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Fic: 'Harry & the Pirate V: Caribbean Quests' (Jack/Harry (OFC), etc. etc. - PG-13 - 6/7)
One more chapter to go! Many thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hereswith for beta reading.
Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three
Chapter Four | Chapter Five |
Chapter Six
Heaven knew Jack loved his wife, but there were times when he absolutely adored her… times like this, when a trail of discarded garments marked their progress across the cabin… when his lips and ooh, much more vital bits were hot from her kisses, kisses fierce and sweet, teasing… tempting… that made him bloody ache to touch, to hold, to take her, right here… right now… save that he was tied, bound hand and foot, her knots surprisingly effective (clever lass, she had been paying attention)… bound with silk: bright scarves she’d bought for this purpose that very afternoon, following a morning call she’d paid on that sloe-eyed Italian contessa, the wench she’d discovered to have been Jack’s lover in one of his former lives, a time now of less substance than that filmy bit of robe that his darling was opening, slipping off, allowing to drift to the floor, save that the contessa had informed her of a few of the more exotic things she and Jack had done together, way back when, years before Harry’s time, and Harry, wickedly curious and possibly just a trifle jealous, meant to try them out, one by one, please God, yes! her fingers, her hair loose and drifting, her lips… tongue… teeth…
“Da! Da, wake up, we’ve raised the islands, they’re on the horizon!”
Small hands gripped his shoulder, shaking him awake, and Dream Harry dissolved like a bit of mist in the sun and was gone. Jack uttered a whine of agonized frustration.
“Are you all right?” Tom asked, letting him go. “You said to come get you at once when we raised the islands.”
“Aye,” Jack acknowledged, his voice pitched far too high. He purposefully lowered it and said, “I mean, aye! Give me a minute, will you? Or actually about fifteen, there’s a good lad, go on deck and tell Mr. Gibbs I’ll be up presently.”
“Aye aye, sir!” Tom said with great enthusiasm and good cheer, and ran out of the cabin, slamming the door as he left.
Jack closed his eyes. Harry. Oh, bloody hell, what a state he was in, as bad as some green lad who’d just discovered the sweet torture of concupiscence, and the ways in which a woman could hold one in thrall.
Though of course she’d be fascinated to hear all about this, the dream and its inevitable aftermath, when he finally reached home to tell her. Might even prove inspirational, with her humors all running amuck, as they were wont to do in her gravid state.
Dream Harry drifted back into his head, beckoning irresistibly, and he sighed, and closed his eyes, following her.
*
It was more like twenty minutes later, but he climbed the companionway to the quarterdeck briskly and with a smile. “Good morning,” he said to Gibbs, Michael, and Will; to Tom, who was leaning over the side, a glass trained on the island, he growled, “Lad, you drop my favorite spyglass in the drink and I’ll toss you in to go fetch it, savvy?”
Tom scooted back instantly and turned to him. “Sorry, sir.”
Jack held out his hand and Tom gave him the spyglass with alacrity.
The boy had certainly been on his best behavior these last few days – on his own at least, though Anne still seemed capable of leading him astray with alarming ease. The second afternoon out from Bridgetown, the two had been caught sunbathing in a secluded corner that was more or less screened by a sail, not a stitch of clothing between them. Scared at her father’s expression (James could be deuced forbidding at times), but admirably determined, Anne had foiled Tom’s attempt to take credit for the notion, asserting that it had been entirely her own idea.
Jack had been inclined to chuckle over it, but not so James, and the poor little lass’s honesty availed her little. She’d copped it finely, much to Tom’s distress, and the next day she’d been confined to the Great Cabin, reading aloud, practicing her letters, and doing sums under her father’s exacting eye all the long, sunny morning, Mimi laying faithfully at her feet, then spent most of the afternoon working a sampler with the assistance of Suzanna’s more sympathetic guidance, though the chit had to pull out half as many stitches as she set, and the much-abused piece of cloth acquired a stain or two due to pricked fingers. When they were all sitting down to dinner that evening, James commended Anne’s progress and informed her that she would continue in this vein for several hours each day for the remainder of the voyage, a remark that James might have known would put her off her feed. After quietly moving her fish and rice around the plate for the best part of an hour, she was finally permitted to escape topside with her partner in crime, and it was a sadly subdued pair that sat down to watch the sunset, Tom’s arm slipping around her comfortingly, her golden head drooping against his shoulder.
