1636: Seas of Fortune (17 page)
Read 1636: Seas of Fortune Online
Authors: Iver P. Cooper
Tags: #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #General, #Alternative History, #Action & Adventure
As they emerged from the strait, they sighted a ship, hull-down. It disappeared from view without revealing its identity. While it was probably Spanish, given that it was heading west, David saw no reason to risk a fight when his ships were already chock-full of treasure, and the stranger couldn’t possibly reach port in time to give a timely alarm. Anyway, David figured it was a straggler from the New Spain flota, bound for Veracruz. If so, it was carrying immigrants and manufactured goods, not treasure.
As they bore eastward into the Straits of Florida, David kept his ships as far from Havana as practicable. The Spanish intermittently posted a
garda costa
there, and he wasn’t looking for trouble. He cleared the Straits without sighting anything more ominous than a pod of dolphins, who rode in the
Walvis
’ wake for a while.
David was feeling quite pleased with himself.
* * *
The three ships threaded their way between Florida and the Bahamas. They had to claw their way northward, close-hauled, fighting against the northeast trades. But at least they had the Gulf Stream to help them along. As they struggled to wring what progress they could against the unfavorable wind, the captains and crews could take comfort in the knowledge that they would eventually escape the zone in which the trade winds, which barred a direct course to Europe, prevailed. Once they reached the forties, they could pick up the westerlies and head for home.
The wind became very light and variable, further reducing their headway. That was common when one passed between the two wind zones, but at this time of year, the area of transition usually lay farther north.
Fortunately, the skies were mostly clear, and the barometer had risen slightly since the last watch. The barometer had once hung on the roof post of a Grantville porch, and David had been very pleased to have it loaned to him.
Soon after they passed the latitude of the northern fringe of the Bahamas, the northeast wind resumed. David didn’t like the look of the sea, however. The swells seemed a bit heavier and longer than usual. He took out a one minute sand clock and counted the swells. Four a minute. Eight was norm.
“Go check the barometer again!” David ordered.
“It’s level,” Philip reported. “But it seems . . . jittery.”
* * *
The next day, at sunrise, there were white wisps of cirrus clouds, low in the sky. The “mares’ tails” seemed to point southeast, and the swells were stronger. The barometer had slowly fallen during the night watches. It usually dipped a bit twice a day, but this seemed to be something more than the usual variation.
“Well, Philip, I am afraid that I think we have a hurricane approaching. The winds are from the north-northeast, and since they spiral counterclockwise about the center, the center should be nine to twelve points off the wind direction. Probably southeast.”
“So what do we do? Run to the west?”
“How sure are you of the accuracy of the cross-fix you took earlier today?”
“Pretty sure. Two star fixes and a sun fix, perhaps an hour apart. Why?”
“If I trust the last position fix you took—and I do—we don’t have enough sea room between us and the American coast. Only about a hundred miles. Believe me, you don’t want to be near a lee shore in a hurricane. So running west, toward land, really doesn’t appeal to me.”
“Then should we stay put? Throw out an anchor or something?”
“It’s not so simple. According to the
Bowditch
, the paths of Atlantic hurricanes are quite idiosyncratic, but they usually move northwest in the Greater Antilles. Sometimes they’ll make landfall and disintegrate, but they can also curve north. And they can then recurve and head northeast.
“If I knew that the hurricane was marching northwest, I would head south, and go back the way we came, into the Gulf. And if I thought it was curving north, or recurving northwest, I would head north. Or just heave to.
“What about heading east, or northeast, to get more searoom?”
David shook his head. “That’s likely to bring us into what
Bowditch
calls the ‘dangerous semicircle,’ the area to the right of the hurricane track. Assuming that we’re not in it already, of course.”
“Why is it dangerous?”
“The wind strength is the sum of the revolving wind, and the forward movement of the storm. And in the forward quadrant, the winds try to push you right into the path of the hurricane.”
