"This. Is. MADNESS!"
No one disagreed with me, or at least, I think no one did. It was hard to tell with the wind and the rain gusting all around us making it difficult to see or hear anyone farther than a few inches in front of you. Will placed his hand on my shoulder.
"It'll be over soon." He yelled through the rain.
I rolled my eyes. "Whatever." I mumbled, ending the conversation though I wanted to keep it going, but it was raining to hard to be talking unless you wanted to drown standing up.
"Brace up the fore yards!" Jack suddenly demanded from the wheel and everyone set out to start to work.
Gibbs raced up to Will and I when a wave hit the side of the ship and set us flying backwards, even more soaked than we already were. I cursed under my breath and stood back up a little light headed.
Will glanced at Jack then to Gibbs. "How can we sail to an island that no one can find-" He spat out some water while pulling on one of the ropes. "with a compass that doesn't work?"
"Aye, the compass doesn't point north." Gibbs agreed with Will as another wave hit the ship but we were able to hang on. "But we're not trying to find north, are we?"
I stopped what I was doing for a split second to ponder what he had just said. "Not trying to find north?" I asked out loud. "Are you saying the compass doesn't work...yet in some weird, out of this world, magical way...it does?"
"Aye." Gibbs said brightly.
He then left to go talk to the captain. I turned to Will who had a similar look on his face as me. "Did you understand any of that?"
I shook my head. "Not one bit."
Will turned and looked up where Jack was and Gibbs was sitting on the stairs after another wave had knocked them over. Jack had the smallest hint of a smirk upon his face.
"What do you think has put him in such a good mood?"
I rolled my eyes at his question; I would've thought it was obvious. "Either he's picturing a naked woman in his mind-" Will gave me a hard look. "or...we're catching up."
My guess was correct. The next morning, at dawn, we reached the island of Isla de Muerta which, to me, didn't look all that dreaded as everyone had made it to be.
"Well...this place doesn't look that bad."
Will tapped my shoulder. "What?" I asked and he pointed to the opposite direction I was looking at. Me eyes followed to where he was pointing at and I suddenly felt foolish from what I had said before.
"I take that back."
Where we all were looking my several ships that were abandoned and rather rotten, moldy...the sight would make you want to hurl...not to mention the many skeletons of sailors that had passed away around it. One had a sword sticking out of it's skull.
"Dead men tell no tales." Cotton's parrot suddenly said from the front of the ship and I had to agree; we were now sailing through a passage that had many sunken ship and sharks below us.
Gibbs shuddered. "Puts a chill in the bones how many honest sailors have been claimed by this passage." he started to walk away but Will stopped him with a question.
"How is it that Jack came by that compass?"
Gibbs didn't meet Will eyes as he tightened a rope. "Not a lot's known about Jack Sparrow before he showed up in Tortuga with a mind to go after the treasure of the Isla de Muerta." He finished tightening the rope and stood up to have a drink from his canteen. "That was before I met him, back when he was Captain of the Black Pearl."
Will and I both spun around. "What?" Gibbs eyes went wide, like he said something he shouldn't have. "He failed to mention that."
"Well, he plays things closer to the vest now. And a hard-learned lesson it was."
"How so?" I asked and he smiled and started to explain.
"See, three days out on the venture the first mate comes to him and says everything's an equal share. That should mean the location of the treasure, too, so Jack gives up the bearings. That night there was a mutiny. They marooned Jack on an island and left him to die but not before he'd gone mad with the heat."
Will nodded. "Ah. So that's the reason for all the-" He made movements like Jack would and Gibbs looked at him sternly.
"Reason's got nothing to do with it. Now Will and Cassandra, when a man is marooned he is a given a pistol with a single shot. One shot. Well it won't do much good hunting or to be rescued. But after three weeks of a starving belly and thirst, that pistol start's to look real friendly." He started, shaping his hand like a pistol and pointing to his head. "But Jack he escaped the island, and he still has that one shot. Oh, but he won't use it, though, save for one man: His mutinous first mate."
"Barbossa." Will said, more a statement than a question.
"Aye."
He looked a floor for a spilt second then asked another question. "How did Jack get off the island?"
"Well, I'll tell ye. He waded out into the shallows and there he waited three days and three nights till all manner of sea creature came and acclimated to his presence. And on the fourth morning, he roped himself a couple of sea turtles, lashed them together and made a raft."
Will had his eyebrows raised like me and I'm sure he was thinking the same thing. "He roped a couple of sea turtles?" He asked for confirmation and Gibbs nodded.
"What did he use for rope?" I suddenly asked; Gibbs opened his mouth to speak but stopped which made me realize that he didn't know that answer, but he suddenly looked up at the man who had just walked up to us.
"Human hair." Jack said. "From my back."
"How'd you get the hair off?"
He didn't answer my question but turned to crew. "Let go of the anchor!"
"Let go of the anchor, sir!" Someone replied and he smiled.
"Young Mr. Turner, Miss Livingston, and I are to go ashore." He told Gibbs who suddenly looked frightful.
"Captain! What if the worst should happen?"
Jack looked thoughtful for a moment. "Keep to the code."
"Aye..the code."