by Peter Grant
The men growled angry agreement, fingering their weapons. They had their own dead to avenge now.
As the guards ran forward to the bow, Elhac conned the chebec towards the two galleys, still locked together. He stared at them, eyes narrowed, calculating, then called to Prasad, “Gunner, I’ll approach the enemy’s starboard quarter. Lever your cannon around to point as far forward as you can. Fire as they bear, to sweep the poop deck and the angle where it joins the main deck. Clear the pirates from that area. As soon as all the guns have fired, I’ll put the bow alongside the pirate’s stern, and the guards will board her.”
“Got it, sir!”
Taghri and his men crouched below the bow bulwark, to keep as much of the flying salt spray off them as they could. The ship pitched and heaved as it came up to the other two vessels, seeming to fling itself this way and that in protest against the men who held it on its course against the urging of wind and weather. He found time to be grateful to the men of the shipyard in Lakibi who’d built the chebec. She had taken extraordinary punishment this day, and survived it all – at least, so far.
His thoughts were blotted out by an ear-splitting blast from the foremost cannon. He’d forgotten that he and his men were now ahead of them, and they were angled in their direction. The other three went off in rapid succession, as did the two swivel guns. The spreading grapeshot wrought havoc among the pirates, cutting down at least a score of men, sending the survivors stumbling back across the gore-soaked deck, staring down in horror at the torn remains of their erstwhile comrades in arms. Taghri’s heart felt as if it would stop as, for one brief horrified moment, he imagined the grapeshot cutting down the galley slaves too: but fortunately they were seated below deck level, and were not hit. He gasped with relief.
As soon as the edge of the bow nudged up to the enemy’s poop deck, grinding viciously as the two pitching, rolling hulls touched, Taghri yelled, “Follow me!” He waited for an instant until the bow reached the top of its pitch, then half-stepped, half-jumped across the narrow gap onto the pirate galley. Around and behind him, he heard and felt his guards do the same. One uttered a strangled shout, cut off short, as if he’d fallen between the ships, but Taghri didn’t dare look round. All his attention had to be focused on the pirates.
The guards shook out into line beside him, drawing their weapons, and they moved forward to the edge of the poop deck. Below, on the main deck, a few pirates waited for them, swords in hand; but most in the after part of the ship were either dead from the cannon fire, or had already gone forward to engage the sailors boarding from the royal galley.
“Archers, clear a gap for us!”
The two archers launched the arrows they’d already nocked to their bowstrings, and reached for more. Two pirates, then two more, screamed in pain as the shafts transfixed them, and the others stumbled back. Taghri jumped down into the space thus cleared, and the rest of his guard followed him. One shouted, “Sir, wait for us! We’re supposed to protect you, not the other way around!”
He laughed. “Sorry, Diya. You’ll just have to move faster!”
The guards fanned out into line, pointedly thrusting him back behind them, and began their stamp-and-slash drill, advancing up the deck. As they reached the first rowing benches, they narrowed their front to two men, forming a column behind them. The pirates on the narrow walkway between the oars were now pressed between armed men coming at them from bow and stern. A wail of despair rose from them as they realized their plight. A few began to throw down their weapons and beg to be spared – only to be stabbed to death by their own comrades, who knew that no-one offered mercy to pirates, and despised them for daring to ask for it. Some of the pirates near the mast began to jump overboard, taking their chances with the sea rather than face the certainty of death if they stayed to fight.
It seemed like a brief eternity of shouting, screaming, stabbing, slashing combat as they fought their way up the walkway, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes before they heard a bellow from in front of them. “Hold! Hold! We’re friends! You’re Ra'id Taghri! We met at Alconteral!”
Taghri swayed for a moment, recovering his balance, then looked up, wiping the sweat from his eyes. He recognized the speaker, an officer from the royal galley. “Well met, Harun. Are they all dead?”
“Dead, or too badly hurt to fight on. Thank you for helping. It was hot work back there. If you hadn’t kept the other two galleys off our back, we wouldn’t have survived. How did you come here, anyway?”
