Chapter XXI - A Most Magnificent Plan
 
 

    The morning of the seventh day greeted the Black Pearl with its first mate Will Turner III awake in his bunk. He was sitting at its edge, hands between his knees, clasping a jeweled watch.
    He moved only slightly when the cabin door slammed open, shocking awake the last of the night shift, and Ashley Trinity stood clutching to the door frame, out of breath.
    "Turner!" she gasped. "You've got to come quick."
    A small twitch in the first mate's eyes, but no other physical acknowledgment. He said, "What is it?"
    "You heard us drop anchor a bit ago?"
    "Aye."
    "It's on account of we've caught up with 'em!" she said shrilly. "Sparrow n' Roberts-- Montoya-- whatever-- They want you on deck right now!"
    His neck muscles creaked as he gave the slightest of nods. "I'll be right out. Thank you, Trinity."
    "Sir," said Trinity, pulling off a textbook salute, or what would have counted for one if pirates had textbooks they adhered to.
    "Please don't do that, Trinity."
    "Sir," she said again, and fled.
    Will recommenced his examination of the watch. It was hardly examination at this point; he had studied it so closely over the past few months that he knew every inch of it by heart, but that hadn't prepared him for what had prevented him from sleep last night, something he was feeling the repercussions for even now.
    He could have sworn that just for a few seconds, he'd heard it tick.

