1636 Commander Cantrell in the West Indies: Chapter Nineteen

St. Eustatia, Caribbean

    With the dawn silhouetting the culverins that jutted out aggressively over the ramparts of Fort Orange behind them, Martin Tromp turned to look into St. Eustatia’ wide leeward anchorage. Almost thirty-five hulls lay invisible there, except for the spars that stuck upward from them. Like crosses in a water-covered graveyard, he thought, gloomily, Which is what this harbor will be, if we — if I — fail to dance every one of the next steps correctly.

    Soft movement behind him meant the only other man in the skiff, besides the combination steersman and sail-handler, had approached. “Should we take you straight to the Aemelia, Admiral?” asked Jakob Schooneman, captain of the Dutch fluyt Koninck David. A merchant, an adventurer, and now, quite obviously, a confidential agent for the United Provinces, and possibly for the USE as well, Jakob Schooneman had been absent from the Caribbees for many months. He had made a northern passage back to the New World, touching at several places along the northern reaches of the Atlantic coastline, searching for other Dutch ships that could be spared for Tromp’s fleet: the last in this hemisphere flying Dutch colors, after the disastrous Battle of Dunkirk, not quite two years earlier. Jakob Schooneman’ success had been modest, at best.

    Tromp nodded, not turning to face Jakob Schooneman, determined not to look him in the eyes until he could be sure of what the captain would be seen in his own. Tromp looked up at the sides of the hull now looming out of the charcoal-blue mists: the Aemelia, his fifty-four-gun flagship, and one of the few to survive the withdrawal from Dunkirk. He could still see her as she was during that perilous October flight across the Atlantic to Recife: her hull scarred and holed by cannonballs, most of her spars and rigging incongruously new because almost all of what they had sailed into battle with had been shot away or so badly savaged that they had to replace it as soon as they knew they were free of Spanish pursuit. Only the stout mainmast remained of the original spars, black with both age and grim resolve. Or so Tromp liked to think.

    When he could discern the faint outlines of her closed gun-ports, he turned to the master of the Koninck David. “Thank you for coming to see me directly, Captain Jakob Schooneman. Your visit was most informative.”

    “Glad to have been of service, Admiral.”

    “Which we are happy to return. The lighters will be out with your provisions by noon. You are sure that none of your men wish shore liberty?”

    Jakob Schooneman smiled crookedly. “‘Wish it?’ They most certainly do. I wish it myself. But circumstances dictate otherwise, wouldn’t you agree, Admiral Tromp?”

    Tromp suppressed a sigh, looked into the purple-grey western horizon. “Yes, they do.” Now close abeam his flagship, Tromp called up to the anchor watch. The ship above him was silent for the moment it took for the watch officer to stick his head over the gunwale, squint down and determine that yes, it truly was the admiral arriving before the full rose of dawn was in the sky. Then the Aemelia‘s weather-deck exploded into a cacophony of coronets and drums which rapidly propagated into the lower decks as well.

    “Nothing like an unannounced inspection to set the men on their toes, eh, Admiral?”

    “Indeed. And it is a serviceable pretext, today.” An accommodation ladder was dropped down along the tumbledown of Aemelia‘s portside hull. In response, the skiff’s tiller-man lashed his handle fast and grabbed up a pole to bump against the fifty-four-gunner’s planking, keeping them off. Tromp put out his hand. “Fair weather and good fortune to you, Captain. You have need of both, it seems.”

    Jakob Schooneman’s lopsided smile returned. “I shall not deny it. And you, Admiral, the same to you.”

    Tromp nodded, prepared to ascend, thought Yes, I need fair weather and good fortune, too. For all our sakes.

 

---

 

    Tromp was surprised to see lanky Willem van der Zaan waiting for him at the forward companionway. It was Tromp’s wont — indeed, most officers’ — to first make for their berth in the aft quarter. But here was Willi, waiting at the forecastle, his cuffs rolled up neatly and pinned, even.

    Tromp managed not to smile at the fresh-faced youngster’s quick nod and winning smile. “You are up early, Mr. van der Zaan. And more mysterious still, you knew to wait for me here, at the other end of the ship from my quarters. Have you been consorting with sorcerers?”

    “No, Admiral. Just watchful.”

    “You saw me coming?”

    “No, sir…but I was standing the last leg of the middle watch and saw the fluyt that came in slow and quiet from the north. At night. Passing other ships at anchorage without a hail.”

    Tromp stared at Willem. “Little Willi” — what a misnomer, now! — had not just grown in mind and body, but subtlety. A year ago, he might not have come to such a quick and certain surmise that the incoming ship’s quiet approach signified an ally wishing to make a brief, surreptitious visit. Instead, he would have reflexively sounded an alarm signifying that pirates were upon them under cover of night. “You are very observant, Willi.”

