by Eric Flint
Eddie nodded. “I cannot deny that is often true. So yes, Youacou: there are many faults with this.” He returned his attention to Touman. “Cacique, we have no way to keep all those who surrender after the sea battle as our prisoners. So we must leave them in a place where they may survive long enough to build boats and sail to a Spanish colony.”
Touman nodded. “Au-hmm. Now I see what your leaders wish of us: to leave the prisoners here.”
“Well, not here on Guad . . . uh, Karukera itself. We were thinking of one of the smaller islands not too far away. They will be left with the means to depart, but no weapons.”
Touman frowned. “Will there be wounded? Women, children?”
Eddie shrugged; more questions he hadn’t anticipated. “Wounded, surely. Probably some women: wives and passengers. Children? Maybe, but only a few.”
“Then those persons shall wait on Karukera, beside us. Let the Spanish see what it is to have the Kalinago as friends, and regret that they shall never know us as such.”
Oh, boy: how to handle this one? “Cacique Touman, that is a great kindness you offer, but even if you only take the ones who seem least dangerous among you, they might find a way to pass information to the men we have marooned, who might then try to come ashore by stealth and take what they want rather than build their ships.”
Touman’s expression was one of disappointment, possibly disgust. “They might be so bad as that?”
“Would it be so surprising if they were that bad, given what men from over the sea have already done to you and your people?”
Touman nodded. “It requires a strong heart to speak a truth that shames one’s own people.”
Eddie’s spine had gone ramrod straight before he was aware of it. “Cacique, these prisoners might look like me, but they are not my people.”
Touman frowned and nodded. “That is fairly said. But it will be a happy surprise if I meet more men who look like you who also speak truth like you. For now, bring the Spanish, but not to Karukera itself.”
Eddie nodded. “Thank you, Cacique Touman. With your permission, we shall maroon them on the small, linked islands to the southeast. We call them by one name: Petite-Terre.”
Touman’s eye widened slightly; if he noticed the grim satisfaction on his nephew’s face, he gave no sign of it. “Men cannot live there for long.”
“Which is precisely why it suits, Cacique Touman. The Spanish will understand that they must work quickly to depart or they will perish. But be careful if you must visit them; having tools, they may be able to fashion crude spears.”
“We have experience of the Spanish,” Touman assured him with a nod.
Okay, segue time. “In the event that they become worrisome to you, we could leave you the means to contact us.”
Touman looked wary but also intrigued. “And how might we do that?”
Well, here goes nothin’ . . . “You have seen us signal with lights?”
Touman nodded. “Flashes that are a code for making words.”
“Yes.”
“And this is also how your radio communicates, yes?”
He’s more interested than wary, now. “Yes. You understand it perfectly.”
“Are you offering us the means of such communications?”
Uh-oh, didn’t see him jumping to that. Time to manage heightened expectations. “Teaching you how to send light signals with what we call a heliograph is fairly quick and simple. Radios are much more difficult. However, before you can use either in your own language, you must have, um, codes for each word you want to send. We could only teach you the codes in one of our languages, one that you know how to read. French, perhaps?”
Touman was evidently considering other complexities as well. “First you promise we shall have complete privacy on our islands. Now you hold out the temptation of communication.” The eyebrow over Touman’s empty socket raised, pulling the scarred flesh into an ugly cluster of wrinkles and folds. “These are your leaders speaking through you, once again.”
Eddie cocked his head. “Actually, the communication was my idea. And I believe it will help us both. But if you are not comfortable having it, I will not mention it again.”
Touman seemed even more intrigued by that response. “Tell me how it would help us both.”
Eddie shrugged. “From the top of the Leeward Islands to the end of the Windward Islands, the greatest gap between any two sequential islands is between here and Antigua. Even that is well within heliograph range.”
Touman nodded. “So messages could travel from mountain top to mountain top.”
