Pistoleer: HellBurner

by Smith, Skye

  She went silent though her bony hands worked the beads furiously ever upwards. Oliver felt strangely afraid and he took the pot of whisky from Daniel's hand and took a gulp. It burned his mouth and his throat and yet it was smooth and did not make him cough. It left a smoky taste in his mouth, a warm taste, a rich taste. He forced himself not to take another mouthful. It was the Devil's brew. He licked his lips at the thought of more.

  "Twenty generations later, there was another string of years without summer. Again the norderlingen pushed south, again they came to Britain in search of longer crop years, and again it was a time of hunger and blood and battle, but this time the norderlingen did not need the Frisian ships for they had their own ships. They came in longships, bigger ships than the Frisian ships, draakshepen. They settled to the north of the Fens and forced the Angleesh to move further South.

  After four generations the summers became longer and warmer again, but the Norsers did not go back to their own lands." She pointed to a unique purple bead. "This bead is carved with the rune for Knut the Great and for two generations after this bead, the times were very good. And then the dark times began. It was warmer yes, but that meant that the Latins returned from the south with their greedy priests. The holy Isle of Ely was taken from us. The Frisians of the Fens fled back to Friesland to escape the murdering knights who worked for the greedy Latin priests."

  Again she was quiet while her fingers rippled over the bracelets. Oliver whispered to Daniel, "The second Latins were the Normans, right? The Normans replaced Knut's Danes as the ruling class, and the Roman priests replaced the Greek monks as the ruling religious order." Daniel returned a nod but did not speak because Oudje's eerie voice was sounding again.

  "Now it has been twenty more generations and again there are years without summer in the North. The first of them was two generations ago, and the winters have been longer every year since. We have reached another time of no summers, and it will last for at least two more generations. The cold is just beginning. We must leave this place, while we have ships and wealth and healthy children. We must move south before the times of hunger and blood and battle begin again."

  "Oh, this is all nonsense,” Oliver said with a wave of his hand as if it would wave the old woman's words away.

  "Really,” replied Daniel as he handed the pot of whisky to Oudje. "Well, not if you had been living in Saxony during the last forty years. It has been very much a time of hunger and blood and battle. Have you never heard of the slaughter of Magdeburg? And that is just one example. The northerners are moving south again, and the southerners are fighting back to stop them."

  Oliver was taken aback by the Magdeburg example. It had been the largest city in Saxony before every man, woman and child had been slaughtered by the Imperial army. At least thirty thousand killed. His father or his grandfather had first told him that news. The slaughter had rallied every Protestant in Europe against the Empire.

  The thought reminded him that his father had also complained about the cold summers that began with the crowning of the first Stuart. He had told him tales of how warm the winters were and how long the summers were under the Tudors. Perhaps there was something to Oudje's predictions after all. His voice took on a serious tone. "But where can you move to? The population of Southern England has steadily increased since the last plague. There is no unclaimed land left in the south, and you certainly don't have the coin it would take to buy a southern estate."

  "According to Oudje, there is nowhere in England that is far enough south to escape the times of no summer, so we must leave England. What would suit us would be another small island. One that is easy to protect, with a hidden channel for our ships, like we have here. When I asked my trading connections in Rotterdam, they suggested that I search for it in the New World. They told me of a colony just beginning in a place with many islands, a place where all faiths are accepted other than Catholics. They called it Rhode Island."

  "Who are these connections?" Oliver asked. "Can you trust what they tell you? To reach the New World you will need a bigger ship than the Freisburn. The New World is a wilderness. Oh Daniel, are you sure?"

  "Of course I'm not sure but, well, the Jewish men who suggested it are very knowledgeable. They trade with New Netherlands and they control the sugar trade into Amsterdam. They know sugar, Oliver. Their clans know the secrets of sugar. They first grew it in Madeira for the Portuguese, and then in the Canary Islands for the Spanish, and now they grow it in the Brazils for the Dutch.

