Fic: Crossing the Bar (28/?)
Author: Honorat
Rating: T
Characters: Norrington, the crew of the Dauntless, Jack Sparrow, and the crew of the Black Pearl
Pairing: Jack/Anamaria somewhat; Jack/Pearl definitely
Disclaimer: The characters of PotC! She's taken them! Get after her, you feckless pack of ingrates!
Summary: The final confrontation between the Dauntless and the Black Pearl begins. Please keep your arms and legs inside the ride. In the event of an emergency landing, there is rum underneath your seat. Every once in awhile, I have to write some raving sailing. Norrington has finally got the Black Pearl trapped. Jack is bound to do something crazy, but will it be the last thing he does? Today's title is from Henry IV, Part Iby William Shakespeare.
Thank you very much Geekmama for the beta help.
28 Either We or They Must Lower Lie
Once again the Dauntless reverberated with the opening notes of her battle song. To the hum of wind in her taut rigging and the swish of water turning at her bow were added the blood-chilling roll of her snare drums beating the crew to quarters and the bright shrilling of her boatswain's fife like the first flash of lightning drawing the thunder of men to their battle stations. The heavy percussion of bulkheads dropping away vibrated her hull like the footfalls of the god of war.
Men clambered about the masts and rigging, slinging the yards in chains to reduce the likelihood of a descent on their heads if the lifts were shot away during the coming conflict. Others were engaged in tumbling the officers' and crews' sea chests into the hold where shots were less likely to penetrate, leaving the gundecks cleared for action. Bundled hammocks were pressed into service as reinforcement of the Dauntless's bulwarks to protect her weather deck gun crews from the deadly explosions of splinters. Flanking the great guns, hillocks of cannon-balls grew along with huge masses of wadding. Ship's boys hauled buckets of sea water for use in sponging the powder-singed barrels and buckets of sand to hold the smoking slow-matches. This time there would be no storm to quench the fires started by red-hot shot, so Norrington had ordered firescreens placed and the decks spread with sand that would be kept watered.
Once again, Gilbert Samuels directed the transformation of mess tables into amputation tables and the placement of cots for the injured while he arranged the array of his grim instruments for greatest efficiency. This time, there was no hope that the Black Pearl would be unable to fire back.
Commodore Norrington stood on the quarterdeck of the Dauntless, as tense as her canvas itself, taking his eyes off the pirate ship only to cast them briefly over the disciplined havoc his orders had created.
The Black Pearl crouched like a lioness over her kill, wounded and all the fiercer for it. This time the Dauntless would feel teeth at her throat if she wished to take that dark ship. Through his glass, Norrington could see the pirate's guns already snarling in their open ports, hungry for a taste of the blood of her attackers.
Yet this was Jack Sparrow they were pursuing after all, and nearly an hour after they had first sighted the two ships, Norrington was unsurprised to see the Black Pearl, with her yards yet incompletely rigged and her few bedraggled sails bent on, ease away from the Defender and plunge towards the horizon, fleeing with heartbreaking sluggishness, like a broken-winged gull forced to paddle when she should have flown.
The Dauntless, who could be finicky about her weather and seas, was in a particularly good humour in this fresh breeze, making almost six knots. At her present rate, they would reach the Defender in about two hours. The Black Pearl could scarcely be making two knots, which would bring them upon her in under three hours. And yet, during those hours, the pirates would be cracking on as much sail as they possibly could, gradually increasing her speed.
Under ordinary circumstances, Norrington would not have considered bending on studding sails. The wind was just a shade too brisk. However, if he could pull a half a knot or even a knot more speed out of the Dauntless, he might shave off as much as half an hour of pursuit. Any time he could seize to the Dauntless's advantage was worth its weight in gold sovereigns when dealing with Sparrow's extraordinary ship. Coming to a decision Norrington summoned Lieutenant Gillette.
"Have the men bend stuns'ls on her, lieutenant," the commodore ordered. "Let us see what the old girl has in her."
"Stuns'ls, aye, sir." Gillette grinned. Then he bounded down the companionway steps in a flurry of orders that sent some men racing up the ratlines to loose and run out the studding sail booms on the ends of her yardarms and others to the sail locker for the extra sails that would add over ten thousand square feet of surface area to her already perfectly bellied canvas.
However, in minutes, Gillette was back on the quarterdeck, all smiles clouded over by storm. "Commodore, I think you should see this."
