Their First Trial
Finally, we were ready to set sail on the open seas. The Black Pearl looked like a respectable merchant ship at first glance. We ran up the sails, and I began my first journey as a pirate under a respectable captain, and not a lunatic or fiend. Before we set sail, I used my knife to shave off my hair to rough brown stubble. I tied my kerchief around my head, and walked back to the Pearl; I was finally ready to set sail under the alias of Matthew Cutting, not as a woman disguised as a man to escape the whims of her family.
Once we had set sail and were on our way, I spied Perkins and Duffy tossing a gold coin into the deep. Walking up to them, I leaned against the railing with them. "Hey, Duffy?"
"Yeah, Cutting?" Duffy stood by me while Perkins went back to work.
"Why'd you toss that coin in the water?"
He chuckled a bit before he answered. "It's worship, Matt. The sea's ruled by Calypso, a local goddess. Every sailor worth his salt knows that it's Calypso that gives men good passage on voyages. I toss a gold coin in the deep every day that I'm alive at sea, thanking her for the gift to live on her waters."
Without another word, he gave me another one of his coins. I did not pause as I tossed the coin into the waters. Duffy patted my shoulders before shoving me into the ratlines for work.
Oddly enough, Jack had a library of books stashed in his cabin; during the high noon that day, I looked for references of Calypso. In all my researching of pirates, I had never come across her. It proved worthwhile. One of Sparrow's tomes informed me that Calypso had been imprisoned in a human body, barred from the sea. It was best to remain on the side of the immortal, so everyday afterwards I tossed a single gold coin into the water just like Duffy had told me to.
You never forget the first battle. It was one week into my new masquerade. I was white to the face, my stomach was knotting itself over and over again; in spite of that, I never let go of my weapons. My cutlass and knife were honed to kill; my pistol was primed and loaded for the fight. The Black Pearl would appear like an merchant ship from afar, sailing along the horizon while she moved closer to our chosen prize. Several of the crew would walk around on the deck doing normal ship's duty, while the rest of us would hide underneath the railing, out of sight from eye and telescope.
When we were close enough to broadside the ship, we would arise from our hiding places and commence to yell curses and sailors' oaths towards the other ships; one person would run up the sweeps, our flag whipping a threat in the breeze. Always, Sparrow would order the long nine cannons to be shot to create more noise and damage; it would also create as a smokescreen to confuse our opponents, while we would hook to the ship with grappling hooks and swing across to board our prize.
For us, looting ships was a part of our life. For the crew of our prize, it must have probably felt like sinking into hell right before you finally die. By the time Jack and Barbossa took their first step onto the captured ship, the captain and crew would have usually surrendered, and their weapons would have been gathered and stripped from them. Once the crew had surrendered, I would pick a passenger at random, make him kneel before the crowd, and hold my knife to their throat; this helped to create fear and to ensure the crew's cooperation. It also helped to cover up the fact that I was scared out of my mind about these little excursions at first. Walking around and inspecting the ship, Jack would politely ask the captain what kind of cargo he was carrying, and if he carried any bullion or coin on board. Underneath his breath, Barbossa would add that if he tried to resist, he and his crew would have wished that they were dead by the time that he was done with them.
The captain, if he were smart, would tell us what cargo he held. Then Barbossa, strangely enough, would ask any of the crew and passengers if they wanted to join our crew. If there were any volunteers, Perkins would pick the man off the ground and place him among the crew. All of the remaining crew and passengers, along with the captain and his officers, would be placed in a boat pointed toward shore.
If the captain were not a smart man, he would mouth off to Barbossa, and end up signing the execution order of himself and all of his officers. The passengers would still be allowed to choose between the boat and the life of piracy. In both cases, once the cargo was transported from one ship to another, the ship was set ablaze while we sailed away.
I loved working on the Black Pearl. As always, I would knuckle my brow when I was reprimanded for anything in my duties. I was not made fearful of the whip to my back if I performed a task wrong. If I did do something wrong, the bo'sun would not give me my rations for the day, and I would be banished to the sails for the rest of the day. To me, that was no punishment at all, since I had lived like that for most of my service on the New Hope. I felt free, freer than I ever felt before. I made friends among the crew; I stopped isolating myself in the sails all the time. I even slipped down onto the riggings underneath the bowsprit, and let the waves wash over me; it was so exhilarating, especially when I saw my first dolphin with my own eyes. The greatest improvement from the New Hope to the Black Pearl was that I had fun: everyone laughed and had a merry time together, never in fear of a whip or a beating.
However, it was not always fun for all. One of the riggers, Dawson, started to pick a fight with me after duties were over. It started as jealousy over my ability to read, but it quickly escalated beyond that. I tried to act friendly towards the crew, but he was simply filled with a weird disdain for me.
