Seas of Fortune(26)
Two of the Indians made it onto the ice, but were confronted by all eight of the crew, armed and armored. They retreated. Throughout the night, David kept two men on the alert at the bowsprit, and the others slept on deck, in their armor, with their weapons beside them.
At dawn, they were still alive. Standing, half-asleep, David read to them. “Let us, with a gladsome mind, praise the Lord, for He is kind.”
The river rose. The ice floated away from shore, carrying the Eikhoorn with it. The iceberg ran aground on a sandbar, and the river swirled angrily around them. The ship creaked in response, and David wondered how long it could endure this treatment.
Then the Indians who were their foe unwittingly became their saviors. The lookout spotted two dugout canoes, unmanned, floating toward them. At David’s order, the crew caught them, and pushed them under the bow. As the waters rose still further, they buoyed up the canoes, and thus the Eikhoorn’s bow as well. At last, when David had almost given up hope that this ploy would succeed, the Eikhoorn was freed from the ice.
By the fourteenth, the wind shifted to the southwest, and brought in warmer air. The ice softened into slush. At their first opportunity, the crew gathered stones for ballast, to restore the yacht’s balance. Soon, they were back in Zuidt River Bay.
* * *
By the end of March, it was clear that the whaling had been a failure. Jan’s people had harpooned seventeen whales, but had little to show for it. Most had been struck in the tail, whereas a Basque or Cape Verde harpooner would have aimed for (and hit) the fore-part of the back. As a result, only seven carcasses had been brought in, and those were the puniest of the lot.
David sighed. “Thirty-two barrels of train oil. My partners will be furious.”
“It’s not your fault that they didn’t give you experienced harpooners, or proper whaleboats, or strong enough cables or winches to handle the larger whales,” said Heyndrick. “Godijn chose the ships and the whaling expert.” They were back on the Walvis, where Jan couldn’t hear them. Still, he kept his voice down.
“Godijn won’t remember that when I return,” said David gloomily. “I will be thrown to the sharks. The financial kind, that is.
“But that’s how it goes.” David raised his voice. “Helmsman, set a course for New Amsterdam. Pieter, signal the Eikhoorn to follow.”
David turned to Heyndrick. “After we reprovision there, we’ll head home. And then I am going to find myself a new patroonate, and new partners. Ones with more trust in my judgment.”
Grantville, July 1633
The theater at the Higgins Hotel was packed with people. The men wore everything from a twentieth-century jacket, pants and tie, to seventeenth-century breeches, blouse and cloak. The women were even more varied in their appearance; black cocktail dresses for some, bodice and bell skirts for others. And of course there were those who wore some combination of up-time and down-time styles, or who had decided to copy a garment of the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries.
“This is a madhouse,” said de Vries. He was seated at a small table near the front of the theater.
Kaspar Heesters, an Amsterdamer who had escorted David to Grantville, shrugged. “There’s method in their madness.”
Hugh Lowe, standing at the podium, tapped the microphone. The loudspeaker squealed. “Can everyone hear me? Welcome to the Grantville Investment Roundtable.
“I am sure that many of you know me already. I used to be the president of the Grantville Chamber of Commerce, and I am now the chairman of the Roundtable.
“Our first guest is Captain David Pieterszoon de Vries, a patroon of the Dutch West India Company. He has an investment proposal for us. Remember, Captain, we limit the summaries to two minutes. My assistant will bring the portable mike to you.”
De Vries took it and stood up. “Thank you, Herr Lowe. My proposal is to establish a colony on the Wild Coast, the area of northern South America between the Orinoco and the Amazon. Your English compatriots call it the Guianas. In your late twentieth century, there were three countries there: Guiana, Suriname, and French Guiana. My colony would be in Suriname. What was once called Dutch Guiana.
“I intend to transfer my patroon privileges in the West India Company from America to Suriname. I would be entitled to a patroonate of, oh, about twelve hundred square miles.” There was a gasp from somewhere in the audience.
“This would be, primarily, an agricultural colony. It would grow tobacco and cotton, of a surety. Orlean, too, that’s an Indian dye plant. Sugar cane, if we can find a suitable teacher. And I hope that there may be plants not yet known to us which are of value.