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Betwixt Hammer & Frizzen	By : GeorgieFain Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (All) > General Views: 2032 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Man Overboard

Day Two.

The wind had died and it seemed as though all was silent, despite the call of sea gulls that circled his long-boat and the lapping murmur of the water itself. The sail was slack and listless, moving only with the breeze caused by the forward, rolling thrust of his oars as he dragged them back and under and then up again, his body nearly horizontal on the bench at each down-pull. Every hour or so, he checked his compass again, taking a bit of break to rest his arms. The sun was murdering him and it did seem as though the sky was glowering down at his wee speck of a seabound mess.

He was a stout, strong man, accustomed to hardships like this, but there was something unusual about the events of the last day. The sun seemed hotter than it ought, the sea was oddly calm, and the wind had fallen off during the night. As if the whole of creation was conspiring against his intentions. The compass was of little help. As of right now, it did read nothing at all, whereas it had been showing him the general direction of Cuba. Without its help, he could only use the sun and the charts and hope for the best...but, things were definitely of the strange and that didn't bode well for the venture.

Jack hummed to himself as he pulled, trying to ignore the ragged skeleton that sat on the bench opposite of him, just beyond the mast and limp sail. It had appeared soon after dawn and was using another set of oars to pull in the wrong direction---working against him, as it were. Every now and then, it would speak and talk of how the whole matter of the staged mutiny was a very bad idea and that he should have known that, from the start, when Hector Barbossa had suggested the idea of subverting an already-existing mutiny in his favor.

For the most part, though, the undead Jack Sparrow merrily sang along with his humming and said nothing much at all of bad choices and bad suggestions and how these things had gotten him tossed to the Locker in the first place. He was starting to wonder if he wasn't back there, if perhaps he had slipped over into the realm of the dead sometime in the night, as he took his rest. With no wind and no proper navigational help from the compass, it did certainly seem bad and wrong. Bad and wrong in the way that things had seemed in the Locker.

"Fifteen men on a dead man's chest. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. Drink and the devil had done for the rest. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. The mate was fixed by the bosun's pike. The bosun brained with a marlinspike." His undead, skeleton self pulled against him, singing happily with a wicked grin on his fleshless face. "And cookey's throat was marked belike. It had been gripped by fingers ten. And there they lay, all good dead men. Like break o'day in a boozing ken. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum."

Strange it was, the things one might remember in a bad situation.

He stopped pulling and laid the oars to rest for a bit as he contemplated the sky and the horizon, using his spyglass for the latter. No sign of anything. No ship at all, even though it was a fairly populated bit of water, the sea between Tortuga and Cuba. Things were bad. Consulting his sextant, he decided that he was, in fact, headed in the right direction and that Cuba lay three days' sail from his current position. But, only if there came some wind.

Without wind, it was looking to be more like a full six or seven-day hard at the oar, from sun-up to sun-down.

"Well, mate, you did know better than to trust them, our missy and our matelot." His undead skeleton self had stopped rowing and sat with ragged elbows holding the oars still. Bones showed through the rotting cloth of both coat and sark. With a grin and a toss of the head that sent beads and coins tinkling, the figment of his mind did chuckle softly and shrug carelessly. "You cut a deal with them, one against the other on both sides. What be the odds that they might set a deal against you, one with the other? Isn't impossible, you know. Hen and Hector, aye? Blood will out, lad...blood will always out."

Scowling to himself, he ignored the skeleton and put his study on the Chinese charts, fingers moving over the circles to measure distance without the use of dividers or even so much as a quill. There, to the left of the Fountain of Youth's cup was three Chinese symbols that he could not read. They were very ancient. Then, below the cup and to the right, much farther away, was another set of Chinese symbols in a different form. As if two different versions of the language had been employed. Perhaps two very different generations of pirate, then?

He could read neither set of symbols.

Pushing his eyes along the charts, he studied the waters between Cuba and Hispaniola. There was Turtle Island, better known as Tortuga. There was Jamaica. He was in the waters there...above Tortuga. The island of Cuba seemed so large by comparison and so far away, when he gave thought to his current status. He needed wind. But, there was no wind. Did this have something to do, mayhaps, with the lack of Calypso's good will? Did one need Henriette now, to ensure the wind's favor? He certainly did hope not.

His skeleton self had started singing again, pulling at the oars.

"Fifteen men of the whole ship's list. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! Dead and be damned and the rest gone whist! Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! The skipper lay with his nob in gore. Where the scullion's axe his cheek had shore. And the scullion he was stabbed times four. And there they lay, and the soggy skies. Dripped down in up-staring eyes. In murk sunset and foul sunrise. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum."

Last night, before the compass had started spinning uselessly, it had pointed him in a northeast direction, to Cuba. Was there something he was wanting that he hadn't given thought to? Something that might cause the compass to act wobbly?