“Ouch. So there’s a ‘safe semicircle’?”
“
Bowditch
prefers the term, ‘less dangerous semicircle.’ Nothing about a hurricane at sea is ‘safe.’ Anyway, I am going to keep heading north for a little while. Or as close to north as the wind will let us. We’re square-rigged, so we can’t point close to the wind. No closer than six points of the compass.”
Philip scrunched his face momentarily. “Six points from north-northeast, that’s northwest. So we’re heading toward the coast?”
“Edging toward it,” David admitted. “Remember, the coast is curving away from us as we go north.
“We won’t outrun the storm, but that course will still buy time for us to figure out which way the hurricane is moving. Right now, we’re playing a chess game with the hurricane, but one in which we can’t see its moves.
“Anyway, I want get away from the shallow waters between Florida and the Bahamas. Those are more prone to breaking if the wind picks up. And the
Walvis
won’t like it much when some breaker drops tons of water on its deck.”
* * *
David and his mates started giving orders to prepare the ship for the hard blows to come. The crew cleared the scuppers, and checked that the pumps were working. They battened down the hatches, and set up life lines on both sides of the deck.
* * *
They cautiously continued north, or more precisely northwest by north, making slow progress against the wind. The winds backed to north by east, so they had to angle even more to the west in order to make headway.
Still, the wind change was good news; it meant that they were in the less dangerous semicircle. If they were in the middle of the ocean, their best bet would have been to put the wind broad on their starboard quarter, and edge out. Unfortunately, if they did that here, they would soon be enjoying an unplanned American vacation. So they left the wind farther aft, angling just enough to counter the inward spiral. The
Koninck David
and the
Hoop
did their best to follow the
Walvis
’ lead. The chop of the water increased as the new swell fought with the old one.
* * *
The sun looked down on them through a white gauze. Despite their plight, Philip couldn’t help but admire the halo it had acquired. The ring proper was bright white, with a red fringe on the inside. The sky was darkened for some distance farther inward, and a vaguely defined corona played outside the halo.
Gradually, the sun faded from view. Then a new layer of clouds slid under the old one, darkening the overcast. The sky became a virtually uniform gray. The main topsail split, fabric streaming out like ribbons from a running lass’ hair, and the topmen bent in a replacement, and close-reefed it.
It started to rain, tiny droplets that seemed to hang suspended in the air. All at once, there was a downpour, as though someone had suddenly emptied a bucket on Philip’s head. It ended within minutes, and the misty not-quite-rain returned. Then came another rain shower.
The wind strengthened. There were many “white horses”—foaming wave crests. The sailors took down the normal sails and raised the storm sails, which were made of a heavier, tougher fabric.
Soon, on the eastern horizon, Philip could see a dark mass of clouds, looking like a sorcerer’s fortress, with a parapet of black cotton. If, that is, any fortress had pieces of itself break off and fly away from time to time. That was the “bar,” the main cloud mass, where the winds would be strongest.
Not that they were gentle where the
Walvis
and its comrades struggled. The winds were now gale force, and the sea was heavy. The timbers moaned like lost souls. There were flashes of lightning to the east. The only good news was that the barometer was low, but steady. That implied that they were succeeding in keeping their distance from the eye of the hurricane. Philip was sent to join the group who were straining at the whipstaff, keeping the ship on its course.
The stays hummed like a swarm of angry hornets, but they all held.
* * *
“Wind’s come around to the northwest, Captain,” said Cornelis. “Slackened some, too.”
David thought this over. Being an old Asia hand had its disadvantages when you were north of the equator; he had to keep reminding himself that almost everything about Indian Ocean typhoons was reversed up here in the northern hemisphere. Northwest, yes, that meant that the storm center was now ahead of them. In effect, the hurricane had swept them up, like an unwilling partner at a dance, and swung them a quarter circle around itself as it continued its journey northward.
“How’s the barometer, Philip?”
