A Ship for The King Page 18

  He experienced a moment of hesitation and doubt, his left hand flying up to his torn cheek. Then, as the flare-up of pain subsided, he heard the ragged cheer and stared through the smoke. The corsair had lost his main and fore topmasts, but was fast dropping astern.

  ‘Wear ship!’ he roared. ‘Wear ship!’

  Already the helmsmen were heaving the helm up again, allowing the Perseus to pay off. In the waist Norris was dashing about, shouting to men to man the lee braces and rushing to the starboard pins to cast off those a-weather. Despite his flesh wound Faulkner grinned; no naval lieutenant would have used his initiative and done that. They would lose ground to leeward but might yet come up to cross astern of the corsair and rake him. It all depended . . .

  But once round on the larboard tack they found they could not lay a course sufficiently hard-up on the wind to pass across the stern; the best they could do was rake her from an awkward angle as they passed ahead. The guns would have to fire independently, losing the crushing effect of a broadside, but Faulkner hoped that his disabling broadside had had a demoralizing effect, if nothing else.

  In the event, the leeway of the disabled pirate caused her to drift rapidly so that, instead of passing ahead, the Perseus was obliged to pay off and, in the lee of her enemy, further lost way. Faulkner could see the enemy crew mustering in the waist, readying to board: there must have been sixty or seventy of them.

  ‘Fire when you can, Mr Norris! Clear away those boarders! Mr Lazenby, starbowlines to the larboard rail and repel boarders!’

  Faulkner put his hand to his sword hilt and realized with a shock that he was unarmed. He could not leave the deck at such a juncture and cast wild-eyed about him, suddenly terrified. Amid the sudden, renewed and now continuous discharge of the guns, near muzzle-to-muzzle, the image of Julia came to him in a flash of self remonstrance. What a fool he had proved! Christ, what a fool! Then he saw Walker on deck, approaching him purposefully with a worried look on his seamed face. ‘Get me a sword, Walker,’ he shouted, ‘a cutlass, anything, for the love of God!’

  A moment later Walker was pressing a heavy cutlass into his hand and shouting, ‘We’ve no more powder, Captain. The last cartridges have gone to the guns!’

  ‘Arm thyself then, and fight for your life!’

  The words were hardly out of Faulkner’s mouth when he felt the jar as the Perseus and the pirate vessel collided and then ground together in the swell. The Perseus possessed the higher freeboard, which gave his men a slight advantage as they poked and prodded at the Moors attempting to clamber through the gun-ports as the discharged cannon recoiled inboard, while others sought to gain advantage by scaling a few ratlines and then launching themselves across the gap with savage cries of ‘Allah akbar!’

  Faulkner hefted the cutlass; it was a brute weapon; unbalanced, crude and difficult to handle, but it was sharp and its blade, given a slashing momentum, was irresistible. Of the bloody carnage that followed, he recalled only small, shocking impressions accompanied by powerful sensations of fear and triumph, which followed one another in bewildering sequence and drove his reactions as he parried and slashed, thrust and parried. He remembered the rent in a bare brown-skinned belly that was girded by a scarlet and gold sash over which a wobbling, twisted and almost liquid stream of intestines suddenly emerged. He remembered also the whistle of a scimitar blade, the noise of which seemed to attest to its extreme sharpness, and the wind of its passing as it shaved his shoulder. (Later he discovered the right shoulder of his coat to be missing.) He also recalled a man’s hand, its fist still grasping a sword, pass under his line of vision and thinking only that he must not tread upon it and thereby slip. What of this damage he himself executed, he did not know, though he recollected with perfect clarity the look in the eyes of a man into whose midriff he had plunged the cutlass, before remembering to twist and withdraw it in time to parry the thrust of a pike. He also remembered – would he ever forget? – a moment of pure terror when someone behind him pulled at his long hair and jerked his head back violently, exposing his throat and causing him to topple backwards. The man who had grasped at him may have been in the act of falling, wounded, for as Faulkner himself fell, he felt his hair released and he rolled sideways, somehow regaining his feet and still in possession of the cutlass. But he was bleeding from several cuts as well as the deep gash on his cheek and could feel his strength ebbing. He began to long for the madness to end, but was aware that even as this detached desire flooded him with an infinite weariness, he was hacking and stabbing at what seemed like wave after wave of pirates attempting to gain the deck of the Perseus.

