1637: No Peace Beyond the Line

by Eric Flint

  Ann frowned. “‘Fixed position’? You mean, the guns can’t be moved?”

  “Oh no,” Doyle said with a smile, “we’ll be able to work them about again after the first discharge. The damn iron beasts will jump off their chocks, fer sure. Nothing less than the hand of God could hold them still when they go off. But the first time they speak in defense of our walls—well, let’s just say they’ve been waiting for weeks to be called upon to do just that. And if they don’t hit right away, we’ll have a good measure from which to adjust when we roll them back into their marked positions.”

  Ann looked around the council of war and asked the question that had been gnawing at her since she and Ulrich had been summoned from the oil separation facilities. “There’s one part of all this that I don’t understand. Why are we”—she included Ulrich in her gesture—“here at all? For safety?”

  Hugh glanced at Peg Leg. They shared a sly smile. “No, Ann,” answered O’Donnell. “We called you here to share your expertise and your resources.”

  A sharp, surprised laugh flew out of Ann’s mouth before she could stop it. “Our expertise? So, you want us to pump some oil for you? In the middle of a battle?”

  Hugh’s smile only grew more sly. “In a manner of speaking, Ms. Koudsi, in a manner of speaking . . . ”

  * * *

  Ann Koudsi wiped the back of one oil-reeking hand across her brow as she picked up her empty bucket. She turned her back on the timber-and-plank-littered expanse just east of Fort St. Patrick and started walking back toward its walls.

  Ulrich, waiting patiently in front of the berm-fronted trench line that ran from and extended the south-leaning curve of the earthwork lunette, smiled at her. “You are done, then? Finally?”

  For the first time in half an hour, Ann looked around. She was, in fact, the last of her crew to leave the dumping ground that had started as the graveyard of ship timbers that had washed ashore after the first Battle of Fort St. Patrick. She also discovered that the half hour which had passed since her last check of the area had, in fact, been closer to two hours. She smiled back at Ulrich. “I’m a determined woman. When I set my mind to something, I get it done.”

  Ulrich’s smile suddenly became private, reminded her of similar smiles in their shared bedroom. “Yes,” he commented. “How well I know that.”

  “Yeah,” she smirked. “And you love it.”

  “I most certainly do. As I love you. Which is why you are leaving this place. Now.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. “But why the urgency?”

  “Because,” he said, pointing out into the Bay of Paria, “the Spanish are not as late as we hoped they might be.”

  Ann turned north and drew in so sharp a breath that she once again became painfully aware of the acrid petroleum stink in the air all around them.

  She had been updated on the precise numbers and types of the Spanish hulls—eighteen galleons and galleoncetes, five apparent transport or supply ships, and a single patache—but had not imagined that they would look so daunting when they appeared, all at once. “That’s a lot of ships,” she gulped. Not compared to all the ones she had seen in Oranje Bay, perhaps . . . but those had been friendly.

  Ulrich nodded, motioned toward the earthen glacis that now shielded the lower two thirds of St. Patrick’s palisade. “We should get inside with the rest of the workers.” She heard a resigned finality in his voice.

  “What? And stay in there? That’s where the Spanish are going to be aiming their guns!”

  “True. But they are also sure to land hundreds of troops, who may rove anywhere once they come ashore.” He tugged her arm. “Come, Ann. We shall be safer in there than out here.”

  For the first time in her life, Ann had a sensation that she imagined might be a close cousin to claustrophobia. She held back. “No, I’ve got to check—”

  “The fuses are fine. And the bamboo tubes protecting them have been buried, so you cannot check them without disrupting them.” He cupped her chin in his broad hand. “I know you do not wish to be locked inside the walls of the fort.” He smiled. “That, too, is part of who you are. I think it is why every time I bring up the subject of marriage, you quickly change the subject: you feel the walls of eternity closing in around you. But now, this one time, you must put aside that fear of walls if you are to survive. Please, Ann: come with me now.”

