The hairs on my arms suddenly prickled. This didn’t feel right at all. It should be open this time of day. This is not possible. What should we do?
I didn’t have time to think about it when one of the archers gave a gasp of surprise and motioned with his head toward an area of the strand about a ten or fifteen minute walk further along the city wall, the area of the strand beyond the wall where we’d been told the city’s galleys would be moored at the water line or pulled out of the water for repairs.
“Lieutenant Randolph, look!”
There were a small number of galleys floating in the water and lined up along the beach, just where we expected to find them—and so were a large number of men on horseback; fighting men for sure. Even at this distance it was clear that they were mounted soldiers, Moorish knights and light cavalry, the men that the Moors use when they fight on land. I’d seen them myself many times when we were fighting the Saracens for Richard and Edmond.
Dear God, they must know we’re coming. That’s why the gate was closed and most of their galleys were waiting at the harbour entrance.
“Everyone try to look natural-like. We’re going to walk as fast as we can back to the dinghy and row back out to the galley. We’ve got to get to sea and warn our men that the Moors know they’re coming. Quickly now, there’s not a moment to lose.”
It was not to be. We were about half way back to the dinghy when my heart sank—our galley was slowly rowing towards the quay using some of its lower oars as if all was well and this was just another day. William and our fleet must be entering the harbour.
******
My men and I watched in horror and disbelief as the oars of our slow-moving galley bit into the water around it. There was no way we would be able to get to our dinghy and warn them. The archer chosen man standing next to me moaned a fearful “no” out loud. He understood as well as I did. We four were trapped. Now what should I do?
“Quick, lads, run for it. The dinghy’s no good to us now. We’ve got to get to the quay and board our galley if we are to get away from here alive.”
We stripped off our Moorish clothes so our archer tunics could be seen and began running for the quay as if our lives depended on it, which they surely did. We knew that the galley would not stay long if the city gate was not open. Tommy might wait a minute or two to see if any of us were still alive, but probably no longer, not with that mob of Algerian horses and soldiers on the strand next to where the Algerians moored their galleys. If Tommy’s lookouts saw the closed gate and didn’t see us running down the path to meet them at the quay, they’d think we were lost. Then they would push off from the quay to join the rest of the galleys in the taking of Moorish prizes.
It was going to take us at least ten minutes to get to the galley and it would surely leave if they didn’t see us. My men and I had barely gotten started and we were running hard and waving our arms to attract their attention when Tommy brought the galley up against the quay and heavily laden archers began pouring off and running up the cart path to the city gate.
I was so surprised when the archers began coming off the galley and running up the cart path that I stopped and stared in disbelief. That’s when I realised the city gate was now open. Our archers were heading into a trap.
******
The sight of the galley’s archers running towards the now-open city gate stopped me in my tracks, but not for long. Even so, my three men were well ahead of me when I lowered my head and resumed running. My running didn’t last all that long. I was still quite a ways from the galley and I could hardly breathe when I slowed to a walk. My heart was pounding and I had to stop and lean over with my hands on my knees to breathe and rest before I could once again begin staggering towards the quay.
My three men didn’t share my weakness. First one and then the two others reached the galley before I even got close to the quay. That’s when things got a bit blurry.
Suddenly, I realised that sailors from the galley were pounding down the quay and up the strand towards me. I didn’t have the strength to thank them when they grabbed me by my elbows and half-carried me the rest of the way in a limping and gasping sort of run. When we got there, I was so tired I couldn’t even lift my leg to get over the galley rail; one of the sailors had to lift my leg over the deck railing and push me over into the arms of the sailors on the deck.
There was shouting and cries of alarm all about me. If the sailors who’d caught me hadn’t held me up, I would have fallen for sure. I almost wish they hadn’t caught me for then I wouldn’t have seen what happened next.
******
I watched in horror as the men on horseback on the strand in front of the beached Moorish galleys gathered themselves together and began spurring their horses towards the archers running up the cart path to the now-open city gate. Someone among the archers must have seen the horsemen and sounded the alarm. After a moment’s hesitation, about half of the heavily laden archers turned around and began running back to the galley. Only those closest to the gate continued running towards it and passed into the city.
Most of the archers who remained on the cart path didn’t have a chance. A fleet-of-foot few who had been at the back of the gate-bound group dropped their heavy burdens and dashed all the way back to our galley and safety. They literally dove onto the deck of the galley as the horsemen thundered down the quay towards them.
Many of the horsemen were carrying short bows and, being Moorish horsemen, knew how to use them. They pulled their prancing and rearing horses to a halt in front of the galley and immediately began loosing arrows down at our sailors and the breathless archers who only a few minutes before had thought they’d reached safety.
