Corsair

THIRTEEN

NEXT MORNING Hector awoke from a fitful sleep to hear his name being shouted aloud. A guard was banging on the open cell door and calling out that he and Dan were to make themselves ready for an interview with the commissaire of the Arsenal. As he got to his feet, Hector was surprised to hear Bourdon call out impudently, ‘What about me?’ In answer, the guard opened the door, walked across the room and struck him hard across the mouth. Undeterred, the pickpocket asked, ‘So who’s the commissaire now? Another of Brodart’s friends?’ The guard scowled as he turned on his heel and the pickpocket called out to his retreating back, ‘Whoever it is, tell him that Jacques Bourdon’s a man with whom he can do a little business!’

‘What did you do that for?’ Hector asked. ‘It only made him angry.’

The pickpocket shot Hector a quizzical glance. ‘I don’t suppose you even know who Brodart is,’ he said.

Hector shook his head.

‘Jean Brodart is our lord and master. He’s Intendant of Galleys and chief administrator of the Galley Corps, appointed by Minister Colbert himself. He’s also one of the most corrupt men in the kingdom. Brodart and his cronies are skimming every livre that King Louis pays out for his precious Galley Corps. They’re up to every trick, whether putting non-existent workers on the payroll, demanding kickbacks from suppliers, selling off surplus stores, writing up fraudulent bills of lading. Believe me, compared to the Intendant and his gang, the swindlers and fraudsters on the chain were innocent lambs. Wait and see, my message will get through. Brodart’s underlings can’t resist even the smallest crumb.’

When the guard returned half an hour later it was to escort Hector and Dan back to the administration building and up a staircase to the first floor until they arrived before a door guarded by a sentry in a blue uniform with white crossbelts. Their escort knocked, and they were shown into a large room lit by tall windows which gave a view across the city.

‘I understand you are latecomers with the consignment from Livorno,’ began the commissaire, who had been standing looking out towards the distant roof tops. Commissaire Batiste was a pear-shaped man, badly shaved, and with several expensive rings glittering on his puffy fingers. ‘I have a note here saying that you are to be assigned to the galley St Gerassimus. That is very irregular, particularly because the St Gerassimus has not yet joined the fleet, though she is expected shortly. Do you have any idea why you are singled out for special treatment?’

‘No, sir,’ Hector answered. ‘No one has told us anything.’

‘The Arsenal is going to need every able-bodied man that can be found so I have decided that you will be held here pending the arrival of the St Gerassimus, and put to work. Later her captain can explain matters more fully.’ He scribbled something on a piece of paper and, turning towards the guard, said, ‘They are to be enrolled under premier comite Gasnier. Go and find Gasnier, wherever he is, and deliver them in person, and get his signature on this paper as a receipt. And tell the comite that he’s to train them to be productive.’

They returned to the ground floor and, escorted by the guard, began to make their way through the Arsenal, searching for the comite. The place was an immense, sprawling maze of warehouses, magazines, depots and armouries, so their quest took them first to an iron foundry where anchors and chains and metal fittings were being forged, then to a vast draughty shed where sails were spread on the floor or hung from beams to be cut and sewn. Next was a ropewalk in which teams of men were twisting huge ropes and cables, then several woodworking galleries where mast makers and carpenters were shaving and straightening spars and oars, and finally a melting shop where half-naked labourers toiled over the huge pots that bubbled with boiling pitch and tar. Finally they reached a series of long, low, barn-like structures. The smell of rotting seaweed and the sight of ships’ masts protruding over the perimeter wall told Hector that this side of the Arsenal bordered directly on the harbour. Their escort took them through a side door and, all at once, they were looking down on the skeleton of a galley which lay in dry dock. Two dozen men armed with mallets were swarming over the vessel, busily knocking her to pieces. ‘Comite Gasnier!’ the guard called out over the din of the hammers. A paunchy bald man, dressed in scuffed work clothes, was standing at the edge of the dry dock, supervising the work. He waited for a moment, to satisfy himself about some detail, then came over to speak to them.

‘New recruits for you, comite,’ said the escort respectfully. ‘The commissaire says that you are to make something useful out of them.’

