Commander Cantrell in the West Indies(239)
Tromp smiled. “Oh, they are a force to be reckoned with, but those ships are not in the rolls of any nation’s fleet. They are pirates. Well, privateers now, I suppose.”
Banckert was so surprised that he forgot to address Tromp with an honorific. “What?”
“Adriaen, tell me, do you imagine the Spanish have ready access to so many fore-and-aft rigged vessels as are approaching us from the south? Perhaps if they drew in all the hulls of the Garda Costa and all their advice ships, but that would take more than a year to coordinate. No, the Spanish recruited the fleet we see coming from the south. And, I begin to suspect Cantrell is right in guessing that many of the smaller craft in the fleet to our west have the same origins.”
“But the Spanish detest pirates. They almost never grant them letters of marque—”
“Adriaen, we confronted them with an entirely new threat at the Grenada Passage. And they have formulated an entirely new response. They set aside their old prejudices to find a means to reduce the effectiveness of the steamships’ new weapons. Pirate ships are smaller, faster, more maneuverable, all of which makes them harder to hit. It also means they do not require fair breezes from the stern like galleons, but may sail close to the wind, tacking through it at their leisure. No, Cantrell’s analysis is correct. And I think he is also correct in speculating that their nature as pirates did help us in one way: they lacked sufficient discipline to wait a few more hours.”
Banckert looked at the sun, now well past the midday point. “But Admiral, if they had waited a few more hours, they would have been engaging us at dusk.”
“Precisely. Enough light to see us, but not enough light for us to maneuver against them, regroup, or unleash broadsides at a distance. Adriaen, the dark is their friend. And they need not sink or disable many of us to win a great victory here. For if we flee these waters, and we must, then any hull that straggles behind will be fodder for these sea-wolves.”
Banckert nodded, understanding Tromp’s strategic decision at last. “And so, in order to escape, we must sail south by southwest. That will give us a reasonable following wind, give us the wind-gauge over the more nimble ships to the south. And will bring us away from any threat that the main fleet to the west might pose, should it turn about. Although, Admiral, the wind is against them.”
“Against the main fleet’s galleons, yes. But all her fore-and-aft rigged vessels can tack and make headway against it, could get in among our square-rigged warships, maybe our supply ships.”
“Unless the steamships hold these waters long enough for the rest of us to sail southward, out of—what did Cantrell call it, this ‘L-ambush’?—and punch our way through the second fleet.”
“The lower and weaker jaw of the Spanish trap,” Tromp affirmed with a nod. “Now, send the signals, Adriaen. If our captains wish to have the orders explained, do so once, and succinctly. And in such a way that they know that this flagship neither has the time nor the interest in answering further inquiries. And once we are tightening up our formation, we’ll need to ready the steam pinnaces for towing both Amelia and Gelderland. We’ll be pulling ahead along with the jachts to serve as a vanguard.”
“Yes, sir.” He looked over the bow, toward the big USE cruisers. “At least, with their speed and their guns, they should be safe.”
The admiral merely motioned Adriaen toward the waiting signalman. Maarten Tromp knew all too well how easily such confidence could turn out to be wrong.
“Commander Cantrell, Captain Simonszoon has sent a reply to your fuel inquiry.”
Well, about bloody time, Eddie huffed silently while he maintained an impassive exterior. Simonszoon’s delay wasn’t a good sign. If he’d been running his ship right, he should have known how much coal he had left in the bunker. He shouldn’t have had to send someone below decks to get a count. “What’s his reply?”
“Resolve has twenty percent fuel remaining.”
It was not terribly surprising that the down-time commander had burned through so much coal. Conserving fast-consumables other than powder and shot could be tricky to gauge, since the depletion accrued as a constant trickle rather than in a few dramatic gulps. But it was damned inconvenient, given the kind of maneuvers the cruisers might have to perform in order to keep the main Spanish fleet from turning about and closing in.
Which might not prove to be as easy a tactical objective as it sounded. As soon as the Amelia turned her prow south by southwest, and the jachts began hurrying to form a flying wedge at the head of the formation, the western progress of the main Spanish fleet had slowed noticeably. And although he wanted to keep the pressure on them, Eddie did not dare call on Simonszoon to keep her steam up, or even to make reasonable headway with the favorable wind. Because when the time came to turn and flee, that new heading would put the cruisers in a close reach. If the two big ships were going to get meaningful distance from the smaller pataches and jachts of the western Spanish fleet, they’d need to have steam left to make it happen. Possibly more steam than Resolve could raise.