Malta's Guns

by Sam Barone

  Even so, his life, his obligations, had changed. The more Antonio brooded about his plight, the stronger his resolve grew. He would not go to Venice. Nothing bound him to that city, no kin in the Venetian Republic had any claim on him. He would be a soldier, like Bernardo, and nothing his father – no, not his father, merely his uncle – could do to stop him.

  Chapter 3

  For the next two hours, Antonio worked with more than a dozen men as he got Stukeley’s guns ready for transport. Antonio first inspected the two wagons that Nicolo owned, taking his time and looking for cracks in the thick axles and wheels, checking for loose spokes or nails that had worked their way free. Ponderous brutes made from the strongest oak and heavily reinforced, their sturdy frames could accommodate the 2,000 pounds each bronze gun weighed.

  A wagon breaking down in one of London’s narrow lanes, or anywhere on the road between the foundry and the harbor docks, would waste most of a day. A portable hoist, special ropes, and more than a dozen men would be required to lift the cannon from one wagon and place it onto another. The roadway might be jammed, and Nicolo might even be fined for obstructing the flow of goods. Meanwhile crowds of idlers would congregate to watch the laborious process, offer useless suggestions, and get in the way of the work crew. Antonio had struggled through such situations twice before, once as an apprentice and once when he was in charge of the transport. Such a misfortune was to be avoided at all cost.

  While the laborers trussed up each bronze tube with rope, hostlers arranged for extra horses to be brought in from the neighboring farms. Nearby farmers gladly unhitched their plow horses for the chance to earn a quick shilling. Everyone knew what to do, so the process moved quickly enough.

  The frenetic activity kept Antonio’s mind off his own problems. He helped eight men roll the first bronze gun under the hoist, where they secured it with thick ropes strong enough to support the weight. The gun rose from its carriage and hung swaying in the air, as willing hands shoved the first wagon underneath. Antonio directed the gradual lowering of the bronze tube into the wagon’s bed, which creaked and groaned as thick boards bent under the load.

  Shims secured the gun so that it couldn’t shift. By then the first team of four draft animals had arrived. Men hitched them to the wagon, using the extra thick harness such a load demanded.

  Antonio watched the animals strain against their traces as the laden wagon started its journey. A senior apprentice and two laborers would accompany each wagon, one walking before and one behind the precious merchandise to make sure nothing went amiss during the two hours it would take to reach the harbor.

  By the time the second gun had settled onto its wagon, the bulky carriages, ropes, swabs, and 40 round shot had been packed into the remaining wagons. Antonio inspected that cargo as well, to make sure nothing had been omitted. It would be embarrassing for Nicolo if Captain Stukeley found something amiss, and Antonio had to send back to the foundry for some forgotten but necessary item.

  Mounting his horse, Antonio trotted off the moment the last wagon started its journey. He slowed his return to London only to check each wagon’s progress as he passed one along the way, and he cantered on until he reached the city’s gate. From there, through the crowded lanes, the horse managed no more than a walk until he reached Northgate, where the Pinnace was moored.

  Antonio dismounted at the gangplank, and took a few moments to admire the Pinnace moving easily at her moorings. A small vessel with only two masts, its tidy appearance and clean lines proved that Captain Stukeley took pride in his command. Soon a half-dozen faces interrupted their activities to stare back at him. He gathered his thoughts. He still had plenty of work to do, and the day was more than half gone.

  “Is Captain Stukeley on board?”

  A broad shouldered man with more gray than black in his beard appeared at the ship’s rail, taking in Antonio’s manner, his clothing, and most of all, the horse. Only gentlemen and prosperous merchants rode horses in London. “And who wants to know about Captain Stukeley?”

  “My name is Antonio Pesaro. I’ve come ahead to help you rig your new guns.”

  “Ah, so our good captain has opened his purse a wee bit, has he?” He laughed at the shocked look on Antonio’s face. “You’re from the foundry?”

  “Yes, sir,” Antonio said, embarrassed that he had not introduced himself properly. “My father is Nicolo Pesaro, master cannon maker to the Queen. The guns are on their way, and . . .”

