Harry & the Pirate IV: The Chalice of St. Francis
Chapter 1: Rescue
"Da', look! Dolphins!"
"Bloody hell, would you please get off that railing! You fall overboard and you're sharkbait, savvy?"
"But Da', there's no sharks—just dolphins! Just think if we could swim with 'em!"
"Come here, young Tom." Owens grinned at the Captain's offspring and scooped him off the rail without so much as a by-your-leave. Ignoring the six-year-old's squawk of indignation, he tossed him over his shoulder and turned to Jack. "Shall I take this rascally fish to Anatole, Captain? He'd make a fine supper."
"No, Anatole wouldn't have 'im. Sharkbait. Take him below and have him practice his knots."
"Don't want to tie knots! I know 'em, Da'!"
"Well, practice anyway. It's that, or a Nap!"
In the face of this dire threat, Tom wailed, "Noooooo!" and capitulated. As he allowed himself to be hauled away, he saw his mother coming on deck and waved to her with great enthusiasm before he disappeared below with his mentor.
Harry came to Jack, at the helm, and he turned to her for a kiss. "Good morning, Madame Slugabed!"
"Good morning!" she smiled, and obliged him, though she added in a low voice, "For shame, calling names when you were the cause of my missing breakfast!"
"Didn't hear you objecting," he observed, with a teasing look, then launched into an imitation of her, rolling his eyes and gasping, high and breathless, "Oh, Jack! Oh, Jack!"
She stomped on his foot, hard, and looked around surreptitiously, trying not to laugh. "Be quiet!"
"Ow!" He hopped a bit.
"And you were just as noisy, if not more so. What the others must think of us I've no idea!"
"That we're bloody lucky in love, that's what," Jack said, "after which they're likely retiring to odd corners of the ship to relieve themselves of sundry irksome humours resulting from said eavesdropping."
"Really?" she laughed, rather aghast at this picture.
"Not a doubt of it. I would."
"Onanism is sinful, and most detrimental to the health," she quoted piously, her eyes laughing.
"Good thing I've you to save me from it some o' the time, then. For the rest, I've ol' Rosie Hancock."
"Jack!" Harry laughed uncertainly, coloring.
Jack kissed her again. "No more 'n you," he said, slyly, and grinned broadly when she reddened further and did not deny it.
She said, instead, lips quivering, "This is a highly improper conversation."
"Aye. Best sort to have with one's wife. If the weather wasn't takin' a turn I'd take you below an' continue it in a more private setting."
"The weather?" she asked, trying to change the subject and regain her countenance.
"Aye. Looks like we're in for a squall. See those clouds?"
"They look quite innocuous!"
"Well, they're not. I'm considering makin' for a little island off to the east: it's out of the way, but it has a good, sheltered anchorage. Better safe than sorry."
"Will it delay us much?" asked Harry, frowning. "Those babies need Christening!"
"They'll wait for us. We're the Godparents!"
"Yes!" Harry smiled. "Twin boys! Maggie is brilliant! And Charles must be ecstatic, after three sisters. And James!"
"Norrington's likely as proud as a peacock, sure enough. Didn't know he had it in him."
"He didn't. He had it in Maggie," said Harry, blandly. She smiled slowly and looked at him sidelong as he turned to her with a raised brow.
"Now what would your brother say to such talk?" mused Jack with laughter in his voice. He shook his head.
"Perhaps we should ask him when we arrive," she suggested, unsteadily.
"Oh, aye, an' have 'im accusin' me of corruptin' his innocent baby sister. No, I thank you."
She laughed. "I think I've managed to disabuse him of that notion in the last seven years!" She kissed him on the cheek and said, "I would stay to exchange more indecent banter with you but I'm starved! I'm going down to the galley. Do you want anything to eat?"
"Not from the galley!" The look in his eye and the tone of his voice left no doubt of his meaning, and he grinned as she blushed scarlet again and turned away, with a roll of eyes and an audible snort of laughter.
The afternoon was on the wane when Harry and her son made their way up topside from the Great Cabin where they'd been reading, to see what was toward. Jack was still at the wheel, and he was shouting orders above the noise of a stiffening wind. Harry was careful to hang on to whatever seemed stationary as the ship lurched and rolled, but Tom broke away and ran across the deck to his father.
"Da'! Can we stay with you?" Tom demanded.
"No, you can't. Bloody hell! Harry, get you an' Tom back to the cabin and stay there. We're trying for that anchorage, but we may not make it before that hits!"
Harry looked in the direction of Jack's nod, and gasped. The innocuous clouds were now a roiling, fast-moving black, a curtain of rain beneath them, blocking the sun in that direction. It was still some distance away, but racing to catch the Black Pearl. Jack had ordered thesails partially reefed, and the ship was still moving along at a brisk pace, but it would be a near thing. Harry looked in the other direction and spotted their goal: a small island, still sunlit in the distance.
And then Harry gasped again. "Tom! No!" she yelled, for her little son was up on the rail once more.
"Get down!" roared Jack. Gibbs, close by, muttered an oath and stepped up to take the wheel.
Tom turned his head, pointing and calling brightly, "Da! Look!" The Black Pearl gave a sudden, odd lurch, and that was it: the boy went flying, a startled look flashing on the little face before he disappeared over the side.