“Rising, sir.” The relief in Philip’s voice was evident. And that was fair enough, the pressure change confirmed that they were now in the rear half of the storm.
David sent Cornelis to take a sounding; he didn’t want to shoal after surviving this much. And he detailed a half dozen men to act as lookouts, both to watch for danger, and to determine whether the
Koninck David
and the
Hoop
had also weathered the storm.
They soon caught sight of the
Koninck David
, so it, at least, was safe. However, it signaled that some of its precious water casks had been swept off the main deck, and it would need to detour to the American coast to make amends.
There was no sign of the
Hoop
. Whether it had sunk, or merely been driven far away by the tempest, David had no idea.
But there was work to be done. A lot of it. The storm sails, especially the fore staysail, were now somewhat the worse for wear. The fore staysail had so many eyes that Philip likened it to what he called “Swiss cheese.” One by one, the crew unbent the storm sails, and set reefed ordinary sails. They found that a stay had stranded, and replaced it, and generally put the ship back into order.
The wind abated further, and they were able to shake out the reefs. But while the ship now looked much as it had before the hurricane, the storm had exacted a toll.
“All hands, bury the dead,” David ordered. Here was a sailor who, weakened by some tropical disease, had died of exposure. There was one who had fallen from a spar while trying to put another reef into a sail. A third had been picked up by a rogue wave, and had his skull dashed against a mast. Their bodies were sewn up in their hammocks, and double shotted. The Reverend Rishworth conducted a memorial service. Then, three times, David said the words, “We commit his body to the deep.” Three times, a corpse was slid into the waters. There, according to the minister, “to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body when the sea shall give up her dead.”
After a short but uncomfortable silence, the crew was sent back to work. “Hands to braces,” David ordered.
The next day, they found the
Hoop
. It had lost a mast, and was traveling under a jury rig. The flotilla headed for the Georgia coast, to take on fresh water and make those repairs best carried out at anchor. The local Indians didn’t attempt to trade, but at least they didn’t attack, either.
* * *
It was a beautiful day, the hurricane had moved on or fallen apart, the ships had resumed a northward course and were now happily ensconced in the Europe-seeking westerlies, and David was once again at peace with the world.
Philip’s navigation had been spot-on, and David invited him to dinner as a reward.
“You know, Philip, it would be bad for discipline for a captain to apologize for an error.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Like delaying a return trip until the hurricane season was upon him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How’s the schnapps?”
“Fine, sir.”
Late 1634
David and Philip stood in line, waiting for their turn to send radio messages to Grantville. They were at the USE military’s radio post in Hamburg. While most of the radio traffic was of an official nature, the post did send private messages on a “time available” basis.
“Philip, I know you expected to go into the army after you finished high school, but I think you’d make a fine navigator, if you’d like the job on a more permanent basis.”
“Thank you, Captain. Do you believe in reincarnation?”
“Like the Hindoos? Certainly not, I am a good Christian.”
“Well, then it’s a moot point. Because when I get back to Grantville, my parents are gonna
kill
me.”
Riding the Tiger
Late 1634 to February–March 1635
Marshall’s Creek, Suriname River,
Long Dry Season, 1634 (September–November 1634)
Maria Vorst sniffed the wound, and grimaced. “It’s infected.” Her patient shrugged stoically.
“How did it happen?”
Captain Marshall answered for her charge. “Not sure, but probably just a cut from razorgrass, or a spiny vine.”
Maria shook her head. “The men have got to get into the habit of inspecting themselves from head to toe, every day. We’re in a rainforest, for heaven’s sake; any break in the skin is bad news. If it doesn’t get infected, then maybe some fly decides it’s a dandy place to lay eggs.”
She sighed. “I’ll need to clean the wound, and put some antiseptic on it.”
“Antiseptic?”
“Yes, from the Latin, ‘against rottenness.’ You remember my lecture, don’t you? The one on the Germ Theory?”