  “Come aboard.” The man faced one of the sailors grinning down at the wharf. “Don’t just stand there, help the man with his horse. And don’t let it out of your sight, or some rascal dock rat will steal it.”

  Antonio handed the reins to the sailor who jogged down the sagging gangplank. His hands were rough and black with tar, a silver earring gleamed in one ear, and his broad smile revealed a missing front tooth. Antonio couldn’t help staring; the man looked more like a pirate than a sailor serving on a Queen’s ship.

  “I’m Turner, first mate of the Pinnace,” the broad-shouldered man said when Antonio stepped onto the deck. “Captain Stukeley’s not onboard, but he sent word you’d be arriving. Be pleased to tell me what our fine captain has purchased, and what you’ll be needing.”

  An hour passed before the first wagon lumbered onto the wharf, the horses well lathered from the heavy load. By then Turner and his sailors had everything prepared. A hoist attached to the mainmast stretched out over the edge of the dock, with two thick ropes waiting for their burden, their ends looped into a cat’s cradle that would encase the long tube of bronze.

  Antonio felt thankful that the Pinnace drew so little water, and could berth herself directly beside the dock. That would simplify the guns’ transfer. The last time Antonio had overseen a transfer, the cannons were loaded first athwart a ship’s boat, rowed out to a deeper portion of the river, and then lifted from the boat onto the ship. To Antonio’s eyes, the overloaded little boat had looked ready to capsize with every motion.

  Turner’s men knew their business. They swarmed over the wagon, attaching the cables and making sure the load would rise evenly, with the gun’s weight distributed equally. From the deck, the first mate shouted a string of incomprehensible orders, and soon twenty men began hauling on the tackle. The gun swayed up from the wagon’s bed, and hung there, a foot above the wagon, while everyone waited to see if any ropes appeared likely to break under the strain. A sailor stood beside the gun, keeping a loop around the breech so it didn’t swing.

  Turner himself checked the ropes and the hoist, until satisfied the tackle would hold. “Heave away, you lazy bastards, but handsomely now!” he shouted.

  As Antonio soon realized, “handsomely” meant with caution. The men strained at the lines, grunting to lift such a deadweight. Ponderously, the bronze tube rose twenty feet into the air. Antonio stayed well clear of the sailors. If the ropes parted, the gun would slip and fall right through the dock’s planking and into the river. Onboard, the sailors shifted their efforts, and the hoist swung inwards, moving slowly as the cannon crossed above the ship’s gunwale. Grunting men, their feet scrabbling, lowered the gleaming weapon gradually to the deck, where it finally thudded onto a mass of rags made from old sails.

  Antonio nodded in satisfaction. By then the other wagons had arrived at the dock. The hoist again swung over Antonio’s head, and this time he directed the sailors to unload the wagon carrying the gun carriages. The carriages weighed only a trifle compared to a gun and both soon rested on the deck beside the cannon. The cat’s cradle was reattached to the barrel of the first gun, and once again it lifted, this time only six feet off the deck. Men shoved the carriage beneath it and, inch by inch, the weapon was lowered onto its support.

  For this part of the operation, Antonio remained beside the gun as it descended, ignoring the sweating and swearing crewmen straining at the tackle. When the ropes went slack and the gun settled onto its carriage, the trunnions fit perfectly into the grooves. He gave the gun one final
check while the sailors untied the cat’s cradle, then snapped the capsquares over the trunnions. The Pinnace had its first bronze gun aboard, the mass of metal and oak now securely mated to form a powerful weapon. Antonio stepped back and found Turner beside him.

  “One gun delivered, sir,” Antonio said.

  “One gun accepted, young man,” Turner acknowledged, but a smile softened his words.

  In less than an hour, the second gun sat beside the first aboard the Pinnace. The contents of the fourth wagon, carrying the 40 cannon balls and all the other items needed, took the crew little time to hoist onboard. On deck, Antonio watched the crew shift the new guns into their positions on the starboard side of the ship, where two empty placements awaited them.

  With the guns safely aboard, Antonio could relax. They’d become the responsibility of Captain Stukeley. The Pinnace and its guns, old and new, could now sink beneath the Thames to await doomsday as far as Nicolo was concerned. Yet Antonio had one more duty to perform. “The guns are secured and in place, Master Turner. Would you like me to instruct your men in their use?”

