Beyond the Line
April 1634 to Late 1634
Trinidad, April 1634
It was a lake, but one unlike any other they had seen. This was the famous Pitch Lake of Trinidad. A hundred acres of tar.
David Pieterszoon de Vries, captain of the fluyt Walvis, studied it for a few moments. The lake was nearly circular, perhaps two thousand feet across, nestled in a shallow bowl at the top of a hill. The surface wasn’t flat and still, like a mountain lake protected by hills from the wind. Instead, there were broad, dark folds, with clear rainwater lying in the hollows between them. David, in his youth, had worked for a bookseller, to learn English, and the haphazard folding reminded him of marbled paper. Here and there, the folds were festooned with a patch of grass, a few yards in width, with a shrub or small tree rising above it like the mast of a ship.
For Philip Jenkins, born in twentieth-century West Virginia, it awoke other memories. “This is a humongous parking lot.”
“Sir Walter was right,” said David. “Enough pitch here for all the ships of the world.” Sir Walter Raleigh had come here in 1595; his sailors used its tar to protect their ships’ hulls from the teredos, the wood borers of the tropical waters.
“We have a lot more uses for it than for caulking ships,” Philip replied.
“Wait here.” Using a boarding pike as a probe, David tested the surface. It seemed firm enough. He took a step forward. The tar sank slightly, but held his weight. He took a second step. No problem.
David turned his head. “Follow me. Test the ground before you trust yourself to it, there may be softer areas at the center of the lake.” After a moment’s hesitation, the landing party followed him.
* * *
Philip was surprised to discover that the tar didn’t seem to stick to his shoes or clothing, as he would have expected. Inspected closely, the tar was finely wrinkled, like the skin of an elephant.
David and his landing party walked around a bit, then he called them to a halt. “One spot seems as good as another, so let’s start here.” The sailors broke up the tar with picks, then drove their shovels into the bitumen, lifting out masses of dark goo. They dumped them into the waiting wheelbarrows. Philip wrinkled his nose; the disturbance of the lake surface had brought forth a sulphurous smell. Nor was the lake quiet; it made burping sounds, now and then.
“The lake is farting,” one of the sailors joked.
Philip saw a tree limb sticking out of the tar, and tried pulling it out. It resisted at first, then emerged, a ribbon of black taffy connecting it to the lake, like a baby’s umbilical cord. Philip studied it for a moment, then threw down the stick. He walked over to David.
“You know what this place reminds me of?” asked Philip. “The Welt-Tier.”
David puzzled over the word for a moment. “German? World-animal?”
“Yes, that’s right. It was in a science fiction story by Philip José Farmer. The ground was springy, like this lake. When someone walked across it, it rose up, like a wave, and tried to swallow him. The land was really the skin of the Beast.”
The sailors within hearing stirred uneasily. “Philip,” commanded David, “you should be shoveling.” Philip nodded, and took the shovel that was handed to him.
* * *
By the day’s end, they had excavated a rectangular pit, some tens of feet long, and several feet deep. David decided against camping on land, it being Spanish territory, and everyone returned to the ship.
When they came back to the lake to continue their labors, they discovered that the pit had partially filled in. Moreover, some of the nearby “islands” of vegetation had moved during the night.
“The lake does act like a living thing,” David whispered to Philip, “but an exceedingly sluggish one. Not like your Welt-Tier.”
Philip stuck a stick into the tar, and pulled it out slowly. The lake made a smacking sound as it released it. “According to Maria’s research notes, tar is usually what’s left behind when oil escapes to the surface, and dries out. But for those islands to move, there must be some liquid circulating beneath the surface. Perhaps it’s just water, but I think it might well be oil.”
“So?”
“We might want to drill for oil nearby. Tar is fine for waterproofing, and roadbuilding, and making organic chemicals, but oil—the liquid form—contains the fuel we need for our APVs. Or for power plants.”
David shrugged. “Perhaps some day we may. But I don’t see the Spanish letting any foreigners, least of all a pack of Protestants, live here without a fight.”
As if David’s words were a signal, they heard a whistling sound, and a moment later, an arrow seemed to sprout out of the tar some distance in front of them. The sailors dropped into their trench, which was the only nearby cover.
“Keep your heads low; see if you can spot them.” As David spoke, a second arrow plunged into the lake to their left, and was quickly swallowed up. Some seconds later, it was followed by a third arrow, better aimed, which nonetheless fell short of their position.
David mentally retraced their trajectories. He realized that they had most likely come from the vicinity of one of the grassy patches he had noticed earlier. He looked for one, along the estimated path, with bushes or trees for cover. Yes, that one, he was sure of it. It was much too far away for the attacker to have expected to hit anything. They were being warned off, he concluded. Probably, given the rate and direction of fire, by a single Indian. But it was possible that a second Indian was already running for help.
“Joris,” he said, “I want only you to fire.” Joris nodded; he was the best shot in the party. David pointed out the shooter’s putative refuge. “Our target is there, I believe. Give him something to think about.
“The rest of you, let’s gather up our tar and head for the ship. Where there’s one Indian, there are probably more close by, and they probably have sent a messenger to the garrison at Puerto de los Hispanioles by now.”
The men collected their tools and put them in the empty wheelbarrows. They headed slowly back to the ship, with the rear guard, led by Joris, making sure that the Indian, or Indians, didn’t get close enough to be a real threat.
“Arwaca Indians,” David told Philip. “When I was in the Caribbean last year, I was told that the Trinidados brought them in some years ago. The native Indians had allied themselves with Sir Walter Raleigh, so, after he left . . .” David drew his finger across his throat. Snick.
* * *
The Walvis, with eighteen guns, was accompanied by another fluyt, the fourteen-gun Koninck David, and a yacht, the Hoop. They passed through the sometimes treacherous Dragon’s Mouth, between Trinidad and the peninsula of Paria, without incident. Another day’s sailing brought them amidst the islands the up-time maps called “Los Testigos.” Dunes several hundred feet high towered over aquamarine waters, and marine iguanas left footprints and tail tracks as they scurried to and fro.
