William Napier - The Great Siege

His target was clear. The corsair captain, standing plain at the prow. But not yet near enough.

The master and mariners had fallen still, waiting in terror. Some clutched boathooks or little-used blades, and Vizard and Legge both held useful-looking halberds. But they had no hope — unless these passengers of theirs proved of sturdier stuff than they seemed. Certainly they knelt now and cradled their fine guns with a steely determination. Yet the enemy were so many. Already they could feel the manacles round their ankles, the oar and the rowing bench grinding the flesh off their bones, and a slow death coming. Why in hell did they agree to sail beyond Cadiz, into these infested waters?

The corsair galley was a hundred paces off. Eighty. Sixty.

Nicholas’s heart hammered, and his palms were so sweaty, he wondered how he’d ever keep a grip on his sword. Let it not come to that, he prayed with shame. Not yet. Perhaps they will turn away.

Forty paces off. The mechanical movement of the oars at top speed now, and they could hear the swish of the galley’s bow wave from here, see every corsair aboard. The captain in his outlandish attire even grinned, raising his scimitar and waving it as if in greeting.

If only they’d had time to serve and load up the old petrier, that might have come in handy, despite its age. A ‘stone thrower’, blasting out a rough stone ball from a squat iron barrel, it hadn’t much range but at short distances it could do business. And if you struck lucky, and the stone ball hit a piece of metal aboard the enemy ship, an anchor or cleat or even a metal band around a mast, it could splinter into a lethal spray of shards, hurtling in every direction, killing two or three men in an instant, laying low half a dozen more. But there had been no time, and the petrier sat untouched.

Smith breathed slow and steady and pulled the trigger. The steel wheel whirred and sparks flew, there was the powerful report, the smell of burnt gunpowder, a brief puff of dark smoke.

After having knelt so unearthly still, the instant the shot was fired Smith was all activity. Never taking his eyes from the corsair galley ahead of him, he dipped his gun, cleaned it with ramrod, cartridge of powder, ramrod, ball, ramrod, a modicum more powder into the pan, all with perfect smoothness and without once needing to check his actions. He was kneeling up to the bulwark and taking aim again within half a minute.

The galley had slowed and stopped, the oars were still. They could hear the small waves slapping against the sides. It was like a venomous snake that had suddenly had its head lopped off. For Smith’s shot had sent the ball clean through the forehead of the corsair captain, and he was dead before he slumped to the deck.

‘In truth,’ said Smith, sighting down the barrel with a squint, ‘I fire a ball like that only one shot in ten.’

‘Twenty,’ muttered Stanley, also sighting.

Smith grinned. A rarity. ‘The curve of the ball from the barrel, even a barrel so beautifully smooth as this. The wind, the fall … But it looks mighty impressive when it works, does it not?’

Beside them, Nicholas felt his throat too dry to speak.

Another corsair, a tall lean fellow, ran forward and fell on the captain’s body with a cry.

‘ Akhee! ’ he cried. ‘ Akhee! ’

Stanley raised his head again from sighting.

‘What does he say?’ asked Hodge.

‘He says, “ My brother .”’

‘As in my brother corsair, my brother Mohammedan … or my blood brother?’ murmured Smith. ‘If the latter — then we may indeed be in for a fight.’

‘From his grief,’ said Stanley, ‘I surmise the latter.’

‘What does that mean?’ stammered Nicholas.

‘It means this is now a blood matter. It means they’re not after our cargo. They’re after our lives.’

Smith grunted. ‘Take him.’

The lean corsair was just looking up again and across the water to the Christian swine, when Stanley pulled the trigger and the matchcord dropped and set the powder sizzling in the pan, and his arquebus erupted with a deafening bang, far louder than Smith’s jezail.

The corsair’s bare bronzed shoulder seemed to erupt in a spray of blood and he fell back with a cry. Then he stood again with his hand clutched over his wound, blood seeping through his fingers, and screamed back at them, unafraid.

‘ Kul khara, kuffaar! Ayeri fi widj imaak! ’

‘What does he say?’ asked Nicholas, whispering for some reason.

‘Discourtesies about your mother,’ said Stanley. ‘You don’t want to know. Next gun, lad, and quick about it.’

Smith was just sighting on the corsair to finish him when the rhythm of the drum changed, the oars moved swiftly in opposing directions and with astonishing litheness, the galley spun side-on. The corsairs dropped down below the gangway, out of sight, amid the fetid crush of the rowing benches. The oars moved back again in unison and the galley closed in below the sterncastle at full speed. The galley slaves were being lashed bloody over the last few dozen paces, the prow visibly rearing over the water.

‘They’re going to ram us!’

‘The devil!’

‘They’ve done this before.’

‘Then we’ll both go down together.’

‘Fire!’

There came a terrible crash from below and a groan of timbers, as the bronze-headed ram of the galley tore into the side of the Swan . Then the air was filled with warlike screams and cries of Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!

All hell broke loose. Shots erupted from the lean galley below, a mariner howled in pain. It was Vizard, dropping his halberd to the deck and crouching, cradling his wound. The master was shouting out, a pair of landsmen were still reefing up the mainsail as arrows struck the mast. Then at least half a dozen guns from the corsair crew fired in unison, balls tearing in through the bulkheads, holing sails, clanging off a brass stanchion on the deck, followed by a whistling ricochet. Nicholas risked a look, ducked down again. That volley was to clear them back so the corsairs could launch their grappling irons and shin up. The sides of the Swan were already swarming. He passed Smith his last loaded gun, Hodge served Stanley, and then they crawled back amidships. They huddled by the foremast, panting as if they’d already fought for an hour, and drew their short cinquedeas.

‘For England and St George, eh, Hodge?’ said Nicholas, his voice shaking.

‘I can’t bloody believe this,’ said Hodge. ‘We were better off in the pound with the lice.’

Smith stood exposed over the bulwarks and fired a sidelong shot, keeping his arquebus straight enough not to roll the ball out of the barrel, and blew a head clean off. But the corsairs had two grappling irons over the waist already. This was going to go hand-to-hand, and vicious. He took up the petronel and raced aft, swinging down the ladder to the waist of the ship without using the rungs, yelling to the terrified mariners to fight, damn them, fight!

‘You, man, cut that rope! And you, take up that halberd. Prick ’em in the throat! You, Vizard, with the bloody arm, get it bound below and then back to the fray with you. The walking wounded fight well enough. You, boy, keep watch to starboard in case any rats swim round that way. There, man! Take him!’

Stanley also let loose his final arquebus, moving along the deck and leaning, firing — there came a scream and splash from below — then moving on again instantly, so there was no chance for enemy fire to be accurately returned. An arrow lodged in the rail near him. He drew his sword and hacked it off with a grand flourish.

A curved grapnel. Stanley seized it from the air in a huge hand and hacked until the leader frayed and split, the fellow below knocked back under a coiling cascade of rope. Stanley leaned down and caught another villain across the side of the head with the iron, then finished him with a short jab to the throat. An arrow glanced off his mailcoat and he dropped back behind the bulwark, taking in a sharp breath and resettling his helmet. That was close.