by Smith, Skye
On the Swift all they need do to tack was to haul the top end of the yard down until it was horizontal, and then swing the horizontal yard to the other side of the mast so they could reverse which end of the yard was forward and down. Best of all, this could all be done without climbing the mast. Even if something went horribly wrong, they could leave the great yard horizontal as if it were a square rig but carrying a triangular sail.
The two triangular sails were now spread out over opposite gunnels like immense butterfly wings so that the smaller rear sail would not block the wind of the larger fore sail. There was nothing wrong with running like this before a light wind, but you had to trim them fast if there was any change in the angle or the strength of the wind, otherwise the huge force of the sails could push the bow or the gunnels under the waves.
Today, with the halyards frozen in the blocks, they were but one good gust of wind away from a nose dive. Even if the blocks hadn't been frozen, it would be suicide for any man to haul on a line with the decks so coated in icy pebbles. "How long until sunrise?" Daniel asked. The skies were clear to the horizon, which accounted for the frigid air pushing them away from land. He could see a faint glow of light to the east. France was over there, somewhere.
"An hour, but it's so cold that the sun won't make any difference to the frozen decks."
"It will if we spread charcoal dust on the decks. It will help the sun to melt those damned ice pebbles. Then at least the crew can move about."
"To do what exactly?" Robert spoke the cruel truth of their situation. "Shit Danny, take a look at those tell tales." The colorful ribbons nailed to the top of the masts were no longer facing forward. "The wind is shifting!" There was panic in his voice. With the tackle frozen they were at the mercy of the wind and had only intelligent use of the rudder between them and disaster.
Robert dived for the spokes of the wheel to help Daniel to turn it. It was hard steering because it was half frozen in place. Together they inched the bow ever so slightly east, checked the tell tales, inched it again, checked again, inched again. And so it went for a half an hour until they were sailing on a course almost towards France. And then Daniel felt the most wonderful thing, a drop of ice water running down his nose. The ice on the yard above his head was melting. The freshening wind was from the ocean, not from the continent, and it was warm enough to melt ice.
"You've got horseshoes up yer arse, Danny,” Robert muttered into the frozen breath on his scarf.
"So do we all,” Daniel replied.
* * * * *
For two weeks they had made good time sailing southwest using the light winds from the ocean. Much of their route had been well over the horizon from any land so as to stay out of sight of the Spanish and Portuguese navies, and more important, the Barbary Pirates. Every day the wind had been warmer, and every day the sun had been warmer. Today however, the wind had swung around to be off the continent rather than off the sea. A different continent. It was hot and dry and dusty, both the continent and the wind from it.
The pilgrim women, after long days of not much to do, had been busy all morning stretching lines and hanging clothes and blankets over them to dry them and sun them and air them. Everyone was running about lightly dressed and enjoying the absence of the funk of damp wool, and the scratch of it against their skin. Behind the blankets near the starboard gunnels, the women and children were taking turns bathing under buckets full of warm, clean sea water. Those women waiting for their turn were watching the crew bathe on the other side of the ship.
"Here she comes," Daniel warned Robert, who was oblivious to anything other than scanning the coast of Morocco with the looker in hopes of spotting the headland that would assure him that they were well south of the pirate republic or Salee that controlled the northern Barbary Coast of Morocco. By 'she' he meant horse-faced Anna, who was quite pleasant when she wasn't complaining, which was never.
"Captain,” she always called him captain, "have your crew no shame?"
Robert looked towards the nude men scrubbing a winter of filth and funk from their bodies. "The shame of fit healthy bodies, or the shame of scrubbing them clean?"
Daniel quoted, "Shame is in the eye of the beholder, mam. If you went and washed their backs for them, they would be finished all the sooner."
Robert shot him a hard stare to shut him up but Daniel just snickered, so to Anna he said, "Madam, could you be so kind as to have the bedding folded and put back in the hold? We may need to change course soon, and I would hate for anything to blow overboard." She stubbornly stared back at him, but then relented and went off to tell her women.