Harry shrieked in terror. Jack said nothing, just ripped off his hat and coat and was over the side into the rough seas in little more than the blink of an eye. Harry felt near to fainting, but she mastered herself and began praying as several voices shouted Man overboard! Gibbs roared out orders to strike sails and bring the ship about. Harry staggered over to the side and looked out, gripping the rail tight. At first she didn't see them, but then the two popped to the surface, their white shirts visible among the foam and grey waters. But the ship was still moving away, though she'd begun to slow as the crew did their work with a dreadful sense of urgency. Jack was a strong swimmer, and had taught his little son well, but swimming in the calm bays and freshwater pools on St. Claire was a very different matter than in the swell and chop of rough, open sea.
The next fifteen minutes passed with an agonizing slowness. The Pearl turned, stopping and pitching in the swells. Several intrepid souls, including a grim-faced Owens, lowered a boat and managed to get in and shove off without getting dashed against the side of the ship. Harry watched with a thudding heart as the rowers moved the boat quickly toward the swimmers, met them at last, and pulled them from the sea. They were alive. Harry sat on the deck and wept as she thanked God.
The journey back to the ship was not without its terrors, for the seas were growing progressively rougher, the storm very close behind now, and the Black Pearl could not still even to receive her captain. However, with only minor bumps and bruises, Jack finally got up the ladder and gained the deck again, his naughty son clinging tightly.
The two collapsed together, Jack coughing and exhausted, his son, body and spirits quite intact, pushing away and asking in a bright, but concerned voice, "You all right, Da'?"
Jack looked at him, and his weariness faded into something else entirely.
Tom's eyes widened in alarm, and he tried to scramble away, but found himself caught with ungentle hands.
"All right!" Jack growled, getting up and dragging Tom with him. "I'll all right you, you bloody imp!" And young Tom was picked up, taken to the quarterdeck steps, tossed over his father's knee and treated to the unprecedented experience of being thoroughly spanked before God and everybody, his soaked breeches affording little protection from his father's wrath.
Harry watched in a kind of stunned horror, her hands on her cheeks, but when the little boy was hauled to his feet again, and turned tear-filled eyes to her for sympathy, she stiffened and narrowed her own.
"M-mama!" Tom sobbed, as she came to them.
But Jack shook him, claiming his attention again. "Aye, you'll go with your mother now, but if we get through this storm alive we'll be having a long discussion on following orders, savvy? Now get below, the both of you!"
Tom turned to his mother again. "Mama! Da' hurt me!"
"And I would have done so if he had not!" said Harry tartly. "You naughty thing! You will come with me this instant!"
And Jack had to give a snort of satisfied laughter as Tom's doting mother towed him off by an ear.
The squall took its toll, though it wasn't as high as it might have been, considering its strength. The Pearl caught the brunt of it and was tossed and blown like a child's toy for nearly an hour, after which the storm began to abate, the high seas and winds gradually easing. Grey rain still came down steadily, but the clouds lifted somewhat, affording the Jack a view of their destination, the little island, cloud-topped and now appreciably closer. For they still needed shelter: in the midst of the maelstrom and in spite of reefed sails, the Black Pearl had lost the top third of her foremast.
"No one's injured, thank God, but we'll have to lay up at least a day for repairs," Jack told Harry, standing dripping in the passage outside their cabin. "I need to get back. Just wanted to see how you were."
"We're quite well, though it was very frightening, especially thinking of you and the others out in the middle of it!"
"It was a test, that's certain," Jack agreed. A solemn little face peeked out from behind Harry's skirts. Jack eyed his son. "And how are you, imp?"
The imp's lip quivered. "Are we going to discuss now?"
Jack fought against a smile. "No, not now. Come here."
Tom came out, hesitantly, and then in a rush as his father held out his hands. The little boy gave a sob as Jack caught him up and hugged him fiercely.
"What are we going to do with you, laddie?" Jack whispered, and closed his eyes as the little face burrowed against his neck.
And Harry came and put her arms around both of them, smiling through her tears.
It was only dusk when the Black Pearl dropped anchor in the cove. The crew wearily made all secure for the evening while the incomparable Anatole and his wife, Louise, prepared a delicious and sustaining supper. Most of the men were so tired they could barely stay awake afterwards, though a few played cards, and O'Brien played his fiddle for a while, a sweet peaceful sound to the accompaniment of the steady, soaking rain. Some were just thinking of retiring early to their hammocks or cots when the captain and his lady wife and their progeny, the Young Imp, came down to say goodnight.
At the Captain's prompting, Tom Sparrow came forward a step, little tricorn in hand. "Da' says I must ap…apple…"
"Say you're sorry!" whispered Harry.
"S-sorry!" said Tom, in a small voice.
There were smiles and gruff words of acceptance, and Owens got up, and came to them.. "Good man, Tom. Shall I tuck you in and tell you a tale?"
"Aye! Can I go, Da'?"
"All right. Thanks Owens. Don't let him keep you up all night—we'll start the repairs at dawn."
"No worries, Captain." Owens picked Tom up, saying, "What'll it be tonight, lad: the lurikeen or the banshee?"
"Not the banshee, Owens, nor the lurikeen, neither. The fairy gold!"
"Fairy gold it is, then, young Hop-o'-Me-Thumb."
"Night, Mama! G'night, Da'," called Tom, smiling sunnily from over Owens's shoulder.
As the two disappeared out the door, Jack and Harry turned to the crew, and Jack bowed. "Gentlemen, it's been a bloody long day. We'll bid you good e'en."
There were scattered calls of goodnight, and Gibbs said, "Don't let her keep you up all night—we'll start the repairs at dawn!"
Harry grinned, and blew Gibbs a kiss.