Sir Naked Blade by Philip Lindsay - Chapter 01

1946 Genre: Mediterranean Swashbuckling / Historical Fiction

SWASHBUCKLING ROMANCE WITHOUT EQUAL!

The sweeping saga of an audacious young adventure who slashed and prayed and sinned his way through the wildest slave-pen of Alexandria to the sacred harem of the bestial Bey of Islam.

Chapter 1

THERE WAS NO escape for the Little Jesus. Becalmed in this glare of blue sea, with no whisper of wind out of the grayish sky, she lay as if yoked to the unbroken waters of the Mediterranean.

Sails drooped on the yards like dried skin and the pitch was hot and wet in the seams. Helpless, she lay while the pirate galleys heaved over the horizon, their oars lifting, falling, centipede-like legs swaying them close to the unmoving English victim. Low ruffs of foam stirred by the dipping blades were the only movement, it seemed, on that dark sea. The Little Jesus waited as if bewitched, as if damned, while her crew leaned on the bulwarks, watching silently, white-faced and steady-fingered. There was nothing further for them to do.

All was prepared for battle: cannon loaded, water-buckets filled, the slow-matches burning over them, while powder-kegs stood by pyramids of black shot. Guns and pistols were cocked, powder dry in the shut pans, swords were unsheathed and spat back the sunlight in flickering silver.

"Friends," said the master, standing unhatted on the poop, "it is time for prayer, for our time may be short. In the hands of God this day lie not only our souls but our sinful bodies and my ship's cargo. Let us pray God for the strength of David or Samson against these infidels. Only with the Lord's help can we conquer, for we are outnumbered beyond numbering. But let not your stomachs fall at that. We can have no mightier ally than God and this ship is God's ship in honor and love of His Son, while they have but their foolish Allah and his cheat Mohamed to shield them. Take heart then, fellows, and pray that we be not forgotten this day in heaven."

This master, Francis Leland, was a young man, yet at his words, the sailors turned to him like children to their father.

They stared up from the ship's waist, and as he bowed his head and went on his knees, his captain, old Gabriel Crouch, beside him; the crew knelt, unhatted and uncapped, on the hot deck and stared between their fingers at the polished golden boards ribbed with pitch.

In silence, all prayed while the pirate galleys grew out of hot mists that blurred them, shimmered about them as if they were dragons smoking to revenge the St. George on the flag.

No longer did the English watch their approach, their thoughts now being set on God to whom they turned as to a comrade Who had never yet failed them in extremity. Had He not placed a virgin on their throne-symbol of His own mother-bride-and-daughter—? And with virginity could not even unicorns and dragons be tamed to fawning spaniels? And had He not endowed the English with such spiritual strength that they—they said it themselves—could never be beaten?

"I told you," muttered old Crouch beside him, "I warned you"; and Francis started as if God Himself had suddenly answered his thoughts.

But it was only Crouch, old ever-grumbling Crouch, treating him, as usual, like a babe because he was over twice his age and had been his father's comrade.

"I gave you fair warning," he said, "God always has hated a sabbath-breaker. That's one of His own commandments which He writ for Moses, and what's a sailor to go in the face of Moses, not to speak of God? I told you, lad, I gave fair warning what to expect."

Sighing, Francis stood to his feet, almost glad to argue that he might tum from his fears.

"Even you, Gab,'' he said, "are no better Christian than I; so, quiet! or you'll have my father's ghost a-haunting you, for he's the one you're squabbling with: not me. He reared me, taught me my faith."

"Another of God's best commandments gone smash-o!" muttered Crouch, groaning and running his sword-blade between his fingers while he eyed the approaching Turks. "Not only sabbath-busting but maligning your own dad, and he as good a Christian as ever sailed with Hawkins, and there's no fiercer man than Captain Hawkins when it comes to our Lord. He'd wear your knees to blood, lad, if you sailed with him, he'd have you praying that often. Yea, he'd soon peel the skin off you for busting God's own Sunday and speaking disrespectful of your dad."

"I left on Sunday,'' said Francis, "because the tide was on the turn and the wind steady. And you know it."

"I know you're damned," said Crouch complacently. "I should have stopped you, and I know what your dad'll tell me when we meet; and that's not going to be so long, it seems, for we'll both be dead soon with those hell-hounds racing at us and God turning His back because of you. You're only a baby for all your smirk and your sword and your beard."

"Aren't they in range yet, gunner?" Francis shouted.

"No," said Crouch.

"Not yet, cap'n," said the gunner, sighting a cannon.

"Just what I told you," said Crouch. "Don't be impatient, boy."

