The Archer's Return: Medieval story in feudal times about knights, Templars, crusaders, Marines, and naval warfare during the Middle Ages in England in the reign of King Richard the lionhearted (14 page)

     Two weeks later the ninth evacuation galley arrives and the merchants are so convinced there will be a tenth that, as a well appreciated courtesy, they pay in full so I can leave for Malta and England.  Late that evening we board the big galley, row out of the harbor with two of our best Marine archers at every oar and six prize crews to spell them, and a virtual king’s ransom in gold coins as our ballast. 
The crusaders may take Constantinople but by God they won’t get all its gold.

       What’s good indeed is who is commanding the ninth galley – it’s Harold, by God.  I’d know that red hair and the way he stands anywhere.  We wave enthusiastically to each other as his men prepare to throw their mooring lines and some of our men trot down the shore to catch them and pull his galley to a stop despite the moving current.

       “Hello you old goat,” I shout as he jumps over the rail with a big smile and we pound each other’s shoulders.  “I’m surprised to see you.”

       “Well I got all the galleys off to where they should be and there was nothing more for me to do – so I decided to send Angelo to Malta in my place and come and see for myself what devilment you’ve got us into this time.”

       Randolph and I spend most of the day hearing Harold’s news and telling him stories about what’s happening here and showing him around our camp and the city.  And we drink a few bowls of wine to keep our throats wet whilst we talk.  We have a grand old time for a former galley slave and two old archers who were poor as church mice a couple of years ago.

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       Randolph and many of our captain sergeants are on the moonlit dock as we leave in the middle of the night.  Our men have already broken through the city wall and the barriers sealing off each end of our concession are mostly up.  We’re rich and we’re suddenly very short of the one thing we thought we had in excess – galleys to send from Cyprus to the Holy Land ports.

       Our big problem at the moment, of course, is very big indeed - everyone in the city knows we are leaving and will undoubtedly be taking a huge amount of gold coins with us. 

      
I thought about announcing to everyone that, because of the gold, we’d be going back to Cyprus to deposit it before heading to Malta.  But then I decided against it – it might attract the pirates or the king to attack Yoram’s compound and the men we’ve left behind.
 

       But we’re not exactly dumb are we?  Of course not; we load row out of our moorage in the middle of the night and we don’t take the best route through the Turkish and Greek islands or even the second or third best routes.  We go far out of our way in the wrong direction before we turn and head for Malta. 
I may be a bit slow sometimes but I’m not stupid. 

                                    Chapter Ten

       Our voyage to Malta is different from that of most galleys.  We’ve got a very large crew of the best fighting men in the world.  And perhaps even more importantly in terms of getting through to Malta, we’ve loaded a cargo primarily of water and bales of arrows and we are going to sail down the middle of the Mediterranean instead of following the coast.  We’ll be hard to find if anyone is interested in trying to separate us from our coins – and even harder to catch if they do.

       All goes well until we have Malta is in sight.  It is the peak of the sailing season and we see various ships coming and going in all directions.  Mostly they turn away and run.

       Sighting Malta and seeing a fleet of waiting galleys happens at virtually the same moment.

       “Land ahead, Land ahead,” comes the cry from the lookout on our mast.  Almost immediately comes another shout.  “Ships to the north; galleys they is.”

       A few minutes later and the lookout’s cry is more ominous.  The galleys have turned towards us and there are a dozen or more.  Pirates for sure and they’ve got more of the wind than we do.  Worse, the pilots for our galley and the prize crews are on deck and are in agreement – the port we want is to the north.  We’ll have to fight our way through.  
Or do we?

       I climb the mast to see for myself.  It’s true.  So I heave a big sigh and start down.

       “Harold,” I shout while I’m still climbing down, “It’s time to do another wounded bird.”

       He laughs when I tell him the plan. 

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       Within minutes we have turned south with our sail up and we’re running before the wind with the pirates in hot pursuit.   Our archers are resting at their oars and talking cheerfully among themselves.  Some are napping.  I’d gone down to the rowing decks and explained my plan to them.  To a man they like it.  And they should - they’re almost all veterans and see no reason to risk their lives if it can be avoided by a bit of rowing and a few more hours at sea.

       My plan is simple.  We’ll head south and go the long way around the island until we reach the harbor.  Of course, if the pirates figure it out in time they’ll just turn around and go back to the harbor and wait for us to show up again.  So we’re going to try to entice them to follow us – and so far it seems to be working.

       We are only showing and using oars from our lower rowing benches and within an hour the first of the pirates begins to slowly close between us.  Our strongest archers are on deck with their “lights” ready to go.  “Lights,” of course, are an archer’s arrows for maximum distance as opposed to their “heavies” which can punch through knights’ armor but don’t have so great a range because of their greater weight.

      Our rowing pace picks up more and more as the closest pirate gets closer and closer.   It is well within range of our archers and slowly closing the gap.  The other pirates are closing in as well and we are still not using our upper bank of oars as would be the case if we are short of rowers.

       Then we try to appear desperate by having our archers simultaneously launch a huge cloud of arrows.  This is exactly the response the pirates would expect from an enemy galley filled with archers desperately trying to get away. 

       It works; our closest pursuer drops back out of arrow range and we stop launching them.  The others come up but also stay back just at the distant edge of our archer’s range.  Then they once again surge forward and once again come within the distant reach of our archers.  And once again we launch a steady stream of arrows until they pull back.

      
Hmm.  They know we have archers and yet they are all coming forward to become targets; is this a pre-arranged effort to share the pain so that no pirate ship takes undue punishment until we run out of arrows and they can board us?  That’s what I’d do – if I don’t know the galley I’m after is so strongly crewed or has so many baskets of arrows on board.

