1636: Seas of Fortune (19 page)

Henrique laughed. “Presumably on the theory that the patient will get better so he doesn’t have to keep drinking the medicine.”

Maurício shifted his weight. “Excuse me, Henrique, I have to go,” he said. “Kasiri is waiting for me.”

Henrique waved him off. “And if the lovely and learned Maria is through questioning me, I have some business with the commander.” Maria inclined her head, and he and Maurício both took their leave of her.

“I wonder if Lolly knows any nice Jewish girls I can match him up with?” Maria pondered.

* * *

The local tribe was called the Lokono, which of course just meant “the people” or something like that. Henrique, Maurício, Kasiri and Coqui introduced Maria to their Lokono Arawak friends, and helped her with her inquiry. They knew the tree, or at least they knew of some tree they called “bibeera,” which sounded close enough. At least, the tree was tall enough, and its wood didn’t float. Some young Lokono women led her up the hilly banks of the Essequibo river, and pointed out several “bibeera” trees to her. They had the growing pattern common to many rainforest canopy trees; that is, branching only near the summit. Maria judged these specimens to be a good eighty feet tall.

The Lokono showed her how to remove the cinnamon-brown bark; it had to be beaten before it could be peeled off. The yellowish infusion they made from the bark tasted just as horrible as Maria had expected. It made up for this by smelling nasty, too.

Two of the sailors had come with Maria, and, on her instructions, cut down a few of the trees, trimmed them to logs of manageable size, and skidded them back to the
Eikhoorn
. Back in Gustavus, the carpenter would test them out and, if they were as good as the encyclopedias said, they would send the supply ship on to the Essequibo, with orders to pick up a cargo to take back to Europe for sale. Assuming that Maria and Heyndrick didn’t find a greenheart stand closer to their own colony.

Henrique, Maurício and Kasiri decided to go swimming; this stretch of the Essequibo was pleasantly free of piranha, electric eels, and crocodilians. Coqui watched Maria and the Lokono women for a while, then grabbed his bow and headed to the river.

In the meantime, Maria noticed that the larger of the trees were surrounded by nuts the size of apples. She decided that it might be advantageous to collect these, and plant them near Gustavus. If the greenheart trees were useful, it would be better if they didn’t have to go each year to Essquibo to harvest them.

As she put the nuts in her basket, the Lokono women started giggling. She tried to figure out why, but her linguistic skills weren’t up to the task. One woman did pat her own tummy. Maria took this to mean that the nuts were good to eat, but the Lokono didn’t seem interested in sharing Maria’s haul.

Maria returned to the fort, basket in hand, and got out her sketchbook. It wasn’t until sundown that Henrique and company came back.

“What is it that the Indian women find so funny about me being interested in the nuts of the greenheart?”

“Mevrouw Vorst, it will be an honor and a pleasure for me to find out,” said Henrique, bowing. He and Maurício went off in search of their Lokono friends, with Coqui and Kasiri trailing behind.

Curiously, at the dinner table, Henrique wasn’t quick to share his findings. Maria managed to contain her impatience until they were all done eating. “Well, Henrique, what did you find out?”

Henrique looked at Maurício. Maurício looked at the ceiling.

Henrique also seemed to have trouble looking straight at Maria. “Mevrouw Vorst. Umm. They use the nuts to, um, keep from having babies.”

* * *

Coqui wasn’t thinking about babies, but he was devoting some thought to the related subject of women.

He had decided to join Henrique, Maurício and Kasiri on their little trip because he wanted to find a mate. And none of the girls of his own village appealed to him particularly.

As they made their way down the Rupununi, they had passed through the lands of the Wapishana and the Macushi. Unfortunately, they had done so at the time that the upper Rupununi was in flood, creating a great lake that bridged it to the rivers of the Amazon. While that made travel relatively easy, it meant that it was hard to fish, and the Indians of the region spent that season mostly in the uplands, where they could hunt land game.

The bottom line was that he hadn’t met any eligible females en route. As to the women of the Lokono Arawaks, they fell into three categories. The pretty and available ones, who had struck up relationships with the Dutchmen at the fort. The pretty and unwilling ones, who had prudently moved deeper into the forest, where they could avoid unwanted advances. And the old women who insisted on flirting with him at every opportunity.

