sniffle. There was Elizabeth, sitting on the floor behind a table, apparently finishing up a rather serious cry. Barbossa raised the lantern that he carried over her, and she quickly wiped her face, somewhat annoyed at having been found.
"Wouldn't yeh rather cry in the privacy of yer own quarters, Elizabeth?"
"Crying was never the plan, Captain. I was merely taking a walk…What are you doing here?"
"Takin' a walk." He set the lantern down on the table and took a seat. "Could've had this out over dinner, but this'll do. I know that some of the death today bothered yeh. I can understand—"
"It didn't exactly seem to bother you."
"I've seen it all before. It never gets easier to see, but yeh learn to be hard and press on. Death be but a part o' life."
"I'm tired of people dying when they shouldn't. My parents, my husband, my—" She began to cry again. "…I don't want to be hard and press on."
"…Must be horrible, losin' a child."
Elizabeth was nearly shocked out of her tears. Her fingers ran absently over her tattoo as she gaped at him in panic.
"Who told you?" she breathed.
"That ink on yer arm told me. I understand more than yeh may think."
She all but snarled and rose to her feet, meeting his eyes. "And what do you understand, Barbossa? What do you know of the loss I have endured?"
Barbossa stood, looking down hard into her eyes. "I be a pirate and twice yer age. What loss haven't I endured? Me parents have likely been dead longer than yeh've been alive. Me lover's been dead these twenty years, and if our son still lives, I wouldn't know him if I passed him in the streets. Seems hardly right that I stand here listenin' to yer carryin' on, when, by God, I've heard it all before."
"I…I didn't know you had a son."
"Aye. And what did ye have?"
She wiped a tear away. "…A son", she whimpered, and the tears came again.
It surprised them both a little when she was suddenly wrapped in his arms, crying into his chest, but it happened so naturally that neither of them chose to question it. They stayed like that for a few short moments. She cried openly, clinging to his shirt, and he merely held her and patted her head, enjoying the fact that he could actually feel her warmth against him.
But it couldn't last. Eventually, her sobs began to lessen, and they both knew that they needed sleep more than anything. Barbossa was the one to separate them, though he did so gently.
"Go to bed now, missy. There'll be no sleepin' in tomorrow."
"Aye." She smiled weakly as she wiped the rest of her tears away and began to leave. She paused, though, before she climbed the steps. "Barbossa…will you tell me about your son?"
"Aye, but not tonight. Off with yeh now."
She perked up a bit and went on towards her quarters. He waited until she was well ahead of him before returning to his own, and as he settled into bed, he thought to himself, what in the hell just happened?