But it wasn’t only consideration for Anne’s fair hide – not to mention his own – that kept Tom to the straight and narrow of late: it was a gratifying concern for Jack’s sensibilities, too. When Jack had returned to the ship in the wee hours following that fateful day in Bridgetown and found his son curled up with the cats in the Pearl’s hold, they’d talked a bit and it transpired that, during the course of Tom’s long, anxious evening, James had told the lad how it had grieved Jack to be obliged to punish his son – which God knew was no more than the truth.
“The admiral’s a smart man. I’d far rather have been thrashed myself,” Jack had admitted. “But that wouldn’t have done you much good.” Jack had given Tom a hug before going on to say, “I may be wrong, but I suspect that won’t be the last such occasion between us, you being my son, and me being your father, and your captain, too, for now. But I’d count it a kindness if you could manage to make said occasions as few and as far between as possible.”
“I will, Da – I promise!” Tom had told him, with great (and understandable) sincerity.
Tom also hoped to convince Jack he should not be apprenticed to another captain, for he’d been born on the Black Pearl, had known and loved her all his life, she was his home, as much or more so than was Island House on St. Claire. So the four days waiting on the midwife’s pleasure in Bridgetown and the five days of the voyage to her Herbal Islands had been relatively peaceful, apart from Anne’s sunbathing caper.
Speaking of which, the lass was now trotting up the companionway, sans canine (for Mimi had forgotten herself almost at Jack’s feet the first day out from Bridgetown and had been summarily banished from the quarterdeck), but followed by her father, Suzanna, and Yewande Zola, and Jack noticed Anne’s skin was noticeably sun-kissed, a pretty sight to him but he had to wonder what Maggie would say about it. “Good morning, Annie, how’s the sampler coming along?” he asked her, and grinned as she wrinkled her nose most expressively in reply.
James said to Jack, “The islands are in sight?”
“Aye, five days start to finish, James. Two hundred miles a day, noon to noon, and we’ve barely had to adjust the sails. The Pearl’s a wonder, ain’t she?”
“She is indeed, as is this weather. Our luck seems to have taken a turn for the better.”
Jack felt a twinge of dismay, and Gibbs said, “Beggin’ your pardon, Admiral, but you should know better than to tempt fate with such words.”
“My apologies,” James said, only a little ironical, for he was a sailor, too, and he knocked on the wood of the rail.
Jack nodded approval at this precaution, then turned to Yewande Zola. “And good morrow to you, ma’am.” He gave her a slight bow, which she returned with that amused glance that never failed to unnerve him. They had gotten along tolerably well during the voyage. She’d deigned to be pleased with her accommodations – Gibbs had swung a hammock with the rest of the crew, freeing up his small cabin on the gun deck for her – and had taken the Pearl’s swift progress as a matter of course, having predicted it. The crew quite liked her, and respected her as a woman of medicine and magic, and had even taken to bringing any injuries or ailments to her to cure, but Jack was still wary of her, she was too bloody knowing for his taste, and he avoided her whenever possible, going aloft for long periods, or finding business to attend to in the Great Cabin.
Tom, of course, liked her, as did Anne. Yewande Zola said now, as the children gravitated toward each other, “And how are my chicks today? Are you both ready for adventures?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am!” Anne assured her.
But James said, “I don’t know that you will be permitted to visit the island, Anne. Tom will do better without you, I believe.”
