Chapter 6
"So," Theo addressed Hastings the next morning as they prepared to leave. "I didn't get a chance to hear about your adventure in the pub with our captain last night. You were so shaken and tired I didn't have the heart to ask you. Tell me about it."
Hastings let out a breath. "That woman frightens me," he said, running his fingers through his messy brown hair, "She outdrank a regular giant of a man and wasn't affected at all! The man was this tall –" he indicated "and this wide, and he was on the floor out cold. And what did she do? She was faking the entire time. I was having a heart attack watching because she was shaking and swaying and whatnot, but she was completely sober! Once we got out of there she just ran straight to the boat! They chased us because no one expected her to actually win and so they lost a lot of money. More than was in the purse."
Theo was smiling. "It's good for you to get out and see more of the world," he told the Lieutenant. "Even though these people live different lives than we do, they are Englishmen and women as well and so we as soldiers are also charged with protecting them. Lots of people you'll encounter in the higher ranks of the Royal Navy tend to forget that."
"Yes, everyone seems to fear the military around some of these ports."
Theo sighed and clasped his subordinate's shoulder. "A sad fact," he said, "That we should change."
They resumed preparing themselves. It was only a few minutes before they heard someone pounding on the door.
"Get out here!" A Scottish woman's voice yelled. "We're out with the tide, with or without you!"
Then Annette's voice drifted through the door. "You wouldn't actually leave without them…"
"No need to worry," Theo said, smiling and opening the door, "We're ready to be off."
"It's about time," Sparrow commented, and led them back to the longboat.
When they reached the ship with the money and supplies they had gathered, Peter would have greeted them warmly had not Joanna immediately set about shouting orders. She was uneasy, for some reason. She just had a feeling that this day would not be a good one. It was not a good feeling, so to take her mind off of it she claimed the helm and let no one else touch it. Bourbon was uneasy as well. The falcon wouldn't leave her shoulder for anything, as if he was afraid he would be lost if he let go.
You never know when an animal might be your salvation, Jack had said upon meeting Bourbon, they know things that we don't. Joanna kept that advice close.
The hours passed silently as the ship slid through the smooth water, hardly making a ripple. The captain chewed her lip nervously while she steered, refraining from her normal yelling at the crew. She knew that they knew what to do; there was no sense in wasting her breath on redundancy.
It was eerie to have Joanna so quiet. The rest of the crew could feel her unease. There was smog in the air that made it hard to see and added to everyone's discomfort. Sparrow had a compass and knew where she was going, but who knew when she would run into another ship? Biting her lip, she called out to her crew.
"Someone make noise down there! It's too blasted quiet! Gives me the shivers!" her voice was muted by the thickness of the air, but everyone heard it.
It was only a matter of time, and Joanna knew it was inevitable, but it was Hawk who started the song.
"Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!
We pillage and plunder, we rifle and loot
Drink up me 'earties yo ho!
We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot,
Drink up me hearties, yo ho!"
The captain, and everyone else, scrambled to have their voices about Hawk's. Bless her heart, but she couldn't sing to save her life.
"We're rascals and scoundrels, villains and knaves
Drink up me 'earties yo ho!
We're devils and black sheep and really bad eggs
Drink up me 'earties yo ho!
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!"
The chorus of voices, more or less on key, a bit hysterical, but all trying to dispel the eerie quiet, was doing the trick. Joanna was smiling now, though her eyes were still alert for danger. Peter and Hastings were providing percussion accompaniment to the song as Adelinde and Hawk taught Annette and Theo a jig. Voices and tempo only varied slightly when the smells surrounding them changed.
Smoke. Every sailor on board could smell it.
"Continue!" Joanna called, trying to encourage the voices again. She knew there could be only one reason for this much smoke out in the sea, and it scared her. But she wouldn't show it. Her strength encouraged the others and they returned to singing and dancing. But there was less heart in it now. Peter left his post and mounted the stairs to where Joanna stood, neither of them singing or smiling.
"What is it?" Peter asked, indicating the air.
"Smoke," the woman said tersely.
"I know that. What's it coming from?"
Joanna was quiet for a long time before she answered. "I think you know. Hopefully we'll sail on past without getting a glimpse of anything, however…" here she turned to look at the British man seriously. "You're going to have to get her out of the way fast if anything happens."
Peter nodded, understanding that she meant Annette. He remained with Joanna, both of them standing in silence while Bourbon made worried sounds. The others had continued onto a different song, although it was quieter, now that the smoke was almost too thick to breathe, and then…
Annette screamed.
Joanna leaped into action. "Peter! Get her below this instant! Hastings, Theo, secure those sails! There may be sparks flying around! Hawk, Adelinde, ready the longboat, search for survivors! I'll steer her on our momentum until it clears!"
