Corsair hl-1

by Tim Severin

  ‘It is, effendi.’

  ‘Then raise your finger, and pronounce the shahadah loudly and clearly so that all may hear.’

  Obediently Dan did as he was told, and recited the words, ‘There is no god but God and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.’

  Turgut turned to his valet standing in the background, and nodded. The valet came forward with a pair of scissors. Removing Dan’s red cap, he threw it on the ground and then deftly clipped away the Miskito’s long hair leaving only a central top knot. Next the valet clapped his hands, and his assistant brought forward a length of tan-coloured muslin which the valet carefully wound around the Miskito’s head as a turban. When the valet was satisfied, he stepped back and Turgut announced in a loud voice, ‘From now on you will be known as Suleiman the Miskito. In the words of the holy Qur’an, “He who rejects false deities and believes in Allah has grasped a firm handhold which will never break.”’

  To murmurs of approval from the audience, the valet then escorted Dan away to the side room, even as the abdal quietly left his place and followed.

  Next it was Hector’s turn. Rising to his feet, he stepped into the centre of the carpet, and at the captain’s prompting held up his index finger and repeated the words of the shahadah, as Dan had done. After his red cap had been removed and his head shaved, he too was given a turban, though this time it was a more expensive length of fine white cotton shot through with gold threads. Then, Turgut stepped forward and placed in his open palm a little container, the size and shape of a pill jar, fashioned of brass. As Turgut pressed a catch on the side, the lid sprang open revealing a little compass, its needle quivering gently. Engraved on the inner side of the open lid were lines of Arabic writing. ‘Here are inscribed the names of the cities and countries of the known world,’ said Turgut, ‘and should you ever find yourself in such places, consult the needle to learn the qibla that you may worship towards the pillars of Islam.’ Then, to everyone’s surprise, he leaned forward and gave Hector a formal embrace. As he did so, he whispered in his ear, ‘Don’t be afraid. It happens at once, and is a wonderful thing as Allah has wished. Praise be to God.’ Then he stepped back, as his valet led away Hector for his circumcision.

  To his alarm Hector could not see Dan anywhere when he was ushered into the side room where the abdal stood waiting beside a low bed. The only other furniture in the room was a sturdy stool. ‘Do not be afraid,’ said the abdal. ‘Your friend is recovering next door, and will soon rejoin the celebrations. The pain is quickly over. You may lie on the bed or be seated on the stool, whichever you prefer. Osman, the valet here, will remain to bear witness.’

  ‘I prefer the stool,’ said Hector, his voice unsteady.

  ‘As did your friend. Pull up your gown, and sit down then, with your legs spread apart.’

  Hector did as he was instructed, and the abdal reached forward and took the young man’s penis in one hand and gently teased forward the foreskin. Next, as Hector peered down anxiously, the abdal was holding in his free hand an instrument which Hector first thought was a set of dividers of the type he himself used when measuring distances across a map. But these dividers were made of wood, each limb flat-sided. Hector broke out in a cold sweat as he realised it was a clamp. Expertly the abdal closed the clamp upon the foreskin, nipping it tightly so that it could not retract. Hector shut his eyes and clenched his fists so that the nails dug deep into the palms of his hands. He sucked in air and held his breath, while hearing the soft mutter of a voice saying, ‘Allâhu akbarre’. Then came an agonising spike of pain which made him gasp, and a shocking moment later the warm spurt of blood striking the inside of his thigh. Even as he quivered with the pain, he sensed the blessed pressure of some sort of poultice or bandage being pressed to his wounded manhood.