Tom looked crestfallen at this, but it was nothing to Anne’s expression of dismay. Jack saw that she was about to blurt out some ill-judged protest, guaranteed to set up her father’s back, and he stepped quickly into the breech. “If you’ll have it, James, they can both come with me. It ain’t my idea of a good time to be picking herbs, no matter how efficacious. I’ll point them out and they can do the picking, eh?”
James frowned, and eyed his daughter narrowly. “If I allow you to go, you must stay with Captain Sparrow, or with me if he no longer needs your assistance.”
“Yes, Papa,” she said, and looked so adorably contrite that Jack wondered at James’s resolution in disciplining her – and wondered, too, how he would ever manage with a daughter. It was bad enough having to come the moralist with young Tom, the son he loved with all his heart, when he was himself naught but a scallywag in privateer’s clothing.
*
Jack gave orders to shorten sail as they cautiously approached their destination, for these were unfamiliar waters, but he shared the wheel with Tom, who had asked to be allowed to stay by his side. The lad had always had a good understanding, whatever the subject, but today Jack noticed he was more attentive than in the recent past – he dismissed Anne to start with, telling her to go tend Mimi and help set the table for breakfast (and though Anne had looked disappointed, she’d obeyed him quick enough – Jack wondered how much longer that state of affairs would last). As a result, Jack found himself enjoying his role of instructor more than usual.
He explained in detail the many factors that must be considered in approaching an unknown shore, and let his son get a feel for the Black Pearl’s helm. “Firm, but gentle, that’s the way… you have to sense her needs and act accordingly. She’s a lady through and through, Tom. Treat her right and she’ll give you her all.”
Tom threw him a precocious grin at these remarks. “Are ladies all alike that way?”
And Jack chuckled. “Aye, they are.”
In a little over an hour, the Pearl dropped anchor off shore of the largest island in the group and, after seeing that all was secure, Jack and Tom repaired to the Great Cabin where Breakfast By Anatole had been laid out. It was a cheerful meal, and when it was over Jack cleared a space on the table, fetched paper and pen, and had Yewande Zola draw a picture of their quarry, which she did with surprising skill.
“It is found nowhere else that I know of,” she said, “but it grows here in abundance, in the shade of the forested slopes. It should not take us more than a few hours to gather what I need.”
“Enough to last a year and a day,” Jack mused, recalling her words. “Most of the crew can help. The glass is still holding steady, so we’ll just leave an anchor watch. I say let’s get over there and get it done.”
Then Gibbs said, with uncharacteristic imprudence, “We’ll be able to sail on the evening tide!”
They all stared at him, even Mimi the dog.
“And now who’s tempting fate, Mr. Gibbs?” James drawled.
Gibbs, thoroughly shame-faced at his lapse, crossed himself.
*
Everything went well for the first hour.
Yewande Zola quickly found one of the required plants in a shady grove near the wide, white sandy beach, and as the boats arrived she sent everyone out in teams of two or three, with a basket between. Most were sent into the forests close at hand, but she told Michael and Suzanna Owens that there was a pool about a mile in, very secluded and fed by the island’s only known waterfall, where there was an especially abundant growth of the herb, and ordered that the couple to take their time in harvesting there. James and Will went off together, up a heavily wooded slope, and Jack, Tom, and Anne went in more or less the same direction before veering off into a drier area where there was less undergrowth.
Jack was carrying the basket, as per the plan, and the children were doing the stooping and gathering with great glee – so easy to please at that age, Jack mused. The wood had a pleasant, earthy scent, and the sun filtered down through the trees in a delightful manner. There were some questionable looking plants in this drier part of the wood, horrid, low-lying spiky things, but these were easily avoided, the herbs in question preferring the shade of the tall trees. All was going along swimmingly, and their basket was nearly half full, when Jack heard some sounds out of his past, sounds that made the hair stand on the back of his neck: a snorting and the galloping of small, weighty hooves.
Boar!
