Annotation: Till My Ghastly Tale is Told

[concertigrossi]

So I've been seeing these pop up on my f-list, and it reminded me that I promised rexluscus that I'd do one of these for this story. And since the Muses are being uncooperative tonight, here it is. :)

Title: Till My Ghastly Tale Is Told... The Annotated Version
Author: concertigrossi
Character: Theodore Groves
Rating: extremely mild PG
Summary: A salty old Admiral finds an eager audience for his wild tales of the supernatural.
With Thanks: As always to my fabulous beta readers, pink_siamese and rexluscus.
Disclaimer:

The characters found in this tale,
(Though I've altered some of their details),
They aren't owned by me,
They belong to Disney,
So don't sue me or throw me in jail.

Author's Note:

The prompt was # 117: Lieutenant Groves' career after CotBP, his thoughts about Beckett, the EITC, Norrington's shipwrecking and return.

This is all rexluscus's fault, as I was brutally held at knifepoint and forced to write this by a plotbunny I found off a link to potcfest from her journal. I should also point out that I write this with the most sincere and profound apologies to... well, you'll see to whom at the end.

(Also, the name "Bloody Bess" is not original to me... I ran across it in a fic by ranalore entitled The Ghostly Galleon.)


OK, so there were really two inspirations for this:

1) I needed a way to do a fact-dump without it seeming to obvious or annoying. One good way to do that is to have an interview of some sort, and a writer interviewing a character for material is a pretty good plot device. Once I decided on that, I needed an late-18th or early-19th century author who wrote extensively about the supernatural, and lo, Samuel Coleridge raised his hoary old head. It also helped that, apparently, the writers of PotC raided "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" extensively for material.

2) For the portrayal of Groves as an old man, well, the inspiration for that comes directly from Rowley Birkin:

There are a bunch of clips on YouTube, and they're all hysterically funny. So I got this image in my head of Groves as a Birkin-esque old man by the fire at his club in London, telling stories about his youth to anyone who will sit still long enough. In fact, I have an example which I am determined to fit into a fic someday:

"Swann! Swann was her name mumblemumblemumblemumble lovely tits mumblemumblemumblemumble proposal mumblemumble SPLASH! And in goes the Sparrow! mumblemumblemumble Crash! Bang! d'ya see? mumblemumblemumblemumble 'You are the worst pirate I have ever heard of.' mumble 'But you have heard of me.' mumblemumblemumble VERY angry mumblemumblemumble and SWOOP goes the Interceptor! mumblemumblemumble and we all went and got very, very drunk.'"


So there it is, and away we go. :)


Spring, 1797

The writer carefully picked his way through the cold muck of the London streets in this particularly rimy March. He was on his way to Blacks Club in Pall Mall - the favored club of the mariners, retired and current. He kept the satchel with his papers carefully covered under

Blacks Club - picked out because it's the name of Jack Aubrey's club in the Master and Commander novels.

his coat, not trusting his umbrella with these, his most treasured possessions. He was granted admittance, naturally, and led to a secluded corner where an old man sat.
The ancient, grizzled sea dog occupied a comfortable chair near the roaring fire. He stared at the leaping flames, occasionally drinking

I made a point of using the words "Rime," "Ancient" and "Mariner" in the first six lines.


down doses of the nearly toxic amount of brandy in his glass. He was a stout gentleman, with a massive, snow-white beard that covered a scar of which, unusually for his breed, he had no desire to tell the story. One leg was propped up on a gout stool.

The image I have of Theo is that he kept up his hard-partying ways even through professional success, but that he settled down in his forties with a 17-year-old girl, and proceeded to get a whole bunch of kids on her.

And that sort of lifestyle, in the 18th century, means you end up fat and gouty. :)