  ELEVEN

  ‘GLORY OF THE SEA’, Izzet Darya lay becalmed. The green banner of Algiers with its spangles of silver and gold crescents hung limp from its staff, and the sea around her hull had an oily sheen. The passing of an occasional swell was so faint as to be noticed only in the slight flexing of her monstrous main spar made from three lengths of straight pine lashed together like a great fishing rod. The spar and its furled sail weighed more than four tons, and the Captain of Galleys had ordered them to be lowered in order to ease the strain on the galley’s single mast with its enormous block and tackle. When a breeze did come, it would take thirty strong men hauling in unison on the massive six-inch halyard to raise the spar back aloft. Then the lightest and most agile members of the crew would have to shin up and let loose the bindings so that the single enormous sail fell open and sent the galley slicing through the water. But for now there was not a breath of wind. Izzet Darya was motionless, silent except for the steady thump of her pumps and the gush and trickle of bilge water falling back into the sea, for the galley’s elderly hull was incurably leaky, and only steady pumping kept her light and manoeuvrable. Turgut Reis was resting his oarsmen because Izzet Darya was where he wanted her to be, lurking at a cruciero, a crossroads of shipping lanes. Three leagues east was the island of St Pierre where Turgut’s men had recently taken on fresh water from a friendly population, and past this point came merchant traffic rounding Sardinia’s southern cape on their paths between Marseilles, Leghorn, Sicily and the straits. So the corsair galley waited, as dangerous as an ageing pike poised in ambush among the reeds.

  From his position on the aft deck Hector looked down the length of the venerable galley. In the flat light of dawn the vessel appeared even narrower and longer than usual. Her beam was only sixteen feet, less than a tenth of the distance to her bows where he could make out the squat black shape of her single bow chaser, an iron cannon pointing forward into the dense mist which blanked out the horizon. Earlier Turgut had confided to him that Izzet had once mounted three fine bow chasers of bronze made by skilled Hungarian gun founders, but he had been obliged to sell the more expensive guns to pay his dockyard bills and outfit his ship and get to sea. A single catwalk ran all the way down the spine of the galley. Here on most corsair ships the overseers patrolled, keeping an eye on the slaves and lashing them to their work if they shirked. But on Izzet Darya there was no need for such discipline because most of her oarsmen, now relaxing on the benches, were volunteers. In that matter, at least, Turgut had been fortunate. He had announced his impending departure for the corso in early March, and just two weeks later buba, the plague, had struck the city. To Algerines the plague was a commonplace, lurking unseen and occasionally emerging to decimate the closely packed population. But buba was a summer affliction and rarely felt so early. It had taken the city unawares. After several of the more important citizens had died, there had been a rush to escape the scourge. Scores of men had volunteered for Izzet Darya’s crew though Turgut was promising no wage, only a share in the plunder.

  So now 160 men were packed aboard, not counting the squad of forty janissaries under their aga who were the ship’s chief fighting force, and already the food rations were scrimped. Hector knew the precise details because he had come aboard as the captain’s scrivano, charged with keeping track of how many sacks of grain and dried fruit, jars of oil and vinegar remained. Izzet had sailed from Algiers with supplies for less than a month at sea because this was all that Turgut could afford, and now, three weeks into the cruise, the men were grumbling about the meagre helpings of couscous, which was their staple diet. The last full meal they had enjoyed was after the marabout, the holy man, had led the prayers for success on the corso. Eight sheep had been ritually slaughtered when Izzet’s well-greased hull had been eased down the slipway, coloured bunting fluttering from her rigging. The blood and guts from the dead sheep were thrown into the sea as a sacrifice, but the flesh reserved for the crew’s meal once the galley had made its ceremonial exit from Algiers harbour, the onlookers on the ramparts shouting their good wishes, and the crew saluting the tomb of Sidi Ketaka on the hill, without whose help no corsair crew could hope for success.

  But their achievement
had been indifferent despite the sacrifice. Off the coast of Majorca the galley had intercepted a dozen vessels, mostly small tartans and poleacres. Each time the galley had forced the stranger to heave to, then lowered a boat and sent across a team for the visita, the inspection to check the vessel’s nationality and lading. Whenever the vessel proved to be Christian, it had been Hector’s job to scrutinise the ship’s papers while the anxious captain hovered beside him, pleading that he was an honest trader and carrying only protected goods. Several captains had produced passports issued under the terms of a treaty between their own government and the Dey in Algiers promising protection from seizure of vessel and cargo. Disappointingly, these claims had proved to be true, and Turgut had honoured the passes, allowing the captures to go free. Only two vessels had turned out to be genuine prizes, and even then their cargoes were wretched enough – bundles of firewood, bales of unworked goat hair, and some millet and cheese which had been added to Izzet’s dwindling stores. A minor consolation had been the discovery of some sacks of coffee beans, probably destined for some Moorish sheikh.