It broke out of the underbrush, an enormous thing, rusty red with great curved white tusks, and headed straight up the slope toward Tom and Anne, who’d roamed some way ahead.
“Tom!” Jack’s roar of terror and warning was almost a shriek. He threw down the basket and drew his cutlass in the same swift movement, and ran.
But Tom and Anne had heard and now saw their peril, and in one of those feats possible only when one’s life was truly on the line, Tom leapt into the nearest tree and dragged Anne up behind him. A split second later, the huge, enraged animal charged over the spot where they’d been standing.
Balked of its prey, the boar wheeled, registered Jack moving toward it, and headed straight for him, red murder in its eye.
There was no tree near enough, so Jack readied his cutlass, dodged the monster smoothly and brought his blade down on the thick neck, not a killing blow, but the weapon stuck fast and was ripped from Jack’s hand as the animal let out a horrible squeal, charging past, unable to stop on the slope. By the time it did, and turned, and was headed back, Jack had drawn his pistol. He took aim, fired, then threw himself violently to the side as the behemoth came on, seemingly unchecked. But Jack’s aim had been true: another few yards and it dropped, sliding to a halt in a cloud of dust, stone-dead.
And then Jack roared high-pitched again, for he’d landed hard against one of those spiky bushes.
“Da!” yelled Tom.
Swearing a blue streak, Jack tried to loose himself enough to rise, but he seemed to be stuck fast to the thing. God alone knew how many of those spikes were embedded in his right hip and leg, but it felt like dozens from the pain. He set his teeth, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes, then Tom and Anne arrived, looking horrified, and he managed to gasp a few words: “Get James and Will!”
*
“This is your fault,” Jack growled at James, who was sitting by him.
“Oh, really? I believe Mr. Gibbs must at least share the blame.”
The admiral’s expression of concern was marred by definite traces of amusement, now that they’d gotten Jack down to the beach and laid him on a blanket on his uninjured side. Yawende Zola had just finished examining him, and though there were at least fifteen inch-long spikes still deep in his arse and thigh, spikes that would need to be pulled out one by bloody one, she had concluded that he would certainly live to see Harry again, and might even be able to walk without a limp by that time.
She listed the things she would need with a ghoulishly professional air: her basket of medicines, a pair of fine, strong pincers, needles of various sizes and a lancet (“…just in case…”). “Bring materials to build a tent, too,” she told Will, who was in charge of fetching everything from the Pearl. “It is not seemly that the captain undergo treatment where all can view his suffering.” She turned to Jack. “You will bite hard on a piece of leather and it will soon be over. And of course you may have some rum, if you like, to cut the pain.”
“If I like!” Jack’s voice was a tortured squeak, and he was doubly glad he’d sent Tom and Anne off to build sandcastles when the woman had ordered him stripped of his breeches. “Rum, Will! Bring lots of rum!”
Will grinned sympathetically. “Aye, aye, Captain. Anything else you’d like?”
James said, “We may as well stay the night here on the island, Jack. You’ll be in no fit condition to do anything on the Pearl until tomorrow at least, when you’re somewhat recovered from the exigencies of your treatment. And you’ve kindly provided us with the means to hold a celebration honoring your feat and the conclusion of our herbal quest. ”
“What the devil d’you mean?” Jack said, wincing and shifting uncomfortably, his mind taken up with his current pain and impending torture.
“The boar, Jack,” James said, rather gently. “It was a brilliant shot, right through the eye, Tom and Anne witnessed the whole thing and are busy telling everyone about it, and Gibbs and some of the others have gone back to bring the animal down here to the beach.”
“Damnation, you’re bloody right!” Jack said in something of a gasp. He briefly closed his eyes, gathering himself, then told Will, “Bring over everything we need. Everything, including Mimi for Anne. But above all, bring Anatole. By God, if we don’t feast on roast pork with all the trimmings tonight, my name isn’t Captain Jack Sparrow!”
