Best Laid Plans. Part 3 (of 3)
"Grab a rope, lad!" screamed a hoarse, half-familiar voice from out of the smoke. "Climb!"
A rope swung down from above me. I reached out to grab, but missed and it swayed past me into the dense smoke. Cold, grey water sloshed around my feet, and I looked around, frantic for something, anything to grab hold of. Through the smoke I thought I could make out another length of rope and leaped, hoping beyond hope that it was attached to part of the Blood Eagle rather than the Kathleen, but knowing even as I did that I had no other choice.
I grabbed for the rope as it brushed my fingers, snagged it and then was clinging on with all the strength and desperation I could muster. The force of my leap swung us like a pendulum and for a couple of seconds I was beyond the pall of smoke, and I looked back to see the pitiful wreck of the little Kathleen lying now partially submerged and completely on her side. Part of her hull looked to have been impaled and caught up on one of the flukes of the Blood Eagle's anchors, trapping her in place until her own weight, and the weight of the water that was surely even now rushing in to fill her hull, could tear her free. It was a sobering sight.
Then the rope reached the limits of its upward swing and started its return back into the smoke and the wreckage it concealed. The paralysis of scant moments earlier fled, and with desperate urgency I shinned up the rope as fast as I could. I had managed no more than five feet before I was back into the smoke. From its depths, loomed a red eagle, shrouded by rope and sailcloth, and frantically, I lunged for it. The impact drove the breath from my body, but still I held on as the rope disappeared back into the now thinning smoke through which I could see the splintered end of the bowsprit less than ten feet away from me. The rest of the bowsprit and the jibboom were below, entangled with what was left of the Kathleen.
I looked back at the Blood Eagle. Beyond a melee on the fo'c'sle - was it Jack that I saw there fighting? - I saw others of the Blood Eagle's crew shouting in alarm and gesturing at the foremast. I followed their gaze. The splintered remnants of the fore topgallant mast were hanging down, fouling the fore topsail which even as I watched was ripped in two. The topmast behind it was bowing inexorably forwards and I heard the whining groan of stressed timber escalate into a deafening crack as the whole topmast split down its length like a strip of bamboo. For a moment I was sure it was coming down on top of me, but the off centre weight of the topgallant mast pulled it to one side and it crashed into the water. As Jack had hoped, it acted like an anchor and the Blood Eagle slewed abruptly to one side.
The louder popping and gurgling from underneath my perch returned my attention to the Kathleen which still lay caught across the Blood Eagle's bow. She was almost completely submerged by now. Air escaping from hatches and between timbers hissed and whistled, producing great bubbles like the death throes of some great sea monster. Suddenly I almost lost my grip as without warning, the cathead, from which hung the anchor that had impaled the Kathleen, snapped like a carrot, throwing splinters in all directions. The freed anchor and chain splashed into the water, dragging the wreck of the Kathleen down with it.
I watched her disappear into the deep, and felt an inexplicable sense of loss for a ship I had known for no more than a few hours. My reverie was to be short lived.
"Oi! You!" yelled an angry voice. "Get back 'ere!"
I turned. The fighting on the fo'c'sle was done. I saw Jack forced down onto his knees, cutlass blade at his throat, but no sign of the others. One sleeve of Jack's once white shirt was stained dark with blood, but still I caught a glint of gold as he threw me a grin and waved with blithe unconcern. The pirate standing near him whose blade was at his throat took brutal exception to his insouciance, and with a savage blow from the cutlass' basket hilt punched him to the deck.
"No, don't!" I shouted as he drew his leg back for a kick.
He looked at me, an unpleasant sneer twisting his features, and beckoned. Under the circumstances I had little choice but to obey and scrambled towards where he and Jack were from my somewhat precarious refuge on the figurehead. To my relief Jack was still conscious, if somewhat the worse for wear. At our captor's urging, I put my hand under his good arm and hauled him to his feet, whispering to him as I did, with perhaps more than a little sarcasm: "Great plan, Jack."
"Worked, didn't it?" And I had to agree: it had. My thoughts went to Elizabeth. She, at least, would be safe.
The apparent leader of the group of pirates surrounding us gestured with his cutlass for us to precede him. "Cap'n wants to see you, culley," he growled to Jack.
"Well of course he does!" returned Jack expansively, and shaking off my support started towards the quarterdeck with a gait noticeably less steady than normal. I opened my mouth to say something, decided on reflection it wasn't worth it and just hurried after him.
When I reached the quarterdeck, admittedly somewhat behind Jack, there was no mistaking which one of the men there the Captain was, even had Jack not headed straight for him. 'Black Bob' Crauford was tall and lean with pale, ascetic features and long dark hair, dressed from head to toe in funeral black relieved only by the silver mountings on his sword and the pistol hooked onto his belt. He had an undeniable, if sinister presence.
