by Eric Flint
“Then, Jetse,” he said turning to the junior signalman, “tell the master signalman to send to all ships: commence evolution to second phase of Case Theta Two. All ships hold to three knots. Captains are to advise immediately if they are unable to maintain speed. Sound general quarters.”
Marcel Cove, St. Maarten
In the narrow confines of Marcel Cove, Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo inspected the position of each ship in his squadron one more time. He could find no fault with their arrangement. So why was he still nervously checking them every five minutes, as if he was some freshly minted ensign, fearful of his captain’s wrath?
The four galleons—his fastest—had already wended their slow, slow way out of the small, purse-shaped anchorage which was barely more than a notch at the northern end of St. Maarten’s mountainous spine. Signals from a patache positioned from just beyond the mouth of the cove confirmed that they had reached and tucked in close to Eastern Point.
Fadrique calmed himself by recalling the calculations and what they indicated: the enemy balloons would have to be almost half a mile in the air to see the galleons behind that steep headland. They would also need to be able to see through smoke. And know exactly where to look. In other words, Fadrique concluded almost angrily, they could only be seen if God wanted them to be. In which case, God could go fuck Himself.
He breathed deeply. This was hardly a day for blasphemy. Despite all the planning, all the preparation, all the freshly launched fragatas and galleoncetes—the new models without oars—there were still many ways that the plan could fail. And, hearing an excited jabbering behind him, he was reminded of his greatest concern: the men responsible for carrying it out.
He turned. The captain of the largest of the Cuban fragatas, the thirty-two-gun Santa Ana la Real, was walking briskly in an attempt to get ahead of Fadrique’s own adjutant, the young and very eager Lieutenant Martin de Orbea. The tall captain glanced briefly at the admiral, who smiled understanding and barked, “De Orbea!”
The lieutenant stopped as if he’d been gut-shot by a peterero. “Sir!”
“Come up here and make yourself useful. Put this spyglass on your eye and keep a watch for the signal fires on Pigeon-Pea Hill.”
“At once, sir!” The young officer—so young, too young—almost fell up the stairs to the low poop deck, bowed as he took the spyglass from Álvarez’s hand, and rushed to the taffrail to stare up at the steep, facing slopes.
The captain, Juan de Irarraga, surprised Fadrique by also mounting the stairs to the poop, albeit reluctantly, and with a wary glance at de Orbea. He was a hard-bitten, no-nonsense sailor who had come up through the ranks and was more concerned with winning a fight rather than whether he won it according to the approved methods of the day. In other words, he was both exactly the kind of officer Fadrique liked and exactly the right man to have in command of this very new kind of ship.
He approached with a slight bow. “Admiral.”
Álvarez waved off the gesture. “Let us dispense with the formalities, Captain. By the end of the day, we’ll have seen blood and death together. No reason to postpone the bond that will bring us. Besides, I’ve just saved your life.”
Irarraga blinked. “Sir?”
“I’m not sure how many more of de Orbea’s expository salvos you could have withstood.”
The captain’s eyes opened wider, and he just barely managed to stifle a guffaw. “The admiral’s keen eye is matched by his great compassion.”
“He’s a bit much, eh?”
Irarraga shook his head. “Sir, if you can weather that, you’d survive in an open boat for a month.”
Fadrique elected not to mention that he had done almost exactly that when he was de Orbea’s age. “We’ve many like him on our ships, today.”
The captain’s frown also had a hint of relief, probably because he was quickly learning that the admiral who was flying his flag from the stern was in fact a frank and like-minded fellow. “I cannot recall looking into so many eyes that have not yet stared into a cannon’s muzzle.”
Álvarez nodded. “The greatest losses we took last year were not in ships; these new ones are better. Nor in guns; we recovered enough of them. It was in the proven seamen that we cannot quickly replace. As it is, I had to pull every seasoned bosun and gunner and carpenter off the old galleons to give these new ships the crews they require . . . that they deserve.”
Irarraga looked sideways at him. “So. That was you? Sir?”