  Then, as if a curtain lifted slowly, it seemed as if the enemy withdrew; the pirate ship appeared to slowly detach itself and move away, a gap opening up between the two vessels so that the killing was suddenly one-sided, as those Moors left aboard the Perseus were murdered in what was rapidly turning to cold blood. Faulkner was to learn later that Lazenby had set the sprit topsail and drawn the two vessels apart, and thereby saved them after a brisk fight of no more than twelve minutes duration.

  As Faulkner came to, faint with loss of blood but aware of what was going on about him, and propped himself against the binnacle, Lazenby approached and spoke as though from a great distance.

  ‘There are twenty-eight of them dead on board and at least half a dozen lost between the ships, sir . . . Are you hearing me, Captain Faulkner?’

  Faulkner nodded.

  ‘And we’ve lost seven men for certain, with eleven wounded, five of them badly and probably mortally.’ Lazenby paused. ‘We lost Ephraim Walker, I’m sorry to say.’

  ‘Oh, that is sad,’ Faulkner muttered. ‘And what of our late friend?’ he raised his head in an attempt to catch sight of the corsair.

  ‘Licking his wounds, sir. I think we should get you below, and get those scratches dressed.’

  After being bandaged and taking a draught of wine, Faulkner was back on deck. Norris was among the dead, but Lazenby had proved invaluable and had done what knotting and splicing was necessary to get the Perseus under command again. When Faulkner found him he was staring at the pirate ship through Faulkner’s own telescope.

  ‘I took the liberty,’ he explained, and Faulkner brushed the apology aside as Lazenby handed the glass over.

  ‘It is of no matter; what do you make of her?’

  ‘Little activity on board, sir. I think we might take her if we had powder to stand off and scour her deck of those infernal blackamoors . . .’

  ‘He does not know we have no powder,’ Faulkner said. ‘Suppose we were to bear down upon her boldly . . .’ He left the sentence hanging and Lazenby picked up its meaning.

  ‘I’ll stand the hands to and see just how many guns we could load,’ Lazenby paused, a calculating look on his face. ‘Small shot, I think,’ and with that he made off, calling to the men, many of whom had slumped on the deck in the hiatus, exhausted with the bloody business of murder. Faulkner rallied himself and called for a man at the helm and for two or three others to clear the decks of the dead. After a few moments of activity, the yards were braced round, the helm put over and, with a few buckets of water thrown over the worst of the bloodstains, three guns were loaded with langridge and primed, their crews spiking them round and anticipating the best angle at which to fire as the Perseus bore down upon her disabled quarry.

  There followed several long minutes of silent suspension as the full topsails drove the Perseus forwards with an inexorable progress, her two ensigns still flying bravely. Faulkner studied the corsair. She seemed inert, no sign of activity on her deck, indeed no obvious awareness of approaching nemesis. Was this an ambush? Faulkner felt the prickle of sweat as apprehension took a cold grip of his gut. There was no doubt that she had initially possessed a far larger complement than the Englishman, but despite those left dead or dying aboard the Perseus, she might still overwhelm them if they got close enough to attempt a second boarding. The near-silence grew as the distance shortened and Faulkner
, weak from loss of blood, felt his knees buckling and his hands shaking. He gritted his teeth and growled at the helmsman, ‘Steer small . . .’

  Then a shout of alarm went up and Faulkner realized he had achieved surprise. A second later and men were lining the pirate’s rail, one or two of whom fired their long arquebusses. The balls passed harmlessly, though several sank themselves in the Perseus’s stout planking. Their speed, relative to the wallowing pirate, her waist encumbered by the fallen spars from which her crew had been trying to free her, seemed to increase as they now rapidly closed the distance. Then they were sweeping past and the sparkle and pop of small arms rippled along her rail. Faulkner was spun round and knocked off his balance as a ball struck his shoulder, but otherwise passed him without leaving more than a severe bruise, by which time Lazenby had discharged his three guns with cool deliberation and swept the pirate’s deck, scouring it with iron and reducing it to a bloody shambles at pistol-point. Then the Perseus had swept past and Faulkner, who had regained his balance and his composure, ordered the men to the braces and put the helm over again, quite forgetting that they had no powder left at all.