"'Ello Bob," drawled Jack lazily. "It's been an age, 'asn't it."
"Sparrow! Rather a lot of people have said you were dead - on several occasions, in fact. But you do have a quite disagreeable talent for not having the decency to actually stay dead, do you." Crauford's tones were surprisingly aristocratic, and I found myself wondering how much of it was real, and how much pretence. "I think this time I might have to take a personal role in your demise - just to see it's done properly, you understand. There are far too many amateurs around nowadays."
Whatever Jack might have said in reply was lost as a call drifted down from above. "Cap'n! There's a ship approachin' from windward: a three master, an' she's carryin' black sails!"
Black sails! My heart leapt and I fought to keep the grin from my face: the Black Pearl. It had to be.
My status as a captive briefly forgotten, I joined the others in looking at her over the rail to see a ship manoeuvring, handling sails and positioning for an attack. My hope was confirmed in an instant. It was without question the Pearl. The dark miasma of the curse no longer swirled around her, but even without it she was a glorious, terrifying, wonderful sight. What I could hear of the frightened mutterings of the Blood Eagle's crew told me that she still held for many of them a superstitious awe.
"I think we might come to an accord, Crauford, don't you?" Jack murmured easily. "'Ow about me an' mine go back to the Pearl, leavin' you lot to fix up this tub of yours, 'cos between you an' me, Bob, she's a bit of a mess."
"Why, Sparrow?" Crauford asked, and I could hear the naked suspicion in his voice. "We're dead in the water. I'm assuming that in your absence, your pet harridan, AnaMaria, is in command, and with her at the helm, the Black Pearl could tack and wear, rake us stem to stern, and we couldn't even get a gun to bear."
"True," Jack acknowledged. "Quite true." Then he grinned wolfishly. "But you see, I want the satisfaction of takin' you down ship to ship. I want everyone to know that when it came down to it, I outsailed you, outfought you and then sent you straight to the bottom in a fairer fight than you ever gave any of your victims."
Crauford looked over at the Pearl, then back to Jack. A slow, beatific smile spread across his face. "So be it, Sparrow." He bowed slightly, a gentleman duellist agreeing to a challenge, a pirate agreeing an accord. "Until our next meeting, then."
Jack nodded. "Right then," he said, then turned to me. "Time to go, Will." In the ship's waist, some of Crauford's men were swaying out the smallest of the Blood Eagle's boats. With them I saw Gibbs and two other survivors from the Kathleen, all of whom sported crude bandages. The five of us got down into the boat and began the long pull over to the Pearl, which had seen the boat and heaved to so as to wait for us.
Halfway across I finally broached the subject that had been nagging at me since Jack brokered our release. "I thought you said you wanted him dead," I began.
He nodded without looking at me. "I do."
"That's what I don't understand. Before the Pearl showed up, you were willing to risk everything, ramming him with the Kathleen, and we all know it was only sheer good fortune that as many of us survived that as did. Why didn't you just let the Pearl finish him off?" I protested. "Crauford himself admitted he's a sitting target."
"So 'e is," Jack agreed calmly, finally meeting my gaze before glancing back to the Blood Eagle.
I waited for him to go on. He didn't. "Jack?" I warned, my patience fraying.
"Like you said, 'e'd make a lovely target," Jack said wistfully, still looking at her before fixing me with his stare and continuing in much more pointed tones, "that is, if the Pearl were actually carryin' any guns to shoot at 'im with."
What the…?! I just looked at him in utter disbelief.
And I think at that he finally took pity on me and wearily explained. "I told you that when we set out to look for you in the cutter, the Pearl was still bein' fixed up, right?" I nodded, then he went on: "To fix 'er up properly, we 'ad to take the guns out. Takes a long time to do that. Takes 'bout as long to put 'em back, so I knew when I saw 'er, there was no way she'd 'ad time to get all the guns back on board. I took the cutter when I 'eard you'd already left an' that Crauford was huntin' the area, 'cos I couldn't risk waitin' on the Pearl. As it is, to 'ave got 'er 'ere as quick she did, AnaMaria must 'ave re-rigged 'er faster than I've ever 'eard of it bein' done."
"So… the Black Pearl… the whole 'wanting to outfight him at sea' thing… it was all just a bluff?" I concluded, the anger at not spotting it earlier warring with the sheer relief that it had worked and we weren't going to die after all. "You bluffed him?"
"Pirate!" he reminded, a merry glint in his eye, but the good humour faded quickly, and I knew with total certainty that sometime soon there would come a reckoning between Jack Sparrow and Black Bob Crauford.
And I knew just as certainly, that I intended to be alongside him when it happened.
- Fin -