Gasnier looked at Hector and Dan thoughtfully. Hector had the impression of a solid, sensible man. The comite’s calm gaze took in their manacles. ‘Right then, leave them with me,’ he answered, then turned back to his duties, leaving the two prisoners standing where they were.

It was almost another hour before Gasnier paid them a second glance when, after shouting something to an underling who seemed to be his foreman, he came over to the two prisoners and announced, ‘I don’t want to know what you did to get yourselves here, only what you can do for me in the future. First let me say that if you behave yourselves, I’ll treat you fair. But if you give any trouble, you’ll discover what a hard man I can be. This is the moment for you to tell me what you think you are good at. Speak up!’

Hector stumbled over his words as he answered. ‘I was a clerk on a galley for a few weeks,’ he said. ‘And my friend here was with the musketeers.’

‘A musketeer, eh?’ The comite looked at Dan. ‘He doesn’t speak French, does he?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Well, that’s no harm. He doesn’t need to speak the language if he’s got clever hands. Can he mend guns?’

‘I believe so, sir.’

‘What about you? A clerk, you say.’

‘Yes sir. I was responsible for keeping track of stores.’

‘Any good at it?’

‘My master seemed satisfied.’

‘Well if you’re going to be a storekeeper here, you need to keep an extra sharp lookout. All sorts of things go missing. See that galley down there?’ the comite nodded towards the dry dock where the men were keeping up an incessant thumping and banging with their mallets. ‘Notice anything unusual?’

Hector stared down at the workers. The men were busily breaking down the galley, carrying away the timbers and setting them on one side in neat piles. Most of the workers were wearing what seemed to be a prison uniform of a parti-coloured jacket of dark red and brown worn over heavy canvas trousers. The legs of the trousers were also in different colours, one brown and one buff. All of the men wore bonnet-like caps, but some were dark blue and others were scarlet. He guessed that these marked a different status between the prisoners, and was about to comment when he noticed something else. The planks, frames and beams that were being stacked up were freshly cut. The workers were taking to bits a galley that had never been put to sea. He said as much to the comite.

‘That’s right,’ confirmed Gasnier. ‘That’s what they’re doing,’ but he did not explain further. He only beckoned to an assistant and instructed him to take Dan to the armoury and leave him there in charge of the chief armourer for assessment as a gunsmith. Then, addressing Hector again, he said, ‘You report to the head storekeeper. He’ll tell you what to do. You’ll find him in the main depot over by the sail loft.’

THAT EVENING Hector and Dan met when work at the Arsenal finished for the day and they were shown to their dormitory.

‘I never imagined there were so many muskets in all the world,’ Dan told his friend. ‘There are ten thousand of them stored in the Arsenal – four galleries lined with rack after rack of guns, and they all have to be checked and cleaned and repaired as necessary. I’m to be one of forty gunsmiths employed in that task.’

‘Will you be able to manage?’ Hector asked.

The Miskito nodded confidently. ‘I passed my test. The head armourer handed me a musket and used sign language to ask me what was wrong with it. I pointed to a dangerous crack in the barrel which would burst one day, and I mimed the sort of injury the explosion would do to the man who fired it. He would lose an eye or be scarred for life.’

Dan stretched luxuriously, extending his arms above his head.

‘As soon as I passed my test, an armourer removed my wrist and ankle chains and only left the ankle ring in place. He told me that I will be handling gunpowder from time to time, and the less metal I have about me, the less chance there is of a spark setting off an explosion.’

‘Wish the head storekeeper would do the same for me,’ commented Hector. ‘Wrist fetters are a real handicap when it comes to handling a pen.’

He was about to continue when a voice behind him said, ‘I told you that the commissaire would snap up the least crumb.’ Hector turned to see Jacques Bourdon standing in the doorway, a smug look on his branded face. ‘It only goes to prove the old saying that appetite comes with eating,’ the pickpocket added as he sauntered into the room.

‘You mean you managed to bribe the commissaire?’

‘It didn’t take much, just two small silver coins.’

‘And where did you get the money?’

‘And wouldn’t I have been stupid not to make a few advance arrangements when I heard I was to be taken south from Paris with the chain? I sent my lass on ahead to Marseilles with the cash from my last robbery. I couldn’t hide it on me because I knew those swine of argousins would strip and rob us on the way down here. So she was waiting at the Arsenal gate for one last embrace and it was the sweetest kiss she ever gave me. A mouthful of silver.’