  “Why not, Antonio,” Turner said. “Though if you can get anything useful into the hard heads of my gun captains you’re a better master than I.”

  Turner summoned a half dozen seamen of varying ages, one or two scarcely older than Antonio. All clustered around the ship’s first bronze weapons. Gun captains had responsibility for laying and firing the ship’s cannons. A movement on the quarterdeck caught Antonio’s eye, and he glanced upward to see Captain Stukeley standing there, watching him.

  “Carry on with your duties, young master,” Stukeley said, resting his hands on the quarterdeck rail.

  Antonio bowed at the compliment. For the next half hour, he explained the differences between the new guns and the older iron ones. Despite his youth, the sailors listened attentively, as their hands lingered on the gleaming bronze.

  A shout announced the arrival of a Queen’s messenger, a well-liveried man with the long plume in his hat that marked him as a cavalryman. Heavy boots thumped on the sagging gangplank as the man tramped onto the deck. He spotted Captain Stukeley, and, with scarcely a bow, handed the captain of the Pinnace a dispatch. Antonio caught the words “. . . from the Queen,” and saw Stukeley’s face harden as he read the message. When finished, Stukeley handed it back to the courier, who bowed and departed the ship as hurriedly as he’d boarded it.

  A moment later, as Antonio finished his instructions, Stukeley summoned his officers.

  “Turner, get the ship ready for sea. We’re leaving on the evening tide. French privateers have been sighted at the mouth of the channel. The Queen’s ordered every ship that can carry a gun to put to sea.”

  “We’ve not filled our water casks, Captain, and there’s almost no food . . .”

  “Get the men moving, ” Stukeley ordered. “The tide flows in less than two hours, so you’ve got that long to get enough food and water aboard. We’ll only be out there long enough to scare the Frenchies away. We’ll finish our preparations at sea, Mr. Turner.”

  “Aye, aye, captain.”

  Stukeley left the quarterdeck and moved quickly down the gangplank, ignoring the chaos that erupted behind him. Turner shouted orders, and every man hurried to his duty – making the ship ready to cast off days ahead of schedule, the new guns forgotten.

  “Better get off the ship, Antonio,” Turner said, looking down from the quarterdeck. “We’re putting to sea. Your new guns may be tested sooner than we thought.”

  “Good luck to you, sir,” Antonio said. He waited until the gangplank cleared, then walked down onto the dock. The sailor guarding Antonio’s horse had already left his post, obeying the call to action.

  Antonio untied the horse and led it away from the activity, but didn’t mount. Instead he stopped, turned, and gazed at the Pinnace. She would sail down the Thames and out to sea, to fight the French, England’s hereditary foe, while he would return to his house, to the man he’d thought of as his father. There would be arguing and angry words. Nicolo would not have forgotten his son’s heated refusal to journey to Venice or his wish to become a soldier. Bernardo had done just that, against Nicolo’s command, and one way or another, his father would make certain that didn’t happen again.

  The dreary ordeal of traveling across the world to Venice contrasted with the excitement of confronting the French. The morning’s anguish returned, and Antonio’s spirits sank. Nicolo would send him to Italy, and Antonio would have to go. Even if he ran off and joined the army fighting in Ireland, Nicolo would petition the Queen, and Antonio would be found and sent back. Unless . . .

  Scanning the area around the wharf, he saw the usual crowd of idlers lingering about, watching the sailors scurrying at their tasks. One young man, dressed like an apprentice clerk, stood nearby. Antonio made up his mind. With the horse following behind, he spoke to the clerk, first getting his name, then asking him to take the horse back to the stable. A shilling completed the arrangement, and Antonio watched clerk and horse disappear into the crowded lanes.

  Antonio walked back to the dockside and went up the gangplank. No one stopped him. The few sailors who noticed him stepped aside and continued their own activities. He avoided eye contact with all of them, and strode across the deck until he reached the hatchway. In a moment, he’d descended the steps, out of sight from anyone on the deck. The steep planks of the stairway turned back on themselves, leading to a darker gloom below. Antonio hesitated, half-hoping that someone would challenge his presence, but no one noticed. He gathered his courage and followed the stairs deeper into the ship’s hold.

