PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE AFRICAN STAR
By ErinRua
CHAPTER 28
"Jack - Jack, you can't send me away! You don't -."
"I can, Will, and I am." Sparrow tightened his grip on Will's arm as he steered the younger man towards the rail. "Look, mate. Whatever 'appens 'ere, now, you can best serve that girl of yours if you are still alive and free to do it."
Frustration written clearly on his young face, Will stopped and gave his head a tight shake. "That is why I should stay here! This is a British warship. If I don't stand a chance with this under my feet, what possible chance would I have alone out there in the dark?"
With a short, equally-frustrated sigh, Sparrow replied, "Do me a favor, boy. For once in your bloody life, do as you're told." Leaning closer he added in hushed tones, "You're still a loose cannon, Will. In the right places a loose cannon can be turned to one's advantage."
Frowning, it was clear that Will neither understood nor agreed, but Tearlach and Original John were already down in the boat below, steadying the rope ladder for those who would return to the Black Pearl with them. Irish John had one leg over the rail, watching Will and Jack. At a glare from the ever-vigilant marines he, too, slipped down the side.
Will watched him go then turned back to Jack, his expression softening but no less troubled. "I don't want to leave you here, Jack."
Instantly Sparrow donned a brilliant smile that showed every scrap of gold in his head. "Don't worry about Jack Sparrow, mate. Seems to me you 'ave enough to do, lookin' after yourself and your bonny lass." As he stepped back, he added, "Just try not to do anything … stupid."
For just an instant Will's eyes widened, and then he schooled his face to what he hoped was neutrality, offering a wan smile. "You're the one with a dozen Royal Marines standing behind you. Take care of yourself, Jack."
After giving a nod to the commodore he clambered over the rail and vanished into the dark below. Behind him, Sparrow turned about and faced Norrington with a look of vast false cheer.
"Well, I suppose that's that." With a too-bright grin he waggled both forefingers in indeterminate directions and added, "If you'll just point the way to the brig, I reckon you can 'ave your lads meet me there with the irons and the weevilly bread, ay? No place for a pirate in a military expedition, so best get me under wraps directly."
Slowly Norrington turned his head and favored Sparrow with a thoroughly measuring look. "Actually … I was thinking how delighted we would be to have your company."
Sparrow's smile withered noticeably. "Oh, really, Commodore, the brig is -."
"Nonsense, Captain Sparrow. You'll come with me." A frosty smile touched Norrington's lips as he added, "That way if you are lying, or anything goes wrong, I can simply have you shot."
Blinking, Sparrow drew his hands to his chest and Norrington was inordinately pleased to see that infuriating grin was no longer anywhere in evidence. Leaving his pirate hostage in the capable keeping of his marines the commodore turned away to give his orders.
***
"What are they doing out there?" Elizabeth whispered.
The two women huddled in the shadows of a stone building that may have been a creamery, peering out as they watched Biltmore's men bustle about the walls and grounds. The sudden renewed activity was alarming to say the least, as men boiled about the hacienda with weapons and fierce looks. Although out of their sight, the fugitives could hear Biltmore's booming voice shouting commands that seemed to give relative order to the confusion.
A sudden clapping of running shoes jolted them, and they scrambled into hiding beside a stack of barrels. Elizabeth cupped her hands over her dipper least the glow of coals reveal them, and they crouched barely breathing and peered up as fierce faces jogged heavily past. A moment, and then Elizabeth and Bess cautiously stood.
"Somet'ing goin' on out dere," Bess whispered. "We don't see, but dey see trouble comin'."
"Yes … but what sort of trouble?"
Elizabeth scowled in frustration as she eyed the distant walls, now lit by torchlight and smoldering small fires. From where they stood now they could no longer see over the walls to the harbor, and not knowing the situation outside was a dangerous position to be in. Abruptly she noticed a man jogging across the courtyard carrying some sort of haversack, which he bore up the stairs towards the cannons atop the wall.
"Look!" She tugged Bess' sleeve and pointed. "He's carrying cartridges for the guns. We must find out where he came from - that's where we need to be."
Bess nodded, and with a quick glance around Elizabeth cradled her dipper carefully and the two darted off in the direction the man had come from. Scattered shrubs and stone and wood walls shielded their movements, for it seemed Biltmore's estate was self-sufficient as a small village. A carriage shed, a smokehouse, a sail maker's loft and other buildings offered cover as they moved, but twice more they shrank back from the swift passage of armed men.
Then of a sudden they found themselves staring at the grey blankness of the estate's south wall. At its foot crouched a square stone building with an iron door. Even as they watched, the door clanged open and a man shouldered his way out, setting off as had the first with a wooden crate clutched before him. Elizabeth gripped Bess' arm as they watched him disappear.
As his footsteps pattered away they darted from concealment, two swift flurries of skirts across a moonlit space. Elizabeth seized the door handle and pulled - and gave a squeak as it refused to move at all. Bess reached past and laid her hand to the grip, and between them they hauled the heavy iron entrance open. Of course there was no light within, but moonlight reflected from the pale earth and they could dimly make out shapes within. Boxes and kegs were stacked higher than their heads all around the cramped room, and Elizabeth swallowed hard.
