Corsair Read online

  The noise and heat made a double blow. The consulate was situated halfway up the hill of Algiers, and its front door gave directly on to the main street which ran the length of the city, from the docks to the Kasbah at the upper end of the town. Never more than a few yards wide, with high flat-fronted houses on each side, the street was like a sultry ravine. Paved with worn stone slabs, it climbed so steeply that it had to be broken by occasional short flights of steps. The street also served as the main bazaar and emporium of the city, so walking along it meant stepping around stalls and dodging pavement vendors selling everything from vegetables to metalwork. Asses laden with panniers plodded up and down the slope, hawkers yelled, water carriers clattered tin cups against the brass flagons strapped to their backs. As the consul made his way slowly through the press of the crowd he wondered, not for the first time, whether he should retire and return to England. For years he had suffered the noise and heat of Algiers, and the roguery of its inhabitants. Yet he told himself once again that it was too soon to abandon the city. Property prices in England were rising so fast that he would not be able to afford the country estate on which he had set his heart.

  On the quayside, Martin found the Dey’s scribes already seated at the table where they would enter the new intake of captives in the city register. Martin knew the chief registrar slightly and bowed to him, a gesture of politeness which would do no harm as the Algerines, for all their villainy, valued good manners. The usual crowd of idlers had assembled to observe the landing of the prisoners and pass comments on their potential worth as slaves, while the first boatload of the captives had already been ferried ashore. Martin noted how bewildered and frightened the poor wretches looked as they gazed about them at the strange world into which they were being inducted. Glumly the consul concluded that the new arrivals were too fair-skinned to be Italians or Spanish, and he supposed they must be Dutch or English. The only prisoner taking an intelligent interest in his surroundings was a handsome, black-haired young man in his late teens. He was looking this way and that, apparently searching for someone. He seemed agitated. Beyond him was a short, pudgy man wearing a wig. He was standing slightly apart from his fellow captives and trying to look as though he was too superior to be in their company. Martin wondered if the man knew that his every action was telling his captors that he was worth a larger ransom.

  The consul moved closer to the table. The registrar’s assistant – a Greek slave who, to Martin’s knowledge, spoke at least eight languages – was asking each prisoner the same questions: his name, age, place of origin, and profession. Martin found it difficult to hear their answers over the chatter of the onlookers until, all of a sudden, there was a respectful hush and they turned to look towards the harbour. The captain of the corsair ship was himself coming ashore. The consul was intrigued. To get such a close glimpse of Hakim Reis was unusual. Hakim operated from whichever base suited him so he might as easily have brought his captives to Tunis, Sallee or Tripoli to sell. He was welcome wherever he landed on the coast of Barbary for he was acknowledged to be the most successful corsair captain of them all.

  Hakim Reis was dressed in an immaculate white gown edged with gold braid, and a scarlet turban decorated with a large ostrich feather. In his hand he held a light gold-headed ceremonial cane. He came up the landing steps with the brisk tread of a man half his age, though Martin knew the corsair must be at least in his late fifties. The consul watched as the corsair captain approached the registrar and stood beside the desk for a few moments. Martin guessed that he wanted to make his presence felt, so there was no false accounting. At that moment Martin heard someone calling out to him.

  ‘You, sir, you there!’ It was the portly man in the wig. He must have recognised the consul by his foreign dress. ‘If you please. My name is Josiah Newland. I am a mercer, from London. I need to speak with the King of England’s representative at once.’

  ‘I am the English consul.’

  ‘A fortunate encounter, then,’ said Newland, puffing slightly in the heat and instantly adopting a self-important tone. ‘Would you be so good as to send word by your most competent commission agent that Josiah Newland is taken and wishes to contact Mr Sewell of Change Alley in London, so that matters can be speedily resolved.’

  ‘There is nothing I can do at this time, Mr Newland,’ the consul replied calmly. ‘I am here merely as an observer. The Turks have a well-established routine which must be followed. Perhaps later, when the Dey has made his choice, I may be of assistance.’