    Will emerged from below-deck five minutes later, blinking in the bright late morning sunlight. There were a couple sailors milling about on deck, trying to look like they had something to do that related to the things being done by the few people actually doing work, which were Anamaria and the Jackal, both facing the tall cliff off starboard side.
    He sought out Jack and Inigo among the threadbare crowd, a task made easier by Fezzik, who was standing near them, and joined Jack by his side in the middle of a conversation between the three:
    "Ana's getting three short and five long from the scouts," Jack was saying, "that probably means fog in tonight, with or without the Pearl's help."
    "Low on the water?" Inigo inquired.
    "Probably."
    "What's happening?" Will asked, upon spotting a small chink in the flow of conversation in which to insert himself.
    "The Queen Anne's gone full stop," Jack explained offhandedly. "There's a storm coming in on the morrow when they're due for Hong-Kong, so they're biding their time 'til it passes over. There's prolly a butterfly to account for this."
    "That doesn't leave much of a window," Will said doubtfully. "Butterfly?"
    "That's what you s'plained to us one time, innit? Butterflies flappin' their wings all over the damn place, causin' storms..."
    Will hesitated. Possibly, he reflected, it may have been a bad idea to implant the idea of Chaos Theory into the pirates' heads. Some minds were just not meant for it.
    "More or less."
    "Seven short, two long and another twelve short, Jack!" Anamaria shouted down from above.
    "Tell 'em we'd expected as much," Jack called back.
    "What did that mean?" Will inquired.
    "They're short on supplies."
    "Well, we expected as much."
    "Aye. I said that, lad."
    "...Oh. Oh yeah."
    "This might be a bit trickier than we'd anticipated," Inigo said. "Our turn round the cliff's edge won't present us with the sneak attack we'd been placing our bets on. Unless we're prepared to sail blind through fog. Or attack in daylight. Hard to tell which would be worse," he admitted mournfully.
    "What about when the sun'z in deer eyez?" Fezzik suggested.
    "Mm, no, that would only last until around two in the afternoon, before the shadow from the cliff falls over them. Hardly enough time to arrange things."
    "At night, then," Jack said musingly, scratching his cheek. "How to go about that without giving ourselves away, though..."
    Once again Will was given the distinct impression that all of the decisions being made were finalized long before he'd even arrived, and the discussion in his presence was mostly for formality's sake. Much like his title.
    "Hello, hello, what's all this, then?" The four men turned to greet Westley, emerging from below while rubbing the tiredness from his eyes. He didn't appear to have slept well either, but that was apparently just a part of his character. Joining the growing circle of officers, the others informed him of the situation thus far, to which Westley responded: "Ah." Then he turned abruptly on his heels --unlike most pirates, he wore his boots on the ship-- and stalked off down the stairwell again.
    "What do you think he's up to," Will mused.
    They dropped the thought as unimportant and resumed their own discussion, caught quite unaware when a mere six minutes and thirty-eight seconds later, Westley ran up from below with a bundle of rolled diagrams in tow, which he thrust into Will's arms at the first opportunity.
    "I have a plan," he announced.
    "Already?" Fezzik asked suspiciously.
    "A stroke of inspiration, you might say. Although actually, I spent most of the night plotting my way through different battle scenarios and this just happened to be one of them, give or take a few elements. We can adjust those as we go," he added, indicating to the scrolls of paper. "It takes into account our new equipment purchased from Angria and Yeh, naturally, and our 'leftover' inventory from after Bombay, plus a probability factor."
    "Probability factor," Jack repeated, not so much in disbelief as in utter befuddlement.
    "Oh, every plan has to have one," Westley said in a matter-of-fact way. It was in excess of two hundred years before the emergence of the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" in the vernacular, but if you had to pinpoint Westley's tone on anything, it was probably that. "Anyway..."
    He proceeded to explain. Over the course of his explanation, other influential guests aboard the ship gathered around the small group of men, turning it into a larger group of assorted types. As Westley finished, instead of addressing four individuals he was addressing eight, including Munchausen, Hands, Granuaile and Delphine.
    "It sounds like it could work," Will said when the explanation was over, not as confidently as Westley would have hoped from him.
    "A rather big probability factor," Jack agreed. "Too much of 'un, really."
    "I disagree," the young Israel Hands said brightly, "I feel it has a great balance to it. It has a wonderful chance for success. Far better than anything we would have thought of."
    "You're not the one getting dressed up as a bloody peacock," Jack said darkly.
    "Now, now," Westley said, cheerfully slapping him on the back. "You'd be amazed the impression clothes can have on others."
    "Says the man who likes dressing like an executioner at a gentlemen's ball."
    "Given your overall minor role in this operation I think you just might be able to bear it," Westley told him, sardonically clasping his hands together. "In fact, I believe it might be in your best interests that you start on that as soon as possible, if we're to be ready by dusk. Mary? Anne?" Westley called to Granuaile's henchmen, who, on command, rushed over to the group of officers. "Please escort Mister Sparrow to his quarters to assist him in selecting a new wardrobe for this evening, won't you, darlings?"
    "Now look--" Jack began fervently, before being grasped by both arms and extricated from the center circle.
    "Mm, this is the second time we've got to done this," Read said to her companion, pulling the struggling Jack along toward aft.
    "Aye, 'cept he's not got any interesting bits," Bonney pointed out.
    "Come again?" Jack all but shrieked.
    Westley smiled smugly to himself as Jack and the two women disappeared into the recesses of the captain's cabin, the door slamming shut behind them.
    "You derive far too much pleasure from that," Inigo told his old friend.
    "Do you really think so?"

