by Smith, Skye
After some hot and spiced oat gruel, Daniel and Oliver climbed the stairs and ladders that led to a lookout platform high in the village's weeping willow. Because the tree was ancient and huge, and because its leaves trailed down, it made a splendid perch for viewing the low marshlands in every direction.
"So, have you told the village women that this new ship means that you can move them to the New World?" Oliver asked.
"Not yet, but it is not as if they don't know that we need to move. Look over there at that last field of green. There was a time when we kept horses and dairy cattle there because it stayed dry for most of the year. Now the drainers have enclosed it and the king has claimed it away from the Common. I mean, just look around. You can already notice the changes that the drainings are having on this land."
Oliver looked around, but it still all looked like marshy land to him.
"There used to be hundreds of flocks of thousands of birds nesting in these marshes at this time of year. Every year there are fewer. Many fewer. The same is true of the eel runs and the salmon runs. Every Fens family is hurting because of the king's drainings. If the king ever stops them from carving peat on his enclosures, then what will they use as cooking fuel, and for heat in the winter?"
"So are you still thinking of migrating to the latest colony, the one called Rhode Island?"
"I don't know, Oliver. I haven't decided yet. Those West-Indiamen captains that we met through Admiral Tromp in Rotterdam told me of other islands that sound like paradise. Fresh water, good fishing, warm weather, warm water, and trees that grow nuts as big as a child's head. Edible nuts with sweet juice inside. Did I mention warm weather?"
"Nuts as big as a head? Unbelievable. Well, that should tell you not to trust the rest of their descriptions. Unbelievable. Besides, any paradise island would already have people living on it. They will not allow you to land. Well, perhaps your women. Who could refuse your women?"
"The captains told me that fifty years ago there were civilized towns and villages and people living everywhere in the New World, but not any more. Supposedly most of them were killed by a plague of the pox. The adults died, and though the children survived they lacked the wisdom and knowledge to keep things running so they turned wild and abandoned the towns. I understand that. They would have been tribal folk like my folk, who depend on the elders to teach the young. If the elders all die at once, then who is left to do the teaching?"
Oliver went very quiet. "Now I understand."
"Understand? Understand what? That the greed for owning land is destructive? That the clan folk, the tribal folk of England are to be pushed into the sea just because some Lord wants to personally own what is left of the common land of this kingdom? That isn't news. Charlie didn't write the Forest Law. He is just using an old law to steal the last of the common land. Most of the commons were stolen centuries ago."
"William the Conqueror,” Oliver replied. "It was the first Norman King William who enacted the Forest Law so he could steal the communal land and use it to pay off his army. But that is history. What I meant is that I suddenly understood a letter that I received from my friend in the colony of Massachusetts’s Bay. Ten years ago I was tempted to go there with him. He wrote to me and told a tale much like the one you just told."
"About stealing land?"
"No, about how when they landed in the New World they had expected to spend years in the hard work of clearing the ancient forests so as to create planting fields. He wrote that they spent very little time clearing. The planting fields were waiting for them, thousands and thousands of them, and with no folk working them. Of course. The folk, at least the adults that farmed them, must have been wiped out by the pox."
"I thought the local folk were wiped out by muskets. I'm sure I heard a Puritan in London bragging about how they had wiped out an entire tribe of natives. They slaughtered six hundred men so that they could take the women and children as slaves. Tell me, Oliver, is it God's work to kill savages even if the only reason they are savages is because their elders all died of the pox?"
"Don't you dare blame me for what other Puritans do just because I declare myself a Puritan,” Oliver defended himself, "and please don't be too quick to leave for the New World. Things are about to change in England and it will be better for the folk after the change. Once the king and his lords are under the control of parliament ...."
"What?" Daniel interrupted. "What will change? Nothing. You forget that I was in London and met many of your parliamentarians. You and Robert were the only poor ones. This push for control is between the king with his lords who have a monopoly on the land, and the rich merchants and traders who want to break that monopoly. When the rich fight amongst themselves the poor always lose. No matter which side wins, the Fens will be drained and enclosed and sold to some wealthy landlord."