    “I am the admiral’s eager pupil, sir. If I’m not mistaken, that was the Koninck David, sir, wasn’t it?”

    “Mmm. And how did you know?”

    “Captain Jakob Schooneman’ rigging, sir. He’s always ready to run as near to the wind as he can.”

    Because he’s often working in dangerous waters, gathering, or carrying, confidential information. Tromp felt his smile slacken even as his pride in van der Zaan grew. All of which you know, don’t you, Willi? Knowledge is what brings childhood’s end, and you are indeed Little Willi no longer. Which means that now, you will face the same duties — and dangers — as the rest of us. May God watch over you, dear boy, for from here on, my ability to do so will be greatly reduced.

    They passed the galley. Urgent sounds of hurry that bordered on chaos spilled out.

    “Early to be serving breakfast,” observed Tromp.

    “Turning out for the admiral,” was the respectful correction offered by van der Zaan, as they passed. “I suspect the cook will be putting an extra few rashers of bacon on, today. Do you not wish to inspect?”

    Tromp nodded. “Yes, but they are doing well to be about their business so smartly. I shall give them time to make good their special preparations.” He turned to his young assistant. “Letting men succeed, particularly in a special task which they have taken up on their own initiative, builds their pride. Which builds their morale.”

    “Yes, Admiral,” said Willi with a smile which also said, As you have well and often taught me, and as I have well and fully learned. After a moment, he added, almost cautiously, “You seem distracted, sir.”

    If you only knew. “Not at all, Mr. van der Zaan. I am simply quiet when I am most attentive.”

    “Ah. Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

    Is that a way of saying, “Of course I will agree to your obvious lie, sir”? Well, no matter.

    Willi followed Tromp to the next ladder down. “Where are we headed, sir?”

    Tromp stopped, hands on either side of the almost vertical between-deck stairs that seamen called ‘ladders.’ He looked at the young man gravely, knew that the moment he uttered their first inspection site, Willi would know what was in store, what kind of news had come in from the Koninck David in the small hours of the morning. “The bilges, young Willem. We are going to the bilges.”

    Willem van der Zaan’s eyes widened. Because he had not forgotten — how could he? — Martin Tromp’s weekly litany about preparing for battle: “You check the ship from keel to foretop. You do it yourself. Meaning you start in the bilges.”

    “The bilges?” van der Zaan almost whispered, looking very much like Little Willi again.

    Tromp just nodded and headed below.

 

---

 

    Tromp was still trying to wipe the stink of the bilge water off his hands when he returned to the galley. The ship was in readiness — he had expected no less — and despite the long wait for action, she was well-caulked and her gear made fast with tight lashings and adequate dunnage. But the inescapable fact was that there was simply less gear than there should have been. Dry goods were low, as was cordage and canvas. They had managed to procure some through the intercession of Sir Thomas Warner, the English — well, now state-less — governor of nearby St. Christopher. But sails came at quite a price, since Warner got the canvas via the occasional traffic from Bermuda. Wherever possible, Tromp and his fleet of almost forty ships had adopted local expedients in place of Old World manufactures, but good, reliable chandlery — to say nothing of nails, tools, and metal fixtures of all kinds — was not being produced in the Caribbees, or anywhere in the New World, outside the greatest of the Spanish ports.

 

---

 

    Even rags, Tromp reflected, continuing the futile task of cleaning his hands with a towel already inundated with bilge water, even rags were rare enough commodities, here. What weaving the locals did was crude, and not suitable to all purposes.

    “Shall I fetch you another towel, sir?” Willi asked as he peered into the evidently expectant mess.

    “No use, Willi. Let’s not keep the cook waiting.”

    The watch officers had taken advantage of the admiral’s inspection of Aemelia‘s orlop deck and stores to rouse the first watch out of hammocks and make for the galley, where the cook (one of the few that had all his limbs) had set about building his fires and preparing the food, all the while debating provisions with the purser, as usual. However, the moment the admiral entered, the men, regardless of rank or age, looked up expectantly, with the suppressed smiles of boys who’ve done their chores early and without being told to.

    Tromp suppressed a smile himself, nodded to the cook. “Up early today, are we, Ewoud?”p>

    Ewoud effected dour annoyance. “It is as the admiral says. These louts couldn’t wait to fill their bellies today. Can’t think why. Sir.”

    “No, me either,” agreed Tromp, going along with the act. The men grinned. As had sailors from the dawn of time, they had a natural affinity for a quiet, firm commander who could enjoy and acknowledge a joke without becoming part of it himself. “What feast have you set on today?”

    There was a quick exchange of glances — none too friendly — between the purser and the cook before the latter waved at the simmering pots with a hand that invited inspection. “Well sir, this morning I thought we’d depart from local fare, and –”

    Tromp shook his head. “A nice gesture, Ewoud — and Mr. Brout,” he added with a glance at the purser who had no doubt pushed Ewoud to use the Old World supplies, “but there are to be no exceptions while we are in port. Local foodstuffs only.”

