Fic: "Contradictions 3: Lose" (Part 5)
Jun. 1st, 2011 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
veronica_richThis is a continuation of a POTC fic. See Part 1 for disclaimers, etc.
Will paused as he approached the small corner he and Jack had appropriated for hiding their “escape stash,” and adopted a particularly ugly expression. “Christ,” he muttered, shaking his head, eyes visibly watering as he put a hand to his nose. “How nobody’s noticed this, I’ve no clue.”
“’S a pirate ship,” Jack mumbled, keeping his voice low though he hadn’t found anyone lurking about the entrance to this small, mostly dank section of the hold. “Worse smells competing for attention. ‘Sides, it’s way down here; far as I can tell, nobody’s come down, nor even knows it exists.” He made his way around the blacksmith in the narrow confines, holding aloft his small lantern to see in the shadows. “Jus’ be glad we’re not keepin’ the tack with it.”
The two had left David at the door to guard so they could check the supplies they’d spent the better part of nearly two weeks putting aside. Jack knelt and motioned for Will; the two of them lifted the side of the inverted rowboat, and the stench notched up sharply in intensity. Both reflexively turned their heads away and blinked rapidly. “Steady,” Jack counseled. “We still got t’ get this topside and past th‘ guards, somehow.”
“Coming back at night is probably the best way.”
Jack nodded. “Start recitin‘..”
“Let’s see – two sets of uniforms, two pairs of boots – Jack, are you sure you want to leave yours?“
“Not much choice, mate. Got t’ make it look convincin’ as we can, least from a distance.“
The two of them swiftly went through the rest of the drill, which wasn’t much – the rowboat wasn’t that large, and they definitely couldn’t load it down if they wanted to get very far. They set about righting the boat and loading items into it, including the corpse of the late, not-so-much lamented Knuckler who, after a week of death, probably didn’t smell much more rank than he had in life – Will had explained that was how he knew to stab, when the man was behind him, because of the stench of body odor that hit him. But the smell now was plenty bad enough, if Will’s expression was any indication; truth be told, Jack could stomach a lot, and it was about to take the wind out of his sails, as well.
“All right, we’ll come by later tonight an’ get it,” he finally stood, straightening his shoulders and moving his head to work out the kinks. “Just a couple more things need t’ be done before then. This should be safe ‘til tonight, I’d think.” He gave the side of the small boat a light kick and caught sight of his foot, frowning over Will’s recent observation. “I do hate t’ give up me boots,” he sighed. “And me hair.”
“It’ll grow back,” Will countered. “And you can buy new boots. Just like those.”
“And me beads.” He reached up and touched his decorated tresses reverently, as though he hadn’t heard Will.
“I’ll get you some new ones, Jack.”
The older man shrugged, momentarily depressed. Then, as was his custom once he’d decided on a course of action, he shrugged and turned back for the door. “Can’t be helped,” he agreed. “We’d better get goin’ before we’re missed – besides, I got me a throat t’ cut.”
*****
“Tear it up good, boy,” Jack instructed, giving David a quick pat on the back as he stood near the open window of their cabin. “Rip it into tiny shreds.”
“Aye, sir.” David nodded and knelt on the small seat before the window, beginning at the corner of Francois’s old Atlantic map, shredding off a small piece of onionskin. The replacement Jack had labored to skew to the exact detail lay on the desk, edges slightly curled from much handling, as it had been the one Francois had been consulting for the past several days on his course, the real one stashed away until just now. That’s the one Jack had studied at length, committing the important points and bearings to memory – as well as to a small, pilfered bit of parchment he kept folded and tucked into his compass.
“Now, for you.” Jack pulled a straight-backed chair to the center of the room and gestured for Will to sit.
The smith sighed and straddled it, facing its back, hands on his thighs, his eyes on the two corpses laid out face-down on the floor before him. They were now dressed in Will‘s and Jack‘s clothes, the two live men clad in the extra breeches, simple shirts, and uniform coats of the French Navy they‘d found stashed on board. “We don’t have much time,” he reminded his captain. “You have the pitch?”