Logically, then, he should go deeper into the forest, but he was reluctant to trust his sister Kasiri to the highly dubious wilderness skills of her new boyfriend, Maurício. It was too bad that she hadn’t picked Henrique, who was actually competent. For a European.

This Maria said that there were Indian women near her colony. He would have to investigate.

Gustavus (Paramaribo),

Short Dry Season (February–March, 1635)

The black schooner rounded the sandy spit that marked the eastern edge of the entrance to the Suriname River. As it continued westward, it came into view of the recently constructed Fort Lincoln, which lay on the broad vee of land between the mouth of the Comowine River, and the main channel of the Suriname River. Gustavus itself was some distance farther up the Suriname, on the west bank, where the ground was less prone to flooding.

Fort Lincoln, at this point, was more bark than bite. Most of its “cannon” were actually artfully blackened logs. However, there was just enough real ordnance to fool an enemy ship that merely wanted to test the defenses. For all it knew, if the fort didn’t fire all its guns, perhaps it was just conserving ammunition.

Captain Dirck Adrienszoon, the original skipper of the
Eikhoorn
, and acting fort commander, lowered his spyglass.

“Slaver,” he said.

“How can you tell?” asked Heinrich Bender. He was a member of the colonial militia.

“From the smell. Just wait for the wind to blow this way again. Want a look-see?” Dirck handed the spyglass to Heinrich.

Heinrich adjusted the focus; he was near-sighted. “You think they’re here to sell slaves?”

“That’s one possibility.”

“Hey, that’s a Spanish flag they’re flying. That means we should shoot at them, doesn’t it? Since the Netherlands, the USE and Sweden are all at war with Spain.”

“The international law on the subject is a bit complicated. The Spanish supply slaves to all the Caribbean plantations, and so they probably have papers granting them immunity from privateers and warships of any country. At least, those that buy slaves, like the Dutch, the English, and the French. I am not so sure that Sweden would honor the papers, and the USE certainly would not.”

On Dirck’s command, Fort Lincoln fired a signal shot, warning the visitor to keep its distance, and alerting the settlement upstream that company had come knocking. The schooner prudently anchored several miles away, in two fathoms of water. Soon thereafter, it lowered a longboat.

Dirck walked out to the beach to meet them; he didn’t want the Spaniards getting a closer look at his guns.

The longboat crew was led by the first officer of the
Tritón
. Their ship, an eighty-tonner carrying two hundred slaves, had left El Mina several months ago. It had misjudged its position, gotten caught in the doldrums and run out of water. Crew and cargo alike were in desperate straits.

“And so, Senhor, we beg of you that as a good Christian, you tell us where we may find drinkable water, that we may refill our casks and be on our way. We are willing to pay, of course, for the privilege. And naturally, if you wish to buy any of our merchandise, we can give you a special price.”

Dirck told him that he would have to get permission from the governor of the colony, at the main settlement, and promised that he would relay the Spanish requests at once, but warned that they must stay where they were until a decision was reached.

* * *

Carsten Claus, the acting governor of Gustavus, and a Committee of Correspondence leader, was in favor of attacking the ship and freeing the slaves. Maria, who had recently returned from Kykoveral, agreed, and Heyndrick, though less enthusiastic, admitted that their up-time support would evaporate if they did anything else.

But it wasn’t as though Carsten had a company of Marines he could order into battle. What he had instead was the crew of the
Eikhoorn
, some additional recuperating sailors, and the settlers themselves. Some of these had served in village militias, and a smaller number were ex-mercenaries, but it was hardly a professional force. Carsten decided that he would have to persuade the colonists to take action. So he called a meeting of the town council.

“What’s the problem?” asked Denys Zager. “Make them pay through the nose for the privilege, and send them on their way. It’s all profit and no risk.”

“If you are worried about risk, why did you come to the New World?” complained Michael Krueger. “You’re Dutch, aren’t you? Here you have a heaven-sent opportunity to combine patriotism with profit. Capture the ship, and then sail it to a neutral port—Saint Kitts’ perhaps—to ransom off the crew and sell the slaves.”

