Corsair (3 page)

While his fellow captives fed, Hector picked steadily at the knot in the rope that bound him to the ring bolt. It was some sort of complicated seaman’s knot but eventually he managed to work it loose. Holding the tether in a loop so it did not trip him, Hector moved across to talk to the villagers. He was feeling a little awkward. Though he had spent his summers among them, he did not know any of the older men very well. The difference in their backgrounds was too great; the son of a gentleman, however impoverished, had little in common with peasant labourers and fishermen. ‘Has anyone seen my sister Elizabeth?’ he asked, embarrassed to pose such a question when he knew that each one of the men must have his own immediate troubles. No one answered. He knelt beside the cooper, who had always seemed a sober and level-headed family man, and repeated his question. He noticed that the cooper had been crying. There were streaks where the tears had run down his face and mingled with blood that leaked from the gash in his chin. ‘What happened? Where’s my sister Elizabeth?’ he repeated. The cooper seemed not to understand his question, for he only mumbled: ‘God has made a second Taking. To Israel he promised a return from the captivity, yet we are twice punished and left in darkness.’

The man was a devout churchgoer, Hector recalled. Like all of the tradesmen, the cooper was a Protestant and regularly worshipped in the village chapel. It was the poorer sort – the fishermen and the landless peasants – who were Catholic, and they crossed to the island each Sunday to attend Mass with the friars. Hector, with his Protestant father and his Catholic mother, had never given much thought to this arrangement. He had little or no interest in religion, and veered as easily between one faith and the other as switching languages when speaking to his parents. He dimly remembered people talking about ‘the Taking’, but usually in hushed tones and he had never enquired further, believing it to be none of his business.

Deciding that he would have to take matters into his own hands if he was to find out what was happening, he rose to his feet and walked across to the ladder leading to the hatch. Climbing up, he started to beat rhythmically on the underside of the timber with his wrist fetters. Within moments he heard an angry shout and then the sound of running feet. Once again the hatch was opened, but only a crack, and for a brief instant he caught a glimpse of blue sky with white puffs of cloud before the end of a broad-bladed sword was thrust down to within a few inches of his face. He stood stock-still so as not to provoke the swordsman any further, then slowly tilted back his head so that he could look up and said carefully, first in English and then in Spanish, ‘Please can I speak with the captain?’ He was gazing past the blade and into the face of the same sailor who had brought the basket of bread. The sailor stared at him for a moment, then called out in a language Hector did not understand. Hector heard a murmured exchange and the hatch was opened wider and a second man, presumably a petty officer, was gesturing for him to climb up.

Clumsy in his manacles and with his tether still looped in his hand, Hector scrambled out of the hatch. After the stuffy darkness of the hold the world was full of light and sunshine, and he breathed deeply, glad to fill his lungs with fresh sea air and feel the breeze against his skin. He was standing on the deck of a fair-sized vessel, and though he was no sailor he could appreciate that the ship was making rapid progress over a sea of such vibrant blue that it almost hurt his eyes. When the vessel heeled slightly to a puff of wind he lost his balance and, recovering, glanced over the ship’s side. There, a musket shot away, a second ship was running swiftly on a parallel course, keeping pace with them. From the tip of each of her two masts streamed out long pennants, blood-red in colour, and at her stern flew a large green flag decorated with three silver crescent moons. The petty officer, a short and muscular man, was balancing easily on the sloping deck and waiting for him to speak. ‘Please,’ Hector said, ‘I wish to talk with your captain.’ The man’s dark brown eyes looked him over. Surprisingly the examination was not hostile, merely professional. Then, reaching forward to take hold of the young man’s tether, he led him like a cow to its byre as he strolled towards the stern of the vessel. There, under an awning, Hector saw the same white-bearded man who had struck him down so expertly with the pistol butt. Hector judged him to be in his late fifties, perhaps older, yet he looked trim and fit, and radiated authority. He was comfortably seated on cushions, a dish of fruit lay beside him, and he was exploring his mouth with a silver toothpick. Gravely he watched Hector and his escort approach and listened to what the petty officer had to report. Then, laying aside the toothpick, he said, ‘You have courage, young man. You put up a good fight, and now you do not fear what my men might do to you if you anger them.’