Jack only hummed in the affirmative, moving behind the blacksmith. He regarded the younger man’s loose fall of chestnut waves and pulled a moue with his lips – while he now had an excuse to run his fingers through that beautiful hair, it would be a short-lived pleasure and it gave him no pleasure at all to do what had to be done. Steeling himself, he picked up the first soft, fine lock, got the straight razor beneath it near the scalp, and shut his eyes as he lopped it off, feeling as though he’d sliced off a piece of his own skin in the process.
Several minutes later, he was kneeling over the taller of the two corpses, his fingers sticky with a tar-like substance, gluing strips of Will’s hair to the back of the body’s head. In the interest of expediency, he’d quickly switched places in the chair with Will after doing his own rushed barber job, still clutching the man’s light brown hair in both fists, and shut his eyes as the smith’s talented hands had quickly sheared Jack’s dark locks and beads from his head. He finished before Will was done arranging Jack’s hair on the back of Knuckler’s head, so he changed positions to help the smith. “Where’d you get him, anyway?” Will lifted his chin toward the newest corpse, dispatched just before supper that very day. “Haven’t noticed him before.”
“Good – means he prob’ly won’t be missed much here, either. Had me eye on him for a couple of days,” Jack explained. “Lousy whoreson tried t’ bugger me, jus’ because he’s bigger. Don’ like being boarded without givin’ me permission,” he added as clarification, though by the double-take Will gave him, he suspected he’d actually just muddled things more in the smith’s mind. Oh well – if the lad hadn’t figured out before now which way his captain’s mast tilted, it wasn’t Jack’s problem. That‘s what adulthood was all about, having one‘s illusions destroyed. Raising his voice a bit, he called, “David, how ye doin’?”
“Almost done, sir.” Bits and pieces of thin paper were rapidly sent flying by the boy’s small fingers as he spoke.
When the two men finished pasting Jack’s hair, they straightened, and Jack remembered something else. Reaching over and plucking the folded razor from Will’s breast pocket, he reached up and with two short snips, held his beard braids in sticky fingers. He reached down and hastily glued them to the corpse’s chin, which was visible as it the head had been left turned sideways to accommodate the gluing of a hair braid. “We don’ wan’ forget th’ scarf,” he reminded Will.
The smith was just staring at him. “You look … different,” he finally offered.
“Well, ye don’t look so great yourself, so there.” Will was momentarily puzzled, then his brow relaxed into a chuckle. “Get th’ scarf, now.”
Several minutes later, they all stood around the dressed, bedecked corpses, David holding a medium-sized bag of stale food and skins of grog they’d all sacrificed decent-sized meals for since being aboard, eating only the bare minimum and acting full for their hosts’ benefit. David had swiped a mill of salt shortly into their stay and they’d dried the meat into jerky; some of the fruit was going soft, but would hold out a little longer. “We’re gon’ lower you in the boat we have first,” Jack pointed to David, “along with some oars and our friends, here,” he gestured at the corpses. “I know it ain’t pleasant company, but just stay hidden close to th’ ship an’ we’ll be down before long.”
The boy regarded the bodies dubiously, but to his credit, didn‘t make any faces. “How long should I wait?”
“If ye see dawn approachin’ an’ we’ve still not made it, stay hidden near th’ shadows of th’ ship, out of sight ‘til nightfall tomorrow, then dump these two an’ row like mad to th‘ northeast; we‘ll distract th‘ crew,” Jack ordered. “We won’ be that long, trust me.”
After David slipped out for a recon and made sure their cabin wasn’t guarded, the three of them approached a set of pulleys mounted over the water, coming up behind the pirate keeping watch and knocking him unconscious. Again, David hid nearby and kept an eye out, waiting to voice alarm if need be, while Jack and Will quickly mounted their secret rowboat to the pulleys and made trips back to the cabin for the corpses.
As David was climbing aboard the boat a few minutes later, he turned and gave Will a quick hug, suddenly looking much younger than his fourteen years. “Don’t get killed,” he entreated.
