by Eric Flint
His mind’s eye shut, and he was abruptly back in the present, Stirke staring at him intently. Had the little sunbaked Englishman seen him reexperiencing that disgust, that vile failure of courage, morality, and empathy which had been his first reaction to the plight of the Dutch?
Stirke squinted. “Not often a man knows he’s able to do so much for so many of his fellow men, eh, Hannibal Sehested?”
“Sadly,” Hannibal forced out of a dry throat, “that epiphany is even rarer than you think.”
“So you must share it widely, then!”
Hannibal swallowed a sudden spurt of bile. “I am not worthy to do so. Of that I solemnly assure you. But I can testify to this: you are right when you aver that Lieutenant Evertsen, and his comrades—both Dutch and those of our other nations—have put the Spanish back on their heels. And that is why it is important that we have met.” Sehested lowered his voice to a murmur. “For only by combining efforts, will we be able to prevent Spain from reasserting her stranglehold upon all our communities.”
Stirke glanced sideways at him as the German guard stepped aside and Evertsen motioned him toward the steps. “Ah, now I see why your king has a man here, Hannibal Sehested. To gather us ’round a flag.” He started up. “Well, we might be willing, but Bermuda and her boats are but so much flotsam and jetsam in the currents of great nations and kings.”
“Wars are not always won by the heaviest broadside alone, Timothy. Sometimes, the keenest eyes and the fastest ships are just as important.”
Stirke stopped with one foot on the flying bridge, looked back at Sehested. “Aye, an’ that’s true enough. True enough that it bears more speech, I’m thinking.” He smiled and mounted the last step—and stopped as if he’d been clapped in irons.
Sehested, hurrying to join Stirke, discovered what had stopped the small Bermudan in his tracks: his surprise encounter with a spectacle from another world:
A telegrapher hammering away at a device that was all levers and wires. Instructions being shouted down speaking tubes. An auxiliary binnacle with down-time copies of up-time barometric instruments. A tactical plot table with a glass—or was that “plastic”?—weather cover, grease-pencil markings showing the positions and headings of both allied and enemy ships. A compass-like instrument showing the firing arc of the Resolve’s two naval rifles. Runners scribbling furiously, emerging from and disappearing down the stairs affixed to the other side of the pilothouse. German guards with long rifles that had percussion nipples in place of frizzens and pans.
For a master of an inter-island sloop barely half the dimensions of the smallest Dutch jacht, it hardly looked like a conn at all. Nor did it sound or feel like it. Despite the constant chatter and activity, most of the exchanges sounded like chanted rituals, with subordinates often repeating their superiors’ instructions even as they began to act upon them.
Sehested set Stirke back into motion with a gentle palm that guided his elbow. “I know,” the Norwegian murmured. “I felt it too, at first. It’s not like any vessel I have traveled upon before.”
Stirke rounded on him with wide eyes, crow’s feet momentarily vanishing. “’Sooth, but it’s not like a ship at all.” He struggled for words as Evertsen joined them. “It—it’s as if a man be standing in the guts of both a windmill and a . . . a orrery, is it? . . . with naught but gears and wheels turning about ’is head. Doing work, aye—but to what end?”
As Evertsen neared the group at the tactical plot, he was beset by runners eager to make report. He motioned for the boys to follow just as Bjelke leaned over the map-backed transparency to study the close intervals between the marks that charted the progress of the enemy ships. He looked up at the mast-mounted anenometer and then the telltales on the sails. “Given that they’ve a brisk wind astern and following seas, the Flota should be approaching more swiftly. Yet, the war galleons have reefed their topsails and topgallants.” He frowned. “Might they be more concerned with maintaining formation than maximum speed?”
When the two older men glanced at him without a word, he shrugged and explained his reasoning. “The intelligence indicates that when Spain’s two treasure fleets make the Atlantic crossing together, they take great pains to arrive off Dominica in good order so they may rapidly divide into the respective parts: La Flota de Nueva España, and La Flota de Tierra Firme.”