Some didn’t scurry quickly enough.
“Tastes like chicken,” David pronounced, and his fellow captains, who had joined him for dinner, agreed.
“Anything to report?” he asked.
“My crew is grumbling,” said Jakob Schooneman, the skipper of the Koninck David. “It’s been more than six months since the Battle of Dunkirk, and we’ve done nothing to hurt the Spanish. Or to punish the English and French for their treachery.”
“It’s not as though we haven’t been looking for prizes.”
“I know, Captain de Vries. But the mood is turning fouler and fouler. We should have sacked Puerto de los Hispanioles, or San José de Oruña, back on Trinidad.”
“And where would the profit have been in that? All they have is tobacco, and we had plenty of that from Captain Marshall. So why take the risk?”
Captain Marinus Vijch of the yacht Hoop, cleared his throat. “The men weren’t that keen on your letting the English stay upriver, either.”
“I know. But we’re weakened by Dunkirk and we can’t afford to fight everyone. The Spanish are the real enemy and we have to focus on them.”
“So let’s find a Spanish town to raid,” said Schooneman.
Vijch nodded. “Portobello,” he suggested.
Schooneman protested. “Too tough a nut to crack, for a force our size.”
“We could probably find some more Dutch ships by one of the salt flats along the way, recruit them.”
“Rely, for an operation like that, on captains and crews you don’t know?”
“Perhaps Trujillo,” mused David. “We have to go to Nicaragua for rubber, and then from there the currents carry us up the coast anyway.”
Schooneman smiled. “The gold and silver of Tegucigalpa is shipped down to Trujillo.” He turned his head to look at Marinus. “Might that satisfy you, Captain Vijch?”
* * *
David brought up the sextant, bringing the skyline into view on the clear side of the horizon glass. Smoothly, he edged up the index arm until the early morning sun’s reflection could be seen on the half-silvered side. He gently rocked the sextant, causing the sun’s image to swing to and fro above the horizon. He delicately twisted the fine adjustment until the yellow-white disk, bright even through smoked glass, seemed to just barely graze the edge of the sea. “Mark!”
Philip had been staring at his wristwatch. He announced the time—his watch was set to Grantville Standard Time, which took into account the relocation of the town by the Ring of Fire—to the nearest minute. Comparing the local time to the time at a place of known longitude was critical to the most accurate method of determining a ship’s longitude.
“Write it in the logbook. Solar altitude is—” David squinted at the vernier, and read off the altitude. “Record that, too. Take that and the star shot we did half an hour ago, and calculate our position.”
Philip stifled a groan. He had made the mistake of admitting that he had taken half a year of trigonometry before embarking on his present escapade. The captain had happily decided that Philip could help with the navigational mathematics. That meant many hours studying Bowditch. The Company’s Bowditch was based on a couple of “attic and basement” editions of Nathaniel Bowditch’s famous American Practical Navigator, and they included calculation of longitude both with a chronometer and by the method of lunars.
“Boat, ho!” cried the lookout.
David grabbed his spyglass and took a look. Sure enough, a longboat with a makeshift sail bobbed in the waves, several miles ahead of them. Philip eagerly dropped the Bowditch and joined.
“That’s odd,” he muttered.
“What’s odd?” asked Philip. Since David’s cousin, Heyndrick, had been left behind at the new colony in Suriname, Philip had gradually become David’s confidante on the ship. In retrospect, it wasn’t surprising; since Philip wasn’t a sailor, talking to him didn’t create discipline problems. The fact that Philip was one of the mysterious up-timers also gave him a cachet.
“No one would willingly cross the open sea in a longboat. They are used for in-shore work by ship’s crews.
“Still . . . we mustn’t get careless. Many a pirate has gotten his first ship by stealing a fishing boat and then coming alongside an imprudent merchant vessel.” David gave orders; the crew prepared to repel boarders. The flotilla altered course to bring itself closer to the mysterious small craft.
David hailed them. In English, since it wasn’t prudent to do so in Dutch.
They responded in kind. “Help us, please, we’re the last of the White Swan.” David sent his own longboat over to inspect, and his crew reported back that they did indeed seem to be mariners in distress. Not just English, but Dutch as well. David allowed most of his crew to stand down, and the strangers were taken aboard. If David had a few men still armed and ready, well, that was only prudent in Caribbean waters.
The longboat’s crew were brought some food and liquor, and encouraged to tell their tale. Not that they needed much encouragement.
“I am—was, I should say—the carpenter of the White Swan, out of Plymouth. There were two Dutch fluyts with us, all peacefully gathering salt from the pans of Bonaire.” That was one of three islands off the coast of Venezuela. “We were sent in the longboat to Goto Meer, a lake in the northern part of the island, to fetch fresh water. We were making our way back when we saw the attack. A squadron of six Spanish warships came through, and immediately attacked the two Hollanders.
“The White Swan kept its distance. I suppose the captain, God rest his soul, must have figured the Spanish were just after the Dutch. We should’ve known better. Once both Dutch ships were safely in Duppy Jonah’s Locker, the Spaniards came after the White Swan. And sent her down as well.”
“So much for peace,” said another English sailor.
“‘No peace beyond the line,’” David quoted. “And the Spanish think they and the Portuguese own all of the New World.”
The carpenter nodded. “We stayed hidden among the mangroves—what else could we do?—until the Spanish moved west, and the sun went down. There was a moon, so we went looking for survivors, and hauled in these Dutchmen, poor wretches. They had found something to cling to, but they were still pretty waterlogged when we took them on.” The Dutch survivors were still too weak to make conversation, but they nodded feebly.
“And a good thing for you that you did,” David said. “Since I am Dutch, and we are under Swedish colors. Otherwise, we might be less charitable, considering how the English treated the Dutch at the Battle of Dunkirk.”
