Once outside the holding pen area they bent low and crept along the quay to where the pilot boat was tied. The slaves were all ashore, presumably exhausted from rowing back and forth all day at the mouth of the harbor, and the crew would not return with them until just before dawn. The full force of the wind could be better felt on the quay and Fallon wondered briefly if the pilot boat would even go out past the mole in those conditions. Indeed, it felt like a gale had blown up since yesterday, but pilot boats went out no matter what the weather around the world, he decided. He knew Beauty would be on time and the dey would expect Rascal to be shown into the harbor. That put his mind to rest and he led the little group aboard.
It was so dark he had trouble locating the hatches that opened to the holds. The boat was shallow and the holds were not deep, but they were empty. There were two hatches on the centerline of the boat, fore and aft, and he motioned to Aja to open the forward one.
“Be ready to come up quickly when you hear me yell,” he said as quietly as he could and still be heard above the shriek of wind. “Put Little Eddy in first and you go after.”
Next he asked Visser to climb into the aft hatch and Fallon climbed in behind him. Both hatches were closed and the four of them lay uncomfortably in the darkness on the floorboards to await dawn.
The boat jerked at her lines and pitched like a tethered wild thing yearning to be free. The air in the hold was stuffy and hot and Fallon thought at least one of them might be sick; he only hoped it wasn’t him.
By his estimate there was still several hours before dawn.
Barclay brought Rascal a mile from the mole well before daylight in the early morning, and Beauty ordered the ship to heave-to for an hour. Cully had loaded both batteries with grapeshot and the hands were at stations armed with pistols, muskets, and cutlasses. The volunteers were glad the ship had settled down as many had been retching in the scuppers for some time. They held their rifles and looked into the blackness.
And still the wind continued to rise, black and malevolent, picking a fight. Beauty had ordered the topsails furled and then the topmasts struck altogether. Barclay had been right, there was a dirty day ahead. The dust was beginning to coat the decks with fine grit, and the volunteers put their hands over the ends of their rifle barrels to keep the sand out.
Barclay approached the binnacle and handed Beauty her favorite weapon, a boarding pike.
“You might need this,” he said. “I expect you will.”
“Thanks, Barclay,” she said. “As Fallon would say if he were here, we’re about to see what we see.”
Barclay nodded, though she could only see his white head moving up and down.
“I think we’re getting a sirocco,” he said in a raised voice. “It’s a sand-storm they get in this sea. Comes off the Sahara. I wonder what kind of visibility we’ll have at dawn. Might not be much.”
Beauty gave an unseen nod of her own. She’d heard of siroccos; every sailor had. But few sailors had ever experienced one. The tales she’d heard said the winds could reach gale or even hurricane force. As much as her face was stinging from the sand now, she wondered what in God’s name would that feel like?
The alarm was raised just before dawn when the guards came to get the slaves from the holding pens for the day’s labors. The gate to Fallon’s cell was locked but clearly no one was there. Well, excepting the dead guard with the splinter in his neck. How could that be?
The word went up and down the narrow streets and a general search of the town was begun immediately. Zabana was in his home near the palace in the upper city and was awakened by the trumpeting janissaries and hurriedly dressed. What was this? Prisoners had escaped!
He knew immediately who it was.
As he stepped outside, the wind almost blew his door off its hinges. The sirocco was building to its full force and it seemed it had brought all the sands of the Sahara with it. No one was outside except the janissaries, and each one of them had his face wrapped more or less completely.
At first, Zabana assumed the British captain would try to escape the city the same way he had entered it, through the gate to the west. But as he turned to rush towards the gate a new thought struck him. The sea. Fallon was a sea captain, after all. He would try for a boat.
Zabana reversed direction and began running to the harbor, calling to the janissaries he passed to follow him.
The pilot boat lurched more than usual, and Fallon could hear the crew come aboard. They were yelling above the wind but their words were unintelligible. Then more feet on the deck with a softer step, barefooted slaves no doubt. The hatches groaned and creaked over Fallon’s head as the men on deck moved around, and he could hear chains being handled. He figured the slaves were being chained to their oars. Poor sods, he thought. If they were naked as usual he could only imagine the sting of the sand on their bare bodies.
