It was just before sunrise when Gibbs replaced Cotton at the helm. The storm, which had been little more than a cloudburst, had passed quickly enough, leaving behind the fresh scent of rain in the pre-dawn chill. Gibbs breathed in a lungful of cool air and wished that this weather would hold, but he knew that once the sun was up the Caribbean heat would begin to take over. By noon they would all be frying on the deck.
He took a swig from his flask, holding the wheel with his free hand and squinting at the pale light in the east. They would need another heading soon. Jack had insisted that they sail through the night, which, given their circumstances, was entirely reasonable. So they had cast off from Tortuga and set a course in the direction the compass had pointed when Elizabeth took hold of it, and they had kept that course. Where they were now, Gibbs was not entirely sure, but he did know they were making excellent time. And he thanked his lucky stars for that, because Jones's deadline was fast approaching. If they failed to find the heart in time, and it came down to deciding between the lives of one hundred men aboard the Pearl or Jack's soul, Gibbs was afraid he knew which the captain would choose.
Out of all the morally questionable acts he had committed throughout his years of piracy, this was by far the worst. Jack had been a good friend to him on more than one occasion, and Gibbs owed him for that, but even he could see that it was no good condemning an entire crew to a life aboard the Dutchman just so that Jack could save his own skin. However, the alternative was hardly pleasant.
Gibbs had heard the tales and seen the whalebone carvings of the Kraken, and he hoped he never had to see that horror in person.
Adding to these troubles was the appearance of James Norrington. At first glance, this really didn't seem to be much of a problem, save that it rubbed nerves raw amongst the crew, but Gibbs couldn't help seeing his former commanding officer as something of an albatross. It wasn't that Norrington was a bad sort. Gibbs knew him to be a decent man, even a good man, in the past, but the worst kind of luck seemed to follow him. It was, after all, Norrington who had been the first lieutenant on the Dauntless nine years ago when they had plucked William Turner from the water, and that was really where the lamentable mess with the Aztec treasure had begun. Then, he had taken command of the Interceptor, which had later exploded in spectacular fashion. He had sailed the Dauntless to the Isla de Muerta, where an entire troop of Marines had been slaughtered by Barbossa's skeleton horde. Shortly afterwards, the island itself had inexplicably fallen into the sea. And then, as the crowning achievement of his brilliant career, the commodore had sailed one of the only first-rate warships in the Royal Navy into a hurricane, where the Dauntless had broken to bits and taken over half her crew with her to the deep.
Simply put, James Norrington was a Jonah, which was absolutely the last thing that the Pearl needed.
And on top of all of this was Elizabeth. No matter how much Gibbs might have liked her, he still held fast to the notion that having a woman aboard was bad luck.
This meant that, in total, they had with them a former commodore whom good fortune avoided like the plague; a governor's daughter on the run from the East India Trading Company; and a captain who had been marked by the Black Spot.
The odds were rapidly stacking against them.
"Mister Gibbs!" called the familiar droll voice, and the first mate turned to see Jack swaying up the steps and onto the deck, "Is there any more speed to be coaxed from these sails?"
"I do believe the Pearl is catchin' every bit of wind to be had," Gibbs replied, steadying the wheel.
Jack stuck his tongue out in disgust at the news.
"And we'll be needin' a new heading soon," added Gibbs.
Sparrow paused and suddenly grew serious, his eyes darkening. "Aye, that we will," he muttered, staring blankly at a point just over Gibbs's shoulder, and to Gibbs it was obvious what the trouble was. As inscrutable as the captain usually was, there were times when he was painfully transparent. For instance, it wasn't difficult to tell when he had no desire to face a woman. Anamaria induced the same expression.
"I imagine that Miss Elizabeth isn't bein' so cooperative on account of ye tellin' her how the boy came to be on the Dutchman in the first place?" prodded Gibbs with a humorless smile.
"Insofar as Elizabeth is concerned," began Jack in conspiratorial fashion, drawing closer to his first mate, "Dear William went bravely into the entirely accidental, miserable, and otherwise quite possibly deadly situation in which he now finds himself, until such time that the aforementioned heart of Davy Jones may be used to bargain for his eternal soul. Savvy?"
"Aye," Gibbs said with a knowing smile as he nodded, "And what exactly be the plan should our three days to collect your payment run out before we make our destination?"
They both knew that it had been over forty eight hours since Jones had issued his ultimatum. They had until sundown today to either return with the souls or retrieve the heart.
"Then I shall bargain with the good captain, using my inequivocabile skills of persuasion, to allow us to turn over the souls we've collected as a payment of good faith, and then we shall be merrily on our way," concluded Jack, showing his gold teeth in a crooked grin as he clapped bejeweled hands together.
"And ye think Jones is likely to accept four souls out of a hundred?"
Jack frowned, his lip twitching in distaste. "Four? No, of course not!"
Gibbs felt a sense of dread begin inside him.
"I do believe you are forgetting to include our dear former commodore in your calculations," Sparrow corrected, before grimacing, "I suppose he does actually qualify as an acceptable sort of soul, does he not?"
The tension in Gibbs stomach released. At least Jack hadn't yet decided it was necessary to cart the crew of the Pearl, en masse, onto the Dutchman. Instead he just intended to turn over James, who, Jonah or not, Gibbs was not sure deserved such a fate. Nobody did, really. Except for perhaps that murderous tyrant Beckett... Gibbs had never had the pleasure of personally meeting the man in charge of the East India Trading Company, but he had heard Jack describe him in great detail, and that was enough.
Gibbs thought on this for a moment before speaking again.
"What if this plan of yours goes altogether pear-shaped and the heart ne'er crosses our path?" he asked, squinting sideways at the captain.
"Then we best be gettin' ourselves to land, mate," replied Jack gravely, before he turned and began to swagger towards the steps.
"And what of the boy?"
Jack halted mid-step and whirled around. "In the unfortunate and unlikely event that such regrettable circumstances should occur, I am afraid that poor William would be sentenced to a life aboard the Flying Dutchman, condemned to serve, as it were, so that the rest of us... might live," he explained eloquently, placing a hand over his heart and pausing in reverent silence. When he had finished, Gibbs watched as he thudded down onto the quarterdeck before disappearing into his cabin.
Through all of this, it was nothing short of a miracle that neither one of them noticed the lanky frame of James Norrington leaning just beneath the stairs, camouflaged in his shades of navy blue and dark brown, having listened to every word just said.
It was the first scrap of luck he'd had in over a year.