Chapter 9 - Son of a Gun

Norrington sprawled on the floor where the bloody pirate had dropped him, tenderly investigating the bruises on his throat. Over the last few weeks he had grown accustomed to Sparrow, even if he didn't like him any better. The fellow always played the fool, seemed half-incapable from drink most of the time. It was so easy to forget that his dangerous reputation had been well earned and that an alarming number of the stories about him were perfectly true.

Mr Turner and Anamaria had been attracted by the commotion. They stood beside Elizabeth, all of them fussing around Sparrow, asking him what had happened and whether he felt all right. Not a word or a glance spared for the victim of the piece, Norrington noted bitterly.

Suddenly Sparrow appeared in front of him. "I beg your pardon Commodore" he said, reaching out a hand to help Norrington to his feet. Norrington ignored the hand and glared at his attacker. The pirate just stood there, hand extended, a ridiculous expression of contrition on his face.

"Beg!" the word emerged as a sort of strangled squeak from Norrington's poor crushed vocal chords. He cleared his throat and tried again, "Beg pardon? For trying to kill me!"

"Ah, well I really am sorry about that mate" Sparrow said, leaning forward, grabbing Norringtons arm and hauling him to his feet. "I lost track for a moment there. I swear it doesn't happen often."

"You mean you make a habit of throttling people in a fit of rage?" asked Norrington witheringly.

"No mate, not at all" a gleam of mischief crept into the black-rimmed eyes "Actually I tried to drown the last feller". Sparrow glanced over his shoulder at Mr Turner "It was Bootstrap stopped me that time. Always keeping me out of trouble, your father."

Turner's father was a pirate? Norrington pondered this surprising scrap of information. The Governor had certainly managed to keep that tidbit out of the gossip going round Port Royal about his son-in-law.

"Yes, but why did you do it Jack?" if Elizabeth had ever looked at him with half so much concern or compassion, then he would count himself a happily married man this day.

The pirate looked nervous, haunted almost. A man who had stood on the gallows, as relaxed and smiling as if he were facing nothing more distressing than a walk in the park, suddenly seemed withdrawn. For once in his life it looked as though Sparrow had finally run out of chatter.

Sparrow looked around the cabin. Four people surrounded him, all of them obviously in need of an answer. He sighed and rubbed his face, then went to a drawer and fished out yet another of his seemingly endless store of bottles. He took a long pull at the rum. The man's throat must be like a lead pipe, the way he swills that stuff.

Sparrow drew up a chair and gestured to the rest of them to do likewise. Once they were all seated he took another pull at the rum. The pirate seemed to be breathing rather fast and Norrington noticed that the rum in the bottle sloshed as his hand trembled. Sparrow seemed to have noticed him noticing - the pirate put his hands flat on the table before beginning his story.

"Discipline. That's what makes the Royal Navy what it is. The cat-o'-nine-tails and the noose." Norrington opened his mouth in protest - he prided himself on running fine, tight ships through firm, fair leadership and instilling loyalty in his men. Jack held up a hand to forestall him "Oh, not you Commodore, I'll give you that. But you must admit you've many a brother captain who runs his ship on fear." That was true enough - no profession was without its villains and incompetents and the Navy was no exception to the rule.

"I was born on a Navy ship. No, I bet none of you had heard that one. A true child of His Majesty's Royal Navy, a son-of-a-gun. HMS Sparrow, a worm-ridden old frigate at the end of her days, patrolling the Caribbean for rum-runners round Jamaica-way."

"My mother was she was a good girl. Never did no one any harm. She took very good care of me, did the best she could. I was the only one she had see, that lived. She liked children." Another pull at the bottle, even longer this time. "But one day, she fell foul o' the Captain. Captain Ashe. Fancied himself a hard man he did. Keep 'em in line, make 'em know their place, only thing they understand is the lash - you know the sort." I do indeed, thought Norrington. The cabin seemed to have got much smaller and darker somehow. He never thought he would see such pain on Sparrow's face, or hear such distress in that ridiculous rum-hoarsened voice.

"Ten lashes he said. He must've known she'd never stand it. She wasn't strong - touch of the consumption maybe, and she was about seven months gone. Made her sick a lot that one - she never had an easy time with the childbearing." Please, God, no. Norrington had to unclench his fists. The women who seemed to worm their way into every nook and cranny of the Navy's ships were a constant challenge to discipline and to the moral welfare of the crews, but surely no man could be so barbaric as to have an expectant mother flogged?

"He had her cut down after five - even his officers looked sick and they were no credit to the Service themselves. But it was too late - she didn't last the night." Sparrow's voice had dwindled almost to a whisper "There was so much blood."

"The next time we was in port, I left the ship. Never went back. She went down with all hands nine months later, in a storm."

"And Ashe with her?" Norrington asked in a grim voice.

"No mate, he never made it that far. He died in a battle with a French privateer, about two weeks after I jumped ship. Funny thing - only one shot fired in the whole battle, or so I heard. Hit him right in the back."

"Good" It was only when he saw his companions' astonished faces that Norrington realised he'd said that aloud. He looked Jack straight in the eye. "You fight the Navy, Sparrow, or run from it; but it's my home."

Author's Notes: The Royal Navy really did have several ships called HMS Sparrow (although the references I've found are to 18th and 19th century vessels - too late for Jack to have been born on. There might well have been one in the 17th century though, as the Navy tends to reuse the same names over and over.

"Son-of-a-gun" is what the Captain used to enter in a ship's log when a child of unknown paternity was born on a ship. A lot of women, from respectable officers' wives to women who just lived with the men below decks used to be found on Navy ships - I think the Admiralty finally managed to stop Captains allowing them on board sometime in the 19th century. Jack strikes me as a born survivor and this seems like a plausible start in life for him - he just doesn't seem like the classic Captain Blood, gentleman fallen on hard times sort of pirate to me.