1637: No Peace Beyond the Line

by Eric Flint

  Bjelke turned to Simonszoon. “Captain, Battery Two is asking: chain again, or ball?”

  Simonszoon glared at the Spaniard, as if willing its foremast to collapse. “Both,” he sighed.

  Tromp smiled at his reluctance to use chain shot, regardless of design, in the carronades. “The cases don’t harm the rifling of the barrels. That’s been proven.”

  Dirck mumbled darkly about the inherent untrustworthiness of mathematicians and engineers, just before all four guns of Port Battery Two discharged in an uneven ripple as the ship crossed the bow of the galleon.

  One of the chain rounds went wide, but the other tore straight through the foretopsail and went on to splinter the mainyard behind it. The first ball sent up a white frothy divot just three yards to the port bow, but the other landed square on the foc’sle’s weather deck with a burst of dust, planks, and splinters.

  Bjelke looked to Simonszoon, who glanced over at Tromp. “Mount One says target is acquired. They are loaded with explosive round.”

  Tromp regretted every one he used, but they had been intended for the war galleons, so . . . “At the captain’s discretion.”

  Simonszoon’s grin was feral. “Mount One: fire!”

  The weapon roared, and, as if in reply, the quarterdeck of the galleon blasted outward almost instantly, with two smaller explosions following immediately afterward.

  “We hit a thirty-two-pounder dead-on, or I’m a goose,” Kees muttered.

  Tromp nodded at Kees’ comment, then toward to Simonszoon, who while watching the admiral, was already giving helm directions for turning two points to starboard, thereby keeping Resolve out of the arc of the stricken galleon’s batteries. “On to the next?”

  Tromp nodded. “As soon as we get an update from Tower. Let’s see what plan they’re trying to come up with so that we can ruin it.”

  Simonszoon smiled and started giving the pilot instructions for approaching the next galleon in line.

  * * *

  With the balloon’s constant updates on the enemy’s positions and courses, Resolve’s only surprises came from her own side. The other ships in Tromp’s Hammer element occasionally had to be brought back in line, like bloodhounds eagerly pulling at the leash to run after and bring down wounded prey: in this case, the galleons that Resolve had already crippled. The worst was Salamander, a particularly swift ship with a new captain who was eager to prove himself. The other three hulls—Amelia, Prins Hendrik, and Crown of Waves—were better behaved, if no less impatient to join the battle. But for now, their job was crucial (if dull) and twofold: to present a terrifying and swift wedge of ships ready to pounce upon the unprotected cargo galleons of the main body to the north; and as a reaction force in the event that one of the damaged war galleons managed to get sorted out well enough to pose a risk to Resolve or the progress of the battle.

  But as Tromp worked down the line of eight galleons, and the “cased chain shot” proved itself during its first use in combat, he took more time with each Spaniard, closing a little more as he crossed the bows and using shot instead of ball. Less damage to the ships, yes, but the losses to their crew and troops were profound, not to say ghastly. Also, with each successive engagement, it was becoming more certain that he would not need to use a second explosive shell to incapacitate any of these hulls. In consequence, he became less concerned with trying to save as many of those precious rounds as possible. In most cases, between the losses to crew, rigging, and sails, and the fires that usually sprouted in the wake of the explosive shell, it was dubious that many of these ships would be underway before the sun sank behind Dominica.

  Another surprise occurred when the balloon had to return to the Provintie van Utrecht earlier than anticipated: the batteries for the radio in the balloon had either leaked or discharged more rapidly than anticipated. So when Resolve reached the fifth galleon in line, it was necessary to engage without benefit of updates. However, in some respects, it was a welcome break to fight a ship the way men had always fought them up to now: by eye, and experience, and instincts born of long hours at sea. The outcome of the engagement with the fifth Spaniard was, for all intents and purposes, identical, and the sixth was different only insofar as the marksmanship of both Resolve’s side batteries and deck mounts had improved so markedly that the explosive round might not have been necessary. Indeed, judging from the fires which began raging along its length, Tromp realized that it might eventually prove to have been an unintentional coup de grâce.

