Commander Cantrell in the West Indies(255)
“Yep. And by deflecting our drive on Santo Domingo, they debuted a new playbook. And whoever’s authoring it is one smart cookie.”
“You mean by deferring engagement until night, or by going after our Achilles heel: our support ships?”
“Both, and more besides. The Spanish have never given lighter, fore-and-aft rigged ships any serious consideration as combat platforms. They got into the galleons-as-sea-forts mentality about a century ago, and haven’t budged. But this guy, whoever he is, threw that out after one nasty surprise off Grenada.” Eddie shook his head. “The Spanish admirals are usually not out-of-the-box thinkers. But this guy is, and that makes him dangerous. Hell, he was even willing to recruit pirates to get enough of the right kind of ships and crews for his ambush. And he almost pulled it off.”
“Well, at least we know what to look for, in the future,” Tromp offered. “Although I suspect that this fellow had alternate tactics in the event of bad weather, since poor visibility favors his ships in other ways.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he had a Plan B. And probably a Plan C for really high seas. Either way, until we retrofit our ships with a fire-control system that’s electronically triggered by our interferometers, and also come up with some night vision gear, they’re going to try to engage us in unfavorable fighting conditions. And as long as they keep a lot of their lighter ships around to run interference, it’s going to be pretty hard to pin down their heavies and sink them.”
Tromp nodded. “Yes. He made quite an accurate study of both your gunnery, and the conditions that will nullify its superiority. And he deduced he needed lighter ships to ‘run interference’ as you call it. And I am not sure how we can parry his riposte. Unless we find some pirates of our own to recruit.”
Eddie smiled. “Or even better, some disaffected Englishmen. They do run quite a number of sloops and yachts between here, the Bahamas, Bermuda, and even Barbados.”
Tromp smiled and raised his schnapps snifter in a toast. “An excellent project and New Year’s resolution.” He took a sip, grew somber. “It would certainly have been helpful to have even four or five more such ships when we tried to push through them to the south. We sank or disabled enough of them, but our warships were too slow to exploit the gaps we punched in their trap before they filled it with more of their swift ships. As it was, we were still fighting when light fell. Thank God that the Resolve showed up when she did and made steam. The lights from her, and her funnel, gave us a gathering point, kept us from scattering further. By following her, we got moving in the right direction even though we couldn’t see each other’s signals. By the way, I am now a convert to your insistence that every ship has a blinker tube. It would have been an immense help at the end of that combat. And perhaps we might not have had to lose the Pinas and the Zeeland.”
“Why?”
“Because they were not sinking so much as they were damaged, unable to make headway. Had we been able to find them in the dark sooner, we might have been able to assess the damage and effect enough repairs to allow them to keep up with the rest of our ships.” Maarten flipped one impatient palm upward. “But instead, by the time we found them, we were already worried about not getting far enough away, by becoming embroiled in a second day of combat. There wasn’t the time to fix much, and we couldn’t afford to leave the crews behind. So we had to scuttle them. Such a waste. We need every hull we have. And more.”
“No argument from me on that point, Maarten. Are your folks finished refitting the Spanish ships we took off Grenada?”
“Not quite, but soon. Frankly, the Spanish ships are so slow that they will not be much use to us when we sail to war. But they will be serviceable enough as part of our defense forces, either here or at Trinidad, I think.” He smiled. “They do quite well as floating batteries, at least.”
“What about giving them a better fore-and-aft rig on their mizzen? Or spencer masts?”
Tromp shrugged. “One has clean enough lines to warrant such modifications, and we might do so, if time permits. But the others—they are fortress-scows to carry silver back to Seville.”
Eddie finished his drink. “I suppose, all things considered, we came out of it well enough. Even if we failed in our main objective.”
Tromp seemed to study him closely, for a moment. Then said: “I think you underestimate what we gained, Captain Cantrell. As a result of the battle off Vieques, we have resolved what may have been the single greatest weakness we had.”
“Which was?”