Barbossa beamed.
"Weatherby!" he cried, and tweaked the ear of the pirate. Weatherby gave him a happy grin and heaved another few corpses over the side. Barbossa fancied the boat surged forward.
"Maximo!" He received a rib-crushing hug. "Simbakka!" The addressed pirate rapped his chest in a kind of tribal salute. "Hawksmoor! Katracho! Scratch! Nipperkin! Ketchum! Scarus!" He called their names one by one, squeezed their hands, slapped their backs. "Dog Ear!"
He faced them all from the helm. "Gents," he called, "it's good ter be back." This elicited cries of agreement and the occasional nonsensical hoot of delight. "And now we're back," Barbossa yelled over the noise, "let's see to it that everyone knows about it!"
That went down well. Almost a year of rotting in jail had not been suffered well by these freedom-loving, law-ignoring, throat-slitting, scurvy-ridden men.
"Firstly, lads," Barbossa continued, "we're a-going ter visit our only true mother-country, Tortuga!" He had to wait for a bit for the wolf whistles and shrieks of joy to die down. "I'm sure you've got a lot of catching up ter do!" Shouts of, "Bloody right!" "So you know the way! Open the sails!"
"Arr!" every man exclaimed. "Arr!" This is pirate for, "Why certainly captain, we would be delighted."
Barbossa gave the helm to Monk, who gave him a teary little smile and said, "It's good to see yer again, Cap'n Barbossa," and strode over to the starboard side, where Latonya was being sick.
"Feeding the fishes, Miss Vaughn?" he asked, with gruff cheerfulness.
She looked up for a moment and gave him a rictus grin. "Yuh," she managed, before a fresh wave of her lobster-and-herbs barrelled up her throat. Barbossa waited patiently for her to finish. Latonya was unused to both sailing and the sight of men being blown up by cannon fire, and was dealing with it as messily as she could.
Maximo, Barbossa's first mate, thundered heavily up behind him. "What are der bearings fo' post-Tortuga, sah?"
Barbossa grinned. Maximo could always be depended upon to be one step ahead of the game. "We're going to visit the wench," he replied. Maximo laughed heavily.
"'Tis pity Ragetti is no longa with us," he announced in his ponderous voice.
Oh yes- Ragetti and Lovehaste had had some sort of chaste love-affair, mainly through letters. It had all started on the fateful day Barbossa, bored and irritated by Lovehaste's monobrow, had instructed Ragetti to pluck it for her. "I'm sorry to hear that," he said. "Ragetti was... well, he was a pirate."
"Oh, him still alive," Maximo said dismissively. "Him and Pintel broke outta prison. Didn't have time to save us," he added scornfully.
Barbossa frowned, suddenly furious. "Deserted our little family, did they?" he growled. "Never mind. The time will come, Maximo, when I shall be face ter face with them, and they'll rue the day. I will pers'nally make sure of it."
Latonya came up for air. "They done what's right by dem," she said, mildly.
Maximo beared all his teeth at her. "Whore! You got no say in dis."
Latonya gave him a puzzled smile. Too late, Barbossa realised she didn't have any concept of loyalty- she did things for people because she liked everyone, not because she was bound to them- and was unaware of her status as a lady of pleasure- she made love because she liked it, and the men, through force of habit, left her money, which she tended just to take as a favour. Stupidity or absentmindedness prevented her from understanding either idea.
"Ignore her," he muttered to Maximo. "Yer know what these Tortuga ladies are like."
Maximo gave one last threatening growl and stomped off.
Latonya cast an admiring glance at his back. "Him got a good spine," she said, appraisingly. Barbossa sighed. One of these days, Latonya's relaxed attitude to everything was going to get her cut into very small pieces.
The pit-stop at Tortuga turned into a seventy two hour party. Normally, Barbossa would forcibly rally his men into action, but he knew only too well what they had suffered, and didn't have the heart to stop them. Instead he took small boats out to neighbouring islands with a few select men and did a spot of small-scale killing and pillaging, just to get back into the swing of things. The swag he amassed was hardly legendary stuff, but it was enough to pay for repairs on their new boat (named The Revenge) and for his men to get well and truly legless.
He moved out of Latonya's grubby house to stay with the rest of his crew in the two floors they took over when they came to stay at Tortuga, above a pub called something obscene. Latonya busied herself packing. Some unspoken agreement- Barbossa suspected Tia Dalma had arranged matters- meant that the unnautical Latonya would be accompanying them to visit Lovehaste. He couldn't help noticing he didn't dream at all over the next three nights- no doubt Tia Dalma had arranged that too.
On the morning of the fourth day, they put to sea again. Barbossa was touched to see every hand was on deck, standing close to the rails, eyes shut and never wiping the spray of the water from their faces.