“I’ll be fine,” the smith reassured him. “You get down there, now, and keep an eye on things, all right? We’ll be sending the second boat down in a few minutes; grab it and tie it on this one, like we talked about.” David nodded and took a seat, his fingers going to the sides and gripping tightly as his captain and mentor slowly dropped the boat to the ocean far below. The slack rope eventually told them, in the dark, they were finished, and they waited a couple of minutes for David to unhitch the boat so they could recoil the rope.
With the same economy of noise, the two made their way to another cockboat, already hoisted – again, the two men between them and their object ended up unconscious, though Will and Jack had to hunch down near some coiled rope for several quiet, tense minutes before the opportune moment presented itself. They were getting closer to voices, to activity in the center of the deck now, and with a quick glance and nod, Jack informed Will he should climb into the boat to be lowered. “I’ll swing on down in a few minutes,” he whispered. “Means one less of us th’ boy’s got to wait on.”
“And leave you here by yourself?” Will’s expression was dubious. “Not in the plan, Jack.”
“Plans shift,” the pirate explained simply. “Get in.”
“Only if you climb down the rope once the boat hits the water,” Will bargained. “And none of this ‘Pirate’ shite, either – if you don’t come down, I can easily climb back aboard.”
“When you make th’ plans, you can make th’ conditions,” Jack snapped back.
“I did help make these plans, remember? Or is senility setting in already?”
At the moment, given the opportunity to follow his heart’s desire, Jack would have easily foregone his usual wish to kiss the man to land a good right hook on his jaw instead. “I’m not that old!” he hissed.
“You’re the one who always talks like you’re such the wise elder,” Will pointed out. “We’re wasting time, here; you promise to climb down, and I’ll go now.” He stuck out his left hand for an accord, and Jack guiltily noticed the jagged white scar that bisected the palm, knowing the smith had offered the wrong hand for just that reason – to remind Jack of another time when their cooperation had meant the difference between life and death. With a silent roll of his eyes, Jack shook it, his own matching scar touching the other man’s briefly.
Jack had an exciting moment when the boat was about halfway down, hearing Francois’s voice somewhere behind him. He paused only long enough to make the decision to hastily finish lowering Will and the boat, then ducked down and crawled back to the coiled ropes, shrinking into shadows and holding his breath. When nobody came near enough to inspect, he took a couple of preparatory breaths and sprang up, slinking over to the pulleys and hauling himself over the side, rappelling against the hull and swinging out a bit at the bottom to aim for the boat.
Hands grabbed his legs, pulling, and Jack let go of the rope before he could follow its arc back toward the ship. The arms were around his thighs; when they abruptly released him, he stumbled and ended up hard on his knees, knocking over and straddling the slender waist of a rather scandalized Will Turner. “Aren’t you supposed to have better sea legs than that?” the smith asked, leaning on his elbows, trying to back away.
Jack flexed his fingers, which had ended up on Will’s shoulders. It wouldn’t take much to close the distance and visit his lips upon his beloved’s, to dip his chest and line his heartbeat up with the other man’s – but it was a chasm he couldn’t yet cross, and he couldn’t say that Will would ever be ready for it. “Well, quit grabbin’ me arse, and maybe I can stay on me feet,” he retorted, pushing himself back to sit as Will scrambled into a seated position himself.
“It must be the hair.” Will searched around for the second oar and, finding it, set about to rowing around the ship toward David.
“’Scuse me?”
“Like Samson. You get your hair cut off, and suddenly you’ve got the grace of a twelve-year-old cabin boy – which is to say, none,” Will explained, stroking. “Maybe that’s the source of your mysterious sea powers, eh?” Thoughtful stroke. “Or is it just the beard?”
Forever a master of the comeback and doublespeak, Jack scowled briefly at having nothing clever to rebut. “We’ll just see how easily you swing a hammer without your curls,” he snapped back. Will chuckled softly at that, and Jack was surprised to feel a lessening of annoyance at the welcome sound. Before he could examine it much more deeply, he sighted the other boat, David waving his arms until they pulled alongside.
“Finally!” It was the first time Jack had heard the boy express irritation with anything. He clamored out between Jack and Will, pulling the bag of tack along. “I don’t want to see dead people anymore. Yuck.”
