The oarsmen are:
"...mostly Sclavonians, hired from Venice's Dalmatian possessions..." (p. 59)
Hired, not enslaved: useful, paid, healthy work.
Passengers sleep on the deck. Lucas dislikes the unsanitary West. Looking at the stars, he remembers studying them "...with quadrant and astrolabe..." (p. 61)
I will shortly drive Aileen and Yossi to Leighton Moss (scroll down) where I will sit in the cafe with Rogue Sword, paper and pen.
10 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And it wasn't till the 19th century that the West even STARTED to finally approach Roman standards of sanitation and hygiene!
Ad astra! Sean
Slave rowers were a late-medieval innovation, for the most part. War galleys got much bigger, and then they used cannon extensively -- 1-4 heavy guns firing out over the ram.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Interestingly, Peter the Great of Russia used war galleys in the Northern War with Charles XII of Sweden. And, if I can trust Massie's biography of Peter I, they were surprisingly successful against the Swedish Navy.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: galleys were a deadly threat to sailing warships in confined waters or a dead calm, because a galley could travel directly into the wind, which a sailing ship could not. So you could come at the stern or bow of the galley.
The advantage of sailing warships was that they could mount more cannon and that they were much, much more heavily built. A sailing frigate or ship of the line was built to take hours of pounding from heavy guns; one broadside would smash a galley to kindling if it hit home, or slaughter the rowers with grapeshot that would go right through the thin planking.
(Galleys had to be lightly built if they were to move at any speed.)
That should have been "come at the stern or bow of the sailing ship".
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Your comments does fit in what I recall from reading Massie's book: the Russian galleys would swarm out to attack Swedish ships that were either becalmed or having difficulties moving in those confined waters you mentioned. I think Massie also mentioned how INDIGNANT the Swedes were that such archaic things as GALLEYS were being used against them!
Ad astra! Sean
That sort of thing happens occasionally; eg., in WW1 trench warfare, knives and what amounted to axes (sharpened shovels) made a comeback, along with maces and other blugeons, because a lot of fighting (in night raids, frex) took place in very cramped spaces, where a rifle -- or even a bayonet on a rifle -- was too slow. Ditto, hand grenades were thought to be obsolete before 1914, as were mortars.
The father of a friend of mine got a medal during the Korean War, in the static phase of neo-trench-warfare towards the end of the conflct.
He rolled into a Chinese trench during a raid and killed 20 men in five or six minutes by going down it with a sharpened entrenching tool, killing a man at every second step -- and they were all armed Chinese soldiers, awake and trying to fight back.
Which incidentally brings out how "naturals" with that ferocious, unflinching drive to kill at face-to-face distance, do a disproportionate share of the damage in close-quarter combat.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Very alarming, your friend's father! And very necessary in times of war. I recall how the adopted son of one of the heroes advised by Center and the download of Raj Whitehall in THE CHOSEN (co-authored with Dave Drake) was said to be one of those "naturals." And he was not a stupid berserker, either, but understood the need for training, planning, discipline, etc.
Ad astra! Sean
My friend's father was a very strange man: when he was asked why he always volunteered for missions like that, he said "I was bored. I don't like being bored." As far as I can tell, he just didn't have most of the inhibitions that normal people do.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Very odd, indeed! And IF he had been TOTALLY without inhibitions, he might have become a serial murderer. It makes me think some "serials" killed precisely because they were bored and enjoyed the thrill of killing.
Ad astra! Sean
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