Our deck was littered with dead and wounded men before we drifted far enough away from the quay to be out of range of the Algerian riders. Only the fact that the sailors holding me up dove for cover and I fell to the deck and played dead saved me from the Algerian horse archers who were loosing their arrows down on to our galley from their horses on the quay. It would have been a different story if we’d had more archers on board. We would have decimated them. But we didn’t; except for my two companions and the few who’d made it back to the galley, all of our archers were either in the city or trapped in the open on the cart path.
We on the drifting galley at least had a chance. The archers on the cart path had none. Several small groups of our men came together either instinctively or at the orders of a sergeant and tried to make a stand. They were ridden down even though a number of the Moorish horses and riders went down to the archers carrying long-handled, bladed pikes and those who were able to respond with their longbows.
The only resistance from the galley came from the two archers who had been with me and the handful of men who had made it back to the galley with their bows.
My two companions had rushed to get their bows and joined the returnees in loosing arrows at the Algerians who galloped up to the galley; I was somehow so weak that I was unable to get to my bow and help them. Even so, that few dozen of our archers was able to loose enough arrows to drive away the Algerians who had galloped up the quay to where we were moored. They left the quay littered with dead and wounded men and rider-less horses. I watched as one of the Algerian horses bolted forward into the water when it was hit and almost landed on our deck as we were drifting away from the quay.
I wasn’t hit, at least I didn’t think so, but I was aware of being on the deck with a great pain in my chest. Then the pain stopped and everything faded away.
Chapter Thirty-Two
William and the battle for Algiers
We waited together off the Algerian coast all night and began rowing for Algiers when the sun came up. Our lookouts had only reported one worrisome sail yesterday, a double-masted cog wearing all her sails which might have been heading south on its way to Algiers. It had a good wind behind it and went past us well to the north just as the sun went down on a night in which there was but the smallest sliver of a moon.
******
I was on Harold’s boat and we had three pilots on board. When the sun arrived to start the day, they had all agreed that if the wind held and we didn’t row it would take us about three hours to sight the entrance to Algiers’ harbour and another hour to enter it. I had listened to them with a piece of warm flat bread in one hand and a slice of cheese in the other; then I gave the order everyone expected.
“Lieutenant,” I called out to Harold, have the “follow me” flag waved from the top of the mast and set your sail for Algiers. No rowing until we near the harbour entrance; we’ll want the men’s arms rested when we meet the Moors.”
Activity on the galley was both excited and subdued in the hours that followed. The archers continued to nap and eat. Many worked quietly on their weapons. Only the sailors were active on the rudder and sail and up in the lookout’s nest. The rest of our galleys followed close behind us.
******
I was on Harold’s Moorish-built galley, which had four extra oars on each side. Forty-eight of our galleys, our entire strength in the Mediterranean, were following close behind Harold’s as we led them through the harbour entrance.
Harold’s galley was to lead some of our galleys to the long quay in front of the city gate where they would disembark their men. Others would either go for prizes in the harbour or peel off and head for the strand where the Algerians nosed in their useful galleys and beached those that needed repairs. Six would block the entrance so the shipping in the harbour could not escape. Each sergeant captain knew where he was supposed to go and what he was supposed to do.
Our galley was as ready for a fight as Harold could make it and so were the galleys coming into the harbour on either side of us and behind us.
The roof of our galley’s stern castle was packed with men as was the roof of every galley in our fleet. In addition to Harold and I on the roof, there were our apprentice sergeants, and Harold’s loud-talker and his sailing sergeant. Six of the galley’s best archers were also on the roof with us. Five more were on the much smaller roof of the forward castle, three were up the mast in the lookout’s nest, and one man, Harold’s very best archer, a chosen man from a village south of London called Haywards Heath, was lashed to the very top of the mast.
About sixty archers stood at the ready along the deck railings on both sides of the galley; another sixty were pulling oars on the upper rowing bank and ready on a moment’s notice to rush to the deck with their weapons and join in the fighting. Bales of arrows were open and stacked up everywhere. A handful of sailors manned a few of the lower rowing benches, primarily to help the rudder men steer.
Our longbows were in our hands and our swords and pikes and shields nearby as we swept through the harbour entrance—and came face to face with the waiting Algerian fleet. Two lines of galleys one behind the other.
“The cog must have alerted them,” Harold said quietly as he stood next to me on the roof of the stern castle.
“Keep to the plan, Lieutenant.” I said it loudly so the men standing about us could hear. “Go for the quay.”
After a second or two, I began adding more instructions. “Sweep their decks as we pass them.” And then, “Try to take out their oars as we go past so they can’t get away.”
******
“Loose your arrows as soon as you can reach a man;” … “loose with a target, I say; loose with a target.” … “Stand ready to ship oars.” Harold gave the orders as we closed on the two lines of Algerian galleys and his loud-talker and sergeants repeated them.