“Admiral Groves?”
Theodore looked up. “Ah, yes! I was expecting you. Do sit down.”
The young man took the seat opposite. “Thank you for seeing me again, sir. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. I’ve been rebuffed so many times…”
“Well, there’s not many who will talk about these things at all seriously, you know. It makes one sound quite mad.”
The writer pulled the chair’s writing desk over, and began to set out his quills and the ink-pot. Once he was prepared, he spoke. “You told me, yesterday, of the curse of the Isla de Muerta, and how that was broken, but you said that there was more? Particularly concerning the East India Trading Company…?”
“Oh, yes… tell me, what do you know of that debacle?”
“After you mentioned it might be of interest, I did a little research. It was forty-five years ago, was it not? The chairman of the East India Trading Company overreached and tried to take on an armada of pirates… scores of ships of the Royal Navy had been placed under his command and were subsequently lost. You and Sir James Norrington played a large part in the resolution of that scandal, as I understand it.”
Groves nodded. “We hardly had a choice - there were so few officers left, after the slaughter.”
“He was the admiral of the East India Company’s fleet… it is a bit surprising that none of the blame for the disaster fell on him…”
“Hah. Make no mistake: Beckett managed everything, down to the smallest detail. And there was no appeal. He was the final authority: short of resigning, there wasn’t a damn thing you could do about it but try to make sure that his asinine orders didn’t get all your men killed. No, let me reiterate: James Norrington was the best officer I ever had occasion to serve under, and is the best friend a man could ask for.”
The old man chuckled. “D’you know… I can vividly remember the day when it all started to go off, you know, into the supernatural. We’d gone out and gotten so very, very drunk…

Rowley Birkin is always "very, very drunk." :)

we were celebrating, d’ya see. James just had gotten permission from his girl’s father to press his suit – what’s that? No, not his wife… Elizabeth Swann was the girl. And it wasn’t like the Governor was going to say no, but James was still worried, and that tells you an awful lot about the man right there. HE was celebrating, but I’ll tell you, Andrew and I were mourning, because dear God, we didn’t want to see him marry that chit, of all women. But there we were, drunk as lords at this really seedy tavern, and there was this “gypsy” who would read your palm if you bought her a drink so we egged James into doing it. And the doxy – I mean, if she was a Gypsy, then I’m an Italian organ-grinder – she’s telling him he’s going to have fame and fortune and a dozen sons, the way they always do, when, my hand to God, her eyes went all white, she grabbed onto James palm and she said, ‘You’re going to die three times.’” Groves paused for dramatic effect. “And then went back on to her chatter about long life and love and all that rot. We laughed it off, but I tell you, it was downright eerie. It put rather a damper on the evening.”

I kind of liked the idea that, at some point, it was determined that their lives would all take a turn for the supernatural, and that, once the die had been cast and the final unwitting decision made, it would be obvious to anyone who knew how to look.

So that's why that story is in there. :)

The writer laughed. “She was a poor salesman, I’ll grant her that.”
“Ha! Yes, it would be a funny old world if fortune-tellers actually told us what the future held. But she was right, as it happened…” Theodore took a healthy sip of his drink.
The writer’s quill stopped mid-sentence, and the man looked up at the old Admiral. “What?”
“Well, he’s only died twice so far, but he’s five years older than me, and at our age, it’s not much of a stretch to imagine what’s coming next.”
Well, they said he was the man to ask for this sort of thing… The listener turned to a new page in his journal. “All right, then, when was the first?”
Theodore put his drink down, and began to stroke his beard. “That was when the Dauntless sank.”
The man flipped back a few pages, and ran his finger down the lines. “Ah… yes, he gave Mr. Sparrow a day’s head start.” He looked up for confirmation, and then turned back to the blank sheet, ready to write.
“’Captain’ Sparrow. He did. James was aiming for the Grand Gesture. Quite sporting, but damme if we didn’t curse him for it in the weeks after that. We chased Captain Sparrow for months, here, there and everywhere. A damned clever man, he was. Best pirate I ever ran across in all my days at sea… We came within a hair’s breadth of catching him more than a dozen times, but the rascal always managed to give us the slip… the Black Pearl was one of the fastest ships going, in those days…” Groves trailed off, but the writer knew to wait. “Well. We were chasing him… I don’t know how he managed to avoid the storm, but the Pearl seemed to skitter out if its way. We all knew right away what it was… you couldn’t spend that long in the West Indies without knowing the signs. And the Commodore knew, but I think he misjudged its strength. We – all the officers – did everything we could to get him to turn back, but to no avail.” He took up his drink again. “James was… well, you don’t use a word like “unhinged” in relation to a friend, but the whole business had taken over him like a madness. He’d started to see Sparrow as the cause of all his problems, up to and including that Jezebel

I SO wanted to put a Moby Dick reference in here, but the timeline just wouldn't work. So I contented myself with this: in the Bible, Jezebel's husband is Ahab.

