PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE AFRICAN STAR
By ErinRua
CHAPTER 18
"Sail ho! Sail ho!"
Even with several inches of wooden decking between him and the lookout, that cry snatched Will right out of his slumber. He sat bolt upright and abruptly found himself flailing for balance, whereupon the hammock swung and twisted and dumped him slap-bang on the floor. As he sat irritably batting the swaying contraption away, he thought he might never master the art of leaping awake from a ship's hammock. Seconds later he burst through the hatch into near-blinding sunlight.
"What sail? Where?"
He was demanding answers almost before he slid to a halt beside Anamaria at the helm. To his surprise the sun stood past noon.
Anamaria simply pointed, and he turned to see Matty and Irish John leaning over the starboard bow, peering across the glittering waves. Other men came to join them as Will bounded forward. Far ahead gleamed a mirage of white sail on a blue sea; a square-rigger faring north-northeast up the Windward Passage.
Edging among the men to stand beside their keen-eyed lookout, Will asked, "What do you think, Matty?"
"It's the Royal Venture," the skinny pirate said, and gave a firm nod.
"Aye," echoed Irish John, and turned with a squinty-eyed grin, his brogue deepening. "And a fair sight she is, without the Black Pearl nigh. What do ye s'pose, Cap'n? Can we fright her into surrender by lookin' fearsome and cruel?"
With a wry grin, Will said, "Let us hope it won't come to that. For now we'll make all possible speed, and hope Jack is not too far away."
"And if 'e is?"
One of the other men voiced that concern, and eight questioning faces now looked at their young captain. Every one of them was at least ten years his senior, every one of them blooded in the ways of piracy and imbued with that keen sense of self-preservation that men who live precarious lives know best.
'Most of them couldn't lead another man to anything but 'is next drink.' It was remarkable and a little alarming just how often Jack's voice was reappearing in his head. Yet the only question he knew to ask was; what would Jack do, now? He swallowed the cannonball suddenly lodged in his throat before answering.
"Then we'll do the best we can," he said. "The Royal Venture must not make Port Paix."
"But we're a four-gun sloop an' they're a twenty-gun brig," another man observed, and his doubt was mirrored in the weathered faces around him.
"Aye," Will said, and swept them all with his gaze as sudden certainty burned hot in his breast. "Aye, but Jack Sparrow is behind us." He grinned and had Jack been there he would have seen the very image of Bootstrap Bill Turner. "You belong to the dreaded Black Pearl and there sails your prize. You didn't fight sea and storm to hold back now! What do you say, men? Take what you can!"
The response was a ragged cheer; "Give nothin' back!"
To his never-ending surprise the crew gave a yell and then scrambled merrily away to their duties. As they scattered, however, he turned to find one pirate still standing there: Original John. The man simply seemed bigger every time Will looked at him, his chest broad as an oak door, his massive shoulders swelling into virtually no neck at all. Will could not believe he had withstood this monster once, and dreaded the thought of doing so again. Yet as he faced the big man and struggled to master a rush of anxiety, Original John grinned with broken teeth.
"Want me to relieve the helm, Cap'n?"
Will looked at the man who had fought beside him for the life of the Lady Elizabeth and her crew, and all he could think to say was, "Thank you, John."
Moments later the sloop spread every inch of canvas she owned, mainsail, topsail, and jib and flying jib above her bow. Then she lifted her bowsprit and took to the wind with the speed of a racing gull. On her deck Will lifted his face to the sun.
"Elizabeth …." he whispered.
As he closed his eyes she was beside him, her dark-honey hair flying on the warm salt wind, her eyes wide with wonder and laughter. Oh how Elizabeth Swann would love the sweet sloop beneath his feet, and her absence wrenched him with almost physical pain. He wanted Elizabeth here, now, to know this perfect freedom and to feel this sheer joy of a trim, merry craft that lived only to seize the wind in its sails. When all this was done he would bring her aboard and the Lady Elizabeth would give them both wings to fly.
***
"Ship ahoy!"
The shout from the Black Pearl's foretop mast brought both Jack and Gibbs to attention. Jack looked up and called, "Where away?"
"Behind us, cap'n! Away back off our port quarter!"
