Pirates of the Levant

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  PIRATES OF THE LEVANT

  ARTURO PEREZ-REVERTE

  Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa

  Chapter 1. THE BARBARY COAST

  Chasing after a ship makes for a long pursuit, and I swear to God this one had tested our patience to the limit. Our mood was little improved by having spent an afternoon, a moonlit night and a whole morning following our prey over a buffeting sea, which, every now and then, shook the galley's fragile frame with its blows. With her two taut sails aloft, the oars stowed and galley-slaves, soldiers and sailors all sheltering as best we could from the wind and the spray, the

  Mulata, a twenty-four-bank galley, had travelled nearly thirty leagues after the Berber galliot that we now finally had within range. As long as we didn't break a mast — the older sailors kept glancing up anxiously — she would be ours before the angelus.

  'Tickle her arse!' ordered Don Manuel Urdemalas.

  Our galley captain was standing in the stern — he had scarcely moved from the spot in the last twenty hours — and from there he watched as our first cannon shot plummeted into the water beside the galliot. When they saw how close the shot had come, the gunners and the men at the prow, standing round the cannon in the central gangway, all let out a cheer. Things would have to go very badly wrong for us to lose our prey now: it was within our grasp and to leeward as well.

  'They're shortening their sail!' someone shouted.

  The galliot's only sail, a vast canvas triangle, flapped in the wind as the crew rapidly brailed it in, lowering the mast. Rocked by the swell, the galliot showed us first its stern and

  then its port side, and that was when we got our first proper look at it: it was a long, slender half-galley with thirteen banks and, we reckoned, a hundred or so men on board. It resembled one of those light, swift craft described by Cervantes:

  The thief who hopes to strike

  And never yet he caught

  Should move as fast as lightning—

  A hit, then home to port

  The galliot had appeared to be nothing more than a sail to windward, but revealed itself to be a corsair when it brazenly approached the merchant convoy the Mulata was escorting, along with three other Spanish galleys, between Cartagena and Oran. Under full sail, we had gone after this fugitive white triangle and its stern which, little by little, and with the help of a south-westerly wind, grew larger as we closed in on her.

  'The dogs are finally going to surrender,' said one soldier.

  Captain Alatriste was by my side, watching. With the mast lowered and the sail furled, the crew were bringing out the oars.

  'No,' he murmured. 'They're going to fight.'

  I turned towards him. He was screwing up his eyes against the dazzle of the sun and beneath the broad brim of his old hat, his eyes appeared even paler and greener than usual. He was unshaven and, like everyone else, his skin was grimy and greasy from days spent at sea and the sleepless nights. He was intently following the activities on the galliot: some men were running along the deck towards the prow, the oarsmen were turning the vessel, with those on one side rowing in one direction, and those on the other the opposite.

  'It looks as though they want to try their luck,' he added calmly.

  He pointed to the pennant fluttering at the top of our mainmast, indicating the direction of the wind. During the chase, this had swung round from north-west to north northeast, and there it was staying — for the moment. Only then did I understand. The corsairs, realising that flight was impossible and having no desire to surrender, were using the oars to position themselves to face into the wind. Galleys and galliots alike had but one large cannon at the prow and short- range pedreros — stone-throwers — along the sides. The crew of the galliot were not as well-armed as we were, and there were fewer of them, but if they were prepared to play their last card, one lucky shot could unmast us or injure a good few of our men. And using their oars meant they could manoeuvre the vessel despite the adverse wind.

  'Lower both masts! Shirts off! Row!'

  It was clear from the orders he gave, sharp as pistol shots, that Captain Urdemalas had also understood. The two masts were quickly lowered, the sails furled, and the galleymaster took up his position in the central gangway, whip in hand.

  'Come on! Come on!' he urged, forcing the galley-slaves, bare-chested now, to take their places, four men per bank on either side and forty-eight oars in the water while that son of a whore lashed their backs until they bled.

  'Soldiers, to your posts!'

  The drum beat loudly while the soldiers, muttering the oaths, complaints and blasphemies typical of the Spanish infantry — but also mumbling prayers, kissing medallions and scapulars and crossing themselves five hundred times — padded the sides of the galley with mattresses and blankets to provide some protection from enemy fire. They then equipped themselves with the tools of the trade — harquebuses, muskets and pedreros — and took up their places in the prow and in the corridors that ran along either side of the galley above the oars. The slaves were already maintaining a good rhythm while the galleymaster and under-galleymaster used their whistles to mark time and gaily flailed at their backs. From prow to stern, the match-cords of harquebuses were starting to smoke.

  I still lacked the strength needed to use a harquebus or a heavy musket on board ship; we Spaniards took aim by holding the sight to one eye, and if your hands weren't strong enough to cope with the rolling motion of the galley, the recoil could dislocate your shoulder or knock out your teeth. So I took up my pike and my sword — a short, broad one because a long sword was too cumbersome on deck — tied a kerchief tightly round my head and, thus armed, followed Captain Alatriste. As an experienced, trustworthy soldier, my master — well, he wasn't my master any more, but old habits die hard — took up his position in the bulwarks, the very position, ironically enough, that good Don Miguel de Cervantes was given on the Marquesa during the Battle of Lepanto. Once we had taken our places, the Captain glanced at me distractedly and, smiling only with his eyes, he smoothed his moustache.

