Disclaimer: see chapter 1
Author's note: Senegal in the late seventeenth century was a French colony - the legacy survives today in the official language, which is still French. Modern-day Dakar was the hub of the slavery trade, with prisoners setting sail from Dakar for the West Indies and America. A translation of the French conversation can be found at the bottom of the chapter. Enjoy!
----
Jack clung to a spar, and watched as the bow of the ship rose up in the air. The hull was battered and salt-encrusted, dripping water and weed. And then, with a tremendous creak and a splash, the bow disappeared below the surface. Soon, all that was left of the vessel were pieces of driftwood, canvas, and bobbing barrels in the waves.
The waves. Jack wrapped his arms more securely around the spar, and considered the waves for a moment. They were huge, amongst the biggest he had ever seen, and he was currently being tossed up and down upon them in a highly uncomfortable and dangerous manner. Every other wave shot over his head, dunking him in cold salt water before he rose up on the crest of the next one. It was not a good position to be in. Around him, other wet heads bobbed - the other survivors of the wreck. Precious few; too few.
The merchant ship, the Nancy, had been beating steadily south, and was off the coast of Senegal when the storm hit. Two weeks earlier they had been becalmed further north, and the captain was eager to make up the lost time. Accordingly he kept - to Jack's mind - too much canvas on the masts, and ordered the crew to reef only when the ship had already taken a lot of damage. The very fabric of the vessel was weakened by her long struggle with the weather, and when the wind gusted again the foremast was torn down. It came crashing across the deck, and the helmsman panicked. In short order, the ship was in disarray. Trying to lower a boat into the water for escape was a disaster; the lines snapped and the boat went crashing into the side of the larger vessel.
Jack had quietly abandoned his post when the foremast came down, and so he was ready - coat on, sword belt fastened tightly, hat rolled up and pushed into his sash - when the order to abandon ship came. He marked a large piece of wood floating in the water and dived off the rail towards it, and it was this that probably saved his life. Many of the other sailors were swept back towards the sinking ship as they jumped, to be sucked under the water and drowned. Others could not swim, and Jack, helplessly clinging to his spar, watched as they screamed and splashed before finally succumbing. He wished he could have swum to their aid, but the waves were simply too high to make any headway. So he hung on, grimly.
Over the course of the next few hours, as the storm continued, Jack Sparrow found himself reflecting on the life that had brought him to this juncture. He was not used to being at the mercy of the sea. Aboard a ship, he had some control - not much, admittedly, in weather like this, but some. He remembered riding out storms at the helm of the Black Pearl, and retiring sodden, tired and exhilarated to his cabin when the wind subsided. He remembered days sitting on watch at the top of the mainmast, the world spread out below him, a glistening blanket of blue. He remembered the day he had first seen the golden islands of the Caribbean following weeks crossing the Atlantic. It had been a good life, and he did not want it to end just yet.
Eventually, the wind dropped. The rain stopped, and the waves lessened, and Jack found himself exhausted but alive. He gladly laid his head down on the spar and closed his eyes, drifting into a deep sleep.
When he woke, Jack was surprised to find that beneath him were not the deep, impenetrable depths of the Atlantic, but hard wooden boards. He seemed to be a little drier too, though as he rolled over someone said with a laugh: "Il est trempé jusqu'aux os!"
Jack registered the words and their meaning before he registered the language in which they were spoken, but he was unsurprised to hear the French. Last time he had seen a chart they were sailing close to the French territory of Senegal, whose waters were busy with French naval, merchant and slaving vessels. As Jack opened his eyes, he found himself weighing up the options in his mind. Being an Englishman was bad enough; being a pirate could, potentially, be fatal, and he decided quickly to play things carefully until the nature of his rescuers was made clear.
Looking down at him was a short, wiry Frenchman with a truly incredible moustache. Jack blinked at the moustache.
"Il s'est réveillé," the Frenchman said.