The pickpocket sat down on a bench. ‘It seems I’ve also managed to get myself assigned to that missing galley of yours. What’s her name? St Gerassimus, though who was Gerassimus, or what he did to deserve his sainthood, I’ve no idea. But the rumour is that the galley’s to receive the pick of the new Turkish slaves in from Livorno, and that’s good news. Turks make the best oarsmen, as anyone in the Galley Corps will tell you, and if your fate is to be a galley oarsman there’s no better place on the bench than alongside a great big strapping Turk. Which reminds me,’ the pickpocket nodded towards Dan, ‘you said your friend here isn’t a Turk, then why’s he wearing that ring, and no chains?’

‘He’s working in the armoury,’ Hector explained. ‘It’s to avoid accidents.’

Bourdon appeared unconvinced. ‘Tell him not to get any fancy ideas about running away, now that his legs are free. He looks enough of a foreigner, with that long ugly face and brown skin, to be mistaken for a Turk.

Thinking back, Hector recalled that few of the men he had seen dismantling the galley had been wearing chains.

‘That’s how you’ll recognise the Turks among the other galley men,’ Bourdon continued, ‘Turks don’t wear leg chains or even wrist fetters when on shore.’ He leaned back against the wall, clearly pleased to be showing off his superior knowledge. ‘They only wear an ankle ring. The authorities know that the Turks will very seldom try to escape, because where would they go? They would find it very hard to get aboard any ship to take them home, and here in France who would take them in? So there’s no point in keeping them chained up, except on a galley at sea for fear they mutiny and take over the vessel. And even a mutiny is unlikely. The funny thing about the Turks is that they’ll settle down to whatever job is given them. They’ll work as hard on a Christian galley as on one of their own religion, and often you’ll get better treatment from the Turk on the galley bench beside you than from your Christian neighbour at your other elbow.’

‘Surely a Turk will try to escape if an easy opportunity presents itself,’ said Hector doubtfully.

‘If that happens, the good people of Marseilles enjoy a spot of fun,’ answered Bourdon. ‘There’s a fat reward to anyone who brings him in to the authorities, so the local folk organise search groups and pass the word to be on the lookout for a foreign-looking cove. When they locate their quarry, they chase him, just like running down a hare or stag.’

‘And when they catch him?’

‘They bring him back to the argousin-major, and collect their reward.’

‘And the Turk?’

‘He doesn’t run away a second time. His ears and nose are cut off, and from that moment onward he is kept chained to the bench, and not allowed to go ashore.’

HECTOR HAD BEEN only a fortnight in his job as a storekeeper’s assistant when he came to appreciate the truth of Bourdon’s claim that the management of the Arsenal was riddled with graft. He was standing at the iron-bound gates of the powder magazine, making a tally of the gunpowder kegs arriving from an inbound galley, when he noted something strange. There was a strict rule in the Galley Corps that whenever a vessel returned to port she sent ahead her ship’s boat loaded with all her kegs of powder. These were placed in the Arsenal’s thick-walled powder magazine for safe storage because some years earlier a fully armed galley had blown up in harbour, either by accident or sabotage, and there had been heavy loss of life. Hector had issued gunpowder to the same galley just two days previously, and now he observed that while the number of barrels he received back was the same as had been given out, several of the markings on the kegs were different. Since his days in the stone quarry of Algiers he had made a habit of noting down the different markings on the kegs, and when he checked with the head storekeeper his suspicions deepened. ‘Our gunpowder comes from all over France,’ the storekeeper told him blandly. ‘It depends on the contractors. They’re all small producers because there are no large gunpowder factories, and naturally each maker has his own marks. Just write down the number of barrels returned, and leave the list with me.’

When Hector mentioned the incident to Bourdon that evening, the pickpocket rolled his eyes in mock surprise. ‘What do you expect? The commissaire who organises the purchases of supplies for the Corps will have lined his own pocket when he placed the original powder contracts, and naturally the head storekeeper takes a cut when the materials are delivered into store. So he looks the other way when the captains and quartermasters on the galleys have a bite at the same cherry.’

‘But how do they do it?’ asked Hector.