  In truth, their first suggestion was the island of Santiago where sugar has just been planted, but that is a Spanish island so that does not help us. Rhode Island is the only one they could name that was not part of the Spanish Main. It's near to Massachusetts Bay, so too cold for sugar. They told me that with my knowledge of whisky and Genever, I could start a trade in rum there."

  "I've never met a Jew,” Oliver confessed, intrigued. "They are still forbidden from England. What are they like?"

  "They are just folk,” Daniel replied, but that was not good enough for Oliver. "Well, they look absolutely nothing like the paintings of Jesus that you see on church walls. They are not blonde with blue eyes, but dark of eye and hair and skin. They are much like Puritans in that they have educated minds filled with mustn'ts and shouldn'ts and couldn'ts. Also like the Puritans, they send all of their children to school. They dress in somber clothing. They pray a lot and lecture me on my loose morals. They are forbidden certain foods, and they would agree with you that aquavitae is the devil's brew."

  "But they are always spoken of as being so evil."

  "There are evil men in every clan. Those who invite me into their homes are good-hearted, hard-working folk. Unfortunately, they have a greedy ruling elite who tend to give them all a bad name. They are bankers, you know. Their ruling elite are the bankers to Europe's aristocrats. It is a profitable business, but risky because aristocrats have a bad habit of canceling their debts by lopping heads and other violence."

  "Aye,” Oliver agreed. "Here in England, King John cancelled his debts by executing his Jewish bankers, and then banishing the rest of the faith so that they could make no appeal through the courts."

  "They told me of all the Jewish families from Amsterdam who are sending sons to set up businesses in New Amsterdam, but a few are thinking of settling in Rhode Island instead."

  "Well," Oliver muttered, "I don't know what to say. I have no knowledge of Rhode Island, though I know some folk who moved to Massachusetts Bay. I have no advice to offer you about moving to the New World."

  Both men stopped talking to savour the graceful walk of the voluptuous woman who had returned to take away the unicorn horn history book. Oudje put down the empty whisky pot and followed her back towards the longhouse. Daniel looked up at the sun. "You came here early to collect Bridget to take her to church. Shouldn't you be going, else you will be late yourself?" He said it with a slow smirk. He knew perfectly well that Oliver had timed this errand so that he would miss church. Oliver was one of those Puritans who rejected the Church of England services as still being too Catholic.

  "I would rather hear more of your adventure in Scotland,” Oliver replied with an equal smirk.

  "Hah, that is a short story indeed. I got the English cavalry drunk right before a battle."

  "You should not encourage men to drink,” Oliver scolded him. "They get drunk and then do stupid things like pick fights and break things and waste their money on throws of the dice and wanton wenches."

  "So you've already heard what happened up on the Tweed, then,” Daniel teased. "I've noticed that the churches never pull their collection plates away from the drunks."

  "That is different,” Oliver replied. "Don't tease me, Danny. I want to hear more about the Scottish cannons."

  "Swedish, they were Swedish cannons. All right, but where to begin? The cannons were small so that they could move as quickly as the infantry. That makes them too small to be of use in breaking down walls." Daniel decided
not to tell Oliver that they were only useful for killing men and horses. "Because they were small, they were fast to load. The gunners would damp mop the barrel to make sure it was clear from the last shot, drop in a sock of powder, a canister of shot, prime the pan, set the hammer, aim the thing, and then wait for the order to fire."

  "So other than being small, the difference is in the canisters?"

  "Exactly,” Daniel said with a smile. "Canisters made in Sweden." Daniel gave him a slow smile.

  "You know how to make them, don't you?" Oliver asked, almost accusingly.

  "Aye. As I packed up my horse at Kelso, I also packed up one canister of shot. General Leslie saw me do it, but he said nothing. I have since taken it apart, carefully taken it apart, to see how to copy it."

  "So I understand why the sock of powder would make it faster and safer to load the cannon,” said Oliver thoughtfully, "but why a canister for the ball?"