  It took them some minutes to put the vessel on the wind and only when they did so did Lazenby have the time to remind him of the deficiency. ‘Whatever small arms we have, every man to line the rail and . . .’ He had no need to say more; Lazenby again scurried off, kicking the inert and generally exhorting the tiring crew with a torrent of foul language to which they responded with curses of their own. As Faulkner approached to make a second pass a solitary figure stood above the pirate’s taffrail and raised a white cloth, calling in heavily accented English, ‘I am your prisoner!’

  ‘Hold your fire!’ snapped Faulkner, moving swiftly to the rail as the Perseus again passed the corsair. ‘Have you a serviceable boat?’ The man with the white cloth shook his head. ‘Then I will tow you, stand by to take a line forward . . . Mr Lazenby . . .’

  ‘Aye, sir, I’ll make all ready.’

  When Admiral Rainsborough arrived off Safi three days later in the Leopard, he had with him the Mary Rose, commanded by Captain Thomas Trenchfield, like Rainsborough an Elder Brother of Trinity House, and the pinnace Roebucke under Mr Broad, both reinforcements that had reached him off Sallee. Here he found Faulkner’s Perseus, her guns run out and commanding her prize. When Faulkner reported aboard the flagship, Rainsborough shook him warmly by the hand and congratulated him.

  ‘Well done, Captain Faulkner,’ he said, nodding towards the anchored prize, ‘now we have some additional bargaining counters here to add lustre to our cause.’

  Faulkner had made contact with the Arabic-speaking English merchant Blake, and now Rainsborough entered another tedious period of negotiating through Blake, who had been appointed the Farmer of Customs by Sultan Moulay Zidan and had access to His Highness. On 19th September, having embarked another two hundred and thirty manumitted Christian slaves along with Blake, some merchants and an envoy from the Sultan, Rainsborough’s ships weighed anchor and two days later took their departure from Morocco. Faulkner had lost his prize in the negotiations, but had the consolation of carrying over a hundred of the liberated Englishmen home in the Perseus and the action had increased his reputation. Those men among his crew who complained were swiftly silenced by others among their number whose zeal for the Lord of Hosts ensured them that their repudiation of Mammon ensured a state of grace.

  Faulkner took no part in the celebrations attending the arrival of the Moroccan envoy in London. He had long broken his promise to his wife of a three month absence, but was anxious to make amends, and only heard later of the procession through the streets which, although conducted by night, were lit as though by day. The Moroccan ambassador, Blake and his fellow merchants, all wearing gold chains and extravagantly dressed, rode into London on Arab horses. Behind came a large number of the freed slaves dressed in white, some of whom had been captive for thirty years. They were met by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen in their robes. Finally, on Sunday 5th November the ambassador was received by King Charles and presented to the King several saker falcons and four richly caparisoned Arab stallions, led by red-liveried Moorish grooms.

  Faulkner was in Bristol the same evening. It was a black night of wind and sleeting rain such that it occurred to him that nothing had changed since the day he had left. He was tired and saddle-sore as he stumped up the stairs. Seeing the light under the door he paused a moment, puzzled by the unfamiliar noise of the squalling cry of a baby. When he came into the room he saw first Gooding and another man of his brother-in-law’s acquaintance, a member of his congregation, Faulkner recalled. The two were bent over a printed bill which they had been reading in silence until interrupted by the sudden, unexpected opening of the door. Both men looked up in surprise. Faulkner had not intended to startle them and apologized.

  ‘It was thoughtless of me, Nathan; I am sorry.’

  Obviously preoccupied by the bill he had been reading, Gooding picked it up in a fury and waved it in Faulkner’s face. ‘This is your King’s doing!’ he said, taking no notice of his brother-in-law’s unannounced arrival, nor making any comment on his overlong absence. He was beside himself, such as Faulkner had never previously seen him. ‘It is infamous! Infamous!’

  ‘What the devil do you speak of? And what do you mean by “my” King?’

