Yes, I know I've kept you waiting FOREVER - and thanks to ff.net's latest regulations there'll be no A/N to soften the blow - but here it is, the final chapters of Fair Wind Or Foul. It's finally over, chaps, so enjoy and let me know wat you think, 'kay? Oh and apologies to Ariandir for my blatant misuse of her characters.
'Sweet Jesus!'Jack's voice echoed across the deck as he moved purposefully in pursuit of his youngest daughter. Kit was halfway up to the crow's nest, having slipped onto the ropes unseen a few minutes before. It was only her father's sudden exclamation that drew the crew's attention to her escapade. She giggled down at him, growing serious as she recognised the anger in his eyes as genuine.
'Katherine Sparrow, you stay right there,' he growled, heaving himself up after her.
His rough but gentle hands lifted her from the rigging to hold onto his shoulders, and he slid comfortably back to the deck, feeling his heartbeat return to normal as her feet hit the wooden boards with a dull thud. She was spun around to face her father, his hands firm on her shoulders.
'Don't you EVER do that again, do you understand me?' he snapped, mostly angry at himself for losing sight of her.
Frightened, Kit nodded, tears forming in her big dark eyes. She had never seen her father so angry before, especially not at her, and was quickly coming to the decision that she never wanted to see him like this again. Jack stared into her eyes, seeing her fear, and felt the little voice inside his head - the one that always seemed to sound exactly like Elias - chastise him thoroughly. With a low sigh, he leant forward to gather her into his arms, holding her tightly against him.
'I'm sorry, sweetheart,' he murmured, feeling her sob quietly against his shoulder. 'You frightened me, that's all. Could you imagine what your mother would do to me if you had fallen and hurt yourself?'
To his relief, the quiet sobs suddenly became raucous giggles at that comment. Both twins were more than well-aware of their mother's temper, and had seen her win countless arguments with their father through sheer bloody-mindedness. Kit pulled back, letting Jack wipe her cheeks gently. He smiled softly at his little girl, seeing the resolve and fearlessness that so marked out her mother from other women spark to life in her daughter's eyes.
'Just . . . be more careful, alright, love?' he asked softly, and was rewarded with a sweet smile as Kit nodded.
He let himself smile back at her, watching as Johnny slipped to her side, whispering in her ear. The sweet smile quickly turned wicked, and she giggled quietly, nodding in agreement as they ran together from the poop to join their sister. Mere moments later, there was a shriek of outrage from Beth as her younger siblings tackled her to the deck, tickling fingers going swiftly to work.
Jack chuckled to himself as he stood, watching the antics from the safety of the helm.
'That one's going to be a heart-breaker,' Gibbs muttered, unconsciously echoing his captain's thoughts as he watched his children playing together.
'Well, what do you expect, with such a fine pedigree?' Jack grinned, inwardly pleased to hear his opinion echoed. It meant that he wasn't just being a doting father.
'Sail ho!'
They glanced up, squinting into the sun as Gibbs bawled the answer back to Harry where he sat in the crow's nest. The Australian teenager gestured wildly towards the south-east, where a familiar pair of ships were making their way towards the Pearl. Jack slipped his telescope out, peering through it at the ships.
'Well, well,' he murmured. 'There's a sight I never thought I'd see.'
Light footsteps moved towards him, and he felt Marin's arm slip about his waist.
'What sight would that be?' she asked, curious.
Jack passed her the telescope, shrugging slightly.
'The Seawitch Queen and the Dauntless side by side,' he told her. 'And no smoke or cannon fire.'
Marin pursed her lips. Both she and Jack knew of Kate's hatred of redcoats, and so this seemingly peaceful sailing was a little alarming. Something big had to have happened for Ioade to be able to put a leash on her fiery first mate.
'I'm afraid,' she murmured suddenly, pressing into Jack's arms as he turned, surprised. 'I don't think I want to know what's happened.'
Jack squeezed her close to him gently, his frown deepening as he bent to kiss her hair. It wasn't like Marin to admit such a feeling, but in this instance, he understood it perfectly. Nothing they had seen so far had boded well for what awaited them in Port Royale.
'I know, love,' he said softly. 'But we have to find out, for our own peace of mind, if nothing else.'
She sighed, agreeing silently as they drew closer to their friends' vessels. But as the ships drew closer, it became abundantly clear that they were not sailing side by side in an act of friendship. In fact, their hulls were leaning heavily against one another, the Seawitch keeping the Dauntless afloat. The Navy ship's sails hung in tatters, her masts broken and splintered, holes scattered along her water line. Whatever had happened, Gillette and his crew had been lucky to get away without sinking.
