Disclaimer: see chapter 1
----
The captives staggered as they came up on deck, blinking in the sunlight. It seemed impossibly bright after days confined to the dark. Jack shaded his eyes with his hand and looked out at the water. No land. He judged they were nearly across the Atlantic, given the time they had spent at sea.
One of the French sailors threw a bucket over the side and hauled it up, dousing the prisoners with cold salt water.
"Heck, that's good," the Nancy's mate Roger said, closing his eyes against the shower.
"It'll dry hard," someone else said, morosely.
"Taisez-vous!" their French guard snapped.
"He says shut up," Jack said, water running down his face.
"Bastards," Roger muttered.
Their short bathe over, the captives were hustled back down to the hold. The African slaves looked up at the sailors with dead, empty eyes. They had long since given up begging for their freedom, and the long dark hours were silent, broken only by sporadic conversation from cage to cage. Jack told the odd tale of piracy to try and cheer up his fellow-prisoners (and himself, if he were to be honest). In turn, the merchant sailors reminisced over previous voyages, and remembered those men who had died in the shipwreck.
It was a deeply miserable two weeks. The sailors from the Nancy grew steadily more morose, and were unable to hide this from their French captors. Jack kept going with sarcastic, cheerful retorts, flashing his gold grin whenever an opportunity came up, but even his incorrigible spirit was slowly dying inside. There seemed to be no way off this nightmare vessel. Occasionally, a lantern would be brought down to the hold and shone along the lines of shackled prisoners, and a body would be unlocked and carried off, presumably to be thrown overboard. Jack knew that was an option - death, and endless sleep in the arms of the waves - but he did not want to die, not yet.
They were not fed enough either. The Nancy's crew occasionally dreamt aloud of the meals they would have when ashore again. Jack just wanted a tot of rum, and a quiet place on the Black Pearl to drink it. Since he did not expect either in the near future, he pushed the thought to the back of his mind and attempted not to think about it.
Eventually, the sound of the water rushing against the hull of the ship began to change, and when they were taken on deck seabirds were circling overhead. Landfall was near. The conversation between the brigs changed now, to what might befall them. Jack suggested that the merchant sailors, presuming they were to be sold as slaves, either attempted to barter their freedom after the sale, or tried to escape.
"And then I'll meet you in Tortuga," he said.
"Tortuga?" repeated Roger.
"North o' Hispaniola," said Jack. "Island. Wonderful town. Everything a man needs - rum, girls, ships."
"Pirate town, ain't it?" someone else asked.
"Aye, and I'm a pirate," Jack pointed out. "Meet me in Tortuga."
"How are you planning on getting there?" Roger said. "Considering they want to hang you."
"They won't hang me," Jack said, his voice radiating easy confidence. "If they do, I won't be the surprised one."
"Tortuga, then," said Roger, but it was clear he expected none of them to make it.
A day later, there were shouts from above, and the ship slowed. Jack stood up, and listened intently.
"Are we hove to?" one of the sailors asked.
"Reckon so. Shhh."
A short while later, Bonnasse came down into the hold with two of the burly French crew and a pair of iron shackles. They unlocked Jack's cage, manacled his wrists, and dragged him out. He just had time to turn and say, "Tortuga!" to the crew of the Nancy before he was being hauled up on deck.
The sun was even stronger now, and it took Jack several long moments before he could see anything. By that time the Frenchmen had dragged him across to the rail and he was being lowered into a boat. Someone threw down a bundle, and Jack recognised - to his joy - his sword belt, coat and hat. They cast off, and he looked around to see a frigate, painted in the smart dark brown and beige of the English Royal Navy.
The French vessel, the Poulette, turned out to be better maintained on the outside than she was on the inside. She looked like a respectable merchant square-rigger, flying correct French colours augmented, for the moment, by a white flag of truce. Jack thought for a moment about the poor souls chained within her bowels, and wished he could do something.
One of the Navy sailors threw down a rope to the longboat as they came alongside the frigate, and within a few minutes Jack was on board surrounded by a clutch of Frenchmen armed with swords and English marines with bayonets. His guards let go of him.
A tall man in the uniform of an English commodore walked forward, the marines making way for him to come through. He looked Jack up and down with an expression of extreme disapproval on his face.
"Well?" he said.