* * *
The English wanted to be taken to Saint Kitts, but that was well off David’s course, and thus out of the question even if David were sure of a friendly reception. And the American colonies were English no longer. David told his unexpected guests that he could drop them off on Providence Island, off the coast of Nicaragua. There was a Puritan colony there. They would work as crew, in the meantime, of course.
Providence Island was only a few miles north of the route that David had planned originally. However, there was a very good chance that, on that path, they would overtake the punitive Spanish squadron, which was probably en route to Cartagena or Portobello, and more or less hugging the coast. David decided to head deeper into the Caribbean Sea before turning southwest toward Providence. Thanks to the sextant and the wristwatch, he didn’t have to limit himself to latitude and coastal sailing. Wind permitting, of course.
Once the Dutchmen recovered enough to speak, they told a grim tale. Not only had the Spanish not made any effort to rescue the sailors thrown into the sea, they had taken potshots at them, for sport. The two Dutchmen had survived by swimming under an upturned chest; it trapped air and hid them from sight.
David knew that if he had reached the area a few days earlier, his three ships, together with the three already there, might well have staved off the Spanish assault. He also knew that it was foolish to blame himself, because there was no way he could have predicted the tragedy.
That didn’t stop him from fretting about it, anyway.
The crew likewise became agitated. There was talk of sacking Maracaibo or Coro on the Venezuelan coast, but the more experienced men pointed out the dangers of being trapped against the Spanish coast if the squadron returned.
* * *
Philip was uneasy, and it wasn’t only because of the Spanish galleons said to be on the prowl. David’s temper had changed for the worse. Clearly, his ire had been raised by the report from the survivors of the Bonaire incident.
Not that David was that fond of the Spanish at the best of times. But Philip had always been impressed by David’s coolheadedness. Now he was afraid that David might set aside the long-term company goals, in order to take revenge.
His musings were interrupted by Cornelis, the second mate of the Walvis. “Captain wants you.”
Philip found David on the quarterdeck. “Sir?”
“What do you know about Nicaragua?”
“Just what Maria collected. About the San Juan river being a good place to look for rubber. She gave me a copy of the 1911 encyclopedia article.”
“Please leave the copy in my cabin.”
Providence Island, off coast of Nicaragua, May 1634
The three peaks of Providence Island slowly rose out of the haze. David’s ships picked their way cautiously through the reefs and shoals that surrounded the island, with the shallow draft Hoop as their advance guard. The leadsman of the Walvis was hoarse by the time they entered the harbor.
The English gave them a guarded welcome. They were Puritans, suspicious of royal intentions, and hostile to the Catholic powers, Spain in particular. The news of the Battle of Dunkirk, and the Treaty of Ostend, had not been well received. Still, Charles had not yet made any announcement of an intent to hand Providence Island over to the Spanish, and the islanders were determined to keep their heads down and hope the king would recognize the dangers of a Spanish alliance.
That said, they felt no need to engage in outright hostilities with the Dutch, let alone a Dutch-crewed ship flying the Swedish flag. At least until a specific royal command forced them into war.
Several Dutchmen, Abraham and William Blauveldt in particular, had been intimately involved in the founding and maintenance of the colony, and Abraham was on hand to greet David.
David mentioned the roving Spanish squadron to Abraham Blauveldt, and he and David agreed that they should sail out together for mutual protection. “You collect your rubber,” said Abraham, “and I will pick up some tortoiseshell from the Miskitos. It sells pretty well.”
The coast of Nicaragua was 150 miles west of Providence Island, and the coastal region was dominated by the Miskito Indians. The Blauveldts, and the English of Providence Island, had quickly made friends with them.
“By the way, Abraham, I almost forgot to show you. Look here.” David pointed at Bluefields, perhaps eighty miles north of the mouth of the San Juan River. “This town was named after you. Or would have been in our old future, I should say. Really.”
Abraham Blauveldt smiled. “That’s worth celebrating. Where’s the schnapps?”
* * *
The English ship’s carpenter decided to stay with the Walvis. “I’d like to see those rubber trees of yours. And I would even more like to have a chance to pay back the Spanish for what they did to the White Swan. You’re gunning for the Dagoes, aren’t ye?”
“Yes, indeed. And of course, they’re gunning for us.”
* * *
The final addition to their crew was the least likely: a preacher, Samuel Rishworth. He had approached Philip to find out the up-timers’ views on the issue of slavery. What he heard pleased him, and he explained why.
Providence Island had started importing slaves the year before. Rishworth’s views on the matter had gotten him in trouble with the local authorities. At first, he merely preached against slave-owning. But the company insisted that slavery was lawful for those who were “strangers to Christianity.”
Rishworth shrugged. “So God’s will was clear to me; I needed to preach the Gospel to the slaves. And tell them that if they became Christian, they could insist on their freedom.”
“I bet that went over well.”
“I was warned that I was ‘indiscreet,’ that I should not have made ‘any overture touching their liberty’ to the slaves, without the permission of their masters.”
“Right,” said Philip. “So what happened next?”
“Oh, the number of slaves who escaped into the woods increased. Not that I had any idea of how they managed it. No idea at all.”
“No idea at all,” Philip echoed.
“Of course, getting them off the island is a more difficult matter.”
“Can they swim?”
Rio San Juan, and the Miskito Coast, Nicaragua
“Rubber collecting going well, Philip?”
“Well enough.” The fugitive slaves from Old Providence Island were willing to work, at least after Rishworth had a word with them, but they were few in number. While the Miskito were willing to cut trees—the fact that it involved using an axe made it a warrior activity—that was only if there wasn’t something more interesting to do. If they got bored, they would go hunting or fishing, or just doze off in hammocks, and there was nothing Philip could do about it. And that wasn’t the only problem.
