Delphi Castaways by Blanton Bob

Author:Blanton, Bob
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Delphi Publishing
Published: 2023-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

The Return

“Captain, the lookout reports sighting the shore.”

“Can he see a bay where we can make a harbor?”

“No, sir. He reports a rocky shoreline.”

“Then signal the fleet to tack. We’ll stay out of sight of the shore and go north until we find a bay.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Signal the Sinara to sail ahead and find a bay; we’ll follow.”

“Aye, sir.”

Captain Vestry looked at the horizon. He couldn’t see the shore of Wakara, as the natives called it, but he knew it was there. It had been five years since he’d last been in these waters. Five years that he had been plotting his return, his revenge.

Back then, he’d had three ships. They’d landed on an island in the south. He’d sent a boat ashore to greet the natives that were living there. To talk about trade, to learn about the new continent he’d discovered.

He never knew what happened. Suddenly, the natives had turned on his men, slaughtering them all. They then lined up on the shore and chanted at his ships. Undoubtably telling them to go home.

He’d ordered his gunner to fire on them. Their cannons had made short work of the men who had stood on the coast. He’d then sent a strong force of men ashore to take control of the island. The Wakapi, as he later learned they called themselves, had abandoned their village and the island.

His men reported that there was a village, a stockade, just inland. There was nobody there except two crippled old men. He couldn’t believe his luck; months of work would be saved by just taking over the village. It had plenty of room to house his three hundred men. They would establish their base there, then finish exploring the island. After that, they would begin to explore the mainland.

That’s what he’d thought he would do. What he had thought and hoped would happen before they discovered that the Wakapi had poisoned the village. Three days after they landed, his men started to drop dead. Within a week, half of them were dead or dying.

He and his boat crew had had to force their way back aboard his ship. It hadn’t taken long to figure out that the men who had never set foot on shore didn’t get sick. Of course, that meant the men on the ships were reluctant to let anyone who had been on shore back on the ship. Bastards.

They’d stayed for another month as the men who were sick either died or got better. At the end of that time, he barely had enough men to sail two ships. They’d taken the supplies from the other ship and set fire to her. He’d sailed home, defeated, still sick from whatever poison they had used. He’d captured the two old men and brought them with him. They’d laughed at the dying men, and it had been all he could do to keep his men from killing them.

He'd arrived home defeated but vowing to return. It took six months before the two old men had learned enough Causian for him to question them.

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