“No, Admiral. Just watchful.”
“You saw me coming?”
“No, sir . . . but I was standing the last leg of the middle watch and saw the fluyt that came in slow and quiet from the north. At night. Passing other ships at anchorage without a hail.”
Tromp stared at Willem. “Little Willi”—what a misnomer, now!—had not just grown in mind and body, but subtlety. A year ago, he might not have come to such a quick and certain surmise that the incoming ship’s quiet approach signified an ally wishing to make a brief, surreptitious visit. Instead, he would have reflexively sounded an alarm signifying that pirates were upon them under cover of night. “You are very observant, Willi.”
“I am the admiral’s eager pupil, sir. If I’m not mistaken, that was the Koninck David, sir, wasn’t it?”
“Mmm. And how did you know?”
“Captain Schooneman’s rigging, sir. He’s always ready to run as near to the wind as he can.”
Because he’s often working in dangerous waters, gathering, or carrying, confidential information. Tromp felt his smile slacken even as his pride in van der Zaan grew. All of which you know, don’t you, Willi? Knowledge is what brings childhood’s end, and you are indeed Little Willi no longer. Which means that now, you will face the same duties—and dangers—as the rest of us. May God watch over you, dear boy, for from here on, my ability to do so will be greatly reduced.
They passed the galley. Urgent sounds of hurry that bordered on chaos spilled out.
“Early to be serving breakfast,” observed Tromp.
“Turning out for the admiral,” was the respectful correction offered by van der Zaan, as they passed. “I suspect the cook will be putting an extra few rashers of bacon on, today. Do you not wish to inspect?”
Tromp nodded. “Yes, but they are doing well to be about their business so smartly. I shall give them time to make good their special preparations.” He turned to his young assistant. “Letting men succeed, particularly in a special task which they have taken up on their own initiative, builds their pride. Which builds their morale.”
“Yes, Admiral,” said Willi with a smile which also said, As you have well and often taught me, and as I have well and fully learned. After a moment, he added, almost cautiously, “You seem distracted, sir.”
If you only knew. “Not at all, Mr. van der Zaan. I am simply quiet when I am most attentive.”
“Ah. Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”
As you have well and often taught me, and as I have well and fully learned
Willi followed Tromp to the next ladder down. “Where are we headed, sir?”
Tromp stopped, hands on either side of the almost vertical between-deck stairs that seamen called “ladders.” He looked at the young man gravely; he knew that the moment he uttered their first inspection site, Willi would know what was in store, what kind of news had come in from the Koninck David in the small hours of the morning. “The bilges, young Willem. We are going to the bilges.”
Willem van der Zaan’s eyes widened. Because he had not forgotten—how could he?—Maarten Tromp’s weekly litany about preparing for battle: “You check the ship from keel to foretop. You do it yourself. Meaning you start in the bilges.”
“The bilges?” van der Zaan almost whispered, looking very much like Little Willi again.
Tromp just nodded and headed below.
Tromp was still trying to wipe the stink of the bilge water off his hands when he returned to the galley. The ship was in readiness—he had expected no less—and despite the long wait for action, she was well-caulked and her gear made fast with tight lashings and adequate dunnage. But the inescapable fact was that there was simply less gear than there should have been. Dry goods were low, as was cordage and canvas. They had managed to procure some through the intercession of Sir Thomas Warner, the English—well, now state-less—governor of nearby St. Christopher. But sails came at quite a price, since Warner got the canvas via the occasional traffic from Bermuda. Wherever possible, Tromp and his fleet of almost forty ships had adopted local expedients in place of Old World manufactures, but good, reliable chandlery—to say nothing of nails, tools, and metal fixtures of all kinds—was not being produced in the Caribbees, or anywhere in the New World, outside the greatest of the Spanish ports.
Even rags, Tromp reflected, continuing the futile task of cleaning his hands with a towel already inundated with bilge water, even rags were rare enough commodities, here. What weaving the locals did was crude, and not suitable to all purposes.
“Shall I fetch you another towel, sir?” Willi asked as he peered into the evidently expectant mess.