Liberty,Equality,Fraternity - by Cunien
Happy New Year everyone! Hope 2006 is looking bright and breezy for you all!
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 15 - The Rescue Party.
So there I was, rushing to catch up with Sarah and the other slaves as they ran to the grinding house, the fields blazing heat reaching us even from here. Somehow the fire had started to creep across to the other side of the field, and I hoped against hope that no-one was left up in the village - the path was now completely cut off by the fire, and I knew that it wouldn't be long before the slaves' houses caught ablaze.
At the Grinding House doors, we found them locked, to no one's surprise. The slaves were a little more surprised by the trinket I took from my hair, and the short amount of time it took to pick said lock. The big heavy doors were soon being heaved open, and by the light of the rising sun and the burning fields, we loaded ourselves up with pitchforks and sharp scythes.
As I was choosing my own weapons, I heard a tussle outside, and emerged in time to see two guards lying motionless on the floor. The slaves eyes snapped darkly at me as I passed them, went to the guards and took their cutlasses and knives. Lucky for us they had carried no guns, but equally unlucky now, for a pistol or two would have come in handy.
Never mind, I thought, we can do this without firing a shot. I'm sure we can.
I was utterly, naively confident.
When we crested the hill that looked down on Gabriel's mansion and the town of Nassau, we saw exactly what was afoot. The port was in total chaos, but strangely enough, there did not seem to be many redcoats down there in the tumult, and for such a degree of panic it seemed odd. Either there were more on the boats, or more hidden from our view, or the Marines, small in number here, were putting on a very good show. Anyone would have thought it was the entire British Navy, descended on the harbour.
Lucky for us though, we could see the guards streaming from Gabriel's compound down towards the port. Others, but far fewer, raced past us, hidden in the shadows, towards the burning fields.
In truth there was little they could do. Most of Gabriel's crop on this side of the island was blackening and buckling at that very moment, and from the dark cloud rising from the other side of the island, I suspected the runners sent to the other slave villages had spread my wonderful idea.
I laughed happily to myself. I did so love to be of help.
Jack Sparrow is the kind of man who thinks best on his feet, at the very brink of disaster. Put me in a room alone and tell me I shall need to escape from a Naval prison in two days time and I would not be able to come up with a thing. But slap me in the prison and I'll be out in no time at all.
It's thinking like that that's kept me alive so long, and you may lay to that. I revel in chaos - I love it like a dear, familiar old friend. Here, in the thick of it you will find me, having the grandest of times.
Near Gabriel's mansion I left my friends the slaves. They raced off towards the port, and to the ships that lay there. Many of them, they told me, could sail a ship. Maybe not one the likes of those that bobbed around in Nassau port, but one ships is as like another, when it comes down to it. I know this better than anyone. If you know the sea, and the wind, and the waves, then you know ships.
Nassau harbour was shallow but broad - large enough for some of the biggest ships, but as I've mentioned before, not nearly deep enough for hulking battleship.
Being a popular pirate town, it was full to the gunnels with ships, perhaps 5 or 600, varying in size from leaky row boats to larger hookers and even larger galleons.
The Africans assured me they could handle the next bit themselves, and we parted company - them for the harbour and the boats, and my good self for Gabriel's lovely little mansion.
As I neared the front of the house I noticed the two pretty hefty men our friend had left to guard his home. Now, I won't have anyone say I'm a man to run from a fight, but why get beaten to a pulp when you can help it, says I?
So instead of charging through the front door like a man possessed, I stuck to the shadows of the gardens and scaled a tree, aiming to get high enough to swing myself on to the second floor balcony.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans.
In my defence, it's very hard to make your silent way through a tree in the dark.
I reached out and attempted to swing from a branch that clearly wasn't up to the task. The scythe I'd taken from the Grinding House hooked in the branches and ripped from my grip, and down I went like a sack of potatoes. If sacks of potatoes could scream as they plummeted. The ground rushed up to greet me like an old friend.