Joining his first lieutenant at the sail locker, Norrington's puzzlement changed to apprehension as he caught sight of his sail master. Mr. Anglesey had turned an unhealthy shade of magenta that clashed badly with his ginger hair. In apopleptic fury, he was handling what appeared to be scraps of ripped canvas.
"He's worse'n moths, sir," the man spluttered, holding out the pieces to the commodore. "Eighteen sails as full o' holes as a fishin' net!"
"Apparently we did not continue searching for Jip's handiwork long enough," Gillette added, anger sizzling in his voice. "Now we know what he needed that knife for."
"I see," said Commodore Norrington in a frigid, quiet tone that had the nearby gawkers scattering for the far ends of the ship. "Very well, then. Gillette, inform the men on the yards that the studding sail booms are to be taken in, for now. Mr. Anglesey, gather as many men as you need to mend those sails. Our gun crews will not be needed for another three hours."
"And what do we do about Jip, sir?" Gillette dared to ask.
"He will remain where he is," Norrington said, his face chiseled into granite. "There will be time enough to deal with him later."
Lieutenant Gillette thought that he would not want to be that enterprising small pirate when later arrived.
The Pearl's upper gun deck was swathed in the nearly a ton of heavy canvas that made up her main course, lying athwartships, tied fore and aft by its headrope to keep it taut. With the ship underway, Captain Sparrow had decided that her fragile sails should be furled before being run up to the yards to give them their greatest chance of arriving there untwisted and unshredded.
However, these were not sails neatly stowed in all their gear with bending strops seized in place. These sails were the culmination of the ceaseless labour of his sailmaker and those of his injured crew who yet had the use of their hands, cobbled together from the Defender's much smaller sails and what had been left of the Pearl's original canvas after she had been laid on her beam ends, bombarded by the Royal Navy, draped in her spare sails to slow her leaks, driven staggering under it through storm and sea, and the final betrayal, dismasted by her crew. In sum, these resurrected sails were piebald instead of black, and they scarcely had their reef bands, cringles, and head ropes attached—far from being ready to bend on.
Even now, as the Dauntless loomed larger and more ominous, so swift and deadly under her perfect cloud of canvas, the spray off her cutwaters spangling her bow, Jack's crew toiled with frantic care to secure gaskets and robands, head- and reef-earings, beckets and toggles, blocks and clew-garnets, leech- and buntlines, tacks and sheets.
Even Duncan, whose broken arm was splinted and trussed in a sling and whose other arm, gashed to the bone by that snapped clewline, could scarcely move, had teamed together with Kursar who had lost an arm almost to the shoulder in the Defender's first raking firestorm, and together the two of them were crouched on the deck painstakingly stitching grommets, each providing the hand the other lacked.
Jack had to pause a minute to assure himself that his voice would not betray the lump of wadding that was making his throat ache and his eyes sting as he laid one hand on Duncan's rioting dark curls and the other on the thinning grey of Kursar's head. And oh, to have two hands to do it with! "Lads," he said, "Even with one hand apiece, you're worth five men to me."
Their faces turned up to him, Duncan's smooth with youth and Kursar's wrinkled with age, but equally indomitable in the midst of grief and pain—equally radiant as they smiled in pleasure at the praise.
"Cap'n," they acknowledged him.
Jack ruffled their hair as though they were children. "Good work, men. I thank you." Then he continued on his way towards the companionway.
Duncan raised an eyebrow at Kursar and commented so that Jack could hear him, "Not a terribly good judge of age, our captain."
Kursar shook his head in agreement. "Not real good at his arithmetic either."
The two men exchanged grins and bent once more over their task.
Jack thought it likely he might burst something vital what with laughter added to all the other overwhelming emotions. God, how he loved these men.
He paused at the top of the steps to look out over his Black Pearl. Normally her deep and narrow, clean-lined beauty slipped through calms and rode the wild winds with a joyous ease, but now her ragged foremast sails and her jibs running on Anamaria's stays were bearing her bow down in the absence of balance from her aft sails so that even in this light sea, she was making heavy going of it, fleeing as though mired in clay. Jack considered briefly whether to augment her speed with the sweeps, but dismissed the idea as impractical. Too few of the oars remained aboard and unpressed into other services. Too few of his men remained to spare them for rowing. Too little stamina remained in the men to pit them against the Dauntless running before a fair wind.
