Pistoleer: HellBurner

by Smith, Skye

  In all his life Daniel could not remember an event so silly as this standoff between fleets of mighty, and mighty expensive ships and crews. For instance, only the English ships, including the Freisburn, were allowed to fly their colors. It was one of the ways that John Pennington was keeping the peace. Without the colors flapping high all ships looked alike in the gloom of October fogs, so the risks were high that any cannon play could hit a friendly ship.

  Up on the cliffs along the Downs there were crowds of spectators all hoping to see some naval action, especially on Sundays. Some of his passengers had told him of the spectacular view from the cliffs of these fleets where two hundred tall ships were so close to shore.

  The Spanish fleet had anchored in one long row along the English shore beneath the guns of the fortress at Deal. This battle line meant that half of the Spanish guns were pointed out towards Goodwin Sands and the sea, ready to ward off any Dutch attack with full broadsides. The English were anchored both to the north and the south of the Spanish line, as if they were trying to separate the Spanish ships from the Dutch.

  The Spaniards were well penned in now, but during the first two days after the arrival of the Dutch fleet, a few of the English troop carriers that were under contract to the Spanish had been helped by the wily Dunkirkers to escape to Dunkirk through the northern channel known as Gull Stream. That escape was proof to the Dutch that King Charlie had ordered the English fleet to help the Papist army reach Dunkirk. The Dutch fleet had not allowed any further escapes, and had even gone so far as boarding English ships to ensure that they carried no Spaniards.

  The Dutch admiral Tromp was impatiently waiting for the Spanish fleet to make a run for it, so his modern ships with their modern guns could overhaul them and finish them. Meanwhile, every able Dutch ship with cannons of any size had been sent from the United Dutch Republic to support Tromp. This included some of the famous Dutch Indiamen, the floating fortresses that plied the spice routes to the far corners of the globe.

  The Spanish admiral Oquendo was praying and wishing for a big winter storm to sweep the Dutch fleet away from him. It was his only chance, for Spain could send him no help. All of their best ships were already with his fleet. Spanish diplomats were having some success. They had bargained with Cardinal Richelieu to keep the French fleet from helping the Dutch, and were now bargaining with King Charlie to agree on the price for him to order English guns to fire on the Dutch. Meanwhile, the army aboard the Armada had sickened on short rations and morale was low.

  The English admiral Pennington was doing his best to keep the peace through diplomacy, all the while wishing that these two massive fleets would take their fight elsewhere. The diplomats that the king had sent him to help with this task were typical aristocratic idiots chosen for their bloodlines rather than their skill at diplomacy, or their knowledge of fleets, or even their skills with languages. The twits had even complained when he would not give up his command cabin to serve as their bedchamber.

  Daniel knew all of this because his fast little English ship, and his English crew were the natural choice of all of the admirals to sail under a white flag and ferry folk and messengers around the three fleets. It was amazing what the lords would gossip about in front of his crew.

  He also knew that the aristocratic officers of the English ships feared a mutiny of the English Jacks if they were ever ordered to take the side of the Spaniards against the Dutch. Everyone knew that the Dutch had run out of patience waiting for the Spanish to make a move, because they had run out of time before the storm season began.

  That night when he arrived to have supper with the same fireship commanders with whom he had shared breakfast a month ago in Sluys, he was surprised to find Admiral Tromp at the table and without the company of his senior officers. In Dutch fashion the man would not speak business while eating, but as soon as the wine was corked and the Genever flowed, business began with a question to Daniel.

  "One of my scribes has brought it to my attention that the report you made when you first arrived in Calais mentioned looking for survivors from a ship that seemed to have blown up, and actually finding one, but he was a Spaniard. I have just read that report while I was writing my own final report to the admiralty about the ship that was lost. The one that blew up was the Grooten Christoffel, along with 90 crew and my old friend, Frederick Pieterzoon.