  She looked at the field of broken strakes and planks behind her, then out at the Spanish fleet, then at the Dutch gunners, hunching behind the immense Spanish cannon that pointed toward the oncoming sails. She nodded. “Okay,” she said.

  Ulrich smiled, started to lead her toward the fort, found her arm still resisting his pressure to move. He frowned. “You said okay, did you not?”

  She nodded and gulped. “Yes, I said okay. I’m just trying to get used to the idea. It’s hard for me.”

  “Being in the fort will not be—”

  “I’m not talking about the fort,” she interrupted. “I’m talking about marriage. But I think I’m okay with it, now.” Refusing to react to Ulrich’s sudden, flabbergasted smile, she snarled, “Now let’s not stand out here talking. I’ll be damned if I become a widow before I get to be a wife.”

  * * *

  For young Tearlach Mulryan, who was the senior aviator among the Wild Geese, being aloft in the balloon had become second nature. Indeed, on peaceful days, when the air was clear and the winds mild, he caught himself nodding off in the harness, lulled to sleep by the distant murmur of the waves and the serene blue that was both below and above him.

  But he had no problems with drowsiness at the moment. He signaled for McGillicuddy, chief of the ground crew, to stop playing out the line when, for the fourth time today, he reached five hundred feet. Experience had shown that even the best shots found it all but impossible to hit a man at that height with down-time weapons. Projectiles lost their power quickly when fired at so steep an angle, and correcting fire was problematical. Even the smallest variation in weight of the ball, or the amount or fineness of powder in the charge were variables that confounded precise adjustments over multiple attempts at such a target.

  If the Spanish were interested in experimenting with such long-range, high-angle marksmanship, they had not given any sign of it. As if thoroughly unconcerned with the presence of the balloon, they had set about their business with a supremely confident disregard for any such minor surprises. When they had reached the two-mile mark, they had shortened their canvas, slowing and assessing the earthworks that had been thrown up before and to the east of the fort. Then they had fully unfurled their sails once again and resumed their approach.

  Three of their transport/supply noas lumbered off even further to the east, making for the promontory bearing the name Pitch Point. Separated from the fort by slightly more than half a mile, there was a strand just west of it that offered optimally shallow landing conditions for longboats filled with armored troops. In the weeks of planning prior to this day, it had been presumed that the inevitable Spanish attackers would choose that very spot for that very purpose, and after much deliberation, it had been decided not to contest a landing there. Struggling in the open field against the presumably superior numbers of the Spanish was, as Colonel O’Donnell had put it, fighting the enemy’s battle. The two hundred and thirty Wild Geese and one hundred and eighty Dutch soldiers and artillerists would shelter in their defenses, a (hopefully) tempting target for the gunnery officers aboard the approaching galleons.

  But that plan had presupposed at least a reasonable wind from the northeast or the east. That would have allowed Peg Leg’s flotilla of seven ships—his own Achilles, van Holst’s Vereenigte Provintien, Amsterdam, Sampson, Overijssel, Thetis, and Jochim Gijszoon’s jacht Kater—to catch the wind in a close reach and head northward. They would then have pushed a mile past the headland that was the fort’s western flank, Point Galba, and come around through the wind, close-hauled as they backtracked southeast to engage the Spanish ships that would presumably be
crowded close against the land to conduct a bombardment.

  But today the wind was uncharacteristically blowing from the northwest, which forced Peg Leg’s small fleet to tack aggressively just to get around Point Galba. Consequently, although it had been three hours since the Spanish topgallants had peeked over the horizon, Peg Leg still had an hour of tricky sailing left before he could round Point Galba, and, turning it, head directly into battle. A northwest wind meant he’d at least have the consolation of winds on a broad reach when he turned toward his foe, and so, unexpectedly gave him the weather gauge, albeit narrowly so.

  However, for any of that to matter, Peg Leg would still have to arrive in time. Originally, it had been hoped that his fleet would worry the Spanish enough to compel them to abandon any plans to land troops. But with his flotilla so badly delayed, the burning question had become whether or not the Spanish shelling would sufficiently reduce Fort St. Patrick to allow their landing forces to carry it, despite the surprises O’Bannon and Doyle were waiting to spring on them.

