The Makings of a Pirate, by Hellborne

Pirates of the Caribbean - PG-13

Copyright: Characters, not mine, See the Mouse. Story, mine, but I make no money. He does, but not on this.

Typing convention. / is used for thoughts.

Summary: Jack Sparrow seems to be waging a personal war on slavery. Elizabeth and Will want to know WHY.

BETA: The great and unbelievably humble Pendragginink...I love you! You are the greatest!!!!! I really can't say enough wonderful things about you!

A/N: Let me know what you think.

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Chapter 8 - Bloody Pirates!

Two days later, a call came down from the crow's nest. "Sail ho!" Jack pulled out his spyglass and pointed it in the direction the man in the crow's nest was pointing. By its colors, it was Dutch, and fairly large, with at least four cannons more than the Pearl. Jack decided to keep to his course, though he watched the ship as they went.

After a few minutes, it was evident to Jack that the Dutch ship was heading toward them with the wind at their back, changing direction to intercept them. Within an hour, the ship was close enough to see the crew as individuals through the spyglass. Jack called "All Hands," and waited.

The other ship pulled down its Dutch flag and started raising colors. Jack took one look at the black and white pirate flag rising on the mast and shouted, "raise our colors and man the guns, mates! It's me old 'friend,' Captain Hans VanDerLief on the Hoer Der Vrouw. Get ready to take her down!"

The crew scrambled to load the guns with cannonballs and chain shot into the ten cannons pointing toward the Hoer Der Vrouw and waited, ready to fire at a moment's notice. As he noticed the pirate flag on the other ship lowering again, Jack yelled "Fire!" The cannon crews on the Pearl started firing at the Hoer Der Vrouw, as the other ship's cannons fired back and a red flag started to rise up the mast.

"No quarter, mates! She's out for blood this time!"

Robert helped the cannon crews as a powder monkey by supplying gunpowder cartridges, though he had two pistols and his sword with him. As he came near to his next destination, a cannonball burst through the hull, knocking everyone in the area to the ground, and the cannon backward across the deck. He scrambled to his feet and ran to the hole and looked out, pulling both guns. He saw a target and fired before thinking, the ball hitting the man in the chest. He saw another target and fired off that shot, felling that man as well. Out of loaded weapons, he tucked them back into his belt, grabbed the cartridges and ran to the next cannons, doling them out as fast as he could.

The battle raged on, the mainmast of the Hoer cut down by one of the chain shots and her deck was looking like a prairie dog field, though the Pearl's deck and hull were beginning to look bad as well. Both decks ran with blood, as man lay dying on both ships. Jack Sparrow kept barking orders, and most of the men kept firing, while others maneuvered the ship so that they could board.

Robert gathered as many cartridges as he could carry, knowing full well how dangerous it was, and brought them to the various cannons. Then he ran up the stairs with anyone else able to stand to Jack's call of "prepare to board!"

The deck was awash with blood and bodies, but Robert ran for a grapple, heaved it into the other ship's lines and swung over, pulling his sword as he landed. There he saw that over half of the other crew was dead, and the deck was almost half gone. Two crewmen were waiting for him, so he started slashing, parrying, and stabbing at them. They were not nearly as good swordsmen as he, and he dispatched them without any problems, and then moved to attack others. Captain VanDerLief was at the helm, so he progressed in that direction, killing anyone who got in his way.

Many of the Pearl's crew had swung over and were attacking hard against the Hoer's crew. As he moved toward the helm, Robert saw several of the men from both sides falling into the holes in the deck to the floors below. Sometimes they would reemerge, sometimes they wouldn't. Both sides were taking their toll, but it looked like the Pearl's crew had the upper hand.

Captain VanDerLief noticed Robert hacking his way quickly toward him, so he pulled his sword and waited at the top of the stairway. Robert arrived at the bottom of the stairs and shouted "Surrender VanDerLief!"

VanDerLief laughed. "Against Jack Sparrow's crew? Ye must be daft!"

Robert knew he had the disadvantage, but threw himself up the stairs to attack the Captain. VanDerLief was not caught with his pants down, however. He slashed at Robert and pulled a dagger from his belt. He fought him with both weapons, using the dagger to parry Norrington's blows. Robert kept fighting, realizing that, although he was not doing any damage to the Dutchman, he was moving forward slowly, and would soon be on the same level as the Captain.

As he got an even footing to VanDerLief, he started to get small jabs in through the dagger's guard. Not the fatal wounds he would have liked to have given him, but they kept the Captain busy. They fought around and around, each looking for a drop in the guard of the other, until finally, while Robert was facing the Black Pearl, he saw Jack on a rope about to swing over, an odd-looking curved sword in his hand. VanDerLief lunged, catching Robert in the arm, but Robert stepped back and ducked low into a crouch.

Confused, VanDerLief stopped for just a heartbeat, ready to give Robert a final blow, and Jack swung over, slashing hard with that sword. VanDerLief suddenly looked very surprised, and Robert watched as the Dutchman's head rolled off his shoulders landing directly in front of his crouching form. Then, as if it were an afterthought, the headless body fell down in a heap.

Robert stood up, amazed and aghast. He had never encountered a sword like the one that Jack used. He walked over and looked at it. Jack allowed him to view it and swing it around, saying "got that in Nippon. I only use it on special occasions, but this was one occasion I couldn't resist." He took back the sword, cleaned and sheathed it, then pulled out his usual sword.

