The Pirates of the Levant (30 page)

'Bloody honour,' Sergeant Quemado said. They all looked at each other solemnly, as if there were nothing more to be said. They would have given anything to be able to find alternative words, but there were none. They were professional soldiers, rough men-at-arms, and rhetoric was not their strong point. They could allow themselves few luxuries, but choosing where and how to end their lives was one of them. And that was what they were doing.

'We have to turn round and fight,' Ensign Labajos said. 'Better that than running away like cowards.'

'As the Captain said,' Sergeant Quemado put in, 'it's a choice between dining with Christ or in Constantinople.' 'With Christ it is then,' Labajos said sternly. Everyone turned to Captain Urdemalas, who was still stroking his sore cheek. He shrugged, as if leaving the decision

to them. Then he glanced over the stern. In the distance, far behind, the Maltese ship was still embroiled with the three Turkish galleys, battling away amid smoke and harquebus fire. Between them and the
Mulata
lay the
Caridad Negra,
about to be caught by her pursuers, the enemy ships seething with people ready to board. He turned back to face his men, resigned to the inevitable.

'There are five galleys,' the pilot Braco reminded them glumly, 'plus the others who will arrive once they've finished off the Maltese crew.'

Labajos removed his hat and threw it down on the deck. 'There could be fifty of them for all I care!'

Captain Urdemalas was studying Diego Alatriste, who was clearly keeping his opinions to himself, for he was the only one who had not yet spoken. Alatriste nodded soberly. Words were not what was expected of him.

'Right,' Urdemalas said, 'let's go to the aid of those Basques. They'll be glad to know they're not going to die alone.'

Chapter 11. THE LAST GALLEY

What Lepanto was like I do not know, but I will never forget the battle of Escanderlu: the deck shifting beneath our feet, the sea always ready to swallow us up if we fell, the shouts of men killing or dying, the blood pouring down the sides of the galleys, the air thick with smoke and fire. There was still no wind and the water remained as smooth as a sheet of tin, while, in the distance, the strange silent storm continued to unleash its lightning, a remote imitation of what men are capable of doing with their will alone.

Once the officers had reached a decision, and we men had screwed up our courage for what lay ahead, the helmsman turned the galley round so that we could go to the aid of the
Caridad Negra.
She was now locked in battle with the first of the Turkish galleys, its deck filled with furiously fighting men, with shouts, screams and the sound of shots being fired. On the basis that it would be better to fight together rather than separately, Captain Urdemalas performed a brilliant manoeuvre. With the help of some skilful rowing elicited from the exhausted oarsmen by more lashes, he placed our prow right at the stern of the flagship, so that the galleys were virtually touching, allowing us to pass from one to the other if necessary. You can imagine the relief and the shouts —
l
Ekin! Ekinf —
that greeted our arrival, because by the time our prow touched their stern, Captain Machin de Gorostiola and his men, although still stoutly fending off the boarding parties from the two enemy galleys, had basically given up any hope of winning. Another two galleys were heading towards us; the fifth was approaching from the rear, hoping to batter us with its artillery before attempting to board. We had tied ropes and hawsers around the masts to keep the two Spanish vessels together, forming a kind of fortress besieged on all sides, the difference being that we were in the middle of the sea, and the only 'walls' we had to protect us from the enemy assault were the pavisades that were becoming ever more tattered and holed by the hail of bullets and arrows and by our own fire, pikes and swords.

'
Bir mum kafir!... Baxa kes!... Alautalah!'

The janizaries were extraordinarily valiant. They came on board in waves, urging themselves in the name of God and the Great Turk to cut off the heads of these infidel dogs. And such was their scorn for death, one would have thought the houris of Mohammed's paradise were right at our backs. They clambered along the rams of their galleys, even running along the yards of their own ships or across the oars, which they leaned against the sides of our galley. Their battle cries and guttural shouts were terrifying, as was their appearance — brilliant caftans, shaven heads, tall hats and large moustaches — and their scimitars, which they wielded with deadly precision.

