Chapter 3
Jack- Drunk as Usual
As he left the island on the "Our Lady" with two excited townsfolk and a few members of the Navy who had to pick up one or two known pirates being harboured in Tortuga, Will looked back at Port Royal growing smaller on the horizon. He frowned again with confusion and regret. He wasn't happy about leaving Elizabeth in such a state, especially with the wedding so soon, as he didn't know when he would be coming back. He felt a continuous nagging at the back of his mind, which he knew was about the nature of Elizabeth's strange request. Although she was grateful to Jack for rescuing her, they certainly didn't enjoy each other's company immensely. Jack thought that Elizabeth was stubborn and self righteous, and Elizabeth thought Jack was vain and self centered. Then why could she want to see him?
Will decided to put these troubled thoughts out of his head and concentrate on his task.
Elizabeth slowly took off her pearl necklace and placed it in her drawer. Then she looked at the third finger of her left hand. Will's engagement ring sat there, a family heirloom that had belonged to his grandmother, the solitaire diamond twinkling softly when she moved it. Elizabeth hadn't taken the ring off since Will gave it to her, except to wash. Now she carefully slipped it off, watching the light bounce off the edges. She raised it closer to her face and stroked it. The symbol of their love for one another. She thought of Will now, making a sacrifice to put her mind at rest, and she felt she had betrayed him even more. Leaving the ring on her dressing table, she prepared for her night's sleep.
Jack had been lying in the doorway of a tavern for at least a day. Still too drunk to move, he lay there, trying to gather his thoughts so that he could remember where he was, how he got there and how to escape. Suddenly a face loomed over him. He didn't recognize it, but it was the first human who had acknowledged him that day, so he beamed and tried to use the wall to push himself up. The owner of the face had clearly decided to help him, because he felt a strong arm grip his and pull him up. Swaying from side to side as if he was on a ship, Jack tried to focus on his rescuer. Squinting, he decided he looked a bit like that Commodore Norrington.
"Comm- Commodah- Norrinton! Many thanks for res… helping…"
"You, sir, are drunk," came the clipped tones of the local constable, an immigrant of Tortuga from far more respectable isles. The constable believed that he was the only inhabitant of this dreadful, Godless town with any dignity. The likes of this scoundrel reinforced this belief.
"State- stating… obvious…" chuckled Jack, managing to look him in the eye, and now realizing that this was not, in fact, Commodore Norrington. He bowed, almost unbalancing, and began to stagger off in the direction of a different inn.
"Hold it!" The constable caught Jack's arm and swung him back round to face him. "What's your name?"
"Well that depends," Jack started, feeling more himself as he started to have fun with this pompous figure. "What do you want it to be?" He asked saucily, impersonating some of the girls on the corner who he often visited.
The constable was in no such mood for games. "Whatever your name is, which I will find out, you are in no state to be seen in public. A night in the cells might sober you up a little." He dragged Jack, who made no complaints, except to gesture around at the state of the rest of the 'public', over to the dungeon in the town centre. On the way they passed the mayor, in his normal position; hanging into a well, and nodded politely.
When Jack heard the door of the cell shut and the key turn in the lock, he lay down again in the corner to sleep off his drunken stupor. Little did he know that at that very moment Will Turner, having stepped onto the dock of Port Royal almost half an hour before, was enquiring as to his whereabouts.
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