by Robert Adams
"And part of what scares me about it is that I do it so well, so naturally, that even career ruffians like de Burgh and the rest of the galloglaiches are sure that I'm one of them. In my world, in the world I came from, people like what I've become here are locked away for life in soft rooms, not cheered and honored and rewarded. . . ."
His momentary musing was interrupted by the onset of a fresh, though smaller, wave of boarders. They came pouring out of the stern- and forecastles, the men from the two Bigod sloops.
Bass halted the couple of dozen armed men before they could all exit the stern castle and become lost in the madhouse in the waist. Raising his visor for recognition, he ordered, "Go below, to the gun decks, and kill every gunner you can catch. Two or three salvos at this range are about all that the caravel can tolerate, and they're not doing my flagship any good, either."
As the men disappeared into the bowels of the embattled ship, Bass peered again into the shifting, gory fracas in the waist, trying in vain to spot Sir Ali ibn Hussain or Nugai the Kalmyk. He could not see them anywhere on their feet . . . and most of the bodies on the decks could not be seen long enough between the legs and feet of the combatants to be identified.
Unbeknownst to Bass, the heel of the French galleon following the first salvo, that which had flung him face down onto the deck, had precipitated the Arabian knight into the water between the Frenchman and Revenge. But what had happened to Nugai had been of even more singular a nature. Beset with the strain of the sudden lift and tilt, the overly springy boarding bridge had come loose of the spikes and, snapping back from its forced arc, flung the wiry warrior bodily, as if hurled by a siege engine, up into the rigging of Revenge.
Sir Ali had learned to swim in the warm sea near his Arabian home and he did not fear this one, for all that it was colder by many degrees. He allowed the weight of his armor and weapons to bear him down, out of the dangerous area between the two hulls. Then, trusting in his sure directional sense, he struck out with strong strokes, leftward and upward, to finally surface almost at the very side of Bigod's sloop, Lioness, where willing hands first threw him a line, then drew him up from the sea.
By the time that Lioness's grapnels had bitten deep and the sloop had been warped tight to the bow of the Frenchman, Sir Ali had drawn the wetted loads from his pistols, recharged and reprimed them, dried off his sword, borrowed a helmet and a spike-backed boarding ax, and wangled a place in the very first wave of boarders to clamber up onto the bow of the enemy vessel.
No sooner had any of them set foot on the galleon than did a suicidally courageous French gunner turn about and fire a long swivel piece. Had the two-inch bore been loaded with langrage or even with a handful of pistol balls, it might have done—like a huge shotgun—for the first wave, then and there. But it was loaded with but a single bore-sized stone ball . . . which chanced to take Sir John Hailey in the face left exposed by his visorless bascinet, wrenching off both helmet and head and flinging the blood-spouting body back down onto the heaving deck of the sloop Lioness.
The gunner turned to run, but had taken only a single step when Sir Ali's hard-flung ax took him between the shoulder-blades. As he wrenched the weapon free, the Arabian assumed the command that had been the responsibility of the so recently deceased Sir John Hailey.
Waving the red-edged ax, he shouted, "These damned gunners the most dangerous are. Let's get down below and from their warrens drive them up, away from their guns. You, there, and you, stay here and the next wave send after us to the main batteries."
Sir Ali and his force found no living men in the forecastle or on the deck immediately below their point of entry. Descent to the main gun deck revealed that they were blocked off from most of it by a smoldering, intensely smoky fire, so they all continued downward to the lower gun deck.
There they proceeded to wreak bloody slaughter among and upon the near-naked, ill-armed, or completely unarmed gun crews. The few French who survived the savage depredations only did so by dint of throwing themselves out open gunports. Then the red-handed butchering party ascended to the main gun deck by way of one of the stern ladders.
Hurled high into the main shrouds, poor Nugai's helmeted head was slammed hard against an oak-and-iron pulley, stunning him, and he would surely have fallen the twenty-odd feet to the waist deck had not a nearby archer grabbed, held, and steadied him long enough for him to regain full consciousness and equilibrium.
