Pirates of the Levant

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  Not that my former master was the kind of man who could die without confession and stand fearlessly face to face with Christ, far from it, but the truth is that gambling, which has bled many a soldier's purse dry, had never tempted him. On the other hand, if he did occasionally frequent certain ladies practised in the art of love — he didn't need to go to whores, for he always grazed in rich pastures — they were few in number and always reliable. As for Bacchus, the Captain certainly worshipped at his table and had the devil of a thirst. But although he often drank too much, especially when he was angry or melancholy — and that was when he was especially dangerous, because wine dulled neither his senses nor his reactions — he always did so alone and without witnesses. I think that, rather than as a pleasure or a vice, he downed whole tumblers in order to quell the inner torment and demons known only to him and God.

  At first light, we cast anchor outside Melilla, the Spanish fortress town captured from the Moors one hundred and thirty years before. And in order to remain safely out of sight of Moorish eyes, we anchored not in the lagoon, but in the narrow inlet of Galapagos cove, sheltered by Melilla's soaring walls and towers. The town's imposing appearance was just that — mere appearance — as I was able to see for myself when I set off to wander through the close-packed, treeless streets and along the city walls. While the galley-captain haggled over a price for the slaves, I saw how neglected it all was. Eight centuries of struggle against Islam had died on that wretched frontier and not a single maravedi from the gold and silver brought from the Indies ever reached these shores. What did not end up in the hands of Genoan bankers was stolen by the Dutch and English — Devil take 'em — in the western seas. Flanders and the Indies were the apples of our royal eyes, and our old African enterprise, once so dear to the Catholic kings and to the great Emperor Charles V, was scorned by Philip IV and his favourite, the Count-Duke of Olivares. Indeed, many satirical verses were written on the subject:

  It surely matters not a toss If far Melilla's deemed a loss, And do not let yourself be vexed Should it turn out that Ceuta's next Bring on the flags of Barbary! No more for us the rosary, Once the Gospel city of Oran Bends the knee to the Koran What does it matter— not a jot — If those brave Arabs take the lot?

  It was a miracle that these North African fortress towns survived at all. In truth, they did so more by virtue of their reputation than anything else, for although they deprived the corsairs of a few ports and important bases, the latter still had Algiers, Tunis, Saleh, Tripoli and Bizerta. Our soldiers were housed in cramped quarters within fortifications whose casemates and bulwarks were crumbling for lack of money; many of the soldiers were old and infirm, with no one to relieve them, and they lived there with their families, ill- clothed and ill-fed, without so much as a scrap of land to cultivate, and with barely enough money, and sometimes none at all, to resist the surrounding enemy. Any aid from the Peninsula was at least a day's journey away, and such aid was far from certain, for it depended on what the conditions at sea were like and on how quickly help could be organised in Spain. And so Melilla, like our other African possessions — including Tangiers and Ceuta, which, being Portuguese, were also therefore Spanish — found itself relying on the courage of the garrison and on diplomacy with the neighbouring Moors, from whom the inhabitants obtained, voluntarily or by force, the necessary supplies.

  As I said, I gleaned much of this simply from visiting the city and its massive water cisterns, on which life there was totally dependent. I visited the hospital, the church, the Santa Ana tunnel and the square, intra muros, where the Moors from the surrounding area came to sell meat, fish and vegetables. During the day this was a lively place, but at nightfall, before the city gates were closed, all the Arabs left — apart, that is, from a trusted few who were allowed to stay as long as they agreed to be locked up in the House of the Moors, outside which a constable stood guard. This, however, I did not see, because that same night, in order to escape the notice of the Arabs along the coast, the Mulata weighed anchor and left Melilla secretly, powered only by her oars. Then, taking advantage of the wind blowing from the shoreward, we set sail in an easterly direction, and dawn found us off the Chafarinas Islands, halfway to Oran, where, on the following afternoon, we spotted the Needle Rock and anchored without incident or mishap.

  Oran was quite different from Melilla, but it was still far from being a paradise. The town found itself in the same state of abandonment as Spain's other fortress towns in Africa, with poor lines of supply and even poorer communications, and its defences were neglected and inadequate. In the case of Oran, though, it wasn't just an arid fortified promontory, but a real town with a river, abundant water, and surrounded by gardens and orchards. It also had a proper garrison, which, though far from ideal — at the time Oran was home to about one thousand three hundred soldiers and their families, as well as five hundred inhabitants plying various trades — was nevertheless capable of putting up a reasonable defence and, if necessary, of mounting an attack. So although, in general, these fortress towns had pretty much been abandoned to their fate, Oran was certainly not the worst.

  The proof of this was the presence of the supply convoy anchored in the bay of Cap Falcon, the town's harbour, between Mazalquivir's formidable fort and Mona Point beneath the castle of San Gregorio. There we finally rejoined the convoy we had left in order to give chase to the corsairs. We anchored close to land, next to the tower, and were borne to shore in feluccas. We walked the half league to the town which was built on top of a cliff and therefore had no good port of its own, which is where Mazalquivir came in. From that vantage point, looking out over the river that ran between the town and the fort of Rozalcazar, there were splendid views of the surrounding gardens, orchards, woods and windmills.

