The Archer's Marines: The First Marines - Medieval fiction action story about Marines, naval warfare, and knights after King Richard's crusade in Syria, ... times (The Company of Archers Book 5) (13 page)

      “I can send the message and I surely mean it.  But if that’s the first thing we do I doubt the emperor and his men will take our threats seriously.  All it will do is warn them that we’re coming.  So I think it shouldn’t be sent until after we reach Constantinople with all our galleys and men.  After we take their galleys and close their harbor we can send the priest in with our message - because that’s when they’ll finally believe we’re serious about wanting our men back.”

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       Things have been hectic for the past two weeks.  But we’re finally organized and ready to leave for Constantinople.

       We’ll be sailing initially with about sixty war galleys, six cargo cogs, and just over fifteen hundred Marines and eight hundred trained and equipped pike men.  Harold will command the ships, Henry will be my deputy and command our land forces, and Yoram and Joseph will stay behind here in Cyprus to insure we receive a steady flow of supplies and replacements. 

       Galleys and cogs returning from their regularly scheduled voyages to the Holy Land and elsewhere will be loaded with supplies and replacements and sent on to Constantinople to reinforce us.

       Our basic plan is simple and easy to understand as good plans always are.  We’re going to go in with a surprise attack and try to either take all of Constantinople’s galleys as prizes or destroy them.  Then we’re going to land our Marines and pike men and lay a siege on the city until our men are released.

        One look at the map and it’s obvious that laying a siege on Constantinople is easier said than done.  The city is the capital city of the Byzantium Empire and receives most of its food and supplies from the interior via the river that runs along its north wall and then into the sea.  Our biggest immediate challenge will be to get past the huge iron chain that blocks the entrance to the river.  Unless we get some of our galleys past it we can’t cut off the city’s supplies.

      
Harold says the river area inside the chain is called the Golden Horn; I wonder if it means there is gold there.
I’ll have to ask him.

       If we don’t get some of our galleys into the river and control its waters the city can get food as it is brought down the river or ferried over from the other shore.  We obviously need to somehow get our galleys past the chain and be prepared in case we don’t.

       Even if we do get past the chain, controlling the sea and river waters which are on three sides of the city will not be enough.  If we only control the water the city will still be able to bring in food and reinforcements overland on the fourth side. So once we get control the water around the city, and perhaps even if we cannot, we’re going to spring a second surprise – we’re going to land our Marines and pike men at the water supply closest to the north side of the city walls and cut off that access route as well. 

     Landing our Marines will certainly surprise the city’s defenders because we don’t have many men compared to the number of people in the city.  They’ll see our Marines as not being a very strong force because we’ll only have about twenty three hundred fighting men plus the usual auxiliaries to carry water and such.  So it’s likely the emperor’s army will come out of the city and fight in an effort to send us away. We certainly hope so; they’ve never faced Marines using English long bows and the Swiss pikes we’ve modified to add blades and hooks.

       It’s a good plan but there will be problems if we don’t take or destroy all of the emperor’s galleys on the ocean side of the iron chain.  Control of the Marmara Sea is something we must have so they can’t cut off our supply ships coming in from Cyprus. 
Or our withdrawal route if we have to run for it.

       Failing to immediately seize or destroy all their galleys could be a big problem.  Harold says any of their galleys we don’t take in our initial surprise attack will come against us with two weapons we haven’t faced before – long pointed rams sticking out in front of their bows and some kind of fire throwing device that the emperor’s navy uses to burn up enemy ships.  It’s called “Greek Fire” and no one knows exactly what it is or how it is made and delivered – only that it will be very dangerous if we let one of Constantinople’s galleys get close enough to use it against one of ours.

       It’s a strange problem isn’t it?  On the sea we will have the numbers and they will have the latest weapons; on the land they will have numbers and we will have the latest weapons.

       One thing is certain.  We’re not taking any chances that the word of our destination might leak out and warn the emperor’s men that we’re coming.  The priest won’t be unchained from the rowing deck of Harold’s galley until we’re away from shore and the men will told that our destination is Algiers so we can take more prizes. 

      
A raid on Algiers makes sense after our success at Tunis.  The men will believe it and undoubtedly talk about it in the local taverns and whorehouses - which is exactly what we want.

       Our men won’t learn of our real destination until after we are out of the harbor and on our way Constantinople.

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         Two weeks later we sail out of the Limassol harbor with about forty fighting men on each of our sixty galleys and a lot of volunteer rowers and auxiliaries from among the refugees and the freed slaves. Until a few minutes before we row out of the harbor everyone thought they were going to Algiers for more prizes.

       Our men don’t learn the truth and why it was kept to them until the day we sail.  That morning all the galleys are ordered to anchor in the harbor and let no man set foot on shore until we return from Algiers. 

       Only when every galley is anchored in the harbor does Harold issue a call for the sergeant captains of each galley to report to the compound to get their sailing orders.  That’s when they first learn that our men and galleys are being held for ransom in Constantinople and what we are going to do to get them back. 

       As soon as the meeting ends the sergeant captains hurry back to their galleys and immediately raise their anchors and head out to sea.  Only after they clear the harbor will they explain the situation to their men.  

       We are sailing with many volunteers to help with the rowing and other chores. We have them because we announce a guarantee of prize money of at least twenty silver coins to every man who goes with us.  That’s more than most of the freed slaves can expect to earn in their lifetimes. 
It also helps when Yoram announces that the workers and former slaves who don’t volunteer to go with us will no longer be fed or employed.

