1637: No Peace Beyond the Line

by Eric Flint

  Hugh looked over Hyarima’s shoulder at the ramshackle roofscape of San José de Oruña. “And yet you show great restraint in doing so.”

  Hyarima’s shrug was so slight as to be almost imperceptible. “With the new guns and powder and shot just brought by the Dutchmen, we have been able to defeat many of the Arawak. For many months, we could not fight them well; we had little powder left. They became lazy. So with the new powder, we attacked all at once and without stopping. They were defeated more by their surprise than by us.

  “They have abandoned most of the villages they took in my father’s time and abandoned the Spanish as well. There are so few of the Spanish and their mixed offspring, that we need not be hasty in finishing our war. Instead, it seemed wise to meet you first.”

  “Meet me—us?”

  “Yes, O’Donnell. We are told that you, or your allies, may wish to live on our island. As friends, who will not grow beyond the limits we grant. There, you will wish to live in your own ways. We understand this. You will want farms such as the Spanish have, buildings such as the Spanish have, wells such as the Spanish have. Once we have killed their owners, we would make a gift of these to you and your people, if you wish them.”

  The cacique’s calm eyes promised genocide as if it were a trifling gift, a small token of respect between friends. Hugh shook his head. “Hyarima, I do not ask or hope you to stain your hands with their blood, just so you may give their buildings to us.”

  Hyarima shrugged. “That is not why we are killing them. We must eliminate our enemies, but their farms and buildings are of no use to us. I reasoned your people might feel otherwise.”

  Great God, how do I explain the need for mercy and not sound like I am taking the side of the Spanish against the Nepoias? “If any man, if any people, may claim the right of vengeance, none has better claim than Hyarima and the Nepoia. But I must ask: is there no way to show mercy to those who help end the war by surrendering? I might be able to convince—”

  Hyarima was shaking his head. “The blood-debt is too great, O’Donnell. Perhaps it would not be, if the Spanish did not follow a god who speaks of mercy while encouraging murder.”

  Hugh blinked in surprise. “I do not understand.”

  “Can you not?” Hyarima’s face lost much of its expression. “The Spanish god instructs the Spanish priests to promise mercy and kindness, but does not punish the Spanish soldiers who enslaved and killed my people while wearing the god’s cross-symbol around their necks. They even called upon this god to help them as they slaughtered us in our villages. Not just our warriors, but our women and our children.” Hyarima’s eyes were unblinking and hard. “We have remained peaceful too often, spared the lives of murderers, because of the fine-sounding lies of this god’s teachings. No more.”

  Hugh saw the still-intact town of San José de Oruña over Hyarima’s shoulder, felt fresh sweat break along his brow. If I can’t think of a different appeal in the next minute, all those townspeople are as good as dead. O’Donnell played the last card he held: an appeal to honor. “I understand. The blood of one’s own slain innocents calls loudly to any cacique. It shall to me, also, which is why we may not then live in the places you offer to me.”

  Now it was Hyarima who blinked. “Why should our deeds compel you to reject their houses and fields? Today’s blood is not upon your hands, O’Donnell.”

  Hugh shook his head. “But I cannot stand to gain by that blood, either, Hyarima. How may I invite my people to live in this place, knowing the houses in which they dwell, the fields in which they work, were made ready for them by being washed with the blood of women and children? It may not have been my hand that did the work, but I cannot knowingly gain from your vengeance without becoming party to it.”

  Hyarima frowned, but Hugh had the distinct impression it was not prompted by his rejection of the cacique’s “gift,” but at the honor-conundrum behind the rejection. “I understand your words and your concerns, O’Donnell. And they move me. But even if I was to stay my hand against the innocents of these places, one day, the sons of the slain fathers would come for my blood to answer their loss. Or, what is worse, would come for the blood of my sons and grandsons. And daughters and granddaughters, since the Spanish make war upon everyone.”

  Hugh shrugged. “They would not know so well who slew their fathers if they grew up in a different land.”

  Hyarima’s frown faded. His eyes narrowed. “What do you propose, O’Donnell?”

