Corsair hl-1

by Tim Severin

  They walked for more than an hour. First through the city, then out of the landward gate and, after a long slow uphill trudge, to a place where the hill had been cut open in a long scar, the pale rock showing raw in the morning light. Only then did Hector understand that he had been assigned to quarry work. A scatter of tools lay where they had been abandoned the day before – sledgehammers, wedges, crowbars, shovels and coils of rope. All the equipment was battered and poorly maintained. Hector paused, wondering what was expected of him. Immediately the overseer was yelling at him, ‘Aia! Subito!’, and pointing towards a sledgehammer with a splintered handle. As the sun rose higher and the day grew hotter, he found himself working in partnership with a gaunt, silent Russian. Their task was to gouge a line of holes in the rock face, each hole about a yard from the previous one. They took it in turns, one man swinging the sledgehammer, the other holding a metal spike which served as the rock chisel. Very quickly Hector’s arms and shoulders were aching from the weight of the hammer, and his hands were swollen and bruised from his grip on the spike though he took care to wrap his fingers in a rag. They had prepared four holes and were starting on a fifth when something changed. The nearby workmen had stopped work. The sounds of hammering and chipping had ceased, and suddenly the quarry was silent. Hector put aside the iron spike, stretched, and flexed his hand to ease the cramp. Abruptly the Russian said his first words in hours – ‘Boum! Boum! Boum!’ – flung aside the sledgehammer and took to his heels. Hector hesitated only for a moment, then started to follow. He had taken only a few strides when there was a deep, heavy explosion and the ground beneath his feet heaved. A blast of air pushed him forward and he fell face down, landing painfully on rubble. A moment later shards of rock and pebbles began to fall from the sky, pattering all around him. One or two struck him painfully on his back as he wrapped his arms around his head to protect himself.

  Shaken and half deafened, he got to his feet. A wide section of the rock face close to where they had been working now lay tumbled down in great slabs at the foot of the cliff. The other slaves thought his narrow escape was a great joke, and were hooting and laughing. The Sicilian was making a weird braying and snorting sound as he guffawed, the air gushing out of his ruined nose. Hector understood that they had known about the impending blast, and deliberately chosen not to warn him. He smiled ruefully at them, rubbed his bruises and silently cursed them for their uncouth sense of humour. He blamed himself for failing to realise that the holes were for gunpowder charges that would split the rock. ‘Subito! Subito!’ the overseer was shouting again angrily and gesticulating that the slaves were to get back to their places. Hector turned and was about to pick up the sledgehammer when there was a second explosion, smaller this time and farther along the rock face. A cloud of dust spurted out, and several chunks of rock hurtled through the air. One fragment, the size of an orange, struck a man who had been walking forward to check the newly exposed rock face. There was a grunt of pain as the man staggered back, clutching his right arm.

  This time there was no laughter. The other slaves looked on nervously. ‘Subito! Subito!’ bellowed the overseer. He rushed forward, this time striking the slaves with his goad, driving them back to work. Hector, still dizzy from the earlier blast, failed to move. The overseer caught sight of him and waved at him to go to the assistance of the stricken man. Hector went forward and put an arm around the victim, who was gritting his teeth with pain and cursing in English. ‘Shit powder. Shitting cheap powder.’ Hector helped him to where he could sit down on a coil of rope. The man bent forward in pain, still clutching his shoulder and swearing. He did not wear a slave’s iron ring on his ankle, and was better dressed than the men from the bagnio.

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ offered Hector. The man shook his head angrily.

  ‘Should have known better than to trust that muck,’ he said and kicked angrily at a nearby keg. Hector saw that it was marked with a triple x in red paint. ‘Cheap bastards. Should learn to make their own powder,’ continued the injured man.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Hector.

  ‘Late blast,’ came the short reply. ‘Should have all gone off at once, but this powder is useless. The Turks must have bought it off some swindling trader who knew it was unfit.’

