Chapter 3 - Debts, Debtors, Death
It took many long weeks of searching, sailing, and scouring the Caribbean before Davy Jones finally, finally managed to track Jack Sparrow to Tortuga. His frustration was not at all helped by the fact that he had encountered one final obstacle.
He was forced to wait for his target to leave that wretched port naturally, as the Dutchman's Captain would not touch land without an extremely good reason.
Jones could have sent his crew ashore, but Tortuga had a reputation for harboring scoundrels and scalawags of all stripes and strides. Its inhabitants – for they could hardly be called citizens – would fight back viciously if raided. His own crew may have been immortal, having nothing to fear, but Sparrow was slippery. He would certainly slip out and escape if Jones started any scuffle with the port's residents.
So the Captain of the Flying Dutchman waited.
"Is that it?" asked the redhead on his left arm.
"That's your boat?" asked the brunet on his right.
"Yes!" declared Jack Sparrow proudly, lowering himself into the dingy. "It may not be much, but it's freedom."
And with a tip of his hat to the ladies, he shoved off, rowing in the direction of the setting sun.
When Tortuga was but a speck on the horizon in front of him, and the sun but a speck on the horizon behind him, a brief green flash lit the sky, and a ship emerged from the water.
"You have two choices," Jones said to the man he'd hauled aboard, the man who had eluded him for so long. "Service, or the Locker."
Although in all honesty, Jones was sorely tempted to make the choice for Sparrow. A swift strike of his sword. That would have been all it took. And it would have felt so good to do so. The prospect of a hundred years of service from a strong-willed crewman only barely outweighed that temptation.
Jack Sparrow glanced at the fishmen around him, then responded in a hesitant voice. "And what happens... after said service? And during it?"
They were rather perceptive questions, all things considered.
Jones only grinned, extending a hand.
"Choose."
He said no more.
Sparrow would either join and get a hundred years of reprieve from the Locker, or refuse and get no reprieve at all.
With a hand even more hesitant than his voice, Sparrow reached out and... slowly... eventually... shook.
"Welcome aboard the Flying Dutchman, Sailor Sparrow!" Jones said grandly, to the widespread laughter of his crew. "Your first job." He summoned a scraping knife and a set of ropes. "Remove all barnacles from the bow of the ship, then from the hull. You are not to stop until you are finished."
Sparrow didn't touch the tools for a brief moment, looking much like a monkey wondering if it should touch the shiny thing. When his hand finally did grasp the knife's handle, he asked, "But isn't the hull underwater?"
Jones smiled cruelly. Forcing a crewman to work underwater was yet another way to accelerate the Curse of the Crew, Curse of the Ship. "I reiterate: Welcome to the Flying Dutchman!" And without another word, he spun on his peg leg and returned to his cabin.
He was in a good mood, and it would be such a waste not to play his favorite instrument in such high spirits.
It had taken three days.
Three days of nonstop scraping, pulling, twisting, chipping, popping – and sometimes eating – to finish the job. Jack had grown weary and exhausted throughout his task, but not tired. Being Part of the Crew apparently meant you didn't need sleep (though you could certainly still want it). The curse probably meant you didn't need food either, but when Sparrow had seen a particularly appetizing barnacle, he couldn't resist. The fact that he'd found a barnacle appetizing probably would have worried him if he hadn't been so exhausted.
On the bright side, it was nice to have music to scrape to. Say what you will about Davy Jones, he played a mean organ.
After Sparrow pried the final barnacle loose from the bow, he used the ropes to haul himself back up to the deck. What he wanted to do was find whatever served as the crew's quarters and rest.
(His skin, when he looked down, had noticeably less color than before. Not so much a deep tan as a peachy gray.)
What he needed to do was free himself from service... though in all honesty, the curse wasn't too bad as far as he could tell. So long as he didn't let it get to the point where it affected his thoughts (he had encountered a 'part of the ship' crewmember attached to the hull), he could get used to the ability to explore the seas without drowning. Not to mention the immortality. If the circumstances had been better, he might have even jumped for the opportunity to join, at least for a time.
