street that led around the out skirts of the port. We walked along the street until we reached a huge building, Rike knocked the doors and a strangely dressed man led us through into a space packed full of people, each staring at a figure stood on a pedestal shouting out across the hall.
“Just because a man is alive, it does not mean he is living! Buccaneers! Come with me, this shall be the greatest success ever recorded, you will be remembered for all of time. It is often a blind leap of faith that a man must take to find his full potential, if you are not willing to look, then you will never find your purpose!” For some time the male, who I quickly came to be aware was Captain Morgan for his name was cheered frequently, enticed the crowd and explained how they would set sail, not just to loot an unimaginably large bounty, but to become figures in history.
“Buccaneer? Capt’n?” I whispered to Rike out of curiosity, however he only huffed and gave me a vague answer.
“It be a term used by cowards who fear the imposition o’ landlubbers.” The gathering ended with Morgan telling us that any captain willing to sail with him should return to meet the following morning, and as we left the court I assumed Rike would be one of them.
5.
The final days of our stay in Port Royal passed hastily, ‘twas easy to lose all sense of time amongst its taverns and brothels, the streets were always lively with drunken merry crowds and the female company was something spectacular.
Since myself and Rike had parted from the court I had seldom seen him, he had retreated to his chamber aboard Roselyn and scarcely stepped foot on to land. For the time I was away from Rike I accompanied Sollertis. He frequently took excursions onto the mainland to further a project he told me he had been working on for many years. He spoke of a cannon ball that was unlike anything man had seen, something with such devastating power it would be capable of winning wars with great ease.
The boatswain owned a loft within the port town above a carpenter in which he stashed all his supplies. Within were countless pieces of apparatus resting upon tables and strange powders everywhere, masses of copper wires ran from glass containers to burning metal rods and back, ‘twas a most confusing sight. One afternoon he demonstrated to me the power of the weapon he had been working on, as we stood in the room he took two containers filled with some unknown substances, he mixed them up and told me to stand back. “What is it, bos’n?” I asked wearily.
“It is a plant residue mixed with nitric and sulphuric acids, and a final ingredient, from a friend, nitro something, I cannot recall.” The Boatswain stopped his work briefly, glaring at me with his manic grin. “When the formula combusts its explosive properties generate power unlike anything I have managed to fashion in the past. Look here.” He took a small scoop and lifted the smallest amount of his powder into a large metal basin, we stood some feet back before Sollertis set light to a twig and tossed it in. As the wood landed, up from the basin rose an enormous flare of fire that forced us both to raise our arms and lunge backwards so great was the outburst.
“You’re takin’ that upon the capt’n’s vessel, bos’n?”
“When I have encased the formula and placed it securely in a container it will be no trouble, Harvey, you have nothing to fear, I know what I am doing.”
“‘ow’ll you use it?”
“By packing the formula into a medium, in this case the form of a cannon ball, though firing it will be a great risk due to its instability. Fortunately a cannon can be crafted from whichever material you have at your disposal. I have calculated a number of outcomes using many different methods to propel the balls without a premature explosion, and I think I have found the answer.” Sollertis stood staring at the basin, his hand wavering in the air. He walked to a wardrobe and from within withdrew an enormous wooden pipe. “This,” he said, holding it up with great ease, “is our cannon, I had incredible amounts of trouble finding bamboo this thick and rigid, however my contacts on the mainland were a grand help to me. The shaft itself is lined at each quarter angle with gunpowder that runs right along the cannon’s barrel. There can be no friction as the balls leave the shaft, so, in practice, the ball is propelled with the force of the packed gunpowder, yet as briefly as it has used the cannon’s shaft to be propelled, the shaft itself splits, enabling it free flight towards its destination.” The boatswain excitedly made gestures and pointed out parts of his bamboo cannon as though the whole invention could never have been the death of us all.
“Surely, bos’n, when the gunpowder blows the ball out it’ll be enough friction alone to blow the bombs up? If they be weak as you say?”