Jack shot Will an amused glance over the boy’s shoulder, and he could tell Will was having to bite back laughter at the comment, David’s first indication of being anything other than a proper young gentleman willing to complete any job for his masters. “An’ what would you’ve done if we hadn’t shown up so quick?” he asked, reaching over to tie the rope lashing the other cockboat behind their own.
“Probably puked over the side,” the boy answered bluntly. “I mean it; they smell bad.”
Will made his unpleasant face again as he gathered up his oars. “No roses here,” he agreed.
“And them having your hair’s just creepy, Captain. Why’d you have to do that, anyway?”
Jack put a finger to his lips to silence the boy and indicated with his hands Will should row harder. They were all silent except for Will‘s slightly labored breathing, for the next several minutes as they put surprising distance between themselves and the Versailles. “Come on, Samson,” Jack prodded in a stage whisper once they were far enough out for the sound not to carry across the water back to the pirates.
“Shut up, Captain,” he grunted, responsible for rowing five bodies out to wherever. “You know, there’s another set of oars in that boat.”
“Is there, now? Well, thanks for enlightenin’ me.” But he turned and pulled the other boat closer by its rope, leaning over to fish around for the oars. “You know which way we’re headed, right?”
“You have the compass.”
“Aye, and so I do.” Pulling the oars over, Jack turned to take his seat once again, and paused to dig for the good compass, studying it. “Bit more to your right, mate … that’s it. Now you can straighten out.” He snapped it closed, put it away, and took up his own oars.
A few minutes later, David posed the question again: “Captain, why’d you and Mr. Turner put your hair on those dead bodies?”
“We’re gon’ get far enough out, an’ then cut that boat loose, dump th’ bodies in the water face-down – make it look like it was us there, that we got attacked by sharks or some such thing.”
“What about me?”
Jack shook his head as he leaned forward, rowing in complement to Will’s backward pulls. “We’ll just hope they think you’re already chum when they come ‘pon it,” he explained. “Weren’t no one on board small as you, an’ even if there’d been, I don’t make a habit of murderin’ whelps.”
“One redeeming quality, anyway.” Will grinned as he pulled on his oars.
“That … an’ not throwin’ truculent blacksmiths overboard,” Jack remarked.
On to the final part ...
Will paused as he approached the small corner he and Jack had appropriated for hiding their “escape stash,” and adopted a particularly ugly expression. “Christ,” he muttered, shaking his head, eyes visibly watering as he put a hand to his nose. “How nobody’s noticed this, I’ve no clue.”
“’S a pirate ship,” Jack mumbled, keeping his voice low though he hadn’t found anyone lurking about the entrance to this small, mostly dank section of the hold. “Worse smells competing for attention. ‘Sides, it’s way down here; far as I can tell, nobody’s come down, nor even knows it exists.” He made his way around the blacksmith in the narrow confines, holding aloft his small lantern to see in the shadows. “Jus’ be glad we’re not keepin’ the tack with it.”
The two had left David at the door to guard so they could check the supplies they’d spent the better part of nearly two weeks putting aside. Jack knelt and motioned for Will; the two of them lifted the side of the inverted rowboat, and the stench notched up sharply in intensity. Both reflexively turned their heads away and blinked rapidly. “Steady,” Jack counseled. “We still got t’ get this topside and past th‘ guards, somehow.”
“Coming back at night is probably the best way.”
Jack nodded. “Start recitin‘..”
“Let’s see – two sets of uniforms, two pairs of boots – Jack, are you sure you want to leave yours?“
“Not much choice, mate. Got t’ make it look convincin’ as we can, least from a distance.“
The two of them swiftly went through the rest of the drill, which wasn’t much – the rowboat wasn’t that large, and they definitely couldn’t load it down if they wanted to get very far. They set about righting the boat and loading items into it, including the corpse of the late, not-so-much lamented Knuckler who, after a week of death, probably didn’t smell much more rank than he had in life – Will had explained that was how he knew to stab, when the man was behind him, because of the stench of body odor that hit him. But the smell now was plenty bad enough, if Will’s expression was any indication; truth be told, Jack could stomach a lot, and it was about to take the wind out of his sails, as well.