Slowly the galleys grew out of the shimmering heat. They seemed, at first, like beetles, tiny and harmless, crinkling the blue with thin little legs. If only they would come yarely, yarely, and let the maddened spirit in his flesh, quivering from inaction, use this sword in his wet fingers! But they did not hurry, those enemy galleys, they did not seem to move while Francis watched, but he had only to turn aside, then to turn back to the lee-rail, and they had become larger, thank God, their masts lifting into the sky, their long metal prows gleaming, their oars growing separate in the flurry of foam. Through his spyglass, he could see the bright-massed warriors, their curved bows ready for shooting, their scimitars bright as glass.

He could see even the gunners holding slow-matches, even the gray tremble of smoke rising from those matches' scarlet tips.

The galleys were as silent as his own Little Jesus, the only movement from them being the rhythmic sway of the banks of semi-naked rowers chained leg and wrist, five to an oar.

The lateen yards were lowered and the sails brailed up, and on the poop of each, the reis, or captain, sat amongst helmed or turbaned knights under a gaudy canopy.

"They're going to surround us," said Crouch unctuously, as if delighted: "the damned hell-hounds."

The enemy was breaking its formation, the galleys were slowly fanning out, those in the center resting on their oars while two others circled outwards, one to take the Jesus bows on, the other to circle her stern.

"What do you make of the range?" Francis asked and was surprised to hear how calm, how ordinary sounded his voice.

"Six thousand paces?"

"Ay," muttered the gunner, crouching beside his piece and screwing up one eye as he sighted the foe. "Six, and over.

We must try our luck when they come within three thousand.

I know them galleys: they carry twenty-pounders with a pointblank range of a hundred and eighty paces. What can our ten-and-fifteen-pounders do against that, eh?"

"But we have the long-distance range of them, for all that.

Their heavy shot can't carry three thousand paces."

"Ay," grinned the gunner; "and at three thousand we get a target like a water-beetle to aim at!"

For all his grumbling, the gunner continued to squint towards the galleys, estimating their distance away. Steadily they approached, knowing that the Jesus' basilisks could out-range them but trusting to make the dash that would bring their heavier guns into point-blank range.

"You, Robin," cried Francis, "and you, Wicklow, try the range of her. Fire by the rim, for they're over the three thousand."

The red-tipped smoking match was dabbed into a touch-hole, the gray ash, fully an inch of it, crumbling on the metal, and as if stung to life, the cannon bounced against its tackling, throwing up its muzzle, when it roared.

Other cannon roared with it, cannon upon cannon, roaring, spitting huge balls in a blaze of fire and heavy stinking smoke, cannon upon cannon, roaring and up-ending the ship that groaned as her masts dipped towards the sea and as she righted herself, shaking and trembling while the last cannon roared and spat its metal in flame.

Smoke for a moment blurred Francis's vision, as if he had sailed into the midst of a dirty cloud, then as it cleared, he saw the leading galley rear like a kicked beast. Her metal prow, beaten to a lion's head, lifted its snout and, far from her though he was, Francis heard distinctly the snarl and scream of cracking timbers, then the wail of the hurt as the galley heeled over. Slaves were shrieking to be unlocked from their benches so that they might swim and possibly be saved, but the Moslems, their masters, took no heed. They leaped about the doomed vessel, swarming over the bulwarks, and their bald or turbaned heads spattered the water darkly, as if with ink, blots on the blue. Some clung to broken spars and oars and other timber, while the nearest galley backed water and flung out ropes. The slaves were bobbing up and down, seeming to bounce in the sinking galley, screaming while they tugged impotently at their chains as the water lipped up their legs. Then suddenly the galley plunged: she flung up her prow, then dived backwards and then down, and the living slaves went with her. Abruptly their howling ceased and all was quiet.

''They were Christians like us once," said Crouch. "And now they're mermaid-meat, the lot of them."

"The Lord have mercy on them," whispered Francis, licking his lips.

"Mermaid-meat, poor Christian flesh .... " Crouch nodded sagely and turned his bright old eyes on Francis. "You've not been far enough at sea to know that," be said scornfully; "all you know's the Channel and this fishpond. But I've sailed with Hawkins and I've seen the merfolk. Yea, I've seen them with these very eyes. The bitches kiss a man to death, they kiss and crunch him to death, lovingsomely, and then when they find what they've done to the poor fellow, they weep and blubber at it. Just like females on land, 'cept for their tails, and even that might not be so different, for how do we know what most women have under their petticoats? They eat only a fellow's eyes, and his tongue, and his nose, and his toes, and the tips of his fingers and his privies. For such be dainties to those scaly sluts .... "

Francis was not listening. He had heard Crouch's wondrous stories too often in the past to listen to them now, in this anxious moment. He was squinting against the sun, awaiting the opportunity to shoot again. As he could not sail in this calm, he could but trust in God to bring a galley into range.