  ‘The Dey? What has he got to do with it?’

  ‘The Dey, Mr Newland, is the ruler of Algiers and has the right to his penjic or portion. He takes every eighth slave, plus other benefits such as the bare hulls of all captured vessels. Tomorrow or perhaps the day afterwards when he has made his selection, I will see you again.’

  ‘One moment . . .’ the mercer was about to continue, but Martin’s attention had again been distracted. The registrar’s Greek slave wanted a word with him. ‘Your honour,’ began the slave, ‘my master asks me to inform you that most of the captives are from Ireland, one or two are English. He wishes to know whether you will accept their charge.’

  ‘Please tell your master that I will consider the matter, if he would be so good as to provide me with a list of names and other relevant details. I look forward to giving him my reply tomorrow.’

  A burst of angry shouts and the sound of blows interrupted him. Farther along the quay, a gang of slaves had been manoeuvring a great block of quarry stone preparatory to fitting it into a gap in the causeway which led to the island fortress. The massive stone had been balanced on a crude sledge with the men harnessed to it like draught horses. The stone had slipped and toppled sideways, and the overseer had lost his temper. Now he was cursing and laying about him with a whip. As the slaves were still fastened to the sledge, they were unable to avoid the lash. They scrabbled and ducked, trying to avoid the blows. It was some minutes before the overseer had vented his anger, and in that time the majority of the men received a thorough thrashing. Martin had witnessed many scenes like it. The great mole at Algiers constantly needed repairs, and its maintenance was the responsibility of the Dey. There was a very good chance that those slaves who were unlucky enough to be taken in his penjic would be assigned to this dangerous and backbreaking chore.

  Civilly Martin bowed again to the registrar and started walking back up the hill towards the consulate. He was already considering how best to arrange the fat mercer’s ransom. That transaction should not be difficult. The man exuded the selfconfidence of someone with access to ready funds, so a well-placed bribe would ensure that Newland was not sent to the bagnios. Instead he would be released into the consul’s care for the three or four months that the ransom negotiations would take. The Irish captives were a different matter. If they were Protestants, he could assist them in some small way as he did with their fellow unfortunates who were English or Scots. He could provide them with pocket money which, spread in judicious bribes to their goalers, might ease their life in the bagnio. Later he would reclaim the sum from London.

  But if the Irish were Papists, he would be throwing away his own cash. The tight-fisted bureaucrats in London would be sure to query his accounts, and he would never be reimbursed. Sourly he reflected that his own consular salary was three years in arrears. Still, he was in a better position than his colleague and sometime rival, the unfortunate consul for Spain. After four years he was still trying to negotiate the ransom of a Spanish nobleman being held prisoner in the most vile conditions. The captive was a Chevalier of the noble Order of the Knights of St John in Malta, whose ships were fighting an implacable holy war against the Muslims. The Barbary corsairs loathed the Knights, and the feeling was mutual. The Algerines wanted such a huge sum for the Chevalier that there was little prospect of him being released for several more years, if ever. In the meantime the Dey and his divan were stepping up the pressure on the Spanish consul. Recently the Spaniard and his local int
erpreter had been set upon in the street and beaten up. Now, for fear of their lives, they hardly dared leave their consulate.

  Martin tripped on a loose paving stone. The mishap made him uncomfortably aware that his feet, in his fashionable high-heeled shoes, were beginning to swell in the heat. He found himself looking forward to the moment when he could change back into his kaftan and slippers. Setting aside any further thoughts about the corsair’s captives, the consul concentrated on the steep climb back up the hill of Algiers.