  Hector stepped around the hooped canopy which sheltered the spot where Turgut and the aga of the janissaries spread their sleeping mats at nightfall. It still felt odd not to have the weight of his slave ring on his right ankle. The previous day Turgut had insisted that the ring be struck off. ‘I am still your master, but now that you have adopted the Faith I have no wish to treat you as a chattel,’ he had announced. ‘From now on you should regard yourself as a member of my household, and a valued one at that. As the Prophet, peace be upon him, told us, “Your slaves are your brothers and Allah has put them under your command. So whoever has a brother under his command should feed him of what he eats and dress him of what he wears.”’

  Aboard the galley the captain was following the Prophet’s advice. Like all his crew Turgut went barefoot and wore simple working clothes, a cotton gown or long shirt over a pair of drawers. Hector was grateful for the loose fit of the baggy garments because he was still conscious of his circumcision. His penis had healed during the two weeks’ convalescence allowed after circumcision, but it was still inclined to occasional discomfort in the heat.

  A sailor clambered up the companionway that led from the oar deck, and as he came level with Hector, there was something familiar about his face. A moment later Hector placed him. It was the English sailor Dunton with whom he had shared the hold on Hakim Reis’s vessel. ‘I had not expected to see you again,’ he said.

  Dunton checked in his stride and for an instant did not recognise the young Irishman. ‘It’s the lad from Ireland, isn’t it,’ he then exclaimed. ‘You’ve changed. You look older and more grown up.’ He glanced down at Hector’s bare leg. ‘Also it seems you’ve taken the turban.’

  Belatedly Hector noted that Dunton was still wearing a slave ring on his ankle though he had discarded the red slave cap and, like everyone else, wore a nondescript cloth wrapped around his head. ‘Yes, I converted,’ Hector said simply.

  ‘Can’t say I blame you,’ observed Dunton, not the least surprised. ‘But how come you are on the aft deck with the officers? You’ve not become a garzon have you?’

  ‘No, I’m the captain’s scrivano,’ said Hector. A garzon was lingua franca for the young men who sometimes shipped aboard as companions and bedmates for the officers and senior odjaks. ‘I also help the captain in his chart-making.’

  Dunton looked impressed. ‘Always took you for a clever one,’ he said. ‘What’s that you’ve got hanging round your neck?’

  ‘It’s my qibla finder,’ said Hector. ‘It shows me the direction in which to pray.’

  ‘Mind if I have a look,’ observed Dunton. He had opened the little case and saw the compass needle. ‘Handy enough aboard a ship which turns every which way.’

  ‘What about you? What have you been doing these past nine months?’

  Dunton shrugged. ‘Much the same as what I would have been doing at home if I had been stuck on shore for the entire winter,’ he answered. ‘I was put to work in the Arsenal, doing shipwright’s work. I helped get this old tub back afloat. She’s a right old-timer. Half her joints are shaky and she’s long past her best days. Wouldn’t wonder if this turns out to be her last voyage.’

  He spat expertly over the side.

  ‘I’m not sure I’d have joined her crew if I had been given the choice. But my master is the same captain, as you call him, and he was very keen to have me aboard because there’s a shortage of good seamen. Plenty of volunteers to pull on an oar, but not many who know how to get the best out of a ship under sail. In all but name I’m the caravana, the foreman in charge of sail handling. Officially the caravana is a Turk, but he knows sod all about the job, and leaves it to me to organise the tasks. If this cruise goes well, I might even come back with a bit of cash to buy my freedom and then settle down in Algiers. I like the climate and the pay is very good if you’ve got shipwright’s skills.

  ‘But I thought that all the English prisoners had been ransomed last autumn and gone home?’

  ‘Seems I was left off the list,’ said Dunton. ‘And we won’t see another delegation from London for several years. I hear that the English consul died of the plague, and he’s not been replaced as yet. So, my best hope is prize money from this corso. Then there’ll be nothing to stop me from bringing my wife and children out to join me.’

  ‘You mean you’ll share in the plunder?’

