Raised By Wolves 1 - Brethren by Raised by Wolves 01

Author:Raised by Wolves 01
Language: eng
Format: epub

Fifteen

Wherein We Descend Into Hell

Hastings sailed away with the prize, and the North Wind returned to working her way up and down the path the Flota would take to Havana.

We were at it for the next two weeks, and it was very much like looking for a needle in a haystack. The prisoners we interrogated on the prize had not even known when the Flota would sail from Vera Cruz. The Spanish were very secretive about such matters. However, as it was the second week of May, and the Flota usually spent a month in Havana before sailing for Spain in June, we knew they should be en route now if they had not already slipped by us.

If we missed them going to Havana, we would be forced to wait a month until they departed, as we obviously could not attempt to take a ship in Havana’s harbor. Tales were told of many a rover taking one just outside the forts’ cannons, though. This seemed madness to me. Tales were also told of rovers missing a fleet they had waited weeks for, due to misjudging the time and careening or provisioning when the great ships passed. So we did not stop looking. Thankfully we had refreshed our water a few weeks before, and the boucan was holding up admirably.

We had been reduced to rationing fruit, though.

It was decided that, if we did not spy the Flota in the next week, we would sail to Havana and take a look at their port to see if the fleet had slipped by us. If they had, we would find a place to provision along Cuba’s northern shore or in the cays of the Bahamas, and then catch the Flota in the Straits of Florida. If that failed, we would be forced to make a decision between returning to Jamaica empty-handed or sailing Raised By Wolves - Brethren

back around Cuba to await the Galleons coming up from the Main. They usually arrived in Havana in July.

I had begun to understand why no one could tell how long a roving voyage would be. We were at the mercy of so many variables that it was impossible to extrapolate a duration, unless one set limits on it in some fashion. I personally, probably owing to coming from cooler climes, hoped that with or without further prey we would return home by winter. I was actually beginning to become a little obsessed with this idea. The dreams I had on the King’s Hope, of sailing forever with sharks in our wake, had returned.

Of course, we did not need to return home by winter, as it would not become cold here. And the general mood of those about me was that we would not return poor. They had too many debts, and no money to keep them fed in Port Royal until the next cruise. This sloop was home for many of the buccaneers. They thought of no land as their own. They did not have houses they owned to return to.

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