“It’s a long story. What do we do now? How do we separate these ships?”
“Let us handle that. Take your men back to the poop, and give us room to work.”
“Very well. I’m going to release these slaves, if I can find the keys to their chains.” He pointed to the men at the oars.
“Yes, good idea, but tell them to stay in their places.”
The guards made their way back down the walkway to the stern, picking up three of their comrades who’d fallen in the fighting. Two were dead, and the third was in a bad way with a sword thrust through his stomach. They half-carried, half-dragged him as carefully as they could, and laid him down at the break of the poop deck.
“See to him as best you can,” Taghri told them. “I’m going to look for the keys to the slaves’ chains.”
This galley looked to be a sister ship to the one he’d boarded outside Alconteral, what seemed like half a lifetime ago. He made for the captain’s cabin and looked around. There was a nail in the same place as the other ship to hold the keys, but the keyring was missing. On a hunch, he scoured the cabin floor. Sure enough, he found it in a corner behind a trunk. It must have been tossed from its place by a particularly violent movement of the ship – perhaps when the giant wave struck – and ended up there by happenstance. He snatched it up, and headed back outside.
As he knelt by the first rowing bench, he looked at the slaves to left and right. “I’m going to open these locks. Pass the word back to the bow for everyone to pull the chains out of their leg irons, so you’re free to move; but don’t get up yet, or do anything. The sailors from the Malik’s galley are trying to separate our ships. Don’t get in their way.”
“We won’t, sir!” “Aye, sir!” “Bless you, sir!” The grateful acknowledgments poured in.
He found the key that fitted the first padlock, and opened it. The rower tugged it through his leg iron, passed the end back to the man behind him, and held out his hand. “Give me the keys, sir. I’ll do the others.”
“No, let me do it. You stay where you are.” No matter how helpful the slaves might want to be, there was too much risk that if one got up, others would follow, and soon the deck would be so crowded as to be impassable.
It took no more than five minutes to find the right keys and open all the padlocks. From stern to bow, cheers rose as the slaves released themselves from the chains. Shouting to make himself heard over the hubbub, Taghri asked those nearest him, “Who commanded this ship?”
“It was Harith Reis, sir, middle son of Abu Reis,” one of them replied. “The other galley this size was commanded by Riad Reis, his oldest son, and Abu himself commanded the big galley.”
“Well, Riad is charcoal and cinders by now, unless the sea got him first. We set his galley on fire in our first attack, then disabled Abu’s bigger ship in our second. We got to you last of all.”
More cheers rose as the slaves took in the news, mingled with sorrow as they realized that their comrades on the first galley were almost certainly dead. Taghri tried to apologize, but was firmly shut down. “Sir, we know you didn’t set out to kill them. Abu Reis works his slaves to death anyway. None of us have been his prisoners more than a year, or we’d have been dead by now, too.”
Taghri shook his head in angry disgust. Sending felons to the galleys was a common punishment for serious crimes, but these men were not and had never been criminals. They did not deserve what had happened to them.
He rose. “I’m going to searc
h the cabins beneath the poop deck. You, you and you,” pointing to three guards, “come and help me. The rest of you, start throwing the pirate bodies overboard, except for Harith Reis, if you can find him. Ask the slaves to identify him. I want his head!”
They found no-one in the cabins. Taghri sent the guards back outside to help with the cleanup while he went through the captain’s cabin more carefully. As he’d anticipated, there was a locked chest bolted to the deck, in the same location as that in Sidi Reis’ cabin. He found the key for it on the ring, and threw back the lid. It held a similar leather satchel to the one he’d captured on board the other ship. Opening it, he smiled to see the gleam of coin. There looked to be at least as much as Sidi Reis had possessed. He locked the heavy satchel back in the trunk, and returned to the deck.
