Tim Severin - Corsair

It was barely light, and Hector heard a thin wailing call, then another and another, the sound hanging in the air over the high walls of the bagnio as he descended the stairway to the courtyard. He had heard that cry five times a day since he had been landed at Algiers. It was the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer. At the foot of the stairway he almost tripped over an old man already down on his knees, touching his forehead to the ground. The iron ring around his ankle showed that he was a fellow slave and Hector presumed he was a convert to Islam. When the old man rose stiffly, Hector took the chance to enquire, ‘The end of that call, the part which goes something like as-saltu kairun min an-naum, what does that mean?’ ‘It means “prayer is better than sleep”, the old man muttered grumpily, and shuffled off to join the throng of slaves gathering around the entrance to the passageway which led to the gates of the bagnio.

Hector followed and, peering over the heads of the crowd, saw the red-capped figure of a scrivano standing on a stone block, a paper in his hand. He was gabbling out names at a tremendous pace, speaking so fast that it was difficult to catch what he was saying though it was clear that he was directing the men to their day’s tasks. Finally Hector heard his name called out, and managed to identify that he had been assigned to a gang of about fifty men forming up under the supervision of an overseer equipped with a short staff. Among them he recognised the Sicilian master thief with the chopped-off nose and ears. Hector looked carefully but he could see none of the men who had been taken prisoner with him in Ireland. He could only imagine they had all been placed in other bagnios. Mindful of Dan’s advice, he mingled with his group, trying not to attract attention as they headed down the passageway towards the bagnio gates. No one spoke.

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.