The Commodore's Daughter
Chapter Eight
Jack paced around the perimeter of his cabin restlessly. There was a bottle of rum that lay in his hammock – thoughtful Annamaria had probably sent it up – but it was untouched. Jack needed his head unclouded by his beloved rum.
The penalty that the prisoners must all pay was death. That was a rule of thumb on board the Pearl. Anyone who tried to take the ship from Jack would be put to death. Three years ago he'd had to enforce that rule, and Jenkins, a man they'd taken on in Tortuga, had swung from a yardarm. It was a fact, a rule that had been consecrated with Jenkins' blood and was now unbreakable.
But these were not ordinary mutineers! Jack told himself, working himself up into a frenzy as he stomped back across the cabin. Some of them were the people who had helped get the Pearl back, and surely he owed them better than an ignominious death on a pirate vessel. But then, shouldn't they have known there was no chance to escape? They should have thought! And yet, he had been shipwrecked with Elizabeth, had shared the breaking of the curse with Will...had been sentenced to death by the governor... "Right fond memories all around," Jack muttered. He reached for the bottle, but stopped himself in time. Once a sentence had been decided on, then he would get roaring drunk – but until then, no rum. He scowled at himself and started back around the cabin.
Will and Elizabeth had not been the driving force of the attempted escape, Jack decided with relief. Whatever their faults as law-abiding citizens, they would not have been so foolhardy as to concoct a plan to steal the Black Pearl. They were idealistic and hopeful enough to participate in one, but the idea had not been theirs. Neither had the governor been the power behind the mutiny. Jack very much doubted that he could be the power behind anything. And the Turners' daughter was only six.
That left the Norringtons, two people whom Jack could well believe had made the plan. He swore. He had been starting to like Anna at least, when she'd told him about sneaking out of the hold. Jack could easily see her taking control of the mutiny, though – too easily for his comfort. No, she would have to swing, and her brother, too... "And then that damned commodore will be after me forever!" Jack finished for himself. "This just gets better and better with each passing second!" He made another grab for the rum, and this time he got it and took a long drink. It made him feel better.
"Captain?" Someone was at the door, and knocking quite hard, someone with a female voice. Jack hoped it wasn't Anna again – the last thing he needed was to have to tell her he'd decided to kill her. "Come in," he said."
It was Annamaria, and she looked peeved. Jack let go of the bottle as soon as he caught sight of her face. Annamaria was the only one of his crew who objected strenuously to his rum, and he preferred to keep her temper directed at someone other than him. "Captain, she wanted to see you." With distaste, Annamaria added quietly, "She demanded a parlay. I don't know where she learned about that."
So it was Anna, then. The crew knew that Elizabeth was well versed in the pirate code. Jack sighed. He was bound by Anna's request as much as Annamaria was. "Let her in, then." Annamaria stepped out of the room, leaving Anna standing in the doorway. Anna jumped into the room as Annamaria slammed the door behind her. "I have nothing to say to you," Jack warned her.
"I know." Anna swallowed hard. "I know. It's just that – it's that I have something to say to you. To ask you."
"Ask, then. You called for a parlay." Jack folded his arms across his chest and stared unblinkingly at Anna.
"Thank you." Her eyes wavered from his for a moment, but then she raised them and met his gaze squarely. This is a change, thought Jack. This is the first time I've ever seen her look at me without wanting to murder me. "Captain Sparrow, I – apologize – for my actions earlier today." Anna winced. Words that sounded proper in a drawing room in Port Royal had no place on a pirate ship, but they were the only way she knew to apologize – and the only way she knew to beg. "It was wrong of me –"
"Damn right!" Jack snapped, irritated by her stilted politeness.
"Will you let me finish, Sparrow?" Anna flared, embarrassed. "Thank you," she said again. "You – I'm sure that –" She gave up trying to be tactful. Jack didn't seem to be taking to it. "You plan to execute us, don't you?" she asked forthrightly.
Jack was impressed. Not many people dared be so forward with him. "Aye," he answered, hating himself for starting to like her again.