On to Chapter Seven...
hereswith for beta reading.Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three
Chapter Four | Chapter Five |
Chapter Six
Heaven knew Jack loved his wife, but there were times when he absolutely adored her… times like this, when a trail of discarded garments marked their progress across the cabin… when his lips and ooh, much more vital bits were hot from her kisses, kisses fierce and sweet, teasing… tempting… that made him bloody ache to touch, to hold, to take her, right here… right now… save that he was tied, bound hand and foot, her knots surprisingly effective (clever lass, she had been paying attention)… bound with silk: bright scarves she’d bought for this purpose that very afternoon, following a morning call she’d paid on that sloe-eyed Italian contessa, the wench she’d discovered to have been Jack’s lover in one of his former lives, a time now of less substance than that filmy bit of robe that his darling was opening, slipping off, allowing to drift to the floor, save that the contessa had informed her of a few of the more exotic things she and Jack had done together, way back when, years before Harry’s time, and Harry, wickedly curious and possibly just a trifle jealous, meant to try them out, one by one, please God, yes! her fingers, her hair loose and drifting, her lips… tongue… teeth…
“Da! Da, wake up, we’ve raised the islands, they’re on the horizon!”
Small hands gripped his shoulder, shaking him awake, and Dream Harry dissolved like a bit of mist in the sun and was gone. Jack uttered a whine of agonized frustration.
“Are you all right?” Tom asked, letting him go. “You said to come get you at once when we raised the islands.”
“Aye,” Jack acknowledged, his voice pitched far too high. He purposefully lowered it and said, “I mean, aye! Give me a minute, will you? Or actually about fifteen, there’s a good lad, go on deck and tell Mr. Gibbs I’ll be up presently.”
“Aye aye, sir!” Tom said with great enthusiasm and good cheer, and ran out of the cabin, slamming the door as he left.
Jack closed his eyes. Harry. Oh, bloody hell, what a state he was in, as bad as some green lad who’d just discovered the sweet torture of concupiscence, and the ways in which a woman could hold one in thrall.
Though of course she’d be fascinated to hear all about this, the dream and its inevitable aftermath, when he finally reached home to tell her. Might even prove inspirational, with her humors all running amuck, as they were wont to do in her gravid state.
Dream Harry drifted back into his head, beckoning irresistibly, and he sighed, and closed his eyes, following her.
*
It was more like twenty minutes later, but he climbed the companionway to the quarterdeck briskly and with a smile. “Good morning,” he said to Gibbs, Michael, and Will; to Tom, who was leaning over the side, a glass trained on the island, he growled, “Lad, you drop my favorite spyglass in the drink and I’ll toss you in to go fetch it, savvy?”
Tom scooted back instantly and turned to him. “Sorry, sir.”
Jack held out his hand and Tom gave him the spyglass with alacrity.
The boy had certainly been on his best behavior these last few days – on his own at least, though Anne still seemed capable of leading him astray with alarming ease. The second afternoon out from Bridgetown, the two had been caught sunbathing in a secluded corner that was more or less screened by a sail, not a stitch of clothing between them. Scared at her father’s expression (James could be deuced forbidding at times), but admirably determined, Anne had foiled Tom’s attempt to take credit for the notion, asserting that it had been entirely her own idea.
Jack had been inclined to chuckle over it, but not so James, and the poor little lass’s honesty availed her little. She’d copped it finely, much to Tom’s distress, and the next day she’d been confined to the Great Cabin, reading aloud, practicing her letters, and doing sums under her father’s exacting eye all the long, sunny morning, Mimi laying faithfully at her feet, then spent most of the afternoon working a sampler with the assistance of Suzanna’s more sympathetic guidance, though the chit had to pull out half as many stitches as she set, and the much-abused piece of cloth acquired a stain or two due to pricked fingers. When they were all sitting down to dinner that evening, James commended Anne’s progress and informed her that she would continue in this vein for several hours each day for the remainder of the voyage, a remark that James might have known would put her off her feed. After quietly moving her fish and rice around the plate for the best part of an hour, she was finally permitted to escape topside with her partner in crime, and it was a sadly subdued pair that sat down to watch the sunset, Tom’s arm slipping around her comfortingly, her golden head drooping against his shoulder.
