.Reale Ocho: Silvern at Bahia de Matanzas (Part 1)
Written by Aaron Shields on 07 November 2011. Posted in Pirates Ahoy! News
.Now I bring you the tale of a man whose skills and achievments outshine the deeds of most of the great heroes of naval history combined – a privateer who seized more loot during his illustrious career than most all other privateers of history combined – and a man who ultimately became the savior of his homeland – but who sadly has in this day and age become largely forgotten by history....
It was pitch black. The white noise of exterior sloshing water against the hull, creaking timbers, snoring men and rattling chains were all that could be heard by those that happened to be awake. Even though the young rower was exhausted, he laid awake in thought. Hatred seethed in him and he felt the violent desires to lash out and kill once again. He knew he must subvert these feelings in order to maintain his sanity. He was helpless to do anything about his situation anyway – that in itself was a large part of his problem. He would often imagine himself in other places and through force of will, make them become real to him. He would imagine himself liberated - walking on the deck of a FREE, wind-driven, oarless ship with his father once again, with fresh sea air and wind in his face - or he would imagine himself in Heaven or even back in Delfshaven. How he longed for freedom and the open fresh air again. He had watched men go mad at the oars or their minds be taken by devils. He was determined that this would not happen to him and that if he stayed true to God and his own determined will, he could maintain his humanity and lucidity. Disciplined mental exercise was essential and he had formed his own internal daily regimen of thoughts and prayers.
The stench of contained human odors and excrement was worse than any sewer, but the men were oblivious of it after so much time living in it. Suddenly the young sailor could perceive something scratching below him. He grabbed towards the sounds in the darkness and squeezed hard on the body of the skulking rodent with his strong callus covered hands. The youthful prisoner quickly raised the rat to his mouth and bit its head off, ravenously sucking down and swallowing the warm living blood from its now twitching body. This was the third rat he'd killed in a week and the nourishment was badly needed by the nearly starving oarsman. With his fingernails he seperated the hairy skin of the little beast from its body and pulled it off the carcass like a sock. He chewed into its raw flesh and devoured the miniascule creature - bones and all in a few desperate moments.
Even though he was angry with God, he thanked him nonetheless once again for the life-giving sustenance the little creature had just given him. He did not understand why God had allowed him to be taken prisoner so many times. This was the third time he had been a galley slave and he had spent the majority of his youth at the oars. He knew he must be meant to hate the Spaniards like Sampson hated the Philistines. He had been taught as a youth to love his enemies, but this was too hard for him. He knew that he hated the Spanish more than any other human being on earth and that he must be meant for some eventual higher purpose to destroy them. He would be strong until he could bring about that destruction, he thought. However, the young man's feelings were sometimes torn and he occasionally felt guilt for hating the Spainiards so badly. This was because he had been shown some rare occasional kindness. He begrudgingly both hated and admired the Spanish at the same time.
Because of certain special talents, Piet would occassionally be let off his chains to dwell above decks. Because Piet Heyn's father had owned a Herring fleet and Piet had gone to sea with him as just a young boy, he had become a skilled sailor and officer who could navigate by the stars better than most navigators with a compass. Heyn could tell by the sound of the water against the hull how deep the water was almost as good as a sounding lead. The Spanish officers would sometimes make wagers on how close Heyn could come to the lead's depth. Some feared him because of it and believed he possessed unholy powers given him by the devil. When the ship was in uncertain waters, they would unchain Heyn to ask him for a position calculation for comparison to the navigator's.
Traditionally, the Captain would make that additional position calculation for comparison, but in this case the wealthy and well connected Catalonian nobleman was not a good navigator or a skilled seamen in any way. Capitan Bienevidos y Bazan would make light of these situations and openly and verbally insult Heyn at every opportunity. Heyn would always remain silent and respectful. Often Bazan would give the excuse for Heyn's release as being because his stockings needed mending. Indeed, another of Piet's sailing skills was that he could mend anything cloth with more skill than any Flemish tapestry weaver alive. A few of the officer's took a liking to Heyn and allowed him to stay above deck over night and even enjoy regular victuals taken from the officer's larder in exchange for mending their socks or even knitting new thick stockings for the officer's and men. Heyn would often smuggle the extra victuals he earned below and share them with his weaker mates on the oars.
