by Eric Flint
“Admiral Banckert,” Eddie broke in, “we don’t have any information on Spanish spies. But, look: the Spanish have us totally beat in humint.” The young commodore saw the uncomprehending stares, even from his fellow up-timers. “Uh, ‘human intelligence’: the kind gathered by living, breathing agents. So let’s just assume that whether or not spies are here yet, they will be and that they are sure to find the weak spot in any routine activity that we’re trying to keep secure. Consider the items that need fixing and all the handoffs they have to go through. From shipment to off-loading to refurbishment to reassembly and testing to quartermaster and, eventually, back to maintenance. That’s a long chain. There are going to be links that can be bribed or blackmailed . . . and the Spanish will find them.”
Van Walbeeck folded his hands. “And they will not restrict themselves to the obvious channels.”
Corselles looked frightened. “What do you mean?”
Van Walbeeck shrugged. “I shall answer you with questions, Pieter. Do you clean your own house? Clean your own clothes? Who takes care of your daughters? Who cooks your meals?” Van Walbeeck nodded at his subordinate’s increasing pallor. “All potential conduits to the Spanish. Families, particularly important ones, often forget their servants have ears and eyes as well as hands and feet. Just as they forget that those hands and feet serve them out of need, not love. Because, in the end, their possible love for you will not buy the food or clothes or medicine that their own children certainly need. And if some unknown traveler is willing to trade coin for tales, why would they refuse to share seemingly harmless details from overheard conversations?”
Phipps nodded. “So you are acting on the presumption that the Spanish already know that St. Eustatia is our fleet’s haven.”
Eddie shrugged. “If they don’t already, they soon will. But that was inevitable.”
“Why so?”
Tromp turned out a palm in appeal. “When our ships were fewer and we had no supply from home, there was wisdom in hiding. But now that we are growing both in size and our contact with allied colonies, hiding has become impossible. They will find us soon enough, and from that moment, they will not rest until they are rid of us.”
Ann Koudsi was craning her neck to get a look at the farthest row of boxes. “So are you going to tell us what’s in those, or is there more stuff that you’re not showing off here?”
“Oh, there’s a lot more of that.”
“Because it’s the really secret stuff?”
“Some, yeah, but more of it is just too big for show-and-tell.”
“Like what?”
“Well, in addition to the first production run of steam engines for ocean tugs and Hale rockets—”
“Wait: so now we’re not just kids getting hand-me-downs, we’re guinea pigs?”
Eddie smiled. “That’s why this whole mission was supposed to be a shakedown cruise.”
“Yeah, supposed to be. Okay; so rockets. What else?”
“Three standard observation balloons and two of the first hot-air dirigibles that were built back in Grantville: all decommissioned or refurbished. And there’s something else we couldn’t have unloaded if we wanted to, and is arguably the biggest secret of all: the new rotary drilling rig for Louisiana.”
“Still no word from Larry Quinn?” McCarthy asked.
Tromp inclined his head. “I promised I would tell you immediately, Michael, and I will. So, no: nothing.”
Ann was smiling shrewdly. “So that’s why Patentia is scheduled to depart with the other ships: she’s the only lumber ship we’ve got—or any stern loader, for that matter—so you’ve got to transfer the drill string and the well casing over to her.” She considered. “Which means that she’s going on to Louisiana without stopping back here. And since you’d never allow her to go without protection—”
Banckert laughed. “Miss Koudsi, you think like an admiral. Perhaps you should consider changing careers, hey?”
“I think I’ll stick with drilling for oil.” She smiled at him.
He smiled back and bowed deeply. “I understand that without your expertise, we would not have received the first shipment, of both oil and bitumen, so quickly.”
She started for the furthest row of boxes. “Well, my boyfriend and about a dozen rig hands from the USE had a little bit to do with that as well, but since I’m the only one here, I’ll say it for the rest: ‘you are very welcome, Admiral.’” She punctuated that with a nod, and then looked at the boxes lined up before her feet.