Fadrique waved a hand. “It had to be done, and I have no love of crewing the galleons with such inexperienced sailors. They will have a hard-enough time of it, today. But if we would win, we must have experienced crews where they are needed most.”
The captain nodded somberly, gestured toward the taffrail. “Your young pup’s tail is wagging.”
Álvarez suppressed a smile. “What is it, Lieutenant?”
“Sir, the signal tree! It is falling!”
Álvarez’s eyes roved up the slope, locked on a tilting trunk with naked branches as bleached as a skeleton’s grasping fingers. It shook, sank a little, then started into an accelerating fall.
So, they are at seven miles. Suddenly Fadrique was no longer anxious. The waiting was over; he was sailing to battle. “Lieutenant, watch for the smoke. Tell me how many fires, and which.”
“Sir?”
God’s Sacred Balls, do you not remember? “Watch the three points we discussed. Tell me, from left to right, which begin to put forth smoke.”
“Oh, yes! A hundred pardons, Admiral!”
“Well, don’t look at me! Look at the slopes, you igno—Just look!” As a young officer, Fadrique had hated those above him who insulted him, and thereby undermined his authority, in front of the regular crewmen. But sometimes, the temptation to tongue-lash de Orbea was so great, so exceedingly great—
“Admiral! Two plumes of smoke. The far left and the far right.”
“Keep watching.” He looked up the slope himself, could almost see them, he thought. But he dared not trust his unaided eyes any longer. “Still just those two plumes?”
“Yes, Admiral!”
“What does it mean?” asked Irarraga, who had not had any reason to be briefed on the complicated signaling protocols that the admiral had worked out with Gallardo.
“It means one-zero-one. The conditions are for plan of engagement number five.”
Irarraga nodded. “So, we stay close to the coast for the first three miles.”
Álvarez returned the nod as he waved de Orbea back to his side. “They are coming direct from St. Barthélemy on a northwest heading. They might be able to observe us for the first two hours of our run down the eastern coast. After that, the smoke and the highground of Pointe Blanche will screen us.”
Irarraga waved understanding as he called over his executive officer, Lieutenant Francisco Rodríguez de Ledesma, to pass along the orders to get the fragata underway. As he did, de Orbea arrived with an expression of excitement and nonspecific terror.
“Lieutenant, signal to the squadron: weigh anchor and proceed to open water. Exit the cove in the order specified in plan five. Move!”
De Orbea leaped away, almost falling down the stairs to the main deck. Fadrique didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh or cry or both. But at last, he thought gratefully, we are underway.
Underway to teach the heathens a final edifying lesson before we sink them deeper than the bowels of perdition itself.
Chapter 56
Off the southern coast, St. Maarten
“Sir, smoke rising up along the base of Billy Folly Hill.”
Of course, Tromp thought, why not? Eddie had an up-time expression: that even the best officers might give disastrous orders due to “the fog of war.” In his time, the phrase had become mostly figurative. Today, however, the Spanish were providing a singular demonstration of its literal origins.
Most of the western third of St. Maarten’s southern coastline was obscured by smoke. And since much of tha
t terrain was not heavily vegetated to begin with, it meant that the Spanish had invested an extraordinary amount of time and effort in cutting wood, gathering it, keeping it sun-bleached and dry, and then anointing it with oil and pitch to ensure that it burned quickly enough to put out a useful volume of smoke.
Tromp’s own adjutant, a bright young fellow who had been Eddie’s runner at Dominica, was waiting pensively at his elbow. He smiled over at the lad. “What is it, Caspar?”
“Another wireless from Captain Simonszoon, sir. He asks that we remind you that his guns are loaded and he could close to firing range in four minutes.”
“Send to the captain that he is to continue standing by.” Yes, Dirck, I know, I know. Resolve’s guns could make quick work of those galleons close to the lagoon. But they don’t seem to be going anywhere, and I need a moment to think.