But it wasn’t only consideration for Anne’s fair hide – not to mention his own – that kept Tom to the straight and narrow of late: it was a gratifying concern for Jack’s sensibilities, too. When Jack had returned to the ship in the wee hours following that fateful day in Bridgetown and found his son curled up with the cats in the Pearl’s hold, they’d talked a bit and it transpired that, during the course of Tom’s long, anxious evening, James had told the lad how it had grieved Jack to be obliged to punish his son – which God knew was no more than the truth.
“The admiral’s a smart man. I’d far rather have been thrashed myself,” Jack had admitted. “But that wouldn’t have done you much good.” Jack had given Tom a hug before going on to say, “I may be wrong, but I suspect that won’t be the last such occasion between us, you being my son, and me being your father, and your captain, too, for now. But I’d count it a kindness if you could manage to make said occasions as few and as far between as possible.”
“I will, Da – I promise!” Tom had told him, with great (and understandable) sincerity.
Tom also hoped to convince Jack he should not be apprenticed to another captain, for he’d been born on the Black Pearl, had known and loved her all his life, she was his home, as much or more so than was Island House on St. Claire. So the four days waiting on the midwife’s pleasure in Bridgetown and the five days of the voyage to her Herbal Islands had been relatively peaceful, apart from Anne’s sunbathing caper.
Speaking of which, the lass was now trotting up the companionway, sans canine (for Mimi had forgotten herself almost at Jack’s feet the first day out from Bridgetown and had been summarily banished from the quarterdeck), but followed by her father, Suzanna, and Yewande Zola, and Jack noticed Anne’s skin was noticeably sun-kissed, a pretty sight to him but he had to wonder what Maggie would say about it. “Good morning, Annie, how’s the sampler coming along?” he asked her, and grinned as she wrinkled her nose most expressively in reply.
James said to Jack, “The islands are in sight?”
“Aye, five days start to finish, James. Two hundred miles a day, noon to noon, and we’ve barely had to adjust the sails. The Pearl’s a wonder, ain’t she?”
“She is indeed, as is this weather. Our luck seems to have taken a turn for the better.”
Jack felt a twinge of dismay, and Gibbs said, “Beggin’ your pardon, Admiral, but you should know better than to tempt fate with such words.”
“My apologies,” James said, only a little ironical, for he was a sailor, too, and he knocked on the wood of the rail.
Jack nodded approval at this precaution, then turned to Yewande Zola. “And good morrow to you, ma’am.” He gave her a slight bow, which she returned with that amused glance that never failed to unnerve him. They had gotten along tolerably well during the voyage. She’d deigned to be pleased with her accommodations – Gibbs had swung a hammock with the rest of the crew, freeing up his small cabin on the gun deck for her – and had taken the Pearl’s swift progress as a matter of course, having predicted it. The crew quite liked her, and respected her as a woman of medicine and magic, and had even taken to bringing any injuries or ailments to her to cure, but Jack was still wary of her, she was too bloody knowing for his taste, and he avoided her whenever possible, going aloft for long periods, or finding business to attend to in the Great Cabin.
Tom, of course, liked her, as did Anne. Yewande Zola said now, as the children gravitated toward each other, “And how are my chicks today? Are you both ready for adventures?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am!” Anne assured her.
But James said, “I don’t know that you will be permitted to visit the island, Anne. Tom will do better without you, I believe.”
Tom looked crestfallen at this, but it was nothing to Anne’s expression of dismay. Jack saw that she was about to blurt out some ill-judged protest, guaranteed to set up her father’s back, and he stepped quickly into the breech. “If you’ll have it, James, they can both come with me. It ain’t my idea of a good time to be picking herbs, no matter how efficacious. I’ll point them out and they can do the picking, eh?”