“I am worried about the waste,” Philip admitted. “Cutting down these Castilla trees, I mean. Yes, we get a lot of latex out of them all at once, but if we could just tap them, we could keep coming back each year for more.”
“It’s not practical, Philip. This is too close to Spanish-controlled territory. All they need to do is put a real fort at the mouth of the Rio San Juan, and give it adequate artillery and troops, and the rubber trees would be as inaccessible to us as if they were on the Moon. And I really can’t shed a tear over depriving the Spanish of their Castilla trees.”
“Well, if they don’t build that fort, it means that next time we visit, we’re going to have to go deeper into the rainforest to find more trees.”
“We’ll deal with that if we must.”
* * *
Philip brooded about the problem. He wasn’t worried about the yet-to-be-built fort—he figured that in a few years, the USE would have battleships in the Caribbean, and that would solve that problem. But battleships couldn’t grow back trees that had already been cut down.
He decided to experiment. He had one of the Miskitos cut V’s into the bark, not just near the ground, but all the way up the trunk. The “milk,” as the Miskitos dubbed the latex, came running out. A tree with a five-foot diameter might yield twenty gallons of milk. Which was about as much latex as they collected the original way. Whether the tree would in fact survive the heavy cutting, he couldn’t be sure. What he was sure was that it wouldn’t survive being felled. So this had to be an improvement.
It had the unexpected effect of increasing his labor force. His original guinea pig was one of the topmen from the Walvis. Accustomed to climbing a seventy-five-foot mast, he wasn’t exactly afraid of heights. The novelty of Philip’s experiment attracted observers, both Dutch and Miskito, and Philip overheard what they were saying. And decided to stage a race. The Walvis beat the Koninck David.
Then the Miskitos wanted in. They had their own climbing tricks. There was a risk of falling, of course. A mature Castilla was many feet high. But so far as the Miskito were concerned, the risk was what made the new rubber tapping a desirable activity for a warrior.
* * *
Rather than draw on the ships’ provisions, David preferred to pay the Miskitos to hunt for them. The Indians ranged along the coast, and up the river, bringing back turtle meat, fish, fowl and other dainties. Blauveldt had told David that in their home territory, two Miskitos could feed a hundred Europeans. It wasn’t much of an exaggeration.
* * *
“One of the hunters is back; seems anxious to speak to you, Captain,” Cornelis reported.
“Bring him by. Let’s find out what he has to say.” David was sitting on the stump of a rubber tree, munching on some fruit.
The report brought him to his feet. “Cornelis, pick the steadiest men. Have them go around, tell the other captains to have their men to quiet down, collect weapons, and assemble by the canoes. There’re Spanish upriver.”
David pulled a ring off his finger, and handed it to the hunter. “For you, good work!”
He then turned to Philip. “Go with him, get the Miskito chiefs together.”
Some minutes later, there was a quick Dutch-Miskito council of war on the bank of the Rio San Juan. The Dutch, with swivel guns brought over from the ships, blocked the path downriver. The Miskitos fanned out in small groups, heading into the rainforest. They would cut off the Spanish escape route.
The ambush was completely successful. It was also completely anticlimactic. The two mestizos the Indians had spotted weren’t scouts for a Spanish expedition. They were the expedition. In a manner of speaking.
More precisely, they were stragglers from a canoe convoy that had come down the river some months earlier, at the end of the last rainy season. The two had gone hunting one day, gotten lost, and discovered, when they made it back to the river, that they had been left behind. They had built a raft and tried paddling upriver, but decided eventually that it was too difficult and headed back downstream.
The mestizos were from the town of Granada in the interior of Nicaragua. Their convoy’s cargo was their region’s annual export of cochineal, sugar, indigo, hides and silver; it had been headed for Portobello, three hundred miles to southeast. There, it would have been transferred to the great flota, which sailed in January or February to Cartagena, Havana, and finally home.
There was much moaning and wailing among the Dutch when they realized that they had missed an easily captured treasure by just a few months.
The Miskitos were disappointed, too. While the Miskitos did cultivate crops, their general attitude was that it is easier to let someone else do the farming and then rob them. In this regard, they were not very different from their English and Dutch allies.
* * *
David thought about the treasures of Granada, and its sister city, Leon. He couldn’t afford to hang around the mouth of the San Juan until next December or January, waiting for the 1635 convoy. His investors would be unhappy about the delay in the delivery of the oil, rubber and bauxite, and a wait would increase the danger that a roving Spanish squadron would spot his ships.
But . . . If the convoy left the town half a year ago, that meant that the town’s warehouses were half-full again. Right?
Could he ascend the San Juan and assault the two cities? He had started the voyage with perhaps one hundred sixty men. Some of those had been left behind in Suriname, to help the colonists; others had died, through accident or disease. If he were to be away from the ships for a month or more, he would have to leave a strong guard behind, or he could return with much loot, only to find that he had no ships to sail home in. So that meant oh, perhaps, a hundred effectives. That was the bare minimum.
But if Blauveldt joined in . . . and the Miskitos . . . he might reasonably lead two hundred men into action. That made the idea . . . quite practical.
* * *
“Captain?” Philip was anxious to report on his successes.
The captain stared into the forest, without a word.
“Captain?”
David grimaced. “I have rethought the situation. We have done enough rubber collecting. It is time to take more direct action against the Spanish.”
“The USE military uses rubber—”
“Yes, yes, it will be used by your APCs. But we Dutch need to damage the Spanish more . . . directly. The Spanish are confident they can do anything they please with our ships and colonies, because they are winning the war in Europe. We need to remind them that the Dutch are not impotent.”
“This expedition is funded by USE investors, and flies the USE and Swedish flags.”
“And carries Dutch captains and crews. Who want to see the Spanish taken down a peg. Which will make both the Swedes and the Americans happy enough.
“So this is what we will be doing. We will take canoes up the Rio San Juan, to the Lago de Nicaragua. And across it . . . to Granada and Leon.