“Yes, Cacique. All the way up and down the Lesser Antilles. Complex messages take a long time to send. But there are also short codes—alerts—that can be sent and spread quickly.”
“Such as if a fleet of your enemy’s ships is sighted,” Touman offered knowingly.
Eddie nodded. “Or ships bringing invaders back to your shores.”
Youacou’s tone was suspicious, but measured. “I like this not, my cacique. Why would these men be so concerned for our welfare? This is for their benefit alone.”
Touman shook his head, then nodded toward Eddie. “He thinks like a chief. He knows that if his enemies return to attack us, then our problems shall become his problems quickly enough.” He lifted his chin. “How many of your people would it take to operate these ‘heliographs’?”
“It could be done with five men. And you would be free to enter their station any time you wish.” He shrugged. “It is your land.”
Touman smiled sideways at his nephew without taking his eyes off the up-timer. “And now you see how he shows that his intent is genuine: he gives us hostages.” He nodded at Eddie and stood. “We shall do well together, Edd-ee Kant-rell. Come: let us eat.”
Chapter 10
East of Dominica
Maarten Tromp empathized with the Spanish, even if he felt less than an iota of sympathy for them.
If they had had a balloon of their own, they could have foreseen each step of the disaster that had unfolded in the seaway before Dominica. And if they had had a radio, the cargo galleons might have fashioned an organized response to Resolve’s dash into their midst at flank speed: a wolf plunging into a flock of sheep. For instance, they might have attempted to box in the USE warship from all points of the compass. However, even had they been able to coordinate, they were also massively undergunned and the wind and current was now against the majority of them. So such an undertaking would have been risky and quite perilous. At best.
Instead, Resolve had struck terror into her foes, both near and far. Her carronades—split into forward and after batteries of three guns and two four-gun waist batteries, one afore the beam, one abaft—had engaged any target within four hundred yards or less. The percentage of hits was only moderate, but the impact upon Spanish morale was severe. The wallowing galleons veered away from the steam cruiser without any thought to wind or current. Their understandable instinct was to diminish their target profile in the face of gunnery that struck its targets with one out of four balls it fired, and in which every hit penetrated the stoutest hull and wreaked unprecedented havoc.
Those few captains who did attempt to close with Resolve, either from an excess of martial spirit or dearth of tactical intelligence, found their boldness rewarded with catastrophe. Even two who had been able to find enough wind and current to make three knots toward the cruiser discovered that, in the three minutes it took to close from four hundred yards to one hundred, Resolve’s rate of fire and murderous close-range accuracy reduced them to drifting hulks before they could turn and deliver a broadside. Even if two such galleons had chanced to close simultaneously from opposite sides of Resolve’s compass rose, she would simply have added a bit of steam or set her sails to catch a little more wind until the range had opened once again. In the event that both ships had not been thoroughly brutalized, the survivor would then have had to choose between trying cases with her once again or to sheer off from another exercise
in naval futility.
After having roughed up, or outright mauled, half a dozen merchantmen in this fashion, the Dutch spyglasses saw what the reports from Tower were confirming: that the Spanish were now pressing north. Not in response to any orders—they were maneuvering so frantically that signals were all but useless—but simply because it was the only direction which offered any chance of survival. That the thirteen waiting ships of Tromp’s Anvil had more guns and were better rigged for reaching winds did not seem to deter them.
At about that time, sails appeared behind the Spanish on the far northeastern and southeastern horizons: the nearest jachts of the net that Eddie had used to detect La Flota had now reached it, like the ends of a seine pulling close to seal behind a great school of trapped fish.
Kees adjusted the plot, swallowed a cup of water handed to him by one of the runners. Although the breeze kept them cool and the awning over the flying bridge helped, they’d all been in and out of the tropical sun throughout the day, and it was nearing two in the afternoon. “Some of the galleons closest to us are coming about, Admiral.”
Tromp nodded. “Like a school of fleeing fish, each is hoping it will be one of the lucky ones to slip past.”
