Captain James Hook and the Curse of Peter Pan

by Jeremiah Kleckner

  “But dragged him up we did and we laid him across the deck and we listened. For although he was so near death, he kept saying the same thing over and over again, ‘Smee,’ ‘Smee,’ ‘Smee.’” Labette smiled even more broadly now. “Even when he’d healed enough for us to be certain that he’d live, he kept saying that word, ‘Smee,’ ‘Smee,’ ‘Smee.’” Since I was sure now that no one was watching me, I tried to slink away. Labette shot me a hard look, freezing me in place.

  “Soon,” he continued. “He was strong enough to talk so we asked him what ‘Smee’ meant. The part that slays me to this day was that he didn’t know.” The men listening in on the Jolly Roger laughed heartily. “He had no memory save for his time with us on the ship. No history. No name. So we called him ‘Smee, the Little Floater.’” At this, several aboard the Revenge joined in the mocking as well.

  Smee, reddened in his humiliation, stormed over to the Revenge.

  “Go and run off, Smee,” Labette chided. “Run off before I give you ol’ Johnny Corkscrew.” He took out a sword and twisted it in the air in a mock stabbing motion, laughing horribly. The crewmates who took part of the teasing ceased immediately when Smee got back aboard. I tried to follow quietly, but Labette blocked my passage.

  “And where are you going, Mr. Hook?” he asked. I opened my mouth to speak, but the dozens of questions I had caught in my throat. How did he get my father’s ship? What did he do to the men still aboard? Where was the ship he once had? My mind raced until I saw an oddly familiar sight. Although Labette smiled often, he did so with everything except his eyes. It’s a look I recognized, but still didn’t understand.

  “You’ve still got a mess to clean up,” Labette told me, pointing to the spilled coins. He spun on his heels and strode to my father’s cabin. Before he disappeared into the room, he called out over his shoulder, “And be sure to count out the right amount before you leave.”

  The long minutes I spent picking the louis-d’ors up off of the deck of the Jolly Roger stretched to nearly an hour. I tallied the total twice to be sure that each coin was accounted for. When finished, I bolted back to the Revenge. I sat below deck for an hour before my heart beat normally again.

  The final exchanges were made in the fading light of dusk. Both crews relaxed their hardened looks and began the celebration. Although drunkenness is not generally allowed on board, the men told tales of their adventures with as much bluster as possible. I did my best to join in, but there was only so much bragging I could stand, especially from Labette, who was now recounting his narrow escape from a tribe of savage cannibals.

  As the men laughed and joked, I slipped away to the aft deck and hung my legs over the side. The moon was so very full and bright that I could not look at it without wondering if Emily was watching it as well. I was hundreds of miles away from home, surrounded by murderous liars and cheats, yet this moon was the same one over Port Royal tonight.

  At that moment, I heard footsteps approach. They weren’t the pace of a man or a child, but someone in between. Without looking, I asked William the first thought on my mind.

  “What could fate have in store for us next?” The footsteps stopped for a moment. I didn’t expect William to answer this question, but what happened next defied expectation.

  “I wouldn’t know,” replied a voice that wasn’t William’s. I turned and saw a boy, tall and broad, with a head the size and color of a ham. He grinned broadly and added, “but I hope it’s a good time.”

  “And you are?” I asked. He began boasting before I drew breath to speak again.

  “I go by a great many names, to be sure,” the boy said. “Some call me the Sea-Cook.” He leapt up onto a barrel and drew his sword. “Others call me Barbeque.” He cut at the air with delicate ease, then jumped down, jabbed the sword into the deck and met my eyes for the first time. “But for the purpose of introduction, you may call me John Silver.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Surrounded by thieves and murderers, it was foolish to let my guard down for long. I seldom slept and I almost never stared at the stars anymore. On a night like this, when the moon was so bright that Emily must have been watching it as well, I should have been enjoying my moment of solitude. Instead, I was forced to deal with a young braggart from the Jolly Roger by the name of John Silver.