  FIVE

  HECTOR STUMBLED THROUGH the next few hours. Numbed by his sister’s disappearance, he barely noticed what was happening as he was inscribed in the register, and he slept badly in the bleak holding cell where the captives were kept overnight. Again and again he wondered what might have happened to Elizabeth and how he might find out. But there was no opportunity to enquire. At first light he and the other prisoners were woken and, barefoot and still wearing the soiled clothes in which they had been captured, they were marched up the hill to the great building Hector had mistaken for the citadel. In fact it was the Kasbah, part fort, part palace. In a courtyard the men were mustered in three lines, and after a short wait the Dey’s head steward appeared. He was accompanied by three men whom Hector later knew to be two overseers from the public slave barracks and a Jew who was an experienced slave broker. The trio walked up and down between the lines, occasionally stopping to consult with one another or examine a prisoner’s physique. Hector felt like a beast in a cattle market when one of the overseers reached out to pinch his arm muscles, then prodded him in the ribs with the butt of a wooden baton. Finally, when the inspection was complete, the Jew in his black cap and black gown walked between the lines and tapped four men on the shoulder. Among them was the strapping young villager whom Hector had formerly seen going out to cut turf. As the four were led away by the guards, Hector heard the crazed grey beard standing beside him mutter under his breath, ‘Beylik, poor bastards.’

  The old man appeared to be in one of his more lucid moods, for he seemed to remember who Hector was, and announced his own name as Simeon. ‘You noticed, didn’t you?’ he asked the young man. ‘They took the strong ones. You were lucky not to be picked. Probably too skinny . . . or too beautiful,’ and he laughed coarsely to himself. ‘This is Algiers, you know. They keep their pretty boys close to home, not sent off to work as public slaves.’

  Hector was feeling light-headed in the heat. ‘What’s going to happen to us now?’ he enquired.

  ‘Off to the badestan, I expect,’ explained Simeon.

  The badestan proved to be an open square close to the Kasbah’s main entrance. Here a large crowd of Algerines had already assembled, and before Hector could understand what was happening, an old man had taken him by his arm in a friendly way, and begun to lead him around the square. It was several steps before Hector realised that he was in the hands of an auctioneer. There was a shouted demand from an onlooker. The old man stopped, then pulled the shirt off Hector’s shoulders so that the young man’s naked torso was exposed. A few paces further and at another request called from the crowd, the old man produced a thin, whippy cane and, to Hector’s shock, slashed it violently across his ankles. Hector leapt in pain. Even before he had landed, the auctioneer had repeated the blow from the other direction, so that Hector was forced to skip and turn in the air. Twice more during the circuit of the square, the cane was used and he was made to jump and spin. Then the auctioneer began to sing out what must have been his salesman’s patter, for there were answering calls from the crowd, and Hector guessed that they were making their bids. The bidding reached its climax and the auctioneer was making what seemed to be his last appeal, when a dignified-looking Turk stepped out of the crowd and came across to where Hector was standing. The newcomer was clearly a man of substance. His purple velvet jacket was richly embroidered, and the silver handle of a fine dagger showed above the brocade sash around his waist. On his head was a tall felt hat with jewelled brooch pinned to it. The man said something quietly to the auctioneer who reached up and placed his wiry hand on Hector’s jaw. Then he squeezed with a firm downward pull, and Hector involuntarily opened his mouth. The Turk peered into his mouth, seemed satisfied, and murmured something to the auctioneer who immediately led Hector back to his waiting companions.

  ‘I told them my age already,’ grumbled Hector to Simeon.

  His complaint was met with a gleeful chuckle. ‘It was not your age he wanted to know. But the state of your teeth.’ The smirking grey beard opened his own mouth and pointed triumphantly at his own teeth. The few of them that remained were brown and rotten. ‘Can’t chew with them,’ he crowed. ‘I’d be no good at all. Even though I’ve done my time.’

  ‘Where, old man?’ asked Hector, growing tired of Simeon’s vagueness.

  The dotard snickered, ‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ and would say no more.

  Hector looked back at the well-dressed man who had bought him. The same purchaser was now interested in the sailor Dunton, and was again talking with the auctioneer even as the guards began shoving all the captives back into line. Those who had not been stripped to the waist now had their shirts or smocks removed. Then the auctioneer walked down the line, followed by an attendant holding a clay pot and a small brush. In front of each man the auctioneer stopped, checked a document he was holding, and then said something to the attendant who stepped forward. He dipped his brush into the pot and made marks on the man’s chest in ochre paint. Looking down at the marks as they dried on his skin, Hector supposed they were numbers or letters, but whether they were the bid price or an identity number he did not know.