“They are towns rich in silver and other treasures. They have never been attacked, and hence are unwalled and poorly garrisoned. I feel confident that they will pay a heavy ransom to be spared the torch.”
It was Philip’s turn to stare silently at the wilderness.
David put his hand on Philip’s shoulder. “You Americans don’t seem to have much taste for plunder, I know. When I formed the Company, I was shocked by the up-time lack of enthusiasm for privateering.” He stifled a chuckle. “Of course, the down-time investors made up for it.
“So don’t worry. I don’t need to take you with me. I have to leave a guard for the ships, and I will give you a few additional men to help you continue your rubber harvesting. The ones too old or too sick to be fit for my little excursion to Granada, of course. And you will have some of the Miskitos.”
“How long will this take? I am no expert on the Caribbean, but I do know that the hurricanes come in August and September.”
“Oh, we’ll have you back in the Thuringen Gardens, with your friends buying you drinks, and an admiring young fraulein on your lap, well before then.”
* * *
It didn’t work out that way. Blauveldt urged that if they couldn’t wait for the 1635 convoy to come to them, they could at least give the Granadans a few more months to accumulate treasure. Besides, if they waited, he could sail up to Bluefields, and Cabo Gracias a Dios, and recruit more Miskito allies, increasing their chance of success.
The Miskitos told the Dutch that there were several rapids upriver, and that it would be best to make the journey to and from Granada when the rains elevated the water level—July or August.
The captains finally agreed to launch the attack in July—virtually guaranteeing that David would be returning to Europe during the height of hurricane season. Not that David seemed especially worried. “There are only four or five hurricanes a year in the entire Atlantic, according to your up-time books.” Since, when they left Gustavus, David had been insistent on the importance of leaving before the hurricanes lay siege to the Caribbean, Philip had to assume that the siren song of Granadan treasure was to blame for David’s change of heart. It was . . . worrisome.
Nor could Philip conduct rubber-tapping business as usual while David was off freebooting. The nigh-universal Miskito reaction was, “You expect me to fuss around collecting sap from trees when I could be impaling a Spaniard or two on my cane lance? And when your Admiral David says that we can keep the Spanish guns and ammunition we capture? You are a funny boy.” It was also quite apparent that Philip would diminish in their esteem if he remained behind.
“Arggh,” said Philip to the jungle. “Now all I need are a parrot and an eyepatch.” The jungle didn’t answer.
July 1634
At last, Blauveldt’s ship glided back into the mouth of the San Juan. Some native canoes were carried on its deck, which was crowded with the new Indian recruits. The canoes and longboats were lowered into the water, and they all joined David’s group.
The assembled crews and their Indian allies milled about in excited confusion as they waited for David and his fellow captains and chiefs to give the order to begin the ascent. Philip watched as first one, then another alligator, disturbed by the activity, wriggled out of the water and onto a sandbank some yards away. Soon, a score of the big reptiles were sunning themselves. Most of them had their mouths agape.
A sailor from Blauveldt’s ship was sure of the reason for this behavior. “They hold their mouths open so as to catch flies,” he sagely remarked. “The saliva attracts the insects, and they swallow ’em when enough have landed.”
“That makes no sense,” said Philip. “Look how big they are! How many flies would an alligator have to catch in a day to keep himself alive?”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“Certainly not. I’m just pointing out that you are being illogical.”
“I think you’re calling me a liar.” He put his hand on the hilt of his cutlass.
There was a cough behind him. “Is there a problem?” asked Cornelis, his own meaty hand squeezing the man’s sword arm into immobility. He was heavily built for a sailor; the sort of fellow who, had he gone to high school up-time, would have acquired the nickname “Tank.” He had his share of knife scars and powder burns, too.
Mr. Fly Catcher turned and gave Cornelis a slow once-over. His face took on a more calculating look. The sailors nearest him edged away, ever so slightly, and he shrugged. “Just a friendly conversation.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear. But we talk when there isn’t work to be done. Should I find some work for you to do?”
Fly Catcher shook his head, and, as soon as Cornelis released him, sidled away.
“Thanks,” said Philip. “That wasn’t looking good.”
“Captain told me to look out for you, you being so knowledgeable in some things, but mebbe not in others.”
“I was just explaining about alligators.”
“Captain also said that if you talked someone into blowing your head off, I was to make sure I retrieved your wristwatch. You want to show me which arm you keep it on, to save me some time?”
* * *
While Philip was still worried about whether hurricanes would interfere with their return to Europe, he was happy enough to be ascending the Rio San Juan during the height of the rainy season. The rapids were bad enough even at high water; he didn’t like to think about what they would have done to the canoes if the rocks were exposed.
Seeing the rapids reminded him of Maria. “She’ll be so freaking mad to find out that she missed out on the chance to run some whitewater,” he mused. “On the other hand, I am not sure she fancies playing Anne Bonney, so perhaps it’s just as well.”
* * *
The source of the Rio San Juan was the Lago de Nicaragua. Were it not for the maps, they would have thought that they had reached the Pacific Ocean. To their left, they could see nothing but water. Ahead, looking northwest, were several small islands, the Solentinames. Beyond them lay the cone of Ometepec, and farther still, as far as the eye could see, more water. On their right, the lake was hemmed in by a long chain of cloud-capped mountains, but of course you could say the same about the Pacific coast of Peru or Mexico.
The oceanic impression was reinforced when the Dutch-Miskito expedition spotted the telltale dorsal fins of sharks. Bull sharks did enter rivers, but they were now almost a hundred miles from the Atlantic.
The only sign that they were on a lake was that the water was fresh, not salty. No one expressed an interest in swimming.
“About a hundred miles to Granada,” David told the other leaders. “I don’t know how much lake traffic there is, so we’ll hide by day, and paddle by night.” They didn’t argue. The greatest weapon in warfare was surprise.
“Do your maps show good hiding places along the coast?” asked Blauveldt.