While enjoying these brief times topside, the young Dutchman had often seen the morning assembly occur. A drummer and fife player would loudly call the ships company to the long slender waist of the galley-ship. The prisoners below could often hear the drums but were never offered the opportunity to pray above. The Spanish would pray the same daily prayer every morning without fail despite the weather. In fact it was a flogging offense to miss morning prayers. The short service was always conducted by the ship's Catholic chaplain:
“Blessed be the light of day
And the Holy Cross we say;
And the Lord of Veritie
And the Holy Trinity.
Blessed be the Immortal Soul
And the Lord who keeps it whole.
Blessed be the light of day
And He who sends the night away.”
Heyn admired the discipline and the words in the prayer, but thought the Spaniards hypocrits because of their almost complete failure to follow it's spirit. For every good Spanish officer and sailor who had been kind to Piet, there were seven that would spit on him, ridicule and beat him. The Dutch had no galley ships and believed in the purity of the wind and providence. “True Chistians would follow our Lord's example in how they entreated with every man – even slaves”, he thought. Because of their cruelty, hypocrisy, and unholy way, Piet hated them all equally despite his guilt.
Leaning back against the outer hull, Piet knew it would be light soon and with his belly now half full of rat, he drifted back to sleep again, knowing it wouldn't be for long. Loud voices brashly awoke him from his brief dreamy sojourn in a paradisical troical bay where he often found himself within his dreams. He stiffened up on his bench and shook Leighton the English rower next to him that was still asleep leaning heavily upon his shoulder. Only this time Leighton would not wake up. The man was clearly dead. As the Spanish Capataces made their rounds it was the usual routine. First the order to purge themselves was given. Men squated forward on their benches and pissed and excreted what little they had in them while trying to avoid looking at the backsides of the men on the benches ahead of them.
Then Spanish sailors with wood buckets full of sea water would run down the center isle throwing the water onto and below the galley slaves, washing out the floor gunnels below the benches causing the filth to stream out the sides of the galley-ship. Even though a couple dozen sailors executed the task and plenty of water was used, it was never enough to get rid of the foul odors. After this washdown, sailors with additional buckets accompanying a couple of galley cooks distributed tiny bowls to the rowers at intervals every several benches of oars.
There were only enough bowls for a fraction of the oarsmen, so the drill was that when one row of oarsmen ate their meager helping of gruel, they would hand the bowls to the rowers behind them who would then reach toward the galley cooks holding the buckets with their bowls to receive small ladels of the contained stinking watery paste. The men used only their fingers and tongues to slop up the contents of the little bowls into their mouths. This daily feeding would only happen once a day in morning-time and was a quick affair as Capatez with whips would lash anyone taking too long with his bowl. This often meant the man behind received a little of the helping of the man forward of him. However, often the food ran out before all could be fed. After gruel, then came water. The same drill would be repeated with the same bowls, but this time with water. Once the slave compliment was fed, the Spanish deck officer in charge of the galley slaves, or senior Capatez would ask if there were any dead and the rowers would raise their hands if there were dead men next to them.
Piet held up his arm. He was not the only one. Three hands went up this morning. The great locks forward were unlatched and the long lengths of chain that ran along each side of the center isle through deeply embedded iron rings in each bench were pulled forward. Shorter lateral lengths of chain at each bench ran through thick iron rings on the ankle chains of each prisoner. One side of the lateral chains terminated in deeply embedded rings sunk into the inner hull of the galley, the other side of the lengths had iron loops that sat closely against their companion loops in the isle that the long main chains looped through.
The slaves next to the dead men would then pull the shorter bench chains out of their ankle loops, so the dead could be removed. The bodies were then taken topside, their chains removed and unceremoniously they would be thrown over the side to watery graves below. Piet cursed quietly knowing that he would have to row twice as hard with his bench one man short. There were three men to a bench on this ship and Gianelli, an old Italian priest that had been branded a heretic and sentenced to the galleys, alone shared Piet's bench now. He was too old and feeble to be much help. Piet was ashamed a little as he had made a bet with himself that Gianelli would be dead within another week's time. Today the chains were not run back through the deck-loops, and that meant that something was about to happen - work on deck or ashore. Piet praised God for His goodness in his thoughts. There was always a little disorganization when this happened and minimal supervision as the officers were above receiving instructions and planning or organizing the next step of the work-operation. The men took advantage of the lull to quietly talk with each other a little.
