The Interceptor cuts across the waves with Jack at the wheel as Will tightened a line, moving back astern.
"Do you know if there are any extra clothes?" I asked them.
"I saw some in the captain's quarters, no dresses but it's a change of clothes." Will told me and I nodded before leaving. When I went back up I was wearing black tight trousers and a red top. I managed to get everything to fit and even found a pair of knee high black boots. I walked to Jack and Will as one steered the ship and the other sharpened his sword with a whetstone.
"For a man whose made an industry of avoiding boats, you're a quick study." Jack told Will.
"I worked passage from England as a cabin boy." Will told him. I remembered that. Once he was strong enough he asked the captain if he could help out around the ship as payment for them saving him. "After my mother passed, I came out here ... looking for my father."
"Is that so?" Jack asked him.
"My father. William Turner?" Will said looking up at Jack. It was odd that Jack had refused to help us until he knew his name. "I'm not a simpleton. At the jail - it was only after you learned my name that you agreed to help." Will said before smiling. "Since that's what we wanted, I didn't press the matter. But now... You knew my father." We watched as Jack seemed to consider what to say.
"I knew him. Probably one of the few who knew him as William Turner. Most everyone just called him Bill, or 'Bootstrap' Bill." Jack told him.
"'Bootstrap?'" I asked. "That sounds like a pirate nickname." Jack nodded at my words.
"Good man. Good pirate. And clever - I never met anyone with as clever a mind and hands as him. When you were puzzling out that cell door, it was like seeing his twin." Jack told Will.
"That's not true." Will said angrily.
"Will, he could be telling the truth." I told him.
"He's a pirate, he could never tell us the truth." Will told me.
"I swear, you look just like him." Jack said breaking up our fight.
"It's not true that my father was a pirate." Will told him, confidence pouring out every word.
"Figured you wouldn't want to hear it." Jack told him.
"He was a merchant marine! He was a respectable man who obeyed the law, and followed the rules-" Will told him and Jack laughed at him.
"You think your father is the only man who ever lived the Glasgow life, telling folk one thing, and then going off to do another? There's quite a few who come here, hoping to amass enough swag to ease the burdens of respectable life. And they're all 'merchant marines.'" Jack told him.
"My father did not think of my mother -his family - as a burden." Will told him.
"Sure - because he could always go pirating." Jack told him.
"My father - was not - a pirate!" Will said drawing his sword, leveling it at Jack.
"Will! We need him to find Elizabeth!" I shouted at him, getting between them. Jack pulled me behind him.
"Put it away, Will. It's not worth getting beat again." Jack told him.
"You didn't beat me. You ignored the rules of engagement. In a fair fight, I'd kill you." Will told him. When did this happen?
"Then that's not much incentive for me to fight fair, is it?" Jack asked him before kicking a lever on a wench. The sail boom whipped around and slammed Will in the chest - sweeping him off the ship, his sword clattering onto the deck.
"Will!" I tried to go and help him but Jack wrapped his arm around my waist to stop me as Will dangled above the water. Jack slipped a loop of rope around the wheel to hold the course and picked up the sword - and poked at Will with it. Will hand-over-handed away from the blade, to the end of the boom.
"As long as you're just hanging there, pay attention. Must, Should, do, don't, shall, shall not - those are just suggestions. There are only two absolute rules." Jack told him. "What a man can do. And what a man can't do. "For instance: you can accept that your father was a pirate and still a good man... or you can't. Now me, I can sail this ship to Tortuga, with young Miss Swan here." he told us and Will looked alarmed. "But I can't just let you drown." Jack swung the boom back in and Will dropped to the deck. Jack held the hilt of the sword out and Will took it, glaring at Jack. Jack watched him coolly as Will turned and strode to his spot on the deck, sat down, and resumed sharpening his sword. I heard Jack breathe a silent sigh of relief. I looked at his hand and noticed his hand was shaking.
"Jack, are you okay?" I asked him. He removed his arms from me and took the wheel.
"Tortuga?" Will asked him.