But a hundred years was too big a debt to owe, in his opinion.
So he looked around for someone in charge who might know a thing or two about the curse... until a small cluster of crewmen distracted him.
"Ten years," said one fishman.
"Ten years," whispered a second.
"Ten," rasped a third.
Slowly, they lifted the cups from the dice.
"What're they doin' over there?" Jack asked the fishman he'd quickly come to recognize as being a first mate of sorts.
Jack didn't know if the Dutchman had a formal hierarchy or not, what with the Captain's absolute supremacy and the whole immortality thing. But the hammerhead fishman seemed to be second in command. Even if he wasn't the sort of second who'd inherit command of the ship if Jones somehow died, he was the sort of second who inherited leadership over the crew when Jones wasn't around.
"Over where?" the hammerhead fishman said, dismissively and disinterestedly.
Jack pointed with a gray finger. His question referred to the three-way game of Liars Dice he'd spotted moments earlier.
The hammerhead snorted. "Gamblin' years of service to the Dutchman. Ten years each, by the sound of it."
Jack's eyebrows rose. "Are they now?"
Five weeks later...
"And there go me last ten years," Jack said to the Dutchman's newest crew member. "Good game, mate."
His opponent shouted in outrage, slamming a fist against the deck. The rest of the crew chuckled at the sight. Savvy crewmen had quickly learned not to play against Jack Sparrow, but with Davy Jones targeting all the Pirate Lords and occasionally recruiting some of their crews, there was no shortage of fresh blood... or in this case, fresh years.
To Jack's surprise, as soon as he'd said the words "good game", the fish parts he hardly noticed he'd been getting for the past five weeks all fell off his body. His hairs stood on end, his skin went from grey to tan – getting back its normal color – and everything felt cold now that the curse wasn't protecting him from the chill of night on a wet ship.
Jack was about to ask out loud if he could speak to the captain, but then the captain suddenly appeared on the deck, as if summoned.
"I felt the service of a crewman end," the squid man said. Jones scanned the crew. "Whose?"
"Guilty as charged," Jack said with a grin, bringing the gaze of the captain firmly upon him. "I'm a free man."
"How?!" Jones demanded.
Still sitting across from the crew's newest member, and still wearing the grin, Jack chuckled. "I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, mate. You'll find no better player of Liar's Dice this side of the Spanish Main."
Jones, who had already been frowning, outright scowled. "You will silence that insolent tongue."
"Sorry mate" Jack shrugged. "I'm not bound to the Dutchman or its Captain's orders at the moment." He reclined casually against the ship's mast. Now that he was out of debt...
Jones looked ready for murder, but in a single moment, all his anger vanished, being replaced by a cruel smirk. "Very well, Jack Sparrow. You are free to go... the very next time we make port!"
He and his crew laughed uproariously.
...it was time to go back into debt.
"That's all fine and dandy," Jack said, standing from the crate he'd been using as a chair. "But to be perfectly honest with you, mate, I might be willin' to bind meself for another hundred years."
Jones' head snapped back to Jack's. "What?! Why?"
"Got somethin' that needs doin', and the curse would help me do it. That's all. So I'm offering years of service... for the right price, of course."
Jone's eyes narrowed. "What price?"
Jack, who had been about to say it outright, hesitated. Jones would be skeptical of any offers, with their history. Jack had to pitch this just right...
"I swear meself before the mast, and you help me get a bit of revenge."
"Revenge?" Jones echoed, curious. "Against whom? Your mutinous first mate Barbossa?"
"Nah, me an' him are square. I want revenge on the man who branded me a pirate and burned my ship."
"Oh?" Jones said, even more curious. He had raised the Wicked- the Black Pearl from the depths, of course, but he had never learned the details of how it got there in the first place. "And whose hand holds responsibility for that significant deed?"
