Winds of Fury
(eBook)

WINDS of FURY Brief narrative synopsis outline The WINDS of FURY Series is an 18th century sailor's tale of adventurous suspense and intrigue. It is a story of a young German lad, Heinrich Drope, born of aristocratic lineage. He becomes entangled in fateful circumstances while striving to establish his own merchant shipping business far from the lavish lifestyle he was born into. Voyages filled with unforeseen dangers await him and his crew over every horizon. Prompted by ardent dreams to be successful by hard work, he and his handpicked crew are fatefully destined to face inhospitable ordeals that take them into seas of tribulation and combative peril on the high seas. Each episode along their life's route is filled with inevitable distress, provocation, and enmity as they are hounded by pirates and privateers who are intent to rob them of their cargo and ship, looking to collect on a bounty set by the British. The disparaging bounty on their heads and subsequent ill-repute originated from a foul deed caused by British naval vessels, which attempted to board their schooner, the See Wolf, by force. Heinrich refused the British order to heave to and swiftly fled the scene after a brief damning altercation. The British warrant for their capture hangs over the crew's heads in the navy's quest to settle the old score. Committed to forge ahead with his business plans in spite of traumatic adversity, he and his crew are pitted against disparaging odds and develop creative ways to defend themselves, while still intent on their endeavor as honest merchant seamen. At every turn in his pursuit to succeed in his business plans he is faced with desperation and leads to overcoming the "winds of fury" as he rides the wild crest of seas frothing alive with hideous dread of sea battles against enemy ships. The turbulent years of being constantly hunted by the British and privateers become too insufferable. After many years with numerous cargoes procured and sold sometimes by hook or crook, and the grievous toll of human suffering sustained to get them to market, he and his crew begin to plan ways to change their life's vocation to secure lives of relative peace and safety. Roars of cannon fire blasted its barrages of heavy lead balls into the wooden hulls punching holes and smashing bulwark timbers to shreds and careening onward to smash anything in their path brought forth an immense deluge of sea water within the frigate's holds. Fusillades of grapeshot in the form of mixed metal projectiles flew across decks clearing swaths where men had stood. Sailor's screams from fear and howls from intense pain punctuated the air throughout the decks. As if this was not enough hell unleashed, hails of musket fire tore into flesh and shattered bones fired from neatly formed lines onboard the massive schooner which had stealthily approached its target, suddenly appearing out of a thick fog bank. Not only was the attack a complete surprise, but a wholesale slaughter in the making. It was a scene of horrific mayhem. As the See Wolf closed on its target heaving up and down on the sea swells, the distance narrowed dramatically. The anticipated boarding by sailors armed with swords, daggers, axes, and pistols would soon prove to be a gruesome close-in hand to hand battle for survival. Each side would have to fight with a zeal so desperate to survive the onslaught. Of German origin, Heinrich Drope, Captain of the cannon-mounted enormous and yet sleek-fast schooner, the See Wolf, plies his merchant trade in the Caribbean waters and along America's eastern seaboard in daring voyages hunted by the British navy and hounded by pirate and privateer vessels seeking to profit of a hefty bounty set by the English government for an undeserving contrived crime committed against the British navy, which marked them as outlaws.