  The Spanish were apparently impatient to put their own rather predictable plans into action. Arrayed in two echelons of ten and eight warships respectively, the five lead galleons were now cruising within three hundred yards of the steep twelve-foot drop that separated Fort St. Patrick from the Bay of Paria. They reefed sails as they approached the positions from which they meant to conduct their bombardment. Which were, in two cases, precisely the positions that the Irish and Dutch officers had anticipated.

  While the Spanish had no doubt predicted that the guns of the fort would respond to their attack, and had perhaps even predicted that their enemy had guessed the positions from which they might do so, they had apparently not foreseen or detected that the guns arrayed along the earthworks, the ravelin, and even the facing corner of the lunette were nothing less than forty-two-pounders. The roar of these twelve pieces and the sudden storm cloud of smoke they sent tumbling outward toward the galleons seemed to hush the tableau beneath Mulryan’s feet into a moment of stunned stillness. Then, frenetic activity seemed to start everywhere at once.

  Three of the twelve balls found their marks on the two galleons that had been targeted, from which planks and strakes flew upward. The sail handlers on those galleons, and their three unattacked fellows went back to work with a will, unfurling their sails yet again to catch the wind and carry them further out and, at least for now, out of the action. Meanwhile, the Dutch gunners were busy swabbing their pieces and readying the next charges. The two nao that had almost arrived at Pitch Point hastily began lowering their long boats. The two others were loitering at the six-hundred-yard mark, evidently waiting for the outcome of the first landing force to determine where they should put their own ashore. But at the sound of the fort’s guns, they came about slowly, putting more distance between themselves and the shore. The telegraph clattered at Mulryan’s side, requesting updated observations of what Commodore Cantrell called “the battlespace.”

  Mulryan tapped his reply almost as easily and familiarly as if he had been speaking it aloud, watching as the second echelon of Spanish ships seemed to react to the allied cannon fire as well. That made little sense, since those eight warships were still almost a half mile offshore. But then Mulryan saw that their reaction was in response to an entirely different stimulus: Tropic Surveyor and her two escorts, the jachts Leeuwinne and Noordsterre, had now appeared on the horizon, directly behind the Spanish, running fresh and fast with the wind.

  The ships in the Spaniards’ second echelon broke into two parts. The smaller element, three galleons, actually bore closer to the shore, but stopped short of joining the first echelon. They were apparently now a closely positioned rearguard. Meanwhile, the larger part of the second echelon, three galleons and two galleoncetes, came about and struggled to find at least a beam-reaching breeze with which they could make northerly progress. No mean feat for square-rigged vessels, although the galleoncetes clearly had the easier time of it. However, if their mission was to intercept and defeat the three enemy ships which had appeared to their rear and which possessed more suitable rigging and the weather gauge, they had little choice but to struggle northward however they might. And as Tearlach watched, the three galleons of that group fell into irons, losing way entirely.

  Mulryan frowned. If the northbound Spanish ships were now in irons—

  He scanned the galleons more nearly below him. They were now turning their prows more confidently to the northwest and began shelling the fort from almost four hundred yards range. The Spanish patache, which was patrolling near Point Galba, now filled her sails directly from the north.

  God’s balls! Mulryan blasphemed silently as he sent the observation swiftly down the wire to the ground station. The timing could not be worse for the wind to shift and come straight out of the north. Although that would help Peg Leg pass Point Galba a little sooner, he would no longer have the weather gauge when he rounded it. Both he and the Spanish would have the wind abeam. Which meant that after their long delay, the Dutch ships would not even enjoy much maneuver advantage when they confronted the Spanish. And if Tropic Surveyor’s light squadron did not engage the five northbound Spaniards soon enough, they could come about and add themselves back to the force that would be confronting Peg Leg.