“Where do you think we are Gianelli”, Piet asked in fluent Spanish. Gianelli slowly turned his head and half closed black eyes towards the young rower. His face and head were covered in a long matted tapestry of thick grey beard and hair. The old priest looked at him resigned and cynical, “who knows, my son, perhaps the shores of perdition or Gehenna's flames. One can only hope.” Vandermaas, the man behind him, and an experienced old seamen he had known a long time, spoke. “Salt” he said. “Don't you smell the minerals? It's much stronger when you are at the source and there is tons of it on the wharf.” Piet knew the smell and remembered salting fish aboard his father's herring busses. Ever since the Dutch and northern europeans had learned about salt's amazing ability to preserve fish, it had become a staple of sailors and citizens all over the world. Piet answered Vandermaas in Dutch, “Yes I can smell it now. Usually all I can ever smell on this prison-bucket is sh*t.”
Multitudes of the shirtless galley-slaves were led on deck and then down the gangways to a small dock. They were in a wide round, underdeveloped back-water harbor, surrounded by high green jungle covered hills. Among the small buildings and shacks were supplies piled high to include salt. A local salt depot was the reason ships stopped here and the Spanish flotilla of twelve ships was here to resupply and transport salt. Bags of salt were more plentiful than anything else and piled high in great stacks. The galley-prisoners began picking up the heavy bags and one by one hauling them to the various ships. Most of the ships were galleons. Only three were galleys and the Spanish sailors enjoyed not having to carry the loads, taunting the slaves as they came back up onto the decks of the various ships.
The work was back breaking and the tropical sun burned hot down onto the men in the humid air. Even so, the men were glad to be away from the oars and in the open air. Piet stepped back off the gangway onto the dock to fetch another bag when the Captain, Bazan y Beinevidos called out laughing, “bring me the costurera”. A Spanish soldier grabbed Heyn by the shoulder and said “this way costurera”. Heyn hated the Spanish nickname meaning seamstress, and had a nickname of his own for the captain that he muttered quietly to himself “flikker apenkind”.
The Capitan pointed down at a large crate full of woolen skeins. “How many stockings can you knit with this?” Bazan asked. Heyn answered confidently, “I do not know, Sir.” Bazan surrounded by most of his officers was beside himself and smiled wide as he made sport of young Piet Heyn, “The man who can read the very weather and can tell us how many fathoms my ship rides atop, cannot divine the number of socks that can be made from this fine hilo de lana – you have no number in mind?” Piet responded, “perhaps three dozen, Senor.” Bazan replied, “Perhaps? Mmmm, are you lying to me costurera?” “No Capitan”, Piet answered. “You know – lying to your Capitan is a flogging offense. If you do not make exactly three dozen stockings from these threads, you will be flogged three dozen times.” Bazan reached down and siezed Piet's right hand, pulling it upwards for observation. “Your hands have been hardened by the oars. Perhaps if I freed you for awhile, your hands would soften and become more nimble like a woman's hands.” Piet barely held his temper at bay and could feel the anger building. Bazan continued. “Then you could be an even better costurera. Perhaps I could make you a real costurera and dress you up like one as well. You could mend my stockings, bring me my breakfast and wash my ass.” The Spanish officers all laughed loudly at their Capitans remarks.
That was all he could take. Heyn's temper was lost and he quickly pulled his hand away from Bazan, springing it back and throwing it forward again to strike the man. Bazan's lieutenant Alvorado grabbed the rash youth's hand and pulled it hard, just keeping it from striking the Capitan. Bazan laughed, “you're very lucky costurera. Alvorado has just saved your life. Striking an officer is a death offence. If you had struck me, you would join those men over there.” Bazan pointed to a group of scaffolds on the beach where a grisly group of dead men sat with their backs tied to posts, garrotted with their necks snapped and mouths wide open with tongues extending as far out as humanly possible. Several other headless bodies lay limp next to them adjacent to a large slab of bloody log that was used as a chopping block. Their heads were stacked neatly in pyramid fashion next to the log. These men had tried to escape.
“Capatez-Sergento, tie the costurera to this pole and give him a dozen if you please”, Bazan ordered. Soldiers responded by tying Heyn's hands high upon the tall pole of a make-shift open shelter used to keep water off cargoes. The capatez cocked back his arm and let it loose forward again over and over in a flurry of flesh splitting lashes. Heyn breathed in hard, held his breath and gritted his teeth. He had been whipped before and knew how to mentally absorb the pain of the lash. He let his anger flush over him and knew someday he would kill Bienevidos. Despite his current situation and the grisly warning offered by the dead men on the beach, he though to himself, “I must escape this place – and soon.”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49225014@N05/6462703285/sizes/l/in/set-72157628297430107/
Stay tuned next weekend for Part 2 of Reale Ocho: Silvern at Bahia de Matanzas
MK
Written by Aaron Shields on 07 November 2011. Posted in Pirates Ahoy! News
.Now I bring you the tale of a man whose skills and achievments outshine the deeds of most of the great heroes of naval history combined – a privateer who seized more loot during his illustrious career than most all other privateers of history combined – and a man who ultimately became the savior of his homeland – but who sadly has in this day and age become largely forgotten by history....