The pickpocket shrugged. ‘I have no idea, but you can be sure that if there’s a way of turning a quiet profit, someone will have found it. My guess is that the galley captains are selling the better quality powder to the Marseilles merchants, and replacing it with low-grade, cheaper material. But it’s not your job to say anything. You don’t exist as far as France is concerned. You are a non-person. Even if you reported your suspicions to someone like comite Gasnier who has the reputation of being incorruptible, and he brought the matter before the authorities, you could not serve as a witness. Once you’ve been committed to the oar, you are legally a dead man. If I were you, I’d try to work out how the fraud is being done, and then keep that knowledge to yourself until you can use it to your own advantage. But be very careful! The people who run this place take good care that King Louis stays so besotted with his precious Galley Corps that he doesn’t ask awkward questions. They wouldn’t look kindly upon anyone who might upset their cosy schemes.’

JUST HOW FAR the Intendant and his staff would go to impress the King became clear when the head storekeeper summoned Hector to his office the very next afternoon.

‘I am selecting you for special duty. The Intendant has informed every department that next Thursday the Arsenal is to demonstrate its skill and efficiency in the Royal Presence by building, launching and equipping a new war galley in just thirty-six hours.’

Hector was too astonished to reply.

‘Of course it’s nothing more than a stunt,’ the storekeeper sniffed. ‘But that’s what Intendant Brodart has ordered us to do, so we have to put up with it. The Intendant boasted to the King and to the minister that the Arsenal is capable of such a feat. Premier comite Gasnier has known about it for weeks. Now it’s official.’

‘With respect, sir, do you think it can be done?’ Hector asked carefully. ‘I thought that a galley took at least a year to build, maybe twice as long. And the timbers have to be kept until they are seasoned, and that takes at least a couple of years.’

The head storekeeper regarded the young Irishman suspiciously. ‘Who told you that?’ he asked.

Too late Hector realised that much of the timber he had seen in the Arsenal was green, although according to the official records it had been kept in store for years. The head storekeeper, he concluded, was well aware of the fraud.

‘I don’t know,’ he said vaguely. ‘Maybe that’s something that the boat builders do at home and I picked it up there.’

‘The royal Galley Corps uses only the finest hand-picked timber,’ his superior said quietly, and with a slight edge of menace in his voice continued, ‘Anyhow we will not be issuing timber for this new galley from stores. Everything has been prepared, as you would have noticed if you had kept your wits about you.’

The remark reminded Hector of comite Gasnier’s comment when he had first seen him at the dry dock.

‘You mean the new galley which will be built in the presence of the King, has been built before?’

‘You have sharp eyes,’ admitted the storekeeper. ‘Gasnier’s dry dock gangs have been practising for weeks. Pulling apart a galley, then putting her back together again. Not the whole vessel, of course, just the more awkward sections. This time it will be the real thing, and I’m loaning you to Gasnier as a tallyman. Your task will be to keep track of the materials, ensuring a smooth flow. The royal demonstration is scheduled to start at dawn next Thursday and the galley must be ready to put to sea, fully armed and crewed, by noon on Friday.’

AS IT TURNED OUT, the King, who was known for his capricious decisions, cancelled his visit to the Arsenal at the last moment. But Intendant Brodart decided that the demonstration would go ahead, knowing that reports of its outcome would reach the court. Long before daylight on the appointed day Hector reported for duty at the dry dock. There he found some five hundred carpenters assembling on the edge of the dry dock, which was empty except for the 160-foot keel of the galley lying ready on its chocks. In the flickering light of banks of torches the carpenters were being divided into squads of fifty, each led by a senior shipwright and a foreman. Nearby were marshalled two companies of nailers, and behind them again a hundred caulkers were preparing their caulking irons and pots of tallow and tar. Each man was already wearing a cap whose colour told him on which particular section of the vessel he would work. Hector’s responsibility was to a gang of porters, forty men, standing by to carry the ready-cut timbers from stacks on each side of the dry dock. He was to make sure they picked up the right pieces in the correct order, and took them to the proper sector the moment they were needed.