It took the startled guards a moment to realise what had happened, as Jack Sparrow landed in front of them like a gift from the heavens.
So. I charged at the front door like a man possessed. As I've mentioned before, this clearly wasn't the most ideal course of action, and, realising this at the very last moment, I changed tack and legged it around the side of the house. One of the guards sprinted after me, while the other wisely remained at his post.
It was only when I rounded the corner that I realised I still had the branch in my hand. The guard appeared from around the corner, and fell pray to the oldest trick in the book: a foot stuck out from the shadows. I cackled as he tripped and fell face first on the ground. And cackled some more as I walloped him soundly over the head with my branch.
Hearing a scuffle and my gleeful laughter, the other guard soon ventured carefully around the corner, pistol held high. I unfortunately, was held higher: in the (slightly stronger) branches of an overhanging tree. This time my descent was rather more planned, and I landed in a heap on top of the poor man.
After despatching the two guards quite nicely - and in record time - I elbowed the nearest window, and hopped through.
Gabriel was nowhere in the building, that much I knew. In fact, I crossed the paths of no one but a few frightened slaves, who I put straight and left creeping out. Not before they'd told me where to find the lady of the house, though.
Even though Gabriel had been holding her here like a caged bird, he still had some twisted sense of decency. I know, horrid word, ain't it? Megan had been cloistered away in her own little wing. I noticed the fat locks on the doors as I picked them. Bastard.
Inside was a long corridor lined with doors, at the very end of which a beam of light shone out from beneath a closed door. Megan was standing at the window of her bedroom, her hair trussed up in a bun for sleeping. Standing there, against the light of the fires in the harbour and the burning fields, I could see her figure through her thin night gown quite nicely.
She let out a little shriek as I touched her shoulder.
"You!" she hissed.
"The very same," said I.
"I presume this is your doing?" she said, pointed towards the window and the hellish scene unfolding outside.
"Oh, I couldn't possibly take all the credit," I grinned. I could had stayed like that for hours, just the two of us, but an explosion down in the town reminded me what was to be done.
"We have to go. Now."
"But I'm not dressed!" Megan protested as I dragged her out of the room.
I stopped and smiled crookedly at her.
"I know..."
Megan shook herself out of my grip and marched down the corridor with a little "hmph!". I followed behind her, smiling.
Outside we slipped past the guards, who lay where I left them. Megan stopped in surprise at the sight of them, but we moved off quickly when one of them gave a little groan and began to come to.
We were making out way down the hill when we spied a Red coat running in our direction. I grabbed Megan and fell back into the bushes, clapping my hand over her mouth to stop the outraged shout I knew was on it's way. She never did like being manhandled, did our Megan. I could never understand it, myself.
Past the Navy man went, in a blur of red uniform. I frowned a little. He'd looked strangely familiar. Strange, in the fact that his face and the red uniform together definitely did not sit right in my mind.
I shoved Megan off my lap and fought my way out of the bushes.
The man heard my thrashing, and spun around, aiming a pistol squarely at my heart.
"Jack?" he gasped after a moment's pause.
"The very same."
"Jack!" he shouted, running towards me, "I'd never had recognised you! You're all...pink..."
"Thankyou for your kind observation, Bill," I said, though it was rather muffled, seeming as how Bootstrap Bill had thrown himself on me in a hug that made me pleased the rest of my crew where nowhere in sight. It wouldn't do for them to think Captain Jack actually cared for his crew now, would it?
"We've come to rescue you, Jack," Bill said, grinning at me.
"Well, as you can see I have everything under control."
There was a snort of sarcastic laughter from behind me, and Bill leaned sideways to see who'd made it. From this close I could see his eyes blank out of focus and his mouth open a little.
"Bootstrap Bill, Megan Kelly," I introduced. "No time for niceties!" I grabbed Bill and Megan both, and began to hurry them down the hill. I of course, did not notice the way they craned their necks to stare at each other.
TBC...