PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE AFRICAN STAR
By ErinRua
CHAPTER 14
Dark seemed a long time coming, however, as the Royal Venture receded into the golden evening haze towards St. Marc, some twenty miles across the bay. The Black Pearl took up station to wait in a cove shielded by a rocky point near the Isle of Gonave's northern tip. It was close enough to the wind to move when need be, but as the Caribbean sun sank behind the island's spine and twilight crept from the jungle slopes to fill the cove, the black ship would be lost to all but the cleverest eye. If spotted, with her dark sails furled the Pearl hopefully would pass for nothing more than an honest vessel stopped to take on water or wood. Slowly the evening shadows grew longer.
"Original John 'as supper ready in the galley."
At mention of their Goliath of a pirate, Will turned towards the source of the voice and frowned. "Since when does he cook? And what is he cooking?"
Jack shrugged. "Didn't ask. And you probably don't want to know."
Wincing, Will decided to let that subject die and looked out of their shadowed cove towards Hispaniola, where the Royal Venture was now lost to view. "Elizabeth is over there. I hope she has faith that help is coming. You do have a plan, right, Jack?"
"Of course I do!" The pirate captain drew himself up as if in affront. "Jack Sparrow always has a plan." When Will failed to look impressed, Jack leaned towards him while tapping his own scarf-wrapped temple. "It's all right 'ere. Trust me, mate."
Will snorted and said, "And that's supposed to comfort me?"
As the blacksmith disappeared towards the companionway, Sparrow's smile wilted and he barely smothered a sigh.
"What is in that 'ead of yers, Jack?"
Sparrow did not have to look to identify that gruff voice. "Frenchmen, Gibbs. These are their waters, and yonder bay does not offer the sea room I'd like, if it comes to trouble."
The Pearl's first mate nodded, squinting out across the sunset-coppered waters as he scratched his graying mutton-chop whiskers. "Aye, and too many eyes ashore. What are ye thinkin', then? Wait and catch 'im out in the open channel?"
"Seems the best course."
"Young Will won't take kindly to that. Imaginin' all sorts of dire and dreadful things, 'e is, and to be so close … You don't think Biltmore will dispose of 'is more 'special cargo' at St. Marc's, do ye?" Gibbs scrunched his round face in an uncertain look as he pulled his flask from a pocket. "Do the French fancy such things?"
With an earnest smile, Jack raised his hands as if shaping the idea he spoke. "Think about it, mate. Where does a man like Sir John Biltmore go to get the most for his cargo? To the town with the most silver in it. A village like St. Marc's, with a few fishermen and a dried up vicar, will 'ave no use for a bevy of lovely ladies or a cargo of silk and silver. Port Paix is another fish entirely, the Paris of the Caribbean, and it's just a skip and a jump from 'is Spanish friends in Cuba." His grin gained a few more teeth as he added, "And nobody cares if we shoot at Spaniards."
"Sail, ho!" A shout rang from their lookout, for even at rest the Black Pearl dared not relax vigilance. "Port bow - looks like she's headin' straight for us!
Gibbs nearly choked on a swig from his flask as he and Sparrow wheeled towards the direction indicated - and found themselves staring at a jaunty little sloop. Typical of her type she was fore-and-aft-rigged with a single mast, which bore one large trapezoidal mainsail and a small square topsail, while in the rigging above her bow a triangular jib sail was stretched. Her canvas swelled with a brisk offshore wind - and she was heading directly towards their hidden cove.
"Avast, me hearties!" screeched Cotton's parrot.
"'E's comin' all right," said Gibbs. "Looks like 'e'll be here a lot quicker than 'e'll like."
Jack wasted no time. "Gibbs, get someone on the deck guns! Anamaria, get me some muskets!"
Such a small craft, at best only eighty feet long, was of no real threat to the towering Black Pearl, but the fact remained that they were pirates. Thus any encounter held the possibility of violence and their own ship lay dead in the water. The deck was instantly a-scramble as men rushed to ready their defense, and Sparrow stood narrow-eyed as he watched the sleek little boat's approach. It appeared the newcomer had not seen the Pearl lurking here in the shadows, but then a sudden flutter of movement on deck and a heavy ripple in her main sail revealed that the discovery had been made.
The bowsprit of the sloop veered outward, but one simply does not stop a flying boat with her sails full of wind. In a twinkling she was within the shadowed cove and without escape, unless she wished to shatter herself upon the rocky shoals at the cove's mouth. Obviously her crew had not expected to find anyone here.
"Cap'n," Gibbs shouted. "She's got four cannons on her decks, but nobody on 'em."
"Stand ready," Sparrow called. "But hold your fire."
Will Turner burst up the companionway and slid to a halt at Jack's side. "Who are they?"
"No idea," Jack replied.
"Maybe they're just local fishermen."
"Fishing with cannon?" Sparrow lifted his eyebrows. "I'd hate to see their catch of the day."
