Corsair

FOURTEEN

‘WELCOME, CHEVALIER, your visit to the Arsenal is indeed an honour.’ Commissaire Batiste had a fulsome greeting for Adrien Chabrillan as the Knight of St Stephen was shown into his office. ‘Intendant Brodart asks me to present his sincere apologies that he cannot be here in person. He has had to leave on an urgent matter – an audience with His Majesty.’ The commissaire looked pleased with himself. ‘We launched a new galley yesterday, after building her in less than thirty-six hours, a most prodigious feat, don’t you agree? His Majesty wishes to hear the details from the Intendant himself.’

‘I saw the new galley,’ commented Chabrillan dryly. He suspected that Brodart, far from going to answer the King’s questions, was headed to court to make sure that as many people as possible knew about the successful demonstration.

‘Remarkable, truly remarkable,’ the commissaire added immodestly. He crossed to a table where a scale model of the galley was on prominent display. ‘One of our galeriens, a jeweller who got a little too free with his clients’ possessions, took more than eighteen months to produce this model. Yet our Arsenal craftsmen managed to build the full-sized vessel, 185 feet long and 22 feet beam at the waterline, in little more than a day. And no skimping on the materials either, finest Provençal oak for the knees and planks. Tough stuff to work. An exceptional achievement.’

He looked at his visitor, expecting a gesture of approval, and was unprepared for Chabrillan’s chilly response. ‘A galley is only as good as her crew, and I’ve come to you for more men. St Gerassimus had a brush with a Turkish brigantine on the way here. Nothing conclusive as the Turk fled, but I lost five banks of oarsmen from a lucky shot, and my galley was already under-strength. A tenth of my regular oarsmen were bonnevoles, volunteers, and they are accustomed to work for plunder not pay. Many of them have chosen not to enter the service of the King. I trust you will be able to make up the shortfall.’

‘These extra oarsmen you seek, would they be in addition to the Turks and demi-Turks who arrived from Livorno six weeks ago and are waiting to join your vessel?’

Chabrillan looked down his nose at the commissaire, not bothering to conceal his disdain. ‘Of course. Though I have no idea what you mean by a demi-Turk.’

‘A private joke of mine. A circumcised renegade,’ the commissaire explained. ‘There are two of them in the Livorno batch, a young Irishman who has proved useful as a storekeeper, and his foreign companion works as a gunsmith. They have received no training for the oar and may not be as strong as the Turks. But perhaps they would be adequate.’

‘If they are renegades then all the more reason that they serve aboard my vessel,’ Chabrillan replied. ‘On the St Gerassimus we pride ourselves on the number of backsliders who have been made to see the error of their ways. I understand that you received a chain from Bordeaux recently.’

The Chevalier was altogether too nosy, the commissaire thought, as he regarded the tall, dandified figure before him. Chabrillan had been ashore for only a few hours, yet already he had been making enquiries about the facilities available to him now that St Gerassimus was part of the royal Galley Corps. The commissaire disliked meddlesome galley captains. They were a distraction from the serious day-to-day business of profiteering from the operations of the Arsenal. Batiste was from a mercantile background and held his lucrative post because he was a first cousin to Intendant Brodart, and he mistrusted those commanders who were aristocrats and put on airs.

‘Yes, yes. A chain did arrive, about eighty felons, mostly tax evaders and vagrants. Several may not be suitable material for the oar . . .’ he began, but Chabrillan cut him short. ‘I’ll be the judge of that. When can I inspect them?’

The commissaire hesitated. It was nearly noon, and he was looking forward to a leisurely lunch with a trio of echevins, aldermen of Marseilles. They were finalising a plan to acquire a parcel of land adjacent to the Arsenal, so that next year the King could be informed that the galley base needed more space and, after a suitable interval, that a site had been found which was good value. The transaction ought to net a fourfold profit for the syndicate. ‘Regretfully, I have pressing duties for the rest of the day, but if you would be willing to inspect the prisoners in the company of the receiving clerk, that can be arranged at your convenience.’

‘Without delay, if you please,’ retorted Chabrillan.

The commissaire summoned an aide and ordered him to escort Chabrillan to the holding cells where the convicts of the chain from Bordeaux were waiting their assessment.

‘And while the Chevalier is examining the convicts,’ the commissaire added, ‘you are to arrange for the Turks from Livorno and the two renegades to be made ready for galley service and delivered to the St Gerassimus, also that pickpocket, what’s his name – Bourdain or something like that.’ Turning to Chabrillan, he enquired, ‘Who should my man ask for at the quayside? He will need a receipt.’

‘He can deliver the oarsmen to my premier comite, Piecourt. He has full authority in these matters. Piecourt will also see to the necessary training of the men while I am away. As soon as I have selected the extra men I need, I set out for my estates in Savoy. In the meantime St Gerassimus needs maintenance work and I trust you will have this done promptly now that you have told me how fast your workmen can perform. When I return, I expect to find my vessel fully seaworthy again and her complement properly trained.’

