1637: No Peace Beyond the Line

by Eric Flint

  “That won’t be necessary. But, hey: we can signal back now, right?”

  Karl straightened. “Firstly, Herr Major, I very much doubt the ship is in range to send signals back to The Quill Array; it only receives them and sends them on to us. But more important, I strongly—strongly—advise against sending any signals. If I may confirm my suspicion?”

  Larry blinked. “Uh, sure.”

  Karl turned sharply to the radio operator. “Have you been instructed or invited to reply?”

  The operator shook his head.

  Karl turned just as sharply back toward Larry. “Headquarters means for us to maintain radio silence.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Herr Major, it was no different in your time; it is by sending a response that you may be located. The same principles apply.”

  “Yeah, but we had electronic warfare units working on both sides of the border, and directional finders and . . . ” Larry slowed to a halt. Then: “Of course. Directional finders.”

  Morgan scowled. “C’mon, Larry. That’s bonkers. The Spanish probably don’t even have any radios in the New World yet. And they sure as hell don’t have directional finders.”

  Larry shook his head. “Mason, if they have radios here, then they do have directional finders. Of a sort. Picture this: every once in a while a Spanish ship passes within a hundred miles of here, maybe two hundred. And their radio just happens to be on and scanning frequencies when the folks on the relay ship are sending to us. First time it happens? The Spanish write it off as a . . . a freak of nature.”

  “Anomalous meteorological conditions,” Karl supplied quietly.

  “Right,” affirmed Larry, nodding. “That. But then it happens a second and a third time. So they start plotting where it’s been happening. And—”

  “And then they start drawing the same circle on a map that Karl was just talking about,” Mason said, nodding.

  “Yup,” Larry agreed. “Karl, you have made your point. In spades. Inform all the radio operators: do not reply until asked to do so.”

  “Herr Major, if I may suggest an emendation: they are not to reply until asked in code.”

  Larry smiled at his new up-timer oil experts and hooked a thumb over his shoulder at Karl. “That right there is my number one weapon. Do it like you said it, Karl!”

  “I shall pass the word immediately.” Klemm proffered a strip of paper. “Also, here is the completed content of the first coded message, Herr Major.”

  “Karl? I’m Larry. Larry. Repeat after me: Laaa-rreeee.”

  Karl smiled as though he was being pinched. Hard. “Yes, sir. We are receiving another coded transmission now. It is in a blind code, I believe.”

  “A what?” asked Jennifer.

  “You probably have another name for it, Ms. Garrett. The message’s prefix indicates that it is not a cipher. These are words, or a phrase, which are sent in the clear, but have special meanings, known only to those with a codebook defining what each of those words or phrases means. We call it a ‘blind code’ because deciphering it still does not provide any useful knowledge. Indeed, in some cases, dummy, or meaningless, code words are sent just to give the enemy the impression that there may be an ongoing operation, when in fact—”

  Quinn closed his eyes since he could not close his ears. “Karl?”

  “Yes, Herr Ma—Larry?”

  “Get me the incoming transmission as soon as all of it has been received.”

  “Jawowl . . . eh, at once, Herr Ma—” He looked like he was passing a kidney stone. “Larry.”

  Morgan looked over Larry’s shoulder at the first message and frowned. “What the hell is all that?”

  “Coordinates. Codes for rules of engagement. Target date for mission completion.”

  “What mission?” asked Mason suspiciously.

  Larry shook his head, pushed back at the rising annoyance. “Grantville says we’re to send a contingent to search for the Lake Salvador oil and gas deposits, just a day’s walk from the banks of the Mississippi. Not too far from New Orleans, apparently. And they’re asking us to cajole the Ishak into helping us.” He laughed.

  “And that’s funny . . . ?” Jennifer asked with a frown.

  “In the worst possible way. Best I’ve been able to figure out, the Ishak are not exactly on friendly terms with those particular neighbors.” He crumpled up the message, was tempted to throw it into the soggy weeds. “Damn it, we have enough to do here. Hell, they don’t even know you guys have finally hit oil and the big shots in Grantville are already shoving us at the next site?”