"It was mostly my fault. We would never have done it if I hadn't pressed everyone else to." Anna bit her lip, but held her head up. It was the only dignity left to her. "What I'm saying is – don't kill them. They're not the ones at fault. If you need someone to make an example of – kill me. I insisted we do it – I deserve the punishment."
Her chin was quivering, and her voice was shaky with fear, but otherwise she held herself as bravely as a sinking ship going down with all flags flying. Jack felt pity stir in him, and he reached out for her hand to comfort her, all thoughts of her sentence flying from his mind. He almost spoke her name, but stopped himself in time.
"No." Anna stepped back a pace. "Please, just tell me if –" She bit her lip again, more fiercely, and drew blood. She gasped softly and wiped it away. "Jack, please –"
"You're crying," Jack said in shock, watching a stray tear make a path down her cheek. He watched it race down to her jaw line and tremble there for a moment before it fell silently onto her shoulder. "Anna, you're crying," he repeated, taking another step toward her. Only once before had he seen a woman cry, and that had been his mother, so long ago that it seemed like another life. Annamaria never cried, and neither had Elizabeth when he had first known her. Jack moved closer, reached out again to wipe away the second tear that was trickling down from Anna's other eye.
She turned around, lifting her arms against the wall and burying her head in them. "I'm not." Her voice was muffled by her arms, but Jack was close enough to hear it. "I'm not," she insisted. "I can't be crying."
"You are," Jack pointed out. He took her by the shoulders and turned her around to face him. "See that, there?" He touched her cheek with the tip of his finger, where a tear lay. "That's a tear, love, and when those come onto your face, you're crying." Gently he brushed it away.
Anna looked up at him, her mouth twisted with sorrow and fear. The next thing Jack knew, she had thrown her arms around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder. He stumbled backward a few steps in surprise, but then held still and let Anna cry into his shirt. She was holding onto him so hard that her fingers dug into the back of his neck. Jack carefully put his arms around her and held her while she wept, her back shaking with sobs. Finally she sniffled once, and her iron grip relaxed. For an instant, she lay quietly against his chest.
Then she remembered who he was, and who she was, and she started back, releasing him. Jack opened his arms and let her go, and Anna quickly backed up, putting enough distance between them to prevent her from going back and asking him to hold her and comfort her again. She wiped her face with a shaking hand and asked, "So – do you accept my terms?"
Jack didn't know what to say. Fortunately, someone knocking on his door saved him from trying to find an answer to satisfy both Anna and him. "Let me get back to you on that," he said as he walked over to the door and opened it. "Hendrikson!" he exclaimed. "What –"
"Jack, I've something I need to tell you." Hendrikson darted a suspicious glare at Anna and muttered, "Alone."
"Anna, love, would you mind steppin' outside for just a minute?" Jack asked. It wasn't a request, however, but a command, and they both knew it. Silently, Anna nodded and slipped out of the room. Once the door was shut, Jack scooped up a cleaning rag and stuffed it under the doorjamb before he turned back to Hendrikson. "All right, tell me."
Hendrikson leaned in closer to Jack and spoke in a murmur. "In St. Catherine, before we...left...I heard some news. There's a convoy of French merchant ships heading for Haiti, the French colony in Jamaica –"
"I know what Haiti is!" Jack cut in. "Go on."
Hendrikson lowered his voice even more. "Except they're not merchants. They're ships of the line, warships, flagged and disguised with extra bulk to look like merchants, and their cargoes are firearms and weapons. Once they land in Haiti, they'll reconfigure, take on crews, and launch an attack on Jamaica – while the governor is at sea and the naval officer in charge stands to be court-martialed."
Jack took a moment to process Hendrikson's information. Then he whistled softly as it penetrated his mind in full. "Which means we've just lost all Jamaican ports in the Caribbean Sea," he finished, "which means we either drift at sea until we starve, or go to England and get hanged for our trouble."
"Exactly," Hendrikson agreed grimly.