"Oh …." she whispered. "This is all gunpowder and ammunition?"
Bess moved past her and reached to push against a keg. It did not move. Her eyes glinted in the gloom as she glanced back at Elizabeth.
"Need somet'ing to break dese. And you might leave dat outside, eh?"
Her mouth in a sudden O, Elizabeth glanced at her still-smoldering dipper and backed hastily out the door. She blew on it quickly, gratified to see a small but lively glow, and then propped the dipper against the stone wall outside. Something to break things with … In growing desperation she glanced around but saw nothing, nothing that would shatter iron-bound oak kegs or crates. Then Bess touched her sleeve and pointed. Further along the wall stood what seemed to be a woodshed, a rickety structure from which spilled a tumble of split firewood.
Renewed shouting from out along the walls rose up, a tangle of anxious voices and again Biltmore's deeper tones. The carriage shed and stable stood between them and the main courtyard, but it was evident that something was happening or about to happen. Wood chips scattered as Elizabeth scrambled to the shed, Bess at her heels.
"Somewhere - please."
Then moonlight caught on a gleaming length of wood and Elizabeth seized an ax that leaned to one side, while Bess grabbed a sledgehammer undoubtedly used for driving splitting wedges. Once back in the doorway of the powder magazine, they paused for a moment's contemplation.
With a dubious grimace, for Elizabeth certainly had no real practice in deliberate mayhem, she said, "I suppose we just start … smashing things?"
Bess stepped inside and suddenly swung the sledgehammer with a resounding CRACK. Even in that dim light they could see the rush of black, sandy-looking powder that gushed from the stricken keg to the floor.
"Like dat?"
Elizabeth bared her teeth in a sharp smile. "Precisely like that," she replied and with a fierce grimace she hefted the ax to her shoulder.
***
Commodore Norrington honestly tried to do everything by the books. As the Black Pearl slipped towards the mouth of the bay, making good on her freedom, the Dauntless ponderously turned so that the full bank of her firepower, fifty-two guns on one side, faced the walls of Biltmore's hacienda. Her boats speared across the dark water like fleets of wooden ducks, oars flashing as they drew long silver wakes behind them. As their hulls slid fast into the sand men leaped over the sides and onto the shore. Marines with their muskets and sailors with their own small arms fell into ranks behind their officers. As the moonlight glinted from weapons and white uniform facings they comprised a force any rational man would have thought twice about challenging.
But then Sir John Biltmore was not what all would have considered a rational man.
Meanwhile, on the beach Norrington stood tall and aimed a narrow gaze at the looming walls on the hillside above. Ruddy light was reflected in a fine haze beyond, the fading smoke of the pirates' ill-fated assault.
"By company," Norrington called. "Wait for my order."
Beside him Jack Sparrow peered upwards with wide eyes. "Didn't look so bloody big the first time. Oh, I'd be wary of the gate, if I were you."
"Oh?"
"We sort of blew it up. I think they might be pluggin' the 'ole by now."
With a narrow look Norrington dismissed Sparrow's mutterings from his concerns. Raising a long speaking cone before his mouth, the commodore inhaled a great breath then shouted towards the ramparts above.
"AHOY, the fort! We are the HMS Dauntless! Will Sir John Biltmore please show himself!"
"Oh, how very polite," Sparrow grumbled.
Silence. Then a tall, heavy figure appeared on the battlements above, backlit by ruddy smoke.
"Most unusual," echoed the stentorian tones. "You are rather a long way from home, sir. What business has the British Royal Navy upon Cuban shores?"
Norrington visibly braced himself before taking the final verbal leap. "I bear a warrant for Mister Thomas Fry on charges of murder and kidnapping, and further have reason to suspect the criminal incarceration of British citizens upon your grounds."
A moment, then Biltmore replied, "I really am not in the humor for this. Forgive me if I don't indulge in a pointless game of point and counter-point."
He stepped back from view, then a spark of light flared above and the walls vomited thunderous gouts of flame. A barrage of iron howled over the invaders' heads to slash the dark harbor into frothing foam just short of the Dauntless' hull.
"DOWN!" roared Norrington. "EVERYONE DOWN!"
Men toppled like dominoes into the sand as behind them the Dauntless' entire starboard gun decks burst into a rippling roar. Unlike Biltmore's little antiquated Spanish-built shore battery, the longer guns of a British First Rate simply punched out and pulverized the top of the hacienda walls. Masonry exploded in a grey cloud of dust overhead and rubble pattered down like stony rain as the marines and sailors cheered.
Flat on his belly in the sand, Sparrow craned his neck to look up and said, "Impressive."
Then he found himself scrambling as marines and sailors lunged to their feet, nearly trampling him as they surged forward with fierce yells. He was barely on his legs when hard hands seized him and propelled him forward like a recalcitrant child.
Glancing at the large marines to either side, Jack tried to shrug free. "Easy, mates, no need to push. Look, surely you don't need me, ay? I'll only slow you down."
