Pirates of Barbary
An extract
They anchored just outside the harbour in the calm summer twilight, out of sight of the town at the mouth of a little inlet called the Eastern Hole. Fired up and keen for action, Murad himself led a small reconnaissance party, ordering his men to wrap sacking round their oars to deaden the sound of their rowing and taking as his guide not James Hackett, but Edward Fawlett, who clearly also knew Baltimore well. According to the official report of the incident, Fawlett ‘piloted them all along the shore, and showed them how the town did stand, relating unto them where the most able men had their abode’.
They were gone for more than two hours. Aboard the two ships, janissaries and corsairs waited in silence, listening for the shouts or the barking of dogs or the popping of muskets which would tell them their captain had been discovered. It was after midnight before Murad returned.
‘We are in a good place’, he told them with a smile. ‘We shall make a bon voyago’.
*
The water lapped against the shore in the darkness, and Baltimore slept.
*
At two o’clock on the morning of Monday 21 June, the pirates came ashore at the Cove. There were 230 of them in all: eccentrically-dressed European renegades, ragged Christian slaves and fearsome janissaries in tall red caps, long robes and tight canvas breeches, with iron-shod slippers and drooping moustaches. Most carried muskets and scimitars. Some brought fire-brands to set light to the thatched roofs of the little houses; others had iron bars to break down their doors.
The raiders ran up the pebbly beach in the darkness as quickly and quietly as they could and stationed themselves in groups of nine or ten outside the first houses. Then they waited.
But only for a matter of seconds. At a word from Murad, hell came to Baltimore.
*
Adrian's new book, Pirates of Barbary, will be published by Jonathan Cape and Riverhead Books in 2010. Pirates of Barbary explores the secret history of Barbary Coast piracy in the 17th century and beyond. It recreates a twlight world of the renegade and the corsair, conjuring up a dangerous and exotic milieu where Christian and Moslem met to swap religions, to trade slaves and silks, to take each other’s lives.