"Thank you." Jack nodded briefly. Hendrikson knew a dismissal when he saw one – he nodded back and left the room, leaving the door open for Anna.
She was a very different Anna than the one who had drifted quietly out of Jack's cabin a minute ago. Now her eyes were blazing, and every line of her body was coiled to spring. "You heard," Jack said resignedly. She must have.
"I did." Anna shut the door and almost ran across the cabin to grab Jack's hands in hers. "Jack, we have to go back, we have to stop them –"
"What's this 'we'?" Jack asked, freeing his hands and holding Anna back at arm's length. "The last I heard of it, you were begging to be hung."
Anna sighed impatiently. "But we have to go back! They'll take Jamaica –"
"I expect they will. And how do you expect one single ship, crewed by the minimum number possible to sail it, to defeat a convoy of French ships of the line? Tell me that." Jack reached for the bottle of rum that he'd dropped into the hammock and drank.
To his shock, Anna reached for it and pulled it out of his hands. "Please, Jack! Where will you go, if they take it?"
"The British will come back for it," Jack told her. He made a grab for the rum – she held it out of his reach. "They'll be bound to."
"When the news reaches them, I'm sure they will," Anna replied. "But when will they get it? In a month? Two months? By that time, the French will have subdued the people and gotten the colony reorganized as theirs. We can't wait!"
"And how do you propose we attempt this nonexistent savior suicide mission?" Jack was panting with the effort of trying to recover his rum. Damn woman, she kept holding it out of his way.
Anna's smile was feral, and very self-satisfied. "You have the governor on board your ship, Captain Sparrow."
"What?" Jack blinked. "What are you getting at?"
"Admitted, he's the recalled governor, but the colonists know him. They'll rally around him if he comes back, and the French can't keep control of a mob. They'll head for Port Royal first, and that's where he's known best. If we go back around, the people will join Governor Swann and fight for him. It's brilliant."
"And it would never work –"
"Jack, you know the sea, ships, plundering, and all the business of being a pirate. You know it very well, and I'll concede that in an instant." She smiled. "But I know landlubbers. Trust me on this one." She tossed the bottle of rum into the air, and Jack caught it gratefully. "Will you at least think about it? Please?"
Jack sat down in his hammock. "I'll think about it," he promised.
"Thank you." Anna turned around and walked out of his cabin.
Jack muttered under his breath, but Anna's arguments kept returning to him. "You have the governor on board your ship...They'll rally around him if he comes back...I know landlubbers. Trust me on this one." And he did trust her on that point, too. She was right. She was very right.
"It would be something new," he said wistfully. Plundering ships got predictable after a while – all they had to hear were the words "Black Pearl" and they rolled over like dead fish. Saving a colony – now there was something he'd never done. And Anna was right, he had the perfect setup.
"It's the rum affecting my judgments," Jack decided. He stepped out of his cabin and went up on deck. Hendrikson had just taken over the helm from Annamaria. Jack walked over to the Dutchman and announced, "Set a course for Port Royal."
"What?" Hendrikson turned his head to stare at his mad captain. "Are you out of your mind, Jack?"
"Always was, always will be," Jack replied cheerfully. "Do it, Hendrikson!"
"Why?" demanded the frazzled Dutchman.
Jack grinned. "We're going to save Jamaica. Set the course, man!" Hendrikson obeyed. Searching the deck with a quick glance, Jack spotted Gibbs and made his way over to his first mate. "Gibbs, turn the prisoners loose. We're going to need every hand on deck for this little caper." He scratched his chin, pretending not to notice Gibbs' look of complete shock. "And when you do, tell Anna I said yes." Gibbs nodded and left the deck, shaking his head in bewilderment. Jack grinned again and began to shout orders.
Soon the prisoners came up on deck, shaking their own heads and blinking in the light. Jack strolled over to them. "Gibbs, assign them jobs." He caught Anna's eye and winked. "Consider the hangings off," he told them. "Get to work, now!"
Anna reached out and caught him by the sleeve as he turned. "Jack – thank you," she said quietly.
Jack grinned at her and freed his sleeve. "No trouble, love."