"Bien. Levez-le." The new voice was harsher and more authoritative than the first, and must have come from the captain of the vessel. The moustachioed one took Jack's arm and hauled him to his feet.
Staggering a little, Jack stood dripping on the deck of this French ship. The captain, arms folded, regarded him coolly.
"Ça va?" he asked, eventually. "Tu parles français, non?"
Jack reached up slowly to wring out his sodden locks, and noted that the hands of three men loitering nearby went straight to their swords. The corners of his mouth quirked, but he deliberately squeezed his hair out before responding.
"Alors?" the captain demanded.
"Oui," Jack said, hair a little less wet. "J'en parle, un peu." Or at least, he added silently to himself, he spoke scraps of French liberally sprinkled with seamen's oaths and Anamaria's Creole. He was not sure that these Frenchmen would understand or appreciate that.
The French captain nodded sharply. "Bon. Alors, t'es à bord le Poulette. Je suis le capitaine Chabert. Et toi?"
Jack found himself becoming irritated at Captain Chabert's use of the familiar "tu" form, but he forced himself to stay calm. Instead of launching out, he flashed Chabert a cheerful grin, and said, "Jim Swift."
"T'es anglais?"
"Just a sailor, cap'n," Jack said. "No allegiance to anyone."
The moustachioed sailor - bo'sun? mate? - translated for the captain in a low voice, and the captain nodded.
"Et tu peux expliquer ça, Swift?" Chabert gestured, and his wiry mate crossed to Jack and pulled up his right sleeve. Jack looked down at the old brand of the East India Company, realising that a pretty thorough search of his person had been made while he was unconscious.
"I do not like pirates," the captain hissed, in strongly accented English.
"Evidently," said Jack, tugging his arm away from the man with the moustache.
"Assez," Chabert said, turning away. "Conduisez-le en bas, monsieur Bonnasse."
"Oui, capitaine." Bonnasse took Jack's arm again, and hauled him below decks.
It was gloomy and very stuffy even on the first level, but Bonnasse, his eyes above the moustache full of anger and hatred for the pirate in his keeping, took Jack lower. They descended two more sets of steps before Bonnasse bent to raise a trapdoor. He pushed Jack down, and they entered a dark, dank, stinking hold. Jack gulped as he breathed in the putrid air; he noticed that Bonnasse had pulled up a scarf to cover his nose and mouth.
"Sweet Neptune, what is this?" he said. The Frenchman pushed him forwards, taking a lantern from the wall by the steps and lighting it.
Jack stopped walking. In the flickering candlelight he could see eyes - hundreds of pairs of terrified, pained eyes, and he realised now that there was a soft noise of weeping too.
"Move!" Bonnasse kicked his ankle, and Jack stumbled forwards into the darkness, the lantern shedding a small pool of light around him. There was a narrow passage leading up the middle of the hold, but on either side of it were rows and rows of people. Men, women, even some children; all dark-skinned Africans, chained to each other and to the side of the ship. The place stank of their sweat and fear and waste. As Jack passed them, they called to him in several different languages, imploring him for help.
Bonnasse ignored the captives, pushing Jack on to the bow of the vessel, where two small iron brigs stood. In one, Jack could see a number of paler-skinned figures, cramped together on the ground. The other was empty, and Bonnasse unlocked it and shoved Jack inside.
"Plannin' on selling us too, mate?" Jack asked, gripping the bars of the cage with his hands.
The Frenchman pocketed the keys to the brig. "You, we shall hand over to the English authorities. I am sure you will fetch a nice price. Your friends, là-bas," he indicated the other cage, "they we shall sell." He grinned unpleasantly, and disappeared, taking the lantern with him.
Jack gave the iron bars a good hard shake. "Damn!" he said, aloud.
"Jim?" There was movement from the other cage. "Jim Swift?"
"Aye." Jack peered into the gloom. "Crew of the Nancy?"
"Aye. Thought you were dead, 'long with the other poor bastards."
"Might as well be," Jack said, finding it hard to say something cheerful in this situation.