Fallon found himself praying that the crew didn’t have anything to stow below decks. He hadn’t thought of that. There was more yelling, and probably cursing in Arabic if he could have understood it. The prospect of taking a shallow draft boat even a hundred yards off the dock in that wind and sea must be daunting, thought Fallon. But they had probably seen it all and sailed it all before.
Now a different motion, steadier, and Fallon supposed the slaves were rowing. The pilot boat was still swooping but he could feel the thrust through the water with each pull of the oars. He had no experience with lateen sails but he wondered if a reef or two could be taken, and how, and whether they could be taken before the sail was raised. He was working out the complexity of the maneuver to keep himself occupied in the closed black world of the hold. He could hear Visser breathing behind him, labored and wheezy. We’ll only get this one chance, he’d said.
It seemed like a long time, perhaps an hour, before the motion of the boat changed and Fallon suspected they’d been able to get some sail up. Now he could feel the heel of the boat as it rolled him back onto Visser. It was impossible to tell which direction they were sailing, but as the wind was out of the southeast and they were heeling to starboard he figured they were heading west.
Was Beauty out there somewhere?
He tried to imagine Rascal sailing close-hauled towards them. The ship would be on starboard, the men at their stations, the sails deeply reefed. In his mind he could see Barclay at the binnacle shielding his eyes against the blowing dust, with Beauty beside him, her peg planted securely in a ring bolt to hold her steady.
And she would be steady.
Rascal had been underway for half an hour when Beauty saw the pilot boat sailing towards them, dipping and plunging in the sea, her streamers blowing stiffly off the tip of the raked mast and long boom upon which the lateen sail was gathered in a deep reef. She’d ordered the soldiers to sit or lay down hours ago as a precaution, for there was no way of knowing how this was going to play out.
“Barclay,” she yelled above the sandblast of wind, “let’s heave-to again, please. Then we’ll see what the next move is.”
The schooner turned into the wind as if to tack and then intentionally stalled, the foresail backwinded and the mainsail brought to center-line, where the motion died considerably and the ship went neither here nor there.
The pilot boat was now about a half mile away and still swooping over the seas like a gull. The sky behind her was brown, a rusted wall of air and sand that abraded everything it touched. Beauty squinted into the wind; it looked to her like there were four crewmen as well as a number of slaves at the oars in the small boat. At two hundred yards one of the crewmen, no doubt the captain of the pilot boat, began waving his arms for the schooner to follow.
Damned if I will, thought Beauty.
At a hundred yards the captain was still waving, this time more insistently, and yelling. Beauty looked at Cully standing by the larboard battery, the slow match sizzling in a bucket next to each cannon. The soldiers were still hidden on the deck as ordered. Now the captain of the pilot boat steered directly towards Ras
cal, and Beauty saw he would have to veer soon or he would run aboard the schooner.
At that moment there was confusion on board the pilot boat as it spun around on its axis and nearly capsized in a breaking sea. Beauty could see ragged men fighting and two of the crew were thrown overboard. Then three. A scuffle near the stern and now four! The little boat was nearly swamped and after the sail was taken in completely the remaining men began bailing furiously—and the rowers began rowing for Rascal.
The air was so thick with dust that it was nearly impossible for Beauty to look into the wind, but standing at the tiller was someone who looked an awful lot like Nicholas Fallon.
You fucker! Beauty said under her breath. You did it!
FIFTY-SIX
ZABANA BOARDED SERPENT AND IMMEDIATELY ORDERED THE HANDS rousted out of their hammocks. There wasn’t time to bring the slaves down to the quay so he would leave without them. The janissaries who tumbled aboard could row if it came to that. He looked around and could see no boats missing from the quay; only the pilot boat was out as usual; the weather never kept it at the dock.
The pilot boat!
