Commander Cantrell in the West Indies(77)
Barto leaned his large, hirsute forearms on the table. “Let us speak frankly. I stay alive in this business because I avoid jobs that stink like old fish, and this is starting to smell that way. Make clear the job, the information, and the sources, or I must decline.”
De Covilla seemed surprised, but also pleased. “Very well. Last year, a Dutch captain who has apparently started a colony in Suriname—Jakob Schooneman, by name—brought a young American to conduct a brief reconnaissance of the area around Trinidad’s Pitch Lake. After a variety of further trespassings and pillagings in His Imperial Majesty Philip’s colonies, they both returned to Europe. Some time ago, that same ship, the Koninck David, returned and touched on the coast nearby San Juan, probably smuggling. That didn’t stop some of her crew from wandering into town for a brief carouse, of course.
“When the Koninck David’s assistant purser was in his cups, he told one of our informants that he had overhead this same young American being closely interviewed in Bremen last winter by a good number of his countrymen and unprincipled adventurers. Whereupon a number of this group determined to send a warship to Trinidad to usurp the region around Pitch Lake in order to sell its petroleum riches to the USE. We learned roughly when the ship was due and also that it would not head directly to Trinidad, in order to avoid the heavily trafficked transatlantic route that leads directly into the Grenada Passage, just off Trinidad itself. But more than this we could not learn.”
Barto leaned back, folded his arms. So, he was already entering into an ongoing plot rife with treachery, secrets, and informers. However, those were supposed to be his area of special expertise. Accordingly, it made him nervous when the Spanish—or anyone—displayed equal facility with them. Largely because it meant that he might be the one surprised, rather than the one springing the surprise. But balanced against those risks were the incredible benefits to be derived from taking this job, and succeeding. He pushed down his misgivings, and breathed out slowly as he made his response. “So have any of your informers told you how this expedition intends to take, and hold, a position on Trinidad? A single ship, even the largest, could not carry enough soldiers and supplies for a quick and lasting conquest.”
“We have wondered this, also. But inasmuch as our forces are spread too thin to respond in a timely fashion, this may be precisely what these bandits are counting upon. They hope to have the time to fortify, consolidate, perhaps rally others to their banner while we collect the necessary forces, and authority, from Venezuela, Isla de Margarita and even our more distant colonial audiencias.”
Barto rubbed his chin. “I have sailed near Trinidad in the past, but not recently. What are the conditions there?”
“They are most unfortunate, since our investiture of that island is indifferent at best. The governor is Cristoval de Aranda, who has held that post without any noteworthy distinction for four years. Indeed, his tenure is somewhat of an embarrassment to the Crown. He has been unable to substantively increase the size of his small colony, which is primarily engaged in the growing of tobacco. Which, it is reported, he then sells illegally to English and Dutch ships, rather than reserving it for the merchants of Spain.”
Barto did not point out that it was well known throughout the Caribbean that Spanish ships almost never went to this all-but-forsaken possession of their empire, and that if Aranda didn’t sell the tobacco to someone, he would soon be the governor of a ghost-town. Or maybe a graveyard, given the testy native populations on the island. Most of whom preferred any other European settlers over the Spanish. But Barto only nodded sympathetically.
“I suppose Aranda should not be made to bear all the blame himself,” de Covilla temporized. “His fortifications are small, guns are few, and the size of his militia laughable. It may not total twenty men, all mustered. Indeed, when he was finally compelled to evict a pack of British interlopers from Punta de Galera on the northeast point of the island a few years ago, he had to appeal to the colony on Margarita Island to raise a sufficient force for the job. Pitiable. However,”—and here the young hidalgo fixed a surprisingly direct and forceful gaze upon his dinner guest—“I am told that you, Se&nTilde;or Barto, have a significant force at your disposal, that you are immediately available, and that you specialize in swift, direct, and—above all—final, action.”
“That I do, Don de Covilla, that I do.”
“Excellent, because that is precisely what will thwart the plans of this new group of interlopers. So, to the details: how many men can you bring with you to Trinidad?”