Conquistador by Hosker Griff

Author:Hosker, Griff [Hosker, Griff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sword Books Ltd.
Published: 2021-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

We did not travel quickly through this new land where everyone ahead of us was a potential enemy. It was not the guns that slowed us up but the fact that there were women, priests, and carts we had made to haul the supplies we would need. We were able to take food from the locals, although, at first, in the land of the Totonac, it was freely given, but men liked beer and wine. We had gunpowder to transport as well as spare weapons. At first, we travelled through the jungle but, fortunately, it was not like the jungle through which we had hacked to get to the South Sea. There were roads that served the Aztec Empire. That alone told me that we would have to fight to take this land. When I had been with de Bilbao the tribes we had met all fought each other. There was no unity. The Aztecs, it seemed, were as Imperial as the Spanish. I did not think this would be easy. This was not like travelling through the jungle of Panama. The Aztecs built good roads and kept them maintained. The buildings were stone and the Indians were all clad better than those we had met in the thick jungles far to the south. The Aztec civilisation also had tended fields and there appeared to be little danger from wild animals. While that made our life easier I could not help but think that the Aztecs might prove to be more of a match for us.

I had my own battle with the recently arrived four gunners who had come with the four guns which had joined us from the scuttled ships. They resented me. Two days into the march one of them, Pedro Gonzalez openly challenged my authority. He was a big man, and he had a savage-looking scar on his face. It had been the result of a bar fight. Although he had won and killed his opponent with a knife, he had a hatred of all Englishmen as the man he had killed had been English. There was only one way he would accept my authority and that would be if I either dismissed him and sent him back to Vera Cruz or beat him. I chose the latter. I did not wish to do so but there were three other gunners. If I dismissed him then they would see that as a weakness.

The challenge came one evening. It had been a hard day of marching and we had had to repair one of the trails on a gun which meant we were the last ones into camp, and we were on the very edge of the village we had taken over on a flat piece of ground which lay a hundred paces from the main camp. The slaves we had were good men and they set to preparing food while I had the gunners check all the other guns. The truculent Pedro stood with his hand on his sword hilt and his feet in a fighting stance.

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