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Ah, that's wet the whistle right enough. Thanks lad. Like I always say, there's no situation so bad it can't be improved by rum. Or was that, "no situation so good it can't be improved by rum"? Tis true, either way, so no worries.
Naw, lad, stay a bit, then. That storm's a hellion from the sound of the wind, and your officers are all snug in their rooms tonight. All you'll get standing at attention outside is cold rain lashing your face, and misery, and kit to clean tomorrow. While in here… it ain't what I'd call warm, and it ain't bright, and we won't say a word about cleanliness so as not to insult the host, but at any rate it's warmer and brighter and drier than you'll get out there. The company's better, and the jug is nearly full. How can you resist?
Smart lad. Here, drink a toast with me. No, I'm not likely to drink to the King, am I, when his government is planning to hang me tomorrow? How about, to clear skies and a steady wind? Aye! To all the fine ships on the sea! To your girl, Molly? Very well, to Molly!
Tell you a yarn, shall I? Ah, good rum, this. I was awful thirsty for rum. You ever feel that way?
I was shipwrecked once, floating for a week on a raft made of wreckage. Lucky enough for me, it was two casks from the spirit-room, half a cask of hard-tack, and a bit of a bulkhead. All alone in the blue, down off the coast of Panama.
Here, you brought it, have some more. Oh, not a nancy sip, I can spare a few manly swallows for such a good listener as you. What was I saying? Right.
There's sharks in them waters, and mermaids too. The sharks couldn't get to me, mate, not on the raft as I was, but every time I tried fishing off the raft they carried away my line, and tried to take me with it. For a couple days, I worked a scheme to get them to pull me – raft and all – in towards the shore, but the damned beasts are contrary. There's no steering them.
I'd be a goner if not for the mermaid. She was a beauty, black hair, black whiskers – did you not know that mermaids have whiskers? Oh aye, related to seals, they are. And her nose showed the kindred, too, cute as a button.
Sharp teeth, though.
I don't know how much you know about mermaids, but they're not safe to mess with. They look like wet dreams, with their breasts all bare, but they'll as soon eat you as lay you. They've the teeth of a barricuda, mate. So if you find yourself in company with one, lad, it's up to you to be interesting enough that she'd rather converse than consume, if you know what I mean.
Luckily, this one wasn't hungry right off. She saw me dunking hard-tack into the rum, see, to soften it up, and decided she'd like to try man-food. So I invited her onto the raft to dine – as a gentleman, I could do no less, even if she wasn't exactly a lady. She liked the hard-tack, sopped.
Speaking of which, pass the bottle, lad. Ah, god, I love rum. Here, you hold it.
But she liked the rum straight even more. She didn't have any more sense of liquor than a convent-bred virgin although otherwise she didn't act like any virgin there ever was. Oh that was a fun night. She gave me my bearings, right enough, and told me some fascinating things about the currents in those parts and the habits of the Spanish ships. And we got to know each other very well, which was an unexpected pleasure although odder than most.
Here, lad, sit leaning against the bars as I do. It'll be easier to pass me the jug, that way. No, you aren't getting sleepy, that's just the dark of this place. Rest a minute, you'll be fine.
I was tired, and when she'd drunk enough that I reckoned she was no danger to me for a few hours, I fell asleep. That showed I was a failed gentleman, right there, falling asleep while my company abided. And if I'd been a better man she might be alive today, though chances are that I wouldn't.
Sometime in the night, she must have roused and thirsted for more rum. Well. I'd pried the top off the second cask, because I had nothing to bung a hole with, you see? She saw the rum in there, and never thinking that it could hurt her, she climbed right into the cask. I don't think it's possible for a mermaid to drown, although she was dead, right enough, when I woke. I think she drank herself to death. Anyway, from the smile on her face, it wasn't unpleasant.
I remember a play, once, where a Duke drowned in a butt of wine. But if you have to go, rum is finer, wouldn't you say?
At any rate, there I was, the next day, hungover, running out of tack, and with my only companion dead in my rum supply. Not my most successful party, mate.
But then the wind turned, and it pushed me in towards land, and what with the help of those damned sharks and fishing line I wove from my dead lady's hair, I managed to get into the surf, and from there I fought the sharks off until I'd landed the raft. Ate a few of the buggers, too.
Another toast, lad, to safe harbor! Whoops, there goes the bottle. No worries, I've got it. Let me just tip another mouthful into you. Jack'll take care of you, lad.
I was safe on shore, and not likely to die of hunger or thirst anymore, but of malaria or by the hands of the Indians there. It wasn't hospitable. I finally signaled a merchant ship, and got a lift into Tortuga. I bartered passage with the only thing I had. Aye, my dead mermaid love, pickled in the remains of the rum.
Now, tell me about you and your Molly…
Fast asleep, are you, lad? All the better. I'd have hated to have to hit you, after you were so kind as to procure a condemned man some drink. You're young, and Norrington knows better than to break a man just because he's young and stupid enough to drink with a pirate.
So let me pull out the keys, and nip out of the cell. And I'm sorry to do it, lad, but you'll have to go in, just in case you rouse before I'm well away. Shame nobody else is in holding just now –- I could use a crew.
Goodnight lad. Sweet dreams, and safe harbors. And stay away from strong drink. It's ruined stronger men than you.