“Indeed,” said Captain Marshall. “I had bad dreams several nights in a row. Little armored critters with sharp fangs and claws, hunting us in great packs.”
“Back in Grantville, Lolly showed me what they look like under a microscope. Pretty dull actually. Little balls or rods, mostly.” Maria, an artist whose family ran the Leiden botanical gardens, had received botanical and medical training in Grantville.
“Well, in my nightmare, they had fangs and claws.”
Maria had come upriver on the yacht
Eikhoorn
to visit Captain Marshall and his little tobacco growing colony of English Puritans. And the nearby Indian tribe, who were tapping rubber for Maria’s people.
Despite earlier tensions, the colonists at Marshall’s Creek had welcomed the latest visit by the crew of the
Eikhoorn
. Especially by Maria. Not just because she was the first white woman most of them had seen since leaving England, but also because of her medical training in Grantville. She had made the rounds, treating the illnesses and injuries of Marshall’s people.
“All right, you’re going to need to hold still now,” she told her patient. She cleaned the wound with a warm decoction of bark. She took out a little rubber pouch—it was easy to come by, now that the Indians near Marshall’s Creek were tapping the local rubber trees—and squeezed out an ointment. It was the thickened sap of another tree. Maria had learned about both the bark and the sap from Indians downriver, near the new Swedish colony of Gustavus.
Of course, the Marshall Creek Indians had their own remedies. As the Gustavans’ “Science Officer,” Maria spent quite a bit of time learning native medicine, everywhere she traveled.
Maria wrapped cotton around the man’s leg, to protect the wound while still allowing it to breathe. Even though the local cotton was gray, it still stood out against the black of his skin.
For the first time, she had met Marshall’s other people . . . his African “servants.” There weren’t many of them, but their existence had been concealed from her and Heyndrick de Liefde on their previous visits. She wasn’t surprised. Even if Marshall had not been told, when friendly relations were first established, that slavery was illegal in the Gustavus colony, he might have feared that the interlopers might try to incite the slaves as a cheap means of wiping out their upriver rivals.
Heyndrick, the cousin and agent of the founder of the Gustavus colony, had told Marshall that the Gustavus colony would not, for the moment, insist that Marshall free his slaves, and wouldn’t encourage the slaves to flee, but he also warned Marshall that it would not return any fugitive slaves who made it downriver.
But that didn’t mean that Maria couldn’t attack the institution in subtler ways. “I have tended to this man’s physical needs, but what have you done for his spiritual ones? Has he been instructed in the Christian faith?”
Marshall shook his head. “Of course not. He is only an ignorant savage.”
“His ignorance can hardly be surprising, if you refuse to instruct him.” Maria knew that this was a sensitive point with English slave owners. Since one of the justifications they gave for enslaving the Africans was that they weren’t Christian, they feared that if they converted their slaves, they might be forced to free them.
Marshall temporized. “We don’t have a minister of our own.”
“I understand. I wish I could do something about that. But, I know that as a captain, you have read aloud from a prayer book. Surely your African servants can be allowed to listen and to learn what they can.”
“Very well.”
“And have you tried to teach any of them to read and write?”
Marshall laughed. “Mevrouw Vorst, few of my Englishmen have their letters.”
“That is most unfortunate. In this new world, illuminated by the books of Grantville, being literate is going to be of great importance. Is that not true?”
Marshall nodded slowly.
“Well, I will see what primers we can spare, and all I ask in return is that at least one be dedicated to the edification of the Africans among you.”
Based on the reading she had done in Grantville, Maria was fairly confident that there would be trouble over slavery, sooner or later. But for the moment, the colonists in Gustavus had more immediate issues to worry about. Like survival. And she agreed with Heyndrick that it would be better if the confrontation came after Gustavus was bigger and stronger.
* * *
The music faltered. The dozen or so Surinamese Indians, resplendent in body paint and not much else, stirred uneasily. Until then, they had been an excellent audience.