  Mason took Larry aside; Morgan and Jennifer had become interested in the ongoing attempts to sort out the incoming signals from background noise. The older man lowered his voice. “Larry, I don’t think this is just about the oil. It’s about the Mississippi.”

  Larry nodded. “Yeah, I get that. The North American arterial system in the form of a single river. But what is Ed Piazza thinking? That if—well, when—the Spanish tweak to us here, and then get an inkling of what we’re doing, they’re going to make a grab for these oil fields up near New Orleans?”

  “Sure. That, and put a roadblock between us and the rest of the continental U.S.”

  “Well, not the ‘continental U.S.’: that’s never gonna exist in the here and now. But yeah, I see what you mean. But since this continent sure as hell isn’t ours, what’s the motivation? To keep the Spanish from grabbing their own oil field? Denying them access to the interior’s resources? Or just us protecting the indigenous peoples?”

  Mason’s smile was rueful. “How about answer D: all of the above?”

  Larry glanced at him. “You know something I don’t. They talked to you. About what comes next.”

  Mason shrugged. “You know how this works, Larry. You’re not the only one who gets orders they can’t discuss.”

  Quinn looked off into the mists. “Yeah, I was afraid you’d say that. But let’s say the real answer is D, all of the above. How the hell do we achieve all that with this small group?”

  Mason looked away, evasive. “Well . . . we probably don’t do it at all. At least not yet.”

  Quinn frowned. “That has the stink of shitty orders given for shitty reasons. Come clean, Mason, at least on this much: what’s the concept of operations? How are we supposed to achieve ‘all of the above’?”

  Mason shrugged; the gesture was not entirely relaxed or comfortable. “Recruit the locals.”

  “Why? So they can be bullet sponges for the Spanish?” This didn’t sound like Piazza, or even Stearns. “Who’s pushing this agenda?”

  “All the leadership, so far as I know. And the idea is not to have the locals fight the Spanish. They’re to come inform us when the Spanish begin nosing around. We’re going to do the fighting.”

  Quinn looked over his shoulder at the meager camp. “Oh, yeah, that’s not anything like suicide.”

  Mason sighed. “Look, we don’t have perfect answers right now. Particularly not with the crap that’s starting back home.”

  Larry frowned. “And what crap would that be?”

  Mason leaned closer, lowered his voice. “The Ottomans.”

  Larry leaned away. “No shit? Well, that explains why everyone’s still acting like we’re as confident as church mice and as overextended as a rubber band in a tug of war. Because that’s pretty much our situation if the Turks are on the march.”

  “And they have been,” Mason added quietly. “For months.”

  Jennifer came trotting back. “Larry, Karl’s got complete copy on the second message.”

  “Well, that was quick.” They started back to the comm shack. “Better reception, this time?”

  “No. Still a lot of atmospherics ruining the signal. But it was really short. So the fifteen passes went pretty quickly.”

  Larry nodded just before they met Karl as he exited the shack, Morgan right behind him. “Major, this is most peculiar.”

  “What’s the code?”

&nbs
p; He frowned. “I don’t know. It is only four characters. C, colon, C, R.” He looked at Larry. “C:CR: what does this mean?”

  Larry suddenly felt quite cool despite the heat and humidity. In fact, he felt a chill run out from his spine along his shoulders. “This is one of about a dozen Emergency Contingency Codes.”

  Karl nodded solemnly. “May I ask what it stands for?”

  “Well, the message prefix didn’t lie; it is what you call a ‘blind code.’ The Emergency Contingencies are only initials, though. This one,” Quinn sighed, “is ‘Contingency: Class Reunion.’”

  “‘Class Reunion’?” Morgan repeated with a laugh. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means exactly what it says, Mr. Hart. It’s telling us that there’s a special event and we’ve all got to go back home for it.”

  “Yeah, but what—?”

  Larry Quinn was on the move. He stuck his head in the radio shack. “Signalman, immediate send to Captain Haraldsen. Courser and Harrier are weighing anchor in twenty-four hours. Coordinates for course will be relayed soonest. All ops and provisioning teams are to be recalled immediately. Except wood-gathering parties. They are to remain active until the last possible hour.

