1637: No Peace Beyond the Line

by Eric Flint

  He lowered a broad palm to the table. “But this—all these details—do not show the way ahead. Critique is the handmaiden of analysis, but that means doing more than just acknowledging and compiling a list of our failures. They must form the basis of our new strategy, our new action.”

  He looked into each of the other faces in turn. “Governor Gamboa not only agrees with that principle but has already acted upon it. Because if we are to win this war, we must think far beyond where we shall move our pieces on the game board. We must change the rules by which we have been playing.

  “The first way we must do this is to no longer think as though we are the master of the region and every battlefield within it. We most obviously are not, and the longer we refuse to acknowledge that, the deeper the strategic deficit we shall accrue.”

  Gallardo was nodding. “Impressive words. They make a man want to jump up and take action. But where, and for what reason?”

  “Excellent questions, Captain, because they exemplify one of our habits of thought that must be changed.” Fadrique steepled his hands. “As long as we deluded ourselves into thinking that the so-called ‘allies’ were but a nuisance, that we were still the undisputed masters of the New World, we continued to choose targets the way a rich man chooses his meals; what do I feel like today?”

  He leaned forward. “Now that we acknowledge that we are no longer so wealthy, we must instead ask: where can I get a meal, even if it is a smaller and meaner one? Because it is only by seizing every opportunity to nourish ourselves with a victory that we are likely to survive.

  “Up until now, we have thought in terms of defeating the allies in one or two great battles, believing that our prowess and numbers could not help but carry the day. We have now been proven wrong no less than three times: at Grenada, then off Vieques, and now in the shadow of Dominica. So let us put aside the visions of trying to draw our adversaries into great battles. Such engagements no longer favor us. Quite the contrary.”

  De Covilla was nodding, eyes narrowed. “So we choose smaller targets and attack them with smaller forces.”

  De Viamonte shook his head, but was looking at Fadrique. “No, my young captain. I suspect the admiral means that we should choose smaller targets but attack them with massive forces.”

  Yes, you still think like a military man, my friend, Álvarez thought as he nodded at Juan’s emendation. Why did you never tell me you have worn a morion, too? “His Excellency sees my meaning with complete clarity.”

  Gallardo was sitting forward in his chair; his face showed the same vicious species of excitement as a man wagering on a cockfight. “So at what may we strike?”

  De Covilla shook his head. “I believe our first step must be to define where we may not attack, and why.”

  The governor nodded. “Precisely. We cannot engage the allies as we did at Grenada, where we were unwitting. Nor can we presume that any of our formations are traveling in complete safety, which was ultimately what led to the defeat at Dominica.”

  “And surely, we may not hope to engage their steamships in a conventional engagement on the open seas. Even at Vieques, where numbers and darkness were on our side, they proved invincible.”

  Gallardo looked from one man to the other. “So Gamboa and the admiral say ‘attack!’ and you are speaking of how we cannot? Do you propose that our new strategy is ultimately to defend rather than sail against our foes?”

  Fadrique was beginning to see how Gallardo might grow on a commander. “We speak of where we must defend first so that we may be sure to reserve sufficient forces to keep them safe. And we need no complicated equations to tell us which places we must defend: those cities and strongholds where we build ships and receive supplies from Spain. In short, the places that are most directly and powerfully necessary to our war effort.”

  “So we are to abandon our smaller cities and colonies?”

  “No, but we cannot afford to reduce the forces we have left—those with which we may attack—by sending any to defend them.”

  Now de Covilla was steepling his hands. “Frankly, if our adversaries elect to diminish their concentration of force to cripple such secondary targets, they will then lack sufficient mass to attack our true strongholds. And so, in sacrificing one or two such places, we have achieved our essential objective and kept them from mounting major offensives elsewhere.”

  De Viamonte was frowning. “I have one reservation. Let us take our most fortified city as an example: Cartagena. Even if we turn more of our essential cities into such citadels, is that enough to ensure that they are adequately defended?”