“Don’t stop!” Maria whispered sharply to her assistant, and made a circular motion with her hands.
The English settler who had been given the honor of turning the crank on her mechanical phonograph nodded sheepishly, and brought the player back up to speed.
The violins, viola and cello played by the musicians of another universe went back to work, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” once again overrode the clicking and chirping of the insects of the rainforest.
Later that night, Maria tried putting on a Louis Armstrong record. Louis Armstrong had given the world such titles as “Alligator Crawl,” “Trees,” and “Rain, Rain.” Despite this evidence of affinity, the Indians of Marshall’s Creek were unimpressed, indeed, a little agitated. It appeared that the rainforest was not yet ready for jazz.
Maria salvaged the situation by hurriedly putting on Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 11 in A, “Rondo Alla Turca.” Tempers were appropriately soothed.
* * *
Ceremoniously, the chief’s wife handed Maria a cup of
piwari
. Maria took a carefully metered sip, and bowed her head in acknowledgment, hoping she had drunk enough to satisfy propriety. Piwari was a brew made with fermented cassava bread. Which wouldn’t sound so bad, except the old biddies of the tribe chewed the bread and then spat it into the pot to ferment.
She couldn’t help but remember a story Lolly had told her, about a practical joke played on a British diplomat. At some sort of exotic reception, a covered plate was put before him. When he lifted the lid, all that he saw was a spider. He stared at it, as his so-called friends watched him out of the corners of their eyes. A moment later, he grabbed it by the leg, announced, “For the Queen,” and dropped it into his mouth.
So it could be worse.
After the meal, presents were exchanged. “And this is for you,” Maria said, and handed the chief a strange ornament.
“It is like a piece of the rainbow,” marveled the chief.
During her sojourn in Grantville, Maria had listened to CDs on her friend Lolly’s player. She had also been introduced to the curious concept of the “coaster,” a CD which was no longer functional, and hence suitable for nothing better than protecting the table from water marks. Maria asked if she could have a few of these specimens, and Lolly said, “Sure, why not.”
Maria had them cut into quarters, and hole-punched. Maria gave one only to a chief, or his favored wife. They could be hung from the neck, so all tribesmen and visitors could envy how well, in one light, they acted as mirrors, and in another, they iridesced.
Though tensions had been reduced, there was still a certain amount of casual one-upmanship between the English and the Gustavans, as they both sought to win over the Indians of the Suriname River.
Maria was confident that the Gustavans had won this round. There was no way that Captain Marshall was going to be able to compete with the “rainbow.”
Fort Kykoveral (modern Bartica), Essequibo River, Guiana,
November 1634
Henrique Pereira da Costa, formerly of the Portuguese-Brazilian frontier town of Belém do Pará, watched as a small caiman emerged from the Essequibo River and rubbed its belly on the riverbank. It didn’t have much time left to enjoy the afternoon sun.
“Henrique, would you believe that they only have six books, besides the Bible, in the whole fort?” said his servant Maurício. Maurício had been trained by Henrique’s father as a scribe and linguist.
“That many?” Henrique asked rhetorically. “I am surprised.” Not that Henrique was much of a reader himself. He was more woodsman than scholar. He looked off to the west, toward the setting sun. Any moment now, he thought to himself.
“Five of them,” Maurício continued, “owned by the commander.”
The sun at last disappeared below the horizon. The skies darkened rapidly, that was typical of the tropics.
“As for the sixth—”
“Enough, Maurício.” Henrique took a deep breath, kneeled, and closed his eyes. “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one.” Henrique was a
marrano
, a secret Jew, who had, when exposed as a “Judaizer,” escaped into the Amazon with his servant and childhood companion, Maurício.
Maurício watched silently as Henrique prayed. Henrique had picked a location some distance from the fort, and out of its direct sight, so as not to give offense to their Calvinist hosts.