  Eyewitnesses say that it was not blown up by enemy cannon, so it must have been an accident in their powder room. It is the only ship we have lost, and a tragedy, but what else is there to explain? Frederick was a capable commander. It must have been an accident."

  Daniel and the other captains kept quiet. Admiral Tromp was known to have a short temper for interruptions.

  "Your report also mentioned the word 'Gimbelly'. You thought that was the name of the ship that blew up, but no. Could the word have been perhaps Giambelli?"

  "The man was dying and whispering Spanish between chattering teeth,” Daniel explained. "I assumed it the name of the ship. The other word he used was Infierno-something-or-other. Hell-something."

  Tromp pulled out a paper from within his jacket and read it. "Could it have been Hellburner, or fear of Hellburner? And the survivor said that the Spanish fleet left them in the water and fled." He looked around at his junior officers, all academy trained, and then smiled at Daniel. "Do you know who Master Giambelli was? He was an Italian weapons engineer working for your Queen Elizabeth to prepare defenses against the last Spanish Armada, about fifty years ago. He is still quite famous in Antwerp, and infamous in Spain. Do you know why?"

  As Daniel shook his head 'no', he saw Tromp staring at his empty glass, so he reached forward and poured some more Genever into it.

  "Fifty years ago, in one of the earliest battles of this endless war between us and the Papists, the Duke of Palma built a long floating bridge out of barges to cross the Scheldt river so that his great Imperial army could lay siege to Antwerp. We Dutch waited until the bridge was almost complete and then we sent thirty small fireships towards the bridge in hopes of burning it down. The Spanish laughed at the effort. Fireships are not much of a threat to an army of men or to a bridge. They simply pushed them away with poles as they doused the fires.

  Unfortunately for the Duke, Master Giambelli was on loan to us from your queen and he had created two of those fireships. He had built stone and brick bunkers on each ship and then filled each bunker with gunpowder, and then had every bit of scrap metal that could be found laid on top of and all around the floating bunker. Only one of those ships reached the bridge, but its explosion not only ripped the bridge to pieces, but ripped eight hundred Spaniards to pieces as well. The Spanish called it the Hellburner. They still call it the Hellburner."

  "Ahhh,” said the Fireship squadron commander, a young and eager man named Gerrit Veen, "and you sir, believe that is why the Spanish fled from your fleet on September 18th even though they outnumbered your ships five to one. He thought the Grooten Christoffel was a Hellburner because of the way it blew up. He kept retreating from you because he feared you had more Hellburners with you."

  "Put yourself in his place,” Tromp replied to the bright looks of the young men. "His Armada is not the Armada of fifty years ago. Fifty years ago the Armada was bigger, and the ships were trimmed for war. Their mission was to sail to Dunkirk where they were to guard the barges that were to transport the Spanish army from Dunkirk to England. This Armada is weighed down with troops. Every ship is overcrowded with men. Men that get in the way of fighting. Their cannons have been left in port to make more room for men and equipment. This is a troop convoy, not a fighting fleet like the last Armada."

  "And he cannot afford to lose any ships,” Daniel spoke up, "because the ships he is most likely to lose are the ones that carry the army, and his mission is to land that army in Flanders."

  "Surely,” Gerrit said, "he cannot believe that the Grooten Christoffel was a hellburner. Fireships are small and lightly rigged and lightly manned."

&nb
sp; "Why not?" replied Tromp. "Fifty years ago when Admiral Howard's fleet attacked that first Armada at anchor at Calais, it was not his cannons that caused the Spaniards to cut free their anchors and to flee in every direction. It was his eight fireships. And even though none of his fireships were Hellburners, the Spanish did not know that. It would have been easy for Howard to spread a rumour in Calais that Master Giambelli was with his fleet."

  "So you want us to turn our fireships into Hellburners?" asked Gerrit, "That will take a fleet's worth of gunpowder."

  "We don't have the powder to spare to create even one true Hellburner,” replied Tromp, "but we can spare enough powder to make a good show of blowing one of our fireships to pieces."