Oliver chose not to argue. He couldn't. Instead he pointed down into the village. "Look, Robert is finally up and about. I must go down and speak with him about Pym and his rabble rousing."
Daniel smirked as he looked down at Robert. In London he had overheard Oliver advising Robert to forget Mary Ward and instead take a woman from Daniel's village as a wife. That the five most comely women he had ever met were not from the palaces and grand stone houses of London, but from the reed and thatch huts of Wellenhay. Daniel had so hoped that Robert would choose a wife while he was staying here. He would ask Sarah to stop sleeping with him so that the younger women could creep into his bed.
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The Pistoleer - Slavers by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14
Chapter 4 - The voyages of the Swift Daniel in July 1640
It was not necessary to sail the Swift Daniel all the way from Lynn on the Wash to Bridgwater, Somerset just to take Robert Blake home. That he could have done by post coach. It was, however, necessary to physically show the Swift to the port master at Bridgwater so that it could be registered as being from that port. Admiral Tromp had demanded that the ship be registered in a western port, not a North Sea port.
In his eagerness to have the ship, Daniel had not argued or asked why Tromp wanted it registered in a western port. It was Robert who offered the best explanation. "Tromp obviously doesn't want it known that you were given the ship by the Dutch Navy. Since our Navy knows that the Dutch captured lateen galliots from the Dunkirkers and the Armada at the Downs, there is only one other explanation for how you ended up with this ship. You must have captured it from the Barbary Corsairs."
"You jest. He expects me to pretend to have just come back from capturing this ship off the coast of the Africas? That is just too unbelievable."
"Not the African coast, Danny, but the Bristol Channel. Off the north coast of Cornwall there is a rock of an island that often hides Barbary Corsairs. Lundy Island. Tromp expects you to tell the port master in Bridgwater that you took this ship from Barbary Corsairs off Lundy Island."
"Too unbelievable. He'll know it as a lie."
"He's more likely to buy you a drink,” Robert chuckled. "For a decade the Corsairs have been raiding villages in Cornwall and Cork, and our bloody navy ships can never seem to catch their galliots. Entire villages have been abducted away to Africa to sell as slaves. You must have heard about Baltimore, in Cork, back in '31. Every man, woman, and child just disappeared overnight."
The voyage from Lynn to Bridgwater was a complete joy for the crew. The Swift was much faster than the Freisburn, and much smoother through heavy seas. With both masts lateen rigged, and with the addition of the two fin keels, she could sail close to the wind so there was little need for the hard work of rowing. She had three cabins, a small one under the aft castle for the commander, a tiny one under the bow castle for sheltering the watch, and one large one underneath the command cabin for the crew. This meant that everyone aboard could sleep out of the weather.
The Spanish had run a dozen cannon from the deck of the San Daniel, but all of those cannon had been taken off the ship during its ref
it in Rotterdam. Daniel had not complained. They had been old-fashioned cannon and as like a modern Swedish cannon as a blunderbuss is like a musket. Besides, he would never carry the five crew per gun that was required to load and fire them. Needing five men for each of a dozen guns explained the great number of Spanish crew who had surrendered this ship to the Dutch.
They didn't call in at many ports along the south coast because until the ship was properly registered and carried a license from Bridgwater, any good customs man worth his salt would have held them up for bribe money; the 'little bite' that beefed up their low wages. These days the customs men were lucky to see any wages at all, what with the king pouring every shilling into raising an army to march against the Scots.
At Robert Blake's request they put into the small harbour at Lyme on the Dorset coast. It was almost too small for the Swift, but it was the only sheltered wharfage between Weymouth and Exmouth along that curved shoreline of cliffs and steep beaches. One look at a map showed them why Robert chose to leave the ship in Lyme.