"Why've they locked you up separate?" one of the merchant sailors asked.
"Ah." Moving carefully, Jack settled down on the floor with his back against the brig's bars. "It's a bit complicated."
"We have all day. If it is day," someone else said, his voice full of misery.
"Yes, it's day. Stopped raining, too. Storm's passed over."
"Well, explain, then, Jim."
"It's on account of me being a buccaneer," Jack said. "And the brand I picked up in Chennai twenty years back."
There was incredulous silence from the other brig. Then, "East India Company?"
"The same."
"I heard they branded pirates," the mate of the Nancy said, "but I never ..." his voice tailed off. "Blimey."
"Sorry to have misled you," said Jack, but the apology was empty and they all knew it.
"So they're going to sell you over to the Navy?"
Jack nodded, before remembering that in the darkness they would not be able to see. "Aye," he said, "and they'll sell you too, to someone."
"But we're ... we're Englishmen!" one of the Nancy's crew exclaimed.
"And there are other Europeans not averse to using you just as they'll use those other poor bastards, savvy?" Jack said, pitying his former crewmates.
"Oh God," moaned the sailor, in the gloom.
"They'll hang you," the mate said. "Won't they, Jim?"
Jack drew his legs up to his chest and rested his arms on his knees. "Very likely. And since that's the case, I'd rather die as meself. It's Jack Sparrow - Captain Jack Sparrow."
"I won't say pleased to meet you," said the mate, "given the situation."
"That's all right," Jack said. "Given the situation."
They subsided into silence, and the only noises were the water lapping at the hull of the ship somewhere above their heads, and the keening of the prisoners. Jack leaned his head against the bars of his cage, and closed his eyes.
----
The gist of the conversation in French:
- He's soaked to the skin! [...] He's awake.
- Get him up. How are you? You speak French?
- A little.
- You're on board the Poulette. I'm Captain Chabert. You? [...] You're English? [...] And can you explain that? [...] Enough. Take him below, Mr Bonnasse.
Author's note: Senegal in the late seventeenth century was a French colony - the legacy survives today in the official language, which is still French. Modern-day Dakar was the hub of the slavery trade, with prisoners setting sail from Dakar for the West Indies and America. A translation of the French conversation can be found at the bottom of the chapter. Enjoy!
----
Jack clung to a spar, and watched as the bow of the ship rose up in the air. The hull was battered and salt-encrusted, dripping water and weed. And then, with a tremendous creak and a splash, the bow disappeared below the surface. Soon, all that was left of the vessel were pieces of driftwood, canvas, and bobbing barrels in the waves.
The waves. Jack wrapped his arms more securely around the spar, and considered the waves for a moment. They were huge, amongst the biggest he had ever seen, and he was currently being tossed up and down upon them in a highly uncomfortable and dangerous manner. Every other wave shot over his head, dunking him in cold salt water before he rose up on the crest of the next one. It was not a good position to be in. Around him, other wet heads bobbed - the other survivors of the wreck. Precious few; too few.
The merchant ship, the Nancy, had been beating steadily south, and was off the coast of Senegal when the storm hit. Two weeks earlier they had been becalmed further north, and the captain was eager to make up the lost time. Accordingly he kept - to Jack's mind - too much canvas on the masts, and ordered the crew to reef only when the ship had already taken a lot of damage. The very fabric of the vessel was weakened by her long struggle with the weather, and when the wind gusted again the foremast was torn down. It came crashing across the deck, and the helmsman panicked. In short order, the ship was in disarray. Trying to lower a boat into the water for escape was a disaster; the lines snapped and the boat went crashing into the side of the larger vessel.
Jack had quietly abandoned his post when the foremast came down, and so he was ready - coat on, sword belt fastened tightly, hat rolled up and pushed into his sash - when the order to abandon ship came. He marked a large piece of wood floating in the water and dived off the rail towards it, and it was this that probably saved his life. Many of the other sailors were swept back towards the sinking ship as they jumped, to be sucked under the water and drowned. Others could not swim, and Jack, helplessly clinging to his spar, watched as they screamed and splashed before finally succumbing. He wished he could have swum to their aid, but the waves were simply too high to make any headway. So he hung on, grimly.
