A/N Unbetta'd as usual. Remember that Gillette's given name is Will.

Curse of the Black Pearl Part 3 - The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

There was very little sleep had by anybody that night. With the revelation of the abduction of Miss Swan once more the fort was turned out. A search was conducted of every building in the town, in the slim chance that perhaps she had rendered some escape, and all possible witnesses were interviewed. Few were located as to who it could be confirmed had actually seen Miss Swan taken by the pirates, but there were three or four individuals who told stories that did corroborate each other. Each of them reported that a pair of pirates had been seen leaving the Governor's mansion with Miss Swan, that they had gone through the main streets and out to the harbor, after which time they had conducted her into a long boat and struck out for the darkened ship. It was at that time that the raid on the town had been quitted and the invaders had made their departure.

After the last of such interviews, Gillette leaned forward over his desk with a sigh and rubbing at his eyes. The longer the night had gone on the more letters swam off the page and he doubted the legibility of his own writing at this point. He'd been told stories that ranged from the fantastical to the incredibly mundane, and at this time was almost imagining that all sounded equally practical. Barely managing to lift his head he stared longingly at a cup that was half empty and entirely frigid. No use, he was passed the point of it waking him up for another such interview and anything strong enough to do so would only keep him from managing any type of sleep at all.

He scrubbed at his eyes again and a tap sounded at the door. "Enter." Groves leaned on the frame looking equally as tired, "We've spoken to everyone, there's nothing more to be done tonight." The second man looked at the cup and if it were possible managed to look even more exhausted – and disappointed - at the lack of steam rising from it. "We've got to make him rest some." There was absolutely no need to guess who it was the needed to be made to sleep.

With another sigh, Gillette rose from his desk, dumped a handful of papers and wearily stacked them. That completed he followed his companion out of the room. It took nearly another hour to convince the Commodore they could do no more for the night. The sun would be rising soon and they needed to have their wits enough to chart a course. The Governor also took some convincing but was also made to see the wisdom of waiting until morning and then he assisted in convincing the former.

Once they were convinced to quit the pile of records and charts that were scattered across the desk, Gillette left the Governor in his friend's hands and himself led the Commodore out of the room. The man was absolutely silent walking through the fort, his manner somewhere between a hard cold anger and what would on most anyone else be considered a nearly paralyzing fear. In only a matter of hours, he'd gone from promotion and proposal of marriage to having the woman he absolutely adored (it was no secret the depth of that adoration) snatched away by men who could at the moment be doing nightmarish things.

Gillette left Norrington at the door to his room. He wished that there was something to be said, but it would sound useless. Besides, he doubted the Commodore would welcome empty consolations. Instead, the lieutenant twitched his lips in a faint ghostly sad smile and waited until the door had closed before wearily dragging his feet down to his own quarters.

Reveille and the bells woke them all only a scant three hours later. Gillette, like the rest of the fort's officers, was incredibly slow to drag himself out of his bed and dress. He first attempted to pull his shirt on backwards, and then to button his waistcoat inside out. Eventually, the task was managed though his patience was considerably shortened by that time. Breakfast was a subdued affair and it was eaten quickly despite the exhaustion of the wardroom officers. Afterwards those who had duties to attend to departed to see to them and Gillette was joined by Groves and the two of them made for Norrington's office.

It was hardly a surprise to see that he had already been awake for some time, Gillette noted somewhat enviously that even though Norrington clearly had less sleep than any of them, he was also the only person that managed to be wholly presentable that morning. As they rounded the corner he was descending the stairs and without a word collected the two and continued on his way out of the fort and into the town. Governor Swan met them there. The front section of a wall tent had been constructed as a shade and a table erected, there a map and a record of all pirate attacks around the Caribbean islands from that year (at least those already reported) were being charted on the map. It was taking up a rather large portion.

Claiming a slightly out of the way corner the two lieutenants listened to the conference and provided input where their 'research' the night before might be of use. For the most part however it was a matter of keeping each other from falling asleep on their feet from lack of mental engagement.