"Voilà notre prisonnier," said Captain Chabert, who came up behind the Commodore. Jack scowled at him. "C'est un pirate," Chabert continued, emotionless.
"A pirate, indeed?" said the commodore. "Have you a name?"
"James Swift," said Jack.
"Swift. Indeed. What am I supposed to do with him, captain?" The commodore raised an eyebrow at Chabert.
"Je ne sais pas, commodore," Chabert said. "C'est à vous de décider."
"For me to decide?" The commodore glanced at Bonnasse, who was translating. "In turn, what am I supposed to do with you?"
Bonnasse and Chabert spoke quickly and softly together, and Bonnasse turned back to the commodore.
"You allow us to continue on our way, monsieur," he said. "We ask nothing more."
The commodore's brow creased as he regarded the two Frenchmen.
"'Scuse me," Jack said. "Commodore?"
"Tais-toi, imbécile!" Bonnasse hissed.
"Commodore?" repeated Jack.
"You heard the man," the commodore said. "Be quiet, or I shall order you gagged."
Jack grinned, and fell silent.
The Frenchmen and the commodore exchanged a few more words, and bowed gravely to one another. Then Chabert and his men descended the ladder and soon the even splash of oars could be heard as the French rowed back to their ship.
"Commodore, you must listen to me!" said Jack, allowing a touch of captain's authority to enter his voice. "There are seven English sailors aboard that vessel, locked up - not to mention the hold full o' slaves. You cannot let them sail away!"
The commodore turned a pair of piercing sea-grey eyes on Jack. "Indeed?"
"Yes!" Jack nodded. "Aye."
"English pirates?"
"No. Sailors from a merchant vessel, the Nancy, wrecked off Africa," Jack explained. "Got picked up by the Frenchies. They're slavers, commodore."
"It is a perfectly respectable trade," the commodore said tautly. "Unlike yours."
"I've not been a pirate for years," Jack said, stretching the truth slightly.
"Indeed?"
"Got caught," Jack explained, shaking his shackled wrists so his sleeve exposed his brand. "See? I was a really awful pirate, commodore." He put truth and honesty into his gzae. "Bloody dreadful," he expanded. "Was tryin' to go straight, aboard the Nancy.
The commodore turned away. "Take him below," he said.
"You're condemning innocent men," Jack said, twisting as two marines took his shoulders. "Good men."
"And gag him," the commodore added.
The marines pulled Jack down to the frigate's brig, which turned out to be much more luxurious than the French one. There was even a blanket. The marines unlocked Jack's manacled wrists with a key that the French must have given them, and took away the handkerchief they had stuffed into Jack's mouth.
"Thanks," Jack said.
The marines stepped out of the brig and locked it. "Best make the most of it," one of them said. "Old Commodore Townsend don't like pirates. You'll hang, like as not, soon as we're back in port."
"Which port?" asked Jack.
"Royal," said the marine. "A day's sail." They turned, and left Jack alone with his blanket and his thoughts.
They docked in Port Royal the next evening. The town had grown since Jack's last visit. The fort had been extended, with many more cannon, and was looking - to Jack's eyes - rather too formidable. He was walked through the streets manacled, attracting the gaze of the locals, and taken down to the fort's cells. The marines dumped his belongings just outside the bars and left him.
Jack could not sleep that night. He told himself that there would be a way out of this situation, that he would not hang; but he felt very alone.
In the morning, another pair of marines came to fetch him, and took him to the commodore's office. The commodore, hat laid aside, was seated behind a desk, piles of papers covering the surface. He looked up.
"Mr Swift."
"Commodore."
"I have called you here to tell you what I plan to do with you," the commodore said. "Piracy, as you know, is punishable by death."
"Aye, sir," Jack said. He did know. He had seen the skeletons swinging as an example, and had heard the tales.
"But you say it has been a while since you were actively flaunting the law?"
"Ages. Years!" said Jack. "I did me bit out East, got caught, decided it were too much of a risk. Went straight after that, honest, Commodore."
"That is what I propose to find out," said Commodore Townsend. "If I can find no record of you working in the Caribbean I shall be obliged to let you go. The East Indies are not my jurisdiction. Therefore you will remain in our custody until I have made enquiries. If you are lying, you will hang. If not, you may go free."