It was only thirty miles by road from Lyme to Bridgwater via Taunton. Besides, along the way he could take a short detour and visit his sister Bridget in her husband's village. Even with the visit, Robert would be in Bridgwater days before the Swift Daniel could sail the three hundred miles around the Cornish Peninsula.
The Blakes of Bridgwater were known and respected in Lyme because of Robert's father's trading business with France, and so it was through Robert that the crew were made welcome and well fed on pasties and saltfish. The town itself was a bit of a backwater of not a thousand souls that seemed to have fallen on hard times of late. Robert told Daniel that the earnings from the small harbour had kept the town prosperous, but that was before the new Dutch style fluyts had taken over much of the cargo business. The small size and entrance to the port were difficult for the oar-less fluyts to navigate, so now much of the French trade was taken to the port at Weymouth; that is, other than for Lyme's own fishermen-come-smugglers-come-pirates.
Once Robert was on his way overland on a borrowed nag, the Swift continued along the south coast to Lands End. Twice they chose to outrun navy ships rather than have to explain that they were not corsairs spying out likely villages to raid, especially since the ship was unregistered. Once around Lands End they decided to stay well off shore, not just because of the dangers of the immense change in tides, but also so that the fishing villages would not be panicked by the sight of their triangle sails.
Lundy Island was marked on one of the Swift's charts, so they decided to sail close by, just to gain more credence to the story that Daniel might have to tell the authorities in Bridgwater. It was a desolate island with a stone tower, high cliffs and no obvious safe anchorage, but a commanding view of the sea leading towards the Severn. If the pirates had galliots like the Swift, then they could prey on any passing ship, and would rarely be caught by the navy frigates.
That night the crew all had the best of times concocting the tale of how they had captured the Swift from corsairs, so that every man could tell the same story if need be. The story they finally agreed on was that they had come upon the Swift at night, while it was at anchor at Lundy Island with most of the corsairs ashore. Since their own ship looked like just an aging fishing boat, the corsair watch on the Swift had not expected to be strafed with grapeshot from a swivel gun, or with the non-stop arrows from a dozen bows.
The upshot of it was that while the corsair watch was boarding their little ship, they were boarding the Swift. The result was an exchange of ships, and they sailed away from the island on the faster ship.
Three days after she had left Lyme, the Swift reached Bridgwater. They rowed her upriver beyond the tumbled down walls of the old castle and tied up at the closest wharf to the bridge. Robert had offered them the use of a warehouse his father had built next to the family land back when he had been trading with Ireland and France. Since that time some twit had built a low bridge from red stone quarried from the castle walls, which blocked ships and barges from reaching the Blake warehouse.
Robert had already arranged for the paperwork to register and license the Swift, so there was little delay with the port master, and no fees. Not even Daniel needed to tell any tall stories about the capture of the ship. It was just noted in the register book that the ship had been built in Algiers and had been captured at Lundy Island from Barbary pirates.
Before nightfall, the cargo had been delivered from the ship to the warehouse by cart. The smaller barrels of the cargo all contained Genever that Robert would sell on Daniel's behalf to the Dutch immigrants that had settled all around Bridgwater and Taunton since the beginning of the Dutch-Spanish war seventy years ago. The larger barrels contained a cargo that Robert had begged from Daniel in Rotterdam: sixty Spanish-made snaphance pistols, half of them standard ball pistols and half of them dragons.
"I will pay the rest of what I owe you for the pistols from my commission on the Genever,” Robert promised Daniel as they locked the last of the special barrels behind the sturdy door of the warehouse's inner lockup.
"No hurry,” Daniel told him with a smile. "They were doing me no good stored in Rotterdam." In Rotterdam there was a one-legged Scottish gunsmith by the name of Jock Douglas who continually bought cheap pistols and other guns on Daniel's behalf from the villagers and battlefield gleaners all along the border with Spanish Flanders. Jock and he shared the profit from selling them in England. The prices kept rising in England, where all pistols were imported because most English gunsmiths were now living in the Netherlands where their craft had been in high demand for the duration of their endless war of independence.