Simonszoon shook his head. “Look through your glass again, Bjelke. And not at those seagoing fortresses leading the van, but the ships further back, the ones the war galleons cut in front of when they spotted us.”
Bjelke brought up his binoculars; Stirke squinted quizzically at the device. After a moment, the XO muttered. “The freeboard of the cargo ships is . . . surprisingly low.”
Simonszoon nodded. “Now look at their aft draft.”
Bjelke did. “They’re out of trim, sitting back on their rudders.”
Simonszoon’s brief look of approval vanished before it had finished settling upon his face. “That’s a sure sign they’re all overloaded. Not a surprise; prior to first landfall, the cargo galleons usually are. So they’ll not sail well under full canvas. They’re too heavy to respond to a strong following wind. That’s why the Spaniards are letting their sails luff so. If they were rigged to catch all of this breeze, they’d be torn to strips and streamers.”
“So: although the Spanish have the weather gauge, they dare not take full advantage of it.”
Simonszoon made a sour face. “Not all of them, at any rate. But mind, the less laden hulls can make more use than the others. So we’d best assume that when the war galleons come within half a league, they’ll crowd sail for the last rush to close with us. Their canvas will hold that long. Of course, when they do that, they’ll pull further away from their cargo ships.” He grinned darkly in Tromp’s direction. “Which is all part of the greater plan, if memory serves.”
The admiral nodded. “Yes, but the weather is not optimal for us, either, Dirck. This seaway is livelier than is typical for this time of year, more than we would like for our eight-inch rifles.” He nodded toward the two long guns, both pointing toward the Spanish, their crews loose-limbed but at their action stations. “All things being equal, I’d rather their ships had more speed and that we had more calm.” He half-turned toward Cornelis Evertsen. “Conditions, Kees?”
“No change, Admiral. Fast, low wavelets, mostly, but there are occasional swells large enough to force our gunners to reacquire their targets. Once we’re underway, Resolve will cut a more level track; there should be no surges large enough to affect our aim.”
Tromp tilted his head upward, as if he meant to catch the sun more fully upon his face, but his eyes were closed and his features were taut, as if he was contemplating, or sensing. “We’d lessen the surges if we turn a point off the in-running current. We’ve no reason to keep the galleons dead ahead.”
Dirck leaned his elbows on the plot. “No, but the more we swing away from the current, the more roll we’ll have.”
“We’ll also be bearing away from the wind,” Rik added.
Simonszoon nodded. “Our fellows aloft will have a lively dance, trying to keep the canvas in the right trim. None of which is the best conditions for our gunnery.”
Tromp opened his eyes and nodded. “Yes, but I will take the roll from a current on our port bow, rather than the pitch when our bowsprit is set dead into its surgest. The roll is more constant but less marked. And less sudden. And the more we stand athwart the current, the better our gunners can read the swells, time their discharges.”
Bjelke canted his head forward. “Admiral, these conditions are less conducive to accuracy than when we met the Spanish galleons head-on in the Grenada Passage, last year. There, at least, we had two cruisers—Resolve and Intrepid—to take them under fire. And we had the weather gauge.”
Tromp nodded. “Worthy points, Rik, but I am decided: we shall swing two points to starboard. If we are to be sure of making full use of the guns we have, we must be sure that neither th
e forward mount nor the funnel blocks the aft, and by turning away from the current, we give the gunners the best possible view of swells. It also puts our bow directly on our next course heading, and so we shall come to flank speed without unnecessary delay.”
He glanced at the young Norwegian. “However, your counsel makes me wonder if we should reconsider the range at which we will commence the engagement.”
At the words “commence the engagement,” Stirke began shuffling his feet anxiously. The group around the plot turned in his direction.
Sehested smiled, inclined his head. “Admiral, I have the honor of presenting Master Stirke of the Somers Islands. He comes with news for you. He also reports that his colony has had much word of your actions against the Spanish last year.” Sehested paused to give his last words subtle emphasis. “That may be a subject worth touching upon—if only for a minute, under these hurried conditions.”