This was the day the pilot boat was to meet the British schooner off the mole! The ship with the gold! He knew in an instant who was aboard that boat.
Zabana’s crew made fast work of the lines and as the wind was blowing Serpent away from the dock they raised the big sails while they were somewhat in the lee of the quay and moved away quickly towards the harbor’s entrance. They wore ship while still in the harbor, less risky than outside, and double-reefed the sails. The pilot boat was nowhere to be seen as they passed the mole but on instinct Zabana ordered the helmsman to bear west.
Fallon expertly guided the pilot boat to the lee side of Rascal and then, with the schooner blocking the worst of the wind and sea, he motioned to the slaves to edge closer to the side of the ship. Eager hands were there to jump into the smaller boat to secure it. First, Wilhelm Visser was handed up into the arms, or rather the good arm, of his son. Both men broke down in tears and had to be led away from the gangway. Next Little Eddy went up to the general delight and cheering of the crew. Fallon located the key to the manacles in a box at the stern of the pilot boat and unlocked each of the slaves from their oars. Then he and Aja began handing up the poor, naked men. One by one the bewildered slaves gained Rascal’s deck and were led below to Colquist to be examined. They all seemed to be Turks or North Africans but that could be sorted out later. Now they were all free men.
Then, at last, Aja and Fallon came through the channel and were swooped up into the arms of Beauty and Cully and the rest. The soldiers were gathered around, as well, and Fallon was trying to ask Beauty about them when the lookout’s call came down to the deck and froze everyone momentarily.
“Deck there! It’s that snake xebec to the east!”
Fallon jerked his head around and squinted into the sandstorm. He could see nothing from the deck; he was frankly amazed the lookout had seen anything either.
“Beauty, head north quickly! We’ll try to outrun him downwind!”
The Rascals leapt to their roles in the stinging wind, their bare feet crunching the sand that covered the deck and was piling up in the crevices and corners. The sirocco had gained strength in the last hour and was now a gale at full force and Beauty called for a reef in the main and foresail and still Rascal bounded northward on a broad reach with a bone in her teeth. Shot and slow match were already on deck and the soldiers crowded the center of the ship to be clear of the gun crews.
There, the thunder of a cannon! Fallon looked past Aja to see Zabana’s ship in the distance, its deadly snake’s head lunging towards them.
Serpent’s big sails were double reefed but her relatively light weight and shallow draft made her extremely fast in a big wind and the sirocco was certainly that. The seas were growing, as well, but Zabana was confident he had the ship to catch the schooner. It was only a matter of time.
At a mile and a half away he’d fired his bow chaser and would keep firing it to get the barrel hot as they drew closer. He was mad with the chase, the humiliation at Fallon’s hands burning his skin more than the sand.
He nodded to the agha to ready his men.
Fallon and Beauty watched as Serpent fell in behind them sailing northwest and continuing to fire her bow chaser, though in that heaving sea at a mile it would be a lucky shot indeed that found its mark.
“What do you think, Beauty?” asked Fallon. Both ships were on starboard tack, their sails well out in conditions where they should be hove-to.
“I don’t know what he’s planning,” said Beauty as she looked over her shoulder. “That ship is a handful, though. It’s amazing it’s even upright. But if we’re going to make a move we’d better make it soon. Anything can happen in this damn wind and I don’t want it to happen to us!”
Fallon kept his eyes riveted on Serpent and judged the distance between the two ships to be less than a half mile. The red grit was in his eyes and mouth and nose and it was hard to breathe looking back into the wind.
“Here’s an idea you won’t like, Nico,” Beauty shouted. And she was right, he didn’t like it.
Yet Fallon immediately saw the strategy for what it was: their best chance. He nodded to Beauty to come about and yelled to Aja to have Cully stand by the long nine and have the gun crews stand by the lar-board battery and double shot the guns with chain and shot. If even one of those guns found a stay or sheet or, please God, a spar—Serpent could be mortally wounded in this wind and sea. One could only hope.