It was pitch black. The white noise of exterior sloshing water against the hull, creaking timbers, snoring men and rattling chains were all that could be heard by those that happened to be awake. Even though the young rower was exhausted, he laid awake in thought. Hatred seethed in him and he felt the violent desires to lash out and kill once again. He knew he must subvert these feelings in order to maintain his sanity. He was helpless to do anything about his situation anyway – that in itself was a large part of his problem. He would often imagine himself in other places and through force of will, make them become real to him. He would imagine himself liberated - walking on the deck of a FREE, wind-driven, oarless ship with his father once again, with fresh sea air and wind in his face - or he would imagine himself in Heaven or even back in Delfshaven. How he longed for freedom and the open fresh air again. He had watched men go mad at the oars or their minds be taken by devils. He was determined that this would not happen to him and that if he stayed true to God and his own determined will, he could maintain his humanity and lucidity. Disciplined mental exercise was essential and he had formed his own internal daily regimen of thoughts and prayers.
The stench of contained human odors and excrement was worse than any sewer, but the men were oblivious of it after so much time living in it. Suddenly the young sailor could perceive something scratching below him. He grabbed towards the sounds in the darkness and squeezed hard on the body of the skulking rodent with his strong callus covered hands. The youthful prisoner quickly raised the rat to his mouth and bit its head off, ravenously sucking down and swallowing the warm living blood from its now twitching body. This was the third rat he'd killed in a week and the nourishment was badly needed by the nearly starving oarsman. With his fingernails he seperated the hairy skin of the little beast from its body and pulled it off the carcass like a sock. He chewed into its raw flesh and devoured the miniascule creature - bones and all in a few desperate moments.
Even though he was angry with God, he thanked him nonetheless once again for the life-giving sustenance the little creature had just given him. He did not understand why God had allowed him to be taken prisoner so many times. This was the third time he had been a galley slave and he had spent the majority of his youth at the oars. He knew he must be meant to hate the Spaniards like Sampson hated the Philistines. He had been taught as a youth to love his enemies, but this was too hard for him. He knew that he hated the Spanish more than any other human being on earth and that he must be meant for some eventual higher purpose to destroy them. He would be strong until he could bring about that destruction, he thought. However, the young man's feelings were sometimes torn and he occasionally felt guilt for hating the Spainiards so badly. This was because he had been shown some rare occasional kindness. He begrudgingly both hated and admired the Spanish at the same time.
Because of certain special talents, Piet would occassionally be let off his chains to dwell above decks. Because Piet Heyn's father had owned a Herring fleet and Piet had gone to sea with him as just a young boy, he had become a skilled sailor and officer who could navigate by the stars better than most navigators with a compass. Heyn could tell by the sound of the water against the hull how deep the water was almost as good as a sounding lead. The Spanish officers would sometimes make wagers on how close Heyn could come to the lead's depth. Some feared him because of it and believed he possessed unholy powers given him by the devil. When the ship was in uncertain waters, they would unchain Heyn to ask him for a position calculation for comparison to the navigator's.
Traditionally, the Captain would make that additional position calculation for comparison, but in this case the wealthy and well connected Catalonian nobleman was not a good navigator or a skilled seamen in any way. Capitan Bienevidos y Bazan would make light of these situations and openly and verbally insult Heyn at every opportunity. Heyn would always remain silent and respectful. Often Bazan would give the excuse for Heyn's release as being because his stockings needed mending. Indeed, another of Piet's sailing skills was that he could mend anything cloth with more skill than any Flemish tapestry weaver alive. A few of the officer's took a liking to Heyn and allowed him to stay above deck over night and even enjoy regular victuals taken from the officer's larder in exchange for mending their socks or even knitting new thick stockings for the officer's and men. Heyn would often smuggle the extra victuals he earned below and share them with his weaker mates on the oars.
While enjoying these brief times topside, the young Dutchman had often seen the morning assembly occur. A drummer and fife player would loudly call the ships company to the long slender waist of the galley-ship. The prisoners below could often hear the drums but were never offered the opportunity to pray above. The Spanish would pray the same daily prayer every morning without fail despite the weather. In fact it was a flogging offense to miss morning prayers. The short service was always conducted by the ship's Catholic chaplain:
“Blessed be the light of day
And the Holy Cross we say;
And the Lord of Veritie
And the Holy Trinity.
