Ch 12 Chasing the Wild Goose
Later that morning, Jack approached Elizabeth as she was polishing a section of the ship's rail.
"Miss Swann" he began, letting her know that this was a formal Captain to crew member conversation. "I have given some thought to our earlier discussion, and have made a captainly decision. Against my better judgement, you are free to participate in onboard defense of the ship if such action is required."
Elizabeth smiled widely and she opened her mouth to speak, but he raised a finger to halt her, and went on. "However, I am denying you permission to go ashore until such time as we reach a port where I am sure you will be able to find safe passage to wherever it is that you think you need to go. This is in your own best interest, as a Captain is always concerned that his crew members do not get themselves killed needlessly."
She began to protest. "Jack—Captain—".
He interrupted her. "Your willfulness has caused me a sizeable amount of inconvenience and it's only my good nature that has kept you from being flogged for insubordination. When we reach a port that will satisfy both your requirements and mine, I will gladly be the first to help you disembark from my ship."
Elizabeth's face was stony and unreadable as she replied. "Thank you, Captain." She turned away from him and bent over the railing scrubbing at it with a vengeance, fighting to dam up the tears of anger and rejection that threatened to spill. When she had regained control of her emotions, she raised her head. Jack was at the helm and no more mindful of her than he was of the seabirds that were constantly swooping and diving for fish in the ship's wake.
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The Pearl continued sailing south following the coastline. Jack's charts of the New World weren't very useful as they were more than a decade old. There were only a few ports depicted on the map of the island of California1. Upon investigation, most of those "ports" turned out to be nothing more than monasteries or convents surrounded by small communities of the faithful. It appeared that the New World was entirely populated with Spanish Catholics.
Elizabeth was not surprised when the provisioning parties returned with the occasional gold crucifix or communion chalice along with small amounts of food they had liberated from the monks or nuns. The most important thing they brought back, however, were several barrels of fresh water from the convent wells. The crew had been drinking only straight rum, strictly rationed, for some time because they had run out of water. Normally they were able to collect a little rain water from the sails when it rained, but there had been no storms of late. The water was important not only because they were becoming dehydrated, but because there was a general fear among the crew that they would run out of rum. They were also running low on food again, and the monasteries they had raided had not provided enough to fully re-supply the ship's galley.
Since Jack still wasn't exactly sure what latitude they were at, the Pearl sailed within sight of the shore as much as possible, and a constant lookout was set to keep watch for signs of a port city. One afternoon Tobias up in the crows nest cried out "I see a harbor and a tall church tower!" A cheer went up among the crew, and everyone rushed to their stations to prepare to bring the Black Pearl into port. The men drew straws to determine who got to go on shore leave. Four men were to be left behind on guard duty, as well as Elizabeth and the two boys.
Once again, Elizabeth was left on watch with Jacob and Tobias. She didn't bother fighting with Jack about it this time. She just gritted her teeth and waited for the moment when she would finally be able to leave the Pearl. She was surprised when the whole crew came back to the ship the very next day. When they left, it was assumed they'd be in port for a week or longer. The moods of the men who'd gone ashore ranged from grumpy and severely hung over to downright angry, but Jack was more animated than she'd seen him since they left Singapore. As soon as the food and water they had procured had been brought aboard, he began calling out commands to the crew. Soon they were under full sail again, heading south. Elizabeth thought that perhaps they were being chased, but she could see no ships behind them.
The whole crew talked about Jack's latest crazy idea as they worked. Phillip's opinion was that Jack was on another of his wild goose chases. He said that the previous night Jack had heard a tale of a place where the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were close enough together that a ship could be hauled overland between them, thus cutting nine months or more off the trip home. And the rumor had it that there was a crazy man who claimed to have created a way to do this. It sounded like madness to him, but Jack was hell-bent on finding this place. The problem lay in the fact that nobody knew exactly where it was. That didn't stop Jack. He'd been to Isla Muerta, which could not be found unless you had been there before.
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A few days after they pulled away from the port city, Elizabeth walked past Ragetti and did a double-take. He was standing at the rail alternately holding a large conch shell to one ear and a hollowed out dried gourd bowl, apparently a souvenir of his recent brief trip ashore, to the other.
"Mister Ragetti, whatever are you doing?" She couldn't keep the question from bursting out, even though she immediately knew that the answer would probably make her sorry she had asked. He lowered the items and turned to look at her with his one good eye.
"Oh, hello Miss Elizabef! I been thinkin'… y'know how you can hear the sea in a sea shell when you're on land? Well, this gourd came from the land. So I wanted to find out if I could hear the land when I listen to the gourd while I'm on the sea."
He turned away from her, put the shell and gourd up to his ears and assumed a very thoughtful expression as he listened to first one then the other. Elizabeth put her hands to her temples and walked away shaking her head. Yes, she was definitely sorry she had asked.
A/N:
1The story of maps that showed California as an island began with a mistaken journal entry by a Spanish explorer in 1602, and even though some 100 years later another explorer concluded that California was attached to the continent, it took a royal edict in1747 by King Ferdinand VI of Spain to establish that as fact.
(I tried to include a link to the history behind this but it won't display--if you want to read it, e-mail me and I'll send it to you privately...)
