Pirates of the Caribbean: How Many Miles to Babylon?

Here There Be Monsters

Here There Be Monsters

Although the weather had been fair when the Lorena set sail, the last watches of the night had seen patchy fog building in from the east. Captain Harden stood at her aft rail, keeping an uneasy eye on the fog. He couldn't say why it troubled him, but he was somehow alarmed at the thought of it overtaking his ship. Still, the Lorena might have made port ahead of the inclement weather if only her mizzen backstay had held together. Unfortunately, no one had observed it slowly unravelling at the top of the mizzen-mast. Each roll of the ship had severed a few more strands, until at last the entire backstay broke loose with a violent snap.

Captain Harden ordered the ship hove to, and had his bo'sun dispatch a team to repair the damage. The fog and the broken backstay put him in a nettlesome mood which was not improved when he was accosted by his least favourite passenger, the self-important, moon-faced Horace Jervis. Jervis had a nervous habit of fingering the heavy gold watch chain that adorned his waistcoat, and he appeared to be quite nervous at the moment.

"Up late, Mr Jervis?" Harden observed.

"I am a light sleeper. When the ship stopped moving, I was awakened," replied Jervis reproachfully, with a look at the mast. "Unfortunate that she should be in such ill-repair."

Harden murmured some soothing words, though he was stung by the landsman's insult to the state of his ship.

Oblivious to the effect of his words, the portly Mr Jervis continued, adding, "I hope we're not much delayed---are we not all risking our lives in these waters? Are they not infested with bloodthirsty sea robbers?"

"Nay, Mr Jervis," Harden answered testily. "Pirates be less and less common in these parts. Ye'd run more risk in the East Indies."

"Still," Jervis pursued, "think of the value of the goods they seize! Think of the money lost by investors! And, naturally," he added belatedly, "the innocent lives cut short!"

"I've sailed these waters for near twenty years," replied Harden, "and been boarded twice by pirates. Generally, they content themselves with plunderin' of her valuables, and don't molest the passengers unless resisted." He knocked a dottle out of the pipe he'd been smoking, and added, "I find it best to offer no resistance."

He made this last remark chiefly to goad Jervis. Harden had never been attacked by pirates, but he knew that, for the greedy little merchant, the risk of people being killed was far less upsetting than the possible theft of his possessions.

"How could you recommend such a course?" Mr Jervis burst out, clutching his watch chain. "It would be the rankest cowardice-" But Harden interrupted him.

"As long as I'm Master of the Lorena, Mr Jervis, I'll do as I see fit," he said, before turning back to confer with his bo'sun.

............

Less than a mile astern, a ship with black sails, her lights doused by order of her captain, was drawing steadily closer. Barbossa stood on the Pearl's starboard side near the bow, peering through his spyglass at the Lorena. Judging by the way her sails were set and the activity at the mizzen mast-head, he surmised that the Lorena's crew was making a repair---one which had forced them to heave to until it was complete.

The sight made him smile. Fortune would favour him tonight. He closed the spyglass and turned to Ragetti, who was standing a little to one side.

"Hoist the colours," he told Ragetti in a quiet voice. "Tell 'em t' make ready the starboard guns and keep it quiet. We'll come up on her windward side in the fog, an' give her a buccaneer's kiss."