‘The Arsenal will make every endeavour to meet your requirements, Chevalier,’ the commissaire assured his guest, though inwardly Batiste was already scheming how he could rid himself of the troublesome Chevalier. On his desk was an instruction from the Minister of the Marine. It ordered the Galley Corps to conduct trials to establish whether a new artillery invention, an exploding shell, was suitable for use at sea. He decided to recommend to his superior, Intendant Brodart, that the most suitable vessel for the test was St Gerassimus. The sea trials would keep the Chevalier of St Stephen busy, and if they went disastrously wrong might even blow him to smithereens.

Chabrillan stalked out of the commissaire’s office with the merest hint of a polite farewell, then made his way to where the receiving clerk was already waiting, his black coat hastily brushed in an attempt to smarten his appearance.

Chabrillan nodded at the clerk as he strode into the large gloomy hall where the chain prisoners were being held. ‘Have the prisoners paraded in a line,’ he ordered crisply. Slowly the newly arrived convicts shuffled into position, urged on by casual blows and curses from their goalers.

‘Now have them strip.’

Awkwardly, for many of them were hampered by their fetters, the prisoners removed their tattered and lice-ridden clothing, and dropped the garments to the stone floor.

‘Over against the opposite wall,’ Chabrillan commanded. The prisoners, trying to conceal their nakedness with their hands, shuffled across the room and stood, shivering, to face their examiner. Chabrillan walked along the line, looking into their faces and glancing at their bodies. ‘This one, and him, and this one,’ he announced, selecting the strongest and fittest, until he had picked out a dozen men. ‘Make a note of their names, have them dressed properly and sent to my ship,’ he instructed the receiving clerk, ‘and now let me see your ledgers.’

Meekly the clerk brought the Chevalier to his office, and showed him the list of names he had entered for the newly arrived chain. Chabrillan ran his eye down the columns, picking out those he had selected. He found he had chosen three army deserters, a poacher, a perjurer, and two sturdy beggars.

‘What about these?’ He pointed out the entries for five men against whose names the clerk had written, ‘without saying why’.

‘Just as it says, sir. They were unable to tell me why they had been sent to the galleys.’

Chabrillan fixed the clerk with a questioning stare. ‘So why do you think they were condemned to the oar?’

The clerk shifted uneasily. ‘It’s hard to say, sir,’ he answered after a short pause. ‘My guess is that they are Protestants, those who call themselves the Reformed. They have made problems for those of the Apostolic and Roman faith.’

‘Excellent. The Reformed make reliable oarsmen. They are serious and honest men compared to the usual felons and rogues who are condemned to the oar. I shall be glad to have them aboard,’ and without another word, Adrien Chabrillan left.

‘HECTOR, did you find out anything more about where your sister might be?’ asked Dan as he wriggled his shoulders inside the red and black woollen prison jacket he had just received from the Arsenal stores. Clothes issued to prisoners came in just two sizes, small and large, and the Miskito’s jacket was too tight on him. It was a warm afternoon in early summer and the two friends, together with Bourdon the pickpocket and a dozen Turks taken captive from the Izzet Darya, were being led along the Marseilles quay by an elderly warder whose relaxed manner indicated that he did not believe they would try to escape.

‘I asked everyone I could for information about where the Barbary corsairs land and sell their captives, but I didn’t learn anything more than I already knew. She could have been landed in any one of half a dozen ports,’ Hector answered. He too was uncomfortable in his new clothes. In Algiers he had grown used to loose-fitting Moorish clothing and, working in the Arsenal, he and Dan had continued to wear the garments they had been wearing when captured. Now his legs felt constrained by the stiff canvas trousers issued by the Arsenal stores. The trousers fastened with buttons down the outer seams so that they could be put on over leg chains while his other new garments – two long shirts, two smocks in addition to a jacket, and a heavy hooded cloak of ox wool – could all be put on over his head. He had also been issued with a stout leather belt, which was there not just to hold up his trousers. It was fitted with a heavy metal hook over which he could loop his leg chain while he was at work so that leg irons did not hamper him. ‘I wrote a letter to an old friend of my father’s, a clergyman in Ireland who had been a prisoner of the Moors. I asked him if he had heard anything. But when I tried to send the letter, I was told that prisoners in the Arsenal were forbidden from communicating with the outside world. I had enclosed a note for my mother in case she is still living in Ireland, though I suspect she has moved back to Spain to live with her own people. Maybe she has heard directly from my sister. It’s impossible to know. Life as a convict galerien in the Arsenal is as cut off from the outside world as being a slave in the Algiers bagnio.’

