The British Navy Book. Field Cyril

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СКАЧАТЬ waters. These towers were generally built up round the mast, and provided with loopholes and battlements, and sometimes protected by iron plates or raw hides.

      One account of mediæval war-galleys states that in some cases "a castle was erected of the width of the ship and some twenty feet in length; its platform being elevated sufficiently to allow of free passage under it and over the benches". King John introduced the famous Genoese cross-bowmen—who so signally failed to distinguish themselves at Crécy—into his navy. The reason most probably was that a cross-bow could be fired through a loophole by a man crouching under cover of the bulwarks or shield-row, whereas a long-bow could not be used in this way. Nevertheless the cross-bow did not succeed in ousting the long-bow in the British Navy, since, in 1456, in the course of a public disputation between the heralds of England and France as to the claim of the former country to the domination of the sea, the French herald claimed for his countrymen that they were more formidable afloat because they used the cross-bow. "Our arbalistiers", he asserted, "fire under cover or from the shelter of the fore and after castles; through little loopholes they strike their opponents without danger of being wounded themselves. Your English archers, on the other hand, cannot let fly their arrows except above-board and standing clear of cover; fear and the motion of the ship is likely to distract their aim." But there does not seem to have been much "fear" among the English archers, and as those that were in the habit of serving afloat doubtless had their "sea-legs", it must have taken a good deal to disconcert their aim, world-renowned for its deadliness.

      Still, as we shall see in a later chapter, the cross-bow was a most formidable weapon afloat, and the French herald's argument was a sound one. In the place of artillery the ships of the earlier Middle Ages were provided with mangonels, trebuchets, espringalds and other mechanical instruments for hurling heavy projectiles, which, according to some authorities, were made or imported as the result of the experiences of Richard I and his crusading companions in the Mediterranean. Personally, I should say that they had been known long before that time. A contemporary chronicle of the siege of Paris by the Northmen in 885-7 mentions that, to cover the Danish stormers, "thousands of leaden balls, scattered like a thick hail in the air, fall upon the city, and powerful catapults thunder upon the forts which defend the bridge". The knowledge of the heavy war-machines of the Ancients had never died out. The catapult was the old Roman onager, and consisted of a long arm or beam, of which one end was thrust through the middle of a tightly-twisted bundle of hair-ropes, fibres, or sinews stretched across a solid frame. At the other end was either a sling or a spoon-shaped receptacle for the projectile. This end was drawn back by means of levers and winches against the twist of the bundle of sinews and held by a catch. On the catch being released, by pulling on a lanyard attached to a trigger, the long end of the beam was forced violently forward till it struck against a strongly-supported transverse baulk of timber arranged for the purpose. When this occurred the huge stone or other projectile flew on through the air and struck its target with tremendous force.

      The trebuchet and the mangonel were very like the Roman ballista, and acted much in the same way as the catapult, except that the motive force was the fall of a heavy counterweight instead of tension. The springald, or espringald, was a large-sized steel cross-bow, mounted on a pivot, hurling heavy iron darts, with great force, which had considerable penetration. In the battle of Zierksee (1304) one of these heavy "garots", as they were called, struck the Orgueileuse of Bruges with such violence that it not only pierced the bulwarks of the forecastle, but took off the arm of one of the trumpeters who were sounding their silver trumpets, transfixed another, and finally embedded itself in the after castle.

      One of the most formidable missiles hurled by the mangonels and such machines was the famous Greek fire, knowledge of which had been brought to Europe from the Crusades. Sometimes it was projected through "siphons" or tubes, of which no exact knowledge has come down to us. But it seems to have ignited the moment it came in contact with the air, and was spouted forth with the violence of water from a fire-hose. It destroyed everything that came in its way, and was inextinguishable by water. It could only be smothered by plenty of earth or sand, a material not generally available at sea. The mangonels threw it in barrels.

      "This was the fashion of the Greek Fire," says De Joinville, the historian of Louis IX's first Crusade. "It came on as broad in front as a vinegar cask, and the tail of fire that trailed behind it was as big as a great spear; and it made such a noise as it came, that it sounded like the thunder of Heaven. It looked like a dragon in the air. Such a bright light did it cast, that one could see all over the camp as though it was day, by reason of the great mass of fire and the brilliance of the light that it shed. Thrice that night they hurled the Greek Fire at us, and four times shot it from the tourniquet[7] cross-bow. Every time that our holy King (St. Louis) heard that they were throwing Greek Fire at us, he draped his sheet round him, and stretched out his hands to our Lord, and said, weeping: 'Oh! fair Lord God, protect my people!'" Such was the terror inspired by this fearful mixture, whose chief ingredient is supposed to have been naphtha. It does not, however, appear to have been used to any considerable extent in Western Europe.

      In the latter half of the period we are dealing with, cannon—big, little, and middle-sized—quite superseded the mangonel and other mechanical projectile-throwers. Few large guns were carried, and those mostly fixed rigidly on timber beds and fired over the ship's side—hence the term "gunwale", which we still use in boats, a "wale" meaning a band of timber. Small breech-loading guns were mounted in considerable numbers in the fore and after castles, some of these, generally known as "murderers", being mounted inboard in such a way as to fire at close quarters on any boarding-parties of the enemy who might succeed in gaining possession of the waist of the ship. Others were mounted aloft in the tops, just as they were in our own days until the tops were required for fire-control platforms. But I propose to give the quaint ancestors of our modern monster cannon and rapid-fire guns a chapter to themselves later on.

CHAPTER IV

       Table of Contents

      Mariners of Other Days

      "A shipman was ther . . .

       All in a gown of faulding[8] to the knee, A dagger hanging by a lace had he About his neck under his arm adown; The hot summer had made his hue all brown: And certainly he was a good fellow; Full many a draught of wine had he drawn From Bordeaux-ward, while that the chapmen[9] sleep; Of nice conscience took he no keep. If that he fought and had the higher hand, By water he sent them home to every land.[10] . . . . . . . . . . He knew well all the havens as they were From Gothland to the Cape of Finisterre, And every creek in Bretagne and in Spain: His barge ycleped[11] was the Magdelaine." Chaucer, Canterbury Tales.

      We have yet to give some descriptions of one or two actual battles, but I think we will commence by trying to picture the seamen themselves.

      What were these old "matlows"[12] like, and how were they raised? The second question is easily answered. As Lord Haldane has stated, compulsory service was never foreign to the English laws and constitution. But we may observe that it has never been carried out in the fair and impartial manner which is now universal on the Continent of Europe, where "duke's son, cook's son", and everybody else has to serve his country alike. No; ours has always been a kind of bullying system or want of system.

      In the old days of the Cinque Ports, if more ships were required than they had to provide, their ships were just sent out to "commandeer" any suitable craft they could lay hands on. So with men. Certain places and counties had to provide a regulated quota of soldiers or sailors, or both. If they were voluntarily forthcoming, well and good; if not, the magistrates, the port-reeves, or bayliffs had authority to take as many as they required to make up the number by force, and made no bones about doing so. So while Jones got off free, Brown and Robinson were pressed. But it was all a matter of luck—at any rate ostensibly. That was the hardship of it, not only then, but in СКАЧАТЬ