"Oh - did I forget to mention that?" Jack asked hi.
Tortuga was a dank and dirty port, where the tides seemed to have swept together the scum of the Caribbean - pirates, privateers, prostitutes, thieves, and drunkards. With its cantered, rotting docks, weatherbeaten buildings, and odd assortment of livestock running free - a donkey, chickens, etc. - it was far less civilized than Port Royal. Jack, Will and I moved through the crowd when a redheaded woman turned her head and noticed Jack.
"We need a crew. We can manage the ship between islands, but the open sea, that's another matter -" Jack told us. Suddenly the redhead slapped Jack, hard. Satisfied, she turns and strode off.
"What was that about?" I asked him.
"I don't think I deserved that." he told me.
"Just do it quickly." Will said, ignoring the woman and our conversation.
"Don't worry." Jack said while rubbing his jaw. "I've already got my Quartermaster - there!" Jack led us towards a pub: the Faithful Bride, the emblem over the door a politically incorrect painting of a smiling woman holding a bouquet in her chained-and-manacled hands. Jack pulled open the door; Will went inside passing a pretty Asian women coming out. She saw Jack and immediately slapped him, cursing something in Chinese as Jack backs away into the pub pulling me with him. He quickly closed the door and the woman and pulled me to Will. I looked around the place and made a face of disgust. It was populated with a slightly higher class of scum, slightly. Jack started moving when he was suddenly decked by a waitress without spilling a drink off her tray. That came with practice I assumed.
"You stole my boat." She said to him.
"AnaMaria! Have you seen Gibbs? I need to put together -" Jack tried telling her but she didn't listen. Instead she slapped him again. Will shook his head and went for the bar as Jack got up.
"Did you deserve that one?" I asked him and he nodded while glaring at me.
"Borrowed. Borrowed your boat." He said looking at the look she gave him. "Without permission." AnaMaria charged at him and Jack backed away, putting a table between them. She chased him around the table, still carrying the tray.
"My dory. The Jolly Mon. Where is it?" she asked him.
"Safe! At Port Royal. With the Royal Navy." He told her.
"That boat is my livelihood!" she yelled at him.
"You'll get it back. Or one better." He promised her.
"I will." She threatened him before moving moving away from us to go to a patron of the sighed and moved to me when she suddenly came back to slap him again.
"You did say you deserved it." I reminded him, watching her walk away.
"Shut up." he said, rubbing his chin.
"Jack! Nicole! Over here!" Will called us form the bar and we walked to him, Jack still rubbing his chin. "He knows Gibbs." The bartender nodded yes, confirming what Will said before nodding towards the back. He then produced a water bucket from behind the bar. We all exchanged a look and Jack took the bucket. We walked to the back to see a drunken man lay in the mud, having a friendly conversation with two pigs. He wore an old tattered Navy jacket. Jack picked up the bucket and sprayed water his face, revealing: this is old Joshamee Gibbs, the man who told pirate stories to Elizabeth and I when we were children.
"Curse you for breathing, you slack-jawed idiot" Gibbs said before looking at us. "Mother's love, Jack, you know better than to wake a man when he's sleeping. It's bad luck!"
"Well, fortunately, I know how to counter it. The man who did the waking buys the man who was sleeping a drink, and the man who was sleeping it drinks it while listening to a proposition." Jack told him.
"Aye, that'll about do it." Gibbs said. Jack helped him to his feet when he was hit with a second wave of water. "Blast it, I'm already awake!"
"I know. That was for the smell." Will told him and I held back my laughter.
Jack and Gibbs sat at a table in the shadows, a single candle illumining them, speaking in hushed voices, while Will and I were away from them, at the door, keeping a look-out.
"Just the one." I heard Jack say.
"Make it last, then. Now, what's the nature of this venture of yours?" Gibbs asked him.
"First - have you found me a crew?" Jack asked him.
"Oh, there's a hard tale, Jack. Most of the decent pirates in town won't sail with you - seem to think you're a jinx." Gibbs said and I rolled my eyes. Of course they did.
