Extremely sorry to anyone waiting for this chapter – I had a few things to deal with, and added to the fact that I already had the first two chapters written out left a bit of a gap between those and this one.
Raphe1: Is live journal the same as keeping a diary? I'd have to warn you I have a really bad track record of keepin diaries. I do it for a bit and then I can't be bothered.
Anyway, hope this chapter lives up to expectations. If not, feedback is appreciated.
Chapter Three: RevelationsThe cool water hit James with a shock as he dived into the water. Thankfully, the sea numbed his sore body, helping him forget the reason for their current state.
Unfortunately, Jack wasn't.
"So. Goin' te tell me ye story yet?" James opened his mouth to reply and received a mouthful of saltwater. Spitting it out, he answered Jack by swimming as many strokes as he could, almost the length of the Pearl, before admitting defeat and grabbing hold of a rope slapping the hull.
"Where'd ye learn te swim mate?" James spun to see Jack behind him, clearly not as tired as he felt and reaching out for a handhold on the hull. Was Jack trying another way of getting him to tell? He could simply be curious though – after all, how many people nowadays knew how to swim?
"My father was quite insistent when I told him I wanted to join the navy." James smiled at the memory. "He told me that 'no son of his was going to join that death trap known as the navy without knowing someway of getting himself out of it.'"
"Can relate te that mate." James looked up sharply at Jack, who shrugged. "No one likes te be caught on a sinkin' ship with no way off it. 'Spect that were what he were thinkin' of. And he still let ye join? How rich were ye?"
"What to you think my family was? Some wealthy family who could afford to send me off on a whim? Truth to tell Jack, we weren't. And my father wasn't too bothered about me joining."
James looked out across the sea.
"I'd always wanted to sail – my father was a merchant in Portsmouth so I'd grown up watching the ships come in, and I loved the idea of one day sailing in them. We had enough money that my father was able to buy me place as midshipman when he considered I was old enough. He had my elder brother to – "
James broke off, painful memories surfacing as he realised how much of his past he was revealing.
"I perhaps owe you an apology, Captain Sparrow."
"Fer what?"
"My attempt to hang you for no good reason other than my desire to rid the Caribbean of another pirate. For assuming you were the same as every other criminal out there. A man has to have his reasons I suppose, however pitiful they may seem." He turned away.
"Aye? And what would those be?"
"Are you sure you want to know Jack?"
"Oh aye. Love te know how ye mind works. And at least ye'll be givin' me answers te somethin'."
James considered Jack for a moment before speaking.
"The first ship I was posted on, the Defiant, sailed out to the Caribbean to hunt out pirates and, I suppose, generally protect British interests in these waters. As it turned out, the same time Richard, my older brother, sailed for Jamaica on some errand or other for my father."
James couldn't hold Jack's gaze anymore and dropped his eyes to stare down through the sea.
"Only, he didn't make it to Jamaica. Pirates attacked his ship off the coast of Hispaniola, and they weren't of the more gentlemanly type like you, Jack. They killed everyone on board, even those who didn't oppose them taking the ship. I didn't find out until a year later when my ship arrived back in England. A whole bloody year!" he said, his voice shaking.
"Surely ye father tried te contact ye?"
"Oh he did. But I'm sure you're aware of the reliability of delivery in the navy, Jack. There were letters- I'll probably see them when I've retired, when it's too many years too late. Can you imagine that? Your homecoming, the news of your brothers death instead of welcome, the knowledge that your brother could have been just over the horizon? We may well have caught those that did it while we were out there, but I'll never know that either since no-one survived to tell who did it."
James looked up at Jack then, seeing not the scorn he expected to but rather sympathy. Sympathy? From Jack? He'd expected at the very least ridicule for such a reason as that for his hatred of pirates.
"I'm sorry 'bout ye brother James. But ye're goin' te have te put that behind ye and stop feelin' guilty bout it. Ye couldn't have known ye brother was in the Caribbean, just as fer that reason why ye couldn't have been there te protect him. 'Sides, I doubt he would have wanted his younger brother te run te his rescue."
"But if it could have saved him-!"
"There's no guarantee ye could have mate. Ye know what sea battles get like."