Right past the Pearl's bow the smaller craft swept, her sails luffing awkwardly as the helmsman sought desperately for sea room - but too late. She had nowhere to go but deeper into the cove, and her only way out was now blocked by a hulking black pirate ship several times her size.
Then of all absurd things, small blossoms of smoke burst in a staccato ripple at the sloop's near rail and musket shots battered the peace. In the next blink little wooden drumbeats thunked the side of the Pearl, for all the world as if unruly children hurled stones at a behemoth.
"They're shootin' at us!" someone cried in disbelief. "They're bloody shootin!"
Now the pirate ship swarmed with men bearing weapons from cutlasses and pistols to four old muskets. On the starboard side crews stood ready by several of her deck guns, and Cotton's parrot flapped up into the rigging where it ruffled its feathers fiercely.
"Mister Gibbs!" Sparrow shouted. "A salute to those people, if you please - put one across her stern -" he dropped his voice to grumble, "- since her bow is obviously not going anywhere but on the beach."
At Gibbs' signal Tearlach dipped his smoldering linstock to a cannon's breech and a thunderous smoking boom belched across the cove. Water splashed and skipped past the sloop's rear and the heads poking above her rail vanished. Her sails collapsed to empty canvas as she lost her wind, and she was now drifting as if rudderless into shallow water near the shore.
"Bloody idiots!" Sparrow growled. "Don't they see we could blast them to smithereens?"
Another volley of smokey musket fire burst back towards them. Something like a large, very angry bee whipped between Jack's and Will's heads.
"Apparently not," Will replied.
"Mister Gibbs!" Jack cried. "Once more - and this time act like you mean it!"
Another cannon bellowed and lunged back. As birds flew up from the darkening trees a hole appeared in the sloop's small topsail.
Again the muskets popped their reply and more little thuds hammered into the Pearl's hull - and punched nasty little holes in her furled mainsail.
"Bloody hell!" Sparrow screeched. He spun about to fling a rigid arm towards the offending boat and bawled, "Stop those people shootin' at my ship! Will - where the devil are you? Will!"
"Right here, Jack." The young blacksmith eyed him quizzically from the same spot he'd been standing all along, not arm's reach away.
Jack's dark face was a contorted mask of frustrated wrath, and for an instant Will wondered if he would leap right off the deck. Or perhaps simply jump up and down where he stood.
"Take six men and get over there - I don't care how, I don't even care what you do with the idiots on that boat, you can feed 'em to the bloody sharks for all of me, but stop them shooting at us!"
"Captain!" called Anamaria. "Why don't we just sink 'em?"
Abruptly Sparrow seemed to catch himself as a fox-toothed grin turned the ends of his moustache. ""No, I think not. I've got other plans for that boat."
Through the dispersing haze of cannon smoke Will glanced at the motley gathering of men peopling the Pearl's deck. All of them resembled a cross between rag-pickers and, well, pirates, and he rather helplessly turned back to their captain.
"Ah … who do you want me to take?"
Two muskets banged and two more thuds thumped the ship's hull. Sparrow leaned until his nose almost touched Will's.
"I … do not … care!" Then he wheeled about and pointed commandingly. "You lot, with Mister Turner! Pistols and cutlasses!"
Will blinked to realize Anamaria was somehow included in that imperious directive. But one look at her narrow gaze forbade protest. Thus he closed his mouth before anything stupid could come out of it.
Moments later Will slipped over the far side of the ship with the lady pirate, Irish John, Matty Whitlock, and hulking Original John at his heels, followed by two others. The unlikely assault of muskets against a twenty-gun pirate ship - the Pearl however abandoning the use of her big guns - continued as they rowed ashore and disappeared into deeply-shadowed jungle growth.
At a loping run Will led his boarding party through the mangroves around the cove's curving shore, while the pop of musketry was answered by small arms aboard the Pearl. Within moments they peered from the brush to see the sloop gliding slowly between them and the Black Pearl, a slim, pale shadow of wood and limp sail against darkening water. The musket fire from her deck came more sporadically, now, and the boat drifted ever closer to shore with apparently no hand at the helm nor mind for her course.
Beside Will, Matty gleefully whispered, "Reckon they're thinkin' they don't much like this fix."
Muffled snickers came from behind and Anamaria hissed a sharp, "SHHHH!"
But Original John leaned his bulk forward to ask, "How we gettin' out there?"
A good question. As his impromptu crew waited for his reply, Will studied the surge and retreat of waves on the beach just beyond their concealment, and the yards of darkly gleaming water between them and their goal. Somehow swimming out to the boat did not seem very … piratical.
Then a grating, grinding thud answered all their questions, as the sloop slid ponderously to a stop some twenty yards from shore. Canvas fluttered as she settled at an odd tilt, and there she moved no more.
With a shrug, Will said, "I think we just walk."