“They’re not that detailed. But we have three choices. We can hug the southwest shore. I’m afraid that might be populated, because the land is flat.”
“So that’s out.”
“Or we can go along the northeast coast. There’s just a narrow strip of land between it and the mountains.”
David swatted, ineffectually, at a mosquito that had dive-bombed him. “But the route I favor is almost directly across the lake.”
“Short, but won’t we be seen?”
“Besides these specks in front of us”—he pointed at the Solentinames—“there are two big islands along the way. Sneaking along behind the second gets us to perhaps twenty miles from Granada. Then we can edge a bit west, to put a little cape between us and the Granadans, and once we round it we’re only five miles out.”
“Sounds good to me. We could cut across the cape, if that would keep us out of sight longer.”
“We’ll have to see. It looked like there might be a mountain spur there. That could turn a short cut into a long cut.”
The sun set, and the canoes advanced. They fought to avoid a westward drift; the waves came mainly from the east, no doubt driven by the trade winds. That, too, was a sign they weren’t on the Pacific.
It took another week to cross the lake. Several times they encountered fishing boats, but none were allowed to escape and bring warning to unsuspecting Granada. Granada had been founded in 1524, and it had never been attacked by a European force. No mother of Granada warned children that if they didn’t go to sleep, the English or Dutch would eat them.
Granada, Nicaragua
David’s raiders made the final advance in the darkness and solitude of the wee hours. The city was unwalled, so they marched directly to the great plaza. The few soldiers in the barracks were forcibly awakened, and placed under guard. The powder magazine was emptied. The cannon in the vicinity were appropriated and set up to command the plaza and its approaches.
By the time the civilians knew that there were invaders in their midst, it was already morning. The rays of the rising sun gave the stone outer walls of the Granadan buildings a golden glow. David hoped that this was a portent that they would find gold inside, too.
Several detachments guarded the entrances to the city, to make it more difficult for the inhabitants to escape with their valuables. Others patrolled the main streets and, as the Granadans emerged from their homes, prodded them toward the plaza and into the cathedral. It was soon filled with hundreds of citizens. Some screamed imprecations at their captors, some wept, and others just sat in a state of shock.
The Miskitos had, by this point, taken possession of the weapons in the armory, and were happily firing their weapons at Spaniards so imprudent as to poke their heads out of a door or window, or, if not given the opportunity for such sport, into the air. David’s control over them was tenuous, and he thought it best to give them the chance to work off their excitement, as long as they didn’t resort to wholesale slaughter.
The Dutch, on the other hand, were more interested in collecting plunder. They did it systematically, starting at the cathedral and the city hall, and then checking out any building that looked well-appointed enough to warrant investigation.
Nor were the Dutch and the Miskitos the only ones taking advantage of the helplessness of the town. The native Indians and black slaves had clearly decided it was payback time. It was futile for a resident to protest that he or she was penniless, or that all his or her valuables had already been taken, for a slave or servant would happily deny the protest, and guide the invaders to the missing items. Perhaps collecting a finder’s fee in the process.
* * *
When the looting was complete, the invaders cheerfully recruited the townspeople to act as beasts of burden, making them tow the municipal cannon to the lake, and dump them in, much to the amusement of their former servants and slaves. The invaders also seized the boats at the waterfront, to prevent pursuit and also to transport more treasure.
Some of the local helpers decided that the invasion offered an excellent opportunity to permanently leave Spanish service. A few decided to see what Miskito or Dutch life had to offer; the rest fled to the hills.
David and the other leaders then had to decide whether to continue on another sixty or so miles, to Leon. Like Granada, Leon had never been attacked, and it lay even closer to the great silver mines of Nicaragua. It was tempting, and, curiously, even the Granadan merchants urged them to do this—apparently there was a serious rivalry between the two cities.
But David knew that some of the Granadans had fled the town. An unwalled place was easier to capture, but harder to then bottle up. David had to assume that word of the sack of Granada would reach Leon ahead of his force, even if they commandeered every nag in Granada. And as a practical matter, they were going to be hard-pressed to get all the Granadan treasure safely across the lake, and over or around the three rapids of the Rio San Juan.
Regretfully, they decided to save Leon for another day.
* * *
The Miskitos hadn’t gotten much of the treasure but were happy enough with all the ironmongery they had collected. In general, the Miskitos had an extraordinary desire for European goods. David had told Philip that most Indians would work to earn a handful of beads, or a knife, and that accomplished, would disappear into the forest, never to be seen again.
The Miskitos, in contrast, had an insatiable demand for everything European. Weapons, clothes, tools. But the holy of holies, so far as they were concerned, was a firearm. Philip could just imagine them back home in Grantville, discussing the relative merits of a bolt-action Remington Model 700 versus a lever-action Marlin Model 336. For hours.
A few were so fascinated by the really big guns—the cannon—that they joined the crew of the Walvis. Considering their skills as small-boat handlers and fishermen, David was happy to have them aboard. He promised that they would have passage when the Walvis went back to Suriname, to bring the colonists more European manufactures.
* * *
“The Puritans aren’t going to be happy, you know,” said Blauveldt.
David raised his eyebrows. “Why not? They don’t like the Spanish any more than we do.”
“While they befriend the Miskitos in almost any way they can, there is one important exception—they never, ever, give them firearms. As a matter of policy.”
“Well, then, maybe the Miskitos will decide that we are better friends than the English. Isn’t that just too bad?”
Mouth of the Rio San Juan
David was sorry when Blauveldt sailed off, but Rishworth and his charges were delighted. Rishworth had kept them hidden on the Walvis when the sailors and Miskitos were assembling for the ascent of the Rio San Juan, fearing that Blauveldt might recognize them as fugitive slaves and insist on returning them to Providence Island. Life had been a bit more relaxed for them while Blauveldt was off on the expedition to Granada, but they had to keep looking over their shoulder, so to speak, so that they wouldn’t be surprised by his return. Of course, there were some Miskitos that hadn’t gone off a-plundering, and they were recruited to serve as Rishworth’s early warning system.
