Drink up me 'earties, Yo Ho!
Will watched with interest as the three Navy men came aboard the Black Pearl, covered at every moment by a number of pistols and rifles. Tight- lipped, they submitted to being searched by a pair of unwashed, half-clad buccaneers. The guard was dropped when it was determined that they were, indeed, unarmed, but Norrington was holding something which one man took from him and handed to Jack. Jack unfurled an admiralty flag.
"Welcome aboard, Commodore," said Jack. "What's this for?"
Norrington stepped forward. "This ship will become my flagship. I'm commandeering her to pursue the Tarantula."
Jack shook his head, and, at a signal from Gibbs, all the weapons that had been lowered were raised and again aimed at the soldiers.
"You're aboard my ship, Commodore, and I'm not about to allow her to be commandeered." Jack tossed the standard aside, where it fell, crumpled, on the deck.
"Captain Sparrow," said Norrington, "your ship is under my guns. If my men lose sight of me, or if anything happens to me, they will open fire."
"No need for threats, Mate. We mean you no harm. If you cripple the Pearl, we'll be two damaged ships on a big ocean. Let's begin again. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl, Commodore Norrington." Jack made a dismissive motion with his hand, and the weapons were lowered, slowly. "I am able to offer you aid. We can provide you with equipment and lumber for repairs, as well as an escort to Port Royal, or whatever anchorage you prefer. All you have to do is listen to what Will and Elizabeth Turner have to tell you. What say you to that?"
At the mention of the Turners, Norrington sought them out with a surprised expression, but then looked back at Jack. "We're wasting time, Sparrow. The Tarantula is getting away. I don't care what tale you have to tell. Captain Stanley just attacked a Royal Navy ship! Under a pirate standard!"
"My standard, Commodore. The skull and crossed scimitars is my pirate standard, and he's using it. Mrs. Turner?"
Elizabeth stepped forward and took a deep breath. "James, George Town was attacked by a ship that looked exactly like the Black Pearl, except that it had dolphins on the afterdeck instead of . . . that." She nodded her head toward the afterdeck's ornaments.
Norrington glanced at the stern, and also looked briefly at the entire configuration of the ship.
"Turner?" Jack called next.
Will was ready, and tried to concentrate on the part of his story that mattered. "Captain Stanley has an exact duplicate of the Black Pearl's figurehead hidden under black sails in steerage. I saw them. He says he hand-picked his crew of men for their brutality. He's been pretending to be the Black Pearl. He nearly hanged me for finding out."
The Commodore listened attentively.
"Why?" he asked, simply.
"He's looking for the Isle de Muerte," Jack answered. "Turner was to be his cipher. He attacked you because he thinks he knows where it is, now, and he doesn't need to play Navy man anymore."
"So the Isle de Muerte is where he's headed."
"He thinks he is. Surely you don't believe I told him its true location."
"But you do know where he's headed."
Jack smiled slowly. "I know where he's headed."
The Commodore tapped his foot. When Jack was not forthcoming with more than his provoking smile, Norrington said, "Mr. Turner?"
"Sir?" Will answered, automatically.
"Where is Stanley headed?"
Jack gave Will a cool look.
Will did not hesitate. "Commodore, my conditional enlistment is over. I have nothing more to tell you."
Jack bowed to Will, his hands together, and then gave Norrington a cheerful grin. "Now here's the plan, Mate. We load up the lumber for you and when you and your men are safe aboard your little boat, I'll shout the location across to you, savvy? And we'll be on our way."
In fact, the lumber was already loaded in the small boat. The Commodore left Jack and ordered the two other men to row the boat back to the Deadly Earnest. Then he returned to the conversation.
"You're not going?" Jack asked, sounding disappointed.
"I'm not going. We must pursue the Tarantula and stop her!"
Jack looked astonished. "We 'must' do nothin' of the kind! Besides, he's flying a pirate banner now. Under the Code I can fight him if he steals from me, but I can't betray a brother pirate to you."
"But, Jack," Elizabeth objected, "those people he murdered. They're entitled to justice."
"All well and good, Love, but I see no profit in it for us. The Commodore knows we aren't the ones who committed those crimes, and that's all I wanted."