“You look like one of my daughters at Christmas.” The very end of Mike’s comment was tinged with bittersweet recollection.
“Better not be shoes or gloves, then. I want to see toys!” Anne muttered. “Well, are you going to open them?”
Eddie obliged and when the lids had all been removed but one, he stood back.
Ann stared for a full five seconds, then put her hands on her hips. “What the hell is all that, Eddie? Looks like boxes of science projects I used to have in my basement.”
“Well, Ann,” Eddie answered, running his hand through his hair, “you’re not far off. You’re looking at components for three inclinometers and three electric firing systems. Two are for the guns on Intrepid and one is for that new naval rifle, which is eventually going to be mounted up on The Quill.”
“Then what’s in that box? The one you left covered.”
“Ah,” said Eddie as he exchanged smiles with Tromp. He lifted the lid carefully, removed packing materials that took up almost ninety percent of the crate’s volume, then waved a hand at what lay revealed: radios.
“There are seventeen,” he explained with a hush in his voice that Tromp found vaguely disturbing; it was simultaneously reverent and lustful.
“Seventeen radios?” Mike repeated in what sounded very much like disbelief and puzzlement. “What are you planning to do with all of them? Start a Top Forties station?”
“A what?” Eddie asked.
Mike recoiled. “Wow,” he exhaled with a shake of his head, “I really am getting too old for this. A Top Forties radio station was—oh, never mind. Why so many?”
“Michael,” Tromp answered before Eddie could, “if I had a hundred, I would still want more. Nothing has been half as valuable, as decisive, as your radios. I wish we had one for every allied settlement and colony that will allow us to have a permanent presence. Which is ironic, actually.”
“Why?” asked Corselles.
“Because,” van Walbeeck volunteered with a grin, “every time we have explained what the radio enables, they invite us to send one to their island, along with its operators!”
Joost van Banckert nodded. “It certainly made it easier to bring Bermuda closer into our orbit,” he muttered. “Their governor, Waters, understood the advantage right away. He also understood that it made him very valuable to us, as well.”
“Why so?” Serooskereken asked.
“The commodore understands this much better than I, but it has to do with their location being closer to Europe and to the mainland. Just as ships have an easier time journeying between closer ports, so it is with the signals sent by these radios.”
“Which of our other neighbors have radios, now?” Corselles said with a frown, clearly wondering why he hadn’t been informed of that development.
Van Walbeeck thought. “Nevis and St. Christopher’s, of course. Montserrat last month. Trinidad since it was taken, Tobago just recently. And there’s one on the way to Barbados right now.”
Ann’s face was a cluster of perplexed creases. “So if you already had enough radios for all those places, what are your plans for these?” She waved at the contents of the crate.
Tromp spoke the answer as if he were thanking God for impending deliverance. “One for every major warship. One for every balloon and dirigible. And it will take a few more to establish our weather-watching network.”
Corselles now looked thoroughly perplexed. “What is a weather-watching network?”
You’ll learn soon enough, thought Tromp. But what he said was: “We have seen all that there is to see. Let us continue our business over breakfast.”
Chapter 30
Oranjestad, St. Eustatia
As Eddie had suspected, breakfast was simply a glorified term for juice, carob “coffee,” cassava rolls, and goat cheese. He’d hardly finished what he intended to be his first helping, when Pieter Corselles proclaimed cheerily, “So, you have rid us of the French, Commodore! Well done! They shall not be missed. And in doing so, did you also tame the faithless savages allied to them?”
After Eddie had managed to control the sharp pulse of anger elicited by the Dutchman’s slur about “savages” that needed “taming,” he’d confirmed that, yes, a lasting peace had indeed been made with them. However, when he announced that said peace had been secured by guaranteeing the Kalinago perpetual and unbothered possession of the islands they still inhabited—Dominica, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Martinique, and Guadeloupe—the result was shock, then disbelief, then outrage.