"What course change?" Daniel asked, defensive of his skill as a helmsman. "I am making good time, and with no wallow."
"There are sails ahead of us. A lot of sails. Once the women have folded their things, point her further out to sea."
It took the women an hour to finish bathing and fold the laundry and carry it to safety. By the time the Swift changed course the sails were no longer on the horizon but in clear view less than two miles ahead. Robert was staring through the looker, both at the ships ahead, and at the headlands. "I know where we are. I can just see the great walls of the fortress at Qualidia. That means that the closest safe port is Safi about a half day's sail south. At least I hope Safi is still safe for us."
"Do you still have friends there?" Daniel asked hopefully.
"The uncle I was named for used to be a factor in Safi and he was friends with the Emperor of Morocco. To my knowledge he is still there, though I doubt he is still the agent for the Barbary Company. Not since the company split into two."
Robert rarely spoke of his times in Morocco and Daniel never pushed him to. Every man eventually did things that he would rather forget. From what he had been told about the Barbary Coast, it was a place of nightmares. The seas around the pirate Republic of Salee were the home hunting ground of corsairs in fast ships, and Salee had a slave market that traded in Christians.
Robert didn't know what to make of the ships ahead. It looked like a dozen small ships trying to waylay one large trading fluyt. Certainly the smaller ships, all lateen rigged, were sailing rings around the fluyt even though the fluyt had every sail filled. "Damn, the fluyt is flying Dutch colors,” he said as he pulled the looker away from his eye. "I suppose we are obligated to go and make sure that they are not under attack. It's your ship, Danny. You can forbid it of me and I will accept your judgement." Daniel's answer was to change course towards the ships.
Robert opened his mouth and began yelling orders in a loud voice. "All women and children get below decks! All men find your weapons and report to your cannon. Load everything with pistol shot and lye to repel boarders. This is not a drill." Daniel had drilled the men in the cannons every morning this week, and once a day even fired some powder off just to show what the noise and smoke was like. Only once had he drilled them using cannon balls, for balls were an attacking load and they had no desire to attack anyone. Their best defense was to run, and if they couldn't run, then grapeshot was their next best tactic.
Once the men were running to do his bidding, Robert walked over and loaded the swivel gun. Daniel had brought just one of his two Malay swivel guns on the Swift, so as not to leave his village's other ship, the Freisburn, defenseless. He loaded it with powder only, for he would use it as a warning shot to get the other ships' attention. "Tell me when I should fire it, Danny." Daniel could see the all the decks from the wheel, so he would know when the cannons were all loaded and primed.
"Give them your warning,” Daniel said after about a half an hour. They were now within cannon ball range of the ships, but not yet within grapeshot range. The swivel gun was a mini cannon, more like a giant blunderbuss than a ship's cannon, but it boomed like a cannon. The warning shot had the strangest effect on the many small ships that were circling the great fluyt. They broke off circling and instead changed course towards the Swift. "Shit!" was Daniel's only comment.
Robert had a few more cho
ice words to say than just that. He was interrupted by Daniel saying, "The fluyt is signaling to us. It's the flag for 'friend'. Does he mean him or the flotilla of small ships? Does he mean for us to come and help a friend, or that he doesn't need help because the other ships are friends. Bloody signal flags." Daniel thought for a second. "If I change course and go straight for the smaller ships, I will be on a fast tack. At that speed they won't be able to grapple us, and they would be fools not to get out of our way. What do you think, Rob?"
"Do it."
Daniel spun the wheel until the bow of the Swift was pointing directly at the line of small lateen ships. The sails groaned at the rigging as they filled, and the ship heeled slightly with the power in the sails, and the Swift gained speed and kept on gaining. On this sideways angle to the wind, they could sail triple the speed of the wind, because the sails never ran out of fresh wind. As he expected, the small ships were careening out of the way. Just as the Swift came even with the stern of the fluyt, Daniel spun the wheel again and the bow turned into the wind and immediately slowed and then drifted close to the fluyt.