    The rest of the second and third mates were rounded up, orders were given and initiated and sent out among the crew, so that from a bird's eye view the deck of the Black Pearl looked something akin to a beehive having just received orders from the queen.
    When the shadows were short on the ground, Anamaria, still at her post in the crow's nest, attracted the attention of the former and present Dread Pirate Roberts.
    "There's a new report in from the scouts," she shouted.
    "Go ahead," Inigo shouted back.
    "Eight short, two long, one short, one long, five short, wait three seconds, six short, three long..." As she recited the long coded message, Inigo began murmuring quietly under his breath: "'I have discovered a spy from the enemy ship, he has sent word of our location and made reports of our movements and seems aware of our plans...'" "...Sixteen long, four short, wait nine seconds, eight long..." "'May I proceed to kill him'?"
    "Yes," Westley said immediately.
    "Westley, you're not the one in command here."
    "No, but I'm a scheming mastermind and we must all make allowances to appropriate the circumstances. Give the order, miss," he called up to Anamaria. The quartermaster nodded and, taking a small mirror up in her hand, translated the message back out toward the far-off scout.
    "I wouldn't really call you a mastermind..." Inigo said slowly, feeling slightly out of his depth. Across the water, there was the slightest of "gurk!"s as someone's throat was cut, followed several seconds later by the sound of body meeting the waves below. "What now? Kidd knows what we're planning."
    "He's basing his knowledge off of what we're doing right now," Westley corrected, waving a finger. "Get the officers together and meet me below-deck. Our real preparations are about to begin."
    "You just had a crew of men run around for nothing for three hours?"
    "Not nothing. Everything."
    They were interrupted by something nearing a scream coming from the captain's cabin. A contented smile spread across Westley's face.
    "I don't believe I noticed this before," said Inigo warily, "but you are indeed a very strange person."
    "Believe me when I say I would not normally go to such extreme lengths," Westley told him. "It's just that something about him just begs to be picked on, did you ever notice that? His very demeanor suggests he's up to no good."
    "Is that all?"
    "That, and as your friend I'm concerned for your welfare."
    "My welfare?" Inigo asked, puzzled. Then his eyes widened as it dawned on him. "Oh. Look, you don't have anything to worry about as far as that's concerned."
    "Everything all sorted out?"
    "In a manner of speaking."
    "And what of, ehrr..."
    "The Jackal? For God's sake, I was drunk. I know better than that now."
    "Better than what?" Delphine asked from behind the pair.
    She grinned. It was always worth it to see men jump that high off the ground simply from startlement.
    "Nothing!" Inigo shrieked, spinning around.
    "Nothing," the Jackal repeated, unimpressed. Her hands were on her hips, which was never a good sign. "Y'see, that's rather funny, because it seemed to me like it 'us anythin' but nothin', y'know?"
    "Don't you have a-- a-- job to be doing right now?" Westley said in a squeaky, high-pitched voice.
    "Funny you should say. Part of the whole 'not having an official position' thing is that it's a trifle difficult for some'un to figure out whatcher should be doin'."
    "A-absolutely right," Westley stammered. "We really ought to see to assigning you something slightly more concrete, don't you agree? Maybe a... fifth mate or something--"
    "Do we even go up to fifth mate?" asked Delphine, cocking her head to one side.
    "Well, we'll... make one up for you!"
    Inigo saw the glint in the girl's eye and started looking for something to hide under.
    "Is that so?" the Jackal demanded. "Is that what it is? You think a girl'd just squeal at the chance of someone special-caterin' a position just to content them?"
    "Don't they?" Westley felt a certain sinking sensation akin to a lamb finding itself among a pack of half-starved wolves. It didn't help matters that Delphine had a mouth that looked like it could take out someone's jugular.
    "You actually think that, do you?" she roared, leaning in as Westley leaned back, fearfully. She edged forward. He edged back. Again and again, punctuating her words as she said, "You really think a girl wants the world handed to her on some bloody silver platter and get handled like glass and spoiled rotten and exempted from every rule and precept that everyone else in the damned world has to obey? Is that it?"
    Westley leaned back so far he was practically crab-walking. "Look, I just--"
    "Why don't you go around opening doors for me and paying for my dinner, hey? You'd like that, wouldn't you! You stupid men are all the--"
    "Delphine," called the voice of the girl's younger brother, from somewhere farther aft, "can you spare a moment to help us here?"
    The scarfaced girl brightened up immediately. "Coming!" And then without another glance toward Westley and Inigo, in a huddle on the deck trying desperately to shrink out of existence, she spun around and skipped --actually, literally skipped-- toward her waiting sibling.
    After a long, long moment, Inigo croaked, "I think I see why you want to take it out on Jack."