James frowned, and eyed his daughter narrowly. “If I allow you to go, you must stay with Captain Sparrow, or with me if he no longer needs your assistance.”
“Yes, Papa,” she said, and looked so adorably contrite that Jack wondered at James’s resolution in disciplining her – and wondered, too, how he would ever manage with a daughter. It was bad enough having to come the moralist with young Tom, the son he loved with all his heart, when he was himself naught but a scallywag in privateer’s clothing.
*
Jack gave orders to shorten sail as they cautiously approached their destination, for these were unfamiliar waters, but he shared the wheel with Tom, who had asked to be allowed to stay by his side. The lad had always had a good understanding, whatever the subject, but today Jack noticed he was more attentive than in the recent past – he dismissed Anne to start with, telling her to go tend Mimi and help set the table for breakfast (and though Anne had looked disappointed, she’d obeyed him quick enough – Jack wondered how much longer that state of affairs would last). As a result, Jack found himself enjoying his role of instructor more than usual.
He explained in detail the many factors that must be considered in approaching an unknown shore, and let his son get a feel for the Black Pearl’s helm. “Firm, but gentle, that’s the way… you have to sense her needs and act accordingly. She’s a lady through and through, Tom. Treat her right and she’ll give you her all.”
Tom threw him a precocious grin at these remarks. “Are ladies all alike that way?”
And Jack chuckled. “Aye, they are.”
In a little over an hour, the Pearl dropped anchor off shore of the largest island in the group and, after seeing that all was secure, Jack and Tom repaired to the Great Cabin where Breakfast By Anatole had been laid out. It was a cheerful meal, and when it was over Jack cleared a space on the table, fetched paper and pen, and had Yewande Zola draw a picture of their quarry, which she did with surprising skill.
“It is found nowhere else that I know of,” she said, “but it grows here in abundance, in the shade of the forested slopes. It should not take us more than a few hours to gather what I need.”
“Enough to last a year and a day,” Jack mused, recalling her words. “Most of the crew can help. The glass is still holding steady, so we’ll just leave an anchor watch. I say let’s get over there and get it done.”
Then Gibbs said, with uncharacteristic imprudence, “We’ll be able to sail on the evening tide!”
They all stared at him, even Mimi the dog.
“And now who’s tempting fate, Mr. Gibbs?” James drawled.
Gibbs, thoroughly shame-faced at his lapse, crossed himself.
*
Everything went well for the first hour.
Yewande Zola quickly found one of the required plants in a shady grove near the wide, white sandy beach, and as the boats arrived she sent everyone out in teams of two or three, with a basket between. Most were sent into the forests close at hand, but she told Michael and Suzanna Owens that there was a pool about a mile in, very secluded and fed by the island’s only known waterfall, where there was an especially abundant growth of the herb, and ordered that the couple to take their time in harvesting there. James and Will went off together, up a heavily wooded slope, and Jack, Tom, and Anne went in more or less the same direction before veering off into a drier area where there was less undergrowth.
Jack was carrying the basket, as per the plan, and the children were doing the stooping and gathering with great glee – so easy to please at that age, Jack mused. The wood had a pleasant, earthy scent, and the sun filtered down through the trees in a delightful manner. There were some questionable looking plants in this drier part of the wood, horrid, low-lying spiky things, but these were easily avoided, the herbs in question preferring the shade of the tall trees. All was going along swimmingly, and their basket was nearly half full, when Jack heard some sounds out of his past, sounds that made the hair stand on the back of his neck: a snorting and the galloping of small, weighty hooves.
Boar!
It broke out of the underbrush, an enormous thing, rusty red with great curved white tusks, and headed straight up the slope toward Tom and Anne, who’d roamed some way ahead.
“Tom!” Jack’s roar of terror and warning was almost a shriek. He threw down the basket and drew his cutlass in the same swift movement, and ran.
