Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom

by A. C. Crispin

  “No,” said the portmaster, between his teeth, as he sat up.

  “Don’t forget to check the head,” Jack said, waving a gracious hand at his private facility. “He might be hiding in the hole, eh?”

  Blount didn’t dignify this sally with a response, only glanced grimly into the small enclosure, then slammed the door behind him. He stood there, sweating, his neckcloth rumpled and dirty, his wispy hair standing on end, his coat askew, obviously furious and searching for some kind of parting shot.

  “Really, Captain Sparrow,” he said finally, in acid tones, waving at Jack’s cabin, “what in the name of all that’s holy got into you? Baby blue and…pink?”

  Jack was genuinely affronted. “It’s periwinkle, Mr. Blount,” he said. “And rose. I…I quite like it!”

  Blount’s only response was a wordless growl. He stalked past Jack, and out the door.

  Still nettled by the portmaster’s lack of good taste, Jack left the cabin, locking the door behind him.

  The next morning, at dawn, the Wicked Wench left the docks of Calabar, her sails billowing as the crewmen worked to catch the dawn breezes. She sailed down the huge, muddy river, to the Atlantic, and headed out onto the open sea.

  Jack’s next problem was how to produce Chamba without any of his crew suspecting that the youth was, in fact, the runaway slave that Blount had been so publicly searching for their last day in Calabar. Checking their course, he verified that he could easily divert to the Cape Verde Islands, with a loss of only a handful of days in their passage.

  So he took Robby into his confidence, introduced him to the runaway, and then, three days after they’d departed Calabar, with much fanfare, Jack and Robby together “discovered” several barrels of “spoiled biscuit” amongst those Blount had delivered to their hold. With great cursing and fanfare, the two officers loudly dumped the offensive contents of these “spoiled” barrels overboard as the Wicked Wench made her way north after swinging around the bulge of Africa.

  Jack made a point of remarking within the hearing of his crew that he wasn’t a captain to stint a man or put his crew on short rations if he could avoid it, so they’d put in at St. Jago, the largest of the Cape Verde Islands, to replace the lost ship’s biscuit.

  It was difficult, keeping Chamba hidden for the entire ten days it took the Wicked Wench to reach the island, but Jack was motivated and Chamba was willing to do anything it took to have the chance to become a “sailor man.” They had one or two narrow squeaks during the trip, when Jack’s meals were delivered to him in his cabin, or officers reported to him, but they managed.

  As they neared St. Jago, Jack gloomily surveyed the contents of his purse, reflecting that finally he’d managed to save some money, only to have to spend it replacing perfectly good ship’s biscuit. But there was no help for it. He grumpily resolved to stop the amount out of Chamba’s wages for the voyage.

  When the Wicked Wench was safely docked in the harbor of Ribeira Grande, the largest settlement on St. Jago, Jack went into town to purchase replacement barrels of ship’s biscuit.

  By the time it had been delivered in mid-afternoon, Jack had decided, he informed his crew, to lay over for the night. Generously, he extended several hours of shore leave to his men, one watch at a time. Grinning, the first contingent of crewmen set off for the town.

  Jack casually mentioned that he’d decided the Wench needed a cabin boy and cook’s assistant, and asked them all to keep their eyes open for a likely lad.

  Ribeira Grande had been settled about two hundred and fifty years earlier by the Portuguese. It was a fair-sized town that was a common stop for Atlantic crossing vessels to refill water barrels, since the Cape Verde Islands were the last land until one reached the Caribbees, the outermost islands of the Caribbean in a ship’s “Triangle” passage.

  St. Jago was a pretty island, green along the shoreline, with two mountain ranges in the interior. Beautiful white sand beaches stretched out to either side of the harbor. Wistfully, Jack leaned on the railing of the Wicked Wench, looking at the lights of the town and wishing he could have a few hours of shore leave himself. Being captain was certainly different than being a hand before the mast. In a way, higher rank meant less freedom—at least personal freedom.

