Chapter the Second: Tortuga, My Love

Tortuga hadn't changed a bit since Jack Sparrow had last been there. It still swarmed with pirates - or 'privateers', as some of them preferred - and people of disreputable character. It was a haven for the wolves of the sea.

He strolled among the wolves, just another one of the pack. Occasionally his swaggering walk would bring him bumping into someone, but a dangerous grin and a threatening hand on the pommel of his sword dissuaded any complaints.

Eventually he came to his favourite tavern. It had no sign above the door, and several drunken sailors staggered out, singing off-key. Jack grimaced and sidled past them into the dingy humidity of the tavern.

People paid little attention to him, which irked Jack a bit. He was rearing for a fight, or action of any kind, really. Speaking of action, Jack spotted a familiar, rogued-up face, and walked towards it, grinning.

No sooner had he stopped three feet away and opened his mouth did he receive a slap. "Ow," he remarked, giving the woman a hurt look. "Jezebel, I thought we were past all this," he said in a wounded voice.
Jezebel turned in a whirl of perfume and strolled off without an answer. Jack rubbed his face.

"Pity," he commented, and shouldered his way through the press of bodies to the bar. "Barkeep!" he shouted, and the burly man turned around. "Get us a mug o' your finest rum, eh?"
"And what will ye pay wit' THIS time, Jack Sparrow?" said the tender in a thick Irish accent. "More o' those broken promises ye seem to have in abundance?"

"Now, now, Fergus," said Jack placatingly, reaching into his coat. "A pirate always pays his debts, sooner or later." He dropped a couple of gold coins on the grimy counter with a clink. Fergus the bartender looked at them a moment before scooping them up and tucking them away.

"A mug o' rum 'tis, Cap'n Sparrow," he said in a much more amiable voice. Jack smiled.

Said mug was deposited in front of him after a moment and he took a long, savouring sip, smacking his lips in appreciation. "Aye, that's the stuff," he hummed happily, and as an afterthought, flicked another coin at Fergus the bartender. Fergus took it without comment and moved off to serve someone else.

Jack hummed and glanced around the tavern. He recognized a few faces; most of them looked homicidal as he met their eyes. He gave an apologetic look to some, when he remembered what it was he was supposed to look sorry for. Those he didn't recognize that still stared at him he grinned at.

One such man didn't seem to like Jack grinning at him. He stood slowly and lumbered over. He was so fat that his stomach parted the crowd in front of him. Jack could smell some unholy stench coming off the man in waves, but was immune to it - he'd smelt worse.

"You gots a lotta nerve, comin' in here, Jack Sparrow," slurred the man, obviously drunk out of his mind.

"Eh? How's that?" asked Jack, polishing off the last dregs of rum in his mug. He slammed it on the bar with a decisive BANG and stood. He barely came up to the huge man's chest.

It was hard trying to intimidate a man almost as wide as he was tall.

"Ye tellin' me ye don't remember me?" asked the man, and burped loudly. Punctuation, thought Jack.

"Hmm..." He put a sarcastic finger on his chin. "Let me think." He looked the man up and down. "Nope, narh, can't say I do."
"That's too bad," the man said, and without further ado, grabbed Jack by the neck and lifted him off his feet.

He choked and struggled, clawing at the man's hands, but to no avail. His legs flailed beneath him like dying fish. To his unsurprise, no-one was paying any attention to them - fights like this went on all the time in pirate taverns.

Jack gave up trying to pry the man's hands away from his neck and, blue-faced, reached down. With a swift movement he had drawn his pistol, pressed it against the man's head, and cocked it. Very slowly, the man lowered Jack to his feet and let go of his neck.

The pirate Captain wheezed, rubbing his abused jugular with one hand and keeping a firm grip on his pistol with the other. When he finally felt he could breathe properly again, he spoke.

"Mate, I don't know who you are," he coughed a bit to clear his squeezed throat, "Or what I've done to you. And believe me, even if I did, don't think for a second I'd apologize for it, because quite frankly you prob'ly deserved it." The man growled and flexed his arm muscles, but with a grin Jack waved his pistol, confidence restored. "Now, if I were you I'd run along and hope next time we meet - if there is, indeed, a next time, which I hope for your sake there isn't -" He paused and frowned. "What was I saying?"