    “But sir,” Brout explained, hands opening into an appeal, “soon, even the peas will spoil if we do not –”

    “Mr. Brout,” Tromp let his voice go lower, less animated, and then turned to face the suddenly quiet purser, “I assure you, I have the spoilage dates of all our dry goods well in mind. And they do not worry me.” Particularly since, after today, we’ll be finishing them up quickly enough. “Do I make myself clear?”

    Brout looked as though he might have soiled himself. “Yes, Admiral. Perfectly clear.”

    Ewoud was trying hard not to smile, and, satisfied, sent his young assistant — barely thirteen, from the look of him — scurrying to swap around the bags and casks of waiting food. “Tapioca and mango, then. Smoked boar for a little flavor.” The mess-chiefs who’d come down from each group of mess-mates sighed. Tapioca and cassava crackers were the new staple of the Dutch navy. Such as it was.

    Tromp looked over Ewoud’s broad, sweat-glistening shoulders deeper into the galley, saw familiar bags and barrels with Dutch markings. The last of the foodstuffs we sailed with, of the meals that we thought we’d eat until the day the sea swallowed us up instead. Whether on the Dutch ships that had sailed into disaster at Dunkirk or on those moored in safety at Recife, there was little variation in the bill of fare that had been loaded into their holds before leaving the United Provinces of the Netherlands.

    Each day had begun with bread and groat-porridge, and lunch had been less of the same, but usually with strips of dried meat and also a sizeable part of the daily portion of cheese. Sunday dinner meant half a pound of ham or a pound of spiced lamb or salted meat with beans. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday fish with peas or beans were on the menu. On Thursday it was a pound of beef or three ounces of pork and on Friday and Saturday it was fish again. But long before the food ran out, the beer was gone. Since it spoiled comparatively quickly, it was an early-journey drink.

    Even before the disaster at Dunkirk, the admiralties had also taken a page from the books of the up-timers, and citrus or other fruits had been part of the provisions on the way out, and then, were a high priority item to acquire as soon as landfall was made in the New World. Happily, that was easily accomplished. And if the transition from gin to rum had been strange, it was not unpleasant, and Tromp had to admit that it mixed with a wider variety of the local juices. Indeed, it turned a cup of soursop from a rather musky, acquired taste, into a delightful and reputedly healthful drink.

    But what started as a few expedient replacements for Old World comestibles had now become a wholesale substitution of them, since the familiar foods of home had no way to reach them. It had been a month since Tromp had enjoyed bread made from anything other than cassava, and longer since he had any meat other than goat. But at least he had two full meals a day, which was more than could be said for the almost three thousand people who were his charges on Saint Eustatia. And now, he would have to dip deeply into already-scant stockpiles of durable food —

    “Mr. Brout, you are to be given the first helping of breakfast.”

    “Why — yes, Admiral. Thank you.”

    “Do not thank me. It is so you may go ashore as soon as possible. You are to requisition as much salt fish, smoked goat, dried fruit, and hard-baked cassava loaves as you can find. Tapioca for porridge, and beans, too.”

    “I am to ‘requisition’ it, sir?”

    “Yes. We will settle accounts later.” If we’re alive to do it. “You are to return by noon. The supplies are to be loaded by nightfall.”

    “Admiral, that leaves me little time to negotiate for a fair –”

    “Mr. Brout, you do not have time to negotiate. You will see that the holds of our ships are provided with three months rations, at a minimum. You are to begin by calling upon Governor Corselles. He will have my message by now, and will accompany you to ensure the compliance of your suppliers.” And to watch out for your own profiteering proclivities, Brout.

    Whose eyes were wide. “Yes, Admiral. If I may ask, are we soon to weigh anchor –?”

    But Tromp was already out the door and into the narrow passageway. He was halfway up the ladder to the gun-deck before the raucous buzz of hushed gossip surged out of the galley below him.

    Willibald, at Tromp’s heels, laughed softly.

    “Something amusing, Mr. van der Zaan?”

    “Yes, sir. Very much, sir.”

    “And what is it?”

    “How an admiral of so few words can work up so many men so very quickly.”

    Tromp shrugged and turned that motion into an arm-boost that propelled him up onto the gun deck with satisfying suddenness. Men who were hunched in whispering clusters came to their feet quickly. Over his shoulder, he muttered, “A man who yells does so because he is unsure that he is in command. Remember that, Willi.”

    “I will, sir.”

