Eric Flint: Grantville Gazette Volume XI

Two of the Indians made it onto the ice, but were confronted by all eight of the crew, armed and armoured. 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 saviours. 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.

"But that's how it goes." David raised his voice. "Helmsman, set a course for Nieuw Amsterdam. Pieter, signal the Eikhoorn to follow."

David turned to Heyndrick. "After we re-provision 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 at the front of the theater.

Kaspar Heesters, an Amsterdamer who had escorted David to Grantville, shrugged. "There's method in their madness."

Hugh Lowe, the former President of the Grantville Chamber of Commerce, tapped the microphone. The loudspeaker squealed. "Can everyone hear me? Welcome to the Grantville Investment 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. Here, speak into the mike." He put it in front of de Vries, who stood up.

"Thank you, Herr Lowe. My proposal is to establish a colony in Surinam. That is the Dutch name for the Wild Coast, the area of northern South America between the Orinoco and the Amazon. The English call it Guyana.

"I intend to transfer my patroon privileges in the West India Company from America to Guyana. I would be entitle 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.

"As to other possibilities, once the colony is established, I can take a yacht upriver, to look for the gold which Guyana is reputed to possess." He was referring to the legend of El Dorado, and the Lake of Manoa. "Or I can take my squadron privateering; that can be very lucrative."

David finished off by discussing how much money he was trying to raise, and what it would be spent on. "There is a – " He looked blank for a moment.

"Handout," whispered Kaspar.

" – handout by the door. Thank you for listening to me." He sat down.

"Are there any questions for the captain?" said Hugh.

David Bartley stood up. "Aren't you worried that the Spanish will wipe out your colony?"

David de Vries was surprised that a youngster would ask questions in such a gathering, but answered his question politely. "There are already Dutch, French and English settlements on the Wild Coast, and the Spanish have simply ignored them."

"And where are you going to get your colonists? I don't think you're going to find many here in Grantville."

"There are many displaced peasants in Germany and Flanders, thanks to the wars. This would be their big chance to own land of their own."

Chad Jenkins, one of the major landowners in Grantville, stood up. "Captain De Vries, you are going to have to find a suitable site for this colony of yours. Do you have experience as an explorer?

"Yes, in the Barents Sea, in my youth, and more recently in the Americas, between the Zuidt and Noord Rivers."

"The South and North." Kaspar Heesters explained. "What up-timers would call the Delaware and Hudson Rivers."

Chad wasn't finished. "And have you been in more tropical climes?"

"I spent several years with Coen in the East Indies, and I also visited several islands of the West Indies on my last voyage."

Claus Junker raised a newspaper. "Joe Buckley says here that you were involved in the Zwaanandael disaster. The attempt to found a colony in Delaware."

David's face reddened. "That was hardly my fault. I had sought the command of the first expedition, but it was denied. Indeed, I had to stay at home, trusting to the leaders picked by my partners. And on the second trip, it was the so-called whaling expert who failed, not me."

Endres Ritter chimed in. "You know all about financial disasters caused by picking the wrong partners, don't you, Claus?" It was a reference to Claus' ill-fated investment in microwave ovens. The two men glared at each other.

Claus returned to his original target. "But even if it weren't your fault, your… association with a failed venture has made it difficult for you to raise money for your latest enterprise, hasn't it?"

David folded his arms. "It made it difficult for me to fund it myself. But I do have prospective investors. Jan Bicker of Amsterdam, for one. And two of his friends." There was an answering murmur from the financiers in the room. "Coming here was not a necessity. I was hoping to raise more money, be able to give the colony a more secure foundation.

"And I hoped that there might be some Germans here who had a yen to own their own farm in the New World."

An up-timer stood up. "And I imagine your colonists are going to steal their new farmland from the natives. And then either force them into labor, or kill them outright."

"That's Andrew Yost," Kaspar whispered to David. "He's manager of the Grantville Freedom Arches, and one of the leaders in the local Committee of Correspondence. I told you about that."