When the Indians came in with the news that the returning warriors and sailors were only a day’s journey away, Rishworth hurried his people back onto the Walvis.
Once Blauveldt’s ship had disappeared over the horizon, the ex-slaves broke into an impromptu dance, much to the bemusement of the Walvis’ crew. David let it go on for a few minutes, then had a quiet word with Rishworth. Rishworth told them that their choices were to disembark and stay with the Miskitos, or join the crew of the Walvis. About half decided on the latter.
Rishworth was pleased. He would have more time to teach them the Gospel.
August 1634,
At Sea
David led his little squadron through the Yucatan channel. The wind freshened, and David ordered the sails reefed. That is, part of the sail gathered up, and tied to the yard by a small cord attached to the sail. Reefing was, for lack of a better term, a “new-old” idea. It was something his great-grandfather had done, but in David’s time it was out of favor. Instead, early-seventeenth-century ships normally carried small courses of sail, and added additional pieces if the air was light. The nautically minded up-timers thought it was crazy to fool around with adding these “bonnets” and “drabblers.” The more “progressive” down-timers, like David, had switched over to large courses with “reef points.” But David predicted that in his own great-grandchild’s generation, there would still be old salts who insisted on “bonneting.”
As they emerged from the strait, they sighted a ship, hull-down. It disappeared from view without revealing its identity. While it was probably Spanish, given that it was heading west, David saw no reason to risk a fight when his ships were already chock-full of treasure, and the stranger couldn’t possibly reach port in time to give a timely alarm. Anyway, David figured it was a straggler from the New Spain flota, bound for Veracruz. If so, it was carrying immigrants and manufactured goods, not treasure.
As they bore eastward into the Straits of Florida, David kept his ships as far from Havana as practicable. The Spanish intermittently posted a garda costa there, and he wasn’t looking for trouble. He cleared the Straits without sighting anything more ominous than a pod of dolphins, who rode in the Walvis’ wake for a while.
David was feeling quite pleased with himself.
* * *
The three ships threaded their way between Florida and the Bahamas. They had to claw their way northward, close-hauled, fighting against the northeast trades. But at least they had the Gulf Stream to help them along. As they struggled to wring what progress they could against the unfavorable wind, the captains and crews could take comfort in the knowledge that they would eventually escape the zone in which the trade winds, which barred a direct course to Europe, prevailed. Once they reached the forties, they could pick up the westerlies and head for home.
The wind became very light and variable, further reducing their headway. That was common when one passed between the two wind zones, but at this time of year, the area of transition usually lay farther north.
Fortunately, the skies were mostly clear, and the barometer had risen slightly since the last watch. The barometer had once hung on the roof post of a Grantville porch, and David had been very pleased to have it loaned to him.
Soon after they passed the latitude of the northern fringe of the Bahamas, the northeast wind resumed. David didn’t like the look of the sea, however. The swells seemed a bit heavier and longer than usual. He took out a one minute sand clock and counted the swells. Four a minute. Eight was norm.
“Go check the barometer again!” David ordered.
“It’s level,” Philip reported. “But it seems . . . jittery.”
* * *
The next day, at sunrise, there were white wisps of cirrus clouds, low in the sky. The “mares’ tails” seemed to point southeast, and the swells were stronger. The barometer had slowly fallen during the night watches. It usually dipped a bit twice a day, but this seemed to be something more than the usual variation.
“Well, Philip, I am afraid that I think we have a hurricane approaching. The winds are from the north-northeast, and since they spiral counterclockwise about the center, the center should be nine to twelve points off the wind direction. Probably southeast.”
“So what do we do? Run to the west?”
“How sure are you of the accuracy of the cross-fix you took earlier today?”
“Pretty sure. Two star fixes and a sun fix, perhaps an hour apart. Why?”
“If I trust the last position fix you took—and I do—we don’t have enough sea room between us and the American coast. Only about a hundred miles. Believe me, you don’t want to be near a lee shore in a hurricane. So running west, toward land, really doesn’t appeal to me.”
“Then should we stay put? Throw out an anchor or something?”
“It’s not so simple. According to the Bowditch, the paths of Atlantic hurricanes are quite idiosyncratic, but they usually move northwest in the Greater Antilles. Sometimes they’ll make landfall and disintegrate, but they can also curve north. And they can then recurve and head northeast.
“If I knew that the hurricane was marching northwest, I would head south, and go back the way we came, into the Gulf. And if I thought it was curving north, or recurving northwest, I would head north. Or just heave to.
“What about heading east, or northeast, to get more searoom?”
David shook his head. “That’s likely to bring us into what Bowditch calls the ‘dangerous semicircle,’ the area to the right of the hurricane track. Assuming that we’re not in it already, of course.”
“Why is it dangerous?”
“The wind strength is the sum of the revolving wind, and the forward movement of the storm. And in the forward quadrant, the winds try to push you right into the path of the hurricane.”
“Ouch. So there’s a ‘safe semicircle’?”
“Bowditch prefers the term, ‘less dangerous semicircle.’ Nothing about a hurricane at sea is ‘safe.’ Anyway, I am going to keep heading north for a little while. Or as close to north as the wind will let us. We’re square-rigged, so we can’t point close to the wind. No closer than six points of the compass.”
Philip scrunched his face momentarily. “Six points from north-northeast, that’s northwest. So we’re heading toward the coast?”
“Edging toward it,” David admitted. “Remember, the coast is curving away from us as we go north.
“We won’t outrun the storm, but that course will still buy time for us to figure out which way the hurricane is moving. Right now, we’re playing a chess game with the hurricane, but one in which we can’t see its moves.
“Anyway, I want get away from the shallow waters between Florida and the Bahamas. Those are more prone to breaking if the wind picks up. And the Walvis won’t like it much when some breaker drops tons of water on its deck.”
