The Pirates of the Levant (26 page)

Anyway, whoever happened to be in the appropriate place donned a Turkish costume and was much mocked for it. I, thank God, escaped, but others — the Moor Gurriato was one, condemned by his appearance — had to put on baggy trousers, the long tunics or robes that the Turks call dolmans, as well as fancy bonnets, taffetas and turbans. They formed a blue, white and red rainbow; and their skins were now so tanned by the sun that they needed only to start bowing to Mecca at the appropriate times to be taken for real Turks. One even made fun of his own disguise, kneeling down and shamelessly invoking Allah, but when some of the Muslim slaves protested, angered by such blasphemy, Captain Urdemalas sternly reprimanded the wretch, threatening him with a public whipping if he upset the oarsmen again. It was one thing, he said, to force them to row, but there was no need to insult them.

'Row hard, my lads! Harder, or they'll escape us!'

When Captain Urdemalas addressed the slaves as 'my lads' this was a sign that more than one of them was likely to row himself to death and be whipped for his pains. And so it was. Keeping up the hellish rhythm set by the galleymaster's whistle and the merciless crack of his whip on their bare backs, the oarsmen alternately stood up and fell back, again and again, breathing so hard it seemed their lungs would burst.

'The dogs are ours! Keep it up and we'll have 'em!'

The long, slender hull of the
Mulata
seemed to fly over the rippling waves. We were to the south of Samos, leaving behind its bare, rocky coast on the port side. It was a luminous blue morning, marred only by a faint trace of mist on the strip of land to the east. The five galleys were in full pursuit, with sails and oars working; two lay ahead of us, nearer to Samos, and another two behind, forming a line that gradually shrank as we converged on the galley and the mahone. They, in turn, were trying desperately to escape along the strait between the island and terra firma or else find some beach on which to take shelter.

The day, however, was ours, and even the most inexperienced soldier on board realised it. The north-west wind wasn't blowing hard enough to drive the heavy mahone along, and its galley escort, of course, had to remain by its side. Meanwhile, our galleys, spaced out about a mile apart, were visibly gaining on them. We had begun our approach when, almost simultaneously, the men on the caique and a tiny puff of smoke from the isle of Fournoi told us that the enemy ship's sails had been spotted. At first, the Turkish uniforms and the general appearance of our ships had confused the new arrivals — later, we learned that they had mistaken us for galleys from Mytilene sent to escort them — and so they had kept their course, unsuspecting. However, the scales had soon fallen from their eyes when they saw the way we were rowing and manoeuvring the galley. And so the Turks tried to set course for the north-east, with the mahone to leeward of the galley, the latter trying to interpose itself and cover the larger ship's flight.

Now the chase was as good as over. The Maltese flagship was already near the coast of Samos and would reach the strait first; the
Caridad Negra
had its ram pointing at the Turkish galley; and the
Mulata,
along with the
Virgen del Rosario
and the
Sari Juan Bautista,
slightly to starboard of us, was heading straight for the mahone, whose three masts — trinquet, cross and lateen — had now all filled with sail.

'Fetch your weapons and to your posts!' Ensign Labajos shouted. 'We're going to board her!'

At the stern, the drumroll beat out the rallying call and the bugle sounded the attack. The corridors seethed with people preparing for battle. The master gunner and his assistants were readying the cannon in the central gangway as well as the
pedreros
mounted on the sides of the ship. The rest of us had padded the pavisades with shields, palliasses, blankets and packs to protect us from Turkish fire, and we were now making our way to the chests and baskets from which we would take our heavy weapons. The galley-men were still rowing, drenched in sweat, their eyes popping from their heads, chains clanking, and to that sound, from prow to stern, was added the clank of metal armour and weapons being strapped on by the soldiers and the sailors who had been designated either to defend the galley or to board the other ship. All of this equipment was vital in close combat: breastplates, morions, shields, swords, harquebuses, muskets, pikes and half-pikes with the end of the shaft greased so that the enemy could not grab hold of it. Smoke was rising from the harquebusiers' match-cords and the linstocks ready in their bowls of sand. The skiff and the other small boat were in the water, being towed along at the stern. The cook had put out the oven and any other fire on board, and the pages and cabin boys had washed down the deck with sea-water so that neither bare feet nor espadrilles would slip.