Chapter Eight
Jack paced around the perimeter of his cabin restlessly. There was a bottle of rum that lay in his hammock – thoughtful Annamaria had probably sent it up – but it was untouched. Jack needed his head unclouded by his beloved rum.
The penalty that the prisoners must all pay was death. That was a rule of thumb on board the Pearl. Anyone who tried to take the ship from Jack would be put to death. Three years ago he'd had to enforce that rule, and Jenkins, a man they'd taken on in Tortuga, had swung from a yardarm. It was a fact, a rule that had been consecrated with Jenkins' blood and was now unbreakable.
But these were not ordinary mutineers! Jack told himself, working himself up into a frenzy as he stomped back across the cabin. Some of them were the people who had helped get the Pearl back, and surely he owed them better than an ignominious death on a pirate vessel. But then, shouldn't they have known there was no chance to escape? They should have thought! And yet, he had been shipwrecked with Elizabeth, had shared the breaking of the curse with Will...had been sentenced to death by the governor... "Right fond memories all around," Jack muttered. He reached for the bottle, but stopped himself in time. Once a sentence had been decided on, then he would get roaring drunk – but until then, no rum. He scowled at himself and started back around the cabin.
Will and Elizabeth had not been the driving force of the attempted escape, Jack decided with relief. Whatever their faults as law-abiding citizens, they would not have been so foolhardy as to concoct a plan to steal the Black Pearl. They were idealistic and hopeful enough to participate in one, but the idea had not been theirs. Neither had the governor been the power behind the mutiny. Jack very much doubted that he could be the power behind anything. And the Turners' daughter was only six.
That left the Norringtons, two people whom Jack could well believe had made the plan. He swore. He had been starting to like Anna at least, when she'd told him about sneaking out of the hold. Jack could easily see her taking control of the mutiny, though – too easily for his comfort. No, she would have to swing, and her brother, too... "And then that damned commodore will be after me forever!" Jack finished for himself. "This just gets better and better with each passing second!" He made another grab for the rum, and this time he got it and took a long drink. It made him feel better.
"Captain?" Someone was at the door, and knocking quite hard, someone with a female voice. Jack hoped it wasn't Anna again – the last thing he needed was to have to tell her he'd decided to kill her. "Come in," he said."
It was Annamaria, and she looked peeved. Jack let go of the bottle as soon as he caught sight of her face. Annamaria was the only one of his crew who objected strenuously to his rum, and he preferred to keep her temper directed at someone other than him. "Captain, she wanted to see you." With distaste, Annamaria added quietly, "She demanded a parlay. I don't know where she learned about that."
So it was Anna, then. The crew knew that Elizabeth was well versed in the pirate code. Jack sighed. He was bound by Anna's request as much as Annamaria was. "Let her in, then." Annamaria stepped out of the room, leaving Anna standing in the doorway. Anna jumped into the room as Annamaria slammed the door behind her. "I have nothing to say to you," Jack warned her.
"I know." Anna swallowed hard. "I know. It's just that – it's that I have something to say to you. To ask you."
"Ask, then. You called for a parlay." Jack folded his arms across his chest and stared unblinkingly at Anna.
"Thank you." Her eyes wavered from his for a moment, but then she raised them and met his gaze squarely. This is a change, thought Jack. This is the first time I've ever seen her look at me without wanting to murder me. "Captain Sparrow, I – apologize – for my actions earlier today." Anna winced. Words that sounded proper in a drawing room in Port Royal had no place on a pirate ship, but they were the only way she knew to apologize – and the only way she knew to beg. "It was wrong of me –"
"Damn right!" Jack snapped, irritated by her stilted politeness.
"Will you let me finish, Sparrow?" Anna flared, embarrassed. "Thank you," she said again. "You – I'm sure that –" She gave up trying to be tactful. Jack didn't seem to be taking to it. "You plan to execute us, don't you?" she asked forthrightly.
Jack was impressed. Not many people dared be so forward with him. "Aye," he answered, hating himself for starting to like her again.