But the pagans were cunning, being devils, careful to keep their slim prows, narrow targets at this distance, facing him.

''They've got blue hair,'' said Crouch. "At least, it looked like hair, being all slimy and weedy when I saw it. She came swimming, bold as a Dutch trollop, at me near the Indies, grinning cheerful she was, just like a woman ogling for a bed.

She'd a woman's face, eyes, nose, mouth, chin, ears, neck and forehead, and a woman's belly and bubs and arms, but her tail was just like a porpoise's, or a mackerel's, all speckled like .... "

One of the galleys darted ahead of the others, getting very close, and Francis dropped his arm to the gunner. This time the lower tiers flared and roared and spat their balls, swinging the Little Jesus over as if she had been hit in a sudden squall.

The main batteries were still cooling, the men reloading.

Francis glared through his spyglass from galley to galley, but none seemed seriously hurt. He saw one iron ball scud merrily over the water, bouncing until, suddenly, it sank.

"Near thing," said Crouch. "That dragon fellow ought to have got his . . . I bet those mermaids I was telling you of are biting their hair, the bitches. I was telling you . . . " He leaped aside as the galleys answered their fire.

"Down, Frankie, down!" he cried.

But Francis did not move. He was not afraid because he did not think to fear. Unaware for the moment of his body and the possibility of body's death, he watched the enemy, tense, hoping for a lick of wind that would give him the chance to act, watching the chance to shoot without wasting shot.

"Fire by the hollow, right against the mark, lads!" he cried.

Whenever the least chance offered, he dropped his arm to the head gunner, and the guns roared. Smoke hid the enemy in drifting patches. Above him, Francis heard the crack of wood giving as the upper yards on the mainstay snapped, struck by enemy fire, and splinters flew, ricocheting from deck to deck, slashing at the men, breaking bones, gouging flesh.

His ship shuddered and rolled as her guns answered the galleys.

Water fountained as if whales sported when balls plunged down. Arrows rained darkly. One thudded against Francis's morion and he shook himself with sudden fear, thinking he was hit.

Naked to the waist, the men snarled, sweating, as they labored at the guns, cleaning, loading, swinging the muzzles through open ports. Powder-monkeys scurried up from below-decks, bent with the weight of ammunition, coughing in the stinking whorls of sulfurous smoke. Some tumbled, wounded, dying or dead, and were hurled from bulwark to bulwark as the guns roared and heeled back the ship, guns wrenching and rearing at their breechings like animals in nets. Some wounded managed to crawl or stagger to the companionway to tumble below where the surgeon waited, as bright with blood as a butcher.

Smoke split with jagged red, smoke that seemed to knot itself inside your chest, to throttle you with coughing, smoke that scorched your eyes and stung your hands when burnt powder fell. Hot wads gleamed on the sails. Slow-matches burned calmly, tipped as if with rubies, placed over the water-buckets so that they could do no harm should they fall. At last, the Jesus was moving. It seemed to Francis that she sailed, but the guggle of water, the strain of timbers, the creak of ropes and flap of sail were not because of wind, but because of the guns rocking and bouncing.

Always, when smoke cleared momentarily, he saw the galleys creeping close. After that first lucky shot, his gunners had not hit a galley broadside on. They had but broken a few masts and pulped some rowers, snapped some oars. The galleys drew closer. They had but few guns, luckily, and those only on the prow, but they shot their arrows unceasingly and the decks of the Little Jesus bristled with shafts as if they sprouted little branches.

Francis leaned over the bulwarks, blinking. He caught his breath to see one galley lurch over, her oars crack-crackling when heavy chain-shot twisted on them, flinging the slaves high in the air to be jerked back by their manacles. Yet still the damned crippled ship came on. Another caught alight—for his gunners were using fire-shells as well as balls—she burst into scarlet under rolling gray-black smoke. Soldiers leaped on the flames, beating them out with wet sails and cloaks, and, with charred prow, she came on.

Then one shot went home, raked the midmost galley from stem to stem, smashing the stern-post and disabling the tiller.