“Do you remember our journey here?” asked Heinrich Bender. “How, as we passed the Canaries, we feared that every ship on the horizon was a Turkish slaver? If it be wrong for them to make you a slave, though you be their enemy, how can it be right for you to take as a slave an African who has done you no harm? Who has not consented to serve you? Can that be Christian?”

“Of course it is Christian,” said Krueger. “Did not Abraham own slaves?”

“In the time of the up-timers, all of the great nations made slavery unlawful,” Maria added. “Every religion condemned it as sinful. History judged us, and found us wanting. Now, through God’s grace, we have the opportunity to choose a more righteous path.”

“Have any of you brave souls considered that these slavers are heavily armed, in order to keep the slaves in line, and stand off pirates?”

“I have,” said Heinrich. “What of it? Captain Adrienszoon says there probably aren’t more than twenty to thirty of them. We outnumber them perhaps ten to one. And we have more and bigger cannon than they do.”

“Wearing a militia badge on your hat doesn’t make you an experienced fighter,” Zager warned. “They may be more trouble than you think.”

Krueger was unimpressed. “They have been dying of thirst for days, maybe weeks. I doubt they’ll put up much of a fight. And we have our own ‘sea beggars,’ the crew of the
Eikhoorn
, and the men the other ships left behind. As well as the town militia. The profit from capturing the ship, and the cargo, is worth the risk.”

“I agree that we should capture the ship, if we can,” said Carsten. “But it is wrong to keep slaves. And anyway, slaves aren’t very productive. Give them farmland and tools, and we and they will both profit more in the long run.”

“I agree,” said Johann Mueller, the glassmaker. He had been doing well enough trading beads with the Indians.

“Give them farmland,” said Zager, “and they will steal the tools and disappear into jungle. Probably after cutting our throats.” Zager, their sawyer, had a tendency to see the worst in human nature. Probably thanks to the years he had spent, as an apprentice, as the low man on the saw. The one in the saw pit.

Maria held up her hand. “They will see us tie up the slavers and strike off their chains. Surely they will understand, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ Freeing the slaves would double the size of the colony. And we have Maurício to interpret for us, to make sure there are no misunderstandings.”

Carsten nodded. “They can be settled on the other side of the river. Less friction that way.” And so it was agreed. Although not without some lingering dissent. Mostly with respect to freeing the slaves. The
Tritón
was no mere
jacht
like the
Eikhoorn
; it would come in very handy even if they didn’t sell it off.

* * *

There was still the practical issue of how to assault the ship. The
Eikhoorn
just had six swivel guns. Fort Lincoln and Gustavus both had cannon, brought over when the colony was established, but the
Tritón
was out of their range.

Consequently, the following morning, the Gustavans invited the
Tritón
to go up the Suriname River and dock at Gustavus pier. The pier was brand new, with pilings made of the greenheart brought back by the
Eikhoorn
.

“You can’t stay anchored out here, the bottom won’t hold the anchor if a storm comes in. As often happens this time of year. Just tie up at our dock.”

And once they docked . . . “Ordinarily we would sell you our water, but it is the dry season now. There is a very reliable spring, upriver. You go up the river until the river turns sharply through twenty-four points of the compass. It then enters a long straightaway, and then veers to port. Just there, you will see a hill in front of you, on the right bank. There is a tree which was split by lightning just below the spring, you can’t miss it. If you leave before the tide goes out, you can probably make it back tomorrow.” Carsten paused for effect.

“Only, the natives there give us trouble from time to time, so be sure to bring plenty of men, well-armed.”

“Can you give us a guide?”

“Certainly, if you can wait until the day after tomorrow. That’s when we expect the fellow back.”

The first mate of the
Tritón
looked at his captain, and said softly, “I don’t know if we can last that long.”

Carsten had thought that would be the reaction. And if it hadn’t been, Carsten could have stalled a bit more, without fearing that the
Tritón
would try to seize a guide. The
Tritón
was under the guns of Gustavus, after all.

“Go at once,” ordered the captain. The first officer of the
Tritón
crammed the longboat full of empty water casks, and sailors armed to the teeth, and headed upriver.