Blessed be the Immortal Soul
And the Lord who keeps it whole.
Blessed be the light of day
And He who sends the night away.”
Heyn admired the discipline and the words in the prayer, but thought the Spaniards hypocrits because of their almost complete failure to follow it's spirit. For every good Spanish officer and sailor who had been kind to Piet, there were seven that would spit on him, ridicule and beat him. The Dutch had no galley ships and believed in the purity of the wind and providence. “True Chistians would follow our Lord's example in how they entreated with every man – even slaves”, he thought. Because of their cruelty, hypocrisy, and unholy way, Piet hated them all equally despite his guilt.
Leaning back against the outer hull, Piet knew it would be light soon and with his belly now half full of rat, he drifted back to sleep again, knowing it wouldn't be for long. Loud voices brashly awoke him from his brief dreamy sojourn in a paradisical troical bay where he often found himself within his dreams. He stiffened up on his bench and shook Leighton the English rower next to him that was still asleep leaning heavily upon his shoulder. Only this time Leighton would not wake up. The man was clearly dead. As the Spanish Capataces made their rounds it was the usual routine. First the order to purge themselves was given. Men squated forward on their benches and pissed and excreted what little they had in them while trying to avoid looking at the backsides of the men on the benches ahead of them.
Then Spanish sailors with wood buckets full of sea water would run down the center isle throwing the water onto and below the galley slaves, washing out the floor gunnels below the benches causing the filth to stream out the sides of the galley-ship. Even though a couple dozen sailors executed the task and plenty of water was used, it was never enough to get rid of the foul odors. After this washdown, sailors with additional buckets accompanying a couple of galley cooks distributed tiny bowls to the rowers at intervals every several benches of oars.
There were only enough bowls for a fraction of the oarsmen, so the drill was that when one row of oarsmen ate their meager helping of gruel, they would hand the bowls to the rowers behind them who would then reach toward the galley cooks holding the buckets with their bowls to receive small ladels of the contained stinking watery paste. The men used only their fingers and tongues to slop up the contents of the little bowls into their mouths. This daily feeding would only happen once a day in morning-time and was a quick affair as Capatez with whips would lash anyone taking too long with his bowl. This often meant the man behind received a little of the helping of the man forward of him. However, often the food ran out before all could be fed. After gruel, then came water. The same drill would be repeated with the same bowls, but this time with water. Once the slave compliment was fed, the Spanish deck officer in charge of the galley slaves, or senior Capatez would ask if there were any dead and the rowers would raise their hands if there were dead men next to them.
Piet held up his arm. He was not the only one. Three hands went up this morning. The great locks forward were unlatched and the long lengths of chain that ran along each side of the center isle through deeply embedded iron rings in each bench were pulled forward. Shorter lateral lengths of chain at each bench ran through thick iron rings on the ankle chains of each prisoner. One side of the lateral chains terminated in deeply embedded rings sunk into the inner hull of the galley, the other side of the lengths had iron loops that sat closely against their companion loops in the isle that the long main chains looped through.
The slaves next to the dead men would then pull the shorter bench chains out of their ankle loops, so the dead could be removed. The bodies were then taken topside, their chains removed and unceremoniously they would be thrown over the side to watery graves below. Piet cursed quietly knowing that he would have to row twice as hard with his bench one man short. There were three men to a bench on this ship and Gianelli, an old Italian priest that had been branded a heretic and sentenced to the galleys, alone shared Piet's bench now. He was too old and feeble to be much help. Piet was ashamed a little as he had made a bet with himself that Gianelli would be dead within another week's time. Today the chains were not run back through the deck-loops, and that meant that something was about to happen - work on deck or ashore. Piet praised God for His goodness in his thoughts. There was always a little disorganization when this happened and minimal supervision as the officers were above receiving instructions and planning or organizing the next step of the work-operation. The men took advantage of the lull to quietly talk with each other a little.