  “Even as young as I am, most of the men fear me,” he said, puffing out his chest. “Do you know why?” He spoke non-stop since he first walked up and I was desperate to quiet him. Ignoring him didn’t seem to work, so I decided to try insults.

  “They’re afraid you’d talk them to death?” I told him. His jaw tightened slightly, but he continued unabated.

  “It’s ‘cause I’m big for my age,” he said. He was right, too. Despite being younger than I was, he stood a full head taller than I did. He grinned broadly and posed, “They know I’ll get bigger than ‘em all in a year or two, so they leave me alone.” He looked me over before snidely adding, “You’re not so big though, are ya?”

  There were only so many more slights that I could stand. If ignoring him didn’t work and insults only got me insulted in return, what could I do to get rid of him? Maybe he needed to see how small he really was.

  “You’re the son of the cook on the Jolly Roger,” I said in a way that told him I was not asking. Wisps of rage fluttered across his face.

  “Ya seem t’know your share of other people’s business,” he said through his teeth. He wouldn’t expect me to know much about him, or anyone else aboard the Jolly Roger, for that matter. Truth be told, I knew very little before the ship arrived, but I was a quick study.

  “I ask a lot of questions,” I told him. His eyes narrowed as he examined me a second time.

  “And you talk like a Royal,” he said.

  “I read a lot,” I shot back. “You should try it sometime.”

  “T’be sure,” he said. “And what is your name, Royal?”

  “James Hook.”

  “I have t’know, James Hook,” John Silver said. “Do you make it a habit of getting in the middle of a fight between a captain and the officers?” The question staggered me for a moment. I was ashamed to admit that I didn’t know where his ceaseless talking was leading. He must have seen the stand-off between Smee and Jesse Labette and now wanted to know my role in it. It seemed that John Silver wasn’t as mindless as he let on.

  “They wouldn’t have fought,” I said.

  “Is that so?”

  “It’s code,” I told him. “Any quarrel between the men has to take place on land away from the ship.”

  “Well then,” he snorted, “if it is code then it must be honored at all times.” He let out a laugh that shook his coat then chuckled to himself for a few more minutes. Several times, he drew breath to speak again, but decided not to. Finally, he walked over to the railing, picked up his sword, and said, “How about some exercise?”

  “We can’t fight on the ship,” I reminded him.

  “Who’s fighting?” he asked, feigning innocence. “I just want a little practice.” He cracked a wry smile and stood at guard. No matter what he called it, it was clear that this practice, like the entire conversation before it, was more that it seemed.

  I drew my sword and, instantly, I was met with a quick thrust that sliced the side of my shirt. Furious, I began to call him a madman, but before I could speak the word, I was met with a second thrust that sliced the other side of my shirt.

  “One move is all I need to end you,” Silver said. “You hesitate. I can kill any man with hesitation in his eyes.” He thrust again, but this time I jumped back and got a good look at his technique. Before he moves, he measures the distance between him and his target. Then he steps hard with his lead foot and drives the sword in a straight line with the whole weight of his body behind it.

  “That’s an impressive thrust,” I told him.

  “I fight a lot,” he swiped. “You should try it sometime.” With his arm raised, he stepped heavy with his lead foot. Ste
el clashed loudly in the night as I blocked his attack. Harrison Jukes, William’s father and first officer to my father, taught me a great many things about evading a stronger opponent.

  “I handle my own fights,” I countered.

  “Of course you do,” he said. Again he thrust and again I dodged and parried as Mr. Jukes taught me years ago. “You can plan and think your whole life and get nowhere,” Silver told me. “Action is the only thing that these men respect.”

  He swiped low and pivoted to thrust. I knew that if I let him follow through on this attack, he could drive the point of his sword through my heart. I also knew that once he started moving forward, he could only go one direction. I led his sword away to the right and tripped him to the left, sending him crashing against the railing. He regained his footing quickly and snapped around to face me.