Robert had a lad run up Dutch colors under their English colors, and then put his hailing horn to his lips and yelled out in Dutch, "We are not pirates, despite the lines of the ship." The Swift was a lateen galliot more at home with corsairs of the Barbary Coast than English traders. "Do you need help?" The ship was a fluyt out of Haarlem and fluyts were known for being efficient at carrying cargo but helpless in a fight. He wondered at such a ship traveling these pirate waters without an escort.
"We are good, for we are protected by a passport from the Emperor of Morocco,” came the reply from the other ship's master. "The local ships were trying to convince us to take on some Qualidia folk as passengers to Safi. Jan Janszoon is now the governor of Qualidia fortress, so you can understand our reluctance to stop and take them aboard."
At the name Janszoon, Robert shuddered involuntarily and seemed to lose his thoughts. Janszoon was one of the leaders of the Barbary Corsairs, though he had originally been commissioned as a privateer by the Dutch to raid Spanish shipping. He and another Dutch privateer-turned-Mussulman-pirate by the name of De Veenboer had pillaged far beyond their original privateer license.
Janszoon had at one time been the President of the pirate Republic of Salee, north of here and it was those pirates who had preyed on the coasts of Devon and Cornwall and Ireland, and had kept a base on Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel. If not for them, King Charles would not have created the Ships Money tax to refit his navy. But no, this was not what caused Robert to freeze in place. He had his own personal reasons to fear Janszoon.
Both ships had spilled wind from their sails so they could run in parallel while the masters yelled greetings to each other. It meant that the six small, lateen rigged ships had once again caught up. The closer they came, the more nervous were the Swift's gunners. Each of the ships was manned by at least a dozen men, all of them looking very much like pirates. One of these ships was maneuvering between the fluyt and the Swift, which may have been a boarding tactic because the Swift could not fire grape at it without hitting the fluyt.
Standing at the bow of the ship was a woman, and not a local woman either, because she wore Dutch skirts and her fair hair and pink face were not covered from the eyes of men. "Take me aboard!" she was yelling. "Take me home to Holland or at least take me to Safi where I can buy passage on another ship. Take me anywhere, but away from here!"
"Is it a trick?" Daniel asked Robert suspiciously, "to get us to slow enough to be boarded?"
The sight of the woman brought Robert out of his stupor enough to hail her in Dutch, "Who are you and where do you hail from?"
"I am a Christian woman from Haarlem, and I beg to you take me away from Qualidia."
Daniel called softly to his friend. "Does she expect us to believe that she is escaping from some danger, and yet she has an escort of six boats? Boats filled with what look like coastal pirates? It must be a trick."
"Trick or not, it has worked. The fluyt is spilling more wind. They are slowing to take her aboard. Swing the Swift in behind the fluyt's stern so we can keep the rest of these buggers away from her by threatening them with a broadside."
Robert's tactic worked. The other boats kept their distance while the fluyt took the woman aboard. Once the fluyt was moving again, all of the local boats put about and made for Qualidia. "What now?" Daniel asked.
"Trail the fluyt. She carries a passport that will have her welcomed into Safi, and hopefully we will be welcomed as her escort.
* * * * *
* * * * *
The Pistoleer - Slavers by Skye Smith Copyright 2013-14
Chapter 18 - Feasting in Safi, Morocco in February 1641
As the Swift sailed under the guns of Safi fortress to enter the small harbour, Robert told his men to unload the cannons of their canisters and powder socks, but to leave just enough powder in each cannon to fire a salute to the fortress, one cannon at a time in sequence.
"Why waste powder firing a salute?" Daniel asked him. "Is it a custom here?"
"Aye, a very logical custom,” Robert replied. "The fortress will be watching us with their guns aimed. By firing a sequential salute, we prove that our own cannons are empty, so we will be allowed to sail into the port without being sunk."