Chapter 5
East of Dominica
Tromp involuntarily raised his left eyebrow in response to Sehested’s subtle prompt. “I see. Well, Master Stirke, I presume you come with news from leeward?”
“Bless me if there’s any news worth sayin’, sahr. Nary a ship with uncertain intents. Hardly a ship at all.”
“Any hulls at all around Guadeloupe?”
“Excepting your own jachts, bow into the wind and waiting, nothing.”
“And did you meet as agreed with Admiral Jol?”
“I did, sahr. Not two days ago. He’d little more to report than I ’ave. Says he sank a pair of piraguas five days back. Would have taken them as prizes but the Spanish were not about to give over without a scuffle.”
Simonszoon’s amusement was saturnine. “Piraguas? Against a Jol’s ship and the two jachts attached to him?”
“Aye. Though they were too tired to row and the wind against them.” Stirke’s head bobbed like that of a pecking bird. “Peg Le—er, Admiral Jol says they turned about, full of fight and with naught but two petereroes between ’em. He was hoping to take them as prizes, but two touches of shot and they were in pieces. Men and boats, alike.” He shrugged. “So naught but open seas behind yer fleet, sahr.”
Simonszoon rolled his eyes; if Sehested hadn’t known to look for it, he wouldn’t have detected the faint hint of a grin. “Well, the news comes later than we hoped . . . but better late than never.”
Stirke looked stricken. “We crowded sail and tacked as sharp and quick as the wind allowed, sahr! Maybe too much so. Nearly went turtle twice. But by the time we rounded the Cachacrou headland—your captains call it Scott’s Pointe—the aftermost of yer ships were already on the horizon. And well ye know that there’s no free runnin’ from there to here: your bow’d be right in the eye of the wind if you tried. We came on as fast as we could but it was dreadful long tacks just to keep speed enough, if’t please yer.”
Simonszoon smiled, trying to show the Englishman—well, Bermudan, now, Sehested supposed—that he’d meant no harm by his comment.
But whether it was Dirck’s long, somber face or looming height, the fellow turned toward Tromp in a desperate appeal. “You were powerful hard to catch, as God’s me witness, sahr. We didn’t lollygag, me word on it! S’blood, it was as if ye were trying to flee us!”
Tromp smiled faintly. “Not at all, but we could not tarry. Once our ship watching the eastern approaches signaled that she had spotted the Spanish, we had to weigh anchor immediately. Though we were beyond the windward mouth of the passage and had the wind in a broad reach, getting distance from Dominica meant beating and often tacking, too. And right across the current. Still, we made seven nautical miles by dawn.”
Stirke frowned, glanced at the oncoming galleons, seemed to do some mental math. “Sahr, forgive me asking, but how’s it that they’re still so far a-sea? Even if your picket ship saw their lights at four, that’s what? Twenty or twenty-two miles, at best? But they’ve had six and a half hours with the wind abaft. Even ’twere they making a whisker under three knots, they’d ha’ been at broadsides with you half an hour ago! But there they are, still shaping for battle, as if they’ve had but half that time. Which makes even less sense, since it were full dawn by six. So how’d they fail to spot ye and adjust? Crow’s nest to crow’s nest on your great ships, ye’d sure see each other at eighteen miles, seventeen at the least.”
Tromp shrugged. “We had Dominica behind us, and our topsails and gallants were reefed. At even fifteen miles, it’s work for an eagle’s eye to pick out thin, dark mastheads above a black horizon and against an island’s black outline.”
“Ah! So you were slowed, yourselves, then.”
“That was the price of remaining unseen,” Simonszoon drawled. “But until they saw us, they came on with both the wind and the sun behind them, so—with their sails as wide and white as a gull’s wings—we had the measure of them at fifteen miles.
“It was near unto eight o’clock when the Spanish sent out a pair of pataches to check the waters and ways around Dominica. Slightly before eight-thirty, they must have caught sight of us. They heeled over, beating for all they were worth—and those pataches are right-rigged for that kind of work.”
“And since then?”