  As Resolve began sweeping toward the seventh galleon, the main barrelman—the lookout in the mainmast’s crow’s nest—cried that the last two war galleons were putting their bows over to starboard to get the breeze and current behind them once again. But having steered so near to the eye of the wind, they were slow in turning.

  Simonszoon leaned back just as, miles to the west, the balloon surged aloft again, and the higher-pitched clicks and clacks of its dedicated receiver recommenced with a vigor. “Now, it’s just a chase.”

  Bjelke nodded. “We’ll be on that next galleon before she’ll feel any wind upon her stern.”

  “Which we shall cross at fifty yards and rake with shot. Never mind the stern cannons, either. They’re such small bore that they will barely dent the pitch on our strakes.”

  Tromp did not add that if a full battery of carronades loaded with canister swept a galleon from the stern, there was a better than even chance that her rear-aiming guns would not be able to retaliate. “It won’t be much different with the last of the Spaniards. We’ll close the distance to her in five minutes, assuming she’s already making two knots in that time. Like the other, she has to show us her stern in order to run, and that will be the end of the combat. And finally, after we’ve finished with her, we can get to work.”

  Sehested sputtered in amused surprise, held up hands when critical eyes turned his way. “Gentlemen, please understand: I am not laughing. I am simply amazed that all of what has transpired is somehow not work.”

  “Well,” Simonszoon offered in a surprisingly thoughtful tone, “I cannot disagree with that. But, this has all been the work we are hungry for—the work we dream about. What comes next, is, well—”

  “Dull?” Sehested interrupted. “Boring?”

  Tromp saw that his surprise at Sehested’s confident tone was reprised in the faces of the other officers on the flying bridge.

  The Danish diplomat waved a hand. “Gentlemen, I may not be a naval officer, but I like to think that I learn relatively quickly. I have seen, all day, in your eyes, that the risks, the challenge, of this battle are what you live for. It is why you became and remain naval officers. And as much as you worried and argued about the risks, that is all part of what excites you.

  “You remained still to draw their warships closer to you and away from the main body. That audacity went against all naval wisdom, which is why you alternated between complaining about it and being alert and eager. And then, when it worked, you still had to turn the tables upon them. Which you have done, by using this ship and that balloon and even those steam tugs in ways that the Spanish could not hope to understand.”

  He saw Kees’ quizzical look. “Yes, I understand the point of the steam tugs, Lieutenant. It was not enough that the Spanish war galleons sped ahead of their main body and then could not maneuver back to engage you without turning into the wind and the current.” He smiled. “You had to begin the engagement motionless. That way, it wasn’t just the war galleons that kept coming on, but the cargo ships of La Flota as well. In order to get Anvil—the largest part of your fleet—to the north of their main body, the tugs had to move the largest ships at the same rate as the smaller, swifter ones. And because of that, they now are just where you need them: opposite your Hammer and with the Spanish merchantmen between.”

  He smiled back at the slow appreciative smiles arising around him. “Come now, gentlemen, even a child would understand that if the northern squadron is called Anvil, then we can predict the role of this
small but incredibly powerful Hammer.” He gestured to Resolve and her escorts. “Now, with the Spanish warships almost all accounted for, you are just south of La Flota’s main body, and ready to strike. Dominica blocks them to the west, and the currents and the wind from the east keep them from making way in that direction. Their only choice is to flee north: toward the Anvil as the Hammer pressed hard after them.” His smile faded slightly. “But, I must ask: can you actually hope to destroy so many ships?”

  “Maybe, thanks to our admiral’s inherent stinginess,” Simonszoon grinned. “By making their warships come to us, we also conserved a great deal of fuel and ammunition. Most of which we’re going to need in this last phase.”

  “I am not stingy; I am thrifty,” Tromp amended while maintaining a straight face. “But to answer your question, Lord Sehested, we do not intend to destroy all those ships. We mean to capture them. Or at least as many as we can.”

  Sehested stared. “How can you hope to achieve that? You haven’t enough boarding parties. And even if you did, there are so many galleons and naos before us that you would be fighting for days.”