As he had anticipated, the objections came from Banckert, Serooskereken, and particularly Corselles, and were purely practical. With the exception of St. Christopher, the Kalinago were now the sole owners of all the islands that were well watered and most favorable for agriculture. What was left for colonial expansion? That the Kalinago might actually have an intrinsic right of ownership over what were in fact their own homes didn’t seem to enter into their considerations at all.
Eddie had held on to a slim hope that by listing all the islands that were still open to them, and by pointing to why so many of them were uninhabited, he would rouse their slumbering—not to say comatose—consciences. Specifically, in addition to the islands they already possessed—St. Eustatia, St. Christopher, Nevis, Montserrat—the Dutch could yet add St. Croix, St. Maarten, Anguilla, and the entire Bahamas. Why? Because the Spanish had depopulated them, mostly by raiding for slaves, but also because they perceived and treated the native peoples the same way they did rats: vermin to be exterminated. The other islands of the Lesser Antilles—Antigua, Barbuda, Saba, St. Barthélemy—had been long uninhabited, even before the Spanish came. Either they didn’t have enough water, were too rocky and uneven for husbandry, or both.
And now, looking into those three stony faces, Eddie saw the reactions he had, sadly, expected. They were neither mollified by the promise of that additional real estate nor softened by the fates of the islands’ past inhabitants. While not devoid of all sympathy, they were hard-nosed pragmatists who saw the legacy of spilt blood as akin to spilt milk: no good crying over it now.
That dismissive attitude was clear in Corselles’ eyes and tone as he led the charge. “Commodore, I cannot be overly concerned with the past when the needs of the present are so pressing. Yes, you have identified islands without populations and yes, the natives have no objection to our possessing them, but that is only because they are all inferior sites for settlement. Small wonder that the Kalinago were willing to agree to such a treaty, since it effectively ends our ability to establish new, profitable colonies in the Antilles.”
Tromp held up an index finger. “I beg to differ.”
“How? The commodore made it quite clear that the Kalinago have sole, permanent rights to their islands.”
“True. It was your other statement which wants correction.”
“What? You mean to imply that Kalinago do not hold all the choicest islands in the Antilles?”
“Ah. But he was only speaking of the Lesser Antilles.”
Serooskereken looked confused. Judging from the annoyance knitted on his brow and at the corners of his mouth, he was not accustomed to the sensation and disliked it intensely. “But, Admiral, that is exactly what he said. He listed all the Antilles and . . . ”
Tromp’s index finger rose again. “Ah. There is the error, yet again. Commodore Cantrell did not list all the islands you say he did. He omitted those of the Greater Antilles.”
Banckert appeared both perplexed and aggravated. “There are no major fertile islands what we might colonize in the Greater Antilles, Maarten. I—”
“Again, I beg to differ. Indeed, we are free to colonize all the islands of the Greater Antilles.” He waited for his implication to set in. It did not. So he gave them the list, slowly: “Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and Cuba.”
Only van Walbeeck had seen it coming; he smiled. But the other three Dutchmen were wide-eyed.
“Cuba? And . . . and the rest?” muttered Serooskereken. “Admiral, do you not anticipate that the Spanish might make at least a trifling objection if we attempted to settle their most crucial colonies?”
Tromp shrugged. “Not when they no longer possess them. Not when the tide has turned that far.”
“Do you think it ever could?” Pieter Corselles sounded hopeful and disbelieving in equal measure.
“I think it must, for they will not brook our presence here. It is us or them.”
Banckert opened his mouth but closed it again. Whether out of respect, fear of ruining a friendship, or startled admiration for so bold a vision was unclear. Eddie suspected it might be all three.
It was Ann Koudsi who spoke. “That is . . . a most ambitious projection, Admiral Tromp.”
“That was tactfully put, Miss Koudsi. But whereas you may feel I am obsessed by improbable visions of conquest, I consider this the minimal resolution for survival. If there was a middle course, I would pursue it. Gladly. Avidly. Thankfully. But the Spanish will not have it so.”
