by Tim Severin
‘So he’s as badly off as we are,’ commented Hector.
Bourdon still looked pensive. ‘And that’s what puzzles me. He says that nearly all the oarsmen on the St Gerassimus are renegades captured or bought from many different countries, plus a number of Turks. Hardly anyone is serving out a set number of years at the oar. They are all lifers, and the last of the volunteer oarsmen left the galley at Malta. He thinks that the galley’s owner wants a permanent crew so that the St Gerassimus becomes the crack galley in the fleet. Our friend claims that the galley is already the best-managed and best-disciplined vessel in the Mediterranean. It seems odd, but he was almost proud of being aboard.’
The comite’s whistle shrilled yet again, and the galerien who had been talking with Bourdon called, ‘Five-minute warning. Better get yourselves ready for the night. Take a leak and spread out your cloaks. The nights can be chilly. No more talking as soon as the lights are out.’
Looking down the galley, Hector saw some oarsmen were assembling small platforms perched on short poles about three feet high. Moments later they had erected little canopies over the platforms so that there were half a dozen smaller tents within the great awning. ‘What are those for?’ he asked. ‘That’s where the comites and the senior argousins sleep,’ answered the galerien. ‘Floating above our heads like in the clouds. Those oarsmen beneath their beds have the “reserved seats”. They wait as servants on the comites, and eat scraps from their food.’
‘What about us? Where do we sleep?’ Hector wondered looking around.
‘Just where you sit,’ came the answer. ‘Take it in turns to stretch out on the banc, or down on the deck. There won’t be room for all five of you, so a couple of you will have to sleep kneeling, with your head on the bench.’
‘There doesn’t seem enough room.’
‘It’s luxury now,’ the galerien assured him. ‘Just wait until you have to share your bench with the handle of your oar.’
Belatedly Hector realised that he had not yet seen any oars on the St Gerassimus. He was wondering where they might be when the whistle blew again and a total silence fell on the galley.
NEXT MORNING he discovered what had happened to the galley’s sweeps. After a meagre breakfast of water and bread the crew of the galley were marched off the St Gerassimus and along the quay to where two small vessels were lying. They were galliots, half-sized galleys used by the Corps as training ships. Neatly laid out on their benches were long oars with scarlet and white blades and shafts. Hector recognised the livery of the St Gerassimus. ‘Crew to divide,’ bellowed the rowing master who had accompanied them. ‘Benches one to twelve on the first galliot; benches thirteen to twenty-six in the second vessel.’ Hector and his companions found their way to the forward benches and were shackled in place when Yakup, armed with a bullwhip, appeared on the gangway above them. ‘You with the GAL on your cheek,’ he said, pointing at Bourdon, ‘show them what to do.’ Bourdon gripped the wooden handgrip pegged to the side of the massive oar shaft which was thick as a man’s thigh. He placed his right foot on the edge of the bench in front of him. ‘Now take a stroke!’ Bourdon struggled to push the loom of the sweep away from him, rose up as if climbing a stair, then fell back with all his weight, tugging on the handgrip. The huge oar did not stir. ‘Again!’ ordered the rowing master. He flicked the bullwhip’s lash across Bourdon’s shoulders. The pickpocket gritted his teeth and repeated his effort, still the oar did not budge. ‘Now you!’ barked the rowing master, pointing at Hector. Hector took hold of the adjacent handgrips and copied Bourdon’s movements. Very slightly the oar handle moved. ‘And you!’ This time it was Dan who joined the effort, and ponderously the massive sweep began to shift. ‘And you!’ The fourth man on the oar bench added his weight, but it was only when the burly odjak, seated farthest inboard, helped the other oarsmen that the heavy sweep began to rise and fall in a ponderous movement. ‘Enough!’ barked the rowing master, turning his attention to the next bench of novice oarsmen. As soon as Yakup was out of earshot, Bourdon hissed, ‘Once the galley starts moving, watch out for the oar handle behind us. It’ll knock our brains out. Here we go!’