‘Listen to me, men,’ bellowed comite Gasnier. He was using a speaking trumpet and standing on a scaffolding where he could look down on the entire dry dock and direct the progress of the building. ‘You’re doing a job that you’ve done over and over again in the past. So just follow the orders you get from your foremen and supervisors and think about nothing else.’ He paused while an assistant repeated his words in Turkish. Looking around, Hector realised that at least every fourth man in the building teams was a Turk. Among them he thought he recognised the hulking figure of Irgun, the odjak from Izzet Darya. ‘It is vital not to get in one another’s way,’ Gasnier went on. ‘Do your job as fast as possible, step back and let the next man get on with his work. Above all, there will be no talking or shouting. You are to work in silence and use hand signals. Anyone caught talking will receive ten lashes. Only supervisors and master shipwrights may speak, and then only in a quiet voice. All other instructions will be given by whistles, and there will be a drum beat every hour, on the hour, so that you can keep track of time. Now stand by for the signal to begin.’

The start whistle blew. The porters seized the first dozen frames and carried them at a run down the ladders into the dry dock. The shipwrights hoisted them into position and began to peg them into place. By the time the first frames were secure, the porters were already arriving with the next frames in the sequence. Hector had to admit that the skill and discipline of the workforce was astonishing. In less than half an hour every frame was fitted in its proper place, a task that would normally have taken fifteen days to complete. Then, without pausing, the carpenters turned to the task of laying in the deck beams and then the planks, bending and clinching the timber so adroitly that by noon the entire hull was finished, and the carpenters were kneeling on the upper parts, urgently pegging down the deck boards. Below them the teams of caulkers were hammering oakum into the seams. By then, the cacophony of hammering and sawing had risen to such a deafening crescendo that Gasnier’s rule against talking was unnecessary, for no one could have heard themselves speak. Only at dusk, when most of the woodworking was done, did the noise begin to subside as the carpenters withdrew, leaving the painters and carvers and gilders to add their decorative touches by the light of torches. By midnight the caulkers had begun to check their work, pumping water into the hull, then looking for leaks and plugging them before draining out the vessel, and applying a final underwater coat of tar. Even as the master caulker reported to Gasnier that the hull was watertight, his workmen were scrambling out of the dry dock to avoid the rising water, for the sluice gates had been opened and the dock was flooding. A priest came aboard to bless the vessel and was still saying his prayers as the galley was warped out into the harbour and alongside the quay.

By now Hector’s job was done, and no one paid him any attention as he stood, bleary-eyed and exhausted, watching the riggers step the masts and spars. ‘Just short of nine o’clock,’ said someone in the crowd beside him, as Dan’s colleagues from the armoury manhandled on to the fore deck the galley’s main armament, a 36-pound cannon and two smaller artillery pieces. The Arsenal’s porters were in a human chain, loading and stowing the galley’s ballast, munitions, oars and sea-going gear. There came the tramp of feet and the clank and rattle of iron. Along the quay marched five companies of galley men, fifty men in each company, all in new multi-coloured prison garb and their chains newly blackened. Reaching the galley, they halted. Their argousins blew a short blast on their whistles, and the oarsmen turned and ran up the gangplanks where they dispersed to their benches and then quietly sat while the argousins chained them to their seats.

Now, for the first time in thirty-six hours, Hector saw Gasnier relax and give a quiet smile of approval. The galley’s captain and officers, resplendent in their best uniforms, went aboard, and a lad unfurled the standard of the royal Galley Corps, the golden fleur-de-lis on a red field. A trumpet sounded, and the galley pushed off from the quayside. More blasts from the argousins’ whistles and the oarsmen laid in place their 38-feet-long sweeps, rose to their feet, and stood ready, hands on the oar grips. A drum began to beat and the oarsmen took up a steady deep-throated chant as the great oars began to move to the rhythm, dipping into the dirty harbour water, propelling the galley away from the dock. ‘Brodart promised His Majesty that the galley would be ready for sea trials before noon on the second day,’ said the same voice, ‘and he’s kept his word.’

Hector raised his arm to shade his eyes as he watched the newborn galley heading towards the harbour entrance. It was a beautiful sunlit morning, with scarcely a breath of wind, and another galley was inward-bound, entering between the guardian forts. As the two galleys passed, they saluted one another, dipping their ensigns as they passed. Hector saw that the arriving galley flew a flag whose badge was a red fork-tailed cross on a white field. ‘St Stephen’s Cross,’ said the longshoreman. ‘That must be our new recruit. That’s the St Gerassimus.’