  Hector supposed that the injured man was some sort of technician in charge of the blasting. The man kicked at the keg again, and it rolled on one side. It had the letters d, m, n scratched across the base.

  ‘Those letters on the base. Maybe they are short for “damno” – Latin for “condemned”,’ Hector volunteered. The technician looked at him.

  ‘A smart-arse are you? But you’re probably right. Here, go off and check the other kegs stored under that tarpaulin over there before this happens again.’

  Hector did as he was told and came back to report that two out of the eight kegs stacked there also had the code scratched on them. The technician spat. ‘I’ll get the overseer to assign you as my assistant. I’m going to be useless with this damaged arm for the next few weeks, and the quarrying never stops.’

  THAT EVENING Hector arrived in the bagnio so exhausted that he could barely put one foot in front of the other. He was also half-starved. As anticipated, the only meal of the day had been an issue of coarse bread, delivered mid-morning by two elderly slaves wheeling a barrow. To quench their thirst the slaves only had water from an open cask, filthy with a film of quarry dust floating on the surface. ‘Here eat some of this,’ offered Dan when they met up in a corner of the courtyard. He unwrapped a bundle and Hector saw that it contained a melon, some beans and several squashes. Hector accepted the offer gratefully.

  ‘I usually manage to sneak away a few vegetables from my gardening at the end of the day,’ said Dan. ‘My master probably knows that this is happening, but he doesn’t make a fuss. He appreciates it is as a cheap way of feeding his slaves to keep up their strength, and that we’ll work better if we have a share in the crop. Anything extra that I don’t eat myself, I sell in the bagnio.’

  ‘Is that how you obtain the money for the gileffo?’ asked Hector.

  ‘Yes, everyone in the bagnio tries to have some sort of extra income. I sell my vegetables in the evening; others do odd jobs. In this place we have shoemakers, cutlers, barbers, tailors, all sorts. The lucky ones manage to get themselves jobs in the city, working for Turks or Moors, either full-time or on Friday, which is our day off. It’s the ones who don’t have a trade who suffer. They’re work animals, nothing more.’

  Hector told him about the accident at the quarry. ‘The technician who was hurt, he was English yet he wasn’t wearing a slave ring nor a red hat. How does that come about?’

  ‘He’ll be one of the skilled men to whom the Turks give their liberty in exchange for using their skills,’ suggested Dan. ‘Or he might be a volunteer, someone who’s come to Algiers to find work. The Turks don’t insist they convert, just so long as they do their jobs. Some of them have nice houses and even have their own servants. There’s a master shipwright in the Arsenal, a Venetian, who is so much in demand that he’s paid more by the Turks than when he worked at the Venice shipyards.’

  ‘The technician wants me to assist him until his arm has healed,’ said Hector. ‘He seems a decent fellow.’

  ‘Then if I were you, I’d make myself as useful as possible to that powder man,’ advised Dan without hesitation. ‘It will mean that you have to spend less time swinging a sledgehammer or crawling through the sewers with the city work gang. Just make sure you learn the usanza.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Hector asked. He bit hungrily into a piece of raw squash.

  ‘It means custom or habit in the lingua franca. My own people the Miskito have something similar. Our elders who guide us – we call them the old men council – tell us how it was in the old days and they insist we follow the ancient customs.’

  He broke off another piece of squash and handed it to Hector.

  ‘It is the same here in the bagnio. The rules a
nd regulations have built up over time and you learn them by watching others or following their example. If you break these rules, the Turks will tell you that it is against usanza and therefore a fantasia. That means it is unacceptable conduct – and you will be punished. The system suits our masters. The Turks want everything to remain as it is, with them in control. So Jew must remain Jew, Moor must stay Moor, and there is no mixing between different peoples. The Turks go so far as to refuse to let any native-born Algerine become an odjak. Even the son of a Turk and a local woman is forbidden from joining the janissaries. To become an odjak you must either be a Turk from the homelands or a rinigato, a Christian who has converted.’

  ‘I find it strange,’ said Hector, ‘that foreign slaves are given an opportunity denied to the local people.’