  "I didn't say ball, Ollie, I said shot. Bird shot or pistol shot or grape shot. You won't like the answer. Not you, a good church-going man."

  "Tell me,” Oliver grimaced at being teased.

  "To load grapeshot without a canister, you must angle the barrel up so that the shot all roll down into place. That takes muscle and time and worse, you lose your last aim. The loose balls do not lie evenly over the charge, but favour the bottom of the barrel, and therefore are not fired with equal force top to bottom. That ruins the range and the spread of the shot. Worse, they can jam and cause a back fire."

  The answer made Oliver go quiet. Suddenly the truth behind the use of grapeshot came clear and he was disgusted. The Swedish cannons were all about slaughtering men; the cold, impersonal slaughter of men. There was no sense in hiding from the fact, however, for to understand how the King's cavalry had been so easily defeated in Scotland, he needed to understand the modern use of cannons. "But surely the cavalry fled from the musketeers and the pikemen, not just from two small cannons."

  Daniel closed his eyes so he could visualize his memories. "The cavalry fled from something they were not expecting. Theirs was a surprise attack, and even if the Scots had rushed to meet them, it would have been with cavalry or musketeers. They didn't expect artillery, for most artillery is too cumbersome to move at speed. Even so, they counted on the long reload times of muskets and cannons to give them the chance to make it across the ford. These cannons could be reloaded faster than the cavalry could regroup and charge again."

  "And so they just gave up. That's hard to believe,” Oliver replied.

  "Not if you know cavalry tactics. The advantage of the cavalry over infantry is that they can quickly change their plans if things don't go as expected. They are quick to race out of trouble and quick to regroup and quick to try something else. Rapid retreat and redeployment is what cavalry is all about. I know this well because the same applies to the Dutch flying squads that I rode with.

  Remember last year when you tried to teach me how to play chess? Remember how you described the pawns? They are the weakest men on the chess board because they cannot retreat. They are the infantry of that game."

  "But infantry can retreat,” Oliver objected.

  "True, but an orderly retreat moves slowly. If the infantry break and run, they are dead men because the cavalry can outrun them. On the other hand, when the cavalry retreat the infantry can't catch them. On the Tweed the cavalry retreated to regroup, but what could they do against fast loading cannons? Nothing but waste lives, so they left. They had marched without the support of infantry or cannons because their speed was to take us by surprise."

  "I wish I could have seen it, seen the cannons in action."

  "Then come with me,” Daniel said as he rose to his feet. The children were still warming themselves in the sweat lodge so they didn't need to be watched.

  Oliver stood and followed Daniel towards the punt that was pulled up on the bank at the end of the dock. They stepped into the punt, and Daniel poled them towards the village's old, old ship which was now only used as a river barge, if at all. They scrambled aboard and made their way to the small stern castle where the tillerman would stand to steer her.

  "See what my Jewish friends in Amsterdam sold to me? It is from the East Indies." Daniel was pointing to a very small cannon mounted onto the stern gunnels. He grabbed its wooden handle and demonstrated how he could swing it not just up and down, but around as well. He stroked it almost lovingly.

  "It is called a swivel gun and it is designed to repel boarders. Every large ship since King Henry the Cock has carried a few of them, but this one is a gem. See,” he said while loosening and removing the back end of the gun, a part that looked like a heavy iron beer mug, "it is breech loaded. I have been making Swedish-style socks and canisters to fit it. The canisters allow me to fire downwards towards the waterline. That is important because the pirates along the coastal routes are usually in fishing dories."

  Daniel kicked open the waxed sea chest that was sitting on the deck and picked out a sock and a canister so he could show Oliver how fast it was to load.

  "So you plan on slaughtering men?" Oliver asked as he picked up first a powder sock, and then a shot canister.

  "Only if they try to board without permission. It shoots twenty pistol balls at a time, and the spread is ten feet at ten paces. I could only afford two of the guns. This one I keep here so that I can be sure that each new canister fits. Its twin is mounted on the aft castle of the Freisburn."

