“Oh, and one more thing, John. Don’t forget to feed up the slaves real good with double rations and let them do whatever they want after you get them to Sardinia. They can go with you to Cyprus, or stay on Sardinia, or head westward rowing on one of our galleys bound for England. It’s their choice as is our custom. Give them the choice and make sure they have safe places before you leave Sardinia.”
Harold listened and nodded his approval. So did John and the men standing nearby. It was little wonder that they did. Taking care of our wounded men was important to everyone and we’ve gotten some of our best archers and sailors from the galley slaves we’ve freed. Two of my lieutenants, Harold and Henry Lewes, for example, were among the first of the many slaves we freed. On our very first galley was where Thomas and I found them.
******
It was with heavy hearts that we rowed the short distance to visit Randolph’s galley where it was anchored nearby. Tommy, Randolph’s sailing sergeant, had Randolph laid out on the deck with his eyes closed. It was all I could do not to weep in front of the men who stood in a circle around us watching. We’d been in the company and sailed together with King Richard all those many years ago, hadn’t we?
“He was a good man, a very good man,” I finally said as I crossed myself and mumbled a little prayer under my breath. “And a damn fine archer.”
Then I took a deep breath to clear away my black thoughts, and turned away to give Tommy, Randolph’s sailing sergeant, command of the galley and basically the same orders I’d just given to the sergeant captains at the quay with the wounded from the battle at the gate. He was told to stop at the harbour entrance and get fifty of the slaves we’d taken as rowers from Henry White, and sail for Sardinia, and then on to Cyprus, using the newly freed slaves and his archers as rowers.
Unlike the galleys at the quay with our dead and wounded men, however, Tommy’s galley was desperately short of archers as a result of so many of its archers being been lost or wounded in the fighting at the gate. I promoted one of Harold’s archers, a chosen man both Henry and Harold had already recommended for promotion, to sergeant, and assigned twenty of Harold’s archers to move to Tommy’s galley under his command—all were volunteers who raised their hands to indicate that they were willing to return to Cyprus instead of continuing on to England to help “guard and deliver the relics.”
Finally, with a great sigh, I turned back to Raymond.
“Wrap him tight so he doesn’t smell too much and move him to a galley going to Cyprus when you get to Ibiza. That way we can keep him with archers permanent-like by burying him in our cemetery with the proper words. Tell the galley’s captain I said Yoram was to have a priest say the words all proper-like when they bury.
“Do you have enough supplies and water?” I asked Raymond. “If not, be sure to get them from Henry White.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
A sour victory.
There was much cheering each time we rowed past one of our own galleys or a prize being towed to the ever-growing line of prizes Henry White had anchored near the harbour entrance. The men were happy, but I was not—my plan to take the city had fallen apart and Randolph was dead along with many of our archers. I had failed.
Our men’s happiness about all the prizes was all well and good; and my unhappiness with our failing to take Algiers, and with losing so many men in the effort, was understandable, but neither did anything to solve my basic problem— what should we do now?
I called my lieutenants together to talk about it. We decided to hold the harbour indefinitely in order to take arriving galleys and cogs and exact a ransom for returning the harbour. We had already taken our first additional prize, a Moorish cog with strange sails came in right past our row of prizes and entered the harbour. Its crew had not known of the battle and had been surprised to find themselves captured. It was a little two-master with only one castle and filled with amphorae of coloured dyes, bales of Egyptian linen, and a little chest full of pearls. Henry White promptly anchored it at the end of the row of prizes and went aboard to check its cargo.
“How long do you think we can stay here and control the harbour?” I asked my lieutenants as they gathered on Harold’s deck.
“As long as you want, Captain; as long as you want,” said Harold. “We have more than enough galleys to keep control of the harbour and fetch supplies even if we send all the prize cogs to England to be sold and all the prize galleys to Yoram in Cyprus to be added to our fleet.”
“Well then, how many galleys should we keep here as a garrison?” I asked Harold.
“A dozen galleys would be enough if they were fully crewed with archers. Then we’d be strong enough to hold the harbour even if three or four of them were away fetching supplies.”
“Make it so,” I replied, as Henry and Peter nodded their approval.
******
My lieutenants and I were fairly sure we could stay in control of the Algiers harbour for as long as we wanted because we could, if necessary, bring in enough food to maintain our men. We knew, even if our men did not, that there was no need to hurry to get to England with the crates stored in the holds of three of our galleys; we alone knew they didn’t contain the missing relics. They were already in Cornwall.
finalised our plans for Algiers after the four of us spent two days inspecting our prizes and moving men and supplies about. We decided to send our prize galleys and Raymond’s body to Cagliari as the first stop on their voyages outbound to Cyprus. Similarly, we decided to send most of the prize cogs and ships to Ibiza as their first port of call on their way to London. A few of the best, however, were sent to Cyprus to add to our fleet of cargo transports and pirate-takers.
It was also a profitable two days—we took two more trading cogs and a big three-masted ship with a crew from somewhere in the east. They weren’t expecting us so they just sailed into the harbour and fell into our welcoming arms.
