Pirates of Savannah Trilogy: Book One, Sold in Savannah - Young Adult Action Adventure Historical Fiction
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Pirates of Savannah
Trilogy
Book One
Sold in Savannah
An Adventure Novel for Young Adults
Written By:
Tarrin P. Lupo
Porcupine Publications
Anti-Copyright 2010 by Tarrin P. Lupo
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ISBN 978-1-937311-06-3
Available in print edition at www.Lupolit.com and other online retailers.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to all persons, past, present, and future, which stand up for what is right despite authority and rules.
Acknowledgements
Lead Editor:
Ruby Nicole Hilliard
Editors:
Sandi Britt & Reagen Dandridge Desilets
Illustrators:
Ruby Nicole Hilliard, Scott A. Motley & Lori Messenger
Cover Art:
Ruby Nicole Hilliard, Scott A. Motley, Johnson Rice & www.PhotosbyBecky.net
Consultants;
Cannon, Musket, Charles Towne and Low Country Historical Consultant:
Reagen Dandridge Desilets
Sword and Blade consultant:
Mark McMorrow
Archeological consultant:
Audrey Salem
Preface
Pirates of Savannah: Sold in Savannah is a historical fiction novel that takes place in the much forgotten yet fascinating setting of the Lowcountry in prerevolutionary America. The Lowcountry started as a small section of South Carolina coastline but has grown to include the coastal areas from Cape Fear, NC, to St. Augustine Fl.
A map of the locations in the book
Most of the events in book really happened, and many characters were real. The fictional characters weave in and out of true historic events of that time period.
During the 18th Century there were no formal rules of grammar and spelling. If you are a stickler for grammar, you would have had a nervous breakdown back then. The same word could have five different spellings in the same paragraph. Some of the words are purposely misspelled in this book to keep them accurate to that time period.
One last warning, the 1700’s were a filthy time period! Most of you today would not have made it back then. Many people would have never see a bar of soap or a toothbrush and only bathed once every few months. I tried to keep this very accurate to the 1700’s, so a few of the scenes might make some people squeamish, especially in the opening chapter. This was not done to be crude, but to keep the book true to the time period.
Many people immigrated over to America as religious refugees but just as many came over to escape living under a government altogether. After the civil war an effort was made to forget and rewrite southern history. I wanted to resurrect this censored part of history that celebrated southern independence and the ideas of liberty.
Check out all the video, audio and other extras that accompany this book at www.Lupolit.com!
Good Hunting,
Tarrin P. Lupo
Chapter 1
Debtors’ Prison
Patrick and the crew watch Isaac drag a dead body out of their cell to the fire pits
Like a religious experience, the sun flooded the prison cell blinding the young man. A thick black cloud of buzzing flies poured out the door as they rushed toward the light that now bathed the young man. He rubbed the darkness from his eyes. He squinted at the intrusion of light, only being able to make out the blurry cloud of black flies that seemed to resemble smoke madly escaping from a burning building. For what felt like minutes, thousands of flies swarmed out of the doorway as the man’s eyes adjusted to the first light they had seen in two long weeks. Fourteen days without a hint of light, sealed in complete darkness, was not quickly erased from the eye's memory, but after a few moments, he could see the guards.
Tattered rags had been tied tightly behind the guards’ heads, covering their noses, revealing only their eyes. Their eyes were wide with fear of the disease that had swept through the prison so quickly. Even their hands were wrapped thick with cloth like filthy mittens. They would take no chances getting this close to the emaciated, diseased, and dying prisoners cells that were littering the cells.
The man watched dispassionately as a guard barked a muffled command to another inmate, ordering him to drag the dead bodies from the cells to the fire pit to be burned. The man smiled weakly and thought, It must smell rosy in the barracks. He knew the guards only allowed the prisoners to remove the dead when the festering smells seeped up through the floor into their quarters. The prison cells were once more sanitary, but that was before the rampant pox. The only thing that had spread faster than the pox was the fear of the pox. In response, the dungeon had been sealed and unlucky, frightened guards were assigned to leave food and water by the door once a day.
A selected few inmates were allowed to go to the door to retrieve the food and dispense it among their fellow prisoners, but the guards made sure only the healthy received the poor excuse for nourishment in this pit. The sick were too weak to waste vittles and water on.
The cell had become the dumping ground for those who had the deadly smallpox. Already twenty of the twenty-five imprisoned men had succumbed, their bodies breaking out into papules filling with opalescent fluid. It was only a matter of time until the remaining sick would join their fellow inmates in the deep fire pit in the yard outside the prison.
The extremely massive but emaciated prisoner dragging the corpses was handling his job with slight grace, but soon became nauseated by the thick fumes of ammonia that were emitting from the filth on the floor. He became overwhelmed and, gripping his stomach, he vomited the only meal he had eaten in days, adding to the piles of waste on the floor. This "vile sludge", as the prisoners referred to it, covered the floor over an inch thick.
The man had almost forgotten about the floor being alive until he saw it again in the rare sunlight beaming in from the open door. He recoiled from the sight; the throngs of maggots, fungus, and flies laying their nests in the filth. He had grown so accustomed to the constant buzz of flies and beetles coming from below his feet that he no longer heard them, but their squirming bodies, now illuminated, gave the illusion that the floor was a living, moving organism.
There was a time that chamber buckets would have served to keep the cell sanitary, but they had since become overfilled and obsolete. The guards, so sickened by the smell of prisoners dumping the buckets, simply let the pots succumb to the vile sludge over time until they were simply two, large mounds of fungus and waste.
"Hurry it up!" a guard commanded to the prisoner who was puking instead of dragging bodies. The man could see horror in the guards' eyes. They wanted to be exposed to the filth and disease of the cell as little as possible and it was already taking too long. The man could almost hear the guards desperately wondering if they made a mistake, questioning if the prisoner they chose to drag the bodies was sick himself.
The man smiled again, blinking in the blinding light, and thought, Serves the guards right.
The man would listen from a bench with his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around his knees. The only reason he was not dead from infection wa
s the sanctuary of the bench he sat on. It was the only bench in the cell and it was like an island with just enough room for six castaway prisoners. The old, wooden bench had been broken so many times in the past, it was now barely held together with a rigging of thighbones and rags taken from dead prisoners to keep it standing.
Now with an empty stomach and his chest and beard covered with vomit, the nauseous prisoner soon regained his composure enough to finish his chore and dragged the corpses into the hall one by one. The man closed his eyes and rested his head on his knees drawn to his chest as the guards closed and locked the heavy cell door, leaving him once again in darkness.
With only the constant wails and moaning of the dying to keep him company, the man, just as he had every day for the past seven years, returned to thoughts of home and the fateful day of his arrest. He rubbed the long scar on the left of his jaw and silently vowed he would live to meet William Potts again.