‘Maybe that will change now that we’re being transferred to a galley,’ Dan tried to cheer up his friend.

‘I doubt it. Look over there,’ Hector nodded towards the far side of the docks. ‘Aren’t those the masts and spars of galleys? At least ten, I would say. All neatly lined up side by side.’

‘Which one’s ours?’

‘Can’t tell from this distance. But I heard that she’s hired to the royal Galley Corps by her commander who’s a Knight of one of the Orders. It’s being said that he is a fire-eater and his premier comite is a cold-hearted tyrant.’

‘Maybe someone aboard her can give you the information you’re looking for,’ Dan responded. As usual he was quick to point out the best possible outcome. ‘Don’t the Knights take their galley slaves and convicts from wherever they can get them?’

‘That’s true. I’ve not given up hope of tracing Elizabeth. The thought of finding her helps to keep me going. I sometimes wonder why you never get discouraged.’

Dan gave his companion a steady look. ‘I have often thought about my homeland and the mission I was given by my people, but when that sour-faced man from London came to Algiers to ransom the English prisoners and he refused to help me, I realised the world is a much larger and more complicated place than the Miskito imagine. Now I’m resigned to the fact that I am unlikely ever to deliver the council’s message to the King of England. Yet I feel that my travels may turn out to be for my people’s benefit. Something tells me that I will surely get back home. When I do, I intend to bring something worthwhile with me.’

The prisoners had turned the corner of the harbour basin, and were approaching what looked like a busy pedlars’ market. The wharf was covered with open-sided stands and booths which served as shops and stalls. As the convicts threaded their way between the booths, Hector saw men repairing shoes and doing metalwork, butchers and barbers, tailors, a man making hats, and stallholders selling every conceivable item from haberdashery to pots and pans. For some odd reason nearly every stall had dozens of pairs of knitted socks for sale, which hung up like strings of onions. Looking more closely, Hector realised that every one of the stall holders was a galerien.

‘Same old junk,’ Bourdon spoke up. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those goods were on sale when I was last here.’ The pickpocket was staring hard into the face of a man standing by a barrow on which lay a strange mixture of items – a pair of scissors, several fine handkerchiefs, some carved buttons, a snuff box, and various small articles which Hector could not immediately identify. ‘Some of the vendors are no different either.’

Hector saw the stallholder’s right eyelid flicker very slightly as he winked at Bourdon.

‘Who is he?’ he whispered to Bourdon.

‘A thief like myself,’ came back the quiet reply. ‘I would say that he also fences stolen goods on the side, though it looks as if trade is a bit thin at the moment.’

‘But how . . .’ began Hector. They had paused while the Arsenal warder stopped to examine some lace on sale in one of the stalls.

‘These baraques?’ said Bourdon. ‘They’re run by the comites of the galleys. The port officials rent the stalls to the comites from the galleys, and the comites then put their galeriens into the booths to staff them. If the galerien has a useful skill, a carpenter or lacemaker for instance, he conducts his trade from the baraque, and the townsfolk come there for his services. Any money he earns is handed over to the comite. If he’s lucky, the comite may let him keep a bit of it for himself. But if the galerien doesn’t have a trade, then he has to learn to make himself useful in some other ways. That’s why you see so many knitted socks. The comites hand out wool and knitting needles to their most useless galeriens, and they have to take up knitting. Naturally the comites claim that by keeping the galeriens busy in port they are less likely to make trouble. But of course the main reason is that the comites earn a nice living from their charges.’

He gave Hector a nudge. ‘Look. Over there. That’s someone who’s either so clumsy or so stubborn that he cannot earn his comite any money, at least not yet.’ Hector saw a man dressed in a galerien’s parti-coloured uniform. He was wearing leg irons and cradling a cannonball in his arms. ‘His premier comite will make him carry that cannonball around until he learns something that’ll earn a bit of money,’ Bourdon explained.

Their easy-going guard had finished at the lacemaker’s stall and was strolling towards the far end of the quay. There he turned aside and pushed his way between two booths to bring his charges before what Hector thought for a fleeting moment was a fairground tent of blue and white striped canvas. It took a second glance to establish that the tent was a great canopy which covered the full length of a 26-bench war galley of the first class.

A halberdier stood on sentry duty at the foot of the gangplank. Dressed entirely in scarlet and white, from the red stocking cap on his head to his spotless red breeches with a contrasting white belt and coat lapels, he came smartly to attention, and bawled out at the top of his voice – ‘Pass the word for the premier comite!’ From somewhere inside the huge tent the call was repeated, and Hector heard the summons passing down the length of the galley. Then came a pause filled with the incessant background noise of the shoppers at the baraques, the mewling of the gulls, and the distant shouts of watermen. Finally, after a delay of about five minutes while Hector and the other prisoners waited patiently on the quay, a man appeared at the head of the gangplank and stood there, quietly surveying them. Dangling from a cord around his neck was a silver whistle which glinted in the sun.