Tromp looked at the tactical plot and was quite sure that this was precisely the dilemma the Spanish commander had hoped to put before him. Directly in front of the allied fleet were the four—or now, maybe five?—galleons standing less than half a mile off the southern barrier bank of Simpson’s Lagoon. The larger formation of other galleons standing off the western coast were no longer clearly visible due to the smoke, although final counts had increased their estimated numbers: eighteen to twenty. But they still had not appeared from around the western edge of the smoke concealing the lagoon, which meant that they had not been sailing to close with Tromp’s ships.
It was very much like looking at a chessboard without any clear sense of your opponent’s strategy. You could only imagine his unseen face grinning in a way that said, “your move.” For a moment, he empathized with the senior admiral of La Flota, who’d no doubt had similar feelings as he’d watched the allied ships either waiting quietly or undertaking maneuvers that made no apparent sense.
Tromp shook off the comparison. It was not merely distracting and unhelpful, it was not accurate. His fleet had superior speed, firepower, and a consolidated position. So, if the Spanish were not willing to come out from behind the smoke, or wherever they were, it was time to take the pawns that were clearly unprotected. Without fully committing any of his own pieces in the process.
“Commodore, any signals yet from the two jachts we sent to our flanks?”
Eddie shook his head. “None, Admiral. Vriessche Jager just signaled that she is able to see around the smoke to the west. The galleons there are not moving. Their sails are reefed.”
“Reefed, you say?”
“I repeat: reefed, sir.” He smiled ruefully. “Looks like they’re waiting for us, or someone else, to make a move.”
“It most certainly does.” And since the Spanish typically expect us to lead with our steamships, that is exactly what we will not do. He leaned toward the speaking tube. “Signalman, send to Admiral Banckert aboard Amelia. We are evolving to Contingency Epsilon. To confirm that contingency: he is to take our conventional men-of-war westward, but not proceed to engagement.”
“Very good, Admiral!”
Tromp was already looking at the plot again. He pointed at the single blue symbol to the east. “And has Zuidsterre anything to report?”
Eddie didn’t turn to respond. “No, sir. Last report is that she is now three and a half miles to our east. She’s still running the ‘all clear’ pennant from her masthead.” Eddie turned to meet Tromp’s eyes. “Another half mile east-southeast and she’ll be able to see all the way up the eastern coast as far as Babit Point.” The up-timer paused. “She is a sloop, sir. Not much in a fight but as small and nimble as any ship we’ve got.”
Tromp nodded. “You needn’t jog my elbow. Caspar, signalman is to send to Zuidsterre: she is to tack as necessary to get that extra half mile.”
“But sir,” the towheaded boy started, and then shut his mouth with a snap.
Tromp managed to suppress a smile. “You have a question, Caspar?”
“No, sir.”
Tromp added a note of sternness. “Caspar, I am your commanding officer. It is your sworn duty to tell me the truth. So I ask again: do you have a question?”
“Admiral, I—well, yes, sir. But I do not wish to seem impart—uh import, erm . . . ”
“Impertinent?” supplied Tromp.
“Yes, sir. That. It’s just that, well, we’ve already seen that side of St. Maarten. As we approached, sir. It was clear as a cup of spring water, sir.”
“So it was . . . then. But the wind is fresh from the northeast today. An enemy who was waiting for us to pass the southeastern headland, Pointe Blanche, could have easily come from the north and sailed down the coast we believe to be clear behind us.”
Caspar nodded thoughtfully, then looked at the comms tube. “But the Spanish don’t have radio, sir . . . do they?”
“Not yet, but”—Tromp pointed at the tall pillars of smoke rising from the island—“they have other ways of sending messages. And almost as quickly, if they have arranged enough special codes beforehand.”
“I understand, sir.” He saluted—in the up-time fashion, no less!—and ran down the stairs to the pilothouse beneath them, calling out for the telegrapher to prepare to send to Zuidsterre.
“Are you happy, now?” Tromp said sideways toward Eddie.
The up-timer grinned. “Yes. And now you’re going to want me to bring the balloon down to one hundred feet, I’ll bet.”
“Eddie,” Tromp murmured, “I appreciate a prudent measure of caution in a commander, but what do you expect to see from five hundred feet with the smoke in the way? Frankly, I would rather bring it down altogether. We have come to the point where swift reaction is almost certainly of greater value than distant observation.”