"Sounds like a fair deal," Jack said, privately rejoicing. He had spent only a short time aboard a pirate ship under the name James Swift; the Navy would have nothing to find.
The commodore made a dismissive motion with his hand. "You are dismissed."
Jack spent a week in Fort Charles's gaol, fed reasonably well and watched over by a rotating guard of marines. He took the time to consider his options, certain that the commodore would find nothing on him - or, to be more precise, nothing on Swift. By the end of the week he had decided to head for Tortuga, on the off chance that some of the sailors from the Nancy would have escaped.
He was called back to the commodore's office in the early morning, seven days later. The commodore was looking tired and somewhat dissatisfied as he signed a piece of parchment with a squiggly line of ink.
"You're free, Swift," he said without preamble. "We've talked to all the pirates currently held captive anywhere near here. None of them know you. We have no record of you."
Jack grinned.
"Besides," Commodore Townsend went on, "I've had reports that seven Englishmen were sold as slaves three days ago in Port-au-Prince. From a French ship. Your Poulette."
"Not my Poulette," Jack said.
"Well." The commodore shrugged. "The fact remains you were telling me the truth, and I apologise for not hearing you. Untie his hands." He spoke to a marine, who hurried across and untied the rope binding Jack's wrists.
Jack bowed. "Thank you, sir. Can I have me effects before I leave?"
"Your coat and sword?"
"Aye, sir."
"Fetch them!"
A marine hurried off, and returned shortly with Jack's coat, hat and sword belt. He put them on, settling the belt around his shoulders and straightening the hat on his head.
"You can go," the commodore said. "But let me make this very clear, Swift - if you are caught in the act of piracy in the Caribbean, you will hang. Am I understood?"
"Absolutely," Jack nodded. "Totally clear. Thank you, commodore." He bowed again, and walked out. The marines parted to let him past, and Jack walked out of the fort a free man.
He turned as he went, and grinned at it. "Remember this, commodore," he said, quietly, "as the day you let Captain Jack Sparrow walk free."
And he set off down the street, past a young boy carrying a bundle of swords to the fort. It was a beautiful day, it was the Caribbean; and Jack felt like he was on the top of the world.
----
The captives staggered as they came up on deck, blinking in the sunlight. It seemed impossibly bright after days confined to the dark. Jack shaded his eyes with his hand and looked out at the water. No land. He judged they were nearly across the Atlantic, given the time they had spent at sea.
One of the French sailors threw a bucket over the side and hauled it up, dousing the prisoners with cold salt water.
"Heck, that's good," the Nancy's mate Roger said, closing his eyes against the shower.
"It'll dry hard," someone else said, morosely.
"Taisez-vous!" their French guard snapped.
"He says shut up," Jack said, water running down his face.
"Bastards," Roger muttered.
Their short bathe over, the captives were hustled back down to the hold. The African slaves looked up at the sailors with dead, empty eyes. They had long since given up begging for their freedom, and the long dark hours were silent, broken only by sporadic conversation from cage to cage. Jack told the odd tale of piracy to try and cheer up his fellow-prisoners (and himself, if he were to be honest). In turn, the merchant sailors reminisced over previous voyages, and remembered those men who had died in the shipwreck.
It was a deeply miserable two weeks. The sailors from the Nancy grew steadily more morose, and were unable to hide this from their French captors. Jack kept going with sarcastic, cheerful retorts, flashing his gold grin whenever an opportunity came up, but even his incorrigible spirit was slowly dying inside. There seemed to be no way off this nightmare vessel. Occasionally, a lantern would be brought down to the hold and shone along the lines of shackled prisoners, and a body would be unlocked and carried off, presumably to be thrown overboard. Jack knew that was an option - death, and endless sleep in the arms of the waves - but he did not want to die, not yet.
They were not fed enough either. The Nancy's crew occasionally dreamt aloud of the meals they would have when ashore again. Jack just wanted a tot of rum, and a quiet place on the Black Pearl to drink it. Since he did not expect either in the near future, he pushed the thought to the back of his mind and attempted not to think about it.
Eventually, the sound of the water rushing against the hull of the ship began to change, and when they were taken on deck seabirds were circling overhead. Landfall was near. The conversation between the brigs changed now, to what might befall them. Jack suggested that the merchant sailors, presuming they were to be sold as slaves, either attempted to barter their freedom after the sale, or tried to escape.