The rowing master had finished his instructions and now gave a signal to a comite standing on the poop deck. The comite brought a whistle to his lips and gave a single blast. Every one of the oarsmen swayed forward, still seated on his bench, arms extended, pushing the oar handles in a low arc ahead of them. The whistle sounded again, and the oarsmen stood up all together, raising their hands so that the blades of the oars dipped into the sea. A fourth blast, and the oarsmen flung themselves backward, dragging the blades through the water as they fell back on the leather-padded benches. Scarcely had they regained their seats than the whistle was signalling them to repeat the movement, and a drummer alongside the comite struck the first beat of a slow steady tempo as the galliot gathered way.
‘Get the rhythm, get the rhythm,’ grunted Bourdon beside Hector. ‘It’s not strength which matters, it’s the rhythm.’ He gave a gasp as the rowing master’s whip slashed across his shoulders. ‘No talking,’ came the harsh command.
The training galley lumbered forward, heading towards the harbour mouth, and Hector could see the other galliot keeping pace. Then they had passed the guardian forts, and all at once were in choppy water. It became difficult to control the massive sweep as the galliot began to roll in the waves. Seawater splashed across Hector’s feet making him aware of how low the vessel lay in the water. On the oar directly behind him the inexperienced crew lost their balance. He heard a yell. Something made him duck, and the heavy handle of the loose sweep passed over his head, its oarsmen having lost their grip. The next moment the blade had tangled with its neighbour, and the massive handle swung back through a short arc and he heard a crunch as it struck an oarsman on the chest, cracking his ribs.
A burst of swearing, and the rowing master was running down the coursier towards them, his face twisted in anger, as the galliot faltered. ‘Row, you dogs! Row!’ he shouted, hitting out with his whip while the unfortunates on the oar handle tried to get back on their feet and bring their sweep back into action. Their injured companion lay crumpled under the bench. In one swift movement the rowing master jumped from the gangway and kicked the injured man under the rowing bench like a bundle of rags where he would not impede his fellows. A moment later he was back up on the coursier shouting at the crew to increase the pace.
For the next three weeks, Hector, Dan and the other new recruits to St Gerassimus learned their trade at the oar. It was a cruel apprenticeship. They rowed until their backs and shoulders ached. Their hands blistered, and when the blisters burst, the skin peeled away leaving the flesh raw and bleeding. The soles of their naked feet were bruised by the constant pressure against the banquette and bench in front of them. Night after night they came back to the St Gerassimus to eat the same unpalatable ration of bean soup and bread, and then fell into an exhausted sleep, only to be roused at dawn by the comite’s insistent whistle. However, as the days passed, their muscles strengthened and grew accustomed to the strain; thick calluses developed on their hands and the soles of their feet, and they achieved the knack of setting an even rhythm and obeying the steady pounding of the drum. Before long they could recognise each call on the comite’s whistle, so that they stopped and started, increased or lowered the speed of their strokes, or reversed direction of their blades as fluently as if they were a single machine. And with the improvement in their skill, Hector found that he and his companions on bench three were developing a conceit. At first it was a matter of winning races against their colleagues in the other training galliot. Then, after the Arsenal dockyard workers had finished their repairs on St Gerassimus and the galley could put to sea, it became a demonstration of their superiority over the other galleys in the fleet.
They never saw their captain. In his absence Piecourt ran the galley, adjusting the performance of St Gerassimus with a care that reminded Hector of a harpist he had once seen tuning
his instrument. Piecourt and the rowing master shifted oarsmen from one bench to another, varying their weights and strength until they had achieved the best performance. Hector, Dan and Bourdon were regulars on the third bench, with the big odjak Irgun as their vogue avant, but it took some time to find the best quinterol, the fifth oarsman who sat farthest outboard. Then, one day, Piecourt put beside them a man whose nose and ears had been crudely sliced away. When Hector quietly asked the newcomer his name, there was no reply only a snuffling sound through the cratered nostrils. When Hector repeated the question, the unhappy man turned his ravaged face towards him and opened his mouth. The tongue was missing, torn out. Even Bourdon, the hardened pickpocket, was shocked.