  'Your fifth naval battle,' he said, then blew on the lit match-cord of his harquebus. His tone was suitably cool, but I knew that he was as worried about me as he had been on the four previous occasions, even though I had just turned seventeen — or perhaps because of that. When it came to boarding an enemy ship, not even God recognised his own.

  'Don't board the galley unless I do, agreed?'

  I opened my mouth to protest, but, at that moment, there was a loud report at the prow, and the first cannon shot from the enemy galliot sent splinters as sharp as knives flying across the deck.

  It was a long road that had led the Captain and myself to be on board that galley, which, on that noontide at the end of May 1627 — the dates are there among my yellowing service records — was about to join battle with a corsair galliot just a few miles to the south of the island of Alboran, off the Barbary Coast.

  Captain Alatriste's head had been only inches away from the executioner's block following a dispute with Philip IV over a shared mistress. However, after the disastrous affair of the man in the yellow doublet, when our young Catholic monarch had only just survived a plot dreamed up by the Inquisitor Fray Emilio Bocanegra, the Captain had managed to preserve both life and reputation thanks to his sword. With more modest thanks to my sword and that of the actor Rafael de Cozar, he had saved the royal skin during a sham hunting party in El Escorial. Kings, however, are both ungrateful and forgetful, and the incident brought us no further reward. Moreover, the Captain had twice crossed swords and words with the Count of Guadalmedina, the royal confidant, over the King's dalliance with the actress Maria de Castro. The first time left him with a cut to his cheek and the second w
ith some painful bruises; and the Count's affection for my master, which dated from Flanders and from Italy, had eventually turned to rancour. And so the El Escorial affair had brought us only enough to balance our accounts.

  In short, having done our work, we had been left without a maravedi in our purses, but were relieved not to have ended up in prison or six feet under in an unmarked grave. The catchpoles led by the lieutenant of constables Martin Saldana — who was recovering from a serious wound inflicted by my master — kept well away from us, and Captain Alatriste was finally able to walk the streets without always having to look over his shoulder. This was not the case for the others involved, upon whom the royal fury fell, albeit with the discretion demanded by such circumstances. Fray Emilio Bocanegra was sent to a hospital for the mentally infirm — as a man of the cloth he merited a certain degree of consideration — while other conspirators of lesser rank were quietly strangled. Of Gualterio Malatesta, the Italian hired killer and personal enemy of the Captain and myself, we had no certain news. There was talk of terrible torture followed by execution in a dark dungeon, but no one would swear to this. As for the royal secretary, Luis de Alquezar, whose complicity could not be proved, his high position at Court and influential friends in the Council of Aragon saved his neck, but not his position, a brusque royal order despatching him to New Spain. And as you, dear reader, will know, the fate of that dubious character was far from being a matter of indifference to me, for with him went the love of my life, his niece, Angelica de Alquezar.

  I intend to speak of this in detail later on, so I will say no more for the present, except that this last adventure of ours had convinced Captain Alatriste of the need to assure my future by putting me beyond the reach of Fortune's caprices — if such a thing were possible. Opportunity came by the hand of Don Francisco de Quevedo, who, since my brush with the Inquisition, had become my unofficial godfather. His prestige at Court continued to grow, and he was persuaded that, with help — in the form of the Queen's fondness for him, together with the Count-Duke Olivares' continuing benevolence — and a little good luck, when I reached the age of eighteen, I would be able to enter the corps of the royal couriers, an excellent first step towards a career at Court. The only problem was that if I was ever to be promoted to the rank of officer, I would need either a suitably impressive background or a convincing record of accomplishments, and some military experience would carry the necessary weight.

  I certainly had more experience of war than the average tavern braggart — I had, after all, spent two hard years in Flanders, and fought at the siege of Breda — but because of my youth, I had been obliged to enlist not as a soldier, but as a page, which meant that I had no service record. I would, therefore, have to acquire one. The remedy was provided by our friend Captain Alonso de Contreras, who was returning to Naples after some time as a guest of Lope de Vega. The veteran soldier invited us to accompany him, arguing that the Spanish infantry — who were based in Naples, where many of his and my master's old comrades were also stationed — would be a perfect way of acquiring those two years of military experience. It would also provide me with an opportunity to enjoy the delights of the city of Vesuvius itself, as well as giving us the chance to amass some money from the incursions the Spanish galleys made into the Greek islands and along the African coast.

  'Follow your calling,' Contreras advised. 'Give to Mars what you gave to Venus, and perform deeds of such derring-do that they will astound the incredulous! To your good health, young sir!'

  The truth is that Captain Alatriste did not mind leaving Madrid. He had no money, he had finished with Maria de Castro, and Caridad la Lebrijana had been mentioning the word 'matrimony' far too often. After giving the matter much thought, as he usually did, quietly downing many pitchers of wine, he came to a decision: in the summer of 1626, we set off for Barcelona, paused briefly in Genoa, then continued south to Naples, where we joined the Spanish infantry. For the rest of that year, until St Demetrius' Day, which signalled the close of the season for galleys, we pursued corsairs and enemy ships off the Barbary Coast, in the Adriatic and the Morea.