  CAPTAIN OF GALLEYS Turgut Reis had not intended to go to the badestan that morning, but his senior wife had hinted that he get out of the house so that she could have the servants do a more thorough job of cleaning his study. In her subtle way she let it be known that he was spending too much time poring over his musty books and charts, and he would be better off meeting up with his friends for cups of coffee and conversation over a pipe of tobacco. Indeed it was unusual for the Captain of Galleys to be in Algiers in the last week of July at all. Normally he would be at sea on a cruise. But this summer was out of the ordinary as well as stressful. A month earlier his galley, Izzet Darya, had sprung a bad leak. When hauled up for repairs, the shipwrights had discovered three or four areas of badly wormed planking that would have to be replaced. The Arsenal at Algiers was chronically short of timber as there were no forests in the neighbourhood, and the owner of the slipway had said he would be obliged to send away for baulks in suitable lengths, maybe as far away as Lebanon. ‘Those Shaitan infidels from Malta are running amok,’ he warned. ‘In previous years I could get deliveries brought by neutral ships. But this year those fanatics have been plundering everything that sails. And even if I can find a freighter, the charges are already exorbitant.’ And he had given Turgut a look which clearly told him that it was high time that the Captain of Galleys got himself a new galley, instead of trying to patch up the old one.

  But Turgut was fond of Izzet Darya and did not want to abandon her. He admitted that the vessel was old-fashioned, hard to manoeuvre and over-ornate. But then he himself was a bit like his ship – old-fashioned and set in his ways. His friends always said that he was living in the past, and that he should keep up with the times. They would cite the case of Hakim Reis. Hakim, they pointed out, had shrewdly switched from a vessel propelled by oars to a sailing ship which had greater range and could stay at sea for weeks at a time. The benefits were obvious from the value of the prizes that Hakim Reis was bringing in, the recent batch of captives for example. But, thought Turgut, Hakim was also blessed with remarkable luck. He was always in the right place at the right time to snap up a prize, while he, Captain of Galleys, might loiter at the crucieri, as unbelievers called the areas where the sea lanes crossed, and not see a sail for days. No, Turgut assured himself, he preferred to stick with tradition, for tradition had elevated him to be Capta
in of Galleys. That appointment, with all its prestige as the acknowledged head of all the corsair captains of Algiers, was not in the gift of the Dey nor of the divan, nor indeed of the scheming odjaks of Algiers. The corsairs of Algiers had their own guild, the taifa, which came together to nominate a leader, but the Sultan himself had indicated whom they should choose. He had nominated Turgut Reis in recognition of the family’s tradition of service in the Sultan’s navy, for Turgut’s father had commanded a war galley, and his most famous ancestor, his great-uncle Piri Reis, had been admiral of the entire Turkish fleet.

  Turgut, when he had received the news, had been both proud and a little anxious. At the time he had been living in the imperial capital and he knew that both his wives would be reluctant to leave. But there was no question of declining the honour. The Sultan’s wish was sacrosanct. So Turgut had rented out the family mansion on the shores of the Bosphorus, packed up his belongings, said goodbye to the other courtiers at court, and sailed for Barbary with his family and his entourage aboard the venerable Izzet Darya.

  Of course they had found Algiers very provincial compared to the sophistication of Constantinople. But he and his family had done their best to adapt. He had deliberately skirted around the local politics and tried to set an example to the other captains, to remind them of the old ways. That is why he still dressed in the courtly style, with full pantaloons hanging low, a resplendent waistcoat and an overmantle, and the tall felt hat, decorated with a brooch that he had received personally from the hands of the Sultan of Sultans, Khan of Khans, Commander of the Faithful and Successor of the Prophet of the Lord of the Universe.