And that worked. :)

jilting him, and every time the blackguard evaded us was just more fuel to that fire behind his eyes. It started to cloud his judgment, and, well… by the time he realized, it was too late.” The memories clouded his face. “I can’t tell you too much of what happened. I remember when the foremast snapped off… two men killed when it fell on them, another few swept overboard with the cabling, but that’s the last.” He took another mouthful of liquor.
“You were rescued, presumably?”
“Obviously!” He gave a barking laugh. “Some Portuguese in a xebec fished me from the deep, as naked as the day I was born. Unfortunately, they couldn’t speak a word of English, not that I cared at the time, but it did mean I had to ride with them to Lisbon. Well, I thought every last man of them was dead, until we met up with the Sampson in Portugal. I was mourning for all the officers and crew – and my two dearest friends - thinking I was the only survivor. And then, once we heard what happened… it was very hard, you know. I spent all those weeks on my way back to Port Royal cursing the man, and going over and over exactly how I was going to tell him in no uncertain terms what I thought of what happened… but I’d forgot, d’ya see, with a man like James Norrington, in a situation like that, there’s no way you can say anything worse to him than what he’s already saying to himself. The difficulty wasn’t getting him to realize the enormity of his mistake; it was to keep him from winding up his own accounts out of sheer guilt.” Groves stared at his snifter. “Now, this is strictly between you and me, but it still haunts him, you know… even now, almost fifty years later. The nightmares… he told me about them, once, and it made my blood run cold. He dreams he’s standing on the quarterdeck of the Dauntless, and every man jack of us is there, hale and hearty. The ship and crew are running just as they ought, and everything seems well, until the moon comes out, and every man turns into an ambulatory corpse, slimy and rotten, like the pirates from the Isla de Muerta…”

This is a pretty direct reference. There's lots of slimy and rotten stuff in the poem, in fine 19th century Gothic tradition. In the poem, the entire crew dies of thirst and rots away, but are reanimated to operate the ship:

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes ;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on ;
Yet never a breeze up-blew ;
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do ;
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools--
We were a ghastly crew.

And then later:

I woke, and we were sailing on
As in a gentle weather :
'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high ;
The dead men stood together.

All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel-dungeon fitter :
All fixed on me their stony eyes,
That in the Moon did glitter.

The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never passed away :
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor turn them up to pray.

One of the scriptwriters was a total Coleridge fanboy, I would bet real money.


Theo trailed off, but quickly looked back at his listener and picked up the thread of the story again. “When I got back, I found out what had happened from Andrew – they’d pulled James from the water after the storm. No one in the longboat thought he’d even live an hour, but he pulled through.”
“Well, that’s hardly supernatural… I’ve read many accounts where that has happened. It’s not really as if he died, is it?”
Groves gave raised his eyebrow. “Try it sometime, and then tell me.” He took a long pull on the brandy.

In the book version of The Perfect Storm, the author calls upon some first hand accounts of people who all-but-drowned, and it sounded pretty awful to me.

The writer chuckled. “Fair enough, sir. Now, as to the second time he ‘died’…” The younger man went back through his notes. “I read that Sir James was originally listed as murdered in a mutiny aboard the Flying Dutchman, but that, in reality, the mutineers set him adrift in a dory, and that he returned to Singapore a few months after the battle. What really happened there? Are you saying that he was actually killed then?”
The old Admiral shifted in his chair. “Now, that’s not my story to tell.”
“Whose is it?”
“It’s his. Well, his, and Lady Norrington’s.”
“And *Lady* Norrington’s? I don’t understand.”
Theo shrugged, smiling cryptically behind his beard.
“Not your story to tell, right. Do you think they would grant me an interview?”
“I very much doubt it.”

Oh look! It's a big, obnoxious plug for the Big Fic which is as-yet unfinished! :)