“All right, we’ll come by later tonight an’ get it,” he finally stood, straightening his shoulders and moving his head to work out the kinks. “Just a couple more things need t’ be done before then. This should be safe ‘til tonight, I’d think.” He gave the side of the small boat a light kick and caught sight of his foot, frowning over Will’s recent observation. “I do hate t’ give up me boots,” he sighed. “And me hair.”
“It’ll grow back,” Will countered. “And you can buy new boots. Just like those.”
“And me beads.” He reached up and touched his decorated tresses reverently, as though he hadn’t heard Will.
“I’ll get you some new ones, Jack.”
The older man shrugged, momentarily depressed. Then, as was his custom once he’d decided on a course of action, he shrugged and turned back for the door. “Can’t be helped,” he agreed. “We’d better get goin’ before we’re missed – besides, I got me a throat t’ cut.”
*****
“Tear it up good, boy,” Jack instructed, giving David a quick pat on the back as he stood near the open window of their cabin. “Rip it into tiny shreds.”
“Aye, sir.” David nodded and knelt on the small seat before the window, beginning at the corner of Francois’s old Atlantic map, shredding off a small piece of onionskin. The replacement Jack had labored to skew to the exact detail lay on the desk, edges slightly curled from much handling, as it had been the one Francois had been consulting for the past several days on his course, the real one stashed away until just now. That’s the one Jack had studied at length, committing the important points and bearings to memory – as well as to a small, pilfered bit of parchment he kept folded and tucked into his compass.
“Now, for you.” Jack pulled a straight-backed chair to the center of the room and gestured for Will to sit.
The smith sighed and straddled it, facing its back, hands on his thighs, his eyes on the two corpses laid out face-down on the floor before him. They were now dressed in Will‘s and Jack‘s clothes, the two live men clad in the extra breeches, simple shirts, and uniform coats of the French Navy they‘d found stashed on board. “We don’t have much time,” he reminded his captain. “You have the pitch?”
Jack only hummed in the affirmative, moving behind the blacksmith. He regarded the younger man’s loose fall of chestnut waves and pulled a moue with his lips – while he now had an excuse to run his fingers through that beautiful hair, it would be a short-lived pleasure and it gave him no pleasure at all to do what had to be done. Steeling himself, he picked up the first soft, fine lock, got the straight razor beneath it near the scalp, and shut his eyes as he lopped it off, feeling as though he’d sliced off a piece of his own skin in the process.
Several minutes later, he was kneeling over the taller of the two corpses, his fingers sticky with a tar-like substance, gluing strips of Will’s hair to the back of the body’s head. In the interest of expediency, he’d quickly switched places in the chair with Will after doing his own rushed barber job, still clutching the man’s light brown hair in both fists, and shut his eyes as the smith’s talented hands had quickly sheared Jack’s dark locks and beads from his head. He finished before Will was done arranging Jack’s hair on the back of Knuckler’s head, so he changed positions to help the smith. “Where’d you get him, anyway?” Will lifted his chin toward the newest corpse, dispatched just before supper that very day. “Haven’t noticed him before.”
“Good – means he prob’ly won’t be missed much here, either. Had me eye on him for a couple of days,” Jack explained. “Lousy whoreson tried t’ bugger me, jus’ because he’s bigger. Don’ like being boarded without givin’ me permission,” he added as clarification, though by the double-take Will gave him, he suspected he’d actually just muddled things more in the smith’s mind. Oh well – if the lad hadn’t figured out before now which way his captain’s mast tilted, it wasn’t Jack’s problem. That‘s what adulthood was all about, having one‘s illusions destroyed. Raising his voice a bit, he called, “David, how ye doin’?”
“Almost done, sir.” Bits and pieces of thin paper were rapidly sent flying by the boy’s small fingers as he spoke.
When the two men finished pasting Jack’s hair, they straightened, and Jack remembered something else. Reaching over and plucking the folded razor from Will’s breast pocket, he reached up and with two short snips, held his beard braids in sticky fingers. He reached down and hastily glued them to the corpse’s chin, which was visible as it the head had been left turned sideways to accommodate the gluing of a hair braid. “We don’ wan’ forget th’ scarf,” he reminded Will.