Hector was taken by surprise. He had expected a rough brute of a man, violent and coarse. But the man who now stood looking them over had the appearance of a mild-mannered shopkeeper. He was of medium height and dressed in sober dark clothing. He would have passed unnoticed on the street except for his skin, which was uncommonly pale, and the fact that his close-cropped hair was a light sand colour. He did not wear a wig. ‘That will be all, warder. You may leave the prisoners with me and return to your work,’ the comite spoke quietly, barely raising his voice, yet every word carried clearly. His duty done, the elderly guard strolled off. But the comite made no move. He stayed at the head of the gangplank, gazing down on the prisoners, judging them. ‘You are joining the galley St Gerassimus, and from now on you belong to her,’ he announced. ‘My name is Piecourt, and I am the premier comite, so you also belong to me. Serve the vessel well and you will become proud of her. Serve her badly, and you will regret the day you were born.’ He spoke in French with an Italian accent. Then, to Hector’s surprise, he repeated his warning, this time in fluent Turkish. Hector felt the odjaks around him stir uneasily. A moment later, Piecourt was repeating his caution a third time, using lingua franca. Aware of the impression he had made, the premier comite of the St Gerassimus reached for the silver whistle hanging around his neck and held it up for them to see. ‘From now on the only language that matters to you is the language of this whistle, because this whistle is my voice. Everything you do will be controlled by it. You will soon be like dogs, the best-trained dogs. Obedient dogs are fed and cared for; disobedient dogs are whipped. Remember that.’

Without turning, Piecourt called back over his shoulder – ‘Rowing master Yakup! New recruits for the oar. Introduce them to their benches.’

This time the creature who emerged from beneath the canvas awning was what Hector had anticipated, a broad-set, squat, dark-skinned man with a shaven head, enormously developed shoulder muscles, naked to the waist and wearing a pair of loose drawers. Also he sported a luxuriant mustache. Branded on his forehead was an eight-pointed cross. Hector deduced that St Gerassimus’s rowing master was a Christianised Turk, a renegade who had scarred on himself the symbol of the Knights.

‘Get in line, tallest to the rear!’ Yakup demanded, padding barefoot down the gangplank. Bourdon hesitated for a moment and opened his mouth to speak. Immediately the rowing master casually cuffed the pickpocket on the side of the head. The blow seemed lightweight, but the Frenchman gave a gasp and nearly fell. ‘You heard what the comite said, no chattering.’ Confused as to what they were meant to do, the prisoners milled around until they were in some sort of order. Hector, smaller than most of the prisoners, found himself near the head of the little column which followed the rowing master up the gangplank and on to the St Gerassimus.

His first impression was that the galley was identical to Turgut Reis’s Izzet Darya, but then he realised that St Gerassimus was less ornate, more workmanlike. The blue and white canopy was held above head level on posts and under it three or four dozen of her crew were hard at work. Some were scrubbing and cleaning the woodwork, others were industriously splicing and mending ropes, and one squad had formed a human chain to empty one of the vessel’s stores, handing up boxes and bales through a hatch and stacking them neatly amidships. Hector followed the rowing master almost halfway up the central gangway, heading towards the galley’s bows, before he identified what was unusual. There were upwards of sixty men aboard, yet there was no sound of human voices. The men were working in total silence. Whenever one of them looked up from his chores to glance at the new arrivals, he took only the quickest glance before hurriedly looking back down again at his work. The quiet aboard St Gerassimus was eerie.

Yakup came level with the last half-dozen oar benches, halted, and turned to face the prisoners. As they advanced towards him in single file along the narrow gangway, the rowing master pointed to one side or the other, indicating to which bench each prisoner should go. Hector stepped down from the gangway to his bench and, looking back, saw that his new overseer was distributing the prisoners in balanced groups, so that each rowing bench had at a mix of large and small oarsmen, old and young. The last man assigned to each bench was an odjak. ‘Tomorrow you begin to learn. Now you clean,’ grunted the rowing master. He pulled up the plank which covered the gangway. Beneath was a cavity which served as a locker. From it Yakup extracted a long-handled deck brush and an iron scraper which he tossed to the prisoners. ‘Clean!’ Hector noticed the padded leather covering on the bench where he stood was stained. It appeared to be dried blood. The bulwark next to him was newly patched. Someone had made a temporary repair where, by the look of it, a cannonball or a hail of grapeshot had damaged the vessel.

‘Pretend to be busy!’ hissed Bourdon out of the side of his mouth. The pickpocket had been assigned to a place on the bench beside Hector. ‘This is worse than I thought.’

‘What do you mean?’ whispered Hector, keeping his head down so that the rowing master could not see his lips move.