"He stole your name," Norrington said. "Don't you want revenge for that?"
"What's in a name? He didn't steal my ship. I may not like his methods, but it's really not my affair."
"Jack," Will said. "You arranged for the Deadly Earnest to be attacked. It's your fault they can't pursue him."
Jack squinted in what Will had come to realize was a wince.
"Jack," put in Elizabeth, "please do this. You still owe me. Then we'll be square."
Jack looked from one Turner to the other, dropping a lot of his usual façade. He looked genuinely regretful. "It's not for me to say, Lass. This is a pirate ship. We all decide what to go after, not just me. Why would the men do this? Risk their lives for what? There's nothing to tempt them."
Will saw his wife's eyes narrow in thought, then widen as she had an idea. "A pardon!" she whirled to Norrington. "A full pardon for the whole crew, for any past crimes."
"I don't have that authority," Norrington replied archly.
"But you could get it. I know where," she insisted.
Norrington looked out at the deck of pirate faces turned toward him. Now that the small boat was loaded and launched, most of the crew had gathered on deck, listening.
Jack watched him, a tension in his usually relaxed body.
"There's a matter of justice there, too . . . " Norrington fumbled with the words.
Gazing innocently out to sea, Will said, "I imagine Stanley will be very difficult for the Navy to hunt, since he knows all the Navy's weaknesses."
"Is a pardon on the table, Mate?" Jack asked. "I've got to have something to offer them."
Norrington looked from Jack to the Turners, and back again. He looked out to sea, where the Tarantula had fled.
"Yes. Yes!" he said. "Capture or kill Stanley and his crew, and I'll get a full pardon for you and all your men."
"And women?"
"What? Er, yes. The whole crew."
"Pardon for all past crimes?" Jack asked, looking to the side, at Gibbs.
Norrington followed his gaze, and froze, seeing Gibbs. The two men stared for a long moment. "Yes," Norrington choked. "All past crimes."
"Elizabeth," Jack asked. "Will he keep his word?"
"He'll keep it, or I'll blacken his honor to all of Society," she said.
Jack looked blank. "So . . .?"
"He'll keep it," Elizabeth said.
Jack whirled and leaped up to stand beside AnaMaria at the helm, facing the crew. "What say you?" he called out. "Do we chase and attack the Tarantula in return for pardons?"
For a few moments the crew looked at each other. Then AnaMaria cried, "Aye!" and raised a fist in the air.
"Aye!" answered the crew, waving their weapons.
"Wind in the sails!" cried Cotton's parrot.
"All hands ahoy!" Jack bellowed. "Bear-a-hand up and make sail."
The crew leaped into action.
"Turner!" yelled Gibbs. "Lay aloft to loose the topsails."
And with no further ceremony than that, Will was a member of a third ship's crew in as many weeks. He kissed Elizabeth's hand, then obeyed, glad to be able to help.
He noticed immediately a difference between Jack's crew and the Navy crews. Everything here was done with a will, whereas, on both of the other ships, the sailors lifted no hand until they were ordered to it, and cared not whether their job was done fast or slow, unless there was a lash behind them. Rather than neatly defined stations - each man responsible for his assigned lines and hawsers - everyone on the Black Pearl seemed to know every job, and the nearest man to a needed task leaped to it.
Gibbs had sent him to the topsails, but had not specified which one. Since he was nearest the foremast, Will "laid aloft" there, the other crewmen making room for him with friendly nods.
In moments the topsails were sheeted home, the head yards braced aback, and the fore-top-mast staysail hoisted.
"All ready forward?" asked Jack.
"Aye, aye; all ready," answered Gibbs.
"Let go!"
"All gone, Cap'n!" and the vessel's head swung off from the wind under the force of her backed head sails, and they were under weigh.
Propelled by the trade winds rushing down the Windward Passage, the Black Pearl sped south-southeast, on the same heading the Tarantula had taken as she fled the scene of her crime. The bow of the pirate ship rose and dived confidently on the breakers. When Will was finished aloft, he looked back at the helm and saw that Jack had relieved AnaMaria at the wheel, and that Elizabeth and the Commodore stood near him. Elizabeth gripped the gunwale and leaned out, peering ahead into the wind, her long hair streaming behind her.