  “I’ll kill you for that!” he spat. His face reddened and his eyes narrowed to the point of almost closing. I didn’t expect him to like the fall he took, but nothing could have prepared me for this reaction. A man as proud as John Silver couldn’t have a moment of embarrassment, even a private one, at the hands of someone he sees as weak.

  He charged at me with his sword raised and howled. He swung wildly over my head before swiping downward to cut me in half. Realizing that I could not keep fighting at this pace with my condition, I parried, turned, and ran my blade across the top of his hand, drawing blood. He hissed and dropped the weapon onto the deck.

  His rage-filled eyes met mine, but he refused to admit defeat. A dark thought hardened his wide face as he drove his forehead into the bridge of my nose and kicked me to the floorboards. “No one does that to me!” he said as he stomped over to his fallen sword.

  But as John Silver bent down to grab the hilt, a large foot stepped on the flat of the blade. He tried to yank the sword out from under the large-footed person, but even in his rage he couldn’t budge the weapon. Furious, he stood tall and looked up into the eyes of William.

  For a moment, I didn’t realize that this hulking figure was William. After knowing him for as long as I had, I had a picture in my mind of what he should look like. He was nearly as tall as his father now and almost as broad. He shot John Silver a look that chilled the air.

  William and Silver stared daggers at one another for seconds. From the floor, I watched these two giants silently dare the other to make a first move. Neither man backed down. Neither man talked. Then William, slowly at first, raised a freshly tattooed arm and shoved Silver back several steps.

  “Go back to your ship like a good Sea Dog,” William grunted. Of the hopes I’d held onto, one I’d cherished most was the idea that William would remain as unchanged throughout our journey home as I have been. It seemed now that that hope was dead.

  John Silver took a heavy step forward, but stopped short of where he stood before. William refused to move.

  “My sword,” Silver said.

  “Aren’t you coming for it?” William asked. Silver snorted as he looked from William to me and back again.

  “More of you handling your own fights, eh James?” John Silver teased.

  “His fights ARE my fights,” William snarled.

  John Silver nodded at that and turned to walk back to the lower deck, but before his heavy footfalls faded into the sounds of the night, he said, “Funny thing ‘bout Smee is that his fight wasn’t with Captain Labette.” His smile was broad again and his face was no longer flush with frustration. “The fight with Smee is yours, and he won’t change until you do.”

  His words ran through my mind in the next few hours. John Silver, a boy William’s age, had to show me how much more he knew about surviving as a pirate than I did. He not only taught me that critical thrust, but he also showed me that action, tempered with patience, was the better part of luck. Smee would not let up on me until he was dead or soundly defeated. Either one took time.

  That night, I watched the dark ship pull away and wondered what kind of coward I was. Not only had Smee and John Silver gotten the better of me today, but Jesse Labette was within my grasp and I let him slip.

  As the Jolly Roger disappeared into the darkness, I breathed deeply and promised my seething hatred delayed satisfaction.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  In the spring, we seized the sloop Adventure and the ship Protestant Caesar in the Bay of Honduras. William Howard and Smee captained these ships. I stayed on the Queen Anne’s Revenge as Boatswain. It was more responsibility than I was used to, but I learned quickly.

  Thanks in part to the time I spent with William’s father, Mr. Jukes, I developed a guilty sense of pride in my work. Maintenance mostly. The Revenge was a big ship to keep up: three masts and forty guns. I was good with numbers, so when I told Blackbeard that we’d run out of supplies in three days, he could be sure I had it rationed down to the hour.

  When we sailed into sight of Charles Town, no one on shore panicked at first. We raised no colors, nor fired any cannons. Only after we captured our first ship and added it to our flotilla did the dock erupt in wails of terror and helplessness.

  I was not let in on why we were blockading the port at first. I figured the usual gold, silver, and supplies. With three ships, we had the cargo space to feed the men for weeks after our departure. Only when a landing party was being gathered with a list of demands, did I learn the truth.

  Several of Blackbeard’s men had become ill with the Foul disease. I’d heard it called the French Disease by my father’s men. I learned from my shipmates that the French called it the Italian disease and the Italians had a name for it that reddened the cheeks of hardened sailors. As for Blackbeard, himself, I’d never check his britches, but he was as motivated as any man to get these medicines.