  The captain sighed, shrugging philosophically. After all, he had his ship, and he had the rank he’d wanted for years. The Wicked Wench had proved herself, so far, to be everything he’d envisioned back when they’d been working to get her shipshape back in Calabar. She was maneuverable and she was fast—deceptively fast for her size. At least as fast as Venganza, though of course a full load of cargo was a considerable disadvantage.

  Jack relaxed, enjoying the colors of the sunset. He had a task to do, but it had to wait for full darkness.

  When Chamba left the ship, via Jack’s windows, he was dangling on the end of a rope, the end of which was held by Robby Greene. Jack was still out on deck, waiting for the appointed time. At the right moment, he adjusted the small bundle of clothing he had hidden beneath his coat, then headed down the gangplank into the darkness.

  He met Chamba, as arranged, out amid the sand dunes, past the edge of the town. Quickly, the lad shed his wet clothes, and changed into the dry ones Jack had brought—a rough shirt from the slop chest, and a pair of britches Robby had outgrown years before. Just in case any of the crew might remember the lad from that day at the warehouse, Jack had brought a knife with him so he could cut his wiry coils of hair. He worked for a while with the freshly sharpened blade, cropping the growth as close to the youth’s skull as he could manage. It definitely changed his appearance, Jack decided, studying him in the moonlight.

  Chamba shoved his wet clothes into an old sack, then felt his shorn head. “How it look, Cap’n?”

  “Makes you look older,” Jack said. “Here, tie this bandanna around, like this.” He helped the youth tie the scrap of faded cloth that had once been black around his head. “Much better!” he pronounced, studying the former slave. “I doubt if even Blount would recognize you. At least in this light.”

  Chamba grinned, then squatted on his heels and scooped out a hole to bury the handfuls of hair.

  “So what about your name? Should we change it?” Jack asked.

  “My name…it be all I got left, Cap’n,” the lad said, his voice even, but Jack could see the sudden tension in his shoulders as he dug. “All that be left from beforetime, from mom and dad family, you know?”

  “Is Chamba a common name?”

  Chamba considered. “Pretty much so, yes.”

  “Then keep it.”

  Chamba nodded. “I will, then.”

  The youth stood up, his sack slung over his shoulder, to face the captain again. He hesitated for a moment, then said, “Cap’n, I know all what you did for me. You and Mister Robby. I won’t forget, me.”

  Jack made a deprecatory wave. “Come on, mate. Back to the ship. Time to start earning your wages, sailor man.”

  The young man’s teeth flashed white in the moonlight, and he nodded.

  Jack took his newly hired cabin boy back to the ship with him, and, together, they climbed the gangplank.

  Robby was waiting for them, and took Chamba in tow, to show him where he’d hang his hammock and introduce him to the cook, a potbellied Englishman named Phineas Taylor. The next morning, before dawn, the new cabin boy was on duty, helping Taylor serve the crewmen their breakfast in the gray light. Some of the sailors who had overindulged the night before waved the lad away when he offered them the lumpy, porridge-like substance made from crumbled ship’s biscuit, flavored with salted meat, that was called “burgoo.” Some took their bowls with a nod and a mumbled word of thanks. Others grabbed them in surly silence.

  None of the men gave the newcomer a second glance.

  The Wicked Wench set out for the Caribbean, and Chamba embarked on his new life.

  It took about four weeks for the Wicked Wench to reach the vicinity of the Caribbean Sea. Their passage across the A
tlantic had been fairly uneventful. Admittedly, it had rained for most of one week, which tended to dampen one’s spirits, but it also provided an opportunity to wash clothes grown stiff with salt residue. They had encountered only one big storm. The Wench rode out the tempest undaunted, with no damage to the ship or loss of life.

  When his duties allowed, Chamba joined several of the ordinary seamen as Second Mate Connery, Quartermaster Logan, plus some of the senior hands worked on instructing the “landsmen” (inexperienced crewmen) on how to tie knots, repair equipment, splice lines, and master other nautical tasks. He learned quickly, and before they had reached the Caribbean, the lad had been allowed aloft, first watching the experienced topmen, then assisting them as they rigged and reefed the sails.