It would have to be her sails, however long it took to rig them. At least the weather was cooperating with their efforts, the breeze not strong enough to bring their adversary upon them for another few hours nor to pick up the canvas and tear it from their grasp.
Returning to his customary position on the Black Pearl's taffrail, Jack kept watch on the approach of the Dauntless. Commodore Norrington was proceeding cautiously, not stretching his ship as he could have. Now why might that be? Jack wondered, scanning the oncoming ship through his glass. If he'd been the good commodore, seeking to chase down the fastest ship in the Caribbean, he would have ordered on her stuns'ls at first sight of his quarry.
Ah! There they were then. Jack observed the crew of the Dauntless mounting her yards to run out her studding sail booms. Time to readjust his estimate of how long they had until all hell rained down upon them.
A few minutes later, a baffled Jack Sparrow observed those same booms being drawn back in. Surely Norrington hadn't decided the manoeuvre was too risky? Granted Madame Behemoth was a bit of a tub at times, but she certainly had what it took to handle a little more sail on this moderate day. Frowning at the mystery, Jack mentally added back the minutes, each more precious than diamonds, to their window of survival.
Since their gunpowder first-mate had such an affinity with things that exploded, Anamaria was in charge of overseeing the Pearl's cannon, making sure they were in order and ready to defend the ship, particularly those they had liberated from the Defender to replace their own damaged guns. Gibbs could hear her harrying their short-handed gun crews, punctuating her orders with thumping crutches.
Given his own affinity for running away from a fight, Gibbs was coordinating the attempt to bend on enough sail for them to escape the Dauntless, who was entirely overly endowed with firepower. Gibbs was of the opinion that this hasty, reckless manner of doing battle was a complete mistake.
"Here's how I see it," he informed Tearlach.
The two of them were catching a few gasps of air after swaying away on the line that had raised the bundled canvas to the Pearl's main yard, while the topmen stretched the sail along the yard and ran the head earrings out to the yard ends.
"You take two ships, arm 'em with lead and iron, blind 'em with smoke, and set 'em to pitching hunks of metal at each other every which old way. A man unlucky enough to get in the way gets his head blown off." Gibbs pantomimed a shot taking off his head.
Tearlach made a disgusted face.
"If his luck is in, he escapes," the quartermaster continued. "Same goes for the ships. A shot, fired at random into the smoke takes down your mainmast. Another unships your rudder. And there you are, dead in the water. Then your enemy pronounces himself the winner. But that honour actually belongs to the law of gravity."
Tearlach tilted his head in acknowledgement.
"So," finished Gibbs with triumphant logic, "if a battle is won by the chance fall of a bit of lead or iron, wouldn't it make more sense and less bother and ruination just to toss a shilling and let heads win?"
Tearlach grinned and shrugged. He appeared perfectly recovered from the back-straining effort.
Gibbs didn't yet have his breath back. Really, he was too bloody old for this sort of thing. But it was time to haul on deck the third of a ton of main topsail and get it ready to bend on.
"Bah," said Gibbs. "When this is over, I'm buyin' a farm."
As the Black Pearl's motley main course blossomed from its yard and caught the wind, Commodore Norrington made the decision not to heave to and investigate the condition of the Defender. The signals he had ordered run up remained disquietingly unanswered by the little brig, lying forlorn and silent on the azure breast of the sea. What had happened to Walton and his men remained unknown, but Norrington feared what vengeance the pirates might have taken on those who had done them so much harm.
If Jack Sparrow had lived through their first engagement, Norrington realized he would have hope that at least some of the Defender's crew might have survived capture by the Black Pearl. But he had no way of knowing whether or not Sparrow's light touch as a pirate would be the hand at the helm any longer.
Nevertheless, if the Dauntless wished to take the Pearl before she recovered her renowned speed, they would be forced to abandon the Defender. And Commodore Norrington knew he would be a fool to count on their being able to return for her. It was the vilest arithmetic, but the Dauntless could not spare even a surgeon's mate in light of her upcoming battle. He would do for Walton what he could—send over a detachment of marines with provisions in the pinnace and pray that the Dauntless would be in fit condition to rescue the Defender soon.