  William went with the landing party. The fat pirate had taken him under his wing since William was sent to work on the Adventure under Captain Smee. In the one glance I got of him, I saw how little there was left of the boy I swore to protect behind those eyes. He sang a song with the landing party as they rowed to shore.

  “Yo ho, yo ho, the pirates’ song,

  So bright, so fierce, so bold.

  Onward we press to distant lands,

  Our thoughts and spirits cold.”

  The dreadful song built in volume as the other pirates joined in with smiles and hoarse voices.

  “Belay the talk and promises,

  Of treasures yet to hold.

  Our only prize is servitude,

  To whom our souls are sold.”

  We added more ships to the flotilla as they unwittingly drifted into port. One by one, they all surrendered and were boarded. No one fought. The merchant ships had the more common treasures you would come to expect. The Crowley was the payload. Mostly men, but some women and children. These were the families of a wealthier class, the type of citizen who would pay any ransom to see to a safe return.

  “Get down to the cargo hold an’ strip it of anythin’ useful,” the toothless one ordered. “We’re goin’ for the passengers.”

  The manifest read that this ship was carrying supplies from a larger port up north. The stores aboard were standard, save for one corner. In a chest underneath several sacks of grain was a collection of drafts and potions. None of them were the mercury salves, ointment, and tincture of mercury that were needed from the town, but they were interesting nonetheless. I spent an hour reading and comparing the labels. I took one vial and emptied the contents onto the floorboards. Into it, I poured a lethal combination of arsenic, strychnine, and cyanide. Under the best circumstances, I could quietly dispose of an unwanted foe. As a last resort, I could prevent myself the indignity of a hanging.

  While the landing party went ashore to negotiate, I was left in charge of guarding some of the prisoners. It was during one such duty that a young man approached the bars.

  “James?” he asked. I was instantly frozen. “James, what are you doing?”

  He was Thomas Darling, one of William’s former classmates at Port Royal. I didn’t r
ecognize him at first, but it was definitely Thomas. If I was a foolish man, I would have embraced an old friend, exposed my identity, and surely be killed for my lineage. Instead, I played this one much closer to the chest.

  “I can’t talk now, Thomas,” I said. “We don’t intend to kill anyone. Stay quiet and I’ll talk to you after the next guard change when I’m alone.”

  From the porthole, I saw the supply of medicines being loaded onto the ships. Realizing I didn’t have another shift to wait, I relied on my wits. A plan formed.

  “Thomas, you need to write a letter to my mother and tell her what has happened to me. Draft a letter for her and also write one to Emily Jukes. I am giving you specific information. You need to remember this exactly as I tell it to you...”

  Weeks passed. Many of the men slept fitfully, wrapped in salves and heavy blankets. The hacking and sweating and drooling that were part of the purging of the Foul disease didn’t disturb my sleep. I was awake, counting and recounting. I needed to tell Blackbeard how long we had until we were forced to risk another siege. Only days remained and I was tired of waiting for luck or providence.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The Queen Anne’s Revenge ran aground in the Topsail Inlet of Fish Town, just as I had planned. I’d always been really good with charts and the bilge of the ship was very deep, after all. Since I had proven myself superior in the calculation of supplies, Blackbeard didn’t doubt me for a second that it was time for a siege in the precise spot I’d told Thomas Darling we’d be weeks earlier. Blackbeard was usually much sharper, but he’d spent so many of these days in bed rest due to the medicines he’d been taking that he would not have doubted me one way or the other.

  I expected a brief exchange and our capture as a crew. It would have been the civilized way to surrender. At that point, William and I could have revealed our identities and chartered a ship back to Port Royal. Never did I think that Blackbeard would cut a deal for himself and his closest friends, leaving the rest of us to scramble. In the chase, I didn’t risk stopping to explain my situation. I would likely have been called a liar and shot on the spot. So, instead, William and I ran for our lives.