  “The women and children of the Spanish could be moved.” Tromp will want to put my head in a noose when he hears what I’ve promised. And Cantrell might want to help him. O’Donnell affected a casual shrug as he felt O’Rourke growing rigid beside him. “The Spanish came by boat. Those you spare could leave by boat.”

  Hyarima’s eyes remained narrow. “You are a cacique, O’Donnell. But I was told that the boats are not yours to command. Did the Dutchmen lie to me?”

  Hugh shook his head. “They did not lie. But I have many fine soldiers. The Dutch will need those men alongside them, to fight the Spanish, before this year is past.” He paused. “The Dutch will grant me this boon.”

  Hyarima’s eyes opened slightly. “You would indebt yourself for the Spanish? I have heard whispers, though I cannot be sure of their truth, that the Spanish have lied to you as well, have used you and your men poorly in many wars.”

  Hugh shrugged. “Those words are true. But we were not used poorly by their women and children, Hyarima. So I would not make those innocents pay for the misdeeds of men who should have kept their word.”

  Hyarima’s eyes opened wider. Then he nodded. “So be it. The Spanish women and children shall not be killed or harmed. They shall be removed, according to your word. But if your allies will not cooperate as you assure me—” The unfinished statement was terribly eloquent.

  Hugh nodded. “I understand that you cannot allow the Spanish to stay on your land. The danger, and the insult to your dead, are both too great.”

  “It is well you understand this, and it promises a good friendship between us.”

  “Hyarima, our friendship is so important that I would suggest a further means of ensuring its health.” The Nepoia cacique’s nod invited explication. “I propose that if I or my allies are attacked solely by other men from beyond the sea, that we shall not seek your aid against them. Similarly, if you are attacked solely by the other caciques and tribes of these lands, we shall not become involved.”

  Hyarima frowned. “This is a strange alliance, O’Donnell.”

  Hugh smiled ruefully. “It might seem so, but my homeland is also an island of tightly interwoven families and clans. And so I have learned this: never become involved in the family feuds of your neighbors. Too often the stories tell us of how a much-loved visitor interceded in another family’s feud, and slew one of their distant relatives to save them from harm. But in the years that follow, that family’s gratitude too often becomes rotten with regret and secret resentment.” Hugh shrugged. “The host may have thanked the guest for slaying the dangerous relative on the day he was saved, but might, unreasonably, hate the guest a year later for the very same act. I perceive the people of these lands are akin to one great family. So are we from over the sea. And family feuds must remain within the families they pertain to, for this reason.”

  Hyarima nodded, and although he did not smile, he looked pleased, both with the agreement and Hugh. “You are wise for your years, O’Donnell. Your people are lucky to have such a cacique.”

  Hugh was preparing to wave off the compliment when O’Rourke interrupted. “We are. Our Lord O’Donnell is too modest to claim it.”

  “Of course,” Hyarima answered calmly. “That is why he has you to say it for him. This talk has been good. Next time, we shall have time for food and smoke.” He stood, nodded, and left.

  After which O’Rourke rounded on his earl. “Damn it, Hugh: you were set to shrug off your title again, if I hadn’t jumped in. Whatever happened to the cocky little
rascal you started out?”

  “What happened, O’Rourke, was that I grew not only in size but in sense. Which included an accurate measure of my small place in the world, I might add.”

  “Well, perhaps it is time to remeasure that place, my earl. Besides, the sin o’ pride notwithstanding, too much humility is just not how things are done here. And you’re the one who was always reminding me, ‘when in Rome, do like the Romans.’ Or don’t you think these fellows are the local Romans?”

  Hugh looked into the slight parting of fronds that marked where Hyarima had disappeared into the green wall that skirted the base of the steep northern slopes. “Oh no, O’Rourke. They’re the Romans all right, no doubt about it. We exist here at their pleasure. And I hope it shall ever be thus.”

  The two men were silent as their guide returned and led them back to their horses. Behind, muskets began to sputter fitfully from atop the rude palisade around San José de Oruña.