“Where do you think we are Gianelli”, Piet asked in fluent Spanish. Gianelli slowly turned his head and half closed black eyes towards the young rower. His face and head were covered in a long matted tapestry of thick grey beard and hair. The old priest looked at him resigned and cynical, “who knows, my son, perhaps the shores of perdition or Gehenna's flames. One can only hope.” Vandermaas, the man behind him, and an experienced old seamen he had known a long time, spoke. “Salt” he said. “Don't you smell the minerals? It's much stronger when you are at the source and there is tons of it on the wharf.” Piet knew the smell and remembered salting fish aboard his father's herring busses. Ever since the Dutch and northern europeans had learned about salt's amazing ability to preserve fish, it had become a staple of sailors and citizens all over the world. Piet answered Vandermaas in Dutch, “Yes I can smell it now. Usually all I can ever smell on this prison-bucket is sh*t.”
Multitudes of the shirtless galley-slaves were led on deck and then down the gangways to a small dock. They were in a wide round, underdeveloped back-water harbor, surrounded by high green jungle covered hills. Among the small buildings and shacks were supplies piled high to include salt. A local salt depot was the reason ships stopped here and the Spanish flotilla of twelve ships was here to resupply and transport salt. Bags of salt were more plentiful than anything else and piled high in great stacks. The galley-prisoners began picking up the heavy bags and one by one hauling them to the various ships. Most of the ships were galleons. Only three were galleys and the Spanish sailors enjoyed not having to carry the loads, taunting the slaves as they came back up onto the decks of the various ships.
The work was back breaking and the tropical sun burned hot down onto the men in the humid air. Even so, the men were glad to be away from the oars and in the open air. Piet stepped back off the gangway onto the dock to fetch another bag when the Captain, Bazan y Beinevidos called out laughing, “bring me the costurera”. A Spanish soldier grabbed Heyn by the shoulder and said “this way costurera”. Heyn hated the Spanish nickname meaning seamstress, and had a nickname of his own for the captain that he muttered quietly to himself “flikker apenkind”.
The Capitan pointed down at a large crate full of woolen skeins. “How many stockings can you knit with this?” Bazan asked. Heyn answered confidently, “I do not know, Sir.” Bazan surrounded by most of his officers was beside himself and smiled wide as he made sport of young Piet Heyn, “The man who can read the very weather and can tell us how many fathoms my ship rides atop, cannot divine the number of socks that can be made from this fine hilo de lana – you have no number in mind?” Piet responded, “perhaps three dozen, Senor.” Bazan replied, “Perhaps? Mmmm, are you lying to me costurera?” “No Capitan”, Piet answered. “You know – lying to your Capitan is a flogging offense. If you do not make exactly three dozen stockings from these threads, you will be flogged three dozen times.” Bazan reached down and siezed Piet's right hand, pulling it upwards for observation. “Your hands have been hardened by the oars. Perhaps if I freed you for awhile, your hands would soften and become more nimble like a woman's hands.” Piet barely held his temper at bay and could feel the anger building. Bazan continued. “Then you could be an even better costurera. Perhaps I could make you a real costurera and dress you up like one as well. You could mend my stockings, bring me my breakfast and wash my ass.” The Spanish officers all laughed loudly at their Capitans remarks.
That was all he could take. Heyn's temper was lost and he quickly pulled his hand away from Bazan, springing it back and throwing it forward again to strike the man. Bazan's lieutenant Alvorado grabbed the rash youth's hand and pulled it hard, just keeping it from striking the Capitan. Bazan laughed, “you're very lucky costurera. Alvorado has just saved your life. Striking an officer is a death offence. If you had struck me, you would join those men over there.” Bazan pointed to a group of scaffolds on the beach where a grisly group of dead men sat with their backs tied to posts, garrotted with their necks snapped and mouths wide open with tongues extending as far out as humanly possible. Several other headless bodies lay limp next to them adjacent to a large slab of bloody log that was used as a chopping block. Their heads were stacked neatly in pyramid fashion next to the log. These men had tried to escape.
“Capatez-Sergento, tie the costurera to this pole and give him a dozen if you please”, Bazan ordered. Soldiers responded by tying Heyn's hands high upon the tall pole of a make-shift open shelter used to keep water off cargoes. The capatez cocked back his arm and let it loose forward again over and over in a flurry of flesh splitting lashes. Heyn breathed in hard, held his breath and gritted his teeth. He had been whipped before and knew how to mentally absorb the pain of the lash. He let his anger flush over him and knew someday he would kill Bienevidos. Despite his current situation and the grisly warning offered by the dead men on the beach, he though to himself, “I must escape this place – and soon.”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49225014@N05/6462703285/sizes/l/in/set-72157628297430107/
Stay tuned next weekend for Part 2 of Reale Ocho: Silvern at Bahia de Matanzas
MK