  Jack, seeing him swarm up the spidery rope ladders, then walk along a yardarm as though it was as wide as a street, exchanged a covert glance and nod with Robby Greene. He’d been much the same way when he’d first been allowed aloft, at the age of ten. When you were young, fear was the last thing on your mind. There was only the exultation of being up so high, of doing a man’s job.

  As soon as the water beneath the Wicked Wench’s keel began to take on the azure tints of the Caribbean, Jack altered his course, turning north by west. He checked his position by sighting the outermost islands of the Caribbees off his port beam, through his spyglass. The first one in the arc of islands was the comparatively large Barbados, then St. Lucia, identifiable by its high mountains, followed by little Martinique, Dominica, Guadeloupe, Antigua, and Barbuda.

  The captain’s decision to skirt the Caribbean was prompted by his consciousness of the valuable cargo he was carrying, coupled with the vulnerability of his under-gunned vessel. True, he’d organized all available crewmen into gun crews, and begun training them to load, aim, and fire the big guns as quickly and efficiently as possible, but his men still had a long way to go before they’d be ready for battle. And he didn’t have much powder to spare for practice.

  Jack knew only too well that pirates had eyes and ears throughout the Caribbean, and that news from a paid informant, describing the Wicked Wench and reporting she was bound for England with a select cargo of gold, ivory, rare woods, and spices, might well reach the wrong ears. So he decided against docking at any of the established ports. Still, he needed to replenish his water supply, and fresh food was always a plus to sailors.

  With this in mind, Jack sat down in his cabin one evening, thinking about the many cays in the vicinity of the Bahamas. Men on the account were always on the lookout for small, uninhabited, uncharted islands that nevertheless boasted a supply of fresh water, and sometimes even the prospect of fresh fruit, fish, and game animals.

  He remembered a cay that Teague had used several times while he’d sailed with him, a smallish one, only two and a half miles long and a mile wide, but it boasted a good clear spring, and teemed with plant and animal life. Holding the image of the unnamed islet fixed in his mind, Jack took out the compass Tia Dalma had given him, back when he’d been younger than Chamba was now, and closed his eyes, concentrating.

  When Jack opened his eyes, the needle of the compass was pointing firmly northwest. Smiling, he again concealed the compass, and went forward to take the wheel. Jack steered the ship for several hours, adjusting her course heading slightly as the compass needle indicated. The captain had to be careful not to reveal the compass to his helmsman or any curious crewmember. There was simply no way to easily explain what he had. Crews had mutinied before when they’d decided their captain had gone mad.

  Robby, of course, knew about the compass; he owed his life to its ability to point the way to whatever the person holding it desired the most. But it had been years since he’d seen Jack use it steadily, as he was using it that sunny afternoon.

  The next morning, Jack was rewarded by the sight of the cay, only a few miles distant. This area of the southern Bahamas was studded with them, some real islands, others just spits of land or rocky outcrops. Coral shoals were common, so navigation had to be pinpoint. As the Wench approached the cay, Jack kept two contingents of crewmen busy—both port and starboard—taking depth measurements.

  The little cay had no harbor, so Jack dropped anchor half a mile away from it. Quickly, he assigned crews to go out in the longboats with their water barrels, and also dispatched Second Mate Connery to take a crew of sailors who professed themselves marksmen on a hunting party. Wild boar roamed the island, and the men’s eyes lit up at the idea of fresh meat.

  Five or six crewmen scurried to get their fishing tackle. Fresh or salted fish was another treat.

  As the boat crews returned with the filled water barrels, they reported seeing dozens of large tortoises sunning themselves, so Jack gave permission for several men to go back to capture some. “And find me some fruit,” he instructed. “Bananas, coconuts…whatever there is.”

  “Aye, Cap’n!”

  As the afternoon approached, and the hunting parties and water crews returned safely with their boats loaded, Jack even granted himself a few hours of solitary shore leave, leaving Robby, who had gone on one of the earlier shore parties, in command. Taking one of the smaller boats, he rowed himself to the cay, dragging his craft up on a beautiful beach of white sand, with some rocky outcrops that provided a bit of privacy.

