Seeing the rapids reminded him of Maria. “She’ll be so freaking mad to find out that she missed out on the chance to run some whitewater,” he mused. “On the other hand, I am not sure she fancies playing Anne Bonney, so perhaps it’s just as well.”
* * *
The source of the Rio San Juan was the Lago de Nicaragua. Were it not for the maps, they would have thought that they had reached the Pacific Ocean. To their left, they could see nothing but water. Ahead, looking northwest, were several small islands, the Solentinames. Beyond them lay the cone of Ometepec, and farther still, as far as the eye could see, more water. On their right, the lake was hemmed in by a long chain of cloud-capped mountains, but of course you could say the same about the Pacific coast of Peru or Mexico.
The oceanic impression was reinforced when the Dutch-Miskito expedition spotted the telltale dorsal fins of sharks. Bull sharks did enter rivers, but they were now almost a hundred miles from the Atlantic.
The only sign that they were on a lake was that the water was fresh, not salty. No one expressed an interest in swimming.
“About a hundred miles to Granada,” David told the other leaders. “I don’t know how much lake traffic there is, so we’ll hide by day, and paddle by night.” They didn’t argue. The greatest weapon in warfare was surprise.
“Do your maps show good hiding places along the coast?” asked Blauveldt.
“They’re not that detailed. But we have three choices. We can hug the southwest shore. I’m afraid that might be populated, because the land is flat.”
“So that’s out.”
“Or we can go along the northeast coast. There’s just a narrow strip of land between it and the mountains.”
David swatted, ineffectually, at a mosquito that had dive-bombed him. “But the route I favor is almost directly across the lake.”
“Short, but won’t we be seen?”
“Besides these specks in front of us”—he pointed at the Solentinames—“there are two big islands along the way. Sneaking along behind the second gets us to perhaps twenty miles from Granada. Then we can edge a bit west, to put a little cape between us and the Granadans, and once we round it we’re only five miles out.”
“Sounds good to me. We could cut across the cape, if that would keep us out of sight longer.”
“We’ll have to see. It looked like there might be a mountain spur there. That could turn a short cut into a long cut.”
The sun set, and the canoes advanced. They fought to avoid a westward drift; the waves came mainly from the east, no doubt driven by the trade winds. That, too, was a sign they weren’t on the Pacific.
It took another week to cross the lake. Several times they encountered fishing boats, but none were allowed to escape and bring warning to unsuspecting Granada. Granada had been founded in 1524, and it had never been attacked by a European force. No mother of Granada warned children that if they didn’t go to sleep, the English or Dutch would eat them.
Granada, Nicaragua
David’s raiders made the final advance in the darkness and solitude of the wee hours. The city was unwalled, so they marched directly to the great plaza. The few soldiers in the barracks were forcibly awakened, and placed under guard. The powder magazine was emptied. The cannon in the vicinity were appropriated and set up to command the plaza and its approaches.
By the time the civilians knew that there were invaders in their midst, it was already morning. The rays of the rising sun gave the stone outer walls of the Granadan buildings a golden glow. David hoped that this was a portent that they would find gold inside, too.
Several detachments guarded the entrances to the city, to make it more difficult for the inhabitants to escape with their valuables. Others patrolled the main streets and, as the Granadans emerged from their homes, prodded them toward the plaza and into the cathedral. It was soon filled with hundreds of citizens. Some screamed imprecations at their captors, some wept, and others just sat in a state of shock.
The Miskitos had, by this point, taken possession of the weapons in the armory, and were happily firing their weapons at Spaniards so imprudent as to poke their heads out of a door or window, or, if not given the opportunity for such sport, into the air. David’s control over them was tenuous, and he thought it best to give them the chance to work off their excitement, as long as they didn’t resort to wholesale slaughter.
The Dutch, on the other hand, were more interested in collecting plunder. They did it systematically, starting at the cathedral and the city hall, and then checking out any building that looked well-appointed enough to warrant investigation.