Captain Alexander Walton loved every plank of the deck of his Defender—except for the ones he was currently sitting on. While acknowledging that Sparrow's crewman had left him in as comfortable a position as could be hoped, any position, held for this long on this hard a surface was bound to become wearisome. He was also excruciatingly tired of the view—cloudless blue sky, sectioned by the lines of remaining rigging, the bulwarks and the open ports formerly occupied by the Defender's weather deck cannon. Even a bird would have provided some variety, but no birds appeared.
He had called out to his trapped crew when he'd first been left aboard his ship, but the intervening decks made communication an ear-straining, throat-wrenching endeavour. After ascertaining that all of them continued to be well and delivering the welcome news that the Dauntless had found them, he had long since ceased to strain his voice other than to occasionally report their status, which was unchanging. The only sounds keeping him company were made by the Defender as shechirped and hummed the faint melody she reserved for moments of complete inaction.
The sounds of creaking oarlocks brought Walton to startled alertness, and he realized the warm sun and gently rocking ship had lulled him to sleep. He heard voices and the sound of a small hull thudding up against the Defender.
"Hello!" Walton hailed, attempting to get to his feet and run to meet the men he could hear clambering up the ship's ladder, in spite of the fact that he was bound. Returned abruptly to reality by the insistence of the ropes, he waited with little patience for his deliverers to appear.
"There's someone up there!" he heard an excited voice exclaim, and then the genial countenance of one of the Dauntless's marines peered over the edge of the starboard gangway.
"Over here!" Walton called, frustrated at being unable to wave.
"Captain Walton!" exclaimed the marine, leaping onto the deck. "Good to see you, sir!"
He was followed over the top by eight of his fellows who immediately set about releasing the captain.
The extended time sitting in a cramped position had left Walton as seized up as a rusty bolt, and he had to swallow his pride in order to allow two of the husky youths to hoist him to his feet where he clung to one of the bars of the capstan until he was sure his legs would hold him.
The young man in charge of the marines introduced himself as Corporal McKenzie. His eyes took in the empty, unmarked decks of the Defender with professional paranoia as though he expected a trap. "What happened here? Where is your crew?" he asked.
"My crew, yes," Walton said, rubbing his wrists. "We must release them immediately. They've been locked up for days, but otherwise, all are well or soon will be."
From the astonished looks the marines exchanged, Walton gathered that they had been prepared for scenes of carnage and torture, not this rather anticlimactic lack of incident. He could see unasked questions seething in their eyes.
"The pirates raided us for supplies and repairs for their ship, but otherwise did us very little harm," Walton explained.
"We have medical supplies, provisions, some powder and shot," Corporal McKenzie said, recollecting himself. "Beacon, Jefferson, get that pinnace hauled aboard. The rest of you, lend Captain Walton a hand in seeing to his crew."
A pinnace. Walton was pleased. The Defender's boats had gone the way of all her other gear, inadequately replacing the Pearl's losses. It would be good to have a smaller vessel again.
As two of McKenzie's men jogged back to the gangway port, Walton beckoned to the six others to follow him as he made his way awkwardly down to the hold where the pirates had incarcerated his crew. When they arrived, they found that Lieutenant Armstrong had nearly succeeded in staging a break from gaol using one of the doctor's instruments. The coping on that hatch was going to need replaced before it would be useable again.
As soon as the marines from the Dauntless finished freeing the hatch cover, the lieutenant shoved his way through and scrambled onto the deck. "Captain Walton, are you all right?" he exclaimed, catching his commanding officer by the shoulders, as though he had suspected Walton of deceiving his crew in order to raise morale.
"I am perfectly well," Walton assured him returning the grip. "Jack Sparrow treated me with all courtesy. And the leg is much better."
"That is excellent news." Armstrong beamed, but as his eyes travelled over their plundered ship, his smile faded, and he shook his head. "I do not know whether we have been excessively lucky or excessively unlucky."
Captain Walton, watching all his crew—all of them—even those injured, emerging from the Defender's hold, could only feel the luckiest of men. "We can repair and re-provision the ship," he told Armstrong. "Everything of real value has been spared to us."
It was no longer necessary to use the glass in order to watch the inexorable approach of the Dauntless, her royal blue hull gilded gold and glorious, her pyramid of sails pure and perfect white, trim and deadly, the most powerful warship in the Caribbean. Captain Jack Sparrow could count each one of the fifty guns in her broadside, could even tell the twenty-four pounders from those thirty-two pounders that hadn't been involved in their first encounter. This time there would be no storm to bury those lowest gun ports. With only half her broadside power, the Dauntless had been able to pound the Black Pearl to her ribs. Now they would discover what it meant to face her unrestrained strength.