  Chapter 4

  Antonio hid in the ship’s lowest deck, crouched among the ballast and the water stores, surrounded by the smell of damp wooden casks lashed together with thick ropes. Not much light reached this part of the hold, and what little did penetrate soon faded as the afternoon sun drifted closer to the horizon. He found a tiny perch on one of the huge crossbeams that formed a rib of the ship, and leaned back against a large cask.

  He wondered if he’d made of fool of himself. Stowing away seemed like something a boy would do, not a man. Time and again he considered returning to the main deck. He could walk home and tell his father some story – no, not his father, only Nicolo. Antonio gritted his teeth. He would not return home.

  With the coming of night, the rats made their appearance, their tiny feet splashing through the bilge water. Their presence didn’t surprise him, though he’d expected them to keep their distance. But these sea-going creatures had little fear of anyone foolish enough to linger in their shadowy domain. They scuttled closer, their long whiskers twitching as they approached his boots; braver ones leapt from cask to cask to smell the back of his head. Antonio kept brushing them away, but the ever-hungry scavengers kept returning. If he didn’t move soon, they’d start biting. Plenty of Londoners had been bitten while they slept.

  Not that the rats added much to his already considerable misery. His thoughts dwelled on the talk with his father and the questions he should have asked. His cousin Nicolo, he corrected himself, unable to undo a lifetime’s practice. Try as he might, he couldn’t imagine Nicolo as anything but his father. But Nicolo had kept the truth from him, and for that Antonio felt anger toward the man who’d raised him. With an effort, he pushed thoughts of Nicolo and his murdered parents aside. All that lay in the past. Antonio’s future now rested with the captain of the Pinnace.

  He wondered what would happen when he returned to the main deck. He’d never been to sea, never crossed a body of water wider than the Thames. Captain Stukeley might be annoyed or even angry. Antonio had left everything behind, his father, Maffeo, even Bernardo. Years might pass before he saw them again. He could be killed at sea, lost in some glorious battle with the French or Spanish. The idea of drowning, of slipping helplessly beneath the water, frightened him. He didn’t know how to swim.

  The hours passed as the crew prepared for the ship’s departure. Nicolo would b
e furious when he learned what Antonio had done. He felt grateful when the shouting above his head increased, matched by the pattering of feet as the seamen raced about their work and prepared to get under way.

  “Cast off!” Turner’s booming voice carried even below deck. “Raise the foresail!”

  More commands followed, most of them unintelligible. Then Antonio felt the ship moving, gliding through the water beneath his feet, rising and falling in a gentle motion amid the creaking of wood and soft flapping of sails. The time to change his mind had passed. He decided to remain hidden another hour or two. By then it would be too late to put him ashore.

  But the vessel’s motion, moving from side to side, up and down, kept turning Antonio’s stomach. The darkness and the unpredictable movement added to his discomfort. If he stayed much longer in the hold’s dank air, breathing in the stink of bilge water that now sloshed around his feet with the ship’s swaying and shifting, he’d end up being sick.

  He couldn’t tell how much time had passed since the Pinnace left the dock, but Antonio reasoned the ship would not turn back now, not for a stowaway. At least that’s what he told himself, but the squeaking rats scuttling over the casks had as much to do with his decision. His stomach turned again, making the choice for him. Antonio crept out from behind the casks and stumbled his way to the main ladder, wondering what would happen to him next.

  A brawny sailor with a thick pigtail passed him by, eyeing him curiously. Antonio slipped twice as he climbed the steep steps. The Pinnace had three levels – the main deck and two below. The boat’s uneven motions made him dizzy and he needed both hands to steady himself for the last few treads. Another fast-moving seaman nearly knocked him back down the hatch, and Antonio gave a sigh of relief when he reached the main deck.

  He breathed the clean air and tried to calm his queasy stomach. At first the gusting March breeze made him feel better as it cleared the bilge odor out of his lungs. On the main deck, however, the ship’s movements were more pronounced. The evening tide might be carrying them toward the sea, but a stiff breeze from the southwest fought the ship’s progress down the Thames.