  Simonszoon pointed astern, first at the flaming fragments that had once been the mightiest war galleon in La Flota, and then at the one that they had more recently set aflame from stem to stern. “All the wallowing cargo haulers have seen how that happened, and know it could happen to them, too. With just a few rounds. No broadsides required.”

  “And do you have so many of the explosive rounds that you can fire one at every ship which decides to challenge you, despite those fears?”

  “Not for our rifles, no”—Tromp suppressed a grin—“but the Spanish don’t know that. Once we finish crippling these last two war galleons, we shall steam straight into the midst of the main body. They have seen that we are too fast for them to elude, and that also, from beyond the maximum range of their guns, we can inflict crippling damage with but a few shells. Just as we did to their war galleons. Given their slow and uncertain signaling, they will not be able to coordinate movements and so will almost certainly scatter in all directions. Some are already discovering that in order to maneuver—either to escape south through us or north through our Anvil—they are having to gather in their mainsails and make what way they can.

  “At that point, the other ships of our flotilla are simply there to prevent them from escaping; like sheepdogs working with frightened ewes. One by one our warships shall approach the Spanish merchantmen. If any galleon or nao so much as fires a warning shot, we put a shell into it from one of our naval rifles. A few such demonstrations and I predict that most of them will strike colors as soon as one of our other ships comes alongside.”

  Simonszoon shrugged. “Me? I suspect most of them will still need to have the personal experience of at least one nonexplosive round before they’ll comply. But since we will be sailing and moving at our leisure, beyond the range of their guns, and putting crushing damage upon them while rarely missing, I am hopeful that a good number of the others will realize the futility of fighting us at all.”

  Sehested nodded, understanding. “That is why you have cargo ships back with the Tower; to offload the Spanish goods.”

  Trompe scratched his ear. “Well, in part . . . but mostly, those ships with Tower are carrying prize crews. We don’t mean to just take the Spanish goods; we mean to take their ships.”

  Sehested shook his head. “Admiral, to attempt all by depending upon the performance of this one ship goes beyond mere audacity. It is—is breathtaking.”

  “Yes.” Simonszoon’s grin would have looked atypically fierce on a wolf. “Isn’t it, though?”

  “But . . . but was it really necessary?” Sehested persisted. “After all, Commodore Cantrell’s Intrepid was present, as well. He could certainly have loitered nearby, entered the battle at any time. And two hulls instead of one would certainly have made gathering this unruly flock of Spanish merchantmen much easier.”

  “Yes, it would have,” Tromp agreed. “But that was exactly why we did not do so.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Tromp turned to face him directly. “Lord Sehested, this war we are fighting beyond the Tordesillas Line—for let us not delude ourselves; we are at war with Spain, here—is unique in two ways. Firstly, neither one of us knows the full disposition of the other’s forces. Such uncertainty applies to all military campaigns to some degree, but it is several orders of magnitude greater, here. Secondly, one of the combatants—us—possesses a variety of capabilities that are not merely unavailable to, but are incompletely comprehended by, our opponent. Now consider how both of these factors influence our decision to carry out this entire operation with—apparently—only Resolve.

  “The Spanish—and now the Bermudans—will know and report that only one of our cruisers was here. Consider what they will be told by witnesses: that all the losses inflicted upon them were orchestrated and enabled by a single steam warship. There can be no greater display of how powerful they are individually.

  “But secondly, knowing that we have two such ships, it also tells them that our threat to them is actually twice that of what we demonstrated today. Or, to put it in terms of a defender’s worst nightmare, it means that we can exercise this power at two different locations in the Caribbean at the same time. This will at least double the apprehension of the Spanish, as well as the amount of assets they will deem necessary for defense.” Tromp shrugged. “Besides, two ships would have been overkill.”

  “Would have been what?” Sehested asked.

  Tromp managed to suppress a pleased smile. Some up-time terms seemed intrinsically rich with echoes of lethality and dark panache. “Overkill,” Tromp repeated. “More force than is needed to complete a task.” He glanced north. “Besides, Intrepid was needed elsewhere.”

  Sehested nodded. “Guadeloupe?”

