Jack rowed out to to the Queen Anne's Revenge and was greeted with smiles and claps on the back by all the men whom he had incited to mutiny when they'd sailed together under Blackbeard. He nodded to the cabin boy and found Scrum and shook hands with him. The fact that they'd held each other at sword point the last time they'd seen each other did not affect either of them; they grinned and thumped each other's backs like best friends.
Barbossa came stumping over to them. "Scrum, you'll be on deck, manning the big gun. Get it ready. Jack, come with me. With that mighty spyglass of yours, you'll be lookout as well as musketman,."
Jack smirked and followed him up to the quarter-deck. The sun was up by now, and the fog was beginning to lift. He unfurled his spyglass and looked to the horizon.
There it was. El Gavilón was a huge Spanish war galleon, and—yes, there she was—was captained by Angelica Teach. At the moment, he could see her on deck, staring through her own spyglass at the Black Pearl. Probably wondering why it was anchored, with furled sails and no one on deck, Jack thought to himself. He had left only Gibbs and Cotton on board, with directions to stay below out of sight unless they got boarded, and to fire a signal flare if they did. Jack was hoping that Angelica's curiosity would likely incite her to make mistakes.
Angelica swung her spyglass over toward to Revenge, and Jack quickly ducked out of sight. He didn't want to be seen until he was ready to be seen.
An oath from Barbossa made him pop his head back up to look again. The fog was lifting to reveal—
"Bugger," Jack agreed. "Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger!" There were six Spanish warships following the Gavilón. One bugger for each ship.
"Good God!" cried Scrum from the main deck. "She must have half the Spanish navy with her!" He glanced up at Jack on the quarter-deck. "You sure have a way with the ladies, squire!"
"Apparently so," Jack murmured. None of the plans they had come up with allowed for Angelica's bringing so many ships with her! Even if the Pearl were fighting, and if the Dutchman joined them, they would still be outnumbered. "Bugger!" he said again, summing up the whole situation. He looked up at Barbossa, who was gazing at the Gavilón with a serene, yet faintly predatory expression on his face.
It was the Gavilón that fired the first shot: just one single warning shot over the bow of the Revenge.
"What's she doing, Jack?" asked Barbossa, squinting into the risen sun.
Jack opened his huge spyglass and took a look. "Ha. She's looking through her spyglass, trying to see who we are," he replied. He lowered the spyglass and grinned. "She's seen us together. We really ought to greet the lady, Hector."
Barbossa took off his hat and waved it wildly at the Gavilón. Jack waved both arms in a cheerful greeting. Both men smiled broadly. Jack raised the spyglass back up and grinned. "She's dancing with rage and swearing. Better get ready for cannonfire."
Sure enough, they didn't have long to wait before a short volley of cannonballs came whistling through the air at them.
"Missed!" Jack yelled back, taunting her.
"Return fire!" Barbossa yelled. "Jaaack, it seems to me almost as if the lady ain't happy to see us!"
The Revenge shot a volley at the Gavilón. One of them hit a cannon on the deck. It flipped end-over-end and smashed through the gunwale on the other side. Another smashed through the bowsprit, leaving the foremasts flapping uselessly.
The second Spanish ship sailed up to join El Gavilón and fired a volley at the Revenge. It fell short. They heard the thud of a couple of balls hitting the side, but no cracking of timbers.
A third ship began to move up into position to attack the Revenge, and Jack exchanged worried glances with Barbossa. He set down the glass and picked up his musket.
Teague's Enforcer moved up to flank the first Spaniard, trapping it between the two pirate vessels.
"Fire, ya bunch of melonheads!" shouted Barbossa. "We'll grind it up between us like sausage!"
"'Melonheads,' Hector?" Jack asked, amused, as he took aim with his musket at one of the gunners on the Gavilón. "Your profanity's shocking, even for a sailor." He pulled the trigger and the gunner hit the deck. He tossed down the empty musket for the cabin boy to reload.
