Stokely made to reply; then he clamped his jaw shut and pressed his lips together as he looked towards the corsair galley, surging across the calm water towards them. The eastern horizon was ablaze with the liquid glare of the sun just beyond the black mass of the far headland. A moment later the details of the corsairs were thrown into sharp outline as the first rays of sunlight lanced across the sea, causing Thomas and the others to narrow their eyes. The enemy were close enough for the sound of their cheers and the clatter of their blades against the sides of their round shields to carry clearly across the sea. The gap between the two galleys closed swiftly and now Thomas heard the first crackle of shots as the more excitable of the arquebusiers shot at the Christian vessel. Even though the range was long, still over two hundred paces, one of the gunners was struck in the head and his skull exploded as he tumbled back, showering his companions in droplets of blood, brains and bone splinters.
‘Why doesn’t La Valette give the order to shoot back?’ asked Stokely.
‘The captain knows what he’s doing.’
Another shot struck home, striking one of the soldiers in the stomach with a high-pitched clang as it pierced his breastplate and burst through the padding of his gambison. He dropped his pike as lie collapsed on the deck and rolled on to his side, groaning in agony.
‘Get him below!’ Thomas ordered and one of the soldiers set down his weapon and dragged the man over to the hatch just behind the foredeck and down the steps into the small hold where the galley’s food and water was stored. There he would lie until his wound could be seen to after the fight. If the corsairs won the day then that is where he would drown or be killed as the ship was looted.
By the time the soldier returned to his post, the distance between the ships had halved and still the cannon had not fired, even as musket balls whirred overhead or cracked into the timbers of the Swift Hind. Thomas saw the nearest gun captain raise his slow match towards the powder quoin and he shouted to the man.
‘Wait for the order!’
The gun captain looked round with a fearful expression, just as a brilliant flash came from the bows of the other galley. An instant later another. Then the air around Thomas was filled with a cacophony of cracking, clattering and the sharp ring of metal striking metal. Several of the crossbowmen at the bows were swept away, together with most of the crew of the larboard gun. Thomas was jerked round as something glanced off his breastplate and he staggered to the side to regain his balance. There was a brief hush across the deck before the cries and screams of the wounded broke out. Thomas glanced over his body but there was no sign of any wound. He looked up and saw Stokely clutching a hand to his cheek. Blood welled up beneath his gauntlet and dripped on to the polished steel of his gorget.
‘I’m wounded . . .’ he said in a shocked tone. ‘Wounded.’
Thomas pulled his hand away and saw that a chunk of his cheek had been tom away. ‘It’s a flesh wound. You’ll live.’
He turned to look over the deck and saw that perhaps a dozen men had been downed. Just then the surviving gun captain touched his slow match to the quoin of his weapon and there was a savage flash, a billowing cloud of smoke and a concussive thud that passed through the timbers of the galley and the bodies of those aboard her. Thomas saw the match in the lifeless hand of the dead gun captain and ran on to the foredeck to snatch it up. Crouching down beside the barrel he waited a moment until the smoke had cleared enough for him to see the corsair vessel looming directly ahead. There was just time to spring back and touch the glowing slow match to the powder, and the gun bucked violently as it discharged its weight of iron into the faces of the enemy.
‘Ship oars! Helm hard to port!’ La Valette’s voice cried from the stem.
The rowers instantly pressed down on their handles to raise the blades clear of the water and then began to haul them in as the rudder bit into the water and forced the bows round to pass down the side of the corsair vessel. A moment later there was a jarring collision and a long rumbling groan as the two hulls ground along each other. Some of the oars from each vessel had still not been withdrawn through the sides and there was a series of sharp splintering reports as the long lengths of wood shattered.
Before the Swift Hind had stopped moving La Valette had rushed down from the quarterdeck, sword in hand, and raced to join the party of armed men led by Thomas and the other knights. The captain glanced round to check that his men were ready and then pointed his sword over the bulwark towards the enemy. ‘For God and St John!’
CHAPTER THREE
La Valette clambered up on to the side rail and leaped over the narrow gap between the hulls and on to the enemy deck. Some of the crew had already begun to lob grappling hooks over the small gap and draw the two galleys together.
Thomas sucked in a deep breath, grasped his pike tightly in one hand and echoed his captain’s cry. ‘For God and St John!’
Then he, too, climbed on to the rail and jumped after La Valette. The veteran knight had already made his way into the middle of the corsair’s deck, swinging the long blade of his sword before him in a vicious arc to drive the enemy back and clear a space for the men following him- A handful of shots sounded from either side as the arquebusiers discharged their weapons and then cast them aside before drawing their scimitars and charging into the fight. Thomas thudded down on to the deck and looked quickly from side to side, then turned towards the nearest threat, a large turbaned man with skin as dark as coal. His eyes glittered above a thick beard. He carried a heavy scimitar in one hand and a brass buckler in the other. He charged across the deck towards Thomas, swinging his blade to knock aside the steel point of Thomas’s pike. Thomas let the point drop and cut under the corsair’s blade before he thrust at the robes covering his opponent’s chest.
Instinctively the corsair smashed his buckler against the shaft of the pike, knocking it aside so that it missed its target and ripped through the folds of his robe instead. Thomas snatched the pike back and presented it to his enemy again, feinting to keep the man at bay. On the periphery of his vision he was aware of La Valette’s sword cutting down into a skull in a welter of blood. On the other side, Stokely was leading a small party of men in a charge along the bulwark. A small gap had opened up between
Thomas and the black corsair, as if to provide a stage for their duel.
The corsair suddenly screamed something at him and lunged forward, hacking at the pike and knocking the tip down. He charged on and punched his buckler into Thomas’s breastplate. The impact was absorbed by the padding beneath the armour and Thomas released his right hand, balled it into a fist and slammed it into his opponent’s face. The small plates of the mantlet tore at the corsair’s flesh and there was a dull crunch as the bones of his nose gave way. He let out an animal roar of pain and rage and thrust his buckler out again, knocking Thomas back, as he swung his scimitar in a high arc towards the knight’s head.
Thomas saw it coming, a curve of steel, glinting in the light of the rising sun, and leaped to one side. The scimitar hissed close by and then struck the deck with a splintering thud. Before the corsair could straighten his body, Thomas viciously thrust his pike. The point caught the man squarely on the shoulder and knocked him off his feet. He fell heavily on his back and Thomas thrust the pike again, into his chest, high up just below the collarbone. The point tore through the white robe, pierced the flesh beneath and shattered bones as it plunged on, deep into the corsair’s body. His face contorted, eyes and mouth tightly shut so that his features looked like charred wood. Then he sank back on to the deck, his hands clasped over the wound as blood welled up and spread through the stained folds of his robe.