  ‘Are you not a King’s officer?’ Gooding’s co-religionist asked, as if seeking not to be omitted from this vilification of a man lately arrived home from God-alone knew where.

  Faulkner was taken aback by this welcome and met it with a rising anger of his own. ‘What if I am? And what are you doing here? I barely know you, so by what right do you have to accost me thus on my arrival in my own home?’

  Aware of Faulkner’s temper and that he himself had behaved shamefully in the manner of their greeting, Gooding let his breath out in a long, exasperated exhalation. ‘I am sorry, Kit. That was unforgivable of us both; please forgive us but we are outraged by the contents of this bill.’ He waved the paper and then slapped it down upon the table.

  ‘Prynne, Burton and Bastwick have been not merely been pilloried but mutilated!’

  ‘What is that to me, for Heaven’s sake? Or to you for that matter? Who is Prynne . . . do I not recollect hearing his name before, for causing trouble and criticizing the court and Archbishop Laud? And who are the others?’

  ‘Good men, Kit, good men. Men who speak truth unto power . . .’

  ‘What is their offence? They cannot have been mutilated for nothing, not even by “my” King, who I increasingly hear called a tyrant.’

  ‘He is a tyrant, Captain Faulkner,’ Gooding’s friend put in, his tone now moderated and indicating a desire to put the newly returned mariner in the political picture. ‘A black and bloody one. You probably recall Prynne having been fined and thrown into the Tower, his ears cropped, for seditious writings three years ago. Well, he has – thank God! – been at it again despite his incarceration and has been fined a further five thousand, ordered to lose the remainder of his ears and to be branded on both cheeks . . .’

  ‘He is a Puritan,’ Faulkner said with an edge of sarcasm, as that explained the matter and cutting this lengthy peroration short.

  ‘And bears witness, Kit,’ put in Gooding.

  ‘That’s as maybe, Nat, but for myself I care not. I came here to see my wife and on the stairs I heard—’

  The noise of a baby’s loud and fractious crying came again and then was abruptly cut off. A light dawned on Gooding’s face, as though the noise recalled him to the reality of the present moment.

  ‘Kit, I am so sorry! I had quite forgot!’ He was laughing and held out his hand to Faulkner to shake the now thoroughly bewildered man’s hand. ‘I am sorry. We made you the King’s whipping boy and all the while we neglected your timely homecoming! Thank God you have arrived safely, we had almost given you up for lost. Come . . . come, Julia is within . . .’

  Gooding backed away towards the door of
the bedroom which he indicated, almost bowing to Faulkner as he realized the truth. He was across the room and flung open the door in a second, to find Julia, sitting before a fire, with a child suckling greedily at her breast.

  Eight

  Civil War

  1638–1645

  It was by such cumulative degrees that England descended into civil strife. While war raged in Europe between Protestant and Catholic, England fell into factions of a more political complexion, though religion lay at the root of them. A King of unwearying duplicity whose French and Catholic Queen caused suspicion as to the King’s true allegiance to the Protestant Church of England – itself ruled by an Archbishop of strong political views and a hater of Calvinism who owed his position to the late and hated Buckingham – found himself pitched against an increasingly intransigent Parliament whose members were opposed to the King’s assumption of powers that he conceived he received directly from God and argued that no policy could be enacted without the consent of itself. Those in Parliament most affected by this zeal for the rights of the House of Commons were largely Puritans whose sober dress, strong principals and convictions that, contrary to the King and Royalist party’s belief, God was of their opinion.

  Like most of his fellow countrymen, Faulkner continued his own life, following his own interests. The steady expansion of the new colonies in North America enabled the Bristol ships owned by Gooding and himself to return handsome profits, while his participation in the expedition to Sallee had persuaded him to try the Perseus in the Mediterranean trade – sailing to Oporto, Leghorn and Smyrna. It had also widened his acquaintance with the Brethren of Trinity House, and early in the following year he was persuaded by several others, Rainsborough included, to invest in two Indiamen and thereby he was inexorably drawn towards London, removing himself there with Julia and their son Henry Gideon, named after Faulkner’s patrons. Here, soon afterwards in the summer of 1639, their second son was born at their new home in Wapping, and named Nathaniel in compliment to his uncle who remained in Bristol.