"Oh, shut it," Barbossa told him sourly.
Jack raised his glass to see what was happening. He couldn't see much; the air was filled with smoke from the cannons. All around him he could hear men screaming and moaning in pain, shouting in Spanish, cursing in English. The boom of the cannons was nearly deafening, combined with the crack of muskets.
There was one deep BOOM! and Barbossa looked up, startled. "What was that?"
"Ha ha ha!" Jack crowed, laughing in glee as he focused his spyglass on the furthest ship. "Marty's just taken out one of the warships with the long-nine on the hill! Ha!" The breeze freshened and lifted some of the smoke-haze.
Barbossa laughed and whooped. "Down to six!" he cried.
Jack caught movement from the corner of his eye. "Look out!" Jack screamed, diving for Barbossa's legs. They both went down hard. A cannonball splintered through the deck exactly where Barbossa had been standing.
Barbossa had landed squarely on top of Jack, knocking the breath from his body. Barbossa untangled his foot and his wooden leg from Jack's baldric and rolled off the smaller man. "Why, thank ye, Jack," he said calmly. He rolled to his feet and offered Jack a hand.
Jack lay there for a moment, wondering if his body would ever remember how to breathe again. Barbossa nodded. "Knocked your wind out?" He waited, hand out, until Jack could breathe again enough to get up. They both glared over at the Spanish ship at the disappointed gunner.
"Here, sir!" chirped the cabin boy, shoving a reloaded musket back into Jack's hands. With one smooth motion, Jack lifted the musket to his shoulder and shot the gunner dead. Barbossa grunted in satisfaction. Jack handed the musket back to the boy, who scampered down to reload it again.
El Gavilón had lost some more guns in the last volley and had some holes above the waterline, but had sustained no serious damage yet. The Queen Anne's Revenge—whether due to Blackbeard's magic or just her sturdy English oak—only had a couple of hits, and they were above the waterline. El Gavilón apparently had more powder than the Spaniard on the other side of the Revenge. The other ship's shots kept falling short. Teague's gunners and the men of the Revenge continued to make hamburger out of it.
Jack glanced around and had a sudden, frightening thought. "Hector, there's only one ship over there," he pointed in the Enforcer's direction, "And only one over there," he pointed to the Gavilón.
"Fire!" Barbossa shouted. "Fire all!" He said to Jack, "So?"
Jack brought his spyglass up the ratline a short way so he could see over the smoke. "Sod it!" he yelled.
"What's the matter?" Barbossa bellowed.
"We have two engaged here, and there're four closing in on the Empress!"
"Damnation!" Barbossa swore.
Just then the Spanish ship between the Revenge and the Enforcer evidently decided it had had enough of being ground like sausage meat. It raised a white flag.
They heard Teague's voice booming across the water, telling the captain of the ship in Spanish to "Stay there or die!"
"Down to five!" Barbossa hollered in the comparative silence as the smoke began to clear.
El Gavilón had begun pulling back, tacking a little into the wind.
"Here, what's she doing?" Barbossa asked.
"Bugger," Jack swore. "She's going after the Empress as well." He jumped down from his perch back into the deck.
Teague apparently reached the same conclusion at the same time, for he let down the sails on his ship and headed past them to intercept the other warships. "Long live the king!" he shouted as he sailed past.
"What are you all standing around like sheep for?" Barbossa demanded of his crew. "Get after them!
Jack bellowed, "Come on, you heard the man! Go! Go! Go on!"
BOOM! came another thunderous shot from one of the long-nines on the hill overlooking the Cove. They watched the cannonball as it whistled overhead and smashed into the prow of the Gavilón. It splintered into the top deck from above, but did not have any other effect.
"Marty, don't waste 'em," Jack muttered. Then he noticed something. "Funny you should mention sheep," he said to Barbossa. The boy came back and reloaded his musket for him.
"What's that?"
