Mother is the best bet
At twilight we make our way towards the house of Skipper Nordenholz, which is outside the town on higher ground overlooking the bay. He receives us in a large courtyard covered with lattice and mosquito netting. He has a thin aristocratic face, green eyes, a continual ironic smile, and an oblique way of talking and glancing down his nose at the same time....
"Most glad to welcome you to Port Roger. Hope that your quarters are convenient...." His English is almost perfect except for a slight inflection. "And now"—he glances down his nose and smiles as he gestures towards a table twenty feet long, laden with food: fish, oysters, shrimp, turkey, venison, wild pig, heaping bowls of rice, yams, corn, mangoes, oranges, and kegs of wine and beer—"chacun pour soi."
Everyone helps himself as Skipper Nordenholz indicates the seating arrangements. I am to sit at his table with Captain Strobe, the de Fuentes or Iguana twins as they are called, Opium Jones, Bert Hansen, Clinch Todd, Hans, and Kelley, and a Doctor Benway.
I will attempts to report as accurately as my memory permits the conversation at the dinner table. It was all concerned with weaponry and tactics but on a level I had never thought possible outside my lonely adolescent literary endeavors—for I have always been a scribbler and during the long shut-in winters filled notebook after notebook with lurid tales involving pirates from other planets, copulations with alien beings, and attacks of the Radiant Boys on the Citadel of the Inquisition. These notebooks with illustrations by Bert Hansen are in my possession, locked in a small chest. The conversation at the dinner table gave me the feeling that my notebooks were coming alive.
"For the benefit of you Great White boys"—Skipper Nordenholz looked down at the table and his eyes glinted with irony—"I would like to say that our enemy in this area is Spain, and our most powerful weapon is the freedom hopes of captive peoples now enslaved and peonized under the Spanish. But this weapon alone is not enough. First we must develop more efficient firearms and artillery. For this task we are depending on our able gunsmiths. We must also bear in mind that there are many different types of weapons. Opium Jones, we would be interested to hear your report."
Opium Jones got up and pulled down a map about six feet square on a roller, speaking in his dead opium voice.
"As you know, we have imported a quantity of poppy seed. We already have fields in these areas. Many other areas are suitable for cultivation. We are sending out opium advisers. Missionary work, we call it."
"And what do you see as the long-range effects of this brotherly project?" asked Nordenholz.
"In commercial terms, we can undersell eastern opium and take over the opium trade for the Americas, Canada, and the West Indies. Of course, we can expect a percentage of addicts in the areas of cultivation...."
What advantages and disadvantages do addicts present from the military point of view?"
"We can insure loyalty by impounding the opium crop. Addicts are more tolerant than non-addicts of cold, fatigue, and discomfort. They have a strong resistance amounting to virtual immunity to rheums, coughs, consumption, and other respiratory complaints. On the other hand, they are incapacitated if the opium supply is cut off."
"You also distribute hashish?"
"Certainly. A measure of seed with any purchase at our trading posts. Unlike opium it grows anywhere." Jones made a sweeping gesture. "The whole area is full of it."
Doctor Benway got up.
"Sickness has killed more soldiers than all the wars of history. We can turn illness to account. If your enemy is sick and you are well, the victory is yours. Healthy vultures can kill a sick lion. For example, my learned colleague Opium Jones has pointed out the immunity of addicts to respiratory afflictions. And I may add that periodic users who need not become addicted are equally immune. Consider the advantages conferred in an epidemic of the deadly Spanish influenza."
"Is there any way in which such an epidemic could be induced?"
"There are no problems. All respiratory complaints are transmitted by spitting, sneezing, and coughing. We need only collect these exudations and convey them into the enemy area. Consider other potential allies...." He pointed to areas on the map. "Malaria and yellow fever ... both imported from the Old World and flourishing in the New. My researches have convinced me that these illnesses are conveyed by mosquitoes. Mosquito netting, pine incense, oil of citronella rubbed on exposed skin areas ... these simple precautions—not, of course, infallible—will give us an advantage of fifty enemy cases to one. Dysentery, jaundice, typhoid fever ... these even more reliable allies are conveyed by the ingestion of infected excrement, which can be collected and introduced into the enemy water supply. Boiling all drinking water and abstaining from uncooked foods or unpeeled fruits yields one-hundred-percent immunity. We must, of course, always be careful not to encourage an illness for which we do not have a remedy or means of avoidance."
"Magical weapons?"
The Iguana girl spoke in her cool remote voice: "All religions are magical systems competing with other systems. The Church has driven magic into covens where practitioners are bound to each other by a common fear. We can unite the Americas into a vast coven of those who live under the Articles, united against the Christian Church, Catholic and Protestant. It is our policy to encourage the practice of magic and to introduce alternative religious beliefs to break the Christian monopoly. We will set up an alternative calendar with non-Christian holidays. Christianity will then take its place as one of many religions protected from persecution by the Articles."
"Economic weapons?"
Strobe glanced through some notes. "We can, of course, undersell Eastern opium...and no doubt various other products such as tea, silk, and spices. But our most powerful monopoly is sugar and rum. Europe will pay our price for sugar."
My appetite was sharpened by hashish and I was the better able to savor the excellent repast: clams and oysters baked on hot coals with a dry white wine, wild turkey, pigeons, venison with a vintage Bordeaux, yams, corn, squash, and beans, avocadoes, mangoes, oranges and coconuts.
After the company had eaten their fill, Skipper Nordenholz tapped a glass for silence. He stood up in front of the map, speaking in a self-effacing manner with pauses and unfinished sentences as he gestured from time to time to the map with his long beautifully kept gambler's fingers.
"For the benefit of newcomers ... old hands may also profit ... a few indications and guidelines. We have already established fortified settlements ... as you see, practically unlimited. We need artisans, soldiers, sailors and farmers to man the settlements already founded and to establish new centers from the Bering Strait to the Cape. Breeding is encouraged ... is in fact a duty, I hope not too unpleasant. We expect that some of you will raise families. In any case, mothers and children ... well cared for, you understand. We need families to operate as intelligence agents in areas controlled by the enemy. We solicit those of you who are skilled as cooks, hotel keepers, doctors and pharmacists ... strategic occupations. One of our aims is to addict the Spanish to opium, thereby making them dependent on supplies which we can, at a crucial moment, cut off.... And now there are some uh young ladies who have been waiting to meet you."
He sprinkled some powder onto a brazier and a dense cloud of smoke arose with a sound of thunder. Skipper Nordenholz, Captain Strobe, Opium Jones, Doctor Benway, and the Iguana twins disappeared.
Now a wind sweeps through the courtyard of Skipper Nordenholz's house at Port Roger, extinguishing the candles. When they are relit, fifty girls and women are standing along the south wall of the courtyard. The men and boys range themselves along the north wall, facing the women.