  Álvarez laid his hands flat upon the table. “Let us leave aside the matter of procuring more large guns for such defenses, if for no other reason than this: our guns are more likely to deter rather than defeat an allied attack from the sea. Rather, let us concentrate on the decisive factors in determining their ability to protect themselves: do they have ample available materials to create comparable fortifications, and the masses of labor required to build them?”

  Juan raised an eyebrow. “You have read what the USE ironclad’s guns did to the fortifications at Hamburg less than two years ago?”

  Fadrique nodded. “I have.”

  “And you believe that, for some reason, our fortifications will not succumb to the up-time guns?”

  “No. What I believe is that the up-time guns will not have either the same concentration or freedom of action that they did there. Because this is a large sea and they cannot be in all the places they are needed at once. Nor can they expend their special fuel and their special ammunition with the same surety of ready resupply.”

  De Covilla’s smile was satisfied and a little predatory. “Could the up-timers presently destroy any target, even the greatest of our fortified cities, if they dedicated themselves and their resources to that project? Yes. But can they do it in multiple places, and an infinite number of times? The incremental damage we would inflict upon them and the drain upon their special ammunition and fuel tells us the answer is ‘no.’ And if we are striking at other targets and forcing their steamships to sail hither and thither to repel our forces, they will have less and less freedom to even conceive of such major strikes against us.”

  “So,” said Gallardo, who sounded glad to be returning to the part of the discussion he found most energizing, “where should we be striking to achieve that?”

  “Trinidad,” de Covilla said flatly, as if it was already decided. “They have been there less than a year, it is quite valuable to them, and we have allies in the local Arawak tribes. Its distance from their center of power in the northern Antilles also makes it vulnerable. If we strike undetected and quickly, their steamships cannot respond before the engagement is decided.”

  “But if it is so valuable to them, then will they not strive to retake it, even if they can’t spare their steamships for the task?” Gallardo was genuinely puzzled.

  “All the better,” Álvarez said. “We have no particular need to own Trinidad—other than to keep them pinned to it, like a fly mired in the pitch which they so covet. So let them come retake it. And then we shall take it back. And so forth and so on, a constant drain on their time and resources. Besides, it will not be our worry; it will be Cartagena’s.”

  “You mean, the fleet that was sabotaged at Puerto Cabello last year?”

  De Covilla nodded. “The same. Happily, their losses were not in ships, but supplies. They hadn’t the stores to sail soon enough to meet our fleet at Grenada. They are recovered, now. And at last word, they received orders from the Escorial that they are to carry home their attack this time.”

  De Viamonte rested his chin into his good hand. “Is it known how the allies determined that the Cartagena fleet was staging out of Puerto Cabello for an attack? Because if that mystery has not been solved, then how may de Murga of Cartagena be certain his efforts will not run afoul of the same impediment this year?”

  Fadrique raised a palm. “Like most things that occur a
long Tierra Firme, it is likely we shall never know the cause. But one of the patache captains from La Flota reported overhearing the admiral of the fleet tell how Olivares had, often and in the hearing of many others, railed against the lack of action against the Dutch captain Thijssen, who was confirmed to have been in Curaçao. Which may well have been the venue by which Trinidad got word of the fleet preparing in Puerto Cabello. So he is being urged to consider Thijssen seriously.”

  “Very well,” de Viamonte affirmed with a nod. “With any luck, the forces from Cartagena should not have to contend with any of the difficulties that they, or we, encountered during our attempt to retake Trinidad last year. Not unless the up-timers have left one of their steamships there, that is.”

  De Covilla shrugged. “It is difficult to foresee how or why they would do that, Your Excellency. I have done what reading I can of the few technical articles that we have available from the Grantville library, most of which are in the hands of our shipbuilders in Havana. From what I can deduce, their steam engines may burn wood, but cannot operate for very long with that fuel. I suspect they may use coal or oil.”

