The Last Crusaders: The Great Siege (15 page)

Nicholas felt cold to the marrow.

In the prow of the corsair galley, arrogant as a young god, stood the captain. A handsome, shaven-headed and moustachioed Moor, with flashing eyes and a ready smile. He wore an incongruous mix of grubby loincloth and startling red satin doublet, unbuttoned, showing his lean chest and hard stomach, twice scarred with deep swordcuts. He’d taken the doublet from a Genoese ship not a week before, the Christian’s blood still staining the gold piping. A wealth of gold hung around his neck and arms and dangled from his ears. Corsairs tended not to trust their treasure to banks. Two fine ruby rings gleamed on his little fingers. He’d cut them from the delicate
hand of a young Spanish bride, sailing off Valencia last summer. The rings were not all they had taken from her, he and his men. He grinned. Life was sweet.

Though the merchantman had shown no white flag, yet look how she wallowed and struggled on the windless sea. She was as good as finished, a goat in a net, with the lion approaching. He spat and then sucked in the clean sea air, his chest swelling, his heart pounding to the drum, his galley surging along through the small waves, face into the sun. Soon they would have the joy of killing again, the joy of victory, the joy of standing on their enemies’ necks. Then the cargo, the cheers of his men, the triumphant return to Algiers. The dirty little whores in the waterfront brothels, and the white clay opium pipe. O, life was sweet.

John Smith and Edward Stanley carefully laid the muzzles of their guns on the top of the bulwarks of the forecastle, moving very slowly so as not to catch a corsair’s eye. The galley was two hundred paces off now. One hundred and eighty. One hundred and sixty. Smith squinted down the barrel of his jezail, finger lightly on the trigger.

His target was clear. The corsair captain, standing plain at the prow. But not yet near enough.

The master and mariners had fallen still, waiting in terror. Some clutched boathooks or little-used blades, and Vizard and Legge both held useful-looking halberds. But they had no hope – unless these passengers of theirs proved of sturdier stuff than they seemed. Certainly they knelt now and cradled their fine guns with a steely determination. Yet the enemy were so many. Already they could feel the manacles round their ankles, the oar and the rowing bench grinding the flesh off their bones, and a slow death coming. Why in hell did they agree to sail beyond Cadiz, into these infested waters?

The corsair galley was a hundred paces off. Eighty. Sixty.

Nicholas’s heart hammered, and his palms were so sweaty, he wondered how he’d ever keep a grip on his sword. Let it not come to that, he prayed with shame. Not yet. Perhaps they will turn away.

Forty paces off. The mechanical movement of the oars at top speed now, and they could hear the swish of the galley’s bow wave
from here, see every corsair aboard. The captain in his outlandish attire even grinned, raising his scimitar and waving it as if in greeting.

If only they’d had time to serve and load up the old petrier, that might have come in handy, despite its age. A ‘stone thrower’, blasting out a rough stone ball from a squat iron barrel, it hadn’t much range but at short distances it could do business. And if you struck lucky, and the stone ball hit a piece of metal aboard the enemy ship, an anchor or cleat or even a metal band around a mast, it could splinter into a lethal spray of shards, hurtling in every direction, killing two or three men in an instant, laying low half a dozen more. But there had been no time, and the petrier sat untouched.

Smith breathed slow and steady and pulled the trigger. The steel wheel whirred and sparks flew, there was the powerful report, the smell of burnt gunpowder, a brief puff of dark smoke.

After having knelt so unearthly still, the instant the shot was fired Smith was all activity. Never taking his eyes from the corsair galley ahead of him, he dipped his gun, cleaned it with ramrod, cartridge of powder, ramrod, ball, ramrod, a modicum more powder into the pan, all with perfect smoothness and without once needing to check his actions. He was kneeling up to the bulwark and taking aim again within half a minute.

The galley had slowed and stopped, the oars were still. They could hear the small waves slapping against the sides. It was like a venomous snake that had suddenly had its head lopped off. For Smith’s shot had sent the ball clean through the forehead of the corsair captain, and he was dead before he slumped to the deck.

‘In truth,’ said Smith, sighting down the barrel with a squint, ‘I fire a ball like that only one shot in ten.’

‘Twenty,’ muttered Stanley, also sighting.

Smith grinned. A rarity. ‘The curve of the ball from the barrel, even a barrel so beautifully smooth as this. The wind, the fall … But it looks mighty impressive when it works, does it not?’