    "Okay," the Jackal said eagerly, rubbing her hands together as she approached the open hold door, "what's doin'?"
    Will, Granuaile and Stede were presently standing around the hold door, a huge square opening in the deck usually closed off with iron gates thick enough to stop a moderately enthusiastic army. There was a rope the width of a leg leading down into it, strung taut by something unseen tied to its end. The three pirates looked around as she approached.
    "Nothing really," said Will Turner, "just a quick haul. It's the odds and ends people gettin' the job, and you're very odds and ends."
    "Oh yes; I excel at it." She knelt down by the edge of the gate and took the rope up with both hands, and without hesitation. The rope was bristled and made of twine so rough it might have been the very bark stripped from the trees in the first place, something that practically had "blister hazard" written all over it, but for all Delphine seemed to care it could have been made out of silk. "Right. I'll take the lead. Then you, Stede, then Lady O'Malley, and then you, Will, in the rear..." She dropped off, aware of a kind of chill emanating from the general area of the first mate's location. Slowly, the Jackal stood up.
    "My apologies," she said, clapping her hands together and bowing shortly. "You give the orders."
    "Thank you," Will said icily. He cleared his throat. "Stede, I want you in front, then..."
    It took ten minutes. That in itself isn't much of a description, because what it really implies is ten minutes of back-breaking, muscle-shattering, straining, agonizing work before a large wooden crate with complicated pictograms on the sides topped the edge of the hold door and slammed down on its side upon the black-wood deck, its lid cracking open and spilling its contents across the floor.
    "We're supposed to sort them too," Will gasped, trying to pick himself up off the deck. He settled for a seated position, picking up the nearest object and examining it closely. It was cyllindrical, made of cardboard and wrapped in gaudy red and orange paper. There was some writing scrawled across one side, near what appeared to be a fuse, but Will would've had no luck trying to read it.
    "Jeeez-uz," Delphine exclaimed, pinching her nose. She had landed near the broken crate, and the smell that had hit Will only as barely within tolerable levels seemed to be completely encompassing Delphine's sense of smell. "This thing reeks of gunpowder. What'd that ol' man used to keep in this?"
    "These've got fuses," Will said, pointing out the black strand sticking from one end of the red and orange tube. "Bombs, d'you think?"
    "What, bombs trussed up like a Christmas tree?" Stede said skeptically, examining a smalled octagonal one. It was bright blue. "Not that I wouldn't put it past a man like that. Queer buggers, orientals."
    "Anyone else think that Westley has given out some strange orders?" said Granuaile. She was grouping the long, thin ones into a stack. "There's a group down below I saw rushing about getting spare bits of wood and thread. How's that to win a siege?"
    "Oh, I dunno," Will said thoughtfully. "He's a very resourceful man, that Westley. Is Westley his surname or his Christian name, anyway?"
    "Dunno," rumbled Stede. "'Spose he's onna those sorts who's only got the one?"
    "Well, that'd be rather inefficient..."
    Although the four's ears were still ringing with the blood rushing through them, they all looked up from their task when they heard a door slam open, turning their eyes toward aftward to the captain's cabin, where a figure had just emerged. Who it was, whether the unfortunate Jack Sparrow or one of the two women escaped Will and his crew, for as soon as the door opened a crowd immediately flocked around the figure, Westley and Inigo among them.
    "Hell-o," said Delphine. "What's this how-to-do?"