"And then I'll meet you in Tortuga," he said.
"Tortuga?" repeated Roger.
"North o' Hispaniola," said Jack. "Island. Wonderful town. Everything a man needs - rum, girls, ships."
"Pirate town, ain't it?" someone else asked.
"Aye, and I'm a pirate," Jack pointed out. "Meet me in Tortuga."
"How are you planning on getting there?" Roger said. "Considering they want to hang you."
"They won't hang me," Jack said, his voice radiating easy confidence. "If they do, I won't be the surprised one."
"Tortuga, then," said Roger, but it was clear he expected none of them to make it.
A day later, there were shouts from above, and the ship slowed. Jack stood up, and listened intently.
"Are we hove to?" one of the sailors asked.
"Reckon so. Shhh."
A short while later, Bonnasse came down into the hold with two of the burly French crew and a pair of iron shackles. They unlocked Jack's cage, manacled his wrists, and dragged him out. He just had time to turn and say, "Tortuga!" to the crew of the Nancy before he was being hauled up on deck.
The sun was even stronger now, and it took Jack several long moments before he could see anything. By that time the Frenchmen had dragged him across to the rail and he was being lowered into a boat. Someone threw down a bundle, and Jack recognised - to his joy - his sword belt, coat and hat. They cast off, and he looked around to see a frigate, painted in the smart dark brown and beige of the English Royal Navy.
The French vessel, the Poulette, turned out to be better maintained on the outside than she was on the inside. She looked like a respectable merchant square-rigger, flying correct French colours augmented, for the moment, by a white flag of truce. Jack thought for a moment about the poor souls chained within her bowels, and wished he could do something.
One of the Navy sailors threw down a rope to the longboat as they came alongside the frigate, and within a few minutes Jack was on board surrounded by a clutch of Frenchmen armed with swords and English marines with bayonets. His guards let go of him.
A tall man in the uniform of an English commodore walked forward, the marines making way for him to come through. He looked Jack up and down with an expression of extreme disapproval on his face.
"Well?" he said.
"Voilà notre prisonnier," said Captain Chabert, who came up behind the Commodore. Jack scowled at him. "C'est un pirate," Chabert continued, emotionless.
"A pirate, indeed?" said the commodore. "Have you a name?"
"James Swift," said Jack.
"Swift. Indeed. What am I supposed to do with him, captain?" The commodore raised an eyebrow at Chabert.
"Je ne sais pas, commodore," Chabert said. "C'est à vous de décider."
"For me to decide?" The commodore glanced at Bonnasse, who was translating. "In turn, what am I supposed to do with you?"
Bonnasse and Chabert spoke quickly and softly together, and Bonnasse turned back to the commodore.
"You allow us to continue on our way, monsieur," he said. "We ask nothing more."
The commodore's brow creased as he regarded the two Frenchmen.
"'Scuse me," Jack said. "Commodore?"
"Tais-toi, imbécile!" Bonnasse hissed.
"Commodore?" repeated Jack.
"You heard the man," the commodore said. "Be quiet, or I shall order you gagged."
Jack grinned, and fell silent.
The Frenchmen and the commodore exchanged a few more words, and bowed gravely to one another. Then Chabert and his men descended the ladder and soon the even splash of oars could be heard as the French rowed back to their ship.
"Commodore, you must listen to me!" said Jack, allowing a touch of captain's authority to enter his voice. "There are seven English sailors aboard that vessel, locked up - not to mention the hold full o' slaves. You cannot let them sail away!"
The commodore turned a pair of piercing sea-grey eyes on Jack. "Indeed?"
"Yes!" Jack nodded. "Aye."
"English pirates?"
"No. Sailors from a merchant vessel, the Nancy, wrecked off Africa," Jack explained. "Got picked up by the Frenchies. They're slavers, commodore."
"It is a perfectly respectable trade," the commodore said tautly. "Unlike yours."
"I've not been a pirate for years," Jack said, stretching the truth slightly.
"Indeed?"
"Got caught," Jack explained, shaking his shackled wrists so his sleeve exposed his brand. "See? I was a really awful pirate, commodore." He put truth and honesty into his gzae. "Bloody dreadful," he expanded. "Was tryin' to go straight, aboard the Nancy.