Young Cantrell sighed. “I agree. I’ll start retrieval. We should be secure for engines full in fifteen minutes, flank speed with full canvas in twenty-five.”
A call came up the speaking tube from comms. “Admiral Tromp, message from Captain Simonszoon.”
Tromp smiled. “Read it. Without all the insertions.”
“Er, ahem . . . he asks, ‘Do I have time for a quick nap?’”
Eddie managed to smother a guffaw into a rather ghastly sounding gargle. Tromp did not smile. Somehow. “Send this: ‘Tromp to Simonszoon, CO, Resolve. No napping permitted. Resolve is free to engage. Jacht Vliegende Hert will be tasked to escort.” Tromp frowned, thought, and added, “As well as frigate Zwarte Tijger.”
“Having Kees keep an eye on Dirck?” Eddie asked with a grin.
Tromp shrugged, muttered, “Someone has to.”
Off the eastern coast, St. Maarten
As the Santa Ana la Real drew abreast of Geneve Bay, Fadrique Álvarez glanced into it. There, along with their anchor watches, were two pataches. Captain Irarraga saw and followed his gaze. “Pickets?”
The admiral shook his head. “In the event we must evacuate.”
Irarraga looked at the slope-walled eastern shore. “Where from?”
Álvarez pointed toward the notch between the hills that flanked the bay. “If Lizarazu must give up the fort, this is only two miles for his men. That bluff at the back of the bay will be a final, taxing uphill march from their side, but the rest is all downhill or flat.”
“But that’s just a fraction of the men who’d need to be taken off the island.”
The admiral smiled. “That’s why there are eleven more pataches waiting in Marigot Bay in the western.” If all was going according to plan, and all indications were that it was, the majority of the sappers were there even now, awaiting the last of the soldiers who stayed behind to keep fueling the fires near the peaks and along the coasts. Some of the ones near the lagoon and Billy Folly Hill would find it difficult, if not impossible, to escape in the event of a general retreat. But there was no avoiding that. For the rest, at least, it was a swift run down the western slopes to reach the pataches and the safety of open water. “Still,” he mused aloud without thinking, “I regret that I cannot ensure a safe escape for all of them.”
&nbs
p; Irragara, not understanding the greater context, asked, “There are others to evacuate? Where?”
The admiral smiled. “Well, actually, right there, on Guana Cay.” He turned to point in the opposite direction. To the southeast, a small, breaker-foamed elbow of rock rose above the swells.
Irarraga examined it dubiously. “That’s barely five hundred feet long and fifty high.”
“I believe both dimensions are even smaller. But if the Dutch decide to position a picket near Pointe Blanche, we have a half dozen coast watchers there who shall signal to us.”
“Well, their job will soon be over,” the captain commented, squinting at the headland that concealed them from the eyes of their enemy. “We’re just under a mile and a half from turning round Pointe Blanche. With this breeze, that’s thirty minutes. Just over twenty, if those galleons weren’t slowing us down.”
“‘Those galleons,’ sir?” a new voice echoed. It was Irarraga’s executive officer, Lieutenant Rodríguez de Ledesma, who had come up the short flight of stairs to the low foc’sle. He smiled. “I thought you were one of the galleon’s most ardent admirers.” The tone was modest and jocular. Well, mostly jocular.
Irarraga stared at him. “You have a report, Lieutenant?”
Rodríguez bowed. “I do, sir. We just saw the last signal fires on Naked Boy Hill.” He pointed aft; wisps rose skyward on the small green mountain a mile behind them. “The location of the two fires indicates that the allied fleet remains close by the center of the southern coast, but that some elements may be moving to the west.”
“They could be moving on the lagoon,” Irarraga said, watching for the admiral’s response. “It certainly does not sound as if they are racing to engage the flotilla to the west.”
Fadrique shrugged. “It is not essential to our plans that they should, although it would have been better. But frankly, I am unsurprised. Few Dutch captains would take that bait. They are bold, but they are always mindful not to split their forces unnecessarily.”
