SEVEN: Durian Jam
Junks. Search all junks. And question them. New orders in the search for wanted fugitive Cutler Beckett.
Lord Leonard was on board his vessel, the Outrecuidance, and still in Caribbean waters. He was with the Company; overseeing things, as usual. Slave trades from Africa, piracy, that sort of thing. The Outrecuidance was much the same build as the Endeavour had been, though noticeably smaller, a fact Leonard had disliked... but he had been tentatively told that another ship as large as the Endeavour, they felt, would really be pushing it.
Hmm... still, there wasn't much he could do about that. He stirred his tea (!) and looked around himself peacefully, before settling down for some writing. He wasn't really the action type. More the sneaky type... he had men to do that sort of thing for him!
And so had Beckett, beforehand. Which made his attempts of survival in the real world all the more difficult.
----------
Beckett had realized something.
And that something was that the words 'I'm not crazy' bounced straight off of all physicians, especially ones who had been convinced that the sayee of said words was indeed crazy. Beckett folded his arms and looked at Guan, rather annoyed. He felt he had a right to be rather annoyed. He wasn't crazy. He wondered if Elizabeth wanted him out of the way or something.
"Doctor Do," he said, sitting forwards, "Look, I'm fine. Surely you can see that?"
"The problem with crazy people is that they never think they're crazy," Guan smiled, his teeth strangely clean for a pirate, his whispering Asian accent very much affecting his speech but still easily comprehensible, "I have an idea for you."
Beckett rolled his eyes as Guan Do stood up and walked over to a cupboard, rummaging through it. Ship's surgeons were not the most delicate of doctors—not like the physicians that Beckett had come to expect. The sawed limbs off, roughly stitched men back together and pulled out teeth... they were that kind of doctor. In a similar vein, what Guan came back with very quickly terrified Beckett more than almost anything else he had encountered on his journeys thus far.
It looked like some grotesque and violent mask—a sort of metal helmet thing for his head. The worst thing was that the outside had long spines coming out of it, and they travelled through to the inside of the helmet, and they were pointy. It was like an instrument of torture. Guan pulled the spikes out fully, so that none remained inside. However, Beckett could see a few Durian-like spikes inside.
Ah; durians. They are a type of fruit, yellow or green in colour, and covered in small, blunt spikes, which makes them rather hard to eat. However, inside, there lies the tasty, and very creamy flesh of the durian—mm, banana-y!
Durians are also a good metaphor for certain people; spiky on the outside, separated from the world by a barrier of prickles... yet on the inside, it's smooth and sweet as custard and tasting of bananas and alcohol! Am I talking about Cutler Beckett? Perhaps not. But do note that durians have an incredibly pungent smell.
Anyhow, enough talk of durians... this is turning into a cookery lesson. Beckett was too preoccupied staring at the hideous contraption to be wandering off on thoughts about Southeast Asian fruits—this thing was going to kill him! Beckett eyed Guan warily.
"What's that for?" he asked, suspiciously.
"This," Guan explained, "Goes on your head, with the-," he didn't get to explain the fine mechanics of pressure points on the skull and helping to relieve stress, because Beckett leapt off of the bunk as if he'd been struck by lightning.
"You are not putting that thing on my head," Beckett said sternly, "If you try, I will have to kill you." At this point, he would have liked to brandish a weapon, but he found that he had none.
"Sir, this wont harm you," Guan seemed unsure of how to explain it, "It's-,"
"It will skewer my brain!" Beckett put a lot of emphasis on his words, as if that would help to get the meaning across clearly. Guan wrinkled his nose.
"No, sir, they can't penetrate the skull, it simply-," he was, for the third time, interrupted. But not by speech. He just felt it rather unnecessary to speak to thin air, seeing as Beckett had made a bid for freedom, and was now out of the door and gone. Placing the helmet back down, Guan walked to the door of the sick bay, frowning.
Beckett was completely convinced that this 'doctor' was an absolute nut. Be it a peanut, coconut, walnut, chestnut, hazelnut or scrotum—he was obviously some sort of sick, twisted, madman! What other sort of person carried a helmet around that was full of spikes that could be shoved into your head?
