Corsair (29 page)

Piecourt’s whistle blew the signal for the galeriens to take their rest, but Hector found it difficult to go to sleep. He lay there, thinking whether it would be madness to take up Bourdon’s suggestion of an escape and – as always – whether he would ever be able to track down Elizabeth. He shifted uncomfortably on the wooden deck and looked up at the sky and noted that the stars had vanished. The heavens had clouded over. From time to time he heard the tread of Piecourt or one of the sous comites walking the coursier as they carried out their night patrol, and he heard the call of the sailor on watch on the rambade, reporting all was well. As the hours passed, Hector became aware of a gradual change in the motion of the anchored galley as she tugged at her cable.
St Gerassimus
was beginning to pitch and roll. The noise of the waves increased. Pressing his ear against the deck planking Hector was sure that the sound of the bilge water swirling back and forth was louder. He sensed a general discomfort spreading among the galeriens as they slept or dozed all around him. Little by little he became aware of men waking up, and he heard the sound of retching as those with weak stomachs began to succumb to seasickness. He sat up and listened. The voice of the wind was definitely louder. A large swell passed under the galley and made her lurch. He heard raised voices. They came from the foredeck, and almost immediately there was the sound of Piecourt’s whistle. It was the order to man the sweeps. He struggled to his feet and sat down on the bench, his ankle chain tugging painfully. Fumbling in the darkness, he joined his companions in freeing the handle of the great sweep from its lashings, and sat ready to take a stroke. It would not be easy. Now
St Gerassimus
was rolling heavily in the waves, and with each minute the motion of the galley was growing wilder. Piecourt’s whistle sounded again. Hector and the other oarsmen took a long steady stroke, then another, and tried to set a rhythm. There were shouts from the foredeck, and he heard the command for the rambade crew to hoist anchor. In reply there were yells and curses, and a surge of water passed across his naked feet. He detected a note of alarm, even panic.

The galley was definitely in some sort of trouble. Hector tried to make sense of the sailors’ shouts. Farther aft a sous comite was shouting. He was ordering three benches of galeriens to set aside their oars and man the pumps. The anchor must have been raised, for he felt the galley slew sideways, and there was a sudden tremor as she fell aslant the waves. Hector and his bench mates nearly lost their footing as the galley canted over so far that they were unable to reach the water with their blades, but rowed in the air. A moment later the galley had tilted in the opposite direction, and their blades were buried so deep it was impossible to work them. The chaos increased. In the darkness men missed their strokes, slipped and fell. Piecourt’s insistent whistle cut through the darkness, again and again, but it was useless. Rowing was impossible.

The wind strengthened further. It was keening in the rigging, a thin, nagging screech.
St Gerassimus
rolled helplessly. Someone shouted out an order to hoist sail, but was immediately countermanded by another voice which said that this was too dangerous, that the main spar would tear the mast out of its step. Sailors ran aimlessly up and down the coursier, until a petty officer roared angrily at them.

Gradually the sky grew lighter, bringing a cold, grey dawn and a vista of angry waves racing down from the north. The galley was in real distress. Designed for calm waters, she was unable to hold up against the force of the sea. She was drifting helplessly, no longer controlled by her crew. Hector looked downwind. The galley was perhaps two miles away from land, though he did not recognise the coast. The gale must have driven her sideways during darkness. He saw a bleak expanse of bare mountain, a narrow beach, and the sea thrashing into foam on a coral shelf that reached out from the shore towards them.

‘Let go the bow anchor again!’ bellowed Piecourt. ‘And bring the main anchor up on deck and made ready. Fetch up the main cable!’

A seaman on the rambade leaned out over the sea, knife in hand, and cut free the lashings which held the smaller bow anchor in place so that it plunged into the sea. Half a dozen of his mates ran back along the coursier and opened the hatch leading to the aft hold where the main anchor had been stowed. Two more men squeezed down into the cable locker in the bows where the galley’s main hawser was kept only to reappear a moment later, wild-eyed with fear. ‘She’s sprung her bow planks,’ their leader shouted. ‘She’s taking water fast!’ Hardly had the words been uttered than the men who had gone aft also re-emerged on deck. ‘There’s four feet of water in the bilge,’ someone cried. ‘We’ll never be able to get the main anchor up.’