There was, sadly, no immediate way to tell which ship it was that had visited the evening before. Of all of the witnesses who had been interviewed, none had any solid means of identifying the ship. The pirates had not announced themselves, they had not sent a ransom, and none of the soldiers or sailors could say for certain even the name of the ship nor even a description of it as it had doused all lights as stories of a haunted fire-blackened ship had been whispered about in the night though, so had the sailors about Dauntless and Interceptor said the same thing in daylight. For his part, Gillette had shrugged off such notions.

When Groves had insisted they at least have a grain of salt to them, he had fixed the other lieutenant with a disbelieving look. "Not you as well."

"When we took all of those interviews it was the ones who told the same story that we listened to wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"Why not now?"

"Because that story they were telling was of the kidnapping of a prisoner, not a ghost story."

"You don't believe in ghosts?"

"I don't believe in haunted ships which need prisoners."

Groves had only given him a look which due to the dark circles around his eyes managed to be more harried than pleading, but said no more.

Just as it was appearing that headway may be made in determining a possible course to take they were interrupted. The blacksmith apprentice from the previous day when Sparrow had been arrested somehow shoved his way past the Marines who were supposed to be keeping such rabble away from the conference and delivered news that was not even worth noting.

Yes of course they knew that Miss Swan had been taken, where had he been for the past several hours? Hiding while they did all the work of repelling the pirates, searching the town, conducting interviews, quenching fires, and beginning to formulate a plan? Oh that's right, he'd been left to sleep in the streets. Murtog, managing to look embarrassed as it was likely an argument between himself and his friend Mullroy that had allowed Turner to enter, tried to lay hands on the boy to remove him. All that resulted however was a hatchet buried in the center of their map followed by a short argument in subdued tones that (from what could be distinguished) sounded as though it may be about a matter other than a straight-forward kidnapping.

It was all that Gillette could do to keep from uttering an outburst over the idea of actually requesting Sparrow to lead them to other pirates. Sending a runner to re-secure the cells had been one of the first matters of the previous evening, and even now there were other soldiers engaged in the pursuit of the other prisoners that had managed to be released. Not a one of them had been picked up by the buccaneer crew – itself somewhat of an oddity in the attack. They were among those who were re-telling the tales of the haunted ship Black Pearl, a few of them even said that it was Sparrow who had informed them of the name. That above anything else ruled out the possibility of adding yet another interview to the papers. What use what it if all he was going to do was tell ghost stories?

Never the less, the blacksmith was removed and proceedings were able to move forward. It was decided that with the winds the night before the easiest course for a ship to take would be to head for Haiti. There was strong pirate presence on the island and it was close enough to operate out of while still having business to conduct at Jamaica. That decided, Gillette was dismissed to begin preparations to have Dauntless made ready to sail by the noon tides.

With something definitive to do the sailor felt much more awake. It was only a few minutes walk to the docks and from there a boat conducted him out to the ships. Dauntless had only a small handful of sailors aboard at the moment. Being a Man-Of-War ship she wouldn't be used for pursuit on her own. The ship carried a hundred guns and a crew of eight-hundred-fifty. She was incredibly powerful, but slow-moving. For that reason, she would not be used right away for the hunting of the pirates. Interceptor while smaller and with a much smaller compliment of guns, only eighteen, was able to make eleven knots easily. She required a much smaller crew, twelve men to sail her easily. It was a trade-off. The smaller ship could catch up to the pirate vessel, but with her small crew size she wouldn't be able to fight it. It had been decided that the two ships would work in tandem. The crew of Interceptor would do as her name described, search for the mysterious pirate ship. Dauntless would be hunting the waters nearby and once the pirates were located would be able to assist in pounding the larger ship into splinters. Being the most senior officer on the Commodore's staff, the distinction of commanding Dauntless would fall to Gillette. Normally the flag ship would of course be sailed by the Commodore himself, but these were not normal circumstances. Who would deny him the right to command the faster ship that would hunt down the brigands that had taken Miss Swan?