At the stern, under the awning, along with the pilot and the helmsman, the Captain was barking out orders: "Row, my lads, row, a quarter to port, damn it, now to starboard, row, you buggers, row, slacken that rope, tighten that halyard, row hard, the dogs are ours now, row or I'll have the skin off your backs, you wretches, yes, by God's teeth and the holy host, we're gaining on the bastards." Luther could not have put it better, for no one blasphemes like a Spaniard in a storm or in combat.

The fighting on the mahone was hard. We arrived first, just as the
Caridad Negra,
which was slightly closer to the island than we were, rammed the Turkish galley; and we heard the distant sound of firing and the shouts of Machin de Gorostiola and his Basques as they rushed on board. Meanwhile, every eye on the
Mulata
was fixed on the black portholes open along the sides of the mahone. There were six cannon on each side, and when the mahone saw that she could not avoid us, she turned two or three quarters to port and unleashed a volley which, even though it struck us only a glancing blow, took down our trinquet sail along with the four sailors who were, at that moment, hauling it in to secure it. Their guts were left hanging grotesquely from the rigging. Another such volley would have done much greater damage, because galleys have very fragile frames. The experienced Captain Urdemalas, however, foresaw this: when the helmsman hesitated, the Captain pushed him out of the way — indeed, he very nearly stuck him with his sword — and flung the tiller to one side so that we were heading instead for the stern of the mahone. This, as I said, was as high as that of galleons and carracks, but had no cannon, therefore allowing us to get close without too much risk. The
Virgen del Rosario
bore the brunt of the second volley, which came from the other side, and that, it seemed to us, was the lesser of two evils. After all, these things must be shared out, and Jesus Christ may have told us all to be brothers, but not to be arrant fools.

'Prepare to board!' Ensign Labajos roared.

We were almost within harquebus range, and if the oarsmen did their job well, the Turkish gunners would not have time to recharge the cannon. I slung a small shield over my shoulder, and with my steel breastplate on and my helmet, with my sword in its sheath, I joined a group of soldiers and sailors with grappling-irons at the ready. At the prow, the sail on the broken yard had been taken in and stowed, and the mainsail was furled and at half-mast. The embrasures were packed with men bristling with metal. Another large group, gathered around the felled trinquet sail and near the fighting platform atop the bow, were waiting for our artillery at the prow to fire so that they could occupy the foredeck and the ram. Among them I could see Captain Alatriste, who

was blowing on the match-cord of his harquebus, and Sebastian Copons, who was, as usual, tying an Aragonese scarf about his head. I too was wearing such a scarf, on top of which I wore my helmet, which was very heavy and hellishly hot, but since we would be climbing upwards to board the ship, it seemed advisable to protect one's belltower from storks. As we drew close to the mahone, my former master saw me there, as I had seen him, and before looking away I noticed that he nodded to the Moor Gurriato, who was by my side. The Moor nodded back.

I don't need either of you, I thought; but that was all I had time for, because at that very moment, the cannon in
the
gangway and the moyens on the prow fired off some chain shot to shatter the enemy ship's rigging and leave it without sails.
Pedreros
, harquebuses and muskets blasted them, too, the last filling the galley deck with smoke, which, in turn, was filled with Turkish arrows and lead and stone pellets that penetrated planks and flesh alike. We had no option but to grit our teeth and wait, which is what I did, crouched and afraid that a few of the many things falling on us would fall on me. Then the galley hit something solid, which made the whole vessel shudder and creak. The galley-slaves let go of the oars and, screaming, sought shelter among the benches. When I looked up, I saw above our heads, in among the clouds of smoke, the enormous stern of the mahone, which seemed to me as tall as a castle.

'Forward for Spain! Attack! Attack!'