At last, Henrique completed the evening
shema
. He rose and looked at Maurício. “There are some serious matters we need to discuss. Like what we do next.”
“They don’t seem to like us here much, do they?”
“Well, they’re Dutch. Mostly Calvinists, too. They hate Catholics and they aren’t too keen about Jews, either.”
“Or free Africans, of any religion.” Maurício patted his pocket. “I keep my letter of manumission with me wherever I go, even in the jungle.”
“So, let me review our options.” Henrique held up a finger. “First, we can make our home somewhere in the back country.”
“Well, Kasiri and Coqui will be happy enough with that idea.”
The welcome that Henrique initially received as a great Amazonian explorer had gotten a bit tattered once the Dutch realized he was Jewish. The Dutch were the least prejudiced of all the Christian peoples, but “least” wasn’t the same as “not.” And anyway, the Dutch didn’t know quite what to make of Maurício, let alone their Indian companions.
“But I confess that while I am comfortable in the wilderness, I don’t want to cut myself from civilization indefinitely.” Henrique held up a second finger. “So the second possibility is that I can return to Europe.”
“Right,” agreed Maurício, “we need to find you a nice Jewish girl.”
Henrique gave him a quelling look. It had no discernible effect on Maurício’s smirk.
“We?”
At that, Maurício lost his smile. Henrique, logically, should board the next Dutch ship, and return to Europe. His family had longstanding plans to help them make a quick getaway if they had to, and Amsterdam was the preferred rendezvous point. And it was uncertain that the Dutch in Kykoveral would tolerate the permanent presence of a Portuguese Jew.
But that would mean Maurício would have to decide between crossing the Atlantic with Henrique or remaining on the Wild Coast with Kasiri.
* * *
Kasiri frowned. “What’s troubling you, Maurício?”
“Nothing.”
“Right. My darling Maurício barely speaks. He answers every question with a single word. It’s as commonplace as piranhas climbing trees.”
Kasiri and Maurício, of course, didn’t talk to each other precisely like that. They communicated in a weird mixture of Manau, Portuguese and sign language, with many circumlocutions.
“Henrique doesn’t think he can make his home here. He wants to cross the Great Sea to join his family.”
Kasiri had never seen the ocean. To her the Great Sea was some sort of extension of the Amazon. And her people, the Manao, traded all along the Rio Negro, down to its confluence with the Amazon. So she just shrugged. A young man of her tribe, like Coqui, might travel hundreds of miles to visit, and perhaps take a bride home from, another tribe.
“And I am his brother and servant. I feel honor-bound to accompany him.” Maurício sighed. “Besides, if I don’t, then I risk being re-enslaved by the Dutch. They are at war with the Portuguese, so they needn’t honor my letter of manumission.”
Kasiri smiled. “Fine, I will go with you across the Great Sea.” Her frown reappeared. “Unless perhaps you have tired of me?”
“Of course not! It would be wonderful to have you with me. It’s just . . . customs are different in Europe . . . For one thing, you’ll have to wear more clothes.”
“Hah! I am already wearing too much. Do I not see how you, and your brother, and these crazy Dutchmen suffer every day? You all need to wear less and bathe more.”
“Be that as it may, in Europe, in winter, it is too cold to dress lightly.”
“What is cold? And what is winter?”
Maurício abruptly gave Kasiri a hug. “Until a ship comes, we don’t have to make a decision. And perhaps we should take a canoe down to the mouth of the Essequibo, so you can see what the ocean looks like, before we decide anything. For now, let’s go swimming together.”
Clearly satisfied that she had restored Maurício’s spirits, Kasiri walked with him to the river. But she didn’t know that Maurício was, beneath his surface good humor, still in doubt. Kasiri would suffer in Europe, unless she was willing to wholly adopt the language and manners of a European, like a Amazonian Pocahontas. And even then, as an Indian married to an African, she could expect to suffer all sorts of slights.
