Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom

were exercised each day, and so forth.
None of Jack’s crew spoke pidgin, and the captain ordered his
men to stay clear of the cargo hold. “Just concentrate on your work,
mates,” he told them. “That’s what I’m going to do.”
Jack was in a tavern, drinking, when they loaded the cargo
aboard the Wench. As he’d ordered, Robby dispatched a crewman to
fetch him when the slaves were all aboard, and only then did he return
to his ship. He wasn’t falling-down drunk, but he was definitely numb.
The Wicked Wench set sail from Calabar, with a cargo of
shackled human beings, crowded together like cattle, in her hold.
As if reflecting Jack’s mood, the weather turned foul almost
immediately. There wasn’t much thunder or lightning, but there was
wind and driving rain as they sailed beneath the bulge of Africa. It
rained for almost a week, on and off, and the Wench sailed with her
hatches battened down against the wind and the water.
Jack spent a lot of time up on deck. Sailors were used to being
wet. And the flask he carried, tucked into Amenirdis’s sash, kept chills
away.
Their first day out, Jack went below, intending to inspect the hold.
He’d done that for every cargo he’d ever hauled. He’d bucked himself
up by remembering Cutler Beckett’s promise that the Wicked Wench
would be his.
Even though Jack now had many times the price of the ship
stashed in his cabin, he knew he wouldn’t dare to turn any of that
Kerman gold into pounds sterling—at least not any time soon. He
knew Beckett was having him watched. So having Beckett give him
the ship would solve many problems for him. His first voyage, he
resolved, would be to sail to the other side of the world—as far away
from Africa as he could get.
So after he’d steeled himself to perform his customary inspection
of the hold, Jack paused on the ladder to borrow a little liquid courage
—and numbness—from the flask, tipping nearly half of the rum down
his throat.
Only then did he continue on his way down the ladder.
As he reached the bottom, though, and prepared to step out into
the hold, he heard them. The dank, dark air was filled with the sounds