"It was mostly my fault. We would never have done it if I hadn't pressed everyone else to." Anna bit her lip, but held her head up. It was the only dignity left to her. "What I'm saying is – don't kill them. They're not the ones at fault. If you need someone to make an example of – kill me. I insisted we do it – I deserve the punishment."
Her chin was quivering, and her voice was shaky with fear, but otherwise she held herself as bravely as a sinking ship going down with all flags flying. Jack felt pity stir in him, and he reached out for her hand to comfort her, all thoughts of her sentence flying from his mind. He almost spoke her name, but stopped himself in time.
"No." Anna stepped back a pace. "Please, just tell me if –" She bit her lip again, more fiercely, and drew blood. She gasped softly and wiped it away. "Jack, please –"
"You're crying," Jack said in shock, watching a stray tear make a path down her cheek. He watched it race down to her jaw line and tremble there for a moment before it fell silently onto her shoulder. "Anna, you're crying," he repeated, taking another step toward her. Only once before had he seen a woman cry, and that had been his mother, so long ago that it seemed like another life. Annamaria never cried, and neither had Elizabeth when he had first known her. Jack moved closer, reached out again to wipe away the second tear that was trickling down from Anna's other eye.
She turned around, lifting her arms against the wall and burying her head in them. "I'm not." Her voice was muffled by her arms, but Jack was close enough to hear it. "I'm not," she insisted. "I can't be crying."
"You are," Jack pointed out. He took her by the shoulders and turned her around to face him. "See that, there?" He touched her cheek with the tip of his finger, where a tear lay. "That's a tear, love, and when those come onto your face, you're crying." Gently he brushed it away.
Anna looked up at him, her mouth twisted with sorrow and fear. The next thing Jack knew, she had thrown her arms around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder. He stumbled backward a few steps in surprise, but then held still and let Anna cry into his shirt. She was holding onto him so hard that her fingers dug into the back of his neck. Jack carefully put his arms around her and held her while she wept, her back shaking with sobs. Finally she sniffled once, and her iron grip relaxed. For an instant, she lay quietly against his chest.
Then she remembered who he was, and who she was, and she started back, releasing him. Jack opened his arms and let her go, and Anna quickly backed up, putting enough distance between them to prevent her from going back and asking him to hold her and comfort her again. She wiped her face with a shaking hand and asked, "So – do you accept my terms?"
Jack didn't know what to say. Fortunately, someone knocking on his door saved him from trying to find an answer to satisfy both Anna and him. "Let me get back to you on that," he said as he walked over to the door and opened it. "Hendrikson!" he exclaimed. "What –"
"Jack, I've something I need to tell you." Hendrikson darted a suspicious glare at Anna and muttered, "Alone."
"Anna, love, would you mind steppin' outside for just a minute?" Jack asked. It wasn't a request, however, but a command, and they both knew it. Silently, Anna nodded and slipped out of the room. Once the door was shut, Jack scooped up a cleaning rag and stuffed it under the doorjamb before he turned back to Hendrikson. "All right, tell me."
Hendrikson leaned in closer to Jack and spoke in a murmur. "In St. Catherine, before we...left...I heard some news. There's a convoy of French merchant ships heading for Haiti, the French colony in Jamaica –"
"I know what Haiti is!" Jack cut in. "Go on."
Hendrikson lowered his voice even more. "Except they're not merchants. They're ships of the line, warships, flagged and disguised with extra bulk to look like merchants, and their cargoes are firearms and weapons. Once they land in Haiti, they'll reconfigure, take on crews, and launch an attack on Jamaica – while the governor is at sea and the naval officer in charge stands to be court-martialed."
Jack took a moment to process Hendrikson's information. Then he whistled softly as it penetrated his mind in full. "Which means we've just lost all Jamaican ports in the Caribbean Sea," he finished, "which means we either drift at sea until we starve, or go to England and get hanged for our trouble."
"Exactly," Hendrikson agreed grimly.
"Thank you." Jack nodded briefly. Hendrikson knew a dismissal when he saw one – he nodded back and left the room, leaving the door open for Anna.