  ‘That’s usanza. Even the humblest galley oarsman gets a cut of the prize money, and it doesn’t matter if he is a slave. It’s just a single share, and in theory he’s meant to hand it over to his master. But if your master likes you, you get to keep it. By all accounts the captain is a decent old stick, and would let you hang on to what you earn if you serve him well.’

  Dunton glanced up at the banner which was still hanging slack. ‘I’d better get going. This mist won’t last all day. I need to tighten those wooldings on the main spar while I have the chance. It’s nice to get the chance to talk English for a change too.’

  ‘So you haven’t met my friend Dan? He speaks English.’

  ‘No, who’s he?’

  Hector pointed to the foredeck where Dan was talking to one of the odjaks. ‘That man there.’

  ‘The foreign-looking one with dark skin? I took him to be an usif, a blackamoor slave. How come he’s so friendly with the odjaks?’

  ‘He’s a musketeer,’ Hector told him. ‘He made quite an impression on them.’

  IT HAD HAPPENED on the afternoon before Izzet Darya set sail from Algiers. The captain had told Hector that he would take him aboard as his scrivano, but he had made it clear that there was no place for Dan aboard the galley. Naturally Hector asked the captain to change his mind, only to be reminded that an illiterate artist would just be an extra mouth to feed. So Hector had resigned himself to being parted from his friend when Dan arrived at the dockside on an errand for Turgut’s steward. He had been told to bring Turgut’s prayer mat and some extra clothes out to the anchored galley, and by chance had hitched a ride with a boatload of odjaks coming aboard with their bedrolls and weapons. As the odjaks climbed on to the galley, one of the janissaries had handed his musket to Dan to hold. Dan had taken the weapon and, glancing at the firing mechanism, commented that it was out of alignment. ‘Are you armuriero, a gunsmith?’ the janissary had asked. ‘No, but I am a marksman, and this is a fine weapon,’ Dan had answered. Flattered, the janissary had asked Dan if he would like to try out the musket for himself, and the two of them had gone to the galley’s bow where Dan had loaded the musket and, under the watchful eye of the odjak, took aim at a mark, a dead cat floating in the water. He sank the carcass with his shot. The janissary had been so impressed that he had called on his fellow soldiers to watch another demonstration of Dan’s marksmanship, and when he again hit his target – a clump of floating weed – they had applauded. By now the aga of the janissaries had strolled over to observe what was going on, and when Dan missed his th
ird shot by only a narrow margin, the aga had enquired where he had learned to shoot so accurately. ‘Among my people,’ Dan had replied proudly. ‘That’s why we are called the Miskito. Outsiders believe that our name is taken from the flying insects which infest our coast, but that is wrong. The Spanish call us Miskito because we are the only native people in those lands who have learned how to use guns against them. So they call us the musket people.’ ‘If you are prepared to fight the infidel, then you should assist us,’ was the aga’s comment, ‘we always need good marksmen, and those who can help repair our guns.’ The aga’s authority in matters of warfare was equal to the powers exercised by the captain himself, so Dan had found himself co-opted as an auxiliary with the odjaks, and – to Hector’s delight – the Miskito had joined the corso.

  NIMBLY Dunton swung himself up on the mainspar, straddled it, and began attending to a frayed rope binding when, abruptly, he raised his head and looked out into the mist. ‘Hello!’ he said softly, ‘Something’s coming our way.’ Other crewmembers had heard the noise too, and there were calls for the pumping crew to cease work for a moment. In the silence that followed, a rhythmic heavy splash and groan could be heard. Quite where the noise came from was difficult to tell, but it was approaching. On the foredeck, the janissaries who had been smoking and talking put down their long pipes and took up their muskets, and quietly prepared the primings. Turgut, alerted by the sudden tension aboard, walked to the starboard rail and cocked his head to one side listening. ‘Galleot or maybe brigantine under oars,’ he said.

  Dunton dropped down softly on the deck beside Hector. ‘Friend or foe?’ he murmured. ‘The Religion doesn’t normally operate in this area, though they’ve got eight large galleys in their fleet, about the same size as Izzet, which would give us a run for our money.’