Lacking any instructions, he descended and headed aft to join them.
Jack appeared not to notice when Will stood at his shoulder, but Elizabeth came and gripped Will's hand again. The Commodore took Elizabeth's place at the rail, scanning the horizon. They stayed like that for many minutes, Jack's ship bounding over the sea at nigh uncatchable speed, salty spray stinging them all, and occasionally, the luff of a sail hitting the mast with a sound like thunder. Will slid his hand around his wife's waist and realized he had gone from fearing his life was over to feeling perfectly happy in under an hour.
Jack broke Will's reverie with a yell. "Gibbs! AnaMaria!"
When he had the attention of the two of them, Jack's manner shifted. "Would you mind terribly joining me up here?" he asked, in a very un-captainy way. The two pirates glanced at each other, Gibbs on deck, and AnaMaria just starting to ascend the mainmast rigging. They both left their work and climbed up to the wheel. Jack grinned at them. "Stand there for a bit," he said.
Looking puzzled, AnaMaria and Gibbs joined Will and Elizabeth, making a cluster of four behind Jack at the wheel, with Norrington off to the side. Jack hummed to himself as the wind whistled through the riggings.
AnaMaria scowled her question at Will, and he shrugged.
Finally Gibbs stepped forward. "Er, Captain? We've got ourselves some work to do; did you need something?"
"No, I'm done," said Jack. "You can go to it."
AnaMaria hopped into the waist immediately, shaking her head. Gibbs gave Jack a puzzled half smile, and followed her.
Will chuckled.
"What's Jack doing?" Elizabeth asked.
"I don't know," Will said, but he thought he did. For a few moments Jack had been at the helm of his beloved ship and surrounded by his favorite people.
Will squeezed Elizabeth harder.
Norrington came away from the rail and faced the wheel. "Sparrow," he said, "there's no sign of her. She's the same class as your ship - faster than the Interceptor was. You'd better be right about where she's headed, because we won't catch her."
"But, Commodore, we have something the Tarantula doesn't," Will said.
"What's that?"
Will felt pleased that the Commodore, who on the Deadly Earnest would hardly deign to speak to a lowly seaman like Will, was now the one in the dark. He smiled. "We have Captain Jack Sparrow."
Jack laughed. "The Commodore's right to be concerned. Stanley may not be going where we think. He doesn't know what to believe, now."
"You think he didn't believe you were telling the truth, after all?" Will asked.
"If you were Stanley, Mate, would you have believed me?"
Will thought about that. "If I were Stanley," he said, "I wouldn't be able to resist checking."
Jack nodded slowly, his eyes half closed as he looked over the bow out to sea.
Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw Norrington looking frustrated. It must be difficult for a habitual commander to stand by and let others make the decisions, Will reflected, with a touch of pleasure. He knew Norrington must feel a bit out of his element; on a Navy ship, the captain would never take the helm, himself, as Jack did.
Will studied how Jack caressed the wheel, holding his course with confidence, his gaze flicking from the surface sea currents to the telltales, small streamers attached to the masts and lines indicating the direction of the winds. Even with his wife in one arm, Will's hands itched to hold the helm, himself.
Elizabeth led Will to the stairs below the wheel where the two of them could sit and talk quietly for a while. There they each heard the other's story.
They both looked up when they felt Jack adjust their course to port, heading the ship almost due east. "We must be south of Hispaniola, now," Elizabeth said. Will wished he had the map of the Caribbean in his head the way she seemed to. He resolved to study up at the first chance he had.
The sun lowered behind them, bringing to a close one of the longest days of Will's life. A bone-deep weariness gripped him, and he began to notice some aches and stiffness from his various exertions. He didn't care to ever recall again his struggle underwater to reach his boot, extract the blade without dropping it, and slice his hands free of the ropes, all the while sinking deeper. He glanced up at Jack. "Jack's been a prisoner for days," he said to Elizabeth. "He must be tired."
"More likely hungry," Elizabeth said with a small smile.
Will frowned. "I think they fed him . . ." he said, puzzled.