    If Westley had been happy before, now he was on the verge of ecstatic.
    "Wonderful," he said, beaming. He was at the inner circle of the crowd outside the cabin door, arms crossed smugly over his chest. Very few people could behave as smugly as Westley. It took talent.
    Right then he had reason for it, though. And as Anne Bonney and Mary Read emerged from out of the door way after their latest masterpiece, Westley personally congratulated them.
    Jack appeared ready to kill something, even if it was only himself. The one problem with that that at present, a person would have been hard put to identify him as himself in the first place.
    First, there was the hair. It had been combed very finely, a task within itself because Jack's hair was the sort that naturally repelled anything trying to straighten it. It had probably never seen anything resembling a set of bristles in his life, and considering the implications of that, that's really saying something. His hair having normally reached down to the middle of his back in recent years, combed out sleek and smooth without beads or braids, it went nearly to his waist. It had an alien slick, shiny appearance to it so well-defined that it could easily be mistaken for oil-stained seaweed.
    His clothes were vaguely similar, in the same way an ostrich is vaguely similar to a peacock. Bonney and Read had apparently pillaged the depths of the junk piles of his cabin and extricated the most elegant, bedecked garments they found there, all the while keeping with a constant theme of dark blue and black. Oh yes; lots of black.
    They'd even reapplied his kohl.
    He scowled.
    "I - look - utterly - ridiculous," he hissed.
    "Nonsense! You're intimidating."
    "A bloody pillock."
    "I'm forced to agree with Jack on this one," Inigo said uneasily. "He looks like he does in the storybooks. And I know," he added; "Will had one on him and he let me take a look at it."
    "Actually, that's what we were going for," Bonney said proudly. She held up a thin oblong, the cloth cover shredding at the edges. "See?"
    "I was wondering where that went!" Will shouted, from somewhere farther back in the crowd. "That's theft, that is!"
    Jack shook his head. It felt very different without the bead strands jangling with him. "I don't know," he huffed indignantly, "dressin' me up as if I was--"
    "Jack Sparrow?" Westley suggested.
    Jack glared.
    "Perception," Westley went on, "is everything, after all." He ducked into a short bow. "Now: how about climbing up over the doorway and addressing the crew? A nice little iconic speech can do wonders."
    It was a strange thing to watch both Jack Sparrow and Inigo Montoya gape in synchronized disgust. "We don't do that sort of thing here!" Inigo said, sounding affronted.
    "Oh please. Just a little one?"
    "No!" the two captains said at once.
    "They're not followers," Jack told him sharply, "they're employees. And even if they weren't the last thing I'd wanna do is have people worshippin' at me feet. Good God, mate, you're off yer rocker, and no mistake."
    Westley put up his hands. "Sorry, sorry. My mistake completely." He looked downward, for someone had just tugged at his sleeve, and met the gaze of the little Ashley Trinity. "Yes, little boy?"
    "I'm a girl."
    "Of course. What is it?"
    "We rounded up all the Cottons like you ordered," Trinity said dutifully, "but we've run a bit short on feathers. Also, we seem to be out of paste."
    "Just use whatever you can find. Chewing tobacco, anything that will stick two bits of wood together. It doesn't have to last long."
    "Right."
    "As for feathers..." Westley trailed off, brow crinkled.
    "There's pillows," Inigo suggested. "In the captain's quarters, I mean."
    "Perfect! Someone go fetch those."
    Jack began to protest. "'Old on, Roberts--"
    "Inigo."
    "--Inigo. What d'you wanna do, sleep on your arm all the way back to the West Indies?"
    "It's for a good cause," Inigo reminded. "Anyway, it can't kill you."
    "No," Jack conceded, awkwardly scratching the back of his head. He sighed and pulled a lock of his shiny black hair near his face. "But embarrassment might. Can I at least get the beads back?"
    "May I see something?" Westley asked, breaking the circle ranks to stand closer to Jack, while he dug in his trouser pockets for something. "No, no, leave the hair like that. Hold it out a ways." He produced a small box from his pocket, from which he drew a match.
    "Oh, hell no," Jack exclaimed, recoiling.
    Westley caught his arm with his free hand. "It won't take but a second, trust me on this."
    "That's about a second too long!"
    "Just hold still!" Westley insisted, lighting the match against the wall behind them. He grabbed the lock of hair that Jack had examined before, and held the flame to it, with some difficulty against Jack's protests.
    The flame sputtered out.
    "Good god, Jack," Inigo cried, boggling at the lock of hair that had not so much as been singed, "I'm not a major proponent of bathing myself but that is just--"
    "SHUT. UP."
    "Actually, that's our doing," confessed Read. Then, sensing this wasn't enough to cover herself, added quickly, "Aaat Westley-boy's behest, of course."
    "You put flame repellant chemicals in me hair?" Jack asked, somewhere between simply surprised and absolutely disgusted. "You said it just helped with tangles."
    "Oh, it does. Lovely little side-effect, that one."
    Jack pulled his hair from Westley's grasp and gave the man an appraising look. "Just what are you planning for this one, kid?"
    "I'll let you know when we get there."
    "And I still get the beads back?"
    "All right, all right..."
    "And the hat?"

