Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, ships, islands, and sundry other fictional things belonging to the creators of Pirates of the Caribbean. I’m borrowing them, without permission, but with every intention of giving them back. (And of keeping them as close to canon as I possibly can.)

The next morning dawned clear and bright, with still no hint of a storm. The albatross, however, had not moved, causing the crew to edge around its perch, casting wary glances up into the rigging for more reasons than one.

"There seem to be bird droppings on my deck," observed Jack, offhandedly.

"Aye, Cap’n," said Gibbs. "S’bad luck to swab ‘em off."

"Is it?" He raised an eyebrow at his first mate, and then stepped carefully over the white smears, continuing his morning inspection of the Pearl. "I wasn’t aware."

There was something about Jack that inspired what might be termed "loyalty" or, perhaps, "respect" from his crew. Whether it was because, for a pirate captain, he was fairly easy going, or his unusual civility towards others, or whether they thought he was utterly insane, they worked harder and took nearly as much pride in their ship as their captain did. Jack rarely found that anything on board needed fixing, it was simply done without waiting for him to notice it. If anything did come to his attention, it was usually attended to within the hour. The deck was regularly swabbed, the hull caulked, the sails mended, the figurehead, which had been warped and covered in barnacles when they’d recovered the ship, had been cleaned and repaired. Even the lower decks were kept as clean as possible, a difficult task considering the damp and the mildew. However, thanks to the ship’s carpenter, Duncan, the Black Pearl hardly even leaked. In short, she was as beautiful as she was deadly, and her crew took pains to maintain her in order to please their rather unpredictable captain.

Albatross droppings, however, did not quite figure into this.

As Jack inspected the ship, the crew, who normally stood ready and waiting for orders, remained on edge: checking and rechecking the rigging, tightening ropes, lashing down tarpaulins, inspecting the caulking that kept water out of the seams. Every tool on board was out and ready for use, just in case. Jack had sent two men aloft to the crow’s nest, hoping that two sets of eyes would be better than one, both in looking for trouble and scouting for ships. Other than the unwelcome sea-bird perched among the sails—looking, somehow, not unlike the white skull on the black field of the Jolly Roger—the rest of the ship seemed in perfect condition.

Something about it just didn’t set right with Jack. Even the weather seemed too perfect. Though the day was hot there weren’t any clouds in the sky; the sea, too, was strangely calm, the Pearl’s keel even, although there was a strong wind filling the sails. He was tempted to ascribe his unease to the superstitious tension among the crew—it was setting his teeth on edge—but even Ana, the least superstitious of the lot, seemed uneasy, and Gibbs seemed to have forgotten about the albatross. Something else was making him unsettled.

"Unnatural," Jack heard him mutter, as the older man stared out at the empty expanse of horizon.

Around midday they changed course, crossing the trade route and making for a chain of islands to the east. The most likely passage for merchant ships to take, they had decided, lay along the opposite side. The islands would act as a screen, keeping ships out of sight from the main trade route and allowing them to slip past pirates patrolling those waters. If they were right, and the schedule of ships Jack had "acquired" when last in port was correct, there ought to be one or two merchant vessels coming through either the main shipping lane, or along the chain, within the next few days.

A few hours later, the Pearl was keeping the chain just off of her starboard side, sailing north along the island’s western flank. Gibbs’s map had indicated a small bay, little more than a scallop in the coastline of one of the small islands. Hopefully, it would serve as cover for the Pearl. Everyone aboard kept a sharp eye, some on the coast, and the rest to the sea. Another few days and they would be running short of rations and beer, with barely enough to make it back to port. Jack disliked the idea of raiding small coastal villages. It was always messy, with more margin for error than he would like. That was piracy for you, thought Jack, his mouth settling in a straight line, always a bloody risk.

"Good land-fall, Cap’n!" came the cry from the crow’s nest, and Jack’s spirits lifted. Within a quarter hour those on deck could see the island as a dark green smudge on the horizon underlined by a glimmer of white shore. As they drew nearer more detail could be made out: it was little more than a slight headland with a beach, studded thickly with palm trees and a few low lying scrubs, embracing a small bay. It took the better part of an hour to maneuver the Pearl into place, but, when she finally was at anchor, her top sails reefed, her bowsprit pointed toward the sea, she was nearly invisible from the opposite side, her mastheads lost among the trees. Jack ordered out two men in the jolly boat to look for sea turtles, fish, fruit, and coconuts to add to their dwindling stores. Then, there was little to do but wait.

The sky remained a clear, untroubled blue; the sea calm. The breeze coming from the island held the promise of fruits, at the least. The crew lounged on deck, or fished over the rails for some of the silvery fish that darted around in the clear water. It was, in a word, perfect—too perfect.

The silence finally got on Jack’s nerves.

"Why aren’t you bloody practicing?" he growled. The mates looked at one another, then, somewhat less than enthusiastically, began singing.

_________

A/N: Once again, thank you for your reviews. Sorry for the delay in updating, but I've been busy the last few days with other things. Patience, my friends, is a virtue. J

Ever hear of the phrase "the calm before the storm?"