“We found Harith Reis’ body, sir,” one of his guards announced proudly, holding out a bucket. “We took his head, as you asked.” Looking inside, Taghri saw a man’s head staring up at him, eyelids drooping, lips curled in a bloodless grimace. “He was hit by one of our grapeshot as we cleared the poop deck, sir. We threw the rest of him over the side, except for this.” He held out an ornate ruby medallion set in gold, suspended from a heavy gold chain. “He was wearing it around his neck.”
“Better in my pocket than in the sea, I think,” Taghri jested as he accepted it.
“We thought the same, sir. He had a fancy jewel-encrusted scimitar, too. Didn’t do him much good as a weapon, but I suppose it made him look pretty.” He wrinkled his nose scornfully as he handed it over in its ornate scabbard, accompanied by a gust of laughter from those who’d heard his disdainful comment.
The Kalba officer hurried down the walkway towards them, glancing to left and right and nodding in approval as he saw that the slaves had freed themselves from the now-unlocked chains. He came up, saluted, and said, “Sir, we can’t save this ship. She’s sinking slowly by the bows. Her ram is locked in our keel, and we can’t dislodge it on our side, so we’re going to chop it free aboard this vessel and cut her loose. She’ll drift away, and sink of her own accord before long.”
“What about the slaves?”
“We’ll take them aboard our ship, sir. We’ll be crowded, but we can survive that. There’s an inlet a little way down the coast. We can put in there to rest, and stop the leak when the weather moderates. That’ll get us back to Kalba, where a shipyard can make permanent repairs.”
“All right. What do you want us to do?”
“Let’s get everyone off this ship, sir, while my men are chopping at the ram. If your guards can guide the slaves forward, one row at a time, we’ll have some men help them across to our ship. We’ve rigged lifelines to fish out anyone who falls into the sea.”
“I’d better not do that. I’m wearing mail under this shirt.”
The man’s eyes widened. “Definitely not, sir! You can’t swim in that. It’ll drag you under.”
“I’ll be careful.” He turned to his guards. “All right, you heard. Start moving the slaves towards the bow, and help them get off the ship. You, take that head with you, and don’t drop it overboard! I’m just going to get something from the cabin.”
“Have the slaves bring with them every bucket aboard this ship,” the Kalba officer interjected. “We’ll have to bail until we can plug the leak in our bows, so more buckets will be very useful. We’ll take her spare sails and cordage, too.”
Taghri retrieved the leather satchel, slinging its heavy weight over his shoulder, and half-filled another with Harith Reis’ ornate personal jewelry. He glanced around regretfully at the sumptuous furniture and fittings. They would have fetched good prices at Alconteral, but this time it was not to be. He turned his back on them, and headed for the bow.
By the time they’d got all the slaves off the pirate galley, passed her buckets, sails and ropes across, and climbed over themselves, the working party had chopped through the wooden ram still lodged in the bow of the Malik’s galley. The weary sailors, clutching their axes, clambered over the bulwarks and sank down exhausted on the foredeck, breathing hard after their exertions. As soon as the last of them was aboard, the officer in charge waved to the captain at the stern, who ordered the lashings cut that bound the two ships together, and roared at his oarsmen to back water. The royal galley pulled away from the pirate vessel, which was already low in the water and getting lower by the minute. They watched it in silence as they drew away. It was drifting, lurching aimlessly in the still-pounding waves.
“She’ll be aground or sunk by sundown,” a sailor next to Taghri remarked. Startled, he realized that the light was already fading from the sky. The fight had gone on through midday and well into the afternoon, but he’d been so busy he hadn’t noticed the passage of time.
He turned to look at the chebec. She’d circled protectively around the galleys while they were being separated, and was now keeping station on the royal ship as it made for the inlet. He could see Malik Dregat and Princess Gulbahar standing on her poop deck, clutching the railing for support, talking with Captain Elhac. He frowned angrily, wondering why Elhac hadn’t made straight for Kalba with his precious cargo, but he couldn’t do anything about it at this distance. He realized ruefully that the Malik and Princess might have had something to say about abandoning their fellow countrymen – and no matter what his orders, Elhac probably would not go against the wishes of a king. He supposed that was a natural enough reaction.