  Shucking off his clothes, Jack backstroked out to one of the outcrops, and climbed up on a rock shelf, warm beneath his feet from the afternoon sun. Looking down, the water was so clear that even though it had to be at least twenty feet deep, he could see every detail: creatures scuttling along on the bottom, and small, brightly colored fish darting briskly, hither and yon. With a laugh of pure pleasure, Jack flexed his legs and executed a perfect dive into the sea.

  He came up smoothly and began to swim, his strokes strong, fast, and sure. Jack didn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been able to swim. He didn’t recall anyone ever teaching him. One of the stories often repeated about him by sailors who had crewed Teague’s vessel, Troubadour, was about the time an old pirate had asked him where he’d learned to dive and swim so well, and the five-year-old Jack had responded solemnly, “The mermaids taught me.”

  He swam for half an hour, then climbed back up on the rock to sun himself, mindful of the rays reaching parts of him that didn’t get much exposure. Luckily, rock overhangs offered a few shady places.

  As he lay there, listening to the soft lapping of the water, enjoying the moment, he found himself thinking back to those days at Shipwreck Cove when he and Esmeralda had rowed off in a small boat, looking for good places to swim.…

  Their first few weeks together had been, in a word, idyllic. Several times a week, the two young pirate scions had found time to pack up food and a few bottles of Don Rafael’s wine, and row the small dory Esmeralda had appropriated from Venganza to several secluded coves they’d discovered.

  There they swam, dived into the water, fenced on the beach, shared their lunches, and sipped good wine. They laughed a lot, and they talked as though they’d been deaf and mute until they’d met each other.

  Jack was the far better swimmer, and it salved his male ego to have found something that he could do better than Esmeralda, since she could usually defeat him at fencing, due to the extensive tutoring she’d received from her Spanish master of the sword. He coached her in swimming; she coached him in swordplay.

  For modesty’s sake, he went swimming in his britches, and she wore an old chemise and petticoat that she had shortened to mid-calf length. The material was, to Jack’s disappointment, substantial enough not to turn transparent when it was wet, though it did outline Esmeralda’s curves enticingly.

  They told no one of their trysts, and made efforts not to be seen leaving the cove together. Esmeralda, because she didn’t want other men thinking she was available to spend private time with them, and Jack, because he didn’t want Teague to know he’d disobeyed him. The day after the Pirate Lords’ colloquy, the Keeper of the Code had pulled Jack aside and given him a
stern admonition, followed by a direct order.

  Teague’s deeply lined, pockmarked features beneath his broad-brimmed hat had been even more impatient and annoyed than usual as he’d addressed Jack in the empty conference chamber. “Boy,” he’d said, with a glance fraught with warning, “back off. Steer clear. That’s an order. Savvy?”

  Jack had blinked at him innocently, not allowing the anger that bubbled up within him to show. “Steer clear of what?” he asked.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” Teague grated. “Steer clear of her, you misbegotten whelp. She’s a lady. Not one of your wanton jades. She’s shoal water, boy, as far as you’re concerned, and don’t forget it.”

  Jack had assumed an expression of hurt indignation. “She’s a grown woman. I’m a grown man. If we want to talk to each other at dinner, what objection could there be? I was a perfect gentleman.”

  “Don Rafael’s quick with his blade,” Teague said. “Even at his age, he’d spit you like a suckling pig, and I wouldn’t lift my little finger to stop him.” With that, he’d turned and walked away.

  Jack had stared after him, rage simmering in his heart, his eyes narrowed. Usually when Teague was that forceful, he’d backed down in the face of direct orders. After all, Teague was his…captain.

  But not this time, Jack thought, setting his jaw. He’d found something today, something he’d never encountered before, and he wasn’t giving it up just because Teague thought Esmeralda was too good for him. I know she’s a lady, but she’s like me…a bit lonely. She wants to be friends. There’s nothing wrong with having a woman as a friend, right?

  “Bloody damned right,” he’d said, under his breath.

  They’d had two weeks of companionship, perfectly innocent companionship. Their swords touched, but that was the only contact between them. Jack didn’t even try to hold her hand. He didn’t want to risk what they had.