The three-master was interesting because its masts were higher than any of us had ever seen, and its sails were made of some kind of heavy linen instead of leather like ours. Harold and almost all of the sailor sergeants went aboard to marvel at it.
“That one next to it has a new hull design. It also should go to Cyprus for our shipwrights to see,” said Harold. “The three-mast ship’s crew, as well, so our sailing sergeants can be learnt how to sail it.”
******
Only nine fully crewed galleys, and two Moorish cogs that had sailed into the harbour yesterday and become prizes, were all that were left in the harbour as the sun finished passing overhead on the fifth night after the raid. We’d made no effort to contact the Algerians and they’d made no effort to contact us.
“They probably thought we’d come to raid them and would soon go away,” suggested Peter as we sat on the deck of Harold’s galley drinking bowls of wine from some skins that Harold had bought in Malta before we sailed.
“They ought to be getting uneasy about now; I know I would,” Henry volunteered.
It was a dark night and quite comfortable now that the sun had gone down. We could see a few lights flickering in the distant city from cooking fires and lanterns. Our galleys were showing no lights, but we instinctively knew they were anchored nearby and could periodically hear snatches of voices and the familiar and somehow reassuring creaking of nearby hulls.
After a while, I rolled up some of my bedding for a pillow and fell asleep on the deck. As I drifted off, I could hear the sound of snoring and the quiet conversations and sensed the movement as sleeping men rolled over or got up to piss from the shite nest in the stern. It was altogether quiet and peaceful. I slept soundly.
“Alarm. Alarm. Everyone awake. Here they come.” The cry pierced my ears and I jerked awake with a snort and sat up. For the briefest moment, I didn’t know where I was. Then I tripped over someone as I scrambled to the railing of the galley to look.
Coming straight at our cluster of anchored galleys were two fire boats. And, within seconds, three more blo
omed into flames, and then at least a dozen.
Cries and shouts of alarm began on the galley next to us and instantly spread to every one of the galleys anchored around us. Within moments, shouting and the sound of running feet were everywhere and we could see as many as twenty boats on fire and coming straight at us.
The light from the more distant fires backlit boats in front; we could see their shapes outlined against the more distant flames—fishing boats with their sails up and piled high with dry twigs and branches—and there were men on board sailing them straight at us.
******
“Sailors, man your pikes to push them off; archers to the oars,” Harold roared. And then, “Raise the anchor, George; raise it. … Hurry, lads, hurry.”
I was so confused I instantly started to run to the forward castle to get my longbow, mail shirt, and wrist knives. I’d actually taken two or three steps when I realised how stupid that would be because I might have to swim. Instead, I ran to the anchor rope in the bow to help pull it up. Several sailors were already there and I wasn’t needed.
All I ended up initially doing was standing with both hands on the deck railing and watching in disbelief as the fire boats came across the harbour towards us. I didn’t even know Peter had joined me until he spoke at my side.
“My God, the Moors on those boats are committing suicide. They’ll never escape,” Peter exclaimed. “Why would they do it?”
Then a thought struck me.
“Quick, let’s get pikes and help hold them off,” I shouted.
We started running for the nearest pike rack at almost the same moment the first of our rowers began rowing and Harold’s galley lurched forward.
A flaming fishing boat reached us before we got to the rack. Just before it hit, we could see it was piled high with flaming twigs and brush. Our galley was just starting to move forward and two sailors, including Harold himself, had pikes and were trying to push its bow away as it collided with us.
Our being slightly underway combined with the pikes pushing on its bow caused the fire boat to bang the side of its hull up against ours instead hitting us straight on with its bow. The sharp sound of our oars breaking off could be heard over the screams and shouts of our men as burning twigs and branches from the top of the pile on the boat spilled over on to our deck and forced Harold and his men to drop their pikes and jump back away from the flames.
The flaming boat stayed next to us for only a few seconds until the momentum from our rowing carried us away from it—with burning debris on our deck. I watched in dismay as our men tried to pick up the twigs and brush where they were not yet burning and throw them over the side, and several burned themselves quite severely when they grabbed hot embers.
A smart young sailor with a pike saved the day. He began using his pike like a hay fork and began pitching the burning twigs and brush over the side. Within seconds, every man with a pike was desperately copying him, including me and Peter.
“Bring up the water skins, lads. Bring up the skins,” I could hear Harold shouting as he used his bladed pike to pick up some kind of burning shrub and toss it over the railing.
******
Darkness began to return as the fires flickered and died down on the dozen or so fishing boats that were still burning as the wind pushed them past our galleys.
All we knew initially was that several of our galleys had fires on their decks that were soon extinguished and one of them was seriously on fire and burning out of control. We didn’t know whose galley it was that was burning, and Harold and our sergeant captains didn’t wait to find out. Every one of our galleys rowed towards it to take off our men.
Some of our other galleys reached it before we did; all we could do was stand off and watch in the dim and flickering light of our burning galley as one of our galleys came alongside and its crew used their pikes to pull the hulls together. We didn’t know whose galley that was either.
“Phillip’s, I think,” said Harold as we stood on the roof of the stern castle and watched the rescue begin. “He was anchored over that way.”