But Tom and Anne had heard and now saw their peril, and in one of those feats possible only when one’s life was truly on the line, Tom leapt into the nearest tree and dragged Anne up behind him. A split second later, the huge, enraged animal charged over the spot where they’d been standing.
Balked of its prey, the boar wheeled, registered Jack moving toward it, and headed straight for him, red murder in its eye.
There was no tree near enough, so Jack readied his cutlass, dodged the monster smoothly and brought his blade down on the thick neck, not a killing blow, but the weapon stuck fast and was ripped from Jack’s hand as the animal let out a horrible squeal, charging past, unable to stop on the slope. By the time it did, and turned, and was headed back, Jack had drawn his pistol. He took aim, fired, then threw himself violently to the side as the behemoth came on, seemingly unchecked. But Jack’s aim had been true: another few yards and it dropped, sliding to a halt in a cloud of dust, stone-dead.
And then Jack roared high-pitched again, for he’d landed hard against one of those spiky bushes.
“Da!” yelled Tom.
Swearing a blue streak, Jack tried to loose himself enough to rise, but he seemed to be stuck fast to the thing. God alone knew how many of those spikes were embedded in his right hip and leg, but it felt like dozens from the pain. He set his teeth, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes, then Tom and Anne arrived, looking horrified, and he managed to gasp a few words: “Get James and Will!”
*
“This is your fault,” Jack growled at James, who was sitting by him.
“Oh, really? I believe Mr. Gibbs must at least share the blame.”
The admiral’s expression of concern was marred by definite traces of amusement, now that they’d gotten Jack down to the beach and laid him on a blanket on his uninjured side. Yawende Zola had just finished examining him, and though there were at least fifteen inch-long spikes still deep in his arse and thigh, spikes that would need to be pulled out one by bloody one, she had concluded that he would certainly live to see Harry again, and might even be able to walk without a limp by that time.
She listed the things she would need with a ghoulishly professional air: her basket of medicines, a pair of fine, strong pincers, needles of various sizes and a lancet (“…just in case…”). “Bring materials to build a tent, too,” she told Will, who was in charge of fetching everything from the Pearl. “It is not seemly that the captain undergo treatment where all can view his suffering.” She turned to Jack. “You will bite hard on a piece of leather and it will soon be over. And of course you may have some rum, if you like, to cut the pain.”
“If I like!” Jack’s voice was a tortured squeak, and he was doubly glad he’d sent Tom and Anne off to build sandcastles when the woman had ordered him stripped of his breeches. “Rum, Will! Bring lots of rum!”
Will grinned sympathetically. “Aye, aye, Captain. Anything else you’d like?”
James said, “We may as well stay the night here on the island, Jack. You’ll be in no fit condition to do anything on the Pearl until tomorrow at least, when you’re somewhat recovered from the exigencies of your treatment. And you’ve kindly provided us with the means to hold a celebration honoring your feat and the conclusion of our herbal quest. ”
“What the devil d’you mean?” Jack said, wincing and shifting uncomfortably, his mind taken up with his current pain and impending torture.
“The boar, Jack,” James said, rather gently. “It was a brilliant shot, right through the eye, Tom and Anne witnessed the whole thing and are busy telling everyone about it, and Gibbs and some of the others have gone back to bring the animal down here to the beach.”
“Damnation, you’re bloody right!” Jack said in something of a gasp. He briefly closed his eyes, gathering himself, then told Will, “Bring over everything we need. Everything, including Mimi for Anne. But above all, bring Anatole. By God, if we don’t feast on roast pork with all the trimmings tonight, my name isn’t Captain Jack Sparrow!”
On to Chapter Seven...
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"Oh, really? I believe Mr. Gibbs must at least share the blame." <
Interesting way of assigning blame. But at least there'll be a nice pork compensation.
Kudos for a fine adventure tale!
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I'm so glad you enjoyed the adventure. Thank you for letting me know.