‘If it pleases your honour . . .’ began Hector, and then stopped abruptly. His mouth fell open. He had been about to ask what had happened to Elizabeth, and it had taken several seconds for him to realise that the ship captain had spoken in English. For a moment he thought he had misheard or was imagining. But no, the captain went on in English that was accurate, if a little hesitant, as though he was occasionally searching for the correct phrase. ‘Tell me, what were you doing in the village?’

Hector was so astonished that he could barely get his own words out. ‘I was a student with the friars on the island. With my sister. How is it . . . ?’ he faltered.

‘How is it that I speak your language?’ the captain finished the question for him. ‘Because I am originally from that village myself. Now I am called Hakim Reis, but once I was known as Tom Pierse. Though that is a long time ago now, more than fifty years. God has been kind to me.’

Hector’s mind was in turmoil. He could not imagine how this exotic mariner with his foreign dress and outlandish manner could claim to have come from a poor village on Ireland’s Atlantic coast. Yet the captain spoke English with the distinctive lilt of the region.

Hakim Reis saw his puzzlement.

‘I was just seven years old when I was taken. So too were my mother and father, two brothers and my grandmother. I never saw them again after we were landed,’ he said. ‘At the time I thought it was the greatest tragedy. Now I know it was God’s will and I thank him for it.’ He reached down and took a fruit, chewed on it, and then placed the stone back in the dish.

‘So I was curious to see what the place is like now. That is why I decided to pay a brief call, and what point would there be in a visit if I did not make a profit from it? I must admit that it is not as I remember, though of course I still knew the hidden landing place and how to approach without being seen. The village is smaller now, or maybe that is how it always seems when one revisits a childhood haunt. Everything has shrunk.’

By now Hector had recovered enough from his surprise to repeat the vital question that was preying on his mind.

‘Please,’ he tried again, ‘I would like to know what has happened to my sister. Her name is Elizabeth.’

‘Ah, the good-looking girl who was in the house where we found you. She clawed my men like a wild cat. Such ferocity must be a family trait. She came to no harm, and is safe.’

‘Where is she now? Can I see her?’

Hakim Reis wiped his fingers on a napkin. ‘No. That is not possible. We always keep the men and women apart. Your sister is aboard the other vessel.’

‘When will I see her again?’

‘That is in God’s hands. We are homeward bound, but at sea one never knows.’

‘Then where are you taking us?’

The captain looked mildly surprised. ‘I would have thought you would have been informed. Did not the older villagers tell you? There must be some who remembered the last time it happened. But of course they are of a different generation, or perhaps those who were left behind chose to forget.’

‘One of the men in the hold spoke to me of “the Taking”,’ Hector said.

‘So that is what they call it. Not a bad name. It was Murat Reis who commanded at the time, a great captain, and his memory is still revered. Foreign-born like myself, a Flamand by origin. Mind you, he did not have my local knowledge and so he was obliged to use a Dungarvan man as his pilot to guide him in.’

Hector recalled that no villager ever mentioned the name of Dungarvan town without spitting, and also some talk of a Dungarvan man being hanged as a traitor. The foreign captain was growing nostalgic. ‘When I was a boy I can remember my father forbidding my brothers and me from playing with the dirty children, as they called them. We were told that we would catch foul diseases if we did. He meant the Catholics, of course. In those days the village was remarkable for being home to so many Protestants. Tell me, is that still the case?’

‘I believe so, sir. There is a new landlord now, and he has enlarged the chapel. He strongly favours those of the Protestant faith. The Catholics must go for Mass to the friars on the island, and they try to do so without attracting attention.’

‘How little changes. The more I hear about the quarrels and rivalries between the Christians, the happier I am that I took the turban.’ Noticing Hector’s puzzlement, he added, ‘Some call it “turning Turk”.’