And indeed, the water around the two ships was littered with debris, spread seemingly across the horizon, and all in the direction of Port Royale. The children clambered up onto the rail to look down into the water, pointing out what they recognised. Jack barely heard them, his eyes fixed on a sign as it floated by the hull of his beloved Pearl. Just the sight of it brought an icy chill to his seaman's bones. Will's old smithy sign, battered, blistered, and attached to nothing but the water in which it floated.
Marin's hand tightened on him, and he followed her wide-eyed gaze to a far more chilling sight. Men, women, children, floating face down in the water, their eyes wide and unseeing, their limbs frozen in outstretched poses. Vaguely, he was aware of Solomon and Gibbs pulling his children away from the rail, silently grateful for their presence of mind. A child should not have to see this.
And slowly, drawn by some unknown force, Jack found himself looking up from the death-filled water, to where Jamaica was just visible on the horizon. Where Port Royale should have been clear.
'Jesus, Mary and Joseph,' Marin gasped, her shocked sentiment echoed by all aboard as they took in all that was left of the once great city.
It was as though some great sea monster had risen from the depths of the Caribbean and taken a bite from Jamaica's shoreline. Where once there had been a city, gently sloping up a hill from the harbour, there was now an expanse of muddy seawater lapping tirelessly at the foot of a sheer cliff-face. Even as they watched, a lump of masonry from a crumbling house that teetered right on the edge of the cliff fell, crashing into the water with a resounding splash. The fort was gone, the taverns and brothels, even most of the more upper-class residences were no more. Governor's House was nowhere to be seen.
The water was littered with the same debris as before, barrels, books, bodies. The occasional hull of an unfinished fishing boat floated past. An eerie silence hung over the bay, broken only by the sound of the incessant waves lapping mercilessly against rock and timber. Jack felt small hands wrap about his leg, and glanced down to find Beth clinging to him tightly, silent tears running down her juvenile face. The sight choked him, and he knelt to hold her gently, seeing the twins move to comfort their mother as she fought to hold back her own tears.
'The poor bastards,' Gibbs muttered hoarsely.
He reached up to pull his cap off, copied by many who wore their heads covered aboard as they stared out across the death-filled bay. They waited as such for many minutes, each man sending the souls of Port Royale to their rest in his own private way, appalled by the loss of so many in such a short time.
A familiar voice called across to them from the approaching ships.
'Captain Sparrow! Permission to come aboard!'
Without looking up, Jack cleared his throat, still shocked to his core by what he had seen.
'Permission granted,' he called back. 'And bring your crew with you, commodore. Your lady doesn't look to be able to hold out much longer.'
Gillette gave him a grateful nod, turning to organise his battered crew even as the Pearl's crew prepared to welcome them aboard. Boarding planks were brought on deck, Solomon gathering together those he knew had some knowledge of medicine, as what was left of the crew of the Dauntless struggled on board the Black Pearl. As the planks were drawn from the Dauntless' rails, she gave a groan, and Jack could hear Ioade and Kate giving hasty orders aboard the Seawitch to move her away from the shell of a ship beside them.
Both the Black Pearl and the Seawitch Queen pulled away, leaving the Dauntless to succumb to her fate, sinking slowly beneath the waves to her own watery grave. She had taken injury along with the death of that she had been protecting, and it was only right that she should go to her grave with the city that had been her home for so many years. Port Royale was gone, and the world would not see another city of her like for many years to come.Jack stared out the window, across the calm waters of the Caribbean to where once had been the greatest city on earth. He could not take his eyes off it. How was it that he had spent his lifetime doing as he liked with other people's money, other people's possessions, even other people's lives, and yet here, now, when he had had nothing to do with what had befallen those he had been proud to call friend, guilt spread through him mercilessly?
'What happened?' he asked softly, not bothering to turn and face Gillette.
The Welsh man winced as Marin's gentle ministrations brushed against his wounded arm, almost afraid to speak up, afraid he would be disbelieved.
'You'll think me mad,' he said apprehensively, unwilling to have his sanity called into question.
Jack smiled, a strange, bitter smile that the others in the cabin recognised all too well. Ioade had seen it, Kate had seen it, Marin had even been on the receiving end of it. Jack was facing something he disliked intensely, because he had no control over it. And it was chafing his spirit.
'Mate, I've seen things that would turn your hair the colour of your wig, and make your blood run cold,' he said, his voice low and calm. 'And after what I've just seen, I would be willing to believe the beast of Loch Ness had moved down here and developed a taste for islands. Please, give me something tangible.'
Gillette watched him for a moment, shifting his gaze to meet those of the women sat around him. He saw nothing in their eyes that would judge him, sensing they had all seen things that were not to be believed by a sane man of science.