"Never mind," she said, her smile broadening. She stood, and Will followed her. They approached Jack, just as Norrington came toward him from the other side.
Whatever she had intended to do or say, she paused, as some activity pre- empted her.
"Furl the gallants and reef the topsails!" Jack sang out.
This time Will climbed the mizzenmast rigging, since it was nearest to him. As he worked, the sound of the conversation below carried up to him clearly.
"Sparrow!" said Norrington, "We're losing the wind and you're dropping canvas?"
"Don't want to catch them now, with night coming on," Sparrow answered mildly. "They lost the wind before we did."
"You afraid to fight him at night?" Norrington asked.
"I don't want to spend all night worrying that he's sneaking up on us. We haven't seen him yet, so he hasn't seen us. When he knows we're chasing him, he'll turn and fight."
Like everyone else aloft, Will strained his eyes to scan the ocean. He saw nothing but the foam-frosted expanse of water stretching to the edge of the earth in the twilight. He sighed and climbed down.
"Once it's dark, we'll set the sails again and lay ahead with no lights," Jack was saying. "Maybe we'll see theirs."
Jack spotted Will. "Bootstrap, take the helm," he said. "I want to get a fresh shirt."
Will exchanged startled glances with Elizabeth, but hurried to the wheel, delighted. Jack relinquished the helm with no sign that he had noticed anything odd about what he had said.
"Uh, Jack, I have petticoats drying in your cabin," Elizabeth said. "The crew let me use the captain's cabin . . ."
"That's all right, Love," Jack said with a weary shrug as he turned to go.
"Captain Sparrow!" Norrington called. "You aren't going to see the lady's undergarments!"
If Will had needed a second indicator that Jack was tired, he would have had it when Jack turned and snapped, "I bloody well am, Mate, and it's not the first time!"
In his most haughty voice, Norrington said, "You are no gentleman, sir."
Gibbs appeared at Jack's side, his hand on the hilt of a cutlass.
Jack's countenance was a canvas of changing emotion. He went from annoyance to surprise to laughter in seconds. He held out a restraining hand to Gibbs as he guffawed. Gibbs relaxed, and so did Will.
Norrington grew more rigid, if that were possible.
"Turner!" Norrington barked. "Are you going to stand for this?"
Will's mind whirled, but one thought came through clearly - Elizabeth would not easily forgive him for doing or saying anything on her behalf without first knowing her mind on the matter. He looked at his wife and saw on her face only anger at Norrington.
Jack recovered himself, and, his eyes still sparkling with mirth, bowed deeply toward Will. "Mr. and Mrs. Turner, I apologize," he said. "Mr. Turner, excuse my slight to your wife. Mrs. Turner, go and hide your petticoats. Commodore, don't provoke my helmsman; he has his hands full. And give us some warning before you do that again, Mate! It's not healthy to laugh this hard."
Jack and Gibbs moved away to speak together, and Elizabeth slid around them, hurrying to comply.
Still looking angry, Norrington spoke to Will. "Is that true ?" he asked.
"What, that Jack has seen my wife in her undergarments? That's right. I was there."
"You. Were?" Norrington looked so scandalized, that Will had a hard time keeping a straight face.
"She was in her chemise when Barbossa put them both overboard. That's how you found them, remember?"
"That incident with Sparrow substantially ruined Elizabeth's reputation; you know that," Norrington said.
Will no longer found the conversation funny. "I notice you were still willing to marry her."
Norrington lifted his chin. "Out of respect for her father. It was charity."
"Nothing to do with love? Well, I'm so glad she got the better man, then."
"You are a blacksmith."
"I am a pirate. Aboard a pirate ship. You forget your place, Commodore."
Jack appeared, in that uncanny way he had of popping up, unheard. "Commodore, I asked you not to provoke my helmsman."
Tight-lipped, Norrington turned away.
"You need to correct a bit to port, Lad. He distracted you. The tide's running out; do you feel it?"
Will did. Like a wind where there was no wind, the current was nudging the ship. He corrected, and grinned at Jack. "That tells me there's land to the north, even though I can't see it, right?"
Jack nodded. "Aye. But you need to learn the feel of a tide from the feel of other currents. It can fool you."
