Lucky – I am quite frankly astonished that you found this but I am so glad that you reminded me about it because I do intend to continue with it. I have been so busy with the Lord of the Rings thing that I simply ran out of time for this one.
James was kept busy over the next few days, largely on Jack's orders, almost as if the pirate captain knew that he would brood over the situation if he did not occupy his mind with other things. James was not sure whether to be grateful or disturbed at this unusually acute perception on Sparrow's part; it was as if the disreputable pirate knew James's mind better than James did at this point. And yet Jack was more outrageously, well, Jack than ever before. There were times, though, when Norrington caught the man staring at him, a thoughtful expression on his face. That was even more disturbing, knowing what he did of Jack Sparrow's determination to use any situation to his advantage.
The Commodore-turned-fugitive turned his attention to Helena Eaton. He had not yet pressed her for the details of the knowledge that had ended in her parents' deaths and her subsequent exile from Port Royal, not wanting to upset her in the first days of what had to be a tremendous grief. He could not help but wonder, though, at her incredible bad luck. She was only a tailor's daughter, should no more have been involved in this than Sparrow should have, and yet here she was, standing on the deck of a ship or, more appropriately, sitting, appearing to be stitching a sail that had ripped. She was swamped in the material, small as she was, her attention focused on the task at hand. She did not notice that a certain pirate's eyes were watching her as well; Norrington did.
For all of his ill – mannered and roguish remarks the first night, Sparrow had been remarkably tolerant of and even kind to the young woman. His respect for her seemed to have risen a notch when she had asked on the second day what she could do to help aboard ship; he had, Norrington supposed, expected her to cause difficulty as Elizabeth had when aboard the previous year. Helena Eaton, however, was no nobleman's daughter; she had grown up working and would not be likely to stop simply because she was in unfamiliar surroundings. She was, however, understandably sheltered and so Norrington kept a watchful eye on Sparrow. Just then the pirate captain felt James watching him, rolled his eyes, and walked away, gesturing in a rather unflattering manner towards the Commodore. Norrington smiled; for once he had won the argument.
They were a week outside Port Royal before they came upon another ship. There was a cry from the crow's nest; "Ship hull-down to the West, coming our way! It's a blackbirder, Captain!" Jack looked up sharply, his face unguarded for a moment, and Norrington was given a glimpse of the real Jack Sparrow behind all the masks and tom-foolery. His eyes were wary and alert; every muscle was tense. He frowned.
"You're sure?"
"Aye, Captain. Sailing with a bone in her teeth too, must be empty."
Jack's lips thinned; he brought up his own telescope to take a look. He nodded grimly. "Miss Eaton, you may want to go below; you won't want to see this," he said, turning to the young woman and adding the last bit before she could protest. She closed her mouth and nodded, apparently willing to accept his word for it. He turned to the crew, which included Norrington. "Load the cannons and run up the red flag," he said lowly. James started visibly; the red flag meant no quarter.
"Sparrow, I refuse to stand here and watch you do something like this, much less help to carry out that order!" he exclaimed, shocked at the pirate's ferocity. Jack's eyes flashed; he turned to Norrington with a scowl on his face.
"It's Captain Sparrow, and you'll do as you're told, unless you'd like to join the lady in the cabin. I don't like slavers." James started to protest, but decided better of it. There was something wild and wolfish in the pirate's gaze that brooked no argument; that did not mean that Norrington had to like the command. He watched with a sick horror as the black barge approached them and then tried desperately to change course when they saw the Jolly Roger go up. They were too late; cries of agony reached Norrington's ears as the cannons went off and hit their targets.
"Why, Sparrow?" he murmured, staring at the carnage before him. Some of the pirates had begun to search the barge's deck, finishing off those the cannons had not hit. Jack came up behind the reluctant pirate just in time to hear his question.
"Wait until they've finished over there, and I'll show you why," he answered. Norrington jumped slightly, then looked over to the pirate with nothing short of disgust. He could think of no reason for this savagery save greed or perhaps some personal vendetta; neither were good enough reasons for such outright butchery. Sparrow watched him, infuriatingly calm after what he'd done. Norrington turned away.
"There is no good reason for this," he replied. Sparrow sighed.
"Come with me," he said. It was meant to sound like a request but Norrington knew an order when he heard one. He clenched his fists and followed the pirate across the gangplank to the barge and then down to the hold.
The first thing he noticed was the smell; in years afterwards James would wake in the night and imagine he yet smelled that odor, a nauseating mix of sweat and blood and excrement all mingled that threatened to choke him. It was dark to such an extent that James could no longer see Jack once he had disappeared below the deck and cramped beyond belief.
"Three hundred slaves are packed in here," Jack said from somewhere in the darkness, his voice gone hard. "Men, women, children, it doesn't matter to them so long as they'll bring in a profit. Half of them die on the way to Martinique; the other half are brought further in to be sold to the sugar plantations. And you ask why I object?"
"This is revolting," James choked out, biting back on the urge to retch. Jack said nothing; he simply led the way out of the hold.
"Sink her," he ordered once he reached the Pearl. Gibbs nodded; he knew how both Jack and Annamaria felt about slave ships. Norrington watched as the barge sank below the waves, now deeply morally confused. Who was he to condemn: the depraved monsters who would do this to their fellow humans, or the pirate who had spared no mercy in putting an end to them?
He joined Jack on the deck that night; he cleared his throat before speaking. Sparrow remained staring out to sea; James almost didn't notice that the pirate's shoulders had gone stiff.
"I – owe you an apology. You were right," Norrington admitted. The tenseness receded.
" 'Pology accepted. You weren't entirely wrong." James started, then nodded slightly in acceptance of the admission and turned away. It did not occur to him until much later how odd it was that Sparrow should have felt the need to explain himself to Norrington or that he had tensed when he sensed the Commodore behind him, almost as if he had dreaded what James might say.
Ok now for the definitions and such. A blackbirder is, obviously, a slave ship, so named for their often black hulls and the fact that slaves were called blackbirds in slang terms. "Hull – down" means just visible on the horizon, and "sailing with a bone in her teeth" means sailing so fast that the ship makes a white wave in front of her, thus the "bone."
A.N. Please note that Jack was not being entirely altruistic about the slavers; an empty slave ship meant one that had just been paid after dropping off its cargo. It would have been more than worth the pirates' effort even if they didn't care about the slaves.