'We were taking the Dauntless out to patrol the coastline while the Nightingale was refitted,' he began, inwardly bemused by this most ordinary of beginnings to an extraordinary tale. 'There had been a few rumblings a couple of days prior to us leaving, just a slight earth tremor, nothing to be alarmed about.'
'Happens all the time out here,' Kate murmured.
Gillette nodded, swallowing as he tried to organise his thoughts into some coherent storyline.
'We'd just passed Dead Man's Cove when we heard the rumblings come again, only this time much louder and seeming to rise from right beneath the city itself,' he said, lost in his memories of the sound. 'I gave the order to turn back, and in retrospect, that may have been the only reason we survived. As our bow turned to face the harbour once more, there came this almighty crack, and the whole hillside moved.'
He paused, searching each face around him to be sure he was not already taken for a lunatic. Ioade leant forward, gripping his wrist in an attempt to bolster him against whatever he had seen.
'The whole city - well, what isn't left on the cliff-top - seemed to slip into the sea,' Gillette whispered, his face aghast as he saw it again. 'It was so fast. The people were trying to get away, throwing themselves into the sea, trying to lay their boats off the sinking city, but it was too late. Port Royale just collapsed into the ocean.'
Jack's jaw set in a sudden grim line. What a waste, he thought, what a terrible waste of life.
'We didn't have much time to take in what had happened,' Gillette continued. 'The sea seemed to boil around us, as though some great creature were trying to consume us alive, and a great tidal wave came sweeping out of the harbour towards us as the city disappeared. We took it on the bow, but even then, the force of the water was enough to send us reeling out into the open ocean, our masts broken and sails ripped. Driftwood and masonry caught us with the wave, knocking holes in our hull. I'm surprised we survived for as long as we did.'
He slammed his fist against the table suddenly. A cabin of lesser individuals would have jumped, but his audience were hardened pirates. They had been waiting for him to crack.
'We should have died with them!' he cried, hot tears of shame and shock running down his cheeks. 'I took an oath, to protect and serve the people of Jamaica, and I have failed them!'
'No . . .'
Kate's eyes widened as Ioade moved suddenly, to kneel before the distraught commodore. The tawny-haired captain held his hands tightly, forcing him to look at her.
'There was nothing you could do,' she insisted softly. 'What could you have done against a force of nature, hmm? Prayed it to death?'
He stared at her, startled by her acid tongue.
'Such disasters are not of our making,' Ioade went on, 'and we have no power to stop them. We just have to weather the storm and carry on as best we can. There is no such thing as failure, only life and death. And you should be proud that you brought not only yourself through it, but your crew as well.'
Gillette swallowed, surprised that the shame he had expected to feel on being seen to cry by women did not surface.
'You speak as someone who knows, lady,' he said softly, looking down into her eyes with something approaching respect.
Marin coughed suddenly, placing her foot firmly on Kate's boot. The dark-haired woman glared at her.
'Don't get involved,' Marin mouthed, a warning in her eyes against the habitual punishment that Kate handed out to any redcoat in the vicinity.
Her friend swallowed whatever retort she had been brewing and subsided, watching incredulously as her captain flushed faintly under Gillette's admiring gaze.
'I know enough, commodore,' Ioade said demurely, rising from her knees to offer him her hand. 'Forgive me for saying so, but you look like hell.'
Jack felt a brief flash of pride in his old friend as a tiny smile broke through Gillette's guilt and sorrow.
'I feel like it, lady,' he smiled, rising to bow to the others present. 'If you would excuse me, I should like to retire.'
Jack nodded to him, concerned for the Welsh man, even though he did not know him as well as he should. As the broken man passed her, Marin reached out to grasp his arm gently, unsure as to whether she should be asking such a question at such a time.
'Commodore, what of the governor and his sister?' she inquired, her soft voice almost lost beneath the rolling of the ship and the sounds that accompanied it.
Gillette turned eyes wet with unshed tears on her, placing his hand over hers.
'They were at the fort to see us off,' he managed. 'I'm sure you remember how they watch everyone out of the harbour. But even had they been on the hill, there is nothing that could have saved them from the quake. I'm sorry, lady.'
Marin nodded mutely, her lips pressed tightly together to hold in the sobs that welled up inside her. Gillette watched her for a few moments before carefully disengaging his arm and leaving the cabin with barely a glance back at them. Unable to listen to her friend's tears, Ioade rose to embrace Marin, mindful of her swollen belly, raising her eyes to Jack's as she did so. He nodded solemnly, sighing softly as he turned again to stare out at the destruction. It would take many years for the echoes of this tragedy to fade away, leaving only the scarred sorrows of a long forgotten memory.