James began climbing the side of the Pearl, head reeling. Jack giving out advice. He never thought he'd see the day it was given to himself though.
"I just don't want it to happen to anyone else, Jack. I don't want anyone else to go through what my family or I had to go through."
When he reached the deck, neither Ana-Maria nor Gibbs were anywhere in sight, a relief for the time being. He turned to face Jack climbing over the side. Jack looked around, mumbling something about Ana and Gibbs getting into his rum again.
"I know why you do it though Jack."
Jack looked confused.
"Not sure I'm followin' ye. We talkin' 'bout me rum now?"
James smiled slightly, an effort in itself after what he'd been talking about.
"It's the freedom, isn't it? That feeling you get when you're stood on the deck of a ship and for a moment it can feel like it's just you and the sea and you can go whatever you want to."
Jack looked surprised at this.
"Aye, for me it is. Though I didn't think ye of all people'd understand it. Aye, some people say I do it fer the spoils, and I suppose I do te some extent, but I think ye got it right there. Odd that – most of the other pirates think they know me. Unless ye've been talkin' te Elizabeth?"
"No. Why?"
"Nothin'. Just somethin' I said te her when we were marooned on that little island. Ye remember which one of course."
Of course James did. How could he forget? Investigating that thick pillar of smoke to find Elizabeth at the source and - much to his irritation at the time- Jack Sparrow along with her.
"No, she never mentioned anything about that island other than the opportunity to sample rum, before she burnt it of course." James struggled to keep the laughter out of his face as Jack frowned slightly at the reminder.
"She mentioned Gibbs, too. I must say, I was surprised to find where he'd ended up what with him spouting superstitions about pirates all the way from England."
"Oh aye, and what were those then?"
James did laugh then, bringing a dull ache in his cheek and fresh reminders of the stitches there.
"Put it this way. All fog is cursed, with or without black ships appearing in it, and merely singing songs about pirate can call them down on you."
Jack joined in his amusement.
"Aye, that sounds like Gibbs alright."
All that seemed to belong to another lifetime now. Things had changed immeasurably since then. James himself would never have been caught dead on the Black Pearl at the time of that escapade, and yet, events seemed to conspire to bring him to the point where it didn't bother him.
Absentmindedly he scratched the brand on his arm.
"Ready te tell me 'bout that yet?"
James sighed. He supposed he had been dodging the subject.
"God knows you are persistent Jack."
"Course I am. How else do ye think I got me ship back?" Jack said with his characteristic golden grin.
James nodded at Jack's own arm, at the wrapping that concealed Jack's own brand.
"What about yours? All those stories, and I don't remember one of them explaining yours."
"Ah, so ye've heard the stories? From Elizabeth I expect?" James nodded at this. "Well there is actually a great story behind this too, but I want ye side after this – I aint tellin' this fer nothin'."
"Fair enough." James replied.
"Ye see, the one an' only time ol' Jack here was caught be the East India Company, those that consider themselves all high an' mighty didn't think I was worth wasting their time with – I was only suspected of piracy, they couldn't prove anythin'. So when it came te brandin' me, they got one of their newest junior officers to do it, and well, he was all set on brandin' me on the forehead. But-"he said with one of his wild hand movements, "I managed to convince him that, what with him being new an all, didn't he know that the East India Company branded on the arm, not the forehead?"
James couldn't help but laugh at this – it just seemed too absurd.
"Why didn't you try to escape? You must have been planning it."
"Oh, I was. But unlike our little enounter, there was nothin' handy fer me te use te get away. They did the brandin' right there in the jail, so there was nowhere fer me te run te. So I settled fer havin' the brand where I can hide it. I don't know if ye've noticed, but I'd be pullin' me bandana down a lot further if that 'P' were on me forehead."
Jack grinned at this point, prompting James to wonder if the story really were true.
"How did ye know te look on me arm fer that though?" Jack asked him.
"Oh that?" James gave him a grin of his own. "Stories can backfire on you too, Jack. I simply paid attention to rumours of a pirate who wears his black hair long and has a tattoo on his arm of a sparrow in flight, who went by the name of Jack Sparrow."