God and King were nevertheless well served, for the Spanish infantry, in the face of the enemy's valour and scorn for death, still had a few cards up its sleeve. Each wave of Turks crashed into the wall of our harquebuses and muskets, which unleashed volley upon volley. It was remarkable how, in the midst of all that madness, our old soldiers remained as serene as ever, calmly firing, reloading and firing, occasionally asking pages and cabin boys to fetch them more ammunition. And us younger folk, lithe and more agile, attacked in good order, first with pikes and half-pikes and then, in close combat, with swords, daggers and axes. This combination of lead, steel and sheer courage more or less kept the enemy at bay, biting and nipping at them like a dog with fleas; and the fragile redoubt of the
Caridad Negra
and the
Mulata
continued to spit fire at the five Turkish galleys surrounding them. Some drew nearer while others retreated so that their crew could rest, attack with more artillery fire and then try to board again, and after a long period of intense fighting, it became clear to the enemy that victory was going to cost a great deal of their blood and ours.

'Forward for Spain and Santiago! Attack! Attack!'

The show, as they say, had only just begun, and we were already hoarse with shouting and sick of the smell of smoke and blood. Others, less constrained, hurled insults at the Turks in whatever language came most naturally — Castilian, Basque, Greek, Turkish or Frankish — calling them dogs and sons of whores, and
bardag
, which, in Arabic, means 'sodomite', not forgetting the pig that impregnated some Muslim mother and other such pleasantries. The Ottomans responded with imaginative variants in their own tongue — the Mediterranean has always been particularly fertile in insults — on the debatable virginity of Our Lady or the dubious manhood of Jesus Christ, as well as acerbic comments on the chastity of the mothers who bore us. It was, in short, all very much in accord with the place and the situation.

Bravado apart, we all knew that for the Turks it was merely a question of patience and keeping up the attack. They had at least three times as many men and could cope with any losses, withdrawing now and then to rest and regroup without ever giving us a moment's respite. Moreover, whenever we managed to fight off one of the enemy galleys, it would take advantage of the greater distance to fire on us to devastating effect. As well as the cannon-ball itself, there were the splinters and fragments that flew in all directions, demolishing the pavisades that were our only protection.

Bodies were blown to pieces, and there were guts, blood and debris everywhere. In the water, between the ships, floated dozens of corpses, either men who had fallen in while boarding or dead men who had been thrown in to clear the decks. Many galley-slaves — ours and theirs — had been killed or wounded. Still in their chains, unable to seek protection, they clung together among the benches and beneath their broken oars, shrieking in terror at the furious attacks from both sides and begging for mercy.

AlautalahJ Alautalah!'

We must have been fighting for at least two long hours when one of the Turkish galleys, in a skilful manoeuvre, managed to position its ram right by the prow of the
Mulata,
and another great horde of janizaries and Turkish soldiers poured on board, determined to overwhelm us.

Our men fought like tigers, defending every inch of deck with remarkable courage, but the Turks were stronger than we were, and gradually we had to relinquish control over the benches and the fighting platforms at that end of the ship. I knew that Captain Alatriste and Sebastian Copons were there somewhere, but in the smoke and confusion I couldn't see them. An order came to cover the breach, and as many of us as were able rushed to do just that, filling the gangway and the corridors on both sides. I was among the first, for I was not prepared to stand by while they made mincemeat of Captain Alatriste.

We closed on the Turks just beyond the mainmast, the yard of which lay on the deck. I jumped over it as best I could, shield and sword before me, trampling over the wretched oarsmen who were crouched between the benches and the shattered oars. One, in his agony, even grabbed my leg. He looked like a Turk, so I dealt him a blow with my sword that almost severed his manacled hand. In situations of such pressing danger, reason has no place.

'Forward for Spain and Santiago! Attack!'

