Disclaimer: see chapter 1
Author's note: I'm making a logical guess here that Jack's wonderful term "savvy" comes from the French "savoir", "to know". It would therefore have been in common use round Tortuga and its large neighbour Haïti, both French colonies. The Online Etymological Dictionary (etymonline.com) confirms the guess, though records the date of usage as 1785 - long after this story's set. Mind you, in so many other ways Captain Sparrow's a forward-thinking kind of guy ...
----
"Lower the anchor!" Captain Flint called. The anchor chain rattled as it unwound, and the ship shifted as it caught on the seabed.
Jack leaned over the port rail, gazing at the green land before him. There were palm trees and other strange plants, climbing up a steep slope and a golden beach upon which the waves broke. The sky above was a brilliant, bright blue and it was hot and sunny.
Bill Turner came to lean next to him. "Lovely, ain't it?"
"It's a sight," Jack agreed.
The crossing had been long, and at times arduous. The raid on the Spanish merchant ship, the Santa Clara, had been by far the easiest of the voyage. Other ships they had come upon had been better prepared, and better armed. Several of the pirates had been injured, and a brush with a Dutch vessel had led to the death of "Jolly" Roger Andrews, a long-serving member of Flint's crew. Andrews had been a cheerful man, always ready with a joke, and the Pearl's men felt his loss keenly. They had cast his body overboard, weighed down with cannonballs from the stash of loot, and then had several drinks in his honour.
It was not Jack's first experience of death, by any means. But it was his first close encounter with violent, bloody death, and over the next weeks he kept waking with an image of Andrews's disfigured corpse in his mind.
And then there had been the storms, in which even Jack had had to climb the rigging to hastily reef as many sails as possible to prevent them being ripped off the masts. The Black Pearl tipped and tossed in the waves, her decks awash with water. Afterwards they usually found a fresh leak somewhere, and the captain talked of taking her out of the water when they finally reached port to have her hull patched up.
Much to his own surprise, Jack had found himself relishing the hardships aboard ship. To be sure, sometimes he was wet through to the skin and freezing cold; he was often hungry; his fingers were rough from rope burns and his hair matted with salt. But he felt alive, more truly alive than ever he had making tables and chairs in his father's workshop.
Indeed his father would probably not have known his son. Leaving Portsmouth, Jack had been a skinny, small lad with pale English skin and short dark hair. Now he was tanned, his hair had grown to his shoulders, and while he was still skinny it was a tough skinniness. Around his head he wore the red scarf from his first raid, and subsequent attacks had yielded a wide sash and a belt to hold a short knife.
He had celebrated his eleventh birthday out in the middle of the Atlantic. Bootstrap Bill had discovered the date through judicious questioning, and the crew had thrown their cabin boy a proper pirates' party, with tots of rum, hard ship's biscuits, and raucous singing of sea shanties. The men had given him the knife for his belt, a warm blanket for his hammock, and the Italian first mate Roberto had promised to give Jack lessons in swordsmanship.
All in all, Jack felt that running away to be a pirate was probably the best decision he had ever made, and he felt that ever more as he looked out at the Caribbean island before him and basked in the sunshine on his face.
"Welcome to the Caribbean, lad," Thornton said, and Jack turned to the ship's second mate, who held out a bottle of rum. Jack took it, gulped down a swallow, and coughed.
Bill hit him on the back. "You'll never be a decent pirate if you cannot take your rum, Jack."
Jack's coughing subsided. "I'll do both."
"You will?" Thornton said.
"I will." Jack grinned. "I'm Jack Sparrow."
Both men laughed, and Bill turned away. "C'mon, Cap'n Flint says we can go ashore for a bit."
They lowered one of the skiffs, and seven or eight of the crew climbed into it, and set off stroking for the shore. Jack sat in the bows and called directions, relishing having command of even such a small boat.
Once ashore, and once they had all managed to find their land legs, they unloaded the empty water barrels from the ship, and set off in search of fresh water.