  Dan shrugged. ‘Many slaves do take the turban. It is said that there are only three ways of getting out of the bagnio: by ransom, by turning Turk, or by dying from the plague.’

  EIGHT

  CONSUL MAARTIN was finding mercer Newland a bore. He was beginning to wish that his dragoman had not been so adroit with his bribe to the Dey’s office. The tubby English businessman had been released into consular care on the very same day as the slave sale, and for more than a month Consul Martin had been enduring Newland’s tedious company while waiting to hear back from London about his ransom. The consul had given the cloth merchant a room in his house, and it was only common courtesy to invite him to dinner from time to time. Unfortunately the mercer had no interesting conversation to offer and held very entrenched opinions, so the invitations, which had originally been once or twice a week, had now lapsed. Consul Martin, however, made an exception when he finally got news that an official government delegation was on its way from London to Algiers to deal with the hostage question. Martin presumed that whoever was raising money in London for Newland’s ransom would take the opportunity of sending the payment with the government delegation.

  ‘One hopes that the delegation from London will have a fair wind for their voyage here, Mr Newland,’ said the consul, rolling a small pellet of bread between his fingers. It was the last morsel of a flat loaf of particularly delicious local bread. When on his own, the consul adopted the Turkish style of eating, reclining on cushions on the floor. But when he had Christian guests, he kept a more normal service with table and chairs. However, he drew the line at serving hearty meals of roast meat and potatoes. He and his guest had just eaten a delicious lamb kebab and homous. ‘The weather in the Mediterranean is very unpredictable. So there’s no way of knowing exactly when the envoy will arrive.’

  ‘Have the terms of my release been finally agreed, do you know?’ asked the mercer bluntly.

  ‘That I can’t say. The envoy is on government business and his official duty is to arrange the ransom of ordinary English captives, not men of substance like yourself.’ The consul watched Newland preen himself at the compliment. ‘But it is to be expected that your own principal – I think you said it was Mr Sewell of Change Alley – will take advantage of this delegation to conclude the matter of your own release. If all goes well, you should be travelling back with the envoy himself.’

  The mercer adopted his usual self-important tone. ‘I hope that the negotiations over the ordinary captives, as you call them, will not delay matters.’

  ‘That is difficult to predict. Unfortunately there is a history of the Algerines demanding high ransoms, and the envoy arriving with insufficient funds to meet them. Inevitably a period of offer and counter-offer follows until a final arrangement is agreed.’

  ‘Could you not point out to the Dey and his bandits that I, and the others, should never have been taken prisoner in the first place; that our kidnap broke the terms of the treaty between our countries? You should insist.’

  Inwardly the consul grimaced. The thought of insisting on anything with the Dey and the odjaks was counterproductive as well as dangerous. ‘The Algerines enjoy bartering,’ he commented blandly. ‘They feel cheated if there are not some negotiations.’

  ‘Then the bartering should be done by men who are used to it, to men of affairs,’ Newland asserted. ‘We would get a better outcome.’

  ‘I’m sure that the local intermediary who acted on your behalf, the Jew Yaakov, was very skilled in his negotiations,’ reassured Martin.

  ‘But the treaty, the treaty. The Algerines cannot be allowed to get away with ignoring their treaty obligations.’

  The consul thought to himself that Newland, if he had not been so self-opinionated, should know by now that the Dey and the divan made and broke agreements as it suited them. He wondered if he should point out to Newland that many a merchant would vary or break a trade agreement if he could do so without being sued and it was to his advantage. Yet Newland was expecting the Algerines to behave differently when, in fact, their slave-taking was merely a matter of business. In the end the consul decided not to provoke the mercer.

  ‘The fact is, Mr Newland, that when you and those unfortunate Irish were taken prisoner by the corsair Hakim Reis, the treaty was temporarily set aside. The Dey had announced in council that it was being suspended because too many ships were sailing under English passes to which they were not entitled, and that the English were abusing the terms of the treaty by selling their passes to foreign shipowners.’