  O’Rourke cocked an ear in that direction. “You took quite a chance back there, m’lord. Regarding the fate of the Spanish, that is.”

  Hugh mounted the gelding in one fluid, annoyed motion. “Yes, for all the good it did.”

  “Seemed to have done a world of good for the women and children of this blasted island. And as for their men—well, I can’t wonder but that they haven’t richly earned what’s about to befall ’em. ‘Eye for an eye,’ as the saying has it.”

  “‘Let he amongst you who is without sin cast the first stone,’” Hugh retorted bitterly. “I won’t be consoling myself over the rightness of a massacre, O’Rourke. Even if it’s restricted to males old enough to at least have some fuzz on their chin.”

  “Aye, but it’s not as though you’ve much cause for remorse, either. Let alone time in which to feel it. We’re to be underway for St. Eustatia as soon as we can.”

  Hugh grimaced. “Where, I suspect, Tromp will rake me over the coals for promising to evacuate almost two hundred civilians from Port-of-Spain and San José de Oruña. And Cantrell might help him singe my toes.”

  “Ah, well, I’m not so sure of that,” temporized O’Rourke. “Tromp is a pretty decent sort of fellow. Decent for a heathen Dutchman, that is.” O’Rourke grinned. “And Cantrell—well, if memory serves, m’lord, it was you who remarked that most of the up-timers feel a great regret over what their ancestors did to the natives of the New World. I’d think that your making a pact with the Nepoia that saved lives, rather than took ’em, might be pleasing to our young up-time friend.”

  Hugh shrugged. “It would be a blessing if you’re right, O’Rourke.” O’Donnell spurred his horse lightly. “Let’s make sure we’re aboard to catch the evening breeze,” he urged.

  And let’s get out of here before the massacre begins.

  Part Two

  June–July 1636

  From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw

  —Herman Melville,

  “The Maldive Shark”

  Chapter 18

  Oranjestad, St. Eustatia

  Eddie Cantrell closed the door softly behind him, padded to the stairs, took the first few steps down before sitting and pulling his boots on. Land boots, which you’d think would be more comfortable, but weren’t. Probably because—as had been his unvoiced observation since his teens—there was usually an inverse relationship between utility and fashion. The more stylish a thing was, the less comfortable and/or reliable it proved to be. Yet Anne Cathrine had insisted, within days of his returning at the head of The Prize Fleet, that he had to have fine boots for when he went out in an official capacity. Which was, now, pretty much every time he went out.

  He finished trying—unsuccessfully—to wriggle and squirm his feet into a more comfortable position within the attractive torture devices that his wife had acquired for him from God knows who and for God knows how much. He’d thought about putting his foot down (so to speak) and refusing to wear the doggone things. Yeah, he really gave that some heavy-duty, serious thought—until he saw the way Anne was looking at him the first time he wore them. And then, well, then he got . . . kinda distracted. Until sometime late the next morning. And now he was wearing the boots.

  And had been almost every day since he’d been back. And he’d left their new fortress/house late every day, too. Anne Cathrine had been, from the start, everything a twenty-three-year-old man could want in a bedroom playmate: coy, seductive, aggressive, inventive—oh, so inventive! But now she had added “insatiable” to her repertoire. Not that Eddie was complaining—oh, hell no!—but every once in a while, a senior officer really did need to show up on time. Which was to say, thirty minutes early. As it was, he’d be lucky if he just barely made his meeting on time. Again.

  Still, when he reached the bottom of the stairs and went briskly out his front door with a nod to the guard, there was a spring in his step. And it wasn’t because of the recoil/return plate that Grantville’s medical technicians had built into his prosthesis.

  * * *

  Eddie had to push up hard against the wall of Fort Oranje in order to get through the crowd, but that was just as well. Being off to the side of the main road that ran out to St. Eustasia’s new dock kept him away from the promenaders who dominated its center: the wealthy, the influential, and no small number of Dutch officers from both the fleet and fort. Eddie, tucked against the closely fitted stones of the fort, made much better time. In large part, it was because he would not have to stop a dozen times to return salutes, which the Dutch were now adopting with the fervor of a new fad.

