Commander Cantrell in the West Indies(241)
Resolve’s guns spoke a few seconds later, and although both shots hit water not wood, Simonszoon’s ability to work with his gunners was clearly improving. The two rounds bracketed the galleon he’d targeted and Eddie would have taken odds that if he didn’t score a hit with the next pair, he would with the third.
As he watched his own gunners crank their pieces around to access the next proximal target, he crossed his arms, felt his stump tired and cramping in the prosthesis for the first time in weeks. Okay, Mr. Spanish Admiral, if you’re willing to put your galleons in range, we’ll keep smacking them down. Until your faster ships get inside of five hundred yards, that is.
Maarten Tromp watched smoke jet out of the steam-pinnace’s funnel, and a second later, felt a tug in the deck beneath his feet. “Are we matching pace with the jachts, now?”
Adriaen Banckert nodded. “Yes, sir. They’ve reefed sails enough that we can keep formation with them.”
Tromp looked starboard. Gelderland, also under tow, was abeam at three hundred yards. The jachts Fortuin, Zuidsterre, and Pinas were approximately three hundred yards ahead in a rough arrowhead pattern: a wedge to drive through the pirate ships now two miles ahead. Or so Tromp hoped.
He looked astern. The rest of the Dutch warships were making good speed, the wind having freshened and come into a friendly compass point. But they would not be able to add their weight to any engagement that the advance guard initiated for at least an hour.
Meanwhile, the enemy ships to the south had closed ranks, but probably not as much as they had wished. Having sprung their trap early, they had begun in a wide, dispersed arc. Now, closing ranks came at the expense of forward progress, and vice versa. Tromp could only hope that, despite their greater numbers, they were spread too far and too thin to resist the lance-point that he hoped his fleet would be.
“Admiral Tromp?” Willem van der Zaan’s replacement, a fourteen-year-old former native of Recife improbably named Brod, arrived with a strip of paper: a communiqué from the ship’s wireless.
“Who from, Brod?” asked Tromp.
“Commander Cantrell, sir. Answering your message.”
Tromp nodded, watching Adriaen descend to the main deck to inspect the arms and armor of the ship’s troops. It would be a miracle indeed if the slower Dutch ships managed to pass through their antagonists without repulsing at least one boarding attempt. “Read the message, Brod.”
The lad complied. “Cantrell commanding Intrepid to Tromp commanding Amelia. Message begins. Now shifting fire to small vessels. Stop. Unable to estimate time remaining before disengagement. Stop. Cannot predict ETA at rendezvous point one. Stop. Sail for home and do not look back. Stop. Message ends.”
Commander Eddie Cantrell was busy scanning and describing the new hulls for Intrepid’s growing target list, his runner scribbling furiously.
“Target seven. Currently bearing 284 on the compass rose. Range: 800 yards. Approximate speed: four knots. Type: thirty-foot piragua with single lateen sail. Armament: two swivel guns. Complement of twenty. Unusual feature: prow-mounted pole or boom.
“Target eight. Currently bearing 294 on the compass rose. Range: 950 yards. Approximate speed: five knots, making three knots headway with tacking. Type: Bermuda-style sloop. Armament: eight demi-culverins, four falconets. Complement of thirty-five.
“Target nine. Currently bearing—”
“Commander Cantrell!”
“Yes, Svantner?”
“Targets three and four have sheered off, given us a wide berth.”
“Heading back for Resolve?”
“That or looking to get behind us, sir.”
“Does sub-battery three have them in range?”
“Aye, sir!”
“The gun chief may fire his carronades both with my compliments and expectations of success.”
“Yes, sir!”
Gjedde had been giving the sail handlers sharp, fast orders. He now looked up in a lull as the Intrepid came back before the wind, steadying so that the main batteries would have a stable platform from which to fire. “They are playing with us, you know.”
“Of course they are. But they’re paying, too.” It was true enough. After sinking four galleons outright and damaging another seven, the two cruisers’ guns had turned upon the fore-and-aft rigged vessels and, since doing so, had sunk three and damaged two. Being small—everything from twenty-gun Dutch jachts that had been cut down to follow the sleek lines that pirates preferred, to ten-man piraguas —many of the ships were as lightly built as they were nimble. The smaller ones often capsized after a single hit because the shells from the rifles over-penetrated, punching through the strakes on one side, and blasting out a spray of hull chunks as they exited the other.