Beside them, Nicholas felt his throat too dry to speak.

Another corsair, a tall lean fellow, ran forward and fell on the captain’s body with a cry.

‘
Akhee!
’ he cried. ‘
Akhee!
’

Stanley raised his head again from sighting.

‘What does he say?’ asked Hodge.

‘He says, “
My brother
.”’

‘As in my brother corsair, my brother Mohammedan … or my blood brother?’ murmured Smith. ‘If the latter – then we may indeed be in for a fight.’

‘From his grief,’ said Stanley, ‘I surmise the latter.’

‘What does that mean?’ stammered Nicholas.

‘It means this is now a blood matter. It means they’re not after our cargo. They’re after our lives.’

Smith grunted. ‘Take him.’

The lean corsair was just looking up again and across the water to the Christian swine, when Stanley pulled the trigger and the matchcord dropped and set the powder sizzling in the pan, and his arquebus erupted with a deafening bang, far louder than Smith’s jezail.

The corsair’s bare bronzed shoulder seemed to erupt in a spray of blood and he fell back with a cry. Then he stood again with his hand clutched over his wound, blood seeping through his fingers, and screamed back at them, unafraid.

‘
Kul khara, kuffaar! Ayeri fi widj imaak!
’

‘What does he say?’ asked Nicholas, whispering for some reason.

‘Discourtesies about your mother,’ said Stanley. ‘You don’t want to know. Next gun, lad, and quick about it.’

Smith was just sighting on the corsair to finish him when the rhythm of the drum changed, the oars moved swiftly in opposing directions and with astonishing litheness, the galley spun side-on. The corsairs dropped down below the gangway, out of sight, amid the fetid crush of the rowing benches. The oars moved back again in unison and the galley closed in below the sterncastle at full speed. The galley slaves were being lashed bloody over the last few dozen paces, the prow visibly rearing over the water.

‘They’re going to ram us!’

‘The devil!’

‘They’ve done this before.’

‘Then we’ll both go down together.’

‘Fire!’

There came a terrible crash from below and a groan of timbers,
as the bronze-headed ram of the galley tore into the side of the
Swan
. Then the air was filled with warlike screams and cries of
Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!

All hell broke loose. Shots erupted from the lean galley below, a mariner howled in pain. It was Vizard, dropping his halberd to the deck and crouching, cradling his wound. The master was shouting out, a pair of landsmen were still reefing up the mainsail as arrows struck the mast. Then at least half a dozen guns from the corsair crew fired in unison, balls tearing in through the bulkheads, holing sails, clanging off a brass stanchion on the deck, followed by a whistling ricochet. Nicholas risked a look, ducked down again. That volley was to clear them back so the corsairs could launch their grappling irons and shin up. The sides of the
Swan
were already swarming. He passed Smith his last loaded gun, Hodge served Stanley, and then they crawled back amidships. They huddled by the foremast, panting as if they’d already fought for an hour, and drew their short cinquedeas.

‘For England and St George, eh, Hodge?’ said Nicholas, his voice shaking.

‘I can’t bloody believe this,’ said Hodge. ‘We were better off in the pound with the lice.’

Smith stood exposed over the bulwarks and fired a sidelong shot, keeping his arquebus straight enough not to roll the ball out of the barrel, and blew a head clean off. But the corsairs had two grappling irons over the waist already. This was going to go hand-to-hand, and vicious. He took up the petronel and raced aft, swinging down the ladder to the waist of the ship without using the rungs, yelling to the terrified mariners to fight, damn them, fight!

‘You, man, cut that rope! And you, take up that halberd. Prick ’em in the throat! You, Vizard, with the bloody arm, get it bound below and then back to the fray with you. The walking wounded fight well enough. You, boy, keep watch to starboard in case any rats swim round that way. There, man! Take him!’

Stanley also let loose his final arquebus, moving along the deck and leaning, firing – there came a scream and splash from below – then moving on again instantly, so there was no chance for enemy fire to be accurately returned. An arrow lodged in the rail near him. He drew his sword and hacked it off with a grand flourish.

A curved grapnel. Stanley seized it from the air in a huge hand and hacked until the leader frayed and split, the fellow below knocked back under a coiling cascade of rope. Stanley leaned down and caught another villain across the side of the head with the iron, then finished him with a short jab to the throat. An arrow glanced off his mailcoat and he dropped back behind the bulwark, taking in a sharp breath and resettling his helmet. That was close.