"What do you make it?"
"A ship, cap'n, a damn big one."
Sparrow visibly bit back his exasperation, seeming to count to three on his fingers before shouting back, "And just how big is that, Mister Duncan, if you would be so kind?"
There was a pause while the man aloft squinted and debated. "I think it's a British ship-of-the-line! A First Rate!"
Jack winced, and Gibbs shook his head gloomily. A First Rate ship-of-the-line, fitted with a hundred guns and a prodigious amount of sail, a floating arsenal that no pirate wanted to run afoul of.
"Not good," the older man mumbled.
"Oh, I think it's bleedin' marvelous," Sparrow retorted, and swung around to stride towards the stern. "What an absolutely wonderful thing."
Gibbs glanced upwards into the rigging, and then lurched to gain a few steps as he hastened in his captain's wake. Jack meanwhile seemed to have engaged in an acerbic conversation with himself.
"Why don't we just invite all the friends and relations? Come one, come all. And do bring the children."
"Cap'n?" came Gibbs' query.
"We could 'ave Aunt Hettie and Uncle Philip and their nasty little dog." Jack spun to face Gibbs and swung both arms in an all-encompassing and thoroughly sarcastic gesture. "Oh, and why not the neighbors with their buck-toothed daughter? I'm sure they'd love to join the party, too."
Before Gibbs could reply Jack pivoted and sprang up the steps to the quarterdeck. Shaking his head, the grizzled first mate climbed up after.
"Just fabulous," Sparrow continued to grumble, as he glowered back along the Pearl's foaming wake. He expanded his spy glass and aimed it at the sails that marched along the horizon. "The more the merrier, I always say."
Peering over Jack's shoulder, Gibbs had to agree that it was certainly a British navy warship back there. Furthermore, it had a disconcertingly familiar appearance.
"Is that who I think it is?" he asked.
"Who else? Commodore-bloody-Norrington, of course, and the pride of His Majesty's fleet, the HMS Dauntless."
Gibbs' whiskered face scrunched into a look of dismay, his gaze flicking from Jack to the tiny ship on the horizon and back again. "Wot in blazes be they doin' out 'ere?"
Sparrow collapsed his glass and jammed it back into his waistcoat pocket. He was still scowling across the water, and the tiny braids in his goatee fairly bristled.
"It would seem the good commodore has finally decided to put stock in young William's suspicions. Or else the governor has said be damned with who Biltmore knows, just stop that bloody ship. Either way -." Jack cast the distant sails a final baleful glare. "The waters 'ere are becoming a bit crowded."
Gibbs squinted at Sparrow, trying to discern where this mood would lead. "What are ye thinkin', then, Jack?"
"I'm thinkin' …" Jack paused and his expression eased to one of contemplation. "I'm thinkin' we'll keep a weather eye out and some distance between us, since the Dauntless can't possibly keep pace with the Pearl under full canvas." His goateed chin rose and his eyes glinted keenly. "We'll lose 'im as much as we want to."
"Eh?"
But Jack had already patted Gibbs on the shoulder and leaped back down the steps, leaving the older man standing with no more answers than he had arrived with. Gibbs gave the distant warship a final dubious look then shrugged and tugged his flask from his pocket. Times like this a man could use a little fortifying.
***
"Full-rigged ship. Looks like she's pretty fair-sized, sir."
On the main deck of the HMS Dauntless, handsome young Lieutenant Groves watched as Commodore Norrington peered through a brass telescope towards the set of sails their lookout had spotted some while ago. The ship had not deviated from her course at all, that he could see, but there was still something about her … Something that miles of brilliant water and a dazzling Caribbean sun teased just beyond the eye's ability to grasp.
And then it struck him. Those sails were not white. Though limned in sunlight and shining like a seabird's wing, they somehow appeared almost sooty. Smoky.
Black. Not a coal black, oh no; that was not possible with canvas bleached in tropical sun and reflecting the glory of a summer day. But there could be only one ship of that shape and size cruising these waters under darkened sails. Yet Norrington found himself biting back the urge to speak her name just yet.
'What mischief are you up to, Jack Sparrow?' he thought. 'You and our errant blacksmith.'