    Tromp, walking with his hands behind his back, nodded acknowledgments to the respectful greetings he received from each knot of befuddled seamen. However, his primary attention was on the guns. The last of the culverins were gone, as he had ordered. In their place were cannon, although one of those was only a thirty-pounder, or ‘demi cannon.’ But each deck’s broadsides would be a great deal more uniform now: another up-timer optimization that tarrying at their Oranjestad anchorage had enabled. Gone was the mix of culverin and cannon of various throw-weights and the occasional nine pound saker, and with it, the variances of range and effectiveness that made naval gunnery even more of a gamble than it already was.

    He popped a tompion out of a cannon’s muzzle, felt around within the mouth of the barrel. Sufficiently dry, and with a paucity of pitting that testified to the routine nature of its care. Salt water was a hard and corrosive taskmaster.

    Admirably anticipating his next point of inspection, a gunner came forward at a nod from his battery chief and made to open a ready powder bag. Tromp nodded approval, turned to young van der Zaan. “Fetch Lieutenant Evertsen to find me here. He’ll need to complete the inspection. Then make for the accommodation ladder.”

    “Why, sir? Are you expecting –?”

    A single coronet announced a noteworthy arrival on the weather-deck.

    “Yes,” Tromp answered, “I am expecting visitors. Now go.”

 

---

 

    Tromp looked up when, without warning, the door to his great cabin opened and Jan van Walbeeck entered. “You’re late,” the admiral muttered.

 

---

 

    “I am more informed than I would have been had I hurried to be on time,” retorted van Walbeeck with his trademark impish grin. He pulled up a chair and sat, heavy hands folded and cherubic smile sending creases across his expansive cheeks. Full-faced for a man of thirty-five, his jowls were apparently not subject to privations in the same way the rest of his now-lean body was. He, along with the other three thousand refugees from Recife, had narrowly avoided the specter of starvation over the past year. But somehow, van Walbeeck still had his large, florid jowls.

    Tromp waited and then sighed. “Very well, I will ask: and what additional information did your tardiness vouchsafe?”

    “I tarried on deck to exchange a few pleasantries with your first mate, Kees Evertsen. While there, a Bermuda sloop made port. Down from Bahamas, freighting our neighbors’ sugar for relay to Bermuda. And as chance would have it, one of our most notable neighbors was on board.”

    Tromp frowned. By ‘neighbors,’ van Walbeeck meant the English on St. Christopher’s island, which was already visible as a dawn-lit land mass out the admiral’s south-facing stern windows. A ‘notable visitor,’ meant the person was not of the very first order of importance, so it was not the governor, Sir Thomas Warner himself. Indeed, the “Sir” part of Warner’s title was somewhat in doubt. Technically, shortly before the League of Ostend arose, Charles Stuart of England had ceded all his New World possessions to Richelieu. Or so the French maintained. And it was probably close to, or the very, fact. The English crown’s protest over that interpretation was, to put it lightly, muted. However, the popular English outcry over losing its New World possessions had grown intense enough to propel the already paranoid Charles into a dubious course of instituting loyalty oaths and a standing, special court for the investigation and hearing of purported cases of sedition.

    So was Thomas Warner’s patent of nobility still effective, his governorship still legal? Not under the aegis of English law, but until someone took the island from him, the dispute was pointless. And given how these uncertain times required his full attention and involvement in the well-being of his now isolated colony, Tromp would have been surprised had he been the visitor to St. Eustatia. But there was another likely candidate. “Lt. Governor Jeafferson?”

    “Bravo, Martin! Your powers of deduction are undiminished. It was Jeafferson himself on the sloop, which must have left St. Christopher’s in the dark of the night to be here so early. And you know what that means –”

    Tromp sighed. Jan van Walbeeck was arguably the single smartest, most capable man he had ever met, and he had met plenty of them. But his irrepressible ebullience — even at this hour of the morning — was sometimes a bit wearing for, well, normal people like himself. “Yes, Jan, I think I do. He’s here to finalize and sign our five-year lease of the lands around Sandy Point.”

    “Exactly. And thereby kill two birds with one stone: we get the arable land we need, and Thomas Warner gets the guards he wants. And frankly, we need to reduce the number of soldiers we have here on St. Eustatia.”

    Tromp laid aside his protractor and looked up from his charts. “And you feel certain this will not bring us into conflict with the French colony on the island?”

    Van Walbeeck blew out his cheeks. “Who is certain of anything, Martin? Indeed, who can say who will hold power over us, or these islands, when the lease is up in five years? But this much is true. The French had only one ship arrive last year, and that was before we arrived. As best we can tell, Warner’s colony has grown to almost nine thousand, maybe more. The French have barely a tenth of that. So I think that it is unlikely there will be any trouble.”

    Tromp frowned. “So then, if that is true, I ask — as I have before — why is Warner so concerned with having our guards? What are we not seeing — and he not saying?”