Nicholas had gone to help Vizard with his one serviceable arm to slither down the ladder to below decks. At the hatchway he felt a sudden dread and heard the weakened mariner gasp. He turned and there close behind him was a corsair, a black fellow twice his weight, scimitar gripped in a bulging fist, its blade already bloodied. His breeches dripped saltwater. Vizard gave a low groan and pulled free from the boy, kneeling exhausted in the hatchway.

‘Run for your life, lad. Over the side.’

The corsair’s teeth were white with a smile.

Every other man aboard was in caught in the mêlée, and Nicholas was alone. Over by the starboard rail lay the young landsman who’d been keeping starboard lookout, his head half cut from his neck.

Nicholas was pinned up against the sterncastle, hatch behind him, a wounded man at his feet. If he moved away, the corsair would finish Vizard. If he stayed, he would be trapped.

He gripped his cinquedea, stepped from one foot to the other. The corsair had killed over a hundred men, this was nothing to him. He waited. The fight raged behind him. Then he swung his scimitar swift and low to open up the boy’s guts, giving him no room. But the boy dropped right down on his belly like a snake, fast like the young can, and was up again. The scimitar came back in a trice, lower this time, and Nicholas clutched at a brace and vaulted over it. Then he stepped away. The corsair turned with him, dark eyes fixed. This Christian was as hard to catch as an eel. He’d have to chop the wounded one after.

He made two cuts, one feint and one real. The boy moved wrongly, the second cut would have finished him, but an oar jammed down on the deck and blocked him. His blade stuck fast in it. He cursed. It was the wounded mariner, fighting one-armed with a short oar seized from the ship’s longboat. He kicked out at
the oar and freed his blade and cut down hard on the mariner’s head, but the white-faced
kufr
backed up enough to miss it. Now the corsair was angry. They were humiliating him.

He sped up, moving much faster on the eel-boy. The boy tripped backwards and sprawled on the deck and he had him. No fancy wide sweeps now. He jabbed down hard with his scimitar’s broad point to end it. It struck only wooden deck and the boy was rolling onto his feet again. Shaitan and Baalbub, these two would suffer for this.

Nicholas snatched off Vizard’s felt cap, and the corsair hesitated for the blink of a bird’s eye. What the devil? Then the cap flew and hit him in the face, he closed his eyes and turned his face instinctively, though it was but a bit of felt, and when he had mastered himself again, the boy’s blade was deep in his side. He roared and twisted, but the boy managed to keep a hold of his blade, stuck between his ribs though it was, and pulled it free. Blood gushed down his side. From the corner of his eye he saw the wounded sailor with the oar moving behind him. So he would be killed by a beardless eel-boy and a half-finished mariner, filthy infidels both, porkmeat still stuck between their teeth. He swung again wildly, roaring, blood on his lips.

Nicholas snatched the oar from the tottering Vizard and jabbed it hard in the corsair’s chest. He staggered backwards and suddenly knelt. That wound in his side was telling, his strength was gone. Nicholas stepped close, eye on the scimitar all the time, but it lay loose in the giant blackamoor’s hand, and thrust his cinquedea straight into the fellow’s muscular throat. He pulled it out, hot blood flooding over his hand, and the giant fell forward, his forehead thumping down on the deck with a bony clunk.

There was no one else now, there was just Nicholas and his short sword and the oar useful in his left hand, more corsairs coming at him. Vizard scuttling back to the hatchway, leaning to one side like a hunchback, and more killing to be done. He felt very cold and clear and moved very fast, never stopping. There was another corsair, dripping with the sea, and his scimitar seemed to move like a falcon’s wing. The boy blocked it with the oar but the corsair moved just as fast. The instant his blow was blocked he switched his blade back and spun fancy on his heel in a wide swipe at the
boy’s other flank. Not fast enough. Nicholas stepped back and clouted him with the oar, not very hard. The corsair grunted.

In that fleeting moment – the moment that always comes if you wait for it, when your enemy can do nothing but struggle for breath and a clear head, and is exposed – in that one precious speck of time, you must kill them. The bloody cinquedea drove forward hard into the corsair’s guts and he gave a horrible gurgling scream. His body fell far forward and Nicholas lost his grip on his buried sword. The dead man fell on top of it.