Piecourt reacted coolly. ‘Get back down in the cable locker,’ he snapped. ‘Find that main cable and bring it up.’ The frightened sailors obeyed, and returned, dragging the end of the six-inch main hawser. ‘Now fasten it to that bitch of a mortar, and fasten it well,’ the comite told them, ‘and bring levers and a sledgehammer.’ His men did as they were ordered, and soon the mortar was trussed up in a nest of rope. ‘Now break the gun free! Smash the bolts and planks if need be,’ urged Piecourt, ‘then dump the cannon overboard!’ Working in grim silence the men attacked the fastenings that held the mortar in place. It took them nearly twenty minutes to loosen the gun so that they could take advantage of a sudden tilting of the deck and slide the monstrous cannon and its carriage overboard. It disappeared into the sea with a hollow, plunging sound that could be heard even over the roar of the gale. The hawser ran out, then slowed as the mortar struck the sea bed. The sailors secured the hawser, and the galley felt the drag of the monstrous cannon so she slowly turned her bow towards the waves and hung there, no longer drifting helplessly down on to the coast.

Hector had to admire Piecourt’s composure. The premier comite eased himself into the cable locker to see the extent of the leak for himself, then calmly made his way along the coursier to the poop deck where Hector saw him confer with the ship’s officers. Next, Piecourt beckoned to the foredeck crew who also went aft and began to unship the galley’s rowing boats from their cradles above the oar benches. The galley heaved and wallowed but eventually the two boats were hoisted out and lowered into the water where they rose and fell, bumping wildly against the galley’s side. It was when the sailors and several of the warders, the argousins, climbed into the boats, and were joined by the artillery man and the officers from the poop deck, that Hector realised they were abandoning ship.

The other galeriens realised it too. A low moan arose from the oar benches interspersed with angry shouts. Piecourt spoke quietly to the remaining warders who loaded their muskets and stood to face the oar benches. The two boats, filled with men, pushed off and began to pull for the shore. Their course was downwind, and within minutes the men were scrambling out of the boats and splashing up on land while the oarsmen turned and began to row back out to the galley. Their return trip was slower, and by the time they reached the
St Gerassimus
, the water which had been around Hector’s ankles was now up to his knees. Whatever injury the galley had suffered, she was sinking fast

The boats made two more trips to the beach and soon there was no one left on the poop deck except Piecourt, the rowing master and half a dozen armed argousins. Just before mid-morning the galley was awash, the sea lapping the tops of the oar benches, and the galeriens were frantic. They swore and pleaded, raged and wept, tugged at their chains. Piecourt gazed at them pale-eyed and utterly implacable. ‘May you rot in hell,’ one of the oarsmen shouted. ‘No,’ called the premier comite. It was the first word he had spoken directly to the benches. ‘It is you, you infidels and heretics, who will suffer torments. I shall not even think of you.’ He lifted from his belt the ring of the heavy keys for the padlocks on the oar benches, held it up for all to see, and deliberately tossed it into the waves. Then he turned, stepped into the boat and gestured at his men to row for shore.

Spray from a wave crest wetted the back of Hector’s neck. In front of him was a piteous sight – the heads and naked torsos of two hundred galeriens glistening above the waves as they stood on their benches and tried to escape the rising water. Flotsam, odd lengths of timber, a galerien’s cloak half filled with air so it floated, all drifted past him. Beside him, Bourdon blurted, ‘I dared not move while those swine argousins were watching. I’d have been shot. Let me have some slack on that chain so I can try to get at the padlock.’ Irgun, the big Turk, reached sideways, seized the padlock where it was attached to the coursier and held it steady. The galley was so low in the water now that every wave submerged the padlock, and sea water gushed out of the keyhole as it reappeared. Bourdon lay prone across his companions and began to feel inside the padlock with the tip of the spike. He choked as a wave crest filled his mouth, then closed his eyes as if asleep as he concentrated on feeling for the levers within the lock. Twice the spike slipped out, and once the point stabbed into Irgun’s fist. The big Turk did not flinch. Finally Bourdon withdrew the tool, bent the thin tip at a right angle, then plunged it deeper and gave it a twist. The padlock popped open.