    Van Walbeeck nodded. “I think I have a little more perspective on that, now that our farmers and his farmers are talking with each other on a regular basis. Firstly, Warner has all his people gainfully employed, and most in food production of one sort or another. Would that we could say the same. So the same people who man his militia are also the only ones available to oversee the workers and the plantations.”

    “You mean, guard and drive his slaves.”

    “Martin, I know how you feel about slavery, and I share those feelings, but these are the conditions as we found them, and the best we can do is work to change them. And it won’t be easy, given the tales our planters are telling his.”

    Tromp stared at his charts, at the outline of St. Christopher’s. “I can only imagine. Our decision to prohibit slaveholding has not made me a popular man.”

    “You? You?” Jan leaned forward. “Martin, you are not the president of the Politieke Raad. You don’t have our planters screaming for your blood. Well, not so loudly as for mine, at any rate.”

    “And Corselles is still no help?”

    “How can he be? I frankly feel sorry for the poor fellow. He arrived here with maybe two hundred and fifty souls, all of whom were assured that they will grow rich like the English planters. Which meant, in short hand, that they will own plantations and the slaves that allow the land to be worked at such a fabulous profit.

    “And then, just a year after they arrive, we descend upon them like a horde of locusts, almost three thousand strong, ninety percent young or young-ish males, short on rations, and with our military leadership determined to eliminate slavery. Which was what pushed almost half of our farmers into league with their farmers.”

    Tromp nodded. “And this connects to Warner’s want for our guards — how?”

    Jan sighed. “Let us presume that he does indeed see that our survival may be the key to his, and vice versa. We are both without support from our homelands, albeit for very different reasons. But if we hang on to Saint Eustatia long enough, we’ll start seeing flags from our home ports. At that point, the advantage is ours. For Warner is a man without a country. So, while he still enjoys the advantage of being our breadbasket, he will naturally wish to enter into accords with us which will stand him in good stead when that balance of power shifts. And his power is in the food he makes, so he is not eager to have his overseers as his full-time militiamen. Food production will drop and with it, his fortunes.”

    Tromp looked up from the map. “That seems to track true, yes.”

    “Ah, but there’s more, Martin. He doesn’t just want guards; he wants our guards. Dutch guards.”

    “Why? Are we Dutch especially good at guarding things? Even things that do not belong to us?”

    “No, but our guards operate under the aegis of our flag. So if the French try cases with them –”

    “Yes, of course. Then there is an international incident. And since Warner is no longer in charge of an ‘English’ colony, he has no such protection of his own.”

    “Precisely. The only thing that give the French pause about running Warner off the island is the question of whether or not they can physically achieve it. But if his colony’s guards are our men, with the flag of Orange flying above, the French risk a war. And if there is anything we have an over-abundance of in this area, it is soldiers.”

    “Yes, but Warner seems to be acquiring their services far earlier than he needs to. He has little to worry about from such a small French colony.”

    Van Walbeeck shook his head. “Except that the French colonists are not the direct threat. It is the dissent they have been successful at breeding among the English slaves, and some of the indentured workers from Ireland. And there is rumor that the French commander d’Esnambuc has been parleying with the natives as well. The Kalinago still want St. Christopher’s back, you know.”

    Tromp stood. “Very well. So Warner wants our guards. When will the lease go into effect?”

    “It will still be a few months, at least. Our people are eager to put the tracts around Sandy Point under cultivation, but it will take time to get them ready, to gather the equipment, to settle affairs here. And the same goes for determining which troops shall go.”

    Tromp shook his head. “Since we are so close — a morning’s sail — there is no reason to make our forces on St. Christopher a fixed garrison. We shall rotate troops through the station, as we shall their commanders. I want our people to both know that island and to get a break from this one.”

 

---

 

    Van Walbeeck nodded enthusiastically. “Most prudent. And speaking of guards, I’m wondering if we shouldn’t set up some special detachments of them here, too.”

    Tromp folded his arms. “You mean, here in Oranjestad? We already have greatly over-sized guard complements on all our warehouses, on the batteries, the outposts, the –”

    “We need them on the women, Martin. Particularly the visiting English ladies.”

    “The ladies –?” And then Tromp understood. “Oh.”

    “Yes. ‘Oh.’ Martin, there are less than four hundred women on Saint Eustatia, out of almost three thousand persons, more if you count our shipboard crews. Most of the four hundred women are already married. And you have seen the effects, surely.”

    Tromp surely had. Brawls, drunken or otherwise, had been steadily increasing for six months. And however the causes and particulars varied, there was usually a common thread: it had started over a woman. It may have been that the woman in question had never spoken to, perhaps never even looked at, any of the combatants, but that hardly mattered. Like a bunch of young bucks in rutting season, any incident that could in any way be construed as a dispute over mating dominance resulted in locked horns. “What do you suggest?” he asked van Walbeeck.

