This week, we continue with the narrative of João de Carvalho Mascarenhas, the Portuguese soldier who was captured at sea by corsairs from Algiers in 1621. We ended last week, remember, with corsairs swarming onto the ship aboard which Mascarenhas was travelling, and with the unsuccessful attempt by a Javanese cook to assault them.
The moment after the Javanese cook had been killed, a soldier told Pero Mendes de Vasconcelos, who was traveling with his wife and children and carrying forty thousand cruzados, to step aside a little because of two Turks: one was aiming at him with a musket and another aimed at the soldier himself with an arrow. No sooner had the soldier said these words than Pero Mendes received a bullet in his chest from which he subsequently died; but the arrow lost its force as it struck the rope bridge, and its feather touched the eyes of the soldier without doing him any harm.
In this combat, the chaplain of the nave, who was called Brother Gregorio, of the order of Saint Francis, and was a native of the Islands, conducted himself with great bravery. He ran from place to place, a crucifix in his hand, to confess and encourage men, so that it is impossible to describe the bravery and holy zeal of this monk (though this was very little compared to what he did afterwards in Algiers, on the occasion of the plague that there was in that city).
Father Manuel Mendes, who went to Rome as procurator general of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus in the regions of India, also behaved in an excellent and admirable way. During the whole trip he never stopped teaching and preaching, and he was always found to be ready for anything. But it was especially during this fight that he behaved with the bravery of a young man, though he was already very old. He confessed the wounded, exhorted able-bodied men, and encouraged everybody by his example. Several times the captain told him to take refuge belowdecks, for there he could confess the wounded and avoid many risks. But he replied that he considered his life less valuable than that of the other combatants, that there were wounded who could not get belowdecks alive, and that he would therefore remain on deck. This he did until the ship was set on fire.
His companion, Father Mota, a lay brother, behaved like an old soldier of India, helping in every way he could to care for and comfort the wounded and to cover the dead, so that the living would not lose heart at the sight of them. He did all this with great Christian zeal, a zeal which he would later show in captivity by caring for the plague-stricken, until he himself died of that illness.
There were also two clerks aboard our ship. One, called Dom Patricio, was Castilian, and he came from the Philippines, bearing letters for His Majesty. Both behaved like excellent priests. We remember Dom Patricio with sorrow, though, for afterwards he died in Algiers, burned alive by the Turks for defending the Catholic faith—and because of some information he had been carrying to His Majesty regarding these savage scoundrels.
The fighting continued throughout the day, with many dead and wounded on our side. The Turks who had boarded our ship began to regret their rash action and abandoned hope of accomplishing anything which was to their advantage. Most of them were already dead, and their ship was lost. They therefore began to make signals to ask the other corsair ships to come to their aid or to send them reinforcements. These ships, cruising past us, continued to fire—and to receive—numerous broadsides. The corsairs who were aboard our ship called out them, but they never dared draw too close to us. They sent out ship’s boats and prepared to pick up those who leapt overboard.
Our men understood their plan, however, and did not want to let an enemy leave so easily when their arrival had cost them so dear. So they formed a single corps and attacked the corsairs with a wild cry of “Santiago!”
Our men attacked with such fury that, in spite of resistance, they managed to successfully mount the ship’s forecastle. The corsairs, however, using the tridents of our fishermen which they found there, and the points of the spears which remained to them, repelled our men three times. Finally, our men overwhelmed the corsairs, throwing into the sea those corsairs they did not kill, and so made themselves not only masters of the forecastle but of the whole ship.
They finished off those who had leaped into the sea by throwing pieces of wood, stones, even sacks of rice at them from above, and they left onboard only one alive, who surrendered to the captain.
So we had victory that day, at the end of a fight that had lasted from seven in the morning until six in the evening.
We had more than thirty dead and wounded, among whom were killed seven cannoneers. There was not a ship among the enemy, however, that did not have at least ten dead and wounded. Of the Turks who had boarded us, no more than eight escaped—among them that traitor Calafate Hasan. He made it to the flagship of Tabaco Reis, Commander-in-Chief of the corsair fleet.
For the next installment of João Mascarenhas’ narrative, see the next post in this blog.
The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson
The story of the Barbary corsair raid on Iceland in 1627
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