As she gave orders, they were hastily obeyed, for Annette had screamed when she saw the first of the burning ships. There was a large quantity of them, more than twenty, some barely above the water any more. All of them were flying the flag of the British Empire. There was no sign of what had attacked them.
"Captain, sir! I mean ma'am!" Peter called, returning from below decks where he had stashed his cousin. "Orders?"
"Steer!" she said.
He came and took the helm. Joanna sprinted down the stairs and with her aid Hawk and Adelinde were soon out on the open water, picking their way through burning debris as they called out for survivors. Every body they checked was no longer living.
While they were out, Joanna ordered Hastings and Theo into the other longboat, to push burning things away from the ship so it wouldn't catch fire. Soon those two were gone as well, and Joanna was left to pace up and down the deck worriedly. She had never seen anything like this before, never even heard of something like this happening. The stories her mother told of the pirates she had encountered in her lifetime – and she had encountered many, since Joanna's mother had been a wench – never came close to this. It would have had to have been an entire fleet of ships with some sort of armor, Joanna reasoned, to have taken out the British ships around them. What chilled her most was that there was no hint of the other ships. All of the burning boats were of British Naval origins; no trace of whatever enemy they had encountered. Joanna didn't feel for the British in particular, but she was sailing on a British ship right now, clearly marked as such, and whatever had come after the now-wrecked ships around them might decide to come after Joanna and her crew. She needed to find Jack, and fast.
"Ahoy! Captain! We found one!" The cry came from Hawk. She and Adelinde were rowing back slowly, since in the bottom of the boat lay an injured man.
"One alive?" Peter called.
"Stand at your post, Taylor!" Joanna ordered, lest he try to run down and crowd the man, and shooed Bourbon off her shoulder to perch by the helm. She helped the other women get the man on deck, where he was laid on a spare sail to keep the blood from seeping into the deck. Then Adelinde and Hawk were ordered back out to help push the debris back on the other side of the ship from Hastings and Theo, and both crews of the longboats were ordered to continue searching for survivors. However, everyone knew the chances of finding any others were slim.
Once the others were gone, Joanna appraised the man. He was a soldier of low rank, probably a Lieutenant like Hastings, and so quite young for a soldier. And he was going to die. Joanna Sparrow had seen enough in her eighteen years to know that he hadn't a chance. So she did nothing to try to staunch the bleeding coming from where splinters of wood had stabbed into him, nor did she do anything to try to ease the severe burns that covered the left half of his torso and back. Instead, she slid her hand to his cheek, ignoring the sticky blood, and turned his face to look at her. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow.
"Soldier," she ordered in her best Theo voice. "Look at me."
He opened his eyes. They weren't focused.
"Soldier," Joanna addressed him again. "Report your name and rank."
Scarlet liquid trickled from the corner of his mouth as he answered. "Edmund Conner, Lieutenant."
So she had been right about his rank. Joanna sensed that he was answering mainly from reflex, since she addressed him like a military superior.
"Report the situation as you can," she ordered.
He took a wet, shuddering breath. "Captain Savage," he managed to gurgle. "Is what the men…were calling to each other…Only caught a glimpse of him myself…before the powder kegs…" He choked and was forced to stop talking.
Sparrow shushed him as he closed his eyes again. She could feel his pulse beneath her fingers. It was weak, fluttering. He didn't have much time left. She stayed by his side as he drew several more shallow breaths. Suddenly, his eyes opened again, and they focused on the woman who held him.
"Are you…a pirate?" he asked, barely whispering.
"Yes," she answered.
He gave a cough that Joanna suspected was an attempt at a laugh.
"Imagine…a woman pirate…" his eyes closed again, and opened, and this time he was smiling faintly. "It sounds like something my…Cora…my betrothed…won't she love to hear about it…"
Sparrow felt a lump form in the back of her throat, and tears sprang to her eyes. She blinked them back. Now was not the time to cry.
The soldier's smile faded. He furrowed his eyebrows, sensing from Joanna that something was wrong. "I won't…I won't get to tell her…will I?"
Hiccuping, Joanna shook her head. No.
Surprisingly, he relaxed and leaned into her hand on his face. "Ah well," he said. Joanna could barely hear him. "At least…I'll be with my Lord today…" Saying that, he attempted to raise his arm.
Seeing that he was too weak for such motion, Joanna stopped him and reached for his hand. Tightly gripped in his fist was a rosary.
"Take it," the soldier whispered. "Take it for me. You need it more than I do."
No matter how hard she tried to suppress them, tears were flowing freely down Joanna's cheeks. She took the soldier's hand with the rosary and brought it to where he could see her take the beads and attached crucifix.