"Look where they are!" Jack pointed. "If we could play the wolf an' herd 'em a bit to the south—"
"—We'd have half of them in the shoals before they realized it," Barbossa finished. He strode forward around the deck, ordering his gunners to fire in a specific pattern. In front of them, Teague obviously had the same thought, as his cannons fired front-to-back, one right after the other, forcing the nearest ship to veer hard to port. The sound was nearly deafening.
"Aye, that's the way!" Barbossa shouted encouragement to his men to do the same.
"Come on! Harry them, harry them, harry them!" Jack yelled. He raised the glass to his eye again and laughed. He handed it to Barbossa. "Clever girl. Take a look."
Barbossa looked. "She's no fool, our king," he said, impressed. "She's hiding in plain sight just out of range."
"Aye. If they want to get into range to shoot at her, they'll most likely hit the reef first!" Jack took back the spyglass. "Let's see if we can draw them off her, maybe grind up a few more sausages for the Enforcer's lunch."
Barbossa nodded and gave orders, but Jack frowned as he peered through the spyglass again. El Gavilón had outstripped the rest of the Spanish fleet who were being distracted by Teague's Enforcer, and appeared to be heading toward the Pearl.
"Bog it," he muttered. He slapped Barbossa on the shoulder and thrust the spyglass into his hand.
"New plan, Hector," he said.
"Eh?"
"You and Teague operate the sausage grinder without me. She's going after my Pearl!"
"What? No! Jack, you can't—"
It was too late. Jack was over the side in an instant, swimming for all he was worth.
"What kind of an idiot goes for a swim in the midst of a battle?" Barbossa bawled over the side after him. "Serve you right to get blown away, ye slack-jawed fool!"
Feeling better for the insult, as it rankled after a while to be nice to Jack, Barbossa nodded in satisfaction. His hand fell onto the pommel of his sword and he grinned. "Maybe just a tiny bit of supernatural help," he told himself. He used the sword's power to fill the other ships' sails, blowing them toward the shoals. He left them enough room to maneuver around them if they knew the shoals were there, though. It was only sportin' after all.
They ran aground.
Barbossa clucked his tongue in mock sympathy when the first ship ran aground on the shoals. "Aw, didn't know those were there?" he commiserated. "Poor Spaniards." He raised his voice. "They're sitting ducks now, men. And what do ye do with a sitting duck?"
"You blow it out of the water!" called back Scrum, Jack's friend, who was manning a cannon on deck.
"I like your enthusiasm, Mr Scrum!" Barbossa hollered. "Now see it done, man!"
Note: Someone PM'ed me about Elizabeth's baby, saying she didn't seem to spend much time with him. That is absolutely true; by modern standards, she doesn't. Infant mortality was much higher back then, and often parents didn't establish much of a bond with their infants until after they were sure the baby was going to live. Elizabeth is probably a lot closer to Jacob than she would have been in real life, because she nurses him herself; historically she would have hired a wet-nurse if she could afford it. Society in general was much more adult-centered than child-centered back then, and children were often an afterthought. I'm sure Elizabeth loves her baby-probably more than the average young mother, because of the circumstances surrounding his birth and infancy-but she has not let the child become her entire raison d'etre. Her attitude is a little more doting than what would be historically accurate. In real life if she could afford it, she would have hired a wet-nurse until the child was weaned, and then a nurse/nanny until the child started school, and then a governess until the child was a teenager, and then a tutor (probably male) until he was fully educated. She would have spent a little time with the child in the evenings, but that's about it.
Author's opinion: Personally, I wish modern western society were not so child-centric as it is now; I think that sort of mindset leads to adults maintaining childish attitudes and worldviews long after they are legally adults. Not all of them, by any means, but in my experience it is a majority. When young people get to be adults, they already should have been prepared to assume the responsibilities of adulthood. Sadly, few parents or schools do this for their children-prepare them for adulthood.