"Now where, I wonder, would they have gotten that idea?" Jack asked him. "I'm going after the Black Pearl." Jack whispered lower.
"Say again?" Gibbs said just as low.
"I'm going after the Black Pearl. I know where its going to be, and I'm going to take it." Jack told him.
"Jack, it's a fool's errand: You've heard the tales they tell about the Pearl." Gibbs said to him.
"Aye, and that's why I know where it's going to be, and that's why I know what Barbossa is up to. All I need is a crew." Jack said.
"A fool's errand." Gibbs repeated.
"Not if the fool has something Barbossa wants. Something he needs." Jack told him.
"And you've got that, have you?" Gibbs asked him.
"Back there...Turner." That was all I could hear. Will was right, Jack did want something from him.
"Well, lookee there. I'll allow you may be onto something, Jack. There's bound to be sailors on this rock crazy as you. I'll find some men." Gibbs said a little louder. Something was slammed onto a table and Will reacted by drawing both sword and dagger and kicking over a table for cover before whirling on anyone who moved. I backed away from him "Kid's a bit of a stick, isn't he?" Gibbs asked Jack.
"That he is." Jack agreed.
Later that day we were on the docks, looking at a disheveled, motley and weatherbeaten group of about a dozen swabs standing in a ragged line-up.
"Feast your eyes, Cap'n. All of 'em good sea-faring men, faithful hands before the mast, every one worth his salt and crazy, to boot." Gibbs told him. Jack held up a hand, signaling he'd heard enough. We moved down the line with Gibbs at our side. I noticed AnaMarie standing in the line up and smiled.
"You owe me a boat." she told Jack. Jack nodded and we continued walking. One sailor was quite fat, another thin and sickly. I made a face and looked at Jack, not happy. Jack stepped in front of a short sailor with a large, colorful parrot on his shoulder.
"Cotton here is mute, sir. Poor devil had his tongue cut out -" Gibbs said and the man opened his mouth to show this fact and I looked away. "- so he went and trained the parrot to do the talking for him."
"How?" I asked him.
"Nobody knows how. Nobody knows the parrot's name, neither, so we just call it 'Cotton's parrot.'" Gibbs said.
"Mr. Cotton. Do you have the courage and fortitude to follow orders and stay true, in the face danger, and almost certain death?" Jack asked the man. Mr. Cotton lifted the parrot off his shoulder and raised it.
"Wind in your SAILS! Wind in your SAILS!" it said.
"Mostly, that seem to mean 'yes.'" Gibbs told us and Mr. Cotton nodded vigorously, lowering the parrot. Jack shook his head and stepped back.
"That goes for the rest of you! Danger and near certain death." Jack told them. "For we are to sail for the Isla de Muerta, to rescue the daughter of Governor Swann. An equal share of the reward shall be -" several potential crew members backed away in fright before running away. Soon only a half dozen were left, including Cotton (with parrot) and AnaMaria.
"Shut up, before you lose them all!" Will told him.
"These are the only ones worth having." Jack said before looking at the sky. "And we're going to need them. Miss Swan you'll want to stay close to me." he told me before grabbing my arm and going back to the ship.
A flash of lightening and the crack of thunder surrounded us. The canvas of every sail was stretched taut. The ship rocked as it dropped into the valley of huge swell, climbed up the other side. On board, the new crew members scurried about their tasks, pulling lines and trimming sails. Excellent sailors, but you could see it took everything they had to keep the ship afloat. Jack kept me with him as a roaring wind blew back my hair. I looked up at him to see his eyes intent on our course. Jack held onto me to make sure I didn't fall over and get in everyone's way.
"We'd best drop canvas, sir!" Gibbs called to Jack.
"She can hold a bit longer." Jack said. The wind picked up, howling at us and I saw Jack smiled.
"Why are you in such a fine mood?" I asked him.
"We're catching up!" Jack said smiling at me and I felt my heart skip a beat. What was that? Why was my heart racing.