"Keep the Lord…near your heart…always…" the soldier said, grasping Joanna's hand tightly before he let go and breathed his last.
The captain allowed herself to sob, just once, before she placed her fingers on his eyelids and closed them. She didn't know much about the church, but she knew sometimes they crossed themselves. So she made a cross on the man by removing her hand from his face and touching it once to his forehead, to his chest, and then to each shoulder, and whispered "Amen."
Peter watched the exchange between the woman who was his captain and the British soldier from his post at the helm. He longed to be down there, hearing what the soldier had to say about what had happened to him. But as he watched, Peter realized that what was going on there was for Joanna's ears alone. She would tell him and the others what they needed to know, but Peter knew that a dying man often gives away his innermost thoughts to a trusted friend on his deathbed, and Joanna was the only person near, the only friend, that the soldier had. So Peter Taylor realized that if he knew what the soldier had said to Joanna, he would know the most intimate thoughts of the man, and it would be a burden to bear for the rest of his life. He also knew that Joanna would consider that man her friend for as long as she lived, and asking her what the man had said would be prying too much into something that someone else would rather keep secret. So he watched them speak without hearing them, keeping to his duty and steering the now slow-moving ship.
When the other four crewmembers returned, Joanna Sparrow was composed and sewing the soldier's body into the sail he had laid on. Traditionally, he would have been sewn into his hammock for burial at sea, but Joanna hadn't the strength to move him. She didn't tell them anything other than the information on Captain Savage, and what she had heard of the dread captain before. The rest she kept to herself, the rosary tucked under her shirt where the others couldn't see. Theo and Hastings took the body of their comrade out in a longboat and respectfully lowered it into the ocean far enough from the ship and debris that it wouldn't be damaged. They returned with solemn faces.
Once she gave Peter the orders for which direction they were to sail in and Hastings and Theo were busy unfurling the sails again, Joanna locked herself in the captain's cabin and did not come out.
Adelinde and Hawk went to relieve poor Annette, who was nearly sick with worry. They relayed to the poor girl all that had happened, playing down the details since she was so fragile. Since no one wanted to be alone, the three women sat, holding each other, in their quarters until it was too dark to see.
The lamps were lit, causing eerie shadows in the fog that lay upon the ship. Joanna emerged from her room, her face completely blank, and took up the helm, allowing Peter to eat a meal with the others and go to bed. By reflex, Hawk woke several hours later and shifted into the position at the helm, allowing Joanna to rest. And so they rotated through the night, the three of them and Hastings, who insisted on taking the position once dawn broke.
The daylight chased away the fog, leaving only a clear blue sky and a single line of green on the horizon. Hawk, who kept lookout, cried, "Land, ho!" dutifully, but the call was not received with any sort of reaction from the others. Part of this was because there was no wind, so the ship was moving slowly, if at all.
Joanna was pacing again, waiting for Hastings to give up his post at the helm.
"If I may ask, Captain," Annette said on her way past with the waste bucket she had just dumped overboard, "Are you that impatient to get to Jack Sparrow?"
"Yes," Joanna said softly. "I want to get on land and get my brother so we can get out of here. I don't like the sound of this Captain Savage fellow. The last thing I want is him on our tail."
Hastings finally relinquished the helm. Joanna walked to it but just leaned on it. "I'd like to reach land by nightfall, perhaps find another pub," she said. "That's where Jack is most likely to be. I supposed I trust you lot enough to watch the ship while I'm gone, so perhaps…"
"With all due respect, ma'am," Theo said curtly. "I'd like to find a church ashore where I could pray for the fallen. Please, with this trip, must we engage others in revelries of excess?"
Everyone was staring at him, not having expected this sort of thing from a common sailor. Joanna hid her surprise and looked at the man with disdain.
"The fallen are fallen," she said, turning away from him. "You may do as you are ordered."
"Really!" Hastings exclaimed. "Captain, hundreds of men died yesterday, and you won't allow us to pay our respects for them?"
"I will when the dead start paying respects back," she said, not turning around.
Theo walked up the stairs towards the helm. "Look, please –"
Joanna whirled on him. "It is not your place to question your captain, nor is it my job to concern myself with those who have fallen behind!" she said in a low voice. "However, it is your place to obey my orders and it is my job to protect my living crew so they do no join the fallen. And I cannot keep proper watch over the living and the dead at the same time. So I will concern myself with the living, Theo, and make sure they remain in that condition for as long as possible. I accept what I cannot change and I advise that you do the same. Return to your post."
Silence hung heavy over the ship for a few moments as Theo and Joanna faced each other down. He was two steps below her, so she was able to look him straight in the eyes. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he backed down, saying "yes, ma'am," just as the wind picked up.