Bernard Knight - Crowner's Crusade

‘A hell of way to die after all we’ve been through, Gwyn!’ John muttered to his squire and friend, as he clung to the rail and stared anxiously at the grey cliffs that were now only a mile away.

The former fisherman, who had spent years off the Atlantic cliffs of Cornwall, was philosophical about it, as were so many sailors, few of whom ever learned to swim. ‘Never say die until you draw that last breath, Sir John!’ he advised. ‘This master, bloody pirate though he be, seems a good seaman.’

As the early dusk of winter began to close in, the galley captain and his mate seemed to get more agitated, pointing ahead where a faint light shone from a headland a mile or two away. As they laboured nearer, they could see a flickering flame from a fire burning in a large brazier high on the cliff.

‘Just beyond that beacon is the bay of Ragusa,’ yelled the Sicilian, pointing at it. ‘But the wind will be worse when we pass the shelter of the cliffs.’

He staggered back along the deck and went down the ladder to survey the shambles below where stores and provisions were rolling about. The oarsmen were desperately trying to keep stroke with the drum, even though the inboard ends of the sweeps were fighting them at every heave.

Within an hour, the mate’s forecast proved correct, as when the galley turned east to enter the bay, the full force of the gale struck them, coming straight off the snow-covered mountains of the Balkans.

All the passengers, now wet through with spray, either clung on to the top of the bulwarks or lay in the shelter, hanging on to the ribs at the sides to avoid being rolled across the deck. De Wolfe and Gwyn stood hunched, clinging to the rail, looking ahead into the gloom, the wind tearing at their hair and clothing. It came in gusts, sometimes dying down for a few moments, allowing the oarsmen to recover some semblance of rhythm. But a moment later, a gust like a hammer blow would come again and, several times, John feared that the vessel would capsize.

King Richard, standing a few yards away, was obviously of the same opinion. ‘If God wills us to survive,’ he cried, ‘I solemnly promise to pay for a church on the spot where we land, in grateful thanks for His compassion!’ Turning to his chaplain, who stood alongside him with his clerk Philip, he made sure that the Almighty heard his promise. ‘Mark my words well, Anselm, and ensure that my soul be damned if I do not fulfil this heartfelt vow!’

He crossed himself as he spoke and the priest followed suit. The other knights heard him swear his oath, but were more concerned with muttering their own prayers for survival as they anxiously scanned the coast for any sign of the harbour.

‘There’s an island coming up, with a light on it,’ yelled Baldwin, who as a self-confessed landlubber, had suffered badly from seasickness throughout the voyage. However, when the violence of a gale was this bad, mal de mer was banished by the prospect of impending doom.

‘That’s the Isle of Lokrum, just outside Ragusa,’ replied Robert de Turnham, who had been here before on a voyage from Venice.

‘I can see faint lights beyond it, in the distance,’ shouted Gwyn. ‘That must be the port. Another mile or two and we’ll be safe!’

They passed the wooded island, now just visible in the gloom and headed for the flares of the distant harbour in what was momentarily, a lull in the gale. But just as everyone was thanking Jesus Christ, the Virgin and every saint in the calendar for their deliverance, a violent squall roared across the water and hit them on the port side. There were yells and screams from below as the inboard ends of the long oars swept men from their benches, then the galley heeled over, water pouring over the lee bulwarks of the lower deck. For a moment, the vessel was poised on the very brink of capsizing, but at the last second, the force of the wind on the hull slewed it around and drove it careering back towards Lokrum, now only a few hundred yards distant. Either their combined prayers — or the Lionheart’s vow to endow a new church — must have persuaded the Almighty to preserve them, for the galley was driven straight on to the only safe patch of beach which lay between large boulders at the foot of a wooded hill. Though it was not soft sand, it was at least pebble and shingle, free of any large rocks. The shallow draught of the hull slid up with a grinding noise that could be heard even above the howling of the gale.

‘Get yourselves off as fast as you can!’ yelled Gwyn, whose stentorian voice was a match for even the worst weather. ‘Get ashore in case she’s sucked back by the undertow.’

There was a scramble for the ladders down to the rowing deck, with the king’s inner circle and the Templars making sure that Richard was safe — though his own bull-like roar made it equally sure that his small treasure chest was carried along with them. Thankfully, the almost flat keel of the vessel kept her upright and though a wind-lashed surf was rolling up the beach, the castaways found that by moving almost to the bows before jumping over the low sides, the water was then only waist-deep. There was still a glimmer of twilight in the far western sky, enough to let them stumble from the waves that sucked at their legs and to crunch their way up the beach. The shipmaster and the Sicilian were yelling at their crew to take ropes from the bows and trail them up the beach to secure the galley to the nearest trees.

The pines grew almost down to the pebbles and once free of the water, John de Wolfe looked up in the dim light at the steep hill that was Lokrum. ‘There’s a light up there at the top,’ he growled at Gwyn, as they stood shivering and shaking water from themselves like dogs.

‘Let’s hope there’s also a good fire up there as well. I’m as cold as a whore’s heart,’ replied his companion, squeezing water from his wild hair and long moustaches.

‘Over here, all my good men!’ shouted the king, rallying his exhausted entourage around him under the trees. ‘Are we all here, safe and sound?’

The energetic Baldwin checked their party and found every soul present, albeit drenched and bedraggled. Philip of Poitou also confirmed that the small treasure chest was safe, inside which was another box which carried Richard’s narrow battle crown and his Great Seal.

‘That poor thing has been shipwrecked twice now,’ bellowed the king. ‘It must have the nine lives of a cat!’

His official seal, which was impressed on to the wax of all documents to confirm that they bore his royal will, had been lost on the outward journey to the Holy Land. His seal-bearer, Roger Malcael, was drowned when his ship, part of the flotilla that also carried Berengaria and the king’s sister Joanne, was wrecked off Cyprus. Miraculously, his dead body was washed ashore with the seal still hanging from a chain around his neck.

‘We’ve already lost our horses, now we’ve no chance of saving our armour either,’ lamented William de L’Etang, peering back at where the galley was bucking and rolling in the surf at the end of rope tethers. Several score of drenched shipmen and rowers were milling about the beach, being harangued by the captain and his mate.

‘We’ve got our lives and our swords, rusty though they’ll be after this soaking,’ cried Richard heartily. ‘Now we need fire, food and shelter, for which I will more than amply repay with the church I vowed to build on this blessed isle!’

The promised church was never built on Lokrum, but the generous — many would say profligate — Richard Coeur de Lion gave a large donation towards the rebuilding of the cathedral in Ragusa itself. He had been persuaded by the city fathers that the money would be better spent that way and his only condition was that as long as the sanction of the Pope was obtained to this amendment of his vow, a small part of it must be used to renovate the dilapidated priory on the island. The four hermetic monks there had given them food and shelter in the hours after the shipwreck.