Chapter 48: Winter of 1778 and 1779
The rest of 1778 went past with almost no action whatsoever. A French fleet finally arrived, commanded by one Admiral Charles, Count d'Estaing. Admiral Norrington found that the man had become very mellow with age, and had gone from a fiery, brilliant combatant to a merely competent sailor. Admiral d'Estaing and Admiral Norrington collaborated with Generals Depp and Lafayette to make a steady plan for an invasion of Newport.
That did not go as planned, however. On August 9th, the army moved into Newport—a day earlier than planned. Sound tactics, but unsound protocol. The French were very irritated at the movement, but then had other problems; Admiral Richard Howe came with some of his ships to reinforce the defenders. D'Estaing decided to leave, abandoning a long-planned assault and General Sullivan, who was in great need of the thousands of French Marines. The entire French force disappeared into the mists of the Atlantic.
It was not until August 20th that they returned, when Howe limped back to New York, bloodied not from combat, but from a horrible storm that James Norrington spent his entire time on land for; the last time he'd gone through a storm like that, it had cost him everything. When the storm abated, he, Depp, Greene and Lafayette went aboard the returned Languedoc, a large 90-gun ship that d'Estaing personally commanded. They quickly received the news that the French would be departing for Boston to make repairs, and they would be taking their entire force—Marines and all—with them.
That was the end of any action for the year.
The winter of 1778-79 was far milder than the previous one, and even better for the men because they had learned from Valley Forge; huts used no mud or grass, and had real floors, rather than just the earth that had been so unforgiving to them a year before. The Hudson forests gave much better and much more wood than Valley Forge had, and the men suffered only from boredom.
The year of 1779 brought little notable action either. Most of the skirmishes of the year were peppered fights along the Hudson River. There was one notable piece of action, however, just opposite southern Manhattan in New Jersey, a place called Paulus Hook. The British had left a garrison there that became depleted to the point of 500 men. The Americans sent a force of 300 horsemen, who overtook the base with incredible ease, losing only five lives in the brief action. While the horsemen were not the equals of their English counterparts, they had overtaken the base because of the direction of a Virginian; a man named Lee. Thankfully, this man was far more brilliant and far more realistic than the late Charles Lee; the officer was Major "Light-Horse-Harry" Lee.
There was much rejoicing in the camps when a kindred and buoyant spirit returned; the irrepressible, the irresponsible, the irreverent, the irredeemable, the one, the only, Captain Jack Sparrow.
Meeting with James Norrington, he gave the man temporary command of the entire group—sans the Black Pearl, which would remain with him. He discovered that he cared far less for Admiralty than James did, and only retained the title when he visited Philadelphia, always appearing in his silly, grandly overdone Admiral's uniform. Captain Sparrow found most of the parties in Philadelphia ridiculous, though that probably had more to do with the lack of rum than any grandeur involved. It was not until one such party that he and General John Depp finally ran into one another.
Literally.
They hadn't noticed the other until a split second too late. John turned and walked away from a finished conversation, straight into Captain Jack Sparrow, knocking him down, ruining the plate of food he carried.
And this was one of the rare parties that had rum.
Jack looked fully ready to torture to death the man who dared commit the capital crime of harming his rum. Then, noticing it was John, he repressed the urge.
After a backslapping embrace, they caught each other up on their escapades. It turned out that Tortuga was better than it had ever been, thanks to several raided Spanish shipments of gold and other materiel goods, and a continuing supply of food and drink and a lowering of incoming weapons made the city far more boisterous and far less violent.
Jack Sparrow's eyes steadily approached the size of saucers as John described his escapades with the military, and how he'd actually come to appreciate the role he played.
"Well, lad, it seems a bit as though yer tryin' to get a bigger legacy than mine. I may just have to shoot you before it gets too big."
"Oh, no, Jack; I know many things, and I know what I never will be; the name John Depp will never be world-famous, I'll never be a pirate like you, I will never be adored by women everywhere—"
"Ye probably won't be getting smacked by them either," Jack pointed out.
"I won't have the opportunity to give them reason to." He then mocked total despair.
"Oh, what does it matter?" John rolled his eyes toward Sparrow. "I'll never be in the history books, I'll never be remembered; only you. Captain Jack Sparrow did this, and Captain Jack Sparrow did that, and Captain Jack Sparrow did some other damned thing." Sparked by inspiration, John continued. "Captain Jack Sparrow smote the ground, and out sprang George Washington—fully grown, clothed, and atop his horse. Sparrow then performed incredible displays of magic brought about from several decades of adventures on the seven seas, and the three of them—Sparrow, Washington, and the horse—conducted the entire Revolution."
There was a long pause, and then Depp turned to Sparrow, who said simply with a swig of rum, "I like it."
John just glared at Sparrow.