They both looked around the deck of the Hoer. Bodies were everywhere. The ship seemed to be listing slightly toward the Black Pearl, and very few people were still fighting. The two men ran down the steps and helped the Pearl's crew finish off the crew of the Hoer, gathered any wounded that belonged to them. Jack went into VanDerLief's cabin and collected any papers that he found there. Some of the crew went looting as quickly as they could without being left behind. It was becoming obvious that the Hoer Der Vrouw was sinking, and they needed to move the Black Pearl out of position quickly, so they made their way back to the Pearl as quickly as possible.

As they watched the other ship go under, Jack and Robert both surveyed the damage to the Pearl. Robert noticed that Jack let out a deep breath. The hull had been breached in six places (though thankfully, nothing below the water line), and two of her masts were broken near the top, though low enough that they would not be able to use their sails until they were fixed. The deck looked like swiss cheese. Thirty men were dead, and twenty more were wounded, many of them seriously. "Clean up and let's get moving! Those wot know how, start fixin' the masts! Everyone else, do what ye can! We have three weeks to get to Bonaire lest we be too late! Now MOVE IT!" Jack seemed deflated somehow, and Robert figured that it must be the damage to the Pearl. /That man loves this ship more than any man ever loved a woman./ He led Jack to his cabin and told him to relax, that he would supervise the repairs.

Jack slumped into a chair. "Thank you, James Norrington. You're a good man." Norrington left.

- -

When Jack walked out of his cabin, he looked completely different. Gone were his coat, vest, shirt, boots and all extra accoutrements such as his sword, gun, etc. He still wore his breeches, baldric, and head scarf, though the ends of the latter were wrapped around his long tresses into a semblance of a ponytail instead of hanging free. Robert, while having stitches put in his shoulder, watched Jack fairly fly up the rigging to where they were trying to fix the mizzenmast. After securing himself to the mast with his baldric, Jack spoke animatedly with the men doing the job. They seemed to be having problems with it, and Jack was apparently putting them straight on what he wanted done. Once in a while, some of the conversation floated down to him. "So take the other mast..." "Damn the rigging till AFTER the..." "then pull up some DECKING y'fool!"

His stitches finished, Robert walked over to the mast that Jack had climbed, and scrambled up, favoring his right arm just a bit. The man who stitched him had done a good job. "Commodore?"

"Call me Jack. You're my first mate now."

"Jack then. You should come down and let the men finish their jobs. They know what to do."

Jack sighed. "You're right. I just worry about me Pearl. I've had her back nigh on two years, but I don't want to lose her to the likes of VanDerLief."

"You won't. We'll have her fixed and under way in no time."

"And in the meantime, the trade winds and the currents carry us closer to Port Royal and the gallows. If this takes longer than this evening, we'll be sitting ducks for your fleet, Commodore."

"We'll have the Pearl ready by then. You have my word."

"All right. I'll go help with the bulkheads." Jack unfastened the baldric from around the mast and climbed down as fast as a monkey. He disappeared into the hold.

- -

When next he saw Jack, Robert was smiling. He was at the helm shouting orders, when Jack climbed up from below. The crew had done a fine job on the mizzenmast, and the ship was at last under way, though slowly, since the foremast was still under repair. The bulkheads were fixed, and they only lost two cannons. Jack looked around, saw the full sails on two masts, and smiled as well.

"Robert! Ye've done well!" He climbed the steps and viewed what still needed to be refitted. "It's a miracle. How did ye do it?"

"I'm an officer of the Royal Navy. I know how to give orders." He paused for a moment. "Jack, where did you get that sword? It's amazing. I've never seen anything like it before."

"It's called a katana. I got it in Nippon, from a lord. They call them Samurai over there. He thought I'd make a good husband for his daughter and gave it to me as a wedding present. Too bad about his daughter." Jack looked off into the sunset. "Lovely lass. Earthquake took her from me. I still miss 'er." He shrugged, turning back to Robert. "The sword is folded 400 times, sharper than a razor and twice as strong as any blade ye'll find made even by our young Mr. Turner. I keep it in a special chest in her memory."

"I never knew you were sentimental about anything but the Black Pearl," Robert said in a low voice.

"There are a lot of things that NOBODY knows about me, and I do hope that you'll keep this piece of information in confidence between us."

"Of course. On my honor as a gentleman."

Jack laughed. "Pirates aren't gentlemen, mate. And ye're startin' to act more and more like a pirate every hour." Robert frowned. "Look at ye! When we boarded the Hoer Der Vrow, you were among the first over, killed more'n any of the rest of the crew, and even went after her captain personally. And I didn't see anything of a 'gentleman' in you fightin' over there."

Robert stiffened. "They raised the Red Flag. There was no choice but to go onto the offensive."

"Sure there was, mate. You ignored the rules of engagement completely. You took several of them through the back! Now any GENTLEMAN would have been horrified and insulted by your actions. Me, I'm right PROUD of ye, Robert."

Norrington's shoulders drooped. "I...just wasn't thinking. I don't know how I could have acted so atrociously."

"Don't think about it, mate. I don't like killin' either, but when ye've got to do it, get it over with and don't worry about rules. Here's how I see it: When you're in a fight for yer life or for freedom, the ONLY rule to live by is to live through it and free. If you're not dead or captured when it is over, ye've kept to the 'rules.'" Jack watched Robert, who was deep in thought.

"I'm going to have to do some serious thinking about this."

"Go sleep on it. I'll take the helm. Have Ragetti cook you some curry and get some rest." Jack stepped up to the wheel while Robert went to his cabin to consider the turn of events.

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TBC

A/N: So, do you like the fact that I brought Pintel and Ragetti back? Plot bunnies need to know! So hit that REVIEW button and tell me!