"Cutler Beckett's."
Jones recognized the name, though he'd never seen the face. "The Governor of the East India Trading Company?"
"Aye," spoke Sparrow. "Fancy wig, fancy clothes. Keeps himself clean. Has a thing for 'good business' and squarin' debts."
"A sensible outlook," Jones said.
Debts must be paid. Always.
"Aye," Sparrow nodded. "But Beckett has a thing about not payin' his debts. That's why I want you to help him square his debt with me."
"Do you now?" Jones implored, intrigued. "And why would I grant such a favor?"
"Other than a hundred years of me service to the crew?"
"In your case, perhaps that is not as valuable as I first assumed."
Sparrow chuckled. "Thanks for the compliment, mate." Before Jones could reply, the now-mortal man cut to the chase. "If you won't accept a hundred years, I can offer you my Piece of Eight and me help usin' it, same as Barbossa."
"You are a Pirate Lord?" Jones asked in some surprise. He had identified the other eight by this point and was searching for the last. He never suspected the ninth was right under his nose.
"I'm Captain Jack Sparrow mate," Sparrow grinned. "For now, at any rate. If'n you choose to accept my request, I'll even throw in ten years of service, since I'll be needin' that handy curse for the revenge. In exchange, you promote me to helmsman, help me deal with Becket, then once I've gambled meself out of service again, you sail close enough to Tortuga for me to jump overboard and swim there. Savvy?"
Some of the crew – the ones who'd been wise not to gamble with Sparrow – chuckled at that, though all the ones he'd beaten were either swearing under their breaths or scowling, still sore at their losses.
Jones was frowning as well, but not in anger or spite. Just consideration.
"What would be my role in this revenge of yours?" he asked at last.
Jack Sparrow explained his scheme.
As the explanation progressed, Jones went from skeptical, to interested, to downright anticipatory.
"Very well," Jones said, grinning evilly. "Ten years of service, your Piece, and your aid, if requested. In exchange, I grant the favor of revenge, a promotion, and a trip close to port when your service expires."
They shook.
"So, Helmsman Sparrow, when might you be wanting this revenge?"
"Before the fish parts set in again, Cap'n. And before me skin starts to gray too much. Wouldn't want him to be suspicious, would we?"
Step 1, on the open sea...
Jack Sparrow, Immortal Helmsman of the Flying Dutchman, slowly sailed through the open waves.
On a dingy.
The Dutchman was nearby, just below the surface of the water – he could sense it, for he was bound to it once more. His captain had delivered him to this exact spot, as requested, on the dingy that had been taken from him weeks ago, also as requested. The first step of his revenge plot was for him to be captured.
Soon enough, a large, fancy ship – the HMS Endeavour – could be seen on the horizon.
Step 2, beneath the waves...
"We had a deal, Jack," came a clear, crisp voice unfamiliar to Davy Jones.
Jones, if he wished, could hear through the ears of his crewman, and so he heard the man's words. Jack was currently bound to the Dutchman, among other things, so Jones could tune into the man's senses if he focused. There was no such thing as privacy on his ship, nor among his crew, though he rarely used this particular power.
"I contracted you to deliver cargo on my behalf," continued whom Jones assumed to be Cutler Bucket. "You chose to liberate it."
Helmsman Sparrow's eyes were blindfolded, so Jones could not see through them. His hands were tied behind his back, his body tied to a post, so Sparrow could not move. But Sparrow was not gagged.
"People aren't cargo, mate," Sparrow said into the expectant silence.
Like his tentacles were being tickled. That was how it felt when Jones understood the implication.
Jack Sparrow – one of the most notorious Pirates of the Caribbean – had been branded a scalawag in the first place for freeing slaves? That was why he had needed his ship raised from the depths? That was why the British Royal Navy pursued him? The irony was so perfect that the Captain of the Dutchman almost laughed out loud.