Closing the telescope smartly, he said, "We will continue our course. Whoever she is, she is not the Royal Venture and thus no concern of ours. Carry on."
"Aye, sir."
Groves saluted and vanished, to be replaced by Lieutenant Gillette. Gillette's round face shaped itself into a grimace as he glanced at his commander.
"I do hope we will see the Royal Venture soon. We caught the fringes of that storm, but I dare say she must have been right in the middle of it."
"Have patience, Gillette," Norrington replied. "We know her destination. If anything the storm will have delayed her off-course."
"Aye, sir." Then young lieutenant looked at him and said, "I still find that whole business remarkable."
"Oh?" Norrington's glance touched his subordinate, neither encouraging nor discouraging him to speak.
"Well, that Sir John's first mate would do so foul a deed. Killing that poor woman and then carrying her flat-mate away. She had an Irish name, didn't she? Rose? Róisín? Do you think they'll find her dead, too?"
"Who can say," Norrington replied.
"What I can't fathom is why would he kill one and take the other? I don't understand what he was about."
"Slavery, Gillette." Norrington met the younger officer's eyes coolly. "If the rumors about Fry's master are true. The missing Irish girl is said to be quite handsome. The dead woman was very plain. Fry made his choice accordingly."
"Good heavens!" The expression on Gillette's face was that of a man who had just found an odious smell. "At least the witnesses were credible, who saw him entering the house. It's a pity they didn't come forward sooner, though. We could have got the warrant before he sailed."
"It is. But a brute like Thomas Fry doubtless would appear very intimidating to two elderly seamstresses."
"Yes … yes, that he would." Gillette shook his head slowly. "Anyone who would murder an innocent girl so he might kidnap the other… I dare not think how this ties into Miss Swann's disappearance. But at least the warrant for his arrest will give us the leverage we need to properly search that ship."
Norrington's mouth thinned to a hard line, his gaze fixed on some point in infinity. "Down to the bilges, Mister Gillette. If we must remove every last plank to do so."
With that Norrington about-faced and strode away. Lieutenant Gillette sighed as he watched him go.
A sailor nearby also noticed and said, "'E's not a 'appy man, 'e ain't."
"No, he's not," Gillette replied, and firmed his boyish features to as much sternness as he could manage. "But then the commodore has never had patience for being stymied by villains. We had First Mate Fry within our reach once before, but the facts eluded us. Now we know the man is a murderer and probably a kidnapper. He won't get away again, Sir John Biltmore or no Sir John Biltmore."
Thus two ships, horizons apart, sailed towards a common goal.
***
Hispaniola reappeared as a smudge to the east, and slowly grew to a familiar horizon. Once again they drew near the great thumb of land that formed Hispaniola's northwest mass, jutting into the Windward Passage towards Cuba. The Lady Elizabeth sped across the wind well behind the Royal Venture, putting the slave ship to the west and the distant shoreline off her starboard beam to the east. There she took up a course between the slaver and land, but maintained a discreet distance. To watching eyes she would hopefully seem no more than a local sailor reluctant to get too far from shore.
Slowly the miles slid by, the sloop now faring almost due north along the coast. Will Turner felt the Lady's eagerness surging beneath his feet and a thought startled him: she's mine. A fierce, nameless emotion swept through him even while his conscience tried to argue. He was a blacksmith, not a pirate; whatever would he do with a stolen smuggler's boat? And yet … he was young and strong with a free wind to run on, and his heart sang in joyous paean to the music of the sea.
Meanwhile Matty Whitlock clung to the topmast like a lanky, redheaded albatross and kept a watch on the white sails out in deeper water. He also kept an eye out for the Black Pearl, but so far no sighting had been made. Original John once again had the helm, when Will came to stand beside Anamaria in the bow.
"How far do you suppose he is?" he asked.
"Jack?" Anamaria's quick glance took him in, then returned to the horizon. "No telling how far that storm blew him. Probably has a bit of a job comin' back against the wind."
"But he'll be back." Will nodded firmly, eyes on the glint of white canvas out yonder. "We just have to watch until he does."
"Or until we run out of time."
That snapped his attention back to the woman pirate. "How so?"