‘This is a ship of fanatics,’ answered Bourdon. ‘No booze, no rest, plenty of lash.’

For the rest of the afternoon Hector and the other prisoners worked in silence, scrubbing and cleaning the area around the benches they had been assigned. When they finished, they replaced the brushes, scrapers and swabs into the locker under the gangway, and stowed their spare clothing in the same space. Yakup, who had been hovering on the gangway, suddenly jumped down among them. Bending down he picked up a length of heavy chain lying under the oar bench. One end of the chain was fastened to a beam, and now he threaded the loose end through the leg irons of each man, tethering them to their place. Finally he secured the end to a metal hoop with a heavy padlock. They were chained in place. Pointing to the central gangway he said ‘Coursier!’ Next he slapped the padded seat of the oar bench with his hand and growled ‘Banc, banc trois!’ Placing his foot on a removable board raised about a foot off the deck, he declared ‘Banquette!’ Using this board as a step, he braced his other foot on a wooden bar attached to the oar bench in front, which he called the ‘contre pedagne’. He mimicked rising up with both hands extended as if holding an oar, then falling back with all his weight. ‘Vogue! Tomorrow vogue!’

The sound of singing interrupted the demonstration. Hector turned to see a column of galeriens shuffling along the gangway. All of them wore leg irons, and the chains between their ankles were looped and held up on their large metal belt hooks. They were singing a hymn as they advanced, and they must have been the galley’s regular oarsmen for they made their way straight to their allocated benches and sat down, five men to a bench. The leader of each group then leaned down and picked up the deck chain by their feet, passed it through their ankle fetters and meekly held up the loose end so that an argousin could come forward and attach a padlock. Only then did the galerians end their hymn, and wait silently.

A whistle sounded. At the far end of the galley, a figure appeared on the stern deck. It was Piecourt again. ‘A galerien has uttered execrable blasphemies against the Virgin Mary and all the saints in Paradise,’ he said. His soft voice contained a tone of menace which Hector found unsettling. Piecourt descended the short ladder down from the stern deck, and walked along the gangway until he was about a third of the way down the vessel. Turning towards the port side he ordered, ‘Quarterol, strip. Vogue avant administer punishment. Black bastinado.’ Hector watched as the fourth man along the nearest oar bench stood up and began to peel off his shirt. The man’s hands were shaking. An argousin released the padlock on the bench chain so that the half-naked galerien could clamber up on the gangway. There he lay down, face to the deck. His arms and legs were seized and held firm by the oarsmen on the nearest benches so that he was stretched out, spreadeagle across the walkway. Slowly the largest oarsman from his bench climbed up and stood over his prostrate companion. Piecourt handed him a length of tarred rope. Then Piecourt stepped back and waited. The man hefted the rope in his hands. Hector could see that the rope flexed but did not curl. The dried tar, he concluded, must make it almost as stiff as a wooden stave. ‘Strike!’ ordered Piecourt. The oarsman took an upward swing with the rope and brought it down on the victim’s back with all his strength. From where he sat Hector could see the red slash where the blow had cut the flesh. ‘Strike again!’ snapped Pie-court, expressionless. Only after twenty strokes and the victim appeared to have fainted, did the premier comite stop the punishment. ‘Send for the barber surgeon. Vinegar and salt. Then put him in the cable locker till he heals.’

‘Doesn’t want the poor bastard to get gangrene and die,’ muttered Bourdon. ‘They never waste a trained oarsman.’

Hector had been feeling sick to his stomach. ‘Does that happen often?’ he enquired quietly.

‘Depends on the premier comite,’ Bourdon told him. ‘Don’t let it put you off your food. That should be next.’

Another whistle sounded, and this time it signalled the distribution of the evening meal. A small kitchen had been set up on the port side, where the eighteenth bench had been removed. There three galeriens were tending a large cauldron of soup. This broth was now ladled into small buckets and carried along the coursier by trusted galeriens, who slopped the broth into wooden bowls held up by the chained prisoners. Another trusty followed, handing out fist-sized loaves of bread. When the food arrived at Bench Three where Hector waited, he noticed that the big odjak seated nearest to the gangway received a larger portion. Beside him Bourdon whispered, ‘Don’t complain. The vogue avant always gets a larger helping than the others. It’s to keep up his strength. You’ll not begrudge it, I can promise you that. The vogue avant is the key man on the rowing team.’ The pickpocket bit into his bread. ‘At least the food’s good aboard this ship. Something to be thankful for.’

Hector looked doubtfully into the wooden bowl he had been handed. It contained a small portion of oily bean soup. It smelled fermented. ‘It can be worse than this?’ he enquired. Bourdon nodded, his mouth full. ‘Bastard contractors provide the Galley Corps with rotten provisions, and the comites serve short measure on the daily rations because they want their galeriens to spend any money they earn in buying extra stores and grog from the comite’s shop. This meal is full measure and decent grub.’