But Jones' humor left him soon enough as Beckett spoke on.
"People aren't cargo," Sparrow had just said.
"People are what they love, Jack," came the voice of Beckett into Jack's ears. "And what they love is cargo," continued Beckett's voice, as clear to Jones as it was to Jack. "They love spices, and linens, and silks, and plantains. And so long as it is delivered on time and in sufficient supply, then they are content to be nothing more than figures on a ledger."
The face of Jones hardened. His tentacles twisted with tension. His eyes blazed with wrath.
Mortal souls on the ocean were meant to be free or dead, nothing else.
(Some might call this opinion hypocritical. After all, did Davy Jones not enslave men himself?
No.
Slavery implied lack of choice and lack of will.
Jones offered immortal servitude to men who would choose it when the only other alternative was natural death. Jones preferred offering servitude to pirates, who deserved to suffer. Pirates were the sort of sailor he didn't mind bringing to the brink of death himself before making his offer. But for all others, he offered the choice only if they were going to die anyway. He himself, as an immortal, was a slave both to his duty and to his love.
Jones had no compunctions about enslaving men on the brink of death if they wished to postpone judgement, but at that point, they were no longer mortal. Immortals were all either slaves or gods, and if man chose service instead of death, so be it. But he was NOT a slaver, for his love would never, ever tolerate that.
Stealing mortal, healthy men away from their homes, stealing their freedom, transporting them to faraway lands, and using the open sea to do it?
Jones had a fierce hatred for slave traders. His love being who she is, how could he wish anything else but that living souls braving the ocean be wild and free?
A brief memory of Calypso surfaced, a memory of her summoning a storm to sink a ship of slavers, not yet filled with slaves. Such memories had been surfacing more and more recently, of late.)
The voice of Beckett had paused for a time, and when it spoke again it was amplified, as if Beckett had been speaking with his back turned but was now facing Jack directly. The man spoke with a quiet, subdued, refined rage. "Your good deed cost me, Jack."
"And you have spared me any possibility of ending up as anything other than what I am," spoke the man on death row. "And for that I truly thank you."
"Yes," Beckett chuckled. "And what are you, Jack? A man branded a pirate, facing a firing squad. Betrayed by his first mate, his life in ruins, his only comfort a bottle of whisky, sailing the seas on a dingy." Then, dismissively, Beckett said, "Pathetic."
And the sounds of gunshots came forth.
There was a brief silence.
Part 3, above the waves...
"No," said the voice of Jack Sparrow. "I'm an immortal, mate."
That was his cue.
He began playing his organ.
That was his crew's cue.
"That tune's a scary thing, mate," Sparrow had once said during the man's five-week span as an ordinary crewman. "If other ships could hear it, they'd be terrified."
As his crew raided the HMS Endeavour, Jones played the tune Jack had heard before making that remark. Years ago, it had been a variation of the "Drunken Sailor" song. Now, after years of modification and reimagining, it had become something else entirely, a tune of his own creation.
Through the eyes of his crew, he could see the fear of Beckett's men as the Dutchman breached the surface, see the fear turn to terror at his crew's sudden appearance on their deck, and see the terror turn to disappear as men were slaughtered.
Perhaps Jack was right.
This tune was a scary thing.
When all were killed but Beckett – whom Jones had ordered taken alive – and a few lucky crewman, Jones appeared on the deck.
He walked slowly and deliberately.
He stopped in front of Beckett.
"Do you fear death?"
Ignoring the movies after the third, the fact that the "people aren't cargo, mate" and "for that I truly thank you" lines were cut from the movie and replaced by some bland cliché about pirates betraying each other is one of the true greatest tragedies about the Pirates of the Caribbean movie trilogy. It's a shame it turned out that way. Those lines would have been epic.
See "Just Good Business (Deleted Scenes At World's End)" on YouTube if you want to understand what I'm talking about. "Jack Sparrow's Serious Moments" would also work.