Finally, we fell upon the enemy, and again I was among the first, caring little for my own safety, so caught up was I in the fury of the fighting. A swarthy Turk came at me, as hairy as a wild boar. He was wearing a leather helmet, shield and sword. Before he even had time to make a move, I closed on him, shield to shield, and grabbing him round the neck — my fingers slipping on his sweat-slick skin — I managed to unbalance him and deal him a couple of thrusts with my sword before we both fell to the deck. I tried to get his sword from him, but it was tied to his wrist. Then he grabbed the edge of my helmet, intending to push my head back so that he could slit my throat, meanwhile uttering the most fearful of screams. Silently I felt behind me, took out my dagger and stuck it in him two or three times, inflicting only minor wounds, which seemed to hurt him nonetheless, because his screams took on another quality. He stopped screaming altogether when a hand pulled back his head and a curved dagger sliced open his throat. I scrambled to my feet, feeling bruised and wiping the blood from my eyes, but before I could thank him the Moor Gurriato was already furiously stabbing another Turk. And so I put away my dagger, picked up my sword and my shield and returned to the fight.

'Sentabajocanef
yelled the Turks, as they attacked.
Alautalah! Alautalah/'

That was when I saw Sergeant Quemado die. In the ebb and flow of combat, I had ended up at his side. He was gathering a group of men to attack the janizaries on the fighting platforms. We leapt onto the galley benches — there was scarcely an oarsman left alive — and fought our way along the corridors, gradually retaking what they had taken from us, until we reached our trinquet mast and the ram of their galley. It was then that Sergeant Quemado, who had been urging on any laggards, was hit by an arrow that pierced his cheeks from side to side. While he struggled to remove it, he was killed stone-dead by a shot from a harquebus. This caused some of our men to hesitate, and we nearly lost what we had gained, but then we raised our faces to heaven — although not to pray exactly — and attacked like wild beasts, determined to avenge Quemado or to die there on the ram of that Turkish galley.

What happened subsequently beggars description, and I will not say here what I did — only God and I know that. Suffice it to say that we regained the prow of the
Mulata,
and that when the battered Turkish galley turned and retreated, not one of the Turks who had boarded our ship went with it.

And so we spent the rest of the day, as stubborn as any Aragonese, withstanding volleys of artillery and repelling successive boarding parties from not just five galleys now, but seven. The three-lanterned flagship and the other Turkish galley had joined the fight in the afternoon, bearing the heads of Brother Fulco Muntaner and his Knights impaled on their yard-arms. And by way of a trophy, for it would bring them little in the way of booty, the Turks were also towing the shattered
Cruz de Rodas,
which was now as flat as a pontoon. It had been no small feat to take it either, for the Knights had fought so ferociously that, as we learned later, not one was taken alive. Luckily for us, neither the Ottoman flagship nor its escort was in any state to fight again that day, merely approaching now and then to relieve the others or to fire on us from a distance. The third Turkish galley, badly damaged

in the battle, had sunk without trace.

*****

By late that evening, both the Ottomans and we Spaniards were utterly exhausted, but while we were comforted that we had been able to resist so great a number, they were enraged because they had been unable to break our spirit. The sky was still stormy and the sea still the colour of lead, which only accentuated the grim nature of the scene. As the light faded, a slight westerly breeze got up; but being a shoreward wind, it was of no use to us. Not that even a favourable wind would have changed the situation, for our ships were in a terrible state. The rigging was peppered with bullets, the yards had been toppled and the sails reduced to tatters; the
Caridad Negra
had lost its mainmast, which floated beside us along with corpses, ropes, planks and broken oars. The cries of the wounded and the stertorous breathing of the dying rose like a monotonous chorus from the two galleys, which remained tied to each other. The Turks had retreated a little towards land, until they were about a cannon-shot away; there they threw their dead overboard and repaired rigging and other damage, while their captains met in council. We Spaniards could do nothing but lick our wounds and wait.