She lifted her chin towards the distant shore. "About two more hours, and we'll raise the cape at Môle St. Nicholas. If he gets around that … even if he doesn't run for cover at St. Nicholas itself, we've lost him."
"What?"
"Look, Will, the French turn a blind eye to us for a lot of things, but once around St. Nicholas we'll be in their waters, all the way to Port Paix."
"But … that's right below Tortuga, and nobody troubles you there."
"Yes, it is. But St. Nicholas and Port Paix are theirs, not ours, and it'll be a little hard for them to ignore pirates attackin' a ship right under their noses." She leaned towards him, dark eyes narrowed under the brim of her hat. "We don't need to attract that kind of attention!"
"Two hours …" Will felt his stomach sink as he looked forward across glittering blue water that suddenly did not seem so friendly. "Then Jack must hurry."
"Aye. Or we must get clever."
She turned away and left him there, alone with the realization that she had just tossed the responsibility back in his lap. Captain. He was finding he did not much care for the promotion.
***
"There, cap'n!" Duncan leaned precariously from the crow's nest of the Black Pearl, pointing frantically. "That way!"
"The correct phrase," said Sparrow patiently, as he balanced against the masthead and adjusted his spy glass, "Is before the larboard beam. You really must learn the proper nautical terms."
"Aye, cap'n," Duncan replied, but his mind, like his captain's, was on the distant sails that had emerged on their horizon. "Is it them?"
"Aye, it is. The Royal Venture is again ours."
"An' the others?"
"Hm." Sparrow swayed gently with the movement of the ship, glass anchored on his target. "There is a bit of sail behind them which just might be our missing sloop."
Duncan grinned with every tooth he had, and Sparrow slid the glass back into his pocket. "Keep your eye on them," he said.
"What about the Dauntless, Cap'n?"
Jack turned with one arm about the mast and looked back along their wake. The tops of another set of sails still moved miles away, but they were sinking deeper into the horizon behind them with every passing moment.
"She can't keep up with the Black Pearl, Mister Duncan. By the time we catch Sir John Biltmore they will no longer be our concern." Sparrow flashed a radiant, mad grin. "If I'm wrong, we'll just 'ave to plunder quickly."
Leaving his crewman to ponder that observation, Jack swung down and clambered towards the deck below.
***
An hour had passed and still no sign of Jack Sparrow. From his post at the tiller Will watched as the headland began to bend towards them. Out to westward the Royal Venture held her course, her sails close-hauled for a long reach to windward, which would take her in a nearly straight line past the cape and then past Môle St. Nicholas. Will struggled against a growing sense of suffocation with each passing mile. If the Royal Venture made it around the cape she would be on her last leg for Port Paix, and if threatened she need only dive for cover at Môle St. Nicholas. However, she had no real threat to worry about. A ten-man, eighty-foot sloop with four cannons could not hinder a slave ship bearing twenty guns and anywhere from fifty to a hundred men.
"The Pearl! Hey, mates, it's the Pearl!"
That joyful shout rang from the Lady Elizabeth's topmast, where Matty Whitlock clung like a monkey and waved as if possessed. Every voice on board echoed his cheer and Will could have wilted right across the tiller to see those smoke-grey sails on the horizon. Granted, the ship was still miles away, but the Black Pearl was the fastest thing afloat and he knew that if they could see the Pearl, the Pearl could see them. The hunter had caught up to the hound at last.
Beside him Anamaria grinned from ear to ear. "There he is, the blessed scoundrel!"
"Aye," Will said. "I don't know about you, but I was getting a trifle worried."
Seeing her lifted eyebrow, he added hastily, "About catching the Royal Venture, of course. We do want to capture our prize, don't we?"
Anamaria gave a sniff that seemed suspiciously like a muffled laugh and turned away. Yet Will only smiled as he turned back to maintaining their course. 'Soon, Elizabeth, soon.'
***
TBC …
A/N: Looks like a quiet day for author's notes, so I'll just let our Will-angst fans know - the next two chapters get a little dark and dangerous. And Jack just plain gets dangerous. *Grin* Do stand by!
P.S. The places named in this chapter do exist. I am working from on-line historical maps of Haiti/Hispanola drawn in the 1700's.