“Widen the head of our Hammer, sir?”
“Yes. That time has come.”
Kees sent a runner with a message. Within minutes, Resolve’s four escorts sheered away from the cruiser, which they had been paralleling closely. No further instructions were needed. This was the next part of Plan Alpha: to obstruct, and if necessary cripple, the ships. Under normal circumstances, achieving that would have been far more difficult than it sounded. But with the Spaniards fleeing and unable to outsail the Dutch warships, they could not maneuver to deliver a broadside, nor could they deny their adversaries the opportunity to cross their stern and lay into them with broadsides of shot and chain. The first two that tried to slip past Resolve in this fashion were soon nearly dead in the water, one with flames springing up at various points. Tromp tried to see that as a victory, but he could only see it as one less ship and cargo with which to strengthen his fleet and its home port.
A very similar situation was playing out in the north. Although the Spanish outnumbered the Dutch ships of Tromp’s Anvil better than two to one, they were coming as scattered, desperate hulls, not a formation. Again, Tromp’s ships simply followed Plan Alpha, with occasional tweaks and adjustments made possible by the Tower’s observations. And with Resolve heading into the rear of that diffuse collection of galleons, Anvil would not need to take on all of them alone.
Tromp decided to come quite close to the rearmost of the fleeing merchantmen—five hundred yards—before ordering a standard round fired for ranging purposes. Ironically, it hit the afterdeck and the Spaniards’ progress became unsteady: damage to the tiller ropes, probably. He steamed past, changing his tactics as he went. Plan Alpha called for controlled, high-accuracy fire into the galleons, starting by hitting the rearmost until she burned high and fast. Then Resolve would work methodically forward through the other shaken Spaniards.
But the Spanish were now so panicked that Maarten feared such a spectacle of destruction abaft would only resolve them to more desperate measures. Better to make the path ahead more fearsome, and so, propel them into a state of indecision. Once in that state of mind, the notion of surrender might have enough time to push up through their panic as a reasonable option.
Tromp called for the range to the galleon closest to Anvil.
Bjelke was about twenty seconds in getting the measurement. “Twenty-two hundred yards, sir.”
Tromp glanced at Dirck, whose gesture was one of invitation and his permission; the admiral was cleared to give direct orders to Resolve.
“Engineer, full speed.”
“Full speed, aye.”
“Helm, give me a course toward that lead galleon, but adjust for the current and the swells. I need low chop rather than maximum speed.”
“Understood, Admiral.”
“Mounts One and Two, can you both bear on lead ship?” Affirmatives came in. “Commence tracking. Load standard round. You will commence fire at fifteen hundred yards, pending my orders.”
More affirmatives as the full measure of steam reached the propellers and Resolve surged forward.
Galleons struggled away from the cruiser’s path like lead-coated pigeons. There was little conversation on the flying bridge; the day had been long and this was not the thrill of the hunt, so much as it was ending a battle that was already decided.
At fifteen hundred yards, Tromp called for speed to reduce to one half, and, as soon as Resolve had settled into what felt like an almost frictionless glide, he gave the order for both mounts to fire. As expected, both mounts missed, but only by thirty yards or so. Forty seconds later, the mounts reported ready and the range had dropped to just over twelve hundred. Both mounts fired, both missed again, but the forward mount’s round was so close that as it passed harmlessly through the rigging, the sheets and ratlines swaying in its wake. Another forty seconds: nine hundred yards, two more rounds, and this time, two hits. Pieces and dust flew up from both the stern and foc’sle of the galleon. The other Spanish ships that Resolve had sped past were sheering off from her line of advance. Their northward rush was rapidly becoming a roiling, multidirectional chaos that Tower was updating every minute. Tromp ordered the rifles loaded with explosive round. He had about a dozen left for them: the last in the New World except what remained in Intrepid’s magazine.
At seven hundred yards, Mounts One and Two fired.