Thus pleased with himself, and feeling much more at ease with something to do, Gillette set the small crew to locating repairs that needed to be immediately done before the ship could be loaded with her full complement and made ready to sail. Despite the pounding that she had taken during the night Dauntless was in a remarkable state. Most of the damage appeared to be cosmetic and the men were making headway enough that he was nearly set to have word sent to begin loading.

Until the voice he had absolutely no wish to hear ever again interrupted from the quarter deck, and was joined by another annoyance. All of the men turned to find Sparrow, complete with leather hat and the crude saber accompanied by Turner demanding that the first-rate ship be handed over to the two of them. The very idea of two men attempting to take a ship from ten was absurd, the absurdity was only compounded by the sheer size of the vessel they were demanding.

Were it not for the pistol nearly pressing on his nose Gillette would have laughed along with the men. Unlike last time, it was not a friend having accidentally mistaken him for one of the invaders (insulting as the idea itself was, the mistake was understandable under those circumstances). This was a pirate, who had already proven that he was not above the unconventional in order to get what he wanted, and he was apparently teaching the apprentice to do the same. Despite the proximity of the weapon, which was moved from half-cock to the fully-armed position, Gillette took a moment to think over the matter.

Given command of the flag ship and he'd lost it to two men within half an hour of receiving it.

Moments later he and the men were ushered into a boat to be lowered over the side, where they floated and rowed for Interceptor while waving and making a ruckus to call attention to the attempted theft of the prized flag ship of the Caribbean fleet. He saw, barely, from the low deck of the bobbing skiff as Groves called Norrington's attention to their plight and the resulting chaos that followed. Sailors swung from one ship to another, forming a boarding party to steal back something that should not have been capable of being stolen in the first place.

Only to find, that the other ship, now fully supplied and already set for departure, had been the target all along and was in fact now stolen out from under their very noses. All of this, was witnessed from the new command of the miniature skiff, and was rather an embarrassment. Both personal and professional.

As if that were not enough, while he and the sailors were bobbing about in the tiny boat, rocked in the wakes of the two larger ships he suddenly became aware of a shadow looming over head. A ship, such as Dauntless, had a rather difficult time seeing something as tiny as a longboat below it. The ship, also, was currently lacking any form of steering other than perhaps the waves buffering it. When it struck the pitiful little boat the massive hull did not even vibrate and the sailors did not even notice. They were too busy shuffling about and trying to make some order of the mess that had been purposefully made to keep them busy. The lines were an absolute mess, the tackle tangled, and of course, the rudder chain snapped. It wasn't until the ship had gone some way that the Commodore was approached and shyly reminded that they had forgotten the little boat, the lieutenant, and the sailors occupying it.

For his part Gillette had thankfully managed to keep hold of a long plank after the skiff had been churned into matchsticks because otherwise it would have been impossible to tread water and remain afloat while wearing a wool coat. The sailors had all managed to do the same and that was good because to a man they were all incapable of swimming. He'd watched, forcibly calm though red in the face while the ship plowed on to the mouth of the harbor before coming to a stop and two long boats were launched to retrieve them.

By the time they were all hauled on deck the coat was so saturated with water that his shoulders were stooped from the weight alone. Gillette perceived that Norrington's mouth was drawn into a stiff line and the man did not say a word after determining the small group was unharmed. His other friend was blanched and could hardly look him in the eye. It was one of those rare moments where it was Grove's turn to stutter his way through an apology (even though he hadn't done anything), then satisfied to Gillette's health, he dissolved into laughter.

He was promptly called back to order by Norrington who'd had more than enough antics for the day.

Mustering as much dignity as one who resembled a drowned cat could, the first lieutenant requested permission to retire, and sternly notified his laughing friend that as payment for his amusement, Groves could donate a spare shirt and coat.

The entire way across the deck and below the drenched brogans squelched water and the blue coat left a dripping, sopping river.