Another hit her just above the water-line and she took the sea heavily by the inrush of her bow-wave. Useless now the oars, up-flung, twisting on other oars, knocking rower over rower, binding them in their own chains. Slowly sideways she drifted until a salvo caught her clean amidships, then gradually she sank, sagging on to the waters that lipped into her, filling her rapidly. The crew fought amongst themselves as they struggled to get free from the wreckage, the twisting tripping ropes, and dived overboard while the nearest galley backed water and tossed lines for them to catch.

But the other galleys did not pause, they came direct to the waiting Jesus. Now they were well within point-blank range and their heavy shot took terrible effect, for they fired high to disable the Jesus, one shot crashing into the poop-quarter, splintering its carved woodwork, while another slashed through the mizzen lateen-yard above the parral and down it came, tearing, screaming as it ripped the sail in half.

Feebly, at last, came a languid puff of wind astern, sufficient however to stretch the sails and the Jesus lopped forward, too late. Scarcely had she moved, trembling as though eager to escape, than a twenty-pound ball caught her foremast, just below the hounds. Almost knocked from his feet, Francis glared up and saw the topmast stagger, swayed back by the pull of the back-stays. For a moment, a moment that seemed anguished eternity, it hung, but the strain was too great for the bob-stay. The bob-stay parted and the bowsprit snapped off short abaft the fore-stay collar, while the pull of the wind in her fore-topsail tugged the topmast in a sweeping, rushing curve downward. The fore-yard parral gave and the whole white bulging mass of sails and splintering spars crashed down over the bows, smashing the forecastle-rail and smothering the guns at the fore-ports.

Helplessly, entangled in her own sails and rigging, the Jesus trembled a little but stayed still while the guns in the waist yet fired on the galleys closing in, and all the small-arms spat from the bows. But steadily the galleys came, the oars steadily rising, falling, as the overseers whipped the naked backs.

"Ready, men!" shouted Francis, his voice hoarse because his throat was burnt with powder-fumes. "Repel boarders!"

As he spoke, one iron-tipped prow crunched on the Little Jesus, pounding her amidships, splintering the four-inch oak timbers, and through the mists of powder, he saw the dazzle of armor, saw dusky faces under gay turbans and high helmets, heard the terrifying Moslem battle-cry rise, animal-sounding, above the uproar—Allah il-Allah!—as grappling-irons were flung and the Turks ran out along their straight prow and leaped into the main-chains, slashing from the shrouds at the men in the waist, and swinging off the shrouds on to the deck.

Francis swung his sword at a beaked face showing over the pavasse.

"God for merry England!" he cried.

Again, the Little Jesus lurched as another galley crunched against her, the carved prow rearing over the bulwarks like a serpent out of the sea. And now more Moslems came, uncountable howling bearded Moslems, leaping to the decks, and entering by the forecastle fore-ports and alleyway doors, driving the forecastle gunners out into the waist.

They came from everywhere, it seemed, and sudden madness blinded Francis and shook him. He sobbed to see these devils on his ship and sprang amongst them, reckless of wounds or death, to seek revenge for such sacrilege. Black devils on the Jesus. Their smoky faces split with white teeth, white eyes glaring, they were on all sides, plumed helmets and steel-topped turbans, bright cloaks and womanly kirtles.

He leaped down to the main-deck and swung his sword at a black giant and the blow on bone jarred to his elbow as the blade sliced the turban. Lugging it free in almost the same gesture as with which he had struck, he swung again at a lean rascal, caught him on the neck and tumbled him, shrieking, back.

Once more the Little Jesus shuddered as another galley pounded her sides and further blackamoors, slashing down the pavasse, tumbled on to the deck like monkeys from a tree. Francis saw Crouch beside him. The old man's face was purple and sweating yet his eyes were like ice in sunlight; the long gray beard was dabbled with red as if he had drunk blood; his morion was gone and the thin hair brushed back and forwards over his baldness with the rhythm of his blows;

and to his amazement, Francis laughed and shouted:

"Careful! or the mermaids'll get you!"

Crouch panted, "Guard your right, you fool, guard your right!"

Francis swung round in time to stab in the paunch a fat rogue who had lifted himself on his toes to bring down an ax with all his body's weight. Brown and black turbaned faces drifted about him in smoke as he pressed against the break of the quarterdeck. It was madness to fight, they were doomed, yet they fought.

Then he heard his boatswain shout, "Christ, they're behind us!" and he turned swiftly just as a tall Moslem leaped on his back and sent him sprawling. Even on the deck, he tried to struggle, punching at legs, until somebody hit him with the flat of a sword. He saw in a moment's frenzied horror the bright blade oily with blood swoop on him and he felt his skull jar so that he snapped his teeth together as pain swooped on him in red-shot darkness.

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