* * *
David and his mates started giving orders to prepare the ship for the hard blows to come. The crew cleared the scuppers, and checked that the pumps were working. They battened down the hatches, and set up life lines on both sides of the deck.
* * *
They cautiously continued north, or more precisely northwest by north, making slow progress against the wind. The winds backed to north by east, so they had to angle even more to the west in order to make headway.
Still, the wind change was good news; it meant that they were in the less dangerous semicircle. If they were in the middle of the ocean, their best bet would have been to put the wind broad on their starboard quarter, and edge out. Unfortunately, if they did that here, they would soon be enjoying an unplanned American vacation. So they left the wind farther aft, angling just enough to counter the inward spiral. The Koninck David and the Hoop did their best to follow the Walvis’ lead. The chop of the water increased as the new swell fought with the old one.
* * *
The sun looked down on them through a white gauze. Despite their plight, Philip couldn’t help but admire the halo it had acquired. The ring proper was bright white, with a red fringe on the inside. The sky was darkened for some distance farther inward, and a vaguely defined corona played outside the halo.
Gradually, the sun faded from view. Then a new layer of clouds slid under the old one, darkening the overcast. The sky became a virtually uniform gray. The main topsail split, fabric streaming out like ribbons from a running lass’ hair, and the topmen bent in a replacement, and close-reefed it.
It started to rain, tiny droplets that seemed to hang suspended in the air. All at once, there was a downpour, as though someone had suddenly emptied a bucket on Philip’s head. It ended within minutes, and the misty not-quite-rain returned. Then came another rain shower.
The wind strengthened. There were many “white horses”—foaming wave crests. The sailors took down the normal sails and raised the storm sails, which were made of a heavier, tougher fabric.
Soon, on the eastern horizon, Philip could see a dark mass of clouds, looking like a sorcerer’s fortress, with a parapet of black cotton. If, that is, any fortress had pieces of itself break off and fly away from time to time. That was the “bar,” the main cloud mass, where the winds would be strongest.
Not that they were gentle where the Walvis and its comrades struggled. The winds were now gale force, and the sea was heavy. The timbers moaned like lost souls. There were flashes of lightning to the east. The only good news was that the barometer was low, but steady. That implied that they were succeeding in keeping their distance from the eye of the hurricane. Philip was sent to join the group who were straining at the whipstaff, keeping the ship on its course.
The stays hummed like a swarm of angry hornets, but they all held.
* * *
“Wind’s come around to the northwest, Captain,” said Cornelis. “Slackened some, too.”
David thought this over. Being an old Asia hand had its disadvantages when you were north of the equator; he had to keep reminding himself that almost everything about Indian Ocean typhoons was reversed up here in the northern hemisphere. Northwest, yes, that meant that the storm center was now ahead of them. In effect, the hurricane had swept them up, like an unwilling partner at a dance, and swung them a quarter circle around itself as it continued its journey northward.
“How’s the barometer, Philip?”
“Rising, sir.” The relief in Philip’s voice was evident. And that was fair enough, the pressure change confirmed that they were now in the rear half of the storm.
David sent Cornelis to take a sounding; he didn’t want to shoal after surviving this much. And he detailed a half dozen men to act as lookouts, both to watch for danger, and to determine whether the Koninck David and the Hoop had also weathered the storm.
They soon caught sight of the Koninck David, so it, at least, was safe. However, it signaled that some of its precious water casks had been swept off the main deck, and it would need to detour to the American coast to make amends.
There was no sign of the Hoop. Whether it had sunk, or merely been driven far away by the tempest, David had no idea.
But there was work to be done. A lot of it. The storm sails, especially the fore staysail, were now somewhat the worse for wear. The fore staysail had so many eyes that Philip likened it to what he called “Swiss cheese.” One by one, the crew unbent the storm sails, and set reefed ordinary sails. They found that a stay had stranded, and replaced it, and generally put the ship back into order.
The wind abated further, and they were able to shake out the reefs. But while the ship now looked much as it had before the hurricane, the storm had exacted a toll.
“All hands, bury the dead,” David ordered. Here was a sailor who, weakened by some tropical disease, had died of exposure. There was one who had fallen from a spar while trying to put another reef into a sail. A third had been picked up by a rogue wave, and had his skull dashed against a mast. Their bodies were sewn up in their hammocks, and double shotted. The Reverend Rishworth conducted a memorial service. Then, three times, David said the words, “We commit his body to the deep.” Three times, a corpse was slid into the waters. There, according to the minister, “to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body when the sea shall give up her dead.”
After a short but uncomfortable silence, the crew was sent back to work. “Hands to braces,” David ordered.
The next day, they found the Hoop. It had lost a mast, and was traveling under a jury rig. The flotilla headed for the Georgia coast, to take on fresh water and make those repairs best carried out at anchor. The local Indians didn’t attempt to trade, but at least they didn’t attack, either.
* * *
It was a beautiful day, the hurricane had moved on or fallen apart, the ships had resumed a northward course and were now happily ensconced in the Europe-seeking westerlies, and David was once again at peace with the world.
Philip’s navigation had been spot-on, and David invited him to dinner as a reward.
“You know, Philip, it would be bad for discipline for a captain to apologize for an error.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Like delaying a return trip until the hurricane season was upon him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How’s the schnapps?”
“Fine, sir.”
Late 1634
David and Philip stood in line, waiting for their turn to send radio messages to Grantville. They were at the USE military’s radio post in Hamburg. While most of the radio traffic was of an official nature, the post did send private messages on a “time available” basis.
“Philip, I know you expected to go into the army after you finished high school, but I think you’d make a fine navigator, if you’d like the job on a more permanent basis.”
“Thank you, Captain. Do you believe in reincarnation?”
“Like the Hindoos? Certainly not, I am a good Christian.”
“Well, then it’s a moot point. Because when I get back to Grantville, my parents are gonna kill me.”