Elizabeth emerged from the captain's cabin carrying a stuff sack, and wearing trousers and a shawl around her shoulders against the evening chill. "All clear, Jack," she said, as she joined them.
Jack saluted her insolently and headed for the cabin. "I'll be back when it's full dark," he said.
Darkness settled over the ocean and on the ship, like a thick blanket, isolating each man from his neighbor. Gibbs gave the orders to light no lanterns - the sailors were not even to light their pipes.
Elizabeth remained at Will's side. Where Norrington went, Will didn't see.
The wind was light, and the Black Pearl glided slowly through the darkness. Sometime during the dead of night, they lost the wind altogether. "Shall we run out the sweeps, Cap'n?" Gibbs asked.
"Wait 'til dawn," answered Jack, studying the southern sky.
Will relinquished the helm to AnaMaria around midnight, and he and Elizabeth talked and dozed together quite cozily next to one of the aft capstans. The off-duty sailors slung hammocks around the deck, adding ghostly webbing to the dark ship.
When the sun rose, no one could see it. Dawn turned the air gray. The Black Pearl was mired in pea-soup thick fog, without a breath of wind. The pirates performed some of the early morning chores Will was familiar with, such as swabbing the deck, but the fog kept everyone's thoughts only half on what they were doing.
Jack was at the helm.
"I hope you have a real compass, Sparrow," Norrington said to him.
"Don't worry, Mate," replied the ineffable pirate. "I know where we are."
"Then man your oars and row us out of this."
"I know where we are, but who can say what's ahead of us? Stanley's out there somewhere. We've caught a good current taking us east. It's enough."
"Ship ahoy!" called a youthful voice from the foremast rigging.
The entire crew came alert.
"Cap'n, she's burning!" the young man added.
Will and Elizabeth clambered forward on the starboard side, with most of the rest of the crew. The patchy fog floated before their gaze like waving curtains, but Will could make out the glow of a fire, through the mist.
"Run out the starboard sweeps!" ordered Gibbs, but half the crew was already ducking belowdecks.
It was remarkable to Will the way Jack's crew anticipated their leaders' orders. It was as if the whole crew understood what needed to be done, and only waited for confirmation from Jack, Gibbs, or AnaMaria.
Before long the rowers had brought the Black Pearl around, and moved her nearer to the flames. The skeleton of a good-sized ship protruded grotesquely from the placid waters, masts and bowsprit afire like cockeyed candles on a cake. No other pieces of wood clung together large enough to support even a single man above water.
"Could it be the Tarantula?" asked Elizabeth, as she, Will, Norrington, and much of the crew stood staring at the wreck.
"Too many masts," Will told her.
Jack had the dinghies lowered, and his crew rowed carefully amid the burning wreckage. They returned with fishing nets full of salvaged goods. As the crew picked gleefully through the pile, taking anything they saw that they liked, Will sensed Elizabeth's growing indignation.
"Jack," she demanded. "Your men weren't looking for survivors?"
"Calm yourself, Missy," Jack said, plucking a fine tri-corner hat from the pile and trying it on. "If they'd found anyone, they'd have brought them aboard."
"Captain Sparrow," said Norrington, also watching the crew's antics with distaste, "did your men find any evidence of what ship she was and what happened to her?"
"Here you go, Commodore," called a scrawny pirate. The man tossed a large piece of planking at Norrington, who caught it awkwardly.
"M.S. PATRIO" was painted on the wood in green. Will saw it, and he saw Norrington tip the planking away, so others could not easily see it. Others, like Elizabeth.
"The Patriot?" she asked. She moved in front of Will to grip the planking by one end.
Norrington moved slightly to prevent her, but was too well mannered to simply snatch it away from her. "Mrs. Turner . . ." he began.
"Will!" Elizabeth gasped. "My father was to return on the H.M.S. Patriot! That's his ship!"
Will reached for her, but she whirled away in a panic to confront Jack.
"Jack! You have to look for survivors! We have to look again. Please!"
She was ringed by Will, Jack, and Norrington, each of whom regarded her with combinations of shock and pity. Even the other pirates curbed their gaiety, as Gibbs hushed them.