"'Ey there, shortie!" He would always say that first. "What's a shrimp like you doin' on a ship with the big fish, eh? Why don't you go read up somethin' for the Captain to awe over?"
By now, I was tired. So I wanted these little quarrels to be over with. "Just leave me's be, Dawson." Then I would just simply walk away to the berths for sleep.
Usually, the taunts would end there. But Dawson was not satisfied yet. Soon the taunts grew to humiliation. He would carefully knot the ropes from the sails around my boot, making me fall from above and hang there. He got quite a laugh out of it, but the crew just looked away. Nicking me with his knife, punching me in the arm; Dawson had his sick fun everyday day like this. Me, I would head to my berths to fix myself up, and then go back on deck.
Finally, Dawson escalated to full-out violence. Of course, he did it only in private, away from the eyes of the crew and Captain. So after one of the more recent of our "little encounters" below decks, he left me with a dislocated shoulder, a bruised eye, a split lip, a cut running along my hairline that did not stop bleeding, a bloody nose, and several broken fingers. Duffy was the one who found me.
"'ey, Cutting!" He had come looking for me; I had been missing from my duties for almost an hour. "Matt, Captain wants to see you!" He found me on the floor of the berths, lying in the blood pouring from my nose. "Perkins! Get you ass down 'ere now! Cutting's been beat!" But Perkins did not come down that hatch; it was Jack. He and Duffy dragged my semi-conscious body up the hatch and onto the deck, amidst the shocked expressions of my crewmates. From out of the corner of my good eye, I could see Dawson sniggering as my beaten body was dragged across the quarterdeck, my limp feet hitting each of the planks as they carried me to Jack's cabin.
"Jesus, Jack!" I did not care at this point to stand on title. I pulled my dagger out from my belt and wedged it in my mouth. Pushing him out of the way, I slammed my shoulder against the keel and back into place. I saw stars and bit into the dagger. It hurt so much, like fire was being lit on my shoulder, and then ice was melted on top of that. I screamed a loud one, probably waking up the dead in Havana. There was now a permanent mark on the leather of my knife from where I had bit it. Then, as suddenly as the pain began, it stopped.
Jack forced me onto the ground and strapped my shoulder in place. He obviously knew his way around a dislocated shoulder; he also had broken fingers under his belt, as he set my finger bones back in place and wrapped them in place to keep them still. "You're out for six weeks, Matt. Oie!" He waved his hands to the gathering crew leaning against the wall to see what was going on. Perkins and Duffy, seeing what was going on, beat back the crowd to go back to their duties, using both words and their fists. I tried to thank them with a nod, but my shoulder hurt too much for me to move my head.
"All right, boy... What the hell happened to you? "Concern made Sparrow's brow furrow, as he knelt down in front of me.
"I can't tell you. He'll kill me next time." I shook my head very carefully; my shoulder gave me pain again, making me grimace.
"Who? Who'll kill you?"
"I can't, Captain!" Dawson made sure to strike fear in me this time around. I was afraid of what he would do to me next time.
"Matt, you have my word. When you're healed, you and whoever did this can settle this in a duel of swords. Now tell me, who did this to you?"
Well, I had the Captain's assurances that he would not interfere. "It was Dawson. He's one of the riggers. He hates my guts, probably because I can read."
"Dawson! That son of a bilge rat! You want to duel him?!" Jack was a rich plum in his dark face as he began to pace around the room. "He's twice yer size!"
"Yes! You gave me your word, Jack!" I stood up from the bed. "Don't you interfere with this; this is my business now!" With that, I stalked out of the berth. I saw Duffy's shocked look at the bandages around my shoulder, visible against the bloody fabric; the bandages told the story that I did not want to at this point.
For the next six weeks, I stayed in the berths, not working in the sails, as per Jack's orders. But I was far from idle. I practiced my duelling skills. It felt awkward holding my cutlass in my left hand, but since my right shoulder was wrapped up in bandages, I could simply not practice with it.
Once six weeks had passed, Jack removed the bandages around my shoulder and fingers. They were completely healed, albeit incredibly stiff. He helped me to move the muscles around to warm them up again. Only one thing was on my mind: my revenge against Dawson.
It happened that afternoon. Jack called Dawson and me before the mast at quarterdeck. "Jacob Dawson, you are hereby accused of breaking the foremost of the Articles of this ship: Treat all crew as your family." For once, Jack was serious; he obviously did not have his early morning rum today. Do you deny it?" By now, the entire crew was gathering around Jack and Barbossa, to see what kind of a storm was brewing on the horizon.