The trees were thick, and the jungle was full of strange noises. Jack saw a brightly-coloured bird streak across the canopy, screeching as it went, and pointed in excitement.
"It's a parrot," Sykes, the ship's cook, explained. "You can teach 'em to talk. Clever little critters, parrots."
"To talk?" Jack was amazed.
"That's right," Sykes said. "I 'eard one once what recited the Lord's Prayer. All the way through."
"I don't believe you!" Jack returned.
"I don't know 'bout the Lord's Prayer," Bootstrap said thoughtfully, "but they can certainly talk."
"Stream!" came the shout from the front of the little group, and they hurried to it.
They rinsed the barrels out first, scrubbing them with some leaves from a nearby plant that Sykes pronounced "not poisonous", and then each was filled with fresh water. Then the men stripped off their shirts and washed off weeks of salt, splashing each other playfully.
Eventually, tired out, they hefted the barrels and set off back towards the beach. Another skiff had come across from the ship, and the men had lit a fire and were sitting round it while several crabs on sticks roasted slowly. They greeted their comrades cheerfully, and some went off back to the stream to wash and drink.
Jack spread his damp shirt out over a rock to dry, and lay down spread-eagled on the warm sand.
They stayed at anchor overnight. In the morning Captain Flint ordered the crew back on board, and in a short time the sails were up and the anchor weighed, and they were sailing again.
"Where are we going?" Jack asked, as he scrubbed the deck by Bill's side.
"Tortuga," Bootstrap said. "One of the few places in the Indies that don't mind us. Rough sort o' town, but cheerful. We'll exchange goods for coin, and coin for ... other stuff."
"What other stuff?" Jack was keenly interested.
"Drink," said Bill. "And, er ..."
"Girls?" Jack guessed. Bill's expression was aghast. "After me mother died," Jack said, "Father kept bringing these lasses home with him. They never stayed long. I weren't supposed to know. And that was back in Portsmouth - I reckon somewhere that likes pirates might also like ..."
"Girls," Bill finished. "Aye, that's true enough. The girls like the pirates, and the pirates like the girls, and everyone's happy."
"And that's why you'll be staying aboard ship, young Sparrow." Captain Flint's shadow fell over them. "Tortuga's no place for a lad."
Jack opened his mouth to argue, and then seeing the expression on the captain's face, shut it again.
"Maybe during the day," Flint relented. "But not at night. I'll be leaving you with Roberto to mind the ship."
Looking up, Jack saw Roberto at the helm, and he nodded. "Aye, aye, sir!" He liked the Italian, and he reflected that maybe he would be able to get one of his sword lessons in while the crew were ashore.
They anchored off Tortuga Island at dusk, and the skiffs were quickly lowered. Jack stood and watched the little boats bob off towards the cluster of light that was Tortuga town, and then he turned to Roberto.
The Italian was already waiting for him, two light rapiers in his hand. He passed one hilt-first to Jack. "Start with exercises," he said.
Jack obediently put his left foot behind him, and began to follow the mate through the series of exercises designed to improve his control of the blade.
They kept at it for an hour or so, following the exercises with some simple parries and lunges. At the end of the lesson, Roberto pronounced himself "verra pleased" with his pupil, and they sat down in companionable silence to eat the simple meal Sykes had left for them. There was some rum, too; Jack had a small tot and Roberto a few larger ones.
At some point, tired out with the day's exertions, Jack must have fallen asleep, for he woke as the ship shifted on her moorings, something bumping against her side. It was a boat, and for a moment he panicked. Captain Flint would not think well of him for sleeping on watch. But then he listened, and realised that only one boat had come back - and why had the crew not hailed the Pearl?
Jack sat up, and listened harder. Someone was climbing the rope left hanging over the side for when the crew returned, climbing it as quietly as they could.
By the helm, Roberto was slumped, deep asleep. Jack thought quickly, and picked up one of the practice swords lying by the remains of their meal, before slipping silently off to hide just inside the cabin door.