In a day that had been difficult for gunnery to begin with, and with marginally substandard accuracy, the gun crews of Resolve’s naval rifles redeemed themselves in that moment: one round went in amidships, the other into the starboard quarter. The explosions were akin to flame demons bursting out through its sides, multiple secondary explosions cracking and blasting in their wake. Smoke poured out of her. The sea around her was thick with smoking debris.
Rik looked over at Tromp. “Sir, what orders for the rifles?”
Tromp took a quick look around; at least half of the galleons were still trying to flee north, but they had all sheered away from Resolve and her victim. Maarten had seen captains in a fleet lose their nerve before—and it looked just like this.
“Mounts One and Two: load explosive shell.”
Dirck Simonszoon raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
The cries of the forward guncrew announced the start of the reloading process which had taken on the sound of a familiar ritual, one that might be practiced in the temple of a dispassionate god of war. Tromp looked up—
—just in time to see the stricken galleon vanish in a furious flash, followed closely by a deafening—literally deafening—roar. From almost a third of a mile, a sudden puff of wind marked the power of the explosion as smoke jetted out in every direction. The top half of the foremast flew upward even faster, a malformed and broken javelin.
Dirck made a teeth-sucking sound. “Well, that’s two rounds saved.”
Tromp muttered to Rik. “Mounts One and Two, secure from battery. Prepare to reload with standard. Await instructions.”
Then he sighed and tried not to think of all the human souls he had just sent to their Maker in parts too small for even God Himself to recognize.
* * *
The standard rounds that were readied for loading never went into the breeches of their respective rifles. The Spanish had had enough. However, it took a while for all of them to actually realize that they were out of options.
One or two still tried running north. The smaller and faster of the Dutch ships gave chase, crossing the Spaniards’ sterns at will, peppering them shot and chain until the much bigger galleons struck their colors. So heavily laden that they were low in the water and sluggish, they could barely run at all, and fighting the speedy and maneuverable jachts while doing so was out of the question. And then there was the concern that doing so might attract the attention and disple
asure of the satanic steam cruiser that could run down and destroy any ship at will. Indeed, it moved and inflicted so much damage so quickly, that the primal logic of what Tromp had mentally labeled the “fleeing sheep reflex”—scattering with the knowledge that a single predator could not bring down more than one or two prey—no longer obtained. Resolve had demonstrated why that desperate logic no longer applied: she was a wolf so swift and so deadly that she could lay waste to the whole flock—or certainly, any sheep that called attention to themselves by daring to kick at the lesser wolves in the pack.
Similar outcomes prevailed in the seaway that had been the site of most of the day’s action. But here, a few galleons—possibly taking confidence from being in an area still thick with their own numbers—actually fired defiant shots at the larger Dutch vessels. Which, although not as swiftly as jachts, were easily able to gain the wind gauge and cross either the bows or sterns of their adversaries with horrific effect. And when one such pass failed to compel a Spanish captain to strike his colors, a quick set of signals by flag, Aldis, or both brought Resolve around, heading for the recalcitrant galleon. Which hastily relented and suffered to be taken. So Resolve spent the better part of the following hour moving toward one troublesome Spaniard after another, her dire intent working in place of her guns.
Even when all the jachts of Tromp’s detection net arrived, the number of hulls in his fleet still did not equal the number of galleons that were undamaged or only moderately so. The enemy ships were all ordered to fix each gun’s tompion in its muzzle, lower their anchors, reef their sails, and have their full crews gather on deck. Compliance with the latter was no doubt woefully incomplete, but with so many men staring into shot-loaded guns less than fifty yards away, they well understood the gruesome execution that would follow the slightest sign of defiance. On those galleons where Dutch captains detected suspiciously restive or lethargic reactions to their orders, they loudly added that they were already sorely tempted to show the same kind of “mercy” that the Spanish had shown the Dutch at Dunkirk, two and a half years ago. That did not fail to produce swift if bitter compliance.