The mute leaned forward and with his fingernail slowly scratched some signs on the oar handle, then sat back.
Hector stared at the marks. They meant nothing to him at first, but then the memory came back to him of lessons with the monks in Ireland. They had taught him the rudiments of Greek, and the letters made by the mute were Greek. They spelled out ‘Karp’.
‘Your name is Karp?’
The mute nodded. Then cupping a hand on each side of his head, he stared straight at Hector. ‘You can hear, but you cannot speak?’
Again the nod, and Karp sketched out a cross in the Greek style, the four arms of equal length.
‘You are a Christian? Then why are you here?’
Laboriously Karp tried to explain but Hector could only piece together occasional scraps of his story. Karp’s homeland was somewhere to the east and ruled by the Turks, but how he came to be a slave on the St Gerassimus was not clear. Nor could Hector unravel the reason for Karp’s mutilation. He could only presume that it was punishment for trying to escape or, perhaps like the Sicilian thief in the bagnio of Algiers, he was an inveterate criminal.
At dusk when the comite’s whistle blew and Hector knelt down and placed his head on the rowing bench to begin his rest, he fell asleep listening to Karp’s breath rushing in and out of the wreckage of his face.
CHEVALIER ADRIEN CHABRILLAN returned to his ship for the Festival of the Galleys. Piecourt had prepared for the great day with his usual meticulous attention. The great blue and white awning had been taken down and stowed, and the crew had washed and scrubbed the deck planking until it gleamed. The dockyard’s painters and gilders had been busy, primping and beautifying the galley’s carved decorations. The sailmakers had sewn and fitted new canopies and tilts for the poop deck, using roll after roll of velvet and brocade and given the added touch of gold fringes. The spars and rigging of St Gerassimus were hung with bright flags and banners, some showing the fleur-de-lis of France but many more with the cross of St Stephen. The halberdiers of the guard were in their best uniforms.
The Chevalier came aboard at noon with his guests, a cluster of well-born gentlemen, several wealthy merchants and their ladies, and all were dressed splendidly for the great occasion. They paused to admire the wonderful spectacle of the fleet: galley after galley neatly moored, flags and pennants rippling in the light breeze, their gaily painted oars fixed at an upward angle so they seemed like the wings of birds. Then they sat down to a splendid meal at tables arranged on the poop deck and covered with white linen. All the while, there was no sight nor sound of a single oarsman aboard the galley. St Gerassimus’s benches stretched away empty, leather padding gleaming with polish, as the Chevalier’s guests savoured their way through the seven courses of their repast. Only when they were toying with dessert – served with a sweet wine from Savoy – did Piecourt, who had been standing in the background, step forward and blow a single long blast on his whistle.
Hector, Dan and two hundred other galeriens had spent the past four hours crouched in the narrow space between the benches. Piecourt had promised thirty lashes of the black bastinado to any man who spoilt his surprise for the captain’s guests. Hearing the whistle, Dan and his companions took a deep breath and, as one man, exclaimed ‘Hau!’ At the same time they stretched up their right arms, fingers extended, in the air. The Chevalier’s guests startled by the sound which seemed to come from the belly of the vessel, looked up to see a forest of fingers appear above the benches. ‘Hau!’ repeated the hidden oarsmen as they extended their left arms, and the number of fingers suddenly doubled. ‘Hau! Hau!’ and they raised first one arm and then the other. ‘Hau!’ This time the galeriens lay down on the deck boards and waved their right legs above the benches, then their left. The guests looked on, amazed. Now the oarsmen sat up. All together, they suddenly raised their heads above the galley benches. Each man was wearing his red prison cap issued by the Arsenal, so that the effect was as if a field had suddenly sprouted a sea of red flowers. So it went on. More than two hundred oarsmen performed the routines that Piecourt had made them rehearse for days, standing up, sitting down, taking off their shirts, opening their mouths, coughing in unison, bowing to their audience, removing their caps, putting them on again, until finally they all stood, half naked and facing their audience. Then they gave the chamade, rattling their chains in a sustained clattering roar until Piecourt gave a final sharp blast on his whistle and every galerien abruptly stopped, dropped his arms to his side, and stood silently to attention, staring straight ahead.