Before the Kalmyk could thank his savior, a large-caliber arquebus ball struck the Turk's forehead with a splattering sound and, with a gasp, the archer slumped limply against the waistband that held him secure in the shrouds, letting go his short, powerful bow.
A quick grab and Nugai had the bow, and taking the Turk's still-warm right hand he worried off the horn-and-copper thumb ring, which proved to be a fair fit on his own right thumb. Then he began to look about for the arquebusier.
A glance at the archer's death wound showed the Kalmyk that the shot must have been fired from almost on a level with its target, not much higher, surely no lower. The keen eyes of the nomad horseman searched the rigging of the enemy ship and presently spied six gunmen in a line on a long, narrow platform affixed in place of a true fighting-top to the mizzenmast of the French galleon.
Drawing out one of the short arrows from the brace of cylinders at the dead Turk's belt, Nugai nocked the shaft and fully drew the bow, aimed, then loosed. That first arrow was a clean miss. But the second one took a gunman low in his belly, between his belt and his crotch.
Nugai watched the distant gunman drop his long, heavy piece, then fall—arms and legs windmilling—from his perch. Blank-faced, he fitted another shaft to bowstring and with it felled another arquebusier. He had dropped all but two before they spied out his position and sent a ball humming in his direction, only to hit the dead Turk in the chest. Nugai skewered the one gunman while he was aiming and the second before he could finish reloading, spanning, and priming his weapon.
The Kalmyk checked the contents of the cylinders, combined them into one, and hung that one on his own belt along with the bow. Then he loosed the dead Turk's waist lashings, making sure that the body fell onto a deck and not into the sea. Taking the security strap in his teeth, he climbed higher in the shrouds, to where he had a better view of the battle raging on the decks of the enemy galleon.
It had been many years since he had had a bow of this sort in his hands, but such bows had been the principal missile weapon of the Kalmyks for untold centuries prior to their adoption of prods and crossbows from Teutons, Goths, and Magyars. He would enjoy himself with the bow as long as the arrow supply held out, then he would climb down to add his cunning and ferocity to the melee seething on those blood-slimy decks so far below.
CHAPTER THE FIFTH
When Walid Pasha saw desperate seamen, some of them with fresh, bleeding wounds, casting themselves out of the open gunports of the French ship, he breathed a long sigh of relief. Boarders apparently had reached and were clearing the enemy's gun decks, so there would be no more of those punishing salvos and he could safely put his carpenters to work on the damages already wrought.
Smiling, he turned to Fahrooq. "All right, you may commit the reserves. I'll have no more need of your men on the guns. Those are friendlies on those gun decks yonder, now."
The boarders from off the Bigod sloop grappled at the French galleon's stern were just killing the last gun crewmen on the main gun deck when Sir Ali and his boarders climbed up to it.
"Well, then, gentlemen." His smile flashed a brilliant white against a dark complexion darkened even further by an overlay of smoke grime. "Let us to see what to find above we may."
They found nothing but destruction and death on the lowest level of the stern castle; whatever had exploded and however many explosions there had been, they had no way of ascertaining. Their horrified eyes could only witness and record the facts that every bulkhead had been blown down, every stern window and side window had been blown out. Some guns—ther
e were sakers and minions on this part of this deck—had been completely or partially dismounted by the force of the explosion or explosions, others had been buried in debris, and bits and pieces of an indefinite number of men were splattered on every visible surface in the smoky slice of hell that that deck was become.
Halting the combined boarding force for the nonce in the deathly peace of the charnel-house scene, Sir Ali saw to it that every pistol was reloaded, then headed his command toward the blown-open double doors leading out to the open deck and the ongoing battle.
Bass had had the cinquedea dagger blade break about a span above the point and now was fighting with the Lochaber-style ax of one of the men he had earlier shot down. All of his pistols now were empty—as were all within easy sight aboard the ship—and matters were simply too intense to allow for reloading in safety. It seemed to him that the fight had raged on now for hours and he was weary unto death, but somehow he found the requisite strength and energy to fight on—chopping, slashing with the heavy, cleaver-like blade, stabbing with the spike, leaping aside and dodging thrusts of pike or blade, taking cuts on helmet or armor, sometimes able to deflect them down the iron-strapped haft of his captured weapon.
