Author's Note: This chapter mentions some of the more grisly symptoms of serious illness. Also, lactation and breastfeeding is detailed. There's also some groping and nudity, but in a caregiving context rather than a sexual one.
Chapter 3: The Plague
Jack was enjoying his monthly visits to Elizabeth. They had got to be fairly good friends, and it was nice to be able to spend time with her, without having to worry about mutinies, krakens, betrayal, and death. That in itself was a nice change, after his recent hair-raising experiences with Angelica Teach at the Fountain of Youth. There was also little Jacob, who—Jack fondly hoped—was beginning to recognize him.
Best of all, Elizabeth was pretty to look at and amusing to talk to, after spending so much time with pirates. She was also intelligent and educated, and he didn't have to dumb down his speech when he talked with her. He liked being able, just for a brief period of time, to pretend that he was the respectable sort of man who could come to call on a respectable woman like her.
He never made any advances, even though he was very attracted to her and liked and admired her a great deal. He'd never drawn that boundary before with any other married woman, but somehow Elizabeth was different. He told himself it was the fact that she was married to the man who captained the ship of the dead, and he didn't want to get on Will Turner's bad side—but even if it hadn't been for Will, he wasn't sure he would have tried to seduce Elizabeth. He respected her too much. He flirted outrageously, of course, but always in such a way that they could both laugh it off and she would feel a little more attractive than before.
He found himself looking forward to each full moon, and in between times, making port at Tortuga frequently to see if she had written him anything.
However, the next time he picked up his mail at the Faithfull Bryde, he had a single letter in a hand he didn't recognize. It was dated five days ago.
Instead of Elizabeth's breezy Dear Jack, this letter began:
Hon. John Robert Passer, Esq.
Der Sir:
You don't know me, but Mrs Turner who live Up the Hill says you may be Relied on in an Emergency.
Sir, she is ill of an infeckshus fever and her Child With Her. My Husband forbids me to see her again till she be Well, so as not to spread Contagion in the Village. But Sir I fear for her life and that of her Child as she has No One to Tend her. If you can, Please Send help Immediately.
Mrs Thomas Hound
"GIBBS!" Jack bellowed.
His first mate, comfortably ensconced in a chair with a beer in front of him and a girl on his knee, looked up. "Aye, Captain?"
"Gather the men. We're leaving."
"But Jack, we just got here!"
Jack strode by, handed him the letter with a clap on the shoulder, and kept on walking. "Cotton! Ragetti! Marty! Pintel! Back to the ship immediately!"
"Two or three others are already upstairs, Captain," Marty ventured.
"Well, go get them, man! They can finish next time. Any man not aboard the Pearl in fifteen minutes gets left behind for good."
"Make it ten!" Gibbs bellowed from behind him. He handed Jack the letter back with a nod. "Captain, I'll have 'em there in ten."
"Good man, Gibbs."
From Tortuga to New Flimwell was two days' journey with favorable winds, but with stormy weather it could take as long as five or six. Elizabeth could be dead by then. For that matter, she could have been dead by the time he got the message. Jack paced the deck during the day and slept early at night, to make the time go faster.
Fortunately, they had fair winds. They arrived in the middle of the night, and Jack leaped aboard one of the jolly boats. "Cotton, you'll be staying here," he told the mute man who was helping them load the boat. "Pass down that bundle, will you?" Cotton handed down a small bundle of assorted blankets and medical remedies that Jack had prepared. "Gibbs, Marty, you're with me."
They rowed ashore, and Jack leaped out and ran full-tilt up the hill, leaving the other two to pull up and secure the boat and bring up the supplies. Jack arrived breathless outside the little cottage and banged on the door. Getting no answer, he tried the latch, but it was locked. He went around and climbed in through the bedroom window like he usually did.
The smell made him gag, but he took a moment to sniff and analyze it. Vomit, excrement, fever, and stale sweat, but thankfully no rot. They might not be dead after all. Yet.
He struck a light and lit up the lantern he had brought, and looked around. The baby lay still and naked in his cot surrounded by filthy cloths, and Jack had to hold the lantern right over him and peer hard to see his little chest moving up and down. "One alive," he muttered. He went over to Elizabeth's bed, wrinkling his nose as the stench increased. He held the lantern over her unmoving form and bent down closely. He couldn't see her ribcage moving. Panicked, he put his hand on the side of her neck, feeling for a pulse, and there it was: slow and barely perceptible, but steady. Her skin was clammy, but it was from sweat, not death, and he sighed in relief. "Two alive, but only just. Right," he muttered. He lit the bedroom lamp and went through to unlock the front door for the men he could hear laboring up the hill behind him. The main living area wasn't as bad, but he still threw wide the shutters and took a few gulps of clean, fresh air. The others got to the door and dumped the supplies on the ground outside the little house.
"How are they, Captain?" Gibbs asked anxiously.