The distinguished guests broke into spontaneous applause.
FIFTEEN
A MILE FROM WHERE St Gerassimus floated on an indigo blue sea, the first slopes of the Barbary mountains rose behind the close-packed buildings of a small Moorish town where a river drained from a cleft in the mountains. In front of the town a dozen or so feluccas and caiques lay at anchor in the roadstead, their decks deserted. The foreshore too was empty except for the rowing boats abandoned by the sailors who had fled their vessels the moment that St Gerassimus had appeared over the horizon. The arrival of the galley had taken them by surprise. In the past the town’s walls had proved stout enough to resist all but a prolonged attack, and the place was too insignificant to reward a major assault by any enemy. So the attention of a first-class war galley caused some puzzlement among the citizens though there was no great concern as they watched the newcomer hover quietly in front of the town, her oars occasionally moving as she maintained her station. The more observant of the townsfolk did, however, note something a little unusual about their visitor. The galley was not floating level. She was down by the bow.
On board St Gerassimus, premier comite Piecourt too was anxious – but for other reasons. The morning after the Festival of Galleys the Chevalier had summoned Piecourt and the sous comites to tell them that the galley was to put to sea within the week. During the banquet Commissaire Batiste had informed the Chevalier that the galley was to proceed to the Barbary coast, there to test the newest artillery weapon in the Corps Arsenal. The order came from Minister Colbert himself, and was to be obeyed with all despatch. Details of the armament were kept secret, and it was not until Piecourt saw the monstrous device floated out to his galley on a pontoon that he feared the result. The weapon was grotesque: a short, black cannon that reminded him of a gargantuan beer pot sitting on a heavy wooden sledge. What this monstrosity weighed he had no idea, but it had required a triple tackle to hoist the gun on to his galley’s foredeck, the rambade. As the monster was lowered into position he distinctly felt the galley tilt forward. He had removed the ship’s other guns, and shifted ballast further aft. He had also ordered the galley’s main anchor, normally kept in the bows, to be stowed below deck nearer the stern. Yet even when this was done, St Gerassimus still felt unwieldy, and the squat black mass on her foredeck appeared to him like an ugly wart.
But worse was to come. On the morning St Gerassimus left Marseilles harbour, she hove to outside the pier head so that the Arsenal’s gunpowder barge could come alongside to offload the test ammunition for the cannon – a hundred hollow cast iron globes filled with explosive and half as many kegs of a fine-grade gunpowder as propellant. The gunpowder was stowed in the galley’s magazine but the bombs, as the technician who accompanied the shi
pment called the heavy spherical projectiles, had to be kept separate. Some were already primed and fused and coated in sticky tar. Apparently they were to be sprinkled with gunpowder immediately before they were inserted into the gun’s gaping mouth. In theory the gun then shot the bomb high in the air, the tar-and-gunpowder coating ignited and, as the bomb blazed through the sky, the weapon lit its own fuse. When the device dropped into the target, it cleared any defences and smashed through any obstacle before exploding with massive damage. What happened if the fuse caught fire too soon and the bomb burst prematurely inside the cannon did not bear thinking about. St Gerassimus’s mission was to test the reliability of the weapon.
‘Do you think the gun will work with the new bombs?’ Hector had asked Dan as they sat in the warm sunshine, chained to their oar bench and waiting for orders as the galley drifted on the glassy calm.
‘I don’t know,’ answered the Miskito. ‘I heard about it when I was in the armoury in the Arsenal, but never saw it for myself. The gun was kept in the artillery park.’