  "Ahhh, and so the Spanish will believe that all of our fireships are Hellburners. That is brilliant, sir."

  "Not brilliant, not to any student of naval history. Admiral Howard's bluff was only fifty years ago and it is still studied in all of the Naval academies."

  "That was that the critical turning point in the English fight against the Armada, was it not?" Gerrit asked, knowing the answer and proud of the knowing. "The Spanish fleet was chased into stormy seas and they had no anchors if they did manage to find shelter."

  Tromp smiled. The fireship commanders had not balked from his plan. Perhaps it had not yet dawned on them that one of their gunners would be risking suicide in order to set off the explosion. "Most would say yes, it was the turning point, but not I. I think the turning point happened three months earlier by something that Francis Drake did. He captured a Spanish coastal ship and burned its cargo of oak staves."

  Tromp's smile increased and this time it was he who poured the Genever for these young men. "Ah, so the old dog still knows more history than the Academy cadets, eh? At the time of Drake's beach bonfire, the Armada was still being assembled and provisioned. The staves were that year's entire Spanish supply of dried, shaped and seasoned barrel staves on their way to create the barrels to hold the provisions of the Armada. Without the seasoned staves that Drake burned, the Spanish were forced to make barrels out of green wood. The barrels leaked, the contents spoiled, and the Spanish crews were hungry and sick and depressed before they ever reached Calais. A toast to Frances Drake, captain extraordinaire."

  * * * * *

  A junior officer by the name of Jon van something-or-other had drawn the short straw. It was his fireship that was being loaded with kegs of gunpowder. In truth, all of the fireships were being loaded with powder kegs and in plain sight of the Armada, but only the kegs loaded onto Jon's ship actually contained powder. The sight of the loading of the Hellburners had made every man of the Armada nervous. When a sniper on a Spanish ship shot and killed Jon, thus breaking the English truce, every captain of each fleet was called to the flagships for conferences and orders.

  The Freisburn was kept very busy delivering passengers, but one passenger stayed with the little ship throughout the day. Peter White was the Master Attendant of the port of Deal, and therefore the man responsible for making sure that the rules of the port were adhered to. He used the Freisburn to visit each of the flagships, plus the ship of the sniper, plus Gerrit's armed yacht which was charged with the defense of the fireships.

  "There will be trouble over this one death,” Master White told Daniel. "The Dutch will say that the Spaniards have broken the truce and use it as an excuse to start a battle that may cost thousands of lives. Thousands of Spanish lives."

  "You are so sure that the Dutch will have an easy victory?" Daniel replied as he passed a small jug of Genever to Peter to keep the chill of the sea air at bay as they sailed along in the open ship.

  "Most assuredly. Just look at the difference between the Dutch ships and our ships or the Spanish ships or the Portuguese ships. Most are wallowing pigs in comparison. The Dutchmen can sail so close to the wind that there is no catching them, and no escaping them, not if you are on a pig. And their gunners can load and fire twice as fast. But more important than the ships and guns, it is the men that make the difference."

  "You mean,” Daniel said thoughtfully, "because the Spaniards have an army crammed aboard their ships, they will take more casualties. That stands to reason."

  "That is the excuse the Spanish Admiral will give. No. I meant compare the seafarers. The Spanish and English officers have been promoted on the strength of who their fathers are, whereas the Dutch have been promoted up through the ranks based on deeds. And compare the crews. The Dutch crews are fit and healthy and alert. The Spanish and English crews are no better than slaves, the way they are fed and mistreated. Our entire Royal Navy is laughable when compared to the Confederate Navy, and the Spaniards and Portuguese are worse still."

  "Keep your voice down,” Daniel hushed him. "There are other ears listening and you are speaking against your own king and his ruling elite. And you, a king's agent."

  "Hah, me and every tar and jack and gunner on the king's ships. Our fleet is primed for mutiny. It wouldn't take much to have them throw the effing aristos overboard and join with the Dutch. They sorely long to do for this diego Armada like Cap'n Drake did for the last one."