"Both alive, barely. I'll need some water and broth for the lady, right away." He grabbed the glass that Marty handed him, filled it from the bucket on the table, and turned to head back in. "At sunrise, Marty, you go down by the village and see if you can 'liberate' a milking goat." He turned to Gibbs. "The house is uninhabitable. I'm going to see if I can get them to a fit state to be moved, and then take 'em both down to the Pearl."
"Aye, it does smell a bit like a Paris sewer in here. But they're both alive, ye say?"
"For now. Let me tend to the baby in here, and then I'll be bringing Mrs Turner out there; mind you cover up the divan with a cloth. She hasn't made it to the chamber pot for days, it would seem."
"Oh!" Gibbs made a face that was half sympathy and half disgust. "The poor lass. Aye, Captain, we'll see to it."
Jack took a moment to steel himself for the stench, and then went back into the bedroom to tend to the baby. Little Jake's face looked gaunt. So did his mother's, for that matter. At several points she had lost her bowels and vomited in her bed, and Jack wrinkled his nose at the smell. He took a clean sheet and covered up the mess, and then picked up the baby. Jake's eyes opened but he didn't move. Jack was shocked at how light he was.
"Not a good idea to be reducing at your age, my lad," he told the child. He used his free hand and his knee to shove Elizabeth into a sitting position, then eased himself in behind her so he was leaning against the headboard and she was leaning against him. He reached around to unfasten her nightgown in front. Her breasts felt hot and swollen. Clucking his tongue, he put the baby on her lap and held its head up to suckle.
"Not exactly how I've imagined seeing them, Lizzie dear," he muttered as the baby latched on and started sucking greedily. "Or feeling them, either. You realize you'll owe me a proper viewing later." He got the glass of water he had brought in, and held it up to her lips. The water dribbled out the sides of her slack mouth, but she swallowed some of it; he could see her throat muscles working. "Good girl. Little more." He gave her another few swallows and then set the glass down.
The baby nursed energetically and singlemindedly. Jack didn't blame him; from the state of things, he guessed that it had been at least two days since she'd been able to get out of bed to feed the baby at all. Possibly longer.
Even now, she whimpered in pain and pawed at the baby. Jack grabbed her hands in his free one. "None of that, love. Not if you want your son to live. I know it hurts, but this will make it better."
Either his words or the low, soothing tones of his voice calmed her and she lay still. She turned her head where it lolled on his shoulder. "Jack?" she whispered.
"Aye, Lizzie, I'm here."
"Thank God." She sighed and seemed to nestle into his body as if she could finally relax now.
Jack detached the infant from the first breast and felt it. The swelling and heat had gone down a little. He switched it to the other one. "Hope you're hungry, lad."
He gave Elizabeth some more water while the baby nursed, and just about the time the baby was finished, Gibbs knocked on the door to say the broth was ready. Jack quickly fastened Elizabeth's nightgown again and eased out from behind her. He picked up the baby and brought him to the door. "Here, take this," he told him, handing the larger man Jacob's tiny body, replete with milk. "I've got to get her out of that room."
"'Tis more than a bit ripe in there. Must have been ill for a while, eh?" Gibbs looked down at the baby and started to coo over him.
"Best wrap him up in something, Gibbs. He just ate. And with babies, what goes in—"
"Must come out, aye." Gibbs took the baby outside and Jack heard him tearing up a sheet into some more usable pieces. Jack carried Elizabeth out to the cloth-covered divan. Her nightgown was filthy and her skin was caked with dried vomit, among other things. He gagged a little. "She needs a bath, and so does the baby. And a doctor." He started to feed her the broth.
"Why not just take 'em both down to the beach, Captain?" Marty asked. "Be a sight easier than hauling water up here and heating it. She'll need two or three baths, from the look of things. And then there's the laundry—"
"No, that'll all have to be burned," Jack decided. "We'll take them to the Pearl, and Cotton can see to them. Marty, get us a blanket to carry her in, would you? And another clean one with it, for after she's bathed. See if she'll take some of the broth. I'll grab some things for her to wear." Jack went back into the bedroom and opened her dresser drawers, grabbing some clothes at random. He grinned when he saw the unused dresses next to the obviously worn shirt and breeches. He found a sailor's duffle in her closet and threw some clothes into it. Clean shirt and breeches, clean nightgown… he grinned as he threw in a clean dress along with it. "A dress or nothing," he muttered. "Heh! She'd kill me." That is, if she lived long enough to be angry.
Author's Note (2): Influenza back in the 1700s was not just the "flu" that we get today that's more like a bad cold. Influenza could devastate a population in less than a week. That's probably what Elizabeth and her baby had, although there were any number of fevers with a similar incubation period and mortality rate. Yellow fever—also called "yellow jack" (as was the yellow quarantine flag that a ship had to fly if anyone on board was ill with it)—was another likely culprit. I'll let you decide which it was, but whatever it was, it was serious!
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