    “Cuthbert Pudsey.”

    “The English mercenary who’s been in our ranks from Recife onward? A one man guard-detachment?”

    “Martin, do not be willfully obtuse. Of course not. Pudsey is to be the leader of, let us call it a ‘flying squad’ of escorts who will accompany any English ladies who come to call at Oranjestad. And given that it will be a merit-earned duty –”

    “Yes. Perfect comportment and recommendations will be the prerequisite for being posted to that duty. With any brawling resulting in a six month disqualification from subsequent consideration. But really, Jan, you do not think our men would actually go so far as –?”

    “Martin, I will not balance the safety of the English ladies who visit — or perhaps, in the future, seek shelter with — us on my projections or hopes. We will assume the worst. And in the bargain, some lucky guards will come near enough to recall that ladies do, indeed, sweat — excuse me, perspire — in this weather. That they are not such perfect creatures, after all.” Van Walbeeck squinted as the light rose sharply on the table before them. The sun had finally peeked around the steep slope of the volcanic cone that was known simply as The Quill, St. Eustatia’s most prominent feature

    “Hmm. It is still the scent of a woman, Jan. And in circumstances such as ours, that will only quicken their starved ardor.”

    “No doubt, and no helping it. But charged with protecting the fairer sex, I feel fairly certain that our guards would more willingly die defending them than protecting me.”

    “Far more willing,” drawled Tromp,

    “While you are around,” smiled Walbeeck, “I shall never lose my soul to the sin of Pride. You are my guardian angel.”

    “A more improbable guardian angel there has never been,” Tromp grunted as he felt the sunlight grow quick and warm on the side of his face.

    “And yet here you sit, wearing a halo!” Walbeeck grinned, gesturing to the sun behind Tromp. “Now, have you decided to stop serving coffee on this sorry hull of yours?”

    “Not yet,” said Tromp, who almost smiled.

 

---

 

    Two hours later, the coronet pealed again. Tromp frowned at Walbeeck’s sudden and serious glance at the rum.

    “Just one swallow. For perseverance in the face of immovable objects and irremediable ignorance.”

    “Jan, don’t reinforce our enemies’ characterization of us.”

    “Whatever do you mean?”

    “You know perfectly well what I mean. Our resolve in battle is too often linked to our bolting shots of gin just before. ‘Dutch courage,’ they call it.”

    “Well, I could use a little of that courage right about now…”

    The dreaded knock on the door was gentle enough but felt like a death knell to Tromp. “Enter,” he said, trying to keep the sigh out of his voice. He flattered himself to imagine that he had succeeded.

    The group that entered was not quite as ominously monolithic as he had feared. There were friendly faces among those crowding into the Aemelia‘s suddenly claustrophobic great cabin. Servatius Carpentier and “Phipps” Serooskereken had been part of the Politieke Raad at Recife, and early converts to the exigency-driven agricultural changes that they had brought to St. Eustatia. But Jehan De Bruyne, also a member of that body, had been diametrically opposed from the start, and remained so, now drawing support from original Oranjestad settlers such as Jan Haet and Hans Musen, whose expectations of quick wealth had been dashed by the arrival of Tromp’s ships and slavery injunctions.

    Respectful nods notwithstanding, Musen was quick to confirm both the purpose and tenor of this visit by the determinative civil bodies of the St. Eustatia colony. “Admiral Tromp, we are sorry to disturb you on this busy day –”

    – not half as sorry as I am —

    “– but we have just learned that you will be setting sail soon. Today, it is rumored.”

    Tromp shrugged. “There are always rumors. Please continue.”

    Musen looked annoyed. “Very well. Since no one seems to know, or is willing to say, when you might return, we must make an appeal now, relevant to upcoming matters of commercial importance.”

    Tromp had had cannon aimed at him with less certainty of fell purpose. “Yes?”

    “Admiral, you have forbidden the acquisition of new slaves with which to work the plantations here on St. Eustatia –”

    “– which we still protest!” Jan Haet put in archly.

    “– but we presume that this would not apply to any farms established on land that is not Dutch-owned.”

    Tromp resisted the urge to grind his molars. And damn me for a fool that I did not see this coming. “Mr. Musen, allow me to prevent you from spending time here profitlessly. The rules that apply here on Saint Eustatia apply equally to any plantations you may put in place on Saint Christopher’s.”

    “But that is English land!” shouted Jan Haet.

    “But under our dominion while we lease it!” retorted Phipps Serooskereken.

    “Immaterial,” countered Musen coolly. “The terms of use permitted on the tracts around Sandy Point were made quite explicitly by Lord Warner: use of slaves is expressly permitted.”

    Jan van Walbeeck smiled broadly, and perhaps a bit wickedly. “Then perhaps you are preparing to swear loyalty to Thomas Warner?”

    The various combatants started at him.