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  THE PISTOLEER - HellBurner by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14

  Chapter 18 - The Battle of the Downs at Deal in October 1639

  Master White's prediction that there would be trouble from the sniper kill would have come true the next morning, except that a gale blew up an hour after sunrise and continued to blow until near sunset. Daniel ran the Freisburn into the tiny port of Deal to avail on Master White to arrange beds ashore for his crew in case the storm got worse, but Peter laughed at the request.

  "Every room for twenty miles around is filled,” Peter told him. "This standoff is almost a month old now, and every curious man in the South has come to see what it is about." In the end, the crew spent that night in the fish market shed, but even though they were warmer and could stretch out to sleep, they got little enough of it due to the smell of fish and the constant scurrying of rat feet.

  At first light the Freisburn made immediately for the Dutch flagship Amelia, because the wind was gently onshore and the skies were clear. They would be needed for ferrying messengers. There was a steaming kettle of spiced porridge waiting for the crew when they pulled alongside, and an invitation for Daniel to join the meal being served in the command cabin. Or rather, the gunnery deck where the cabin used to be, for now all interior privacy walls had been removed in preparation for battle.

  So it was that Daniel heard the heated words between Maarten Tromp and his vice-Admiral Witte Corneliszoon de With. The arguement was about tactics. Witte wanted the Dutch to form a battle line to face the Spanish line that ran all along the English shore, so that they could trade broadsides. Maarten had immediately lost his temper and was trying to keep it under control. His words came in short spurts of hissed breathe.

  "If I were admiral of the Spaniards, I would NOT have my ships in such a battle line, even though it is a proven defensive tactic. They are trying to copy the French tactic, but they will fail. The French form the line to the leeward of the attacking ships so that they can constantly drift away and keep the range long. The French ships carry the biggest cannons so they barrage the enemy rigging with chain, and stay out of the enemy's range until the enemy has lost their maneuverability. Only then do they close the range and finish the enemy."

  "Exactly. Because we are closed in by Goodwin Sands this battle will not be long range work,” Witte pointed out. "We outgun the Spanish. We will win a line battle of broadsides."

  "Yes, we will win, but if we fight line to line with broadsides our casualties will have the mothers of the Republic weeping. Nay. I want to win this battle without that kind of slaughter. The Spaniards are not the French. The French tactic will not work for them because they cannot use the wind to drift away from us. In this wind any drift would put them onto the shore. They are caught in a trap of their own making."

  "But.." Wit
te began another argument.

  "Witte!" Maarten interrupted with a bark, "I will hear no more from you. If you wish to use your squadron in a battle line, then fine. Do so. I order you to form a battle line to keep the English ships away from the battle. Do not fire on them unless they first endanger your ships. Do you understand this order, Commander?"

  Witte smiled and answered "Aye!" and then hurriedly turned and left before the orders could be changed. He had his orders, and they pleased him greatly. Being ordered to keep the English fleet at bay would effectively mean that his squadron was the reserve. It would be his ships who would finish this battle and sink the Spanish, and the glory would be his.

  Maarten regained his composure by taking some deep breaths while he pretended to look at the chart on the table. In a far milder voice he spoke to Gerrit. "The Hellburner will be the first to set sail. The onshore wind will keep it sailing into the Spanish line even if the sails catch fire. Now, this is important. Tell the gunner's mate to light the fuse so that it explodes just short of the Spanish line where the entire Spanish fleet can see it. To the gunner it will seem like a waste of the Hellburner, because it will not take any of the Spaniards with it, but he must keep to that plan. Do you understand? The entire Spanish line must see it blow up."

  "Aye. The gunners have rigged a fuse that will give the last man aboard a few minutes to abandon ship before the powder explodes. The rest of the crew will be safely away in the dinghy, but that last man will have to dive off and swim underwater for as far as he can before surfacing for a breath. He must keep his head underwater until the explosions have finished."