“Since then,” Tromp answered, “La Flota slowed considerably. Most of their fighting ships—we count eleven galleons specifically constructed for combat—swung ahead into the van from their original screening formation on the north. But that evolution slowed the fleet. The cargo ships—about forty galleons and naos—had to give their protectors enough time to get well out in front.”
Stirke nodded at all the explanations, but maintained a side-glancing skepticism throughout. There was still something off about the numbers and causes he’d been given.
“You still seem puzzled,” Tromp commented, looking over his shoulder at the approaching galleons.
Stirke’s gaze went there as well, then connected with his. “Well, just—just why here, Admiral?”
Tromp made sure his smile, if small, was kind. “You have a better location in mind?”
“Not as such, sir. I mean, one place on the globe is as good—or bad—as another fer men to make mince of their fellow men. But men usually ’ave something to gain by fighting where they do, if you follow me. Such as yer own Piet Hein, sahr. Back in ’28, at the Battle of Manzantas Bay. Defeated La Flota, he did, just like you mean to do today.
“But Hein were there to take hold of a true treasure fleet, Admiral—so loaded with silver that the ships were near unto sinking without his help, as they tell it.” Stirke shifted his feet, sent his arm in a wide motion that took in the bright sky, sun, and sea. “Meanin’ no disrespect, sahr, but what’s the point o’ being here, where there’s no silver to be had at all?”
Tromp smiled. “And that is precisely what the Spanish have thought as well, every year before their ships weigh anchor for the New World. That they are not only invulnerable because of their strength and numbers, but because they carry nothing to stir interest, much less avarice. A habit of thought which has now worked to our advantage.”
Stirke scratched his head. “Well, I see how they’d be surprised. But—”
“But you think we are—what is that English word?—‘daft’ for attacking a fleet without treasure. Yes?”
“Well . . . apologies, but yes, Admiral. Utterly daft, if I mus’ say.”
Tromp’s smile became a bit feral. “And what if I was to tell you that the Flota out there, racing toward us, is in fact filled with treasure? So loaded with valuables that even from here, you can see how low their naos ride in the water?”
“I’d say that’s not because they are loaded with silver, sahr, but because they’re freighting no end of goods from Spain—all heavy, too. Tools and nails and cannons and shot and every ’tuther needful thing that Spaniards don’t make for themselves here in the New World.”
“Yes,” Tromp murmured. “All priceless treasure. Every bit of it.” He nodded as Stirke’s responding frown began to clear l
ike clouds giving way to sunlight. “You see, now.”
“Aye, an’ it’s genius, it is!” He nodded as he unfolded the logic for himself. “For more’n two years, none of us have had ships from home. Us because King Charles forsook every one of his subjects here in the Caribbean, and you because the Spaniards sunk your great fleet off Dunkirk and then blockaded ever’ one of yer ports. And so we’ve made do with what we had on hand where we could and did without where we couldn’t. And it’s showed: in our ships, our shops, our houses. And everything so dear that nary a one of us could buy any of it.”
Tromp nodded once in return. “As it has been in Oranjestad, and all the other English and Dutch colonies. Merchants are almost without stock and yet have no use for coin. Barter for goods or services kept us all alive, but did not answer the crucial shortages for finished goods. Now: see those ships?” He pointed back at the broad array of small dark blots upon the water, topped by cream-white wings. “They are the answer to those troubles. As you yourself said, Master Stirke, they are brim-full with needful things. And the men on those ships are confident—as only a century and a half of unexceptioned experience can make them—that we not only lack the capacity to stand in a full-blown battle, but haven’t the belly for it, either. Because, after all, they have nothing that we would truly want, let alone need.” He stood straight.
“And they are so terribly wrong.” He looked out over Resolve and the ships to either side of her. “About both our need and our capacity to win this battle.”
He took a step closer to the small man, pointed behind at a small cluster of ships only a mile off Dominica’s eastern coast, the ones he had detailed to maintain observation during the coming battle. “You are welcome to remain with those ships, especially the one now lofting a balloon. For reasons I no longer have time to explain, that ship will come to no harm and cannot be caught. If, however, you still feel threatened, you will be able to leave at any time. Of this I assure you.”