"She's got the weather gage of us, so she'll be able to choose her moment. We cannot avoid this engagement," he observed to his first mate, suppressing the urge to go beleaguer his already straining crew into making sails from figments of their imagination faster.
"Aye, but she won't find it so easy to disengage now, will she?" Anamaria grinned fiercely, casting a proprietary eye over the weather deck gun crews, stripped to the waist, muscles rippling like molten bronze as they hauled on the tackles of their mighty charges. "We're goin' t' make that Norrington regret he ever even heard of the Black Pearl."
"Well, that's about fair, since I certainly regret ever hearing about him."
Jack's gaze lingered on his crew as well, seeing not the vigorous beauty and strength of them but the painful marks of their last meeting with the ship now bearing down on them—the bandages dark with old blood, the bruises mottling and distorting flesh, the fiery stripes of wounds not deemed worth the time to stitch up. Seeing the pale sternness of their faces, their eyes clouded with the choked thoughts of their hearts. Seeing the empty spaces where twenty-nine of his men and boys no longer worked beside their mates. How Jack wished with ferocious futility that he could preserve those yet remaining to him.
Jack imagined Commodore Norrington, who even now would be standing on the quarterdeck of the Dauntless, observing the Black Pearl with the same dry taste of danger in his mouth, the same half-strangled prayers for the safety of his men.
"'They come like sacrifices in their trim,'" Jack quoted softly. "'And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war all hot and bleeding will we offer them.'"
Anamaria curled her lips back over her teeth in a snarling smile, as pitiless as an avenging Fury. "Let them come," she hissed.
Turning to contemplate his first mate, Jack reflected that he had never seen her more splendid, her black hair twisting in the wind like flames, the crimson dress enfolding her like a flag offering no quarter, her disfiguring injuries and crutches only making her seem more valiant. "You're a bit of a fire-eyed maid, yourself, love," he commented.
But if Anamaria could achieve some measure of comfort from entering a battle with the ability to slay the men who would be slaughtering them, all Jack Sparrow troubled heaven for was some impossible way to unknit this cursed knot of all-abhorred war that was tightening around their necks like a noose.
Commodore Norrington watched as the Black Pearl's main topsail caught the wind and filled. Already she had her headsails, her main course, her spanker and now this topsail bent on. The Dauntless would come up alongside her within minutes and it would not be too soon. Sparrow's ship could fly farther and faster with fewer sails than any other ship in Norrington's experience. They could not afford to let her get her wings back.
Norrington could see figures on the pirate ship, tiny clots of humanity spread out along her main topsail yard or slipping down her shrouds, bits of faraway motion and life surrounding her deadly guns or pacing her rail observing the approach of the Dauntless. He wondered if one of them was Jack Sparrow, and if so what the man was thinking right now. No one could say what sort of a battle this unusual pirate was likely to wage. No one but Norrington had ever managed to pin him into an engagement. Would Sparrow's cunning extend to tactics and strategy? Or had his dependence on his swift ship left him inexperienced in the art of war? Would he make fatal mistakes, or would he match the Royal Navy in skill? Not for the first time, the commodore wished he knew anything at all about Sparrow's past. Who had he been before he was Captain Jack Sparrow? What elements had gone into the forging of such a man? And was he even in command of the Black Pearl?
In the end, the questions could not matter. They would find out the measure of the Black Pearl and whoever now captained her in the next few hours. And they would pay in blood for the knowledge.
The Dauntless had been cleared for action. Bevington's marines once again clustered in her tops. The master at arms had distributed the personal weaponry in the event the Dauntless was boarded. And once more, their ensign fluttered its defiance against the sky. It was time.
The ship's gunnery crews poured the measures of powder into the bores of her cannon then rammed the wadding home, and heavy shot rumbled down the throats of guns like the echoes of promised thunder. Then would come the priming of the touch holes with a small amount of power, and the guns would be run out, ready to fire on Norrington's command.
Except it didn't happen.
Commodore Norrington could hear the change in the sound of his ship, setting his teeth on edge, even before he could make out the voices raised in consternation and wrath. The orderly activity around the guns snarled into confused tangles.
