‘It’s near first light,’ Robert cried out, pointing with his sword at the first tinge of grey in the eastern sky. ‘Geoffrey, try to get us with the sun behind us as it rises.’
On land, the Normans had a system of commands issued by horn, the number of blasts and their length determining which manoeuvre the conroys were required to perform. This had been adapted for sea by Geoffrey Ridel but it was not the perfect tool and nor was the element in which they were going to have to fight an easy one in which it could be employed; galleys were not destriers, turned by at thigh and a sharp tug on a single rein. Despite the best efforts of rowers and helmsmen they were slow to get up speed and even less adept at steering out of danger. Thus, when the first of the Venetian dromons got amongst the Apulian fleet they were able to take advantage of a great deal of confusion, putting several of Robert’s galleys in danger.
‘Look aloft, Father,’ Bohemund yelled from his deck, which was close enough to the ducal galley for his voice to carry.
Robert de Hauteville followed his son’s pointed gauntlet and it was there he saw why Maximian Palladias had asked for his truce. The Venetians had got to Durazzo just before the Apulians and they must have put to sea in haste, which indicated they had anchored off Durazzo before they were ready for a fight; Maximian was seaman enough to know what he faced and what tactics would be used against his vessels. He had needed time to prepare, time to get in place a weapon that would render all the notions the Guiscard had of how to get aboard the Venetian decks redundant.
The truce had been a ploy to grant him a huge advantage, for lashed to the high masts of the large enemy three-decked galleys were boats full of archers. The Venetians would have the ability to pin on his decks the men they feared, the Norman warriors, who would be so occupied protecting themselves from the deadly rain of arrows from above that any notion of taking the offensive would be nullified.
‘Keep your shield above your head, Bohemund,’ Robert yelled, ‘for that is where danger lies.’
‘The rest of the fleet?’
‘Each vessel must look to its own, but we must lead them by example. Geoffrey, use that rudder and those oars to get me in amongst these swine.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
What followed quickly turned into a confused melee; there were no formal lines as in a land battle, no features such as rivers, forests or hills which could act as protection to a flank or provide cover for infiltration, not a single clear objective to which Robert could direct his men, quite apart from the very obvious fact he had been forced on to the defensive. Nor could he issue commands that had any hope of being obeyed, especially since his own galley was an obvious target for the dromons, massive in size now as they loomed up out of the increasing light, their aim to lop off the head in the hope the body would collapse.
In essence, while he could fight if they came close, his fate was in the hands of Geoffrey Ridel, and not for the first time in his life fortune favoured him, even if he railed against it, by granting him such a wily seaman, who had the wit to use his speaking trumpet while he could still be heard to ensure that the ducal vessel had around it a screen of fighting ships, one of which carried his bastard son, two of the others the crossbowmen.
‘Damn you, Geoffrey!’ Robert yelled, as he saw one of those dromons begin to close in on a galley. ‘Get me into the fight.’
‘Arrows!’ yelled Reynard, as he saw the greying sky go black above the masts of the protecting galleys.
This had every man on deck immediately crouching, the familia knights using their shields to protect themselves, as well as their liege lord, from harm, no more than a trice before the arrows thudded into them to embed themselves into hardwood or clang as they spun off the metal frames or the central boss. A few, overflying and missing the shields, found the open hatches that led below to the rowing deck — there had been no time to put in place the covers — and the cry of more than one wounded man carried up to the deck.
As soon as he was upright again Robert de Hauteville was marching in fury to where Geoffrey Ridel stood on the poop, right by the great tiller and the men tasked to swing it on the Master of the Fleet’s commands. Right beneath Ridel’s feet lay a slatted hatch and underneath that stood the fellow who controlled the oarsmen, so the man in command could both dictate the speed of the galley and direct the course, if necessary by the use of both.
‘Did you hear my command?’ the Guiscard yelled.
Few people could look the Duke in the eye when he was in temper and even fewer had the ability to question his judgement, for he was a master of battle who could sniff out an opponent’s weak spot before it appeared, or just by some sixth sense define the moment when resistance was about to weaken. That was on land, but being at sea Ridel had the upper hand; Robert could fight, and if age had diminished him he was still more than a match for those he was likely to face. But he could not steer a ship, nor did he have the wit to know when the combination of oars and tiller would work to advantage. This allowed Geoffrey Ridel to address his duke in a voice short on respect, indeed close to a shout.
‘My task is to keep you safe, My Lord, just as it is the task of your familia knights.’
‘I lead by example, man. I do not skulk in the background like some damned Saracen emir.’
‘If your example is to be seen sinking beneath the waves, what then?’ Ridel pointed to Robert’s personal standard, streaming out from atop the mast, alongside the flag just raised that ordered every ship to engage, as though they had a choice. ‘We must keep that standard flying; if it is cut down or this vessel is overpowered, then there is no hope of surviving to fight another day.’
‘Survival? What do you mean, Ridel? We have to win.’
‘My Lord Robert, against these great ships you cannot win, all you can do is endure.’
Bohemund was also blessed with a good hand on the tiller, a man who knew that the smaller galleys only had one advantage and that was their greater manoeuvrability; they could, if properly handled, spin in their own length, as well as swiftly increase and decrease speed. The dromons, with larger hulls and a vastly greater number of oarsmen, needed time to follow, which meant as they closed there was a moment of opportunity in which to avoid their intent to either ram or board, the latter signalled by the sudden withdrawal of the bank of oars facing the Apulian vessel.
Bohemund’s master timed his tiller turn to perfection, but it owed as much to the quick reaction of the rowers that they managed to spin away from the Venetian bearing down on them: one set of oars held their way, the others backed hard. Not that such a manoeuvre provided security; the raised-aloft boats full of archers had a clear shot at the open deck as well as the warriors who occupied it and it was only a timely command by their leader that had a number of them fall back to the stern and use their shields to protect both themselves, the ship’s master and the men working the tiller ropes. Speeding away from immediate danger brought momentary relief, but it was no more than that, for right in their path lay another dromon, its side lined with screeching fighters waving spears and swords.
‘We need to get aboard one of these ships,’ Bohemund cried into the master’s ear. ‘We have to show them they too are vulnerable.’
The look that got in response was not one to imbue Bohemund with confidence; clearly the man thought he was mad and had only one idea, to avoid contact and stay alive. About to castigate the fellow, albeit with respect for his skills, the sound of his name shouted loud made Bohemund spin round. Ligart, that redhead who had been so troublesome when raiding Capua, now a calmer fellow than hitherto, was madly waving his lance at a sight that no one aboard had ever seen. From the side of the dromon they had just avoided a pipe protruded, its spout inside the line of oars, and from that shot a bolt of flame, not aimed at them but at the hull of another galley that had been to Bohemund’s rear.