He heard the light thud as someone hauled themselves over the side of the ship and landed on the deck, and he heard the sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath. There was a pause of maybe five minutes, which to Jack seemed like hours, and then another thud signalled the arrival of a second person. Footsteps crossed the deck.
"They took the bait, then." A gruff man's voice, tinged with a light accent.
"I knew they would." Jack started - he knew that voice. Sykes laughed harshly. "Boy'll eat anything."
"So where is the runt?" the other man asked.
"Damned if I know." A splash, as a rum bottle was tossed over the side of the ship. "He's only a nipper, anyway, no danger to us."
"I'd rather know where he is, savez?" the strange voice returned. Jack mouthed the unfamiliar word to himself, and wondered what it meant.
"I'll give you savvy. Let's deal with the Italian, get the loot and scarper, afore the cap'n returns."
The footsteps came close to Jack, and passed up the wooden steps to the helm. Jack desperately wondered what to do now. He did not like the sound of "dealing with" Roberto, and he knew that even if he surprised the two men he would be well nigh helpless. Sykes had obviously been planning to steal from the Black Pearl for days, maybe longer, and he carried a pistol as well as his sword. Jack had no idea who the cook's companion was, but the chances were that he was also well armed.
He gripped his sword and waited. After a pause there was a horrible soft sound, followed by a thud, and then the footsteps hurried past the cabin again and Jack heard the hatch down to the lower decks being opened.
Cautiously he pushed open the cabin door, peered out, and saw that the coast was clear. Crossing quickly and softly to the hatch, he closed it and made a makeshift lock out of a loop of rope and the sword pushed through the loop into the deck. Now he ran to the side, climbed over, caught the rope still hanging down to the skiff, and shimmied quickly down it.
The sweeps were heavy, but they had not been taken out of the rowlocks and were resting in the centre of the skiff. Jack heaved them into the water, settled himself in the middle of the boat, and set to pulling as hard as he could in the direction of Tortuga. Sykes and his accomplice were left aboard the Black Pearl, with no means of escape.
----
TBC
Author's note: I'm making a logical guess here that Jack's wonderful term "savvy" comes from the French "savoir", "to know". It would therefore have been in common use round Tortuga and its large neighbour Haïti, both French colonies. The Online Etymological Dictionary (etymonline.com) confirms the guess, though records the date of usage as 1785 - long after this story's set. Mind you, in so many other ways Captain Sparrow's a forward-thinking kind of guy ...
----
"Lower the anchor!" Captain Flint called. The anchor chain rattled as it unwound, and the ship shifted as it caught on the seabed.
Jack leaned over the port rail, gazing at the green land before him. There were palm trees and other strange plants, climbing up a steep slope and a golden beach upon which the waves broke. The sky above was a brilliant, bright blue and it was hot and sunny.
Bill Turner came to lean next to him. "Lovely, ain't it?"
"It's a sight," Jack agreed.
The crossing had been long, and at times arduous. The raid on the Spanish merchant ship, the Santa Clara, had been by far the easiest of the voyage. Other ships they had come upon had been better prepared, and better armed. Several of the pirates had been injured, and a brush with a Dutch vessel had led to the death of "Jolly" Roger Andrews, a long-serving member of Flint's crew. Andrews had been a cheerful man, always ready with a joke, and the Pearl's men felt his loss keenly. They had cast his body overboard, weighed down with cannonballs from the stash of loot, and then had several drinks in his honour.
It was not Jack's first experience of death, by any means. But it was his first close encounter with violent, bloody death, and over the next weeks he kept waking with an image of Andrews's disfigured corpse in his mind.
And then there had been the storms, in which even Jack had had to climb the rigging to hastily reef as many sails as possible to prevent them being ripped off the masts. The Black Pearl tipped and tossed in the waves, her decks awash with water. Afterwards they usually found a fresh leak somewhere, and the captain talked of taking her out of the water when they finally reached port to have her hull patched up.