  “Patentia, the jacht Vogelstruis, and USE frigate Svarta Hunden are to maneuver into the Lower Mud Pond, staying in the deepest anchorage, close to the Gulf.”

  He turned to openmouthed Jennifer Garrett. “You’re the expert on crude oil separation, right?”

  “Well, I’m not really an exp—okay; yes, that’s me,” she gulped.

  “Have you separated the first flow from the well?”

  “Just today. It’s hard to say if—”

  “I need you to separate out as much as can be used for combustibles in the next twenty-two hours. Your operations have priority over all others.”

  “Are you looking for bunker oil, Larry?”

  “I’m looking for anything in which we can soak wood so that it will burn hotter and faster.” His eyes went to Morgan. “How much lumber do you have left over from building the derrick?”

  “Uh, about a whole second derrick’s worth.”

  “I need half of that on the steam launch in two hours. I need it out of the Nezpique and into the Mermentau by day’s end. I need it alongside Courser and Harrier, ready for transfer, by morning.”

  “Yeah, but—!”

  “And Karl?”

  “Sir?”

  Larry smiled. “You need to brief your assistants on how to take over for you. You have twelve hours. After that, you are on the next boat back to Courser.”

  “Sir? But . . . but my job is here!”

  “Karl, you don’t have just one job. Hell, you’re our Renaissance man.”

  Karl frowned. “According to most of your up-time academics, the Renaissance would now be considered over. This is the Age of Enlightenment.”

  Larry laughed. “Better still. Even more than I knew, you are a man of your time. And just the man I need. Your work here is done. Ready for a new adventure?”

  “I am not sure.”

  “Well, it should be a welcome change. You’ll be using both new and old skills.”

  Karl frowned. “Given my past, I remain unsure that I find the sound of that appealing.”

  “Unsurety and change are the only human constants, Karl. As a man of science, I’m sure you can’t argue with that. So you might say this is just changing your current collection of unsureties for a whole new set of them. And here’s the bonus: on this new adventure? No mosquitos. Hell, no bugs at all.”

  Karl straightened. “I am ready, Herr Major!”

  Larry patted Karl on the shoulder with a cheery nod. “I knew you would be!”

  And, silently: Oh, if you only knew how ready you are . . .

  Chapter 51

  Staubles Bay and Fort St. Patrick, Trinidad

  Bram Ditmerszoon stared westward over the Bay of Paria and pushed aside his plate of cassava loaves, smoked goat, and papaya. It was sound food, to be certain, but it was also horribly predictable, since that is what the Nepoia brought to the main garrison at Port-of-Spain every week. Without fail. And without variance.

  The culinary boredom that Bram and his five fellow coast watchers experienced was, however, the lesser part of his food-related concerns. His deepest worry was the dozens, maybe hundreds, of Spanish prisoners clustered on nearby Nelson Island, survivors from last year’s Battle of Grenada. It was possible that they might ultimately be driven to desperation and attempted escape, since they enjoyed even less variety in their diet. Granted, it was unlikely they would get very far. Although the Nepoia delivered the food to Port-of-Spain, from whence the newly planted Dutch garrison could effect its delivery to the Spanish on the now denuded island, those natives never returned home immediately. Instead, in shifts, they squatted by the shore and stared out at Nelson Island. They had agreed that the Spanish would be allowed to stay there, unmolested, until a means of repatriating them was worked out. But the Nepoia had endured many decades of slavery and abuse at the hands of landowning hidalgos, and so, were not content to rely upon six Dutchmen stationed over a mile away on a headland to monitor their foes via a spyglass. Accordingly, the natives had taken to crouching in the underbrush just off the shore, spears and bows in hand, waiting—perhaps hoping—for one of the Spanish to attempt an escape. So far, none had tried.