“Indeed it would, however a simple reinforcement of the base of the ball from which the source of the explosion affects it most is all that is necessary to nullify the chances, greatly reducing the probability of it exploding in the cannon, instead of being propelled outwards.” Still smiling the boatswain continued to look over his work and tamper with powders and apparatus. ‘Twas just a few days after Sollertis had shown me his complete invention that we were to leave Port Royal.
Ever since Rike had heard the speech of Captain Morgan he had seemed intent on us looking for the island on the map the stranger had given us. A number of times he had brought the subject to mine and Sollertis’ attention, however Sollertis took little interest in the idea for upon his first look at the map he assured the captain that the island on it did not exist. I believe the words of Morgan however had already convinced Rike that it was to be our next destination, and against Sollertis’ disapproval informed the crew that we would set sail towards its shores, whether they had come from a swindler’s imagination or not. ‘Twas with ease we replenished the numbers of our lost crew on those final days, Rike had enough contacts to ensure the crew he was recruiting was of a decent standard for he despised men who did not have good values nor self respect.
We set sail from Port Royal merry and fearless. With a great new found wealth and an even greater confidence after our success over the Martona and a most brutal storm. The crew was in mighty spirits, ‘twas a joy to see once more a deck thriving with lively pirates. Of the new company a number of the men stood out: Aran Fox, a young lad who had lost his family, and so reminded me much of myself when I was at such an age, was an excessively hard worker on deck, he volunteered to stand at any post and was willing to work around the clock for the captain, such people are rare to come across in life.
Another male named Arnold May was a greatly skilled woodworker and displayed great levels of intelligence, Sollertis took little time in testing the man’s wits in a game of chess. Of all the new recruits however there was none that could replace Damien Rones. ‘Twas a great shame to have seen him step down from the crew, though I do not blame the man, for he had lived his life under the shadow of death for long enough. ‘Twas high time he left his days of piracy behind, still, the amount of bloodshed he had witnessed and caused, I am quite certain in reminiscence he could never live the life of a true landlubber. I still expect him as I sit to rip off the doors of my prison cell and drag me away to the safety of Roselyn’s gangways.
‘Twas mid day by which we left the port. Delving back into the seas off the shores of Jamaica the weather was beautiful. In fact, ‘twas far hotter than any day I could ever recall, a fine time to be returning to the great blue. Once we were clear of the port’s main shipping routes I went about ordering the new recruits to their future posts. We had lost Peterson in the plunder of the Martona so I introduced Aran to the post of look out upon Roselyn’s primary crow’s nest. I was confident he would not fall unaware at any moment. On the top deck of Roselyn there was a continual movement of pirates coming up from the orlop, others going down, men were constantly patrolling the deck to keep an eye out in all directions for potential dangers to the ship. ‘Twas not always from other vessels we could sail into trouble, there are known places within the Caribbean where ships can come into collision with great reefs and other natural oddities of the earth’s surface. ‘Tis vital to
be alert at all moments when sailing in the waters of this sea.
With the reconstruction of Roselyn’s rear mast complete it seemed she was taking the winds as strongly as she ever had. Sollertis calculated our knot rate was maintained at an average of six, something he concluded after taking a number of tests on our distances and times taken to travel between them, ‘twas a good speed, expected from a vessel such as our own.
‘Twas pleasing to see the sea calm after the troubles we had faced not long ago in the storm. We were destined to travel south west, into the great expanse of the Caribbean Sea in search of the mysterious island found on Rike’s new map, however drifting into open waters as we did was always going to herald trouble. Travelling outside known shipping lanes leaves you vulnerable from all angles to potential attacks from both opposing pirates and Spanish warships, and as was always so, no two days are alike for a pirate. Never is a warning given of events that lay ahead. It had been many turns of the hour glass into our journey that from the primary crow’s nest Fox yelled out to me.
“Sailor, sir! It seems we’re bein’ followed by two vessels! They ‘old up no banner, sir,