01 Corsair by Tim Severin

Author:Tim Severin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Macmillan Publishers UK
Published: 2009-09-17T18:30:00+00:00

CHEVALIER ADRIEN CHABRILLAN returned to his ship for the Festival of the Galleys. Piecourt had prepared for the great day with his usual meticulous attention. The great blue and white awning had been taken down and stowed, and the crew had washed and scrubbed the deck planking until it gleamed. The dockyard’s painters and gilders had been busy, primping and beautifying the galley’s carved decorations. The sailmakers had sewn and fitted new canopies and tilts for the poop deck, using roll after roll of velvet and brocade and given the added touch of gold fringes. The spars and rigging of St Gerassimus were hung with bright flags and banners, some showing the fleur-de-lis of France but many more with the cross of St Stephen. The halberdiers of the guard were in their best uniforms.

The Chevalier came aboard at noon with his guests, a cluster of well-born gentlemen, several wealthy merchants and their ladies, and all were dressed splendidly for the great occasion. They paused to admire the wonderful spectacle of the fleet: galley after galley neatly moored, flags and pennants rippling in the light breeze, their gaily painted oars fixed at an upward angle so they seemed like the wings of birds. Then they sat down to a splendid meal at tables arranged on the poop deck and covered with white linen. All the while, there was no sight nor sound of a single oarsman aboard the galley. St Gerassimus’s benches stretched away empty, leather padding gleaming with polish, as the Chevalier’s guests savoured their way through the seven courses of their repast. Only when they were toying with dessert – served with a sweet wine from Savoy – did Piecourt, who had been standing in the background, step forward and blow a single long blast on his whistle.

Hector, Dan and two hundred other galeriens had spent the past four hours crouched in the narrow space between the benches. Piecourt had promised thirty lashes of the black bastinado to any man who spoilt his surprise for the captain’s guests. Hearing the whistle, Dan and his companions took a deep breath and, as one man, exclaimed ‘Hau!’ At the same time they stretched up their right arms, fingers extended, in the air. The Chevalier’s guests startled by the sound which seemed to come from the belly of the vessel, looked up to see a forest of fingers appear above the benches. ‘Hau!’ repeated the hidden oarsmen as they extended their left arms, and the number of fingers suddenly doubled. ‘Hau! Hau!’ and they raised first one arm and then the other. ‘Hau!’ This time the galeriens lay down on the deck boards and waved their right legs above the benches, then their left. The guests looked on, amazed. Now the oarsmen sat up. All together, they suddenly raised their heads above the galley benches. Each man was wearing his red prison cap issued by the Arsenal, so that the effect was as if a field had suddenly sprouted a sea of red flowers.

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