Nicholas hung his head.
‘Despair,’ said Stanley quietly but crisply, ‘is not among the knightly virtues. Raise you head, lad, and attend. You too, Hodge.’
Smith reached for another bag, a lumpy hessian sack.
‘Now we are past the coast of Brittany, it will be another two weeks of sail to Cadiz. Perhaps three, and certainly there will be more rough weather. But you will be too exhausted to fret over that.’
He indicated two barrels close by.
‘Our small beer. By day five it will taste like horse piss, but you will drink it the same. You will need it.’
He held open the sack before them.
‘Contents: sixty barley loaves, twelve flitches of bacon, four heavy cheeses, one flagon of vile wine. These are our rations until Cadiz, where we will take on more of the same. Also figs, dates, almonds, and oranges which will do the job of the scurvy grass until Malta. Spanish sailors get less of the Dutch disease. You will neither thirst nor starve, but you will have an appetite. Why? Because you will be working to put beef on your bones for the next four weeks. What we call your sword-muscles.
‘Strip to the waist.’
Smith and Stanley then prodded their white torsos as they shivered in the wind, flesh like a plucked fowl. Hodge retained a bit of meat. Nicholas was as thin as a pikestaff.
‘Saint John have mercy,’ muttered Smith. ‘Well, leave off your shirts. You’ll heat up soon enough. Take these staves.’
For half an hour on the tilting deck, Smith and Stanley had the boys raising and sweeping the staves over their heads like swords, lifting them one-handed, and finally batting at each other, slash and parry. By the end of that time, the boys’ arms were aching like fury and screaming for rest.
It didn’t help that some of the brawny mariners had come to watch. Ears gleaming with gold rings, mighty forearms inked with strange devices of mermaids and anchors and random symbols of good fortune, they stood nearby laughing and hurling abuse.
‘What ye doing, lads, swatting flies?’
‘They couldn’t fight off a pigmy with a straw!’
‘That’s a pretty couple of lilywhite lady’s maids you’ve got with you there, sir knights!’ called another. ‘But pray, where are their bubbies?’
‘You’ll hear worse insults than that in the heat of battle,’ grinned Stanley.
‘Half an hour by the sun,’ said Smith, scowling at the boys’ exhaustion. ‘When the Turks come to Malta, how long will they fight us? For a morning? For the daylight hours only? No. All day and all night, every day, every night.’
The boys drooped and panted, covered in sweat.
Smith gave them each a chunk of bread and a glug of small beer, and then told Nicholas to attack him with the stave. The boy flailed wide and at the perfect instant, the knight simply stepped backwards. The stave swept past him, Nicholas twisted after it, and Smith tripped him to the deck.
The knight glared down. ‘Which corporeal part of me were you trying to strike, lad?’
Nicholas hauled himself up on all fours, his knees and left hand painfully scuffed where he had hit the planks. The mariners’ uproarious laughter echoed in his ears, until drowned out by the master bellowing at them to get back to work or they’d feel his whip.
‘My upper arm?’ mocked Smith. ‘Which would be armoured anyway. First lesson. A blade will get to your enemy ten times more often with a straight thrust than a wide slash. One step backwards is enough to avoid such a slashing blow, but a long thrust with your weight behind it … Your man will have to take two, three steps backwards. That is far harder. If there’s a wall, breastwork, another man behind him, it’s impossible. You’ve got him.
‘So what if you’ve got no sword? What if it’s dropped or broken?’
The boys were silent.
‘You use anything you can lay your hands on. Your sword is broken? Throw the jagged hilt in your enemy’s face, and then come on after it. You inflict as much damage as possible, as quickly as possible. You go for his eyes, his throat, his stones. You want him out of the fight, and fast. For there will be many more of them coming on behind. You show no quarter, as your enemy will show no quarter.’
Nicholas felt as if his brain was already filling up, but Smith went on relentlessly.
‘There is only one kick you will need. The forward kick, planting your foot square in your man’s chest and shoving him back.’ He demonstrated swiftly on Hodge, who grunted out air and tottered backwards. Stanley grabbed him to stop him toppling back over the rail.
‘Any other kick, you will lose your balance, expose your side, end up facing the wrong way — and with a Turkish blade in your guts. Your feet are for standing on, not kicking. Mules kick. Once in a while you might stamp on a man’s foot. That hurts him. But by that time you’ll be so close to, you’ll know what he had for breakfast.
‘Never, ever, ever use your bare fist. A knight with a broken hand is useless. Guard your hand well. Never throw idle punches like a drunken varlet in the street. Here, boy. Punch me as hard as you can.’
Nicholas, knees still stinging from where Smith had tripped him, needed no second bidding. He punched out hard. Smith could easily have dodged the punch, but he took it full on the breastbone. Nicholas pulled back his bunched fist with a gasp of pain.
‘See?’ said Smith. ‘It hurt you more than me. I’ll have a small bruise tomorrow but no more. Why? Not because you’ve no more meat on you than a sparrow — though you haven’t. But it’s a very, very rare man indeed who can really throw a hard punch. Forget it. It’s a fool’s fighting. Whereas to seize a sturdy oak joint stool and clout a fellow in the sconce. That would show some wit.
‘So: use an object. You hear me? Never, ever use your fist. Always-’ his voice rose to a sudden roar — ‘seize the nearest object!’
And at the same time as he bellowed these words, Smith seized the wooden stave from Hodge’s hands and charged at Nicholas like a maddened bull.
It happened in the blink of a bird’s eye, the twitch of a wren’s tail. The boy had time to glance about — fear did this, they said later, fear slowed the sun on the dial and gave you time. There was only one thing within reach, the corner of an empty hemp sack weighed down under a coil of rope. Nicholas saw the end of Smith’s stave driving hard at his belly and knew Smith would not stop. He meant to injure him.
His only weapon of defence, a scrap of hessian, flew up in Smith’s face. At the same time Nicholas twisted and the stave struck his bare flesh aslant, only lightly grazing it in passing. He fell on the stave and gripped it, until Smith wrenched it back with his far greater strength and left the boy’s hands burning from the friction.
Smith said, ‘See? You fought off an armed man with only a bit of hopsack.’
‘Not just a man either,’ said Nicholas. ‘A Knight Grand Cross of St John.’
Smith cuffed him on the side of his head with a great paw.
The closest he came to praise.
All that day the rules were drummed into them. Never use your fists. Kick but rarely. Thrust, don’t slash. Any hard object can kill a man. Care for your sword. Go for eyes, throat and stones. One backward step may be as good as a shield.
There were harder lessons the next day, and the next. Never leave an enemy merely stunned or injured. Kill him. Never go to the defence of a wounded comrade before one still fighting. He will do the same by you.
And there were the rules of chivalry. Never hurt a woman, always defend her. Nor child nor beardless boy. Never insult or spit on the enemy dead. Always honour and bury your own.
‘Beyond that,’ said Stanley, ‘there are many oaths and vows that bind a sworn Knight. But if you still mean to fight with us at Malta-’
‘We do.’
‘Then you will fight only as gentlemen volunteers.’
‘I will be a Knight of St John after.’