  “Oil,” mused de Viamonte. “Could they have seized Trinidad to secure Pitch Lake? That bitumen burns, I am told.”

  De Covilla shrugged. “We do not have complete intelligence on what has been transpiring upon Trinidad, Your Excellency. But what we do have does indeed suggest they have taken it to gain access to the oil that they knew to seek there because of information from their library.”

  “That damned library will make an end of us yet,” growled de Viamonte. Álvarez did not interrupt to point out that although the phrase Juan had chosen was usually used in a figurative context, it might well prove literal in this particular case. “So they do plan to use the oil to fuel their ships.”

  De Covilla’s carefully controlled expression suggested he was trying to find a polite way to correct his superior. “That is certainly a possibility, but the more we learn of their mechanisms, the more unlikely it is that their steamships were built to burn oil, Your Excellency. You see, oil engines do not readily accept any other form of fuel, whereas a coal engine may burn wood as well.

  “In addition to this greater operational flexibility, consider also that Grantville has, from its first arrival, been at great pains to secure sufficient supplies of oil for numerous crucial machines and projects. While it may hope for a different situation in the New World, it is difficult to foresee how or why the USE would build an entire class of ship which requires a fuel source that is, and will for some time remain, unavailable in its home port in Europe. Coal is in more ready supply everywhere, and, although not currently available here, there is certainly no shortage of wood.”

  Fadrique could not determine whether de Viamonte looked more relieved or vexed at de Covilla’s answer. “But then why would they have gone to the trouble and expense of securing Trinidad’s oil?”

  “Because oil is so precious to them, so essential for the function of so many of their most crucial mechanisms, that they may mean to ship it back to Europe.”

  “Can they do so in sufficient quantities?”

  De Covilla shifted in his seat. “Before the hearing of La Flota’s sad fate, I would have said no. At least I would have said, ‘not yet.’ The USE does not possess a ready excess of hulls that could be tasked to transport oil, certainly not of the right kind.”

  De Viamonte frowned. “But now you have a different answer? Why? And what does the loss of La Flota have to do with it?”

  Fadrique put his forehead in his hands as he realized what de Covilla was driving at, and damned himself for not seeing it until now. “Madre de dios. This was part of their plan. That is why they went to such lengths, took such risks, to capture so many of our ships.”

  He looked up, saw that only he understood what de Covilla was intimating. “Our ships . . . or rather, our naos. Don’t you see? They could easily be converted to freight liquids in bulk. And oil is lighter than water, so they will perform more admirably with that filling their holds.”

  De Viamonte’s face was white with suppressed rage. “So we provided them with the convoy ships they needed?”

  De Covilla’s voice was careful. “That would both validate and explain the extraordinary ambition and risks of their plan. Conversely, it would be difficult to believe that our enemy could have spent so much time and care considering all the ramifications of that operation without perceiving that naos could be tasked to provide the means of getting Trinidad’s oil to Europe.

  “No doubt they would have—and still will—build special hulls to serve in that capacity. But with the Ottomans attacking and the USE’s resources stretched thin to answer that southern threat, there could have been a very long delay in realizing that ambition. This, however, is an immediate and elegant solution. Having our naos to transport the oil now is an operational bridge between this moment and the time when their shipbuilding resources may be retasked to create specially crafted oil convoyers.”

  “Very well,” de Viamonte agreed angrily, “let us presume that they seized parts of Trinidad for its oil. But if so, then why do you think they will not protect it with one of their steamships?”

  Fadrique grunted. “Frankly, I’d be delighted if they did leave one behind. That’s one less somewhere else. And individually, they actually have some vulnerabilities. But I do not think they will leave one at Trinidad simply because I doubt they would station it so far from their one safe port.