The plan, under Hen's brief command of the Pearl, was to lay in a course for a fortnight's pillaging. Then, at the end of a fortnight, she would bring his ship about to the tip of Cuba and find him. So, if his ship was under her command now, then she might have set sail for the wee islands to the east of Cuba. There was good pirating to be done there, by the wily. Or she might have chosen to sail for Havana and points all along the island's eastern side.

But, what if Hector was still in command? Hispaniola.

Jack rubbed at his face with the palm of his leather-wrapped hand, giving a muttering sigh. T'was confusing, to consider. He had set this plan in motion with the idea that things would straighten themselves out by the compass and the charts. But, t'was only the second day and he was lost. Lost. Him, lost. That wasn't to be heard of.

With a deep breath, he looked up at the horizon beyond his skeleton compatriot and decided to put his faith in the physiker's ability to talk the crew around to her way of thinking. She would take the ship and, in a fortnight, she would arrive at the tip of Cuba to retrieve him. Once he was back aboard, he would have a very long chat with Hector in the brig and fix things so as he never again had to wonder at his matelot's choices. For the moment, he had to manage a destination. Cuba seemed most likely, as agreed-upon.

Jack put away the compass and charts and, after a drink of rummy water, lifted his oars again, giving in to grimly sing with the weird figment as what was keeping him company in the solitude. "Fifteen men on a dead man's chest. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. Drink and the devil had done for the rest. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. We wrapped 'em all in a mains'l tight. With twice ten turns of a hawser's bight. And we heaved 'em over and out of sight, with a Yo-Heave-Ho! and a fare-you-well. And a sudden plunge in the sullen swell. Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!"

***

Once she began, the job went quickly.

Finished, Henriette stepped back to admire her handiwork.

Captain Barbossa, still very much unconscious, lay on the rugs of the cabin deck, tied hand and foot and naked as the day he was born. She had removed even his rings, but left him the tiger's tooth earring out of a sense of respect and superstition. He was snoring, his long hair covering the side of his weathered and scarred face, where she'd rolled him to remove his shirt and scarf.

She stood still a moment or two, to smile at his sleeping form. He was nay so ferocious like this. She couldn't resist whispering at him, nudging his bare, freckled shoulder with her boot's tip. "Mercy is mine, says me, and I'll not have any for you. Papa."

Then, she went back to the work of fixing him for the destiny she had set. Stripping a blanket from the bed, she rolled him onto it and then folded it close about his body, picking up another piece of rope. With the bit end, she wound it about the woolen shroud several times, to secure the blanket's ends. No sense in him getting burnt, aye? She was counting on Jack to find the foul, craven dog before too long---a day or two, at the most, she imagined. In the meantime, her papa wouldn't be exposed to the sun's burning heat any more than he need be.

It was a kindness she was doing him. Mayhap, soon, he would understand that.

Finished at last with all that she meant to do, Henriette tied off the ropes and straightened up. Marching to the door, she slammed it open and stepped out, all a-swagger. The men had elected her as leader before the mutiny e'er began and she did not need to wonder if they would hold to the agreement. They were all men of their word, willing to follow her. They had wanted to be rid of Barbossa and had only put Jack off ship at her allowance, in Tortuga.

Climbing the steps to the quarterdeck, she shouted for their attention. "Listen up, gents!"

Every man turned to come hurrying along the deck, their faces eager and hard.

Swinging about at the quarterdeck rail in her frock coat and cavalier's hat, she addressed them, knowing that she now held their loyalty. "Barbossa did fail us! We let him talk us up to putting Jack Sparrow off this ship---and us without the maps for the promised treasure!"

The men grumbled, loudly, their comments growing almost to a roar.

Henriette waited for them to go mostly silent again and then continued, fixing her attention on each scarred, filthy face as the men turned to look up at her once more. "For his perfidy and lies, I've taken Barbossa as me hostage! I'm your new captain, men---you'll follow me orders or die! You can obey or you can join the ranks of those who did find a way to the Locker at the end of me sword! I will be fair, aye? You'll have your share and more, just as promised!"

The answer to that was another buzzing confusion and then a majority of nodding heads.

Murtaugh stepped forward from the group and shouted up at her, his lean face freckled and burnt under the line of scarf and his straggling hair. "Do we go back after Captain Sparrow, then, ma'am?"

That set the men to shouting, each trying to out-talk the others.

Henriette stood motionless, watching, and then turned on her heel to cast a glance at Cotton, who held the helm with his aged, gnarled hands. He met her gaze with his one good eye; his bloody parrot sat there, on his shoulder, awaiting orders with a cocked head.

"What say you, Cotton's Parrot?" She asked.

The bird flapped its wings and bellowed in its strange voice. "Anchors aweigh!"

Barbossa's creepy little monkey was perched at the quarterdeck rail close at hand, within kicking distance of her boots. She pulled her pistol and cocked it, sighting along its barrel at the wee ugly creature. She fired; the shot boomed and the capuchin screamed, flipping backward with the blast and the ball. Up it jumped and scampered for the nearest barrels, where it hunkered down and watched her with fearful dark eyes.