He might as well have been talking to a pair of oxen for all the reaction they gave, and he staggered as they shoved him ahead. "Cretins," he grumbled.
Grappling hooks soared and dropped and gripped fast on the top of the shattered ramparts. Instantly sailors and marines began swarming up the ropes like beads sliding up strings. When Biltmore's men appeared above to shoot muskets over the side, marines still on the ground volleyed in return. Norrington meanwhile shouted and swung his sword before breaking into the run at the head of another company of marines. Sparrow scuttled in their midst, a quick look catching with particular interest upon the sword thrust through one marine's belt; his own cutlass, Jack realized and he veered quickly to the man's side as they ran.
Up the curving road they charged, towards the gate the Pearl's crew had previously left in shambles. Wisps of smoke hazed from within the compound and Sparrow grimaced in concern.
"Oh, Commodore!" he called. "I'd really watch that gate!"
A shout from somewhere in front was swallowed up in a great BOOM. Men scattered and dove to cover at either side of the lane. Sparrow was a jump ahead of them, landing with a rolling dive that brought him up against the marine he had been shadowing. A quick grab and he sprang up with his cutlass once more in hand.
The marine jerked his head up in shock, but Sparrow simply held down his free hand and said, "Up you go, lad."
The young man took the offered grip and then Sparrow found himself nearly forgotten as the marines became very busy with bigger things. The biggest thing was the field cannon crouched smoking in the shattered gateway, its crew frantically stuffing cartridges and swinging rammers - but to no effect. With a roar the marines charged and as they bowled the gun crew aside Norrington himself leaped to the cannon's wheels. Shouting above the tumult he ordered other men to the caisson and they began pivoting the gun to face inside the compound.
"Sparrow - SPARROW, where are you?"
Jack jerked to awareness at that imperious summons, but Norrington was already bounding towards him. Slashing his sword towards the captured cannon, the commodore cried, "You are gun captain here! I want those guns on the walls silenced!"
"Me!" Jack's eyes nearly started from his head.
"Yes, you!" Norrington slid to a halt at his side, a queer hot gleam in his eyes. "If I keep you busy, you won't have time for mischief, now will you?"
Propping his cutlass in the dirt and leaning on its hilt like a cane, Sparrow narrowed his gaze. "What's to keep me from desertin' me post?"
"Nothing at all," said Norrington, and one side of his mouth quirked humorlessly. "But know that I will shoot a deserter on sight."
Thus Sparrow found himself grimacing as he faced four equally nonplussed marines. Abruptly gathering himself, Jack scowled and barked, "Look alive, ye swabs! You, you're powder monkey. You, rammer. You, sponge. You, prime. Smartly now!"
The uproar rose to a fine chaos as marines and sailors surged over and through the walls to meet Biltmore's howling minions. Gunfire popped above shouts and the clash of swords and Sparrow grinned gleefully as he touched off his gun with a window-rattling boom. A wooden lean-to collapsed against the wall across the courtyard and Sparrow spun to glare at his gun crew.
"Elevation, man, we need elevation!"
Twice more the marines scuttled to Jack's orders and twice his gun bellowed and smashed the stone beneath Biltmore's cannons But then a small, sizzling orb arced from the darkness to clang into the paving and roll directly beneath the cannon.
"RUN!" Sparrow screeched and he and his crew scattered in a panicked flurry of knees and elbows.
An instant later the granadoe detonated and the gun leaped on a burst of light. It thudded back to earth at a dismal-looking angle, its caisson blown to kindling.
After shaking his head in a vain attempt to clear the ringing from his ears, Sparrow peered around to find his erstwhile gun crew prying themselves from behind shrubbery and rubble. Counting all four heads still attached to their respective shoulders, he stood and smote his hands together.
"Nobly done, men!" he exclaimed. "Now we'll need new orders. Report to the Commodore, quickly now!"
That was the lovely thing about marines: they reacted instantaneously and without question to a proper voice of command. Sparrow smiled contentedly as he watched them go trotting off into the smoke, muskets once on their shoulders.
Looking one last time at his disabled gun, he touched a somber salute to his brow. "Sorry, old girl."
Then he cast a shrewd, keen look around at the merry chaos of sailors and marines soundly trouncing the minions of Sir John Biltmore. Not a one of them was looking his way. He would never find a more opportune moment than this. Nimble as a monkey Jack turned and bounded away into the shadows. Seconds later a door to the manor house opened and then shut, with no one the wiser that a pirate had just slipped inside.
***
TBC …
A/N: Yes, wellduh, you are correct, Elizabeth would not blow on a spoonful of soup. At least not in polite company. *G* But it was the best visual I could think of. Katherine, you are also correct that having an Elizabeth and a Bess is perhaps unwise and potentially confusing. I used "Bess" only because if felt right, and I guess by this point I'm just hoping that the fact that the two derivations of the same name are never mixed (i.e. Elizabeth is never Bess) will help keep the two women from confusing readers too badly. Good point to bear in mind for future writings, though. Thanks to everyone who cares enough to offer honest thoughts! :-)
Please keep watching, gentle readers - the next chapter will be up within a couple days!