She was a very different Anna than the one who had drifted quietly out of Jack's cabin a minute ago. Now her eyes were blazing, and every line of her body was coiled to spring. "You heard," Jack said resignedly. She must have.
"I did." Anna shut the door and almost ran across the cabin to grab Jack's hands in hers. "Jack, we have to go back, we have to stop them –"
"What's this 'we'?" Jack asked, freeing his hands and holding Anna back at arm's length. "The last I heard of it, you were begging to be hung."
Anna sighed impatiently. "But we have to go back! They'll take Jamaica –"
"I expect they will. And how do you expect one single ship, crewed by the minimum number possible to sail it, to defeat a convoy of French ships of the line? Tell me that." Jack reached for the bottle of rum that he'd dropped into the hammock and drank.
To his shock, Anna reached for it and pulled it out of his hands. "Please, Jack! Where will you go, if they take it?"
"The British will come back for it," Jack told her. He made a grab for the rum – she held it out of his reach. "They'll be bound to."
"When the news reaches them, I'm sure they will," Anna replied. "But when will they get it? In a month? Two months? By that time, the French will have subdued the people and gotten the colony reorganized as theirs. We can't wait!"
"And how do you propose we attempt this nonexistent savior suicide mission?" Jack was panting with the effort of trying to recover his rum. Damn woman, she kept holding it out of his way.
Anna's smile was feral, and very self-satisfied. "You have the governor on board your ship, Captain Sparrow."
"What?" Jack blinked. "What are you getting at?"
"Admitted, he's the recalled governor, but the colonists know him. They'll rally around him if he comes back, and the French can't keep control of a mob. They'll head for Port Royal first, and that's where he's known best. If we go back around, the people will join Governor Swann and fight for him. It's brilliant."
"And it would never work –"
"Jack, you know the sea, ships, plundering, and all the business of being a pirate. You know it very well, and I'll concede that in an instant." She smiled. "But I know landlubbers. Trust me on this one." She tossed the bottle of rum into the air, and Jack caught it gratefully. "Will you at least think about it? Please?"
Jack sat down in his hammock. "I'll think about it," he promised.
"Thank you." Anna turned around and walked out of his cabin.
Jack muttered under his breath, but Anna's arguments kept returning to him. "You have the governor on board your ship...They'll rally around him if he comes back...I know landlubbers. Trust me on this one." And he did trust her on that point, too. She was right. She was very right.
"It would be something new," he said wistfully. Plundering ships got predictable after a while – all they had to hear were the words "Black Pearl" and they rolled over like dead fish. Saving a colony – now there was something he'd never done. And Anna was right, he had the perfect setup.
"It's the rum affecting my judgments," Jack decided. He stepped out of his cabin and went up on deck. Hendrikson had just taken over the helm from Annamaria. Jack walked over to the Dutchman and announced, "Set a course for Port Royal."
"What?" Hendrikson turned his head to stare at his mad captain. "Are you out of your mind, Jack?"
"Always was, always will be," Jack replied cheerfully. "Do it, Hendrikson!"
"Why?" demanded the frazzled Dutchman.
Jack grinned. "We're going to save Jamaica. Set the course, man!" Hendrikson obeyed. Searching the deck with a quick glance, Jack spotted Gibbs and made his way over to his first mate. "Gibbs, turn the prisoners loose. We're going to need every hand on deck for this little caper." He scratched his chin, pretending not to notice Gibbs' look of complete shock. "And when you do, tell Anna I said yes." Gibbs nodded and left the deck, shaking his head in bewilderment. Jack grinned again and began to shout orders.
Soon the prisoners came up on deck, shaking their own heads and blinking in the light. Jack strolled over to them. "Gibbs, assign them jobs." He caught Anna's eye and winked. "Consider the hangings off," he told them. "Get to work, now!"
Anna reached out and caught him by the sleeve as he turned. "Jack – thank you," she said quietly.
Jack grinned at her and freed his sleeve. "No trouble, love."