"Gillette! Groves!" Norrington snapped, although his lieutenants were already pelting to investigate. "Find out what the problem is, and fix it!" They would be under the Pearl's guns in minutes. He needed the Dauntless ready to fight.
Gillette was back almost immediately, his face gone ashen. "Commodore, that little bastard has cloyed the portside cannons. Stopped up their touch holes with metal spikes, he has. None of them are going to fire until someone drills them out again."
Groves returned almost on his heels, his darker complexion several shades paler, the horror in his expression surely a mirror of Norrington's own. "The whole portside battery is gone, Commodore," he confirmed Gillette's report.
Their words hit Norrington's chest like a shot.
"Good God!"
Frost-bound terror gripped him by the throat—clear, pure, and vast—a fear that swept from horizon to horizon and down to the depths of the sea leaving room for no other thought, no other feeling. It was not a fear for his own life, but for the lives of the six hundred souls in his care, from the oldest tar to the youngest ship's boy. If Norrington had shied away from imagining Jack Sparrow's emotions with his ship bearing down on the Dauntless and his powder drowning in his holds, he knew now to the bitterest dregs of his soul.
Fortunately, the shipmaster in Norrington was not as paralyzed as the rest of him, and the orders sprang to his lips without his conscious volition. "Helm down, hard alee!" But even as he gave the commands for the Dauntless to tack away from the Pearl, he knew it was too late. Approaching from the windward side, with her massive inertia, the Dauntless was committed to a course that would take her in range of Sparrow's broadside for nearly half an hour, more than sufficient time for the Black Pearl to lay waste to her and to all aboard.
The air aboard the Black Pearl vibrated with anxious intensity, as though everyone had taken a deep breath half an hour ago and still hadn't let it out. Abaft her starboard beam, the Dauntless dominated the horizon, implacable and growing nearer.
Anamaria, pausing to lean on the railing in an attempt to give her arms a rest from the crutches, glared at the approaching Royal Navy ship and whispered under her breath a very ancient, very powerful curse she reserved for when she really wanted the universe to destroy something. It was certain the Black Pearl was going to need some help from somewhere to survive this battle.
Although her crew had laboured unceasingly on the sails, the Pearl was still losing ground. Even now, her mizzen topsail and her main topgallant sail were vying for deck space with the recoil paths of the guns. The men would be bending those sails amidst the hail of fire from the Dauntless. To add to their challenges, the sails that were already cracked on remained in disarray. The men were having to negotiate around scores of braces, sheets, halyards, clewlines, and buntlines still lying on the deck, needing to be coiled and hung on their belaying pins.
Whether they would then be in any condition to rig and run up her stay sails was being given long odds amongst those of her boys who would gamble about anything. She'd caught Marty going around with a quill and tablet recording bets. He'd tried to get her to place half a quid on the relatively sure thing that the Captain would hold fire until the Dauntless's opening salvo, but Anamaria had told him the only bet she'd be placing was on how fast she could kick his sorry ass down the hatch. Marty had dodged out of her way. Then he had recorded her bet. Jack, on the other hand, had wanted to put money on when he'd order the guns fired, but Marty wouldn't let him, informing him that he wasn't allowed to bet on anything he could control. So Jack had placed his bet on Marty's ass-kicking instead.
Now the captain was back hovering at his ship's taffrail, hands gripping the scarred wood as though he could hold his ship safe with an act of will alone, watching the Dauntless aimed at his heart like a single well-placed shot.
For a moment Anamaria wanted only to sink to the ground, give in to pain and exhaustion, and just wait for it all to end—whatever terrible things were yet to come, she wanted them to be over. Shaking herself in irritation, Anamaria mentally informed her leg that it wasn't having any say in what she did or felt, and she tried to encourage herself again with the knowledge that if they were about to get shot to hell, at least this time the Navy wasn't going do it without some damnation in return. However, for the first time, Anamaria thought she might understand Jack Sparrow's intense hatred of bloodshed. Jack had called her a fire-eyed maid, which was at least better than some of the poetry he'd spouted at her, but the only fire she could feel in her eyes right now was the burn of unshed tears.
"Hold steady, my lovely lads," Captain Sparrow's voice carried down the ship, as calm as though he were discussing a routine change of course. "Let's wait for our quarrelsome companion to get into range."