The men aboard the sloop were far too busy jabbering things like, "mon Dieu!" and "sacré bleu!" and "imbécile!" to notice half a dozen figures wading out in water that never got past their waists. The muskets boomed one more jagged volley and -.
"Now!" cried Will.
Up and over the slanting rail the pirates swarmed, and the sloop's crewmen wheeled to face them with shouts of dismay.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est?" cried one.
Flints snapped sharply, but no one had had time to reload their muskets and Will stepped forward with a cocked pistol aimed.
"Avast!" he shouted, and clenched his teeth when he heard a snicker behind him. "And I bloody well mean it."
Of course their foe did not comply. A rapid flurry of thuds, grunts and bodies hitting the deck immediately followed, and a jolly little donnybrook it proved to be. Matty pounced with the apparent intent of twisting one man into three half-hitches and a bowline. Irish John squared off like a pugilist and thumped his opponent as if he were a wad of bread dough. Will straightened another fellow onto his toes with two right jabs, whereupon Anamaria slugged the man over the side, and in general noses were bloodied, knuckles were barked, and voices cursed fiercely in two or three languages.
The ruckus ceased, however, when Original John seized two of the foe by their shirt fronts and hoisted both right off their feet, one man dangling in each hand.
"HE SAID 'AVAST'!" the big pirate bellowed, as their legs flailed a good two feet off the deck. "That's nautical for 'stop!'"
The last empty muskets clattered to the deck, whereupon Matty stepped to the rail on the high side. There he cupped his hands to shout across, "Ahoy the Pearl! All secure!"
Anamaria came to stand beside Will as they surveyed the crew of their prize. They were not, all said, much to look at. In the twilight the men were ragged, dirty and unkempt, even by pirate standards, and only one of them wore a pair of shoes.
Taking him to be the captain, Will put on his strictest face and demanded, "What possessed you to fire on a ship five times your size - with muskets?"
The sloop's captain scratched his stubbled jaw as he fumbled with a heavily accented reply. "Je suis désolé, m'sieu … We think you are navy?"
Across the cove the Black Pearl seemed to crouch in the shadows like some great, black predator, with nary a scrap of Royal Navy flag - any nation's navy - to be seen.
Will leaned closer, eyes narrowed. "Does that look like a navy ship?"
The sloop's captain swallowed hard. "Ehh … non, m'sieu."
"No. Count your blessings that it doesn't go worse for you." A curious strangling sound distracted Will's attention briefly. "Oh, John, you can put those two down, now."
Original John relaxed his hands, and twin thuds jarred the deck and two sets of lungs sucked gratefully for air. The master of the sloop seemed to shrink into himself.
"Eh … s'il vous plait, capitaine, et après? What happens now?"
"You'll have to wait and find out."
The captain wilted under Will's stern stare - an unexpectedly pleasant effect, since he seldom intimidated anyone - but a problematical thought had come to mind.
Turning, he bent to whisper, "What is going to happen to them, anyhow?"
Anamaria shrugged as she inspected the priming on her pistol. "That's for Jack to decide."
***
TBC …
Translations:
"Qu'est-ce que c'est?" - (What is this?)
"Je suis désolé, m'sieu." - (I am sorry, sir.)
"S'il vous plait, capitaine, et après?" - (If you please, captain, what now?)
A/N: This is becoming a habit, LOL, but I have such wonderful reviewers I feel compelled to respond! As this note may become a tad lengthy, however, do feel free to ignore.
1) To the kind soul who commented what a fast writer I am - nope. LOL, but I wish! I actually began posting this story with several chapters already written and I continue to write well ahead of where I'm posting. The primary reasons for all that are, one, I've never posted a work-in-progress before, which leads to two; I like having that sort of safety-net. Thus when I do get stuck, I still have chapters in reserve to keep posting while I'm wrestling my muses. Such as right now. *Glares at muses who sit sniggering at me* But also I am compulsive about revising, so I want the space to go back and fix stuff as the chapters ahead keep evolving.
2) 100 Reviews! Holy cow! WHOO! Great Scott, I've never had 100 reviews on a story in my life! WHOOO! Pardon me while I dance a happy-author hornpipe! THANK YOU THANK YOU everyone!
3) Ceremonial Blood ~ ironically enough, I was just thinking of you the other day! (I was thinking I owe you an email. *gulp*) No, I've not forgotten the LOTR plot bunny you handed me, but as you see, my confounded muses got their own ideas! Please forgive me for disappointing you thus far … I honestly do hope to come back to that idea as it is still very enticing! :-)
4) Lastly, for those who want a sea-faring drama with brains and heart, go see Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, Billy Boyd et al in "Master and Commander: Far Side of the World." It is not remotely PoTC. It is firstly a human drama, or as someone told me, an action-drama. But it is an unblinking, richly-detailed and well-told tale of life and revenge on the high seas.