Tim Severin - Corsair

‘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 be 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.’

He saw Hector was looking bemused.

‘Petremen,’ he repeated, ‘that’s what they called the men who went round the country looking for saltpetre. They had authority to go into hen houses, barnyards, farm middens and take whatever scrapings they could find. Without saltpetre – and a lot of it – there’s no gunpowder.’

‘Sounds like Latin,’ said Hector. ‘Sal-petrae would mean “salt of stones”, so how come you found it in a hen house?’

‘There you go again. You’re too smart for your own good, what with all that education,’ answered Buckley, poking a wooden rod into the next drill hole to make sure that it was not clogged. ‘You find saltpetre wherever stale piss or dung has had time to ripen. Don’t ask me how. It’s said that the best piss for saltpetre comes out of a drunken bishop.’

He chuckled. ‘The petremen would gather up the ordure and carry it back to their homes where they could boil and strain and purify it. Slow work. It takes nearly a hundred pounds of scrapings to make a half pound of petre, and that’s the main ingredient for gunpowder – seventy-five parts of petre to ten parts of brimstone and fifteen parts of charcoal, and you should use willow charcoal if you can get it.’

He laid the rod aside and reached out for the bag of tools and materials that Hector was carrying.

‘Now everything’s different. The gunpowder mills bring in their saltpetre from India. And there’s no more grinding by hand, which used to take hours and hours. It’s all done by machines. Big stamping machines. And of course the people who are employed don’t have the old knowledge, and so accidents happen. A wild spark, and the whole lot goes up. So my wife dies, and both my cousins.’

He paused to cut off another length of fuse cord, and laid it carefully into the next hole before pouring in the correct measure of powder.

‘When I first came here,’ he went on, ‘I had dreams of setting up my own gunpowder mill and supplying good powder to the Turks. In my family there was a story that in the days of Queen Bess we got our petre from Barbary and it was made into the cannon powder that stopped the Great Armada. So I thought I would find petre here in Algiers, and add brimstone from Sicily because everyone knows that you find yellow brimstone near volcanoes. But as it turned out, I never found the petre and the Sicilian brimstone was poor stuff, full of impurities. So I had to go round the local pigeon lofts, just like my great-grandfather, and collect up the droppings. In the end it wasn’t worth it. I could make serpentine but not the corned powder that the Turks wanted for their cannon and muskets.’

‘I don’t know the difference,’ Hector said deferentially. He felt that if he was to work safely with Buckley, he should learn everything that the technician was willing to tell him.

‘There’s a world of difference. Serpentine is what we made at home, basic gunpowder if you like. It’s all right if you keep it dry and mix it well. But it’s unreliable. It was a charge of serpentine, exploding late, which near cost me my right arm the other day. Corned powder is mill-made, and shaken through sieves so it is graded nice and regular. Small grains for muskets and pistols, larger grains for the big guns. There’s no one making corned powder in all the lands of the Grand Turk, as far as I know. Certainly not here in Algiers. Anyone who managed to do so, would command his own price.’