The man stared at him.
"Oh yes. You'd better hope that if we meet again, which we probably won't, you won't make the foolish mistake of trying to attack me again. Because, mate, I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, savvy? And Captain Jack Sparrow--"
Faster than lightening, the man drew a sword Jack didn't even notice he had, and knocked his pistol out of his hand. He barely had time to fumble his own cutlass out of its sheath and block a lethal swipe to the stomach.

Clash, clang, went the swords as the two men crossed blades. Grunt, groan, went the bigger man as he tried to dance away from Jack's lightening-quick advances. The man may have had a size advantage, but Jack was small (in comparison, anyway) and nimble, and could easily duck the man's clumsy swings.

With one fell swoop, Captain Jack Sparrow brought his blade swinging up and to the side, and the huge brute's sword went flying out of his hand. There was a scream from the crowd.

Jack retrieved his pistol, pointing sword and gun at the man's head. "I suggest you run along now, mate. Savvy?"

The man backed away slowly, and was soon swallowed by the crowd. Jack sighed and slumped, sheathing his sword and shoving his gun away in his belt. He sat slowly and signalled to Fergus.

"Better have another rum, mate," he said tiredly, "And forget the mug. Just bring me a bottle."

Jack grinned to himself as he uncorked and sipped from the bottle. He felt more alive than he had in ages. Although he *was* quite tired out, which irritated him a bit. He was terribly out of shape.

"Gettin' a bit soft in yer old age, Jack, me mate," he said to himself.

He finished the bottle and tossed a coin - silver this time - at Fergus before ploughing through the mass of bodies again. Once on the street, he took a breath of fresh Tortuga air and gagged a little. Tortuga air was never fresh. More like farted in, bottled up and then released after ten thousand years.

He strolled listlessly about a bit before a loud BOOM, cutting over the sound of yelling and general cavorting, echoed in the street. He turned slowly towards where the sound had come from - the docks.

Then there was screaming, and a mass of bodies running past him. Jack had to fight to keep his footing. He caught an elderly woman by the arm. "What's going on?" he asked. The woman looked terrified, but not of him - she kept glancing fearfully over her shoulder.
"The Spaniards!" she said thickly. "They're here to reclaim Tortuga!" The wrinkled lady pried herself free of Jack's grasp and ran off, surprisingly quick for a woman of her age.

"The Spanish," muttered Jack, wincing as another BOOM echoed in the distance. "Almost as bad as the British. Or the French. Except...Spanish. Hm."

He ducked in and out of alleyways, weaving his way through the city until he came to the docks. People were still screaming and rushing around, but most had fled with the first attack. Jack saw a ship looming in the distance - bearing the Spanish flag.

Well, no surprise there, judging from what that old woman had said. Jack ducked as another cannonball came tearing past his head. He glanced at the hole in the building behind him and frowned. "I'm not paying for that," he said, and rushed towards the docks.

One of the piers had been destroyed by cannon fire and lay in splinters, half-in, half-out of the water. Jack danced past it, frantically searching for his rowboat. He had tied it up at the docks upon his arrival, and now it was...
Gone. Smashed to pieces by an errant cannonball. Jack swore. How was he supposed to get back to the Black Pearl without a boat?
The Black Pearl. Jack was thankful he'd had it hidden in a cove halfway round the island. No doubt the Spanish ship would have destroyed it before attacking Tortuga.

He fell flat to the dusty floor as another cannonball whistled past and shattered a window. Jack crawled on his elbows towards the edge of the docks, where he spied a rowboat, beached in the dirty sand.

He stood and ran the last few paces towards it and spent ten minutes shoving the rickety contraption into the water. The Spanish ship was looming closer, now, and Jack could see three small, dark shapes moving away from it. Boats. They were sending soldiers ashore.
"Good thing I won't be here when they arrive, then," Jack said, wading waist-deep into the water before hopping into the boat. He fed the oars into the rowlocks and pulled. The boat cut smoothly through the choppy waters. There was a hole in the bottom, and Jack stuck his boot over the top of it.

The wind and the water was, instead of taking him away from the Spanish ship, taking him *towards it*. He rowed frantically, and the boat turned in a slow arc, always spinning back towards the Spaniards. Jack let out a lengthy string of curses as the huge military ship drew closer, and closer, and closer...

And then there was the crack of muskets firing as he drew into sight of the enemy boats.