  Of course he would have heard. Tromp nodded back. “It is essential that we secure certain arrangements and come to certain agreements with the Kalinago of that island.”

  “Well,” drawled Simonszoon, as the gun crews started readying for action against the seventh galleon, “Intrepid is quite a show of force. Quite enough to shock the natives into meek complacency, I suspect.”

  “I hope so,” Tromp answered. His eyes were not on the enemy ship; they were still fixed on the northern horizon. “I truly hope so.”

  Chapter 8

  Petit Cul-de-Sac Marin, Guadeloupe

  “Starboard Battery Two, A gun, reports ready, Commodore!” Svantner cried over the flap of Intrepid’s sails.

  “Fire at the crew chief’s discretion, Lieutenant!” Eddie shouted back, albeit with none of his XO’s animation.

  That permission, shouted down a speaking tube to the cruiser’s gun deck, brought no immediate response from the weapon. Take your time, thought Eddie, raising his binoculars to examine the state of their target.

  The French bark, only two hundred thirty yards away, was in difficult straits—literally and figuratively. Barely more than a third the length or freeboard of the Intrepid, she had been at anchor in Guadeloupe’s large southern bay, the Petit Cul-de-Sac Marin, when the larger ship appeared with the Dutch jachts Zuidsterre and Fortuin.

  These escorts, lately attached after completing their duties as the northern arms of the detection net spread before La Flota, harried the larger bark, dancing away from her guns, but cutting off any escape out into open water. Eddie had kept Intrepid slightly back from those maneuvers, watching the Frenchman for signs of where she felt it safe to go and where not. Had he been conning the bark, his goal would have been to entice the impossibly large steam cruiser to follow him into shallows and there either run aground, or be in enough danger of doing so that she would abandon pursuit in favor of carefully navigating back to safe waters.

  That did indeed seem to be what the Frenchman had been hoping to achieve. After the first quarter hour, when it was clear that the cruiser was not taking that bait, he made one run to escape, hard along the e
astern shore. He had not counted on the range of Intrepid’s carronades. Starboard Battery One had discharged all three guns. The result was one embarrassingly wide miss, a very near one, and a solid hit amidships. The power of that sixty-eight-pound ball at such close range sent strakes, planks, and a deck gun flying up and the Frenchman flying back the way he had come.

  As the bark heeled over to beat that retreat, Eddie would almost certainly have scored at least one more hit by coming a point to port, thereby giving Battery Two a ready target. But by chasing the enemy hull back into the Petit Cul-de-Sac Marin, he hoped its captain would see and submit to the hopelessness of his situation, and thereby surrender his ship to ensure the survival of his crew.

  Either the captain was made of sterner stuff or was simply stubborn. For the next half hour, he attempted to entice Intrepid into chasing him, ultimately tucking tightly around the western end of one of the bay’s small islands—Îlet Cochon—and making for the glorified sandbar named Îlet Boissard. It was an act of desperation, in that no mariner worth their salt would have followed him there, not even the shallow-drafted jachts. But the French captain had little choice; he was now operating in a patch of water so small, and so uneven in the rise and drop of its sandy bed, that his only remaining hope was for his enemies to make a foolish mistake or intercession by force majeure. Which on a day as clear as this one, Eddie reflected with a rueful smile, would mean the freakish appearance of either a water funnel or a hoary-hided kraken.

  Neither appeared, and his opponent’s desperation took its toll: it was the Frenchman that ultimately found itself brushing the bottom in a touch-and-go dance with running aground. Instead of Intrepid, it was the bark that had to slow and, using sails ill suited for the purpose, reverse her course out of the labyrinth of silt and sand at the foot of the bay. And at the present moment, that meant showing her stern to Intrepid.

  And still, Eddie realized, Starboard Two’s A gun had yet to fire. He was about to make a loud suggestion that sooner would be better than later when the gun released its raucous blast along with a plume of white smoke. An eyeblink later, its ball punched down upon the amidship deck planks of the bark, just aft of the mainmast. Its angle of impact—extremely acute—had the effect of almost skipping the shot back up, but it was blocked by two very solid objects: the mainmast and its deck collar.