"I don't care if it delays us," she aimed at Norrington, before turning back to Jack. "Look again, Jack, please! They might have missed someone in the fog." Tears spilled down her face.
A sick feeling in Will's stomach told him no one had survived the explosion that must have destroyed the Patriot, and he suspected that Jack and Norrington knew it too. But it would have taken a stronger man than Will to deny her, and, apparently, a stronger man than Jack, as well.
"Aye, Lass," he said simply. "We'll look again."
Will held his distraught wife as the crew readied every boat they had on board. He wished desperately that he could think of something to say that would comfort her.
Norrington waited discreetly until she had regained some composure. Then he approached.
"Mrs. Turner, please take some comfort," he said, formally. In his hand he held a beaker of some drink, which he extended to her. She accepted it cautiously. "We can't know he was aboard. It's quite possible that he was delayed in London. The Patriot would have returned on schedule with or without him; I needed them here."
For the first time it occurred to Will that Commodore Norrington had lost men and, quite possibly, friends, on the Patriot.
"Thank you, James," Elizabeth said, in an uncharacteristically small voice. She took a sip of the drink. "But he wrote me that he planned to return with them."
"I beg you, do not lose all hope. We don't yet know all of what has happened." He bowed slightly and retreated. Will watched him go, both jealous of his manners and grateful for them.
Elizabeth turned in Will's grasp to face him. "Rum?" she offered with a brave smile.
"No, thank you," Will smiled back. "You drink it."
"I hate it," she confided.
"Consider it medicine," he said.
She frowned, but managed a few more swallows. Then she gave him an alarmed look, squirmed free of his embrace and moved to the stern where she was violently sick over the rail.
Alarmed himself, Will hurried to procure some water for her, which she accepted gratefully. "You really don't like rum," he said as she drank.
She nodded, still recovering.
Will looked for something to distract her. "Do you want to go out in one of the boats?" he asked.
"No," she said, and her hopeless expression wrung Will's heart, "he's not out there anywhere. I know it."
The pirates searched the waters surrounding the wreck, calling into the fog, but found no one. They could not be deterred from looting anything of value they found in the water, but at least they didn't celebrate within Elizabeth's hearing.
Will found a blanket to wrap her in, and stayed with her, even after the boats had all returned, the last of the Patriot had sunk beneath the sea, and Jack began giving orders to row the Black Pearl to the south. Norrington, Will could see by his gestures as he spoke to Jack, didn't agree with the course change. Will was curious about it himself, but figured he'd learn its reason soon enough. The crew could manage without him for a bit.
Jack stood forward at the bow, peering constantly through his spyglass. Will couldn't imagine what Jack thought to see through the fog, but as time wore on, the fog thinned, and Will thought it would be gone before long.
Jack lowered his spyglass and left his position, approaching the two of them.
"Elizabeth," he said gently, "do you remember you told me your father couldn't find the Isle de Muerte if his salvation depended on it?"
"Yes," she answered.
"Do you really believe that?"
Elizabeth gave Will a puzzled look. "My father has never had any interest in sailing. He's no navigator." Will noticed she didn't say "was."
"Norrington tells me they talked, though, on the way to the Isle de Muerte. The Governor knew enough to know it's located south from the Greater Antilles."
"What are you getting at, Jack?" asked Will, wishing the man wouldn't talk to Elizabeth about her father just now.
"Come with me," Jack said to Elizabeth. "I want to show you something."
The two of them followed Jack forward, to where he had been standing for the last hour. He handed Elizabeth the spyglass and pointed. "What do you see?"
Elizabeth didn't take long. She started, and looked at Jack in astonishment. "A ship!" she cried, attracting the attention of the nearest crewmen. She looked again, as Jack nodded.
"It's the Tarantula," he said calmly.
Will held out his hand for the spyglass and Elizabeth gave it to him. As Will focused on the Navy ship occasionally visible through the thinning mist, Jack asked her,
"Why do you think they suddenly turned to the south?"
Elizabeth gasped and looked at Jack with hope renewed.
The pirate grinned hugely at her and bellowed, "Ship ahoy! Double speed and run out the guns! Those villains are after our gold!"