But now Beauty was focused on picking the trough she wanted to turn into as the waves rolled under Rascal, lifting her stern high into the air before the ship hurtled down the face of the wave and buried her nose in the base of the wave ahead. The waves were coming fairly regularly, but there was some variation and Beauty wanted the greatest distance between waves she could find.
The helmsmen—for there were two of them on the big wheel—were looking forward awaiting her order to come about and Beauty was looking astern, not at the xebec but at the sea. At last a monster wave lifted them up on its shoulders and she yelled, “Now!”
The schooner slid down the face of the wave at an angle, the hands bringing the big sails in slowly as the helmsmen guided Rascal smoothly and turned just quickly enough to keep her moving under control as the wind moderated in the trough. Her bow came around just as the next wave reared up and Rascal climbed up, and up, her sails coming in tighter and filling as the wind came over the top of the wave. Here’s where the drills and discipline paid off and when Fallon tore his eyes away from the maneuver and looked ahead there was Serpent charging towards them, caught fully unaware by Beauty’s maneuver.
Now Cully opened fire with the long nine and the crew cheered. The ships were closing very quickly, with Rascal on larboard tack now, diving into the troughs and climbing up the face of the next wave in line. Serpent now had a difficult choice. Since her larboard rail was buried with the heel of the ship, her larboard guns would be useless. She could attempt to fall off to bring her starboard battery to bear, but she risked wearing ship, which could be catastrophic in that wind and sea. Now the xebec’s usual advantages were nullified or worked against her: her oars were useless and her light ballast made her unhandy and extremely dangerous in these conditions.
And events were unfolding quickly.
Zabana lisped a curse and watched as Rascal, for he had seen the schooner’s name, had come about and was now sailing back towards him. And now her bow chaser was firing! His own cannon fired again, but he could see the odds had shifted away from his favor. No matter what he did Serpent would be raked and, even if he could exchange fire gun for gun, his ship was far more lightly built and would likely suffer the most damage. A broadside exchange could prove fatal.
Here came the British ship, her sails as hard as knife blades. She would pass well within broadside range and Zabana could imagine her cannons loaded with chain shot to shoot away his riggi
ng. Rascal had the steadier platform, for Serpent was yawing and rolling in the quartering seas, water often coming over her larboard rail. She would be lucky if a single cannon could fire and Zabana knew it.
The realization that he had been outfoxed brought bile to his throat and something in his mind refused to accept another humiliation. His rage and malevolence took control of his reason and his thin grasp on reality slipped away. Two could play at surprises! he exclaimed out loud. Quickly he ordered the crewmen to loosen the sails and, laughing maniacally, he pushed the helmsmen away and took the tiller himself. He knew his idea was brilliant and he became focused on executing his plan perfectly.
Rascal was charging down and he wanted all the satisfaction of ramming her himself.
“Aja,” yelled Fallon, “tell Cully to stand by the larboard battery. For the rigging lads!”
As the ships approached one another Fallon could see the snake’s head clearly at the end of Serpent’s bowsprit. It was turning towards him now as Serpent appeared to be falling down to pass closer to Rascal. The snake’s head was mesmerizing and detailed with eyes that were painted red and seemed to glow like embers.
Suddenly, the snake turned hard to larboard and began to cross directly into Rascal’s path. Beauty saw what was happening and called for the helmsman to fall off but it was too late. Zabana was driving the snake’s head into Rascalon purpose! As Fallon and Beauty watched helplessly the burning eyes plunged into the bow of the schooner and stuck fast.
Everyone on both ships was thrown to the decks; some were knocked unconscious and others lost their weapons and their wits. Serpent’s masts went by the board and her sails fell over the side with them. Rascal’s fore-mast snapped half way up and her mainmast came crashing down over the side in a tangle of rigging and sail and lumber that no doubt killed anyone under it. The ships were locked together, both severely wounded and helpless as the sirocco screamed overhead and threw waves as tall as small houses at the ships.
Barbarians on an Ancient Sea Page 26