Much to his own surprise, Jack had found himself relishing the hardships aboard ship. To be sure, sometimes he was wet through to the skin and freezing cold; he was often hungry; his fingers were rough from rope burns and his hair matted with salt. But he felt alive, more truly alive than ever he had making tables and chairs in his father's workshop.
Indeed his father would probably not have known his son. Leaving Portsmouth, Jack had been a skinny, small lad with pale English skin and short dark hair. Now he was tanned, his hair had grown to his shoulders, and while he was still skinny it was a tough skinniness. Around his head he wore the red scarf from his first raid, and subsequent attacks had yielded a wide sash and a belt to hold a short knife.
He had celebrated his eleventh birthday out in the middle of the Atlantic. Bootstrap Bill had discovered the date through judicious questioning, and the crew had thrown their cabin boy a proper pirates' party, with tots of rum, hard ship's biscuits, and raucous singing of sea shanties. The men had given him the knife for his belt, a warm blanket for his hammock, and the Italian first mate Roberto had promised to give Jack lessons in swordsmanship.
All in all, Jack felt that running away to be a pirate was probably the best decision he had ever made, and he felt that ever more as he looked out at the Caribbean island before him and basked in the sunshine on his face.
"Welcome to the Caribbean, lad," Thornton said, and Jack turned to the ship's second mate, who held out a bottle of rum. Jack took it, gulped down a swallow, and coughed.
Bill hit him on the back. "You'll never be a decent pirate if you cannot take your rum, Jack."
Jack's coughing subsided. "I'll do both."
"You will?" Thornton said.
"I will." Jack grinned. "I'm Jack Sparrow."
Both men laughed, and Bill turned away. "C'mon, Cap'n Flint says we can go ashore for a bit."
They lowered one of the skiffs, and seven or eight of the crew climbed into it, and set off stroking for the shore. Jack sat in the bows and called directions, relishing having command of even such a small boat.
Once ashore, and once they had all managed to find their land legs, they unloaded the empty water barrels from the ship, and set off in search of fresh water.
The trees were thick, and the jungle was full of strange noises. Jack saw a brightly-coloured bird streak across the canopy, screeching as it went, and pointed in excitement.
"It's a parrot," Sykes, the ship's cook, explained. "You can teach 'em to talk. Clever little critters, parrots."
"To talk?" Jack was amazed.
"That's right," Sykes said. "I 'eard one once what recited the Lord's Prayer. All the way through."
"I don't believe you!" Jack returned.
"I don't know 'bout the Lord's Prayer," Bootstrap said thoughtfully, "but they can certainly talk."
"Stream!" came the shout from the front of the little group, and they hurried to it.
They rinsed the barrels out first, scrubbing them with some leaves from a nearby plant that Sykes pronounced "not poisonous", and then each was filled with fresh water. Then the men stripped off their shirts and washed off weeks of salt, splashing each other playfully.
Eventually, tired out, they hefted the barrels and set off back towards the beach. Another skiff had come across from the ship, and the men had lit a fire and were sitting round it while several crabs on sticks roasted slowly. They greeted their comrades cheerfully, and some went off back to the stream to wash and drink.
Jack spread his damp shirt out over a rock to dry, and lay down spread-eagled on the warm sand.
They stayed at anchor overnight. In the morning Captain Flint ordered the crew back on board, and in a short time the sails were up and the anchor weighed, and they were sailing again.
"Where are we going?" Jack asked, as he scrubbed the deck by Bill's side.
"Tortuga," Bootstrap said. "One of the few places in the Indies that don't mind us. Rough sort o' town, but cheerful. We'll exchange goods for coin, and coin for ... other stuff."
"What other stuff?" Jack was keenly interested.
"Drink," said Bill. "And, er ..."
"Girls?" Jack guessed. Bill's expression was aghast. "After me mother died," Jack said, "Father kept bringing these lasses home with him. They never stayed long. I weren't supposed to know. And that was back in Portsmouth - I reckon somewhere that likes pirates might also like ..."
"Girls," Bill finished. "Aye, that's true enough. The girls like the pirates, and the pirates like the girls, and everyone's happy."