  Until recently, the Dutch military had been fairly typical of the others of its time: wide variations in training and discipline, little standardization, and nothing like a uniform, except for a few elite formations which usually answered to and guarded a monarch. In the New World, the “irregular” nature of military life and action had been even more pronounced. The Dutch navy, if you could even call it such, had arisen from the need to build a self-sustaining force to strike at the shipping of their Spanish oppressors. Half a century later, the men on its warships, regardless of rank, had still been motivated more by profit than patriotism.

  But over the past year in the New World, that had begun to change. And then Tromp’s extraordinary “Dunkirk at Dominica” had accelerated that transmogrification. What had begun as a loose amalgam of ships and a confederation of clever raiders was rapidly evolving into a military force, its esprit de corps growing in tandem with its successively greater accomplishments. Although, there was, admittedly, another factor at work.

  Eddie’s glance grazed across that factor as he came to the end of the street: the steam cruisers Intrepid and Resolve, out beyond the extraordinary clutter of ships lying in the broad anchorage that lay before Oranjestad. It wasn’t the ships themselves that had changed attitudes, but what they signified. The new technologies, the crisply efficient crews, the new strategy and tactics: all that resonated with the Dutch, yes, but there was something even beyond that:

  They embodied the triumph of method and competence by having proved in battle the merits of the perception and confidence that had created them: that despite war’s inherent chaos, the human mind could identify and exploit patterns within it. Science and analysis had successfully revolutionized not just the tools but the conduct of war, with a surety and decisiveness that had not been seen since the Romans. And the Dutch realized that they were more than just the beneficiaries of that growing trend; they themselves had begun to amplify and perfect it.

  And today was the day that the broad benefits of those new capabilities and competencies would overflow into the streets of Oranjestad, almost all at once. That timing was part happy coincidence, part careful coordination, and all about creating a pervasive sense of prosperity and plenty. Which was quite a trick, since neither of those things had actually arrived, just yet.

  But to look out in that anchorage, you would never have guessed it. Eddie had to hand it to Jan van Walbeeck, the Dutch governor of St. Eustatia, for having orche
strated the convergence of all this traffic and trade in a most impressive fashion. The intercontinental radio on the island’s southern volcanic mountain—The Quill—had made it possible to estimate, to within a few days, when the first major convoy from Europe would finally arrive. For security reasons, direct references to it in the telegraph traffic had to be coded and sparse, but as it coalesced back in the Netherlands and the USE, van Walbeeck was able to track its growing readiness, then its departure date, and then a last confirmation from it when underway.

  It was not just the first true resupply mission to St. Eustatia, and through it, the other Dutch colonies in the Caribbean. It was also the first formation of ships to leave the Netherlands since its ports had been blockaded by the Spanish after the Battle of Dunkirk. With eleven well-loaded fluyts at its core, its defense accompaniment had been even more impressive. In addition to a pair of men-of-war that had been in process of construction when Fernando surrounded Amsterdam, it also boasted the first true frigate designs to arrive in the New World. Lower and longer than prior warships, and with almost nonexistent foc’sles and quarterdecks, the four ships—one Swedish, one Danish, and two Dutch—were proudly billed as the first of their class. Which, Eddie knew, was a nice way of saying, “these were prototypes made to assess performance and discover design flaws.” Which they had, and which had been corrected to the extent possible. Still, it was like hand-me-down clothes presented as a new outfit.

  The same was true with the two new USE steamships that accompanied them. One was the sole sister ship of Courser, the Harrier. Although successful, that first class of steam destroyer—the Speed class—had taught Simpson and his designers many lessons, both during their construction and first half year of operation. The result was to discontinue production of that model and introduce a revised version, the Speed Two. Superficially, it seemed the same except for their naming convention, but it had significant differences in terms of hull strengthening, steam plant and propeller design, and electrical wiring and redundancy. The first of that class, the untested Relentless, had been deployed to the New World as her shakedown cruise, as had Courser before her. Again, a much-touted arrival that was actually added to the allied fleet to see if and when and how it would break.