Hector’s guts churned at the smell of the soup, and he realised he needed to relieve himself. ‘How do I get to a latrine?’ he demanded.

‘Over there,’ Bourdon nodded towards the outer rail of the galley. ‘Stick your arse over the side and let go.’

Miserably Hector crawled over his companions as each man on his oar bench shifted so that he could slide his leg chain along the central tether until he had enough slack to reach the edge of the galley. Life in the bagnios of Algiers had never been as vile and degrading as this, he thought, as he defecated over the side of the galley.

He was crawling back into his place in the middle of the bench, when there was another call on the whistle, followed by a subdued muttering among the galeriens. It must have been the signal that gave them permission to talk among themselves. Immediately Bourdon leaned forward, tapped the galerien in front of him on the shoulder, and asked where he came from. When the man replied ‘Paris’, the two of them began to speak together, keeping their voices low and talking so rapidly in city slang that Hector was barely able to follow their conversation though it was obvious that Bourdon was asking questions. Only when the pickpocket eventually sat back straight on the bench beside him was he able to enquire, ‘What did you find out?’

Bourdon looked thoughtful. ‘That man’s a forcat, a convict. Says he ran away to sea as a youngster, got into various scrapes and finished up on a merchant ship sailing out of Lebanon. He signed on thinking that the owner of the vessel was a Christian Greek but when the ship was intercepted by a Maltese galley of the Order of St John and searched, it turned out that the real owner was a Turk and they were carrying cargo for an Egyptian Pasha. He was taken off the merchant ship, brought back to Malta as a prisoner and tried in the Order’s court. The judges found him guilty as a traitor to his country and to his faith, and condemned him to the oar for life. They even put a slave price on him to reward the crew who had captured him. Apparently the owner of St Gerassimus bought him – paid for him right on the courtroom steps – and he’s been on the galley for the past three years. He doesn’t expect ever to get off it unless by death or illness.’

‘So he’s as badly off as we are,’ commented Hector.

Bourdon still looked pensive. ‘And that’s what puzzles me. He says that nearly all the oarsmen on the St Gerassimus are renegades captured or bought from many different countries, plus a number of Turks. Hardly anyone is serving out a set number of years at the oar. They are all lifers, and the last of the volunteer oarsmen left the galley at Malta. He thinks that the galley’s owner wants a permanent crew so that the St Gerassimus becomes the crack galley in the fleet. Our friend claims that the galley is already the best-managed and best-disciplined vessel in the Mediterranean. It seems odd, but he was almost proud of being aboard.’

The comite’s whistle shrilled yet again, and the galerien who had been talking with Bourdon called, ‘Five-minute warning. Better get yourselves ready for the night. Take a leak and spread out your cloaks. The nights can be chilly. No more talking as soon as the lights are out.’

Looking down the galley, Hector saw some oarsmen were assembling small platforms perched on short poles about three feet high. Moments later they had erected little canopies over the platforms so that there were half a dozen smaller tents within the great awning. ‘What are those for?’ he asked. ‘That’s where the comites and the senior argousins sleep,’ answered the galerien. ‘Floating above our heads like in the clouds. Those oarsmen beneath their beds have the “reserved seats”. They wait as servants on the comites, and eat scraps from their food.’

‘What about us? Where do we sleep?’ Hector wondered looking around.

‘Just where you sit,’ came the answer. ‘Take it in turns to stretch out on the banc, or down on the deck. There won’t be room for all five of you, so a couple of you will have to sleep kneeling, with your head on the bench.’

‘There doesn’t seem enough room.’

‘It’s luxury now,’ the galerien assured him. ‘Just wait until you have to share your bench with the handle of your oar.’

Belatedly Hector realised that he had not yet seen any oars on the St Gerassimus. He was wondering where they might be when the whistle blew again and a total silence fell on the galley.