  ‘So that rascal Hakim Reis was within his rights to take us?’

  ‘Technically, yes. The Dey and the divan had made their decision to abrogate the treaty some weeks earlier. They informed me that a state of war between our nations was being resumed, and I sent word to London to that effect. But there was no public announcement until the same week you were captured.’

  ‘News travels quickly in this part of the world if that corsair scoundrel was so well informed.’

  ‘Hakim Reis is an unusually successful and acute corsair, Mr Newland. He seems always alert to the most immediate opportunity. It was your misfortune to be in his path.’

  ‘And how long did this state of war continue?’ persisted Newland. The tone of his question indicated that he thought Martin was making excuses, and that he had failed to insist that the Dey met his obligations.

  ‘For less than two months,’ answered the consul, making an effort to keep even-tempered. ‘Last week I was summoned to the Dey’s palace and told that the treaty would be restored, on the orders of the Sublime Porte. That is an excuse the Dey uses often. He says one thing, then reverses his position, claiming that he has been overruled by the Sultan. But it does mean that the envoy from London will be warmly received and there is every likelihood that your own release is imminent.’

  And not a moment too soon, he thought to himself.

  THE INJURED mining technician was the first to tell Hector about the rumour of a delegation from London. The two of them were at the quarry, weighing and mixing measures of gunpowder for a new set of blasting charges. The technician, Josias Buckley, seemed strangely unexcited by the news. ‘Aren’t you looking forward to going home?’ Hector asked, puzzled.

  ‘No, I won’t be going home as you call it,’ Buckley replied as he gently transferred another spoonful of the black powder from a barrel into a canvas pouch. ‘I’ll be staying here. This is where I’ve made my life.’

  Hector looked at Buckley in astonishment. During his weeks as his assistant, he had grown to respect the man for his skill and the careful, patient way in which he had guided him in the art of handling explosives.

  ‘What about your family? Won’t they be missing you?’ Hector asked. He was thinking back, as he so often did, to what might have happened to Elizabeth.

  ‘I have no family left,’ replied Buckley quietly. ‘My wife and I never had children, and she was working at the mill when there was an accident. That was back at home in England, near two years ago now. She and a dozen others were blown to pieces. There was not even enough left of her to give her a proper burial, poor soul. Afterwards I decided I would seek my fortune here in Barbary. I imagined there would b
e a demand for gunpowder men like myself so I came here of my own free will. The beylik pays me a wage, and I share a house with others like myself, ordinary men who came here to find a new home. The Turks do not demand we change to their religion.’

  They finished preparing the gunpowder and were carrying the mix over to the rock face where the work gangs had drilled out the holes ready to receive the charges. Hector noticed how the labourers moved away nervously as they approached. At the first of the holes, Buckley began to pour in the gunpowder. ‘Two pounds’ weight is about right,’ he said to Hector. ‘Make sure the powder is packed evenly. No lumps. Here pass me a length of fuse, will you?’

  With the powder and fuse in place, he took a conical wooden plug from the sack which Hector had carried for him and, pressing it into the hole, began to tap it into place, the pointed end upward. The first time Hector had seen this done, he had dreaded an accident. But Buckley had reassured him that gunpowder would only ignite with a spark or fire, not from the blow of a hammer. ‘Now, lad,’ he said, once the plug was driven tight, ‘fill the rest of the hole with earth and chippings and tamp everything down so that it is nice and snug. But not too tight so that the fuse chokes off and doesn’t burn through.’

  They moved on to the next hole in the rock to repeat the process, and Hector took his chance to ask, ‘Where was the mill where you worked before?’

  ‘In the county of Surrey where my family had lived for generations. Years ago we used to make up small quantities of gunpowder in our own house until the government regulations came in. Then the big mills took over, and the monopolists had their chance. The small family producers could not compete, so we went to work in the mill. Of course we got jobs straight away as we knew the trade so well. My father and grandfather and his father had all been petremen, as far back as anyone could remember.’