He saw someone scamper up the mainmast of the chebec, and peer all around. He stiffened, pointed out to sea, and shouted something down to Elhac. Following his pointed arm, Taghri could see a faint flicker some distance off. Could it be…? Yes, it was a small sail, probably a ship’s boat. Elhac shouted commands, and the chebec set off towards it.
Taghri wanted to watch what happened, but a volley of orders from the galley’s captain interrupted him. He and the other passengers shrank back against the bulkheads and gunwales, keeping out of the way of the crew as they turned the galley into the inlet they’d been seeking. It slid into calmer water inside, to everyone’s great relief. The captain ordered all his passengers aft, crowding onto the poop and beneath it to lift the bow out of the water with their weight. The helmsman steered the ship around until its prow pointed towards a shallow beach. The rowers pulled hard, grounding the ship on the sand as darkness began to fall.
“Why are we putting her ashore?” Taghri asked a sailor nearby.
“It’s high tide now, sir,” the man explained. “We’ll dig the sand out from under the bow as the tide goes out, and fother a sail under her hull – that means stretch it beneath her from one side to the other, sir, making it fast to the gunwales. It’ll help seal the leak. We’ll first trim the enemy ram and any sharp edges around the hole, so they won’t abrade the sail, then stuff the hole full of whatever we can from inside and outside, to help close it. Given that, and calmer water when the storm’s passed, and a bucket chain to keep bailing, we should make it back to Kalba with no trouble.”
Taghri thanked him, feeling suddenly unutterably weary as he saw the chebec follow the galley into the inlet. She was towing the boat she’d spotted, but no-one was in it now. He wondered vaguely what had happened, but was too tired to care. He lay down on the deck beside the gunwale, surrounded by the survivors of his guard, and was asleep almost before his head hit the planks.
16
Dawn was glimmering in the sky when a hand shook Taghri awake. He groaned with pain as he tried to move. Every muscle and joint felt as if it were filled with sand and locked in place. He looked up at the Kalba officer who’d woken him. “What is it?”
“It’s daybreak, sir. We’ve plugged the leak, and now we’re preparing food for everyone. Your chebec has sent a boat to collect you and your guards, sir. It’s waiting on the beach.”
“Oh! Thank you. Help me up, please.”
He staggered to his feet, and tried a few creaking, groaning steps. Around him, his surviving guards were doing the same. They followed
the sailor to the bow and down the gangplank onto the beach. A few yards from the ship, the boat the chebec had towed in from the sea last night was waiting, manned by four oarsmen.
“We can take six of you at a time, sir,” the stroke oar informed him.
The chebec was lying at anchor only a couple of hundred yards offshore, so the trip didn’t take long. Taghri swung himself up and over the side as the boat tucked in alongside the ship’s waist, to be hauled aboard by eager hands.
Elhac was there to greet him. “Welcome back, sir!” he said, grinning, as they clasped forearms. “I’m told you all did heroes’ work over there yesterday.”
“We did what needed to be done, that’s all. Are His Majesty and the Princess all right? Why are you still here? I told you to get them to safety at all costs!”
“They wouldn’t go, sir. They refused point-blank to leave their men, and the Princess said she wasn’t about to leave you either. Made quite a fuss about that, she did. Loudly, too.” He winked.
Taghri winced. “That can’t have pleased her father.”
“I don’t think it did, sir, but by then I don’t think she cared. Eventually he started to smile, shrugged, and told me to stay with his galley until we could find shelter for the night. He’s awake, sir, and the Princess. They’re getting cleaned up, then we’ll eat.”
“Good. We’re all famished! Whose boat was that you picked up?”
“That was Riad Reis and a few of his officers, sir. They got off their burning galley – the first one we attacked – just before she sank. They were making for the shore, not knowing we were in a position to see them and take them prisoner.”
“Where are they now?”
“Tied up below deck, sir, under guard. The Malik questioned them last night. He wants to talk to you about them before deciding what to do next, I think.”