       We are leading the unknown galleys further and further away from being able to turn back and go around the island the other way to beat us to the port.  After three or four hours most of them move up on us and we launch a heavy barrage of arrows at each pirate galley in turn.  And once again they fall back.  But before they do several of the closer pirates begin launching a few of their own arrows at us. 

        One of their arrows hits home and an archer not ten feet from me goes down with an arrow in his leg.  Then another is hit in the chest and killed on the spot. 
I’m glad I’m wearing my chain link shirt.

       “Is it time to turn for the port?” I shout to Harold.

       He nods and I nod back.  Orders are shouted and for the first time the oars on our upper rowing deck are unshipped and begin to be used.  With two strong men at every oar we quickly begin to pull away from our exhausted and bloodied pursuers.   In less than an hour they disappear behind us.

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       There are no pirates behind us when night falls and none in sight when approach the harbor the next morning.  Even so, we’re on high alert when we row into the harbor - because we don’t know what we might find.  Our concerns are unfounded.  What we find, as Harold earlier assured me we would, is almost all of our England-bound galleys from Cyprus.  Only one has not yet arrived.

       Cheering and waving erupts from the decks of our anchored and docked galleys as we row to the Cyprus dock and tie up next to a couple of fishing boats unloading their catches.  The various captains and senior sergeants quickly gather and, of course, old Brindisi hurries down to get the latest news. 

       There is nothing Harold and I can do but shake a lot of hands, clap a lot of shoulders, and repair to the nearby tavern to share our news and get theirs.  They’ve all heard that I’ve got a woman with me and I get more than a few winks and nudges and inquiries if they can do the same, some quite serious I think. 
Harold and I don’t share everything, of course; certainly not about all the gold bezants we are carrying or our plans for the galleys after we leave Malta.

       Even so, the old pirate knows about our gold coins and he tells me so as soon as he can walk with me to the alley for a piss and a private word.

       “Everyone knows about the gold coins you are carrying, my friend.  Even my old captains asked me for permission to go after it.  That’s probably why you are missing a galley.”

       “When did they find out?’ 
There’s no sense denying it.

       “Yesterday morning. An entire fleet of Venetian galleys came in straight from Constantinople and made inquiries.  They only stayed for a couple of hours while they were taking on water and asking around. Fortunately it was after most of your galleys came in or you would probably have lost more than one.  But you better take on supplies and leave before more of the local boys get the word.  I certainly don’t want the goddamn Venetians or anyone else in these waters taking galleys because they hope it might be your gold ship.  I’ve got a couple of galleys myself, you know.”

       “Who took my galley?  What have you heard?”

       “Well, someone probably took it.  All I know is that it wasn’t my boys because they’ve been in the harbor all week.”

       I take the old pirate’s advice and we all leave for England that very night.  Helen doesn’t even have a chance to do much more than set foot on the ground and make a brief visit to the market. 

       What Harold and I do not do is share our plans with our captains until late that afternoon when we are at anchor in the middle of the harbor and ready to leave. 

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       “Our plan is simple,” I tell the sergeant captains when they finish assembling on the deck of Harold’s galley.  “We’re going to rendezvous at the mouth of the Alarcon for water.  From there we’ll try to take some cogs and galleys from one of the Moslem ports.  The prize money will be the same as that for Algiers and payable in Cyprus.”  

      
The captains, of course, want to know which port; Harold and I, of course, tell them they’ll have to wait to find out. 

       “No one is to go ashore to the village at Alarcon – just dip the water you need out of the river and wait in the harbor.  If for some reason you are not there by the Sunday morning you are to water when and where you can and head for Cornwall without stopping at any Moslem ports between here and Lisbon.”

     Three days later we rendezvous at the mouth of the Alarcon and I give the captains their orders for our first target – nearby Almeria and all the ships and galleys in its port. 

       Almeria is a major Moslem port on the Spanish coast and tomorrow we’re going to do our usual – row in as if we own the place and cut out all the Moslem ships we can safely take away.  Afterwards our galleys and their prizes will rendezvous back here to the mouth of the Alarcon River to transfer food and water skins if they need them. 

       After we rendezvous the prizes will row for Crete and then on to Malta and Cyprus.  Our fleet of galleys, on the other hand, will head west into the Atlantic and rendezvous again at the mouth of the River Taquin to take on more water and get their new assignments.

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       It is quiet and it stayed quiet as we row into Almeria in the scorching hot sun of the early afternoon.  It is as if the place is deserted.  We quickly seize the only galley we find with slaves on its rowing benches and tow out the three cogs. 

        There are two other galleys in the harbor without slaves.  It would take too many of our men to man their rowing benches so the fire bundles are quickly lit to burn them both.  The only conflict is between two of our crews – they both board the prize galley at the same time and almost come to blows over whose prize it is.

       One of our captains shouts something over the water and Harold orders our rudder men to steer closer so we can hear.  Phillip has men on a possible prize with no slaves on its rowing benches.  He wants permission to tow it out and let a couple of sailors try to get the empty galley to Cyprus using its sail. 

       I shout back my agreement - so long as the men are volunteers and no Marine archers are involved. 
I fear we’ll need every one of our Marines later and sailing a galley that far without rowers sounds like a forlorn hope.
  I give an emphatic nod of my head and raise my thumb to signal my agreement. 

      
A few minutes later a thought hits me – I hope Phillip and his volunteers remember to check the galley’s water supply before they cast off the tow line; with such a small crew it is unlikely they’ll be able to maneuver their prize into a river mouth or anchor someplace to take on water.