Robert was very pleased by the low price he had paid for Daniel's scavenged pistols, while Daniel was pleased to be doubling his investment even at the special low price he had charged his friend. In Holland the gleaners sold the old-fashioned Spanish pistols for next to nothing because the Dutch snubbed them as being old-fashioned. Old-fashioned or not, and no matter how heavy and clumsy, the Spanish dragons were the best defensive weapon that Daniel or Robert had ever carried. Defensive for sure, due to their short range. "What are you going to do with thirty dragons?"
"I have five brothers each with a horse," Robert replied, "and they each have five friends, each with a horse. That makes thirty mounted men at my beck and call."
"Ahhh, so you plan on creating your own flying squad of pistoleers."
"If the king's men come looking to arrest me, like they did Pym, they will be in for a nasty surprise. And don't look at me like that, Danny. There were a lot more than my sixty pistols being packed in barrels in Rotterdam. At least as many again. Who are they for?"
"Henry Marten,” Daniel whispered. "He also fears the king's intentions after the arrest of Pym and the rest."
"Well, what do you expect after they arrested six leaders of parliament in or about their own hearths? The hearth law used to be sacred in this kingdom. A man has always been safe in his own home. Well, apparently not any more."
"Sixty pistols but only five carbines? Not quite pistoleers then, not without carbines for sniping."
"Rifled carbines are expensive. I could only afford five, even at Dutch prices. Those five are why I can't pay you in full for the pistols."
"So what will they use for sabres and chest armour if you can't afford carbines?" The rifled carbine was the only long range weapon that Dutch pistoleers carried, usually used to target the enemy leaders. Killing a few leaders usually saved many lives on both sides of a battle.
"Later perhaps. The dragons were critical. Instead of swords they can carry axes or jabbing spears. Instead of armour they can push straw down their leather vests, or hide behind walls. The truth is that this is for defense only. It is not my intention to attack anyone, or to start any battles."
"A good offense is the best de...."
"Oh hush,” Robert winced. "I had to do something, and this was the best I could afford. So ... where must you go to deliver Henry's dragons?"
"I already have. Didn't you notice? Don't tell me you didn't make a count of your own barrels. Henry's pistols are behind that stout door with yours."
Robert laughed and then moaned, "I wondered why sixty pistols would take up so many barrels. I assumed it was the packing straw to keep them safe during shipment."
"Packing straw to keep them safe? These are tough old dragons, not fancy china. Just send word to Henry to come with his carriage and pick them up. He has already paid me. He paid for a hundred, but there are a hundred and ten in his barrels in case some are defective. Your barrels have sixty-six for the same reason."
"Aren't you staying until he comes? You are more than welcome, and the crew can sleep in the cottages behind the house."
"Thank you, but no,” Daniel replied. "I made a promise to Admiral Tromp to return the Swift to Rotterdam for more fittings as soon as she was registered in England."
"Ah, so this was just a trial run, then. Now you go back to have the flaws corrected."
Daniel hushed his voice. "That and because Tromp was still trying to gain the permission of his admiralty to fix us up with a few cannon."
"Don't be absurd. At the moment, Tromp is the most popular and powerful man in the Netherlands. He could fix you with cannons at the snap of his fingers."
"Not on an English ship. That is a political decision, not a military one. Anyway, give my best to Henry. Tell him that if he needs more pistols, to send a message through Oliver Cromwell in Ely."
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"What is that new word that you hear constantly in Rotterdam?" Daniel asked old Cleff. He had asked Cleff to come along as the helmsman, for Cleff was still training Daniel to be a captain. At one time, Cleff had been the warlord of the clan and the captain of the Freisburn, but that was before he had retired. "You know. The one that means that something is good for both sides of a business deal?"