  Fortunately, overseeing Spanish prisoners was only a secondary job for Bram and his small detachment from the garrison in Port-of-Spain. Their primary duty was to maintain a day and night watch on the narrow northernmost expanses of the Bay of Paria, those which communicated with the Dragon’s Mouth and the Caribbean beyond. It was through that stretch of water, visible from their four-hundred-foot perch, that a Spanish fleet must come.

  And so, once again fulfilling that dull, uneventful duty with a bored sigh, Bram snatched up the spyglass with which they watched for the Cartagena armada and aimed it westward, seeking the thin green rim that marked the Paria Peninsula on the other side of the deep blue bay.

  But on that wave-stippled expanse, a scattering of black waterbugs topped by white pennants was entering the northern extent of his field of vision. And those bugs were precisely what, at this range, ships looked like. Big ones. At least twenty-five of them and all headed south.

  “Gerlach!” Bram shouted. “Gerlach! Are you at the radio?”

  A sleepy voice answered. “Yes. I’m manning the radio. In my hammock.”

  “Damn your lazy ass! Get on your feet and crank up the wireless. The Cartagena fleet is coming through the Dragon’s Mouth!”

  Fort St. Patrick, Trinidad

  O’Bannon joined them on the second floor of the blockhouse. “The Spanish will be here by tomorrow noon. The Tropic Surveyor and jachts hiding up in Scotland Bay have received the message as well and are setting out now.”

  “And will they beat the Spanish here?” asked Ann Koudsi, who found war much more frightening than oil wells.

  The Dutch admiral named Cornelis Jol, but whom everyone called Peg Leg (or its Dutch equivalent, Houtebeen), smiled. “Those ships are not supposed to beat the Spanish here. Not quite.” He looked away without offering any further clarification. “When will you launch the balloon?”

  At a nod from Hugh O’Donnell, sprightly Tearlach Mulryan answered with a smile. “Not until we can see them clearly.”

  “Doesn’t that rather defeat the purpose of observing them?” asked the big, Danish-born Dutch captain Hjalmar van Holst.

  Hugh shook his head. “No. Because in this case, we’re not using it for spotting at a distance but for tactical information. If they knew we have the balloon, they might take steps to minimize its effectiveness, to adopt a formation that gives as few clues to their intents as possible. This way, if they do not see it until they are within a few miles, it will be too late to change or disguise their plans. But we will still be in a position to see when and where they are sending landing parties, and the like. If they are tr
ying to outflank us, we shall know. If they are landing a second wave of troops, again, we shall know. And if they have spotted your ships where they are hidden and are separating some of their own to engage you, we can use the wireless to alert you. You will have complete information on how many ships, how many guns each, how fast, and on what heading.”

  Peg Leg nodded. “Yes. That will be the important information in this battle. Given that the greater part of our little fleet is hiding to the southwest, behind the little nub of land the maps label as Point Fortin, we’ll need that coordination to know exactly when to weigh anchor and join the battle. And hopefully, we’ll catch them by surprise once they’ve all navigated closer to land to duel with your cannon.”

  Doyle, the engineer, smiled, big teeth dominating his thin face. “Yes, I’m eager to have them make that mistake, given all the work we’ve done pre-ranging the guns and plotting their precise impact points.”

  “Their what?” asked Ulrich, who seemed tense as he stood beside Ann in his wildcatting coveralls.

  “The guns of our fortifications will start this battle waiting to engage targets at preset ranges,” explained O’Bannon. He gestured at Doyle and the other officers of the Wild Geese. “You see, when these fellows took possession of the artillery you salvaged from the defeated galleons at the Battle of Grenada Passage, they started calculating where they themselves would position ships to bombard the fort. Then they pre-targeted those areas. That’s why you’ve heard them firing all the captured Spanish pieces for which they’ve dug a battery into the braced earthworks before the fort and the ravelin that extends beyond it to the east.”

  Ulrich shrugged. “I am certainly no soldier. I simply believed that they were firing the guns to make sure they still functioned.”

  “Well, that too,” commented Doyle, who was making minute corrections to the many maps and charts spread out on the table before them, “but it was equally important to see just where they’d hit, given a fixed battery position, a precise measure of powder, and a precise weight of ball.”