  As I said, we were happy to be back on land and with money in our pockets, and although Oran was no Naples — far from it — there were plenty of distractions. There were taverns run by former soldiers, a recent truce with the Moors meant that the market was well supplied, and everyone was pleased to see the wheat, cloth and gunpowder we had brought from Spain. There were even a few decent brothels. In garrison towns like Oran, even the bishops and theologians of our Holy Mother Church — after much debate and having resigned themselves to the inevitable — had concluded that a few sprightly doxies not only salved a soldier's itch but also safeguarded the virtue of maidens and married ladies, reducing the number of rapes and forays into Moorish territory in search of women. Indeed, as soon as we disembarked, soldiers and sailors alike were planning to do their duty and visit one of these brothels the moment they entered the town. However, no sooner had Captain Alatriste and I passed through the Canastel gate — the closer to the harbour of Oran's two gates — than we had a most pleasant, extraordinary and unexpected encounter, which just goes to show how life, with all its twists and turns, can still surprise us.

  'Well, I'll be hanged,' said a familiar voice.

  And there, as small and wiry as ever, was Sebastian Copons, hands on hips and sword at his side, standing in the shade, chatting to some soldiers, in his role as corporal in charge of the guard at the gate.

  'And so that's what happened,' he said, draining his mug.

  The three of us were sitting at a table outside a small, grubby tavern, beneath a much-patched bit of sailcloth that served as an awning. True to his old self, Copons wasted few words in summarising the last two years, which was how long it had been since we said our farewells in an Andalusian inn, after the massacre on board the Niklaasbergen and that business with the King's gold, when, with the help of a few comrades, we made short work of Flemings and hired killers alike at Barra de Sanlucar.

  Since then, he told us, a run of bad luck had put paid to his plans to leave the army and set himself up in Huesca with a bit of land, a house and a wife. The first unfortunate episode took place in Seville and the second involved a death in Zaragoza. This latter incident attracted constables, lawyers, judges, scribes and all the other parasites
that lie in wait amongst the paperwork like bedbugs in the seams of a sheet. Relieved of all his money and with his belly and pockets empty, he had been forced back to the barracks to earn his living. His attempts to get himself sent to the Indies failed: it wasn't soldiers they needed now, but functionaries, priests and artisans. Then, just as he was about to enlist for Flanders or Italy, a tavern brawl, in which two catchpoles were beaten up and one constable slashed across the face, brought him up against the law once more. This time, he had no money with which to blind Justice, and so the judge — who, like him, was from Huesca — offered him a choice between spending four years behind bars or one year as a soldier in Oran for fifty reales a month. So there he was, one year and five months later.

  'Why don't you leave?' I asked innocently.

  Copons and Captain Alatriste exchanged looks — as if to lay he may look like a grown man, but he's still green about the gills — and then refilled their mugs with wine. It was a pretty rough vintage and God knows where it came from, but it was wine after all, we were in Africa and it was as hot as hell. More to the point, it had been a long time since we three had shared a jug, and we had been through a lot together — the Ruyter Mill, Breda, Terheyden, Seville, Sanlucar ...

  'I can't because the Sergeant Major won't let me.'

  'Why's that?'

  'Because he says the Marquis of Velada, the town's governor, won't let him.'

  Then between sips of wine, he explained what life was like in Oran: the people, ill-fed and poorly paid, simply rotted, away between its walls, with no hope of promotion or any glory other than that of growing old there, alone or with their family if they had one, slogging on until they were deemed too feeble to work. Any complaints or petitions went unanswered. Even a veteran with forty years' service was not allowed to return to Spain because that would leave the post unfilled; new soldiers sent to Barbary simply deserted before they even embarked.

  You just had to go for a stroll through the city to see how many ragged, vulnerable people there were; and if you did manage to buy something — food or clothes — this would be followed by weeks of hunger and dearth, because the pay didn't arrive, not even a half or a third of it, even though the troops in Oran were the worst paid in all of Spain. Some secretary in the Treasury had evidently decided — and been backed up in his decision by our master the King — that as long as there was sufficient water, fertile fields and friendly Moors on hand, the troops should have no problem making ends meet. Soldiers were only offered help in dire emergencies. Copons himself, after seventeen months' duty there, had not seen one maravedi of the one hundred or so escudos that were owed to him. The only thing the soldiers could do to help themselves was to go on the occasional cavalcade.

  'Cavalcade?' I asked.

  Copons winked but said no more and it fell to Captain Alatriste to explain.

  'You know ... raids, incursions, the kind of thing our grandfathers did when they rode out into the countryside and attacked the camps of hostile Moors. They used to call them almogavarias.'

  'Well, that's what Oran has had to stoop to, as if she was some old procuress,' Copons added.