On his right fought a brace of his galloglaiches with their own long axes—of a somewhat different pattern from his but just as deadly and all showing close antecedents—while a knot of Turkish marines wreaked gory havoc with boarding pikes and cursive swords on his left and, beyond them, Sir Calum and the Baron Melchoro stood back to back, plying Irish short swords and spiked bucklers to fearsome effect, while shouting gruesome jokes to one another and roaring out snatches of bawdy songs.
And Bass was worried. There were far too many familiar bodies out there, foot- trampled, on the deck. He and his score and a half or so of men here against the stern castle and an approximate equal number backed against the forecastle were all that was now left of the boarders. Despite the singularly deadly slaughter, the French had fought hard and well, still outnumbered them, and were pressing them hard.
As he had done once before, at the cavalry encounter now famed as the Battle of Bloody Rye, Bass took out his worry and his frustration on the foemen facing him. Snarling, his lips peeled back from his teeth, he stamped forward, swinging his weighty ax as if it had been a feather, and Frenchmen recoiled from him, as much from a primal fear of the bestial growls and snarls as from the hacking steel blade.
The two galloglaiches, shouting with exhilaration, followed him closely, as too did Sir Calum, Baron Melchoro, the Turks, and all the rest, driving a steel-shod wedge forcefully into the mob of Frenchmen.
Sir Ali's arrival with his relatively fresh force was timely in the extreme. The more numerous French had but just closed to completely encircle Bass and his following when the Arabian knight emerged from the stern castle to smite the foemen with cold steel and hot lead. And although a degree of heavy fighting yet remained, the boarding of Fahrooq and his reserves was an almost unnecessary anticlimax.
In the aftermath of the fierce battle for La Sentinelle du Nord, as the commanders and ship captains toted up losses, it became painfully obvious that they must head directly for home port, praying constantly for fair weather, because the loss of experienced seamen—few of whom had gone into the fight as well armored or well armed as the soldiers—had been no less than staggering.
The prize galleon, moreover, could not be sailed in her present condition, with or without a crew, and the open ocean only a few leagues off the hostile French coast was certainly no place to undertake repairs of any save the most basic nature; all were in agreement on this. Therefore, Walid Pasha had two stout cables rove from Revenge to the prize, put Fahrooq and six Turkish marines, a carpenter's mate, three seamen, and a dozen galloglaiches aboard her, and took her under tow. By prearrangement, the caravel, Krystal, and the three Bigod sloops kept pace in clear sight of Revenge and the rich prize.
And if any doubt existed that she had been rich, one had but to penetrate the ranks of full-armed guards ranged before the double-bolted door to Bass's quarters and gaze upon the gold, the silver, the uncut gemstones and pearls, plus the fine furs, the supple hides, shaggy robes, and light cotton cloth which were samples taken from bales and bolts still aboard the French galleon.
Within the confines of the now-crowded cabin, Baron Melchoro and Sir Calum—both of whom read French with some ease—pored over stacks of documents, notes, and ledgers, while Sir Ali and Nugai, with scales and quills and parchment, weighed and counted up the gold and silver ingots, coins, and jewelry. Close by the stern window, Bass was poring over one of the maps that had been taken from the prize, wondering at the so-familiar outlines all here labeled with alien names in unfamiliar languages.
"Let's see . . . hmmm, this has to be Greenland, therefore, this has to be Newfoundland, here's Nova Scotia and . . . aha, this hook shape couldn't indicate anything but the coast of Massachusetts."
"Huh, that's weird. According to this map, there's no East River; Long Island and Manhattan Island are joined. Hell, maybe they are, in this world. But where in the devil did the damned cartographers get some of these names? A few are French, yes, and some are obviously French adaptations of Spanish words, but some of these others look like no languages I've ever seen before. Indian? Maybe. These far northern ones are most probably Norse, at least the French transliterations of Norse."