Once the Swift tied up quayside in the port of Safi, the only person who stepped ashore in Morocco was Robert Blake. Neither the crew nor the passengers had stood on land for almost two weeks, and yet they all just leaned against the gunnels and stared out, for so strange was this port and her people. Blake had been here about ten years ago and was not so taken aback or fearful, so he went to visit with the master of the Dutch fluyt they had escorted into port. After a moment, Daniel shrugged off his own fears and followed him.
He reached Robert just as the man was being introduced, in Dutch, to the lady who had joined at Qualidia. "May I present Lysbeth Janszoon van Haarlem,” the master was saying with a bow.
"Are you one of Corsair Janszoon's wives, then?" Robert asked with a complete lack of respect for the woman, a well-dressed woman about his age.
"His daughter, by his legal wife in Haarlem,” she replied, offended by his raw tone. "And what is that to you?"
"I was once captured and enslaved by his men. If my uncle had not bought me from him I would be enslaved still."
"Then you cannot be Dutch, for he always released the Dutch slaves,” she replied, in a more considerate tone.
"I think we are about to be interrupted by the port officer,” Daniel warned. Within a moment his warning came true and they were all asked to identify themselves, their ships, and their cargos. When it came to Robert's turn, things got interesting.
"I know Robert Blake,” the officer stated in very broken Dutch, while waving his guards forward, "and you are an imposter. You will be held at my office until you speak the truth."
"Ah, then you know my uncle. Is he in Safi? Will you send for him?"
The officer immediately switched to English. "Your uncle? Then you are most welcome, sir. I welcome all of you all to Safi on behalf of his illustrious being, Mohammed esh Sheikh es Seghir de Saadi, Emperor of Morocco. I will send one of my men to the Governor's palace immediately so that he can prepare to receive you. All of you, including your crew and passengers." He switched to Dutch and repeated this, and then turned to the woman and said. "Miss Lysbeth, I will also send for the Dutch Consul. No doubt he will wish to speak with you about your father."
As two of his men scurried off in different directions, the port officer got busy with his more mundane duties of inspecting ships' papers and cargos and making lists of people. Daniel moved closer to Robert and whispered, "Why have you never told me that you were a slave?"
"It is not something I am proud of. It would be like a good wife admitting that she was once a whore."
"And just who was this uncle of yours?"
"I told you. I was named for him. Uncle Robert was th
e factor here for both the old and the new Barbary Company, and I believe at one time he was even in charge of this port. When we first met while riding as Dutch pistoleers, my uncle was accompanying the Ambassador of Morocco to the court of King Charles, and as a gift for the occasion they brought English slaves home from Safi. Thirty of them, mostly aged galley slaves."
"Was he knighted for that?" Daniel asked.
"No, but he was given a position with a pension. King's chamber pot man or some such nonsense."
"Were you one of the slaves taken to your king?" Lysbeth asked in perfect though accented English.
"Nay, I was a slave long before that," Robert said, more politely, "and for less than a month before my uncle ransomed me. That was the last time I set foot in Morocco, until now."
"I'm sorry,” she said softly. "I'm sorry for almost everything my father has done, but he is unrepentant. He has even snubbed the pardon I brought for him from the Netherlands. He is dying you see, so our navy was willing to pardon him in return for information about the strength of the pirate fleets and the location of their bases. He could have returned with me to Haarlem and died in his old house surrounded by my family."
"And he refused?" Robert asked. "The man is a fool."
"A fool, why? To give up the power and wealth and luxury here in Morocco that he has known for a lifetime, in exchange for a small house in Haarlem?"
"So why were you in such a panic for passage to Safi, if he is so rich and powerful?" Daniel asked.
"His hold on life is weak, for the Knights of Malta captured him and for five years they tortured him to find out the same things that our navy expect to hear for the price of a pardon. He could die on any day and I did not want to be at Qualidia when he did so, for I would have been held for ransom by his successors. A ransom that would not have been paid, for I am just a silly woman who is no longer pretty and who is certainly not wealthy."