Hector still looked blank.

‘I converted to the True Faith preached by the prophet Muhammad, may he be honoured and glorified. It was not such a difficult decision for someone whose memories of home were only of cold and damp, and a place where everyone had to work like a drudge to pay rent to a distant landlord. Of course I did not convert at once, but after serving the man who bought me. He was a kind master.’

At last Hector understood. Maybe the shock of his capture combined with the blow to his head and his fears for Elizabeth had obscured what was now obvious: Hakim Reis was a corsair. He must come from one of the pirate states of Barbary on the coast of North Africa whose ships plagued the Mediterranean and the Atlantic approaches. They intercepted and robbed ships and carried off their crews into slavery. From time to time they also made slave-taking shore raids. Hector wondered how he could have been so slow on the uptake. One evening, several years ago, his father had entertained a local celebrity, the vicar of nearby Mitchelstown, who was renowned for having been held as a slave of the corsairs. Eventually the vicar had been ransomed, and he was much in demand at dinner parties when he would recount his experiences. Hector had been allowed to stay and listen, and he recalled a tall, rather haggard man with a husky voice describing the conditions in the slave pens. Hector struggled to remember his name. There was a joke to it, someone had raised a laugh by referring to a fish being caught by the bay. That was it, the reverend’s name was Devereux Spratt, and he was the captive of a foreign potentate called the Bey. Unfortunately the reverend had rather spoilt the pun by announcing primly that the jokester was confused in his geography of the Barbary states. The Bey was the title of the ruler of the state of Tunis, while he had been a prisoner of the ruler of Algiers whose title was Dey.

‘I beg you in the name of your Muhammad,’ Hector pleaded, ‘that when we reach our destination, you will let me speak with my sister.’

‘We will be at sea for at least another week.’ Hakim Reis gave Hector a shrewd glance, and Hector noticed that the corsair’s eyes were pale grey in contrast to the deep tan of his face. ‘Will you give me your word that you will make no trouble during that time, now you know that there is a chance you can speak to her?’ Hector nodded. ‘Good, I will order those fetters to be removed. And do not look so glum. Maybe your life will be blessed, as mine was, and you will rise to command a fine ship. Besides, you will sell for a higher price if you have a happier face.’ And to Hector’s astonishment he held up the plate of fruit and said, ‘Here, take a handful with you. They will remind you that life can be as sweet as you wish to make it.’

The captain spoke briefly to the petty officer, who produced a key and unlocked the manacles. Then he escorted Hector back to the hatchway and he gestured for Hector to go back down into the hold. Once again Hector heard the wedges hammered home.

He had expected his fellow captives to ask him what it was like up on deck. But most of them ignored his return. They were apathetic as though they had accepted their fate. Someone was muttering a prayer for salvation, repeating it over and over again. It was a depressing sound, and in the gloom he could not see who it was. The only person alert to his return was the elderly madman. As Hector settled himself back in his place, he crept up again and hissed, ‘Is it to be Algiers or Tunis?’

‘I don’t know,’ Hector answered, taken aback by the accuracy of the old man’s question.

‘As long as it’s not Sallee,’ muttered the old man, more to himself than to Hector. ‘They say it’s the worst place of all. Underground pens where you can drown in liquid shit, and chains so heavy that you can barely walk. They told me I was lucky to be in Algiers.’

‘Who are “they” and what do you mean by “lucky”?’ Hector asked, wondering what his fellow captive was babbling about. He was answered with another shifty look. ‘Trying to catch me out, are you? Well you won’t this time,’ the dotard wheezed, and suddenly grabbed at the young man’s hand and demanded fiercely, ‘What have you got there? Share! Share!’ Hector had forgotten about the fruit he had been given. He supposed them to be olives, though they felt more sticky. The old man snatched one away, and thrust it into his mouth. He began to drool. ‘Datoli, datoli,’ he gloated. Hector tasted one. On his tongue it was the sweetest fruit he had ever known, as if saturated in honey, and there was a hard pip in the centre.