With a shake of his head, he sighed in helpless frustration. "Well, maybe Melchoro can tell me more of this when he's done with the ship's papers; after all, he's soldiered in New Spain, years agone. Since they lay claim to all of it, surely the Spanish have at least some knowledge of the lands and people to their immediate north."
Laying aside the last of the pages of crabbed French script, the baròn said, "Your grace, friend Bass, the ship we have but just taken at such dear cost was no more a ship of the French roi than are our ships of King Arthur. She was owned and financed by a group of French noblemen, true enough, but she was ere wed by a multinational pack of pirates. They had spent the last score of months in robbing the coasts and commerce of New Spain, Great Ireland, New France, and the Norse settlements. Laden with plunder, they were making for Bordeaux when we chanced across them. No wonder there were so many of them aboard. Less wonder that they fought so long and hard and well—it was their profession."
Leaving the Arab and the Kalmyk to their counting and weighing, Bass, Melchoro, and Sir Calum left the cabin and went up on deck to find Walid Pasha and relay to him the surprising truth about the supposed French warship, the battered hulk of which Revenge was now towing back to England.
They found the ship captain on the quarterdeck, but he spoke before any of them could do so. "Sebastian Bey, we must send at least a score more of your soldiers to the prize, immediately. They are needed to work the pumps and help otherwise. If any of your fighters number amongst their accomplishments aught of the carpenter or joiner trades, Basheer stands in sore need of more hands to repair damages to the hull of the prize, else we soon may be faced with the unpleasant choice of jettisoning valuable pieces of ordnance or seeing the ship sink in the sea."
While Sir Calum stalked off to find some galloglaiches, the round-faced Baròn Melchoro, happily practicing his Turkish, told Walid of his findings in the papers of La Sentinelle du Nord, ending by saying, "It would seem that they attacked and robbed and killed most indiscriminately—Spanish, Irish, Norse, red indios, even their own king's stations in New France."
Walid pulled at his beard, nodding. "Yes, Melchoro effendi, what you here recount makes sense of matters I had pondered from early in our encounter with that ship. Culverins and demiculverins are long-range guns, painstakingly cast of fine bell bronze and hellishly expensive, designed to use a smaller caliber, lighter-weight ball, to provide finer accuracy at a distance than could any cannon."
"Cannon, on the other hand—your basilisks, cannon-royals, true full cannon, and demicannon—are relatively cheap, being cast of iron, have no accuracy to speak
of at any range beyond that of a common arquebus, but can throw stone balls weighing upward of seventy pounds. Consequently, most broadside guns—the lower-deck guns, certainly—are cannon, while the long-range, long-barreled, high-priced culverins are rarely seen mounted other than in bow and stern as chasers."
"I had thought it quite odd that yonder galleon mounted a broadside consisting almost entirely of bronze culverins, demiculverins, and saker-royals, with but a bare handful of true iron cannon, and these all amidships on the lower gun deck. Now I can see why she was so armed."
"And why was that?" asked the baron, his interest piqued.
"Weight, for one reason," Walid answered. "A full broadside of large-caliber iron guns, together with the stone balls and the huge amounts of powder necessary for them, would have been significantly heavier, and much bulkier, than that which they did mount and carry. The lesser weight and bulk meant that they could ship aboard more men and provender for them for a longer voyage, while still mounting sufficient ordnance to achieve the purposes of that voyage."
"Look you, effendi, their choice quarry was lightly built, lightly armed merchanters, for which their existing broadside was surely more than sufficient—observe how badly their broadsides damaged Krystal's fabric, compared to the relatively minor damages they wrought on my ship. Most likely they ran from any true warships they chanced to encounter, just as they tried to run from us, to start."
"For land raids, their culverin broadsides were perfect, for they could lie out beyond the range of a fort's cannon and pound it with impunity, while their landing parties did their bloody work ashore. There exists ample proof that theirs was a most auspicious voyage . . . until they had the extreme misfortune to chance across this flotilla, that is."