"And that's why you'll be staying aboard ship, young Sparrow." Captain Flint's shadow fell over them. "Tortuga's no place for a lad."
Jack opened his mouth to argue, and then seeing the expression on the captain's face, shut it again.
"Maybe during the day," Flint relented. "But not at night. I'll be leaving you with Roberto to mind the ship."
Looking up, Jack saw Roberto at the helm, and he nodded. "Aye, aye, sir!" He liked the Italian, and he reflected that maybe he would be able to get one of his sword lessons in while the crew were ashore.
They anchored off Tortuga Island at dusk, and the skiffs were quickly lowered. Jack stood and watched the little boats bob off towards the cluster of light that was Tortuga town, and then he turned to Roberto.
The Italian was already waiting for him, two light rapiers in his hand. He passed one hilt-first to Jack. "Start with exercises," he said.
Jack obediently put his left foot behind him, and began to follow the mate through the series of exercises designed to improve his control of the blade.
They kept at it for an hour or so, following the exercises with some simple parries and lunges. At the end of the lesson, Roberto pronounced himself "verra pleased" with his pupil, and they sat down in companionable silence to eat the simple meal Sykes had left for them. There was some rum, too; Jack had a small tot and Roberto a few larger ones.
At some point, tired out with the day's exertions, Jack must have fallen asleep, for he woke as the ship shifted on her moorings, something bumping against her side. It was a boat, and for a moment he panicked. Captain Flint would not think well of him for sleeping on watch. But then he listened, and realised that only one boat had come back - and why had the crew not hailed the Pearl?
Jack sat up, and listened harder. Someone was climbing the rope left hanging over the side for when the crew returned, climbing it as quietly as they could.
By the helm, Roberto was slumped, deep asleep. Jack thought quickly, and picked up one of the practice swords lying by the remains of their meal, before slipping silently off to hide just inside the cabin door.
He heard the light thud as someone hauled themselves over the side of the ship and landed on the deck, and he heard the sound of a sword being drawn from its sheath. There was a pause of maybe five minutes, which to Jack seemed like hours, and then another thud signalled the arrival of a second person. Footsteps crossed the deck.
"They took the bait, then." A gruff man's voice, tinged with a light accent.
"I knew they would." Jack started - he knew that voice. Sykes laughed harshly. "Boy'll eat anything."
"So where is the runt?" the other man asked.
"Damned if I know." A splash, as a rum bottle was tossed over the side of the ship. "He's only a nipper, anyway, no danger to us."
"I'd rather know where he is, savez?" the strange voice returned. Jack mouthed the unfamiliar word to himself, and wondered what it meant.
"I'll give you savvy. Let's deal with the Italian, get the loot and scarper, afore the cap'n returns."
The footsteps came close to Jack, and passed up the wooden steps to the helm. Jack desperately wondered what to do now. He did not like the sound of "dealing with" Roberto, and he knew that even if he surprised the two men he would be well nigh helpless. Sykes had obviously been planning to steal from the Black Pearl for days, maybe longer, and he carried a pistol as well as his sword. Jack had no idea who the cook's companion was, but the chances were that he was also well armed.
He gripped his sword and waited. After a pause there was a horrible soft sound, followed by a thud, and then the footsteps hurried past the cabin again and Jack heard the hatch down to the lower decks being opened.
Cautiously he pushed open the cabin door, peered out, and saw that the coast was clear. Crossing quickly and softly to the hatch, he closed it and made a makeshift lock out of a loop of rope and the sword pushed through the loop into the deck. Now he ran to the side, climbed over, caught the rope still hanging down to the skiff, and shimmied quickly down it.
The sweeps were heavy, but they had not been taken out of the rowlocks and were resting in the centre of the skiff. Jack heaved them into the water, settled himself in the middle of the boat, and set to pulling as hard as he could in the direction of Tortuga. Sykes and his accomplice were left aboard the Black Pearl, with no means of escape.
----
TBC