As soon as the two hulls banged together, shouting and desperate men from the burning galley poured over its deck railing and on to the deck of their rescuer. Many of them were desperately clutching their bows and other personal items they’d managed to scoop up before they fled to safety.
******
Dawn’s early light revealed a chilling sight: the galley torched by the fire boats had burned down to the waterline and was still smoking. It was Richard Farmer’s and anyone on it who hadn’t escaped to the deck of Phillip’s galley was surely dead.
Phillip’s galley had initially been absolutely packed with men. By the time dawn arrived, however, most of the rescued men had been taken aboard several of its sister galleys. They had come alongside in the darkness and off-loaded them. My lieutenants and I had talked about what we should do while we waited in the darkness for the arrival of dawn’s early light. Finally, I decided.
“Nothing,” I told my lieutenants. “We do nothing except stay here and take every sail that enters the harbour as a prize—and keep a better watch at night in case they try again.”
“And with two men sleeping by each anchor rope, a man in the lookout’s nest, and every galley’s bailing buckets and empty skins on deck and filled with water,” added Harold emphatically. We all nodded in agreement.
“What do you think they’ll try next?” asked Henry to no one in particular.
******
The small boat rowing toward us had a man in the front waving a shirt above his head and blowing of some kind of horn. Two men were rowing and there were only four men in the boat. The man sitting in the stern was obviously coming to talk. Harold had his sailing sergeant row us slightly towards them so they’d know where to head if they wanted to talk.
I moved to the side of Harold’s galley and raised my hand in greeting to the approaching small boat. It wasn’t a friendly greeting, just an acknowledgement that I recognised them and that I was the man they should address. My lieutenants stood with me.
The man in the boat did not try to stand up as it came alongside. He was clutching the side of the boat for dear life. He was obviously a landsman who didn’t know how to swim.
“Hoy,” he said in passable French. “Who are you and why are you here and what do you want?”
“I’m an Englishman,” I replied. “Algerian galleys and others recently attacked our trading post in Cyprus and took several of our cogs in Beirut harbour. What did you expect would happen after you attacked Englishmen and their transports, eh?”
“I wasn’t involved in that; I’m a corn merchant. My name is Muhammed Beller. I was sent to you only because I speak French. What will you do? How long will you stay?” he asked.
“Oh, food supplies are easy to bring in, aren’t they? So I would think we’ll be staying here in the harbour at least until next year or, perhaps, the year after that. Certainly, we’ll be staying until trading cogs and ships stop coming to Algiers for us to take as prizes; and after you release our men and your Christian slaves, of course.”
He looked thunderstruck and amazed, so I ploughed on with encouragement in my voice.
“We are hoping, of course, that some of your king’s friends will come here and attempt to relieve Algiers. My men can never take enough prizes, can they? So, I’d be pleased to carry a messenger from your king asking his friends to come to his aid: perhaps, he could look westward to Tangiers or Oran for assistance. Their kings might send their galleys in an attempt to relieve you.”
Then I continued and really rubbed it in.
“Looking eastward to Tunis for assistance won’t work for your king, of course. In case you haven’t heard, the Tunisians were foolish enough to join with you Algerians in your recent raids against Beirut and Cyprus; so a couple of weeks ago we visited Tunis and took all the Tunisian galleys and all the cogs and ships in Tunis’s harbour. They freed their Christian and Jewish slaves and paid us gold bezan
ts to leave. Algiers will have to do the same.”
The Algerian, Muhammed something or other, listened to me with a look of absolute astonishment and dismay on his face. Ten minutes later, his two rowers began rowing him back to the city with a list of demands for his king to consider.
******
Muhammed and I talked back and forth for three days before we were able to hammer out an acceptable agreement. In the end, we agreed to leave the harbour and the Emir of Algiers, apparently, that’s what the Algerians call their king, agreed to pay a ransom for the harbour of nine thousand gold bezants and free all the Christian and Jewish slaves in the city and in lands around it, including their spouses and children.
The next day my lieutenants and I were on Harold’s galley as it cautiously made its way to the quay. The coins were waiting so we immediately began counting and loading them—and then watched somewhat remorsefully when a big three-masted ship innocently entered the harbour and promptly began unloading its cargo at a berth further down the quay.
“Perhaps we should have waited a few days,” Harold suggested with a teasing smile in his voice and a nod towards the new arrival.
Peter looked up from where he was counting coins and laughed. We were well satisfied. The Emir’s coins were more than enough to pay our men’s prize money; we’d be able to keep over a thousand gold bezants and everything our prizes fetched.
On the following day our cogs and galleys came to the quay at dawn and began loading the newly freed slaves. There were thousands of them and they formed three great, orderly lines, and little wonder they were orderly—our galleys lined the quay with our archers instructed to kill anyone they saw carrying weapons or starting trouble. Some of the slaves were carrying children and large amounts of personal items such as bedding and bowls; others had only the rags on their backs and nothing more.
One of the lines was for the slaves who wanted to be taken to Ibiza and ports to its west; one for those who wanted to be carried to Sardinia and ports to its east; and one for those who wished to stay in Algiers as slaves.
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