The smith was just staring at him. “You look … different,” he finally offered.
“Well, ye don’t look so great yourself, so there.” Will was momentarily puzzled, then his brow relaxed into a chuckle. “Get th’ scarf, now.”
Several minutes later, they all stood around the dressed, bedecked corpses, David holding a medium-sized bag of stale food and skins of grog they’d all sacrificed decent-sized meals for since being aboard, eating only the bare minimum and acting full for their hosts’ benefit. David had swiped a mill of salt shortly into their stay and they’d dried the meat into jerky; some of the fruit was going soft, but would hold out a little longer. “We’re gon’ lower you in the boat we have first,” Jack pointed to David, “along with some oars and our friends, here,” he gestured at the corpses. “I know it ain’t pleasant company, but just stay hidden close to th’ ship an’ we’ll be down before long.”
The boy regarded the bodies dubiously, but to his credit, didn‘t make any faces. “How long should I wait?”
“If ye see dawn approachin’ an’ we’ve still not made it, stay hidden near th’ shadows of th’ ship, out of sight ‘til nightfall tomorrow, then dump these two an’ row like mad to th‘ northeast; we‘ll distract th‘ crew,” Jack ordered. “We won’ be that long, trust me.”
After David slipped out for a recon and made sure their cabin wasn’t guarded, the three of them approached a set of pulleys mounted over the water, coming up behind the pirate keeping watch and knocking him unconscious. Again, David hid nearby and kept an eye out, waiting to voice alarm if need be, while Jack and Will quickly mounted their secret rowboat to the pulleys and made trips back to the cabin for the corpses.
As David was climbing aboard the boat a few minutes later, he turned and gave Will a quick hug, suddenly looking much younger than his fourteen years. “Don’t get killed,” he entreated.
“I’ll be fine,” the smith reassured him. “You get down there, now, and keep an eye on things, all right? We’ll be sending the second boat down in a few minutes; grab it and tie it on this one, like we talked about.” David nodded and took a seat, his fingers going to the sides and gripping tightly as his captain and mentor slowly dropped the boat to the ocean far below. The slack rope eventually told them, in the dark, they were finished, and they waited a couple of minutes for David to unhitch the boat so they could recoil the rope.
With the same economy of noise, the two made their way to another cockboat, already hoisted – again, the two men between them and their object ended up unconscious, though Will and Jack had to hunch down near some coiled rope for several quiet, tense minutes before the opportune moment presented itself. They were getting closer to voices, to activity in the center of the deck now, and with a quick glance and nod, Jack informed Will he should climb into the boat to be lowered. “I’ll swing on down in a few minutes,” he whispered. “Means one less of us th’ boy’s got to wait on.”
“And leave you here by yourself?” Will’s expression was dubious. “Not in the plan, Jack.”
“Plans shift,” the pirate explained simply. “Get in.”
“Only if you climb down the rope once the boat hits the water,” Will bargained. “And none of this ‘Pirate’ shite, either – if you don’t come down, I can easily climb back aboard.”
“When you make th’ plans, you can make th’ conditions,” Jack snapped back.
“I did help make these plans, remember? Or is senility setting in already?”
At the moment, given the opportunity to follow his heart’s desire, Jack would have easily foregone his usual wish to kiss the man to land a good right hook on his jaw instead. “I’m not that old!” he hissed.
“You’re the one who always talks like you’re such the wise elder,” Will pointed out. “We’re wasting time, here; you promise to climb down, and I’ll go now.” He stuck out his left hand for an accord, and Jack guiltily noticed the jagged white scar that bisected the palm, knowing the smith had offered the wrong hand for just that reason – to remind Jack of another time when their cooperation had meant the difference between life and death. With a silent roll of his eyes, Jack shook it, his own matching scar touching the other man’s briefly.
Jack had an exciting moment when the boat was about halfway down, hearing Francois’s voice somewhere behind him. He paused only long enough to make the decision to hastily finish lowering Will and the boat, then ducked down and crawled back to the coiled ropes, shrinking into shadows and holding his breath. When nobody came near enough to inspect, he took a couple of preparatory breaths and sprang up, slinking over to the pulleys and hauling himself over the side, rappelling against the hull and swinging out a bit at the bottom to aim for the boat.