Over the course of the next few hours, as the storm continued, Jack Sparrow found himself reflecting on the life that had brought him to this juncture. He was not used to being at the mercy of the sea. Aboard a ship, he had some control - not much, admittedly, in weather like this, but some. He remembered riding out storms at the helm of the Black Pearl, and retiring sodden, tired and exhilarated to his cabin when the wind subsided. He remembered days sitting on watch at the top of the mainmast, the world spread out below him, a glistening blanket of blue. He remembered the day he had first seen the golden islands of the Caribbean following weeks crossing the Atlantic. It had been a good life, and he did not want it to end just yet.
Eventually, the wind dropped. The rain stopped, and the waves lessened, and Jack found himself exhausted but alive. He gladly laid his head down on the spar and closed his eyes, drifting into a deep sleep.
When he woke, Jack was surprised to find that beneath him were not the deep, impenetrable depths of the Atlantic, but hard wooden boards. He seemed to be a little drier too, though as he rolled over someone said with a laugh: "Il est trempé jusqu'aux os!"
Jack registered the words and their meaning before he registered the language in which they were spoken, but he was unsurprised to hear the French. Last time he had seen a chart they were sailing close to the French territory of Senegal, whose waters were busy with French naval, merchant and slaving vessels. As Jack opened his eyes, he found himself weighing up the options in his mind. Being an Englishman was bad enough; being a pirate could, potentially, be fatal, and he decided quickly to play things carefully until the nature of his rescuers was made clear.
Looking down at him was a short, wiry Frenchman with a truly incredible moustache. Jack blinked at the moustache.
"Il s'est réveillé," the Frenchman said.
"Bien. Levez-le." The new voice was harsher and more authoritative than the first, and must have come from the captain of the vessel. The moustachioed one took Jack's arm and hauled him to his feet.
Staggering a little, Jack stood dripping on the deck of this French ship. The captain, arms folded, regarded him coolly.
"Ça va?" he asked, eventually. "Tu parles français, non?"
Jack reached up slowly to wring out his sodden locks, and noted that the hands of three men loitering nearby went straight to their swords. The corners of his mouth quirked, but he deliberately squeezed his hair out before responding.
"Alors?" the captain demanded.
"Oui," Jack said, hair a little less wet. "J'en parle, un peu." Or at least, he added silently to himself, he spoke scraps of French liberally sprinkled with seamen's oaths and Anamaria's Creole. He was not sure that these Frenchmen would understand or appreciate that.
The French captain nodded sharply. "Bon. Alors, t'es à bord le Poulette. Je suis le capitaine Chabert. Et toi?"
Jack found himself becoming irritated at Captain Chabert's use of the familiar "tu" form, but he forced himself to stay calm. Instead of launching out, he flashed Chabert a cheerful grin, and said, "Jim Swift."
"T'es anglais?"
"Just a sailor, cap'n," Jack said. "No allegiance to anyone."
The moustachioed sailor - bo'sun? mate? - translated for the captain in a low voice, and the captain nodded.
"Et tu peux expliquer ça, Swift?" Chabert gestured, and his wiry mate crossed to Jack and pulled up his right sleeve. Jack looked down at the old brand of the East India Company, realising that a pretty thorough search of his person had been made while he was unconscious.
"I do not like pirates," the captain hissed, in strongly accented English.
"Evidently," said Jack, tugging his arm away from the man with the moustache.
"Assez," Chabert said, turning away. "Conduisez-le en bas, monsieur Bonnasse."
"Oui, capitaine." Bonnasse took Jack's arm again, and hauled him below decks.