  "So the next time you run aquavitae or guns, you will be well armed. One on the bow and one on the stern?"

  "Nay, both on the aft castle. Were you counting seconds? Because of the canisters and the breach load, I did it in less than a minute. That is faster than I can load my pistol. And I have extra breach mugs, so someone else can prepare the next load while I am firing."

  Oliver felt nauseous. Daniel was showing him the modern science of slaughter. The relish in his voice offended him. Without another sound he turned, walked to the ladder and scrambled back down into the punt. Daniel was slow in following because he was lovingly polishing the bronze of the swivel gun before pulling its oilcloth cover back into place.

  "But there must be more reasons than just fast loading cannon to explain why King Charlie was so eager to sign the treaty at Berwick."

  "Charlie is an aristocrat leading an army of aristocrats. Leading by God-given right, rather than by ability. True, the political leaders of the Scots were also aristocrats, but the true general was Alex Leslie, a commoner. The king chose his generals from amongst his finely-dressed courtiers, while the Scots chose a man who had risen through the ranks of the Dutch and Swedish armies and had learned his trade from twenty years of brutal battles. While the Scot clansmen were protecting their home turf, poor as it is, the aristocrats risked losing their good rich lives. It was no contest. The aristos wanted slaughter, but not of themselves."

  "And so the lords of our land turned and ran," Oliver mumbled thoughtfully. "They ran from Scottish peasants?"

  "To a rich and powerful man there is nothing more dangerous than a man with a grudge and nothing much to lose. That is why the lords live behind stone walls, to hide from those they abuse." Daniel gave a last push on the pole and the platform prow of the punt slid over the muddy bank and created a bridge to dry land. "It helped that every man in the Scottish army had signed their Covenant, so they were not just angry clansmen, but angry religious nutters."

  "Under the Treaty of Berwick both armies were to be disbanded,” Oliver stated. "Did Leslie and his men return to Sweden?"

  "Not Leslie. In truth he didn't care which side won, so long as there was no slaughter. He told me that he had returned home to Scotland for one thing and one thing only. To ensure that a tragedy like what happened at Magdeburg would never happen in Scotland. I hear that he and his professionals are billeted in Edinburgh to offset the king's garrison in the castle. I doubt that any of his men have had to buy a round in an alehouse since they won at Kelso."

  Oliver stared
at the young bodies that were now bouncing back from the sweat lodge to do more dredging. He mentally shook the lust from his mind so he could speak. "I would like to meet this Alex Leslie and shake his hand."

  "You and everyone else,” Daniel grabbed Oliver's arm and turned him away from staring at bouncing breasts. "Come with me on my next run for Scottish whisky and we will dine with him."

  "And when will that be?"

  "That depends on the news in Lynn about which trade route is the safest, Scotland or Holland. Next week I must choose."

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  THE PISTOLEER - HellBurner by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14

  Chapter 16 - Trouble near Ramsgate in September 1639

  "You chose wrong, you should have sailed to Scotland,” Commander Joris Pieters van den Broeck told Daniel quietly, in Frisian. Most of the Flemish folk in this Sluys alehouse would not understand the mother-of-English tongue, so Joris did not need to whisper. "Do you Englanders never hear the news?

  There is a Spanish Armada on its way to Dunkirk carrying an army of tens of thousands. The Dunkirker ships have broken through our blockade and are out in force to help defend this Armada. The Englander fleet has come south from Scotland to make sure they do not land in England. Why would you put to sea at all, especially in that puddle punt of yours?"

  The two Frisian ships' commanders who had shared a breakfast table with Daniel kept pulling him back to his seat whenever he stood to leave. "Don't sail today, Danny. Who knows where the fleets will meet and do battle?" The men both wore the officer's uniform of the Confederate Navy of the United Dutch Republic. They both commanded fireships, lightly built and lightly rigged sailing ships filled with tinder and oiled paper. Both were Naval academy graduates and well educated in ships and navigation, and their careers were just beginning. They would go far so long as they survived their first commands, the fireships.