    By afternoon most of Westley's curiously disconnected plan started to be wrapped up. There was a break for lunch, something that wasn't often done aboard the Black Pearl but, her captains reasoned, there are times when exceptions can be made. At dusk the order was given to start set-up. A small fleet of rowboats were set out across the water toward the cliff where their lone scout waited, while the Pearl, smokelike fog pluming up from around her hull, was paddled near the cliff's edge, on the other side of which lay, they knew, the Queen Anne's Revenge.
    By nightfall the heavy Chinese air had condensed itself into its own fog, masking over the sea with its own covering, twelve feet high and thick enough to pass for soup.
    The first stars had come out when the group atop the cliff began with their own preparations. There were the last-minute complications familiar to anyone in the theatre industry, and they were dealt with quickly and effortlessly by Westley, who seemed to becoming such a valuable asset to the crew that Jack was starting to resent it.

    Down on the other side of the cliff, however...

    The travel-worn Captain William Kidd jumped with a start.
    "S'only me, sah," said Thunderbird, holding a lantern up by his face.
    Kidd relaxed a bit. Only slightly. "No, you're right. They won't attack until the chime of the hour anyway."
    "As you say, sah," Thunderbird said dutifully.
    The Q.A.R. had been expecting to lose that scout. He was specifically chosen in case worse should come to worse, but that didn't make it feel any better.
    Kidd's crew had spent all afternoon working out their opponents' plan based on the deceased scout's operations. The nearest that could be figured, the Black Pearl was set to launch their attack around the edge of the cliff's edge at eight o'clock on the dot.
    That was based on the estimations of their progress. There was nothing anywhere that said they would strike at precisely eight o'clock, it was just assumed. It just seemed like something they would do.
    "What, ehr, is the time, perchance?" Kidd asked his companion.
    Thunderbird held up a watch with a face the size of a fist and examined it carefully. "Eight-oh-seven."
    "What?!--Er." Kidd coughed. "Perhaps they're waiting for nine, then."
    "Not running late, sah?"
    "No, it will be on the mark. It's a matter of pride."
    "Ah. Pride," said Thunderbird, a man well-known for switching sides in a battle based on who was winning at the time. "As you say, sah."

    "What's the time, hey?"
    Westley examined his watch. "About time."
    "That's a response, not 'n answer."
    "Quiet. Just stand there and look pretty."
    "You are at the end of a very short rope, mate."
    "Westley," Inigo cautioned. "Just let it go for now. You make me seem to get along with him, by contrast."
    "'Get along'? Was that what that was last night?"
    "Oh-- Just-- Quiet. We're all set up over here; how are things on your end?"
    "Just finishing up."
    "We're all ready then?"
    "I'd say we are."
    "'Scuse me, gents, but what about me?" said Jack, shifting uncomfortably. He'd been standing up the longest.
    "Just stick to the script," Westley told him. "You know what a script is, don't you? Ever been to a play?"
    "Saw Hamlet once. It had kings in it."
    "Fair enough."
    "Just went to show you can't trust a Dane farther'n ye can throw 'im. Always goin' around stabbin' each other and committin' suicide when things get too tough..."
    "All right, already. Inigo, tell the left side to get their torches ready."
 

End Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XX