Liberty,Equality,Fraternity - by Cunien
Thanks to everyone who's picked this story back up and is reviewing. I love you all to heaven and back!
Please forgive obvious typos and mistakes - I'm not the most observant person. I've tried to make it reasonably accurate, historically, but as there is no definite date for PotC and the Caribbean was changing so rapidly at this time, it's probably a little bit off. I've taken a lot of liberties with Nassau, and more specifically it's ability to grow sugar cane...but there we go. It's fiction! I also don't pretend to know much about this at all. I'm just freewheeling here people! Whee!
Warnings: As a series - Mild swearing, not so mild racism and slavery. Also violence and torture, mostly aimed at Jack - Don't worry your pretty little head about it - Jack doesn't.
Chapter 14 - Let loose all hell!
That night, when Gabriel's brutes had so thoughtfully escorted me back to the village, I stayed up, staring at the sea on the hillside looking over the fields stretched out, cane waving slightly in my new sea breeze. The port lay below me - from here I could see the lights on the boats, twinkling and dancing from side to side as they bobbed on the waves.
This is where I fell asleep, sometime in the night, my moonlit vigil wearing me out too soon to see what I was waiting for all along.
The two ships slipped easily either side of Hog Island, that sat squarely in the middle of the cove, dividing it into two inlets. The ships anchored at either side of the island, just where the sandy bottomed inlets become too shallow for the bigger ships.
They each bore the British flag. And they were each very big ships.
Battleships, in fact.
British Naval Battleships.
The thing you might not know about New Providence, or Nassau as we shall call it here, is that it was almost as depraved - thought slightly more refined - than Tortuga.
That makes no sense! I hear you cry. But you see, it does. Nassau was a wretched hive of scum and villainy, to be sure, but it was ordered villainy. Most of the Bahamas were owned by rich and morally corrupt men, who got hold of the most ruthless and equally corrupt men to act as Governors of sorts.
Gabriel owned New Providence Island, but didn't trust a soul enough to let them govern it for him.
It was every man for himself, and every man administered his own, very special brand of rough justice. Especially our dear friend Gabriel Jones. Oh yes, we know that by now, don't we?
Gabriel ran as corrupt a business as any man, but he had money enough to cast a shimmering glamour over the whole sordid affair, and the British crown dare not touch him. And so, Nassau, with it's coves for careening a ship and it's port too shallow for Naval Battleships, was a perfect base for a humble pirate.
Though I had always been a Tortuga man meself. And that's not just because Nassau meant Gabriel. And certain death.
But you see, the good men of the British Navy had turned a blind eye.
And now they'd apparently regained their sight.
It was the screams that woke me up: with a start I flew bolt upright. I have trained myself over many years to wake instantly at the sound of screaming panic and a whole town in chaos.
And this was before the ships started firing.
Whoever was onboard those ships had a brain or two amongst them: both ships fired all guns, hitting the defences on the mainland cliffs and Hog Island simultaneously. The guns of Nassau hadn't a chance to be loaded before they were blasted into oblivion by the superior fire power of the British Royal Navy.
A few experimental shots were directed at Gabriel's mansion, on the rolling hills beyond the port, but the sly bastard had put it just that little bit out of reach of even Naval guns.
I watched, my jaw agape and eyes as wide as can be, as the little boats began to stream from the two ships, loaded to the gunnels with red coats.
This is where I started running.
The early hour meant that only the slaves were beginning to wake. As I sprinted down the hillside, through the fields of cane, I could just make out the first few Africans emerging from their houses, looking down at the port in confusion.
It had occurred to me then, watching the boats piled high with the pride of the King's Navy: this was perfect! No, really, I couldn't have done it better if I'd planned it all myself!
All hell was breaking loose in the town, and all hell would break loose up here in the plantation too. And it's name would be Jack.
"A sign, a sign...," I muttered as I ran. Somehow I needed to let the Africans know that now was the time of Gabriel's reckoning.
"What can I do? It'll be big..." I muttered, annoyed at myself. Why couldn't I have just arranged a signal with the Africans earlier, instead of trying to be clever?
Just then a huge explosion rocked the town. The powder kegs and ammunition stores on Hog Island had blown. The fireball blossomed up in to the early dawn sky, rising so high I could see it way above the tall cane that surrounded me.
The idea hit me with such force I actually fell over.
Flat on my face.
I quickly picked myself up, and legged it down to the grinding house, praying to whatever God that could find my soul and look kindly upon it. I begged I'd find what I needed there.
"If not for a sinner like me then for the Africans," I muttered, all breathless and out of puff. "For Megan."
Well. God must have been in a particularly generous mood that morning. Because I found what I'd been looking for. And then I headed back up to the fields as fast as my little legs could carry me.
Back up to the fields, I hear you cry. Why!
Patience, then, loves. It's a virtue, they say.
When I reached the first rows of cane, I let drop my precious find. So careless? you say.
My, aren't we talkative today?
Ah, but you see, what I had in my hand was this: a lamp. An oil one.
The lamp smashed and spilled out the oil, and the flame spread quickly through the dried leaves and cane stalks at the base of the tall plants. It leapt like something living from one row to the next, faster than I could ever have hoped.
My fresh sea breeze whipped up the flames a storm, and soon half the field was burning.
I saw the Africans begin to stream out of their houses, adults and children alike. Quickly and without fuss, they began to carry out the plans we'd made the night before last: taking nothing but their children and their families, they made their way down the hill and past me, veering off past the grinding house and slipping like shadows down to the secluded little sandy coves.
I hid myself in the tall shadows of the cane on the north side of the field, while the south, divided by the barren dirt road, burned fiercely. Soon figures began to sprint quietly back up to where I stood. The plan had been for the women to stay with the children in the cove while the men helped take out the guards and overseers, but I saw now that many women, including Sarah, now stood before me. The fierce spark in her eyes told me she was just as capable, if not more, than many of the men, and there would be little point in arguing. Unless I wanted a swift beating, that was.
Sarah was a rather frightening woman.
"Is everybody out?" I asked.
"In our village, yes. We have sent runners to the other villages, on the other side of the island. Soon they will all come," said the Skeleton Man.
"Where's Nathan?" I asked, catching Sarah's arm as the others moved off towards the grinding house.
"With the women and children," she spat, her eyes snapping dangerously at me.
"Won't he come?"
"I could not care less. I will not be the wife of a coward, and so if he is a coward he is no longer my husband."
Sarah looked defiantly at me, and started off down the slope, leaving me dumbstruck.
This wasn't the way it was meant to go. But then, in my mind, I would have had time, a few more days perhaps, to convince Nathan, to bring him round to our way of thinking. I was sure everything wasn't lost. Somehow I'd believed that when it came to the moment, he surely could not sit back and refuse to rise up.
But I was obviously wrong. The moment had come and there was no time to hesitate. The Navy's attack on the port meant Gabriel and all his men would be occupied trying to defend the town, or if it came to it, destroying all evidence that they'd ever placed a toe over on to the rather less legal side of the business. But they'd notice the burning fields soon, and by then we'd either need to be as well armed as could be, or far far away.
I huffed a sigh and shook my head to clear it of the sick, sad feeling that had settled in me. If I felt like this, I could only imagine how betrayed Sarah must feel.
TBC...