We bore down on the waiting Algerians as fast as our sail and the archers rowing on our upper benches could manage. The Algerians’ decks were full of shouting men waving swords.
The Algerian galleys were roughly arrayed inside the harbour in two lines facing the harbour entrance. The storm of arrows we loosed began to fall on them as soon as we got within range. Every archer was loosing arrows with fresh arms and determination as Harold headed us towards an opening between two Algerian galleys in the first line of the two lines of galleys.
The rowing drum beat loudly and all about me was the sound of constant grunting as all of our archers, including me, pushed out arrow after arrow into the mass of men on the decks of the two Algerian galleys in front of us. Every man on our galleys has a battle position and fights. We have no slaves and servants as is the Moorish custom.
Both of the galleys we were attempting to pass between in the first line of Algerian galleys had lookouts on their masts. They were among the first to go. As I pushed an arrow at a heavily bearded man wearing a turban who was standing on the forward castle of the portside Moorish galley with a sword in his hand, I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye as the lookout on the other Algerian galley fell end over end to his deck.
From where I was standing, I could clearly see the man in the lookout’s nest above the turbaned man on the galley to the south as my arrow hit him squarely in the stomach; the lookout was slumped down with both of his arms dangling over the edge of nest. Someone had already gotten him.
I had initially aimed at the lookout but he had collapsed before I loosed so I had dropped my aim and pushed my arrow into the belly of the turbaned sword waver. At this distance, he had been impossible to miss.
A moment later Harold shouted, “Ship oars,” and we began passing between the two Algerians, snapping some of the oars of the one on our port side. The other Moor was fifty or sixty paces away to starboard so we didn’t come close to snapping any of its oars. All the while I was loosing arrows as fast as possible, I could hear the loud shouts and screams coming from the men around me and on our deck as the archers lining our deck railings pushed their arrows into the Algerians. At this distance, we could hardly miss.
Most of the arrows we loosed went towards the men waving their swords on the decks of the two galleys we were passing between. One moment they were waving their swords and shouting their battle cries; the next, they were falling and scattering in great disarray. Even so, the Algerians on the portside galley, the one with the snapped oars, somehow threw at least two successful grapples that I could see.
Their grapples held and our galleys crashed together and stayed together for a moment. But not for long. Our sailors assigned to be grapple men during a battle did not throw their grapples. Instead, in response to Harold’s bellowed orders, they picked up their nearby grapple axes and within moments had cut the Algerians’ grapple lines.
Those few moments while we were lashed together were both good and bad for us. They were good because we were close alongside the Algerian long enough for our portside archers to finish clearing the Algerian’s deck; they were bad because our forward movement towards the second line of Algerian galleys was totally stopped.
******
We came to a complete stop as a result of the Algerian grapples and stayed that way until we floated far enough away from the Algerian galley so that Harold could get our oars back in the water. The men about me and I took advantage of the lull and scrambled to rearrange our supply of arrows. While we were doing that, Harold was bellowing out the rowing and rudder commands necessary to move us through the gap between a couple of enemy galleys in the Algerian second line.
I looked around as Harold gave his orders. Our galleys had mostly broken through or gone around the Algerian first line and were closing on the second. But not all of them; some of our sergeant captains had seen Harold’s galley stop in the Algerians’ first line instead of continuing to move towards the quay. They had then stopped to fight, thinking, quite reasonably, that following Harold’s lead was what they were now supposed to do.
Finally, our rowing drum began booming once again and we beg
an moving toward an opening between two Algerian galleys in the second line. Once again Harold ordered our oars pulled in and we scraped up against an Algerian galley—and this time we weren’t going fast enough to snap its oars.
Worse, much worse, this one had archers on board; fortunately, it didn’t have many and we cleared its deck as we slowly drifted past it with our oars shipped—but not until we took a number of casualties, including a man on the roof near me being hit in the middle of back as he pushed arrows at the other galley we were passing between. Fortunately, the impact of the strike only knocked him off the roof and onto the deck instead of into the water; unfortunately, he was most likely dead or soon would be.
No grapples were thrown by the Algerian galleys in the second line as we passed between them. As soon as we were clear of the Algerian second line, Harold gave the order for everyone to resume rowing and we headed for the quay in front of the city gate with our rowing drum beating rapidly.
We couldn’t see the quay for all the cogs and ships in the harbour, but we could see the open gate in the city wall on the hillside above the quay—and the heavy fighting that was obviously going on around it.
*******
At first I didn’t realise what I was seeing. Then I understood—the gate was being held by our men against a large attacking force of several thousand men that included horsemen—and for some reason the men holding the gate were moving out of the city to fight the Moorish horsemen. It was quite a foolish thing to do and Randolph was not a foolish man.
Finally, I understood—our men at the gate were being forced out through the gate by the Algerian fighters inside the city. They’d be slaughtered if we didn’t hurry.
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