But, the shot had accomplished the silence she wanted. The men were all watching her with mouths agape. She spoke again, tucking the pistol in her sash smoothly. "Now, then, as I've your attention. Do we go back after Jack Sparrow with no swag in our holds and our hats in our hands, to beg for his forgiveness? Or do we take a few worthy prey first? We can gain some shine, some swag, and then go back for the captain as what did make us a feared and infamous lot! What say you?!"

The men reacted with whistles and calls for shine.

"We'll do Captain Sparrow proud, we will!"

She knew, then, that she had them all by the short and curlies.

Henriette, the new captain of the Black Pearl, smiled benevolently at her crew.

Porto Rico was naught but a five-day sail, around Hispaniola.

There would be rich pickings, coming off that island.

She addressed the helmsman. "Cotton! Set an easterly course for Porto Rico---stay close to the coast of Hispaniola and we shall take all that we find!" Then, she shouted an order to the men. "Crowd those sails, gentlemen! The wind, she does favor us today!"

The parrot danced on the little, one-eyed and mute pirate's shoulder, mindless of how the grimacing man now swung both arms to pull the wheel. "Wind in yer sails---wind in yer sails!"

As her orders were followed, she stood still with her hand resting on the butt of her pistol and considered what to do, next. Jack would be following his compass, intending to reach Cuba's tip. He had enough food and water to make it a full twenty-day at sea. But, what if the compass didn't lead him to land or the Pearl? And that reminded her of what she intended to do with her papa.

A slow smile dawned as she realized how it would all work to her advantage.

The men were scurrying about, at work. She called out to two of them, knowing she needed their help. "Master Pintel! Master Ragetti!" When they stopped and approached, wiping their hands at the front of their loose, worn shirts, she watched them from under the brim of her hat. "Gents, there's a limp rogue in me cabin as what needs removing. Let's ready a long-boat and rid ourselves of that particular bit of ballast, aye? Then, we'll share out a bit of grog and a bite to eat. Double rations for every man."

***

The mid-day sun was too much and he lay down to rest, covering himself loosely with a bit of sail-cloth. As he rested, gnawing at a bit of hardtack, he let himself remember the conversations he had talked with Anamaria, on the Interceptor. Alone in the lavish cabin of the Royal Navy ship, they had shared out a bottle of brandy and discussed the young, pale-eyed lass as what he had set to land at Tia Dalma's doorstep.

'I did see her, Jack, after you stole my boat.'

'Aye? Did she come looking for me, then? She wasn't very pleased, being put to shore.'

Anamaria laughed, braiding her long brown hair in the lantern's light. 'She has grown, my lass. As I was looking about for you and my boat, intending to gut you on sight, the child came right up to me quick-like, all angry and fierce and with a look of murder in those terrible eyes of hers. She had run away from the Pantano against Tante's wishes again and come on a packet ship and never did she say hello to me, but went right to demanding if I had seen you.'

'Terrible eyes, love. My thoughts, exactly.' He toasted his new first mate; they'd gotten through the storm and were only a day from Isla de Muerta. All thanks to her hard work and harsh voice. 'Aye, the lass does have his eyes, doesn't she? Like something akin to magic, what she can do with those eyes of hers. Lass did get the best of him, aye? The rest of her does seem a bit more like you, barring that fine freckled color she gets right on her nose from time to time. What did she say, then, when looking for me all about Tortuga?'

'She came right up to me, braced her legs as if'n prepared to fight, and put both wee hands on her hips. Said she was looking for Captain Sparrow or his ship---whatever he might be sailing. She had business with him as what wouldn't wait.' Anamaria wrinkled her brown nose, laughing softly in her cup. 'Lass does have a way about her, Jack. Thanks to you.'

He gave a grin and admitted, demurring. 'Love, she's your sweet darlin' child. I only did my best with what nature gave me to work with.'

'Have you given any thought to him?' Her brown eyes grew very serious, then, and with not a little of anger. 'We'll be catching up with the Pearl soon enough. What then? Will you kill him?'

Jack settled farther into the chair, sprawling his legs out as he considered what he could tell her and what he could not. Was difficult to say, when he himself was unsure of what he meant to be doing. 'Aye, I'll do for him. I am sorry for that, you know...sorry for Hen, if for no other. T'is her as has never known what he was, once, when we stood with him.'

Anamaria only nodded, looking pensive and distant as she studied the insides of her cup.

Jack, under his sail-cloth, shifted over to his side, curling up a bit smaller so as to fit. It didn't do him any good to consider the past overmuch. A bad habit, that. But, it was better than listening to figments of his mind talk utter balderdash.

Anyone would think he was mad, talking to himself this way.
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Betwixt Hammer & Frizzen