  Mulryan put the spyglass to his eye, twisted westward in his harness. Less than half a mile from Point Galba now, the six warships and one jacht of Cornelis Jol’s command were nearing that point at which there would be a clear line of sight between them and the patrolling patache. Which would surely signal the eight remaining warships addressing the fort.

  The Spanish would likely break off from their bombardment, and if joined by the small three-galleon rearguard from the second echelon, that would give them nine galleons and two galleoncetes. And if the two galleons that had been wounded by the fort’s guns swung back in, Peg Leg would be outnumbered almost two to one and facing a weight of shot that was three times his own. Mulryan lowered his spyglass and suddenly felt sick low in his stomach.

  That was the same moment at which the Spanish musketeers in the highest rigging of their ships began filling the air beneath him with small, zipping balls of lead.

  Well, he thought, I guess everything is going to hell all at once.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Juan de Somovilla Tejada did not like close-up soldiering, which was why he had become an engineer. But not a mere sapper, no. Hidalgo status and a modicum of silver had ensured him of education sufficient to perform those rudimentary mathematics needed to oversee, rather than merely physically effect, sieges and both the construction and destruction of fortifications.

  But today, off the coast of Trinidad, his so-called friend Gregorio de Castellar y Mantilla had insisted that he land and personally survey and assess the fortifications at Pitch Lake. So, after having managed to spend years as a soldier who fought wars solely from tents containing map tables and ample supplies of sherry, he had at last come to the scenario he had always dreaded: being within musket shot of his enemies.

  Beneath him, the longboat bucked as it crossed the low bar that sheltered the shallows of the beach beside Point Pitch. “Pardon, Lieutenant,” offered the boat’s pilot, “I am not familiar with these waters.”

  Somovilla grunted, then started as several Dutch guns around the fort spoke again, in near-unison. Coño! Those are our guns, forty-two-pounders! Where did the heathen ass-lickers get them?

  And they had once again found the range. One of the two already damaged galleons, having lagged behind as her crew struggled to repair two snapped mainstays, took two more balls in her portside gun decks. One barely penetrated, but the other broke through her timbers, causing God only knew what carnage and chaos within.

  As the white sand beach rushed at him and his seasoned troops held their pieces high in the anticipation of entering a few feet of water, he looked back at the nao that had landed them and saw her coming about. She was sending signals urgently, apparently in response
to flags from one of the ships preparing to resume shelling the fort. But the glare from the sun-shimmering water was too severe for him to make out the message, and then the longboat tugged to a soft, grinding halt.

  “Out!” yelled his adjutant and company leader, Sergeant Casañas, to the armored troops. “Run the ten paces into the trees and then take cover! Look for natives and kill anything that moves. We’ve no friends left on this part of Trinidad.” He turned to Somovilla, stared quizzically as the men around them leaped into the low surf, a few brandishing outdated matchlocks over their heads, blowing on glowing, wrist-wrapped match cords to keep them from being doused by the spray. “Sir, the men and I require your orders.”

  “Of course,” Somovilla replied. Annoyed—at the unexpected unfolding of the battle, his supposed friend Gregorio de Castellar y Mantilla, and life in general—he threw one leg over the side and into the surf. “Have the men find the game trail that is said to run along this coast. We shall wait for the boats to complete their second trips before moving toward our objective.”

  Casañas shielded his eyes with his gauntleted hand, scanned the nearby waters, frowned. “That will delay us an hour, at least, Lieutenant.”

  “Then it will be an hour,” snapped Somovilla as he entered the surf. “None of us know this land. All our enemies do, and have had the opportunity to set traps and ambushes. We shall not run into them piecemeal and not until we have our full strength.”

  The sergeant saluted and looked relieved, probably not so much at the plan, Somovilla conjectured, as at the decisive tone he had used. Spanish sergeants liked being given orders by someone who sounded certain that they were the right orders to give. That the orders themselves might be disastrous was quite beside the point.

  But not to Somovilla, who stared into the jungle and saw in it the certainty of more of the surprises that the Dutch and their allies had obviously prepared for them this day.