‘Well done!’ blurted Hector, the pressure on his ankle chain suddenly relieved. He took a deep breath and bent forward, head underwater. He groped for the heavy bench chain, pulling it clear of his leg irons. To his right he felt Karp do the same. Coughing and spluttering all five men scrambled up on to the coursier whose top was already being lapped by the waves. ‘Help us!’ screamed an oarsman from a neighbouring bench. Bourdon turned and handed him the spike. ‘You’ll have to help yourself,’ he shouted back. ‘There’s too little time.’

Hector looked around him. Amidships the galley was entirely underwater. Only the poop deck and the rambade were above the waves. The rambade was only a few paces away. Hitching up his leg chain to his belt hook, he shuffled on to it.

‘What do we do now?’ asked Bourdon, looking at the distant shore. ‘It’s too far to swim. Our leg irons will drag us down. They’ll be the death of us.’

‘Not if you do as I show you.’ It was Dan who spoke. He crossed to where the empty gunpowder kegs were still lashed in place. Selecting a barrel, he unbuckled his heavy galerien belt, wrapped it around the keg, and cinched it tight. ‘Hold the barrel in your arms, sideways like this, and jump overboard. When you’re in the water, make sure you get the centre link of your leg chain on to the belt’s hook. Then push down with both feet. It’ll be like riding in stirrups. The barrel should take your weight. Don’t try to swim, just concentrate on staying upright, clutching the barrel, and the wind and waves will carry you ashore.’

With that, he jumped into the sea, holding the barrel against his chest.

Hector watched his friend come back to the surface, the keg in his arms dipping this way and that, spinning and turning in the water so that one moment Dan was on the surface, the next he was beneath the sea. But soon Dan had found his balance and could be seen leaning forward across the keg, with his face far enough out of the water so that he could breathe. The barrel gyrated slowly as it drifted towards the shore. ‘Come on. Hurry!’ he shouted back at his companions, and one after another they leaped into the sea.

I
RGUN DID NOT
reach the shore. Perhaps he was too heavy to be supported by an empty keg or it filled with water and sank, or he failed to secure his leg chain on the belt hook. But Hector, Bourdon and Karp drifted into the shallows where Dan was waiting to assist them on to land. ‘What made you think of that?’ asked Hector. He was shaking with exhaustion as he sat down on the beach to rest. ‘Our canoes at home,’ said the Miskito. ‘I told you how we turn them the right way up after they capsize. But it’s not always possible. So if the wind and waves are right, a sensible fisherman just hangs on and waits until he is blown ashore. That’s if the sharks don’t take him.’

‘I’ve never seen a shark. If there are any in this region, they’ll soon be feasting on those poor wretches,’ said Hector. He was looking back towards the galley. All that was now visible of the
St Gerassimus
was a section of the outrigger which had once supported her great sweeps and the blades of several oars pointing to the sky like enormous spines. The galley must have capsized while he and the others were coming ashore. That way, he thought to himself, the galeriens chained on board would have drowned more quickly than if the vessel had settled on an even keel. He had scarcely known any of them, yet a sense of great weariness and gloom oppressed him.

A touch on his arm abruptly brought him back to his surroundings. Karp was pointing up the beach and making an alarmed snuffling sound. A man was walking towards them. For a moment Hector thought he might be another survivor from the wreck, because he was wearing what looked like a galerien’s long hooded cloak. But the stranger’s garment was loose and grey, not brown. Then he saw other men, similarly dressed, cautiously making their way down the rocky hillside behind the beach.