"Of course, I deny it! If this crew is a family, why am I being accused of being a big brother to Cutting here? After all, don't big brothers pick fights with their little brothers?" His voice was as slick as grease, but his eyes, dark and forbidding grey, told an entirely different story.
"I was present, along with Duffy Fisher, when his injuries were assessed. Matthew Cutting himself confided in me that you continually used violence and humiliation tactics against him on more that one occasion. Do you still deny your accusations?" At this, Dawson grew stone-faced. He was cornered, with no way to get out of it.
I finally stepped forward. "Captain Sparrow, as my right by the Articles, I demand the right of combat with this man to settle our dispute."
"Your request is granted, Matthew Cutting. As the one whom the damage has been done to, you may have control of the time and the place of the combat."
"Right here, right now." Even as I talked, I took off my jacket. Last night, I sharpened my cutlass; now, I pulled it out of its sheath. "To the death!"
At my last declaration, the crew got excited. "That's right, boy!" "Give him his due, Matt!" "You're meat now, Dawson!" No one on the Pearl liked Dawson; so now, he was about to get his comeuppance.
Neither Jack nor Barbossa did anything more. Our swords were out, our jackets were off. From his deep red face and the way that his body swayed, Dawson had been a little too indulgent in the rum rations last night, so his sword work was bound to be sloppy. It was too easy; I ran up to him. He tried to block me, but I was truer in my aim. I thrust my sword through his gullet. He was shocked at the metal piercing his belly; chuckling, he fell to the ground at my feet with a thud. The fight was over; Dawson lost, and had paid for his maliciousness with the ultimate price.
Barbossa, oddly enough, was the first one to talk, breaking the silence that Dawson's death had created. "Well lad, you've proven yourself today." I was too sick to talk. Running to the port side, I leaned over and let loose my breakfast. I thought that Dawson would at least give me a fight, but the drink had made him stupid. I did not like to kill a man in cold blood. I heard somebody yank my sword out of Dawson's corpse, and drop it at my feet.
Turning around, I grabbed my ration of water and rinsed the bile out of my mouth. I picked up my bloody sword from the deck, and shoved it back in the scabbard, blood and all. Without another word, I turned back and walked to the berths.
"Hey, Cutting!" Gerald O'Niell yelled at my back, making me stop. Turning around, I stared straight in his watery blue eyes. "You've earned your place now. You're truly one of us." Shaking my head, I walked down into the berth for some sleep, trying to get rid of the sight of Dawson bleeding on the deck out of my mind.
After the death of Dawson, the crew came to trust me. Besides my duty of furling and unfurling the sails, the crew gave me more duties to perform on board. One of my duties included becoming the ship's surgeon. That meant more time spent in the berths practicing my stitches on pieces of salted pork. Barbossa cleared out one of the storage rooms below deck for me to use both as my berth and as the infirmary. Jack had managed to get me a set of drugs and medical bandaging from one of our stops; my heart leapt when I saw the three vials of opium, the best painkiller there was. I had Gerald install a locked cabinet so that the men could not come in and steal my drugs. But that was not the only thing that I had to learn.
On my free days, Barbossa and Jack let me chart our courses using the maps that I had drawn back at home and my navigation tools. It was here that I learned of Jack's compass. An odd thing, but very useful, it pointed in the direction of where we wanted to go. For Jack, that meant mostly to the rum locker. In my hands, it followed the courses that I charted and ended up with the chests of treasure buried in the numerous islands of the Caribbean.
Jack was quite impressed with my navigational skills, that he ended up putting me on an afternoon shift of helms-man duty every three days. It was an exhilarating experience being on the helm, especially during a storm. In a gale, you have to hold on tight to the helm, so tight that your knuckles turned white. However, you must also concentrate on the bo'sun's cry to change directions. I loved every minute of it. The helm felt like an extension of my body; it was extraordinarily easy for me to learn. Jack, a natural born sailor himself, confided in me that I was a born natural. In part of this, I received two of the weekly night time watches, monitoring the waters up in the crow's-nest.
After a recent battle, Sparrow told me that he, Barbossa, and the bo'sun (a giant of a man from Senegal) were impressed by my marksmanship and my balance in the ropes. My shooting skills had improved from my battle on the New Hope. I could now load a gun quickly, the quickest in the crew. I also could shoot a target dead on in one shot. My balance in the ropes came from the nine months of sail duty on board the New Hope. So, they granted me the position of sharpshooter. Before a battle, they would tie me in the rigging and I would shoot off key officers during skirmishes. After my first fight as a sharpshooter, I was rewarded with a proper rifle to use instead of the flimsy duelling pistol that I currently used in battle. I still kept the pistol on me, because it was the only close-range weapon, besides my blades, that I could use in battle.