The Confusion

“Her stem is strongly raked, more like a jacht than a typical East Indiaman. It looks as if two and maybe three exceptionally noble teaks were sacrificed to fashion that curve. There are no such trees in Europe any more, and so stems are pieced together, and rarely have such a rake. How did you find trees that were curved just so?”

“In this country, as you have seen, there is a whole sub-civilization of woodcutters who carry in their heads an inventory of every tree that grows between the Roof of the World in the north, and the Isle of Serendib in the south,” Jack said. “We stole those trees from other jagirs. It took six months and was complicated.”

“And yet her keel is no shorter, for all her stem-rake. So yet again, the builder seems to have valued speed above other desirables. Being so long and so rakish, she had to be narrow-quite a bit of volume has been sacrificed to that. And even more has been given up to riders and other reinforcements-you’ve put two ships’ worth of teak into her. Expecting her to carry a lot of guns, are you?” Enoch asked.

“Assuming you’ve held up your end of the transaction.”

“She should last thirty or forty years,” Enoch said.

“Longer than most of us will,” Jack answered, “present company excepted, that is-if the rumors about you are true.”

“Anyone who looks at her will know she is hauling valuable cargo,” said Enoch. “If ship-building is the art of compromise, then your builder has everywhere chosen speed and armament at the expense of volume. Such a ship can only pay for her upkeep if she is hauling items of small bulk and great value. She is pirate-bait.”

“If there is anything we have learned in our wanderings, it is that every ship on the sea, even one as humble as God’s Wounds, is pirate-bait,” said Jack. “And so we have built a pirate-slayer. There is a reason why the Dutch make their merchantmen almost indistinguishable from their Ships of Force. Why should we go to the expense of fashioning a teak-built ship, only to lose her to some boca-neers six months after she is launched?”

Enoch nodded. Jack had become a bit furious.

“So let me hear your guess, Enoch. You said that she didn’t look like a ship built by a Dutchman. Who was the shipwright, then?”

“A Dutchman, of course! For only they are so free in adopting outlandish notions-only they have the confidence. Everyone else only parrots them.”

“You are both right and wrong,” Jack said after a moment’s pause, and then turned away and began slogging down the beach in the direction of a fire that had been kindled in the last few minutes, as the sun had finally disappeared and stars came out overhead. “Our shipwright is one Jan Vroom of Rotterdam. Van Hoek recruited him.”

“His name is well-known. What on earth is he doing here?”

“It seems that in the days of Vroom’s apprenticeship, shipwrights were held in high esteem by the V.O.C. and the Admiralty, and given a free hand. Each ship was built a little differently, according to the wisdom-or as some would say, the whim-of the shipwright. But recently the V.O.C. have become prideful, thinking that they know everything that will ever be known about how to build ships, and they have begun specifying sizes and measurements down to a quarter of an inch-they want every ship the same. And if a shipwright dares to show any artistry, why, then, some rival shipwright will be brought in to take measurements and write up a report, laying out how these rules and regulations have been violated, and causing no end of trouble. What it comes down to is that Jan Vroom did not feel appreciated. And when a worm-gnawed and weatherbeaten letter arrived in his hands, a couple of years ago, from an old acquaintance of his named Otto van Hoek, he dropped what he was doing and took passage on the next ship out of Rotterdam.”

“Looks as if more followed,” said Enoch, for they were now close enough that they could see a whole semicircle of muttering Dutchmen around the fire, lighting up their clay pipes with flaming twigs. In the middle were the red-headed captain, and a tall man with a blond-going-gray beard who was obviously Vroom. But four younger men were around them, listening and nodding.

“Before we interrupt these gentlemen, let us conspire in the darkness here,” said Enoch.

“I’m listening.”

“Along with these very Dutchmen, you imported some scribe, skilled-or so you were told-in the cryptographickal arts. You had this scribe write me an encyphered letter saying, ‘Dear Enoch Root, I require forty-four large naval cannons, preferably of finest and most modern sort, please provide.’ And several months later I decrypted and read this document in London-though not before some spy had intercepted it, and copied it out. At any rate, I read this document and I laughed. I hope you were laughing when you dictated it.”

“A smile might have played round my lips.”