NEXT MORNING he discovered what had happened to the galley’s sweeps. After a meagre breakfast of water and bread the crew of the galley were marched off the St Gerassimus and along the quay to where two small vessels were lying. They were galliots, half-sized galleys used by the Corps as training ships. Neatly laid out on their benches were long oars with scarlet and white blades and shafts. Hector recognised the livery of the St Gerassimus. ‘Crew to divide,’ bellowed the rowing master who had accompanied them. ‘Benches one to twelve on the first galliot; benches thirteen to twenty-six in the second vessel.’ Hector and his companions found their way to the forward benches and were shackled in place when Yakup, armed with a bullwhip, appeared on the gangway above them. ‘You with the GAL on your cheek,’ he said, pointing at Bourdon, ‘show them what to do.’ Bourdon gripped the wooden handgrip pegged to the side of the massive oar shaft which was thick as a man’s thigh. He placed his right foot on the edge of the bench in front of him. ‘Now take a stroke!’ Bourdon struggled to push the loom of the sweep away from him, rose up as if climbing a stair, then fell back with all his weight, tugging on the handgrip. The huge oar did not stir. ‘Again!’ ordered the rowing master. He flicked the bullwhip’s lash across Bourdon’s shoulders. The pickpocket gritted his teeth and repeated his effort, still the oar did not budge. ‘Now you!’ barked the rowing master, pointing at Hector. Hector took hold of the adjacent handgrips and copied Bourdon’s movements. Very slightly the oar handle moved. ‘And you!’ This time it was Dan who joined the effort, and ponderously the massive sweep began to shift. ‘And you!’ The fourth man on the oar bench added his weight, but it was only when the burly odjak, seated farthest inboard, helped the other oarsmen that the heavy sweep began to rise and fall in a ponderous movement. ‘Enough!’ barked the rowing master, turning his attention to the next bench of novice oarsmen. As soon as Yakup was out of earshot, Bourdon hissed, ‘Once the galley starts moving, watch out for the oar handle behind us. It’ll knock our brains out. Here we go!’

The rowing master had finished his instructions and now gave a signal to a comite standing on the poop deck. The comite brought a whistle to his lips and gave a single blast. Every one of the oarsmen swayed forward, still seated on his bench, arms extended, pushing the oar handles in a low arc ahead of them. The whistle sounded again, and the oarsmen stood up all together, raising their hands so that the blades of the oars dipped into the sea. A fourth blast, and the oarsmen flung themselves backward, dragging the blades through the water as they fell back on the leather-padded benches. Scarcely had they regained their seats than the whistle was signalling them to repeat the movement, and a drummer alongside the comite struck the first beat of a slow steady tempo as the galliot gathered way.

‘Get the rhythm, get the rhythm,’ grunted Bourdon beside Hector. ‘It’s not strength which matters, it’s the rhythm.’ He gave a gasp as the rowing master’s whip slashed across his shoulders. ‘No talking,’ came the harsh command.

The training galley lumbered forward, heading towards the harbour mouth, and Hector could see the other galliot keeping pace. Then they had passed the guardian forts, and all at once were in choppy water. It became difficult to control the massive sweep as the galliot began to roll in the waves. Seawater splashed across Hector’s feet making him aware of how low the vessel lay in the water. On the oar directly behind him the inexperienced crew lost their balance. He heard a yell. Something made him duck, and the heavy handle of the loose sweep passed over his head, its oarsmen having lost their grip. The next moment the blade had tangled with its neighbour, and the massive handle swung back through a short arc and he heard a crunch as it struck an oarsman on the chest, cracking his ribs.

A burst of swearing, and the rowing master was running down the coursier towards them, his face twisted in anger, as the galliot faltered. ‘Row, you dogs! Row!’ he shouted, hitting out with his whip while the unfortunates on the oar handle tried to get back on their feet and bring their sweep back into action. Their injured companion lay crumpled under the bench. In one swift movement the rowing master jumped from the gangway and kicked the injured man under the rowing bench like a bundle of rags where he would not impede his fellows. A moment later he was back up on the coursier shouting at the crew to increase the pace.

For the next three weeks, Hector, Dan and the other new recruits to St Gerassimus learned their trade at the oar. It was a cruel apprenticeship. They rowed until their backs and shoulders ached. Their hands blistered, and when the blisters burst, the skin peeled away leaving the flesh raw and bleeding. The soles of their naked feet were bruised by the constant pressure against the banquette and bench in front of them. Night after night they came back to the St Gerassimus to eat the same unpalatable ration of bean soup and bread, and then fell into an exhausted sleep, only to be roused at dawn by the comite’s insistent whistle. However, as the days passed, their muscles strengthened and grew accustomed to the strain; thick calluses developed on their hands and the soles of their feet, and they achieved the knack of setting an even rhythm and obeying the steady pounding of the drum. Before long they could recognise each call on the comite’s whistle, so that they stopped and started, increased or lowered the speed of their strokes, or reversed direction of their blades as fluently as if they were a single machine. And with the improvement in their skill, Hector found that he and his companions on bench three were developing a conceit. At first it was a matter of winning races against their colleagues in the other training galliot. Then, after the Arsenal dockyard workers had finished their repairs on St Gerassimus and the galley could put to sea, it became a demonstration of their superiority over the other galleys in the fleet.