“Well, what really happened, at that engagement? I’ve read the accounts of your testimony before Parliament: you and Sir James seem to imply that Davy Jones was no more than a pirate, and that he named his ship “The Flying Dutchman” to swagger…”
“Do you think we wanted to end up in Bedlam, boy? Of course that’s what we said.”
“But you now claim that he was really the "Flying Dutchman" of the legend?”
“That’s how it was. Now, let me be very clear: some of this I saw with my own eyes, and some I’m recounting what I was told by others. I have no reason to doubt their respective words on these subjects, but you must know I can’t swear to them personally.”
‘Can’t swear to them personally.’ Right. “That’s quite all right… I just want to know.” The writer turned to yet another blank page. “Who was he?”
“Davy Jones?” Theo settled back in his chair. “The story went that he’d been human, once… that he’d fallen in love with the Goddess of the Sea, and that she gave him immortality as long as he’d become her Charon for all those who died on the ocean. He reneged on the deal when she fell in love with another and, in his grief, he cut out his heart and left it on the land, where no one would find it. And he started turning into the monster that I saw, along with all his crew.”
“When you say that they turned into monsters…?”
“I do mean that literally. Jones had a crab’s claw for a hand, and squid tentacles where his beard should have been. The rest of the crew was degenerating into sea creatures of various kinds… some of them even became part of the ship.”
“Part of the…? I don’t understand…”
“Well, again, this is not one of the things I had first-hand knowledge of, but, so it was said, as their years wore on, they grew into the decks and the hull, actually making up the vessel itself. As you can imagine, they were all desperate to get off … they played this dice game incessantly, gambling using the years they had left in service as the stakes.”

Another pretty direct reference to the poem:

"Death and Life-in-Death have diced for the ship's crew, and she (the latter) winneth the ancient Mariner.

The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice ;
`The game is done ! I've won ! I've won !'
Quoth she, and whistles thrice."

“And Beckett was convinced that his possession of that heart controlled Jones? How did he know it wasn’t a fake?”
The old Admiral resorted to sarcasm. “Well, I suppose it might have been some other poor sod’s heart, except for the fact that I’ve seen a few disembodied hearts in my time, and this was the only one that was still beating. Not to mention also that it actually worked: Jones was Beckett’s lapdog, as much as he hated it.” He fixed his listener with a glittering eye. “I realize it sounds like I’m bamming you, that I’m raving on like some grey-bearded old loon

The narrator refers to the Ancient Mariner in the poem as a "grey-bearded loon."

, but these things really happened. I don’t want them forgotten.”
“I apologize, sir. I didn’t mean to sound so skeptical… you say you actually saw the heart…?”
“Saw the heart with my own eyes, I did. Beckett kept it under guard at all times, to keep Jones in line… I have to say, for my money, Beckett was a much nastier piece of work than Jones ever was. Jones was a monster, literally and figuratively, but anyone could see that from looking into his eyes; he didn’t bugger you over and expect you to thank him for it. I mean, the East India Trading Company was no better or worse than any other merchant company, if it wasn’t for Beckett, but that’s a big if.”
“But, and do correct me if I’m wrong, you held a Captain’s commission in their forces before you returned to the Navy?”
“Didn’t have much choice there. I had some debts, d’ya see, and it was either that or try to convince the Admiralty that I hadn’t actually drowned with the Dauntless.” He gave the same barking laugh. “It was much more of a come-down in those days than it is today, but that bothered me very little back then...”
“And the Flying Dutchman?”
“It sent shivers down my spine… it wasn’t so much of a ship as the skeleton of one.

From the poem: "It seemeth him but the skeleton of a ship."

All crusted with growths, like something that had been sitting on the ocean floor for centuries. You’d see it come leaping out of nowhere, like a whale breaching, and then it would dive back down again. Scared the hell out of me, I don’t mind telling you.”
“Again, in the record, it quotes you as saying that Jones was done in by one William Turner, and that Turner took command of his ship.”
“He did. In every sense of the word. Should you find yourself dying at sea, young man, you’ll meet him, too.”
“What?”
“That’s the curse, d’ya see. He killed Jones, so he had to take Jones’ place.”
“That was what turned the tide? That’s… that’s unbelievable.”
“How else do you think they were able to beat us? We had every Navy ship and every East Indiaman in the South China Sea. We had the bloody Flying Dutchman for God’s sake. We had them outmanned and outgunned. But they got the heart, and were able to dispatch and replace Jones. And Beckett, God damn him to hell for all eternity, froze in place. Do you understand how much of a failure that was? The worst commanders, the very worst commanders aren’t the ones who make the wrong decisions; they’re the ones who make no decisions at all.”

Just about every book I've ever read on military history makes this point. :)

His voice dropped and his eyes took on a far-away look. “Something, anything at all would have been better than what followed. He did nothing and we were swept in between the broadsides of the Dutchman and the Pearl. They blasted us to flinders. And Beckett just stared. I had to give the order to abandon ship, and there was no time to go for the boats. We just leapt and hoped for the best. And Andrew…” he cleared his throat and took a swallow of his brandy. “Andrew didn’t make it. He never quite got his strength back, after the Dauntless. Always prone to phthisis and had trouble catching his breath. Never even found his body.”