Hands grabbed his legs, pulling, and Jack let go of the rope before he could follow its arc back toward the ship. The arms were around his thighs; when they abruptly released him, he stumbled and ended up hard on his knees, knocking over and straddling the slender waist of a rather scandalized Will Turner. “Aren’t you supposed to have better sea legs than that?” the smith asked, leaning on his elbows, trying to back away.
Jack flexed his fingers, which had ended up on Will’s shoulders. It wouldn’t take much to close the distance and visit his lips upon his beloved’s, to dip his chest and line his heartbeat up with the other man’s – but it was a chasm he couldn’t yet cross, and he couldn’t say that Will would ever be ready for it. “Well, quit grabbin’ me arse, and maybe I can stay on me feet,” he retorted, pushing himself back to sit as Will scrambled into a seated position himself.
“It must be the hair.” Will searched around for the second oar and, finding it, set about to rowing around the ship toward David.
“’Scuse me?”
“Like Samson. You get your hair cut off, and suddenly you’ve got the grace of a twelve-year-old cabin boy – which is to say, none,” Will explained, stroking. “Maybe that’s the source of your mysterious sea powers, eh?” Thoughtful stroke. “Or is it just the beard?”
Forever a master of the comeback and doublespeak, Jack scowled briefly at having nothing clever to rebut. “We’ll just see how easily you swing a hammer without your curls,” he snapped back. Will chuckled softly at that, and Jack was surprised to feel a lessening of annoyance at the welcome sound. Before he could examine it much more deeply, he sighted the other boat, David waving his arms until they pulled alongside.
“Finally!” It was the first time Jack had heard the boy express irritation with anything. He clamored out between Jack and Will, pulling the bag of tack along. “I don’t want to see dead people anymore. Yuck.”
Jack shot Will an amused glance over the boy’s shoulder, and he could tell Will was having to bite back laughter at the comment, David’s first indication of being anything other than a proper young gentleman willing to complete any job for his masters. “An’ what would you’ve done if we hadn’t shown up so quick?” he asked, reaching over to tie the rope lashing the other cockboat behind their own.
“Probably puked over the side,” the boy answered bluntly. “I mean it; they smell bad.”
Will made his unpleasant face again as he gathered up his oars. “No roses here,” he agreed.
“And them having your hair’s just creepy, Captain. Why’d you have to do that, anyway?”
Jack put a finger to his lips to silence the boy and indicated with his hands Will should row harder. They were all silent except for Will‘s slightly labored breathing, for the next several minutes as they put surprising distance between themselves and the Versailles. “Come on, Samson,” Jack prodded in a stage whisper once they were far enough out for the sound not to carry across the water back to the pirates.
“Shut up, Captain,” he grunted, responsible for rowing five bodies out to wherever. “You know, there’s another set of oars in that boat.”
“Is there, now? Well, thanks for enlightenin’ me.” But he turned and pulled the other boat closer by its rope, leaning over to fish around for the oars. “You know which way we’re headed, right?”
“You have the compass.”
“Aye, and so I do.” Pulling the oars over, Jack turned to take his seat once again, and paused to dig for the good compass, studying it. “Bit more to your right, mate … that’s it. Now you can straighten out.” He snapped it closed, put it away, and took up his own oars.
A few minutes later, David posed the question again: “Captain, why’d you and Mr. Turner put your hair on those dead bodies?”
“We’re gon’ get far enough out, an’ then cut that boat loose, dump th’ bodies in the water face-down – make it look like it was us there, that we got attacked by sharks or some such thing.”
“What about me?”
Jack shook his head as he leaned forward, rowing in complement to Will’s backward pulls. “We’ll just hope they think you’re already chum when they come ‘pon it,” he explained. “Weren’t no one on board small as you, an’ even if there’d been, I don’t make a habit of murderin’ whelps.”
“One redeeming quality, anyway.” Will grinned as he pulled on his oars.
“That … an’ not throwin’ truculent blacksmiths overboard,” Jack remarked.
On to the final part ...