    “Because, logically, that is what you must intend.”

    Jan Haet, as ardent a Dutch nationalist as he was a slaveholder, rose up to his full height of 5′ 5″. “I intend no such thing, and you know it, Jan van Walbeeck!”

    “Do I? Here is what I know. Fact: Lord Warner may no longer be a Lord at all. England has renounced claim to the land he holds and upon which his title is based. Fact: your actions are not constrained by what he permits, but by what this regional authority allows you to do, as a Dutchman, in this place and time. And you have been forbidden from acquiring more slaves. So unless you wish to renounce your citizenship in the United Provinces, what Thomas Warner permits you to do is secondary to what your government permits. And fact: swearing allegiance to Warner makes you men without a country and therefore invalidates you from working the leased land at Sandy Point, since that agreement exists solely between the representatives of the United Provinces and Thomas Warner.” Jan Walbeeck smiled. “But of course, you can always become citizens of Thomas Warner’s nation. If he ever declares one, that is.”

    Jehan de Bruyne had been frowning slightly at the deck throughout the exchange. “I will ask you to reconsider your ruling on slavery one last time, Martin. I am not sure you understand the degree of dissatisfaction it is causing among our people.”

    Oh, I understand Jehan. I even understand the veiled threat in your calm tone. Tromp folded his hands. “Mijn Heer de Bruyne, your own council, the Politieke Raad, voted in support of this measure. And I remain unclear how you can conclude that a slave population poses no credible threat to our security here. You have only to look at Thomas Warner’s experience. In the last seven years, he has had to struggle to maintain control over his colony. And why? Not threat from the Caribs: they are no longer appear willing to try cases with him. No, his problems arise from resentment and rebelliousness among his slave population.”

    Musen sniffed. “That is because the French keep stirring the pot.”

    “That may even be true, Hans, but would we be immune to such trouble? Will the French see us as any less interlopers than the English? Indeed, given the presence of our forces on the island, will they not consider us an even greater problem? Because once we arrive and provide both plantation and border security for Thomas Warner, they will have even less chance to displace him — and us. Unless, that is, we bring our own slaves, whom they would no doubt attempt to suborn as well.”

 

---

 

    Tromp leaned back and shook his head. “No. Men who have no freedom have little to lose. When such men are also being worked to death, they understand quickly enough that soon they will also lose the last thing they value: their lives, and those of their families. At that point, it is only logical for them to risk the probable suicide of unarmed rebellion rather than continue toward the certain suicide of eventually dying of malnourished exhaustion in the fields.”

    Haet leaned in aggressively. “And then why are the Spanish so successful using slaves, Tromp? They seem to do well enough and get rich while doing it.”

    Tromp studied Haet calmly but very directly. “Because, Mijn Heer Haet, the Spanish are not hanging on by their fingernails, as we are. They are routinely re-supplied, routinely reinforced, and routinely involved in ruthlessly squashing any hint of resistance in their subject populations.”

    “And the Dutch East India Company does no less. And thrives!” countered Haet.

    Jan van Walbeeck spoke quietly and without any trace of his customary animation. “I have been to those colonies, Haet, have been among their slaves. Have seen, have felt, the hatred for us in their eyes, in their gestures, in their quiet, patient watching. Are those Pacific colonies profitable? Yes, most certainly. Are they safe? Only so long as you have guns trained on the slaves, Haet. And one day — and it will only take one day — we will be weak, or forgetful, and we will stumble. And they will slaughter us and drive us back into the seas which brought us like a curse to their shores.”

    Haet snorted. “So you prefer the natives to your own kind, van Walbeeck?”

    “No, Haet, but I understand that they feel about us enslaving them on their own land exactly the way we felt about the Spanish doing the same to us in the Netherlands. And you know what we did to the Spanish when we finally got the chance.”

    Haet was going to speak, but swallowed whatever words he might have spoken.

    Tromp exchanged glances with van Walbeeck. Good: the conversation had remained on a practical footing. The ethical discussions over slavery had long ago proven themselves to be emotional morasses which achieved nothing but the expenditure of countless, profitless, hours. And they invariably led to the slaveholding faction accusing their opponents of succumbing to up-time influence (often true) and, by extrapolation, being Grantville’s lackeys (not at all true). Indeed, since adolescence, Tromp had been disquieted by the circuitous rationalizations his countrymen and others employed when resolving their Christian piety with their grasp upon the slaveholder’s whip. But, as an admiral, his life had not had much direct involvement with such matters, or the resolution of such issues.

    But here in a New World where the Dutch colonies were hanging on by a thread that only remained uncut because the Spanish had not yet discovered it, the domain of the military and the commercial had begun to overlap. With no help or even news coming from the United Provinces, all choices, all decisions made locally had a bearing upon all other local decisions. And so Tromp had been compelled to weigh both the practical and ethical burdens and benefits of slavery.