  “The strategic importance of that port, on whichever island it is, far outstrips any other consideration. It is where they must house their troops, cache their supplies, perform their maintenance, coordinate their command staffs. If they were to lose that, they would lose everything else in short order. Conversely, if they keep that port, they have reason to hope that they may eventually regain whatever else they may lose. No, the Cartagena fleet will not need to face the up-time guns, fortunately.”

  “The question is,” mused de Viamonte turning toward de Covilla, “how many Dutch ships will they face if they try to seize Curaçao?”

  The young liaison smoothed his silk vest. “The day of our last council, I sent word to Governor de Murga in Cartagena of our resolves, and of the expedients we planned to employ here in the Antilles. We had a packet back from His Excellency just two days ago, bearing word that he had received our messages, was moving with all haste to coordinate his actions with ours, and that he was giving our plan for ‘recruiting auxiliaries’ serious consideration. As it turns out, he had already established contacts among Tierra Firme’s so-called Brethren of the Coast. He considers them a ‘distasteful’ solution to the problem of Curaçao, but conceded that it was prudent and probably the only reasonable alternative to attacking it himself. Which would probably alert the defenders of Trinidad to his ultimate designs on them and so give them enough time to summon and receive reinforcements. But as to whether he has acted as he intended, or fortune has seen to interfere in some fashion, that is beyond my power to determine, Your Excellency. I can only add that, in the matter of de Murga settling affairs at Curaçao, Olivares’ desires and exhortations were in alignment with our own.”

  De Viamonte nodded. “This is most reassuring, Eugenio. I just wish we could coordinate these far-flung actions as swiftly as our foes do.”

  Fadrique nodded, thinking, But we never will. Not so long as we are relying upon packets and advice boats tacking across headwinds while they have radios that send messages in—literally—the blink of an eye. He saw from de Viamonte’s frown that he still had misgivings about Curaçao. “Your Excellency, as to the conditions along Tierra Firme, I would not task myself with worry. De Murga is a good man and resolute. He will do what needs doing, when it is needed.” Even if he hates having to do it.

  “So, where else?” asked Gallardo impatiently. “The English colonies, perhaps? They are small and vulnerable, without any succor from a king that has utterly abandoned them.”

  De Viamonte h
eld up a hand. “Be not too hasty, old friend. St. Christopher and Nevis are almost certainly within the protective ring projected by the Dutch base. It is not inconceivable that it might be on one of them, in fact. And the others are simply too far, at this point. Barbados is well east of the Windward Isles: a far reach for us. The Somers Isles are an even farther reach, and we haven’t the ships to consider such far-flung attacks. Better we use what assets we have to pin down the location of the allies’ center of power.”

  “And once it’s located,” Gallardo said eagerly, “maybe the pirates could be induced to sack it!”

  De Covilla glanced at Fadrique. “The admiral has expressed doubt that they could do so successfully.”

  “Until we know what is there, we cannot even hazard a guess.” He shrugged. “I would presume they would invest in its protection. They might even tie down a steamship to protect it, although they are just as likely to be unwilling to purchase that safety at the expense of foreswearing so many opportunities for mounting swift attacks and counterattacks. But if it proves to be poorly defended, our privateers would enthusiastically overcome and sack it, and so do great damage to our foes’ strategic locus.”

  De Viamonte turned an unconcerned wrist in the air. “And if it is strongly held, then it is they who suffer the costs of that discovery, and we who shall benefit from the report of those who survive to reveal its actual location.”

  De Covilla leaned forward to speak, but paused, abashed. Fadrique nodded encouragement, sat back as the young hidalgo began speaking softly. “In the interests of Spain and our king, I am honor bound to point out that we also enjoy an advantage that is, in itself, an instrument of no honor at all.” The others looked blankly at his puzzling words. He sighed, said more loudly, “Our spy network is vastly better than any our adversaries employ. If they even do. And our mission from Holy Mother Church would seem to allow us the use of such creatures insofar as we are her chosen servitors and her survival and success is therefore tied inextricably to ours.”