They never saw their captain. In his absence Piecourt ran the galley, adjusting the performance of St Gerassimus with a care that reminded Hector of a harpist he had once seen tuning his instrument. Piecourt and the rowing master shifted oarsmen from one bench to another, varying their weights and strength until they had achieved the best performance. Hector, Dan and Bourdon were regulars on the third bench, with the big odjak Irgun as their vogue avant, but it took some time to find the best quinterol, the fifth oarsman who sat farthest outboard. Then, one day, Piecourt put beside them a man whose nose and ears had been crudely sliced away. When Hector quietly asked the newcomer his name, there was no reply only a snuffling sound through the cratered nostrils. When Hector repeated the question, the unhappy man turned his ravaged face towards him and opened his mouth. The tongue was missing, torn out. Even Bourdon, the hardened pickpocket, was shocked.

The mute leaned forward and with his fingernail slowly scratched some signs on the oar handle, then sat back.

Hector stared at the marks. They meant nothing to him at first, but then the memory came back to him of lessons with the monks in Ireland. They had taught him the rudiments of Greek, and the letters made by the mute were Greek. They spelled out ‘Karp’.

‘Your name is Karp?’

The mute nodded. Then cupping a hand on each side of his head, he stared straight at Hector. ‘You can hear, but you cannot speak?’

Again the nod, and Karp sketched out a cross in the Greek style, the four arms of equal length.

‘You are a Christian? Then why are you here?’

Laboriously Karp tried to explain but Hector could only piece together occasional scraps of his story. Karp’s homeland was somewhere to the east and ruled by the Turks, but how he came to be a slave on the St Gerassimus was not clear. Nor could Hector unravel the reason for Karp’s mutilation. He could only presume that it was punishment for trying to escape or, perhaps like the Sicilian thief in the bagnio of Algiers, he was an inveterate criminal.

At dusk when the comite’s whistle blew and Hector knelt down and placed his head on the rowing bench to begin his rest, he fell asleep listening to Karp’s breath rushing in and out of the wreckage of his face.

CHEVALIER ADRIEN CHABRILLAN returned to his ship for the Festival of the Galleys. Piecourt had prepared for the great day with his usual meticulous attention. The great blue and white awning had been taken down and stowed, and the crew had washed and scrubbed the deck planking until it gleamed. The dockyard’s painters and gilders had been busy, primping and beautifying the galley’s carved decorations. The sailmakers had sewn and fitted new canopies and tilts for the poop deck, using roll after roll of velvet and brocade and given the added touch of gold fringes. The spars and rigging of St Gerassimus were hung with bright flags and banners, some showing the fleur-de-lis of France but many more with the cross of St Stephen. The halberdiers of the guard were in their best uniforms.

The Chevalier came aboard at noon with his guests, a cluster of well-born gentlemen, several wealthy merchants and their ladies, and all were dressed splendidly for the great occasion. They paused to admire the wonderful spectacle of the fleet: galley after galley neatly moored, flags and pennants rippling in the light breeze, their gaily painted oars fixed at an upward angle so they seemed like the wings of birds. Then they sat down to a splendid meal at tables arranged on the poop deck and covered with white linen. All the while, there was no sight nor sound of a single oarsman aboard the galley. St Gerassimus’s benches stretched away empty, leather padding gleaming with polish, as the Chevalier’s guests savoured their way through the seven courses of their repast. Only when they were toying with dessert – served with a sweet wine from Savoy – did Piecourt, who had been standing in the background, step forward and blow a single long blast on his whistle.

Hector, Dan and two hundred other galeriens had spent the past four hours crouched in the narrow space between the benches. Piecourt had promised thirty lashes of the black bastinado to any man who spoilt his surprise for the captain’s guests. Hearing the whistle, Dan and his companions took a deep breath and, as one man, exclaimed ‘Hau!’ At the same time they stretched up their right arms, fingers extended, in the air. The Chevalier’s guests startled by the sound which seemed to come from the belly of the vessel, looked up to see a forest of fingers appear above the benches. ‘Hau!’ repeated the hidden oarsmen as they extended their left arms, and the number of fingers suddenly doubled. ‘Hau! Hau!’ and they raised first one arm and then the other. ‘Hau!’ This time the galeriens lay down on the deck boards and waved their right legs above the benches, then their left. The guests looked on, amazed. Now the oarsmen sat up. All together, they suddenly raised their heads above the galley benches. Each man was wearing his red prison cap issued by the Arsenal, so that the effect was as if a field had suddenly sprouted a sea of red flowers. So it went on. More than two hundred oarsmen performed the routines that Piecourt had made them rehearse for days, standing up, sitting down, taking off their shirts, opening their mouths, coughing in unison, bowing to their audience, removing their caps, putting them on again, until finally they all stood, half naked and facing their audience. Then they gave the chamade, rattling their chains in a sustained clattering roar until Piecourt gave a final sharp blast on his whistle and every galerien abruptly stopped, dropped his arms to his side, and stood silently to attention, staring straight ahead.

The distinguished guests broke into spontaneous applause.