His tone became less declarative, more reflective. “The price of their resolve will be a tidal wave of blood. The only consolation is that when that red tide recedes, slavery will be carried away with it.”
Banckert seemed to shake himself back into animation. “Let us return to the less fantastic and very immediate topic of our own defense. You were talking at length about radios. I certainly understand the value of those magical boxes, but then you seemed to link them to a network of weather stations?” He shook his head. “How does that add to our defense of St. Eustatius?”
Eddie nodded. “Admiral Banckert, what I’m about to say may sound like a pointless semantic difference, but I assure you it is not. I’d like to talk about the radios and the weather-watching network in terms of security, not defense.”
Banckert shrugged indifference, but Serooskereken leaned forward. “I would like to understand that difference as you mean it, Commodore.”
Eddie had hoped the question would arise; it would make everything else a lot easier. “Defense is pretty much the opposite of offense, the way the phrase ‘to defend’ is pretty much the opposite of ‘to attack.’ Would you agree?”
Now it was Phipps’ turn to shrug indifference.
“Okay,” resumed Eddie, “but security is about everything that concerns our safety. It’s the whole picture. Defense is part of it, absolutely; walls, guns, ships, men, and all the other assets which, to borrow Admiral Banckert’s words, can be used to defend St. Eustatius.
“But what about our ability to attack, the threat we pose to the enemy, all throughout this region? What about our ability to know his whereabouts, or to conceal ours? And what about our ability to protect our assets against weather and other natural forces? That—all of that—is what I mean when I talk about security.”
It looked like Serooskereken grasped that shift in concept even faster than Banckert did, whereas Corselles was frowning in desperate uncertainty. “Very well,” said Phipps. “Lead on, Commodore.”
“So: radios. One at every community. That would be good under any circumstances, but it’s particularly helpful here in the Lesser Antilles. Look at this map.” He unveiled the big hand-drafted but freakishly faithful map of the Caribbean. There were green lines drawn between each island-to-island gap, from the northernmost of the Lesser Antilles, Anguilla, all the way down to their southern terminus at Grenada.
Phipps Serooskereken assessed it through squinted eyes. “It
looks like a guide for jumping from one stepping-stone to the next. Which is why you are showing it to us, I presume.”
Eddie smiled. “Exactly. But those green lines aren’t just a route; they are measures of the distance between each island’s closest northern neighbor and its closest southern neighbor. The biggest gap is the twenty-nine and a half nautical miles separating Guadeloupe and Montserrat.”
“We know this,” Banckert grumbled.
“I was sure you did. I am equally sure that you know this island chain is three hundred and eighty miles long as the crow flies. Or, if you want to hop from stepping-stone to stepping-stone, it’s four hundred and seventy-five miles. And if you want to include Trinidad, it’s five hundred and fifty.”
Banckert folded his arms. “And you are going to point out that even if your steamships can only make ten knots, they can still cover the whole distance, from Anguilla to Trinidad, in less than two and a half days.” He shrugged. “That means we can certainly send powerful assistance to any threatened area quickly. But until the majority of our ships can move just as fast, our offensive range will not change much.”
Eddie nodded. “I agree. But that’s not the primary impact that this geography has upon our security strategy.” Banckert tried not to look deflated as Eddie pushed on. “Right now, I don’t want to talk about moving. I want to talk about watching. Because if you take that maximum separation of twenty-nine miles, and then you consider the highest points on each island, it means that every single one of these”—he tapped the green links—“also represents a clear line of sight.”
Koudsi saw it first. She ran her finger along the long, lazy, east-leaning curve of the Lesser Antilles. “You can keep this whole arc under observation. Any ship that is moving from the Atlantic into the Caribbean has to pass between at least two of these islands, and would be visible to both.” She frowned, thinking, and so did not notice that Tromp and van Walbeeck were exchanging delighted glances over her head. “But it’s got limitations. It’s porous.”
Corselles nodded vigorously. “A ship could easily be missed it if passes at night. Or in high weather. Or when the haze is thick, as is usually the case.”