In his hurry to get away from the madman, he ended up walking right into a man who he did not want to see—Jack Sparrow. Beckett made to walk around him, but Jack stepped sideways to block his path, grinning slightly evilly.
"Where're you off to, Cutler?" Jack asked.
"Don't call me Cutler, like we are equals of some description," Beckett fumed, holding a condescending finger up, "And where I am going is of no interest to you!"
"It is, however, if interest to me... Cutler," Elizabeth stepped into view, folding her arms. She had changed into some much more fearsome oriental clothing—not as grand as her Calypso garb, but impressive all the same—and looked to be a formidable enemy. Beckett, however, didn't care.
"Your doctor is a lunatic, and he's trying to cut my brain," Beckett explained. Elizabeth blinked. He's gone mad, she thought, he's cracked!
"Guan?" Elizabeth gestured for the ship's surgeon—who was looking slightly disapproving, to step forwards, "Please decipher what this man is talking about," she corrected herself, looking meaningfully at Jack and Beckett.
"I have a special... hmm... hat, which puts pressure on parts of the skull, a medical practice in the east," Guan nodded, his English a tad broken at explaining, "He won't let me," he looked towards Beckett, as if surprised that he didn't want what looked like a device of violent torture stuck onto his head. Beckett scowled.
"Oh, Christ, Beckett, just put the hat on, will you?" Elizabeth rolled her eyes.
"It's not that simple," Beckett said, narrowing his eyes, "Come and see this 'hat' yourself. You put it on." He folded his arms, seemingly obsolete about his decision. Elizabeth rolled her eyes and followed Guan back to the sick bay, dragging Beckett behind her, with a slightly-interested Jack Sparrow at their heels. At least he's talking to me, Elizabeth thought, slyly.
There was a short silence after Guan held up the helmet. The black metal glinted like dark oil in the candlelight, spikes and all.
"See?" Beckett sniffed, folding his arms.
"Well, that certainly... looks dangerous," Elizabeth cleared her throat, deciding to go for a more captainly approach, "If Cutler is too coward for your simple contraption," she smirked towards Beckett, "Then please, use the more easy method of medication and herbs and suchlike..." she waved an arm. She didn't know much about medicine; and what little she did know, she had learned from Beckett that time on the island when he had fallen ill with the grippe. "What food would you suggest?"
"I am always trying to get the sailors to eat more fruit... so many cases of scurvy, I have seen..." Guan shook his head, sadly, "There is a lot to be said for just a little bit of greenery in your diet."
"Quite," Beckett said, with such a note of withering hatred slamming down in the single syllable like a slab of stone that Guan actually took a step backwards.
Elizabeth would have laughed (and probably tried to disguise it), but her thoughts were elsewhere—the grippe. The memory made her stomach clench. It seemed like a lifetime ago now, how stressful even that simple life had been! A time when she had been a starstuck idiot, deciding to save Beckett's life because she had thought he was a good man underneath a wicked mask... foolish of her! He was far from a good man.
Jack Sparrow, his interest lost, turned and left; though Elizabeth stayed and watched, making sure Beckett didn't cause too much trouble, as Guan gave him three different medications of some description. Beckett was too busy being in a huff to ask, so simply took the medicine given and then left, though not before shooting a glare first at Elizabeth, then at Guan, and then his most powerful glare, usually reserved for traitors and beggars and London vendors trying to sell him things, towards the horrible helmet thing.
"What medicine did you give him?" Elizabeth asked, raising an eyebrow.
"The first was for rest, the second was for headaches... and the last, to stop his tongue," Guan said peaceably, with a slight smile. Elizabeth liked the way this man thought... she walked outside, to go and try to coax some incoherent gibberish from Beckett. Medicines that numbed the mouth had gained a new respect from her.
NB: OK, umm, so I promise it gets more interesting next chapter? For old time's sake, here's one of these...
NEXT TIME: With a barely suppressed yelp, Beckett shot backwards and ended up landing flat on his backside in a fairly undignified manner, which he detested. He made a grab for whatever had just attacked him in the darkness, missed, and then blinked at what he saw.