It was gloomy and very stuffy even on the first level, but Bonnasse, his eyes above the moustache full of anger and hatred for the pirate in his keeping, took Jack lower. They descended two more sets of steps before Bonnasse bent to raise a trapdoor. He pushed Jack down, and they entered a dark, dank, stinking hold. Jack gulped as he breathed in the putrid air; he noticed that Bonnasse had pulled up a scarf to cover his nose and mouth.
"Sweet Neptune, what is this?" he said. The Frenchman pushed him forwards, taking a lantern from the wall by the steps and lighting it.
Jack stopped walking. In the flickering candlelight he could see eyes - hundreds of pairs of terrified, pained eyes, and he realised now that there was a soft noise of weeping too.
"Move!" Bonnasse kicked his ankle, and Jack stumbled forwards into the darkness, the lantern shedding a small pool of light around him. There was a narrow passage leading up the middle of the hold, but on either side of it were rows and rows of people. Men, women, even some children; all dark-skinned Africans, chained to each other and to the side of the ship. The place stank of their sweat and fear and waste. As Jack passed them, they called to him in several different languages, imploring him for help.
Bonnasse ignored the captives, pushing Jack on to the bow of the vessel, where two small iron brigs stood. In one, Jack could see a number of paler-skinned figures, cramped together on the ground. The other was empty, and Bonnasse unlocked it and shoved Jack inside.
"Plannin' on selling us too, mate?" Jack asked, gripping the bars of the cage with his hands.
The Frenchman pocketed the keys to the brig. "You, we shall hand over to the English authorities. I am sure you will fetch a nice price. Your friends, là-bas," he indicated the other cage, "they we shall sell." He grinned unpleasantly, and disappeared, taking the lantern with him.
Jack gave the iron bars a good hard shake. "Damn!" he said, aloud.
"Jim?" There was movement from the other cage. "Jim Swift?"
"Aye." Jack peered into the gloom. "Crew of the Nancy?"
"Aye. Thought you were dead, 'long with the other poor bastards."
"Might as well be," Jack said, finding it hard to say something cheerful in this situation.
"Why've they locked you up separate?" one of the merchant sailors asked.
"Ah." Moving carefully, Jack settled down on the floor with his back against the brig's bars. "It's a bit complicated."
"We have all day. If it is day," someone else said, his voice full of misery.
"Yes, it's day. Stopped raining, too. Storm's passed over."
"Well, explain, then, Jim."
"It's on account of me being a buccaneer," Jack said. "And the brand I picked up in Chennai twenty years back."
There was incredulous silence from the other brig. Then, "East India Company?"
"The same."
"I heard they branded pirates," the mate of the Nancy said, "but I never ..." his voice tailed off. "Blimey."
"Sorry to have misled you," said Jack, but the apology was empty and they all knew it.
"So they're going to sell you over to the Navy?"
Jack nodded, before remembering that in the darkness they would not be able to see. "Aye," he said, "and they'll sell you too, to someone."
"But we're ... we're Englishmen!" one of the Nancy's crew exclaimed.
"And there are other Europeans not averse to using you just as they'll use those other poor bastards, savvy?" Jack said, pitying his former crewmates.
"Oh God," moaned the sailor, in the gloom.
"They'll hang you," the mate said. "Won't they, Jim?"
Jack drew his legs up to his chest and rested his arms on his knees. "Very likely. And since that's the case, I'd rather die as meself. It's Jack Sparrow - Captain Jack Sparrow."
"I won't say pleased to meet you," said the mate, "given the situation."
"That's all right," Jack said. "Given the situation."
They subsided into silence, and the only noises were the water lapping at the hull of the ship somewhere above their heads, and the keening of the prisoners. Jack leaned his head against the bars of his cage, and closed his eyes.
----
The gist of the conversation in French:
- He's soaked to the skin! [...] He's awake.
- Get him up. How are you? You speak French?
- A little.
- You're on board the Poulette. I'm Captain Chabert. You? [...] You're English? [...] And can you explain that? [...] Enough. Take him below, Mr Bonnasse.