Sorry, Gillette fans. :) Basically, I needed one of them to be dead for the Big Fic, and since Groves shows up in the third movie and Gillette doesn't...

He sighed. “Well, you’ve no doubt read what happened next. With the Endeavour gone, the fleet might as well have been a headless chicken – Beckett didn’t encourage independent thought and action, d’ya see. Later, I heard that the ‘Pirate King’ never meant for her ships to pursue us, but you try ordering a bunch of brigands not to take advantage of such a situation. It was a God-damned rout.”
The writer perked up at the mention of this notorious figure. “Ah yes, I’ve heard stories of ‘Bloody Bess, Queen of the Pirates.’ Are they true? Did you ever meet her?”
Theo got a sour look on his face. “Such interest in that black-hearted little jade. You do remember that the pirates were the villains of this piece, do you not? It’s like you’ve all forgotten that these men were criminals – some were better than others, but the majority were rapists and thieves and murderers.

People do tend to get more conservative as they age, so Groves is taking the Royal Navy line on this...

You’ve made it almost respectable now… these are stories you tell to entertain the little ones. ‘Come hear about the days when Blackbeard and Kidd stalked the seas!’ or ‘Stand in the place where Sao Feng held his court!’” He snorted.
“’Come see the spot where Captain Jack Sparrow met his end?”
“Just so! Just so!” Groves gave a sardonic chuckle. “Only, to visit that one, so I’m told, you have to pay the Madam extra.”

I haven't decided whether or not he's really dead yet... :)

The two men laughed. “But isn’t that your ultimate victory, Admiral? Britannia’s Navy rules the waves and encircles the globe, while the specter of Bartholomew Roberts is used to scare small children into eating their vegetables.”
Theodore turned pensive. “Yes, I suppose there’s something to that... but still, it’s grown very hard to hear, as the years have passed...”
Another young man approached the pair. “Grandfather?”
“What is it, Stephen?”
“You asked me to remind you when it was six o’clock…”
“Did I?”
“Yes, sir. Grandmother will have my head if we’re late to dinner.”
“Oh, bloody hell. And then you grow old and start getting bossed around by stripling lads and women. It’ll keep until I’ve finished my brandy, boy.”
Stephen didn’t appear offended, but did look a bit agitated at the lateness of the hour. The writer took pity on him. “I must take my leave as well, sir. There is a pressing engagement that I must attend to.” He offered his hand. “I thank you for your time, sir. This has been most edifying.”
Theo shook the writer’s hand. “You’ll remember what I said, won’t you? I don’t want it forgotten.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.” He nodded.
“I’ll show you out.” said Stephen, and the two young men walked towards the entrance.
“And I must thank you as well, for the introduction…”
“Quite happy to. Did you find it helpful?”
“I did… I have to say, I’ve heard some farfetched yarns spun in my time, but your grandfather’s stories have them all beat.”
Stephen laughed. “I thought you’d like them.”
“And listening to him talk, you start thinking they might actually be true…”
“Well…”
“What, you don’t believe him, do you?”
“Not precisely… but… look, you know how you hear these stories from old men, and they change over time? Characters are combined, or forgotten, and the deeds get embroidered?”
“I’ve been talking to old sailors for the better part of three months. Trust me, I’m well aware of the phenomenon.”
“Well, his never do. Not once. I’ve heard him tell them more times than I can count, even when he’s utterly disguised with drink, and they’re always the same. So, if nothing else, he believes they’re true. What’s more, I’ve never gotten either of the Norringtons to abjure any of it. They just change the subject.”
“How very interesting…” The writer gave that its due consideration. “Still, that doesn’t make it so. Perhaps they don’t wish to cast their old friend in a bad light.”
“Perhaps…” said Stephen. They were at the door, now, and Stephen held his friend’s things while he put on his coat and got his umbrella.
“Thank you again, Groves.” He shook Stephen’s hand.
“Not at all, Coleridge.

Punchline! :)

Will you be at the Evanses tomorrow?”
“I will indeed. See you then…”
And with that, the writer vanished into the gathering night.

-----

For those of you who have never read the referenced poem (or if you're like me, and it's been a long time since high school), I present The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. So very sorry, Samuel. :)