Anamaria scowled at the ship, pacing them several hundred yards away. Surely they were within the Dauntless's range already. Why hadn't Norrington fired? She noticed Jack was using the glass again, every line of him speaking storm-taut alertness, staring out at the Royal Navy vessel as though he imagined he could read Norrington's mind if he could just look him in the eye.
But they didn't have time for mind-reading. Every minute that the Dauntless drew closer, bearing whatever destruction the commodore had planned for the Pearl, was leaving them with less and less opportunity to make good on Jack's defensive plan.
"Jack," Anamaria said urgently. "We've got to fire now! If she gets any closer, chain-shot'll do us about as much good as tossing coconuts."
"No," Jack said. "Not yet, Ana. If Norrington was going to fire on us, he would already have started. Those thirty-two pounders of his have a range of over two thousand yards. Something's gone wrong over there. I have no idea what."
If something over there was keeping that bloody warship from firing, something had gone right, in Anamaria's opinion. But more likely Norrington was just awaiting his moment. She had to get some sense into Jack's head while there was still time.
"Maybe it has," she said in frustration, "but you have no idea when it will go right again, either, and then we'll be staring in their gunports with no way to aim for their rigging. You want that ship disabled, but if she gets any closer before she fires, we'll be broadside to broadside, in pitched battle for as long as it takes us to run out of shot or men."
Jack lowered the glass and met her eyes with a troubled gaze. "You're right, love," he acknowledged.
"So, can I give the order to fire?" Anamaria prompted, her body poised for flight.
The torn look in Jack's eyes wrenched at her heart.
"I'll not be the one to start this thing," he said softly. "God knows, I have not sought it out. If there's a chance we can escape without further bloodshed, without further damage to the Pearl. . . . Don't you see? I have to take that chance."
Anamaria opened her mouth to attempt something persuasive enough to make their insane captain see sense, but she was interrupted by Gibbs' arrival.
"Jack, y' daft bugger, why haven't we started whittlin' away at that oversized gunboat before she blows us t' kindling?" The quartermaster voiced her thoughts exactly.
"He's gone all fuckin' chivalric on us," Anamaria snapped in vexation. What would move Jack Sparrow to action? She whirled and swung over to the rail overlooking the waist of the ship. "Kursar," she bellowed, "get your bloody arse up here!"
"'Honour pricks me on, yea, but how if honour pricks me off?'" quoted Jack whimsically behind her back.
Gibbs knew better than to pay Jack any mind when he started quoting the Bard of Avon at them. "We're pirates!" he insisted. "What use is it, following rules that just get us deader than the next man? You've always been a man to cheat, Jack. Now's not the time t' rethink your philosophy!"
Jack raised his glass again and turned back to observing the Dauntless. "I'm not following rules, at least not somebody else's rules."
Gibbs rolled his eyes and shook his whiskery head, throwing up his arms in exasperation. "God preserve me from turning pirate with a man of principle!"
Anamaria stormed back to the fray, Kursar in tow looking bewildered. She had to pull up right next to Jack so she could grab his coat without losing her crutch and make him turn back to them, which meant she was in his face when he surrendered to her force and met her eyes.
"Look at this man, Jack," Anamaria's voice was intense with conviction. She gestured towards Kursar, who shrugged apologetically at his captain. "Last time the Dauntless picked a fight with us, he lost an arm. Ain't nothin' bringin' it back." Her voice lashed with barely restrained fury. She took a step towards Jack, who held his ground even though they were nearly nose to nose. "If we slow that bloody war ship down, maybe a few more men lose some limbs. Maybe a few more die. But if we do not slow her down, most of 'em will be cold before nightfall and the rest on the gallows."
She had meant for the anger alone to sound in her voice, not for the crack of grief that opened in her words. But perhaps honesty would work better with Jack than wrath for she saw him flinch and give ground before her pain that he would never have given to her fury.
Jack turned to look at Gibbs. "Do you agree with her?"
"Aye," he nodded gravely, "the lass has the right of it. Now's our only chance."
Anamaria hated to see the way Jack's face shuttered closed, hated to see that weight descend on his shoulders.
"Very well," he agreed, accepting their decision. "We have a few more minutes during which the Dauntless will be in optimum range for chain-shot. If nothing has changed, I will give the order to fire on her masts before that time is up."
TBC