The commodore turned away. "Take him below," he said.
"You're condemning innocent men," Jack said, twisting as two marines took his shoulders. "Good men."
"And gag him," the commodore added.
The marines pulled Jack down to the frigate's brig, which turned out to be much more luxurious than the French one. There was even a blanket. The marines unlocked Jack's manacled wrists with a key that the French must have given them, and took away the handkerchief they had stuffed into Jack's mouth.
"Thanks," Jack said.
The marines stepped out of the brig and locked it. "Best make the most of it," one of them said. "Old Commodore Townsend don't like pirates. You'll hang, like as not, soon as we're back in port."
"Which port?" asked Jack.
"Royal," said the marine. "A day's sail." They turned, and left Jack alone with his blanket and his thoughts.
They docked in Port Royal the next evening. The town had grown since Jack's last visit. The fort had been extended, with many more cannon, and was looking - to Jack's eyes - rather too formidable. He was walked through the streets manacled, attracting the gaze of the locals, and taken down to the fort's cells. The marines dumped his belongings just outside the bars and left him.
Jack could not sleep that night. He told himself that there would be a way out of this situation, that he would not hang; but he felt very alone.
In the morning, another pair of marines came to fetch him, and took him to the commodore's office. The commodore, hat laid aside, was seated behind a desk, piles of papers covering the surface. He looked up.
"Mr Swift."
"Commodore."
"I have called you here to tell you what I plan to do with you," the commodore said. "Piracy, as you know, is punishable by death."
"Aye, sir," Jack said. He did know. He had seen the skeletons swinging as an example, and had heard the tales.
"But you say it has been a while since you were actively flaunting the law?"
"Ages. Years!" said Jack. "I did me bit out East, got caught, decided it were too much of a risk. Went straight after that, honest, Commodore."
"That is what I propose to find out," said Commodore Townsend. "If I can find no record of you working in the Caribbean I shall be obliged to let you go. The East Indies are not my jurisdiction. Therefore you will remain in our custody until I have made enquiries. If you are lying, you will hang. If not, you may go free."
"Sounds like a fair deal," Jack said, privately rejoicing. He had spent only a short time aboard a pirate ship under the name James Swift; the Navy would have nothing to find.
The commodore made a dismissive motion with his hand. "You are dismissed."
Jack spent a week in Fort Charles's gaol, fed reasonably well and watched over by a rotating guard of marines. He took the time to consider his options, certain that the commodore would find nothing on him - or, to be more precise, nothing on Swift. By the end of the week he had decided to head for Tortuga, on the off chance that some of the sailors from the Nancy would have escaped.
He was called back to the commodore's office in the early morning, seven days later. The commodore was looking tired and somewhat dissatisfied as he signed a piece of parchment with a squiggly line of ink.
"You're free, Swift," he said without preamble. "We've talked to all the pirates currently held captive anywhere near here. None of them know you. We have no record of you."
Jack grinned.
"Besides," Commodore Townsend went on, "I've had reports that seven Englishmen were sold as slaves three days ago in Port-au-Prince. From a French ship. Your Poulette."
"Not my Poulette," Jack said.
"Well." The commodore shrugged. "The fact remains you were telling me the truth, and I apologise for not hearing you. Untie his hands." He spoke to a marine, who hurried across and untied the rope binding Jack's wrists.
Jack bowed. "Thank you, sir. Can I have me effects before I leave?"
"Your coat and sword?"
"Aye, sir."
"Fetch them!"
A marine hurried off, and returned shortly with Jack's coat, hat and sword belt. He put them on, settling the belt around his shoulders and straightening the hat on his head.
"You can go," the commodore said. "But let me make this very clear, Swift - if you are caught in the act of piracy in the Caribbean, you will hang. Am I understood?"
"Absolutely," Jack nodded. "Totally clear. Thank you, commodore." He bowed again, and walked out. The marines parted to let him past, and Jack walked out of the fort a free man.
He turned as he went, and grinned at it. "Remember this, commodore," he said, quietly, "as the day you let Captain Jack Sparrow walk free."
And he set off down the street, past a young boy carrying a bundle of swords to the fort. It was a beautiful day, it was the Caribbean; and Jack felt like he was on the top of the world.