                                 Chapter Twelve

       Our galleys and cogs are jammed with men and piled high with food and supplies as we head northwest towards the Aegean Sea and on into the Dardanelles, the long narrow waterway that leads into the Marmara Sea and Constantinople. 
And many of our galleys were modified before we left Limassol to enlarge the lookouts’ nests so they can hold as many as four Marine archers to shoot down on enemy decks.

       The Dardanelles is the logical place for the emperor’s navy to intercept us if they know we’re coming.  It’s a busy waterway and quite long and narrow.  It will be hard to maneuver away from their hull puncturing rams and Greek Fire if they know we are coming.  We have to pass through it to get to Constantinople.

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       Henry and I just stand next to Harold and watch as he leads our strongest and fastest five galleys through the waterway.  It takes all day and we don’t see any Byzantine galleys until we come out the other end and row into the Marmara Sea.

Constantinople sits on the tip of a peninsula that juts out into the Marmara about a hundred miles beyond where we are.

       What we find as we come out of the Dardanelles and enter the Marmara are two side by side Byzantine galleys.  They appear to be watching the passing ships to make sure they’ve paid their required tolls and bribes.  Most of the passing ships are known to them and are not stopped. 

       The presence of the two galleys is not a surprise – this is where Harold and the other sailors who’ve been here before told us one or two Byzantine galleys are usually stationed to collect tolls and bribes.

       Our ships are not known to the Byzantines, of course, so it is no surprise when the oars on the lower rowing deck of the closest of them finally start to move and it turns towards us.  It is similarly no surprise to them when our galleys turn toward them.  Our behavior is as normal as theirs – the Byzantine Empire controls both the Sea of Marmara on this side of the city and the Black Sea and the Bosphorus waterway leading to it on the other side.  Their galley crews are used to the deference paid to them by other ships.

       Normality reigns until someone on the Byzantine galley finally realizes that we don’t intend to peacefully come to a stop and let them board to collect the usual bribes and fees.  By then we’re almost on top of them and it’s far too late for the Byzantines to get away.

       Harold suddenly shouts the order for our oars to be pulled in and seconds later our hull begins shearing off the Byzantine’s oars as we throw our grapples and the archers in the lookouts’ nest and on our deck begin shooting. Our sister galley is similarly launching arrows and breaking off the unsuspecting Byzantine’s oars on the other side.

       Within seconds our victim’s deck is covered with dead and wounded men and boarders from both of our galleys are pouring on to her deck virtually unopposed.  The other Byzantine galley tries to get away but soon meets the same fate at the hands of the other three galleys in our vanguard.

       “We caught them totally by surprise” Harold comments a few minutes later as he and Henry and I are walking around our prize’s deck and commenting on how unprepared it is to fight. 

       “What’s really encouraging is that they have so few sailors and fighting men on board.  Just slaves on the lower rowing benches to row and a few men to steer and collect the bribes and taxes.  On the other hand, it sure as hell has a ram just under the surface of the water.  Come up to the bow and take a look.”

       And it certainly does; looking down from where we are standing at the front of our prize we can see its long sinister shadow a few feet under the surface.  It protrudes twenty feet or more from the front of our prize.  Our galleys don’t have such rams – this is a war galley and there is no question about it.

       “Whoa, that thing hits a ship’s hull and it’s going to punch a big hole; sink it for sure.”  I said.

       “Yeah, you’re right about that,” Harold agrees.  “That’s the bad thing; the good thing is that there is nothing on board that looks like it could start a fire.”

       A few minutes later we pull alongside the other Byzantine galley and get very much the same report.  There aren’t very many sailors and fighting men on this one either. 

       We leave small prize crews behind to chain the surviving Byzantines to their own rowing benches, unchain their slaves, and tend to the wounded.  Both will join the main column of our ships which is now pouring out of the Dardanelles waterway behind us. 

      
The sight of two quick prizes will encourage the men; let’s hope the rest of the Byzantine navy is equally unprepared.

       Five minutes later we’re back on board our galley and the ships in our armada have a man on every oar.  We’ll be spending the entire night rowing hard for the docks around Constantinople where the Byzantine galleys are usually tied up. 
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       The estimates we’d heard from the sailors who’ve been here previously is that the Byzantines have about forty poorly maintained galleys and they mostly stay in the waters around Constantinople.  Apparently those galleys, and a few in the relatively small Marmara and Black seas, is all they need to keep the Moorish and other pirates away from the city. 

       Constantinople comes into sight several hours after the sun comes up the next morning.  From the bows of our galleys an hour later we can see what looks to be about forty galleys as we approach the dock area and the nearby beach where the Byzantine galleys are supposed to be located. 

       Forty sounds about right because eight or nine of them are ours and we’ve been told they usually keep ten to twelve galleys in the Black Sea which is surrounded by various states of the empire.

       Harold hoists the ‘follow me’ flag and our entire armada goes straight for them.  Every one of our ships is rowing hard to be the first to board one of the Byzantine galleys - except for the five galleys of ours that continue on around the city walls to see if they can get past the great chain.

       “Remember Lads,” Harold shouts first on the main deck and then on the lower rowing deck, “some of those galleys are ours and some of our men are likely to be chained to the rowing benches.”

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       We fall upon the beached and docked galleys and the men standing around them like a pack of hungry wolves upon a flock of sleeping sheep.  Our surprise is total and our men have their blood up and are spoiling for a fight. 

       The Byzantines don’t have a chance.  There are very few sailors on board their galleys and they are quickly cut down despite their desperate pleas for mercy. So are those who had been standing on the dock and beach and don’t have the wit to run away before it is too late.