    Van Walbeeck, having arrived in Oranjestad ahead of him, had been an invaluable interlocutor on the matter, and the smattering of copied up-time texts in his library had been the catalyst for their discussions and grist for much deep thought. Leaving Recife, Tromp had been leaning against slavery for practical reasons, which happily aligned with his largely unstudied ethical misgivings. But the past year at Saint Eustatia had confirmed him in the belief that, just as he had felt it his duty to become a church deacon if he was to live a Christian life and not merely profess one, so too he could not truly call himself a Christian without also working to undo the institution of slavery.

    Van Walbeeck turned mild eyes upon the gathered contingent of councilors. “Any other observations on the matter?”

    The quiet, careful Servatius Carpentiere, shrugged. “There will be much unrest among the colonists, particularly since the Politieke Raad approved your recommendation to prohibit raising tobacco.” His voice was apologetic. One of Tromp’s most stalwart supporters, Carpentiere was raising an issue that clearly had been pressed upon him by the colonists, but would certainly play into the hands of the admiral’s detractors.

    Musen lost no time wielding it as a rhetorical weapon. “You see, Admiral? Your own hand-picked advisers from Recife foresee problems with your decisions. First you prohibit the further acquisition of slaves. Then you urge the growing of cane sugar, which involves immense amounts of labor, in place of tobacco, which is much easier to grow and harvest. And which was why most of us came to Oranjestad in the first place.”

    Tromp nodded. “Yes. That is true. And when you came, tell me: what did you plan to do with the tobacco?”

    Haet, not seeing the trap, blurted out, “Why, sell it, of course!”

    “Where?”

    “Back in –” and he stopped.

    Tromp just nodded again. “Exactly. ‘Back in the Provinces.’ Or ‘Europe.’ It hardly matters where, specifically. The problem is that those markets are an ocean away from us here, and our own ports are unreachable, due to the Spanish. What few ships hide in smaller harbor towns are merely jachts which have no reason to brave the swells of the Atlantic. And even if they knew we still existed here, ready to trade, what of it? Yes, jachts are fast, nimble ships. But useless for freighting smoke or anything else in bulk. So tell me, Mijn Heer Haet, given the changes since you arrived here, where, now, would you sell your tobacco?”

    Musen smoothly changed the footing of his side’s argument to a less disastrous posture. “Even if that were to be true, Admiral — cane sugar? The most labor-intensive crop in the New World?”

    “And the only one for which we have any local use,” replied van Walbeeck. “What else would you grow for high profit? Cotton? The labor is almost as bad as cane but, again, there’s the same problem: where would you sell that cotton? The fact that drives all our choices is this, Mijn Heer Musen: we no longer have access to markets. Our ships cannot come here safely, and we cannot spare any to undertake the equally perilous voyage from here to Europe. And what’s more, any regular commerce between us and our homeports would only tell the Spanish — or others — where to find us, where to hunt us down and exterminate us.

    “So we grow sugar. We may eat it ourselves, and we may make rum — which has local value even to the natives, in these parts. And which we may further refine into disinfectants and a flammable fluid. And if we cannot grow so much because we have no slaves? Well, firstly, we have no shortage of able-bodies without tasks to occupy them. And so we will learn that you do not need slaves to grow cane, and set the pattern for creating a durable local economy which is not based upon slavery.”

    Haet looked as though he might spit. “I did not come here to work like a dog in the fields. I came here to get rich.”

    Tromp nodded. “Yes. But apparently fate had other plans.”

    Jehan de Bruyne rubbed his chin. “Or perhaps it is Martin Tromp that has had other plans.”

    Tromp kept his head and voice very still. “I assure you, Mijn Heer, that being defeated by treachery at Dunkirk, and seeing the Dutch fleet reduced to three dozen hulls, was not any plan of mine. And it is that outcome — that and no other — which forces these changes upon us. You wished to be rich? Fair enough. I wanted to return home, to my wife and children. As do many of us who fled to Recife.” He stood. “What men want is of little matter to the will of God and the hand of fate. I suggest we focus on a new want that we should all share: the desire to stay alive long enough for our own countrymen to find and succor us. Because that outcome is by no means certain.” By no means, indeed. “Now, Mijn Heeren, if we are quite done, I have arrangements to make for the fleet. About which you shall be informed shortly. Good day.”

    The envoys from both the Politieke Raad and the original colonists’ Council nodded their way toward the door they had entered through. Van Walbeeck rose to go as well, but Tromp motioned him to stay in his seat with a down-waved palm.

    When the rest had left, Jan cocked his head like a quizzical spaniel.

    Tromp sighed. “Stay and hear what I tell the captains. Someone will need to report it to the Raad and Council. And the rest of the colonists, too.”