  I looked at him, confused. 'I don't understand.'

  'You will.'

  He poured more wine. He was as thin, sinewy and strong as ever, but he looked older and wearier and, what was even stranger, he had become talkative. Like Captain Alatriste, he had usually been slow to speak and quick to draw his sword. However, it seemed that in Oran, in his silence, he had accumulated far too many thoughts and feelings, so that the unexpected encounter with us and the warmth of our friendship had suddenly made them flow forth. It was hot and he had unfastened his grimy leather doublet — he wore no undershirt, for he had no money for such things. Above his left ear, he bore the scar earned at the Ruyter Mill, still visible through his short hair, which had grown greyer, and he had some white hairs too on his ill-shaven chin.

  'Tell him about the hostile Moors,' said Captain Alatriste.

  And he did. The Arabs who lived nearby could be divided into three classes: peaceful Moors, hostile Moors and what were known as mogataces. The peaceful Moors made truces with the Spaniards, sold them food, and so on. They paid tax, or garrama as it was known here, and that made them 'friends' until they stopped paying. Then they became hostile Moors.

  'Sounds dangerous,' I commented.

  'It is. They're the ones who'll slit our throats and cut off our privates if they catch us, although we'd do the same to them.'

  'And how do you tell them apart?'

  The Captain shook his head. 'You can't always.'

  'Sometimes that works to our detriment,' said Copons, 'and sometimes to theirs.'

  I considered the grim implications of this answer. Then I asked who the mogataces were. The Captain explained that they were Arabs who fought on our side as soldiers of Spain, but without changing their religion.

  'Can they be trusted?'

  Copons pulled a face. 'Some of them can.'

  'I don't think I could ever trust a Moor.'

  Their looks were mocking. I must have seemed extraordinarily naive to them.

  'You'd be surprised. There are Moors and Moors.'

  We ordered another jug of wine, which was brought to us by a man with ugly bare feet and an even uglier face, as black as pitch. I watched thoughtfully as Copons filled my mug.

  'How do you know which ones can be trusted?'

  'A question of experience,' said Copons, tapping the side of his nose, 'and instinct. But let me tell you, in my time I've seen no end of Christians roaring drunk, but never a Moor. They don't gamble either, even though the deck of cards is as old as Mohammed.'

  'Yes, but they don't keep their word,' I objected.

  'That depends on who they are and who they give their word to. When the Count of Alcaudete's men were nearly torn to pieces, his mogataces stood firm and fought to the bitter end. That's why I say there are Moors and Moors.'

  While we were dispatching this latest jug of wine — and the jug had been baptised many times — Copons continued to enlighten us about life in Oran. The lack of men was a grave problem, he went on, because no soldier wanted to come to these African outposts unless he was forced to: once a soldier arrived, he risked being stuck here for ever. That's why the garrisons were never filled. That year alone, they were four hundred men short, and the soldiers who did come were the dregs of Spain, ill-natured and unwilling; the unruly type, fit only for the galleys, or else raw recruits who had been cruelly deceived, like the contingent that had arrived last autumn: forty-two men who had enlisted for Italy, or so they were told. Once embarked in Cartagena, they were taken straight to Oran and there was nothing they could do about it; in fact, three had been hanged for mutiny, and the others had been assigned to the local regiment, with no hope of leaving. It was no coincidence that the Spanish phrase to describe a particularly unpromising enterprise was that it was about as likely to happen as sending a hundred lancers to Oran.

  'That's how it is with the people here — they're desperate, ragged and hungry.' Copons lowered his voice. 'It's hardly surprising that the weakest-willed, or those who simply can't take any more, desert as soon as they can. Diego, do you remember Yndurain, the Basque? The one who defended that old hamlet in Fleurus, along with Utrera, Barrena and the others, until the only ones left were himself and a bugler?'

  The Captain nodded and asked what had become of the man. Copons stared into his mug, turned aside in order to spit under the table and then looked at him again.

  'He was here for five years and hadn't been paid for the last three. About two months ago, he had words with a sergeant. He stabbed him with his knife and jumped over the wall, along with another comrade who was on guard duty. I'm told that, with great difficulty, they finally arrived in Mostaganem, where they promptly joined the Moors, but who can say ...'

  He and the Captain exchanged knowing looks; my former master took another sip of wine and shrugged. It was resigned shrug — for himself, for
his friend and for the others, all of them, for poor, unhappy Spain. At that moment,I recalled some lines from a play I had seen a couple of yea before in Madrid. They had shocked me then, but now I understood:

  I, a soldier, on bended knee

  Surrender my embattled blade;

  I can no longer stand to be

  Both brave and badly paid

  'Can you imagine,' the Captain suddenly said to Copons, 'Yndurain salaaming to Mecca?' He gave a kind of half-smile.

  Copons gave an identical smile, only briefer. They were sceptical, entirely lacking in humour, the smiles of old soldiers with no illusions.

  'And yet,' replied Copons, 'when the drum rolls, we never , lack for swords.'