Men were yelling furiously as they crowded onto the prow. No one was there simply because he had to be, apart from the oarsmen, of course; we knew that here was a prize that could make us all rich. The grappling-irons were thrown, and the lateen yard of the mainmast was lowered so that it rested on the side of the enemy ship for our men to climb along it.

With the galley heeled slightly to starboard, the troops — and I was among the first — shinned up the ropes on the mahone as if they were a flight of steps.

Lope Balboa, that soldier of our King, slain in Flanders with great pride and honour, would not have been ashamed of his son that day, watching me scale the high side of that Turkish mahone with all the youthful agility of my seventeen years, up to that place where your only friend is your sword, and where living or dying depends on chance, God or the Devil.

As I said, the fighting was fierce and lasted more than half an hour. There were about fifty janizaries on board, who all fought valiantly and, grouped together at the prow, killed quite a number of our men. The janizaries, Christians by birth, had been taken as children by way of a tax or tithe and had then been brought up in the Islamic faith to show unthinking loyalty to the Great Turk. It was a point of honour among them to fight to the bitter end, and they fought with extraordinary ferocity. We had to fire on them several times at point-blank range with our harquebuses — which we did gladly, for they had done the same to us through the portholes, hatchways and grilles as we were climbing up. Then we had to go in with shield and sword to finish them off and seize the mainmast, which they defended like rabid dogs.

I fought hard, although without letting myself get too carried away, protecting myself with my shield and lunging forward, always looking around me, as the Captain had taught me to do, only taking a step when I knew it was the right moment, and never retreating, not even when I felt Corporal Conesa's brains — blown out by a harquebus shot — splatter onto the back of my neck. The Moor Gurriato was beside me, scything his way through the crowd, and our comrades were not far behind. And so, step by step, sword thrust by sword thrust, we pressed the janizaries hard, driving them back as far as the trinquet sail and the prow itself.

'Sentabajocane!'
we screamed at them in lingua franca, calling on them to surrender. By then, the men from the
Virgen del Rosario
and the
San Juan Bautista
were coming at them from behind, boarding at the prow, with the Spaniards shouting out the name of Santiago — St James — and the Maltese Knights that of St John. Once the three galleys came together, the sentence had been read. The last of the wounded and exhausted janizaries, who had, until then, been hurling insults at us —
guidi imansiz
, which, in Turkish, means 'infidel cuckolds' or
bir mum,
'sons of bitches' — suddenly changed their tune and started addressing us as
efendi
and
sagdic,
'sirs' and 'skippers', begging us to spare their lives,
Ala'iche,
'for the love of God'. Once they had finally thrown down their arms, a large part of our squad began scouring every corner of the ship and tossing bundles of booty onto the decks of our galleys below.

By God, we had a good day, stealing right, left and centre. For a while, permission was given to plunder freely, and we took our captains at their word, for the mahone was more than seven hundred tons and was carrying all kinds of merchandise: spices, silks, damasks, bales of fine cloth, Turkish and Persian carpets, gemstones, seed pearls, silverware, and fifty thousand gold coins, not to mention several barrels of arrack — a Turkish liquor — to which we all paid lavish homage. Smiling like Democritus himself, I stole along with the best of them, without waiting for the general share-out, and by God I deserved it, for I was one of the men who had made the Turks work hardest, and had been the first to stick my dagger in the mainmast as proof that I was there, for this brought both honour and the right to a larger share of the booty. Testament to how hard I had fought were the seventeen Spaniards who had died boarding the mahone, as well as the various dents in my helmet and breastplate, and the bucket of water that was needed to wash the blood off me — other men's blood, fortunately.

Captain Alatriste and Copons had boarded at the stern, fighting first with harquebuses and then with axes and swords, breaking down doors and pavises behind which the Turkish officers and some of the janizaries had barricaded themselves. I later found out that when Captain Alatriste asked the Moor Gurriato how things had gone on my part, the Moor had summed up the situation elegantly, saying that he would have had a hard time keeping me alive if I hadn't roundly despatched everyone trying to stop him doing just that.