  During the customary winter truce, we spent part of our booty on the innumerable temptations of Naples and we visited Rome, so that I could admire that astonishing city, Christianity's majestic seat. In May we re-embarked, the galleys now freshly careened and made ready for the new campaign. Our first voyage — escorting a shipment of money from Italy to Spain — had taken us to the Balearics and to Valencia; this most recent one — protecting merchant ships carrying supplies from Cartagena to Oran — would bring us back to Naples. The rest — the galliot, the chase when we left the convoy, the battle off the African coast — I have more or less described. I will add only that I was no longer a callow youth, but a prudent seventeen-year-old, and alongside Captain Alatriste and the other men on board the Mulata, I did battle with those Turkish corsairs (we called anyone who sailed the sea 'Turkish', be they Ottoman, Moor, Morisco, or whatever else was served up to us).

  Just what this new Inigo Balboa had become you will find out in this adventure in which I propose to describe how Captain Alatriste and I fought shoulder to shoulder, no longer as master and page, but as equals and comrades. I will tell of skirmishes and pirates, of blithe youth and boarding ships, of killing and of pillaging. I will also explain precisely what it was that made Spain's name respected, feared and hated throughout the Levant. Ah, but how long ago it all seems, now that even my scars are old and my hair grey! I will show that the devil has no colour, no nation and no flag. I will show, too, that all it took back then to create a hell both on sea and on land was a Spaniard and his sword.

  'Stop the killing!' ordered the captain of the Mulata. 'Those people are worth money!'

  Don Manuel Urdemalas was a man who liked to keep a tight hold on his purse-strings and abhorred any unnecessary waste. And so we obeyed, slowly and reluctantly. Indeed, Captain Alatriste had to grab my arm just as I was about to slit the throat of a Turk who had jumped into the water during the fighting and was now trying to clamber back on board. The fact is that our blood was up, and we had not yet done enough killing to sate our desires. As the two galleys had closed on each other, the Turks — later, we learned that they had a good gunner with them, a Portuguese renegade — had had time to aim and fire their cannon at us, killing two of our men. That's why we had hurled ourselves on them, prepared to give no quarter — all of us shouting, 'Row, row! Ram them! Ram them!' — with our pikes and half-pikes and harquebuses at the ready. Meanwhile, amid lashes from the galleymaster's whip, blasts from his whistle and the clank of chains, the galley-slaves rowed for all they were worth, and our galley struck the galliot, holing its prow. The helmsman, who evidently knew his job, had steered us into exactly the right position, and, within seconds, our three cannon, loaded with nails and tinplate, had cleared half the deck. Then, after a volley of harquebus fire and stones, the first of the boarding parties, with cries of 'Forward, for Santiago and Spain!', scrambled along the ram and onto the galliot's foredeck, killing everyone in their path. Those Turks who did not fling themselves into the water died right there, among the blood- drenched benches, or else retreated to the stern. To be fair, they fought with great courage until our second boarding party reached the bulkhead where the last of the crew were still fighting.

  Captain Alatriste and I were in that second party, he — once he had emptied his harquebus — armed with sword and shield, and I wearing a leather corslet and wielding a pike which, halfway through, I swapped for a sharp spear wrenched from the hands of a dying Turk. And thus, always keeping a watchful eye on each other, advancing prudently from bench to bench, leaving not a soul alive behind us just in case, not even those lying on the deck pleading for clemency, we finally reached our comrades in the stern. We continued to press home our advantage until the badly wounded Turkish captain and those survivors who had not jumped into the sea threw down their weapons and begged for mercy. Such mercy, however, was a long time in coming,
for what ensued was nothing less than a bloodbath, and it took a repeated command from our captain before we men ceased our labours, infuriated as we were by the pirates' resistance — for along with those killed by their cannon shot, the battle had cost us nine lives and twelve wounded, not counting galley-slaves. Even the Turks in the water were being shot at like ducks, despite their pleas, or lanced or beaten to death with oars when they tried to climb on board.

  'Leave it,' said Diego Alatriste.

  I turned, still breathless from my exertions. He had cleaned his sword on a piece of cloth — a Moorish turban — picked up from the deck, and was putting it back in its sheath as he watched the unfortunates drowning or swimming, afraid to come too close. The sea was fairly calm, and many of them managed to stay afloat, although the wounded floundered, groaning and gasping for air, water bubbling from their lungs as they died among the red-tinged waves.

  'That blood isn't yours, is it?'

  I looked at my arms and felt my corslet and my thighs. Not a scratch, I discovered to my joy.

  'Everything in its place,' I said, smiling wearily. 'Just like you.'

  We surveyed the landscape post-battle: the two ships still locked together, disembowelled bodies sprawled among the benches, the prisoners and the dying, the men trying to climb on board despite the threat of pike and harquebus, and our comrades brazenly plundering the galliot. The easterly breeze dried the Turkish blood on our hands and faces.